Before Lunch

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘Quite right too,’ said Mrs Pucken. ‘The worst day’s work I ever did was giving up a good place at Staple Park to marry Pucken when we’d only been going together three years and I hadn’t even met his mother. A fine old lady she was. She had seven sons and she made them all give her their wages every Friday night. Of course when I took Pucken I took care of his money, so the old lady went off it was a fair treat they say and that’s how I never met her after all. Well, we must be going, Miss Palfrey. I’ll be in to-morrow early, so don’t bother about the rest of the wash-up to-night. Has Miss Daphne got Mr Bond’s photo in her room?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said Palfrey, suddenly becoming a faithful retainer. ‘Not on the mantelpiece where the other photos are.’

  ‘But she’s got a snap of Mr Cameron,’ said Lou, her virgin heart impelled by Aphrodite to express her passion. ‘I sor it on the table the day I was doing the room out with you, Mum.’

  Upon this shameless statement both ladies fell on Lou with accusations of prying and Nosey-Parkering and prognostications of a bad end, so that she went home bellowing loudly, but not on the whole unhappy, for had she not borne witness for her chosen hero, just like Glamora Tudor in The Flames of Desire when she told wicked Lord Mauleverer that it was really the Duke she loved.

  As for Daphne, she had taken the snapshot of Mr Cameron in the gardens at Laverings the previous weekend and liked to see her own handiwork. She still thought him one of the nicest people she had ever met, but was also much attached to young Mr Bond, and really thought very little about either.

  6

  Prelude to a Meeting

  On Saturday morning a kind of ferment was going on in all the houses which we already know and in various others with which the reader of this work may already be familiar. At Worsted for example Mr and Mrs Palmer at the Manor House were having one of those differences of opinion which sometimes made breakfast a little alarming to visitors. Mr Palmer, although professionally a rival of Lord Bond and Mr Middleton where cows were concerned, felt that public spirit about the amenities of Pooker’s Piece should rise above any private feelings. His wife, who was of sterner stuff, regarded any meeting held by the instigation of Lady Bond as anathema, for she had never forgotten the day on which the Bonds’ cowman had allowed a bull to get mildly out of control and had been indirectly the cause of a slight accident to her youngest niece.

  ‘Yes, yes, Louise,’ said her husband, ‘that’s all very well, but it wasn’t Lady Bond’s fault that the bull got loose. And the meeting isn’t at Staple Park, it’s at Laverings. Nice woman, Mrs Middleton. We ought to go, my dear. Can’t let this fellow build on Pooker’s Piece.’

  Mrs Palmer said Lucasta Bond was capable of anything, and how Mrs Middleton could submit to having Lucasta’s meeting in the Laverings drawing-room she didn’t know. Her husband wisely retreated behind the Stock Breeders’ Gazette and when Mrs Palmer had said a little more of what she felt towards Lady Bond she suddenly remembered that she had heard that Mrs Middleton’s sister-in-law’s stepdaughter, who was doing secretarial work for Lady Bond while Miss Knowles was away, was a nice girl and good-looking, and might be available as fresh theatrical talent; for Mrs Palmer’s production of Greek plays and Shakespeare in a converted barn was one of the celebrated features of Worsted, and Twelfth Night was already in rehearsal. So she said presently that she supposed they would have to go and she would order the car for three o’clock and had promised to take the Tebbens. Mr Palmer replied that Lord Stoke had bought a bull from Mr Leslie at Rushwater and so the discussion closed.

  At about the same moment Mr Leslie who hated the telephone and Lord Stoke who was very deaf were deliberately misunderstanding each other on the telephone about the delivery of the bull. After some very unhelpful conversation Mr Leslie tried to convey to Lord Stoke that he meant to go to the meeting at Laverings that afternoon and would discuss the matter with him there if he were going. As Lord Stoke was reminded by the word Laverings that he had quite forgotten that he had been asked to take the chair or propose a chairman, he wasn’t sure which, and took full advantage of his deafness not to hear any of Mr Leslie’s attempts to speak, Mr Leslie banged down the receiver, though not before he had expressed his views on other people’s want of sense, leaving his lordship placidly repeating himself to a dead wire, all to the infinite pleasure of the telephone exchange. And it was owing to the deep interest taken by the young lady operator that Mrs Tebben at Lamb’s Piece was unable to get onto the Worsted shop and order some tinned apricots for a cold supper when she got back from the meeting.

