But although Gillian kept her emotions to herself, Laura understood her well enough to know that she would not waste her life dreaming about a vanished past. And lately Gillian had been getting bored, and had even talked about going back to London and getting another job. Laura did not want this; it was much more fun having Gillian at home. So she was glad to hear that Mr. Greenley was moderately good-looking, in spite of a tendency to baldness and a deplorable taste in dress.
“I suppose he has a palatial establishment and a butler.”
“I shall know after Sunday. By the way, I left all the papers at Bank Cottage.”
“What papers?”
“The papers I was going to take to the Miss Cleeves. I never got there.”
“Could you rescue them, and then, if you like, I’ll take them on?” She knew that Gillian did not care for the Misses Cleeve. Indeed, it was rather difficult to like them.
“No,” Gillian said firmly. “They must do without the papers. I’ve spent enough time at Bank Cottage for one week. Oh, Laura, if you could have seen that place! All dogs’ hairs and mud and last year’s dust. And yet I can’t help liking them.”
“I feel rather sorry for them.”
“Why?”
Gillian often told her sister that she made a virtue of being sorry for other people, and to counteract this weakness in Laura she resolutely shut her own eyes to the need for pity.
“Why should you feel sorry for them? They don’t notice the dust and the squalor. They’ve got the beloved dogs and they’ve got each other. Of course they quarrel, but then they have all the fun of emotional reconciliations.”
“They’re hard up.”
“I bet they’re not as hard up as we are. They’ve got a car and a bottle of whisky. Or rather, they had a bottle of whisky,” Gillian said accurately.
“Well, I can’t help feeling sorry for them. It’s such an uncomfortable place for a house.”
“Oh, rubbish, Laura! Dozens of women live like that, with cats or dogs or parrots, all over the country, and they are perfectly happy. You might easily be one yourself some day.”
Gillian believed in having a realistic outlook, but this was carrying it too far. Laura was still young enough to see a wide gulf between herself and Miss Selbourne, but even the most distant prospect of a life whose interests centred on dogs or cats or parrots was not agreeable to contemplate. She said crossly:
“I couldn’t bear it. I’d sooner die young.”
“Or you might marry,” suggested Gillian.
Gillian had a practical mind and a rooted distaste for desperate remedies.
Chapter Six
Bank Cottage and Box Cottage were both on the Marly estate. They were not far apart, and both were occupied by middle-aged or elderly spinsters. Visitors to the neighbourhood sometimes found this confusing, but none of the residents could have confused Miss Selbourne or Miss Garrett with the Misses Cleeve who lived at Box Cottage.
The Misses Cleeve, who were the last survivors of a well-known local family, had the sort of importance that a tribal deity might have for a tribe which had only recently been enlightened by missionaries. They were as much part of the landscape as the obelisk on Gibbet Hill or the New Bridge built by their ancestor in 1723 to put Bramton on the map. Though they had left their family home many years ago, their name gave them a ghostly right of possession; as long as they were alive Mr. Greenley would still be “the man who bought Cleeve Manor.” They could be pitied or derided, but they could not be ignored.
There were three of them and they were all remarkably like toads. Perhaps the fact that they had lived together for so long was responsible for their close resemblance to one another (as people grow to resemble the horses or dogs they cherish), for the ancestral memory of the village proclaimed that the second Miss Cleeve had once been good-looking and the youngest had had red hair. No trace of these deviations remained; the pattern was set by the eldest Miss Cleeve and repeated in her sisters. Their hair was perhaps more abundant than hers, they were more mobile and less majestic, but it was difficult to tell them apart until you spoke to them. After that it was easy, for although they were all a little peculiar, Miss Myrtle was indisputably the victim of religious mania and Miss Cleeve herself was almost stone-deaf.
One afternoon in the week following the dog show Mrs. Worthy, who had been shopping in Bramworthy, stopped her car outside Box Cottage. The back of the car was full of parcels, horseflesh for Binkie, fish for the rest of the household, fertilizer and lawn sand for the garden, library books and knitting wool for herself. Kneeling on the front seat she delved among these parcels until she found the melon. Meanwhile, Jocelyn sat beside her and continued to gaze rather bleakly in front of him. He held strong views about his aunts driving and was wondering whether he should say he would walk on or whether, if he waited, she would let him drive home.
