A Night of Errors Read online

  But he knew that Lady Dromio had to all seeming taken everything quietly. The tablet she had erected to her husband’s memory in Mr Greengrave’s church was quiet. Any reference she ever made to him was quiet to the extent of, as it were, a metaphorical inaudibility. And she had done nothing in haste. When her son was eight years old, and having maturely rejected, maybe, any thought of second marriage, Lady Dromio had adopted the infant girl who was now Lucy Dromio. Perhaps she judged that a sister might ameliorate the manners of her son; perhaps she merely obeyed an inadequately satisfied maternal instinct. But all that was long ago. And, whatever the bill, Mr Greengrave doubted whether Lucy had filled it. Of necessity she must have been a pig in a poke, her virtues and vices unfolding from an unknown stock. And almost certainly she abundantly if covertly possessed something that had not been desired. Was it passion, or intelligence, or independence? Mr Greengrave did not know. Such ignorance about a parishioner disturbed him. Could the girl, he wondered, be drawn out? Perhaps now was a favourable time to gain her confidence, since her foster-brother was abroad and the atmosphere at Sherris Hall something less oppressive as a result.

  Not, Mr Greengrave reflected, that Sir Oliver could be called a dominant personality. Weak, vain, sensitive, easily depressed: the master of Sherris was not one to a brief view of whom distance lent any enchantment. Yet (and this the confidential annals of the parish abundantly attested) he was markedly attractive to women. How frequently do concrete human relationships run counter to expectation and rule! Mr Greengrave, to whom musings of this sort came more easily than that blending of tea-table talk with faint overtones of spiritual advice which is the parish priest’s task, turned left and took a procrastinating route round the lily pond.

  ‘One wonders,’ said Lucy, setting down the jugs, ‘if something might be done about Swindle.’

  ‘Done, dear?’

  ‘He was actually asleep. It’s like living at Dingley Dell with the Fat Boy.’

  ‘But Swindle is extremely thin.’

  ‘He certainly has a lean and hungry look. And possibly Dickens was wrong. If fat men sleep at night there may be an inference that it is thin ones who are inclined to sleep during the day. But it would be curious if Shakespeare threw any light on Swindle.’

  Lady Dromio put down the teapot. ‘Shakespeare?’ she said. ‘Well, that reminds me. I seem to have mislaid my novel. Such an interesting and unusual novel, Lucy, about a lot of people in a big hotel. Do you know, I think I must have left it in the drawing-room?’

  ‘It is no matter, mama. For Mr Greengrave is about to call. Were he a resolute man he would be with us now. Look beyond the lily pond.’

  ‘Well, that is very nice. He will bring us a breath of the great world.’

  ‘That doubtless.’

  Lady Dromio patted her well-ordered hair. ‘But it will mean more sandwiches, dear. And surely there must be another cake?’

  Lucy rose. ‘This time,’ she said with resolution, ‘I shall waken Swindle.’

  ‘I think it will be better to wait until Oliver gets home.’

  ‘But that may be months. We can’t have Swindle turned into a Rip van Winkle.’

  ‘No, dear – certainly not. I merely mean that about things in general we had better wait until Oliver gets home.’

  ‘Which, I hope, will be soon.’ Mr Greengrave, who usually made his eventual entry with a plunge, spoke heartily as he took Lady Dromio’s hand. ‘It will be a pleasure to hear him read the lessons again.’

  Lady Dromio produced a welcoming smile and a non-committal noise. Very possibly she doubted the propriety of describing as a pleasure anything that transacted itself within the walls of a church. ‘Lucy,’ she said, ‘if you could just ask Cook–’

  ‘Yes, mama. Sandwiches and a caraway cake and a cup and saucer.’

  Lady Dromio watched her adopted daughter trail across the lawn once more. ‘Dear, dutiful girl,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ But because this had been insincere Mr Greengrave in penance resolutely added: ‘It is to be hoped that she will marry.’

  ‘So it is!’ Lady Dromio spoke as if concurring in a novel and surprising thought. ‘But it is to be feared that she will not.’

