High Rising (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  Dr Ford had Christmas lunch with the Todds, and insisted on spending the afternoon with old Mrs Todd, while Louisa went off for the rest of the day, and Miss Todd helped with the vicarage Christmas tree. Luckily old Mrs Todd was perfectly sane about cards, so they passed an ungodly afternoon, playing double dummy bridge. Dr Ford found the old lady a serious opponent, losing one-and-threepence-halfpenny to her at a halfpenny a hundred. Then he made tea for her, and she went to sleep till Miss Todd came back and released him.

  What happened at Low Rising, no one knew, but later in the week Mr Knox’s Annie bicycled over to see Stoker and to ask her to waive the lien which she had on her sister’s services, as they would be required for the weekend.

  ‘She’s having dinner at half-past eight on Saturday,’ said Annie, when seated with her sister and Stoker in the warm kitchen.

  ‘Bolshie,’ said Stoker, ‘that’s what she is. What for do you let her do it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Annie easily, ‘I can always give in my notice.’

  ‘Oh, Annie, you know Mother wouldn’t let you,’ spoke up Annie’s sister.

  ‘Who asked you, young Flo. Anyway, you’ve got to come over to us on Sunday, if Mrs Stoker doesn’t need you.’

  Stoker was only too delighted to get a spy into the enemy’s camp, and the kitchen had a long, delightful conversation about ‘Madam’, as Annie called Miss Grey, with a very poor imitation of her accent. Annie expressed her opinion that Madam was soft on Mr Coates, as she had seen his photo in Madam’s drawer when she was dusting. Stoker replied that heaven knew young Flo was bad enough at her dusting, but she didn’t have no call to go dusting inside drawers as well as out in this house and Annie hadn’t no call to put ideas into young Flo’s head. This being taken personally, conversation became acrimonious, till Annie mentioned the preparations that were being made at Low Rising for the New Year’s Eve dinner.

  ‘Dinner at half-past eight, Mrs Stoker, as I said. There’s your lady coming, and Dr Ford, and Mr Coates, and our lot makes six. Turkey and all, just like Christmas over again. We shan’t get washed up till lord knows when. And then master’s to make punch in the sitting-room, and they all drink the New Year in.’

  Even Stoker was temporarily overpowered by this news, and Annie felt a delightful glow of superiority, till young Flo let the lid of the teapot fall off into a cup and break it. Annie and Stoker then united against Flo, charging her with greed for wanting more tea at all, uppishness for helping herself without being asked, and general clumsiness and depravity. Annie pitied Stoker for having young Flo in the kitchen, and Stoker commiserated with Annie over the probable destruction among Mr Knox’s glass and china when young Flo helped to wash up. Young Flo, an adenoidal, half-witted young woman, took it all in good part, and did penance by taking two empty bottles into the yard and breaking them, being incited thereto by Stoker, who said that if you broke once you always broke three times, and she believed in getting it over.

  So time passed till New Year’s Eve, when Adrian came down to Laura till Monday. Tony had been sent to bed early after a blissful day spent at Stoke Dry with the stationmaster, who had allowed him to act as aide in the signal-box and the goods yard, and even ride in the cab of the engine while it shunted some trucks.

  Laura and Adrian were dressed and having a cocktail before starting for the Knoxes’, when Laura suddenly told Adrian to be quiet, and rushed to the door, which she opened, listening intently. Adrian heard nothing, but her over-sensitive mother’s ear had evidently heard some sound.

  ‘It’s Tony – something’s wrong,’ she gasped, running upstairs, followed, more slowly, by Adrian.

  She was quite right. From Tony’s room came a sound of gentle, heartbroken sobs. With a mother’s familiar feeling of sick agony she opened the door. Tony was sitting up in bed with the reading lamp alight, a piece of paper in one hand, and a pencil in the other, crying uncontrollably.

  ‘My darling, what is it, what is it?’ cried Laura, kneeling down by the bed, in total abandonment.

  Tony’s sobs checked his speech, but at last he managed to get out the words: ‘I’ve written a poem – and it’s so beautiful, Mother.’ Then turning to Laura he buried his head on her shoulder. Gradually his sobs subsided and Laura, pulling a chair up to his bed, sat down and asked about the poem.

