“I see,” Miles said at length. “Thank you, Laura.” But Laura was still dumbstruck and scarlet. He stepped forward and took hold of her bicycle. “We’d better get this on the car,” he said calmly. “Here they come.”
The frightful moment was over; the voices of the approaching Misses Cleeve released her from the spell.
Laura wished to sit in the back of the car. Miles was equally determined that neither Pussy nor Miss Myrtle should sit in front. This clash of wills was settled by the Misses Cleeve themselves, who scrambled into the back of the car, one after the other, with more agility than Laura had anticipated. She sat screwed round in the front seat, joining in their conversation with assumed interest. It was not necessary to say much, since the Misses Cleeve had plenty to say; the new vicar and the new church at Wick were the themes for a closely interwoven duet which continued until they reached the gate of Box Cottage.
There they found getting out of the car more difficult than getting in, and while Miles was extricating them Laura went round to the back and removed her bicycle from the luggage grid. The strap that had kept it there left a smear of grease on her gloves, and she at once noticed a new scratch on the handlebars. But these minor mishaps did not matter compared with the necessity of getting away before she and Miles were left alone together. She felt ridiculously apprehensive lest he should re-open the subject of his resemblance to Sir Alexander James Cleeve.
Miss Myrtle, still flushed with the success of her approach to the vicar, left them abruptly and walked into the house, uttering no word of thanks or farewell. But Pussy lingered at the gate. Pussy liked company and considered herself a sparkling conversationalist. She blamed her sisters for the fact that so few people called at Box Cottage and that the few who came stayed such a short time.
Pussy’s conversation was compounded of scandal about those who were not listening to her and malicious digs at those who were. Of the three sisters, she alone considered that being a Miss Cleeve gave her the right to sneer at those who were not Miss Cleeves, those upstarts whose ancestors were not commemorated on the marble tombs and worn brasses in Bramton Church.
Miles, of course, was not an upstart, but Pussy had other reasons for disliking him. He was their landlord, they were under an obligation to him, and she could not bear that a Cleeve should be under an obligation to anyone.
It was fairly clear that Miles did not enjoy holding the gate open and being made late for his lunch. This alone, apart from her love of conversation, would have encouraged Pussy to prolong her farewells. But she particularly wanted to speak to Miles; she had heard that his housekeeper, Mrs. Epps, had taken to drink, and the simplest way of learning more about this, or alternatively of doing Mrs. Epps a bad turn, was to ask him about it.
She began with a winning smile and an invitation to come in and try their parsnip wine.
“You too, Laura. Or do you only drink—what’s that vulgar stuff—gin?”
“I hardly ever drink gin, it’s too expensive,” Laura answered. “I’d love to try your parsnip wine, but not just now, I’m afraid. It’s getting late, and I—”
“Poor Laura, it’s always ‘getting late’ when you come to Box Cottage,” said Pussy, applying the screw.
Laura could not like Pussy, but she felt sorry for her, and her morbid fear of hurting people’s feelings made her open her mouth to say that after all she couldn’t bear to miss the parsnip wine.
But Pussy was speaking to Miles.
“On second thought, I withdraw the invitation. Parsnip wine is hardly your drink either, is it? I must save up and get a bottle of brandy, and then perhaps you’ll honour us with your presence.”
Miles Corton had a remarkably poor opinion of parsnip wine in general and of the Château Box vintage in particular, but it did not please him to be told he was addicted to brandy. He said shortly that he was practically a teetotaller these days. At this Pussy gave a cry of surprise.
“Not a brandy drinker?” she exclaimed. “Then where did the empty bottles come from? My dear Miles, it must be Mrs. Epps! I’ve heard rumours, you know, but then she’s always seemed such a respectable woman—although once or twice lately, meeting her in the road, I’ve just wondered . . .”
Seeing that neither Miles nor Laura was going to ask about the empty bottles, she hurried on.
“I just happened to notice, the day the men came to collect for the salvage drive, what an extraordinary number of empty bottles they had, and all of them brandy bottles! Of course, it wasn’t anything to do with me, but I was so surprised! I asked them where they all came from, and they said they came from Marly House.”