  It occurred to Mr Greengrave that sometimes, and with an odd effect, the elder lady fell into the clipped and mannered speech of the younger. He felt that this pointed to Lucy’s possessing the stronger will. Of course a stranger would take Lady Dromio to possess no will at all – but that would be a mistake. Aloud Mr Greengrave conventionally said: ‘But so attractive a girl – and so advantageously placed in the county.’

  Lady Dromio received this old-world civility with a bow and at the same time turned in her garden chair. Perhaps she was looking for Lucy and the sandwiches, but the motion enabled her to make a critical inspection of Sherris Hall. The house was imposing enough and doubtless estimable among surrounding seats. Equally evidently it was in a state of some disrepair. Mr Greengrave, who had turned also, felt himself awkwardly involved with his hostess in a joint contemplation of this disagreeable fact. It was an attempt to suggest that he was aware only of the more permanent aspects of the building that prompted his next remark.

  ‘How sure they were of their proportions in those days! The whole effect has always seemed to me a delight to the eye. And yet I have sometimes wondered about that wing where the billiard-room and gun-room are. Had they carried it up another storey–’

  ‘But they did. I got the trustees to take it down. Those were the nurseries, you know, that were destroyed by fire. I am so sorry that Lucy is being rather a long time with your cup. You will be thirsty, dear Mr Greengrave, after walking across on this warm afternoon.’

  Mr Greengrave coughed. Having unwittingly led the conversation to painful memories he felt it incumbent upon him not to retreat upon small talk. ‘Your great sorrow,’ he said. ‘was before my time here. But I have often thought of it.’

  ‘So have I. I had been puzzled over it for years.’

  Mr Greengrave considered this doubtfully. ‘Yes,’ he said with caution; ‘the ways of Providence are often inscrutable indeed.’

  ‘Not over what happened, for that was always fairly clear to me. But over what I should have done. I was very young and I ended by doing nothing, apart from having that wing rebuilt as you see it now. I waited for Oliver to grow up.’ Lady Dromio sighed heavily. ‘But has he grown up? It is hard to say.’

  Mr Greengrave felt somewhat out of his depth. The afternoon was drowsy; the effect of his visitation was perhaps soporific; Lady Dromio seemed almost like one speaking in sleep. ‘I am sure,’ he said politely, ‘that Sir Oliver must be a great support.’

  ‘Things should be settled when they turn up. Otherwise there is uncertainty and suspense, and new problems arise before one has at all made up one’s mind about the old. Oliver has a great many problems now – business problems for which he is not perhaps very fitted by temperament. Of course my brother-in-law is a help.’

  ‘Mr Sebastian Dromio?’

  ‘Yes. My father-in-law had three sons, of whom Sebastian is the only survivor. He did not get on at all well with my husband, I am sorry to say, but after – but subsequently he was very helpful indeed. Perhaps you have never met him? He is coming down to visit us this evening. But here is Lucy with the supplies we have been waiting for.’ Lady Dromio reached out a hand for the caraway cake. ‘Lucy, have they remembered about Sebastian’s room?’

  ‘Yes, mama. Everything is being done to placate him and assuage.’

  Mr Greengrave felt that this called for a jolly laugh. ‘And is your uncle,’ he asked, ‘so formidable a man?’

  ‘He will be very cross because Oliver is not yet back. His absence was to have been for not nearly so long.’

  ‘Then let us trust that Sir Oliver is enjoying himself.’ And Mr Greengrave turned to Lady Dromio. ‘Your latest news of him is good, I hope?’

  With some deliberation Lady Dromio cut the cake. ‘Oliver,’ she said, ‘a
lways enjoys himself abroad.’

  ‘Even on a business trip?’

  Lucy advanced the plate of sandwiches. ‘We cannot positively say that it is that.’

  ‘Oliver’s trip to America is certainly prompted by business considerations.’ Lady Dromio spoke as if this were a sort of moral extenuation for visiting so doubtful a country. ‘Although he is, of course, at the same time staying with friends.’

  ‘Or so we believe.’ Lucy took a sandwich herself. ‘Actually, we haven’t heard for nearly–’

  ‘Lucy, dear, do you know that there is neither salt nor pepper in these? How careless everybody has become.’

