Summer Pudding, page 21
He had planned the meeting in the tea-garden just to avoid a public greeting. He wanted her in his arms. His voice showed it.
“Barbara!”
The colonel looked up, his eyes twinkling.
“Don’t mind me. You take her down the garden.” Barbara’s voice was icy.
“No, thank you, I’m quite comfortable here.”
The two men stared at her. The colonel turned to Dick. “You wouldn’t think to hear her that she’d been like a mad thing ever since we knew you were coming home.” He gave Barbara’s knee a pat. “Get along, old thing. Here’s poor Dick been kickin’ his heels since three o’clock waitin’ for a word from you.”
Barbara played with Hoover’s ears. Her voice trembled a little.
“Perhaps he hasn’t been kicking his heels. Perhaps he’s had company he prefers to mine.”
Dick was like a dog who, expecting a pat, has been given a kick.
“I say, what on earth’s getting you?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
Barbara sighed.
“I don’t want to be cross or anything just when you’re home, and you’ve a perfect right to go about with any girl you like; I’ve not any special claim.”
“Girl?” Then Dick’s face lightened. “Oh, did you see me with that kid? But that was nothing. She was upset and I was just doing what I could, that was all.”
Barbara raised her head.
“I always tell you everything, so I’ll tell you I heard her say you’d been marvellous to her.”
If Barbara had not looked so distant and unlike herself, Dick would have laughed.
“That kid! Oh, I was going to tell you about her . . .”
“You needn’t bother; if you like to go out with Sheila it’s your own business.”
“Look here, I was waiting for you at the tea-garden, and I saw the poor kid crying because she’s being packed off on a job. I gave her tea and a lift home. I didn’t even know the girl’s name was Sheila.”
Barbara looped Hoover’s ears in a knot at the back of his head. Usually his little skinned face, minus ears, made her laugh, but now she could not see him. Her eyes were dim with tears, one of which rolled off her nose.
“I don’t want to quarrel on your very first day home, but you see, I know Sheila Brain, she’s the sort . . .”
His voice stopped her.
“Sheila who?”
“Brain.”
“That blasted family again!”
“They’re not blasted, at least only Sheila is. Mrs. Brain’s an angel, and a great friend of Daddy’s, isn’t she, Daddy, and Janet’s grand.”
“That’s all you know. This Janet worked in my office.”
“Of course! D’you know, I heard that. At least I must have, because at the back of my mind I knew there was some connection between you and Janet, but I’d forgotten it and she never mentioned it.”
“She wouldn’t. She seems to have taken advantage of my being abroad to search out Donald’s address, and use a mythical arrangement with me to get Donald to house her beastly family for almost nix.”
“It’s a lie!”
“It’s not, darling. She came to Donald; or rather she sent her sister, with this story, and I can promise you I never breathed Donald’s name to her.”
Barbara’s forehead was furrowed with puzzlement.
“But it doesn’t make sense. You’ve seen her. You know.”
“I agree it’s very unlike what I knew of her, but those are the facts.”
“Donald must have made it up.”
“Don’t be a little idiot.”
“Idiot nothing, I . . .”
The colonel had been listening intently. Now he sat up and took command, as he would have done in his army days. There was authority in his voice.
“Be quiet, both of you. You, Barbara, ought to be ashamed of yourself, sayin’ over and over again that things aren’t true, and not bringin’ one fact to substantiate your claim. As for you, Dick, I don’t know what manners they teach you in the Army these days, but in my time we didn’t insult ladies the way you’ve been doin’.”
Barbara shook the tears out of her eyes and crouched down beside her father.
“It’s not Dick’s fault. It’s just some awful muddle, but Janet couldn’t have cheated.”
The colonel looked away from Barbara’s red head to the sky, where some rooks were cawing homewards.
“Barbara’s got the right of the thing, Dick. There’s nothin’ wrong with Janet Brain, and there’s nothin’ wrong with the mother.” He got up. “Off you go, Dick, to the farm, and fetch that brother of yours and tell him he’s to meet me at the Brains’ cottage.”
