And now, good night. You have had a letter bursting with sensation and romance, and surely full enough of me to satisfy you this time.
CHAPTER XIV
JULY, 1952
It is late in the evening of a long hot day, Hugo, and bats are flittering about in the gathering darkness outside.
Madge and Jim Lewis were married this afternoon, in the Brackenbrae Hotel at Riggs Junction where the reception was held also. It was not a big affair, but Aunt Nettie, abetted by the bridegroom, was determined to do the thing properly. Therefore I found myself being offered a hideous choice of sherry, port or whisky in which to drink the newly-married couple’s health, and immediately after sat down at a table groaning with scones, bread and butter and fancy cakes, with a large cup of tea as dark as treacle at my right hand, and a heaped plateful of beefsteak pie, mashed potatoes and tinned peas in front of me. This at half-past three of a blazing July afternoon! I did my best, but as I had eaten lunch before setting out to attend the wedding, it was not a very good effort, and when an equally large helping of pudding was slapped down, I failed miserably. The other guests ate steadily and with concentration, going on to cakes and scones as soon as they had scraped the last traces of pudding from their plates, and washing it all down with copious draughts of powerful tea.
Madge, in a bright blue dress with what are journalistically described as “white accessories”, was so obviously happy that it was a pleasure to see her, though I thought privately her plain blouses and skirts suited her looks better than her finery. “Wee Helen” was resplendent in very frilly pink with her hair frizzed out all round her small flushed face, and Aunt Nettie wore what she always alludes to as “my good blacks” and an expression of gloomy satisfaction.
When the bride and groom had gone in a flurry of confetti and silver paper horse-shoes, I thanked Aunt Nettie suitably, told her with truth that I was delighted to have seen Madge and her Jim so pleased with one another, and hurried back to Piper’s Cottage.
How cool and quiet the little house was after the hot room at the hotel filled with hot people! Even’s Pam’s noisy and demonstrative welcome did not spoil the peacefulness. I changed from my festive attire into an old cotton frock and comfortable shoes, and we went out to wander over the newly cut hayfields towards a flowery meadow where the lower reaches of Piper’s burn meandered, clear and shallow and glittering in the sunshine. It was very hot, but there was a faint stirring in the air, too slight to be called a breeze, which carried the warm scent of the meadow-sweet lining the banks of the little stream. The wild mint that Pam and I trod on added its own sharp fragrance to the meadow-sweet and the newly mown hay. Water forget-me-nots stared up at the sky which they imitated so faithfully in colour, the white-moon-daisies called gowans by the country people were in full bloom and ragged robin, water crowfoot and all the other marsh-loving wild flowers made a brilliant carpet of the wet low-lying field, so often flooded after heavy rain.
Elizabeth Drysdale has asked me more than once what I am thinking about when I go “mooning about the fields and hillsides” as she describes it. “Coming in with her eyes dark and big and her hair wild,” she went on, telling Lawrence Whitburn (of all people) about my “mooning”—“I believe the creature’s a witch!”
I don’t think consciously at all on these occasions, so I could not answer Elizabeth; but I am certain that it is good for me to allow the sights and sounds and smells of this countryside to work their will on me. I know that I come into the house again feeling a peace and content which I would never feel otherwise. . . . It is impossible to explain this; I have come nearer to it, Hugo, when writing to you, than ever before.
I needed a long “moon” after Madge’s wedding, and the heat was beginning to leave the air, and Pam was modestly reminding me of his supper-time, when we turned to go home.
Beyond the main road, where the fields began to slope gradually upwards to the hillsides above, the white walls and slate roofs of Piper’s and Wallace Cottages shone in the rosy amethystine light which lay gently on the green of the nearer hills, filled the dark cleft of Windy Gans to the brim and irradiated the dim blue heights rising against the sky. It was so beautiful that I felt the selfishness of enjoying it alone, and wished for someone who would appreciate it to be there with me. And in the same instant I realised that Ivo, dearly as I loved him, would be slightly bored and slightly embarrassed by my ecstasies. His enjoyment, bless him, was of the kind that admires a hillside for the grouse and hares it harbours waiting for him to shoot and a stream because trout lurk there to rise to his cunningly cast flies! It was useless to delude myself; Ivo would have considered me a sentimental idiot—as no doubt I am.
