“Hullo, Sherry old boy! What luck running into you! Linda and I have just got back from Switzerland. Sorry to miss your ‘do,’ but we couldn’t get them to change our sleepers. I suppose you’re honeymooning here, are you?” Smiling, he looked at Logie, waiting to be introduced. The girl with him joined them too. “Sherry, how nice to see you!”
Sherry had risen. He said, “There wasn’t any ‘do’ to miss. This is Miss Selkirk. Logie, I don’t think you know Captain and Mrs. Warren, do you?”
Was it her imagination or a trick of light that made her fancy that both the Warrens first looked taken aback, then schooled their startled faces quickly into expressions of polite friendliness as they exchanged trivialities about the lovely evening and this charming place? Was she imagining that Sherry’s voice was suddenly harsh, his face hard, and that an atmosphere of tension hung in the air?
Captain Warren said, “Well, now that we’ve had the luck to meet, you two must have a drink with us.”
His wife, smiling at Logie, said, “Yes, do come along!” gesturing to the table they had left. Logie hesitated, waiting, since she was his guest, for Sherry to reply.
He said, abruptly, “Thanks very much, but we were just leaving. Too bad that we didn’t see you earlier.”
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Then Linda Warren looked Sherry straight in the eyes, and hers were sorry and kind as well as puzzled. “Another time!” she said, adding to Logie, “That means you too, of course! I do hope we shall meet again.”
Logie smiled back, murmuring that she hoped so, too. The Warrens went back to their own table. Then in silence Logie waited while Sherry paid the bill, in silence walked beside him to the car park. In silence still he took the homeward road. Some silences are happy and companionable; this one was raw with the jagged edges of Sherry’s bitter mood and Logie’s bewilderment.
What did it mean? she asked herself. What could it mean, this talk of Sherry being here on his honeymoon? Had it been understood among his friends that he would shortly become engaged? Possibly to the tall girl with whom he said he had been dancing lately? And why was it that he so evidently wanted to spend no more time than need be in the company of the Warrens?
He spoke at last as they approached the bridge that linked the outskirts of Market Blyburgh with the countryside. “Sorry for that deplorable exhibition of bad manners on my part. I had a sudden and violent attack of unsociability ... Too bad of me to drag you away so soon, but I—” he broke off.
“Oh, I was quite ready to come home. I’ve got to be at Dr. Sinclair’s surgery at nine and I like lots of sleep!” she answered lightly. She went on as they crossed the bridge, “I’ve just remembered—we were wondering if you’d like to come with us to-morrow evening on the river? We take supper with us often in the summer in our boat—rather an ancient tub, but safe enough, so far. So if you’d care to come too—?”
Sherry said that he would love to, and would bring along cider from the Painted Anchor as his contribution to the fare. They parted at the wicket door of the coach-house as though no awkwardness had marred the ending of their evening.
Logie crept along the passage to her bedroom in a golden haze of happiness, trying to ignore the cloud, small and indefinite, yet faintly threatening, that hovered in a corner of her mind.
Alison, lying wakeful, heard her, and remembered evenings that now seemed very long ago, when she too had gone creeping quietly past bedroom doors so as to avoid disturbing sleepers in the tall Edinburgh house where she had boarded. Evenings when the future had seemed full of happy promise...
She sighed and turned, but could not sleep, held in the disturbing grip of premonition. She had known it twice before, this feeling of impending change, as though the course of life were going to alter: once just before her summons to Market Blyburgh when Mary Selkirk fell ill; the second time shortly before Robert Selkirk’s death. She prayed that this time it might foretell not tragedy but joy.
CHAPTER FOUR
A week went by and still Sherry stayed on at the Painted Anchor transforming life at Fantails, yet fitting into it surprisingly.
Most mornings Alison, doing the housework, would hear him coming upstairs two steps at a time. “What’s to do to-day?” he would demand, then settle down for the next hour or two to shelling peas, topping and tailing gooseberries, or polishing the old brass preserving pan. He spent the whole of one rainy afternoon cleaning shoes until they shone with the rich, burnished gleam of horse chestnuts, an art learnt from his batman.
