Crampton Hodnet (15 page)

At this point Miss Morrow found herself being addressed.

‘Where were you, Miss Morrow?’ said Miss Doggett sharply. ‘I told you to keep near me with my mackintosh cape in case it started to rain. I couldn’t see you anywhere.’

‘Oh, Miss Doggett, I do hope you didn’t get wet,’ said Miss Morrow anxiously.

Miss Doggett, who was perfectly dry, did not answer. Whether she had got wet or not was hardly the point. ‘Where is Mr. Latimer?’ she asked, peering round the room. ‘Where is he?’

Miss Morrow almost expected that she might be blamed for his absence and sent to look for him, as she was sent to look for Miss Doggett’s knitting, spectacles or library book. ‘Perhaps he has gone to evensong,’ she said, but the suggestion was a helpful rather than an intelligent one.

‘Evensong at four o’clock!’ said Miss Doggett scornfully.

‘Well, I expect he is quite safe somewhere,’ said Mrs. Cleveland comfortably. ‘After all, he is old enough to take care of himself!’ It was a mistake to be always bothering about people, she thought. Much better to leave them alone.

‘The rain has stopped,’ said the vicar, clapping his hands. ‘On with the motley! Come along, everybody!’

‘I must buy
something
,’ said Mrs. Cleveland rather desperately. ‘I suppose it had better be jam and cake, they always
come in
, don’t they …?’

‘Needle-case in the form of a harp,’ said Miss Morrow unexpectedly, i always think that sounds so pretty.’

‘I’ve got a
darling
little thing,’ said Lady Beddoes enthusiastically. ‘But now I’m afraid I really must go. I
have
enjoyed myself. You must all come and see me whenever you’re in London.’

Miss Doggett thanked her on behalf of everyone. ‘We should of course let you know if we were coming,’ she added.

‘Oh, you needn’t do that,’ Lady Beddoes assured her. ‘I love surprises.’ Her face lit up as if in anticipation of one day peeping through the net curtains and seeing the whole of North Oxford on her doorstep.

After the car had gone, Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow walked slowly home. The sun shone into the drawing-room, bright gleams of it twisting through the dark, spiky branches of the monkey-puzzle. But it was the gentle evening sun which would not fade the carpet, and so it was allowed to come in.

Miss Morrow always enjoyed these summer evenings. The effect of light and sunshine on the heavy furniture, the dark covers, the silver-table, the Bavarian engravings, even on the photograph of Canon Tottle, gave her the idea that there might be a life beyond this, where even the contents of Miss Doggett’s drawing-room might be bathed in a heavenly radiance. It was a confused and certainly quite wrong idea but a pleasing and comforting one, to imagine the whole of North Oxford, its houses and inhabitants, lifted just as they were into heaven, where all the objects would be the same in themselves but invested with a different meaning from that which they had on earth. They would all be dear, treasured things because they would be part of the heavenly atmosphere. It was not difficult, Miss Morrow thought, to imagine that heaven might be something like North Oxford. Certainly if there were any buildings there the architecture might well be Gothic—and why not the Victorian Gothic of North Oxford rather than the thirteenth-century Gothic of a continental cathedral? For one would surely feel at home in heaven, and who could feel at home in a cathedral? And really North Oxford was not as ugly as people who had never studied it were apt to think. It had many beauties, some of them not hard to find. There was winter, a time of leafless trees and evergreens, a comfortable season of wool-winding and brisk walks in rather too many clothes; then spring, with the first almond blossom seen in the light of a street lamp, the forsythia and the prunus. And when summer came there was almost too much beauty—the laburnum, the red hawthorn, the lilac, the syringa, and always the monkey-puzzle, somehow omniscient because it was there all the year round, never changing. And the people … here Miss Morrow’s idea grew even more confused, for she sometimes found it hard to imagine any heavenly version of Miss Doggett which would still be at all recognisable as the earthly one. And surely we should all know each other in that fuller life?

‘Lady Beddoes is a charming woman,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘So very interesting to talk to. She has had so much in her life.’

‘I don’t think she looks very happy,’ said Miss Morrow.

‘Well, of course, it is only a few years since her husband was taken from her. One could hardly expect her to look happy.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ said Miss Morrow doubtfully. ‘I thought there was something rather pathetic about her, if you know what I mean. Something
lost
, as if her life were without purpose.’

Miss Doggett repeated that of course she had only lately lost her husband.

‘But I think she’s always been like that,’ persisted Miss Morrow. ‘I got that impression, anyway.’

‘Dinner is just going in,’ said Miss Doggett, ignoring her companion’s remarks. ‘It is rather late. We mustn’t have a heavy meal.’ 

