The Coldstone (14 page)

They came back on to the road and walked in silence until they came to the place where the trees ended and the empty road ran sharply down the hill. Then Susan said,

“Good-bye—I'll take the bicycle now.”

“Where am I to go?” inquired Anthony. He held the bicycle by the handle and spoke with deceptive meekness.

“You can finish your walk—and the song about William—you stopped in the middle of his being murdered.”

“Not murdered, only carried off by the pressgang. Would you like to hear the rest of it?”

“No,” said Susan. Then she said “Goodbye” again.

Anthony's manner changed.

“Susan—when am I going to see you again?”

“I don't know.”

“I must see you.”

“You can always come and call on Gran.”

“And have you make that beastly bob, and call me sir, and never take your eyes off your sewing.”

“I was brought up to order myself lowly and reverently to my betters—
sir,
” said Susan. She put her head a little on one side and looked impudently at him. “Gran loves visitors,” she said.

“I might
want
to see you—” he began.

“Gran would say, ‘Then want must be your master.'”

“Is that what you say?”

Susan changed again. She said “Anthony,” bit her lip, and stopped.

“Susan—”

She flushed, and twisted the bicycle out of his hand with a jerk.

“Susan—I must be able to see you.”

She was walking away from him. Just as she came out into the full sunshine, she looked back over her shoulder.

“The family ghost might walk,” she said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Where ha' you been?” said old Mrs. Bowyer. The sun had just gone off the geraniums in her window, and she was watering them out of an old lustre jug.

Susan shut the door and kissed the tips of her fingers to her.

“Don't you ask no questions, and you won't get told no lies, Gran.”

“Ho!” said Mrs. Bowyer. She poured the last drop out of the coppery jug with the bright blue band on it; then she turned and fixed her bright black eyes on Susan. “Ho! So that's the way of it? And who is he, my maid?”

“You weren't to ask questions.”

“H'm!” said Mrs. Bowyer. She went into the kitchen and hung the jug on its own particular hook on the dresser. Then she came back.

Susan was looking out of the window. She spoke without turning round:

“Why did you think I'd been meeting someone, Gran?”

“By the look in your face,” said old Susan Bowyer. She sat down in her rocking-chair. “I been young myself, though 'twas so long ago.”

Susan turned round.

“Were you married very young? You were cousins, weren't you? I suppose you'd known him always?”

“No, I hadn't. I hadn't set eyes on him since I was a matter of five years old. You see, 'twas this way. His father and my father was brothers—William and Thomas. My father kept the gardens at Stonegate—a proper gardener my father was. And Thomas, he went off to Fletchley—a matter of thirty miles away, because it stands to reason he couldn't be head gardener at Stone-gate, not with my father there, and he wouldn't bend his pride to be second. So he went to Sir John Tuffnell that had a place at Fletchley. And William was brought up at Fletchley and went into the garden under his father. And when I was a matter of seventeen years old, my father broke his leg, and Mr. James Colstone, that was Sir Jervis' father, he said ‘You take and send for that nephew of yours—I hear he's a likely lad, and he can do as you tell him and keep things going till you're about again.' So Father he sent for William, and William he came along—and that was the first I saw of him that I could remember.”

“And you fell in love with him at once?”

Mrs. Bowyer tossed her head.

“I never thought nothing about him, though there was others that did. That Cis Dickson fair stared her eyes out of her head at him. I never fancied Dicksons afore nor since, and never thought as any son of mine would ha' looked twice at one, and what Thomas ever saw in the girl is more than I can tell you. But
there,
he never had much sense, Thomas hadn't. Some has sense, and some has looks—and Thomas hadn't neither, and he took up with Cis Dickson's youngest when he was old enough to know better, and I don't never feel that their childern's my flesh and blood. There's only one of them left now.”

“Gran!”

“I don't—never did, and never shall.”

“But Cis Dickson didn't get William.”

“It wasn't for want of trying though. A boldfaced hussy and a runabout, that's what she was.”

“But he married you.”

