Читать книгу Private Enterprise - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 5

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Next day Colin went back to London, where he was able to make and receive trunk calls from his own little flat. One of these trunk calls was to his sister Lydia. After rather perfunctory inquiries as to the health of his niece and nephew he said that Mrs. Arbuthnot was most anxious to see Editha Cottage as soon as possible; that she wanted her sister-in-law who was going to live with her to see it too; that Kate only had the little bedroom available at the moment and how awkward it was. He then stopped talking.

“I say, are you cut off?” said Lydia.

Colin’s voice said he wasn’t.

“Why did you stop talking then?” said Lydia.

Colin said he wondered, he meant he was just wondering, he meant he rather wondered, if it wouldn’t be a bother——

“All right,” said Lydia. “I’ll have them both here. They can spend the night, see the house next day, talk to Kate and go back after lunch. Will that do? Let me know which day and I’ll meet them at Northbridge Halt.”

There was a brief silence, after which Colin’s voice said it was most awfully nice of Lydia and it would be so nice if she could possibly manage to meet them at Barchester Central, as they would have had a cross-country journey and might be tired. Lydia, who had determined to do the thing handsomely, suppressed a feeling of annoyance and said all right, and to let her know which day they could come as soon as possible.

“Friday then,” said Colin’s voice. “Thanks most awfully, Lydia. They get to Barchester Central at 7.15. I say, are you cut off?”

But his voice spoke to the unresonant air, for Lydia, really annoyed with her brother Colin for the first time in her life, had hung the receiver up. Not only was 7.15 a preposterous hour to expect people to be met, but Friday was the night she and Noel were engaged to dine at the Deanery. She would have to see if someone from Northbridge could drive her and Noel to the station and pick up the guests, when they would have themselves dropped at the Deanery, send the Arbuthnots back to the Manor with an apology, and get whoever it was to come back to fetch them from Barchester, or else get a Barchester taxi to do it. Permutations and combinations on this theme pursued each other through her mind, and the more she thought of the muddle it would make, the less she felt that she could ever really like Mrs. Arbuthnot. Which was a very unjust thought, for the whole thing was really Colin’s fault. At last she felt so addled that she rang up the Deanery in what was, for her, a very bad temper and told Mrs. Crawley exactly what had happened.

“The only way out of it I can see is for me to bring these friends of Colin’s back to the Manor and give them dinner,” said Lydia, “and you keep Noel. I am furious with Colin, but I’ll have to do the civil to these Arbuthnots. You can easily get another woman.”

To which Mrs. Crawley replied that Lydia had better bring her guests to the Deanery as an old friend of her husband’s, a clergyman, and a young theological student were coming to dinner, and she was at her wits’ end to collect two women to make up their numbers.

“It is an extraordinary thing,” she said, “considering the number of superfluous women in any cathedral town that I was absolutely in despair. Not a spinster to be had and even the widows of the higher clergy, and heaven knows there are enough of them in Barchester, are all away or engaged. We aren’t dressing. Mrs. and Miss Arbuthnot, you said? I am sure they will be charming.”

Lydia, feeling that she had now become so involved in the machinery that struggling would be quite useless, thanked Mrs. Crawley and accepted the invitation. She then wrote a postcard to Colin, for she still felt too cross to talk to him, asking him to prepare the Arbuthnots for a dinner-party, and put the whole thing out of her mind till Noel came down on Friday at teatime. He was rather amused by the story, said young men in love were a great bore, and then talked about really important subjects such as a new gate for the three-acre field and having the septic tank at Nanny Twicker’s cottage cleaned.

As they drove towards Barchester Lydia confessed to Noel that she was rather nervous at the idea of meeting what was probably her future sister-in-law and did hope she would be nice, to which Noel heartlessly answered that if she couldn’t believe Colin who had told her at least twenty times that she would like Mrs. Arbuthnot, she would never believe anything.

The 7.15 was punctual. Lydia stood outside the exit trying to decide which passengers might be her guests, her heart sinking at the aspect of most of them. A tall, rather bigly made woman, not very young, with harsh features, unmistakably a lady, dressed in good tweeds which had seen much service, paused at the sight of Lydia and came towards her.

“Excuse me,” she said in a rather deep but agreeable voice, “but are you Mrs. Noel Merton? It is very kind of you to meet us. My sister-in-law is just coming. A dog got its lead wrapped round her feet. Here she is.”

The sister-in-law now appeared. She was of middle height with an elegant figure, a pretty face, fair hair beautifully waved and an appealing expression. Lydia shook hands, apologized for dragging them straight into a dinner-party and led them to the car. In a few minutes they were at the Deanery, where Mrs. Crawley had kindly given orders that Mrs. Merton and her guests were to be taken to one of the spare bedrooms, as the travellers would want to wash and tidy themselves.

While the strangers were thus occupied Lydia began to collect her thoughts. If Colin really cared for this tall woman then she would like her as hard as she could. She looked capable and she looked kind, though rather rugged. The sister-in-law was undoubtedly by far the more attractive of the two and had very pretty hands and a charming way of speaking and was full of expressions of gratitude to Lydia. Doubtless Colin knew his own business best, but Lydia was a little perplexed. The two ladies gave themselves a final shake and they all went down to the Dean’s study where the little dinner-party was assembling.

“This is Mrs. Arbuthnot,” said Lydia, introducing the tall woman to Mrs. Crawley.

“I’m so sorry, but I’m not,” said the tall woman. “I’m only Peggy’s sister-in-law.”

Lydia said she was dreadfully sorry to have been so stupid, but when Miss Arbuthnot had said her sister-in-law was just coming she had thought she meant that Mrs. Arbuthnot was the sister-in-law, and then became so confused in trying to explain that she had to give up. But Miss Arbuthnot took it like a good fellow and said it was entirely her fault for not explaining properly who she was at once. Lydia felt much relieved that Mrs. Arbuthnot was the pretty one and quite understood Colin’s admiration for her, though she liked Miss Arbuthnot very much too.

This matter having been adjusted, Mrs. Crawley expressed her pleasure at meeting both Arbuthnots.

“Francis Brandon you do know,” said Mrs. Crawley to Lydia. “And this is Susan Dean who is living with us at present.”

A very pale thin young man with a nervous expression was then introduced as Mr. Parkinson.

“We will give Crofts five minutes,” said the Dean, looking at his watch. “No more. I hear,” he continued, turning to Miss Arbuthnot, “that you are thinking of taking a house in Wiple Terrace. A charming piece of early nineteenth-century building. Are you interested in architecture?”

“Not really,” said his guest. “I like gardening and birds. Not dogs, though. And I’m very keen on farming, but we can’t afford to farm.”