With her head on one side Pussy peered up at Miles to see how he was taking it. He said nothing, and from the obstinate quality of his silence it was plain he was not going to gratify Pussy by confirming or denying her insinuation. A vague feeling that by standing up for Mrs. Epps she would be standing up for Miles against Pussy caused Laura to intervene.
“Probably the bottles had been there for years. I expect Mrs. Epps had a grand clearing-out for the salvage drive.”
“Oh, no,” said Pussy, “they were quite new bottles. Grocer’s brandy, you know, not good brandy.” Forgetting that this was the brandy she had accused Miles of being addicted to, she went on to say that Mrs. Epps’s brother had drunk himself to death on methylated spirits, so what could you expect?
Laura, who had led a sheltered life, had never heard of anyone drinking methylated spirits, and said so, adding that it must taste horrible. “No worse than some of the other concoctions people pour down their throats,” Miles rejoined unkindly. He was seldom unkind to the Misses Cleeve, whatever he thought of them, and this jibe at the parsnip wine escaped Pussy altogether, for she was still going on about Mrs. Epps’s brother and the way these things ran in the family.
“You’d better be careful, lock up the wine cellar and so on, just in case. After all, you never know.”
“No,” he said, “but you can always find out from the salvage men.”
Pussy put on her innocent little-girl look, the look which made her impervious to sharp answers or contradictions. She was not subdued; on the contrary she was inwardly elated, since it was plain to her that she had succeeded in exasperating her landlord. But before she could follow up her triumph Miles let the gate swing to and turned away, as if he did not care whether Pussy went back to Box Cottage or not.
“Jump in,” he said to Laura. “I’ll run you home.”
“But I’ve got my bicycle.”
Miles had only just noticed that she had removed her bicycle from the luggage grid. He looked at her and then said: “There’s still plenty of room on the back.”
It was an echo of their earlier conversation. That was how it had begun—the bicycle, the Monument, the effigy on a tomb. Laura suddenly realized that Miles too was thinking of that earlier conversation. He was laughing at her, she thought; and to her annoyance she felt herself blushing again. It was true that Toby often teased her, in what she imagined to be a brotherly way, but being teased by Miles—and in front of Pussy, too—was quite different. She could squabble, argue, and laugh with Toby on terms of perfect equality, but Miles made her feel a schoolgirl again, defenceless and absurd.
“Thank you,” she said hastily, “but I’d rather cycle.” Oh, dear, that was not what she had meant to say. It was a sort of shorthand contraction of her reasons—that it would be quicker than turning the car, that Miles would be wasting his petrol and upsetting Mrs. Epps by being late for lunch, and, of course, the inadmissible reason that she did not want to be teased.
However, it was too late to explain. Miles looked momentarily disconcerted, then he turned to say good-bye to Pussy, who was now inside her front gate, but still an intent spectator. Laura had a feeling that Pussy was interpreting their behaviour in her own extravagant idiom.
“Good-bye,” she called, wheeling her bicycle into the road. “Good-bye, Miles. Thank you for the lift.”
Coasting down
Wick Lane, lapped in the calm beauty of a perfect summer day, she quickly forgot her confusion. By the time she turned under the railway bridge she had begun to laugh at herself and to wonder just what Pussy would make of it. Pussy’s fertile fancy was capable of anything; perhaps she would construe Laura’s blush and Miles’s annoyance as Romance—not, of course, flawless, but brought to an untimely end by a quarrel. Pussy was a specialist in broken romances.
Laura had been so well brought up that her thoughts led on quite naturally from romance to marriage. She quickly forgot about Miles and Pussy and the disagreeableness of being teased. Instead, she remembered that this was the afternoon Lady Masters was coming to tea.
Chapter Eight
Mrs. Cole sometimes felt vaguely uncomfortable about Mrs. Worthy. They were of the same generation, they lived not far apart, and she really ought to ask her to tea far more often than she did. Only there was the garden, which took up so much of her time, and on Mrs. Worthy’s side there was an even greater encumbrance, although perhaps it was wrong to think of Major Worthy as an encumbrance when it was obvious that his wife, like a well-trained Eastern slave, regarded him as the light of her eyes and the lord of her life. No one else had ever been able to see Major Worthy like this, and Mrs. Cole disliked him as much as it was possible for her to dislike anyone.
