Читать книгу Wild Strawberries - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 6

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It was the habit of Lady Emily’s children and grandchildren to make her bedroom a kind of family council chamber. She herself believed, and told all her friends, that she used the hour between nine and ten for writing her letters and getting through any business connected with the house. But as this was the only time of day when her family could be sure of finding her in a given place, her room was usually a melting-pot for the day’s plans.

On Whit Monday morning at half-past nine Lady Emily was still in bed, wrapped in two large Shetland shawls, her head swathed in folds of soft cashmere pinned with diamond brooches. On her bed were a breakfast tray, the large flat basket of letters, the small round basket with the green edge which contained unanswered correspondence, a large piece of embroidery, several books, another basket of combs and pins, and some newspapers. On a table by her side were a paint-box, a glass of water, and a white paper fan, which she was decorating with a dashing design of fishes and seaweed. The large bedroom was crammed to overflowing with family relics, and examples of the various arts in which Lady Emily had brilliantly dabbled at one time or another. Part of one wall was decorated with a romantic landscape painted on the plaster, the fourpost bed was hung with her own skilful embroidery, water-colour drawings in which a touch of genius fought and worsted an entire want of technique hung on the walls. Pottery, woodcarving, enamels, all bore witness to their owner’s insatiable desire to create.

From their earliest days the Leslie children had thought of their mother as doing or making something, handling brush, pencil, needle, with equal enthusiasm, coming in late to lunch with clay in her hair, devastating the drawing-room with her far-flung painting materials, taking cumbersome pieces of embroidery on picnics, disgracing everyone by a determination to paint the village cricket pavilion with scenes from the life of St. Francis for which she made the gardeners pose. What Mr. Leslie thought no one actually knew, for Mr. Leslie had his own ways of life and rarely interfered. Once only had he been known to make a protest. In the fever of an enamelling craze, Lady Emily had a furnace put up in the service-room, thus making it extremely difficult for Gudgeon and the footman to get past, and moreover pressing the footman as her assistant when he should have been laying lunch. On this occasion Mr. Leslie had got up from the lunch-table, ordered the car, had himself driven straight to London, and gone on a cruise to the Northern Capitals of Europe, which were not so essentially foreign as more southern parts. When he returned, the enamelling phase had abated and the furnace had been moved to the cellar.

Agnes Graham was sitting in the window, looking over the gardens, with Clarissa, her youngest, on her lap. Agnes was not so tall as her mother, whose dark hair and eyes she had inherited. She had an appealing smile and a very gentle voice, which she never took the trouble to raise. Her marriage had been settled for her, to her entire satisfaction, by her mother, who, despairing of ever marrying a daughter who had gone through two seasons without appearing capable of showing any preference of any kind, had told Colonel Graham to declare himself. When Robert Graham had disentangled from his future mother-in-law’s very discursive remarks what it was she wanted to say, he had at once proposed to Agnes, who said she daresaid it would be very nice to marry dear Robert, and the affair was concluded. She now lived in a state of perfectly contented subjection to her adoring husband and children. Her intelligence was bounded by her house and her exquisite needle-work, and to any further demands made by life she always murmured, “I shall ask Robert.” When Robert’s sister, Mrs. Preston, had been ordered abroad for the summer, it was Robert who offered to pay for her stay at a Swiss clinic, while Agnes so far exerted herself as to write to her mother and say how nice it would be if darling Mary could go to Rushwater for the summer, especially as she and the children were to be there while Robert went on a mission to South America, and Mary was always so good with the children. She was the special favourite of her elder brother, John, who often wondered lovingly how anyone could be quite such a divine idiot as Agnes.

On the floor James and his other sister, Emmy, were doing a large jig-saw puzzle, assisted by John. Emmy was a stout and determined young woman of five of whom her elder brother was rather in awe.

“All the same, John,” said Agnes, in her comfortable, placid voice, “you might let the children have their fair share. You have got more green and blue bits than anyone could possibly want over on your side.”

“I am concentrating on the trees and the sky,” said John. “James is doing the dark bits which are either somebody’s clothes or a railway engine, we aren’t quite sure which yet. This is called division of labour. Emmy has been trying for ten minutes to fit two bits together that anyone can see with half an eye bear no relation to each other. This is called determination, or imbecility.”

