After tea Gillian announced that she had done enough gardening for one day. “I shall walk down to Bank Cottage and see if they’re throwing things,” she said. “Come with me, Laura.”
Ten minutes after they had gone Mrs. Cole looked up and saw Jocelyn Worthy standing on the footpath and making signs to her across the fence. Jocelyn had already spent most of the afternoon at Woodside, leaving only when it was quite plain that he was not going to be asked to tea (“We’ve had him often enough,” Gillian had said firmly), and as she made a point of not fraternizing with people who used the footpath, Mrs. Cole only waved her hand and called out that the girls had gone to Bank Cottage. Jocelyn seemed to have something to say, but whatever it was it could not be shouted, and she stayed where she was, until he gave it up and walked on.
“Just my luck,” he thought morosely. Earlier in the day his luck had seemed to be on the turn; he had discovered that Gillian was not married after all, or at least that she was a widow, which was almost the same thing, and she had agreed to come to the dance with him. And now he would have to say that he could not take her.
There was, of course, a faint possibility that Gillian might offer to buy a ticket for herself. Other girls went Dutch treat; but such was Jocelyn’s luck that these generous types never came his way. However, the possibility existed, and it was because of this that he had come back so promptly to explain things.
Gillian and Laura seldom crossed the bridge without stopping to look down at the river. The river was quite insignificant, a shallow stream half hidden by willows and brambles, but they had known it all their lives and, like other old friends, it could not be ignored. They leaned their arms on the parapet and stared down at the sliding waterweeds.
“I’ve snatched Jocelyn from you,” Gillian said. “He asked me to go to the Conservative dance.”
“Goodness, how enterprising of him. Do you want to go?”
“Well, I said I would. It will be something to do. I expect I shall have to show him how to dance.”
Laura had none of the reformer’s zeal and she was quite content that Gillian rather than herself should be the one to show Jocelyn how to dance.
“But I thought Thomas was taking you out on Saturday,” she said.
“Thomas left it open. A bit too open,” Gillian replied candidly. “Just as well to have another date sometimes.”
“I thought you liked Thomas.”
“Oh, I do. I think he’s sweet. But he thinks he can drive over here and collect me whenever he feels like a visit to the cinema.” Gillian laughed. “You know, he’s getting madly addicted to the cinema, but he has to pretend that I’m the one who likes it. He’s brightening my dull life.”
“Oh,” said Laura. She thought about Thomas. He was rich, he was good-natured, he knew a lot about alpines and orchids, he was generous to his relations. But was he sweet? If they had been like the sisters in books she could have asked Gillian for more details, but Gillian had a way of discouraging what she called “nosiness.” Laura decided that it would be better not to question her about Thomas, but she went on thinking about him, until Gillian said, “Come on,” and moved away from the bridge.
“Don’t look back, but I think I see Jocelyn on our tracks. Coming down the footpath.”
“Perhaps he’s just out for a walk.”
“I don’t think he’s given to walking,” Gillian said. “He hasn’t seen us. We’ll take refuge in Bank Cottage.”
Walking briskly, they approached the refuge. The elms along the roadside hid it from view, but they could hear the dogs barking and the sound of voices raised, as it seemed, in argument.
“They’re at it again,” Gillian whispered. “Hammer and tongs! How glad they’ll be to see us. It will give them a chance to stop.”
She opened the gate and walked boldly up the path. As soon as they were inside they realized that Miss Selbourne and Miss Garrett were not quarrelling with each other, but saying exactly what they thought to Miles Corton. All three were standing in front of the house, Miles with his back to the gate and his tenants side by side, united against a common enemy. Both ladies were speaking at once. At the sudden appearance of Gillian and Laura their voices died away, and Miles turned round to see what was happening.
Gillian’s prediction was incorrect. Nobody was glad to see them; it was quite obvious that they had come at the wrong moment. But after a brief struggle Miss Selbourne forced a welcoming smile to her face.
“Good evening,” said Gillian. “We thought we’d walk down and see how you were getting on. How are the dogs?”
