The sound of laughter greeted her as she opened the door, and she was pleased to see Alicia lying back in a chair by the fire, while Richard turned to smile at his mother with a more cheerful face than he had had for days.
“Hullo, darling; hullo, Alicia, how nice to see you; have you had some tea?”
“Yes, thank you,” and Alicia indicated the tray.
“Good walk, Betty?”
“Delightful. Look——” she put a little posy of a dark fir spray, a rose hip and a pale rhododendron bud on his pillow—“aren’t they delicious? It’s ages since I’ve had a walk in the woods in winter and I’d forgotten how lovely they can be.”
“It always seems so strange to me when I come home from a walk with wild flowers and see them in an ordinary room, to think that I’ve been all day in a place where everything is like that,” he said as if to himself, inhaling the posy’s sharp cold scent. Alicia thought: now that’s definitely over my head. But H. did like orchids and carnations.
At this moment a distant clamour was heard downstairs in which the word “buns” was wailingly reiterated.
“Oh god, have we eaten their buns?” inquired Alicia guiltily.
“It is without importance,” said Richard, and went on to tell his mother how he had invited Alicia to tea, when Vartouhi bounced into the room demanding:
“Rich-ard, you have taken some buns to eat them? Oh, Miss Ark-wright is here. Good afternoon.”
“Hullo,” said Alicia pleasantly.
“You did cook and eat the buns?”
“Yes, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think,” said Alicia.
“Now there are none for Miss Fielding tea!” said Vartouhi tragically with a beaming smile. “Oh dear, oh dear, Rich-ard!” Everyone laughed.
Vartouhi stood at the door with her cap in one hand and a spray of scarlet berries in her coat, laughing and looking into the room, at Alicia’s peaceful pose by the fire and Richard’s face, happier and less tired than it had been some hours ago. He was looking at her, but more detachedly than usually, and there was no pleading in his eyes.
Vartouhi suddenly said crossly:
“Was very annoying thing to do. Now there is nothing for anyone tea,” and she went out and shut the door sharply after her.
Doesn’t like him getting matey with me, thought Alicia, standing up and putting on her coat with a cheerful face. “I must go; I’m working to-night.”
“Thank you for the books and a very pleasant afternoon. Come again soon,” said Richard tranquilly.
“I will. I’ll tell Miss Fielding about that ‘phone call on my way down. Good-bye.”
Meeting Miss Fielding, who greeted her rather gravely, in the hall, she said:
“Oh, London tried to get you on the ‘phone this afternoon, Miss Fielding, but whoever it was wouldn’t leave any message and rang off when I said you were out.”
“Was it a man or a woman?” demanded Miss Fielding agitatedly; then went on more calmly as Alicia glanced at her in surprise, “I expect it was my sister; she is coming to us for Christmas if she can be spared.”
“It was a man, I think, but the line was so bad, I couldn’t hear a thing.”
“Oh—my brother-in-law, I expect. I will ring them up this evening. Thank you, Alicia. Don’t forget the rehearsal on Wednesday. Good night.”
But after Miss Fielding had got through to her sister after supper and talked with her, she put a very disturbed face round Miss Burton’s door on her way to bed; and whispered to her that there was no doubt who it was who had telephoned that afternoon, and that now she was afraid they must be prepared for the worst at any minute. Miss Burton said, “Oh dear, and just at Christmas, too, how tiresome and worrying it all was.” With which verdict Miss Fielding sombrely agreed.
CHAPTER 18
JOAN FIELDING, WHO was also Mrs. Henry Miles, arrived after lunch on Christmas Eve. She was a large woman of fifty-six, more fashionable than her sister, and her favourite expressions were Nonsense! and Rubbish! which she served up with a loud short laugh like Kenneth’s. She had a war job of some importance in London with an office to herself and four people whose luck was out working under her. Her husband, who belonged to the higher ranks of the Civil Service, had seen to it that her talents—which were genuine—had received this recognition early in the War. Mrs. Miles did not share the international interests and outlook of her sister, but concentrated with vigour upon the work in hand; she enjoyed making people do what she wanted them to, never wearied of detail or routine, and did not take the long view. Her three grown-up children all had war jobs outside the Services which she had found for them and were, so she said, doing well. She fascinated Richard, who found the spectacle of a person without imagination curiously restful. Mr. Miles was to arrive late that evening, when he should be released from his duties, and then the Christmas party would be complete.
