High Rising (VMC) Page 7

  ‘What is the matter, Stoker?’

  ‘Do you know who is at the door?’

  ‘How can I know unless you tell me?’

  ‘She’s come,’ said Stoker, with an air of gloomy triumph.

  ‘Who has come? Really, Stoker, one can’t get any sense out of you these holidays. Is it Miss Knox?’

  ‘Yes, and no, as you might say.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, who or what is it?’

  ‘Miss Sibyl’s come, but she’s brought That One with her.’

  ‘Miss Grey, I suppose?’

  Stoker nodded portentously.

  ‘Well, that’s most annoying, especially as I didn’t ask her and don’t want her, but it can’t be helped, and you needn’t behave like a banshee about it. Where are they?’

  ‘I told them to go in the dining-room while I found you. You don’t want to see Her, do you?’ asked Stoker, pointing her thumb over her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, Stoker, you are an ass. Show them in at once, and tell Mr Coates – he’s upstairs with Tony.’

  Stoker’s face fell, but she left the room and returned with the guests. To Laura’s horror she announced Sibyl with a flourish, and then said to Miss Grey, ‘Who shall I say, miss? Mrs Morland didn’t tell me there’d be two.’

  ‘Come in, Miss Grey,’ cried Laura, rushing to the rescue. ‘How nice that you could come. You must be frightfully cold, aren’t you?’

  To her further embarrassment Stoker said, ‘Pleased to see you, miss,’ in a stage aside to Sibyl, and left the room, banging the door. Laura ploughed feverishly on, ‘I’m so glad you managed to get out. I hope that means Mr Knox’s book is getting on well. It’s a delicious drive from Low Rising, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s just lovely,’ said Miss Grey, without a trace of her former sulky manner. ‘I couldn’t resist the afternoon, so I started with Miss Knox, meaning to go back to tea, but we found the afternoon was getting on, and she persuaded me to come in with her. I do hope, Mrs Morland, I’m not being pushing, but I’ve heard so much of you from Mr Knox that I felt I really knew you quite well.’

  Laura answered civilly, but was inwardly consumed with fury at the woman’s impertinence. How dare she talk as if she and George Knox had been discussing their neighbour? Sibyl knew quite well that she was at liberty to bring anyone she liked to Laura’s house, but Laura was pretty sure that Sibyl had not suggested this afternoon’s outing. It was a black lookout if one could never see George and Sibyl again without this incubus squatting down beside them. She did not dare to exchange glances with Sibyl, and was thankful when tea arrived, with Adrian and Tony on its heels.

  ‘Adrian,’ she said, ‘I want you to know a very dear friend of mine, Sibyl Knox, a kind of adopted daughter.’ Not till they had shaken hands did she introduce Miss Grey, adding with a meaning look at Adrian, ‘Miss Grey is doing some secretarial work for George Knox at present.’

  She saw Adrian blench at the news and cast an appealing glance at her.

  ‘There’s a chair by Miss Knox, Adrian,’ she said, ‘and I want you by me, Miss Grey. I do hope you are enjoying our part of the country.’

  ‘I just love it. And I enjoy working for Mr Knox enormously – it’s a privilege.’

  ‘You’ve been with him all the autumn, haven’t you? You weren’t here in the summer holidays, when I was last down.’

  ‘No, I had another position then, where I wasn’t very happy.’

  ‘Bad luck,’ said Laura, who didn’t at all want to hear about Miss Grey’s unhappiness.

  ‘It was a little difficult, Mrs Morland. I was very much misunderstood.’

  ‘Oh, well, that happens to all of us,’ said Laura cheerfully.

  Miss Grey turned her large, expressive eyes on Laura and murmured, with a slight added touch of her pretty brogue, ‘Yes, I know, but most people have someone to go to with their troubles. I am such a homeless person,’ which forced Laura, against her will, to say something conventional about hoping Miss Grey would feel quite at home at Low Rising.

  ‘Indeed I do. Mr Knox is kindness itself and so is Miss Knox. It is lovely to be in a house where there are no petty feelings. When I had to give up my last position, largely through my employer’s wife, I had nowhere to go, and no one to turn to. So you can imagine how lucky I think myself to have got this job, where everyone is so kind, and all Mr Knox’s friends are so interesting. I have always loved your wonderful books, Mrs Morland, if you don’t mind my saying so, and I have been so looking forward to meeting you. And it’s a great privilege to meet Mr Coates today. I hardly hoped for such luck.’

