The Knox family were all there, as neither George’s Catholic ism nor his Presbyterianism prevented him from supporting the vicar, who was a great friend. Laura had a few words with them after church, but could not ask Sibyl in public what had happened last night after the guests had gone. But she managed to say, ‘Adrian sends his love. We had a little accident last night, but no bones broken, and luckily no glass either, so I’ve kept him in bed.’
‘Oh, that was the car we passed in the road?’
‘Yes, they are going to get it out after lunch. Tony is going to help, and it might amuse you to watch. I must catch Anne Todd. Anne! Anne!’ she called, ‘come back to lunch. You can tell your Louisa and then come on to me. It’s her day in, isn’t it?’
‘Love to,’ said Miss Todd. ‘I’ll be with you at half-past.’
When Laura got back, she found a chastened Adrian reading his own advertisements in the Sunday papers. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘not a word about last night. That’s forgotten. Brown is going to get your car out this afternoon. He’s had a look, and he thinks there’s very little damage except the lamps, which he can fix, and the enamel, which I must say you deserve. I told Sibyl they were going to move the car, but I didn’t particularly mention that you would be there.’
‘Angel Laura. Did you have a good church?’
‘Tony was an exhaustion to the spirit,’ said Laura, ‘and they had one of those psalms about Thy molars gnash upon me exceeding hard and my loins are spilled abroad on the ground, and I nearly got the giggles.’
Adrian couldn’t help laughing at Laura’s version, which pleased Laura so much that she laughed too.
‘Darling, you are such an entertainer,’ said he.
‘Glad of that,’ answered his hostess, ‘but keep your darlings for Sibyl.’
‘Very well, Mrs Morland.’
‘Mr Coates,’ said Tony, ‘did you know one of the hounds got run over? I’m going to bring him to see your car got out of the ditch this afternoon. It would be such a treat for him. It was a marvellous engine that ran over him, the very latest type.’
‘That must have been a comfort for the dog.’
‘He rolled all down the embankment, poor thing, and yelped like anything, and his leg was broken. I wish you had seen the train, Mr Coates. It had eight coaches and a post-office sorting van, and the engine was a four-six-nought like the Titley Court. Mother, could I have my railway in the garden next summer? I could make a splendid embankment. The trains would look marvellous dashing round the garden, wouldn’t they? I’m going to get a small goods-engine with that pound you gave me, sir, a small tank-engine to haul trucks. It really costs twenty-one shillings, but it will be your present all the same.’
‘Would another shilling be any help?’ asked Adrian, feeling in his pocket.
‘Oh, sir, thank you.’ Tony went bright pink. ‘I shall call the new engine the Adrian Coates, after you, sir. Oh, Miss Todd,’ he addressed that entering lady, ‘look what Mr Coates has given me. Now I can get a guinea tank-engine for the goods trucks. Would you like to look at the railway, Miss Todd?’
‘After lunch, Tony.’
Lunch being a close time for trains, the grown-ups were able to indulge in fairly reasonable conversation. Laura dismissed Tony as soon as he had finished pudding, after which they were able to let go over last night’s dinner-party, taking the subject with them into the drawing-room. Adrian soon became restless, so Laura sent him off to superintend the righting of his car, while she continued the conversation with Miss Todd. Anne was delighted to hear of Sibyl’s conquest, and relieved to know that Adrian had quenched Miss Grey’s passion. She quite agreed with Laura that the Incubus was likely to be a nuisance to the young lovers on general principles.
‘But I can do my bit while you are away,’ she said. ‘The Incubus is coming once a week to the Women’s Institute – where I may say she is cordially disliked by most of our members – preparing to be the great lady of the Risings, I suppose, and I’m going to make great friends with her. Such great friends that if Mr Coates happens to come down and wants to see Sibyl I shall have an engagement with my dear Miss Grey, and take such offence if she suggests breaking it that she won’t dare. Also I shall get the low-down on her views on Mr Knox. I’m not a bad sleuth, Mrs Morland.’
