“But I’m afraid it hasn’t. I’m terribly ignorant about furniture and china. Gillian says it’s because I’m so bad at dates.”
“My dear child, I’m not talking about dates. Expert knowledge—Chippendale, Hepplewhite, all that sort of thing—is not necessary, unless you propose to keep an antique shop. What is important is to know the good from the bad, to be able to appreciate the difference between some horrid little suburban villa and—all this.”
It would be difficult to confuse them, Laura thought, following the imperious sweep of her hostess’s arm. The house, from this aspect, appeared very large. The west wing, which was the surviving part of an earlier building, made an angle with the main block, and an old vine covered half the sheltered wall, enhancing the beauty of rose-red bricks and stone mullions. They gazed at this beauty in silence. Laura was gratified to know that Lady Masters thought her sufficiently cultured to appreciate Endbury. After all, Endbury had once been her home.
“The west wing is in some ways the most satisfying part of the house,” said Lady Masters.
“Is it true that you’re turning it into a flat?”
It was the demon in Laura who said this, the demon who spoke before she was ready to speak, and whose speech almost invariably involved her in awkwardnesses. The demon’s words were always loud and clear, so that it was impossible to disown them. Lady Masters turned and stared at her.
“And who told you that? Pussy Cleeve?” She looked so angry when she mentioned Pussy’s name that Laura was terrified. But when she spoke of her meeting with old Mrs. Hesford, Lady Masters calmed down.
“Mrs. Hesford is a great gossip,” she said, “but one can’t blame her, poor old thing. After all, she simply lives for Endbury.”
“I’m afraid you must think me a gossip, too,” Laura said unhappily.
“No, no, dear child, why should I? And it’s quite true that I’m thinking of turning this wing into a separate dwelling. Not a flat, Laura, it would have an upstairs and a downstairs. The whole wing, do you see?—from there.”
“It would be charming,” said Laura. She was dying to know more.
“But nothing is decided yet. I had an architect down the other day, my sister’s architect, much better than the Bramchester man, and I showed him what I wanted and asked him to get out an estimate. He told me I should need a licence, but I don’t suppose there’ll be much difficulty about that.” Lady Masters, who was accustomed to getting her own way in everything, waved her hand to show how easy it would be to get the licence.
“And if you do build it, will you—I mean, are you going to let it?”
Laura would not have dared to ask the question if she had not felt that she was being invited to ask it. Lady Masters had spoken quite freely, and it seemed as if she were anxious to say more. She had quite got over her anger, which had been directed solely against Miss Pussy Cleeve, and now she took Laura’s arm and drew her gently but firmly towards a wooden seat at the end of the terrace.
“Let’s sit here in the sun.”
When they were settled, Lady Masters looked rather mysterious. “Now, Laura,” she said, “I don’t want this to go any further, but Toby is thinking of giving up his bookshop.”
“Is he?” Laura could not forget that she had recently urged Toby’s mother to make him stick to his job.
Lady Masters remembered it too.
“Yes,” she said, “but you are quite right. Toby will have to settle down. It is a pity that the bookshop will not do.”
“But wouldn’t it? If he just—”
“No. The bookshop is quite unsuitable. Young people like you and Toby are not always the best judges, Laura. I blame myself in the first place for allowing him to take it on. His partner is quite brilliant, but my dear, such a dreadful little man. And such dreadful friends—whom poor Toby, of course, has had to get to know and pretend to like. Quite, quite unsuitable!”
Laura made a sympathetic face.
“The other day,” Lady Masters continued blandly, “he brought some of them over here. Andrew Baker—that’s his partner—and his aunt, and a cousin of his, who works in a pet shop near Toby’s shop. I can see that he had to ask her, as she is Andrew’s cousin. Quite a pretty little thing, and probably excellent at her work, but at Endbury—no!”
Remembering how Jocelyn had been treated, Laura could not but feel sorry for Andrew’s cousin.
“As you know, Laura, I do not believe in interfering with young people. I am not possessive. I want nothing but Toby’s happiness. But I must say that after seeing these people I was upset. It seemed to me that Toby was in the wrong environment. He’s so easygoing—so ready to like anyone.”
