‘She would be delighted,’ said Hetty firmly. She had gone too far; she knew it. Mrs Spring seldom invited people to the house unless they were wealthy, ordinary, and conventional. Viola was none of these things, and no pleasure or profit could come to Mrs Spring from inviting her.
‘I am sure she would,’ added Hetty.
The words sounded weak and untrue as they fell on the warm spring air. They seemed to go into a silence, and quietly disappear.
‘That would be lovely: thanks ever so,’ muttered Viola, thinking: I haven’t got a proper frock.
Hetty stood up awkwardly and brushed bits off her skirt while Viola, picking up the book from among the fern, glanced at its title.
‘Collected Poems of Robert Frost,’ she read. ‘Poetry. Good lord. What a funny name, Frost.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hetty a little stiffly, taking it from her and wishing that she could meet someone who did not think it a symptom of insanity to read poetry for pleasure. ‘Are you going now, or shall you stay here?’
‘Oh, I must be getting along, or I’ll be late for lunch.’ She got up.
There was a sort of commotion in the hut, and the Hermit reappeared, with no boots on. He lifted a large bare horny foot, which may have looked pretty good to the ’nineties, but which had depreciated with the remorseless march of time, and said proudly:
‘There. Perfect. Every bone.’
Hetty and Viola, trying not to laugh, gave polite exclamations of interest and admiration and he sat down to his carving again, while the two girls stood looking at each other rather shyly.
‘Well, goodbye,’ said Hetty at last. ‘I hope we shall meet again. I often come down here.’
‘Yes, I hope so too. Thanks ever so. Goodbye.’
Each walked away up her side of the little valley while the Hermit waved first to one and then the other, calling affectionately, ‘Goo’-bye, ducks, goo’-bye,’ and whittling busily away at the Bear with Cubs. The truth always sounds fantastic. The Hermit, with his lack of responsibilities, his interest in everyone’s affairs, and his admiration of himself, was the happiest person in the neighbourhood. If only it weren’t for them bloody birds. ’Ow they did go on, waking you up at five o’clock in the morning, shrieking and hollering after dinner when you wanted a doss. Then there was that one that went on ’alf the night, as though all day wasn’t enough. Skizz! He viciously whizzed a stone in the direction of a dazzling song among the water-rooted hazels, and out darted a small brown bird, singing as he flew away.
‘Gar,’ muttered the Hermit. ‘Shut up.’
CHAPTER X
No sooner did Viola enter the dining-room than she saw that something was up, and her spirits, raised by her chat with Hetty and the brightness of the morning, slid gently down again. Tina and Madge, who were already at the table, looked cheerful enough, but Mrs Wither was flustered and Mr Wither looked cross.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ muttered Viola.
‘No. Oh no. It’s only just one o’clock. We are a little early today,’ answered Mrs Wither, absently and coldly.
They began to eat. Mr Wither kept his eyelids lowered in the way they all knew meant that trouble was brewing. What shall I do this afternoon? thought Viola. How long the days are. It’s awful. I wonder what’s up?
‘How did you get on with your lesson?’ she asked Tina, presently, too nervous to sit in silence.
‘Not badly, I think. It isn’t so difficult as I thought it would be. I quite enjoyed it. I’m having another one at eleven tomorrow … if you can spare Saxon, that is, of course, Father.’
Mr Wither said nothing.
‘It’s the Infirmary Ball next week, isn’t it?’ observed Madge, after a pause. ‘Have the tickets come yet? They’re dashed late with them this year, they’re usually here by the twenty-sixth. I suppose that’s because there was all that fuss about Lady Dovewood changing the date.’
Mr Wither looked up, fixing a bleared eye upon Viola.
‘Someone called to see you this morning,’ said Mr Wither. ‘On a bicycle.’
He paused. Everyone felt that Viola’s visitor ought to have come in a Rolls.
‘Me?’ stammered Viola, going pink. ‘Who?’
‘Your aunt, I believe. In a nurse’s uniform.’
Pause. Mr Wither ate a forkful of pickle.
‘That’s right.’ Viola was relieved, and she smiled. ‘She is a nurse. My Auntie Lizzie, that would be. Was she all right? Fancy her coming right out here on the bike! She doesn’t cover Sible Pelden, only New Chesterbourne, where the slums are. Did she say anything?’
