Читать книгу Mrs. Gailey - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 3

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1

All the heat of that summer's day seemed to burn on Doleham Valley station. The unshaded platform breathed like a stove, the flowers glared against the wall of the stationmaster's garden, the blue sky leaned and ached upon the roof.

"Best come inside, Mum, and sit down," said old Chaffage to Iris Winrow.

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. The smile was a part of that duty of charm in which she had been brought up. The shrug was an appeal to masculine chivalry. It said: I am a helpless woman, still almost as beautiful as when I was young, now stranded many miles from home, but hoping that a kind, competent man will ring up Doleham Manor for me and find out what has happened.

Old Chaffage, however, was unschooled in any language but that of words.

"You sit here, Mum, and Miss Sale too, and I reckon Elphinstone will be along before many minutes."

Iris finished her unspoken sentence with a sigh. The ticket office and general waiting room of Doleham Valley station contained a single six-foot bench which was already occupied at one end by a young woman with a suitcase. The young woman smiled as she made room, but neither Iris nor her maid seemed to notice her as they sat down. Iris settled the folds of her gray and violet dress, then turned at once to Sale.

"Sale, I think you had better telephone."

"I've never telephoned from here'm."

"There's a telephone in Mr. Chaffage's office."

"I've never used it'm."

Iris knew that, as far as Sale was concerned, the subject was closed. But she had achieved her object, for Chaffage understood her at last.

"How'd it be if I was to ring up, Mum, and find out what's happened?"

"Oh, Mr. Chaffage, it would be sweet of you. Just ring up and tell whoever answers that the car hasn't come to meet us. Find out what's happened, and if Elphinstone hasn't started tell him to come along at once."

Chaffage disappeared into a disordered chamber behind the ticket office. Here branch-line goods awaited delivery by the slow travail of the station van, and several times a day the telephone rang unanswered while the stationmaster acted alternatively as signalman and porter. Soon from it emerged the broken ends of an unintelligible conversation.

It lasted for some time, and during its length Iris's attention wandered more than once to the young woman next her. Closer examination revealed the fact that she was not really very young, but had been made to look so by her clothes, which were short and bunchy, and her hair, which was long and loose, with a gay ribbon snood tied around it. Her bare legs ended in high-heeled shoes and were short and plump and pink—altogether a deplorable person, thought Iris. What could she be doing here at Doleham Valley station? What or whom was she waiting for? She looked like the sort of person one got nowadays when one advertised for a cook, the sort of person that made her keep on Mrs. Ashplant in spite of her ways.

The stationmaster came out of his office, looking flustered.

"I'm sorry, Mum, to have taken so long, but there's been a bit of a mix-up. Seemingly you weren't expected till tomorrow."

"But I said Friday. I spoke to Miss Lesley and told her Friday."

"Miss Lesley was on the phone, Mum, and she said she's sorry, but she thought Friday was tomorrow."

Iris threw up her hands. "Sale, what am I to do about that girl?"

"I'm sure I don't know'm."

"Well, Chaffage, the point is—what's happening now? Is the car coming at once?"

"Unfortunately, Mum, Elphinstone wasn't told you was expected, and he's taken the engine down. He can't bring your car, but Miss Lesley promised he should come in his own."

"That miserable little rattletrap. . . . We'll never get the luggage in. Sale, I told you that you've brought too much."

"I've brought no more than I need'm."

"Well, it'll have to come later by the van if there isn't room for it."

"There'll be plenty of room on the back seat."

"That's where you shall sit, then, and I hope it squashes you. I shall sit in front with Elphinstone."

Sale made no reply, and Iris's attention was diverted by the behavior of the woman on the bench beside them. For some moments she had been looking as if she wanted to speak, and now she said, "Excuse me . . ."

The duty of charm has its limits, and Iris's look was not encouraging. But the stranger continued, "I think we're both in the same fix. I thought I was going to be met by the Doleham Manor car. My name's Gailey, Mrs. Gailey."

She evidently expected this name to convey something, but as it obviously did not, she added, "Your daughter has just engaged me as her secretary."

So that was what she was—not a new-style cook but a new-style secretary—just the sort of person Lesley would engage. . . . As Iris said nothing, the young woman asked, "You are Mrs. Winrow, aren't you?"

"I am, but my daughter hasn't told me anything about you. She's inclined to be secretive about her personal affairs, and as it happens, I'm very seldom in the country. I spend most of my time at our house in town."

She hoped the young woman would stop talking. She felt tired, and it might be half an hour before Elphinstone arrived with his car. She did not want to have to sit all that time talking about Lesley and her crackbrained schemes. She thoroughly disliked the looks of the new secretary. She was common—not a lady, not a bit like the secretaries she sometimes saw in the houses of her friends. She looked neither immaculate nor discreet. She looked just another of those queer women whom Lesley perversely preferred to those she met in her mother's drawing room. The secretary could not, however, be aware of these deficiencies, for she smiled and said in the friendliest way, "What a pretty dress you're wearing."

"It's an old one I keep for traveling."

"Well, it does look nice. And you look so cool."

"I feel very hot—and rather tired. Do you mind if I read my paper?"

"Oh, please do, and I'll read mine."

Iris opened her Tatler and Mrs. Gailey smoothed out a battered copy of the Picture Post.

2

Iris had opened her paper not only to stop the conversation but to screen her thoughts. Her thoughts, however, were not new. They revolved around the question she had been asking herself for years, but to which she had never found an answer. Why had poor Tom left Waters Farm to Lesley?

Of course, poor sweet, he had made his will in a hurry, expecting to be killed in a few months—which he was—and before he had recovered from his disappointment at the baby's being a girl. It was funny, thought Iris, how differently men reacted to that situation. Old Lord Downsbridge had practically cut his wife out of his will altogether because she had failed to provide him with an heir. But Tom had seemed to love her more than ever—only to dislike the baby. Iris was not so surprised as some of her friends when he left her the whole of the Doleham Manor property except for one outlying farm, which he bequeathed to his daughter with ten thousand pounds.

But why had Tom left Waters Farm to Lesley? He knew very well that the whole estate would be hers when her mother died, for though—dear, unselfish darling—he had told her that if anything happened to him out there she must marry again, he knew that she could never have another child. Lesley would inherit Doleham Manor and its four other farms. Why start her off with Waters on her own? A sum of money, of course, should have been hers, but not the farm.

Naturally, poor Tom could not have guessed the trouble it would bring, the difficulties it would create, the nuisance it would make of Lesley when she grew up—how it would encourage her in all her oddness and obstinacy, provide the materials for her silly schemes, and allow her to set her mother's wishes at naught. It is true that Nigel had been in some degree to blame. He had never got on with his stepdaughter, and it was very much of his doing that Lesley had spent so much of her time down at Doleham instead of at the house in Bryanston Square. Nigel had not left the girl a penny, which was mean of him, for another ten thousand pounds might have got her married by now. Iris frowned at Nigel's memory.

Mrs. Gailey, who had been looking at her over the edge of her Picture Post, misinterpreted the frown.

"The car's a long time coming, isn't it?"

"I hadn't expected it as soon as this."

"How far is Doleham Manor from the station?"

"About six miles."

Iris fixed her eyes on the photograph of a duchess, but the secretary prattled on. "It was Miss Sylvia Dunning who recommended me for this post. You know her, of course."

"No, I've never met her."

"But I understand that she's a great friend of your daughter's."

"My daughter's friends are very seldom mine."

"That must sometimes make things awkward."

"It does."

Was it really impossible to silence this woman? Mercifully, she was not likely to be staying at Doleham Manor itself. Lesley's secretary until now had lived with her other parasites at the farm. But then her present secretary was a man. . . . Who was this Mrs. Gailey? How had the Dunning woman got hold of her? Her recommendation meant nothing. Though Iris had never met her, she knew all about her. She was one of Lesley's gang, her hanger-on, and Mrs. Gailey was probably a hanger-on of the hanger-on. It was all very distressing and degrading.

"Ah," cried the secretary, "here he is at last."

She jumped to her feet just as a small, dark Austin stopped at the ticket-office door. Old Chaffage came up with the luggage on a handcart.

"Would this be all, Mum?"

Before Iris could speak, Mrs. Gailey had told him her trunk had better wait to come by van. "I can manage quite well with this suitcase till tomorrow."

She was going to put it on the top of the other bags when Iris stopped her.

"I'm afraid there won't be room for either you or your luggage in this small car."

For the first time the secretary looked daunted.

"Then what am I to do?"

"There's a bus that passes the drive gate. When is it due here, Mr. Chaffage?"

"In another hour, Mum. Half-past five's his time, but he's often late."

"We could have found room for you in my own car," said Iris, speaking more graciously now that the other woman was at last in her place, "but this is my chauffeur's little runabout, and it will be a tight fit for my maid and me without anyone extra."

"Couldn't I just squeeze into the back seat?"

"I'm afraid not—not with the suitcases. Sale will be dreadfully crowded as it is. Get in, Sale."

Sale got in, and the bags were arranged on the seat beside her. Iris settled herself in front with the chauffeur.

"I'll tell my daughter you're here and she can expect you about half-past six."

She nodded pleasantly and Mrs. Gailey smiled. Would she ever stop smiling?

3

She did—directly the car was out of sight. Then she turned back into the waiting room, and after making sure that Chaffage was not in his adjoining lair, released a flow of language that would have startled him considerably. Then she lit a cigarette and walked out on the platform.

It was still as hot as ever. The afternoon, though advanced by Summer Time into evening, was held back by the sun in midday folds of heat. Not far from the station were thick woods, and meadows where oaks and ashes made cool tents on the grass. But Rosamund Gailey was not looking for shade.

"Is there anywhere," she asked Chaffage, who had just appeared, "where I could get a cup of tea?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss, not unless you go to the village."

"And how far's that?"

