Bramton Wick

by Elizabeth Fair

  The last remark was probably true; Mr. Corton had very little time to spare from the strenuous business of farming and estate management. This morning he had had an early appointment at some outlying fields beyond Bramton Wick, where he had to meet the tenant farmer and a technical expert sent by the County Agricultural Committee to discuss a new drainage scheme. It was not, of course, the right time of year for the work, but the appointment had been made by the expert, who believed in looking well ahead, and the farmer had asked his landlord—in the character of the prisoner’s friend—to support him.

  Mr. Corton had driven over and had spent a couple of hours in the fields, where the expert had explained the complicated and expensive scheme he recommended, and the farmer, an inarticulate old man whose only argument for having his own way was that he had known the fields all his life, had repeated stubbornly that Higher Cowfold would do very well when the ditches were cleaned up and that Lower Cowfold would never be dry nohow on account of all the spring-es up along the edge of the wood.

  The expert, whose scientific training had not included a course in tactful persuasion, had driven off in a huff, and Mr. Corton had spent another forty minutes looking at his tenant’s livestock, at the end of which old Cayman had agreed that it might be worthwhile trying to improve the Cowfolds and had exacted a quid pro quo which his landlord could ill afford. Altogether it had been an unprofitable morning and Mr. Corton was not in a very good humour as he reached the Wick crossroads, where a near-collision with another car did nothing to improve his temper.

  The other car came out of the lane at a good speed, swerved adroitly to avoid him, and went by with two wheels on the bank. He had time to see that it was Miss Selbourne’s car and that it was full of dogs.

  “Women drivers!” said Mr. Corton inevitably, and having a poor opinion of the Continent he added, “That woman thinks she’s still in France.” For since he was also Miss Selbourne’s landlord he was constrained to call on her sometimes and had once spent a long hour discussing with her the best route for an ambulance convoy from Rouen to Calais.

  With his mind still running on field drainage schemes he remembered, as he approached Woodside, that Mrs. Cole had asked him how she could drain the boggy lower part of her garden where she wished to plant some flowering shrubs to hide the public footpath across the fields.

  Miles Corton had inherited many responsibilities from his father, and Mrs. Cole was one of them. Old Mr. Corton had been a great admirer of hers, and when she had to leave Endbury he had let Woodside to her at a ridiculously low rent. He had sent estate workmen—the carpenter, the plumber, and the handyman from the Home Farm—whenever anything at Woodside needed attention, and his head gardener had sent fruit and early vegetables, and also young Handley or young Joe to assist her in the great work of reconstruction which she immediately undertook in the neglected garden.

  Those spacious days were now past. There was no longer a plumber or a carpenter at Marly, the handyman was past work, the head gardener in his grave, and the hothouses falling to pieces for lack of paint and empty of peaches and nectarines. But the tradition remained. Mrs. Cole, who would have been too proud to accept public charity, felt no compunction in asking her landlord for advice or help if it were of the kind he could be expected to supply. She made up for this by giving him plenty of advice in return for his own, and would have given him help too if she had felt he needed it. On his side, Miles Corton did what he could, partly out of respect for his old father’s memory, and partly because he liked Mrs. Cole.

  He liked her, that is, when he was in a good temper. At other times he found her very annoying.

  It was not perhaps the right morning for him to visit Woodside, but from a perverse sense of duty he stopped the car at the gate. The house was screened from the lane by birch trees and rhododendrons, so it was not until he had walked up the drive that he saw another car standing outside the door. Recognizing this car, he turned aside and went round the end of the house, looking for Mrs. Cole, who was almost certain to be somewhere in the garden. He soon found her, but she was accompanied by the owner of the car.

  The usual greetings were exchanged. “Nice to see you again,” said Toby Masters. Toby Masters was a slim, fair young man who looked even younger than he was. Miles nodded to him, but he did not feel it was particularly nice to see Toby. There was something about Toby’s boyish charm which never failed to irritate Mr. Corton.

