Bramton Wick

by Elizabeth Fair

  “If you wear your shawl in July, what will you wear in the winter?” Laura inquired.

  “I know, darling, but it’s such a miserable morning. It’s been raining all night.”

  “But it isn’t raining now, Mummy.”

  “At my age one feels the cold more,” replied Mrs. Cole, huddling into her shawl.

  Gillian came into the room dressed in a manner that seemed designed to mark the difference between crabbed age and youth. Her short-sleeved cotton frock had reached the stage of being fit only for the garden, a stage which Gillian’s clothes attained with uncommon speed, in her own eyes, although her sister always thought her the height of elegance. Had it been Laura, Mrs. Cole would have hinted that the frock was too young, or too bold, or too flimsy, but Gillian somehow contrived to forbid such criticism. Her marriage had established her independence; her widowhood made it permanent. Mrs. Cole, a widow herself, could not but feel that her elder daughter had finally outgrown the nursery.

  It was a pity, for of the two Gillian had always been the more impulsive, the more wayward—not that this was Mrs. Cole’s adjective—and the more stubborn. She had been the one who needed guiding and checking. Laura had been shy and retiring; what she needed was encouragement. Thinking this, Mrs. Cole travelled back into the past, for when she thought of her daughters in the present tense it was only to admire and applaud them.

  “Is anything happening this morning?” asked Gillian. Housework and gardening were not events, and Laura and her mother understood this.

  “Toby said he might come over,” said Mrs. Cole, who had asked Toby to lunch, but had not yet told them so.

  “This morning? I thought he said he had to come over for the dog show.”

  “I suppose that means he’ll come this morning and stay for lunch.”

  “Toby is always doing that,” said Gillian. “I expect Lady Masters encourages it. She’s so madly economical.”

  “But equally madly devoted to Toby. She can’t really want him to lunch out.”

  Gillian disagreed. “It’s the sort of love that thrives on absence. She sees him as an ideal son, but it’s much easier to see him like that when he isn’t there.”

  “Oh, Gil, but why? Toby’s a nice creature. What more could she want?”

  “Perfection,” said Gillian. “Someone to show her off. Someone more like the heroes of all the novels she reads, and more dashing and up to date. Toby is so sunk in the past.”

  Laura knew that Gillian found the past very boring. Reminiscences of childhood are often boring, and perhaps Toby Masters, who had known them all their lives, was too apt to bring up old jokes and anecdotes and to cling to traditions that even Laura found tedious. The blackberry picnic, the excursion to Bramworthy Fair, and other highlights of their childhood had been revived by Toby since his return to Endbury. She understood what Gillian meant by saying he was sunk in the past.

  “I think,” Mrs. Cole interposed, “that Lady Masters wants someone to show off Endbury. She’s never really got used to living in a place like Endbury.”

  This time Gillian and Laura exchanged sympathetic glances. They would not contradict their mother; they knew she regarded Lady Masters, in her secret heart, as an interloper. They had once lived at Endbury themselves.

  As well as being their family home, it was a fine old house and locally famous. Mrs. Cole had gone to it as a bride and had lived there for the whole of her short married life, which had been a very happy one. Robert Cole was not a man who worried much about the future, and Laura sometimes wondered what would have happened if her father had not died young. She pictured them still living at Endbury, in increasing discomfort and poverty, eking out an inadequate income with paying guests or showing people round the house at half-a-crown a head.

  Fortunately—if it were not blasphemous to think so—the death duties had made it impossible for them to remain. Laura and Gillian had been quite small when their father died, and fortunately again they were both girl-children, which had made it easier for Mrs. Cole to listen to her trustees and agree to the sale.

  Mrs. Cole had not been able to cut herself off from a district where people knew who she was, and old Mr. Corton’s offer of Woodside had been gratefully accepted, so that she was within easy calling distance of her successor at Endbury and had somehow found it incumbent on herself to introduce Lady Masters to the countryside.

