Between the villages of Hetton and Compton Last lies the extensive park of Hetton Abbey. This, formerly one of the notable houses of the county, was entirely rebuilt in 1864 in the Gothic style and is now devoid of interest. The grounds are open to the public daily until sunset and the house may be viewed on application by writing. It contains some good portraits and furniture. The terrace commands a fine view.

This passage from the county Guide Book did not cause Tony Last any serious annoyance. Unkinder things had been said. His Aunt Frances, embittered by an upbringing of unremitting severity, remarked that the plans of the house must have been adapted by Mr Pecksniff from one of his pupils’ designs for an orphanage. But there was not a glazed brick or encaustic tile that was not dear to Tony’s heart. In some ways, he knew, it was not convenient to run; but what big house was? It was not altogether amenable to modern ideas of comfort; he had many small improvements in mind, which would be put into effect as soon as the death duties were paid off. But the general aspect and atmosphere of the place; the line of its battlements against the sky; the central clock tower where quarterly chimes disturbed all but the heaviest sleepers; the ecclesiastical gloom of the great hall, its ceiling groined and painted in diapers of red and gold, supported on shafts of polished granite with vine-wreathed capitals, half-lit by day through lancet windows of armorial stained glass, at night by a vast gasolier of brass and wrought iron, wired now and fitted with twenty electric bulbs; the blasts of hot air that rose suddenly at one’s feet, through grills of cast-iron trefoils from the antiquated heating apparatus below; the cavernous chill of the more remote corridors where, economizing in coke, he had had the pipes shut off; the dining-hall with its hammer-beam roof and pitch-pine minstrels’ gallery; the bedrooms with their brass bedsteads, each with a frieze of Gothic text, each named from Malory, Yseult, Elaine, Mordred and Merlin, Gawaine and Bedivere, Lancelot, Perceval, Tristram, Galahad, his own dressing-room, Morgan le Fay, and Brenda’s Guinevere, where the bed stood on a dais, the walls were hung with tapestry, the fireplace was like a tomb of the thirteenth century, from whose bay window one could count, on days of exceptional clearness, the spires of six churches—all these things with which he had grown up were a source of constant delight and exultation to Tony; things of tender memory and proud possession.

They were not in the fashion, he fully realized. Twenty years ago people had liked half timber and old pewter; now it was urns and colonnades; but the time would come, perhaps in John Andrew’s day, when opinion would reinstate Hetton in its proper place. Already it was referred to as ‘amusing’, and a very civil young man had asked permission to photograph it for an architectural review.



The ceiling of Morgan le Fay was not in perfect repair. In order to make an appearance of coffered wood, moulded slats had been nailed in a chequer across the plaster. They were painted in chevrons of blue and gold. The squares between were decorated alternately with Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lis. But damp had penetrated into one corner, leaving a large patch where the gilt had tarnished and the colour flaked away; in another place the wooden laths had become warped and separated from the plaster. Lying in bed, in the grave ten minutes between waking and ringing, Tony studied these defects and resolved anew to have them put right. He wondered whether it would be easy, nowadays, to find craftsmen capable of such delicate work.

Morgan le Fay had been his room since he left the night-nursery. He had been put there so that he would be within calling distance of his parents (inseparable in Guinevere), for until quite late in his life he was subject to nightmares. He had taken nothing from the room since he had slept there, but every year added to its contents, so that it now formed a gallery representative of every phase of his adolescence—the framed picture of a dreadnought (a coloured supplement from Chums ), all its guns spouting flame and smoke; a photographic group of his private school; a cabinet called ‘the Museum’, filled with the fruits of a dozen desultory hobbies, eggs, butterflies, fossils, coins; his parents, in the leather diptych which had stood by his bed at school; Brenda, eight years ago when he had been trying to get engaged to her; Brenda with John, taken just after the christening; an aquatint of Hetton, as it had stood until his great-grandfather demolished it; some shelves of books, Bevis , Woodwork at Home , Conjuring for All , The Young Visiters , The Law of Landlord and Tenant , Farewell to Arms .



All over England people were waking up, queasy and despondent. Tony lay for ten minutes very happily planning the renovation of his ceiling. Then he rang the bell.

‘Has her ladyship been called yet?’

‘About a quarter of an hour ago, sir.’

‘Then I’ll have breakfast in her room.’

He put on his dressing-gown and slippers and went through into Guinevere.

Brenda lay on the dais.

She had insisted on a modern bed. Her tray was beside her and the quilt was littered with envelopes, letters and the daily papers. Her head was propped against a very small blue pillow; clean of make-up, her face was almost colourless, rose-pearl, scarcely deeper in tone than her arms and neck.

‘Well?’ said Tony.

‘Kiss.’

He sat by the tray at the head of the bed; she leant forward to him (a nereid emerging from fathomless depths of clear water). She turned her lips away and rubbed against his cheek like a cat. It was a way she had.

‘Anything interesting?’

He picked up some of the letters.

