At the end of the following week, Nellie went, and Mrs. Raynor made spasmodic appearances in the passages and the bedrooms, and Laura “helped with the beds,” and Alfred changed the plates and handed the vegetable dishes at meals, and nurse said it seemed as though one pair of hands being gone put double the work on everybody else without getting it done, so to speak, and Gladys said it was unsettling and gave notice.
Then Laura, at great expense, secured a temporary house-parlourmaid, and by that time Gladys’s month was up and she went away.
Laura heard of a man-cook, an old soldier. The temporary house-parlourmaid said that it would be quite impossible for her to stay when there was only a man in the kitchen.
A possibly permanent house-parlourmaid, with whom Laura was negotiating, said the same thing.
The man-cook had to be relinquished.
The possibly permanent house-parlourmaid was very sorry, but if things were unsettled at Applecourt, she’d prefer not to take the place. She’d rather go to a lady at Bath, whose cook had been with her for five years and whose house-parlourmaid had only left to be married.
Laura felt that nothing in the whole world mattered, except the solution of the domestic problem.
She relinquished her resolution of not talking about the servants to her husband, and talked about nothing else.
The days seemed to be entirely occupied in small dustings and cleanings, and the evenings in lighting the lamps, drawing the blinds and the curtains, and clearing away the things from the dining-room table.
The cooking was done by Mrs. Raynor, in the middle of the day, and the food at night was cold. This, in itself, served to depress the atmosphere.
Then, as had happened before, just as Laura felt that even the unendurable can become endurable by mere force of habit, one state of affairs merged almost imperceptibly into another. Laura acquired two servants, a man and his wife.
They asked, and received, wages that Laura, six months earlier, would have said emphatically, and with perfect truth, that she and Alfred could not afford to give them.
The man cooked well, although extravagantly, and the woman was obliging, but unpunctual and untidy in her work.
“There’ll always be something,” Laura said, indicating a determination to be satisfied with any state of affairs that should imply the presence, and not the absence, of domestics. Nurse, who at one moment had shown grave signs of becoming unsettled, now became settled again, and Laura was able to turn her attention wholly to the children, the meals, and the question of expense, instead of dividing it between the servants, the children, the meals and the question of expense.
Life continued to be uneventful, full of slight harassments, trivial satisfactions, and harmless, recurrent anxieties.
Spring gave place to early summer.
At the end of May, Laura’s younger sister came to stay at Applecourt.
Christine was twenty-nine, but she looked much younger. Every time that Laura saw her, she looked younger. This time, her fair hair was bobbed—a thick, straight bob with a short fringe, that suited her square, boyish face and wide-apart hazel eyes.
Christine, when she was fifteen and Laura twenty, had been accounted plain, and indeed she was still plain. But she was now accounted pretty, and charming, and extremely amusing.
Laura was proud of her, and fond of her, and very often annoyed by her.
Christine was entirely independent. She, like Laura, had inherited a yearly income of two hundred and fifty pounds from their father, but, unlike Laura, she had only herself to spend it on. She earned money, too, by her writing. She lived in London, in a very small flat, by herself. Every year, and sometimes twice in one year, she went abroad.
Laura felt that it would be good for Bébée Kingsley-Browne to meet Christine, for Christine, also, knew many young men, and was inclined to talk about them a good deal, and Laura was forced to believe in the reality of their devotion, if only because of the number of letters that Christine received.
But there was always one—a different one every year—of whom Christine talked most, and from whom she heard oftenest.
This year it was somebody called Marmaduke Ayland, who was musical, and composed settings for other people’s songs.
“I should like you to meet him,” Christine said, on her very first evening at Applecourt. “If he’s anywhere in this neighbourhood, may he come over to lunch?”
“Of course,” said Laura. “Hark, was that one of the children?”
