‘No,’ she cast her eyes sideways at him, ‘only curious.’
‘Yes,’ he repeated boldly, ‘only curious.’
She did not pick this up but asked, ‘Do most visitors to the Hart arouse the entire interest of the village?’
‘Not usually. But then they’re mostly very ordinary.’
She smiled a little at the covered compliment, and her head fell back against the tree. Then she blew the cigarette smoke upwards into the leaves, and remarked in a polite tone which dissociated itself from the content of her words, ‘Mrs Booth is what is commonly known as a bloody bitch, isn’t she?’
Now it was his laugh that rang through the woods, and he was past caring who heard it.
‘You’ve said it there; we’re agreed on that point anyway.’ He straightened his back and brought his shoulders into a line with hers, and she turned her face full to his as she said, ‘if I were to know you long, I should insist that you had two whiskies and two pints every night, and then everything I did or said wouldn’t shock you.’
His brow gathered, ‘What makes you think you shock me?’
‘I know I do. Last night you thought I was much too free with the men, didn’t you?’
The silence hung between them for a moment before he said, ‘You know too much. But I wasn’t shocked as you call it, just puzzled and’—he became bold—‘set wondering where you’d learnt all you know.’
She did not answer immediately; then she said offhandedly, ‘You pay very questionable compliments, Peter. But I learnt what I know, as you call it, in America and repertory—and in a garage.’
Ignoring the first two he exclaimed in open amazement, ‘In a garage!’
‘I used to help sell cars.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes. What’s so very surprising about that?’
‘In America?’
‘No, here in England. I was evacuated as a child to America, to the south. Hence the touch of accent. I came back when I was seventeen.’
‘But cars, how did you get into that business?’
Her lids dropped and her lips fell together, and she stretched her arm forward and tapped the ash from the end of her cigarette. ‘That’s a long, long story.’
‘The fellow today—was he part of that story?’
She looked slowly back at him again. ‘Yes, he was.’
Peter ran one dry lip over the other. ‘Is he your husband?’
Again the silence came, longer this time. ‘No, he’s not my husband.’
Did he detect regret in the admission…longing. His mouth was still dry as he asked, ‘Who is he then?’
‘Someone I know.’
‘In the car business?’
‘Yes, in the car business.’
She turned her face away and it looked to him almost transparent now, standing out like chiselled alabaster from the tree and the deepening shadows of the wood. And as he stared at it there leapt into his body an urgent longing to hold her. He wanted to pull her towards him and bury himself in the whiteness of her. It was no gentle urge but a fierce demand that sought to wrestle with something that was embodied in the pale thinness of her. Almost imperceptibly he moved a fraction along the log; then after a short lapse, during which neither of them spoke, he moved again. It was at the third move that her voice, quiet and with her drawl more pronounced, said, ‘Don’t come any nearer, Peter.’
Nothing she could have done or said could have had a more douching effect. His boldness, created by the whisky, deserted him, and with it fled the last vestige of stimulation the drink had afforded. Her quiet command knocked him sober.
The manner in which she had exposed his urge, which some delicacy told him should never have been made plain with words, shook him, and for the moment he had the uncomfortable feeling of being stark naked…and added to this the very strong feeling of having stepped out of his place. Even Florrie had never made him feel like this.
He got to his feet, humiliated and angry. Not for him the stalling tactics of ‘What do you mean? Who’s doing anything?’ Nor yet the charm his father might have used. In this moment he was as he imagined himself to be, gauche. His face was scarlet; his hands were searching for tow; his long legs refused to be still, yet would not carry him away. So much, his lacerated vanity told him, for the affair he’d dreamed of last night. He was no more capable of handling such an affair than would be any village idiot.
When she, too, rose to her feet with a swift movement that was not in keeping with her lazy attitude, and stood so close to him that the tiny beads of moisture on her brow below her hairline were visible to him in the fading light, he became rigidly still, and it wasn’t of the smallest consolation to him to note that it was now she who was disturbed.
