Family Gathering Read online

  Natalie felt that this must do. If Helen went on talking in that way about Romescourt, she might begin to cry and that would spoil the evening utterly.

  “How is Maurice?” she asked after a time.

  “He’s all right—I gave you his love, didn’t I?” said Helen. “I promised to ring him up—I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “When you telephoned,” went on Natalie slowly, “I didn’t think you sounded very happy, somehow.”

  Helen laughed softly.

  “I know,” she said. “I could hear you worrying—all about nothing, as usual. But you oughtn’t to have worried—you know Maurice, and you know that he’s exactly my type and we get on very well together. He’s the sort of man who’s dependable without looking it— you know how dreary those dependables always look? He’s not poor, and he hasn’t got a three-hundred-year- old house hanging round his neck. He’s there when you want him and he stays away when you don’t, without fussing as some men do. He’ll make a nice sensible husband and there’s nothing in the world—nothing to worry about.”

  She stopped, realizing with an unpleasant sense of shock that she was scarcely talking to her mother. Her arguments were being addressed to herself. She was trying to talk away that odd feeling that still came over her whenever she thought of her engagement.

  The feeling passed. She put aside her book and snuggled down into her bed.

  “Will you come with me to see Mrs. Bellamy tomorrow?” asked Natalie.

  “I’ll see,” said Helen. “I think so—it would be interesting to find out what she really thought about this Duncan Macdonald sitting firmly on the family bosom. Why doesn’t somebody throw him out?—he’s only going to make trouble.”

  “He—I think he feels he has a sort of prior right,” said Natalie. “Lucille wasn’t definitely engaged to Philip before she met Duncan.”

  “How does Lucille introduce them?” asked Helen. “ ‘This is my fiancé—and this is the first reserve…’ ”

  “I like Duncan very much,” said Natalie. “He’s a nice boy.”

  “No, he isn’t, Mother,” said Helen. “He must have a skin like a rhinoceros not to see how disgusting it is to stay on here in the middle of the actual wedding preparations. If he had any feelings, they’d get hurt, wouldn’t they?”

  “They are hurt,” said Natalie, “but at times it doesn’t matter what you’re feeling if you’re doing what you feel is right. If he feels that he’s doing—”

  “My sweet,” said Helen, “you’re getting more than slightly mixed.” She raised her voice to a roar. “Now off you go, my dear, and would you like a nice hot drink because, if not, I can take you along to see Alexander and little—”

  “Hush—oh hush,” implored Natalie, in an agony of apprehension. “If anybody passed—”

  “Let them pass,” invited Helen, in her normal tones. “Good night, Mother.”

  “God bless you, darling,” said Natalie, stooping to kiss her. “If you want me in the night, just come and call me.”

  She went to her room and undressed slowly, feeling disappointed and ill at ease. Young people were very intolerant—Helen would learn not to be so sweeping…and she wouldn’t be so tired tomorrow and look so—so cross. The word was a difficult one for Natalie to apply to her daughter. Helen could often get angry, but Natalie had never seen her so ungracious. Perhaps her engagement was proving a strain—or she might be overtired—or perhaps Lucille’s expression was so sweet and placid that Helen’s looked crosser by contrast…

  Whatever the reason, Helen had not been at her best, and Natalie was surprised to find how much the thought hurt her. She realized how proudly she had looked forward to showing the Romes her lovely daughter.

  Only…there had been nothing to be proud of.

  The tears began to fall, but Natalie did not notice them. She was staring at William’s picture and wishing desperately that he could explain whether Helen was like this because she was unhappy, or whether he considered that it was just tiredness or…

  Or could it be that she was, William, just a little— just a very, very little bit spoilt?

  Chapter 12

  It was useless for Helen, who liked clear thinking, to hide from herself two facts—first, that after the first day her presence in the house seemed almost forgotten by the Romes; second, that her plans for organizing the household and getting its affairs on a more sound and businesslike basis, which had seemed feasible in London, now proved fantastic.

