From a View to a Death, page 10
Fischbein’s face expressed amusement rather than respect or approval. Mr. Passenger was still occupied with Hetty. He was giving her a warning against the breaking down of hedges. Zouch said:
‘Yes. As a matter of fact I am.’
‘You can’t be.’
‘I repeat that I am.’
It looked as if he would be able to keep Mr. Passenger’s identity secret. That was important. Mr. Passenger continued to enlarge on the laws of trespass and he would not hear what Fischbein was saying. As long as Hetty did not try to vamp him, no great harm could be done. Even that would be better than that he should join in Zouch’s conversation with Fischbein.
‘But how on earth did you get there?’ Fischbein said. ‘Are you staying with the housekeeper or something like that? Or are you having a little game with one of the housemaids? Don’t tell me you were asked there by the Passengers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Phew! Is Bella with you?’
‘No,’ said Zouch, through his teeth.
‘Oh, well,’ said Fischbein. ‘I suppose one can’t have everything on these occasions. Anyway it’s rather jolly to feel that one is on one’s own once in a while. We are calling a halt in the town, as it happens. Why don’t you come down to the local about half-past seven and have a drink?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
Zouch said: ‘It is rather a long story. I can’t go into it all now but the fact remains that I can’t. I’m afraid it is quite impossible. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Fischbein. ‘I don’t expect it will be long before we meet again and we can have one then. I suppose I shall have to be catching up the rest of them now.’
He pointed to the wood into which the remainder of his party had disappeared, and through which their singing could now scarcely be heard.
‘Good-bye.’
‘Ta-ta,’ said Fischbein. ‘Come along, Hetty.’
He waved to Mr. Passenger and in a few moments he and Hetty were also lost among the trees. Mr. Passenger stood, rooted to the spot. Zouch said:
‘It’s really amazing what a clever fellow that is. You’d never think it just to meet him.’
Mr. Passenger said: ‘What was he wearing on his head? I could not make out. But you were asking about the fishing round here. I will tell you. Some of it is not bad at all. Quite good, in fact. Quite good.’
The rest of the Passenger family had returned from their visit and Mary was amusing herself by sticking snapshots into her album, while Betty, leaning over the back of the sofa, watched her do this. The sisters were alone together in the room. Mary held up one of the photographs. She said:
‘Did you ever see anything like Charles Kettleby in this?’
‘Where was it taken?’
‘At Blackladies when I was there last summer. Now give me the scissors. I’m going to cut out that odious little Hester Manningham before I stick it in.’
‘Here’s another of Charles Kettleby. You know he’s rather attractive in a way. Of course he’s being silly here. You know Angela absolutely adored him for years.’
‘Now the paste.’
Betty said: ‘Of course I used to know Charles Kettleby years and years and years ago. What I always hated about him was the way he would go on ragging all the time. He never knows when to stop. Besides he gets so rough. Once I met him at a dance in Ireland and he nearly broke my leg. What is it you want now? The scissors again?’
‘Charles is rather too much really.’
‘He’s rather like what Jasper Fosdick might have been if he was a human being.’
Mary laughed. She cut out a photograph of herself sitting on some stairs between two young men, one of whom, from being too near the flashlight, appeared to have had half his face blown away. She picked up her fountain-pen and wrote the name and the date of the dance underneath the picture. Betty said:
‘Oh and talking of the Fosdicks, we’ve been asked by Torquil to go to a cocktail-party that he is giving. It is going to be some time next week.’
‘A cocktail-party. How extraordinary. At their house?’
‘At the Fox and Hounds.’
‘We can’t possibly go. It would be too awful for words.’
‘I think we ought to go. It might be rather fun.’
‘It couldn’t possibly be.’
‘Well I said that we would both go anyway. Do back me up. Your boy-friend will enjoy it too.’
‘Don’t call him that, Betty. You make me feel quite ill. I suppose we’ve got to go there if you’ve said that we are going but I’d much rather not.’
‘It won’t be as bad as that. I think it might be rather fun.’
Mary made a face. Lately she had not been at her best. Without having any clear idea as to what it was that she wanted, she had begun to feel dissatisfied all day long. In the past when she had been attacked by depression she had dreamed about a tall husband with a country house that was a manageable size and a modern flat not too far from Berkeley Square. But all that had begun to seem unreal, insipid somehow, and the thought of this husband of her imagination, leaning back on his shooting-stick at Hawthorn Hill with his bowler tilted over his eyes and his field-glasses half raised as together they watched the horses coming over the last jump, in her present mood, merely made her feel exhausted. Somehow it did not seem any longer to be what she wanted. And even if it had been what she wanted, there were no signs of such a person putting in an appearance. Men proposed to her sometimes but there was always something wrong about them so that looking back on these proposals they seemed to her little better than a lot of jokes in rather bad taste. As husbands all these men were quite out of the question and yet one by one the girls who had been debutantes at the same time as herself were getting married and even divorced. She wondered if she were being left on the shelf.
She closed her photograph album.
‘I’m tired of these beastly photographs,’ she said. ‘And how awful it was this afternoon. I had to tell cousin Judith five times that I didn’t play bridge. I’m never going to allow myself to be dragged over there again.’
