'All right. We'll take 'em along.
Rowena, here's another basket of apples.'
'Let me help,' said Mrs. Oliver.
She picked up the two apples at her feet.
Almost without noticing what she was doing, she sank her teeth into one of them and began to crunch it. Mrs. Drake abstracted the second apple from her firmly and restored it to the basket. A buzz of conversation broke out.
'Yes, but where are we going to have the Snapdragon?'
'You ought to have the Snapdragon in the library, it's much the darkest room.'
'No, we're going to have that in the dining-room.'
'We'll have to put something on the table first.'
'There's a green baize cloth to put on that and then the rubber sheet over it.'
'What about the looking-glasses? Shall we really see our husbands in them?'
Surreptitiously removing her shoes and still quietly champing at her apple, Mrs. Oliver lowered herself once more on to the settee and surveyed the room full of people critically. She was thinking in her authoress's mind:
'Now, if I was going to make a book about all these people, how should I do it? They're nice people, I should think, on the whole, but who knows?'
In a way, she felt, it was rather fascinating not to know anything about them.
They all lived in Woodleigh Common, some of them had faint tags attached to them in her memory because of what Judith had told her.
Miss Johnson-something to do with the church, not the vicar's sister.
Oh no, it was the organist's sister, of course. Rowena Drake, who seemed to run things in Woodleigh Common. The puffing woman who had brought in the pail, a particularly hideous plastic pail. But then Mrs. Oliver had never been fond of plastic things. And then the children, the teenage girls and boys.
So far they were really only names to Mrs. Oliver. There was a Nan and a Beatrice and a Cathie, a Diana and a Joyce, who was boastful and asked questions.
I don't like Joyce much, thought Mrs. Oliver. A girl called Ann, who looked tall and superior. There were two adolescent boys who appeared to have just got used to trying out different hair styles, with rather unfortunate results. A smallish boy entered in some condition of shynesss.
'Mummy sent these mirrors to see if they'd do,' he said; in a slightly breathless voice, Mrs. Drake took them from him. '^hank you so irouch. Eddy,' she said.
'They're just ordinary looking hand mirrors,' said the girl called Ann.
'Shall we really see our future husbands' faces in them?'
'Some of you may and some may not,' said Judith Butler.
'Did you ever seen your husband's face when you went to a party-I mean this kind of a party?'
'Of course she didn't,' said Joyce.
'She might have,' said the superior Beatdce.
'ESP. they call it. Extra sensory perception,' she added in the tone of one pleased with being thoroughly conversant with the terms of the times. 'read one of your books,' said Ann to Mrs. Oliver.
'The Dying Goldfish. It was quite good,' she said kindly.
'I didn't like that one,' said Joyce. 'There wasn't enouigh blood in it. I like murders to have lotfs of blood.'
'It's A bit messy,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'don't you think?'
'But exciting,' said Joyce.
'Not necessarily,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'I saw a murder once,' said Joyce.
'Don't be silly, Joyce,' said Miss Whittaker, the schoolteacher.
'I did,' said Joyce.
'Did you really,' asked Cathie, gazing at Joyce with wide eyes, 'really and truly see a murder?'
'Of course she didn't,' said Mrs. Drake.
'Don't say silly things, Joyce.'
'I did see a murder,' said Joyce. 'I did. I did. I did.'
A seventeen-year-old boy poised on a ladder looked down interestedly.
'What kind of a murder?' he asked.
'I don't believe it,' said Beatrice.
'Of course not,' said Cathie's mother. 'She's just making it up.'
'I'm not. I saw it.'
'Why didn't you go to the police about it?' asked Cathie.
'Because I didn't know it was a murder when I saw it. It wasn't really till a long time afterwards, I mean, that I began to know that it was a murder. Something that somebody said only about a month or two ago suddenly made me think: Of course, that was a murder I saw.'
'You see,' said Arm, 'she's making it all up. It's nonsense.'
'When did it happen?' asked Beatrice.
'Years ago,' said Joyce. 'I was quite young at the time,' she added.
'Who murdered who?' said Beatrice.
'I shan't tell any of you,' said Joyce. 'You're all so horrid about it.'
Miss Lee came in with another kind of bucket. Conversation shifted to a comparison of buckets or plastic pails as most suitable for the sport of bobbing for apples. The majority of the helpers returned to the library for an appraisal on the spot. Some of the younger members, it may be said, were anxious to demongstrate, by a rehearsal of the difficulties and their own accomplishment in the sport. Hair got wet, water got spilt, towels were sent for to mop it up. In the end it was decided that a galvanised bucket was preferable to the more meretricious charms of a plastic pail which overturned rather too eeasily.
Mrs. Oliver, setting down a bowl of apples which she had carried in to replenish the store required for tomorrow, once more helped herself to one.
'I read in the paper that you were fond of eating apples,' the accusing voice of Ann or Susan-she was not quite sure which-spoke to her.'
'It's my besetting sin,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'It would be more fun if it was melons,' objected one of the boys. 'They're so juicy. Think of the mess it would make,' he said, surveying the carpet with pleasurable anticipation.
Mrs. Oliver, feeling a little guilty at the public arraignment of greediness, left the room in search of a particular apartment, the geography of which is usually fairly easily identified. She went up the staircase and, turning the corner on the half landing, cannoned into a pair, a girl and a boy, clasped in each other's arms and leaning against the door which Mrs. Oliver felt fairly certain was the door to the room to which she herself was anxious to gain access. The couple paid no attention to her. They sighed and they snuggled. Mrs. Oliver wondered how old they were. The boy was fifteen, perhaps, the girl little more than twelve, although the development of her chest seemed certainly on the mature side.
Apple Trees was a house of fair size. It had, she thought, several agreeable nooks and corners. How selfish people are, thought Mrs. Oliver. No consideration for others. That well-known tag from the past came into her mind. It had been said to her in succession by a nursemaid, a nanny, a governess, her grandmother, two great aunts her mother and a few others.
'Excuse me,' said Mrs. Oliver in a loud, clear voice.
The boy and the girl clung closer than ever, their lips fastened on each other's.
