Читать книгу The Brandons - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 4

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In spite of Delia’s mild sulks the picnic was put off till Friday and Miss Brandon’s invitation, or command, obeyed. The weather remained set fair and as the Brandon family got into the car at twelve o’clock Francis puffed loudly and said it was worse than a third-class railway carriage that had been standing in a siding. The road to Brandon Abbey was through some of the loveliest scenery in Barsetshire. Leaving Pomfret Madrigal it went through Little Misfit, with a glimpse of the hideous pinnacles of Pomfret Towers in the distance, and then followed for several miles the winding course of the Rising, among water meadows that looked greener than ever in contrast with the sun-parched country. At the Mellings Arms there was a choice of ways. One went through Barchester, the other, marked as a second-class road, went up and over the downs, as straight as the Romans had built it, skirted Rushwater by the beech avenue and so by the Fever Hospital to Brandon Abbey.

As the Mellings Arms came in sight, Mrs. Brandon leant forward and tapped on the glass. Francis, who was by the chauffeur, slid the window back and poked his face through.

“Tell Curwen, darling, that we’ll go by the downs,” said Mrs. Brandon.

Her clear voice carried well and Curwen’s back visibly took offence. Francis exchanged a few words with him and turned back to his mother and sister.

“He says there’s a bad patch near the top and he doesn’t think the springs will stand up to it,” he said.

Mrs. Brandon made a face of resignation.

“Don’t let that stop us,” said Francis. “I’m all for the downs myself, aren’t you, Delia?”

“Rather,” said Delia. “We might see the place where the motor char-à-banc was on fire last week.”

Francis shut the window and spoke to Curwen again. That harbinger of misfortune listened with a stony face and turned the motor’s head towards the downs. To Delia’s great pleasure the burnt-out corpse of the motor char-à-banc was still by the roadside, and Curwen so far unbent as to inform his mistress, via her son, that there was one of the bodies burnt so bad they couldn’t identify it, after which he devoted his attention to driving with quite maddening care over the stony patches, wincing at each little jolt as if a pin had been stuck into him.

At twenty minutes past one the gloomy lodge of Brandon Abbey was reached. Miss Brandon always kept her gates shut to mark her disapproval of things in general, and as the lodge-keeper was deaf and usually working in his back garden, Curwen had to get out and go and find him, which he did with the gloomy satisfaction of a prophet whose warnings have been disregarded. Another five minutes’ driving down the gloomy avenue which wound its way downwards to the hole in which the house was situated, brought them to the front door.

“Welcome to the abode of joy,” said Francis, politely opening the door of the car for his mother and sister. “I’ll ring the front door bell, but I don’t suppose anyone will come. No wonder Aunt Sissie spends her time in bed. I would if I lived here.”

Certainly Brandon Abbey was not an encouraging place. The house, a striking example of Scotch baronial, spouting pepper-pot turrets at every angle, had been built in the ’sixties by Miss Brandon’s father, an extremely wealthy jute merchant, on the site of a ruined religious house. The locality though favourable for stewponds and contemplation was damp and gloomy in the extreme. Mushrooms sprouted freely in the cellars, damp spread in patches on the bedroom walls, the flooring of the servants’ hall was from time to time lifted by unknown fungoid growths. The trees which Mr. Brandon had planted far too thickly and far too near the house had thriven unchecked, and screened the house from all but the direct rays of the midday summer sun, which then made the servants’ bedrooms under a lead roof intolerably hot. On the mossy stones of the terrace the peacocks walked up and down, believing according to the fashion of their kind that everyone was admiring the tail feathers which they had moulted some time ago.

“Nightmare Abbey,” said Francis, after they had waited some time, and rang the bell again. Even as he rang it and said the words, the door was opened by Miss Brandon’s permanently disapproving butler, who said Miss Brandon was very sorry she couldn’t come down to luncheon, but would like to see Mrs. Brandon afterwards. He then showed the family into the drawing-room and left them to meditate till lunch was ready.

“Bother,” said Delia, after hunting in her bag, “I’ve left my looking-glass at home.”

She looked round for one, but on the walls, thickly hung with the real masterpieces, the blatant fakes, and, incredibly, the china plates in red velvet frames that Mr. Brandon’s catholic and personal taste had bought, there was not a mirror to be seen.

“Try the overmantel or whatnot,” suggested Francis, pointing to the fireplace, above which towered a massive, yet fanciful superstructure of fretwork. Shelves with ball and fringe edgings, turned pillars, Moorish arches, Gothic niches, were among the least of its glories, while here and there were inserted round or diamond-shaped mirrors, hand-painted with sprays of plum blossom, forget-me-not, and other natural products.

By standing on tiptoe on the heavy marble fender Delia could just see her face among some painted bulrushes, and behind it a reflection of the room. In the reflection she saw the door open and a young man come in. Excited by the unexpected apparition she hastily put away her powder puff, turned, knocked down the polished steel fire irons with a frightful crash and stood transfixed with shame. To her great surprise the young man took no notice of the noise, but stood gazing at her mother who was apparently half asleep. Francis was the first to recognise the newcomer as Mr. Miller’s pupil, and though surprised to see him here, had enough presence of mind to say “Hullo, Grant.”

