“Oh yes, she’s gone. My one comfort is that Mrs. Onslow has gone too. Poor, poor woman! What a life! Standing between her husband and his infatuations! Though I can’t possibly pretend that this is his doing, or anyone’s except poor darling Bébée’s!”
“Is she as—as determined as ever?”
“Quite, I think. I get letters from her, you know. She’s always been sweet about keeping me informed of her movements. They are in New York.”
“I wonder she wasn’t detained on Ellis Island for moral turpitude,” was the sentence that sprang to Mrs. Temple’s lips. But aloud she said:
“When are they coming back?”
“Before the end of next month, I think. Perhaps by that time—”
Lady Kingsley-Browne’s voice died away without completing the sentence, but Laura had no difficulty in deducing the unspoken conclusion. Perhaps by the time the celebrated A. B. Onslow returned to his own country he would have hit upon some efficacious manner of ridding himself once and for all of the unprincipled and immodest young creature who now persisted, with such unparalleled tenacity, in linking her existence to his.
Chapter XIV
Some weeks after Laura’s return from London, Duke Ayland wrote and told her he was obliged to come down to the West of England for two nights on business. Could they possibly meet?
Laura, profoundly agitated, suggested that he should come and stay at Applecourt.
Ayland, by return of post, was very sorry that this was impossible. He stated the fact without attempting to produce any explanation for it. Could Laura possibly come as far as Great Quinn and have lunch with him?
Laura honestly believed that she considered this suggestion carefully for hours.
Then she said to her husband:
“Alfred, Duke Ayland is very anxious that I should go and have lunch with him at Great Quinn and—and look at the new University Buildings.”
‘What’s he doing at Great Quinn?”
“He’s coming down on business.”
“Ask him to come on here for a day or two.”
“He can’t.”
“Do you want to see the new University Buildings?”
“I should like to go,” said Laura, trying to be truthful.
“I can take you as far as Quinnerton in the car, and you can go on by the eleven o’clock train. Which day is it? Not the meeting of the Housing Committee, I hope?”
“Wednesday.”
“That’s all right then. I can manage that.”
Laura wrote and told Ay land that she would come, and became the prey of an excitement that nearly made her ill.
“This will have to stop,” she told herself solemnly. “I can’t go on like this. I had better say good-bye to him and let it be over. If I were a young girl—and free—”
A pang went through her for her irrevocably vanished youth and for the few and poor opportunities that it had ever afforded her of misbehaving herself.
Ridiculous and fantastic visions assailed her, just as she was going to sleep at night, of Alfred suddenly announcing that he had for years been in love with another woman, and that now he intended to leave Laura and the children and to marry her. Becoming slightly more wakeful, doubts assailed her even of the practicability of this solution.
Duke and the children seemed somehow a rather improbable combination, although he had been so nice to them. Edward, yes. You could give Edward a ball, or a Meccano set, or tell him that he should go out to tea with other children, and Edward was happy and generally good. But Johnnie—with his insistent demands for attention, his uncannily acute powers of observation, and his violent, incalculable temper! Impossible to suppose that Johnnie would ever endure the sight of his mother’s absorption in anybody but himself.
And if Alfred objected to the excess of time and thought bestowed by Laura on her younger son, surely Duke might be expected to resent it with equal intensity, and a great deal more articulateness ?
“But it couldn’t possibly happen, after all,” the semiwakeful half of Laura’s consciousness murmured, and she was deeply and irrationally relieved by the thought.
For the two days preceding that of her expedition, many things conspired to discourage Laura from any very great exhilaration of spirits.
“Mummie, can I go with you to Great Quinn when you go?”
“No, darling, I’m afraid not.”
“Then can I?” Edward, as usual, imitated his junior, in defiance of every law of probability.
“No, I can’t take either of you.”
“I wish you didn’t go away so often, mummie.”
“Darling, I don’t go away often.”
“You went to London the other day, for ages and ages. Shall you be back in time to have us downstairs before we go to bed?”
“I’m not—Well, I’ll try to be, Edward. Don’t kick the piano, darling!”
“Why not?” enquired Edward, looking astonished.
“Because it spoils it. I’ve told you often. Shall I see if Cynthia and Theodore Bakewell could come and spend the afternoon with you to-morrow?”
“No, thank you,” said Johnnie, shuddering affectedly.
Edward looked wistful, but Laura’s sympathies, as usual, were on Johnnie’s side, and she did not press the offer.
“Run out and play, darlings.”
Then Hilda, the departing house-parlourmaid, came in with a telegram between her fingers. Laura, who disliked correcting her servants because she imaginatively supposed that it must humiliate them, felt with relief that as she was to leave next day, it was not worth while to send Hilda back for the salver.
She opened and read the message.
Sorry cannot arrive before Wednesday same train Johnson.
Laura felt herself turning pale.
“No answer. It’s from—It’s—Oh, Hilda, please tell the boy there’s no answer, and then come back here a minute, would you?”
During the brief interval in which this errand was accomplished, Laura re-read the telegram five times, and fully realised the extent of the calamity it implied. The new cook had elected to postpone her arrival. Instead of being “settled in,” as the official, if optimistic, phrase runs, by her mistress the day before her own expedition, she intended to arrive on the very afternoon when Laura had expected and decided to meet Ayland in Great Quinn.