“Imbecility, I expect,” said Agnes fondly. “She is the silliest of a clever family, just like me. Darling Emmy.”

“It is spiritual pride to run yourself down like that, Agnes,” said Lady Emily from her bed. “How old is Robert’s niece now?”

“Mary? About twenty-three, I think. You will like her so much, mamma, and she sings so nicely, and she can help you with your village mothers and things. She will love to help.”

“But isn’t the poor girl coming here to rest?” asked John. “Someone said something about a breakdown.”

“No, not a breakdown. But Robert’s sister is really rather selfish and she makes poor Mary quite a slave, so Mary got quite run down, and when her mother had to go abroad, Robert said he thought it would be a good thing for Mary to come here. Running down is quite different from breaking down.”

There was a knock at the door and David came in.

“Good morning, mamma,” he said. “May I just finish my cigarette, or shall I chuck it out of the window? Here’s a telegram for you, Agnes. I know what you are thinking. Your offspring are all here under your eyes, so they can’t have fallen into the fire or broken their legs. Therefore it must be Robert. Shall I open it for you and tell you the worst?”

“Yes, do,” said Agnes plaintively, but without any signs of emotion. “Telegrams are always so alarming.”

“Well, I can tell you it isn’t Robert without opening it,” said David, “because he would break his leg in a cable, not in a telegram. It’s from Mary, to say she arrives at Southbridge at twelve-thirty.”

“Well, that’s very nice,” said Lady Emily, who was absentmindedly trying on a pair of long suede gloves. “She can help us with Mr. Holt at lunch. Your father gets so angry, and though Mr. Holt is really a great trouble and so terribly dull and nobody wants him, still, when someone takes the trouble to invite themselves one feels one ought at least to be civil. David, you and John must help your father.”

“Darling,” said David, “if this Holt is such a crashing bore as you suggest, I think I’d better be out to lunch. Martin and I are going to fetch this Mary Preston, and we could all have lunch somewhere and not come back till he has gone.”

Just then Martin came in.

“Good morning, gran,” he said. “David, I’ve been looking for you. Macpherson asked me to tell you he wants the Ford the minute you come back, as he and John have got to go out on estate business.”

“What a selfish man Macpherson is,” remarked David without heat. “I wanted to take sandwiches and hear the lark so high about me in the sky. Why do people never take sandwiches when they go poetizing on hills? Does one have to poetize on an empty stomach?”

“Well, I couldn’t go sandwiching, anyway,” said Martin. “I have to be back for something.”

“What have you got important enough to come back for?” asked David.

“I’ve got to see the vicar.”

By the way in which his whole family there assembled repeated “The vicar!” one would have thought that Mr. Banister was some loathsome speckled disease rather than an old family friend.

“Are you going to run the Boy Scouts?” asked David, not quite kindly.

“No, I’m not.”

“Or become a Cathedral Alto?”

“Oh, shut up, David. It’s something private,” said Martin, casting an appealing look on his young uncle.

“David, dear, Martin must of course see the vicar if he wants to,” said Lady Emily. “Mr. Banister is always most helpful and Martin couldn’t do better than go to him, whatever it is.”

The implications which Lady Emily put into her last words were so appalling that everyone began to laugh. Agnes said that Mr. Banister had read the marriage service quite beautifully at her wedding. A yell from James then drew attention to the fact that Emmy had broken the two recalcitrant pieces of jig-saw. John, getting up in a hurry, dislocated the already-finished section. James hit Emmy and Emmy wept aloud.

“Ring the bell for Nannie, Martin,” said Agnes, making no kind of attempt to cope with her offspring. “They are so tiresome when they don’t agree.”

After a short interval of pandemonium Nannie and Ivy arrived and removed the two elder children. John set himself to repair the damage on the floor, while Martin collected the fragments of Emmy’s pieces.

“Have you any seccotine, gran?” he asked.

“Yes, darling, in that red bowl on the bookcase near the fire. Don’t squeeze it too hard, because the end is broken and you never know where it is going to come out.”

“Well, I must go,” said David, a little bored by this super-domestic atmosphere. “Good-bye, mother. Twelve o’clock, Martin.”

“Thank you so much, Martin, for mending James’s jig-saw,” said Agnes. “Emmy is so very silly. Mamma, I must take Clarissa to Nannie now. John, will you be in to lunch?”