A tall middle-aged man in dark clothes, with a moustache and beard and very blue eyes under shaggy eyebrows, then came in and was introduced to the company in general as Colonel Crofts, upon which they went in to dinner. Lydia found herself between the Dean and the pale thin young man who was so obviously the candidate for ordination that she felt quite sorry for him, particularly as he appeared to be very nervous and gave her the impression of not knowing where or who he was, or who any of the people in the room were. Having but the haziest idea what candidates for ordination were supposed to do, she asked him if he was working very hard.

“Beg pardon?” said the young man, his face twitching with shyness.

Lydia said it again.

“I’m used to hard work,” said Mr. Parkinson. “I wasn’t at one of the posh schools you know. I had to work to get scholarships.”

Lydia, with the best intentions in the world, said how nice to get scholarships and both her brothers had got through school and college on scholarships and so had her husband and quite a lot of her friends.

“Ah, but mine were State-aided,” said Mr. Parkinson. “Not for rich men’s sons.”

“A friend of mine, Mrs. Morland,” said Lydia, “has a son who got a very useful State grant to help him to go back to Oxford after the war, because his scholarship wasn’t big enough.”

Mr. Parkinson looked at her as fiercely as his pale bony countenance would allow and said his mother worked herself to skin and bone to get him properly educated.

“That must be awful for you,” said Lydia sympathetically.

“Mrs. Morland works very hard, too. She has to write a book every year and quite a lot of short stories.”

“You don’t mean Mrs. Morland that writes the Madame Koska stories, Mrs. Er——” said Mr. Parkinson, suddenly becoming human. “The young lady that’s my fiancée reads every one that comes out. I’m going to give her the new one for her birthday.”

Encouraged by this Lydia did her best to please Mr. Parkinson, who confided to her that they were to be married as soon as he had a curacy and how his first sermon was to be a tribute to his future father-in-law who had been very kind to him. Lydia asked what the text was to be.

“Mavis chose it,” said Mr. Parkinson. “That’s her name; Mavis Welk. Mr. Welk is a very hospitable man and I have supper at his house three nights a week. So she said it reminded her of St. Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy and I ought to take the words ‘The Lord give mercy unto the house of Oneasyforus, for he often refreshed me’.”

While Lydia’s social self applauded the choice of text, her subconscious self told her that something was very wrong. Her classical education had been strictly limited by the poor teaching at the Barchester High School and her dislike of the mistress who taught Latin, but she felt quite certain that Mr. Parkinson was making a mistake for which, at what he called a posh school, he would have had to write out at least five hundred lines. Nor was she left long in doubt, for the Dean whose scholar’s ear had caught and transmitted to his brain Mr. Parkinson’s rash words, turned from Mrs. Arbuthnot and asked Mr. Parkinson if he would repeat the text. Mr. Parkinson, flattered, did so.

“Hum,” said the Dean, looking steadily at Mr. Parkinson, his heavy eyebrows, in which were several hairs of incredible length, bent fiercely upon the anaemic candidate for ordination.

This awful pronouncement struck that end of the table dumb, and no one would have been surprised if he had added, “and I will see you in my study after dinner.” Lydia bravely flung herself into the breach and asked the Dean about his youngest daughter Octavia, an old friend of hers happily married to a neighbouring Vicar formerly an army chaplain. The wretched Mr. Parkinson was thus left solitary for the time being, for Mrs. Arbuthnot on his other side was getting on very well with Noel Merton.

Noel had not enjoyed himself so much for some time. The very pretty woman next to him was charming and quite sufficiently intelligent and reminded him in many ways of Mrs. Brandon as she used to be; or rather as she must have been, for Noel did not know Mrs. Brandon when she was in her middle twenties as, at a guess, Mrs. Arbuthnot must be. An acquisition, he thought, to the county, and quite sympathized with Colin’s admiration for her.

“Colin Keith is your wife’s brother, isn’t he?” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “He has been so kind. I do so want to get settled and somewhere in the country so that my sister-in-law can have a garden and study birds. She adores birds. Have you any in these parts?”

Noel, such is the natural silliness of men, found this idiotic question from a pretty creature with appealing eyes very reasonable. He said he believed there were some quite rare birds in the neighbourhood, and he had heard of a golden-crested mippet on Fish Hill, but hadn’t the faintest idea what a golden-crested mippet was.

“I must tell my sister-in-law,” said his neighbour. “I do think birds are so dreadful, don’t you?”

She looked up at Noel much as Mrs. Brandon would have looked, giving him a conspiratorial glance which Lydia intercepted and was pleased to see, for it meant that Noel was enjoying himself. Then she had to give her attention to the Dean who was very unfairly enjoying the attentions of two women at once, for while giving Lydia the news of Octavia Needham he had managed to keep a firm hold on his other neighbour.

“I believe, Miss Arbuthnot,” he said, “that you will find several bird-enthusiasts in this neighbourhood. Mr. Downing, whose scholarly works on Provençal poetry are doubtless known to you, is also a keen student of bird life.”

His guest looked interested, but before she could speak her host went on with what he had determined to say.

How lucky was this country, said the Dean, in that bird and beast could be studied with no danger. Venomous snakes, he said, were practically unknown; the last wolf had been killed many centuries ago; no large birds of prey seized sleeping children in their cradles or pecked the livers out of defenceless sheep.

“India’s the place for birds,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “When Fred was in India I spent a year up country near the regiment and did some splendid bird work. I found a stengah’s nest once, the whisky-soda bird, you know, and the female got a bit out of my hand. I nearly lost a finger.”

In proof of which she held out a strong, well-shaped hand with the mark of a deep scar across the knuckles.

“I suppose the Fred you talked about was Captain Arbuthnot?” said Noel.

“The nicest brother anyone ever had,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “Partly why I liked your wife’s brother was that he is so fond of her. It reminded me of Fred.”

Then her other partner, Colonel Crofts, seized the opportunity of talking to her about India where he had served for many years, which left Mr. Francis Brandon and Miss Susan Dean free to continue a conversation which had been going on through most of the meal. Francis, who had come to the Deanery as a duty rather than for fun, found Susan very pleasant and easy to talk to, as a member of a large family usually is. The Brandons and Deans had known each other on and off for a number of years, but Francis had not met Susan at close quarters since the war. He found her most sympathetic to his love of dancing and gramophone records and so well in fact did they get on that Mrs. Crawley congratulated herself on having made the meeting and arranged in her mind for them to be engaged in the autumn and have a spring wedding. Not that she was a matchmaker in any meddling sense, but having married off her own large family of sons and daughters very successfully and being the past-proprietor of a large number of first-rate grandchildren, she felt from time to time a desire to keep her hand in for the benefit of the second generation, some of whom would soon be grown up. Francis had a good war record and a good peace-time job in Barchester. Susan Dean had done excellent work for prisoners of war and was now holding the responsible position of librarian to the Barsetshire Red Cross Hospital Libraries. There was money in the background in both cases. Nothing could be nicer, and it was most gratifying to see them getting on so well.

