She told Lynn briefly but vividly the story of Mavis and Stanley Gunther.
It was at least three parts the exact truth, for although neither of the parties concerned had ever confided in anyone, in some strange way people’s lives become known. A half sentence here, an indiscreet word there, and the chatter of those who have known them since childhood do, in the sum total, complete a story that is generally not far from the actual facts.
Lynn listened, her feet curled under her on the sofa, her dark eyes fixed on Mona’s face.
“I like that,” she said. “Is she really diabolical to him?”
“She couldn’t be worse,” Mona answered. “One of her favourite tricks when he’s annoyed her, is to play the organ in church slower and slower. She knows that it upsets him. And when she’s really angry she alters the hymns, pretending she hasn’t brought the right music. Poor Stanley Gunther gives out the one that’s been chosen, then there’s a pause, no music starts and his wife leans forward and whispers to one of the men at the back of the choir, who slowly marches down the aisle and informs the Vicar that another number will be sung instead. All the choirboys smirk – they know, as do the whole of the congregation, what’s happened – and Stanley Gunther has to put the best face on it that he can and make another announcement.”
“I shall go to church on Sunday,” Lynn said. “I’d no idea there were such excitements going on.”
“It’s rather tragic, really. He was once a fine man. When he first came here, I can remember how enthusiastic he was about everything. We had a village cricket team and he was the captain. We played the other villages and the children’s sports were really good, famous for miles around. People used to come and watch them and give really lovely prizes. But gradually he lost interest and so did everyone else.”
“I’m not surprised. Tell me more. I can’t tell you how interesting this is to me.”
“I’ll tell you about Nanny,” Mona went on. “You’d think on the surface that she was a fairly dull, staid person who had never had any interest beyond bringing up other people’s children. But Nanny has had her moments. She started her existence by being born in a lifeboat.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Mona replied. “The lifeboat of a ship that had been sunk, not in wartime, of course, it hit a rock or something. Anyway, her mother got away safely, although her father was drowned, and Nanny was born some hours before the rescue ship found them. She was brought back to England and spent her childhood in a little village not far from here. As soon as she was old enough, it was decided that she should go into domestic service and she chose the nursery. The people she was with were going out to India and they took Nanny with them. They were in the north of India and there were riots.
“I can’t remember her exact story, Nanny will tell you all about it if you ask her, but for over a week they were besieged in Government House, and when they were down to their last crust of bread relief came.
“Some years later she came home, and Mother engaged her, as I was on the way. When I was about two, Nanny fell in love. He was a labourer and it was considered that she was marrying beneath her. Her relatives made a great fuss and she promised to wait until he could better himself before getting married. He went off to Australia to make money and from that day to this she’s never heard of him again. What happened to him, none of us have any idea, but I think Nanny, even now in her old age still believes that he might come back.”
“Oh, I do wish he would!” Lynn exclaimed.
“I don’t think there’s a chance,” Mona answered. “He must have been killed or something, but Nanny goes systematically to every fortune-teller she hears of and if there’s any in the neighbourhood, you’ll find her in our kitchen telling Nanny’s fortune.”
“I believe you’re right,” Lynn said reflectively. “There must be stories everywhere, only I don’t go and look for them.”
“Of course there are.”
“And what about yours?”
Mona got to her feet hastily.
“I’ve talked quite enough for one afternoon. Besides, my life is too complicated, too mixed, to make a good novel.”
“I still want to hear about you,” Lynn insisted.
“Well, you’ll have to wait,” Mona answered. “One day when I’m feeling really garrulous perhaps, not now. Go back to your writing. Nanny will be home soon and then pandemonium will break out.”
“It certainly will,” Lynn laughed. “But thank you. Come again soon. I feel a different person for seeing you.”
Mona said goodbye and walked on up the drive.
‘I wonder what she’d make of my story,’ Mona thought. ‘One day, perhaps, I shall be able to talk about Lionel to someone, perhaps to Lynn.’
It would be easier to talk to a stranger than to someone she knew well. But at the moment she knew that any expression of her own unhappiness would be choked by tears. The numbness with which she had come home to England was passing and now her emotions were dangerously near the surface.
‘I must try not to think,’ she told herself. ‘I must learn to live in the present, to forget the past and not to worry about the future.’
She would try to rouse her interest in the people round her. She liked Dorothy and Lynn Archer and there might be others, too. She mustn’t forget her advice to Lynn to look for stories in the people near at hand. How easy it was to give advice, she thought, and so desperately hard to follow it oneself!
Just for a moment the drive with its avenue of trees appeared to be only a vista in a dream and the Priory at the end, just a mirage. In a moment she might awake – awake to find Lionel alive, not dead. Then coldly and logically her brain told her the truth. Lionel was dead – dead and buried – and her life, like the road beneath her feet, stretched out into a grey, lonely future without him.
Nine
‘This is England at its best,’ Mona thought.
She stood still for a moment looking at the scene before her. The sun was setting and there was a reddish glow in the western sky. Vision was limited by a fine mist from which the barren branches of the trees rose sharp and distinct like some exquisite etching, but the lake in front of Cobble Park was unveiled.
It lay like molten silver, with the swans moving gravely and majestically on its rippling surface while the ducks splashed and fluttered round its green edges. Beyond the lake stood the house itself, its Elizabethan red brick rising to beautiful and balanced heights of architecture, its chimneys like miniature towers, its surrounding yew hedges, perfected after years of care, giving the whole picture a quaint geometrical appearance.
It was lovely, and peculiarly English, and as Mona watched, a flight of pigeons wheeled above the rooftops, encircling the flag, which fluttered languidly in the dying breeze. It was hard indeed to realise that war, with all the ruthless brutality of modern weapons, was being waged all over the world and was expected at any moment to devastate this ‘green and pleasant land’.
‘The whole thing’s like a nightmare from which one cannot wake up,’ Mona thought.
She recalled her own passage across the Atlantic only a few weeks ago. How, despite everyone’s outward air of cheerfulness and confidence, the least unusual sound would make the passengers start nervously.
It had been difficult to sleep at night, wondering if the dawn would find them hurrying to the lifeboats with only a few minutes’ grace before the ship might sink under them. But here in England, although both town and country bore deep scars, there were perfect and untouched pictures such as that which now lay before her.
Even as she contemplated the peace and beauty of Michael’s home, she heard the hoot of a motor-horn behind her and an army lorry, camouflaged and full of grinning soldiers, passed her and, approaching the house, turned through an ancient gateway and disappeared from sight.
Then Mona remembered that half the Park had been given over to the military and she noticed strange new features – a gun emplacement near the lake, several ammunition dumps hidden among the trees surrounding the drive, the broken and scarred surface of the drive itself caused by frequent and heavy traffic. One couldn’t really avoid the realities of war, she decided, not even for a moment.
She walked on and now the beauty of the Park seemed even more poignant, as if she must fix it indelibly in her mind, in case one day it was no longer there for her to see. The door was opened by the family butler, who had been in service with the Merrill’s since he was a little boy. He was getting deaf now, and his movements were slow from arthritis.
