Before Lunch

by Angela Thirkell

  Mr Cameron knew that he would burst soon, but managed to control himself.

  ‘Darling,’ said Denis, pulling up a few long grasses and plaiting them together, ‘heaven knows I don’t want to leave you, because nothing can be nicer and more spoiling than being with you, but after all I have to do something some day. You know I’m much better what with all this hot weather and the fresh milk and that damned cock that wakes me at three every morning, and I really ought to be up and doing. Only I’d much rather do nothing for the rest of my life than desert you: it sounds rather gigolo but you know what I mean. If you happened to get a bit sick of me I could manage quite well on my own; but as long as you like to have a man about the house, count on me.’

  ‘I really think, Denis, you ought to know —’ Mr Cameron began.

  ‘No, Alister,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘Denis is my stepson, not yours. Well, darling,’ she went on, ‘nothing on earth could induce me to get sick of you and I do like a man about the house, so let’s just leave things as they are for the present, shall we?’

  ‘But, Lilian —’ Mr Cameron protested.

  ‘Very well,’ said Denis, trying hard not to feel a dull disappointment, ‘if you really like having me and I am any kind of help, we’ll leave things as they are, just as you say.’

  ‘Then we’d better go in. It will be lunch-time soon,’ said Mrs Stonor, annoyed with herself for feeling so unhappy. ‘Will you stop to lunch, Alister?’

  Mr Cameron wanted to say No and walk off into the infinite, but he couldn’t. So he said Yes and followed Lilian and Denis to the house. And no sooner had they reached it than Lady Bond and young Mr Bond and Daphne came in, all of them radiant, Lady Bond’s majestic felt hat for once a little crooked after Daphne’s daughterly hug.

  ‘I can only hope, Mrs Stonor,’ said Lady Bond, advancing upon her hostess, ‘that you are as pleased as I am. C.W. couldn’t have chosen better and I hope you will let them be married before he goes back to New York.’

  ‘And we are going on the Normandie, first class!’ said Daphne. ‘And I could get a lot of clothes in New York. Oh, Lilian darling, do say yes.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do any good if I said no,’ said Mrs Stonor to Lady Bond, ‘so certainly I say yes. And thank you so much for being pleased. And Lord Bond has always been so very kind to Denis. It couldn’t be nicer.’

  ‘So Denis has told you, has he?’ said Lady Bond. ‘My husband mentioned it to me last night and I quite agreed with him that it would be an excellent thing. Denis has given my husband a great deal of pleasure this summer, when I’m sure he would really much rather have been playing jazz. Bond told me what a delightful evening you had when I was away.’

  After this kind speech Denis did not like to protest against Lady Bond’s conception of his character as a jazz fiend.

  ‘Told me what?’ said Mrs Stonor.

  ‘I hadn’t mentioned it, darling, because of not wishing to seem ungrateful if you needed me,’ said Denis, ‘but Lord Bond did most nobly offer this morning to put up the money for the ballet, and that would mean living in Manchester for a bit. But if you’d rather not I can quite well, without being a bit noble about it, go on as I am.’

  ‘But I’d like you to go more than anything in the world,’ said Mrs Stonor, in a voice that carried no reservations at all. ‘It’s the best news I could possibly have. We’ll have a talk about it. How very, very kind of your husband, Lady Bond.’

  Lady Bond said graciously that they looked upon Denis as one of the family now and she must be getting back to lunch.

  ‘Thanks most awfully, Mrs Stonor,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘It’s ripping of you. And could Daphne come back to lunch?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Stonor, mildly surprised that anyone should ask her permission. ‘I suppose I ought to kiss you, Cedric, but it seems so unusual.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said young Mr Bond and taking her hand he kissed it quite naturally, a gesture that left Daphne speechless with admiration.

  ‘Well, mother-in-law,’ said young Mr Bond very impertinently to his mother, ‘come along.’

  But as they went into the hall such a dreadful noise of unrestrained crying from the kitchen smote upon their ears that Mrs Stonor, with an apology, went to the kitchen door, followed by Lady Bond who had a lively curiosity about domestic affairs. An informal court of justice was being held by Mrs Pucken and Palfrey, with Lou, her face swollen with tears, in the dock.

  ‘What is the matter?’ said Mrs Stonor.

  Palfrey said she shouldn’t wish to say.

  ‘Well, Sarah, what is it?’ said Lady Bond to her ex-kitchenmaid.

  Mrs Pucken, at once recognizing and reacting to the voice of authority, said it was quite shocking the way girls carried on nowadays. As good as stealing, she called it, and her own daughter, called after her ladyship and all.

  ‘Ah, yes, that is Lou, isn’t it,’ said Lady Bond. ‘What has she been doing?’

  ‘I didn’t steal it,’ blubbered Lou. ‘Miss Daphne threw it in the waste-paper basket and I didn’t think there was no harm in taking it.’

  ‘Taking what?’ said Lady Bond.