Up till this moment Mrs. Crawley had merely looked upon her unknown guests as presentable dinner-table birds of passage and had not given much thought to them. But when she heard that they were thinking of settling in Barsetshire and possibly in Southbridge, she became more interested, said she should certainly call on Mrs. Arbuthnot at Editha Cottage if she would permit it, and approved Miss Arbuthnot, who was being a great success with Colonel Crofts.

“We have known Colonel Crofts for many years,” she said. “He and Josiah were at school together. Colonel Crofts did think of entering the church, but his people are all army and he went into the Indian service. Now he is retired and to our great pleasure and I must say surprise—what is it, Verger?” she said to the butler, who was really called Verger, though difficult to believe.

“Excuse me, madam, but it is Miss Octavia,” said the butler, who prided himself on calling all his employers’ married daughters by their maiden names. “She thought you would like to know that Mrs. Winter has a little boy and both are doing well. And she sent her love, madam, and will come to lunch on Monday.”

“I am delighted,” said Mrs. Crawley, who somehow looked upon all babies, especially first babies, as a personal tribute to herself. “You know the Winters, Noel, don’t you? Philip and Leslie?”

“Of course I do,” said Noel. “I wasn’t thinking and the name didn’t click or register or whatever names do. When I first came to Northbridge Manor, long before the war, Philip Winters was engaged to Rose Birkett. And then Lydia and I met him again at Beliers during the war. He and I were both on hush-hush work at the Dower House. Lydia was very good to Leslie Waring, as she was then. But she is good to everyone,” he added, looking at his Lydia with an affection that made the Dean’s wife think of Coventry Patmore, though nothing could have been more different. And then the party went upstairs to the handsome drawing-room that looked out of its six large windows onto the Close.

In former days the drawing-room, as Verger often said, had been a drawing-room. But what with the war and what with growing grandchildren, the far end of it, which could be made into a separate room by folding doors, had become almost a playroom. Here, when the nurseries were too full of young grandchildren, the elder grandchildren could read, or paint, or make model railways, and were allowed to leave their various employments in place instead of having to put them away every night. Here, rather to the Dean’s annoyance, a radio-gramophone had been installed, gift of a wealthy arch-deacon son-in-law, and the young people danced a good deal. Hither Susan Dean led Francis Brandon to hear a new dance record. Francis was a very good dancer, Susan was not so good, but they enjoyed themselves and wished there were another couple or two for company.

Mrs. Crawley, having made all suitable apologies to the Arbuthnots, went to do her duty by the increasingly wretched Mr. Parkinson. Lydia and Mrs. Arbuthnot talked about Colin till Colonel Crofts joined them, saying that he believed Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband had been in the Indian Army and though he was retired he had two sons in it; one of whom Mrs. Arbuthnot thought she had met. But this subject showed signs of becoming exhausted, which gave Lydia a chance to ask a question that she had for some time been pondering.

“Colonel Crofts,” she said, looking round to see that the Crawleys were not within hearing, “when Mrs. Crawley said I might bring Mrs. Arbuthnot and her sister-in-law, she said she was expecting a friend who was a clergyman. Did she mean Mr. Parkinson? I thought he wasn’t ordained yet,” she added, looking towards the sofa where Mrs. Crawley was trying to make that depressed young man feel at home. “He was next to me at dinner and pronounced a name out of the Bible all wrong and Dr. Crawley glared.”

“No, he isn’t ordained yet,” said Colonel Crofts. “Mrs. Crawley meant myself, I expect.”

“But you are a Colonel,” said Lydia.

“I know I am,” said Colonel Crofts, “and I’m rather proud of it. At least I am proud of having been the Colonel of my old regiment. Your husband would have known it, Mrs. Merton.”

“But a Colonel can’t be a clergyman,” said Lydia; not rudely, but seeking enlightenment.

“A retired Colonel can,” said Colonel Crofts, “if he really wants to and is willing to work hard enough. I have commanded men all my life and I know how to do it. So when I retired I thought the best thing I could do would be to command them in another way.”

“So he went to his Bishop, not this old Puss-in-Petticoats,” said the Dean, who had overheard the Colonel’s last words and joined the group, “and the Bishop said he would get him off the Latin considering his age, and Crofts said he had been at a good school and thought he knew more Latin, and Greek too, than the curates they are turning out now. It reminded me of the day you caught the Head out in a geography lesson, Crofts. Do you remember?”

“It was all a piece of luck,” said Colonel Crofts. “I was born in India and lived there till I went to school and my people had served there for four generations and I had been on survey expeditions with my father and knew the maps by heart. Always be accurate, I used to say to my subalterns, and you won’t be wrong.”

“So Crofts was ordained in due course,” said the Dean, who was more human with his old friend than Lydia had ever known him to be. “Not by this Pompous Prelate, I am thankful to say, but by a Gentleman. He is in priest’s orders now and I think we have very good news about a living which you will hear in due course. And I devoutly wish that we were getting a few more like him.”

With which words he cast a withering glance at Mr. Parkinson and went away.

“It’s all because of your beard and because of your clothes not being very clergymanish,” said Lydia the outspoken. “One can’t exactly stare at people’s beards to see if they are clergymen underneath. But I think you are perfectly splendid. Don’t you, Mrs. Arbuthnot?”

“I do. I think it is wonderful,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “Perhaps Fred might have become a clergyman if he hadn’t been killed and lived long enough to be retired. He would have done it splendidly. I wish you had known him, Colonel Crofts. He was the best polo player in the regiment.”

Her eyes became misty and Lydia felt compassionately towards her, but didn’t know what to say.

“I admit that my beard is rather unfair,” said Colonel Crofts, addressing Lydia so that Mrs. Arbuthnot might recover herself in peace. “But my moustache looked rather worldly with a clerical collar and I thought if I grew a beard it would look more reverend. I am afraid I must go now. I am trying to knock a little Latin into that poor fellow over there in my spare time, but it’s pretty hopeless work.”

“I hope you will be able to come and see us at Northbridge when you aren’t so busy,” said Lydia, who had been much taken by the retired Colonel and his practical religion.

“I should like it of all things,” said Colonel Crofts, taking her hand. “If you are kind enough to write to me I am Lieutenant-Colonel the Reverend E. F. Crofts. It sounds well, don’t you think?”

