The Flowering Thorn

by Margery Sharp

  Lesley sat back on her heels (she had Pat’s old prayermat, reinforced with waterproof) and broke the last of the earthy clumps into two equal parts. They had been dug that morning out of Horace Walpole’s meadow, from a slope where the ground each April showed pale honey-gold; and the way to set them was to cut out a square of turf slightly smaller than the clump, then press apart the edges so that when the root had been inserted they would spring a little back and clip it in its place. Lesley had found this out for herself, and besides the delicious sensations at her finger-ends—the elasticity of the turf, the freshness of rain-wet—had thus the additional pleasure of putting into practice a theory recently acquired.

  But her mind was not wholly on her work. It strayed, in an idle and desultory manner, from the theory of cowslip-planting to the theory of freehold land; being chiefly occupied with the odd mental phenomenon contained in this fact: that though cottage, land and apple-trees all remained exactly what they were a week ago—though the fact of her ownership obviously made no objective difference to any one of them—the idea of returning permanently to Baker Street was now no longer either desirable or not desirable, possible or not possible: it was simply out of the question.

  ‘I’ll have to write to Elissa,’ Lesley thought. Those daydreams at the Yellow Swan—how airy, how unreal! She fitted in the last root, felt the turf grip, and pressed down on either side till her palms were marked with a twig and a pebble. For the moment at any rate the problem was too much for her. And after all, why bother? The answer was there, however arrived at; and indeed from the moment brain and heart had recovered from their shock her first and still dominant emotion—stronger even than gratitude—was a feeling of immense simplification. Something had been settled for her; as though Sir Philip had reached out, with a last authoritative gesture, and put the young woman in her place.

  2

  That afternoon, under a lowering March sky, Lesley went up to the Hall for the first time since its master’s death. Pat and Pincher accompanied her, but she left them on the terrace and went alone into the quiet house.

  It was already dead. The clocks ticked, a fire burned on the library hearth: but in room after speckless room she instinctively hushed her step. The breath had left them: the light was out: and what a slender and flickering candle it had been that lit those lofty and succeeding rooms! Behind the green baize door of the butler’s pantry a fat tallow dip was doubtless still burning; but where Lesley walked not a foot might have fallen for fifty years. In Sir Philip’s big chair—how long since she had last seen him? Only a month?—the cushions lay freshly plumped; one looked for the red official cords, and a notice ‘Not to be sat in.’ Lesley put out her hand as she had done only a month ago to smooth the immaculate pillows, and was suddenly aware that she could not see. Tears blurred her eyes and ran easily down her cheeks: a wholesome and simple grief that relieved and washed the heart. She thought,

  ‘I wish I had been here. Whatever he said, he may have wanted me really. Because we did love each other.’ And with her hand on his chair Lesley tried to think that last thought again, very clearly and strongly, so that if Sir Philip were still within reach, he might hear and perhaps take pleasure. But though she stood receptive, no answering thought came back: the dead were gone, and left no echo.

  On the lawn outside she found Pat and Pincher chasing birds in the dusk. They stopped when they saw her, and came back to the terrace; and from Pat’s suddenly concentrated face she knew that he was going to ask questions.

  “What did Sir Philip die of, Frewen?”

  “He caught a chill, Pat, and he was very old.”

  “How old?”

  “Seventy-five.”

  “That’s very old, isn’t it?” asked Pat anxiously.

  Lesley nodded. A sudden memory made her voice uncertain. For that girl, Pat’s mother, had been no more than twenty-four, both her own youth and her child’s still almost untouched. And forgetful for a moment even of Sir Philip, Lesley turned away her head and wept again.

  3

  On their way back by road (for the field-paths were like glue after a two-days’ rain) Patrick, who had been walking for some time in thoughtful silence, suddenly observed that the Pomfrets were having a potato roast.

  “I should have thought it was too wet for bonfires,” said Lesley. “Won’t they put it off?”

  Pat shook his head.

  “Alec’s having it,” he explained, “to celebrate the battle of Hyderabad, and he’s been keeping the wood and things dry under his bed. Can I take some potatoes?”