“I expect so. I’ve got to go round with Macpherson at two o’clock. Give Clarissa to me. I’ll take her to Nannie.”

Uncle and niece went off hand in hand.

“If you’ll ring for Conque, I’ll get up now,” said Lady Emily to her daughter. “But why,” she added, looking with great surprise at her own hands, “why on earth did I put my gloves on?”

“I can’t think, mamma,” said Agnes, ringing the bell.

At twelve o’clock David was heard shouting for Martin. At five minutes past twelve Martin was heard shouting for David. By ten minutes past twelve the two shouters had found each other, got into the Ford and driven off.

“Can’t I drive?” asked Martin, as soon as they were out of sight of the house.

“You can not. We shall have to step on it if we aren’t to keep this Preston affair waiting. Why weren’t you ready at twelve?”

“I was, but I couldn’t find you anywhere, so I went all round the stables to look for you.”

“It’s an impossible house to find people in. They ought to block up a few doors and staircases and then there’d be a chance of cornering people. You can drive part of the way back.”

“David, you are mean.”

“Not mean, dear nephew, only sensible. If anyone sees you driving in Southbridge they’ll see you aren’t old enough for a licence and haul you up before the beak.”

After this the Ford made so much noise going up hill that conversation became impossible. The road across the hills from Rushwater mounted steadily for three miles, first among beech trees, then through cornland, and at last onto the bare green heights. David put his foot down on the accelerator and thumped the side of the car after the manner of a jockey encouraging his horse with the whip. Martin sang at the top of his voice, conducting himself with both arms. On the lonely heights the horn went mad and emitted a long blast which nothing could stop.

“Haven’t got time to mend it,” yelled David.

“All right,” yelled Martin, and incorporated the horn into his imaginary orchestra.

At the brow of the hill above Southbridge David pulled up.

“We can’t go through the town like the Last Judgment,” he said, poking about among the wiring. “The Preston will just have to wait. Blast, I can’t find the thing. I’ll have to cut it and Weston can mend it. Find the pliers, they are somewhere under your seat.”

Having cut the wire, they proceeded more soberly on their journey and were not unduly late at the station. The crowded bank-holiday train had only just pulled in. David parked the car on the far side of the station yard and looked with distaste at the crowd of hikers which the London train had just disgorged.

“The Esk was swollen sae red and deep, but shoulder to shoulder the braw lads keep,” he announced to Martin. “Tackle them low, my boy, and come on.”

In any other place the sight of two stalwart young men advancing with a gliding step, arms linked like skaters, uttering what they fondly hoped was a college yell, might have attracted attention, but the hikers, many of whom had already struck up folk-songs of whose doubtful meaning they were luckily unaware, took David and Martin for some of themselves. A few gave the Fascist salute, to which David politely made reply, “Good morrow, good my lieges,” while Martin more simply responded “Ave.” By this means they reached the station entrance in safety and there found Miss Preston and her suit-cases.

“Miss Preston, I presume,” said David.

“Yes, I’m Mary Preston. I am so glad you both came through safely. I was afraid you might both be knocked down and trampled on.”

“I would have been, only my good father Tiber bore bravely up my chin. This,” he added, introducing Martin, “is my father Tiber, Martin Leslie.”

“How do you do?” said Miss Preston. “And you,” she said to David, “are another Leslie, I suppose.”

“I am David. Do you mind if we get into the car at once, as my father’s agent is waiting to snatch it the moment we get back.”

Mary’s suit-cases were put in the back with Martin, and Mary sat in front with David.

“You do horn, Martin,” shouted David over his shoulder.

Martin obligingly made a number of hideous noises, supposed to be a warning to passengers and other vehicles, and presently the town was left behind them and the car breasted the hill. At the top Martin hit his uncle on the back.

“You said I could drive, David.”

“All right. Do you mind if we practise the change-over, Miss Preston?”

The change-over was an elaborate system of changing drivers without slowing down to which David and his nephew had devoted much thought. It was designed as a time-saving device in the event of being pursued by Red Indians, Touaregs and other motor bandits. Martin climbed over the back of the front seat and slipped down with a leg on each side of David. He then gripped the wheel with his right hand, while David slithered over his nephew’s left leg and squashed himself into the space between Martin and Mary, keeping his foot on the accelerator. A substitution of Martin’s foot for David’s was effected without mishap, and David removed himself into the back seat.