  ‘It’s about a moorhen. We shot some the other day and I wrote a poem about it, and it is so marvellous, Mother,’ and his lips began to tremble again.

  ‘My darling, can I read it?’

  ‘I’ll read it to you, Mother, but it’s very, very sad, and will make you cry.’

  ‘Never mind, darling. I’d love to hear it, and so would Mr Coates. Come in, Adrian, and shut the door.’

  Much comforted, and not displeased with the unexpected addition to his audience, Tony sniffed loudly, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, and prepared to read.

  ‘The name of it is “By Marsh and Mallow, Fern and Glen”,’ he announced.

  ‘Jolly good title,’ said Adrian kindly.

  ‘It’s a very sad name,’ said Tony reproachfully.

  ‘Never mind, darling,’ said Laura. ‘Let’s have the poem.’

  Tony cleared his throat and read:

  ‘By marsh and mallow,

  Fern and glen,

  By marsh and mallow,

  Went they then.

  ‘By marsh and mallow,

  The moorhen,

  By marsh and mallow,

  Went she then.

  ‘By marsh and mallow,

  When, ah, then,

  A hunter sallow

  Shot that poor moorhen.

  ‘By marsh and mallow,

  Fern and glen,

  By marsh and mallow,

  Ne’er again.’

  It is idle to state that his foolish mother’s eyes were full of tears by the end of the reading. ‘Darling,’ she gasped, ‘it is frightfully sad.’

  ‘I knew you’d cry,’ said Tony complacently. ‘I cried like anything. Isn’t it marvellous, Mother?’

  ‘Laura,’ said Adrian, ‘I loved Tony’s poem, especially that bit where the metre goes a bit queer, and he’s a much better poet than ever I was, and we’ll publish it with his collected works; but do you realise that it is nearly half-past eight, and even my car can’t do it in under ten minutes, on a dark night and a road I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Laura, wiping her eyes. ‘Thank you, Tony. It’s a sad poem. Now go to sleep, and don’t, please, be unhappy, and forget about moorhens.’

  Tony hugged his mother violently and lay down. Just as she and Adrian were leaving the room, he called, ‘Mother.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mother, Sibyl’s asked me to go shooting again on Monday. Isn’t it lovely? Can I go?’

  ‘Yes, darling. Goodnight.’

  Laura quickly shut the door. She and Adrian looked at each other and began to laugh. In fact, they laughed so much that Laura nearly fell down the last two steps, and Adrian had to support her.

  ‘I do have peculiar children,’ she said, as she got into Adrian’s big car.

  ‘He’s all right though,’ said Adrian. ‘He keeps his poetry in a watertight compartment. Do you know, Laura dear, I always think of you when I go to funerals.’

  ‘How sweet of you. Why?’

  ‘When the clergyman reads the bit about “Let us now praise famous men”, I think you have a version for yourself which says “Let us now praise famous children”.’

  Laura laughed. Adrian laughed too, but very affectionately. He had liked the picture of Laura hugging her poetic son. He had been vaguely conscious for the last week of a surge of domestic feeling in him, and Laura fitted perfectly into the picture. Laura, with her tempestuous brown hair, her shabby black velvet, to which she somehow gave an air of sceptred pall, her red silk shawl falling off her shoulders, tears in her eyes, clasping the elegist to her heart. Dear Laura.

  Long, long were Adrian and Laura to remember th
at New Year’s Eve as perhaps the most uncomfortable dinner-party either of them had ever been at. When they arrived, a little late, the Knoxes, Miss Grey and Dr Ford were already assembled. Laura had privately resolved to be as nice as possible to Miss Grey, but to see that Adrian got as good an innings as possible with Sibyl. Tony’s description of Miss Grey as ‘wonky in the brain’ seemed very suitable. What was it he had said? ‘We always said her brain was wonky.’ It was a curious way to put it – ‘we always said’. Probably with his child’s intuition he had sized her up at once and thought her wonky from the beginning – vulgar child. But she dismissed this from her thoughts as George Knox handed her to the seat next to him. She found Dr Ford on her other side, then Sibyl, then Adrian, and then Miss Grey, who was thus sitting next to George as well.

