The Flowering Thorn (6 page)

“You're amazing, my dear,” she said sincerely. “
I
couldn't do it, not even with Yogi. When shall you go?”

“As soon as I can. Poor Toby's still in Paris, waiting to come home. And … Elissa.…”

“What, darling?”

“Don't cut me off with a shilling.”

For the first time in an intimate friendship of six years' standing emotion touched them. With genuine self-forgetfulness Elissa left her nose unfinished and put out a long, narrow hand.

“Darling! Of course not! We'll all come down and see you in shoals. I adore the country really, if there's anything to go for. And I know what I
will
do, darling—I'll give you all my old records to take away with you.”

As well as she could Lesley disguised the bitterness of her answering smile. She had been without her gramophone for the last five years—ever since going to the Beverley, in fact, where the latest electric models were built into soundproof walls; but Elissa's memory was notoriously bad. And feeling already a little like a charitable institution, Lesley kissed her friend on either cheek and walked uneasily home to Toby's Yellow House.

4

The news that Lesley Frewen was looking for a cottage automatically enriched her acquaintance with more writers and painters than she had ever known before. They brought one another to the Yellow House, they gave studio parties from Hampstead to the King's Road, they hovered, in short, like bees round a honeysuckle: and in the pocket of each was the five-year lease of a cottage on the Welsh border. Or such at any rate was the impression left on Lesley: who also formed the opinion that painters as a class (even more than writers) were extraordinarily reckless about signing agreements.

To this point she herself attached the utmost importance; and on a lease of that length would have turned down the Trianon. Accessibility from Town, furniture with the cottage, a monthly tenancy—such were her essential requirements. Next in order ranked indoor sanitation, bathroom and electric light: a telephone she was prepared to put in herself. Only long before the telephone made its appearance, the writer or artist of the moment had always drifted disconsolately back to the bar, leaving Lesley (except for an increasing familiarity with modern art) exactly where she started. After agreeably wasting about three days, therefore, she again sought the counsel of age. Not from Mrs. Bassington, of course, whose counsel had arrived unsolicited, and remained largely unread, in a letter of five pages; but from old Graham Whittal.

“If I were an estate agent in heaven,” said Mr. Whittal thoughtfully, when she had finished detailing her requirements, “I might be able to help you. As things are, I can only suggest Harrod's. Have you tried them?”

“This morning,” said Lesley. “They're all too big and beautiful. No, why I came to you, Uncle Graham, was because I thought you'd know land-owners.”

“In these days, my dear? The ones who could have sold, and the others have gone bankrupt.”

“All the better, darling, they'll be quite pleased to let me a cottage. Try and think who you were with at Eton: lots of little boys must have been landed in those days.”

Obediently, Mr. Whittal thought. Back and back to an age when money was never mentioned and a young man of fashion had bought his first opera hat.…

“There's old Kerr. He's got a place in Bucks.”

Lesley's face cleared.

“Bucks! That's just right. An easy run.”

“But I don't know whether he's got any cottages. You see, most of them, my dear, are being lived in already.”

“But you can find out,” prompted Lesley.

“I'll write to him, if you like.”

“Why not 'phone?”

“He hasn't got one.”

“How ridiculous!” said Lesley. “Then I suppose the cottage won't have one either?”

“You may be practically certain of it, my dear,” said Mr. Whittal gravely.

With equal irony she met his glance.

“Yes, I'm used to my luxuries, aren't I, darling? I shall have one put in.”

‘What's she carrying off now?' thought old Graham. An uncomfortable young woman, with her bitter-sweet voice and the underlying harshness! And yet—and yet—what did he or anyone else know about the young? Was it the underlying harshness, or the underlying hurt? What had been happening to her all these years?

And aloud, very gently, he said to her,

“My dear, have you ever considered the future?”

Lesley took out and employed a lipstick. When she had finished, and with mouth renewed in a hard scarlet line, she said,

“Don't worry, Uncle Graham. I know what I'm doing.”

“I know a good deal of what you're feeling—”

For a moment she looked at him, startled.

