Читать книгу Bracken Turning Brown - Pamela Wynne - Страница 11

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Millicent wrote excellent letters. And she wrote one the next morning, as she waked very early. Her room looked out on to the fells at the back of the house. The bracken on them was pale and young and the faint green of it lay softly on the darker green of the grass. There were sheep about, and lambs with long wavering legs stood close up to them. The sun was already up and touching with long golden fingers the hills that stood guardian at the end of the valley. As Millicent groped in her smaller suitcase for her blotting book and fountain pen she felt an odd feeling of exhilaration steal over her. There was something wonderful about all this ... something mysterious. Something different ... Millicent, having collected everything she wanted, bundled herself up in her dressing-gown and got back into bed again. And then she began to write, and her pen flew.

“My Darling Daddy,—

“Here I am after the most marvellous journey. I met a man who took me into his first-class carriage; don’t gasp, it was perfectly all right, it was Sir Pelham Brooke, you know, the K.C. who got Mrs. Bates off, you know, the woman who murdered her husband. Anyhow he was madly attractive and I only pray I see him again sometime; I feel I shall. He’s been ill and has to take a year’s rest, and has gone to Ullswater. Well, I got out here at about seven; a man gave me a lift in his cart, otherwise it would have been about seven shillings to drive out here. Not a cart really, a motor van. I shall never forget the drive out here, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had in my life. I had no idea the Lakes were like this, they are too beautiful for words. The Rectory is in the most beautiful valley of all; you can’t imagine what it looks like; it simply takes my breath away; don’t you know, you can’t grasp it, it’s so lovely. I shall never be able to tear myself away, so prepare yourself for it, darling Daddy. You won’t really be lonely, because you’ve always got Joan.

“Susan looked quite all right, but a little sombre. I should think that’s the result of Arthur: he paddles about in a cassock and looks as if he didn’t have enough to eat. Anyhow he seemed quite pleased to see me, which was very nice of him, as he can’t have wanted me. Susan was frightfully pleased to see me and cried, which touched me very much, only I didn’t say so. They have a simply champion servant who does every mortal thing for them and obviously adores Susan. I made a point of shaking hands with her and being very tactful, so I hope she won’t mind the extra work I shall make. The house is most frightfully cold; that’s the only snag, but of course it’s going to get warmer every day now; it’s divine to-day, the sun is out, and the air ... I feel a different creature already. If only you could hear the beck at the front of the house! I’m dying to see it all; I expect we shall explore a bit to-day. I’m so glad it isn’t Sunday, I’m sure Arthur can’t preach and Susan plays the harmonium, I shall be so self-conscious. Anyhow it isn’t Sunday for five days, so that’s all right.

“I have just been reading this over, and I see I never told you why Sir Pelham Brooke took me into his carriage. I got something in my eye and he saw and got it out. He had reserved the whole compartment; fancy being rich enough for that. I could see the very guard was grovelling to him. Darling Daddy, I must end—interval while Susan comes in with early tea. Absolute rapture and she sends her love and says she’s frightfully glad to have me. Will end off later....”

“Shall I stop and have mine here?” Susan, a little flushed, set the tray on the table by Millicent’s bed and hesitated.

“Oh, yes, get into bed with me. It’s huge. Oh, what fun!” Millicent was laughing with excitement and pleasure. “Tea, Susan, what frantic luxury!”

“Rachel said that we must both have it now you’ve come. She always wants me to, but I won’t.” Susan was settling herself a little sedately by Millicent’s side. “I’ll pour it out,” she said. “You take sugar and I don’t.”

“Fancy your remembering that.”

“I remember everything about home,” said Susan. And then her eyes fluttered a little. “Have you been writing to Daddy?”

“Yes, I’ll read it to you,” Millicent was stirring the sugar in her cup. “I’ll read it all,” she said, “and then you’ll know exactly what I’ve put. You’ll excuse the bit about Arthur, I know.”

“Yes, of course,” but Millicent heard the little catch in her sister’s breath. Susan was drinking her tea; staring out of the window as she drank. Did Millicent guess? The bracken seemed to fade and dim in front of her eyes as she sat there against the pillows.