Always he brought some contribution to the day’s fare—a couple of lobsters that, he declared, had looked so lonely on their slab, surrounded by regiments of soles and plaice, that he had taken pity on them, or a chicken and a basket of mushrooms brought from the old woman who came once a week to sell her country produce, and once a hamper from Fortnum’s, packed with luxuries such as Alison had long forgotten and Logie and Jane had never known—bottled peaches, tinned asparagus, foie gras, marrons glaces. When Alison protested, he replied that if she didn’t like it he would have to stay away; he couldn’t possibly eat their rations and bring nothing in exchange, and his ration card was wanted at the Painted Anchor. He even produced butter, saying they kept a couple of cows at home and he had had it sent on by the housekeeper.
The weather was kind and they were able nearly every evening to have picnics. Sometimes they went on the river, sometimes Sherry took them farther afield, to the sea or the broads. Never having discovered for himself the limitations imposed by the lack of a car, he was amazed by how little they knew of the country beyond bicycling distance from home, and touched by their delight in these expeditions into the unknown territory. Once when it rained, he took them all to dinner at the Maid’s Head, in Norwich, and after to see a film. It was Logie’s habit when she came back from the surgery to go for a short walk, and Sherry would go with her. Sometimes they strolled up the river bank, sometimes went a short way into the country in his car and walked there along, woodland paths or lanes deep in the fields.
The more they saw of him, the more they liked him. Jane adored him because he took her seriously instead of talking down on her indulgently, after the mistaken way of so many grown-ups. Alison was amused by his dry humour, although she often winced at the barbed bitterness of something he would let fall, the cynicism of his outlook on the world and on humanity. Sometimes she would argue with him. “Why do you talk as though everyone were calculating and out for all that they can get, regardless of how it may affect other people?”
“Why? Because that’s how I’ve found them!”
“You don’t think we’re like that!”
“No. But you’re different.” He smiled at her disarmingly, tossing peas he was shelling in a basin.
“Indeed we’re not. We’re very ordinary. We’re mixed, like everybody else. Nice and nasty, mean and generous, kind and cross—in streaks.”
“Only most people aren’t streaked. They’re all of a piece, the ones I’ve known best. Not such a very nice piece, either, when you look at it too closely.”
Alison sighed.
“Cross with me?”
“No. Sorry for you!”
At this his young face hardened. “I don’t need anybody’s pity!” he said shortly, and she changed the subject, though her heart was full of compassion. She was convinced that recently he had suffered the hurt of a deep disillusion, and it had left a scar.
And as for Logie, she was deep in love, in love with life, in love with love, in love with all that Sherry represented in her eyes—romance, luxury, freedom to go where you pleased, do as you chose, have what you wanted: more than half in love with Sherry himself, fascinated by his unfamilar outlook. Trying to look at life through his eyes made of the world a different place, a place filled with new, strange, half-frightening possibilities. Alison, realising more than Logie herself of Logie’s state of mind and heart, was torn by hopes and fears: hopes that with Sherry Logie might find happiness, fears that he might lea
ve their lives as suddenly as he had entered them.
Preoccupied with new happenings and possibilities, Alison had given little thought to the change impending in their lives if the Sinclairs went to America, when one morning Ella Sinclair came to Fantails. Sherry had gone to Norwich to have his hair cut, so Alison was alone stringing currants for a summer pudding.
“It’s settled!” Ella cried, her dark eyes sparkling. “We’re off at the end of next week. I suppose Americans are like that—always in a hustle. Anyhow, they’ve been pulling strings at the other end and got us cancelled passages. Flying—imagine it! A pair of staid old fogies like me and Tom suddenly uprooting ourselves and going off across the world!”
She prattled on excitedly about their plans, as thrilled at forty-nine over the impending change as any girl of seventeen invited to her first dance. Alison, her fingers busy with the currants, listened in smiling silence, occasionally ejaculating, “You’ll both enjoy that!” or “How lovely for you!”
