My Sister Celia

by Mary Burchell

  “But I don’t know yet which train I shall take,” Freda said, with the uneasy conviction that the more she accepted favours from Laurence Clumber, the more she weakened her own position in some intangible way.

  “Very well.” Unexpectedly, he abandoned the argument, just as they arrived outside the offices of Jason & Merry. And, such is the contrariness of human nature, Freda immediately felt rather regretful about having rejected the evening drive to Dalling.

  However, she bade him a brisk but pleasant goodbye, having thanked him for the lift. And, without a backward look—though this required a slight effort on her part—she entered the offices of Crowmain’s genial house-agent.

  “Good morning, Miss Mersham.” Mr. Merry came forward. “Very pleasant to see you down here again so soon. Bill Token and his men have made a start on the cottage, but everything’s a bit at sixes and sevens at the moment, of course. I see—” for Mr. Merry had looked unblushingly from his window and saw no reason to conceal the fact—“that you drove down with Mr. Clumber.”

  “Yes,” said Freda uninformatively.

  Mr. Merry secretly considered that a rather mean sort of answer, which deserved nothing in reply but a further question.

  “Does that mean”—he looked almost arch for a moment—“that you may have second thoughts about selling the cottage?”

  “No,” said Freda. “It doesn’t. I just thought I’d better look in and see you about insurance, Mr. Merry, and anything else that I ought to attend to as—as a householder.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mr. Merry immediately became more official, though—as all was grist to his conversational mill—he hoped that, even over anything as humdrum as house insurance, he might glean a few more interesting details about the situation between the unusual Miss Mersham and the new owner of Crowmain Court.

  Freda, however, kept strictly to business, and then bade Mr. Merry a very pleasant good morning and went on to see Bill Token.

  Work, it seemed, had been satisfactorily begun. But, like most people in his profession. Bill Token was maddeningly vague about when it was likely to be finished. However, he conceded reluctantly that no major repairs had been found necessary and that they would, as he expressed it, “get around to the decorating” in not much more than a week.

  “Then it’s time I chose papers and paint,” Freda said, in a tone of the utmost satisfaction. “But I’d like to do that actually in the cottage, so that I can judge how they will look. Could I take some of your sample books down there?”

  “Much too heavy for you to lug along,” Mr. Token assured. “I’ll drop them in on my way home to lunch, and you go in this afternoon and take your time over it.”

  So once more Freda lunched at the Peacock and Peahen and then, with the familiar thrill of pleasurable excitement, made her way to the cottage.

  Quite a lot of outside work had already been done upon it, and it looked very snug and secure in the afternoon sunshine. True, there was no new paint on yet. But the old, shabby paint had been burned off, and the very solid-looking doors and window frames seemed to be only awaiting her choice of colour before they should take on a completely new lease of life.

  Mr. Token had been as good as his word. On the floor in the big room downstairs stood a pile of books of wallpaper samples and shade cards showing every conceivable colour of paint. And, sitting down on three of the books, Freda proceeded to study the others.

  No one who has ever engaged on the pleasing but tantalizing task of choosing wallpapers will be surprised to learn that Freda became completely absorbed for something like the next two hours. At the end of that time, she had inserted dozens of slips of paper into the various books, to indicate possible choices, and then withdrawn most of them in favour of later temptations.

  By the time she straightened up from her task—with a crick in her neck, but the pleasant certainty that she had at last found what she wanted for each of her rooms—the afternoon was quite far advanced. It was warm in the cottage and, happy to have come to so many satisfactory conclusions, Freda went out into the garden for a breath of fresh air.

  There was no question about it—the garden was going to need a lot of attention, to bring it back into anything like a state of tidiness. But here and there among the tangle of overgrown bushes and weeds there were some gay flowers determinedly flaunting their summer colours.

  “I’ll get someone in to do the heavy digging,” Freda decided. “And then I’ll try my own hand at gardening. There must be plenty of people around here to give one advice.”

