The Wedding Party (2 page)

‘What?—'

‘Toff, it's an odd name for a dog.'

‘Oh! yes – it's because he likes toffee. He always has two after lunch every day.' Suddenly she turned on the dog with quite savage vehemence. ‘
But we won't get them today, will we? No, we won't. Nor tomorrow. Nor the next day. Nor the next. We've been very, very wicked, haven't we?
I've always trained him not to mix with other dogs. It was all because of those beastly Dalmatians. The coarse, common brutes.'

In the bar of
The Mariner's Arms
Mr Willoughby ordered a brandy for Miss Kingsford and half a pint of beer for himself. He had now tied the dog-leash to the leg of a chair
and the poodle, cowed and quiet, crouched under the chair.

‘What else do you feed him besides toffee?'

Miss Kingsford, sipping brandy, was quiet too.

‘Oh! not so very much. I don't believe in giving them too much.'

‘I suppose that's wise.'

‘Yes. Have you a dog?'

‘No. Not now. I had one once. But that's quite a time ago. Long before my wife died.'

The air above the sea was beautifully pellucid and Miss Kingsford, staring at it out of the bar window, was reminded of her moment of enshrouding vertigo.

‘Oh! I was really frightened back there. When you – I'd never have forgiven myself.'

‘Oh! no need to have worried.'

‘But I
was
worried. Awfully.'

‘And you? What about you? Do you feel better now?'

‘Better now. Thank you for the brandy. In fact for everything! Oh! you were absolutely—.'

After this the conversation lapsed inconclusively. Miss Kingsford again stared at the sea and Mr Willoughby at his beer. At last she said:

‘What about the guest-house? How did you find it? Rather dull?'

‘Oh! I've tried several along the coast. They're all much of a muchness.'

‘I suppose so. Are you planning to stay?'

‘I'm sort of looking round. Don't know where to drop my anchor. You're permanent, aren't you?'

‘Yes, I'm permanent I'm afraid. It isn't that I – it's the best I can afford.'

Again the conversation drifted inconclusively and again Miss Kingsford stared at the sky above the sea.

‘Wouldn't you like a dog? I mean, they're such company.'

‘Not really. They're an awful tie.'

‘Do you really think so? I think I'd die without one.'

‘Mine was killed. Run over by a tractor of all things. It was pretty wretched at the time.'

‘How dreadful for you.'

On the way back to the guest-house Miss Kingsford, just to keep the conversation going, said she was pretty sure it would be Shepherd's Pie for lunch. It always was on Tuesdays. That was the only thing – you pretty well knew what was coming every day.

‘Do you rest after lunch?' he said.

‘Yes, I rest. Do you?'

‘I generally run out somewhere in the car. It passes an hour or so. I've been thinking of getting a caravan. I've given up my house.'

‘I see.'

She gave Mr Willoughby a final smile of admiration, almost worship. ‘And thank you so much again for all you did. It was really—.'

For several mornings after that she missed the skimming figure of Mr Willoughby on the cliff-top. In the guest-house she noticed irritably that he seemed to avoid her. She never came down to breakfast. She took tea, with three digestive biscuits in her room. The poodle sat on the bed with her
and lapped tea from a saucer and had three digestive biscuits too. At lunch Mr Willoughby read a paper-back propped up against a cruet. In the afternoons he disappeared somewhere in the car, not coming back until rather late for supper, when almost all the other guests had finished theirs.

Clumsily, one morning, the poodle tipped over the saucer of tea, staining the counterpane. In a moment of intense irritation Miss Kingsford cuffed it hard, scolding it furiously. The poodle crept under the bed and lay there silently.

‘For that you shan't go walkies this morning. You clumsy creature. Into your basket! – in, in! – do as I say!'

Alone, Miss Kingsford walked along the cliff-top. A coldish, squally wind was blowing in from the sea. The air was bright and sharp and there was a touch of autumn in the air. She had luckily taken the precaution of putting on her fur coat and perhaps because of this Mr Willoughby, appearing suddenly from the clumps of gorse and tamarisk, didn't recognise her. Suddenly he was face to face with her, too late for retreat.

