Before Lunch

by Angela Thirkell

  Pucken said he thought he’d got her all right and a lovely load she was, and then stood twirling his hat in his hands. Mrs Middleton, understanding that he had something else to say, asked after Lily. With a broad grin Pucken said she had a fine little heifer calf.

  ‘And I never knew!’ cried Mr Middleton. ‘This event upon which all my thoughts, my hopes have been centred has come and gone, and this is the first I hear of it.’

  ‘Well, darling, if it only happened last night you could hardly have heard sooner,’ said his wife. ‘Besides you do remember, don’t you, that Daphne and Mr Bond left the party early last night to see how Lily was, so you must have known that something was happening, and really you are practically the first person to know.’

  ‘Practically!’ said Mr Middleton bitterly. ‘However, we must now find a name for this newcomer. Have you any suggestion, Cameron?’

  ‘Beyond Epistemological Ideology, none,’ said Mr Cameron, rather bored with cows and wanting to get on to his own news.

  ‘Miss Daphne she wants to call her Miss Daphne,’ said Pucken, ‘but I said to my old woman this morning, Miss Daphne is a pretty name for a heifer, but Mrs Bond would be better. My old woman she told me to hold my tongue, but I’ve eyes in my head as well as another I said to her, and you mark my word, I said —’

  ‘That will do, Pucken,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘Daphne will be a very nice name for the calf and now you might stake those dahlias.’

  Pucken went off, chuckling at his own wit, and Mrs Middleton looked at Mr Cameron.

  ‘It happened last night,’ he said guiltily, ‘but when I got back from the White House you had gone to bed. I was going to tell you now, when Pucken came pushing in. I think Daphne and Bond will be very happy and to be perfectly frank I’m very happy myself. Daphne couldn’t have been nicer about it nor could Bond and we are all safely out of a foolish mistake, which was really a great deal my fault.’

  Mrs Middleton expressed her pleasure with a warmth that Mr Cameron again mentally compared with her lukewarm congratulations over his engagement. Mr Cameron, who had seen young Mr Bond driving off with Daphne and Denis a little earlier, said he thought he would go for a walk, and sauntered elaborately down the garden and into the field.

  ‘I am very glad that engagement is over,’ said Mr Middleton. ‘Daphne was much too young. Someone like Lilian would be much more suitable for Cameron.’

  ‘I think so too,’ said Mrs Middleton.

  The morning passed on. Mr Cameron did not come back from his walk and Mr Middleton read the Journal of the R.I.B.A. in the sun. Mrs Middleton drove down to the village to get some more stuff to spray the green fly and then cut roses for the house, talking to him as she came in and out of the library window. A little after half-past eleven the sound of hoofs made them both look up and in the lane they saw Lord Pomfret and his agent.

  ‘This is very nice to see you,’ said Mrs Middleton over the gate. ‘Will you come in?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Lord Pomfret. ‘Got to get back. Morning, Middleton. I just stopped to tell you that you needn’t worry about Pooker’s Piece. I’m buying it from Hibberd. Thought you’d like to know. That’s the end of him. No more meetings. Well, I must be moving.’

  Touching his hat he rode off, followed by the silent and devoted Roddy Wicklow.

  ‘What a relief,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘It was all such a muddle, and I’m sure Sir Ogilvy would have won. Now you can walk over Pooker’s Piece quite happily for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I know one person who will rejoice even as I do,’ said Mr Middleton.

  ‘Lots, I should think,’ said his wife, ‘but who specially?’

  Mr Middleton pointed to Flora, who was lying half asleep on the hot flags. A fly passed too near her and she twitched angrily.

  ‘My doggie knows, even in her sleep,’ said Mr Middleton, making a statement for which there was not the slightest foundation. ‘She knows that Pooker’s Piece is free for her to run in with Master, that Sir Ogilvy has retreated, leaving us our unsullied English countryside, that —’

  His voice died away. The look of panic that Mrs Middleton knew so well suddenly invaded his face and dissolved its apparently firm lines as if a sponge had been passed over it.

