Two or three cars, which had brought people to the garden party, were standing in the drive leading to Marly House. Box Cottage, on the other side of the road, had nowhere to park cars. As they reached its little gate the Coles were struck by the gay, unusual appearance of the front garden, where chrysanthemums flourished in the flower beds and two large, highly polished brass pots, one on each side of the front door, held two evergreen shrubs in full and exotic bloom. When they got up to the door they saw that these were artificial blossoms, made of crêpe paper and wired on to the shrubs. “Just look,” whispered Mrs. Cole. “They must have taken a lot of trouble.”
Mrs. Trimmer, almost unrecognizable in a black frock and starched white apron, led them through the house to the back garden, where the Misses Cleeve were receiving their guests. Here, engaged in disjointed and awkward conversation—perhaps overawed by the unexpected splendours around them—a dozen or more people were clustered in a small group on the lawn. The three Misses Cleeve were drawn up in order of seniority just outside the back door, and from her first startled glance Laura realized that all their own efforts to do justice to the occasion were hopelessly inadequate. They might just as well have come in their everyday clothes, for any chance they had of living up to the Misses Cleeve.
Smelling strongly of moth balls, roped with feather boas, bowed down by huge elaborate hats, and seriously hampered by parasols, the three hostesses extended their gloved hands and graciously bade their guests welcome. Each wore a different colour, but otherwise their dresses were much the same, long and full-skirted, with leg-of-mutton sleeves and high, tight net collars held up by bits of whalebone. The dresses were encrusted with lace, or patterned with insertion and pearl buttons; they had deep flounces and, as was seen when they moved away from the door, short trains. They had obviously come from some ancient hoard, and alas, they no longer fitted their owners. Safety pins, half concealed by sashes, bridged awkward gaps at the waist. The net collars were all split open at the back.
Presently, as the Misses Cleeve began to circulate among their guests, the soothing rustle of their progress was marred by mysterious pops and crackings, as if all the long seams and tucks and pleats were disintegrating from old age. But in spite of these symptoms of decay the general effect was very striking; like strange relics from a bygone civilization, the Misses Cleeve were both grotesque and impressive.
Laura and Gillian were so hypnotized by the appearance of their hostesses that it was some time before they began to examine the garden. The front garden had seemed unusually gay when they approached it, but the back garden was even gayer. Whole groves of flowers had sprung up in the most unlikely places, and the old apple trees, and the ivy mantling the hen house, had burgeoned into paper blossom. The garden was also furnished with chairs, not canvas or wicker, but respectable upholstered ones looking rather out of place, as if they were on their way to a remover’s van.
On a mahogany table, partly hidden by a baize screen, stood an old-fashioned gramophone with a red trumpet, and presently a small Trimmer child was brought out by Mrs. Trimmer and set to work on it. Waltz tunes, varied by an occasional hymn tune, floated on the air.
As if the scene were a clockwork toy, imprisoned in a glass case and set in motion by a spring, everything now became animated. The guests began to talk more loudly, the Misses Cleeve left their post and moved from one group to another, a breeze rustled the paper flowers, and the Vicar of Bramton embarked on a funny story.
“Look,” said Gillian, “they’ve forgotten to take away the washing.”
But when they looked more closely they saw that what had seemed to be a sheet hanging over the line was really a small tent, or canopy, just big enough to enclose a table and two chairs.
“That’s the marquee,” said Laura.
“Marquee?”
“Don’t you see, Gil? A marquee, a band, garden-party dresses—they’ve thought of everything. Oh, dear, it’s so funny, but it’s rather sad too.”
Gillian opened her mouth to tell Laura not to be morbid. But Pussy Cleeve was making her way towards them.
“Well, Laura,” she began, speaking in the fluting voice which betokened intense curiosity, “it’s nice to see you safe and sound. Now do tell me what really happened. I hear that Garrett woman is going to be summonsed.”
“But I don’t know that anything has happened to Miss Garrett.”
Pussy looked round-eyed and incredulous.
“But you were with her!” she cried. “Weren’t you with her? When she had a lot of drinks at the Lamb and Lion and then ran into Miles Corton?”
