“Turn round, dear. It’s very nice indeed, isn’t it? I like the — the cut.”
“That’s Cerise, of course. What I always say is, it’s better to go to a good place, once and for all, even if it is expensive. It pays in the long run. The cut, as you said. You see — you noticed it at once.”
Encouraged, Mr. Rydall went on.
“I like it very much indeed, dear. Really I do.”
Then, quite legitimately, he resumed the evening paper.
Edward had disappeared into the hall, and the click of the front door was audible.
Mrs. Rydall, after rousing her husband again to help her in freeing her arms and shoulders, returned to her bedroom and changed into her everyday clothes. When she had done so, something — or more probably Providence — caused her to look out of the window.
Edward and Miss Miller were standing in the middle of the lawn, talking.
Mrs. Rydall’s eyebrows — dark and heavy and well marked — first of all travelled up almost into the roots of her abundant, wiry hair, and then came down again, and met across the bridge of her Roman nose. Her already rather highly coloured face became suffused and she smote the dressing-table with blunt, short, powerful fingers.
It was too bad of Edward! At ten o’clock at night — nearly. What would the servants think? As for Miss Miller — silly little thing — she ought to be in bed and asleep, safe in the night nursery with Cyril in his cot on one side of her, and Monica on the other. There was no harm in her being out there with Edward, of course, but it just wouldn’t do at all.
Edward was notoriously susceptible, although it had not occurred to Mrs. Rydall as even faintly possible that his susceptibility could be in any danger from the frail, pale Miss Miller.
Nor was it, probably.
If it had been ten o’clock in the morning, instead of ten o’clock at night, it wouldn’t have mattered — provided that it hadn’t gone on for more than a few minutes.
But ten o’clock at night was very different, and if there hadn’t been a full moon, they’d have been in the dark, and might never have been seen from Mrs. Rydall’s bedroom window at all.
She was undecided what to do.
The sense that they were being positively glared upon from above had evidently not penetrated to the consciousness of either Edward or Miss Miller. They continued to stroll and to talk, affably, in the moonlight.
Mrs. Rydall, compressing her lips, prepared to go downstairs. As she turned off the electric light switch at her door, it occurred to her that the sudden darkening of her window would be visible from the garden.
Probably it would recall Miss Miller to a sense of decency, and her position. Mrs. Rydall sincerely hoped so. It would be unpleasant to have to call either Edward or the girl indoors, and it would look as though she had been spying on them.
In the drawing-room, the blinds and curtains were drawn across the window.
But next moment Edward came in again. Mrs. Rydall, listening carefully, heard a light, hurried step on the stairs, and then the sound of the night-nursery door. She permitted herself to relax.
Next day, Edward — rather deceitfully — said nothing about having met the children’s governess in the garden, but asked instead about the Brownloe wedding.
“Is it a regular society affair?”
“Certainly it is. Such a sweetly pretty girl, and I know for a fact that it’s an absolute love-match. The young man hasn’t got a great deal of money — it’s one of our old, impoverished families; his uncle is the present Baronet — but no chance of his inheriting the title. No fear, Adeline says. She’s quite a dear, and I must say I’m looking forward to the wedding.”
“Is Uncle going with you?”
“No, unfortunately. He can’t get away from the bank, of course. I shall just go up for the day, lunch in the West End somewhere, and go by myself to the wedding — St. Peter’s, Eaton Square — and then to the reception. Of course, I expect to meet heaps of friends there — London friends, you know.”
“How jolly!” said Edward, rather vaguely. “Shall I take you up in the side-car, Aunt Dulcie? I could start any time you like, on Monday morning.”
“Oh no, thank you. I’ll go by train. It’s nothing of a journey I always say, it’s so wonderful to be right in the country and yet able to get up to London in twenty-seven minutes. It seems almost a shame to go to town in this lovely weather, but at least I shall be able to think of the kiddies down here in the cool.”
If Mrs. Rydall hoped that Edward would take the opening and allude frankly and openly to the children’s governess, she was destined to be disappointed.
