Family Gathering Page 3

  The second train was older, shabbier and far less swift than the first, but it took Natalie into country which she had not seen for many years, and set her eyes searching for early signs of spring. The green of the fields seemed fresher every hour, and she realized that there was one advantage in her new life which she had entirely overlooked—that of living once more in the peace and freedom of the countryside. It was a cheering thought, and made her feel almost happy as she reached the town of Hunnytor and made her way to the bus which was to take her to Dummerton West, four miles from William’s home.

  It was a pleasant journey. The bus, which was full on starting out, dropped more and more and picked up fewer and fewer travellers. Towards the end of the journey, Natalie found herself the sole remaining passenger—a fact which scarcely surprised her, since the signs of habitation were now no more than a hamlet or a farmhouse at long and ever-increasing intervals.

  The bus stopped at a cross-roads and the conductor informed her that she was at her destination. He lifted her suit-cases from the luggage rack and carried them across to a large shelter in which was a low wooden bench. Beyond the shelter was a cottage which appeared to do duty as a bus office, since printed notices and a large time-table hung in the window. Natalie looked round for further signs of life, found none, and turned inquiringly to the conductor.

  “Is this—is this Dummerton West?” she asked in mild amazement.

  The conductor assured her that it was. It was the point, he told her, at which five bus routes met, and added that she could, if she wished, obtain light refreshments at the cottage.

  With the disappearance of the bus, a deep silence fell upon the place. Natalie felt that she could hardly have been more alone had the bus put her down on Robinson Crusoe’s island.

  She sat for some time upon the wooden bench and then, feeling chilly, decided to go into the cottage and ask for a cup of tea. She was not disturbed by the fact that nobody had come to meet her; the buses passed once every hour and no doubt Lucille had understood that she would be on a later one. It was impossible to chafe in so sweet a scene and, moreover, anything which could delay the ordeal before her was a matter for thankfulness.

  After drinking a cup of rather weak tea, Natalie left her cases in the cottage and walked slowly along a path leading downwards towards a stream. The view was magnificent and unspoiled, and she found the air exhilarating.

  She was roused by a curious sound—a distant tractor, she thought. She turned and saw an extremely large black car—so large that she mistook it, at first, for a hearse—making its noisy way to the cottage.

  The driver was a girl—small and slim and very fair, and with a feeling of mingled panic and pleasure, Natalie recognized her stepdaughter, Lucille Rome. She began a hasty ascent and reached the top of the slope breathless from exertion and nervousness.

  Lucille took three unhurried steps downhill to meet her stepmother. The two women came face to face and, in an instant, all Natalie’s doubts—all her fears and timidities—vanished.

  Lucille Rome was twenty and looked sixteen. Her hair was straw-coloured and her eyes so deeply blue that they made Natalie’s appear almost colourless. Her skin was flawless. None of this, however, penetrated Natalie’s consciousness. She saw only that the face before her was as gentle, as sweet as an angel’s. The voice which murmured “How nice to see you” was low and soft, and from the blue eyes shone a calmness and placidity that were like a cool hand on Natalie’s brow.

  With the first murmur of greeting, the conversation came to an end. Natalie, who had been preparing to brush aside explanations and apologies, found Lucille’s hand slipped lightly under her arm and felt herself guided gently in the direction of the car. They had almost reached it when Natalie stopped and gave a little exclamation.

  “I’d forgotten,” she said. “My luggage.”

  Lucille’s delicate brows rose and a look of faint bewilderment came into her eyes.

  “Luggage?” she murmured.

  Natalie looked at her in surprise. People did have luggage—she had come a long way—

  “My suit-cases,” she said gently. “Two.”

  “Oh!” Lucille’s smile was almost tender. “Of course.”

  She took Natalie’s arm again and, taking her to the car, opened the door. Natalie, about to mention her luggage once more, closed her mouth and saved her breath for the quite considerable exertion required to negotiate the distance between the road and the car’s running-board. Once in her place, she looked to see whether Lucille was getting the luggage, and found her climbing into the driving-seat beside her.