“Hilda,” said Laura in a controlled voice, “the new cook whom I have engaged is unfortunately prevented from arriving to-morrow.”
“Is she, ’m?” Hilda clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and looked amused.
“She is only delaying till Wednesday—at least I hope that’s all.”
“The day after to-morrow like,” Hilda suggested.
“Yes. The only thing that’s rather awkward is that I want to go to Great Quinn on Wednesday for the day.”
“It’s early closing day on Wednesday, ’m.”
“Is it? But that wouldn’t make any difference. I mean, I wanted to see the new University Buildings.”
Hilda made no reply.
“I suppose your own plans are fixed up?”
“Yes, ’m, they are.”
Of course they were. Laura reflected, not for the first time, how easy it was for servants to replace unsatisfactory employers, and how complicated the reverse process.
“I shouldn’t at all wish you to alter your arrangements in any way on my account, but if you hadn’t been actually settled, I should have asked you to stay on another twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, ’m,” said Hilda, simulating perplexity.
“Why not speak to Price about it?”
“If you like, I will, ’m.”
Hilda went away to her husband in the kitchen. Laura, who knew the telegram by heart, read it again.
Quite impossible to let a new cook arrive, and find her mistress gone out for the day. Equally impossible to bid her postpone her arrival, and thus leave Applecourt without a cook at all—even such a cook as was Laura herself—for an en
tire day and a half.
Perhaps the Prices would stay on until the new cook could arrive.
But they would not.
Hilda returned, having accomplished her mission with a celerity seldom brought to bear upon her legitimate duties, and said:
“I’m sorry, m’, but we’ve made our plans, and Price can’t see his way to altering things.”
“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Laura coldly, “I quite understand. I can easily get in someone from the village just for one day.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Raynor could oblige you, ’m. It’s only the one day.”
“I know, but it happens to be the day I want to go to Great Quinn.”
“Wednesday’s early closing day at Great Quinn,” Hilda pointed out all over again.
“Yes, I know. Well, that’s all, thank you, Hilda.”
Laura went up to the village to find Mrs. Raynor.
She did not like Mrs. Raynor very much, and she gravely distrusted her habit of always arriving with a smallish bundle in the morning, and going away with it, altered in shape and size, at night.
After all, it was only for one day.
Mrs. Raynor was at home, but informed Laura that her heart had come on again.
Laura, understanding that this meant a more or less complete inability to exert herself, condoled with Mrs. Raynor, explained that she had wanted to go to Great Quinn on Wednesday, heard without surprise that Wednesday was early closing day, and took her leave.
“Perhaps they could have cold food on Wednesday. It would only be Wednesday. But there’s laying the table and the clearing away and washing up afterwards—and the new house-parlourmaid won’t like it.”
Laura felt annoyed, and helpless, and impatient, but the more these emotions gained upon her, the more determined she became not to abandon her intention of meeting Ayland at Great Quinn on Wednesday.
“Early closing day or not,” she added viciously.
On her way home she stopped at two cottages where occasional “help” could be found, but both Miss Weald and Mrs. Potter were already engaged. This exhausted the possibilities of the immediate neighbourhood.
“Could I get a temporary cook for a week—but if I put Johnson off she’s certain not to turn up at all—and anyway, there never are any temporary cooks. Besides, the expense——”
Indulging in such familiar arguments, Laura went home again.
“Alfred, I’ve had a telegram from the new cook. The tiresome woman isn’t coming till Wednesday.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t say why not.”
“Possibly she’s taken another job, and doesn’t mean to come at all.”
“Oh no!” said Laura passionately. “I think it must be genuine. Otherwise, why Wednesday? It would have been simpler just to say she wasn’t coming. But she does say Wednesday. Only, it’s awkward, because that’s the day I’m going to Great Quinn.”
“Better put it off.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Wednesday isn’t a very good day—it’s——”
“Yes, I know. But I told Duke Ayland I’d meet him for lunch, and that we’d look at the new University Buildings.”
“Better tell him you can’t manage it. Unless the Prices can stay on for an extra day.”
“They can’t,” said Laura shortly. “And Mrs. Raynor can’t come, nor Miss Weald nor Mrs. Potter.”
“If she comes on Wednesday, it practically only means a day and a half without anyone. I should think it could be managed, though I’m afraid the cooking is a great nuisance for you. Couldn’t we have cold beef or something ?”
“Oh Alfred!” said Laura.
“Well, well, well,” said Alfred, in acknowledgment of her emotion.
He went into the house just as the gong rang, and when he and Laura met again at lunch, he spoke only of the political situation—and of that briefly, as was his wont.
Laura’s replies were neither intelligent nor ready. She was thinking about Duke Ayland, and the new University Buildings, and the failure of the cook, and the surpassing difficulty of explaining to everybody why it was so important that she should get to Great Quinn, on an early closing day.
Aloud, she was interspersing her comments-—such as they were—with injunctions to Johnnie and Edward.