  Laura’s distaste for this well-spoken young woman deepened. What interest was it to her to know that Miss Grey was disliked by her late employer’s wife? I’d have loathed her myself, she thought, if she was rude one minute and all over me the next. Luckily Miss Grey, having apparently given Laura her share of flattery for the time, turned to Tony and began to talk about dogs, a subject upon which they both became quite human, so Laura was able to cast an eye on what she already called her young couple, who were getting on very well. Although Miss Grey’s presence put a slight constraint on her, Sibyl was much more herself. But some anxiety, which she could not altogether shake off, was evidently still weighing on her mind. Under cover of Miss Grey’s animated description of an Airedale she had had as a girl, Sibyl said to Adrian, ‘Do you think it is a good thing to talk to authors about their works?’

  As Adrian’s professional experience of them was that they rarely wanted to talk about anything else, he said, ‘Yes,’ heartily. Sybil looked confused.

  ‘Even poetry?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘Oh,’ and she looked ready to cry.

  Adrian was rather perplexed. Had this girl been writing poetry by any chance and wanted him to look at it? Otherwise, why introduce the subject like that? ‘Am I speaking to a poet?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, no. But I am; that’s the trouble.’

  She looked so confiding and worried that Adrian had to ask her if he could help.

  ‘Well, you see, an awful thing has happened. Daddy’s secretary – you know, over there – loves your poems, and she made me read them, because we were to meet you here today. At least, Mrs Morland asked me to come, and she wanted to come too, so I couldn’t very well say no, but I knew it would be awful.’

  ‘I’m getting a bit confused. What is it exactly that is awful? Is it me? Or going to tea with Mrs Morland?’ Sybil shook her head violently, but still cast appealing glances at him, as if praying to be helped out of some difficulty. ‘Or is it my poems you don’t like?’

  Sibyl blushed painfully. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Coates. I did try to, because she wanted me to be able to tell you how much I liked them and ask you to come and see us some time. And I know I’m a fool, and anyway I can’t ever understand poetry except the bits in anthologies, but I couldn’t understand yours at all. I’m so very, very sorry.’

  ‘Dear Miss Knox, I don’t know when I’ve had a more comforting thing said to me.’

  ‘Do you mean one needn’t like them?’

  ‘One not only needn’t, but one would be an abject ass if one did – with all respect to your father’s secretary. Early poems are a thing it takes years to live down. If only you knew how many people have told me they liked those shameful, half-baked verses of mine, in the hopes that I would want to publish their even worse prose, you would be surprised. I was just a conceited undergraduate with doting parents, and that’s the truth of it. The poems, if you can call them that, were a disgrace to civilisation, and I’ve never written another line and never shall.’

  Sibyl’s face showed what seemed to Adrian quite disproportionate relief as she said, ‘I’m so glad. I feel much safer. Then you aren’t an author at all now?’

  ‘Not a bit, and never shall be. But I am speaking to one, I believe. Mrs Morland tells me you are writing. May one ask what?’

  ‘But you said one’s first things were a
wful.’

  ‘Not always by any means,’ said Adrian laughing. ‘I feel sure there must be something very interesting and delicious to come from you, Miss Knox.’

  Sibyl sank into the depths of embarrassment again and sat miserably twisting her hands together, but Miss Grey saved her from any further questioning by getting up and saying they must go, as Mr Knox would be waiting for her. Before Laura could burst with indignation over Miss Grey’s assumption of leadership, Stoker threw open the door, stating, ‘Someone you will be glad to see. Miss Todd.’

  Miss Todd’s arrival kept the Low Rising party for a few minutes. Miss Todd engaged Miss Grey in conversation about Bournemouth, and varieties of typewriter, while Sibyl, quite happy again, sparkled at Adrian. Then, at a look from Miss Grey, she got up and began saying goodbye.

  ‘Don’t you think, Miss Knox,’ said Miss Grey, ‘that we might take it upon ourselves to ask Mrs Morland to bring Mr Coates over to us when he is next here? I am sure your father would like it.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Sibyl, resuming her harried air.