‘No. Mama wants nanny to send John’s measurements. She’s knitting him something for Christmas. And the mayor wants me to open something next month. I needn’t, need I?’

‘I think you’d better, we haven’t done anything for him for a long time.’

‘Well, you must write the speech. I’m getting too old for the girlish one I used to give them all. And Angela says, will we stay for the New Year?’

‘That’s easy. Not on her life, we won’t.’

‘I guessed not ... though it sounds an amusing party.’

‘You go if you like. I can’t possibly get away.’

‘That’s all right. I knew it would be “no” before I opened the letter.’

‘Well, what sort of pleasure can there be in going all the way to Yorkshire in the middle of winter?’

‘Darling, don’t be cross. I know we aren’t going. I’m not making a thing about it. I just thought it might be fun to eat someone else’s food for a bit.’

Then Brenda’s maid brought in the other tray. He had it put by the window seat, and began opening his letters. He looked out of the window. Only four of the six church towers were visible that morning. Presently he said, ‘As a matter of fact I probably can manage to get away that week-end.’

‘Darling, are you sure you wouldn’t hate it?’

‘I daresay not.’

While he ate his breakfast Brenda read to him from the papers. ‘Reggie’s been making another speech ... There’s such an extraordinary picture of Babe and Jock ... a woman in America has had twins by two different husbands. Would you have thought that possible? ... Two more chaps in gas ovens ... a little girl has been strangled in a cemetery with a bootlace ... that play we went to about a farm is coming off.’ Then she read him the serial. He lit his pipe. ‘I don’t believe you’re listening. Why doesn’t Sylvia want Rupert to get the letter?’

‘Eh? Oh well, you see, she doesn’t really trust Rupert.’

‘I knew it. There’s no such character as Rupert in the story. I shall never read to you again.’

‘Well, to tell you the truth I was just thinking.’

‘Oh.’

‘I was thinking how delightful it is, that it’s Saturday morning and we haven’t got anyone coming for the week-end.’

‘Oh, you thought that?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Well, it sometimes seems to me rather pointless keeping up a house this size if we don’t now and then ask some other people to stay in it.’

‘ Pointless? I can’t think what you mean. I don’t keep up this house to be a hostel for a lot of bores to come and gossip in. We’ve always lived here and I hope John will be able to keep it on after me. One has a duty towards one’s employees, and towards the place too. It’s a definite part of English life which would be a serious loss if ...’ Then Tony stopped short in his speech and looked at the bed. Brenda had turned on her face and only the top of her head appeared above the sheets.

‘Oh God,’ she said into the pillow. ‘What have I done?’

‘I say, am I being pompous again?’

She turned sideways so that her nose and one eye emerged. ‘Oh no, darling, not pompous . You wouldn’t know how.’

‘Sorry.’

Brenda sat up. ‘And, please, I didn’t mean it. I’m jolly glad too, that no one’s coming.’

(These scenes of domestic playfulness had been more or less continuous in Tony and Brenda’s life for seven years.)

Outside, it was soft English weather; mist in the hollows and pale sunshine on the hills; the coverts had ceased dripping, for there were no leaves to hold the recent rain, but the undergrowth was wet, dark in the shadows, iridescent where the sun caught it; the lanes were soggy and there was water running in the ditches.

John Andrew sat his pony, solemn and stiff as a Lifeguard, while Ben fixed the jump. Thunderclap had been a present on his sixth birthday from Uncle Reggie. It was John who had named her, after lengthy consultation. Originally she had been called Christabelle which, as Ben said, was more the name for a hound than a horse. Ben had known a strawberry roan called Thunderclap who killed two riders and won the local point-to-point four years running. He had been a lovely little horse, said Ben, till he staked himself in the guts, hunting, and had to be shot. Ben knew stories about a great many different horses. There was one called Zero on whom he had won five Jimmy-o-goblins at ten to three at Chester one year. And there was a mule he had known during the war, called Peppermint, who had died of drinking the company’s rum ration. But John was not going to name his pony after a drunken mule. So in the end they had decided on Thunderclap, in spite of her imperturbable disposition.

She was a dark bay, with long tail and mane. Ben had left her legs shaggy. She cropped the grass, resisting John’s attempts to keep her head up.

Before her arrival riding had been a very different thing. He had jogged round the paddock on a little Shetland pony called Bunny, with his nurse panting at the bridle. Now it was a man’s business. Nanny sat at a distance, crocheting, on her camp stool; out of earshot. There had been a corresponding promotion in Ben’s position. From being the hand who looked after the farm horses, he was now, perceptibly, assuming the air of a stud groom. The handkerchief round his neck gave place to a stock with a fox-head pin. He was a man of varied experience in other parts of the country.

Neither Tony nor Brenda hunted but they were anxious that John should like it. Ben foresaw the time when the stables would be full and himself in authority; it would not be like Mr Last to get anyone in from outside.

Ben had got two posts bored for iron pegs, and a white-washed rail. With these he erected a two-foot jump in the middle of the field.