‘She was selling tickets for the Infirmary Ball, I understood her to say,’ droned Mr Wither, eating more pickle. ‘Naturally, I could not buy them from her. I had to explain to her (at some length) that we have always procured our tickets direct from Lady Dovewood. By the way,’ he laid down his knife and fork, put two fingers into his waistcoat pocket and brought out a bunch of pink cardboard slips, ‘here are the tickets, Emmie. They came this morning. You had better take care of them.’
‘Yes, dear.’ Mrs Wither took the slips, counted them, then looked up.
‘They’ve sent one too many, dear. There are five here. Now isn’t that silly of them? Have you paid for them yet, Arthur?’
Mr Wither nodded and jerked his head at his daughter-in-law, who was sitting very upright, with her cheeks once more pink and her eyes bright with an incredulous hope.
‘For me? Oh, I say, thanks most awfully, Mr Wither, it is kind of you!’ stammering rapturously. ‘How lovely! How much is it?’
‘Eh?’ said Mr Wither, startled. ‘What? Nonsense! Everyone goes to the Infirmary Ball. Only once a year.’
‘Yes, but I want to pay for myself,’ persisted Viola, insincerely, ‘I shall enjoy it ever so much more if you’ll only let me.’
Silence.
‘I mean,’ she stammered, scarlet, ‘I mean it’s so awfully kind of you, I don’t like to think of you wasting your money on me, you know.’
Silence. Mrs Wither slowly tinkled the little bell to summon Fawcuss, and while Fawcuss was removing plates, Viola regained her composure.
But it was difficult for her to be composed when she was so very happy! The room seemed full of brilliant sunlight and the song of the blackbirds in the garden sounded so loud and sweet that she wanted to sing too. She was going to the Ball! and He would be there! She would wear her silver dancing shoes again and have her hair waved, and get some new pearl ear-rings from Woolworths (no one would know they came from Woolworth’s. Of course, you always knew when other people’s ear-rings came from Woolworth’s but they never guessed about yours). Perhaps he would dance with her; a waltz, slow and dreamy, or quick and exciting. She could still see the enormous white crinolines looped with flowers floating round the ballroom in that film about some Austrian queen, ‘Empress of Hearts’ it was called, and the young officers with their jackets slung over one shoulder and their shiny high boots. She saw herself in a white crinoline, waltzing with Victor Spring and looking up into his eyes.
‘Viola … shape?’
‘No thanks,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, please, I mean.’
The shape was eaten in silence. Tina, too, looked dreamily happy. Things are getting better, thought Viola. Madge has got her puppy, and Tina’s got Saxon (well, she hasn’t exactly got him yet but I expect she will) and I’ve been talking to His cousin only this morning and she said I must go to one of their parties one day (and perhaps if I meet him at the Ball he’ll introduce me to his mother and perhaps she’ll invite me too, and then everything’ll be all right). And I’m going to the Ball! I’m going! I’m going!
Saxon will drive us there, thought Tina. I wonder if he dances, and if he likes it … if he takes girls to those dances at the Baths one sees advertised in Chesterbourne … I know absolutely nothing about his life, and yet I feel that I know him. I wonder if he’s got a girl? This thought had not occurred before to her, and she was dismayed, even amidst her dreamlike content, to disc
over how much it agitated her.
After the shape, there was cheese. Cheese over, these three infatuated women were free to go away and dream as much as they liked; Tina went slowly out into the garden with a novel under her arm, and Madge hastened away to see how Polo had enjoyed his dinner, and Viola was going quickly out of the room to overhaul her wardrobe in preparation for the Ball, when Mrs Wither gently stopped her.
‘Viola dear,’ began Mrs Wither, in a frighteningly kind voice, ‘there is something I want to talk to you about. Come into the morning-room for a moment, will you?’
Oh, please God, don’t let her say I can’t go to the Ball after all. Amen.
‘Righto, Mrs Wither. All right, I mean.’
Mrs Wither, having mysteriously shut the morning-room door, sat down and patted a chair facing her, on which Viola miserably seated herself.
They seemed very alone. Not a sound broke the morning-room’s quiet, except the slow tick-tock of an old clock in a corner.
