“Yes, Bun, as a matter of fact, it is,” he said.
Charles, left in the sitting-room, muttered: “Well, I’m damned!” quite forgetful of the presence of Cilly. He was reminded of it by a voice of extreme severity.
“You should say ‘beg my pardon’ when you say a naughty word,” she said.
He looked down at the small person who stood shaking her silver-gilt curls at him disapprovingly.
“I beg your pardon,” he said obediently. “I quite forgot there was a lady present.”
Cilly was gracious. “I expeck I’m such a wee lady you didn’t see me,” she said, and smiled bewitchingly at him.
Charles fell a victim to her at once, and when the others returned they found him giving a spirited impersonation of a very wild beast to the great detriment of his best trousers.
“Now be the lion-an’-the-unicorm!” Cilly was saying, when tea arrived in the nick of time to spare Charles this difficult task.
“I’ll take you back in the Squib,” Oliver said when tea was over and Peggy had announced that they must go home at once.
They were on the point of departure when a large closed car drew up in front of the house, and Oliver, going out to discover whose it was, came back almost immediately with the news that he was wanted at Wanside.
“Old Elliot’s sent for me. I’ll have to go in the car,” he said briefly. And to Peggy: “I’m awfully sorry, Peggy, but you understand that I can’t get out of it.”
“Of course,” said Peggy. “We can walk home perfectly well.”
“Certainly not,” said Oliver. “Charles will drive you in the Squib. Good-bye for now. Good-bye, Cilly. Good-bye, Bun. You must have that leg well by the next time I see you. No more limps!” He was gone, and the Wanside car could be heard purring off along the road until its discreet engine was drowned by the noise of the Squib starting.
“Can you manage with one on your knee and one in between us?” asked Charles. “It’s too cold in the dickey.”
They all packed themselves in, and the Squib, letting off several sharp reports, took the Muirfoot road. For a little they drove in silence, for the children were sleepy, Peggy rather shy of Charles, and Charles himself fully occupied in mastering the Squib’s tricky ways. He spoke first.
“Amazing how much less sensitive old Oliver’s got about his game leg,” he said suddenly. “There was a time when it was as much as your life was worth to mention it to him, poor chap. But, of course, he’s better. He hardly limps at all now except when he’s tired.”
“I know,” Peggy said. “I—it was awful when Bun spoke about it before tea. I didn’t know what to do—”
“I’m not sure it wasn’t a jolly good thing, do you know. She was so natural about it, and I think it may shake him up a bit. He’d got morbid over the thing. Did you ever hear how it happened?”
“No,” said Peggy. “Susan never speaks of it, and, of course, he doesn’t.”
“It hit Susan pretty hard, Oliver’s having to leave the Service,” Charles said. “She’s devoted to him, and I think for a bit she was afraid he wouldn’t get better. For ages he didn’t want to live. It’s a damned shame, of course, Noll was absolutely made for his job, and going ahead at a rate of knots. Somehow I can’t fit him in yet with a job on the beach.”
“But don’t you think he’s settled down here, and happy?” asked Peggy rather wistfully. “He seems to like the life, and I know Susan does.”
“H’m. I wouldn’t bet on Susan’s being so keen on it. Probably that’s partly eye-wash for Oliver’s sake,” said Charles, and there was a note almost of satisfaction in his voice which puzzled Peggy. “But I was going to tell you how Oliver damaged himself.”
“It was an accident, wasn’t it? A smash with a car? I’d heard that.”
“Yes,” said Charles grimly. “It was a smash with a car—a car driven by a damn’ fool who’d had just one too many and wouldn’t let Oliver take the wheel. They went over a bank and were thrown out, and the car went on down a cliff and was made into matchwood. Oliver was chucked clear, and barring a knock on the head was all right. But the other chap wasn’t so lucky. He went half-way down the cliff and got caught by a sapling on a ledge. If Oliver had left him and gone for help he’d be in the Service to-day. . . . But Br—I mean, the fellow on the ledge was damaged, and Oliver was afraid that when he came round he’d roll off, so he decided to go after him. A man on a push-bike came past, and went to get help and a rope, and Oliver went down the cliff. The ledge was a tight fit for one, but he managed to find a footing on it, and to hold on to the other until some men arrived. They lowered a rope, Oliver hitched it round—well, I don’t want to mention his name, you know—and he was hauled up all safe. Then, before they could let the rope down again, the ledge gave way under poor old Noll, and—well, that’s the lot. They got him at the bottom, badly smashed up, but it’s a wonder he escaped with his life. I’ve told you all this, Miss Cunningham, because I’ve seen you looking sideways at Oliver, as if you thought he was a surly devil. So he is at times, but can you wonder?”