‘Now take it quite easy. Canter up slow and when she takes off lean forward in the saddle and you’ll be over like a bird. Keep her head straight at it.’

Thunderclap trotted forwards, cantered two paces, thought better of it and, just before the jump, fell into a trot again and swerved round the obstacle. John recovered his balance by dropping the reins and gripping the mane with both hands; he looked guiltily at Ben, who said, ‘What d’you suppose your bloody legs are for? Here, take this and just give her a tap when you get up to it!’ He handed John a switch.

Nanny sat by the gate re-reading a letter from her sister.

John took Thunderclap back and tried the jump again. This time they made straight for the rail.

Ben shouted ‘Legs!’ and John kicked sturdily, losing his stirrups. Ben raised his arms as if scaring crows. Thunderclap jumped; John rose from the saddle and landed on his back in the grass.

Nanny rose in alarm. ‘Oh, what’s happened, Mr Hacket, is he hurt?’

‘He’s all right,’ said Ben.

‘I’m all right,’ said John, ‘I think she put in a short step.’

‘Short step my grandmother. You just opened your bloody legs and took an arser. Keep hold on to the reins next time. You can lose a hunt that way.’

At the third attempt John got over and found himself breathless and insecure, one stirrup swinging loose and one hand grabbing its old support in the mane, but still in the saddle.

‘There, how did that feel? You just skimmed over like a swallow. Try it again?’

Twice more John and Thunderclap went over the little rail, then nanny called that it was time to go indoors for his milk. They walked the pony back to the stable. Nanny said, ‘Oh dear, look at all the mud on your coat.’

Ben said, ‘We’ll have you riding the winner at Aintree soon.’

‘Good morning, Mr Hacket.’

‘Good morning, miss.’

‘Good-bye, Ben, may I come and see you doing the farm horses this evening?’

‘That’s not for me to say. You must ask nanny. Tell you what though, the grey carthorse has got worms. Would you like to see me give him a pill?’

‘Oh yes; please, nanny, may I?’

‘You must ask mother. Come along now, you’ve had quite enough of horses for one day.’

‘Can’t have enough of horses,’ said John, ‘ever.’ On the way back to the house he said, ‘Can I have my milk in mummy’s room?’

‘That depends.’

Nanny’s replies were always evasive, like that—‘We’ll see’ or ‘That’s asking’ or ‘Those that ask no questions hear no lies’—altogether unlike Ben’s decisive and pungent judgments.

‘What does it depend on?’

‘Lots of things.’

‘Tell me one of them.’

‘On your not asking a lot of silly questions.’

‘Silly old tart.’

‘ John! How dare you? What do you mean?’

Delighted by the effect of this sally, John broke away from her hand and danced in front of her, saying, ‘Silly old tart, silly old tart’ all the way to the side entrance. When they entered the porch his nurse silently took off his leggings; he was sobered a little by her grimness.

‘Go straight up to the nursery,’ she said. ‘I am going to speak to your mother about you.’

‘Please, nanny. I don’t know what it means, but I didn’t mean it.’

‘Go straight to the nursery.’



Brenda was doing her face.

‘It’s been the same ever since Ben Hacket started teaching him to ride, my lady, there’s been no doing anything with him.’

Brenda spat in the eye-black. ‘But, nanny, what exactly did he say?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t repeat it, my lady.’

‘Nonsense, you must tell me. Otherwise I shall be thinking it something far worse than it was.’

‘It couldn’t have been worse ... he called me a silly old tart, my lady.’

Brenda choked slightly into her face towel. ‘He said that ?’

‘Repeatedly. He danced in front of me all the way up the drive, singing it .’

‘I see ... well, you were quite right to tell me.’

‘Thank you, my lady, and since we are talking about it I think I ought to say that it seems to me that Ben Hacket is making the child go ahead far too quickly with his riding. It’s very dangerous. He had what might have been a serious fall this morning.’

‘All right, nanny, I’ll speak to Mr Last about it.’

She spoke to Tony. They both laughed about it a great deal. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘ you must speak to him. You’re so much better at being serious than I am.’



‘I should have thought it was very nice to be called a tart,’ John argued, ‘and anyway it’s a word Ben often uses about people.’

‘Well, he’s got no business to.’

‘I like Ben more than anyone in the world. And I should think he’s cleverer too.’

‘Now, you know you don’t like him more than your mother.’

‘Yes I do. Far more.’

Tony felt that the time had come to cut out the cross talk and deliver the homily he had been preparing. ‘Now listen, John. It was very wrong of you to call nanny a silly old tart. First, because it was unkind to her. Think of all the things she does for you every day.’

‘She’s paid to.’

‘Be quiet. And secondly, because you were using a word which people of your age and class do not use. Poor people use certain expressions which gentlemen do not. You are a gentleman. When you grow up all this house and lots of other things besides will belong to you. You must learn to speak like someone who is going to have these things and to be considerate to people less fortunate than you, particularly women. Do you understand?’