‘Oh! it's you, Miss Kingsford. I—'

With his habitual shy courtesy he raised his cap to her. He seemed at a loss for further words and she said how cold it was. Oh! was it cold? he said. Yes, perhaps it was rather fresh.

‘I'm glad I ran into you,' she suddenly said. More than anything, for days, she had wanted to run into Mr Willoughby. ‘I sort of owe you an apology.'

‘You do? I simply can't think—'

‘Yes, it was awfully remiss of me the other morning. I never offered you a return drink. I really should have done. I suppose I was so upset.'

‘Oh! that doesn't matter.'

Perhaps, she said, he might let her make up for that now? Perhaps they could go over to
The Mariner's Arms
and have something there? She really felt rather chilly anyway. She could do with something to warm her up.

Again, in the bar, Mr Willoughby ordered a modest half pint of beer. Miss Kingsford chose a sweet sherry and when it came it was much the colour of her hair. As she sipped it she said she did hope that autumn wasn't coming on too quickly. It was early to think of winter yet. Though it could be awfully nice in winter – bright, lovely days. Had he noticed you could see France this morning?

No, he said, he hadn't noticed.

‘Oh! we often see it on these clear days.'

Once again Mr Willoughby seemed at a loss for words and suddenly she said:

‘You seem very thoughtful.'

Did he? Well, it wasn't exactly that. He was rather puzzled about something, that was all. There was something different about her this morning, he thought, and he couldn't for the life of him think what it was.

‘Me?' She felt her pulse quicken perceptibly. She looked him directly in the eyes. ‘About me?'

‘Yes, it's something – I don't know – Oh! yes, of course. How stupid of me. Of course – you haven't got your dog.'

A dark irritation ran quickly through her, quickening her pulse still further.

‘Oh! don't talk about
him
.'

‘Why, what's wrong?'

He had, she said, been very, very naughty again. Most tiresome. Really he'd never been quite the same since that business the other morning. He'd been so disobedient. And clumsy. She'd had to leave him at home. It was really too much.

‘How old is he? Perhaps he's getting old.'

‘No, it isn't that.'

Mr Willoughby sat very thoughtful again and then said at last:

‘I've got an idea he really enjoyed that little episode.'

‘Oh! you do? Then all I can say is he didn't deserve to.'

‘He really laughed at me down there on the cliff.'

‘Yes? Well, all I can say is I wasn't amused.'

Suddenly she felt that there was not only a coldness in the air but a certain chill between herself and Mr Willoughby.

‘Oh! let's talk about something else. He really vexes me. Have you decided what you're going to do?'

Well, he had, sort of. Well, half and half. Yesterday he'd been to see a caravan. It belonged to an old friend of his. She didn't use it any longer. It was standing in an apple orchard. He could practically have it for free.

‘And where is this?'

‘Over in Sussex. It's really rather a lovely spot. Secluded but not actually isolated. Some rather nice woods. And
there's a stream. I could very likely do some fishing.'

‘Wouldn't you find it rather lonely? I mean, with winter—'

‘Probably. But then that wouldn't be any change.'

The words penetrated her deeply. She was now at a loss for anything to say and drank at her sherry sharply.

‘Anyway I haven't absolutely made up my mind. I'm going over to have another look this afternoon.'

‘Oh! yes.'

Looking at her glass and seeing it almost empty he begged to be allowed to buy her another sherry. She quickly said no, she didn't think she would and then as abruptly changed her mind. He went over to the bar to give the order and came back rather nervously with another sherry and another glass of beer. A dribble of sherry spilled over the lip of the glass and ran on to the table as he set it down.

‘Oh! I'm terribly sorry – I've spilt some.'

‘Oh! don't worry. The glass was very full.'

‘Clumsy of me all the same.'

He took a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and mopped up the few drops of sherry and then folded it just as neatly and put it back again. This meticulous little gesture affected her sharply, but still not as much as the words he uttered next.

‘I don't suppose you'd care to run over with me? It's rather a pretty drive—'

‘It's awfully kind of you.' Miss Kingsford felt warmly, uneasily thrilled. ‘Do you really—'

‘You have your rest and I'll be ready about three. Is that
all right? It really isn't all that far and there's plenty of daylight still.'

