Before Lunch

by Angela Thirkell

  Daphne said she liked a Revotina, but Lady Bond ought to choose. Miss Starter said that the princess’s secretary always used a Gladinon, so young Mr Bond said he would have a Revotina sent down as soon as possible if his mother approved.

  When they had had their coffee Daphne asked Lady Bond if the same time to-morrow would do, and said good-bye. Young Mr Bond opened the dining-room door for her and managed to shut himself outside. ‘Shall I run you home?’ he asked. Daphne said her bicycle was in the bottle room. ‘The devil it is,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘Do you mean to say you ride one of those things?’

  Daphne said she was poor but honest, and why not, so they went across the marble hall, through a door, along a stone passage with several corners, down a flight of stone stairs, past what looked to Daphne like several hundred bells all hanging curled up and ready to spring with their names written above them on a board, and so past the boot room to the bottle room.

  ‘By Jove, we do have a lot of empties,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘I wonder who gets the twopences on them.’

  ‘Your butler I should think,’ said Daphne. ‘And I bet he does pretty well over the stamps too. Your mother says he stamps all the letters.’

  ‘I always wondered how my letters got stamped,’ said young Mr Bond reflectively. ‘I must ask my lordly father to let me see Spencer’s book. I have an idea that there is some dirty business afoot. One gets suspicious in New York. I say, may I try to ride your bike? I haven’t been on one since I was ten.’

  Daphne gave permission, and to the uncontrollable joy of three under-gardeners and a couple of under-housemaids who had no business on that side of the house at all, the heir to the estate was seen wavering down the drive till he fell off into the rhododendrons. So enchanted was he with this new toy that he insisted on accompanying Daphne home, sometimes riding the bicycle till he fell off, sometimes running behind her while she rode, and sometimes wheeling it while they both walked. By the end of the journey he had so much improved his style that he said he would get a bicycle for himself and they would go for picnics.

  ‘You’d better hire one,’ said Daphne. ‘It’s no good your buying one if you won’t be staying here. When did you say you went back to New York?’

  ‘Not till September. I’m doing a job of work for them over here,’ said young Mr Bond, ‘but I don’t always need to be in town all the week. Could I have a drink of water or something? It’s a thirsty sport.’

  ‘You’d better stay to tea,’ said Daphne. So young Mr Bond did stay to tea, and found Mrs Stonor so easy to talk to that he told her a great many quite uninteresting things about himself and enjoyed himself vastly.

  ‘I’m sorry I forgot the start of surprise at lunch,’ said Daphne when he at last tore himself away. ‘And I forgot to call you Cedric too. I somehow wasn’t sure if your mother would approve.’

  ‘Probably not, but she will,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘Call me anything you like so long as it isn’t Seedric as matron at my prep. school used to say. Was Miss Plimsoll there in your time, Denis?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. It was in my second term that her lower teeth fell out of the bathroom window,’ said Denis, ‘and a boy called Pringle thought they were a gift from heaven and kept them in his best knickers pocket for two days, till Miss Plimsoll found them herself when she was getting out clothes ready for chapel on Sunday.’

  ‘All right, I’ll say Cedric,’ said Daphne. ‘And it’s awfully nice having you here. What with you and Catherine and all the cows, it’s going to be a lovely summer. And Mr Cameron at weekends. I like him almost better than anyone I’ve ever met, don’t you?’

  Upon this artless declaration young Mr Bond walked all the way home in deep gloom and nearly didn’t send for the typewriter after all. But reflecting that if he didn’t Daphne might give up coming to Staple Park altogether, he wrote to the Army and Navy Stores that very night.

  The next two weeks passed uneventfully. Lady Bond found Daphne extremely helpful with the accounts and on several occasions kept her on till tea-time. Daphne enjoyed seeing into the works of a big house and garden and made one or two suggestions to Lady Bond which her ladyship passed to her husband, who said Miss Stonor had a head on her shoulders. Young Mr Bond had to be in town daily, but managed to see a good deal of the Stonor family in his spare time. He and Denis laughed together over their reminiscences of Hocker’s, and Mrs Stonor listened kindly to all he had to say about himself. When Mr Middleton was in town in the middle of the week, sometimes spending a night or two at his club, Mrs Middleton took to dropping in very frequently at the White House to gossip with her sister-in-law, whom she got to like more and more. On the first occasion of her husband’s absence she sent word to Denis that the piano would be at liberty and he came over at tea-time.