  “Come and look at the garden,” said Mrs. Cole, as if he had not looked at it a hundred times before. He explained that it was the boggy bit he had come to see, and she began telling him all over again of her plans. Before they could inspect the boggy bit they had to look at the new roses. They had been expensive, and now Mrs. Cole was not sure she had not preferred the old General MacArthurs she had pulled up to make room for them.

  “I liked them too,” said Toby. “They’d been here for years. I remember Gillian coming to tea when she was about twelve and bringing my mother a great armful of them. They were a gorgeous colour.”

  Miles thought at first that it must have been a superfluous present, for the rose garden at Endbury was famous. Then he remembered that Lady Masters was ruled by her gardener and could never pick the flowers, and he understood that Mrs. Cole, by sending Gillian with a great armful of roses, was mocking Lady Masters for her helplessness. Thinking of this subtle jest he warmed towards Mrs. Cole, and began to discuss with her the possibility of moving the rock-garden down to the lowest slope of the ground, where the flowering shrubs, when they were big enough, would give shade and enable her to grow several plants she could not grow at present.

  But it all depended on the draining of the boggy bit. They had now reached this part of the garden, where the ground fell steeply towards the fence. Mrs. Cole was still wearing her gum-boots and Miles had already spent a long morning in sodden fields. They went down the bank and began poking about in the choked ditch at the bottom. Toby Masters, who was wearing highly-polished brown shoes and his best grey flannels in honour of the dog show, turned back to the house.

  Laura had finished the cooking. The sausage pie was in the oven, and she had had time to change her dress. She had just finished laying the table when she looked up and saw Toby coming across the lawn.

  “Where’s Mummy?” she called through the open window. Mrs. Cole had taken Toby away—for he had arrived, as usual, long before they were ready for him—and had promised to keep him amused till lunchtime.

  “She’s paddling about in that very wet bit. I thought I’d come and give you a hand.”

  “Thank you, but it’s all done,” said Laura, who knew from experience that Toby was very unhandy, though well intentioned. “Come in and have some sherry.”

  Mrs. Cole sometimes complained that sherry was an unnecessary extravagance, and in her periodic attempts at economy she would deliberately forget to order it. However, there was just enough left in the bottle to fill two glasses. Remembering that her mother did not drink and that Gillian would be out, Laura decided that one glass would be enough for Toby and she would have the other herself.

  “Is Miles Corton lunching here?” Toby asked.

  “Not that I know of. Why—did Mummy say something about it?”

  “Well, he’s here. I left him with your mother, down in that wet bit.”

  “Oh,” said Laura. She looked at her untasted glass of sherry and put it back, rather regretfully, on the tray. “I suppose he came to see about draining it, and she’ll probably ask him.”

  Toby looked more serious than usual and she hoped he was not thinking that she disapproved of all invitations issued by her mother. But Toby did not quickly perceive implications of that sort. Toby’s mind, which was of the steadfast variety, was still occupied with Miles Corton.

  “He’s an odd chap, isn’t he? Never goes anywhere, never does anything.”

  “He’s always so busy. He farms his own land, you know—the Home Farm the bailiff used to have. I mean, he really works at it. An
d he’s short of labour. I don’t suppose he has much time for other things.”

  “I should like to farm,” said Toby. “In fact, I’m seriously thinking of it.”

  Since he had come out of the Army, Toby had thought seriously of many careers and had tried several of them. Finally, he had opened a bookshop in the county town of Bramchester, in partnership with a man he had met in Italy. This man, Lady Masters explained, was quite brilliant; he had the real business brain and a great technical knowledge of bookselling. This excused, by implication, his rather peculiar appearance, and certainly he seemed to be a very hard-working man.

  “You haven’t chucked the shop?” asked Laura.

  “Oh, no, I’m just taking a short holiday. We’re slack at present, but I rather think I’ve been overdoing it lately.”

