Read The House of Discontent Online
Authors: Esther Wyndham
“Will you take me, then?” she asked boldly. She felt instinctively that he was still angry with her about something and longed to make it up with him.
“No,” he replied shortly.
Patricia felt as if he had hit her a sharp blow in the face. She was hurt and very angry. She longed to retort quickly and indignantly: “Why not?” but restrained herself. After that snub nothing would induce her to speak to him again un.il he spoke to her. But he remained silent and her anger evaporated, though the hurt persisted.
She found herself wondering about him. What kind of man was he really? He seemed to be such a mass of contradictions. There was something proud, mysterious and secretive about him which she didn’t understand. And yet on the other hand, he was so amazingly kind. Look at what he had done for her that evening in London. Look at the promptitude with which he had come to Mary’s assistance this morning.
But with that last thought another suddenly came to her mind, and a very disturbing and disagreeable thought it was, too; he would have done for any stranger what he had done for her that evening in London. She had tried to construe it into something personal and special, but it was not personal or special; he would have done as much for anyone in distress because he was kind by nature.
She could not understand why this realization was so wounding. She had been a fool not to see it in that light before. Since coming to England she had quite lost her head and her sense of proportion.
They were nearly at The Knowle now, and suddenly he broke the silence. “Stick to your tea-parties,” he said. “It’s better if you’ve got to live here.” He spoke quite gently now. “If you seek the heights you will only be very lonely, and also you will find the depths.”
She thought she understood what he meant, but she was not sure. She wanted to go on with the conversation; she wanted to find out more, but they had come to The Knowle and he drew up. As he put on the hand-brake he said, almost under his breath so that she could hardly hear him: “If only a man could walk alone, he would be able to find his heaven on earth.”
“Why can’t he walk alone?” she asked.
“Because it is not in his nature. It is his nature to long for a partner.”
“Why can’t he find heaven on earth with a partner?” Patricia asked the question quickly, because she saw that the Leslies had come down the path and were opening the garden gate.
“Because,” Anthony said as he opened the car door and started to get out, “he would have to find the ideal woman, and it is not possible that she can exist.”
His last words were almost inaudible because he was half out of the car as he uttered them, but Patricia did not miss them.
The drive back to Brierleigh was very different. Dorothy was in a tremendous state of fuss.
“But why couldn’t you have done something for her at once?” she asked Patricia. “Leaving her at the side of the road like that! Anything might have happened to her.”
“Dorothy, be reasonable,” Peter said. “What else could she have done? She did the very best she could.”
Patricia was not really listening. She was still going over in her mind her conversation with Anthony.
“Then she ought to have come straight back to The Knowle,” Dorothy went on, “and let us know first.”
Peter touched her arm and pointed to Anthony’s back and made a face at her.
“Giving Lady Brierleigh all that trouble!” Dorothy added as a concession to her husband’s agitated gestures. “We are very grateful, I am sure, but it was quite unnecessary to go to the hospital. We could easily have taken care of her at home ... Patricia, you shouldn’t have left her. You should have waited there with her till a car came by, and then you could have got it to bring her straight home. That would have been the right thing to do ... Do you hear me? Patricia, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Aunt Dorothy.”
“Then why don’t you answer?”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Dorothy.” Patricia felt so intensely sorry for her Uncle Peter at that moment that she would have humbled herself to the ground rather than make it all the more embarrassing for him by answering back as she longed to do.
Anthony spoke suddenly and loudly, half turning his head so that the others could not fail to hear what he said. “I once pulled a boy out of a well,” he told them, “and in pulling him out I scraped his chest against the side. He was staying with us at the time, and he complained to my mother that I had hurt him, so my mother beat me. You can imagine what conclusion I came to?”
“To leave him in the well another time,” Peter suggested.
“How frightfully unjust,” Patricia exclaimed.
“Well, it was and it wasn’t,” Anthony replied. “You see, I had deliberately pushed him in in the first place—but it was unjust all the same, because my mother didn’t know that. I felt I deserved the whipping, but not for pulling him out!”