“Oh, hullo,” said Mr. Grant, inquiringly.

“Francis Brandon,” said Francis, “you remember meeting me at Mr. Miller’s last week.”

“Of course, I’m so sorry,” said Mr. Grant, his eyes still wavering towards Mrs. Brandon. “I mean how do you do.”

“Nicely, thank you,” said Francis. “This is my sister Delia, and mamma will come to in a minute. Mamma, here is Mr. Grant that you met at the Vicarage.”

Mrs. Brandon, who had succumbed for a few seconds to the heat and ante-lunch exhaustion, opened her eyes and gave Mr. Grant her hand with a smile. Francis was rather afraid that the shock of waking up might prompt her to one of her worse indiscretions, but luckily lunch was announced, and they all went into the dining-room. This impressive apartment was lined with pitch pine and adorned with pictures by deceased R.A.’s, pictures which, as Mr. Brandon had informed every visitor, had all been hung on the line. The lofty ceiling was decorated with strips of pitch pine crossing each other diagonally and at each intersection was fixed a naked electric light in a copper lotus. The dado and the panels of the door were of the finest Lincrusta Walton and the bronze clock on the mantelpiece represented a Knight Templar, with the clock face under his horse’s stomach.

From the very beginning of lunch it was obvious to Francis and Delia that Mr. Grant was in their language a case, and they had the great pleasure of kicking each other under the table whenever he looked at their mother. They were used to her rapid and entirely unconscious conquests, which Francis regarded with malicious enjoyment and Delia with good-humoured contempt. Delia’s heart was so far untouched except by the heroes, whether villain or detective, of thrillers and American gangster films, and as Mr. Grant, apart from a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, had nothing in common with these supermen, she mentally labelled him Not Wanted.

Conversation during lunch was of a disjointed nature. Francis and Delia were consumed with curiosity as to why Mr. Miller’s pupil should be lunching at Brandon Abbey. On ordinary occasions they would have had no inhibitions about asking him what he was doing in their aunt’s house, but the presence of the disapproving butler, who never left the room for a moment, not to speak of the two footmen, cramped their style a little. Their mother would have been capable of any indiscretion, but, as her children well saw, she had not yet recovered from her slumber before lunch and although she had grasped the fact that she had met Mr. Grant at the Vicarage, she appeared to be under the impression that he was going to be a curate, and was industriously and ignorantly talking on church subjects. Mr. Grant was doing his best to second her, but was hampered by an ignorance equal to her own and a tendency to look at her rather than listen to her. Altogether it was a relief to everyone when the butler, as soon as dessert was set on the table, told Mrs. Brandon that Miss Brandon would be glad if she would come up and have coffee in her room. Mrs. Brandon made a face at her children, sympathetically answered by hideous faces from them, and got up from the table, dropping a pale pink handkerchief as she rose. Mr. Grant, who had stood up with her, was about to rescue it when a footman, at a sign from the butler, picked it up and gave it to his superior, who put it on a silver salver and handed it to its owner.

Mrs. Brandon looked at the handkerchief, then looked in her bag, and finding that her handkerchief was not there, seemed surprised.

“I must have dropped it,” she said, taking it from the salver. “Thank you so much.”

She was then wafted away by the butler, and the three young people were left alone with Miss Brandon’s glass-house peaches and grapes, besides the less rare products of the kitchen garden. Francis, approaching his subject cautiously, asked Mr. Grant what he was reading with old Miller.

“Classics,” said Mr. Grant.

“Is that to go to Oxford, or something?” asked Francis.

“No, I’m afraid I’m through Oxford,” said Mr. Grant apologetically. “Mother thought I’d better read for the bar, and as I did history my classics were a bit sticky, so she sent me here to rub them up. Were you a history man?”

“No, I’m afraid I’m only an Old School Tie,” said Francis in his turn apologetic. “I wasn’t very brainy at school and when a good job turned up in Barchester I jumped at it. I rather wish I’d let mamma send me to a University now, but anyway it’s about five years too late.”

“I think you’re jolly lucky,” said Mr. Grant. “I wanted to go into a publisher’s office when I left school, but I’d got a mouldy kind of scholarship by mistake so they made me take it up, and then mother made me go abroad, and here I am at twenty-three only just beginning.”

“That’s exactly as old as Francis,” said Delia. “When’s your birthday?”

Mr. Grant said March.

“Well I’m February and Francis is April,” said Delia, “so that’s rather funny. Do you go to the movies much? There’s not a bad cinema at Barchester.”

Mr. Grant said he didn’t go very much, but he had seen Descente de lit in which Zizi Pavois was superb, and Menschen ohne Knochen which, even allowing for propaganda, was an astoundingly moving affair.

