“I think it’s a good idea,” said Hump. “Smackers aren’t very nice. A man’s more likely to risk a smacker in a good cause if he knows there’s balm waiting for him.”
“Ah, but we’re supposed to be so dumb and dishonest we don’t know a good cause from a bad one. We just apply balm to our man. Balm for the mobster. Balm for the martyr. It’s all one to us.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes you did. You said that women ought to be clinging, dishonest little …”
“That’s all that most men want. There aren’t many heroes.”
“There doesn’t seem to be one in Ravonsbridge. There doesn’t seem to be any man who’s willing to risk a smacker.”
“No,” agreed John thoughtfully. “Young Millwood doesn’t sound like a hero.”
Melissa shot him a furious look. She had drawn her own conclusions from a sudden silence concerning Charles in Lucy’s letters, and had communicated them to John, but he should have kept them to himself. Had it not been for her frown Hump might not have noticed the remark. He pricked up his ears.
“Millwood?” he said. “The Eel? Where does he come in?”
“Melissa thinks …” began John.
“No, I don’t,” snapped Melissa. “I don’t think anything.”
“I should hope not,” said Hump. “He’ll never need balm, for I never knew anyone less likely to risk a smacker.”
He reflected for a moment and a look of sudden anger crossed his face. He frowned too, and John, glancing from the sister to the brother, saw a likeness between them for the first time.
“I should hope not,” repeated Hump. “She’s a million times too good for him.”
2
NOBODY had ever called Lady Frances a liar before. She had never in her life said what she believed to be untrue and she expected everybody to accept her word. The Poor told lies because they were oppressed. Ill-bred people told lies because they knew no better. Ravonscleres never told them.
When Angera screamed the accusation at her she was more stunned than angry. To her, it was strange and incomprehensible rather than an insult. She searched her memory anxiously for any slip of which she might have been guilty, and recollected one small inaccuracy. She had told him that Ianthe’s name had never been mentioned at the Council meeting. Now she remembered that it had. She hastened to amend her statement; there had been a passing reference to local gossip, she told him, which she had instantly suppressed. She had refused to listen to a word of it. And by whom, demanded Angera, was this reference made? He challenged her to deny that it was Miss Foss. She would not answer him, but her start of surprise confirmed his suspicions.
Before the end of their interview she had made up her mind that he must certainly go. She could forgive him for calling her a liar — that she overlooked as a piece of foreign hysteria, but she could not tolerate the terms in which he was giving his opinion of Miss Foss. He must go. She would not have him at the Institute, and she would say so at the next Council meeting. No apology or retraction could now mollify her.
This decision strengthened her determination to hear no more about town gossip, or listen to the plea that current slanders against Angera made it advisable to keep him. But the first anonymous letter, which arrived two days later, shook her a little. She was applauded for getting rid of a dirty Jew who took advantage of the young girls at the Institute. Anti-Semitism had always horrified her. But she burnt the letter, telling herself that she must endure misconstruction and do as she thought right. And she burnt the next, which abused her for sacking people who stood up to her in order to make room for her own favourites, asked where “all that money” went, and referred to the Angera case as a “dirty fascist job similar to Thornley”. Eventually she burnt any letter of this kind without reading it. There was nobody with whom she could have consulted, for it was not her habit to take advice from her daughters. Charles always refused to listen to Institute affairs and nowadays flew into a rage if they were so much as mentioned. Hayter had given her to understand that he could not discuss the conduct of a colleague. In all her life since Matt’s death she had never felt so discouraged and so lonely.
For the first time she had quite a distaste for the Institute and a reluctance to go there. But she pulled herself together, one day, and drove in; she had to settle the summer programme with Hayter and endorse the proposal for a performance of Comus in Slane forest. And that, she told herself, would be something nice to which she could look forward. She thought it a delightful idea, if only the weather was good. Mr. Hayter was enthusiastic; he suggested a repetition during the Summer Festival, if the production was as good as it promised to be. No Institute production had ever before reached the Festival standards. Ravonsbridge could be proud of itself, if Hayter’s hopes were justified, and there would be notices in the London papers.