Barbara sat up on her haunches.
“But, Daddy, you can’t. It’s two fields to walk. You couldn’t do it.”
The colonel stiffened and straightened.
“For weeks now I’ve been thinkin’ to meself I’ve had enough of that damned sawbones’ mollycoddlin’, but I didn’t see me way to make a break. I’m goin’ to the Brains’ cottage, and it’s not goin’ to do me any harm, but there’s one thing I insist on, and no arguin’, mind. I’m havin’ a whisky and soda before I start.”
Because it was hot the party sat on the lawn, Maggie in one deck-chair and the colonel in another. Hoover, who had somehow got himself included in the party, lay under Maggie’s chair. Barbara and Dick sat on the grass, Donald, looking stony, stood with his hands in his pockets. Janet, her face ghastly, and too feeble to stand, was half sitting on a window-ledge.
“These are the facts, Mrs. Brain,” the colonel said gently, “as Donald and Dick have got hold of ’em. I wasn’t havin’ that kind of tale in my garden, with no one there to refute it, so we came to put the story in front of you.” Maggie was looking at Donald.
“Do you mean to say I’ve been paying you only ten shillings a week for a house worth a hundred a year?”
“It was a fancy price the Moretons paid,” Donald said awkwardly. “I dare say I’d never have got it again.”
Maggie looked at Janet in pity and dismay. Of course it was understandable that she had wanted to get her mother and sister away from the bombings, and all credit to her, but it was not understandable that she should send her younger sister with the story of a faked understanding, to beg favours of her employer’s brother. That was not like Janet, nor the way she had brought her up. Yet nobody could speak harshly to the crushed, broken Janet sitting on the window-seat.
“Janet, you should tell the truth, I think. In extenuation for you I can only say that a wish to get one’s family away from the bombings was understandable, though, by the methods you used, unforgivable.”
There was silence, then Janet raised her head; her eyes were black with suffering.
“I can’t bear it that you, Mum, and you, Donald, can believe all this of me. I would never have believed such stories of either of you.”
Maggie’s voice was still gentle.
“But, Janet dear, here are the facts. Sheila came straight to this place, to this address; well, who gave her the address if not you?”
Donald gave a sudden quick movement and stepped to the edge of the lawn. He looked over his shoulder at Maggie.
“I thought you said Sheila was in bed with food poisoning?”
Maggie nodded.
“Potted meat at tea.”
“She didn’t have potted meat for tea,” said Dick. “There wasn’t any.”
Donald gave a grunt.
“Whatever she had she’s legging it across the fields now.”
The colonel sat up.
“Run after her, Donald, and persuade Miss Sheila to come back here and have a word with us.”
Sheila was a pitiable spectacle. She made no protest when Donald stopped her, but weakly, and with a cowed expression, returned with him to the cottage.
“Give the poor girl a chair,” said the colonel. “You look very seedy, my dear. I understand it’s potted meat.”
Sheila fixed her eyes on Dick; her voice was so tiny that it was very difficult to hear it.
“Actually, no. It was castor-oil.”
The colonel’s lips twitched. He put a hand over his mouth to hide them.
“You’ve heard a good deal of what we’ve been sayin’ from your bedroom, haven’t you, that’s why you ran? Where were you goin’?”
“To Gladys. We—we planned things together.”
“Ah!” The colonel shifted his position. “Now tell me, did Janet send you down to Donald, to get this cottage?” Sheila turned hunted eyes round the party.
“I shouldn’t wonder if I was sick.”
“Never you mind that,” the colonel said firmly. “You answer my question.”
“Well, actually, no.” Sheila fixed her eyes on Dick. “I was going on a message for Janet when I saw you outside her office. It was love at first sight.”
Janet saw a twinkle in all the men’s eyes, and she could not bear it. She got off the window-ledge and knelt beside Sheila, with a protective arm round her.
“Come on, you’ve been awfully silly, but let’s have it all.”
