The stairs and the hall of The Myrtles were deserted. Slipping
out through the porch, pushing open the shabby, damp white gate,
Miss Kerry crossed the roadway to the postbox. In went the letter;
nothing could now recall it; this was the end. Rapidly, in flight from
her own solitude, she walked on, under dripping trees, past endless
garden walls – residential outskirts of a small coastal town. Then,
swerving sharply, she took the turn to the sea.
Gratefully taking advantage of their emptiness, Miss Plackman was
making a tour of the downstairs rooms. To begin with, she gave
them a thorough airing; she then tipped out the ashtrays, smoothed
down wrinkled slipcovers, plumped up cushions, dusted table tops,
straightened rugs, pushed chairs back into place, and sorted maga
zines. The results were encouraging: quickly the rooms took on the
stylish air they had worn in her parents’ day. Her spirits rose
accordingly. “We’ll pull through,” she said to herself and the house.
“You’ll see!” Only one thing was still bothering her – the emptiness
of the bowls and vases. Dared she dash down the garden to cut and
bring in flowers, wet though they could but be? If she did, might she
not run head on into the new arrival – who had so firmly, though so
courteously, indicated his wish to be left alone?
The tall gentleman, hair lightly flecked with grey, had, five
minutes ago, marched in at The Myrtles’ front door with a singular,
imperious lack of ceremony. Dumping down a bag, he had at once
inquired for Miss Kerry. While Miss Plackman went to look for her,
he had paced the hall. On being told that Miss Kerry must have
gone out, he cast around him, spotted the drawing-room door, and
forthwith made off again, straight through the drawing-room into
the garden, via a French window. Miss Plackman, left breathless, had
watched him disappear down the path to the summerhouse flanked
by a privet hedge. This only could, she supposed, be Miss Kerry’s
friend; but in that case, he was not expected for two days more.
What a strange, high-powered, headstrong friend he seemed for that
fragile, somewhat withdrawn creature.
How she wanted, how badly she wanted, to bring in some
flowers! Not only did she yearn for them for their own sakes; but the
sight of them back in those rooms again might give everyone’s
spirits an upward turn. While she stood, torn by this indecision, she
heard the porch door open behind her, and then a light, somehow
listless step in the hall. She cried, “Is that you, Miss Kerry? Oh, I’m
so glad you’ve come. You have a visitor.”
“You – you must be mistaken,” Miss Kerry said, standing there
like a ghost.
“On the contrary. He’s gone down the garden. You’ll find it still
very wet.”
Out there, birds twittered and fluted in the damp, sweet silence;
the last few drops hanging on sprays and branches glittered in the
twilight before they fell. Rosebushes run to briar drooped over to
meet the privet hedge, whose waxy blossoms brushed on Miss
Kerry’s raincoat. Ahead of her, drifts of petals gleamed on the long,
long path. Now, from the summerhouse, tangled in honeysuckle,
came curling the smoke and the smell of a cigarette. In the half-dark
between the pillars, somebody stood.
Miss Kerry came to a halt. “It’s not you?” she said.
“Why not?”
“But – ”
“I know. I’ve come two days early. I couldn’t wait. Do you know,
I thought you might run away?”
It was later, with his arms round her, her forehead leaning against
his shoulder, that she said, “Shall I tell you why I was out? I was
posting a letter telling you not to come.”
“Perfectly foolish!” he exclaimed. “Foolishly perfect! When shall
we start teaching each other good sense – today, tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s St. Swithin’s.”
“Could there be a better day?”
They both looked up at the sky. The clouds, dissolving, lifting,
had thinned to vapour, which was in its turn now being softly drawn
like a veil from the evening clearness above; by tonight, one would
see the stars. “Just in time,” said she.
That evening, at supper, there were flowers on all the tables – damp
but gay – but there was no Miss Kerry; and, for the matter of that,
no Ellen. The former’s absence was so far unexplained; but it was
generally known, and to universal relief, that the girl, that night, had
been swept away to a dance. Her radiant departure, in fact, had
been watched by many. Ellen, in her charming evening dress, hair
brushed into a burnish, eyes shining, silver sandals twinkling as she
dashed downstairs to the waiting car, hardly was to be recognised as
the morose young girl of this morning. She bounced like a happy
puppy; she was a pretty thing. Her fellow guests at The Myrtles saw
her off with genuine sympathy and benevolence: in fact, so for
giving is human nature that they said to each other, when she had
gone, it did one good having young life around the house.
