The Flowering Thorn (21 page)

“Oak!” said Lesley, this time aloud.

The ecstasy passed, or rather was translated into action. Forgetful of all else she scraped furiously at the pink and mottled surface, powdering herself with dust until she had to stop and wipe her eyes. And pausing to do so, she heard voices without: voices, not angelic, but still of joy and amazement. She looked up, her lips moved to prohibit, and the next instant the children were upon her.

“
Frewen!
” cried Pat. “Why didn't you tell us?”

It was a great and memorable occasion. The prohibition died unborn: for to try and stop them would have been not only barbarous but also impossible. Within five minutes not a child was clean; while as to the room itself, it was already so coated in dust that there was no longer any point in taking care. Like artificial snow innumerable shreds of paper floated through the air: on carpet, chairs and table blossomed a sudden flora of stocks and roses. The children stripped, ripped and scattered, Lesley soaked, coaxed and loosened; until at last the two main walls stood boldly patterned with a triple stripe of oak on plaster.

Lesley stood back and looked at them with a deep satisfaction. It was
her
oak,
her
plaster, divined by her spirit and made visible by her labour; and she also decided, with her usual common sense, that the job would undoubtedly have to be finished at the hands of a professional.

2

A perfect house stands in a perfect garden; and while the professionals were busy, Lesley, for the first time in her life, came into personal contact with soil, sod and earthworms. She began with Pat's flower-bed, where the candytuft alone held ground against weeds; and here, a day or two later, Mrs. Pomfret found her in action from the base of Pat's prayer-rug.

“Give me a trowel and I'll help you a bit,” said Mrs. Pomfret, plumping suddenly down on the grass.

In some surprise, for the Vicar's wife did not usually have so much time to spare, Lesley passed her a small fork. For a minute or two they worked in silence, the pile of weeds growing slowly between them. Then—

“I'm going to buy a mangle,” said Mrs. Pomfret defiantly.

Lesley sat up.

“It's not extravagance,” continued Mrs. Pomfret, “the one we've got now is dropping to pieces. Harry keeps mending it and the boys keep mending it, but the whole trouble is that it simply will not
mangle.
It's too old.”

“Then you're quite right to buy a new one,” said Lesley.

“Oh, not a new one, my dear, they're terribly expensive, but I've had notice of the sale at Elm House, at Thame, you know, and Mrs. Sprigg's daughter-in-law who used to work there told Mrs. Sprigg that if the mangle in the sale is the one she used to work with, it's just as good as new. So I'm going over on Monday,” finished Mrs. Pomfret, “with the intention of buying it.”

“And I'll come with you,” said Lesley, quite carried away.

The Vicar's wife beamed with genuine pleasure.

“Will you really, Lesley? Then that will make quite an outing of it. And if you want anything yourself, I believe the furniture's quite worth looking at. Nothing old enough to fetch the dealers, you know, but good plain country stuff.” She sat down abruptly and looked back at the cottage. “My dear, if you tackle it as you tackled Pat, it's going to be perfectly lovely.”

“Oh, but this will be much more interesting than Pat,” said Lesley seriously. “I know exactly what I want and I've just got time to do it.”

Mrs. Pomfret shifted her gaze.

“But won't you be heart-broken to leave it all?”

“Heart-broken? Good God, no! I like to do a thing and finish with it and then do something else.” The words rose mechanically to her lips. They were one of her pet gambits, and had been the opening phrase (usually with the addition of the word ‘
finito!
') for many a modern conversation. In the presence of Mrs. Pomfret, however, she forgot the
finito
and added instead,

“What I do want are chairs. Ladderbacks with rush-bottom seats. Do you think I could get any at the sale?”

“In the nursery and schoolroom you probably would,” said Mrs. Pomfret.

“Then if I can I shall. And a gate-leg table and a corner cupboard. I shall go,” said Lesley, “prepared to spend ten pounds.”

And they looked at each other with genuine excitement.

3

Before any social excursion—even one of no more than three miles, and having as its objective the town of Thame—Mrs. Pomfret's natural impulse was to go to the kitchen and cut sandwiches. There Lesley, arriving early to deposit Pat, found her absently buttering a yesterday's loaf; and without standing on ceremony put both bread and butter back in their places.

