All Else Confusion Read online

  ‘Sit down, Jake,’ said Mrs Fothergill invitingly. ‘You don’t mind if I call you that?—Mr Royle’s so stiff, isn’t it? Coffee’s just ready—everyone will be here in a minute.’

  Annis had gone to phone the vet and came back with little Audrey, the rest of them following. Only the Rector didn’t arrive. ‘His sermon,’ explained Mrs Fothergill. ‘He likes to beat it into shape before lunch.’

  She poured coffee into an assortment of mugs and Annis bore one away for her father. She would have liked to have taken hers too, but that might have looked rude and her mother was a great one for manners—besides, being the eldest she had to set a good example to the others.

  Over coffee, Jake Royle maintained an easy flow of talk without pushing himself forward; he merely introduced topics of conversation from time to time and then left it to everyone else to talk. And the Fothergills were great talkers; being such a large family they held different opinions about almost everything—besides, it was a way of passing the evenings. There wasn’t much to do in the village and Millbury was off the main road which ran between Shaftesbury and Yeovil; too far to walk to the bus, although Annis did a good deal of cycling round the village and the two smaller parishes her father served. There was a car, of course, an essential for her father with such a far-flung flock, but it had seen better days and it was heavy on petrol too. Only the Rector, Annis and Edward drove it, nursing it along the narrow lanes and up and down the steep hills. Mrs Fothergill, a born optimist, went in for every competition which offered a car as prize, but as yet she had had no luck. One day the car was going to conk out and would have to be replaced, but no one dwelt on that. When tackled the Rector was apt to intone ‘Sufficient unto the day…’ which put a stop to further speculation.

  They were talking about cars now, at least the men and three boys were. Anyone would think, thought Annis gloomily, that there was nothing else upon this earth but cars. She listened to the more interesting bits, but in between she allowed her mind to wander. She still didn’t like Jake Royle, but she had to admit that he had more than his share of good looks, and the very size of him made him someone to look at twice. Not that she had the least interest in him… She picked up the big enamel coffee pot from its place on the Aga and offered second cups, caught his eye and blushed because it was only too apparent that he had read her thoughts.

  He and Matt went presently and Mrs Fothergill said a little wistfully: ‘What a very nice man. I suppose he’ll be going back to New Zealand soon—such a pity.’

  ‘He doesn’t live there,’ Edward observed, ‘only goes there once in a while—he had intended going back in a couple of weeks, but he said that something had come up to make him change his mind.’

  Mrs Fothergill couldn’t help taking a quick peep at her two elder daughters. Mary looked pleased and surprised, Annis’s lovely face wore no expression upon it at all. Nor did she show any elation when later that day Mrs Avery telephoned to ask them, with the exception of James, Emma and little Audrey, to go to dinner in two days’ time. Mrs Fothergill and Mary immediately fell to discussing what they should wear, but when they tried to draw Annis into the discussion, she proved singularly uninterested.

  ‘It’ll have to be the blue velvet,’ she told them. ‘I know I’ve had it years, but this isn’t London and fashion hasn’t changed all that much.’

  A statement with which Mr Royle couldn’t agree. He dated it unerringly as being five years old and on the dowdy side, bought with an eye to its being useful rather than becoming. But the dark blue set off the hair very well, he conceded that, and the dress, however badly cut, couldn’t disguise her splendid figure. She was a young woman who would look magnificent if she were properly dressed.

  He greeted her with casual politeness and engaged her mother in conversation, while Matt made his way across the drawing-room to ask her how Nancy did. They became engrossed in the donkey’s treatment and exactly what had been done, but presently they were joined by Mrs Avery, and with a hurried promise to come over on the following morning, Matt wandered off to talk to Mary.

  The dinner party was small, the Fothergills being augmented by the doctor and his wife and daughter, and since they had all lived in the village for years, they were on the best of terms. Presently they all went across the gloomy raftered hall to the dining room, an equally gloomy room, its walls oak-panelled and the great table ringed by antique and uncomfortable chairs. Colonel Avery never ceased grumbling about them, but since the idea of replacing family heirlooms with something more modern wasn’t to be entertained, everyone put up with them in silence.

