High Rising (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘I can quite understand your being a little exhausted by Tony and his friend,’ said Anne Todd sympathetically, ‘but I wouldn’t worry about Sibyl. She isn’t a bit like an affianced bride – she’s just her dear, affectionate, silly self.’

  George Knox looked round nervously.

  ‘And how is Miss Grey?’ he asked.

  ‘Very well, and in very good spirits. She seems to be as pleased as Punch about the engagement.’

  ‘I wish I knew what to do about her,’ said George Knox. ‘I would ask Laura, but I should have to face Tony again, and I am not yet strong enough. Never have I met so acharné a talker.’

  ‘I expect you are a bit mortified too at having met your match,’ said Anne Todd placidly.

  George Knox stared at her, and then a great light appeared to burst upon him.

  ‘You are right, Miss Todd, perfectly right. I talk too much. You and Laura are the only people who will ever have the courage, the kindness, to tell me. I have been a bore, a pest, a curse to humanity with my unrestrained loquacity. It is in the blood, you know. We Latins must express ourselves in speech. But in Tony, I must confess, I have met one whom I acknowledge as my master. Never,’ said George Knox, becoming quite human at the remembrance, ‘have I had such an appalling journey in my life. If it had been a mere question of conversation, of give and take, I could have held my own, with difficulty perhaps, but I could have held it. But I was as a child, a deaf-mute – though unfortunately not deaf – before Tony. What I have not been told about the railway systems of England is not worth the telling. And what made it the more annoying, my dear Miss Todd, was that I strongly suspected a good deal of the information which he lavished upon me to be erroneous, but I had no means of disproving it. And then the effort of listening while the train was in rapid motion. And if ever Tony stopped to take breath, though I must say he appears to be able to speak with equal fluency breathing inwards or outwards, his infernal friend would begin about electricity. What is electricity to me, Miss Todd? I will not add, or I to electricity? Gratefully do I accept its benefits, though I have not had it put in at Low Rising, nor shall I until enough of us want it to make it worthwhile, because it would mean making it for myself with a machine which I could not work, and which the gardener would infallibly neglect, or ruin through his incompetence, and there we should be, worse off than before; gratefully in the houses of others, in the Underground railway system – ominous phrase which I have already heard too often this afternoon and am as it were condemned to perpetuate in my own speech – in all the thousand uses of daily life, such as vacuum cleaners, and others too numerous to mention, do I accept its benefits, but it is all as a miracle to me. To others, to Mr Ohm, to Mr Volta, to Mr Ampere, for I believe these to have been living persons, though if they were flesh and blood it would probably be more correct to say Herr Ohm, Signor Volta and M. Ampère, to them I leave the task of understanding what it is all about, although, according to what I read in the very unreliable columns of the daily press, no one – no one, Miss Todd – yet knows what it is all about, though they can make use of it; all is yet in the empirical stage. I, as a poor man of letters, prefer to admire in ignorance. And then this devilish child,’ said George Knox with a sudden revival of fury, ‘must needs explain it all to me at the top of his very high, exhausting voice in a rattling train. I give in. ’Tis well an old age is out, and time to begin anew. I am silent before Tony and his friend – silent, subdued.’ He sank into a studied apathy.

  ‘You said a mouthful,’ observed Miss Todd (who but rarely employed the language of the movies) with some truth.

  ‘I did, I did,’ groaned the unlucky George Knox. ‘Again you rebuke me, most graciously, but most justly. My fatal gift of speech is the cause of all my woes. I come here weary and jaded to seek the precious gift of repose in your sanity, your cool and balanced mind, and what do I do? I trespass upon your heavenly patience. I exhaust you. I lay all my burdens upon your shoulders. I will be silent from henceforth. When I come to see you, Miss Todd, that is if you ever, after my unwarrantable behaviour, allow me to darken your doors again, I shall attune myself to your atmosphere of peace and serenity. You must teach me to listen. You must force me to listen. It will do me good to forget myself.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Anne Todd.