Thinking this over, and deciding that perhaps it was better to enjoy the sunset glow alone except for Pam, I walked up the rough road to my gate. My eyes were dazzled by the light, because I had just turned and looked straight into the molten splendour in the west, and it was not until Pam gave a Woof! of greeting that I saw two people leaning side by side on the gate waiting for me. They were Mrs. Kilmartin and Lawrence Whitburn.
He gave me a look, with an ironic lift of his craggy eye-brows, which told me he could see that I had been “mooning”.
Elise Kilmartin said calmly—she has lost almost all her nervous mannerisms—“Major Whitburn was prowling round Piper’s Cottage, knocking and ringing, so I told him you had gone for a walk with the dog—”
“I am glad you waited,” said I, not entirely truthfully. “Won’t you both come in and have a glass of sherry?”
“No, thank you,” they answered together. Then Lawrence Whitburn explained: “I’ve had some sherry with Mrs. Kilmartin under her apple-tree. We have been talking about the regiment. Her husband was with my lot in training at the beginning of the War, and I have been reminding her that we met more than once when she came to visit him—”
“What fun it all was, even though it was War-time,” added Mrs. Kilmartin. “The officers’ wives used to go and stay in a bunch at that hotel about three miles from the camp—”
“Lord yes! What a frightful lot they were, on the whole. A regular eye-opener! It used to puzzle us bachelors why their husbands had married ’em,” said Lawrence heartily.
“Thank you,” murmured Mrs. Kilmartin.
He was not in the least abashed. “Come now, Mrs. K., you know very well that I don’t mean you. But remember that woman, the one like a white cockatoo with the brass hair?” Mrs. Kilmartin gave a sudden low gurgle of laughter. “Of course I remember her! She called us all ‘girls’ when she was feeling matey, and the rest of the time she was so terribly refined! She had a horrid little bitch—a little leedy-dog, she called it—”
I leaned on the gate beside them, listening to their laughter, and wondering why other people’s reminiscences sound so deadly dull to anyone who has not shared the experiences they recall. My day had been quite social enough without this addition to it, and I wished Lawrence Whitburn would tell me why he had come to see me, and let me go and feed Pam. Lulled by the languor induced by past heat and present boredom, I was drifting away on my own thoughts again when Mrs. Kilmartin said:
“This is all very uninteresting for Miss Monteith, you know.”
“Oh, don’t bother about me,” I said hastily, but Lawrence glanced at his wrist-watch and exclaimed, “Is it as late as that? I must be off or I’ll get into trouble. Joan’s at home and she likes punctuality at meals.”
He turned to me. “I brought you a message from Joan. She wants to know if you will dine with us next Thursday. Not a party, just ourselves and the Drysdales.”
When I had accepted this unexpected invitation and sent suitable messages to his sister, Lawrence left, and as Elise Kilmartin showed no wish to linger, I was able at last to go indoors and feed my hungry dog.
I wonder what dinner at Chapelwood will be like; and I hope my one and only long frock will be equal to the occasion!
*
It is useless to pretend that I really
like Major Whitburn’s sister Joan very much, but there is no denying her gifts as housekeeper and hostess. Though I had been told it was “not a party”, I felt that dinner for eight people all properly dressed for the occasion was more like a party than any evening function I had attended for a very long time. Everything was perfect: the round table reflecting the roses that drooped above it from a wide low crystal bowl, the candles in crystal candlesticks, their flames motionless in the sultry air which flowed in at widely-opened windows, the beautifully cooked and served food, the chilled white wine accompanying it, the piping hot clear strong coffee that followed the meal.
The cooking had all been done by Miss Whitburn herself, a feat which would have reduced me to a quivering crimson ruin like a half-set raspberry jelly; but she sat at table alert, calm and palely cool in spite of the heat. I would have gathered that evening, if I had not already been told before, that she affected to do absolutely nothing. “It’s all Mrs. Mertoun,” she drawled. “She is marvellous, simply marvellous.”
