She stopped and looked vengefully into the distance.
‘Yes, Laura,’ said Mrs. Birkett encouragingly.
Mrs. Morland started, tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and began in a very noble narrative style.
‘I had blacked out everything,’ she said, ‘except the kitchen and scullery, because Stoker said if Mr. Reid at the shop was the Air Raid Warden we were all right. It was a fine evening and I hadn’t drawn the curtains yet and I waited to take a sixpenny bottle of ink and some manuscript from my bedroom where they really had no business down to the drawing-room. I began carrying them downstairs, but the landing was rather dark. I was just going to turn the light on when I suddenly remembered that the curtains weren’t drawn. So I determined to go on, very carefully. But I stumbled a little, just where that bit of carpet is always getting loose at the corner and the ink bottle fell on to the floor, and the cork came out, and a shower of ink spurted over the floor and over my stockings.’
She paused and glared at her audience with the expression of the Delphic Sybil.
‘I can forgive a great deal,’ said Mrs. Morland. ‘Air raids are air raids and there they are, and Stoker got the ink off the floor, but there is one thing I shall never forgive and that is that pair of stockings. It isn’t as if I had a pair on with darns in the heels. They happened to be new, and that is what I cannot forgive. And when I think who it is that deliberately made me spill ink on my stockings and makes it impossible to know who will be a refugee at any given moment, you will understand my feelings.’
By this time Mrs. Morland had, by her remorseless logic, left all her friends in various degrees of bewilderment. Mrs. Keith had long ago given up any attempt to follow the argument and was thinking about the sheet that had come home from the laundry with a corner torn. Mrs. Birkett was thinking that they really must be going soon. But Lydia, scenting high romance, could hardly contain her interest.
‘Do you mean, Mrs. Morland, that you are always going to wear those stockings when anything awful happens like London being blown up, or Peace?’ she asked.
But her question was never answered. The drawing-room door was opened, a kind of vision of men in khaki struggling with Palmer was seen, and two uniformed figures appeared, one of whom came quickly forward.
‘Colin!’ Lydia shrieked at the top of her voice, and flung herself into the arms of her brother.
Colin gave her a hearty hug and putting her firmly aside went to his mother on the sofa. Mrs. Keith, suddenly looking much younger, sat up and greeted her son with joy. Mrs. Birkett was also delighted to see him, for he had been a junior master at South-bridge School for a term a few years ago. Mrs. Morland was added to the party and a happy confusion reigned.
Meanwhile the second arrival stood by the drawing-room door, smiling in an amused way at the family hubbub. Colin was explaining to his mother that he had wanted to arrive unannounced, but Palmer had not seen eye to eye with him, which accounted for the fracas at the drawing-room door.
‘If I hadn’t had Noel with me,’ he said, ‘I think she’d have won. Where is Noel? Has he gone to help Palmer in the pantry and soothe her ruffled spirits?’
‘Indeed I haven’t,’ said Noel Merton indignantly, ‘but I felt that the homeless wanderer should not intrude on the family circle in this moment of reunion. How are you, Mrs. Keith?’
He came over to the sofa and kissed Mrs. Keith’s hand, a gesture which filled his friend Lydia with mingled admiration and contempt.
‘Hullo, Noel,’ she said, ‘I know what’s wrong with you. You’re an officer. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were much too old to be in the army.’
‘So I was,’ said Noel Merton, ‘but a friend of mine said that my quick mind and trained intelligence, not to speak of my distinguished bearing, would benefit any army. So he got me a second lieutenant’s uniform and here I am.’
Everyone knew that Noel was doing himself less than justice, but judged it more tactful to let him tell his story in his own way. After a few moments’ talk Mrs. Birkett collected Mrs. Morland and took her away. Mrs. Keith evidently wanted to have a motherly talk with Colin, so Noel, disregarding Colin’s piteous signs of distress, carried Lydia off to the library.
