“I daresay he would,” said Christine. “But he isn’t my young man, Alfred.”
“Does he really make a living out of this piano business ?”
“More or less.”
“Poor chap!” said Alfred cryptically.
Both sisters abstained from asking for elucidation.
“I’ll get the car,” Christine said.
She had a two-seater, and always professed that she enjoyed taking Laura out in it.
Her complete mastery over it always aroused a rather unwilling awe in Mrs. Temple, who had that entire lack of a sense of machinery so often, and so justifiably, associated with the literary mind.
“Have you looked at your tyres?” said Alfred, and performed the ceremony for them.
“You’re all right. Don’t forget that you turn to the left after going over the new bridge on the Quinnerton road, Laura.”
“No, all right.”
“Have you got your cards?”
“Yes, all right, they — Oh Alfred! Would you mind, darling, they’re in the top left-hand drawer of the hall stand — —”
“Now are you all right?” said Alfred after he had brought the cards.
“Quite.”
“Petrol?”
“Not a drop,” said Christine. “Goodbye.” And she dashed out at the white gate and into the lane without sounding her horn.
“You ought to check Alfred’s fussiness, really and truly.”
“I don’t think he means to be fussy.”
“That’s all the worse. I don’t mean that he isn’t very nice, you know—”
“Oh, I know,” said Laura.
“He’s such a typical Real Grown-up Person,” said Christine, employing an idiom of their childhood.
“Do you think I am, too?” asked Laura rather timidly.
“Not really. You try to be, poor darling, but I shouldn’t think anyone was taken in — not even the children.”
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s a mistake to try so hard, and if I hadn’t better make up my mind to be my natural self.”
“Oh, far better I should think,” declared Christine. “Duke is frightfully smitten with you, by the way.”
Laura’s heart performed a strange acrobatic feat in her diaphragm.
“Nonsense. He belongs to you, doesn’t he?”
“I was getting rather sick of him, to be quite honest. We never went to any lengths at all, of course — I’m not really his sort, and he certainly isn’t mine. I really mostly had him down here to see if I did like him very much, and, fortunately for me, I find that I don’t.”
“Oh,” said Laura.
“If you could bear to encourage him a tiny bit, truly I think it would be the very best for you, Laura. You said yourself that you thought you were getting into a rut, down here.”
“I certainly shouldn’t embark on a cheap flirtation by way of getting out of it,” said Laura priggishly.
But an extraordinary feeling of exhilaration had taken possession of her.
She found herself laughing as she had not laughed for years, at jests and allusions of which the only merit was their extreme antiquity, and the number of times which they had already passed between Christine and herself.
They forgot Alfred’s directions, and lost their way, and Christine stopped the car whilst Laura earnestly interrogated an old man, but omitted to listen to his information. They pursued a narrow lane, in which it was impossible to turn the car round, for what appeared to be hundreds of miles, and when they at last turned in at the lodge-gates of Marchland, Laura knew that she had gone back to being eighteen years old again.
“The house is pure Georgian,” said Christine delightedly. “What a heavenly place! Be sure and find out if they have an eldest son, won’t you?”
On this last delicate aspiration, Mrs. Temple and Miss Fairfield were shown into the Crossthwaite drawing-room.
The butler departed in search of his mistress, and Christine and Laura instantly looked at themselves in the mirror that hung on the wall.
“Plenty of books,” said Christine encouragingly. “And no water-colours in gilt frames. So far so good. Do any of these photographs look like an eldest son? A woman in a presentation frock taken about fifteen years ago, I should say — I wonder if that’s Mrs. Crossthwaite. If so — —”
Christine’s voice died away, as she became obviously absorbed in calculation as to the probable age of her hostess.
“Some of the books are French,” said Laura.
“Anything that’s been banned over here?”
“Not that I can see.”
“What ages she is!”
“I wonder if she has any children.”
“Not children as young as yours,” said Christine firmly. “This isn’t a young person’s drawing-room, to begin with, and besides, young people are never rich, nowadays, and never live in a large house. They’re perfectly penniless, and live in a two-seater.”
“La voilà!” hissed Laura, assuming — as one does, without grounds — that Mrs. Crossthwaite would fail to understand French.
CHAPTER VII
Mrs. Crossthwaite was tall, good-looking when she remembered to breathe through her nose and not through her open mouth, and with the figure of a slim, flat-chested girl. Her hair was fair and her complexion pale pink-and-white. She might have been some fifteen years older than Laura. She was wearing a tweed skirt and woollen jumper of a strictly neutral tint.
The customary tepid interchange of disconnected observations then ensued.
Laura touched upon the garden, Christine upon the architectural beauty of Marchland. Mrs. Crossthwaite smiled very amiably, and said successively to each:
“It is ravver jolly, isn’t it?”
Perhaps Mrs. Temple was a gardener?
No, Laura’s husband did more in the garden than she did herself. The children took up time.
Oh, had she children?
“Two boys, seven and five.”
“Ravver fascinating ages,” said Mrs. Crossthwaite. “One’s always so sorry when they stop being babies.”
