The Longer Bodies (3 page)

‘One hundred pounds?' said Priscilla, who had overcome her risible faculties by a strong effort. ‘That is very kind of you, Aunt. I shall buy!—'

‘Two new dinner frocks and a
thé dansant
,' said her unregenerate brother Hilary, grinning behind his hand. ‘Cheer up, sister!' he added,
sotto voce
. ‘Mean old cat!'

His great-aunt regarded him with disfavour. Her hearing was inconveniently acute at times.

‘Of course, should you find yourself heir to my property and fortune, Grandnephew,' she remarked, in a tone which indicated that she considered such an event extremely unlikely, ‘you will be at perfect liberty to give any or all of the inheritance to your sister. Far be it from me to comment upon your implicit generosity!'

Propelled by the stalwart Godfrey Yeomond, the bathchair containing the rich relation then left the dining room. Mrs Yeomond, smiling her unvarying, faded smile, went after it.

The family dropped its jaw. Malpas spoke.

‘Well, I'm damned!' said he. The others nodded gloomily.

‘Senile dementia,' said Francis, shaking his head. ‘Poor old girl.'

‘Of course, she can't be serious,' said Hilary. ‘International champions! My God!'

Priscilla began to laugh again.

‘Who's holding the baby now?' she enquired, with sisterly chivalry.

MALPAS YEOMOND REREAD
Great-aunt Puddequet's letter for the fourth time.

‘She's certainly worked the thing out rather well,' he said. ‘Me the high jump, Frank the long, H. the discus, her grandson chap the javelin, Brown-Jenkins the pole, and Cowes the weight.'

‘What do we do about it?' asked Hilary.

‘Might as well go down there as she suggests, and find out what the idea is,' said Francis. ‘The Brown-Jenkins people and the Cowes will go, I expect.'

‘I can't think what possessed Mary to marry a fellow with a name like Brown-Jenkins,' said Godfrey Yeomond. The family were at dinner on the first Tuesday in April. He frowned into his wineglass. ‘Why on earth couldn't he have stuck like a man to the Jenkins, and left the Brown alone?'

The gentle Mrs Yeomond, who was the only person present at table to take any particular notice of her husband's remarks, shook her head hopelessly.

‘Or, of course, he could have dropped the Jenkins, and put an “e” on the Brown, dear,' she observed timidly.

‘I wish, Pater, you'd write to both the relations and see what they're going to do about it,' said Francis. ‘We really don't want to go down into Hampshire and sweat about and look fools if the Brown-Jenkins and the Cowes are not bothering.'

‘Ought to put the old girl in a home,' muttered Malpas darkly.

‘I believe I'll go and see them,' said Godfrey, deciding at length that the port was nonpoisonous. ‘Always better to see people. I'll run down tomorrow. Far more satisfactory. They live less than twenty miles apart, and Jenkins's place is just over thirty from here, so I can manage them both on the same day I should think, if I don't hang about at either house too long.'

‘I suppose,' said Malpas slowly, ‘that, if these other people fall for the damned silly scheme, we must have a stab at it too.'

‘Please yourself, my boy,' said his father. ‘It's merely a question as to which branch of the family shall inherit about half a million pounds.'

‘I don't know that I hanker after the cash,' said Francis thoughtfully. ‘It isn't that. But I should hate to stand down in favour of Dick Cowes. Remember him as a fearful worm. Had the cheek at school to bend me over for six when he was head of the house. Beastly weed he was, too!'

‘And the Brown-Jenkins tribe are bounders,' said Hilary, in round, handsome terms. ‘After all, why shouldn't we have a cut? Jolly decent holiday down there. Take our motorbikes, and walk sometimes, and I dare say there would be some quite decent cricket if one knew where to look for it. Wonder how long we shall stay?'

‘I shall come too,' said Priscilla unexpectedly. ‘I shall be company for Great-aunt Puddequet. Besides, the Digots live quite near, and there will be some quite decent tennis on their courts. I was at school with Margaret Digot, and Rex Digot is ever such a nice kid.'

‘Yes, I should certainly go, if I were in your place,' said Godfrey to his sons. ‘At the worst, you'll get plenty of fresh air and exercise. At the best—well, if your great-aunt
should
take a fancy to one of you!—Of course, the idea itself is absurd, but then, what are the old for, if not to impose their absurd ideas on the young?'

‘The hon. member,' said Priscilla wickedly, ‘then resumed his seat amid tumultuous applause.'

