The House of Discontent (21 page)

Dorothy was faced with a
fait accompli
and she had little power of redress, but what power she did have she used to the full. Patricia had left most of her clothes at The Knowle, including all her evening dresses, when she went to live at the Hospital, and these, and Mary’s clothes, Dorothy now locked up in a cupboard and refused to relinquish the key.

Peter conveyed this news to Mary when he came round to the White House the following evening, and Mary duly told Patricia. Mrs. Grey at once suggested that they should each wear a dress of Camilla’s for the dance, but Camilla’s dresses proved to be too small for either of the girls.

Dorothy also wrote an extremely rude letter to Lady Brierleigh, refusing her invitation.

I take it as a personal affront (she wrote), that I was told nothing about this plan for giving a dance for Mary. I cannot understand why I was not consulted. It is a breach of good manners.

There was much more in the same strain. Lady Brierleigh was very upset because she felt she had been at fault in not consulting Mary’s mother. Mrs. Leslie had that much right on her side. At first she was all for calling the whole thing off, but then Patricia pointed out to her how unfair that would be to Mary, so she decided to go on with it.

A great many people would have ignored Dorothy’s letter, but Lady Brierleigh was great enough to write her a very charming letter of apology. It was Dorothy who ignored the apology.

“If you are writing to Anthony again,” Lady Brierleigh said to Patricia, “I shouldn’t say anything about this little unpleasantness. He wouldn’t like Mrs. Leslie for saying anything rude about me. Poor little Mary, she can’t be having a very happy time at the moment.”

With Mary’s permission Patricia told Lady Brierleigh the true state of affairs, and how Mary had left home.

“Well, I must say I’m glad,” she said. “I have always hated to think of Mary living in that house. It’s a most unnatural atmosphere and Mrs. Leslie is a most unnatural mother. Pamela Grey is a wonderful woman. It will do Mary all the good in the world to live with her for a bit. It is extraordinary how much unnecessary unhappiness women like Dorothy Leslie can bring into the world. But I suppose one
ought to pity, her really, poor soul. She must be so very unhappy herself to make others so wretched, though why she should be so unhappy with that perfectly delightful uncle of yours as her
husband and two charming children, I can’t imagine.”

“She’s ill,” Patricia said, wondering even as she said it how often she had defended her aunt with those words.
It had become automatic with her, and now, for the first time, she wondered whether perhaps Dorothy really was ill. It could not be normal to be as much eaten up with jealousy as she was.

But however charitable one felt towards her, there was now this question of getting the dresses out of her clutches, and as the day for the dance drew nearer Patricia and Mary became seriously worried about it.

Mary reminded her father about it every time she saw him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I guarantee that you will get your clothes in time for the party. If your mother hasn’t given them to you by then of her own accord I will find some way of getting them.”

“But how?” Mary demanded.

“I don’t know yet, but leave it to me. Don’t worry. I promise you that you shall have them.”

Mrs. Grey also told Mary not to worry. “Your father has promised you,” she said. “You can rely on him. He gives one a wonderful feeling of confidence.” Nevertheless, Mary did worry. She couldn’t help it, and Patricia worried, too, in spite of the trust she had in her Uncle Peter. This dance meant so much to both of them, though in different ways. Mary was looking forward to it as the culmination of her happiness. She was quite sure that Johnny would propose to her that evening and she had absolutely no doubt what her answer was going to be.

Patricia on the other hand was looking forward to it simply because it meant that she would be seeing Anthony again. But apart from the mere joy of seeing him there was nothing tangible she expected, except perhaps pain at the realization of how little she meant to him and at seeing him dancing more with other girls than with herself.

She was worried also about what she was going to wear. Lady Brierleigh had said that it didn’t matter at all if she did not wear evening dress, but when you are in love every little thing becomes important, and it was terribly important to her just then that Anthony should see her at her best.

To her great joy Lady Brierleigh asked her to stay at the Cottage for the night of the dance. Lady Brierleigh herself arranged it with the Matron.