Delia said she meant films and there was going to be an awfully good one at Barchester next week called Going for a Ride with Garstin Hermon as the villain and she had been told it was absolutely ghastly. As she said these words her pretty brown eyes sparkled, her cheeks flushed in a most becoming way and her hair seemed to curl even more than usual. Mr. Grant looked at these phenomena with an historian’s appraising eye and thought how much lovelier gentle blue eyes were than bold brown, how preferable was a soft pale skin to the rude glow of health, and how infinitely more touching were loose waves of hair, a little touched with grey, than a mop of corkscrews. Thinking these chivalrous thoughts he said, with the annoyingly tolerant manner that Oxford is apt to stamp upon her sons, that it sounded very exciting.

“Look here, Delia, that’s your fourth peach,” said Francis. “You’ll be sick. Let’s come out in the garden.”

Accordingly the three young people strolled out into the terrace and sat on the broad balustrade, looking at the foolish peacocks. At the end of the yew avenue the former stewpond, now a formal basin, gleamed among the leaves of the water lilies. The one white peacock, white by courtesy but really looking rather grey, posed self-consciously against the yews. It was all very peaceful and for a time no one had anything to say.

“I’m afraid my aunt’s in rather a bad mood to-day,” said Mr. Grant at last. “I do hope she isn’t giving Mrs. Brandon a bad time.”

“Your aunt?” said Delia.

“Aunt Sissie. She’s an aunt of yours too, isn’t she?”

“Good Lord,” said Francis, “you are our long-lost rival. I’m jolly glad to meet you. Aunt Sissie is always ramming you down our throats and I thought you were an old man with a beard. And I jolly well hope you do get this foul Abbey—I mean if you’d like it.”

Mr. Grant looked so uncomfortable that even Delia felt that her brother might have been more tactful.

“You see, Aunt Sissie is a bit of a bully,” she said, “and she thinks she can frighten us by saying she’ll leave the money to you, but we really don’t care two hoots.”

Mr. Grant looked more uncomfortable than ever after this explanation.

“Sorry,” said Francis, vaguely feeling that some reparation was necessary.

“It’s all right,” said Mr. Grant. “But it’s rather a shock. I knew practically nothing about Aunt Sissie till father died, and then she wrote to mother and said she was a very old woman whose relatives neglected her and would I come and visit her. She didn’t say anything about leaving this place or anything. I only came over here yesterday afternoon and I had an awful night in a four-poster stuffed with knobs, and there was a marble bath with a mahogany surround about three hundred yards down the passage, and Aunt Sissie was rather unpleasant, and thank goodness I’m going back to the Vicarage. If I hadn’t promised Aunt Sissie I’d stay to tea I’d go at once. I can’t stand this.”

He spoke with such vehemence that his hearers were surprised, not understanding that in his mind’s eye he saw himself depriving that wonderful Mrs. Brandon of her birthright and turning her out into the snow while he lived among peacocks and butlers.

“All right,” said Francis. “If I get it I’ll give it to you and if you get it you give it to me. If I had it I’d sell it for a lunatic asylum. Anyhow it’s almost one now.”

“If it were mine I’d burn the damned thing down,” said Mr. Grant, toying with the idea of handing over the insurance money to Mrs. Brandon anonymously.

Warming to the theme the two heirs, ably supported by Delia, began to alter the house according to their individual tastes, turning the pond into a swimming pool, the enormous servants’ hall into a squash court, and the drawing-room into a dance room with bar. By the time they had decided to make their aunt’s room into a Chamber of Horrors, charging half a crown for admission, they were all laughing so much that even when Delia suddenly uttered one of her celebrated screams, it was hardly heard above the noise the men were making. Her shriek was merely a prelude to the announcement that if Aunt Sissie was everybody’s aunt they must be Hilary’s cousins, adding that she hoped he didn’t mind her calling him Hilary, but she always did. On inquiry it turned out that Mr. Grant’s father and the Brandons’ father were connected with Miss Brandon’s family on quite different sides and no relationship existed, but it was agreed that a state of cousinship should be established.

When Mrs. Brandon left the dining-room she found Miss Brandon’s maid waiting for her in the hall.

“Good afternoon, Sparks,” said Mrs. Brandon. “How is Miss Brandon to-day?”

“Thank you, madam, a little on the edge,” said Sparks. “Young Mr. Grant’s visit seemed to upset her a good deal, being as he reminded her of her brother, Captain Brandon, the one that was killed by a pig in India, madam.”

At any other moment Mrs. Brandon might have wondered why Mr. Miller’s pupil should remind her Aunt Sissie of Captain Frederick Brandon who was killed while pig-sticking in Jubilee year, but her whole attention was concentrated on getting upstairs. The great staircase at Brandon Abbey, square, made of solid oak, had been taken from an Elizabethan house that was being demolished. Mr. Brandon, after taking one look at its rich natural colour, had decided that it did not look worth the considerable sum he had given for it, so he dismissed his architect who had advised the purchase and had the whole staircase painted and grained to resemble the oak of which it was made. Having done this he admired the result so much that, with a taste far in advance of his time, he left it bare, instead of covering it as the hall and corridors were covered with a layer of felt, a rich Kidderminster carpet, and a drugget above all. He then gave orders that it was to be waxed and polished twice a week, which had been faithfully carried out ever since, even after Mr. Brandon had slipped and broken his ankle and a second footman (who should have been using the back stairs and was at once dismissed) had crashed down the final flight carrying six empty brass water cans.

