A Summer in the Country (27 page)

“Do you think he might have given in?”

“It's possible. He'd never crossed her before and he was finding it very hard to deal with her studied disinterest and tiny gibes. She allowed him to see that she believed the rules and regulations to be rather childish and pointless in peacetime, as if he were playing soldiers, that kind of thing. He was hurt by her amused indifference but resented my approval.”

“But why?”

“I had never allowed Elizabeth's views to compromise my own. She soon realised that she could not manipulate me and, as he grew up, Humphrey gradually accepted her assessment of me. I was abroad a great deal. I worked as an engineer for a paper-making group which had mills in Sweden. I was a kind of troubleshooter and I was often away from home. It was inevitable that Humphrey and his mother should become very close. Her resentment infected him and, by the time he was at Dartmouth, my approval was unimportant, almost an irritant.”

“Yet he didn't want you to move to Sweden.”

“He was shocked by Elizabeth's death. It flung him into a kind of limbo from which he sought desperately for another mentor. He thought he needed someone to take her place. In my view he needed to stand on his own two feet, make his own decisions and fight his own battles. Even if he could have accepted me it would never have worked. It was time he grew up.”

“It sounds rather brutal.”

“The world is a brutal place. The armed forces especially so. I could see that his passion for the Navy would help him to overcome many obstacles but that I might only weaken him.”

“And you wanted to move to Sweden anyway?”

He smiled a little, accepting the implication. “My company was opening a new mill and wanted a works engineer. It was a splendid opportunity. We each had the chance to make a new start.”

“And Agneta was part of your new start?”

“I'd known her for some years and we decided that it was foolish to waste any more time simply for the sake of convention … You haven't eaten your pudding.”

Brigid looked at her plate, conscious that she had been taking great liberties, surprised by her temerity. It was time for a change of subject.

“No,” she said. “But you have. Help yourself to some more while I catch up. Tell me about Sweden.”

“It's simply asking for trouble,” said Frummie, “and I've no patience with you, roaming about the moors when it's nearly dark.”

She banged a handful of spoons on to the draining board whilst Louise stood meekly holding the dishcloth. Her abrupt, frightened arrival, the previous evening, in the middle of a
Morse
video, had upset Frummie considerably. She'd listened to Louise's account of her walk and had been all for telephoning the police.

“But what could t say?” Louise had asked, recovering rapidly now in the bright, cheerful living room, ready to laugh at her terrors. “It might simply be some poor innocent soul taking a stroll. And I couldn't possibly describe the car. It was one of those small hatchbacks like yours. Or Alexander's or mine.”

“Nevertheless there have been three murders. Three! If he's innocent he won't have a problem.”

“Who?”

“The man who was walking about in the wood. Why walk in a wood in the dark when there's a perfectly good path? Thank goodness Brigid's got Alexander with her. I'll telephone her so as to warn her to lock up properly. How she could bear it alone all those years with Humphrey away I simply can't imagine.”

She'd been irritated further by Brigid's refusal to become frightened and had remained slightly grumpy for the rest of the evening, despite a long telephone conversation with Jemima, who'd been much more conformable. Louise, realising that part of Frummie's annoyance was merely relief that she'd come home safely, had been frightened enough to adopt a genuinely repentant attitude which did nothing to allay the older woman's acerbic comments. Next morning, it was clear that she was still suffering from anxiety and breakfast had been a subdued affair.

“I won't do it again,” said Louise, picking up the spoons, feeling about ten years old. “Honestly, I won't. Not so late in the evening. I sat down on one of the benches and I just didn't realise how late it was getting.”

“I still think we should have alerted the police.” Frummie wasn't giving up easily. “It was our duty.”

“I will if you want me to.” Louise put the spoons into the drawer. “It's just that I can't tell them anything positive. I don't know the make or the colour of the car—or anything really.”

“It's too late now,” said Frummie, with a kind of self-righteous satisfaction. “The car will be long gone. And so will whoever it was who was in the woods with you.”

Louise dried plates guiltily, racking her brains for some distraction. “The Prouts are supposed to move out this morning,” she said cunningly, hoping to deflect Frummie's train of thought. “Alexander should be able to setde in. Brigid will be pleased, I expect.”

Frummie's brow cleared a litde. She was looking forward to having Alexander in a more accessible location, imagining little suppers together and jolly lunches at the pub.

