Never Too Late Read online

  “That is exactly what they hoped,” said Edith. “How very kind of you, Mrs. Morland. You see, they all frightfully wanted to see you, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if they came. They brought a rabbit pie and six bottles of beer with them, just in case.”

  “But of course I don’t mind,” said Mrs. Morland. “My own boys are just as silly when they come here. Do ask them to come in to tea, Edith. Only not to bring the rabbit pie and the beer, because Stoker might be insulted. Her teas are rather special and there will be plenty.”

  Edith went out to collect her escort. Stoker, who had of course been listening to most of the conversation at the half-open door, came in, her large arms folded on her capacious bosom, and surveyed the company.

  “Tea for ten,” she said. “Four in here and six outside makes ten, same as what my tea-leaves said this morning. Nice young lady and young gentlemen. Lucky I made some of my special cakes. I didn’t mean to, seeing as there was only you, but when I saw the tea-leaves I knew it was Meant. You’ll find tea in the dining-room when I ring the bell.”

  She turned to go, but was caught in the doorway by all the other guests with whom she exchanged some lively repartee in which she got distinctly the best of it and so went away into the kitchen.

  As Edith introduced George Halliday, young Mr. Crosse, her brothers, and her cousin Lord Mellings, otherwise Ludo, to Mrs. Morland, that lady’s professional eye, always at work consciously or unconsciously, saw in Lord Pomfret’s heir the makings of what one could have wanted for one’s own daughter. Life at Sandhurst had certainly improved the lanky shy boy of a year or two ago out of all knowledge. He had managed to get more flesh on his bony frame. He no longer felt apologetic for his height and indeed rather enjoyed being able to look over people’s heads. With discipline he had also attained an air of competence, if not of absolute self-confidence. His hands were completely under control and if he took the largest size in boots among all his contemporaries, the boots were well made.

  “You would really do just as well for a private as for an officer,” said Mrs. Morland, speaking her thoughts aloud more to herself than to anyone else; a habit which is sadly apt to grow on one as one lives alone. “I mean being so tall. Why do they grow their officers small and other ranks tall in the Brigade?”

  “I sometimes think,” said Edith, eyeing her cousin Ludo dispassionately, “that Ludo is a bit like the hero of Under Two Flags.”

  “Oh, shut up, Edith,” said Lord Mellings.

  “Good God!” said George Knox. “Do you read Ouida?”

  “Of course, Mr. Knox!” said Edith indignantly. “One does, you know,” at which the grown-ups couldn’t help laughing.

  “You ought to, Mr. Knox. What do you think, Dr. Ford?”

  “That you are an impertinent Miss,” said Dr. Ford. “Come and have tea.”

  Edith, at once fawning on the hand that chastised her, clung to Dr. Ford’s arm in a flattering way and so accompanied him into the dining-room where Stoker had laid a magnificent tea. A faint effort was made by their hostess to mix the younger visitors with the grown-ups, but their strong tendency to coalesce like blobs of quicksilver got the upper hand. All the guests exerted themselves to pass the cakes and harmony reigned.

  “It is so nice to see you again,” said Mrs. Morland to Mr. Crosse. “Last time was at Lady Graham’s in that dreadful cold summer last year. Not that this one is any better.”

  “It is nice to see you again too,” said Mr. Crosse. “I remember that day very well. Lord Stoke brought you over in his brougham. I hadn’t seen a proper brougham since I was a boy. And he bought a pig from Sir Robert Graham’s bailiff. My father asked me to give you his very special love—or regards—I forget which. And he wants you to come over to lunch one day, if you will.”

  “I should love to,” said Mrs. Morland. “I hardly know East Barsetshire at all, except of course Mr. Gresham, the M.P., because he comes to address our Conservative Association sometimes. One can’t hear what he says very well since he had his new teeth, but the village simply adore him. Your father was extraordinarily kind to me, Mr. Crosse. He told me that your mother liked some of my books. I was so touched that I couldn’t thank him properly.”

  “Oh, but he didn’t want to be thanked,” said Mr. Crosse. “It was only speaking the truth. I say, Mrs. Morland, don’t laugh at me. It’s true.”