Lydia said it sounded very well and she hoped he wouldn’t be puffed up by it.

“I hope not,” said Colonel Crofts. “Fear God and Honour the King, and you can’t go wrong. Good-bye, Mrs. Merton. Good-bye, Mrs. Arbuthnot and God bless you.”

He made his farewells to the Crawleys and punctiliously to Miss Arbuthnot because he had sat by her at dinner and she knew India, and so went away.

“You look tired,” said Lydia to Mrs. Arbuthnot. “We will get your sister and go home. I’m afraid it’s been a long day for you.”

Mrs. Arbuthnot said she wasn’t tired, but Colonel Crofts had reminded her of India and Fred, so Lydia thought they had better say good-bye. They found Mrs. Crawley and Noel in the small drawing-room, watching Francis and Susan Dean dance.

“I simply can’t get that step,” said Susan. “Show me once more.” Francis performed the step. Susan tried again, but not very successfully.

“It’s like this,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot and performed it very prettily. Francis, sliding towards her, took her in his arms and they gave an exhibition which would have done credit to any Palais de Dance Finals. Susan, entirely without envy, admired her supplanter wholeheartedly and put on another record.

“Thank you so much,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot to Susan after some ten minutes of perfect teamwork with Francis. “If I get a cottage down here you must come and see me and I’ll show you some steps.”

Susan flushed with pleasure. Miss Arbuthnot was torn from the Dean who was giving her a résumé of the People at the Palace as he irreverently called the Bishop and his wife. For no one, he said, ought to come and live in the diocese unless they had been warned. Why the present holder of the see had been appointed, he said, he had never been able to understand, except that an all-merciful Providence thought fit to try us.

Miss Arbuthnot said that if it came to trying people Providence seemed to know its job pretty well. It had made her brother be killed in Burma and not even in a battle, just by an idiot native who had stolen a gun and was shooting at random. Her eyes did not grow misty as her sister-in-law’s had done, but her face became very hard.

The Dean, who had taken a liking to Miss Arbuthnot although his preference was generally for pretty women, said something kind, and realizing that she did not wish to make a show of her grief he continued as if there had been no interruption. Who, he said, the next Bishop would be, it was impossible to guess, but seeing the sort of people that were in power now, he thought it very probable that provided the present Bishop lived for another ten years, which it would be just like him to do, Mr. Parkinson, he said bitterly, for the affair of Oneasyforus still rankled in his mind, was exactly the kind of man a Government like the present Government would appoint. He was uneducated, without a background, was marrying young and would undoubtedly have a large family of ailing, spindle-shanked children with vicious tendencies and entirely undisciplined, who would all be born, fed, clothed, insured, schooled, given holidays, glutted with milk which they would waste, and generally pampered by the rulers whom the vote, so lamentably given to the ignorant and the unthinking, nay, revolutionary, among whom he comprehended everyone who was not of his way of thinking, had put over us to chastise us with scorpions.

Mrs. Crawley who was a model of wifely obedience in public knew her husband without his gaiters and though fond of him had few illusions, said he must really let the Mertons and their guests go, as Mrs. Arbuthnot must be very tired. Mrs. Arbuthnot said very bravely that it was nothing; her sister-in-law looked at her with affectionate amusement, knowing that she was almost incapable of fatigue, and they all went away. When they got back to Northbridge Lydia packed her guests off to bed at once and offered them breakfast in bed. Mrs. Arbuthnot accepted, but Miss Arbuthnot said she would come down if it weren’t a trouble to anyone.

“It’s not a trouble,” said Lydia to Noel when they were safely in their bedroom, “but I do wish people wouldn’t come down to breakfast. I like having just you at breakfast, Noel, and of course Colin when he is here.”

Noel told her she was a goose.

When Lydia came down to breakfast next morning there was no sign of Miss Arbuthnot, so she rather hoped she had overslept herself. But just as she and Noel were in the middle of a really interesting talk about Nanny Twicker’s septic tank, Miss Arbuthnot appeared on the terrace outside. Noel got up and opened the french window which the English summer had kept almost permanently closed, and in came their guest in that state of glowing freshness so annoying to those who are not early risers. Lydia hoped she had slept well.

“Splendidly, thank you,” said Miss Arbuthnot.

She was sitting with her face to the light and Lydia was able from her own place with her back to the window to scrutinize her guest’s face. By daylight her features were more marked, even rugged, than they had appeared on the previous night, and her eyes looked dark and tired. A poor sleeper and a polite liar, thought Lydia, who had not nursed during the war for nothing and had a kind heart; and she pressed food upon Miss Arbuthnot.

Noel, who unlike many husbands was always willing to be agreeable at breakfast, said he and his wife had been discussing a subject most unsuitable for the breakfast-table, namely a septic tank at their gardener’s cottage, but as he believed Miss Arbuthnot liked birds he would do his best to talk about them; adding that the rooks were a perfect pest.

“Oh, I don’t count rooks as birds,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “Rook pie isn’t bad when they are young, but otherwise they are simply black-coated workers. You don’t know if there are any lesser clodhoppers about here, do you?”

Noel apologized for his ignorance.

“Let’s talk about the tank then,” said Miss Arbuthnot. “I was talking to your gardener’s wife before breakfast. What a nice woman she is. She reminded me of Fred’s and my old Nanny.”

“But she is an old Nanny,” said Lydia. “Not mine, but she was my elder brother’s and sister’s Nanny. That’s the sister who lives at Southbridge and has found the cottage for you. I do hope you’ll like it. I am so sorry for your sister-in-law, and you too. About Captain Arbuthnot I mean.”

And so often happens, Lydia’s plunge into the middle of the matter did no harm. In fact Miss Arbuthnot seemed rather glad than otherwise to talk about her brother.

“Peggy was heartbroken,” she said. “She simply adored him. But she would adore any husband, bless her. I shall never have another brother.”

From most sisters-in-law this might have sounded unkind, but the Mertons felt certain that it was merely Miss Arbuthnot’s way of facing facts.

“I know what you mean,” said Lydia. “If I hadn’t married Noel I might have married someone else, though I’m sure he would have been horrible. But Colin was always there and there couldn’t be anyone else.”

Noel said if that was the way he was going to be treated, and at breakfast too, he was going to see Mr. Wickham.

“In case I don’t see you again, Miss Arbuthnot,” he said, “I’ll say good-bye now. I hope you will like the cottage and that we shall have you both as neighbors.” And he went off to see the agent.

