‘It was Lou, Mr Denis,’ said Palfrey.
‘What happened?’ asked Denis. ‘Was she sick after tea?’
‘Yes, Mr Denis. She is very given to be bilious. I was just the same when I was her age, the least thing, like a pork chop, or prawns and cocoa, upset me. But it wasn’t so much that. Mrs Pucken was quite shocked, and it’s not to be surprised at.’
‘Well, what was it?’ said Denis. ‘Or forever hold your peace, because I shan’t ask you again. I got quite a bit of work done yesterday, Lilian, and I want to try it on Catherine’s piano.’
‘I’m sure I would be the last to say anything,’ Palfrey began.
‘So you are,’ said Denis, ‘but do go on.’
‘Well, madam,’ said Palfrey, retransferring her patronage to her mistress, ‘Mrs Middleton’s dog, that Flora, was making quite a nuisance of himself while Mr Middleton was speaking.’
‘It’s not him, it’s her,’ said Daphne. ‘She’s a bitch, Palfrey.’
‘Whining and making a nuisance of himself he was,’ said Palfrey, who had a rooted conviction, born of her extreme delicacy, that all dogs were he and all cats, or pussies, she; as indeed they too often are. ‘Sitting by Mr Cameron’s chair he was, so that everyone where we was sitting passed the remark what a nuisance he was. And then what must my lady do, but take the dog as bold as brass and away she takes him to the stable and shuts him in and then comes back to eat her tea.’
‘But I think it was very kind of Lou to take Flora away,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘She was making a horrid noise.’
‘It wasn’t that, madam. It was Putting Herself Forward, just to show off to Mr Cameron. She won’t hear the last of it from her mother. Well, Lou, I said to her, I’m really ashamed of you I am. Of you and for you, I said. If Mr Cameron was Marleen or Donald Duck you couldn’t act more silly, I said.’
‘Well, that was quite dreadful,’ said Mrs Stonor sympathetically. ‘What is Lou doing now?’
‘Mrs Pucken gave her a dose of salts and sent her home, madam,’ said Palfrey. ‘She was crying so much she dropped one of the dessert plates and broke it. That makes only four we’ve got now, madam.’
Feeling that this parting line could not be improved she made her exit to the kitchen, leaving her audience stunned.
‘Poor Lou,’ sighed Mrs Stonor. ‘And of course it would be one of the good dessert plates. I had better put the rest away. And yet perhaps I hadn’t, because it is silly not to use things just because some of them are broken.’
‘Wear them and tear them, good body, good body,’ said Denis sympathetically. ‘Or why not have them gummed on to plush frames and hang them on the wall? Or have numbers painted round them and stick some hands through the middle and you’ll have four tasty clocks.’
‘Don’t go on like a Women’s Institute, Denis,’ said his stepmother severely. ‘I shall simply take no notice of those plates and go on using them exactly as if nothing had happened.’
‘That’s right, darling,’ said Denis. ‘Never let dumb objects get the upper hand. But I think Alister ought to be warned about Lou, or he will find she has stolen his shoes to have the pleasure of cleaning them. Why Lou has to pick on a middle-aged man for the first object of her young passion I can’t think. I suppose it is fate. I’ve never loved anyone so much as I loved Mrs Miller, the drill sergeant’s wife at school, and heaven knows she had four married daughters.’
‘When you call Alister middle-aged, you simply don’t know what you are talking about,’ said Mrs Stonor, suddenly roused. ‘And everyone falls in love at one time or another with someone who is much older than they are. I think you are very unkind to laugh at Lou. I might as well laugh —’
She paused, and Daphne who had been thinking along her own lines, paying as usual very little attention to her stepmother, said she liked Alister awfully and people were much more interesting when they were a bit older and she was awfully glad he was going to be at Laverings for some of his holiday and could they have coffee outside because it was so hot.