  “I won’t laugh ever, at anything you tell me,” said Mrs.

  Morland, “if it is about your father. When he told me about your mother, I made an oath to myself that T would never put it into a book.”

  “Do you often have to make oaths like that?” said Mr. Crosse, half curious, half amused.

  “Oh no,” said Mrs. Morland. “Certainly not. I use quite frightful language about things like breaking one of a set of cups, or when my pencil rolls right under my writing-table where all the dust and fluff and flue are—though why flue I shall never know. But that is simply my way of looking at things. Do you think your father would mind if I gave him a copy of my last book? It is exactly the same as all the others, but it couldn’t possibly do him any harm.”

  “I am sure it couldn’t,” said Mr. Crosse, secretly amused by the suggestion that his father, an omnivorous reader of novels in English, French, and American, was capable of being shocked. “I know he has read it, because he has a standing order with his bookseller for all your books the day they are published. But he would really like a signed copy from you quite extraordinarily.”

  “Then I shall give you a copy to take with you, if you will be so kind,” said Mrs. Morland.

  “And write your name in it—and his—if you feel like it?” said Mr. Crosse, who was not much acquainted with Authors and did not wish to make a mistake in etiquette.

  “Oh—of course, if your father would really like it,” said Mrs. Morland, with a diffidence that touched and amused Mr. Crosse. And then Mrs. Morland turned to Lord Mellings.

  A year or two earlier that young gentleman would have gone through agonies of dumb shyness at being addressed by a famous female writer, but ever since the Coronation Year, when the gifted actor-manager Aubrey Clover and his equally gifted wife Jessica Dean had taken him up, young Lord Mellings had come on like a house on fire, managing to combine a genuine love of his future profession as a soldier with an almost equal passion for what he liked to call the coulisses. A young man who has sufficient good looks, can act quite passably, sing quite pleasantly, and is heir to an earldom of respectable age, is bound to be welcome, even if he has not much money. Perhaps because he had known adversity in his earlier years as only a very tall, gangling, ugly duckling can know it, Lord Mellings was now enjoying his life to the full, whether at Sandhurst or in Barsetshire, and had every intention of enjoying it later in the Brigade of Guards, in and about the Palace of St. James.

  “You must have put on at least a stone since I last saw you,” said Mrs. Morland, which might have embarrassed some young men. But Lord Mellings appeared to take it as a compliment.

  “I‘m awfully glad you notice it,” he said. “I shall tell my father. He always thinks it’s his fault that I am so tall, but Uncle Giles—that’s the old Lord Pomfret who was father’s cousin—was very tall too, only he was a big man all over. Father is all length and no breadth and so was I. It’s the Army that’s done it,” and then he wondered if he had boasted too much, for Sandhurst might be where one made a false step, or got spinal disease or something. Not that he for a moment thought this could happen to him—but in a strange country (and High Rising was strange to Lord Mellings) one might as well propitiate the god of the place, whoever he may be. Mrs. Morland had a son in the Royal Navy, so she knew something of the gods of Luck and we think she understood him.

  “The real trouble,” said Lord Mellings, “is growing out of one’s clothes. I’m supposed to be on an allowance for clothes—I mean the ones I wear at home—and it’s going to be a bit awkward. I can’t borrow father’s things because he is thinner than I am.”
r />   “Do you mind second-hand clothes?” said Mrs. Morland. “I mean nice ones, because my second son is as tall as you are I think, only he has got rather bigger and they don’t meet and he has had to get some new ones. Luckily he can afford it because he has quite a good job in oil, and he left all his old suits here. If you would care to try them on? Not if you’d rather not, of course, but they will probably get the moth if they stay here and I wouldn’t get anything if I sold them. I mean only if you would like it.”

  Various emotions were mirrored or shadowed in young Lord Mellings’s countenance as his hostess spoke. A little pride—not much, for he had good common-sense and not too much sentiment—and to outweigh it a strong sense (which all true Fosters had) of the point up to which principle and practice were compatible. Of this mixture the late Lord Pomfret had been a shining example. The present Lord Pomfret envied but could not compass this state of mind, while his son was bidding fair to combine both qualities in equilibrium. His mind was made up in less time than it has taken to write these words and Mrs. Morland, saying they could look at the suits together after tea, turned to Dr. Ford.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Very well, thank you,” said Dr. Ford. “As nice a set of youngsters as you’d wish to see.”