  ‘It is the influence of Swindle’s slumbers, mama. But Oliver, at least, is not being careless. Indeed, he is being very prudent, is he not?’

  ‘I hope he will always be that.’

  There was an awkward pause. Mr Greengrave, although hardened to hovering on the edge of family enigmas, began to wonder when he could take his leave. Between these two ladies not much had passed – but, in what had, more was meant than met the ear. And why did the protracted absence of Sir Oliver abroad mean that he was being very prudent? Was he keeping out of the way of something? What was the difference between a business trip and a trip prompted by business considerations? Why must Sebastian Dromio be placated and assuaged? And why had Lady Dromio, commonly so reticent, allowed herself those mysterious rambling sentences about the past? Why should she have been puzzled for years?

  On all these questions, thought Mr Greengrave, the oracles are dumb. And as for the project of drawing out Miss Dromio – well, that had got nowhere. A blameless and pastoral project, while being at the same time humanly intriguing. Perhaps it might yet be possible.

  Mr Greengrave rose. ‘How unfortunate,’ he said, ‘that I have calls yet to make in the village. But since the afternoon is so fine perhaps Miss Dromio…?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Lucy spoke with decision. ‘I will take the letters. That lawn-mower has made William so sulky that he would be quite certain to forget on purpose. Have you anything more to post, mama?’

  ‘No!’ Lady Dromio uttered the word with unexpected vigour. ‘I think the post is really a dangerous institution. It invites one to rash communications. I have sometimes written letters that I very much wanted to recall.’

  There was no doubt that the old lady was behaving a trifle oddly. Mr Greengrave could see that Lucy, who knew her well, was looking perplexed.

  ‘Yes, to be sure.’ The vicar found himself making random conversation while Lucy departed for the letters. ‘Or at least the penny or twopenny-halfpenny post has destroyed one of the most delightful English literary forms. For who will treat seriously as a work of art something that one simply drops into a red box at the end of a lane? And consider too the speed of transmission. In the days of mail-coaches and packet-boats a letter had time to acquire patina on its journey. When Horace Walpole wrote to his friend Mann in Florence–’

  ‘Of course – how very interesting.’ Lady Dromio as she made this scarcely civil interruption once more fell to flicking the lid of the hot-water jug. ‘But tell me – how long does the airmail take to America?’

  ‘From here in the village? I am afraid I scarcely know. Not more, I should imagine, than two or three days.’

  ‘I wish–’ Lady Dromio checked herself. ‘But here is Lucy and she will be the better of a walk. Recently she has been rather restless, dear child.’

  To Mr Greengrave’s ear the tone of this was not affectionate. At present the two ladies must be living rather a solitary life. Ought he to recommend prayer, some serious and improving book, a tennis party? Might he even venture to suggest an informal dance? And was he justified in making off with Lucy, who was attractive, after rather a perfunctory call upon Lady Dromio, who was difficult? With these questions unresolved, he found himself walking down the drive. And Lucy spoke. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is a really ghastly hole.’

  Mr Greengrave was shocked. ‘Good gracious,’ he said lightly, ‘we all feel like that about Sherris Parva! There should be a law giving us a long holiday at least twice a year.’

  ‘I mean Sherris Hall. Home.’

  ‘I think young people often feel like that about home from time to time.’

  ‘I’m not young. I’m over thirty.’ She turned her head and regarded him sombrely. ‘Intellectually my life is completely futile. Artistically it is null. I do not subserve even the simplest biological purposes.’

  A large part of Mr Greengrave wished that this walk had not taken place. But another part of him was encouraged. For here, at least, was a job – a hitherto elusive sheep suddenly revealed as in decidedly poor fleece. The vicar, as an honest shepherd, decided that a thoroughly drastic dipping was needed at once. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘we all get out of spirits from time to time. But if you set up in a settled discontented way your chances of ever serving simple biological purposes are quite remote. A man has no use for a sulky wife. Nor, for that matter, has God for a sulky creature.’

  Lucy had stopped in her tracks. ‘Mr Greengrave,’ she cried, ‘I didn’t think you could be so horrid!’

  ‘And now, my dear, you are being quite childish. And what is wrong with Sherris Hall, anyway?’

