Читать книгу August Folly - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 5

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Driven in at last by the pangs of hunger, for it was nearly tea-time, Richard slipped into the house and upstairs. The attic, formerly his playroom as a little boy, now his bed-sitting room, was his only retreat, but even so not a safe one. His father, he must do him that justice, hardly ever came upstairs, and knocked and apologised if he did. But he never knew when his mother might come quietly and annoyingly in, kiss the top of his head, ask whose that interesting handwriting was, rearrange one or two things that he had specially put where he wanted them and, just as she was going, ask him to run up to the shop, or get his bicycle and go over with a note to the Manor House. Richard felt so miserable that he was at the moment almost willing to recognise the possibility of some very small fault on his own side. Pausing opposite the looking-glass he gazed at himself, as if the mirror might tell him what was wrong. He only saw a rather bony young man, with fair hair and pale blue eyes, dressed with the studied carelessness of the undergraduate. The bat-like ears to which Mrs. Palmer had taken secret exception, he rarely noticed, nor did his friends. Unless a young man’s ears absolutely bend forward, it is strange how the eye, concerned with the more central features of the human head, skates over and discounts such peculiarities.

Of his long bony hands he was secretly proud, but annoyed by his even longer and bonier feet, which could hardly ever be crammed into ready-made shoes. He saw that he needed a shave, but decided to leave it till to-morrow. In the awful atmosphere of home, it didn’t matter what one looked like.

His thoughts went back to the previous evening, and a party at the house of a friend who lived in London and had parents that could be relied upon to go out and leave the house clear, besides providing plenty of drinks. There had been no girls, thank heaven, and plenty of really serious discussion of intellectual questions. He smiled as he recalled to himself the one or two severe snubs that he had given to a young man from the London School of Economics, who thought he understood rationalising. The young man had not at first been convinced, and had quoted in argument a friend of his who was a Russian girl called Daria, but Richard had shown him exactly where he got off at. As for quoting what a girl said, Richard’s gorge rose at the thought, for never yet had he seen a girl that was worth mentioning, and heaven knew there were enough at Oxford, the whole place simply crawling with them. Girls were the limit, and that was all one could say. After the party Richard and the young man had, with some condescension on Richard’s side, sworn eternal friendship, which the young man, by that time far too full of beer, had accepted with tears. Richard knew neither his name nor his address, and no more was to come of it. But the party or rather its after-effects, were possibly responsible for some of the depression which he felt to-day.

‘A bit of a hang-over, you know,’ he said boastingly to himself in the glass, and then collapsed, as he reflected how little he would impress his parents with this, how they might quite probably not understand what he meant, and would certainly take it in the wrong spirit. Parents!

Just then the tea-bell rang.

‘I’ll just not say a single word unless it’s a nice one,’ said Richard to himself as he went downstairs. ‘If they say something annoying, I’ll simply hold my tongue.’

In pursuance of this virtuous resolve Richard, who usually spoke his mind freely and at length on every topic, sat in glum silence, broken by an occasional awkward Please or Thank you, which so wrought upon his parents that they would almost have preferred his natural discourteous loquacity. After tea his father, with great courage, asked him to come into the study and see the letter he had been drafting to Fanshawe. Richard, who was really interested in his father’s work and knew something about it, was just beginning to become human when Mr. Tebben was incautious enough to broach the subject of Richard’s future plans which at once made him go out for a long walk and not be back till dinner-time, or supper, as Mrs. Tebben chose to call it.

At this ill-dressed meal, consisting of sardines which he loathed, tomatoes which he despised and a blancmange with the rest of the stewed apricots round it which he refused, his mother told him that Ed had brought up his luggage half an hour ago.

‘He was on his way to the Choral at Mrs. Palmer’s,’ said Mrs. Tebben. ‘By the way, Richard, Mrs. Palmer is getting up Hippolytus and wants you to help. I’m sorry you don’t like blancmange, dear. Do have some, it’s a pity to waste it.’

‘There aren’t many parts for me,’ said Richard, ignoring the question of the blancmange.

