“You can have a talk with King, Lucien, as to the people you’ve got to go and see. He knows the ins and outs, I dare say — who’s been ill, and who lost a son in the War, and who was here in your father’s time. Knowing things of that kind all helps.”
She looked at Lucien.
“You’ve got to take an interest in your tenants,” she commanded him, and then instantly corrected herself. “Well, of course, they aren’t your tenants at all, they’re mine. But they’ll be yours some day.”
“When do I start, mother?”
“To-morrow. Begin anywhere you like. King can tell you where they all live and how to get there. Sophie can go with you. It’ll be good practice for when she’s married.”
Sophie smiled dutifully. She was not in the least amused, but it always seemed to her simpler to smile when Clarissa meant her to smile than to remain serious and risk being told that she was a little fool. It would never, she knew, enter Clarissa’s head that if one smiled one was anything but genuinely appreciative of her sharp, tart style of personal remark.
In the afternoon Mr. King came, and was at once shown into the library, where Mrs. Fitzmaurice waited for him.
“You’d better not go far from the house, Lucien,” she had said. “I shall probably send for you.”
So Lucien and Sophie sat on the terrace wall together, and reminded one another of things that had happened in their childhood, and laughed a good deal, and hoped that Mr. King and Clarissa would leave them undisturbed till tea-time.
Their hope was fulfilled.
It was five o’clock before any summons reached them.
“Never mind,” said Lucien, “we haven’t had a day like this for years, have we? Too marvellous. Sophie, be rather specially adorable to King, will you? I’ve got an idea that Clarissa has put him through the hoop rather, and, after all, it must have been pretty strenuous all this time with an absentee landlord. If he’s been even moderately conscientious, I think it’s vastly to his credit.”
They found tea in the hall. Mr. King, tall and spare as Sophie remembered him, was standing silently in front of the stone fireplace, whilst Clarissa told him that she was a woman of business and that he would find she understood all the details of estate management quite as well as he did himself.
There was a mild look of relief on his narrow, uniformly tanned face as he came forward to exchange greetings with Sophie and Lucien.
“I shouldn’t have known you,” he said to Lucien, smiling in a certain ingenuous fashion that gave charm to his extremely plain face. “Do you remember me at all?”
“Quite well, of course. So does Sophie.”
There was a slight hesitation in King’s manner, as he returned Sophie’s handshake.
“You remember Lucien’s little sister — my girl, Sophie Fitzmaurice?”
“Of course,” said Mr. King, but there was not the same cordiality in his voice as had been there when he spoke to Lucien, whose name was Marley, not Fitzmaurice.
Clarissa continued to talk about the estate, making Sophie dispense the tea.
“I’m sending Lucien round to make acquaintance with the tenants,” she explained. “You’d better let him have a list of names and places, and tell him anything he ought to hear.”
“You’ve got a car, of course? The farms are very scattered, and there are two or three places right over on the other side of Wincanton. One of them is my own small house, as you probably know, and there are two or three cottages round us that are Mardale property.”
“Who owns the cottage called ‘Crow Hill’, just next to yours?” demanded Mrs. Fitzmaurice. “It’s changed hands since I sold it.”
“It was bought by a Miss Fish five or six years ago. As a matter of fact, she shares it with my sister Olivia. My wife always says” — he paused and looked amused— “she always says it ought to be called Kingfisher Lodge. You see — King and Fish. Rather funny, isn’t it?”
Clarissa made a sound so brief that it could scarcely have passed for a laugh, and not a flicker passed across her face.
Sophie and Lucien did greater justice to the absent Mrs. King’s pleasantry.
“I think Kingfisher Lodge would be a lovely name,” Sophie said. “Do you mean they won’t?”
“No, they won’t. My sister might — but not Miss Fish. Miss Fish is very clever — a University woman. She does a great deal for the village. Holds classes, and all kinds of things. She plays the violin too.”