  ‘What is it, Jack?’ she said.

  ‘Fool that I am,’ said Mr Middleton, hitting himself not too hard, ‘fool, fool.’

  ‘Yes, darling, but how?’ said Mrs Middleton.

  ‘I wrote to Hibberd last night,’ he groaned. ‘With all the force that is in me, all the passionate love of England which is the one thing that my worst enemy cannot deny, I wrote to him. I made it clear that I would be grievously offended by what he proposed to do, that it would be a blow aimed against ME. I humbled myself, Catherine; proud though I am I abased myself to that man, and now Pomfret has in his usual high-handed way taken the very ground from under my feet. I shall be a laughing-stock.’

  ‘When was it posted?’ Mrs Middleton asked.

  ‘What do I know of posts?’ Mr Middleton groaned. ‘I wrote it last night when you, Catherine, were I hope asleep. I left it on the hall table with the other letters, including one, as I remember, to the Army and Navy Stores about Pollett’s uniform.’

  ‘Then the postman would have fetched them when he brought the morning post,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘and they would go by the twelve o’clock delivery. I think we can save it. It’s lucky I didn’t put the car away.’

  Before her husband could ask her more than twice where she was going, she had driven off towards Skeynes, leaving him with a bitter sense of desolation which he expressed in vehement language to the uninterested Flora. As Mrs Middleton stopped outside the Post Office the church clock struck eleven which meant twelve, owing to Summer Time. An attempt had been made a good many years previously to alter the clock, but its works so deeply resented being put on an hour in spring and even more being put on eleven hours in autumn (for to put it back an hour was found to be a mechanical impossibility) that it had been found better to leave it to itself. Mrs Middleton clicked the latch of the Post Office door and went in.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Phipps,’ she said. ‘Mr Middleton has posted a letter he didn’t mean to post, as usual. Do you think I could get it back?’

  ‘There now, if you aren’t in luck, Mrs Middleton,’ said Miss Phipps. ‘I ought by rights to have had the bag ready, but I was doing a bit of ironing, so I told the postman to call back in ten minutes. It was an organdie blouse for my niece to wear to go to the cinema at Winter Overcotes with her young man and she wanted to get the ten-past-twelve bus, and I’d just got the iron nice and hot, so I said “You’ll burn it if you do it, Gladys,” for she never thinks what she’s doing. “Let auntie do it,” I said, so I’ve just finished it as you come in. Here’s the bag.’

  For the second time that day Miss Phipps generously poured out the letters on the counter. Mrs Middleton saw her husband’s letter to Sir Ogilvy Hibberd, took it and thanked Miss Phipps.

  ‘I hear we may expect some joyful news about Miss Daphne before long,’ said Miss Phipps, suddenly becoming extremely genteel.

  ‘Well, I don’t know anything official,’ said Mrs Middleton and escaped before Miss Phipps could begin asking questions. She did wonder a little how Miss Phipps came to suspect what was, as far as she knew, only known to the immediate family and Pucken, but the subject did not hold her mind long. No subject could hold her mind very long from its anxious avoidance of one thought. She remembered a message for the President of the Women’s Institute, an excellent creature who lived three miles out of Skeynes, and with a faint and affectionate vindictiveness towards her husband for giving so much trouble she decided to go round that way before lunch.

  Mr Cameron, having walked down to the field in a way that certainly did not deceive Mrs Middleton, took the footpath that led back to the garden of the White House, passed the pea-sticks without a tremor, and came to the little stream, where Mrs Stonor was grubbing about with rock plants.
She looked up anxiously when she saw him, half afraid that he might have been exaggerating his relief the night before and be now contemplating suicide. But he asked after Daphne in such a cheerful voice that she felt her fears to be groundless.

