Crampton Hodnet (24 page)

Still, he had not gone to Paris with Barbara. The fact remained. He could hardly remember now what had put the idea into his head. Barbara … an attractive girl with dark, passionate eyes, but a cold fish, oh, definitely a cold fish. He smiled, feeling rather pleased with himself, as if he had coined a particularly apt expression.

If only Margaret had been a little more reasonable, all this would never have happened. It hardly occurred to him how lucky he was to have a wife who, besides being a wife, could also be held responsible for everything that had happened to him! Of course all those gossip ping North Oxford women were to blame too. Aunt Maude, Mrs. Fremantle, old Mrs. Killigrew, Edward Killigrew. You could lump him in with the women and never notice the difference. He’d never have had the spirit to do what I’ve done, thought Francis, chuckling to himself. Mother wouldn’t let him.

At that moment the car began to make snorting sounds, as if echoing the chuckle, and suddenly it stopped altogether.

Well, this is a nice thing, thought Francis mildly.

He got out, lifted up the bonnet and peered inside. He knew nothing whatever about the workings of a car. Very gingerly he put out a finger and touched something. Nothing happened. He touched something else. There was oil on his finger but still nothing happened. He pressed the self-starter vigorously and then swung the handle in front. But it was no use.

He began to feel very angry. It wasn’t fair. His virtue surely deserved a better reward than this. He was miles from a garage and no car had passed him for at least ten minutes. He prowled round the car, prodding the tyres, as if expecting to find the trouble there. Didn’t people sometimes get under cars? The only thing to do was to stand in the road and hope that a car would soon come past. So he planted himself in the middle of the road, ready at any minute to adopt a striking attitude which would force a passer-by to stop.

It was thus that Mr. Latimer, bouncing along in his high, old-fashioned two-seater, saw him, a tall, bedraggled and ridiculous figure with both arms upraised, shouting, ‘Stop! Please stop!’

‘Well,
well
,’ said Mr. Latimer, drawing up with a jerk. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘What are you, if it comes to that?’ said Francis crossly.

‘I’m coming back from my holiday. Oh, I had a
marvellous
time!’ Mr. Latimer spoke with such unusual enthusiasm that Francis stared at him in surprise. He noticed that he was wearing a light grey flannel suit and a collar and tie. Had he given up being a clergyman, Francis wondered? Was that why he seemed so elated?

‘Now, what’s the trouble?’ said Mr. Latimer, getting out of his car.

Once again the bonnet was lifted and peered under, parts of the engine were poked and prodded, but with no more result than before. Mr. Latimer then stood back and began to talk rather technically, using long and important-sounding words. Mr. Cleveland joined in. Neither would admit ignorance, although each knew that the other knew nothing whatever about the workings of a car.

‘Well,’ said Francis at last, ‘the only thing to do is to leave it and tell them at the garage. We’re quite near Oxford.’

They squashed together into Mr. Latimer’s car and went bouncing off. It was still raining heavily, and the hood leaked, so that the water fell in a steady trickle onto Francis’s shoulder.

Mr. Latimer kept up a flow of happy chatter as they drove along. He showed no curiosity about Francis, and did not even ask where he had been or whether anything interesting had happened in Oxford during his absence. He was full of his holiday in France and the wonderful time he had had—the glorious weather, the beauty of Paris, the delicious food, the historical interest of the cathedrals and churches he and his friend Mr. James had seen. He was particularly enthusiastic about these last.

Francis shivered and listened politely. Fancy Latimer being so excited about cathedrals and churches, he thought. But it was not long before he began to understand the reason for this unusual enthusiasm. It appeared that as Mr. Latimer and Mr. James were looking round a certain cathedral, they had got into conversation with a party of English people. Among them had been a spinster lady with her niece, a beautiful girl of nineteen.

‘She’s just left her finishing school in Switzerland,’ said Mr. Latimer, his rapturous tones making poetry of this prosaic statement. ‘Her name is Pamela.’

Francis made a donnish little joke about
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
. But there was no answering laugh.

‘She’s awfully pretty, but intelligent too, if you see what I mean,’ said Mr. Latimer earnestly.

Francis murmured that he did see. It would be a good way of describing Barbara, he thought sardonically.

