‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. For Howard to marry a woman half his age with the idea of starting a nursery would be unfair to Toby. Unless, of course, he settled this place and its land on Toby first. And he couldn’t do that without impoverishing any children subsequently born to him – which would simply be to substitute one unfairness for another.’
‘An’ wad it add weight to a’ this if the young woman your brother took was no’ quite what she should be?’
If Mrs Warlow vaguely sensed a certain hovering illumination in this question, she was a good deal startled by it as well.
‘In logic,’ she said, ‘I suppose not. It’s a separate issue again. But humanly, I suppose, yes. Anybody would try to save a brother, or sister, from what must be judged some foolish infatuation.’
‘I’d be right sorry to affront Mr Felton.’ Andy came out with this seeming irrelevance very soberly. ‘But it wadna’ be on account o’ ony selfish thocht o’ my ain. The estate-managing, and a’ that. In fact there’s something I ought to be telling you that I havna’ even telt Toby. Perhaps I’ve thocht he’d laugh at it. It’s about my auntie.’
‘The one with the sweetie-shop?’ Mrs Warlow was entirely at sea.
‘It’s no yin sweetie-shop noo. It’s about half the sweetie-shops ower a guid pairt o’ Glesgy.’ Andy’s accent broadened as Glasgow thus swam up in his mind. ‘I’ve telt ye how she was well-left lang syne. Weel, she’s been prospering ever since. Particularly since she opened the second factory.’
‘The second factory!’ Absurdly, Mrs Warlow felt almost scandalised. ‘Do you mean that your aunt is the sort of person who could buy up Felton if she wanted to?’
‘She wadna’. It wadna’ enter her heid.’ Andy offered this very seriously. ‘But you mon understand that she has no true kin, but only me. So I’m tae her a wee bit as Toby is to Mr Felton. An’ I’ve aye wanted to be independent – which is why I came doon here an’ foond wark as I did. An’ now it wad grieve me sair to leave ye a’. But I could dae’t, if need drove.’
‘And open the third factory?’
‘In time, mebby.’
Briefly, Mrs Warlow found herself disposed to wonder whether all this was true. Could Andrew Auld be romancing – or at least exaggerating wildly? He didn’t give that impression at all. She remembered learning that his foster-parents had at some time a little come-down in the world; it was probable enough that one or other of them had relations in a prospering commercial way. Perhaps it was the single sweetie-shop of Andy’s first report that had been a bit of an exaggeration, and his auntie had been the proprietress of a small chain of such establishments from the start. What there could be no doubt about was the general spirit of independence by which Andy had been actuated. It was native to him, and the death of both his adoptive parents had triggered it into extravagant action. Mrs Warlow tried to imagine circumstances in which Toby would have struck out in some equivalent way. Perhaps going after a job in Lombard Street might be regarded as filling the bill. But it was less impressive, somehow, than putting one’s pack on one’s back and seeking one’s fortune as a gardener’s boy.
Meanwhile, this conversation gave Mrs Warlow a good deal to think about. And she ceased to be very certain that Andy would never spring a surprise upon her – or, for that matter, upon other people as well.
The person who did, as it turned out, have the power of surprising Mrs Warlow at this time was Colonel Motley. The fact was surprising in itself. Mrs Warlow knew very well that the colonel had something to say to her, but that the surprise which would ensue must unhappily fall upon her suitor himself. Colonel Motley owned all the proper modesty and diffidence of a soldier and a gentleman. Yet he was generally held agreeable in the quiet county society he frequented; his small estate, backed by various other resources, afforded him an ample competence; his morals were as irreproachable as his manners; he was prepared to listen with a decent attentiveness to conversation on topics even of a literary or artistic nature; he was physically extremely fit, and he belonged to a very good club. There was no reason why he should not be suitably esteemed by a middle-aged lady understood to be of limited means and to have suffered reverses in the matrimonial way.
