Hester shook her head. “I can’t begin with Thursday. On Wednesday I met Marryatt first, Jackie came at night, and Harry – I think I must begin with Wednesday.”
“Then Wednesday. Two days before the plane took off.”
“Wednesday,” she said wistfully. “On Wednesday morning everything seemed so peaceful. Father was painting a room…”
WEDNESDAY (1)
CHARLES WADE stood on top of a step-ladder, painting a wall with wild, frightened strokes. Harry Walters lounged against the door.
“Is there any advice I could give you?” he asked. “If you worked more from the wrist, wouldn’t it look less like a hair-shirt?”
“This new paint dries like glass and lasts for ever,” Wade said.
“But the wall behind it won’t, Father. Shouldn’t you have filled in the hole first?” Hester asked.
“It’s only a little hole. It could have paper pasted over it,” Wade said.
Hester tapped it with her knuckles. Sand streamed out of it and down the wall. “The ruined sides of kings,” she said absently.
Wade stared at her with baffled, parent’s eyes.
“You’re in a destructive mood, Hester. Now I’ll have to fill it in. Be a good girl and get me the bag of plaster. It’s in the larder.”
“Two flights of stairs,” Hester said. She looked at Harry, who sat down in a corner and lit a cigarette.
“And bring a bucket with some water and another bucket for mixing,” her father called after her.
“You should take longer strokes with the brush,” Harry said.
Wade put down the brush, picked up a rag, and began to wipe the paint off his fingers.
“Harry,” he said, “personally, I couldn’t like you more. But you’ll accept my advice – as a friend? You’d never do as a son-in-law.”
“I’m not often taken for a marrying man. Are you warning me off the premises? I thought I’d been asked to lunch?”
“Naturally you must stay to lunch,” Wade said irritably.
“Then that’s all right. Unless Maurice is coming. I can’t eat when he’s there. He takes away my appetite.”
Wade sat down on top of the step-ladder.
“Harry, you have insulted my closest friend.”
“Keep your money in your socks when your closest friend is there,” Harry advised.
“Harry, you say these things without meaning them. You say them in a casual way that is very annoying. You haven’t any respect for people. Society…”
“Ah, yes, society,” Harry said. He settled down comfortably to listen. In five minutes Wade would be far away from the subject of sons-in-law.
Hester went downstairs and into the big, square kitchen where her sister Prudence, surrounded by utensils, was muttering over a cookery book.
“I’ve got an absolutely wonderful idea for dinner, tomorrow’s dinner, I mean, because it takes twenty-four hours to make. I’ve counted up, and it has nineteen different things in it. Listen, I need a bay leaf and some Cointreau. Cooking Cointreau, do you suppose? Will the pub have it? And where do I get a bay leaf?”
“Plant a tree and wait,” Hester said. “It won’t make dinner later than usual.”
“And some thick cream,” Prudence said. “Absolutely everything in this book needs thick cream. Do you think we could put in a permanent order to the farm for a pint of cream?”
“Cream’s terribly expensive. Couldn’t you leave it out?”
“It’s not worth trying to cook for this family,” Prudence said angrily. “It won’t taste like anything without the bay leaf or the Cointreau or the cream.”
“Harry’s staying to lunch. What could we have?”
“Something out of a tin’s good enough for him.”
“Prudence, don’t be rude, and do find something we can eat today. I wish Mrs Parsons hadn’t gone.”
“All that lovely boiled fish,” Prudence said. “Cooking is an art,” she informed her sister. “You wouldn’t like to grate some onions for me?”
“I’m fetching some plaster for Father. Another bit of the house is falling down.”
She went upstairs again. Wade was sitting on top of the ladder with the paint bucket, talking to Harry about Society and bees.
“Most bees are freelances, anyway,” Harry said. “They don’t join in all this hive nonsense. They live alone and choose their own flowers.”
“How do you think the room will look, Hester?” Wade asked heavily. He picked up the brush again and began to wave it. “We must have the floor white as well. Light walls, white floor – yes, Hester, white – white furniture, white floor, dark green rugs, then the drama of red chairs. Do me a favour, Harry. Get me another tin of paint. It’s in the larder downstairs.”
“Prudence is in the kitchen. She’s longing to see you,” Hester said.
“Knife in hand?” Harry asked.
Hester waited until he had gone.
“What are you going to use this room for, Father?”
“Guests.”
“Father, we don’t want any more guests.”
“We make ten pounds a week out of the one we have. Now, I don’t want to be corrected, Hester. It’s gross profit, not net. I know the difference.”
“I don’t think you know all the difference. I’m going back to medical school in the autumn. So you’ll have to hire some staff.”
“There’s Prudence.”
“Prudence is only sixteen. She should stay at school. But if she doesn’t – she wants to go to the Academy of Dramatic Art.”
“My dear daughters. Harley Street and – and the Old Vic. How proud you make me! But there’s no problem here. When I get four more bedrooms into action – all double – I’ll have an income of eighty pounds a week. Then I’ll be able to afford cooks, butlers, anything. I wonder when Harry’s coming back with that paint.”
At the mention of Harry’s name, Hester’s expression changed. Her father looked at her in time to see the small, secret smile.
“Hester,” he said sharply. “Don’t have anything to do with Harry. I warn you. He’s no good.” He climbed down from the ladder and began to mix plaster with water. “At his age – he must be about thirty.”
“Twenty-nine, Father.”
“And he has no job.”
“He’s a poet.”
“I’d like to hear some of his poetry.”
“I don’t think you would, Father. It’s not your kind of poetry.”
“Then I wouldn’t. But poet or not, he’s no good. He looks like the kind of man who’s been spoilt by his mother and kicked out by his father. Hester, it’s an old-fashioned word, but—”
“Please don’t let’s have any old-fashioned words. Is that all the plaster you need?”
“A piece about the size of my thumb will do.”
“All you have against Harry is that he’s wandered about the world getting experience instead of going to work in an insurance office. Don’t talk about him. I’m not in love with him,” she said thoughtfully. “Shall I begin to clean the floor?”
“When you were a little girl you used to put your hands over your ears when I tried to tell you anything. Now you talk about plaster and floors. You simply won’t take advice.”
“I thought you were in a hurry to get the room ready for more guests. Though I should have thought the one we have was a warning. Morgan gives me shivers.”
“Morgan is a beginning. I’m going to work this place up into an hotel. Only thing is, I need a hostess. What would you say to a stepmother?”
“I’m too old to worry. I’m twenty. I’d be out of her grasp.”