High Rising (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not that I’m at all a dog in the manger about her, but you know how obstinate she is. And really at present she is terribly tied by her mother, and couldn’t take on a permanent job. She and I work in a hand to mouth kind of way, but that wouldn’t do for you.’

  ‘I shall ask her again, Laura. If the warmer weather suits Mrs Todd, Anne may be more free to get out, and I would like to feel I was helping her as far as money goes. She has a great deal of courage, Laura.’

  As he finished speaking, voices were heard in the hall. The door was opened and Stoker announced Miss Todd. Anne, looking very pale and strange, came into the room and began taking off her coat and hat without saying a word. George Knox got up to help her.

  ‘What’s happened, Anne?’ said Laura, her thoughts immediately turning to Miss Grey.

  ‘I had to come to you,’ said Anne, speaking with great difficulty. ‘I didn’t know Mr Knox was here. Mother’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, Anne darling, if I had known I’d have been with you at once. You poor darling. What happened?’

  Laura took a step forward, but Anne Todd held her at arms’ length.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand sympathy. It was while Dr Ford was with her. I was there, too. It was very quick and horrible and now it’s over. Mrs Mallow is there with her. I came to you in the dark, because I couldn’t bear it. I ran mostly. I’ll go back soon.’

  Her white, strained face was so inhuman that Laura, her affection rebuffed, did not know what to do. She looked for help at George Knox, but his eyes were on the rigid figure of Anne Todd.

  ‘Anne,’ he said, and opened his arms.

  Anne turned, fell against his heart, and delivered herself to such a passion of silent tears as shook her from head to foot.

  ‘We can’t have her like this,’ said George Knox with authority. ‘Laura, tell Stoker to get some tea at once, and if you have any brandy, bring me some.’

  Laura raced upstairs, returned with a small travelling flask of brandy which she thrust into George Knox’s hand, and ran to the kitchen. In the hall she collided with Dr Ford.

  ‘Is Anne here?’ he asked, seizing her arm.

  ‘In the drawing-room with George.’

  ‘Thank God. I didn’t know where she was.’

  ‘Come into the dining-room. She’s all right for a moment.’

  Laura rang the dining-room bell violently. ‘Make some tea at once,’ she said, as Stoker’s face appeared. ‘Miss Todd is here and her mother is dead and she is very ill. What happened, Dr Ford? She said you were there.’

  ‘The old lady died quite suddenly, about an hour ago. Anne knew she might go out at any minute. I was there, luckily, and I sent for Mrs Mallow to come and stay the night. Louisa is no use. Anne behaved like a brick. Then I went to talk to Mrs Mallow, and when I came back, she was gone. Louisa said she had seen her go, looking like a ghost. They haven’t got a telephone, so I risked her being here and came round. I was honestly afraid of what she might do. She has tremendous self-control and she has been at breaking-point for months. Thank God she is with you. I’d better see her before I go.’

  ‘I’ll keep her for the night,’ said Laura. ‘She can have Tony’s room, opening off mine. Oh, thank you, Stoker, I’ll take it in. Mrs Mallow is staying at Miss Todd’s to look after things, and Miss Todd will spend the night here. Get Tony’s room ready for her at once.’

  Having thrown this sop to Stoker, whose eye was gleaming at the prospect of an early visit to Mrs Mallow next morning, Laura picked up the tray and carried it across the hall into the drawing-room. Anne was huddled against George Knox on the sofa, crying in long-drawn sobs. The room reeked of brandy.

  ‘Hush,’ said George, tightening his hold on Anne. ‘I’m glad you’ve come, Ford. Anne is all in – or all out – words fail me. I have given her all the brandy.’

  ‘The best thing you could do,’ said Dr Ford, sitting down beside Anne and taking her limp hand. ‘Was that flask full, Mrs Morland?’

  ‘It was. I had just got it filled, because I always take it with me when I drive to London.’

  ‘Well, she is dead drunk by now, I should say, and a good thing, too. If you can get her into bed, Mrs Morland, I’ll give her something to keep her doped, and she’ll be all right tomorrow, or right enough.’

  ‘Could we get her up between us?’ said Laura. ‘The bed’s all ready.’