“Yes, isn’t one?” Laura rejoined eagerly, without for a moment considering that she was not speaking the truth.
Then Mrs. Crossthwaite politely included Christine in the conversation by asking if she was a Girl Guide enthusiast.
“I live in London,” Christine explained.
“Oh, really. Oh, I see. My girls are so very keen. The eldest does Guides, and the other one does Wolf-Cubs.”
Laura and Christine both declared that this was splendid.
“It’s ravver jolly for them,” said Mrs. Crossthwaite.
“Are they at home now?”
“I’m so sorry, they’re bofe out. Playing tennis at Lady Kingsley-Browne’s. I expect you know her?”
“Quite well — they’re neighbours of ours.”
“What a charming girl the daughter is. We all took such a fancy to her. Quite delightful, isn’t she, and so amusing.”
Mrs. Temple’s mendacious murmur of acquiescence would have been even more mendacious than it was, but for her sister’s presence.
“It was so nice of you to come,” said Mrs. Crossthwaite, after tea had been refused, and she was escorting her callers through the hall.
“So glad we found you at home,” Laura rejoined, and she and Christine got into the car again and drove away.
“Why does one do it?” Christine asked, after a silence that lasted the length of a whole mile of avenue, bordered by spruce firs and hydrangeas.
“I don’t know,” said Laura thoughtfully. “I don’t know at all. Why does one do it?”
“Living in the country, I suppose — doing in Rome as the Romans do. How can you stand it, Laura?”
“I like it very much,” said Laura, with her usual veracity.
“And I suppose you liked Mrs. Crossthwaite very much. My heavens! what a woman! I wonder if anyone has ever squeezed a sponge full of cold water over her as she lay in bed?”
&nbs
p; “I should think it extremely unlikely.”
“Oh, so should I — but it would have been very good for her.”
“She might only have said that it was ravver jolly.”
They both laughed.
“Seriously, Laura, you ought to go to London much oftener. Or Timbuctoo, if you prefer it. Anywhere that isn’t Quinnerton. Duke said to me this morning that it was perfectly frightful to see anyone like you running to seed down here—”
“Running to seed!” ejaculated Laura, hurt.
“Well, he may not have used that expression — I don’t think he did, it sounds much more like one of my own — but that’s what he meant. Aren’t you ever again going to meet people whose interests are the same as your own, or people on your own level of intelligence and receptiveness? It seems to me that all the time down here you’re moving heaven and earth to conform to standards that are considerably below your own. It’s absurd.”
“It’s not a thing that I can argue about,” said Laura, preparing to do so. “Alfred would be perfectly miserable, anywhere but here, and the country is good for the children — and besides, I like it myself. Of course, if you think my outlook is getting provincial, you’d much better say so.”
“I do say so,” Miss Fairfield affirmed, with an emphasis for which Laura had not been altogether prepared. “And it’s worse than provincial, Laura. It’s so completely domestic. You’ve got the house, and the children and the servants completely on your nerves.”
“Everyone has servants on their nerves nowadays, and naturally one thinks about the children.”
“I don’t think your whole life ought to revolve round them — or, rather, round Johnnie, since poor wretched little Edward hasn’t a look in. It’s bad for you, and it’s bad for them, and it’s even bad for poor wret — for Alfred,” said Christine, controlling in time the repetition of her former obnoxious phrase.
“Alfred,” said Laura, after a long pause, “Alfred is inarticulate.”
“You don’t say so!”
“But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t, in his own way, absolutely devoted to me and to the children.”
“The only thing is,” Christine said, “wouldn’t it be more satisfactory, in a husband, if he was devoted in your own way, and not in his?”
The almost blinding intensity of Laura’s agreement prevented her from voicing it. Christine went on speaking:
“I’m certain husbands don’t realise what a lot they’d gain just by making a personal remark from time to time.” Laura winced inwardly. “Honestly, Laura, wouldn’t you like it if Alfred, once in a blue moon, said that you were looking pretty, or even asked if you had a headache — when you really have one, I mean, not when you’ve just put on your best clothes?”
“Of course—” said Laura. (“I’m not speaking personally, you understand, because nothing would induce me to criticise Alfred, even if there was anything to criticise, which there isn’t—”) “Of course, one likes a little notice, I suppose, though I daresay it’s very childish…but men aren’t like that.”
“You mean husbands aren’t. Because ordinary men, unmarried ones, I mean — always seem to notice things, and speak about them. Personal things.”
“Husbands notice things, too,” murmured Laura, with a certain gloom.
“But only unpleasant things. Anything wrong with the food, or anything one’s forgotten. Honestly, darling, has Alfred ever once, since you married, noticed when you’d been crying? Now don’t say you’ve never cried, because everyone does sometimes, if only for the sake of being asked why.”
“Fortunately, I’ve never cried for that reason,” said Laura rather drily. “I should have been disappointed if I had. But, of course, I knew when I married Alfred that he wasn’t wildly demonstrative. I shouldn’t have liked it if he had been.”
“Well,” said Christine kindly, “I can’t say that I believe you. And any decent analyst would tell you that you’re doing yourself a great deal of harm by this constant pretence. It’s bound to create the most frightful repressions. What sort of dreams do you have?”
