Flora was justly indignant, but concealed her nasty temper. It was at this moment that she resolved to adopt Elfine and rescue her in the teeth of all the Starkadders of Cold Comfort.
‘And does Someone know this?’ she asked.
‘Well … I told him.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Oh … he said “Rotten luck, old girl”.’
‘It’s Dick Hawk-Monitor, isn’t it?’
‘Oh … how did you know? Oh … I suppose everybody knows by now. It’s beastly.’
‘Things are certainly in rather a mess, but I do not think we need go so far as to say they are beastly,’ said Flora, more calmly. ‘Now, you must forgive my asking you these questions, Elfine, but has the young Hawk-Monitor actually asked you to marry him?’
‘Well … he said he thought it would be a good idea if we did.’
‘Bad … bad …’ muttered Flora, shaking her head. ‘Forgive me, but does he seem to love you?’
‘He … he does when I’m there, Flora, but I don’t somehow think he thinks much about me when I’m not there.’
‘And I suppose you care enough for him, my dear, to wish to become his wife?’
Elfine after some hesitation admitted that she had sometimes been selfish enough to wish that she had Dick all to herself. It appeared that there was a dangerous cousin named Pamela who came down often from London for week-ends. Dick thought she was great fun.
Flora’s expression did not change when she heard this piece of news, but her spirits sank. It would be difficult enough to win Dick for Elfine as it was; it would be a thousandfold more difficult with a rival in the field.
But her spirit was of that rare brand which becomes cold and pleased at the prospect of a battle, and her dismay did not last.
Elfine was saying:
‘… And then there’s this dance. Of course, I hate dancing unless it’s in the woods with the wind-flowers and the birds, but I did rather want to go to this one, because, you see, it’s Dick’s twenty-first birthday party and … somehow … I think it would be rather fun.’
‘Amusing, or diverting … not “rather fun”,’ corrected Flora, kindly. ‘Have you not been invited?’
‘Oh, no … You see, Grandmother does not allow the Starkadders to accept invitations, unless it is to funerals or the churching of women. So now no one sends us invitations. Dick did say he wished that I was coming, but I think he was only being kind. I don’t think he really thought for a minute that I should be able to.’
‘I suppose it would be of no use asking your grandmother for permission to go? In dealing with old and tyrannical persons it is wise to do the correct thing whenever one can; they are then less likely to suspect when one does something incorrect.’
‘Oh, I am sure she would never let me go. She quarrelled with Mr Hawk-Monitor nearly thirty years ago and she hates Dick’s mother. She would be mad with rage if she thought that I even knew Dick. Besides, she thinks dancing is wicked.’
‘An interesting survival of mediaeval superstition,’ commented Flora. ‘Now listen, Elfine. I think it would be an excellent move if you went to this dance. I will try and see if I can manage it. I shall go, too, and keep an eye on you. It may be a little difficult to secure invitations for us, but I will do my best. And when we have got our invitations, I will take you up to Town with me and we will buy you a frock.’
‘Oh, Flora!’
Flora was pleased to see that the wild-bird-cum-dryad atmosphere which hung over Elfine like a pestilential vapour was wearing thin. She was talking quite naturally. If this was the good effect of a little ordinary feminine gossip and a little interest in her poor childish affairs, the effect of a well-cut dress and a brushed and burnished head of hair might be miraculous. Flora could have rubbed her hands with glee.
‘When is this dance?’ she asked. ‘Will many people be asked?’
‘It’s on the twenty-first of April, just a month from tomorrow. Oh, yes, it will be very big; they are holding it in the Assembly Rooms at Godmere, and all the county will be asked, because, you see, it is Dick’s twenty-first birthday.’
All the better, thought Flora. It will be easier to work an invitation. She had so many friends in London; surely there must be among them someone who knew these Hawk-Monitors? And Claud Hart-Harris could come down to partner her, because he waltzed so well, and who could be an escort for Elfine?
‘Does Seth dance?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. I hate him,’ replied Elfine, simply.
‘I cannot say that I like him much myself,’ confessed Flora, ‘but if he dances, I think it would be as well if he came with us. You must have a partner, you know. Or perhaps you could ask some other man?’