She was not going to ask Major Worthy to tea. She had had him once and he had stamped round the garden criticizing everything, objecting to the slope of the ground, the shape of the lawn, and the profusion of evergreens; he had told her that creepers made the house damp and that the lilacs were in the wrong place. After tea he had taken out his pipe and without asking permission had proceeded to smoke it, filling her drawing-room with a cloud of peculiarly rank blue smoke. Mrs. Cole had no real objection to tobacco smoke, and she was prepared to admit that some of his criticisms were just; but she found his manners unbearable.
She rather liked Mrs. Worthy, which made her feel the more guilty about neglecting her. It did not occur to her that Mrs. Worthy might ask her to tea occasionally, for she quite understood that Mrs. Worthy was not a free agent. None of the Coles had ever been to tea at Tor Quay, and they had learned from Mrs. Trimmer, whose work as a “daily” made her a valuable source of information, that Major Worthy thought tea parties, or any other sort of entertaining, a waste of money.
“Cut a brass farthin’ in ’alf, the Major would,” Mrs. Trimmer said scornfully.
So Mrs. Cole did not feel aggrieved at never being asked back, and when she met Mrs. Worthy in the Wick Provision Stores and saw how carefully she priced everything, writing down all she spent in a tattered little notebook, and how determinedly she sought out the cheapest kind of biscuits, her sympathy for Mrs. Worthy overcame her natural inertia and she asked her to come to tea the following Sunday.
As it happened, her sympathy was misapplied, for Major Worthy never grudged spending money on food which was to nourish himself, and the cheap biscuits were being bought for Jocelyn, who suffered from night starvation. But Mrs. Worthy accepted the invitation, and it was not until she had left the shop that Mrs. Cole remembered that this was the Sunday Lady Masters was coming to tea.
It was very strange, she thought, she hardly ever asked anybody to the house without consulting the girls, and yet when she did it always seemed to clash with something.
It would be awkward if Lady Masters and Mrs. Worthy were not on good terms. She told Gillian about it. But Gillian, whose life in London had blunted her to the niceties of provincial etiquette, said cheerfully that it did not matter in the slightest.
“Let them both come. Even if they don’t like each other it will be stimulating for them to meet someone new. And it will give you and Laura a change of partners.”
Since Gillian was not going to be there she could afford to take it lightly. But then, she always took things lightly; too lightly, thought Mrs. Cole, who was gently perturbed about Gillian’s casual meeting with Mr. Greenley and her coming visit to Cleeve Manor. She was not so foolish as to suspect him of being a villain with designs on her daughter; it was simply that the whole thing was irregular. No one had introduced them; no calls had been exchanged. Aware that times had changed, she kept these thoughts to herself. In any case she did not permit herself to criticize her dear daughters, who must always be allowed to know best.
The only difficulty was that sometimes their ideas of what was best differed. She had forgotten to tell Laura that Mrs. Worthy was coming to tea, and when Laura heard of it, which was not until after lunch on Sunday, she said at once that it was a pity.
“You know how rude Lady Masters can be. I don’t want her being rude here, I want her to enjoy herself.”
Gillian might have said that what Lady Masters most enjoyed was being rude, but Gillian had already gone upstairs to change her dress and do things to her hair and face.
“I want Mrs. Worthy to enjoy herself, too,” said Mrs. Cole.
“Well, yes,” said Laura, as if that did not matter so much, “is she bringing Jocelyn?”
“Dear me. I hope not. Oh, you mean that boy?”
“Yes, Mummy, you mustn’t get them mixed up. We are sure to hear a great deal about both of them.”
She was quite right. Mrs. Worthy had plenty to tell them about Curtis, and although they had heard most of it before, this did not prevent them from encouraging her, with questions, exclamations, and sympathy, to relate in every detail the glories of Major Worthy’s military career, the praises of the General whose name she had unfortunately forgotten, the horrid catastrophe of the sunstroke in India, and the long pilgrimage from doctor to doctor in quest of health.
