Matthew's, Uncle Matthew will think twice of being so fond of our sweet
cousin."
"Pamela, you're a genius," her mother declared proudly.
"Oh, she is, she is!" cried Cousin Edith, clapping her hands with
excitement, for the scheme appealed to the innate procuress within her.
"I should never have thought of anything half as clever. She's a...."
"Edith," her own rich cousin interposed, "I wish you wouldn't be quite
so enthusiastic."
"I'm so sorry," Edith murmured humbly. "Shall I go and give Spottles his
bath? Poor old boy, he's been rolling again, Cook says." And by the way
in which she washed her own hands as she went out of the room Cousin
Edith managed to suggest with suitable regret that she too had been
rolling.
Within three days of this conversation Harry Vibart called on Jasmine at
Rouncivell Lodge.
"Look here," he said reproachfully, "why didn't you ever write?"
"You never wrote to me." Jasmine tried to be cold and dignified, but she
was so glad to see him again that it was not a successful attempt.
"I wrote you six letters."
"I never got them. I expect my aunt wouldn't allow them to be
forwarded."
Vibart was sure that Jasmine was misjudging her. No one could have been
more anxious to help him find Jasmine. Why, she had taken the trouble to
write to Mrs. Grave-Smith for his address, had asked him to lunch and
then volunteered Jasmine's address, and, what is more, advised him to go
and call on her.
The Italian half of Jasmine was capable of being suspicious; it warned
her that people like Aunt May did not so abruptly change their point of
view. Why should she have sent him here? Why?... Why?... It must be that
Lettice and Pamela had a chance of being married at last and that in a
spasm of generosity she wished to help her niece ... or was it that she
was afraid of having her on her hands, and hoped to palm her off on
Harry Vibart? Such an idea froze her, and the young man, taken aback by
her change of expression, asked what was the matter.
"I'm afraid you must have found it a very long way up to Muswell Hill,"
she said stiffly.
"Longish. Longish," he agreed. "But I took a taxi."
At this moment the window of the room in which they were sitting was
darkened by a shadow, and there was Uncle Matthew with his face pressed
against the pane and wearing an expression of malevolence, ferocity, and
alarm. When they looked up, he waved his sticks above his head and
snarled at them.
"It's a lunatic," exclaimed Harry Vibart.
"No, no, it's my uncle."
"I say, I'm awfully sorry. Perhaps he's ill."
Uncle Matthew was still waving his sticks so oddly and making such
strange faces that Jasmine was alarmed and ran out to see what was
upsetting him.
"Are you ill?" she asked.
"Ill? Ill? No. But I shall be ill in a moment. Listen!"
From the direction of the gates of Rouncivell Lodge the engine of a taxi
throbbed upon the warm June air.
"He thinks it's an aeroplane," Vibart whispered. "Poor old chap, he's
probably afraid it's going to fall on the house. Old people who haven't
seen many of them do often get worried like that. It's all right, sir,"
he added in a louder voice, "it's only my taxi running up the
twopences."
"Take it away," the old gentleman screamed. "Take it away, and take
yourself away with it. Who are you? What do you mean by coming here and
visiting my niece and keeping a taxi buzzing outside the gate? Do you
realize that it's costing a penny a minute? Take it away!"
Harry looked at Jasmine, and she signed to him that it would be right to
humour her uncle. She really was afraid that he was going to have a fit.
"Perhaps I may call another day?" the young man suggested in a
despondent tone of voice.
"Certainly not. You'll be driving up next in a golden coach. If you want
to squander your money, squander it some other way."
It was useless to argue with the infuriated old gentleman, and Vibart
took himself off.
"That's the last I shall see of him," thought Jasmine, turning sadly to
follow her uncle into the house. Later on, however, when Uncle Matthew
had recovered from the shock to his parsimony, he enquired who her
visitor was, and she thought that she was able to reassure him.
"Well," said the old gentleman, "perhaps I was a little hasty. Yes, I
think I was. Does he smoke?"
"Not cigars," said Jasmine quickly. "At least I've never seen him
smoking a cigar."
"He can come and see you twice a week. Once in the morning and once in
the afternoon. And then perhaps later on we'll ask him to lunch. But
don't count on that. And now come and sit with me in the smoking-room.
Because I must smoke a cigar to calm my nerves after that shock."
