“Oh, it’s real enough. I’m not asking you to marry me, because it’s too soon. I’m just telling you that that is what I’m going to do as soon as you know me better. I don’t want to rush you. Just think it out. I don’t see that I could possibly be worse to live with than Aunt Lydia, and I might be quite a lot better. I’d take care of you, my dear. It seems to me you want someone who will do that. And now I’m going to make you angry.”
Before she had any idea what he was going to do he put a hand under her chin and kissed her. It was over before she realized that it was going to happen. And she wasn’t angry.
There was nothing to be angry about. He had kissed her because he loved her. She felt quite sure about that, and it made her feel safe. He let go of her at once and walked to the door.
CHAPTER 11
They went down the passage towards Jenny’s room. Craig was aware of a release from tension. Imagination played its tricks, and he thought he would have known that Lydia Crewe was no longer behind that closed door on the left, even if he had not seen her turn in at the White Cottage. There was, of course, the fact that Rosamond knew the room was empty. He became aware of how continually she was on the stretch, waiting for an imperious bell to summon her. With Miss Crewe out of the house, she was different-less at the mercy of a rigid code, less shut away from him. And as far as he could judge she wasn’t angry. He had kissed her, and she wasn’t angry.
She walked beside him in a silence which seemed natural to both of them. There was so much between them that was unsaid because the time had not come to say it, but both of them knew that the time would come when it would be said. Just short of Jenny’s door the sound of voices came to them. She was a step ahead. Without turning she said,
“Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? Nicholas is here. I’ve wanted you to meet him.”
Something in him was angry, and something laughed. She would, would she? Of course it was Sunday and the fellow wouldn’t be working. What a nice interesting tea-party they were going to have!
He followed Rosamond into the room, and saw Jenny laughing with a young man who looked like a film star. The comparison was there in his mind, and then he wondered why. Nicholas Cunningham was good-looking, but so are a lot of other people who are not film stars. His fair hair had a wave in it, but to do him justice, it looked as if he had tried to brush it out. It wasn’t his fault that his eyes were almost as blue as Jenny’s. For the rest, he had a slight active figure, a ready smile, a pleasant voice, and an air of being very much at home. Upon which of these counts was he to be indicted? Craig didn’t know, but the indictment was there. It seemed that any peg would do to hang it on.
It was Jenny who performed the introduction.
“Craig-Nicholas. Now you know each other, and we can have a party. The cakes are all here. And you’re not going down for the tray, Rosamond, because Miss Holiday is still here, and she said she would bring it up as soon as we rang.”
Rosamond said, “Oh, but she never does.”
Jenny forgot to be grown-up. She giggled.
“She’s making a simply dreadful favour of it. And she wouldn’t if she wasn’t dying to have a good look at Craig. She has always just missed him, and she had pretty well got to the point where she was going to demean herself and answer the front door bell, only Rosamond always beat her to it.”
“Jenny!”
“Well, you did. And when I suggested she might bring up the tea she made a favour of it like I told you, but she was really as pleased as Punch.”
Craig said, “Who is Miss Holiday, and why does she want to look at me?”
It appeared that of the two girls who came in by the day only Ivy really answered to that description. The other was Miss Holiday, a person of uncertain age and some pretentions. She was also unfortunately a good deal less competent than the bouncing Ivy, who was not yet seventeen. With all her rough and ready ways and the scrambling hurry with which she plunged china into boiling water and whisked it out again, Ivy according to Mrs. Bolder didn’t break above half what Miss Holiday did. “And how she does it, Miss Rosamond, I couldn’t say. Not that she hurries herself, for she’s the slowest ever I watched. She just doesn’t seem to have any grip in her fingers. So if you did feel you could take on the china for Miss Crewe’s trays there’d be more of it left, if you see what I mean.”