“I shan’t be very long,” said Mrs. Worthy.
She took it for granted that Jocelyn would wait for her. Although he had been with them for less than two months, he had already become a responsibility. She had grown used to planning for him, to mending his clothes and sending him out for walks, and listening, with her mind on something else, to his stories about his Army service: dull stories about the food in the Naafi or one of the chaps in his hut, which did not compare with his uncle’s tales of the ferocious Boche or the man-eating tiger. So now, without giving him time to speak, she shut the door of the car and hurried up the little path to Box Cottage.
Jocelyn was so used to having his mind made up for him, whether by his sergeant-major or his aunt, that he slouched back against the seat and closed his eyes.
“So kind,” muttered Miss Cleeve, fondling the melon. “Really very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Worthy, and quite a little change for us. We never get much fruit unless people are kind enough to bring us some. I don’t know how it is, but this garden won’t grow fruit.”
“The land will not be fruitful unless the Lord bless it,” said Miss Myrtle Cleeve, speaking in a loud voice and fixing Mrs. Worthy with a penetrating stare.
Since Miss Cleeve was deaf she could ignore her sister’s interruptions, but Mrs. Worthy found them embarrassing. She did not know whether to reply or whether to continue the conversation on ordinary worldly lines. She attempted a compromise by asking if they had yet heard the new vicar of Bramton preach.
“No,” said Miss Cleeve, “peaches will never grow out of doors. At least, I never heard of them in this part of the country. Of course, at home they grew in hothouses. Papa was very fond of them.”
Mrs. Worthy was now involved in two separate conversations, one with Miss Cleeve about hothouse fruit and one with her sister about the works of the Lord, and since neither of her interlocutors paid any attention to the other she was soon in difficulties. Fortunately an interruption occurred.
The third Miss Cleeve, christened Matilda, but known to friends and foes alike as Pussy, appeared in the doorway ushering in a large and well-dressed caller who carried with her a chip basket containing three peaches. Miss Cleeve peered through her pebble glasses at the advancing figure. “It never rains but it pours,” she said, but whether she referred to the fruit or the visitors was uncertain.
“Dear Miss Cleeve—something which I hope will cheer you up.” With a generous gesture, Lady Masters proffered the peaches and was slightly disconcerted to find that her hostess was already clasping a melon.
“Dear me, I have been forestalled,” she said blandly. Her gaze flickered round the room to discover the melon-bringer and for an instant it was uncertain whether she was going to recognize Mrs. Worthy. But neighbourliness prevailed.
“How nice to meet you,” she said. “It seems weeks since we met.” This was quite true. “You keep very much at home, Mrs. Worthy.”
“The petrol—” Mrs. Worthy said vaguely.
“Ah, yes, the petrol!” The petrol explained everything. Lady Masters turned back to Miss Cleeve.
“I was just telling Mrs. Wort
hy she should go out more,” she shouted, bending down and addressing her at pointblank range.
“I hear you, I hear you!” Miss Cleeve gave a sudden cackle of laughter. “I expect they can hear you over at Marly House.”
Mrs. Worthy would have been discomposed, but Lady Masters did not blench. “So long as you can hear me, dear Miss Cleeve,” she said, still speaking in a good-humoured bellow. “And now tell me how you are?” She sat down and prepared to listen.
Meanwhile, the two younger Misses Cleeve had pinned their other visitor into a corner of the room. Miss Myrtle said little, but gazed at Mrs. Worthy with a luminous, unfocused look as though she were seeing something beyond or inside her. This made it difficult for her to listen sympathetically to the stream of ill-natured gossip which flowed from Pussy’s lips.
Pussy did not allow her sequestered life to cramp her style; what she could not discover she invented. She knew that Mrs. Trimmer’s eldest daughter was expecting again and it was another man this time; she knew that Miss Garrett had shouted at Colonel Forbes, who was judging at the dog show, and had been ordered out of the ring; she knew that Miles Corton was so hard put to it for money that he was thinking of selling Marly House at last.
