‘I’ve brought Geoffrey Harvey in for a drink, Mother,’ said Oliver, and vouchsafing no further explanation retired into what had been a large dress closet when the drawing-room was a bedroom and was now used as a kind of genteel licensed grocer’s where some drinks and such odds and ends as biscuits, sweets, cigarettes and other vanishing delicacies were kept. It was a point of honour with the Marling family to put everything of that nature into a common stock, and they were all fairly honest about using the contents except Mr Marling who had a secret passion for biscuits and was apt to go to the cupboard at odd moments like a boy in a moral story stealing jam. Still, as his son Oliver remarked, the biscuits were paid for with his money, so he deserved first pick. Lettice of course kept her biscuits and sweets for her little girls, but as she hardly ever smoked she put most of the cigarettes she got into the common stock and contributed gin whenever the Marling Arms could supply it.
As long as Oliver was in the cupboard clinking bottles and glasses it was useless to ask him who his friend was, so his mother and sister confined themselves to generalities. Mr Harvey was a tall, lean man with dark eyes and a great deal of dark hair, which was perpetually falling over one eye and as often being thrown back by a toss of his head or put aside by one of his long and very well-shaped hands. To those who admired him this trait was very endearing, having a certain air as of one so innocent and defenceless that he could not even protect himself against his own hair. To those who disliked him it was but a reason the more for their (as they considered) well-founded dislike. Lettice was so busy wondering why his name sounded familiar that she did not consider the question of like or dislike. Mrs Marling had a general preference for men who were neat and well-groomed, but as it was her rule never to show her disapproval of her children’s friends till they themselves found they didn’t like them, she asked Mr Harvey if he knew that part of the country well in a voice which accurately conveyed to her son and daughter exactly what she thought of him. Oliver, collecting glasses and bottles in the cupboard, smiled to himself and wondered if Geoffrey Harvey would be quick enough to spot it. He was still smiling as he emerged with a tray and catching Lettice’s eye saw that she had spotted it too, which made her smile back to him. Mr Harvey saw her smile and found it disturbing.
‘Sherry, Geoffrey, or gin and whatever we can offer?’ said Oliver. ‘We are mixing it with some Spanish white wine at the moment, as the village is out of lime. Mamma, I know you’ll have whisky and soda. Lettice, a little something to keep the cold out?’
Mr Harvey asked for sherry, Mrs Marling took her whisky and soda like a man and Lettice shook her head.
‘I will now,’ said Oliver, ‘expound your visitor to you. He was bombed out of London in the last blitz and came down to some cousins near Barchester, and owing to his personality is now under John Leslie and co-equal with me at the office, only really an inferior job as he only organises hundreds of typists and whatnots, while I am allowed to sit in a little room with a telephone and draw pictures on the blotting paper. Geoffrey, my mother and my sister Lettice.’
Having distributed the drinks he took off his spectacles and held his hand over his eyes for a moment, a gesture which made his mother and sister each say to herself, ‘Oliver’s eyes are bad again,’ and lose all interest in the newcomer.
‘Oliver is only pulling my leg,’ said Mr Harvey in a deep, melodious voice. ‘I was really seconded here from the Board of Tape and Sealing Wax because I am rather good at handling masses of dull and mostly useless correspondence and putting people off who want to know things.’
‘A kind of Tite Barnacle,’ said Mrs Marling, testing her man.
‘Exactly. How nice of you,’ said Mr Harvey enthusiastically. ‘But a very unworthy disciple. And what I want dreadfully is a little house for my sister and myself. If we live any longer with my cousins we shall go mad, and it is certainly not worth paying ten guineas a week which is supposed to include drinks and emphatically doesn’t, for the privilege of qualifying for Colney Hatch.’
‘Who are your cousins?’ asked Mrs Marling.
‘I don’t suppose you know them,’ said Mr Harvey. ‘They are called Norton and have a quite dreadfully boring garden that people used to come miles to see, all very rare plants that mostly don’t come up.’