  Not unnaturally, her opinion of Lady Masters was coloured by jealousy, regrets, and a faint tinge of malice, but Lady Masters did not perceive this, or perhaps she simply ignored it; she had a bland manner and a considerable talent for ignoring unpleasant conclusions. Laura and Gillian were the right age for Toby; they spent a lot of time at Endbury; they saw it from two points of view, as Toby’s home and, through their mother’s eyes, as a house with a splendid past and a diminished present. But they had never felt possessive about it, and nowadays they could privately congratulate themselves on not having fifteen bedrooms to dust or a crypt-like kitchen to cook in.

  It was different for Mrs. Cole. Though she had been a beauty she had not married till she was over thirty. She told her daughters that this was because she was both irresolute and fastidious, but her contemporaries had thought her flirtatious and their mammas had condemned her as “fast.” In any case, Endbury (and, of course, Robert) had justified her delay. She had been married in the spring of 1919, Robert was newly demobilized, the future seemed bright as a dream and Endbury the perfect setting for her beauty. Robert was extravagant and easygoing; for a few years they had spent money lavishly, restoring the gardens, improving the house, entertaining their friends, as if they were still in the Edwardian age to which they both belonged.

  When one looks back, the remembered garden is always sunlit. So it was with Mrs. Cole; she looked back at Endbury and saw it as it had been in those first years, and she felt—for feeling, not thinking, was her specialty—that she had been defrauded.

  It was therefore useless to argue with her about Lady Masters, who, simply by living at Endbury and by being a rich widow instead of a poor one, had come to represent the intricate and incomprehensible evils that had evicted Mrs. Cole.

  But Toby escaped this antipathy. Mrs. Cole rather liked him, and moreover it had occurred to her that it would be something of a triumph, or rather, a restitution, if he should one day marry one of her daughters. She was not a matchmaking mother. The idea lay at the back of her mind, to be taken out and looked at occasionally. When it had first presented itself she had united him with Gillian, who had left school and could not have the coming-out dance she deserved. Then the war had started and Gillian had married someone else, and Laura was still too young to marry, so the idea was shelved. Now Gillian was a widow and Laura of marriageable age, and either of them would make a wonderful wife for Toby. But beyond asking him to luncheon occasionally, and being a charmingly sympathetic listener herself, she did not interfere.

  However, it would not have been right to let Toby be falsely accused of cadging a meal, and she now confessed to her daughters that he had been invited. Laura pointed out that it was a pity she had not said so earlier, because he would get sausage pie again. Gillian said sausage pie was good enough for Toby.

  In spite of this lack of enthusiasm, Mrs. Cole thought that Gillian looked more cheerful. She was always careful not to question Gillian’s moods, and now, having helped to clear away breakfast and partially tidied her own room, which could never be perfectly tidy because there was always small piles of clothes that needed mending or might perhaps be sent to the poor but which in fact rotated slowly between the chairs and the cupboards, she put on her gum-boots, exchanged the shawl for an old Land Army jerkin of Laura’s, and thus protected against the English summer hurried out to the garden. For Mrs. Cole was an incorrigible gardener, and once out of doors she soon forgot that she was verging on old age.

  Gillian did her share of the housework efficiently and quickly. As she explained to Laura, she did not want to stay in and have to spe
nd the morning talking to Toby if he should arrive, as he too often did, before he was really expected. Laura replied that it was her day for cooking so she could not talk to him either.

  “Mummy will talk to him,” said Gillian. “He’s really more suited to her than to either of us.”

  Laura did not dispute it, but she no longer accepted all Gillian’s opinions as being infallible. Gillian was careless and impulsive, content with generalizations and half-truths. Toby had a calm, serious manner which perhaps made him appear a suitable companion for the old, and, of course, he enjoyed reminiscences of the past. But really it was easy for anyone to get on with him, and though Gillian did not choose to remember it he had been their closest friend for years. Gentle, faithful, reliable, he had grown up with them like a brother, or at least like the brother of one’s imagination.

  But since he was not their brother, and since Laura’s imagination had developed with her years, it had become natural to wonder if one would like to marry Toby.

