(At first I had an unworthy suspicion that I was being taken in, and that the scene, though not from Austen, was from some other early eighteenth century novelist, but Erica showed me the sheets of manuscript concealed in the shabby book—a dozen sheets written in her own unmistakeable hand; written post-haste in pencil and to me utterly illegible of course. “It’s very clever,” I told her, gazing at her with something like awe. “Clever!” said Erica scornfully. “There’s nothing clever about it. Don’t be a fool.”)
That was last night, of course. This morning I think it all over and fill in some more details in the map of Erica Clutterbuck.
After lunch, when I am passing through the lounge, I am hailed by name and looking round I see a woman sitting by herself on a sofa drinking coffee and smoking. It is not one of the “guests,” it is one of Erica’s neighbours.
The woman was here yesterday at the work-party and is associated in my mind with a child’s flannelette nightdress of a peculiarly vivid pink.
She waves and beckons, “Mrs. Christie!” she says. “I was here yesterday; you remember, don’t you? But of course you won’t remember my name—if you ever heard it—I’m Ethel Cummin.”
“Shall I tell Miss Clutterbuck you’re here?”
“Not now,” says Mrs. Cummin (she is wearing a wedding ring). “Sit down and talk to me for a minute. Erica won’t be specially pleased to see me. She rather hates it if any of her friends come to Tocher but I just felt I had to have a decent meal which hadn’t been cooked by me—I get like that sometimes.”
I sit down somewhat reluctantly for I have plenty to do and although my duties include talking to Erica’s guests they do not include talking—or listening—to her neighbours. Mrs. Cummin seems chatty and I have a feeling that the role of listener will be mine.
“That’s nice,” says Mrs. Cummins, making room for me on the sofa. “I like a nice quiet chat after lunch, don’t you? Now first of all tell me about yesterday.”
“About yesterday?”
She nods. “Who was Caroline Rivers? Which of Jane Austen’s novels does she come out of?”
“I—I can’t—remember . . .”
“No, neither could I, so I went home and hunted for Caroline—and I couldn’t find her!”
This doesn’t surprise me in the least, so it is very difficult indeed to register amazement, but I do my best. “Couldn’t you!” I exclaim.
“I was interested in the creature,” explains Mrs. Cummins. “There was something rather attractive about her. I liked the blatant way she washed her hands of Redwell and immediately was ready to switch over to the other man. I wanted to find out more about her; what sort of life she had had before she arrived at the summerhouse, and whether she married her country squire and how it turned out. I have a feeling she may have regretted the peacocks when things went wrong and possibly crammed them down the squire’s throat. You can’t help me at all?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
Mrs. Cummins sighs. “I have a whole set of Austen novels, she isn’t in any of them. Where does she come from, Mrs. Christie?”
“You should ask Miss Clutterbuck,” I reply.
“Mphm!, perhaps I might, though, as a matter of fact Erica and I aren’t exactly buddies. She must be difficult to work with.”
“I find her easy to work with. She always says exactly what she means, so you know where you are. There’s no nonsense about her.”
“She must be making a pile out of this,” says Mrs. Cummin looking round.
I make no comment.
“All the same I don’t know how she can do it,” continues Mrs. Cummin, thoughtfully. “I don’t know how she can bear to throw her house open to Tom, Dick and Harry—it would drive me mad . . . I know what I shall do about Caroline!” exclaims Mrs. Cummin, reverting to her previous subject with a sudden and somewhat alarming leap. “I shall ask Sheila Gray to find out about her from Erica. Yes, that’s the thing—I hate mysteries, don’t you?”
“You have been warned,” I say later to Erica, reporting the conversation. “Sheila Gray will be on your tracks in half no time, and you will have to confess everything—”
“Not I,” replies Erica, smiling. “I shall say the episode was taken from an unpublished novel—and so it was. The novel has not been written yet, of course, and it is by Erica Mary Clutterbuck—not by Jane Austen—but there is no need at all to go into details of that kind.”
“You will have some difficulty in satisfying their curiosity.”
“Poof!” says Erica.
“I’m curious, too,” I tell her. “I want to know more about Caroline.”
“There is nothing more to know,” says Erica firmly.
WEDNESDAY, 3RD APRIL
Receive a letter from Betty which announces that she will arrive in Edinburgh on Tuesday and she supposes I will meet her at the station. This necessitates a discussion with my employer and, after some difficulty, I discover her in the cellar amongst the wine bins. Erica says I had better go to Edinburgh on Monday, stay the night and meet Betty on Tuesday. It will be good for me to have a break and if I have begun to think myself indispensable I can get rid of the idea here and now.
“And I may as well warn you,” says Erica in her usual downright fashion. “I may as well warn you that I don’t like children.”
“You don’t—”
“No,” says Erica firmly. “I can’t bear the little darlings. They bore me stiff. You may think this very unnatural—I can see you do—but it isn’t as unnatural as you might suppose, nor so uncommon. A great many people don’t like children, but few have the courage to say so. It is the same with music. People would rather suffer tortures than admit to being unmusical.”
