The House of Discontent (15 page)

She was in that blissful yet restless stage of suspecting that Johnny cared for her, but not being quite sure. The suspicion was bliss, the uncertainty restlessness. She only knew for certain that when they were together they were both unquestionably happy. She had no doubt whatever that Johnny liked being with her, but how much he thought of her when she was not there she did not know. She thought of him all the time. When she remembered Jim her conscience worried her, but she tried, as far as possible, not to think of him.

She confessed all this to Patricia.

“You see,” she said, “Johnny and I are the same kind of people. We have the same sense of humour. I suppose we are both rather childish, but we like doing the same kind of things, and the same little jokes amuse us both ... I have been reading all Jim’s letters over again. I used to think they were such wonderful letters—I still do in a way—but they strike me now as being so awfully serious and highbrow. They are all about books. Not that books aren’t awfully interesting, but I don’t really like very serious books. I used to read them because he told me to, and I used to think that I enjoyed them and understood them, but I realize now that they never really interested me for their own sakes ... Johnny’s just like I am in that way. I can be absolutely and entirely myself with him. I don’t have to pretend anything, and that’s such a relief. I can say to him anything that comes into my head without having to think first whether it’s clever or amusing or grown-up, and he seems to like me just the way I am. Isn’t it incredible? ... Oh, Patricia, what am I going to do?”

Patricia thought a minute. “You haven’t committed yourself in any way to Jim, have you?” she asked.

“No, not in so many words, but he did say in his last letter that the first thing he would do when he arrived in England was to come and claim me. ‘Claim’ looks as if he thinks he has some right to me, doesn’t it? And if he
thinks
he has, it is I who have given him that impression. Oh, dear, I hope now that he has got that letter with the wrong photograph in it, because then when he sees me he will be so disappointed that he will go off in a rage!”

Patricia laughed. “Really, Mary, you’re incorrigible,” she said. “But I don’t see how he can think that he has any right to you if you have not definitely committed yourself. How can you possibly fall in love with a man you have never even seen?”

“But I’ve seen his photograph and he is awfully good-looking,” Mary said a little wistfully. “Johnny isn’t good-looking like that, but I do adore his funny face.”

Mary never wanted to talk of anything except Johnny at this time. She would pass on to Patricia little bits he had told her about his childhood and schooldays.

“Mustn’t he have been a sweet little boy?” she would say. “Mrs. Grey showed me lots of photographs the other day of him and Camilla as children. There was a heavenly one of him dressed as a page at somebody’s wedding. Oh, I did so long to keep it!”

She spent as much time as possible up at the White House, and Mrs. Grey was only too delighted to have her. Camilla had gone on a long visit to some friends in Gloucestershire and Mrs. Grey liked to have young people about the place. Mary became a companion to her, and helped her a great deal in the house.

She always managed to be there when Johnny came home, and as he was stationed so close he often came back for an afternoon or evening. It was a very happy time for Mary, especially when she could manage to keep the thought of Jim in the background of her mind.

Patricia could sympathize with Mary’s wish to be near Johnny’s mother when she could not be actually with Johnny himself. It was the next best thing, and Mary, who was of a very simple disposition, made no bones about owning it.

Patricia felt in herself the same kind of longing to be with Lady Brierleigh, butt not having such a simple or straightforward nature as Mary, and being frightened lest Lady Brierleigh should see through her, she did nothing to cultivate a friendship in that direction. It was Lady, Brierleigh herself who made overtures of friendship to Patricia. She had taken a great fancy to her, and asked her to come to the cottage whenever she liked, but Patricia, out of some kind of pride or shyness, did not avail herself of this standing invitation.

But there came a day when Lady Brierleigh happened to meet Patricia walking in the park, and insisted on her coming back to the cottage.

They had tea in Lady Brierleigh’s own little sitting-room on the first floor, where Patricia had not been before. She was conscious of the photographs of Anthony, at which she longed to look but did not dare. It was a most comfortable little room, done up in cream and copper-coloured satins, with a dark cream pile carpet on the floor, and all Lady Brierleigh’s most cherished ornaments on the mantelpiece and on little tables.