“No,” said Peggy. Her voice shook a little. “Thank you for telling me. Not that I’ve ever thought he was a surly d-devil,” she stumbled over a word which she had never pronounced before except when it occurred in passages of Scripture. “But I have been rather frightened of him sometimes.”
“Well, you know now why.”
“Yes. I used to be sorry for him, but now—I shall always remember that he was hurt saving his friend. It would be—rather cheek to pity him now that I know.”
They had reached the Manse gates. Peggy roused the drowsy children, and they all got out of the Squib.
“Good night,” said Peggy. “It was very kind of you to bring us home. And—thank you.”
Charles knew that she was thanking him for more than the drive, and he wondered why she should be so interested in Oliver’s story. “Another of them?” he thought as he turned the Squib’s blunt nose towards Easter Hartrigg. “Poor kid! Still, Oliver doesn’t seem to be treating her as he does most of ’em. I wonder . . . and if it is so, if he’s serious, I wonder what sort of a chance I’ll have . . . ?”
CHAPTER NINE
1
“I like the Scottish verb ‘to postcard,’” Susan said. “There’s an economy of words about it that would have appealed to the old Romans. They were always so averse to the use of an unnecessary word in spite of their rolling Latin phrases.”
“Now, if the lecture’s finished,” said Oliver, tearing up his own correspondence and throwing it into the waste-paper basket, “perhaps you’ll let us know who has been ‘postcarding’ you and calling forth this flow of eloquence?”
“Let’s have three guesses,” suggested Charles idly.
“No need. I know the answer already,” said Oliver, lighting his pipe with the unbearably superior air of a Sherlock Holmes.
“Then why ask?” said Susan.
“A purely rhetorical question, my dear Susan. There’s really not the slightest need to exert the brain over this problem, Watson—I mean, Charles. The person who does her utmost to keep Susan’s pet verb in constant use in this part of the country is our energetic friend, Miss Pringle. Not Belly. Jell. The eldest, you know, the one with the face like a camel which has just seen the last straw and found it unclean.”
“Susan, darling,” said Charles patiently. “Am I? Or is he? I mean, these Scottish names are so difficult to master—”
“Nothing difficult about Belly, surely?” began Oliver.
“Be quiet,” Susan said to him. “It’s all right, Charles. You know what he is. I have been postcarded by Miss Pringle to the effect that the Literary Club will hold its first meet of the season at her house, and will I bring some little thing of mine for reading and criticism.”
“No suggestion that you may possibly refuse, you’ll notice,” said Oliver. “I like old Belly, upon my word I do. A rare woman, one who knows her own mind, and everyone else’s into the bargain.”
&n
bsp; “I shall not go,” said Susan firmly.
“If you don’t, you needn’t expect to have your unwillingness put down to modesty,” Oliver pointed out. “It will only be supposed that your literary efforts are so poor that you daren’t give them to the world of Muirfoot and Kaleford. Aha, you blush, woman! I’ve touched you on a tender spot!”
“I never heard such a base libel in my life,” said his sister indignantly. “And if you are so interested in Miss Pringle’s literary society, why don’t you attend the meeting at Kaleside yourself?”
“Done with you!” he cried to Susan’s open dismay. “I will. And what’s more, I’ll read something to them—a masterpiece, one of those little gems that they’ll never forget.”
“Do you mean,” asked Charles with interest, “one of the famous songs you used to compose and sing on Saturday nights on board?”
