Never Too Late

by Angela Thirkell

  “And now,” he said to the stars, “we’ll see who gets onto the County Council, Aberfordbury or myself,” and there was no doubt at all in his voice, nor in his mind.

  CHAPTER 9

  After talking over the question of Edith, her parents agreed that much as they would miss her the plan of a long visit to the Towers would not be a bad plan. She could go daily to Barchester to her school or institute or whatever it was called. Roddy Wicklow—Lady Pomfret’s brother and Lord Pomfret’s estate agent—would take her riding about the place and let her see how things were done. There would be no one who would be likely to fall in love with her and she would be a good companion for her young cousin Lady Emily Foster who was an excellent horsewoman and quite uninhibited. At any rate Edith could go for a term to this estate agency school and perhaps her parents would join her at Christmas, for which joyful and depressing period Lady Pomfret had asked all the Grahams to come to the Towers for a week at least so that the family could have some really good talks and the young people have a dance and go to the Meet and there would be enough horses somehow for anyone who wanted to ride. Some of the Leslie cousins from Greshamsbury would be there too and as Edith Graham and Lady Emily Foster would be the only resident girls they ought to have the time of their lives.

  “There is just one other thing, Agnes,” said Lady Pomfret who had been having a long telephone talk with Lady Graham. “Merry has been very tired and run down. Dr. Ford says it’s nothing that matters but she isn’t as young as she was and she needs a change. Her only defect is that she will not go away. If you could quite angelically ask her to Holdings for a week or so fairly soon, I think she would go. She hasn’t any particular home except a married sister where she is expected to make her bed and help with the grandchildren. Gillie’s aunt used to take her to the villa in Florence every year, but Guido Strelsa doesn’t offer it to us and I don’t think Gillie would care to go if he did. There is that tiny place we have at Cap Ferrat and we would willingly pay for her to go there and a friend with her, but I don’t even know if she has a friend and in any case she doesn’t want to go. The Pomfret family, including dear Lady Emily, have eaten her up. She has been with it for something like twenty-five years now. We both feel rather guilty, but I think she would pine or go mad if she retired. And don’t tell anyone this, but though we do love her and she has been invaluable, Gillie does really need someone younger. If she got a complete change now, I think she would feel better. Sorry to talk so much.”

  Lady Graham, whose first impulse—and indeed nearly every impulse—was to be kind, (except to people like Victoria, Lady Norton, or Lord Aberfordbury, where it would be sheer waste of time) at once said yes.

  “Will you ask her for me?” she said, “or shall I write?” and Lady Pomfret said perhaps it would sound more as if it were Agnes’s idea if she rang up. And after a little more family gossip that talk came to an end.

  So Lady Graham rang up Miss Merriman and said not only was she going to feel rather lonely without Edith, but Sir Robert had a lot of papers to be sorted and if Lady Pomfret could spare her, would she come to Holdings for a fortnight or so. Miss Merriman’s voice, as calm and self-contained as ever, said she would very much like to come but did not know if Lady Pomfret could spare her, with all the young people there.

  “Well, do ask her,” said Lady Graham. “Oh, and Merry, I quite forgot to tell you that I found a whole box of darling mamma’s letters. It is extraordinary how things get put away in a house. There is an old uniform case of Robert’s in the attic and it was stuffed with old letters that she must have brought from Rushwater. Some go as far back as darling Gay.”

  There was a silence and then Miss Merriman said, “I am so sorry, Lady Graham, but I don’t know about Gay. Ought I to?”

  “How stupid of me,” said Lady Graham. “She was my brother John’s first wife and such a darling. She died quite young and they had no children and then he married Mary Preston and they had those nice boys.”

  “Now I remember about her,” said Miss Merriman. “I was at the Towers with Lady Pomfret then—my Lady Pomfret I mean—and everyone was grieved about Mrs. John Leslie. If I can be of any help I shall be delighted.”

  So an early date was arranged for her visit and Lady Graham told the news to Miss Merriman’s friends in the village, who were many, for during the war years when she was at Holdings with Lady Emily she had been much liked by high and low, from the Hallidays to Geo. Panter at the Mellings Arms and both the local poachers.