So they had coffee outside with the last sunlight on delphiniums and roses, almost too good to be true. Mrs Stonor was pleased to learn through Daphne that Mr Cameron would be at Laverings for part of the summer. She liked him very much and didn’t mind how much he talked to her about himself and about Daphne. Her only anxiety was on his account, an apprehension that he might be caring for Daphne a little more than would be good for his peace of mind. What Daphne herself felt she could not guess. Her stepdaughter’s frank avowal of a preference for older people might be personal, might be general. She had noticed for some time past that Daphne was more than ready to express a flattering desire for Mr Cameron’s company, but all these young Dianas hunted the prey of the moment with wholehearted gusto, leaving no room for sentiment. It had also crossed her mind that Daphne liked young Mr Bond, but young Mr Bond’s pitch had been queered that afternoon by Mrs Tebben’s indiscreet remarks about Betty Dean. It was possible that Daphne was punishing poor Mr Bond for an earlier flame by throwing herself with even less than her usual hail-fellow-well-met lack of reticence into Mr Cameron’s arms; tropically so, of course, for Daphne was all against what she called sloppiness. It looked to Mrs Stonor uncommonly as if young Mr Bond were going to be hurt by her unrestrained Daphne, and though she had no fear that he would die of it, she hated to see anyone suffer. This thought led her to wonder with her ever anxious stepmother’s mind if Daphne were going to let herself be unhappy about young Mr Bond, and from this it was but a step to wondering how much Mr Cameron might be hurt if Daphne used him as a whip for young Mr Bond. Altogether there was too much chance of people being hurt and the sunshine took on a livid hue and the roses became dun. If Mr Cameron were going to suffer she would not at all enjoy standing by and seeing it. Not at all.
Then her mind wandered to Denis. She was glad she hadn’t finished what she had begun in a spirit of resentment to say. It was not fair for Denis, who found so much pleasure in Mrs Middleton’s society, to laugh at poor Lou whose affections were set on an equally unattainable object. Mrs Stonor was extremely fond of her sister-in-law, but had no guess as to what was in her mind. So kind was Catherine Middleton to everyone that her kindness to Denis was nothing to notice, but if Denis were going to be a little too grateful for the kindness, it might hit him as hard as a real passion. He would not die of his emotions any more than young Mr Bond would. Mrs Stonor had not nursed him through a difficult youth without knowing that his music was on the whole his life and would always be so, but she suddenly felt a little pang of jealousy in case anyone should by a kind look innocently undo some of the good work that she had patiently been building up for years, set her nervous Denis back a step on the road to health that was so necessary if he was to use his music seriously. For the moment everything looked twisted. Everyone she cared for was in danger. Not ferocious danger, but danger of a little pain, a little disillusionment, a little spiritual hardening. It had looked as if it would be a perfect summer, but that was ridiculous to expect. Probably she was worrying and exaggerating quite morbidly. Quite unnecessarily. Better to think of something real, like the dessert plate, a definite annoyance.
‘It is all too difficult,’ she said half aloud.
‘What is, darling?’ said Denis. ‘Lou and the dessert plate?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Stonor, looking affectionately at her stepson’s mocking affectionate eyes. ‘Lou and the dessert plate and life. I suppose we had better go over to Laverings now. Are you going to bring your music, Denis?’
‘No, darling. Being a genius it is all in my head,’ said Denis modestly. ‘I did finish writing it down this afternoon in case I died and then a great work would be lost to the world, but as far as playing it on Catherine’s piano goes I need nothing but my musical brain and my long, agile, yet powerful fingers.’
They found the Middletons and Mr Cameron in the library because of mosquitoes, so Denis had to keep his music to himself while Mr Middleton discussed, if a monologue may be
termed a discussion, the events of the afternoon.
‘He has never stopped since the beginning of dinner,’ said Mr Cameron to Mrs Stonor, surveying his senior partner with exasperated pride. ‘It is true that he has managed to include the Conquest of Peru, the Thermae of Diocletian, the philosophy of Confucius, the Repeal of the Corn Laws and the Counter-Reformation in his survey of this afternoon, but the principle is the same.’
