Free Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson

just as Jem returned from Harley End and the two men nodded a greeting as they passed each other then, as Silas disappeared from view, Jem opened Absalom’s office door – infuriating fellow – and said: ‘I see you’ve met Silas Whittam, then?’
    The bailiff, piqued that Jem seemed to know the man, agreed grudgingly that yes, he had indeed met Mr Whittam– had in fact just agreed the tenancy of Ravenscliffe, the vacant property on –
    ‘– Netherwood Common,’ said Jem, interrupting. ‘Interesting. Next thing you’ll find is that number five Beaumont Lane is being vacated.’
    ‘The Williams’s property? I hardly think so,’ said Absalom.
    ‘Oh aye,’ said Jem maddeningly. ‘Sure as eggs’s eggs.’
    A black dot of dread swam across Absalom’s vision. ‘Because?’ he said, in a voice that betrayed his discomfiture.
    ‘Because,’ said Jem, ‘you just let Ravenscliffe to ’er brother.’

    ‘So it’s ours?’
    ‘Well it’s mine, strictly speaking. But I shall graciously let you live there.’
    Anna was sitting with Eve and Silas at a table in the courtyard of the mill. She was perched on the edge of her chair as if poised to spring; her hands were clasped together, her face and eyes alive with pleasure. She may have bounced a little, in her effort to contain her excitement. Eve laughed.
    ‘You look like Eliza on Christmas morning,’ she said.
    ‘I feel it!’ said Anna. ‘Ravenscliffe is gift for us all. Just you wait to see.’
    ‘
And
see,’ said Eve automatically. ‘Wait
and
see.’
    ‘Slimy little toad, that bailiff,’ said Silas. He looked very at home, his legs stretched out and crossed before him, his hands clasped behind his head. Around them was the hum and bustle of the lunchtime service. People travelled some distance to eat here these days; Eve’s café, from its humble beginnings in Beaumont Lane, had by degrees raised the tone of the town, bringing to Netherwood a steady supply of affluent outsiders. This café, in the charming surroundings of the old mill, was where they came when thepossibilities of Victoria Street and the market place had been exhausted. There was a continental feel to the courtyard: the round iron tables and lattice-backed chairs had been painted pale green, and there were cream canvas parasols casting a modicum of shade over the customers. Silas, in his linen suit and fine shoes, seemed to complete the picture; he looked like an advertisement for the French Riviera.
    ‘Cheek o’ t’man,’ said Eve. ‘Sat there as cool as a cucumber and told me it wasn’t available.’
    ‘Couldn’t let it to me fast enough,’ said Silas.
    ‘I wonder if he knows he’s had wool pulled over eyes?’
    Silas roared with laughter.
    ‘What is funny?’ she said.
    ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, though he looked quite the reverse. He adopted her heavy Russian accent: ‘Vool pulled over eyes. You don’t sound much like a local.’
    She shrugged. ‘I like to stand out,’ she said.
    She did, too. Anna, haughty, diminutive, bright as a button, had come to Netherwood as a charity case, moving in to Eve’s house in Beaumont Lane when she and her baby daughter had nowhere else to turn. And yet, as Netherwood folk often put it, to look at her you’d think she was somebody. It wasn’t that she was unfriendly, not at all. Anna would pass the time of day with anyone – liked to, in fact, since she saw any conversation as an opportunity to brush up her command of colloquial English. But she had an air about her, an assuredness, and she’d had it since the day she arrived. There was no patronising Anna: she wouldn’t suffer condescension.
    It wasn’t just self-confidence, though, that set Anna Rabinovich apart from the crowd: it was the way she looked, the way she dressed. She set no store by convention – quite the opposite, in fact. Today she had on a sky-blue, slim-cut cotton skirt, which barely skimmed her ankles, and a white poplin sleeveless blouse, which managed