Knowing the dangers, Mrs. Brandon clung to the banisters and went slowly upstairs. Safely arrived on the landing she followed Sparks along the gloomy corridor to the door that led to Miss Brandon’s sitting-room. This door was guarded by two life-size and highly varnished black wooden statues of gorillas, wearing hats and holding out trays for visiting cards, which images had been the terror of Francis and Delia’s childhood. Delia, always the bolder of the two, had only suspected that they would claw her as she went into her aunt’s room, but Francis knew, with the deadly certainty of childhood, that they came over the downs to Stories every Friday night, when Nurse was out, and got under his bed. Perhaps the happiest day of his life was when he was taken to Brandon Abbey in his first prep school holidays, and fresh from a world of men suddenly realised that the gorillas were nothing but very hideous wooden figures, which knowledge he imparted to Delia in a lofty and offhand way, as one who had always known the truth but had not troubled to mention it.

Sparks left Mrs. Brandon in the sitting-room while she went to prepare her mistress. Mrs. Brandon walked about the room, idly looking at the many faded photographs of old Mr. and Mrs. Brandon, at all stages, of Captain Brandon with military moustache and whiskers, of Miss Brandon from a plump, pretty child with ringlets to a well-corseted young woman in a bustle, after which epoch she had apparently never been photographed again. She wondered idly, not for the first time, what Amelia Brandon’s life had been, what secrets her heart might have held, before she became the immense, terrifying old lady whom she had always known. These unprofitable reflections were interrupted by the door into Miss Brandon’s room being opened and Mrs. Brandon, turning to face Sparks, saw a stranger. It was a woman no longer young, with greying hair and a rather worn face, neatly dressed in dark blue silk.

“Mrs. Brandon?” said the stranger. “I am Ella Morris, Miss Brandon’s companion.”

Mrs. Brandon found Miss Morris’s voice very pleasant.

“Oh, how do you do,” said she, shaking hands. “Thank you so much for writing for Aunt Sissie and I do hope you aren’t having a dreadful time.”

“Nothing to what I have had with my other old ladies,” said Miss Morris composedly. “I was so sorry not to be down when you came, but Miss Brandon wanted me to read some old letters to her. I hope everything was all right at lunch.”

“Perfect,” said Mrs. Brandon. “And forgive my asking, but knowing Aunt Sissie as I do, have you had any lunch?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Morris as composedly as ever. “Miss Brandon likes me to read to her while she is lunching. She has a remarkably good appetite. I shall have mine now. Will you come in?”

“How many days a week is she in bed now?” Mrs. Brandon asked softly, as they approached the door.

“Six and half, since Whitsun when I came,” said Miss Morris. “She gets up on Tuesday for the afternoon, and that is why she is always a little fatigued on Wednesday.”

With these ominous words she opened the door, saying, “Miss Brandon, here is Mrs. Brandon.” She then went away and Sparks, who had been keeping guard at the bedside, got up and followed her.

In the huge room, hung with dark tapestries, filled with heavy mahogany furniture, there was very little light. The blinds were drawn against the westering sun and Mrs. Brandon, dazzled by the gloom, could only advance slowly towards the fourposter with its embroidered canopy, below which her husband’s aunt lay propped upon pillows.

Miss Brandon in a state of nature bore a striking resemblance, with her almost bald head and her massive jowl, to the more decadent of the Roman Emperors. To conceal her baldness she had taken of late years to a rather cheap wig, whose canvas parting was of absorbing interest to the young Brandons as they grew tall enough to look down on it, but when in bed she preferred to discard the wig, and wore white bonnets, exquisitely hand-sewn by Sparks, frilled, plaited and goffered, in which she looked like an elderly Caligula disguised as Elizabeth Fry. Round her shoulders she had a white Cashmere shawl, fine enough to draw through a wedding ring, and about her throat swathes of rich, yellowing lace, pinned with hideous and valuable diamond brooches. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds sparkled in the creases of her swollen fingers, and in the watch pocket above her head was the cheap steel-framed watch that her father had bought as a young man with his first earnings.

“Stand still and shut your eyes for a moment,” commanded Miss Brandon’s voice from the bed, “and then you’ll be able to see. I can’t have the blinds up. My eyes are bad.”

Mrs. Brandon obediently halted, shut her eyes, and presently opened them again. The gloom was now less dense to her sight and without difficulty she reached the chair placed by the bedside.

“How are you, Aunt Sissie,” she said, taking her aunt’s unresponsive hand, and then sat down.

