The Watersplash (3 page)

Susan went down to Mrs. Alexander’s general shop next morning to pass the time of day and to get a picture postcard of the church with the six-hundred-year-old tunnel of yew which led up to it. The Professor would like to have one. She was turning over the postcards and waiting for Mrs. Alexander to serve Dr. Croft’s housekeeper, who could take as long to buy a tin of shoe-polish as a girl who is choosing a dance-frock, when Clarice Dean came into the shop and fell upon her with effusion.

“I’ve been longing to see you! Miss Blake came home from Mrs. Random’s and said you had come! You are going to catalogue the books at the Hall, aren’t you? I wish I had a nice easy job like that, but”—with an exaggerated sigh—“we poor nurses have to work!” She lowered her voice, but not much. “Now do tell me, is Edward Random here? Someone told me he was, but Miss Blake says he wasn’t at tea. Did he come by the later train?” She dropped her voice just a little further. “Or did he shirk the tea-party?”

She might sigh, and she might complain about being hard-worked, but she appeared to be in very good spirits. She had a bright, dark prettiness made up of vivid colouring, brown wavy hair, and dancing hazel eyes. She had run out in her cap and a highly becoming blue uniform with short puffed-over sleeves of white muslin.

The voice in which she asked about Edward was not really quite low enough. It had a sweet carrying quality. Mrs. Alexander and Dr. Croft’s housekeeper both looked round.

Susan said,

“You had better ask him. I am buying postcards.”

Clarice laughed.

“How discreet you are! But he is here now?”

“Oh, yes.”

“We were quite friends, you know. Oh, years ago—I had only just finished training. I nursed Mr. James Random when he had influenza, and of course I saw quite a lot of Edward. That’s how I came to be here last year when Mr. Random died—he wouldn’t have anyone else. And we all thought Edward was dead! Dreadful—wasn’t it? I’m longing to see him again and hear all about everything! Miss Blake says he won’t utter, but I think he’ll tell me!”

Susan said, “I don’t think—” and then stopped. Edward would have to deal with Clarice himself.

Dr. Croft’s housekeeper said in her slow, heavy way,

“Well, it’s no fault of yours, Mrs. Alexander, and I’m not saying it is, but I do say and I won’t go from it, that things aren’t the equal of what they were before the war. Nobody won’t get me from it that they’re not—not the boot-polish, nor yet the leather you have to shine with it. Nothing’s the same as what it used to be, nor won’t be again, but I’ll take a tin of the black and a tin of the brown and just make the best of them like we’ve all got to nowadays.”

Mrs. Alexander had a fat, comfortable laugh. She said,

“That’s right, Miss Sims, and better put a good face on it. Not but what you won’t find the polish is all right, for I use it myself.”

She moved over to the other end of the counter. The warmth in her voice was for Susan.

“Well, my dear, you’re back again and welcome. What can I do for you?”

Susan bought postcards, and Clarice matches.

“I don’t know where they go to. And Miss Blake said to ask if you had ripe tomatoes—and oh, two pounds of the cooking apples Miss Ora likes. She said you would know.”

Mrs. Alexander looked gratified.

“Why, yes, of course—off our own tree, and I don’t know the name, but it’s a good one. My father always give it a hogshead of water first week in July to swell the apples, and we’ve kept right on doing it. But you’d better have the dozen pounds like Miss Blake always do. Two pounds won’t go no way with Miss Ora—no way at all.”

Edward Random walked down the village street without looking to left or right. As he passed Mrs. Alexander’s shop, Clarice Dean ran out and stopped him. She had a basket full of apples in one hand and a paper bag of ripe tomatoes in the other. Her colour was bright, and so were her eyes. She held out both hands—basket, bag, fruit and all—and cried,

“How wonderful to meet you like this! But I don’t suppose you even remember me—Clarice Dean! I nursed your uncle— do you remember?”

Edward remembered without sentiment. A boy and girl in a garden a long time ago. The girl had been pretty and flirtatious. He said,

“Oh, yes, I remember. How do you do?”

“I’m nursing Miss Blake—Miss Ora Blake. Do you remember what you used to call Miss Mildred?” Her pretty, high laugh floated down the street. She leaned towards him to whisper,

“Miss Mildew! Shocking of you, wasn’t it?”

“Schoolboy manners, I’m afraid.”

She laughed again.

“You were a very nice schoolboy—and you were nearly eighteen! We used to play tennis in the afternoons when your uncle was resting, and you did so improve my game! But I never get time for it now—at least hardly ever, and I expect I’ve gone back a lot. I have to take my time off in the evenings now. We could do a flick if you’d like to. The Royal gets quite good films. Nursing’s a pretty dull job. Do say you will!”