  But even though the room was gloomy, the people in it weren’t: the talk became quite animated as they ate their way through chilled melon, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and sprouts and rounded off this very English meal with Charlotte Russe. There was Stilton after that, and since Mrs Avery was too old-fashioned to change her ways, the ladies, very animated after the excellent claret the Colonel had given them, left the men round the table and went back to the drawing-room.

  Here Mrs Avery, a mouselike woman whose appearance belied her forceful personality, set about arranging her guests to her satisfaction. The doctor’s wife and Mrs Fothergill were seated side by side on one of the sofas, Mary and the doctor’s daughter were marshalled on to a smaller piece of furniture and Mrs Avery herself engaged Annis in conversation, sitting so that she could see the door when the men came in. For years now she had decided that Annis would make a very good wife for Matt. They had grown up together and liked each other, and Annis would do very nicely as mistress of the Manor House in which the Avery family had lived for a very long time. She lost no time, once she had decided upon this, in throwing them together on every possible occasion. It was a pity that neither Annis nor Matt had any inkling of this, and continued to see each other several times a week without feeling any desire to be more than good friends.

  The men joined them quite soon and Mrs Avery signalled with her eyebrows to Matt that he should join them, only to be frustrated by Jake Royle, who somehow contrived to get there first and stayed inextricably with them until she was forced to circulate amongst her other guests.

  Which left Annis on the sofa, rather apart from the others, and Jake Royle sitting beside her, half turned towards her so that he could watch her face.

  ‘Was the vet able to do anything for Nancy?’ he enquired in such a friendly voice that she found herself replying readily enough. They discussed the donkey at some length, and then, almost imperceptibly, he led the conversation round to her family and eventually to herself. He had discovered quite a lot about her before she realised what was happening and closed her pretty mouth with a suddenness which made him chuckle silently. She shot him a look as fiery as her hair and asked with something of a snap: ‘And when do you return to New Zealand, Mr Royle?’

  ‘I’m called Jake,’ he reminded her gently, ‘and I don’t really know when I shall go there again. I live in England, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Do you like New Zealand?’

  ‘Very much. Have you travelled at all, Annis?’

  She had to admit that beyond a week in Brittany some years previously, and a long weekend in Brussels with a school friend, she hadn’t.

  ‘You would like to travel?’ he persisted.

  ‘Well, of course. I should think everyone would, some places more than others, of course.’

  ‘And those places?’

  She knitted her strong brows. There was no end to the tiresome man’s questions, and why couldn’t someone come and take him away? ‘Oh, Canada and Norway and Sweden and Malta and the Greek Isles and Madeira.’

  He said lightly: ‘Let’s hope you have the opportunity to visit some or all of them at some time or another.’

  ‘Yes—well, I hope so too. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must have a word with Colonel Avery about…’ She had no idea what; he helped her out with a casual ‘Yes, of course—time passes so quickly when one is en
joying a pleasant talk.’

  She got up and he got up too, and she edged away, relieved to see that Miriam, Doctor Bennett’s daughter, was poised to take her place. From the safety of the other end of the room, she saw the pair of them obviously enjoying each other’s company. The sight quite annoyed her.

  Half-term finished the next day and Annis was alone once more then with her mother and father and old Mrs Wells who did for them twice a week. She had come to the Rectory, year in, year out, for a long time and her work—doing the rough, she called it—had by tacit consent been honed down to jobs like polishing the brass, sitting comfortably at the kitchen table, or peeling the potatoes for lunch. But no one thought of telling her that she might retire if she wanted to. For one thing she didn’t want to; she lived alone in the village and the Rectory supplied an interest in her life; besides, she would have been missed by all the family, who cheerfully cleared up after her, found her specs, gave her cups of tea and took the eyes out of the potatoes when she wasn’t looking. She was devoted to all of them and went regularly to church, besides attending all the jumble sales, where she purchased her wardrobe, dirt cheap, three times a year.

