The Leaping Flame, page 10
“Who’s that?” Arthur Howlett asked. “One of the children?”
“One of the children nothing!” Mona replied scornfully. “Dorothy’s doing too much. She’s wearing herself out fussing round with this W.V,S., the evacuees and Heaven knows what else.”
“I know,” Arthur Howlett agreed. “She ought to have a medal for it.”
“Medal!” Mona retorted. “She doesn’t want a medal, what she wants is orchids.”
The doctor looked at Mona as if she had taken leave of her senses.
“Yes,” Mona insisted. “And I’d just like to ask you one thing, Arthur. How long is it since you took Dorothy out for an evening, took her to the pictures, took her out to dinner, or, indeed, made love to her?”
“Oh, Mona, really!” Dorothy interrupted. “You mustn’t say things like that. Arthur will think I’ve been complaining, and I haven’t, have I?”
“Of course you haven’t,” Mona answered. “You wouldn’t complain if he asked you to stand still while he hammered nails into you. You’re too good to that man, Dorothy, and you always have been. But he’s always been the same, taken up with his beastly profession, treating the house like a hotel and noticing nothing unless his supper was late or his bed wasn’t ready for him when he came in dead tired.”
Arthur Howlett looked uncomfortable.
“I say, Mona, you’re being a bit hard on me, aren’t you? I dare say there’s a lot in what you say, but really, ever since the war, I don’t seem to have a second to myself. Two doctors have gone from the neighbourhood and I have taken over their work.”
“I don’t care if ninety doctors have gone,” Mona said, “Dorothy’s got to come first. I don’t mind telling you that when I saw her last week it gave me quite a shock. Why, she isn’t much older than I am, but she looks a hundred!”
“Don’t mind me,” Dorothy interposed. “Don’t spare my feelings, will you?”
“I shan’t,” Mona said. “I’m being brutal for your own good. I’m taking you into Bedford tomorrow or the next day to get a permanent wave and what’s more you’re going to have some nice clothes and use all Arthur’s coupons. If anyone goes barefoot this winter, it’s going to be him.”
“I’ve used most of them already for the children,” Dorothy said apologetically.
“You’ve made as much a fixation of the children as Arthur has of his patients,” Mona scolded. “They’re both charming in the right place, but you’re losing your grip on life, both of you. It’s no use sinking lower and lower into the mud of Bedfordshire until you wouldn’t recognise a dance tune if you heard one. I only wish to goodness there was an attractive young man in the village who would make love to Dorothy and give you, Arthur, the fright of your life.”
“Well, I must say, Mona, you don’t mince your words,” Dr. Howlett said.
But there was a twinkle in his eye and a smile touching the corners of his mouth. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked for all the world like a schoolboy who had been caught out stealing the apples.
“What about it, Dorothy?” he said. “As this tornado has entered our lives, I suppose we must pay some attention to it. Would you like me to take you to the pictures tonight when I get back from Willington?”
“Tonight?” Dorothy exclaimed. “Oh, I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can,” Mona said fiercely. “Don’t you dare refuse him. You’ll go and you’ll enjoy it, if I have to come down here and look after your squalling brats.”
“They’re not squalling and they’re not brats,” Dorothy said with a flash of spirit. “They’re perfectly charming children.”
“In which case you can leave them with an easy conscience,” Mona retorted. “In fact, to make quite certain that you come I am going to ring up Michael now and ask him if he will give us all dinner at the Swan.”
“Oh, but you can’t do that!” Dorothy protested. “He will think it so extraordinary.”
“Let him think,” Mona replied. “Besides, what’s he got money for? If I don’t spend it for him, I expect someone else will.”
She went out of the room to telephone but noted with satisfaction as she left, that Arthur Howlett, who was chuckling, bent to kiss his surprised wife.
‘They just want waking up,’ she thought to herself. ‘They’re a darling couple but they’ve got into a rut.”
She rang up Michael and found that he was at one of his farms. She put through another call, then waited for nearly ten minutes while he was fetched to the telephone. She explained to him what she wanted and heard him laugh at the other end of the line.