“What do you think of it, Miss Preston?” he inquired.

“Splendid,” said Mary. “Did you have much trouble in getting it right?”

“Rather,” said Martin. “We nearly smashed the Ford up twice before we got the technique right. Next holidays we are going to try it on David’s sports car.”

“Was it you or your brother who invented it?”

“Who? Oh, David isn’t my brother; he’s my uncle. You can’t judge uncles by appearances.”

“Then you are Aunt Agnes’s brother,” said Mary, turning round, “and my Uncle David, I suppose.”

“Good Lord, no,” said David, much alarmed. “At least I’m Agnes’s brother all right, but not an uncle, please. Hi, Martin, horn!”

Martin executed his fantasia on horn noises, which made a couple of women walking along with baskets giggle pityingly at the eccentricities of the gentry.

“Excuse us, Miss Preston, but we can’t help it. We’re all mad, you know, and Martin is mad.”

“So am I,” said Mary, not wishing to be left out of it, “but not Miss Preston, please. After all, we are a sort of in-laws.”

“Bricks without straw, bricks without straw, a man may not marry his mother-in-law,” sang Martin.

“All right, my boy,” said David. “Change-over again. Macpherson or father are bound to spot you driving.”

“Oh, please, not change-over,” pleaded Mary. “My nerves couldn’t bear it. Please stop, Martin, and let David come round in the ordinary way.”

Martin pulled up by a bluebell wood and both young men got out.

“Bluebells,” said David, introducing them with a wave of the hand. He leaned over the side of the car looking at Mary.

“Do you like walking?” he asked.

“Love it.”

“Then we’ll do some walks when I come down for week-ends.”

“Don’t you live here?”

“No, I live in town mostly, but I’m often down here. Come on, Martin, we’ll be late.”

Martin made his horn noise, doors were slammed and they drove on. After a quarter of a mile they came to the gates of Rushwater House. The drive wound through a large meadow where the hay was not yet cut. Rushwater House came into sight behind the trees in all its complacent ugliness. David drew up under the portico and Gudgeon opened the door.

“Lunch over, Gudgeon?” said David.

“No, sir, luncheon has not yet begun. The car with Mr. Holt is not yet here, so her ladyship is waiting.”

“Right-oh. Oh, Gudgeon, you might let Weston know that the horn died on us this morning, so he’d better fix it up for Mr. Macpherson. Come along Mary, and see mamma.”

He took Mary’s arm and propelled her into the drawing-room where his mother was sitting at a large table, busily painting her fan.

“Dear child,” she exclaimed, opening her arms to Mary in a warm embrace. “I am so glad to see you again. Did the boys take care of you?”

“Yes, thank you, Aunt Emily.”

“Luckily you have come in time for me to warn you about Mr. Holt,” said Lady Emily. “Henry and the children are always so unkind about him, but really he is quite a nice little man and always invites himself.”

Mary was not a little bewildered by the sudden introduction of Mr. Holt, and was hoping for more information about him, but her Aunt Agnes took her off to her room and left her to get ready for lunch. When Mary had tidied herself and unpacked a few things she went to the window and kneeling on the window-seat looked out into the park. Her bedroom was at the front of the house, overlooking the great meadow which lay bathed in warmth and peace. After a long London winter it felt like Paradise. Much as she loved her mother, that lady’s half-imaginary maladies were rather wearing. Mary had found some work in a library, more to have a pretext to get away for regular hours than because she actually needed the money, but when Colonel Graham had offered to pay for his sister’s treatment and after-cure at a Swiss clinic, and Providence had provided a friend to go with her, Mary was thoroughly glad to give up her so-called work and go to Rushwater for the summer.

