“I don’t know-”
Cyril edged his chair forward again.
“Of course it is! But is he reasonable? No, he isn’t! And what do you suppose he wants me to do?” He made a really hideous grimace. “He wants me to stay in the Army and make a career of it! Susan, I ask you!”
“Well-”
“Exams-absolutely no end to them! Worse than the medical, because once you’re qualified you don’t actually have to take any more, but nowadays in the Army they practically never stop! If it isn’t courses, it’s the Staff College, and you go on having promotion exams until you’ve got one foot in the grave! Well, I told him flat out that I wouldn’t do it and he couldn’t make me, so there was another row. At the moment we’re having a coolness, but I expect he’ll come off it any day. He blows off steam, you know, but he’s not much good at keeping up a feud. You’ll put in a word for me if you get a chance, won’t you? He always says you’re such a sensible girl. I say, that sounds foul, doesn’t it? It’s meant as a compliment, only by the time you get to his age I suppose you don’t remember how to pay them.” He jerked his chair until it collided with hers. “I should think a girl would hate to be told she was sensible.”
“She does,” said Susan crisply.
Cyril’s large pale blue eyes goggled at her.
“Well, it wasn’t me, so you needn’t look at me like that. I admire you like anything-you know I do.”
Admiration is always gratifying, but Susan had now moved her chair back four times without managing to get any farther from Cyril’s bony nose and the unwavering stare of his pale blue eyes. She had begun to feel that she would almost rather he went on playing the piano-almost, but not quite-when a diversion was created by Lucifer. The saucer of milk had lured him from the piano, where the black and white notes no longer bobbed entertainingly up and down. Dropping lightly to the floor, he did a stealthy jungle crawl in the direction of the tea-table, where his magnificent mamma lapped languidly from a blue and gold saucer. She may or may not have noticed his approach, but the moment his nose appeared over the saucer’s edge and a pink tongue curled greedily towards the milk she dealt him a resounding box on the ear. He shrieked, spat, and fled back to the piano top, where he sat growling to himself. Some day he might stand up to the maternal tyrant, but not yet. There was a baleful glow in his amber eyes as he licked a paw and washed the insulted ear. “Really, Emmeline-those cats!” said Mildred Blake.
CHAPTER V
Susan went down to Mrs. Alexander’s general shop next morning to pass the time of day and to get a picture postcard of the church with the six-hundred-year-old tunnel of yew which led up to it. The Professor would like to have one. She was turning over the postcards and waiting for Mrs. Alexander to serve Dr. Croft’s housekeeper, who could take as long to buy a tin of shoe-polish as a girl who is choosing a dance-frock, when Clarice Dean came into the shop and fell upon her with effusion.
“I’ve been longing to see you! Miss Blake came home from Mrs. Random’s and said you had come! You are going to catalogue the books at the Hall, aren’t you? I wish I had a nice easy job like that, but”-with an exaggerated sigh-“we poor nurses have to work!” She lowered her voice, but not much. “Now do tell me, is Edward Random here? Someone told me he was, but Miss Blake says he wasn’t at tea. Did he come by the later train?” She dropped her voice just a little further. “Or did he shirk the tea-party?”
She might sigh, and she might complain about being hard-worked, but she appeared to be in very good spirits. She had a bright, dark prettiness made up of vivid colouring, brown wavy hair, and dancing hazel eyes. She had run out in her cap and a highly becoming blue uniform with short puffed-over sleeves of white muslin.
The voice in which she asked about Edward was not really quite low enough. It had a sweet carrying quality. Mrs. Alexander and Dr. Croft’s housekeeper both looked round.
Susan said,
“You had better ask him. I am buying postcards.”
Clarice laughed.
“How discreet you are! But he is here now?”
“Oh, yes.”
“We were quite friends, you know. Oh, years ago-I had only just finished training. I nursed Mr. James Random when he had influenza, and of course I saw quite a lot of Edward. That’s how I came to be here last year when Mr. Random died-he wouldn’t have anyone else. And we all thought Edward was dead! Dreadful-wasn’t it? I’m longing to see him again and hear all about everything! Miss Blake says he won’t utter, but I think he’ll tell me!”