So she set off, with Peter. How was she to return?
Ellen woke, the morning after the dance, to a long-unfamiliar
sense of sheer lightheartedness. Could this be, only, the sunshine?
Sunshine indeed there was: slipping between the half-drawn cur
tains, it floated her bed and the whole of her room in light. Hands
under her head, she lay basking, blinking: slowly and – how
amazingly – without pain, there returned those memories of the
night before.
When she got into the car with Peter, she’d realised something
was in the air. He had been in a mood she’d never seen before –
sometimes singing as he drove, sometimes falling silent, with an
intent smile, sometimes taking one hand from the wheel to, in an
affectionate but abstracted manner, pat her knee. “Happy?” he once
or twice asked her. “Feeling fine?” Yet, somehow, he had failed to
await her answer. This lasted for the greater part of their drive.
Then, as they were approaching the large hotel where the dance was
to be, he pulled the car to the side of the road, slowed, stopped. He
turned to face her. “Ellen,” he said, “be extra happy tonight. For my
sake. Will you?”
“Why for your sake?” she said.
“Because we’re such friends, and something marvellous has
happened. I’ve got engaged.”
Ellen’s heart stood still. “To who?” she said. Then, primly, “I mean,
to whom?”
“Well, you wouldn’t know her. The name’s Janetta.”
“This is extremely sudden. Someone in your hotel?”
“Oh, it’s not sudden – been my idea for years, but I never used to
think I had got a hope. Wait till you see Janetta, and you’ll see why
– she’s not just someone, she’s something out of this world. Yes, she’s
been staying at our hotel. I persuaded her and her mother to come
along. That was one of the reasons I kept asking you over. I was so
keen you and she should meet. You’ll be crazy about each other, I’m
quite certain. However, you’ll meet in a minute or two, tonight.
This, you see, is our celebration party.”
He started the car and drove on. “Yes,” he added, “it’s been so odd
these last few days, in this awful weather. If I could have fallen more
in love with Janetta, the way she’s played up through it all would
have made me do so. She never got frowsty, the way some girls do
indoors; she was always on for a heel-and-toe in the rain – and, my
hat, she looks divine in a mackintosh! She’d play with the children,
poor little brutes, or cheer up the older types when they felt low. It’s
not just that she’s lovely,” he sang out, “she’s weatherproof!”
Lights from the hotel porch flowed into the car; already the
throb of dance music could be heard. Ellen moved as though in a
dream through the next few minutes. When she came to herself, she
was on the ballroom floor, dancing a samba with a young man called
Gerry. Here I dance, she thought, with a smiling face that covers a
broken heart. Then slowly, reluctantly, she realised that she was
beginning to enjoy herself. An hour later, she had to face the fact
that she was enjoying herself very much indeed – frankly, more than
ever before. Max succeeded Gerry; David succeeded Max; Noel
claimed her from David; then, here was Gerry again. The great gold
room, with its mirrors and glittering chandeliers, rose-red curtains
framing the floodlit terrace outside, swirled and melted round her;
rhythm ran through her being; her whole soul seemed to throb with
the famous band. How delicious it was to float from partner to
partner, smile into face after face – without all the time looking
around, jealous, intent, and worried, to wonder where one special
person might be.
So much so that when Peter grabbed her, crying, “Hi, faithless,
spare an old married man a dance,” she was aware of a feeling of
anticlimax. Had he ever so slightly, ever so slightly faded? There
was something dull, she thought, about people who got engaged.
Would she, she wondered, feel this if he’d got engaged to her? Yes,
she was sorry to find she would. What she found she wanted was
everything, everyone, the whole world! Feeling bad about this, she
was specially nice to Peter.
“Janetta is sweet,” she said, “I adore her dress. She’s quite darling.”
“Well, she’s mad about you,” said Peter. “And so, it seems, are the
chaps.”
So it seemed. She was driven back to The Myrtles in Gerry’s
car, supported by David, Noel and Max. They wound down the
windows, let in sea air and starlight, began to sing. At some point
during the singing, she fell asleep with her head on somebody’s
shoulder. The rest was silence. Somehow, she’d got in, got upstairs
and got to bed. All this, the young men had murmured, on a few
glasses of lemonade.
