The Headmistress

CHAPTER I-2

Mrs. Belton gently pushed towards her husband the little silver box in which his saccharine was kept. She did not answer, because she knew his gruffness was merely a screen for a wounded pride. He had been as good as gold about leaving his family home, for he had the courage to face disagreeable facts, but his wife knew how deeply he felt it that the inevitable blow had fallen in his lifetime and how, in spite of valiant efforts, he could not help feeling that he had come down in the world. For five generations the Beltons had sat in their Palladian mansion looking over their own parkland. Now the sixth Belton since the nabob was sitting in a drawing-room, a parlour, in a house in the village street, a house which, except for the lucky fact of its being up four steps from the pavement with rather terrifying barred basement windows looking on to tiny areas with a grating over them, would have had to have blinds in the front rooms to prevent passers-by looking in. Mrs. Belton was a humble creature in some ways but her pride too was wounded, for she knew she had brought her husband little dowry. A Thorne, one of the many cousins of the very old Barsetshire family at Ullathorne, she was of good blood, but no amount of blood could keep Harefield Park from turning into a girls’ school. In happier days she had hoped that in her children the family might at last come into its proper place again. Freddy was to marry a very rich delightful heiress and put proper bathrooms all over the house when his father died and he left the Navy and came into the place, Charles was to make an immense fortune in business, be a kind wealthy bachelor uncle and leave all his money to Freddy’s children, and Elsa was to marry very well, preferably the heir to a dukedom or at least a marquisate, and present Freddy’s girls at court. These things would surely come to pass with children as good-looking, gifted and charming as her own; and if Freddy and his wife wanted to live at Harefield Park, why his parents could well retire to one of their houses in the village and let the young people have their fling. But to retire in favour of a girls’ school, to confess oneself beaten by one’s own estate, to take away from one’s children the home of their childhood, the nursery where they had quarrelled, the kitchen where they had teased the cook, the disused hay lofts in the stables where they had played, the lake where they had muddily bathed in summer and dangerously (for there was a very cold spring in the middle of it) skated in winter, these were very bitter thoughts, and Mrs. Belton’s pretty, anxious face was contorted by the unbecoming grimaces one makes to show that one has no intention of crying; no, not the least idea in the world.

“What is the matter, Lucy?” said Mr. Belton, almost glad to turn upon his wife as a relief from the very similar feelings that were tearing him. “I mean, my dear, is anything really the matter?” he added in a more gentle voice.

His wife would have found it almost easier to deal with his more truculent mood, but so touched was she by his effort to be sympathetic that she gulped down all her unhappiness and said,

“I was only wondering if the children would be allowed to skate this winter if they get leave.”

“Allowed? What the devil do you mean allowed?” said Mr. Belton. “We haven’t sold the whole place, my dear, only let the house and garden. That Miss Sterling——”

“Sparling,” said his wife.

“Sparling then,” said Mr. Belton, “though it’s a name I don’t know, queer sort of name, seems a nice sort of woman. It was her idea that we should keep the East Pavilion. And to tell the truth, if I’d had to move the estate office it would have been very inconvenient. I couldn’t very well see the tenants here. And this is a good house, Lucy. Old Dr. Perry, not this man, his father, always said it was the best house in the High Street. I’m sorry, Lucy, I’m sorry.”

So noble did Mrs. Belton think her husband for confessing, or at any rate recognizing, his fit of temper that she felt more like crying than ever, when a loud peal distracted her.

“Damn that bell,” exclaimed Mr. Belton, glad of a legitimate excuse for working off his feelings. “It’s been like that for twenty years. One touch and it rings like a fire engine. The old lady complained more than once and Icken has been down to see it again and again. He’s the best estate carpenter in the county, but he couldn’t get the damned thing right. What is it, Wheeler?”

“It’s the Vicar, sir,” said Wheeler. “He says to say if you are tired he won’t come in. And Lady Graham has sent two rabbits and a basket of mushrooms by the coal man, madam, with her love and you must let her know if there’s anything she can do.”

“How kind of dear Agnes,” said Mrs. Belton. “Yes, of course we want to see Mr. Oriel, Wheeler.”

Wheeler retired and came back with the Vicar whom, quite apart from his collar and black vest, anyone would have known for a clergyman at once on account of his large and flexible Adam’s apple, which fascinated the rash beholder’s eye and had once caused Charles Belton, aged four, to ask him why he couldn’t swallow it.

“How very nice of you to come, Mr. Oriel,” said Mrs. Belton getting up. “Have you had tea?”

