Men and Angels Page 6

  The minutes passed slowly. Rae got up and walked to the door through which she could reach the terrace; a wave of utter desolation engulfed her, and she leaned her forehead against the pane, making no attempt to fight her way back to common sense. She knew fairly well now the kind of household in which she was fixed; there was peace, order, even a certain faded elegance, there was kindness and a desire for her comfort. But she was as far removed from these people, from their way of life, as a—as a—she struggled to find something that approximated to her own situation, and could think of nothing better than a fox descending suddenly upon a nest of broody hens. She raised her head, and a stiffening thought pierced her gloom. She was not the fox. The fox was Richard Ashton, who had got her down here under false—the most false, the most black of pretences, and left her marooned while he—Rae drew a breath of pure rage—while he danced round Rosanna Lee. He was taking her to the same places, using the same words, kissing her with the same smooth, lying lips. He could be under no illusions about his family and the life they led; he had asked her down here expressly to relieve him of the loneliness and the boredom which were now crushing her.

  Rae’s nature was calm; she was roused much more easily in laughter than to wrath, but she could be angry. Her temper rose slowly, but it rose high, and it was high now. She longed to have Richard before her; ordinarily slow of speech, she now had the words, the fluency to tell him, with scorching effect, what she thought of him. The picture of Richard standing before her, stripped of his glibness and poise, made her feel better than she had done since she had heard Judy’s news.

  She stared out, unseeing. A discreet little gong sounded, but she heard nothing. She was only recalled to the present by the opening of the door and the entrance of General Fitzroy.

  “Ah,” he said, “you’re here. I expect Judy went off all right?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  Conversation here, she reflected, was somewhat repetitive. An original and two copies. She waited patiently—he would scarcely offer to show her round the house, but he would undoubtedly point out the garden and the bookshelf. She looked up at him, and thought suddenly of the Duke of Wellington, without knowing why, and without knowing that everybody, on meeting the General, always thought of the Duke of Wellington.

  General Fitzroy was, in fact, the popular conception of the Iron Duke. The commanding presence, the erect bearing, the jutting crag of nose, the eagle glance—these made the stranger think automatically of the most prominent figure emerging from the forgotten pages of their history books. In evening dress, with his shirt front gleaming, the General made an impressive figure, and a pair of bushy whiskers with a distinct reddish tinge added the last picturesque touch.

  “I expect,” he said, “you’ve been looking round the garden.”

  “Well, no,” said Rae. “I stayed in here.”

  The General looked surprised.

  “I thought you must have gone out,” he said. “It’s difficult to hear the dressing gong if one’s outside.”

  “Dr-dressing gong? You mean it went?” asked Rae, panic beginning to creep over her once more.

  The General pulled a watch out of his waistcoat pocket.

  “Seven thirty-seven,” he announced. “It went—let me I see—twenty-two minutes ago.”

  “Oh!” Rae gave a gasp. “I’m terribly sorry—I must have missed it. I’ll go—I mean, I’ll rush like anything.”

  The General opened the door for her and, glancing at the watch he held, made a further calculation.

  “You have just under twenty-eight minutes,” he said. “It doesn’t give you very long.”

  “No,” said Rae, earnestly. “But I’ll rush and—I’ll really be down.”

  She went through the doorway with as much dignity as possible and, once outside, sped up the stairs and galloped down the corridor. She reached her room, threw open her suitcase, and scattered its contents at random. Why hadn’t Judy warned her? She had brought suits, woollen dresses, but nothing remotely resembling an evening dress. That sort of thing—did people still? Breathless, Rae shook out a silk dress—the only one she had with her—and changed rapidly. She flew to the dressing-table, scampered back to get her brush and comb, stood before the old-fashioned table and swiftly did her hair. Throwing down the comb, she hurried out of the room and was half-way along the corridor when she drew herself up with a jerk and looked at her watch.

  Four minutes! She had been exactly four minutes. Turning, she crept cautiously back to her room and shut herself in. She couldn’t go down yet. They’d expect her to have a bath after the dirty train journey. They’d think she’d just thrown her clothes on instead of dressing with leisurely care. She would get down in time, but only just in time.

