Ever since Miss Grey had come to him as secretary he had been vaguely conscious of something missing, in spite of the zeal and efficiency with which she surrounded him. The something was of course the delightful companionship of a woman nearer his own age, discouraged in devious ways by a jealous girl. How little Miss Grey would have had to fear from Laura, she did not realise. Laura, the most generous and unpossessive of creatures, would have felt real pleasure at seeing George Knox happily remarried, and hadn’t the slightest intention of appearing as that bane of second wives, the bosom friend of the first. Indeed she had never known intimately that pale and shadowy lady, who enjoyed ill-health till she went too far and let herself die. But Miss Grey, quick and violent in affection, was also quick to jealousy, and had determined that Laura would be an enemy before they ever met. ‘That Mrs Morland,’ was her inner name for Laura, and the sinister implications of that otherwise harmless demonstrative pronoun are only fully understood by the female mind. If Miss Grey could have hovered unseen over the sitting-room at Low Rising, her spirit would have been incredulously mortified by the fact that no one was thinking about her at all. George Knox wasn’t missing her; Laura had forgotten her; and Amy Birkett certainly gave no thought at all to her that afternoon, though Anne Todd was possibly quite right in her idea that Mrs Birkett might help.
When Laura and Amy sat peacefully together after dinner that night, Tony in bed with Neddy and Foxy, and Stoker away at the Women’s Institute, which she occasionally attended in a lofty and disparaging way, their talk, not unnaturally, fell upon George Knox.
‘He really is very lucky in some ways,’ said Laura. ‘He manages to work off all the froth of his character, as you might say, in his foaming manner of speech. Do you know any of his books?’
‘Yes, I read his Life of Charles the Fifth.’
‘Well, was he like that book?’
‘Not a bit. I expected a kind of ascetic scholar, a kind of Vernon Whitford, only of course not so dull. It was a great surprise to find something like a French editor of a second-class English Sunday paper.’
‘How true,’ said Laura, disarranging her hair. ‘You give all the bluster and cock-sureness and speechifying in one breath. But that is only one George. The other is much more what you thought. He will kill his secretaries over a book, but he doesn’t spare himself. He was laughing at the New Year about his difficulty in finishing his book about Edward the Sixth, but that book will have been written with his life-blood, like the quotation from that horrible Milton that people have on book-markers. As if anyone ever used book-markers either – they only tear the pages. But I wish Edward the Sixth were written with that Incubus’s life-blood. I haven’t seen George look so happy or comfortable all these holidays as he did tonight.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that Incubus, as you call her, too much, my dear.’
‘Oh, but you would if you lived so near and had her snubbing you all the time. I must get Anne Todd over to see you. She saw the danger at once.’
‘What danger exactly does Anne Todd, for whose judgment I have great respect, see? That the Incubus should try to marry Mr Knox, or that Mr Knox should try to marry her?’
Laura considered. ‘What Anne said was, “She’ll get him if she can.” That’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘Not at all. This unknown Incubus isn’t going to get Mr Knox unless she kidnaps him. She may make life very difficult for him, and bring an action for breach of promise for all I know, but she can’t make him care for her. He is too well protected.’
‘Sibyl, do you mean? Oh, but she will marry Adrian, I hope, sooner or later, and then what about poor, deserted George?’
‘That’s exactly what he will ask you, Laura.’
Laura sat up wildly, raining hairpins on the carpet.
‘Don’t be a fool, Amy,’ she said, quite angrily for her. ‘How can I help?’
‘Either by accepting him, or turning him down – probably the latter.’
‘Amy – I’m ashamed of you, and mortified. It’s bad enough to have one man—Well, anyway, it’s bad enough to have Miss Grey vamping George without you thinking the man wants to marry me – at my age, too.’
Whether Amy noticed the Incubus’s real name, there is not time at present to inquire. ‘I’m sorry, Laura, if I’ve mortified you,’ said she. ‘For a very intelligent woman you have lapses of sense which are quite remarkable. Mr Knox is extremely fond of you. Even an idiot could see that. And I, who have seen assistant-masters getting engaged for the last twenty years, am no idiot. My darling Laura, don’t you ever realise that you are very attractive?’
Laura began to laugh. ‘I ought to,’ she said, with such a schoolgirl’s giggle that Amy had to beg her to explain, but with astounding loyalty to Adrian, or perhaps rather to Sibyl, who must never know of Adrian’s punch-inspired lapse, she shook her head.
‘Never mind,’ she said weakly. ‘Anyway, you are quite wrong about George, and it would be a very silly thing.’
Amy might have liked to pursue this fascinating subject further, but was interrupted by Stoker, bearing a tray with cups of cocoa.
‘I was making cocoa for myself,’ she announced, ‘so I thought you might both as well have some too.’
‘Thanks, Stoker. What did you do at the Institute tonight?’
Stoker uttered a groan and threw her eyes up to heaven in a manner which compelled the fascinated Amy to ask what had happened.
‘Folk dancing,’ said Stoker, with a sniff.
‘Was it good?’
