Elizabeth took the conversation away from presents. “What’s the news of Jim?”
Caroline continued to study her brooch, but the hand that was fingering it quivered slightly.
“Those nasty people have gone bankrupt. Poor Jim, he has such bad luck.”
Elizabeth laughed without amusement.
“Well it’s your money that’s lost. He’s no worse off.” Caroline picked up her knitting again. A thing like that, which she did quite mechanically, steadied the nerves.
“Not mine. It’s Laurie’s. It’s money I paid your Uncle Ellison for an interest in the Manor. When he sold it—” Caroline paused for the fraction of a second; how dearly she would like to lie, but even to whitewash Ellison that would be wrong—“some of it was returned.”
“Why only ‘some of it’? Uncle Ellison got an enormous price for the place, didn’t he?”
Caroline’s voice took on her ‘the-conversation’s-closed’ tone. Her children knew it well, but nowadays they often disregarded it.
“Your uncle could not spare all of it at the time. He was very good and wrote himself and offered me the chance of buying, but at that time house property was fetching a great deal of money, and I had just paid death duties.” Her voice tailed away. Even now, with memories softened by the placid intervening years, she did not willingly recall those days. Those unpleasant visits to the lawyers. She had never understood why the trustees would not let her buy the house with the capital of which she held the life interest. Surely there could be no better investment for the children. Those cables to Ellison begging for time. The day when the news came that it was sold.
“Uncle Ellison always was a cad.”
Caroline flushed. Whatever they might feel, nieces did not speak slightingly of uncles. But she said nothing. Betsy, naughty girl, never at any time had a proper respect for her elders.
“Of course really it’s a good thing I’ve had that capital back, which I should not have done if I’d bought the dear old Manor. I’m afraid you girls are not very kind about the various things Jim has tried to work at, but you shouldn’t be unkind. Times are very hard for these young men.”
Elizabeth looked at her pityingly.
“But, Mother, it’s throwing money away.”
Caroline refused to argue.
“Perhaps. But I should not like to feel that Jim had missed a chance for lack of money, dear man.”
Elizabeth stared at her cigarette and forced herself not to answer. Why be an ostrich? Her mother must see that Jim was a fool and a muddler. Anybody could have told him the poster business was unsound. But anything to do with painting went straight to his head. The time he had wasted in studios! Then that gallery! She could have told him that people would never go right out there to see pictures, however good. He probably did try to get good people to exhibit, but he need not have wasted everything by exhibiting his own stuff. That was enough to keep the critics from ever going to the place again. Then to try to save his capital by picture-dealing, when he did not know the first thing about it. She kept the scorn out of her voice.
“What’s he going to do now?”
Caroline managed to knit unconcernedly, but her heart was racing. Of course the girls could not prevent her helping. The money was her own to do as she liked with, and it was not as if they needed it. She had bought those annuities for Brownie and Pells, and there was that nice little sum invested for the ‘Miss Long Memorial’ pensioners. She could not touch most of her capital, it belonged to the children, but the money which she spent on Jim was Laurie’s. She had given it to him when she bought his right to inherit the Manor. Poor Jim was unlucky, but she was sure he was not to blame. It was unaccountable that with all those young men killed there was not more work than those who were left could do, but somehow this did not seem to be so, and Jim was not the only boy in difficulties. Thank God she was able to help him. She would not tell Elizabeth of the latest scheme. Jim was so enthusiastic, and perhaps he was right at last and it really would succeed.
“Nothing is settled.”
Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled. Had Caroline glanced up she would have seen an expression very like John’s: one eyebrow raised and a ‘you-glorious-idiot’ twist to the mouth. Something in the way Caroline spoke moved Elizabeth. Her mouth looked so buttoned-up, so determined not to let a secret out. If Laurie were alive he would have said, ‘You bad, deceitful old woman.’ Then she would have laughed and told him all about it. But Elizabeth could not say things like that, and if she had tried the words would have stumbled out awkwardly, and embarrassed both herself and Caroline. She let the moment pass. After all, it was her mother’s money, neither she nor Helen needed it. If her mother wanted to be a fool no one could stop her.