  And, almost as though in answer to that thought, a voice hailed her from the fence at the end of the garden.

  “Hello,” said Laurence Clumber. “I wondered if you’d like to come up to the house and have some tea.”

  Of all things in the world, on this hot afternoon, Freda discovered she was longing for a cup of tea. She could, of course, insist on walking back to the village and trying to find somewhere there where she could have tea. But why make heavy weather of it? Particularly when one was hot and thirsty.

  “How did you guess? There’s nothing I’d like better,” she admitted, and she came towards the owner of Crowmain Court with a smile.

  “Well, I knew you had no facilities yet at the cottage,” he explained, as he helped her over the fence. “And I thought you might like to see the place again. You knew it very well when you were a little girl, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did,” Freda agreed. And as she walked up the grassy slope towards the big house beside Laurence Clumber, suddenly it seemed that the shade of Belshazzar walked with her and that Miss Clumber must surely be waiting in the long drawing room, with the tea-table beside her—spread out with all the things which could most commend themselves to a hungry little girl.

  “Your great-aunt was very kind to me when I was small,” she told Laurence Clumber. “I came here nearly every week.”

  “Yes, I know. You saved her cat from some horrid fate, didn’t you? She approved of you—as much as she ever approved of anyone. She used to tell me you had ‘most of the right instincts’.”

  “Did she really?” Freda laughed, because she thought she could almost hear the dry tones of old Miss Clumber uttering this somewhat qualified praise. “It seems strange to me that she should have remembered me for so long.”

  “Does it?” said Laurence Clumber. “It doesn’t seem strange to me. You’re not the kind of person one easily forgets.”

  Freda was not entirely sure that he meant this in a strictly complimentary sense, so she made no reply. And presently they came to the open french windows, which admitted them to the long drawing-room.

  “You can’t have changed much here.” Freda stood looking round, half charmed, half saddened by such a strong reminder of a long-gone past. “It all looks so familiar.”

  “I like it as it is,” he said. “It’s almost a period piece. I don’t intend to change it.”

  “No—you’re probably right. She used to sit here, just by the tea-table, so that she could enjoy the view from the window, but also see at once when anyone came in at the door.”

  “Yes, she did that in my time too. I used to come down here a lot of late years. She was pretty lonely, I think, and in her odd way, she was fond of me. Though she didn’t approve of me,” he added, with a laugh.

  “Didn’t she? Why not?” Freda glanced at him, amused and curious.

  “Oh, she used to say I did nothing to prepare myself for the role of country gentleman—in which I suppose she was right. She never made any secret of the fact that she intended to leave me Crowmain Court and most of her money. But she said—very truly—that it was not a place for a bachelor, and she was always badgering me to get married. She even left me a letter, reiterating her wishes, and adding a list of possible candidates who might prove suitable.”

  “You don’t say!” Freda laughed heartily. “I couldn’t imagine even Miss Clumber going as far as that. How did she pick her possible winners?”

  �
�I don’t know. But she wrote that she’d given a lot of thought to the matter.” He smiled reminiscently. Then suddenly he looked up and across at Freda, and she saw that his eyes were glinting with an almost dangerous light of amusement.

  “Would it interest you to know,” he said deliberately, “that she placed you quite high up on the list?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Me?” gasped Freda. “Miss Clumber actually suggested me as a possible”—she cleared her throat a trifle self-consciously—“a possible wife for you? But how could she? I don’t think she saw me after I was eight or nine years old.”

  “Please don’t run away with the idea that it’s a particularly large legacy.”

  “No? She seemed to have made up her mind pretty strongly about you, all the same,” he declared, not without enjoyment, Freda thought. “As I told you before, she believed you had most of the right instincts—whatever they may be—and she said that, if you had developed as she hoped, you should—her words, not mine—be well worth serious consideration.”

  “What absolute—” Freda glanced round the room, as though the recollection of something or someone restrained her. “I mean,” she said more quietly, “that in anyone but Miss Clumber that would be the most outrageous cheek.”

