“Now this coat,” said Mrs. Spender, buttoning it across her determined front, “and the suit, and the jumper, are all utility. Nothing cut to waste, as you see. It’s wonderful in the fourth year of a total war, whatever that means, to be able to get such good clothes, and believe it or not, the whole outfit only seven guineas. As the girl in the shop said, it’s just as if it had been made for me. Of course the coupons! But there now, we are all in it, and as I say every coupon spent is a nail in little friend Adolf’s coffin. And if you want hats, my dears, not little bits of rubbish but real hats, to stand up to anything, I’ll tell you though I wouldn’t tell just anyone, of a marvellous little woman in Northampton who can do absolutely anything. I got this hat from her, simply for nothing. I call it my victory hat. Now, Bobbie, we mustn’t dawdle.”
So saying she led her dejected husband from the room. “Thank God,” said Philip, “Mrs. Pollett keeps the dining-room clock seven minutes fast, otherwise we’d have her back on us. I must go back to work now. Would you care to walk a bit of the way with me and go home by Golden Valley? It would cheer the lonely traveller, but not unless you feel like it.”
Lydia said she wanted to go and see Mrs. Allen about the arrangements for Mr. Needham’s visit, but if Leslie went a little way with Philip they could meet at Copshot Bank, for she was by now well versed in the geography of the Priory estate and knew most of the local names.
So Philip and Leslie walked up the lane towards the Dower House, pleased to be together, yet with a feeling of constraint between them.
“I wish I were like Lydia,” said Leslie suddenly.
Philip, suppressing the obvious retort that he liked her as she was, asked why.
“I don’t know,” said Leslie, trying to think what she really meant. “I suppose it’s her largeness. How stupid that sounds.”
“I think I know what you mean,” said Philip. “Her bigness.”
Even as he said the words he felt how inadequate, nay downright silly they were, when suddenly Leslie began to laugh and he began to laugh too.
“We are a couple of sillies,” said Philip. “We can’t even talk English intelligently.”
“Never mind,” said Leslie. “It is such fun to laugh. I haven’t laughed properly for ages.”
“Yes, you have,” said Philip. “You laughed that evening we walked back from Mrs. Allen and I enjoyed it more than I can tell you. Do go on. It suits you.”
“You laughed too,” said Leslie, not looking at him. “This is where I turn off for Copshot Bank.”
“Never mind Copshot Bank for a moment,” said Philip. “I was as usual rather priggish about a sense of humour at lunch. I apologize. I haven’t an ounce myself, except the schoolmaster kind, but you have a quite enchanting brand of it. I would like to laugh with you a great, great deal.”
“What I was thinking,” said Leslie, still looking away from him, “was that Lydia was quite right about the clever disillusioned people I know.”
“If it made you unhappy, I wish to goodness she hadn’t meddled,” said Philip, for the first time in his life feeling critical of his Lydia.
“Not unhappy,” said Leslie. “Just wishing one could ever get out of being oneself. One does get so sick of it.”
Philip nearly said, “None of us can,” but checked himself at the fatuity of the words.
“Oh, damn,” he exploded suddenly, “what’s the good of a sense of humour or anything else if it makes one so self-conscious that one can’t think or speak? I like you exactly as you are and that’s all. I don’t seem able to express myself very well.”
Leslie at last looked at him, pleased, yet a little alarmed.
“And now I have put you off again,” said Philip, allowing himself to fall into such a fit of rage as he thought he had conquered long ago. “There you sit, like a bird in a bush, looking out at the world, and if one tries to please you, back you go again into your hole,” said Philip, with a fine disregard for natural history. “I’m sorry.”
Leslie, with a pleasurable sense of suffocation, looked at him in an interested way.
“Well then, I’m not sorry,” said Philip. “At least I am.”
What fun it would be, thought part of Leslie, to goad Colonel Winter and see what he would do. But the other part, which usually had the upper hand, said that was not the way ladies behaved. So both parts combined to be perfectly tongue-tied and stupid.
“Are you sure you know your way back?” said Philip, with what appeared to him to be courteous though icy detachment.
