Arms – that’s the right name, isn’t it? Or don’t you even know of the existence of your village pub? I’m on my holiday – doing a bit of fishing here. Any objection to my looking you two good people up this evening after dinner?’
‘No,’ said Alix sharply. ‘You mustn’t come.’
There was a pause, and then Dick’s voice, with a subtle alteration in it, spoke again.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said formally. ‘Of course I won’t bother you –’
Alix broke in hastily. He must think her behaviour too extraordinary. It was extraordinary. Her nerves must be all to pieces.
‘I only meant that we were – engaged tonight,’ she explained, trying to make her voice sound as natural as possible. ‘Won’t you – won’t you come to dinner tomorrow night?’
But Dick evidently noticed the lack of cordiality in her tone.
‘Thanks very much,’ he said, in the same formal voice, ‘but I may be moving on any time. Depends if a pal of mine turns up or not. Goodbye, Alix.’ He paused, and then added hastily, in a different tone: ‘Best of luck to you, my dear.’
Alix hung up the receiver with a feeling of relief.
‘He mustn’t come here,’ she repeated to herself. ‘He mustn’t come here. Oh, what a fool I am! To imagine myself into a state like this. All the same, I’m glad he’s not coming.’
She caught up a rustic rush hat from a table, and passed out into the garden again, pausing to look up at the name carved over the porch: Philomel Cottage.
‘Isn’t it a very fanciful name?’ she had said to Gerald once before they were married. He had laughed.
‘You little Cockney,’ he had said, affectionately. ‘I don’t believe you have ever heard a nightingale. I’m glad you haven’t. Nightingales should sing only for lovers. We’ll hear them together on a summer’s evening outside our own home.’
And at the remembrance of how they had indeed heard them, Alix, standing in the doorway of her home, blushed happily.
It was Gerald who had found Philomel Cottage. He had come to Alix bursting with excitement. He had found the very spot for them – unique – a gem – the chance of a lifetime. And when Alix had seen it she too was captivated. It was true that the situation was rather lonely – they were two miles from the nearest village – but the cottage itself was so exquisite with its old-world appearance, and its solid comfort of bathrooms, hot-water system, electric light, and telephone, that she fell a victim to its charm immediately. And then a hitch occurred. The owner, a rich man who had made it his whim, declined to let it. He would only sell.
Gerald Martin, though possessed of a good income, was unable to touch his capital. He could raise at most a thousand pounds. The owner was asking three. But Alix, who had set her heart on the place, came to the rescue. Her own capital was easily realized, being in bearer bonds. She would contribute half of it to the purchase of the home. So Philomel Cottage became their very own, and never for a minute had Alix regretted the choice. It was true that servants did not appreciate the rural solitude – indeed, at the moment they had none at all – but Alix, who had been starved of domestic life, thoroughly enjoyed cooking dainty little meals and looking after the house.
The garden, which was magnificently stocked with flowers, was attended by an old man from the village who came twice a week.
As she rounded the corner of the house, Alix was surprised to see the old gardener in question busy over the flower-beds. She was surprised because his days for work were Mondays and Fridays, and today was Wednesday.
‘Why, George, what are you doing here?’ she asked, as she came towards him.
The old man straightened up with a chuckle, touching the brim of an aged cap.
‘I thought as how you’d be surprised, ma’am. But ’tis this way. There be a fête over to Squire’s on Friday, and I sez to myself, I sez, neither Mr Martin nor yet his good lady won’t take it amiss if I comes for once on a Wednesday instead of a Friday.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Alix. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy yourself at the fête.’
‘I reckon to,’ said George simply. ‘It’s a fine thing to be able to eat your fill and know all the time as it’s not you as is paying for it. Squire allus has a proper sit-down tea for ’is tenants. Then I thought too, ma’am, as I might as well see you before you goes away so as to learn your wishes for the borders. You have no idea when you’ll be back, ma’am, I suppose?’
‘But I’m not going away.’
George stared.
‘Bain’t you going to Lunnon tomorrow?’
‘No. What put such an idea into your head?’
George jerked his head over his shoulder.
‘Met Maister down to village yesterday. He told me you was both going away to Lunnon tomorrow, and it was uncertain when you’d be back again.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Alix, laughing. ‘You must have misunderstood him.’
All the same, she wondered exactly what it could have been that Gerald had said to lead the old man into such a curious mistake. Going to London? She never wanted to go to London again.
‘I hate London,’ she said suddenly and harshly.
‘Ah!’ said George placidly. ‘I must have been mistook somehow, and yet he said it plain enough, it seemed to me. I’m glad you’re stopping on here. I don’t hold with all this gallivanting about, and I don’t think nothing of Lunnon. I’ve never needed to go there. Too many moty cars – that’s the trouble nowadays. Once people have got a moty car, blessed if they can stay still anywheres. Mr Ames, wot used to have this house – nice peaceful sort of gentleman he was until he bought one of them things. Hadn’t had it a month before he put up this cottage for sale. A tidy lot he’d spent on it too, with taps in all the bedrooms, and the electric light and all. “You’ll never see your money back,” I sez to him. “But,” he sez to me, “I’ll get every penny of two thousand pounds for this house.” And, sure enough, he did.’
‘He got three thousand,’ said Alix, smiling.
‘Two thousand,’ repeated George. ‘The sum he was asking was talked of at the time.’
‘It really was three thousand,’ said Alix.
‘Ladies never understand figures,’ said George, unconvinced. ‘You’ll not tell me that Mr Ames had the face to stand up to you and say three thousand brazen-like in a loud voice?’
‘He didn’t say it to me,’ said Alix; ‘he said it to my husband.’
George stooped again to his flower-bed.
‘The price was two thousand,’ he said obstinately.
Alix did not trouble to argue with him. Moving to one of the farther beds, she began to pick an armful of flowers.
As she moved