Susan said, “I don’t think-” and then stopped. Edward would have to deal with Clarice himself.
Dr. Croft’s housekeeper said in her slow, heavy way,
“Well, it’s no fault of yours, Mrs. Alexander, and I’m not saying it is, but I do say and I won’t go from it, that things aren’t the equal of what they were before the war. Nobody won’t get me from it that they’re not-not the boot-polish, nor yet the leather you have to shine with it. Nothing’s the same as what it used to be, nor won’t be again, but I’ll take a tin of the black and a tin of the brown and just make the best of them like we’ve all got to nowadays.”
Mrs. Alexander had a fat, comfortable laugh. She said,
“That’s right, Miss Sims, and better put a good face on it. Not but what you won’t find the polish is all right, for I use it myself.”
She moved over to the other end of the counter. The warmth in her voice was for Susan.
“Well, my dear, you’re back again and welcome. What can I do for you?”
Susan bought postcards, and Clarice matches.
“I don’t know where they go to. And Miss Blake said to ask if you had ripe tomatoes-and oh, two pounds of the cooking apples Miss Ora likes. She said you would know.”
Mrs. Alexander looked gratified.
“Why, yes, of course-off our own tree, and I don’t know the name, but it’s a good one. My father always give it a hogshead of water first week in July to swell the apples, and we’ve kept right on doing it. But you’d better have the dozen pounds like Miss Blake always do. Two pounds won’t go no way with Miss Ora-no way at all.”
Edward Random walked down the village street without looking to left or right. As he passed Mrs. Alexander’s shop, Clarice Dean ran out and stopped him. She had a basket full of apples in one hand and a paper bag of ripe tomatoes in the other. Her colour was bright, and so were her eyes. She held out both hands-basket, bag, fruit and all-and cried,
“How wonderful to meet you like this! But I don’t suppose you even remember me-Clarice Dean! I nursed your uncle- do you remember?”
Edward remembered without sentiment. A boy and girl in a garden a long time ago. The girl had been pretty and flirtatious. He said,
“Oh, yes, I remember. How do you do?”
“I’m nursing Miss Blake-Miss Ora Blake. Do you remember what you used to call Miss Mildred?” Her pretty, high laugh floated down the street. She leaned towards him to whisper,
“Miss Mildew! Shocking of you, wasn’t it?”
“Schoolboy manners, I’m afraid.”
She laughed again.
“You were a very nice schoolboy-and you were nearly eighteen! We used to play tennis in the afternoons when your uncle was resting, and you did so improve my game! But I never get time for it now-at least hardly ever, and I expect I’ve gone back a lot. I have to take my time off in the evenings now. We could do a flick if you’d like to. The Royal gets quite good films. Nursing’s a pretty dull job. Do say you will!”
“Well, I’m going to be rather busy taking over from Mr. Barr. Look out-you’re going to spill that fruit!”
She laughed and sparkled at him.
“I’m stupid, aren’t I? It’s being so glad to see you again! You’re going to be Lord Burlingham’s agent, aren’t you? Well, you can’t be taking over all day and all night. Look here, let’s leave it a day or two, and then I can ring you up and we can fix something!”
She ran back into the shop, flushed and
smiling.
“That was Edward Random! So he did come after all!”
Susan said, “Yes.”
Clarice laughed.
“Tactful of you not to come out and spoil our little reunion, my dear! You know, I really did know him quite well, and I’m so pleased to see him again. We are going to fix up an evening to go to the pictures! Goodness-I must fly, or Miss Blake will be ringing her bell out of the window! Do you know, she did actually do that once when she thought Nurse Brown had stayed here too long gossiping with Mrs. Alexander!”
Edward walked on down the street. Clarice had changed very little indeed. She was still pretty, and still flirtatious. She seemed very pleased to see him. The warmth of her greeting had actually induced a slight surface glow. He supposed that life with Mildred and Ora would make you pleased to see practically anyone. Clarice dropped out of his mind as suddenly as she had invaded it.
