It was certainly true that there were tears in the furniture. Even the best brocade wears out in time, and the delicate rose and blue coverings of the formal settees and wing armchairs had been mended and remended until they would stand repair no longer. The Brussels carpet was so threadbare that only faint indications of pattern remained, and everything in the room which age could mar, in spite of care, had been spoiled long before.
Miss Amanda’s visitors, however, were oblivious of these details. Their interest was not unnaturally centred upon the girl herself.
Amanda Fitton, eighteen next month, was at a stage of physical perfection seldom attained at any age. She was not very tall, slender almost to skinniness, with big honey-brown eyes, and an extraordinary mop of hair so red that it was remarkable in itself. This was not auburn hair nor yet carroty, but a blazing, flaming, and yet subtle colour which is as rare as it is beautiful. Her costume consisted of a white print dress with little green flowers on it, a species of curtaining sold at many village shops. It was cut severely, and was rather long in the skirt.
There was something artificially formal in her whole appearance. Her hair had been dressed rather high on her head and certainly in no modern fashion.
She eyed them calmly with the inquisitive, but polite, regard of a child.
Eager-Wright was staring at her with frank admiration. Mr Campion, as usual, looked merely foolish.
She shrugged her shoulders eloquently. ‘Well, now you’ve seen the room,’ she said, ‘and you know the worst. Or very nearly the worst,’ she corrected herself quickly. ‘All the rooms want doing up a bit, but the beds really are good. And the food really could be absolutely marvellous if you did pay three guineas a week each,’ she added with a sudden burst of naïveté.
‘Oh, well, then, that’s fixed up,’ said Eager-Wright with tremendous satisfaction.
She smiled at him, a wholly disarming gesture which opened her mouth into a triangle, and revealed very small white even teeth.
‘Wait!’ she said. ‘You’ll have to find out sooner or later. You may as well hear it all. Of course this is very awkward, but then you can always have one of those flat round ones, and I don’t mind fetching water. We could have the copper alight all day. And if you wanted one when you came in – in the evening or anything – we could just get it out of the copper in a pail. Four pails makes a really good one. Besides, if you’ve never had one in those round things it’s rather fun. After all, you are on holiday and there’ll be bathing.’
‘I know,’ said Mr Campion happily. ‘You haven’t got a bathroom.’
She looked at them wistfully, and wrinkled her nose engagingly.
‘Does it really matter – awfully?’
‘Not in the least!’ said Eager-Wright, who was quite prepared to forswear baths for ever and a day should she desire it. ‘I could always get the water,’ he continued helpfully. ‘I mean, if you showed me where the copper was and all that sort of thing.’
‘I tell you what,’ said Amanda with sudden enthusiasm, ‘we could have a pump from the copper all worked by electricity. Scatty and I have got some marvellous gadgets. You’ll have to see them. How long can you stay?’
‘A week,’ said Campion quickly, before Eager-Wright could engage the room for life.
‘Oh, well, that’s splendid,’ she said. ‘Are the others like you? Oh, and will you have your food by yourselves or will you eat it with us? It’s rather fun eating with us and it doesn’t make so much work. Oh – and do you think your man would mind sharing a room with Scatty? He needn’t, of course, because I can always sleep in the mill. We could put up an army in the mill if we cleared away some of the things.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘I’m not putting you off, am I?’
‘Good Lord, no,’ said Eager-Wright, who could not take his eyes off her face. ‘I’m only worrying if you’ll be able to put up with us. There’s such a lot of us and –’
‘There’s Lugg, of course,’ said Mr Campion. ‘He lowers our stock considerably.’
