she said. ‘Henry, dear, would you mind? It’s rather heavy.’
Henry and Jocelyn helped her with the chair and, at her instruction, threw more logs of wood on the fire. These arrangements completed, Miss Prentice settled herself at the table.
‘I think your study is almost my favourite corner of Pen Cuckoo, Jocelyn,’ she said brightly.
The squire muttered something, and Henry said, ‘But you are very fond of every corner of the house, aren’t you, Cousin Eleanor?’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Ever since my childhood days when I used to spend my holidays here (you remember, Jocelyn?) I’ve loved the dear old home.’
‘Estate agents,’ Henry said, ‘have cast a permanent opprobrium on the word “home.” It has come to mean nothing. It is a pity that when I marry, Cousin Eleanor, I shall not be able to take my wife to Winton. I can’t afford to mend the roof, you know.’
Jocelyn cleared his throat, darted an angry glance at his son, and returned to the window.
‘Winton is the dower-house, of course,’ murmured Miss Prentice.
‘As you already know,’ Henry continued, ‘I have begun to pay my addresses to Dinah Copeland. From what you overheard at the rectory do you think it likely that she will accept me?’
He saw her eyes narrow but she smiled a little more widely, showing her prominent and unlovely teeth. ‘She’s like a French caricature of an English spinster,’ thought Henry.
‘I’m quite sure, dear,’ said Miss Prentice, ‘that you do not think I willingly overheard your little talk with Dinah. Far from it. It was very distressing when I caught the few words that –’
‘That you repeated to Father? I’m sure you were.’
‘I thought it my duty to speak to your father, Henry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think, dear, that you two young people are in need of a little wise guidance.’
‘Do you like Dinah?’ asked Henry abruptly.
‘She has many excellent qualities, I am sure,’ said Miss Prentice.
‘I asked you if you liked her, Cousin Eleanor.’
‘I like her for those qualities. I am afraid, dear, that I think it better not to go any further just at the moment.’
‘I agree,’ said Jocelyn from the window. ‘Henry, I won’t have any more of this. These people will be here in a moment. There’s the rectory car, now, coming round Cloudyfold bend. There’ll be here in five minutes. You’d better tell us what it’s all about, Eleanor.’
Miss Prentice seated herself at the foot of the table. ‘It’s the YPFC,’ she said. ‘We badly want funds and the rector suggested that perhaps we might get up a little play. You remember, Jocelyn. It was the night we dined there.’
‘I remember something about it,’ said the squire.
‘Just among ourselves,’ continued Miss Prentice, ‘I know you’ve always loved acting, Jocelyn, and you’re so good at it. So natural. Do you remember Ici on Parle Français in the old days? I’ve talked it all over with the rector and he agrees it’s a splendid idea. Dr Templett is very good at theatricals, especially in funny parts, and dear Idris Campanula, of course, is all enthusiasm.’
‘Good Lord!’ ejaculated Henry and his father together.
‘What on earth is she going to do in the play?’ asked Jocelyn.
‘Now, Jocelyn, we mustn’t be uncharitable,’ said Miss Prentice, with a cold glint of satisfaction in her eye. ‘I dare say poor Idris would make quite a success of a small part.’
‘I’m too old,’ said Jocelyn.
‘What nonsense, dear. Of course you’re not. We’ll find something that suits you.’
‘I’m damned if I’ll make love to the Campanula,’ said the squire ungallantly. Eleanor assumed her usual expression for the reception of bad language, but it was coloured by that glint of complacency.
‘Please, Jocelyn,’ she said.
‘What’s Dinah going to do?’ asked Henry.
‘Well, as dear Dinah is almost a professional –’
‘She is a professional,’ said Henry.
‘Such a pity, yes,’ said Miss Prentice.
‘Why?’
‘I’m old-fashioned enough to think that the stage is not a very nice profession for a gentlewoman, Henry. But of course Dinah must act in our little piece. If she isn’t too grand for such humble efforts.’
Henry opened his mouth and shut it again. The squire said, ‘Here they are.’
There was the sound of a car pulling up on the gravel drive outside, and two cheerful toots on an out-of-date klaxon.
‘I’ll go and bring them in,’ offered Henry.
III
Henry went out through the hall. When he opened the great front door the upland air laid its cold hand on his face. He smelt frost, dank earth, and dead leaves. The light from the house showed him three figures climbing out of a small car. The rector, his daughter Dinah, and a tall woman in a shapeless fur coat – Idris Campanula. Henry produced the right welcoming noises and ushered them into the house. Taylor, the butler, appeared, and laid expert hands on the rector’s shabby overcoat. Henry, his eyes on Dinah, dealt with Miss Campanula’s furs. The hall rang with Miss Campanula’s conversation. She was a large arrogant spinster with a firm bust, a high-coloured complexion, coarse grey hair, and enormous bony hands. Her clothes were hideous but expensive, for Miss Campanula was extremely wealthy. She was supposed to be Eleanor Prentice’s great friend. Their alliance was based on mutual antipathies and interests. Each adored scandal and each cloaked her passion in a mantle of conscious rectitude. Neither trusted the other an inch, but there was no doubt that they enjoyed each other’s company. In conversation their technique varied widely. Eleanor never relinquished her air of charity and when she struck, the blow always fell obliquely. But Idris was one of those women who pride themselves on their outspokenness. Repeatedly did she announce that she was a downright sort of person. She was particularly fond of saying that she called a spade a spade, and in her more daring moments would add that her cousin, General Campanula, had once told her that she went further than that and called it a ‘B shovel.’ She cultivated an air of bluff forthrightness that should have deceived nobody, but actually passed as true currency among the simpler of her acquaintances. The truth was that she reserved to her self the right of broad speech, but would have been livid with rage if anybody had replied in kind.
The rector, a widower whose classic handsomeness made him the prey of such women, was, so Dinah had told Henry, secretly terrified of both these ladies who loomed so large in parochial affairs. Eleanor Prentice had a sort of coy bedside manner with the rector.
