“Well, you must keep it up if you want to take Natalie out with you, my dear boy,” said his grandmother. “Her head oughtn’t to be exposed like that, and poor Mr. Macdonald looks damp, too. Come inside, Mr. Macdonald; come along, Natalie, and I’ll take you to her—I’ve told them to put her into my office and I’ll just point out the way to you, but you mustn’t tell her I brought you because I want to avoid her if possible.”
“You haven’t told Natalie,” pointed out Jeremy, “that you’re talking about Mrs. Bellamy.”
“Of course she knows I’m talking about Mrs. Bellamy,” said Lady Rome. “Isn’t her car standing just a few yards away from us all? Jeremy, you really must put that little hood up.”
“If I put it up, three can’t fit,” objected Jeremy.
“Then one must get out,” said Lady Rome. “You really can’t let people get damp in that way. Come along, my dear Natalie.”
“Get it over,” advised Jeremy. “I’ll come along in half an hour and rescue you.”
Natalie thanked him and allowed her mother-in-law to lead her towards the little room which Lady Rome referred to as her office. As Sir Jason managed all the household’s finances, nobody could understand why Lady Rome required an office until it was remembered that she received old Mrs. Batch in the room once a month and paid the newspaper bill.
As the two women neared the room in which the visitor waited, Lady Rome took her daughter-in-law’s arm and leaned towards her. Natalie heard a sound like the shuffling of several pairs of slippered feet, and felt her hair lifted by a strong breeze. Lady Rome was whispering.
“You mustn’t let her talk too much, my dear,” she counselled, “because she does go on and on, and it’s nothing of any importance. She’s sure to mention her daughters and tell you they’re charming, but they were really dreadful girls, poor things, and I always thought they weren’t quite right in the head. Two of them. I forget their names. All those nice American boys used to be here and Lottie didn’t rest until she got two of them to marry her girls. Now they’re in New England, which I think is such a pretty name; I can’t remember whether one of them or both of them went there. I always feel so sorry for the poor Americans having to have those two dreadful girls.” She stopped and pointed to a door. “In there, my dear, and remember what I said. She talks a great deal, but your father says that it’s all very small potatoes.”
Natalie, entering the room, wished very much that Helen could see the elegance of the woman facing her. Helen insisted that English women were still the best-dressed in the world—unless they lived in the country. Here, to illustrate Natalie’s views to the contrary, was the perfectly-turned-out countrywoman. And Mrs. Bellamy’s manner was as perfect and as carefully thought-out as her clothes. She had a surface so hard and so polished that Natalie’s gentle overtures glanced off it without making any impression whatsoever.
“Natalie!” The voice, too, was perfect. “William told me so much about you. I’ve been longing to see you.” She took Natalie’s hands and pressed them warmly. “We must be great friends,” she went on, “because William means so much to both of us. He and I, you know, were boy and girl together, and all my life I’ve thought of him as a big, older brother. He must have told you how much we did together. Have you good news of him?”
Natalie said that William, when he last wrote, was very well. She led the visitor to a comfortable sofa by the window.
“You must come and see me,” said Mrs. Bellamy. “I’m so bored when Philip isn’t with me, and I’m lost without my two girls.”
“They married, didn’t they?” said Natalie.
“Americans,” said Mrs. Bellamy. “I must say that I had a hand in it, though they say that one should leave young people to arrange their own affairs. I told my two that it’s going to be hopelessly drab in this country for years and years, and I said what is the use of marrying here and going without everything and washing up all the time, and paying out all one’s money and getting nothing — absolutely nothing — in return. Everybody ought to warn their girls. I told Margaret —have you met Margaret yet?”
Natalie shook her head. She had not yet seen William’s sister, and knew only that her daughter—three years older than Lucille—was married and had two young children.
“I told Margaret she oughtn’t to let her girl marry that man,” went on Mrs. Bellamy. “She could have married three other men—they were all mad about her —two Americans and a charming Chilean with a hacienda or an estancia or whatever they’re called. But Margaret wouldn’t listen—she never liked me, and, quite between ourselves, I could never bear her. But look at her girl now—two young babies, no servants and not even a Nannie until Lady Rome got hold of Jeremy and Lucille’s old Nannie to come and help. How old is your girl?” she inquired.