Agnes, whose soft silliness was only equalled by her strong family affections, had not been thinking entirely of her niece when she agreed with her husband that it would be a good thing for Mary to go to Rushwater. She wanted her mother to have a nice girl with her who could help with letters and possibly snatch a little order from the large-hearted chaos which was Lady Emily’s normal life. She also had a mild hope that John might be induced to take an interest in her niece. As Agnes had been happily married for ten years to a man who was worthy of her affection and inordinately proud of her gentle foolishness, she could wish no other good than matrimony to her elder brother. So far her efforts at finding suitable wives for John had met with no success, but all the more did she exert herself. David, she considered, could well look after himself, and was obviously doomed to marry an heiress, but dear John would be a difficulty. If she had realized how very far John was from thinking of a second marriage, she might have given up in despair, if there were room for so definite an emotion in her placid breast. When Gay died after a year of perfect happiness John had tried to make a grave for every memory of that year. But he could not find for them the eternal rest which her spirit had found. It was an unquiet grave where those memories lay. They stirred unbidden and rose sometimes at midnight or at noonday to wring his heart. No ninefold Styx could bind them, no prayers for forgetfulness move them. At every hour he was defenceless against the bitter waters of memory which rose to his lips and chilled his heart. But Agnes, happily ignorant of this, thought that darling John must marry again, some really nice girl, and why not Mary. Robert would be pleased.

Meanwhile Mary, all unconscious of her aunt’s plans and almost of John’s existence, went on looking out of the window and thinking of those two very nice silly Leslie boys. Martin, still at school, was of course really a boy, and David one thought of as a boy to show one’s own womanly superiority. But one also thought of him as a boy rather deliberately, to hide one’s own consciousness of his disturbing presence. He was certainly a person one would like to see a good deal. Not because he was amusing and could drive a car so well, for Mary’s world contained several young men who were excellent amusers and first-rate drivers. Probably just because he was David, which was an exciting, a delicious thought.

The noise of a motor woke her from this unmaidenly reverie, and she became conscious of the Leslies’ car coming across the green meadow, containing what was presumably Mr. Holt. So she plunged downstairs, getting safely to the drawing-room before Gudgeon announced Mr. Holt, my lady.

There emerged from behind Gudgeon’s pontifical form a stout little man in a grey suit, walking delicately on rather pointed brown shoes. His round red face had an air of being imperfectly shaved, or of having some light fungoid growth upon it, his short hair and moustache were grey, he clasped his plump hands across him as he moved. Mr. Leslie’s nebulous idea of Mr. Holt as a Greville or Creevey was not so far out, though Creevey was really what he would have meant if he had the faintest idea what his own meaning was. Mr. Holt was an astounding survival of the hanger-on, although he did not keep a diary. Bred to the law, he had been placed by his father, a county town solicitor in a small way, in the estate office of a noble lord on whom he had some slight claim. Here young Holt had assiduously studied the art of pleasing his superiors. Realizing that he could not get a footing in great houses unless he could prove himself useful or amusing, better to be both, he had early formed his plan of life. To be witty was not in him, but he had a magnetic attraction for gossip. Small talk of every kind flew to him, followed him, came in at his window almost unsought. All that he heard he retained in his excellent and well-trained memory and was able to pour out in the right quarters. At the houses which he sometimes had to visit on business he made himself very entertaining to the magnates, who enjoyed hearing malicious stories about their friends and unwittingly themselves furnished material for Holt’s next visit. Thus he obtained a reputation as an amusing fellow whom you could ask to dinner at a pinch. To get a footing among the wives was more difficult in those late Victorian and Edwardian days. After some thought he decided to enter the charmed world of his ambition by the garden gate. Great ladies were taking up gardening. Mr. Holt applied himself to the science, read copiously, neglected no opportunity of picking up information, and in a few years made himself a first-rate authority on shrubs and flowers, from the wild flowers of a particular county of England to the rarest bulbs or slips from the Himalayas or the Andes. By the time his father died, Mr. Holt had so well established himself as tame cat, or up-to-date toady, that he was able to give up his legal work and take a modest room in town on what his father left him, counting on his friends for holidays and for fruit and game in season.

To do him justice it must be said that the pursuit which he had taken up as a means to social improvement had finished by winning what heart he had. In spite of his snobbery, his pedantism, his insufferable egotism, a new blossom, a rare bulb would thrill him with a lover’s emotion. As he had no garden of his own there was no fear of his competition. Great ladies rivalled each other in their efforts to get him week-ends, for summer and Easter visits, for Christmas house-parties. Here he moved in complete happiness, amusing such guests as he did not irritate to madness, and making himself really useful in the garden, to the ill-concealed fury of the good Scotch head-gardeners.