‘Good?’ queried Stoker, with ominous implications. ‘Depends on what you call good, Mrs Bucket. I’ve known some that would call an egg or a bit of fish good, when the intentions were in every way contrary, and smell it a mile off. I’ve nothing to say against a proper dance while you’re young. There wasn’t many could dance me down when I was a girl and a bit slimmer than I am in my present condition, though I keep wonderfully healthy and have no cause for complaint if it wasn’t for my nerves. Listen, Mrs Bucket, I don’t hold with that Institute. We’re all better in the home than out of it, but young Flo she wanted to go along, and I said I’d go along with her and perhaps give a song if they needed cheering up, poor things, all sitting there at the lecture, or what not, all evening. And when I got there, the vicar’s wife said, “Pleased to see you, Miss Stoker. We are just about to commence a dance and hope you’ll oblige.”’
‘Did she really say that, Stoker?’ asked Laura, with interest.
‘Words to that effect,’ replied Stoker, with lofty condescension. ‘So I said Miss was for them the cap fitted, meaning, of course, those two vicarage girls, Mrs Bucket, and Mrs I had been ever since I got my ring,’ she added, with a comedian’s wink, ‘and not wishing to encourage her, I said I’d have a look first and see if it was all right for young Flo. Well, by that time young Flo had gone right off somewhere with Sid Brown from the railway, so I sat down in my coat and hat to have a look. But when I seen what they were doing, my nerves gave way, just like I told you at Christmas,’ she said, turning to Laura.
‘Stoker’s back was opening and shutting all the way down at Christmas,’ Laura explained gravely, ‘because of the way Flo did the work.’
‘How awful,’ said the enthralled Amy. ‘And what happened next?’
‘Two rows they stood in, like the photos in a paper after a wedding, and believe me or not, Mrs Bucket, they had bells, same as like a cat’s bell on its collar, you know, tied round their legs with ribbands. And there they were, jumping and kicking and carrying on, and Mrs Mallow that’s old enough to know better and had buried a husband too, which is more than those two vicarage girls will ever be able to say,’ added Stoker venomously. ‘So when Miss Todd stopped playing the piano, I got up and shook myself’ – here Stoker gave a pantomimic representation of the shaking which would have brought down the house at any music hall, and was nearly too much for her present audience – ‘and I said, “Well, I mayn’t have bells on my toes, but I have a ring o
n my finger, and this is no place for decent women.” So Miss Todd started in to play again, so I said I’d join in a bit to oblige, and keep an eye on young Flo.’
‘That was very good of you, Stoker.’
‘That’s right. So then Sid Brown he said he’d see young Flo home, so I dare say she’ll be no better off with him than she was at those folk dances,’ said Stoker, whose chaperonage appeared to be of a sketchy description. ‘And then I came home to get myself a good cup of cocoa, and as I was saying, I didn’t see why you two shouldn’t have some, as I was.’
‘Thank you very much, Stoker,’ said Laura. ‘Goodnight. We’re going to bed now.’
‘Night,’ said Stoker collectively and withdrew, and the ladies went to bed. But in spite of the lure of a very good book called The Hulk of the Hidden Blood, Laura was unable to get her mind off what Amy had said about George Knox. When she had told Anne Todd that she sometimes had hankerings for a Platonic arm round her waist, was she, she wondered, thinking at all of George? On careful consideration she decided that she wasn’t. An arm was desirable, but what one really wanted was something to lean on, and that George was not. She wished Amy hadn’t mentioned her suspicion of George’s attachment, as it might diminish the harmony of their present relations, but if George did find her attractive, it would certainly be a good counterblast to the Incubus. Bother the Incubus. If it weren’t for her, life would be far simpler.
Amy Birkett, trying to finish a newspaper crossword in bed, also gave a few moments’ thought to the Incubus. Like Anne Todd, she had an idea that she might be able to help, but the idea was only in the back of her mind, and required time to germinate. In any case she only stayed with Laura two days longer, and they didn’t see the Knoxes again, so the subject of the Incubus was not raised.
Then Tony went back to school, and Laura and Stoker shut up the house and went up to the flat for the winter months.
8
Lunch and the Gentlest Art
For nearly three months, that is to say for most of the winter term, Laura was working hard in London. Adrian she saw once or twice, and gathered that he heard from Sibyl occasionally. He had hoped that she might be in town, but she said nothing about coming and ignored what he hoped were his delicate hints about running down to Low Rising for a day.
‘I can’t go on much longer like this,’ he said to Laura one day, over lunch. ‘Letters aren’t enough. Sibyl writes darling letters, but they are so short, and don’t tell me anything. I do so want to see what she is writing, too. I’m sure it’s delicious, and I’d love to publish it, and then perhaps she would be grateful.’
‘Gratitude isn’t what you need, my good man,’ said Laura. ‘What you need is the love of a pure girl.’
‘But wouldn’t gratitude be a step on the way?’