‘I expect I’m boring you terribly with all this,’ said Mr. Latimer boyishly, ‘but I suppose you haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be young,’ he added, in a tone that showed that he supposed no such thing. ‘Of course, books are more in your line,’ he went on generously. ‘The Bodleian and all that.’

Francis hunched his shoulders and shivered. He was afraid he was catching cold. He could think now of nothing nicer than to be in bed, with Margaret fussing over him.

‘Well, here’s the garage,’ said Mr. Latimer. Til just hop out and tell them, shall I? How many miles would you say it was?’

When they had given their directions they drove on and were soon in the Banbury Road.

‘Gone away, Ellen?’ said Mrs. Cleveland, trying not to appear surprised. One must keep up appearances, even when one came home ready to forgive all and found that there was nobody there to forgive. ‘Oh, yes, I remember now,’ she went on. ‘Mr. Cleveland said he might go away if the weather was nice.’

‘It’s been raining all the time here,’ said Ellen flatly. ‘Oh, and Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow are in the drawing-room,’ she added, with the air of somebody producing a pleasant surprise.

‘Oh.’ Mrs. Cleveland sighed and took off her hat.

‘I’m going upstairs to unpack,’ said Anthea.

Mrs. Cleveland stood for a moment in front of the drawing-room door, plucking up courage to go in. She felt that it needed a great deal of courage to face Miss Doggett when one had had a tiring train journey and was longing for tea.

‘Well, Aunt Maude,’ she said as brightly as she could, ‘we’re back.’

Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow were sitting side by side on the sofa. Miss Doggett was wearing a terrifying new hat trimmed with a whole covey of cyclamen-coloured birds, but Miss Morrow was her usual drably comforting self.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ asked Miss Morrow. ‘I’m longing to see all the things you’ve bought.’

‘I got a jumper suit and a hat and some things for the house,’ said Mrs. Cleveland, relieved to be talking about ordinary things. ‘I’ll show you,’ she added, moving towards the door.

‘Margaret, I think this is hardly the time,’ said Miss Doggett bluntly. ‘I want to know what you are going to do about Francis.’

‘Do?’ Mrs. Cleveland sank down into an armchair. The room looked dusty. One couldn’t leave servants alone for a day. Or husbands, she thought heavily. What had Francis been up to now?

‘Francis has gone away,’ said Miss Doggett clearly, as if repeating a lesson.

Mrs. Cleveland felt stupid and helpless. She almost said, How nice!

‘Miss Bird has left her lodgings, her landlady told me yesterday.’ Miss Doggett paused to let the full import of her words sink in. ‘It is obvious that they have gone together,’ she added, in case Margaret should be
very
dense.

‘But
where
?’ asked Mrs. Cleveland hopelessly.

‘We do not know that, but we shall know in time.’ Miss Doggett pursed her lips and the cyclamen birds nodded. ‘No doubt he will send you a hotel bill or something of the sort.’

‘I’ve just remembered,’ ventured Miss Morrow timidly, i was talking to Mr. Cleveland one evening and he said something about Paris.’ That was the Crampton Hodnet evening, she thought.

‘
Paris
?’ Miss Doggett shot out the name in a thrilling melodramatic whisper. She turned to her companion. ‘Miss Morrow, why did you not tell us this before?’

‘I don’t know.’ Miss Morrow fumbled with her handkerchief. ‘I didn’t think it was important.’

‘Well,
really
, Miss Morrow, it is hardly your business to decide whether a thing is important or not,’ stormed Miss Doggett. ‘You should certainly have told me. I should have thought you would have realised that when a man says he is going to Paris …’ She waved her hands in a vigorous gesture. ‘We can only wait now. Margaret, you have all my sympathy. I am afraid this is going to make a difference to many things. It is not at all likely that Lady Beddoes will allow her son to marry the daughter of divorced parents.’ She shook her head gloomily.

At this mention of her daughter, Mrs. Cleveland’s face clouded over. She was worried about Anthea. She had not seemed at all her usual self in London. She had been depressed about something, very
low
, as Amy would say.

She looked out of the window and saw the postman coming up the drive.

‘I expect there will be a letter from Francis,’ she said with dignity. ‘And then you will see that you are quite wrong.’

‘I only hope so,’ said Miss Doggett without much conviction.