Mrs. Trimmer appeared at the back door and announced Mr. Greenley. Pussy’s attention was diverted. Rustling, crackling ominously, she trailed away to join Miss Cleeve in receiving this new and hitherto unknown guest.
Laura turned round and found herself face to face with Miles.
“Good afternoon, Laura,” he said. “Who had a lot of drinks and then ran into me?”
For some reason she had not expected to find Miles among the guests at Box Cottage, and she told him so, adding quickly that Pussy was talking about Miss Garrett and must mean the time with the ambulance. Miles sorted out this information and then said that Pussy was not so far wrong either, except that Miss Garrett had had the drinks afterwards.
Laura might have argued about that, but she let it pass. Whenever she had seen Miles lately they had argued about something, or there had been misunderstandings leading to the confusion of feeling she described to herself as “awkwardness.” But today she did not want to argue with him. She was feeling particularly happy; the garden party, for all its absurdities, had begun to exert a delightful charm, and even the Misses Cleeve appeared only slightly pathetic.
“I wonder what Mr. Greenley if making of it,” she said. “Do you see him? Over there with Miss Cleeve.”
“Is that who it is? The first time, to my knowledge, that he’s been seen outside the gates of Cleeve Manor.”
Miles gazed with interest at the newcomer, and Laura could not resist telling him of Gillian’s plans for Mr. Greenley’s reform. It was a long time since she had been on such easy terms with Miles, and she was quite sorry when Mrs. Worthy and Jocelyn came up and interrupted them.
Other people, less fortunate than Laura, were beginning to find the garden party a little tedious. The Vicar of Bramton and his wife, who were still comparative strangers, drifted into a corner of the orchard and consulted together about leaving. “They’re bound to have tea soon,” she whispered, “and then I’ll say you’ve got a meeting.” The vicar agreed, and looked about in a harassed way for someone else to talk to; he had already had one long conversation with Miss Myrtle and did not want another. Everyone was thinking about tea; and when Mrs. Trimmer reappeared at the back door there was a general turning of heads, and the talk fell away into an expectant pause.
Through this pause two conversations continued undisturbed. Miss Cleeve, sitting in her sheet-marquee, was cross-examining Mr. Greenley about the present use and decoration of every room at Cleeve Manor. “Speak up,” she said more than once, “I can’t hear people who mumble.” Mr. Greenley was not accustomed to being told he mumbled, but he had already pigeonholed his hostess as “eccentric—needs humouring,” which meant that he need not take offence. On the other side of the lawn Mrs. Cole and the Rector of Bramworthy, two enthusiasts who seldom met, were engrossed in a discussion of the best way to drain rock gardens. But everyone else was surreptitiously or openly watching Mrs. Trimmer, who looked rather flustered and was obviously trying to attract her employers’ attention.
Miss Cleeve was screened by the marquee. Miss Pussy had her back to the door, and Miss Myrtle had disappeared. After a minute or two Mrs. Trimmer gave it up and went back into the house.
A fresh burst of talk sprang up, but it was now clear to most people that something had gone wrong. The vicar cast indignant glances at his wife, who suggested that the gas, or the electricity, had failed. Mrs. Worthy remembered
hearing a crash; probably Mrs. Trimmer had broken the teapot or dropped the milk—just the same thing had happened the last day of their holiday at Eastbourne, only it was the bread and butter.
Gillian, who had been talking to Jocelyn, giving him, without his knowledge, a first easy lesson in good manners, saw out of the tail of her eye that Mr. Greenley had had enough of Miss Cleeve. She gently discarded Jocelyn and walked across to the marquee, picking up on the way a solitary guest, a woman with a gushing manner who had lived at Bramton Wick for years, but was seldom seen in public.
“Miss Bailey is so interested in your parasol,” said Gillian to Miss Cleeve. “She wonders where you got it.”
Miss Bailey had just whispered to Gillian that the clothes must have come out of a museum. But as if to make up for it, she went into raptures over the parasol. Before she knew what had happened, she was enjoying a tête-à-tête with her hostess in the marquee, and Gillian had removed Mr. Greenley to look at the garden.