  She had not discussed this with Gillian. Gillian would be too demanding; she would want to know if Laura was in love with Toby, and whether she was prepared to share Endbury with Lady Masters. These, Laura felt, were questions for the future.

  At present the whole thing was simply hypothetical, an interesting possibility, no more.

  Gillian decided to go for a walk, and as they had no dog to exercise and she needed an excuse for neglecting Toby, she was easily persuaded to take the papers to the Misses Cleeve at Box Cottage. The Misses Cleeve, who were believed to be very badly off, could not, owing to their position, be solaced by gifts of money or food, but it was hoped they would benefit by reading the two quarterlies to which the Coles subscribed.

  Box Cottage was on the Bramworthy road close by the gates of Marly House. Gillian walked down the lane. It was quiet in the valley, sheltered from the wind and pleasantly warm. She walked rather slowly, thinking of nothing important. She wondered if she could afford a new summer dress or if she should save up and join the golf club at Bramworthy next year. That she could not play golf did not matter to Gillian, for there would be men who would enjoy showing her how to hold the clubs. There were always men who enjoyed showing you how to do something.

  Though Gillian was not an acknowledged beauty like her mother, she was a very pretty young woman. She had fine eyes and a good profile. Her mouth was too large for classical perfection and her face too sharply pointed, but since she was fortunate enough to live in an age when triangular faces were fashionable it did not matter. She could look amused, amiable, and intelligent, and she could also look shy and helpless as the occasion demanded. Both she and Laura had inherited their mother’s fair curly hair, but as they persisted in cutting it short they would never be able to boast that it had hung down to their waists and needed twelve hairpins to keep it up.

  As Gillian approached the place where the lane and the railway ran parallel she was roused from her meditation by the shrill barking of several dogs. Ahead of her she saw a dilapidated car drawn up in front of Bank Cottage. It seemed to be full of dogs, and when she got nearer she saw that Miss Garrett and Miss Selbourne, each clasping a dog, were trying to put them into the car without letting the other dogs out. They hailed her with joy.

  “Come and give us a hand. Can you open the door and grab Pippin, while I slip Blue Girl in?”

  “Better let her hold Blue Girl, old thing. Pippin’s so bad with strangers.”

  “Perhaps that would be better,” said Miss Selbourne, thrusting Blue Girl into Gillian’s arms. Blue Girl was a thin serpentine dog who clawed and wriggled, but Gillian preferred her to Pippin, who had bitten her the last time she had visited Miss Selbourne. When they had got both dogs into the car, Miss Garrett clapped her on the shoulder.

  “That was topping,” she said heartily. “I can see you’re good with dogs.”

  This was almost the highest praise that Miss Garrett could utter.

  “I suppose you’re off to the dog show,” Gillian remarked. At once, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud, an expression of gloom and anxiety came upon the faces of Miss Selbourne and her friend. Forgetting Gillian’s presence, they resumed the argument that had gone on since half-past nine that morning.

  “Really, Tiger, it must be you—yes, really. You’re on the committee and you’ll be more useful.”

  “Useful!” echoed Miss Garrett gruffly. “I’m no use—an old crock who can’t walk twice round the ring. No, no, Bunty, you go. You can show them better than I can.” She looked with noble renunciation at the bounding dogs inside the car.

  “Please, Tiger!” said Miss Selbourne in a tearful voice. But Miss Garrett still shook her head, and the argument might have continued indefinitely if Gillian had not interrupted to know what it was about.

  The Hanson girl had let them down, telephoning to say she had a cold and Auntie said three miles was too far on a bicycle in the rain. Not that it was raining by that time, commented Miss Selbourne, while Miss Garrett sniffed to show what she thought of colds. And since they had at present two nursing mothers with young puppies that could not be taken to the show, as well as Agnes and Leo who were really more pets than show dogs, someone would have to stay at home to look after them.

  “And worse than that,” cried Miss Selbourne, “we had a letter this morning from Mr. Greenley saying he would call in this afternoon—of course, he must have forgotten about the show—to look at a puppy he was thinking of buying as a present for his niece.”