A car stopped outside. Caroline went to the window. She smiled and waved and almost ran to the door.
“It’s Helen.”
Elizabeth got up and looked out. Such a flapdoodle going on. The chauffeur taking the rug off Helen’s knees for all the world as if she were paralysed. Helen getting out as if a crowd were waiting to receive her. Elizabeth looked affectionately at her Bentley. How could Helen bear to travel in that road palace? Motoring became merely a matter of getting about if you did not drive yourself. To be alone with the miles flicking away behind you, that was the way to stop worrying, to get rid of the blues.
Helen made a face at her. “What’s bitten our dear sister?”
“Darling.” Helen knew just how warm a birthday greeting should sound. She kissed her mother. “I hope the eiderdown was all right. I see Betsy’s got here before me. The children send their love and wish you many happy returns. And George asked me to tell you how sorry he was he could not getaway.”
Pells looked across the kitchen table at Miss Brown , who was giving her a hand with the lunch.
“There’s Miss Helen. Talk the hind leg off a donkey she would.” She went to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of beer and a glass. “Have that Mr. Edwards round in a minute for his drink. Always thirsty Mr. Edwards is, when he’s driven her down and no wonder, become a proper Madam she has. Wants the windows shut and rugs put different every five minutes.”
Miss Brown put her head on one side to examine the trifle she was decorating.
“But I’m sure Edwards said it was a pleasure to do anything for her, didn’t he? She always had a way with her.”
“Well he did.” Pells knelt in front of the oven and basted the beef. “Bit of her mother in her there. Though, mind you, neither of them aren’t a patch on her. Never forgets who she is, that’s what I like about Mrs. England.” Helen, still talking, followed her mother into the drawing-room. Elizabeth greeted her with a nod.
“Hullo. Very impressive arrival you made. If the village had known you were coming they’d have had the Women’s Institute Choral Society out to meet you.”
“It’s a beautiful motor car, dear. It’s the only Rolls-Royce that comes to the village.” Caroline smiled at Helen. “At least, so Lennie Hampshire tells me. And I feel much happier about you than about Betsy. I’m sure Edwards is a nice safe driver.”
The sisters exchanged an amused look. Helen turned to her mother.
“I know you haven’t a cocktail, but how about some sherry?”
Caroline got up.
“But I have a cocktail. I saw some all ready mixed up being sold in bottles. And I thought, ‘That’s just the thing for my birthday.’”
“Christ!” said Elizabeth as the door closed, “‘already mixed!’”
Helen got up and sat on the arm of Elizabeth’s chair. “Look here, old girl, I don’t want a drink, but I wanted a word with you. I’ve heard from Aldous and he said he’d written to Mother. I only got mine this morning, so she won’t get hers till the afternoon post. If you want to get your story in first you’d better be snappy about it. Then there’s another thing: the Manor’s in the market again an
d George’s syndicate have bought it for an hotel.”
“An hotel!” Elizabeth considered the idea. “Oh well, it isn’t ours, so what does it matter what it’s sold for?”
“Don’t be silly. You know Mother. She looks upon that house as the heart of England. George says I better break the news to her.”
They heard Caroline’s step in the passage. Helen stood up.
“Shall you tell her about Aldous?” Elizabeth nodded.
“Yes. I’ll wait on after you’ve all gone.”
“All right. Then I’ll grab her after lunch. Poor lamb, she is going to have a jolly birthday.”
The sweet had been cleared. Pells stood in the doorway, flushed with pride. She held a pink-and-white cake to which she had miraculously attached sixty candles.
“Bother that draught,” said Pells. “Hold the door, Mister Jim. Now if you’d move your chair, M’Lady, I can get in between you and Mrs. Laurie.”