“Here I go, burbling away about us, when you must be dying to know about Hugh Brandon,” Ella said at last.
“Hugh—?”
“Dr. Brandon, who’s taking on the practice. Tom thinks the world of him—he’s leaving you all in good hands! G.Ps. are apt to scoff at Harley Street, but if anybody scoffs at Hugh it’s a case of sour grapes. He’s brilliant, Tom says. Only forty-three, but he’s made a great name as a consultant.”
Alison was trying to remember something. “Wasn’t he the man who flew to India not long ago to see some maharajah who was ill?”
“That’s it. He only stayed there five days, and Tom heard he got five thousand for it!”
“But why ...” Alison hesitated, trying to word her question tactfully. Ella said it for her. “Why should he leave Harley Street for Market Blyburgh? Family reasons. He’s a widower with a little boy of five. The child is delicate, and Hugh feels he should be in the country, yet wants to have him under his own eye—naturally enough. He has the sense to know that money isn’t everything. Tom has a notion that he won’t be sorry to break away from London for a while. It seems he has become the fashion among rich women who have nothing better to do with their time and money than play at being ill if they can find an attractive doctor to listen to the tales of their imaginary aches and pains. Hugh’s not the man to enjoy wasting his time over that sort of nonsense.”
“Does he know Market Blyburgh?”
“He spent a week-end with us last year. You were coming to Sunday supper to meet him, but Andrew turned up unexpectedly on embarkation leave at the last minute.”
“Of course. Now I remember. You spoke about him then. That’s why the name seemed so familiar.”
“He took a great fancy to the place and to Swan House, and said jokingly to Tom that if ever he wanted a locum or to sell the practice, he was his man. Tom thought no more of it at the time, but when this American business came along he got in touch with Hugh and asked if he’d been serious—never expecting that it would come to anything. But the little boy had measles very badly a short time ago and it left him very poorly. I fancy that’s what made Hugh’s mind up for him. I gather that his sister-in-law is coming to help him settle in. You’ll drop in on her, won’t you, in case she wants the low-down on the local shops or anything like that?”
“Of course I will,” Alison promised her. She hoped the sister-in-law would not turn out to be alarmingly sophisticated. “Will Mrs. Moffat stay on with them?”
“Yes, and they’re bringing servants from London. A married couple who have been with Hugh for years ... Hugh will be coming to stay for the last few days before we go, so that Tom can take him round the practice and hand over his cases.”
“We’ll miss you,” Alison said, thinking that though she would be sorry to lose Tom and Ella, the prospect of new neighbours was not unattractive and would be good for them. When Mrs. Sinclair left, exclaiming that she would never get through all that must be done before leaving Swan House, she considered the matter of a new post for Logie as she made her pudding, and had come to a decision by the time Logie came flying up at lunch-time, full of the news, and ending “What should I do about a new job, do you think? This Dr. Brandon’s bringing a proper trained secretary who can do dispensing too. I shan’t be wanted.”
“I shouldn’t hurry into anything you might regret,” Alison advised her. “Better to think things over for a little before you come to any decision. You were due, in any case, for a holiday.”
Logie looked relieved. “I was, wasn’t I? I’ll take it when the Sinclairs go, and look about. Something will turn up, I suppose.”
“Sure to,” said Alison, hoping that “something” might be marriage. For all that people talked of modern girls, woman’s emancipation, and the equality of the sexes, human nature, she was convinced, stayed fundamentally unchanged. A home, a husband, and children were, she was certain, the desire of ninety-nine girls in a hundred. Often their creative instinct ultimately found expression in some other way—music, painting, gardening, needlework, charity, a career. But Logie had no talent in particular, and it was impossible to picture her, so essentially feminine, finding lasting satisfaction in a career, even if she had the opportunity to make one.
She was pleased when Sherry arrived at tea-time, bearing a fine fat pair of ducklings he had bought in Norwich market, and announced that he had told them at the Painted Anchor that he would be staying on there for another week.
