Mrs. Watson was dead now; Aunt Bessie remained, crippled with arthritis, and Laura’s powers of circumvention had diminished with the years. In their place, however, a crust of obstinacy—remarkably similar to her father’s—was beginning to harden. It never occurred to Laura that a plain statement of her own intentions would be accepted with acquiescence by Mr. Watson. That was too simple; besides she was too deeply imbued with the tradition of appeasing the old man. It was the same game of give and take, with Laura doing most of the giving, although the balance of power was beginning to shift imperceptibly as Mr. Watson’s physical faculties weakened with age.
“Father, I thought I’d ask Geraldine Hall to come down for Whitsun weekend,” she said casually.
“Why?”
“She’s been ill and the change would do her good. You remember, you liked her the last time she came.”
“What, that short-haired creature who was always strumming on the piano? Can’t think what you see in her, Laura.”
“She was my group commander in Scotland. She was always very nice to me and I like her a lot.”
“Group commander! What a lot of nonsense you women got up to during the war. I can’t think how the army got along at all with a pack of women dressing themselves up as soldiers, strutting about giving orders and poking their noses into a lot of matters that didn’t concern them,” he grumbled familiarly.
Laura took no notice. She knew he did it to annoy her. When she had first left the A.T.S. she would flare up at her father’s derogatory remarks about women in uniform; on one occasion she had even burst into tears. But gradually she had learned to recognize the malicious glint in his eyes which preceded such remarks as ‘to think that I should have sired a female captain, I’m ashamed of myself,’ and so now she kept silent.
She began to clear away the tea things.
“Where’s Ethel?” Mr. Watson asked.
“It’s her afternoon off, father.”
“I’ve never known it not be.”
“Only Wednesdays and Sundays.”
“Hmm.” He folded The Times up neatly and tucked it under his arm as he got up. “I shall be in the dining room if you want me; I’ve got some indexing to do.”
“Don’t forget your magnifying glass, father.”
“I don’t need it for indexing, child, I’m not blind yet. It’s a pity you don’t take more interest in philately,” he had reached the door, “then you could be of some assistance to me,” he closed it swiftly behind him. The next moment he was back again.
“Laura, I thought your Aunt Bessie was coming for Whitsun. Had you forgotten?”
Laura had not forgotten. She never forgot things like visits and birthdays and anniversaries of weddings and funerals.
“She wasn’t certain it would be warm enough for her to travel, father. In any case, Geraldine can have my room and I’ll sleep on the bed in the attic,” she replied gently.
“Then Ethel will certainly give notice.” This time he closed the door with a little slam and Laura heard him shuffling across the hall to the dining-room and his stamps.
She continued to clear and then she washed up and put the tea things carefully away. After that she laid a tray with the cutlery and plates for a cold supper and opened a tin of tomato soup which could be heated later. All the time her thoughts were busy with the dress she’d buy before the cocktail party. Helen Townsend would advise her about it. Should she try Beattie’s in Dimstone or would it be better to run up to town for an afternoon and go to Harrods? It would have to be bought immediately in case there were any alterations needed. As a rule she could walk into ready-made stock sizes, but now that she was beginning to put on weight round the hips, what fitted on the shoulders might need adjusting lower down.
There was nothing further to do in the kitchen and so she wandered up to her bedroom. She felt restless and impatient, as though something exciting were going to happen at any moment. Only nothing exciting ever did occur. It would be fun, of course, to go to a cocktail party in London, but there was nothing lasting about that sort of stimulation.
She leaned out of the open window and drew in breaths of cool spring air, but it only seemed to titivate the tingle of suppressed anticipation coursing through her body. Tomorrow she would really get down to doing something about the weeds in the garden. Also she must dig up that bed at the far end where she wanted to sow some annuals. And hoe the front paths. It would be good to get into old clothes and feel the physical benefit of a hard morning’s work. Satisfying and soothing in this sort of weather.
