Nothing to Report, page 9
“Good young man, Squirl, though no use except with chrysanthemums,” replied the Dowager. “Also allergic to Primula Obconica. Head gardener tells me he daren’t send him into the house with them. Boy comes out covered with spots. Not at all what a village wedding was in my young days. No artificial satin then, or photographs of London weddings in daily papers, to set country girls thinking. However, nice-looking girls, all of them. Wish it was my poor Pamela’s turn. Ah! she’s found the car. Good-bye, Mary dear. Wish that we saw more of you.”
CHAPTER VI
WHIT-SATURDAY, MAY 27TH
(i)
The Dowager Lady Merle of Went’s wish that she saw more of Miss Morrison seemed to have been heard in heaven. Upon Westbury Hill Mary’s progress was impeded by a large limousine. She followed it through narrow lanes to the gates of Crossgrove. Before she reached the second gate in the park, she hooted, and passed the vehicle containing the Dowager and Pamela. “May be best not to arrive in a bunch,” she told herself.
There was a surprising number of cars already parked in the silent courtyard outside the perfect Georgian house. The front door stood open and the dark hall seemed full of flitting figures. Mary perceived Albert moving fast, carrying a tray laden with jugs of lemonade. She decided to walk through the house and find her own way to the tennis court. But as she passed the dining-room door Sir Daubeny came forth. He was wearing flannels and looked decidedly heated. “Hullo, Button!” said he, grasping her hand urgently. “I say! this party looks like being rather a flop. Unknown to me, Catha—bless her heart!—has asked everyone in the landscape to play tennis, and the grass courts turn out to be absolutely unplayable. I’ve bought seven acres of moss, as far as I can see. Mercifully the two hard courts, which Crispin made me put in, are all right, but there are about fifty people panting to perform upon them. I wish Crispin was here. Ah! there’s the Bishop going. I must give him that book I promised. Where on earth did I lay it down? With my tennis racquet, I know.”
“I believe it’s in the billiard room, sir. I’ll get it,” said a voice from the entrance blocked by Sir Daubeny’s agitated form.
“Who is that young man? I’ve seen him here before,” asked Sir Daubeny, staring fiercely after the fleeing figure.
“His name’s Cox. He stays with the Wilsons,” said Mary. “A Gunner, I believe.”
“Rather like the look of him,” said Sir Daubeny. “Wonder if he would do for ‘Ponto’ Miller. ‘Ponto’ wrote to me yesterday, saying, ‘Send me no more A.D.C.’s from your regiment. They all fall in love.’”
“He’s in Australia, isn’t he?” asked Mary.
Sir Daubeny did not answer. His attention had been attracted by a homily being delivered in his hall by an unknown female guest, to the venerable and somewhat shaky Bishop.
“Look here,” Miss Pamela Wallis was saying, “if you’re going down to see that little chap Taylor at Westbury now, I do wish you’d tell him not to spoil village weddings for everyone by sticking up a notice in the porch saying, ‘No confetti or rice to be thrown.’ Old Mrs. Gibbet and the Harker girls are perfectly capable of sweeping the stuff up, and he doesn’t do it when anyone like Puggy Blent gets married there. It’s simply spreading Bolshevism. Besides, it looks so rude, and it’s not even clean.”
“Rather an outspoken young lady!” commented Sir Daubeny, fixing his monocle.
“It’s all right, or at any rate better than you know,” explained Mary. “He married her parents and christened her and confirmed her. She’s a Merle grandchild.”
“All the same . . .” said Sir Daubeny, advancing with the book recovered by Mr. Cox.
Miss Wallis took leave of her august friend, saying in chastened accents, “I see. Still, I should have thought you could have got your Sec. to send him a tactful snorter.”
As they paced together through the hall towards the terrace, Lady Merle asked, “Does Sir Daubeny play tennis?”
“He does indeed, and I believe was capable of wearing out any couple of aides-de-camp in India,” reported Mary, her thoughts lingering on the problem of Mr. Cox.
