High Rising (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘Aren’t the birds heavenly?’ said Sibyl, stopping.

  Adrian, feeling the greatest sympathy for poachers and sportsmen and Italians, and people who snare or cage wild birds, said that they were.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ said Sibyl. ‘One has to walk in single file here, and it’s so silly.’

  So they sat down on the roots of a tree. All round them was loveliness. The woodspurge was busy having a cup of three, two of one sort and one of another. Everything else was behaving in the best tradition of English poetry. But it is doubtful whether either of them noticed it. Adrian in particular was feeling quite sick with nervousness, but the plunge had to be taken.

  ‘Sibyl,’ he said, and hesitated.

  ‘You called me Sibyl,’ murmured the lady faintly.

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘I love it. Everyone calls me Sibyl.’

  There was a short and embarrassing pause.

  ‘Sibyl,’ he began again. ‘I let Laura look at your story. You don’t mind, do you?’

  Sibyl started, and looked at him with large terrified eyes.

  ‘No one else shall see it,’ he assured her. ‘But I thought I’d like her opinion. She is an awfully good judge and often reads things for me. And she is so fond of you that I thought she’d like it because you wrote it.’

  ‘Was it any good?’ asked Sibyl in a low, frightened whisper.

  ‘Well, it’s difficult to explain. One can’t always judge beginners’ work, and I really don’t pretend to be a critic,’ said Adrian, with a poor attempt at treating the matter light-heartedly. ‘I’m only a publisher, a money-making machine. Perhaps Laura could discuss it with you better than I can,’ he concluded, in a cowardly way. His voice trailed into silence, as if ashamed to offer such wretched subterfuges. He sat staring at the ground, prodding holes with a twig in the moss upon their seat.

  ‘Mr Coates,’ said a very small voice, ‘could you please say one thing to me. Is it good or bad?’

  Adrian gazed more steadfastly than before at the toes of his shoes.

  ‘Please,’ said the small voice again.

  Adrian made a desperate effort to overcome the paralysis of throat and jaw which was affecting him, and said in a toneless way, ‘Bad. I’d give my soul to tell you a lie, but I can’t.’

  ‘Is it really bad?’ asked the small voice, now perilously near tears. ‘Pretty hopeless, I mean?’

  Adrian nodded, dumb with misery.

  ‘Then you think I’d better give up the idea of writing?’ continued the small voice, insistently.

  Feeling that he was destroying his own happiness for ever, Adrian looked up and said, ‘You are the loveliest and dearest thing in the world, Sibyl, and you mustn’t ever write anything again. If you will just be alive, that’s enough.’

  ‘Oh, thank heaven,’ said Sibyl, and burst into loud sobs. Of course, Adrian turned and grabbed her violently into his arms, where she lay crying her heart out all over his exquisite spring suiting and delicately tinted tie, while he rubbed his face against the top of her head and said every foolish and endearing thing he could think of, in a quite incoherent way. ‘Now we are engaged,’ he said at last, regaining a little sanity.

  ‘Oh Adrian, how lovely,’ said Sibyl, making no attempt to sit up again.

  ‘My darling, are you sure you don’t mind about that book?’

  ‘Oh Adrian,’ said she to the middle button of his waistcoat, ‘I have never been so happy in my life. It was all Daddy’s fault. He wanted me to be able to write, and I did try, but I couldn’t. I knew it was rotten, and you wanted to see it and I did so want to please you, and then I thought you would despise me, and everything was awful.’

  ‘My poor, precious, persecuted angel,’ said her besotted admirer. ‘You shan’t ever write a line again. In fact,’ he added loftily, ‘I forbid it.’

  Sibyl laughed so much that she had to sit up again.

  ‘You won’t expect me to be literary?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘I won’t marry you if you are. You shall never do anything you don’t like, and we’ll live in the country and breed dogs and I’ll go up to town every day,’ said he, remembering what Laura had told him.

  ‘Not live in London at all?’ said Sibyl a little wistfully.

  ‘Would you like to?’

  ‘Oh Adrian, I’d adore it. And go to theatres? And just have about two dogs. I could always sell the puppies.’

  So there was nothing for it but another soul-cracking embrace. And it was all just as Laura had said, with spring and birds and flowers, and young love in the middle of it all. All the birds were saying delightful things about how clever and successful Adrian was, and how lovely and adorable Sibyl was, and it might have gone on for ever, except for the call of tea.