  “I’m over a quarter of a century old, sir,” said Captain James Graham indignantly.

  “I’m of age, sir,” said John Graham.

  “I’m of marriageable age,” said Edith Graham, rather conceitedly. ‘The age of consent.”

  “That’s only the age of conceit, my girl,” said her eldest brother James. “You try getting married and see what father will say. Precocious, my girl, that’s what you are.”

  “And more precocious than ever since you went to America,” said her second brother John.

  “Well, Aunt Agnes that was Gran’s sister got engaged to a clergyman when she was seventeen,” said Edith.

  “Yes, and look what happened to her,” said John. “She died an old maid. That’ll learn you, my girl. And she did water-colour drawings—jolly bad ones too.”

  “Oh, I say, John, not so bad as all that,” said James. “That one of the tortoiseshell cat in a lace bonnet called “Sweet Mistress Purr” is a small gem. I bet it would fetch a lot in Bond Street if it was properly written up. Period piece and all that. Or our ghastly cousin Julian could show it at his gallery.”

  Mrs. Morland asked if that was Julian Rivers, the one whose mother wrote novels.

  “Those are the ones,” said James. “I mean that’s him and she’s the one too.”

  “Grammar, grammar, my boy,” said his sister Edith.

  By this time such a noise was being made that even George Knox could not make himself heard, which annoyed him dreadfully, as he always had to unpack his heart (or mind) with words and had mental suffocation if he couldn’t. Stoker, coming in with more hot scones, stood entranced by the spectacle of so many healthy young people eating her cakes and sandwiches. Second Lieutenant John Graham, overcome by the general row and his own wit (though no one could hear what he was saying) dropped the plate of scones on the floor by mistake, thus producing an awed silence.

  “Oh, I say, I am sorry, Mrs. Morland,” he said, though not very distinctly as he was in a position rather like the Quangle-Wangle when he had to sleep with his head in his slipper. “I think I’ve got them all,” he added as he sat up again, very red in the face, with the mangled remains of the scones.

  “You give them to me,” said Stoker. “It’s Master John, isn’t it? That Odeena of your mother’s at Holdings, she’s niece to Mrs. Knox’s cook, that’s how I knew. One of those as get taken advantage of if she isn’t careful if all her aunt says is true,” she added, fixing Lieutenant Graham with a basilisk glance, as if she had discovered him in an intrigue with his mother’s highly unattractive so-called parlour-maid.

  “She breaks an awful lot of china,” said John Graham. “A dreadful girl. She cleaned my best brown shoes with ox-blood polish instead of light tan. Ruined them.”

  “Takes after her aunt,” said Stoker. “What was it you said her aunt did to the liver, Mrs. Knox?”

  “Toasted it black at the kitchen range,” said Mrs. Knox. “That was in the winter when we always have a proper fire going in the kitchen range. Which reminds me, Stoker, when will the sweep be round next?”

  “He’s doing the chimneys at Lord Stoke’s,” said Stoker. “Nasty some of them are. There’s one with a turn in it and when his lordship had it repaired they found Bones there. Someone been murdered I dessay.”

  “Or perhaps a chimney-sweep like Tom in the Water-Babies,” said Edith. “He might have got stuck there and died of hunger. Is there a ghost, Stoker?”

  “Not at Stoke Castle,” said Stoker scornfully. “His lordship wouldn’t allow it. Do you want some more tea?”

  As this question appeared to be addressed to her employer, Mrs. Morland tipped the teapot up. A few very pale yellow drops fell.

  “I knew you’d need some more,” said Stoker, less with pride in her prophetic gifts than pity for the gentry who, according to her view, would be entirely helpless without her and her fellows. She took the teapot and went away.

