By an extraordinary piece of luck the Bill Marlings’ nurse was called Nana, which prevented any confusion with Lettice’s nurse. These ladies lived in a pleasant state of fully armed friendship, uniting in coming down heavily upon Mrs Bill’s second nurse who was called Everleen and came from an orphanage. The nursery cortège presented indeed an imposing appearance as it took its morning walk in the grounds, the two youngest Marling children packed into the perambulator pushed by Everleen, or for a great treat by the elder Marlings or Diana Watson, with Nana’s eye on them, the other children, when not pushing the perambulator, hanging on to its side, running on in front and being called back by nurse, or loitering behind and being sharply bidden to hurry up by Nana. In this cavalcade they visited the farm, the sawing-shed, Govern’s cottage, Ed’s mother’s cottage, the stables under Aunt Lucy’s charge, the milking shed and all the pleasant remains of a vanishing civilisation, and Mr and Mrs Marling felt extremely proud. Diana and Clare liked their cousins and as they were all well brought up by proper nannies, without which there is no civilisation possible, everything was very pleasant. Lettice and Mrs Bill continually praised each other’s children while the nannies continually praised their own, but they all meant the same thing, and we may say here that the Marling children though very nice were rather dull, so we shall not go into details about them.
For the better entertainment of the Bill Marlings and the Christmas Eve guests the large drawing-room had been opened. The Red Cross Stores were packed away by Lettice and Miss Bunting behind two great Chinese screens, huge wood fires were kept burning in the two handsome Adam fireplaces under the charge of Ed, who sawed logs with fervour all day and brought in piles of wood with the reverence of an acolyte, for the drawing-room was to him a temple of beauty and romance. It was during this week that he had his one and only difference of opinion with his mother, under whose thumb his whole existence had been spent. Mrs Pollett, who was for ever against law and order, spoke angrily to her son, accusing him of making a doormat of himself for people who gave themselves airs and hinting darkly that he might find the cottage door closed to him if he went on like that. Ed smiled his half-witted angel’s smile and remarked slowly, ‘Then I’d marry Millie Poulter. She’s got a tidy bit in the bank.’
‘And get some more fools like yourself I suppose,’ said his loving mother, to which Ed, whose legally fatherless condition had often been discussed sympathetically in his presence by his many friends and relations and had to some extent soaked into his muddled brain, replied reasonably, ‘Well, Mother, who got I?’ which sent his mother into such violent hysterics that she was quite kind to him for the whole Christmas week.
Although Lettice and Oliver were to some degree gnawed by their private troubles, it did not prevent each noticing the shadow on the other. Nothing was said. Lettice could not in honesty tell her brother that she wanted Miss Harvey for a sister-in-law; Oliver, suspecting nothing of Captain Barclay’s declaration, thought that his dear Lettice might be pining for David, but felt the ground too delicate for questioning.
Christmas Eve had been most exhausting. The two younger Marling children had sneezed twice. The elder boy, who was passing through that very tiresome age of rudely debunking defenceless conjurors at parties and had refused to clap his hands when taken to Peter Pan, had devastated the nursery by saying that Santa Claus wasn’t a real person. The elder of his two sisters and Diana had flung themselves upon him like furies, the female sneezer and Clare had burst into tears, and only the male sneezer who was of too tender years to understand remained unmoved. Nurse, Nana and Everleen had been hard put to it to restore order and get the children clean to go down to the drawing-room. Here an unfortunate epidemic of sulks took place. In vain did Lettice and her mother try game after game; even Miss Bunting could not do very much. Diana was found to be wearing a ruby ring out of a cracker, property of one of her cousins, the elder Marling boy indulged in prep school wit and had to be checked, and Clare and the younger Miss Marling having discovered the awful word Beastly felt obliged to use it repeatedly against their elders’ express orders. When Nurse, Nana and Everleen appeared to remove the nursery party the grown-ups were too near defeat to be able to exult. Mrs Marling went to the nursery and Miss Bunting withdrew to a writing table at the far end of the room to do the place cards for dinner. Lettice looked at the clock. It was only half-past six, plenty of time to be quiet before dinner, so she sat and looked at the fire till Oliver came back from the office.