Oliver threw him a withering glance. “I shall compose something suitable to the occasion,” he said loftily. “An ode after the style of Pindar, or a tender little lyric to my mistress’s—”
“I didn’t know you had any,” murmured Charles, and then, meeting Susan’s stern look, added hurriedly: “If it’s anything like the compositions of yours that I’ve heard already, you’ll have to leave the neighbourhood. After all, what sounds pretty good after a fair number of gins is liable to be misunderstood when only diluted with tea.”
“I don’t think either of you should go,” said Susan. Nevertheless, her resigned acceptance of Miss Pringle’s command—for the postcard hardly came under the heading of a mere invitation—included the request that her brother and his friend Charles Crawley might come with her. This bore immediate fruit in the shape of a rapturous postcard in Miss Cissie’s gushing hand, from which, reading between the underlinings, Susan gathered that “the menfolk” would be more than welcome at this feast of reason and flow of soul.
The days that followed were made hideous for both Susan and Charles by Oliver’s poetic inspirations. From the disjointed scraps of verse which were found littering every writing-desk and table in the house, and which Susan hastily burned lest Donaldina’s innocent eyes should be offended by reading them, she augured the worst.
“Oliver,” she said one evening, after consigning to the flames of the sitting-room fire a fragment headed “Ode to the Alimentary Canal”, “if you can’t avoid these subjects you will have to give it up. I wish you had as much sense as Charles. He hasn’t tried to write anything—”
“I did try once. I made a dashed good limerick. I forget the beginning and the end,” said Charles regretfully, “but it was about a rough Channel crossing, and the middle went:
“He staggered to leeward
And called for the stoo-ard—”
“Ah, Charles, my lad, the divine spark does not glow in your heart,” said Oliver, rising and strolling across to the fire. “Now, I’ve written a lyric, a sweet thing, ‘To Muriel’s Adenoids,’ but I think perhaps it’s a trifle impassioned for Miss Pringle’s maiden ears. It might make Jelly boil—I mean blush. So I am going to content myself with a pastoral poem in the Doric, as a compliment to our neighbours.”
“Well,” said Susan with relief, “at least it can’t possibly be as indecent as some of the bits I burned.”
“Susan, my poor girl,” said her brother in gently pitying tones, “I fear you have no soul for poetry.”
“For your kind, none whatever.”
“Come, now, Charles, show your mettle,” urged Oliver. “Are you, an Englishman, going to be dumb before a pack of northern females? Surely you can troll out a roundelay, a seaman’s ditty, something on the lines of that charming song we used to render with such feeling when tight—”
And with intense pathos he sang dolorously:
“My byby ’as gorn dahn thuh pur-lug ’ole!
My byby ’as gorn dahn the plug!
Pore little thing, she was so slim an’ so—”
Here the entrance of Donaldina, round-eyed, with a tray bearing liquid refreshment, cut him short. In face of such complete and open amazement even Oliver was unable to continue. When she had gone, “I’m afraid not,” said Charles simply. “All the songs I know are unprintable after the first verse, and if I gave a—a purified rendering there’d be more gaps than words.”
2
Beset as she was by the fear of Oliver’s almost certain misbehaviour, Susan felt that the drive to Kaleside would have been unpleasant enough without further trials, but these were not wanting to fill her cup to the brim. The Squib, always malevolent, chose this particular day to display her worst qualities. Three times in the space of fifteen minutes she gave one of her better imitations of a machine-gun in action, following on which the engine stopped. As the party was all packed in front under the doubtful shelter of the hood, as closely as sardines in a tin, even oil not lacking to make the simile perfect, this necessitated their getting out on each occasion. Three times, in a smouldering silence, they climbed down into the muddy road in their best clothes. The Squib added to her charms by having no self-starter, so Oliver and Charles in turn swung the handle with a passionate verve unsurpassed by the most temperamental organ-grinder. Susan stood miserably in the mud, umbrella-less, waterproof-less, by Oliver’s advice—“what on earth d’you want an umbrella in the car for?”
The rain, descending impartially on the just and the unjust, played havoc alike with her new hat and her temper. Even the poor refuge of the car was denied her, for the floor had been torn up, and Oliver was probing in the interior as absorbedly as a dentist at work.