“He is certainly very easy to get on with,” said Laura, feeling that she ought to say something for Toby.
“I was upset. I thought it over for some time, and finally I talked to him about it, on Sunday night before he went back to Bramchester.”
Lady Masters paused. She was evidently reviewing the talk she had had with Toby.
“He admitted that he found the bookshop rather boring,” she said. “I think you knew that, didn’t you?”
“Well—he said something about it once, but I wasn’t sure if he meant it. He talked, then, about farming.”
Lady Masters gave her a quick appreciative nod, as if she had said something exceptionally intelligent.
“Exactly, Laura. He mentioned it to me. I would never have suggested it, for I am the last person to force my ideas on anyone. But what could be better? The Home Farm is let at present, but I expect I can come to some agreement with Manley. Toby will live at Endbury, which is as it should be, and yet he will have something to do, which he needs. All men need something to do, Laura. It is very bad for them to be idle.”
“It sounds an excellent plan,” said Laura. So it did; but it did not explain why Lady Masters was thinking of making a dwelling in the west wing.
“I am glad to have had this little talk with you,” Lady Masters said affably. “I know you will keep it to yourself for the present. It will all be public when we come back from Scotland.”
“Are you going to Scotland?”
“Yes. I had not meant to go away again this year, but poor Toby is quite distressed because Andrew Baker objected to his giving up the bookshop. Toby is very sensitive, you know, and it would do him no good to go on working there in such an uncomfortable atmosphere. So I am taking him up to stay with my sister at Glen Bogle, while my solicitor deals with what do you call it—dissolves?—the partnership. I wrote to her last week, and we shall be starting on Wednesday.”
Laura could not help admiring Lady Masters. Her solicitor was not the only person who could deal with things. She could not help feeling, too, that this conversation marked a great advance for herself. It might be that Lady Masters merely needed a confidante, but it was gratifying that she should have been chosen for the role.
“I think it’s a very good plan,” she repeated. “I do hope Toby will like farming.”
Lady Masters laughed in a remarkably good-natured way.
“You mean, you hope he’ll stick to it. Oh, but he must. I can’t have Toby making himself ridiculous.”
Laura had the feeling which she had had once before, that Lady Masters was hurt, as well as annoyed, by Toby’s frequent failures and new beginnings.
“I’m sure he’ll settle down now,” she said encouragingly.
“I hope so, too,” said Lady Masters. “I hope he’ll settle down, and perhaps get married. I think it would be a very good thing for Toby.”
By this time they were walking back towards the tennis lawn. Without waiting for a reply, Lady Masters began to speak about the roses; the roses, she said, had done very well indeed this year, but then there were no roses anywhere like the Endbury ones. Laura answered quite at random, and her praise of the Endbury roses was perhaps a little over-zealous. For she had suddenly been given the reason for the alterations to the west wing.
Either Lady Masters hers
elf, or Toby and his bride would inhabit it.
Lady Masters thought of everything.
“Rather a dull party, wasn’t it?” said Gillian. “Still, the tea was better than usual. Poor Jocelyn, I copied your example and felt quite sorry for him.”
“Did you? Oh—because he got snubbed.”
“He certainly did get snubbed. She was in great form today.”
“I suppose she was.”
Gillian looked sharply at her sister. “Wake up,” she said, “you’re making me ride in the ditch. What was she talking about, all the time you were with her after tea?”
But Laura was spared having to answer this, for as they turned into their own lane they saw a large, opulent-looking car parked outside their gate.
“Thomas!” Gillian exclaimed. “I wonder how long he’s been here.” She got off her bicycle and rummaged in her bag for her powder compact.
“Poor Mummy—having to talk to him.”
“Don’t be silly, Laura. Thomas isn’t poison.”
Reassured about her appearance, which was remarkably attractive considering that she had played tennis all afternoon and cycled home from Endbury, Gillian advanced towards her home.