  Walking to one of the two large windows, she stood looking out at what seemed to her a desolate world. There was not a house, not a human in sight. She might just as well, she thought dismally, be in the middle of a prairie. Her ideas on prairies were vague, but she felt that they were vast expanses whose inhabitants experienced none of the cosy neighbourliness which was to be enjoyed in London. Tomorrow she would be sent out to wander with her fish paste among the pathless woods and the winding roads, to come in to a boiled egg and a book. It was not an exhilarating prospect. One day, prayed Rae, let me get even with Richard Ashton for doing this to me.

  She found that the thought of Richard could still hurt, and was depressed to learn that his personality had a stronger effect on her than his character. Even more depressing was the realisation that she had not only fallen in love unasked, but had chosen a thoroughly unworthy object.

  Six minutes to. . . . She could go down now. Rae made her second sortie into the corridor, and walked firmly down the stairs and into the drawing-room. The General took out his watch and beamed at her in congratulation.

  “Ah-ha!” he said. “You just did it.”

  As he spoke, Lady Ashton and Miss Beckwith came in, and the gong—sounded, presumed Rae, by the gardener’s daughter—gave its subdued summons. Rae, her eyes widening, saw the two ladies walking slowly towards the dining-room and the General, with the slightest of bows, offering her his arm. In a dream, she took it, and found herself following Lady Ashton’s grey lace and Miss Beckwith’s black-with-sequins.

  The dining-room was as large as the drawing-room; the shrunken table, its last leaf shed, occupied a small space in the middle of the polished floor. Lady Ashton seated herself at the head of the table and motioned Rae to a place beside her; Miss Beckwith went to a sideboard and served the soup, and the General brought the plates round.

  Soup over, Miss Beckwith took the plates one by one to the sideboard and resumed her seat. The General rose, put down his napkin and raised the silver cover from a dish.

  “Now let me see,” he said. “Fish cutlets. These look very nice, Dorothy.” Lady Ashton looked pleased at the compliment, and the General turned to Rae. “May I give you one?” he enquired.

  “Thank you,” said Rae, half rising from her seat. “Can’t I come and—”

  “No, no, no—sit down,” urged the General. “There. Now”—he carried over two dishes and placed them before her—“will you help yourself to potatoes and peas?—Are these the last of the peas, Dorothy?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Lady Ashton. “Blanche picked them—she can tell you better. What do you think, Blanche?”

  Miss Beckwith thought that there might be enough for another dish in a day or two. Rae took some of the last- dish-but-one and passed them to Lady Ashton.

  “Thank you. Salt and pepper?”

  “Thank you. Won’t you—”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  The fish was removed, plate by plate, by Miss Beckwith, who then placed a small custard glass before each person. Rae, examining hers, found it to be composed of strawberries and cream.

  “This looks very nice,” she said. “Are they your own?”

  “Yes. But I’ve not been getting nearly so many strawberries this year,�
� complained the General. “I hoped for a heavy crop, but in some way there hasn’t been half the amount I expected. The gardener thinks it might be the dry weather. I suppose you can’t grow much in London?”

  “Bertram dear, they’re in a flat,” protested Lady Ashton.

  “Yes, yes, of course! I’m always meaning to go up and take a look at you two girls, but I don’t get the time. Used to go up regularly three times a week, but I can’t do it more than once now. And nowadays I don’t get much beyond my Club. You and Judy must come and have lunch with me one day.”

  “Thank you—we’d love to.”

  The General rose, took a decanter of port from the sideboard and placed it on the table before him. Rae tried nervously to remember whether port went round, and if so, which way, but it soon became clear that this port, at any rate, was staying where it was. Neither Lady Ashton nor Miss Beckwith drank it, and the General had no intention of throwing away his ’97 on a girl of twenty.

  A murmur from Lady Ashton informed Rae that the ladies were leaving. The General rose and opened the door and closed it behind them. Rae walked between Lady Ashton and Miss Beckwith to the drawing-room.

