"You've still one to come?"
"What?"
"The fourth wife of the Manchester dentist."
"Oh. Yes. She, poor wretch, has just been exhumed from a very expensive and elaborate tomb and found to be loaded with arsenic. Her husband is found to be missing."
"And you think that the Clarion will be too busy to bother about-us?"
"I'm sure of it. They haven't room as it is for all they want to do with Tattie. She had a whole page to herself this morning. If they ever bothered about the Ashbys they would print the report in a tiny paragraph at the bottom of a page, and five million people would read it and not be able to tell you two minutes later what was in it. I think we are quite safe. The Westover Times will have one of their usual discreet paragraphs this morning, and that will be the end of the matter."
Well, that was another snag out of the way. In the meantime he must keep his wits alive for the visits to Frenchland and Upacres. He was supposed to know these people.
Frenchland was farmed by a tall rosy old man and his tall sallow sister. "Everyone was terrified of Miss Hassell," Loding had said. "She had a face like a witch, and a tongue that took the skin off you. She didn't talk; just made one remark and you found that you were raw."
"Well, this is an honour," old Mr. Hassell said, coming to the garden gate and seeing whom Bee had with her. "Mr. Patrick, I'm glad to see you. I'm tarnation glad to see you." He took Brat's hand in his gnarled old fist and closed on it with his other one. There was no doubt that he was glad to see Patrick Ashby again.
It was difficult to know whether Miss Hassell was glad or not. She eyed Brat while she shook hands with him and said: "This is an unexpected pleasure." Her dry use of the conventional phrase and its wicked appropriateness amused Brat.
"Foreign parts don't seem to have changed you much," she said, as she set out glasses in the crowded little parlour.
"I've changed in one way," Brat said.
"You have?" She wasn't going to gratify him by asking in what way.
"I'm not frightened of you any more."
Old Mr. Hassell laughed.
"You beat me there, son. She still puts the fear of God in me. If I'm half an hour late getting home from market I creep up the lane with my tail down like I was a sheep-stealer."
Miss Hassell said nothing, but Brat thought there was a new interest in her glance; almost as if she were pleased with him. And she went away and fetched some shortbread from the kitchen which she had obviously had no intention of producing before.
They drank a liquid called White Port Wine Type, and discussed Rhode Island Reds.
At Upacres there was only plump Mrs. Docket, and she was busy making butter in the dairy at the back.
"Come in, whoever you are!" she called, and they went down the cool tiled passage from the open front door, and turned into the chill of the dairy.
"I can't stop this," she said, looking round at them. "The butter is just — Oh, goodness, I didn't know! I just thought it was someone passing. The children are all at school and Carrie is out in the barn and — Goodness! To think of it!"
Bee automatically took her place at the churn while she shook hands with Brat.
"Well, well," said kind plump Mrs. Docket, "a fine, good-looking Ashby you are. You're more like Mr. Simon than ever you were."
Brat thought that Bee looked up with interest when she said that.
"It's a happy day for us all, Miss Ashby, isn't it? I could hardly believe it. I just said to Joe, I don't believe it, I said. It's the kind of thing that happens in books. And in pictures and plays. Not the kind of thing that would happen to quiet folk like us in a quiet place like Clare, I said. And yet here you are and it's really happened. My, Mr. Patrick, it's nice to see you again, and looking so well and bonny."
"Can I have a shot at that?" Brat asked, indicating the churn. "I've never handled one of those things."
"But of course you have!" Mrs. Docket said, looking taken aback. "You used to come in special on Saturday mornings to have a go at it."
Brat's heart missed a beat. "Did I?" he said. "I've forgotten that."
Always say quite frankly that you don't remember, Loding had advised. No one can deny that you don't remember, but they will certainly jump on you if you try to make-believe about anything.
"I thought you did this by electricity now," he heard Bee say as she made way for him at the churn.
"Oh, we do everything else by electricity, of course," Mrs. Docket said. "But I can't believe it makes good butter. No more home-made taste to it than you'd get at the International in Westover. Sometimes when I'm rushed I switch on the electricity, but I'm always sorry afterwards. Awful mechanical, it is. No artfulness about it."
They drank hot black tea and ate light floury scones and discussed the children's schooling.
"She's a darling, Mrs. Docket," Bee said as they drove away. "I think she is still of the opinion in her heart of hearts that electricity is an invention of the devil."
But Brat was thoughtful. He must stop himself from volunteering remarks. It was not important about the churn, but it quite easily might have been something vital. He must be less forthcoming.
"About Friday, Brat," Bee said, as they made their way back to Clare and to Wigsell.
"What is on Friday?" said Brat, out of his absorption.
Bee looked round and smiled at him. "Your birthday," she said.
Of course. He was now the possessor of a birthday.
"Had you forgotten that you are going to be twenty-one on Friday?" she asked.
"I had, almost." He caught her sidelong look at him. After a pause she said: "You came of age a long time ago, didn't you." She said it without smiling and it was not a question.
"About Friday," she went on. "I thought that since we have postponed the celebrations for Uncle Charles's benefit, we wouldn't have a party on Friday. Mr. Sandal will be coming down with the papers he wants you to sign, so we shall have him to lunch, and make it just a quiet family party."
Papers to sign. Yes, he had known that there would be papers to sign sooner or later. He had even learned to make his capital letters the way Patrick did, thanks to an old exercise book that Loding had unearthed and filched from the Rectory. And, after all, signing a paper didn't make him any more of a heel than he was being at this moment. It just put him more surely in the Law's reverence, made the thing irrevocable.
"Is that how you would like it?"
"What? Oh, the birthday. Yes, of course. I don't want a party. I don't want a celebration, if it comes to that. Can't we just take this coming-of-age for granted?"
"I don't think the neighbourhood would be very pleased if we did. They are all looking forward to some kind of party. I think we shall have to give them one. Even the invitation cards are all ready. I altered the date to a fortnight after Charles's arrival. He is due in about twenty-three days. So you'll have to 'thole' it, as old Nannie used to say."
Yes, he would have to thole it. Anyhow, he could sit back now and relax for a little. He was not supposed to know the Gates family.
They were coming back to the village now; the white rails of the south paddocks on their left. It was a washed and shining morning, but it had an uneasy glitter. The sky was metallic, and the light had a silver edge to it.
As they passed the entrance to the Rectory Bee said: "Alec Loding came down for the week-end not long ago."