‘First of all,’ said Lydia, stopping and looking at him with a housekeeper’s eye, ‘do you want to stay the night?’
Noel said he would like it of all things if not inconvenient.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Lydia severely. ‘You know it’d always be convenient. I will just go and tell them about a room for you—you can have Robert’s that we keep for him—and dinner. I shan’t be a second.’
She strode resolutely towards the kitchen. Noel Merton, left alone, stood by the fire in amused and faintly melancholy meditation. A few years ago, when he first became acquainted with the Keith family, he had mapped out his career very neatly for himself. He was doing very well at the bar and intended to do better. He had a large circle of friends among whom he was much in request for dinners, dances, week-ends, shooting, yachting, and the hundred agreeable activities that life offers to a rising young man with pleasant manners. Marriage, he had decided, was not in his line, and he infinitely preferred to amuse himself with charming married women who could keep the shuttlecock of heart-whole flirtation briskly flying. There had been a moment when his heart was gently attracted by Lydia’s sister Kate, but the attraction had been so slight that it died in the bud at the moment when he found that Everard Carter was in love with her, and now, in spite of his admiration for Kate’s sterling qualities and sweet temper, he was very thankful that he had stopped when he did, for to be bored was no part of his scheme. At that time Lydia had been an extremely bouncing and irrepressible schoolgirl, and why these two so very different creatures had become great friends nobody could understand. Mrs. Keith, seeing her younger daughter, still in her revolting school uniform, carry off the much-sought-after barrister as captive of her bow and spear, had been considerably flustered and prophesied woe. But as she really minded nothing very much except novelty, her apprehensions soon wore off, the more so as her younger son Colin who was reading law in Noel Merton’s rooms liked him very much and often brought him down to Northbridge Manor.
Here it had become Noel’s custom to pass a good deal of his time with Lydia with whom he walked, played tennis, and had endless discussions about life and literature. Lydia, for whom life had very few fine shades and literature meant the books she happened to like, began to apprehend through Noel that there were other worlds where her violent and downright methods might not pass muster, where there were values of which she was ignorant. Like many wilful natures she could be very docile where she was conscious of meeting her match, and had a natural quickness of wit that told her what to copy. Noel had never deliberately tried to alter or improve his young friend, liking her very well indeed as she was, but from time to time he was amused and a little touched to see Lydia modifying her uncompromising manner of speech and judgment by something he had said, or repeating as an original and striking thought something he had told her.
As for being in uniform he was nearly as surprised as Lydia. Nothing had been further from his thoughts when he last stayed with the Keiths in August. Looking at his age and his entire want of military qualifications he saw nothing for it but to go on as he was and make the best of it. Various applications for employment in the fighting services had led nowhere and he was reduced to frank envy of Colin who, like Philip Winter a Territorial, had gone into camp about Bank Holiday and had remained in the army ever since, enjoying himself on the whole and putting on a stone and three inches round the chest. Then suddenly a highly placed friend had sent for Noel and in a short mysterious interview had asked him if he would feel like doing some Intelligence Work. Noel said he would like it very much and within three days he found himself a Second Lieutenant. Upon this he ordered a very good British warm from his tailor and went off to a place whose name was never mentioned (though quantities of people knew where i
t was) to do a very severe intensive course with twenty or thirty other temporary subalterns many of whom turned out to be personal friends in various walks of life. From this course he had just emerged with a week’s leave, and meeting Colin Keith in town, also on leave, had accepted his invitation to come down to Northbridge for a night.
Although Northbridge Manor was outwardly unchanged he was conscious of a difference. His welcome was as warm as ever, the garden lay steeped in sunset autumn peace, Lydia was arranging for his comfort but he was not altogether part of it. He had a journey before him, whither and for what purpose he did not yet know, whether to some place overseas or to an office in Whitehall or elsewhere, whether a voyage for the body or for the mind. But as soon as the traveller knows he must be gone, he has already left the place that has been his home, and though Noel was in his own country and among old friends, he felt that a thin sheet of glass was between him and them. There would be much in his new life that he could not share with them and a part of him would from now onwards have reticences where he had been used to speak very much at his ease. Then he told himself that he was being fanciful, but he knew that he wasn’t, and was very glad when Lydia crashed back into the room.