  The evening which followed was the longest and the most agonising she had ever spent. There was, in the unending desert of stillness, one little oasis of movement—when the General came in and handed round coffee from the tray left ready on a table. For the rest, the party became four isolated and widely separated units. The General, on a high-backed chair near the window, read the Spectator. Lady Ashton looked through a pile of cookery books and made notes on a little pad. Miss Beckwith, at a table in a far corner, spread out her fortune-telling cards and began studying them with absorbed attention. Rae, picking a book at random, sat on the sofa and sank into a coma of despair.

  The minutes ticked slowly by; Rae’s watch told her it was five minutes since they had finished coffee, her stiff neck and aching back cried out that it was four times as long. The stillness was terrifying—she started at the rustle of the General turning a page, and leapt when Miss Beckwith shuffled the pack. Clearing her throat once, she thought sounded like a crack of thunder.

  A gentle sound was heard at the door, and the General, rising, opened it, and admitted a splendid Golden Retriever. The beautiful animal came into the room and Rae, in an access of hope, put out a hand and made a coaxing sound. But the General resumed his seat, the dog sank down quietly beside him, and the interlude was over; silence fell like a heavy curtain. Rae, pretending to read, could hear the beating of her heart.

  O God, she prayed, with more earnestness than she had used since her childhood, O God, please get me out of this. They’re all quite nice, O God, but please get me away where I can move and make a noise.

  After what seemed hours, there was a decided stir. Rae, looking up hopefully, saw the General look at his watch, fold his paper and rise.

  “Five to nine, m’dear,” he said to his sister. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Bertram.”

  “Good night, Blanche. Good night, my dear. I hope you’ll sleep well after your journey.”

  “Thank you very much. Good night.”

  With his going, there was, if not a release of tension, an indefinable easing. Miss Beckwith put away her cards; Lady Ashton laid aside her books, and looked at Rae.

  “I expect,” she said kindly, “you’ll want to go to bed.”

  Rae rose thankfully.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think I’ll go up.”

  “If you want to listen to the wireless at any time,” said Lady Ashton, “you can always go into the General’s study and put it on. He always has the news on at nine, and if there’s anything special, we go in and listen. I expect you listen a good deal, don’t you?”

  Rae was not sure how much she listened, but she had not until now experienced the horror of having nothing to listen to. Saying good night, she went upstairs, where she found that the gardener’s daughter had tidied the things left scattered about the room, and turned down her bedclothes.

  Rae undressed and, lying on the large, uncomfortable bed, made a solemn vow. She would get out of this, and soon. How, she didn’t know—there was nobody she could ask to send her an urgent telegram. But she would wait until one of her aunts wrote to her—she would open the letter at the breakfast table—no—there was no breakfast table—she would open the letter at lunch—no—she would be out with the fish paste. She would open the letter at tea —that was it. She would open it with the boiled egg—she would open it and give a murmur of distress. From then on it would be easy.

  Oh, dear!

  Lady A.: What is it, my dear? Bad news, I expect.

  My aunt—one of my aunts—she—(overcome).

  Lady A.: Dear me—you’ll want to get home at once, I expect?

  If you wouldn’t mind—yes.

  Lady A.: You shall go at once, my dear. Just finish up your egg and I’ll order the taxi (wagon, buggy, cart, trap).

  Trap. Yes, it was surely a trap. But when the letter came, she would be free... .

  Practising murmurs of distress, Rae fell asleep.

  Chapter 6

  The Fitzroys had owned, for two hundred years, a manor-house in Kent, and Bertram and his sister had lived in it until Dorothy was thirty-six when, to her brother’s surprise and disgust, she married and went to live abroad. Bertram’s life underwent no great change: he had a competent housekeeper and she engaged competent servants. Even when catastrophic changes had robbed his neighbours of their comforts, Bertram, returning from his various periods of military service, could still lie in bed until his shaving water arrived.

