Complete Stories of Eveyln, Page 21

  “Good heavens. Where on earth did you meet her?”

  “It was quite by chance,” said his mother vaguely. “She is working there now.”

  “How was she?”

  “Very pretty. Prettier, if anything.”

  There was a pause. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland stitched away at a gros-point chair seat. “You know, dear boy, that I never interfere, but I have often wondered whether you treated Gladys very kindly. I know I was partly to blame, myself. But you were both very young and your prospects so uncertain. I thought a year or two of separation would be a good test of whether you really loved one another.”

  “Oh, I am sure she has forgotten about me long ago.”

  “Indeed, she has not, Tom. I thought she seemed a very unhappy girl.”

  “But how can you know, Mother, just seeing her casually like that?”

  “We had luncheon together,” said Mrs. Kent-Cumberland. “In an A.B.C. shop.”

  Another pause.

  “But, look here, I’ve forgotten all about her. I only care about Bessie now.”

  “You know, dearest boy, I never interfere. I think Bessie is a delightful girl. But are you free? Are you free in your own conscience? You know, and I do not know, on what terms you parted from Gladys.”

  And there returned, after a long absence, the scene which for the first few months of his Australian venture had been constantly in Tom’s memory, of a tearful parting and many intemperate promises. He said nothing. “I did not tell Gladys of your engagement. I thought you had the right to do that—as best you can, in your own way. But I did tell her you were back in England and that you wished to see her. She is coming here tomorrow for a night or two. She looked in need of a holiday, poor child.”

  When Tom went to meet Gladys at the station they stood for some minutes on the platform not certain of the other’s identity. Then their tentative signs of recognition corresponded. Gladys had been engaged twice in the past two years, and was now walking out with a motor salesman. It had been a great surprise when Mrs. Kent-Cumberland sought her out and explained that Tom had returned to England. She had not forgotten him, for she was a loyal and good-hearted girl, but she was embarrassed and touched to learn that his devotion was unshaken.

  They were married two weeks later and Mrs. Kent-Cumberland undertook the delicate mission of “explaining everything” to the MacDougals.

  They went to Australia, where Mr. MacDougal very magnanimously gave them a post managing one of his more remote estates. He was satisfied with Tom’s work. Gladys has a large sunny bungalow and a landscape of grazing land and wire fences. She does not see very much company nor does she particularly like what she does see. The neighbouring ranchers find her very English and aloof.

  Bessie and Gervase were married after six weeks’ engagement. They live at Tomb. Bessie has two children and Gervase has six racehorses. Mrs. Kent-Cumberland lives in the house with them. She and Bessie rarely disagree, and, when they do, it is Mrs. Kent-Cumberland who gets her way.

  The dower house is let on a long lease to a sporting manufacturer. Gervase has taken over the Hounds and spends money profusely; everyone in the neighbourhood is content.

  AN ENGLISHMAN’S HOME

  I

  Mr. Beverley Metcalfe tapped the barometer in the back hall and noted with satisfaction that it had fallen several points during the night. He was by nature a sun-loving man, but he believed it was one of the marks of a true countryman to be eternally in need of rain. He had made a study and noted the points of true countrymen. Had he been of literary habit and of an earlier generation, his observations might have formed a little book of aphorisms. The true countryman wore a dark suit on Sundays unlike the flannelled tripper from the cities; he loved a bargain and would go to any expense to do his marketing by private treaty instead of through the normal channels of retail trade; while ostensibly sceptical and conservative he was readily fascinated by mechanical gadgets; he was genial but inhospitable, willing to gossip for hours across a fence with any passing stranger, but reluctant to allow his closest friends into his house. . . . These and a hundred other characteristics Mr. Metcalfe noted for emulation.

  “That’s what we need—rain,” he said to himself, and opening the garden door stepped into the balmy morning air. There was no threat in the cloudless heavens. His gardener passed, pushing the waterbarrow.

  “Good morning, Boggett. The glass has dropped, I’m glad to say.”

  “Ur.”

  “Means rain.”

  “Noa.”

  “Down quite low.”

  “Ah.”

  “Pity to spend a lot of time watering.”

  “Them’ll burn up else.”

  “Not if it rains.”

