Читать книгу Private Enterprise - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 4

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On the following day beyond church, Sunday lunch at which Lavinia was allowed to assist and behaved very well, Sunday coma, a Sunday walk after tea and Sunday supper to which Mr. Wickham came, nothing of note occurred. The question of a house or a cottage for Mrs. Arbuthnot was discussed at intervals. Kate Carter rang up from Southbridge to say that the mumps had been a false alarm and it was an impacted wisdom tooth which had caused the swelling and the boy was in the Barchester General and doing nicely and would be back at school in a few days, so when would Lydia and Colin come over. As everyone was going to Mrs. Brandon’s party on Monday, Kate suggested that the Manor should come back to supper at Southbridge and meanwhile she would inquire about a small house, adding that she didn’t know Mrs. Arbuthnot but if she was a friend of Colin’s she was sure she was very nice.

As there was no fine or warm weather that summer and there will obviously never be again, we will try not to allude to it. Monday was slightly colder, wetter and windier than Saturday or Sunday, and the same holds good for every other day. Luckily for Mrs. Brandon’s party the house faced south and so had what daylight there was, and in any case the presence of a number of human beings all out-talking each other has a warming effect on the atmosphere. During the war Mrs. Brandon had housed at Stories a small private nursery school and enjoyed it very much. The school had now gone back to its own home, but two or three of the more delicate babies had remained with the nice teacher Miss Feilding in charge of them. The reason for this was twofold. The ostensible reason was that if They knew that Mrs. Brandon was being so capittleist and undemocratic as to have a drawing-room and a spare bedroom They would probably, nay certainly and deliberately, have billeted Mixo-Lydians or hands from the Hogglestock iron-works on her. The second reason and the really important one was that Mrs. Brandon’s ex-Nurse, who had brought up Francis and Delia and remained as a kind of general utility, having tasted the joys of power over a series of babies was not lightly going to give up this power.

“Very well, Nurse,” said Mrs. Brandon. “Miss Feilding and the three little ones can stay and keep the Green Room and Dressing-room and they can go on using the drawing-room for I really do not see how we could ever get the furniture and carpets put back. But the Pink Room I must have, because if anyone came to stay with me I would need a room for them.”

“I quite see what you mean, madam,” said Nurse condescendingly, “and I am sure Miss Feilding will be quite agreeable. Really, madam, when we remember how poor Baby Collis wasn’t quite the thing when first he came here and what a fine little fellow he was when he left us, it does seem as if it was meant.”

“It was your idea of putting him onto Toddlefood that made all the difference, Nurse,” said Mrs. Brandon, basely pandering to the tyrant.

“Well, madam,” said Nurse pityingly, “one couldn’t expect Miss Feilding to know a thing like that. Those trained ladies, madam, they don’t study the babies. It’s all out of books with them. Still, she’s a nice lady, for a nursery-teacher, and I’m sure we have always got on very well. Of course the ideas she has, they are all right for the babies that come here, but I wouldn’t dream of letting her do anything for Miss Delia’s children. Our babies need someone who really does understand them. It’s to be hoped that Miss Delia and Mr. Grant and the children will be visiting us again soon. I found an old dress of yours, madam, that chiffon you had the first year of the war, sweet-pea colour and sweetly pretty, and I was thinking that I could make a lovely little frock for Miss Felicia out of the skirt. And that green tweed skirt that Rose scorched, though I told her at the time she ought to do it with a damp cloth, would just be enough to make some nice knickers for Master Freddy.”

As usual Mrs. Brandon submitted, and indeed to what better use can one’s pre-war clothes be put than to be cut up for one’s grandchildren. For one will not wear them again. One is too bony, one’s skin is coarsened, one’s hands are not fit to show, one’s neck and shoulders are better covered than uncovered; the very dresses look strange and out of place in the Foul New World. Better to cut one’s losses, to make frocks and knickers, to cover cushions or reline coats, to relegate sentiment to the attic or the dust-bin. It is of no use to look back. Lear’s fivefold “Never” is our lament for the lost douceur de vivre.

The first arrival at Stories on Monday afternoon was Sir Edmund Pridham, Mrs. Brandon’s old friend and trustee, an indefatigable worker for every good public cause in the county, a champion against all bureaucratic oppression. He had once, sorely against his will, almost offered honourable matrimony to Mrs. Brandon under the misapprehension that she was about to contract a second and most unsuitable marriage, and seldom had he been more relieved than when he found his offer was not necessary.

“Well, Lavinia, so you’re having a party,” said Sir Edmund. “I can’t stay long. Some damfool official is trying to get that land round Starveacres Hatches for a sewage farm. I’m meeting Pomfret about it. That bit was flooded in ’23 and half the vixens in the county were drowned. If these fellers get their way all the vixens will be drowned. If I had my way the whole of this Government would be drowned. Not one of them knows about the country and none of ’em want to know. You’re looking your age, Lavinia. Why don’t you wear one of those pretty dresses you used to have? Mustn’t look an old woman before your time.”

Mrs. Brandon did not resent his criticism. For a delightful and stupid woman she had flashes of great insight, and she knew quite well that her once entrancing good looks were gone for ever. It was all very well to take more care of one’s hair, to cream one’s face, to add quietly a little more make-up; youth was gone long ago, and the young, graceful middle age which had adorned her had become a little withered. Short sight helped one to forget, but she had to put her spectacles on now when she made up her face, and sometimes she wished her spectacles did not show her the ravages of the long war and the hateful peace so clearly. And then, having never taken herself seriously, she couldn’t help laughing at her own face and thinking how very little it really mattered and how very nice it was that she still had Stories, and Delia could come to stay with her babies, and friends had more petrol and could visit her again. What she did not see was the elegance of the bones in her face, the distinction that had taken the place of her young-middle-aged beauty. Some saw and admired it who had never admired her looks before. Sir Edmund saw a pretty woman who had lost her bloom, but he found her as charming and irritating as ever.