  He sighed. He was nervous about his health. Laura blamed Lady Masters for this, who had fussed over and cossetted him when he was a small boy. To divert him from his ailments she said that farming must be very healthy, even if there wasn’t much money in it.

  Toby said that Miles Corton certainly did not seem to make it pay.

  “I don’t know why he goes on living at Marly,” he said. “It must be hideously uncomfortable. Why doesn’t he do up the bailiff’s house and live there?”

  “Oh, well,” said Laura, “the Cortons have always lived at Marly. You wouldn’t like to give up Endbury, would you?”

  “That’s not the same thing. You know we haven’t always lived at Endbury. That argument, the feudal-ancestral one, is pretty dead nowadays. I do love Endbury, and I wouldn’t care to leave it, but that is because of what it means to me. It’s very beautiful. I suppose it’s a symbol of happiness in my life.”

  You can dream about your past there, she thought. Aloud she said: “Couldn’t that be what Miles feels about Marly House?”

  “Of course not. To begin with, Marly is not at all beautiful, and then, as I said, it must be hideously uncomfortable.” Evidently Toby’s aesthetic appreciation of Endbury was combined with a certain insistence on comfort. And even Lady Masters’s economical regime would offer more comfort than the cross old cook-housekeeper could provide for Miles Corton in a house which was, as everyone admitted, not at all beautiful and completely unmodernized.

  “He’s not married,” Toby continued. “It would be different if he wanted to hang on to it for his children.”

  Laura laughed. “Neither are you married, Toby.”

  “Oh, but I shall marry some day,” he said seriously. “Now old Miles seems to have settled down to be a bachelor.”

  In the interest of hearing that Toby intended to marry, Laura forgot to point out that Mr. Corton was not, after all, more than ten or a dozen years older than herself. It was the first time Toby had spoken of getting married, but from the way he looked at her she was suddenly convinced that it was not the first time he had thought of it. And, of course, when he said that Miles had settled down to be a bachelor he was implying that Miles could have married at any time. She saw the significance of this. Miles could marry whom he pleased—but Toby could not.

  “Before you get married,” she said lightly, “you will really have to decide whether you are to be a farmer or a bookseller.

  Toby gave a rueful grin. “Or a butcher or a baker or a candlestickmaker. But honestly, Laura, don’t you think farming would suit me?”

  The return of Mrs. Cole and Miles Corton prevented her from answering. Knowing that Gillian would be out, and that therefore there would be enough food to go round, Mrs. Cole invited her landlord to stay for luncheon. She was a little surprised, though pleased, when he accepted.

  “Have some sherry,” said Laura. “Look, I poured it out, it’s on the table. No, Mummy doesn’t take it.”

  “What about you?”

  She was just going to say that she had had hers when she realized that Miles, who was more observant than Toby, had noticed there were only two glasses.

  “I don’t—”

  “Nonsense, of course you do. Drink it up,” he said firmly, rather as if he were offering her a dose of medicine.

  “I’m afraid it’s the last of the bottle.”

  “And you poured it out for yourself.”

  She could not deny it, but really it would have been much easier if he had just drunk the sherry without making a fuss. She thought she preferred men to be unobservant like Toby, who was discussing flowers with Mrs. Cole and had not noticed anything.

  At luncheon they talked about the dog show and Toby said he thought of buying a dog. He regretted that Gillian would not be coming to the show, as he wanted her advice on what sort of breed to get.

  “Is Laura not an authority on dogs?” asked Miles.

  That was not what Toby meant. He had wanted them both to be there. He liked to have plenty of advice, and friendly laughter and discussion, and perhaps to be teased a little about his choice. Gillian and Laura together could do this better than Laura alone. But he could not say this; instead he said rather stiffly that Laura wasn’t very keen on dogs.

  Miles was not shocked by this heresy, but he asked why Laura went to dog shows. Mrs. Cole pointed out that there was not a great choice of entertainment in that part of the country and it did Laura good to get out.

