“But why should I marry any of them unless I want to?” she had asked.
That gave Mary her chance and she sailed in like a frigate in a fair wind.
“Because you’re at your very best now. A woman is, at your age. It’s the age to marry and have children. It’s the age to settle down. You think that because you get admiration from everyone now it will always be like that. But it won’t. One day you’ll find you’re alone. It’ll be too late then. I’ve known a lot of girls like you in my life and I’ve had a lot of letters from the sort of women they grow into. So much—and then nothing. You’re a silly girl, Angela, and I’m beginning to think you’re an unintelligent one, too.”
Of course it had had no effect on Angela. Mary remembered the swift look she had given Michael at the time, a look which said, ‘Isn’t she a darling,’ and meant ‘silly old woman.’
Looking back, Mary realized that she had admired Angela Worthing. Anyone who could live quite so intensely in the present, glancing neither behind nor before, was admirable. Or perhaps she meant enviable. Mary had, for too many years, been forced to live in the future because of her responsibilities towards Michael. Had she been able to have her life over again, she would have liked to have been an Angela Worthing. What she didn’t like was Michael’s infatuation for the girl. And then, in more objective moments, she would decide that perhaps it was not bad for Michael after all. It was bound to have happened sooner or later and as Angela obviously had no intentions of settling down with anyone, she would give more than she took. Michael was a man, however much Mary still thought of him as a boy.
Once, Mary had said to her:
“Let him down lightly, Angela,” and Angela had replied.
“Michael’s all right, don’t fuss about him.”
It had been a curious time with too many conflicting emotions, too much that was known to the three of them, but spoken of by none. It was like being deaf and dumb, but at the same time gifted with mental telepathy. And then quite suddenly Angela Worthing had disappeared from their lives. Mary could not now remember how or when Angela went. She did not know whether Michael had continued to write to her, but for years they had never mentioned her name nor heard news of her. How strange that she should now be working in the next village.
Mary only had time to set an extra place for supper and tidy herself up when old Jake’s taxi drove up from the station.
Michael said:
“Mother, you remember Angela?”
“Of course, I do. How nice to see you after all this time, my dear.” As Mary moved forward to shake hands she was conscious of two definite impressions. One, that whatever had existed between Michael and Angela would never be revived—for which she offered up a speedy thanks—and, two, that Angela had not grown into the woman Mary had predicted some ten years ago.
She looks, Mary thought, what she must be, a woman who has experienced too many opportunities.
She was lovely still, but in a different way. She no longer ran her hands through negligently dressed hair. Instead, she was soignée, shining hair shaped carefully above her forehead and in the nape of her neck. Luminous eyes, and the bone of her face more obvious beneath the taut pale skin. One thing was quite unchanged and that was the vitality of her personality, the impression of intense absorption and pleasure in everything that was happening at the moment.
Michael said:
“Don’t stare at each other. It’s rude.”
“I met Michael in the Strand, before lunch, and we even remembered each other’s names! Wasn’t it clever?” Angela said.
“So we lunched and gossiped as only you know how to, Mother.”
“And discovered that for the last six months, Mrs. Cross, I’ve been working almost on your doorstep.”
“Don’t say you didn’t remember we owned a mansion in Kirton, or Mother will never forgive you!” Michael grinned.
“I suppose I should have remembered sooner or later, but you know how one’s associations slow down after a long time. Besides, Little Copse isn’t Kirton, as the Little Copsians, or whatever they call themselves, are so fond of pointing out!” she laughed.
Mary said:
“And I remember you never would be persuaded to come and be quiet in the country for a week-end, Angela.”
“Wouldn’t I? How stupid of me. It’s lovely here. . . .”
Mary knew again then that Angela had no sentimental memories. She felt a little indignant at the complete dismissal of the past so evident in Angela’s voice and manner, and thought, curiously, ‘here’s the woman who seduced my son—because I’m quite sure she did—and I don’t believe she even remembers it now.’