‘Is Ben less fortunate than me?’

‘That has nothing to do with it. Now you are to go upstairs and say you are sorry to nanny and promise never to use that word about anyone again.’

‘All right.’

‘And because you have been so naughty to-day you are not to ride to-morrow.’

‘To-morrow’s Sunday.’

‘Well, next day then.’

‘But you said “to-morrow”. It isn’t fair to change now.’

‘John, don’t argue. If you are not careful I shall send Thunderclap back to Uncle Reggie and say that I find you are not a good enough boy to keep it. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’

‘What would Uncle Reggie do with her? She couldn’t carry him. Besides, he’s usually abroad.’

‘He’d give her to some other little boy. Anyway, that’s got nothing to do with it. Now run off and say you’re sorry to nanny.’

At the door John said, ‘It’s all right riding on Monday, isn’t it? You did say “to-morrow”.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Hooray. Thunderclap went very well to-day. We jumped a big post and rail. She refused first time but went like a bird after that.’

‘Didn’t you come off?’

‘Yes, once. It wasn’t Thunderclap’s fault. I just opened my bloody legs and cut an arser.’



‘How did the lecture go?’ Brenda asked.

‘Bad. Rotten bad.’

‘The trouble is that nanny’s jealous of Ben.’

‘I’m not sure we shan’t both be soon.’

They lunched at a small, round table in the centre of the dining-hall. There seemed no way of securing an even temperature in that room; even when one side was painfully roasting in the direct blaze of the open hearth, the other was numbed by a dozen converging draughts. Brenda had tried numerous experiments with screens and a portable electric radiator, but with little success. Even to-day, mild elsewhere, it was bitterly cold in the dining-hall.

Although they were both in good health and of unexceptional figure, Tony and Brenda were on a diet. It gave an interest to their meals and saved them from the two uncivilized extremes of which solitary diners are in danger—absorbing gluttony or an irregular régime of scrambled eggs and raw beef sandwiches. Under their present system they denied themselves the combination of protein and starch at the same meal. They had a printed catalogue telling them which foods contained protein and which starch. Most normal dishes seemed to be compact of both, so that it was fun for Tony and Brenda to choose the menu. Usually it ended by their declaring some food ‘joker’.

‘I’m sure it does me a great deal of good.’

‘Yes, darling, and when we get tired of it we might try an alphabetical diet, having things beginning with a different letter every day. J would be hungry, nothing but jam and jellied eels ... What are your plans for the afternoon?’

‘Nothing much. Carter’s coming up at five to go over a few things. I may go to Pigstanton after luncheon. I think we’ve got a tenant for Lowater Farm but it’s been empty some time and I ought to see how much needs doing to it.’

‘I wouldn’t say “no” to going in to the “movies”.’

‘All right. I can easily leave Lowater till Monday.’

‘And we might go to Woolworth’s afterwards, eh?’

What with Brenda’s pretty ways and Tony’s good sense, it was not surprising that their friends pointed to them as a pair who were pre-eminently successful in solving the problem of getting along well together.

The pudding, without protein, was unattractive.

Five minutes afterwards a telegram was brought in. Tony opened it and said ‘Hell.’

‘Badders?’

‘Something too horrible has happened. Look at this.’

Brenda read. ‘ Arriving 3.18 so looking forward visit. Beaver. ’ And asked, ‘What’s Beaver?’

‘It’s a young man.’

‘That sounds all right.’

‘Oh no it’s not. Wait till you see him.’

‘What’s he coming here for? Did you ask him to stay?’

‘I suppose I did in a vague kind of way. I went to Bratt’s one evening and he was the only chap there so we had some drinks and he said something about wanting to see the house ...’

‘I suppose you were tight.’

‘Not really, but I never thought he’d hold it against me.’

‘Well, it jolly well serves you right. That’s what comes of going up to London on business and leaving me alone here ... Who is he anyway?’

‘Just a young man. His mother keeps that shop.’

‘I used to know her. She’s hell. Come to think of it we owe her some money.’

‘Look here, we must put a call through and say we’re ill.’

‘Too late, he’s in the train now, recklessly mixing starch and protein in the Great Western three and sixpenny lunch ... Anyway, he can go into Galahad. No one who sleeps there ever comes again—the bed’s agony I believe.’

‘What on earth are we going to do with him? It’s too late to get anyone else.’

‘You go over to Pigstanton. I’ll look after him. It’s easier alone. We can take him to the movies to-night, and to-morrow he can see over the house. If we’re lucky he may go up by the evening train. Does he have to work on Monday morning?’

‘I shouldn’t know.’



Three-eighteen was far from being the most convenient time for arrival. One reached the house at about a quarter to four and if, like Beaver, one was a stranger, there was an awkward time until tea; but without Tony there to make her self-conscious, Brenda could carry these things off quite gracefully and Beaver was so seldom wholly welcome anywhere that he was not sensitive to the slight constraint of his reception.

