The House of Discontent (12 page)

“I’ve half promised to go for a walk on the moors with Anthony Brierleigh,” she replied. (If he didn’t ring up before Johnny arrived she hoped still to be able to get hold of him at lunch-time.)

He looked at her quickly. “You didn’t tell me that last night,” he said.

“No, he only rang up and asked me this morning.”

“Didn’t you say definitely that you would go?”

It was all too difficult to explain, and fortunately she was saved from an explanation by Johnny’s arrival at that moment. From the window she saw him coming up the garden path. “Here’s Johnny,” she exclaimed.

“Are you trying to cut Camilla out?” Edward asked, still pursuing the subject of Anthony Brierleigh.

“Don’t be absurd,” Patricia retorted.

“It isn’t as absurd as you think,” he replied. “I asked Camilla to go out with me today because she’s got the afternoon off, but she told me, with that confounded honesty of hers, that she wanted to spend the afternoon with Anthony because he is going away tomorrow.”

“Oh, I expect she found that she couldn’t after all, and so he asked me as he was at a loose end,” Patricia said lightly, but nevertheless her heart leapt because she did not believe this to be the true explanation.

“The only thing that would prevent her going out with him would be if she were seriously ill,” Edward said. “Unless, of course, he hadn’t asked her. There’s Johnny. I’ll go and let him in.”

Patricia followed him out into the hall, and he opened the front door to Johnny before he had had time to ring.

“Shall we go?” Patricia asked when they had greeted one another. She was in a hurry to be off, terrified that Anthony might ring up, especially as the telephone was in the hall where they were all standing.

And at that very moment the telephone did ring. Edward went to answer it, and Patricia tried to hustle Johnny out of the house just in case it should be he.

They had started down the garden path when Edward shouted after her: “Patricia, it’s Anthony Brierleigh for you. He says you left a message for him to ring you up.”

“Oh, yes,” Patricia said weakly, and turned slowly back to the house, most uncomfortably aware that Johnny was following her. Oh, if only she could speak to Anthony now without the others overhearing her; but as it was both Edward and Johnny would be listening to every word she said.

She picked up the receiver slowly.

“Hallo,” she said.

“Hallo! Is that Miss Norton? I have just come in and found your message.”

“Oh, yes,” Patricia said. “It was about that party that you said you would give for Mary. I wondered whether you really meant it, and as you are going away tomorrow ...”

“Of course I meant it,” he replied. “I have just been in to see Mary, and we have been talking about it”

“Oh, 'I’m so sorry. That was all I wanted. I’m just starting off to see Mary now. I’m awfully sorry to have bothered you.”

“That’s quite all right. Good-bye.”

As she turned away from the telephone, Edward asked: “Why couldn’t you have discussed all that with him when you see him this afternoon?”

“I’m not seeing him this afternoon,” she replied shortly.

“But you said ...”

“Oh, Edward, I do dislike having my words thrown back in my face and my every moment questioned.”

“All right, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what all the mystery is about.” He sounded both surprised and puzzled.

“Let’s go,” Patricia said to Johnny. “Mary will be waiting for us.”

She was bitterly ashamed of herself and of the way she had behaved, and especially of her quite uncalled-for show of bad temper towards Edward. She had got herself, through no one’s fault but her own, into an impossible situation.

Johnny had a little car outside. As they started off he said laughingly: “After you ticked Edward off like that I’d better not ask you what your great plan is for this afternoon.”

“I haven’t got one, as a matter of fact,” Patricia replied. “But you see I’m only a guest, and thought I’d better wait and find out what plans the others had.” She hated lying, but it would have been so abominably rude to tell him the truth.

“Then can you come out with me after all?” he asked.

“Haven’t you made another plan now?”

“Rather not. I don’t go and make plans on the rebound. That’ll be splendid. We’ll go to a cinema, shall we, in Shrewsbury?”

“I don’t know about Edward,” she said doubtfully. “Would you mind if he came along too?”

“Of course not—and we’ll try and get Camilla as well. We’ll ask her when we get to the hospital. By the way, Mary won’t mind my going to see her, will she? I don’t know her very well. I took rather a fancy to her when last I saw her, and to tell you the truth I was awfully disappointed when I heard that she was not going to be at the dance last night. But then I met you ...”

“I’m glad I was some small compensation,” Patricia laughed back at him. “But you wait. Mary is having a dance of her own, and I guarantee she will be the belle of the ball.”

“Yes, what is all this about Anthony Brierleigh giving a dance for her?”

“He was so sorry because she was so terribly disappointed not to be able to go to Camilla’s that he promised to give a dance especially for her in the spring. Isn’t it kind of him?” It gave Patricia immense pleasure thus to extol Anthony’s virtues.

“Yes, it’s pretty decent of him, I must say. He’s an extraordinary fellow. He’s such a mixture, such a contradiction.”

Patricia found this topic of conversation interesting beyond all others, and would have liked Johnny to go on indefinitely talking about Anthony, but he changed the subject almost immediately and began talking about herself, which she found extremely dull in comparison.