  ‘Daphne is very well,’ she said. ‘All the excitement seems to have cured her cold and Cedric took her and Denis to Staple Park about half an hour ago. I must tell you, Alister, because it is rather funny and I hope you won’t think it brutal, how she celebrated her engagement to Cedric, which was by throwing all her photographs of her men friends, which is a dreadful expression but what else can one say, into the waste-paper basket. I thought it rather heartless, but after all what can one do with photographs and snapshots that do clutter up the house so? I found her waste-paper basket in the kitchen, so I just looked to see what it all was and that snapshot she had of you wasn’t there, so I expect it is the only one she kept, which is in a way rather touching.’

  Mr Cameron thought he had never heard anyone talk such delicious nonsense and said he had come to say he was going back to town that afternoon and wasn’t likely to be down again for the present, as they were going to be very busy at the office and he would probably be spending his weekends at Oxbridge. On hearing this Mrs Stonor poked a small plant very viciously into a hole and forced the earth down round its roots till it nearly screamed. Mr Cameron, rather frightened by her determination and her silence, went on talking about the office and the new college and various plans in a very blithering kind of way, not quite knowing what he was saying.

  ‘Do you ever talk about anything but yourself?’ said Mrs Stonor in a pause, pulling up one or two small weeds as she spoke. ‘You and Jack are just the same. I wonder how Catherine and I can stand it.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Mr Cameron, abashed.

  ‘Of course Catherine is very fond of Jack,’ said Mrs Stonor, ‘which makes a difference.’

  ‘Well, I am very fond of you, if that makes any difference,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘I know I’ve no right to say so after the way I’ve behaved, but as I’m going away to-day it doesn’t much matter, and I am going to say it. I am very fond of you. In fact I love you quite dreadfully. I won’t say it again, but I must say it this once, I absolutely adore you and if I thought there were the faintest hope of your considering marrying me I’d ask you at once, but as there isn’t, will you forgive me and let me go on being a friend? Only I shan’t be able to help loving you. Damn it all, Lilian, everything I say sounds quite idiotic and like people in books, but I do mean it and you can’t help my wanting to give you everything I have to give even if you don’t want to take it. Good-bye.’

  He put out his hand. Mrs Stonor looked up from where she was kneeling on the edge of the little stream.

  ‘I was thinking of Denis,’ she said, ignoring Mr Cameron’s farewell gesture.

  Mr Cameron felt so strongly that stepsons were not suitable subjects for the thoughts of people to whom one was offering one’s whole heart, that he could have killed Mrs Stonor on the spot, loving her as he did.

  ‘You see,’ said Mrs Stonor, looking up very seriously at her admirer, ‘I have really brought Denis up by hand, as you might say, and I do feel responsible for him. He gets on very well with me and it would be quite dreadful for him if suddenly he had no home. He is so much better this summer that it is really very encouraging, but I couldn’t bear him to feel that he was being turned out, and you know what lodgings are. Of course he might be lucky and some landladies are very kind, but one never knows. If we could perhaps wait for a little. I don’t mean to be grasping, and of course one can’t have one’s cake and eat it, but do you think that would be possible?’

  ‘You mean,’ said Mr Cameron, thinking very hard over his beloved’s rather jumbled speech, ‘that if it weren’t for Denis you wouldn’t mind marrying me.’

  Mrs Stonor looked up with swimming eyes.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Mr Cameron.

  ‘Very well,’ said Mrs Stonor and did her best not to.

  ‘Denis could quite well live with us,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘and I’d like it. I like Denis very much indeed.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do,’ said Mrs Stonor decidedly. ‘It is silly enough for me to be his stepmother considering how old he is, but you would be a step-stepfather, if there is such a thing, and I don’t think it would work. Besides, he is apt to play the piano a good deal.’

  ‘Look here. Will you marry me?’ said Mr Cameron.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Stonor patiently. ‘That’s what I’ve been saying for ages, but you don’t seem to understand. Only I must think of Denis.’

  ‘There is Denis,’ said Mr Cameron, looking up the little garden as he heard the gate click. ‘Now we’ll settle this thing at once. I won’t be thrown into the waste-paper basket twice in one day. Denis!’ he called.