“I knew you couldn’t manage to be subdued for long, Mona,” he said. “I thought you’d have to get your fingers into some sort of pie, even if it weren’t your own!”
“Don’t be rude, Michael,” Mona replied. “Will you fetch me this evening?”
“I will,” he promised.
Mona ran back to the sitting room with the good news. She found Dorothy alone with a somewhat flushed face.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to Arthur,” she said. “He quite embarrassed me with his affection.”
“Arthur’s the nicest man in the world,” Mona answered, “but he’s as blind as a bat. Things have to be very obvious for him to see them. Subtlety will never work with Arthur, as you ought to know. If you don’t draw attention to yourself, he’ll forget that you’re not a robot.”
“That’s not quite true,” Dorothy said loyally, “but I admit that sometimes I have felt as if everything exciting that had ever happened to me was in the past and that the future was pretty drab and uninteresting.”
‘That’s what I feel myself,’ Mona thought with a sudden pang.
Then quickly she put her personal feelings on one side, concentrating determinedly and fiercely on her friend.
“What have you got to wear?”
“Not a thing,” Dorothy said cheerfully.
“Then I’m going back now to find you something.”
Dorothy Howlett laughed. “Sweet of you dear, but nothing of yours would go round my hips by yards.”
“Oh, yes, it would,” Mona said. “I’ve got some pleated dresses somewhere and those will easily fit you. Anyway, Dorothy, don’t be so difficult. You’ve got to look your best tonight, you’ve got to flirt with your own husband.”
“I swear you’re making me feel quite shy. Why are you doing this?”
“To make you look young again. Also, to be selfish, it makes me feel so terribly ancient myself to see someone who is not much older than I am, looking a million.”
“Do I look as bad as all that?” Dorothy asked.
“Quite,” Mona answered ruthlessly, “but you won’t when I’ve finished with you. I shall be sending you down some astringent lotion for your face, some rouge and a lipstick – and kindly use them.”
“My dear, if Mavis Gunther sees me going out like that what will she say!”
“Nothing worse than she’s said already.”
“I think you are right there,” Dorothy laughed. “Well, now I must get the children’s tea. Are you quite sure you won’t stay and have some?”
“I’ve got a lot to do,” Mona told her. “And if you don’t look your prettiest tonight, I shall flirt with Arthur myself, I warn you.”
“He’d love it. He’s always admired you.”
“I wish I could believe that, but he first saw me when I had mumps and I have a sneaky feeling that he’s never quite forgotten the spectacle I presented. No, I’ll confine myself to being pleasant to Michael. Your job is to make Arthur feel that he’s twenty-two again.”
“I’ll do my best,” Dorothy promised.
Suddenly she bent forward and kissed Mona.
“You are a darling! We need you here among us. We’ve got so self-centred.”
As Mona walked down the road she thought,
‘I don’t deserve that. I’m the one who’s been self-centred all these years.’
She looked back and tried to remember someone to whom she had been kind, someone in whom she had taken an interest besides Lionel. But all her searching could recall nothing save the moments of supreme happiness with the man she loved and moments of utter despair and misery when she was alone.
“I won’t think about it,” she muttered.
Blindly, not looking where she was going, she bumped straight into Mrs. Gunther.
“Well, Lady Carsdale, this is a surprise!” Mrs. Gunther exclaimed, in her high metallic voice, which had been known to send cold shudders down the spine of those whom she reprimanded.
“Is it?” Mona asked. “The village is a small place, Mrs. Gunther, and I have been home nearly a week. We were bound to meet sooner or later.”
Mrs. Gunther for a second looked taken aback at having her words seized upon so literally, then she remarked,
“And how delightful it must be for you to be back. I am sure you are quite a stranger. Your poor mother must have been wondering if she was ever going to see you again.”
There was malice and enmity in the words, which she spoke with a smiling mouth, her beady little eyes watching Mona to see the effect of them.
‘She’s trying to make me feel uncomfortable,’ Mona thought, amused at anyone doing so exactly what was expected of them.
