The Flowering Thorn (13 page)

“Your own, or adopted?” asked the Vicar mildly.

“Adopted.”

“And how old, may one ask?”

“Four-and-a-half.”

Mr. Pomfret looked at her with interest.

“A great and fascinating responsibility. You must be very fond of children, Miss Frewen.”

“On the contrary,” said Lesley, “I dislike them.”

As well he might, the Vicar looked slightly puzzled. This defiant young woman with the peculiar-shaped mouth—had she come with a genuine apology, or simply to relieve her mind?

‘Confession!' thought Mr. Pomfret suddenly, ‘what a need that fills! And what nonsense to say we can't hear it! If a woman wants to unburden her soul, the absence of a confession-box won't stop her. Secrecy, absolution—that's not what they're after. They simply want to tell someone.…' And glancing with slight apprehension at his new parishioner, Mr. Pomfret was relieved to find her looking distinctly uncommunicative.

“You want a cigarette,” he said suddenly. “I haven't any myself, but if you want to smoke, do.”

“You refrain on principle, no doubt?” said Lesley, opening her bag. The Vicar shook his head.

“I don't buy cigarettes,” he explained, “because I can't afford to. But when people give me packets, I smoke them.”

Lesley looked at him with a faint but obvious distaste.

“Isn't that rather inconsistent?”

“Why?” asked the Vicar. “It's all a form of alms-giving. And people give me cigarettes who wouldn't give me anything else. They feel it's a manly habit that ought to be encouraged. I feel the same about alms-giving.”

Without a word Lesley took out her long gold cigarette-case and emptied it on to the desk: eleven slim brown Russians, and one intrusive Turk. Mr. Pomfret counted them with frank interest.

“Let's have one,” he said, “and I'll go and fetch my wife. You ought to know her.”

Alone in the study, Lesley drew at her cigarette and resigned herself to the inevitable.

The Vicar and his wife! Well, it might make an amusing incident for her next letter to Elissa … if there ever was one: and with a keen eye for the ridiculous she rose at the opening of the door and permitted herself to be shaken warmly by the hand.

“Miss Frewen! How nice of you to come!” cried the Vicar's wife. Her voice was warm too, like her hand and her colouring and everything about her. Dark of hair and eye, very much sunburnt, she carried herself with a complete lack of reserve that somehow avoided being a lack of dignity: though whence that dignity was derived Lesley could by no means decide. It was certainly not from her clothes.

“My husband has just told me that that dear little boy isn't yours at all!” she continued heartily. “I call it perfectly splendid. Is he in the garden, or have you left him at home?”

“At home,” said Lesley.

“What a pity! He could have made friends with the children. They're just painting the roller, because it's Alec's birthday,” said Mrs. Pomfret, her eye straying to the saucer of beans.

Lesley took the opportunity.

“That was really what I came to see you about. He doesn't get enough companionship.”

“Then send him up here, my dear, any time you like. Is he used to other children?”

“I really don't know,” said Lesley. “I shouldn't think so. But he seems quite normal generally.”

Between the Vicar and his wife there passed a swift, mutually-inquiring glance. Then Mrs. Pomfret stooped and picked up the saucer.

“Well, that's settled, then,” she said. “You'll stay and have tea, of course?”

But Lesley would not be detained. The whole thing had passed off better than might have been expected: but a Vicarage was no place for her.

3

About ten o'clock the following morning, and while she was making the beds, Lesley became aware of a sort of decorous trampling on the path from the gate. It sounded like a herd of very small and polite elephants, and looking out of the window she saw that Mrs. Pomfret's benevolence was not losing any time. The four children from the Vicarage were advancing in close formation: they were still bare-legged, but in recognition of the first autumnal nip had exchanged their cricket shirts for grey jerseys. Lesley hastily withdrew her head, automatically applied powder, and went downstairs. Pat was somewhere in the orchard, but before she could go and seek him the visitors had arrived. They knocked carefully on the door and then drew back in an expectant semicircle, all counting under their breaths in order to know how soon they could knock again. At thirty-one, however, the door opened, so that the elder of the two little girls had to leave off her counting and take a step forward. She said politely:

“Good-morning, Miss Frewen. Please may Pat come up and play in our garden? We've got a swing.”