“I hope we shall meet her, and your sister too. And I should like,” said Sophie prettily, “to see Mrs. King again. I remember her quite well.”
Mr. King looked gratified.
“I’ll tell Phyllis. Perhaps your — your brother will bring you over when he comes, and you will give us the pleasure of lunching with us.”
Sophie instinctively glanced at Clarissa, but as she did so, Lucien spoke and accepted the invitation for them both.
“We have a very charming neighbour, Miss Silver, but unfortunately she is going abroad for a year. She has just let her house to a foreign lady, I understand. We were told a princess, but that,” said Mr. King, laughing heartily, “is hardly likely to be the case.”
“What’s her name?” Mrs. Fitzmaurice demanded.
“I’m afraid I don’t know. I may have heard it, but it’s escaped my memory altogether. I only know that Miss Silver told my wife she’d been down to see the house, and said she’d once stayed there as a child. She’s an elderly lady, and Miss Silver said she was delightful, but a little vague and eccentric.”
Clarissa made no comment and very soon afterwards ordered Mr. King to take her round the gardens and Lucien to accompany them.
Sophie wandered into the downstairs rooms, pleased to see them again and enjoying the curious hush that pervaded the whole of the house.
She felt aggrieved when it was broken by the sound of a car coming up the avenue, and glanced out from behind the long yellow brocade curtains of the drawing-room, wondering what she should see.
It was her father’s newest car — his most recent and expensive sports model. Fitzmaurice was at the wheel.
Sophie ran out into the hall.
“Hallo, Sophia!”
“Daddy, you’re a surprise. We thought you weren’t coming till next week.”
“I’ve had the most infernal luck. Besides, I was counting on a house party that’s fallen through. Ring the bell, like a good girl, and get someone to take my stuff upstairs. Where’s your mother?”
“Out with the agent and Lucien. She’s going through the gardens, and they’ve only just started.”
“Thank God for that; I can have a drink before she gets back,” said Fitzmaurice.
He threw off his light overcoat in the hall, stretched himself unrestrainedly, and then put his arm round his daughter’s waist.
“Well, Sophia, you look particularly blooming. This place suit you all right?”
“I love it, daddy.”
“There’s nothing to do, that’s the crab. I tell you what, we’ll play tennis or squash or something. Get down my weight a bit. I suppose it won’t be long before Clarissa has the place full of eligibles to give you the once-over.”
“I suppose not,” Sophie acquiesced.
“How is your mother?” Fitzmaurice inquired rather earnestly.
Sophie understood him perfectly.
“She’s quite pleased with life at the moment, and she stayed in bed this morning till twelve, and I don’t believe she’s written a single letter or telephoned to anybody since we got here.”
“Long may it continue!” ejaculated Fitzmaurice, pouring out whisky for himself with a liberal hand. “She wanted a rest, if ever anybody did. Not that it’ll go on, I don’t suppose. I say, Sophia, has she told you that your relations are down in these parts?”
“My — ? Oh!—” Light broke on Sophie suddenly. “Do you mean they’ve taken a house down here — somewhere near where Mr. King lives?”
“I don’t know anything about Mr
. King. Your grandmother, who was as mad as a hatter when I knew her, won some lawsuit or other, and took it into her head to come to these parts. She never was happy unless she was in some country where she didn’t belong. That freak Alberta is with her, and I suppose the old woman — had been a governess or something, about a hundred years old even when I knew her. I say, Sophia, do you remember anything about the old days at all?”
He had never asked her that before, and Sophie felt slightly embarrassed.
“I was at school most of the time, of course, but I do remember some things. I remember Cliffe Montgomery.”
“Do you, by Jove? Yes, I suppose you would. He always reminded me of an old barn-door hen somehow — the draggled kind. Not a bad old ass in his way, though. Many’s the time I should have been up a gum-tree, but for old Cliffy. I rather think he had a weakness for me in those days. I say, Sophia, it’s queer the way things work round.” He glanced round the hall, and poured himself out another drink from the supply that had been carried in, on a silver tray engraved with an inscription to Ralph Mardale, and placed on the oak table.