“Nurse won’t let me,” she said. “She has just told me that she is going to make an evening dress and a tweed skirt into a frock for Felicia and knickers for Freddy.”

“Damned interfering woman that nurse of yours,” said Sir Edmund. “Tell you what, Lavinia, you ought to wear black. My old mother always wore black. You looked very nice with a black lace affair on your head that night we dined under the Spanish chestnut years ago.”

“I don’t remember that,” said, Mrs. Brandon.

“Don’t be stoopid, Lavinia,” said Sir Edmund. “You were wearing the ring old Miss Brandon gave you and I told you you ought to get it insured. By the way, you ought to insure it a bit more now. Price of diamonds is up.”

“I wish you would see about it for me,” said Mrs. Brandon, feeling that if she was to be called an old woman she might at least have the advantage of being treated like one. And she lifted her tired but beautiful eyes to Sir Edmund.

“All right, Lavinia. No need to make eyes at an old feller like me though,” said Sir Edmund. “You’ve a fine pair of eyes, my dear, even if you’ve lost some weight. You ought to fatten up, you know. Well, I must be off.”

But even as he spoke a crowd of visitors came into the room all at once and Sir Edmund, who preferred to do business by word of mouth, was detained by one and another county friend till at last he got away and went off to Pomfret Towers.

As always happens at a party, the empty room suddenly filled and the hostess’s ears were gladdened by the parrot-house screeches of successful entertainment.

“And where is Francis?” said the Dean’s wife. “Josiah wants him to come and dine with us. We have that nice girl of Mrs. Dean’s living with us during the week. I haven’t seen him since he came back.”

Mrs. Brandon said she couldn’t see him at the moment, but if Mrs. Crawley made for the noisiest bit of the party he would probably be there. Mrs. Crawley did as she was told and came face to face with her hostess’s son who was looking after the drinks.

“Francis! This is nice. You’ve grown,” said Mrs. Crawley.

“I never quite know if I have grown or my clothes have shrunk,” said Francis. “With nearly all my suits I feel as I did in the growing-years, when one went back to school every term looking rather like Smike, with one’s coat sleeves and one’s trouser legs too short. The tailor in Barchester has been very nice about trying to let things out, but there are limits, and two perfectly good suits are doomed to the rag and bone man.”

“You wouldn’t think of selling them privately, would you?” said Mrs. Crawley. “Some of my grandsons are perishing for want of decent clothes and they will grow so fast that no one has any coupons. Look here. The Dean wants you to dine with us. Bring over any suits you can’t wear and I’ll get the girls,” by which Mrs. Crawley meant various daughters with large schoolboy sons, “to make you an offer for them. Have you any shirts or underwear?”

“I wish I had,” said Francis. “Most of them are in such a state that Nurse has taken them to use for dusters.”

“Well, if you can grow out of any before next week, do bring them,” said Mrs. Crawley. “What about Tuesday week?”

Francis said Tuesday week would be very nice indeed, and he didn’t know what the world was coming to when the Dean’s wife had to tout for old clothes at the back door.

“One just can’t help it,” said Mrs. Crawley. “Josiah is really very lucky, because the kind of clothes and hats he wears are so unsuitable for ordinary life that his grandsons can’t take them, though my eldest grandson did borrow his grandfather’s second best gaiters last Christmas to keep goal in a hockey match.”

Francis said he didn’t think gaiters would be much good as hockey pads.

“Oh, not to keep the balls off,” said Mrs. Crawley. “Only to keep his legs warm. The dreadful thing was that they were too tight and he burst three buttons off. Not the buttons just coming off in the ordinary way, but a bit of the gaiter coming off with them. I managed to get them repaired, but it was very awkward because Josiah was looking for them everywhere and you cannot say that gaiters are at the wash. Really, this Government does make life very difficult.”

“Though I regard His Majesty’s present Government with a fascinated mixture of fear and loathing,” said Francis, “one must be fair. Much as I should like to accuse them, collectively and individually, of having abstracted—I will not say stolen—the Dean’s gaiters to play hockey in, I cannot believe that they have the wits to do it.”

“Well, Tuesday week then,” said Mrs. Crawley, her eye already on the next person she wanted to talk to. “I have the Deans’ youngest girl—no, the youngest but one—staying with me during the week.”

Francis could not think why Mrs. Crawley should allude to one of her daughters as her husband’s youngest but one girl, and must have looked as perplexed as he felt, for Mrs. Crawley added hastily, “A daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dean at Winter Overcotes. A sister of Jessica Dean the actress. She is working for the Barsetshire Red Cross Hospital Library and goes home for the weekends, or I would have brought her today. Kate, I want to talk to you about my third girl’s second boy. He is going to Southbridge Junior School next term and I hope you will let him come to tea one day.” For Kate Carter and the Dean’s daughters had all been at the Barchester High School and the families of Crawley and Keith were old friends.

