“Not the other day, Jack,” objected Mrs. Severn. “You married them last Christmas. Don’t you remember we left the Christmas decorations up for their wedding?”
“Of course, dear, I remember perfectly. Last Christmas, so it was … and I suppose I may expect a christening any moment now.”
Caroline laughed and said not immediately but probably before very long, and then went on to talk about the Widgeons and to tell Mrs. Severn that Sue was feeling a little lonely.
“Poor Sue! Girls never think of these things when they go and get married,” said Mrs. Severn with a sigh.
“My dear!” exclaimed her husband. “It sounds as though you had undergone a similar experience, but I was not away from you all day, so you could not have felt dull.”
“Oh, but I did,” Mrs. Severn told him. “I found it dreadfully dull not having my sisters to talk to.”
Every one laughed and the conversation took a new turn.
When Caroline rose to go Mr. Shepperton said he must go too, and they left together. “I’ll walk home with you,” he said.
She realised that he must be lonely, living all by himself at the Cock and Bull. “Of course, come,” she said, smiling at him. “Come and see us any time you like. Are you staying in Ashbridge for long?”
They were walking along together by this time. It was a misty, damp evening and nearly dark. Mr. Shepperton did not answer the question for a few moments, and then he said, “Yes, I think I shall be staying for some months. I’m very comfortable at the Cock and Bull — Mrs. Herbert is extraordinarily kind. You see, I’ve been ordered a complete rest, and as I have no home I may as well rest here as anywhere.”
“No home?” asked Caroline.
“My house was burnt,” he replied in a low voice. “My wife was in it at the time. I was abroad — it was during the war, of course — and I knew nothing about it until I came back.”
“How ghastly!” Caroline exclaimed.
“It was,” he admitted. “I came back expecting to find my wife and my son and my home waiting for me, and I found nothing. My son was sent to America and is still there, living with some very kind friends; I hope to go over and fetch him in the spring.”
“Where was your house?” asked Caroline.
“In the Regent’s Park district. I went out there the other day and had a look at it. There’s a whole row of houses — a whole row of ruins with blackened walls and broken windows. When I think of what it used to be …”
“Can nothing be done?”
“Nothing except to pull them all down and rebuild them, and nobody seems to have the heart to begin the job. I meant to go into my house but the policeman on duty at the corner ran after me and warned me that it was unsafe; the walls are all crumbling and every now and then a big chunk of masonry comes rattling down. It’s absolute desolation; the gardens are full of rubble and rubbish. I used to be rather keen on my garden.”
“You didn’t go in?”
“No, I didn’t (not because I cared what happened to me but because I realised it would be a bother for the policeman; he seemed a nice young fellow) I stood at the gate for a few minutes and then came away.”
It had taken Robert Shepperton some time to tell his story and they arrived at the gate of Vittoria Cottage as he finished it. Caroline could find very little to say — the tragedy was beyond words.
“That’s all,” he said. “I wanted you to know about it but we needn’t speak of it again.”
She had been going to ask where he was when it happened and why he had not heard of it before he came back, but he had made it impossible for her to question him.
“Good night, Mrs. Dering,” he said.
“Won’t you come in?”
“Some other time,” he replied, raising his hat and turning away.
CHAPTER TEN
THE “HONEY MONEY” rolled in and was put away safely in Caroline’s desk, it was a good year for honey, but in spite of this Caroline decided she would not go to London. Everything was too uncertain. She could not leave home; she could not spend “all that” on her own pleasure. If Leda were to be married next year they must set about collecting her trousseau, and the wedding would cost money. In addition to these considerations Caroline was unwilling to leave the two girls alone — even with Comfort to look after them — for Leda was being difficult and Bobbie was by no means tactful. Harriet would be sorry, of course, she might even be angry, but it could not be helped. Caroline wrote and explained matters to Harriet and awaited her reply.
Harriet replied in person. Her little car was standing at the gate when Caroline got back from the village after her morning’s shopping and she herself was waiting in the drawing room. They hugged one another ecstatically.
“I’ve come to fetch you,” Harriet said.
“But I told you in my letter —”
“I know, darling,” nodded Harriet. “I read the letter most carefully, it was beautifully expressed. Your letters are always interesting and so full of personality: I believe you could write a book if you put your mind to it.”
“But I told you why —”
“Yes, you told me. You told me lots. I simply couldn’t begin to reply — besides I was much too tired and busy to write a long letter — so I borrowed some petrol from Marcus and came straight down. I had a lovely run, the car went beautifully. We had better start your packing directly after lunch, it won’t take long if I help you.”
“Harriet, listen —”
“No, my pet,” said Harriet. “I haven’t come to listen. I hate listening. Besides I’m so hungry. Is lunch nearly ready?”
“I can’t leave the girls alone in the house,” said Caroline, firmly.
“No, but you can get Comfort to live in. That’s what you intended to do, isn’t it? The girls will be perfectly safe with Comfort. You aren’t indispensable. When people begin to think they’re indispensable it’s high time for them to make a move. I know, because I think I’m indispensable.”
“Are you going to make a move?”