  ‘Wrong! Swindle is always asleep and mama – for I call her so – is always awake. When it gets to half past eleven and we are still at piquet I could scream aloud. Or rather I could do something much more effective. I could take a brand to the whole place.’

  ‘Take a what?’

  ‘A firebrand, Mr Greengrave. And raze the whole place to the ground this time. Not just an inconsiderable nursery wing.’

  For some seconds the vicar was silent. ‘Lucy,’ he said presently, ‘think of what you say. In that fire two infant children perished – and you were in a sense brought in to fill the empty place in Lady Dromio’s affections. And in Oliver’s, I suppose.’

  ‘No doubt I was.’ Lucy Dromio suddenly flushed darkly. ‘But I shall never forgive that fire. It brought me here.’

  ‘And where should you have been brought in life without it?’

  ‘I don’t know; I have no idea. I know nothing of my parentage. I know only that my adoption brought me to – to an impasse. I hate…I hate Sherris and all it stands for.’

  Mr Greengrave looked at her. ‘No,’ he said slowly; ‘no, it isn’t true.’

  And Lucy shuddered. ‘Love turns to hate if it isn’t let get anywhere. I was prepared to do a lot of loving. But the place has no use for me, really. I’m an outsider, after all. And I ought to have got outside – and right away – as soon as I was old enough to recognize that it was no go. Of course what you say is quite true. It’s filthy and weak to fall into a chronic discontented way. But there it is.’

  Mr Greengrave considered. ‘But isn’t this,’ he asked, ‘just a phase? Your brother is away–’

  ‘Oliver is not my brother and I hate to hear him called so.’

  ‘I see.’ Mr Greengrave thought this information worth meditating. ‘Sir Oliver is away and you and Lady Dromio are much alone. That may well generate little frictions. And, indeed, I seem to sense some quality of suspense–’

  ‘There’s that, all right.’ Lucy spoke grimly. ‘Everything is in a bad way, you know. The firm is in difficulties and the investments are shaky – that sort of thing. I think I know what Oliver is up to in America, and a certain amount of anxiety is natural.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking that for some time there has been an absence of news?’

  ‘You certainly are. We can’t understand it. Oliver is usually not a bad correspondent in a non-committal way.’

  ‘Then here is an explanation of much of the sense of strain which has been upsetting you, my dear.’ Mr Greengrave spoke confidently. ‘It is natural that Lady Dromio should feel anxiety. She is a most affectionate mother.’

  Lucy laughed and – all the more because it was unforced and natural – the laughter grated on her pastor’s ear. ‘Really, Mr Greengrave, it
is mama you should have picked on for a walk full of cosy confidences. You might have begun to learn the elements. Why ever should you suppose her affectionate?’

  Again the vicar was shocked – as also rather nonplussed. A substantial majority of mothers are on the whole affectionately disposed to their offspring. Lady Dromio’s manner was affectionate. His judgement had been founded on nothing beyond this.

  ‘She can’t forgive him, you know.’ Lucy tipped her letters into the pillar-box as she said this, and turned to look the vicar straight in the eyes.

  ‘But whatever for?’ Oliver, Mr Greengrave recalled, had not as a young man been of unblemished moral character, but he had always supposed Lady Dromio to bear if anything too broad a mind in matters of that sort.

  Lucy raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, what is it that a mother can’t forgive her son? That son’s father, I suppose.’

  Very seriously, Mr Greengrave shook his head. ‘My dear, gobbets of the new psychology do none of us any good. It is an infant science, full of half-truths dangerous to our faith and happiness. After that fatal fire nothing was left to Lady Dromio but this one baby son. She must have been devoted to him.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. She showed how she felt about her Dromio son by first waiting to have a good look at him and then adopting a non-Dromio daughter. And what I say isn’t just a gobbet from an infant science. You’ll find it in your own textbook as well, Mr Greengrave.’

  ‘My textbook?’

  ‘Yes. The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children to the–’

  ‘Lucy, this is bad – very bad, indeed. We know nothing about Sir Romeo’s sins.’

  ‘Don’t we know that he died quite mad because of something dreadful he had done?’