"Close on six miles."

Everything seemed to be six miles away from this god-awful hole. "I'd been hoping," she said, "there might be some place that sold tea and postcards. I want to send a postcard to my boy."

"No, Miss, there ain't nothing like that till you get to Doleham. Then you might find something at the post office."

Not if I'm on the bus, she thought; it won't stop for me to buy postcards. But I might get out there, of course, and walk the rest of the way.

"How far," she asked, "is Doleham village from the Manor?"

She almost expected him to say six miles, but this time he used another measure: "Maybe half an hour."

She couldn't walk half an hour in this heat, carrying her suitcase. And after all, it wasn't as if Michael had any idea of when she would be arriving at Doleham or anywhere else. The postcard would come to him out of the blue without any connections in time or place. And he would laugh with pleasure and almost talk as he showed his granny the new wonder that had appeared in his life. She would make a point of going to the village tomorrow.

"Does the bus run in the morning—the one that passes the Manor gate?"

"There'd be one at eleven o'clock, but he don't come back till the afternoon, as he gets his dinner in Sandlake. And now, if you'll excuse me, Miss, I must be going down the line to see about the points for up train."

"Don't let me keep you," said Rosamund, and changed her mind about offering him a cigarette. He wasn't much in the way of company—and he might have stopped calling her Miss when she told him she had a boy—or did he think she meant a boy friend? Yet he had been somebody to talk to, and now she had nobody. By this time she knew her Picture Post by heart, so there was nothing for her to do but sit and think, and she hated thinking.

Thinking took her into even worse places than Doleham Valley station—places she had been long ago and not so long ago, places she hadn't been yet but might well find herself in before long if she wasn't careful. She positively must make a success out of this job. It must get her somewhere.

But she had made a bad start, having failed for some reason to recommend herself to that snooty old bitch. How could Sylvia have said that Mrs. Winrow was charming? Sylvia's geese were always swans, of course. She was probably just as wrong about the daughter. What had she said about her? "So sweet and clever." So clever that she didn't know Thursday from Friday? But as long as she remembered to pay one's salary . . .

That was it. The money was good. Any job was worth putting up with at eight pounds a week and "all found"—found in a beautiful, historic manor house, where there still were servants. Sylvia had said that Mrs. Winrow kept a staff both at Doleham and in London. There could not be much to put up with under such conditions, even if her employer was bats. But perhaps the question was not so much one of putting up as of holding down. She wished her typing wasn't so rusty. If only she had finished her course at the College before she married Phil . . . If only she could have got hold of a machine to practice on before she came. But she depended less on her typing than on her gift for making people like her. She mustn't let Mrs. Winrow make her lose her confidence in that pleasant manner which for so long had kept her in jobs she might otherwise have lost for lack of skill. This was her big chance and she must take it.

She lit another cigarette off the stub of the old one and tried to recall everything that Sylvia had told her about the place. Then she remembered that she still had her last letter in her handbag. There was only too much time to read it again.

My dear Rosamund,

I've just seen Lesley Bullen and she's delighted to hear that you're taking the job. Her present secretary leaves at the end of the month, so she'd like you to come a few days before he goes, so that he can show you the ropes. (It is a he, but quite useless to you, my dear, so don't waste your time.) You'd better write to her and fix a date, also your money—and don't be afraid to ask a lot. She's rolling. I'm so glad you're going there, for I'm very fond of her—she's so sweet and so clever and I know you'll be happy working for her. It'll be nice for her too, as she's a great deal alone. Her mother's a charming person but lives mostly in London. I expect you've seen her picture in the papers, as she goes everywhere. I believe King Edward used to admire her when she was young. You'll simply love Doleham Manor. It's a most beautiful old place and has been in the family since Queen Elizabeth's day. Mrs. Winrow is one of the few people left who have servants, so you're sure to be comfortable. After a little time you might get Lesley to ask me down. I love staying there.

I hope Michael still likes his school and that it's doing him good. You ought to be able to afford it quite easily now. I saw Ben Everton at the Cornet last night, but he was completely screwed, so I didn't speak to him.

Fondest love from

Sylvia

Well, even if this was only another of Sylvia's write-ups, it was pretty good. She would have been a fool not to jump at it, though it did mean leaving town. When you compared it with Mother's idea that you should go into a shop . . . "Madame Wheeler would take you on in the showroom tomorrow. She says you've got just the right manner for selling gowns. Then you could live at home, and you know how Michael would love that." Yes, he would, and so would she, though there were times when he made her feel so bad that she knew it was best to see him only occasionally. Besides, it would be much better for him in the long run if she made enough money to keep him on at school. She ought to be able to save quite five pounds a week, as she'd have hardly any expenses. But if she lived at home and went to work in a gown shop—a gown shop in the Harrow Road . . . She wondered how her mother could think of such a thing. It was sending her right back behind her first start. Now she was starting again, and from a higher level than at first, for she had learned to speak nicely as well as a great many other useful things. Those restless, racketing years with Phil had not been wasted. Mother was a fool.

4

By this time she had finished her second cigarette and was just about to light a third, when she noticed a change in the life of the station. Movement arose. First it was no more than old Chaffage hurrying along with a red flag to guard the gateless level crossing; but soon, with a lot of noise and clouds of escaping steam, a small train appeared and drew up at the platform. This must be what he called the "up train," though it could be going no further than Sandlake junction on the main line ten miles away. It consisted of a saddle-tank engine, a single third-class carriage, and a couple of open freight cars. Nobody got out of it, but there was a certain activity around the freight cars, from which Chaffage dragged various strange-looking objects of an agricultural nature.

"It's Ellis's, of Maidstone. They've put a lot of their stuff on today," he said as Rosamund strolled up. She was quite uninterested, but at least here was something to look at and talk about. "There's Mr. Vine's pump come at last. I wonder if Ellis'ull have let him know, so he can come and fetch it. If not, I'd better telephone. He told me a week ago he was tired of waiting."

"I'm tired of waiting," said Rosamund. "Isn't it nearly time for the bus?"

"Another half-hour yet he'll be, I reckon."

She swallowed an unwise word. Had she been alone with her thoughts only for half an hour? It might have been all her life. She had sat all her life on this miserable station, waiting for a bus that would not run this side of eternity. An idea suddenly came to her and she looked in her purse. Yes, she still had over a pound left.

"Tell me," she asked Chaffage, "isn't there a garage or someplace close by where I could hire a taxi?"

"No, Miss, there ain't nowheres."

"But how do people manage if they want a taxi?"

"They hires from Mr. Catt in Doleham."

"Well, couldn't I hire from Mr. Catt? Is he on the phone?"

"Yes, Miss, he is," said Chaffage reluctantly. "But I doubt if he'll be there. He's mostly out these days."

She was losing patience.

"There must be somebody to answer the phone. Anyway, I'm going to try."

But "he" proved to be the taxi, and he was out, "taking Mr. Simons over to Barnhorn," a voice informed her.

She turned drearily away and was trying to suck some comfort from the thought that thanks to the obstacles and hesitations of the local telephone service, ten minutes of her sentence had expired, when she noticed that a vehicle had drawn up in the station yard—a Ford utility van. Anything on wheels was a message of hope, and she looked around for the driver.

The next minute she saw him, helping Chaffage put into the van one of the strange objects she had seen on the platform. She walked out into the yard.

"I wonder," she said to Chaffage with a smile, "if this gentleman is going anywhere near Doleham Manor?"

The driver turned around. His back view had revealed no more of him than a well-made suit, but his face was young and handsome and he had most decidedly a look in his eye. Rosamund's spirits rose and her smile changed its aim.

"I'd be just too terribly grateful . . ." she began.

"I live quite near the Manor. Let me give you a lift."

"That really would be kind of you. I was waiting for the bus, but I understand it isn't due for another half-hour."

"And takes at least forty minutes to reach the Manor gates, while I can do it in ten. Please get in."

Nothing could be better than this.

"I have some luggage . . ."

"There's plenty of room."

Her heart sang, and it was all she could do to stop herself from singing. Here was one of those changes of fortune which had so often restored her confidence in life. A minute ago she had been resigning herself to a long and boring wait before she started on a long and boring journey; now after ten minutes' drive with an attractive man she would be at her journey's end. She had been snubbed by an old hag who had deliberately chosen to leave her to kick her heels in this bloody hole; now in ten minutes she would be driven up to her front door by this most presentable neighbor, probably one of the local squirearchy, possibly someone the old hag wanted for her own daughter. Before she got to Doleham, Rosamund was determined to fix the glance of that lively dark eye.

He was helping Chaffage carry her trunk, which would now arrive honorably with her instead of following, perhaps days later, in the station van. She felt in such a good humor with everybody that she gave the old horror half a crown.

"Thank you, Miss. A bit of luck, this, Maas' Charley's coming for the pump. I've known that bus be twenty minutes late."

And would you have thought of asking him to give me a lift if I hadn't appeared at the moment and done it myself? But she smiled graciously and waved her hand as they drove away.

5

"I know your name," she said, flashing her eyes at him.

"You heard him call me Charley. What's the rest?"

"Vine. He said the doings at the back were for Mr. Vine and that he might call for them. Thank heaven you did."

"May I ask why you were waiting for the bus? They've got at least two cars at Doleham and a full-time chauffeur."

She laughed. She could laugh at it now.

"Miss Bullen got mixed in her dates and thought Friday was tomorrow. The engine of the big car had been taken down and there wasn't room for me in the small one with all Mrs. Winrow's luggage. Moral, never start a job on a Friday."

"So you're starting a job, are you?"

She looked saucy.

"Did you think that I'd come for the week-end with that trunk? Yes, I'm starting a job. I'm Miss Bullen's secretary."

"Ah!"

The exclamation baffled her. It might have been either of contempt or of relief.

"Why do you say 'Ah' like that?"