“Well, I’m going to be rather busy taking over from Mr. Barr. Look out—you’re going to spill that fruit!”

She laughed and sparkled at him.

“I’m stupid, aren’t I? It’s being so glad to see you again! You’re going to be Lord Burlingham’s agent, aren’t you? Well, you can’t be taking over all day and all night. Look here, let’s leave it a day or two, and then I can ring you up and we can fix something!”

She ran back into the shop, flushed and smiling.

“That was Edward Random! So he did come after all!”

Susan said, “Yes.”

Clarice laughed.

“Tactful of you not to come out and spoil our little reunion, my dear! You know, I really did know him quite well, and I’m so pleased to see him again. We are going to fix up an evening to go to the pictures! Goodness—I must fly, or Miss Blake will be ringing her bell out of the window! Do you know, she did actually do that once when she thought Nurse Brown had stayed here too long gossiping with Mrs. Alexander!”

Edward walked on down the street. Clarice had changed very little indeed. She was still pretty, and still flirtatious. She seemed very pleased to see him. The warmth of her greeting had actually induced a slight surface glow. He supposed that life with Mildred and Ora would make you pleased to see practically anyone. Clarice dropped out of his mind as suddenly as she had invaded it.

The Miss Blakes lived in one of the late eighteenth-century houses. A bow window on the upper floor was supported by stone pillars set flush with the street and commanded an extensive view. From her couch Miss Ora Blake could see everything that went on from eight o’clock in the morning, when she left her bedroom at the back of the house and was transferred to the sitting-room in front, until after the evening meal, when she went back to her bed again. The move had to be made betimes in the morning, or she would have missed the arrival of the post, which wouldn’t have done at all. She had excellent sight and was able to follow the postman’s progress from one end of the village street to the other. She knew just when Maggie Ledbetter’s young man stopped writing to her, and when young Mrs. Harris had all those letters from abroad. They made quite a lot of talk, until it came out that she had an aunt in Vancouver. Or at least so she said. Her husband came home from the Malay States soon afterwards, and she left Greenings, so of course it was quite impossible to know whether there really was an aunt or not, but the Miss Blakes continued to have their doubts.

Clarice Dean ran lightly up the stairs, leaving the apples and the tomatoes with Mrs. Deacon, who was Miss Blake’s daily and a very good cook. She found Miss Ora very much pleased and interested.

“Now don’t tell me that was Edward Random! Or perhaps I should say don’t tell me it wasn’t, because I could see that it was, and when you ran out of the shop like that I thought—I really thought—you were going to drop all those apples!”

“So did I!”

“Did Mrs. Alexander lend you the basket? It wasn’t one of ours. And what did you have in the paper bag?… Tomatoes? Well, I hope they were ripe. That was one of the things Nurse Brown used to be so tiresome about—just took whatever they gave her and never thought of looking to see if they were ripe. Well, well, why do you go on talking to me about tomatoes, when I want to hear about Edward Random? You seemed very pleased to see him.”

“Oh, I was!”

Miss Ora Blake had a large round pink face, large round blue eyes, and a lot of white fluffy curls surmounted by two bows of blue satin ribbon and a little frill of lace. She gazed solemnly at Clarice and said,

“When I was young a girl wouldn’t have said that.”

“Why not? We saw a great deal of each other when I was here before.”

“Seven years ago.”

Clarice laughed.

“We were very friendly, you know—and I don’t forget my friends.”

Seven years ago! Miss Ora began to make calculations. Edward couldn’t have been much more than a schoolboy—eighteen at the outside. Because he wasn’t more than twenty-five now. She remembered him in his pram. Yes, he would have been eighteen when Miss Dean came down to nurse James Random through that attack of influenza. And she was already trained then. She might look young, but she must be several years older than Edward. That bright colour of hers was deceptive. Miss Ora decided to her own satisfaction that Clarice Dean might quite easily be as much as thirty.

She said tartly,

“That was a very large basket of apples.”

“Mrs. Alexander said—”

“Mrs. Alexander wants to sell her fruit. But my sister Mildred won’t be pleased—she won’t be pleased at all. She will think we have been extravagant. She does not care for fruit herself, and we shall have to be tactful. You had better tell Mrs. Deacon to put the apples away out of sight and return the basket when she goes to her dinner.”

