It was dusk, pricked by the globe lights on their gate-posts, as I reached the house, a line of cars with a plentiful sprinkling of station flys was jerkily processing round that huge drive to the front doors; through the panes of a cab that halted abreast of me a child’s face peered, upon its well-brushed hair twinkled a sequin star.
It was one of the Ackworth-Mead parties! So, Trevor and his wife were keeping up the tradition …
I stood back under a concealing rhododendron bush. I simultaneously wanted to be invited inside and lost in the crowd of other children and was thankful that as a woman this boring and Institutional function could be mine no more. As the small star-topped fairy passed me I thought, ‘My poor child, you little know the time you’re in for. But I could tell you!’
Edging off, I knew that I was possessively envious of those pierrettes and fairies, yet I knew they must grow up and away.
Miss Barbara Morant is called for!
The Misses Field! The Misses Field!
Highflown homilies aren’t in my line, and I prefer to remember that I fell into the drawing-room at Evenfield and snapped up an incredible quantity of hot buttered toast.
CHAPTER V
1
I SPENT Christmas Night with the Fields, had allowed my vague and high-falutin plans and faint apprehensions to be swept aside and hardly knew whether I was relieved or disappointed. Glad as I was to be with them, my mind was burrowing up to the last minute for a precedent. Did one leave Evenfield on Christmas Day? Had we ever?
I filled up time with a later breakfast, church, and personal calls with some presents – a pretty country custom I have read of so often and which doesn’t seem to be observed in real life: certainly in London your friends on receiving your present on the right and proper day feel that they are last-moment duties belatedly remembered and no gift which does not arrive a week in advance is taken seriously, so perverse are the times in which we live.
By nightfall I was listless, almost regretful that I hadn’t closed with Mrs. Jasperleigh’s offer of luncheon and tea at Broadacres, yet I experienced a pang on leaving a darkened drawing-room and shutting the front door upon myself. But, had our old Christmases been such a success once the exciting morning was over? Hadn’t the doldrums set in after midday dinner? Hadn’t father been irascible and more than usually sensitive to my own shrieks of joy and tears of satiety? And mustn’t it all have been quite extraordinarily wearing for mother, especially with Cuss at home, damning the whole place as a dog-hole? And why had I suddenly got to have this aspect of things forced upon me, and to-night of all nights?
2
But the light and warmth of Cumptons was waiting for me, calculable, unchanged affection from a family united in numbers as they were in thought. They had altered, of course, but never having lost touch with them I was ready for that: Mrs. Field’s fair, springing hair was grey, Arnold Field nearly white (and most becoming, as I told him), and once one had grudgingly assimilated and accepted the height and maturity of the girls there was nothing left to look for or fear …
Removing my wraps in a bedroom I had slept in I managed to convey to Mrs. Field that I hoped nobody would feel it necessary to be sympathetic with me on mother’s account or give me special treatment of manner, or by abating so much as one giggle or paper game, and she answered, ‘Oh chicky, that’s so like her! No, I promise we shall all be just ourselves’. And they were, bless them, and Mr. Field chaffed me with a sub-acid edge on his words about my songs, for which I blessed him, but it sometimes seemed to me that the girls, particularly Clover, were making me feel, even for that house where we were always made to feel it, slightly too much the guest of honour, that they listened to my lightest nonsense a shade too fervently as to an oracle deigning to be facetious: it was a mere impression, but it certainly put me apart from them while it lasted, made me in some curious way older than any of them, responsible if not too happily for my own actions instead of, as once, comfortably, irresponsibly merged in my own family.
We sat in the music-room after dinner and talked, and I unloaded everything I had accumulated, of like and dislike and discovery, and asked copious questions about things and people.
‘And oh, Ara, have you decorated the nursery at Evenfield with paper chains? You and Mell always used to and you did love it so.’ I had, and said so, and asked about their own, but they had stopped all that long ago. ‘We’re getting staid and dull, Ara, and you must cheer us all up.’
