The Flowering Thorn Read online

  “This,” she explained, “is Mr. Teddy Lock. He has been very, very kind.”

  The kind Mr. Lock bowed again.

  “I understand you have to go some little distance,” he said. “I could run you over in my car—”

  “A bare quarter-of-a-mile,” said Miss Frewen crisply. “We couldn’t think of troubling you. Ready, Bryan?”

  With considerable alacrity Bryan dived under the table and brought forth a dressing-case. It was largish, old and quite remarkably battered: but there was still visible, upon its weathered side, the ghost of a monogram under the hint of a coronet. The American seized his chance.

  “See here, sir, it may be only a quarter of a mile, but that’s a pretty heavy article to carry. Now, my car’s right outside, and it’ll cover the track in two minutes: won’t the lady reconsider her verdict?”

  Overwhelmingly deferential, he turned once more to Lesley: and indeed with Bryan like a thundercloud and Natasha in tears her single impulse was now to terminate the incident as quickly as possible. With an absolute minimum of warmth, therefore, she withdrew the veto; and a moment or two later found herself being handed by Mr. Lock into the seat next to the driver.

  “I’ll want you to show me the way,” he explained. “If I’m left to myself round here I just overshoot the objective and land: way out on the coast.…” He glanced over his shoulder to see if the others were ready: they were quarreling audibly, but had hauled in the dressing-case. With a superbly modulated purr the car shot past the Post Office, edged round a corner, and in one mighty gulp had swallowed up Pig Lane.

  “That’s all,” said Lesley.

  From her seat in the front row, so to speak, she could see straight through the open gate and into the orchard, where three unaccustomed figures were now discernible. Two of them were of course the other members of the house-party, and it was at once plain that they had got into their country clothes.

  Elissa wore a bathing-suit and some bracelets. The suit, which fitted far better than most gloves, was grass-green, backless, and embroidered about the thighs with a row of little frogs. The bracelets were plain heavy circles of yellow wood, closely resembling curtain-rings. Beside her on the grass lay Toby Ashton in a pair of very wide white cotton trousers, a red-and-blue striped vest, and a hat like an American sailor’s. They were making daisy-chains.

  The third figure, standing a little apart by the cottage door, was dressed entirely in black, with one touch of white at the neck, and a wide black hat. As a matter of fact it was the Vicar.

  “… Where, Bryan?” whispered Natasha, peering about as though for a rare bird.

  “There, by the door! It is, isn’t it, Lesley?”

  Passing through the gate, she would have given a good deal if it hadn’t been. As a legitimate source of clean fun he would naturally be invaluable; but her two months at High Westover, on the other hand, had just begun to give her the slightest of insights into the mentality of those who have to stay behind after the week-end party has gone. At the sound of approaching footsteps Elissa looked up.

  “Hello, darling,” she called shrilly, “we’re being children of nature. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not in the least,” called back Lesley, “only you’ll probably get rather bitten.”

  “Nothing bites me, darling, I’m too hardened,” shrilled Elissa. “We put our things in the little sitting-room-place. Oh, and Lesley, darling”—she dropped her voice a tone or two—“il y a quelqu’un à la porte—do let’s ask it in to lunch, and let Toby and me be heathen converts!”

  “Quelqu’un à la port’,” chanted Toby Ashton.

  “quelqu’un à la port’,

  qui frappe et frappe et frappe et frapp’

  “et frappe-e à ta port’!”

  Even as she laughed, even as she hurried forward, a sudden doubt checked Lesley’s course. It was funny to be so rude, obviously, but what about the converse? Was it rude to be so funny, or had her sense of humour got, as it were, rusted by disuse? Laughter on her lips, doubt in her mind, Lesley paused: and during that moment’s indecision the situation was unexpectedly simplified. For the Vicar disappeared. Neatly as a professional illusionist, completely as through a trap in the turf, Mr. Pomfret vanished from view.

  3

  Not altogether unexpectedly, Mr. Lock stayed to tea. They had it at once, under the apple-trees, with a cocktail or two immediately afterwards: and between one cocktail and another Lesley drifted over to Toby Ashton and inquired whether he would like a walk. She had had to watch her opportunity: he appeared to have developed, during the previous two months, the completely new habit of sitting with his arm round Elissa. Lesley said,

  “What about a walk, Toby? Everyone else looks exhausted. Shall I take you over a meadow or two?”