Francis had returned with renewed vigour to the mixing and shaking of such drinks as his mother had been able to hoard or to acquire by unblushing and open bribery. As he surveyed the company he felt it was very nice to see them again but he somehow didn’t much mind if he did or not. He was glad to be out of the army, for though he had much enjoyed the fighting, he had found the post-war interlude of peace-time soldiering quite intolerable. But though he was truly pleased to see his mother and his home again, though he looked forward very much to seeing his sister Delia Grant and her husband and children, though it was very pleasant to meet old friends and revisit familiar places, the fact remained that it was all a little dingy; more than a little depressing. That no one would wish to hear about his soldiering experiences in the Near and Middle East he quite realized and had taken considerable pains not to mention them. That his mother’s friends and indeed most of his own would prefer to tell him about the bomb that fell six miles away, and the night they weren’t in London when Aunt Edith’s house was totally destroyed only luckily she wasn’t there; for all this he had allowed and took it very well. But what he did resent was the ceaseless preoccupation with food. Everyone, so far as he could judge, had enough to eat, but they could not stop talking about it. The rations, the meat, the fish, the milk and eggs, the awfully dull recipes that people would give each other at meal-times, the even duller though more pretentious recipes that people cut out of newspapers and waved at each other; all these in his own simple words got him down. Had he stopped to think, he might have reflected that with a mother who still had a cook, with vegetables and eggs on the premises and a friendly farmer who despised the milk regulations as far as he dared and always saw to it that Stories didn’t go short, he had not any real grounds for complaint. But he saw his mother, of whom he was really very fond and proud, looking worn and being very ready to go to bed soon after their evening meal, which one could hardly call dinner, though Mrs. Brandon usually had a very sketchy lunch so that Francis should have two large helpings at night; he found that many of the neighbours were too tired or too busy to go out much; drink went by luck or outright bribery; furniture, walls, cushions, curtains looked worn and exhausted. It was not amusing for a hero returned from the nastiest war yet known, and Francis, for all his natural good-temper, was sometimes more depressed than he would have wished to admit. So he mixed and shook harder than ever and poured rather weak cocktails with a very good appearance of cheerfulness.

“My dear boy,” said a voice at his elbow. “My dear boy. Indeed, indeed this is a pleasure. Welcome, welcome.”

Francis turned and shook hands warmly with Mr. Miller, the Vicar of Pomfret Madrigal.

“I did see you in church yesterday,” said Francis, “but I didn’t like—I mean it didn’t seem quite the moment——”

He paused, slightly embarrassed, a feeling to which he was as a rule a stranger. Dash it all, why couldn’t one explain that though one was awfully pleased to see Mr. Miller again one couldn’t exactly get up in one’s seat and wave, and if one’s mother had hurried off after the service to get on the roof and see what it was that had blocked the pipe that carried the rain water off the leads to the water-butt, one could not say how do you do to the Vicar.

“I know, I know, my dear boy,” said Mr. Miller. “I too saw you and I rejoiced, for I felt your return was in a way an answer to my earnest prayers—you don’t mind I hope,” he added, fearing an excess of zeal.

“Rather not, padre. It was jolly decent of you,” said Francis, “and it was awfully nice to see everyone in church and the organ still with that note missing. I say, hope you didn’t mind my calling you padre, Mr. Miller. One just got into the habit in the army.”

Mr. Miller, who had been called padre during the whole of the 1914-18 war (or First World War, or First War for Universal Freedom, or War to End War), said he liked it very much and it made him feel quite young again.

“Have a drink, Mr. Miller,” said Francis. “I’ve made this one a bit stiffer for you. It’s a bit of a blow to come back and find one can’t offer people proper drinks. How is Mrs. Miller?”

The Vicar, much gratified, said that his dear wife was very well and would be coming to the party a little later. She had, he said, been a tower of strength to the whole village during the war. He then enumerated some of the many war jobs that Mrs. Miller had done with her usual quiet efficiency.

“But this small beer will not interest you,” said Mr. Miller, “I am most anxious to hear about your war experiences. You were in the Holy Land, so your mother told me. What a privilege. And what impression did you receive from it, my dear boy?”

Francis said he didn’t exactly know. Quite often, he said, he didn’t really know where he was and all the natives seemed much alike. He remembered Jerusalem because of the hotel there.

“Jerusalem,” said Mr. Miller. “And what was it like?”

“Pretty mouldy, sir,” said Francis. “And the hotel where they billeted us was quite ghastly. The Barsetshires got so fed up that they nearly wrecked the dining-room.”

The Vicar looked dashed. Francis’s heart smote him for his tactless remarks and he cast about for something to say that would cheer Mr. Miller up.

“Of course we saw all the sights, sir,” he said, “only it was a bit difficult to know what was what with a lot of guides all gabbling, and we had a pretty awful padre. Gosh, he was awful. Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, but I forgot you were a padre. I mean he was quite different. He would be human all the time, at least I don’t exactly mean that—but you understand, sir.”

Never had anyone appealed to Mr. Miller in vain. He partially understood his young friend’s difficulty and embarrassment, and in any case did not suspect any intent to be discourteous.

“I quite understand, my dear boy,” he said. “Have you a little more of that delightful mixture? Thank you, thank you. It is but rarely that I see the wine when it is red now,” said Mr. Miller, eyeing the pale watery fluid which had to take the place of a proper cocktail. “Was he the religious kind or the cheerful kind?”

“Both, sir,” said Francis. “That was the awful part. And we all wondered where he had been brought up, because he knew absolutely nothing. He said one day in mess, sir, that he was all against foul-mouthedness, but when the men used meaningless oaths was less offensive. He said he could not but shudder when he heard a man say ‘Cripes’—he really did say that, sir—but he didn’t mind a bit if they said a word that meant nothing, like——”

Here Francis paused, horror-struck to find just in time that a word was bursting out of his mouth which would certainly shock his mother’s guests, though most of them were pretty tolerant and many of them, under the stress of war and peace, had become foul-mouthed in a way quite unsuitable to their years and sex.

Mr. Miller not only smiled, but laughed.

“It is curious,” he said, “how that very unpleasant nation’s name has become a synonym in more than one language for vice. It is, of course, largely a matter of religion.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” said Francis, much relieved that the Vicar had not excommunicated him.

“They, in common with other Eastern European nations if one can call them European, belonged, in so far as they could be said to have any religion,” said Mr. Miller, “to the Orthodox Church. The Church of Rome therefore very naturally attributed to them every vice they could think of and so the name stuck. And, as you say, Francis, it is deplorable that such uneducated men should be sent to minister to our fighting forces. They should all spend at least six months in a place where the inhabitants are habitually profane. I had the great good fortune as a very young man to live in the slums of a large seaport for a year, which taught me a great deal. In fact, during the last war—I am not boring you?—I was able if necessary to swear longer and more foully than anyone in the regiment. It took the heart out of the most profane when the padre beat them at the job,” said Mr. Miller with justifiable pride.