‘His mother, Victoria Norton, is a cousin of my husband’s,’ said Mrs Marling.
‘I’m sorry —’ Mr Harvey began, but whether he was sorry for his own unfortunate remarks or for Mr Marling we shall never know, for Mrs Marling without paying any attention to him added – ‘and a dreadful woman with a face like a cabhorse. Her son was at school with Oliver and is quite insufferable and so is his wife.’
Mr Harvey laughed and flung back his hair.
‘I remember old Lady Norton at the Leslies’ once, Mamma,’ said Oliver. ‘She got the better of a whole lunch party including the Bishop of Barchester and we all had to listen to her account of the way she mulched – it is mulched isn’t it, or do I mean squelched – her tenth greenhouse.’
Then Lettice remembered that Mrs John Leslie had spoken of Geoffrey Harvey and felt the relief we all feel when two things click together in our minds. It made her feel quite friendly towards the newcomer. True, as David Leslie had said, he was long-haired, but quite a lot of quite nice men had rather long hair. Oliver’s was fairly long in front, only he kept it very tidily brushed back. And even if David had known Mr Harvey up and down town off and on for a long time, no fair-minded person would hold that against anyone. So she smiled at Mr Harvey and asked what kind of house he wanted.
‘The dream house, of course,’ said Mr Harvey, mocking himself a trifle obviously. ‘Just big enough for Frances and me and our dreadfully faithful cook who is really Frances’s old nurse. But not a little house with beams that hit your head. Sooner a Council Cottage, however Councilish.’
Mrs Marling said in any case he wouldn’t get one.
‘I do so understand,’ said Mr Harvey. ‘All for Tolpuddle Martyrs, and so right.’
‘That is not the way to ingratiate yourself with my mamma,’ said Oliver. ‘Here in Barsetshire we think but poorly of Dorsetshire. Now if you said the Hogglestock martyrs, not that there ever were any, Mamma would smile on your suit.’
Mr Harvey, who liked showing people that he appreciated their remarks, laughed again, and again flung back his hair. Mrs Marling, ignoring her son, embarked upon a catalogue raisonné of houses in the neighbourhood which had at one time or another been to let, but as they were all crammed to overflowing with refugees or people’s relations were not worth practical consideration.
‘But Mamma,’ said Lettice, ‘what about the Red House? Mrs Smith is longing to get rid of it and go to her mother at Torquay. Do you want it furnished or unfurnished, Mr Harvey?’
Mr Harvey said he didn’t mind at all, but as most of his furniture was stored he would prefer unfurnished. On the other hand, he added, he didn’t suppose there would be the faintest chance of getting it down from London within the next six months, so perhaps furnished; but anything would be perfect.
‘Mrs Smith wants to let furnished,’ said Lettice. ‘She doesn’t want to see any of her furniture again, poor thing.’
Mr Harvey said one did so understand that feeling.
‘It’s because her husband died there,’ said Oliver. ‘You wouldn’t mind that?’
‘My dear, no!’ said Mr Harvey. ‘It is all so fantastically perfect. Which room did he die in?’
Lettice said in the best bedroom.
‘Then I’ll have to let Frances sleep in it,’ said Mr Harvey regretfully. ‘I might have seen an elemental, quite too terrifying and marvellous. What is the rent?’
But this was a detail no one knew. Mrs Marling said if Mr Harvey really wanted to enquire he had better write to Mrs Smith. Or perhaps he and his sister would come over one day soon and see it for themselves. Mr Harvey said his hours of duty were a peculiar kind of jigsaw puzzle, like Oliver’s, but he would have a whole day o
ff next week and would tell his sister.
‘Ring me up and have tea here then,’ said Mrs Marling. ‘I would like to say lunch, but we are not able to do very much now.’