If anyone else had said that, Laura would have laughed, but her confidence in Anne Todd was unshakable, and she felt a good deal reassured. If she and Miss Todd were working for Sibyl, things wouldn’t be so bad.
‘Has he spoken yet?’ inquired Miss Todd.
‘No. As a matter of fact, he was offering honourable matrimony to me last night, or more properly this morning. You see, the accident and George’s punch had upset him a bit, and he had a vague idea he wanted to propose to somebody, so he proposed to me at one o’clock this morning. So he can’t very well propose to Sibyl the same day.’
Miss Todd was filled with admiration for her employer’s calmness, and promised eternal secrecy on the subject, a promise which she faithfully kept.
‘I admit,’ said Laura wistfully, ‘it was nice to have an arm round one. I don’t in the least want to marry again, Anne, but I do badly want a Platonic arm sometimes. I expect you do too,’ she added, with her disconcerting directness.
‘No,’ said Miss Todd, ‘I don’t think I really do. But it isn’t likely to occur. I don’t attract arms.’
They both sighed, and then laughed.
‘Did I tell you, Anne, that Amy Birkett is coming for a few days before school begins?’
‘Good. I like Mrs Birkett. And I have an idea she may be a help.’ But what the idea was, Miss Todd wouldn’t say.
Adrian found a happy crowd assisting, in the Gallic sense, at the exhumation of his car. In the front row of spectators was Tony, perched up on a bank, nursing the convalescent foxhound. Dr Ford had stopped in his two-seater to watch, Mrs Mallow and Mrs Knox’s Annie were present in their Sunday clothes, even young Flo had managed to escape from her mother for an hour. Adrian felt extremely uncomfortable. He had made a fool of himself last night. Probably it was all over the village that he had been blind drunk and driven his car into the ditch. Dr Ford hailed him.
‘Bad luck, Coates. Those speeding cars are the devil.’
‘I wasn’t speeding, really.’
‘No, no, I mean the other car. I saw your car in the ditch this morning and then I met Brown from the garage, and he told me you’d been forced off the road by some idiot going at seventy or eighty.’
‘I suppose Mrs Morland told him.’
‘Yes. She rang him up after breakfast, while you were still idling in bed, I suppose. She wasn’t hurt, I hope?’
‘No. She was splendidly plucky.’
‘So were you, and a jolly good driver too. It takes some nerve to upset one’s car deliberately. You didn’t get the fellow’s number?’
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘Well, see you again before long.’ Dr Ford rattled off. Blessed, blessed Laura.
After a word with Mr Brown, who was disinclined, through long experience, to encourage amateur help, Adrian climbed the bank and sat with Tony, who was kindly directing the hound’s attention to the more interesting parts of the salvage operations. Presently Sibyl Knox came past, taking her dogs for a walk.
‘Hullo, Tony,’ she said. ‘How’s poor old Ruby?’ Then, seeing Adrian, she climbed the bank and sat down beside him.
‘What bad luck, Mr Coates, about your car,’ said she, handing the dogs’ leads across to Tony. ‘We heard all about it from Annie, our parlourmaid. She’s a great friend of Brown at the garage. I hope Mrs Morland wasn’t hurt.’
‘No, thank heaven. She was perfectly splendid.’
‘I’m sure she was. And I do think it was perfectly splendid of you,’ she said, turning dark, adoring eyes on him, ‘to be so quick. Brown told Annie it was the neatest job he’s ever seen, to get your car out of the way and not smash it up. I am so thankful you weren’t hurt – either of you.’
Adrian realised that the price he would have to pay for Laura’s kindness was to feel like a liar and a hypocrite. But nothing could induce him to betray Laura, so he would have to bear it.
‘I don’t think they’ll have finished for some time,’ he said. ‘It’s rather cold for you here. Don’t your dogs want to go on with their walk? Here, Tony, hand over the leads.’