“I didn’t hear anything. You see, Duke wants to spend a week some time right in the country, where he can make as much noise on the piano as he likes, for this new musical comedy score, and not feel that he’s disturbing anybody. So I suggested this neighbourhood. He could lodge for a week at that farm—you know—”
“Yes, I know. Mrs. Sefton’s. We can go and see about it. I wonder whether—you know, Christine, I really believe Johnnie is going to be musical after all.”
“Oh, do you?” said Christine, and something in the way she said it recalled Laura to herself with a guilty start.
Chapter V
Having Christine at Applecourt was delightful, and she was a great help with the children, and her amusing conversation enlivened the evenings. But she made Laura feel very middle-aged indeed.
From sheer force of habit, Laura, who was no gardener, said something to her sister about the past glories of the bulbs, and Christine simply, candidly and unprecedentedly, replied:
“For pity’s sake, Laura, don’t talk about anything so deadly as the bulbs. I don’t mind looking at them, when they’re actually there, provided I don’t have to walk through wet grass to get to them, but I do bar hearing about them. Let’s talk about people—grown-up people, I mean—or books, or clothes or something.”
“Everybody talks about the bulbs here.”
“How very distressing! But I suppose you needn’t answer. Then they’ll guess you aren’t interested, won’t they?”
“They may or they may not. In any case, it won’t make any difference.”
Christine looked slightly awestruck.
“But aren’t there any people here? Besides the Kingsley-Brownes, I mean. Are they all bulb-fiends?”
“There are some new people at Marchland. I shall have to call on them. Shall we go while you’re here? Their name is Crossthwaite and he’s been with Melsom’s Publishing Company, and now he’s retired. Rich, I suppose—Marchland is pretty large. They may be useful for tennis.”
“D’you suppose they’ve got an eldest son, or anything amusing?”
“Much more likely they’ve got three unmarried daughters, like every other family in this part of the world,” said Mrs. Temple with the cynicism of experience.
“Well, it seems worth trying. Aren’t you proud, Laura, to think you’ve actually had two boys and not any girls at all? I know it’s supposed to mean some sort of sex-complex, when mothers want their children to be boys and not girls, but whoever started that theory couldn’t ever have lived in England, in the country, or he’d understand.”
“Of course, it’s not as bad as it used to be, when unmarried daughters all lived at home together,” Laura pointed out. “I wouldn’t mind having just one girl, either.”
“I shouldn’t, darling, if I were you. It’s expensive, and you’d have to start a nursery again just when Edward and Johnnie are ready for school, and it would be a pity to risk spoiling your figure. Three often does.”
Laura wondered whether Christine was talking for effect. She knew, theoretically, but could not realise, that unmarried young women did talk like that. But not in the Quinnerton neighbourhood.
“I’m getting provincial, Christine,” said Laura abruptly and desperately. “I don’t know what it is exactly, but sometimes it comes over me suddenly, and I realise—”
“You ought to go away more.”
“It’s very difficult to move Alfred.”
“So much the better. Go by yourself.”
“I co
uldn’t leave him alone with the servants and the children. I know you think that’s absurd, of course.”
Miss Fairfield committed herself neither to assent nor contradiction.
“You don’t understand how absolutely necessary it is to be there all the time, in a small house, especially when there are children. Everything goes wrong immediately if I go away for any length of time.”
“Well, then, of course you can’t,” said Christine reasonably. “Let’s hope the Marchland people will be assets, and have amusing friends to stay with them. And I’m certain you’ll like Duke Ayland.”
“What sort of aged man is he?”
“Six years older than I am.”
It was a great relief to Laura to hear that he was not six years younger. It was nowadays her depressing experience that anybody who had achieved artistic success invariably turned out to be younger than herself.
Laura would have liked to know whether Duke Ay-land was in love with Christine, but Christine volunteered no information on the point. She and Laura visited Mrs. Sefton at the farm, engaged a bedroom, and sent for the piano-tuner from Quinnerton to tune Mrs. Sefton’s piano.