“No, darling. I’m staying put. I simply hate my understudy, she’s frightful … And she’s just waiting for me to crock up. She’s quite capable of putting something horrid in my coffee — nothing lethal, you know, but some sort of sleeping powder — something to knock me out so that she can step into my shoes. I can see the idea behind her eyes when she looks at me. Have you got anything to eat, darling?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid,” declared Caroline, hastily reviewing the contents of her larder.
“How disappointing!” sighed Harriet “I’m simply starving; it must be the air or something.”
“Only eggs, I’m afraid —”
“Eggs!” exclaimed Harriet. “Only eggs! I’ve forgotten what an egg looks like. Lead me to them at once.”
Caroline led her to them and, between them, they knocked up a savoury omelette (which — as Harriet declared — was fit for a Queen) and while they were so engaged Comfort cored some apples, stuffed them with chopped dates and put them in the oven. All this activity was accompanied by a running stream of conversation in which Comfort took the part of a highly interested and appreciative audience. She tried to remember every word so that she could retail it to her friends … Comfort would be able to sup out on Miss Fane for some time to come.
Caroline had decided not to go to London, but she discovered that Harriet really wanted her — in fact needed her — for Harriet was not at all happy about the new play.
“It’s a lousy play,” declared Harriet in cheerful tones. “Thin as skim-milk. I thought at first it might go down quite well (the dialogue is amusing and Marcus and I are pretty good together) but Pinkie suddenly got cold feet and started altering everything, so now it’s a mess.”
Caroline was aware that Mr. Pinkerton was the producer. “How awful!” she exclaimed. “Couldn’t you prevent him from —”
“Not without strangling him,” Harriet replied. “Marcus wants to strangle him, of course, but I feel
it’s scarcely worth the risk … Oh, well, it’s all in the day’s work. No use worrying.”
“But Harriet —”
“Worrying makes you ugly,” declared the beautiful Miss Fane. “Worrying gives you horrid wrinkles. I never worry.”
“I’ll come,” said Caroline.
“Of course you’re coming! You don’t suppose I’m going back without you? What a ridiculous idea! Comfort will look after everything while you’re away — won’t you, Comfort?”
“I’ll fetch Mother up this afternoon,” said Comfort, nodding. “It’ll do Mother a world of good to have a little change of air.”
The girls came in for lunch. Leda received her aunt’s congratulations very graciously, but became less gracious when she discovered that Caroline was being spirited off to London.
“I don’t see how you can go away now,” objected Leda. “Sir Michael may want to see you again, or Derek may come over from Oxford.”
“Sir Michael can wait,” said Harriet. “And as for Derek — I suppose Derek comes to see you, doesn’t he?”
“Comfort is so awful,” continued Leda in a complaining voice. “She’s much worse when you aren’t here to keep her in order, and her cooking is appalling. Supposing Derek rings up and says he can come to lunch?”
“You can cook his lunch,” Harriet told her. “It’s a delightful task to cook delectable food for the man you love.”
“Mother ought to be here,” said Leda.
“You are a selfish pig!” exclaimed Bobbie.
“It’s only for four days,” Caroline reminded her. “Of course, if you really think I ought to be here —”
“The whole thing is fixed,” declared Harriet in firm tones. “Fixed inalterably like the Laws of the Medes and Persians.”
“I often wondered how they managed,” Bobbie put in. “I mean, it must have been so awkward for them if they found the Law didn’t work very well, or when conditions changed.”
“I expect they did a good deal of wangling,” said Harriet thoughtfully.
The little discussion into far-off history had changed the trend of the conversation and Leda was silenced, but she was still unresigned to her mother’s abduction. After lunch, when Caroline had gone to speak to Comfort and to make arrangements with her about food, Leda pursued Harriet upstairs and found her in Caroline’s bedroom. Harriet was busily engaged in removing garments from the wardrobe and laying them upon the bed, she looked up when Leda came in.
“We haven’t much time,” explained Harriet. “I thought I’d start packing. You might fetch a suitcase for me.”
“Mummy isn’t going,” said Leda. “She can’t go away now. It’s frightfully selfish of you to try to take her away.”
“Selfish! What about you? You aren’t selfish, are you?”
“Mummy’s place is here.”
“Of course — slaving for you! Cooking for you! Ironing your clothes! She shouldn’t ever have a holiday, should she?”
“She didn’t want a holiday until you put it into her head.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed Harriet. “I shouldn’t like to be you!”
This was not what Leda had expected to hear; in fact, it was so different from what she had expected to hear that she was interested. “You wouldn’t like to be me?” she inquired.
“Selfish people are nearly always unhappy,” explained Harriet, taking a brown silk frock out of the wardrobe and examining it carefully before laying it over a chair. “Sometimes they go on for quite a long time before Nemesis descends upon them and knocks them flat, but Nemesis always gets them in the end. I’m sorry for you, Leda.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ll know some day … or perhaps you won’t,” said Harriet, thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’ll never realise that it’s your own fault when you get knocked flat. Perhaps you’re incurable.”
“I think you’re horrid,” said Leda with complete calm. “I think it’s you who’s selfish. You want Mummy, so you’re taking her. That’s selfish, isn’t it?”