Miss Fielding took her sister away for a long private talk after tea. They were going out to dinner that evening with some old friends in the town, and must start early to catch the bus. In spite of the festive green branches that decorated the house and the mysterious parcels arranged about a tiny tree in the dining-room, and the atmosphere of suspense and happiness that filled even this childless household on Christmas Eve, Miss Fielding’s manner was so preoccupied and worried that the party seated about the drawing-room fire noticed it.
“Is something the matter with Constance?” inquired Betty of Miss Burton. “She seems worried.”
“Well, yes, she is, a little,” replied Miss Burton mysteriously, “but I hope it will be all right.”
“It isn’t anything serious, I hope?” pursued Betty.
“What is it?” demanded Richard (who was now downstairs again) looking up from his book. “We should both like to know, and I dislike mysteries.”
“Really, Rick,” said his mother feebly.
“Well——” Miss Burton leant forward and lowered her voice, “as a matter of fact, it is Uncle Eustace.”
“What is Uncle Eustace?” asked Vartouhi loudly, putting half a bun into her mouth.
“S-sh! Miss Fielding’s father.”
“She have a father! And so old!”
“Not so very old—only seventy-eight,” retorted Miss Burton stoutly, but with an inner conviction that seventy-eight was rather old for the facts which she was about to relate. “I ought not to be telling you this really only you may as well be prepared in case he comes here——”
“Comes here!” said Richard, putting down his book. “Is there a chance of his coming here?”
“Oh, more than a chance, I’m afra—I think. He wrote and said he was coming for Christmas. Constance wrote at once and told him that the house was full, but we have heard nothing since—except that telephone call on Sunday which we think must have been from him—and Constance thinks it very likely that he will just—blow in,” ended The Usurper, giggling.
“If he does I shall certainly try to get a room in Blentley,” said Richard. “Miss Fielding won’t want the house overcrowded, and I was thinking of going anyway.”
“You go away, Rich-ard?” murmured Vartouhi, who was sitting next to him in a fireside chair. For the last few days she had been a little more friendly towards him, but he derived no happiness from this change, because he thought that she was only amusing herself by changing her tactics.
“Yes,” he said. “It will be easier for me to work.”
“Will be lonely without you, Rich-ard,” said Vartouhi, so sweetly that he paled, and glanced away from her. You little wretch, I would like to beat you, thought Betty.
“She does not like him, her father?” inquired Vartouhi, turning to Miss Burton. “Why is she not glad to have him come?”
“Well, he has always been rather difficult,” said Miss Burton carefully. “He likes his own way——”
“You remember, darling; he’s always floating night clubs,” said Betty to Richard. “He left old Mrs. Fielding nearly twenty years ago and he’s never lived a
t home since.”
“Of course, his children have seen him in London,” Miss Burton hastily assured Richard, anxious to make the situation seem as wholesome as possible.
“Are you exaggerating when you say that he is always floating night clubs?” asked Richard.
Betty shook her head.
“No; he has a real talent for it. He gets the club going and then puts in a manager and takes a percentage of the profits.”
“It sounds extraordinary, I know,” put in Miss Burton.
“It is extraordinary,” retorted Richard. After a moment’s reflection, he asked:
“Is he talkative?”
“He used to be, rather, I’m afraid,” said Miss Burton reluctantly. After reflecting again Richard announced:
“He sounds like an exhausting personality; a ‘character’; I dislike them, I shall certainly go to Blentley,” and he returned to his book.
