Olive and Camilla seldom went out together: the possession of a house is often as much of a judgment as a joy, and as full of ardours as of raptures. Gardens, servants, and tradespeople were not automata that behaved like eight-day clocks, by no means. Olive had an eight-day clock, a small competent little thing; it had to be small to suit her room, but Camilla had three – three eight-day clocks. And on the top of the one in the drawing-room – and really Camilla’s house seemed a positive little mansion, all crystal and mirror and white pillars and soft carpets, but it wasn’t a mansion any more than Olive’s was a cottage – well, on the mantelpiece of the drawing-room, on top of Camilla’s largest eight-day clock, there stood the bronze image of a dear belligerent little lion copied in miniature from a Roman antique. The most adorable creature it was, looking as if it were about to mew, for it was no bigger than a kitten although a grown-up lion with a mane and an expression of annoyance as if it had been insulted by an ox – a toy ox. The sweep of its tail was august; the pads of its feet were beautiful crumpled cushions, with claws (like the hooks of a tiny ship) laid on the cushions. Simply ecstatic with anger, most adorable, and Olive loved it as it raged there on Camilla’s eight-day clock. But clocks are not like servants. No servant would stay there for long, the place was so lonely, they said, dreadful! And in wet weather the surroundings and approach – there was only a green lane, and half a mile of that – were so muddy, dreadful mud; and when the moon was gone everything was steeped in darkness, and that was dreadful too! As neither Camilla nor Olive could mitigate these natural but unpleasing features – they were, of course, the gifts of Providence – the two ladies, Camilla at any rate, suffered from an ever recurrent domestic Hail and Farewell. What, Camilla would inquire, did the servants want? There was the village, barely a mile away; if you climbed the hill you could see it spendidly, a fine meek little village; the woods, the hills, the fields, positively thrust their greenness upon it, bathed it as if in a prism – so that the brown chimney-pots looked red and the yellow ones blue. And the church was new, or so nearly new that you might call it a good second-hand; it was made of brown bricks. Although it had no tower, or even what you might call a belfry, it had got a little square fat chimney over the front gable with a cross of yellow bricks worked into the face of the chimney, while just below that was a bell cupboard stuffed with sparrows’ nests. And there were unusual advantages in the village – watercress, for instance. But Camilla’s servants came and went, only Olive’s Quincy Pugh remained. She was a dark young woman with a white amiable face, amiable curves to her body, the elixir of amiability in her blood, and it was clear to Camilla that she only remained because of Luke Feedy. He was the gardener, chiefly employed by Camilla, but he also undertook the work of Olive’s plot. Unfortunately Olive’s portion was situated immediately under the hill and, fence it how they would, the rabbits always burrowed in and stole Olive’s vegetables. They never seemed to attack Camilla’s more abundant acreage.
Close beside their houses there was a public footway, but seldom used, leading up into the hills. Solemn steep hills they were, covered with long fawn-hued grass that was never cropped or grazed, and dotted with thousands of pert little juniper bushes, very dark, and a few whitebeam trees whose foliage when tossed by the wind shook on the hillside like bushes of entangled stars. Half-way up the hill path was a bulging bank that tempted climbers to rest, and here, all unknown to Camilla, Olive caused an iron bench to be fixed so that tired persons could recline in comfort and view the grand country that rolled away before them. Even at midsummer it was cool on that height, just as in winter it took the sunbeams warmly. The air roving through the long fawn-hued grass had a soft caressing movement. Darkly green at the foot of the hill began the trees and hedges that diminished in the pastoral infinity of the vale, farther and farther yet, so very far and wide. At times Olive would sit on her iron bench in clear sunlight and watch a shower swilling over half a dozen towns while beyond them, seen through the inundating curtain, very remote indeed lay the last hills of all, brightly glowing and contented. Often Olive would climb to her high seat and bask in the delight, but soon Camilla discovered that the bench was the public gift of Olive. Thereupon lower down the hill Camilla caused a splendid ornate bench of teak with a foot-rest to be installed in a jolly nook surrounded by tall juniper bushes like cypresses, and she planted three or four trailing roses thereby. Whenever Camilla had visitors she would take them up the hill to sit on her splendid bench; even Olive’s visitors preferred Camilla’s bench and remarked upon its superior charm. So much more handsome it was, and yet Olive could not bear to sit there at all, never alone. And soon she gave up going even to the iron one.
