by Susan Barrie
“We used to call it Queen’ s weather when I was a young girl,” Agatha added conversationally. “Now that the master has brought home a bride I think we ought to call it bride’s weather! ”
She smiled across at Carol, who sat up abruptly in the huge bed. So that was it! She was a married woman! She was no longer Carol Inglis! She was Carol Carrington!
Agatha started to pour out her tea from the squat little silver tea-pot which looked so attractive sitting amongst the flowery-patterned china on the pastel colored tray. If the old servant was aware that only one side of the bed had been slept in, and that her ‘Master Timothy’ had occupied his bed in the adjoining room—separated by a bathroom—she was the last person in the world to disclose such a secret, or even to marvel at it very greatly in her own heart. People’s affairs were their own, or so she always said, and she behaved in accordance with these chosen principles of her own.
Carol caught sight of the little clock on the mantelpiece, and she saw that it was close upon half-past eight. She felt slightly shocked, for breakfast in this well-run household was almost bound to be early, and it would look very bad if she was late for it on her very first day. Or so she thought naively, entirely overlooking the fact that as mistress of the place she now had the power to change even the hours of meals if she so desired.
She sprang hastily out of bed, and Agatha handed her her dressing-gown. She explained that she didn’t want to be late for breakfast, but Agatha merely smiled.
“Don’ t tell me I’ m late for it already! ” the girl exclaimed, in such horrified accents that Agatha shook her head soothingly.
“No, no! Nobody expected you to be down so early,” she said. “The master and Meg went for a ride almost as soon as it was light, and afterwards they had their breakfast together in the small parlor. Miss Meg has gone off now on some errand of her own, and Master Timothy’ s out inspecting the farm. They left word that you were not to be hurried, and your breakfast’ s all laid ready for you as soon as you’ re ready for it—or you can have it up here if you like?” Agatha suggested. “It’s no trouble.”
But Carol negatived the suggestion at once. She was a trifle vexed by the thought that already they were treating her as if she had not hitherto been a member of the family—which, of course, she had not! —but on this, her first morning in her new home, it would have been nicer perhaps (or, at any rate, she would have felt less of an outsider!) if either her sister-in-law or her husband (she wondered whether she would ever get used to thinking of Timothy as a husband!) or both had decided to include her in a family breakfast-party, and introduced her to the house and make her familiar with it and its surroundings.
On the other hand, there was a certain amount of relief in the thought that she could breakfast alone, without Meg’s curious, watchful, slightly cold blue eyes drifting occasionally in her direction, and studying her, as they had done on the previous evening. And she hurried through her dressing and went downstairs to the small parlor, which was a comfortable little oak-panelled room not far from the green baize door which gave access to the kitchen quarters, and therefore much handier for the staff than the main dining-room. It had at one time no doubt been the housekeeper’ s room, but was much used these days by Meg—and her brother, when at home—and there Carol found her breakfast set forth on a bright yellow and white checked table-cloth, while the sun poured through the window and made a blaze of the silver.
Ellen James waited upon her, and her handsome dark eyes beamed approvingly at Carol. She was a buxom, obviously robust country girl, and she thought that Carol’ s beautifully tailored slacks and her primrose yellow sweater with the high polo collar looked enchanting on their wearer. Carol herself was not at all certain whether she wouldn’ t have done better to have donned a neat tweed skirt instead of the slacks, in view of the fact that she had no notion at all whether her sister-in-law approved of women in trousers—especially a brother’s wife— and she had a genuine desire to arouse only friendly and certainly no antagonistic feelings in Meg.
If the antagonistic feelings were there, she hoped they might in time be overcome.
But for the moment she was interested only in her breakfast, and it was such an excellent breakfast that she devoured it with relish. The honey seemed sweeter and more delicious than any honey she had ever tasted before, and the butter was served in golden curls kept crisp by being interspersed with little blocks of ice. The bacon she guessed was home-cured, and there was a little brown earthenware jug of cream for her coffee.
