The Brandons: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘My father was a clergyman,’ said Miss Morris violently.

  Mrs Brandon, recognising from long experience the voice of one who was determined to confess, was torn between a wish not to receive Miss Morris’s confidences and the natural lazy kindness that made her so good a listener. Her kindness got the upper hand and she suggested that they should take a little stroll among the beeches. For a few moments they walked in silence, and then Miss Morris said,

  ‘He took pupils. Mr Miller came to him a good many years ago, before he got his theological degree. My father liked him very much and spoke highly of his gifts, but he was horrified to find in him a strong tendency to the doctrines of Rome.’

  ‘Like Cardinal Newman,’ said Mrs Brandon sympathetically.

  ‘Thank God he did not go so far. But it caused the deepest grief to my father, and I am afraid high words passed between them. Mr Miller left us very suddenly and my father never mentioned his name again. I have often thought of him,’ said Miss Morris simply, ‘and prayed that he might be forgiven for the grief he gave my dear father. I didn’t know he was Vicar here, and when I met him and found that he had not changed his ways of belief I thought of my father and lost my self-control. I am very, very sorry.’

  Mrs Brandon’s mind was by now such a jumble of pity, mild curiosity about the Reverend Mr Morris, and a private feeling that it was all a fuss about nothing, that she could find nothing better to say than, ‘I am so sorry,’ but Miss Morris seemed comforted by these words, and much to Mrs Brandon’s relief did not, as most women would have done, burst out into a great flood of confidences. Mrs Brandon asked her a little about her father. The Reverend Justin Morris, even as described by his daughter in whose eyes he was perfect, seemed to have combined in himself all the less agreeable qualities of the fanatic, the priest, and the parent. Mrs Brandon gathered from her companion’s artless words that Mr Morris had worked his wife to death and done his best to kill his daughter. For the last years of his life he had been almost blind and Miss Morris had acted as working housekeeper, sometimes with a village girl to help her, sometimes alone, secretary, nurse, and companion, reading aloud to him far into the night. On his death it was found that he had sunk the whole of his little fortune in an annuity, and Miss Morris had been thankful to get, through the interest of various old pupils, for he had been an excellent theological scholar and coach for those whose beliefs were like his own, a position as companion to one elderly lady after another. Her practical sense and her almost entire self-effacement had made her invaluable to her employers, and when she had worn herself out in tending one old lady, another was always waiting to snap her up after the funeral. Her present position with Miss Brandon was, she said, far happier than any she had yet held, and to read aloud to her employer till one and two in the morning was no more than she had done for her father.

  ‘And it is so pleasant to see young people from time to time,’ said Miss Morris. ‘I can’t tell you how much good your visit with your children did me, and having Mr Grant for the night. And then your kindness in getting Miss Brandon to let me come to the picnic today. I have so much to be thankful for, and I do hope you will forget my disgraceful show of temper though I shan’t.’

  Mrs Brandon, saying vague reassuring things in her pleasant voice, led Miss Morris gradually back to the picnic. Dr Ford seemed to have been looking for them, for as soon as he caught sight of them he got up and came in their direction.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you this in public, Miss Morris,’ he said, ‘but I looked in at the Abbey this afternoon and found Miss Brandon convinced that she was going to die. She has had a good row with Sparks, but it isn’t half so much fun bullying a maid as it is bullying a lady. I don’t think there is any danger, but she is quite capable of working herself into a fit, which wouldn’t do her heart any good, so I said I would bring you home if I could find you. When I left,’ said Dr Ford with grim relish, ‘Miss Brandon had the head housemaid, who was scared stiff, to sit by her, and Sparks was having hysterics in the housekeeper’s room. You are a marvel, Miss Morris, to stand that lunatic asylum.’

  ‘Then I suppose I’d better go back,’ said Miss Morris, with no sign of regret for cutting her holiday so short. ‘But what about the car? You’ll need it to go home, Mrs Brandon.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Dr Ford. ‘Sparks told me all about the car, and I told Miss Brandon she couldn’t have you and the car as well. Hooper is to take Mrs Brandon home and I’ll run you back to the Abbey in my car whenever you like.’

