Pure Juliet (18 page)

A grey skirt, too long and not in perfect freshness, swung its cheap folds about her calves; her hands smelled strongly of ‘Blue Grass'. She was still in thrall to that drifting, dreaming speculation which promised to be fruitful; her brain seemed to be divided into two parts: the one unwillingly busy with people, situations, annoying details and voices; the other floating easily, luringly, in ‘strange seas of Thought'.

‘Ah, there you are. Phyllis, Althea, George, this is Juliet Slater, poor Addy's young friend.'

Juliet looked at the old man and the
two scraggy old trouts
, which is how she saw the Misses Barrow. She nodded and muttered ‘Hullo', at which Mrs Massey glanced briefly at the ceiling.

‘Now you can make yourself useful. Pass Miss Barrow the cake, please,' indicating Althea with a nod.

The elder sister glanced up wistfully at the odd, plain girl.
Poor
child, she looked lost and lonely. Perhaps this time
. . . Anthea Barrow had never managed, somehow, to get on with young people, but perhaps this girl was missing poor Addy, and there might be a chance.

Phyllis Barrow looked at Juliet's hair. Here was youth. Youth to be disliked, disapproved of and envied.
It was a scandal if a common little thing like this was going to get a lot of Addy's money
. The empty heart seethed in jealousy and pain.

Queer girl
.
Looks clean
, thought old George Barrow, chewing egg sandwiches.
Hasn't got that forehead for nothing . . . Like to talk to her, if I get the chance . . . But Phyllis wouldn't like that . . . If only my girls had had brains
. . .

Voices were subdued, there were smiles, but no social laughs. Everyone was aware of the thing lying upstairs in that shockingly shaped box smothered in flowers.

Mrs Massey was not giving in to corpses, though of course one must behave properly towards them, and she kept up a flow of pleasant commonplaces, seasoned as usual with enough tartness to make them entertaining.

She was aware of an occasional admiring glance from the old man, who realized the triumph of her social sense over the
primitive fear stalking the house. She was conscious, too, of her own pale skin and elegant dress.
Vanity
, thought Mrs Massey,
is one of the great supports in life
, and she rippled, rather hoarsely, on.

*

In the evening, the return of Frank slightly lifted from Mrs Massey the burden of maintaining civilization; his easy, natural behaviour was soothing to everyone.

But how tiresome he was with the chit, sending her off to her room soon after dinner, ‘because tomorrow will be a tiring day'.

When Juliet had disappeared, after a curt ‘Night all,' Mrs Massey gave a small and chilly laugh.

‘One feels one should apologize – but you can see what class she comes from. Poor Addy, she was sadly taken in.'

‘She has pretty hair,' Althea said timidly.

‘That is a gift from Providence, and no credit to her,' said Mrs Massey, who never hesitated to introduce this vague entity when she needed backing up.

‘Yes, her manners
are
bad,' said Phyllis, smoke wreathing out from her large, sour face. ‘No father, I think you said?'

Frank remembered the monumental figure seated in the bed, and thought that, in the physical sense, Juliet had too much father.

‘No father, and four brothers and sisters,' he lied smoothly.

‘Addy picked her up in some park or other, feeding squirrels. Just the sort of thing . . . well, she's gone, poor dear soul, and one mustn't. But anyone could have seen with half an eye that the girl was on the make,' Mrs Massey said.

‘At fourteen?' Frank snapped, and Mr Barrow, who was secretly on Juliet's side because of her hair, said hastily that she looked clever.

‘You're quite right, she is, she got five A levels,' said Frank.
Heavens! How plain the two poor women were!
He thought, suddenly, and with pleasure, of Clemence's slenderness and brown curls.

Mrs Massey observed that good manners and attention to dress were of more use than A levels, and this led to a discussion between the men on contemporary education.

So the evening passed. A slight rain was drifting through the foliage of the elms, and the darkness smelled sweet of new grass, and budding wild flowers and wallflowers and iris in the great garden.

Juliet sat beside her open window, gazing into the dimness, breathing the sweetness of the air, vaguely hearing the rustle of the rain. Vaguely, too, she felt a power for which she had no name, rising about her: it was the aura surrounding a tall young maple which looked with myriad leaf-eyes into her room, and soothed her tumult of dreamy thoughts. It was benevolence.