But Elfine, being a dryad, naturally knew no other men; and the only man Flora could think of who would be sure to be available for April 21st was Mr Mybug. She had only to ask him, she knew, and he would come bounding along to partner Elfine. It was dreadful to have no choice but Seth or Mr Mybug, but Sussex was like that.
‘Well, we can arrange these details later,’ she said. ‘What I must do now is to find out if anyone in London among my friends knows these Hawk-Monitors. I will ask Claud; he knows positive herds of people who live in country houses. I will write to him this afternoon.’
She was well disposed enough towards Elfine, but she really did not wish to spend with her the rest of an exquisite morning. So she rose to her feet and with a pleasant smile (having promised her cousin to let her know how matters were progressing) she went on her way.
CHAPTER XII
Claud Hart-Harris wrote from his house at Chiswick Mall a few days later in reply to Flora’s letter. He knew the Hawk-Monitors. Papa was dead, Mamma was a darling old bird whose hobby was the Higher Thought. There was a son who was easy on the eye but slow on the uptake, and a healthy sort of daughter named Joan. He thought he could arrange four invitations for Flora, if she was sure she wanted them? Would it not be rather a tiresome affair? But if she really wanted to go, he would write to Mrs Hawk-Monitor and tell her that a friend of his was in exile on a farmhouse at Howling, and that she would love to come to the ball and bring her girl cousin and two young men. He, Claud, would of course be charmed to partner Flora, but, candidly, Seth sounded pretty squalid. Need he come?
‘Squalid or not,’ said the small, clear voice of Flora, fifty miles away (for she thought she would answer his letter by telephone, as she was in a hurry to get the affair arranged), ‘he is all we can find, unless we have that Mr Mybug I told you about. I would really rather we did not have him, Claud. You know how dreadful intelligent people are when you take them to dances.’
Claud twisted the television dial and amused himself by studying Flora’s fair, pensive face. Her eyes were lowered and her mouth compressed over the serious business of arranging Elfine’s future. He fancied she was tracing a pattern with the tip of her shoe. She could not look at him, because public telephones were not fitted with television dials.
‘Oh, yes, we certainly don’t want a lot of intelligent conversation,’ he said, decidedly. ‘I think we will rule out the Mybug. Well, then, I will write to Mrs Hawk-Monitor today, and let you know as soon as I hear. Or perhaps I had better ask her to send the invitations direct to you, shall I?’
And so it was arranged.
Flora came out of the post office at Beershorn into the pleasant sunshine feeling a little ashamed of her schemes. Claud had said Mrs Hawk-Monitor was a darling. Flora was planning to palm off Elfine on the darling’s only son. She strained her imagination, but found that it refused to present her with a picture of Mrs Hawk-Monitor welcoming Elfine with joy as a daughter-in-law. Mrs Hawk-Monitor’s hobby might be the Higher Thought, but Flora felt sure she would be practical enough when it was a question of considering a wife for Richard. She would not be sympathetic, in spite of her own leanings, with Elfine’s artiness. Elfine would have to be transformed, inside and out, before Mrs Hawk-Monitor could consider her suitable; and eve
n if the transformation were made, Mrs Hawk-Monitor could not possibly approve Elfine’s family. Who, indeed, could approve of such figures of rugged but slightly embarrassing grandeur as Micah and Judith?
And the Starkadders themselves would be sure, when the engagement was announced, to kick up one hell of a shine.
Difficult times lay ahead.
But this was what Flora liked. She detested rows and scenes, but enjoyed quietly pitting her cool will against opposition. It amused her; and when she was defeated, she withdrew in good order and lost interest in the campaign. She had little or no sporting spirit. Bloody battles to the death bored her, nor did she like other people to win.
But it was no fun to fight a darling. Flora herself, had she been sixty-five and Mrs Hawk-Monitor, would have felt most bitter towards a girl who planted an Elfine into the midst of a quiet county family.