Finally, turning to Lady Masters, Pussy said baldly:
“I hear your son doesn’t care for bookselling after all. Pity he doesn’t settle down and get married.”
Lady Masters, whose voice was still pitched to the eldest Miss Cleeve’s level, said “What?” so loudly that the vases shook and a dried flower fluttered slowly from a withered votive offering hanging below a semi-sacred picture.
“They tell me he’s never to be seen in his shop—leaves it all to that squint-eyed partner or office boy, or whatever he is. But I hear he’s quite fond of the shop next door where there’s a pretty little gal selling dogs.” Pussy looked so inoffensive that these remarks acquired an added poignance, as if a child had suddenly affronted its parent with some frightful home truths. Mrs. Worthy tried to look as if she had not heard, a difficult feat in so small a room. But at the back of her mind was the thought that it would be something to tell Curtis at tea.
She could not help admiring Lady Masters. The smile she turned on Pussy was almost serene, and she answered her as calmly as though they had been discussing the weather.
“I think a lot of people go into Toby’s shop and expect to find him waiting behind the counter to serve them. They don’t realize that he’s probably slaving away in the funny little office they’ve got upstairs.”
“Or next door,” said Pussy with a titter.
“Or next door,” Lady Masters agreed calmly. “After all, you can’t expect old heads on young shoulders, and young people never realize what a ridiculous amount of gossip and tittle-tattle goes on in a place like Bramchester. Personally, I’m very glad if Toby is making some friends. I think he deserves a little gaiety after six years of war.”
Mrs. Worthy was afraid Pussy was going to point out that the war had ended some time ago, and she said quickly:
“I feel just the same about my nephew. He needs a little gaiety, but then it’s so difficult. So few young people in the neighbourhood—nothing to do—and really I can’t often let him take the car over to Bramworthy, although he’s very fond of dancing and he tells me they have very good dances at that country house hotel—what is its name? Oh, Evergreens, of course, how stupid of me. Jocelyn says they have dances there on Saturday nights, but then the last bus leaves at nine-thirty, and really with the petrol—”
“Yes, I feel very sorry for young people. Is the young man in the car your nephew, Mrs. Worthy? I did not know you had a nephew.”
“Actually Jocelyn is my husband’s nephew, the son of his brother Armitage, who died quite soon after the last war, and Curtis has always been very good to Mary—that was my sister-in-law—but she died at the beginning of this war, and, of course, to Jocelyn too.”
“I see,” said Lady Masters. She turned back to Miss Cleeve and explained loudly that Mrs. Worthy’s nephew was in the car outside.
“Bring him in,” said Miss Cleeve. But Mrs. Worthy had noticed the time; Curtis would be kept waiting for his tea, and he was already annoyed because she and Jocelyn had lunched in Bramworthy, though this had been inevitable because the dentist could only see her at half-past twelve. It had not, of course, been inevitable that Jocelyn should accompany her, but she never liked leaving him alone with Curtis in case he annoyed him. With all this passing rapidly through her mind she became a little vague, and ceased to pay any attention to Pussy, who was now recounting a curious story she had been told about the new vicar of Bramton.
Miss Myrtle Cleeve had walked out of the room before Pussy began her tale. She was known to be odd, and no one took any notice of her departure. Mrs. Worthy said good-bye to Miss Cleeve and Pussy, with a long involved explanation of why she had to hurry home, and it was not till she was outside the front door that she realized that Lady Masters was accompanying her.
“I seized my opportunity,” Lady Masters whispered, “or else I should have been there for the rest of the afternoon. Poor creatures.”
“One feels so sorry for them.”
“Yes, indeed. And it is so difficult—one can do so little for them. I see you and I have the same idea of what is suitable.”
“Fruit,” said Lady Masters. “People who would be deeply affronted if one gave them soup or bread can always bring themselves to accept fruit. What a beautiful melon you found for them. It quite put my poor peaches in the shade.”
Mrs. Worthy, who knew what was right and proper, immediately began to disparage her melon and praise the peaches. She was agreeably surprised to find Lady Masters so friendly, for hitherto they had been the merest acquaintances. When they reached the car she was distressed to see that Jocelyn had gone to sleep. But Lady Masters only laughed.
