Nicholas strained forward between a soldier and an A.T.S. and managed to get his mouth near enough to Judy’s ear to be heard.
“Splendid, life in a sardine-tin, isn’t it?”
Judy was standing in a curve to make room for a stout woman who was sitting on her suit-case.
“This’ll teach me to take journeys that aren’t really necessary.”
“After the next change there’s a little local train. It’s almost sure to be empty.”
“You said that when we changed at Bristol and when we changed at Swindon, and after that awful wait at Reading, my morale is slipping.”
“All the same it’s true. It’s a local train built like a bus and if all the inhabitants travelled on it at once there’d probably be room. There aren’t many people in my village.”
Judy sighed.
“Not many people. At the present moment I feel those are the most beautiful words ever spoken.”
The soldier and the girl in the A.T.S. began talking and Nicholas withdrew to prop up his small bit of the corridor. Judy could just see him. He looked, she thought, remarkably fresh and unmoved, his flannel suit, what she could see of it, seemed uncrushed. He did not look dirty, his hair was still tidy. He looked tired, but then he very easily looked that. He was fine drawn and any exertion told on him. It was pretty mean, she thought, that he should be looking reasonably tidy, it could not possibly matter to him going home whether he looked tidy or not, and goodness knows what a mess she must be looking by now. She had so hoped to look well to greet his mother. She had put on a dark silk frock to travel in which had a light-weight coat to go with it. They were old, of course, but still good and did not show the dirt, but no frock could have stood up to to-day’s journey. She hoped Nicholas was right about the next change, she was so tightly wedged she could not get at her handbag to do anything about her makeup and her hair must be looking a sight. Not that from what Nicholas had said his mother was the sort to be fussy about appearances, she did not like glasses and Greek, but she did not expect the ultra smart. Though quite likely Nicholas was wrong; men misjudged their mothers so terribly, especially they misjudged their mothers when it came to guessing the type of girl they would like their sons to bring home for visits. Or did no mother ever feel enthusiastic about her son’s friends and acquaintances? She had not had actual experience herself, but she knew what happened to her friends, and the anxious thought they gave to meeting their various men’s mothers, and she had heard snippets of conversation they repeated after they had met them, so many of which were not very kind. Judy was unwilling to accept it, but at the back of her mind she knew that she was considering Lady Parsons in just the way that her friends thought of the mothers of their men acquaintances. What she should wear, what she should say, what sort of impression she was going to make. “Stupid of me,” she thought angrily. “It’s no good trying to be any different to what I am, so it’s much better to act naturally from the start,” and then, as an afterthought, “I only wish I thought I would.”
The train was slowing down. Nicholas gave her a look and raised his voice.
“This is our junction, in three-quarters of an hour we’ll be home.”
The slow local, shaped, as Nicholas had said, like a bus, was in and only partially full Nicholas and Judy sank thankfully down on one of the long seats which ran the whole length of the carriage. Judy opened her handbag.
“Isn’t this gorgeous! Room to move my elbows and even to take a deep breath. Of course I quite realize one shouldn’t expect these luxuries in war-time, but you can’t help enjoying a little treat when it comes your way.”
Nicholas opened his cigarette-case.
“We shall be able to smoke without burning our next-door neighbours. Sorry it’s been such a foul journey. Are you regretting you started?”
She was making up her lips, but she managed to make a face at him.
“Idiot, of course not! Though, as a matter of fact, you very nearly got a telephone message this morning to say I couldn’t come.”
“No! Why?”
“The old lady; you know she hasn’t been well since Mr. Jones died, and last night she was rather pathetic, crying and saying she hoped she would be there when I came back. It’s nonsense, of course, she’s had the doctor, it’s only sort of shock. Clara’s being marvellous, I must say. She seems to have forgotten to be mean for a change and keeps making up little dishes to tempt the old girl.”
Nicholas lit his cigarette.
“You don’t sound as if you really thought her marvellous.”
Judy put away her lipstick and took out her comb.
“Isn’t it awful of me? But, you know, I never can get over the feeling that Clara had a hand in finishing off Mr. Jones. There’s not the slightest ground for it. She couldn’t have been kinder or more sympathetic, it’s just my suspicious nature, I suppose.”
“And mine.”
She swung round to him.
“Did you think that too? You never said anything.”
“I did more than think. I had a post-mortem held on the poor old boy.”
Judy gasped.
“But you couldn’t. He was buried the evening after we found him and I was present at his funeral, and stayed up till goodness knows what hour of the night covering his grave with little grass clods.”
Nicholas nodded.
“And building up a cairn as a tombstone, and a lot of trouble you gave me, for after midnight I pulled the whole thing down and took the old boy out and put some stones in his place and built his grave up again.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Judy severely, “that I’m ordering some extremely expensive bulbs to decorate the grave of a pile of stones?”
He nodded.
Judy dropped her voice.
“What did you find out at the post-mortem?”
