Lonesome Road

Chapter Eight

They made room for her. Richard pulled up a chair. Caroline caught her hand as she passed and held it against her cheek.

“Oh, darling-you’re still cold!”

“It’s only my hands,” said Rachel Treherne. Her face burned. She leaned back and screened it from the fire.

“What were the parents talking to you about?” said Cherry in an inquisitive voice.

They were still talking to each other at the far end of the room. Anger had loosened Rachel’s tongue. With a trace of surprise she heard herself say,

“Something that I don’t want to go on talking about.”

Cherry’s eyes sparkled maliciously.

“Oh, then it was Maurice. And I bet they wanted you to give him money-as usual. But if there’s any going, I’m a much more deserving object.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it, Cherry.”

Maurice was glaring at his sister. Richard Treherne struck in.

“I saw the most extraordinary thing when I was on my way over this afternoon. I came the cliff way, and as I passed Tollage’s place, he’d got two men digging out a length of that old mixed hedge of his. A great pity, for it makes a good wind-break, but his wife wants to see the sea from her drawing-room windows. Well, the men called out to me as I passed and showed me half a dozen adders they’d dug out, laid up for the winter under the hedge. There was quite a crowd of village boys hanging round on the watch to see if any more would turn up.”

Maurice laughed.

“Pity Cherry wasn’t there,” he said. “An adder would make just the right kind of pet for her.”

Cherry rolled her eyes at Richard. She had changed into a pale green dress with no back, no sleeves. She said in an affected voice,

“Oh, I should love a snake!”

Richard’s eyes met hers with rather an odd look.

“Well, you had your chance. You must have come that way.”

“Adders are rather dull,” said Cherry. “What I should adore is one of those long, slinky, thin ones, bright emerald green, with a forked tongue. And it must be long enough to go three times round my arm and then do a sort of coil round the neck.”

“I hate snakes,” said Caroline in her soft voice.

She was wearing green too-a bright stuff patterned with silver. It had long sleeves and a high draped neck. Richard thought, “She looks like leaves coming out in the spring. Oh, Caroline darling!” But on the surface he produced a slightly cynical smile and observed,

“Let us by all means get up a family subscription and present Cherry with a garter snake for her next birthday.”

Cherry laughed her fleeting laugh.

“Oh, Dicky-how wizard! But why a garter? Do I know them?”

“I believe they are green-and-very poisonous.”

“And that’s what you get for calling him Dicky,” said Maurice.

The Wadlows came back into the circle at what Rachel felt to be an opportune moment. What was the matter with Cherry?… Jealous of Caroline?… Yes, undoubtedly…

Attracted by Richard?… Perhaps… Oh poor Cherry-what a waste of time!

She came back to hear Richard say,

“You’ve met Gale Brandon, haven’t you, Rachel?”

“Yes-quite a number of times. In fact I always seem to be meeting him. But I didn’t know you knew him.”

“Ah! He’s a prospective client. Merrivale introduced us, and he wants me to build him a very odd kind of a house, as far as I can make out. We had rather a disconnected sort of conversation, because Merrivale was telling a long story about how he photographed a lion on the Zambesi. At least, it started by being a story about a lion, but a lot of other beasts seemed to crop up as it went along. Merrivale was holding forth in front of the fire like he always does, and this man Gale Brandon had me by the arm walking me up and down and telling me all about how to build a house, so that the whole thing got rather mixed up, and my idea that the house is going to be on the odd side may be due to the way Merrivale’s lions and alligators and baboons and things kept bounding in and out of the conversation. By the way, a further complication was that the man Brandon kept breaking off to talk about Whincliff Edge. It appeared to be a good deal on his mind, but whether it was the house that he admired or you, Rachel, I couldn’t quite make out.”

Rachel smiled.

“He’s an American, you know. I think he admires everything. He hasn’t been over here very long, and he’s full of enthusiasm. I believe he even admires our climate, but I expect today has shaken him there.”

“I’ll tell you something he doesn’t admire,” said Richard, “and that is our Louisa. He asked me in his ingenuous manner why you had had a vinegar plant installed.”

Cherry giggled. Mabel Wadlow pursed her lips and murmured “Impertinent!” Ernest gazed judicially through his tilted lenses and pronounced,

“Really most offensive. He shouldn’t have said that.”

With the cold light of controversy in his eyes Maurice intervened.

“Nobody could possibly like Louisa-she’s a thoroughly disagreeable woman. But that is not her fault-it’s’the fault of your damned capitalism. You take one person, and you give them money, power, position, authority. You take another-”

Caroline’s eyes danced suddenly. She leaned to Richard and said at his very ear, “He’s going to call Louisa a wage-slave-I feel it in my bones,” and even as she said it, Maurice did.

“You make her a wage-slave, relying for her very bread upon a condition of servile dependency-”

Cherry’s laugh rang out.

“Well, I shouldn’t have called Louisa servile,” she said, and for once everyone agreed with her.

“Louisa is dreadfully rude,” said Caroline. “Even to Rachel. Even to Noisy-isn’t she, adored angel?”

Neusel had the middle of the hearthrug. The melting note in Caroline’s voice induced him to lift one eyelid slightly and give a very faint twitch to the end of the tail. He then relapsed into an ancestral dream in which he bearded a vast archaic badger in its lair and slew it.

Rachel Treherne laughed rather ruefully.

“Louisa can be rude,” she said. “But she thinks it’s good for us, and she is really devoted.”

Caroline shook her head.

“To you, darling, but not to us-definitely. She simply hates us.”

“Oh, Caroline!”

“She would like to take you away to a desert island and wait on you hand and foot-it sticks out all over her.”

“And finish up by dying for you in some highly spectacular way,” said Richard.

Rachel laughed, but there was a troubled look in her eyes. She changed the subject, and the talk drifted away to winter sports and to a girl called Mildred that Cherry had met at Andermatt who was engaged to a fabulously rich young man called Bob. They were to be married some time early in December, and Cherry was to be a bridesmaid.

“And we shall have to give her a wedding present, I suppose,” said Mabel Wadlow in her discontented voice. “She’s got everything she wants, but I suppose we shall have to try and think of something.”

“I should love to give her a diamond spray from Woolworth’s,” said Cherry. “I should adore to see her face when she got it. I say, Maurice, let’s do it anonymously. I’ve got an old case of Cartier’s and we could put it in that.”

“And who’s been giving you a brooch from Cartier’s?” said Maurice. “And where is it anyhow?”

“Darling, I pawned it immediately-what do you think?”

“Cherry!” Mabel Wadlow fluttered with anxiety. “What is all this? I insist upon knowing.”

Cherry laughed.

“Darling, if you’re going to come over all maternal, I’m off.”

“Cherry, answer your mother!” said Ernest.

She laughed again.

“What a fuss! Bob gave me a brooch, I pawned it, and that’s all there is about it.”

“But, Cherry-”

“And I’m not the only person who knows the way to a pop-shop. What did they give on your diamond ring, Carrie?”

Caroline did not speak. She looked at Richard. He said, “You haven’t told us what you got for your brooch.”

“About a quarter of what it was worth,” said Cherry. “Quite a bit of luck my meeting Caroline-wasn’t it? She went out as I came in, and the man showed me her ring, but he wouldn’t tell me what he’d given her for it.” Richard smiled agreeably. “Nor will she,” he said.