“Our courts at Went were always considered good,” said the Dowager with mournful dignity. “We used to have very pleasant tennis there, even when my dear husband was at his busiest. Good afternoon, Mrs. Mimms. Good afternoon, Miss Masquerier. I was just saying that we used to have very pleasant tennis at Went in the old days. We frequently could make up a set in which all players were in the Cabinet. I do not think that any recent Premier has been a keen player. I do not know whether my courts have been kept up. Since my daughter-in-law is, I regret to say, a vulgar-minded creature, I never go there nowadays.”
“I wish,” muttered Pamela, as her grandmother emerged on to the terrace, snapping open a parasol of white taffeta with black satin stripes, “I wish that Granny regretted Valerie sufficiently not to mention it.”
A group consisting of the Dowager, her grand-daughter, Mary, Miss Masquerier, Mrs. Mimms and Rosemary Wright, were established by their hostess in chairs on the terrace. Their view was of beds bright with tulips and forget-me-nots, of chestnut trees with every white candle lit, and beyond that, fields which were this week a sheet of buttercups.
“I’m glad to see that you got here safely,” said Mary to her connexion by marriage.
“Johanna made us be punctual,” said Rosemary, looking wistful. “She wanted to play tennis. She’s playing now. She’s awfully good.”
To the disappointment of most of her audience, the Dowager had evidently decided against any further family revelations. “And when,” said she, turning graciously to Miss Masquerier, “shall you be giving us another of your charming studies?”
“I have a biography of the unfortunate Queen of Scots on the stocks at the moment,” gabbled Miss Masquerier, clasping her hands, and staring fixedly at the pantry quarters of Crossgrove.
“Mary, Queen of Scots! How very interesting. But hasn’t she been done already?” asked little Mrs. Mimms eagerly.
“I am sure,” said the Dowager, lowering her sunshade, “that Miss Masquerier will be able to provide us with quite a New View.” Resting both hands on the carved ivory crook of her long spindly parasol, she added, “My granddaughter here read your Maria Theresa aloud to us, at home, in the evenings, throughout last Christmas. I can assure you, we did not miss a word.”
In the dead silence which ensued, everyone regarded with feverish interest the flight across the terrace of a cabbage butterfly.
“Granny means your Maria Louisa,” explained Miss Wallis at length. “We really did all enjoy it tremendously. I do hope you sold lots of copies. Hasn’t it gone into a cheap edition?”
“I am glad to say it has,” affirmed Miss Masquerier, brightening.
“Now I am so interested to hear that you are pleased about that,” said little Mrs. Mimms, to whom prolonged silence was an impossibility, whatever the circumstances. “I never know myself whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for an author when their books are sold off cheap. We had your book in the house over Christmas too. I ordered a copy to send to my old governess at Paignton. Poor thing, she is quite bed-ridden now, so has lots of time for reading. I often think that if only I could find the time, I should read all day. But with a husband and two growing children needing one’s attention unceasingly. . . .” She flung up both hands.
“What is the matter with your husband and children?” enquired the Dowager, unimpressed. “Are they unhealthy? My dear late husband, during his busiest years of National Service, always made time to keep abreast of current literature. He used to read while changing for dinner. If a volume was missing, I always told our people to look in the bath.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Mimms, undaunted, “that the copy of your Maria Louisa which we got must have been the cheap edition. I remember it hadn’t got the lovely photographs, which, to me, were half the charm of your previous book.”
“One should not,” said the Dowager, “expect an historical biography to be provided with photographs. One of the first photographs taken in England was of my great-uncle, on the Terrace at Windsor. Not a flattering likeness, but the boots were characteristic.”
“What’s historical biography, Auntie Bee?” enquired Rosemary in an undertone.
“You ought to know; but it’s lives of people,” said Mary. She was feeling slightly confused, for the Dowager had just inclined towards her to comment, “One always thinks that that pretty little woman is going to say something of interest, and she never does.”
“All dead?” pursued Rosemary.
“Not necessarily,” said Mary.
Overcoming mountains of shyness, Rosemary, whose gaze had long been fixed admiringly upon that lady, asked Miss Masquerier hoarsely, “Have you written a book?”
Before the authoress could reply, the Dowager took charge of the situation.
“Miss Masquerier,” said she, “has written many, many books. Indeed, I do not think that I should be exaggerating in describing her as a famous woman writer. In Went,” concluded the Dowager tremendously, “we are very proud of claiming Miss Rosanna Masquerier as a native of our cathedral city.”
