“You couldn’t possibly,” agreed Mamie. “Oh Rhoda, how dreadful!”
“Sit down and have your tea,” said Jock, pulling in a chair for her. “You’ll feel better when you’ve had your tea.”
“Tell us about poor Flockie,” said Mamie.
Unfortunately Rhoda was unable to tell them much about poor Flockie except that the doctor had come to see her that morning and had decided that she had better be taken to hospital at once. Rhoda had been too distraught to listen carefully to the doctor’s diagnosis. Louise suggested it might be appendicitis but Rhoda thought not. Unlike Louise, Rhoda knew very little about the ills that the flesh is heir to.
“Something wrong with her inside,” said Rhoda vaguely. “She’s got to have something taken out. She’ll be in hospital for at least a month—probably more. Poor darling Flockie, I’m terribly sorry for her.”
“You’ll need somebody to help you,” suggested Jock. “Maybe you could get a woman from one of the cottages.”
“Oh, I’ve got Effie, of course. She’s the cow-man’s daughter. She’s frightfully decent and willing but she doesn’t know a thing. I have to be after her all the time telling her this and that. She can’t wash up a few dishes without smashing something—and it’s usually something particularly nice. Yesterday she seized the cut-glass decanter which the Forresters gave us as a wedding present and plunged it into boiling water—you can imagine the result!” Rhoda sighed and added, “Of course I always knew Flockie did a lot but I never realised just how much—until now. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could cook but I don’t seem to be able to. Isn’t it silly of me?”
“You can paint beautiful pictures,” said Mamie in a comforting tone.
Rhoda laughed, not very mirthfully. “Poor James can’t eat pictures,” she said. “I tell you what, Mamie; I’d take a murderess if she could cook. Of course Flockie will come back when she’s better but it may be weeks and weeks—by which time James will be as thin as a skeleton and I’ll be dead.”
This tragic announcement put an end to the subject and the others began to talk of something else. Bel, who happened to be sitting next to Rhoda, leant forward and said, “Mrs. Dering Johnstone, I wonder——”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Rhoda. “Don’t call me that. It’s far too long and clumsy. It would be ever so much easier for you to call me Rhoda, wouldn’t it?—or wouldn’t it?”
Bel hesitated uneasily. She was not quite sure whether it would.
“Do try,” said Rhoda. “You could practise it, couldn’t you? Try saying ‘Rhoda, Rhoda, Rhoda’ twelve times out loud.”
It was so ridiculous and Rhoda looked so serious that Bel began to laugh.
Rhoda laughed too. She said, “I quite see the others might be a bit surprised, so perhaps you’d better practise in private.”
“Here, what’s the joke?” asked Jock.
“Not very funny, really,” said Rhoda.
“Then why are you laughing,” Mamie, not unnaturally enquired.
“Come on, Rhoda,” said Jock encouragingly. “Tell us the joke. You’re not usually so blate.”
“I’m not ‘blate’,” declared Rhoda. “My worst enemy couldn’t accuse me of being ‘blate’. In fact some people think I’m a bit too forward. I’ll tell you what we were laughing at if you really want to know. It was just that I asked Bel to call me Rhoda and she seemed a bit doubtful about it so I suggested she should practise it in private.”
Told like this the joke was not in the least funny. Nobody laughed.
“I told you it wasn’t funny,” said Rhoda. “As a matter of fact it seemed rather funny at the time, but it doesn’t seem a bit funny now. That’s the worst of jokes; they’re never so funny when you repeat them.”
“Some are,” said Jock chuckling. “I’ll tell you a good one. A chap told it to me last week at the market—ha—ha! It’s about a bull—ha—ha—ha!”
“Jock!” exclaimed Mamie anxiously. “Are you sure it’s quite suitable?”
Jock hesitated and looked round the table. “Well, maybe you’re right, Mamie,” he said doubtfully. “Maybe it’s not just quite the thing—but it’s awfully funny—ha—ha—ha!”
“Jock, tell us at once!” exclaimed Rhoda imperatively.