Before the war there had always been parties in and around Kirton: Christmas balls, coming-out dances, tennis tournaments and cricket weeks. In the army there’d been concerts and dances and film shows galore. It seemed as if peace had suddenly found people too hard-pressed, too preoccupied to burden themselves with entertainment. Maybe this summer they would start up with tennis and a garden party again at the Manor.
All around her Laura’s room lay neat and spotless, with her mother’s ivory-backed dressing table set laid out symmetrically and the leather covered sewing box which had been Aunt Bessie’s present when Laura joined up as a recruit in the A.T.S. On the writing table was the blotter given to her by her company when she was demobilized—against army regulations, of course, but a pleasing souvenir of a happy, carefree period of her life. And then photographs all around, on the walls and dressing table and chest of drawers. Large, silver-framed ones of her parents; one of Helen Townsend in uniform, wearing a side cap at a becoming angle; Geraldine Hall in a British warm; a shiny, press print of Laura and a bunch of service-women on the steps of the Town Hall at Croydon, taken during a recruiting rally. Lots more, too, but carefully pasted into the bound photograph albums on the bookshelf. Whenever she felt really depressed, Laura would turn to the albums for solace, forgetting for a while the dullness of peace. There was so much that was good to remember.
The front door bell rang and she hurried to answer it before it disturbed her father. It was Daphne Zarek.
“Hello, Laura. Helen asked me to drop these books in on you on my way past.”
“Thanks, Daphne. Won’t you come in?” Then seeing the doubtful look on Daphne’s face, she added: “Father’s doing his stamps in the dining-room, so I’m on my own.”
Daphne accepted, without grace. She didn’t care much for Laura Watson but on the other hand she had nothing else to do. She looked round the white paintwork and glossy chintzes of the Watson drawing-room.
“What a light room this is, Laura. At home everywhere’s like a coal hole unless you keep the lights blazing.”
“But the Manor’s so lovely, Daphne, with all its panelling.”
“You should try living in it. We either have to huddle round the only coal fire for warmth—which means endless family discussions—or else pay the price of privacy which entails freezing and a probable cold in the head. I can’t think why father doesn’t sell the damn place; it’s far too large for us now Peter and Brian have taken themselves off, and in any case we can’t afford to live in it. The family’s bank balance has to be looked at through a magnifying glass to be seen at all.”
“How is Peter?” Laura asked because she was embarrassed at Daphne’s reference to the Gurneys’ finances. Laura was always uncomfortable when money was mentioned, and would blush dull red if people discussed the price of anything they’d bought.
“Peter? All right as far as we know. We understand he’s living in sin with Angela Worthing. Mother takes the dimmest view of the whole proceedings.” Daphne laughed suddenly.
“And Brian?” Laura hurried on, disliking the conversation more and more.
“Leading a blameless life, we hope; advertising tooth-pastes or something. He writes occasionally. Peter never does unless he’s broke. Mind you, I couldn’t agree more with my brothers. I don’t believe in children living in the same house as their parents once they’re grown up. It’s completely stultifying. But then I have no alternative at present. H
aving been brought up and educated in the arts of leisure only, I am incapable of earning a living for myself or my son. Or am I just plain lazy?” She smiled rather bitterly.
Laura said:
“You’re not lazy, Daphne. Look at the way you make all Ian’s clothes and look after him entirely yourself.”
“Yes, dear, but nobody’s going to pay me for doing that, and only my parents are willing to keep me! Too bad, isn’t it? Oh well, I suppose things might be worse. At least I don’t have to work in a factory.”
“Did you hate it so much?”
“I loathed it and the more I got used to it the worse it seemed to be. You see, I don’t like my own sex when they’re in great numbers. I hate endless stories about other people’s boy friends and I don’t understand politics or trade unions; my taste in film stars and dance music is apparently quite different from that of my contemporaries; I can’t jitterbug and I don’t like eating in canteens. I was probably the most unpopular girl in the school!”
“You might have liked it better in one of the services.”