‘Oh,
Mummy!
’ Anthea burst into the room. ‘A letter from Simon!’

Mrs. Cleveland at once forgot all about Francis and Paris and the hotel bill when she saw that her daughter was in tears. ‘Darling, what’s the matter?’ she cried. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘He’s fallen in love with somebody
else
,’ wailed Anthea, flinging herself into a chair and brandishing the letter in her hand.

Her mother and Miss Doggett were at once fussing round her, leaving Miss Morrow to reflect on the lack of restraint displayed by young people nowadays. If
I
 
were jilted, she thought, trying to imagine herself in such a situation, I should keep it to myself. I should never let anyone know that I minded. But then she looked at Anthea’s dishevelled golden hair and nervously moving hands and realised that of course she was only twenty. Oh, what a blessing it was to be thirty-six, thought Miss Morrow fervently. Youth took itself so seriously and was therefore the more easily hurt, but, on the other hand, it had certain obvious advantages. There could be
others
, many
others
, when one lived in Oxford and was as pretty as Anthea.

‘Oh, dear, oh,
dear
.’ Miss Doggett wrung her hands. Even the cyclamen birds seemed to droop. That Anthea’s hopes should be shattered in this way was something that had never occurred to her.

‘I think you’d better go upstairs, dear,’ said Mrs. Cleveland. ‘Would you like to go to bed?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘We’ll have tea. I think we all need it.’

‘She ought to lie down,’ suggested Miss Doggett. ‘The shock has been very great, but it will be much worse when she realises it fully.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind what I do,’ sobbed Anthea, allowing herself to be led out of the room by her mother and great-aunt.

Cruel Simon, thought Miss Morrow, seeing the letter lying on the sofa. What had he said? There could surely be no harm in reading it.

She picked up the letter. It was quite short, written on a single sheet of foreign-looking notepaper.

Dear Anthea, 

I expect you have been wondering why I hav ‘ent answered your letters. The truth is that I have been meaning to write for some time but hav’ent had a moment till now. I think you will agree that it has been evident for some time that we were growing rather weary of each other’s company and that it would be no use our continuing to meet under such circumstances. As a matter of fact I have met somebody else out here, and it is not unlikely that we shall become engaged in the near future. You must meet her sometime, I’m sure you would be great friends. I do hope this won’t be too great a shock to you, dear. You know I would hate to hurt you, but I think you will agree that I have done the kindest thing in telling you the truth. I shall always be awfully glad to see you in Chester Square whenever you happen to be in town. We have had some good times together, hav’ent we?

Yours—

Simon

Miss Morrow could hardly help laughing when she had finished reading. The sprawling, childish writing and curious parliamentary phraseology seemed to her infinitely:pathetic. ‘It has been evident for some time … it is not unlikely that Miss Morrow jumped forward thirty years and saw Simon as the Secretary of State for Something, answering questions in the House. But then, she thought, with cynicism unsuitable in one who was not a woman of the world, he would avoid the truth at all costs. And he would probably have a secretary who knew where to put the apostrophe in ‘haven’t’.

She put the letter back on the sofa and looked out of the window. It was a pity, she thought, that romantic love didn’t last. ‘The Blessed that immortal be, from change in love alone are free.’ And not even Belgravia and North Oxford, however blessed they might be in most things, could expect quite as much as that.

She stood at the window for some time, watching the people hurrying by in the rain—Miss Nollard and Miss Foxe, evidently going out to tea, old Lady Halkin’s companion hurrying home with a white cardboard box of cakes. And then she saw a familiar, high, old-fashioned two-seater drawing up at the gate. Mr. Latimer and Mr. Cleveland got out.

Oh, dear, oh, dear, everything’s happening all at once, thought Miss Morrow hopelessly. First Anthea and now
him
coming back.

‘Where’s Margaret?’ demanded Mr. Cleveland accusingly.

‘She’s upstairs,’ said Miss Morrow.

He rushed out of the room, leaving Miss Morrow still at the window and Mr. Latimer hovering in the doorway.

‘Have you had a nice holiday?’ Miss Morrow asked.

‘Oh,
marvellous
!’ Once Mr. Latimer was started he babbled on happily, as he had to Mr. Cleveland, about the weather, Paris, the food. But after the cathedrals he stopped expectantly.