But it is doubtful whether any toady’s prosperity has lasted as long as his life. These glories had diminished. The War broke up the happy life of county England. Many of the houses where he used to visit were shut or sold. Old friends and patrons were dead, dividends had fallen, game no longer reached him. Life was becoming a skimpy business for Mr. Holt, but unable to put a good face on it he was becoming more exacting, more jealous, more querulous with every passing year. A severe illness left him a little deaf, not able to walk about gardens by the hour as he used to do, assuming an almost insane proprietorship in what friends he had left. In the few houses where he still visited, he became less and less welcome. Younger men combined garden lore with good figures and pretty manners, or even more endearing rudeness. They laughed at Mr. Holt and made the new châtelaines laugh too. The little man, cross and on his dignity, began to press for invitations, for which in the past a hint had sufficed. Some hostesses cut him, others continued to invite him, or rather to tolerate his forced visits, from sheer kindness. Among the last of these was Lady Capes, who allowed him to come whenever he liked, as she lived mostly in the south of France. At Capes Castle he could browse in the library on herbals, or superintend an addition to the rock-garden in which the earl took an interest. His lordship was no ruder to him than he was to anyone else, and the servants were fairly kind.

Mr. Holt had planned to be sent on from Capes Castle in the belted motor of his lordship to stay with Lady Norton, another of his autocratic old friends. Lady Norton, however, had forbidden him to come before dinner because she had friends staying with her who might have picked his gardening brains, and he dared not offend her. Lord Capes, without inquiring his humble guest’s movements, had gone off to Bath for the week-end in the car, leaving word that he didn’t expect to see Mr. Holt when he got back on Monday. At his wits’ end how to spend Whit Monday at the least personal expense, the unfortunate hanger-on had written to Lady Emily the letter which David has read aloud to us. It would be easy to be sorry for Mr. Holt in his old unhonoured age; but he is so conceited and irritating that compassion melts to bored anger.

To reproduce his first remark as he followed Gudgeon into the room would be difficult, consisting as it did of the word “Oh”; to which, however, he gave a vowel sound, or rather a combination of vowel sounds, at whose peculiar affectedness phonetics boggle.

“Eu-ah-oo,” he began in a high voice, so unexpected that Mary nearly giggled.

“Eu-ah-oo, dear Lady Emily, you must forgive this unpardonable lateness. I trust you have all lunched—you have not kept luncheon waiting for me, I trust.”

It was unfortunate that Mr. Leslie should have chosen this precise moment to inquire from Gudgeon in the hall, in a loud angry voice distinctly audible to everyone in the drawing-room, whether her ladyship wanted them all to starve. Gudgeon sounded the gong.

“Ah,” said Mr. Holt, beaming, “I hear the voice of my good friend Mr. Leslie, who has so kindly allowed his chariot of fire, his fiery Pegasus, to convey me hither from Capes Castle. I must explain to him, and to you, dear lady, exactly how it occurred that this regrettable delay took place.”

“You must tell me all about it at lunch,” said Lady Emily, rising and coming forward on her stick. “You know my daughter, Mrs. Graham, and this is her niece, Miss Preston, and you know David and Martin. Come into lunch and tell us all about Lord Capes. I haven’t seen him or Alice for ages. I was ill, you know, last summer, and then they were away for most of the winter. Indeed Alice is really always away, so you must give me all her news.”

“May I trespass on your kindness, dear lady, for a moment,” said Mr. Holt, as they entered the dining-room, where Mr. Leslie was already sitting waiting, “so far as to entreat that your fairy carpet may of its goodness transport me to Norton Manor during the afternoon, where I am to spend the night with my dear old friend, Lady Norton. Indeed she makes no demand on my time until the hour of dinner so if you will let me wander a little in your garden I could leave you, though with so many regrets, after tea.”

David and Martin made hideous faces at their grandmother, expressive of a desire to stop Mr. Holt having the car.

“There’s a jolly good train from Rushwater to Norton at 3.15, Mr. Holt,” said Martin kindly. “Gets you there in no time.”

“How kind of our young friend,” said Mr. Holt, who had defeated too many schemers in his time to take any account of a schoolboy, “but I fear that I should hardly have time to give attention to the garden if I made so early a departure. Also, we know that the railway system is tant soit peu disorganized at Whitsuntide, and I should fear to spend a lonely hour at some far-off junction if I ventured the attempt. Perhaps your kind chauffeur might be at liberty later, Mr. Leslie.”

Thus appealed to, Mr. Leslie had no choice but to say grudgingly that the car was at Mr. Holt’s disposal.