‘Man, man, it would be no step at all. And anyway why should she be grateful? Love or no love, you’re not going to publish her book unless you see money in it. You are a Jew and a shark, you know,’ said Laura dispassionately, ‘who battens on widows. Though I must say I never think of myself as a widow. I’m just myself. Have you noticed how real widows go all crumpled up after their husbands die? They seem to shrink and cave in. But I don’t crumple a bit. I suppose I haven’t the real widow spirit. Besides, it is so comfortable to live alone – except just now and then, when one feels a superfluous woman and would like to have someone to go to parties with. But you are too young to understand all that, Adrian, and anyway it’s Sibyl you want to talk about, not me.’
‘Darling, you are a heavenly fool, as I once had occasion to tell Knox.’
‘You told George Knox that? Oh, well, I dare say you’re right. Only you don’t mean I’m like Parsifal, with a nightgown on over my armour, and walking two steps forward and one step back while the scenery moves along, do you?’
Adrian reassured her.
‘Also,’ he said, ‘it would be one in the eye for Johns and Fairfield if I got hold of Sibyl’s work. I wonder if they know she is writing.’
‘If they don’t know, it won’t be for the want of telling, while her father is alive. You ought to get something in writing from her to say you are to have first claim, or something.’
‘Well, I have got a kind of promise, Laura. I’ll show you her letter if you like.’
‘I do love it when you say “her” like that, you amorous fool,’ said Laura politely. Adrian’s dark skin flushed, but he made no reply, and, taking out his pocket-book, he handed a letter to Laura.
‘Am I the confidante in this piece?’ she asked.
‘You are.’
The letter said: Dear Mr Coates,
‘Good heavens, haven’t you got any further than Mr and Miss?’ asked Laura.
‘I think it is so delicious of her not to plunge into Christian names at once,’ said Adrian fatuously.
‘Oh, do you, Mr Coates? Well, I suppose it’s a change. I imagine that with most of your friends you would be hard put to it to know what their surnames are. But to continue.’
Dear Mr Coates, she read:
Thank you so much for your letter. Yes, the dogs are very well. Sheila had puppies last week. I’m going to sell the dogs, and keep the other one for breeding.
‘I like the delicacy of that “other one”,’ said Laura.
I suppose you wouldn’t care for a puppy? They are perfect darlings, and of course I don’t mean I’d sell it to you. I’d give it you for a present.
‘What are you going to do about the puppy, Adrian?’
‘I don’t quite know. I must say yes, because it is so adorable of her, but it will be an infernal nuisance in my flat.’
‘Why don’t you ask her to keep it for you? That would make an excuse for your going down to see it.’
Daddy is very well and going to start a book about Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps we’ll go to town to stay with Grannie later, but I don’t like to leave the dogs. Thank you so much for the book you sent me, it is lovely, but I’ve hardly had time to read it yet, because Jane had distemper, poor darling. It was very nice of you to want to see my story, but I don’t think it’s good enough, but I’d rather show it to you than to anyone.
Yours very sincerely,
SIBYL KNOX
Laura handed the letter to Adrian, who put it reverently back in his pocket-book, and asked what she thought of it.
‘I suppose you realise that you’ll have to live in the country when you’re married, on account of those dogs? As for the book, it seems clear enough that Johns and Fairfield aren’t in it at all. Let me see it, Adrian, when she sends it.’
‘All right. You shall be my reader and give me your impressions.’
Laura was by now entirely absorbed, as usual, in the subject in hand, and entirely oblivious of her own appearance, sitting with her elbows on the table, and a foot curled round each front leg of her chair. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Adrian,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask you down in the Easter holidays. Anne Todd and I will keep the Incubus off, and you shall go on primrose paths with Sibyl, and hear the cuckoo, and pluck a cowslip and a violet, and smell the warm earth, and gaze on lakes of bluebells, and be in love in spring.’
Here Laura, to her own great surprise, brimmed over with tears.
‘Laura, darling,’ said Adrian, much concerned. ‘Don’t cry. I know spring is very upsetting, but don’t take it to heart.’
‘Spring and young love are terribly upsetting,’ said Laura, all untidy, with a pink, shining nose and suffused eyes. ‘It’s always like Heine every spring, and I love you to have it, but it makes me feel a bit old. Oh, well, I expect the Incubus will remove all vernal sentiment. Now I must go. Oh, but first I must show you a letter from Tony. I wouldn’t have bored you, only you showed me Sibyl’s, so it’s only fair. It was a Valentine,’ said she proudly, ‘and it came yesterday, a fortnight late.’
‘I have had a professional eye on Tony, ever since that poem about the moorhen,’ said Adrian. ‘Let me see it.’
The letter was w
ritten with much care and a shocking calligraphy in red and blue ink, and copiously decorated with hearts, pierced by arrows, dripping blood. It said:
Dear Mother,
I humbly apologise for this being late, but you cannot find anything out at this ancient mouldy place. So
Valentine will you be Mine
In the Moon-Shine
Near the Foamy Brine
Where your hairs Entwine
Like unto a Vine
As the great Einstein
Once upon a Time
Remarked unto a Shrine
But still that’s out of Rhyme
So once again O Valentine
WILL YOU BE MINE.
High Rising (VMC) Page 12