Before the procession of black cars, the foremost laden with its tribute of glowing bunches and wreaths, rolled through the gates of Hightower, Frank drew Juliet aside.

‘Don't think about what's being done when we're standing by the grave,' he instructed calmly. ‘Think about the wild flowers, and the weather.'

‘Why?' she demanded at last; she was very pale and looked plainer than usual.

‘Because you're frightened. And I don't want you to be.' (
In one way, I don't, that is
, he inwardly finished the sentence.)

She was silent, looking away at a tall chestnut in blossom.

‘Aren't you?' he insisted.

‘It's creepy,' she said sullenly.

‘That's a natural response. But it'll soon be over. Do as I say – think about the weather. It's very old, and it's always there. I think you'll find that – comforting.'

‘All right. But I better remember to keep me face sad,' and Frank stifled a laugh as there slowly emerged from the drawing-room the Barrows, Dr Masters, Clemence, her
grandmother (elegant in grey and black) and Sarah (with handkerchief conspicuous). The Spaniards joined the procession in the hall; they were to be accommodated in the final car.

Juliet tried to follow Frank's advice. But although the rain of the previous night had drawn out subtle scents from grass and wild roses, and the sky showed every change of a fitful spring, from violet-grey to purest azure, she could not let these comforters take charge of her.

Her feelings swung between shrinking fear of
what
was being lowered into that space of disturbed earth, and the dim, fruitful half-dreams of the previous night. Sarah's loud sobbing, and the awful words spoken by the clergyman drifted past her unheard.

‘Juliet! Don't let me catch you putting plastic forget-me-nots on my stone when I'm dead,' Frank said, as they left the churchyard when it was over. ‘Beech leaves will suit me nicely, thank you.'

He pointed to a violently blue cluster on a nearby stone, and Mrs Massey, glad of a chance of a possibly entertaining argument, said: ‘Really, Frank.'

‘The colours are filthy and the idea's worse, eh, Juliet?'

‘Pardon?' She turned, listlessly.

‘Ah, she's thinking about this afternoon, aren't you, Juliet?' (Mrs Massey was certainly thinking about it.) ‘You need not be ashamed, my dear, and it isn't heartless – dear old Addy would have understood. Your whole future may depend upon it.'

Juliet did not hear the remark, as she scrambled into the car behind Frank. She glanced with relief at his calm face. He would look after her.

Clemence was thinking, despondently, how badly her grandmother and Frank ‘got on'. It was another obstacle in the way of her ever getting her heart's desire.
I'm developing into a typical apprehensive old maid
, she thought.

The procession turned in through the gates of Hightower, where Antonio now stood sentinal, in black jacket and with exactly the correct expression of dignified regret on his face.

In ten minutes the party was seated at the cold luncheon set out by the Spaniards, to which, on Frank's instructions, had been added champagne.

‘It seems . . . rather heartless,' Phyllis Barrow observed, sipping affectedly. ‘More like a celebration.'

‘Addy will be pleased,' Frank snapped, and his use of the present tense aroused such reflections among the mourners that no more was heard from Phyllis.

About half-past three, when the elders had rested, and Frank and Clemence had strolled round the garden (Frank deploring the absence of useful weeds, and Clemence dolefully adding, in secret, her own approval of weedlessness to her list of the Obstacles), young Mr Chesney arrived, the son of that old Mr Chesney who had been the Pennecuicks' lawyer for forty years, and deputizing for his father. The party drifted, from various parts of the house, into the library.

‘Do you think, Mr Chesney . . . er . . . the servants . . . Our dear friend gave me to understand, on one occasion, that she had “remembered” them. Do you think that they should be present?'

Mr Chesney having answered cheerfully that that depended upon what Mr Pennecuick thought about it, Mrs Massey asserted her position by glancing fretfully about her and demanding: ‘
Now
where is that girl?'

Here Juliet came hurrying in, with a cross, pale face and a compass between her teeth, both hands being full of books and sheets of paper.

Mrs Massey made a gesture indicating despair, as she turned to Mr Chesney. ‘Mr Chesney, this is Juliet Slater.'

She left the statement unadorned, and indeed Mr Chesney had been briefed by his father about the teenager.