Lydia then explained the plans for the day. At about eleven o’clock she proposed to drive the Arbuthnots over to Southbridge. Here Kate Carter would show them the cottage, the Vicar’s aunt would discuss fixtures with them, there would be lunch at the Carters’ House and they would be driven to Barchester to catch the 2.45.

“Someone had better go and tell your sister-in-law,” said Lydia, “or she might forget to get up. She looks that sort. I mean I think she is frightfully pretty and nice, but I expect you do all the work, don’t you?”

Miss Arbuthnot laughed and said she was sure Peggy would love a visit from Mrs. Merton, and she wished Mrs. Merton would remember to call her Effie, because sometimes there was so much Arbuthnoting about that she and Peggy got quite confused. Lydia said all right, only Miss Arbuthnot must do it too; which confused manner of speech is so clear to all female readers where Christian names are involved that we will not expatiate upon it.

So Lydia went up to Mrs. Arbuthnot’s bedroom, knocked at the door and went in. Mrs. Arbuthnot was sitting up in bed looking as pretty as ever. Her hair, where many women’s would have been tousled, was merely in an admired disorder, making a charming frame for her face which was already made up in just the right way for a day in the country and a lunch party. She was wearing a most becoming little jacket. Her breakfast tray was on a table by the bed and she was at the moment engaged in polishing her nails. Lydia noticed with one quick glance that though the room was strewn with undergarments and the dressing-table covered with bottles and jars, somehow nothing looked frowsy, at which her Puritan mind was pleased.

“Oh, I say, I’m most awfully sorry,” said Lydia. “I never put any cigarettes in your room.”

Mrs. Arbuthnot, polishing her nails a little harder, said she never smoked in her bedroom because Fred hadn’t liked it and she had rather got out of the habit altogether. Lydia was afraid her guest might cry, so she put the tray outside, sat down by the bed, and told her the plans for the day.

“And don’t bother to pack,” she said. “Palmer will do it. She has been here for ages and tries to bully me, but I don’t let her.”

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked at her nails and then looked up at Lydia.

“I’d simply love to be packed for,” she said. “Fred used to pack for me. He did it quite beautifully with oceans of tissue paper.”

“I had a letter from Colin this morning,” said Lydia, “and he sent you his love and was so sorry he couldn’t get down this weekend, but I expect you know that.”

There was no kind of jealousy or suspicion in Lydia’s words and Mrs. Arbuthnot appeared to find them quite natural.

“I had a letter too,” she said. “I can’t tell you how charming Colin has been. He was such a help when Effie and I were moving into the beastly little furnished house where we are now. Really like a brother, only brothers aren’t always helpful. Fred wasn’t exactly helpful either except about things like packing my clothes or choosing hats for me, but he was such fun to have in the house. Effie always did the housekeeping.”

Lydia listened with interest, and after a little further talk with Mrs. Arbuthnot she went away to her household duties. But all the time she was wondering what Mrs. Arbuthnot was really like. She might be a pretty, helpless butterfly, she might really be a quite sensible, competent woman, who between an adoring husband and a practical sister-in-law had resigned herself to doing nothing in particular—and doing it very well, thought Lydia.

By eleven o’clock Mrs. Arbuthnot was dressed, packed for, and ready to start. Miss Arbuthnot was a few minutes late, excusing herself for the delay because she had found what looked like a red nitwit’s nest in the water-meadow, but it turned out to be only a lesser clawhammer. The journey to Southbridge was soon accomplished. By previous arrangement they went straight to Wiple Terrace where Kate met them.

“The Vicar’s aunt is bringing the key herself,” said Kate when the introductions had been made. “She said she particularly wished to explain about it to Mrs. Arbuthnot. But she is always very punctual.”

And even as she spoke the Vicar’s aunt came down the lane that ran by the side of Editha Cottage. She was a tall gaunt woman with a long well-bred face and bony ankles, wearing an unfashionable long dress which dipped on one side. Her black straw hat with a purple ribbon, her old but obviously handmade shoes, her mauve scarf, her worn black crocodile handbag, were highly depressing and left no doubt that she was an English Gentlewoman and would be exactly the same at the North Pole, the Equator, Buckingham Palace, Monte Carlo, or Mngangaland.

“I must apologize,” said the Vicar’s aunt, “if I am late. I was doing the flowers for Sunday.”

“You know my sister Lydia,” said Kate. “And Mrs. Arbuthnot and Miss Arbuthnot. The Vicar’s aunt does the flowers quite beautifully, Mrs. Arbuthnot.”

“I believe in colours,” said the Vicar’s aunt, who was hunting in her bag for something. “They say something definite to me. Last Sunday seemed so definitely green that I only used branches and leaves for the church, except of course on the altar where arum lilies were indicated. For tomorrow I feel psychically sure that white is needed. This inclement summer is no help, but I was lucky enough to get some white lilac and some syringa. And for the altar, of course, arums.”

Lydia said it must look splendid.

“Some people,” said the Vicar’s aunt, still grabbling in her bag, “consider syringa unsuitable for a church. I do not. When white is the key-note I have used camellias and gardenias, besides Mrs. Sinkin and white phlox. Also Madonna lilies, or Mary lilies if you prefer to call them so,” she added darkly, leaving her hearers under the impression that she suspected them of Arianism, or Pelagianism at the very least.

Miss Arbuthnot, with great presence of mind, said she liked white owls. As for white peacocks they were, she added, a fraud, being mostly a dirty grey.

“Ah,” said the Vicar’s aunt. “Off-white. It stains the white radiance of eternity,” which statement reduced her hearers to silence until Kate, who as a house-master’s wife had attained the art of keeping parents to the point, said she thought they had better see the house at once as Mrs. Arbuthnot had to catch a train.

“I have it at last,” said the Vicar’s aunt, drawing the door-key from her bag. “This key has an unfortunate habit of getting lost very easily, Mrs. Arbuthnot.”

Mrs. Arbuthnot, impressed by this sign of individuality on the part of a large old-fashioned door-key, asked if all the keys of the house were like that.

“No, they are absolutely normal,” said the Vicar’s aunt, as she opened the front door. “It is a curious fact that whenever I use this key I have a very distinct impression of gamboge, a colour which has definitely evil colours in the psychic colour scale. Now your colour, Mrs. Arbuthnot, is pale yellow, like a primrose, and you will be very happy in Editha Cottage.”

Miss Arbuthnot said to Lydia that until they knew about the rent and the fixtures they couldn’t say if they would live there or not, so being happy hardly came into the question.

“You will live here,” said the Vicar’s aunt. “I see you as deep crimson, very suitable to the cottage. But neither of you will live here long.”

“Do you mean they will die or anything?” said Lydia, who liked to get everything clear.