So pretty it will be, all among the trees, she thought as her car purred up Gibbet Hill. Pretty music, too! A real treat for us all and a change from Shakespeare, because one gets tired of Shakespeare, though one shouldn’t.
A squalid tin erection on the top of Gibbet Hill caught her eye and shattered her pleasant reverie. After a fight, which had torn Severnshire in half, the Meekers were going to disfigure it with a horrible monument. She had done her best to prevent it, and so had every Severnshire magnate except Charles, who had shrugged his shoulders and said that no monument would be as ugly as a gallows. But a gallows, she had argued, can be removed more easily than a monument with a lot of untrue things inscribed on it. And now the thing was to be unveiled at midsummer. The idiotic Mr. Finch was going to read some kind of service at the ceremony. Canon Pillie was far too weak with that young man.
She was feeling quite depressed again when she reached the Institute and climbed out of her car and was waylaid by Mr. Mildmay with the request for a few words in private. She went with him into his own little room, behind the library, and while she enquired after his wife’s arthritis, she thought how old he was getting to look nowadays. But everybody was getting old, or dying or going away. Links with the past were snapping every day; hardly anybody was left who seemed to remember the old Ravonsbridge. How many years ago was it now since Matt had fished Mr. Mildmay out of some obscure library and sent him to buy rare books? A queer, dried-up little man he had been even then, smelling like a book, and calling her your ladyship every time he spoke until Matt told him not to. Matt did that sort of thing so easily.
“She’s not so good,” said Mr. Mildmay, shaking his head over Mrs. Mildmay. “Not so good. She suffers a great deal.”
“Has she got efficient help in the house? Perhaps I could help to get her a refugee maid.”
“Oh, yes, very efficient,” he assured her. “We have an excellent daily woman.”
The daily woman was far from excellent, but the refugee maids produced by Lady Frances were feared in Ravonsbridge like the plague. To escape from such a threat he plunged hastily into his subject, though he did not much relish it. He said that he had been asked to speak to her about Angera’s resignation, at which she stiffened and became haughty.
“This gossip about his personal character,” said Mr. Mildmay, growing flurried, “is most unfortunate. Nobody believes it; none of his colleagues believe it for a moment. If the council is influenced …”
“It is not,” interrupted Lady Frances. “You may set your mind at rest about that, Mr. Mildmay. I never listen to gossip. Nor does the Council. I don’t allow it to be mentioned in my presence.”
Mr. Mildmay shook his head slowly and felt that he had blundered. He had not been charged to reprove Lady Frances for listening to gossip. On the contrary, he had meant to hint that she ought, on this occasion, to take its existence into account.
“It is felt to be a great pity that Mr. Angera should go,” he began again.
“By whom?” asked Lady Frances stiffly.
“By … by some members of the Staff.”
He would have liked to say by the whole Staff, but Lucy had been the on
ly one of them to consult him, so that he did not feel able to speak for his colleagues in a body. Now that it was too late, he wished that he had sounded some of the others before attempting to speak to Lady Frances.
“Which members? Who asked you to speak to me?”
“Actually it was Miss Carmichael.”
“Miss Carmichael?”
“She … she’s a great friend of Mrs. Angera’s, you know. Naturally she is distressed … she asked me if there might not be some misunderstanding which could be cleared up. The whole thing seems to be so unfortunate.”
“But what business is it of Miss Carmichael’s?”
“She told me that it is widely believed, in the lower town at any rate, that the Council has been influenced….”
“But why Miss Carmichael? She is not one of the Senior Staff. How did she come to make this request to you?”
“I’m so out of things … I never know what is going on.”
“I still don’t see that it was her business.”
