Crampton Hodnet Page 3

  At last, when she had ruined a white linen handkerchief and removed what seemed to her nearly all the unnatural colouring, she hurried downstairs. Whatever would Miss Doggett say, she wondered, when she discovered that Mr. Latimer had arrived nearly two hours too early? Miss Morrow felt that in some inexplicable way she would be blamed for it, and so her greeting of Mr. Latimer when she entered the drawing-room lacked warmth; indeed, it was hardly a greeting at all.

  ‘I don’t know what Miss Doggett will say,’ she burst out in a breathless voice. ‘She isn’t here yet.’

  Stephen Latimer, who had been prodding the little cactus with his finger, turned round, rather taken aback by this welcome. It was not at all what he was accustomed to. Women usually gushed with delight when they met him. He saw a thin, fair woman standing in the doorway, nervously clasping her hands. She had very bright eyes and such a high colour on her cheeks and lips that for a moment he wondered if it could be natural. But then he told himself that his suspicions were ridiculous. She didn’t look at all the sort who would use make-up. By instinct and from experience he distrusted all women under the age of fifty and some over it, for he was an attractive man with a natural charm of manner and had been much run after. Once, indeed, he had even got himself caught in the tangles of an engagement, so that before he knew what he was doing he found himself strolling with a young woman before the windows of Waring and Gillow, looking at dining-room suites. But fortunately they had not got beyond looking, although there had been some unpleasantness and nearly a breach of promise case. He turned hastily from these uncomfortable recollections and was thankful that he had chosen to live with an old lady and her companion in North Oxford, where he hoped he would be safe from the advances of designing women. He did not imagine that many such would call at Leamington Lodge.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said easily, ‘but I found myself catching an earlier train, and I thought I could probably leave my luggage here, even if you weren’t ready for me.’

  ‘Oh, we are ready, really,’ said Miss Morrow, remembering the sheets on the bed. ‘But Miss Doggett isn’t here,’ she added hopelessly. She was quite taken aback at the sight of Mr. Latimer. Mrs. Wardell had told them about his red hair, but it was auburn, really, and so thick. He was tall, too, with broad shoulders, and yet he didn’t look like the Rugger Blue type, who would preach about the Game of Life.

  ‘Well, as you’re here, I’d better show you your room,’ she said doubtfully, still thinking of Miss Doggett.

  ‘Thank you, that would be very kind.’

  Miss Morrow led the way upstairs. She knew that she was doing a wicked thing, but she quieted her conscience by reminding herself that she could hardly be blamed for Mr. Latimer’s early arrival, and that she could hardly have refused to see him until Miss Doggett came back.

  ‘Your room faces the garden,’ she said, ‘and you can look away into the distance. It gives one such a feeling of space. The rooms are very big,’ she added hastily, ‘but you know what I mean. It takes you out of yourself, beyond all this.’ With a wave of her hand she seemed to indicate the landing, with its dark turkey carpet and indefinite oil paintings.

  ‘Yes, I suppose we do occasionally need taking out of ourselves,’ said Mr. Latimer thoughtfully, as if the idea had not occurred to him before.

  ‘I think you will find it so when you have lived here a bit,’ said Miss Morrow without elaboration.

  Mr. Latimer laughed. ‘Oh, well, if I find I want it as much as all that I can always go somewhere else,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Miss Morrow in a disappointed tone. She felt as if she had offered him a precious possession and had it thrown back at her.

  They were standing in the room now.

  ‘This is the study and the bedroom leads out of it. I feel like a landlady doing all this,’ said Miss Morrow, anxious to make bright, normal conversation.