  When Lord Bond had seen Lord Pomfret off, he went to the drawing-room, where Denis was waiting his pleasure. But instead of asking him, as he had expected, to play him something from the Mikado, Lord Bond had enlarged upon the pleasure he felt in having Daphne for a daughter-in-law, till Denis glowed with pleasure at hearing his dear Daphne so well appreciated.

  ‘And now there’s one more thing,’ said Lord Bond, walking up and down. ‘You’ve given me a lot of pleasure, Denis. You’ve played me all the old tunes I like, and I know you young people like something more up to date. Now, about this ballet of yours. From what I hear what is wanted is a backer.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Denis.

  ‘Well, I believe in you, and I am willing to put up something,’ said Lord Bond, naming a sum that Denis had come to look upon as impossible. ‘Mind you, it’s business. I shan’t expect to see any of it back, but there have got to be accounts. If I lose money I like to know exactly how. And if your ballet pays, then I shall get some interest. Now don’t thank me, because I like to do it.’

  ‘I hardly know how to thank you, sir,’ said Denis. ‘How did you guess what we wanted?’

  To Denis’s incredulous joy Lord Bond said that a little bird had told him how much money was needed. He longed for Lilian to be there and share his pleasure in actually hearing those words said.

  ‘You’d better go to town as soon as possible,’ said Lord Bond, ‘and see my lawyer. I’ll write to him about it today.’

  ‘There’s only one thing,’ said Denis, ‘my stepmother. You see the ballet people are in Manchester now and it would mean living up there for a time. Lilian will be losing Daphne and I don’t quite like to think of her alone. I have always looked after her since my father died – at least we have looked after each other.’

  Lord Bond very kindly said that Denis was quite right to think of his stepmother, but she was a sensible kind of woman and would see that a young man couldn’t always live at home. Denis finally said that he would consult her and at any rate go up to town and see Lord Bond’s lawyer at once. He tried again to express his thanks, but was silenced by his kindly host, who ordered the little car to take him home. The drive to Laverings was not long enough to give Denis much time for consideration. The anxious avoidance of one thought was always uppermost in his mind. To go to London, then to Manchester, would perhaps be flight, but it would be quite worth while being a coward oneself if it would make life easier for anyone else. Then he thought he was perhaps being a little conceited to imagine that his presence or absence might affect anyone. But his heart told him quite fatally that there was no conceit about it; merely a statement of fact and a fact that needed facing.

  He thanked Lord Bond’s chauffeur and went in at the garden gate. Mr Cameron’s call reached him and he went down to the little stream. If he had been feeling less peculiar himself he would have noticed that his stepmother and Mr Cameron were looking a little peculiar themselves, but between excitement and the foreboding of grief his usual sensitiveness to atmospheres was rather dulled.

  Mrs Stonor in whom no amount of emotion could dull her perception of what was happening to one of her nurslings asked Denis if anythi
ng had happened. He said it had, but he hardly knew where to begin.

  ‘I really don’t know where to begin either,’ said Mrs Stonor.

  Mr Cameron began to behave like a man, but was at once squashed by Mrs Stonor who begged with the utmost firmness to be allowed to explain things in her own way. On hearing this Mr Cameron sat down on a dry stone and lit a cigarette, ready to bear with the utmost possible patience his beloved’s serpentine methods.

  ‘Of course Daphne getting married will mean that you and I will only be two instead of three,’ said Mrs Stonor to Denis. ‘Of course if you ever wanted to be a bachelor, I mean technically a bachelor, at least you know what I mean, and live in lodgings where I am sure the landlady would neglect you, you mustn’t worry about me, because I can always manage very well. Only you must consider that our two incomes separately aren’t as much as they are together, not on my account, I mean, but you would be surprised how expensive housekeeping is when you are on your own, so please do consider very carefully, because I’d love to have you to live with me always but not if you felt you couldn’t bear someone else in the house.’