“Thanks awfully sir,” said Francis, feeling quite forgiven. “I didn’t mean to be rude about Jerusalem, but it was really pretty grim. And I brought a lot of picture postcards for you, sir, if you’d care to have them.”

Mr. Miller said he was deeply touched by the kind thought and would find them most useful for his confirmation classes which, he was glad to say, were the largest this year he had yet had, and so passed on to talk to other friends, while Francis attended to old Lady Norton who had to be asked and modelled her dress, hair and hats upon the Queen Mother with overpowering effect.

“How is everything going, darling?” Said Mrs. Brandon, finding herself by the sway and movement of the party, now one huge indistinguishable hubbub, suddenly brought face to face with her son.

“Splendidly,” said Francis. “The drink in particular is going like anything. In fact if it weren’t for the way your tall hero son is watering it down, it wouldn’t be here at all by now. Hullo, Lydia.”

“It’s Francis!” Lydia exclaimed, grasping his hand with her old vigour. “I haven’t seen you since the Pomfret Madrigal Flower Show. Do you remember the roundabout?”

“Lord! yes,” said Francis. “You rode on the cock and Delia had the ostrich, and I was helping Mrs. Miller in the refreshment tent, only she was Miss Morris then. What a long time ago.”

“Eight years,” said Lydia.

“It all shows there is something in relativity,” said Francis. “At least I don’t know if that’s what I mean, but I mean the same amount of time can be longer or shorter. I say, how is your husband? My dear mamma used to flirt with him quite shockingly. It impressed me, because I looked upon him as a man of the world. I daresay he wasn’t much older than I am.”

Lydia said Noel was very well and very hard worked and was somewhere about in the room and Francis must meet him again and then a great wave of Birketts and Carters from Southbridge School descended upon the drinks and Francis returned to his duties. As most of the guests had to cook their own dinner or be home early in case the person who was cooking it for them took offence, the party did not linger as parties had lingered before the war. With a great final roar most of them went away. The Mertons were among the last to go, for Lydia had not forgotten about the house for Colin’s friend.

“Do come and sit down for a minute, Mrs. Brandon,” she said, refraining from the words ‘how tired you look.’ “I wonder if you could help us. My brother Colin has a friend, a Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose husband was killed in the war, and she wants a little house somewhere near Barchester. If you ever hear of anything, will you let me know?”

Colin, hearing his own name mentioned, came and sat down by them.

“Poor young thing,” said Mrs. Brandon. “I was left a widow very young, you know, though it was only pneumonia.”

“Never mind, mamma dear,” said Francis, who had brought the lees and dregs of the drink for consumption on the premises. “We can’t always have a war and I am sure my father would have been killed if he could have managed it. And you didn’t tell Lydia that the pneumonia was at Cannes. That makes it more distinguished.”

His mother said he shouldn’t say things like that.

“She isn’t very well off,” said Lydia, “so it will have to be a small house or cottage, only not a draughty one.”

As the Millers the last remaining guests were trying to say good-bye, Mrs. Brandon told them about Colin’s young widowed friend who wanted a house, and at once enlisted their help. That is in a general way, for Mrs. Miller, who knew the country within bicycling radius inside out, said it was practically impossible to find any house or cottage. Even the cottage next to the Thatchers’ down at Grumper’s End, condemned by the sanitary inspector before the war, had been bought for an immense sum by a rich businessman on the Town Council who had installed a septic tank and a swimming pool and was getting the drains brought down the lane. All she could do was to promise to keep her eyes and ears open and report any possibilities to Colin. Then she and her husband went away.

“Has Mrs. Arbuthnot any children?” said Mrs. Brandon. “No? That is very sad, and now I don’t suppose she will.”

“Really, mamma,” said her outraged son, “you must not say things like that.”

“Posthumous children,” said Mrs. Brandon, with an air of sibylline wisdom, “are perfectly practicable.”

“For children read progeny,” said Noel Merton, “and you will beat Peter Piper hollow. But Captain Arbuthnot was killed more than a year ago, so if his widow hasn’t had a child by now it is highly improbable that she will have one later. And I beg you,” he added, seeing a calculating gleam in his hostess’s eyes, “not to think of elephants, for that is quite, quite different.”

He was standing while he spoke and looking, his Lydia thought, very handsome, with the growing likeness to an admiral that so many lawyers have; something perhaps in the habit of command. Mrs. Brandon, a little flushed by her party and the unwonted cocktails, the light behind her, looked up at Noel with an appealing glance, smiled, and examined thoughtfully the exquisite hands which she had managed to keep fairly soft and white in spite of a very busy war life. Noel, looking down from his considerable height, saw with a pang of remembrance for a dead world, how she pensively admired her own hands as of old and, as of old, could make eyes in an adorable way. For a moment he was back in the summer before Munich. He had come through the sun-drenched garden into Mrs. Brandon’s cool, flower-scented drawing-room and had indulged in a delicate flirtation, conducted with great skill, no emotion, and considerable amusement on both sides. She had admired her lovely hands, she had raised her lovely eyes to his. Lydia was still a hoyden then, though a very dear one. The glass clouded, the vision changed. The goddess was now a charming middle-aged woman, and would be a very good-looking elderly woman, but the years of war and peace had destroyed too much. His eyes moved to his Lydia and there he saw all he could ever need. Lydia, who had chiefly been thinking that Mrs. Brandon looked as if she ought to rest before dinner, got up and said they must go as they had to go to Southbridge. Good-byes were said, Mrs. Brandon promised to inquire about houses, and the party was over.

“And now, mamma darling,” said Francis, “you are going to lie down, and your handsome demobilized son is going to clear the remains of the orgy away if Rose has no objection.”