As Sibyl made no objection, they set off along the road. The dogs, who had to be kept on their leads because of cars, were a thorough nuisance, sometimes plaiting themselves together and having to be disentangled, sometimes winding themselves round the nearest human legs, sometimes rushing forward with an eagerness that nearly wrenched Adrian’s wrists out of their sockets, and at other times requiring to be dragged, sitting, along the ground. But Adrian loved every minute of it, and so did Sibyl, and if what they said was folly, it was the folly which is new to every new lover. Before they parted Adrian begged Sibyl to let him see what she was writing, but she wouldn’t make any promise, except that he should be the first to see it, whenever it was finished. He held her hand a little longer than was necessary, laying his other hand over hers, and then walked back to High Rising, full of happiness. The crowd had dispersed, the car was in Mr Brown’s garage and would be fit by tomorrow morning to take up to town, where more extensive repairs could be done.
‘Better luck next time, sir,’ said Mr Brown, when Adrian had paid his bill. ‘You’re some driver to do what you done. Just laid her neatly on her side as if she was a baby. Thank you, sir. Good day.’
Laura was sitting by the fire when he got in. ‘Did you have a nice walk?’ she asked.
‘Perfect. You were so right, Laura, so right. But I feel further away from her than ever after the impossible position you’ve put me in.’
‘How, Adrian?’
‘Oh, Laura, heaping coals of fire on me. Apparently the whole village – and what is far worse, Sibyl – think I am your noble protector and the world’s most brilliant driver. I can’t live up to it.’
‘You’ve got to,’ said Laura, with her amused expression. ‘I’m not going to have Sibyl worried, or my publisher gossiped about. You must bear your cross, Adrian.’
‘Dearest of women – quite truthfully that, because Sibyl is only a child, bless her – you are all that is kind and generous, and I am your most undeserving, grateful worshipper.’
‘Bless you, Adrian, dear, that’s all right. I am just the solitary-hearted, and I like to see the children enjoying themselves …’
After that people dropped in for tea, and as Laura went to bed before dinner, tired by her weekend experiences, and Adrian left very early next morning, he did not see her again for some time.
7
An Author at Home
Before the end of the holidays Amy Birkett paid her promised visit to Laura. Her train was due at Stoke Dry soon after lunch, so Laura, with Tony, drove down to meet her. At Tony’s earnest request they went half an hour too early, so that he might see the down express go through the station, and watch Sid Brown, whose brother was Mr Brown of the garage, change the points in the signal-box and shut the level-crossing gates. Laura, unworthy of such joys, sat in the car with a book, looking out at intervals to see if her son was in any particular mischief, but as he remained invisible, she concluded that he was with the station-master, who was Mrs Mallow’s nephew by marriage. After twenty minutes or so had passed she looked out for the fourth or fifth time, and her eye was caught by Tony descending the ramp at the end of the platform and establishing himself in a crouching position in the middle of the line. She opened the window and shouted to her son, who looked up with a bored expression and resumed his mysterious work. Half in rage, half in panic, she got out of the car and dashed through the little booking office on to the platform.
‘Tony,’ she yelled, ‘come off the line at once.’
Tony adopted the attitude of one who has a faint idea that he may have heard something, but thinks on the whole that he hasn’t.
‘Tony,’ she yelled again, ‘come here at once.’
Tony slowly raised himself, and came up the platform towards her with an injured expression.
‘Why didn’t you come when I called you?’ asked the justly indignant Laura.
‘I didn’t hear you till the third time.’
‘What were you doing on the line, you idiot?’
‘Mother, the level-crossing gates were shut, and the down express went through five minutes ago, and there’s no train till Mrs Birkett’s one.’
‘That doesn’t matter in the least. You know perfectly well you have no business on the line. I shall tell Mr Mallow not to allow you in the station again if you do such idiotic things.’
‘But, Mother, I was only laying a threepenny bit on the line to see if it would be squashed into a sixpence. Mother, can I go and see where it is when Mrs Birkett’s train has gone?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Oh, Mother!’
‘Well, you can’t, that’s all. Do you think I want my youngest son squashed into a corpse six feet long?’
At this Tony was pleased to be amused, and there was no further difficulty.