  “A walk?” shrilled Elissa, refilling her glass from the tray by the well. “A lovely long walk? I’d adore it, darling.…”

  With admirable generalship Lesley altered her plans.

  “You come too, Mr. Lock, and observe the English scene.” It was her best move, for Mr. Lock would come out of politeness, and Natasha would come for Mr. Lock, and Bryan for Natasha. They would all, in fact, go for a lovely long walk together: Natasha and Bryan in shorts and cricket shirts, Elissa with the addition of trousers like Toby’s and a little red monkey jacket. Toby went just as he was.

  “I don’t think we’ll go through the village, after all,” said Lesley, as they started out. “It’s terribly hot and there’s nothing to see. We’ll cut over the fields.”

  “I don’t mind where we go, so long as it’s trespassing,” said Elissa. “Who’s the local magnate, darling?”

  “Sir Philip Kerr, I believe, but unfortunately he hasn’t any land to trespass on. I’ll take you over some farms, though,” said Lesley, with her hand on the latch of Horace Walpole’s gate. “The man here, for instance, is a perfect brute.”

  “Really brutal, darling? With horsewhips?” persisted Elissa. “He must have a horsewhip or it doesn’t count.”

  “No, really, darling,” said Lesley seriously, “he’s got rather a tough reputation.” The mild shade of Mr. Walpole—kindly giver of permissions—hovered rebukingly before her eyes: but Elissa had to be kept happy somehow. “We’ll go straight up to those trees, but don’t talk too loudly.…”

  Under the spur of terror, therefore, they struck up a footpath and covered a mile or so across the grass in little over an hour. Both Lesley and Elissa were extremely good walkers, except that Elissa was always wanting to sit down and smoke; while the three men, and especially Bryan in his running shorts, were loud in their praises of the twenty-five-mile day. The real trouble was Natasha. As a child she had walked half across Russia to escape from the Bolsheviks, and the experience had left her with a rooted distaste for all forms of self-propulsion.

  “But why did you come, darling, if you hate it so?” demanded Bryan miserably. “You know I’d have loved to stay behind with you.”

  “And you could have worn your shorts just as well in the garden, darling,” pointed out Elissa, who at that particular moment happened to be wanting to walk.

  Like a dumb but beautiful animal Natasha lay coiled under the hedge. Golden-brown and strong as a sapling, she nevertheless gave the impression of being mortally wounded. Quite probably she would lie there till she died. Her tawny eyes, now the exact colour of Russian tea, were already fixed in a helpless gaze. It was only by the mercy of Providence that they happened to be fixed on Teddy Lock.

  He saved her.

  “Listen, Miss Frewen, I guess we’re not more than two miles from your cottage right at the moment. That’ud take me, if I hurried, not much more than ten minutes. In the car, coming back, I can do it in five, and pick up Natasha right at that gate. How would that be?”

  It would be splendid. With real gratitude Lesley saw him leap athletically over a stile and bound away towards West-over steeple: and leaving Bryan (who had also decided to return by car) to keep Natasha company, th
e diminished party resumed their road.

  “I suppose we are coming to somewhere, darling?” asked Elissa, carelessly. “If I don’t have a drink soon I feel as though I might melt.”

  With a fictitious confidence Lesley scanned the horizon. She had not the faintest idea where they were, and was merely hoping to disguise the fact a few moments longer: but suddenly, beyond some trees, her eye was caught by a scattering of red. Roofs! thought Lesley gratefully: roofs for five or six houses: and five or six houses, in Buckinghamshire, almost certainly meant that one of them was a pub.…

  Elissa having temporarily lost all desire to smoke, the conjecture was rapidly proved correct. They made a bee-line for the trees, undid a gate, and a minute or two later found themselves approaching the humble George and Crown. Unfortunately, it was closed, and this, when Elissa and Toby at last believed it, upset them very much indeed.

  “But, darling,” protested Elissa, “one can always get a drink if one knows how. I’ve never had to go without … Can’t one bribe a potman?”