“I wonder if she needs any help,” she said thoughtfully. “Changeover day is always a busy one. Of course, Alexander might need some help too. Perhaps he'd like to come over for lunch. I doubt he'll have time to bother about food.”

“That's true,” Louise agreed enthusiastically, relieved by this change of direction. “Have you remembered that Thea's coming for coffee?”

“I have,” Frummie swooshed water vigorously around the bowl, “but I doubt she's coming to see me.”

“No, well…” Louise felt a faint confusion. She felt that, as Frummie's guest, she should be tactful regarding her own visitors. “The girls are with friends for the day and George is visiting his mother so she's on her own for once.”

“So you said. Well, I shall leave you to get ready for her while I go and see if Brigid needs help.” She (hied her hands, moving to look out of the window. “The Prats are already packing up by the look of it. I'm just going upstairs to change. See you later.”

Presently, she went out, crossed the courtyard and entered the house with her usual call. Brigid was sitting at the table reading the
Western Morning News.

“Good morning, darling. No more murders, I hope? I still think we should have telephoned the police, you know.”

Brigid, who had glanced up briefly from an engrossing article, did a double take. Frummie was wearing a very smart white shirt tucked into a pair of narrow-fitting tartan slacks. Her silvery-fair hair was newly washed and her make-up had evidently been applied without the assistance of the spectacles which she was too vain to wear. Brigid stared at this unexpected vision whilst her mother returned her surprised gaze coolly.

“The Prats are packing their car“—“Prouts,” corrected Brigid automatically, still staring—“and I wondered if you might like a hand with the changeover.”

“That's very kind.” Brigid attempted to disguise her reaction, to pretend that there was nothing unusual in her mother's suggestion or attire, and then decided to use the Alexander-technique. “You're looking very smart this morning.”

“Oh.” Frummie drew down the corners of her mouth and shrugged dismissively. “These old things? Had them for years.”

“I don't think I've seen them before.”

“Probably not. But you're hardly intimately acquainted with the contents of my wardrobe, are you, darling?”

“No.” Brigid was nonplussed. Clearly, honesty was not necessarily the best policy when applied to her mother. She tried a new tack. “How's Louise this morning? Has she recovered from her shock?”

“Yes, she has. But please don't encourage her to wander round the moor in the evening. I've given up trying to persuade
you
to be sensible, though I hope you might just think about it more carefully now.”

“I'd rather wander round the moor at night than round the streets of Plymouth. Or any city, for that matter. All these murders have been in the towns.”

“Very likely, but that doesn't alter the fact that Louise was badly scared last night. I don't think she's by any means strong enough yet to cope with a real fright. It's foolish to risk it.”

“Of course.” Brigid was contrite. “I have to say that I hadn't considered that aspect of it. She
is
OK?”

“She recovered very quickly,” Frummie admitted. “But she was certainly shaken by it. I don't want to take any chances.”

“I can quite see that. I didn't mean to be … uncaring. I expect she'll be more cautious now, anyway. Look, I'd better go and see the Prouts. She's nervous about coming over here in case Blot attacks her.”

They both looked at Blot, who lay fast asleep on his back in his basket. His front paws were drawn up on his chest as if he were begging, his ears flopping like bedraggled plaits across his blanket.

“Yes,” murmured Frummie. “A truly fearsome spectacle. I can see why she's terrified of him.”

“He's been in the river,” Brigid explained. “It was glorious early this morning. Quite autumnal.”

There was a silence.

“You'll be careful too, won't you?” Frummie looked unnaturally strained. “About where you go, I mean?”

“Of course I will.” Brigid was touched by her obvious anxiety. “I promise.” She tried for a lighter note. “At least we've got a man about the place now. I'll go and get the Prouts on their way and then he can move in. Why don't you sit and read the paper? I'll give a shout when I'm ready to start”

T
HEA ARRIVED
alone, waved to the Prouts—who stared at her suspiciously—and joined Louise at the little table in the garden.

“Are they going or coming?” she asked, sitting down. “They look rather fraught.”

“Going,” answered Louise, pouring Thea a glass of elderberry cordial. “To everyone's relief. They weren't Brigid's most successful visitors.”