Caroline stood up. She cut the first slice. Helen kicked Jim under the table. He got up awkwardly, overturning his chair. He stared at it rather helplessly, then remembered why he had got up. He lifted his glass.
“Here’s to you, Mother. I hope you have another sixty birthdays.”
They all drank her health. Caroline sat smiling at them, but her mind was far away. Sixty years! That was, of course, a joke, but she might easily have twenty. Sixty was not old. Even as Jim spoke she wondered. Did she want many years more? She was happy where she was, but after all, there were John and Laurie waiting when life was done.
Helen touched her.
“Come on, Mother, make a speech.”
Caroline got up. She gave Helen a loving look.
“How silly you are, dear. Why should I make a speech? But if you want one I’ll say that you all know what it means to me to have you here. Many of my sixty years have been happy ones. I’m a very fortunate woman.”
Elizabeth lingered behind as the others went back to the drawing-room. Miss Brown began to clear the table. “Those people are leaving the Manor. George’s syndicate are buying it for an hotel.”
“An hotel. Oh dear, your mother will be distressed. Is Helen going to tell her?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Yes. But I don’t suppose she’ll care. After all, we don’t live there, so I don’t suppose it matters who does.”
Miss Brown picked up the salt-cellars and put them on the tray.
“You haven’t altered much. For all you write clever novels, I don’t believe you have the faintest idea how other people think.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Elizabeth moved to the door. “I’ll take Violet for a walk while the deed is done.” She stopped a moment in the hall. Her lips trembled. “How could she say many of her years had been happy?” she thought. “Awful how she gets you when she’s brave.”
Helen watched Violet and Elizabeth go off for their walk, and Jim out to find Edwards and discuss cars. Then with a sigh, for breaking bad news was not part of her role in life, she pulled up a footstool and sat at Caroline’s feet.
“Darling, I’ve got to tell you something you’ll hate. The Pinson’s have got to sell the Manor.”
“Oh dear.” Caroline’s face was concerned. “Such nice people I believe, and very fond of the place in their own way. I understand they’ve altered the garden, which is a pity, but they have been very much liked. Why are they going?”
“Everybody’s a bit in the soup these days. Something to do with stocks and shares rising and falling, whichever it is people don’t want them doing. George never stops saying, ‘We must economise.’”
“Who’s buying the Manor?”
Helen picked up the end of her mother’s knitting and examined the stitch.
“George’s syndicate. For an hotel.”
Caroline laid down her work. She looked at Helen in dismay.
“An hotel! Oh, but George mustn’t do that. I mean, a house like that is such a family thing.”
“It’s near town,” Helen spoke apologetically, “and it will alter into a lot of small rooms.” She laid a hand on Caroline’s knee. “Don’t mind. You must see it’s better people should enjoy it than it should be empty. And it would be empty. No one wants to keep up a house like that now.”
Caroline caught one horrifying phrase.
“How do you mean, ‘a lot of small rooms’? Surely they won’t alter that beautiful best bedroom?”
Helen never believed in the truth when a lie would placate. “Oh no. They’d never do that.”
When the Manor was sold Caroline had supposed she had reached the depths of suffering on its account. It was of the warp and woof of her family. It was like losing a limb to see it pass to strangers. But an hotel! The children did not understand. They lived in a world where everybody sold their most cherished possessions and cared for nothing but the price they fetched. An hotel! The indignity!
“As a matter of fact,” Helen went on, “I doubt if you’d recognise the place now. Of course, I was a child when I last saw it, but it seemed to me to look quite different.”
“Have they altered the garden much?” Helen considered.
“Weren’t there beds in front of the terrace?” Caroline nodded. “Well there aren’t now; there are two herbaceous borders running up the lawn. They must look lovely in the summer.” She racked her brain for the right thing to say. That ridiculous house. How it hung over their childhood. Yet, although she thought the fate of the Manor a ludicrous thing to worry about, she was moved because of the touching eagerness to hear of it which Caroline was trying to disguise. “No other alterations in the front, except that they’ve taken away the urns on the terrace, but they were pretty frightful, weren’t they?”
