‘Do you mean he has no talent at all?’
‘For acting? I don’t believe he wants to act. Oh, he says he does but he was most unconvincing. I got the impression he’d cooked the whole idea up simply to get a chance to meet me. I don’t think I’ve ever been at the receiving end of such glowing admiration.’
‘Glowing? To me, he seemed extremely cold.’
‘And well he might, if my suspicions about him are correct. In fact, they’re more than suspicions.’
‘Miles! Oh, good heavens! Did he say anything?’
‘That isn’t strictly necessary, you know. If you mean, did he come right out into the open, then, no, thank God. But I was none too sure he wasn’t going to. That’s why I asked him to read aloud – not a torment I usually subject myself to. As it happens, he reads rather well and has an excellent voice. He might make an actor. But that wasn’t his ambition this evening. Anyway, not in the normal meaning of the phrase.’
‘One gathers he was out of luck, poor Julian. Did you let him see you disliked him?’
‘I doubt if I’m capable of really disliking such a beautiful young creature,’ said Miles. ‘And I’m as vain as the next man – he said one or two things about my acting which were extremely perceptive. But in the circumstances, I don’t want to see any more than I can help of Master Julian. I wonder if Thornton knows about him.’
She, too, wondered, remembering Thornton’s lack of enthusiasm about his son. But she only said, ‘We shall be free of the boy for a while, anyway. He told me that he’s just about to go abroad. Well, apart from Julian, it was quite a pleasant party, wasn’t it?’
‘I didn’t find Julian all that unpleasant,’ said Miles.
A House Stained by Sunset
Miles gave the girls tea at the theatre after the next Wednesday matinee. At supper he reported to Jill – who always left him to be sole host at his occasional dressing-room tea parties – that they had appeared to enjoy themselves, especially when exploring the stage. Cyril had been included in the party; (though he was now Doug Digby on the programmes, everyone still called him Cyril).
‘Kit made him play a dramatic scene with her,’ said Miles. ‘You’d be surprised how well he invented lines to fit.’
‘Is his performance any better? You haven’t said anything about him lately.’
‘There hasn’t been anything to say. No, I can’t say he’s improved much but he gets by. Poor lad, it’ll be a catastrophe for him if the play doesn’t run, and I’m more and more doubtful if it will. I must remember to talk to Tom Albion about him.’
The next morning, when Jill came back to the flat after doing some shopping, Miles informed her that Geoffrey Thornton had just rung up to offer them the loan of a country house.
She stared blankly. ‘But how did he know we’re interested in a country house? If we still are.’
‘I happened to speak of it to the girls yesterday – oh, very casually, but I still like the idea. Have you gone off it?’
‘Not exactly. But you didn’t mention it again. And we could so easily make another mistake.’
‘That’s why I was attracted by Thornton’s suggestion. He says we could try the place for, say, a couple of months and then, if we wished, rent it either furnished or unfurnished. It’s in secluded country but only thirty miles from London. Somewhere in the Rodings, wherever they are – Essex, actually.’
‘But we haven’t bought a car and I haven’t learned to drive. And your driving will be a bit rusty, won’t it?’
‘We could be driven down in a hired car or just go by train. What I have in mind is that if the play fails – and I should know pretty soon – we could dig ourselves in there for a while. The film Tom’s still hanging on to for me won’t start for at least a couple of months. I’ve worked up a picture of us spending a golden autumn in the country. Anyway, I could hardly refuse even to look at the place.’
‘Yes, I see that.’ It was foolish to be so against the idea just because she disliked the thought of living in the house where the late Mrs Thornton had staged her dipsomania – for that, presumably, must be the house in question. She tried to recall what the girls had said about it that morning in the Spa Street café, but found she merely retained a vague impression that it was old. Well, she and Miles liked old houses. ‘All right, When do we inspect it?’
‘You do. Thornton has to go down on Saturday afternoon and can drive you. I couldn’t get back in time for our first show. If you think the house will do, I’ll come and see it next week.’