Time passed. Gradually, without discussion, without comment or explanation from the Misses Cleeve, it became understood among the guests that this garden party, peculiar in so many ways, had a final peculiarity up its sleeve. There was not going to be any tea.
By the time the more optimistic of them had given up hoping, the less indulgent had taken their departure. The Worthys went first; Major Worthy had not come to the party and Mrs. Worthy had her usual excuse, that she must get back to Curtis. The Vicar of Bramton said good-bye with a sad, forgiving air, saving up his reproaches for his wife on the homeward journey. A few people who had come from the other side of Bramworthy spoke vaguely of the long distance they had to go; Isabel Lumley detached her father, the rector, from Mrs. Cole and carried him off.
Mrs. Cole was now left a prey to Pussy Cleeve, who said with a gleam in her eye that she had no idea Gillian knew Mr. Greenley so well. “We thought we were to have the honour of introducing him to the district,” said Pussy, “but I see that Gillian has forestalled us. Did she meet him in London?”
Mrs. Cole, minimizing Gillian’s acquaintance with Mr. Greenley and trying to evade Pussy’s questions, was conscious of her daughter’s gay laugh, and of a more raucous sound that must be Mr. Greenley’s laugh, coming from the end of the garden. At Woodside, Mr. Greenley had been dull, solemn, and a little pompous; like Pussy, she had not known that they were on such friendly terms.
“I really must have a chat with your sister,” she said, seeking a way of escape.
Pussy did not ask which sister, for no one ever contemplated having a chat with Miss Myrtle, who in any case had abandoned the party and retired to meditate upstairs. “Oh, Sarah’s got someone to talk to,” she replied, and following her glance, Mrs. Cole saw Miles and Laura talking, or at least listening, to Miss Cleeve.
“That reminds me,” Pussy continued brightly, “of the last time I saw them together. One couldn’t help noticing that Miles has quite a penchant for dear Laura. I’m afraid he made it a little too plain, and she rather resented it. But then she’s got other plans for her future, hasn’t she?”
The various implications of this speech crackled in Mrs. Cole’s ears like the small explosions of a Chinese firework. Without replying—for no reply seemed possible—she stood up and said quietly, in a good imitation of her normal placid voice, that it was later than she had thought and they really must be going. Pussy, who was not deceived, gave her a very sweet smile and said she must come again some time, when they could have a really long talk.
Chapter Twelve
Mrs. Cole found herself outside the gate of Box Cottage without quite knowing how she had got there, as if she were moving in a slightly agitating dream.
“You look tired, Mummy. Didn’t you enjoy it?” asked Laura. It was well known to them that the things their mother didn’t enjoy always tired her.
“I enjoyed it,” Gillian said decisively. “It was peculiar, but nice. Except, of course, not having any tea.”
They were walking along the road and might now be considered out of earshot of the Misses Cleeve. Looking round to assure herself of this, Mrs. Cole realized that both her daughters had brought their escorts with them. She felt certain that Pussy Cleeve was watching them from an upstairs window.
“It’s not too late for tea. Come back and have some with me,” said Miles Corton, speaking to Mrs. Cole. He was surprised when she gave him a quick blank stare as if she were seeing him for the first time. Laura, who thought her mother must really be overtired, said it was a good idea, they’d love to come; at the same moment Gillian announced that Thomas had offered to drive them over to Bramworthy to have tea at that place on the river.
Mrs. Cole was now in a quandary, since her daughters wanted different things.
“Oh, it’s much too late to go to Bramworthy,” said Laura, thinking of her mother and trying to convey to Gillian that it would be better for her to have a rest. “The place will be shut by the time we get there.”
“No, it won’t, it stays open all the time. Thomas thought we might go on to the cinema afterwards.”
Laura noted that Mr. Greenley, who had been Thomas when they talked about him in private, had now become Thomas to his face.
Mrs. Cole noted it too.
“Well, you go,” said Laura. “And Mummy and I will have tea with Miles.” She gave Gillian a meaning frown: not the cinema—can’t you see she’s tired?