But Laura, even though she did live in the country, knew all about Herr Freud and his theories, and declined to commit herself in any way upon the subject of dreams.
She abruptly wrenched the conversation back to March-land and Mrs. Crossthwaite.
“Did you notice that she spoke of ‘my son from Uganda’? I got the impression that he was on his way home.”
“So did I. With any luck he’ll have arrived by the time she’s returned your call, and then you can ask the lot of them, Girl Guides and all, for tennis. Though I suppose they’ll cram Baybay down his throat as soon as he sets foot in the place.”
The remainder of the drive was happily spent in dissecting, in strophe and antistrophe, the undesirable qualities of Miss Kingsley-Browne.
When they reached Applecourt, Laura, gazing round such portions of the garden as could be seen from the front entrance, without at the same time permitting herself to know for whom she was looking, followed her customary practice of going up to the nursery.
Nurse was sitting sewing by the open window, delightfully appropriate in her white uniform and clean apron.
“Where are the boys, nurse?” asked Laura, with the smile that she always instinctively assumed in the frail hope of propitiating the servants.
“Mr. Temple took them down to the orchard, madam.”
Laura was divided between gratification at so unusual a mark of attention to his sons from Alfred, and serious apprehensions as to its probable results, when the atmosphere was shattered into fragments around her by the sound of the fatal words:
“I was wishing to speak to you, madam.”
Knowing well that no amount of smiling would now avail anything, Laura gazed speechlessly at nurse.
“I shall be wanting to make a change at the end of the month,” remarked nurse, in a monotonous voice, and not looking at Laura. “I don’t wish to spend another winter in the country.”
“I thought you liked the country.”
“It’s very nice in the summer,” replied nurse temperately.
“And I did think, nurse, that you were fond of the children. But, of course, if you really feel like that, there’s no more to be said. But if there’s any other reason — any little thing that you’d like altered—”
“Thank you, madam. But I think it’s time I made a change.”
Laura, with a sensation of black despair, repeated that there was no more to be said. She then entered into a very earnest conversation, in which she sought to extract the real reason of her decision from nurse, but in this she succeeded quite as ill as she had expected.
The conversation ended as it had begun, with the formula: “At the end of the month, then.”
Laura, from sheer consternation, turned down the stairs instead of along the passage, and walked into the drawing-room as though walking in her sleep.
Christine was there, and Alfred stood at the window. The two little boys could be seen at the far end of the tennis-lawn.
“Nurse says she wants to leave.”
“I hear you found Mrs. Crossthwaite at home,” observed Alfred, evidently continuing the train of thought engendered by conversation with Christine. He never easily shifted from one train of thought to another.
Christine was quicker, but still not wholly adequate.
“What a bore for you!”
“I can’t think what I shall do,” said Laura tragically.
She felt herself to be absurd, but had to go on.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with her — she won’t say. And a change is so bad for Johnnie and he’ll be so difficult with a new one — and it unsettles the servants, too. It’s maddening—”
“But, Laura, there must be other nurses. Or why not let them have a governess ?”
“A decent governess is expensive and she wouldn’t sleep in the night nursery — and what about carrying up her meals? Maids will never wait upon a gove
rness. And dusting the nurseries — well, she might do that, perhaps, but the turning-out—”
Laura’s incoherency was degenerating rapidly towards the hysterical.
“Has nurse given notice?” said Alfred, in the tone of one determined to get to the bottom of things.
“Yes, and she won’t say why, exactly.”
“I daresay you can easily find a better one. Or, as Christine says, a governess.”
Laura with great difficulty restrained herself from rehearsing all over again the reasons why she could not agree to this suggestion.
“Come up and stay with me, Laura, and interview nurses in London. It’ll save you any amount of writing.”
“It might be cheaper in the long run — one has to see them, of course. Well, I’ve got a month, and I suppose I could advertise.…”
“Of course you could.”
Christine began to talk about Marchland, while Laura, in her own mind, weighed the comparative merits of “Excellent references essential” and “Must be excellent needlewoman.” “Young, bright, and genuine child lover,” she discarded at once since young must always be relative, bright may very well mean bumptious, and all nurses, of necessity, are obliged to call themselves genuine child lovers, at any rate when speaking or writing to parents.
“But I must put ‘Very quiet country place,’” was her final decision, as the air was suddenly rent by brassy yells from Edward and Johnnie, in violent dispute.
Laura sprang to her feet.
“Better leave them alone,” said her husband.
Laura remained uneasily hovering between the open window and the inside of the room.
“Boys! It’s time for tea!” called out Christine, and Edward immediately trotted towards her. Then he caught sight of Laura.
“Mummie’s come home!” he shouted joyfully, breaking into a run.
Laura received him kindly into her arms, but her eyes were fixed upon Johnnie, crawling morosely across the lawn.
He was annoyed because she had not come rushing out to see what was the matter when he had been screaming.
How could any new nurse, Laura resentfully wondered, expect to understand so complex and intelligent a child as Johnnie?
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 287