Miss Brandon said that her legs were more swollen than ever and it was only a question of Time. Her niece, she added, could look at them if she liked.

“Oh, thank you very much, Aunt Sissie, but I don’t think I could bear it,” said Mrs. Brandon truthfully.

“You don’t have much to bear, Lavinia,” said her aunt grimly, “and I think you might take a little interest in my sufferings. Even my father’s legs weren’t as bad as mine. But all you young people are selfish. Hilary wouldn’t look at them. What do you think of him?”

“Of whom?” Mrs. Brandon asked, a little bewildered.

“Hilary Grant. My nephew. First cousin once removed to be exact, as his father was a son of my youngest aunt. Same relation your children are.”

“Do you mean Mr. Grant?” faltered Mrs. Brandon. “I thought he was going to be a clergyman.”

Miss Brandon almost reared in bed.

“I have always been sorry for you, Lavinia, as Henry’s wife,” she announced, “but I am beginning to be sorry for Henry. Have you no intelligence?”

“Not much,” said her niece meekly.

“None of you have,” said the invalid. “Four people having lunch together and can’t find out who they are. Why didn’t Miss Morris tell you?”

“I didn’t see her, Aunt Sissie. She was reading to you, she said, when we got here.”

“Oh, that’s what she said, is it?” said Miss Brandon. “Well, as a matter of fact she is perfectly correct. She was reading some of Fred’s letters from India to me. I would like you to read me some, Lavinia. Take a chair nearer the window and pull up the blind a little. Here they are.”

She handed her niece a large sachet, worked in cross-stitch with a regimental crest, containing a bundle of yellowing letters. Mrs. Brandon went towards the window and could not resist saying as she went,

“Is it the cousin you sometimes talk about?”

“His son. I didn’t like the father and the mother is a fool, but luckily she lives in Italy a good deal. I like young Hilary.”

She said this with such meaning that Mrs. Brandon was almost goaded into saying that she wished her aunt would leave everything to Mr. Grant at once, and then they needn’t ever come to Brandon Abbey again. But when she looked at her aunt’s helpless bulk, and thought of her legs, and the years of pain and loneliness she had had and might have to come, she felt so sorry that she said nothing, pulled up the blind a little, sat down and opened the sachet. A marker of perforated cardboard sewn with blue silk onto a faded blue ribbon and stitched with the initials F. B., showed the place where Miss Morris had left off.

“Shall I read straight on?” she asked.

Receiving no reply, she began to read. But Captain Brandon’s writing had never been his strong point, the ink was pale with age, the letters were heavily crossed. And as they consisted almost entirely of references to fellows in the regiment, or the places where they had been quartered or in camp, she found herself floundering hopelessly.

“You’d better stop, Lavinia,” said her aunt’s voice after a time, though not unkindly. “Miss Morris can do it far better than you can. I think of Fred as if it were only yesterday. He was twelve years older than I was. Sissie was his pet name for me; he didn’t like Amelia. When he was a lieutenant he used to let me ride on his knee and pull his moustaches. He was a very fine figure of a man. My father made an eldest son of him, and sent him into the Army and gave him every advantage. And all the end of it was that Fred was killed. And now I am all that is left. Hilary reminded me of Fred. I should like to think of someone like Fred living here when I am gone.”

Mrs. Brandon understood that her aunt was talking to herself and without malice. Neither did she feel any resentment herself at the old lady’s outspoken preference for her new nephew. For many years she had felt that the prospect of an inheritance might be bad for Francis. Luckily he had hitherto treated the whole subject as a joke and worked just as hard as if he had no expectations from his aunt and no allowance from his mother. But if by any chance Miss Brandon did bequeath him the Abbey and even a part of her fortune, Mrs. Brandon saw no end to the trouble that such a white elephant would bring. What the amount of Miss Brandon’s estate might be she had no idea, but she thought the death duties would effectually keep the inheritor from improving or even keeping up the place. Never in fact had the mother of a possible legatee been less grateful. It was almost without knowing that she was speaking that she said, “I hope that he will then, Aunt Sissie.”

“What?” said Miss Brandon sharply.

Mrs. Brandon found what she had just said too difficult to repeat and was silent.

“Read me some of the Times,” said Miss Brandon. “The cricket news. My father was very fond of cricket and I used to know all the names of the county players. It is a poor game now. Go on.”

Mrs. Brandon read the descriptions of the chief matches for some time, looking occasionally at the bed to see if her aunt was listening. Gradually she let her voice tail away into a murmur, then gently got up and was tip-toeing towards the door to call Sparks, when a sharp voice from the bed said, “Lavinia!”

“I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Brandon, returning to the bedside, “I thought you were asleep.”

“You’ve never thought in your life,” said Miss Brandon. “Come here.”

Mrs. Brandon approached the bed.

“You are a silly woman, Lavinia,” said her aunt, “but there’s a lot of good in you. I heard what you said quite well. It was no business of yours, but I daresay you are right. I’m going to give you something. It is the diamond Fred brought back from India the last time he came on leave. I always wore it till my hands began to swell, and I wouldn’t have it altered because it was set just as Fred gave it to me. If you don’t get anything else, you’ll get that.”