‘I like going there,’ Betty said. ‘It makes me feel such a bad woman. I also enjoy the sensation so much of their not liking me being there. I always pray that someone whom they think important will come in and be shocked by me.’
‘I should have thought that you were used to shocking people by this time.’
‘It’s a thing I never get tired of.’
Mary said: ‘Well I sometimes get tired of your doing it.’
There were times when her sister got on her nerves. She disapproved of the life which Betty had led and yet at the same time she had begun to envy certain features of it. She had never questioned Betty about her marriage and now when the details of it had begun to interest her it seemed to be too late. She did not know where to begin. And besides Betty’s point of view was so different from her own that any experiences which Betty might have had seemed remote from anything that could possibly happen to herself. She was still thinking about these matters when Zouch and Mr. Passenger came into the room.
‘Hullo, Father,’ said Betty. ‘What sort of an afternoon did you have?’
‘Well. Tell me about yourselves first,’ said Mr. Passenger. ‘How were they all?’
‘Worse than ever,’ Betty said. ‘Far worse.’
Mr. Passenger said: ‘I knew that they would be. How very fortunate that I did not come with you. Did they ask after me?’
‘No.’
‘They didn’t?’
‘You weren’t mentioned.’
‘Do you mean that no one asked after me?’
‘No one.’
‘Not even cousin Judith?’
‘No.’
‘Really,’ said Mr. Passenger. ‘And then they say that blood is thicker than water. They know perfectly well that I have had hay-fever. I made your mother write and tell them so. And yet they don’t enquire after me. I shall certainly never go over there again.’
‘Uncle Frederick’s leg has been bad again.’
‘All imagination. Imagination and lack of exercise.’
Mr. Passenger shook his head moodily.
‘All your mother’s family are just the same,’ he said. ‘Hopelessly selfish.’
‘And where have you been, Father?’
‘I went to the town. I looked in at Jeudwine’s to see about repairing the panel of that saddle of Mary’s. And then I met this young man and we walked back across the fields.’ And Mr. Passenger added rather spitefully: ‘Where we met some friends of his.’
Having shot this arrow into the air, Mr. Passenger went away. He was preparing, in the secrecy of his own room, a short history of the manor on which Passenger was built and he intended to make a few notes on this work before it was time for dinner. When he had gone, Mary said:
‘Who can you have met coming across the fields?’
In her own mind she wondered suddenly if it had been Joanna Brandon. She thought of this all at once, not knowing why she did so except that she thought of Joanna as the only person in the neighbourhood whom Zouch knew.
‘Oh, no one special,’ Zouch said. ‘Just a man, A journalist. Rather an eccentric sort of person. But clever, you know.’
With Fischbein at a safe distance he felt that he could afford to be patronising. He said:
‘I hope your father wasn’t shocked by his appearance. He looked very odd, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, father doesn’t care what anyone looks like,’ said Mary. ‘Look at the way he dresses himself.’
Mary was not thinking about what she was saying so much as of the strange feeling of relief that she was experiencing on learning that it was not Joanna whom he had met. She was unaccustomed to analysing her thoughts but at the same time she was conscious of a distinct sense of irritation that she should find herself thinking of Joanna at all in connection with Zouch.
‘And what have you been doing?’ said Zouch, who was not anxious to be cross-questioned too fully as to how he had spent his own afternoon.
‘Well we went on this awful visit and when we came back I began to stick in photographs. But I got tired of it, so I stopped just before you came in.’
‘May I see some of the photographs?’
‘Yes, of course. I think I will go on now. Will you help me cut some of them out?’
‘What’s happening here?’
‘That’s me and someone called Charles Kettleby.’
Zouch sat down on the sofa beside Mary who collected the pile of photographs between them and picked out some to show him. Betty, who was still holding the scissors in her hand, put them down on the table. She said:
‘If you want me, though I see no reason why you should, I shall be in the library playing the gramophone. And by the way, we have all been asked to a cocktail-party. What do you think of that? You see the country is really very gay. It is not dull at all as people like you, who come down from London, suppose.’
‘Whose cocktail-party?’
‘Torquil Fosdick’s. At the Fox and Hounds.’
Mary said: ‘I warn you it will be simply awful. I really don’t think I can go, Betty. Why don’t you go alone if you really want to.’ She turned to Zouch and said: ‘I’m sure you don’t really want to go either, do you? You’re only being polite. You must go to all the cocktail-parties you want in London.’
Zouch said: ‘You know, just out of curiosity, I should rather like to go. Will it really be as bad as all that?’
Mary said: ‘It will be too awful for words. Torquil’s so tiresome.’
Betty said: ‘Well you’ve both of you got to go anyway, because I’ve accepted for both of you, and I won’t have a word against Torquil who is quite the sweetest boy who ever happened.’
She left them together on the sofa. They stuck in photographs until dinner-time. Mary had begun to feel quite happy again. Zouch was pleased with himself too. It had been a good day. Except for Fischbein.