“No, no,” said Jock chuckling. “No, Mamie’s right. It’s not quite the thing. It’s a pity—because it’s awfully funny.”
“I’ll get it out of you some other time,” declared Rhoda. She rose as she spoke.
“You’re not going!” exclaimed Mamie in dismay. “Rhoda! You’ve only just come!”
“I must,” said Rhoda regretfully. “I’ve got to prepare some sort of meal for James and the boys. Eggs or something,” said Rhoda vaguely. “How do you make an omelet, Mamie?”
Mamie began to describe the method of making an omelet but before she had got very far Louise chipped in and told her quite a different way.
“I shall boil them,” declared Rhoda. “It’s far too difficult and I can’t stay a moment longer.”
When Rhoda Dering Johnstone said she could not stay a moment longer she meant it, and when she started to move she moved quickly; she did not dilly and dally over the ceremony of goodbye (besides, she really was in a tearing hurry to get home and prepare a meal for her family), so she flashed a friendly smile at everybody and waved her hand and went. She was already in the car and had started the engine when she saw Bel Lamington pursuing her down the steps.
“Mrs. Dering Johnstone!” cried Bel breathlessly. “I mean Rhoda—please stop—just a minute——”
“Yes, what is it?” asked Rhoda. The car was actually moving but now it stopped.
“Would I do?” asked Bel, clinging to the side of the car with both hands as if she were afraid it would take flight.
“Would you do?” asked Rhoda in bewilderment.
“Would I do?” repeated Bel, still panting after her swift pursuit. “I just suddenly thought—I mean I can cook.”
“You can cook?”
“Quite well, really. Aunt Beatrice said so and she was very particular about food.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” declared Rhoda a trifle irritably; the girl was delaying her and she wanted to get home. It struck Rhoda that perhaps Bel Lamington was not quite all there. She had been very quiet, shy and practically monosyllabic, and now suddenly she seemed to have burst out of her shell and become like another person—all het up and talking nonsense.
“I really must go,” added Rhoda, leaning forward to let in the clutch.
“I mean I could cook for you,” explained Bel.
“You could cook for me?”
“Yes, that’s what I thought. I could come and help you while Miss Flockhart is away.”
“You don’t mean you want to come to Tassieknowe?”
“Yes,” said Bel nodding.
“But I don’t understand!” exclaimed Rhoda incredulously. “You’re going south with the Armstrongs on Thursday. Louise told me——”
“I know,” said Bel. “That was the idea. They’re terribly kind—nobody could be kinder. They said I could go home with them and stay as long as I liked, but I must stand on my own feet. I hate people who sponge on other people, don’t you?”
Rhoda did. In Rhoda’s estimation people who sponged upon other people were the absolute end.
“It’s been worrying me a lot,” added Bel.
“But, my dear girl, you don’t sponge,” said Rhoda. “The Armstrongs love having you. It’s made a tremendous difference to Louise having you here.”
“Having me here—yes,” agreed Bel. “But if I go home with them and can’t find another job——”
“But surely you could easily find another job! You could get a secretarial post, like you had before. That’s what you’re used to. You aren’t used to hard work.”
“I’m quite strong.”
They looked at each other for a few moments in silence. Rhoda looked at Bel with a painter’s eye and liked what she saw.
She liked the shape of the head, the broad forehead, the widely-spaced grey eyes; she liked the curve of the cheek and the well-set ear. It was a beautiful ear, Rhoda noticed.
“You don’t really mean it,” said Rhoda at last.
“Yes I do. I could come and cook—and do other things as well. I could help you until Miss Flockhart comes back.”
“It would be terribly dull for you at Tassieknowe.”
“I don’t mind. I don’t mind anything if only I could get a job.”
“But why?”
“I haven’t got any money,” said Bel frankly.
“That’s another thing,” said Rhoda, somewhat embarrassed. “I couldn’t afford—I mean I never thought of having anybody like you.”
“No, of course not,” agreed Bel. “You could just pay me what you pay Miss Flockhart—or perhaps less, because I wouldn’t be so efficient. I don’t know anything about children, I’m afraid.”