Jenny mimicked all this with a will. She looked down her nose and said, “Another of the Minton plates!” in Aunt Lydia’s harshest voice, and had got to Miss Holiday explaining limply that of course a thing like washing-up wasn’t what she had been accustomed to, when there was a bump against the door and Nicholas sprang to open it. Miss Holiday stood there with a small tray upon which were five odd cups, a brown earthenware milk-jug, and a large flowered teapot with a broken spout. She was a thin person with a poke, and she appeared to sustain the tray with difficulty. It tilted, and Nicholas took it from her and set it down in front of Rosamond.
Miss Holiday had a good sideways stare at Craig Lester. She thought he was a fine-looking gentleman. She liked a big man herself, and he would make two of Nicholas Cunningham. Not but what the girls thought a lot of Mr. Nicholas. Enough to make anyone ashamed the way they ran after him. And all very well for him to come here smiling at Miss Rosamond the way he did, but she had seen him with her own eyes no later than last Wednesday night at the Odeon in Melbury with that flashy girl from the tobacconist’s in Cross Street. Painted up to the nines and the best part of her salary on her back, if it wasn’t the best part of his. And her head on his shoulder half the time-at least it was there when she came in and there when she went out, and nothing to say but what it had been there all the time. She did not sniff out loud, because she prided herself upon her manners, but she sniffed inwardly and mentally as Nicholas took the tray from her and set it down.
She took another look at Mr. Lester. Since he was a man, he wouldn’t be what you could really approve of, but for the moment she preferred him to Nicholas Cunningham. Of course it went without saying that there would be something wrong somewhere. Her own sense of superiority was largely maintained by the contemplation of other people’s faults.
She was so much interested in her own thoughts that it simply did not occur to her to retreat. She stood where she was, just inside the door, in the limp faded overall which rather failed to cover a green stuff dress, a row of bright blue beads about her stringy neck, her mouth a little open and her light eyes goggling at Craig. She was imagining him in a Western galloping down on one of those horses they had in the films and snatching you up just before the Indians got you, when Rosamond’s voice broke in upon the pleasant dream.
“Thank you very much, Miss Holiday.”
She went away with regret, and forgot to shut the door.
When Nicholas had rectified the omission he said in an exasperated voice,
“That woman is barmy. She’ll burn you all in your beds one of these days.”
Jenny laughed pertly.
“She isn’t here when we’re in our beds-at least I might be in mine. And I don’t know about Aunt Lydia, but Rosamond wouldn’t be in hers. She doesn’t get a chance, poor lamb. The girls-” she went off into a fresh peal-“fancy calling Miss Holiday a girl! Anyhow they go off at eight sharp, and Ivy doesn’t come on Sundays at all, but Miss Holiday rather likes to because of getting lunch and tea.” She mimicked again, and had the dragging voice to the life. “As long as it is quite understood that there is no obligation, Miss Maxwell.”
Craig handed her a cup of tea. Rosamond said, “Jenny darling!” But Nicholas laughed and put a plateful of Mrs. Bolder’s sugar buns down on her lap.
“Eat, my child, and give your elders a chance to talk,” he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing the angry colour run up to the roots of her hair.
Miss Holiday did not immediately return to the housekeeper’s room. Mrs. Bolder would not make the tea until she returned, and since she was in a pleased frame of mind, it occurred to her to make up Miss Crewe
’s fire before she went downstairs. She would not have admitted that there was some curiosity mixed up with the goodwill, but it is a fact that she had never yet been alone in the room. She had, in fact, hardly ever been into it at all. It was Miss Maxwell who hoovered the carpet and dusted all those innumerable ornaments. If there was one thing more than another for which Miss Holiday was thankful, it was that she didn’t have to handle that china and Miss Crewe watching her all the time like a cat with a mouse. She wasn’t often sorry for other people-she’d had her own troubles, hadn’t she?- but there were times when she could find it in her heart to be sorry for Rosamond Maxwell.
She came into the room, leaving the door ajar behind her. It was still daylight, but the corners were full of shadows. She switched on the light in the chandelier and almost cried out at the sudden brightness. It made her blink and look over her shoulder. Suppose anyone was to come in! Well, she had to have a light, hadn’t she, if she was going to see to the fire? She went over to it and knelt down. It didn’t really need anything doing to it, but she wasn’t to know that. There was a silly little set of fireplace tools hanging on a stand to the right of the hearth. Just one more thing to clean. Nobody had them nowadays- only Miss Crewe. If there was anything in the world that made work, it was brass. And look what it did to your hands!
