And so we settled down in our own home, and enjoyed it. Walter began work again. His University work did not begin till October, but besides that, he was writing a book on proto-Hittite scripts. He was only at the beginning of the book, the very beginning, and it would take many years to finish, he said, but it would be the only book on that subject, or at least on that aspect of the subject.
He had a study upstairs, looking out on the garden behind. He was very pleased with the study; he said it was so quiet, and there was good wall space for books.
He would work there all the morning, while I did housekeeping and gardening. I found the housekeeping great fun. I bought cookery books, and made Sarah try new recipes, French and Italian ones that I found in books. She did not mind trying, though they did not always turn out very well. She treated me as though I were a child whom she was humouring; she made me feel always, that she knew much more about it all than I did, but then, that was quite true, and I did not mind.
I used to go marketing with a basket; there was a little group of shops, down the hill, two streets away; sometimes I used to go there, and sometimes further afield. It was interesting to me to discover the prices of things, for I had never heard prices discussed, and knew nothing about them. I did not know that chicken cost more than rabbit. At Yearsly, we had both fairly often, and both were supplied at home; it never seemed to make any difference which we had, and at Campden Hill Square, it was much the same; chickens and game and rabbits came from Yearsly, and I never heard Grandmother speak about the price of food.
Sometimes now they sent hampers to me, and that was nice, but I enjoyed more to buy my own food. It seems odd now to think that one ever could enjoy it.
The first trouble was when Maud came to lunch, on the 1st of October, and I had bought a pheasant. It was expensive; I was surprised to find how expensive it was, but we always had pheasants at Yearsly on the 1st of October; Cousin John always went out to shoot them in the morning, and Guy with him as a rule, and some were sent to Grandmother; these, of course, she did not get till the next day. I would have had some too, if I had waited, for Cousin John sent some to me too that year; I might have known he would, but I did not think of that at all; I only wanted a nice lunch for Maud, and in the shop I saw pheasants, and I remembered it was the first, and I thought:
‘That will be just the thing for Maud! I must try and please Maud, for Walter’s sake.’
The pheasant cost fifteen shillings, and I bought it, and Maud was not pleased at all. She remarked on it at once.
She said:
‘Pheasant already! I did not think they were in season yet!’