  “My—”

  Natalie stopped. There was a cry from the cottage, and the stout woman who had given Natalie a cup of tea emerged from the cottage carrying a suit-case, while a thin man came after her with the second.

  “The luggage, Miss Rome,” cried the woman. “Coming.”

  Lucille sat still and smiled gently. The man wrestled with the massive handle, opened the door and put the luggage in the car. Natalie, about to open her purse, found the man and woman smiling and waving delightedly at Lucille, who raised a small hand in farewell. It was obviously a labour of love and Natalie closed her purse.

  There was silence for a moment and then Lucille spoke in her soft, slow voice.

  “Did you have a good journey?” she inquired.

  She turned her head as she spoke and the car moved slowly but steadily towards the middle of the road. Natalie, clutching the side of her seat, gave a hasty nod and a “Yes, thank you,” and Lucille, turning her eyes towards the road once more, drove on in silence. A little later she turned with a further query.

  “I hope Helen won’t miss you too much?”

  Natalie, watching the car heading towards the low stone coping beyond which was a drop of fifty feet, squeezed her expensive handbag—William’s gift—into a knot and tried to return a truthful answer. But it would take time—she would have to explain that Helen was very sensible and thought that moping was a silly habit—and the car would go over the edge and—

  “Yes—no,” she said.

  She resolved that when Lucille looked at her again she would keep her own eyes fixed determinedly on the road—perhaps that would indicate that she thought drivers ought to look where they were going. Hearing Lucille ask whether she would miss London, she stared straight ahead and answered “No, I don’t think so”—but she saw that the car had gone off its course for even longer than before.

  Staring ahead, however, had brought some comfort to Natalie, for she noticed that whatever they passed— no matter in which direction it was travelling—had drawn up as close to the side of the road as possible. At one point a party of children had clambered over the low wall, and were looking over it with expressions of anxious foreboding. A farm cart was wedged almost into the hedge while the farmer held the horse’s head and flinched visibly as the black car went by. A perambulator had been lifted bodily over a gate and mother and baby clutched one another fearfully until the danger was past.

  Natalie felt the blood returning to her heart. It was evident that Lucille was known on this highway. Not for nothing did the engine give its warning to all within hearing. If they ran into anything, it would be a stationary object.

  With relief flooding through her, Natalie felt equal to making a few remarks of her own, and remembered with pleasure her meeting with her stepdaughter’s fiancé. She hastened to speak of him.

  “I met your fiancé,” she said.

  The brows went up and Lucille appeared to be wondering who her fiancé was.

  “My fiancé?” she said. “Oh!” It was not an exclamation—nothing so emphatic as an exclamation could issue from Lucille’s soft lips. “Oh! how nice.”

  Natalie waited for eager questions, and Lucille spoke.

  “Granny gave me a message,” she said, “but I forgot. So silly of me.”

  Natalie waited with interest, and Lucille gave her a delightful smile.

  “Yes,” she s
aid. “I’ve forgotten it—but it must have been about her not being able to meet you. Don’t you think so?”

  Natalie felt a little confused. She tried to imagine Helen zigzagging along a road and forgetting messages, and found that it was impossible to conjure up even the spirit of her efficient daughter. What, she wondered, would Helen think of Lucille? What would she think of Lucille’s clothes, which consisted at the moment of a pair of battered jodhpurs, a yellow polo sweater which had been darned with brown wool, and a riding jacket which, though well-tailored, was obviously outgrown. What would she say to Lucille’s gloves, which did not match —

  Lucille saw her stepmother’s eyes on them and smiled. “I lost one of each,” she explained. “I had a message from Jeremy, too,” she went on. “He sent you his love and says he’ll be back tonight. He has to go to a Flying Club once a week—three friends of his started it and Jeremy is one of the instructors. He flew, you know, during the war, and he says this keeps his hand in. They haven’t enough instructors, or he would have told them he couldn’t go today.”

