Crampton Hodnet (6 page)

Mr. Latimer could hardly help smiling at this, but he was still annoyed with Miss Morrow for not seeing his point of view. An unmarried clergyman could never be too careful, and he had already had a good deal of experience of the consequences of the very slightest indiscretion. He had thought Miss Morrow so very safe and sensible, essentially the sort of person who could be relied upon to do the right thing. Was she going to turn out like all the others? Was she going to noise it about North Oxford that
she
had been the cause of the curate’s nonappearance at evensong? For it
had
really been her fault, he told himself, working up his feelings against her. She had said that she knew the way back and how long it took, and where and when one could get a bus. Perhaps she had deliberately trapped him, he thought, getting more and more angry; perhaps she hoped that she was going to catch him. His mouth set in a firm line and he walked on without speaking.

‘Do you honestly imagine,’ said Miss Morrow, quickening her step to catch up with him, ‘that Miss Doggett would have left us alone together in the house if she had thought that anyone could
possibly
think anything of it? She herself would be the first person to make a scandal; she always is. And yet she goes and leaves us together in the house. What do you think of that?’

‘Well, she couldn’t have taken me to Tunbridge Wells,’ said Mr. Latimer obstinately. ‘I’m not a pet dog.’

Miss Morrow felt that she wanted to giggle. ‘And she never takes me because she moves in rather high society there, and she likes to leave somebody at home to see that the servants behave and don’t poke among her things. So it was quite natural that she should leave us both. I really think you’re making an unnecessary fuss.’

‘Well, I didn’t start it,’ said Mr. Latimer crossly.

‘And I’m sure I didn’t,’ said Miss Morrow. ‘Anyway, nobody will ever know about it unless
you
tell them. I only said you could blame me if you wanted to.’

‘We’re getting into the Banbury Road,’ said Mr. Latimer suddenly. ‘It seems to be full of people. I suppose I ought to go into church. I shall only have missed about three quarters of an hour.’

‘
Only
three quarters of an hour!’ Miss Morrow said. ‘You’re so anxious to conceal your movements, and then you suggest going into church in the middle of the service! Why, it would cause a sensation. Every member of the congregation would wonder where you’d been, whereas if you don’t go in, nobody but the vicar will know that you ought to have been there.’

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ said Mr. Latimer. ‘And inany case I’m rather wet. What are the servants going to think when we arrive like this?’ he said suddenly. ‘All wet and bedraggled, and you carrying all those trailing things?’

‘I often go out for a walk and come back carrying trailing things,’ said Miss Morrow calmly. ‘In any case Florence will have gone out, and old Maggie never notices anything. Just be quite calm about it,’ she added reassuringly. ‘I don’t suppose Maggie will see us anyway. We can slip upstairs.’

Mr. Latimer rather disliked the idea of slipping upstairs. It sounded almost as if there were something immoral about it. But he said nothing. Miss Morrow, thank goodness, seemed to be behaving sensibly after all. Perhaps she was not trying to catch him. He felt almost annoyed.

The front door of Leamington Lodge was of the old-fashioned kind, which can be opened from the outside without a latch key, and so Miss Morrow and Mr. Latimer were able to do their slipping upstairs very successfully. Old Maggie, who was sitting in the kitchen, reading a story about a girl who was a Mother but not a Wife, did not even hear them come in.

‘Well now, that’s all right,’ whispered Miss Morrow, when they were standing under the stained-glass window on the landing. ‘You’d better go and have a bath, or you’ll catch cold.’

Why, she’s quite a nice-looking woman, thought Mr. Latimer suddenly, and, indeed, Miss Morrow looked not unpleasing in the dim light. The rain and the exercise of walking had freshened her complexion and brightened her eyes, and such hair as showed under her unbecomingly sensible felt hat had curled itself into little tendrils. When her hair was tidy it was so tightly scraped back that one would never have suspected that it could curl. If she were decently dressed, thought Mr. Latimer … but then pulled himself up. What on earth was he thinking about?

‘Yes, I think I ought to have a bath and take some aspirins,’ he said seriously. ‘I don’t want my rheumatism to come on.’

‘And perhaps you ought to put some mustard in the bath and have a hot drink,’ suggested Miss Morrow.

Could it be that she was making fun of him? he thought, glancing quickly at her. But her expression was perfectly serious, and she even told him that there was some mustard in the bathroom cupboard.