“Fancy me in a turn-out like this. I used to think money was the only thing in this world — so it is, of course, in a way — but I didn’t reckon on its being all somebody else’s money. I get a bit sick of it sometimes, you know — this never being able to call any blessed thing one’s own.”
“Poor daddy,” said Sophie, with rather absent kindness. Her father had so very often made the same complaint before. She could almost have told what was coming next — and it came.
“You’re the person who’s scored, old girl. When I think of the kid you used to be — no decent frocks, no education, no fun. And now, you’ve as good a chance of making a first-rate marriage as any girl in England. I really will hand it to Clarissa that she’s played the game where you’re concerned.”
“Here she comes, daddy.”
Fitzmaurice put down his glass, straightened himself and hurried to the door. Clarissa’s exclamation of surprise at the sight of him was lost in the loud and rather sheepish explanations of his return that he at once began to make.
“You see, old girl, the party fell through — child got measles or something — and I looked in at Berkeley Square on my way through, and found it all shut up, and on the whole, I thought the best thing I could do—”
“I see,” his wife interrupted rather curtly. “Well, you’ll find it deadly quiet here, Reggie, I warn you, because I don’t intend to let a soul come near the place until I’ve gone right through the estate business from A to Z. I’ve got King the agent here now. He’s just outside with Lucien.”
“Well, I’ll get in a bath before dinner. Have you managed to get hold of a chef?”
“Yes, yes, of course I have,” Clarissa said impatiently. “The staff was engaged before we left London.”
Fitzmaurice, less jaunty and more depressed than he had been before this encounter, went upstairs as Lucien and Mr. King came in.
Lucien glanced at Sophie, raising one eyebrow. She nodded in assent, knowing, although it would never be said between them, that Lucien resented her father’s presence at Mardale.
Indeed, Sophie herself felt him to be out of place there, and wondered what Clarissa would find for him to do.
She received her own orders the same evening. “You can trot about with your brother, going to see these tenant people, for the next few days, and go to bed at ten o’clock every night. It’ll improve your complexion. And, next month, I’m arranging for a house party every other week-end. You’ll have to write the invitations for me.”
“Yes, mummie.”
“I’ll tell you about it to-morrow. Any young men you specially want?”
Sophie hastily mentioned a Foreign Office boy with whom she had often danced, and a man in the Flying Corps. She cared nothing for either, but, as she had long ago discovered, it was always simpler in the end to let Clarissa have what she expected.
“Well, I’ll do my best for you. But you’ll have to help. If I ask your friends here, you’ll have to entertain them.”
“Yes, of course, mummie.”
“Don’t forget, then. Good night, darling.” Clarissa, smiling, dismissed her.
VII
KINGFISHER
FOR nearly seven years, Miss Elinor Fish and Miss Olivia King had occupied together the cottage that stood about half-way between Miss Silver’s “Anarajapurah” and the house tenanted by Olivia’s brother, his wife and children.
The understanding between these two ladies had survived the experiment of a joint household, several trips abroad, and even, as Miss Fish resentfully observed, the fuss about The Well of Loneliness, that had put so many normal and respectable single women under the wholly unnecessary strain of being obliged to consider the breath of scandal with regard to relationships into which such a thing had not hitherto entered.
It always seemed a little strange to Miss Fish that Olivia, who admitted that she had never had any education at all, should be a successful writer of novels. Miss Fish was the product of Roedean and Oxford, and had always been told that she ought to write a book. She thought herself that she ought to. But she was now fifty-seven, and had written no book.
Other things — yes.
Only Miss Fish herself, and various obscure underlings in London offices, knew of the innumerable manuscripts that had flown, like arrows, straight from the hand that had penned them to one editor after another, and that had, alas, returned — more slowly, but equally undeviatingly — to their creator. The large oak table belonging to Elinor, in the living-room at the cottage, had a long drawer entirely filled with neat blue files, containing respectively: “A Critical Survey of the Anglican Position”, “Some New Aspects of Feminism”, “Tintoretto”, “A Walking Tour in Sardinia”, and even “Practical Cooking: How to use our Vegetables”.