“Never. At least my clothes were individual even when they dropped to pieces. And when I’d finished for the day, the night was mine. A few crumbs of freedom.”
“I always felt completely free in the A.T.S.”
“But then you liked the life, that’s the difference. I didn’t. As a war worker I was a wash-out. I’ll admit I never felt the slightest urge to serve my country or do noble deeds or die winning the George Medal, or any other of the patriotic reactions most people seem to have experienced, even if it was only for a brief moment. I was just angry at having my life interrupted—and frightened, scared pink at the idea of air raids. I hate war,” she added vehemently.
“So does everyone,” Laura said.
“Oh no, they didn’t. Why, you yourself didn’t really; nor did Peter, he worshipped those silly ships he was on; and Brian really rather enjoyed being in the army. So did Gyp Townsend. Oh, lots of people enjoyed their war—or at least they were interested in it. I loathed it. It just snatched six years away from me.”
“You’re not the only one, Daphne,” Laura replied dryly.
“No, I know. But that doesn’t make it any better. And there is a differentiation in the particular six years snatched. If you’re a kid at school or an old person, it can’t matter in the same way. But six years in the middle of your twenties is pretty grim. Six years at a time when you’re old enough and yet still young enough to enjoy every scrap of life. It amounts to losing your youth. After all, I started this war as a comparative adolescent and I end it practically middle-aged. What a thought!”
Laura thought: ‘You are almost the most selfish person I have ever listened to,’ and then she remembered that Daphne Zarek had lost more than six years, she’d lost her husband too. They’d only been married a few months before he was killed; Ian was born after his father’s death—and all this had happened less than two years ago. You couldn’t really judge Daphne by the way she talked. Or could you? It was the same story almost as Mary Cross’s in the last war. Laura wondered whether she too had talked this way in 1919. Somehow it didn’t sound like Mary Cross.
“What are you thinking about, Laura?”
“Mary Cross.”
“Oh, are you going to their party on the twenty-fifth? I see you have the invitation on your mantelpiece.”
“Yes, I shall go. Father isn’t accepting. Are you going?”
“I expect so. The parents want to go too. God knows why. It’ll be the usual hideous scramble to get the last train back here afterwards. Still, I suppose it will give us all something to talk about afterwards. Do you like Michael Cross?”
“I like them both very much. Why?”
“I just wondered. Michael always strikes me as such a pansy sort of man. I expect him to burst into corduroy trousers or side-whiskers or something fantastic at any moment. He’s too mothered, I suppose.”
“He’s very gentle, if that’s what you mean.”
“Not my cup of tea, but then I don’t suppose I’m his! Which is probably just as well. I imagine Mrs. Cross can be pretty viperish to anyone who casts soft eyes at her beloved son.”
Laura was rather shocked. Daphne had a strange way of suddenly revealing things to you in a new light. Not that she believed a word Daphne said, but it was disconcerting to have your ideas about people unsettled.
Daphne went on:
“Come down to the Cock and Pheasant with me, Laura. I’ve got to fetch a bottle of sherry for father. His wine society haven’t functioned this month or something. I hate going into a pub on my own,” she added, surprisingly.
Laura didn’t want to go out, but it seemed unfriendly not to walk down with Daphne.
“I can’t stay long, Daphne. It’s Ethel’s evening off and I’ve got to get supper for father.”
“And I have got to go back in time to tuck Ian up for the night. What a pair we are, Laura; two old ladies tied to their dependants; full of good works and bad memories. Come on.”
“You make us sound about a hundred,” Laura laughed.
“I feel about two hundred, and old for my age at that. Where are you going?”
“To tell father I’ll be back before seven.”
“Oh.”
Walking through the pale evening light, there was a feeling of frost in the air, spring frost and mist. Daphne said:
“We used to have fun here before the war, didn’t we, Laura?”
“I suppose we did,” Laura was unwilling to admit to a thought she had so recently had herself. Particularly in front of Daphne.