  ‘It is too provoking, my dear,’ she cried gaily to her husband who had heard her trying to telephone and hoped it wasn’t anything he need pay attention to. ‘The exchange won’t answer at all. I wanted to get some of those Empire apricots, cheaper than Californian and quite as good, for our little meal to-night. Well, cheese is always our great stand-by and the piece we have left needs finishing. You are coming to the meeting about Pooker’s Piece, dear, aren’t you? Louise Palmer said they would drive us.’

  Mr Tebben, who wanted with all his soul to stay at home and write an article for the Journal of Icelandic Studies on Bishop Ogmund, said he didn’t think he need go. His wife replied, yet more gaily, that needs must when the devil drives and Louise was coming for them soon after three or else a little before and she must go and cut a cabbage.

  ‘Think!’ she added dramatically. ‘Our own cabbage! I shall tell Mrs Phipps to shred it very fine with just a taste of onion and we shall have an excellent salad from our own garden, except for the onion which I must confess is the last of that string of them I bought from the man who was all looped with them and went bad so soon.’

  Her husband, vaguely wondering who the devil in this particular case was, and why a man looped with onions had gone bad, turned eagerly to his work again and was re-absorbed into sixteenth-century Iceland.

  At Pomfret Towers old Lord Pomfret was in the estate room looking at the Ordnance map with his agent, Roddy Wicklow.

  ‘Can’t think why the Government allows people like Hibberd,’ said his lordship angrily. ‘Had him once on a committee. Feller was wearing a Guards’ tie. Extraordinary the way these new men don’t know anything. Pooker’s Piece. Nice little bit of meadowland and Palmer planted a nice screen of larches on the north side,’ said his lordship who knew every inch of the country. ‘Like the feller’s infernal impudence to want to build on it. I suppose I’ll have to go over to the meeting. Laverings: that’s down the narrow lane half a mile outside Skeynes, isn’t it? I remember that lane. Nearly killed there when I was a young man. Driving a dog cart and we met a waggon full of hay. I was a silly young fool then and tried to pass it. We went right into the ditch and broke one wheel and the mare couldn’t be used again for a month. Well, I’ll go, but I know the car will stick in that lane.’

  ‘I couldn’t go for you, could I?’ said Roddy Wicklow, who was not only devoted to his employer, but a kind of connexion, as his sister had married Lord Pomfret’s cousin and heir.

  ‘No, no, you’ve got to see Sir Edmund Pridham and the Council Clerk about those County Council Cottages,’ said Lord Pomfret. ‘No good my going, I’d only lose my temper. Confounded counter-jumper that clerk is. I’ll go to Laverings. Daresay I’ll lose my temper there too, but that won’t matter. Heard from your sister to-day?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They seem to be having a splendid time at Cap Martin and little Ludovic is getting brown all over.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said his lordship approvingly. ‘I’ll be glad to see them back though. House seems a bit empty without the little chap.’

  And Lord Pomfret fell into a muse as he thought of the six months’ old baby who was later to bear the title of his only son, killed so long ago.

  At Staple Park Lady Bond was being driven almost to frenzy by Miss Starter’s anxiety about the tea at Laverings.

  ‘If,’ said Miss Starter plaintively as they sat down to lunch, ‘I could
be sure that Mrs Middleton had real China tea, I should feel more at ease, but so many of one’s friends have what they call China tea and certainly isn’t, for half an hour after drinking it I always have a peculiar feeling. Now real China tea, like yours, Lucasta, leaves me feeling absolutely free from any feeling at all. I suppose I shall just have to do without my tea altogether.’