Michael said:
“What about going down to the local for a drink, Mother? There’s plenty of time and I know you and Angela are dying for a quick one.”
Mary had been looking forward to going to the Cock and Pheasant with Michael, but Angela’s presence would minimize the pleasure of a drink with him.
The whole idea now became rather boring. She said:
“I don’t think I will, thanks. Mrs. Baker’s gone off to see her sister in hospital so I’ll be getting supper while you two are out. Or you could have drinks here if you prefer,” she added, “I managed to get some whisky from Jackson’s today.”
“Oh, I think we’ll go along to the Cock and Pheasant. You don’t mind, do you, Mother?”
“Good gracious, no. Supper’ll be ready by eight, so don’t stay too late.” She still wished Michael and she were going to the pub together, but it didn’t matter really. Suddenly, she wanted them to be gone, so that she might get on with the supper. There was a restless indecision about Michael since he’d been out of the R.A.F.—an urge to be on the move and a lethargy which rooted him, physically, to where he stood. She could see the conflict in him at this moment. If only he would learn to relax.
Angela said:
“Won’t it be a bother if I stay to supper, Mrs. Cross, as you’re on your own?”
“My dear girl, of course you must stay. It makes no difference being three. Michael’s always bringing unexpected friends home at all hours of the day and night. I’d hate it if he didn’t.”
“I’m sure you would—you haven’t changed a bit, Mrs. Cross, and it’s simply lovely to see you again.” Angela linked her arm affectionately through Mary’s, but Michael caught hold of her on the other side.
“Come on, Angela. You and Mother can chitter-chatter all you want at supper, but Mr. Cobb’s spirit quota will have run out if we delay much longer.”
When they had gone, Mary thought, ‘I don’t dislike her a bit now,’ and then, as she began to lay the dining-room table, ‘I wonder what they’ll talk about at the Cock and Pheasant.’
She poured herself out a sensible drink of whisky and carried it into the kitchen.
* * * *
The Cock and Pheasant was more than just a public house. Built over a hundred and fifty years ago, no one had made the mistake of trying to modernize it. It was gracious and well proportioned, with open log fires in winter and cool recesses to sit back in when the road outside lay deep in dust and the sun parched the cobblestones in the yard at the side.
Kirton had other public houses; even, at the outskirts on the London Road, a modern road-house with petrol pumps, an American bar and a dance floor. But these establishments were constantly changing hands and war had seen the disintegration of the road-house which remained bereft of paint, petrol and an owner.
The Cock and Pheasant had an atmosphere of continuity. Wars might be fought and won and the world go mad, but the Cock and Pheasant still served cool beer and good sherry, and opened and closed its doors with hospitable rhythm and an eye to the law. Darts were played in both bars, a snooker table stood in the back parlour and there was a piano for special occasions. Pin tables were barred, beer was always served in tankards, and although Mr. Cobb could mix a perfectly good cocktail, his wife feigned ignorance of such matters and would pass on the order with
a slightly reproving look in her bright blue eyes.
Maggie Cobb had been in the trade all her life. Her grandfather and father had ruled over the Cock and Pheasant and it had been a deep disappointment to the latter when he was left a widower with no son to carry on after him. Maggie was a sensible enough girl and she knew the business, but it wasn’t the same as a boy. Besides she might marry a farmer and then what would happen to the house?
Maggie didn’t marry a farmer. Instead, she married a Londoner. John Cobb was a Cockney from Islington who had never lived in the country before his marriage to Maggie. The villagers said no good could come of the marriage. The governor at the Cock and Pheasant had always been a Kirton man for as long as they remembered. Even Maggie’s father was not optimistic. But John Cobb’s people were in the trade, so the lad had good background. Not that a house in Islington could compare with the Cock and Pheasant at Kirton.
The marriage was a success. John Cobb settled in Kirton as though he’d been born in Little Copse and Maggie’s father was able to die content in the knowledge that Maggie’s two sons and a daughter were there to carry on the next generation.
