Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie (7 page)

‘Oh, it’s not true! You haven’t taken Mulberrie Farm, have you? It’s only two miles from us. You
are
an angel, Amabelle. I say, though, have you seen it?’

‘No, why? Is it horrible?’

‘No, no,’ said Bobby hastily, ‘quite attractive. Very comfortable and all that. Tee-hee, though, this will ginger up the hols for me top-hole, it will. Do you really think you can persuade m’tutor to recommend Paul to mother?’

Bobby’s house-master was Amabelle’s first cousin and one of her greatest friends.

‘I can’t see why not,’ said Amabelle, ‘because I honestly do think that Paul will have a very good influence on you.’

‘Personally I can’t imagine Paul having influence over man, woman or child.’

‘Anyhow, it can do no harm and may do good, as Geoffrey said when he joined the Embassy Club. And as we are here I think I might as well go in and see Maurice about it now, so goodbye,
darling, try to be good, and buy yourself some sausages with that, will you?’

Amabelle, as always, had her own way, and the upshot of her visit to Eton was that Bobby’s house-master, Maurice Pringle, wrote off to Lady Bobbin highly recommending one Paul Fisher as holiday tutor to her son, Roderick.

‘I am not actually acquainted with this young man, but I have received from mutual friends a most glowing account of his character and attainments, and I feel certain, from what I hear, that he is in every way qualified to fill your post. I understand that he is a particularly sportsmanlike young fellow, devoted to outdoor pursuits, and at the same time (which is important), a first-class coach. Should you wish to interview him, I shall be most happy to arrange this for you.…’

Lady Bobbin, however, who was at that time busy hunting five days a week, did not wish to waste one of them by spending it in London, and engaged Mr. Fisher by return of post with no mention of an interview. She merely remarked in her letter that he would be expected to ride, shoot and play golf with ‘the boy’, as well as to coach him in whatever subjects Mr. Pringle might think advisable, and ended up by saying that Roderick would be hunting three days a week. Paul wondered with a shudder whether he would also be obliged to participate in this unnerving sport.

The five weeks which still remained before Christmas were unpleasantly strenuous ones for Paul. His mornings were spent clinging in a frenzy of fear to the back of ancient hirelings in the Row, mild, drowsy animals which were in his eyes monsters of fire and speed, savagely awaiting an opportunity to hurl him to his doom. His afternoons, less fraught with actual danger than with the horror of an almost equally distressing boredom, alternated between a shooting school at Richmond and golf lessons in Putney. By the evening he could
hardly either stand or see. He regarded himself, however, as a martyr in the cause of Art, and this sustained him. Marcella, piqued by a sudden cessation of his advances, was now seldom off the telephone, a state of things which would have seemed unbelievably blissful two or three weeks before. But, although he still fed her loyally at the Ritz every day, he was beginning, if the truth must be known, to find her beauty less maddening and her lack of intelligence more so than formerly.

Walter and Sally Monteath, accompanied by Miss Elspeth Paula Monteath, now an accredited member of the Church of England, and her nanny, travelled down to Gloucestershire by train a few days before Christmas. They had temporarily solved their always pressing money troubles by letting their flat for a few weeks, during which time they intended to live entirely at Mrs. Fortescue’s expense, and by selling the ancient motor car. This had from the first proved to be more in the nature of a luxury than an economy, and latterly it had cost them endless money and bother owing to what Walter was pleased to call ‘Sally’s incurable habit of ploughing her way through human flesh.’ Walter, while showing a greater respect for life where pedestrians were concerned, was all too much addicted to tearing mudguards, headlights and other gadgets from onrushing vehicles. In fact, the sale of the car was regarded by all their friends as an undisguised blessing, and they themselves were highly relieved to see the last of it.

‘Isn’t this too perfect,’ said Sally as she settled herself into the corner seat of a first-class carriage. ‘Now, just run along and buy me all the weekly papers, will you, darling. Oh, you have already. Thanks so much. Do you realize,’ she added, opening the
Tatler
and throwing a copy of the
Sketch
over to Walter, ‘that from this moment we literally shan’t have to put hand to pocket for six whole weeks. It’s a beautiful thought. Such a comfort too that Amabelle’s taken a small house, so that there’ll only be her and Jerome for Christmas presents. Yes, I got them on Monday, hankies. Quite nice and very cheap.’