Mrs. Mertoun, who came for two hours daily to do house-work, and was at that moment handing dishes with silent efficiency, was the Chapelwood ploughman’s wife; but she still waited like the admirably trained table-maid she had been before her marriage.
I could understand quite well what Elizabeth Drysdale meant when she said, “Joan is one of those lucky people. Things always turn out well for her, and she has a very gay, amusing life, even at Chapelwood.”
Hunting, I thought vaguely, and bridge, and having people to stay; yes, I imagined that life could be lively and great fun, if one had the means and happened to like that kind of thing. And of course to be good-looking in a neat, unobtrusive small-featured way, and always exquisitely turned-out, with smooth hands and softly-rose-tinted nails even after cooking a whole dinner, was a great asset. No wonder the man seated on her left, who had been introduced to me as Colonel Greenhill, and whom the Whitburns called Toby, devoted more attention to her than he should, and thus neglected Catherine Drysdale on his other side.
Eight is a difficult number to seat at an oblong table, but when the table is round and the hostess does not insist on the host being directly opposite her, they can all be arranged very agreeably. Miss Whitburn, of course, had not failed, and each of the four women was between two men—or each of the four men between two women; and if this sounds like more than eight people, Hugo, you can take a pencil and paper and see for yourself that I am writing sense!
I found myself between Lewis Drysdale and Lawrence Whitburn, which suited me very well; Catherine had young Alan to talk to if Colonel Greenhill kept his shoulder turned to her; and in any case the conversation, though a little languid because of the heat of the evening, was more or less general all round the table.
“There is going to be thunder,” said Elizabeth, glancing out of the window at the hard-edged solid clouds massing on the horizon.
As she spoke there was a flicker of lightning far away, followed by a distant grumble.
“How exciting. I love a thunder-storm,” said Joan Whitburn.
Everyone at the table then chimed in, all professing to find thunder “exciting”, and giving competitive details of Thunder-Storms I Have Known, with narrow escapes from being struck by lightning experienced by friends of friends of theirs.
I, hating thunder, sat listening, already feeling like an elastic band stretched to almost unendurable tightness, which is the nervous effect produced on me by electric storms hours before they break.
“You’re very quiet,” said Major Whitburn suddenly, breaking off his account of having seen four sheep killed by lightning where they were sheltering under an elm in the middle of a field. “What’s the matter?”
“I wish the storm would break and be done with it. I hate this suspense,” I said. “And all of you talking about thunder—horrible noisy stuff!”
He laughed, but he said to the table at large, “Surely we must have exhausted the subject of storms by now? Let’s talk about something else.”
This was kind of him, but had the inevitable result of reducing everyone to silence. Or almost everyone, for on the sudden hush broke the voice of Alan Whitburn saying in tones of angry hurt:
“That’s a rotten way to treat anyone!”
A roll of far-off thunder supplied a theatrical period to his remark.
“Dear me, Alan,” said Joan Whitburn, her eyes bright with rather malicious curiosity, “You sound very heated. Surely no thunder-storm could rouse you to such a pitch? What has Catherine been saying or doing to provoke you?”
“It was only a discussion on a subject about which we both have rather strong views,” Catherine said coolly. “Not interesting enough to repeat.”
“Oh—” Joan’s curiosity was not satisfied, and I hoped for some reason that she was not going to pursue her questioning, for if Catherine was cool, Alan looked heated and rather unhappy.
At this opportune moment, however, Mrs. Mertoun, who had set fruit on the table and noiselessly withdrawn, reappeared and murmured to Joan Whitburn, “Miss Bonaly is in the hall, madam, and would like to speak to you.”
“Miss Bonaly! How in the world has she got here at this hour?” exclaimed Joan Whitburn, for once startled out of her usual composure.
“On a broomstick, I should imagine,” her brother muttered.
“Miss Bonaly came on her bike, sir,” put in Mrs. Mertoun without a flicker on her expressionless countenance, the perfect parlour-maid to the life, even if she had no cap over her grizzled locks.