  Lady Bond always invited Miss Starter to Staple Park for a long visit in the summer because she was an old friend of the Bond family and bore genteel poverty in London lodgings very courageously. But every three or four days her guest so exacerbated even her not very sensitive nature that she heartily wished she had not been so kind. Since the Kornog bread had been got from Winter Overcotes Miss Starter had been unusually placid, but for the last twenty-four hours she had talked of China tea till her hostess could have bitten her with pleasure.

  ‘Well, Juliana,’ she said, ‘we will take some of my tea with us and I’ll ask Mrs Middleton if she will have a pot made specially for you.’

  ‘Oh dear me, no,’ said Miss Starter. ‘I should feel so nervous and uncomfortable that I am sure all my feelings would come on, worse than ever. You know worry is really at the basis of everything; it can poison the most healthy person. I say to myself every night, “Do not worry. Do not worry. Do not worry.”’

  ‘That’s all wrong, Miss Starter,’ said young Mr Bond, who had been hoping for some time that his mother’s guest would choke on a fishbone and die. ‘What you ought to say is “I am not worrying.” Keeps the old Ego in much better order.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you do?’ said Miss Starter.

  ‘Well, not exactly. The fact is I simply don’t worry at all. It saves me a lot of trouble. More of those nice little new potatoes, Spencer. They look a bit young to have been killed, but they taste uncommonly good.’

  Miss Starter said earnestly that they were poison, which caused young Mr Bond to put six into his mouth at once, give a single chew and swallow them. Lord Bond, who came in just then from seeing about a drain down in the seven-acre field, said talking of poison they had found a vixen dead down near the stream undoubtedly poisoned, and the question was who had done it.

  ‘Miss Starter says it is potatoes,’ said young Mr Bond.

  ‘Potatoes?’ said Lord Bond. ‘Never knew a fox eat potatoes.’

  ‘Perhaps vixens do,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘Ladies in an interesting condition have queer fancies – at least that’s what one reads,’ he added hastily, meeting his mother’s eye. And then without giving either of the ladies time to interfere he plunged into a discussion of the possible vixen poisoner with his father, leaving Miss Starter so discomposed that she quite forgot about her tea.

  ‘We are leaving at a quarter past three,’ said Lady Bond as she rose from the lunch table. ‘Juliana, you will rest of course. Alured, who is to take the chair? My brother or Mr Middleton?’

  ‘Well, my dear —’ his lordship began.

  ‘So it had better be Mr Middleton, as it is his house,’ said Lady Bond. ‘Will you catch Stoke as soon as he comes and make him understand that he is to propose Mr Middleton.’

  ‘Stoke is getting very deaf,’ said Lord Bond plaintively.

  ‘I said Make him understand,’ said Lady Bond. ‘You can drive us, C.W., as I have ordered the small car. Ferguson is having the weekend off as I shall be taking him to town next week.’

  Her ladyship swept Miss Starter out of the room in front of her, leaving her husband and son together.

  ‘I didn’t know your mother was going away next week,’ said Lord Bond. ‘I wonder who will drive me if she takes Ferguson. Young Phipps is the only man I’d trust and he won’t be back from his holiday. I suppose you wouldn’t, C.W.?’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, father, I really would if I could,’ said young Mr Bond quite seriously, ‘but I have to be at the office all next week. Can’t you hire someone?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to,’ said Lord Bond with a sigh. ‘But I’ll tell you what,’ he added, cheering up. ‘I’ll get that nice young Denis Stonor to come and play Gilbert and Sullivan to me. His sister sings and we’ll have a nice little concert together. I do hope Spencer will let me have the piano key by then. I don’t like to ask him every time and I can’t quite burgle his pantry while he’s out. Well, well.’

  He looked longingly at his son, half hoping that he would knock Spencer out in fair fight and bear away the piano key as the spoils of victory. But young Mr Bond had not heard the end of his father’s remarks for it had suddenly come over him how pleasant it would be to hear a little music, and how easily he could run down for an evening in his car now that the evenings were so long.