  ‘Mr Cameron’s photo that Miss Daphne threw in the waste-paper basket, my lady,’ said Mrs Pucken. ‘When a young lady gets engaged she does quite the right thing to throw away the photos of the other gentlemen. And what does my lady do,’ she continued, pointing at her unhappy daughter, ‘but pick Mr Cameron’s photo out and had it down the front of her dress of all places. Nice goings on. And it fell out of her when she was washing the scullery floor and that’s what all the noise is about, because I threw it on the kitchen fire. I’m reely very sorry, Mrs Stonor, all this disturbance with Miss Daphne just engaged and the joint in the oven. Lou can’t come up here no more, not if she can’t behave.’

  ‘And how did you know about Miss Daphne?’ said Mrs Stonor.

  ‘Pucken he was up with Lily last night,’ said Mrs Pucken, ‘and Mr Bond and Miss Daphne they came to see the calf and Pucken said anyone with half an eye in his head could see what was up. I gave Pucken a piece of my mind, talking like that, but I’m sure I wish them joy.’

  ‘A big girl like Lou ought to be in proper service,’ said Lady Bond. ‘I shall need a vegetable maid next month. Tell Lou to wash her face and go up and see Mrs Alcock this afternoon, Sarah. And tell Pucken not to talk so much.’

  Lady Bond retreated feudally from the kitchen, leaving Lou to receive all the good advice and terrifying prognostications that her mother and Palfrey could give. She did not stop crying, it is true, but her tears and yells gradually passed from sheer despair to an expression of pleasurable anticipation about Staple Park where she would no longer be under her mother’s domination. Young Mr Bond drove his mother and Daphne off to Staple Park, so that they wouldn’t be late for lunch.

  ‘I didn’t know you were Clark Gable,’ said Denis, who together with the rest of the party had been a fascinated spectator of the scene in the kitchen, to Mr Cameron.

  ‘Poor Lou!’ said Mrs Stonor.

  Something in her voice made her stepson look at her piercingly.

  ‘I’m so pleased about the ballet,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘And I’m sure it will be the greatest success and I’ll come to your first night. And if you are really going to Manchester it will be in a way most convenient, because it sounds rather stupid that Alister was engaged to Daphne and of course I was really delighted about it if I thought either of them would have been happy, which they obviously wouldn’t, so probably things are much better as they are and you will always, always come to us when you are in London, won’t you, darling?’

  ‘I suppose —’ said Denis hesitatingly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Lilian, I will speak. Your stepmother, Denis, has forgiven me for being the most blithering ass that ever was. I can’t explain to you how the muddle happened, but thank God it was cleared up. We shall be married, though not in such a violent hurry as Daphne, and if you don’t object to a kind of step-father-
in-law, I’ll be very, very glad.’

  ‘And if you felt like giving me away, it would be quite perfect,’ said Mrs Stonor, ‘unless of course Jack wanted to. He might take offence.’

  Denis, feeling that nothing was left remarkable beneath the visiting moon, kissed his stepmother most affectionately and said he would do anything she liked and it couldn’t be nicer.

  ‘I daresay I’ll look on you as Mr Murdstone at first,’ he said to Mr Cameron, ‘but it will pass.’

  ‘And now Alister can stay to lunch,’ said Mrs Stonor. Mr Cameron said he had better go and tell Mrs Middleton that he wouldn’t be back.

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ said Denis. ‘If you are going up this afternoon, Alister, will you take me with you? I’ve got to go and see Lord Bond’s lawyer.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Only I’ve got to start directly after lunch. Two o’clock too early?’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Denis. ‘I might have lunch at Laverings to make up for your having lunch here. I’ll just put some things in my suitcase and go over and tell Catherine.’ He went upstairs and packed his clothes for a few nights in town. Laverings lunched later than the White House, so there would be time to go over. What with Daphne and Cedric and Lilian and Alister, not to speak of Lou’s contribution, he felt a little dizzy. His own safe world had suddenly cracked under his feet. A new world was before him, thanks largely to Lord Bond, a world unknown, unsafe, difficult, but the world where he ought to be if there was anything in his music. In his musician’s self he had the terrifying confidence of the artist; as for his private self he thought it would often be very homesick and lonely. And all that remained to be done now was to make his loneliness more desolate, lest a natural longing to comfort and be comforted should bring bitterness in the end to a heart that he hardly knew. He went out into the hot sunshine. In the lane he saw Mrs Middleton, who had just put the car into the garage. She had a letter in her hand.

  ‘I’ve been rescuing a letter from the Post Office,’ she said, falling into step with Denis and walking slowly down the lane. ‘One of the letters Jack repents when he has written them. I don’t know what we would do without Miss Phipps.’

  ‘Alister asked me to say he wouldn’t be back for lunch, if you will excuse him,’ said Denis. ‘He is going to marry Lilian. It is all rather complicated, but she will explain it to you. It seems very satisfactory to me.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘I’ve thought so for a long time.’

  ‘I’m going up with him directly after lunch,’ said Denis. ‘Lord Bond has been extraordinarily generous. He is putting up money for my ballet. How he knew how much we need I don’t quite know. Did you tell him?’

  ‘Not exactly. I mentioned it,’ said Mrs Middleton.

  ‘You would,’ said Denis. ‘Thank you. I am going to see his lawyer and then go to Manchester where the ballet company is working just now.’