One of the things on the stand was an ornamental brush. You could tell it wasn’t meant to be used. Miss Holiday gave her head a toss. Whether it was, or whether it wasn’t, she was going to use it, and no one was going to stop her. She whisked away a cinder and flicked at some imaginary dust. This gave her a feeling of superiority. Her nervousness at being alone in Miss Crewe’s room had gone as she hung the brush up in its place and got to her feet. Now that she was here, she wasn’t in any hurry to go. She walked all round the room, looking at the china and being glad all over again that she didn’t have to dust it. She thought most of it very ugly, but there was a plate with birds on it that took her fancy. She was partial to birds. There was a row of them in a cabinet which she wouldn’t have minded having if they had been going cheap in a sale. She’d have gone up to a pound if they had gone for that. There were six of them, in pairs like ornaments ought to be-two green, two yellow, and two with brown feathers and rosy breasts. She made the circuit of the room and went over to straighten the cushions in Miss Crewe’s chair.
She didn’t think she had ever got such a start in her life as when she heard the footsteps. Her hand went to her overall pocket and her mouth dropped open on a suppressed scream. And after all it was only Mrs. Bolder come to see why in the world she hadn’t come down to her tea. Not that she would have wanted to put Mrs. Bolder about like that, because she wouldn’t, but who’d have thought of her coming through into the front? Once a day to see Miss Crewe about the orders, but that was the beginning and the end of it. To say that Mrs. Bolder was put about was to draw it very mild indeed. She was a little woman with a high colour and a lot of grey hair, and everyone in Hazel Green knew about her temper. She stood in the doorway and looked at Miss Holiday as if she could do her a mischief.
“And what are you doing here?” she said. “Oh, you come in to see to the fire, did you? And Miss Crewe only gone out a half an hour! Coal burns quick enough, we all know that, but it don’t burn as quick as that would come to. And you’ve no business in this room, as well you know, or you wouldn’t have jumped like you did when I come in. And I’ll thank you, Miss Holiday, to mind your own business and to let me get on with mine which was making the tea, and the kettle boiling over this quarter of an hour, and me wondering whether you’d been took with a stroke or fallen down somewhere in a fit.”
Miss Holiday was moved to feeble protest.
“Fits nor strokes is not what we’ve ever had, not in our family,” she said.
Her hands had gone into her overall pockets, but she could feel them trembling there. She went past Mrs. Bolder, standing to see her out of the room, and heard the clap of the door as she followed her. She had been looking forward to her tea, because there was always a nice cake Sundays, but she wasn’t going to be able to enjoy it, not if she had to eat it with temper sauce. She went meekly down the passage, and across the hall, and through the baize door with Mrs. Bolder’s tongue driving her.
CHAPTER 12
It was about half an hour later that Miss Lucy Cunningham joined the tea-party in Jenny’s room, coming in by the side door without troubling anyone to answer it, as she had done for the last thirty years. Since she never left the house without preparing for rain, she wore a man’s waterproof over her winter coat and carried a stout umbrella.
“Well, here I am,” she said, “and better late than never, but I do like to give Henry his tea. And then I thought I would just drop in and have a word with Mrs. Stubbs about the broody hen she has promised me. My crossed birds won’t sit. But I won’t have that light Sussex she lent me last year-a most contrary bird, and I lost half the chicks. I thought I’d just make sure I didn’t get her again, so I went down to the Holly Tree and came along by the road. How do you do, Mr. Lester? You are at the Holly Tree, are you not? I think my brother met you there. I hope Mrs. Stubbs makes you comfortable-but I needn’t ask, she always does.” She dropped the hand which she had been shaking and addressed the room in general. “Now don’t let me go away without my umbrella. Perhaps I had better keep it by me. But you can take my waterproof, Nicholas. And yes, perhaps the coat too. It’s really quite dreadfully hot in here. Much better for Jenny to have the windows open. There isn’t any tonic like fresh air. How are you, Rosamond? You look peaky. You should take yoghourt three times a day-there’s nothing like it. And no trouble at all-you just set the milk and let it turn sour… Yes, you can take this scarf-I shan’t want it in here.”