“Not death, but a new life,” said the Vicar’s aunt. “And what I particularly want to show you,” she continued, leading the party to the kitchen, “is where everything is kept. I shall leave you the coal and coke, and you can have these stores if you like. They were all sent to me by my nieces and nephews overseas.”

She opened a cupboard which contained a number of tins of food, including tinned fruit of every kind, at which her visitors’ eyes gleamed, for tinned pineapples, peaches, pears, and indeed any form of fruit had long been absent from the shops. She then showed Mrs. Arbuthnot where the logs, the kindling wood, the shoe polish, the plate polish, the brass polish, the knife polish and all the aids to cleaning were kept. She did not exactly order the future tenant to keep everything exactly as it was, but all the party had a strong impression that she was capable of haunting the cottage in an aura of whatever she thought suitable if Mrs. Arbuthnot’s pail and scrubbing-brush were not kept in the identical place under the scullery sink where she kept her own. Apart however from these innocent if exhausting peculiarities she showed herself of a very accommodating spirit about all fixtures, and Mrs. Arbuthnot and her sister-in-law were delighted with the cottage, both being intelligent enough to see the rooms as they might be when the Vicar’s aunt’s furniture had been removed. The Vicar’s aunt was moving to the Vicarage within the week. The Bursar of Paul’s had already been unofficially approached by Everard Carter, and it appeared that Mrs. Arbuthnot would have no difficulty in getting possession of the house within a fortnight.

All these preliminaries having been very amicably arranged, the Vicar’s aunt took them round the garden. At the side of the house was a little lawn. Behind the house there was a small paved terrace, then another little lawn, and beyond it a well-kept vegetable garden. The great advantage of Editha Cottage, so the Vicar’s aunt pointed out, was that coals and tradesmen could approach from the lane at the side, as was also the case with Adelina, whereas at Maria and Louisa all kitchen and garden visitors had to come in by the front door; for the long narrow gardens of the terrace abutted on a field to which there was no exit.

“And now,” said the Vicar’s aunt, “I shall give you a cup of tea before you go.”

As it was already a quarter past twelve no one much wanted cups of tea, but it seemed ungracious to refuse so the Arbuthnots, Kate and Lydia sat in the already overcrowded drawing-room while their hostess brought the kettle, which had been simmering over a low flame in anticipation of the feast, to the boil. While the kettle finally made up its mind during those last moments when the water is obviously red hot but will not bubble, the Vicar’s aunt came in several times with supplementary advice and information all of a practical and helpful nature. Mr. Brown at the Red Lion, she said, could be relied upon to provide such beer as was available and occasionally spirits. Mrs. Dingle, a respectable widow who worked at Adelina Cottage three days a week would oblige with help on three other mornings and really understood turning a room out. The man who did Miss Hampton’s garden on Wednesday afternoons, Maria on Monday and Tuesday, Louisa on Thursday and Friday, would continue to do Editha on Saturday afternoons. The laundry called on Monday once a fortnight and Mrs. Dingle would take home any personal washing once a week and she was quite a good laundress and always managed to get a little starch when no one else had so much as seen the ghost of any for more than a year.

The kettle then boiled over with loud hissings onto the Vicar’s aunt’s little semolina pudding which was sitting under the grill waiting to have a sprinkling of sugar on its surface browned, and the Vicar’s aunt brought in the tea. Through the open window, for though it was a bitterly cold May morning English usage had caused the Vicar’s aunt to have the windows open top and bottom, the click of a latch and the noise of a wooden gate shutting, noises familiar to all the inhabitants of Wiple Terrace, were heard and there was a knock at the door.

“My nephew,” said the Vicar’s aunt. “I asked him to join us.”

She opened the front door and brought her nephew in. To Kate who went to the village church during the School holidays, preferring the School chapel in term-time, to Lydia who had often been to the church with the Carters, the Vicar seemed a quite natural phenomenon. But to the Arbuthnots, who had not unnaturally expected the nephew to be if not a young man at least a young middle-aged man, the entrance of a tall, elderly, bony clergymen with a kind of ecclesiastical grizzled side-whiskers and rather stooping shoulders, was distinctly surprising.

“My nephew Dunstan,” said the Vicar’s aunt. “Dunstan, Mrs. and Miss Arbuthnot,” whom she indicated with two separate waves of her hand, “are going to be excellent tenants. Their colours are most harmonious. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband was in the Indian Army.”

“Ha,” said the Vicar, shaking hands with the ladies and addressing Miss Arbuthnot. “Captain Arbuthnot, probably knows the Suffragan Bishop of Kedgeree, an old pupil of mine, a man well known in the mission field.”

“If you listened to what I said, Dunstan,” said the Vicar’s aunt, though without heat, “you would do better. Miss Arbuthnot is not Mrs. Arbuthnot and in any case Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband has joined the majority, as I told you.”

“Ha,” said the Vicar, more interested than abashed by his aunt’s rebuke. “You cannot have made yourself clear, Aunt Monica. I understand you to say that Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband was a Captain.”

“Gamboge, Dunstan,” said the Vicar’s aunt, looking at her nephew through half-closed eyes, her head tilted back, as if he were a specimen of something. “I suppose you have been worrying over tomorrow’s sermon. If you remembered the words, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ and didn’t worry so much, you would find yourself primrose yellow like Mrs. Arbuthnot and not talk so much about indigestion.”

“You know perfectly well, Aunt Monica,” said the Vicar, “that indigestion is purely mental strain. And as for gamboge, a curious word whose provenance I must inquire into with the aid of the dictionary, I shall believe it when I see it.”

To Kate and Lydia, who were used to the Vicar, and his aunt, these friendly bickerings were a matter of course. Mrs. Arbuthnot looked slightly alarmed. Miss Arbuthnot, taking charge of the situation, said in a clear patient voice such as one keeps for children and idiots, “I am Miss Arbuthnot. This is my sister-in-law Mrs. Arbuthnot. My brother, who was her husband, was killed in Burma. We do like the cottage so much.”

The Vicar appeared to be sincerely shocked by what she said. He apologized for having possibly, owing to his own stupidity, given pain and said how delightful it was to think that Editha Cottage would have such charming tenants. If any poor words of his, he added, could be of avail in their grief, it would be not only his duty but his privilege——

“No, Dunstan. Not prayers for the dead,” said the Vicar’s aunt in a piercing aside. “Un-English.”

“You know quite well, Aunt Monica,” said the Vicar, “that the Bishop does not approve of them. Of course if you are on his side there is no more to be said.”

He folded his long bony hands, finger-tip to finger-tip, and gently beat the air with his right leg which was crossed over his left leg. There was a short uncomfortable silence which even Kate’s gentle tact found it difficult to break.