“— And whatever happens in the immediate future, I can promise to get him into Horsham. That takes care of his education. But as for your going and burying yourself in the country, giving up everything you enjoy to play the incompetent nursemaid—it—it's fantastic. After all, my dear—he's got along quite successfully for the last four years.”

In the pause that followed he saw that his niece was trying not to laugh because she still wanted something out of him.

“Darling—”

He made an odd gesture of irritation.

“Don't bother, my dear. You can have it without.”

“All right, Uncle Graham. It's only a trick of speech.” As quick as thought she was back to that odd underlying bitterness. “But you will talk as though he were my adored bastard. It's terribly funny.”

For a moment, under their thin, very wrinkled lids, the old eyes held her in steady scrutiny. At last he said,

“In that case—what in heaven's name are you doing it for?”

(‘Rotten apples!' thought Lesley.)

“A new experience, Uncle Graham. You will write to the land-owner, won't you?”

“Certainly, if you wish it. I shall write and say my niece has gone suddenly demented and needs complete seclusion.”

“Thank you, darling. That will be perfect,” said Lesley cordially. “I suppose I can't put you up for the Ballet Circle in return?”

With his very natural refusal the interview came to an end. Leaving the room, a feeling that she had been definitely less than gracious made Lesley turn and look back. He was standing in the traditional attitude of ruffled authority—back to the fire, feet a little apart, brows bent upon the pattern of the hearth-rug.

Lesley shrugged her shoulders. It was no good. He didn't believe her. His mind ought to be in a museum.

5

Returning about an hour later to the Yellow House, Lesley found standing in the hall a large leather trunk. It had an old-fashioned dome lid, two stout straps, a garnish of brass nails, and by contrast with Toby's wallpapers might just have been unloaded from the Ark. Lesley pulled off her hat and summoned the housekeeper.

“Does this belong to Mr. Ashton?”

Mrs. Lee looked slightly offended.

“Oh, no, Madam, it's for you. Carter Paterson brought it about half-an-hour ago. And it won't go upstairs, Madam, it's too big.”

Advancing a step nearer, Lesley looked at the lid. There were two sets of initials; in the middle, a small N. McB. executed in brass nails: a little below, amateurishly painted, N.E.C. in white.

“It was paid in advance,” added Mrs. Lee fairly. “Otherwise, of course, I shouldn't have took it in.”

In a flash of understanding Lesley remembered her Aunt's letter. That unread third page! And sitting down on the edge of a steel chair she pulled out the crumpled sheets and spread them in the light.

‘
Poor Mrs. Craigie
'—that was it—‘
Poor Mrs. Craigie's trunk still here, so I got Denman to pack it and have sent it to you at Yellow House. There were also a few things of Pat's which she says she has put in the tray.
'

Lesley folded the letter back into its envelope and looked again at the heavy domed lid and mighty straps. No one strapped a trunk like that unless the locks were broken, so that she felt fairly confident of being able to get in; but the business was distasteful nevertheless, and she was still debating whether or not to let Patrick's belongings go when Mrs. Lee returned for further instructions.

“Yes, undo the straps, please,” said Lesley, suddenly making up her mind. “And then get on to Whiteley's and ask them to come and collect it. Say it's for storage.” With the loosening of the buckles curiosity had at last stirred; but a vague disrelish, as at a breach of taste, still kept her motionless. When Mrs. Lee had gone to the telephone, however, Lesley knelt down on the grey carpet and slipped back the locks. As she had suspected, they were both completely useless, and without further resistance the lid gave way.

At the very top, on a sheet of tissue paper, were several very small undergarments, half-a-dozen red bone chessmen, and a much-thumbed copy of
The Tailor of Gloucester.
Lesley lifted them all out on to the carpet. The vests looked much too small and would probably have to be thrown away: the
Tailor
and the chessmen Pat could have at once, to take down to the country if he still wanted them. But she hoped that he would not, for they represented, to her eyes, the unmistakable beginnings of Junk. Junk! The trunk was full of it. As though drawn by a morbid attraction, her hand reached out and twitched aside the blue paper.