‘Did you tell him I’d go?’
‘Unless you rang up to the contrary. He’s calling for you at two-thirty. I thought you’d enjoy it. He said the girls would pack a picnic tea.’
‘And I’ll take some contribution.’ She suddenly felt cheerful. It would be an outing such as they had all taken in the old Rolls.
But when, on Saturday, she went out to the waiting car – which couldn’t have been less like the stately Rolls – only Thornton was in it.
‘Where are the girls?’ she asked, as the hall porter closed the car door on her.
‘At home, entertaining friends,’ said Thornton. ‘Did you think they were coming?’
‘Well, Miles said something about a picnic tea –’
‘Oh, they’ve sent that, with their love.’ About to drive off, Thornton hesitated. ‘Does it matter? Were you counting on them?’
‘No, no,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Of course it doesn’t matter in the least.’
‘Good. To be honest, I’m quite glad to have you to myself; they do tend to monopolize you.’ For a moment, he concentrated on getting out into the main stream of traffic, then added, ‘But you may find me a poor substitute for them. I’m not good at talking when I’m driving in traffic.’
‘I won’t speak a word unless I’m spoken to.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, it’s not as bad as that. But if I don’t answer, it’s liable to mean that I didn’t take in what you said.’
‘The traffic really is awful.’ She found that she noticed it far more than she did in taxis.
‘It’ll be bad until we’re right out of London. The great thing is never to get annoyed with it.’
Watching him drive, she found it hard to believe that she could ever learn. But she must certainly try, if Miles wanted her to. Did he really intend to drive again himself? And how keen was he on ‘golden autumn in the country’? She had an uneasy feeling that she had not, recently, understood him as well as she prided herself on doing but she could think of no reason for this.
Thornton was now talking casually – and, in spite of what he had said, it seemed to her that he could with the greatest ease talk while driving. She found herself watching his hands with interest; she had never particularly noticed them before. They were well-shaped, and though small – anyway, by comparison with Miles’s hands – they gave the impression of being strong and highly efficient, very much the right hands for a man with his small-boned, resolute face. Turning to him, while they waited at traffic lights, at the same moment that he turned fully to her, she noticed how alert his eyes were; indeed, his whole expression was livelier than she had previously seen it. She recalled that on the first meeting, in the Spa Street café, she had thought his personality somehow veiled, muted, and she had gone on thinking it so. Now she no longer did. Barely had she formulated this thought when he said, ‘Do you know it’s just four weeks since we met at that chocolate counter?’
She opened her mouth to say, ‘Talk about telepathy’ but changed her mind. Instead, she said smilingly, ‘And already you’re offering to lend us a house. Surely we must insist on paying some rent?’
‘Not until you’ve tried living there – if you’re willing to try. I shall be only too happy to have you as caretakers. Old houses need living in.’
‘You don’t want to use the house yourself?’
‘I can’t afford to run two houses. The sensible thing would be to sell the place, but Julian thinks he might like to live th
ere some day. Do you know this way out of London?’
‘I don’t know any way out of London, as we’ve never had a car. What masses and masses of suburbs there are.
‘All pretty hideous, I’m afraid, though some of them are beginning to acquire a hint of period charm. The Saturday afternoon traffic’s even worse than I’d remembered but it’s pleasant seeing so many people starting out for holidays – all the little family cars packed with children and dogs. You can usually tell the holiday-starters by an exposed box of Kleenex.’
‘I hadn’t been noticing.’ She noticed now. ‘Oh, look, is that an attractive golden dog – or a repulsive head of dyed hair?’
‘It’s a woman, I think – probably a mum-in-law. No! It’s flapping its ears.’
‘Well, I hope they all have lovely holidays.’ She was at ease, enjoying herself.
Gradually, the suburbs were changing in character, beginning to have something about them suggestive of country towns. Fine old houses still survived, even if come down in the world; and to Jill, Epping Forest seemed like deepest country.
