“Who is Anthea?”
“Oh, she’s just a girl, that’s all.”
“What sort of girl?”
“Mother likes her,” said Ronnie uncomfortably.
“Your mother wants you to marry her, I suppose?”
“Well, you see, she’s a Wilkins. It sounds silly but it’s one of the things in the firm. I mean people whose fathers or uncles are in the firm sometimes marry each other.”
“Do you like her?”
“Oh, I’ve known Anthea all my life! We used to play together when we were kids.”
“You had better marry Anthea Wilkins,” said Elfrida. “Your mother will be pleased; ‘Uncle Bob’ will be pleased; everyone in the marvellous firm will be pleased.”
For a moment Ronnie looked at Elfrida in dismay . . . then he burst out laughing, swept her into his arms and kissed her. She did not resist.
It was quite a long time before they came to their senses.
Elfrida recovered first. “Goodness, look at the time!” she exclaimed. “We haven’t fed the pigs, or filled their water-troughs—and I shall have to cook our supper unless Emma has come back—and Patrick hasn’t had any tea; he’ll be wondering where we’ve gone. Oh, poor Patrick, how awful of me to forget!”
They fed and watered the pigs and hurried home.
*
37
When Ronnie and Elfrida got back to Mountain Cross it was nearly seven o’clock. They were worried and flustered—they had run most of the way—but fortunately all was well. Emma Chowne had returned from Cherleigh and was trotting round the kitchen preparing the evening meal and Patrick was laying the table in the dining-room.
“Well, of course I came back,” said Emma, as she opened the door of the oven and put in a large pie covered with puff pastry. “And it was just as well I did come back, Miss Elfrida. That poor child hasn’t had any tea; he was sitting in the parlour reading his books as good as gold. Wherever have you been?”
“We were feeding the pigs.”
“You look as if you’d been running races! Your face is flushed and your hair is all in a mess.”
“How was the parent?” asked Elfrida, changing the subject.
“It’s difficult to tell. He’s such a worry; sometimes he makes a fuss about nothing and sometimes he makes no fuss about a lot. When he had pneumonia and was really ill he was like a lamb . . . so you never know where you are. I told Ernie he’d better stay the night, just in case. He’ll be back in the morning.”
“Mr. Leighton wants to see him.”
Emma nodded, “About that book, I suppose?”
“Yes, do you know about it?” asked Elfrida in surprise.
“Ernie told me about it this afternoon. He couldn’t tell me before because he’d promised Mr. Ware. Oh, goodness!” cried Emma, throwing back her head and emitting a loud hoot of laughter. “Oh, goodness, what a joke! There we were, hunting everywhere for that book! I’ll never forget Mr. Whitgreave; he was hunting in your bedroom when I went up, but I chased him out of there, in double-quick time! He was crazy to find that book, Miss Elfrida.”
“I know he was.”
“You remember I told you he’d upset Ernie when he came to the back-door before lunch? Well, he tried to give Ernie five pounds to find the book and send it to him unbeknownst to you. If Ernie could have talked it wouldn’t have been so bad—he could have told Mr. Whitgreave what he thought of him—but all he could do was slam the back-door in Mr. Whitgreave’s face! Of course I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t know about any of it.”
“None of us knew.”
“None of us except Ernie. Oh, dear!” exclaimed Emma with another hoot. “Oh, dear, when I think of me hunting for that book it nearly kills me! I hunted everywhere I could think of for days and days. I even took up the floorboards in Mr. Ware’s bedroom . . . but all I got for my trouble was the skeleton of a mouse, and Ernie brought the ladder and we took every single book out of the bookcase in the library and dusted them and put them back! Ernie, as solemn as a judge, helping me to look for it . . . and never saying a word! Oh, dear, it’s the best joke I ever heard in all my born days! He had it wrapped up in an old torn pyjama jacket and hidden under the jumbo cover. It was there all the time!” Emma pointed to the row of dishcovers on the top shelf of the dresser and subsided into a chair, gasping and hooting and holding her sides in a positively alarming manner.
“It was there all the time?” echoed Elfrida incredulously.