She waved his words away airily. ‘Oh, well, that’s marvellous,’ she said. ‘Now you’re here and it’s all fixed up, what shall we do first? Come and see the rest of the house. It really is rather jolly and the beds are good. And the food ought to be all right. We’ve got one P.G. already; Aunt Hatt. She’s been with us three years now. She came over from America on a visit and stayed with us for a bit, and then she sort of took over everything. We’re really the non-paying guests, as a matter of fact. Scatty and I don’t make a lot at the mill, and our hundred a year doesn’t go very far. And’ – she paused and looked at them delightfully – ‘it isn’t really queer my telling you all this, because if you’re going to live with us for a week you may as well know all about us and then you won’t be surprised by anything. First of all, about Scatty. He opened the door to you just now. Well, he isn’t really a butler. Only when old Honesty Bull sent down this morning and told us that there were some people who wanted to stay down here for a bit he said you had an enormous car. And so I thought we’d better smarten up a bit. That’s why I’ve got this frock on, and I made the drawing-room a bit dark. We had two women hikers once, but I’m afraid the drawing-room put them off. So I determined it shouldn’t happen again. Scatty and I work the mill.’
She stopped breathlessly.
Mr Campion smiled. ‘Just the place for Wright and his book,’ he said. ‘As soon as I heard it was a mill I said “Just the thing. Nothing like running water for inspiration.” And wheels within wheels, and that sort of thing.’
Amanda shot a dubious glance in Mr Campion’s direction before she hurried on again.
‘Oh, well, come and see Aunt Hatt,’ she said. ‘I expect she’s in the kitchen. She cooks so much better than Mary that she took over after she’d been here a week. Do you like American food? Scatty and I fixed her up an electric waffle iron. It works all right, but it’s a bit big – the blacksmith made the actual grill – and you get waffles about a foot across. But I think that’s all the better. Come on.’
She led them across the hall again, whose carved king beam was at least as old as the Wars of the Roses, and through an archway into a great kitchen.
This was a vast apartment with whitewashed walls and a red stone floor. Standing by a table, which looked as though it had been built to hold machinery, was a tall grey-haired woman with a big apron tied over her brown walking skirt and blouse, and a pair of golden pincenez on her nose.
Her whole appearance suggested a brisk practicalness in direct opposition to Amanda’s more inconsequential personality. At the moment she was engaged in lifting little round currant buns out of an oven-tray, and the golden heap on the wire stand looked very inviting.
‘Well, did you have any luck?’ she said, and shut her mouth quickly, as she realized that Amanda was not alone. But the next moment, as she caught sight of the young men, a smile spread over her face and she laughed like a girl.
‘There’s four of them,’ said Amanda. ‘And they’re paying three guineas a week each, and they don’t mind there not being a bath. Oh, wait a minute: Mr Campion, this is Aunt Hatt – Miss Huntingforest. And this is Mr Wright, Aunt. Where’s Mary? Over the mill?’
Miss Huntingforest ignored the question. She was surveying the young men with critical, but friendly eyes.
‘You’re on holiday, I suppose?’ she enquired.
Mr Campion repeated his little speech about Eager-Wright’s history of Suffolk, and Miss Huntingforest seemed reassured.
‘Really? An author?’ she said, looking at the young man with quickening interest. ‘Well, isn’t that nice.’
Eager-Wright looked uncomfortable and muttered a few words of modest depreciation.
Aunt Hatt relieved his embarrassment by offering them all a bun. As they stood round in the kitchen nibbling her gift, the slight formality which had momentarily fallen on the party was dispelled.
Miss Huntingforest went on with her cooking, talking the whole time with that complete lack of self-co
nsciousness which seemed to be the keynote of the whole household.
‘You’ll forgive my enquiring what you are doing down here,’ she said, stooping down to peer into the enormous oven. ‘I’m not a nervous woman as a rule, but since that attack on me the other day I have certainly been a little alarmed.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Amanda quickly. ‘I ought to have asked you; do you mind burglars?’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr Campion easily. ‘Do you have many?’
‘Only one so far,’ said Miss Huntingforest grimly. ‘But that was enough. If he hadn’t struck me down before I realized what he was up to I could have managed him. But you don’t expect such things in a civilized country. I was alone in the house,’ she hurried on. ‘The children were in the village and I’d just come out here to see if the bread was rising, when I saw him come creeping out of the dairy. He must have got in by the back window. I said: “Young man, will you please inform me what you’re doing?” He spun round and looked at me and I had just time to see that he was a stranger, and had the most remarkable peak of hair coming down right over his forehead, and then, as I went for him, he put up his hand and caught me on the chin. I went down and hit my head on the table, rendering me completely unconscious. It’s a miracle I didn’t swallow my dentures and choke to death. I wrote to every paper in London about it.’