‘Look here,' said Clive Brown-Jenkins with spirit, ‘when I say valve-rubber do I mean inner-tubing?'

‘You should run about after yourself, then,' said his sister Celia with finality. She stuck both hands into her jumper pockets and walked into the house.

Clive stood up and wiped a hand covered with lubricating oil across an already grease-stained countenance. He grunted discontentedly and spun the front wheel of his upturned bicycle. He was a big, squarely built boy of twenty, with an untidy thatch of hair and perpetually grease-stained hands. His father had put him into the office of his own works, but Clive was a born mechanic, and invariably looked like it. He was strong and hardy, and resembled a rough cob; his face was good humour itself when he smiled, but in repose it wore a determinedly bulldog expression and showed the hard line of an obstinate jaw. He had big hands and feet, big strong teeth, and appraising grey eyes. His was a fighter's face. He was continuously at loggerheads with his father, from whom he inherited his temperament, and each had a secret respect and affection for the other.

He put his hard hand down on the whizzing wheel and arrested its gyrations. Then he rubbed the ball of his strong, dirty thumb over a suspiciously rough place on the tyre.

A moment later Celia reappeared.

‘Do you mean this wormy-squirmy stuff?' she enquired, proffering a tin box.

‘Thanks,' grunted Clive. He worked away in silence for about twenty-five minutes. Celia stood and watched him.

‘Going far tomorrow?' she asked at last.

Clive screwed the nozzle of the hand pump on to the top of the valve of the back wheel and pumped steadily for several seconds. When he had disconnected the pump and tested the tyre with thumb and forefinger, he stood the bicycle upright against the side of the house and replied tersely:

‘Brighton. Club test. By the way, did my white sweater get washed last week?'

‘How should I know?' said Celia. ‘I don't look after your things. Better go and ask Mum. Anyway, the laundry hasn't come home this week yet, because I wanted my organdy frock for this afternoon, and I can't have it.'

‘Your sweater is quite clean and nicely aired, dear,' said a woman's voice from inside the house. ‘I
never
send woollen garments to the laundry. They are really
too
bad with them. When do you want it?'

‘Tomorrow at five in the morning,' replied Clive. ‘Hang on; I'll come and get it now. I shall be back to dinner.'

‘Lunch, dear.'

‘Oh, all right, lunch.'

‘It will be ready by one-thirty, dear, so you won't be late, will you?'

Clive grunted and went into the house.

‘Oh, there you are,' said his father from the dining room. ‘Come here, I want you.'

Clive followed his mother up the stairs, obtained possession of his sweater, put it neatly with the rest of his kit, stopped at the bathroom for a wash, and then went downstairs to his father.

Brown-Jenkins Senior lowered his stockinged feet from the arm of the settee to the carpet, and observed:

‘Now, then. Are you going down into Hampshire, or aren't you?'

‘No,' replied Clive.

‘Then you're a damned fool,' said his father, picking up the newspaper. ‘Half a million. That's more than I've got to give you, by a damn sight. I've done damn well, but I 'aven't—haven't—done as well as that. Now don't be a B.F. Your Uncle Godfrey was here an hour ago. His boys are going down to Hampshire next week. What about it?'

‘I shan't go,' said Clive. ‘Cranky old girl!'

‘Well, she is, but there's nothing cranky about her money, my lad, so don't you forget it. Thought you'd got your head screwed on tighter than that. Still, if you don't trouble about it, no more shall I. Get out.'

Clive returned to his bicycle and Celia. His mother was standing there talking.

‘But I don't think you are invited, dear,' said Mary Brown-Jenkins. She was the feminine counterpart of Godfrey, her brother, but had worn not quite so well.

‘I don't care whether I'm invited,' said Celia. ‘If that Yeomond girl can go—and Uncle Godfrey said she had made up her mind about it—then I can go. Besides, you know what an awful ass Clive is when he's left to look after himself. And he
will
go in to meals with oily dirt under his nails if he isn't watched. The Yeomonds would get up and leave the table, and then what would you feel like?'

Clive's grunt behind them terminated that portion of the conversation.

‘You needn't worry yourselves,' said he coldly. ‘I'm not going.'

‘Not going?' cried Celia. ‘Oh, but you
must
go! Look what a chance it is for us to get to know some nice people. Priscilla Yeomond knows people down there and everything. Uncle said so. And if you don't go, Cliff,
I
can't. You might be a sport. Besides, think of the will!
I
wouldn't say no to all that money!'