Arnold Random walked down the south drive until he came to the lodge, where he paused for a moment before lifting the latch of the wicket gate. He was a man of medium height with a spare frame and features of the family type. Most of the Randoms had these features—dark and straight, with brown or hazel eyes. But they could be worn with a difference. In James Random they had been permeated with benevolence. Jonathan had not had them at all, having inherited the fair Foxwell strain from his mother—fair and foolish, as local gossip went. In Edward the type had reappeared, emphasized, if anything, by its temporary eclipse. In Arnold it was, as it were, refined. He had the distinguished turn of the head, the upright carriage, and the beautiful hands of the aristocrat. He could, as Lord Burlingham had once remarked, have won a prize for looking down his nose against any man in England. He looked down it now at Emmeline’s garden. Then he lifted the latch, took a few steps along the narrow paved path which led up to the door, and looked again.

The garden was a rectangular patch cut out of the park— flower-beds and roses on this side, and vegetables at the back. It should have been meticulously neat and tidy—a lodge garden should always be tidy. In point of fact it never was, and never had been since his brother James had let Emmeline have it. Arnold frowned at the recollection. It was not that he had any objection to flower-beds as such. He could recall a very neat and tasteful arrangement of scarlet geraniums, yellow calceolarias and blue lobelias, never a dead bloom, never a leaf out of place. But that was in old Hardy’s time. Ever since Emmeline had been here things had been going from bad to worse. Great sprawling Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers. Pink and white anemones. Snapdragon and mignonette growing among the roses. And a lot of other half gone-over things whose names he didn’t pretend to know. And the roses! The place was fairly smothered with them! They certainly throve—the air was quite heavy with their scent. But how unpruned, how completely out of hand! They would certainly have to go. The place was a wilderness. And the climbers on the lodge must be drastically reduced.

It was at this point that something stirred in the undergrowth and Lucifer, late Smut, emerged, walking delicately, black tail uplifted, eyes glowing like jewels in the sun. Mr. Random did not like cats. He said, “Shoo!” Lucifer sprang, did an exciting kind of twist in mid air, came down at right angles, and made off like a flash of black lightning with his tail in a double kink. Scheherazade sunning herself on the windowsill watched unmoved, but Toby, a very ugly cat with abnormally long hind legs and only one ear, jumped down and vanished into a tangle of mint and lavender. He had been kicked and illtreated in his youth before Emmeline rescued him, and he did not quite forget it. When people said “Shoo!” he shoo’d. There were three other cats in sight, but they did not take any notice. Arnold Random looked bleakly at them and let the knocker fall rather hard against Emmeline’s front door.

She had quite a small kitten in her arms as she opened it. Its mother, a pretty grey half-Persian, walked beside her, mewing in a plaintive manner. Emmeline wore a blue smock. Her fair hair was not as tidy as it might have been. She had been turning out her little back room, and that had meant moving Amina and her kittens. Amina didn’t like it at all, and one of the kittens had crawled under the tallboy which had come to her from the same grandmother as the piano, and wouldn’t come out. Amina was rapidly becoming distracted, and it was really a most inconvenient moment for Arnold to call. She would not, of course, have dreamed of letting him know this, so she smiled her sweet, vague smile and said, “How kind of you! Do come in!”

Amina’s basket was, quite temporarily, in the middle of the drawing-room floor. A small shrieking kitten scrabbled at the edge in a frantic effort to escape. Emmeline pushed it back, gave it the one she was holding for company, and carried the basket through to the kitchen, followed by Amina, who walked processionally with her tail stiffly erect and mourned in a really piercing manner.

The noise died down, and Emmeline shut two doors and made her apologies.

“I am so sorry, Arnold. She doesn’t like the kittens being moved.”

“So I observed.”

Emmeline had long ceased to expect warmth from Arnold, but he was not always quite as bleak as this. He was going to be difficult, and she would never get the back room done, to say nothing of the kitten under the tallboy. Trying to look on the bright side, it occurred to her that it might get tired of being there and come out. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed attentively at her brother-in-law. Quite impossible to look at him without seeing that he was put out. Men were rather easily put out by house-cleaning and things being out of their proper place. Even her dear Jonathan, who was always so good-tempered— Her thoughts broke off, because Arnold said,

“I am told that Edward is here.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I am informed that Lord Burlingham is giving him the agency.”

“Oh, yes—so kind of him.”

“Indeed? It had not struck me in that light. If I had to find a word to describe Lord Burlingham’s behaviour I think I should have used the epithet ‘impertinent.’ But there is no need for us to discuss the matter. It merely occurred to me to wonder what arrangement Edward intended to make. I understand that Mr. Barr is to retain the agent’s house, and I must say I should not consider it at all suitable for Edward to lodge in the village, even if there were anyone able and willing to take him in”

A pretty pink colour came into Emmeline’s cheeks.

