Part 6 (2/2)

”They're as right as rain wi' Mrs. Maynard----”

But that is precisely where Mrs. Lacey thinks Mr. Morrell is mistaken. She has nothing whatever against Mrs. Maynard, who is a young widow, but she would like to know a little more about the late Mr. Maynard before admitting her to unreserved intimacy. Mrs. Maynard has not quite the figure a ”Mrs.” ought to have, and does more bathing than swimming (if you understand me). That's an accomplishment she learned at Ostend (for if Mr. Ashton, the London agent, is metropolitan, Mrs. Maynard brings quite a cosmopolitan air to Llanyglo). The misses Euonyma and Wygelia, on the other hand, learned to swim at Brighton, walking to the bathing-place in a crocodile. You see the difference. Brighton is not Ostend, any more than Llanyglo is either, and Mrs. Lacey considers that you can't be too careful.... That's Mrs. Maynard, with her back to the oncoming breaker. Her bathing-dress is quite complete, as complete as Mrs. Garden's, drying outside her tent there; but Mrs. Lacey disapproves of those twinkling scarlet ribbons. She considers them to be little points of attraction, that do all that is asked of them, and more. She prophesied that the red would ”run” in the water, but it didn't, and that makes matters rather worse, for if Mrs. Maynard knows as well as that which red will run and which won't she is practised---- And those two graceful but rather skinned-rabbit-looking young shapes in the gleaming navy-blue costumes with the white braid are the girls.

Now we're among the castles. Quite a horde of children, and very pretty children too, with their spades and buckets and their petticoats bunched up inside striped knickers (those too you get at Gruffydd's). That's Gilbert Smythe, the Medical Officer, the tall s.h.a.ggy man carrying the bucket of water for the little boy's moat. He'll be giving Llanyglo its bathing testimonial too. Don't tread on that seaweed; it may be a castle garden, or a sea-serpent, or anything else in the child's imagination.... There are the boys trying to launch the collapsible boat. John Willie hasn't grown much; he won't be a tall man; but he's filling out. That minx Mrs. Maynard makes quite a lot of him, and says she likes the feel of his fine-spun hair. Whether John Willie likes her to feel it or not he does not betray.

Now for Howell Gruffydd's....

There you are. ”THE LLANYGLO STORES,” in big gold letters right across the front of the two cottages. What do you think of it?

Yes in one way and another, there must be a largish sum sunk in ”stock.” Whether Howell's buying on credit or not I don't know, but he looks prosperous; he's had his beard trimmed, and he wears a new hat. Green b.u.t.terfly-nets and brown and white and grey sandshoes--spades and buckets and b.a.l.l.s and fis.h.i.+ng-lines and toy s.h.i.+ps--bottles of scent and the ”Llanyglo Sunburn Cure” (made up for him by the chemist at Porth Neigr)--a new board with ”Tricycles for Hire” on it (that's the shed at the back, and Eesaac Oliver, home for the holidays, books the hirings and does the repairs)--baskets and spirit-kettles and ironmongery, all in addition to the groceries.--Yes, Howell has quite a big business now. Let's go inside and buy something.

”Good morning, Mr. Gruffydd; papers in yet? No? I thought I saw Hugh coming down the Sarn road half an hour ago. Yes, a lovely day. How's Eesaac Oliver? Still at Porth Neigr?... No, no, I know he's home for his holidays; I saw him driving Mr. Pritchard's hay-cart yesterday; I mean when is he going to Aberystwith?... Next year? Good! He'll make his mark in the world!--Mr. Garden been in this morning yet?... He's driving in the mountains? Well, there's always a breeze in the mountains.... No, serve Mrs. Roberts first. How are you, Mrs. Roberts?”