  ‘And then back here?’ said Mrs Middleton.

  ‘I think not at present,’ said Denis. ‘It seems better not to.’

  Mrs Middleton stopped, determined, whatever darkness and roaring of a thousand waters overwhelmed her, however the ground seemed to rock under her feet, that she would not take Denis’s arm or ask him for help.

  ‘Is that —’ she began, and couldn’t go on.

  ‘Is that —’ she said again, with extreme care, but no more words would come from her.

  Denis wondered to what point self-control could be borne, and what defence there was against the terrifying weight of silence.

  ‘Is that,’ she said for the third time, speaking as if each word had to be brought with pain from some infinitely remote darkness, ‘for you or for me?’

  ‘For us both, I think,’ said Denis, and began to walk back towards Laverings. Mrs Middleton walked beside him, but her steps so lagged that he was afraid.

  ‘I am pretending to Lilian,’ he said when they reached the gate, ‘that I am having lunch with you. As a matter of fact I shall go for a walk and come back when Alister is starting. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.’

  ‘You will do quite well; oh, very well,’ she said, opening the garden gate.

  ‘And you, which is all I care about?’ said Denis.

  ‘Oh, I shall do well; quite, quite well,’ she said searching for each word in that darkness where she was helplessly bound.

  ‘Good-bye,’ said Denis and took her hand.

  She held his hand closely to her in both of hers for a moment, then turned and walked away down the flagged path without a backward glance. Denis watched her till she went in by the library window. Then he shut the gate and went down the lane into the fields. In three-quarters of an hour he could start with Alister.

  In the library Mrs Middleton found her husband, his face still ravaged, what hair he had in wild disorder.

  ‘Here is your letter, Jack,’ she said, handing it to him.

  ‘Thank God, thank God,’ said Mr Middleton, tearing it open and reading it. ‘I regret in a way that Hibberd could not have seen it. It is well expressed, Catherine, well expressed. When something has to be said, Catherine, I can always say it. Facts marshal themselves, my pen becomes a trumpet. You may remember the letter I wrote to Tolford-Spender about the restoration, rather the wanton desecration, of the church at Monk’s Porton; that was a letter. He was forced to admit himself in the wrong all along the line and that little gem of pure East Anglian Transitional was saved. And now Pooker’s Piece is saved,’ said Mr Middleton triumphantly, as though his intercepted letter to Sir Ogilvy Hibberd had been the means of its salvation.

  Mrs Middleton was still standing, for she felt that if she sat down she would never get up again. She made no answer.

  ‘You are tired, my dear,’ said her husband with real concern. ‘You went to the Post Office in the fierce noontide heat and by your own methods, whether legal or illegal I shall not enquire, rescued my letter and saved me from eternal shame and opprobrium. You must lie down this afternoon.’

  He put his arm kindly round her. Mrs Middleton rested her head on his shoulder, thankful for support and affection.

  ‘I don’t know what I would do without you, Catherine,’ said he earnestly.

  ‘Nor do I, darling,’ said Mrs Middleton.

  Ethel then announced lunch, with deep disapproval of the intimate attitude of her employers, so they went into the dining-room.

  ‘We are alone?’ said Mr Middleton. ‘I thought Cameron was with us till the afternoon.’

  ‘I quite forgot to tell you,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘that in the middle of everything else he and Lilian have decided to be married, so he is having lunch at the White House.’

  ‘An excellent thing, an excellent thing,’ said Mr Middleton. ‘Will I have to give her away?’ he added with sudden terror.

  ‘Not if you don’t like, Jack,’ said his wife. ‘Denis could always do it. Lord Bond has been most generous and put up some money for Denis’s ballet scheme, so he is going to Manchester.’

  One might as well say his name. People said if you had been thrown from a horse it was best to ride again at once, to show your nerve had not gone. She had said his name twice.

  ‘Good God!’ said Mr Middleton. ‘A day of wonders. Daphne and young Bond, Hibberd, Pomfret, the calf, the manure, Denis, Lilian and Cameron, your brilliant coup with the letter. I stand amazed. That so many things should have happened at once. And all before lunch.’

  And Alister has gone, Mrs Middleton thought, and Lilian will go. Then shutting her mind resolutely against the deeper pain, which she knew would pass with time, though it was at the moment almost unbearable, she said,

  ‘Yes. It is extraordinary how many things can happen before lunch.’

  NORTHBRIDGE RECTORY

  ANGELA THIRKELL

  ‘The novels are a delight, with touches of E. F. Benson, E. M. Delafield and P. G. Wodehouse’ Christopher Fowler, Independent on Sunday

  Bartsetshire during wartime finds Mr Downing, Miss P
emberton, and Mrs Turner engaged in a love triangle; a chorus of officers raucously quartered at the rectory; and village ladies with violent leanings. In Mrs Major Spender, Thirkell offers a devastating sketch of the good-natured egoist, and readers will be pleased that the less-than-articulate Betty finds a soulmate in Captain Copham.

  ‘You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own’ New York Times

  ‘Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself’ Alexander McCall Smith