  ‘Mr Coates is coming to me for the New Year weekend,’ said Laura, interested to see how far Miss Grey would go. Miss Grey then suggested that they should dine at Low Rising on New Year’s Eve. Laura, knowing that Adrian could easily have enough of George Knox, was beginning to hedge, when Adrian expressed his approval of the plan. So, like a kind match-maker, she accepted, subject to ratification from Mr Knox, and the ladies took their leave.

  Laura, Miss Todd, and Adrian then had a short professional talk, after which Adrian went back to town, Tony clinging to his running board as far as the end of the drive.

  ‘Mother, Mother,’ cried Tony, bursting, round-eyed, a minute later, into the drawing-room, where Laura and Miss Todd were sitting comfortably by the fire. ‘What do you think has happened?’

  Laura had a moment’s sick fear. ‘Not an accident? Nothing’s happened to Adrian?’

  ‘Mother, how could you! Of course not. Look, Mother; look, Miss Todd!’

  Speechless with emotion, he exhibited a pound note, Adrian’s Christmas tip. Laura pushed him out of the room, recommending him to tell Stoker, and sat down exhausted. After a moment’s peaceful silence, Miss Todd remarked, ‘So that’s the woman.’

  Laura, still smarting under her wrongs, told Miss Todd all that had happened that afternoon, and her indignation at Miss Grey’s behaviour. Miss Todd listened calmly.

  ‘I’m glad all the same. I wanted to get a look at her. You see, with you being away all autumn, I didn’t see much of the Knoxes, and if Sibyl ran in for a moment, it was while her father and Miss Grey were working and she was alone. I can tell you all about her now, Mrs Morland.’

  ‘Do you know her, then?’

  ‘No. But we serfs,’ (which was Miss Todd’s invariable way of mentioning her status as secretary to a well-known authoress) ‘have a secret understanding of each other. She’s a queer fish, Mrs Morland. I wouldn’t say a bad egg, but a neurotic, and possibly a dangerous egg. Of course she’s after Mr Knox, and she’ll very likely get him. She is the sort that always gets her employer. Sibyl will be her difficulty. That woman is a fool to take airs like that, inviting guests to the house in front of Sibyl. The child is too ignorant and too shy to stand up for herself. I wonder where she was before, and how much damage she’s done already.’

  ‘Oh, Anne, how sinister.’

  ‘Fairly sinister, but might be worse. It’s a good thing you are down for the holidays.’

  ‘But I can’t do anything – I can’t interfere.’

  ‘No, but you are a counter-attraction.’

  ‘Rubbish, Anne.’

  ‘Rubbish, perhaps, but I’m right about Miss Grey. Trust one serf to see through another. Ask Dr Ford,’ said she, as the doctor came into the room, ‘whether Miss Grey isn’t a queer fish.’

  ‘Well, that sounds less disagreeable than being a neurotic egg, Anne. How do you do, Dr Ford. As Miss Grey isn’t your patient, could we gossip about her?’

  Dr Ford proved to be refreshingly free from gossip inhibitions, and gave it as his opinion that the new secretary was certainly a neurotic egg, and would be a nuisance if she went on unchecked.

  ‘I don’t mind about Knox,’ he declared. ‘If he can’t keep a woman off at his age, he’s a fool; but I don’t like it for Sibyl. The girl is very young for her age, and easily bullied. She might have fallen for Miss Grey, for the woman has a way with her. But as she hasn’t, she may be persecuted a good deal. Ever seen Miss Grey in one of her tempers?’ Neither of them had. ‘All right, wait till you do. All I hope is that she will lose her temper with Sibyl while Knox is there. He adores the child, and that would settle Miss Grey’s hash.’

  ‘But how did you see her in a temper?’ asked Miss Todd.

  ‘Professional secrets.’

  ‘Not now,’ said Miss Todd. ‘It’s too serious. Out with it.’

  Dr Ford, who only wanted to be pressed, continued his story.