“I married him,” said Mrs. Bowyer—“after he'd asked me eleven times, without counting the time parson come right into the middle of, nor the time I wouldn't listen to him because I wouldn't demean myself after I seen him talking to Cis.”

“How harsh of you!”

“Harsh or no, I got him—and I kep' him,” said old Mrs. Bowyer, with a triumphant nod.

Susan turned away and touched a pink geranium petal, stroking it half absently with the tip of her finger.

“You lived a long time together.”

Mrs. Bowyer looked back over her hundred years.

“Not so long—fifty years—it's not so long. William died young, my dear.”

“But you were happy—” Susan did not look at Mrs. Bowyer, but Mrs. Bowyer looked at her.

“Middling, my dear, middling,” she said. The old voice was very sweet.

Susan began to speak, stopped, and began again:

“What makes people happy, Gran? When they're married, I mean.”

“Theirselves—just their own selves. There's a lot of foolish talk about making folks happy. They got to make themselves happy—nobody can't do it for them. Nobody can't eat your dinner for you—you've got to eat it yourself. Only you mind this, Susan—don't you go marrying a lad because he's good company, or because there's other girls wants him, or because he's saved a bit. You take the lad that's got a kindness for you—for there's a deal of kindness wanted when you're married.”

In at one side of Susan's mind and out of the other there slipped a vivid impression of Anthony Colstone's voice changing when he said, “I don't want you to tell me anything you don't want to.” She moved away from the window with a little laugh.

“When anyone has asked me eleven times, I'll bring him along for you to vet!”

She stopped suddenly by the table. A large bible reposed in the midst of it, flanked by a jar of roses and a pot of purple stocks. In front of the bible lay a small crumpled handkerchief. Susan picked it up and turned it this way and that. She felt startled. She had picked up a handkerchief last night; she had left it folded neatly in the top right-hand drawer of the chest of drawers in her bedroom. And here it was, on the table in front of the bible, all crumpled up—plain fine linen with three wavy lines round the edge.

Susan stepped back and held it up.

“Where did this come from, Gran?”

“Miss Arabel dropped it.”

Susan turned it over, looking down at it, not looking at Mrs. Bowyer at all.

“When did she drop it?”

“She's been in this morning. She often comes, Miss Arabel does, when there's ought going on.” Mrs. Bowyer laughed. “Never knew her equal for seeing into things.”

“And she left her handkerchief?”

“Never knew her go away without leaving something. If 'tisn't her handkerchief, 'tis her bag, or maybe 'tis a letter she was meaning to post, and then by-and-by she'll come in all of a fluster and—' Oh, Susan, now did I leave—now I wonder whether—did you notice—I'm afraid I must have left my handkerchief!' 'Tis mostly her handkerchief. She'll be in along of that by-and-by, you'll see.”

Susan folded up the handkerchief slowly.

“What do you mean by ‘seeing into things?'”

“Why, my dear, just wanting to know the why and the wherefore of everything 'at's going on. There's times when I could have took up my best pot of geraniums and thrown it at her.”

“How violent!”

“That sort makes you feel violent.” Mrs. Bowyer nodded. “She'll ask questions quicker 'n I can shell peas, and I've looked at one of they pots many a time and thought I wouldn't grudge it, not if it was the best plant I'd got.”

Susan put the handkerchief back in front of the bible. She laughed a little.

“You'll finish up in prison, Gran! What's Miss Arabel been asking questions about?”

“All sorts,” said Mrs. Bowyer in a mysterious voice.

Anthony was just going out after lunch, when he met his Cousin Arabel. She emerged from the gate of the Ladies' House, fluttered across to him, and looked up appealingly.

“I was just coming over to ask—you won't mind, I know—but I needn't keep you—I see you are going out—I can just ask Lane—that is, of course, if you do not object.”

He wondered what on earth this was all about. She had quite a bright pink colour in her cheeks. Under the shady black hat her eyes were bright and blue. A little fluff of silver hair stood out becomingly.

“Did you want to see me, Cousin Arabel?”