"Forgive me. I only meant I'm thankful that chap's going."

"Wasn't he much good?"

"He was worse than no good. I do hope you know something about farming."

This was a poser. It had not so far occurred to her that the secretary of a farm settlement should know anything about farming. She didn't know what to say. Should she bluff about farming as she had bluffed about so many other things she knew nothing about and perhaps get at least partly away with it? Then she remembered the object at the back of the car and decided not to try. This young man, even though he seemed so well bred, must know a lot about farming. He probably owned a big estate. She had better not risk a fall so early.

"Well—er—no, I'm afraid not. At least not much. I understand that my work has very little connection with the agricultural side of things."

"But—" he turned round and looked at her with such concern and bewilderment that she felt quite upset. "It's time," he said after a pause, "that someone down there got to know a bit about farming."

"But don't they? I thought Miss Bullen was running a sort of model farm."

He said nothing. Evidently he did not want to talk any more about the Waters Farm Settlement, but she could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking a lot. She felt awkward and tried to find another topic.

"Is that Doleham village over there?"

"Yes, that's the village. But we don't actually pass through it. The Manor's on the other road."

A new set of thoughts and feelings had started working in her. She hesitated. It might not be wise to ask him now to do any more for her than he was doing. She mustn't upset him by seeming to encroach. Yet, if she didn't send Michael that postcard today she might not be able to do so till next week; and though time and distance meant nothing to him, they meant a lot to her. She would risk it.

"I wonder—I wonder if it would be taking you very much out of your way if we did pass through . . . by the post office, I mean. Does it make the run much longer?"

"Not more than a couple of miles, and it wouldn't matter if it was twenty. This car goes on farm petrol."

"Then I should really be most awfully grateful. I do so want to send a postcard to my little boy. I promised him he should have one tomorrow."

"Oh, of course, I'll take you with pleasure."

She judged from his manner that her request, far from having put him against her, had worked in her favor. She really did like him, and apart from her relief at not having to struggle into the village on some uncertain future date, she rejoiced at the prospect of two extra miles in his company. But one thing must be made clear.

"I've left him with my mother in London. She's given him a home while I'm on jobs—ever since my husband died."

He nodded gravely and for a moment or two they drove in silence. The road forked just before the village, which she was disappointed to find consisted of no more than a dozen cottages besides the church and a very small pub.

"Is this all there is?"

"All there is," he answered smiling. "Isn't it enough?"

"Well, one likes to go to a hotel sometimes, or to the pictures."

"You have high ideals of village life. You'll find all that at Sandlake."

"Yes, but I'll have to get there."

Perhaps he would take her there someday. He was just the sort of man she would like to take her out. There was something solid about him, under the surface ease. She wondered how old he was—younger than she was, but she could not tell how much.

"Here's the post office."

It was a small general shop, as she might have expected. He held the door open for her, but he did not go in. She surveyed the meager stock of picture postcards. Anything would please Michael, but she wanted to find what would please him most. Luckily there was one with kittens on it. Cats were the only animals he really understood about—Mother had always kept a cat. She wrote "These pussies have come to tell you that Mum has arrived safely in the country. She sends you love and kisses and will come and see you before very long." She printed the letters very carefully, as if there had been a chance of his being able to read her message himself. When she had finished, she found that her eyes were dim with tears.

It was always like that. He hurt her even from a distance. Oh, why couldn't she be tough and cut loose? It was partly Mother's fault. She'd carry on terribly if she sent him to a Place. But he wouldn't mind—not after the first day or two. He'd forget all about her, all about them both. Then she'd be really free and have a chance of making a life for herself. But even without Mother she couldn't do that. He was all she had.

At this point she shook herself and took out her powder compact. She couldn't reappear with wet eyes. He might think she was a disconsolate widow, and keep his distance. Someday she must let him know that Phil had been dead five years. She walked out smiling brightly.

"Thank you so much. I'm glad to have been able to get that off."

"How old is your little boy?"

He was helping her into the car, so it was easy to pretend she hadn't heard. The time had not come yet—if it should ever come—that he need know that Michael was twelve. She said as they drove on, "Mrs. Winrow's a very charming person, isn't she?"

"I've heard so, but I've very seldom met her. She spends most of her time in London and I've been in Germany for the last four years."

"Have you really? In the Army of Occupation?"

"Yes. I had rather a good job, so I stuck to it. But the time came when I simply couldn't bear being away from home any longer."

She wondered if he was married. Hitherto she had taken for granted that he wasn't, but now she realized that she had done so entirely without evidence.

"You were alone out there—without your people?"

"Oh, I'm not married—yet." She thought she saw a teasing look in his eye as he smiled at her, "but I'm very fond of my father and mother and the place where I was born. It was the place as much as the people that I missed."

"Then have you always lived here?"

"Always—till I joined up in 1940. But perhaps you wouldn't call it living."

"Why not?"

"In this dead hole, fifteen miles from the nearest movie?"

"I bet you cover those fifteen miles pretty often."

Again he mocked her with a teasing eye.

"Not so often as you think."

She could see lodge gates a few yards on. Her time with him was running out in seconds.

"Perhaps you'll take me to the pictures one day."

"Should you like me to take you?"

"I've said so, haven't I?"

"Well, then, perhaps someday. But I warn you I'm not a movie-fiend. And now here we are at Doleham Manor. Isn't it a fine old place?"

6

Sylvia Dunning was out by nearly two hundred years when she settled the Bullens at Doleham in Queen Elizabeth's day. A family called Cheynell had owned it then and kept it until 1761, when the Bullens took it over, foreclosing on a mortgage. It was they who had given it its present classical frontage, which on clear days from as far off as Sandlake could be seen gleaming among the woods like a white stone. They had thought it essential to cover up the scrambled mess of Tudor and Stuart buildings which for centuries had been growing and crumbling on the site. But they had done no more than cover. Out of the pillared Georgian portico one stepped into a beamed Stuart hall, where old Italian furniture showed a strange congruity with its surroundings. Then, passing under a William and Mary staircase, one found oneself between narrow walls of Tudor linen-fold paneling, and then walked out into the very last construction of all—a Lutyens terrace and loggia, which Nigel Winrow had had built as a setting for the parties that in those days Iris was giving as part of her campaign to get Lesley married.

The flagstones nursed the day's heat on into twilight, so that it was nearly always possible to have tea outdoors. But this evening the heat was bakehouse heat, and Iris had taken refuge in the loggia, where blinds of jasmine hung between her and the sun. They shut her and her daughter into a flecked, scented shadow that moved upon their faces and the floor and the china and silver of the tea table.

"You wouldn't know there was a breeze," said Lesley, "if you didn't see the shadows move."

Iris felt one of those gusts of irritation which seldom failed to shake her if she was any length of time in Lesley's company.

"Have you heard a word of what I'm saying?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then what did I say?"

"You were talking about Mrs. Gailey."

"We've talked about little else since I arrived. What I'm now trying to find out is what she was doing before she applied to you. Whose references have you got?"

"Why, nobody's. Sylvia Dunning knows her very well indeed and says she's charming."

"But what are her qualifications as a secretary?"

"She can do typing and shorthand."

"Can she? Are you sure?"

"Well, she said so. And why shouldn't she?"

"Because, darling, she's got what the Americans call dishpan hands. I had plenty of opportunity for studying them at the station, and my opinion is that she's never been anybody's secretary but may have been somebody's cook."

"I dare say she has. She's had a dreadful life. Oh, Mother, do try and think kindly of her; she's been terribly unhappy. Her husband's dead and her little boy's mentally deficient. She's had to work in order to keep him and send him to a special school. I'm dreadfully sorry for her."

"And that is why you engaged her as your secretary?"

Lesley flushed and did not answer.

"Well, all I can say," began Iris, but she said nothing more because at that moment the front doorbell rang. They could hear its iron tongue through all the open doors of the house.

"I'll go and answer it," said Lesley, uncoiling her long legs from among the legs of her chair.

"No, don't. Wait and see if Ashplant goes."

"He won't. It's his time off before dinner. I wonder who's come. It can't be Mrs. Gailey."

"No, it can't. The bus isn't due for forty minutes yet. Perhaps it's Cousin Nicholas."

"I'd better go and see. I expect Mrs. Ashplant's busy with the cooking."

"But I don't like you answering the door when I've servants to do it."

"But if they won't—"

Iris said nothing and the bell rang again. This time a stumping footstep was heard going toward it from the servants' quarters.

"That's Sale," said Iris. "I've never known her do that before. She must be in a good temper."

"I expect Ashplant has given her a drop of something. He generally does, you know, and then she helps him."

The next moment Sale appeared. She said to Iris, "The person's come."

"What person?" asked Lesley.

"The person we saw at the station."

Lesley started. "You don't mean Mrs. Gailey? Sale, you're not to call her a person. She isn't one. She's a lady. Where is she?"

"In the hall, Miss."

"Lesley, Lesley," cried Iris as her daughter scrambled out of her chair, "don't be in such a hurry. It can't be Mrs. Gailey. How could she have got here?"

But Lesley was already running through the house.

7

Rosamund was disappointed that Charley Vine had not come in with her. He had lifted out her luggage and carried it into the hall. Then he had said, "If you'll excuse me, I'll be off now."

"Wouldn't Mrs. Winrow like you to come in?"

"I don't suppose she would, and anyhow I haven't time. Good-by and good luck."

He was gone, leaving her a little resentful. How long would she have to wait here in the hall while that old trout was announcing her arrival?

Not more than a few seconds. For suddenly there was a sound of hurrying feet and the passage in front of her was blocked by a running figure.

"Oh, Mrs. Gailey—I'm so sorry—please forgive me—I'd no idea you could get here so soon."

"Well, I've only just arrived."