As they motored along the beech avenue she kept her eyes skinned for a glimpse of Anthony, but they passed Brierleigh Cottage and there was no sign of him. There was no one skating on the lake, because the thaw had set in.

Almost as soon as they entered the hospital they ran into Camilla in her white overall “Come to a movie with us in Shrewsbury this afternoon?” Johnny called out to her. “We’ll get Edward as well.”

“I can’t; I’m going out with Anthony,” Camilla replied shortly.

“But I thought you said he was busy this afternoon.”

“He was; but he was in here just now and said he would be free after all. I’m lunching at the Cottage as well.” There was more than a hint of triumph in her voice.

Patricia felt a pang of what she realized to be ordinary, common jealousy, and it was extremely painful.

As they went up to Mary’s room it was as if all the energy had been drained out of her, leaving her limp and depressed. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that he had only asked Camilla out on the rebound (a thing Johnny had said that
he
would never do), but wasn’t she just as bad, or even worse, first putting Johnny off and then putting him on again when she couldn’t get hold of Anthony after all? Her whole conduct had been utterly despicable. And besides, although Anthony had asked her to go for a walk with him, he had asked Camilla to lunch.

As she opened the door of Mary’s room, she said: “I’ve brought a visitor to see you—Johnny Grey.”

Mary was delighted. She was feeling much better. Her sickness had stopped and she only had a slight pain in her head now, but she was very bored and therefore anxious to see as many people as possible.

She was full of her visit from Anthony, and as there was nothing that Patricia wanted to hear more, Mary told them in great detail. “Lady Brierleigh is to arrange the party while he’s away,” she said. “They are going to manage somehow to have it at the Cottage. Anthony is going to get a wonderful band he knows about which plays alternately jazz and tzigane music. Lady Brierleigh is going to ask a lot of people, but I can ask anyone I like as well ... Do you think you’ll be able to come, Johnny? I do hope so.”

“You bet your sweet life I will.”

“The awful thing is I’ve got practically no one I can ask. Can you ask anyone, Patricia?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know a soul in England besides all of you,” Patricia replied, and though she spoke the words quite gaily Johnny was conscious of the utter loneliness they' implied, and his heart went out to her.

“He stayed with me almost twenty minutes,” Mary went on. “I don’t know what’s come over him, he’s been so kind. I used to be simply terrified of him, but I don’t feel a bit frightened of him any more somehow ... We didn’t talk about the party all the time, though,” she added. “We talked about
you
,” and she addressed herself to Patricia.

“About me?” Patricia said incredulously. She longed to know every word of what they had said about her, but shyness prevented her from asking. Mary, however, was quite ready to tell her without being asked.

“He said that you were exactly like his idea of Rosalind in “
As
You Like It
.”

“Oh, no,” Johnny protested. “I don’t see her a bit like that.”

It was years since Patricia had last read
As You Like
It,
so she was not qualified to say whether she was in the least like Rosalind or not, but she was extraordinarily interested in Anthony’s opinion.

“And then he said something else rather funny about you,” Mary went on. “Now let me see, what was it exactly? Yes, he said that you didn’t have the courage of your intuitions, whatever that may mean.”

Patricia was puzzled. “What did he mean by that, I wonder?” she said. “Did he explain at all what he meant?”

“No, but those were his exact words.”

“How did he come to say that?”

“He was talking about Rosalind, and he said that Rosalind had gambled with life and in that respect he did not think that you were like her. He didn’t think you would be willing to take big chances because you hadn’t got the courage of your intuitions. Yes, that’s how it came up.”

“He seems to think he knows a lot about you,” Johnny put in.

“I can’t think why I should have been the subject of conversation at all,” Patricia said, perhaps hoping that Mary would tell her.

“Oh, we were talking about you because of the dance last night. I was asking him all about it ... Now you must tell me what you thought of it.”

“We missed you badly,” Patricia said.

“Yes,” Johnny agreed. “I was most
awfully disappointed when I heard you weren’t going to
be there.”

Mary went pink with pleasure. “They gave me some earphones to put on and I listened to dance music and imagined that I
was
there,” she said.

For the rest of the time they stayed with Mary they talked about the dance, and when they left Johnny asked if he might come and see her again.

“Oh, I wish you would!”

Patricia kissed her good-bye. “By the way,” he said, “your mother is coming to see you this afternoon. She told me to tell you. You realize that she doesn’t know yet about the dance that Anthony Brierleigh is giving for you? Don’t you think you’d better tell her?”

“Oh, no,” Mary said. “If we tell her now she may do something to stop it, but if we wait to tell her till all the arrangements are made, then she won’t be able to stop it.”

“On the other hand,” Patricia pointed out, “if you wait till all the arrangements are made, she may be very hurt that she was not told anything about it in the first place. I should tell her this afternoon if I were you. I’m sure she won’t do anything to stop it.”