  “Ain’t agoin to rain. Don’t never rain around heres except you can see clear down-over.”

  “See clear down-over?”

  “Ur. Can always see Pilbury Steeple when rain’s a-coming.”

  Mr. Metcalfe accepted this statement gravely. “These old fellows know a thing or two that the scientists don’t,” he would often remark, simulating an air of patronage which was far from sincere. Boggett, the gardener, was not particularly old and he knew very little; the seeds he planted seldom grew; he wrought stark havoc whenever he was allowed to use the pruning knife; his ambition in horticulture went no further than the fattening of the largest possible pumpkin; but Mr. Metcalfe regarded him with the simple reverence of peasant for priest. For Mr. Metcalfe was but lately initiated into the cult of the countryside, and any features of it still claimed his devotion—its agricultural processes, its social structure, its vocabulary, its recreations; the aspect of it, glittering now under the cool May sunshine, fruit trees in flower, chestnut in full leaf, the ash budding; the sound and smell of it—Mr. Westmacott calling his cows at dawn, the scent of wet earth and Boggett splashing clumsily among the wall-flowers; the heart of it—or what Mr. Metcalfe took to be its heart—pulsing all round him; his own heart beating time, for was he not part of it, a true countryman, a landowner?

  He was, it is true, a landowner in rather a small way, but, as he stood on his terrace and surveyed the untroubled valley below him, he congratulated himself that he had not been led away by the house agents into the multitudinous cares of a wider territory. He owned seven acres, more or less, and it seemed to him exactly the right amount; they comprised the policies of the house and a paddock; sixty further acres of farmland had also been available, and for a day or two he had toyed with the rather inebriating idea of acquiring them. He could well have afforded it, of course, but to his habit of mind there was something perverse and downright wrong in an investment which showed a bare two per cent yield on his capital. He wanted a home, not a “seat,” and he reflected on the irony of that word; he thought of Lord Brakehurst, with whose property he sometimes liked to say that his own “marched”—there was indeed a hundred yards of ha-ha between his paddock and one of Lord Brakehurst’s pastures. What could be less sedentary than Lord Brakehurst’s life, every day of which was agitated by the cares of his great possessions? No, seven acres, judiciously chosen, was the ideal property, and Mr. Metcalfe had chosen judiciously. The house-agent had spoken no more than the truth when he described Much Malcock as one of the most unspoilt Cotswold villages. It was exactly such a place as Mr. Metcalfe had dreamed of in the long years in the cotton trade in Alexandria. Mr. Metcalfe’s own residence, known for generations by the singular name of Grumps, had been rechristened by a previous owner as Much Malcock Hall. It bore the new name pretty well. It was “a dignified Georgian house of mellowed Cotswold stone; four recep., six principal bed and dressing rooms, replete with period features.” The villagers, Mr. Metcalfe observed with regret, could not be induced to speak of it as “the Hall.” Boggett always said that he worked “up to Grumps,” but the name was not of Mr. Metcalfe’s choosing and it looked well on his notepaper. It suggested a primacy in the village that was not undisputed.

  Lord Brakehurst, of course, wa
s in a class apart; he was Lord Lieutenant of the County with property in fifty parishes. Lady Brakehurst had not in fact called on Mrs. Metcalfe, living as she did in a world where card-leaving had lost its importance, but, of the calling class, there were two other households in Much Malcock, and a borderline case—besides the vicar, who had a plebeian accent and an inclination to preach against bankers.

  The rival gentry were Lady Peabury and Colonel Hodge, both, to the villagers, newcomers, but residents of some twenty years priority to Mr. Metcalfe.

  Lady Peabury lived at Much Malcock House, whose chimneys, soon to be hidden in the full foliage of summer, could still be seen among its budding limes on the opposite slope of the valley. Four acres of meadowland lay between her property and Mr. Metcalfe’s, where Westmacott’s plump herd enriched the landscape and counter-balanced the slightly suburban splendour of her flower gardens. She was a widow and, like Mr. Metcalfe, had come to Much Malcock from abroad. She was rich and kind and rather greedy, a diligent reader of fiction, mistress of many Cairn terriers and of five steady old maidservants who never broke the Crown Derby.