  Gillian understood her distress. Customers were important, and the prizes at the Bramton and District Dog Show would hardly compare in importance with such a customer as Mr. Greenley. For Mr. Greenley was a very rich man.

  “I’ll hold the fort,” she said. “That is, if you’ll trust me,” she added pleasantly. “Then you can both go to the show.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then Miss Garrett moved forward. Gillian was on the alert and dodged the congratulatory thump. “Good chap,” boomed Miss Garrett. “You know what it means to be a pal. There’s nothing like a war for teaching people to stick together.”

  Gillian knew that Miss Garrett and Miss Selbourne had first met when they were driving ambulances in France in 1917. Sometimes it seemed as if the two wars had coalesced in Miss Garrett’s mind, she would treat Gillian as a contemporary and allude to shell holes, mud, and billets, forgetting that Gillian’s war-work had been done on a typewriter in a London office and that a quarter of a century separated these dissimilar experiences.

  But there was no time to explore Miss Garrett’s mind, for owing to their protracted arguments the two ladies were already late in starting. Hastily they showed Gillian the kennels, the dogs, and the dishes containing the dogs’ dinners and reconstituted milk for the nursing mothers. No meal had been prepared for human consumption, but there was a cracked morsel of cheese, a stale loaf, and a soft lump of margarine on a tin plate which exactly resembled the dogs’ plates. Miss Selbourne produced these without apologies and Gillian accepted them without demur. She listened carefully while they explained which litter Mr. Greenley was to be shown and which puppy he was, if possible, to be persuaded to buy. “Fifteen guineas,” said Miss Selbourne, and added, as she had added so many times, “they’re worth all of that.”

  “He can afford it,” Miss Garrett said more explicitly.

  They promised to call at Woodside and explain Gillian’s absence. As soon as they had left, to an accompaniment of wild barks from the show-going dogs and frenzied howls from Agnes and Leo in the kitchen, Gillian went upstairs to inspect their bedrooms. They had insisted that she should make herself at home; she wished she had asked Miss Selbourne whether she had any powder or lipstick put away for party occasions, for there was none in sight. A closer search revealed a small box of curiously pink powder on the window ledge of Miss Selbourne’s room and a lip-salve which disappointingly proved to be greasy and white. After examining the brushes and combs Gillian decided, for hygienic reasons, not to comb he
r hair.

  Jocelyn Worthy’s walk into Bramton had dwindled into a walk down to the river and back. He saw the car coming up the lane and heard it stop at Woodside. At this time he was loitering on the part of the footpath that gave a view of the sloping garden where he had seen Gillian yesterday. Since Jocelyn had come to believe that there was no one under fifty in Bramton Wick his glimpse of Gillian had made him determined to get to know the people who lived at Woodside, but he was not sure how to go about it. He had brought Binkie with him, hoping that he might stray into the garden and have to be rescued, but the garden proved to be well fenced and Binkie had been brought up to walk to heel.

  In any case, the garden’s only occupant this morning was an oddly-dressed old woman—he classified women quite simply as being old if their hair was grey—who had her back to him and must have been deaf or something, for she paid no attention to the whistles and shouts with which he pretended to recall Binkie from a bramble patch.

  Mrs. Cole always ignored the existence of the footpath. It was seldom used; she had often told Miles Corton that he should close it altogether, as he could easily do by removing the footbridge across the river, which would soon teach people to go round by the lane. Her landlord listened politely and ended by reminding her, if Laura or Gillian had not said it first, that the footpath was a right of way.

  Mrs. Cole accepted this without believing it, which was the reason why she constantly renewed the attack. Her landlord was a busy man, he farmed his own land, he was saddled with Marly House, and he was still too young to understand how much old people liked privacy. If his father had been alive she was sure the footbridge would have been taken away.

  Chapter Three

  In addition to being Mrs. Cole’s landlord, Miles Corton owned a good deal of land round Bramton Wick. He was well liked by his tenant farmers and the men he employed, but among other residents in the district he was not altogether popular. His dark and rather arrogant face made people say he was bad-tempered. They also said that he was a proud man, and that “he made you feel he had no time for you.”