“But Arnold, he will stay with me. Of course. I have never thought of anything else, and nor has he—at least—”

“That is a pity.”

“Oh, no!”

Arnold had remained standing. He walked now to the window. Another of those accursed cats lay stretched among the cushions of the low, broad seat—a yellow one this time, and probably shedding its hairs all over the place. Even if he had felt any slight weakening—and Emmeline’s eyes had done some heart-melting in their time—the sight would have stiffened him. The place was positively insanitary! He turned and said coldly,

“I am afraid I must ask both you and Edward to make other plans.”

She gazed at him.

“Other plans?”

“Yes. I do not wish to inconvenience you in any way, but Fullerby is quite past his work. It has been obvious for a long time, and I have now given him notice. The gardener whom I am going to engage has a family, and will have to be provided with a cottage. James was only able to offer you this lodge because Fullerby owned his own house in the village.”

Emmeline looked quite bewildered.

“But, Arnold, I’ve been here for sixteen years. I never thought—”

“Perhaps you will do so now. If you are in any doubt about the legal position, let me reassure you. You had no agreement about the lodge, I believe, and you have never paid any rent for it.”

“No,” said Emmeline. Then, after a little pause, “James was a very kind brother.”

He remained where he was, silhouetted against the sunny garden.

“You had no agreement, and you paid no rent. The furniture, such as it is, was, I believe, put into the house and lent to you by James.”

“Some of the things are my own.”

“No doubt. But you cannot claim an unfurnished tenancy. You cannot, in fact, claim a tenancy at all. James allowed you to reside here because he did not require the house for a gardener. I do.”

Emmeline’s hands had remained folded in the lap of her blue smock. Her eyes maintained the wide puzzled look which he found so absurd in a woman of her age. It was almost as if she did not understand what he was saying. He raised his voice.

“As I said, I have no desire to inconvenience you. You will probably want to look round before you settle again. I would suggest that you go into rooms in Embank or anywhere else that may suit you—” He stopped because she was shaking her head.

“No, I should not care about that.”

“Well, of course I have no wish to dictate.”

She looked at him very directly and said,

“It is not because of Fullerby and the new gardener—is it, Arnold? It is because of Edward. You do not like Edward to be here.”

“I do not think it at all suitable that he should be here.”

“It has always been his home, Arnold. It would still be his home if James had not believed that he was dead.”

His cold composure broke.

“Burlingham has given him this agency for the express purpose of making things unpleasant for me! It is, I suppose, his vulgar idea of a joke! Take the black sheep of the family and set him down at your neighbour’s gate! One doesn’t expect anything from a pig but a grunt, but I must say, Emmeline, I am surprised that you should lend yourself to such a discreditable manoeuvre! Since you appear to have an affection for Edward, you ought to be able to see that you are doing him a great disservice by pushing him into the limelight and raking up a lot of things which would be much better forgotten. If you really care for him you would do better to persuade him to go elsewhere.”

She maintained her gaze.

“And if he did?”

“It would be a great deal better for him. If he goes where nobody knows him he can make a fresh start, and there will be no interest in where he has been or what he has done during the last five years. Whereas here—” He threw up his head with a movement which brought his profile into relief. “Why should he come back here, where every second person has some fresh scandalous theory to account for the time he was away? Burlingham’s motive is plain enough. He knows what I think of him, and in his own vulgar parlance, he would like to score me off. But what is Edward’s motive—and what is yours? I tell you, I won’t have it, and if he comes here, you must go!”

The last word was almost shouted. To anyone who did not know him very well indeed the scene would have been a surprising one. Emmeline was not surprised. This slipping of control—she had seen it happen before. Quite suddenly, as it had happened now—when a dog with which he was playing had snapped—when a horse had put his foot in a hole and let him down—when he had done something which he did not care to have known and was confronted with the consequences. She had always known that under an appearance of coolness and reserve there was something in Arnold that was unstable, something which under pressure was liable to slip. She sat looking at him now, and wondered what the pressure might be.

For his part, Arnold was aghast. The interview had got completely out of hand. He was saying all the things he had not meant to say. They burned at the back of his mind, but he had not meant to give them words. He had intended to be calm, reasonable, and dignified. He was engaging a new gardener, he required the lodge, he was reluctantly compelled to ask Emmeline to make other arrangements. There was not to have been the most distant allusion to Edward. Impossible now to revert to the calmly ordered plan.

Emmeline looked at him, her eyes very blue above the faded cotton smock, and said,

“Why are you afraid of Edward coming here?”