  ‘Heavens, it’s half-past four, Adrian. I’m so hungry,’ said Sibyl.

  ‘Angel, so am I. I couldn’t eat much lunch.’

  ‘Oh Adrian, nor could I.’

  And at this exquisite coincidence they gazed, enraptured, into each other’s eyes.

  Going back was not so easy, because of walking with your arms round each other on a path that is only meant for one, but it was accomplished, with suitable delays, and they arrived at Laura’s door. Laura was sitting in the drawing-room with the tea-things when they came in, and one glance at them told her what had happened.

  ‘Oh, I am so glad,’ she gasped, gathering them both into her warm embrace, so that all their heads nearly knocked together. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am. Bless you, bless you. This is as good a deed as drink. And what about the book?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Morland,’ said Sibyl, ‘Adrian says it is rotten, and I need never try to write again. Isn’t it lovely? Oh, Adrian, you are marvellous.’

  Upon which Laura, who had suffered great trials and anxieties, and was not in the least prepared for Sibyl’s attitude, fell away into helpless laughter, while Adrian proudly explained that if there were more women like Sibyl, who knew they couldn’t write, the world would be a better place.

  After that it appeared to Adrian and Sibyl that they were living in a delightful kaleidoscope. Stoker, coming in to take tea away, was informed by her mistress of the happy news.

  ‘Young blood,’ said Stoker. ‘Well, it’s to be hoped all will go well. I’ll come to the wedding, miss. When’s it to be?’

  ‘When, Adrian?’ asked Sibyl.

  ‘Whenever you like, darling. We must just mention it to your father, that’s all.’

  Stoker smiled tolerantly on the lovers, picked up the tray, and left the room in a burst of song, identifiable as the once popular melody of ‘There Was I, Waiting at the Church’.

  Then Dr Ford and Anne Todd came in, and were enchanted by the engagement. Dr Ford electrified them all by remarking that he must claim an old bachelor’s privilege and kiss the bride.

  ‘But you’ve always kissed me, Dr Ford, ever since I was a baby,’ said Sibyl.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Dr Ford. ‘It’s the right thing to say, isn’t it, Mrs Morland?’

  Laura, as the representative of literature, confirmed his statement.

  Then Tony came back from Stoke Dry with Master Wesendonck.

  ‘Tony,’ said his mother, ‘Mr Coates is going to marry Sibyl. Isn’t it lovely?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tony briefly. ‘Oh, Mother, could Donkey and I possibly go to London and see the Model Railway Exhibition? Donk has just had a postal order from his uncle, so we could pay for ourselves. Oh, Mother, could we?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, Tony,’ said Adrian. ‘I’ll take you and Mr Donkey to town in my car on Monday morning, and you can spend the day at the show, and I’ll put them into the four-fifty to come back,’ he added to Laura. ‘Will that be all right?’

  ‘Oh, sir,’ cried Tony and Master Wesendonck with one voice, both going bright pink, ‘thanks most awfully.’

  They then scuffled violently together and retired in a medley of arms and legs to the garden, there to admire Adrian�
�s generosity and his extreme wit.

  ‘Well, as we are all mad,’ said Laura, ‘I suppose they can go, and I shall have a day in bed. I need it. Adrian, suppose you get your car and take Sibyl home. She has had influenza and oughtn’t to get tired. And if she asks you to stay to supper, that’s all right. And if she asks you to come to breakfast tomorrow and spend the day, don’t mind me. Only you must both write to Sibyl’s father by the Sunday post.’

  ‘Of course we will,’ said Sibyl. ‘Had I better tell Miss Grey we are engaged?’

  Nobody answered.

  ‘She was awfully kind to me when I was ill,’ said the softhearted Sibyl. ‘She nursed me all the time and was awfully sweet. And she wasn’t feeling very well herself either. She had to go to bed all afternoon and evening that day you went to the play with Daddy, but she would get up next day and look after me.’

  ‘What did you call me to George?’ said Laura to Adrian. ‘I think you can use it for your Sibyl now. She will never be any sillier if she lives to be a hundred.’

  Adrian had the grace to look foolish, though without abating any of his pride in his future wife’s silliness.

  ‘Yes, tell her,’ said Laura. ‘If you don’t she’ll only find out sideways, and that would be worse.’