‘It is quite extraordinary how many things Jack manages to talk about,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘He has always been exactly the same since I first remember him when he was a big schoolboy and I was a very little girl. I can’t think how he thinks of so many things to say. I mean I could think of a fair number of things to say about things like sewing, or nursing, or books I’d been reading, or cooking, or places I’d been to, but I wouldn’t ever get so far as thinking them worth saying. Of course I daresay they wouldn’t be. My mother used to scold me a little because when she took me abroad I wouldn’t speak French, which I really knew fairly well, though I never can think why when people say abroad they mean France as a rule, and yet most other places are much abroader than France, but people who have been to Russia and Turkey and Iceland never say they have been abroad, and I used to try to explain to her that it wasn’t that I was too shy to talk French, but I never had very much to say in English, so there didn’t seem to be any more to say in French. I wonder how Catherine bears it. I suppose it wouldn’t do any good if she didn’t. No one has ever stopped Jack talking. And then of course she is very, very fond of him and that makes one so happy that one minds nothing,’ said Mrs Stonor a little wistfully as she thought of her difficult moody husband and how their great affection had made a working partnership which was becoming easier and more peaceful every year, when he had to die.
‘Yes, Catherine is very fond of him, bless her,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘And I think she could bear anything quite happily for someone she loved; certainly not show it if she were hurt in any way. She has unusual self-control.’
That word Hurt again, thought Mrs Stonor a little angrily. Too many feelings about as usual.
‘And Jack is extremely fond of her,’ said Mrs Stonor almost defiantly.
‘Yes, he is,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘He sometimes dissembles his love almost to the point of kicking her downstairs, but he is entirely dependent on her affection.’
‘Nobody is entirely dependent on affection,’ said Mrs Stonor, half to herself. ‘You only think you are. My husband and I were just as fond of each other as Jack and Catherine, but he is dead and here am I still alive. And if he were suddenly alive again there would be one heavenly moment, and then so embarrassing. Not so bad as The Monkey’s Paw of course, but bristling with difficulties.’
‘You are marvellous,’ said Mr Cameron, almost laughing. ‘I never knew anyone who put things as you do.’
‘I don’t put them at all,’ said Mrs Stonor in serious surprise. ‘I was only telling the truth.’
But at that moment her brother, anxious for the whole company to benefit by what he was saying, broke across their conversation.
‘You my dear Lilian, you Cameron,’ he said, ‘will bear me out when I say that the whole of the unfortunate débâcle of this afternoon is due to one man, and that man —’
He paused dramatically. His wife and Mr Cameron, who were accustomed to these rhetorical pauses which he merely introduced in order to have the pleasure of filling them up himself, said nothing. His sister, who had seen so much less of him in late years, was rash enough to say Lord Bond.
‘No, no, Lilian, not Bond,’ said Mr Middleton. ‘Bond, a well-meaning ass, would have done his best. He was, I understand, prepared to explain to Stoke, whose deafness makes him really unfit to transact any sort of business now, that he was to propose me as chairman. But if Stoke, knowing that his presence at the meeting is essential, chooses rather to go and inspect my cows with my cowman than to do his duty as a citizen, what is to be expected? It was useless for Bond to try to tell Stoke what was expected of him. He came in late, would listen to no explanation, took the chair himself and talked about cows. I may say without undue pride that I know as much about cows as most men, but a drawing-room meeting convened for the purpose of defending a piece of our national heritage against an invader is not a fit moment to discuss Jerseys and Frisians. I wash my hands of the whole thing.’
‘Well, Uncle Jack,’ said Daphne, anxious for fair play. ‘You did mostly talk about Flora when you made your speech, you know.’
Mr Middleton was about to quell his niece by marriage with his thunder when a thought struck him.
‘Where is Flora?’ he asked. ‘My doggie has not come to see her master to-night. Was she at dinner, Catherine?’