“Darling, you will be a character yourself long before you are seventy-eight,” murmured his mother. “Why is he coming?” she went on to Miss Burton.
“Well—he says he is temporarily out of funds.”
“Oh, my goodness,” muttered Richard, without looking up.
“I remember him as a charming man,” said Betty.
“I expect he is greatly changed and aged,” said Miss Burton. “The war, and everything, you know.”
“What is a night club?” asked Vartouhi. “I take away these cups with old tea in because Miss Arkwright is coming presently soon to do the play.”
“I will help you,” said Richard, getting up.
“Now you all know what you have to do!” cried Miss Fielding, sailing in with spirits apparently restored by a course of Nonsense! and Rubbish! and wearing a fur coat down to her ankles. She was followed by Mrs. Miles, wearing a smarter coat.
“You ought to be coming with us, not frowsting by the fire! It would put you right in no time,” said Mrs. Miles playfully, pointing a large kid finger at Richard. “It’s a topping night and the stars are galopshous.”
“No, I want him to take the rehearsal, Joan,” said Miss Fielding, as if there had existed a possibility of Richard’s following Mrs. Miles’s advice. “Vartouhi—where is she?—oh, in the kitchen, never mind—she can read my part. Frances——” Miss Fielding drew her cousin aside and confided to her in a low rapid tone that Joan thought it most unlikely that Father would come; he had always been so opposed to family parties and with all his faults he could take a hint; besides he had so many congenial friends all over England, and so on. Wishful thinking, thought Miss Burton, but she knew better than to disagree with her cousin aloud.
After the sisters had gone, a peaceful silence fell. Vartouhi stared into the fire with the pungent smoke from her cigarette wreathing up into the air and Richard read steadily and occasionally made a note; Betty was making an undergarment for herself and Miss Burton was pleasantly doing nothing.
Miss Fielding said that the heart and eye needed more than ever in war-time the refreshment that flowers alone could bestow, and therefore she saw to it that the porcelain vases held proud snowy chrysanthemums, each like a Chinese prince, and wonderful pink giants with silvery underleaves. The lampshades floated in the warm, dusky firelit air like moons and a delicious smell came from the burning logs. In Europe, Richard suddenly thought, they keep children in bed because there is no fuel to heat the schools. I’m getting soft here. I will go to Blentley.
The front door bell rang.
“Is the old Fielding!” cried Vartouhi enthusiastically and ran out of the room pursued by Miss Burton’s decisive—”Vartouhi, you must not call him that!”
But it was Alicia, with a silly little Christmas present for everybody, including a tiny Hammer and Sickle made of marzipan for Richard.
“Don’t let’s rehearse; I’m much too comfortable and anyway Kenneth isn’t here yet,” said Betty, when they had all laughed over their presents and thanked Alicia and everyone had thought how much pleasanter she had been lately. “He’s seeing a client at Cowater and won’t be back until supper-time.”
“What are you going to do about supper, Alicia?” in quired Miss Burton. “We were just going to have Something on a Tray.”
Alicia held up a packet and said, “Spam, but I’m not hungry, anyway.” Her eyes were shining, for she had passed the afternoon with a man she had met at the three-night party, and she was in her mood of not caring if she died to-morrow because life was such fun and went so fast that there was no time to get browned off.
“I think we ought to rehearse, Connie will be annoyed if we don’t,” said Miss Burton.
“Right. We will do half of the play now, then eat, and the other half when Mr. Fielding comes in,” said Richard, and stepped into the middle of the room, and began straight away upon his opening speech as the Spirit of Pity:
“I look north to the icelands and what do I see? I look east to the ricelands and what do I see? I look west to the cornlands and what do I see? I look south to the grapelands and what do I see?” He paused, and said very quietly and seriously: “Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark.”
“You know,” interrupted Alicia, “I do think this is awfully bad. I mean, I’m not highbrow, but even I can see that. Don’t you agree?” to Richard.
