Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 12

It was about half an hour later that Miss Lucy Cunningham joined the tea-party in Jenny’s room, coming in by the side door without troubling anyone to answer it, as she had done for the last thirty years. Since she never left the house without preparing for rain, she wore a man’s waterproof over her winter coat and carried a stout umbrella.

“Well, here I am,” she said, “and better late than never, but I do like to give Henry his tea. And then I thought I would just drop in and have a word with Mrs. Stubbs about the broody hen she has promised me. My crossed birds won’t sit. But I won’t have that light Sussex she lent me last year-a most contrary bird, and I lost half the chicks. I thought I’d just make sure I didn’t get her again, so I went down to the Holly Tree and came along by the road. How do you do, Mr. Lester? You are at the Holly Tree, are you not? I think my brother met you there. I hope Mrs. Stubbs makes you comfortable-but I needn’t ask, she always does.” She dropped the hand which she had been shaking and addressed the room in general. “Now don’t let me go away without my umbrella. Perhaps I had better keep it by me. But you can take my waterproof, Nicholas. And yes, perhaps the coat too. It’s really quite dreadfully hot in here. Much better for Jenny to have the windows open. There isn’t any tonic like fresh air. How are you, Rosamond? You look peaky. You should take yoghourt three times a day-there’s nothing like it. And no trouble at all-you just set the milk and let it turn sour… Yes, you can take this scarf-I shan’t want it in here.”

Divested of successive layers of clothing, she appeared a good deal less bulky, though still more than comfortably plump. Yoghourt or no yoghourt, she made an excellent tea, and continued to talk in a rapid discursive manner whilst partaking of buttered scone, fruit cake, and Mrs. Bolder’s own particular tea-biscuits, which were the subject of a keen rivalry with Florrie Hunt. Lucy Cunningham had been trying to get the recipe for thirty years, and if she tried for another thirty she would still be wasting her time. Mrs. Bolder was one that kept herself to herself, and the recipe for her biscuits would go to no one but her own flesh and blood, and not to them whilst there was breath in her body. For the moment Miss Cunningham left well alone. She continued to press the claims of sour milk upon Rosamond and Jenny, together with black treacle and a horrible mixture of milk and brewer’s yeast.

Nicholas burst out laughing.

“I should have thought dieting would begin at home. You don’t take any of these things yourself, and thank heaven you know better than to inflict them on your family.”

Miss Lucy’s round blue eyes had quite a hurt expression.

“But, my dear, I don’t need them. I daresay I might become slimmer, but if you feel well you feel well, and what do a few pounds matter when all is said and done?”

Jenny giggled.

“But Rosamond and I don’t want to lose any pounds. We’re always being told we ought to put them on.”

“Oh, but you would, my dear, I’m sure. You wouldn’t be slimming, and you could have cream and butter and eggs, and even suet pudding if you wanted to.”

“I shouldn’t want to if I had black treacle and that sour milk stuff,” said Jenny. “I shouldn’t want anything for hours and hours and hours. I expect that’s why you get slim.”

Rosamond moved across until she was between Jenny and Lucy Cunningham. That was the worst of parties, Jenny got all worked up and began to show off. She did not know that the look she sent to Craig Lester was one of appeal, but as she began to talk to Lucy about hens she could hear him asking Nicholas whether he had seen a play which had set everyone laughing in town. He embarked on an amusing description of it for what was obviously Jenny’s benefit, and soon had her laughing too.

The hens petered out after a little. Miss Cunningham looked at her watch.

“I would have liked to see Lydia. I suppose she won’t be late?”

“Oh, no.”

“It is not as if she has any distance to go. Henry saw her turn in at the White Cottage.”

“So did I,” said Craig Lester, and then felt that perhaps he had better have held his tongue.

Miss Lucy said, “Oh, dear!” in a tone which made it plain that she knew all about the meeting with Henry Cunningham. She made a little vexed sound, and began to praise Mrs. Bolder’s biscuits and to sound Rosamond as to the likelihood of her being persuaded to part with the recipe.

“I wouldn’t dare ask her-I really wouldn’t.”

“Faint heart never won fair biscuit!” said Nicholas, laughing. “You all tremble before her, and she knows it. Rosamond is the worst of the lot.”