She decided that at this rate it was a good thing she had a natural tendency to slimness—in fact, she was a little over-thin—for it would not be long otherwise before she was putting on weight.
Ellen James said that Agatha thought she might like to see the kitchen and the dairy when she had finished breakfast, and she accepted the invitation with the greatest willingness, being very pleased for one thing that it had been issued. And when she saw Agatha, in her big white kitchen, making pastry on a snowy scrubbed table, while Judson sat shelling peas in the open, sunlit doorway, she thought it was the most attractive picture she had seen for years.
Judson stood up and saluted her rather awkwardly, spilling peas all over the red-tiled floor, and Carol hastened at once to help him pick them up. They both laughed as they gathered up the shucks and returned them to his bowl, and Agatha watched them with a smile on her own face.
Miss Meg would never have done that, she thought—she would have rebuked Judson for being clumsy, and perhaps for wasting some of the peas.
Ellen James—who seemed unable to remove her eyes from her new mistress’ s face, with its delicately lovely coloring— showed her round the dairy, with its rows of shining pans, and its atmosphere of intense cleanliness. Carol lifted the lids and peered into the various receptacles with a great deal of interest, exclaiming at a vast pan of cream for butter making, and another of butter-milk, which she was informed was included in the diet for the pigs. And there was electrical equipment for churning and an enormous refrigerator which intrigued her immensely, and the spick and span condition of everything surprised her more than she could say—although she was not slow to praise.
“How do you do it?” she said to Ellen James. “You must work more than a forty-eight hour week! ”
Ellen James revealed her beautiful strong white teeth in a pleased smile.
“Oh, we manage,” she said. “We manage.”
“You certainly do,” Carol agreed.
Although it was not long since she had finished her breakfast she accepted a tumbler of rich, new milk, which tasted like nuts, before she left the dairy, and drained it almost at a single draught. And when she returned to the kitchen, where the smell of baking was creating a most pleasing aroma, she inquired of Agatha whether she knew when her master or Miss Meg might be likely to return.
“Any time now, I should think,” Agatha said. “But why don’t you have a look over the house and explore the place, if you want to? You’ll naturally be wanting to get acquainted with it,” she added, remembering that this slender young woman in the slacks—which wouldn’ t please Miss Meg! —with the naive expression in her grey eyes, was, after all, the new mistress, and had a right to see everything there was to be seen. “And the garden’ s lovely just now, isn’ t it, Judson? Just you go and have a look at the garden, and all those lovely roses Miss Meg’s so crazy about, miss—er, I beg pardon, madam! ” she corrected herself, with a sudden little flush.
Carol smiled at them all and disappeared.
“All right, I will! ” she said.
She peeped into a little room on the right of the hall, the door of which was standing open, and which seemed to be used as a sort of study, for there were a great many books and a writing-desk, and—
“Come in, inquisitive! ” said a hoarse, utterly unexpected voice from a corner of the room, startling her terrifically. “Come in and look about you! It’s a free country!”
Carol was at first quit
e horrified, and then when she caught sight of the parrot she couldn’ t help laughing aloud. Why, of course, Captain! She recognized the bird from Timothy’s description, and she went up to the cage and met its wicked bright eyes through the green-painted bars. It was swinging on its perch and it ruffled up all its handsome, gaudy feathers. “Hello, there! ” said Captain, “hello, there! ”
“You gave me quite a fright,” Carol told him truthfully, “and you’ re not what I would describe as a very polite bird! ”
“Polite bird,” he echoed, following a loud screech. “Polite bird, bad bird, wicked bird, devilish bird!... ”
“If you say so,” Carol agreed smilingly, and left him and wandered away round the room, inspecting the bookcases and the little low writing-table which looked very feminine to her eyes, while the books were obviously of feminine interest. She looked out of the window at the smooth lawn which crept right up to the window itself, and in the distance, through a gap in the trees, she glimpsed the misty blue hills, far-away looking this morning, because of the heat haze which was quivering in the atmosphere.