“But you are expecting a party,” said Mr. Oriel, looking nervously at the array of china.

“That was our faithful Wheeler,” said Mrs. Belton, “and why all that crockery I can’t think. But we aren’t expecting anyone and are so delighted to have you as our first guest.”

“I confess I am relieved,” said Mr. Oriel, shaking hands with Mr. Belton. “I saw Lady Pomfret’s lorry outside the Town Hall and made sure she would be here. Milk if you can spare it; no, no sugar thanks. I have a small bottle of saccharine tablets which I carry about in my pocket,” said the Vicar, feeling with every hand in every pocket.

“Have some of mine,” said Mr. Belton, opening the little silver box, “filthy stuff.”

“It seems ungrateful to say so, but it is,” said the Vicar, obviously relieved, “and why we take it I cannot think.”

“Instead of sugar. And a damn silly thing to do,” said Mr. Belton. “Stuff isn’t sweet, it’s bitter. And the more you put in the nastier it is.”

“I never did take sugar in my tea, or in coffee,” said the Vicar. “I have always disliked it. But I understood that by taking saccharine we were somehow assisting the war effort. There are so many ways of helping the war and one sometimes finds them a little bewildering. Now, we were told that His Majesty has only five inches of water in his bath, so of course I marked a five-inch line on the Vicarage bath—and I cannot tell you how difficult it was, for as you know there is no corner in a bath, no square corner if I make myself clear, by which you can really judge. If you put a ruler against the side of the bath it is all so round and slanting, the bath I mean, that you cannot tell exactly where the mark should come. But I had an inspiration. I filled the bath rather full and stood a ruler upright with its low end, I mean the one where it says one inch, resting on the middle of the bottom. I then pulled out the plug, and when the water had dropped to the figure five, I put it in again. While I was putting it in a little more water ran away, but this made it about fair, for as you know there is on many rulers, and on the particular ruler in question, a little bit at the beginning, or rather at each end, which is not included in the inches, which would have given me an unfair advantage.”

“Some cake,” said Mrs. Belton sympathetically.

“But now—oh, thank you,” said the Vicar, helping himself to a slice, “I am again in a quandary.”

“I don’t see why,” said Mrs. Belton. “You’ve got your five inches.”

“Yes; but here is the rub,” said the Vicar. “If, in error, I fill the bath up to the five-inch mark with boiling water, for my housekeeper keeps the water delightfully hot, is it fair to add sufficient cold water to make it bearable?”

“You’d be boiled like a lobster if you didn’t, Oriel,” said Mr. Belton. “I can’t think why we never had cake like this at home, Lucy. Reminds me of my tuck-box at my first school.”

“That is exactly what I meant,” said the Vicar, gratified that he had made himself so clear. “So, even at the risk of disloyalty, I have to add cold water, which does not of course increase my own fuel consumption, but does, so I am told, increase the fuel consumption wherever it is that the cold water has to be pumped from. And then again if I put my cold water in first——”

“Which you always ought to,” said Mrs. Belton earnestly. “That is the first thing any good nannie has to learn, or she may scald the baby when she puts it in.”

“—I may put in too much and so be obliged to fill up with so much boiling water that it comes well above the five-inch mark. How very good this cake is.”

“Well, Oriel, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you,” said Mr. Belton. “There’s that bell again.”

Another violent peal resounded from basement to attic. Wheeler appeared.

“It’s Lady Pomfret, madam,” she said. “She says to say if you’re too busy. And I forgot to tell you, Mrs. Brandon brought the cake when she came over to see about the Land Girls. She says it is real flour she had hoarded, not this nasty healthy stuff, and if she can do anything please let her know and Mrs. Hilary’s new baby is a dear little girl.”

“But of course ask Lady Pomfret to come in,” said Mrs. Belton, for she was very fond of the young countess whose mother-in-law had been a distant Thorne cousin. So in came Lady Pomfret with Lord Mellings aged four and a half and Lady Emily Foster aged three.

“Dear Lucy, how very delightful to find you,” said Lady Pomfret. “The home farm lorry was going to Northbridge, so the children and I came in it and it is going to pick us up in half an hour. What a beautiful room, Mr. Belton. I have never been in this house before.”

“Do you know our Vicar, Mr. Oriel?” said Mrs. Belton.

“I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, Lady Pomfret,” said Mr. Oriel, “but I knew your dear mother-in-law well. In fact we were some kind of connection, but it always puzzles me.”