‘And where is it now?’
‘Still there, so far as I know. I put the board back and left it there.’
‘What an odd thing!’
‘I thought it odd. And since then I’ve remembered that there’s a cross-roads near Corston that the country people call Sewell’s Cross. You know it?’
‘Oh yes. They say a suicide is buried there.’
‘The old women hereabouts have it that she was a servant at Corston in Queen Anne’s day. She fell into a melancholy and made away with herself, nobody knew why.’
‘Served her right for meddling with spells,’ said Latymer, who did not like this story.
‘Oh, but she was the victim,’ exclaimed Venetia. ‘It was J.Q. who put it secretly in her bed-chamber. And it was Katharine Sewell who “banished away”.’
‘If I had found it,’ declared Latymer, ‘I should have thrown it in the river.’
‘It might float,’ murmured Venetia.
Romilly jumped, in spite of himself. A sudden, inexplicable shiver ran over his body. For a few seconds the warm sunshine lighted some pictured scene from which he was excluded.
‘Whatever it may be,’ said Latymer, ‘it’s associated with malice and ill will. That’s always wicked.’
‘Should you,’ she asked Romilly, ‘call it an antiquity?’
‘Not exactly. These relics of our rude forefathers don’t deserve such a respectable name. But I’ll look for it sometime when I’m at Corston.’
He rose as he spoke for Jenny had come out of the house and was scuttling towards them as though on some kind of errand. But it appeared that she merely intended to join them and to chaperone Venetia. They then all sat down again.
Their bench was not very convenient for social intercourse. It was circular, running right round the tree trunk. Three could sit there talking together. Four could not, since those at the end of the row pretty well had their backs to one another. They were obliged to converse in pairs. Jenny bombarded Latymer with all the questions commonly asked of a sailor. She seemed to have developed the catechising vein often adopted by shy women who find it difficult to sustain a conversation.
Venetia, by silence, invited Romilly to introduce a topic and he asked if there were many balls in the neighbourhood. She said that there were scarcely any.
‘We have no men, you see, save one family — the Freemans, they are five brothers, but it’s possible to grow tired of dancing with the Freemans. Now that we have you and Mr. Latymer your sisters must give a ball as soon as they come home. For all our sakes, Mr. Brandon, pray stay for it. Don’t go back to London without dancing with any of us.’
‘I’m not going back to London.’
‘So everyone says. But I fear you will, in the end. You are reputed to be so very fond of pictures, and at the Priors you must continually be looking at a prodigiously long horse who hangs over your dining-room sideboard. He must spoil your dinner horribly.’
‘The Brandon Arabian? I mean to remove him.’
‘Impossible. He was your grandfather’s horse. I’m sure no horse was ever so long. The painter put an extra leaf in him, like a dining-room table.’
‘I think of throwing him into the canal.’
‘Never! You’ll never get him off that wall.’
Romilly had already failed to get him off that wall. George declared him to be too heavy, and they were waiting for William’s return from Hereford.
‘And how many ships are there in a squadron?’ demanded Jenny, who was giving Latymer a heavy time of it.
‘But I hope you’ll promote some of your pictures,’ said Venetia. ‘In one of the bedchambers, the yellow room, you have a charming landscape. Tall trees and fountains and sunlight.’
‘How our tastes agree!’ exclaimed Romilly. ‘I mean to put it in place of my poor long horse, if it don’t turn out to be too small. Have you any idea of the painter?’
‘Oh, I know nothing about pictures. I’ve been nowhere and seen nothing, you know. But I like it.’
‘I must compliment you for doing so.’
‘It reminds me of one I saw in a great house near Bath, to which we were taken when I was at school. It was something the same. The painter was Fragonard.’
‘Fragonard!’ cried Romilly, becoming genuinely enthusiastic. ‘Exactly! That’s my guess too. You must have a very keen eye. As to the history of this picture I know nothing. I must try to find out. But I went to Paris for a short time, during the Peace, after Amiens. And I saw there a great Fragonard … trees, fountains, sunlight … I believe that mine is a sketch for it….’
