“Going to take a look at the Demon colt? I’m on my way to the Upper Paddock myself.”
Raymond had meant to take a look at the colt on which his present ambitions were centred, but he had no wish to do so in Ingram’s presence. He replied: “No, I haven’t time. I’ve got to get to Bodmin.”
“Oh! Did Weens show you that quarter-piece?”
“Yes.”
“Dam’ bad,” remarked Ingram, easing his game leg a little. “If you’re going into Bodmin, you might tell Gwithian’s to send me up another dozen of lager. Save me a journey.”
“All right,” Raymond said. “Nothing wanted here?”
“Not that I know of:’ Ingram eyed him shrewdly. “Bank again?” he inquired laconically.
Raymond nodded, scowling. “Going the pace a bit, isn’t he?”
“If you think you can clap a curb on him, try!” recommended Raymond savagely. “I’m fed up with it!”
Ingram laughed. “No bloody fear! Leave him alone: he’ll quieten down if you don’t fret him. You never had an ounce of tact, that’s your trouble.”
Raymond got into his car, and started the engine.
“He’s having Clay home,” he said grimly.
“Hell!” ejaculated Ingram.
“And Aubrey,” added Raymond, thrusting out his clutch.
“Hell and blast!” said Ingram, at the top of his voice.
“Laugh that one off!” recommended Raymond sardonically, and bucketed away down the lane.
It did not take him long to reach Bodmin, and his business there was soon transacted. It was when he was coming out of the bank that he encountered his Aunt Delia, fluttering scarves, veils, and ribbons, and carrying a laden shopping-basket in one hand, and a capacious leather bag in the other.
Those who had known Delia Ottery since her childhood said that she had been a very pretty girl, although cast a little into the shade by her sister Rachel. Her nephews, not having known her as a girl, were obliged to take this opinion on trust. They could none of them remember her as anything but an untidy, faded old maid, whose lustreless hair was prematurely grey, and always falling down in unsightly tails and wisps. Girlish slimness had early changed to middle-aged scragginess, and as she had never outgrown a youthful predilection for bright colours, frills, and fluffiness, this was considerably accentuated by the clothes she wore. When she accosted her nephew, becoming quite pink in the face from pleasure at seeing him, she was wearing a straw picture-hat on the back of her head, its brim weighed down by a large, salmon-coloured rose. A veil floated from this structure, getting entangled, in the breeze which was blowing down the street, with the ends of a fringed scarf which she wore loosely knotted round her neck. A frock of a peculiarly aggressive shade of blue was imperfectly concealed by a long brown coat; and since the month was May, and the weather not as summery as the picture-hat would have seemed to imply, she wore in addition a feather-boa of a style fashionable in the opening years of the century. She was of a very nervous and retiring disposition, and appeared to be almost as much frightened as pleased at walking into her nephew.
She gasped: “Oh, Raymond! Well, this is a surprise!” and dropped her handbag.
Raymond, whose innate neatness was invariably offended by his aunt’s untidy appearance, betrayed no pleasure at the meeting. He responded briefly: “Hallo, Aunt Delia!” and bent to pick up the handbag.
She stood there, blinking at him with her myopic grey eyes, and smiling a little foolishly. “Well, this is a surprise!” she repeated.
As Raymond drove into Bodmin never less frequently than twice a week, and Miss Ottery did her marketing there every morning, there seemed to be very little reason for her to feel any surprise. However, the Penhallows had long since decided that their aunt was a trifle soft in the head, so Raymond merely said: “I came in on business. You and Uncle Phineas both well?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, very well, thank you! And are you quite well, dear?”
He replied with a slight smile: “Thanks, I’m always well.”
“That’s right!” she said. “And dear little Faith? It seems such ages since I saw her. I don’t know how it is, but one never has time to turn round these days!”
“She’s much the same as usual,” he answered.
They stood looking at one another, Miss Ottery tremulously smiling, Raymond wondering how to get away from her.
“It’s so nice to see you, dear, and looking so well, too!” produced Delia, after a slight pause. “I was only saying to Phineas the other day — actually, it was Tuesday, because I saw Myra in the town, which made me think, not but what I know you young people have your own affairs to attend to, especially you, Raymond dear, I’m sure — well, I was saying to Phineas that we haven’t seen anything of you for ages. And now here you are!”
“Yes,” agreed Raymond. He could see no way, short of walking off, of escaping from her, and added: “Can I give you a lift home?”
She turned pinker than ever with pleasure, and stammered: “Well, that is kind of you, dear! Of course you have your car here, haven’t you? I was just going into the corn-chandler’s to buy some seed for my birdies, and then I thought I would catch the bus, but if you wouldn’t mind waiting for me, I’m sure it would be most kind of you. Though I oughtn’t to be keeping you, I know, for I’m sure you’re very busy.”
“The car’s over there,” interrupted Raymond, indicating its position with a jerk of his head. “I’ll wait for you.”
“I won’t be a minute!” she promised. “I’ll just pop across the road for my seed, and be back in a trice. You remember my birdies, don’t you? Such sweets!”
As it was only three weeks since Raymond had visited the grey house outside the town where Delia lived with her brother, upon which occasion it had seemed to him that as much of the drawing-room as was not filled with glass-fronted cabinets containing Phineas’s collection of china was occupied by love-birds and canaries in gilt cages, all making the most infernal din, he had a very vivid recollection of the birdies, and said so, somewhat grimly.
It was fully a quarter of an hour later when Miss Ottery climbed into the runabout beside her nephew, and disposed her shopping-basket in the cramped space at her feet. She explained her dilatoriness as having been due to her desire to get the corn-chandler’s advice about Dicky, one of her roller-canaries, who had been ailing for several days. “Such a nice man!” she said. “He always takes such an interest! Of course, we have dealt there all our lives, which I always think makes a difference, don’t you? Only you’re more interested in horses than in birds, aren’t you, dear? Naturally, you would be. It would be very strange if you weren’t, considering. And how are the dear horses?”
He did not feel that it was necessary to answer this question. He told her instead that he had one or two promising youngsters turned out to grass.
“Oh, how nice!” she exclaimed. “I was always so sorry when we gave up our stables, not but what I was never such a wonderful horsewoman as dear Rachel, only I have always loved horses, as long as they aren’t too skittish for me. Rachel used to ride anything — such a picture as she was, too! — but my dear father — your grandfather, Raymond, only you can’t remember him, because he died before you were born — used to mount me on such gentle, well-mannered horses that I quite enjoyed it. But I never hunted. I never could quite bring myself to approve of it, not that I mean anything against people who do hunt, because I’m sure it would be a very dull world if we all thought alike. But I used to drive a dear little governess-cart. You remember my fat pony, Peter, don’t you Raymond?”
Yes, Raymond remembered the fat pony perfectly, a circumstance which made Miss Ottery beam with delight, and recall the various occasions when the fat pony had been so naughty, or so clever, or so sweet.
Branching away somewhat erratically from this fruitful subject, she said wistfully that she wished she could see Raymond’s darling colts, because she loved all young animals, even kittens, though when you considered what they would grow into, and the perfectly dreadful way they played with poor little birds, and mice, it seemed quite terrible.
“You must come up one day and walk round the stables,” Raymond said, safe in the knowledge that she was a great deal too nervous of Penhallow to accept the invitation.
The suggestion threw her into a twitter of embarrassment at once, and she was still faltering out excuses when the car pulled up outside Azalea Lodge.
Refusing her pressing invitation to come in for a moment to see his uncle, Raymond leaned across her to