‘How one understands that,’ said Mr Harvey. ‘Though nothing to my cousins, I assure you, who simply welcome rationing as an excuse for never asking people to meals and starving their guests. If Frances and I have to sit much longer like the old person of Sheen, who dined off one pea and one bean, with George and Eleanor who is really my cousin, not George, saying in loud voices that they can’t think why anyone complains about rations, we shall expire. Thank you so much for your help and now I must be going.’
‘Do stay and meet my husband,’ said Mrs Marling, who wanted that gentleman to cast an eye over the possible tenant of the Red House before she went any further. ‘Where is your father, Oliver?’
‘Isn’t he back?’ said Oliver.
A great deal of cross-talking then took place from which it emerged that Oliver had come out in Mr Harvey’s car and knew nothing of his father’s movements. At the same moment Mr Marling came in and leaving the door open stood glaring at the company.
‘Been waiting in that confounded Club for more than half an hour,’ he said angrily. ‘Thought you were coming out with me, Oliver.’
‘No, Papa dear,’ said Oliver. ‘I came out with Geoffrey Harvey in his car. Here he is,’ he added in confirmation of his statement.
‘You said I was to wait for Oliver, Amabel,’ said Mr Marling. ‘Waited nearly an hour and then he comes out with a feller I don’t know. Afternoon, young man, didn’t get your name.’
‘Geoffrey Harvey, Papa dear,’ said Oliver.
‘Oh, all right, all right,’ said his father. ‘Thing is your mother said you wanted me to wait for you.’
‘No, William, I only said would you ask at the Club if there was a message from Oliver in case he could come out with you,’ said Mrs Marling, unperturbed. ‘Did you ask for a message?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said her husband. ‘What message? No one gives me any messages. I’ve been sitting over an hour in that Club and that silly feller Norton got hold of me and talked a lot of nonsense about the War Agricultural Committee. Tell you what I said to him though – this’ll amuse you, Amabel – he said he was putting a bit of the park under wheat, that bit along the Southbridge Road, so I told him he’d never do any good there. Worst bit of soil for twenty miles round. And you can tell that to the Agricultural Committee, I said.’
He paused, evidently expecting applause for this brilliant anecdote.
‘Eleanor Norton is Mr Harvey’s cousin, William,’ said his wife.
‘Eh?’ said Mr Marling, suddenly afflicted with deafness. ‘Whose cousin’s that?’
‘You know you heard quite well, Father,’ said Lettice. ‘Mr Harvey has been staying with the Nortons and he wants to look at the Red House. Sit down, darling, and have some sherry.’
Mr Marling allowed himself to be offered a chair and said sherry was poison except with the soup, but he supposed he’d better have some and he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. If Mr Carver was staying with the Nortons, why did he want to look at the Red House?
‘Not Carver, Father, Harvey,’ said Lettice.
‘Oh, all right,’ said her father. ‘If you’d been about an hour and a half with that pompous ass Norton talking nonsense about wheat, you’d say Carver.’
‘George is enough to make anyone say Carver, sir,’ said Mr Harvey sympathetically. ‘My sister and I are being starved at Norton Park and we want to find a small house where we can be on our own, not too far from Barchester. Miss Marling said a place called the Red House might be available.’
‘Lucy? Where is she?’ asked Mr Marling. ‘I want to talk to her about the young bull.’
Mrs Marling said she hadn’t seen Lucy since breakfast, which made her husband ask how the devil it was that Lucy had told Mr Carver about the Red House. Oliver, realising that the mistake was due to his carelessness, apologised to Mr Harvey and begged to be allowed to reintroduce his sister as Mrs Watson. The real Miss Marling, he said, would be back from the Cottage Hospital at any moment. Mr Harvey in his turn apologised for his unwitting mistake and then said he must really be going.
The door, which Oliver had shut when his father stopped standing in the doorway, was suddenly flung open again by Lucy, in her VAD uniform.