  At Laverings Mr Middleton had retired to his dressing-room for the morning to do some work, while the library was made ready for the meeting. As this plan had been arranged the day before it did not come as a surprise to anyone except Mr Middleton himself, who came downstairs at intervals to tell his wife, Alister Cameron, the three Stonors, and any of the servants who were helping, what it meant to him to be an exile from his own room.

  ‘A precious morning and a precious afternoon wasted, lost!’ he exclaimed, suddenly appearing at the door of his private staircase. ‘The whole world is basking in sunshine and I alone am condemned to toil.’

  ‘Why not go down to the field and have a talk with Pucken,’ said his wife. ‘It certainly does seem a pity to be indoors on such a lovely day.’

  ‘How can I talk to Pucken when I have work to do? And without the kindly shelter of my own room, I feel outcast, unwanted. Better perhaps had I stayed in London for the weekend.’

  ‘If you really did work in here there would be some sense in what you say,’ said Mrs Stonor, who was putting paper and pencils on a table at the far end of the room. ‘But after all, Jack, you keep all your plans and things upstairs, which is a delightful room, and I haven’t seen you working here, I mean only writing letters or doing nothing, though sometimes when one is doing nothing one is really thinking very hard. When Denis is composing he often looks as if he were quite mad or thinking about nothing at all.’

  ‘I do,’ said Denis. ‘I sometimes see myself in a glass and say “Good God.” But I don’t see what that has to do with Uncle Jack working upstairs, darling.’

  ‘Good morning, Uncle Jack,’ said Daphne, coming in with a jug of water and two glasses on a tray. ‘How lucky you are, doing nothing on such a divine day. We are all sweltering to death. I say, could I have those two chairs you aren’t using in your workroom? I didn’t like to take them without asking you, but I saw them when I looked in, when I went up to Catherine’s room to see if she had some blue sewing silk she promised she’d lend me. Your room looked so lovely and cool, and I read a bit of an awfully good book you left on the table where your plans are.’

  ‘I am always needing nice books for my library list,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘What was it called, Daphne?’

  ‘Something about Blood,’ said Daphne. ‘And there is an awfully good bit about where the detective gets on the track of an Argentine white slaver and the wardrobe suddenly turns round on a hinge and there he sees a girl’s body hanging up by the heels and she had nothing on and has been dead for days. Oh, All Blood Calling, that’s the name.’

  Mrs Stonor said it sounded a very nice book and she would put it on her list. Denis said if he were a white slaver he would make a better job than that and he would never have the same respect for Argentines again.

  ‘And could I take those two chairs, Uncle Jack?’ said Daphne.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Middleton. ‘I want them. I need them. I require them, to put things on. And what is that jug of water for?’

  ‘For the chairman,’ said Daphne. ‘At least one glass is for him and the other for anyone else, and the jug is so that they can give themselves some water.’

  ‘And who is the chairman?’ asked Mr Middleton, rather glad of a diversion from the subject of his leisure reading.

  ‘Didn’t Lady Bond tell you?’
said his wife.

  ‘No one in this house tells the master of it what is happening,’ said Mr Middleton with tragic dignity. ‘I know nothing. I cannot work. I cannot go out and enjoy the beneficent sunshine.’

  ‘But, Jack,’ said his sister, ‘why not? If you must work you can’t go out, and if you go out you can’t work, but you can’t have it both ways.’

  To have it both ways was exactly what Mr Middleton wanted and usually got. Crushing a desire to strangle his sister he said coldly that he had better put on a hat, for this was hardly a day to walk in the direct rays of the sun, and see Pucken about that manure.

  ‘Then can I have those two chairs if you don’t want them, Uncle Jack?’ said Daphne.

  ‘NO!’ said Mr Middleton. ‘Catherine, I appeal to you. Is this my house or is it not?’

  ‘Yes, darling, it is,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘At least as long as we pay the rent. And if you could possibly spare time to speak to Pucken about that manure I shall be so glad, because we really need it for the marrows. I know how busy you are, but it won’t take long. I saw Pucken go down the field just now.’