  Encouraged by this non-committal remark, George Knox proceeded to expatiate at great length upon the quality of silence. Anne Todd, not wishing to damp his new-found ardour, sat knitting quietly while his periods boomed above her head. She liked – she very much liked – having him there. There was no particular need to listen to what he said, and she was able to think placidly, under cover of his monologue, how kind and large-hearted he really was, and how easily he could have got out of accompanying two little boys and giving them tea in the dining-car. Although he did talk a lot, he never expected one to attend, never insisted on one’s opinion of what he had been saying. And if real kindness were needed, she felt that one could safely go to George Knox. Who but he – except, of course, Laura or Dr Ford – would trouble to visit a dull spinster, for so she called herself, after a tiring railway journey, merely to cheer her up. As for what he had said about coming for rest and peace, that Anne did not believe, though in this she was for once wrong. It was all his own kindness, she felt. And as he was still talking away, and she was thinking of him, with her mind far removed from his presence, who should come in but Dr Ford, explaining that he had rung in vain and had taken the liberty of coming in.

  ‘Well, Knox, this is great news about Sibyl’s engagement,’ said he.

  ‘It is, it is. Coates is a splendid fellow, and if I am to be left alone, that is but in the course of things.’

  Dr Ford, who appeared to be lacking in the finer shades of feeling, ignored this opening for pathos, and inquired cheerfully after Miss Grey.

  George Knox looked guilty.

  ‘Well, Ford, you and Miss Todd must know how inconveniently, how awkwardly I am placed. Miss Grey, all zeal and over-devotion, does not, will not take a hint that I should now like to dispense with her kind services. I have descended to the baseness of making certain démarches behind her back. I saw my old friend Miss Hocking while in town. She was delighted with what I told her about Miss Grey, and is only too eager to have her. In fact, she would like her to come this day week.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Dr Ford.

  ‘And I suppose you daren’t tell her,’ said Anne Todd, a little anxiously.

  ‘I daren’t, I daren’t,’ said George Knox, looking far from happy. ‘I only have to mention it for her to cry. That weapon of your sex, Miss Todd, disarms me completely. I shall have to steel my heart, but I am extremely nervous of a scene. I had hoped she might have gone to see Miss Hocking when she was in town last week, and settled it all – but no.’

  ‘But she wasn’t in town last week,’ said Dr Ford. ‘She did want to go, but I told her Sibyl really needed her attention.’

  He cast a surreptitious look at Anne Todd, who blushed faintly, but held her tongue.

  ‘But she was in town,’ insisted George Knox. ‘I went to Rutland Gate yesterday to collect some letters, and the kitchen-maid – a repugnant piece,’ said he with a shudder, ‘gave me the latchkey that she had left there on Thursday last week.’

  ‘But that—’ began Anne Todd and Dr Ford simultaneously, and as simultaneously checked themselves. Luckily, George Knox, entirely absorbed in his own difficulties, did not notice.

  ‘It was good of her to go up,’ said he, ‘as I specially wanted some information from the Reading Room, but she shouldn’t have left Sibyl against your wishes, Ford. I suppose she thought her duty as a secretary was paramount.’

  ‘What happened to the latchkey?’ asked Anne Todd carelessly.

  ‘Oh, I have it. Mamma has decided to stay away till the autumn, so the house will be entirely dismantled. The kitchen-maid, thank God, is leaving to better herself, so she told me, a resolution which it would not be difficult to carry into
effect.’

  ‘Then, Sibyl won’t be going to stay with her grandmother to get her trousseau?’

  ‘Not unless she goes to Torquay, dear Miss Todd, a most unlikely place for clothes, where Mamma misguidedly prefers to spend the summer months. This wedding is all going to be confusing. For an old célibataire, or rather widower, like myself, the preparations for marriage are very terrifying. Frills, tuckers, petticoats, gussets, what do I know? If it were the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth – with which I propose to make myself familiar as soon as these nuptials are consummated – I might be of assistance, but in this modern world I am helpless, helpless.’

  Here George Knox became realistically helpless, in a very alarming way.

  ‘Well, I expect you’ll find Mrs Knox will come up to town, even if it’s only to an hotel,’ said Anne Todd kindly. ‘She will want to help Sibyl. And now, Mr Knox, I’m terribly sorry to turn you out, but Dr Ford is waiting to have a look at Mother.’