This was the right thing to say. The health of the dogs was more important to Miss Selbourne and Miss Garrett than their own health. Miss Selbourne pulled herself together and began to talk about the dogs. They were all well, there was a new litter that looked remarkably fine, and Blue Girl was expecting.
“Fat lot of good that will do us,” Miss Garrett interjected, “if we go up there some morning and find them all missing.”
Laura remembered Miss Selbourne’s fears that thieves might come over the stile and steal the dogs. She guessed that Miles had been ordering the removal of the barricade. But Gillian, who had not been told about the thieves, was for once at a loss.
“Missing?” she echoed.
“Stolen,” said Miss Garrett. She glared at Miles Corton and muttered something which ended in “and I should know where to look for them.”
The atmosphere was tense with antagonism. Miss Selbourne seemed to think that her friend had gone too far; she grew rather pink and asked Gillian to come and look at the puppies. Gillian obligingly said she would love to, and they moved away towards the paddock. Miss Garrett went into the house and banged the door behind her. Laura looked at Miles.
It was difficult to see him as a dog-stealer. The idea was so preposterous that she could not help smiling. But she realized almost at once that he was not in the mood to enjoy being laughed at.
“Oh, Miles,” she said impulsively, “don’t be angry.”
“My dear Laura, I’m not angry. But don’t start being sorry for them, or I shall be.”
“Am I always being sorry for people? I suppose I am. Mummy and Gillian say so—Mummy was quite cross with me the other day when I said I was sorry for—” She broke off abruptly.
“Whom were you being sorry for, the other day?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I forget.”
“Not, by any chance, for me?”
“Yes,” said Laura in a small voice.
Miles looked at her for a moment in silence.
“Were you?” he said slowly. “Why were you sorry for me, Laura?”
Just for a few seconds she could not remember why. Her memory of the other scene, the conversation with her mother, was overshadowed by her sudden conviction that the present conversation was becoming tremendously important. It was as though, beneath the casual words, something else was being said.
“For the wrong reasons, I expect,” she answered at last.
“But all the same, I’m not ungrateful.”
“Don’t be grateful. It was horrid of me. So patronizing.”
“You don’t think—”
But what she was not to think was left unsaid, for at that moment they both realized that someone was standing at the gate and making efforts to attract their attention. It was, of course, Jocelyn; like Gillian and Laura before him, he had arrived at the wrong time, but unlike them he did not notice it. His appearance anywhere had never provoked great enthusiasm, and he needed no more than a temperate greeting, a slightly absent-minded smile, to make him feel quite at home.
Having obtained the smile and the greeting from Laura, Jocelyn opened the gate. “This is Bank Cottage, isn’t it?” he began, speaking to Laura and ignoring Miles, who had given him no greeting at all beyond an exasperated stare. “Your mother said you’d be here.”
“Well, I am here,” Laura said kindly.
“Oh, good. Yes. Actually, it was Gillian I really wanted.
”
“She’s here too. She’s gone to look at the new puppies.”
“Actually, you’d do. I mean, you could tell her.” It had occurred to him that it would be better to ask someone else to tell Gillian. Then if she was vexed she would have time to get over it, and perhaps to think about buying a ticket for herself. He thought Gillian was marvellous, but he realized that she might also be difficult; marvellous girls, in Jocelyn’s experience, were always difficult, it was a sort of natural law which frequently operated to his disadvantage.
“Tell her what?” Laura asked. Like Mrs. Worthy she felt unreasonably angry with him, though he had done nothing worse than interrupt a conversation, and she resented being used as a messenger. “But she’s here,” she went on, before he had time to give the message. “You can tell her yourself, whatever it is. I’ll show you where the kennels are.”
There was really no need to do this, since the kennels were in full view at the far end of the paddock, but Jocelyn was the sort of person who had to be shown.
Before she could carry out her intention, one of the upstairs windows in Bank Cottage was thrust open and Miss Garrett’s head and shoulders appeared, looking strangely out of scale and much too large for the house. She glared at them with majestic disapproval, like an aggrieved and implacable goddess.