“Well, but I don’t like milk pudding,” said John Brandon. “I’d rather have some gooseb’ry tart, the same as you an’ Daddy.”
This was his first meal at Swan House. Hugh Brandon had been established there for several days, having taken over the practice a week ago and moved in with his servants the day after the Sinclairs’ departure. His sister-in-law, Lucia Brill, had brought John here this morning, having taken him to a hotel at Southwold for a week during the upheaval of the move. The house in Harley Street had been let furnished and Swan House was in good order, but it had been as well to lighten the servants’ task of getting the new menage running smoothly by having John elsewhere.
It was a new menage in more ways than one. In London John had been in the care of a nurse trained at a college in every aspect of child care. She had looked after him efficiently and kindly, but recently his father had felt that she regarded him too much in the light of a machine that must be kept in good running order, much as a mechanic might regard the engine of a car. John was, his father thought, too much the slave of timetables and food charts and routine, and though these things were good up to a point, they could be overdone. It would do John good to have more freedom. It was time, too, for him to become less the nursery baby, more the small boy, sharing his father’s meals in the dining-room. So Miss Heald had gone to take charge of a new baby, and Hugh had asked Lucia, the very-much-older sister of his dead wife, to stay with them at Swan House until a pleasant country girl could be found to keep an eye on John and help the MacNeishes, a middle-aged Scots couple who had been with him since shortly before Melanie’s death, when John was born, five years ago.
John was a fragile little boy. His hair fell in a pale silky fringe on his high forehead and rose in a crest like a plover’s on the crown of his head. His grey-blue eyes were round and questioning in the pale triangle of his face. His lower lip stuck out in protest as he disconsolately stirred his semolina.
Lucia said briskly, “Nonsense, darling! Milk is protein, and you need lots of that to build you up and make you big and strong!”
“I’d rather have some gooseb’ry tart and grow up little an’ weak.”
“Gooseberry tart isn’t what you need. Little boys have to have a balanced diet, dear!”
Lucia was a tall woman of forty-five, heavily built, dark-haired, and sallow. Her small black eyes behind her horn-rimmed spectacles were like a pair of currants in the large bun of her face. She hoped that Hugh was noticing how capable she was being with John, matter of fact and sensible. John had calmed down
nicely after his first excitement on arriving here an hour ago. It wouldn’t take her long to get him into her own ways. She had always been good at managing people. Years ago, when she and Melanie, his mother, had been left orphans, at eighteen she had taken complete charge of her ten-year-younger sister and been like a mother to her. She would be a mother now to John. Hugh would soon see that she was indispensable to the little boy’s well-being. Her stay here would be indefinitely prolonged until all question of a date for her departure gradually faded and her home was here. John should belong to her as Melanie had belonged to her. If Hugh had notions later on about sending him to a preparatory school, she’d manage, somehow or other, to put a stop to it, stressing John’s delicacy, his sensitiveness, his need of all the mother love and understanding she could give him.
Hugh Brandon’s eyes, dark hazel, deep-set and enigmatic, gave no clue to his thoughts. Long practice in inscrutability, born of a doctor’s frequent need to mask a painful truth, stood him in good stead with Lucia. He was thinking now, as he had thought many times before, how singularly unattractive Lucia was in every way, and marvelling that two half-sisters could be as different as she and Melanie. Even the ten years between them and a different father did not seem enough to account for Lucia’s swarthiness compared with Melanie’s ash-blonde fragility, Lucia’s assertive manner compared with Melanie’s gentle reticence, Lucia’s maddening tactlessness compared with Melanie’s charm and sweetness ... Already Lucia was getting on his nerves. He told himself that he had been a fool to have her here. Better to have brought Miss Heald till such time as he had found the ideal successor. Yet he felt a brute for grudging her the delight of being with John ... Melanie, knowing all her faults, had loved her and for Melanie’s sake he wanted Lucia to be happy.
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