“Nothing. Just Anno Domini. He seemed to have nothing much the matter with him. His heart just stopped beating.”
“You don’t sound very convinced about it.”
“Well, there was nothing in the post-mortem to make me feel that way. It was just an odd circumstance, I suppose. I mean his death coming as it did straight on top of her being angry about his stealing the meat, but the vet did say he couldn’t see why on earth he should die. You see, there was no history of a weak heart. He seems to have been, from what Mrs. Former said, a remarkably brisk old boy for his age.” He flicked his ash on to the floor. “I hate that damn house and all there is about it, or rather I detest that woman Roal. All my life I have had quick reactions to people, it’s a thing that you’re born with. I should hate to tell you what my reactions are to Clara.”
Judy held out her hand for a cigarette.
“I don’t like her, but I can’t help being sorry for her. You know, she’s under no real illusions about that boy of hers. Clara’s no fool. How awful it must be to have a child like that! All right now that he’s little, she can get away with pretending he’s unusual and all the rest of it, but one day he’ll be a man. He really is rather like what you called him, a changeling, but that won’t be so funny when he’s grown up. Poor Clara, I shouldn’t wonder if she lies awake at night scared of something happening to her and wondering who’ll take care of Desmond.”
Nicholas gave her one of his nicest smiles.
“You think a lot, don’t you?”
Lady Parsons was standing on the platform. She was wearing her W.V.S. uniform and had two cocker spaniels on leads. She started to talk as Judy and Nicholas got out of the train.
“The car’s gone again, Nick; it’s the back axle this time and the man at the garage says that he shouldn’t think that he’ll get it mended this war. I explained I must have it for my work, but he seemed to think I’d have to buy another car. Did you ever hear such nonsense! But I had a bit of luck about to-day. There’s no funeral, and I have hired that old black Wolseley that the undertaker uses to carry the mourners.”
Nicholas drew Judy forward.
“This is Judy, Mother.”
Lady Parsons beamed.
“How do you do, dear? How nice you look. Such a comfort! Nicholas never does bring girls home, but if he did I was afraid he’d bring the sort that look terribly clever.”
Nicholas bent down to pat the dogs.
“That’s right, Mother, put your foot in it right away. Tell Judy she looks a moron.”
“Judy knows just what I mean,” said Lady Parsons firmly. “I don’t mind how clever a woman is as long as she makes up her face and doesn’t do her hair peculiarly.” She pointed to her dogs. “These are Scylla and Charybdis, dear. I’ve had them since they were puppies. My son, Lionel, christened them. Either Scylla or Charybdis, I never can remember which, was a whirlpool, and the other was a rock. Lionel knew that one of the puppies was a whirlpool, but he hoped the second would grow into a rock. Nothing of the sort ever happened, of course, it never does with puppies, does it? Now, do come on, dears. The man who’s driving the car doesn’t like being out late; you see, he’s used to funerals and they’re over in decent time.”
Lady Parsons owned a manor-house. A long, tree-shaded drive led to what must have been a formal garden behind which lay the house. Both the house and garden looked badly in need of attention. One of the lawns had been allowed to grow for hay and the borders of flowers were in need of stakes and twine. Nothing could spoil the beauty of the house, which was late Queen Anne, but the paint was peeling off the window-frames and there was attention needed to the gutterings.
Nicholas went ahead carrying Judy’s and his own bags into the house.
“I expect you’re tired, dear, and you would like to go in too,” Lady Parsons suggested, “but if not, it’s lovely on the lawn, and I’m actually going to be able to offer you a drink. The inn in the village is built on my property, and Smithers, the landlord, is a very old friend, and when he heard Nick was coming home and bringing you, he said, ‘You can trust me to raise something, my lady,’ and the something proved to be one bottle of whisky and one bottle of gin. It’s really very good of him. I must remember to give him a pot of honey if my bees do any good this year.”
“It’s a lovely house.”
“Yes, but abominably big. There’s only myself and Dibble. Dibble was my personal maid before the war, but now she does everything. Up till the war was declared Dibble went on from year to year being thirty-nine, and then suddenly, when registration started, she came to me one morning and laid her birth certificate on my desk and there she was fifty-two. Of course I said nothing about the thirty-nine, I was too thankful. I just said, ‘Isn’t that splendid, Dibble!’ and she said, ‘Yes, my lady,’ and we’ve never mentioned it since.”
Judy ran her eyes over the numerous windows.
“Do you mean to say that Dibble does the whole of this house?”
Lady Parsons moved off along her garden path. She stared at the flowers as if she found that easier than studying her windows.
“Oh, no, dear, we just use her bedroom and mine, and what used to be the breakfast-room and the kitchen, and, of course, the bathroom. Everything else is closed. To-day, of course, we’ve opened the spare bedroom for you and the little dressing-room for Nick. Nick’s bedroom was up there” – she jerked her head towards the upper windows without looking up. “It was a wing we kept for the boys; it’s completely closed now and I shan’t be opening it again.”