  Lesley looked up and down the sunny road and wished with all her might that she could. But there was no potman in sight.

  “If I don’t get a drink inside five minutes, I’m going to die,” said Elissa. “Try banging on the door, darling.”

  With an elaborate imitation of a dying man making a last effort, Toby Ashton picked up a convenient piece of wood and obediently began to hammer. He had (as even the highbrows admitted) a strong natural sense of rhythm, and with the first phrase of ‘Loving My Girl’ had soon roused every dog within earshot. Before he had time to try them with a second, however, an upstairs window opened directly over the door and there appeared at it such a snake-like head of curling papers as would have silenced Cerberus.

  “What the ’ell d’you mean by kicking up that racket?” said the head grimly. “Can’t you see we’re closed?”

  With marked absence of mind Toby produced a handful of silver and looked at it reflectively.

  “Oh, so that’s what you were thinking of,” said the head. “Well, you can bleeding well think again. And if I ’ear so much as a pin drop, I’ll give the ’ole lot of you in charge.”

  It was curious, but without a word spoken, and almost before the slamming of the sash had ceased to echo, they found themselves moving at a good brisk pace towards the next turning.

  “My God!” said Elissa at last. “The country!”

  “I know it is,” said Lesley apologetically.

  “Oh, but darling, it isn’t your fault! Of course not! Only—really”—words failed her, and with a sweep of her bare arm she indicated the sun, the sky, and the Vale of Aylesbury—“it all seems so ridiculous.”

  “Perhaps we’d better turn back,” said Lesley. “There’s plenty of stuff at the cottage.” She spoke with the regulation lightness, but her heart was heavy. To keep one’s guests supplied with drink was almost the first law of hospitality: that she had never before had to connect it with a knowledge of opening times might possibly explain the present fiasco, but could hardly excuse it.

  “Let’s go back to the cottage,” repeated Lesley brightly.

  In silence they turned their faces. Fearful of losing her way, Lesley now kept them to the road, where a cloud of whitish dust scuffed with every step round the folds of her companions’ trousers. Though nearly half-past five, it was still exceedingly hot; the skin round her nose felt sticky with sweat, and the skin round Elissa’s was obviously feeling the same. They both walked with their heads down, as though in a futile effort to avoid the sun; and it was therefore Toby who first observed, on the fringe of a second hamlet, the inconspicuous hostelry of the Two Ploughmen.

  It was open.

  Like moths to a flame they hastened forward, Elissa leading and Lesley in the rear. She had never before entered any of the local bars, and was now experiencing a most curious reluctance to do so; but the others were at once the life and soul of the party. They were now four again, having been rather surprisingly overtaken, just inside the door, by Bryan Collingwood.

  “I thought you were going back in the car?” said Elissa uncharitably.

  “Well, I didn’t,” snapped Bryan. “I wanted some exercise. You’re exactly the colour of your jacket, darling.”

  And now—the irony of it!—just as they had settled down to be thoroughly happy and get a little tight, it was Lesley’s ungrateful business to get them away. Six o’clock passed, and seven: already the supper—the carefully-thought-out, Fortnum-and-Mason supper—would be waiting on the table: the bortch was being heated, Mrs. Sprigg was wanting to go home: when Patrick would get to bed had become a matter for speculation. And then Teddy and Natasha—‘Damn!’ thought Lesley—there were their suppers too to think of, beside the Russian salad Mrs. Sprigg didn’t know about.… Yes, certainly they must go at once, before Toby could order another round. Lesley pulled herself together.

  “Supper, darling?” said Elissa vaguely. “Why can’t we have dinner here? It’s a lovely place.…”

  As briefly as possible Lesley referred to the other guests, to Mrs. Sprigg, and even to Patrick’s bedtime. Elissa heard her with every appearance of interest, and as soon as she had finished began to talk rapidly and well about the late Serge Diaghaleff. With a feeling remarkably near dislike, Lesley turned her back and appealed to the others. They too were happy, but not quite so happy as Elissa; who, at Lesley’s suggestion, was now lifted bodily from her stool and carried outside. Once in the open air, however, her mood changed: so long as Toby had his arms round her, she didn’t care where she went.