She met him in what was still called the smoking-room; it was in some ways the least gloomy place in the house. She said, ‘It is nice that you were able to come. I must break it to you at once that we haven’t got a party. I’m afraid you’ll be terribly bored ... Tony had to go out but he’ll be in soon ... was the train crowded? It often is on Saturdays ... would you like to come outside? It’ll be dark soon and we might get some of the sun while we can ...’ and so on. If Tony had been there it would have been difficult, for she would have caught his eye and her manner as châtelaine would have collapsed. Beaver was well used to making conversation, so they went out together through the french windows on to the terrace, down the steps, into the Dutch garden, and back round the orangery without suffering a moment’s real embarrassment. She even heard herself telling Beaver that his mother was one of her oldest friends.

Tony returned in time for tea. He apologized for not being at home to greet his guest and almost immediately went out again to interview the agent in his study.

Brenda asked about London and what parties there were. Beaver was particularly knowledgeable.

‘Polly Cockpurse is having one soon.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Are you coming up for it?’

‘I don’t expect so. We never go anywhere nowadays.’

The jokes that had been going round for six weeks were all new to Brenda; they had become polished and perfected with repetition and Beaver was able to bring them out with good effect. He told her of numerous changes of alliance among her friends.

‘What’s happening to Mary and Simon?’

‘Oh, didn’t you know? That’s broken up.’

‘When?’

‘It began in Austria this summer ...’

‘And Billy Angmering?’

‘He’s having a terrific walk out with a girl called Sheila Shrub.’

‘And the Helm-Hubbards?’

‘That marriage isn’t going too well either ... Daisy has started a new restaurant. It’s going very well ... and there’s a new night club called the Warren ...’

‘Dear me,’ Brenda said at last. ‘What fun everyone seems to be having.’

After tea John Andrew was brought in and quickly usurped the conversation. ‘How do you do?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. Daddy said he had a week-end to himself for once. Do you hunt?’

‘Not for a long time.’

‘Ben says it stands to reason everyone ought to hunt who can afford to, for the good of the country.’

‘Perhaps I can’t afford to.’

‘Are you poor?’

‘Please, Mr Beaver, you mustn’t let him bore you.’

‘Yes, very poor.’

‘Poor enough to call people tarts?’

‘Yes, quite poor enough.’

‘How did you get poor?’

‘I always have been.’

‘Oh.’ John lost interest in this topic. ‘The grey horse at the farm has got worms.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Ben says so. Besides, you’ve only got to look at his dung.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Brenda, ‘what would nanny say if she heard you talking like that?’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-five. How old are you?’

‘What do you do?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Well, if I was you I’d do something and earn some money. Then you’d be able to hunt.’

‘But I shouldn’t be able to call people tarts.’

‘I don’t see any point in that anyway.’

(Later, in the nursery, while he was having his supper, John said: ‘I think Mr Beaver’s a very silly man, don’t you?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said nanny.

‘I think he’s the silliest man who’s ever been here.’

‘Comparisons are odious.’

‘There just isn’t anything nice about him. He’s got a silly voice and a silly face, silly eyes and silly nose,’ John’s voice fell into a liturgical sing-song, ‘silly feet and silly toes, silly head and silly clothes ...’

‘Now you eat up your supper,’ said nanny.)



That evening before dinner Tony came up behind Brenda as she sat at her dressing table and made a face over her shoulder in the glass.

‘I feel rather guilty about Beaver—going off and leaving you like that. You were heavenly to him.’

She said, ‘Oh, it wasn’t bad really. He’s rather pathetic.’

Farther down the passage Beaver examined his room, with the care of an experienced guest. There was no reading lamp. The inkpot was dry. The fire had been lit but had gone out. The bathroom, he had already discovered, was a great distance away, up a flight of turret steps. He did not at all like the look or feel of the bed; the springs were broken in the centre and it creaked ominously when he lay down to try it. The return ticket, third-class, had been eighteen shillings. Then there would be tips.

Owing to Tony’s feeling of guilt they had champagne for dinner, which neither he nor Brenda particularly liked. Nor, as it happened, did Beaver, but he was glad that it was there. It was decanted into a tall jug and was carried round the little table, between the three of them, as a pledge of hospitality. Afterwards they drove into Pigstanton to the Picture-drome, where there was a film Beaver had seen some months before. When they got back there was a grog tray and some sandwiches in the smoking-room. They talked about the film but Beaver did not let on that he had seen it. Tony took him to the door of Sir Galahad.

‘I hope you sleep well.’

‘I’m sure I shall.’

‘D’you like to be called in the morning?’

‘May I ring?’

‘Certainly. Got everything you want?’

‘Yes, thanks. Good night.’

‘Good night.’

But when he got back he said, ‘You know, I feel awful about Beaver.’

‘Oh, Beaver’s all right,’ said Brenda.