Thus they lived in their rather solitary houses, supporting the infirmities of the domestic spirit by mutual commiseration, and coming to date occasions by the names of those servants – Georgina, Rose, Elizabeth, Sue – whoever happened to be with them when such and such an event occurred. These were not remarkable in any way. The name of Emma Tooting, for instance, only recalled a catastrophe to the parrot. One day she had actually shut the cockatoo – it was a stupid bird, always like a parson nosing about in places where it was not wanted – she had accidentally shut the cockatoo in the oven. The fire had not long been lit, the oven was not hot, Emma Tooting was brushing it out, the cockatoo was watching. Emma Tooting was called away for a few moments by the baker in the yard, came back, saw the door open, slammed it to with her foot, pulled out blower, went upstairs to make bed, came down later to make fire, heard most horrible noises in kitchen, couldn’t tell where, didn’t know they came from the oven, thought it was the devil, swooned straight away – and the cockatoo was baked. The whole thing completely unnerved Emma Tooting and she gave notice. Such a good cook, too. Mrs Lassiter and the lime-burner – that was a mysterious business – were thought to have been imprudent in Minnie Hopplecock’s time; at any rate, suspicion was giddily engendered then.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ Camilla had declared, ‘if they were all the way, myself. Of course, I don’t know, but it would not surprise me one bit. You see, we’ve only instinct to go upon, suspicion, but what else has anyone ever to go upon in such matters? She is so deep, she’s deep as the sea; and as for men—! No, I’ve only my intuitions, but they are sufficient, otherwise what is the use of an intuition? And what is the good of shutting your eyes to the plain facts of life?’
‘But why him?’ inquired Olive brusquely.
‘I suspect him, Olive.’ Camilla, calmly adjusting a hair-slide, peered at her yellow carpet, which had a design in it, a hundred times repeated, of a spool of cord in red and a shuttlecock in blue. ‘I suspect him, just as I suspect the man who quotes Plato to me.’
Mr Kippax that is – thought Olive. ‘But isn’t that what Plato’s for?’ she asked.
‘I really don’t know what Plato is for, Olive; I have never read Plato; in fact I don’t read him at all; I can’t read him with enjoyment. Poetry, now, is a thing I can enjoy – like a bath – but I can’t talk about it. Can you? I never talk about the things that are precious to me; it’s natural to be reserved and secretive. I don’t blame Maude Lassiter for that; I don’t blame her at all, but she’ll be lucky if she gets out of this with a whole skin: it will only be by the skin of her teeth.’
‘I’d always be content,’ Olive said, ‘if I could have the skin of my teeth for a means of escape.’
‘Quite so,’ agreed Camilla, ‘I’m entirely with you. Oh, yes.’
Among gardeners Luke Feedy was certainly the pearl. He had come from far away, a man of thirty or thirty-five, without a wife or a home in the world, and now he lodged in the village at Mrs Thrupcott’s cottage; the thatch of her roof was the colour of shag tobacco; her husband cut your hair in his vegetable garden for twopence a time. Luke was tall and powerful, fair and red. All the gardening was done by him, both Olive’s and Camilla’s, and all the odd and difficult jobs from firewood down to the dynamo for electric light that coughed in C
amilla’s shed. Bluff but comely, a pleasant man, a very conversational man, and a very attractable man; the maids were always uncommon friendly to him. And so even was Olive, Camilla observed, for she had actually bought him a gun to keep the rabbits out of the garden. Of course a gun was no use for that – Luke said so – yet, morning or evening, Olive would perambulate with the gun, inside or outside the gardens, while Luke Feedy taught her the use of it, until one October day, when it was drawing on to evening – bang! – Olive had killed a rabbit. Camilla had rushed to her balcony. ‘What is it?’ she cried in alarm, for the gun had not often been fired before and the explosion was terrifying. Fifty yards away, with her back towards her, Olive in short black fur jacket, red skirt, and the Cossack boots she wore, was standing quite still holding the gun across her breast. The gardener stalked towards a bush at the foot of the hill, picked up a limp contorted bundle by its long ears, and brought it back to Olive. She had no hat on, her hair was ruffled, her face had gone white. The gardener held up the rabbit, a small soft thing, dead, but its eyes still stared, and its forefeet drooped in a gesture that seemed to beseech pity. Olive swayed away, the hills began to twirl, the house turned upside down, the gun fell from her hands. ‘Hullo!’ cried Luke Feedy, catching the swooning woman against his shoulder. Camilla saw it all and flew to their aid, but by the time she had got down to the garden Feedy was there too, carrying Olive to her own door. Quincy ran for a glass of water, Camilla petted her, and soon all was well. The gardener stood in the room holding his hat against his chest with both hands. A huge fellow he looked in Olive’s small apartment. He wore breeches and leggings and a grey shirt with the sleeves uprolled, a pleasant comely man, very powerful, his voice seemed to excite a quiver in the air.
