“Lady Brenda is not ill I hope?”
“No, nothing serious.” This was the invariable formula when he appeared at church without her.
“A most interesting sermon vicar.”
“My dear boy, I'm delighted to hear you say so.
It is one of my favourites.
But have you never heard it before?”
“No, I assure you.”
“I haven't used it here lately.
When I am asked to supply elsewhere it is the one I invariably choose.
Let me see now, I always make a note of the times I use it.” The old clergyman opened the manuscript book he was carrying.
It had a limp black cover and the pages were yellow with age.
“Ah yes, here we are.
I preached it first in Jelalabad when the Coldstream Guards were there; then I used it in the Red Sea coming home from my fourth leave; then at Sidmouth … Mentone … Winchester … to the Girl Guides at their summer rally in 1921 … the Church Stage Guild at Leicester … twice at Bournemouth during the winter of 1926 when poor Ada was so ill … No, I don't seem to have used it here since 1911 when you would have been too young to enjoy it. …”
The vicar's sister had engaged John in conversation.
He was telling her the story of Peppermint “… he'd have been all right, Ben says, if he had been able to cat the rum up, but mules can't cat, neither can horses …”
Nanny grasped him firmly and hurried him towards home.
“How many times have I told you not to go repeating whatever Ben Hacket tells you?
Miss Tendril didn't want to heart about Peppermint.
And don't ever use that rude word `cat' again.”
“It only means to be sick.”
“Well Miss Tendril isn't interested in being sick …” As the gathering between porch and lych gate began to disperse, Tony set off towards the gardens.
There was a good choice of button-hole in the hot houses; he picked lemon carnations with crinkled, crimson edges for himself and Beaver and a camellia for his wife.
Shafts of November sunshine streamed down from lancet and oriel, tinctured in green and gold, gales and azure by the emblazoned coats, broken by the leaded devices into countless points and patches of coloured light.
Brenda descended the great staircase step by step through alternations of dusk and rainbow.
Both hands were occupied, holding to her breast a bag, a small hat, a half finished panel of petit-point embroidery and a vast disordered sheaf of Sunday newspapers, above which only her eyes and forehead appeared as though over a yashmak.
Beaver emerged from the shadows below and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up at her.
“I say can't I carry something?”
“No, thanks, I've got everything safe.
How did you sleep?”
“Beautifully.”
“I bet you didn't.”
“Well I'm not a very good sleeper.”
“Next time you come you shall have a different room.
But I daresay you won't ever come again.
People so seldom do.
It is very sad because it's such fun for us having them and we never make any new friends living down here.”
“Tony's gone to church.”
“Yes, he likes that.
He'll be back soon.
Let's go out for a minute or two, it looks lovely.”
When Tony came back they mere sitting in the library.
Beaver was telling Brenda's fortune with cards. “… Now cut to me again,” he was saying, “and I'll see if it's any clearer. … Oh yes … there is going to be a sudden death which. will cause you great pleasure and profit.
In fact you are going to kill someone.
I can't tell if it's a man or a woman … yes, a woman … then you are going to go on a long journey across the sea, marry six dark men and have eleven children, grow a beard and die.”
“Beast.
And all this time I've been thinking it was serious.
Hullo, Tony, jolly church?”
“Most enjoyable; how about some sherry?”
When they were alone together, just before luncheon, he said.
“Darling, you're being heroic with Beaver.”