There was only one way of soothing her tiresome conscience. Elfine must be transformed indeed; her artiness must be rooted out. Her mind must match the properly groomed head in which it was housed. Her movements must be made less frequent, and her conversation less artless. She must write no more poetry nor go for any more long walks unless accompanied by the proper sort of dog to take on long walks. She must learn to be serious about horses. She must learn to laugh when a book or a string quartet was mentioned, and to confess that she was not brainy. She must learn to be long-limbed and clear-eyed and inhibited. The first two qualities she possessed already, and the last she must set to work to acquire at once.
And there were only twenty-seven days in which to teach her all these things!
Flora walked down the High Street towards the place where the buses started, planning how she would begin Elfine’s education. She looked at the clock on the Town Hall, which said twelve, and realized that she had half an hour to wait for a bus. It was a Saturday morning and the town was full of people who had come in from outlying farms and villages to do their shopping for the week-end; some of them were already waiting for the bus, and Flora walked across the Market Place, prepared to wait with them.
But then she became aware that someone, a man, was trying to attract her attention. She was very properly not looking at him when something in his appearance seemed familiar to her; he looked like a Starkadder (there were so many of them that one of her minor worries was a fear of not recognizing one when she met him in the street). Sure enough, it was Harkaway. He had just come out of the bank, into which he had been paying the weekly takings of the farm. In a second Flora recognized him, and said ‘Good morning’, with a bow and a smile.
He returned her greeting in the Starkadder manner, that is, with a suspicious stare. He looked as though he would have liked to ask her what she was doing in Beershorn. She decided that if he did she would undo the parcel of pale green silk she carried and shake it in his face all down the High Street.
Harkaway stopped in front of her and out-manoeuvred her in her advance on the bus.
‘You’m a long way from whoam,’ he muttered.
‘So are you,’ retorted Flora. She was rather cross.
‘Ay, but I ha’ business to do in Beershorn every Saturday. I comes down every Saturday morning in the year, wi’ Viper’, and he jerked his head towards that large and disagreeable beast, which Flora now observed anchored to the buggy a little way farther on.
‘Indeed. I came by bus.’
A slow, secret smile crept into Harkaway’s face. It was wolfish, ursine, vulpine. He softly jangled some coins in his pocket. He seemed as though he bathed in some secret satisfaction of his own. This was because he had driven down to Beershorn in the buggy, and saved the shilling his grandmother gave him every week for the fare.
‘Ay, th’ bus …’ he repeated, drawlingly.
‘Yes, the bus. There isn’t another one until half-past twelve.’
‘Happen I might drive you home with me,’ he suggested, as Flora had meant him to do. Her disinclination to sit in the damp, smelly bus had fought with her disinclination to drive home with a Starkadder, and the bus had lost. Besides, she was always glad to see more of the private lives of the Starkadders. Harkaway might be able to tell her something about Urk, who was supposed to be going to marry Elfine.
‘That would be very kind of you,’ she said, and they moved off together to the buggy.
She looked at him meditatively as the buggy passed rapidly between the hedges. She wondered what was his particular nastiness? She could hardly distinguish him from Urk and Caraway, Ezra, Luke and Mark. Never mind, probably she would get them sorted out in time.
She began to make conversation.
‘How is the well getting on?’ (Not that she cared.)
‘’Tes all collapsed. ’Tes terrible.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry! What a pity. The last time I saw it, it was nearly finished. How did it happen?’
‘’Twas Mark. He and our Micah was argyfyin’ who should lay the last brick, and we was all standin’ round waitin’ to see which would hit t’other first. And Mark, he pushed Micah down th’ well, and pushed th’ bricks down on top of ’un. Laugh! We fair lay on th’ ground.’
‘Was – is Micah – er – is he badly hurt?’
‘Nay. Mark dived in after ’un and rescued ’un. But th’ bricks was lost.’
‘A pity, indeed,’ commented Flora.
She was much surprised when Harkaway burst out:
‘Ay, ’tis a pity. There’s some at Cold Comfort would do better for a few bricks thrown at their heads. I names no names but I know what I think.’
The coins jingled softly again in his pocket. The ursine smile touched his lips.
‘Who?’ asked Flora.
‘Her … th’ old lady. My grand-aunt. Her as has us all under her thumb.’ He jingled the coins again.
‘Ah, yes, my aunt,’ said Flora, thoughtfully. She found Hark-away comparatively easy to talk to. Nor did he seem unfriendly.