“I’m afraid it has been rather lonely for my mother,” she replied, “but here I am at last and now I shall be able to be with her and make up for lost time.”
“And you are making a long stay, Lady Carsdale?”
“Very long,” Mona replied. “God willing, of course, I was thinking of remaining here for the rest of my life.”
“Indeed! We should be very flattered at the idea,” Mrs. Gunther said, “but I am afraid you will find it very dull. We haven’t many diversions in Little Cobble.”
There was a wealth of meaning in the word “diversions” as Mrs. Gunther said it.
“Oh, don’t you think so?” Mona asked innocently. “I find it very amusing, especially the people. Most of them are so true to type but one or two are surprising – but then there’s no need to say that to you. You know all the secrets of the village, of course.”
“Secrets!” Mrs. Gunther said. “Are there any…”
She checked the words and substituted,
“I expect, being quite a stranger, you see things from a different aspect from we who have been here all these years.”
Mona laughed.
“I wonder?” she said. “But perhaps I’m being indiscreet. I mustn’t tell tales out of school, must I, Mrs. Gunther? Although I’m sure I know nothing that you do not. Well, it’s been nice meeting you. Goodbye. Tell your husband that we hope he will drop in to the Priory for a glass of sherry one evening if he’s up that way.”
Mona nodded and started off down the street.
She was well aware that she had left Mrs. Gunther perturbed and uncertain, wondering if there was something going on that she didn’t know, wondering what Mona could have meant by “secrets”.
‘That type always wants to know everything,’ Mona thought to herself. ‘She’s just like Char Strathwyn, always nosing about, always frightened that she’s going to miss something.”
She walked past the church and took the right-of-way across the fields, then, as she neared the Priory, she thought she would go in and see Lynn Archer. She called most days to enquire about Gerry, who was better, although he had been in pain for forty-eight hours and was suffering now from shock and loss of blood.
She tapped at the door of the lodge and heard Lynn’s voice call out, “Come in.”
She found her alone, seated at her desk by the window, a pile of papers in front of her.
“Am I disturbing you?” Mona asked.
“No,” Lynn replied. “Come in. I am trying to write and I can’t. Why didn’t I choose any other profession? Even scrubbing floors would be preferable to sitting with a pencil in one’s hand and a persistently blank piece of paper to look at.”
“Where are the children?” Mona asked.
“Your angelic nanny has taken them for a walk,” Lynn replied. “Your mother came in this morning and said she thought I was looking tired, so Nanny came down after lunch and bundled the two babies into the pram and John has taken his tricycle.
“Oh, why haven’t I got a Nanny like that! They were all fighting and screaming and in two minutes she had calm and order, had buttoned them into their coats, pulled on their leggings, dared them on pain of death to take off their gloves again, and they were out of sight before they could get their breath. I feel a free woman, but still I can’t write.”
“What’s the matter?” Mona asked.
“It’s this country,” Lynn said with a gesture of despair. “It sounds absurd, I know, but I’ve always lived in towns, I’ve always had fun, excitement, noise and traffic round me. I can’t write when it’s quiet, flat and uneventful. People have said to me for years. ‘Lynn Archer, if you could go away for six months to the country you’d write a marvellous book.’ I believed it until I came here, and I know that my books are conceived on cocktails and parties and that unless there’s some sort of fun going on I can’t write so much as a postcard.”
“That’s a bit unfortunate!” Mona said.
“Unfortunate! It’s desperate,” Lynn replied. “Here, have a cigarette.”
She walked across the room, a vivid figure in her navy-blue slacks and cherry-coloured jumper.
“Am I boring you?”
“Of course you’re not,” Mona answered. “I like listening to other people’s troubles, it takes my mind off my own. Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“It’s a dull story,” Lynn said. “If I tried to put it in a book people would die of boredom and I’d only sell one copy and that would be to my old mother, and the plot can be explained in one word. A word that is, I suppose, one of the most common words in the English language, a disgusting, mean, crafty little word.”
“Which is?” Mona prompted.