‘Oh Ara, do you remember when a chain fell down on Aggie and Mrs. Morant said she looked like a York ham? She used to imitate Aggie beautifully. And the vicar! “The kingdom of heaven ish like a little grain of mushtard sheed”–’
‘Obstinate fellow he was,’ Mr. Field informed his pipe. ‘What d’you think of the new one?’
‘I’m told that I shall like and dislike him much more; apart from that he just seems like so much cubic clergyman, to me. I’m willing to oblige, either way. Do I know a Miss Spicer, by any chance? I’m asking because I invited her to tea, but who is she?’ Mrs. Field began to weep with amusement, and nobody knew, and we all laughed. It was Daisy who said, ‘It’s funny how utterly unlike Mrs. M you are in some ways, Ara. She told us that she used to go round corners and be late for lunch to avoid meeting people.’
‘She had to live here,’ I pointed out.
‘Anyway, they all adored her,’ championed Primrose. ‘I expect your Miss Spicer did, too.’
‘And I’m just a hangover, and in disgrace in several directions;’ I answered, ‘except with Mr. Grimstone, and in a little while I shall feel my position that keen and go and live in sin with him.’
‘Your mother liked the Grimstones,’ said Mrs. Field.
‘Isn’t that a good thing! Otherwise, the whole place is being like a large bran pie.’
‘Mrs. Grimstone was a dear woman but suffered so terribly at the last.’ This, in the old days, was so often the coda to Mrs. Field’s dossiers that while intrinsically sympathetic I nearly exploded, and it came back to me that mother once actually had, when Mrs. Field, concluding a eulogy of some stainless soul, added, ‘She was a great influence for good in Addison but used to get such terrible screaming fits.’ Regrettable are the things from which one derives comfort, for this preposterous souvenir seemed to be a connection with mother – a Greetings telegram! – and an assurance that I in my turn was a Morant of Addison. I told them of the Ackworth-Mead party and Arnold Field remarked that the young Ackworth-Meads were too grand to call on ‘the likes of us’, a comment softened for me by his wife who said that the old people had been so generous to Addison charities and that she hoped I would call on their son and his wife.
‘I will, I will! But remind me first who Trevor married. I’ve dropped enough bricks lately to build a line of workmen’s dwellings.’ We flung ourselves upon the Jasperleighs and I reminded the girls of that fancy-dress party and of Thelma as The Belle of New York, and the Siddons ring on my finger reminded me of Clifford as Widow Twankey and I told them a lot about him, and Mrs. Field was tenderly interested, tentatively, tactfully romantic (which unnerved me) and the girls contributed nothing at all, as they quietly admired the ring.
I asked about their own work and Clover said that she had given up her former job and was now assistant designer to a Kingsmarket firm of children’s outfitters and bicycled in every day; Primrose was secretary to a doctor I didn’t know in Addison itself. ‘I think he works her too hard, but it’s nice for her to live at home,’ her mother said. Daisy had no paid occupation. ‘We couldn’t lose them all,’ Mrs. Field murmured fondly, ‘it’s lovely to have her here.’
3
One of the few authentic surprises that Addison life was to give me came from Thelma Lawnford (and this time I shall expect you to remember that she had married the manure-throwing Chetwyn). For although I never became really fond of her, as was right and proper, I was to develop a certain wry-mouthed enjoyment of her society.
You may not enjoy being elec
trocuted but you are forced to pay attention to the shock, and Thelma was in a way a live wire: it happened to be in the wrong way, but the current was at least switched on. I had been to see her several times – I had to, or become embroiled in the Lord knows what, and discovered a sharp-tongued mondaine with no monde to belong to, who ran her eye over my outfit and furs and said as she kissed the air nearest both my jawbones that there was no mistaking Bradley.
‘Mistaking it for what, Thelma? If you mean my cape, it came from Barker’s.’
‘My dear girl, you’re not serious?’
‘“My dear girl”, I am.’
She drooped her eyelids and became what I understand the Victorian kitchen condemned as Lah-di-dah, and indeed it is an admirable epithet which should never have fallen into disuse.
