These Delights (4 page)

Luke smiled.

“Corky’s full of encouraging ideas. He thinks they’ll insist on living on frogs and snails, and says he doesn’t know how to cook them. I see no reason why they shouldn’t talk English. They’ve been brought up by English parents and haven’t lived abroad all their lives.” He looked reflective. “Linda, their mother, was very attractive. I remember I used to imagine I was in love with her when I was very young. It was a great tragedy she died. She would only have been thirty-eight or nine now.”

Diana was silent. She found she did not like this unexpected glimpse into Luke’s past. Linda was probably one of these flirtatious young married women who liked to keep admirers
dangling
.
He glanced at her
unrevealing
face and thought he detected a glint of disapproval in her eyes.

“Darling, it wasn’t at all serious, you know,” he laughed, ruffling her neat head. “She never even suspected. I was much too shy at twenty-one to do more than sit and goggle.”

She smiled, automatically smoothing her hair which she disliked in disorder
.
Ever since the incident on the moor she had been puzzled by him. She could not recon
c
ile that flash of strength and dominance in him with the man he slipped back into being so easily. She fell back into her old half-impatient tolerance for his ideas.

“Funny old Luke,” she said. “No ambition, even then. Well, anyway, I still think they might have given you longer notice.”

But on the day the children were expected, another letter came. There were formalities, passports to put in order. They would arrive at the end of the week. At the end of the week a telegram came announcing their imminent departure, to be followed twelve hours later by another cancelling the first.

“I give up!” laughed Hester. “We shall just have to expect them when we see them.”

But Luke was worried about their arrival.

“They ought to be met at the boat,” he kept saying. “They have to catch connections. How will they find their way across London—three strange children?”

“Oh, don’t fuss so, Luke,” said Diana impatiently. “Children are very independent these days, and a girl of fourteen is surely old enough to
lo
ok
after the others.”

“Hester or I ought to meet them,” he persisted. “They might get lost.”

“It’s difficult to meet people who never arrive,” murmured Hester.

“Well, what route are they coming by?”

“Dennis didn’t say.”

“Really!” said Diana, exasperated by such inefficiency. “He sounds the most feckless person. I suggest you send him a wire, Luke, and tell him to send the children via Southhampton, then all they have to do is get in the right train and come straight to Plymouth.”

“Now that,” said Hester approvingly, “is a sensible suggestion. I’ll go and telephone right away. We can meet them at Plymouth and save them the slow little local train on to Monksbridge.”

There was one more telegram to say that Southampton should be the route, then silence.

“Well,” said Hester, “we can do no more. I seem to remember that Dennis was exactly like this when he first married Linda. He evidently hasn’t changed.”

Two more
days went by without news and the house had lost its air of expectancy. Corky ceased inspecting the fowls to decide which should be killed for supper. Hester returned to her gardening and thought no more about airing beds, and Luke stopped poring over time-tables and was out of doors from morning till night. It was nearing the end of May and the fine weather still held. Tom Bowden prophesied a hot
summer
and a good harvest, and Diana went to London for a couple of nights to buy clothes.

Luke met her in Plymouth on her return and brought her back to the farm for supper before taking her home. The little break had done her good, Luke reflected. She kissed him with more spontaneity than she had shown for weeks, enquired eagerly for his news and described her own doings in London with zest. Diana was seldom animated unless she was arguing, but her little visit away had clearly been a success.

“We become stick-in-the-muds down here,” she told Luke. “When we’re married, we mustn’t be tied to the farm. We must have our little jaunts and see how the other half lives.”

“Yes, I suppose it does us all good to get away sometimes,” he admitted, “but it’s often difficult with this sort of job. Also, I think, after a bit one loses the inclination. It’s so pleasant to drift along in a rut
.
”

“
Well, you’re not going to be allowed to drift along in a rut,” she retorted. “That’s your old trouble, as I’ve often told you.”

“But I like my rut,” he said mildly. “As long as I have my books and a few county pleasures, I’m perfectly content to drift, and I’m afraid I’m too old to change, now.”

“Oh, your books! You won’t have time to read when you’ve married me, there’ll be too much to plan and discuss.”

“Won’t I?” he said with a twinkle. “That sounds rather alarming.”

Hester came in from the garden, smoothing her untidy hair.

“Welcome back, Diana,” she said.
“
You look much too grand for the farmhouse
s
upper.”

“Any news of your tardy guests?
”
Diana asked, tossing her hat on to a nearby table.

Luke shook his head.

“Not a word. I expect we shall hear next day that they aren’t coming at all.”

Diana looked at him shrewdly.

“
You’d be quite disappointed, wouldn’t you?” she said.

He smoothed his brown hair.

“
Yes, I think I would,” he admitted. “I’d like to see how Linda’s children are turning out.”