“Oh, but I needn't trouble you—I couldn't dream of troubling you—if you didn't mind my asking Lane to let me go into the library and see if I dropped a handkerchief there—”

Anthony's attention was arrested. He had picked up a handkerchief in the library last night. Was it Miss Arabel who had cried out in the dark behind the door? How could it have been Miss Arabel?

He said “A handkerchief?” because he simply had to say something.

“Yes,” said Miss Arabel eagerly—“in the afternoon! I called to ask Mrs. Hutchins for her recipe for marrow jam—not, of course, that it's time to make it yet, but I happened to think of it—and I also wanted to know whether she had heard from her cousin's daughter, Mary Louisa Berry, who has gone away to service in Salisbury, and I'm afraid she hasn't been writing home as regularly as she might, so we asked Mrs. Hutchins, who has been quite like an aunt to her, though only a cousin really—a second cousin once removed—we asked her to write and point out how
wrong
it was to cause her poor mother so much anxiety—a widow too, and a most respectable and worthy woman, but not very quick with her pen—but then, of course, education is so much better now than it used to be—isn't it?”

“I expect so,” said Anthony. He felt a little bewildered.

“And I hope you don't think it was a liberty?”

“How could it be?”

“My coming in to see Mrs. Hutchins when you were out.”

“Oh,
please,
Cousin Arabel.” There was a genuine embarrassment in his voice.

Miss Arabel fluttered a little.

“Agatha said we ought to be most particular about not running in and out. She said we ought to make it a
rule.
”

“I hope you will always come when you want to,” said Anthony.

If she had dropped the handkerchief in the afternoon, she couldn't have dropped it in the middle of the night. But he couldn't help wondering why her inquiries about marrow jam and Mary Louisa Berry should have taken her into the library.

Miss Arabel must have had the same thought, for she was already explaining:

“And whilst I was there, I just popped into the library to put back a book which I had inadvertently taken away with me when we moved—I can't think how I came to be so careless. It was—it was the second volume of
The Newcomes.
Thackeray is always so very delightful, don't you think?—and improving too—only I find it takes me rather a long time to read one of his books right through. I hope you
don't
think I took a liberty.”

Anthony escorted her back to the library and assisted her to look for the vanished handkerchief.

She explained that she was sure she must have dropped it when she was putting the book back, because she remembered having it in her hand then—“So I'm sure I didn't drop it in the housekeeper's room, where I was talking to Mrs. Hutchins—no, I'm quite sure about that—but it doesn't seem to
be
here—does it? And I mustn't take up any more of your time, I know.”

Anthony was polite. He thought afterwards that he had been too polite, because she stayed for at least another twenty minutes. She wanted to know whether he had not enjoyed his friend's visit very much, and whether he did not find the house very lonely now he was all by himself. “But of course you will be filling the house with young people.” She put her head on one side and looked at him questioningly.

“Most of my friends are in India.”

“But you will make others—people in the neighbourhood will call. I suppose, now, some of them have called already.”

“Yes,” said Anthony.

“The Pollens—or the Thane-Bromleys—have they called?”

“Mr. Thane-Bromley has.”

“He is very much respected,” said Miss Arabel. “I suppose Lord Haverton hasn't called?”

“He has asked me to go over to lunch there next week.”

Miss Arabel fluttered.

“Oh dear—and I suppose you will go. He had such a—such a regrettable quarrel with dear Papa—but of course he is a very charming man. You haven't met him?”

“He knew my uncle.”

“Ah—your uncle. The one who brought you up?”

“Yes.”

“How strange! Such a different neighbourhood. It seems very odd. Did they meet abroad? I believe Lord Haverton has been abroad.”

“They were college friends.”

By the time Miss Arabel had informed herself as to his Uncle James' school and college, together with his age, his tastes, his family connections, and other details, Anthony had begun to wonder whether life was long enough to see very much of his Cousin Arabel. When she had finished with Uncle James, she began about India. Her departure left him rather depleted. Not since he had struggled through his last promotion exam had he had so much information extracted from him.