But he was far from being comfortable and as he rolled patiently about the bed in quest of a position in which it was possible to go to sleep, he reflected that, since he had no intention of coming to the house again, he would give the butler nothing and only five shillings to the footman who was looking after him. Presently he adapted himself to the rugged topography of the mattress and dozed, fitfully, until morning. But the new day began dismally with the information that all the Sunday papers had already gone to her ladyship’s room.



Tony invariably wore a dark suit on Sundays and a stiff white collar. He went to church, where he sat in a large pitch-pine pew, put in by his great-grandfather at the time of rebuilding the house, furnished with very high crimson hassocks and a fireplace, complete with iron grate and a little poker which his father used to rattle when any point in the sermon excited his disapproval. Since his father’s day a fire had not been laid there; Tony had it in mind to revive the practice next winter. On Christmas Day and Harvest Thanksgiving Tony read the lessons from the back of the brass eagle.

When service was over he stood for a few minutes at the porch chatting affably with the vicar’s sister and the people from the village. Then he returned home by a path across the fields which led to a side door in the walled garden; he visited the hothouses and picked himself a buttonhole, stopped by the gardeners’ cottages for a few words (the smell of Sunday dinners rising warm and overpowering from the little doorways) and then, rather solemnly, drank a glass of sherry in the library. That was the simple, mildly ceremonious order of his Sunday morning, which had evolved, more or less spontaneously, from the more severe practices of his parents; he adhered to it with great satisfaction. Brenda teased him whenever she caught him posing as an upright, God-fearing gentleman of the old school and Tony saw the joke, but this did not at all diminish the pleasure he derived from his weekly routine, or his annoyance when the presence of guests suspended it.

For this reason his heart sank when, emerging from his study into the great hall at a quarter to eleven, he met Beaver already dressed and prepared to be entertained; it was only a momentary vexation, however, for while he wished him good morning he noticed that his guest had an A.B.C. in his hands and was clearly looking out a train.

‘I hope you slept all right?’

‘Beautifully,’ said Beaver, though his wan expression did not confirm the word.

‘I’m so glad. I always sleep well here myself. I say, I don’t like the look of that train guide. I hope you weren’t thinking of leaving us yet?’

‘Alas, I’ve got to get up to-night, I’m afraid.’

‘Too bad. I’ve hardly seen you. The trains aren’t very good on Sundays. The best leaves at five-forty-five and gets up about nine. It stops a lot and there’s no restaurant car.’

‘That’ll do fine.’

‘Sure you can’t stay until to-morrow?’

‘Quite sure.’

The church bells were ringing across the park.

‘Well, I’m just off to church. I don’t suppose you’d care to come.’

Beaver always did what was expected of him when he was staying away, even on a visit as unsatisfactory as the present one. ‘Oh yes, I should like to very much.’

‘No, really, I shouldn’t if I were you. You wouldn’t enjoy it. I only go because I more or less have to. You stay here. Brenda will be down directly. Ring for a drink when you feel like it.’

‘Oh, all right.’

‘See you later then.’ Tony took his hat and stick from the lobby and let himself out. ‘Now I’ve behaved inhospitably to that young man again,’ he reflected.

The bells were clear and clamorous in the drive and Tony walked briskly towards them. Presently they ceased and gave place to a single note, warning the village that there was only five minutes to go before the organist started the first hymn.

He caught up nanny and John, also on their way to church. John was in one of his rare, confidential moods; he put his small gloved hand into Tony’s and, without introduction, embarked upon a story which lasted them all the way to the church door; it dealt with the mule Peppermint who had drunk the company’s rum ration, near Wipers in 1917; it was told breathlessly, as John trotted to keep pace with his father. At the end, Tony said, ‘How very sad.’

‘Well, I thought it was sad too, but it isn’t. Ben said it made him laugh fit to bust his pants.’

The bell had stopped and the organist was watching from behind his curtain for Tony’s arrival. He walked ahead up the aisle, nanny and John following. In the pew he occupied one of the armchairs; they sat on the bench at his back. He leant forward for half a minute with his forehead on his hand, and as he sat back, the organist played the first bars of the hymn, ‘Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord ...’ The service followed its course. As Tony inhaled the agreeable, slightly musty atmosphere and performed the familiar motions of sitting, standing and leaning forward, his thoughts drifted from subject to subject, among the events of the past week and his plans for the future. Occasionally some arresting phrase in the liturgy would recall him to his surroundings, but for the most part that morning he occupied himself with the question of bathrooms and lavatories, and of how more of them could best be introduced without disturbing the character of his house.

The village postmaster took round the collecting bag. Tony put in his half-crown; John and nanny their pennies.

The vicar climbed, with some effort, into the pulpit. He was an elderly man who had served in India most of his life. Tony’s father had given him the living at the instance of his dentist. He had a noble and sonorous voice and was reckoned the best preacher for many miles around.