Mrs Middleton said she thought not and appealed to Mr Cameron who said he didn’t remember seeing her. Mr Middleton’s agitation became very marked. Mrs Middleton rang the bell. Denis and Daphne, rather bored, went over to the bagatelle board. Ethel came in.
‘Do you know where Flora is, Ethel?’ asked Mrs Middleton.
Ethel said she was sure she couldn’t say and Cook had said she hadn’t come for her supper. She then waited in a baleful and unhelpful way, hoping for tragedy.
‘My doggie,’ said Mr Middleton, agitated. ‘She will not sleep unless she has her good-night talk to master. Perhaps she has gone to my bedroom to look for me.’
He looked round helplessly.
‘She’s not upstairs, sir,’ said Ethel, rejoicing in the bad news, ‘because Alice looked for her when she went up to tidy the rooms. Cook said You might as well look for Flora, Alice, while you are up there, so she looked, but there wasn’t a sign nowhere. Cook thinks she’s gone hunting.’
‘She would never go alone,’ said her indignant master, ‘never. She always waits till master has hat on head and stick in hand before she will cross the threshold.’
‘She brought in a partridge last Tuesday, sir,’ said Ethel, ‘but Cook said not to mention it in case you was upset, so she gave it to Pollett.’
‘Thank you, Ethel,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘that will do. I expect she will come back soon.’
‘A light must be kept burning,’ said Mr Middleton.
‘Really, Jack,’ said Mrs Stonor, ‘it isn’t as if Flora was your erring daughter that had run away, and a candle in the window to guide her home.’
‘Of course we can leave the electric light on, darling,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘but the question is which. As all the doors and the ground floor windows are shut, she couldn’t get in and I am afraid she would howl.’
‘Then,’ said Mr Middleton nobly, ‘I should hear her.’
‘And so would everyone else in the house,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘except the maids who never hear anything and wouldn’t get up if they did. We might go down to the wood and call her.’
‘No. I will not go down to the wood. She will expect to find master at home,’ said Mr Middleton. ‘But I will sit on the terrace and call her from time to time. She may hear me and come.’
Accordingly he went out onto the terrace and established himself in a garden chair. Mrs Stonor accompanied him.
‘I say, Uncle Jack,’ Daphne suddenly shouted from the bagatelle board. ‘I say. I have only just thought of it. Flora is in the stable. Lou locked her up when she was interrupting your speech and then Mrs Pucken gave her a dose of salts and sent her home, so I expect she forgot.’
It naturally took some time for the united forces of the company to explain to Mr Middleton that it was Lou, not Flora, who had had the dose of salts, and why Lou, who was not on the Laverings establishment, happened to be in the drawing-room that afternoon, but when he did understand his indignation knew no bounds.
‘Flora was being a devilish nuisance to put it mildly,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘and deserves all she got. I’d leave her there all night.’
Before Mr Middleton could marshal his indignation in suitable words, Daphne said she would go and fetch Flora and invited Mr Cameron to go with her. Followed by
Mr Middleton’s voice beseeching them quite unnecessarily to be kind to Flora, they vanished into the dusk towards the stable where the monster cart horse lived, laughing as they went. Mrs Stonor felt again the little stir of uneasiness that had assailed her earlier in the evening, but put it away and drifted back into talk about old days with her brother.
‘I suppose,’ said Denis rather diffidently to Mrs Middleton, ‘this wouldn’t be a possible moment for me to play a few soft notes on your piano, would it?’
Mrs Middleton, seeing her husband and sister-in-law comfortably gossiping farther along the terrace, said she would love him to play.
‘I’ll keep the soft pedal down all the time,’ said Denis. ‘It’s just a movement of my new ballet. I’ve got it all down on paper and I want to have a little debauch and play it on the piano. I’ll swear not to tell you when the oboe comes in, or how nice the ’cellos sound just here. May I put one or two books on my chair? I like it a little higher.’
Without waiting for permission he took a couple of large volumes that were on a table by the piano.
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