The House of Discontent (4 page)
Read The House of Discontent Online
Authors: Esther Wyndham
He had not been in the house five minutes before Mary exclaimed:
“I’m so glad! You’ll be here for Camilla’s dance!”
“Of course!” he replied. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
They spent the evening at home, talking and laughing round the fire. The only interruption was when Peter Leslie returned from the office. He adored his son no less than Dorothy, and it seemed to Patricia that evening that there could not have been found a happier or more united family in the whole of England. Aunt Dorothy was a changed being, and Patricia could not help asking herself wonderingly: “Why can’t she always be like this? Why does she have to be so horrid when he is not here?”
Edward was very attentive to Patricia. He said that he remembered quite well that time she had come to stay at the White House, and she pretended for fun that she remembered him, but as a matter of fact neither of them remembered the other, though Edward was more likely to have remembered her, as he was four years older.
“You were a dreadful little girl with pigtails,” he told her.
“And you were a horrid little boy with white mice in your pocket,” she replied, laughing.
That night, for the first time since her arrival at The Knowle, she went to bed happy. She had already fallen under the spell of Edward’s charm and good spirits. If only he could always be there she would gladly make it her home.
The next afternoon (it was a glorious, frosty day of blue sky and scintillating air), Edward announced his intention of going to call on Mrs. Grey at the White House.
“You won’t find Camilla there,” Mary put in quickly. “She is a voluntary worker at Brierleigh Park Hospital now.”
“I know,” Edward said, a shade sharply, Patricia thought. “I want to see Mrs. Grey for her own sake. Will you come, mother?”
“Certainly not,” his mother replied, showing for the first time a trace of her old bad temper.
“Oh, come on, mother. Pocket your pride for once,” he said good-naturedly, putting an arm round her shoulders and giving her an affectionate squeeze. But she was adamant in her refusal to call at the White House.
“All right, you pig-headed old hatchet-unearther,” he said, laughing. “I won’t try to spoil your vendetta. Come on, girls. You’re both coming with me, aren’t you?”
Patricia wondered suddenly whether perhaps Edward’s power over his mother did not come from his refusal to be frightened of her or to take her seriously.
He made Patricia and Mary both get on the back of his motor-bicycle. It was terribly cold, and he went at such a pace that they had to cling on for dear life. Altogether it was a hair-raising experience, but when they got to the White House their cheeks, whipped by the wind, were glowing, and their eyes sparkling. Edward looked at Patricia, who was inclined by nature to be rather pale, and exclaimed quite involuntarily: “Goodness, you look ravishing!”
Mrs. Grey was alone in the small morning-room. She was resting on the sofa with a rug over her legs. Her two little Belgian griffons, lying at her feet, started to yap when the visitors came in. She had a charming, kind face and a particularly sweet smile and gentle voice, but she looked very delicate.
“It is kind of you young people to come and see me,” she said. Mary introduced Patricia to her.
“I have heard so much about you, dear,” she said, “and I have been so wanting to meet you. I haven’t asked you up here before, as I haven’t been too well—but you are coming to Camilla’s little party, aren’t you? And you, too, Edward? I do hope you will be staying for it?”
“Rather!” Edward replied heartily. “I’ve got a fortnight. How is Camilla?”
“Working quite hard, but enjoying it, I believe. I never thought she would like it because she doesn’t really like children, but she is interested in the books. She is only doing it temporarily. It was Lady Brierleigh’s idea, you know, to have a library for the children, and she was looking for someone suitable to run it. She wanted someone there who would amuse the children too and try to make them feel less homesick. The nurses of course are too busy, and it had to be someone who would undertake it voluntarily. Matron thought it would be a very good idea if the right person could be found. But it was something, I think, that Anthony Brierleigh said to Camilla that made her offer her services.”
Patricia happened at that moment to glance at Edward, and she thought she saw a frown pass across his face. Certainly his lips were set in a way which she had not seen before—almost grimly ... And yet, now she came to think of it, she had not noticed his mouth in repose before. He was so often laughing or else talking that his strong white teeth were always more in evidence than his closed lips.
“What did Anthony Brierleigh say?” Mary asked eagerly.
“Well, they were talking here one day about the hospital—on one of the few occasions when he has condescended to visit us—and Camilla asked (jokingly, I think) whether she should go and work there, and he replied: ‘You’d be rotten at anything to do with children’.”
“Confounded cheek!” Edward exclaimed suddenly and angrily.