‘Now, dear, Mr Wither is not angry with you about what happened this morning,’ began Mrs Wither, opening her pale eyes wide and convincing Viola that Mr Wither was very angry indeed, ‘but he was very much upset by your aunt’s visit. Coming like that on a bicycle, without letting us know or anything. And you were out, of course; you had just run off somewhere in the way you often do – Oh, I know it does not matter, you were not doing any harm, but your aunt must have thought it very strange that you were not here to welcome her. And there was another thing that upset Mr Wither very much. Your aunt had a little accident as she went off; the bicycle caught against a stone or something, and your aunt had to jump off very quickly; she almost fell, in fact, and Mr Wither happened to be looking out of the window at the time and it agitated him very much. It gave him quite a shock, he nearly went out to see if she were hurt. So next time, dear, if you will just tell your aunt to let us know when she is coming, everything will be all right. We do not mind your friends coming here, dear, of course; we are glad to welcome them for your sake, but we like to know.’
The door opened and Fawcuss looked in.
‘What is it, Fawcuss?’ inquired Mrs Wither, patiently.
‘Mrs Theodore is wanted on the telephone, Madam. It’s a call from London.’
‘Oh, I bet it’s Shirley! – sorry, Mrs Wither,’ cried Viola, and ran out of the room’.
‘Hullo, darling,’ called Shirley’s clear voice, sounding strong and full of life though it was speaking so many miles away. ‘How’s things? How are all the Therms?’
‘Oh, all right, thanks,’ answered Viola, glowing. ‘I am glad you phoned. Is it anything special or did you just—’
‘Listen, darling – is the ancestral mansion creeping with Therms or are you alone?’
‘Yes. Yes I am, I mean.’
‘Good. Well, just make sure no one’s got their ear pasted at the keyhole.’
‘They can’t. It’s in the hall.’
‘So useful, of course. No one can fix up a dirty weekend without everyone else getting wise to it. Listen, darling, can you come up to town tomorrow and meet me at the Oxford Street Lyons Corner House at eleven? Main entrance. I’ve got the day off for shopping. Decent of the Death’s Head, was not it?’
‘Oh, Shirley, I’d love to!’
‘What’s to stop you?’
‘Well, I must just ask, of course.’
‘Oh God. All right. Run along. I’ll hang on. Tell them I keep a bad house and we want new blood.’
Viola ran back to Mrs Wither, who was sitting exactly as she had left her, looking patient and affronted.
‘Oh, I say, Mrs Wither, I’m awfully sorry I had to dash off like that, but it’s Shirley. My friend, Shirley Davis, you know. She’s got the day off tomorrow to do some shopping and she wants me to go with her. May I go, please? I could catch the early bus and I’d be back in time for supper – dinner, I mean.’
‘You must please yourself, dear,’ said Mrs Wither disapprovingly. ‘You are your own mistress, you know. It is rather short notice, is it not?’
‘Yes, that’s what makes it so ripping. It’s such a surprise. Can I go then, please, Mrs Wither?’
‘Of course, dear. And I think you had better try to call me Mother; it sounds better.’
‘Yes, Mrs Wither – Mother, I mean. Thanks awfully.’
She darted away, leaving Mrs Wither sighing. Common, pleasure-loving, discontented with home life, extravagant, not behaving at all as a widow should. Ah well, no cross, no crown, thought Mrs Wither, straightening a mat.
‘It’s all right, Shirley! I can come!’
‘Good. I hope no one flew asunder with the effort. Well, you be outside the main entrance at the Oxford Street Lyons Corner House tomorrow at eleven o’clock. (You can get the tube straight through from Liverpool Street to Tottenham Court Road.) Goodbye till then.’
‘Goodbye, Shirley, and thanks awfully.’
‘Vi – here – hi – are you there?’
‘Yes?’
‘Got any money?’
‘Five.’
‘Shillings or pounds?’
‘P.’
‘Good! We’ll get through some of it tomorrow.’
‘Lovely. Goodbye, darling.’
Viola hung up, and raced upstairs to her room with a head full of delightful fancies. As though the Ball were not enough, now there was this! It never rains but it pours, she thought, standing in front of the wardrobe and looking, without really seeing them, at two limp and faded evening-frocks. What shall I wear tomorrow? … I’ve got no clean gloves … I must wash them … oh … aren’t my shoes awful?