His sermons had been composed in his more active days for delivery at the garrison chapel; he had done nothing to adapt them to the changed conditions of his ministry and they mostly concluded with some reference to homes and dear ones far away. The villagers did not find this in any way surprising. Few of the things said in church seemed to have any particular reference to themselves. They enjoyed their vicar’s sermons very much and they knew that when he began about their distant homes, it was time to be dusting their knees and feeling for their umbrellas.

‘... And so as we stand here bareheaded at this solemn hour of the week,’ he read, his powerful old voice swelling up for peroration, ‘let us remember our Gracious Queen Empress in whose service we are here, and pray that she may long be spared to send us at her bidding to do our duty in the uttermost parts of the earth; and let us think of our dear ones far away and the homes we have left in her name, and remember that though miles of barren continent and leagues of ocean divide us, we are never so near to them as on these Sunday mornings, united with them across dune and mountain in our loyalty to our sovereign and thanksgiving for her welfare; one with them as proud subjects of her sceptre and crown.’

(‘The Reverend Tendril ’e do speak uncommon ’igh of the Queen,’ a gardener’s wife had once remarked to Tony.)

After the choir had filed out, during the last hymn, the congregation crouched silently for a few seconds and then made for the door. There was no sign of recognition until they were outside among the graves; then there was an exchange of greetings, solicitous, cordial, garrulous.

Tony spoke to the vet’s wife and Mr Partridge from the shop; then he was joined by the vicar.

‘Lady Brenda is not ill, I hope?’

‘No, nothing serious.’ This was the invariable formula when he appeared at church without her. ‘A most interesting sermon, Vicar.’

‘My dear boy, I’m delighted to hear you say so. It is one of my favourites. But have you never heard it before?’

‘No, I assure you.’

‘I haven’t used it here lately. When I am asked to supply elsewhere it is the one I invariably choose. Let me see now, I always make a note of the times I use it.’ The old clergyman opened the manuscript book he was carrying. It had a limp black cover and the pages were yellow with age. ‘Ah yes, here we are. I preached it first in Jellalabad when the Coldstream Guards were there; then I used it in the Red Sea coming home from my fourth leave; then at Sidmouth ... Mentone ... Winchester ... to the Girl Guides at their summer rally in 1921 ... the Church Stage Guild at Leicester ... twice at Bournemouth during the winter of 1926 when poor Ada was so ill ... No, I don’t seem to have used it here since 1911, when you would have been too young to enjoy it ...’

The vicar’s sister had engaged John in conversation. He was telling her the story of Peppermint: ‘... he’d have been all right, Ben says, if he had been able to cat the rum up, but mules can’t cat, neither can horses ...’

Nanny grasped him firmly and hurried him towards home. ‘How many times have I told you not to go repeating whatever Ben Hacket tells you? Miss Tendril didn’t want to hear about Peppermint. And don’t ever use that rude word “cat” again.’

‘It only means to be sick.’

‘Well, Miss Tendril isn’t interested in being sick ...’

As the gathering between porch and lychgate began to disperse, Tony set off towards the gardens. There was a good choice of buttonholes in the hothouses; he picked lemon carnations with crinkled, crimson edges for himself and Beaver and a camellia for his wife.

Shafts of November sunshine streamed down from lancet and oriel, tinctured in green and gold, gules and azure by the emblazoned coats, broken by the leaded devices into countless points and patches of coloured light. Brenda descended the great staircase step by step through alternations of dusk and rainbow. Both hands were occupied, holding to her breast a bag, a small hat, a half-finished panel of petit-point embroidery and a vast, disordered sheaf of Sunday newspapers, above which only her eyes and forehead appeared as though over a yashmak. Beaver emerged from the shadows below and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up at her.

‘I say, can’t I carry something?’

‘No thanks, I’ve got everything safe. How did you sleep?’

‘Beautifully.’

‘I bet you didn’t.’

‘Well, I’m not a very good sleeper.’

‘Next time you come you shall have a different room. But I daresay you won’t ever come again. People so seldom do. It is very sad because it’s such fun for us having them and we never make any new friends living down here.’

‘Tony’s gone to church.’

‘Yes, he likes that. He’ll be back soon. Let’s go out for a minute or two, it looks lovely.’

When Tony came back they were sitting in the library. Beaver was telling Brenda’s fortune with cards. ‘... Now cut to me again,’ he was saying, ‘and I’ll see if it’s any clearer ... Oh yes ... there is going to be a sudden death which will cause you great pleasure and profit. In fact you are going to kill someone. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman ... yes, a woman ... then you are going to go on a long journey across the sea, marry six dark men and have eleven children, grow a beard and die.’

‘Beast. And all this time I’ve been thinking it was serious. Hullo, Tony. Jolly church?’

‘Most enjoyable; how about some sherry?’

When they were alone together, just before luncheon, he said, ‘Darling, you’re being heroic with Beaver.’

‘Oh, I quite enjoy coping—in fact I’m bitching him rather.’

‘So I saw. Well, I’ll look after him this afternoon and he’s going this evening.’