“She’s twenty-two,” said Natalie.
“Twenty-two,” murmured Mrs. Bellamy, pausing to do a little mental arithmetic. “Twenty-two. Now tell me—have you ever thought of Jeremy for her?”
Natalie’s cheeks grew pink, but Mrs. Bellamy swept on without waiting for a reply.
“He’s a nice boy,” she said, “and if she likes antiques, there’s this house to think of, but you must tell her that this country is finished.” Mrs. Bellamy waved a hand and swept Britain behind the sofa. “Don’t you agree?”
Natalie had once heard the question put to William, and wished she could give the visitor the substance of his reply without burning her tongue. She made an attempt to put his denial into more seemly language, and found Mrs. Bellamy talking once more.
“I hear you’ve taken Sir Jason’s frightful yellow house,” she was saying. “I simply didn’t believe Philip when he told me—and really, I can’t see William living in the village street next door to old Mrs. Batch. I know him pretty well, and I honestly don’t know how you can expect him to settle into a horror of that sort.”
“It looks worse outside,” said Natalie. “Inside it’s—”
“And who,” broke in Mrs. Bellamy, “is this Macgregor or MacTavish who’s had the impudence to follow Lucille here?—and for heaven’s sake, how can Lady Rome keep him in the house when she knows perfectly well that Philip can’t bear the sight of him? I don’t expect the Macgregor, from Philip’s description of him, to know how to behave in civilized society, but I thought Lady Rome would have sent him packing as soon as he arrived.”
“His name is Macdonald,” said Natalie, “and—”
“Whoever he is,” said Mrs. Bellamy, “he ought to be given a ticket—that’s probably what he’s waiting for, as he’s a Scotsman—and sent back to wherever he belongs. It’s so stupid to have him popping up in the middle of the wedding preparations like Banquo or somebody’s ghost—if he can’t see what a fool he looks, someone ought to tell him. If I—”
She stopped as the door opened. Natalie turned and saw, with an almost overwhelming sense of relief, the form of Jeremy in the doorway.
“Well, there you are!” he exclaimed. “Darling Natalie, I’ve hunted the house! And Mrs. Bellamy—why didn’t somebody tell me you were here? It wasn’t until I caught sight of your car—and, by the way, you oughtn’t to have left the driving window open—all the rain streaming in on those lovely cushions—”
“Oh, no!” It was a cry of genuine horror, and Mrs. Bellamy was on her feet distractedly collecting her bag and gloves. “I can’t think how I could do such a thing. Never before—and those expensive cushions—oh, blast the rain! I’m sure—I’m quite sure I closed that damned window.”
Jeremy, who was sure too, looked on with a face of sympathy and concern as Mrs. Bellamy made her hurried farewells to Natalie and hurried out to her cushions. Jeremy put an arm through his stepmother’s and drew her with him as he saw the agitated visitor out. The cushions were found to be little damaged and Mrs. Bellamy, recovering some of her self-possession, drove away. Jeremy watched the car out of sight and turned to look anxiously at Natalie.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I know—bad taste in your mouth,” said Jeremy. “She gives it to everybody. But you had to get it over. Now all you’ve got to do is to look over her house and then you can wipe her out of your mind. Wonderful house,” he went on. “Sort of thing that’s all very well in the proper climate, but a bit over-optimistic here. Verandas and sun lounges and loggias and what not. Nice smart wheel chairs—not bath chairs—the sort of thing you sit in the garden in—with whacking great canopies to keep off the noonday glare. When I’m bored in the summer, I choose a cloudy day and go and visit her and insist on sitting in the garden, and then I spend a nice afternoon running the wheel chairs in and out of shelter and putting the canopies up and down. Damn good exercise. You’ll have to go and see it all,” he ended. “And the wallflowers too—you’ve heard about the wallflowers?”