Very soon, Alfred relapsed into silence altogether. Laura, in a worried, subconscious kind of way, was aware of this, and felt it to be her own fault.
But, on the other hand, it was surely important that Johnnie should not be allowed to drink with his mouth full, nor Edward to sit with his elbows on the table.
If only Alfred would talk about politics after dinner, instead of reading the paper and then going to sleep! (Although Laura knew well that their discussions were of no intrinsic worth, since Alfred never went very much beyond: “Look at Russia, if you want to see what the Labour Party is bringing us to!” and “The League of Nations idea may be all very fine in theory, but they can’t put it into practice, while human nature remains what it is.” Laura did not really agree with either axiom, but having long ago discovered that her husband disliked argument, she was weak-minded enough to differ from him very gently, and then gradually let herself be brought to the stage of repeating thoughtfully, “I see what you mean, of course,” which indeed was true. Thus did the Temples contribute the Power of Thought to the contemporary problems of the world in which they lived.)
In the afternoon another telegram was brought to Laura.
“To say the cook isn’t coming at all,” went in cold despair through Laura’s mind.
But this telegram had been sent off from Quinnerton, by the honorary secretary of an organisation in which Laura took an active part, and a branch of which she had helped to found in her own village.
Reply paid Mr Mindy Headquarters speaker requires accommodation to-night original arrangements fallen through can you possibly put him up if so arriving six o’clock bus will be fetched to-morrow for afternoon meeting here many apologies short notice—Smithson.
Laura had known too many emergencies in her own career not to sympathise profoundly with those in Miss Smithson’s.
She did not know Mr. Mindy, but outside contacts were good for one…and, in any case, she had assured Miss Smithson that her house would be available in such times of stress.
She telegraphed back, “Will meet six o’clock bus,” and hoped that the brevity of her style might be a lesson to Miss Smithson.
Before five o’clock the spare room had been prepared, even to a bunch of sweet-peas on the dressing-table, and Alfred had been told of the impending visitor.
Laura went to the village to meet the bus. Mr. Mindy, carrying the little bag that all speakers carry, whether they have come for a night or for a week, was unmistakable—a tall, thin man, with a grey beard and a shock of pepper-and-salt hair in tight, irrepressible curls.
Laura, shaking hands with him, wondered vaguely if Johnnie’s hair would ever look like that.
Before the slow pony had drawn Laura and Mr. Mindy, in the governess-cart, as far as Applecourt, she perceived that he would provide his own entertainment.
In a steady, pleasant, unfaltering way, Mr. Mindy talked, and talked, and talked.
He was profoundly interested in his organisation, and took it for granted that Laura was also, and he had recently toured the United States, and whilst there had stored and neatly tabulated an incredible number of impressions.
Laura listened to him in something that gradually became a minor form of hypnotic trance.
How interesting Mr. Mindy might be, if only he gave one less at a time, she reflected dreamily.
After a while, however, she ceased to feel this. Mr. Mindy’s voice went on and on, and Laura said, “Did you really?” and “I see,” and finally said nothing more at all, as she reverted in her own mind to the problem of the cook.
“What I said in Alabama, for instance, was quite different to what I said in Ohio.”
“I sup
pose it would be. Yes.”
“But this, Mrs. Temple, is one of the things that struck me most. In order to make myself clear to you, I must explain that the methods of organisation in the South, for instance, are not the same as those in the East. You’re sure I’m not boring you?”
“Perfectly certain, Mr. Mindy. I’m most interested. Do please go on!”
Laura assumed a more animated expression, and Mr. Mindy, satisfied, went on talking.
No one, Laura supposed, had ever answered, in reply to such a question—”Yes, you are boring me, I am sorry to say. Indeed, I am only pretending to listen to you, and I therefore suggest that we should begin again, on a more equal basis.”
Candour of that sort, and to that extent, would not be a success. People might occasionally be glad to say such things, but never would they be glad to hear them. Probably, also, they would always find them unbelievable, said to themselves.
“Forgive me,” said Mr. Mindy, “but I’m afraid you look tired. I know from our friend Miss Smithson how very hard you work for the organisation.”
“Do I?” said Laura, much startled.
“Surely. And what I feel about the way things are done over there, is that the individual—like yourself, Mrs. Temple—can get so very much more accomplished, by so much less personal expenditure of time and trouble. Efficiency seems to be the watchword of our friends across the Adantic. Now take this——”
Mr. Mindy was off again.
“But how,” thought Laura, “will Alfred like this?”
Alfred had a prejudice, entirely unreasonable and entirely ineradicable, against the whole of the United States of America.
At Applecourt, Laura took the bull by the horns.
“My husband, Mr, Mindy. Mr. Mindy has just come back from a most wonderful tour in the States, Alfred. He’s been telling me how efficiently they run things over there.”
“I assure you that I was very much struck——” said Mr. Mindy.
Laura went into the house, and left them at the front door.
Looking at herself in the glass, she felt that her visitor’s personal remark was in a sense justified. She did look tired. Never once, in London, had she looked like this. Her face was pale, there were shadows round her eyes and mouth, her hair hung limply over her ears, and her clothes seemed to hang limply on her body.
The Way Things Are Page 18