Howell still sells Mrs. Roberts her pennyworth of bicarbonate of soda, and with the same smile as ever, but he could do without her custom now. Look round. Crates of eggs (the Trwyn hens can't keep pace with the demand now), great Elizabethan gables of tinned fruits and salmon, a newspaper counter, the Post Office behind the wire grating there, strings of things hanging from the ceiling, scarcely an inch of Edward Garden's matchboarding to be seen, and three a.s.sistants, all busily weighing, packing, checking, snipping the string off on the little knives on the wooden string-boxes, and pa.s.sing the parcels to the boys with the hand-carts. But we ought to have been here a couple of hours ago. Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Lacey and Mrs. Garden were giving their orders for the day then. They come every morning, rings on their fingers and bells on their toes, high heels and flounced parasols and all the lot, and Howell doesn't have it all his own way then, I can tell you. For this is where our ladies are really efficient. They may never dream of travelling otherwise than first-cla.s.s, but they know the price of everything to a halfpenny and a farthing. There's no ”If 'twill do 'twill do” about them when it comes to the management of a house. And when Hilda Morrell grows out of the stage of wis.h.i.+ng her father would talk ”like other people,” the chances are that she'll discover too that this is her real strength, as it was her mother's. Mrs. Maynard comes in with them of a morning sometimes, and tells them how tre-men-dously clever she thinks them, to know the differences between things like that, and vows that her tradesmen rob her right and left because she hasn't been properly brought up; and then Mrs. Briggs, putting down the egg she is holding to the light, cries, ”Eh, it's nothing, love--I could learn you in a month!”

But Mrs. Lacey detects a secret sarcasm in the phrase about the bringing-up.

And the men will be in for their newspapers presently.

Now a stroll to the hotel, and just a peep at them by and by as they have lunch....

This is the hotel lounge. The varnish is quite dry, though it doesn't look it. A dozen little round tables, chairs heavily upholstered in crimson velvet, festoons of heavy gilt cord on the curtains, and that's the service-hatch in the corner. The waiters are rather melancholy; you see, it isn't a public-house; everything goes down on the residents' bills; and that means fewer tips. Tea is served here in the afternoon, but of course the ladies never dream of tipping. Those excellent purchasers work out everything at cost price, omit such items as interest on capital, insurance, depreciation, and so on, and find a s.h.i.+lling for two pennyworth of bread and b.u.t.ter, a twopenny cake, and a pinch of two-s.h.i.+lling tea with hot water thrown in, tip enough.

”Ting! Ting! Ting!”

It is Val Clayton, ordering another drink for himself and his two friends. He drinks vermouth, his friends bottles of beer. Val drinks vermouth because it is foreign (he runs over to Paris frequently, and travels to Egypt for Clayton Brothers and Clayton), and perhaps he makes love to Mrs. Maynard (if you can call it making love) because she too is almost a continental. Since Mrs. Maynard is to be seen in her red ribbons, you might expect to find Val on the beach instead of drinking vermouth in the hotel lounge; but that is far from being ”in character” when you know Val. The world's pleasures a little in excess have already set their mark on Val. He will tell you that he would not miss his morning drink, ”not for the best woman living.” Others may fetch and carry for their hearts' mistresses, but not Val. In the afternoon, perhaps, if he feels a little less jaded, in a hollow of the sandhills and with the warm sun to help, Val may bestir himself a little, but in the meantime he wants another vermouth.

”Ting! Ting! Ting!--They want to have French waiters here,” Val grumbles. ”I never mind tipping a waiter if I can get what I want when I want it. Wai--oh, you've come, have you? Well, since you are here, you may as well bring these again, and then see if the papers have come in yet----”

”And bring me a box of Egyptian cigarettes.”

”No--hi!--don't bring those cigarettes.--You don't want to smoke the rubbish they sell here. Fill your case out of this--I've a thousand upstairs I brought from Cairo myself----”

”Oh!... Thanks.--Well, as I was saying----”

And the speaker (who might as well be in Manchester for all he sees of Llanyglo, at any rate in the mornings) resumes some narrative that the replenis.h.i.+ng of the gla.s.ses has interrupted.

Now the others are dropping in, those who like one aperatif before lunch but not half a dozen. Their wives have gone upstairs to t.i.ttivate themselves. The velvet chairs fill; extra waiters appear; and a light haze ascends from cigars and cigarettes to the roof. Listen to the restrained hubbub.