They had supper with the windows open to the warm May night, and presently Corky brought a lamp and put it in the centre of the table and their three faces softened and took on warmth and the light cast becoming shadows under Diana’s eyes.

“That’s one of the first things I’m going to do,” she announced firmly. “Bring electricity up the hill. I can’t think why you’ve never done it before, Luke. It shouldn’t be too ruinous, because Burra Farm would come in with you.”

“I’m afraid I must confess to liking lamps, Diana,” Luke said. “There’s something homey and soothing about them.”

“Except when they smitch,” retorted Hester. “But I know what you mean.”

“But we’ll have to have it here,” exclaimed Diana. “Apart from the convenience, there’ll be the milking machine
r
y. It would be madness to have it in the shippon and not in the house.”

“Of course, you terrible little modernist, you shall have your electricity, but that’s another thing I’m old-fashioned about. The charm seems to go when cows are milked by electricity.”

“You’re the most dreadful reactionary I know,” she told him with a smile. “It’s people like you who retard all progress and never get anywhere. You don’t want charm in milking, you want production.”

Luke grimaced.

“
Yes, darling, I’m sure you’re perfectly right,” he said, and added slyly: “But you won’t take all my simple conceits away from me, will you?”

“Silly!” she replied. “Isn’t he silly, Hester?”

Hester smiled but did not answer, and they went back to the living-room, where lamps had been lighted and a small wood fire burned on the hearth, more, as Hester said, to look at, than because it was needed.

Corky brought coffee and Luke was lighting a cigarette for Diana when the front-door bell rang.

“If that’s old Boscombe to talk about fertilizer for the third evening running, I’m off to the study,” said Hester firmly.

Corky put down the coffee-tray, and went into the hall, leaving the door open, a bad habit of his. They could hear a clear voice enquiring if this was Monk’s Farm, and Corky’s murmured reply, then there was a stampede of bodies into the hall. Two voices shrieked: “Cousin Luke!” and two figures hurled themselves upon Corky, embracing him fervently.

“The children!” Hester exclaimed. “We might have known it would happen like this—completely out of the blue!”

“Blimy!” said Corky, disentangling himself, then, grinning, he ushered them in.

“
That’s Mr. Luke,” he said with a jerk of the head, and they immediately flung themselves on Luke.

“Well,” said Luke when he could speak, “you’re here at last. Why didn’t you let us know so that we could meet you? We’ve been expecting you for days.”

They started to explain in unison about missing boats, losing passports and a very involved story about a gendarme and a goat which nobody could elucidate, then Luke broke in with:

“Never mind now. You’re here, and that’s the main thing. This is my sister, Hester, your other cousin, and this is Diana Sale, my
fiancée
.”

They embraced Hester, and would have embraced Diana, except that she blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke at
t
hat moment and said: “How do you do?” in a cool little voice.

“I’m Vicky, and this is Pauline, and that’s Lou,” said the tallest girl. “Oh, and Bibi—you
won’t
mind Bibi will you, Cousin Luke and Cousin Hester? We had to bring him because there was no one to look after him.
”

“Bibi?” said Luke nervously.

“Our rabbit. He’s in that basket.”

“Oh,” said Luke, relieved. “No, we won’t mind Bibi at all. How did he fare at the customs?”

“Pauline put him in her coat—instead of her bosom, you know.”

“Cor! It’s a blinking circus!” said Corky, and went out and shut the door.

They were very fair, and very alike, with odd, vivacious faces which carried a hint of the Slav in the high flat cheekbones and the widely spaced eyes. The younger girl wore her hair in plaits round her head like a foreign child, but Vicky’s was loose to her shoulders, thick, shining hair with hardly a kink, falling in a heavy sweep over her wide forehead.

“Did you say the eldest was fourteen, Luke?” Diana
’
s voice was politely controlled but she was looking at Vicky.

Luke really looked at them for the first time, and his startled gaze went from Vicky to Pauline.

“But it was Pauline I remembered as a baby,” he said, wrinkling his forehead. “I thought she was the eldest.
”

“Oh, no, Cousin Luke,” said Vicky, her long eyes narrowing in polite mirth, “Pauline
is
fourteen, and Lou is eleven, but I’m the eldest. I’ve turned nineteen.”

For some reasons, Luke looked slightly dismayed, but Hester said briskly:

“Well, that’s very nice. You will be able to lo
ok
after the other two while you’re here. In the meantime, you must be hungry, and here’s Corky with some sandwiches. I’m afraid you were a little late for supper.”

“Could we,” said Lou, speaking for the first time, “have a little bread and milk for Bibi? He has not eaten all day, and his lettuce leaf has dried up.”

