by Robert Neill
‘It’s been all Navy with me, I’m afraid.’
‘It seems to have been all Army with---‘
She stopped short as they heard the front door pushed open. Then there were footsteps in the hall, brisk and firm, and John’s voice calling cheerfully to Mary. He sounded as if he were wriggling out of a greatcoat, and a moment later he came stamping into the room to warm his hands at the fire.
‘Cold,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m not sure she was worth it.’
‘Mary Ann?’
‘Who else?’ He flashed a sudden smile at his sister. ‘Queer how these girls get above themselves.’
‘Queer what encouragement they get.’
‘Not the heavy sister, please. The war’s over now.’
‘What’s that to it?’
‘There weren’t any chances, so I’ve something to make up.’
‘Well, if you think it’s worth getting cold for?’
‘I don’t. I even began to think of Barford’s dinner. How is he, by the way? What did he talk about?’
‘Oh---‘ Grant roused himself to answer. ‘His son, mostly.’
‘And the Hart family,’ said Mary.
‘What? Old Granny?’ John turned sharply by the fire, with the smile lighting his face again. ‘Now she really was a marvel. She was nearly eighty, mind you, when I last saw her, and even then she could do it.’
‘A charmer?’
‘About ten charmers. She’d have charmed anything out of anyone. And to judge by what she did to Barford, I suppose her daughter must have been the same.’
‘What about her grand-daughter?’ said Mary calmly.
‘Young Ann? Is that a thrust at me, by the way?’
‘For what?’
‘You know very well what. You’d enough to say about it at the time.’ He was laughing again as he turned to Grant, and perhaps he did not notice how his guest’s face had tightened. ‘That was my last leave before Peninsula, and I suppose this child was about sixteen--just trying it out to see what she could do. Well, well! If her mother was like that, I don’t blame Barford in the least. When do we have supper?’
‘Half past nine,’ said Mary. ‘Like other people. You’d better get a drink.’
‘I will. We all will.’ He spoke cheerfully as he wandered across the room. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Mary Ann, I suppose? I hope you’re not thinking of repeating that affair?’
‘Which one? Young Ann?’ He turned with his hand on the rosewood wine cupboard. ‘I’m not having the chance to. What do you think she wants?’
‘I haven’t impudence enough to guess. You’d better tell me.’
‘Wants me to take her to Cheltenham for a season.’
‘Cheltenham!’ Even Mary sounded surprised. ‘What did you say?’
‘Told her to go to hell. Said I’d smack her bottom if there was any more of it.’
‘I wish you had done.’
‘I very nearly did, so we aren’t on the best of terms. Port?’
‘Just a glass.’
She watched him critically while he poured for all of them, and she seemed to be appraising his mood. Then she changed the topic.
‘As a matter of fact, John--since you don’t seem to know it--you can’t take Mary Ann or anybody else to Cheltenham just now. It’s a summer spa, not a winter one like Bath.’
‘Is it? You’d better tell me about it. You drink the waters, don’t you?’
‘Some people do. Some pretend to.’
‘Oh?’ He glanced suspiciously at her. ‘What do these waters do to you?’
‘The point is indelicate. I was merely telling you that it’s a summer spa. Fashionable, too. It’s ahead of Bath, in these days.’
‘You sound as if you know it.’
‘Charles once took me there.’
‘The devil he did!’
‘You were--abroad at the time. But what I’m telling you now, John--’ Her voice became suddenly incisive. ‘--is that if you go to Cheltenham, winter or summer, you don’t take Mary Ann.’
‘You do sound fierce. Would you care to give a reason?’
‘I could give several reasons, having seen Cheltenham in the company of Charles, but I’ll keep to just one--that if you go to Cheltenham at all you’re taking me.’
‘You?’ There was quick surprise in his face, as quickly followed by amusement. ‘You’re waking up, aren’t you?’
‘Isn’t it time I did? Do you expect me to sit here for the rest of my life--a contented widow, at twenty-six?’