Peter and Patricia both laughed.
“I can’t believe that your mother ever beat you,” Dorothy put in incredulously.
“Oh, yes, she did. She was determined to be a father to me,” and he laughed, but it wasn’t altogether a happy laugh. “I think she forgot sometimes that my father had been a very gentle man.”
A sudden understanding flashed over Patricia. Did the clue to his character lie somewhere buried in his childhood? But then she remembered how he had given quick peremptory orders to his mother earlier on that morning, so surely he must be exaggerating her severity? Fear of one’s parents was not a thing that one easily grew out of, and yet Anthony certainly showed no vestige of fear of his mother. Besides, Lady Brierleigh was far from being a frightening or severe woman. She seemed to be the very essence of kindness.
“Oh, dear,” Patricia thought with a sigh, “I wish I could understand him.”
Peter heard the sigh and asked kindly: “Are you tired, Patricia dear?”
“No, thank you, Uncle Peter.”
“We shall be very late for lunch,” Dorothy grumbled. “I told you it would be much better to wait and come up in the afternoon.”
“You must all lunch with us,” Anthony said.
“No, really, we wouldn’t dream of it ...” Dorothy began to protest.
“There is no question about it,” Anthony replied authoritatively. “It is all arranged.”
Patricia wondered when on earth he could have arranged it. He had not been away from her for a minute since she had reported the accident, and he had certainly not asked his mother to arrange it because he had not spoken to her alone. Did he know his mother well enough to know that she would have arranged it of her own accord, or was he just saying that it had all been arranged in order to put them at their ease and stifle their protests?
They were approaching the hospital.
“I wonder if Mary is conscious yet,” Peter said. The others might have forgotten Mary for a little while, but she had not been out of his thoughts for an instant. As they drove up to the entrance Patricia found herself sending up a little prayer: “Dear God, let her be all right; let her be all right.”
Mary had returned to consciousness. Patricia’s guess had been correct. She had suffered a very severe concussion.
The whole weight of her fall had been on her head. There was not so much as a graze anywhere else, and there were no bones broken. She would be bound to suffer a great deal now from sickness and headaches, but there was nothing to be done for her but keep her lying perfectly still in a dark room. She had been put in one of the private wards, and the doctor thought it best not to move her, anyway for a few days.
They found Edward sitting by her when they went in. Mary had only one thought in her mind: would she still be able to go to the dance? She had asked Edward this question several times already and he had parried it, saying that it depended upon how she got on and how quiet she kept and how good she was.
When the others came in she immediately asked them the same question.
“Why,” her mother answered, “the dance is on Wednesday and it’s already Sunday today. Of course you won’t be able to go.”
Whereupon Mary began to cry. The tears ran silently down her cheeks. For the first time Patricia saw Peter really angry. He did not say anything for fear of upsetting Mary more, but Patricia saw the anger in his eyes, and richly as Dorothy deserved it, she felt almost sorry for her. “One day,” she thought, “she will drive him too far,” and a little shiver went through her.
Patricia and Peter did their best, but Mary was not to be comforted, and she was still crying when they left her. They promised to come back in the afternoon. Edward had slipped out when they came in, and they found him in the corridor talking to Camilla. Dorothy swept by her with only a haughty nod, but Peter stopped and had a word with her.
“Poor little Mary is so upset that she won’t be able to come to your dance now.”
“Oh, what a pity. I am sorry,” Camilla said lightly. “I must dash. I wish you’d tell Edward not to talk to me when I’m working, Mr. Leslie,” and she flashed a lovely smile at him over her shoulder as she ran off. “He won’t realize that this is a serious job!” And she disappeared into one of the wards.
“Lady Brierleigh is expecting us all to lunch,” Edward said. “She told me to tell you. She’s walked on ahead with Anthony, but has left the car for you. Anthony says you can drive it, Patricia. Is that right? I’ll follow on my bike.”