Tea was drawn up close to the fire, and while they were having it they talked about the hospital. Lady Brierleigh went there nearly every day, and took a tremendous interest in it. She said that she had heard from Matron that Patricia was getting on very well, and that Matron was most satisfied with her. Patricia found herself blushing with pleasure.

When the tea had been cleared away they pulled their armchairs up to the fire, and Lady Brierleigh gave Patricia some knitting to unpick while she herself settled to her needlework and began to draw out Patricia to talk about her father and her life in Hongkong.

It was very warm and cosy in the little room, and very restful, and an atmosphere of such easy intimacy was established between the two of them that Patricia felt that she could never be shy of Lady Brierleigh again. How delicious it was to be sitting here like this talking to Anthony’s mother feeling that she really liked one and was really interested in one.

Patricia’s heart went out to her. How wonderful it must be, she thought, to have a mother of one’s own, and she was momentarily stabbed by a queer little pain.

“Now some time we must arrange about the dance for Mary,” Lady Brierleigh said suddenly. “Nearly six weeks have gone by, and I’ve done nothing about it yet Anthony will be furious. He was so insistent on it But we’ve got another six weeks to go. He won’t be coming back here properly until May, though I expect him home before then, at least for a night or two. I was half expecting him last week-end, as a matter of fact, but he telephoned to say he was kept there.”

Patricia’s heart began to throb queerly the moment Anthony’s name was mentioned.

“He has a way of not letting me know when he’s coming,” Lady Brierleigh went on. “Unless he wants me to arrange something for him beforehand. He just walks in without any notice, so we always have to keep his room ready ... Hallo, isn’t that a car I hear? Now who could that be? Oh dear, I hope no one has come to call. We are so nice and cosy as we are.”

Patricia also hoped that no one had come to call. Now that Lady Brierleigh had begun to talk about Anthony she wanted her to go on talking about him. To go on and on. She could never hear enough about him. But unmistakably it was the sound of a car outside.

Lady Brierleigh was listening intently. “Do you know,” she said, half rising from her chair and putting aside her needlework, “I believe it’s Anthony!”

Patricia’s heart contracted, and the blood rushed to her head. She put down the bit of knitting and said quickly: “Oh, if it is, I’ll go.”

“Of course you’re not to go.” Lady Brierleigh got up and went over to the door and opened it “There’s the front door now. I’ll go and see.”

In a moment Patricia heard his voice. He called out “Mother!” and whistled.

Lady Brierleigh called back: “Oh, it
is
you, darling. I’m upstairs in my sitting-room.”

Patricia heard him bounding up the stairs and then the sound of a kiss, and then their voices coming along the passage. She had no time even to take out her vanity-case, but quickly patted her hair as the door was pushed open.

“We’ve got a visitor,” Lady Brierleigh told him over her shoulder as she came first into the room.

Patricia got up and the blood rushed to her face and neck. She did not look at Anthony as he came in, so she could not tell how the surprise of finding her there affected him—whether he was pleased or annoyed. When at last she was able to look at him she could read nothing in his face. It was quite impassive.

When he had greeted her, he flung himself down in a chair and stretched out his legs.

“It’s lovely and warm in here,” he said. “It’s terribly cold outside.”

“I must be going,” Patricia said.

“No, don’t go yet,” Lady Brierleigh urged. “It’s quite early. Sit down again.”

“Are you going to bicycle back?” Anthony asked her.

“No, I’m going to walk, but I haven’t got so far to go now.”

“I know. You’re working at the hospital.

She was startled to find that he knew about that already. Of course, it was the most natural thing in the world really that Lady Brierleigh should have told him about it in one of her letters, and yet she had not expected him to know. It seemed strange, and a little unfair, that he should have known more about her movements than she knew about his.

“How do you like it?” he asked.

“I love it,” she replied simply. “The children are so sweet, most of them, poor little things.”

“And how do you like Brierleigh itself?” he asked.

“The park or the house?”

“Well, I meant the house really.”