‘No.’ He answered her quietly, and the amusement had left him. There was plain affection in his eyes now. ‘Do you think to marry again?’
‘I don’t know. I may not be asked to. I certainly shan’t if I stay here. Nothing at all will happen.’
‘My God, it won’t!’
‘You’ve noticed it, have you?’ A touch of the sardonic was returning to her now. ‘There’s nothing here for me but advice from Barford, and nothing for you but Mary Ann. You’ll be better at Cheltenham yourself.’
‘Are you hinting I should look for a wife there?’
‘It might not be necessary. She might be looking for you. That can happen, I may tell you, at a spa.’
‘It can happen anywhere.’
‘More often at a spa. They aren’t all there to drink the waters.’
‘I’m not sure you need them yourself.’
‘Have I said it? But it won’t do you any harm to meet people--a lot of people.’
‘It certainly won’t, after that damned Peninsula.’
‘Then what do you say?’
‘Mary, there’s only one thing I could say. We’ll call it settled, shall we? Do it in the spring?’
‘In May. That’s when the season opens.’ She nodded happily, looking at him steadily. Then she slowly turned her head, as if she had not quite finished with this. ‘How of you, Richard? Will you be there too?’
‘In Cheltenham?’
‘Why not? It’s very pleasant, and you’d be welcomed.’
‘By--you?’
‘Why--of course.’ Her smile appeared suddenly. ‘But also by everybody.’
‘That seems unlikely.’
‘Not at a spa.’ She watched him for a moment, and then explained it. ‘Half the company are there to meet people, and you’ll find ladies in plenty who’ll be glad to meet a naval officer of--may I say?--some distinction.’
‘You may say of some prize money,’ said John calmly. ‘They’ll be even more glad of that.’
‘Not all of them.’ She answered him quickly, and then brought her eyes back to Grant. ‘There are fortune-hunters at a spa, of course, and of both sexes, but there are the others too, and a spa wishes to be fashionable. It wants what it calls the right people, and a post captain is certainly one of them, so you may depend on it that the Master of Ceremonies will look after you. He’ll see to it that you don’t want for introductions, or for the entry anywhere, and you’ll have a very good time.’
‘You do mean to have him.’
‘Stop it, John.’ She dealt quickly with the interruption, and then her eyes came back. ‘Of course I don’t wish to pull you to Cheltenham if it doesn’t suit you. Give me credit for that. But if it does happen to suit you, I shall be very glad to see you.’
‘Why?’ said John.
‘Try thinking, for a change. You may, in time, arrive at the thought that a brother is not always the right escort.’
‘She means it. You may as well strike your flag, Richard. Do it gracefully, and say you’ll be in Cheltenham--convoy duty, mind you.’
‘And why not? It sounds very pleasant.’ He turned happily to Mary. ‘Of course I’ll be there, if I can find a lodging.’
‘Plough Hotel. It’s the best in Cheltenham, and very suited to a bachelor.’ Her eyes were bright with pleasure now. ‘I do think you’ll enjoy it. It’s a good setting for anyone.’
It was the wrong comment. His thoughts flew off at once, and for an instant th
ey were of Anice, who could shine in any setting and would surely be the toast and beauty of a spa. He could see himself with her, parading in the Pump Rooms and sauntering in the gardens, and he had to wrench his thoughts back to Mary as he heard her speak again.
‘But we can’t go there till the spring,’ she was saying. ‘So what do we do till then? I’ve had enough of village winters.’
‘London?’
‘Possibly. At all events, it’s what Barford’s talking of. He seems to have rented a house there.’
‘He didn’t tell me,’ said John.
‘You were probably thinking of Mary Ann. But how of you, Richard? Do you winter in London?’
‘I don’t know.’ He spoke slowly, and his thoughts were still with Anice. ‘I might be in Paris.’