‘Is he? I’ll be quite sorry. You know that’s a difference between us, that when someone’s awful you just run away and hide, while I actually enjoy it—making up to them and showing off to myself how well I can do it. Besides, Beaver isn’t so bad. He’s quite like us in some ways.’

‘He’s not like me,’ said Tony.

After luncheon Tony said, ‘Well, if it would really amuse you, we might go over the house. I know it isn’t fashionable to like this sort of architecture now—my Aunt Frances says it is an authentic Pecksniff—but I think it’s good of its kind.’

It took them two hours. Beaver was well practised in the art of being shown over houses; he had been brought up to it in fact, ever since he had begun to accompany his mother, whose hobby it had always been, and later, with changing circumstances, profession. He made apt and appreciative comments and greatly enhanced the pleasure Tony always took in exposing his treasures.

They saw it all: the shuttered drawing-room, like a school speech hall, the cloistral passages, the dark inner courtyard, the chapel where, until Tony’s succession, family prayers had been daily read to the assembled household, the plate-room and estate office, the bedrooms and attics, the water-tank concealed among the battlements. They climbed the spiral staircase into the works of the clock and waited to see it strike half-past three. Thence they descended with ringing ears to the collections—enamel, ivories, seals, snuff-boxes, china, ormulu, cloisonné; they paused before each picture in the oak gallery and discussed its associations; they took out the more remarkable folios in the library and examined prints of the original buildings, manuscript account-books of the old Abbey, travel journals of Tony’s ancestors. At intervals Beaver would say, ‘The So-and-so’s have got one rather like that at Such-and-such a place’, and Tony would say, ‘Yes, I’ve seen it but I think mine is the earlier.’ Eventually they came back to the smoking-room and Tony left Beaver to Brenda.

She was stitching away at the petit-point, hunched in an armchair. ‘Well,’ she asked, without looking up from her needlework, ‘what did you think of it?’

‘Magnificent.’

‘You don’t have to say that to me, you know.’

‘Well, a lot of the things are very fine.’

‘Yes, the things are all right, I suppose.’

‘But don’t you like the house?’

‘Me? I detest it ... at least I don’t mean that really, but I do wish sometimes that it wasn’t all , every bit of it, so appallingly ugly. Only I’d die rather than say that to Tony. We could never live anywhere else, of course. He’s crazy about the place ... It’s funny. None of us minded very much when my brother Reggie sold our house—and that was built by Vanbrugh, you know ... I suppose we’re lucky to be able to afford to keep it up at all. Do you know how much it costs just to live here? We should be quite rich if it wasn’t for that. As it is we support fifteen servants indoors, besides gardeners and carpenters and a night-watchman and all the people at the farm and odd little men constantly popping in to wind the clocks and cook the accounts and clean the moat, while Tony and I have to fuss about whether it’s cheaper to take a car up to London for the night or buy an excursion ticket ... I shouldn’t feel so badly about it if it were a really lovely house—like my home for instance ... but of course Tony’s been brought up here and sees it all differently ...’

Tony joined them for tea. ‘I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but if you’re going to catch that train, you ought really to be getting ready.’

‘That’s all right. I’ve persuaded him to stay on till to-morrow.’

‘If you’re sure you don’t ...’

‘Splendid. I am glad. It’s beastly going up at this time, particularly by that train.’

When John came in he said, ‘I thought Mr Beaver was going.’

‘Not till to-morrow.’

‘Oh.’

After dinner Tony sat and read the papers. Brenda and Beaver were on the sofa playing games together. They did a cross-word. Beaver said, ‘I’ve thought of something’, and Brenda asked him questions to find what it was. He was thinking of the rum Peppermint drank. John had told him the story at tea. Brenda guessed it quite soon. Then they played ‘Analogies’ about their friends and finally about each other.

They said good-bye that night because Beaver was catching the 9.10.

‘Do let me know when you come to London.’

‘I may be up this week.’

Next morning Beaver tipped both butler and footman ten shillings each. Tony, still feeling rather guilty in spite of Brenda’s heroic coping, came down to breakfast to see his guest off. Afterwards he went back to Guinevere.

‘Well, that’s the last of him . You were superb, darling. I’m sure he’s gone back thinking that you’re mad about him.’

‘Oh, he wasn’t too awful.’

‘No. I must say he took a very intelligent interest when we went round the house.’



Mrs Beaver was eating her yoghourt when Beaver reached home. ‘Who was there?’

‘No one.’

‘No one? My poor boy.’

‘They weren’t expecting me. It was awful at first but got better. They were just as you said. She’s very charming. He scarcely spoke.’

‘I wish I saw her sometimes.’

‘She talked of taking a flat in London.’

‘ Did she?’ The conversion of stables and garages was an important part of Mrs Beaver’s business. ‘What does she want?’

‘Something quite simple. Two rooms and a bath. But it’s all quite vague. She hasn’t said anything to Tony yet.’

‘I am sure I shall be able to find her something.’