  George Knox rose from the sofa and picked Anne up quite easily. She laid her face against his comforting shoulder and made no opposition. Stricken with admiration Laura led the way upstairs, Dr Ford bringing up the rear. Stoker had just finished making the bed as they came into the room, and had the exquisite pleasure of seeing a strong man carrying an unconscious heroine just as if she were Marlene. George Knox brushed Anne’s wet face with his lips and laid her down in a chair.

  ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need me,’ he said.

  With the help of Stoker, Anne was got into Tony’s bed with a hot water bottle. Dr Ford said she would be all right and went downstairs. Stoker was to be left on guard, savouring deeply every rapturous moment of this unlooked-for romance. Laura drew her into the passage.

  ‘Oh, Stoker,’ she whispered, ‘Miss Grey has gone for good. There was a frightful row. You shall hear all about it.’

  Stoker’s eloquent face was an impressive tribute to the news, as Laura told in a hurried undertone the outline of the afternoon’s catastrophe, so that Stoker might direct village talk in both the Risings into the right channels. She then looked back into the room and saw that Anne was fast asleep.

  Meanwhile, Dr Ford and George Knox sat drinking large cups of tea.

  ‘Will Anne be all right?’ asked George.

  ‘Perfectly. She is as strong as a horse, but no horse, not even a mule, could stand what she has been through. I admire that woman more than I can say, Knox. I’ve seen her at all times, always competent, kind; never losing her head, never impatient; without any pleasures, always ready to sacrifice herself to her old Moloch of a mother. It won’t hurt Mrs Todd if I say what I feel, and Anne can’t hear.’

  ‘What will happen to her now?’

  ‘If she would listen to me, she’d marry me. I’ve asked her to more than once. I asked again last week, but she won’t. You are my rival, Knox, I’m afraid. Good luck to you. If you beat her, I’ll put arsenic in your tooth-paste, that’s all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked George Knox, putting down his cup of tea with a crash.

  ‘What I say. I can’t say it again. All this nobility is too much for me. I can be rung up at any time if I’m wanted. Say goodnight to Mrs Morland for me.’

  Dr Ford hit George Knox on the shoulder and went out of the room. Almost immediately his clanking two-seater was heard going down the drive, and Laura found George Knox alone.

  ‘My God, what a day,’ said Laura, all dishevelled. ‘Give me some tea, George. Anne is fast asleep. Where is Dr Ford?’

  ‘He has gone. He left word you were to ring him up if you needed him. I’ll do all the business arrangements for Anne, if she’ll let me – funeral and so on, I mean.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, George. I don’t quite know what will happen to the poor child now. She will have about twopence a week. Anyway, when she has got over this she will be able to work for you, too.’

  ‘I don’t think I want her to work for me,’ said George Knox, assuming an obstinate expression.

  ‘But why not, George? Before all this happened, you said you wanted her.’

  ‘I spoke more truly than I knew, Laura. But she wouldn’t be much use as a secretary. Even Miss Grey saw that one can’t have an attractive secretary to live with one quite alone.’

  ‘Oh, George, how disappointing. I did so hope you could help. But she could go to you by the day, anyhow.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to have her by the day – nor the month, nor the year.’

  ‘But, George, what is the matter? I thought you liked Anne?�
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  George Knox gave a tremendous gulp and swallowed all his tea.