Emma nodded. She was incapable of speech.
“How amazing!” exclaimed Elfrida, beginning to laugh.
It really was absolutely amazing, not only because the house had been turned upside-down in Emma’s search (and “the red book” had been within a few yards of her head as she trotted about the kitchen), but also because Emma considered the whole affair to be a good joke. Many a woman would have been annoyed to discover that her husband had deceived her . . . but Emma was never annoyed with her beloved Ernie.
Presently the hoots and gasps subsided and Emma recovered; her recovery was hastened by a glass of water which Elfrida fetched for her from the pantry.
“Well, there now,” said Emma at last, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. “I haven’t laughed so much for years. Ernie’s clever, isn’t he? That reminds me, Ernie wrote a letter to Mr. Leighton before we went to Cherleigh—it’s a beautiful letter. Ernie wrote it all down because he can’t talk properly and he wanted to explain what he’d done . . . and anyhow we might have been delayed at Cherleigh if the parent had been on his last legs, like he said. It’s there, on the chimney-piece, Miss Elfrida, behind Henry James’s photo. You’d better give it to Mr. Leighton.
“Now I must get on with the supper,” added Emma, rising from the chair and beginning to bustle about. “I’m all behind, like a cow’s tail.”
Realising that she had been given her congé, Elfrida took the letter and went away.
She found Ronnie and Patrick in the parlour. Ronnie was reading Mr. Jeremy Fisher and Patrick was curled up beside him on the sofa, listening with all his ears. (It was ever so much nicer to be read to than to have the bother of reading to yourself . . . and Mr. Leighton made Mr. Jeremy Fisher talk in a hoarse, croaky voice which was excruciatingly funny!)
“Hallo, Elfrida Jane!” said Ronnie. “Is supper nearly ready? Patrick and I are hungry; we didn’t have any tea.”
“It won’t be ready for about twenty minutes; Emma is all behind like a cow’s tail,” explained Elfrida, beginning to laugh again.
Ronnie nodded. “We heard strange noises coming from the kitchen. I thought it was a motor-horn but Patrick said it was Mrs. Chowne laughing. What was the joke?”
“This beautiful letter will tell you all about it,” replied Elfrida, giving it to him.
The letter was addressed to “Mr. Laten,” clearly written in a round, schoolboy hand.
Ronnie raised his eyebrows and opened it.
Mountain Cross
Mr. Laten
Dear Sir,
We have to go to Cherleigh to see the parent, so I am writing to tell you about the book of stamps. Mr. Ware gave it me before he died all tied up and sealed with his seal and he said I was to keep it secret and safe till the new owner of Mountain Cross was settled in for 3 months and then send it to Mr. Sandford by a sure hand. Well she is settled so I did. When Mr. Ware give it me I put it under the jumbo cover on the top shelf of the dresser because it’s the only place in the house Emma dossent clean. I clean them myself once a fortnight because I like them nice and shiney.
Yours faithfully,
Ernest Chowne
Ronnie was smiling when he had read the letter; he handed it to Elfrida without comment.
“Is this what you want?” she asked.
“It’s perfect,” declared Ronnie, chuckling. “Couldn’t be better! You see this makes it absolutely safe. I must ring up the senior partner and tell him about it; he’ll be tickled to death! What is the jumbo cover, when it’s at
home?”
“You’ve seen the row of silver-plated dish covers on the top shelf of the dresser, haven’t you? The jumbo cover is the biggest one, of course. It’s big enough to be used for a baron of beef—I thought of that the first time I saw it—so it would fit quite comfortably over ‘the red book.’ Emma told me herself that she wasn’t allowed to lay a finger on the covers so it was a perfectly safe hiding place.”
“That was clever!” exclaimed Ronnie. “You wouldn’t think ‘Ernie’ was clever.”
“You would if you knew him better. I used to think he was stupid but I soon found out my mistake.” Elfrida added, “Don’t forget that Grandfather wanted him to be ‘suitably rewarded’.”
“He deserves a substantial reward,” said Ronnie very thoughtfully indeed.
