‘Darling John,’ she said, ‘what miserable conversation we are having for Martin’s birthday. Don’t talk about when you were young like that. It makes me feel too old.’
‘You think I am young because I am your offspring, Mamma. Other people don’t. Good morning, Mary, do you think I am young?’
Mary, also looking in on her way downstairs to breakfast, was taken aback by this question.
‘Are you much older than David?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Seven or eight years. It depends on which of us had a birthday last.’
‘Then you can’t be very old. Aunt Emily,’ she said, as John left the room, ‘I forgot to tell you Martin and the Boulles want to do some kind of little show tonight. It will only take a few minutes, and they wanted me to ask you if you minded. I think they are to dress up and recite, or something.’
‘Of course they can. Will they want somewhere to dress up? I’m afraid they’ll have to use one of the bedrooms, as the downstairs rooms are all being used. Conque could help them. She is splendid at making clothes. Ring, Mary, and I’ll tell her. Or if she is at breakfast, as she always is when I want her, I will tell her when she comes up, if you will write it on a piece of paper for me. There is some paper over on the table, and I know I had a pencil here not long ago, but everything gets mixed up in the bedclothes.’
‘I don’t think they need any help, Aunt Emily, thank you very much. It’s all arranged. I’ll tell them you say it’s all right.’
When Martin got down a little late for breakfast he found everyone eating. He was greeted by a chorus of many happy returns of the day and a pile of presents by his plate. His grandfather and John had given him cheques which would go far towards solving the problem of the motor bicycle. David had brought down a box of shirts, socks and ties, the latest and chastest of their kind. Agnes gave him real pearl studs and engraved cuff links. Mary had knitted a scarf and a white sweater edged with his school colours. There were letters and telegrams from various relations and friends.
‘Oh, thanks most awfully, everybody,’ said Martin, happily embarrassed. ‘Thanks awfully, Grandfather, for the cheque. Thanks awfully, John, it’s awfully good of you. Thanks awfully, David, they are ripping. Thanks awfully, Aunt Agnes, they are absolutely it. Thanks awfully, Mary, they are simply it.’
He sat down to his breakfast in a happy dream of scouring England with an open exhaust. Nannie and Ivy then appeared with James, Emmy and Clarissa.
‘Say Many Happy Returns to Mr Martin, James,’ Nannie said. ‘And me and Ivy both wish you many happy returns, Mr Martin.’
‘Oh, thanks awfully, Nannie, that’s awfully good of you.’
‘Come along, James, and give your present to your cousin,’ urged Nannie again.
James pushed into Martin’s hand a spirited but highly inaccurate water-colour drawing of two railway engines meeting in a head-on collision.
‘Oh, thanks awfully, James. That’s a ripping picture. Thanks most awfully.’
‘I did mean to buy you some transfers,’ said James, ‘but they cost sixpence, and I am saving up to buy some new paints, so I did a picture. Oh, many happy returns of the day.’
‘Thanks awfully, old chap. It’s simply splendid.’
Emmy and Clarissa were then brought forward. Emmy, on being told to say Many Happy Returns, burst into tears and ran to Ivy.
‘Oh, wicked one, wicked one,’ said Agnes. ‘Ivy, give Emmy’s present to Mr Martin.’
‘Oh, thanks awfully, Emmy,’ said Martin, opening an envelope in which was a representation of a swan, embroidered in red and blue cotton on a piece of cardboard, ‘it’s simply splendid.’
‘You had better take Emmy away, Ivy,’ said Agnes. ‘She is in one of her crying moods. It is so annoying. Come and give Martin your present, Clarissa.’
Clarissa’s contribution was a small bunch of dead daisies, tightly held in her hot hand.
‘Oh, thanks awfully, Clarissa. It’s the nicest present I’ve had,’ said Martin.
‘She picked them herself for Mr Martin,’ said Nannie proudly, ‘yesterday afternoon, and nothing would make her let me put them in water. She slept with them all night, Mr Martin, and first thing this morning she was sitting up in bed holding them tight, and she would have them all through breakfast, so Ivy had to feed her with a spoon.’