  “Undoubtedly,” he agreed.

  “In fact,” she added severely, “I’m surprised that you even thought fit to repeat the words to me.”

  “I’m a bit surprised myself.” He grinned reflectively. “But when you were actually here in the house, and we were recalling my great-aunt, I couldn’t quite resist the temptation to see how you took it.”

  “Well, of course”—Freda passed her hand over her hair and endeavoured to produce a careless little laugh—“I suppose it makes quite a good joke, when one’s got over the first shock.”

  “Does it?” He still looked somewhat reflective.

  “Why, y-yes. Don’t you think so?” She glanced at him almost nervously.

  “I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his very firm chin meditatively. “That’s something I haven’t quite decided in my own mind. But I mustn’t keep you standing like this. Do sit down, and I’ll ring for tea.”

  Freda sat down. In fact, she almost sank into a chair by the window, both disquieted and intrigued by what Laurence Clumber had said. She watched him go across and pull the long embroidered bell-pull—which had also been there in Miss Clumber’s time, she recalled—and she tried to decide if he had intended his last remark to be funny, provocative or—inconceivably—serious.

  She would have liked to continue the conversation. But it was difficult to do so without appearing unduly interested. And, while she was trying to find the right words in which to reintroduce the subject on a light, amusing plane, the door opened and an elderly maid wheeled in just the kind of tea-trolley which used to appear on Freda’s weekly visit during her childhood days.

  In fact, as she looked at the elderly woman, who was manipulating the tea-trolley with an expertness born of long experience, it seemed to Freda that she too was part of a familiar picture. She dredged into the depths of her memory, and suddenly she exclaimed,

  “Why—Ada! It is Ada, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, miss.” Ada smiled, with the polite reserve which Miss Clumber expected of all her domestics, but her faded blue eyes rested kindly on Freda. “You haven’t really changed much, miss, if I may say so.”

  “Oh, I must have!” cried Freda. “I was—what?—eight—nine, when I was last here.”

  “Well, you’ve grown of course, miss,” Ada conceded. “But I would have known you.”

  “Would you really, Ada? That’s interesting,” put in Ada’s master, with a slightly dangerous twinkle in his eye. “You mean that Miss Freda has—what shall we say?—developed as one might have expected?”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. She was a very nice, kind little girl, and she always had a smile for everyone. The mistress thought well of her. And so,” added Ada, with an air of bestowing the final accolade, “did Belshazzar.”

  “Belshazzar? Ah, yes, of course, Belshazzar was the cat, wasn’t he? A very intelligent cat, I believe,” said Laurence Clumber gravely.

  “He was more than intelligent, sir. Belshazzar” —Ada’s voice dropped a couple of tones—“was an unusual cat. He knew about people and things—better than most humans.”

  “You don’t say!” Laurence Clumber looked suitably impressed. “And he—er—knew about Miss Freda?”

  “Yes, sir. If Belshazzar’s ghost was to be walking about here now—and I wouldn’t put it past him—he’d be very pleased to see Miss Freda sitting in that chair again.”

  “Well, well,” said Laurence genially. “We must see that we have her sitting there fairly often.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. Are you coming back to Crowmain to live, miss?”

  “Only at weekends,” Freda explained, without looking in her host’s direction. “Miss Clumber very kindly left me the little cottage on the Dalling road. And I hope to come there pretty often.”

  “A very good idea, miss, if I may say so,” said Ada. “Will you just ring if you want some more hot water, sir?” And then she withdrew, leaving a rather odd little silence behind.

  Then Laurence Clumber said, “Well, that’s very satisfactory, I must say. Would you like to pour out for us?”

  Freda moved over to the tea-table.

  “What is so very satisfactory?” she enquired.

  “Why, Ada’s assurance that you have developed as my great-aunt—and Belshazzar—would have wished. I’m more than interested to have this confirmation.”