“Life was gay and exciting,” Daphne went on, “people were gay. It’s all changed now and it can never come back. I feel like the dregs of another existence, only someone’s forgotten to pull the plug on me. Everyone lives seriously now; life is so beastly and earnest. It’s worse in a place like Kirton somehow, because of old ghosts. If it weren’t for Ian I’d go crazy. I mean that, Laura.”
Laura, who loved Kirton, said nothing.
The Cock and Pheasant had only just opened. Farm workers were beginning to straggle into the public bar, and one or two of the tradespeople had already ordered their pints in the saloon. Dick and Elsie Cobb were working the bars between them.
Laura noticed a man and woman drinking sherry in a corner and their faces were strange to her, but Daphne said good evening as she passed them.
“Shall we have a drink first, Laura?” she asked. “I’d rather wait until Mrs. Cobb comes down before tackling father’s sherry. Dick and his wife give me the willies.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She always seems to be pregnant and he has that funny look in his eye when he just stares at you and says nothing. Quite terrifying.”
Laura felt hot with indignation, but somehow she could never argue with Daphne whose thoughts were frothy and who forgot what she had said the moment she had spoken.
They ordered gins and lime and took them over to a corner table. Daphne said:
“Did you notice those people I said good evening to when we came in?”
“Yes, who are they? I haven’t seen them before.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Price. They’ve taken the cottage next to the Cross’s. She’s a bitch, but he’s rather an angel, full of charm and a good sense of humour. She pretends to be ill all the time. I met him in here the other evening and we let our back hair down over a few drinks.”
Laura was startled by the expression on Daphne’s face. She thought, ‘she looks positively lecherous,’ and then she wondered how it was that Daphne had met Mr. Price here, when she said she hated going into pubs on her own. Perhaps it was no casual encounter after all. Then she dismissed the subject as being no concern of hers, but she said:
“Was he in the services?”
“Laura, you’re impossible. Services, services, army, army. Don’t you ever think of anything else? No, as a matter of fact he wasn’t. He’s got some business in London. May be the Black Market, f
or all I know! I couldn’t care less. Ah, here’s Mrs. Cobb. I’ll do my stuff about the sherry.”
Maggie Cobb and her husband had come out from their back parlour. John was talking to his daughter-in-law, and Maggie looked round the bars. When she saw Laura and Daphne in the corner, she came across to them.
“Good evening, Mrs. Zarek; good evening, Miss Watson. It’s been another lovely day, hasn’t it? No doubt we shall pay for it over Whitsun. And how is Master Ian, Mrs. Zarek?”
“He’s fine, thank you. It’s father who’s not so good!” Daphne grimaced.
“Sir James? I hope it’s nothing serious?” Maggie Cobb’s eyes showed quick concern.
Daphne laughed.
“He’s not ill, Mrs. Cobb; just thirsty. His wine society have forgotten to put in his quota of sherry this time and we’ve got people coming to dinner tomorrow night. I suppose you couldn’t spare us a bottle from the Cock and Pheasant, could you?”
Maggie’s face clouded over. It wasn’t so much that Sir James owed for some gin and whisky he’d ordered last Christmas—after all, the Gurneys were gentry and they always paid in the long run—but supplies were still meagre. Still, she supposed John could manage just one bottle for the Manor. She mustn’t let Dick hear her asking Dad. Ever so rude he’d been last time they’d mentioned the Gurneys up at the Manor. He still got those turns from his head wound. She leaned forward across the table and spoke in a low voice:
“Well, I think Mr. Cobb might manage one for Sir James. You won’t mind if I put it in one of my shopping bags for you? With stocks so low it isn’t everyone we can oblige, and people do talk so.”
“I don’t care if it’s disguised in a diaper, Mrs. Cobb. You’re an angel. Could we have a couple more gin and limes too, please?”
Laura didn’t want another drink, but Mrs. Cobb had moved off to get the order.
“I really ought to be going, Daphne,” she said, weakly.
Wine of Honour Page 17