Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

“And bring a bucket with some water and another bucket for mixing,” her father called after her.

“You should take longer strokes with the brush,” Harry said.

Wade put down the brush, picked up a rag, and began to wipe the paint off his fingers.

“Harry,” he said, “personally, I couldn’t like you more. But you’ll accept my advice – as a friend? You’d never do as a son-in-law.”

“I’m not often taken for a marrying man. Are you warning me off the premises? I thought I’d been asked to lunch?”

“Naturally you must stay to lunch,” Wade said irritably.

“Then that’s all right. Unless Maurice is coming. I can’t eat when he’s there. He takes away my appetite.”

Wade sat down on top of the step-ladder.

“Harry, you have insulted my closest friend.”

“Keep your money in your socks when your closest friend is there,” Harry advised.

“Harry, you say these things without meaning them. You say them in a casual way that is very annoying. You haven’t any respect for people. Society…”

“Ah, yes, society,” Harry said. He settled down comfortably to listen. In five minutes Wade would be far away from the subject of sons-in-law.

Hester went downstairs and into the big, square kitchen where her sister Prudence, surrounded by utensils, was muttering over a cookery book.

“I’ve got an absolutely wonderful idea for dinner, tomorrow’s dinner, I mean, because it takes twenty-four hours to make. I’ve counted up, and it has nineteen different things in it. Listen, I need a bay leaf and some Cointreau. Cooking Cointreau, do you suppose? Will the pub have it? And where do I get a bay leaf?”

“Plant a tree and wait,” Hester said. “It won’t make dinner later than usual.”

“And some thick cream,” Prudence said. “Absolutely everything in this book needs thick cream. Do you think we could put in a permanent order to the farm for a pint of cream?”

“Cream’s terribly expensive. Couldn’t you leave it out?”

“It’s not worth trying to cook for this family,” Prudence said angrily. “It won’t taste like anything without the bay leaf or the Cointreau or the cream.”

“Harry’s staying to lunch. What could we have?”

“Something out of a tin’s good enough for him.”

“Prudence, don’t be rude, and do find something we can eat today. I wish Mrs Parsons hadn’t gone.”

“All that lovely boiled fish,” Prudence said. “Cooking is an art,” she informed her sister. “You wouldn’t like to grate some onions for me?”

“I’m fetching some plaster for Father. Another bit of the house is falling down.”

She went upstairs again. Wade was sitting on top of the ladder with the paint bucket, talking to Harry about Society and bees.

“Most bees are freelances, anyway,” Harry said. “They don’t join in all this hive nonsense. They live alone and choose their own flowers.”

“How do you think the room will look, Hester?” Wade asked heavily. He picked up the brush again and began to wave it. “We must have the floor white as well. Light walls, white floor – yes, Hester, white – white furniture, white floor, dark green rugs, then the drama of red chairs. Do me a favour, Harry. Get me another tin of paint. It’s in the larder downstairs.”

“Prudence is in the kitchen. She’s longing to see you,” Hester said.

“Knife in hand?” Harry asked.

Hester waited until he had gone.

“What are you going to use this room for, Father?”

“Guests.”

“Father, we don’t want any more guests.”

“We make ten pounds a week out of the one we have. Now, I don’t want to be corrected, Hester. It’s gross profit, not net. I know the difference.”

“I don’t think you know all the difference. I’m going back to medical school in the autumn. So you’ll have to hire some staff.”

“There’s Prudence.”

“Prudence is only sixteen. She should stay at school. But if she doesn’t – she wants to go to the Academy of Dramatic Art.”

“My dear daughters. Harley Street and – and the Old Vic. How proud you make me! But there’s no problem here. When I get four more bedrooms into action – all double – I’ll have an income of eighty pounds a week. Then I’ll be able to afford cooks, butlers, anything. I wonder when Harry’s coming back with that paint.”

At the mention of Harry’s name, Hester’s expression changed. Her father looked at her in time to see the small, secret smile.

“Hester,” he said sharply. “Don’t have anything to do with Harry. I warn you. He’s no good.” He climbed down from the ladder and began to mix plaster with water. “At his age – he must be about thirty.”

“Twenty-nine, Father.”

“And he has no job.”

“He’s a poet.”

“I’d like to hear some of his poetry.”

“I don’t think you would, Father. It’s not your kind of poetry.”

“Then I wouldn’t. But poet or not, he’s no good. He looks like the kind of man who’s been spoilt by his mother and kicked out by his father. Hester, it’s an old-fashioned word, but—”

“Please don’t let’s have any old-fashioned words. Is that all the plaster you need?”

“A piece about the size of my thumb will do.”

“All you have against Harry is that he’s wandered about the world getting experience instead of going to work in an insurance office. Don’t talk about him. I’m not in love with him,” she said thoughtfully. “Shall I begin to clean the floor?”

“When you were a little girl you used to put your hands over your ears when I tried to tell you anything. Now you talk about plaster and floors. You simply won’t take advice.”

“I thought you were in a hurry to get the room ready for more guests. Though I should have thought the one we have was a warning. Morgan gives me shivers.”

“Morgan is a beginning. I’m going to work this place up into an hotel. Only thing is, I need a hostess. What would you say to a stepmother?”

“I’m too old to worry. I’m twenty. I’d be out of her grasp.”

“But I don’t know anyone I want to marry. Why don’t you stay, Hester?” he asked shyly. “Drop this idea of a career. Stay here and help me run the place. Wouldn’t that be better than medical school?”

Hester maintained her pleasant smile. Inside her head, alarms sounded; pilots leapt to the fighter planes; and softer thoughts were rushed out of the battle area.

“No, Father, it wouldn’t be better than medical school. I dislike housekeeping. We’d end by quarrelling, and I can’t endure a good quarrel.”

“Nor can I,” said her father. “So you mean to desert me, Hester. When it comes to the point, family affection simply doesn’t exist. You are determined to cut me out of your life, Hester, and in due course Prudence will do the same. I’ll advertise for a good general maid.”

“Help wanted, fourteen in family,” Hester suggested. “Father, I don’t want to interfere, but I’m sure this isn’t a good idea about the hotel. It will be like the fruit farm and the antique shop. Couldn’t we stop trying to make money before we’ve lost all we have?”

Wade took a little ball of plaster and spread it neatly over the hole; where it at once disappeared. “If I’m not to have your help, Hester, I don’t need your advice.”

“You need some more plaster, anyway,” she murmured.

“There’s a space behind,” he said angrily. He took a handful of plaster and forced it into the hole. “It will be all right when I’ve filled it up.”

“The wall’s beginning to bulge,” Hester pointed out.

“It will be all right when it’s dry.”

Hester walked to the window and looked across the tops of the quivering green trees down into the valley; and along the road which passed through the solemn little village; dipped to the green fields where the distant cattle seemed like black-and-white wooden toys; then twisted up through woods to the top of Furlong Hill. She wanted to tell her father how much she loved home, and Furlong Hill, and all the Cotswolds; she wanted to tell him how often she had dreamt of floating in a boat across the slow green waves of the treetops; she wanted to make some gesture of friendship that would wipe away all resentment.