“I'm certain he'd like to very much,” replied Lesley with equal courtesy. “But just at the moment I'm not sure where he is.'

The four children looked at each other, as though faced with a sudden social problem. Then—

“He's hiding behind the tool-house,” said both the boys together.

Lesley followed their glances, and saw the dark scut of Pat's knickers bob down behind the fence. The situation was ticklish. How shy he was, or whether he was shy at all, she had not the least idea; but it did now strike her that in view of his unusually secluded life he might quite possibly be extremely shy indeed. And to call and call, with no great hope of his ever coming, was not a procedure that appealed to her dignity.

“Pat!” said Lesley: just once, and scarcely raising her voice. There was no answer.

Thus faced with the anticipated crisis, Lesley had a sudden inspiration.

“Listen,” she said to the Pomfrets, “he's only about five, and rather shy. Would you mind playing down here this morning, in the orchard, just to make it easier for him to join in?”

Again the mute family council sat in rapid judgment, the small boys in particular casting a critical eye over the offered ground. Then the elder little girl, as before, took the votes of the meeting and delivered the verdict.

“Yes, thank you, we'll stay. I'll just go back and tell them at home.”

“And bring the bows and arrows and my snow-shoes and the North Pole,” added the elder of the small boys swiftly.…

A second later, they were all over the orchard.

4

For a woman who disliked children, Lesley Frewen now saw a great deal of them. Her orchard had apparently unsuspected attractions; and reading from time to time, in the Sunday
Observer
, of the depredations of the muskrat, Lesley often put down the paper and thought of the Pomfrets. They were not nearly so destructive, of course; but they would probably be just as difficult to evict.

In the meantime, however, they were taking Pat off her hands for about six hours a day, and she grew quite accustomed, whenever she passed through the orchard, to seeing a child or so tied to an apple-tree. Unlike Mrs. Pomfret, she never felt any impulse to go and undo them: rationally presuming that if the experience were really painful they would cease to let themselves be tied. This attitude was deeply appreciated, especially by the young Pomfrets, who on their home ground would as often as not find the prisoner released and being pampered with a dough-nut. The first time they captured Pat, indeed, there were two experienced scouts to spy out Lesley's movements: but she merely glanced towards the stake, looked at her watch, and went straight on down the lane. After that they tied him up quite a lot.

“Do you like playing with the Pomfrets?” Lesley asked him, about a week after their first visit.

“Yes,” said Pat.

Like all his other statements, it carried conviction; there was evidently no need to pursue the matter further. Crossing Mrs. Pomfret by the duck-pond, however, Lesley came to a halt and completed the inquiry.

“I hope your children don't find Patrick too much of a nuisance?”

“Good gracious, no!” said Mrs. Pomfret. “They're only too pleased to have him. And they
love
your orchard. But there was just one thing I wanted to ask, Miss Frewen—has your well got a cover?”

Lesley thought.

“There's a plank or something, I believe, that Mrs. Sprigg shoves across the top. But the water always seems very clean.”

Less reassured than might have been expected, Mrs. Pomfret pressed for details.

“But is there any actual fastening, Miss Frewen? Or can the children just push it aside whenever they want to?”

“You mean they might fall in?” said Lesley intelligently. “I'll get a lid made.” She drew out her list—for she had kept to her resolution and now shopped in Aylesbury—and made a marginal note. “Is there anything else?”

“I don't think so, my dear. Really, you
are
good—”

“Not at all,” said Lesley. “I don't want them drowned any more than you do.” And with considerable satisfaction she then terminated the interview and continued on her way.

As far as she could see, and with the exception of Mrs. Sprigg, there was now no one she need speak to for the next four-and-a-half years.