Suddenly coming out of her dream she realized how worn were her silver slippers, tarnished, stubbed at the toes, a button missing. I can t wear those, she thought. I must get some new ones.
But the thought did not really worry her, because she knew that she would be able to buy a pretty, fashionable and comfortable pair for less than a pound.
Civilization as we know it is corrupt. It may be doomed; there are plenty of omens. Its foundations are rat-eaten, its towers go up unsteadily into lowering clouds where drone the hidden battleplanes. But it can, and does, supply its young daughters with luxuries at prices they can afford. No woman need be dowdy, or shabbily genteel. While she has a few shillings to spend on clothes, she can buy something pretty and cheerful. This may not be much, but it is something. Tomorrow we die; but at least we danced in silver shoes.
Saxon put his head round the kitchen door and told Cook that he was going home for lunch today. Cook nodded. The three elderly maids at The Eagles, all Chesterbourne women, approved on the whole of the young chauffeur, because he was polite and hardworking and so far they had not been able to find out anything against his character. They felt that he ought not to have been so good-looking, but after all that was hardly his fault, and no doubt as he got older he would get uglier and that would be all right; it was more natural, the maids felt, for everyone to be plain. They were all three plain, and they looked rather like three elderly fat pebbles which have been quietly rolling round in a pocket in the bed of a stream for so many years that all their corners have worn away and they resemble each other.
But despite their virtue and the fact that they never gossiped about their betters in front of him, Saxon was not going to give their six gimlet-eyes a chance to fasten on him when he was feeling bucked and flattered by Miss Tina’s interest, so he went off through the wood, whistling. He would get some bread and cheese and beer at the cross-roads pub.
‘Mornin’, son,’ called the Hermit, waving at him a can – presumably full of Rosie.
Saxon took no notice. He hated the lousy old bastard, always jawing and making an exhibition of himself down at the pub, a dirty, half-mad liar, sponging on fools who ought to know better than to give him anything. How could a chap keep himself respectable when there were people like that hanging round him, who ought to be in prison or the asylum? And he had good reasons for hating to hear himself called ‘so
n’ by the Hermit.
I wish Mr Spring ’ud turn him out of the wood. He could, if he wanted to. The Council ‘ud listen to him. If the Old Boy (this was Mr Wither) had his way, the dirty old devil ’ud have been kicked out long ago.
But as he climbed the opposite hill where the beech-trees began, he started to whistle again, because he was so bucked about Miss Tina. Half-way through the lesson he had given up trying to pretend, for prudence’s sake, that he thought she really wanted to learn driving. She wanted to be with him. He was sure of it. He grinned and sent a shower of brilliant whistling notes up to join the whistles of the birds as he walked vigorously up the hill. That’s one up to me, he thought. He was not flattered because Tina, an individual, liked him (women always liked him, he was used to that); but because she was a lady and the daughter of a comfortably-off father. She was Gentry; not high-up Gentry like Lady Dovewood, of course, nor such smart Gentry as the Springs, but Gentry all right. Educated, nothing to do, coming into a bit of money when the Old Boy hands in his dinner-pail, I expect.
Might be worth my while staying on there for a bit, after all, he thought, grinning as he went into the pub. You never know your luck.
In fact, he had not the vaguest idea as to what luck might come from Miss Tina’s interest in him, but his masculine vanity was so tickled by her attention that he felt on top of the world, like a young rooster bugling away, feathers spread and scarlet comb glowing, in the early morning sunrays.
‘Well—’ said Saxon, lifting his glass. He shifted his elbow to avoid a slop of beer on the bar, and nodded at the barman.
The barman, a realist, nodded back.
Saxon looked in at the cottage before going back to work because there was something he wanted to say to his mother. This new business with Miss Tina made him feel he must stop the way she carried on with old Falger (of whom Saxon refused to think as the Hermit). What was the use of him, Saxon, being taken up by Gentry if his mother was going to disgrace them both by letting that dirty old devil have the run of their place? He had ticked her off more than once about it, and this time he was going to put a stop to the whole business.
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