Today, she woke to this clean-washed, sparkling morning. She
could not wait to behold this bright world, of which she, Ellen, felt
queen and ruler. Springing from bed, she went to stand at the open
window, stretching her arms out as though they were wings and she
could fly. Green of trees, blue of sea, brilliance of garden – there
spread below her the early perfection of a summer day. What a
splendid thing, she thought, to be not in love! Yes, one grows wiser
as one grows older.
Should she note this down in her diary? She decided not; she had
a feeling it had been said before.
Emergency in the Gothic Wing
A
nastasia’s telegram decided it – there was nothing for
it but to re-open the Gothic Wing. For a number of reasons, Lady
Cuckoo shrank from this decision; and her children glanced at each
other and said: “Good heavens!” The Wing had been added to
Sprangsby Hall by an eccentric and, some said, peculiar ancestor
round about 1800 – there had been goings-on in it; some not quite
the thing. Finally, it had been sealed off by the double-locking of
the two doors which connected it with the central part of the Hall
– otherwise a most cheerful house. The Georgian block, raised on
an ancient Tudor foundation and brightened by Victorian bow
windows, was sufficiently roomy without the Wing – that is, for life
as one lives nowadays.
Lady Cuckoo’s idea of reviving an English old-time Christmas
for the benefit of some American friends had, however, created an
emergency. The Hall was once again to be overflowing. Till now, all
had been well in hand, and preparations went on apace. Some few
scarlet berries, spared by the birds, gleamed bravely out of the stacks
of holly; the surrounding landscape had obligingly draped itself in a
light but sparkling mantle of snow. There was no butler and only
half a cook, but two or three allies out of the village had agreed to
see her ladyship through Christmas. Log fires, burning never more
brightly, roared their ways up the enormous chimneys and took at
least the edge off the chill. Lady Cuckoo, passing from room to
room in a fur-lined cape, on the eve of her house-party’s arrival, was
delighted – at least, until the telegram came.
Annoying Merribys down with mumps have now nowhere to go Christmas
arriving tomorrow with Sims and Momo all news then fond love
.
Lady Cuckoo read the above aloud.
“This
is
the end,” said the Sprangsby children.
“Wire back ‘full up,’” suggested Arthur, who, engaged to Phyllida,
the eldest, already counted as “family,” so was here some days ahead
of the other guests. He was atop of an unsafe ladder, attaching
mistletoe to a chandelier. The two American Blomfields, a sister of
Arthur’s, two school-friends of Harold’s (the elder Sprangsby son)
and, not least, Uncle Theodore were to arrive shortly. In view of the
fact that also, to begin with, there were six Sprangsbys, Arthur’s
suggestion seemed realistic. “Be firm,” he said.
“It seems unkind,” mourned his future mother-in-law. “And
anyway she hasn’t put an address.”
“She knows a thing worth two of that!” said Phyllida, furious,
letting go of the ladder Arthur was on, which began to slide. “And
so, I daresay, do those wretched Merribys – I don’t for an instant
believe they’ve got mumps at all! So she picks on a darling sucker
like
you
, Mama.”
“I shall have to think,” said poor Lady Cuckoo, with the air of one
who goes to the last extreme. Setting aside comfort, of which there
ceased to be any hope, the distracted lady saw no way of arranging
her house-party with, even, propriety. Uncle Theodore, seldom co
operative, would object to so much as sharing a bathroom. And only
the Blomfields, alas, were married – single persons take up much
more space. The younger Sprangsbys were, of course, doubling up;
Arthur’s sister would go in the old nursery. But, even so – no, there
was not another inch! Into the Wing must Anastasia and Momo go.
One must hope for the best! They
might
not notice . . . Sims, she
believed and hoped, was a little dog.
The upper door of the Wing was, therefore, that afternoon
unlocked: the key grated rustily. Lady Cuckoo, to give face to the
thing, personally headed an expedition consisting of three of her
children and two of the gardeners’ wives; these latter carrying
firing, brooms and bed-linen. The explorers filed down the lengthy,
shuttered and vaulted corridor: “Tck!” said one of the women, “isn’t
it musty!” Winter sunshine, however, soon streamed blandly into the
painted rooms – and, outside the pointed windows, the park with its
elms and snow reassuringly looked like a Christmas card. “This, with
the stars on the ceiling, ought to do for