“Neither do I,” declared Rhoda with a sigh. “I don’t know a thing about children. I’m learning on my own and I’m probably giving them all sorts of queer inhibitions and complexes. Of course by the time they’re grown-up I shall know quite a lot about children but that won’t be much use. I shan’t be allowed to have any say in my grandchildren’s upbringing, shall I? My daughters-in-law will have their own ideas.”
Bel thought they were straying rather far from the point. She said, “You need somebody, don’t you?”
“Need somebody!” exclaimed Rhoda in heart-rending accents.
“Why not try me? You said you would take a murderess if she could cook.” Bel smiled and added, “I’m not a murderess—but I can cook. I like cooking.”
“I don’t know what to say!”
“Say yes,” suggested Bel. “You could sack me if you found I wasn’t any good. Couldn’t you?”
“You’re far more likely to sack yourself,” declared Rhoda. She hesitated and then continued, “Look here, Bel. You haven’t thought it over properly. We had better both think it over. I shall have to ask James.” She hesitated again. Of course she knew quite well what James would say. James would say, for goodness’ sake take the girl and try her. That was what James would say. It was James who had suggested that they should advertise in the papers for a murderess. Rhoda knew that James could not bear to see her toiling and moiling, sweeping the stairs, washing the dishes, getting up at cock-crow to prepare his breakfast . . . and James did not much care for the food she cooked though he was too decent to say so. James ate underdone chops and overdone beef and sloppy milk puddings and pretended to enjoy these disgusting viands. Poor James!
Bel had been watching Rhoda’s face. She said, “You really need somebody, don’t you? Shall I come on Thursday?”
“Thursday!” echoed Rhoda with a sudden gleam in her eyes. “Could you really come on Thursday?”
“Yes,” said Bel.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tassieknowe stood upon a little hillock in a bend of the river amongst the rolling hills. The river was very much smaller here than it was at Drumburly, it was little more than a good-sized stream. The house was of grey stone and, like most of the houses in the district, it was solidly built; its roof of grey slates fitted snugly without any unnecessary ornamentation. It was a house eminently fitted to withstand the winter gales, a house with no nonsense about it.
There was no nonsense about the inside of the house either. The rooms were of a reasonable size and well-proportioned and the stairs were well designed. Ten years ago when James and Rhoda had taken up their abode in Tassieknowe the whole house had been redecorated: the woodwork painted white and the walls distempered in various soft colours. Nothing much had been done to it since then so it was a trifle shabby, but that did not seem to matter. There was a homely friendly sort of atmosphere about the place. When Bel walked in at the door she knew at once that she would be happy here.
Bel had not been able to take up her new post without a great deal of heated argument. The Armstrongs had opposed the plan strongly and had done their best to persuade her to give it up and go south with them as had been arranged. Louise especially was amazed and distressed when she heard about it and declared that it was absolutely crazy. Tassieknowe was at the back of beyond; it would be terribly dull; the work would be much too hard; Bel would be wasting herself. She would be nothing more nor less than a skivvy, cooking and scrubbing and cleaning from morning to night.
“But you said Mrs. Plack would be much happier if she had married a ploughman,” Bel pointed out. “You said you would rather marry a ploughman and cook and scrub and wash his clothes than marry Alec Drummond. You said it would be more useful.”
“That isn’t the same thing at all,” declared Louise. “You aren’t going to marry a ploughman.”
“You never know,” said Bel smiling. “There might be an absolutely fascinating ploughman at Tassieknowe.”
“That isn’t the point,” said Louise crossly.
Of course Bel knew it was not the point but there was truth in what she had said. She felt—rightly or wrongly—that she would be much more useful and a great deal happier helping Rhoda to run Tassieknowe than typing letters and adding up columns of figures in an office in the City—an unknown office where she would know nothing about the business and which would be full of unknown women who would look at her askance. There might be another Helen Goudge, thought Bel with a shudder. There might be another Mr. Wills! Besides, there was always the fear that she might not get another job in an office in the City even if she wanted it. Here was a job to hand. She had got it and she intended to do her best to keep it. She felt that it was meant.