Rosamund smiled as she took the large, well-shaped hand held out to her. Sylvia had said Miss Bullen was tall, and for once had been guilty of an understatement. Miss Bullen, seen against the outdoor sunshine that streamed down the passage over shoulders, looked enormous—a big, ungainly creature who would have towered if she had not stooped. She was untidily dressed in a rather worn cotton frock and straw sandals, and her hair swung in two dark curtains on each side of her face, which was entirely without make-up. Rosamund could not have imagined anyone more unlikely to be Iris Winrow's daughter.

"I was lucky enough to find someone with a car coming this way," she began. But Lesley was still apologizing.

"It's all my fault, making that stupid mistake about Thursday and Friday. But I'm always getting the days mixed up. They seem so much alike, especially toward the end of the week."

"Well, now you can leave all that to your secretary," said Rosamund brightly. She thought to herself: That at least is a part of the job I shan't fall down on.

"Yes, I know, and I'm so glad. But I'm afraid today Mother's terribly upset because nothing's ready and there isn't any proper dinner in the house. Would you like some tea?"

"I should love it."

"Then come along. It's in the loggia." She plunged off down the passage, her sandals flapping, and Rosamund followed, her heels tapping. They flapped and tapped together across the terrace, where the sun was a golden blindness wiping out the view, into the loggia where the striped shade for a moment made Iris invisible like a tiger camouflaged by jungle grass.

"Wait a minute while I fetch another cup." Lesley knocked over a small table as she ran out again, and Rosamund picked it up, smiling at Iris as she did so. In spite of all she felt about the hag, she must manage somehow to get into her good graces.

"I'm afraid I've made things awkward by arriving before I was expected. But a neighbor of yours very kindly offered me a lift."

"Indeed. Which neighbor?"

"A Mr. Vine—Mr. Charles Vine."

"Oh—him." Iris paused a moment. "His father's one of my tenants. I understand that the son did well in the army, but that doesn't exactly make a neighbor of him. Our nearest neighbor is Sir George Anderson at Barnhorn Place."

Rosamund swallowed, but she was less hurt by Iris's contempt than her own disappointment. She had made sure that her escort was a young man of good family whose notice would give luster to her arrival and whose acquaintance might ultimately be made a part of her hopes. But a farmer's son was useless. He had shed no luster and he could offer no escape into that world which she had viewed with such longing from its soiled fringes—the world of which Phil had given her a glimpse and which ever since she had been determined to enjoy. Yet there had been nothing about him to tell her he did not belong to that world. She felt almost angry with him for being so unlike her idea of a farmer's son. She was sorry that she had encouraged him to think of another meeting. She had better not see him again. She was too susceptible; her eye was too easily taken off the ball of her own interests. Well, judging by Mrs. Winrow's reactions, it would be easy enough to keep out of his way.

The silence lasted until Lesley came back with a cup and saucer.

"I'm afraid there isn't much tea left. I hope you don't mind it strong."

"Oh, no. I like strong tea." And she smiled as she swallowed the bitter, lukewarm dregs.

She hoped the daughter would not revive the subject her mother had made so painful. But Lesley seemed quite without curiosity. She occupied herself with shaking the teapot to see if any more tea would come out of it.

"I could do with some more myself; tea's supposed to be cooling on a hot day. Never mind, dinner will soon be ready."

"I doubt if it will," said Iris, "considering Mrs. Ashplant had no idea I was coming till I phoned from the station. What is it, Sale?"

Sale had appeared on the terrace outside.

"Please'm. What about the luggage? Who's going to take it to the farm?"

"Oh, that's all right," cried Lesley. "Mrs. Gailey's staying here."

"But I thought your secretary always lived at the farm," said Iris, her voice on edge.

"There isn't any room for her now. Mr. Hightower's still there, and when he goes I want his room for the eldest Benson boy. He's getting too old to sleep with his sisters."

"Must we go into all this?"

"Oh, no. I was only explaining why there isn't room for Mrs. Gailey at the farm. But even if there was, I'd rather have her here. Then I shan't have to be alone so much."

"Darling, you're talking nonsense. You know that you don't have to live alone down here. It's entirely your own choice. And anytime you like to be sensible about Waters Farm—Sale, is my room ready?"

"Yes'm."

"And my bags unpacked?"

"Yes'm."

"Then I'll go and change. And you must change too, Lesley dear. Nicholas and Anne are coming in after dinner."

Lesley seemed pleased. "Oh, are they?"

"Yes, you know they are. That's the reason why I'm here—that and the Red Cross Ball Committee."

"I thought you were coming down to discuss selling Birdskitchen to the Vines?"

Rosamund pricked up her ears.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. I want to discuss the sale with Nicholas. He's my agent and I must talk it over with him before I see old Vine—if I ever get as far as that."

She went into the house, Sale stumping after her.

8

For some moments Rosamund and Lesley sat in silence. Then the girl said, "Mother always makes me feel more stupid than I really am."

"She's rather frightening, isn't she?"

"It isn't that she frightens me," said Lesley, knotting her hands together under her chin and speaking in the solemn, careful voice of one analyzing an obscure problem, "so much as she somehow puts me off my mental stroke. You see, she doesn't really like me. My father didn't either, but then he didn't live more than a few months after I was born. He didn't like me because I wasn't a boy. Mother doesn't like me because I can't bear her sort of life and don't know how to dress and haven't got married. I can't bear her friends, either."

"Then it's just as well that you aren't together much. She lives mostly in town, doesn't she?"

She thought to herself: It would be nicer for me if they lived the other way round.

"Yes. She doesn't come down here very often, though the house is hers. She's only come this time because the Vines want to buy their farm. Of course I knew she'd want to see Cousin Nicholas about it, but I thought she'd go and see him at his office instead of asking him and Cousin Anne to come in after dinner like this. So when she said they were coming in I thought it was something quite different. That's what I mean by putting me off my mental stroke."

"Well, I don't mind telling you," said Rosamund, "that she puts me off mine, and she doesn't like me either."

"But she will like you," said Lesley earnestly, "I'm sure she will like you. You're young and pretty and nicely dressed, which is what she likes."

A curious mixture of pleasure and pity choked Rosamund's voice.

"I hope you'll like me," she said, when she had cleared her throat.

"Oh, yes, of course I will. I do."

"Well, then, let's hope you won't change when you know me better," she rapped away the softening mood. "And tell me—I don't know what time dinner is, but isn't it time you went to dress?"

"It won't take me five minutes."

Rosamund could imagine that.

"But it'll take me longer, especially as I shall have to unpack my things."

"Oh, yes, of course, I'd forgotten. And your room's ready. Luckily Mrs. Crouch hadn't gone when I found out you were coming today instead of Friday—I mean that Friday is today. Come along and I'll show you where it is."

As they passed through the house, Rosamund caught sight of her luggage still in the hall.

"What about this? I'd better carry some of it up."

"Well, if you don't mind . . . Perhaps we can manage the suitcase between us. Then tomorrow the gardener will bring up your trunk. I'm afraid Ashplant won't do it—he'll say it isn't his work."

So this is what it's like to live in a house with a full staff of servants, thought Rosamund as she picked up her bag. Aloud she said cheerfully, "I shan't need the trunk. I've everything I want for now in here."

They went up the staircase, across a wide landing furnished, it seemed to Rosamund, like a drawing room, then down a long passage to a glass-paneled door.

"This is my own wing," said Lesley. "We'll be quite on our own here. There's two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a nice, large sitting room below. It's like having my own house."

Rosamund would rather have lived in the main building. She suspected Lesley's wing of being in point of fact the servants' wing. However, the room allotted to her was bright and freshly decorated, and she liked the modern furniture better than the old stuff she had seen downstairs.

"You see," said Lesley, solemn again, "I don't believe in luxury. One must have tables and chairs and a bed, of course, but when a sofa, like Mother's Knole, costs as much as a house, and housing's so difficult, it seems wrong that a worker's family shouldn't have it."

"The sofa?"

"No, the house that it's instead of. If the contents of this house could be sold there'd be enough money to buy a dozen houses—ifthey had been built, of course. That's the trouble. That's why I've turned Waters Farm into a settlement for families working on the land. They can't any of them get anywhere else to live. It's terrible. I wanted Mother to let me have this house as well. She'd keep her own rooms, of course, and we could put up at least three more families in what was left. But she won't hear of it."

For once Rosamund found herself in agreement with Mrs. Winrow. She walked over to the window and looked out. Beyond the garden, with its bright borders and dark trees, the valley of the Doleham River spread southward, and already wore the faint enlargements of the evening light. The thick dazzle of the high sun had been strained into clearness; shadows hung clear from the woods and the fields showed their color and pattern again. Far away at the valley's end the sky no longer swallowed the hills.

But Rosamund was not looking at the view. A sudden desperate nostalgia had taken hold of her—nostalgia for roofs and streets and houses broken into little flats, where women like herself lived and talked and laughed and squabbled, played bridge, smoked, drank gin when they could afford it, made plans, and met men. How was she to live in this lonely, empty place, with two women so utterly unlike herself, so utterly unlike her friends—one snooty and the other goofy. Between them they would bore her to screams. And whom else would she ever get to know? Her disappointment over Charley Vine had shown her what was likely. Yet her hopes had been so high. Suddenly, standing and fighting there, she recovered herself. She must keep this job, she must stick it out, if only for the money. And surely she was smart enough to make something out of it besides that. She might not find all that Sylvia Dunning had promised, or that she had promised herself, but at least she was taking a step in the right direction and she would be a fool if she didn't go on.

Her thoughts had taken her so far from her surroundings that she started when she found that Lesley Bullen was standing at her side.

"That's the Doleham Valley," she said. "Isn't it beautiful? If you look over there, just beyond that little wood, you'll see Waters Farm."

9

Four of the five Doleham Manor farms were in Doleham Valley and had river names—Waters, Reedbed, Lambpool, and Sweetwillow—spreading along the river until both the property and the parish ended together in Dolehamtail Wood.