  She sat at the kitchen table now, mending a great rent in the sheet James had put his feet through, while Annis juggled with the washing machine. It was behaving temperamentally this morning, making a terrible din, oozing water from somewhere underneath, and having long bouts of doing nothing at all. Mrs Fothergill, coming into the kitchen to make the coffee, gave it a harassed look. ‘Is it going to break down?’ she shouted to Annis above the din.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. I’ll give it a rest before I put the next load in.’

  Mrs Fothergill nodded. ‘Yes, dear. Coffee will be ready in five minutes. We’re in the drawing room.’

  They almost never used the drawing room; it was a handsome apartment, so large and lofty that it was impossible to keep it really warm. Annis supposed her mother was turning out the sitting room. She made Mrs Wells the pot of strong tea she always fancied mid-morning, emptied the washing machine and went along to the drawing room.

  She opened the door and went in, and only then realised that there were visitors—Matt, who didn’t really count, Mr Royle and a small, elderly lady, almost completely round as to figure and with a pair of black eyes sparkling in a round face.

  Matt and Jake Royle got up and Matt said cheerfully: ‘Hullo, Annis. You look as though you’re doing a hard day’s work. We’ve brought one of my aunts over—it was Jake’s idea. She arrived quite late yesterday evening and went to bed, too tired for the dinner party. Aunt Dora, this is Annis—a pity you’ve missed the others.’

  Annis put a hand up to her hair, realised that it was in a hopeless mess anyway, and offered the hand instead to Matt’s aunt.

  ‘You could have told me,’ she complained mildly to Matt. She smiled at the little lady. ‘I would have tidied myself up.’

  ‘You’ll do very well as you are. Matt didn’t tell you my name. It’s Duvant—I’m the Colonel’s sister and a widow.’ She accepted a cup of coffee from Mrs Fothergill and patted the sagging sofa she was sitting on. ‘Come and sit by me. Your mother’s an angel to receive us so kindly, too. You must wish us all to kingdom come, but men never think about getting the housework done or cooking lunch, do they? And somehow I had the impression from Jake that you roamed out of doors a good deal…’

  Annis gave Jake a look of dislike, which became thunderous when he smiled at her. How like him; never done a hand’s turn in his life probably, and had no idea what it was like to run an unwieldy old house like the Rectory. She said politely: ‘I like being out of doors. Do you know this part of the country well, Mrs Duvant?’

  ‘I did in my youth, but things have changed even here. I’ve been living abroad for some years, but I fancied coming back here again. There is a house in Bath, which belonged to my husband’s family. I think I shall go there for a while.’ She paused to smile at Annis. ‘This coffee’s delicious—I think I’ll have another cup if I may?’ She beamed across at Mrs Fothergill. ‘I expect you grind your own beans?’ she asked.

  The two ladies embarked on an animated discussion and Jake, refusing more coffee, suggested that they might take a look at Nancy. And since Matt agreed at once there was nothing for it but for Annis to get her coat and boots and go with them. ‘Though I can’t really spare the time,’ she told them rather crossly.

  ‘We’ll hang out the washing for you,’ offered Jake.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Annis haughtily, ‘but I can manage very well for myself.’

  They spent a little time with Nancy, pronounced her very much better and started back across the yard. At the back door Annis paused. ‘I expect you’ll want to join Mrs Duvant—I’m going back to the kitchen.’

  They neither of them took any notice of her but went along to the kitchen too, collected the old-fashioned basket loaded with damp sheets and towels and bore it off to the washing line at the back of the house. It hadn’t been any use protesting; Matt had told her not to be so bossy and Jake Royle had merely smiled. She hadn’t liked the smile much, there had been a hint of mockery about it.