“How very condescending of her ladyship,” Dorothy muttered. “She didn’t ask if we
cared
to lunch with her, I take it? She just thinks she can order us about.”
“Oh, don’t go on like that, mother,” Edward expostulated.
Peter said nothing, but his eyes were hard. Patricia felt that there was something vaguely ominous in his silence.
CHAPTER
SIX
WHEN Patricia and the Leslies arrived at Brierleigh Cottage they were not shown into the library but into another room, obviously the drawing-room. This room also had a large bay window, but it was a more feminine room, with cream quilted curtains and chair covers, fringed with green. It was a wonderfully light and cheerful little house.
Anthony poured out sherry for them all and then he steered Patricia over to the window out of earshot of the others. “How does Mary seem?” he asked.
Patricia told him about her disappointment over the dance. “Poor little thing,” he said. “Look here, can I see her this afternoon? I think I can tell her something to cheer her up.”
“I wish you would,” Patricia said. “But of course you will have to ask Aunt Dorothy.”
Lunch was announced at that moment so they had no time for further conversation. Dorothy went out of her way to be pleasant at the beginning of the meal. She was really very pleased and flattered to be lunching with Lady Brierleigh, but nothing on earth would have induced her to own as much. She complimented her hostess on the excellence of the lunch. It was perfectly cooked. There were two boiled chickens with rice, boiled onions, potatoes and carrots, and a fruit flan. They helped themselves at the sideboard.
“How do you manage about servants?” Dorothy asked. It was really her chief interest in life at the moment.
“We only have Nellie,” Lady Brierleigh replied, “but she’s a wonder. She does everything.”
“Cooks and everything?” Dorothy asked incredulously. “But this house is quite as big as The Knowle?”
“Well, I do a good deal myself, of course,” Lady Brierleigh answered. “Unfortunately, I was never taught to cook, but I find I’m not at all bad as a housemaid.”
“You do the housework yourself?” Dorothy asked.
“I look after the top floor, yes. This little house is so convenient as it’s on two floors. I really enjoy my housework very much. It used to take me hours, but now I get through it quite quickly. I’m not quite so conscientious as I was to start with, I’m afraid,” and she chuckled mischievously.
“Anyway, the house has never been so well kept as since mother has been looking after it,” Anthony put in with a smile. “The only trouble is that she gets so angry if one uses the basin after she has cleaned it!”
“Yes,” Lady Brierleigh said. “I’m awful that way. But it does make one more considerate when one has to do one’s own work.”
“I can’t see how you have time to do all that,” Dorothy said, “and the hospital as well and everything else you do.”
“My position in the hospital is a sinecure only,” Lady Brierleigh replied. “The best thing we old people can do is to look after our own homes, and our own grandchildren if we are lucky enough to have any, and leave the young ones free for the exciting and difficult jobs.”
“I hope you have taken all that in, Dorothy,” Peter said. Dorothy flushed with annoyance.
“But it’s such a tie,” she said. “It leaves one no time for more important things if one has to look after the house. Anybody can do domestic work.”
“But can one imagine anything pleasanter than being tied to one’s own home?” Lady Brierleigh asked mildly. “And I believe that it is important also, and that it takes brains and intelligence to run a house properly. I do not think that there can be any more important job for a married woman than looking after her own home and the happiness and well-being of her husband and family.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment or two after this little speech. Peter had said: “Hear, hear!” under his breath, and the words had not escaped Dorothy. She flushed a deeper red. Even her neck became crimson, but whether from anger or mortification it was impossible to say. Edward came to his mother’s rescue, and Patricia liked him for it because it showed his loyalty.
“Oh, well,” he said, “I suppose we all have our own spheres of usefulness.”
It wasn’t a particularly bright remark to make, but it met the case and saved the situation. The conversation turned on to the weather—a perfectly safe topic, and so often the subject of conversation between comparative strangers for that very reason.
After lunch Anthony said to Dorothy: “May I come with you, Mrs. Leslie, and see Mary for a moment?”