She took a little case from beside her bed and handed it to her niece, who opened it and saw a diamond ring in an open setting of very thin gold, a store of a thousand lights and twinklings.

“Put it on,” said Miss Brandon. “That’s right. It looks better on you than it ever looked on me. You have a lady’s hands. Mine are like my father’s, workman’s hands. Go away now and send Sparks to me.”

She shut her eyes so determinedly that Mrs. Brandon did not dare to thank her, so she kissed the swollen, bejewelled hand very gently and went out of the room. In the sitting-room she found Miss Morris writing letters and told her that Miss Brandon wanted Sparks. Miss Morris rang the bell.

“I hope very much to see you before you go,” she said. “Miss Brandon has her tea about half-past four and I have ordered tea for you at five if that suits you and then I can come down. Five to seven is my off time. I hope you found Miss Brandon pretty well. She has been looking forward to your visit very much indeed.”

“I never knew anyone who could show their pleasure at seeing one less than Aunt Sissie,” said Mrs. Brandon, “but she was very kind and gave me this ring.”

She held out her left hand on which the diamond was sparkling. Mrs. Brandon had exquisite hands and though she was by no means puffed up she might sometimes be found gazing at them with a frank and pensive admiration that amused her best friends. She wore no rings except her wedding ring, having secretly sold her ugly diamond half-loop engagement ring many years ago. Captain Brandon’s Indian diamond now shone in its place.

“It looks perfect on your hand,” said Miss Morris in a matter-of-fact voice that yet somehow conveyed to Mrs. Brandon that her hands were admired and the gift approved. “I think your son and daughter are in the garden with Mr. Grant. Or would you rather rest?”

Again Miss Morris’s pleasant voice conveyed an unmistakable meaning, and Mrs. Brandon went downstairs feeling rather like a child that has been told it may get down from table. In the hall she picked up her parasol and gloves and went out into the shimmering afternoon. To young Mr. Grant, sitting on the edge of the lily-pond, while Francis and Delia tried to tickle for goldfish, it seemed that never had a goddess been more apparent in her approach. Being in private a poet he tried to think of a suitable description, rejected the words swimming, floating, gliding, light-footed, winged, and several others, and finally as she came near delivered his soul in the words, “Oh, Mrs. Brandon,” standing up and straightening his tie as he did so.

“Hullo, mamma,” said Francis. “Don’t come any nearer or you will frighten my goldfish. Hilary, take mamma away or she will want to look, and if there’s one thing goldfish can’t bear it’s people looking. There are millions of seats about.”

He waved his hand comprehensively at a stretch of green turf and dark walls of yew and bent himself again to his tickling. Mrs. Brandon smiled indulgently and turning to Mr. Grant said,

“I think we must be cousins by marriage.”

This statement, which when previously made by Delia had caused Mr. Grant no emotion at all, suddenly assumed a totally different aspect. To be Mrs. Brandon’s cousin was like suddenly becoming a member of the Royal Family, or being asked to tea by the Captain of the Eleven; or like going to Heaven. In a state of unspeakable nervous exaltation he began to explain the relationship, but one half of his mind, and that, if the expression may be permitted, by far the larger half, was trying to visualise the Tables of Affinity in the beginning of the Prayer Book and to remember whether a man might marry his father’s aunt’s nephew’s on another side’s wife, or rather widow. So he stammered and repeated himself and wished he had shaved more carefully that morning. When he had stammered himself into silence, Mrs. Brandon said she thought there was a seat under the tulip tree, so they walked there; and there were two deck chairs, just as if it had been meant.

“Now,” said Mrs. Brandon, settling herself comfortably, “tell me about yourself.”

This kind suggestion naturally threw Mr. Grant into a state of even more acute palsy and paralysis, but to please the goddess he explained, in a not very intelligible way, that his father had died some time ago and his mother was rather Italian.

“Have you Italian blood then?” asked Mrs. Brandon, interested.

Not like that, Mr. Grant explained, but he meant his mother lived mostly in Italy and had got rather Italian, at least, he added in a burst of confidence, the kind of Italian that English people do get.

“I know,” said Mrs. Brandon. “She talks about Marcheses and would like you to kiss people’s hands.”

So confounded was Mr. Grant by this proof of semimiraculous understanding, and at the same time so overcome by the idea that he might perhaps be allowed to kiss Mrs. Brandon’s hand, that he forgot all the hard words he had been about to utter concerning his mother, and wished she had forced him from earliest youth to kiss the hand of every delightful woman he met. Mrs. Brandon said she thought the custom of kissing hands was so charming, which inspired Mr. Grant’s heart with fresh ardour, but that she thought Englishmen could never do it well, at which his heart sank and he thought more unkindly than ever of his mother.

Mrs. Brandon pulled off her gloves and looked thoughtfully at her hands.