*
38
Ronnie decided to leave Mountain Cross at half-past six next morning; he had said it was too early to have breakfast before starting, so Elfrida came down at six o’clock and made coffee and they had it together in the kitchen.
They had talked about their plans last night, but the conversation had gone round and round and had led to no satisfactory conclusion. This morning they began to talk about Mountain Cross; Elfrida explained that the only way to run the place as a paying concern was to buy back some of the fields and grow crops; to buy more breeding sows—like Pinkie—and a couple of pedigree boars. The barns would have to be altered and the farm would have to be modernised and run on a large scale to make it worth while.
Ronnie was surprised and impressed by her plans; it was obvious that Elfrida Jane knew what she was talking about.
“It’s Chowne, really,” she explained. “He was with Sir Henry Champion at one time and looked after a big herd of pigs. Chowne has taught me a lot . . . but it’s all in the air, isn’t it? There may not be enough money to carry out our plans, or we may be going to be married and live in London.”
“I hope so,” said Ronnie with a sigh. “I shall do my best to persuade him . . . but I know what he’ll say.”
They were back where they had started. It was useless to talk about the future but they could talk of nothing else.
*
When they had finished their coffee Elfrida went out with Ronnie to see him off. Dawn was breaking, the sun had appeared above the eastern horizon veiled in the early morning mist. It looked like an orange and there was an orange-coloured path across the sea. A gentle breeze wafted the smell of seaweed up the cliff and stirred the leaves of the trees.
“How fresh and lovely it is!” said Ronnie. “How I wish I could stay here and never go back to London and that stuffy old office.”
“How I wish you could!” said Elfrida with a sigh.
This was the third time she had said good-bye to Ronnie . . . and it was different. There was no pretence of cheerfulness; they clung to each other and kissed with a sort of desperation.
“Oh, Ronnie, when shall I see you again!” she cried.
“To-morrow,” said Ronnie firmly.
“To-morrow?”
“Yes, I’ll come back to-morrow. I’ll come and tell you what he has decided. I’ll come . . . even if it’s just to say good-bye.”
“We can wait,” she said. “We can wait for a year . . . or even two years. It can’t be worse than that.”
“No, it can’t be worse than two years (at least I don’t think so) but two years is an awfully long time to wait.”
“I’ll see you to-morrow, Ronnie.”
“Yes, but don’t expect me until late. He usually plays golf at the week-ends. If I can’t get hold of him to-night, I shall have to watch my chance to have a private talk with him to-morrow. It all depends on what he’s doing; it’s no good rushing him because I want to get him in the right mood. Au revoir, Elfrida Jane.”
“Au revoir, Ronnie.”
She waved until he had turned the corner and then went back into the house. She had not told him to be careful and not to drive too fast. He would drive too fast whether she told him or not.
The day stretched before Elfrida like a desert; she wandered into the kitchen to wash up the coffee cups and found that already they had been washed up and put away. Emma was on her knees scrubbing the floor and humming cheerfully.
“You’re early!” exclaimed Elfrida.
“I like getting up early on a nice bright morning. The work gets done much quicker if it’s done early.”
“Why does it?” asked Elfrida.
“Why?” repeated Emma, sitting back on her heels and looking up in bewilderment. “Well, I don’t know why, exactly . . . but it does.”
“Has Chowne come back?”
“Not yet, Miss Elfrida. He said he would phone from the call-box about nine o’clock.”
“You weren’t frightened of being alone in the flat?”
“Frightened? I’ve been alone here dozens of times. Did you think I was the sort of person to be frightened?” asked Emma with scorn.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, why did you ask?”
“Oh, I just wanted to make sure.” She smiled and added, “I’ll go and milk Pansy and feed the pigs. Patrick can have his breakfast in the kitchen.”
“Yes, him and me will have it together. He’s good company is Pat. By the way, Miss Elfrida, there’s more about that film in this week’s paper. Would you like to see it . . . or not?”
Elfrida hesitated. She did not want to see it, but perhaps it would be just as well to know what Glen was doing.