Rhoda had given Bel a room at the end of the passage with a view up the river. It was not a large room but it was comfortable and pleasant. There were several pictures on the walls; one of them was of a landscape covered with snow, but instead of being white it was full of all the colours of the rainbow. Bel had been told that “Rhoda painted beautiful pictures” and she wondered if Rhoda had painted this. She had learnt enough about pictures from Mark to recognise the professional touch. If Rhoda had painted this she was “good”.
Bel had unpacked her clothes and was gazing at the picture when her new employer came in.
“Do you like it?” asked her new employer with interest.
“Yes,” said Bel thoughtfully. “Yes. It gave me rather a shock at first but the more I look at it the more I like it. I like pictures that make me want to walk about inside them you see.”
“Renoir said that—or something like it.”
“Really?” asked Bel in surprise. She added, “Is it a real place or just a fantasy.”
“It’s a real place. I meant it to be a study in Chinese white and sepia and then I saw that the snow was full of colour—so it came out like that. Do you know a lot about painting?”
“Nothing,” replied Bel. “I used to know a painter but I was always saying the wrong things. It really was very difficult indeed. He painted me but it wasn’t a bit like me. It wasn’t intended to be like me of course.” She hesitated when she had said it, for it was strange to think of Mark. She had not thought of Mark for so long—it seemed like years. How very strange it was to remember that she had been so terribly unhappy about Mark!
“You must tell me about it,” said Rhoda, scenting a mystery. “You must tell me why he painted you and yet didn’t intend it to be like you. When I paint people I intend it to be like them—and as a matter of fact it usually is,” she added thoughtfully.
“Some time, but not now,” said Bel briskly. “We had better go down to the kitchen and arrange about food.”
Rhoda was a little surprised to find her new employee taking charge like this, for she had been of the opinion that her new employee was an extremely gentle creature—in fact slightly “wet”—but she agreed that this was not the right moment for a heart to heart conversation, however interesting, and led the way down to the kitchen without more ado.
*
2
Bel’s new job was no sinecure; since Miss Flockhart had been confined to bed, everything had got into a muddle. Miss Flockhart was extremely methodical—not so Rhoda and Effie. If Rhoda had occasion to use a dish or a pot or any sort of kitchen gadget she left it lying about; and Effie, finding it, shoved it into the back of a cupboard and forgot all about it. These idiosyncrasies had turned Miss Flockhart’s beautifully arranged kitchen into a higgledy-piggledy mess.
If Bel wanted anything to cook with she had to search for it and this took time. She searched high and low for the mincer—surely there must be a mincer in Tassieknowe kitchen!—and finally discovered it in the boot-cupboard. She found the large roasting-tin on the top shelf in the larder. There seemed to be no bread-knife. This came to light, quite by accident, in the drawer which Miss Flockhart kept for dusters.
For the first few days Bel had no time to do anything except cook meals and get the kitchen into order. She was considerably hampered in her tasks by Rhoda who kept popping in to the kitchen and asking if she could help. Rhoda was worried about her new employee; she worked too hard. How dreadful if she broke down under the strain!
“Let up, for goodness’ sake!” exclaimed Rhoda. “You’re wearing yourself to a shadow. Please come and sit down.”
“I will when I’ve got the place in order,” Bel replied. “No, you can’t do anything to help. Just leave me alone. Once everything is in order it will be quite easy. The food is all right, I hope?”
The food was more than “all right”. Bel’s cooking was quite as good as Flockie’s—and more imaginative. Rhoda was enjoying her meals and, even more important, James was enjoying his. It seemed to Rhoda that in three days James had already put on a little weight, his cheeks had filled out and his eyes were brighter. When he came in after a long morning on the hill he would rub his hands together and exclaim delightedly, “Ha! Veal and ham pie! That’s the stuff to give the troops!” and fall to with gusto.
Bel Lamington Page 17