Mrs. Brandon sighed as a hostess and obeyed as a mother, secretly feeling glad to be ordered about and told to rest. Rose had already put a hot-bottle on the sofa in her bedroom and Mrs. Brandon gladly lay down, grateful to Providence that had sent Francis back to her in safety. She hoped he would marry someone very nice, but not just yet. Only it must be fairly soon, for Delia had only two babies so far and if Nurse was to stay she would require more nanny-fodder. Then, thought Mrs. Brandon sleepily, the rest of the nursery school could go and Stories could have relays of grandchildren all the year round. And there was Colin’s friend who was a widow. Perhaps Colin would marry her and they would have babies too. And in a dream of Francis in his nursery chair with yellow hair and a green linen suit and Delia in her tall chair in a yellow muslin frock with a yellow ribbon in her brown hair having their nursery tea, she comfortably went to sleep.

Meanwhile the Manor party were driving to Southbridge to sup with the Carters. Colin was loud in praise of Mrs. Brandon, the first person who had had the wits to realize that Mrs. Arbuthnot was not an old woman, mentally and physically defective. So loud indeed was he that Noel and Lydia exchanged glances of resigned amusement and almost wondered if Mrs. Arbuthnot was going to find a rival already in possession of Colin’s affection. Noel said he was sure Mrs. Arbuthnot would like Mrs. Brandon very much and felt ashamed of himself when Colin cordially agreed.

When they got to Everard Carter’s house they found Kate Carter full of the exciting news that a small house in Southbridge was just coming onto the market.

“It is still quite a secret,” she said, “and the Vicar only told me because it is so important to get the right people. It is one of the cottages in Wiple Terrace where the Vicar’s aunt lives. She is giving it up and going to live at the Vicarage with her nephew for the present. The School is most anxious to get a nice tenant, so I thought we might go down before supper and look at it. The Vicar’s aunt said we could come whenever we liked and if she is out the key will be under a flower-pot by the back door.”

On hearing this exciting news Colin begged to go at once, so Kate got into the car and they drove down to the village.

Wiple Terrace, as everyone should know, is a little block of four red-brick two-story cottages, lying back from the road with a strip of grass in front of them. The Terrace belongs to Paul’s College, Oxford, who also own the Vicarage and the living and are very good landlords. The four cottages are called after the daughters of Mr. Wiple, a small master builder whose name and the date 1820 may be seen on a stucco pediment which surrounds them: Maria, Adelina, Louisa and Editha. Adelina Cottage was inhabited by two spinster ladies, Miss Hampton and Miss Bent. Maria and Louisa were now occupied by masters from the School, and Editha Cottage by the Vicar’s aunt.

The journey only took five minutes. The key was under the flower-pot. Kate opened the back door and they entered a neat kitchen with a small scullery off it. Beyond them were the dining-room and the drawing-room, which had one window upon the road and another upon the little side-garden. A steep narrow stair led to a bedroom overlooking the street, a smaller bedroom behind it, and a tiled bathroom. The whole house was spotlessly clean.

“I didn’t know,” said Lydia, awestruck, “that one could have so many hideous things in one small house. I simply must see the drawing-room again, Kate.”

Kind Kate led the way downstairs again so that Lydia could sup full of horrors. The monstrous armchairs covered with richly embossed velvet and quite incredibly with thick lace antimacassars; the ball fringes on the mantelpiece; the painted vases with coloured pampas grass in them; the rickety bamboo tables; the tinted family photographs in plush frames; the round table with photograph albums on it; the one hanging bookcase made of bamboo; the china dog in a top hat with a pipe in its mouth; the small easel holding a large photograph of a man with a huge beard, a piece of Indian embroidery draped across one corner; the heavy Nottingham lace curtains: it was hardly to be believed.

“I know the rooms are a bit full,” said Kate anxiously. “But the Vicar’s aunt is taking all her things to the Vicarage and I am sure we can get the walls distempered and some light paint. Paul’s are very obliging landlords and if there is any difficulty we can usually get things done through the School. Our odd-man is very handy. What do you think, Colin? Mrs. Arbuthnot could have the front bedroom and the other little room would do for a maid or a guest.”

“I don’t think she will have a maid,” said Colin. “She isn’t very well off and her sister-in-law is going to live with her because she isn’t very well off either.”

This sudden introduction of a sister-in-law surprised Noel and Lydia, but they said nothing.

“I hardly know Miss Arbuthnot,” said Colin apologetically, “but I believe she is awfully nice. She was very good to Peggy when her husband was killed and she is very sensible. I didn’t know they were going to live together till Peggy rang up last night. It was after you had gone to bed, Lydia, and I didn’t want to disturb you and Noel, so I switched the telephone through to the pantry. I am awfully glad she will have someone with her, because she seems so alone and defenceless.”

Miss Lydia Keith, if she had heard these fatuous words from her beloved brother, would have stigmatized the whole thing as sentimental rot, but Mrs. Noel Merton said it all sounded very suitable and she was sure Editha Cottage would be very nice when it was distempered and painted and not quite so full. Kate said they ought to be getting back or they would be caught by the Vicar’s aunt and have to drink damson gin made with a special war recipe that had hardly any sugar. So the back door was locked, the key replaced under the flower-pot, and they all went towards the car.

“Good God!” said Noel, who had lingered to look at the front of the house, “the door is real imitation oak with grained twiddles and six coats of varnish. Colin, your friend simply must have it.”

Kate said they would talk about it after supper and she would give them all details about rent, rates and so forth, and so hustled them into the car and back to the Carter’s House. Here they found Everard Carter talking to a pleasant young man whom he introduced as Robin Dale, an assistant master, and then Mr. and Mrs. Birkett, the Headmaster and his wife, joined them. For the Birketts and the Carters supped together at one or the other house every Sunday of the school year, but owing to Whitsun and the fact that the Mertons and Colin were coming, the engagement had been altered to Monday.

The talk at supper was mostly about School affairs, for as the Birketts and the Carters saw each other every day and supped together every week, they naturally had a great deal to discuss. Colin, who had taught classics at Southbridge for a term before he began to read law, was interested by the talk and the various changes in the School, so Noel and Lydia found themselves a little out of it. But they were quite happy to listen, and when kind Kate looked at either of them to see if they had enough food on their plates, they smiled back and were quite content. The principal subject of conversation was the approaching retirement of the Birketts and the appointment of Everard Carter as future Headmaster.