“I’ll get it,” said Emma, rising from her knees and producing it from beneath her ironing blanket in the dresser drawer. “I just got it last night so I hid it until I had time to look at it properly. I didn’t want Pat to see it if there was something awful in it about his father. There’s a picture of him riding a camel. I hope it bites him,” she added revengefully.
The paper was spread on the kitchen table and they looked at it together; there were several pictures of Glen: Glen Siddons riding a camel; Glen Siddons having breakfast at a small table beneath a large coloured umbrella; Glen Siddons dressed as a Bedouin sheik. In the middle of the page there was a very large picture of Glen Siddons arm-in-arm with Clarissa Downes; they were wearing charming smiles . . . but little else. The caption read:
“Glen and Clarissa Off for a Swim.”
“Look at that!” exclaimed Emma, pointing at it with her stubby forefinger. “I thought he said he couldn’t swim!”
Elfrida did not reply. It did not seem to matter whether or not he could swim. In fact nothing about Glen mattered any more . . . except that he was thousands of miles away from Mountain Cross.
It was a good thing to have something definite to do. Elfrida walked up to the farm; she milked Pansy, fed the pigs and filled their water-troughs; then she sat down on a sack of meal and thought of all that had happened to her.
She had come a long way . . . and she had changed. Yes, she was quite a different sort of person from the girl who had gone in fear and trembling to see Mr. Robert Sandford. All the wonderful things that had happened to her had begun on that fine March afternoon.
Miss Martineau did it, thought Elfrida. I never would have gone to see Mr. Sandford if it hadn’t been for her . . . and it was she who showed me how silly I was about Glen and told me to “get out of it” and come to Mountain Cross. What a lot I owe her! thought Elfrida. I can never repay her, of course, but now that I’m going to have some money I could ask her to come here for a holiday and pay her expenses. I wonder if she would be bored in this quiet place . . . but I could have her for a week or ten days and give her a proper rest. I must think about that.
Then Elfrida thought of her arrival at Mountain Cross with Ronnie and of all she had seen and done. She thought of “the ladies’ breeze” which had wakened the land and made it as beautiful as a dream of Paradise. She thought of her wanderings in the flowery lanes and sunbathing on the beach and swimming in the cool clear waters of the bay. She thought of the dear old house . . . the kn
owledge that it was her very own possession was one of the things which had changed her and given her confidence in herself. She was no longer a waif, living from hand to mouth amidst other people’s belongings; she was a woman with a home of her own.
Then Glen had come. Elfrida did not want to think of Glen (and of the horrible things that had happened when he was here) and she need not think of him. All the foolishness was over and done with.
No, she would not think of him, nor would she nurse a grudge against him for the way he had behaved. He had taught her a valuable lesson . . . and he had given her Patrick.
Elfrida smiled at the thought of Patrick; he was such a dear little boy and he had become part of her life. She knew his secret now; it was such a big secret that he had not been able to conceal it any longer, besides he wanted Miss Ware’s advice . . . so he had taken her up to the wood and dug up the acorn.
“It’s my present to the wood,” he had said, holding it out for her to look at.
“What a lovely present!” Elfrida exclaimed. “It’s a much better present than roots and bulbs because it will grow into a big tree and the birds can make nests in its branches.”
“Yes, but why hasn’t it begun?” asked Patrick, turning it over and over in his small brown hands.
“Trees take a long, long time to grow and they like to be left in peace. Let’s plant it carefully,” suggested Elfrida. “Let’s leave it quietly in its little bed until next spring; then we’ll come up here together and perhaps we’ll find a tiny green shoot.”
“We’ll come on the twelfth of April,” said Patrick nodding. “That’s my birthday and I’ll be nine.”
This had happened yesterday morning before Ronnie had arrived . . . but Time had got jumbled up again and it seemed much longer ago. Elfrida thought of Patrick’s acorn and wondered where she and Patrick would be next April . . . perhaps in London!
Ronnie would be getting near London now; she wondered where he was at this moment. She wondered when he would be able to have his talk with Mr. Sandford and what Mr. Sandford would say.
The House on the Cliff Page 25