But it is doubtful whether any toady’s prosperity has lasted as long as his life. These glories had diminished. The War broke up the happy life of county England. Many of the houses where he used to visit were shut or sold. Old friends and patrons were dead, dividends had fallen, game no longer reached him. Life was becoming a skimpy business for Mr Holt, but, unable to put a good face on it, he was becoming more exacting, more jealous, more querulous with every passing year. A severe illness left him a little deaf, not able to walk about gardens by the hour as he used to do, assuming an almost insane proprietorship in what friends he had left. In the few houses where he still visited, he became less and less welcome. Younger men combined garden lore with good figures and pretty manners, or even more endearing rudeness. They laughed at Mr Holt and made the new châtelaines laugh too. The little man, cross and on his dignity, began to press for invitations, for which in the past a hint had sufficed. Some hostesses cut him, others continued to invite him, or rather to tolerate his forced visits, from sheer kindness. Among the last of these was Lady Capes, who allowed him to come whenever he liked, as she lived mostly in the south of France. At Capes Castle he could browse in the library on herbals, or superintend an addition to the rock-garden in which the earl took an interest. His lordship was no ruder to him than he was to anyone else, and the servants were fairly kind.
Mr Holt had planned to be sent on from Capes Castle in the belted motor of his lordship to stay with Lady Norton, another of his autocratic old friends. Lady Norton, however, had forbidden him to come before dinner because she had friends staying with her who might have picked his gardening brains, and he dared not offend her. Lord Capes, without inquiring his humble guest’s movements, had gone off to Bath for the weekend in the car, leaving word that he didn’t expect to see Mr Holt when he got back on Monday. At his wits’ end how to spend Whit Monday at the least personal expense, the unfortunate hanger-on had written to Lady Emily the letter which David has read aloud to us. It would be easy to be sorry for Mr Holt in his old unhonoured age; but he is so conceited and irritating that compassion melts to bored anger.
To reproduce his first remark as he followed Gudgeon into the room would be difficult, consisting as it did of the word ‘Oh’; to which, however, he gave a vowel sound, or rather a combination of vowel sounds, at whose peculiar affectedness phonetics boggle.
‘Eu-ah-oo,’ he began in a high voice, so unexpected that Mary nearly giggled.
‘Eu-ah-oo, dear Lady Emily, you must forgive this unpardonable lateness. I trust you have all lunched – you have not kept luncheon waiting for me, I trust.’
It was unfortunate that Mr Leslie should have chosen this precise moment to inquire from Gudgeon in the hall, in a loud angry voice distinctly audible to everyone in the drawing-room, whether her ladyship wanted them all to starve. Gudgeon sounded the gong.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Holt, beaming, ‘I hear the voice of my good friend Mr Leslie, who has so kindly allowed his chariot of fire, his fiery Pegasus, to convey me hither from Capes Castle. I must explain to him, and to you, dear lady, exactly how it occurred that this regrettable delay took place.’
‘You must tell me all about it at lunch,’ said Lady Emily, rising and coming forward on her stick. ‘You know my daughter, Mrs Graham, and this is her niece, Miss Preston, and you know David and Martin. Come into lunch and tell us all about Lord Capes. I haven’t seen him or Alice for ages. I was ill, you know, last summer, and then they were away for most of the winter. Indeed Alice is really always away, so you must give me all her news.’
‘May I trespass on your kindness, dear lady, for a moment,’ said Mr Holt, as they entered the dining-room, where Mr Leslie was already sitting waiting, ‘so far as to entreat that your fairy carpet may of its goodness transport me to Norton Manor during the afternoon, where I am to spend the night with my dear old friend, Lady Norton. Indeed she makes no demand on my time until the hour of dinner so if you will let me wander a little in your garden I could leave you, though with so many regrets, after tea.’
David and Martin made hideous faces at their grandmother, expressive of a desire to stop Mr Holt having the car.
‘There’s a jolly good train from Rushwater to Norton at three-fifteen, Mr Holt,’ said Martin kindly. ‘Gets you there in no time.’