At this point the quartet on the bench was broken up by the appearance of Dr. Newbolt, overflowing with welcome. The two girls were dismissed and the visitors driven indoors to the study.
This was a darkish room, smelling of books, the light obscured by a large cedar too close to the window. Romilly, looking round it, remembered a ceremonial visit paid on the eve of his Confirmation. He had come here in great trepidation, because his father insisted that it was the thing, but unable to guess what might be expected of him. Old Newbolt had behaved like a gentleman. He gave his young caller a glass of wine and discussed dry fly fishing. At the very end of the visit he said hastily:
‘And tomorrow? Eh? I’m sure you feel as you ought. You are to be done first. Bow to the Bishop immediately upon rising, remember! Then the other children will perhaps follow your example.’
Glasses of wine were offered now. Nor was conversation difficult, for their host undertook the whole of it. He told them why Buonaparte was certain to lose the war, why dairymaids never caught the smallpox, and why Cranton burnt salt in his kilns on a Saturday.
‘But we don’t suffer much from the smoke over here. They’re a ruffianly-looking lot Cranton has working for him; but he keeps them so hard at it they’ve no time to get into mischief. They cause us less trouble than we feared when first they came. And his wares are pretty enough. Venetia was for buying one of his dinner sets. But we scarcely need it now that we are such a small party. All the boys gone, you know. Frank is with the East India Company. Charles is a banker. Harry is at the Bar, and Stephen has taken orders. I have only Venetia left, nor can I hope to keep her for ever. I must give her up some day, no doubt. Nor shall I grumble when the time comes, though I shall miss her sadly. She will be the last to go. I shall then be quite alone, save for Jenny….’
When he pauses for breath, if he ever does, thought Romilly, I shall jump up and go. We must have been here an hour.
He suddenly remembered another visit to this room. Jenny, long, long ago, had brought him there on tiptoe to show him the passage about Lord Cam. He looked over at the corner where they had found the old book and spelled over the text, for it had been early in their reading days. He wondered if it was there still.
‘You used,’ he said suddenly, ‘to have an old travel book …’
‘Ah yes!’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘A great treasure. But I’ve lost it. A most vexatious thing. I never had the original. I made a copy in my own hand once from a folio, and got it printed. A whimsical thing to do, perhaps. And now, it’s a shocking story …’
A servant mercifully appeared with the news that the horse doctor had called to see to the mare. Excusing himself, Dr. Newbolt bustled off, and his visitors could escape without having to hear the shocking story.
5
ON TUESDAY LATYMER offered to lend a hand with the pictures. Amongst them they got the Brandon Arabian down from his wall and propped him against the dining-room fireplace. Upon hearing from George that a-many big old pictures did be laying up in the attics, Romilly had them all brought down. By dinner time every chair in the house had a picture propped against its back, and all felt that much had been accomplished.
On Wednesday they rode to the other side of the county, in order to escape from the sight of what they had done. Returning just before five o’clock they were struck by something altered in the aspect of the house as they trotted up the drive. It loo
ked less empty and somnolent. This impression was confirmed by the sight of the stable-yard, full of carriages, horses and servants. Mrs. Brandon, Bet, Amabel, Ellen, the governess, William, the coachman, a groom, and two maids, had suddenly come home. They had, moreover, brought with them Lady Baddeley, three of her children, and four of her servants.
‘What in the world can they mean by it?’ fumed Romilly. ‘People should not turn up like this without warning.’
He strode out of the yard in a fine rage, followed by Latymer who was trying not to laugh. Between the stables and the house they met Ellen, grown out of all knowledge, a blooming young creature of fifteen.
‘Rom!’ she exclaimed. ‘Thank heaven you are come. We are all so hungry and Partridge won’t let us have any dinner until six o’clock.’
She had no business to call him Rom. Even Charlotte and Sophy had ceased to do that. He said severely that he had not expected them home so soon.
‘And we had not expected you at all!’
