“O Lor’, Mrs. Jim.”
“Yes, Miss. And there’s more. Bruce Gardener come in for his beer when he finished at five and he says he’d run into a gentleman in the garden, only he never realized it was Mr. Claude. On his way back from you, it must of been, and Mr. Claude told him he was a relation of Mrs. Foster’s and they got talking and—”
“Bruce doesn’t know—? Does he know? — Mrs. Jim, Bruce didn’t tell him where Mrs. Foster can be found?”
“That’s what I was coming to. She won’t half be annoyed, will she? Yes, Miss Preston, that’s just what he did.”
“Oh damn,” said Verity after a pause. “Well, it’s not your fault, Mrs. Jim. Not Bruce’s if it comes to that. Don’t worry about it.”
“But what’ll I say if the police rings again?”
Verity thought hard but any solution that occurred to her seemed to be unendurably shabby. At last she said: “Honestly, Mrs. Jim, I don’t know. Speak the truth, I suppose I ought to say, and tell Mr. Claude about the call. Beastly though it sounds, at least it would probably get rid of him.”
There was no answer. “Are you there, Mrs. Jim?” Verity asked. “Are you still there?”
Mrs. Jim had begun to whisper, “Excuse me, I’d better hang up.” And in loud artificial tones added: “That will be all, then, for today, thank you.” And did hang up. Charmless Claude, thought Verity, was in the offing.
Verity was now deeply perturbed and at the same time couldn’t help feeling rather cross. She was engaged in making extremely tricky alterations to the last act of a play that after a promising try-out in the provinces had attracted nibbles from a London management. To be interrupted at this stage was to become distraught.
She tried hard to readjust and settle to her job but it was no good. Sybil Foster and her ailments and problems, real or synthetic, weighed in against it. Should she, for instance, let Sybil know about the latest and really most disturbing news of her awful stepson? Had Verity any right to keep Sybil in the dark? She knew that Sybil would be only too pleased to be kept there but that equally some disaster might well develop for which she, Verity, would be held responsible. She would be told she had been secretive and had bottled up key information. It wouldn’t be the first time that Sybil had shovelled responsibility all over her and then raised a martyred howl when the outcome was not to her liking.
It came to Verity that Prunella might reasonably be expected to take some kind of share in the proceedings but where, at the moment, was Prunella and would she become audible if rung up and asked to call?
Verity read the same bit of dialogue three times without reading it at all, cast away her pen, swore and went for a walk in her garden. She loved her garden. There was no doubt that Bruce had done all the right things. There was no greenfly on the roses. Hollyhocks and delphiniums flourished against the lovely brick wall round her elderly orchard. He had not attempted to foist calceolarias upon her or indeed any objectionable annuals: only night-scented stocks. She had nothing but praise for him and wished he didn’t irritate her so often.
She began to feel less badgered, picked a leaf of verbena, crushed and smelt it and turned back toward the house.
“I’ll put the whole thing aside,” she thought, “until tomorrow. I’ll sleep on it.”
But when she came through the lime trees she met Prunella Foster streaking hot-foot up the drive.
iv
Prunella was breathless, a condition that did nothing to improve her audibility. She gazed at her godmother and flapped her hands in a manner that reminded Verity of her mother.
“Godma,” she whispered, “are you alone?”
“Utterly,” said Verity.
“Could I talk to you?”
“If you can contrive to make yourself heard, darling, of course you may.”
“I’m sorry,” said Prunella, who was accustomed to this admonishment. “I will try.”
“Have you walked here?”
“Gideon dropped me. He’s in the lane. Waiting.”
“Come indoors. I wanted to see you.”
Prunella opened her eyes very wide and they went indoors where without more ado, she flung her arms round her godmother’s neck, almost shouted the information that she was engaged to be married, and burst into excitable tears.
“My dear child!” said Verity, “what an odd way to announce it. Aren’t you pleased to be engaged?”
A confused statement followed during which it emerged Prunella was very much in love with Gideon but was afraid he might not continue to be as much in love with her as now appeared because one saw that sort of thing happening all over the place, didn’t one, and she knew if it happened to her she wouldn’t be able to keep her cool and put it into perspective and she had only consented to an engagement because Gideon promised that for him it was for keeps but how could one be sure he knew what he was talking about?
She then blew her nose and said that she was fantastically happy.
Verity was fond of her goddaughter and pleased that she wanted to confide in her. She sensed that there was more to come.
And so there was.
“It’s about Mummy,” Prunella said. “She’s going to be livid.”
“But why?”
“Well, first of all she’s a roaring snob and wants me to marry John Swingletree because he’s a peer. Imagine!”
“I don’t know John Swingletree.”
“The more lucky, you. The bottom. And then, you see, she’s got one of her things about Gideon and his papa. She thinks they’ve sprung from a mid-European ghetto.”
“None the worse for that,” said Verity.
“Exactly. But you know what she is. It’s partly because Mr. Markos didn’t exactly make a big play for her at that dinner-party when they first came to Mardling. You know,” Prunella repeated, “what she is. Well, don’t you, Godma?”
There being no way out of it, Verity said she supposed she did.
“Not,” Prunella said, “that she’s all that hooked on him. Not now. She’s all for the doctor at Greengages — you remember? Wasn’t he an ex-buddy of yours, or something?”
“Not really.”
“Well, anyway, she’s in at the deep end, boots and all. Potty about him. I do so wish,” Prunella said as her large eyes refilled with tears, “I didn’t have to have a mum like that. Not that I don’t love her.”
“Never mind.”
“And now I’ve got to tell her. About Gideon and me.”
“How do you think of managing that? Going to Greengages? Or writing?”
“Whatever I do she’ll go ill at me and say I’ll be sorry when she’s gone. Gideon’s offered to come too. He’s all for taking bulls by the horns. But I don’t want him to see what she can be like if she cuts up rough. You know, don’t you? If anything upsets her apple-cart when she’s nervy it can be a case of screaming hysterics. Can’t it?”
“Well—”
“You know it can. I’d hate him to see her like that. Darling, darling Godma V, I was wondering—”
Verity thought: “She can’t help being a bit like her mother,” and was not surprised when Prunella said she had just wondered if Verity was going to visit her mother and if she did whether she’d kind of prepare the way.
“I hadn’t thought of going. I’ve got a date. I really am busy, Prue.”
“Oh,” said Prunella, falling back on her whisper and looking desolate. “Yes. I see.”
“In any case, shouldn’t you and Gideon go together and Gideon — well—”
“Ask for my hand in marriage like Jack Worthing and Lady Bracknell?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what he says. Darling Godma V,” said Prunella, once more hanging herself round Verity’s neck, “if we took you with us and you just sort of — you know — first. Couldn’t you? We’ve come all the way from London just this minute almost, to ask. She pays more attention to you than anybody. Couldn’t you cancel your date? Please?”