Beyond the wood was Pookreed, another river farm. But it did not belong to the Manor. The Cheynell family, when driven out in 1761, had not left the district, but had maintained themselves on an unmortgaged corner of their land. Here they had lived for some time as little more than farmers; but later generations had improved their position, and by the middle of Queen Victoria's reign had recaptured enough of their lost state for a Cheynell son to marry a Bullen daughter.

The Cheynells, however, had never equaled the Bullens either in acres or in income, and the present owner of Pookreed had been glad enough to accept the post of agent for the Doleham Manor estate. There had been no question of an agent while Tom Bullen was alive, for Tom had loved his land as no one else could love it, and cared for it as only a lover could care. But when he was killed in France it became essential for his widow to have someone to manage the place, though it was not until her second marriage had provided her with a town house that she spent so much time away from it.

It had always been a mystery to Nicholas Cheynell how a woman like Iris could have married such a taprooted countryman as his cousin Tom. He supposed vaguely that he had got her on the rebound from some other affair. She had a little money and a little beauty—a friend had once described her as "not so much beautiful as with the sort of face which when she's old will make people say what a beautiful girl she must have been"—and the charming, fluttering feminine manner that was fashionable in the last year of King Edward's reign. But she had loved Tom, though she could not love what he loved, and had made him happy, though she had failed to give him what he wanted most. Their only child, born seven years after marriage, was a girl, and Tom had gone out to France knowing that if he died there the Bullens of Doleham Manor died with him.

"If only," he had said to Nicholas as they sat together by the fire on his last leave, "if only we could have the Cheynells here again"—meaning: if only your son could have lived to marry my daughter I need not die more than once. But Nicholas Cheynell, like Tom Bullen, had no heir. He was an older man than his cousin and had married rather late in life the daughter of a struggling peer, whose choice of him must have seemed as mysterious to her friends as Iris's choice of Tom had seemed to hers. Their only son had died before he was six, so when the Bullen daughter was dead the Bullens and the Cheynells would both have gone from the valley of the Doleham River. Only their two houses, one like a red pippin and one like a white stone, would live on among the fields and woods, far into the years beyond them.

Two houses more unlike each other could hardly be imagined—Doleham Manor sprawling and miscellaneous behind its classical front, Pookreed square and compact, offering to the sunset the honest red face of a Sussex tile-hung farmhouse. The Cheynells had never done anything to make it look unlike a farm, though inside they had made various improvements and modernizations. In many ways Pookreed was a more comfortable home than the Manor House.

On this special evening it was full of red sunshine. The western light poured in with the first movements of a night breeze. The Cheynells were old people and liked the heat, so the blinds were not drawn in the big, high-ceilinged dining room where they sat at dinner. Nicholas Cheynell was just beginning his seventy-sixth year and was as deeply taprooted a countryman as his cousin Tom, even to the extent, now rare, of carrying on his tongue some of the drawling breadth of local speech. Lady Anne Cheynell was a few years younger than her husband and a great deal smaller and slighter. He wore a dark suit and she wore a trailing gown. They always dressed for dinner, even though they had to cook it and wash it up themselves.

"I do hope," she was saying, "that Iris won't be tiresome about Birdskitchen."

He shook his head. "I'm afraid she will. She's full of notions about the price she could get for it—all the nonsense that her London friends have stuffed her up with about the sale of houses. And maybe if she looked around she could get a bit more than the Vines are offering. The point is that they can't afford to pay more than the place is worth."

"Will she see that point?"

"I doubt it. She hasn't any of what I call the Squire feeling. Tom's father once told me that he felt as if his tenants were his children."

"I don't believe Iris knows who her tenants are."

"Oh, yes, she does. Don't make any mistake. She knows a great deal more about everything than she'd like us to think. That's what makes her so hard to manage."

"Poor Nick! Why should you have to manage Iris as well as the estate?"

"Because if I didn't she'd most likely sell it all—all except the part she's got to pass on. I can't imagine why Tom left it to her absolutely like that."

"He'd much better have let Lesley have it. She's terribly muddleheaded and unpractical, poor darling, but at least she loves the place."

Again old Nicholas shook his head. His white hair looked fiery in the sun.

"If he hadn't been killed like that . . . if he'd lived to get over his disappointment about the girl . . . I think he'd have made another will and a very different one. After all, it's nonsense to talk about the Bullens being finished. Quite a number of families have carried on through the female line."

"I know. Even the name could have been kept. Most men would have been willing to tack it on to theirs, considering how old it is." Then she added in a different voice, "I wonder now if Lesley will ever marry."

Nicholas grunted. "Too many bees in her bonnet."

"I know, but she's really very sweet. It's such a pity she should live like this, and I can't help blaming Iris. She's handled her all wrong—tried to make a sow's ear out of a silk purse. . . . Yes, I mean it that way round."

"She's tried her damnedest to get her married, especially when that feller was alive. They were always giving parties and dragging her about."

"Yes, I know, poor child, and that's what's put her back up and all the bees in her bonnet. I'm sure it's at the bottom of that wild scheme at Waters Farm."

"Bah!" said Nicholas. "Don't talk to me of Waters Farm. If there's one thing that would make me want to have another war it would be that place. Any competent War Ag. would take it over at once. They'd never stand for what she's doing now. In all my life I've never seen such a gang of wasters and loafers as she's got down there."

"That," said Anne, "is Lesley's soft heart."

"Soft head," grumbled Nicholas. "She must be half-witted if she doesn't see that they're ruining one of the best little farms in Sussex."

"It's because she's a sort of social misfit herself that she feels for other social misfits, and she's so idealistic that she thinks she's only got to show them kindness and generosity in order to get the best out of them in return."

"Instead of which they're robbing and swindling her all the time. Think of the mess that place is in—and five men working on it, too. I don't know any two-hundred-acre farm in these parts that wouldn't look like a market garden if it had five men to work on it."

"There's one good worker," said Anne.

"You mean Ivory? Because he belongs to your church you think a lot of him, but I don't see that he's any better than the others."

"Oh, Nick—how can you say that? He works very hard. As for belonging to my church, I'm afraid that doesn't go for much, as he never comes to Mass. The reason I like him is that he seems really grateful to Lesley—the only one of them who is."

"Gratitude won't clean her fields or mend her hedges. I grant you the feller works hard enough, but he's had no experience. He's got everything to learn and nobody to teach him."

"Perhaps that new secretary of hers may be some use. It's a woman this time, but she may have had some experience or been trained."

"How did she get hold of her?"

"Through one of her friends—Miss Dunning, I think."

Nicholas snorted. "That's Lesley all over. She'll take the recommendation of a woman who knows nothing about anything, just because she calls herself her friend. I bet you that secretary's no good. She'll be like the Dunning woman and all the rest of 'em, just a hanger-on, out for what she can get."

"Poor Lesley likes anyone who likes her and is kind and friendly."

"Well, we like her, don't we? And aren't we kind and friendly?"

"Perhaps we lecture her too much."

Here the Cheynells were interrupted by the necessity of having to clear away the food they had eaten and fetch the next course from the kitchen. When they had sat down again and the pudding was on their plates, Nicholas said, "I think Iris might have asked us to dinner instead of just to come in afterwards. She knows we have no cook and that it would be nice for you to have an evening with nothing to do."

"My dear, you know I love cooking; and Iris really finds it more difficult to have guests than we do, as Mrs. Ashplant won't always stand for anyone extra in the dining room. I'm often thankful we haven't anybody and can do as we like."

"But it comes very heavy on you sometimes. I wish you'd let Mrs. Field do a little more. She's quite willing."

"She's more than willing—she's eager. But she isn't at all strong."

"Nor are you, my dear. Don't forget what Dr. Clonboy said about your heart."

"He didn't say anything that need frighten us; and anyway, I haven't another house to look after with five great hulking men in it. Besides, it's in my own interest to consider Mrs. Field. If she gets ill I'd lose Rosie too, as she'd have to look after the home. Don't worry about me, dear."

"I'll try not to. I know we can't afford a proper staff even if we could get one, and I know one reason why Iris is short of money is that she must have a lot of servants, because she can't do anything for herself. But I don't like to see you slaving away while she just flits about."

"How beautifully you describe her, darling. She does flit. But is she really short of money—at last?"

"Yes, I think even Iris is beginning to feel the draft a little. She's felt it less than most of us up till now; but at last things are getting a bit tight even with her. That's why I expect to have some difficulty in getting her to accept Vine's price for Birdskitchen."

"Are you going to discuss the matter tonight?"

"So I understand—have a preliminary argument, anyway."

"Then we'd better start washing up, so as to give you plenty of time."

They carried the glass and china into the pantry, where Nicholas put on a butler's apron and Anne a flowered overall—rolling up her chiffon sleeves so that they did not trail in the sink.

10

Neither Anne nor Nicholas was aware that the new secretary had already arrived. When they first walked out into the warm dusk of the terrace of Doleham Manor, they took the smiling young woman who sat beside Lesley for just another of those friends of hers—women who appeared and disappeared at Doleham, mostly when Iris was away. Iris certainly made no attempt to introduce her, and it was not till Anne—convinced that her cheerful manner must hide some real embarrassment—sat down on her other side with a few words of greeting that Lesley said awkwardly, "This is my new secretary. She came this afternoon."

Anne murmured something conventionally pleasant about a hot journey, while trying to learn more through her eyes. They could not tell her much beyond the fact that the secretary had a fresh, cheerful, not overintelligent face, and that she was dressed with very great care in a very bad style. In the language of Anne's generation, she did not look a lady. Of course, that had nothing to do with her job; but Anne had laid more store than her husband on the chance that this newcomer might be not only a practical helper at the farm but the right sort of companion for a lonely young woman who had very few real friends.

