She linked her other arm in Val"s and dragged her brothers out of the dangerous proximity of the strawberry beds. Val sat down on a deck chair, one leg thrown over the other, Rowsley dropped at full length on the turf, and Isabel doubled herself up between them, her arms clasped round her knees. "How"s the Old Man?" she asked in friendly reference to Rowsley"s commanding officer.
"Oh Rose, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. Will Spillsby be able to play on the Fourth?" Spillsby, a brother subaltern and a famous bat, had twisted his ankle at the nets, and Rowsley in his last letter had been uncertain whether he would be well enough to play the Sappers at the annual fixture.
Happily Rowsley was able to rea.s.sure his young sister: the ankle was much better and Spillsby was already allowed to walk on it.
Isabel then turned her large velvet eyes--gazelle eyes with a world of pathos in their velvet gloom on her elder brother.
"Coruscate, Val," she commanded. "You haven"t said anything at all yet. We should all try to be bright in the home circle. We cannot all be witty, but-Ow! Rowsley, if you pull my hair I shall hit you in the--in the place where the Gauls fined their soldiers if they stuck out on parade. Oh, Val, that really isn"t vulgar, I found it in Matthew Arnold! Their stomachs, you know.
They wouldn"t have fined you anyhow. You look f.a.gged, darling-- are you?"
"Not so much f.a.gged as hungry," said Val in his soft voice. "It"s getting on for nine o"clock and I was done out of my tea. I went in to Wanhope, but Laura was out, and Clowes was drinking whisky and soda. I cannot stand whisky at four in the afternoon, and Irish whisky at that. There"ll be some supper going before long, won"t there?"
"Not until half past nine because Jimmy has his Bible cla.s.s tonight." Jimmy was Mr. Stafford: and perhaps a purist might have objected that Mrs. Clowes and Yvonne Bendish had not done all they might have done to form Isabel"s manners. "I"m so sorry, darling," she continued, preparing to leap to her feet. "Shall I get you a biscuit? There are oatmeals in the sideboard, the kind you like, I won"t be a minute--"
"Thanks very much, I"d rather wait. Did you see Mrs. Clowes today? Clowes said she was at the Castle."
"So she was, sitting with Mrs. Morley in an angelic striped cotton. Mrs. Morley was in mauve ninon and a Gainsborough hat.
Yvonne says Mr. Morley is a Jew and made his money in I. D. B."s, which I suppose are some sort of stocks?" Neither of her brothers offered to enlighten her, Rowsley because he was feeling indolent, Val because he never said an unkind word to any one.
Isabel, who was enamoured of her own voice flowed on with little delay: "If he really is a Jew, I can"t think how she could marry him; I wouldn"t. Mrs. Morley can"t be very happy or Laura wouldn"t go and talk to her. Laura is so sweet, she always sits with people that other people run away from. Oh Val, did Major Clowes tell you their news?" Isabel might refer to her father as Jimmy and to Rowsley"s commander as the Old Man, but she rarely failed to give Bernard Clowes his correct prefix.
"No--is there any?"
"Only that they have some one coming to stay with them. Won"t he have a deadly time?" Isabel glanced from Val to Rowsley in the certainty of a common response. "Imagine staying at Wanhope!
However, he invited himself, so it"s at his own risk. Perhaps he"s embarra.s.sed like you, Rose, and wants Laura to feed him.
It"s rather fun for Laura, though--that is, it will be, if Major Clowes isn"t too hopeless."
Strange freemasonry of the generations! Mr. Stafford"s children loved him dearly and he was wont to say that there were no secrets at the vicarage, yet they lived in a conspiracy of silence, and even Val, who was mentally nearer to his father"s age, would have been loth to let Mr. Stafford know as much as Isabel knew about Wanhope. It was a.s.sumed that Val"s job was the very job Val wanted. Mr. Stafford had indeed a suspicion that it was not all plain sailing: Bernard Clowes retained just so much of the decently bred man as to be courteous to his wife before a mere acquaintance, but the vicar came and went at odd hours, and he observed now and then vague intimations--undertones from Bernard himself, an uncontrollable shrinking on Laura"s part, an occasional hesitation or reluctance in Val--which hinted at flying storms. But Val, the father supposed, could make allowance for a cripple: Bernard was so much to be pitied that no man would resent an occasional burst of temper! And there his children left him. The younger generation can trust one another not to interfere, but when the seniors strike in, with their cut and dry precedents and rule of thumb moralities, who knows what mischief may follow? Elder people are so indiscreet!
"It"s a cousin of Major Clowes," Isabel continued, "but they haven"t met for years and years--not since the war. Laura knows him too, she met him before she was married and liked him very much indeed. She"s looking forward to it--that is, she would be if she had spirit enough to look forward to anything."
"Clowes never said a word to me about it," remarked Val.
"Didn"t he?" Isabel unfolded herself and stood up. "That means he is going to be tiresome. I must run now, it"s five past nine.
Which will you both have, cold beef or eggs?"
"Oh, anything that"s going," said Val.
"Eggs," said Rowsley, "not less than four. Without prejudice to the cold beef if it"s underdone. Hallo!"
"What?"
"What"s the matter with your skirt?"
"Nothing," said Isabel shortly. She screwed her head over her shoulder in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It"s perfectly all right."
"It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne won"t give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the kitchenmaid."
"The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It"s clean anyway, I washed and ironed it myself."
"It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one"s wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more faith in Rowsley"s judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty soon, won"t you, and put your hair up?"
"Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but how can I when I haven"t any money and Jim hasn"t any money and neither of you have any money? Don"t you see, idiot," this was exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes.
At present I"m only a little girl and it doesn"t signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I"ll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It"s f.a.n.n.y"s evening out."
She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist --a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming c.o.c.kchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from the moor.
Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on gooseberry bushes Val would have been an inveterate smoker, but good Egyptians were a luxury which he could not often afford The Wanhope agency was ample for his needs, though underpaid as agencies go: but there was Rowsley, always hard up, uncomplaining, but sensitive, as a young fellow in his position is sure to be, and secretly fretting because he could not do as other men did: and there was Isabel, for whom Val felt the anxiety Mr. Stafford ought to have felt, and was trying to make the provision Mr. Stafford ought to have made: and then there was the vicar himself, who laid out a great deal of money in those investments for which we are promised cent per cent interest, but upon a system of deferred payment.
Tonight however Val lit a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that afternoon. Even the patient Val had had thoughts of throwing up his job when the cripple made him go through his week"s accounts, scrutinizing every entry and cross-examining him on every transaction in such a tone as the head of a firm might employ to a junior clerk suspected of dishonesty. It was Bernard"s way: it meant nothing: but it was irksome to Val, especially when he could not soothe himself by dropping into Laura"s quiet parlour for a cup of tea. Yet his irritation would not have lingered through a cigarette if Isabel"s news had not revived it. This cousin of Bernard"s! Val had not much faith in any cousin of Bernard Clowes: nor in the kindness of life.
Val was a slight, fair, pleasant-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, quiet of movement, friendly-mannered and as inconspicuous as his own rather worn grey tweeds: one of a cla.s.s, till he raised his eyes: and then? There was something strange in Val"s eyes when they were fully raised, an indrawn arresting brilliance difficult to a.n.a.lyse: imaginative and sympathetic, as if he were at home in dark places: the quality of acceptance of pain.
Adepts in old days knew by his eyes a man who had been on the rack. Stafford had been racked: and by the pain that is half shame, the keenest, the most lacerating and destructive of wounds. He had suffered till he could suffer no more, and tonight in the starlit garden he, suffered still, without hope, or rebellion, or defence.
Indoors Rowsley and Isabel, with the rapidity of long use, laid the cloth, and Isabel fetched cold beef from the larder and b.u.t.ter and eggs from the dairy, while Rowsley went down the cellar with a jug and a candle and drew from the cask a generous allowance of beer. "Come along in, old Val," said Isabel, reappearing at the open window, "You and Rose are both famis.h.i.+ng and I"m not," this was a pious fiction, "so you can begin and I"ll wait for Jimmy. I dare say he"s gone wandering off somewhere and won"t be in till ten."
Val came across the dark, cool lawn and climbed over the window sill. A shabby room, large and low: a faded paper, grey toning to blue: a carpet of faded roses on a grey ground: the shaded Dresden lamp and roselit supper table s.h.i.+ning like an island in a pool of shadow, and those two beloved heads, both so dark and smooth and young, tam cara capita! Neither of them suspected that Val was unhappy. His feeling for them was more fatherly than fraternal, and Rowsley, strange to say, fell in with Val"s att.i.tude, coming to his brother for money as naturally as most young men go to their parents. Val sat at the head of the table because Mr. Stafford could not carve. "There!" said Isabel, giving him his plate. "Mustard? I"ve just made it so you needn"t look to see if it"s fresh. Watercress: I picked it myself. Lettuce. Cream and vinegar and sugar. Beer. Now do you feel happy? Lord love you, dear, I like to see you eat."
She sat on the arm of Mr. Stafford"s mahogany chair. "What time do you want breakfast? Seven o"clock? Major Clowes wouldn"t come down at seven if he were your agent. Can you get back to tea tomorrow? Laura may bring the cousin up to tea with her and she wants him to meet you."
"Very good of her. Why?"
"Oh, because he was in the Army too and all through the war. He went out with the first hundred thousand. He"s much older than you are--the same age as Laura. Oh, wait a minute!" exclaimed Isabel in the tone in which a Frenchwoman says Tenez. I forgot.
She thinks you must have met him, Val."
"Possibly," said Val.
"Was he in the Dorchesters?" asked Rowsley--much more interested than his brother, no doubt because he was not so hungry as Val, who was giving all his attention to his supper.
"No, in the Winchesters," said Isabel. "Do I mean the Winchesters, Val? What was Major Clowes" old regiment?"
"Clowes was in the Wintons."
Isabel nodded. "Then so was the cousin. And Laura says he was out there when the Wintons were in the next bit of trench north of the Dorchesters. He was there when--when you were wounded."
Such was Val Stafford"s modesty that in the family circle it was not in etiquette to refer in other terms to that famous occasion.
"I don"t remember any fellow named Clowes and I never knew Bernard Clowes had a cousin out there," said Val, mixing himself a salad.
"Oh, his name isn"t Clowes. It"s Ryde or Pride or something like that. I"m sorry to be so vague, but Jack Bendish and Yvonne and Mrs. Morley were all talking at once. Lawrence Pied--Fried--"
"Lawrence Hyde?"
"Yes, that"s it! Then you really do remember him?"
"Er--yes. Is that lamp smoking, Rowsley? You might turn it down a trifle, I can"t reach."
"Let me, let me?-- What was he like?"
"Who--Hyde? Oh," said Val vaguely, "he was like the rest of us --very tired."
"Tired?" echoed Isabel with a blank face, "but, Val darling, he couldn"t have been only tired! What should you think he was like when he wasn"t tired?"