  ‘She will be very glad,’ said Anne Todd suddenly, with authority. ‘Take it from one who knows.’

  ‘Then that’s all right,’ said Laura vaguely. ‘Adrian, you can come down here next weekend if you like, if you don’t mind using Tony’s room, because Amy Birkett will be here. Or if George Knox asks you to Low Rising as an accepted suitor, don’t bother about me. Go along now, all of you. I want to talk to Anne.’

  When Dr Ford and the lovers had gone, Laura asked Anne to come upstairs, and there showed her the anonymous letter, with a full account of how it had appeared in her letter-box. Anne was as intrigued and puzzled as Laura could have wished. She also thought of the Incubus at once, but according to Sibyl’s statement, the Incubus had a perfect alibi. Also she couldn’t know about Adrian.

  ‘But let me have the letter, if you don’t mind,’ said Anne Todd. ‘I’d like to do a little sleuthing on my own. Also I have an idea that we are barking up the wrong tree about Mr Coates. But I must get back to Mother now.’

  ‘I’ll run you over. You look tired to death. Tell me, Anne, is your mother much worse?’

  Anne nodded with compressed lips. ‘I’m sorry about it,’ she said, ‘because it puts me back with your work. But I’ll have the next chapter ready by Monday.’

  When Laura returned from driving Anne home, she saw Sibyl’s typescript lying on the table. So she rang up Low Rising. Miss Grey answered the telephone, and Laura asked her to tell Sibyl that she had left a parcel behind her. Miss Grey was some time in coming back, and said that she had had to go into the garden to find Sibyl, who asked Mrs Morland to destroy the parcel. ‘And isn’t it lovely about Sibyl’s engagement,’ said Miss Grey, with what was apparently genuine pleasure. ‘It’s a pleasure to see them, the fine couple that they are.’

  ‘Yes, I’m delighted. Thanks so much. Goodbye,’ said Laura, who did not quite relish Miss Grey’s raptures.

  The matter of the little boys’ clothes for their Monday expedition then claimed her attention, and by the time she had sorted out two wearable suits with their accessories, and decided how much shopping she would have to do for Tony before next term, it was time for supper. After supper she read Sibyl’s story for the last time, and then thrust it into the fire, after which she had leisure to ponder, over a blackening grate, the difficulties, so forcibly described by Mr Max Beerbohm, which must have beset the common hangman when publicly burning a book. About twelve o’clock she was roused by a light tap on her bedroom door, and Adrian’s face appeared in the chink.

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, Laura,’ said he anxiously, ‘but as I’m practically a married man I thought it would be quite respectable for me to tell you that I am back, and that Sibyl is quite divine, and you are an angel.’

  ‘That’s all right. Shut the door quietly and go to bed at once.’

  And she resumed her reading of the Omnibus Book of Blood, Torture and Disease with considerable relish.

  14

  George Knox Meets his Match

  On Monday afternoon Anne Todd walked over to Low Rising. She found Sibyl and Miss Grey in the stables, washing and brushing dogs, so she sat down on the edge of a wheelbarrow and watched them. Miss Grey, always at her nicest with dogs, looked happy and charming, and was bursting with the excitement of Sibyl’s engagement.

  ‘Have you got Mr Knox’s telegram there, Sibyl?’ she asked.

  Sibyl rummaged in the pocket of her large apron and produced it.

  ‘Daddy sent a lovely telegram,’ she said. ‘Read it, Miss Todd.’

  Anne Todd unfolded the telegraph form and read:

  BLESS YOU DEAREST SIBYL AND BLESS THE HAPPY MAN OF YOUR CHOICE WHO AM I TO SAY YES OR NO BUT IF MY CONSENT IS NEEDED TAKE IT DEAR CHILD WITH ALL MY HEART PROBABLY COMING DOWN THIS AFTERNOON AM LUNCHING COATES SHALL ASK HIM WEEKEND BLESSINGS MY DEAR CHILD YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER GEORGE KNOX.

  ‘I gather,’ said Anne Todd, returning the paper to Sibyl, ‘that your father approves.’

  ‘You see,’ said Sibyl, ‘Daddy doesn’t mind what he spends on a telegram so long as it’s in shillings, but he can’t bear odd pence. That’s why he put in “your affectionate father George Knox”, to make it an equal number. Other wise he would have said “love Daddy”, or something of the sort. Isn’t it lovely that he is asking Adrian for the weekend?’

