The House of Discontent (3 page)

“I expect it would be difficult for her to change, mother,” Mary put in. “She’s probably got a lot of luggage.” Mary invariably tried to make peace, and as invariably succeeded only in making matters worse. She had never learnt that when her mother was in one of her “states” it was better to say nothing.

“Luggage!” Dorothy retorted. “She’d better not have much luggage. Where do you think we are going to put it? We are cramped enough as it is.”

“Could I go to Shrewsbury to meet her?” Mary asked timidly, almost knowing beforehand that the request would be refused, and indeed it was on the tip of Dorothy’s tongue to utter an indignant “No,” when Peter answered firmly: “Yes, Mary, that is a very good idea,” and Dorothy was unable to think of any reason for stopping her.

Patricia had no idea who, if anyone, was going to meet her at the station. She was vaguely looking out for Uncle Peter, and wondering whether she would recognize him again. She was sure she would not recognize Aunt Dorothy. She had a hazy recollection of Edward and Mary and of the big house in which they lived from the only time she had stayed there, but she could not have been more than seven or eight on that occasion. She certainly did not recognize the shy, rather dowdy girl who approached her now along the platform as her Cousin Mary.

“Are you for The Knowle, Church Carding?” the girl asked her.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then you’re Patricia. I’m Mary.” And Mary smiled a welcome which transformed her whole face. “This is the way. There’s a car outside.”

On the drive to Church Carding they had the opportunity of getting better acquainted, and though they were both a little shy to start with, they were instinctively drawn to each other, and their shyness soon wore off.

Patricia was delighted to find Mary so natural and unaffected (she had been terrified of finding a grand, haughty, young cousin), while Mary, for her part, thought Patricia the most beautiful as well as the most charming person she had ever met. She felt already that she could easily grow to love her.

She confessed a little diffidently that they would be sharing a room, and hoped that she would not mind too much.

“But how lovely!” Patricia exclaimed. “Then I shan’t feel a bit lonely or shy or homesick.” She began to ask Mary all about The Knowle, and the kind of life they lived there.

“I haven’t properly finished my education yet,” Mary told her. “I still go to classes in Shrewsbury, but only three times a week. For the rest of the time I work in the garden. We used to have two gardeners but now we’ve only got a boy. He and I do the garden between us. It’s extraordinary how much one learns when one has to do it oneself. I used not to like gardening a bit, but now I simply adore it. Mother made me choose between doing the housework or the garden, and I chose the garden.”

“But it’s an awful lot for you to do, isn’t it?” Patricia asked. “My recollection of it is that it is a huge garden.”

“Oh, that was when we were still at the White House. We moved from there nearly five years ago. It was so sad having to leave it. We all minded it terribly—and still do.”

“I’m so sorry,” Patricia said. “I didn’t know you had had to move. I had forgotten the name of the house.”

“Yes, we were thinking of giving it up because we couldn’t afford to live there any more, and then Daddy got a wonderful offer for it from some people called Grey—the people who live there now. By the way, Camilla Grey is having a twenty-first birthday party in about three weeks’ time, and I’m going, and they’ve asked you, too. You will come, won’t you? She’s the daughter. Everybody thinks she is quite lovely. It will be my first dance. Mother doesn’t really want me to go, but Mrs. Grey has insisted. Mother says I’m too young, and she doesn’t like Mrs. Grey...” Johnny, that’s Camilla’s brother—he’s a year younger than she is—is probably going to be there. He’s doing his military service quite close here. And we hope Edward may be home by then, he’s due for leave any time now. But, of course, the only person Camilla really wants to come to her dance is Anthony Brierleigh. I don’t suppose for a moment he’ll come, though.”

“Who is he?” Patricia asked.

“Haven’t you heard of the Brierleighs? He is Sir Anthony Brierleigh who lives at Brierleigh Park and he’s the squire of the neighbourhood and owns all the manorial rights and that kind of thing. At least he doesn’t live in the big house any more now, as it was turned into a children’s hospital during the war and has never been turned back again. (Camilla works there running a library for the children.) Anthony and his mother live in a cottage on the estate now, and he’s got another big estate in Gloucestershire which he manages. He spends most of his time there. His father was killed in a motor accident and he inherited the title when he was a little boy. He’s as wild as anything, and he can’t bear girls and dances and all that sort of thing. Camilla will never catch him ... I think he’s awfully proud and rude and stuck-up as a matter of fact. But Lady Brierleigh has been very sweet to me although mother can’t stand her at any price ... Anthony’s done all sorts of mad things, and he’s travelled all over the world. I can’t tell you the things he’s done...”