‘Well, darling,’ said Lettice, when her brother’s tall form appeared between herself and the fire.
‘Christmas,’ said Oliver with measured hatred,
‘comes but once a year,
Its advent we do hate and fear,
But even that is as absolutely nothing to the
infernal nuisance it is when it is really here.
‘Have any of the children been sick yet?’
‘Not on Christmas Eve,’ said Lettice, shocked. ‘That isn’t till Christmas Day. When do Frances and Geoffrey come up?’
Oliver said not till dinner time, as they had both been kept late at the office and was he keeping the fire off his sister? So they sat in affectionate, anxious silence till Bill and Mrs Bill, who had been decorating the church, came in, for Mrs Bill was a bishop’s daughter and knew exactly what she ought to do, wherever she was. Lettice idly asked who else was decorating.
‘Oh, the usuals,’ said Bill Marling. ‘Mrs March and Mrs Propert and Govern and Mrs Smith. What’s happened to our Joyce? She had a positively leering light in her eye and said the New Year might bring many a change.’
‘From what Frances says,’ said Oliver, ‘not content with spying on them night and day, she has been making advances to Geoffrey. I gather that he is frightened out of his wits.’
‘Bet you ten to one she gets him,’ said Bill, who was famed for backing losers at the regimental point to point.
‘I’ll take your dare,’ said Oliver, ‘so long as it’s in sixpences, for more I cannot afford.’
Bill wrote it all down in his pocket diary and Mrs Bill said she could never quite approve of widows marrying again, which might have led to uncomfortableness, but everyone knew their Mrs Bill, and Lettice said she rather agreed. Mrs Bill, who had a very kind heart and made the best of wives and mothers, was luckily so stupid in some ways that she felt no embarrassment at all. The children were then discussed in great detail and the party drifted off to dress. Miss Bunting had by now finished arranging the dinner table, a work of some difficulty owing to the number of the Marling family present, and turning out her light allowed herself the rare treat of sitting quietly and thinking of her own affairs. For forty years or so she had eaten other people’s Christmas turkey and pudding, but she could not truthfully say that the dish had ever been bitter to her, or moistened by her tears. Her heart said a small hymn of gratitude for kindness and even honour in so many houses, for affectionate thoughts at Christmas, for her place among so many pleasant family circles, for the remembrance that so many old pupils had of her each year. Already a large heap of Christmas cards was lying in her room and though nothing would induce her to open them before Christmas Day, she knew the writings and exulted. This year, as last year, far too many of the greetings would be naval, military, or air force cards; and this year, even more than last year, there would be gaps in the list and she would miss the friendly remembrance of the little boys who had grown up and gone from her, some to the earth, some to the cold sea, some, whether happier or not she could not tell, to prison camps with hope very far away. She felt as if somehow she had failed in her duty, as if the Bunny whom so many little boys had loved, teased, confided in and remembered ought to have stood between them and evil, as indeed she would cheerfully have done if her small body and indomitable spirit could have been the sacrifice. So deeply was she lost in her thoughts that she was not aware of newcomers till Lucy’s voice was heard at the other end of the drawing-room telling Captain Barclay what in no unc
ertain terms.
‘Rot,’ said Lucy, throwing her coat on to a sofa, hurling a log on to the fire and banging herself into a chair. ‘It’s no good saying you’ve got to go to London tonight, it’ll spoil the dinner. Everyone knows the War Office doesn’t want you on Christmas Day. If you go up tomorrow afternoon that’ll be heaps of time. Besides, why didn’t you say sooner?’
Captain Barclay said he couldn’t, because he hadn’t had the letter owing to the posts being so queer.
‘Well, if you don’t go the War Office will just think you haven’t got the letter,’ said Lucy. ‘If they really wanted you they’d send a telegram. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you ring them up?’