Chapter Eleven
September was a quiet month. Strangers might have thought that all the months were quiet, but for residents the seasons were distinguishable. In summer there were tea parties, tennis parties, and picnics, also the dog show, the local flower show, and the County Agricultural Show at Bramchester. In winter the tea parties continued, with due allowances for the weather, and there were occasional concerts and other entertainments got up for charity at Bramworthy, and the annual all-grades party at Endbury, which took place at the New Year.
September marked the division between summer and winter activities. The dog show was in the past, the harvest festival to come. In the meantime, with Lady Masters in Scotland and the Worthys at Eastbourne for a fortnight, things seemed quieter than usual.
It was at this time that Miss Cleeve decided to have a garden party. By having it now she avoided having Lady Masters, and yet was able to send her an invitation and so cancel the debt for three peaches, two baskets of strawberries, and several pounds of black currants, which Lady Masters at various times had delivered at Box Cottage.
Miss Cleeve was in the habit of repaying her debts by hiring a car and making a series of calls, once a year, on those of her neighbours who deserved the honour. The garden party was an innovation. She had read in the local paper that Mr. Thomas Greenley had consented to open the gardens at Cleeve Manor to the public, in aid of the district nurse, and this had reminded her of the garden parties there in the old days, when she was a young girl.
A garden party in those days had been a great occasion, and people had come from everywhere within driving distance. She remembered the long, fluffy dresses, the parasols, the marquee, and the band of the Volunteers playing on the lower terrace, with herself and Myrtle and Matty in white silk frocks and black boots, speaking only when they were spoken to, but enjoying themselves very much. She thought about it for a long time, and then she announced to her sisters that she would give a garden party at Box Cottage this year.
Pussy and Miss Myrtle made no difficulties. Pussy enjoyed talking to people and Miss Myrtle welcomed the chance of collecting some money for the cause nearest her heart. (When the great day came Miss Cleeve took the collecting-box away and hid it under her pillow, but naturally Miss Myrtle could not foresee this.) Neither of them remembered so clearly as Miss Cleeve the glories of former garden parties—the band, the marquee, the ice-cream—and it seemed quite reasonable that they should give one at Box Cottage. A garden, something to eat, and a fine day: what more was needed? They left it all to Miss Cleeve, who wrote the invitations in a sloping, spidery hand and posted them herself in Bramworthy.
She could not ask as many people as she would have liked. Box Cottage had only a small garden, a narrow lawn in front, with two flower beds, and at the back another lawn, seldom mown, with a clothes post at each side and a line stretched across it for the washing. Beyond this was a small enclosure which had once been an orchard, where some old apple trees and an uninhabited tumble-down henhouse took up much of the space. Miss Cleeve limited her invitations to people in the immediate neighbourhood. Lady Masters, of course (but she would not be coming), the Vicar of Bramton and the Rector of Bramworthy, the Coles, the Worthys, Miles Corton, and one or two more. To these she added a few remembered names, familiar to her in the past, of old acquaintances whom she had not seen for a long time.
Some of the people to whom she sent invitations did not reply, because they were dead or had long since left the district. “Very rude,” said Miss Cleeve, crossing them off her visiting list for ever.
The invitation to Mrs. Cole included both her daughters. Gillian laughed and said it would be terrible, she couldn’t bear it; Mrs. Cole and Laura might go if they pleased, but they must refuse for her. But the next day she went over to Cleeve Manor again, to meet Mr. Greenley’s sister who was staying there, and when she came back she told Laura that Mr. Greenley had been asked to the garden party.
“How odd,” said Laura. “I’m sure they’ve never met him.”
“I suppose he was asked because he lives at Cleeve Manor. Anyway, he has accepted.”
“But will he like it?”
“I warned him it might be rather peculiar. But he wants to see them. He’s beginning to take an interest in the neighbourhood now, because I’ve told him so much about it.”
“Did you tell him what to wear?”
Gillian laughed. “Give me time. Thomas has hardly reached the stage of trying to please me yet.”
Had she overheard these words, Mrs. Cole might have found something to worry her. But Laura had come to think of Thomas simply as a new occupation for Gillian, a worthy cause like missions or the organ repair fund, only more amusing for Gillian who did not care for impersonal causes. In any case, Laura now had an interest of her own which rather blinded her to other people’s interests.