  4

  The evening being now comparatively cool, and the way back a little over two miles, the party that arrived at the cottage was almost completely sober. The gain on the moral roundabouts, however, was a loss on the social swings, and Lesley was extremely glad when the sight of Mrs. Sprigg at the gate gave her an excuse to leave her companions and hurry on.

  “So there you are!” the old woman greeted her. “Well, you’ve ’ad a lovely day for your walk, and I’ve give Pat ’is supper, and put ’im to bed.”

  The placid good sense of her was so like a physical relief that Lesley drew a deep sigh.

  “Ah! you’re tired out, Miss Frewen, and I don’t wonder. If only you’d told me you was goin’ to ’Ambly I’d ’ave sent you a short cut. Did you see the church?”

  “Only from the outside,” said Lesley.

  “Ah! You ought to ’ave gone in. My granfer’s buried there, and a proper old villain ’e was,” said Mrs. Sprigg. “I s’pose you didn’t go in the church at Woodey neither?”

  For half-a-second Lesley’s brain sought vainly for the proper, the dignified rebuke. It was no use. Not with Elissa in those trousers. So instead, and with a sudden feeling of relief, she said exactly what was in her mind.

  “I suppose it is rather a conspicuous party. Have we been spreading alarm all along the route?”

  With a great understanding the shrewd eyes travelled slowly from Bryan to Toby Ashton, from Toby to Elissa, and so from Elissa to Lesley again.

  “Now don’t you go worrying about that,” she said. “Everyone thought they was ’ikers.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In rapid succession Lesley now made up Natasha’s bed, gave Elissa the hot water intended for the coffee, and put on another kettleful in its place. She then lit the sitting-room fire, gave the second lot of hot water to the men, put the kettle on again, helped Mrs. Sprigg carve the chicken, and finally made the coffee. The Russian salad she temporarily abandoned, but even so the clock had struck nine before they sat down to eat.

  It was then, for the first time, and reminded only by the number of places, that she remembered Natasha and Teddy Lock.

  “But darling, you don’t expect them back, do you?” asked Elissa innocently. She had one eye on Bryan Collingwood, and Lesley mistrusted what she was going to say next.

  “Don’t be absurd, darling, of course I do. They’ve probably gone out again. Mrs. Sprigg! Has the
big white car been back this evening?”

  But Mrs. Sprigg put her head through the hatch and shook it violently.

  “Not it, Miss Frewen. The gentleman’s staying over to Thame, at the Yellow Swan.”

  “There you are!” said Elissa, returning to her bortch.

  They were both wrong, however: about halfway through the meal a light shone in Pig Lane, someone laughed in the orchard, and Teddy and Natasha knocked at the door. They had just dashed up and had tea in Town, they said, and was it really as late as nine o’clock?

  “It doesn’t matter if it is,” said Lesley, disguising as best she could a faint quiver of disappointment. “Sit down, both of you, and find something to eat.”

  On the other side of the table Elissa set down her glass.

  “And then tell us all about it,” she said brightly. “Where did you have tea?”

  “At the Carlton,” said Natasha, reaching for a plate.

  Elissa opened her eyes.

  “Darling? In shorts?”

  “No. In a frock and things,” explained Natasha vaguely. “We found a shop open.…”

  With sudden violence Bryan pushed back his chair and said he was going for a walk. From a certain familiarity in his expression Lesley judged that he might be going to commit suicide; but really she was too tired to bother.

  “But, darling,” Elissa was saying. “How selfish of you to change in the car! Never mind, we’ll make you display afterwards. Won’t we, Lesley?”

  “I have the stockings now,” said Natasha obligingly; and pushing back her chair slid unexpectedly into the splits.

  “I learnt that when I was a little girl,” she explained, apparently admiring the effect as much as anyone else. “It is very nice, if you have good legs.…”

  2

  The meal proceeded. Shortly after the cold capon, however, and under the pretence of speaking to Mrs. Sprigg, Lesley left the supper-table and went for a short walk. She went only as far as the tool-house and back, and smoked about two-thirds of a cigarette: but it was like a foretaste of some beautiful universe inhabited by one person to a world. Then she went back to the kitchen and found Mrs. Sprigg on the point of departure.