  ‘Well, it seems very comfortable,’ said Mr. Latimer, looking round at the reassuringly Victorian room with its good, solid furniture. He glanced approvingly at the hard, uninviting-looking sofa. Hardness and uninvitingness were, he felt, just those qualities which the sofa in the study of a bachelor clergyman should possess. No chance of amorous dalliance here. It was too narrow and slippery. He went over to the enormous roll-top desk. ‘I can see myself writing sermons here,’ he said. ‘The dark green walls are so restful. The curtains too’ — he touched their dull, stuffy folds — ‘so very soothing. What’s the tree growing outside the window? A monkey-puzzle?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Morrow. ‘There’s one on the front lawn too. It shuts out the sun,’ she added in a faint voice. Surely it wasn’t natural that a good-looking young man should want to shut himself up in a prison, even if he was a clergyman? ‘The bedroom is through here,’ she said, opening a door. ‘I believe it has all the usual conveniences. Miss Doggett insisted that the largest washstand in the house should be put here. I don’t know why.’

  ‘There is supposed to be some connection between cleanliness and godliness,’ said Mr. Latimer, making a curately joke. ‘It’s certainly a magnificent piece of furniture. I think its presence is justified simply because of that.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Morrow. ‘ “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. It reminds me of the altar of Randolph College chapel. So much marble and mahogany.’

  ‘What’s this engraving?’ said Mr. Latimer, going to the wall.

  ‘Oh, that’s one of the Bavarian lakes,’ explained Miss Morrow. ‘Miss Doggett has a whole set of them. This is the biggest.’

  ‘What a very dry-looking lake it is,’ said Mr. Latimer thoughtfully. ‘One can’t imagine that the water could ever be wet.’

  They both laughed. Mr. Latimer sat down by Miss Morrow on the bed. They were still laughing when Miss Doggett came in. The sound of their laughter was the first thing that she heard before the shameful sight met her eyes: the sight of Miss Morrow—painted like a harlot—sitting laughing on the bed with a handsome clergyman whom she had just met for the first time, the new curate whose welcome Miss Doggett had planned so carefully. It was too bad. Miss Doggett cast about in her mind for words strong enough to describe Miss Morrow’s perfidy and deceit, but could find none.

  It was certainly a bad beginning, and nobody was more conscious of this than Miss Morrow. But Mr. Latimer leapt up entirely without embarrassment. His natural, easy manners made the washstand, its rose-garlanded china and the large double bed seem no more out of place than the ordinary furniture of a North Oxford drawing-room. Miss Doggett, who had so far said nothing but a rather cold ‘Good evening’, was completely pacified by his profuse apologies for having arrived earlier than was expected. He very tactfully made no reference to Miss Morrow, thus giving the impression that although he had indeed arrived, he had not yet been welcomed. And so Miss Doggett found herself with something definite to do and began showing him the rooms all over again.

  Miss Morrow slipped away to her bedroom and began scrubbing at her cheeks and lips with the already ruined handkerchief. Completely indelible, it had said in the advertisement; won’t come off when you’re eating, smoking or being kissed. I suppose if I had suddenly kissed Mr. Latimer, she thought detachedly, it would have left no mark. She went to the washstand. Surely soap and water would remove it? Ten minutes later she went downstairs, her face flushed and shining, but flushed only because she had had to rub so hard with her soapy face flannel. She hoped Miss Doggett hadn’t noticed.

  But Miss Doggett was quite taken up with Mr. Latimer and did not see her companion until she was sitting in a chair on the edge of the room.

  ‘Ah, Miss Morrow, I was wondering where you were,’ she said, turning her head. ‘I wanted you to hold my wool.’ She produced a rough navy skein, which was to be knitted up into a balaclava helmet for a seaman.

  Fierce was the wild billow,

  Dark was the night,

  thought Miss Morrow, as she arranged the wool on her hands.

  Wail of the
hurricane

  Be thou at rest.

  Some versions had “Wail of Euroclydon”, which was much grander. Surely Mr. Latimer ought to be holding the wool? Wasn’t it one of the chief functions of curates, or had she been misinformed? It was just another of those small disillusionments which make up our everyday life on this earth, she decided.

  ‘Do you like a hot water bottle at night, Mr. Latimer?’ asked Miss Doggett. ‘And do you prefer China or Indian tea? A fire will be lit in your room every morning, of course.’