‘I must say I rather hope they won’t retaliate with diamond links and things. D’you remember the Liberty boxes?’ said Walter.

Two years before, Walter and Sally, then newly-married, had spent Christmas with a millionaire and his wife. On Christmas Day Sally had duly presented them with chintz handkerchief and tie boxes from Liberty, which she had chosen with some care as being suitable gifts. Slight embarrassment had been felt even by the ordinarily shameless Monteaths when they were given in return enamel waistcoat buttons, gold cigarette and vanity cases, and a handbag with a real diamond clasp.

‘Oh, I’m past minding about that sort of thing now,’ said Sally cheerfully. ‘I’m only so thankful Elspeth Paula did well at her christening, the angel. We ought to get quite a lot for that pearl necklace, and I suppose the mugs will fetch something. I say, here’s the most ghastly photo of Paul and Marcella at a night club. Do look. Aren’t they exactly like deep-sea monsters! What a girl!’

They were met at Woodford station by the beige Rolls-Royce, and on the doorstep of Mulberrie Farm by Amabelle herself, exquisitely turned out in that type of garment which is considered suitable for
le sport
by dressmakers of the Rue de la Paix.

‘Thank God you’ve come at last,’ she said in her gloomiest voice. ‘Darling Sally, looking so lovely, the angel. Oh, Paula! Isn’t she sweet? Well, come in. You won’t like it, but I can only hope you’ll be amused by it, that’s all.’

‘My dear Amabelle,’ cried Walter in tones of horror as he followed her into the hall, ‘what a house!’

‘Yes, you don’t have to tell me that; I’ve been here now for a week, kindly remember. And do you know that from what the agents said I honestly thought it was going to be really old and attractive. They never stopped talking about its old-world charm, mullioned windows, oak beams and so on. Look at it – how could I have guessed it would be anything like this?’

‘You just made the mistake,’ said Walter soothingly, ‘of confusing old world with olde worlde. You should have been
more careful to find out whether or not there was an “e”; so much hangs on that one little letter. In any case, I must submit, with all deference, that the very name of the house, Mulberrie Farm, ought to have aroused your worse suspicions. I never heard anything so art and craft in my life, and I bet the yokels have no idea it’s called that, they probably knew it as The Grange before all these inglenooks and things were put in. You must be crackie-boo, poor sweet, to go and take a house you’ve never even seen.’

‘Don’t tease her,’ said Sally. ‘I think it’s divinely funny; just like those Paris restaurants made for Americans that we saw on our honeymoon.’

‘I think it’s very beautiful, Amabelle. I didn’t know so much crooked wood existed in the world. I wonder if it was the architect’s wife who bored all those worm-holes in her spare time instead of knitting jumpers. Oh, I say, too, look at the way the doors open. You just pull that little string and walk in – I do call that a dainty thought. And I adore that ironwork that looks like cardboard meant to look like ironwork; a very original touch that is. Now, I think, if you don’t mind me saying so, that you ought to send up to Soloman’s for some rushes to strew about the floor; then, when you’ve hung a couple of Fortmason hams on to those hooks in the ceiling and dressed all your servants in leathern jerkins, you’ll have arrived at the true atmosphere of Ye. If I think of any other homey touches I’ll let you know. It’s no trouble at all to me.’

‘Shut up, Walter, you fool,’ said Sally. ‘Anyhow, I’m sure it’s a very comfortable little house.’

‘That’s what everybody says,’ wailed Amabelle. ‘Personally, I could never feel comfortable in a hideous place like this. However, now we’re here I suppose we must make the best of it. Sit down, angels, and you shall have some cocktails in a minute.’

Presently Walter said: ‘And how d’you think you’ll enjoy life in the country, Amabelle?’

‘Well, it will be better now you’ve come, but I can’t describe to you what I’ve suffered so far. Frankly, I doubt whether I shall be impelled to settle down here for good, which was rather my idea in taking this house, although I suppose I shall have to stay on till the end of the lease because of Jerome saying, “I told you so.” The old boy was dead right, just the same.’

‘Why, what’s happened? You’ve been bored, I suppose?’

‘I’ve nearly gone mad, that’s all. Everything seems to be so queer and awful. To begin with, the lonely wolds I was so excited about are no more wolds than my hat. Ordinary fields full of mud, that’s what they are. And as for their being lonely I never heard such bosh; they are covered with cows and awful staring men in filthy clothes and huge motor things which drive slowly up and down them. And in any case I think it’s dangerous to go out alone here. Only yesterday I came across the bodies of two dear little rabbits which must have been killed by some lynch-maniac. It’s terrifying to think there are such men wandering about. I brought the poor mites home and gave them decent burial in the garden.’