“Martin and I had meant to take Mary to see the Rushmere Abbey ruins if Weston was free,” said David in an unnecessarily loud voice to his father.

“Oh, darling,” cried Lady Emily, cutting short the opening stage of Mr. Holt’s account of why he was late in starting, “couldn’t you have the Ford?”

“Macpherson has the Ford,” said Mr. Leslie. “He and John will be out on business all afternoon. John couldn’t wait any longer for lunch.”

Having shot this bolt at his wife and her ill-judged hospitality, he continued his lunch. Martin exploded into a schoolboy laugh, while David made such a deliciously sympathetic face at Mary that her heart contracted.

“Then,” continued Mr. Holt, whose deafness enabled him to ignore his rude young hosts, “may I beseech your kind butler, Lady Emily, to ring up Lady Norton and say that I shall be with her by dinner-time, that is if your patience can bear with me so long.”

“Yes, please telephone, Gudgeon,” said Lady Emily, “and see if I left my spectacles and a little grey silk shawl in the drawing-room, and tell Conque I want my other stick, the one with the rubber tip. And now, tell me all about Lady Capes, Mr. Holt.”

Mr. Holt was just beginning to explain that neither his host nor his hostess had been in residence for the week-end, but had sent for him to give his invaluable advice about replanting the water garden, when his hostess called to the footman:

“Tell Gudgeon I mean the spectacles in the green case, not the ones in the black case that he brought me at lunch yesterday, because those aren’t my reading ones. It was Conque’s fault really, because though she has been with me all these years she never knows one pair of spectacles from another, and when I put them into their wrong cases, as I often do, it is even worse, though I suppose somehow that ought to even the odds, if that is what one says.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Walter, who, not sure how much of this confidence was addressed to him, or required transmitting to Gudgeon, had been waiting in respectful embarrassment.

“And now,” continued her ladyship, smiling entrancingly on Mr. Holt, “you must tell me all about Alice Capes.”

Mr. Holt, accustomed for so many years to be listened to with attention, if not with deference, stiffened. Three times he had tried to explain about Lady Capes, and three times had he been interrupted. Thoroughly annoyed, which happened so easily nowadays, he entered into the fit of sulks with which he was formerly wont to subdue hostesses. But Lady Emily was so unresponsive to these fine shades as to embark on a deeply interesting conversation with Martin on her other side about the possibilities of the cricket match and dance on his birthday. Agnes, with her usual sweetness, soothed Mr. Holt’s ruffled feelings till he began to feel important again. When Mr. Leslie had finished his lunch he went to the sideboard, helped himself to a cigar and left the room, saying as he went, “I’m sure to see you again, Mr. Wood.”

“I can’t think why Henry called you Mr. Wood,” said Lady Emily. “He must have been thinking of that horrid little clergyman who came here for a fortnight last year while Mr. Banister was away. You remember, David, the one that had such an extraordinary affected voice.”

Seeing the younger members of the party inexplicably amused, Lady Emily flashed her brilliant vague smile over them and got up.

“It has been too delicious to hear all about the Capes’,” she said. “And now I’ve got to lie down and be quiet, Mr. Holt, but Agnes and the others will look after you, and then we must have a nice cosy chat at tea-time, and Weston shall be here at five to take you to Norton.”

“Suppose the rest of us go to the morning-room,” said Agnes. “The children are coming down for half an hour and we can look at picture-books with them.”

But curiously enough, as they crossed the hall, Mary, David and Martin lagged behind.

“Quick, into the drawing-room,” said David, grabbing Mary’s arm. “Agnes must take on that job. Let’s all go for a walk till after tea.”

“I can’t,” said Martin. “Got to go and see Mr. Banister.”

“All right, my young catechumen,” said David.

“Oh, shut up, David, don’t be a fool,” said Martin, attacking his uncle.

“Queensberry rules,” said David, “no scrapping in the drawing-room. Come on the terrace, Mary, and see fair play.”

Uncle and nephew wrestled for a few minutes till Martin jumped onto the balustrade, threw his arms above his head, uttered a loud shriek, and jumping down into the garden, strolled off to the vicarage.

“That’s the chivalry of young England,” said David, smoothing his hair, “leaving us in the lurch like that. I say, do you really feel like a walk?”

“I’d love to.”

“Then get ready at once, before we are discovered, and meet me here.”