  His housekeeper left, and Bertram never succeeded in replacing her. For the first time in his life, he engaged his own cook and parlour-maid—a distasteful proceeding which he seemed doomed to repeat every two months. The old type of servant gave place to the new; attics were replaced by bed-sitting-rooms; one free evening a week expanded to several free hours every day. Uncomplaining service was succeeded by unceasing demands, and the General’s last stand against the march of progress took place on the morning he interviewed a pretty little brunette.

  “O’ course, I must have a wireless in my room,” she stated.

  The General told her, bluntly, that she could have four in her room, provided he could not hear them.

  “But you’ve got to get it,” said the maiden. “My last place had two.”

  “Really?”

  “And I’d have to have an easy-chair, o’ course, and a couple o’ rugs in that sitting-room—it isn’t what you might call cosy, is it? And my last place had every second weekend off, and—”

  The General advised her to go back to her last place as soon as possible, and put his house up for sale.

  His sister, now widowed and with four children, was back in England. She had bought a house in Buckinghamshire, in a district that would have suited the General very well, but he had no intention of accepting her invitation to make a home with her until her children were of an age to understand what was due to their uncle. When Judy, the youngest, was sixteen, the General left the Club at which he had resided for so long and joined the family at Thorpe.

  His sister welcomed him warmly. She had living with her lifelong friend Miss Beckwith, a spinster of ample means, who had let her own house at Bexhill for six months in order to come and help Lady Ashton with the children. The six months were now six years, and Miss Beckwith had become a permanent member of the household. She, like Lady Ashton, was glad of Bertram’s coming; a man, she said, made a great difference in a house.

  The General certainly made a difference. Lady Ashton found at once that the light meals which had sufficed for herself and Blanche were regarded by her brother as mere preludes, well-got-up little appetisers. When this little misunderstanding was cleared up, the General went back for a time to his Club in London, and Lady Ashton bought a supply of cookery books and retired to her kitchen. She had no hope of getting a cook; the modern servant found Thorpe
Lodge too far removed from the three paramount needs: buses, shops and cinemas. The last indoor servant had long since departed; only one gardener remained. Lady Ashton, who had looked upon cooking as a matter of doing up an egg or two, found herself making adventurous excursions into the mysteries of steaming and roasting. Zeal on the General’s behalf became interest on her own; interest deepened into absorption, and Lady Ashton’s happiest hours came to be spent in her kitchen. She learned, in time, to cook Bertram’s favourite dishes to perfection; Blanche looked after his linen and laundry; he was not to be blamed when he came in time to regard the establishment as his own.

  The three fell into a quiet, contented way of life, and the world passed them by. None of them missed it. The General kept his eye on the government of the country and told the ladies how it should be conducted; he considered that England’s affairs were deteriorating, and dated their worsening from the time of his own and his contemporaries’ withdrawal from public life. He looked from time to time to see what foreign countries were doing, and explained its sinister import over the dinner-table.

  None of them had ever cared for music or the arts; the General, giving in to pressure by enthusiasts, had attended one or two operas; he had given his reasoned conclusion that it was one thing to write an opera and quite another to sit through it. Lady Ashton’s sole recollection of educational walks round the world’s galleries was that they were cool and quiet. Miss Beckwith had been for many years the unmusical companion of an indefatigably musical mother, and her past was an unhappy medley of symphonies and concertos, recitals and festivals, with the drawing-room given up to a string quartet. She and Lady Ashton, coming late in life to the problems of housework, dealt with them sensibly and competently, and to the gradual exclusion of every other interest. A bed, neatly made, smooth and tight, with hospital corners, gave Miss Beckwith more pleasure than chamber music had ever done; Lady Ashton’s greatest ambition was now to get Bertram’s curries exactly as he liked them. If either woman had a social conscience, she was too busy to hear it. They were both convinced that they took an intelligent interest in the affairs of the nation, but their sole contribution to its welfare was the recording of a Conservative vote at the appropriate times; it was not much, Blanche pointed out, but if everybody would do the same, there would be no cause for anxiety.