‘Peter’—she touched his sleeve—‘I’m sorry I said that, but—’ She paused and her head moved downwards in a troubled, bewildered fashion. ‘This is mad, utterly, utterly mad. Twenty-four hours. It’s crazy and it can’t happen, even in fun.’ She pulled her eyes upwards towards him now, and fixed them on him, and with her drawl hardly evident she said rapidly, ‘Peter, you’re nice, and a little fun with you would be nice, too. There was a time when I would have enjoyed it, then driven on, but not now. And don’t think I can explain why—I can’t. I’m not snubbing you when I won’t let you start anything, believe me. I like you, Peter. I liked you the moment I set eyes on you. I like to be near you—you make me want to laugh, and that signifies much more than you think. Even when you’re not uttering a word you make me want to laugh. I felt I knew you from the word go, but I’m not going to know you any further or in any other way.’
When he did not answer but continued to stare at her, she closed her eyes and her body slumped until she appeared to lose inches, and her voice sounded as tired as she looked when she said, ‘You don’t understand a word that I’ve been saying or why I’ve had to say it. And how should you? I knew last night I shouldn’t stay here…I’ll go in the morning.’
‘You needn’t go because of me.’ He could hardly press the words past his tongue, which seemed to be filling his mouth. ‘I can keep out of your way.’
‘Oh Peter! Peter.’ There was a break in her voice, and her words as she went on were mostly unintelligible to him. All he could make out of them was: ‘I’ll bring you misery…tired…tired to death. Can’t explain anything…not a thing…’
She swayed as she stood; her hands were over her face now pressing back her sobs. Last night she had laughed as if she would never stop; now she was crying as if she would never stop.
When his arms went round her and drew her to rest against him she made no protest but came almost as a weary child and moved her face into his coat as if searching for a place to rest. His hand was on her hair, the loose, wanton yellow hair; his chin could feel the smoothness of her cheek; her body lay close to his, yet it fired no urge. The feelings of the previous moment did not retrace their steps and leap back into him, but as he stood thus in the wood, with night fast closing about them forming a cloak which could be turned into a world to hold them alone, he felt for her only a great tenderness that had its birth in pity, and this tenderness had in it no ingredient for an affair; it brought him no promise of ecstasy, not even a small scrap of comfort, for in some quite inexplicable way he sensed he had linked himself to sorrow. How or why, it was beyond him to explain.
Chapter Four
The post office was full. Six people were in the shop, four at the stamp counter and two at the grocery. One of the latter was Miss Collins, and when it came her turn to be served, with prim condescension which she would have termed humility, she waived her priority to Mrs Fellows, and after watching the ungodly woman—for Mrs Fellows had never set foot in the church and it was her proud boast that she never intended to—being served, and with narrowed eyes having watched her leave the shop, she turned to the waiting Mrs Armstrong and said, ‘Ah, well now, what do I want?’
With a robin-like movement Mrs Armstrong put her head to one side
, and she smiled and waited.
‘I’d better have some biscuits, quarter pound of wholemeal—I’m visiting Granny West. And yes, of course, I want extra sugar—we picked about twenty pounds of blackberries yesterday.’
‘You did?’ Mrs Armstrong bustled to the tins lined up with gaping tops behind a glass frame. ‘I wish I had time to go picking, the weather’s so lovely. The wood must be full.’ The lid of the case clicked open. Mrs Armstrong grabbed up a handful of biscuits from a tin, dropped them into the bag, put down the lid again and returned to her position behind the counter before Miss Collins gave an answer to her remark.
‘Not so much with blackberries as with people.’ Miss Collins’s pupils were large.
‘Really?’ Mrs Armstrong did not look at the scales.
‘You haven’t heard the latest?’
‘No.’ The scales bounced gently. Still without looking at them Mrs Armstrong took off the bag, gave it an expert twist and placed it on the counter in front of Miss Collins. Her eyes had never left the minister’s sister, and she endeavoured to keep from her expression any sign of the malicious amusement she was feeling, for whatever the latest Miss Collins was about to impart it would certainly not be the same latest that she herself had already heard. The vicar’s sister, she imagined, wouldn’t be looking so smarmy if she knew that her lamb of a brother walked two solid miles along the main road yesterday afternoon with the piece from the Hart and was so taken up with her that he forgot to make his usual weekly call on old Mr Taplow, and there was Mrs Taplow waiting at the window when she saw him stalk by, stepping out like a spring gobbler—that had been Ray Sutton’s expression. Ray had seen them from the byres in the farmyard, across the way from the Taplows. No, whatever she was going to hear from Miss Collins, it wouldn’t be this.