  ‘Well,’ said Laura, as they sat down, ‘I must say, George, your women do you credit tonight.’

  And so they did. Laura’s rather noble, battered beauty stood apart, without competing. Miss Grey’s sleek golden hair shone in the lamplight, and in her pale green gown she looked like a water-maiden. The dark-haired, dark-eyed Sibyl, in red, was sparkling unconsciously for Adrian. Both looked extremely attractive.

  ‘It is you who honour us, dear Laura,’ said her host. ‘You are indeed a goddess tonight. You make me think of Mrs Siddons, in your sables.’

  ‘More likely Mrs Crummles, George. How’s Edward the Sixth?’

  ‘Ah, there, my dear Laura, you touch upon a sore point. He has stuck. The kind Miss Grey and I struggled in vain today. The poor boy is slowly dying, while the whole of England waits, breathless. But I’m damned if I can get him polished off,’ said George, violently.

  ‘Why don’t you drop him for a month, and go abroad?’

  ‘I shall, Laura. I knew you would be my succour, my shield. Edward’s obsequies shall be deferred. Sibyl,’ he shouted across the table to his daughter, ‘Laura is right, she is always right. We must go abroad. I am stale, and probably flat and unprofitable too.’

  ‘How lovely, Daddy.’

  Miss Grey had been talking with much animation to Adrian, but at George Knox’s outburst she turned round.

  ‘Oh, Mr Knox, you can’t. There would be nothing better for you and Miss Knox than to get abroad to sunshine, and I wouldn’t a bit mind staying at home in the cold, but you know your publisher must have the book by the end of February. How I wish I could finish it for you.’

  ‘Yes, why don’t you?’ said Dr Ford. ‘It would do Knox and Sibyl all the good in the world to get right away from here.’

  Miss Grey seemed to detect some arrière-pensée in his words, for the scowl which Laura had seen on their first meeting passed across her face.

  George Knox was petulant at this interruption of his plans. Laura and Dr Ford, talking village gossip, were each conscious that the other was watching Miss Grey as she soothed her employer, making every use of her large, fine eyes.

  ‘What’s your special job here tonight, Mrs Morland?’ asked Dr Ford, seeing that both the other couples were well occupied.

  ‘To look after Sibyl and Adrian,’ said Laura, in a low voice. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘A watching brief for Miss Todd. That’s the type that gets insane with jealousy.’

  ‘Who, Anne?’ asked Laura, alarmed.

  ‘No – someone else. They’re quite capable of poisoning people, or of putting their own heads in gas ovens. Both are unpleasant situations.’

  ‘But why should she?’

  ‘You are one reason. Sibyl’s another. She’s like a donkey between two bundles of hay tonight.’ Upon which, Dr Ford, who rarely laughed, permitted himself a short bark.

  Adrian and Sibyl were exchanging repartees which both evidently found amusing, but Miss Grey, having placated George Knox, turned quickly to Adrian and cut in.

  ‘I must tell you, Mr Coates, how I admire those wonderful poems.’

  ‘Poems, Miss Grey? Forgive me if I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘Ah, yes, you do. That little book called The Golden Dustbin.’

  Adrian looked appealingly at Laura, but her attention was entirely absorbed by George Knox, who was laying down a theory that the Reformation had caused a set-back of some hundred years in domestic sanitation. Adrian was furious at being dragged away so rudely from Sibyl, and even more furious at the mention of his early indiscretion.

  ‘Oh, The Golden Dust-bin.’

  ‘Yes, by A. C. But of course we know who that was. They are marvellous.’

  ‘We don’t speak of them,’ said Adrian, assuming a tragic expression.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My poor brother is a sore subject, Miss Grey.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘Why, yes, I assumed that you knew of his tragic end.’

  ‘Indeed and I didn’t. But what has that to do with the poems?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Adrian, who felt that having committed himself so far, he might as well go on and get what fun he could out of the position. ‘We were twins. He was Alfred. He was all that I am not,’ said Adrian modestly, ‘with the face of a young god. But he had the seeds of disease in his mind, and was incapable of receiving any education. Those little poems, Miss Grey, were inspired by Nature alone. Exhausted by the effort, the frail body could not sustain the ardent spirit. He died. Better so. Forgive me if I do not pursue what is a painful subject.’