Gillian in her turn looked at Mr. Greenley. “Do you really want to go to the cinema?” she asked.
Till this moment he had not wanted it. He had suggested it on an impulse, and he was so unaccustomed to making impulsive suggestions that he felt he was not being true to himself when he did so. He felt that it had been Gillian’s idea, not his own; that he had been coaxed, humoured, or jockeyed into suggesting it. To a man of his temperament this was an alarming thought. But when she asked him if he really wanted to go he realized that he had misjudged her. He was not being coerced; he was free to make his choice. He had only to say “No,” and that would be that.
“Love to,” he answered promptly. “I hardly ever get the chance, you know. Too busy most nights in the week.”
“I hope you don’t think this afternoon has been a dreadful waste of time,” Gillian said laughingly.
He was about to reply that he had felt it his duty to visit the late owners of Cleeve Manor, when he remembered admitting to Gillian that he did not suffer from a sense of duty. He caught her eye, and laughed.
Miles Corton found something disagreeable about Mr. Greenley’s laughter. He was by no means blind to the faults and absurdities of the three old Misses Cleeve, but they were an institution; it was not for a newcomer to patronize them. Certainly the new owner of Cleeve Manor, in Miles Corton’s opinion, had no business to laugh at the family he had supplanted. Thinking these uncharitable thoughts, he found himself being urged to enter Mr. Greenley’s ostentatious car, which had been parked at the entrance to Marly House.
“I’ll just run you up to the house,” said Mr. Greenley benevolently. “Save Mrs. Cole the walk.”
Laura had feared that Miles’s cross old housekeeper would be annoyed at having to provide tea at this late hour, but Mrs. Epps, it appeared, was expecting them. Or at least she was expecting Miles. Mrs. Epps had been across to Box Cottage to see if she could give Mrs. Trimmer a hand—or not to miss the fun—and had found Mrs. Trimmer in quite a state.
“Miss Cleeve told her the tea was ordered from Malley’s,” said Mrs. Epps, “and Mrs. Trimmer being what she is, never gave it another thought. Not till it had gone half-past four, and nothing come nor any signs of it coming. Then she did begin to wonder. I said to her, ‘You’d better ring them up and find out what’s happened.’ So she did!”
“And what had happened?”
“Why, they’d never had no order. Knew nothing about it, they told her.” Mrs. Epps looked at them with a sort of gloomy triumph. “Miss Cleeve’s getting to be an old lady,” she said. “I suppose it slipped her memory.”
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Laura thought it strange that Miss Cleeve should have forgotten the tea, when she had remembered everything else.
“Anyway, it was a nice party,” she said. “The garden looked so pretty and gay.”
“It may well have done, Miss. Mrs. Trimmer says they spent days getting it ready, and then there were all the pot plants to put in, and the paper flowers to tie on—”
“Were all those plants in pots?” Mrs. Cole asked with interest.
“Why, yes, M’m. Miss Cleeve fetched them from the big florists in Bramworthy, and then Trimmer dug the holes for them. Very pretty and gay, as you said, Miss Laura, but not the same thing as a cup of tea, is it?”
“No, indeed.”
This reminded Mrs. Epps that the kettle would now be boiling, and she went off to see to it. Mrs. Cole and Laura, who had been taken upstairs, had a final glance at their faces in the large, dusty looking-glass, and Mrs. Cole gazed rather sadly at the large, dusty room. “This was Mrs. Corton’s room,” she said. “Really, I think Mrs. Epps must be very incompetent. Just look at those cobwebs.”
“Oh, well, just look at the house. She hasn’t got time,” said Laura.
Mrs. Corton had been killed in a hunting accident when Miles was five or six, and before Laura was born. Neither of them therefore could be expected to take it to heart that her bedroom should be dusty and neglected. But Mrs. Cole took it to heart. It was a long time since she had been in this room, and it sent her thoughts winging back to the past. She remembered Miles as a solemn, handsome child, sitting on his mother’s knee. She thought about Mr. Corton, who had been one of her oldest friends.
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