  “How many?” asked Lesley automatically; for she had never forgotten the time when they took some burnt almonds till there were none left.

  “Five. Or if you come too, six. Why don’t you, Frewen? It’s going to be lovely, and we’re just there.”

  “I thought you wanted to go home for the potatoes?”

  In Pat’s face candour struggled with diplomacy; and as usual, candour won.

  “As a matter of fact, Frewen, they’re there already. We took them up yesterday, when we went back to tea and you’d gone to the Post Office. But they weren’t going to be roasted without asking, and if you’d said no I was going to bring them all back.” He looked at her anxiously, well aware that his case, though sound, was a trifle subtle; and Pincher looked at her too. They both looked at her, and with such an odd similarity of regard that in spite of her melancholy Lesley laughed aloud. Immediately Pincher leapt up, Pat relaxed into a smile, and they turned up the lane to the Vicarage gate.

  Only a few yards’ progress sufficed to inform them that the genius of General Napier was already being celebrated. A great billow of smoke came drifting over the hedge, making Pat break into a run and Pincher leap more than ever. Their haste was infectious; and with no great eagerness for either burnt potatoes or burnt fingers, Lesley was hurried along into such an impetus that when they finally burst on the group round the bonfire, it was with every appearance of equal enthusiasm.

  “It’s all right!” shouted Pat at once. “We can have them!” He made a bee-line for a small paper-basket, in which was evidently cached his personal hoard, while the four young Pomfrets, making bee-lines in the opposite direction, swarmed about Lesley with a potato apiece. They were not quite baked enough, and exceedingly hot to the touch; but in the vigorous firelit scene, at once so wild and so familiar, the eye at any rate found compensation. For the bonfire was going strong, sending up long tongues of flame that lit now an overhanging branch, now Pat’s eager face, now a whole frieze of agitated figures: it was not perhaps the best kind of bonfire for potatoes, but as Pat had promised, it was very lovely.

  “Here’s one all ready buttered,” said Alec out of the smoke. It was indeed, both inside and out: the jacket dropped fatness as it passed from hand to hand. ‘Where’s Pincher?’ thought Lesley; and moving a pace or two back from the firelight, saw the figure of Mrs. Pomfret advancing up the path. She made a solid dark figure even in the twilight, for unlike Lesley, she had gone into mourning.

  “My dear! How nice to see you!” she cried; for with something of Sir Philip’s own temper Lesley had for the week past been avoiding all company. This Mrs. Pomfret, though loyally following Henry’s advice to leave her alone, found hard to understand. Her own impulses in affliction were firstly to give, and secondly to receive, articulate sympathy, and it was therefore with very real pleasure that she now interpreted Lesley’s presence as a tacit signal for the opening of hearts.

  “I have so wanted to see you,” she began candidly, “but Henry told me not to come, and that’s why I didn’t.”

  “It was very understanding of you,” said Lesley. She gripped the potato so hard that it broke between her fingers in a buttery mess. ‘Pincher!’ she thought again, and calling him from the fire gave it him to eat.

  “Because, my dear—in spite of everything else—I can’t tell you how glad I am. I mean about the cottage. You have so deserved it,” said Mrs. Pomfret sincerely.

&nbs
p; Against Lesley’s palm came the rasp of Pincher’s tongue; she moved her hand and caught him by the collar. No one could be kinder than Mrs. Pomfret, no one more genuine in unselfish affection. Sir Philip had left the Vicarage nothing, and she wore her mourning in all sincerity; but somehow she—she had it all wrong.…

  “Why deserved?” asked Lesley, almost with coldness. “I used to go up to the Hall because I enjoyed it. If it amused him, it amused me just as much. I used to dine there about four times a week, and the sherry alone would have rewarded any amount of virtue.”

  “I suppose it would,” agreed Mrs. Pomfret, but a little uncertainly. “I know the dinners were always lovely. But I wasn’t thinking of Sir Philip, I was thinking of Pat. You do deserve something there.”