Latymer gave a smothered guffaw, at which she burst out laughing. Romilly crossly introduced them, and demanded the meaning of this invasion.
‘Sophy’s children have got the scarlet fever. Since we have not had it Mama thought we had better come away, and Charlotte came with us, because she was staying with Sophy too.’
‘Charlotte has a house of her own.’
‘She’s afraid of the infection for little Creighton. He’s so delicate. She left him behind in Berkshire. If the others have taken the fever it will be safe for him if they have it here.’
‘In my house!’
‘How could we know that you were in it? Poor Mama! She was moaning and bewailing on all the way home at the pother there would be, with Mrs. Edwardes gone to Bristol and Flinders in the midst of spring-cleaning. She said we should get no dinner. Nor have we. Is it true that we are always to dine at six?’
‘I dine at that hour. I gave no orders as to schoolroom meals.’
‘But we all of us, always, dine with Mama,’ protested Ellen.
‘Not when I am at home. Come, Latymer….’
‘Has Mr. Latymer had the scarlet fever?’
‘Yes,’ gulped Latymer.
‘Then he is safe. But not you, Rom. Mama says you never had it. I daresay you will catch it from us. We may sicken at any time: Amabel was very unwell coming home.’
‘Where is my mother?’ demanded Romilly.
‘Walking about looking for a chair to sit on. There seem to be pictures …’
Romilly stormed into the house. His mother was in the drawing-room, walking up and down with a plate of bread and butter. She, at any rate, showed some contrition.
‘Oh, my dearest Romilly! Could anything be more unlucky! Five days! I’m afraid you must have been very … and you brought a friend with you! Friday evening! And we went off on Friday morning, little knowing. It so happened that there was this delightful … the girls were wild to go and Sophy quite pressed us and Charlotte was to be there too … Music Festival at Hereford. And they say you brought no servant!’
‘I should have managed pretty well,’ said Romilly, returning her kiss, ‘if you had left me a cook.’
‘Ay, that’s the worst of it. Poor Dolly Skeate! Yet at the time it seemed an excellent … poor Edwardes was so anxious to go to Bristol. Her daughter, you know, lying in with a first child. That partly decided me….’
She paused to take a bite of bread and butter, giving Romilly time to suggest that these mishaps must never recur.
‘Oh, no. As for the pictures! I never gave orders. Flinders must have run mad. But George and William are hard at work putting them back again. They have got the horse up, and several more. They might as well, you know, since we are not to dine till … so here you see me eating bread and butter! To tell the truth we have none of us ate anything since breakfast, save for some wine and cake we had in the carriage with us.’
She paused to take another bite.
‘My dear ma’am …’
It was an excellent opportunity for a first hint of the benefit to be derived from separate establishments. But he was frustrated by Charlotte who now walked in, greeted him casually, and turned her back on him whilst complaining that Latymer had got the room she had designed for her children.
‘I think he had better be moved to the North room.’
‘I think not,’ said Romilly. ‘This is my house, you know, and my friend …’
‘Yes, my love,’ cried the flustered Mrs. Brandon. ‘We can’t very well ask Romilly’s friend to …’
‘He has been asked. He’s moving his clothes now and Ellen is helping him.’
‘Give orders in your own house, Charlotte….’
‘If they take the fever they must be near me. We should in that case be forced to stay here for a good many weeks.’
She had always treated him with very little deference, and had encouraged the others to do so. Now, having married a baronet, she was worse than ever.
He stalked out of the room. The house was full of bumping, banging doors, maids calling from room to room, and children bawling. In the corridor upstairs he collided with the governess who carried a sinister-looking basin from Amabel’s room. Bet poked a fat red face round a door. She grinned at him, vanished, and announced to somebody behind her that ‘His Lordship is in a tantrum’.