“You're having lunch with me,” she explained, “at the Yellow Swan. With rather a lot to drink, to improve our voices for bidding.”

Mrs. Pomfret looked up with frank pleasure.

“I'd love it,” she said. “I
love
eating away from home. Only nothing to drink, my dear, because it always makes me hiccup at once. That time we dined with the Bishop Henry has never forgotten.”

She untied her apron and folded it over a chair-back: even when hiccuping at a Bishop's table, thought Lesley, she could never have been taken for anything but a thoroughly nice woman.

All the way in the 'bus they talked with enjoyment. They talked about the affairs of the village, and the characters of the children; discussing more particularly the rheumatism of Horace Walpole and the brilliance of Alec Pomfret. Old Horace was laid up and couldn't put foot to ground: young Alec had constructed, from a musical box and a nutmeg grater, a machine that played music while grating the nutmegs.

“Patrick,” said Lesley, “has an amazing way with animals. Pincher adores him, of course, but so does the cat. And you know what cats are.”

Without the least insincerity, Mrs. Pomfret nodded. She was waiting, though quite patiently, to tell about the other thing Alec had made, the thing for saving matches: but there would be plenty of time after Lesley had finished. Lesley, however, took longer than either of them expected, and with equal surprise (the matches barely touched upon) they looked out of the window and saw it was Thame.

“That's Elm House, behind the pub,” said Mrs. Pomfret. She spoke with calm, but her eye was bright: like a war-horse smelling battle, she huried impatiently forward. Lesley followed more demurely, but still with a certain excitement, it was her first sale, and she was prepared to spend ten pounds.

Their movements for the next hour are of no possible interest to anyone but themselves. They ascended stairs, looked into cupboards, opened drawers, thumped stuffing, and rang glass: they behaved, that is to say, precisely like any two women at any given sale. To the women themselves all these actions are passionately absorbing; but not to anyone else.

Within that hour, however, while thus lost to sight, Mrs. Pomfret succumbed to the mangle and Lesley discovered her ladderback chairs. There were four of them, not very old, but of agreeable design and in good condition; and she had noticed with alarm that more eyes than her own had been favourably attracted. The actual sale did not begin till two, so that she had almost an hour, during lunch, to decide on her price. The meal was a silent one, though they both enjoyed their food; for Mrs. Pomfret too was cogitating on the subject of mangles. At last, over coffee in the lounge, she came to a semi-decision.

“If you don't mind, Lesley,” she said, “I think I'll just run over to the Stores and have a look at a new one. It's the last I shall ever buy, I hope, and I don't want to make a mistake.”

A trifle startled by the allusion—for few people are really familiar with the fact of their own mortality—Lesley nodded acquiescence and moved to the window from which she could command the entrance to the Stores. A new car now stood outside, a great yellow tourer with a fawn hood; and walking up the path, chattering at the tops of their voices, were Elissa, Mrs. Carnegie, and two men whom Lesley did not know.

4

Her first impulse was to tap on the pane and attract their attention; but before she could do so a second and a stronger had taken its place. Very quietly, as they passed between the geraniums, Lesley drew herself to one side and hid behind a curtain.

Elissa was being very spontaneous.

“Drinks, drinks, drinks!” she cried. “Preferably a Martini, darling, and see if they'll let you shake it. I feel like an unwatered pot-plant.”

“
Cela se voit
,” murmured Mrs. Carnegie. She herself resembled nothing so arid; a prize Maréchal Niel perhaps, reared solely on fertiliser. Like the flowers at her feet she was dressed in tight crimson; and after the manner of Frenchwomen continued to look cool.