Slowly and painfully, struggling to make it dramatic, Sheila told her story. When she came to Gladys’ share, she turned to Janet.
“I don’t think she’d have ever thought of it alone. You see, he’d never kissed her and it was difficult for her, but I got her to do it, or I knew she’d never have let me know about Mr. Trent coming home.”
When the story was finished the colonel was the first to speak.
“God bless my soul! Talk about female minds! You better get back into bed, my dear. If I was your mother I’d pack you off on your job in the morning whatever you felt like.”
Maggie’s face was grim.
“You can be sure I will.”
Janet had seen an expression on Donald’s face which made her heart miss a beat.
“Come on, Sheila,” she said kindly. “I’ll tuck you up.”
“Then will you walk with me to the farm?” asked Donald urgently, and felt a new glory in the night when she nodded.
Dick’s hand was already in Barbara’s, and they were disappearing together round the side of the house. The colonel looked after them all and smiled.
“They’ve forgotten me. I suppose Barbara will be back presently.” The night breeze rustled the trees, a sleepy bird cheeped. His voice dropped. “Maggie, my dear, I’m a bit of an old crock, but you’ve a great deal of happiness stored up in that heart of yours that you could give me if you would: and in return I’ll do everything that’s in me power to make you happy.”
Maggie’s eyes were misty, but she managed to smile.
“Including drinking milk?”
The colonel sighed.
“Even that.”
Maggie did not answer for a moment. When she did she spoke hesitantly.
“It’s a big step at your age. You’ll laugh at me, but I feel shy. I mean, won’t people think it queer?”
“Who cares if they do? Bound to be talk; there’s talk about everythin’ in Worsingfold. Kindness really to give’m somethin’ to jabber about. Tell you what, we might have a threesome weddin’. Bit of labour savin’ for the vicar.”
Maggie sat up.
“Nonsense. All my life I’ve planned my girls’ weddings. Times without number I’ve seen myself fixing the orange blossom in Janet’s hair. I’m not going to be done out of my rightful place as mother of the bride, and Janet’s going to have her day to herself.”
“I should think Barbara and Janet might share, one party for both and all that.”
“Nonsense! In the first place Donald and Janet aren’t even engaged yet.”
“Neither are Barbara and Dick.”
Maggie chuckled.
“I shall be very surprised if you don’t hear about that tonight. I mean, when Barbara knows you are going to be looked after . . .”
“Ah! So we’re comin’ to us at last. But you’ve got the wrong idea, you know. It’s I that’m goin’ to look after you.”
Maggie flushed.
“It’s people like your servants I’m thinking of. I mean, they’ve been with you years. They aren’t going to like a new mistress, especially a mistress like myself who, however hard she tries not to, will always be poking her head into her own kitchen.”
The colonel’s eyes were twinkling.
“No wonder Mincin’ has been seein’ a change comin’. Place full of spooks, and she strainin’ round planning it was my coffin that was causin’ the stir. ’Stead of that it’s you comin’ home.”
Maggie was silenced by the word ‘home’. She saw the Georgian house, the high wall with its wallflowers and stone-crop, its iron gates. The low, lovely drawing-room. The garden round which she could potter. She was not old, she would soon get her strength back, and now the years ahead, instead of being lonely, would be filled with the duties which went with such a house, but above all filled to overflowing with what she loved most, someone to care for and to make happy.
“Oh, my goodness!” she said at last. “I am a lucky woman!”
The colonel had been watching her face; he stretched out a hand.
“Can’t kiss you here, bit public. There’s life in us two warhorses yet, you know. We may be crocked for the time bein’, but I shouldn’t wonder if we managed to have the devil of a time when the children aren’t lookin’. Thank you, my dear, you’ve made me very happy.”
Barbara drew herself out of Dick’s arms.
“You’re an angel to forgive me. I’m not usually the jealous sort, but Sheila is the sort of girl that, if anyone was going to be jealous, it’s about her they would be.”
He kissed her again.