‘That’s exactly what I said to Mrs. Palmer, but I told her you might be able to lead the chorus. Her nephew, Laurence Dean, the one she is always talking about, is to do Hippolytus.’

‘He can have it,’ said Richard. ‘I don’t see myself pretending to be dead on the floor of the Palmers’ barn or being made love to by Mrs. Phipps’s fat daughter.’

‘Is she to be Phaedra?’ asked Mr. Tebben. ‘Well, possibly Phaedra was stout. Euripides does not tell us.’

‘No, no, dear; Margaret is to be Phaedra.’

‘My good mother, I must protest,’ said Richard. ‘It will be absolutely rotten for me if Margaret does Phaedra. One had one’s conception of the part. Anything further from Phaedra one cannot conceive.’

‘Phaedra may also have been good-looking,’ said Mr. Tebben.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean that. Margaret’s all right, father, but she hasn’t the experience. I know a girl at Somerville who would do exactly. Mind you, I don’t like her, but one must admit that she’s the type; dark, handsome, wavy hair, fire, and she knows Life. She’s been away for several week-ends. She told me all about them.’

‘I am not sure, or perhaps I would rather not be sure, what you imply,’ said Mr. Tebben.

Taking this, rightly, as a reproof for free-speaking, Richard mumbled something about being treated as if one were in the nursery, which his parents pretended not to hear. His mother, plunging into the breach, suggested that he might go over and see Mrs. Palmer after supper.

‘I can’t go to old mother Palmer, that’s flat,’ said Richard. ‘I promised to play darts at the Woolpack this evening.’

‘But, Richard, my dear boy,’ said his mother, ‘I told Mrs. Palmer you would go over; and what is more,’ she added, laying down her pudding spoon dramatically, ‘she asked you over for dinner and I absolutely forgot to tell you. There is still time, because they don’t dine till late on Choral nights. Don’t eat that cheese, dear, and you’ll be able to manage her dinner. Perhaps daddy would like it. No Gilbert? Well then, Richard, give it to me and I’ll finish it up with this little bit of bread.’

‘I do wish to goodness, mother, you wouldn’t interfere. Just because Mrs. P. has pots of money, she thinks she can order us all about. I’m going to the Woolpack.’

‘But you can easily look in at Mrs. Palmer’s before or after your game and explain.’

‘Mother, I can’t.’

‘Well then, dear,’ said Mrs. Tebben, remembering to look at things clearly, ‘I must write a note to explain that you can’t—I will take the blame entirely on myself—and then you can go over on your bicycle and leave the note at the Manor House before you go to your game. I will write a little note now. Put my coffee down, please, Mrs. Phipps. I have just to write a note for Mr. Richard to take to Mrs. Palmer’s and then I’ll drink it.’

‘Why on earth can’t we have a telephone?’ asked Richard. ‘My good mother, it won’t hurt Mrs. P. if I don’t turn up to-night. I do loathe all this social snobbery.’

‘I think, Richard, you might just look in,’ said Mr. Tebben, and whether Richard felt a command that he was a little afraid to disobey, or thought that his father was appealing to him as man to man, he grudgingly consented.

‘Take a coat then, dear,’ said his mother. ‘It may be chilly coming back.’

Richard fled coatless into the warm summer night, disregarding his mother’s cries to him to take the bicycle, and made his way by the field path to the Manor House. When he arrived, the Choral Society had just finished their rehearsal. Mrs. Palmer was seeing them off in the hall and immediately pounced on Richard.

‘Glad to see you,’ she said. ‘We are just going to dine. I always dine at a quarter to nine on Choral nights. Wait a minute, I must speak to Doris Phipps. Doris, tell your mother Wednesdays will be all right, and don’t forget to learn your Aphrodite lines. You had better dine with us, Richard. Yes, I can see you aren’t dressed and it’s a pity you haven’t shaved, but you’ll get a good dinner here.’

‘But I have had dinner at home, Mrs. Palmer,’ said Richard.

‘Never mind. You can easily manage another one at your age,’ said Mrs. Palmer, insultingly. ‘Sparrow lay a place for Mr. Richard.’