They passed out into the hall, and on his way through Uncle Matthew
cast a glance, as his custom was, at the numerous walking-sticks.
"Whose is this?" he asked, picking a malacca from the stand. "H. V." he
read. "This is your friend's. You see, my dear, he's careless through
and through. I never left a walking-stick in somebody else's house.
Never in all my life."
"I think you made him rather nervous," Jasmine explained apologetically.
But the old gentleman paid no attention: he was searching for something
he missed.
"Where is it?"
"Where's what?"
"Clara's silver-handled cane."
"I don't see it," Jasmine stammered apprehensively.
"It's gone. That villain must have stolen it."
"If Mr. Vibart has taken one of your sticks, Uncle Matthew, he must have
done so by mistake."
"The young scoundrel! The young blackguard!" He became incoherent with
rage.
"But, Uncle Matthew, if he has taken one of your sticks he'll bring it
back."
"Hers! Hers!" the old gentleman was gasping.
"Oh, dear Uncle Matthew, I'm so dreadfully sorry."
"My poor little wife's! He's taken my poor little wife's silver-handled
cane. And she was so fond of it. Her favourite. The ruffian!
The--the--tramp! He might have taken any other but that. Oh dear! Oh
damn! Why do you bring these people here, you abominable girl?"
That afternoon Jasmine arrived in Harley Street, and had to explain that
Uncle Matthew would not have her to stay with him any longer. The Hector
Grants welcomed her with something like friendliness, but the next day,
when Vibart brought back the missing stick, it was Pamela who claimed
the privilege of returning it to Uncle Matthew, and a few days later it
was thought advisable for Jasmine to pay her promised visit to Aunt
Ellen and Uncle Arnold at Silchester.
_Chapter Seven_
Jasmine had protested against the visit to Silchester; and this protest
was in the opinion of the Hector Grants conclusive evidence of a
thwarted intention to corrupt poor old Uncle Matthew. Her resentment of
the humiliating unconcern for her own dignity that was being displayed
in thus sending her round from one group of relatives to another was
brushed aside as no more than the expression of a natural chagrin at
finding that her schemes had miscarried. They did not, of course, accuse
her in so many words of being crafty; but Jasmine understood well enough
at what they were hinting, and the consciousness that she had allowed
Selina to discuss her prospects in the old gentleman's will, coupled
with the memory of her own dreams of what she should do if he did leave
his money to her, gave Jasmine a sufficiently acute sense of guilt to
cut short any further opposition to the Silchester visit.
"I simply cannot understand your prejudice against the Deanery," Aunt
May avowed. "There must be something else which you are trying to
conceal." One of Aunt May's foibles was to regard as potential jackdaws
everybody not situated so advantageously as herself. "It can't merely be
that you don't want to greet your Aunt Ellen. There must be some other
reason. I'm sorry your friend Mr. Vibart should have made such an
unfortunate impression on poor old Uncle Matthew. But that is not our
fault, is it?"
"I never said that anything was your fault, Aunt May," Jasmine
responded. "I know perfectly well that everything is my fault, and
that's why I don't want to upset any more of my relations by this
behaviour of mine that they seem to find so dreadful."
"Nobody has found your behaviour dreadful," Aunt May gently
contradicted. "Try not to exaggerate. I don't think I have ever called
you anything worse than inconsiderate."
"Well, but you hate having me on your hands," Jasmine burst out. "You
hate it. Why don't you let me go back to Sirene?"
"I've already explained to you," continued Aunt May more gently than
ever, "I've already explained to you that your uncle could not accept
such a responsibility. What would people say if a man in his position
allowed his niece aged nineteen to set up an establishment on her own in
a place like Italy?"
"People wouldn't say anything at all," Jasmine argued. "People are not
so violently interested in me as all that."
"No, dear, that may be. But they are interested in your uncle, and we
have to think of him, have we not? Besides, I should have supposed that
you would have been glad to meet your poor father's only sister. She is
the kindest of women, and Uncle Arnold is the kindest of men. I cannot
say how painful it is for me to feel that _I_ have not succeeded in
rousing the least little bit of affection. I was ready to make all kinds
of excuses for you last year when you first arrived. I realized that
excuses had to be made then. But now you have been nearly a year in
England, and it is surely not unreasonable to expect you to begin to
show a little self-control. I'm afraid your visit to Uncle Matthew has
done you no good. I was strongly opposed to it from the beginning and
told Aunt Cuckoo as much quite plainly. But Aunt Cuckoo gets Ideas into
her head. This turning Roman Catholic, this adopting a baby, this
packing you off to poor old Uncle Matthew. Ideas! However, it is not our
business to discuss Aunt Cuckoo.... You say you don't believe your
relations in Silchester want you. I contend they have shown quite
clearly that they do. And I should also like to point out that, if you
decline to go, you will grievously wound your Aunt Ellen, who is
not...."