“Oh yes,” said Leslie, in a voice which was meant to express “Ah, do not so reject me,” but came out like “Of course I do, you great fool,” “and thank you so much for the lunch party,” she added, thus causing Philip to feel that he had been given his dismissal.
“Oh, well, good-bye,” said Philip.
Someone had to move first, thought Leslie in desperation, so she set her face towards Copshot Bank. Philip strode back to the Dower House and plunged into his work, so well concealing his feelings that Corporal Jackson said to Private Moss that His Nibs was in a fine old paddy.
Leslie walked towards Copshot Bank in a heartfree manner whose outward semblance was a violent pace and absent looks. Suddenly she stopped dead. Colonel Winter had been quite right; to walk very fast was not good for her at the moment. Not that she wished to pay any attention to what Colonel Winter—oh well, Philip then—said, but if a person, even if you didn’t like them very much, happened to say something sensible, the fact of not liking them needn’t mean that you need disregard their sensible suggestion. So she walked on at a reasonable pace and presently got to Copshot Bank where she found Lydia, and the two ladies went away down Golden Valley.
Lydia was quite satisfied with her visit to Nannie Allen, who was now all eagerness for her new lodger.
“We had a lovely time settling where Tommy’s bed was to go,” said Lydia. “I thought sticking out from the wall opposite the fireplace where he’d get some light from the window if he stays in bed a bit and wants to read, but Nannie said it ought to be along the inside wall so that he could knock in the night if he wanted anything.”
“I’m almost sorry for your Mr. Needham,” said Leslie. “If Nannie takes a real liking to him, she is quite capable of killing him with kindness. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if she brought him a bottle at six in the morning. I’m always expecting her to give me a doll on my birthday.”
“Our old Nannie’s a bit like that,” said Lydia. “We had a splendid talk about a text to put up in his room too. Nannie had a lovely Gothic one about the everlasting arms, but we thought it would be a bit discouraging for Tommy, so she is going to look out a safe one. Did you and Philip have a nice walk?”
Leslie said very nice, adding offhandedly that it would be very nice if Lydia rang him up and asked him to dinner again soon.
“You ring up,” said Lydia. “He likes you awfully.”
They were now approaching Jasper’s cottage. Though nothing was in leaf or bud, for that would be unreasonable in January, the open weather had, as usual, deluded the birds into thinking it was spring and a very ignorant, carefree noise of warbling, twittering, shrilling, billing and cooing arose from the neighbouring bushes.
“And a primrose,” said Leslie in disgust, stooping to a bank.
“And catkins,” said Lydia with equal scorn. “Well, they’ll find what time of year it really is before long. What’s Jasper doing?”
“He must have gone mad too. It looks like spring-cleaning,” said Leslie. “Let’s go and see.”
It was not so much a spring-cleaning, so Leslie afterwards said to Noel, as a defenestration. The untidy grass plot before the house was strewn with wooden chairs, rag hearthrugs, two iron kettles and an iron crock, a broom, a jug, and various other household articles. From one of the upper windows hung a patchwork counterpane for which collectors would have given large sums, and Jasper was in the act of arranging a pillow and a bolster on the sill of the other
. On seeing visitors he disappeared from the window and came out to meet them.
“Good afternoon, Jasper,” said Leslie. “What are you doing?”
Jasper said Having a turn-out.
“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” said the practical Lydia. “I mean you’ll be having fires for ages and everything will get dirty again.”
“That’s naught to go by,” said Jasper. “You need a fire all the year round in this old cottage.”
“Jasper’s fire hasn’t gone out for years and years,” said Leslie. “It’s unlucky.”
“That’s right, Miss Leslie,” said Jasper. “Thirty years I’ve been in this old cottage and thirty years that old fire’s been burning. No, miss, I’m having a turn-out. Makes the old cottage clean like.”
As Jasper had never been known to turn the cottage out, though always keeping it clean enough, Leslie came to the conclusion that he had gone mad. Not that this mattered, for she was perfectly sure that no amount of madness would affect his competence as a keeper. After a little talk Leslie said they must get back to the Priory.