  Miss Morris thanked him and said she would go at once if it suited him. She then said goodbye to such guests as were still on the picnic ground and was just going to thank Mrs Brandon for her treat when Mrs Grant came up.

  ‘Do I hear,’ said Mrs Grant, ‘that Miss Brandon is ill?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Dr Ford. ‘Only temper.’

  ‘I feel it is my duty to see her,’ said Mrs Grant, eyeing Dr Ford suspiciously. ‘I may not be down here long, and as my husband was one of her nearest relations I certainly ought to pay her a visit. If you are going back, Miss Morris, I will come with you.’

  Miss Morris said quietly that she was afraid Miss Brandon could see no one just at present, but if Mrs Grant would write, Miss Brandon would be glad to hear from her. Mrs Grant, who evidently suspected Miss Morris of spending all her time making her employer alter her will in her favour, uttered a Calabrian exclamation of annoyance, whose tone was singularly like that of a similar English exclamation. Just as Dr Ford was starting up his disgraceful little car, Tony Morland appeared.

  ‘Oh, goodbye, Miss Morris,’ he said. ‘If I write you a letter will you answer it? Most of my friends are awfully bad at answering letters. I have about seven letters not answered this week. I simply shan’t write to them if they don’t answer.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ said Miss Morris. ‘I always answer letters by return of post and I love getting them.’

  An expression of mystic satisfaction spread over Tony’s face. He made a vague suggestion of a courtly bow somewhere in Miss Morris’s direction, returned to Hooper, who said he wouldn’t be in Miss Morris’s shoes for something, and took up his exposition of European history from 1848, the point at which he had been interrupted by tea, but barely had he outlined to Hooper the downfall of Metter-nich when a summons came for the car. The younger members had suddenly recollected a cocktail party on the other side of Barchester and were anxious to be off, and the grown-ups were quite ready to go home. After a tremendous amount of arguing and organising Francis and Delia went off in Francis’s car with their friends, taking Mr Grant with them. Mrs Brandon and Mrs Grant were to return in Miss Brandon’s car, leaving Mr Miller to drive home by himself.

  ‘Could I come round and see you before dinner?’ said Mr Miller urgently to Mrs Brandon as she was getting into the car. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, the parsnip wine has been in the sun and the cork has blown out. So has the dandelion wine,’ he added, gazing helplessly at the wreckage.

  Mrs Brandon saw more confidences ahead, but was too kind to say no, though she felt the beginnings of a headache, which Mrs Grant’s ceaseless conversation on the way back did not improve. At the Cow and Sickle she deposited Mrs Grant, promising to make an arrangement to meet again soon, and was thankful to find Rose in an excellent temper.

  ‘My bath at once, please, Rose,’ she said, ‘and Mr Miller is coming to see me before dinner, so you might put the sherry out. Mr Francis and Miss Delia have gone to a cocktail party so they’ll probably be late.’

  When Mr Miller arrived he found his hostess, robed in filmy black, lying back in the most comfortable armchair, her feet on a low pouf.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t get up,’ she said, giving him her hand. ‘I’m really rather tired after such a long day and so many people.’

  If this was a hint Mr Miller was determined, in spite of his deep admiration, not to take it.

  ‘It is indeed thoughtless of me to intrude my own affairs upon you,�
�� he said, sitting down near her, ‘but you are kindness itself and I know you will forgive me.’

  Instead of throwing the ink at him and saying she had a headache, as she would dearly like to have done, Mrs Brandon said of course she would, and could she help him at all. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence that Mr Miller was bursting to say something, but hadn’t the faintest idea how to begin, and he maundered on about the beauty of the flowers in the drawing-room till Mrs Brandon felt someone more competent must take the matter in hand.

  ‘The flowers came from Brandon Abbey,’ she said. ‘Miss Morris brought them over this morning. What a very nice person she is. My children like her very much and so does Hilary, and Tony Morland took to her at once.’