‘Yes, madam,’ said the butler. ‘Would you care to wash, sir?’

Richard would have liked to say No, defiantly, but he valued the good opinion of Sparrow, the village’s fastest bowler, and did not wish Sparrow to think him unclean.

‘Anyone staying here, Sparrow?’ he asked, as the butler led him away.

‘Only Mr. and Mrs. Dean, Mr. Richard; Mr. Palmer’s married sister and her husband, as you might say. I understand they are coming to the Dower House for the summer, themselves and family. Young Mr. Dean, Mr. Laurence that is to say, is an excellent all-round cricketer, I understand, and will be quite an acquisition to us. When you have washed, Mr. Richard, and brushed your hair, dinner will be served.’

Much to his annoyance Richard brushed his hair, a concession he had never meant to make, and returned to the hall, where Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were waiting for their guests. Mr. Palmer, a pleasant, white-haired man in a velvet coat, greeted Richard kindly.

‘I expect you are ready for a good holiday,’ he said. ‘I know what that last year at the University is. You must get plenty of cricket and forget all about Oxford for the present. Louise, where are Rachel and Frank?’

‘Not down yet,’ said Mrs. Palmer. ‘They can’t bear the Choral, for which I can’t blame them, for the noise it makes is quite revolting. Sparrow!’

‘Yes, madam,’ said Sparrow, who had been hovering near the dining-room door.

‘Tell Mr. and Mrs. Dean again that dinner is waiting. Tell them personally.’

Sparrow went lightly upstairs, and almost immediately returned, leading captive Mr. and Mrs. Frank Dean.

‘This is Richard Tebben,’ said Mr. Palmer, ‘and dinner has been ready for ten minutes. Come along.’

Without giving them time to shake hands, or even look at one another, he herded the party into the dining-room. Mr. Palmer liked to dine by daylight in summer, and though dusk was filling the room, the only light was on the service table at the far end, so Richard could not see the Deans very well.

‘Rachel,’ said Mrs. Palmer, leaning across Richard to Mrs. Dean, ‘this young man knows all about Greek plays. He is going to help me with the chorus. Richard, make Mrs. Dean promise to act. And I must have a good talk with you after dinner, and show you exactly what I want you to do.’

‘I’m awfully sorry, Mrs. Palmer,’ said Richard, ‘but I’ve promised to play darts at the Woolpack. Some of the cricket team usually turn up, and I wanted to see them about our summer matches!’

‘Darts!’ said Mr. Palmer. ‘Why can’t people drink beer in peace without throwing darts, I can’t think. And the curate is always liable to look in and promote good fellowship. There’s far too much good fellowship about here. I don’t mean your plays, Louise,’ he added hastily to his wife, ‘but all these other affairs. One can’t get an evening in peace. Now, Richard, you leave the Woolpack alone to-night, and stay here, and Louise will put you on the right track about her Greek plays. You’ll learn a lot from her, a lot.’

‘Of course, the whole English idea of the Greek chorus is fundamentally wrong,’ said Richard, fortified by some excellent sherry. ‘You should read what Professor Fosbrick says about it.’

‘Fosbrick? Never heard of him,’ said Mr. Palmer conclusively.

‘Fosbrick. Oh, that man,’ said Mrs. Palmer. ‘I knew his first wife very well.’

Having disposed in this ominous way of Professor Fosbrick, she turned to Mr. Dean on her left and plunged into technicalities about draining the field below the Dower House. As Mr. Palmer enjoyed few things more than discussing and carrying out improvements on his estate, and his brother-in-law was a civil engineer, he added his voice to the discussion, and Richard found himself left to entertain Mrs. Dean, who had not as yet spoken a word.

‘Do you like Greek plays, Mrs. Dean?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Mrs. Dean, very kindly.

‘It’s a pity,’ said Richard. ‘You lose a lot.’

‘But I like losing it. When you don’t like a thing, it is money in your pocket to know it. I always know exactly what I don’t like.’

‘When you’ve seen Hippolytus, you’ll feel quite differently.’