  ‘Forgive me, forgive me,’ cried George Knox, genuinely upset. ‘I have never inquired after your mother. Dear Miss Todd, attribute my negligence to the devastating effect of Tony’s conversation, rather than to my own want of sympathy. Can you ever pardon me?’

  While Dr Ford slipped upstairs to Mrs Todd, Anne took George Knox to the door, George descanting so profusely upon his own shortcomings in courtesy that he never got as far as asking how old Mrs Todd really was. It did occur to Anne Todd, as she stood patiently listening to George Knox winding himself up in a web of verbosity, that he seemed unaccountably nervous, and was talking, not after his usual fashion for the sake of talking, but rather to gain time. When finally she was able to get a word in edgeways, she told him that Dr Ford was not pleased with her mother’s condition.

  ‘He says he can’t answer for her, Mr Knox. And that’s that.’

  She found a kind of comfort in the large figure beside her, and in the real concern which showed in George Knox’s face.

  ‘Dear Miss Todd,’ said he, looking down at her. ‘I am sorrier than I can say. If there were anything I could do – if a nurse were needed, and you would allow me the privilege, the very great privilege, of letting that be my care – if there were anything I could do to lighten your burden – if there were a fruit, or a flower, or a jelly – I am vague about the wants of invalids, owing to my unfortunately robust health, but my poor wife, as I remember, did occasionally express a liking for a flower – would you honour me by letting me know?’

  Anne Todd, worn by much anxiety and many vigils, always under the shadow of poverty, but not daunted, laid both her hands on his coat-sleeve and looked up.

  ‘Thank you very, very much,’ she said. ‘I would tell you if there were anything, but there isn’t. She is quite happy unless she is in pain, and Dr Ford is kindness itself. Everyone is.’

  ‘Ford is a good fellow,’ said George Knox, ‘but I don’t like him to do everything. I’m a bit selfish about this. Is there nothing?’

  Anne Todd shook her head. George Knox felt the weight of her hands on his arm, as if she were mutely seeking support.

  ‘If at any time the cottage would be of any use,’ he said diffidently, ‘quiet, change of air. And I shall need help with Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe, Anne.’

  Did his use of her first name pass unnoticed? Her mouth trembled a little, but she forced it to a smile as she said, ‘First get rid of your hare, Mr Knox.’

  George Knox went away and Anne Todd went back to the drawing-room, where she was joined by Dr Ford, who had a more reassuring report to give of old Mrs Todd. He sat down to write a prescription and asked Anne what the date was.

  ‘Oh, that reminds me,’ cried Anne Todd, opening a drawer and taking out a letter and a rubber stamp. ‘Dr Ford, what I am doing is quite dishonourable, but I don’t care, and I am going to implicate you.’

  ‘Fire away,’ said Dr Ford, quite unmoved.

  ‘Last week, when Mrs Morland was in town, the night Mr Knox took her to a play, she found an anonymous letter when she got back. It upset her frightfully. She thought it was someone warning her off Mr Coates, but I think it was someone warning her off Mr Knox. Look.’

  Dr Ford, throwing honour to the winds, read the horrid document.

  ‘A nasty piece of work,’ he observed. ‘Why should she think Coates was in it?’

  ‘Well, she sees a lot of him in the way of business,’ said Anne Todd, not to be disconcerted, ‘and she thought some idiot might think it was affection. He’s years younger than she is.’

  ‘And why should you think Knox is in it?’ asked Dr Ford, dismissing the whole question of Adrian.

  For answer Miss Todd took from another drawer an inky pad, pressed the date stamp on it and jabbed it down on a piece of paper. Dr Ford looked on attentively.

  ‘Yes, Madame Poirot,’ said he, ‘these two dates are undoubtedly from the same stamp, with the same defect in each, but where does that get us?’

  ‘It gets us here, Dr Watson,’ said the sleuth. ‘This date stamp belongs to the Incubus. I found it at Low Rising. Sibyl told me the Incubus was going to throw it away because it was damaged, and the date is the same as the one on the letter, so it hasn’t been used since. Hasn’t the Incubus been running after Mr Knox ever since she came here? Isn’t Mr Knox a very old friend of Mrs Morland? Wouldn’t the Incubus like to make mischief between them?’