‘How kind of our young friend,’ said Mr Holt, who had defeated too many schemers in his time to take any account of a schoolboy, ‘but I fear that I should hardly have time to give attention to the garden if I made so early a departure. Also, we know that the railway system is tant soit peu disorganised at Whitsuntide, and I should fear to spend a lonely hour at some far-off junction if I ventured the attempt. Perhaps your kind chauffeur might be at liberty later, Mr Leslie.’
Thus appealed to, Mr Leslie had no choice but to say grudgingly that the car was at Mr Holt’s disposal.
‘Martin and I had meant to take Mary to see the Rushmere Abbey ruins if Weston was free,’ said David in an unnecessarily loud voice to his father.
‘Oh, darling,’ cried Lady Emily, cutting short the opening stage of Mr Holt’s account of why he was late in starting, ‘couldn’t you have the Ford?’
‘Macpherson has the Ford,’ said Mr Leslie. ‘He and John will be out on business all afternoon. John couldn’t wait any longer for lunch.’
Having shot this bolt at his wife and her ill-judged hospitality, he continued his lunch. Martin exploded into a schoolboy laugh, while David made such a deliciously sympathetic face at Mary that her heart contracted.
‘Then,’ continued Mr Holt, whose deafness enabled him to ignore rude young hosts, ‘may I beseech your kind butler, Lady Emily, to ring up Lady Norton and say that I shall be with her by dinner-time, that is if your patience can bear with me so long.’
‘Yes, please telephone, Gudgeon,’ said Lady Emily, ‘and see if I left my spectacles and a little grey silk shawl in the drawing-room, and tell Conque I want my other stick, the one with the rubber tip. And now, tell me all about Lady Capes, Mr Holt.’
Mr Holt was just beginning to explain that neither his host nor his hostess had been in residence for the weekend, but had sent for him to give his invaluable advice about replanting the water garden, when his hostess called to the footman:
‘Tell Gudgeon I mean the spectacles in the green case, not the ones in the black case that he brought me at lunch yesterday, because those aren’t my reading ones. It was Conque’s fault really, because though she has been with me all these years she never knows one pair of spectacles from another, and when I put them into their wrong cases, as I often do, it is even worse, though I suppose somehow that ought to even the odds, if that is what one says.’
‘Yes, my lady,’ said Walter, who, not sure how much of this confidence was addressed to him, or required transmitting to Gudgeon, had been waiting in respectful embarrassment.
‘And now,’ continued her ladyship, smiling entrancingly on Mr Holt, ‘you must tell me all about Alice Capes.’
Mr Holt, accustomed for so many years to be listened to with attention, if not with deference, stiffened. Three times he had tried to explain about Lady Capes, and three times had he been interrupted. Thoroughly annoyed, which happened so easily nowadays, he entered into the fit of sulks with which he was formerly wont to subdue hostesses. But Lady Emily was so unresponsive to these fine shades as to embark on a deeply interesting conversation with Martin on her other side about the possibilities of the cricket match and dance on his birthday. Agnes, with her usual sweetness, soothed Mr Holt’s ruffled feelings till he began to feel important again. When Mr Leslie had finished his lunch he went to the sideboard, helped himself to a cigar and left the room, saying as he went, ‘I’m sure to see you again, Mr Wood.’
‘I can’t think why Henry called you Mr Wood,’ said Lady Emily. ‘He must have been thinking of that horrid little clergyman who came here for a fortnight last year while Mr Banister was away. You remember, David, the one that had such an extraordinary affected voice.’
Seeing the younger members of the party inexplicably amused, Lady Emily flashed her brilliant vague smile over them and got up.
‘It has been too delicious to hear all about the Capeses,’ she said. ‘And now I’ve got to lie down and be quiet, Mr Holt, but Agnes and the others will look after you, and then we must have a nice cosy chat at tea-time, and Weston shall be here at five to take you to Norton.’
‘Suppose the rest of us go to the morning-room,’ said Agnes. ‘The children are coming down for half an hour and we can look at picture-books with them.’
But curiously enough, as they crossed the hall, Mary, David and Martin lagged behind.
‘Quick, into the drawing-room,’ said David, grabbing Mary’s arm. ‘Agnes must take on that job. Let’s all go for a walk till after tea.’
‘I can’t,’ said Martin. ‘Got to go and see Mr Banister.’