So what Colonel Motley must at some early time say to Mrs Warlow was predictable, and only a certain amount of mildly reprehensible contrivance on Mrs Warlow’s part had prevented it from happening already. Perhaps she hoped that the thing would wear off, and a slightly painful episode be thereby avoided. She had, to put it crudely, been dodging tête à tête encounters with her admirer. Unfortunately the general lack of novelty to be expected in the colonel’s talk was a well-established fact among the younger people at Felton. Even Andy, although still in a situation sufficiently novel to militate against boredom in general, did find Colonel Motley boring. So when the colonel appeared one evening at Felton at the hour at which neighbours drop in upon one another for a glass of sherry, Andy, who had been alone with Mrs Warlow, shamelessly slipped away. Howard too was absent, having gone up to London for the day on some obscure business occasion. So Mrs Warlow and her visitor sat down together with the duty of conjuring up between them half an hour of mildly convivial conversation.
‘Do I smell the paint-pots already?’ Colonel Motley asked with the familiarity of one enjoying the freedom of an old friend. ‘Not disagreeable when there’s no more than a whiff of it. But I hope they’re not going to work on the whole place.’
‘Heaven forbid! But it’s true they’ve begun on the saloon. And I haven’t a notion how long it’s likely to take.’
‘Ah, well – it’s the showpiece of the whole house, wouldn’t you say? Natural that it should have to be got spick-and-span.’
‘So Howard appears to feel. He has been talking about it for some years. But I doubt whether he would have got round to actually doing anything without being prompted by Elma Loftus. The doctor’s daughter, you know. She has always gone in for great houses and so on. And now her circumstances have changed and she has a more direct interest in paint-pots and whatever.’
‘Exactly, exactly! I quite understand the situation, you know, although I haven’t cared to take the initiative in touching on it. Changed plans all round, eh? Your own as well as this lucky young lady’s. As a matter of fact it chimes in – that’s the way to put it, I think: chimes in – with something I terribly want to say to you. Have done for a long time.’
‘Colonel Motley—’
‘But first, of course, I ought to say how glad I was to hear of what’s in the wind. For your brother’s sake, that is. She’s a charming girl, I don’t doubt. Although, mark you, I’d be just a little uneasy over such a disparity in years. Bring a lively sort of life into the house, of course. All that. But I can’t think that such an age-gap is desirable in a general way. What do you think? I hope you agree with me. More companionship, and so forth, between two people more or less of an age, I feel.’ Colonel Motley’s speech had become spasmodic and agitated. ‘So my dear Grace—may I presume so to address you?—I only want to say—’
‘First things first, I beg! Do I understand you to say that it is “in the wind”, as you express it, that my brother and Elma Loftus are engaged to be married?’
‘Well, yes – I suppose so.’ Colonel Motley was disconcerted by this unexpected reception of his remarks. ‘And it has been under my own eye, you may say, and only yesterday. Your brother and this girl – this charming girl, that is – coming out of a barn together.’
‘Coming out of a barn!’
‘Or round it. Yes, round it, I suppose.’ The colonel offered this concession to decorum with nervous haste. ‘From the direction, come to think of it, of the Purbrick farm. They’d have been looking at the Blue-faced Leicesters old Purbrick has been going in for. Uncommonly interesting breed. Come a long way—wouldn’t you say?—from Barford’s Improved Bakewell Leicesters. Yes, that would be it.’ For a moment the gallant colonel’s confidence had faltered, but now he recovered it again – dimly believing,
perhaps, that his own matrimonial chances depended upon the authenticity of the situation he was reporting. ‘There they were, you see. Your brother’s arm round the girl, and as pretty a picture as you could imagine. Kissed her, as a matter of fact.’ Colonel Motley offered this last and definitive communication not without embarrassment – and at the same time made to stand up, as if actually estimating the feasibility of now going to work by storm, and treating Mrs Warlow in the same fashion. The lady, however, was too quick for him, and had stood up too.
‘Colonel Motley,’ she said, ‘I must declare at once that what you say is new to me, and extremely surprising. My brother has said nothing of it, and it would be absurd in me to affect gratification at the prospect of so unsuitable an alliance. I cannot conceive how you could mention it to me except in terms of decent distress. You will forgive me, I am sure, if I feel that I must now be left alone to give thought to it.’