“Oh, Millicent, he does have enough to eat!” Millicent had laid down the letter, and Susan was laughing a little unrestrainedly.

“Poor Arthur, he does; really he does.”

“I know, but it’ll amuse Daddy,” said Millicent sturdily. She put the letter away and laughed. “Poor old Daddy,” she said. “Miss Curwena is madder about him than ever, but he simply goes sailing along not seeing it. He is a pet, really.”

“Yes, he is,” and then Susan sighed. “I must go,” she said. “If you want a bath the water will be boiling. It’s the best thing in the house. Shall I show you?”

“Yes, do,” said Millicent. “And show me your room. I was too dazed to take it all in last night. I’ll hold the tray while you get out.”

“This is my room,” said Susan. The two girls were out on the landing now. A cold bare landing with five high doors opening out of it. A sort of shivery landing, thought Millicent, holding her dressing-gown more closely round her.

“Oh, you don’t sleep with Arthur, then?” Millicent spoke airily. “How modern of you, Susan,” she stood and stared round the little room with its large high windows. A ghastly bedroom, thought Millicent, inwardly appalled.

“No, he sleeps so badly that we thought it better not,” said Susan steadily.

“Very sensible of you,” said Millicent, “Show me the bathroom, Susan. Oh! what a scheme. What do I do? Work the handle up and down?”

“Yes,” said Susan. And as the boiling water from the copper down below came flooding out into the white enamel bath she stood there with her pale blue dressing-gown huddled round her and laughed.

“You know,” she said, “you’ll think me utterly mad, I know, but before you came I got an idea that I’d like to take people here as P.G.’s. I believe it was this frightfully efficient plan of bath water that made me think of it. Don’t you know it’s what people always clamour for at once, hot baths? Well, they’d have them here, wouldn’t they?” and Susan, her face looking a little vague through the cloud of steam that surrounded it, laughed again.

“Yes,” and then Millicent’s young excited mind made a great leap. She had not told her sister yet about Sir Pelham Brooke, she was waiting until the first excitement of her arrival had settled down a bit. Because Susan would have to listen properly to that, not stare about and be wondering all the time what her father had got to look like while she had been away from him. And what Joan wore now, and if her hair was really naturally curly or only just ordinarily wavy. Millicent, the night before, had been astounded at the sick hungry way in which her sister had sat and stared, drinking in all the home news. Not in the least like Susan, either, thought Millicent, remembering the rather casual way in which her elder sister had accepted the rôle of elder sister in the Warwickshire Rectory.

“P.G.’s? Men or women?” she inquired lightly, stooping over the steaming bath and trying the water gingerly with one finger. “Stop pumping, Susan, or I shall never be able to get it cold enough.”

“Oh, men,” said Susan carelessly. She stopped working the wooden handle up and down. “Here’s the cold water,” she said, and twisted a large old-fashioned iron tap, thrusting a finger into the noisy spouting of it.

“And it is cold,” said Millicent. She stood there, a little taller than her sister, and thought how lovely and exciting this was all being. Even the bathroom was exciting. So tall and narrow and queer with its divine view of the mountains behind it.

“And now I’ll leave you,” said Susan. “Breakfast’s at half-past eight, but it won’t matter if you aren’t punctual. Arthur hardly ever is.”

“Any family prayers?” inquired Millicent jauntily.

“Oh, no,” said Susan hurriedly. And as she spoke a tiny pang ran through her. Family prayers! Conducted by the man whom she had begun to despise. What an awful idea. To begin the day like that.... “Oh, no!” she said it again as she prepared to shut the door.

“Poor wretch.” Millicent had begun to take off her night-dress. She said the words aloud as she stooped and felt the water with her hand. And then as she stepped over the edge of the white bath she wondered which she had meant when she said ‘poor wretch.’ Both of them, she decided, letting herself sink down into the water so that it ran up between her young breasts in a slender runlet. “Heavenly,” she said, speaking aloud as she swung herself from side to side, revelling in the warmth of it.

While just across the landing the Rector sat on the edge of his narrow bed and stared out of the large window that gave on to the western end of the beautiful valley. He could see just the grey slated roof of the tiny church. “Lord have mercy upon us: Christ have mercy upon us.” He muttered the words as he sat there, staring.