Patricia Wentworth - Latter End

Antony frowned at the long, wet road running on into the mist.

“I did.”

“Any good?”

“I thought so at the time. At least I thought there was a possibility. Now I don’t. The fact is, Minnie has got on Lois’ nerves, and when that happens it’s the end-no good arguing about it. There’ll be a clean sweep, and we’ll all start fresh. I don’t suppose Latter End will see very much of any of us after this.”

Julia was silent for a long time. Then she said,

“It’s rather an-amputation, isn’t it? I oughtn’t to feel it, because I haven’t been down there so much, but it hurts all right. It’s stupid of me, but one of the things I mind most about is Mummie’s picture hanging there on the wall behind that woman’s chair. It hurts like hell.”

“Jimmy would give you the portrait if you asked him for it.”

The dark colour rushed into her face.

“I couldn’t do that! It would be like turning Mummie out- for her!”

They drove in silence for a while, the mist closing them in. It was like being together in a room with white walls, a room so small that they could not move away from one another. He was aware of her thoughts-the colour and rhythm of them coming up out of warm depths. What Julia was aware of she kept to herself. Presently she said,

“I wish we were going anywhere else.”

He gave her a light answer.

“Wishes are cheap. Where would you like to go?”

“To Latter End ten years ago.”

Antony laughed.

“I’ve just left school, and you and Ellie are fourteen.”

“And there isn’t any Lois. It would be heaven, wouldn’t it?” Then, with sudden energy, “Do you know what she has done now? She’s got that odious Gladys Marsh in the house.”

“What’s happened to Joe?”

“Gone down to a sister in Devonshire. There’s supposed to be some idea of his going into his brother-in-law’s business. The fact is, he’s up against it in the village-everyone’s crying shame on him about his mother. And Gladys hates Rayle-they’d like to get out. The sooner the better, I should say. But meanwhile there’s Gladys at Latter End, putting onthe most awful side you ever saw.”

“What is she supposed to be doing there?”

“Odds and ends of sewing, maiding Lois-and whether she’s supposed to or not, she listens at doors. Ellie did dig her toes in and say she must do her own room, but there was some head-tossing over it-‘I don’t know, I’m sure. Housework is so bad for the hands, and not at all what I’m accustomed to.’ ” Julia gave an angry laugh. “I told Ellie I’d scream the house down if she gave in, so she stuck it out. Gladys now gives a perfect imitation of gentility with a mop and a duster-little finicky dabs and flicks, as if she’s never done a room in her life.”

Antony put out his left hand and let it rest for a moment on Julia’s knee.

“Darling, do turn off the gas and simmer down! If you go on boiling up like this you’ll boil over, and then the fat is going to be in the fire, which none of us particularly wants. Suppose you tell me about the new book instead.”

She gave him a look, half angry, half melting.

“There isn’t any new book.”

“There seemed to be a lot of well-inked paper lying about on your table.”

“It’s not a book-it’s a mess. I can’t write when things are happening.”

But she began to tell him about it all the same.

Antony had hardly set foot in Latter End before he was convinced that, Jimmy or no Jimmy, business or no business, he would have done better to have stayed in town. It had not been a happy household when he had said goodbye to it ten days ago, but it was a paradise compared with how he found it now. Minnie Mercer’s looks fairly horrified him. She had the air of a sleepwalker set apart from those around her in some miserable dream. It reminded him of a picture which he had once seen and been unable to forget. The artist had painted a girl who was just about to be shot as a spy. Before his colours were dry she was dead. In the picture she scarcely looked alive. Every time he looked at Minnie the picture came into his mind. No wonder poor old Jimmy was worried about her.

By the time he was halfway through his talk with Jimmy in the study he was worried about Jimmy too. There was something wrong, and he had only to see him and Lois together at the evening meal to realize that this something lay between husband and wife. Lois, in extreme good looks, lost no opportunity of making this clear. Her glance flicked over Jimmy with light contempt. She called him “darling” in a voice like splintered ice-a voice which melted charmingly to Antony a moment later. After which it sank to a murmur, which Jimmy at the other end of the table was vainly trying to follow.

Antony was sitting next to her. You cannot turn your back upon your hostess. You cannot change your place at table. He kept his own voice audible, and presently endeavoured to make the conversation general. Only Julia responded. Ellie looked worn out. Minnie was in her dream, and Jimmy quite unmistakably in one of his rare queer fits of temper. Usually the most abstemious of men, he poured himself out so liberal an allowance of whisky that Lois raised her eyebrows, upon which he drank it off with the merest modicum of soda. And did it again.

When he looked back afterwards Antony was to wonder by what variation in his own conduct the issue might have been avoided. He was left with the hopeless feeling that too many other people were concerned. There was too strong an undertow. It would have taken more than any effort of his to stem the flow which was sweeping them to disaster.

If Jimmy hadn’t asked Julia to sing, insisting until it would have been folly to refuse; if he himself had not gone out into the garden with Lois; if Jimmy hadn’t tuned up his obstinacy, his hurt feelings, his vague suspicions, with all that whisky; if Gladys Marsh hadn’t taken it into her head to have a bath… What was the good of all those “if ”s? There are states of the mind, and states of feeling, in which some mounting passion turns everything to its own ends, as a fire once it has taken hold will feed on what is meant to smother it, and turn all efforts to get it under into an added heat.

One of the changes which Lois had made in the drawing-room was the removal of the piano. It was supposed to be somewhere vaguely in store, but Julia said roundly that Lois had sold it. There was, however, an old piano in the schoolroom, and to the schoolroom they repaired, with Jimmy demanding Julia should sing.

Lois lifted her eyebrows and gave a faint icy laugh.

“My dear Jimmy-how antediluvian! I thought ‘a little music after dinner’ was dead and buried!”

He gave her a resentful look.

“I happen to like music after dinner. I happen to want to hear Julia sing. Haven’t heard her sing for years. Sit down and begin. P’raps it’ll sweeten this revolting coffee.”

The eyebrows rose again.

“You needn’t take it.”

“You know damn well why I take it.”

Lois laughed.

“That’s Jimmy’s latest!” she said to Antony. “If I’m to be poisoned, he’ll be poisoned too. Touching devotion-isn’t it?” She picked up her cup off the tray and crossed over to the window where he stood half turned from the room. “He’s in a filthy temper, isn’t he?” She hardly troubled to drop her voice. “We had a row about Hodson’s cottage. I wanted it for the Greenacres, you know. And it was all fixed up-the old man was going to a daughter-in-law in London, where he’d be properly looked after. But now Jimmy’s come crashing in on my nice plan and says he won’t have it. What do you think of that? I’m furious.”

He smiled at her.