8 Village Venus
He had said it on impulse, his thoughts filled with Anice, and then he was suddenly in alarm, fearing that Mary would guess what he had meant. But she merely nodded, as if she found nothing odd in a wish to visit Paris, and John kept a loyal silence until the parlour-maid came in to speak of supper. Then the talk turned, though the thought stayed that if Anice had really been this Atkins’ daughter, she had once had an affair with John. It would have been like her, and like John too, and he found the thought displeasing. He could not quite lose it, and it stayed nagging in his mind.
It was still there next morning, and so was Barford’s advice that he should seek her in Paris and come to grips with everything. He was feeling firmer about it now. It was what his instinct had prompted, and his naval training too, and it seemed the only way to clear this up and find out who she was. He could not now bring himself to ask any of them here, but he had a chance later that day to walk by himself and think this out. John had disappeared, possibly with Mary Ann, and Mary was engaged at the Manor, to drink tea with her uncle. She pulled a wry face over it, and then suggested that Richard might perhaps call at the Manor at about half past two to escort her home. There was a frankness about her that brought an immediate agreement to do so.
He turned into the park not much after one o’clock, thinking that he would walk all round it while he cleared his thoughts in peace. He was in a mood of doubt by now, telling himself that he was leaping at conclusions merely from a face in ivory; and he knew now that he was attracted by Mary as well as Anice. He wanted to pursue it with both of them, and he knew he had better not. He could guess what would happen.
He was still brooding on it when he came upon John--and Mary Ann. He was in a far corner of the park by then, a good half-mile from the Manor House, and he was coming to the top of a wooded knoll when he saw them. They were sitting on the grass together in as secluded a spot as they could have wished, screened by the trees and with a southward prospect over fields and a winding stream. His tread on the grass must have been heard, for they turned as he approached and John scrambled to his feet, not in the least embarrassed. He was laughing as he spoke.
‘We were just talking of you,’ he called. ‘But allow me---‘ The infectious laugh came again to his face. ‘This is Mary Ann. She’s a friend of mine, just now, and she wants to be a friend of some others too. Come on, lass--show yourself.’
But she was already at his side, a dark-haired girl with an eager laughing face, brown and sun-tanned, whose dark eyes shone with her zest for life. She was lightly built, with something of the bird about her, and her head seemed perfectly poised on her shoulders as she stood erect and waiting. But he noticed that she did wait. She waited for him to speak first, and he gave her credit for that. Then he became aware that he was standing a little stiffly, distinctly the post captain, viewing her much as he would have viewed a raw young officer who had just come aboard, and the thought annoyed him. He made himself relax, and looked again into her vivid eyes, and at once he was smiling. He was almost beginning to laugh. He could not help it--with Mary Ann.
‘Good day to you--ma’am.’ He was not quite sure how to put it, but he must at least show courtesy. ‘I’m happy to make your acquaintance.’
That was conventional enough, but she did not seem to take it so. Her eyes sparkled at it, and her smile was charming as she answered.
‘Sir . . .’ She spoke in a clear fresh voice that had hardly a trace of the country accent. ‘It’s I that should be happy. First the Army . . .’ For a fleeting instant she turned her eyes to John. ‘. . . and now the Navy. I hardly know myself.’
‘I’m sure you know yourself excellently.’
‘She does,’ said John. ‘At least she knows what she wants, and if you do happen to be in London this winter you’re likely to see a little more of her.’
‘That sounds mysterious.’
‘Not at all. She can’t spread wings in this place, so she would like a change--which means London. And by the way things are going I look like taking her there.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He stopped short, hoping again that he was not standing stiffly. Then he turned to Mary Ann, and tried to speak gallantly. ‘I’ll be honoured if we meet, ma’am. If I can be of any service . . .’
‘Sir!’ Smile and eyes seemed brighter than before. ‘You are very good. I may perhaps ask some small thing--some day---if I may?’
‘Of course.’
He had to say it. She had taken him at his word with a devastating speed, though she must have known that he had meant no more than a vague politeness, and he began to look at her with a new respect. There was more in her than he had expected. But he had enough on his hands already, without Mary Ann as well, and he decided to make an end of this at once.