Mrs. Cole was only told that Gillian had changed her mind. Luckily, she had forgotten to post her reply to Miss Cleeve, so she was able to tear it up and write a new one.
It was now only a week to the garden party, and Miss Cleeve began to make preparations. She wrote out a list of the people who had accepted. She sent Pussy and Myrtle up to the attic to unpack a trunk that had stood undisturbed for more years than they cared to remember. She interviewed Mrs. Trimmer and told her to send Trimmer up to attend to the garden, and she also told her that she would be needed for four whole days the following week instead of just Tuesday and Friday mornings.
If it had been anyone else, Mrs. Trimmer would have refused, but she was Bramton born and the name of Cleeve still meant something in Bramton; besides, the garden party had now begun to be talked about and she liked a bit of excitement. So she gladly agreed to all Miss Cleeve’s demands, and quite forgot to inform her other employers of the new arrangements.
Finally, Miss Cleeve made a special visit to Bramworthy. She would not trust her sisters to go, and anyway, by this time they were much too busy.
Pussy and Myrtle had not realized, when they agreed to having a garden party, what a lot of work it would entail.
For her visit to Bramworthy, Miss Cleeve hired a car. The man who drove it, like Mrs. Trimmer, was Bramton born and had been brought up to respect the name of Cleeve, but his respect was sorely tried when she proceeded to buy pots of plants—chrysanthemums, variegated evergreens, late roses, and asters—and had them all loaded into his precious car without a thought for the upholstery. Protected by her deafness, impervious to sarcasm or protests, she sat beside him, looking more like a toad than ever, while the back of the car grew to resemble a florist’s van. At each shop she sent him in to fetch the manager, for she was lame and did not intend to tire herself by walking about, nor would she condescend to do business with any underling. If the manager was engaged, they waited.
> When he finally got her back to Box Cottage the driver’s spirit was broken, and he made no further protests when she told him to unload the plants and parcels and carry them round to the back door. Having paid for the car, Miss Cleeve herself went in at the front door, and five minutes later Miss Pussy Cleeve came out and gave him threepence for his trouble.
On Wednesday it rained, but Thursday, the day of the garden party, was fine, warm, and settled-looking. The Misses Cleeve, like royalty, were lucky in their weather.
“I shall wear my printed silk thing,” said Gillian. “And you’d better wear yours too, Laura. They’ll expect it.”
Mrs. Cole was persuaded to discard her shawl and put on tidy clothes, a dress Laura had bought for her in Bramchester and which Mrs. Cole privately disliked, and a black straw hat trimmed by Gillian to go with the dress.
“It’s as warm as July,” Gillian said firmly. “You can’t possibly be cold.” Mrs. Cole both could be and was, but she agreed that the Misses Cleeve would expect one to dress up. The formal invitation, the stately term “garden party,” made it clear that this was a special occasion.
“Unique, I should think. I can’t remember them ever giving a party before.”
“I once had tea with them,” said Mrs. Cole. “Early in the war. You must have been still at school, Laura.”
“But this is a party, Mummy. They’ve asked quite a lot of people.”
Gillian, though she was ready to do her duty by the Misses Cleeve, refused to expect anything out of the ordinary. “Tea in the garden, that’s what it will be. They’ve asked a lot of people and there isn’t room for them in the house. That’s why they call it a garden party.”
As it was not very far, they walked to Box Cottage, down the lane, under the railway bridge, and up the hill to the main road. Miss Selbourne and Miss Garrett, happily engaged in whitewashing the kennels, waved to them as they went past. Dressed in dungarees, with their heads tied up in dusters, they were evidently too busy to go to the garden party; or perhaps they had not been asked. “What an enormous behind Tiger’s got,” Gillian observed. “She ought never to wear trousers.” Mrs. Cole, who prided herself on tolerance where her personal affections were not engaged, defended trousers as being practical, economical, and warmer than skirts, but she was quite pleased when Laura sided with Gillian in denouncing them as hideous. She sometimes thought that Laura did not take enough interest in clothes.
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