“Aunt Sissie gave me this ring to-day,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

She held out her hand. Mr. Grant put his own hand very respectfully beneath it and raised it a little. He looked intently at the diamond and the elegant fingers and imagined himself gently pressing his lips upon them. He then, entirely against his own will, found himself withdrawing his own hand and saying the ring was lovely. This would have been a good moment to add that the hand it adorned was lovelier still, but his voice refused its office and flames consumed his marrow. By the time he came to, Mrs. Brandon was telling him about the wall paintings in the church.

“I liked them awfully,” said Mr. Grant, “and all the monuments and things.”

“I suppose you saw my husband’s memorial stone,” said Mrs. Brandon, assuming quite unconsciously a most intriguing air of melancholy.

“No, I’m awfully sorry I didn’t,” said Mr. Grant. “Is it a good one—I mean sculpture or anything?”

“Oh, no; quite simple,” said Mrs. Brandon, in a voice that made Mr. Grant feel how moving simplicity was, compared with sculpture. “Just the dates of his birth and death. He died at Cannes, you know, so he couldn’t be buried here.”

Mr. Grant said again he was awfully sorry.

“That is very sweet of you,” said Mrs. Brandon, turning grave blue eyes upon him. “I don’t think much about it. I wasn’t very happy. There are things one is glad to forget.”

If Mr. Grant’s guardian angel had been there he would have been perfectly within his rights to take Mrs. Brandon by the shoulders and shake her. Mr. Grant, deeply moved by this touching confidence, saw his exquisite new friend in the power of a sadist, a drunkard, a dope fiend, nay worse, though why it should be worse he didn’t quite know, and in his agitation got up and began to walk about.

“Yes, I suppose it is nearly tea-time,” said Mrs. Brandon. “Let’s find the children. And you won’t mind if I call you Hilary, will you? If we are cousins it seems ridiculous to say Mr. Grant.”

“I’d love it,” said Mr. Grant.

“And you must call me Lavinia,” said Mrs. Brandon, putting her parasol up again as they walked back across the lawn to the pond.

“There is one name I would like to call you,” said Mr. Grant, in a low, croaking voice.

Mrs. Brandon stopped and looked interested.

“I would like to call you my friend,” said Mr. Grant.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Brandon, laughing gently, “that goes without saying. But if you feel I am too old for Christian names, never mind.”

Mr. Grant felt that this misunderstanding was so awful that it would be no good trying to explain it. They collected Francis and Delia, who had by now tired of the goldfish, and all four went back to the house for tea. Here Miss Morris was waiting for them at the head of the dining-room table, which was loaded with scones, sandwiches, cakes of all sorts and sizes, sweets and fruit. Mr. Grant had not yet arrived at the stage when love makes one resent the sight of food, and all three young people made a very hearty meal. When Miss Morris had finished pouring out the tea she asked Mrs. Brandon if it would be inconvenient for her to take Mr. Grant back in her car.

“I had ordered Miss Brandon’s car to take Mr. Grant back,” she said, “but as he is almost next door to you I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Brandon. “And now I come to think of it, you are having supper with us to-night, aren’t you Hilary, so it all fits in.”

Mr. Grant on hearing those lips speak his name lost his senses and said, Oh, of course, he had quite forgotten, and again felt that it was no good trying to explain. Ever since the invitation had been issued on the previous Saturday he had been living for that evening, but in the unexpected joy of seeing Mrs. Brandon again at the Abbey, and the whirlpool of emotion into which he had been thrown by finding her even more exquisite than he thought, only the present had existed for him, and so drowned was he in the moment that he had truly and completely forgotten about the evening.

“Well, it’s no good forgetting now,” said Francis, “if you’re coming back with us. No need to bother about changing to-night. When Rose is out we relax a little. And anyway there’s not much sense in telling old Miller to change because you can hardly tell the difference. He ought to be allowed to dress like a monk or something for dinner; he’d get an awful kick out of it.”

While the younger members were loudly discussing suitable evening dress for Mr. Miller, Mrs. Brandon turned to Miss Morris and pressed cake upon her. Miss Morris refused it.

“You are too tired to eat,” said Mrs. Brandon accusingly. “You have had nothing for tea, and I’m sure you didn’t have enough lunch. Was it a poached egg?”

“Oh, no. Just what you had. Cold salmon, grilled cutlets. I order the meals for Miss Brandon and I make a point of tasting everything. One must keep the servants up to the mark.”

“Yes, tasting,” said Mrs. Brandon severely. “Three grains of rice and a mouthful of cutlet.”

Miss Morris said nothing. Her mouth tightened, but her eyes looked at Mrs. Brandon for a moment as if appealing for help.

“I know exactly what you feel like,” said Mrs. Brandon untruthfully, “but it’s no good going on like that. You need a holiday.”

“I have only been with Miss Brandon since Whitsun, Mrs. Brandon.”

“And have you once been outside the grounds? or had a day to yourself? or gone to bed before one o’clock?”