"Very well, I'll go, I'll go! I'll do anything you want if you'll only
stop lecturing me!" Jasmine could almost have flung herself on her knees
before Aunt May if by doing so she could have stopped this conversation.
There had been a sweet-shop on the way to the School of Swedish Culture,
with an apparatus that went on winding endlessly round and round a skein
of fondant that apparently always remained of the same size and
consistency. Jasmine used to avert her head at last as she went by, so
depressing became the sight of that sweet and sticky mess being wound
round and round and round ... her aunt's little talks reminded her of
it.
Aunt May confided in Cousin Edith after this outburst that she had
wondered for a minute or two if Jasmine was really human. Cousin Edith
tried to look as though she still wondered if Jasmine was really human,
and all she got for her desire to be agreeable was to be asked if she
had a stiff neck.
It was quarter day by now, and Jasmine was advised to spend her
allowance on suitable summer frocks; she was also advised not to buy too
many, because next quarter day she would be requiring suitable autumn
frocks, and she was to bear in mind that clothes for autumn and winter
were more expensive. Jasmine longed to refuse her allowance, but her
vanity was too strong for her pride; unable to contemplate appearing
before her six boy cousins in the dowdy remains of last year's
wardrobe, she accepted the money, and despising herself for being so
weak, she bought a flowered muslin frock and a white linen coat and
skirt, the latter of which was condemned as an extravagance by Aunt May,
who had no belief in the English climate. Jasmine might have spared
herself the humiliation of accepting Uncle Hector's allowance, because a
day or two later Aunt Cuckoo, in a rapture over some alleged
conversational triumph of Baboose, sent her a present of five pounds,
over which Cousin Edith sizzled but a little less appetizingly than if
it had been a present from Aunt May herself.
"Well, I declare," she exhaled. "If you aren't a lucky girl!"
And as the lucky possessor of five pounds all her own, Jasmine set out
next day to meet another set of rich relatives.
The journey to Silchester in glowing blue midsummer weather through the
fat pasture lands of Berkshire and Hampshire gave Jasmine such a new and
such a pleasurable aspect of England that she began to wonder if she had
been suffering all this year from a jaundiced point of view, if indeed
Aunt May's assumption of martyrdom had any justification from her own
behaviour. This landscape through which the train was passing with such
an effect of deliberate and conscious enjoyment, with such an air of
luxuriousness really, soothed her mind, warmed her heart, put her soul
to bed and tucked it comfortably and safely in for some time to come.
She determined to meet her new uncle and aunt in the same spirit as the
train's; they were to be the natural products of such a landscape, and
whether they placidly accepted her arrival like those rotund sheep or
whether they threw their legs in the air and swished their tails like
those lean and spotted cows pretending to be frightened of the train,
she would survey them as amiably and as philosophically. Jasmine was
smiling at herself for using such a long word when they ran into a
tunnel, one of those long smelly tunnels in which the train seems to
bang itself from side to side in despair of ever getting out. Yes,
thought Jasmine, even if Uncle Arnold and Aunt Ellen were as stiff as
this window, as unreceptive and unsympathetic as this strap and as
ungenerous as the blue electric bulb in the roof of the compartment, she
would still be philosophical, oh yes, and very very amiable, she vowed
as the train escaped from the tunnel, and the air odorous with sun and
grass deliciously fanned her. As for Harry Vibart, it was absurd to go
on thinking of him. She might as well fall in love with a
jack-in-the-box. Fall in love? She detected a faster heart-beat, a
suggestion of creeping gooseflesh. Fall in love? Jasmine would have
liked to lecture her own self now; she felt as censorious of her
involuntary self as Aunt May. But it was no fun to lecture one's
involuntary self unless it were done <i>viva voce</i>, and if she did that the
woman on the other side of the carriage, who ever since Waterloo had
been fecklessly trying to separate the green gooseberries in her string
bag from the cracknel biscuits and French beans, might be alarmed. But
how could she have ... of course it wasn't really his fault about the
stick; in fact, he probably considered himself badly treated in the
matter. But he must not come down to Silchester and create another scene
there. Besides, what right or reason had she to let him come down there?