‘All right, my young catechumen,’ said David.
‘Oh, shut up, David, don’t be a fool,’ said Martin, attacking his uncle.
‘Queensberry rules,’ said David, ‘no scrapping in the drawing-room. Come on the terrace, Mary, and see fair play.’
Uncle and nephew wrestled for a few minutes till Martin jumped on to the balustrade, threw his arms above his head, uttered a loud shriek, and jumping down into the garden, strolled off to the vicarage.
‘That’s the chivalry of young England,’ said David, smoothing his hair, ‘leaving us in the lurch like that. I say, do you really feel like a walk?’
‘I’d love to.’
‘Then get ready at once, before we are discovered, and meet me here.’
4
An Abbey and a Nursery
When Mary came back David made mysterious signs of secrecy and beckoned her to follow him. He tiptoed along the terrace to where a large magnolia grew between two windows.
‘Look in,’ he whispered, ‘but don’t let them see you.’
Mary peered cautiously round the magnolia into the room. Mr Holt was sitting in an armchair, his hands clasped on his stomach, an expression of angry misery on his face. Agnes’s gentle voice could be heard reading an incredibly silly story-book aloud to Emmy. James was painting, deeply absorbed. Clarissa was pushing a small perambulator round and round the room, staggering as she went.
‘I am greatly looking forward to my visit to Lady Norton,’ said Mr Holt, interrupting the reading rather rudely. ‘She is a very old friend and a cousin of my good friend Lord Capes. I go to her every year to help her with her garden. I understand that your mother is an excellent gardener, Mrs Graham. I trust I may be privileged to add her garden to my collection.’
‘Yes, you must see the garden, of course, it is too delicious,’ said Agnes. ‘We will all go there when Nannie is ready, won’t we, darlings? Look, Emmy, there is a picture of naughty Hobo-Gobo trying to snatch the poor little fairy Joybell’s golden doll away. Wasn’t he a naughty Hobo-Gobo?’
David and Mary retreated from the window.
‘I do love Aunt Agnes,’ said Mary.
‘No one could have a nicer elder sister. I simply adore that kind of woman. Come on, we’ll go to Rushmere Abbey.’
‘But I thought you wanted the car for that.’
‘Oh, that was only to annoy old Holt and show my father I was on his side.’
The way to Rushmere Abbey lay at first by a shaded lane, then a footpath led through fields.
‘It isn’t a good country for cowslips,’ said David, ‘but we have everything else. Fritillaries are an absolute pest hereabouts. Look there.’
Not far from the stream which bordered the meadow, a number of the snake-headed flowers, white and purple, rose among the grass. Mary knelt down to look at them, fingering one or two, but not plucking them.
‘Do you know what I’d like, David?’ she said. ‘I’d like a lot of shoes, exactly like these lovely snake-skin creatures. White shoes and purple shoes.’
David’s mocking spirit lay mute for the moment. At any other time he would have greeted so unromantic a suggestion with ribaldry, but this afternoon he had escaped for an hour or two from his familiar.
‘I would like to give them to you,’ he said.
‘Thank you very much,’ said Mary, rising, and they went on.
‘I’m not much good at flowers, really,’ said David. ‘You should get John on them.’
‘Is that another brother?’
‘Yes, another of your uncles. He’s a dear old fellow and jolly good to young Martin. John puts his back into helping father with the place, but the kid gets it. His father was my eldest brother, you know, who was killed in the War.’
‘No, I didn’t know that. You see, I’m not really Aunt Agnes’s niece, only her husband’s, so I don’t know all about the family.’
‘You soon will. We cling together a good deal and if you are to be here all summer you’ll have unlimited opportunities. Here’s the abbey entrance. We used to go in and out as we liked, but now it is a National Trust or something and costs sixpence. I say, I haven’t any money. Have you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Well, it won’t matter. Old Sutton will let us in on tick.’
He rang a bell at the gate and an old man came out of a cottage.
‘Afternoon, Sutton. We haven’t any money. Can we come in?’
Sutton touched his cap and let them in.