  Next day Mrs. Belton at Harefield, mother-in-law of Lady Graham’s daughter Clarissa, and also a kind of cousin through a common connection with the very old Barsetshire family of Thornes of Ullathorne, rang up Lady Graham for a friendly talk and said did she know anyone who wanted a really useful secretary-help, because the elder daughter of Mr. Updike, the Harefield solicitor, was at a loose end. She had been a high-ranking WAAF during the war and had held various responsible administrative jobs since she was demobilized, and now wanted to be nearer home to keep an eye on her parents and was looking for a job and did Lady Graham happen to know of one. To which Lady Graham was able to say at once that she thought Lady Pomfret would be very glad to have a really competent woman as a kind of secretary-companion at any rate temporarily as Miss Merriman was going to have a much needed holiday at Holdings. The job, she added, might be for longer as Miss Merriman badly needed a rest. She would be with the family, have her own private sitting-room and help Lady Pomfret with her many county activities. That, said Mrs. Belton, was exactly what Miss Updike wanted and how kind of Lady Graham, who said she would let Lady Pomfret know at once. Which she at once did.

  “And I said more or less permanent to Mrs. Belton, Sally,” said Lady Graham, “so that you could feel safe. I mean if Merry did need a long holiday she would be much happier if she knew you were all right. How handsome Ludo is looking. We loved having him.”

  “Yes, the ugly duckling is growing his feathers,” said Lady Pomfret dispassionately, for there had been such difficulties with Lord Mellings when he was small and nervous and then when he was six feet high and trying not to show that he was nervous, that his parents had sometimes wished he and his young brother Giles could change places and Giles, who had not a nerve in his body and no fine feelings, would have banged and blustered about and been loved by all the people on the estate. Whereas poor Ludo had been nervous and shy from the days when as a little boy he went through agonies of anticipation and present fear and retrospective nightmares over riding. Then—owing to that nice Lady Merton at Northbridge—he had in the Coronation summer met Aubrey Clover the gifted actor-manager of the Cockspur Theatre and his almost equally gifted and very lovely wife Jessica Dean and had acted in a tiny play with them for the Coronation festivities, with a success which had suddenly given him confidence in himself. Since then he had at last stopped growing, put on weight, accepted with enthusiasm everything that Sandhurst and the prospect of the Brigade of Guards had to command or to offer, and showed every sign of ripening for every kind of county work as and when his profession, which he quietly loved, make it possible. So all his well-wishers—and they were many—hoped that Lord Pomfret would go on living for a very long time, at least until Lord Mellings was a Major and covered with medals. And as none of his friends wanted another war, most of them having suffered from the last war in health, or pocket, or in losing relations and friends who were dear to them, let alone that glad confident morning had vanished for ever from their lives, we can only hope that all may be well, or at least that the hosts of Midian will confine themselves to prowling, which is quite bad enough.

  Edith, having got permission to do what she wanted to do, was now not unnaturally suffering from anticipatory homesickness, which however she managed to conceal pretty successfully from her parents by dint of thinking of her interesting future. She had wanted to go to the school of estate management in Barchester and go she would, so the car that brought Miss Merriman over to Holdings was to take her an
d her luggage back to the Towers and there her home would be until Christmas and perhaps for longer. The news of her visit had of course gone round the village, via the Vicarage and the Old Manor House, and Lady Graham had rung up George Halliday and asked him to come to lunch on the day Edith was to go.

  “It is a little sudden,” she said, “but it all fitted in with Miss Merriman coming here and I think it will be quite a good thing for Edith. So do come, George.”

  George said he would love to come and would Lady Graham forgive him if he didn’t stay long, as the vet was coming to look at a cow, and then he went back to whatever work he was engaged upon, feeling that one more trouble was more than he wanted or needed. But as no one knew of this trouble, nor did he wish them to, he might as well go. It would be fun for Edith to be at the Towers with her cousins, and Mellings was a nice lad and had the makings of a good soldier in him. And then he laughed at himself for being patronizing, because Mellings would be a real solider and learn everything in its proper course, while he had only been an amateur, though a willing one. And then Panter, the carter, came in to ask about that new bit of harness he needed and George said he had better to into Barchester himself and see about it, knowing that a half-day off and a good time-wasting talk with the elderly saddler in Barley Street would do Panter as much good as a day at the sea. And when the saddler died, who would be able to do his work, to repair with love and pride a collar or a trace? Probably no one. One would have to buy and to throw away and then buy again. Soon there would not be a single good tradesman—in the older and better sense of that word—left in Barchester; perhaps not in the whole of West Barsetshire. Buy ready-made, use it till it rots or breaks, throw it away, buy again: that’s what it would be now.