He was the only one of the three who spoke with a trace of accent, rolling his r’s a little and speaking with solemn deliberation.

“Oh, poor Bibi,” cried Pauline, falling on her knees beside the basket. “Would you like to see him, Cousin Luke? He’s a very fine rabbit indeed.”

She undid the lid and lifted out a large Belgian hare, who, static in her arms, regarded the company with wild eyes.

“Is he not handsome?” said Lou proudly, while Vicky knelt beside her sister and kissed the rabbit fondly, murmuring:

“Poor Bibi
...
darling Bibi ... he is frightened.” She looked up at Luke and her eyes shone green in the lamplight. “He has never travelled before, you see, but he wasn’t sick on the boat. Would you say rabbits can be si
ck
, Cousin Luke?”

Luke looked down at her, his hands in his pockets, his face amused.

“I really don’t know,” he replied seriously. “Horses can’t, but I wouldn’t know about rabbits.”

“But you do admire Bibi, don’t you?”

“Most certainly. He’s a very fine rabbit.”

Diana moved in her chair.

“Hadn’t they better start on their sandwiches?” she remarked.

“Yes, of course,” said Luke. “Put Bibi ba
ck
in his basket and Corky will find him something to eat.”

Vicky sprang up with a quick bon
el
ess grace and took a plate from Corky.

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “I’m hungry. Were we not silly, Mr. Corky, taking you for our Cousin Luke? We thought he would be older, you see. I hope you didn
’
t mind being kissed?”

“The pleasure was mine, miss,” said Corky gallantly, and winked.

She promptly winked back, and Diana glanced at her watch.

“I think I must be getting home soon, Luke,” she said.

“There’s cocoa coming for all,” Corky said. “Might as well wait for that.”

“Cousin Luke,” said Vicky suddenly, her mouth full of egg sandwich. “I must ask you at once, have you a piano? It is imperative that Lou keeps up his practice. If you have none, it would perhaps be possible to hire one from the town, yes?”

Luke looked surprised.

“Yes, we have a piano of sorts, but it’s never used, and the room isn’t used much, either. I expect it’s badly out of tune.”

“Well, good enough for an eleven-year-old, I imagine,” said Diana lazily.

Vicky swallowed what was in her mouth and turned a reproving gaze on Diana.

“Oh, but you don’t understand. Lou is good. He is to be a pianist one day. Louis Dalcroix thinks very highly of him.”

“Really?” drawled Diana. “And who is Louis Dalcroix?”

“Dalcroix!” Vicky’s eyes opened wide. “You have not heard of Louis Dalcroix? He was a very famous French pianist until he got arthritis. I thought everyone had heard of Louis.”

“Yes, I do seem to remember something, and I think I heard him play in London some years ago,” Luke said.

“Poor Louis, he cannot play now,” said Vicky, “but he can teach. He has taught Lou for four years for no fees. He is a great friend of our father’s. Where is this piano? Lou, you will show them at once what you can do.”

“Not now,” said Hester firmly, catching sight of Diana’s expression. “Tomorrow we will enjoy hearing Lou play. But now you must all have your food and get to bed. You must be tired after your long journey. How did you find your way here from Plymouth?”

“We hitch-hiked,” said Pauline, attacking her sandwiches with zest. “We didn’t know then about the train. We came in a lorry and a horse-box, and somebody’s car. I think we came a long way round, because, you see, they weren’t all going to Monksbridge.”

“You see, I told you, Luke,” Diana said. “They aren’t the kind to get lost.”

“Lost?” said Vicky, shaking the hair out of her eyes. “Oh, we never get lost really, though sometimes we take a long time to get somewhere, because, you see, people are not always clear about directions. But Lou did once get lost in Paris because he would ride round all day in the Metro by himself. We found him at one of the stations in the middle of the night.”

“Lou,” said Corky, appearing with the cocoa. “That’s a funny moniker for a boy. Sounds more like a girl to me. Foreign, I suppose.”

“It’s short for Louis,” Vicky explained. “He is called after our friend, Louis Dalcroix. Louis is his godfather. Oh, some supper for Bibi! You are kind, Mr. Corky, thank you very much. I will take it upstairs so that he can have it in bed. He is too frightened here.”

“You aren’t proposing, are you, to have that rabbit in your bedroom?’ Hester said.

“But he always sleeps with us,” Vicky replied. “We take it in turns to have him. It’s Lou’s turn tonight.”

“
I really cannot allow
—”
began Hester, then smiled at
their three anxious faces. “Oh, well, just for tonight as it’s so late, but tomorrow we must make other arrangements.”

“Oh,
thank
you, Cousin Hester,” they said in unison.

“Bibi is very sensitive,” Pauline explained earnestly. “He is our only pet, so you see, between the three of us I am afraid he has been rather spoilt”