Martin picked up his younger cousin and kissed her. Everyone felt inclined to cry. Nannie removed Emmy and Clarissa.
‘Wait till you come of age, my boy,’ said David. ‘This is nothing. You’ll have to kiss Siddon and Conk and the whole lot of them and make a speech.’
The door opened and to everyone’s surprise and, it must be said, slight annoyance, Lady Emily came in, leaning on her stick, a black lace scarf thrown round her head and shoulders.
‘Well, here I am, come to disturb you all and talk about plans,’ she announced with a mischievous face. ‘Many, many happy returns of the day, dear Martin.’
Martin sprang up and hugged his grandmother.
‘I’ve brought you a present,’ she said, sitting down next to Martin and giving him a little box. ‘It belonged to Papa, and your father would have had it, Martin, so I have been keeping it for you.’
Martin took out of the box a large gold watch, as thin as a biscuit, with a gold chain.
‘Oh, Gran,’ he said, awestruck, ‘is it really for me?’
‘Really for you, Martin. Let’s see what time it is.’
She took the watch from him and pressed a spring. A clear bell-like sound struck nine times, followed by three quarters.
‘A quarter to ten,’ said Lady Emily, handing the watch back to Martin.
‘Oh, Gran, I say, it’s simply splendid. I say, you oughtn’t to give me such a ripping present,’ said Martin. ‘It’s top-hole.’
He made it strike again with an air of proud mastership.
‘Darling Clarissa will love to hear it,’ said Agnes.
‘No, Agnes,’ said David firmly. ‘The watch isn’t mine, but as Martin’s uncle I insist on exercising my authority. That divine watch is not to go near your children. Do you hear, Martin? If they get within a hundred yards of that watch, James will take it to pieces, Emmy will break it and Clarissa will drop it into her bath. Won’t they, Agnes? And then you will say, “Oh, wicked ones, I must get you another watch to play with.”’
Whether David intended it or not, his imitation of Agnes made everyone laugh and destroyed the slightly emotional atmosphere which the gift of Lord Pomfret’s watch had created.
‘I remember your father very well with that watch, Emily,’ said Mr Leslie. ‘He used to wear it in the evening. Men didn’t wear wrist-watches then. Silly habit. Your father would never have worn a wrist-watch. Sensible man, Lord Pomfret. Never wore those stupid white waistcoats without any back, either.’
‘Because they weren’t invented then,’ said David in a stage aside, thus causing Martin to utter a wild guffaw. Mr Leslie looked suspiciously at him, but remembering that it was his birthday, he held his peace.
Lady Emily then proceeded to drive everyone mad who had the patience to listen to her, by rediscussing plans that had long been made, reopening questions that had been settled days ago, and finally suggesting that the whole vicarage party should be asked up to dinner. Mr Leslie, David and Martin went out of the room while she was talking, saying something about cricket. Agnes, seeing no end to the trouble in which her mother was proposing to embroil them, suggested visiting Mrs Siddon and talking about the tea arrangements, knowing well that Siddon, through long practice, was capable of countering any of her ladyship’s projects which interfered with her own excellent plans.
‘Will you come out for a bit, Mary?’ said John. ‘The cricket doesn’t begin till twelve o’clock.’
They strolled down the garden to where a low brick wall separated garden from field and woodland. On the other side of the wall ran the little stream known as Rushmere Brook, which had supplied water to Rushmere Abbey and the fish-ponds
. At one end of the wall was a red brick gazebo, or summer-house, approached by a short flight of steps. John suggested that they should go into it, as the sun was already very hot. A wide, low, unglazed window with a broad sill overlooked Rushmere Brook, and here they perched themselves. The hammering in the cricket field was finished and all was still.
‘What is Martin up to just now?’ asked John. ‘He was very mysterious last night.’
‘It is rather a secret, John. Something he and the Boulles are doing.’
‘Are you in it, too?’
‘Not really, but I promised to help them and not give them away, so do you mind if I don’t tell you? It is nothing they oughtn’t to do, only a romantic kind of idea. They are going to have a kind of little pageant tonight, and I asked Aunt Emily and she said it would be all right.’