‘I am glad you and Colin have come,’ said Lydia. ‘Mother hasn’t been very well and it will cheer her up like anything. It seems frightfully funny you being a Second Lieutenant and Colin a Captain though.’
Noel said he had every hope of turning into a Captain before long, as he was going to meet all sorts of people who simply couldn’t speak to anything as low as a subaltern.
‘Will you vanish into the unknown like Richard Hannay and then turn up at Constantinople or somewhere?’ said Lydia. ‘I’ll write to you all the time. Where are you going?’
Noel explained that he didn’t know and even if he did he wouldn’t be allowed to say, but if Lydia would write to his chambers her letters would all be faithfully passed on.
Lydia was silent for a moment and then asked how he thought her mother was looking.
‘Not so well as I’d like,’ said Noel without hesitation, knowing that Lydia required facts.
‘Nor as I’d like either,’ said Lydia. ‘Dr. Ford says she must be very careful. We had a ghastly time with evacuee children for a month. Six children and two teachers. I think they really made Mother so ill, because they worried her so.’
‘Poor Lydia,’ said Noel.
‘Poor Mother, you mean,’ said Lydia. ‘But a most fortunate thing happened which was that all the children were so revolting, and the teachers, who were called Miss Drake and Miss Potter but they called each other Draky and Pots, did nothing but walk about the garden with their arms round each other’s waists, that Dr. Ford went and bullied the Billeting Officer like anything and they were all moved to Southbridge. Oh Noel, I am pleased to see you.’
‘So am I,’ said Noel, ‘as pleased as anything. And I hope you won’t get any more evacuees.’
Lydia said not, because her father had offered to take troops if Barchester was too full and had said he would rather have a hundred of the Barsetshire Light Infantry camping in the grounds, with the run of the squash court, tennis court, and billiard room, than one child or one teacher.
‘It took three coats of whitewash and two coats of paint to make the rooms where the children were not smell of child,’ said Lydia, ‘not to speak of the teachers being so horrid to Palmer that she nearly gave notice.’
‘I expect Palmer was pretty horrid to them too,’ said Noel.
‘She was,’ said Lydia, ‘I am glad to say. But it made Mother have a bad heart attack, because Miss Drake and Miss Potter came and were very red in the drawing-room.’
‘Red?’ said Noel.
‘Red, Communist, you know what I mean,’ said Lydia. ‘Being very rude and arguing about Russia. I was over at the Vicarage helping them to make marrow jam or it wouldn’t ever have happened. Would you like a drink before dinner?’
Noel said it was his heart’s desire. Lydia mixed cocktails very professionally and handed one to Noel.
‘I believe I ought to say “All the best” or something in that line as I’m an officer,’ said Noel, ‘but it goes against the grain. Here is to your health.’
‘And to yours,’ said Lydia. But instead of drinking she paused and set her glass down again. ‘Noel,’ she said very earnestly, ‘could you tell me something?’
‘Short of betraying my country’s secrets I’ll tell you anything,’ said Noel.
‘Do you think Mother is going to die?’ said Lydia.
Used as Noel was to his dear Lydia’s straightforward ways, he was taken aback by her question. He had no particular experience of people with hearts, but seeing Mrs. Keith after an interval he had been struck and indeed horrified by the change in her appearance. His first thought was to tell a thumping lie and say he had never seen her look better; his second thought was that Lydia believed in him so much that he could not dare to wreck that belief by a lie which she would undoubtedly detect; and between the two he hesitated for a fraction of a second too long.