  “You’re quite ridiculous,” said Freda, but she could not help laughing, as she handed him his cup and saucer. “It’s nice to be remembered so kindly, though,” she added, with a little sigh of nostalgic pleasure. “I couldn’t have believed it would all be so familiar and pleasant. Just like coming home.” He did not answer that. And, after a moment, it occurred to her that her words might seem a trifle too apt in their significance, in view of Miss Clumber’s advice to her nephew, and she found herself blushing furiously.

  “I mean, of course,” she said, rushing somewhat ill-advisedly into speech, “that there are some places which seem to—to welcome one back, even after years.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way about Crowmain Court,” he told her gravely. “I hope you’ll come here very often, and always feel welcome.”

  It was impossible not to be touched by this, however lightly said, and Freda gave him a shy smile.

  “Does that mean,” she asked, “that we’re more or less—burying the hatchet, so far as my cottage is concerned?”

  “I think it must.” He smiled slightly in return. “I’ve been thinking things over, of course, and it seems to me that perhaps one’s neighbours are more important than the view from one’s windows.”

  “That’s awfully nice of you, Mr. Clumber, because—”

  “I feel that Belshazzar would prefer you to call me Laurence, or even Larry,” he put in.

  She laughed. And then she said curiously, “Does anyone call you Larry?”

  “Only if I like them very much.”

  She hesitated for a moment.

  “May—I call you Larry?” she asked, rather diffidently.

  “Please do,” said Laurence Clumber, and she felt that the welcome back to Crowmain was complete. It gave her a degree of satisfaction and happiness beyond anything she would have thought possible. And although her smile was no more than composed and friendly, her voice shook slightly as she said, “Then of course you must call me Freda.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  And then she said hastily that she thought they would need some more hot water, and he rang the bell for Ada, who came, within a matter of minutes, bearing not only the jug of hot water, but also a faded photograph.

  “Perhaps you’ll remember this, Miss Freda,” she observed, handing Freda the photograph, if not exactly on a silver tray, with all the air of doing so.


  “Why, Ada”—Freda looked at the photograph and laughed affectionately—“it’s Belshazzar, isn’t it?”

  “It’s you too, miss,” Ada pointed out. “You’re holding him.”

  “So I am!” exclaimed Freda. “Goodness, how untidy my hair is.”

  “Let me see.” Laurence came and leaned over her shoulder, so close that she was more intensely aware of him than she had ever been before. “I say—you’re rather sweet, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know about that. I look as if I could do with a bit of brushing and combing. But you can see what a beauty he was.”

  “True,” said Laurence, taking the photograph and examining it with attention. “I see what you mean, Ada.”

  “About him, sir?”

  “No, no. About Miss Freda. She hasn’t really changed much, in essentials.”

  “Thanks,” observed Freda drily. “The hair-do’s just what any girl would love to have identified as hers.”

  He laughed.

  “Never mind the hair-do. The smile’s the same,” he declared.

  “You can’t really see. Belshazzar’s whiskers have got in the way.”

  But Laurence Clumber declared that he would have known the photograph anywhere for Freda, and he handed it back to Ada with the same half mischievous, half thoughtful smile which had disquieted Freda before.

  “Thank you, Ada,” he said. “I very much appreciate your bringing that in.”

  “I thought you’d be interested to see it, sir.” Ada looked pleased with herself. “Will you be needing anything else, sir?’

  “Nothing else at all, thank you, Ada. You seem to have thought of everything,” declared her master genially.

  So Ada withdrew once more, and Freda hastily launched into an admiring assessment of the garden which certainly, viewed from the drawing-room window, presented a very beautiful sight.

  Perhaps Laurence Clumber felt he had teased her enough. At any rate, he fell in with her choice of subject, and even asked her what plans she had for her own cottage garden. When he learned that she hoped to find someone locally to do the heavy, preliminary digging, he suggested good-naturedly that his own under-gardener might be willing to oblige her over this. And, on this amicable note, tea was concluded.