She paused.
‘A horrible experience,’ said Eager-Wright, while Mr Campion looked foolish and sympathetic at the same time.
‘And, of course, he didn’t take a thing,’ said the good lady.
‘Adding insult to injury,’ put in Amanda, and she and her aunt laughed immoderately.
Miss Huntingforest turned to the young men. ‘I don’t know whether Amanda’s put you wise to the family,’ she said. ‘It’s a rather curious arrangement, but it works very well.’
‘I told them practically everything,’ said Amanda consideringly. ‘You see,’ she went on, turning to the guests, ‘when mother died four years ago we decided we’d have to make the mill a going concern and take paying guests and carry on generally. Well, so far the paying guest department is the only really paying line. We’ve only had one guest of course – Aunt Hatt – but from our point of view that’s been a howling success.’
Miss Huntingforest seemed to think it was her turn to explain a little, although why either of them should have been so courteous was beyond Mr Campion’s powers of divination.
‘Well, it was like this,’ she said. ‘My father was an Englishman, and, although he never talked about it, I knew he came from this part of the world. And some years ago I thought that as I was planning a little globe-trotting I might come down here and see what the home town of the Huntingforests looked like. Well, when I got here I took rooms in the village at first. And then I met these children and I realized, of course, that they must be distant connexions of ours. And so I came to stay here. I hadn’t been in the house a week before I decided that I must take things in hand. There was Amanda, if you please, running about like a Milwaukee Indian, without a mended stocking to her name. It wasn’t nice to have two pretty young girls without a chaperon in the heart of the country like this. It wasn’t nice and it wasn’t safe. I’m emancipated, I hope, but I’m no fool. So I put my foot down and here I am.’
She drew another great tin of cookies out of the oven as she finished speaking, and Amanda helped herself, motioning them to imitate her.
Miss Huntingforest beamed at them. ‘If you can eat cakes at eleven o’clock in the morning you’re all right,’ she said. ‘It’s an acid test, in my opinion. If a man can eat two cookies before noon and enjoy them there’s not much wrong with him.’
‘Well, look here,’ said Amanda, ‘I’ll take you round the house and Scatty’ll get your things. I’ll go up with him and cadge a ride back in your car. I’ve never been in a really decent car. Mine goes by electricity, you know.’
‘Goes!’ said Miss Huntingforest with good-humoured contempt.
Amanda blushed. ‘Aunt Hatt’s very rude about my car,’ she said. ‘But it’s really very useful, and not at all bad, considering that I bought it off a higgler for a pound, and Scatty and I made it go. There’s only one thing against it; you can’t go more than five miles in it. Two and a half miles out and two and a half miles back: then the batteries have to be recharged. That doesn’t cost very much because of the mill, you see. There’s as much power as you want there. It means a lot of work in the winter, seeing to the sluices and that sort of thing, but it’s worth it. I left it outside the door this morning because I thought it might impress you. It did, didn’t it?’
‘It certainly did,’ said Mr Campion truthfully.
‘There you are! I had a row with Hal about it. He said it’d put anyone off. I must go and help Scatty push it back to the shed in a minute, because the battery’s being charged and we’ve only got one.’
‘Let’s all go and push it,’ said Eager-Wright, who seemed anxious to serve in some way or other.
She turned to the door, but was restrained by Miss Huntingforest.
‘Amanda, that’s your one respectable dress.’
‘Oh yes, of course. I forgot. I’ll go and change. They’ve said they’ll stay, anyhow, and I don’t suppose my working clothes will really put them off.’
Miss Huntingforest seemed to have doubts on this point, but she said nothing and the girl hurried out.
‘If you’re interested in antiquities –’ began Aunt Hatt, but got no further on this subject, for at that moment there was a certain amount of confusion in the hall outside, and Guffy’s voice was heard distinctly.