‘It’s wonderful how it manages to remain a real forest,’ said Thornton, ‘in spite of all the hikers and picnics. But it survives through careful preservation. We’re still quite a way from real country – though now I come to think of it, you may find it tame, compared with the Forest. Agricultural land is seldom romantic, not in these days.’
After Ongar, they lost the holiday traffic; indeed, there was little traffic of any description. And soon they were in what, she guessed, he considered real country. It certainly wasn’t spectacular.
She said, ‘What’s happened to all the hedges?’
‘Cut down, burned down, torn up – as the farmer’s fancy takes him. I’m against it, and not merely because it ruins the beauty of the countryside. It’s also hell for the birds and means that no saplings are preserved to grow into trees. Of course there are two sides to the question, but taking an overall, long-term view –’ He pulled himself up. ‘But I think we’ll drop that subject and we won’t even begin to discuss the horrors of chemical sprays and factory farming. I’m afraid the general behaviour of farmers is something I’m apt to lose my temper about.’
‘Somehow I can’t imagine your losing it.’
‘Oh, I do – but in a nasty, tight-lipped way, much worse than just letting fly.’
‘In fact, you never lose it at all.’
‘How well you already know me. But there’s nothing commendable about it, I’m just thoroughly repressed. I take it you don’t admire this type of country?’
‘Well, it’s beginning to grow on me. It’s so nice and empty. And I like it because it isn’t beauty-spotty.’
‘Some of the villages are pretty enough for that.’
He slowed down so that she could admire one. She noticed that some of the plastered, gabled houses had been carefully restored and, obviously, were no longer inhabited by villagers. Thornton said he found some of the restorations a trifle self-conscious – ‘But one’s thankful to see the old houses preserved so lovingly. So many of them fall into disrepair and are condemned and demolished.’
She said, ‘Miles would love this village.’
‘In that case he may not like Hallows. It isn’t spick and span like this well-kept little street.’
‘Oh, he won’t mind that. You should have seen our Islington slum. But I think he may hanker for more trees.’ It might be difficult to stage a golden autumn in this shorn landscape – unless the gold of the stubble fields would be enough.
‘Well, there are plenty of trees around Hallows and the height of the hedges is a scandal – even to a man who, like myself, loves hedges. My wife refused to let them even be trimmed, and I’ve still done nothing about them.’
How long ago had his wife died? Had the girls said eighteen months? Yes, surely; anyway, Jill wasn’t going to ask him. She found herself disinclined to talk about his wife. Instead, she asked what the name Hallows derived from.
He said he’d been unable to find out. ‘It’s hard to trace the history of old houses unless they have some claim to fame, and Hallows is only a farmhouse; though there’s a bit that’s said to have been part of a priory – the name might derive from that. But it’s more likely to be the name, or the corruption of the name, of people who once lived there. The title deeds give no information about it. My wife’s family bought the property about a hundred years ago. It then included five hundred acres but most of them were sold, by degrees. My wife only inherited eighty, which are let off to a farmer. Are you noticing the place names? Any novelist who invented them would be accused of whimsy.’
She began reading aloud the names on signposts and he added to the collection from memory. Good Easter, High Easter, Abbess Roding, White Roding and masses of other Rodings; Margaretting, Shellow Bowells, Pharisee Green – sometimes she accused him of making them up, and then saw an even more fantastic name. Somehow the names increased the charm of the countryside, and charm it certainly had. She no longer missed the hedges, and there were still a few fine old trees; and so many unspoilt inns, farms and cottages.
He stopped the car on the top of an incline scarcely high enough to be called a hill and invited her to get out. ‘From here you can see where Hallows is, and that it’s fairly close to two villages, and there are other houses quite near. It’s not as isolated as you might feel it is, once you’re there.’ He then directed her attention to a wood surrounded by stubble fields.
She said, ‘There are certainly plenty of trees. But where’s the house?’