  ‘I didn’t come sooner,’ he said, ‘because I thought you might be resting.’

  Mrs Middleton, who had indeed been resting but would not at all have minded the piano, was touched by this consideration and told Denis that he must use the piano whenever he liked so long as Uncle Jack wasn’t at home. So he gradually lost his shyness and came over every afternoon while his difficult step-relative was away. Mrs Middleton went in and out, sometimes gardening within earshot of the music, sometimes writing letters in her sitting-room next door, sometimes sitting with a book, or only musing while Denis played and frowned and put down hieroglyphics on scored paper and complained that her good piano was ruining him as a composer. By the end of the second week he had so far conquered his diffidence as to play Mrs Middleton most of the music that he was composing for a ballet. When he had finished playing Mrs Middleton said nothing. At last she said, ‘It sounds very grown-up to me.’

  ‘I am grown-up, you see,’ said Denis. ‘I rather think it’s my misfortune.’

  ‘Very few of one’s friends are,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘I’m not, and I think that’s my misfortune. So how discontented we all are,’ she added, laughing.

  Denis looked at her with one of his quick searching looks.

  ‘I knew that the first time I saw you,’ he said. ‘Not when I was here before, when I was ill, but as soon as I saw you the first day we were here.’

  Ethel now brought tea in and while they partook of it Mrs Middleton asked Denis when the ballet was likely to be produced.

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ he said, with a quick darkening of his eyes. ‘The artist is there for the décor – no one you’ve heard of but very clever; the choreographer is there and understands every note I write; I have nearly done my music and it is right for dancing; that’s what makes it sound grown-up probably. But as usual the people who would like to put it on haven’t any money to back it. Meanwhile it’s fun, and if I go on feeling as well as I do here I’ll be able to get a cinema organ job. I wouldn’t mind going up and down on a golden lift five or six times a day with bears’ grease on my hair and bowing in a pale and interesting way to the audiences. Uncle Jack can build me a super cinema, and Lilian shall be receptionist because she loves fussing over people, and Daphne shall be secretary. A family affair.’

  ‘Do I come into the family?’ asked Mrs Middleton.

  ‘Of course. You’ll be here, ready to comfort Uncle Jack when he says he is certain he forgot to allow for the weight of the audience on the dress circle. And Daphne and Lilian and I will come down to you all rich and jaded on Saturday night late, in a car full of champagne bottles, and go back after Sunday lunch for the five o’clock session.’

  ‘That sounds very nice,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘And talking of nothing in particular, do you all realize that this Saturday is the drawing-room meeting here about Pooker’s Piece?’

  ‘We do, indeed we do,’ said Denis. ‘It has cast a blight over our lives for days. Daphne seems to have done nicely with the invitations, and half the county is coming. I hope Uncle Jack will come up to the scratch. Can I bring over some chairs from the White House? There is one in my bedroom that squeaks and one in Daphne’s room that has one leg shorter than the others
.’

  Mrs Middleton said she would love to give the one with the squeaky leg to Lord Stoke, who was deaf, and then Ethel came in to announce that Mrs Pucken wished to speak with Mrs Middleton and was waiting in the kitchen to that end. She was told to bring her in and shortly conducted Mrs Pucken into the drawing-room.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Pucken,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘Do sit down.’

  Mrs Pucken, feeling the immense moral superiority to be gained from standing, said she would prefer to stay where she was and would like to speak to Mrs Middleton.

  ‘Is it about Lou?’ said Mrs Middleton.

  Mrs Pucken said Lou was a handful of trouble and then looked so ominous that Denis offered to go.

  ‘Don’t you disturb yourself, sir,’ said Mrs Pucken. ‘Lou’s a troublesome girl, but it’s not what you call trouble this time. Not like my eldest niece. That girl’s got herself into trouble again, madam, that is to say she doesn’t know if it’s trouble yet, so we hope for the best and expect the worst. But Lou is a good girl, at least as far as that goes.’