  “And that” said George aloud to himself, angrily, “is that and grumbling won’t help,” so he did what he had got into the habit of calling “cleaning himself up,” as Panter did once a week on Saturday night, and drove across the river to Holdings. Lady Graham, wishing to make a kind of general welcome to Miss Merriman, had also asked the Vicar and young Mr. Crosse. Miss Merriman in the Pomfrets’ car was the first to arrive.

  “Dear Merry, how glad we are to have you,” said Lady Graham. “Edith is finishing her packing. Have you seen Miss Updike? Come into my room and tell me everything and your luggage will be taken up. If only darling mamma were here, how she would enjoy it all. She would have wanted to put flowers in your room herself. Do you remember at Rush-water when David was away somewhere and mamma painted some doves and green branches on the looking-glass in his room so that he couldn’t see to shave? Oh, dear!” which was a kind of half-laugh, half a gentle tear over the lost past. “I have put you in your old room, so you will feel quite safe.”

  Miss Merriman, with her usual composure, thanked Lady Graham from a heart more full of memories than she liked to acknowledge and said Miss Updike seemed very pleasant, had excellent manners and would obviously master the work she had to do within a very short time.

  “And Robert is looking forward so much to seeing you again,” said Lady Graham. “He says you are the only person who could ever manage darling mamma and he hopes you will manage me, but I told him not to be foolish, because you are simply here to rest and do nothing. We aren’t a party. I just asked the Vicar and that nice George Halliday because he works so hard at his farm and never gets any treats, and Mr. Crosse because he gets on so well with Robert and Edith and was in the war with George Halliday. Of course the whole village is longing to see you and the Mothers’ Union and the Friends of Barchester Hospital Sewing Society and the Women’s Institute; and Goble hopes the sow will farrow t6oday or tomorrow—trie White Porkminster—and that nice Mrs. Carter is longing to have you to tea. BUT,” her ladyship continued, “I am not going to allow anyone to make’ any plans unless you want them. You will be perfectly safe here,” at which kind and very understanding words Miss Merriman found herself quite gently crying. Not with any noise, but a pricking behind the eyes and quiet tears that would not cease their flow. Never before had anyone seen Miss Merriman cry. Not even when Lady Emily so gently departed. There was perhaps a night, many years ago now, after old Lord Pomfret’s heir, Gillie Foster as he was then, had proposed to the agent’s sister in the estate room and been accepted; but what memories, what sighs that night may have held were her own affair. Lady Graham’s kind heart was much moved and most sensibly she did not offer sympathy but took Miss Merriman straight up to her room, told her that lunch would be in about a quarter of an hour and left her to herself.

  When a quiet, composed Miss Merriman came down, she found the party assembling, the first being the Vicar. Then Sir Robert came in from the farm and expressed his pleasure at having her under his roof again. Edith came in with a rush and hugged Miss Merriman violently. Mr. Choyce’s kind face beamed upon her. Mr. Crosse said his father wanted him to bring her to Crosse Hall and would show her some old photographs of Lady Emily Leslie. Last, George Halliday came in with apologies for being late, but something had gone wrong with the tractor and he and Caxton had been underneath it and didn’t notice how the time had gone. Sir Robert said those tractors could be the deuce and the differential sprocket in his was playing Old Harry and Goble couldn’t get it right, and it meant sending for a man from Barchester and probably two or three days lost.

  “Weve had a bit of trouble with ours, sir,” said George. “Could I have a look at it after lunch? If it’s what it sounds like, I think we might patch it up,” an offer which Sir Robert at once accepted, saying that it would be good for Goble to see someone who could deal with it, as he had been boasting a good deal of his own knowledge of machinery.