Edward said not a word, and shortly afterwards went up to bed.
Then Mrs. Rydall told Mr. Rydall all about it.
“Nothing in it, of course,” she said in conclusion, “but it just isn’t done. Not by a girl in that position. She ought to have known better. It really makes one doubtful about leaving her in charge of the children when there’s no one else in the house.”
“Perhaps that’s the best time to leave her,” was the facetious venture of Mr. Rydall, but it was not well received.
Mrs. Rydall stared coldly and then said: “Oh, well, it won’t happen again. I shan’t say anything. I’ve no doubt it was mere thoughtlessness, and I don’t want to put ideas into the girl’s head. But Edward ought to have more sense. It’s as well that he’s going off again on Monday. I certainly couldn’t leave him here for the day while I’m away.”
“It would be a pity if you’d had to give up going to the wedding.”
“I couldn’t do such a thing,” said Mrs. Rydall. “Not possibly. It would hurt the dear Brownloes very much and be a disappointment to me as well. I must say, I love a wedding.”
On these happier topics, the talk lingered, until Mrs. Rydall heaved herself out of her chair, reminded her husband to put out the cat and to bolt the front door, and went up to bed.
The weather on Sunday was more glorious than ever. Everything looked either blue, or gold, or green, or white.
The entire Rydall family, and Miss Miller, spent the morning in church.
Edward remained in the garden, asleep over a magazine.
Mrs. Rydall thought: “If it’s as hot as this tomorrow, in a crowded church, I shall look a sight.”
Already, after the Sunday roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, rhubarb tart and custard, and Stilton cheese, her face was flaming and her breathing inclined to be stertorous.
“Send the children upstairs for their rest — a good forty minutes—” Mrs. Rydall directed and went, panting, into the drawing-room.
The two men sat in the dining-room, drinking port and smoking.
The first thing Mrs. Rydall did was to release her feet from her smart crocodile shoes. Then she pulled down the blinds and sank into an armchair. The piece of furniture known to “Brockenhurst” as “the couch” was very narrow and Mrs. Rydall was obliged to admit that it could no longer serve her.
Her eyelips dropped, her head sank forward, and she slept heavily.
A hot shaft of afternoon sun, mysteriously finding her out in spite of the drawn blind, finally woke her.
Mr. Rydall, who had not been there when she closed her eyes, was now in the other armchair, with a handkerchief over his face.
Impossible to doubt that he was asleep.
“And where is Edward?” Mrs. Rydall asked herself — not suspiciously but with a certain uneasiness.
She forced her feet into the crocodile shoes once more, and went quickly into the hall. The diningroom door stood wide open, and the room was empty.
A stillness so absolute reigned upstairs that it seemed pretty certain the children were asleep too.
“The heat,” thought Mrs. Rydall, and a fresh wave of discomfort went over her at the thought of it.
The straw hats of the two little girls, and the white linen one of Cyril, still hung upon the hat-stand that took up nearly all the space in the hall.
Was Miss Miller asle
ep in the night-nursery also? And where was Edward?
With these two questions dancing a sort of uneasy set-to-partners in her mind, Mrs. Rydall mechanically began to search the garden.
In point of fact, this could almost be done by standing at the front door and looking all round one, but there was a thickish clump of Portuguese laurels down by the gate. And through the dense, dark green, a fragment of lilac colour was showing.
Mrs. Rydall, combining deliberation, absolute determination, and yet complete casualness — (in case the girl was alone after all) — walked across the grass towards the laurels.
It was possible to keep on grass the whole way, which was quieter as well as being more comfortable.
A most damning odour of tobacco assailed her distended nostrils.
And then Edward’s laugh was audible.
It was followed by Miss Miller’s laugh — a small, shy sound, that held more of alarm than of mirth.
Mrs. Rydall found herself in a difficult position. It seemed to her impossible to leave Edward and Miss Miller uninterrupted, but it was equally impossible to walk round the laurel bushes — which led really nowhere except to the tiny and secluded corner that they had nefariously selected — because that would look as though she had deliberately tracked them.