Judy looked up at what had been the boys’ wing. How empty the house must feel! Lady Parsons had probably lived there all her married life and she must have seen her boys at all ages peering out. With Nicholas away poor Lady Parsons and Dibble must find this a house of ghosts.
It almost seemed as if Judy had a ready-made niche in Nicholas’ home. Scylla and Charybdis accepted her right away as part of the house. Dibble, who was very superior and not given to taking quick likings, told Nicholas that Miss Rest seemed to be a capable girl and she couldn’t say otherwise, which, for Dibble, as Nicholas told Judy, was very high praise. Lady Parsons clearly liked her, for she took her into her confidence about her work, taking it for granted she would be interested, which was a high compliment.
“You see, dear, I’m the County Organizer. I don’t mind any work that I have to do. I don’t mind spending hours tracking down palliasse cases in answer to an SOS from Region, I enjoy second-hand clothes, I’m quite willing to care passionately about basic training, but I do hate little fusses. And, of course, you can’t be in charge of any set of people, men or women, and not have little fusses. I remember my husband telling me in the last war that when his men had been through a really terrible time and came out reduced almost to half, the only complaint they had to make was about jam. My women work magnificently, with a selfless devotion which is quite lovely to watch, but when I go to see them they tell me some long story about a temporary oven which somebody ought to have built for an exercise and didn’t, or about the poor quality of the knitting wool. It is quite understandable, of course. These things are to us what wrong jam is to the soldier, little complaints are natural, I suppose, but I was always one who preferred trying to look at the stars, if you follow me.”
Nicholas obviously adored his home. He took Judy over all that could be covered in two days, and little by little, without being aware of it, he showed her his own childhood. The two strong energetic brothers and the frail Nicholas trying to keep up with them. “I tried so hard to jump that brook when I was eight because Lionel and Dennis had managed it, but I couldn’t. I’d fallen in eighteen times before I was lucky, and I was in permanent disgrace. I managed it though just before my ninth birthday.”
“Lionel and Dennis ran a telegraph service between those trees. I used to bounce about at the bottom absolutely stamping with rage because however high I jumped the lowest branch was right above my head. I was a very slow grower, then one day I thought of bringing down a chair. You should have seen Lionel’s face when I popped up beside him.”
“He used to have a practice-net down there, we had a coach in the summer holidays for Lionel and Dennis. He was supposed to keep an eye on me too, but I was never any good and he couldn’t be bothered. Mother was marvellous; of course she was frightfully proud of Dennis and Lionel, you know, games captains and all that, but she never thought it mattered about me, and when we had cricket matches here she used to say, ‘Thank goodness you aren’t developing into a left-hand bat or anything startling. I do like having one of you to help me hand round’.”
On Monday afternoon they had to leave. Nicholas was inside gossiping with Dibble. Lady Parsons led Judy on to the lawn and walked her up and down.
“It’s very nice for Nicholas that you’ve come to work at his factory. He knows, of course, that he’s doing useful work and that he won’t be released to do anything else, but it’s not easy for him. I have frequently to remind him what a miserable soldier he’d make. He would, you know, he’d always break down, he’s delicate, and I understand he’s important where he is, but, of course, men do feel it so when they aren’t in danger and other people are.”
Judy pictured the grass-covered mound under which Nicholas worked and the blast-proof wall round it as an extra precaution. Clever of him not to have let his mother know.
“It’s marvellous for me,” she said gently. “I’d be pretty lonely if he wasn’t there. He’s a very amusing companion.”
“I expect you’ve noticed the difficulty he has in speaking of things that affect him closely.”
Judy thought over her various talks with Nicholas. He had not said much about his private life or his affairs, but there was nothing unusual in that.
“No, I hadn’t.”
Lady Parsons stopped and patted Judy’s arm.
“Well, he is very slow, dear. You remember that and help him out if he seems to you to be particularly inarticulate about anything!”
Judy looked up.
“What sort of things?”
“Well, I can’t think of anything specific at the moment. It was really of the future I was thinking. He may want to talk to you about things, and when he does, don’t forget what I have said.”
Judy searched Lady Parsons’ face. What did she mean? Was there something odd in Nicholas’ life? Or was Lady Parsons trying to say that if Nicholas should ever show signs of caring for her – Judy broke off her thoughts there. It was nice if she was thinking that. If only she could hear Nicholas’ conversations with her, how very far away they were from anything of that sort. However, it was pretty good to feel that his mother approved.
“I won’t forget if ever he shows signs of becoming confidential, but he hasn’t yet.”
“He will,” said Lady Parsons. “I feel sure he will.” Nicholas came out of the house carrying his and Judy’s bags.
“What are you two gossiping about?”
Casually Lady Parsons replied.
“I was telling Judy about my work for the W.V.S.”