“Yes, I thought it was rather rude. But it put Camilla on her mettle—you know what she is.”
“Is he coming to the dance—Anthony Brierleigh, I mean?” Mary asked.
“I don’t think he will be at home,” Mrs. Grey said.
“Oh, yes, he will. He’s expected home tomorrow. Harry told me, and he always knows everything. He’s our garden-boy, you know.”
“Well, I’m sure Camilla will ask him.”
“I don’t suppose he’ll come,” Mary said thoughtlessly, and then, suddenly realizing that what she had said might perhaps sound rude, she hastily added, as a sort of explanation to Patricia: “You see, he despises girls and dancing and all that sort of thing, doesn’t he, Mrs. Grey?”
“He certainly has a reputation for being a woman-hater,” Mrs. Grey replied with her gentle smile.
“Stuck-up sort of fellow,” Edward said.
“You don’t really know him, Edward, do you?” Mrs. Grey asked.
“No, you’re right—as a matter of fact, I don’t. I used to know him as a boy, but since we’ve grown up I’ve only met him a few times, and then hardly to speak to.”
“It’s more his manner than anything else, I believe,” Mrs. Grey said. “I think he is really intensely shy, but nobody realizes it. I think that that proud manner of his is just worn for protection—as a kind of armour against the world.”
“Shyness is always made an excuse for bad manners in England,” put in Edward uncharitably.
“Why should he need an armour against the world when he has always had everything he could possibly want?” Mary asked.
“That is a question of one’s temperament, isn’t it?” Mrs. Grey replied. “Some people are born shy. And then, how do we know that he has always had everything he could possibly want? People are so apt to say that if they see someone who has everything which
they
could possibly want—but the needs of each of us are so different, and it is only we ourselves who can judge whether we have everything in life we can possibly want, and not outsiders.”
“Well, come on, girls, we must be off,” Edward said, getting up suddenly. Patricia noticed that his good spirits had completely deserted him.
“You won’t stay to tea?” Mrs. Grey asked.
“No, thank you, not today. But we’ll come and see you again, and make you give us tea then.” He was obviously making an effort to recover himself and talk with his usual gaiety.
The first thing Edward said when they got outside was: “Gosh, it was like an oven in there!” and Patricia immediately thought that she knew the reason for his sudden low spirits; he had felt ill in that hot room; he had probably felt faint.
She had imagined that they would now be going back to The Knowle, but Edward started off in the opposite direction, climbing farther up the hill. Soon the road forked, and, turning to the left, the bicycle roared along on the flat for a few miles and then turned sharply up a drive between two stone lodges.
Patricia noticed that they were speeding along a gravel drive through a magnificently timbered park, and soon they came to a great beech avenue bisecting the drive. Edward turned to the right, and in front of them, down the vista of the avenue, she saw a beautiful old house of mellowed red brick. Edward swept up to the front door and stopped his machine.
“Where are we?” Patricia asked.
“Brierleigh Park,” Mary said. “Why on earth have you come here, Edward?”
Edward didn’t answer.
“You won’t be able to see Camilla,” Mary persisted.
“I didn’t come to see Camilla,” he retorted. “As we weren’t in any hurry to get home, and as this is considered to be one of the show places of England, I thought Patricia might like to have a look at it.”
“I should indeed,” Patricia said. “Thank you, Edward.” She looked back down the avenue. It stretched away as far as the eye could see. “What wonderful beeches!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, it’s rather a famous avenue. The main entrance is at the end there—the South Lodge. We came in at the East Lodge.”
“And what lovely terraces!” Patricia said, gazing admiringly at the layout of the garden front. “Oh, we do have the most lovely houses in the world in England! And it is a hospital now?”
“Yes. Lady Brierleigh and Anthony moved into a little house on the lake just down there at the beginning of the war. You can’t see it from here, it’s hidden by the trees, but it’s not far. We’ll go back the other way, and then I’ll show it to you. They used to have the most wonderful skating on the lake in the old days, and huge parties for it. Come on, we’ll go and rout out Camilla.”
“Oh, you can’t!” Mary protested, but Edward was already at the front door, pulling the heavy bell.
The door was opened by a hospital maid.
“Can you tell me, please, is this a visiting day?” Edward asked her with his most charming smile.
The girl looked rather scared.
“No,” she said. “Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays are visiting days.” And she pointed to a notice at the side of the door which advertised this information for all to see.
“Oh, thank you. Could you tell me, is Miss Grey busy at the moment?”