Anne had always deplored Lesley's predilection for people without roots, who belonged nowhere. It was, of course, a part of her reactions against her mother and against that life she had been forced to lead, contrary to all instinct and inclination, until her twenty-first birthday had brought her a measure of independence. During that period, Anne knew, she had deliberately chosen her friends outside the circle in which Iris had tried to shut her up, escaping out of her mother's drawing room into all sorts of odd corners, into lodgings, furnished rooms, cheap flats where girls of her own age lived struggling but independent lives. Now they were all ten years older, but the associations remained, because Lesley was loyal and grateful and the young women were wise. Anne did not accuse them all of venality, but she could not help smelling a little in so many incongruous friendships. This secretary was probably one of these women without roots, or a friend of one of them. It was so like Lesley to have made the introduction without mentioning any names.

"Is this your first visit to Doleham?" she asked, knowing that her thoughts could tell her no more than her eyes.

"Oh, yes. I've never seen it before. Charming old place, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is. I've always loved the view from this terrace."

The secretary's eyes traveled casually over the blue smoky pool that was the Doleham Valley at twilight.

"Yes, it's charming—when you can see it," she added with a laugh.

"But you can see it," said Lesley earnestly, leaning toward her and pointing into the dusk. "You can see the river shining like a silver string. And that's Furnace Wood beside it. The Cheynells had a forge here once, you know. And those lights are Waters Farm, and that light beyond must be Sweetwillow. . . . Yes, I can see the white cowls of the oasts sitting there like little doves."

"You must have good eyes," said the secretary with another laugh. Her own eyes seemed to be trying to catch Anne's as if to share a joke. But Anne could never hear Lesley talk like this without a sensation of pride and pity—pride that for all her preference for the rootless, her own roots were so deep in her own soil; pity that she grew there alone, the last tree in the wood. Rosamund was amazed to see tears fill the eyes she sought.

"I haven't seen Waters Farm yet," she said quickly. "Miss Bullen is taking me there tomorrow."

"You'll find it. . ." Anne did not quite know what to say. "Have you worked much in the country, Mrs.—er—?" She had seen the wedding ring.

"Mrs. Gailey. Not really very much. I love it, though."

"Farming nowadays is so complicated with office work that the ordinary working farmer finds it very hard to manage. I expect you've had some experience of that kind of thing."

"I've had all sorts of experience, and what I don't know I'll soon learn. I'm very quick at picking things up."

Lesley said, "I'm sure you'll manage quite easily. They all do. Besides, it isn't only for the farm that I need a secretary. I'm going to write a book."

"My dear!"

Anne was astonished. It was the first time that Lesley had shown any ambition of that kind.

"Yes. But don't tell Mother. She'd be sure to disapprove."

"What sort of book? What is it to be about?"

"About this place. I want the Turners and the Bensons and Ivory to know all about it. It seems so pathetic that they should live here and know nothing."

"Would they be interested?"

"Oh, yes, I'm sure they would. At least Ivory would."

"It seems rather an undertaking to write a book just for Ivory. Aren't you going to try to get it published?"

"I don't suppose it'll be good enough for that. I'll get Mrs. Gailey to type a lot of copies and we'll lend them round. I dare say there are other people who'd like to know the history of the Doleham Valley, and all about the farms and the families and the place names."

"It sounds," said Anne, "just the sort of book that would please Nicholas."

That was one of the many confusions in Lesley. One day she could reduce Nicholas to puffing fury with some display of ignorance or indifference and the next she would delight him with an unexpected performance in one of his own fields of knowledge.

"Oh, he knows much more about it all than I do, of course. But if he's pleased I'll be terribly glad. He isn't often pleased with me."

"Don't say that, dear. It's only that you and he don't agree about some things."

"You mean Waters Farm?" In the dusk it was just possible to see the flags of color mount on her cheeks. "What I can't make him understand is that I'm not just trying to run the place as a farm but as a home for homeless people."

Anne did not want to start an argument about Waters Farm in front of the new secretary. She tried to give a careful reply.

"As long as they do the work they'd have to do if they had the homes they ought to have—"

"And you think they don't?"

"Well . . . not all of them, perhaps."

Iris's voice came suddenly across the terrace from where she sat with Nicholas.

"Come over here and talk to me, Anne. I've scarcely had a word with you this evening."

Anne left her seat and crossed over to her. "I thought you wanted to talk to Nick."

"So I do—did, I mean. We've talked and we've quarreled. What I want to do now is to save you from that ghastly woman."

"I was talking to Lesley," said Anne, glancing anxiously at her husband's face. He looked ruffled.

"Yes, but she was there listening all the time. I've endured her the whole evening and I can tell you she's deadly. You've no idea how she talked at dinner—trying to show that she's used to this sort of house and betraying her ignorance at every word. Really, I'm most distressed at Lesley having her with her here, and I'm sure she's no good as a secretary."

"Well, you won't be seeing much of her," said Anne, who sometimes gave herself the treat of being frank with Iris.

"I shall have to go on seeing her till Monday. Then, thank heaven, I must go back to town. But I'd meant to come down for quite a bit later on with a party for the Red Cross Ball. . . . However, she's pretty sure to be gone by then. I don't believe that even Lesley could put up with her for long."

Anne did not want to discuss Mrs. Gailey till she had made up her own mind about her, so she changed the subject rather abruptly.

"What have you settled about Birdskitchen?"

"Nothing, dear. Absolutely nothing. Nicholas is very cross with me, aren't you, Nick?"

"Well, I must give Vine some sort of an answer. He knew we were going to talk things over tonight, and he'll want to hear what we've decided."

"Surely he can wait a little longer."

"Till you find out what price you can get elsewhere?"

"Yes," said Iris sweetly.

Nicholas's face turned as crimson as the edges of the sky.

"Then all I can say is that you're treating a good man abominably."

Iris drew her chiffon scarf more closely around her and gave an exquisite shiver.

"Darling Nick—always so outspoken. You seem to forget that you nearly ate me alive when I suggested selling a bit of Lambpool a few years ago."

"Because you wanted to sell the best eight acres of a farm that's already too small, to a London chap for building a week-end cottage. Masters couldn't have carried on without that meadow. This is quite different. A man who's been a tenant forty years wants to buy his farm, and though on principle I'm against selling off any part of the estate, Birdskitchen is our only farm across the river and just the one I should choose to let go if we had to raise capital."

"But Vine's offering such a wretched price."

"He's offering what it's worth in a fair market. Of course, some rich Londoner might be able to pay more. But think of the mess he'd make of it as a farm."

"Would that matter if it didn't belong to us?"

Anne wished that Iris would not say such things to Nicholas. It was bad for him to be made so angry.

"Of course it would matter! A bad farmer's a danger not only to himself but to his neighbors, as I'm always telling Lesley. Vine's the best farmer on the estate, and we must keep him here. He managed to make that place pay its way even when times were bad before the war—the only one of the lot that really did. He deserves to have it. He wants it for his son."

Iris leaned back in a cloud of scarfs that seemed the color of starlight.

"That's it," she said with a faint smile. "I'm by no means sure that I want the son to have it."

"Why the—why on earth! What's the matter with young Vine?"

"By all accounts, he's already suffering sufficiently from swelled head. I haven't seen him since he came back from Germany, but I gather from what Mrs. Gailey says that he's giving himself all sorts of ludicrous airs. He brought her here from the station; and she was tremendously impressed by him, without the slightest idea of what he really was. Of course, I don't suppose he would have deceived anyone who really knew, but with her he seems to have passed himself off as a sort of local squire. Goodness knows what he'd do if he actually owned the place."

Anne had noticed, that ever since the mention of Mrs. Gailey's name, Iris had raised her voice. Every word of her last speech must have been heard across the terrace, and meant to be heard.

"Oh," she began, feeling she must stop her somehow, but her husband had already broken in.

"Charley Vine's as good a chap as I'd ever want to know. He'd never pretend to be other than he is. Because he's proud of what he is—that's why."

"Darling Nick, don't jump down my throat. I'm sure Charley Vine's a most worthy young man, but having risen from the ranks and become some sort of officer during the war seems to have gone to his head a little."

"Then why has he come back to work on his father's farm?"

"Because he hopes to own it someday. But I don't much fancy him as a neighbor; so before I decide to part with a farm I may want to keep, I shall think the matter over a little longer."

Anne said, "It doesn't seem much good talking of it any more."

"Perhaps," said Iris, "thinking will be better for us all."

Nicholas grumbled, "She's had plenty of time to think."

To Anne's relief Iris made no reply; and for the first time since the Cheynells' arrival, silence fell upon the terrace, as neither group was talking now. The fog that had made visible the chills of night had thrust a gauzy finger between them. Anne peered through it, trying to see the faces of the other two, for she wondered how much they had heard of the conversation; but she could see nothing clearly. Lesley was crouched forward, her long hands dangling between her knees, as she gazed down into the valley where the farmhouse lights looked like magnified reflections of the stars. Mrs. Gailey was only a gleaming cigarette end in the shadow of the house.

11

Rosamund had smoked many more cigarettes before she saw Waters Farm the next morning. Her employer, though she didn't seem to smoke much herself, fortunately kept a large supply. It looked as if she would be able to save even more of her salary than she had hoped.

She no longer expected, however, that salary to pile up into a large sum. She had not been twelve hours at Doleham, but already she was feeling she had been there long enough. When the company dispersed at what seemed to her a depressingly early hour, she sat for some minutes in her bedroom, bored and wakeful; then decided in wrath to write to Sylvia Dunning. Sylvia should not have cracked up the place like this—even Sylvia should stick closer to real life than to say that the job was right up her street, that she would enjoy the comfort of a full staff of servants, that Lesley Bullen was clever and Mrs. Winrow charming.