‘In the middle of them. We’re not quite high enough for you to see the chimneys.’
‘Don’t the trees make the house dark?’
‘Well, there’s a fair-sized garden between them and it – though there’s not much in it but grass, now. I suppose you may find the house a little gloomy; so many of the windows are small. A pity the sun’s gone in – though perhaps it’s best that you should see the place at its worst.’
Hardly that, she thought. It would be worse in a downpour. And this open country might be grim in winter. But she liked it now – and more and more, out here in the air. One never quite got the feel of anywhere from inside a car.
It would have been easy to miss the narrow, over-grown lane that led across the fields. ‘The surface gets bad in winter,’ said Thornton. ‘And it’s my responsibility. I suppose I ought really to sell the property.’
‘Or let it advantageously, to someone who would live here all the year round and keep it up – as we couldn’t.’ It seemed wise to get this said. Even if Miles fancied a golden autumn here she doubted if he would want to take a long lease.
So high were the hedges that they did not see the house until they drove through its open gate. Then it was so suddenly visible that the effect was startling. About a third of it was of crumbling rose-red brick. The remainder was plastered and painted a pink almost as dark as the brick. The plastered part had two wide gables and a smaller one between them. No two windows seemed alike; some had diamond panes, some were Georgian sashed windows, some looked Victorian. A few in the brick portion of the house were filled in and only traceable by their stone mullions.
‘What a beautiful old house,’ said Jill. Well, it was beautiful, but she could no more imagine living in it than in the Tower of London.
‘It ought to be repainted,’ said Thornton, ‘but it’s hard to get the colour that pink has weathered to. This grass needs cutting.’
‘Must be quite a job.’ The house was surrounded by a large expanse of grass, broken only by the gravel drive. She could see no flowers at all. Beyond the grass rose the surrounding hedge – she guessed it to be well over twelve feet high – and beyond the hedge was the surrounding wood.
‘My wife had an almost pathological dislike of flowers – well, quite pathological, really. She said they made claims on her, always wanting to be watered, or pruned, or arranged or something. So after she decided to live here she had all the flower beds tur
fed. Not that she was any too keen on grass. She once said concrete would have been less trouble.’
He got out of the car and helped Jill out, then unlocked the door of the house.
The wide hall smelt damp. She avoided commenting on this by so much as a sniff but Thornton himself drew her attention to it, adding, ‘You can get rid of that by having the central heating on for a couple of days. It’s very efficient. We usually kept some of it on right through the summer.’
‘Miles would love this old furniture,’ said Jill. But would he? It might be valuable but it was extremely heavy; Jacobean, she thought. And there was a great leather-bound chest which somehow suggested to her that it was housing a corpse.
Thornton opened a door: more heavy furniture, a refectory table, leather-backed chairs, a large oak dresser. ‘We seldom had meals in here. There’s a pleasant little breakfast room which I used when I could get down for weekends. The nicest room’s at the back, used to be the drawing room. Sylvia turned it into a bed-sitting room.’ He showed Jill in.
It had possibly been a pleasant, if conventional, drawing room; the flowered carpet, gilt-framed water colours and satin-wood furniture had a touch of Edwardian charm. But as a bed-sitting room it was dreadful. The late Mrs Thornton had merely plonked a four-poster bed and a huge Victorian wardrobe into it.
‘Those ought to have been moved,’ said Thornton.
‘It’s a very fine bed,’ said Jill, looking at it in horror.
‘By the way, my wife didn’t die here. She needed day and night nurses and someone to wait on the nurses, and it couldn’t be managed here. And in the end, I doubt if she minded where she was.’
He opened the French window, outside which was only grass, bordered by the towering hedge which gave no access to the wood – or the world – beyond. Jill pictured his wife taking exercise here as if in a prison yard. ‘Poor woman,’ she murmured; it was a comment both on his speech and her own thoughts. She then felt impelled to say cheerfully, ‘Well, I’m sure this could be a delightful room.’