“It is such a blessing,” said Mrs. Birkett, kindly bringing Noel into the conversation, “that Kate knows the very worst of the Head’s House. If an outsider had been chosen, I should have been obliged to be rather truthful and tell his wife that no one has ever been able to repair the lead roof over the bathroom that was added in Dr. Damper’s time satisfactorily, so that there is always a damp patch on that ceiling, and to explain that the door into the scullery and the door to the cellar stairs can’t be opened at the same time or they bang into each other, and the way servants always trip up over that stupid little step outside the old nurseries. And though we have got quite used to the House and are very fond of it, I feel that the wife of any new Head might be put off by its inconvenience.”

Kate, who had never yet been daunted by any domestic difficulty or inconvenience, said she was sure everything would be perfectly comfortable and the only drawback would be that the Birketts would not be there.

Noel asked Mrs. Birkett what their future plans were. She said they had taken the Dower House at Worsted which was just unrequisitioned by the military, and high time too.

“I know the Dower House far too well,” said Noel. “I was there for a winter during the war on hush-hush work. Apart from being full of the most unpleasant officers the British Army can produce, it seemed to me a delightful place and was obviously longing to have a proper family in it.”

Mrs. Birkett said she had felt exactly the same, and that was partly why they had taken it.

“You see,” she added, “Rose and Geraldine may have to go abroad at any time on account of their husbands’ jobs, so we want to be able to have all the grandchildren. It is really extraordinarily lucky that the Fairweather granny died last year. She was a delightful person, but she spoilt the children quite shockingly, and she left quite a nice sum of money to my sons-in-law. Both the girls’ Nannies disapproved of her, so it would have been very difficult. It is really a very good thing,” said Mrs. Birkett with the complacent air of a housewife who has for once been able to get her allocation of imported eggs. “And do tell me, Mr. Merton, did you ever notice anything about the drains when you were there? The surveyor’s report is quite satisfactory, but if you had noticed a smell or anything I should feel much safer.”

Noel, who quite saw her point, had to tell her that he had never lived in the Dower House, as he and Lydia had stayed as paying guests with the Warings at Beliers Priory. “And that,” he added, “is partly why our second child is called Harry.”

Mrs. Birkett asked why partly.

“Because we can then kill three birds with one stone,” said Noel. “First we can pretend he is called after Lydia’s father, whose name was Henry and not Harry at all, secondly he is called after Sir Harry who was never Henry, and thirdly Lady Waring is Harriet.”

“Amurath an Amurath succeeds,” said Robin Dale.

No one took his allusion (partly we must confess because they were not listening) and he thought with pleasure that Anne Fielding, whom he hoped to marry within the year, would have taken it at once.

“There is,” said Mr. Birkett, “one point upon which I shall be adamant. For one year after my retirement I shall not visit the School.”

This pronouncement struck the whole table into respectful silence.

“But you must,” said Kate. “You and Amy are to be our first guests. That is quite settled. And if you aren’t, I shall invite the Bishop and his wife and Everard will ask him to preach in chapel on Sunday morning.”

“I absolutely forbid it,” said Mr. Birkett.

“You can’t,” said Mrs. Birkett placidly. “Kate will be the Headmaster’s wife and the Bishop is one of the Governors, so it will all be quite reasonable.”

Mr. Birkett, almost angry, said that at least that Woman, if woman she could be called, was not a Governor, though doubtless the Bishop found she was a monstrous Governess, and he absolutely inhibited Kate from letting her cross the sill of the Headmaster’s House. Noel said he believed that Bishops were technically the only persons who could inhibit people. Mr. Birkett fumed, laughed, and finally said that he and his wife would come as the Carters’ first visitors but only under threats and coercion, and everything was smooth again.

The men did not linger over the port, for there was no port to linger over and not very much beer, so the whole party settled comfortably in the drawing-room to talk about the drink shortage which had never been more acute. Even Miss Hampton and Miss Bent at Adelina Cottage, said Everard, had found it difficult to keep themselves in gin, whisky, rum and beer; and what Miss Hampton did not know about getting drink was just about the size of the Food Minister’s brain.

“Perhaps he can’t help it,” said Kate, always ready to make allowances. “Some people just haven’t much intelligence. You can’t blame them. And often they are quite clever in other ways. Do you remember Jessie, Colin, the House under-house maid? She is almost mentally defective, but she can mend linen quite beautifully and darn the boys’ socks like an angel, if only she would remember to wear her spectacles. But she will not, and Matron is always scolding her about it.”

“If spectacles would help, I’d subscribe at once to give a pair to the Food Minister,” said Mrs. Birkett. “Poor fellow; it must be dreadful to have a job you can’t do. But I daresay he needs the money.”

Kate, ever on the side of the oppressed, said perhaps he had a wife and children and of course a man would do anything to support his family. But Mr. Birkett, in whom the matter of beer still rankled, said that in this particular case he did not see the necessity.

“I remember,” said Everard, looking at his wife with the besotted look of a devoted husband, “that before Kate and I were engaged she mended a sock of mine, a black sock that Jessie had darned with blue wool. She undid the blue and darned it quite beautifully with black.”

“Darling, it was dreadful,” said Kate, her kind eyes growing misty at the remembrance.

Luckily all the company present were well accustomed to the Carters’ mutual adoration. Colin, with great presence of mind, reminded his sister Kate that she had promised to tell him more about Editha Cottage.