Natalie shook her head and Jeremy looked incredulous.
“You mean Granny didn’t remember to tell you?” he asked in astonishment. “Well, I’ll tell you now. It’s a mystery story. You see, Grandfather doesn’t care for flowers—at least, he doesn’t care about growing any flowers—except wallflowers. He has a mild passion for wallflowers, and this year he heard of a fellow who grows a very special kind and so he ordered a lot of cuttings. He got word to say they’d been sent off, and in due course he went down to collect them. But he never got them—and he never found out what happened to them.”
“What did happen to them?” asked Natalie.
“I told you it was a mystery story,” said Jeremy. “An unsolved mystery, I meant. The wallflowers vanished. They arrived—so it was thought, but never proved—at Hunnytor station and were sent on to Dummerton— and the people at the bus station seemed to remember something about them, but they didn’t turn up. Then one day Grandfather went to see Mrs. Bellamy about some land she rents from him. She wasn’t in, but he waited for her and while he was sitting looking out into the garden, he noticed a nice new bed of very special looking wallflowers.”
There was a long pause.
“But you don’t think,” said Natalie timidly after a while—“you don’t really think—”
“No, we really don’t,” said Jeremy. “That’s the odd part. We all really think that grandfather’s wallflowers did go astray and that the fact of Mrs. Bellamy’s suddenly producing some was pure coincidence. She isn’t poor and she can afford to buy her own wallflowers. I think we just feel that it was a shocking piece of tactlessness on her part to have such good wallflowers just at the moment when Grandfather had lost his.”
“And does—does your grandfather feel that, too?” asked Natalie.
“He hasn’t said anything to the contrary,” said Jeremy. “But he never liked her much and now he likes her much less. The incident has made him a little sour on the subject of Mrs. Bellamy and wallflowers.”
Natalie thought deeply for some time, and at last put a question.
“Do you think that’s why he—I mean, he didn’t seem to mind about Duncan—I used to wonder—” she faltered.
“You wondered,” said Jeremy, “why he didn’t make some sort of protest about it. So, to tell you the truth, did I. But you never know, with Grandfather. I wouldn’t care to say whether he’d noticed Duncan at all, or whether he felt that the son of a woman who had wallflowers springing up in that sinister way deserved a stiff bit of opposition…I leave you to decide.” He stopped and glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes to tea,” he announced.
“If you’re not doing anything—” began Natalie shyly.
“Have you ever,” asked Jeremy, “noticed me doing anything?”
“No,” confessed Natalie, “but if you don’t want to do anything particular, I wonder if you’d—I wonder if we could go up to the picture gallery?”
“You mean all up among the dusty ancestors?” asked Jeremy in astonishment. “It’s practically closed to visitors—the cobwebs have moved in. But if you really want to scan the noble countenances—let’s go up,” he agreed. “You won’t find much to amuse you.” Natalie thought that if she could find any trace of William in any of the pictures, it would be a well- rewarded visit. She walked up the stairs beside Jeremy and he ushered her into the long gallery, waving a hand to indicate that she had the freedom of the place. He settled himself on a window-seat, with his legs stretched comfortably along its length.
“There they all are,” he said. “Depressing looking lot. I can’t think why everybody always has the same expression in family portraits. That lugubrious character with the curls—no, the next fellow—that’s him— just look at his droopy outlook. He’s credited with no end of exploits, and he stands there looking as though he never cracked a crib in his life.”
“Was there ever a ghost?” asked Natalie.