‘I cannot understand,’ she resumed, ‘why you do not break away from her. I suppose she has all the money.’
‘Ay … and she’s mad. If any on us was to leave th’ farm, she’d go madder yet. ’Twould be a terrible disgrace on us. We mun keep the head of the family alive and in her right mind. There have always been—’
‘I know, I know,’ said Flora, hastily. ‘Such a comfort, I always feel, don’t you? But really, Harkaway, I do think it is carrying authority a little too far when grown men are prevented from marrying—’
Harkaway laughed shortly, rather to Flora’s dismay; she feared he was going to make a farmyard joke. But he said, much more surprisingly:
‘Nay, nay. Some on us is married right enough. But th’ old lady, she mun niver see our women-folk, or she’d go right away mad. The women-folk of the Starkadders keeps themselves to themselves. They lives down in the village and only comes up when there’s a gatherin’, or th’ old lady comes downstairs. There’s Micah’s Susan, Mark’s Phoebe, Luke’s Prue, Caraway’s Letty, Ezra’s Jane. Urk, he’m a bachelor. Me … I’ve got me own troubles.’
Flora longed to ask what his own troubles were, but feared that the question might bring forth a flood of embarrassing confidences. Perhaps he was in love with Mrs Beetle? Mean-while, his news was so surprising that she could only stare and stare again.
‘And do you mean to say that they all live down in the village. Five women?’
‘Six women,’ corrected Harkaway, in a low voice. ‘Ay, there’s – another. There’s poor daft Rennett.’
‘Really? What relation is she to the others?’
‘She’m own daughter to Micah’s Susan by her first marriage. Her marriage to Mark, I mean; and Mark, he’s own halfbrother to Amos, who is Micah’s cousin. So ’tes rather confusin’, like. Ay, poor Rennett …’
‘What is the matter with her?’ enquired Flora, rather tartly. She was exceedingly dismayed at the news that there was a whole horde of female Starkadders whom she had not seen. It really seemed as though her task would be too much for her.
&
nbsp; ‘She were disappointed o’ Mark Dolour, ten years ago. She’s never married. She’s queer, like, in her head. Sometimes, when the sukebind hangs heavy from the passin’ wains, she jumps down th’ well. Ay, an’ twice she’s tried to choke Meriam, the hired girl. ’Tes Nature, you may say, turned sour in her veins.’
Flora was really quite glad when the buggy stopped outside the farm. She wanted to hear no more. She felt that she could not undertake to rescue Susan, Letty, Phoebe, Prue, Jane and Rennett as well as Elfine. Dash it, the women must take their chance. She would rescue Elfine, and as soon as that was accomplished, she would try to have a show-down with Aunt Ada, but beyond this she would make no promises.
*
For the next three weeks she was so busy with Elfine that she had no time to worry about the unknown female Starkadders.
She spent most of her time with Elfine. She expected at first that someone would interfere, and try to stop Elfine and her from going for their morning walk along the top of the Downs and from spending the afternoons in Flora’s little green parlour. These habits were innocent, but that was not enough to keep the Starkadders from trying to stop them. Nay, their very innocency was more likely to set the grand, rugged Starkadder machinery in motion. For it is a peculiarity of persons who lead rich, emotional lives, and who (as the saying is) live intensely and with a wild poetry, that they read all kinds of meanings into comparatively simple actions, especially the actions of other people, who do not live intensely and with a wild poetry. Thus you may find them weeping passionately on their bed, and be told that you – you alone – are the cause because you said that awful thing to them at lunch. Or they wonder why you like going to concerts; there must be more in it than meets the eye.
So the cousins usually slipped out for their walks when no one was about.
Flora had learned, by experience, that she must ask permission of the Starkadders if she wanted to go down into Beershorn, or if (as she did a week or so after her arrival) she wanted to buy a pot of apricot jam for tea. On this occasion she had found Judith lying face downwards in the furrows of Ticklepenny’s Corner, weeping. In reply to her question, Judith had said that anybody might do anything they pleased, so long as she was left alone with her sorrow. Flora took this generous statement to mean that she might pay for the jam.