“Ask her if she will come in here and have some dessert, Mrs. Mertoun,” said the hostess. “And just bring the coffee, please. I don’t see why we should rush away from the table just because Miss Bonaly has chosen to bicycle all the way out here at this ridiculous hour,” she added as Mrs. Mertoun went away on her errand.
I caught Elizabeth’s eye as she leant forward beyond Lawrence Whitburn, and knew that she was sharing my speculative wonder as to what sort of an addition Miss Bonaly would make to the party.
Miss Bonaly was in a gracious, even a playful mood. “Dear me, a dinner-party!” she said, as Joan Whitburn gave her a languid hand and offered her a chair. “What an intrusion, I should never have dreamt, my dear Miss Whitburn, of—er—butting in on you like this had I known! But in such a good cause—Foreign Missions, you know—and I did want to have my collecting completed before the end of the week—So I mounted my trusty steed, and here I am—”
“Do you ride, Miss Bonaly?” asked Lawrence with an air of innocent surprise.
“Ah, Major Whitburn! Just my little joke. I am alluding to my faithful bicycle—”
“Do have a peach, Miss Bonaly,” said her hostess with a slight quiver in her voice. “Or would you rather wait for coffee?”
Miss Bonaly graciously accepted a peach, and as she pared it, not very skilfully, told us all what wonderful grapes and nectarines had been grown in the hothouse in her dear father’s time.
“‘Pines as common as pays in the sayson’,” I could not help murmuring. Lawrence Whitburn heard and turned an enquiring look on me.
“That has a familiar ring, but I can’t quite place it,” he said, in a discreetly low tone.
“Don’t you remember the ‘Repayther’ that had a ‘tone equal to a cathaydral’ and was given to her by her father as she ‘stipt into the car’ge after her mar’ge’?” I asked.
“Of course! Mrs. Major O’Dowd!” he exclaimed much too loudly, and drawing everyone’s attention to us.
“What on earth are you making so much noise about, Lawrence?” drawled his sister. “If it is amusing, I think you and Miss Monteith might share it with us.”
“Only a quotation from the classics,” said Major Whitburn demurely.
“Dear me! I did not know that Miss Monteith was a classical scholar!” This was Miss Bonaly with a somewhat acid titter. Perhaps the peach had not agreed with her? She went on: “I hear you were at Madge Marchbanks’s wedding last week?”
“
Yes. I was,” I answered briefly, not wishing to be drawn into a discussion.
“That young woman may consider herself extremely fortunate. Ex-tremely,” was Miss Bonaly’s next remark. “I only hope that her husband will not live to regret the marriage.”
One of those hot retorts which I make in haste and repent almost immediately was on the tip of my tongue, when Elizabeth came to my rescue.
“Are you talking about Madge?” Her clear gay voice was friendly but fearless. “Because I think that her husband is the lucky one. Madge is a perfect dear!”
Silenced, but obviously not convinced, Miss Bonaly gave one of her sniffs, and took a sip of coffee. She is a little in awe of Elizabeth, and to my relief, said no more.
But Joan Whitburn, who is in awe of nobody, said: “Who is this Madge, Elizabeth? She sounds interesting—Miss Bonaly doesn’t approve of her, and you do, apparently.”
“A most undeserving person,” said Miss Bonaly with another sniff, while in the same breath Elizabeth spoke.
“It’s an old story, Joan, really not worth raking up again—and look at the men’s faces, stiff with boredom, poor dears, and no wonder!”
“I rather agree that delving into people’s pasts is perhaps a mistake, but I can see that Miss Bonaly doesn’t,” said Miss Whitburn, whose imp of malicious amusement had got out of control, I thought.
“I disapprove of condoning wrongdoing,” Miss Bonaly said grandly, and was echoed by a roll of thunder from slightly nearer at hand.
“What a wonderful time you must have finding out if people you know are hiding guilty secrets,” said Miss Whitburn, deliberately ignoring her brother’s frown and Elizabeth’s tiny gesture of entreaty. “But I should be afraid of making myself highly unpopular! Besides, it is a dangerous game, and you might find the tables turned on you—”
“I have nothing in my past that will not bear inspection,” replied Miss Bonaly.
Dear Hugo Page 14