  “Rubbish!” said Lesley rudely. A phrase from the past sounded in her ear: ‘That good woman Mrs. Pomfret.…’ Well, she was good, a lot better than Sir Philip, who was practically a wicked baronet; but how much harder to make understand! And then remembering the Vicar, Lesley felt her irritation abate. Those long domestic evenings! When had Mrs. Pomfret practice in understanding? She wasn’t required to understand, only to listen. Half the time she didn’t even do that, but sat, as now, gazing at the nearest point of interest—bonfire, sock, or dinner-plate—and thinking about her children.… A good deal more moderately, Lesley went on,

  “That was rude of me, but it’s just how I feel. When I remember, for instance, how you took Pat completely off my hands all that first winter—when I never even said thank you—I feel I ought to rake out the ashes and put them on my head.”

  “No, don’t do that,” said Mrs. Pomfret absently, “there are still some potatoes in them.… What were you saying, dear?”

  Lesley laughed.

  “I’m trying to eat humble pie, and you won’t take any notice. My one consolation is that Sir Philip would agree with me. He knew there was no damned merit about it. He just gave me the cottage because he enjoyed giving it.” She broke off, aware that her voice was not to be trusted; and moving a little back from the fire, said presently,

  “About the Hall itself—does the Vicar know yet what will happen to it?”

  “My dear, I don’t know. It all goes to those people called Brooke, but whether they’ll live there is another matter. Henry says they’ll turn it into an old English road-house, but I think that’s just the weather.” She glanced anxiously at the sky, but it was too dark to forecast.

  “The servants are there still,” said Lesley. “I went up this afternoon.”

  Her companion nodded.

  “Yes, they’re to have their wages until the Brookes come and make up their minds. Henry says Sir Philip left a special message for Mr. Brooke advising him, if he did stay, to keep on the cook. There’s money, too, you know.”

  And in spite of all her goodness, she could not quite suppress a sigh. For it did seem just a little … tantalising, that after two serious alarms and one actual death, all they had come in for was a small garden-roller.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The news that the Brookes proposed to take up their residence at the Hall was heard with satisfaction as far as Aylesbury, where many a tradesman had visualised with dismay a closed house and no weekly order. The Brookes were to come—the Brookes indeed had been: for in a one-hour’s visit, witnessed only by the Vicar, they had inspected the house, reinstated the servants, and announced their intention of settling in at once.

  “And a good thing too,” said Florrie, who as Mrs. Hasty was now one of the leaders of public opinion. “My cousin George, he’s under-gardener there. I s’pose you’ll go up and call right away, Miss Frewen?”

  She spoke a trifle wistfully; she would dearly have liked to call herself; but there were still one or two limits at which even wedded aplomb stopped short. Her husband’s public position, indeed, would sooner or later almost certainly effect an introduction, but Florrie’s impetuous and social nature chafed at the delay. So she added simply,

  “And if they should be wanting a kitten, Miss Frewen, would you say we’ve got five?”

  She drew back a pace (they had been standing in converse at the police-station door), and let Lesley see past to where, in a patch of sunlight on the red bricks, lay an empty saucer and the five kittens, all fast asleep and plumped out with milk like five little leather bottles.

  “We shan’t drown ’em for a week or two,” said Florrie cheerfully.

  2

  Though feeling very little gratitude for her privilege, Lesley went up to the Hill on the actual morning of the day the Brookes moved in. Her own inclinations would have kept her away, for having known the place alive she had no wish to revisit its empty and fossilised shell; but she had also the curiously definite feeling that the Brookes were Sir Philip’s guests, who arriving in the absence of their host ought at least to find someone to welcome them. They would have with them, moreover, their two boys, who might very well be carried off to the cottage out of the way of moving in; so impelled by both these reasons, together with the faintest, the not-altogether-to-be-denied touch of curiosity, Lesley took formal hat and gloves and walked up to the Hall.

  A certain delicacy, a wish not to appear too much at home, sent her past the lower gate and up to the front-door. It stood wide open, as though the small pile of trunks within had only just arrived, but there was no sign of either butler or maid-servants. Not having rung the bell for three years, the idea of now doing so never entered her head; and delicacy notwithstanding Lesley walked straight into the house and through to the library.

