The Flowering Thorn (11 page)

“What the 'ell d'you mean by kicking up that racket?” said the head grimly. “Can't you see we're closed?”

With marked absence of mind Toby produced a handful of silver and looked at it reflectively.

“Oh, so that's what you were thinking of,” said the head. “Well, you can bleeding well think again. And if I 'ear so much as a pin drop, I'll give the 'ole lot of you in charge.”

It was curious, but without a word spoken, and almost before the slamming of the sash had ceased to echo, they found themselves moving at a good brisk pace towards the next turning.

“My
God!
” said Elissa at last. “The
country!
”

“I know it is,” said Lesley apologetically.

“Oh, but darling, it isn't your fault! Of course not! Only—really”—words failed her, and with a sweep of her bare arm she indicated the sun, the sky, and the Vale of Aylesbury—“it all seems so ridiculous.”

“Perhaps we'd better turn back,” said Lesley. “There's plenty of stuff at the cottage.” She spoke with the regulation lightness, but her heart was heavy. To keep one's guests supplied with drink was almost the first law of hospitality: that she had never before had to connect it with a knowledge of opening times might possibly explain the present fiasco, but could hardly excuse it.

“Let's go back to the cottage,” repeated Lesley brightly.

In silence they turned their faces. Fearful of losing her way, Lesley now kept them to the road, where a cloud of whitish dust scuffed with every step round the folds of her companions' trousers. Though nearly half-past five, it was still exceedingly hot; the skin round her nose felt sticky with sweat, and the skin round Elissa's was obviously feeling the same. They both walked with their heads down, as though in a futile effort to avoid the sun; and it was therefore Toby who first observed, on the fringe of a second hamlet, the inconspicuous hostelry of the Two Ploughmen.

It was open.

Like moths to a flame they hastened forward, Elissa leading and Lesley in the rear. She had never before entered any of the local bars, and was now experiencing a most curious reluctance to do so; but the others were at once the life and soul of the party. They were now four again, having been rather surprisingly overtaken, just inside the door, by Bryan Collingwood.

“I thought you were going back in the car?” said Elissa uncharitably.

“Well, I didn't,” snapped Bryan. “I wanted some exercise. You're exactly the colour of your jacket, darling.”

And now—the irony of it!—just as they had settled down to be thoroughly happy and get a little tight, it was Lesley's ungrateful business to get them away. Six o'clock passed, and seven: already the supper—the carefully-thought-out, Fortnum-and-Mason supper—would be waiting on the table: the
bortch
was being heated, Mrs. Sprigg was wanting to go home: when Patrick would get to bed had become a matter for speculation. And then Teddy and Natasha—‘Damn!' thought Lesley—there were their suppers too to think of, beside the Russian salad Mrs. Sprigg didn't know about.… Yes, certainly they must go at once, before Toby could order another round. Lesley pulled herself together.

“Supper, darling?” said Elissa vaguely. “Why can't we have dinner here? It's a
lovely
place.…”

As briefly as possible Lesley referred to the other guests, to Mrs. Sprigg, and even to Patrick's bedtime. Elissa heard her with every appearance of interest, and as soon as she had finished began to talk rapidly and well about the late Serge Diaghaleff. With a feeling remarkably near dislike, Lesley turned her back and appealed to the others. They too were happy, but not quite so happy as Elissa; who, at Lesley's suggestion, was now lifted bodily from her stool and carried outside. Once in the open air, however, her mood changed: so long as Toby had his arms round her, she didn't care where she went.

4

The evening being now comparatively cool, and the way back a little over two miles, the party that arrived at the cottage was almost completely sober. The gain on the moral roundabouts, however, was a loss on the social swings, and Lesley was extremely glad when the sight of Mrs. Sprigg at the gate gave her an excuse to leave her companions and hurry on.

“So there you are!” the old woman greeted her. “Well, you've 'ad a lovely day for your walk, and I've give Pat 'is supper, and put 'im to bed.”

The placid good sense of her was so like a physical relief that Lesley drew a deep sigh.

“Ah! you're tired out, Miss Frewen, and I don't wonder. If only you'd told me you was goin' to 'Ambly I'd 'ave sent you a short cut. Did you see the church?”

“Only from the outside,” said Lesley.