Miss Morrow went into her bedroom. She felt that she wanted to laugh, a good long laugh because life was so funny, so much funnier than any book. But as sane people don’t laugh out loud when they are alone in their bedrooms, she had to content herself with going about smiling as she changed her clothes and tidied her hair. She went to the wardrobe to get out her brown marocain with the beige collar, but as she was looking among the drab folds of her dresses, her eye was caught by the rich gleam of her blue velvet. It had been bought to attend a wedding. Miss Doggett had thought it an extravagance. The brown marocain with a new collar would have done just as well. Nobody would expect Miss Morrow to be grandly dressed. It had been quite a success at the wedding, but Miss Morrow had never worn it since. She felt happier in the brown marocain, which Miss Doggett’s eye would regard with approval, if it regarded it at all.

I’ll wear the blue velvet tonight, thought Miss Morrow, it’s silly to keep things. It would give her pleasure to wear it, and she wouldn’t be embarrassed by any comment from Mr. Latimer. Men never noticed things like that.

At twenty minutes to eight she was down in the drawing-room. With sudden recklessness she went to the fireplace and piled more coal on the fire. They would be coming out of church any time now. Supposing the vicar were to call to find out why Mr. Latimer hadn’t been at evensong? What should she say? She hoped he would soon come down, so that he could deal with the situation in his own way.

She took her knitting out of its cretonne bag and examined it to see when she could start casting off for the armholes. She was in the middle of a row when the front door bell rang. Oh, dear, she thought, that must be the vicar. She flung her knitting onto the sofa and ran swiftly to the window to see if she could catch a glimpse of whoever it was, but all she could see was a dark shape that looked more like a woman than a man. Where was Maggie? Why wasn’t she answering the door? At last, after what seemed a very long time, Miss Morrow heard her shambling old footsteps in the hall. Then the drawing-room door was opened.

‘It’s Mrs. Wardell,’ said Maggie.

‘Oh, Mrs. Wardell, good evening. How are you? Do sit down.’ Miss Morrow began scurrying about the room, picking up her knitting and putting it down again, clearing imaginary objects off chairs and sofas.

‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Latimer, coming into the room rubbing his hands and looking very pleased. ‘I had a splendid bath.’ When he saw Mrs. Wardell he stopped in the middle of the room, his hands suspended in mid-air. ‘Oh, good evening, Mrs. Wardell, how nice to see you,’ he said in a hurrying tone. Then, evidently feeling that some explanation was needed as to why he had been having a bath when he should have been assisting at evensong, he plunged into a long and complicated story about how he had suddenly received a message from a friend who was vicar of a distant parish in the Cotswolds, asking him to go over and take evensong. ‘I went on my bicycle,’ he said, ‘and got rather wet coming back, so I thought it would be wise to have a hot bath.’

Miss Morrow listened to this story in amazement. She wondered if it showed in her face, for she had never before, as far as she could remember, heard a clergyman telling what she knew to be deliberate lies. And what a hopeless story! she thought pityingly. If Mr. Latimer had thought it necessary to give some explanation of his splendid bath, surely he could have done so without involving himself in such an account, the falseness of which could easily be proved by judicious enquiries. Why couldn’t he have said that he had a bad cold and leave it at that? Mrs. Wardell might have accepted a cold, but, as it was, she would probably go asking awkward questions about this friend and his parish in the Cotswolds, which Mr. Latimer might find difficult to answer. Nor was Miss Morrow mistaken; before she could think of anything to say, Mrs. Wardell was asking in an interested tone the name of the place where he had been.

‘Crampton Hodnet,’ said Mr. Latimer glibly.

Was there such a place? Miss Morrow wondered. She was sure that there was not. She waited nervously for Mrs. Wardell to make some comment and sat rapidly knitting purl instead of plain, not daring to look at anybody.

‘What a nice name,’ said Mrs. Wardell. ‘I don’t think I’ve been there. Ben wondered what had happened to you, if you were ill or something, so I thought I’d better just slip in and see.’

‘I think I’ve managed to stave off a cold,’ said Mr. Latimer, in a high, rather sickly voice. He clutched at his collar and gave a determined cough.

‘It’s a pity you weren’t in church, Miss Morrow,’ went on Mrs. Wardell pleasantly. ‘Old Lady Halkin had one of her
turns
and had to be taken out. It was really quite exciting.’