June 22nd, 1949

This is to tell you that you'll soon see me back in the old haunts, for I really can't stand much more of this. I haven't actually started the job yet, but they seem to think I should know all about farming to make a success of it. Of course I could get over that little bit of trouble if I liked the place, but I don't. The house is old-fashioned and dark and depressing. There are servants in it, but they mustn't be asked to do any work, for then they'd leave at once. Of course it isn't really a full staff, but a very uppish married couple and a number of daily women as required. Lesley Bullen wouldn't notice if they all ran away, so you can imagine how nice it will be for me when Mrs. Winrow goes back to town, which she does on Monday. Apart from that, of course, I'll be glad. Really, Syl, how could you have said she was charming? She's a bitch. Would you believe it, but at dinner last night I wasn't even given a wine glass, only a tumbler. She herself drank wine, and though the daughter didn't, she had a glass. She goes out of her way to make me feel small, and if anything would make me stay it would be to spite her, for I can see she's just itching to get rid of me. Some quite nice but dull people came in after dinner—Mr. Cheynell who's a sort of cousin and Lady Cheynell (how does she work that?). Otherwise there's nobody round here worth knowing, as far as I can see. Rather an attractive type gave me a lift from the station (as the old faggot had driven off and left me to come by the bus), but he turned out to be only a farmer's son. So you can expect me back in a month or two. I can't very well give notice before I've actually started the job, but I shall do so afterwards as soon as I decently can. I'll probably go to Mother's for a bit while I look round. I'll be thirty pounds to the good, anyhow, even if I don't stay more than a month. Please don't think I've let you down over this, but you really did overdo the sales talk a little.

Love from

Rosamund

When she had finished her letter, there was nothing to do but go to bed; but it was only eleven o'clock and she could not fall asleep. The night was much too quiet; the silence seemed to lie on her like a weight. She longed for noise, for footsteps in the house, for the sound of wheels outside. It was dark, too. She had drawn back the curtain to find a huge black sky hanging like another curtain outside the window. There were pinholes in the curtain with winks of far-off light, but no comforting glow of a street lamp to freak the room with cheerful patterns and make a tent of brightness in the street below. After about an hour she got up and looked out, but she could see only dim, lumpish shapes, the blocks of yew hedges and garden trees. The night seemed to breathe over her from the invisible grass. Then suddenly there was a terrible cry, the despairing screech of some creature surprised and lost. A faint, answering cluck or chuckle came from somewhere near, then silence fell deep, unchanging, but much more terrible than before. Rosamund took one leap into her bed, pulled the bedclothes over her, sobbed for a moment against the pillow, and then, as if fear and strangeness had at last exhausted her, fell asleep.

The next morning she was surprised to find that she had slept well. She did not wake till the night's black curtain had become a blinding tissue of sunshine, and her dreams had all been pleasant ones in which she met old friends. She spent barely a moment wondering where she was, for she had slept in too many beds not to be able to recollect herself quickly. Her only question was the time. She thought at first that she must have wakened early, for though the silence had filled itself with bird song, no sounds came from inside the house. But her watch told her it was past eight o'clock. Lesley had said something about breakfast at nine. No early tea, she supposed, in this house of servants—at least not for the secretary. Never mind. I'll get even with them before I go, even with the lot of them. She felt quite cheerful as she dressed.

Iris had breakfast upstairs, and Rosamund and Lesley were alone together in the little sitting room of the daughter's wing. It was not unpleasant. Neither the post nor the newspapers had arrived yet; but Lesley was talkative and friendly, and they chatted together about Sylvia Dunning and others of their common acquaintance. Rosamund talked about her life with Phil, hoping that it would all be passed on to the right quarter. "Of course it's difficult for a man brought up like he was to realize that we really couldn't afford to go to places like the Savoy. . . . For a man like that, London's only a few streets round Piccadilly—I don't suppose he'd ever heard of the Earls Court Road. . . . That's what made it all so difficult—he did so hate having to live in cheap rooms, right off the map as he called it. Sometimes it did seem a shame that he shouldn't have what he was used to, when he was so ill."

"But wouldn't his family do anything for him?" cried Lesley. "Surely they didn't leave you to struggle like that to support their son."

"Oh, his family would have nothing to do with him, or with me, or with my boy."

"But that's abominable!" Lesley's eyes were flashing globes of fire and water. "Oh, Mrs. Gailey, what a terrible time you must have had!"

"It wasn't too good."

"How glad I am that you've come here! I do hope you'll be happy and like the job."

Rosamund looked away, conscious again of that embarrassment which only one other person in the world could make her feel. Only Michael could pull her up like this with a sudden jerk of compunction. She had the strange feeling that Lesley was at her mercy, just as Michael was, made vulnerable by innocence. Her goodness of heart was an exposure that should not be taken advantage of. Though still determined to leave her, she was no longer pleased with herself about it.

They set out directly after breakfast for Waters Farm, and Rosamund found herself returning to a more comfortable attitude of amused contempt as Lesley bored her with a flood of breathless talk that was no longer about people.

"This lane is very old—all the valley lanes are old. That's why they're sunk so deep between the hedges." And damp even on a morning like this, thought Rosamund. "They've been trodden down by people using them for centuries to drive cattle from farm to farm. That's what makes them twist and turn so—cattle never walk straight." Nor some people either, thought Rosamund, as Lesley cannoned into her. "Oh, I'm sorry, but I was looking through that gate. The dew's still on the grass in there where the shadow lies. Are you fond of walking?"

"We-ell, I wouldn't know till I'd tried."

"I love it. I often take quite long walks—to Barnhorn or even to Sandlake. I go by the lanes, of course. The main roads are horrid. Now this cottage we're passing is supposed to be haunted"—hooray! it only wanted that—"but I've never seen the ghost, though I must have walked by dozens of times at night. There's supposed to be a ghost at Pookreed too. Pook is a sort of nature spirit, you know, and Pookreed's a very old farm. Most of the farms here date from the furnaces, but Pookreed's earlier than that. I do hope Cousin Nicholas will like my book—what I mean to say is, I hope he'll like me better because he likes the book. He's angry with me, because I haven't got local people at Waters Farm. He thinks that when the Boormans left at the end of the war I should have let the Homards have it. That's quite a common name round here—Homard, I mean. It's of Huguenot origin, of course. The house at Waters was built by Huguenot settlers in the eighteenth century, and of course it would be nice in some ways if their descendants had it now. But I simply couldn't have sat back and let just one family run the place when there are so many people without homes."

Rosamund at last saw a chance of interrupting her. "Who have you got there now? In the settlement, I mean."

"Oh! . . ." Lesley started, like a somnambulist suddenly awakened, but the next moment slipped into the new track. "Oh, yes, of course I ought to tell you about them before you meet them. I've got two families called Benson and Turner, and a single man called Ivory. I picked him up on the road one day when I was out driving and he thumbed a lift. Elphinstone didn't want to stop for him, but I made him, and then I found he had nowhere to go and hadn't had a proper meal for days—he hadn't even got a ration book."

"He's got one now, I hope."

"Oh, yes. Benson got one for him. Benson used to have a shop in London, but it never did well, and in the war it was blitzed, and he never got adequate compensation. The authorities treated him abominably. He was in the army for a time, and when the war ended he had no home. So he was thankful when he saw my advertisement."

"Oh, you advertised?"

"Yes, I put an advertisement in a number of papers, offering comfortable homes to two families willing to work on the land—at the normal agricultural rate, of course. I had dozens of replies, and I'd never have made up my mind about them—for they all sounded so heart-rending—if two families hadn't suddenly turned up. They both came—the Turners the first day and the Bensons the day after. They'd literally nowhere else to go, so I had to keep them."

"Lucky for you that no one else turned up after that."

"I don't know what I should have done if they had, for the place is quite full now. The women run the house and the men work on the land. That's five altogether, for Bill Turner and Tiggy Benson both work with their fathers. Ivory's the best worker, but the others don't do too badly. It's only that they're not used to outdoor work, while he was a roadman at one time I believe. Besides, he never wants to go out off the place, the way the others do. He won't even go to church with Cousin Anne. She's a Catholic, you know, and when she found out he was too she offered to take him with her in the car when she goes to church at Sandlake. But so far he's always run away and hidden when she calls for him."

"It looks," said Rosamund, "as if he didn't want to go."

"But he's very pious. He says his rosary in the fields, and Mr. Hightower once went into his room about something and found him praying on his knees by himself in the dark."

Well, thought Rosamund, for crying out loud. She said: "What time does the post go from Doleham? I've got a letter I want to catch it."

12

The next turn up the lane—and it had had many turnings—brought them suddenly in front of Waters Farm. It was a squat, black house with white-rimmed windows set crookedly in its tar-board front. The roof was a huge sprawl of mingled colors as various mosses and lichens ate the tiles. Around it was packed a jumble of barns and lodges with two headless oasts.

"We haven't been able to do much about the garden," said Lesley as she led the way up a weedy path between some derelict bean rows, "but we hope in time to get that going, as it's expensive to buy vegetables, even though I can get them locally at almost cost price."

"Then do you feed your people too as well as house them and pay them for it?"

"Oh, no. They're supposed to keep themselves out of their wages, and anything I spend they pay me back, though sometimes I have to let it run a week or two. . . . Oh, good morning, Mrs. Turner. Do you want to speak to me?"

A woman had come out of the door just as they reached it. She was big and fair, with rather a pretty face still smeared with yesterday's make-up. Rosamund, who recognized her type, guessed that she had just got out of bed and wore nothing more than her shoes and a cooking overall.

"Yes, Miss, I'd like a word with you if you don't mind. It's about the stove."

"Oh, Yes. I'm seeing about that. But do you mind if I take this lady upstairs first and show her the office? She's our new secretary."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure, Miss—er—"

"My name's Gailey—Mrs. Gailey."

"Mrs. Gailey, that's right. I'll wait for you down here, Miss."