  There was nothing, she admitted reluctantly, to work on. It was like—like trying to drill a lot of fish which were swimming round an enormous tank. The metaphor displeased her, for fish were restless and there was nothing in the least restless about the Romes. Helen knew at every moment of the day where they were and what they were doing, but in spite of this physical accessibility, they had a mental elusiveness which made them difficult subjects for an organizer.

  Having acknowledged this setback, she found more difficulty in swallowing the distasteful realization that she could disappear completely from Romescourt without her absence being noticed by anybody except her mother. Certainly Sir Jason would not know she was gone—each time they met, she could see his momentary struggle to place her, and could almost hear his relieved mutter of “Ah—Natalie’s girl.”

  Lady Rome met her with obvious pleasure, recited a list of diversions to be had at Hunnytor and Dummerton and turned her mind to other matters. Lucille, after a shy offer of a mount, which Helen refused, walked over the hills with Duncan. There was only Jeremy—

  Here Helen paused. It was as well to think clearly about this, too. He disliked her. And though she returned the dislike, she found it, nevertheless, a rude jolt after her smooth progress over young men’s susceptibilities. He invited her to his Flying Club, to his farm and for drives round the countryside, and she gave polite refusals, conscious as she did so of Jeremy’s carefully concealed relief.

  She was here, and nobody cared. Her mother fitted easily into this setting and had become part of it, while she remained outside, looking and feeling entirely out of her element.

  That, however, would soon be over. In a week she would be back in familiar—and civilized—surroundings.

  In the meantime, she sat with Natalie in the converted sewing room, wandered in and out of rooms taking books idly from dusty shelves, and walked with her mother, or by herself, through the apparently limitless extent of the park and gardens.

  The visit to Mrs. Bellamy took place soon after her arrival. Lucille drove Helen and Natalie to the house, which stood at the foot of a low hill about two miles beyond the village of Dummerton.

  The verandas and canopied chairs looked a little forlorn in the sunshine which, though now affording some spring warmth, scarcely justified such elaborate preparations for enjoying it.

  Mrs. Bellamy met them at the door. She and Helen paid a mute but sincere tribute to one another’s clothes, and the hostess led the visitors into a pretty room with large windows on three sides.

  “We’ll sit in here,” she said. “I’ve been working very hard all the morning, but I haven’t had time to do the drawing-room. How do you like this part of the world, Helen? It’s so heartening to see anybody looking as though clothes were really something one put on and didn’t just fall into. Couldn’t you—I do honestly implore you—couldn’t you take Lucille in hand? I’ve done my best—haven’t I, Lucille?—and I can’t even induce her to take an interest in her trousseau. Wouldn’t it be an idea, Lucille, if you went up to London and stayed with Helen—she could, couldn’t she, Helen?—and then you could go to Maybelle’s and Helen would do everything.”

  Lucille smiled gently.

  “I don’t like London very much,” she said.

  “Darling, what has London got to do with it?” asked Mrs. Bellamy a trifle impatiently. “The point is that you won’t get down to anything—I honestly think you look sweet in jodhpurs, but you can’t walk down the aisle in them, exactly—can she, Natalie?”
<
br />   Natalie thought not.

  “Most girls think about their trousseau for months— years beforehand,” went on Mrs. Bellamy, “and Lucille just sits there looking as though she hadn’t the smallest interest or responsibility—and don’t you agree, Natalie —I mean, you’ve been through two marriages, so you really can be expected to know something about it— don’t you agree with what my two always used to say—that one’s Hope Chest is the most important thing in the whole world?”

  Natalie, who saw no connection between two marriages and one soap chest, looked bewildered. Mrs. Bellamy swept on.

  “Well, no—you don’t bother about clothes, either,” she said. “I’m quite sure that Helen had to choose everything you wear—didn’t you, Helen?”

  Helen admitted that this was very near the truth and wondered when Mrs. Bellamy would stop talking and allow them to convey the numerous messages which they bore from Lady Rome. Natalie, with what her daughter considered unusual skill, waited for an opening and inserted a timid little wedge.