So the colonel took his leave in perplexity and dismay, and Mrs Warlow was left to give as much thought as she pleased to this transformed posture of affairs at Felton House. It didn’t take her long to see that Andy had for some little time either known or suspected what was on foot. Perhaps his recent rather unaccountable taking up with Elma’s brother had been in the interest of making observations in the matter. But why, then, had Andy not been frank with her about this disgusting threat – which among other things was going to make Howard an object of ridicule throughout the county? The probable answer to this question came to her fairly soon. Andy was far from minded to be a passive spectator of the fiasco. But what he intended to do about it he didn’t know that she’d approve.
Meanwhile, Mrs Warlow was conscious of the need for one immediate decision in the matter. Andy, with the boring colonel safely off the premises, might return to the room at any time, and her brother would be back from town within an hour. Ought she to speak up to either or both of them about what she had just heard? For some minutes she debated this with herself, and then determined to keep her own counsel until she had slept on the horror confronting her. Indeed, she might keep it a little longer than that. She was not without the desperate thought that Colonel Motley was a shade mad, and had been either inventing or distorting the whole thing.
XVI
A weekend had gone by during which Toby had not made his customary return to Felton. He hadn’t said anything about this in advance; he had merely rung up on the Friday and left a brief message to the effect that he wouldn’t be home. It was unusual behaviour, but needn’t have been alarming. Young men have their numerous occasions, not all of which need be explained to relatives. But Mrs Warlow, at least, was uneasy, since Toby’s absence was so undeniably occurring within a context of family disturbance. Was that visit to Oxford having a delayed effect – Toby being offended with Howard on the basis of Hugh’s talk about possible marriage? It had plainly been an eventuality broached only in general terms, Hugh being quite without any notion of Elma’s possible place in the picture. But had Toby perhaps got hold of Colonel Motley’s discovery (if it was a discovery) from some other source? It would be a very considerable shock to him. And Toby, in fact, was rather easily shocked. In his heart he had probably regarded his affair with Elma as not really terribly nice. And now here was the wretched girl – prompted, this time, by the acquisitive and great-house-hunting rather than the amative side of her nature – actually ensnaring his adoptive father after almost no interval at all. Mrs Warlow found that she was herself capable of viewing this situation as not without an element of comedy, although it was of a disagreeable sort. But poor Toby wouldn’t be likely to see it that way.
There was the alternative possibility that Toby and Andy had had a row – that they’d had another row, Mrs Warlow told herself, recalling the mysterious affair in the pub. Mrs Warlow felt that you could never be quite sure about young men. A couple of them might, in every major regard, be comporting themselves in a wholly blameless fashion both before the world and to one another, and yet harbour within their conduct some small enclave of the most questionable sort, in which brief animosities could spring up and flourish for a time.
But this was a nebulous notion, and simply didn’t square with Andy’s obvious concern with furthering his brother’s fortunes. By the time Mrs Warlow got this clear in her head another weekend had turned up, and so had Toby. Quite briefly, Toby explained what had occasioned his previous absence. He’d decided to drive over to Cambridge, book in at the Garden House, and look up Ianthe. It had suddenly come to him, he said, that it would be rather jolly to yank her out of her nunnery and treat her to a couple of decent meals.
This wasn’t quite Toby’s normal talk, and it wasn’t at all his normal conduct. He professed as an old Cambridge man to be rather disenchanted with the place, and unprompted by any present pious feeling to return to it; nor had his conception of family duty run to visiting Ianthe there before. Now, apart from the bare fact of the jaunt, he wasn’t at all communicative. Although it was becoming chilly even in the bright early-winter sunshine, he spent a good deal of time perched on his favourite balustrade on the terrace, gazing over Felton’s gardens and park rather (Mrs Warlow thought) in the manner of stout Cortez similarly engaged with the Pacific Ocean. Mrs Warlow, glancing through a window at this almost with the circumspection of the Misses Kinch behind their curtains, felt that what is called bated breath was required of her. Was the moment coming – or had it actually come – in which she might murmur with Prospero, ‘My high charms work’ and conclude the chancy mechanism of the shoogle to have justified itself? The thought was so exciting that she quite ceased for a time to worry about the folly in which her elder brother was proposing to engulf himself.