After lunch she lay on the bed, eyes closed but sleepless. A recurrent vision of Mr Willoughby utterly alone in a caravan in an isolated, leafless orchard haunted her. It was wintertime; she saw snow on the ground and on the black apple branches. Once or twice the dog, toffee-less, still in disgrace, stirred in its basket and once she said:

‘Don't fuss. We're not listening. Like it or not that's where you're going to stay.'

The drive into the country was, as Mr Willoughby said, very pretty. Whole woods of hornbeam were already turning a tender yellow. Fat port-wine berries hung heavily from all the hawthorns. Apples glowed from orchards like rosy-orange lanterns and a few late cream feathers of meadowsweet still flowered about the hedgerows.

‘Rather nice country don't you think?'

‘Yes, I suppose so. But I still prefer ours, back in Kent.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, I always feel it's somehow sort of smug over here.'

Mr Willoughby drove the car at last into a valley of gentle slopes broken by strips of oak and hazel woodland and at the farthest end of it by an apple orchard of four or five acres still bright with unpicked fruit. A few sheep were grazing under the apple-trees. Mr Willoughby parked the car in a gateway and said:

‘Well, here we are. Come over and see what you think of it.'

The trailer caravan, a green, light two-berth affair rather shabby and flaky, like the little guest-house, from wind and weather, stood in the farthest corner of the orchard, away from the road. When Mr Willoughby unlocked the door it instantly struck Miss Kingsford as being very poky. You couldn't swing a cat. There was a queer, musty, churchy smell in the air. It was sort of dead, she thought.

‘I think it's quite homely in its way, don't you?' Mr Willoughby said. ‘And you can just see the stream.'

Without answering Miss Kingsford peered about at bunks, cupboards, crockery, saucepans and a small shelf of books and then through the windows with their faded puce curtains at the stream flowing past, twenty yards away, between banks of alder trees.

‘Well,' Mr Willoughby said. ‘What's your impression?'

‘Oh! I couldn't live here.' The tone of Miss Kingsford's voice was peremptory, almost irate. ‘This would give me the willies.'

In his gentle fashion Mr Willoughby surprised her by saying that he wasn't, in fact, asking her to live there. He was the one who might be going to live there.

‘I know, but you did ask my opinion.'

‘Well, you're entitled to that, of course.'

‘I thought you said it wasn't isolated.'

‘I don't think it is. There's a pub and a post office and two shops a hundred yards down the road. I hardly call that isolated.'

‘But in winter? What are you going to do in winter?'

He had not time to answer this before, from outside the
caravan, a woman's voice suddenly called with pleasant breeziness:

‘Ah! there you are, Charles. I thought I recognised the car.'

Miss Kingsford felt herself stiffen. She turned to see, standing just outside the doorway, a rather plump, fresh complexioned woman of fifty or so, her face well made-up, her brown hair without a trace of grey. A pair of drop pearl ear-rings gave her a certain gracious touch of distinction. She was clearly the sort of person who smiled almost perpetually and her silk green and purple dress was cut rather low.

‘Oh! Charles, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you had someone with you. But how nice to see you again so soon.'

With his customary politeness Mr Willoughby stepped outside the caravan and greeted her with a light kiss on both cheeks. This was clearly what she expected and Miss Kingsford held herself coldly, silently aloof.

‘Miss Kingsford, may I introduce Mrs Arbuthnot? An old friend of mine.'

Miss Kingsford, he explained, was staying at the guest-house. Mrs Arbuthnot came forward and shook hands with Miss Kingsford. Her hand was warm. Her face flowered with an unbroken, expansive smile.

‘Charles, do forgive me for intruding like this. I'd really no idea you'd brought someone with you.'

‘Oh! please don't mind me,' Miss Kingsford said.

‘I was going to drop you a line,' Mr Willoughby said, ‘and then I thought I'd like to run over once more before I finally made up my mind.'

‘And have you made up your mind?'

‘Well, there would have to be one condition.'

‘Oh! really, what?'

‘I should have to insist on paying some sort of rent.'