On the window seat, which was wide and cream-painted, were set out a number of silver-framed photographs, mostly of children in old-fashioned clothing. Carol instantly recognized a portrait of Timothy, wearing a school cap and brandishing a cricket-bat, and there was another that was obviously Meg in an ugly, frilly frock and a wide hat with streamers. One very early photograph might have been Timothy as a baby, and Carol was picking it up to examine it with interest when a sudden, loud bark sounded behind her. She turned quickly to find Kate, the golden spaniel, rushing into the room.
“Oh, what a beautiful creature! ” exclaimed Carol, and knelt down at once to make friends. Kate wagged a feathery tail in a pleased fashion, offered a satin-smooth paw, and they shook hands ceremoniously.
“What on earth were you barking at just now, Kate?” Meg’s voice demanded from the doorway. And then she caught sight of Carol. “Oh, you!” she said. “You in here!” There was no particular pleasure in her voice—indeed it was slightly surprised, and a little cold. Her eyebrows had ascended above her straight-gazing blue eyes, and her lips were definitely a little compressed.
“I’ m sorry if I’ m trespassing! ” Carol said hastily, shocked by her greeting. “The door was open and I wandered in! If this is your private room...?”
“It is,” Meg told her quietly. And then suddenly she smiled. She held out her hand to her new sister-in-law. “My dear,” she said, “of course you can use this room if you want to, but I normally work in here—my accounts and letters and so forth. There is so much to be done! ” She went up to the desk and somewhat ostentatiously tucked away a few envelopes. “I am afraid I am not terribly tidy.”
“I think you are very tidy indeed,” Carol murmured, somewhat confusedly. She hoped Meg did not think she had been looking at her letters.
Meg turned to her, and then moved closer and lightly kissed her cheek.
“You look,” she said—eyeing first the trousers, and then the sweater, and finally the pink, smooth cheeks and clear eyes— “very much better this morning. As if,” she added, “you slept well. ”
“I did,” Carol assured her. “Oh, I did! ”
Meg smiled rather mysteriously—inscrutably, Carol thought. “Good! ” she exclaimed. “And your bed was comfortable? You like your room?”
“I love it,” Carol told her.
“I hope Agatha saw that you had a good breakfast.”
“I haven’t eaten such a marvellous breakfast for a long time,” Carol confessed, with a youthful smile. “And real cream! Such wonderful real cream! I shall get fat! ”
“You’re not very fat at the moment,” Meg told her critically, looking once again at the slender hips made even more boyish-looking by the slim tailored slacks, and at the almost complete lack of a bosom as revealed by the close-fitting jersey. “Did they starve you at that school of yours in the south, or is it your nature to be so thin? We shall have to do something about it. I told Timothy you need fattening up.”
Carol wondered what else she had said to Timothy about her, but naturally she could not inquire.
“Timothy is going into matters connected with the running of the farm this morning, and he and his manager Lovegrove were down in the far potato field when I came in just now. It’s
just possible he may be in to lunch—”
“Oh, but here I am!” said Timothy’s voice cheerfully in the doorway, and he came in smiling at them both. “Good morning, Carol!” He went up to her and took her hands. “Have a good night?”
“Splendid, thanks! ”
She was so pleased at his sudden arrival that she could not keep some of the pleasure out of her voice.
He gave her rather a keen glance, she thought, and then looked round at his sister.
“What do you think of her, Meg?” he asked. “She confesses to being eighteen and a half years of age, but I think they made a mistake on her birth certificate. Shall we say sixteen and a half?—or perhaps just sixteen!” Carol noticed that Meg’s lips compressed themselves slightly together before she permitted herself one of her Mona Lisa-ish smiles.
“As women age so much more quickly than men it is always a good thing if a somewhat deceptive appearance of youth is on their side for a few years, or that is my opinion,” she remarked in her quiet, deliberate voice.
“You mean that when I’m fifty-five Carol will actually begin to look as if I haven’ t snatched her out of the cradle?” Timothy demanded, with a slight grin. He dropped Carol’s hands, after squeezing them gently. “Well, you may be right, but she’s got a lot of growing up to do before we get to that stage. And in the meantime I could do with a drink—and so, possibly, could both of you?”