Yet about that folly (on which she was still holding her peace) she now had very little doubt. Successful dissimulation was very little Howard’s thing, and it was quite obvious that he was in an unusual state of mind – and one characterised, indeed, by an uncomfortable conflict of feelings. Howard was pleased with himself: there could be no question of that. He was like a small boy who knows he has done – or is about to do – something enormously clever. But equally he was misdoubting, alarmed, and suffering from a guilty conscience. This last state of mind was sufficiently evident even while Toby was absent from Felton, and it became even more obvious in Toby’s presence. Toby however seemed unaware of it, and when alone with Mrs Warlow he made no reference to such of the Warden’s ideas as had transpired over that Oxford breakfast-table. Toby, quite clearly, was wrapped in other speculations. It was an uncomfortable state of affairs, all the same. Mrs Warlow was relieved when, after luncheon on the Saturday, Toby and his brother announced that they were going for quite a long walk on the downs.
‘Wad there be as mony lassies as there are young men at Cambridge?’ Andy asked conversationally when they had set out.
‘No, not nearly so many. But a lot more than when I was up – and that’s no time ago.’
‘No more it is. We’re young still, you an’ me, Toby.’ It pleased Andy to give this the air of quite a sage remark. ‘Ianthe will hae made some friends among the other girls by now?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘But ye didna’ meet any?’ Andy now sounded surprised.
‘No.’
‘Man, I thocht it wad ha been what you’d gone for. After what that canny man the Warden was clavering over aboot it’s being a canty queen you should be thinking of getting bedded wi’.’
‘Oh, shut up, Andy. And I simply won’t talk to you if you go on piling up that gibberish.’
‘Very well. But you really haven’t any thought of getting married? It would get that Elma out of your system.’
‘I don’t want to talk about that just yet. There’s something too big and new to get clear in my head. And as for Elma, to hell with her.’
‘Tell me, Toby. Was she the first girl you ever had?’
‘Yes.’ Toby was furious at this questioning, but determined to answer whenever he honestly could. ‘Properly,
that is.’
‘She was the first you really got it up with?’
‘I didn’t mean that. The first I didn’t pay.’
‘Oh, that!’ For the first time within his brother’s recollection, Andy sounded rather shocked. ‘Well, well!’ he said, ‘I was saying we’re young still. I’ve had girls, Toby – three or four, although I’ve no thought to be a gay Lothario.’
‘I suppose not.’ Toby wondered who Andy supposed Lothario to have been.
‘And yin no’ that lang syne. Sorry! One not all that long ago.’
‘I think this is stupid. I think it’s rather horrid, really, talking about women at that—at that level.’
‘It’s the only level some of them are there to talk at.’
‘Who was the one you had not long ago?’
‘Perhaps I’ll tell you one day, or perhaps sooner. But it’s stupid, as you say. We’ll talk about the beauties of nature, Toby, and not of the seraglio.’
‘Of the what?’
‘The seraglio. Means a knocking-shop.’
In fact, for quite some time they talked about nothing at all, walking briskly ahead in silence. But it was a companionable silence, which somehow suggested that these brief exchanges had been satisfactory to both of them. Andy, in particular, might have been distinguished as bearing a contented mind, rather as if some preliminary investigation had turned out well.
Certainly the afternoon was turning out well. The sun, straight ahead of them, had dropped halfway down a clear sky, moulding the down into gentle ripples buttercup-tinted on their crests. There had been a few early frosts lately but little rain for weeks; the turf was dry but springy still; on one side encroaching ploughland lapped up almost to the ridge they were walking along; on the other undulating pastures faded into distance, with only here and there the dark blottesque of a long wind-break or a close-clumped spinney. It was terrain now almost as familiar to Andy as to Toby, and as Toby seemed disposed to a certain degree of absent brooding as he walked, it was Andy who once or twice chose the path they followed. The late afternoon had seemed quite windless around them, but now suddenly there was a bit of a breeze stirring in their hair and endeavouring, not very successfully, to detach from shoulders or chests shirts damp with sweat. Although not with any particular sense of rivalry, they had been striding out at quite a lick. But now they drew to a halt together, since they had arrived at a spot with a splendid view.
Andrew and Tobias Page 21