“Have it your own way,” replied her aunt with equal calmness. “I want Mummy — so I’m taking her. The main thing is I am taking her, so will you fetch her suitcase, please.”
*
When Caroline found herself sitting beside Harriet in the little car she had a sudden access of sheer panic. She had been mad to leave home … something awful would happen while she was away! One of the girls would develop acute appendicitis; Comfort would fall down the steps leading to the cellar and break her leg, or the house would go on fire.
“Harriet!” exclaimed Caroline in urgent tones. “Harriet I must go home. I must — honestly. It was crazy of me to say I would come. I simply must go home, Harriet.”
“No, darling,” replied Harriet. “I won’t take you home, so you’ll just have to make the best of it. High time you were dug out of your rut.”
“Please, Harriet —”
“No,” said Harriet firmly. “For one thing, it’s too late — I haven’t enough petrol to take you home and get back to London — for another thing I want you very badly. Last, but not least, it will be good for the girls to do without you for a little while. You spoil them dreadfully, especially Leda. Bobbie is slightly spoilt but not unbearable; but Leda!” said Harriet with emphasis. “Leda — really — is — getting — almost — unbearable.”
“She’s in love,” murmured her mother. “You mustn’t be too hard on her. She’s like Arnold, you know. She isn’t happy inside. People who aren’t happy inside are always difficult.”
They drove on for several miles without saying any more. Caroline’s panic was passing off and she began to look about her and to enjoy the drive. She had not been in a car for months — the sensation of being whirled along through pleasant country was delightful — and there was so much to see. Here was the World. The World was full of people and all of them were important to themselves. Each had his or her problem (just as Caroline had) and each thought his or her problem the most important in the universe.
Harriet is right, thought Caroline. I was in a rut. My life was bounded by the village and things had become out of proportion.
They were approaching London now and the World was more full of people than ever … people with hopes and fears and troubles. That woman (for instance) standing on the edge of the path and looking up and down the road in eager anticipation, what was she waiting for? Some man, perhaps? Caroline would never know. They passed her and drove on. Here was a street with shops; a man was walking along, holding a little boy by the hand, he had a toy yacht under his arm and they both looked pleased and excited. There was a girl with a basket; she came out of a green gate and, shutting it behind her, turned and waved to a face at the window. Caroline saw a child playing in the gutter with an old tin, a dog bounding across the road to greet its master, two women greeting one another with cordial smiles … all these people — and many more — caught Caroline’s eye and held it for a moment before she was swept on.
Houses slid past — hundreds of thousands of houses — and each one was a home, a secret place where people slept and ate and quarrelled and made it up again, where people were happy or miserable (or, even worse than miserable, were hopelessly resigned). Every house had its own peculiar atmosphere, its own peculiar smell, so that although there were dozens of houses, all alike to look at, they were all quite different.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HARRIET’S FLAT was luxurious, its decorations were restful and easy on the eye. Life with Harriet was very dissimilar from life at Vittoria Cottage. Its tempo was more rapid: spiritoso accelerato rather than adagio. Caroline had noticed this before (everything was so different that she herself felt like a different person) but to-day she noticed it even more than usual. Perhaps this was because it started before she had time to get her breath, before she had adjusted herself to the changed conditions.
The telephone-bell was ringing madly when they opened the front-door and Harriet threw down her c
oat and Caroline’s hat-box and rushed to answer it. She was still talking to some unknown friend (a bosom friend judging from the endearments which were falling from her lips) when the door-bell rang. Caroline opened the door — there was nobody else to open it — and discovered a woman on the landing. She was a very small woman and she was laden with several very large cardboard boxes. Caroline was helping her to pile the boxes in the hall when a young man came leaping up the stairs and dashed in through the open doorway.
“Who are you?” he demanded breathlessly. “Oh, you’re Caroline, of course. She pinched all my petrol to fetch you. Where is she? I must see her immediately.”
“I’m here, darling!” cried Harriet waving frantically from the sitting-room where she was still anchored to the telephone. “I’m here, Marcus! I’ll speak to you in a minute.”
Marcus plunged into the sitting-room, took the receiver from her hand and placed it firmly on its cradle. “You’ll speak to me now,” he declared. “This is important. This is absolute priority. Pinkie wants to cut the rocking-horse — our best bit of dialogue — the only decent thing left in the whole blinking play. You’ll have to get hold of Pinkie somehow; he might listen to you. I don’t know how you’ll get hold of him of course, because he’s as elusive as Old Nick, but you simply must get hold of him somehow.”
“That was Pinkie,” said Harriet, pointing to the telephone.
The young man flung himself into a chair and began to laugh hysterically.
“Have a drink,” said Harriet.
“No, darling,” said Marcus.
“A pink gin,” said Harriet persuasively. “You can’t say no to a pink gin.”
“No darling … I mean, no, I can’t say no.”
The very small woman was still waiting in the hall. She put her head round the door and said, “I thought perhaps you’d just slip on the yellow frock, Miss Fane. We’ve altered it as you wanted but I should like to see it on for a moment if it isn’t a trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” declared Harriet with bitter sarcasm.
Vittoria Cottage (Drumberley Book 1) Page 6