  She put another load into the machine, tidied herself perfunctorily and went back to the drawing room. Her father had gone, but the two ladies were having a nice gossip; from the way they both turned to look at her and their sudden silence, she suspected that they had been talking about her. Not that that worried her.

  Mrs Duvant spoke first. ‘I was just telling your mother that I want to go over to Bath and look round that house. She tells me that you drive; I wondered if you would take me one day soon, Annis? Matt says he can’t be spared from the estate; they’re doing the yearly inventory or some such thing, and Jake will be going to London tomorrow. We could have the Rover.’

  Annis glanced at her mother and found that lady looking pleased. ‘A nice change for you, darling,’ said Mrs Fothergill. ‘Just for a couple of days, and there’s almost nothing to do now the others are away.’

  ‘Well, yes—then I’d be glad to drive you,’ said Annis. It was true she could be spared easily enough, and she liked Mrs Duvant.

  The men came in then and Mrs Duvant told them, and Matt said: ‘Oh, good, that’s settled then,’ while Jake Royle said nothing at all. It seemed to be a habit of his.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE TRIP TO Bath was planned for two days ahead, midweek, so that Annis would be back for the weekend to drive her father round the three parishes on Sunday and keep an eye on Emma, Audrey and James.

  It was a pity that she hadn’t anything really smart to wear, she decided as she packed an overnight bag; she could wear her tweed suit, a good one although no longer new, and there was a blouse she had had for Christmas which would do, as well as a sweater, and just in case Mrs Duvant changed in the evening, she could take the green wool jersey dress and wear her gold chain with it. She reflected uneasily upon Mrs Duvant’s undoubtedly expensive clothes. She might be a dumpy little woman, but she had been wearing a beautifully cut outfit and doubtless the rest of her wardrobe was as elegant.

  Matt drove the Rover, with his aunt in it, over to the Rectory soon after breakfast, declaring that he would walk back through the park. He added a careless: ‘Jake went yesterday, gone to keep an eye on his millions—wish I had half his brains. Father’s quite peevish this morning; no one to discuss the Financial Times with. I bet Jake enjoys himself in town!’

  His aunt smiled at him. ‘And why not? I should think he could have any girl he wanted with that handsome face of his. Are we ready to go, Annis my dear? I’m quite looking forward to this next day or two. I hope you are too.’

  They drove via Frome and Radstock and Midsummer Norton, through a soft grey morning with a hint of frost in the air, and Bath, as they approached it, looked delightful, its grey stone houses clinging to the hills. Annis made her way through the town and then at Mrs Duvant’s direction turned into a crescent of Regency houses facing a small park. Half way down she was t
old to stop and pulled up before a narrow tall house with elegant bow windows just like all its neighbours. She had expected to find an unlived-in house, but this one was freshly painted and bore all the signs of careful tenancy. As she opened the car door she saw the house door open and an elderly man cross the pavement to them.

  ‘Ah, there’s Bates,’ declared Mrs Duvant happily. ‘He and Mrs Bates caretake for me, you know.’ She got out of the car and went to shake him by the hand. ‘And this is Miss Annis Fothergill,’ she told him, ‘come to spend a day or two while I look round the place. I’ve a mind to come back here and live, Bates.’

  The elderly man looked pleased. ‘And I’m sure we hope that you do, madam. If you will go in, Mrs Bates will see to you. I’ll bring the cases.’

  The door was narrow with a handsome fanlight above it, and opened into a roomy hall with a pretty curved staircase at its back. Annis had time to see that before Mrs Bates bore down upon them; a large, stately woman with twinkling eyes and several chins. She received Mrs Duvant with every sign of delight, made Annis welcome, and ushered them into a small sitting-room, most comfortably furnished and with a bright fire blazing in the hearth.

  ‘You’ll like a cup of coffee, madam,’ she said comfortably. ‘When you’ve had a rest I’ll take you up to your rooms.’

  She sailed away and Mrs Duvant observed: ‘Such a good creature, and a splendid cook.’ She looked around her. ‘Everything looks very nice after all this time. I’d quite forgotten…’