  Miss Grey’s large eyes opened wide. ‘Ah, the poor fellow,’ she exclaimed. ‘Then, you are not a poet?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ said Adrian cheerfully, feeling his feet at last upon firm ground.

  At this moment, George Knox, finding his audience of one insufficient, prepared to gather the whole table.

  ‘The Reformation, my dear Laura,’ he announced, crushing all other conversation with the booming of his voice, ‘was one of the greatest misfortunes England ever knew. Not from a religious point of view, for of that I do not judge, being a Catholic by birth, a Presbyterian by marriage, and nothing by conviction, but from a purely social standpoint.’

  He glared round him, inviting opposition. Miss Grey was heard to say she thanked God she was a Protestant. Adrian stared at this irrelevant statement. Laura and Dr Ford exchanged amused, but anxious glances, knowing this particular hobbyhorse of George Knox’s of old. Sybil was quite obviously only thinking of Adrian.

  ‘No, no,’ continued George Knox ferociously, ‘not religion – drains, drains, my dear Laura. If there was one thing the world before the Reformation thoroughly understood, it was Drains. Look at Norman castles. Show me the Norman castle you can explore without falling down a thirty-foot shaft at every corner.’

  His audience, fascinated but nervous, waited with some trepidation for his further views. Hitting the table violently, he proceeded, ‘Look at Tintern,’ as if it had just come into the room. ‘Look at Tintern. A perfect example of drainage from the kitchen to the river. All laid bare for us today. Then look at the Elizabethan Manor House; look at Hampton Court. Where, I ask you, are your drains? In their place—’

  But here the whole company rallied and flung itself into the breach. Laura loudly volunteered a great deal of inside information about the wholesale silk trade in France to Dr Ford, while Adrian, forgetting his recent brush with Miss Grey, gave her a feverish account of his last visit to America and accepted her comments with equanimity. George Knox gradually simmered down and was presently able to join in the general conversation. It was not till dinner was nearly over that Laura realised what Dr Ford had meant by the donkey between two bundles of hay. Miss Grey was obviously distracted between George Knox and Adrian. She wanted attention from them both, but as fast as she turned to one, the other would slip through her fingers. If she interrupted Adrian’s talk with Sibyl, then Knox would monopolise Laura. If she broke into the talk between Knox and Laura, Adrian was only too ready to turn to Sibyl’s dark eyes. Laura felt half amused at the young woman, half sorry for her.

  Dinner was long and very good, so that when Sibyl, prom
pted by Miss Grey, got up and collected her ladies, it was already after ten. As they pushed their chairs back, Laura murmured to Dr Ford, ‘This is quite impossible. If I get hold of George after dinner, will you tackle the Incubus?’

  ‘It wouldn’t often be a pleasure, but this time it will be,’ said the doctor, who was pleased to see Sibyl looking so happy.

  When they got into the sitting-room, Laura tried hard to make the conversation general, but Miss Grey was obviously thinking of something else. She was not rude, as on the first evening, but very absent-minded, so that at last Laura and Sibyl gave up trying to interest her. Presently she roused herself and said, ‘That was a terrible misfortune, Mrs Morland, about poor Mr Coates’s brother.’

  ‘But he hasn’t got a brother. How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean the one that died, the brother who wrote The Golden Dust-bin, poor fellow.’

  ‘But Adrian wrote The Golden Dust-bin. He is ashamed of it now, because the poems were so very bad,’ said Laura, quite forgetting Miss Grey’s enthusiasm.

  ‘But he said it was a twin brother called Alfred, who was clever and rather peculiar and died young. You must be mistaken, Mrs Morland.’

  ‘Not a bit. He is all the brothers of his father’s house – though not all the sisters too,’ said Laura, much to Miss Grey’s bewilderment.

  ‘I don’t understand then at all. Didn’t Mr Coates write those poems?’

  ‘Yes, he wrote them all right, but I’m afraid, Miss Grey, he has been pulling your leg a bit. It’s very rude of him,’ said kind Laura, who hated to see even an Incubus uncomfortable, ‘but he is very shy, and that’s his form of humour.’