All that Kate had to tell about it was in its favour. The rent was very moderate. The walls, roof and drains were in good condition, for Paul’s College insisted on a yearly examination by their own surveyor and were generous about all structural repairs. The Vicar’s aunt, a keen and vigorous amateur gardener, had the little strip of grass in front and the lawn and vegetable garden at the back in excellent order. There was a jobbing gardener in Southbridge who worked for her every Saturday afternoon and proposed to work for any subsequent tenant of Editha Cottage whether the said tenant required him or not. There was a fair stock of coal and coke in a locked shed at the back of the house and the Vicar’s aunt was willing to sell it at cost price. Mr. Brown at the Red Lion would always do his best to oblige with beer, or an occasional half-bottle of spirits, but could only do his best under the present restrictions. When even Miss Hampton and Miss Bent were finding difficulty in stocking their cellar, said Kate, it was very lucky that Mr. Brown was so nice.

“When you say cellar,” said Noel, “I suppose that is a figure of speech.”

“Dear me, no,” said Everard, taking up the challenge for his wife. “Didn’t you show them the cellar, Kate?”

Kate apologized. She was thinking about supper, she said, and didn’t want to keep the Birketts waiting, but she was sure the Vicar’s aunt would give them permission to look at it another day if Mrs. Anstruther——

“Arbuthnot,” said Colin, faintly offended that so beautiful a name should be confused with another.

Kate said she was so sorry, of course it was Arbuthnot and how stupid of her. If, she continued, Mrs. Arbuthnot wished to look at the cellar it could be arranged at any time. Colin, torn between a determination that Mrs. Arbuthnot should have every inch of her rights and a wish to explain that she was not a heavy drinker, began to speak, but Everard got in first.

“Mr. Wiple, the man who built the cottages,” said Everard, “must have been a very good builder. You know the river is apt to overflow near Southbridge in the winter and that part of the village can be rather damp. He must have known this, and he made the foundations very deep. You will have noticed that there are three steps up to the front door, so the whole house is well raised above ground level. And the cellars are so well built and aired that, so Miss Hampton tells me, she has never seen a sign of damp or mould on any barrel or bottle in her cellar. The Vicar’s aunt found it so dry that she stored some of her trunks there.”

Mr. Birkett, whose face had been darkening while Everard spoke, said there was a diabolical plan on foot to tap some of the head waters of the river for a new reservoir. In that case, he said angrily, they wouldn’t get any more winter floods at Southbridge.

“But wouldn’t that be rather a good thing?” said Lydia.

“It means the end of skating,” said Mr. Birkett gloomily. “In the first winter of the war we had the best skating I remember. The whole of the playing-fields were flooded. Well, now we’ve got this wretched peace we shan’t have any more frosts, I suppose. Look at the weather this Government has brought on us. No summer and no proper winter. Just one long run of nasty chilly wet weather. Why we were ever born I don’t know.”

“It would have been so disappointing for our parents if we hadn’t been,” said Kate, “and one must think of one’s parents.”

Never had Kate’s universal benevolence of soul been more apparent; seldom had her hearers, though all devoted to her, been more inclined to shake her, with the exception of course of her husband, who gazed at her with more than his usual devotion and looked almost pale as he reflected upon the disappointment it would have been to himself and his wife if Miss Angela Carter and the Masters Philip and Bobbie Carter had refused to be born.

The telephone rang.

Everard, putting aside in Roman fashion all thoughts of family life, got up and took the receiver off.

“It’s for you, Colin,” he said. “Long distance.”

“Who on earth would ring me up here?” said Colin, at the same time going bright red in the face, a symptom which did not escape the lynx though loving eye of his sister Lydia.

Colin, for the first time in his life looked almost coldly at his younger sister and went to the telephone. In the ordinary course of things no one would have paid much attention, but there was something in his manner, a mixture of pleasure, annoyance, uncertainty and a kind of boorishness very foreign to him, that made it almost impossible for the rest of the party not to listen. They made, it must be said to their credit, praiseworthy attempts to talk among themselves in voices low enough not to disturb the telephone, yet loud enough to make one another hear; but most of them found their attention sorely distracted. Robin Dale, the only guest who had no particular personal interest in Colin, naturally remained unmoved, but it was plain to him that the Carters, Birketts and Mertons were secretly devoured by curiosity and the ladies in particular talking quite feverish nonsense.

Colin hung the receiver up and returned to his seat with the face of unconscious and sheepish triumph that a long-distance talk with a lady one is not in the least in love with—oh no, not at all, far from it, but one must be civil to the widow of a dead brother officer—is apt to induce in gentlemen of all ages.

He carefully pulled his trousers up enough to prevent that bag at the knees and sat down with meticulous care.

“Was it Mrs. Abernathy?” said Kate.

Her husband looked at her with amused despair.

“I was just going to tell you,” said Colin, in a voice which but ill concealed a sudden dislike and contempt for his elder sister, “that it was a long-distance call from mrs. arbuthnot.”

“How stupid of me,” said Kate.

Robin Dale said not stupid at all. Arbuthnot and Abernathy were both doctors, and the only difference was that Dr. Abernathy invented a biscuit and Dr. Arbuthnot didn’t.

“I don’t see why not,” said Kate, her thoughts as usual flying to the nursery. “I think an Arbuthnot biscuit might be very nice. Rather a fat one, a bit like a cracknel. Isn’t it dreadful to think that none of the children know what a cracknel is. I haven’t seen one since the first year of the war.”

Mrs. Birkett said she had seen practically no biscuits of any kind since this Government came in.

“Probably we are selling them all to the Argentines,” said Mr. Birkett. “If we ever are allowed to make anything nice we are never allowed to buy it. It all goes abroad.”

Lydia, Kate and Mrs. Birkett, all talking at once, said what made them more cross than anything were fashion magazines full of pictures of delightful suits and frocks for export, to people who had practically been Germans all the time. The conversation became loud and confused, everyone lamenting his or her favourite luxuries, for necessities they did not ask nor expect, which were flowing in a steady stream to foreigners: clothes, hand-bags, shoes, whisky, gin, tweeds, silks, a thousand other things.

“Well, God help us all,” said Mr. Birkett. “We need it.”