Mr. Mildmay looked round at his locked cases as if for inspiration. He felt that he was making a mess of it and letting Lucy down.
“She was troubled by these rumours, and so was I when she told me of them. I am the oldest member of the Staff. I think that she acted quite properly.”
“I can’t agree with you. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Miss Carmichael, and I must say, Mr. Mildmay, I’m surprised you didn’t tell her so. Nor do I think that her opinions need have been reported to me.”
Lady Frances was so angry that she could not trust herself to say more. She turned without a word and went off to do her business with Hayter. But she felt that her pleasure in the prospect of Comus was likely to be spoilt by this extraordinary behaviour in the hitherto sensible Miss Carmichael.
Comus, however, was off. Hayter had changed his mind and was now against it. Upon careful consideration, he thought the plan a little too ambitious. Reluctant as he always was to criticise or to check youthful enthusiasm, he thought that it might be kinder to put some slight curb upon Miss Carmichael. It was so easy for a girl in her position to get a swelled head. She was not really a Senior Director, but she was treated with such deference nowadays that she might be pardoned for having got the idea that she ranked with the older Staff. Difficulties might arise, when a new Senior Director was appointed and she had to take a back seat.
“I quite see what you mean,” said Lady Frances thoughtfully. “A snub now might prevent her from getting too big for her boots.”
“It’s very natural in so young a girl, brought forward so quickly,” said Hayter. “One hates having to put the brake on. She’s so delightfully enterprising, and I’m sure, if we save her from making mistakes now, she’ll eventually do us all great credit.”
Lady Frances agreed. A blue pencil went through Comus. Another Shakespeare, they decided, should be suggested to Miss Carmichael; The Merchant of Venice, said Lady Frances, had not been produced at the Institute for some time.
“And another thing,” said Hayter. “I venture to suggest that for our next production we don’t have recruits from the lower town. There is a little too much running up and down the hill with gossip of Institute affairs, I think.”
“So one gathers,” said Lady Frances grimly.
“Miss Carmichael means very well, but I don’t think she’s always discreet. I can’t help feeling sorry that she goes so much to the Meekers.”
“The Meekers?”
This name was anathema to Lady Frances, especially since the tussle over the monument.
“Oh, yes. She’s down there constantly. She is not, I know for a fact, cautious in what she says. And of course she thinks she can run the Institute better than any of us. It’s my impression that a great deal of … er … recent gossip might be traced to that source.”
“Where is she?” demanded Lady Frances wrathfully. “I’d like to see her at once.”
“It’s only my impression,” said Hayter. “She may have said nothing that she shouldn’t. But I think it’s an intimacy which … well, at the moment, I regret it.”
“I’ll ask her what she has been saying. Please find her and send her here.”
Hayter went off to fetch Lucy. He did not warn her that she was in disgrace and she thought that she had been summoned to discuss Comus. But as soon as she got to his office she saw that there was trouble. Hayter ushered her into the room and retired.
“Mr. Mildmay,” said Lady Frances, “has been telling me, Miss Carmichael, that you think the Council cannot manage its own affairs.”
Oh, hell! thought Lucy. He’s bitched it. But how like Charles she looks! They are alike. I’ve never seen her in a temper before.
“I was a little astonished,” continued Lady Frances, “that he thought it necessary to let me know that. I’ve not sent for you on that account. But it has occurred to me that you may be publishing your opinions to people outside the Institute, and that is another matter. There is a great deal of unnecessary gossip going on in the town about Mr. Angera’s resignation. Have you discussed that with anyone down the hill?”
“Yes,” said Lucy. “I discussed it with Mr. Meeker.”
“Mr. Meeker! Why?”
“I wanted his opinion.”
“Can’t you see what a disloyal and mischievous thing that was to do?”
“No. I don’t think it was. He cares very much about the Institute and he was a great friend of Mr. Millwood’s.”
“Nonsense. They never met.”
“But … they went to school together!”