Rosamond laughed too, but on a rueful note.

“Well, she’s got a very daunting piece about being only a poor widow so of course anyone can trample on her, and once she has got started on it you simply can’t stop her and every relation she has ever lost comes into it. It goes on for about half an hour and by the time it’s over you feel as if it was all your fault.”

Nicholas threw her a kiss.

“My sweet, you’re a spineless worm! And she tramples accordingly!”

Lucy Cunningham shook her head.

“It doesn’t do to have rows, and she’s a very good cook.”

“Aunt Lucy’s a peace-at-any-pricer! She’d give in to anything rather than have a row-wouldn’t you, Lu?”

“Nicholas, how often am I to tell you-”

“That you won’t have that silly, undignified nickname? Well, I don’t know, darling-it just depends. We might go into a huddle and arrive at a compromise-say once a day as a rule, and twice on high days and holidays.”

She broke into an unwilling smile. Jenny said in a considering voice,

“People don’t call you silly names unless they are fond of you, and if you managed to stop them, perhaps they wouldn’t be fond of you any more, so I suppose it’s really better to put up with it. I’d much, much rather be called Jennifer, only nobody will.”

“Well, I should go the whole hog and stick out for Guinevere,” said Nicholas. “It’s the same name and much more high-sounding.”

Jenny was obviously taken with the idea.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it.”

“Of course you would have to braid your hair into two long plaits and wear a wimple.”

Her colour flamed.

“You’re just laughing at me!”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

The angry tears were in her eyes. Her voice rose high.

“You’re doing it-you’re doing it all the time!”

Rosamond’s soft “Jenny!” and Miss Lucy’s “Nicholas, dear, don’t tease her!” were lost in the sudden opening of the door. Craig Lester looked across at it and saw Lydia Crewe standing there, very tall and black. She waited for the hush that fell upon the room, and said in a most forbidding voice,

“You were all making a great deal of noise. Especially Jenny! Were you engaged in some game? How do you do, Lucy? How do you do, Mr. Lester. Nicholas?” Her eyebrows rose. “Quite a party! I hope I am not intruding.”

The two men were on their feet, Nicholas with his agreeable smile unchanged. But it was Rosamond who spoke.

“Can I get you some tea, Aunt Lydia?”

Miss Crewe surveyed the old papier mâché tray, the teapot with its broken spout, the odd cups and saucers.

“Your tea equipage is hardly worthy of the occasion, Rosamond. Am I to suppose that we no longer have five cups which match one another? And I seem to remember a silver teapot. It had at least the virtue of being unbreakable, and on that score alone I should like to commend it. Appearances naturally do not matter any longer, but from the most utilitarian standpoint that broken spout must waste a good deal of the tea.”

Jenny had a bright spot of colour on either cheek. She said in a high childish voice,

“It hadn’t anything to do with Rosamond. Miss Holiday brought up the tray.”

Miss Crewe addressed Craig Lester in a condescending manner.

“One of our kitchen helps, and as you see, a very inefficient one. She had, of course, no business to leave the back premises. Rosamond will see that it does not occur again.” She was aware of Miss Cunningham getting to her feet, a performance accompanied by some effort. “You are not going, Lucy?”

Lucy Cunningham flushed. She did not like rows, but Lydia being sarcastic was even worse. She said,

“Well, I think I’d better. I really didn’t come to tea-I just looked in to have a word with you. If you can spare the time. But I had better collect all my things first. Now let me see- what did I have? A scarf-no, two, because you can’t tell what the wind is like until you are out in it, can you?”

Lydia Crewe said scornfully,

“You coddle yourself, Lucy. The more clothes you wear, the more you will feel the cold. I’ve been telling you that for years.”

Miss Cunningham arranged the two scarves carefully about her neck, assumed her thick tweed coat, and thrust her arms into the sleeves of a voluminous waterproof.

“I like to be warm,” she said briefly. And then, “Thank you, Mr. Lester. Now is that all? No, no, my umbrella-I mustn’t forget my umbrella!”

As Craig handed it to her on one side, Nicholas retrieved a bulging handbag and offered it on the other.

“There you are-all complete! At least I hope so. No other unconsidered trifles? All right. I’ll be seeing you.”

“If you are quite ready, Lucy-” said Lydia Crewe.