Kate, always ready to see the best of everything, said she didn’t think it was really as bad as that. Robin Dale said one couldn’t expect things to get better while the present Government was in Downing Street and the present Bishop of Barchester in the Palace, a remark which went down very well.

Colin meanwhile had been getting sulkier and sulkier and only his really good heart prevented his throwing his glass of thin beer on the floor and walking out into the night. Kate saw his expression, blamed herself for having fiddled while Rome was burning, and asked Colin in her quiet comfortable voice if Mrs. Arbuthnot was well.

“Yes, thank you,” said Colin, who was very fond of his sister and beginning to be ashamed of himself. “It was awfully good of her to ring up. When she rang up last night I told her that I was dining here this evening and I was sure she would like you. She took a lot of trouble to find your number,” said Colin, his face lit by a holy rapture. “But she managed it at last.”

Kate said how perfectly splendid and she did hope Mrs. Arbuthnot was pleased about Editha Cottage.

Colin said she was very much pleased and wanted to come and see it as soon as possible. She was, he added, rather badly off but frightfully brave about it, and Kate would like her very much. Kate, who had long ago scented romance and was always enchanted by the idea of any two people, however unsuitable, falling in love, said she knew she would like her and it would be so nice to have the right kind of tenant at Editha Cottage.

“Her sister-in-law who is going to live with her is very nice too,” said Colin. “She isn’t sensitive like Peggy of course.” After which exquisite tribute to Mrs. Arbuthnot he fell into a kind of trance, well known to those who study the tender passion.

“I do hope your friend will be able to have Editha,” said Robin to Colin. “I rather had my eye on it myself, as I’m getting married within the year. But I believe I am getting the Junior house, so we shall at least have a home. And there is central heating. I’ve never felt warm since I was in Africa.”

Colin asked if he had been anywhere near Sadd-el-Bak. Robin had. They fell joyfully into soldiers’ talk, discovering that by an extraordinary chance they had both known a man called Benson. Colin said he had got demobbed last year and was back at the bar, in his brother-in-law’s chambers.

“I’ve been out for ages,” said Robin. “One of my feet fell off at Anzio, so I became a beggarly usher.”

Colin was sorry, and then they talked again about Benson who collected butterflies and had hair growing out of his ears, and Colin, we are relieved to say, quite forgot about Mrs. Arbuthnot and enjoyed himself very much.

Then Lydia said they must go. The party drifted out into the hall and good-byes were said.

“Oh, Everard,” said Colin, who had lingered in the drawing-room, “I told Mrs. Arbuthnot to charge the trunk call to your account. I hope you don’t mind. I have just rung up the exchange and it is three and fourpence. Here you are.”

He handed a half-crown and a shilling to his brother-in-law.

“If you will be so pernickety,” said Everard, “you’ll have to take the consequences. Here you are. Twopence change.”

Colin refused to take it, saying that it would pay for his ringing up the exchange.

“Rubbish,” said Everard. “It’s only a penny farthing or something of the sort to subscribers.”

Kate, with unsuspected malice, said how like men to squabble over twopence, and as it is well known that this peculiar and irritating form of honesty is the prerogative of females, her attack quite flabbergasted her husband and her brother.

“Let me know as soon as Mrs.—as Peggy can come and see the house,” said Kate, which Colin took to be a very beautiful expression of affection towards Mrs. Arbuthnot, though Everard knew that it was merely to avoid calling that lady by some other name beginning with A. “Perhaps she would like to spend a night here. The spare room mattress is away being remade, but there is always the little room and I can have it ready whenever she likes.”

Overlooking the appalling slight of offering the little room to a Mrs. Arbuthnot, Colin thanked his sister and got into the car. Being by himself in the back seat he was able to concentrate on the extreme beauty, nay heroism, of Mrs. Arbuthnot’s action in ringing him up in somebody else’s house at half-past nine o’clock at night; also upon the sweetness of disposition which had made her submit to his plan of charging her telephone call to people she didn’t know; which lover’s thoughts made time pass so quickly that they were back at Northbridge manor before he had time to reflect more than once upon the wonderful trust she was showing in him by letting him advise her about a house.

“Burglar in the drawing-room,” said Noel as they drove up and saw light through the curtains.

Lydia said she expected it was Mr. Wickham, who had a way of dropping in if he had any news to give. And so it was.

“Have you see this?” he said, flourishing a copy of the Barchester Chronicle.

“I haven’t,” said Noel. “What is it?”

Mr. Wickham laid the paper on a table and put his finger on a paragraph headed ‘Death of Well-known Cattle Authority.’

“Read that,” he said.

“We regret to announce,” Noel read, “the death of Mr. Jos Mallow, for many years in charge of the famous herd of dairy cows at Rising Castle. He had for some months been under the care of the well-known local medico Dr. Ford, but was in excellent health till last Tuesday when he complained of a feeling of oppression, and almost immediately passed away. The funeral will take place on Friday, details to be announced later. Lord Stoke when approached by our representative said, ‘Mallow was a fine cowman and will be deeply regretted by all.’ His widow survives him.”

“Do you realize what that means?” said Mr. Wickham, and before Noel could say whether he did or not, the agent eagerly continued, “It means that our chances with Northbridge Verena have gone up fifty per cent. Mallow could show a cow better than anyone in the county. Lord Bond has a good man, so has Mr. Palmer at Worsted, but Bunce is as good as they are. I had a double whisky when I read it. Well, good night. I thought you’d like to know.”

Noel thanked him and he went away.

“Oh, Lydia,” said Colin in an off-hand way. “I’ve got to make a trunk call. If you don’t mind I’ll do it from the pantry, then it won’t disturb you.” He went off to the pantry.

Noel and Lydia looked at each other.

“I am sure,” said Lydia, “that I shall like her very much. I’ve just jolly well got to. But I still like you better than anyone in the world, Noel.”

In proof of which she kissed her husband very affectionately and they went upstairs, first turning out the lights.