‘What a fool I am!’ said Olive disgustedly.
‘Oh, no,’ commented the gardener. ‘Oh no, ma’am; it stands to reason—’ He turned to go about his business, but said: ‘I should have a sip o’ brandy now, ma’am, if you’ll excuse me mentioning it.’
‘Cognac!’ urged Camilla.
‘Don’t go, Luke,’ Olive cried.
‘I’ll fetch that gun in, ma’am, I fancy it’s going to rain.’ He stalked away, found his coat and put it on (for it was time to go home), and then he fetched in the gun. Camilla had gone.
‘Take it away, please,’ cried Olive. ‘I never want to see it again. Keep it. Do what you like, it’s yours.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said the imperturbable Feedy. Two small glasses of cognac and a long slim bottle stood upon a table in the alcove. Olive, still a little wan, pushed one towards him.
‘Your very good health, ma’am.’ Feedy tipped the thimbleful of brandy into his mouth, closed his lips, pursed them, gazed at the ceiling, and sighed. Olive now switched on the light, for the room was growing dimmer every moment. Then she sat down on the settee that faced the fire. An elegant little settee in black satin with crimson piping. The big man stood by the shut door and stared at the walls; he could not tell whether they were blue or green or grey, but the skirting was white and the fireplace was tiled with white tiles. Old and dark the furniture was, though, and the mirror over the mantel was egg-shaped in a black frame. In the alcove made by the bow window stood the round table on crinkled legs, and the alcove itself was lined with a bench of tawny velvet cushions. Feedy put his empty glass upon the table.
‘Do have some more; help yourself,’ said Olive, and Luke refilled the glass and drank again amid silence. Olive did not face him – she was staring into the fire – but she could feel his immense presence. There was an aroma, something of earth, something of man, about him, strange and exciting. A shower of rain dashed at the windows.
‘You had better sit down until the rain stops.’ Olive poked a tall hassock to the fireplace with her foot, and Luke, squatting upon it, his huge boots covering quite a large piece of the rug there, twirled the half-empty glass between his finger and thumb.
‘Last time I drunk brandy,’ he mused, ‘was with a lady in her room, just this way.’
Olive could stare at him now.
‘She was mad,’ he explained.
‘Oh,’ said Olive, as if disappointed.
‘She’s dead now,’ continued Luke, sipping.
Olive, without uttering a word, seemed to encourage his reminiscence.
‘A Yorkshire lady she was, used to live in the manor house, near where I was then; a lonely place. Her brother had bought it because it was lonely, and sent her there to keep her quiet because she had been crossed in love, as they say, and took to drink for the sorrow of it; rich family, bankers, Croxton the name, if you ever heard of them?’
Olive, lolling back and sipping brandy, shook her head.