The Cock and Pheasant was the centre of Kirton life. The vicar played snooker in the parlour every Wednesday night. Sir James and Lady Gurney would accompany their young people down for a sherry before lunch on Sundays. The village darts club originated in the public bar and had a keen opposing team amongst the saloon bar customers. Nobody ever stayed in Kirton without being brought to the Cock and Pheasant at least once during their visit.
Maggie Cobb surveyed the bars with a thoughtful glance. Things were getting back to normal again, although stocks still remained restricted. It was strange to see the same faces again as regulars, and not in uniform. Maggie tried to remember them as they’d been in 1939, but she could only visualize those who had not come back. Then there were those who would not come back or who had perhaps come back only to go away again. Like her Arthur. She and John would take a long time to get over Arthur marrying that Canadian girl and going off like that. Not that she wasn’t a nice girl and looked lovely in her C.W.A.A.C uniform, but Maggie would never feel that Betty was a real daughter-in-law, as she’d imagined Arthur’s wife would be.
It was funny, Maggie thought, how you planned for your children and then along came a war and everything went quite differently. Not that she should complain—John’s brother and his wife had lost their only son, and John’s sister who’d married Percy from the Finsbury Brewery had been bombed out three times and Percy would never be the same again.
No, she and John had plenty to be thankful about, she supposed. It was just Arthur being the eldest, and trained up to the Cock and Pheasant, that had made his departure so difficult to understand. Arthur had always been an easy child and a good boy. The army had changed him, it was true, but he’d been happy enough to come home on leave. Until he met Betty. She fixed it so that her people arranged a job for him in Canada when he was demobbed. Maggie put it down to Betty and that Army Education plan that Arthur used to tell them about. Still, she supposed it was all right so long as Arthur was happy. Betty was a good girl. Not what she and John would have chosen for Arthur, of course. A bit too high flying, but you couldn’t always place people when they came from a foreign country, even if it was a Dominion. Maggie didn’t approve of mixing nationalities any more than she approved of associating out of your own class.
At the thought, her glance wandered from the public bar across to the saloon where it focused on her younger son, Dick. Her expression softened, but there were still furrows of worry between her eyes. It never seemed natural, somehow, that her Dick had been an officer in the army. A captain like young Brian Gurney who had come home last week.
The war had done queer things to people, Maggie decided, and drew her breath in sharply as if something were hurting her. It had done queer things to Dick, sending him to strange lands, making an officer of him and giving him a Military Cross; finally, half murdering him so that he came home with a plate in his head and a leg which would never walk properly again.
Now that the war was over Mary felt things ought to go back to being what they used to be. But they weren’t. The people who’d come back looked much the same—a bit older, of course, but the same. It wasn’t obvious things like Dick’s limp which were different, but an indefinable something she couldn’t put her mind to, like Dick talking to the Gurney boys. He wouldn’t have talked like that before the war. Perhaps being an officer had done it, or perhaps it was his head wound. The doctors said it would take a while to get over that.
Maybe she oughtn’t to worry about Dick, but it was difficult not to. She knew that Elsie worried too. Dick had been a good boy and Elsie was a good wife to him, but she didn’t like it when he started his talking any more than Maggie did. It had been awful when he first got his ticket. He’d just sit about the house, still wearing his uniform with his Sam Browne all polished up and his ribbons looking ever so bright on his chest. That was before they gave him coupons for his civvies.
Then there was the day he’d gone to London to get his pension fixed up. Someone had pulled him up in the street and asked to see his papers because they didn’t believe he was a real officer. Maggie had never known who the ‘someone’ had been because he wouldn’t talk about it afterwards, but he’d been ever so bitter, and Elsie had cried a lot.
Things were better once they had the baby. Dick had been on a training course, and, after that, he got the Government job teaching the ex-service lads carpentry at Little Copse. Maggie was pleased because he’d been a carpenter before he was called up. He was back in his own trade now, which was how things should be.