“Oh, Mr. Margett,” said Lydia, fumbling in her coat pocket, “I didn’t forget about the button, but my sister took ages to find it. Here it is.”
“That’ll do nicely for granny, that old button will,” said Jasper, looking with satisfaction at it. “Thank you, miss. That’ll learn the old lady.”
His visitors turned to go, but Jasper, his face more inscrutable than usual, stopped them.
“If it isn’t a trouble, Miss Leslie,” he said, “will you tell that old Silleena that I’m turning granny’s old mattress, and the goose feathers are nice and soft.”
He looked at her with his sideways gipsy look and went back into his cottage.
The ladies walked on in silence till they were out of earshot.
“Cold Comfort Farm,” said Lydia in awestruck tones.
“I know,” said Leslie. “I was waiting for him to talk about the liddle button. What do you think his message to Selina means? It sounded like a proposal.”
“It did, awfully,” said Lydia. “Do you think we ought to give it?”
“I suppose we’d better,” said Leslie. “If Jasper found out I hadn’t, he wouldn’t trust me again. But I do hope Selina isn’t going to marry him. It’s a dreadful cottage and a frightful situation apart from being so incredibly picturesque. I’ll try to catch Selina when we get back.”
Accordingly, the ladies went round by the stable yard and in by the kitchen passage. Leslie looked into the kitchen where Cook and Baker and Selina were having tea. Selina looked up, and Leslie saw that she was in floods of tears.
“What is the matter, Selina?” said Leslie.
Selina tried to speak, but sorrow choked her.
“It’s Private Jenks, miss,” said Cook. “Such a nice young fellow, too.”
“What’s happened?” said Lydia, envisaging Private Jenks dying suddenly in great torment because the Barchester General had not a vacancy for him, and wondering at the same time how she could help.
“He’s gone off to Barchester in the ambulance, miss,” said Baker. “Cook was just passing the remark he was in here only yesterday. It seems as if it was meant.”
“Stop crying, Selina, and tell me what’s the matter,” said Leslie in her best lady-of-the-manor voice. “Was Private Jenks taken ill?”
Selina obediently stopped crying and wiped her dewy eyes, which beamed with undiminished lustre from her enchanting, unravaged face.
“Oh no, Miss Leslie,” she said. “He was ever so well and that’s why it seems so dreadful him being taken in the ambulance. They say if a healthy man or woman rides in an ambulance it’s a certain sign of death.”
This interesting piece of folklore struck Leslie and Lydia with amazement, but Leslie, who had all Sir Harry’s parental feelings towards anyone on the estate, whether an old inhabitant or a stranger within the convalescent hospital gates, pressed for particulars, and managed to extract from Selina that Private Jenks was in excellent spirits and was only taken in the ambulance because there was now a vacancy in Barchester General, and the ambulance was going there in any case.
“And there was ever such a nice orderly with the ambulance, Miss Leslie,” said Selina, “and him and Private Jenks were going to play poker all the way. I was so upset.”
“Well, that’s all right,” said Leslie with professional cheerfulness. “Oh, Selina, Jasper sent you a message. He says he is turning his old grannie’s mattress and the goose feathers are nice and soft.”
Feeling that this would be a good corrective to any emotion about Private Jenks, Leslie left the kitchen with Lydia, followed by a sound of laughing and expostulation.
“I rather wish Selina would get settled,” said Leslie, with the estate-office manner that Lydia found very becoming to her. “It doesn’t seem to affect her work, but Matron has nearly complained, because the men are always round the back door. Of course if she can’t control them, we can’t, and Sergeant Hopkins who is supposed to be in charge is as bad as any of them. But not Jasper. It wouldn’t do at all.”
Sir Harry got home by the 5.10, so was able to talk to his family at leisure for once. When we say family, he now counted the Mertons, Lydia in especial, as part of his own circle. One of his pleasures was to hear any local gossip that had trickled in or been collected, and the story of Jasper’s spring-cleaning and his message to Selina amused him very much.