‘I’m happy to have met you, ma’am.’ He said it a little stiffly, and then at once he turned to John. ‘I’m expected at the Manor, to take Mary home, so you’ll forgive my leaving you?’
‘Of course, if Mary wants you. I’m sure that Mary Ann will forgive you too.’
Mary Ann was equal to it. For a moment she stood poised, while her head went back, and then she dipped into a curtsey, deep and graceful, admirably done.
‘There is nothing to forgive. Sir--your most obliged and humble servant.’
It sounded old-fashioned, oddly so in Mary Ann, and for an instant he wondered where she had picked it up. It sounded like something borrowed; but that, he remembered, was true of the rest of her manners. They did not fit a village girl, and she had certainly learned them elsewhere.
‘Yours, ma’am.’ He bowed quickly as he spoke. ‘A most pleasant meeting. But now, if you’ll give me leave . . .’
He walked quickly away, hoping it would not seem too abrupt, and then, as he continued his circle of the park, he began to be grimly amused. John, he thought, was finding her a handful--and serve him right. He was no beginner, of course, and Mary Ann might have some shocks before she had done with him, but certainly she was not the village girl. Yet she had been: and again he wondered where she had learned her manners. It brought the memory of Anice to him, who had also been a village girl, and had learned her manners as a lady’s maid. Could this girl . . . ?
He all but stopped in his walk as another thought came flashing. They must surely have known each other. They would be almost of an age, and if Anice had come from this village they could not have avoided each other. They might have been friends, or the opposite, and he could make no guess, but it would be strange if one small village should turn out two such girls as these; unless, of course, there was more to it than chance, and one was following the other. He must learn a little more, he told himself, of Mary Ann, and he was not altogether glad that he had met her.
It was a little after half past two when he came to the Manor House, and as he walked up the terrace a footman opened the mahogany door between the Doric columns of the portico. Evidently he was expected, and the man took him at once to a long drawing-room, white-and-gold, with a deep-red carpet and slender chairs in golden satin. The tall windows were open to the park to let the shafts of sunlight come pouring in, though a fire was twinkling in a hearth of golden stone under a mahogany surround that h
ad silver candlesticks and a gilded clock. Mary was in a chair by the fire with a tea-tray at her side, and Barford, in white pantaloons and a mulberry coat, was sitting cross-legged on a sofa, much as his ease. He rose lazily to his feet as the footman ushered in his guest.
‘Come in,’ he said affably. ‘You’re very welcome. Do you drink tea?’
‘Not just now, thank you.’
He was looking round the room, noting the elegance and the blaze of colour, and thinking that this was typical. Barford would probably prefer his library, and he would have wine there with a man, but he would use this room to give tea to a lady. He would think it her proper setting, a courtesy to which she was entitled, and a glance at Mary, poised in her chair by the sparkling silver of the tea-tray, suggested that he was right. She gave grace to the room, and the room enhanced her own.
‘I’m glad to see you.’ She was smiling happily as she spoke. ‘I’ve taxed my uncle’s patience long enough.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t.’
‘Oh yes, I have. He finds me quite unreasonable.’
‘The privilege of your sex, my dear.’ Barford spoke easily, leaning now against the mantelpiece. ‘Don’t alter it. You’re charming as you are, and I wouldn’t have you otherwise.’
‘That isn’t quite what I gathered. However . . .’ She came briskly to her feet. ‘I think I need a walk. Would you ring for my cloak?’
‘Of course--if you must have one.’ He pulled gently at the gilded tassel of a bell cord. ‘A pelisse is more the fashion.’
‘In London, no doubt. But not here.’
‘I’m sure you know best. But when you come---‘ He broke off, and then turned pleasantly to Grant. ‘I shall be in Town for the winter season, and I hope Mary will be with me. I’ve taken a house in Curzon Street, and if you should be in Town I shall count upon you to call.’