It was now the day before the dance, and Patricia had heard nothing yet about her dress. Mary had promised to ring up as soon as she knew anything. Patricia found great difficulty in keeping her mind on her work. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the windows of the ward looked on to the front drive. It felt like the first day of real summer. A heat-wave was predicted by the ward sister who fancied herself as a weather prophet. Patricia was doing the teas, which meant wheeling a trolley down the centre of the ward and putting bread-and butter and a cup of weak tea or milk on to the tray of each little patient. It was a visiting day, and tea, which was at half-past three in the hospital, was served during the visiting hour. It was very hot in the ward and Patricia kept glancing out of the window down the cool, inviting green vista of the beech avenue. She was half-way down the ward now, and happening to glance through the nearest window, she saw Lady Brierleigh and Anthony strolling slowly towards the house. Her heart began to thump.

Lady Brierleigh often came into the ward. She was friends with most of the little patients. Was she coming in now, and if so would she bring Anthony with her?

Patricia could not help wishing that there was a mirror handy. She was not excessively vain, but it was a hot afternoon, and if there was one thing she disliked, either in herself or in others, it was a shiny nose. She tried to squint down at her face but could detect no shine.

This particular ward had been, before the war, the picture gallery on the left of the entrance hall, and she could not for long keep her eyes away from the double doors at the far end of it which opened on to the hall.

It must have been only five minutes later when the doors opened and Lady Brierleigh, followed by Anthony, came in, but to Patricia it seemed an eternity.

By this time she had moved up the ward away from them with her tea trolley, and once she had seen them come in she did not so much as glance in their direction again, but every nerve and fibre of her being was aware of Anthony’s presence, and her whole body strained towards him as if there were eyes and ears all over it

Patricia knew that it was Lady Brierleigh’s practice, when she came on a visiting day, to say a word to all the parents as well as the little patients themselves. She knew what was the matter with each child and took a tremendous and genuine interest in each case.

A lot of people who knew her well said about her that she had been happier since Brierleigh had been turned into a hospital than at any other time since her husband’s death, and this was probably true, for she possessed a strict sense of justice, and it had always pained her that the uses of Brierleigh should be so selfishly restricted to one family. For the first time she could take a delight in the place and yet reconcile it with her conscience. She had always been passionately fond of gardening, but she had worked harder in the garden these last two years than ever before because its beauties were now enjoyed by the nurses and convalescents.

Although Patricia did not look, she could imagine accurately Lady Brierleigh moving from bed to bed with Anthony in attendance, and before she saw them she heard their voices. The sound of Anthony’s voice did something queer to her. It was incredible that she should be so deeply affected by the mere sound of a voice. Impelled by an irresistible longing, she now looked towards him and found that he was looking at her. The smile that lighted up his face when his eyes met hers warmed her heart, but she could not know how radiantly beautiful was her answering smile.

Few words were spoken. Lady Brierleigh said, “Good-afternoon, Patricia dear. It is terribly hot, but you look as cool as a cucumber,” and then she turned away to speak to a patient.

Anthony said, “I shall see you tomorrow.” and smiled at her again, and she replied, “Yes,” in a low voice. And then they were going away down the ward again, and he was taking with him that indefinable, thrilling, living something which his mere presence brought into her world, vivifying it, dazzling it, uplifting it to an oddly unreal paradise, in spite of the fact that they had only exchanged half a dozen uninspiring words.

She was happy for one thing because she was going to see him for certain tomorrow, but more especially it was the memory of his smile which uplifted her. It had told her that they were greater friends now than they had been when they parted. It was as if the seed of friendship had been planted between them when last they met, and in absence had grown into something closer to real sympathy. She could not have defined it any better than that. She only knew assuredly, for the first time, that friendship can grow in absence, and she was convinced at that moment that she neither wanted nor expected anything more from him than friendship.

That evening she found a telephone message awaiting her from Mary to say that it was quite all right about the clothes. She gave no details, but Patricia was satisfied.

As long as she got her dress tomorrow, in time to press it before the evening, all would be well, and Mary, she felt sure, would somehow see that her things would be sent over to her.

C H A P T ER
EIGHTEEN

THAT morning Peter had rung up Mary at the White House.

“If you go home now,” he said, “I think you will find everything all right.” He was speaking from the office.