  Colonel Hodge lived at the Manor, a fine gabled house in the village street, whose gardens, too, backed on to Westmacott’s meadow. He was impecunious but active in the affairs of the British Legion and the Boy Scouts; he accepted Mr. Metcalfe’s invitation to dinner, but spoke of him, in his family circle, as “the cotton wallah.”

  These neighbours were of unequivocal position; the Hornbeams at the Old Mill were a childless, middle-aged couple who devoted themselves to craftsmanship. Mr. Hornbeam senior was a genuine, commercial potter in Staffordshire; he supported them reluctantly and rather exiguously, but this backing of unearned quarterly cheques placed them definitely in the upper strata of local society. Mrs. Hornbeam attended church and Mr. Hornbeam was quite knowledgeable about vegetables. In fact, had they preferred a tennis court to their herb garden, and had Mr. Hornbeam possessed an evening-suit, they might easily have mixed with their neighbours on terms of ostensible equality. At the time of the Peace Ballot, Mrs. Hornbeam had canvassed every cottage in bicycling distance, but she eschewed the Women’s Institute, and in Lady Peabury’s opinion failed to pull her weight in the village. Mr. Metcalfe thought Mr. Hornbeam Bohemian, and Mr. Hornbeam thought Mr. Metcalfe Philistine. Colonel Hodge had fallen out with them some time back, on a question relating to his Airedale, and cut them year in, year out, three or four times a day.

  Under their stone-tiled roofs the villagers derived substantial comfort from all these aliens. Foreign visitors impressed by the charges of London restaurants and the splendour of the more accessible ducal palaces often express wonder at the wealth of England. A half has not been told them. It is in remote hamlets like Much Malcock that the great reservoirs of national wealth seep back to the soil. The villagers had their Memorial Hall and their club. In the rafters of their church the death-watch beetle had been expensively exterminated for them; their scouts had a bell tent and silver bugles; the district nurse drove her own car; at Christmas their children were surfeited with trees and parties and the cottagers loaded with hampers; if one of them was indisposed port and soup and grapes and tickets for the seaside arrived in profusion; at evening their menfolk returned from work laden with perquisites, and all the year round they feasted on forced vegetables. The vicar found it impossible to interest them in the Left Book Club.

  “God gave all men all earth to love,” Mr. Metcalfe quoted, dimly remembering the lines from a calendar which had hung in his office in Alexandria, “but since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove, Beloved over all.”

  He pottered round to the engine-house where his chauffeur was brooding over batteries. He popped his head into another outbuilding and saw that no harm had befallen the lawnmower during the night. He paused in the kitchen garden to nip the blossom off some newly planted black-currant which must not be allowed to fruit that summer. Then, his round finished, he pottered in to breakfast.

  His wife was already there.

  “I’ve done my round,” he said.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Everything coming along very nicely.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “You can’t see Pilbury Steeple, though.”

  “Good gracious, Beverley, why should you want to do that?”

  “It’s a sign of rain when you can.”

  “What a lot of nonsense. You’ve been listening to Boggett again.”

  She rose and left him with his papers. She had to see the cook. Servants seem to take up so much time in England; she thought wistfully of the white-gowned Berber boys who had pattered about the cool, tiled floors of her house in Alexandria.

  Mr. Metcalfe finished his breakfast and retired to his study with pipe and papers. The Gazette came out that morning. A true countryman always reads his “local rag” first, so Mr. Metcalfe patiently toiled through the columns of Women’s Institute doings and the reports of a Council meeting on the subject of sewage, before he allowed himself to open The Times.

  Serene opening of a day of wrath!

  II

  Towards eleven o’clock Mr. Metcalfe put aside the crossword. In the lobby by the garden-door he kept a variety of garden implements specially designed for the use of the elderly. Selecting from among them one which had newly arrived, he sauntered out into the sunshine and addressed himself to the plantains on the lawn. The tool had a handsomely bound leather grip, a spliced cane handle and a head of stainless steel; it worked admirably, and with a minimum of effort Mr. Metcalfe had soon scarred a large area with neat little pits.

  He paused and called towards the house, “Sophie, Sophie, come and see what I’ve done.”