  “There’s something—”

  “Don’t say it,” implored Mrs. Bellamy. “Don’t say it! Year after year, year after—and, God only knows, at the most unsuitable time of the year—this foul fête! That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Natalie. “Lady Rome—”

  “Don’t tell me,” besought Mrs. Bellamy. “Don’t misunderstand me, Lucille—I think your grandmother is the greatest pet in the world, but why—why—why doesn’t she keep a diary of some sort, or employ somebody to remember things for her?”

  “I forget, too,” said Lucille.

  Nobody denied this statement. Mrs. Bellamy went to a table in the adjoining room and came back with a sheaf of papers in her hand.

  “Look,” she invited. “Lists, plans, letters, reminders—all the things Lady Rome ought to have been doing during the past weeks. “I—have done it all.”

  “But—if you’d reminded her—” said Natalie.

  “If I had reminded her two months ago—one month ago,” said Mrs. Bellamy, “what would have been done? Don’t misunderstand me—nobody knows Lady Rome’s capabilities better than I do—but she simply would have told me she’d take the whole thing in hand and—bang!—the whole thing would have fallen to pieces.”

  “Then—is everything arranged?” asked Natalie, with a great sense of relief.

  “I’ve got the hall and I’ve rounded up the women who usually take stalls,” said Mrs. Bellamy. “I didn’t get in touch with Lord Batch because his old mother always tells him the date and she’d murder him if he didn’t come down for it. Tell Lady Rome it’s no use asking his wife—she’s abroad. I saw it in the paper. I suppose you’re all doing the usual stalls?—I’ve got some lovely pieces of needlework, and I suppose Lady Rome’s doing books and you’ll do the flowers, Lucille? I suppose you’ve been given something too, Helen?”

  Helen felt that, on the contrary, she had been given nothing and had been asked, instead, to produce a stall full of knick-knacks. She had informed Jeremy that she had no intention of browsing in the china department of the Dummerton general stores searching for collector’s pieces, and he had begged her—a little too politely, she thought, to give herself no trouble and to leave the matter entirely to him.

  The day of the fête—by one of the unpleasant tricks so often played by the English climate—was the first hot day of the year. The weather, skipping an entire season, came out in summer panoply, and busy fête workers, hurrying in during the morning from the beautiful sunshine, found their spirits lowered by the chill and gloom of the Castle Hall’s gloomy interior, which even the brightness of Lucille’s masses of spring flowers could not dispel.

  Helen was the last to leave Romescourt. She had resolved not to be drawn into the village-bazaar atmosphere and had more than once tried to withdraw from the distasteful task of standing behind a stall. She watched the large car, laden with passengers and parcels, leave for Hunnytor, and turned to Jeremy, with whom she was to follow later.

  “Why,” she inquired, “don’t they just take round those envelopes—heaps of charities do it—and then everybody can write down what they want to give and save all this silly fuss?”

  “I see your point,” said Jeremy gravely. “But they’ve got awfully attached to their orphans round here and there’s quite a personal touch about the whole thing. I’ve often wondered what lay behind the bazaar spirit,” he went on. “Perhaps all the stall holders feel that they’ve worked so hard beforehand that they’ve really earned all the money they drag out of people.”

  “I don’t know,” said Helen indifferently. “I haven’t seen you doing much towards it, but I did tell you, didn’t I, that I wasn’t going to collect china for this whatever-it-is stall?”

  “Oh yes, you told me,” Jeremy assured her.

  Helen waited for more, but Jeremy was looking at his watch.

  “Almost time we went,” he said. “You ready?”

  Helen looked at him.

  “I’m ready,” she said. “But—” She stopped.

  “But what?” asked Jeremy.

  “Oh, don’t be idiotic,” said Helen, her temper rising. “I told you I wasn’t going to collect anything and you said you would. And I suppose you didn’t—and now we go down and say we’re sorry but there’s no—whatever the name of it was.”

  “Bric-a-brac,” said Jeremy. “Oh, but there is.”

  “You mean—you—you did go and buy some?” asked Helen in incredulous tones.