Then Christine wrote to Ayland, and two days later he arrived, and was bidden to lunch at Applecourt.
“Laura, this is Duke Ayland. My sister, Mrs. Temple.”
He was tall and dark, looking a great deal younger than his thirty-five years. His best feature was a sensitive and well-cut mouth, with admirable teeth. He was clean-shaven. His hair was brushed straight back off his forehead, but Laura noted with approval that it was cut reasonably short.
She hoped that he was comfortable at the farm. Mrs. Sefton was a nice woman.
A very nice woman, and he was perfectly comfortable. So grateful to Christine and her sister for arranging it all.
And the piano? It had been tuned two days before.
The piano was all right.
Alfred came in, Mr. Ayland was introduced, and shaken hands with. Alfred hoped that he was comfortable at the farm. Mrs. Sefton was a nice woman.
“Very nice indeed. Perfectly comfortable.”
“The piano was tuned two days ago,” said Alfred.
They went into the dining-room for lunch.
On the whole, Laura decided, she liked Ayland. He was quiet, and seemed to lack self-confidence—both unusual characteristics in a friend of Christine’s.
She enquired whether he played tennis. They hoped to have some tennis on Saturday afternoon, and would be so pleased to see him. Ayland accepted at once.
“Who else is coming?” Christine enquired.
“Bay-bay, and one of her young men—someone who’s staying there—I haven’t met him and I forget his name—and Major and Mrs. Bakewell.”
“Is that the mother of a child who dances? A woman with a nose?”
“Yes,” said Laura, tacitly admitting the justice of this description.
“Oh my God!” said Christine pleasantly.
“You remember her, then?”
“Quite well. I saw her last year, that time you sent me to the dancing-class with the boys. She told me that all her children had danced before they could walk.”
“How very unpleasant,” said Ayland gently.
“And do you mean to say she can really play tennis?” Christine enquired with insulting incredulity.
“She plays quite well. So does her husband.”
“Poor devil!”
“What is he like?” said Ayland. “Does he dance, too?”
“I’ve never seen him,” Christine admitted, “but anybody who’d married that woman would be a poor devil. Well, it’ll be great fun to see her again. I remember the first time I met her, thinking her utterly unlike any other human being on the face of the earth. I hope Saturday will be fine, Duke, and that they’ll all come. Especially the Bakewells.”
Saturday was fine.
Laura gave the servants final and reiterated instructions about the lemonade, the tea, and the necessity for postponing dinner, if necessary, in the event of any of her guests remaining on after half-past seven.
She went to the nursery to see whether Edward and Johnnie were resenting the preparations for a festivity in which they would have no share, and remembered too late that it was unwise to suggest discontent to them by begging them to be good.
“I wish you didn’t have visitors. You won’t be able to read to us this evening,” said Johnnie, making his mother feel remorseful.
She kissed them both and went to her room to change her frock as quickly as possible. Christine was already on the lawn, with Alfred and Duke Ayland. She was wearing pale green linen, knee-length, with inserted squares of drawn-thread work. Her fair hair was uncovered. Laura thought how young she looked.
Her own frock was of cream-coloured sponge-cloth, and she knew that it became her. But she had to wear a hat, because her hair otherwise became so untidy, and the blue brim made her look pale, she thought, and gave an effect of dark semi-circles beneath her eyes.
Or was her face always rather pale, nowadays, and were there always semi-circles under her eyes?
Laura frowned at herself in the mirror, and went downstairs without answering her own question. It had left a faint tang of bitterness behind it.
The Bakewells arrived in a large Armstrong-Siddeley car, Mrs. Bakewell smiling largely under a small and precariously-perched white felt hat, and waving a tennis-racquet. Her husband was a small, sunburnt civil engineer, with an expression that seemed oddly harassed in conjunction with his wife’s eager brightness.
“Howdydo, I’ll just turn the car round,” he said at once. “She’ll be all right in the shade—sure I shan’t interfere with anybody else here, Mrs. Temple? Flossie, you get out, will you, dear, and I’ll just turn the car round.”
