Patricia Wentworth: The Watersplash

“Now that’s quite enough! I don’t like music with my tea! If you can call that music! More like a dog with a tin can at his tail!”

Emmeline smiled her sweet, vague smile.

“Oh, Dr. Croft, but I asked him to play, and I’m sure he does it very nicely indeed. He must have very strong fingers. But he will want his tea. And perhaps, Cyril dear, you wouldn’t mind handing round the cups.”

She began to count them again. “Susan-Cyril-Dr. Croft- Mrs. Ball-the Vicar-Mildred-that makes six-but I have another cup on the tray-”

Miss Blake’s long, pointed nose was seen if not heard to sniff. She bore no resemblance to her plump, fair sister. Her complexion was dark, her nose aquiline, and, a little too close on either side of it, there gleamed a very bright dark eye. Emmeline remembered her as a passably handsome young woman in her thirties. There had been a time when she had feared that she might be going to have her as a sister-in-law. Arnold Random had paid her some attention, but nothing had come of it. Certainly no one would call her handsome now. She never spent a penny if she could possibly help it, and had worn the same dreary clothes and dowdy hat for at anyrate the last fifteen years. She looked quite angrily at the tea-tray and said,

“Really, Emmeline-I suppose you are going to have a cup yourself!”

“Oh, yes, my dear. Let me see-yes, I believe you are right. Perhaps if I just pour out and Cyril hands them round… And the scones, Susan-while they are still hot-”

Mildred Blake turned to Mrs. Ball and said in a voice which she hardly troubled to lower,

“Really, Emmeline is becoming too absent-minded!”

Mrs. Ball always agreed with everyone unless her conscience intervened. It did so now. Miss Blake was inclined to be censorious-she must not be encouraged. She said in her slow, pleasant voice, “Mrs. Random is always so kind,” and then felt that she had been weak. She did try to love all her neighbours, but she found it very difficult to love Miss Blake. One just had to go on trying. She took her cup of tea and said,

“I do hope your sister is able to enjoy this lovely weather.”

Miss Blake bridled.

“Really, Mrs. Ball, you are very easily pleased! I should not call it lovely myself. We have scarcely seen the sun all day, and there is quite a chilly wind.”

Mrs. Ball’s round cheeks became even more like rosy apples.

“But it has not rained.”

“As you say, it has not actually rained. But the air is full of a clinging damp. The English climate can be very unpleasant in the autumn, or indeed at any other time of the year. But as far as my sister Ora is concerned it makes very little difference, since she moves only from her bed to the sofa and back again.”

“I know. It is very hard for her-and for you. I hope you are pleased with the new nurse. I haven’t met her yet, but she isn’t really a stranger here, is she?”

“She nursed Mr. Random in his last illness-Mr. James Random.”

“So Mrs. Random was saying. That was just before we came here. Miss Dean, isn’t it? I think I saw her in the street this morning-a pretty girl.”

“She is an efficient nurse,” said Miss Blake in a voice which made it quite clear that her interest in Clarice Dean did not extend beyond her professional duties.

Mrs. Ball sighed. It was being very hard work.

The Vicar and Dr. Croft were talking about cricket. Emmeline was putting down a surreptitious saucer of milk for Scheherazade. Cyril, having finished handing round the cups and the cake-stand, sat down by Susan.

“Nobody told me you were coming. Why didn’t they?”

If he had said that to Clarice Dean, she would have sparkled at him and asked why anyone should suppose he would be interested, after which you knew just where you were and could go right ahead. He had a date with Clarice for the evening. There was quite a good picture at the Royal in Embank. The bother was he would have to pay for them both, and it was going to be a pretty near thing. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t rather have been going with Susan, who always paid for herself. But then Susan was different.

She laughed and said,

“I didn’t know I was coming myself until two days ago. Mr. Random wants me to catalogue the library whilst my Professor is away. It ought to be rather fun. I believe they’ve got some good books.”

Cyril made a face. He was a long, gangling lad with straw-coloured hair and a lot of bone. He said,

“Girls do think the oddest things are fun! A lot of mouldy old books!” He edged nearer. “I’ve got lots to tell you. I’ve had it out with my father, and I’m not going back to school.”

“Oh, Cyril!”

He gave an emphatic nod.

“Well, I’m not. I failed for that beastly exam, and it would have meant another year’s grind, and perhaps crashing at the end of it again. And then five years at the medical, and probably a whole lot more, because if an exam can be failed at, I’m the one to do it. I ask you, what’s the point? Well, I put it to him, and of course he blew up. Parents always do! You would think by the time they were as old as that they would be able to talk a thing over calmly, but they never can! And can you tell me why? After all, it’s my life!” He jerked his chair nearer again. “Why shouldn’t I play in a dance band if I want to? I can get a job tomorrow. I’m good, you know, and the money is good too. Now, don’t say, ‘Oh, Cyril!’ again, because I’ve got it all planned. I’m eighteen next week, the Royal wants a pianist, and I can put in the time there until I’m called up for my military service. I’d make my keep and a bit over. Then when I’m out of the Army, I can look round for something really good. Now you’d think my father would see that was quite a sensible plan.”

“I don’t know-”

Cyril edged his chair forward again.

“Of course it is! But is he reasonable? No, he isn’t! And what do you suppose he wants me to do?” He made a really hideous grimace. “He wants me to stay in the Army and make a career of it! Susan, I ask you!”

“Well-”

“Exams-absolutely no end to them! Worse than the medical, because once you’re qualified you don’t actually have to take any more, but nowadays in the Army they practically never stop! If it isn’t courses, it’s the Staff College, and you go on having promotion exams until you’ve got one foot in the grave! Well, I told him flat out that I wouldn’t do it and he couldn’t make me, so there was another row. At the moment we’re having a coolness, but I expect he’ll come off it any day. He blows off steam, you know, but he’s not much good at keeping up a feud. You’ll put in a word for me if you get a chance, won’t you? He always says you’re such a sensible girl. I say, that sounds foul, doesn’t it? It’s meant as a compliment, only by the time you get to his age I suppose you don’t remember how to pay them.” He jerked his chair until it collided with hers. “I should think a girl would hate to be told she was sensible.”

“She does,” said Susan crisply.

Cyril’s large pale blue eyes goggled at her.

“Well, it wasn’t me, so you needn’t look at me like that. I admire you like anything-you know I do.”

Admiration is always gratifying, but Susan had now moved her chair back four times without managing to get any farther from Cyril’s bony nose and the unwavering stare of his pale blue eyes. She had begun to feel that she would almost rather he went on playing the piano-almost, but not quite-when a diversion was created by Lucifer. The saucer of milk had lured him from the piano, where the black and white notes no longer bobbed entertainingly up and down. Dropping lightly to the floor, he did a stealthy jungle crawl in the direction of the tea-table, where his magnificent mamma lapped languidly from a blue and gold saucer. She may or may not have noticed his approach, but the moment his nose appeared over the saucer’s edge and a pink tongue curled greedily towards the milk she dealt him a resounding box on the ear. He shrieked, spat, and fled back to the piano top, where he sat growling to himself. Some day he might stand up to the maternal tyrant, but not yet. There was a baleful glow in his amber eyes as he licked a paw and washed the insulted ear. “Really, Emmeline-those cats!” said Mildred Blake.