He had never given her the slightest justification for supposing that he
was anything more than mildly interested in her. To be sure, he had
insisted that he had written to her half a dozen times. But had he? The
proper course of action for herself, the dignified and in the
circumstances the easiest attitude for her to adopt, was one of kindly
discouragement. Yes, she would write to him from the Deanery and tell
him plainly that she hoped he would not think of coming down to visit
her there. She had just reached this decision when the train steamed
into Silchester station.
Jasmine was waiting on the platform in the expectation of being
presently accosted by any one of the several dowdy women round her when
both her arms were roughly grabbed and she found herself apparently in
the custody of two boy scouts.
"I say, are you Cousin Jasmine?" asked the smaller of the two in a
squeaky voice.
Simple and obvious though the question seemed, it had an extraordinary
effect on the other boy, who instantly let go of her arm in order to
engage in what to Jasmine's alarmed vision looked to be a life-and-death
struggle with his companion, which did not end until the smaller boy had
cried in his squeaky voice 'Pax, Edred,' several times. Edred, however,
was for prolonging the agonies of the requested armistice by twisting
his brother's arm--for the ferocity with which they had fought was
surely a sign that they were as intimately related--and making numerous
conditions before he agreed to grant a cessation of hostilities.
"Will you swear not to chisel again if I let go your arm?"
"Yes, I swear."
"Will you swear not to be a rotten little chiseller, and when I say
'bags I asking' next time not go and ask yourself straight off?"
"Yes, I swear. Oh, shut up, Edred. You're hurting my arm most
frightfully. You are a dirty cad!"
"What did you call me?" Edred fiercely enquired with a repetition of the
torture.
"I said you were a frightfully decent chap. Ouch! You devil! The
decentest chap in all the world."
"Well, kneel down and lick my boot," Edred commanded loftily, "and you
can have pax."
"No, I say, don't be an ass," protested the younger. "Ouch! Shut up!
You'll break my wrist if you don't look out, you foul brute!"
And then, in despair at the severity of the armistice conditions, he
wrenched himself free and returned with fury to the attack. The fresh
struggle continued until an old gentleman was knocked backward over a
luggage truck, after which Edred told his brother to shut up fighting,
because people were beginning to stare at them.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Cousin Jasmine," he said genially, "but I
had to give young Ethelred a lamming for being such a beastly little
cheat. He's too jolly fond of it."
"Speak for yourself," Ethelred retorted. "You know mother said I'd got
to come with you this time." And then he turned in explanation to
Jasmine. "The last time Edred bagged going to see Canon Donkin off from
the station he stood on the step outside the carriage door all the way
along the platform until the train was going too fast for him to jump
off, the consequence of which was he got carried on to Basingstoke.
Father was sick as muck about it."
"It was rather a wheeze," said Edred simply but proudly. "I very nearly
fell off. I would have, if old Donkin hadn't got hold of my collar. And
I had an ice at Basingstoke," he added tauntingly to his brother.
"Well, so could I have had an ice too if I'd done the same, greedy
guts," replied the brother.
"No, you couldn't."
"Yes, I could."
And the fight would have begun all over again if Jasmine had not
entreated them to find her luggage. As this process involved making a
nuisance of themselves in every direction they accepted the job with
alacrity. When the trunk was found, Edred suggested as rather a wheeze
that Ethelred should have it put on his back like a porter, and
Ethelred, in high approval of such a course, accepted the position with
zest. He was swaying about on the platform to the exquisite enjoyment of
his brother when an old lady, who was evidently a stranger to
Silchester, asked Jasmine if she was not ashamed to let a little boy
like that carry such a heavy trunk. At that moment Ethelred was carried
forward by the impetus of the trunk, which slid over his shoulders, and
cannoned into the stream of people passing through the ticket barrier.
The odd thing was that none of the station officials seemed to interfere
with the behaviour of her cousins until the ticket collector, from
having had most of his tickets knocked out of his hand, lost his temper
momentarily and aimed a blow at Ethelred with his clip.
"How are we going to the Deanery?" Jasmine enquired when at last to her
relief she found herself on the edge of the kerb outside the station.
