Patricia Wentworth: Latter End

“Look here, Jimmy, I don’t want to have a row-I want to talk. I just want you to listen, that’s all. Lois does the flowers-that’s all she does in the house. It isn’t anything to be angry about-it’s a fact. It’s her house, and there isn’t any reason why she should do more than she wants to. She hasn’t ever lived in the country before. She’s been so much in hotels that perhaps she just doesn’t know what a lot there is to do.”

She began to feel pleased with herself. She was letting Jimmy down lightly, and who said she hadn’t any tact? She went on, warming to it.

“I’ve got a really good plan, and it wouldn’t cost very much-it really wouldn’t. If you would have Mrs. Huggins here every day instead of just once a week for Manny, it would make all the difference. You see, neither Minnie nor Ellie are what you’d call strong. They haven’t the muscle for the heavy jobs, and they get awfully tired doing them. But Mrs. Huggins is as strong as a horse-she’d just gallop through the work. And Minnie and Ellie could do the lighter things.”

Jimmy had stopped being angry. He looked puzzled.

“But Mrs. Huggins does come. I’ve seen her.”

“She comes on Saturdays, and she scrubs Manny’s floors. She doesn’t do anything else.”

He said in a worried voice,

“I thought she did. And there’s a girl-Joe Marsh’s wife- I’ve seen her about.”

“She does sewing for Lois.”

“Are you sure she doesn’t help in the house?”

“Quite sure.”

She left that to sink in.

“Jimmy-about Ronnie-I do want you just to listen. If Ellie hadn’t the hard work, and those bicycle-rides to Crampton which are much too much for her, I do think she could manage Ronnie. It would make her happy, and you can do a lot when you’re happy… No, please listen. He gets about on a crutch now. If you let them have the old schoolroom, he wouldn’t need to go upstairs at all. The beds could come down from our old room, and there’s the cloakroom just opposite. It would all be quite easy, and-oh, Jimmy, it would make Ellie frightfully happy! You’ve always been so kind to us.”

She wasn’t angry any more. She was remembering all the times that Jimmy had been kind-a long procession of them, stretching back, and back, and back until they were out of mind. This warm remembrance filled the room. The look she gave him was a lovely smiling one.

He came over to her and put his arm about her shoulders.

“Well, well, my dear-I’ll see. Very nice of you to put it like that. Very nice to have you here again. I’ve missed you very much. Haven’t given me much opportunity of doing anything for you the last two years, have you? But we’ll see what we can do about Ellie. She’s fretting, is she?”

“She’s breaking her heart.”

“Well, well, we can’t have that. I’ll do what I can.”

Jimmy-darling!”

Jimmy Latter rumpled his fair hair.

“Well, it seems quite a good plan. Julia says-”

Lois came up to him laughing and put her hand against his lips.

“Oh, my dear, if it’s Julia! No, Jimmy, really-I do call it the limit! She doesn’t come near us for two years, and then she comes sailing in and wants to turn the house upside down. After all, you know, it is our house.”

“Well, it is-”

She was still laughing.

“I’m glad you’ll admit that! But it wouldn’t be if you were to let Julia loose on it. She’s one of those energetic, upheaving sort of people, and I don’t honestly think we should care about being upheaved.”

Jimmy was frowning.

“She says Ellie’s breaking her heart.”

Lois sighed.

“She’s fretting about her husband. I don’t see how we can help that. She must try and pull herself together and not give way. She gets rather hysterical about it.”

Jimmy continued to frown.

“She oughtn’t to do too much. Julia says Mrs. Huggins only comes once a week. Couldn’t we have her every day?”

Those delicate brows of hers went up.

“I suppose we could-if Julia thinks we ought to. Is there anything else she would like to suggest? If there is, of course she has only got to mention it.”

Jimmy said rather shortly,

“I don’t think you ought to take it that way. It wasn’t meant like that.”

Lois laughed again.

“Oh, wasn’t it? I wonder how it was meant.”

She put her hands on Jimmy’s shoulders and kissed him on the chin.

“Now, darling, I want you to listen to me. Julia’s been down here for not quite twenty-four hours, and she proposes to rearrange everything and set us all to rights. It isn’t sense, you know. If I wasn’t a very sweet-tempered woman I should be angry. As it is, I can see she is one of those impulsive people who mean well. She’s very fond of Ellie, and she’s very fond of her own way. But really, darling, I can’t have her butting in like this. It’s beyond a joke.”

He put his arms round her.

“Look here, Lois, couldn’t we have Ronnie here-just for a bit?”

She drew away from him, her laughter gone.

“Oh, yes-if you want to break Ellie down. I suppose Julia thinks she is fit for that heavy nursing. I don’t. I think she wants rest and a change. As a matter of fact I’ve been going to speak to you about a plan of my own. We can’t really go on in this hugger-mugger way. I want to be able to ask people to stay, and to do some entertaining. It’s not quite settled yet, but I’ve heard of a really good butler and a couple of maids. They’ll cost the earth of course, but I think it’s time we got back to civilization. If Ellie likes to stay here, of course she can, but I think she’d be the better for a change. Ronnie can be transferred to a convalescent home, and she can take a room near him. I’d really rather not have extra people in the house whilst the new staff are settling down. By the way, I’ve heard of just the thing for Minnie Mercer. Brenda Grey’s aunt wants a companion. Minnie is the born companion- isn’t she?”

Jimmy stepped back.

“Wait a minute, Lois-what’s all this? About Minnie, I mean. She’s not going? There’s no reason for her to go.”

Lois was smiling.

“Darling, there’s no reason for her to stay. You could hardly expect her to work under the butler.”

“There would be no question of that. Minnie-why she’s been here for twenty-five years. She was Marcia’s friend. Why should she want to leave us?”

Lois shrugged, making a graceful movement of it.

“Don’t ask me! But I think she’s very wise. It saves me the trouble of giving her notice.”

“Notice?” Jimmy was gazing at her in a bewildered manner.

“Darling, quite frankly, she wouldn’t fit in. If she has the sense to realize it, we shall all be saved a lot of bother.” She smiled again and blew him a kiss. “Bear up, darling! You’ve no idea how nice it’s going to be to have the house running properly again.”

They were in the small sitting-room opening upon the formal garden. For more than two hundred years it had belonged to the lady of the house. So far Lois had left it as it had been when Marcia inherited it from her predecessor, Jimmy Latter’s mother, who had died at his birth. The pale brocaded curtains had been hung for her, the faded carpet had been laid for her girlish feet to tread upon, but most of the furniture was older than that. Lois planned to bring it up to date. Even as she blew that kiss to Jimmy she was mentally replacing the Empire couch by a well-sprung sofa and relegating a number of watercolour sketches to the attics. Jimmy had a sentimental attachment to them because they had been painted by his mother, but when the room was decorated they would have to come down, and she meant to see to it that they didn’t go up again.