  ‘My dear Laura,’ he began, ‘heavenly fool is an expression which occurs to me very forcefully at this moment. I am, as you know, a man of few words, more apt with the pen than the tongue, no squire of dames, readier to act than to talk, so it is difficult for me to express myself as I should wish, but I must be even more leaden-tongued than I had feared if I have so completely failed to make myself in any way understanded of you – understood, I mean, and why the dickens I am talking like the Prayer Book I don’t know,’ said George Knox, in just irritation. ‘You, Laura, with your woman’s tact, your crystal wit, your quick understanding, would, so I thought, mistakenly it appears, have met me by now on equal terrain, thought leaping to thought, in sympathetic comprehension. That you can have failed me is incredible, so incredible that I am forced to seek the cause, and find it, as usual, in myself. You have had a long and tiring day, you have borne with the difficult ways, the really embarrassing conversation of my late secretary, you have smoothed her departing path, how I do not know and feel it safer not to inquire, you have provided an excellent if light repast at short notice for a company, a great host, of unexpected guests, you have helped an old friend – I allude to myself, my dear Laura – with advice about his daughter’s wedding, you have been an angel of comfort and sympathy to our dear Anne in her affliction, and I, brute that I am, wonder that your mind cannot concentrate on my halting conversation. I should rather ought, I mean I ought to, and,’ said George Knox reflectively, ‘that the excellent and grammatical locutions of did ought and had ought – how like the names of adjacent English villages these sound, Laura, or is it, perhaps, Much Hadham that I am thinking of, are now obsolete, strikes one very forcibly as a sign of the decadence of the language, though to revive them is, alas, impossible, and would merely appear an archaic affectation – I ought rather, I say, to wonder that you have the patience to listen to me at all.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Laura briefly.

  ‘There isn’t any of that brandy left, is there?’

  ‘There is not.’

  ‘Your patience,’ continued George Knox, waving aside this interlude, ‘could not be surpassed by anyone, even if they were fool enough to sit smiling on a monument, but bear with me, Laura, while I explain what should perhaps have been explained to you before. When I spoke of not desiring Anne as a secretary, I did not, in so saying, deny the possibility of wishing to see her in any other capacity. Rather did I wish to emphasise my wish to see her in another capacity and not as a secretary. Am I clear?’

  ‘If your novel is going to be like that, no one will read it,’ said Laura crossly. ‘You drive me mad, George. Say what you want to say and have done with it. If you don’t want Anne, you needn’t have her. I can find lots of work for her. Lord Stoke would only be too glad to have her at Castle Rising for three or four days a week, I know.’

  ‘Damn Lord Stoke,’ shouted George Knox. ‘Can’t you see, Laura, that my whole mind, my conscious being, my volition, is bent upon one thing? And what is that one thing?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, George, because I don’t know and I don’t care. I shall look after Anne.’

  ‘You won’t,’ thundered George Knox. ‘I shall. Now do you understand?’

  Laura stared at him, stupefied.

  ‘You mean you will?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Oh, my hat,’ said Laura.

  She and George looked at each other, George’s large face gradually assuming a sheepish expression, tinged with rich, deep pink.

  ‘Well, I’m as glad of this as I ever was of anything,’ said Laura, twisting her back hair into an unbecoming knob. ‘Bless your heart, George. You weren’t such a fool as I thought. Does Anne know?’

  ‘I don’t know. No, I don’t suppose she does. I shall have to rely, dear Laura, on your womanly tact, your fine sympathy to guide me in this delicate affair. Your hands shall lead me.’

  ‘No, George, they shan’t. You can do your own work this time. It isn’t as if you hadn’t been married before and didn’t know how to propose. It would be decent, perhaps, to wait till after the funeral, but after that, don’t waste time. Oh, thank goodness, George,’ exclaimed Laura, mopping her eyes. ‘I do believe you will always be kind to her, and she needs loads and loads of kindness. Bless you, my dear. I shan’t say anything about it till you give me leave.’

  Just then the sound of the returning revellers was heard. Laura dashed out to the front door, herded them all into the drawing-room, and told them about Mrs Todd’s death.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Morland, how awful,’ said Sibyl. ‘Oh, supposing it had been Adrian. Oh, Adrian, you won’t ever die, will you?’

  ‘Never, darling.’

  ‘Will the coffin go in a special saloon?’ asked Tony, with sparkling eyes. ‘I’ve never seen a coffin train, Mother. Will Mrs Todd’s coffin go in one? Can I see it?’

  Amy Birkett took Tony by the hand.

  ‘The best thing I can do for you, Laura, is to take Tony and myself to bed. If I could help I would, but we’ll be best out of the way.’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ said Laura, kissing her. ‘You’ve been such a help today. Tony is to sleep on the sofa in my room tonight. You needn’t have a bath, Tony, but do wash thoroughly, and don’t make a noise, or I’ll kill you.’

  Mrs Birkett dragged Tony off.