“How alike they all are,” she cried. “Like puppies!” With a playful but somehow condescending gesture she tapped lightly on the window and Jocelyn woke up with a start. Rather grumpily he got out of the car, and was introduced by Mrs. Worthy.
“It’s quite exciting to find another young man in the neighbourhood. I quite thought my Toby was the only one for miles. You must come over to Endbury and meet him.”
Jocelyn, rumpled and blinking, did not appear to great advantage, and Mrs. Worthy could not but reflect that neither she nor Curtis had ever been asked to Endbury. But perhaps Lady Masters entertained only for her son. This took her thoughts straight back to Toby Masters and Miss Pussy Cleeve’s insinuations, and she thought she perceived a motive for Lady Masters’s excessive friendliness. Whether it was gratitude for her tact in diverting the conversation or whether it was a form of hush money, Mrs. Worthy felt that the motive was suspect and the friendliness insincere. And while they stood here talking, Curtis would be fuming for his tea.
“Come, Jocelyn,” she said sharply, “it’s getting late and I promised Uncle Curtis we would be home by five.”
Few people had ever taken leave of Lady Masters so abruptly or, as it were, by proxy. But her talent for ignoring the unpleasant enabled her to carry it off.
“I mustn’t keep you,” she said graciously. “I expect poor Captain Worthy is longing for his tea. But you will come to Endbury, won’t you? I’ll telephone.”
With smiles they parted. Mrs. Worthy started the car, destroying all Jocelyn’s hopes of driving, and pulled out into the middle of the road, where she settled down to her usual speed of twenty-five miles an hour.
“Why did she call me Captain Worthy?” Jocelyn asked sulkily. “You haven’t been saying I was a captain, have you?” He knew his aunt was not reliable in military matters.
“She didn’t mean you, she meant your uncle.”
“Surely after all these years she must know he’s a major. And why did she keep on about her son and this Endbury place? I thought you said they were three old maids.”
It was obvious Jocelyn thought he had been speaking to one of
the Misses Cleeve.
“But I introduced you,” Mrs. Worthy protested. “You must listen, Jocelyn. That was Lady Masters.”
“You said, This is my nephew Jocelyn. I hadn’t a clue. Who is she, anyway?”
Mrs. Worthy told him. She described the beauties of Endbury, which she knew only by hearsay, and she mentioned that Toby Masters had a bookshop in Bramchester.
“I think he comes home for week-ends,” she said. “I expect she’ll ask you over one Sunday—if she remembers. That will be very nice for you,” she added, thinking that at least it would take him out for a few hours and save the Sunday joint.
“Aunt Gwennie?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Has Uncle Curtis said anything about the future?”
Mrs. Worthy sighed. They were almost home, it was late, and she did not feel it was the right time to discuss his future. “No, Jocelyn, I don’t think he has decided anything yet.”
“Did you ask him about South Africa?”
“I didn’t think you were serious about South Africa.”
“I wasn’t,” he replied. “I just thought it might be something to do.”
That was the trouble with Jocelyn. The only ideas he had were quite childish, and when you pointed this out to him he would say he wasn’t seriously thinking of it; it was just an idea. The idea of growing fruit in South Africa rubbed shoulders with the idea of being an interior decorator in London, and for both he was equally lacking in aptitude and enthusiasm. She would not have been surprised if he had suggested being an engine-driver or an explorer, and naturally she could not worry Curtis with these vague fantasies. It was not as if Jocelyn were longing to start work; indeed, it was seldom that she could get him to discuss the future, which made it all the more annoying that he should bring it up now when she was tired and anxious only to get home and give Curtis his tea.
“I’ll talk to your uncle,” she promised. “But I don’t think he would like you to go to South Africa, and anyway, you know nothing about growing fruit and it would cost a lot of money. Couldn’t you think of something to do in England—something, I mean, that you really could do? You see, Uncle Curtis is a very practical man, he would have had a wonderful career if it had not been for his health—I remember a general we knew in India—oh dear, what was his name? General—General—”
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