“And sometimes I think I was wrong to persuade Curtis to retire so young, of course I meant it for the best and as I said to him at the time health is more important than wealth. It’s your health that matters, Curtis, I said, never mind about being a colonel—of course, he ought to have been promoted long before that, it was a great disappointment to him, but as the General said—the same general whom we knew so well in Rawalpindi, oh dear, it’s strange I should have forgotten his name when we knew him so well and I used to darn all his socks for him . . .”
Mrs. Worthy, with none but encouraging interruptions, paused only to draw breath and take little sips of tea. She had the time of her life, Laura said afterwards; really Lady Masters was wonderful; she sat there lapping it up as if Mrs. Worthy had been a lady-in-waiting telling her about royalty.
But at the time Laura was rather worried about Lady Masters. The party had begun well. Not only were the guests acquainted, but Lady Masters was obviously well disposed towards Mrs. Worthy. It was only later, when they had settled down, that Laura became aware that something was wrong.
If it had been anyone else one would have said that she was depressed, but Lady Masters had never been known to be depressed. She was a woman who appeared impervious to common ills, and her habit of simply ignoring disagreeable events made you feel that as far as she was concerned they did not exist. As the mistress of Endbury, the biggest house in the neighbourhood—for Cleeve Manor, which surpassed it, had stood empty for many years before Mr. Greenley’s arrival—she had become accustomed to take the lead wherever she went. She liked to direct the conversation, and would ruthlessly disregard or talk down any garrulous stranger who strayed from the chosen path. It was for this reason that Laura had felt so dubious about having Mrs. Worthy to tea on the same day.
Yet now she was positively glad of Mrs. Worthy’s presence. For Lady Masters was strangely silent. She did not want to talk; she was quite content to sit there and let Mrs. Worthy do the talking—a proceeding so unnatural that Laura wondered if she could be ill. But she looked in perfect health. Then she wondered if it could be Toby who was ill. But no, his mother would have mentioned it, and in any case her constant care for Toby’s health had never been known to interfere with her management of a tea party.
From wondering about Toby’s health Laura was led on to wondering if he had done
something to upset his mother. Since their talk together at Endbury she had known that Lady Masters was worried about Toby, and now, the more she looked at her, the more certain she felt that her silence, her unusual patience with Mrs. Worthy, were due simply to her being preoccupied with some problem which she could not ignore. It seemed to Laura that Toby was the only person who could create such a problem. Presently Mrs. Worthy, having completed the history of Curtis’s life, began to talk about her nephew Jocelyn, and then Laura noticed that Lady Masters showed a more positive interest, especially when Mrs. Worthy complained that Jocelyn had no sense of responsibility.
“Of course, he’s a dear boy. Curtis is very fond of him, and so am I. Curtis has done a great deal for him, as his father, Curtis’s brother Armitage, died when he was quite a baby—Jocelyn, I mean, not, of course, Armitage—and my sister-in-law was left badly off. So as I was saying, Curtis is quite prepared to help him to get a job. But Jocelyn will keep on changing his mind, really he doesn’t seem to care what he does, or whether he does anything at all.”
“Young people can be very difficult,” Lady Masters observed, and Laura thought she detected a note of genuine sympathy in this commonplace statement.
“Indeed they can.”
Mrs. Worthy was about to inquire after Toby Masters, then she thought better of it, for an inquiry at this moment might have seemed rather pointed.
“I have been meaning to ask your nephew over to Endbury,” said Lady Masters. “When I saw him at Box Cottage I told him I would telephone and arrange a time. I hope he has not thought me very remiss.”
It was difficult for Mrs. Worthy. To say yes would be impolite, to say no would imply that Jocelyn did not care whether he went to Endbury or not. She murmured something unintelligible.
“My son will be at home next week-end,” Lady Masters continued, “and I hope to have tennis. Perhaps your nephew can come then. Will you ask him to let me know? He can telephone in the morning, before eleven o’clock. I have a committee meeting in Bramworthy at half-past eleven.” Having thus avoided the expense of a telephone call, she turned to Laura and invited her and Gillian to join the tennis party.
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