“Debts,” Lynn replied. “Debts ... debts ... debts. Bill and I got married on debts, we’ve lived on debts and we’ve very nearly died on them, too, when the bomb came through the roof of our house in London.
“We’ve pledged everything we ever possessed to try and get straight. With any luck, and if Bill’s an Air Marshal before the end of the war, we may get clear by the time the grave is waiting for both of us – but in the meantime we have got to eat.”
“And to do that you must write?”
“Exactly. And I can’t, I tell you, I can’t. It’s just impossible. I got a letter from my publisher this morning asking for the blurb for my spring novel. Blurb! I haven’t begun to think out a plot. And where can I find one in this deadly place? Do you think people want to read about cabbages mating in the fields or potatoes committing adultery with the turnips in the barn? I tell you, I’m sunk!”
“Nonsense!” Mona said. “I don’t believe that books can be entirely dependent on outside influences. It must be something inside you and that’s still there. What we have got to do is to conjure up the atmosphere.”
“So easy, isn’t it?” Lynn said sarcastically. “Do you know, I haven’t seen a soul in months except your mother – who’s an angel – yourself, and Dr. Howlett. Bill gets home, three, perhaps four nights a week from the aerodrome, the rest of the time he’s on duty. They’re so madly busy that he can’t even bring the other officers along with him, and if he does we can’t really afford the drinks. Not that that would matter if they gave me something to write about, but most of them have nice, straightforward, charming characters and when you have used the adjectives ‘eager’, ‘enthusiastic’, ‘clean-limbed’, et cetera, et cetera, there’s nothing left to say.”
Mona laughed.
“Poor Mrs. Archer!”
“And for Heaven’s sake call me Lynn!” her hostess said sharply. “That’s another thing, this awful formality. I suppose if I live here another six years someone will call on me.”
“My dear, I’m sorry for you,” Mona said. “I’ve felt like this myself. I used to think of all the nice things that were happening in the world while I looked like being marooned here for ever. That was when I was seventeen and nothing dramatic ever happened except a choirboy fainting in church, or a cow getting loose in somebody’s back garden and destroying the flowers they were cosseting for the local flower show.”
“Well, you understand then,” Lynn said. “What can I do? I can’t go back to London with the children. You see, mad though I sound, I rather love my babies.”
“I’m not surprised. They are adorable. In fact they all three look as though they’ve stepped out of a story book.”
“You understand, then! The last time we were bombed was bad enough. Thank God, I had all three of them down in the cellar, but the next time we might not be so lucky. Besides, Bill’s here and I wouldn’t leave him for anything in the world.”
Lynn’s face lit up when she spoke about her husband.
‘She loves him!’ Mona thought.
“Well then, we’ve got to do something about it,” she said aloud. “The question is, what? Have you thought of getting to know some of the people here? There are stories enough in everyone’s life if you begin to look for them, even in a village like this.”
“What sort of stories?” Lynn asked half scornfully.
“I’ll tell you one, about the Vicar’s wife.”
She told Lynn briefly but vividly the story of Mavis and Stanley Gunther.
It was at least three parts the exact truth, for although neither of the parties concerned had ever confided in anyone, in some strange way people’s lives become known. A half sentence here, an indiscreet word there, and the chatter of those who have known them since childhood do, in the sum total, complete a story that is generally not far from the actual facts.
Lynn listened, her feet curled under her on the sofa, her dark eyes fixed on Mona’s face.
“I like that,” she said. “Is she really diabolical to him?”
“She couldn’t be worse,” Mona answered. “One of her favourite tricks when he’s annoyed her, is to play the organ in church slower and slower. She knows that it upsets him. And when she’s really angry she alters the hymns, pretending she hasn’t brought the right music. Poor Stanley Gunther gives out the one that’s been chosen, then there’s a pause, no music starts and his wife leans forward and whispers to one of the men at the back of the choir, who slowly marches down the aisle and informs the Vicar that another number will be sung instead. All the choirboys smirk – they know, as do the whole of the congregation, what’s happened – and Stanley Gunther has to put the best face on it that he can and make another announcement.”