‘Don’t say anything,’ said Lydia. ‘Anyway it’s a good thing I’m here to take care of her. And I’ve made her let me do the house accounts and Father lets me do the estate accounts and go round the place with him, and Robert tells me about the family finance, so I can be a bit of help. I did think it would be fun to go as a V.A.D. to the Barchester Hospital with Delia Brandon and Geraldine, but one can’t expect to have fun all the time, can one? You’d better go and get washed for dinner now.’
Noel did as he was told, as indeed most people did when Lydia took their interests in hand. While he was washing his hands and hunting for the clean handkerchief which, together with his other scanty effects, Palmer had unpacked and hidden with as much virtuosity as if he had brought two cabin trunks, he reflected again upon Lydia. That Lydia, the domineering, the devil-may-care, the rebel from domesticity, should have turned into a housekeeper, a thoughtful guardian of her mother’s frail health, a useful companion to her father, was a change for which, in spite of his fondness for her, he was not at all prepared. He could only suppose that seeing her again after an interval in which so much had happened had made him notice what had been slowly going on for some time. Although he could think of few things more revolting than to be a V.A.D. with that dull Geraldine Birkett at the Barchester Hospital, he quite realised that Lydia had made a considerable sacrifice in giving up her plans. The more he thought of her general conduct the more admirable it appeared to him. He stood in a trance, the damp towel in his hands, considering the change from the Lydia who had so ungracefully taken possession of him a few years ago to the Lydia who appeared to be thinking sensibly and affectionately of the needs of others; and not of new and romantic friends, but of her parents, a creature which few of his younger friends considered as human in any way. And yet the same violent, confiding Lydia. The gong sounded and he went downstairs.
Mr. Keith had got back by this time and was quietly delighted to see Colin and had a friendly greeting for Noel. He had meant to give up the solicitor’s office in Barchester altogether that summer, leaving it in Robert’s capable hands, and retire to the management of his little estate, but the turmoil of the world had made it impossible. Robert who had been taking on various important unpaid jobs in the town and the county found himself needed for many more, and could not give the necessary time to the office. One of the younger men had, like Colin, gone into camp with the Territorials in August and remained there, another had been called up for the Air Force, so Mr. Keith had gone back to his work and made himself useful in every department. At the same time his bailiff, a retired naval man, had vanished at the call of the Admiralty, and he found himself with more work than he ever thought at his age to be doing. When Lydia said she helped with the accounts she was understating. The bailiff had been a great friend of hers, and with him she had learnt in the last two years all that he could teach her about the farm and the men, so when he left she informed
her father that she would look after everything, which with the help of the head cowman, to whom the bailiff had bequeathed her as a valuable legacy, she did. Mr. Keith was at first nervous about the experiment, but finding that Lydia was perfectly pleased to discuss things with him, he allowed her to go her own way, though whether he could have stopped her is another question.
To Noel’s amusement the earlier part of dinner was devoted to a discussion of cows and winter kale, upon which subject Lydia imparted her views with great freedom. After that the conversation ran upon books, a concert or two that Lydia had heard in town, a little legal business on which Mr. Keith asked his younger son’s views with pleasant pride, and the continued horribleness of Miss Pettinger, who was now housing the Hosiers’ Girls Foundation School and being as over-bearing to their very nice Headmistress as she could possibly be.
No one wanted to hear the nine o’clock news, for as Mrs. Keith truly said one could read all the disgusting things that had happened in The Times next day, and it was better to be depressed in the morning than at night.
‘And,’ she said, ‘you read the paper, instead of hearing those ladylike young men talking from Bangor or wherever they are.’
Lydia said she expected if The Times could speak it would have a voice like that but luckily it couldn’t.
Colin said he had taken to the Daily Express and found it wonderfully soothing because he now knew exactly what to think and needn’t ever be broadminded again.
‘Quite right too,’ said Lydia. ‘No one ought to be broadminded now. I’m not.’
Cheerfulness Breaks In Page 10