  The Brookes were there. Through the open door, in the moment before they heard her, she saw them both. They were standing perfectly still in the centre of the floor, looking not at the room nor the garden, but at each other. The man was about forty-five, tall, fair, very thin, and with a face just saved from haggardness by a one-day tan: his wife, probably a year or two younger, carried a head of short black curls very erect on square thin shoulders: and in spite of every difference in height and colouring, they somehow managed to present an odd resemblance.

  At the sound of Lesley’s step on the parquet, they both turned, the man to show, in full-face, a high narrow forehead. Lesley said,

  “I’m Miss Frewen, from the White Cottage. Is there anything I can do?”

  The woman took a quick step forward.

  “Miss Frewen? We know your name, of course, from Mr. Pomfret. How nice of you to come!”

  They all shook hands, Charles Brooke with a short quick grip, very soon over, that gave Lesley the queer impression that he disliked doing it. But there was no lack of cordiality in his greeting; they were both obviously glad to see her, in spite of the fact that she could do them no service. For the Hall was in apple-pie order, and the trunks in the entrance held their only effects.

  “Then I won’t stay and keep you,” said Lesley, “but if your children would like to be shown the village, I’ve a small boy of my own who would make an admirable guide.”

  Mrs. Brooke looked puzzled.

  “Children?” she repeated. “You don’t mean Jack and David? They’re outside, on the lawn.” She motioned towards the window, and following her glance Lesley saw a couple of tall youths, aged about sixteen and seventeen, examining the astrolabe. Like their father, they both wore grey flannels and tweed coats, but without his knack of making them seem merely threadbare instead of cheap; they looked somehow used to cheap clothes, at home in them; just as they did not look at home on that shaven lawn. Charles Brooke in the library was already the master of the house: his sons might have been the first arrivals for a hospital féte;

  ‘At that age, their father was still at school,’ Lesley thought. ‘They have been junior clerks somewhere.…’ Aloud, she said,

  “How absurd of me! Do you know, I really expected to see two small boys? It’s Sir Philip’s fault really: he never could remember that children grew up.”

  Mrs. Brooke turned eagerly.

  “Mr. Pomfret said you knew Sir Philip bett
er than anybody. I wish, some day, you’d talk to us about him. You see—it seems so strange—we know nothing at all.”

  Lesley nodded. She would talk to them of course, but not just yet; and not in that room, where to speak of Sir Philip was like discussing him before his face. For the first time during the visit, her distress was as great as she had anticipated; and as soon as politeness allowed she spoke of Pat’s dinner-time and got up to go.

  Her hosts seemed to part from her with genuine reluctance; they all went out together, pausing on the lawn for Mrs. Brooke to introduce her sons, who in voice and manner, as well as in dress, followed at some little distance behind their father. Then Charles Brooke excused himself to speak to a gardener, while the two women went on alone in the direction of the lower gate. For perhaps twenty yards they walked in silence, all superficial conversation having been exhausted in the house; then without any warning, Mrs. Brooke stood still.

  “Miss Frewen,” she said, “I’ve got to tell someone. You don’t know what it means. For the last four years my husband’s been trying to sell cars.” She laughed uncertainly, fluttering out a pair of small hard hands that were somehow much older than the rest of her. “In the Marylebone Road, you know, where they have to stand in the doorway, and be friendly with people.…

  (‘That handshake!’ thought Lesley.)

  “… And ask them to have drinks. And once a month we used to put on evening clothes and go and have dinner at that half-crown place opposite the Palladium. We didn’t dare miss, you know, though sometimes I’ve grudged the money. And once we met a man who’d been in his ship, and Charles gave him ten shillings.…” Mrs. Brooke broke off abruptly and turned away her head. Far down by the lake Lesley could see a long thin figure standing motionless between the trees. She said,

  “I wish—I do wish Sir Philip had known you.”

  Mrs. Brooke nodded.

  “You were very great friends, weren’t you?”