“But I don’t know anyone I want to marry. Why don’t you stay, Hester?” he asked shyly. “Drop this idea of a career. Stay here and help me run the place. Wouldn’t that be better than medical school?”
Hester maintained her pleasant smile. Inside her head, alarms sounded; pilots leapt to the fighter planes; and softer thoughts were rushed out of the battle area.
“No, Father, it wouldn’t be better than medical school. I dislike housekeeping. We’d end by quarrelling, and I can’t endure a good quarrel.”
“Nor can I,” said her father. “So you mean to desert me, Hester. When it comes to the point, family affection simply doesn’t exist. You are determined to cut me out of your life, Hester, and in due course Prudence will do the same. I’ll advertise for a good general maid.”
“Help wanted, fourteen in family,” Hester suggested. “Father, I don’t want to interfere, but I’m sure this isn’t a good idea about the hotel. It will be like the fruit farm and the antique shop. Couldn’t we stop trying to make money before we’ve lost all we have?”
Wade took a little ball of plaster and spread it neatly over the hole; where it at once disappeared. “If I’m not to have your help, Hester, I don’t need your advice.”
“You need some more plaster, anyway,” she murmured.
“There’s a space behind,” he said angrily. He took a handful of plaster and forced it into the hole. “It will be all right when I’ve filled it up.”
“The wall’s beginning to bulge,” Hester pointed out.
“It will be all right when it’s dry.”
Hester walked to the window and looked across the tops of the quivering green trees down into the valley; and along the road which passed through the solemn little village; dipped to the green fields where the distant cattle seemed like black-and-white wooden toys; then twisted up through woods to the top of Furlong Hill. She wanted to tell her father how much she loved home, and Furlong Hill, and all the Cotswolds; she wanted to tell him how often she had dreamt of floating in a boat across the slow green waves of the treetops; she wanted to make some gesture of friendship that would wipe away all resentment.
“Don’t worry too much about money,” her father said.
“Money? I wasn’t thinking about money,” she said sadly.
“Someone has to think about it. We’re not rich, you know, Hester. We haven’t much. I shouldn’t be doing all this work myself if we had. But at last I see light ahead. I have a plan – at least Maurice has a plan.”
“Oh, Maurice,” Hester said in a voice of relief.
“To tell you the truth, I’ve had to put a lot of work in with Maurice. He obviously knows the tree the money grows on – these people who work at something mysterious in the City usually do. I’ve asked his advice often enough. But he’s said to me quite frankly that one rocket looks like another until it bursts, and he doesn’t want me to risk my capital on a dud.”
“Father, he’s right. Don’t gamble on the Stock Exchange. Take Maurice’s advice and keep what capital is left.”
“At four per cent? You know we don’t get enough to pay the grocer’s bill.”
“But Maurice knows better than you, Father.”
“Maurice has been very excited for the last week or two. I’m convinced he’s on to something big.” Wade hesitated, and looked shyly at Hester.
“I’ve cashed some securities already,” he said. “What are they worth? Four hundred a year. What am I risking? Nothing.”
“I know we live in hard times,” Hester said. “Even so, four hundred a year isn’t exactly nothing.”
“But it’s safe. Maurice won’t let me put money in unless it’s safe. Hester, we might be rich – rich enough to live on capital again. What would my little medical student say to a year in Paris – or Vienna?”
“That’s not the way I see it,” Hester said shortly. “Please try to keep your head, Father. You know you’re not good about money.”
“And what do you know about money?” Wade demanded angrily. “You’re only a child, Hester. It’s not my habit to take advice from children.”
“Nor from anyone else. Oh, this is much worse than your idea about the hotel. I can’t let you risk the little capital you have. When you lose it, what shall we do?” Hester asked in agitation. “It’s three years before I qualify – and there’s Prudence. I’ll speak to Maurice.”
“Hester, I forbid it. Maurice is reluctant enough, as it is. I absolutely forbid you to say one word to Maurice. I know what I’m doing.”
“Father, the wall!” Hester said.
Wade turned round. The wall into which he had been ramming plaster was bulging dangerously. There was a noise like a rifle shot, then about two square yards of wall, borne outwards by the weight of the new plaster, crashed into the room and was buried under the sand that poured from above.
Hester looked at the ruins. “The home decorator,” she said, impelled by the bitter force that nature provides to intensify the war between generations. “Oh, Father, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, anxious for peace.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing. Only more money to be spent.”
“Don’t work any more now. Come down to lunch,” she said uneasily.
“Lunch!” he looked at her sorrowfully, like a man who could no longer afford to eat. “Lunch. Yes, that reminds me. Be a good girl, Hester. Don’t ask Harry to stay to lunch.”
“He’s already been asked.”
“I wish you wouldn’t issue these invitations without consulting me.”
“But I didn’t ask him. You did.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe anyone asked him. This kind of thing is always happening with him. Tell him he can’t stay to lunch after all.”
Hester looked at him angrily, then suddenly she saw the disappointment and weariness on his face. He stood beside the ruins of the wall, the inefficient man confronted once again with the wreck of his hopes. She went to him quickly and squeezed his hand.
“Father, even if it’s falling down it’s lovely to be home again. The view from this window is better – better than a week in Paris. Come and look out of the window with me. I’m so happy when I look over the treetops. Most people only see trees from underneath.”
He went with her to the window.
“It’s you I’m thinking of – and Prudence,” he said.
“I know, Father. I’ll leave you with the view and go and speak to Harry.”
Harry was sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
She sat down beside him.
“Harry, I don’t think it would be tactful to stay to lunch.”
His face became strained and infinitely sad. He looked at her with his melancholy, appealing eyes, until she was filled with a conviction of his helplessness, and so was all the more touched when he spoke, not of himself, but of her.
“Hester, you’re tired. You’re trying to carry the house on your back. It’s a thing that only snails can do. If you’re not a snail, the house will flatten you hard as a sixpence. Give up all this snaili-ness. Come butterflying to the pub with me.”
“I thought you had no money.”
“I could borrow some from Uncle Joe.” His face became serious. “Well, perhaps I couldn’t. Not today.” He leant back, thinking.
“Your father might be willing to lend me a pound,” he suggested.
“I don’t think I want a drink,” Hester said brusquely. She stood up. She wasn’t entirely in sympathy with Harry’s ideas about money. Most of her conversations with him left her in a confusion of tenderness and disapproval.
“If you don’t want a drink, I do. If I’m not to have lunch I’ll wait in the drawing-room and have a sip of your father’s sherry.”