  She turned the car, as she spoke, into an avenue lined with splendid beech trees.

  “This isn’t the proper entrance,” she said, “but you get a nice view if you come this way past the lake.”

  She drove slowly, for the road was in bad condition. Natalie looked about her and saw a small lake beyond which were woods and gently sloping hills. A beautiful park opened before them, and as the car followed the curve of the road, a shrubbery and neglected flower borders appeared on either side. Soon Lucille turned a sharp bend and, bringing the car to a stop, switched off the engine. Before them stood Romescourt.

  Natalie saw a beautiful Elizabethan manor standing against a background of gently sloping hills. It made a perfect picture in the evening light, but before she could take in details of the beauties of the lovely old house, the signs of neglect and desolation filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else. Overgrown terraces, straggling lawns and gardens, all told of the beginnings of decay.

  It was not difficult for Natalie to picture the house in its former state. Photographs taken as recently as William’s boyhood showed none of the neglect that was now apparent. She felt a wave of pity for the two old people in whose lifetime the melancholy change had taken place, and heard Lucille’s voice putting her thought into words.

  “It’s hard on Granny and Grandfather,” she said in her slow, even tones. “It’s hard to tell how much they mind about it, but it can’t be very nice. Granny’s seventy,” she went on, “and Grandfather’s seventy-three, but they both do a lot—Granny does all the flowers and fruit in the walled garden and Grandfather grows acres and acres of vegetables.”

  There was silence for a long time. Natalie had much to look at, and Lucille seemed content to sit quietly by her side. When she next spoke, it was on an entirely different topic.

  “Daddy said,” she told her stepmother, “that we’ve got to decide what I shall call you.”

  Natalie had given the matter a good deal of thought and was, for once, ready with a suggestion.

  “I thought—I felt that perhaps—” She tried once more. “I always feel that ‘mother’ is a rather special word,” she said. “If you would call me Natalie—”

  “I don’t mind which,” said Lucille. “There are all sorts of mothers, in a way. I suppose you’ll call Granny mother, won’t you?”

  Natalie, who had forgotten to give any thought at all to the form of address she should use towards her mother-in-law, looked blank.

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” she confessed, “but I think I’d rather you called me Natalie—”

  “Of course,” agreed Lucille readily, and Natalie felt grateful, since she had yet to discover her stepdaughter’s habit of agreeing readily to everything.

  The minutes went by and, as Lucille made no move to start the car again, Natalie began to grow uncomfortable. They might be seen from the windows, and it would look a little odd if she did not hurry on and give at least the appearance of being anxious to meet her relations.

  “I think perhaps we ought to go on,” she ventured at last.

  “Of course.” Lucille started the car, steered it through the innumerable ruts and pits in the road and, coming out on to a smoother drive, drew up at last before the house.

  “We’ll find Granny in the garden somewhere, probably,” she said. “Round here.”

  She led Natalie to the other side of the house, through an opening in a thick hedge and into a large walled garden. At the far end a woman’s figure was bent over a newly-dug bed. Lucille raised her voice in a high, childish call.

  “Gran-ny!”

  Lady Rome straightened and turned. Natalie, walking towards her, forgot her timidity and confusion as a child forgets its shyness when an object of irresistible interest is placed before it.

  Lady Rome was tall, broad and—even at seventy—an erect and unstooping figure. She wore a brown skirt and a knitted coat of a bright hue. A heavy gold chain hung round her neck and upon her head was an elaborate hat of a kind which Natalie had not seen for twenty years and which took her mind back to tea parties in her mother’s garden. Her eyes wandered to Lady Rome’s feet and she saw that her mother-in-law was wearing a large pair of rubber boots which had been sawn off—very sensibly, Natalie thought—just above the ankles. Ear-rings hung in Lady Rome’s ears and dashed against her soft, pendulous cheeks.

  Before Natalie was half-way across the intervening space, a booming welcome issued from her hostess.