Mary, beside him, was whispering frantically: “You can’t speak to her when she is working,” and the maid would certainly have told him the same thing, but at that moment he caught a glimpse of Camilla herself, in a neat white overall, pushing a trolley of books across the corridor.
“Camilla!” he called out, and she stopped, hesitated, and then, leaving her trolley, came to the door.
“Oh, Edward, it’s you! What are you doing here? You can’t come here now. I can’t talk to you, I’m working.”
“What is your day off or whatever it’s called?” he asked quickly.
“Saturday.”
“The day after tomorrow. What time do you get off?” She told him.
“I’ll come and fetch you,” he said. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
“I haven’t said I wanted to go out with you.”
“But you will?”
“Not on the back of that awful old bicycle.”
“All right. I’ll get an aeroplane!”
“I must go now.”
“But you will come out with me?”
“All right, all right; but for goodness’ sake go away now.”
Edward stepped back and the maid shut the door in their faces, which she had obviously been longing to do for the last few minutes.
While this conversation had been going on (it had not taken more than a minute) Patricia had been looking hard at Camilla Grey. She certainly was an exquisitely lovely girl. Her eyes were a clear light blue, and her lovely skin had the soft tint of a wild rose. And yet, with all her delicacy of form and colouring, she was in fact far from being delicate in health. She was quick and bird-like in all her movements and possessed of untiring energy. Her worst fault, perhaps, was that she could never stick at any one thing for long, but would take up each new craze or hobby with a burst of tremendous though short-lived enthusiasm.
Patricia had felt a funny little pain while Edward was being so insistent that Camilla should go out with him, but directly the door was shut he said: “Poor old Camilla, she was properly rattled,” and for some reason, which she did not analyse, Patricia felt an odd sense of relief at the tone in which he said this.
They had just turned away from the door when they saw, approaching along the avenue, a tall woman, dressed in smart tweeds and walking briskly towards them.
“Lady Brierleigh,” Mary whispered.
“Oh, bother!” Edward said under his breath. “Can’t we get away?”
“No, we must stop and talk to her,” Mary said. “She’ll wonder what we are doing here.”
Just then Lady Brierleigh recognized Mary and hailed her with her walking-stick. Mary went forward to meet her, and Patricia and Edward followed a little way behind. Mary was the only one of the Leslie family whom Lady Brierleigh really knew, and that was because Mary had on several occasions helped her with various welfare projects in which she took an interest.
She was on neighbourly terms with Mr. and Mrs. Leslie, but she had hardly met Edward since he was grown up. She was very fond of Mary and kissed her now as she greeted her. Mary introduced Patricia and her brother.
“Of course I remember Edward,” she said graciously. “But it is many years since we have met, isn’t it? But I remember you quite well as a child at those lovely parties we used to have on the lake ... I am so hoping the frost will hold and that Anthony will be able to get some skating this year. He is expected tomorrow, you know, and I am getting the ice swept today. If the frost continues you must all come up and skate. Of course, it won’t be like the old days. There won’t be any music, but still ...”
“We should love it,” Mary answered for them all. “I’ll get my skates out tonight. I hope they haven’t gone rusty.” Lady Brierleigh had been a real beauty as a girl, and now, at fifty, she was still beautiful, with a mature grace. She did nothing to try to hide her age. She had allowed her hair to grow grey and her face was a maze of fine wrinkles, but her figure was still slender and supple, and she had a beauty of expression which she would probably never lose now.
In the neighbourhood she was looked upon as an angel of goodness. It was impossible to tittle-tattle in her presence, for she never gossiped, and even her detractors had to own that she had never been heard to say an unkind word about anyone. Since the death of her husband, whom she adored, she had lived an almost nun-like existence. It might almost have been said of her, as of St. Teresa, that she spent her heaven in doing good upon earth. Those who knew her best realized that all the human love of which she was capable had been centred upon her only child, Anthony, after her husband’s death. And yet, so frightened had she been of spoiling him with this love, that she had brought him up very strictly—unnecessarily strictly some people thought—and with a Spartan discipline.
“I brought my cousin up to see the house,” Edward said now. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why, of course not. I’m delighted. Do come up any time you like. I wish I could show you the garden now, but I’m afraid it is getting a little dark. Another time.”
“Yes,” Edward said. “I’m afraid we ought to be getting back now.”
“Well, good-bye, then, my dears, and we shall expect you all up over the week-end to skate if the ice holds. Remember me to your father—and to your mother, of course.”