“I’ ll have a lemon squash if you don’ t mind,” Meg said rather primly, when she had produced the drinks and glasses from a small corner cabinet and set them on top of the writing-table. “I never touch alcohol these days before dinner-time. I think it’s rather a good rule—for a woman, of course,” she added.
Timothy appeared faintly amused.
“And you, Carol?” he asked. “Are you joining the lemon-squash brigade, too?”
“Thank you, yes,” she replied, without looking at Meg. “I never touched alcohol at all until a few weeks ago! ”
“Until you made my depraved acquaintance, you mean! ” Timothy teased her.
Carol flashed him a smiling glance, but Meg said thoughtfully:
“If I remember correctly I was turned twenty-one before I so much as tasted a glass of sherry, even! And I have never been very much addicted to it. ” She set down her glass on the writing-table. “By the by, Timothy, met Viola Featherstone this morning, when I drove into Dulverton. She and everybody apparently are all agog about your marriage—though I can’t think how they’ve all heard about it quite so soon! —and very keen to meet your wife. Apparently Viola has met her, although she was under the impression, at that time, that she was your ward, not your fiancee!” She looked curiously at her brother’s face. “She asked you to her dance on the twenty-fifth; but as that is tomorrow night you naturally won’ t be able to attend. However, I have asked her and one or two others to dinner a week from tonight. Is that all right?”
“Perfectly all right so far as I am concerned,” Timothy replied casually.
“And you, Carol?” Meg asked formally. “You must realize that people are naturally rather curious about you! ”
“Oh, are they?” Carol looked rather frightened.
“Curious to meet you, I mean,” Meg amended. “All this has been so sudden, and—if you’ ll forgive me for saying so! — somewhat rushed and unexpected, especially amongst our very closest circle of friends, and a considerable amount of astonishment has been aroused. It has created a kind of nine days’ wonder in the district—’’
“Well, at least that’s something,” Timothy said amiably. “Something to relieve their boredom! ”
“But no
t altogether unnatural,” his sister went on, addressing the remark to Carol. “So long as you won’ t mind, Carol, and have no objection to meeting people rather soon—?”
“After all we were only married yesterday morning! ” Timothy murmured.
“Of course I won’t mind,” Carol assured her sister-in-law, realizing that there was no other course open to her. Timothy placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” he said, with one of his comforting smiles. “They’ re quite a pleasant bunch really, despite their curiosity, and you’ve already met Viola. Nat may be back by that time, too, and we could ask him as well.”
“As you please,” said Meg, as if Nat was of no slightest importance to her. “I thought, too,” she added, “that if you hadn’ t planned to do anything else you might run over and introduce Carol to Aunt Harry this afternoon, Timothy? She was phoning me yesterday about you both, and she’s always so dreadfully impatient and anxious for details. She’s had rather a nasty attack of her arthritis, and she sounded a bit peeved because you haven’t written to her for so long.”
“It seems to me,” Timothy remarked, producing a pipe and beginning to light it, “that you’ve been very busy, my dear Meg, arranging our honeymoon for us! ”
Meg looked up at him with surprise in her eyes, and Carol’ s face flamed.
“Are you,” Meg asked, “on a honeymoon?”
Carol knelt down swiftly and started to fuss the dog.
Timothy puffed his pipe alight, and watched her and the dog for a few moments.
“Well,” he said, after a second or so, “there are honey-moons—and honeymoons!...” And then he took pity on Carol’s obvious confusion. “All right,” he said briefly, “we’ll go. As you well know, Meg, I’ m ridiculously fond of Aunt Harry, and Carol can do with a bit of a blow. The drive will do her good, and introduce her to some of our ‘marvellous lakeland scenery’ , as they say in the guide books. What do you say, Carol?”
“Of course,” Carol replied, rising at once, and wishing he didn’ t appear to be slightly amused by her flushed cheeks.