The Miss Blakes lived in one of the late eighteenth-century houses. A bow window on the upper floor was supported by stone pillars set flush with the street and commanded an extensive view. From her couch Miss Ora Blake could see everything that went on from eight o’clock in the morning, when she left her bedroom at the back of the house and was transferred to the sitting-room in front, until after the evening meal, when she went back to her bed again. The move had to be made betimes in the morning, or she would have missed the arrival of the post, which wouldn’t have done at all. She had excellent sight and was able to follow the postman’s progress from one end of the village street to the other. She knew just when Maggie Ledbetter’s young man stopped writing to her, and when young Mrs. Harris had all those letters from abroad. They made quite a lot of talk, until it came out that she had an aunt in Vancouver. Or at least so she said. Her husband came home from the Malay States soon afterwards, and she left Greenings, so of course it was quite impossible to know whether there really was an aunt or not, but the Miss Blakes continued to have their doubts.
Clarice Dean ran lightly up the stairs, leaving the apples and the tomatoes with Mrs. Deacon, who was Miss Blake’s daily and a very good cook. She found Miss Ora very much pleased and interested.
“Now don’t tell me that was Edward Random! Or perhaps I should say don’t tell me it wasn’t, because I could see that it was, and when you ran out of the shop like that I thought-I really thought-you were going to drop all those apples!”
“So did I!”
“Did Mrs. Alexander lend you the basket? It wasn’t one of ours. And what did you have in the paper bag?… Tomatoes? Well, I hope they were ripe. That was one of the things Nurse Brown used to be so tiresome about-just took whatever they gave her and never thought of looking to see if they were ripe. Well, well, why do you go on talking to me about tomatoes, when I want to hear about Edward Random? You seemed very pleased to see him.”
“Oh, I was!”
Miss Ora Blake had a large round pink face, large round blue eyes, and a lot of white fluffy curls surmounted by two bows of blue satin ribbon and a little frill of lace. She gazed solemnly at Clarice and said,
“When I was young a girl wouldn’t have said that.”
“Why not? We saw a great deal of each other when I was here before.”
“Seven years ago.”
Clarice laughed.
“We were very friendly, you know-and I don’t forget my friends.”
Seven years ago! Miss Ora began to make calculations. Edward couldn’t have been much more than a schoolboy-eighteen at the outside. Because he wasn’t more than twenty-five now. She remembered him in his pram. Yes, he would have been eighteen when Miss Dean came down to nurse James Random through that attack of influenza. And she was already trained then. She might look young, but she must be several years older than Edward. That bright colour of hers was deceptive. Miss Ora decided to her own satisfaction that Clarice Dean might quite easily be as much as thirty.
She said tartly,
“That was a very large basket of apples.”
“Mrs. Alexander said-”
“Mrs. Alexander wants to sell her fruit. But my sister Mildred won’t be pleased-she won’t be pleased at all. She will think we have been extravagant. She does not care for fruit herself, and we shall have to be tactful. You had better tell Mrs. Deacon to put the apples away out of sight and return the basket when she goes to her dinner.”
CHAPTER VI
Arnold Random walked down the south drive until he came to the lodge, where he paused for a moment before lifting the latch of the wicket gate. He was a man of medium height with a spare frame and features of the family type. Most of the Randoms had these features-dark and straight, with brown or hazel eyes. But they could be worn with a difference. In James Random they had been permeated with benevolence. Jonathan had not had them at all, having inherited the fair Foxwell strain from his mother-fair and foolish, as local gossip went. In Edward the type had reappeared, emphasized, if anything, by its temporary eclipse. In Arnold it was, as it were, refined. He had the distinguished turn of the head, the upright carriage, and the beautiful hands of the aristocrat. He could, as Lord Burlingham had once remarked, have won a prize for looking down his nose against any man in England. He looked down it now at Emmeline’s garden. Then he lifted the latch, took a few steps along the narrow paved path which led up to the door, and looked again.