‘How do you do?'

‘Hullo.'

Juliet's smile and articulation were restricted by the compass, and Mrs Massey struck in sharply: ‘Put those things down
at once
, please,
here
,' and she indicated a side table.

‘Oh all right – just thought I'd fill up time if there was any arguin'—'

‘We don't think there will be, do we, Chesney?' Frank said good-naturedly as the company seated itself. It would do no harm to warn the Barrows that he, the chief heir, took it for granted that there would not be.

Young Mr Chesney smiled, and said that he hoped not.

Juliet slid into her place only half aware of what was going on. The scant two hours since lunch had been ‘spent' by her indeed, and royally. A new line of thought had opened itself, leading to regions hitherto unexplored, and her eyes were shining with an excitement that Phyllis Barrow thought of as
disgusting
. Clemence, noticing it, felt some disappointment on Frank's behalf. Was it greed? If it was, his attempts to humanize his protegée had succeeded only too well.

Mrs Massey was enjoying the fact that Juliet was ‘glaring' out of the window at the vast white clouds massed in the
summer sky. Really, the girl looked hardly sane; excitement over the will must have temporarily unbalanced her.

The servants were present; Frank had invited them into the room with a friendly smile, which Mrs Massey had modified by indicating that they should stand ranged in decent order by the door, where there were no chairs. Such small triumphs made the juice of Mrs Massey's life.

Mr Chesney's agreeable young voice broke the attentive silence. The sun shone between the noble clouds onto the dark colours and the worn, lined, ordinary faces – ordinary all, except one.

The bulk of the estate, young Mr Chesney began, was left to the deceased's great-nephew, Mr Francis Pennecuick; it amounted to some three hundred and forty thousand pounds. Of this sum, over thirty thousand pounds had been set aside for legacies, of which the largest, twenty thousand pounds, went to the deceased's ‘beloved adopted daughter, Juliet Slater'.

Mrs Dorothy Massey, of Rose Cottage, Wanby, Herts; Miss Clemence Massey of the same address; and Dr Edward Masters of Beech House, Wanby, each received one thousand pounds. And ‘my dear faithful old friend Sarah (Mrs Bason) eight thousand pounds'.

(Mr Chesney felt that a quaver in his voice would have been appropriate here, but could feel nothing but an un-legal envy of the old housekeeper, because he himself was hagridden by a mortgage.)

‘A hundred pounds each to . . .' and here followed the full names of each of the Spanish servants, which Miss Pennecuick had memorized, written out, and given to old Mr Chesney on his last visit to her; these legacies were given in codicil.

When he had concluded, in a silence that was noticeable, he laid the will before him on the table and sat down, keeping his gaze fixed upon the document.
Give them time to get their faces in order
.

He looked up.

Phyllis Barrow said instantly: ‘We knew that we were unlikely to benefit from Cousin Adelaide's will. But we should of course like to have some small personal memento of her. Isn't there any jewellery?' ending the sentence rather faster than she liked, but unable to repress her eagerness.

Clemence was gently patting the weeping Sarah's shoulder.

‘There is indeed a long list of personal bequests.' Mr Chesney tapped some sheets of foolscap.

‘Put everyone out of their misery,' muttered old Mr Barrow.

‘Well – yes.' Mr Chesney sent him a properly proportioned smile. ‘My congratulations, Mr Pennecuick,' to Frank, who nodded absently and said: ‘Who are the executors?'

‘I was coming to that. Mrs Massey is sole executrix. My client told me she felt her old friend would not find the duties involved fatiguing, but might even – er – rather enjoy them.'

‘Quite right. So I shall,' Dolly said briskly. ‘If you'll let me have that list, Mr Chesney. Thank you.' Then she whispered to Sarah that she could tell the servants to bring tea to the drawing-room, and Clemence led Sarah, still wiping her eyes, to the door.

Mr Chesney was eager to be off. No thank you, Mrs Massey, he would not stay to tea. He decided that the house was certainly an interesting specimen mummified in the Thirties, the girl looked odd, even unusual, and he hoped the firm might retain the management of the Pennecuick affairs; nevertheless, he
could hardly wait to get back to Lucy and the children and his garden and the mortgage and the dogs.