Laura had quite forgotten Miss Garrett’s angry retreat, and was startled by her sudden reappearance. She could not think what to say to her.
“This is Jocelyn Worthy,” she said at last, since neither Miss Garrett nor Jocelyn showed any sign of recognizing one another. “Jocelyn, this is—”
“Where’s Bunty got to?” Miss Garrett asked abruptly, addressing herself to Laura and taking no notice of the others.
“She’s up at the kennels with Gillian.”
“Cut up there and tell her I want her, will you? And then come in for a drink. You and your sister.”
Miss Garrett withdrew her head and closed the window. Jocelyn stared open-mouthed at the place where she had been. Never before, perhaps, had he been so aggressively ignored.
Laura looked at Miles. She would not now have blamed him for being angry, but she was relieved to see that he was not angry at all. His expression showed more than the absence of anger; it had a positive and settled good-humour, as if Miss Garrett’s behaviour no longer had the least power to disturb him. She found herself wishing that Jocelyn would go away so that she could continue talking to Miles, but since that was not possible she merely stayed where she was, without giving another thought to Miss Garrett’s command.
“Well . . . I suppose I’d better be getting back,” Jocelyn said doubtfully. He looked from Laura to Miles, and then up at the window where Miss Garrett had made her sudden brief appearance. He frowned, for even to an indifferent observer like himself it was plain that something peculiar was happening.
“I suppose . . .” he repeated, scuffling his feet on the gravel. Miles laughed and said to Laura: “You had better do as you were told.”
“What? Oh, fetch Miss Selbourne. Yes, I will.” She remembered that Jocelyn had a message for Gillian, and invited him to accompany her. Jocelyn, with a wary eye on the window, said that actually tomorrow would do.
“Oh, come along,” Laura said briskly, speaking in the kind but authoritative manner so many people adopted towards Jocelyn. Miles said cheerfully that there was nothing to fear; he was the chief offender, anyway.
“They’ll forget it,” Laura replied.
“They had better not forget to take down the barricade.”
“I wish I knew why doubtful characters are expected to come that way. There’s nothing to stop them coming up the lane.”
“You must ask Miss Garrett about that. I’m sure she has her reasons.”
Jocelyn, who had been listening in a baffled way to this talk of barricades and doubtful characters, wondered why they laughed.
“I must be off,” said Miles, “before I’m thrown out. Good night, Laura.” He nodded to Jocelyn, who muttered a sulky good night in reply.
“Good night,” said Laura. She turned away to go to the kennels, but Gillian and Miss Selbourne were walking back across the paddock.
By now Gillian had heard all about Miles Corton’s tyrannical behaviour, his ridiculous mania for preserving rights of way, and his utter inability to understand a dog-lover’s feelings. The recital of her wrongs had been a great relief to Miss Selbourne, who gradually grew calmer and was even led to admit that a compromise might be reached. The stile could be freed from its barbed-wire entanglement and fitted with a burglar alarm set to ring in Tiger’s bedroom. Neither Gillian nor Miss Selbourne understood the mechanism of burglar alarms, but it seemed quite feasible, and surely no one could object to it. (Gillian wondered if Miss Garrett might object, but Miss Selbourne was happily confident of Tiger’s power to tackle any burglar.) This reasonable solution of her difficulties so pleased Miss Selbourne that she asked Gillian to come in for a drink.
“And Laura, too, of course,” she said. “But I really can’t ask Corton. We’ll go in through the back door and then you can call her from the window.”
Miss Selbourne was considerably less bloodthirsty than Miss Garrett.
“It’s all right, he’s going. Look, he’s walking down the lane.”
“But she’s talking to someone.”
They were half-way across the paddock, but Miss Selbourne was short-sighted. Gillian said that was Jocelyn Worthy, Major Worthy’s nephew.
Jocelyn was relieved to find that Miss Selbourne greeted him in a normal manner, shook hands, and asked him in for a drink. Laura, of course, was quite a normal type (besides being Gillian’s sister), but tonight she kept forgetting to listen to him. Miles Corton had not listened to him either, and as for that redfaced woman at the window, she was bats. Having reached this comforting conclusion he was able to forget that the red-faced woman had pointedly not asked him to have a drink. He followed the others into the house.