When Mary had first mentioned “Sir Anthony” Patricia had suddenly hoped and wondered. Surely there could not be many Sir Anthony’s with homes in Shropshire? But then, when she heard Mary’s description of him she knew that it could not be he, for could anyone be less proud and rude and stuck-up than her stranger of last evening?

But she had begun to think of him again, and in so doing had lost the train of Mary’s chatter. However, Mary went on talking, partly because she was excited, and partly because it was so seldom that she was allowed to talk, or indeed allowed out by herself except to go by bus to her classes in Shrewsbury, that her unaccustomed freedom had gone to her head.

CHAPTER THREE

PATRICIA was not happy at The Knowle. She was oppressed by the atmosphere, and though Uncle Peter and Mary did all in their power to make her feel at home, she sensed her Aunt Dorothy’s hostility, but could not understand the reason for it. She did not realize that Dorothy was a woman perpetually at war with herself, and therefore her own worst enemy.

If Patricia had shown meekness and humility, or had been easily driven into slavery, her aunt might have been nicer to her, for the will to dominate was horribly strong in her. But finding in Patricia a spirit she could not quell, she endeavoured to reduce her by small pinpricks and sarcastic innuendoes to the necessary state of subjection.

Now that the neighbours, out of kindness and courtesy, took it upon themselves to welcome Patricia, and ask her out and give her as good a time as was possible, Dorothy’s jealousy was formidable.

The neighbours rang up Mary and said, “Do bring your cousin to tea tomorrow. We should so like to meet her.” And afterwards, when Dorothy met these friends in the post-office or the street or at the grocer’s, she heard nothing but praise for her “charming niece”—for her sweetness and her good manners and her prettiness.

“Really, you would never think she had travelled so much, just to meet her,” one neighbour said. “She is so natural and so gracious. There are no airs about her.”

“Why should she have airs?” Dorothy retorted sharply. “She’s no better than anyone else, is she?”

“No, no, of course not,” the other woman said hurriedly, and went home to report that Mrs. Leslie did not seem to be at all fond of her niece.

Patricia made up her mind to get a job and become independent of the Leslies as soon as possible. Financial independence she already had, for her father had left her enough to live on, but she did not want to go on living at The Knowle. She wanted to pay for her keep but her Uncle Peter would not hear of it.

She was sorry for her uncle, who obviously suffered on account of his wife’s hostile reception of her, and she was even more sorry for Mary, who kept constantly asking her, “You are happy with us, aren’t you? You won’t want to go away? It has made the whole difference to me, your being here.”

Patricia assured her that she was happy, but Mary could not have helped noticing her mother’s attitude, and must have realized how uncomfortable it made it for her cousin to go on staying there. Once or twice she tried to make excuses for her mother by saying: “She doesn’t really mean to be like that, you know. She’s just the same with me. She’s been like that ever since we left the White House. She minded it so terribly. It’s understandable really, isn’t it? It makes her so wild to think of the Greys living there.”

Patricia respected Mary for her loyalty to her mother, and tried, for her sake and for Uncle Peter’s, to pretend that nothing was the matter, and that she was perfectly happy. She made up her mind to get a job first and then let it appear that she was leaving the house on account of her work. To make this sound convincing she began to talk about the work she wanted to do. This part at least was true, for she did badly want to plunge into some really vital activity, and she asked Uncle Peter’s advice as to what it would be best for her to do.

“Don’t do anything in too much of a hurry, my dear,” he said. “You haven’t been in England a fortnight yet Take your time and look around, and study the various opportunities open to you—unless, of course, you feel that you have a real vocation for something in particular.”

“Nursing is the thing which interests me most” she said.