‘The lynch-maniac must have been delighted when he came back for his dinner,’ said Sally. She had spent her childhood in the country. Walter remarked that the amount of sadism among the lower classes was truly terrible.

‘Now, listen, Sally,’ went on Amabelle. ‘You’ve lived in the country – I want you to tell me what people do all day. I simply can’t find anything to occupy myself with. Your mother, for instance, what does she do?’

‘Let me think now. She always seems to be extremely busy. For one thing she grows a lot of bulbs in the winter, in a dark place.’

‘Don’t forget to add that they always get immensely tall and thin and finally bend over like croquet hoops,’ said Walter spitefully. He was not devoted to his mother-in-law.

‘Be quiet. They are very pretty.’

‘But that can’t take up much time,’ said Amabelle. ‘What I want to know is how do people fill all those hours every day; there seem to be twice as many here as there are in London.’

‘Mother, of course, takes a lot of exercise, walks and so on. And every morning she puts on a pair of black silk drawers and a sweater and makes indelicate gestures on the lawn. That’s called Building the Body Beautiful. She’s mad about it.’

‘And is it really beautiful – her body, I mean?’ Amabelle asked with some show of interest.

‘It’s all right, I think. I never really look at it much. Then, of course, she does some gardening.’

‘I thought of that myself, but when I got into the garden I couldn’t see anything to do. There were no flowers at all, either, only some dying chrysanthemums.’

‘I think flowers are so vulgar,’ said Walter. ‘It sounds a nice garden to me.’

‘And she orders the food every morning.’

‘Oh, I could never do that, the cook would give notice at once.’

‘And she’s district commissioner for the Girl Guides.’

‘I can’t quite see myself in khaki shorts,’ said Amabelle. ‘I think I must be resigned to playing the gramophone and gossiping. When Jerome and Bobby arrive there’ll be some bridge for you, Walter. By the way, Major Stanworth is dining here tonight.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A sweet man, one of my neighbours. I met him in a field yesterday opening up a dead ewe to see what she died of. It was very interesting, we made great friends at once. I expect we ought really to go and have our baths; dinner is at eight-thirty.’

Major Stanworth, whose alien presence that evening Walter and Sally had rather dreaded, turned out to be a charming person. At the beginning of dinner he seemed shy and silent, but Walter presently let loose a perfect flood of conversation by saying: ‘And what was the matter with the dead ewe? I gather
you were having an autopsy when Amabelle came along the other day. I hope there was no suspicion of foul play?’

Major Stanworth shook his head sadly. ‘Nearly as bad, I fear,’ he said; ‘she was suffering from a disease known as the fluke, and once that gets among our sheep it is a knockout blow to us farmers. However, as that is the only case I have had so far I must hope for the best.’

‘Oh, yes, I know,’ said Walter brightly; ‘fluke and mouth, I’ve heard of that before, but I thought only foxhounds had it.’

The major looked rather surprised, and was about to speak when Sally said, ‘Don’t pay any attention to Walter, he’s as ignorant as a bat, poor sweet. I remember quite well when one of our farmers at home was nearly ruined by the fluke; it’s a horrible scourge. Something to do with the sheep’s liver, isn’t it?’

‘The fluke,’ said Major Stanworth, sipping his sherry, ‘is really a small insect. It has the most curious and interesting life history – I wonder whether you would care to hear it?’

‘Indeed we would,’ said Walter enthusiastically. ‘I always think that one half of the world knows too little of how the other half lives.’

Thus encouraged, Major Stanworth proceeded:

‘The fluke begins life as a little worm. It is born into the sheep’s liver and there it reaches maturity, marries, and has an inordinate number of children,’ he paused impressively, ‘
totally
different from itself.’

‘How extraordinary,’ said Amabelle.

‘I don’t think so at all,’ said Sally. ‘Look at Elspeth Paula.’

‘These children,’ continued the major, ‘are almost immediately passed out by the sheep and find their way, as soon as may be, into the lung of – the water snail. Here they in their turn marry, reach maturity, and in due course have an inordinate number of children
totally
different from themselves.’