“Ah! You ought to 'ave gone in. My granfer's buried there, and a proper old villain 'e was,” said Mrs. Sprigg. “I s'pose you didn't go in the church at Woodey neither?”

For half-a-second Lesley's brain sought vainly for the proper, the dignified rebuke. It was no use. Not with Elissa in those trousers. So instead, and with a sudden feeling of relief, she said exactly what was in her mind.

“I suppose it
is
rather a conspicuous party. Have we been spreading alarm all along the route?”

With a great understanding the shrewd eyes travelled slowly from Bryan to Toby Ashton, from Toby to Elissa, and so from Elissa to Lesley again.

“Now don't you go worrying about that,” she said. “Everyone thought they was 'ikers.”

CHAPTER FOUR

In rapid succession Lesley now made up Natasha's bed, gave Elissa the hot water intended for the coffee, and put on another kettleful in its place. She then lit the sitting-room fire, gave the second lot of hot water to the men, put the kettle on again, helped Mrs. Sprigg carve the chicken, and finally made the coffee. The Russian salad she temporarily abandoned, but even so the clock had struck nine before they sat down to eat.

It was then, for the first time, and reminded only by the number of places, that she remembered Natasha and Teddy Lock.

“But darling, you don't expect them
back
, do you?” asked Elissa innocently. She had one eye on Bryan Collingwood, and Lesley mistrusted what she was going to say next.

“Don't be absurd, darling, of course I do. They've probably gone out again. Mrs. Sprigg! Has the big white car been back this evening?”

But Mrs. Sprigg put her head through the hatch and shook it violently.

“Not it, Miss Frewen. The gentleman's staying over to Thame, at the Yellow Swan.”

“There you are!” said Elissa, returning to her
bortch.

They were both wrong, however: about halfway through the meal a light shone in Pig Lane, someone laughed in the orchard, and Teddy and Natasha knocked at the door. They had just dashed up and had tea in Town, they said, and was it really as late as nine o'clock?

“It doesn't matter if it is,” said Lesley, disguising as best she could a faint quiver of disappointment. “Sit down, both of you, and find something to eat.”

On the other side of the table Elissa set down her glass.

“And then tell us all about it,” she said brightly. “Where did you have tea?”

“At the Carlton,” said Natasha, reaching for a plate.

Elissa opened her eyes.

“Darling? In shorts?”

“No. In a frock and things,” explained Natasha vaguely. “We found a shop open.…”

With sudden violence Bryan pushed back his chair and said he was going for a walk. From a certain familiarity in his expression Lesley judged that he might be going to commit suicide; but really she was too tired to bother.

“But, darling,” Elissa was saying. “How selfish of you to change in the car! Never mind, we'll make you display afterwards. Won't we, Lesley?”

“I have the stockings now,” said Natasha obligingly; and pushing back her chair slid unexpectedly into the splits.

“I learnt that when I was a little girl,” she explained, apparently admiring the effect as much as anyone else. “It is very nice, if you have good legs.…”

2

The meal proceeded. Shortly after the cold capon, however, and under the pretence of speaking to Mrs. Sprigg, Lesley left the supper-table and went for a short walk. She went only as far as the tool-house and back, and smoked about two-thirds of a cigarette: but it was like a foretaste of some beautiful universe inhabited by one person to a world. Then she went back to the kitchen and found Mrs. Sprigg on the point of departure.

“I got to go now, Miss Frewen, but everything's stacked ready for washin'. It won't take long if you all lay an 'and to it.”

Lesley looked towards the sink and concealed her emotion.

“You couldn't do it in the morning, Mrs. Sprigg?”

“I could if I did nothing else, but it looks like it's going to be an 'eavy day. Besides, there's the breakfast, and not a clean crock in the place.”

With a feeling near despair, as though at losing a last ally, Lesley watched the old woman pin on her hat and go. There were dishes in the sink, dishes on the table, dishes on the kitchen chair. Some had been used to cook things in. Nearly all bore traces of cigarette-ash. At that moment, in the room overhead, Patrick awoke and began to call.