Rushmere Abbey was the meagre remains of a great Cistercian foundation. Little of it was left but the broken arches of part of the cloisters and a fragment of the dormitories. Since a public body had taken it over, the outline of the great abbey church and such other buildings as could be traced had been marked in the ground with white stones and the grass was kept neatly mown.
‘Let’s sit down and bask,’ said David. ‘I can’t feel happy till I get the sun in my bones, can you? What would one do without the Riviera?’
‘Do without it, I suppose,’ said Mary, sitting down on a stone where the sun shone upon a sheltered corner of the cloister wall. ‘I’ve never been there, but I’m still alive.’
‘Never been to the Riviera?’ said David, looking at her with interest.
‘No, nor the Lido, nor Algiers, nor winter sports.’
‘Good Lord, we must go there some time. I know heaps of people who are always making up parties and going,’ he added vaguely.
Mary felt that to go to the Riviera with David would be the most perfect, but at the same time the most improbable, thing that could happen. She realised that to him an existence which did not imply at least a couple of thousand pounds a year of one’s own was fantastic. She was tempted to say, ‘I have two hundred a year of my own and Mummie has about six with her pension for Daddy, and we pig along somehow,’ but felt this would not be ladylike. So instead she asked him what he did in town. David needed very little invitation to talk about himself, an art which he had brought to a high degree of polish, and conversed for some time about his various activities. Mary gathered that he might at any moment write a novel which would be a bestseller without having anything second-rate about it, then be dramatised, then filmed, and probably be translated into several European languages.
‘My first novel was only a try-out,’ said David carelessly. The sort of thing every undergraduate has to write, but now I know much more clearly what I ought to do. I don’t suppose you read my first book?’
‘I don’t think so. What was it called?’
‘Why Name.’
‘Why?’ asked Mary.
‘Exactly. Why? It is so cretinous to give a book a name. A book exists freely in itself and a name pins it down horribly. When you are in town you must meet some of my friends who are doing advanced writing and plays.’
‘Are they all great successes?’
‘Of course not. None of them could write successes if they tried and luckily they don’t need to. But they are full of delicious ideas. But I shall double-cross them all and write a howling success with no ideas at all.’
‘What will
it be about?’
‘A simple love-story,’ said David piously, ‘about a girl that loves a man frightfully and he is married, so she goes and lives with him, and then his wife is very ill and going to die, so the girl and the man both offer themselves for blood transfusion in a very noble way without each other knowing. But only one of them has the right kind of blood and I can’t decide which. Do you think it would be more pathetic if the girl gave her blood and died, and then the man went off into the desert to be a monk, or if the man died and the wife and the girl made friends over his corpse and both became nuns? One might do good business with that, because in films no one much cares if the hero lives or dies so long as there are plenty of lovely heroines.’
‘How lovely. I shall come and see it.’
‘I’ll give you a part, if you like. A friend of mine is thinking of starting a studio of his own. You can be the wife. She hasn’t much to do but look lovely and deeply wronged. You have just the hands for a wronged wife,’ he said, taking one of her hands in his, ‘absolutely perfect.’
‘What is a wronged hand like?’ asked Mary, too conscious of the warmth of David’s hand on hers.
‘Quite perfect.’
He pulled a large yellow silk handkerchief out of his pocket and folded it round Mary’s hand. ‘So perfect that I shall do it up in a parcel and give it back to you.’ So saying, he laid her hand, neatly enfolded in his handkerchief, back on her knee.
Mary hardly knew whether she was more afraid of the silence or of the sound of her own voice, but David spared her any further embarrassment by resuming possession of his handkerchief and getting up.
‘Four o’clock,’ he said. ‘A little walk among the ruins and then we will go home. I simply must get back before Holt goes, to see how he survived an afternoon with Agnes and the children. Agnes looks so lovely and fragile, but she has no nerves and the resistance of an ox, bless her. An hour of James and Emmy leaves me limp, but Agnes is quite happy to spend six weeks at the sea with them, on the beach all day. When James hits Emmy, or Clarissa breaks a teacup, she just says, “Wicked one, wicked one,” in her delicious, cooing voice, and does nothing about it. Come up here. This is the only staircase left. It went to the monks’ dormitory, and you can see the plan of the abbey better from the top.’
Wild Strawberries: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Page 5