“It’s quite, quite lovely, and it’s got such a wonderful atmosphere—such a happy atmosphere.”

“What, still? It used to have, but I should have thought that all that illness would have taken it away.”

“It hasn’t, Anthony,” Lady Brierleigh put in. “You always thought it would, but it hasn’t. Really it hasn’t Patricia is quite right, it has kept its wonderfully happy atmosphere.”

“It doesn’t smell the same,” he said. “But why should it?” he added with a laugh. “It’s doing some good now, that’s the main thing, I suppose. But it used to smell of flowers and wood smoke and orris root, and now it stinks of ether. I should like Patricia to have known it as it was before.”

It was the first time that he had used her Christian name, and at the sound of it on his lips a thrill shot through her. She looked at him quickly, but he was looking away from her. Was he aware that he had used her name? It had come out so naturally, as if he had been accustomed to using it—almost as if he had been accustomed to thinking it.

“How long are you staying?” Lady Brierleigh asked him.

“I shall have to go back tomorrow evening,” he replied.

Patricia stayed on, and the conversation between the three of them was easy and natural. She found it difficult to tear herself away, and yet she felt that Lady Brierleigh was probably longing to be left alone with her son. At last she said: “I simply must go.”

“Why not stay and have a little dinner with us?” Lady Brierleigh asked.

Patricia hesitated. She longed to stay, but would she really be welcome? Her mind was made up for her by Anthony saying: “Yes, do stay, and I’ll run you back in the car afterwards.”

After that it was impossible to resist staying.

Soon Anthony said: “I’m going to have a bath and change out of these clothes,” and he got up and left the room.

Patricia immediately said to Lady Brierleigh: “I feel so guilty at staying, especially as he only has one night. I’m sure you would much rather be alone together.”

“My dear child,” Lady Brierleigh replied, “we don’t in the least want to be alone together. We could be alone every night of the week if I chose to go and live in Gloucestershire, but I feel it is much better for him to be on his own. After a certain age men should not live with their mothers. He has to spend most of his time at the other estate and that is why I decided to make my home here ... Besides, I love having you, as you know. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise, and Anthony certainly wouldn’t have pressed you to stay just out of politeness. When you know him better you will realize that he never says anything he doesn’t mean. He is the most intellectually honest person I have ever come across. That is why so many people think him rude. If he asked you to stay it meant that he wanted you ... Will you forgive me if I leave you for a moment while I just slip into a tea-gown? I feel rather stuffy in these clothes.”

Patricia always looked back to that evening as marking a turning-point in her life.

It was quite a new Anthony that she was seeing, and she could not help feeling that she was seeing him as his real self for the first time. He was in a gay, gentle mood.

After dinner they sat upstairs in Lady Brierleigh’s sitting-room, and Anthony read aloud some of Saki’s stories which were new to Patricia, though Anthony and his mother appeared to know them almost by heart. The outside world seemed very far away that evening, with the fire burning brightly, Anthony in a comfortable old velvet smoking jacket, and Lady Brierleigh, in a long, silky garment, bending over her petit point embroidery.

She dreaded the evening being over. It was after ten, and she knew she ought to be going, and yet she felt an extraordinary reluctance to leave, for when, if ever again, would she know an evening of enchantment like this?

But it was Lady Brierleigh who broke up the party. Anthony was just going to begin another story when she said: “We mustn’t be selfish and keep Patricia up any later. We can rest in the morning, but she has to get up at goodness knows what unearthly hour, and besides she has to be in by half-past ten if she has not got special permission.”

Anthony shut the book.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll take her back. I didn’t realize it was so late. The evening has gone like a flash.”

“You mustn’t bother to take me back,” Patricia protested. “I can easily walk back. I’ve got a torch.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Of course I’ll take you back.”

Patricia said good-night to Lady Brierleigh.

“You will come again, won’t you?” the latter asked. “I get very lonely, so you must take pity on a poor old woman and come see me often.”

Patricia assured her that she would.

When they got outside they found that it was a clear, frosty, moonlit night.

“There is no need for a torch,” Anthony said.