  ‘It was in November some time, and the Knoxes were asked to dinner at Castle Rising. Miss Grey seems to have said she was Cinderella so loud and so often, and sat so firmly in the ashes, that Knox got uncomfortable and asked if she could come too. It wasn’t at all convenient, because Lady Stoke was away and the earl only wanted the Knoxes in a friendly sort of way – this he told me himself. But Miss Grey got her invitation, and then Sibyl went down with flu and she was pretty bad. So Knox said they wouldn’t go – quite right too – the child was running a raging temperature and those maids are fools. He didn’t like to tell Miss Grey, so I had to. It was an interesting experience, and she went off the handle completely. Then she pulled herself together and said it was her nerves that were worn out with nursing Sibyl. She’s a good nurse all right, I grant her that, but a woman who can lose her temper like that before a stranger, has something wrong with her. I’d like to get her analysed.’

  ‘I hope it’s all right for Sibyl,’ said Laura, made quite uncomfortable by Dr Ford’s indiscretions.

  ‘Quite all right,’ he reassured her. ‘Miss Grey has the wits to know that Sibyl is everything to her father. If he were in love, that might be another matter. She might do a good deal to hurt anyone George Knox happened to care for, if it got in her way.’

  Everyone felt depressed by this conversation, and it was for once a relief when Tony came in. They then played Conse quences, a stipulation being previously made by Laura that Tony was not to use any upsetting expressions from school. When the results were read, Tony tried to keep up his detached attitude, but his mouth dimpled and twitched till he had a fit of delicious giggles.

  ‘Mother, listen to this,’ he said, reading the paper in front of him in a voice weak with laughter: ‘“Squinting Dr Ford met golden-haired Stoker at the station; he said to her, Where is Tony? and she said to him, Miss Grey is a wonky fool, and the consequences were the engine ran off the lines, and the world said A Happy Christmas.” Mother, she is a fool, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, I thought that was your contribution, Tony, and very near the border-line,’ said his mother.

  ‘But she is, isn’t she, Dr Ford? We always said her brain was wonky?’

  ‘Who said? You and Stoker?’ Laura began, but as Dr Ford got up, she lost the thread of her sentence. The doctor collected Miss Todd and took her off in the two-seater. As they stopped at her door, she said, ‘I want to hear about Mamma. Come in for a moment. I promise not to ask for a bill.’

  On those conditions Dr Ford accompanied her into the little drawing-room, and there told her that Mrs Todd was as uncertifiable as ever and a little weaker about the heart. ‘Nothing to be frightened of, but something might happen at any minute – though I don’t think it will – or she may go on for years, wearing you to death.’

  ‘Rather fierce, aren’t you?’ asked Miss Todd. ‘I could kill the poor old thing sometimes, but heaven knows I don’t want to lose her, and I do my best to be decent. She’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘I think dece
nt quite an understatement, Miss Todd. But remember, if she did suddenly die, it won’t be your fault. You’re doing all you humanly can. The rest is out of your hands.’

  ‘I know, I know. Well, thanks for telling me. I’m going to have a cry now, so goodbye.’

  Before Dr Ford could offer any consolation, he was hustled kindly out of the house and the door was shut behind him. He went home and ate his solitary dinner, with a vision of Miss Todd, pride and valour laid aside, having her cry all alone, before she went up to her mother for the evening. He nearly got up and went back to her, but reflecting that she would again be armoured against herself he thought better of it, and went on eating with undiminished appetite.

  5

  Embarrassing Evening

  Saturday having been Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, not unnaturally, followed on Sunday. Tony collected thirty-five shillings in tips, apart from Adrian’s gift, and became so insupportable on the subject of trains that Laura had to ban them altogether during meals. Luckily the hounds met twice during the week, which faintly distracted Tony’s attention from railway systems, and he was able to give her a mass of authoritative and mostly erroneous information about hunting. Both these pleasures were happily combined on the day when the fox crossed the line just above Stoke Dry station, and Tony, following on foot, was fortunate enough to arrive by short cuts just as the London Express, which ignored Stoke Dry, thundered past, killing one hound outright and knocking another, yelping loudly, head over heels down the embankment, with a broken leg, and causing a young horse to have hysterics. Tony, who had shed bitter and unmanly tears over the corpse, was transported to the seventh heaven by being allowed to drive home with the local vet and see the survivor’s leg set, and spent most of his spare time for the next few days talking to the invalid.

  Stoker drowned her animosity against Mr Knox’s Annie’s sister in the excitement of Christmas time, when extra help was always wanted. The kitchen, and indeed the whole house, so rang to their shrieks and songs that Laura gave up trying to write, and spent three days in bed, reading detective stories.