  ‘By Jove, Anne, you may be right,’ said Dr Ford admiringly. ‘But thoroughly unprincipled. Not the kind of woman I could ever ask to marry me.’

  Ignoring this insult, Anne Todd continued in a hoarse conspiratorial voice:

  ‘And you heard what Mr Knox said about finding the latchkey at Rutland Gate? Dr Ford, I believe we have found the guilty secret. Sibyl said the Incubus went to bed all the afternoon and evening of that Thursday Mrs Morland and Mr Knox went to town. Well, I think she locked her door and went up to town by the five-thirty with that letter, and let herself into Rutland Gate, where she is known, and stayed there till dark, and then put the letter into Mrs Morland’s letter-box and came down here by the late train again. The dogs all know her, they wouldn’t bark, and Cook and Annie wouldn’t hear if the house was on fire when they are in bed. And there she was next morning, safe and sound. What do you think?’

  ‘Anne, you surprise me.’

  ‘But what do you think?’

  ‘I think it is all probable enough, but not enough to hang her on.’

  ‘No one wants to hang her, James. But one might frighten her.’

  ‘You’ve never called me James before,’ said Dr Ford, losing all interest in the nefarious conduct of Miss Grey. ‘Does that mean that you are relenting?’

  ‘Not a bit. It was only excitement. And after what you said just now about not asking people to marry you, I withdraw it.’

  ‘I hadn’t much hope,’ said Dr Ford, getting up. ‘Well, what do you propose to do about it?’

  ‘Hold it up my sleeve,’ said Anne Todd.

  Here they were interrupted by Laura, who came in accompanied by Tony and Master Wesendonck, also apologising for having come in without waiting for the door to be answered.

  ‘Oh, Miss Todd, oh, sir,’ said Tony, before anyone else could speak. ‘What do you think Mr Knox did? He took us first class!’

  He paused for this to sink in and to let his audience express suitable astonishment.

  ‘And I and Donk each had a seat to ourselves, and I told Mr Knox a lot of useful things about the railway, and we had tea in the dining-car, and Donk had six cakes and I had five and a whole pot of jam, you know those tiny ones, and Donk had six lumps of sugar in his tea and I had seven, and the waiter poured some of the tea on to the tablecloth because the train joggled so, and some of it went into the sugar basin, so I and Donk ate all the lumps that got wet. Dr Ford, Mr Knox doesn’t know what a tank-engine is.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Dr Ford.

  ‘Oh, sir,’ exclaimed the little boys reproachfully.

  ‘Tony,’ interrupted Anne Todd, ‘Mrs Tod
d isn’t very well, so don’t make a noise, but you can each have an apple off the dish in the dining-room and eat it outside.’

  ‘And go home and get ready for supper,’ added Laura. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Tony and Master Wesendonck withdrew, their opinion of Dr Ford considerably lessened.

  ‘You looked as if you might have something to tell me,’ said Laura, looking from Anne Todd to Dr Ford, ‘so I sent the boys off. Anything exciting?’

  Anne knew quite well what Laura meant and hoped, but pretended she didn’t.

  ‘Very exciting,’ she said. ‘Look here, Mrs Morland, I’ve had to take Dr Ford into my confidence – I hope you don’t mind.’

  In strophe and antistrophe Dr Ford and Anne Todd related the story of Anne’s sleuthing, and laid the proofs before her. Poor Laura was so upset and disturbed that Anne almost wished she had let well alone.

  ‘I never thought anyone would be so dreadful,’ said Laura piteously, pushing her hair wildly off her fevered brow. ‘And fancy her thinking George Knox wanted to marry me, of all people. She must be mad. George mustn’t know. He would never get over it. He is very delicate-minded for so large a man. My dears, you must both promise never to tell him. I know I can trust you, Anne. Dr Ford, can I trust you? Oath of Hypocrites, or whatever it is?’

  ‘Every oath of the British Medical Association,’ said Dr Ford. ‘Seriously, Mrs Morland, I hardly think Anne should have told me, or for that matter have done what she has done, but as she has, it will be a professional secret as long as you wish it.’