A Village Affair

'What-'

'You struggle on for one more month, and if you don't feel any better, will you then let me re-open the subject?'

'All right,' Alice said unwillingly.

'Look, my love, there is no shame in not being able to manage. You have so much on your plate-'

'I might feel shame,' Alice said.

'Your standards are too high. Is Martin being a help?'

'He's fine. He's awfully busy but he helps a lot at weekends.'

'He's so proud of you.'

Alice squirmed, involuntarily.

'He's doing really well-'

'How are the children?'

'Jammy at present. But fine.'

'I shall have them here in the holidays. I want you and Martin to go away together. I said so two months ago. Shall I ring Verity about your honeymoon house in Patmos?'

'No,' Alice said with too much emphasis.

'Darling-'

'One shouldn't ever try and repeat things-'

'Darling Alice,' Cecily said sadly from Dummeridge, 'how I long to help you and how difficult you make it.'

'Sorry,' Alice said in a whisper. 'Sorry.'

The drawing room was cleared, carpeted, but uncurtained when her ladyship's Volvo, with a brace of handsome springer spaniels penned in the back, drew up outside The Grey House. From her bedroom window, Alice watched Lady Unwin get out, smooth down her pleated skirt, stoop inside the car to bring out a huge hydrangea in a pot and then advance, looking about her, towards the front door. Gwen, who had been washing the stone-flagged hall floor, let her in with alacrity.

'Ah, Gwen. How nice to see you. What a lovely day. Is Mrs Jordan in?'

Gwen showed Lady Unwin into the drawing room.

'Hm,' Lady Unwin said interestedly, putting down the pot, and moving towards the mantelpiece along which Alice's collection of old jugs marched in stout procession. 'Charming.' She turned to smile at Gwen. 'Do tell her I'm here.'

Gwen was sorry that Alice was wearing jeans and an old shirt of Martin's because she was unpacking tea chests, and sorrier still that Alice didn't intend, apparently, to make any changes at all to her appearance. She simply pulled her pigtail over her shoulder and ran downstairs. Lady Unwin, immaculate in a pale grey skirt and soft jersey with handsome pearls, was examining a drawing hung beside the fireplace. She turned and held both hands out to Alice.

'My dear Mrs Jordan. I'm a monster not to come before. Will you forgive me?'

'Oh, of course. I'm afraid we're still in a terrible muddle-'

'Don't speak to me of muddles. My youngest is just back from New York with enough luggage to fill a liner and I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she has spread it over the entire house.'

Alice said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee?'

Thank you so much, but no. I am flying in, literally, on my way to a meeting in Shaftesbury. Look, I've brought this. I've always loved them. It's a lacecap.'

'Oh,' Alice said, 'how kind of you-'

'I suppose,' Lady Unwin said, 'you are no relation to Cecily Jordan?'

Alice said, smiling, 'She is my mother-in-law.'

Lady Unwin grasped Alice's hand with warm enthusiasm.

'My dear! What luck. Now look-' She dropped Alice's hand and opened a large, professional handbag from which she took a slim diary. 'Now then. When can you dine with us? Let me see. Saturday fortnight? The eleventh?'

'Lovely,' Alice said faintly. Thank you, how kind-'

'And if you are speaking to your mother-in-law, tell her I am a devoted fan. I wonder if she'd stoop to talk to our little flower people here? Or perhaps a gardeners' brains trust for the hospice? I must think. Goodbye, my dear-' She waved a ring-glittering hand around the room. 'Too pretty.'

People like that, Alice thought, watching her enviously as she climbed swiftly into her car and turned it competently in the drive, people like that don't feel pain. People like Lady Unwin don't get into muddles and feel that their lives are without point and that they don't see the way forward.

'I've got a crush on Lady Unwin,' she said to Juliet Dunne, later, on the telephone. 'I want to be like her when I grow up.'

'Margot?' Juliet said. 'Don't be an ass. Of course you don't. It's an awful life. Luckily she's an old bossy boots so she rather likes it.'

'But she looks as if she's beyond things being able to hurt her. She looks-'

' Allie,' Juliet said firmly, 'if you don't book a holiday for yourself and Martin sharpish, I shall come and do it for you. Oh Lordy, here's Henry, early, if you please - Don't,' she said, away from the telephone, 'those are for the children's tea. Allie, dins at the big house will be quite sparky, I promise, and you'll love Clodagh. She's been a frightful headache all her life and has been living with some lawyer in New York for years whom she utterly refused to let Margot and Ralph - What? Oh, Henry says he is a millionaire, the lawyer. Anyway, millionaire or not, she's left him and come home so Margot has gone into her ultra-clucking routine. But Clodagh's lovely fun. Allie, I've got to stop and beat Henry up. He's eating all the children's egg sandwiches. Honestly, Allie, Henry is my cross.'

'Am I your cross?' Alice said to Martin at supper.

He leaned across the table and patted her but he wasn't giving her his full attention.

'Of course not.'

'If I'm such a burden to myself, I must be a burden to you-'

'You're tired-'

'But that's the effect, not the cause.'

He had his mouth full. Through his fish pie he said, 'Don't agree.' He finished his mouthful and went on. 'You've taken on so much. The village think you're great. Has the rector been?'

'No-'

'He will, then. I saw him in the shop. Seemed nice.'

'He'll only want me to do things.'

Then say no.'

'But you see,' she said, leaning forward to give him the second helping he always had, 'one of the reasons for living here is to be involved.'

'Not in everything. Not so that you are so tired you can't see straight.'

She said, looking at him hard, 'But I don't think it's that.'

Visibly he flinched. She saw his mind tiptoe away from the turn the conversation was taking, a turn he could not bear. He waved his fork at her.

'Frightfully good, this,' he said.

Two days later, Alice was pushing Charlie in his buggy along the river path. It was a pretty, bright, chill day and there were catkins on the willows and clumps of primroses on the banks. She picked one and gave it to Charlie. He held it respectfully at stiff arm's length and she thought how he was learning because even a few weeks ago he would have tried to eat it.

A man came along the path towards them, a big man in a loose tweed overcoat whom she took to be John Murray-French, and was just raising her arm to wave when she saw he had on a dog collar. When he came nearer, he called, 'Lovely morning!'

'Yes!' she called back.

He said, when he was near enough merely to speak, 'I'm Peter Morris. And you are Mrs Jordan. And I owe you what is known as a pastoral call.'

He was about sixty, vigorous and upright with thick hair and a good colour. He stooped to Charlie who offered him the primrose.

Thank you, old chap.'

'I know you are awfully busy,' Alice said.

He straightened.

'It's a shocking time of year for dying. They totter on all whiter and then, just as it begins to get warmer and lighter, they give up the ghost. It's been one funeral after another. That's why I came out today, to see something starting for once.' He looked down at Charlie. 'You're starting, luckily. Is that your only one?' 'He's my third.'

'You don't look old enough. I was going to come and tell you not to let the old biddies bully the life out of you. They will if they can. They do a wonderful job in the village but they know no mercy. Hope you'll be happy here.'

'Oh, we will-'

'It's a nice place. And you've a lovely house. I used to go up and play poker with John Murray-French in your house. I expect we'll start again in his cottage when he's settled. Two old bachelors together.' He looked down at Charlie again. 'Never had any children. My wife died before we got round to it.'