"Edwy's going to drive us in the governess-cart," they informed her.
Jasmine had not the slightest idea what a governess-cart was; but it
sounded a fairly safe kind of vehicle.
"Edwy's rather bucked at driving you," said Edred. "He's going to
pretend it's a Roman chariot. You'll be awfully bucked too," he added
confidently to his cousin. "It's rather hard cheese we've got your
luggage, because it will make a squash. I say, why shouldn't we leave it
here?"
"Oh no, please," Jasmine protested.
"Right-o," said Edred. "But it would be quite safe here on the kerb. You
see, Ethel and I wanted to drive, and if you left your luggage here we
could come back and fetch it."
Jasmine, however, was firm in her objection to this plan, and at that
moment a fat boy of about fifteen, whose voice was at its breaking
stage, was seen standing up in a governess-cart shouting what Jasmine
recognized as the correct language of a Roman charioteer from _The Last
Days of Pompeii_. She asked the other two which cousin this was.
"I say, don't you know?" Edred exclaimed in incredulous surprise.
"That's old Edwy, only we call him Why, and we call me Because, and we
call Ethelred Ethel."
"No we don't, so shut up," contradicted Ethelred.
"Well, he looks like a girl, doesn't he, Cousin Jasmine?"
Jasmine was spared the embarrassment of a reply by Edwy's pulling up
with the governess-cart.
"Did you win?" both the younger brothers asked eagerly.
Edwy nodded absently; his whip had coiled itself round a lamp-post.
Greetings between herself and this third cousin over, Jasmine was
invited to get in and recommended to sit well forward and not get
tangled up with the reins. Her box was placed opposite her, and the
younger boys mounted.
"Good Gum," Edwy exclaimed with contempt. "We can't race anything with
this load, can we?"
Jasmine, perceiving the narrow High Street of Silchester winding before
her, was thankful for the news.
"I tell you what we could do," Edred suggested. "We could pretend that
it was three chariots, and that we were all three driving one against
the other."
Edwy considered this offer for a moment, then "Right-o" he agreed
calmly, and off they went. It might have been less dangerous if Edwy had
raced another cart as originally intended, because with the convention
they were then following both his younger brothers had to have a hand on
the reins. They also had to have a turn with the whip. The extraordinary
thing to Jasmine was that this reeling progress down the High Street did
not seem to attract a single glance. She commented on the public
indifference, and the boys explained that the natives were used to them.
"Monday and Tuesday were much worse than we are," said Edred.
"Monday and Tuesday?"
"Edmund and Edgar. The pater was only a Canon Residentiary in those
days. He's been Dean for six years now. He's the youngest Dean that ever
lived. Or the youngest Dean alive; I forget which. Then he was Regius
Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford."
"The youngest Dean that ever lived in Silchester, you ass," interposed
Edwy with a gruff squeak.
"Oh well, it's all the same, and ass yourself!"
Jasmine, who feared the effect of another fight in the cart, changed the
subject with an enquiry about Oxford.
"I can't remember being there," said Ethelred proudly. And his elder
brothers appeared quite jealous of what was evidently a family
distinction.
"Last lap!" Edwy shouted. "Don't go on jabbering about Oxford."
They were driving along a quiet road of decorous Georgian houses, at the
end of which was a castellated gateway.
"Here's the Close," Edred cried as they passed under the arch into a
green and grey world. "Blue leads! Blue leads!"
"Shut up, you fool, I'm Blue!" yelled the youngest.
While the rival charioteers punched each other behind their brother's
back, Purple in the personification of Edwy pulled up at the Deanery and
claimed to be the victor. The serenity of the Close after that
break-neck drive from the station was complete. The voices of the
charioteers arguing about their race blended with the chatter of the
jackdaws speckling the great west front of the Cathedral in a pleasant
enough discordancy of sound that only accentuated the surrounding
peacefulness. Upon the steps that led up to the west door the figures of
tourists or worshippers appeared against the legended background no
larger than birds. At no point did the world intrude, for the houses of
the dignitaries round their quadrangle of grass had nothing to do with
the world, and if a town of Silchester existed, it was hidden as
completely by the massed elm trees that rose up behind the low houses of
the Dean and Chapter as the ancient Roman city was hidden in the grass
that now waved above its buried pavements and long lost porticoes.