Few of these, indeed, had ever appeared in print, and none of Miss Fish’s short stories. For she had written short stories, mostly humorous in character: “The Professor’s Wig”, “Aunt Tabitha comes to Dine”, and so on. Clean, straightforward English fun. Editors, it is well known, have little sense of humour. Miss Fish’s clean, straightforward English fun lay wasted inside her blue files. She consoled herself with her violin (Ferdinand), gardening, wood-carving, committee work, the church, walking tours, and many other interests, for she was versatile as well as extremely energetic.
She also took a passionate interest in the affairs of other people, which she called “contacting Life from every possible angle”.
Olivia King was almost the only person who could meet Miss Fish upon an equality, for Miss Fish was more widely read, more travelled, and far, far more articulate than most of the people whom she met every day. Miss Grace Silver, indeed, was an exception, but Miss Fish, although on sufficiently cordial terms with her, was never entirely able to ignore a faint, persistent resentment caused by the fact that her musical neighbour had never, never once offered to play an accompaniment for Ferdinand. That privilege was left, undisputed, to Olivia King’s sister-in-law, who was always good-natured, but did not really like anything in any key that had more than three sharps or two flats.
Miss Fish, therefore, did not really regret the fact that Grace Silver had let “Anarajapurah” and was going abroad for a year. Indeed, when she heard that the new tenant was a foreign princess, she was frankly delighted, and invited Olivia to come and call at once.
“Think of it!” she cried excitedly. “Here, here at our very door, a woman who has been all over the world — probably read everything, met everyone, lived everywhere. Why, it’ll be a breath of civilization in our wilderness!”
It was Elinor’s custom, as Olivia King well knew, to speak as though she had been cast away, through no fault of her own, on a desert island populated only by savages. In reality, she was on excellent terms with most of her neighbours, and made a point of going to London at least three times in the year.
“No one has called yet. We could
go this afternoon.”
“How do you know that no one has called yet?” asked Olivia.
“Because I’ve asked,” Miss Fish replied promptly. “I will candidly admit to you, Olivia, that I’ve asked right and left. I was most anxious to find out exactly what the household consisted of, especially after the strange account given us by Grace Silver of the day when they all turned up, in driblets, to look at the house. After they’d taken it, mind you.”
“They?”
“One, the Princesse de Candi-Laquerriére herself,” said Miss Fish impressively. “Two, a sort of dame de compagnie, or housekeeper or something, who just walked about and felt all the radiators to see if they were hot. Three, a more or less indefinite daughter who hasn’t shown up at all yet, but is supposed to be coming, called Alberta. (Why not Albertine, I wonder.) And four — and this, Olivia, really is incomprehensible — a perfectly unrelated man — a gentleman — a Mr. Montgomery, who evidently feels himself in some way responsible. He isn’t going to be there all the time, but will make it his headquarters for the summer.”
“Elinor, you have surpassed yourself. I congratulate you on having found out so much before they’ve been a week in the place.”
“That isn’t all!” Miss Fish cried, almost in a crow of triumph.
“Good heavens! Well, go on.”
“This, really, is a situation that you ought to be able to use in one of your books,” said Miss Fish, whom Olivia had never been able to cure of making this suggestion with great frequency. “The Princesse is the mother of the first wife of that man Fitzmaurice, who is the husband of your brother Harry’s Mrs. Fitzmaurice at Mardale.”
Olivia looked rather as though she had been stunned, and Miss Fish said anxiously, “Do you follow me, Olivia?”
“Yes, I think so. The first wife — of the present husband of Clarissa Fitzmaurice?’
“Yes — that’s what I said.”
“Then the two wives may meet face to face — a situation after your own heart, Elinor.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 327