‘I say,’ she said, standing in the open door as her father had done, ‘I’ll tell you what I did today. I helped Doctor March to vaccinate two babies. One was Welper’s baby, you know Father, the man who had the chicken farm, but he’s having to give it up because of grain rationing. It’s a fine baby. I held them both while Dr March jabbed the stuff in and he says I can come to his consulting room the day I’m off duty and help if I like. Whose car is that in the drive? I don’t know the number-plate. I’ll tell you what —’
‘Lucy, my angel,’ said Oliver, ‘it is Geoffrey Harvey’s car. He drove me out in it and he wants to take the Red House. Geoffrey, this is the real Miss Marling.’
‘Oh, hullo,’ said Lucy giving Mr Harvey’s arm a hearty kind of pump-handle shake. ‘I didn’t see you. You’ll like the Red House. It’s a bit art, but the beds are good. I slept there once to keep Mrs Smith company when her husband was getting over DT. You know he died of it. But I’ll tell you what you ought to do, get the gas oven moved into the scullery and make the kitchen a sort of dining-room. It’ll be much warmer in the winter.’
Mr Harvey, amused by the strong family likeness between his host and his host’s younger daughter, explained that he must see the Red House before he took it and was coming over next week with his sister. He then managed to get away. As he drove back to Norton Hall he thought how families ran in types. Mr Marling, a real character (and he plumed himself on his collection of characters) and his younger daughter an absolute replica of him, though the fine, insular self-confidence which led Mr Marling to stand in the doorway bellowing at everyone was not so attractive in a girl, or a young woman, for Miss Marling must be at least twenty-five. Anything less like his conception of Oliver Marling’s family there could not be. Yet Oliver’s other sister was very like him. Both had a certain quiet elegance and the reserved though perfectly cordial manners which had attracted him to Oliver in the office. He almost wished the elder sister were not married, for she had all her brother’s charm. He would like to see her smile again in that disturbing way. Very likely her husband was in the army or away on some war work and a light flirtation would not come amiss to her. The more he thought of her, the more the plan of taking the Red House smiled on him. His London friends, most of whom had managed to get pretty good jobs, would be frightfully envious when they heard he had taken a house where the last occupant had died of DT. It would knock out completely that conceited young Rivers and his flat where the actress had taken veronal. He felt a sudden spurt of annoyance at the thought of Julian Rivers being an official war artist and paid for it too, all because he was a connection of Lord Pomfret’s. But in this he did Julian Rivers less than justice. That odious young man had not asked any help from his cousin, who would not have been much inclined to give it, and by his own arrogance and push as the leading light of the Set of Five, an artistic coterie centring round the Tottenham Court Road, had shoved himself into the job and was now painting munition factories in terms of pre-war surrealism, besides a spot of collage, his portrait of a girl shell-filler done entirely by gluing bits of bus tickets together having had a particular success.
At least, Mr Harvey reflected, he was not an able-bodied young man who had found a non-combatant job. He was well over military age. He did his work very well at the Board of Tape and Sealing Wax and knew it. Until a few months ago he had been certain of a place in the Honours List, possibly a KBE. Whether his work at the Regional Commissioner’s Office would sidetrack this he was not sure. He would take care to make a good impression in it and if the impression were not good enough he would manage to get ba
ck to Whitehall and his London life, for to live among barbarians in the provinces was no part of his plan. Still, Lettice Watson was not a barbarian and one must make the best of any position in which one found oneself; so he sped on to Norton Park and its amenities in a more hopeful frame of mind.
Meanwhile the unconscious object of his thoughts had gone back to her home over the stables. She found her daughters in bed, very pink and clean, waiting to say their prayers. When they had finished Nurse said, ‘I didn’t like to trouble you, madam, while the children were saying their prayers, but we couldn’t clean our teeth tonight.’
Lettice, rather surprised, asked why.
‘I thought Diana was very quiet after tea,’ said nurse, ‘but I was ironing and didn’t see what she was doing. Just look, madam.’
She held up two small toothbrushes, industriously clipped to the bone by the older Miss Watson.
Marling Hall Page 5