”Waiter! Ting! Waiter!----” and then a slight gesture; the waiters are supposed to know the tastes of the real habitues by this time; (it counts almost as a ”score” if the waiter brings your refection without your having as much as opened your mouth to ask for it).--”The usual, sir--yes, sir--coming!” And again they are talking, not on subjects, but as if the act of talking were itself subject enough. Philip Lacey discusses with Mr. Ashton the improvement in the Harwich-Hook of Holland crossing, and Mr. Morrell exchanges views on Local Government with Raymond Briggs. ”Ting! ting! You haven't ca.s.sis? Then why haven't you ca.s.sis?”--”Very sorry, sir--coming, sir!”--”What's happened to the newspapers this morning?”--”Of course, if it goes to arbitration----”--”Nay, John, don't drown t' miller!” ”Ten o'clock, first stop Willesden----” ”Your very good health, Mr. Morrell----” ”Debentures----” ”New heating in both greenhouses----”--”Same again, Val?”--”Ting!”---- ”BOO-O-O-OOM-M-MMMMM!”

It is the luncheon gong.

Just a glance as they sit at table. Don't you think it's a pleasant room? Three tall windows looking out on the sea, noiseless carpet, ornaments on the sideboards rather like wooden broccoli, but the decorations straight from London. But those two large chandelier gas-brackets don't work yet; the plant isn't installed; that's why the red-shaded oil-lamps are placed at intervals down the T of tables. The older folk gather round the head of the T, and down the stalk stretch the children. These will rise before their parents, just as they go out of Church after the Second Lesson; they will break off just below John Willie Garden and the Misses Euonyma and Wygelia there--who, by the way, are more usually called June and Wy. The flowers are chosen to ”last well,” for Llanyglo is almost as short of flowers as it is of trees; but the linen and plate and other appointments are all good--these actors in Llanyglo's little fore-piece are not accustomed to roughing it, even on a holiday.

As I told you they would, half the women have changed their frocks. Mrs. Lacey is a pink hollyhock now, of which her daughters seem cuttings, and her hat is a sort of pink straw kepi, trimmed with flowers that resemble virginia stock. She sits at the end of one arm of the T, with her back to the window. Near her is Mrs. Briggs, in stamped electric-blue velvet--her forearms, on which bracelets s.h.i.+ver, are as uniform in contour from whatever point you look at them as if they had been turned in a lathe. The Misses June and Wy also wear bracelets, from which depend bundles of sixpences, a sixpence for each of their birthdays, sixteen for Wiggie, fourteen for June. John Willie is lunching with Percy Briggs to-day, who lunched with him yesterday. Next to his chair is an empty one. It is Mrs. Maynard's, who has not come down yet. Then comes Val Clayton. Over all, with his napkin tucked into his collar as if he had prepared, not for a lunch, but for a shave, Mr. Morrell presides.

For some reason or other, lunch always begins a little stiffly; but they unbend as they go on. At present Raymond Briggs cannot get away from the subject of the newspapers and their unaccountable lateness.

”Can't understand it,” he says for the fifth or sixth time.

”And they were late last Wednesday--no, Thursday--no, I was right, it was Wednesday.”

”Was it Wednesday?”

”Yes, the day it looked like rain; you remember?”

”Ah, yes; the day it cleared up again.”

”All but a drop or two--nothing to hurt----”

A pause.

”Well, I don't suppose there's anything in them.”

”Speaking for myself, I don't care a b.u.t.ton. I don't want to see the newspapers. 'No letters, no newspapers,' I always say when I go away.”

”A real country holiday, eh?”

”Change and rest--those are the great things.”

”You're right. Complete change. No trouble about how you dress nor what you eat. That's the best of this place.”

”Still, if the newspapers are coming we may as well know when they are coming.”

”They ought to have a man, not that young boy.”

”Hugh Morgan?”

”Is that his name? There are so many Morgans.”

”Common Welsh name.”

”Met another boy, I expect.”

”Boys are all alike.”

”Not a pin to choose among 'em.”

”Wish I was behind him with a stick for all that.”

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