“You’ll start by scrubbing floors,” Dorothy put in, “but I don’t suppose you’ll mind that as it’s in a hospital. That’s you modern girls all over. You don’t mind scrubbing in a hospital, but ask you to do a little housework in your own home, and oh, no, you’re much too good for that! You wouldn’t demean yourself by going down on your hands and knees and scrubbing out the hall here or cleaning the brass, would you? It would spoil your hands I suppose ... Well, would you?” she demanded again, as Patricia made no reply.

“I’d certainly clean out the hall if you wanted me to, Patricia replied quietly, “but I think it would be rather insulting to Margaret, who keeps it so beautifully.” Margaret was the daily woman.

“Yes, but we won’t have Margaret always, and when she goes, don’t you ask me to try to get another daily. You and Mary will have to turn to and do a little work for a change, and it won’t do either of you any harm, let me tell you. All you ever think of is gadding about ... This dance!”

And back they were again on the subject of the Greys’ dance, which, as it loomed nearer, occupied an increasingly prominent place in their conversation as well as in their thoughts.

Mary certainly thought of very little else, and since Patricia had offered to lend her a dress, a real grown-up dress, her excitement had been unbounded. Her only worry before had been that her mother was expecting her to go to the dance in a dress she had had since she was fifteen—an ordinary dancing-class dress which only came to just below her knees. Her mother considered that she was too young to go at all, but if she did let Mary go she was not going to flatter the Greys into thinking that their dance was worth a new dress. And now Patricia had lent Mary a dress of shimmering white and silver which swept in lovely lines to her feet. She begged Patricia not to tell her mother about the dress beforehand, but to surprise her with it, so afraid was she that she would be forbidden to wear it. She had tried it on once in the privacy of their shared bedroom, and had said to Patricia anxiously: “When she sees me in it she won’t be able to refuse to let me wear it, will she?”

Patricia had laughed, delighted with Mary’s pleasure, and had agreed to keep the dress a secret.

Dorothy was pleased when she suddenly discovered a new line of attack: Patricia ought not to go to a dance at all so soon after her father’s death; it was most improper and showed great disrespect for his memory; but Patricia countered this with great dignity and a finality which left Dorothy with nothing further to say. “Father did not believe in that kind of false, outward, so-called respect for the dead,” she said. “It is what one feels
inside
that matters, and he knows what I feel about him inside.”

A week before the dance a telegram came from Edward announcing that he would be home the next day. From the moment the telegram arrived, Patricia noticed an entirely different atmosphere at The Knowle. The new spirit emanated from Aunt Dorothy. She was suddenly all smiles, all graciousness, and there was no one in the house who did not benefit from this change in her—even down to Pookie, Mary’s black poodle, to whom, as a rule, Aunt Dorothy spoke very sharply, pushing him out of her way if ever he happened to be in it.

Aunt Dorothy hated dogs, and only tolerated Pookie because he had been given as a puppy to Edward, but as Mary had always looked after him, he was now generally considered to be her dog; anyway, it was she who got the blame for any of his misdemeanours!

Edward arrived just before dark the following day on his motor-bicycle which he left with a friend in Shrewsbury while he was abroad. Mary heard him first and rushed down the garden path to meet him, closely followed by Dorothy, while Patricia hung shyly back in the doorway.

He left his bicycle outside in the road, and came up to the house with his mother and sister, an arm round the shoulders of each. They were all talking at once, and Edward, was laughing the infectious laugh which had always been one of his chief charms.

“Your cousin, Patricia,” Aunt Dorothy said genially.

He disengaged himself and shook her warmly by the hand.

“I never realized I had such a beautiful cousin,” he said, and Patricia, to her chagrin, found herself blushing.

He was a good-looking young man with light brown hair and laughing brown eyes. A soldier’s life suited him well, and he made a good officer, for he had always enjoyed enormous popularity. His laughing manner, his high spirits and entire lack of self-consciousness were attributes which endeared him to his men as well as to his brother officers. As he never felt shy himself, and adored meeting new people, he immediately put strangers at their ease. It was hard to resist his vitality and good spirits. Ever since he was a little boy he had possessed the great gift of getting on with people—old and young, all and sundry. He was gallant to elderly ladies, flirtatious with young ones, respectful to older men, and rollicking good company with his contemporaries.