‘You wouldn’t believe it, you really wouldn’t.’
‘No?’ Mrs Armstrong’s eyebrows moved up expectantly.
‘The major.’
‘The major! No, Miss Collins.’ Mrs Armstrong’s chin came in and Miss Collins’s chin went up.
‘It’s a fact, and what do you think?’ Miss Collins leaned across the counter, bringing her head down to Mrs Armstrong’s, and her whisper was heavy with the insignia of sin, ‘They were lying on the grass together’—there was a considerable pause—‘sporting!’
The result of this information on the postmistress, who was steeped in tattle, was most gratifying. Her upper plate jerked loose in her gaping mouth and she saved it from bouncing onto the counter only by some expert lip contortion. With a final flick of her tongue, Mrs Armstrong got her teeth into place.
‘You don’t mean to say, Miss Collins!’
‘I do. Mavis saw them with her own eyes. And something else, too…Peter Puddleton, he was in the wood looking for her…the…the woman, not her, not Mavis. And what do you think? He was drunk again! Oh, that poor girl, she was so upset. I happened to be in the vicarage garden as she was passing and I had to bring her in and console her. And that’s not all.’
Mrs Armstrong was beyond speech; nor could her eyes stretch any wider. She waited for Miss Collins to continue; and Miss Collins continued, her whisper getting deeper and more ominous.
‘What do you think we saw on the road? This was later when I was escorting Mavis home.’
Mrs Armstrong did not move a muscle.
‘Mr Puddleton, Mr Harry Puddleton’—she emphasised the Harry—‘and Mr Fountain creeping furtively into the wood. We saw them jump the ditch by the cottage, and with them the old man, Joe. He couldn’t jump the ditch but went scurrying round by the gate, hoping to avoid being seen. And they couldn’t say they were going fishing for there wasn’t a line between them. Can you believe it?’
Mrs Armstrong’s head moved very slowly from side to side; then contradicting her reaction she said hastily in an undertone, ‘Yes, yes I can. That type drives men mad. Me mother here’—Mrs Armstrong jerked out her chin and thrust her head back towards a half-glassed, thinly curtained door behind which could be faintly discerned the figure of an old woman sitting in an armchair—‘me mother saw her go up the street yesterday, and you know she’s not much interested in things now at her age but she was when she saw the Hart piece. Stared after her she did for a long time, and then she said a funny thing.’ Mrs Armstrong turned towards the glass door as if to make sure it was closed, then leant across the counter towards Miss Collins and her voice was a whisper now as she went on, ‘“Who’s she?” she said. “Don’t see many like her knockin’ about. I know that sort—had some dealing with ’em—always cause upsets, that sort.” Then you know what she said? She said, “Puts me in mind of somebody she does.” “Who?” I asked. “Can’t say right off,” she said, “but it’ll come. But I remember this much, she was no good.”’
The two women looked at each other. ‘And then,’ concluded Mrs Armstrong, ‘have you heard what they’re calling her?’
‘No.’
‘Slinky Jane.’
Mrs Armstrong’s round face was an expanse of glee, but the joke found no response in Miss Collins. Her mouth was drawn to a button, bringing her lined face into furrows as she emitted, ‘Slinky Jane! Well, whoever named her that knew what they were talking about, I’ve never heard of a name that suited anyone better. A Slinky Jane…she certainly is that!’
Mrs Armstrong’s head was nodding and her smile broadening when, as if pulled by a string, it slid suddenly away, and with her eyes directed over Miss Collins’s shoulder she said in a clipped undertone, ‘Mrs Carrington-Barrett. She’s just stopped across the way. She’s talking to Mr Johnston.’