It seemed as if she hadn’t got all she had expected out of life, reflected Miss Morrow, still thinking of Lady Beddoes. Perhaps she had now given up hope of getting anything, if there was anything. But was there? And if there was anything, wasn’t it often much less than people expected? Wasn’t it moments, single hours and days, rather than months and years? With her mouth full of ham and beetroot and rather tough lettuce—Miss Doggett always took the tender leaves for herself—Miss Morrow pondered on these problems. But by the time the cornflour blancmange arrived she had found no satisfactory answer, and Miss Doggett had gone on to speak of other things.

‘Miss Morrow,’ she said, ‘I hope you are not allowing yourself to get silly about Mr. Latimer. Mrs. Wardell thought she saw you sheltering together in the tool shed.’

Miss Morrow bent her head. There was really nothing she could say. She could hardly explain to Miss Doggett that what Mrs. Wardell had seen had been the end of a Great Love and not the beginning.

‘I think I have passed the age when I could get silly over a man,’ she said demurely.

‘That is just the trouble,’ said Miss Doggett in a warning tone. ‘A plain woman no longer young is often the most likely to lose her head.’

Miss Morrow put up a hand to hers as if to reassure herself that it was still there. A plain-looking woman no longer young. It was almost comforting to be described so neatly and in so few words, she felt. It made it impossible to realise that such a woman had had the chance of becoming Mrs. Stephen Latimer. It stopped one from getting ideas, and that was surely a good thing.

‘Well, Mother, who do you think will be the first to arrive?’ said Edward Killigrew, pacing eagerly about the drawing-room. ‘I think it will be Miss Doggett.’

‘Did you remember to bring the cakes from Boffin’s, dear?’ asked his mother.

‘Oh, Mother, you know I did,’ said Edward, a little impatiently. ‘You can’t ask people to tea and give them nothing to eat.’

‘No,’ said Mrs. Killigrew sardonically, ‘even one’s friends expect more than that. But this afternoon we shall have interesting news for them as well as cakes. That is good.’ She took a little mirror out of her reticule. She was a fine-looking old woman of nearly eighty, very proud of her thick white hair and still good complexion. She was reputed to be of German origin and a slightly guttural quality in her speech sometimes betrayed this, although nobody knew for certain where she had come from. She had somehow always been in Oxford, first as a domineering wife and mother and then as a mother only. She did not entertain very much now but occasionally gave a tea party to which she asked her old friends. ‘I cannot be bothered with young people now,’ she used to say. ‘It gives me more pleasure to see how much older my contemporaries look than I do.’

‘I thought Olive Fremantle was looking very doddery at the Randolph College garden party,’ she said in a satisfied tone. ‘She ought to have let Herbert receive the guests by himself. ‘He is quite capable of it.’

‘The Master of Randolph College and Mrs. Fremantle,’ announced Esther, the stiff, old-fashioned parlourmaid.

‘Dear Charlotte,’ said Olive Fremantle in a quavering voice, ‘you look
splendid
. I’ve been quite poorly.’ She was a small, insignificant woman, who had always been overshadowed by her husband.

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Edward, hovering round with chairs and cushions. ‘It’s not quite so hot today, I think. I always find the heat rather trying myself. Ah, here are Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow. Now we are all here.’

‘Well, Charlotte, you look younger than any of us,’ said Miss Doggett.

‘I expect she’ll see us all in our graves yet,’ said her son jovially. But behind his joviality there lurked a fear that it might be true. Of course Mother was his whole life and he would be quite lost without her, but he occasionally wondered if it might not be rather pleasant to be quite lost.

‘How are you, Miss Morrow?’ asked Mrs. Killigrew graciously. ‘It is many weeks since I have seen you.’

‘I am very well, thank you,’ said Miss Morrow, feeling that she ought to curtsy and say ‘ma’am’. She had been acknowledged now and could sink back into her usual comfortable obscurity. She found a chair, not one into which she could exactly sink back, but a low, curved one covered in tapestry. There was a great deal of tapestry in the room altogether. It would seem that Mrs. Killigrew had spent the greater part of her life in working chair-seats and fire-screens. There were also antimacassars and cushion covers in Berlin wool-work and little tables covered with dust-collecting souvenirs from foreign lands. The room was in many ways like Miss Doggett’s drawing-room, except that it somehow lacked the Victorian dignity of Leamington Lodge. There was something almost continental about Mrs. Killigrew’s room, Miss Morrow always thought. Perhaps it was the large gilt-framed mirror over the mantelpiece that gave it this air. One imagined supper for two in a gold-and-red-plush apartment somewhere in Vienna or Berlin in the seventies or eighties. It might well be that Mrs. Killigrew’s German origin was responsible for this atmosphere. But whatever it was, it was a flavour of something long dead, which made it a good setting for this afternoon’s tea party.