In one corner, a bundle of letters tied up with a white ribbon. Two hymn-books. An old chocolate box, also tied up with ribbon. Two white silk blouses, quite clean and neatly folded. A man's glove. And in a sort of nest of paper, pinned to the stuff of the tray, a buttonhole of waxen orange-blossom.

It was junk of the worst description.

With an instinctive and fastidious gesture Lesley thrust down the lid. A wiser Pandora, she had no mind to release a swarm of sentimental microbes. Sentiment and junk. The two things she had all her life most sedulously avoided—only to receive them at last delivered to her door! It was almost amusing. Wholly amusing, in fact, when one remembered the hackneyed, theatrical-property contents of the tray: but for all that she was taking no risks. The trunk should go at once to Whiteley's, there to be stored, amid all the safeguards of modern invention, until such time as Patrick was old enough to be given the receipt. About eighteen, perhaps. Though what a depressing birthday present! Meanwhile—

“Pat!' she called suddenly. “Where are you? Come here a minute.”

From the room on the right came a soft thump. He had evidently been sitting on the window-sill. A moment passed, filled, for Patrick at least, with interesting endeavour. Then the door was pulled open and he stood victorious on the threshold.

“Look, do you want these?” asked Lesley, holding up a red knight.

“Chessmen,” said Pat.

“Yes. Do you want them?”

In that same instant she saw that he had recognised the trunk. Step by step, one eye still on the chessmen, he moved towards it: and with a first faint stirring of scientific interest Lesley watched for his reactions.

They were few. He recognised; but did he associate? It was difficult to tell, for when still about three paces away his attention was completely diverted by
The Tailor of Gloucester.
This he fell upon literally and figuratively, with his whole heart, turning and tearing the shabby pages until he came to the picture of Simpkin the cat putting mice under tea-cups.

“Simkin,” said Pat; and drew a long breath of satisfaction.

‘My God!' Lesley thought in horror. ‘He's used to being read to! …'

CHAPTER SEVEN

Four days later they went down to the country.

Like an unenamoured but determined bride, Lesley was hurrying upon her fate. She would have taken the White Cottage without seeing it, if Sir Philip's solicitor had not insisted on a meeting: and finding it small, ugly and inconvenient, she took it all the same. It was thatched, but not picturesque: there were four tiny rooms and a smallish barn, the whole standing alone in a very old orchard at the end of a pig-infested lane. This comparative seclusion, and the electric light (put in by Sir Philip in an isolated moment of enthusiasm) were its best, and only, points: but they would at least relieve the tenant of the smell of oil and of the horror of living in a row. The first of the village buildings was a small farm, also opening on to the lane, whose yard ran parallel with the bottom of the orchard: it was owned by people called Walpole, said the solicitors' young man, whom Lesley would find very respectable and trustworthy neighbours.

“So long as they keep their pigs on their own land,” Lesley told him coldly, “I don't mind if they're criminal nudists.”

“Oh—I don't think you'll find them that,” said the solicitors' young man doubtfully; and without pursuing the subject further led her gingerly across the orchard to where a primitive combination of bucket, chain and crank enabled water to be drawn from a thirty-foot well.

“I see,” said Lesley, with her eyes on the apple-trees. They looked incredibly senile, many leaning on crutches, and all as though twisted and gnarled by a vegetable gout. A company of greybeards, she thought, gathered round a well.…

“You won't get much fruit, I'm afraid,” said the young man apologetically. “They're too old.”

“Fruit! I should hope not,” cried Lesley. The idea was positively indecent, reminding one of those dreadful Victorian old men who got children at seventy by a second or third wife. But she did not develop the simile aloud: quite a lot of clever conversation, in fact, passed wastefully through her head as she listened to the young man's confidences. The thing in the barn, it appeared, was a copper; the thing in the kitchen, a Primus cooking-stove. The hole in the wall was really a serving-hatch, the place like a tool-shed—well, that was an outside lavatory. There was also a hip-bath to bathe in, a meat-safe for the meat, and an unusually large quantity of first-rate clothes-line.