  “I don’t know whether I got enough to make a good show,” said Jeremy, “but I did my best. It’ll be all hellish stuff, of course, and not all china. Just—bric-a- brac, as you might say. Ash trays and pin cushions and pen wipers and all that kind of thing.”

  “Where?” asked Helen.

  “I put it all in a cupboard along here,” said Jeremy. “We’ll get it out and load it into the car.”

  Helen followed him to the cupboard and gazed at its contents with mixed feelings, in which anger was uppermost. He had got together a surprising collection of small articles—he must have covered a good many miles in the search. It was an unattractive collection— most of the things were almost obsolete and all were ugly, but it was astounding to see how much of it Jeremy had assembled.

  “It’s a wonderful collection,” said Helen coolly. “Let’s carry it out.”

  It made an imposing array, and Lady Rome, in a grey coat and skirt and a hat composed entirely of ostrich feathers, paused before the stall and congratulated Helen warmly.

  “How nice, how very nice,” she said. “So much of it, and so well arranged. You must charge a good deal for them, my dear Helen—they’re all quite dreadful, but nobody will mind about that. And this”—she handed across a large box in which lay a handsome Teddy Bear—“is to be raffled—will you see to it all, Jeremy? Mr. Macdonald will help you. Everybody must buy tickets. There’s the label—Edward the Bear —isn’t he charming? Now isn’t that odd, Helen—you see that Cupid holding the little heart for all the postage stamps to fit inside? Your grandfather’s sister, Jeremy, used to be in Florence and sent me one exactly like it once. I said one couldn’t possibly use it, so I put it away in a cupboard.”

  “Quite right,” said Jeremy. “Awful little thing. What d’you think we ought to charge for the pair of ash trays with the Crystal Palace on them?”

  “How much would you say, Helen—about half a crown apiece?” asked Lady Rome. “You might get more—old Mrs. Batch used to sell them once—they didn’t all have the Crystal Palace on them, of course— some of them had the Eiffel Tower and places of that sort. Come along, Alexander, we’ve a great deal to do, my dear boy.”

  She moved away and Helen looked down at the ash trays, on one of which the Eiffel Tower was clearly depicted. A suspicion, dark and horrible, began to form in her mind. She looked at Jeremy and found him taking a little nosegay of primroses from Duncan.

  “For Helen, from Lucille,” said Dun
can. “Got any small change, Jeremy? Lucille and I are a bit short.”

  Jeremy rattled his till and Duncan looked admiringly at the stall.

  “Makes a fine show,” he commented. “I didn’t think it’d spread out so well. Wish we’d thrown in some more of those Memories of Balmoral bookmarks, don’t you?”

  “Did you,” Helen asked him, “help to buy all these?”

  “Buy all what?” asked Duncan.

  Helen, the suspicion now almost a certainty, waved a hand round the stall.

  “Nobody bought anything,” said Duncan, in surprise. “That’s just the stuff Jeremy and I dug up from all round the house and—oh! coming, Lucille.”

  Helen drew a deep breath and looked from Duncan’s retreating figure to Jeremy, who was moving articles into more advantageous positions and stepping back to admire the effect from a distance.

  “You—you didn’t buy any of this,” she said in a low, furious tone.

  Jeremy glanced at her absently, picked up a china dog and moved it half an inch to the right.

  “Hm?” he asked.

  “You’re a liar,” said Helen. “You didn’t buy a thing. You—you merely—”

  “Who,” asked Jeremy in surprise, “said I bought them? I said I got them, that’s all. Why on earth, my dear Helen, should I buy junk when people have been pressing it on us for years? It was there for the—the asking.”

  “If somebody,” choked Helen, “comes to buy something and finds it’s something they—they gave—”

  “People forget, don’t you find?” said Jeremy reassuringly. “Let’s see if we can prove it. Take Lord Batch—he’s just arriving to throw the place open. I’m pretty certain that the scent spray with the long pipe and the squirt came from him—he gave a reception here once and gave one of those to every woman present. It’s always cheaper, you realize, to buy things in bulk? Well, let’s sell it to him and I bet you a quid he doesn’t recognize it. You on?”