  Mr Miller said she was a lady for whom he had a very deep respect and then lost his voice and his wits.

  ‘She seems to have had a very difficult father,’ said Mrs Brandon, wondering if she would have to ask Mr Miller to stay to dinner.

  ‘I do not wish to speak ill of any minister of the gospel,’ said Mr Miller, who evidently did, ‘but Mr Morris, in narrowness, bitterness and entire want of charity, was as near a Personal Devil as any man I have known.’

  ‘Miss Morris seems to have been very fond of him,’ said Mrs Brandon, her kind heart compelling her to stand up for the absent.

  ‘Miss Morris has a very fine sense of duty,’ said Mr Miller, ‘but I was for some time an inmate of the family, as a pupil of Mr Morris, and can speak with authority on what I saw. I doubt whether even the present Bishop of Barchester would have tolerated his views on church discipline. Miss Morris naturally – whether rightly or not it is hardly for me to say – took her father’s side, and there was an unhappy but unavoidable breach.’

  Mrs Brandon, who knew that the Bishop was very Low Church, began dimly to apprehend that what she had romantically hoped to be an old romance between Mr Miller and Miss Morris was only a squabble about doctrine, but wisely kept this regrettable point of view to herself.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ she said. ‘It is so uncomfortable when one’s friends don’t like each other.’

  ‘Pray, pray, dear lady, do not mistake me,’ cried Mr Miller. ‘It is not that I dislike Miss Morris, for whom, as I said, I have a very deep respect, but to judge from what passed at the picnic today, she evidently still dislikes and misjudges me. I cannot tell you how sorry I am that so ungracious an incident should have marred our delightful outing. If any of the fault was mine I apologise most sincerely.’

  Mrs Brandon assured Mr Miller that no one had blamed him for a moment, told him how handsomely Miss Morris had expressed her regret, and embroidered a little on Miss Morris’s mention of her friendly remembrance of Mr Miller before the break. She did not tell him that Miss Morris prayed for him to be forgiven, feeling that this was a liberty which even a clergyman might resent. Mr Miller was so overcome by Mrs Brandon’s angelic sweetness that he again lost his voice.

  ‘Do have some sherry,’ said Mrs Brandon, waving her hand at the decanter. ‘No, not for me, thank you, but help yourself.’

  Mr Miller filled and sipped and spoke again.

  ‘But that,’ he said, ‘wasn’t really what I wanted to see you about. It was, rather selfishly, about my own affairs.’

  This did not at all surprise his hostess, who never expected her friends to come to her about anything else, and she begged him to go on.

  ‘I may have mentioned to you,’ said Mr Miller, coughing, ‘that I have been working at a little book on Donne – whom I cannot,’ he added in a burst of confidence, ‘bring myself to call Dunne.’

  Mrs Brandon said she should think so, she meant she should think not, and wasn’t he the one with his head tied up like a turnip in St Paul’s. Mr Miller, at once recognising by her description the well-known statue of the Dean with his grave-clothes done up in a top knot, said Indeed, indeed, that was he. His opusculum, he said, was now practically finished, but before sending the typescript to the publishers who had commissioned it, he had a request to make. Might he again trespass on Mrs Brandon’s perpetual kindness to allow him to read some of it aloud to her. Nothing was so helpful in forming an estimate of one’s own work as to read it aloud to someone whose delicate perception and critical sense would at once detect any flaw.

  ‘How stupid I am,’ said Mrs Brandon with great candour. ‘I thought it was Miss Morris you wanted to talk about, but it was your book.’

  ‘Miss Morris?’ exclaimed Mr Miller. ‘Indeed I had hardly thought of her except in so far as the few moments awkwardness this afternoon might have affected you. May I hope you will with your usual kindness forgive my egoism and allow me to bring my little work for your critical approval?’

  ‘Yes, please do,’ said Mrs Brandon, casting a sidelong despairing look at the clock which said a quarter to eight. ‘I suppose you don’t mean now?’

  ‘Well, I have by chance,’ said Mr Miller most untruthfully, ‘the first chapter of the typescript upon me, if you would care to hear it.’