‘No, I don’t think so. It will be very dull and I shall hate it,’ said Mrs. Dean, her gentle voice composed, her calm unruffled.

Sparrow was now lighting candles on the table, and Richard was able to see his neighbour for the first time. If she had a grown-up son, she must be at least as old as his mother, Richard guessed, but no one would think it. With a backwash of irritation he compared his mother’s untidy, shorn hair, her shabby trailing clothes, her maddening enthusiasms, with the still composure of this Mrs. Dean, who wore her shining dark hair in a knot, was dressed in something shimmeringly white, and hated Greek plays. That Mrs. Dean had always had enough money did not occur to him. There was something about her stillness that gave her a disquieting charm, which even Richard, very self-absorbed, and not at all sensitive except about himself, could not help feeling.

‘I expect you will hate it, too,’ she went on. ‘My sister-in-law will bully you horribly. I am really very sorry for you, Mr. Tebben. What else will you do this summer?’

These words might have been overheard by Mrs. Palmer, who would have taken them as a joke, and doubtless Mrs. Dean counted on this. But to Richard, sore after the day’s misunderstandings, bullied as he had indeed already been by his hostess, the words came with the balm of sympathy and understanding. To be called Mr. Tebben was also a delicate solace to his vanity, showing that this Mrs. Dean regarded him as an equal, if not as a fellow-conspirator against Mrs. Palmer. But where a more modest young man would have held his tongue, Richard felt obliged to boast, and tell Mrs. Dean rather noisily and very boringly about the village cricket club, from which recital she might have gathered, if she had been listening, that without his help the club might as well disband.

‘I hear that your son plays a bit, Mrs. Dean,’ said Richard. ‘I daresay I could find room for him if he likes to join us.’

‘Which one do you mean?’ asked Mrs. Dean.

‘Oh, I didn’t know you had two.’

‘I haven’t. I have five. Laurence played for his school and University, but now he is in Frank’s business he doesn’t have much time. I’m sure he’d love to join your club when he comes down here for his holiday. Gerald played for the Army, but he is in India with his regiment. The twins are both at sea now, but they played for their school and get a game whenever they can. Of course Robin isn’t old enough. Are you a Blue?’

This question hit Richard, who had been at the tail of his college second eleven, rather hard. His good opinion of himself would not allow him to suspect any malice in it, but he was uneasy.

‘I couldn’t give the time,’ he said, with doubtful accuracy. ‘I was swotting for Greats all this year.’

‘I quite understand. And I do think cricket excessively dull. Gerald and the twins used to talk of nothing else. Laurence is broader-minded. He plays tennis a good deal now, and so does Helen.’

‘Is she your daughter?’

‘My eldest daughter. She is quite uneducated, like me. She does a good deal of motor racing. Betty and Susan rather despise her, because they want to go to college. Betty has got a scholarship and Susan means to get one, but I think it is a good thing not to be too clever.’

‘Are Betty and Susan your other daughters?’ asked Richard, confused by a long vista of Deans, all brilliant at games and work, stretching away before him.

‘Yes, they are the middle ones. Robin comes after them. He has just gone to his public school. Jessica is still in the nursery. She was a kind of afterthought,’ said Mrs. Dean, reflectively, with an expression of serene pleasure.

‘Then you have eight children?’ said Richard, awestruck.

‘No, nine. But rarely all at home at once, I am sorry to say.’

The drain discussion, which had loudly raged through the rest of dinner, was now brought to a close by Mrs. Palmer saying that they would have coffee and dessert on the terrace, a plan which gave universal dissatisfaction.

‘Flies and moths on the terrace—and bats,’ said Mr. Palmer in an angry aside.

‘Dear Louise,’ said Mrs. Dean, ‘I don’t think Frank ought to with his hay fever.’

‘Didn’t know you had hay fever, Frank,’ said Mr. Palmer. ‘You ought to go to my man. He gives you injections. We’ll have coffee indoors, Sparrow.’

‘How long have you had it?’ asked Mrs. Palmer.

‘Oh, off and on for some time,’ said Mr. Dean, looking at his wife.