  She paused for effect and Denis nervously began to put his music together.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t want to disturb you and the young gentleman, madam,’ said Mrs Pucken, looking severely at Denis who stopped arranging his music and sat down again. ‘It’s this meeting, madam, about Pooker’s Piece. Seems Pucken’s old grandfather used to live up there in Margett’s cottage as is now, and Pucken always talked a lot about the Piece. He has a kind of fancy his people used to live there in the old days and it used to be called Pucken’s Piece. A lot of ideas he gets into his head,’ said Mrs Pucken, to whom the word ideas meant rubbish, ‘but he gets talking about it of an evening sometimes. I don’t pay no attention to Pucken, but Lou she’s a regular dad’s girl and listening to Pucken keeps her out of harm’s way, for they do say it’s at the pictures that most of the harm gets done.’

  She looked at Denis, who felt that she suspected him of practising debauchery in the sixpenny seats at the Winter Overcotes Odeon and wished he could get under the piano.

  ‘Well, Mrs Pucken,’ said Mrs Middleton.

  ‘It’s this way, madam,’ said Mrs Pucken. ‘Miss Daphne’s been talking about this meeting Lady Bond’s having about Pooker’s Piece and nothing will content my young lady but can she come and hear the speeches. Rubbish, my girl, was what I said when she began about it, don’t you get getting ideas into your head, but she goes on about it enough to drive you wild, so at last I said, “Look here, my girl, I’ve had enough of this. I’ll speak to Mrs Middleton about it and see what she says. But don’t think you can scamp your work.”’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘I really don’t see why Lou shouldn’t come. I’m afraid she’ll find it rather dull.’

  ‘She’s quite a one for an outing,’ said Mrs Pucken. ‘And I’ll see she cleans herself proper before she comes. It’s very good of you I’m sure, madam. Perhaps I’d better come along of Lou myself to keep an eye on her and I could give Ethel and the others a hand with the washing up afterwards.’

  ‘Yes of course, do come with Lou,’ said Mrs Middleton, feeling that things were gradually getting out of control.

  ‘Thank you very much, madam, I’m sure. And Miss Palfrey is taking quite an interest in the meeting too.’

  ‘Miss Palfrey?’

  ‘Lord, I didn’t know Palfrey was a fan of Lady Bond’s,’ said Denis.

  ‘Mrs Stonor’s maid, madam,’ Mrs Pucken explained. ‘Her father was a naval captain in an oil tanker.’

  ‘You’d better ask Mrs Stonor then,’ said Mrs Middleton firmly. ‘If she can spare her maid of course you can bring her. Good afternoon, Mrs Pucken.’

  Mrs Pucken, who always knew when the gentry had had enough of her, withdrew and Mrs Middleton and her guest fell into helpless laughter. Why the staff of the White House should want to attend a drawing-room meeting on preserving the amenities of rural England was beyond their comprehension. Denis said they could now give Mrs Pucken the squeaking chair with a clear conscience and let Lou, who was skinny, have the chair with one short leg. Then he gathered up his music and said good-bye.

  ‘Come again next week for music, Denis,’ said Mrs Middleton.

  ‘It’s a funny thing, but I still don’t say Catherine to you,’ said Denis irrelevantly. ‘“You” is the nearest I can get.’

  ‘It’s not very near,’ said Mrs Middleton, truthfully.

  ‘Well, I wish your eyes didn’t look tired,’ said Denis, and went back to the White House. His stepmother and Daphne were in the garden by the little stream and he told them how Mrs Pucken and Palfrey wanted to come to the meeting. They were amused, but quite as much at a loss as he was. After dinner they all sat outside again. From the kitchen came a ceaseless babbling of voices, mixed with the clash of silver and china in the sink. Denis said there seemed to be a good deal of company to-night.