‘Johnnie says you’re making a jolly good thing out of music.’
‘Thelma, I haven’t seen you for quite five years, must we talk about money?’
That stung her. ‘And talking of Johnnie, what on earth have you been saying, Ara? He and Estelle don’t seem to exactly rave over you. Of course I told them you were nice, really, when one’s got past your manner.’
‘My dear, shut up. And show me the house. Mrs. Jasperleigh says it’s perfect.’
‘Oh, mother!’ droned Thelma. ‘She thinks so because she insisted on running the whole thing, you know her way.’
I did, and cautiously grinned. ‘She wanted nothing but Storey stuff –’
‘And of course you were out for Mulvane,’ I stated, inventing a firm on the spot.
‘Well – what do you think!’
I began to see daylight in the midst of my enjoyment at pulling her leg, realized that never would Addison contain two adult Jasperleighs, that one of them must clear out, that the mother wouldn’t and the daughter couldn’t, married as she was to a local doctor, that Thelma was taking it all out in disparagement of a perfectly good if conventional home while her mother defensively extolled it, and what a pity it all was. How much a pity I saw later when Chetwyn came in from his rounds, and Thelma, unable to express herself in décor, made her marital authority unmistakable and ordered him about like a butler. He seemed to be the makings of a nice man, this old acquaintance of mine, though it was difficult to see him through her dust. He was quiet, and disposed to sit by me and talk over old times. When he left us, Thelma put down her cup and laughed mirthlessly.
‘Chet seems quite gone on you. Were you one of his girls in the old days, I can’t remember?’
I put down my piece of cake and rose. ‘Well, good-bye Thelma, I must be getting on, I’ve one or two other people to see.’
She knew. The morbid and over-sensitive at least react quickly to atmospherics. ‘Don’t go, Ara, I was only joking.’
‘I think I should have thought more of you if you’d meant it. It would have at least shown some human feeling.’
‘Well – I’m sorry.’ Her eyes filled but failed to move me: tears were ever a Jasperleigh resource. I sat down. ‘No bones broken.’
‘Oh I know I’m hateful, but it’s all so hateful here. I ought to be in London.’
‘Then why did you let yourself in for a life in Addison?’
‘I thought I could make something of Chet but he’s perfectly contented here. I ask you!’
‘It’s his home and the competition in town is awful, you’d never have such a nice house, there.’
‘Why not? Mother would shell out.’
‘Can you see any man liking that position?’
‘Well … we’ve had a lot of rows about it already.’
‘Thelma, do forgive me, but why with all your chances did you marry him?’
‘It was mother, of course. If she’d let men and me alone more there were one or two things that might have come to something, so I made up my mind I’d have someone I’d chosen by myself.’ Husband or upholstery, it was all the same to Thelma, but I couldn’t help a sneaking sympathy. She gave a brief laugh. ‘Luckily Chet was always gone on me. I say, it’s funny to be talking like this when we never did make a go of it, isn’t it?’
‘Pretend we’re two new acquaintances,’ I suggested, ‘and see how we get on; it would be rather fun if we began to like each other.’ She laughed at that, and even did touch my jawbone, this time, but this was the child whose nose I had punched for reasons as valid to-day as they were at eleven years old. I think the right woman could have re-made her, with time; husbands are no good, they throw away their aces out of chivalry or throw in their hand altogether, and that’s the finish, and a doctor may enjoy being fee’d for ministering to vapours on his rounds but doesn’t want to meet them unprofitably in his home.
The telephone rang twice while we finished tea and it was impossible not to hear Mrs. Lawnford’s voice, off hand and brusque, as she dealt with her husband’s messages. ‘Well, you should’ve rung up before. You know what his surgery hours are, they haven’t changed that I know of.’ She lounged back and we stood looking out at that well-known view of the Park gates and Keeper’s Lodge.
‘It’s so boring I could pass out. And one can’t go up to London all the time.’