“I really could get out if I wanted to,” said Miss Morris, “but there’s nowhere particular to go, and the motor bus doesn’t come any nearer than Pomfret Abbas. And I don’t mind going to bed late at all. I used to read to my father a great deal at night.”

“Now what I want you to do,” said Mrs. Brandon, “is to come for a picnic with us on Friday. Francis has a little car and he can come and fetch you and take you back. We are going to the Wishing Well over beyond Southbridge and you will like it very much.”

“How good of you,” said Miss Morris. “But I can’t.”

Her mouth set into a hard line again, but Mrs. Brandon saw it tremble, and took a secret resolution.

“Miss Brandon sent her love,” said Miss Morris, deliberately changing the subject and speaking for the whole table to hear, “and she is very sorry that she doesn’t feel up to seeing Mr. Brandon, or Miss Brandon—”

“Bountiful Jehovah!” said Francis, piously grateful.

“—or Mr. Grant, but she would like you to come up before you go, Mrs. Brandon.”

Mrs. Brandon said she would come at once then, as they must be getting home, and went upstairs with Miss Morris, saying no more about the picnic.

Miss Brandon was propped up on her pillows, finishing what looked like the remains of a tea that would have fed several people.

“Well,” said she to her niece, “so you are going. I can’t see those young people. They tire me. I suppose they have been getting into mischief as usual.”

“No, Aunt Sissie. Just sitting in the garden.”

“Idling as usual,” said Miss Brandon. “My father never idled, nor did I.”

Mrs. Brandon, suppressing an impulse to say And look at you both now, thanked her aunt for a pleasant visit, at which her aged relative grunted.

“I wanted Miss Morris to come for a picnic with us on Friday,” she said.

“Well, she can’t,” said the invalid, who seemed to be imbibing fresh strength as she dipped plum cake into her tea and mumbled it.

“But she said she wouldn’t,” Mrs. Brandon continued, with great cunning.

“She wouldn’t!” said Miss Brandon. “I don’t know why girls are so ungrateful now. I never could stand a proud stomach. I suppose you wanted her to help with the sandwiches, Lavinia. Something for nothing.”

Having thus satisfactorily attributed the lowest of motives to her niece and her companion, Miss Brandon drank the rest of her tea and rang the handbell violently. Sparks appeared and was ordered to fetch Miss Morris, while Miss Brandon ate lumps of sugar in a state of mental abstraction which her niece thought it better not to disturb.

“I want you to go with Mrs. Brandon on Friday and help with the sandwiches,” said the invalid, as soon as Miss Morris appeared. “The car will take you, and tell Simmonds to put up some of her potted salmon and crab apple jelly and make some cakes. And you’d better take some of the marsala. You can read to me all Friday evening to make up. Good-bye, Lavinia.”

“Good-bye, Aunt Sissie, and thank you very much for the ring. It is the loveliest diamond I’ve ever seen,” said Mrs. Brandon.

“Fred liked pretty women to have jewellery,” said Miss Brandon with a surprising chuckle. “It was the diamond bracelet he gave to Mrs. Colonel Arbuthnot that made him have to exchange—that was at Poona in seventy-six. I was only a young woman then, but Fred told me everything. Come again, soon, but I don’t want to see all those young people. Come alone, and I’ll show you my legs.”

Taking this as permission to retire, and seeing no means of reaching her aunt across the tea-things, Mrs. Brandon repeated her farewell and went out, followed by Miss Morris.

“Is it all right for Miss Brandon to eat so much?” she inquired as they went downstairs. “I thought she was on a diet.”

“So she is, but she doesn’t take any notice of it. She told Dr. Ford last time he came that she was going to die in her own way and he needn’t come again if he didn’t like it, so he just comes and talks to her occasionally. She likes it. Mrs. Brandon, I can’t thank you enough, but do you really want me?”

At this slavish question, which no one should ever ask, Mrs. Brandon almost felt she didn’t. But she looked at Miss Morris’s thin shoulders and her worn face and decided that she did.

“I do want you,” she said, “but I’m not sure if I really want Aunt Sissie’s car. Anyway Francis shall drive you back.”

Then they all got into the car. Curwen asked with long-suffering if he should go by the downs, and on receiving the order to go by Barchester managed to express by the set of his shoulders his opinion of employers, their children, and their guest. Francis chose to ride inside, so he and Delia continued their plans for remaking Brandon Abbey, while Mrs. Brandon thought of nothing in particular and Mr. Grant felt that he now knew what true religion was like. As they approached Pomfret Madrigal, Mrs. Brandon told Curwen to drive first to the Vicarage. Francis protested that there was no need to change, and Hilary might as well come straight to Stories and have a singles with him before dinner. But Mr. Grant, increasingly conscious of his unsuccessful shave that morning, said he would really like to go to the Vicarage first if nobody minded, and, as an afterthought, that he might as well change. Mrs. Brandon smiled approval, Mr. Grant was decanted at the Vicarage, the car rolled away and darkness fell on the world.