And if she stayed where she was, and one or both of them emerged, they might suppose that she had been eavesdropping.
Just at that very instant, this latter activity became practicable.
“You ought to be enjoying yourself, in weather like this, instead of working like a black —— —”
“Oh, but I don’t! Like a black, I mean. I’m very happy here. But the summer always goes to my head—”
It did indeed, thought Miss Miller’s employer.
“I know. I’m just the same, too.”
There was a pause.
Then Miss Miller’s voice again, fainter and shyer than ever.
“I really must go now.”
Mrs. Rydall swiftly moved away several paces.
But Miss Miller apparently did not move, and now it was not so easy to distinguish what she and Edward were saying.
Their voices seemed to be lower, and speaking more quickly. Then Miss Miller squeaked breathlessly:
“You mustn’t!”
Mrs. Rydall had not the slightest doubt as to what had called forth this unconvincing prohibition.
It was followed by a silence, that seemed, to Miss Miller’s employer, to be fraught with hectic possibilities.
The laurels rustled desperately, and Mrs. Rydall rapidly moved off the grass, and was standing, creaking and panting slightly, on the gravel when little Miss Miller hurried towards the house, scarcely appearing, in her guilty confusion, to see anybody or anything.
Mrs. Rydall remained stock-still.
She was waiting for Edward to emerge.
But he did not come.
At the end of ten minutes, Mrs. Rydall felt almost certain that her husband’s nephew had climbed the wall, and dropped into the tiny paddock that bordered it, through which he could gain access to the house again by the study window.
She walked up the path.
The children and Miss Miller came prancing out into the sunlight —— it was spiritual prancing, at any rate, on Miss Miller’s part — and said that they were going to pick kingcups.
“It’s such a lovely day!” cried Miss Miller, her voice lilting joyfully, and a pink colour brightening her small face.
Evidently she had no idea at all that her singular lapse from honour, decorum, and morality had been discovered. —
The moment for enlightening her had not yet come.
Mrs. Rydall kissed Cyril, told Phyllis and Monica to walk like little ladies, and dismissed the party with an authoritative nod.
In the house, her husband still slumbered, but Edward was in the hall, looking aimless.
“Will you come into the dining-room just a moment, dear? I was really looking for you.”
Edward obediently left the publicity of the hall. Mrs. Rydall closed the dining-room door smartly, set her back against it, and fixed severe eyes upon the youth.
“Now, Edward, I think you’ll admit that whatever else I am, I’m a woman of the world. I think you’ll do me that justice. I’m a woman of the world. And as a woman of the world, I can tell you that it’s an extremely caddish thing, to say the least of it, to kiss the governess in a house where you’re being entertained as a visitor.”
“Aunt Dulcie!” shouted Edward.
But Mrs. Rydall, who could be strident without shouting, easily overbore him.
“It’s quite impossible that you should be seriously attracted by Miss Miller. Or if you are—”
“Aunt Dulcie, please listen to reason.”
“Certainly, Edward.”
“I can’t imagine how you know that I lost my head and played the fool for a moment, but I can assure you that whatever happened was entirely my doing. I saw a pretty girl, on a fine day, and—”
“That excuse is absurd, Edward. She’s not in the least pretty.”
“All girls look pretty in weather of this kind,” said Edward morosely, gazing out of the window.
“I’ve never had any fault to find with her before, I must say, and she manages Cyril well, and isn’t expensive — but if you weren’t leaving us to-morrow, I should certainly give her a month’s warning and let her go.”
“It wasn’t her fault in the least. I saw her go out, and followed her, and said a few civil words — sort of chaffing — and then before I knew where I was, I’d kissed the little thing. And I can tell you she was off like a hare.”
“I had thought her a decent sort of girl, but of course modern young women are all alike. It just shows that not one of them can be trusted.”