Lesley slipped over to the mirror and looked at her face. It was not really shiny, but lightly browned all over to an even sun-burnt gloss; and with a tiny twinge of dismay she remembered that she had not yet renewed her lipstick. For the reflected mouth—after even a glimpse of Elissa's immaculate bow—had nothing to be said for it. Red enough to pass at a pinch, but sadly in need of pulling together.…

‘Oh, well,' thought Lesley, ‘it can't be helped'; and picking up her bag she moved across the room. At the door, however, she hesitated. A confused noise without—chattering, laughter, Elissa's scream—told her that they were all gathered in the hall. To fling open the door, step forth and declare herself—what could be simpler or more effective? But still she hesitated: it would mean seeing Elissa, of course, but it would also mean going to the bar and sitting and having drinks and being unable to get away while all the time someone else was snapping up her chairs. And thinking of those four superlative ladderbacks, Lesley's mind suddenly made itself up. She was fond of Elissa—very fond indeed; only just at the moment she couldn't be bothered.

Amid a good deal of laughter the footsteps passed on. From the other side of the road, Mrs. Pomfret waved a beckoning hand. Lesley pulled on her hat, picked up her gloves, and exercising a certain amount of caution emerged into the empty hall.

Just as she appeared, however, the bar-room door swung open and one of the men came out to get his coat. Tall, dark and lightly whiskered, she would have known him anywhere for one of Elissa's weaknesses: while he, by a certain fixity of gaze, seemed to reciprocate her interest. But Lesley knew too well how to interpret that look to draw any flattery from it. It was a look, in fact, of pleased recognition, such as may be seen on the faces of tourists when confronted with their first Arab; and it amused her to think how accurately she could supply the exact descriptive phrases with which he was even then regaling Elissa.

‘I'm a Country Type!' thought Lesley, raising her eyebrows in silent amusement: and since the joke was too good to spoil, she went out by the back door and and so avoided the bar-room windows.

CHAPTER SIX

The sitting-room that night felt close; and it was one of the few evenings in the year when a fire could have been dispensed with. Fatigued with her unusual outing, triumphant in the possession of her chairs, Lesley propped open the door and walked slowly down to the gate.

In all the orchard not a leaf stirred. It was an extreme of stillness like an extreme of cold; one heard, not saw, the breath. And then suddenly out of the darkness, an apple-tree groaned.

Lesley turned and ran. With a single mighty clap, like the slamming of a sluice, the heavens had opened.

2

At eleven o'clock the storm was still raging. The Vale was a bowling-green where giants flung cannon-balls; they rebounded from the hills to meet crashing in the centre, or sidled round the rim with a sullen departing roll. The rain slashed, the wind blew; and behind them was more wind, more rain, enough to last till the day of judgment. It was a night to shake the Pyramids and astonish Noah; it was a bad night, in fact, for anyone who had to be out.

But the White Cottage crouched low and its walls were sturdy. Lesley ran up to look at Pat, found him still miraculously sleeping and returned to the sitting-room with a new book on Picasso. She could not read, however, she could only sit and listen. There were elephants in the orchard, trampling and trumpeting and stamping with their feet, reaching up with their trunks to snap off the branches; in the rare, moment-long lulls one could hear the rattle of boughs like the rattle of fighting antlers.

‘It's the animals come back!' thought Lesley fantastically; and for a wild and astonishing instant she visioned a whole prehistoric fauna reloosed into Bucks.

‘I must go to bed,' she thought, ‘I'm asleep already.'

But an extraordinary reluctance held her where she was. With all that turmoil outside it seemed wrong to take off one's clothes and lie defencelessly down: better, like prehistoric man, to stay crouching on guard and build up the fire.… She listened again. The wind had hurled itself down the chimney and was now fighting to get out: the rain against the windows rattled like hail. From the direction of Pig Lane came a sudden mighty crash: then silence, and a second crash following the first.

‘There'll be the telephone wires down to-night,' Lesley thought; and with a final effort she pulled herself together and went upstairs.

Pat was still asleep. Thanking her stars for his phlegm, Lesley passed into her own room and drew the curtains. Through the rain-blurred glass there was nothing to be seen save a couple of lights in the Walpole windows.

‘They're up late,' thought Lesley, ‘I suppose it's the storm;' and hoping to emulate Patrick's example, she hastily undressed herself and got into bed.

3

But now the thunder was worse. They were not giants, they were postmen, double-knocking on an iron door. Lesley opened her eyes. There
was
a knocking. Loud, erratic, and far nearer than any symbolic gates, it seemed to batter at the wall directly below her bed. It was a knocking at the cottage.