  He produced a folded sheaf of typescript from his coat pocket and lovingly turned its pages.

  ‘I would simply have adored it,’ said Mrs Brandon, throwing all the conviction she could into her voice, ‘but I have such a stupid head tonight. I think it was the sun, or the long day, or Mrs Grant.’

  ‘How thoughtless, how inconsiderate I am,’ said Mr Miller getting up. ‘You spend yourself for others, and we selfishly take advantage of you. Forgive me, dear friend, if I may use that word.’

  In the middle of the night, thinking sleepily of Hilary Grant’s wish to call her friend rather than trespass upon her Christian name, a thought had come to Mrs Brandon, an answer so perfect that she fell into despair at having missed her chance of using it. Now heaven had sent her another chance and she was determined not to let it slip.

  ‘I think I feel about that word rather as Shelley did about the word “love”,’ said Mrs Brandon, her voice sounding to Mr Miller like a distant golden bell, ‘“One word is too often profaned/For me to profane it.”’

  Exhausted (though satisfied) by this sentimental and literary effort she shut her eyes. Mr Miller touched her hand with his finger tips and went quietly away, marvelling at the deep sensitiveness of her nature.

  If her son Francis had been there he would certainly have felt justified in his remark that his mother was a prey to saying what she thought would be most effective.

  5

  Reading Aloud

  According to telephone advice received from Brandon Abbey Miss Brandon had not died, nor had she worked herself into a fit. Mr Grant worked hard at his classics with Mr Miller, though sorely tried by his mother who was for ever demanding his company to make a piccolo giro and openly shamed him by alluding to Mr Miller as the parroco. Francis went back to work, but as he didn’t have to leave Stories till a quarter to nine and was usually back by soon after six, no one much noticed the difference. Delia had several skirmishes with Nurse in which she came off second best and saw the labourer who had been gored by a bull being carried on a hurdle to the Barchester ambulance. The weather got hotter and hotter and Mrs Grant, tramping the countryside in her homespuns, lamented the cold English climate and pined for the sun of Calabria till everyone wished it had never been invented. The chickenpox at Grumper’s End dragged on from child to child, and though Jimmy Thatcher didn’t get it, he was in quarantine from school and from his religious duties and never had such a happy summer in his life.

  Mr Miller had not forgotten that Mrs Brandon wished to hear him read his book about Donne, for such he had persuaded himself was her desire, and gradually wore her down to the point of settling a day for the first reading. The hour was to be between tea and dinner and when Mr Miller, all eagerness, arrived with his typescript at half-past five, he found Mrs Brandon seated under the Spanish chestnut.

  ‘I have been looking forward so much to this,’ she said. ‘I have been reading some of Donne’s poetry, which I only knew in anthologies before. I alw
ays thought he was the same as George Herbert and mixed them both up with Vaughan and Crashaw, but that,’ she said with a proud simplicity, ‘was chiefly ignorance. Now that I have read his poems I shall always know exactly who Donne is.’

  Mr Miller found this imbecility quite beautiful and could hardly refrain from saying so.

  ‘Shall I begin with the preface, or go straight to the first chapter?’ he asked, settling himself near his hostess.

  ‘Oh, the preface. Or do you think the first chapter would be nicer?’ she asked. ‘But here comes Rose to clear away the tea-things. We had better wait till she has finished. I never asked you if you had had any tea. Rose, please bring some fresh tea for Mr Miller.’

  In vain did Mr Miller protest not that he had already had tea, for that would have been a lie, but that he didn’t really want tea and often went without it altogether.

  ‘Well, this isn’t Friday,’ said Mrs Brandon, whose ideas on fasting were very sketchy, ‘so it will do you good. Yes, Rose, please get fresh tea. It is extraordinary,’ she said, as Rose went away, ‘how long it always takes to make fresh tea. I believe they fill the largest kettle with cold water and put it on a slow fire. I am always telling Rose that a small kettle boils faster than a big one, but it is hopeless.’