"I shan't be a moment," apologized Lesley, ushering Rosamund up rather a sudden flight of stairs.

At the top they found an open door and a large, low room full of sunshine. It looked quite comfortable, with a settee and two armchairs as well as the usual office furniture. Rosamund glanced anxiously at the typewriter and was relieved to find it a make she had used before. Everything looked very tidy, as if the day's work had not yet begun, but there was a good deal of dust about.

"This is the office," said Lesley. "I hope you'll find everything you want. I wonder where Mr. Hightower is. He said he would explain things to you. . . ." She looked round vaguely, as if she expected to see him somewhere in the room.

There was a step outside the door, and a woman crossed the landing.

"Oh, Mrs. Benson. Do you know where Mr. Hightower is?"

"Yes, Miss, I think he's dressing."

"Oh. . . ." Lesley appeared a little startled. "I hope he'll be here soon. He said he'd explain things to Mrs. Gailey. She's our new secretary."

The woman came forward into the room and stared at Rosamund, who nodded and smiled, without any response. She was very different from Mrs. Turner, being small and prettily dressed in a printed cotton frock, with gay red shoes.

"I dare say he won't be long," she said indifferently.

"I hope he won't, for I mustn't keep Mrs. Turner waiting. She wants to speak to me about the stove."

"It's high time something was done. We can't go on like this."

The snap was so sudden that Rosamund jumped as well as Lesley. She was the first to speak. "You two been fighting over the stove? Am I right or am I?"

"That's it. We've been promised a new one for months and it doesn't come. I don't believe it's ever been ordered."

"Oh, yes, it has," said Lesley earnestly.

"Look here," said Rosamund, "you get on with this and leave me. I can quite well amuse myself till your Mr. Hightower finishes dressing."

The time had come, she felt, for another cigarette, and as soon as Lesley and the Benson woman had gone, she lit one and sat down in an armchair. Everything was quiet, except for a distant murmur of female voices. The men, of course, would be out working on the place, and the children would be at school. She wondered if everyone took their ease as freely as those she had met. Evidently early rising was no part of the life of Waters Farm. It also seemed obvious that everyone was out for what they could get. Well, who was to blame them? All the same, she felt she'd like to stop that little game. It was a shame to take advantage quite so openly of a kindhearted thing like Lesley. If she had thought of staying . . . but she was more than ever determined to go. This was a dump if ever there was one, and she'd better get out of it as quickly as possible. She'd try a shop next time—not a dress shop, unless she could get into one of those Grosvenor Street places . . . but even that wouldn't be much good, because in them you meet only women, and she'd had a sickener of women. What about antiques? Grace Morrow had done very well in an antique shop—got some quite big sums in commission—and you often met interesting people. . . . She'd ask Grace if she knew of anything going in that line—

"Hullo, Gorgeous!"

It was the second time in that room that Rosamund had been made to jump. She nearly jumped off her chair, for she had heard no footsteps approaching and was considerably startled. A big, good-looking man was standing just inside the door and grinning at her.

"Sorry if I scared you. But I've been drinking you in for at least five minutes and thought it time to speak. Mrs. Gailey, I presume."

"Yes, I'm Mrs. Gailey," said Rosamund with dignity.

"Good-oh. Pleased to meet you. I'm supposed to be showing you the ropes. Sorry I wasn't here earlier, but even now I can't find my shoes."

He came forward into the room in his stockinged feet and sat down at the desk.

"Well," he said, looking hard at her, "this is a pleasant surprise."

"There's nothing to be surprised at."

"Oh, no—only somehow I'd expected somebody different. What made you take a job like this?"

"What made you take it?"

She did not know how to talk to him. She was not quite sure what sort of man he was. Why did he talk to her like this? She met his eyes, and they were brown and bright and piercing. He was rather like a hawk, with those eyes in his lean, strong face.

"I took it," he said, and he spoke with an accent she could not identify, "because of the money."

"Well, perhaps I did too."

"Yes, the pay's good, and I was wanting a job badly at the moment. But now I've got a better one."

She pricked up. "Where?"

"Over at Sandlake. A pal of mine's opening a cafe there and I'm going in with him."

"What's it like in Sandlake?"

"Oh, not too bad. Anyway, it's the only place round here where there's any life at all."

"How does one get there?"

"That's the trouble—only one late bus a week. You'd better choose Saturday for your day off. I did."

"And yet you were there last night, which was Friday."

"How do you know?"

"Because you weren't dressed this morning when we came."

"Smart, ain't you?"

He sat at right angles to her, tilting back his chair, and looking at her with some complacency. Her heart began to beat quickly and she felt frightened of herself. Sylvia had warned her about this Hightower, had told her not to waste her time on him. Sylvia knew that she was always falling in love with the wrong sort of man—with anybody who made a pass at her, was the unchoice expression she recalled with a blush. But he was exactly her type. He reminded her in a way of Charley Vine, or rather he was an exaggeration of all she admired in Charley, with the advantage that he seemed to be very much taken with her, which she had to acknowledge Charley Vine had not. But viewed in connection with her own ambition he was completely useless, far more ineligible than Charley Vine. He was an adventurer—a colonial she judged from his accent—grabbing at opportunity in the same way as she was. . . . No, she must have as little to do with him as possible. Of course he would have to show her a few things about the job, but that couldn't take him long, and then he would be gone . . . no further than Sandlake.

"A penny for 'em."

"I was thinking about Sandlake. How did you get there last night?"

"The lot of us went and we hired a taxi. But I'm going there again this evening. Like to come with me?"

"No, thanks. I can't possibly leave Miss Bullen. I've only just arrived."

"Oh, it's like that, is it? Never mind, we'll go another day. I'm here for a whole week more, you know, to teach you your job."

"Surely it won't take as long as that."

"I think it will. Anyhow, I'll see that it does."

"You might begin," she said icily, "by telling me what it's all in aid of."

"What? The job?"

"Yes, the Waters Farm Settlement. What's the big idea behind it all?"

"Don't you know?"

"No, I don't, and I don't think you do, either."

He laughed. "You're right there. I don't know. Nor does anybody, least of all her nibs herself. It may be a charitable or a political scheme. All I know is that she doesn't. As for the other side, the Turners and the Bensons, their big idea is to live here at her expense and do as little work as possible until the housing shortage ends. The secretary's job is to keep her from knowing what really goes on."

"I think it should be to let her know."

"Not at all. She's much happier as things are."

"Well, I've half a mind to go down now and rescue her from those two women who are bullying her about the kitchen stove."

Hightower gave another laugh. "That's what's so wonderful about women. These two refuse to share a kitchen stove, but they don't seem to object to a free exchange of husbands. At night we shuffle like a pack of cards."

"Oh, it's like that, is it? That includes all of you, I suppose, you and the odd man—I mean the man with the odd name, Ivory."

"No, it doesn't. Neither of us come in. I'm particular and he's loopy."

"Isn't he the one who works?"

"Yes, he's got that claim to distinction. He works from dawn till dark. His overtime must add up to almost another salary. He's paying Benson some sort of blackmail. I don't know what the story is and I haven't bothered to find out. He's up against the police, I shouldn't wonder. All I know is that he never goes off the place and won't talk to anyone from outside. There was a priest or some such called to see him a few weeks ago, but he streaked off right away into the woods, though I imagine a priest would be good for at least half a quid out of the poor box. I told you he was loopy."

"I shall be loopy," said Rosamund, "if I stay here."

"Oh, don't say I've put you off the job. I tell you it's a good one—well paid and no more work than you can do in your spare time. You'll be a fool if you chuck it. Besides, I want you to stay."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"Yes—I do."

He moved across to her with a sudden, lithe movement and kissed her on the mouth.

"Oh . . ." For a moment she could not speak. She held her hand over her mouth as if she were ashamed of it and wished to hide it. Then she said, "You're a fast worker."

"Always was."

He was in his chair again, leaning back and looking at her and laughing.

"But—" she said.

"But what?"

"Oh, I don't know what I was going to say . . . and be careful now—here she is coming back."

"Don't pretend you're angry with me, because you're not." His words were covered by the rattle of footsteps on the wooden stairs, "What were you saying your shorthand speed was, Mrs. Gailey?"

Lesley was in the room, smiling at them both.

"How have you got on? Do you think you've got the hang of the job?"

Hightower answered:

"Well, we've made a start."

13

The letter to Sylvia Dunning which went from Doleham Manor to the post that afternoon was not the one that Rosamund had written the night before.

I think that I'm going to manage all right. I was nervous at first, for I thought I might have to know something about farming, but now I find that isn't really necessary. It's only ordinary routine work—forms, accounts, letters and such like. And I believe that later on Miss Bullen is going to start writing a book. She's a nice creature—a bit cuckoo, but I like her. She's so generous. I don't like the old lady, though. She was dreadfully upstage with me yesterday. I haven't seen her at all today, so far, thank goodness, as she was at a Committee Meeting all the morning and then out to lunch. The daughter took me down to the farm and introduced me to the settlers—at least that's what I suppose they're called, as it's a settlement. They seem a mixed lot. There's two families with four or five children each and an odd man who seems very odd indeed. I met them all as they came in to dinner, which wasn't ready because their wives were fighting over the kitchen stove. It seems rather a muddly sort of concern, but I shall enjoy working here, especially when Mrs. Winrow's gone back to London. King Edward can't have been up to his usual form if he really admired her. I can't think that she ever was worth looking at. But Lesley might be quite pretty if she was brushed up a bit. I'll see what I can do. It's very quiet here. All we've had in the way of company so far is an elderly couple—some sort of cousins, I believe—who came in after dinner last night. She has a title, but he hasn't, which I've never met before. I have a nice office, and the typewriter's a Remington, which was what I learned on at the College. So that's all right. Excuse more for now. Much love from

Rosamund

If you're ever anywhere near Mother's you might look in and see how Michael's getting on.