‘Edward went up to the British Museum last week,’ said Mrs. Killigrew, in a clear voice as if she were giving out the text for a sermon.

‘What are you working on now?’ asked Dr. Fremantle. He was a tall, stooping man with a grey, bushy beard.

‘I had to look at Gerard Langbaine’s supposed translation of
The Gallant Hermaphrodite
,’ he said in a precise voice.

‘Oh, how very interesting,’ said Mrs. Fremantle, clasping her hands. She had made this remark on every possible occasion during forty years of married life among academic society and had gained the reputation of being a sympathetic and intelligent listener.

‘Doesn’t Francis Cleveland specialise in that period?’ asked Mrs. Killigrew with an air of innocence.

Miss Doggett looked grim. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he does.’ It was obvious that the Killigrews had a piece of news, she decided. The realisation made her feel frustrated and angry, for ever since she had seen her nephew having tea with Miss Bird in Fuller’s before Christmas and had heard of Michael and Gabriel’s encounter in the Botanical Gardens, she had been looking out for further developments. And now it seemed as if somebody else had forestalled her. It was really most annoying.

‘Yes, Edward saw him there.’ Mrs. Killigrew paused impressively. ‘I wonder if you would pass me a piece of sandwich cake, dear? I can’t take anything very rich.’

‘Very wise of you, Charlotte,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘If only everyone would follow your example,’ she added, with a glance at Miss Morrow, who was struggling with a piece of sticky fruit-cake.

‘Miss Morrow and I are digging our graves with our teeth,’ said Edward, helping himself to a piece of the same cake.

Oh, dear, thought Olive Fremantle, I hope they’re not going to forget all about Mr. Cleveland. It had sounded as if they had something interesting to say about him. One could always be sure that whenever dear Charlotte gave a tea party it was because she had some special piece of news to impart to her guests.

But the Killigrews had not forgotten. They were keeping their guests in suspense a little longer, so that the titbit they had for them might be all the more appreciated when it came.

‘Now, we are not gossips,’ said Mrs. Killigrew. ‘We do not tell stories about people for our own amusement.’

There was an almost perceptible pricking up of ears and drawing forward of chairs.

‘But there are some things which ought not to be kept secret,’ she went on, ‘and this afternoon we are going to tell you something which we think too important to be withheld.’

We
, thought Edward rather bitterly. ‘It’s
my
story, Mother,’ he said petulantly. ‘I think you’d better let me tell it.’

‘Very well, dear,’ said his mother encouragingly. ‘Tell them what you heard and saw.’

‘Yes, tell us. It is your duty, and we have a right to know,’ said Miss Doggett impatiently. ‘I am Francis Cleveland’s aunt’ she added, giving the words a rather fuller meaning than was usual.

Edward then went on to tell how he had happened to see Francis Cleveland and Barbara Bird together and had followed them to the manuscripts and overheard their conversation.

‘“
I love you, Barbara. I love you”,’ he repeated solemnly and with a rather ridiculous attempt at fervour.

‘And what did she say?’ asked Miss Doggett eagerly.

‘He asked if she loved him and she said “yes” in a very low voice. And then
they went away together
.’ He gave these last words an awful emphasis.

‘Where did they go?’ asked Mrs. Fremantle. ‘Were you able to see?’

‘To Lyons’ Corner House,’ declared Edward solemnly, apparently unconscious of any incongruity or falling-off in the ending to his story.

Miss Morrow bent her head down to hide a smile. After the declaration, they went to Lyons’ Corner House. No doubt they had felt the need of a place like that. The atmosphere of the British Museum was too rarefied; there was too much past history and too many fragments of ancient greatness. ‘How small a part of time they share’ … ‘Youth’s a stuff will not endure’ … one didn’t want to be reminded of that. One wanted rather the cosiness and liveliness of a crowd of people eating and drinking—the gleam of the Britannia-metal teapots and hot water jugs, the smell of hot buttered toast and cigarette smoke. And perhaps an orchestra, dressed in Hungarian gipsy costumes, with white satin blouses and broad coloured cummerbunds. Miss Morrow knew the Corner Houses and found herself wondering what the decoration of that particular room had been. She remembered one with high, noble walls and ceiling and vaguely baroque carvings, a general atmosphere of white and gold, almost more suitable for sacred love than profane, perhaps hardly more sympathetic than the British Museum itself.