It was a lover’s evening of moonlight and nightingales and heavy perfume from the night-scented flowers, and though Richard’s heart was entirely unoccupied, he felt nostalgic pangs which inevitably centred round Mrs. Dean. He had seen a still beautiful woman, his first sight of her had been by candlelight, and that was the image that would remain with him. He would willingly have talked to her about himself all evening, but there was no chance of this, for as soon as they moved to the drawing-room she fell into a murmured conversation with her brother. As she talked she showed distinct and becoming signs of animation, and Richard wondered how Mr. Palmer could have so inspiring an effect upon his sister. If he had been able to hear what they were saying, he would have wondered even more, for the subjects which brought light to Mrs. Dean’s dark eyes and a faint colour to her face were those of riding and tennis for Laurence, Helen, Betty and Susan, cricket for Robin, and the best milk for Jessica, subjects dear to Mr. Palmer’s own heart. He was a great deal older than his sister, and had married a woman of nearly his own age, so that he and his wife hardly seemed to be of the same generation as Rachel. The Palmers, childless, adored their nephews and nieces, while Rachel valued and admired her sister-in-law’s generous affection. Had she been childless herself, she would never, she thought, have been able to love another woman’s children without envy. But then, as she sometimes said, she could hardly remember a time when she had not got children, so she was no judge.

Mrs. Palmer and Mr. Dean, between whom there was no special affection but a good deal of mutual respect, were putting their practical, intelligent heads together over a slight alteration to the barn. Richard, feeling that the Woolpack would be lamenting his absence, yet unable to leave a house where he could look at Mrs. Dean, remained miserably outcast from both groups, conscious of not being grown-up, not being good at tennis, and not able to ride. Of cricket he deliberately did not think. After what Mrs. Dean had let fall about her elder sons’ form, he felt that even the schoolboy Robin would be well above his class. As for milk, he hated it. Pulling his chair a little nearer to his hostess, he heard her say to Mr. Dean:

‘The acoustic is the trouble. You can hear very well in front and in the middle, but there is a kind of dumb spot at the back of the barn, and people do so shuffle and giggle when they can’t hear that it upsets everyone.’

‘Of course,’ said Richard, ‘what you ought to have is large earthenware jars in alcoves along the side walls. That is what von Bastow discovered at Terebinthos. You ought to read his book—it’s translated. He gives marvellous accounts of the way jars improve the acoustics. Ten thousand people could hear distinctly every word that was said on the stage.’

As no one took any notice of him, he got up and walked away onto the terrace.

‘From my own experience as a practical man, I should say that if the audience can’t hear, it usually means that the actors aren’t speaking plainly,’ said Mr. Dean. ‘You’ll have to rehearse your chorus better, Louise. Get Betty onto them. She produced her school play extraordinarily well last year. By the way, didn’t you say young Tebben was to help with the chorus? You ought to speak to him about it. I thought he was here.’

Richard was pacing unhappily up and down the terrace. The country outside, drenched in moonlight, only increased his misery. In the distance the church clock sounded. Closing time. The Woolpack would now be ejecting its beer drinkers and dart players. He had been false to his promise and what had he gained? A very good dinner it was true, but otherwise he might as well never have been born. Mrs. Palmer and Mr. Dean treated him as a child and did not even take the trouble to consider his suggestion about earthenware jars. Mrs. Dean had probably despised him for being so uncouth. If only he were indeed a child, perhaps she would like him better. She would at least take pains to find the best milk for him and a pony to ride, but as it was he might almost as well (though not quite) be at home. In great bitterness he stood still outside the window near which Mrs. Dean and Mr. Palmer were talking.

‘It is disappointing about the pony,’ said she, ‘but perhaps something will turn up. Jessica is really too heavy for Nurse to wheel in the perambulator now, but if I could find a gentle pony, she could be led about.’

‘I’ll inquire,’ said Mr. Palmer, ‘but since Margett’s grey pony died, they have been very scarce about here. There are one or two over at Skeynes, but they are rather lively. Children ride them at pony meetings. Pony Clubs! No pony clubs when I was young. You got on and you fell off, and there you were. Is that light in your eyes? I’ll put it out.’