“How absolutely thrilling!” said Rosemary, with her sweetest smile. “Would you mind awfully telling me,” she asked humbly of the authoress, “what name do you write under?”
“I think I am going to look at the tennis,” announced Mary, who considered that the authoress had suffered enough. “Don’t you think it is rather hot sitting here?”
But Miss Masquerier knew that the present Lord Merle was owner of a piece of jewellery believed by nobody except his family to have been presented on the scaffold to a faithful henchwoman by the unfortunate Queen of Scots. Determined not to miss the slenderest chance of gaining permission to view the dubious relic, she remained attached to the owner of the ivory-handled parasol.
Catha, who was seated amongst a row of sufferers in strong sun, watching tennis through wire netting, leapt up with alacrity when Mary approached. Sliding her arm through that of her friend, she wheeled her towards the kitchen-garden.
“This is rather an upsetting party, Button,” she began. “You may have heard from Tim that the grass courts are unplayable. But what Tim doesn’t know is that Dorothy Yarrow telephoned this morning to say might they bring a perfectly charming young German baron who is staying with them, and is a good player. And the Mimms have simply brought a broken-hearted exiled Austrian doctor, whom they knew we’d like. Of course, for all I know, the Baron may not be Nazi, and the Doctor may not be Non-Aryan. But I can’t help feeling that it would be much wiser not to let them meet. Never before have I longed for an A.D.C. on the premises. If only Crispin could have got down!”
“Introduce whichever of them you can find to me, at once,” said Mary. “I will do what I can.”
“You are a darling,” said Catha. “Elizabeth is doing her best, and being very good about not playing tennis, but she’s too young to be a rock of strength. By the way, Tim doesn’t know anything.”
(ii)
When Lady Rollo and Miss Morrison returned to the vicinity of the courts, they beheld a spectacle devastating to the hostess of a tennis party. Both sets had apparently finished simultaneously. A muscular mob, for whom there were no seats, were hovering like unsatisfied birds of prey, above an audience, at least half of whom were obviously longing to occupy the vacated arena. At the sight of their hostess, the gentlemen who had just played began to wind scarves around their necks and assume coats. They soon looked ready for a trip to the Pole, whereas the ladies who had been their partners, nearly all of whom were wearing abbreviated shorts, suddenly appeared pitifully under-dressed.
“Sheep!” murmured Lady Rollo viciously. “For heaven’s sake do something about this, Button. You know most of their names and faces, which is more than I do.”
Mary stepped forward, and ran her eye along the row of occupied chairs. Unfortunately her eye was instantly arrested, for she did indeed know a great many of her fellow guests. Everyone who caught sight of her burst into greetings.
“Mary!” cried Mrs. Yarrow. “My dear, I do hope that you heard we’ve been in quarantine for mumps. When I met you in the train going up to London, weeks ago, I said I was going to telephone and suggest a day for lunch.”
“Come and sit between us, Mary dear,” invited Lady Wilson, firmly indicating the chair from which Tony Rollo had just risen.
“Mary! you’re just the person I was wanting to see,” said Sir James.
“Miss Morrison,” said Major Albany Mimms, stepping forward, “I want to introduce Dr. Joachim Weiss.”
“Just one moment,” pleaded Mary. “I must help Catha to get the tennis started again, first. How do you do?” she added hastily to the stranger bowing before her. “I suppose you don’t play?”
Major Mimms’ protégé, who was wearing blue trousers, a white shirt and a grey checked blanket jacket, answered simply, “Thank you!”
“Mummy,” breathed Elizabeth faintly, “some more people are arriving.”
“One second, Mary,” said Catha, darting a warning look at her assistant. Addressing a tall, thin young man with spectacles and straw-coloured hair, she said, “Baron, I want you to play in a mixed doubles now.”
“He has just done that, Mummy,” said Elizabeth, surprised.
“I know, dear,” said Catha with dignity. “But I should like him to do it again. We have not,” she announced, “enough players yet to make up a men’s four.”
This vile falsehood passed unnoticed, for at this moment the further guests espied by Elizabeth came up. That Catha had not the faintest idea of their identity was clear from her greeting to the Misses Hill.