“What an involved sentence! I couldn’t make out all that rubbish the kid was talking. I mean, some people don’t plan to marry people they don’t know. Anyway, why me?”
Barbara rubbed her face against his shoulder.
“That’s the one thing I do understand. I imagine she lives in a fancy world where anything is possible.”
“I’ll take a bet, with her face, that in a couple of years she won’t know us, she’ll have climbed so high.”
Barbara stepped away from him.
“Don’t say ‘us’ in that positive way. You know I still can’t marry you. Daddy’s better, but this walk to the cottage is the first decent one he’s taken for months. If I go he’ll die of boredom and loneliness, cooped up seeing nobody.”
“Well, couldn’t we marry and live with him for a bit? I might get a decent slice of sick leave. Won’t be the same thing as being on our own, but it’ll be a lot better than nothing.”
“If only we could, but you’ll be stationed somewhere sooner or later, and then Daddy would make me join you.”
“Might go East again.”
“You are only saying that to weaken me. You know it’s unlikely after malaria. Anyway, you’ll have to spend a good deal of your leave in London, won’t you? What about your business?”
“Yes, that wants disentangling. Easier now Janet’s here, but I could go up and down, I suppose.”
Barbara’s voice had tears at the back of it.
“Don’t go on. I want you all to myself so terribly. Don’t weaken me. I simply can’t leave Daddy alone. I’ve made up my mind to it.”
Dick put his arms round her.
“Don’t worry, little sweet. I can wait. Let’s go and fetch your father. It’s time we were toddling home.”
At the side of the house Barbara stooped and picked up Hoover. She clutched Dick’s arm and whispered “Ssh.” Together they stared at the colonel and Maggie.
Dick put his lips against Barbara’s ear.
“Jiminy Cricket! I never thought of that.”
Donald and Janet had walked to the copse where they had first met. As Janet joined him he had pulled her arm through his.
“You are going to marry me, aren’t you? In spite of all I thought about you.”
“Well, I thought some things about you too. You know I love you.” Walking across the fields she said: “But don’t let’s be engaged until after Gladys is out of your house.”
“Oh, mercy! I’d forgotten her. I could strangle the wretched woman.”
“Sheila’s the one to strangle. Gladys really loves you. Poor Gladys!”
“She’s got a job, anyway. Broadstairs is crazy to have her. He’s sending her a letter tonight making her a very decent offer.”
Janet paused, struck by an idea.
“Wouldn’t it be simply glorious if they married? I mean she’d be marvellous as a headmaster’s wife.”
“Doesn’t deserve anything. She’s made you unhappy, blast her!”
“I’m only sorry. I know what her sort of unhappiness is like. You’ll have to talk to her, you know, or she’ll refuse Mr. Broadstairs’ offer.”
“I say, couldn’t you?”
“Me! I’m the last person. Poor beast. You’ll have to be frightfully nice and, if absolutely necessary, you can kiss her.”
“Brute! I suppose you’ll rub my nose in that as long as I live.”
“Shouldn’t wonder.”
They had reached the copse. Donald had her in his arms. The minutes slid away, they had starved for one another, and now they were sure of each other time ceased to exist. They were dragged back to earth by a moan. Staring at them, her face greenish-white, was Gladys. She spoke on one dead note like a sleep-walker.
“I saw you go across the fields. Iris is all right. I said I shouldn’t be long. Oh, God! Donald! Oh, Donald!”
Janet came to her.
“I’m sorry. Donald and I love each other. I know just how you feel. There isn’t anything I can say.”
Gladys seemed hardly conscious Janet had spoken.
“Ever since Anna died I’ve hoped and hoped. Even before she died I was planning. She knew. She used to tease me. ‘No harm in trying,’ she used to say, ‘but you’re not his sort, you know.’ But Anna was fond of me, and I was good to her, and I have been good to Iris. I knew ever since you came it was all up. I tried not to believe it, but you can’t fool yourself, can you? I’m not Sheila believing fairy-tales. It’s a cruel world for lots of women.”
Donald spoke gently.