To reach the stairs she had to pass through the sitting-room, and with her hand on the door-knob Lesley's mind rushed forward after some light but convincing explanation. “This is where I tell the bedtime story, my dears!”—something like that. ‘And then I'll send them into the orchard,' thought Lesley rapidly, ‘and run upstairs to Pat—and then come down and get started.…'

The knob turned under her hand, her lips parted on the chosen phrase: but her pains might have been spared, for there was no one there to hear it. The door stood open, and from the shadowy orchard came a confused sound of voices: just as she had told them to, her guests were making themselves completely at home.…

With a distasteful glance for the uncleared table Lesley shrugged her shoulders and ran upstairs to the little bedroom. If not actually cooler there, it was at least free from cigarette-smoke, and pausing in the doorway she took a deliberate chestful of the clean, unscented air. Then a spring creaked, a pillow fell, and she switched on the light.

“What is it, Pat?”

Hot, rumpled, but mercifully tearless, he sat up in bed and sighed loudly.

“I want a drink of water.”

Lesley glanced at the chair by the bed and saw that Mrs. Sprigg had forgotten to put his glass. There was one in Elissa's room, however, over the carafe; Lesley went and filled it and brought it back to Pat. He drank in a series of small, steady pulls, never shifting his lips and breathing rhythmically into the glass.

‘Now I'll have to wash that too,' thought Lesley.

With an increasing consciousness of fatigue she turned his pillow, drew up the cool sheet: then went over to the window and knelt a moment against the sill. Far down the orchard four giant glow-worms told her the whereabouts of four of her guests—two under the elm-tree, two by the shed: Elissa and Toby Ashton, Teddy and Natasha: all smoking hard to keep off the midges. As for poor Bryan, he was probably out looking for a pond to commit suicide in, and with all her heart she hoped he wouldn't find one. Lesley sighed: they didn't mean to be inconsiderate, but … in another minute she was going down to deal single-handed with the supper things. It was her own fault, of course, for saying Mrs. Sprigg did it, though how on earth they imagined that one old woman … Lesley sighed again: they couldn't imagine, that was the whole trouble. No one could imagine, who hadn't actually to do it.

“Frewen?”

She turned back to the room and saw Pat sitting up like a rabbit.

“What is it, Pat? Lie down and go to sleep.”

“Have they come to
live
here?”

Startled out of her fatigue, Lesley hastened to reassure him.

“Of course not, Pat. Only for three days—only two, now. They're going home on Tuesday.” An involuntary optimism warmed her voice. “I'll put the light out, and you must go to sleep.”

With a great sigh of appeasement Pat at last curled up into his customary ball; but for a moment or two longer Lesley waited beside him.

It was their first faint glimmer of a fellow-feeling.

3

As has been previously stated, the members of the house-party—among whom Lesley had now apparently to number Mr. Lock—were due to remain until the Tuesday after Bank Holiday. That they all went home on Sunday night was therefore no preconceived design, but merely a happy accident.

The midges, however, had possibly something to do with it. At some time or other during the Saturday afternoon or evening Bryan Collingwood had been bitten all up his legs, Toby Ashton all up his arms, and poor Elissa simply everywhere.

“They're getting worse, too,” she complained bitterly; “my left shoulder's gone all pimply. I thought midge-bites didn't.”

“They do down here, I'm afraid,” said Lesley: not because she believed it, but to keep their minds off harvesters. “Eat lots of salad, darling, and try not to scratch. Mrs. Sprigg! Where's the oil?”

“The young lady 'ad it yesterday to put on 'er sores,” replied Mrs. Sprigg, appearing suddenly at the hatch. “The young lady in the bathing-dress.”

“Oh, so I did, darling,” said Elissa, almost before the pause had become noticeable. “I always oil all over for fear of blistering. You don't mind, do you?”

“Not a bit,” said Lesley. “Was there enough?”

“Oh, yes, darling. I used it all, but there was enough.” She reached out for a fork and helped herself to some smoked salmon; it was the first meal of the day, and so much too late for breakfast that Lesley had sacrificed all the rest of the week-end's
hors d'œuvres
to a sort of Russian sandwich-bar. There was also, for those feeling sufficiently bucolic, eggs and bacon and a pot of Oxford marmalade, both provided by Mrs. Sprigg in defiance of her employer's orders. In this case at least, however, the employer's instinct had been the right one; and the only person to feel bucolic was Lesley herself. Elissa looked at her in amazement.