“Oh, but
she will, she will,” Mary cried. “You
don’t know her as I do. Please , don’t say anything to her about it.
Please, please!”

“All right,” Patricia said. “Have it your own way, but I don’t think you are being very wise. What if she gets to hear about it from someone else?”

“Oh, but I’ll tell her later on. It’s only until the arrangements have been made
and the people have been invited, then I’ll tell her. But if I tell her now, I’m so frightened she may say
something to Lady Brierleigh to stop it. Please leave it to me. I know so much
better than anyone how to deal with Mummy.”

Patricia very much doubted the truth of this statement, but she said nothing because she could see that Mary was really upsetting herself; so it was left that Dorothy should not be told, much against Patricia’s better judgement.

As soon as they were outside Patricia asked: “How do you think Mary is looking?”

“Awfully pretty.”

Patricia laughed. “What a perfect answer,” she said.

“Oh, I see what you mean.” He laughed too. “In health, you mean? She didn’t seem too bad, did she?”

She
is
pretty,” Patricia said with conviction. “Very pretty, and getting much more so. I’ve noticed it even in the little time I’ve been here. She’ll be a raving beauty very soon if she goes on at this rate.”

“I like her directness,” Johnny said warmly. “You always know just where you are with her. There’s not a shade of coquetry about her, that’s what I like. It’s so restful. I suppose it’s because I’m fairly direct myself, but I think mysterious people are awfully tiresome.”

Patricia, thinking of Anthony, could not agree with him. How would she feel about Anthony, she wondered suddenly, if the mystery about him was cleared up or if he became as easy to understand as Johnny? Yes, it
would
be restful to know what was going on in Anthony’s head, to understand the exact meaning of his words and not be afraid of inadvertently offending him. But she did not believe that with him it would ever be possible to achieve perfect mental communion, however well one knew him, for he had such a complex mind, and his moods were obviously so very changeable. She did not believe that however well she knew him she would cease to find his mind exciting and tantalizing.

“Look here,” Johnny said as they came out of the hospital, “are you coming to have lunch with me, or are we going back for Edward, or what?”

“I never told Aunt Dorothy that I would be out to lunch,” Patricia replied, “and I’m afraid it’s a bit late to tell her now. It would look rather rude just to ring up and say I won’t be coming back ... I wish I could ask you to have lunch with us, but I don’t quite like to. This is the sort of occasion when one misses having one’s own home more than at any other time.”

“I’ll drop you back any way,” he said, “and then come and fetch you again after lunch, if you really want to go out with me this afternoon? I must say there’s something about your putting me off like that till tomorrow, and then saying that it will be all right after all, which I don’t quite understand.”

“Perhaps I’m one of the mysterious people that you find so awfully tiresome,” she countered laughingly.

“No, don’t be silly,” he said. “Of course you’re not.” But in spite of this assurance Patricia could not help feeling that she had lost a good deal of her attraction for him that morning, and she was glad of it, for she was not a girl whose vanity was gratified by having young men falling in love with her. She hated hurting people and despised those women who give false encouragement. She considered that it was almost the cruellest thing that anyone could do.

She hoped that it was principally on account of seeing Mary again that his feelings had undergone a change towards herself. She liked him enormously, and it did seem that he and Mary were temperamentally very well suited to each other. Then suddenly she remembered Mary’s soldier friend. What would happen to that situation? Mary had certainly got herself into a muddle there. It could only be hoped that the young man had never received her letter with the wrong photograph in it, or, alternatively, that he would not be sent back to England after all.

When they got back to The Knowle, Edward came out to meet them, and immediately asked Johnny to stay to lunch, and as Dorothy could never refuse any request of Edward’s it was all settled very simply.

“I asked Camilla to come to the cinema with us,” Johnny told Edward.

“And is she coming?” Edward asked eagerly.

“No, she’s going out with Anthony Brierleigh.”

Edward frowned. “I don’t understand this,” he said, turning to Patricia. “I thought you said you were going out with him?”

“That’s funny,” Johnny put in, “because this morning he told Camilla that he was busy all the afternoon, and then she told us when we got to the hospital that he had said he was free after all.”

“What is all this mystery?” Edward asked Patricia. Patricia took a deep breath. It seemed that someone had to be sacrificed, so she decided that it had better be herself. It was a great temptation to tell them that Anthony had asked her to go out with him before asking Camilla, and had then only fallen back on Camilla because she herself had refused his invitation, but she resisted the temptation because she knew that it would be a cheap triumph. She said: “It is really very simple if you must have it I’m afraid I made a stupid muddle. Anthony Brierleigh asked me last night if I would go for a walk with him this afternoon, but apparently he forgot all about it.”

“So that’s why you put me off,” Johnny exclaimed. “Because you thought you would prefer to go out with him?”

In making her false explanation, Patricia had quite overlooked this wounding aspect of it. She had saved Camilla’s face at the expense of herself and Johnny. She quickly tried her best to put things right again.