As Mrs Birkett’s train drew up, Tony caught sight of the foolish, amiable face of a golden cocker spaniel at a carriage window. ‘Oh, Mother,’ he shrieked, ‘Mrs Birky has brought Sylvia; look, look!’ He dashed off down the platform in pursuit of Sylvia’s face. Mrs Birkett, opening the carriage door, was nearly pulled out head foremost by Sylvia’s anxiety to talk to Tony.
‘Oh, my dear Sylvia, do you remember me, then?’ cried Tony, on his knees, hugging the affectionate Sylvia, and submitting with every appearance of enjoyment to having his face licked all over.
‘Oh, Mrs Birkett, Sylvia is so pleased to see me. Mother, can I take Sylvia to look for the threepenny bit when the train has gone? It would be such a treat for her.’
But Laura unsympathetically hustled Tony and Sylvia into the car, and they drove off.
Amy was enthusiastically received by Stoker, who had a great affection for ‘that Mrs Bucket’, as she preferred to call her.
‘We are pleased to see you here,’ she announced, as she brought tea in. ‘High time you came to us again, Mrs Bucket.’
‘Thank you, Stoker. And how have you been keeping?’
‘I’m splendid,’ said Stoker, folding her large arms over her capacious bosom defiantly. ‘Dr Ford says I ought to reduce a bit, but that’s his fun. Mrs Morland and me, we don’t hold with reducing.’
‘Not exactly a compliment to your figure, Laura,’ said Amy, as Stoker left the room.
‘But, my dear, I don’t pretend to figure. I prefer to be matronly.’
‘Well, it suits you. How are things going?’
‘If by things you mean writing, Amy, not too well. First there was Christmas, and then there was the New Year, and there’s always Tony. I don’t count on doing much in the holidays. And how are your affairs?’
‘Bill and the girls are safely in Switzerland, breaking their legs on skis. We have finished spring-cleaning the school, and matron is having a lovely holiday with her married sister at Weston-super-Mare, and sends me picture postcards. Our invaluable Edward has been to a scouts’ training school, and come back even more covered with badges than he was before. On the whole, things look well for next term, barring the chance of infantile diseases, of course. The only bad news is that Mr Ferris is engaged. I knew he would. And he brought her to see me.’
‘The usual sort?’ asked Laura sympathetically.
‘Yes, indeed. Typical assistant-master’s wife. Another to ask to tea. And you can’t think, Laura, how awful it is to have them to tea, because they all hate each other, and I don’t like to inflict them on my real friends. I can’t think why it is that headmasters and men who are destined to be house-masters marry the right kind of wife and the others don’t. I mean, without undue modesty, I make a fairly good headmaster’s wife, and if Bill were in any other profession he needn�
�t be ashamed of me. But obviously none of those assistant-masters’ wives could rise above a suburban tennis club. It’s very depressing and mysterious.’
‘I’ve often noticed the same thing about the clergy,’ said Laura. ‘Archdeacons and bishops and such-like have really good wives; often they are Honourables, or even Lady Agneses. But just look at the wives of the inferior clergy. There must be an unseen providence to see that men destined for eminence in the Church, or the scholastic world, should have what one can only call, looking at you, Amy, suitable helpmeets. Or is it helpmates? People write to the newspapers every now and then about it, but I can never remember what they say.’
‘Say partners. And have you noticed another thing about the higher clergy, Laura? They always have suitable Christian names. The guardian angel of the Church of England makes men who are going to be bishops be christened Talbot Devereux, or Cyril Cyprian, and then, of course, they are bound to rise.’
‘And it’s just as peculiar in the Roman Catholic Church,’ said Laura, pushing her hair off her forehead in a very unbecoming way. ‘If you see announcements of preachers for Lent outside the Oratory, they are all called Monsignor Cuthbert Bede Wilkinson, or Dom Boniface Chrysostom Butts. Not that I know what Dom is exactly. It is some sort of liqueur as well. Of course the Roman Catholic clergy don’t have the worry of having to find suitable wives to rise with, so perhaps it’s easier for them. An unsuitable wife must be such an incubus. And talking of incubuses, you know George Knox?’
‘I’ve never met him. I’ve heard you talk about him. Is he an incubus? I thought you rather liked him.’
High Rising (VMC) Page 10