“Come now, Aunt Dulcie, isn’t that rather unfair? Just because of one little sidestep, that wasn’t her fault at all?”
“That will do, I think, Edward. As a woman of the world, naturally I understand your taking the blame upon yourself — naturally I do. But I have to think of the children and the sort of influence a girl like that may have over them.”
“She’s all right,” declared Edward uneasily.
“As to that, I shall use my own judgment. But at least, let me feel that I can trust you to behave like a gentleman between now and Monday morning.”
“I dare say I could manage that, Aunt Dulcie,” said Edward grimly.
The shut door was violently banged into by a tea-tray, causing Mrs. Rydall to take an involuntary step forward.
The maid rushed in and Edward rushed out.
“How many times, Gladys, shall I have to tell you not to come into a room like that? Why, you might have knocked me down.”
Then Mrs. Rydall, feeling that she had rebuked enough for Sunday — a dies non in the domestic world — permitted herself the relaxation of lying down upon her bed, divested of the more constraining of her garments, until tea-time.
On Monday morning Edward went away, having apparently exchanged neither word nor look with Miss Miller, and at eleven o’clock Mrs. Rydall walked firmly to the nursery, wearing her new blue crepe-de-chine, her crocodile shoes, and a black hat with a blue osprey, and holding a pair of newly-cleaned white kid gloves that would presently uncomfortably encase her stiff, hot fingers.
“Are you just off to the wedding, Mrs. Rydall?”
“In a few minutes now. Children, run out into the garden. Miss Miller will join you in a moment.”
“Miss Brownloe has a beautiful day for her wedding.”
“Yes. Phyllis, when Mother says go, Go. Gently, dears — shut the door after you. Now, Miss Miller—”
Miss Miller’s eyes widened, and her mouth took on a downward curve of dismay.
“I think you know quite well what I mean, when I say that either I must be able to trust you, or you had better leave my service. I say nothing as to your walking about on the lawn in the middle of the night — practically — with Mr.
&nb
sp; Edward Rydall, though I must own I was exceedingly astonished — but when it comes to what I most unwillingly — er — found out, yesterday afternoon—”
Miss Miller was scarlet.
“I see you know what I mean.”
“Mrs. Rydall, I — I’m frightfully ashamed. I don’t want to make excuses, but really and truly it wasn’t my fault, and I thought that as he was going away immediately—”
She burst into tears.
“That’s all very well, but if you behave in that disgusting and unladylike way with every chance young man—”
“Oh no, no! Mrs. Rydall, I’ll leave — I’d better. I know I deserve to be dismissed.”
“I don’t want to be hard on you,” said Mrs. Rydall, remembering grave difficulties connected with Cyril’s temper, Monica’s music and the refusals of the servants to wait upon a governess — all points that were successfully met, for the sum of forty pounds a year, by Miss Miller, although they had defeated three of her predecessors.
“It would be a very serious thing for you, if I sent you away for such a reason. Naturally, it would have to come out sooner or later, and how many people do you suppose would want to engage a governess who tried to flirt with the gentlemen visitors in the house?”
“I didn’t, indeed. It was just a — a foolish impulse on his part — not that I want to say I wasn’t to blame—”
“Of course, a young man is a young man,” said Mrs. Rydall coldly. “And I can assure you, Miss Miller, that a girl who makes herself cheap doesn’t score by it in the end. Men may take advantage of it, but they don’t admire it.”
Miss Miller sobbed.
Mrs. Rydall, remembering that the girl had no mother, talked to her for another twenty minutes. Then it was time to go and catch her train.
Three hours later, she was wedged in a sweltering crowd of expensively clad people, at the house of Sir Basil Brownloe. Mrs. Rydall’s face was burning — by squinting downwards she could just verify her conviction that it was flushed almost to purpleness — the blue crepe-de-chine had suffered irretrievably, and her feet were causing her agony.
But Mrs. Rydall smiled, and her happiness exuded from her in snatches of talk.
“A sweet wedding....”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 556