“It is so bad that it is below an intelligent person’s notice” he answered. “I take care that performing in it does not exhaust energies which I require for other purposes; otherwise, I never think about it. Go on, please, Italy.”
Alicia came forward and made a speech intended to express misguided patriotism; and they rehearsed conscientiously until seven o’clock, when Kenneth came in, cheerful and scented with whisky, and insisted on holding a sprig of mistletoe over the four ladies and kissing them. Richard detected a little contempt in Alicia’s eyes but she was the only one; the other three simply giggled and enjoyed the fun. They all got supper together, to the sound of the big radio-gramophone which Kenneth and Richard wheeled into the hall, where they also rolled up the rugs.
“After supper we’ll dance,” said Kenneth with satisfaction. “Now, this is my idea of fun.”
It was Vartouhi’s, too. She darted about helping to get the supper, wearing two squares of brilliant Bairamian embroidery pinned on her head and round her waist as a cap and apron, while her eyes danced and her two little sallow cushions of cheeks were constantly pushed upwards in laughter.
“Enjoying yourself, little girl?” asked Kenneth kindly, going across the hall with a tray of beer, and smiling down at her.
“Oh so I enjoy myself, Mr. Fielding!” looking up at him glowingly, “This is the firs’ time in this house I am enjoying so much, laughing all the time!”
“Good. That’s the spirit. Must be a bit dull for you here usually, I’m afraid, with no one young about the place.”
He spoke without an afterthought or a pang for his own youth, lost long ago in his broken engagement and the Other War, for something of that youth lived on in his heart, and made him amused at the simplest jokes and ready to enjoy a sunny morning, the discomforts of Home Guard duty, an unexpected adventure, as if he were still twenty-five.
Vartouhi nodded. “Is rather dull a bit sometimes, Mr. Fielding, but I am like be here. Is a grand rich large house, Mr. Fielding, and you are so kind, too also.”
“I am? Oh—well—I don’t know about that, Vartouhi. I’m—we’re all fond of you, you know, and want you to be happy here. Some day when all this beastly business is over you’ll be going back to your own country and we want you to have good memories of England.”
“You are so kind, Mr. Fielding,” repeated Vartouhi earnestly, not seeming to hear what he said. “You let me walk by the peach trees in the summer when I am so unhappy liking for my home, and you take so a care of me when I am out in the raid. I never seen you unkind, Mr. Fielding, even to Pony the cat.”
Kenneth threw back his head and laughed; then patted her hand. She smiled in sympathy, watching his face.
“I say a funny joke
again?”
“No, no, it’s all right. You’re a dear little girl, Vartouhi. And to-morrow—ha! ha! We shall see! Present for a good little girl!”
“Is a prasent, Mr. Fielding? Is a prasent for me?”
“Ah—ha! That’s tellings! If we don’t take this beer in the chill will be off it—come along!”
She followed him into the drawing-room. Richard had inadvertently overheard this conversation from the kitchen and was reflecting upon it as he sliced bread. She likes him, he thought, just as she dislikes me. She looks up to him because he’s older and richer and more sensible and reliable than I am—and than she is, too. How naturally he said No one young about the place—and I am only twenty-six. That is young, though it never occurs to me to think of myself as young. It never does occur to the young, of course, except when they think of their youth as an intellectual concept which explains their difficulties. Neither he nor she is intelligent, but what does that matter? She enchants people, and he is the type of man, simple and tough and kind and brave, that wins wars and founds empires. It is surprising how irritating those fundamental virtues can be at close quarters. Now there is Geoffry, who is neither simple nor tough nor even particularly kind, though he is certainly brave, yet because he tries to tell the truth to himself and is scrupulously careful not to grab or be a bore, he and I get on admirably together and I respect and like him as I could never respect or like Fielding. It is a question of temperament, I think, not of age. I don’t find Uncle Howard and Uncle Prosper bores. And all this analysis of the situation does not prevent my being jealous of Fielding.