“Hullo, Norah!—Sheilah! Aileen!” said Mary heartily. “You’ve come in the nick of time. Lady Rollo is just making up a mixed doubles, and a ladies’ four.”
Norah Hill, at her plainest and shyest, began to make semi-inaudible explanations to Catha.
“It was awfully kind of you, Lady Rollo, to say on the telephone that we might bring Sheilah’s friend who’s staying with us. We were so afraid that four girls might be too many. Here she is. She works in an Art School, and her name . . .”
But nobody heard the name of the composed little pallid flaxen-haired lady who had accompanied the Misses Hill.
Elizabeth had by now made up a peculiar set composed, inevitably, of the Baron, the Doctor, her brother Tony, who was growling that he would rather not play, and Rosemary Wright, who was clearly terrified by her situation.
“No, no! that won’t do at all,” interrupted Catha. “I want Mary’s niece to play in the ladies’ four, and—and—I want you,” said she with great emphasis to Johanna Pratt, “to play with the Baron against—er—Captain Yarrow and Miss Hill.”
Johanna, nothing loath to partner a more promising player than Tony, led the way to the further court promptly, saying in bell-like tones to the Baron as she did so, “Do you know Munich well?”
“Doctor Weiss,” said Mary loudly, “I want to introduce you to Lady Wilson. Lady Wilson knows Vienna very well. She lived there for years.”
“Oh, yes!” murmured the exile, looking piteous. “But I do not know Vienna very well. I am a Czech,” he announced, as he seated himself next to Sheilah Hill.
This announcement reduced Sheilah to speechlessness, but her friend, who seemed to possess poise, began at once to talk to the Doctor.
A most uneven four—Aileen Hill, Mrs. Yarrow, Rosemary Wright and Pamela Wallis—had been despatched to the court in full view of the audience, amongst whom desultory conversation recommenced.
“How do you like your new home?” enquired Lady Wilson of Tony Rollo, who had gloomily re-seated himself next to her.
“I haven’t seen much of it yet,” muttered Tony, looking his surliest.
Lady Wilson preferred young men with good manners, but she was a wise old lady, and had known innumerable young men.
She told this one now, “Get up at once, then, and beginning at the ruined Chapel, go round the lake and stables. Look into the library and notice the ceiling. I want to talk to Mary Morrison.”
“Is Jugo-Slavia a lovely country?” asked the voice of Sheilah Hill despairingly.
“Czechs do not come from Jugo-Slavia, Sheilah,” corrected Sheilah’s friend. Turning to the Doctor, she remarked, “It is quite extraordinary, is it not, how many people in England do not know the difference between Jugo-Slavia and Czecho-Slovakia?”
“I think,” agreed Dr. Weiss politely, “that not all English young ladies do.”
“But I am not English,” explained Sheilah’s friend, warming to her subject. “Though I have lived all my life in Golder’s Green, I am a Russian! My poor father was a Colonel of the Imperial Guard. I was not six months old when my mother escaped in a sledge through the snow, with me in her arms and her diamonds sewn in her stays. We flung roubles to the peasants as we charged through. . . .”
Satisfied that Dr. Weiss was firmly held in conversation for some time, Mary sought out Catha and advised her, “Leave it all to me now, darling, and go up to the terrace and have your tea with your other guests. As soon as the mixed doubles finishes, I will bring the Baron up and you can introduce him to old Lady Merle, who likes meeting foreigners, and I can put Dr. Weiss on to play down here. By the way, if you need somebody to act as an A.D.C. there’s a sensible young subaltern called Cox, up in the house with Tim now. He has lamb’s-wool hair, and stays with the Wilsons.”
But twenty minutes later, when Mary arrived on the terrace, Mr. David Cox was still lingering there, dutifully but not cheerfully employed, administering weak tea to Miss Rosanna Masquerier and Mrs. Mimms.
Mary asked him, “Have you seen Lady Rollo? I believe she was looking for you.”
“Just as Lady Rollo was beginning to ask me to do something,” said Mr. Cox, “a footman came out with a message. A young lady who had come with a Mrs. Jackson to call, had arrived ill, as she had driven here in an open car without a hat.”