Divested of successive layers of clothing, she appeared a good deal less bulky, though still more than comfortably plump. Yoghourt or no yoghourt, she made an excellent tea, and continued to talk in a rapid discursive manner whilst partaking of buttered scone, fruit cake, and Mrs. Bolder’s own particular tea-biscuits, which were the subject of a keen rivalry with Florrie Hunt. Lucy Cunningham had been trying to get the recipe for thirty years, and if she tried for another thirty she would still be wasting her time. Mrs. Bolder was one that kept herself to herself, and the recipe for her biscuits would go to no one but her own flesh and blood, and not to them whilst there was breath in her body. For the moment Miss Cunningham left well alone. She continued to press the claims of sour milk upon Rosamond and Jenny, together with black treacle and a horrible mixture of milk and brewer’s yeast.
Nicholas burst out laughing.
“I should have thought dieting would begin at home. You don’t take any of these things yourself, and thank heaven you know better than to inflict them on your family.”
Miss Lucy’s round blue eyes had quite a hurt expression.
“But, my dear, I don’t need them. I daresay I might become slimmer, but if you feel well you feel well, and what do a few pounds matter when all is said and done?”
Jenny giggled.
“But Rosamond and I don’t want to lose any pounds. We’re always being told we ought to put them on.”
“Oh, but you would, my dear, I’m sure. You wouldn’t be slimming, and you could have cream and butter and eggs, and even suet pudding if you wanted to.”
“I shouldn’t want to if I had black treacle and that sour milk stuff,” said Jenny. “I shouldn’t want anything for hours and hours and hours. I expect that’s why you get slim.”
Rosamond moved across until she was between Jenny and Lucy Cunningham. That was the worst of parties, Jenny got all worked up and began to show off. She did not know that the look she sent to Craig Lester was one of appeal, but as she began to talk to Lucy about hens she could hear him asking Nicholas whether he had seen a play which had set everyone laughing in town. He embarked on an amusing description of it for what was obviously Jenny’s benefit, and soon had her laughing too.
The hens petered ou
t after a little. Miss Cunningham looked at her watch.
“I would have liked to see Lydia. I suppose she won’t be late?”
“Oh, no.”
“It is not as if she has any distance to go. Henry saw her turn in at the White Cottage.”
“So did I,” said Craig Lester, and then felt that perhaps he had better have held his tongue.
Miss Lucy said, “Oh, dear!” in a tone which made it plain that she knew all about the meeting with Henry Cunningham. She made a little vexed sound, and began to praise Mrs. Bolder’s biscuits and to sound Rosamond as to the likelihood of her being persuaded to part with the recipe.
“I wouldn’t dare ask her-I really wouldn’t.”
“Faint heart never won fair biscuit!” said Nicholas, laughing. “You all tremble before her, and she knows it. Rosamond is the worst of the lot.”
Rosamond laughed too, but on a rueful note.
“Well, she’s got a very daunting piece about being only a poor widow so of course anyone can trample on her, and once she has got started on it you simply can’t stop her and every relation she has ever lost comes into it. It goes on for about half an hour and by the time it’s over you feel as if it was all your fault.”
Nicholas threw her a kiss.
“My sweet, you’re a spineless worm! And she tramples accordingly!”
Lucy Cunningham shook her head.
“It doesn’t do to have rows, and she’s a very good cook.”
“Aunt Lucy’s a peace-at-any-pricer! She’d give in to anything rather than have a row-wouldn’t you, Lu?”
“Nicholas, how often am I to tell you-”
“That you won’t have that silly, undignified nickname? Well, I don’t know, darling-it just depends. We might go into a huddle and arrive at a compromise-say once a day as a rule, and twice on high days and holidays.”
She broke into an unwilling smile. Jenny said in a considering voice,
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