‘Really, it’s quite all right,’ he was saying. ‘A bit of a scratch – nothing else.’
At the same time the kitchen door was opened and a girl who could quite clearly be no one else but Mary, Amanda’s elder sister, appeared with Guffy in tow, while a boy about sixteen followed them.
Mary Fitton had Amanda’s hair, Amanda’s eyes, but not Amanda’s pep. In exchange, Nature had endowed her with a grace all her own and an attractive, but serious, expression.
The boy resembled his sisters as far as the hair was concerned, but already he had developed a certain pugnacity of expression.
Both strangers were tremendously excited, and Guffy, looking pale and slightly flustered, strode between them. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his right hand was closed tightly over his left forearm, which was covered with blood.
‘Come on, put it under the pump,’ said Mary.
She spoke as though she had known her companion a long time, and it occurred to Campion that she, too, must have the family gift for making friends.
They all crowded round Guffy as he stood by the sink, while young Hal pumped streams of water over the injured arm.
‘Well, for crying out loud!’ said Miss Huntingforest. ‘That’s a nasty scrape. Where did this happen?’
While introductions were hastily effected, Guffy explained.
‘I – er – I was prowling round the mill,’ he said, ‘when Miss Fitton here took pity on me and introduced herself. I was investigating a loom there is up there – most interesting – when I lost my footing and crashed through one of the floorboards.’
‘Dry-rot,’ said Miss Huntingforest. ‘I’ve said it over and over again. You might have killed yourself.’
‘I was all right,’ said Guffy hastily. ‘Only struggling back, like a fool, I caught my arm on a six-inch nail. I’d taken off my coat to give a hand with the loom and, of course, this is what happened. It pierced the skin.’
‘Pierced the skin!’ said Aunt Hatt. ‘You’ll have to have stitches in that. Wait a minute: I’ll make a tourniquet and then you can wash it as much as you like.’
Mary glanced at her aunt. ‘I think he’d better go up to Doctor Galley,’ she said. ‘You be quiet,’ she added, as Guffy opened his mouth to speak. ‘You can’t wander about with a tear like that. It’ll get awfully sore if you don’t have it sewn immediately.’
Hal sm
iled at Guffy, as from one superior being to another.
‘She’s a bit bossy,’ he said. ‘But I think she’s right, you know. Look here, we’ll walk up with you. Galley’s a very good man; he hardly hurts at all. He takes out teeth as well – if you need it.’
Eventually, after a certain amount of protestation, Hal and Mary set out with their captive for the doctor’s, and prevailed upon Eager-Wright to accompany them.
Mr Campion appeared to have been forgotten, and he sat in a little recess in a corner of the hall and looked through the open doorway at the quivering leaves and dancing water without. The old house seemed very quiet after the hullabaloo. It was really amazingly attractive. Like all very old houses it had a certain drowsy elegance that was very soothing and comforting in a madly gyrating world.
He allowed his thoughts to wander idly. He noticed the delicate Gothic carving of the stone fireplace, sniffed appreciatively at the mingled odours of wallflower and baking cookie, and wondered how the rabid busybodies who leap upon ancient monuments and tear them stone from stone that they may grace the dank loneliness of museums could have overlooked such a perfect unspoiled gem.
He was disturbed in his reflections by the reappearance of Amanda dancing down the staircase in her ‘working clothes’. At first sight she appeared to have put back her age ten years or so. Her slender figure was covered by an old brown jersey and skirt which had shrunk with much washing until they clung to her like a skin. The only concession to vanity was a yellow-and-red bandanna handkerchief knotted loosely round her neck.
‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘Where are the others?’
Mr Campion explained. Amanda looked crestfallen.
‘Has that floor gone at last? Scatty and I wondered if we couldn’t re-board it with faggot poles. They wouldn’t be comfortable to tread on, but they’d be safe. I’m very sorry. Is he badly hurt?’
‘I don’t think so. He seemed to be enjoying it,’ said Campion truthfully. ‘Your sister was looking after him. She’s taken him to the doctor now.’
Amanda was silent. A shadow had passed over her face.
Sweet Danger Page 6