Mrs. Bakewell descended, shook hands with Laura and Alfred, assured Christine that she remembered her very well indeed, and made the acquaintance of Mr. Ayland.
The same preliminaries were then gone through by Major Bakewell.
“Christine, won’t you take Mrs. Bakewell on to the court, and start playing at once? Let me see—”
Laura had arranged the sets carefully in her own mind, but she was not very good at remembering anything of that kind, and the alert readiness of Mrs. Bakewell’s eye was confusing her.
“Alfred and Mrs. Bakewell against Major Bakewell and me,” said Christine briskly. “Duke doesn’t mind waiting. Come on.”
“Do you really not mind?” Laura enquired of the young man left obediently standing beside her.
“Not at all,” he said gently. “I’m not a good tennis player. Tell me, is Mrs. Bakewell very good? She looks as though she were.”
“She is, rather,” admitted Laura.
“Please,” said Mr. Ayland, “please don’t put me in the same set with her. I could play with you and your sister, but not with her. That sounds uncivil, but I’m sure you know what I mean. She’d expect me to be a rabbit and I should be one. I’m very suggestible.”
“I know that feeling.”
“You don’t, do you? I should have thought you were always self-possessed, and strong-minded, and composed.”
Laura, who had in the past few years felt more and more conscious of being none of these things, was at this enveloped in an unwonted glow.
She looked responsively at Ayland, and found his dark eyes fixed upon her with an air of being positively and actively interested in what they saw that Laura had long missed from the eyes of her male acquaintances.
“You are not what I imagined you’d be, in the very least,” Duke Ayland said.
“Didn’t Christine tell you anything about me—about us?”
“A little, yes—but I meant your writing. I’ve always admired your work so much, you know.”
“But I don’t know!” Laura exclaimed, a little breathless. “Christine never said—I never even knew that you knew that I wrote.”
“I’ve wanted to tell you—only I didn’t dare—that one of your
short stories—”
The Kingsley-Browne Humber swept into the drive, with Bébée Kingsley-Browne at the wheel and a tall young man in flannels lounging beside her.
Laura, from being a deeply interested and rather gratified woman, became a hostess, and a privately censorious one.
She saw in a moment that Bébée Kingsley-Browne was in the midst of an access of affectation—although, indeed, in the opinion of Mrs. Temple, her young neighbour was never at any time devoid of affectation. But this objectionable attribute was always increased by the presence of an admirer, and it was but too evident that the tall young man was an admirer.
His name was Vulliamy and Bébée addressed him as Jeremy. Surely, thought Laura, such a combination was unthinkable.
Jeremy Vulliamy.
“Shall we come and sit down? They’ve just begun to play, so if you don’t very much mind waiting for the second set—” She led them to the striped black-and-orange canvas chairs set under the elm trees that prettily bordered the lawn, and as she moved forward something impelled her to exchange a glance with Duke Ayland.
The expression of interest was still there.…
Laura, that afternoon, played tennis better than she had played it for a long time. She played better than anyone, excepting the indomitable Mrs. Bakewell—(who impressed everybody by exclaiming, when she missed a very fast ball: “Dear me, it seems I can’t volley to-day!”)
“You’re playing awfully well!” Christine murmured to Laura. “What an ass Bay-bay looks trying to serve over-hand!”
Laura was conscious of deriving gratification from both these asides, although she refrained from verbal agreement with the latter.
Her tennis party was being a success. She did not, in so many words, tell herself that she, also, was being a success, but she was aware of it, and it inspired her. She caught sight of herself in the mirror in the hall on her way to tea, and was agreeably surprised to find that the blue hat, now that she was flushed and animated, suited her after all.
Miss Kingsley-Browne was telling everybody that she was to be bridesmaid at the wedding of a minor Balkan royalty in London.
The Way Things Are Page 6