‘Mrs. Dean,’ said Richard, emboldened by the sudden darkness in the room.

Rachel looked up and saw, romantically surrounded by wistaria and honeysuckle, its large ears clearly outlined against the moonlight, the silhouette of Richard’s head.

‘Oh, Mr. Tebben,’ she said, ‘I thought you had gone.’

‘Mrs. Dean,’ said Richard, wounded but determined, ‘I think I heard you say that you wanted a quiet pony. I mean, I wasn’t listening, but I just couldn’t help hearing the words. We have a donkey. He’s about twenty years old and awfully quiet. If you liked I could bring him over and give your little girl some rides.’

‘That’s very nice of you,’ said Mrs. Dean, with that gentle animation he had previously admired.

‘I haven’t very much to do,’ said Richard, ‘and if you would say when it suited you, I could come over any time, and we’ve got a saddle. It’s a bit mouldy, but I could rub it up a bit.’

‘Thank you very much. That is very kind.’

‘Well, good night,’ said Richard, terrified of spoiling this idyll by another word.

‘Good night, my boy,’ said Mr. Palmer. ‘We must all get up early for these choruses of Louise’s, eh?’

‘Good night, Richard,’ said Mrs. Dean.

Richard, forgetting his hostess, reeled down the drive repeating his own name aloud. Never had Richard sounded so noble, so mellifluous a name. She had called him Richard. And her name was Rachel and both began with an R, at which thought Richard felt weak. That foul Modestine should be immediately shod and clipped within an inch of his life, his saddle cleaned and mended, and Richard himself would ride him until he was completely broken for any little girl’s use.

As he passed the Woolpack, a few village men and lads were loitering at the door, among them Bert and Ed.

‘Oh, hullo, Bert,’ said Richard. ‘I’m awfully sorry I couldn’t get down in time for a game. I had to see Mrs. Palmer about the play. I suppose you’re in the chorus.’

‘Looks like it,’ said Bert, without enthusiasm. ‘It’s this way, Mr. Richard. I go with Dawris Phipps, and Dawris seems to fancy a bit of dramatic, so there we are as they say. Not my idear of a chorus, Mrs. Palmer’s isn’t.’

‘What’s Doris doing?’ asked Richard.

‘Well, I couldn’t rightly say,’ said Bert, ‘but it’s a solo turn.’

Here a slight scuffle which had been going on in the background resolved itself into Ed, pushed forward by some of his friends with encouraging advice to speak up and tell Mr. Richard.

‘Hullo, Ed, what is it?’ said Richard.

‘I’m learning my lines,’ said Ed.

‘That’s right, Ed’s learning his lines. A line a day as the saying is,’ said Bert, with what sounded like some hazy echo of a classical axiom.

‘Splendid, Ed,’ said Richard. ‘You’ll soon know them all at that rate.’

‘No he won’t, Mr. Richard. You did ought to have remembered that,’ said Bert reproachfully. ‘Ed can’t remember only the one line at a time. One gone another come, as they say. But he’s as pleased as Punch down in the lamp-room, between trains, learning up his lines. Aren’t you, Ed?’

A vague chorus from the men and lads at the Woolpack door indicated corroboration of Bert’s statement and a certain pride in Ed’s want of mental grip. After a few more words about the cricket club, Richard said good night and pursued his way homewards.

‘Young Richard would make a good turn with that old Neddy of theirs,’ said Bert to his audience. ‘I’d laugh like anything to see them both wagging their ears.’

Unaware of this unfavourable criticism, Richard ran along the road and through the wood for the mere pleasure of running. His intention was to leap upstairs, leap into bed, as far as was compatible with having a bath, cleaning his teeth and other mundane considerations, and there to meditate till slumber claimed him on the perfections of Mrs. Dean. But as he approached Lamb’s Piece he saw to his great annoyance a light in the sitting-room. It was impossible to get up those creaking stairs without being heard, so he walked in at the french window, defiantly determined to face the worst. His mother was sitting on the sofa, surrounded by papers, a writing pad on her knee. In front of her was a table with a tea-pot on it, covered by a red woollen tea cosy.