‘I wish you had known my elder brother, Martin’s father. Martin is so absurdly like him. I’ve never known a man I liked better than my brother. We had frightful rows of course, when we were growing up, but they never meant anything. Gay was devoted to him too. Our people were old friends, you know. She was only a child when he was killed, but she adored him. In a way I fell in love with her later on because we both cared for him so tremendously.’
‘What was Gay really like, John? I have seen photographs of her, but when I ask Aunt Agnes about her, she can’t explain.’
‘Dear Agnes,’ said John, laughing. ‘I can imagine her difficulty in trying to explain anything definite about anybody. It’s difficult to describe Gay. Don’t think poorly of me if I say that I am beginning to forget.’
He looked out over the stream and was silent for a moment. It was unbelievable that Gay, his childhood’s friend, his young love, his adored wife, should be slipping away from him, but so it was. If he tried to think of her look, her voice, he could no longer make a vision of her. Someone whom he had loved past words was becoming a gentle shade, melting away from him month by month, day by day. Time devours everything, but each mortal believes that his own memory can enshrine immortality. He holds the dear image in his heart, but while he yet holds it the laurels fade, the image is dimmed. Of one thing he was certain, that if he could see Gay again, tell her that he was losing her hour by hour, missing her less bitterly if one were to face the truth, thinking necessarily of so many things in which she had no part, she would understand as she had always understood.
‘I can only explain Gay to you,’ he said, breaking the silence, ‘by saying that she understood everything and was absolutely fearless.’
Mary made no answer.
‘And,’ said John, bitterness coming into his voice, ‘if I could tell her that I am forgetting her, she wouldn’t think it unkind. She would laugh at me and tell me not to make a merit of grieving. I suppose all of us like to make capital out of our griefs.’ His voice became harder as he scourged himself. ‘After all, the disconsolate widower is hardly a romantic figure after seven years, is he?’
‘John, how dare you!’ said Mary passionately.
‘How dare I what? Laugh at myself? Haven’t I the right?’
‘No, you haven’t. As long as you remember Gay at all, you have no right to laugh at Gay’s husband so unkindly. And even if you had forgotten Gay altogether, it isn’t fair to talk so untruthfully and horribly about yourself, when you are so kind.’
‘Am I kind?’
‘Of course you are. You were kind to me when I made such a fool of myself in your office, and when I tried to tell you how sorry I was for having been such a beastly prig about Milton, and not asking me to sing again when you knew I was frightened, and helping Martin not to go abroad when he didn’t want to. How dare you run yourself down like that?’
‘I suppose I was showing off. One does, even at my age,’ said John, more touched than he cared to admit.
‘Be quiet,’ cried Mary, in exasperation, shaking his arm with both her hands. ‘If only everyone were as kind as you are, it would be much happier for everybody. And I’m not going to make a fool of myself again in front of you, but if I do, it will be all your fault.’
Her brimming eyes showed the truth of what she said.
‘Do you mind drying your eyes at once?’ said John in his normal voice. ‘If you are going to cry, I can’t bear it, and I shall say a good deal that I probably oughtn’t to say.’
‘If it’s swearing,’ said Mary hopefully, ‘I am pretty good at it myself. Daddy swore frightfully about things like meals or boots – not about real things.’
‘No, not swearing, you dear goose. Quite, quite other things; but if you don’t know what they are, I shan’t tell you. You keep Martin’s secret and I’ll keep mine. Come back now. I shall be wanted for the cricket.’
For the benefit of such readers as are not interested in cricket, we shall not describe the game. We will merely say that the home side lost, which, however, as Martin contentedly said, is the next best to winning, that Martin played a useful and steady game and made the highest score for his side, that David did some fine fancy batting and made a spectacular catch, and that John was bowled almost at once. Lady Emily came down to the pavilion before lunch and enjoyed herself enormously, interrupting conversations and ruthlessly tearing people from chairs where they were perfectly comfortable to put them in chairs they didn’t like, next to people they didn’t want to know. David said afterwards that he had seen his mother limp up to the umpire between overs and offer him a mackintosh square to stand on, but this statement was rightfully disbelieved. John and Agnes, who perhaps alone realised how deeply their parents felt the anniversary, and how all their joy in Martin was mingled with grief for Martin’s father, admired with loving anxiety their courage and self-forgetfulness.