Dinner, which was not served until a quarter to seven, suggested that this crisis had completely overpowered Dolly Skeate. Partridge and William waited, with gloomy faces, as if ashamed of the dishes they handed. Mrs. Brandon, at the head of the table, sent terrified glances of apology to Romilly at the foot of it. Amabel, still indisposed, remained upstairs in the care of the governess. Conversation was carried on by Charlotte, Bet, Ellen and Latymer.
‘If they should take the fever,’ said Charlotte, ‘I doubt if Patty can manage. Is there a nurse to be got in the village?’
‘You could send for Jenny Newbolt,’ suggested Bet. ‘She’s a capital nurse.’
‘Oh yes. I’d forgotten her. It’s strange how one does.’
‘Very little to remember,’ said Bet. ‘A pair of hands. A pair of feet. That’s the sum total of Jenny Newbolt.’
‘I should feel perfectly easy if she would … but would she sleep here? Could her father spare her?’
‘He could spare her for ever so long as he has his doting piece … oh, by the way, Mama, did you give Venetia leave to come and play on our instrument whenever she pleases?’
‘I … I don’t remember,’ stammered Mrs. Brandon, aware that anything she might have done would probably turn out to be wrong.
‘Flinders says she walked in here one morning, as cool as a cucumber, and sat playing for hours.’
‘I expect Amabel told her to come,’ put in Ellen. ‘They are great friends nowadays.’
‘I don’t approve,’ said Charlotte. ‘She’ll make Amabel as idle as she is herself. We all know that Venetia spent five years at boarding school and came home with nothing to show for it.’
‘Except,’ suggested Romilly, ‘a remarkably good French accent.’
There was a startled silence. For the first time his ladies began to wonder what he might have been up to since Friday. Their faces fell.
‘You called at the Parsonage?’ suggested Mrs. Brandon.
‘Naturally.’
‘And talked French with Venetia?’ cried Charlotte.
‘We discussed Marivaux.’
‘Oh indeed! At her age she should not have read Marivaux.’
‘I daresay she never has,’ put in Bet. ‘She can talk as if she had read everything.’
‘A marked accomplishment,’ said Romilly. ‘So many girls talk as though they had read nothing.’
Even Charlotte was silenced.
The meal ended in an unusually long wait for some course which never appeared. Dolly Skeate must have thrown up the sponge. Mrs. Brandon, meeting the eye of Partridge and receiving no encouragement to linger, jumped up and fled, followed by her daughters
. Romilly, pushing the port decanter towards Latymer, apologised for the dinner.
‘But I like all this,’ said Latymer. ‘A large family party … children in the house … though I hope they won’t take the fever, and it’s a shame she should miss her frolic.’
‘Who?’
‘Your youngest sister. Why did you tell me she is only twelve years old?’
‘She was when I saw her last.’
They did not stay over their wine for long. Latymer went off to join the ladies by whom he was cordially received. Ellen, whilst helping him to move his clothes, had learnt something of his situation and had told the others. Their hearts were softened. His cheerful good nature in so readily changing his quarters had already won their approval. Even Charlotte smiled at him when she heard that he had offered to take her little boy on a fishing frolic.
The master of the house fled from it, having no refuge within, no place where he might be safe from bustle and hostility.
The evening was beautiful. He sauntered down to the bridge and watched the fading sunset clouds reflected in the canal. Behind him a moon, near full, rose over the woods towards Corston. He perceived that his situation was ridiculous and that he had only himself to thank for that. Why should his return to Stretton Priors be welcomed by anybody? His absence had suited them much better. After ten years they had come to regard the house as their own, where they might do as they liked.
He could not avoid the suspicion that some of the neglect with which he had been treated arose from deliberate policy. Charlotte and Bet meant to exasperate him into departure, and his mother had not the character to withstand them. In that case he must expect further assaults upon his consequence and comfort, which he must parry as best he might until Charlotte went back to Berkshire. She must do so eventually, and then they should know who was master.
The moon sailed clear of the woods, turning the park to black and silver. There were lights in most of the windows of Stretton Priors where they were all, doubtless, still making Bedlam, stampeding from room to room and squalling at one another.
A Night in Cold Harbour Page 5