“Oh … you mean the old man? The father?”
“Of course I do. Did you think I meant Dr. Meeker? Mrs. Meeker’s husband?”
Lady Frances, by silence, conveyed that the manner of this answer was impertinent. Lucy coloured.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “But old Mr. Meeker is quite different. I’ve never discussed anything with Dr. or Mrs. Meeker. I hardly know them.”
“It’s all the same family. What you say will be repeated.”
“Oh, no. I’m sure not.”
“And you’d no business to say anything. I wish you could realise the harm you may have done. All sorts of foolish rumours seem to be going round the town.”
“Excuse me, Lady Frances, but I didn’t start them. It was because of those rumours that I spoke to Mr. Meeker.”
“How did you know there were any?”
“Everybody knows. The students know, the Staff know, my landlady knows….”
“The way to stop that sort of thing is to say nothing. In future I hope you’ll be more careful. It is, in any case, no business of yours, you know.”
Lucy looked miserably at Lady Frances, and racked her brains for one of the many openings upon which she had pondered when she was wondering if she ought not to go herself to Lady Frances.
“Don’t you think,” she said diffidently, “that injustice is everybody’s business? It hurts everybody.”
“In this case there has been none.”
“Oh, but there is. There is injustice to you and to the Council. You are quite misunderstood….”
“I think you can allow us to take care of ourselves.”
“And there will be injustice to Mr. Angera,” continued Lucy resolutely, “if he goes just now. He may have put himself in the wrong by resigning. But if he goes now it will be regarded as proof that the Council believes that story against him, and it will be a slur on his character.”
Lady Frances pursed her lips and made no answer.
“When you were my age,” cried Lucy desperately, “and saw something which you thought was very wrong, didn’t you feel bound to try and do something? I know I’m young, and young people shouldn’t speak out of turn, but didn’t you feel you had to, sometimes, even when you were my age?”
At Lucy’s age Lady Frances had gone to prison for her principles. And she had never, at any age, kept silence when she saw something which she thought to be wrong. Lucy’s words and aspect
quickened that instinctive sympathy which had always existed between them.
“Don’t you think,” she said, in a kinder voice, “that in this case there are older people to whom it can safely be left?”
“Who is there? Mr. Thornley has gone. Dr. Pidgeon isn’t here. Mr. Mildmay didn’t know anything much about it till I told him. When he did, he agreed with me and said he would speak to you. He didn’t disagree; if he had, I’d have piped down.”
“You seem to forget that Mr. Hayter is on the Council and is perfectly able to tell us what is going on.”
Lucy was silent. She had decided to say nothing against Hayter. She would not be believed, and such a step might injure Emil’s cause. She must fight Hayter without accusing him.
“He, I think,” said Lady Frances, “would have been a better person to talk to. And there must be no more gossip to people outside.”
“Oh, no. I’ve consulted Mr. Meeker. I’ve got his opinion. I wouldn’t want to speak of it to anyone else.”
“Consulted?” said Lady Frances, with reviving irritation. “That’s such nonsense, you know. How could he advise you?”
“I was wondering if I oughtn’t to go straight to you or to Charles….”
“Charles?”
“To … Mr. Millwood.”
Lucy blushed as she corrected herself. She had spoken thoughtlessly, and yet she would scarcely have known how to speak of him otherwise. She did call him Charles and he called her Lucy; she could not very well call him Mr. Millwood to the woman who might have been her mother-in-law.
This unfortunate slip ruined all chance of an understanding. Lady Frances was completely taken aback. She had thought that she understood Lucy, and was beginning to sympathise with her. But this was a piece of deliberate ill-bred impertinence quite inconsistent with what she had supposed to be the girl’s character. She never imagined for a moment that they could be Charles and Lucy to one another on so slight an acquaintance, though she had thought him attracted at the Christmas party. Such informality had been unknown in her young days, and she knew little of modern manners.
Lucy Carmichael Page 29