  But it’s only the twenty-eighth of October, thought Miss Morrow indignantly. So this is how it’s going to be. She glanced at Mr. Latimer, who sat like a handsome, complacent marmalade cat, telling Miss Doggett all his little fads. I’m certainly not going to fuss over him, thought Miss Morrow, jerking the wool vigorously round her thumbs; I won’t wait on him.

  While Miss Morrow was steeling herself to resist Mr. Latimer’s charms, Miss Doggett was telling him about the inhabitants of North Oxford and her own relations in particular. She became quite coy and skittish about Anfhea’s romance.

  ‘I happened to go into the drawing-room yesterday evening,’ she said, ‘and there were the young people sitting on the sofa, very far apart and rather pink in the face. Of course I knew what they’d been up to. We’re only young once, aren’t we?’ She wagged her finger at Mr. Latimer, who seemed to draw back a little.

  Miss Morrow, too, was surprised. Miss Doggett usually disapproved of young people, especially of girls who ‘made themselves cheap’, as she called it. But of course, reflected Miss Morrow, it all depended on who was at the other end of the sofa, so to speak. If it was the only son of a sometime British Ambassador in Warsaw, whose mother lived in Belgravia, who took you to expensive restaurants and bought you orchids and whose college battels each term would have kept somebody like Miss Morrow clothed for many years, then Miss Doggett adopted a come-kiss-me-sweet-and-twenty attitude and observed that we are only young once. But supposing it had been a young man from one of the poorer colleges, who came from Huddersfield and had a state scholarship and wouldn’t wear suede shoes even if he could afford them? Supposing they had been sitting together, holding hands by the light of a gas-fire in a dreary room in one of the more remote streets leading off the Cowley Road, talking seriously about their future? Miss Morrow could see the room, the gas-fire flickering and popping, the table with its red or green baize cloth piled high with mathematical textbooks or Latin authors, while in Simon’s rooms in Randolph College, the table was strewn with bills, invitations to luncheons and sherry parties, and even love letters. Or so Miss Morrow, who was highly imaginative, pictured it.

  ‘… son of the late British Ambassador in Warsaw,’ she heard Miss Doggett saying to Mr. Latimer. ‘A brilliant young man. I think dinner is ready now. I hope you can take veal?’

  They walked into the dining-room, talking happily about dyspepsia. Miss Morrow followed, feeling rather young and sprightly.

  After dinner there was more wool-winding and some general conversation about Italian churches, central heating, ravioli, the unemployed, winter underclothes, plainsong chants and various other subjects, which seemed to follow each other quite easily. At ten o’clock they retired to bed.

  Good, thought Mr. Latimer, as he climbed into the high, wide bed, laden with far too many bedclothes; there was a bedside lamp. He had so often in his life had to patter across cold linoleum in bare feet to turn off a light by the door. He believed that he was going to be very comfortable here. Of course Miss Doggett made a fuss of him, as all women did, but he rather liked this, as long as he wasn’t expected to give anything in return except the politeness and charm which came to him without effort. And, after all, what else could he be expected to give to an old woman of seventy? He liked the companion too, an amusing, sensible little woman, who wasn’t likely to throw her arms round his neck, for poor Mr. Latimer had experienced even that. His last thought before he went to sleep was that he liked Leamington Lodge.

  In the Clevelands’ house nobody was asleep, although they were all in bed. Francis Cleveland was shouting through the communicating door to his wife’s room that he had a new pupil called Barbara Bird, who had written a remarkably fine essay on the love poems of John Donne.

  Mrs. Cleveland made some suitable remark and then went back to her calculations about eggs for pickling. They seemed to get through such a lot of everything with these young men always coming to the house. And even when they were in love with Anthea they seemed to have enormous appetites.

  Anthea was lying in bed on her stomach, with her face buried in the pillow. She was, as usual, thinking about Simon, with whom she had been out that evening. She was wide awake and it was no use trying to go to sleep, because even in the dark she saw his bright eyes looking at her. She tossed and turned and then lay on her back, regretting that these romantic evenings with much wine always made one so frightfully thirsty afterwards. She gulped down two glasses of water, then went to the window and leaned out. ‘Is he thinking about me?’ she whispered to the night, solemnly blowing kisses in what she imagined was the direction of Randolph College, but which was actually, and most unsuitably, the nearest way to a seminary for Roman Catholic priests.