“You are right, Dunstan,” said the Vicar’s aunt. “And now,” she added, in what Lydia felt to be a primrose yellow if not a crimson voice, “we must not keep Mrs. Carter and her guests.”

Good-byes were said. Mrs. Arbuthnot, raising her fine eyes to the Vicar, said she was looking forward very much to coming to his church. The Vicar, who appeared gratified, said he hoped she would use the Vicarage pew as Wiple Terrace had no settled abiding place in the church.

“I fear,” he added, “that I shall not be here much longer. But for such time as I am, it will be a privilege to exercise hospitality to my Aunt’s successors.”

“Are you really leaving us?” said Kate. “I heard something of the sort, but I didn’t like to ask. We shall be so sorry.”

“It is practically settled,” said the Vicar. “You and your husband shall be among the first to know and I shall hope not to lose touch with my valued parishioners. Good-bye, Aunt Monica.”

“Now sleeps the crimson petal,” said the Vicar’s aunt as her elderly nephew went away, from which Miss Arbuthnot gathered that the Vicar’s colour was once more satisfactory, and felt relieved.

Lydia then drove her party to the Carters’ House where they had lunch and Kate explained that the Vicar’s grandfather had married twice and had two large families, by which means several of his grandchildren, among them the Vicar, were slightly older than their uncles and aunts. The Vicar was the eldest grandson of the first marriage, his aunt the youngest daughter of the second marriage, and five or six years his junior. Everard said there was good clerical precedent for such relationships, but nothing would ever make them clear to the laity. There was then some pleasant general conversation. Both the Carters liked the new tenants of Editha Cottage very much and when it transpired that a certain Major Thomas Oldmeadow, famous at Southbridge for having been Captain of Games and having had measles twice in one term, was a connection by marriage of the late Captain Arbuthnot, both ladies were taken onto the strength, so to speak. Kate, after a short telegraphic conversation with Everard conducted mostly with their eyebrows, begged the Arbuthnots to use the House as an hotel while settling into Editha, as the mattress had promised to come back next week. This offer was gratefully accepted. Then it was time to go to the station.

“I think we are lucky,” said Everard to his wife when Lydia had taken the guests away. For though Wiple Terrace had really nothing to do with the School, being entirely the property of Paul’s College, the School had always taken an interest in it. The old cricket coach had lived in Louisa which, together with Maria, was now tenanted as we know by two of the School staff. Miss Hampton and Miss Bent, though not officially linked with the School, had been very useful during the war and continued to be friends during the peace and were almost looked upon as honorary members, while the Vicar’s aunt was persona grata in virtue of her clerical connections. “We might have had people like those dreadful Warburys who were at Louisa in the beginning of the war. I wonder where they are now. Poor Geraldine.”

But the subject was not pursued, for the Warburys, a very unpleasant family connected with the films, had only passed across the life of Southbridge, cordially disliked by high and low, especially when the Headmaster’s younger daughter had imagined herself in love with young Mr. Warbury who was a nasty piece of work. The Warburys amid universal dislike had gone to America to escape the war and Geraldine was now safely married to an old Southbridgian and had two nice dull children.

“But what I was really thinking,” said Kate earnestly, “was that if Colin does marry Mrs. Arbuthnot, it will be so nice for him to have Editha. So many people who get married now have to live with their in-laws. And he must have a house in Barsetshire as well as his flat.”

Everard pointed out that as both Colin’s parents were dead and neither Lydia nor Colin had mentioned any parent or parents of Mrs. Arbuthnot, this danger was negligible.

“That is exactly what I meant,” said Kate with feminine logic. “But I wonder where Miss Arbuthnot will go. There isn’t room for three at Editha and I don’t know of anything else vacant except those dreadful furnished rooms that Mrs. Dingle’s sister-in-law lets. Of course we could manage her here for a bit while she looks round.”

Her mild forehead was so puckered with anxiety that Everard felt quite concerned and he told her not to worry because there was, as far as any of them knew, no talk of an engagement at all.

“I do hope Colin will get married,” said Kate, who was so happily married that she wished all her friends and relations to follow her example. “I don’t think he has ever been really in love. Do you think he is really in love this time, Everard?”

“How can I tell, my darling goose?” said Everard. “I have only seen Mrs. Arbuthnot for the first time today, and though I found her very pleasant that is no guide to Colin’s feelings. I daresay he is only being kind. He is kind, you know.”

“Dear Colin,” said Kate. “Do you remember how good he was when Bobbie had earache and he brought him a toy engine and Bobbie broke it next day? And he took Angela to the Flower Show and bought her a mug with A on it. And when Philip fell out of the pram, Colin picked him up and he stopped crying at once.”

By this time Mrs. Everard Carter was almost crying herself at the thought of so much kindness to her adored children, and Mr. Everard Carter, who was on the domestic side nearly as silly as his wife, felt a surge of manly emotion over Uncle Colin’s noble behaviour.

“There is only one thing,” said Kate, looking round to see that no one was listening, though no one was near. “I do secretly wish that Colin weren’t going to marry a widow. I know it isn’t Mrs. Arbuthnot’s fault that her husband was killed, but I have always thought of Colin marrying some very nice girl; someone we know in the county or the Close, like Delia Brandon or that nice Anne Fielding that Robin Dale is engaged to.”

“As Delia has been married to her cousin Hilary Grant for several years and Anne Fielding is going to marry Robin, I don’t think much of your choice, my love,” said Everard.

But Kate said he knew quite well what she meant and Everard admitted that he did, after while he went over to the Headmaster’s House to talk business while Kate went up to the nursery. On the landing she was waylaid by Matron.

“Now, I said to myself when I saw you coming upstairs, Mrs. Carter,” said Matron, “it’s a shame to trouble Mrs. Carter on a Saturday afternoon, but Jessie is starting one of those nasty colds and I wondered if you would mind my sending her to bed, because, ‘Jessie,’ I said to her, ‘it will be far more worry to Mrs. Carter if you get one of your nasty colds and it goes through the House and as likely as not the nursery too,’ I said, ‘than if you go to bed and have some aspirin,’ and I can take her up some nice hot tea later on.”

Kate, almost becoming pale at the thought of one of Jessie’s colds going through the nursery, also of Nurse’s reactions to the same, said Matron had done quite the right thing.

“And just the one more thing, Mrs. Carter,” said Matron, “if I’m not keeping you. I’ve quite run out of Bronko-Kure. It did wonders when Anderson minor had that dreadful cold and I’ve used it ever since, and I wondered if you had any. I could ask Nurse of course, but some people, well you know, Mrs. Carter, some people are what one might call difficult and I thought I’d better just mention it to you.”