5
MRS. PASSENGER, who was thinking about the pageant and the cottage hospital and the best place to get bath-salts, walked across the lawn in the direction of Capes the gardener. She stopped to have a look at the monkey-puzzles on the way. It was a fine morning and there was an exhilarating feeling of freshness in the air. Capes was on all fours by one of the flower-beds, tying aluminium labels on to the stalks of some withered shrubs. Mrs. Passenger came close up to him before he saw her. When he looked round at last he got up laboriously from the ground and stood with his eyes fixed on her while he wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers.
‘Good morning, Capes.’
‘Good morning, m’lady.’
This was a danger-signal. Capes only called Mrs. Passenger that when he was in a bad temper. It was a warning for her to keep her distance. The running up of the Jolly Roger. Mrs. Passenger knew this and proceeded cautiously. There were several things which she intended to say.
‘What a beautiful morning it is.’
‘Yes, m’lady.’
‘I want to speak to you, Capes, about staking the gladioli. You know it is very important to stake them early if the flowers are to do well. I think that in past years they may have been left a little late.’
Capes watched Mrs. Passenger with profound melancholy. He continued his self-massage, turning his eyes to the ground. At the same time he gave a sort of groan to himself. Mrs. Passenger said:
‘And then there was another thing. The old wood wants cutting away from the flowered-out ramblers. The new wood must be given every opportunity of growing.’
‘Yes, m’lady.’
‘Will you see to that?’
‘Very good, m’lady.’
Mrs. Passenger paused. There was something else too. What was it? She was thinking how lovely a morning it was and how nice the house looked from this part of the garden. She must make arrangements to have it photographed from this spot. Country Life might be interested. If they ever wanted to sell the place it was always as well to have something of that kind to show prospective buyers.
‘Oh, yes. About the kitchen garden. The cauliflowers. Have you tried working salt into the soil in showery weather?’
Capes shook his head. He looked more wretched than ever.
‘Tried it aforetime,’ he said. becoming all at once a stage peasant, a line of defence he sometimes took up when Mr. or Mrs. Passenger became too exigent.
‘It works wonders with the heads.’
‘Yes, m’lady.’
‘Lady Llanstephan was telling me about it when we were over there the other day.’
‘She was, ma’am?’
‘She said they had found it very successful.’
Zouch, who had been strolling round the garden to make a break in the morning’s work, which had consisted in doing some drawings of Betty’s head, came through the trees. Mrs. Passenger, absorbed in her own thoughts, watched him walking towards her. Capes had had enough. He knelt down at Mrs. Passenger’s feet as if he were about to ask her to run away with him. He did not actually continue the work he was attending to, but his position made it clear to Mrs. Passenger that he considered that she was wasting his time.
‘I thought I would mention these things to you.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’
‘You can see about them then.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Mrs. Passenger inspected the shrubs through her lorgnette. Capes took the opportunity to shift his position a little and to return to the aluminium labels. Zouch reached the place where they were standing. He joined Mrs. Passenger in her examination of the shrubs. Mrs. Passenger said:
‘Are you interested in gardens, Mr. Zouch?’
‘Yes,’ said Zouch cautiously, ‘I am.’
‘But they take up so much time.’
Zouch agreed that they did. This was the first time since his stay that he had found himself alone with Mrs. Passenger and he was anxious to make as good an impression as possible.
‘Come with me,’ Mrs. Passenger said, ‘and I will show you some of this garden.’
They left Capes, by this time almost prone on the ground, and walked back across the lawn. Zouch was in a receptive mood. In retrospect the encounter with Fischbein had produced a strong effect upon him. He had made up his mind to change his way of life. Fischbein and all he stood for was to be a thing of the past. Mrs. Passenger and the garden symbolised a dignified and more successful future. Mrs. Passenger said:
‘I hear that you are going to paint a picture of my granddaughter.’
‘Yes. Bianca has promised to sit for me. I am looking forward to it very much.’
‘She is a clever child.’
‘Yes?’
‘There is a good deal of Vernon, of my husband, in her.’
‘Is there?’
‘Like him, she is very critical.’
Mrs. Passenger sighed, and, thought Zouch, with good reason. They moved from flower-bed to flower-bed and from shrub to shrub, while Mrs. Passenger explained the garden and Zouch listened. He was beginning to feel that Fischbein was already very far away. In these peaceful surroundings it was difficult to believe that such a person as Fischbein could exist. Mrs. Passenger said:
‘And the picture of Mary?’
‘I have just begun a second one. The first was not a success.’
‘Do you find that she is difficult to paint?’
‘She is not easy. She has beautiful features, of course, but her expression often changes.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Passenger, ‘you are quite right. It often does.’
She thought about Mary. The girl had not been looking well lately. She hoped that there was nothing wrong with her. She sometimes wished that she knew more about her daughters. Both of them seemed such a long way away from her and things were now so different from the days when she had been their age. She sighed again. It was time, of course, that Mary got married. One of these days the right man would come along. She took Zouch all round the garden, including the orchard, and when she left him it was nearly time for lunch. Zouch sat down on a stone seat and seeing a wasp crawling along the path he trod on it, half killing it. He watched its struggles until he heard the sound of the gong.