“Poor Brigid.” Thea took a cotton hat from her capacious carpet bag and set it on her red-gold head. “She's worked so hard all these years, you know, and she tends to take it rather personally if people aren't happy. I wish I knew if having Humphrey at home will be good for her.”

“Good for her?” Louise shifted a little, folding her cotton skirt above her knees, stretching bare legs to the sunshine. “How d'you mean?”

“He's been away so much. And she has a need for solitude, doesn't she?”

“I don't know her nearly as well as you do,” Louise reminded her. “But she certainly doesn't have a problem with being alone.”

“Quite. Now I don't mind my own company—after all, I became inured to it as a child in the wilds of Shropshire— but, given a choice, I like to have all my people round me. Dear old George and the girls, and his mother, and any friends and relations who might drop by. I love him being retired and being able to potter about and do things together.”

“You don't think Brigid would enjoy that sort of thing? She and Humphrey always seem very happy together.”

“Oh, they are.” Thea sipped her cold drink, considering the matter. “I just wonder if she wouldn't find total togetherness just a touch claustrophobic. Perhaps it might be better if Humphrey had to work part time for a while until they adjust to it.”

“I think the cottages are their pension plan. Or some of it.” Louise bundled her hair off her neck and sat with her hands clasped behind her head, face tilted back, eyes closed. “Goodness, it's hot.”

“Mmm.” Thea was still brooding on Brigid and Humphrey. “We've been very lucky. George inherited the Station House from his mother so that he's never had to think about buying a property and, being a bachelor all those years, he's saved and invested. George is very careful with money. Brigid inherited this from her fether so it's a rather similar situation, except that with all the conversion work they had to raise a mortgage, so I suppose it's possible that Humphrey might have to carry on working for a while when he comes out of the Navy. Especially now that Frummie's occupying one of the cottages.”

“Will Humphrey want to retire? He can't be much more than fifty. It seems terribly young.”

“As a commander, assuming that he isn't going to be promoted, he has to retire by fifty-three. George made captain and had to retire last year at fifty-five. Even with all his savings he might have to look for a job to help with the girls' education. Poor old George! That's the disadvantage of marrying and starting a family in your forties. At least Humphrey doesn't have that problem.”

“It seems odd—you with such young children and Brigid having a grandchild. Yet your husbands being contemporaries.”

Thea laughed. “His friends thought he'd gone quite, quite mad when he married me. After all, I'm twenty years younger than George. They're all very nice to me, although Humphrey thinks I'm rather peculiar.”

Remembering his remarks at the dinner party a few weeks before—
“One of the nicer sorts of nutter”
—Louise hesitated. Thea grinned at her evident discomfiture.

“It's not a problem. I'm very fond of Humphrey but he finds it difficult adjusting to the age gap. I'm not much older than his oldest boy. Julian was at Mount House when it was a boys' preparatory school and now it's co-educational and my two girls are there, although they don't board. It's those sorts of things. He sees me and my children as a different generation yet George is his contemporary.”

“Doesn't Hermione go to Mount House too?”

“Yes, she's at The Ark. The pre-prep. She absolutely loves it. Well, they all do. It's a terrific school and they'll be heartbroken when they have to move on.”

“What age is the pre-prep?” An idea was forming in Louise's mind.

“Three or four, I think they start. And then they can move over when they're eight. Why?”

“I was wondering. I think I told you I taught small children before I got married, didn't I? Well, I shall need to get a job as soon as I can and it suddenly occurred to me that The Ark sounds rather nice.”

Thea shifted her chair into the shade. “Do you feel ready to start again?”

A little pause. The doves wheeled overhead, shiningly, startlingly white against the heavenly blue, diving and turning in their aerial dance: the Prouts stood together, surveying the neady packed contents of the car's boot-space with satisfaction.

Louise took a deep breath. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But I'd like to be doing something and I'd like to be doing it with children. Thank God that the absolute terror of being near a small child has passed. But I do get the occasional panic attack.”

“I think you should talk to Charles Price,” said Thea thoughtfully. “He's the headmaster. I'm sure he'll help if he can. Two of the staff are naval wives, I know that.”

“I'd have to tell him the truth.”

“Yes, of course. But you needn't feel nervous about it. He's such a nice person I'm sure he'd be terribly understanding.”

“It would be a start,” said Louise, “just to talk to someone to find out where I stand. I'm probably no longer eligible to work with small children. Rules are very strict these days.”