“But Erica, if you don’t like children—”
“I needn’t see much of Betty,” says Erica in reasonable tones. “She will be out all day, I suppose. Don’t worry about it.”
“I do worry.”
“You needn’t. I shan’t bite Betty.”
“She had better have her meals in the other room with Mrs. Everard’s children.”
“Oh well,” says Erica. “If that wouldn’t upset you.”
I leave her counting her wine, and go upstairs full of apprehension. Betty is large and full of high spirits, she is friendly and impulsive. When Betty is in the house the house seems full of Betty. Of course Tocher is a big place so one hopes she will not make her presence felt to the same extent, but still . . .
There is so much going on in Tocher House, so much coming and going, and such a lot of work to do that I find it very difficult to keep up my diary and to decide what to put into it and what to leave out. The most important part of my duties—so Erica insists—is to talk to people and especially people who are staying in the house by themselves and are slow in making friends with their fellow guests. Some of them show no desire for my company and these I abandon most thankfully and leave them in peace, but others are pleased to be talked to and cooperate agreeably. I hear a good many strange stories from my new friends—some tragic beyond belief and others extremely funny—for the fact is that these people seem to regard me as a safe repository for secrets. I am quite outside their lives so they can talk to me without reserve.
They come to Tocher for a week or ten days—and then they disappear, never to be seen again, and a new lot of people arrive to fill their beds and to sit in their seats, a new lot of people with an entirely new lot of problems. But some of the guests remain and—like the poor—are always with us, and amongst these are Mrs. Maloney and Margaret McQueen.
Mrs. Maloney is a very lonely person, for the poor woman is such a bore that she is shunned by her fellow man (and woman) as if she were the plague. Sometimes I wonder whether she notices that people avoid her, and, if so, whether she knows why. Could she—if she tried very hard—amend her ways, cease to be a bore and become a popular member of society? Because she is lonely I am sorry for her and because I am sorry for her I allow her to talk to me a good deal an
d listen with what patience I can muster to her interminable reminiscences.
Margaret McQueen is quite different, of course. Having promised Mr. Elden to keep an eye on her it behoves me to establish good relations between us. At first it is difficult, but when she discovers that I have no intention of referring to her troubles she becomes quite friendly. We talk about books and compare ideas about various subjects and find that we have a good deal in common. It is to Margaret I fly with my anxieties about Betty and my apprehensions as to how she and Erica will hit it off. Margaret is very comforting. She says Miss Clutterbuck’s bark is worse than her bite and, if I like, she herself will help to amuse Betty and keep her out of the way. She is fond of children—especially little girls; they don’t bother her at all.
“I shouldn’t like to take complete charge of a child,” says Margaret, referring obliquely to our first conversation. “But I should enjoy going for walks with Betty. Children don’t interfere with one’s private thoughts.”
THURSDAY, 4TH APRIL
The linen room is now my pride and joy with everything in its place neatly labelled and listed. It takes me a quarter of the time to count out the weekly change of linen for the guests of Tocher House—but it still takes time.
I am in the middle of the pleasant task when Erica appears at the door and says there is a man in the office asking for me.
“Tell him to go away—seven, eight, nine,” I reply abstractedly.
“I did,” says Erica. “I said you were busy, but he wouldn’t go.”
I enquire what sort of man, to which Erica replies that he is tall, good-looking and impertinent. I take down two pairs of hemstitched sheets for number four and remark that I know nobody answering to the description.
Erica says, “You had better go down. He’s very importunate.”
“Does he want money?”
“He doesn’t look it. He’s wearing a very nice tweed suit and driving a Bentley—no, I don’t think he’s a beggar.’”
“Who can it be!”
“If you’d go downstairs you’d see. I’ve no patience with people who turn an envelope over and over and examine the postmark and try to guess who wrote it. If they’d open it they’d spare themselves the trouble.”
“Not if it’s from you.”
“Less of your cheek,” says Erica. “And anyway the man is not from me. He wouldn’t disclose his name and he hasn’t a postmark on him.”
“Postmark Bombay,” says a well-known voice from the landing—it is Tony Morley! Tony Morley, clad in a Lovat tweed suit, looking bronzed and weather-beaten but otherwise unchanged!
“Tony!” I shriek, and dropping a whole pile of pillow cases I fling myself into his arms.
“Heavens!” exclaims Erica. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the woman’s husband?”
“Because I’m not—worse luck,” replies Tony, hugging me tightly.
“Not?” enquires Erica doubtfully.
“No,” says Tony. “This, my dear Miss Clutterbuck, is merely the welcome received by a hero returned from the wars.”
“Returned from the dead!” I cry, clinging to him—how large and solid and comfortable he feels!
“Well—in a manner of speaking,” he agrees.
“And you’re alive!” I cry. “You’re alive and whole!”
“Complete in every detail—arms and legs all present and correct.”
“O Tony, I can hardly believe it . . . When Tim and I said good-bye to you in that frightful churchyard, with all the tombstones and the wind whistling round, I was sure I should never see you again.”
“I shared your fears.”
“You remember it, Tony?”