  Simon was not thinking about her. He was lying happily awake in his college bedroom, going over a speech he hoped to make at the Union debate on Thursday. Of course he adored Anthea, but “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart”, especially when he is only twenty and has the ambition to become Prime Minister.

  IV. Miss Bird

  ‘Now, Miss Morrow, you ought to be in your place at the stall,’ said Miss Doggett sharply, moving about the room giving orders. Every year she made herself the chief figure at the winter Sale of Work, although she did little to help in the preparations beyond knitting a few garments out of inferior wool or sending a quantity of junk out of her house.

  This afternoon she was a regal figure in maroon with a skunk cape, quite alarming in her magnificence, although every woman had smartened herself up a little for the occasion. Even Miss Nollard and Miss Foxe, two dim North Oxford spinsters, were wearing new hats, and Miss Nollard’s hair looked suspiciously as if it had been waved. Only Mrs. Wardell remained reassuringly the same. Everyone knew that the curiously out-of-season straw hat she wore was only her old garden hat trimmed with a bunch of cherries from Woolworth’s, and some with sharper eyes were able to notice that the cherries had been sewn on with greenish darning wool, probably left in the needle after she had finished darning the vicar’s socks.

  This year Mr. Latimer was the chief attraction at the sale, and his presence helped them to forget that they had not been able to get anybody distinguished to open it and so had been obliged to fall back on Mrs. Cleveland, who was always very ready to do anything she could, and whose husband looked very distinguished, even though he was only a Fellow of Randolph College.

  She performed the opening ceremony swiftly and competently. As she had forgotten to ask what the sale was in aid of and there seemed to be no clues anywhere, she was not able to give any really convincing reasons why people should spend their money on the not very attractive things displayed on the stalls. But she was a conscientious woman and did her best, and when she had made her speech she walked round in her best lizard-skin shoes, which hurt her com, and bought a great deal of jam and cake—always useful for the Sunday tea parties—and as many other things as she thought could possibly be used in any way. But no crowd of obsequious church workers followed her, as is usual on such occasions. All the women who were not serving at the stalls were occupied elsewhere. They were clustering round Mr. Latimer.

  Miss Morrow, who was somewhere at the outer edge of the throng surrounding him, watched him with dispassionate interest. His smooth remarks came as easily as if he had put on a gramophone record, she thought. He praised everything on every stall, tasted every different variety of home-made cakes, sweets and even jam, and had a compliment ready for every lady who asked hi
m, as many did, how he liked her dress.

  Miss Morrow would never have dreamed of asking a man such a question, she had for so long now worn the sort of clothes about which nobody could possibly say anything complimentary without telling lies. Her clothes were no more than drab coverings for her body. How do you like this grey jumper suit, Mr. Latimer, with its sagging cardigan and dowdy-length skirt? How do you like this felt hat of the sort of grey-beige which goes with everything and nothing? How do you like this blouse which I bought in Elliston’s Sale two years ago because it was, and still is, that shade of green which even the prettiest girl can’t get away with?

  But Mr. Latimer was glad when, by some movement of the crowd, he found himself next to Miss Morrow. If he had analysed his feelings he would have realised that he turned to her with relief, as one does to a person with whom one need not make conversation. But there was no personal quality in his feeling for her. He regarded her simply as a man might regard a comfortable chair by the fire, where he can sit with his slippers on and a pipe in his mouth.

  Miss Morrow felt this, but it did not worry her. Inanimate objects were often so much nicer than people, she thought. What person, for example, could possibly be so comforting as one’s bed? And although she hardly dared to imagine that he thought as highly of her as of his bed, she was nevertheless conscious of a certain easy relationship between them which pleased her. She knew that they both had the same opinion of Miss Doggett, although they never actually spoke of her. Mr. Latimer’s coming to Leamington Lodge had certainly brought pleasure into their lives, and Miss Doggett had less time to nag at her companion now that she had a curate to dote upon.