‘Miss Morrow has a cold,’ said Mr. Latimer quickly.

Mrs. Wardell suddenly burst out laughing. ‘You
poor
things,’ she said, ‘I think I’d better say that you
both
had colds. Ben’s very understanding, and I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be young myself.’

‘But I’m not young,’ protested Miss Morrow in agitation.

Mrs. Wardell wagged her finger and stood up to go. ‘But you’re looking very nice in your blue velvet,’ she said. ‘I must rush off now. Old Dr. Fremantle and his wife are coming to supper. So depressing.’ She sighed. ‘Reminiscences of Oxford in the eighties, with a few daring little academic jokes. And poor Olive’s so dreary.’

They went out into the hall together.

‘What pretty berries,’ said Mrs. Wardell, examining the ones Miss Morrow had picked in the afternoon, and which lay on a chair in the hall, waiting to be put in water.

‘Yes, aren’t they?’ agreed Miss Morrow. ‘I got them on Shotover this afternoon.’

‘Oh, did you go there this afternoon?’ said Mr. Latimer, in a ridiculously casual voice. ‘I’ve heard it’s a very nice walk.’

‘Particularly when it’s raining and you ought to be assisting at evensong,’ said Miss Morrow, when they had got Mrs. Wardell safely out of the door.

‘Oh,
what
an experience!’ said Mr. Latimer, flopping down on the sofa.

‘Well, I really think you made it worse,’ said Miss Morrow. ‘Your story was ridiculous. Heaven knows what Mrs. Wardell thinks we’ve been doing. She spoke almost as if … well, you know what I mean.’ Miss Morrow, although unworldly, had a natural delicacy which would not allow her to speak plainer than that. But Mr. Latimer understood and felt that it was an uncomfortable situation.

‘I really feel quite exhausted,’ he said, slipping out of it easily. ‘Is there by any chance any sherry in the house?’

‘I don’t keep a secret bottle in my bedroom,’ said Miss Morrow, ‘but there is some in the sideboard. Miss Doggett only brings it out when we have company or when she feels she needs reviving.’

‘Well, we have just had company, and we certainly need reviving,’ said Mr. Latimer.

‘All right, I’ll get some. I too have undergone a shattering experience,’ said Miss Morrow, thinking that the first time one heard a clergyman telling deliberate lies could surely be called that. ‘Luckily the glasses are in the sideboard, but I shall have to hide them and wash them myself, otherwise Maggie and Florence might think things. Florence is such an intelligent girl,’ she added.

Miss Morrow came back with the sherry.

‘You must let me propose a toast,’ she said. ‘I think we should drink the health of your friend, the vicar of Crampton Hodnet.’

Mr. Latimer looked at her uneasily. He was beginning to realise that he had put himself completely in her power. Could he trust her? He disliked the idea of depending on her for his good reputation—or his bad one, for that matter. He felt he ought to say something but he hardly knew what, and, as the sherry brought warmth and contentment to his body, his mind grew lazy, so that he said something which, although it was the first thing that came into his head, was not perhaps a very wise choice. ‘What a pretty dress you’re wearing,’ he said. ‘Blue is my favourite colour.’

‘Well, this is a cosy sight,’ said Francis Cleveland, coming into the drawing-room on a cold December afternoon. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Well, Anthea’s reading and I’m mending your socks,’ said Mrs. Cleveland patiently. ‘What have you been doing all the afternoon?’ she asked.

Mr. Cleveland came and stood in front of the fire, thus shielding it from everyone else. ‘Oh, I’ve been doing some work,’ he said vaguely. ‘I don’t know how you can sit about all afternoon doing nothing.’

‘Well, dear, you can come and mend your own socks, as you seem to think it less arduous than what you’ve been doing,’ said Mrs. Cleveland placidly. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked. Francis seemed to be in what she called one of his ‘loose-endish’ moods this afternoon.

‘Why do you always ask that whenever I come into the drawing-room?’ he said rather irritably. ‘Can’t I stand in my own drawing-room and talk to my family? Isn’t that doing something?’

Anthea looked up from the romantic novel, which she was finding more sympathetic reading than the dull book on economics she had hoped to get through. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘You’re keeping all the fire off me.’

‘Oh, then I suppose I’d better go and sit down somewhere,’ said Mr. Cleveland in an offended tone. He went to the farthest edge of the room and sat down on a hard chair in a direct draught.