  ‘And how soon are you going to be married?’ asked Anne Todd.

  ‘Oh, whenever Adrian likes. I expect Granny will want to interfere about my clothes though.’

  ‘You couldn’t have better advice,’ put in Miss Grey. ‘Mrs Knox is just the person to help. Don’t you think, Anne, that Sibyl ought to go up to town and stay with her grandmother while she gets her things?’

  ‘Quite a good plan,’ said Anne Todd, rather wondering where this was leading to. ‘Then she could see something of Mr Coates, and you and Mr Knox could be getting on with the new book.’

  Miss Grey looked gratified.

  The conversation then raged round the subject of clothes, on the whole to the benefit of the dogs, whose brushing and combing was less searching than usual, though Miss Grey nearly drowned one of the puppies in her excitement over a daring suggestion of Anne Todd’s in the underwear line. Tea was partaken of by all three ladies in a most amicable spirit, and Miss Grey seemed perfectly contented about the whole affair.

  ‘Your father would have been here now if he had come by the three-ten,’ said she to Sibyl.

  ‘I expect he’s coming by the four-fifty,’ said Sibyl, ‘because Adrian was going to send Tony and his friend back by it, and probably he told Daddy, so that Daddy could go back with them. He is so kind. Oh, Miss Todd, do you know what Mrs Morland did? She has sent me a wedding present already – at least she says it is only an engagement present, but I count it as my first wedding present. Do come up and see it.’

  Anne Todd followed Sibyl upstairs to her room. Laura’s present – evidently a reminiscence of her talk with old Mrs Knox – was a pair of old paste ear-rings, with sparkling leaves and flowers.

  ‘Aren’t they lovely?’ said Sibyl. ‘They used to be her grandmother’s, and she says they are to be mine because I am like a daughter. Could I wear them, do you think, Miss Todd, or ought I to wait till I am married?’

  ‘If they are an engagement present,’ said Miss Todd gravely, ‘I should think you could wear them at once. I must get back to Mother now, Sibyl. I am so very glad everything is so happy.’

  ‘It’s like heaven. And I know the dogs will get prizes at the show tomorrow, and there’s a new nest outside Daddy’s window this year. Come and look.’

  They went into George Knox’s study. Just outside one of the windows there was a nest in the budding wistaria, with a beady-eyed parent s
itting on it. While Sibyl enlarged in her sincere but limited vocabulary on the heavenliness of things in general, Anne Todd stood by the writing-table in the window, fidgeting with various objects on it. Presently she picked up a rubber stamp and tried it on the blotting paper. Something seemed to interest her, and she tried it again on a piece of notepaper.

  ‘I didn’t know your father used these date stamps,’ she said.

  ‘That’s Miss Grey’s, but she doesn’t use it much. It’s a bit broken and she said she meant to throw it away. I might get her a new one when I go to town. Perhaps Adrian and I could go shopping.’

  While Sibyl shut the window, Anne Todd neatly picked up the date stamp and the piece of paper and put them into her bag, unnoticed. Then she went downstairs, said goodbye to her hostess, and walked home again. Old Mrs Todd was sitting up in bed waiting to be amused, so her daughter helped her to do a crossword puzzle, over which the old lady’s wits were not at all wandering. While they were struggling with one of those long words to which every alternate letter gives no clue at all, the front-door bell rang. Presently Louisa came upstairs to announce Mr Knox. Anne told Louisa to stay with her mother while she went downstairs, where she found George Knox in the drawing-room.

  ‘This is very nice,’ said Anne Todd, shaking hands. ‘Have you had tea?’

  ‘Yes, I had it on the train. Coates, whom it really seems ridiculous to look upon as a son-in-law – imagine me, Miss Todd, as a father-in-law, luckily a shade less ludicrous than a mother-in-law, but not to be considered without some cause for laughter, though why one cannot imagine – Coates, I say, asked me to keep an eye on Laura’s boy and his young friend. Never have I heard two boys talk so incessantly. Finally I had to take them to the dining-car and give them tea, to stop their mouths. We arrived here all covered with jam and dirt. I feel an unaccountable shyness in meeting my daughter as an affianced bride – ridiculous again you may say, perhaps – but I feel that a few minutes with you, with your calm sanity, would arm me against the mental perturbation which I so unreasonably feel.’