  ‘Only Mrs Pucken and Lou,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘Mrs Pucken is always in the kitchen lately. I only pay her for the mornings, but she comes up nearly every night with Lou. She and Palfrey are great friends and it means I never have to think of what to do with remains of pudding or cold potatoes. What they talk about all the time I can’t think.’

  The subjects of the foregoing remarks were finishing the after-dinner wash-up. Lou had just been scolded by her mother for leaving the knives in the sink while she dried the china.

  ‘How many times have I told you that’s not the way to do the knives,’ said Mrs Pucken to her daughter. ‘Take all them knives out of the sink and put them in that white jug. Now you can put some hot suds in the jug but don’t let it come up to the handles. Rot the handles right off the blades, my girl, that’s what you’ll do, leaving them in the sink like that. Why, the cook I was second kitchen-maid under when I first went out, she’d have thrown the rolling pin at me likely as not if she’d seen me done a thing like that. And no giving sauce back neither,’ said Mrs Pucken accusingly to Lou, who had not yet opened her mouth.

  ‘My father used to take the slipper to we girls if we didn’t have everything the way he liked it,’ boasted Palfrey. ‘I’m glad of it now though. Same as Lou will be glad you spoke to her about those knives. Don’t forget what your mother says, Lou. And you do the fish knives and forks the same way, and the little tea knives if they have nice handles, and the carvers. Now you can pour away those suds out of the jug and fill it up with hot water and then take the knives out and dry them.’

  Lou emptied the suds out of the jug, letting one knife escape with a clatter into the sink, thus causing Palfrey to draw in her breath with a hissing sound. She then put the jug under the tap and refilled it with hot water. As she withdrew it she hit the jug against the tap. A crash was heard and a three-cornered piece of china fell into the sink.

  ‘All right, my girl, you don’t go to the meeting to-morrow,’ said Mrs Pucken in gloomy triumph. ‘Here, give me the cloth, Miss Palfrey and me’ll finish the drying. You’re just like your dad, all thumbs. Put the cloth on for supper and don’t forget the cruet.’

  While Lou, sniffing loudly, laid the table, the two elder ladies rapidly finished the wash-up and the dry-up. Mrs Pucken said she would just wash the cloths through and hang them up, as Miss Palfrey wouldn’t be boiling till Monday, if Miss Palfrey would put out the things. By the time she had done this Palfrey had set the cold lamb, the cold potatoes, a bottle of Piccalilli, the remains of a trifle and a large piece of cheese on the table and they sat down.

  ‘That’s enough, Lou,’ said Mrs Pucken sharply to her daughter who was still sniffing, ‘and there’s others besides you wants the cruet. Pass it to Miss Palfrey. I shan’t be coming up to-morrow night, Miss Palfrey. I’ll stop on at Laverings and give the girls there a hand. There’ll be a big wash-up after the meeting and tea, and four for dinner with Mr Cameron coming.’

  Here Lou stopped sniffing and gave a yelp.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ said her exasperated mother.

  Lou was heard to
mumble that she wanted to go to the meeting. ‘All right, go to the meeting, only stop that noise. Nobody said you wasn’t going,’ said Mrs Pucken, who like a true mother had forgotten her threat as soon as she had uttered it. ‘You’ll be able to have a good look at Lady Bond, Miss Palfrey, and young Mr Bond too, I expect.’

  ‘We’ve seen plenty of young Mr Bond round our place,’ said Palfrey. ‘Always coming to tea he is. I must say though,’ she added, wishing to give credit where credit was due, ‘that it’s a treat to see him eat. I don’t suppose he’s Spoken yet.’

  ‘Get on with your supper, Lou, listening like that to what Miss Palfrey says,’ said Mrs Pucken to her daughter whose eyes, ears and mouth were wide open.

  ‘Do you mean Mr Bond will Ask Miss Daphne?’ Lou breathed in a hoarse romantic whisper.

  ‘If you was to get on with your supper, Lou, the way your mother tells you, you wouldn’t need to be asking all them questions,’ said Palfrey, with fine kitchen logic. ‘It’s my belief, Mrs Pucken, it’s as good as Settled. But she’s quite right not to be too easy with him. Does them good to wait. I’ve been walking out nine years now with my friend.’