Lunch was cold, and people came in and out as they felt inclined. Mary felt so happy about nothing in particular that she extended the hand of friendship to Miss Stevenson, whom she met wandering about alone, and took her up to Rushwater House for chicken and cider cup.
‘I’d love to come,’ said Miss Stevenson with obvious gratitude. ‘The Boulles are not very keen on cricket, so they aren’t coming till this afternoon.’
‘How are you getting on with them?’
‘Quite well. I am working with the professor every morning, and he is an excellent tutor. As for conversation, if I had known how well the whole family talked English, I’m not sure if I would have come here. However, Madame Boulle is splendid at jumping on one’s mistakes. I have asked her to be merciless. It is so good for one to be pulled up every time one makes a howler. I feel I am really fighting something. Ursule is an interesting girl, too.’
‘Isn’t she rather greedy?’ asked Mary. ‘Martin says she is always talking about food.’
‘That is very interesting, too. She evidently has a repression of some sort which takes that peculiar form. But it is more her attitude as a halfway type that interests me. She is modern in some ways, extremely domestic in others. I want to get her to stay with me in my flat before she goes back to France. What do you think of David?’
This sudden question nearly made Mary jump.
‘He’s very nice,’ she said, noncommittally. ‘A bit vague about things.’
‘I find him extremely interesting. The predatory male type, softened by civilisation. Frankly, very attractive to women. Are you in love with him?’
With great presence of mind Mary answered, ‘Are you?’
Miss Stevenson appeared to find this question perfectly normal.
‘Not yet,’ she replied, ‘but I expect to be. I shall suffer, of course. One always does with men of his type. Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical. He is not really my type. I would like you to meet my friend Lionel Harvest. He is tremendously attractive, too. He tried to get me out of Broadcasting House, but since he has failed he has become definitely more appealing to me. I am the maternal type.’
To her own interest, Mary found that she was no longer madly jealous of Miss Stevenson. She envied her hideously, her detached attitude, her implication of knowin
g all about men and life, but she no longer wanted to hit or kill her.
‘Just now I am rather worried,’ said Miss Stevenson. ‘I am getting up some poetry readings about gardens and I want someone to do a preliminary talk. I can get hold of plenty of amateur enthusiasts, or people who can write beautiful prose, but what I want is someone who knows the literature of the garden as well as being a practical gardener.’
‘Would you mind someone who was a bore?’
‘It would interest me. I collect bores. They are nearly always the result of early repressions and as I am the maternal type I understand them. Have you one?’
‘Not yet. But there is a Mr Holt coming for the night who is an awful old bore, but he knows everything about Herbals and Perennials and all that sort of thing.’
‘Let us meet,’ said Miss Stevenson. ‘Does he dance?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. He is quite old and fat.’
‘Splendid. I don’t dance myself. It is probably a kind of exhibitionist pose in me, to conceal the fact that I don’t dance well. He will be useful to me, I am sure. Thank you so much for giving me lunch, Miss Preston.’
Tea for most of the company was in the racquet-court, but Gudgeon withdrew such guests as he thought suitable from the throng and brought them into the house, where Agnes was dispensing tea. Pierre Boulle had attached himself to her and was passionately handing to the guests the cups she filled. Sometimes their hands met across a saucer and Pierre became pale with emotion.
‘Lady Dorothy Bingham, Miss Bingham, Miss Hermione Bingham,’ Gudgeon announced.
‘Dear Dodo, this is too lovely,’ said Agnes. ‘Dear Rose, dear Hermione, how delicious to have you. Have you had tea? Monsieur Boulle, do look after my cousins.’
Lady Dorothy was a cousin of Lady Emily’s, and the very same Dodo Bingham whose letter about the young man who wasn’t allowed to go to Munich had been lost in the garden. She and her nice pretty twin daughters had come to spend the night, and as they were only asked to make up the numbers at the dinner-table, we shall not pay much attention to them. The girls both had a very happy time and were a great success, and as they all went home in their car early next day, we need not trouble much more about them.
Wild Strawberries: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Page 18