‘Now, look here, young Celia,' said Clive, setting his jaw, ‘once and for all! If any of you people think that a cranky old girl of ninety is going to jockey me into turning myself into a monkey on a stick for the sake of her rotten cash, you're wrong! I'm not breaking my neck over that pole jump to please anybody, and if Dad thinks differently—'

‘But, Clive, it isn't altogether the money. Think what a score for Uncle Godfrey if one of his boys got the house and property, and you didn't! He'd never get over it. You know how they look down on us because Dad started as a hand and worked his way up, and because I haven't been “finished” and you haven't been educated at Oxford like the Yeomonds.'

‘Yes,' said Clive, ‘that's all very well! And it's all very well for you to talk, young sis! Hang it all! Nobody's asking
you
to trot a great pole up to a bally hole and heave your beastly carcass over the moon on it! It's easy to talk! Let the Yeomonds do it, and I'll have a cut at the javelin or the discus, or even the weight. I bet I'd put it farther than that ass Dick Cowes.'

‘Well,' said Celia, ‘there's no point in grousing. You might just as well have a try at it! After all, poor old lady, she's awfully old! And surely you can go in and knock spots off the Yeomonds! I mean, just look at your cycling! Club champion two years running! I bet the Yeomonds couldn't get to Brighton and back in seven hours!
Nor
win the gold medal on the track.'

Clive grinned.

‘Oh, well—' he said modestly.

‘Oh, well, there it is, anyway,' said Celia, with sisterly spirit. ‘And if you
did
beat them, you could afford to start the Club Cycle Stores instead of mugging away at the office. Great-aunt Puddequet's money—'

Clive looked at his sister.

‘There's something in that,' he admitted, ‘but it's chewing a tough egg, old thing. Still, I don't mind going down to the house and seeing what's what. After all, we needn't stay there. And now—'

‘There's a good boy,' said his mother. ‘I knew you would like to please your father.'

Clive turned and regarded her with deep distrust.

‘Oh, so you're keen on it too, Mum, are you? What's the idea?' he said.

Mrs Brown-Jenkins smiled, and walked into the house.

‘She'd just hate Uncle Godfrey's boys to get something you couldn't,' said Celia, in a low voice. ‘People of that age are awfully funny, you know.'

Richard Cowes rang up his sister's studio.

Amaris Cowes, holding a piece of bread and treacle in her left hand, reached for the receiver with her right, and invited her brother to unburden his mind.

‘Going to stay with Great-aunt Puddequet?' she repeated after him. ‘Well, I've no objection. Do they know at home? . . . Oh, really? But why worry? You can't possibly do it can you? . . . Yes, of course there is that. You don't think she'd care to sit for her portrait, do you? . . . Oh, I don't know. Most old people are vain, I think . . . Yes, I'll come down and see you if you like. All the best . . . What? Can't hear you . . . S.P.P.I.? What's that? Primitive impulses? I haven't any; and as for pandering to them! . . . Good-bye.'

It was obvious that Great-aunt Puddequet had spent a great deal of money. More than ten thousand square yards of what had been rough pasturage less than a year before had been dug up, levelled, drained, and laid with turf. A fine sports ground with a splendid oval running-track four hundred and forty yards long; with a long-jump pit and cinder lane and permanent takeoff; with a recognized place for the high jump and another for the pole vault—these wonders had taken the place of a dank and marshy meadow which at one time had bordered Great-aunt Puddequet's domain. The piece of waste land had proved wide enough from east to west for the required purpose, but not sufficiently so from north to south, and Great-aunt Puddequet had furnished proof of her enthusiasm for the new scheme by sacrificing a stretch of beautiful garden to the needs of the athletics ground. Where her lawn had descended in gentle undulation to the hawthorn hedge which had separated her property from the adjacent water-meadow, a small sunk garden was in process of completion, and a flight of a dozen stone steps, dividing the sunk garden into two equal parts, led down to a wooden door in a high brick wall which formed the barrier between the house and garden and the new sports field. This sunk garden, from being a hideous necessity about which she had screamed furiously every day to the patient and long-suffering Miss Caddick, had suddenly become the apple of Great-aunt Puddequet's eye. She herself designed its decorative effects, and an eminent firm of landscape gardeners was dealing with her instructions as tactfully as possible.