‘Did you have a good game, dear boy?’ she asked, ‘I have kept some tea for you. Did you explain to Mrs. Palmer?’

‘Oh, it’s all right, mother. No, I don’t want any tea, thanks.’

‘It seems a pity to waste it,’ said Mrs. Tebben, pouring out a tepid, black liquid. ‘Was it nice at the Woolpack?’

‘I didn’t go. My good mother, do you call this tea? It’s stingo.’

‘It is just the same that your father and I had. Besides Mrs. Phipps let the kitchen fire out, and the Primus wouldn’t work. But I could get you some lemonade, or there is the remains of that bottle of beer we opened on Tuesday.’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t fuss, mother. Oh, Mrs. Palmer wanted me to tell you that rehearsals begin next week, and can you come up and take the chorus two evenings a week in the barn?’

‘Of course. And what was it like at the Palmers’?’

Richard made an ungracious and non-committal reply, but his mother gradually extracted from her increasingly sulky son an account of his evening. She particularly wanted to know what Mrs. Dean was like, while Richard, unwilling to discuss that attractive woman in the squalid atmosphere of his home, assumed an air of oafish ignorance, and finally pleaded headache, a foolish move, which led to his mother laying her hand on his forehead to feel if it was hot, a liberty that he deeply resented. Owing to Mrs. Phipps’s lapse over the kitchen fire the bath water was cold, a final blow to break a man’s spirit. Even in sleep fate pursued him with malignity, and instead of dreaming about Mrs. Dean as was his fixed intention, he dreamt that he was standing before a wicket with a tennis racket, being bowled at by eleven young Deans, each over ten feet high.

At the Manor House Rachel Dean, seated before a mirror, was brushing the long dark hair that she had never thought of cutting. Her husband, coming in from the dressing-room, drew aside a curtain and looked out on the garden.

‘Darling,’ said Rachel, ‘if you leave that curtain open with a light in the room, bats will come in, and you know what happens with bats. They get their claws in your hair, and then you have to cut off all your hair or break their legs off, because they are too panic-stricken to rescue themselves.’

‘Coward,’ said Frank Dean, drawing the curtain again. ‘Rachel, why did you tell Louise that I had hay fever? You know I’ve never had it in my life.’

‘It was a deliberate lie,’ said Rachel, placidly brushing her hair all the time. ‘A noble lie. A lie in a good cause, because I didn’t want coffee on the terrace, and I knew you didn’t, and I knew Henry didn’t. Frank, I think this will be a very pleasant summer. There is riding and tennis for Laurence and the girls, and there is a cricket club for Robin, and a donkey for Jessica, and the new drains for you. Louise’s Greek play will be a little wearing, but I shall tell her I have a heart.’

‘I don’t like that, even as a noble lie,’ said her husband.

‘Well, it isn’t quite a lie. You know Dr. Masters did say that I had a murmuring heart, but he spoilt it all by saying it was of no consequence. What a lovely phrase a murmuring heart is, Frank. I should like to write a book called “The Murmuring Heart”. Yes, I shall have a heart all this summer, whenever Louise comes near me. So now everything is settled.’

‘What do you think of that young Tebben?’ asked Mr. Dean.

‘Poor boy,’ sighed Rachel.

‘Why poor?’

‘I call anyone poor who gets into Louise’s clutches,’ said Rachel. ‘He will never get his own way about the chorus. We must tell Betty and Susan to back him up.’

‘I sometimes wonder,’ said her husband, ‘if you will have any time to think about me. It’s the first holiday I’ve had since we were married.’

‘Well, darling, you know you mostly won’t be here, because whenever you say you will at last have a real holiday, you fall into some new work. But think of you I will. I always have, you know,’ said his wife with an engaging smile.

‘You agreeable object,’ said Mr. Dean. ‘Lies or no lies, you are the most agreeable thing I know. Stop brushing your hair and go to bed, or I’ll let the bats in.’