“They thought so at one time,” said Jeremy. “Lot of fellows used to walk about the corridors, but one night they discovered they weren’t spirits—and the next morning a wrathful knight took his lady away by the first coach.” Jeremy shifted himself into a more comfortable position. “There’s the first Jason near you now,” he went on. “They were mostly Richards before that, but this one doubled his income about the South Sea Bubble period, and re-christened himself Jason, and people thought that the fleece might come into it somewhere. Wonderful family, ours,” he added with pride. “Started practically from scratch and worked their way up by hopping over to the right side at exactly the right time. They kept just one jump ahead of the Vicar of Bray. Most people, you know, make a great mistake about that reverend gentleman. They think that he was boasting when he said that ‘whatsoever king may reign, he’d still be the Vicar of Bray, sir’. Well, he wasn’t boasting at all. It was a lament. He was damn peeved. He saw that every time the Romes did a cat-in-the-pan, they jumped not only across, but also up. They always made on the exchange. But the Vicar, you notice, remained the Vicar. ‘Still I’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.’ Not the Bishop of This, or the Bishop of That, and not the Archbishop of Canterbury. No— simply, and to the end, the Vicar. The Romes, you must admit, had a smoother technique. You can see that the fellow over there—just behind you—looks equally at home as a Cavalier or a Roundhead. Adaptable, that was the secret. And ready to seize opportunity by the forelock, if you follow me. Take the way Romescourt came into the family. The current Rome was on his way from one side to the other, pursued by the last army he had commanded. He rode past here, looked up and saw a lovely maiden leaning out of a window combing her hair. I’ll show you the actual window, though I regret to say the hair was blown away in the terrible storm of 1642. Did Rome ride on? No. He gave one look at the maiden, went in to water his horse and didn’t come out again, and the world watched the pursuing army drawing nearer and nearer and cried ‘Ha! Rome’s caught!’ Well, he was, in a way, because he had to marry the Lady Margaret the following morning, but the pursuing army took the wrong turning in the dark and thundered by and got hopelessly drunk in the Hunnytor Tavern. Rome’s Caught kept its name and here we are today, you and I, after this lapse of time, and—”
The speaker stopped with a cry of despair, looked at his watch and sprang to his feet.
“My God—it’s past tea time,” he cried. “Get me outa here.”
Chapter 8
On the evening following Mrs. Bellamy’s visit, two changes took place which, though making no noticeable impression on the placid surface of the Romes’ existence, had a far deeper effect on their two visitors.
It was a cold evening, and coffee was served in the small, comfortable room in which Natalie had sat on her arrival. She was in the same chair, leaning back and studying the pretty picture made by Lucille, who, in a white dress which was a little small for her but which made her look more than ever like an angel, sat on a fender stool and stroked the ears of her favourite dog.
Duncan, his eyes on the same picture, sat on the hearthrug, and Jeremy was on the sofa beside his grandmother, watching with la
zy interest her spread of patience cards on the little table between them. Sir Jason, watch in hand and overcoat ready by his side, was on the point of leaving the room to listen to a wireless talk on Nepal. Lady Rome addressed him without looking up from her game.
“You must take your overcoat, Jason, because you won’t be able to hear properly if you’re cold and—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Sir Jason. “Got it.”
“I expect,” went on his wife, “that Margaret will be listening to the lecture too, because you know how she likes anything to do with Tibet.”
“Nepal,” corrected Jeremy.
“Yes, all those places,” said Lady Rome. “I had a letter today,” she added. “She says they can’t come.”
“Who can’t come?” asked Sir Jason.
“She didn’t say,” said Lady Rome. “She just said ‘we’ but she forgets so, and how can one know who ‘we’ is if people don’t say?”
“She must have told you in her first letter,” said Jeremy.
“Well, if she did, my dear boy,” said his grandmother, “it isn’t of much importance, because it’s all changed now, and only Alexander is coming.”
“Alexander, eh?” said Sir Jason, with a slight brightening of his countenance. “Good.”
“Who else?” asked Jeremy.
“Nobody else,” said Lady Rome. “Your Aunt Margaret can’t come and Alexander’s mother has got a horrid throat complaint—tonsilitis, I think—and so only poor little Alexander is coming.”
“And who else?” asked Jeremy again.
“I’ve just told you, my dear boy. I really can’t commit letters entirely to heart, and—”
“Darling Granny,” said Jeremy, “Alexander is only three years old.”
“More than that, Jeremy,” contradicted Lady Rome. “He was born—what day exactly was it, Jason?—it was after—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Sir Jason, hurrying to the door. “Time for this fellow.”
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