  “How nice, how nice,” shouted Lady Rome. “So nice to see you, so nice to have you with us, so very nice.”

  Natalie reached her before the end of the speech, but Lady Rome’s voice did not lessen in volume. She threw her garden implement carelessly into a barrow by her side and held out welcoming hands to Natalie. Natalie noticed, without surprise, that the gloves did not match.

  Lady Rome had bent forward and was apparently staring at something over her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. Natalie, about to turn and see what was behind her, realized that her mother-in-law was waiting to be kissed. She put her lips to the proffered cheek and Lady Rome, straightening, spoke once more in a voice which made Natalie put up her hands and hold on to her hat.

  “Let me see you, let me see you,” she trumpeted. “William said we must look after you very well and take care of you because he said that you were shrinking —like clothes, don’t you know—and not used to rough winds. He meant, of course, that you’re like a great many of the rest of us nowadays and can’t stand this rude jostling that we all have to put up with. Everybody pushes now, don’t you find? My poor mother used to say that you could always recognize a lady because everybody instinctively made way for her. Doesn’t that sound odd nowadays? But I can see you’re a quiet little thing. So was William’s last wife—Lucille’s mother, don’t you know. She was a sweet little thing but I don’t think she was ever quite right for William, or perhaps he didn’t talk about her much, did he?”

  Natalie, supposing this to be a question, opened her mouth to reply.

  “Lucille looks a little like her,” shouted Lady Rome, indicating her granddaughter, “but her mother’s colouring was so much prettier. I always think there’s too much straw colour about Lucille and she’d be much better for some dark eyebrows or a little something on her lashes, don’t you agree?”

  “I—” said Natalie.

  “Did Lucille tell you that Jeremy isn’t here? And I don’t know what’s become of your father-in-law—he wasn’t in to tea. Tea!” ejaculated Lady Rome in a deeper boom than ever. “Of course you must want some tea yourself, and we’re standing chatting in this chilly air when you must be longing for a hot drink.”

  There was a pause long enough for Natalie to admit that she would very much like some tea.

  “Of course,” agreed Lady Rome. “Don’t stand there, Lucille, my dear—if you look round you might see something of your grandfather and then you could tell him that he must
come at once and see your stepmother.”

  “I’m going to call her Natalie,” observed Lucille in a voice which sounded, by contrast, like the twitter of birds after a storm.

  “Well, so shall I,” said Lady Rome. “So shall we all, I don’t doubt. Did Lucille tell you, my dear, about Jeremy’s not being able to meet you? She’s a silly little thing, she never remembers. Run along, Lucille, and find your grandfather.”

  Lucille went away, not running along but with her usual light, unhurried tread. Lady Rome waved a hand round the enclosing walls.

  “There’s a lot of work here,” she said, “and of course I can’t hope to do it all. Like a horse’s teeth, I always say—you can tell my age by the patches under cultivation. When the gardeners first went, I did it all—every bit of it, don’t you know, but later, I found it quite impossible, so I had to leave the ends of every row—and now you can see how much the neglected bits have stretched year by year. Only two gardeners now—old Parton does the lawns and his brother, who’s really getting quite decrepit—he must be almost as old as your father-in-law—he’d be very useful helping me in here, but Jason monopolizes him and keeps him tied to his vegetable garden. You garden, my dear? I shouldn’t think you would, in London, because one hasn’t one, as a rule. Your father-in-law says that we should all grow food, and he’s quite right, but he carried it to quite an alarming extent, don’t you know, and I had to have a little talk with him and tell him that we really couldn’t have corn waving outside the drawing-room windows— though of course nothing could look more lovely, don’t you think, than those lovely golden fields? But we mustn’t stand in this cold wind—you must come inside and tell me about your girl—what’s her name—Helen, isn’t it? Such a nice name if a girl’s good looking, and William said yours was quite a beauty. You must come in and tell me about her, and of course you’d like some tea—I ought to have asked you before. Won’t you have a nice hot drink?”