They were sunk in sodden gloom when they finally got under way once more, and pursued their journey through a countryside in tune with their mood. The hills were blotted out by a curtain of grey mist, the empty fields were pearled with rain, from every weeping tree heavy drops and brown or yellow leaves fell sadly to the ground. With heartfelt longing Susan thought of her own fireside, a warm cardigan, and an amusing book; and, “Oh, why left I my hame?” said Oliver, as he turned the Squib in at the narrow entrance to Kaleside, avoiding the nearer gate-post by a miracle.
“Oh, why left I my waterproof at hame?” Susan retorted peevishly; and Charles, between whom and Oliver she was wedged in a now steamy proximity, began to shake with laughter.
“I’m glad you find it amusing,” said Susan with concentrated venom. “Oh, and would you mind not laughing quite so heartily? It gives me less room to breathe. . . . Of course, I suppose it is funny to you and Oliver. You aren’t wearing an absolutely new and wickedly expensive hat bought with your own winnings.”
“Darling,” protested Charles, taking advantage of the fact that his arm was along the back of the seat to put it round her neck. “Have a heart. I’m sorry about your hat, though it looks to me as good as new, but what price my one and only shore-going suit? I can feel the sleeves creeping up my arms and the legs shrinking to leave my ankles well in view, an’ I haven’t paid Gieve for it yet!”
“Well, here we are,” announced Oliver, and drew up before the gaunt, bare-faced house. Several other cars occupied the gravel sweep, which was of that nobbly variety so excruciatingly unsympathetic to feet clad in thin shoes. They crunched painfully over it towards the doorway, a somewhat damp and crumpled trio. The whining of a violin execrably played assaulted their unwilling ears as they stood on the step awaiting an answer to Oliver’s ring.
“No one who is not a first-class player ought to be allowed to touch a violin,” Susan said crossly, and shivered. Oliver answered only with a grunt, Charles with a sudden passion of sneezing. The bell was not answered at all, the door remained shut.
“Ring again,” suggested Susan. “My teeth are beginning to chatter.”
Oliver pulled violently at the bell, and at last, losing all patience, set his foot against the side of the house and hauled as if taking part in a tug-of-war. A faint but furious jangling was the result, but quite a foot of bell-wire protruded from its brass setting in the stone-work, and they were still engaged in fran
tic, futile efforts to induce it to go in again when the door opened and a maid faced them. In her cold and cod-like eye they read surprise and disapproval, but she said nothing, and they followed her into a hall draped with the waterproofs of more provident persons. The violin had ceased, and a tepid round of applause, and a sudden buzz of conversation, from behind a closed door on the right, told them where the Literary Club was already in full cry. When Oliver and Charles had deposited their hats on top of a mound of mackintoshes, they were not ushered in on the meeting, but marshalled into a small, empty room to the left of the hall, smelling faintly but unpleasantly of cage-birds and mice.
“Thank God for a moment’s respite!” ejaculated Charles after the maid had withdrawn, and cast himself thankfully on a sofa. This instantly subsided, precipitating him in an indignant heap at Susan’s feet.
“We’ve made a promising start, I must say,” said Oliver. “I’ve bust their bell, and you’ve broken a sofa. Your turn now, Susan.”
“I hope I shan’t disgrace meself,” said Susan. “I’m not quite so violent as you two.”
At that, without any warning, the chair in which she was warily leaning back lurched, and in a wild attempt to save herself, she clutched at a tall and peculiarly hideous vase filled with dusty pampas grass which stood on the floor close by. In a second she was staring horror-stricken at the handle which, to use the housemaid’s classic phrase, had “come away in her hand.”
Upon the dismayed silence broke a loud, raucous chuckle, and a phonographic voice said threateningly: “I’ll tell the mistress on ye!”
The shock to their overwrought nerves was such that all three leapt like mountain goats. Coming to earth again they looked timidly round for the owner of the voice. It was Charles who made the discovery that in a large and musty cage set in a dark corner perched a grey parrot of evil aspect and moth-eaten plumage.
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