‘A middling-size lady, about forty-five she was, but very nice to look at – you’d never think she was daft – and used to live at the big house with only a lot of servants and a butler in charge of her, name of Scrivens. None of her family ever came near her, nobody ever came to visit her. There was a big motor-car and they kept some horses, but she always liked to be tramping about alone; everybody knew her, poor daft thing, and called her Miss Mary, ’stead of by her surname, Croxton, a rich family; bankers they were. Quite daft. One morning I was going to my work – I was faggoting then in Hanging Copse – and I’d got my bill-hook, my axe, and my saw in a bag on my back, when I see Miss Mary coming down the road towards me. ’Twas a bright spring morning and cold ’cause ’twas rather early; a rare wind on, and blew sharp enough to shave you; it blew the very pigeons out the trees, but she’d got neither jacket or hat and her hair was wild. “Good morning, miss,” I said, and she said: “Good morning,” and stopped. So I stopped, too; I didn’t quite know what to be at, so I said: “Do you know where you are going?” ’
‘Look here,’ interrupted Olive, glancing vacantly around the room. ‘It’s still raining; light your pipe.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Luke began to prepare his pipe. ‘ “Do you know where you’re going?” I asked her, “No,” she says. “I’ve lost my way; where am I?” and she put’ – Luke paused to strike a match and ignite the tobacco – ‘put her arm in my arm and said: “Take me home.” “You’re walking away from home,” I said, so she turned back with me and we started off to her home. Two miles away or more it was. “It is kind of you,” she says, and she kept on chattering as if we were two cousins, you might say. “You ought to be more careful and have your jacket on,” I said to her. “I didn’t think, I can’t help it,” she says; “it’s the time ’o love; as soon as the elder leaf is as big as a mouse’s ear I want to be blown about the world,” she says. Of course she was thinking to find someone as she’d lost. She dropped a few tears. “You must take care of yourself these rough mornings,” I said, “or you’ll be catching the inflammation.” Then we come to a public-house, The Bank of England’s the name of it, and Miss Mary asks me if we could get some refreshment there. “That you can’t,” I said (’cause I knew about her drinking), “it’s shut,” so on we went as far as Bernard’s Bridge. She had to stop a few minutes there to look over in the river, all very blue and crimped with the wind; and there was a boat-house there, and a new boat cocked upside down on some trestles on the landing, and a chap laying on his back blowing in the boat with a pair of bellows. Well, on we goes, and presently she pulls out her purse. “I’m putting you to a lot of trouble,” she says. “Not at all, miss,” I said, but she give me a sovereign, then and there, she give me a sovereign.’
Olive was staring at the man’s hands; the garden soil was chalky, and his hands were covered with fine milky dust that left the skin smooth and the markings very plain.
‘I didn’t want to take the money, ma’am, but I had to, of course; her being such a grand lady it wasn’t my place to refuse.’
Olive had heard of such munificence before; the invariable outcome, the denouement of Feedy’s stories, the crown, the peak, the apex of them all was that somebody, at some point or other, gave him a sovereign. Neither more nor less
. Never anything else. Olive thought it unusual for so many people …
‘– and I says: “I’m very pleased, miss, to be a help to anyone in trouble.” “That’s most good of you,” she said to me. “That’s most good of you; it’s the time of year I must go about the world, or I’d die,” she says. By and by we come to the manor house and we marched arm in arm right up to the front door and I rong the bell. I was just turning away to leave her there, but she laid hold of my arm again. “I want you to stop,” she says, “you’ve been so kind to me.” It was a bright fresh morning, and I rong the bell. “I want you to stop,” she says. Then the butler opened the door. “Scrivens,” she says, “this man has been very kind to me; give him a sovereign, will you.” Scrivens looked very straight at me, but I gave him as good as he sent, and the lady stepped into the hall. I had to follow her. “Come in,” she says, and there was I in the dining-room, while Scrivens nipped off somewhere to get the money. Well, I had to set down on a chair while she popped out at another door. I hadn’t hardly set down when in she come again with a lighted candle in one hand and a silver teapot in the other. She held the teapot up and says: “Have some?” and then she got two little cups and saucers out of a chiffonier and set them on the table and filled them out of the silver teapot. “There you are,” she says, and she up with her cup and dronk it right off. I couldn’t see no milk and no sugar and I was a bit flabbergasted, but I takes a swig – and what do you think? It was brandy, just raw brandy; nearly made the tears come out of my eyes, ’specially that first cup. All of a sudden she dropped on a sofy and went straight off to sleep, and there was I left with that candle burning on the table in broad daylight. Course I blew it out, and the butler came in and gave me the other sovereign, and I went off to my work. Rare good-hearted lady, ma’am. Pity,’ sighed the gardener. He sat hunched on the hassock, staring into the fire, and puffing smoke. There was attraction in the lines of his figure squatting beside her hearth, a sort of huge power. Olive wondered if she might sketch him some time, but she had not sketched for years now. He said that the rain had stopped, and got up to go. Glancing at the window Olive saw it was quite dark; the panes were crowded on the outside with moths trying to get in to the light.
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 82