“Poor darlings!” cried Miss Selbourne, opening the sitting-room door and releasing Agnes and Leo, who had somehow been overlooked when she and Tiger flew out to do battle with their landlord. The poor darlings had whiled away their captivity by chewing a cushion to bits, but this sort of thing happened so often that she hardly noticed it. Stuffing the remains of the cushion behind a chair, she unlocked the corner cupboard and fetched out the drinks.
“I can see you are fond of dogs,” she said approvingly to Jocelyn, who was crouched on the floor with Agnes and Leo, pulling their ears and tickling their tummies.
Jocelyn looked up and said, Yes, he was, rather. Seeing that his hostess had the right ideas about drinks, he added that this kind of life would just suit him.
It was not only the sight of a bottle of gin being lavishly dispensed that made him speak so ardently. Ever since entering Bank Cottage he had felt curiously at home. In this house no one fussed about scorch marks on polished tables or tobacco ash on carpets; in this house the dogs were lively companions instead of staid old codgers like Binkie, and neither dogs nor humans would be reproved for crossing the hall with muddy feet. Even the red-faced woman upstairs was obviously an easygoing type when it came to housework.
Gillian asked: “What about Tiger?” and Laura said she was upstairs. Miss Selbourne went off to find her, and was gone a long time. Jocelyn now remembered why he had followed Gillian and Laura to Bank Cottage. He had been indulging in a happy dream of a place of his own just like this, famous prizewinning dogs to supply him with a comfortable income, and no one (by which he meant no Aunt or Uncle) to badger him. It was hard to have to abandon this dream and explain to Gillian that he could not take her to the dance at Bramworthy.
Gillian did not offer to buy her own ticket, but she spared his feelings. She was not at all vexed, and if she was amused she did not show it. But like his Aunt Gwennie—though in a kinder manner—she said that he ought to get a job.
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“Wel
l, I’d like to breed dogs. Of course, you need some capital to start anything like that.”
“You need some experience, too,” said Laura. “Have you ever kept dogs?”
“Actually, I’ve never had the chance. But I’ve always wanted to.” It seemed to Jocelyn that this was true. He had had many ideas for his future, and dog-breeding had surely been among them. The more he thought of it, the more attractive it appeared.
Gillian looked at him thoughtfully. She suspected that his enthusiasms were short-lived, but dog-breeding might suit him as well as any other occupation. It was not a bad idea at all; and she tucked it away in her mind for future consideration.
Miss Selbourne returned from her long absence upstairs, and Gillian saw at once that Miss Garrett had not taken kindly to the plan for a burglar alarm.
“Tiger’s got a headache,” said Miss Selbourne. “She’s gone to bed.” She picked up the gin and poured out another round of drinks, even more generous than the first, and when Laura expressed sympathy for Miss Garrett she answered curtly that Tiger was always getting headaches.
Chapter Fourteen
Like most villages, Bramton Wick had a speedy and efficient bush telegraph, and the information that Lady Masters had returned from her visit to Scotland reached Woodside from two different sources on the very evening of her arrival. Mrs. Worthy had been shopping in Bramworthy and had seen the Endbury chauffeur on his way to the station, and the boy from the Wick Provision Stores was later than usual with Mrs. Cole’s groceries because he had had to make a special journey to Endbury; her ladyship’s cook, said the boy bitterly, had clean forgotten the wholemeal bread her ladyship always had for breakfast.
Unknown to each other both Mrs. Cole and her daughter Laura took a particular interest in the news. Laura had frequently assured herself that the talk she had had with Lady Masters on the afternoon of the tennis party was not really at all important. But she could not forget it. If Lady Masters had not gone to Scotland, if the new intimacy begun that afternoon could have continued without a break, she might by now have succeeded in persuading her, as she had once hoped to do, of her own merits as a daughter-in-law.
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