  “You make me sound like a crotchety invalid,” Laura protested. “And anyway, I have lots of interesting things to do.”

  Mrs. Cole sighed. She did not like to think that Laura was wasting her life, but this fear sometimes assailed her on nights when she could not get to sleep early, and it was then that the idea of her marrying seemed most agreeable.

  Now, as she listened to their talk and laughter, the vague idea expanded and grew stronger. Hitherto she had thought it would be nice if Toby should marry one of her daughters—either Laura or Gillian was to reign at Endbury. But from this moment Laura became the heroine of the dream; and the dream itself, put into words and admitted to conscious thought, became a clear hope for the future.

  She would have been surprised had she been able to see how nearly Laura’s thoughts matched her own. Since Toby had said he intended to marry “some day,” Laura’s mind had been busy. The more she thought of it, the clearer it became to her that this day depended entirely on Toby’s mother.

  Of course, she had always known he was under his mother’s thumb. But not until now had it occurred to her that poor Toby simply could not afford to marry unless Lady Masters approved. True, Endbury belonged to him; but the money which maintained it belonged to her. Toby had practically nothing of his own, as he had once told her when they were discussing a career for him, and although he was an only child and would one day inherit his mother’s wealth, that day was unpredictable. In the meantime he had a large house on his hands, and a business which had not yet begun to pay its way.

  Laura was not romantically in love with Toby, nor was she so foolish as to suppose that he would defy his mother, renounce Endbury, and settle down to a hard-working life in some uncongenial job in order to marry whom he pleased. Toby was not such a lover of liberty; she knew him too well to believe that such actions were possible for him. But she liked him. If she wanted to marry Toby, and if he wanted to marry her—these were still vague questions for which she could find the answers later on—the thing to do would be to convince Lady Masters that she would be a suitable and agreeable daughter-in-law.

  Lady Masters was a possessive mother, but she was also clear-headed and practical, and her plans for Toby’s future might well include matrimony.

  Laura wandered off into a daydream in which, by some unspecified act of nobility or heroism, she became the admired of all and the only person Lady Masters wanted for a wife for Toby. From this she was recalled by Toby himself, who turned to her and said he had a message from his mother: would she and Gillian dine with them after the dog show? They were to go straight back to Endbury and not to bother about changing. This invitation showed at once how much there would be to live up to if one were to satisfy Lady Masters. At E
ndbury they still dined in the evening, at Endbury, unless excused, one was expected to wear the right kind of clothes.

  “Will she mind about Gillian’s not coming?” Laura asked Toby said they would ring up from the post office at Bramton to let her know. (“So that the food won’t be wasted,” Gillian would have pointed out. . . .)

  Since the Coles had neither a car nor a telephone their social life was even more restricted than is usual in the country, and Laura would in any case have found this occasion a pleasant break in the monotony of evenings devoted to reading and backgammon. But now it had a greater importance. She even wished that they had been “changing,” so that she could have worn her one evening dress and looked grand and dignified. But as this was not to be she ran upstairs and borrowed a fine white hem-stitched handkerchief out of Gillian’s top drawer. Gillian had often told her that handkerchiefs, stockings, and gloves were the things to judge, and be judged, by; and Gillian’s outlook resembled that of Lady Masters in many ways, though it would not have done to tell her so.

  “Ready?” asked Toby as she came downstairs.

  “Yes, quite. I just went to get a clean handkerchief.”

  Toby looked at her with positive affection. “That takes me right back to the past,” he said. “You and Gillian being pursued down the drive by your mother, with clean handkerchiefs flapping in her hand, whenever you set off for anywhere, and me with the jumper of my sailor suit simply bulging with them at dancing classes. How frightfully important clean handkerchiefs were!”

  Laura laughed and agreed, without mentioning the present importance of a clean handkerchief. It did not occur to her that the moments when it was most evident that Toby was fond of her were always those in which, by some gesture or allusion, she recalled the shared and treasured past.