“Did you think so dear?” Caroline was genuinely surprised. “They looked very pretty in the summer, filled with flowers.” She patted Helen’s hand and took up her knitting . “Thank you for telling me. You children think I’m rather foolish about the place, I know. But you see I was born there. And it’s been part of my life, it’s full of memories.”
Elizabeth and Violet walked up the road. Violet had picked up a small switch and slashed angrily at the hedge.
“I am sick about the Manor.”
“Why? Nobody wants a place that size. It would be hell getting servants.”
Violet gave her an amused look.
“Your mother and I don’t regard that house in that light.”
“Oh God,” thought Elizabeth, “she’s going to reminisce about Laurie.”
Her tone was deliberately repelling.
“Well, we look on it as the house in which we spent some boring holidays.”
Violet laughed. “All right, don’t bite my head off. I’m not going to get sentimental. I just meant I understand how Mother feels, and I know you don’t. Let’s leave it at that.”
Elizabeth was sorry for her briskness.
“The trouble with Mother is that she will live in the past. All this glory of the Torrys. And what did they do, anyway? You have a look at that family tree. Not one distinguished figure amongst the lot.” Elizabeth shoved her hands into her pockets. “Of course, I quite see why you feel like you do about the place, but it’s very stupid of you. The best thing you could do would be to marry again.”
Violet looked surprised. Odd that Elizabeth should happen to have said that.
“I’ve been thinking of it seriously lately.”
“I know.” Elizabeth kicked a stone out of her way.
“Thought it was time someone gave you a prod.”
“It’s Tom. He asks me if I’ll marry him each time he comes home.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“It’s difficult to know whether you’re just fond of someone or in love with them.”
“Love!” Elizabeth’s voice was bitter. “You thank Heaven if you’r
e only fond of him. It’s a mistake to be in love.”
“You see—” Violet chose her words with care, knowing how Elizabeth loathed signs of sentiment “—any person like me with a husband killed in the war is at a disadvantage. Laurie had faults, of course,but I never had time to see them. My little bits of married life were perfect. I think it leaves people like me with an exaggerated idea of what happiness can be.”
“Well, you were damned lucky to get happiness at all. A hell of a lot of people never do. But you ought to fix it up with this man of yours. Do you good to be looked after for a change.”
Violet was startled. She had never heard Elizabeth speak so sympathetically. This Aldous trouble must be humanising her. ‘Looked after.’ A very warming term, but not one you would expect from Elizabeth. Laurie had loved looking after her. The last time he was home, when Bill was so enormous and she always short of breath, how clever Laurie had been at tucking in cushions just in the right places to make her comfortable. Always thinking of things she could eat, and putting her feet up on the sofa. Twelve years ago! Nothing could have the magic of her first marriage. But it would be nice to be looked after again.
Elizabeth broke the silence.
“Of course, you’ll have to be prepared for Mother being upset. She’ll never understand how you could look at anybody after Laurie.”
Violet stopped.
“Shall we turn back?” They walked a few yards in the opposite direction. “That’s what I thought. But she doesn’t feel like that. I came down to see her last time she was ill and suddenly she said, ‘Bill’s old enough to be left now.’ Well, of course, Bill had been one of my worries, as Tom lives in China. Then she said, ‘No woman was ever meant to live alone.’ She said it so vaguely that she might have meant that she was missing your father, but I think she meant me.”
“Well, she’s hearing to-day of one woman who’s going to live alone.” Violet would have liked to put her hand through Elizabeth’s arm; it seemed unkind to make no sign of understanding, but she knew she would probably shut up like a clam if she attempted it. “I’m divorcing Aldous.”
Caroline England Page 28