Captain Barclay, slightly confused by Lucy’s direct methods, was heard to say that he could hardly do that and anyway no one would miss him.
‘I shall,’ said Lucy stoutly. ‘And Lettice will.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Captain Barclay; and we may say that at and from this moment Miss Bunting did a thing she had never in her upright life done before, and deliberately eavesdropped. Seated as she was behind the large writing table at the far end of the room, without a light, it was not likely that they would notice her. If they did, she had the dinner list in front of her which must be excuse enough.
‘Don’t be an ass, Tom,’ said Lucy good-humouredly. ‘Lettice is a bit silly sometimes, but I’ve noticed that people who get married are often much sillier than people who don’t. I suppose it’s all the worry of husbands and children. Look at Sally Pomfret. When she was running the beagles she was much more sensible. Now she’s got Gillie and the children to look after she seems much less interesting. Well, look at me. I know I’m not pretty like Lettice, and I loathe all this business of dressing-up and going to parties, but I was thinking the other night that if Lettice is so silly about David, really I’m much more grown-up and sensible than she is.’
Captain Barclay would have given his soul to ask how Lettice and David were being silly and so would Miss Bunting, but neither dared expose their position.
‘I wouldn’t be silly about David,’ said Lucy, who was much enjoying the sound of her own voice and the grown-up feeling of discussing her elder sister with her Captain Barclay. ‘David’s all right. I mean he’s all right, but you’re much decenter.’
Captain Barclay, such is the effect of evil communications, unconsciously copied his friend Lucy and said, ‘Rot.’
‘Rot yourself,’ said Lucy. ‘And that’s what I told Lettice.’
‘Told her what?’ asked Captain Barclay, who would have liked to shake Lucy if that would have clarified her peculiar roundabout way of telling a story.
‘I told you,’ said Lucy patiently. ‘It was that night you were holding Lettice’s hand in the Red Cross bundles. It looked pretty soppy, but I daresay you can’t help it. So I went into her room before I had my bath and told her you were much the nicest, because I thought she might think you were my special friend or some rot. I think she thought you thought she liked David. That’s what I mean about Lettice; she isn’t frightfully sensible really, but I’m frightfully fond of her. Lord! It’s half-past seven! Besides I promised to ring up Captain Grant at the AFS. I want him to let me go out with the Fire Engines. He’s awfully decent except when he’s cross because he isn’t in the war because he’s got a queer foot because a horse trod on it.’
Pleased with her discourse on the folly of elder sisters, she got up with a violence that sent her chair skating across the floor into a small bookcase, knocked a sofa cushion on to the floor as she picked up her coat, and strode out of the room.
Captain Barclay, who had been too stunned to get up when Lucy went, remained by the fire in a kind of paralysis. For some months now two thoughts had given him no rest. The first was that Lettice cared for David; the second, implanted in his bosom by Lettice herself, was that Lucy had a prior claim to his affections. With this theory he disagreed and as we know had told Lettice frankly that he did not and never would love Lucy except as an excellent sort of fellow. Now Lucy herself, with no sign at all of a broken heart, or indeed of any sentiment whatsoever, had as good as told him that he ought to pay his suit to Lettice and was prepared to approve any efforts he made in that direction. He drew a deep breath, like a diver returning from sunless depths to the light of day. The burden dropped from his shoulders and hope sprang again. He had been too gentle, too weak with Lettice. When her sisterly love and apprehension had made her put a barrier between them he had admired her unselfishness and with her set out upon the very uncomfortable road of renunciation. This road, through Lucy’s words, had suddenly come to an end, or more properly given itself a shake like the path in the Looking-Glass and brought him back to where he was when he started; loving Lettice with no reason against loving her. For quite two minutes he remained spell-bound by this blissful thought. Then, as he went over in his mind his recent conversation with Lucy, a chill doubt crept in. True, Lucy approved his interest in Lettice, but the words she had spoken about David suddenly assumed a new and terrifying aspect. If Lucy, so splendidly dense to the fine shades, had noticed any inclination towards David in her elder sister, it must be there. Lucy could not possibly invent such a thing. And with this thought his spirits dropped again to zero. As far as birth and worldly position went he and David were not unequal, but David’s was a charm that even other men had to recognise and if David chose to use it upon Lettice how could she but respond. In considerable agony he got up and paced angrily down the long room. At the further end he came upon Miss Bunting, her light turned on, industriously writing. As he approached she looked up.