  “I say, Mrs. Morland, your cook is splendid” said Mr. Crosse, who had not spoken much, finding it a little difficult to make head against George Knox’s booming and the uninhibited noise of the younger guests. “I wish she and our butler, Peters, could meet. He used to be at the Towers,” he added to Lord Mellings, “in your uncle Giles’s time,” at which Lord Mellings started and said he supposed so, but his uncle Giles had died when he was too small to remember. “You couldn’t bring her over to our place one day, could you, Mrs. Morland? Father would simply love her.”

  Mrs. Morland did not appear to think this request at all out of the ordinary and said she didn’t see why not, only not on a Sunday, because Stoker went to chapel and one never knew if it was going to be morning or afternoon because there was only a visiting minister or whatever they were called.

  “Any day,” said Mr. Crosse cheerfully. “Only name it.”

  “I can’t name a day unless I have my engagement book,” said Mrs. Morland. “I can’t remember a thing now. Do you know who you are when you wake up in the morning?”

  Mr. Crosse, feeling that there was a catch somewhere, said he thought he did.

  “I don’t even think,” said Mrs. Morland. “The older I get the less I know where I am. And if I go away it is even worse, because I wake up there and think I am at home and I’m not, and then when I get home and wake up I expect to find myself where I was before I came home, and I’m not. I’m at home.”

  Mr. Crosse said it all sounded rather confusing, but he was glad she really did find herself at home when she was at home, and could he get her engagement book For her.

  “Well, you could, and it is most kind of you,” said Mrs. Morland, “but I don’t know where it is. It is one of those days when it gets lost. Sometimes I look at it in bed before I go to sleep, to see what I am doing next day, and it becomes lost either in the bedclothes, or right down between the bed and the wall. I do keep a large engagement book on my writing-table too, the sort that has a month on a page, but I never remember to put the things I am doing down in both. So, you see, I might put down ‘Lunch George’—that’s George Knox—in my small engagement book and ‘Lunch Lord Crosse’ on the big one on my desk. I think it’s the war.

  “The war?” said Mr. Crosse. “I mean there isn’t one just at the moment is there?”

  “I mean the effects of the war. Delayed action,” said Mrs. Morland. “I was really quite brave all through the war, even though there were never any bombs near here, but one got a sort of horrid feeling all the same. Partly wondering which of my sons was killed.”

  “Oh—I didn’t know—I hope—” Mr. Crosse began.

  “It’s quite all right,” said Mrs. Morland soothingly. “None of them were killed, or even wounded. Not that they didn’t try,” she added, not wish
ing to denigrate her offspring.

  “I think we were all like that,” said Mr. Crosse. “I know George Halliday was, because we’ve often talked about it. He’s an awfully nice sort of chap. Things get him down a bit sometimes. His father is very shaky and his mother spends a good deal of time looking after him. But George is as good as they make them,” and he looked across at George Halliday who was getting on very well with Mrs. Knox.

  Mrs. Morland noted, with a hostess’s eye, that Edith, next to George Halliday, was being—and looking—rather neglected, as Dr. Ford on her other side was deep in county talk with young Lord Mellings.

  “I sometimes wish,” she said, “one could just press a button and everyone would turn to the other partner.”

  While she was speaking, Dr. Ford had turned to Edith, whom he admired greatly, so that Mrs. Morland was able to have Lord Mellings to herself again. Owing to her long acquaintance with boys, including her own four and the whole of Southbridge School during the war, young men presented no difficulties at all to her and before Lord Mellings knew what he was doing he was telling her all about life at Sandhurst and how grateful he was to his father for making him learn to ride.

  “Of course Giles, that’s my young brother, is the rider,” he said, with pride rather than envy. “He can ride anything bareback. Even a he-donkey—I don’t know their proper name.”

  Mrs. Morland, summoning vague remembrances of Talk in Country Places said Would it be a Whole donkey.

  “It sounds a bit coarse, but I daresay it might,” said Lord Mellings, treating Mrs. Morland so much as an equal that she was secretly flattered.

  “I never know the right names for all the animal sexes either, if sexes you can call them,” said Mrs. Morland in a very learned way. “Except capons. And I suppose a gelding— or is that pigs?”

  “Gilt,” said Mr. Crosse, who had caught this fragment across the table. “I think it’s a young female pig.”

  “Oh, thank you, John-Arthur,” said Edith.