The garden was a rectangular patch cut out of the park- flower-beds and roses on this side, and vegetables at the back. It should have been meticulously neat and tidy-a lodge garden should always be tidy. In point of fact it never was, and never had been since his brother James had let Emmeline have it. Arnold frowned at the recollection. It was not that he had any objection to flower-beds as such. He could recall a very neat and tasteful arrangement of scarlet geraniums, yellow calceolarias and blue lobelias, never a dead bloom, never a leaf out of place. But that was in old Hardy’s time. Ever since Emmeline had been here things had been going from bad to worse. Great sprawling Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers. Pink and white anemones. Snapdragon and mignonette growing among the roses. And a lot of other half gone-over things whose names he didn’t pretend to know. And the roses! The place was fairly smothered with them! They certainly throve-the air was quite heavy with their scent. But how unpruned, how completely out of hand! They would certainly have to go. The place was a wilderness. And the climbers on the lodge must be drastically reduced.
It was at this point that something stirred in the undergrowth and Lucifer, late Smut, emerged, walking delicately, black tail uplifted, eyes glowing like jewels in the sun. Mr. Random did not like cats. He said, “Shoo!” Lucifer sprang, did an exciting kind of twist in mid air, came down at right angles, and made off like a flash of black lightning with his tail in a double kink. Scheherazade sunning herself on the windowsill watched unmoved, but Toby, a very ugly cat with abnormally long hind legs and only one ear, jumped down and vanished into a tangle of mint and lavender. He had been kicked and illtreated in his youth before Emmeline rescued him, and he did not quite forget it. When people said “Shoo!” he shoo’d. There were three other cats in sight, but they did not take any notice. Arnold Random looked bleakly at them and let the knocker fall rather hard against Emmeline’s front door.
She had quite a small kitten in her arms as she opened it. Its mother, a pretty grey half-Persian, walked beside her, mewing in a plaintive manner. Emmeline wore a blue smock. Her fair hair was not as tidy as it might have been. She had been turning out her little back room, and that had meant moving Amina and her kittens. Amina didn’t like it at all, and one of the kittens had crawled under the tallboy which had come to her from the same grandmother as the piano, and wouldn’t come out. Amina was rapidly becoming distracted, and it was really a most inconvenient moment for Arnold to call. She would not, of course, have dreamed of letting him know this, so she smiled her sweet, vague smile and said, “How kind of you! Do come in!”
Amina’s basket was, quite temporarily, in the middle of the drawing-room floor. A sma
ll shrieking kitten scrabbled at the edge in a frantic effort to escape. Emmeline pushed it back, gave it the one she was holding for company, and carried the basket through to the kitchen, followed by Amina, who walked processionally with her tail stiffly erect and mourned in a really piercing manner.
The noise died down, and Emmeline shut two doors and made her apologies.
“I am so sorry, Arnold. She doesn’t like the kittens being moved.”
“So I observed.”
Emmeline had long ceased to expect warmth from Arnold, but he was not always quite as bleak as this. He was going to be difficult, and she would never get the back room done, to say nothing of the kitten under the tallboy. Trying to look on the bright side, it occurred to her that it might get tired of being there and come out. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed attentively at her brother-in-law. Quite impossible to look at him without seeing that he was put out. Men were rather easily put out by house-cleaning and things being out of their proper place. Even her dear Jonathan, who was always so good-tempered- Her thoughts broke off, because Arnold said,
“I am told that Edward is here.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I am informed that Lord Burlingham is giving him the agency.”
“Oh, yes-so kind of him.”
“Indeed? It had not struck me in that light. If I had to find a word to describe Lord Burlingham’s behaviour I think I should have used the epithet ‘impertinent.’ But there is no need for us to discuss the matter. It merely occurred to me to wonder what arrangement Edward intended to make. I understand that Mr. Barr is to retain the agent’s house, and I must say I should not consider it at all suitable for Edward to lodge in the village, even if there were anyone able and willing to take him in”
The Watersplash Page 3