John Cobb came across from the public bar. He was a little man with grey hair and a trim moustache. Neither the years nor life in the country had erased the brightness of the Cockney from his personality. His clothes still had the nattiness of a Londoner’s.
“Lil says your tea’s ready, Mum, and she’ll be down in a moment to take over.”
“I wonder, John . . .” Maggie began and then broke off.
He smiled at her, used to her deliberate thought and speech.
“Well, don’t let it put you off your feed, whatever it is, Maggie.”
She looked back at him with affection.
“I’m always wondering, aren’t I?” she asked.
“Better wondering than worrying, I should say.”
“You always were right, John. Who’s the lady who’s come in with Mr. Cross tonight? We haven’t seen her before, have we?”
“A Miss Angela Worthing. According to Dick, she works over at Little Copse with him. Trust Dick to know all the nobs.” He spoke with pride, but Maggie noticed the quick darkening of his eyes which meant that he, too, was not yet happy about Dick. She didn’t want him to think about it so she said:
“Mrs. Townsend doesn’t look well. It’s time the doctor were home to look after her. They say he’ll be back very soon now.”
John Cobb looked over at the party in the corner. It seemed strange to him, too, that his son could sit talking there with the doctor’s wife, the two young Gurneys and their sister from the Manor, Miss Watson, of Vine Cottage, and Mr. Cross with that Miss Worthing. There were others too, villagers, all of them ex-service. A queer mix up for the saloon bar at the Cock and Pheasant. Maybe if he were young again he’d like it too. As it was, from what he’d heard them chatter about, it didn’t make sense. If he were Dick, he’d rather have a game of darts with the regulars in the public bar.
Lily Cobb came into the bar.
“It’s dished up for you, Mum,” she said.
“Is Tommy asleep?” Maggie asked.
“Yes. He went off a treat tonight, thank goodness.” The girl looked listless, drained of vitality. Maggie gave her a quick glance as she went out.
The bars were comparatively quiet. John and his daughter leaned against the counter without speaking. These two seldom needed words—they understood one another too well. Lily be
gan to wash and polish empty tankards by the sink beneath the smooth, thick counter. Presently there was a call for fresh orders and she slipped across to attend to them.
John watched his daughter’s neat movements, the trim set of her figure and the youthfulness of her neck and arms. A sudden feeling of love and impotence surged through him, stinging his eyes, bitter in his throat, so that he went across and drew himself a pint of mild.
Because he had always wanted a daughter—someone like Maggie only smaller and more dependent—Lil was his favourite child. He remembered her as she used to be; the quick smile and softness of her mouth, her delight in the things he enjoyed, like crowds on the green when Giles’ Fair came to Kirton and the glow of a log fire lighting up the brasses on the mantel. She loved movement and light and laughter, and for him, she had personified these things. That was before the war. Now, he could only see her that way when she was playing with little Tommy. In company, in the bars, she was quiet and dim, all shut up in her small, taut body.
Lil was a corporal in the W.A.A.F., on a bomber station in Norfolk, and had been engaged to Charlie for six months by the time he was due to come off Ops. He got killed on his last mission. Lil wrote and told them and then she wrote again and said she was getting her ticket because she was going to have a child. She said she could manage all right, her officer would put her in touch with an institution if she wanted.
Maggie took on ever so when they got Lil’s second letter—John didn’t ever remember seeing her that way before, but they wrote off next day telling Lil to come home straight away. They got a letter from Lil’s officer after that, saying she was so pleased they were taking Lil back and what a good corporal she’d always been, and how she and Charlie had planned to get married on their next leave. As if John and Maggie hadn’t known that.
Tommy looked like Dick had when he was a baby, blue eyes and a lot of yellow curls. John sometimes saw Lil looking at him as if she were searching for something, and he would stop playing and stare back at her, solemn like a little old man, and then he’d suddenly chuckle and screw his eyes up all funny in the sun.
Wine of Honour Page 3