Miss Collins did not turn round to ascertain where Mrs Carrington-Barrett actually was, but her eyes did a swift circular exercise. Then in a voice loud enough to proclaim the legitimacy of the excuse for her hurry she patted the biscuits and said, ‘I’ll settle for these later when I call for the sugar, I don’t want to carry it round with me. Granny West looks forward to her little titbit.’ She shook the bag and smiled. Then, bestowing a parting and somewhat detached nod on Mrs Armstrong, she turned with an air of casualness and left the shop.
Mrs Armstrong remained still while she watched the vicar’s sister make a beeline for the major’s wife. If she wasn’t mistaken there was going to be a lid blown off this morning. Miss Collins had been looking for some dynamite to throw at Mrs Carrington-Barrett for years, and now she had it. Mrs Armstrong suddenly hugged herself and waited and watched. And she did neither in vain, for within less than three minutes she saw that Miss Collins had struck.
It was about an hour later when Miss Collins passed the garage. She had no need to pass the garage but she was drunk with the battle of righteousness. During the past hour she had not only paid a sick visit but achieved two victories over the pride of her neighbours, for after having seen Mrs Carrington-Barrett’s blood being drained from her face to leave it a sickly grey and the lady’s vocabulary momentarily paralysed, she had encountered Amelia Fountain. Now Mrs Fountain was a fluctuating Christian, sometimes she was Church, less Church than Chapel, and because of this she was a source of irritation to Miss Collins. Moreover, there was something else Miss Collins held against Mrs Fountain. During the war and after, gratis choice cuts had now and again found their way to the rectory table; in fact, these little kindnesses of Bill’s had continued up to two years ago, when they had ceased, and such was the situation that nothing could be said about the matter. Miss Collins, in her mind, had put the blame wholly upon Mrs Fountain and had only been waiting an opportunity to pay the butcher’s wife out for her meanness.
Amelia Fountain was a thin, sharp-faced little woman, the complete antithesis of her husband in everything, including temper, but such was the shock she had received that morning on hearing the vicar’s sister hint more than broadly that her Bill was one of the infatuated males who were chasing through the woods after the piece from the Hart that her retaliation almost choked her; it had left her, like Mrs Carrington-Barrett, speechless. Amelia had experienced
an almost overpowering desire to jump on the long, thin piece of skin and misery that was Miss Collins, but her thoughts, leaping back to the middle of the night, had further paralysed her, for she could feel the great whale-like proportions of her husband tossing to and fro as he muttered over and over again, ‘Eeh, she’s lovely…beautiful…’ and a word which she couldn’t catch. She had dug him with her elbow and he had woken up puffing and blowing as he always did. Then from Miss Collins’s lips Amelia was supplied with the missing word—it was Jane! She recognised it immediately, and without even a word in her husband’s defence she had left Miss Collins in the middle of further information and made straight for the shop.
After victory number two one might have thought that Miss Collins would have rested. But no, she wasn’t done yet—there were the prime movers in this affair to be brought to book, the Puddletons. Yet she was wise enough, following on the events of yesterday afternoon, not to visit Rosie and inform her that her husband, too, had been running loose in the wood—that could wait, she would get that over to Rosie later—but to finish this morning’s work there remained Peter and the vindication of Mavis. What she would say to that young man he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
Miss Collins was happy, very happy, and it could be said to be unfortunate for her that she should encounter the twins playing a game to which they resorted only when bored—they were, like their Grandpop, spitting to pass the time. Lying in the ditch bordering the road of the spare piece of land, they were whiling away the time until Peter should return and they could pass on the message that ‘the Miss’ had given them. The time seemed to hang less heavy when they played this game of attempting to register hits on passing vehicles. Tony’s efforts they did not count as he was always in command of an unlimited supply of saliva. As traffic could not be called heavy they lay and sucked the long hollow stems of the grasses between bouts, but would return to the job in hand with enthusiasm on the sound of wheels coming from around the bend. Being unable to see what type of vehicle was actually approaching until it was almost on top of them made the game all the more exciting. They could, however, distinguish between farm machinery and cars, and the awaited victim now was undoubtedly of the farm variety, as was denoted by its loud rattling and the slowness of its approach.
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