‘Good evening, Captain Barclay,’ she said. ‘Dear, dear, I had no idea how late it was. I have been doing the cards for dinner. Have you just come?’
Captain Barclay said he had come in with Lucy, who had gone to dress.
‘So must I,’ said Miss Bunting, turning out her light and getting up. ‘Our dear Lucy,’ she continued as she went towards the door accompanied by Captain Barclay, ‘is sometimes a little more brusque in her manner than I quite like, but she has an excellent heart and a great deal of common sense. If I were in doubt upon any practical question, I can think of no young person whose advice I would be more apt to consider than Lucy’s,’ which was of course a downright lie, for Miss Bunting throughout her long independent life had never asked nor taken advice from anyone. But Captain Barclay, being in a state of bemusement in which he was ready to catch at any straw, caught gratefully at this deliberate falsehood and said he was sure Miss Bunting was right.
‘I always am,’ said Miss Bunting. ‘When I am not sure I do not speak. Follow Lucy’s advice and you will not be sorry.’
With alarming majesty she passed through the door which Captain Barclay was holding open for her and disappeared across the dimly-lit landing. Captain Barclay shut the door behind her and went back to the fire-side where he spent a very agitating ten minutes alternately feeling sure that no woman could resist David, the one particular woman on whom his heart was set least of all, and that he must put his fate to the touch that night, that moment if it were possible, or die in the attempt. Before he could go quite mad the party began to assemble and he had to pretend to be Captain Barclay instead of a love-lorn lunatic.
Bill Marling, David Leslie and Captain Barclay being in uniform could not do the party justice. Oliver had exhumed his tails, unworn since the summer of 1939, but Mr Marling took pride of place in his black trousers with very wide braid down the legs and a dark blue velvet smoking jacket, relic of an Oxford club of his youth. It was his pride and his family’s disgrace that the revers or lapels of this coat had never been refaced, owing to which nostalgic renouncement they presented rather the appearance of Miss Havisham’s bridal finery, hanging in shreds and tatters, the canvas interlining showing through, but giving intense satisfaction to the wearer. Mr Harvey in a dinner jacket was neither here nor there.
Miss Bunting, who always wore black at night, had added a small black ve
lvet bow to her rather skimpy coiffure, thus increasing her air of majesty. Mrs Marling wore a dark purple woollen gown with some gold embroidery and looked very much the chatelaine. Mrs Bill, as was inevitable, had on a flowered voile dipping a little at one side, relic of her papa’s last episcopal garden party before the war, and sandals with her great toe sticking through. Lettice wore a dusty pink which suited her dark hair, and Lucy had shaken herself into a very gentlemanly dark-green house-coat which she had bought because it unzipped all the way down, though it had no particular shape. The star of the evening was undoubtedly Miss Harvey, whose fair handsomeness was enhanced by black lace and chiffon through which her neck and arms gleamed just like a heroine’s. As she stood talking to Oliver, Lettice had to admit, looking on their tall elegant figures, the dark by the fair, that they made a very striking couple. Captain Barclay, observing Lettice as she spoke to David, had to admit that a better matched couple for looks and breeding could not easily be found. Mrs Marling noted with resigned sorrow that her daughter Lucy, though she had put on bedroom slippers instead of walking shoes, a handsome concession from her to the day, had a ladder up the front of one stocking and something perilously like a woollen vest where she had not bothered to zip her dress up to the top.
Marling Hall Page 29