“Perfectly,” says Tony gravely. “No detail of that afternoon has escaped my memory. You were wearing a fur coat and a small brown hat with a white wing in it—”
“It was awful!”
“Not at all. I thought it a very fetching hat.”
“I mean everything was awful—there was a horrible sort of uncertainty about everything.”
“We stood alone, but undismayed—”
“You said you would come back when you had drowned Hitler in the Red Sea.”
“You said, take care of yourself.”
“Idiotic, wasn’t it?”
“Well—slightly,” agrees Tony. “But the underlying idea was good, and anyhow here I am.”
I hug him again. “O Tony! You saluted and marched away. It was almost more than I could bear.”
“You had been pretty severely tried that afternoon,” he reminds me.
Erica has been listening to this somewhat crazy conversation in a trance of astonishment. She now awakes from it and turns to go.
“Erica!” I cry. “This is Tony Morley. He’s a Brigadier now—I’ve known him for centuries.”
Erica says she gathered I knew Tony pretty well and, that being so, I had better take the afternoon off and talk to him. We enquire as to Tony’s plans and learn that they are fluid; if Miss Clutterbuck has a room vacant he will stay for a day or two before going on to Edinburgh. Erica immediately says number eighteen and she will tell Todd to take up the luggage. She then goes away.
“You’re exactly the same,” declares Tony looking at me with interest. “Everyone else is six years older—how do you do it, Hester?”
“Not really,” I reply. “I’m different inside. Nobody could live through—all that—and remain the same. I’ve lost my sparkle, Tony. I’ve gone flat, like stale champagne.”
“No,” says Tony seriously. “Perhaps you are a little different, but you aren’t flat. I rather think you have matured into hock, but I’m not sure, yet.”
“How did you know I was here? Or didn’t you?”
“I knew,” says Tony. He removes a pile of linen from the blanket box and sits down comfortably. It is a good place to talk, quiet and warm and private. It is my very own place and we can talk here without interruptions. “I knew,” says Tony. “Because I touched down at Cairo on my way home. Brigadiers fly when they’re in a hurry, it’s one of the few advantages of being a Brigadier.”
“You saw Tim!”
He nods. “Tim is in the pink. His quarters are comfortable, his food is nourishing and the riots aren’t getting him down. Does that satisfy you?”
“What did he say?”
“Quite a lot,” says Tony thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t expect me to repeat our conversation word for word. As a matter of fact some of it is unfit for your ears, my dear.”
“Is he missing me?”
“Not a bit,” declares Tony gravely. “The Egyptian women are very attractive indeed—some of them. They have rather a curious smell, of course, but one gets used to that in time.”
“Will you be sensible, Tony!”
“Why should I, Hester?”
We look at each other and smile.
“Oh well,” he says. “If you want me to be sensible . . . Tim sent you his love and a parcel which I will deliver in due course.”
“Do you know what’s in the parcel?”
“I do. It was necessary that I should know what the parcel contained in case of difficulties with the customs. Silk pyjamas and cami-knicks,” says Tony unblushingly. “Six packets of hairpins, a length of silk and a couple of roll-ons—not bad for old Tim, in my opinion.”
“Marvellous of Tim!” I agree, smiling.
“I am also the bearer of a love-gift from Bollings,” continues Tony. “It is for Annie, of course. I gathered that Tim and Bollings went shopping together for mutual support, and I must confess I should like to have been there to see the fun.”
“Me, too!” I exclaim, laughing.
We continue to talk, and while we do so I resume my task of counting out the linen, but I am somewhat hampered by the feeling that Tony is regarding my activities with a disapproving eye.
“I don’t like it at all!” exclaims Tony suddenly.
“I like it quite a lot, Tony.”
“Nonsense,” he says. “There�
�s no need for it. Tim said I was to make you chuck it.”
“Why?”
“It’s most unsuitable,” says Tony, looking down his nose.
“You’re old-fashioned, that’s what’s the matter with you. You’re the sort of man who likes a woman to sit with her lily-white hands folded in her lap—or embroidering a tapestry—while her lord and master rides out to do battle in her honour.”
Tony says he didn’t know he was that sort of man.
“Well, you are!” I cry in annoyance. “You would have liked to find me at Winfield, dropping tears over my needle-work—you know you would!”
Tony says not tears.
“Tears,” I repeat angrily. “Tears and idleness and lily-white hands. What sort of life is that for an active woman?”
Tony says it sounds a trifle dull, but—
“Of course it’s dull—dull as dishwater! Isn’t it a hundred times better to do something useful? How would you like to have nothing to do, day after day, except cook and dust the drawing room?”
Tony says not much.
“Well, then!”
“Well, then,” says Tony. “But you could do something else, couldn’t you?”
“Something lady-like, I suppose.”
“The way she gave you the afternoon off!” says Tony indignantly.
“It was decent of her—it means she’ll have to do my work as well as her own.”
“Let her,” says Tony. “Her back is broad enough. Anne of Cleves was a sylph in comparison.”
“How do you know?”
“Never mind. Don’t stray from the point, Hester. You will just pack your things and come with me on Monday.”
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