  Then the party went in to lunch and talk was general, mostly about local affairs. Edith, excited by the thought of her new life at the Towers, was—as she had so often been—-a little above herself, but not quite enough for her mother to have to give her a motherly look. Odeena did not commit any very appalling solecisms and in general it was a pleasant and civilized meal. And we may say,—though without the least wish to criticize Lady Graham—that Sir Robert’s presence not only gave pleasure to his guests, but somehow produced a feeling of order and stability which were admirable foils to Lady Graham’s peculiar divagations. Everyone drank Edith’s health, as if she were going on a long voyage, not visiting cousins in the same county.

  Presently the Pomfrets’ chauffeur, who had been the life and soul of the kitchen and kissed the cook and got his face slapped for it to the incredulous joy of Odeena who suddenly saw The Pictures coming True, drove soberly up to the front door and there was almost as much good-byeing as if Edith were going to the end of the earth for ever. She hugged her father and mother—perhaps with a little anticipatory homesickness—hugged Miss Merriman and then, in an access of general benevolence, hugged the Vicar.

  “Kenny kissed me’” said Mr. Choyce, surprised and flattered, but no one paid attention and we doubt if most of the party heard, or if they did hear, took the allusion.

  “What about the Army?” said Mr. Crosse who was standing by George Halliday, upon which Edith with a further access of benevolence stood on tip-toe and hugged them both, which made everyone laugh and so they all went to the front of the house. Edith’s luggage was already in the car. She got in, Mr. Crosse shut the door, and the car drove away.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Mr. Crosse, “and I must get back to the bank or I’ll be sacked, even if father is a governor. Good-bye Lady Graham. Good-bye, Sir Robert, and if you want an overdraft let me know and I’ll put the heat on the board. Miss Merriman, I hope I may see you again before long,” and he drove back to his desk: though we believe it was really a small room of his own rather comfortably furnished in which he did work about which we know nothing and received important customers with a grave manner that made him laugh at himself when he thought about it afterwards.

  Sir Robert and George Halliday then went off to see the tractor and George, after listening with great patience to Goble’s de
scription of the machine’s misdemeanours, asked if Goble could lend him some overalls and disappeared under it with a spanner and some other tools about which we know nothing. Presently he came out in a very undignified way on his back, feet foremost, got into the driver’s seat, and pulled some handles. The great machine made an agreeable noise and began to move.

  “That’s all right, sir. You’ve done it,” said Goble. “And if you’re wanting a boar, sir, any time, our old Holdings Blunderbore will oblige and proud to do it, as between friends. Just you let me know, sir,” so of course George had to tip Goble for the work that he, George, had done on the tractor. But so do the wheels of life go round, and there is no oil like a pleasant word and some coin of the realm.

  So with mutual esteem they parted and George went back to his lonely home. He hoped Edith would be very happy with her cousins at the Towers. Young Mellings had the makings of a good soldier in him and he wished him all good luck. He and Edith were cousins; cousins often married and after all they were cousins pretty far removed. Crosse was a good fellow too, with a property and title in the future to offer. Hatch House was no home to offer to anyone at present; nor was he himself much to offer—an ex-Serviceman, well into his thirties now. It wouldn’t be fair, but one couldn’t help thinking about it. In the day it was not so difficult because there was so much to do; and in the evening all those forms and papers and other county commitments. But when one was alone in the evening and had finished dealing with forms and papers, one could not help thinking and heaven knew where one’s thoughts might go. Something Shakespeare had said somewhere about chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. Well, chewing the cud—and seeing about the farm and the pigs and the fences and the hateful mass of unnecessary papers and forms one had to deal with. Time did pass. But one’s thoughts remained. He put his car away and went indoors to see what the post had brought. Then he went out onto the farm and gave his mind to the land by which and on which his forbears had lived, and listened with justice and a good deal of patience to what various people had to say about the work and so the afternoon passed, and so, with more work at the endless papers, the evening passed and bed was there to lull one into a temporary peace and forgetfulness—if one could sleep. But he did sleep and even if he woke to a sense of loss the farm was there and the farmer must serve his land. So life goes on.