‘Why don’t you get something to do, Thelma?’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, isn’t there anything going on here any more? What price the Dramatic Society?’
‘It’s all run by the Ackworth-Meads and they make an unholy mess of it. I’ve often told them how it could be improved.’
‘Isn’t there a Badminton Club?’
‘Oh, my dear girl! And have to meet the Bertie Finnises and the Buckles and those awful Ramsdens? Why, the Finnises are the tinned fish people in Kingsmarket.’
‘The poor no use to you, I suppose?’
‘Oh, I don’t mind going to see the clean ones. It doesn’t do one any harm to be seen doing that as you don’t have to have them to the house, but I’m not going to become one of the parish tabbies, it’s a pretty good confession of failure.’
‘Thelma, nobody ever denied that Addison’s full of stumers – you should have heard mother on the subject! – but you can always avoid ’em, as she did. There are others, you know. There are the Stortfords –’
‘A hundred and fifty!’
‘Dears, and fun: then there’s Evelyn –’
‘I can’t stand that sarcastic devil and she’s as indiscreet as they’re made. You’d better be careful.’
‘Unfortunately the same things amuse us. Well, the Fields?’
‘Oh Lord! a family of earnest females!’
‘Our oldest friends.’
‘Sorry, but what can one do with ’em?’
‘Talk to them. They’ll answer. Get to know them, you’ve had twenty-five years to do it in.’
‘Can you wonder your mother cleared out of the place?’
I looked her in the eye. She knew. ‘No. I no longer wonder, if I ever did.’ She avoided my eye as she mumbled, ‘Well, there you are then’.
‘No, I’m not. Get this clear. Mother never left Addison because it wasn’t Park Lane or what you would call smart, or because somebody’s furs didn’t come from the right shop or somebody else tinned sardines or the shops weren’t Fortnum and Mason –’
‘Then what’s your idea in coming back here? Want to run the place?’
‘I’m just audience. No cards up the sleeve.’
‘And I suppose the next thing’ll be everybody’ll be rushing to offer you Addison on a plate, as they used to.’
‘Thelma, you are so unhappy, aren’t you?’
She was sobbing, now. ‘You needn’t be afraid, Thelma.’
But it didn’t quite end there, for Chetwyn developed a habit of stopping at my gate on his way home for the talks I would have welcomed and I had to scotch all that, which hurt us both. Even over sherry and firelight he never got within a mile of criticism of his wife, but she wouldn’t believe it, and I saw that from now on our only approved exchanges must be via a bed of sickness. Disappointed men are always difficult t
o handle in any case, and apt to say and do damaging things they only half mean, and if I was to be clutched to illegitimate bosoms I was quite determined that I should at least enjoy the process. It was, I often thought when Chetwyn had left me, a pity that one licensed bosom wasn’t available, for I would have liked to cast myself upon Clifford’s much and often, there was nothing drifting or amorphous about him. On the other hand men who love you are very all-or-nothing and women don’t always want a pistol at their head, but notice and soothing. And panting a little, flattened a little more, I still hadn’t finished with Addison.
4
By this time I had rather thrown up the sponge about social contacts, and waited in the vast Ackworth-Mead drawing-room not caring who came in or what, having arrived, it looked like, said or thought. Only to find that Trevor and his Domrémy wife, whom I have never known well, whose faces I had long forgotten, were the kind of actual, pleasant people you encounter in any London house and that we were free to make a fresh start with each other with no sentimental cans tied to the tail.
If it were true that Trevor had married the wrong sister by mistake on that river picnic you would never have guessed it, for which I applauded him: they seemed to suit each other remarkably well, but then, they’d been married for many years now. We three were to become friends, and I felt that I had passed the test when Trevor, on my alluding to Thelma, screwed his monocle, and tapping a bulldog on the head as we lounged in the morning-room one spring day, said, ‘Ah, poor girl, I never could stand her, myself.’
I rewarded him. ‘Trevor, do you know that I once mistook you for a waiter at one of your parties?’
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