“Go home for good?” Mary asked in some dismay.

“No, just look in unexpectedly. It will be as well for you to stay where you are a bit longer, at any rate. Your mother and I are going away for a little holiday. We haven’t been away alone together for years and I am sure it will do us both good.”

“When are you going?” Mary asked.

“In a few days. When we get back we shall want you home again.”

Mary borrowed Camilla’s bicycle. She told Mrs. Grey of her telephone conversation with her father. Mrs. Grey sighed deeply. “Thank goodness,” she said. “That means everything will be all right.”

“I am rather frightened of going home,” Mary said.

“You mustn’t be. Everything will be all right, as your father says. You see.”

In spite of this assurance Mary felt extremely nervous as she approached The Knowle on her borrowed bicycle.

In her heart of hearts she was longing for a reconciliation with her mother, and yet, at the same time, she was dreading another scene. If it had not been for Johnny, and the delight of staying in his mother’s house, she would have been terribly upset at having left home. As it was, her dreams had told her more about her real feelings than her conscious mind. Twice in the short while she had been away from home she had woken up crying. She had dreamt that she was trying to get back home and that all sorts of obstacles were being put in her way. And once she had dreamt that her mother was dead and she had woken sobbing, with such love for her mother in her heart that she had longed to rush home there and then, and had only been prevented from doing so by the thought of the angry reception she might receive.

She had timed her visit so that her mother would be finished with her duties in the kitchen, and would, in all probability, be writing letters in the drawing-room. She did not realize what a great family bond it was to know exactly what each member of the family would be doing at any given moment of the day.

The front door was unlocked and she went in. The door of the drawing-room stood ajar, but when she pushed it open and looked in she found it empty. She went out into the hall again and called: “Mo-ther, mo-ther!”

Her mother’s voice came back promptly: “Is that you, Mary? I’m up here—in your room. Come on up!”

Mary ran upstairs to her room. Her mother was kneeling on the floor beside a suitcase into which she was carefully packing Patricia’s evening dresses. Mary knelt down beside her and on a sudden impulse threw her arms round her neck. Her mother hugged her close, and almost inaudibly murmured: “My baby, my baby!”

They let each other go rather abruptly and both turned their faces away.

“Now what are you going to wear for this dance?” Dorothy asked in a practical way, but in a rather husky voice.

“Patricia said she would lend me a dress is you don’t mind.”

“Which one?”

“That white one there.”

“Very well, I won’t pack it among her things, but I should like to see it on.”

“I’ll put it on now,” Mary said, scrambling to her feet and quickly undoing the placket of her skirt It had been rather dark in the room because the curtains had been half drawn, but when Mary had put on the dress she pulled them back so as to be able to see herself better in the long glass. It was then that she noticed her mother’s face for the first time. It was pale and drawn and her eyes were inflamed as if from recent weeping. Mary’s heart went out to her in inexpressible love and tenderness, and quite forgetting the excitement of the dress she put her arms round her again.

“I have not been well—for a long time, I think,” Dorothy said, “so your father is taking me away for a holiday. It is years since we have had a holiday just, on our own. I’m sure it will do me good And when I come back I will be quite myself again, and then you will come home, won’t you?”

She asked this a little humbly, a little tremulously. For answer Mary hugged her tight.

It was eventually Mary and Johnny together, in Johnny’s car, who brought the suitcase for Patricia and dropped it at Brierleigh Cottage on the afternoon of the dance. Patricia arrived soon after tea, having walked from the hospital as she had only her dressing-case to carry. When she arrived she found Anthony and Lady Brierleigh getting the house ready for the dance, and she was immediately roped in to help. Anthony was moving furniture while Lady Brierleigh was attending to the less energetic part of the arrangements.

“We need you badly,” Anthony greeted her. “Here, come and help me with this, will you? You take that end.”

“Don’t let her strain herself,” Lady Brierleigh cautioned.

“I’m as strong as a horse,” Patricia replied laughing. “The only thing is I must go and press my dress some time. I believe Mary has left my case here for me.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” Lady Brierleigh said. “Gladys has unpacked for you and pressed your things.”

Patricia expressed her grateful thanks.