Kate said she would see if there was some Bronko-Kure in the medicine cupboard and if not Nurse could get some when she took Philip down to the village in his perambulator.

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Carter,” said Matron. “It does seem a shame this Government doesn’t let us have some lemons. There’s nothing like a nice hot lemon drink for a cold. What a sweet face Mrs. Arbuthnot has, Mrs. Carter. I was just happening to pass through the hall when she and the other young lady arrived and I said to Jessie, because I heard her sneezing and went straight to the sewing-room to send her to bed, ‘Jessie,’ I said, ‘Mr. Colin Keith’s friend is a sweetly pretty lady. The other young lady looks a very nice lady,’ I said, ‘but Mr. Keith’s friend is really what you would call glamour,’ meaning in a nice way of course. ‘I hope she will come here again,’ I said to Jessie, ‘because she is really so sweetly pretty and such a change from the poor Vicar’s aunt in Editha Cottage.’ ”

Kate, marvelling as she often had occasion to do upon Matron’s astounding knowledge of what was going on in the School and the village, said in her Housemaster’s Wife’s manner that Mrs. Arbuthnot had had a great shock when her husband was killed and hoped to get a complete rest at Editha Cottage and so passed on to the nursery quarters. But she did not attempt to hoodwink herself. She quite well knew that Matron, and therefore the whole School staff and most of the village, had already married Colin to Mrs. Arbuthnot, found another cottage for Miss Arbuthnot, and probably settled the ages and sexes of all Colin’s progeny.

In the nursery she found her young family being got ready to go and look at the Saturday afternoon cricket on the playing-field.

“Oh, Nurse, have we any Bronko-Kure?” she said. “Matron wants some for Jessie. She is starting one of her nasty colds.”

“Bronko-Kure, madam? Oh no,” said Nurse pityingly. “We didn’t find it any use at all. We did try it, madam, if you remember, just to please Matron, when Bobbie started that nasty chest cough, but really it seemed to make him worse if anything. If Jessie really has a cold,” said Nurse, who evidently suspected Matron and her head housemaid of a conspiracy to defraud, “I have some of that Kuro-Bronk. When Angela had that sore throat and we thought it might go to her chest, we gave her Kuro-Bronk, if you remember, madam, and it turned to a lovely loose cough.”

Kate, with unruffled placidity, said she was sure Kuro-Bronk would be splendid. Nurse gave her the bottle.

“There isn’t much left,” said Kate. “Will you go down to the chemist when you have Philip in the perambulator, Nurse, and get a new bottle? And you might get some Bronko-Kure too. Matron will like it.”

Nurse said some people did, leaving Kate to infer from the mere inflexion of her voice that such people were not only congenital idiots, but probably potential murderers. Kate said she would take Bobbie and Angela to the playing-field and Nurse could join them when she had got the medicine.

“That young Mrs. Arbuthnot, madam, what a sad affair,” said Nurse. “To be a widow and not even one baby. How long had she been married, madam?”

Kate said she didn’t know. Not very long she thought.

“Poor young lady,” said Nurse. “It’s nice for her that Mr. Keith takes such an interest. But he always was a kind gentleman. I just happened to be in the garden with Angela when Mrs. Merton arrived and I thought poor Mrs. Arbuthnot had a really charming expression, hardly like a widow at all.”

Without inquiring into the definition, Kate said that she and Mr. Carter were so pleased that Editha Cottage would have good tenants and she believed Mrs. Arbuthnot was interested in gardening, and Angela had better bring her pullover as there was rather a wind. She then walked with the two elder children towards the playing-field where a cricket match was going on between two elevens from the Junior School, the two small batsmen looking heavily overweighted by their pads. As the afternoon was chilly she went to the pavilion, so called by courtesy though really a kind of large wooden staircase with a tin roof over it. Here she found Robin Dale who was keeping the score.

“How did the Arbuthnots’ visit go?” he asked. “All right, Bobbie, I’ll show you how to score in a minute.”

Kate said very well and they were going to move into Editha as soon as possible, adding, “Good gracious!” in a startled tone unusual in her.

“Can I draw?” said Miss Angela Carter.

Robin gave her a blue pencil and some scoring-sheets.

“It never occurred to me before,” said Kate, “that there isn’t a telephone at Editha.”

“That,” said Robin, “—just wait a minute, Bobbie, and I’ll tell you what to do—will be highly inconvenient for long-distance calls. Or for local calls, say from Northbridge.”

Kate, who had not usually much sense of humour, suddenly saw what Robin meant and began to laugh which made Miss Angela Carter laugh too. Master Bobbie Carter said could he score.

“All right, Bobbie, in a moment,” said Kate. “Really, Robin, if one more person talks about Mrs. Arbuthnot, I shall go to bed.”

And she described to Robin her interviews with Matron and Nurse.

“If Colin doesn’t marry Mrs. Arbuthnot,” she said, “Matron and Nurse will never forgive me. And now I suppose you won’t either.”

“Of course I shan’t,” said Robin. “Just wait till this side is out, Bobbie. They’ll all be out in a few moments and then we can start fair. But, as we have mentioned the subject, is it serious?”

“I don’t know,” said Kate. “She is perfectly charming and her sister-in-law is very nice too. But it does sound rather depressing somehow to marry a widow.”

Robin said there were widows and widows, which seemed to cheer Kate a good deal. The small boy who was batting hit a ball gently into the air and an even smaller boy just caught it.

“Out,” said Robin. “Now, Bobbie, I’ll show you how to score. Every time anyone makes a run you put it down here. Now; suppose someone has made a run, what do you do?”

Bobbie, breathing heavily and with concentration, marked the scoring-paper.

“Right,” said Robin. “And if——”

But Master Bobbie Carter, who like all little boys had to show off to someone, was demonstrating his first essay in scoring to Miss Angela Carter.

“By the way,” said Robin, “Miss Hampton and Miss Bent were coming back from the Red Lion when Mrs. Merton came out of Editha with the Arbuthnots. They were going to call.”

“Will they ask about Colin too?” said Kate.

Robin said he didn’t see why they should.

“Well,” said Kate, as patiently as she could, “Colin had that long call from Mrs. Arbuthnot the night he dined here. You remember. And he asked the exchange to charge the call to us, and our operator is a niece of Mrs. Dingle who does for the whole of Wiple Terrace.”

At which she and Robin simply had to laugh, and then eleven white-clad shrimps came onto the field and two more shrimps took their places at the wickets and Master Bobbie Carter settled down in earnest to learn scoring from Mr. Robin Dale.