  His wife’s head emerged from an upper window. “Very pretty, dear,” she said.

  Encouraged, he set to work again. Boggett passed.

  “Useful little tool this, Boggett.”

  “Ur.”

  “Think we ought to sow some seed in the bare patches?”

  “Noa.”

  “You think the grass will grow over them?”

  “Noa. Plantains’ll come up again.”

  “You don’t think I’ve killed the roots?”

  “Noa. Makes the roots powerful strong topping ’em off same as you’ve done.”

  “Well, what ought I to do?”

  “Bain’t nothing you can do with plantains. They do always come up again.”

  Boggett passed. Mr. Metcalfe looked at his gadget with sudden distaste, propped it petulantly against the sundial, and with his hands in his pockets stared out across the valley. Even at this distance Lady Peabury’s aubretias struck a discordant note. His eyes dropped and he noticed, casually at first, then with growing curiosity, two unfamiliar figures among Westmacott’s cows. They were young men in dark, urban clothes, and they were very busy about something. They had papers in their hands which they constantly consulted; they paced up and down the field as though measuring it; they squatted on their haunches as though roughly taking a level; they pointed into the air, to the ground, and to the horizon.

  “Boggett,” said Mr. Metcalfe sharply, “come here a minute.”

  “Urr.”

  “Do you see two men in Mr. Westmacott’s field?”

  “Noa.”

  “You don’t?”

  “’Er bain’t Mr. Westmacott’s field. ’E’ve a sold of ’er.”

  “Sold it! Good heavens! Who to?”

  “Couldn’t rightly say who ’e’ve a sold ’er to. Gentleman from London staying at the Brakehurst. Paid a tidy price for ’er too I’ve a heard said.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Couldn’t rightly say, but I reckon it be to build hisself a house.”

  Build. It was a word so hideous that no one in Much Malcock dared use it above a whisper. “Housing scheme,” “Development,” “Clearance,” “Council houses,” “Planning”—these obscene words had been expunged from the polite vocabulary of the district, only to be used
now and then, with the licence allowed to anthropologists, of the fierce tribes beyond the parish boundary. And now the horror was in their midst, the mark of Plague in the court of the Decameron.

  After the first moment of shock, Mr. Metcalfe rallied for action, hesitated for a moment whether or not to plunge down the hill and challenge the enemy on his own ground, and decided against it; this was the moment to act with circumspection. He must consult Lady Peabury.

  It was three-quarters of a mile to the house; the lane ran past the gate which gave access to Westmacott’s field; a crazily-hung elm gate and deep cow-trodden mud, soon in Mr. Metcalfe’s imagination, to give place to golden privet and red gravel. Mr. Metcalfe could see the heads of the intruders bobbing beyond the hedge; they bore urban, purposeful black hats. He drove on, miserably.

  Lady Peabury was in the morning room reading a novel; early training gave a guilty spice to this recreation, for she had been brought up to believe that to read a novel before luncheon was one of the gravest sins it was possible for a gentlewoman to commit. She slipped the book under a cushion and rose to greet Mr. Metcalfe.

  “I was just getting ready to go out,” she explained.

  Mr. Metcalfe had no time for politenesses.

  “Lady Peabury,” he began at once, “I have very terrible news.”

  “Oh dear! Is poor Mr. Cruttwell having trouble with the Wolf Cub account again?”

  “No; at least, he is; there’s another fourpence gone astray; on the credit side this time, which makes it more worrying. But that isn’t what I came about. It is something that threatens our whole lives. They are going to build in Westmacott’s field.” Briefly, but with emotion, he told Lady Peabury what he had seen.

  She listened gravely. When he had finished there was silence in the morning room; six little clocks ticked among the chintzes and the potted azaleas. At last Lady Peabury spoke:

  “Westmacott has behaved very badly,” she said.

  “I suppose you can’t blame him.”

  “I do blame him, Mr. Metcalfe, very severely. I can’t understand it at all. He always seemed a very decent man. . . . I was thinking of making Mrs. Westmacott secretary of the Women’s Institute. He had no right to do a thing like that without consulting us. Why, I look right on to that field from my bedroom windows. I could never understand why you didn’t buy the field yourself.”