CHAPTER SIX

During the first winter at High Westover Lesley Frewen was probably the only person in England to keep abreast of current literature. Twice a week the Mudie's parcels arrived by van: twice a week Lesley revised her list. It is true that she made no attempt to cope with fiction: but she did read, roughly speaking, all the biography, all the history, and all the criticism published between October and March.

And meanwhile, to her considerable surprise, the weeks continued to pass with at least their normal rapidity. She was realising, in fact, though as yet unconsciously, that a constant routine, however dull, does at least get one through the day. The extreme regularity, the multiple divisions of each twenty-four hours, carried her almost insensibly from morning to night. At eight o'clock she got up, washed and towelled Patrick, helped him into his clothes, and dispatched him, according to the weather, into either the garden or the barn. She then made her own toilet, turned down the beds, and joined him below for half-past eight breakfast. After breakfast Mrs. Sprigg washed up, Pat amalgamated with the Pomfrets, and Lesley made the beds; for it had long been apparent that Mrs. Sprigg's responsibility for the cottage was one of those polite fictions that so often hold good between employer and employed. The old Woman did her best: but her standards were not those of Beverley Service; and confronted by the alternatives of either relinquishing those standards or turning-to herself, all Lesley's inborn capability thrust her towards the latter. Slowly but doggedly she learnt first the names and then the uses of Vim, of Ronuk, and of Sunlight Soap. She learnt to put soap-flakes in the washing-up water, but not the same soap-flakes as she used for Pat's vests. She learnt to iron her own handkerchiefs and hang stockings by the toes. Once, on waking, she caught herself with the thought, ‘This is a good day for drying,' and with wry humour made a note of the fact in a letter to Elissa. She was writing to Elissa again, after a long silence: the address on the envelope seemed a link with Town. Only on second thoughts that letter was never posted: and when Lesley wrote it again it was all about a very amusing volume of theatrical memoirs. Elissa did not answer, but she probably read it, and would realise that even in the depths of the country one didn't necessarily go to seed.…

With such occupations, and many others, Lesley was busy in the house until almost lunch-time. This she had to get herself, for Mrs. Sprigg had her own brood to attend to. After lunch, while Mrs. Sprigg washed up, she sat in the orchard and saw to her own and Patrick's sewing, or else read about two-thirds of a book. Then came tea, and at five o'clock Pat had to be read to out of
The Tailor of Gloucester
, given his supper, washed again, and put to bed. Mrs. Sprigg having by that time finally departed, Lesley looked round the kitchen and got herself what she still thought of as dinner. She then finished the afternoon's volume, and began on another. At about eleven o'clock she felt sleepy. Sometimes she felt sleepy even earlier, but she gritted her teeth and sat resolutely on until at last the clock struck for half-past and the day might fairly be considered over.

There was one feature of their routine, however, so extraordinary that only by a detailed and methodical relation can it be made in the least credible.

2

Every evening at five o'clock, Lesley, as has already been described, took down
The Tailor of Gloucester
and read Pat eight pages. Since she always began where she left off, and since the quota never varied, a night's allowance might quite easily consist of the last four and the first; but Pat never seemed to mind, and Lesley had long ceased to couple the words with meaning. Just as she had got the whole by heart, however, and about half-way through November, Pat suddenly asked for something new.

The request, though unexpected, was so reasonable that Lesley had shut the book in assent before she had time to remember that there was not in the cottage so much as half a line of reading matter which could possibly take its place.

It was a predicament in which a woman might have been far stupider and yet less at a loss; for there are few nursemaids, however incompetent, who cannot at a pinch produce the Three Bears. But though Lesley certainly knew the story in its main outline, the idea of telling it never entered her head; and indeed neither her turn of phrase nor manner of delivery was exactly suited to the adventures of Goldilocks. As luck would have it, the day was Saturday: at least two more evenings must elapse before she would be able to go to Aylesbury and buy a Hans Andersen: and more in despair than hope Lesley turned and looked along the bookshelf.
Ulysses, South Wind
, Lawrence and Julian Green, an odd volume of Pepys's and the poems of John Donne … and then right at the end of the shelf, wedged against the wood, Pat's own Family Bible.