  ‘There is nothing we can do for you, Laura dear, is there?’ asked Adrian.

  ‘Only go away, and take your silly bride and your very trying father-in-law with you, Adrian dear. It’s been an awful day. I love you all. Go away. We can all ring up tomorrow.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Morland,’ said Sibyl. ‘Give Miss Todd my love and tell her how terribly sorry I am.’

  ‘Goodnight, dear Laura,’ said Adrian. ‘We have been very selfish and you have been an angel. Are you still the solitary-hearted?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘I thought perhaps—’

  ‘Don’t think, Adrian. Goodnight. Bless you.’

  ‘Goodnight, Laura dear,’ said George Knox. ‘Let me know how Anne is. I’ll come over tomorrow.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, go away,’ said Laura, pushing them all out of the house. There was a shining of headlights, a waving of hands, and she was alone.

  ‘You can go to bed now, Stoker,’ said Laura, looking into Anne’s room. ‘Miss Todd will be all right now, and if she moves I shall hear.’

  ‘I dare say she won’t be long for this world neither,’ said Stoker, with gloomy relish. ‘Those as bears up are often the first to go. Miss Todd won’t have no interest like in life, now the poor old lady’s dead. Now if only she had a cat, or some of them love-birds—’

  Laura said goodnight at Amy’s door and went into her own room. Tony, very pink and clean, was lying bright-eyed on the sofa, ready for an agreeable talk.

  ‘Go to sleep at once, Tony, I’m tired,’ said his mother, disappearing into the bathroom. As she lay soaking in a hot bath, she reflected with wonder upon the events of the day, and felt very thankful for good friends. Without Amy and Anne the Incubus would never have been routed. Poor Incubus – but one couldn’t bother about that now. Without George and Dr Ford she could never have dealt with poor Anne in her misery. Without George there was no future for Anne, and though she knew little of Anne’s feelings for George, she felt pretty sure that she would come gladly into harbour after life’s buffetings. Kind Amy, who had borne the brunt of the battle with the Incubus, and this evening had so splendidly curbed her own curiosity, to ease Laura’s path. She would tell Amy everything, or nearly everything, tomorrow. Dear George, how delightful it would be to see him with Anne at Low Rising, no longer fearing to be alone after Sibyl’s marriage. And Adrian and Sibyl, well, they hadn’t exactly helped, but they looked so young and happy that it did one good. It then struck her with horror that she might be needing a new secretary herself, but she resolutely put the thought aside, to rejoice in Anne’s
unknown happiness. Softly she went back to her room, turned on the reading lamp, and composed herself to forget the fatigues of the day in a new book called Who’ll Sew his Shroud?.

  Just as she was sinking into delicious coma, a voice said, ‘Mother.’

  ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘But Mother!’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Oh, Mother, you know the Model Railway Exhibition that Mr Coates took me and Donk to? Well, there was a model of the Salisbury curve where the accident happened. Mother, can I make a model of it with sand in the garden before I go back to school? I could have a lovely accident. Mother—’

  VIRAGO MODERN CLASSICS

  WILD STRAWBERRIES

  Angela Thirkell

  Pretty, impecunious Mary Preston, newly arrived as a guest of her Aunt Agnes at the magnificent wooded estate of Rushwater, falls head over heels for handsome playboy David Leslie. Meanwhile, Agnes and her mother, the eccentric matriarch Lady Emily, have hopes of a different, more suitable match for Mary. At the lavish Rushwater dance party, her future happiness hangs in the balance …

  First published in the 1930s, Wild Strawberries is a sparkling romantic comedy from Angela Thirkell's much-loved classic series.

  VIRAGO MODERN CLASSICS

  EXCELLENT WOMEN

  Barbara Pym

  Mildred Lathbury is one of those excellent women who are often taken for granted. She is a godsend, ‘capable of dealing with most of the stock situations or even the great moments of life – birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sale, the garden fete spoiled by bad weather’. Her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, seem to be in marital crisis. One cannot take sides in these matters, though it is tricky, especially when Mildred has a soft spot for dashing Rockingham Napier. This is Barbara Pym’s world at its funniest and most touching.

  ‘I’d sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen’ Philip Larkin