“But it would never do,” he said, becoming serious. “For one thing, he’s too old for her. Besides, the cottage suits him very well, but it wouldn’t do for married quarters and I can’t think of another free, or likely to be free for years.”
“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” said Lady Waring. “I will speak to Nannie. I am quite sure she wouldn’t approve of anything of the sort for Selina.”
“I’m not worrying, my dear,” said Sir Harry, “but I’ve known Jasper all his life and most of mine and I must look after him.”
“I thought it was about Selina you were worrying,” said his wife.
“I leave that to you, my dear,” said Sir Harry. “Selina is too attractive. A wife that has every man on the place round her all the time is no wife for Jasper. He’d probably kill her, and that wouldn’t suit me at all. By the way, I had a talk with Beedle this afternoon. There’s trouble at the station, I’m sorry to say. Money has been taken from his office; not much, but bits here and there. It has never happened before and Beedle is very much upset.”
Leslie suddenly laughed.
“I am so sorry, Uncle Harry,” she said, “but it made me think of Selina.”
“You are an impertinent young woman,” said Sir Harry, looking at his niece over his spectacles, “but it’s good to hear you laugh. Shows you’re really on the mend.”
“This is very uncomfortable, Harry,” said his wife, who was also pleased to see Leslie amused but did not comment on it. “Has Mr. Beedle any idea who it is?”
“I’m sorry to say he has,” said Sir Harry. “When I say sorry, it’s a local man I’m afraid. A man called Morple who was at Melicent Halt. His mother was a Margett. He got mixed up with some very undesirable people from London, the gang who were concerned in all that damage at the station, and Beedle thinks he has been betting with them. He is very distressed—no, Leslie, not upset—and can’t quite make up his mind what to do, and what’s more, Morple has had his calling-up papers and may have to go any day now. Beedle doesn’t want the police in the station, but of course he can’t let it go on. And he worries about their boy in Germany. I’m sorry for Beedle.”
Lydia also felt sorry for Mr. Beedle and thought of the morning he and his wife had been so kind to her. She was not given to imaginings, but she suddenly saw Winter Overcotes station as an island in the middle of a sea of darkness which was lapping at its walls, and the suspected Morple as a traitor within the gates.
For a time there was a comfortable silence, only gently disturbed by the little noise of Lady Waring’s
writing and her papers, the rustle of Sir Harry’s Times, the regular click of Lydia’s and Leslie’s knitting-needles. Leslie, not too tired by her walk, indeed just pleasantly tired, sank into a reverie in which the conversation between herself and Philip was directed by her into a more soothing form than it had taken that afternoon. But although she recast it more than once, she could never quite bring it to the ending she wished. Indeed what end she did want she did not quite know. All she did know was that she felt it would be very nice to have Colonel Winter to dinner again soon. She knew her uncle and aunt would be delighted to have him, she knew Lydia was very fond of him, she knew that any suggestion coming from her would be well received, but every time she took a breath to mention it, something corked up her throat, the breath all went back to wherever it came from, and the whole thing had to be begun again.
The sound of the telephone made Sir Harry grunt angrily. Selina appeared.
“It’s Dr. Ford, Sir Harry,” she said. “He says could you speak to him, please.”
Sir Harry, who knew that Dr. Ford never rang up unless he had something to say, heaved himself up and went into the hall. He was not long absent and came back with a face of portentous gloom. Lady Waring laid down her pen in resignation. Her darling husband took such a genuine pleasure in bad news, or rather in imparting it, for his kindness to anyone in trouble was unbounded, that even his wife could not always guess whether their best friend had been killed, or a very old gentleman of no particular distinction, whom Sir Harry had once met at a public dinner had passed peacefully away, regretted by no one, aged ninety-seven.
“Well, Harry, what is it?” said Lady Waring with her unalterable patience.
“That was Ford ringing up,” said Sir Harry, determined to enjoy himself in his own way.
There was a respectful silence, but as the oracle vouchsafed no further information Lady Waring inquired what he had to say.
“These things always come as a shock to one,” said Sir Harry, settling himself comfortably in his chair again, with the kind of expression King Henry I may have shown on hearing of the loss of the White Ship.
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