The hell-hag, we could all see at once, even through the window, was in a dreadful state. Her face was blotchy and swollen as from hours of weeping, she seemed perfectly unaware of Uncle Matthew and did not throw him either a word or a look as she struggled out of the car, angrily kicking at the rug round her feet, she then tottered with the gait of a very old woman, legs all weak and crooked, towards the house. Aunt Sadie, who had dashed forward, put an arm round her waist and took her into the drawing-room, giving the door a great ‘keep-out, children’ bang. At the same time Lord Montdore and Uncle Matthew disappeared together into my uncle’s business-room; Jassy, Victoria and I were left to goggle at each other with eyes like saucers, struck dumb by this extraordinary incident. Before we had time to begin speculating on what it could all mean, the Fuddler drove up, punctual to the very minute.
‘Damned fella,’ Uncle Matthew said afterwards, ‘if he hadn’t been so late we should have started by the time they arrived.’
He parked his little tinpot of a motor in line with the Daimler, and bustled, all happy smiles, up to the front door. At his first visit he had gone modestly up the back drive, but the success of his magic had so put Uncle Matthew on his side that he had told him, in future, to come to the front door, and always gave him a glass of port before starting work. He would no doubt have given him Imperial Tokay if he had had any.
Jassy opened the door before the Fuddler had time to ring and then we all hung about while he drank his port, saying ‘Bitter, isn’t it?’ and not quite knowing what to be at.
‘His Lordship’s not ill, I hope?’ he said, surprised no doubt not to have found my uncle champing up and down as usual, his choleric look clearing suddenly into one of hearty welcome as he hurried to slap the Fuddler’s back and pour out his wine.
‘No no, we think he’ll be here in a moment. He’s busy.’
‘Not so like His Lordship to be late, is it?’
Presently a message came from Uncle Matthew that we were to go down to the river and begin. It seemed too cruel to have the treat without him, but the fuddling had, of course, to be concluded by daylight. So we shivered out of the house, into the temporary shelter of the Fuddler’s Standard and out again into the full blast of a north wind which was cutting up the valley. While the Fuddler sprinkled his stuff on the water we crept back into his car for warmth and began to speculate on the reason for the extraordinary visit now in progress. We were simply dying of curiosity.
‘I guess the Government has fallen,’ said Jassy.
‘Why should that make Lady Montdore cry?’
‘Well, who would do all her little things for her?’
‘There’d soon be another lot for her to fag – Conservatives this time perhaps. She really likes that better.’
‘D’you think Polly is dead?’
‘No no, they’d be mourning o’er her lovely corpse, not driving about in motor cars and seeing people.’
‘Perhaps they’ve lost all their money and are coming to live with us,’ said Victoria. This idea cast a regular gloom, seeming as it did rather a likely explanation. In those days, when people were so rich and their fortunes so infinitely secure, it was quite usual for them to think that they were on the verge of losing all their money, and the Radlett children had always lived under the shadow of the workhouse, because Uncle Matthew, though really very comfortably off with about £10,000 a year gross, had a financial crisis every two or three years and was quite certain in his own mind that he would end up on parish relief.
The Fuddler’s work was done, his seed was sown and we got out of the motor with our landing-nets. This was a moment that never failed to thrill, the river banks were dotted with people all gazing excitedly into the water and very soon the poor fish began to squirm about the surface. I landed a couple of whales and then a smaller one, and just as I was shaking it out of the net a well-known voice behind me, quivering with passion, said,
‘Put it back at once, you blasted idiot – can’t you see it’s a grayling, Fanny? O my God, women – incompetent – and isn’t that my landing-net you’ve got there? I’ve been looking for it all over the place.’
I gave it up with some relief. Ten minutes at the water’s edge was quite enough in that wind. Jassy was saying ‘Look, look, they’ve gone’, and there was the Daimler crossing the bridge, Lord Montdore sitting very upright in the back seat, bowing a little from side to side, almost like royalty. They overtook a butcher’s van and I saw him lean forward and give the driver a gracious salute for having got out of the way. Lady Montdore was hardly visible, bundled up in her corner. They had gone, all right.
‘Come on, Fanny,’ said my cousins, downing tools, ‘home, don’t you think? Too cold here,’ they shouted at their father, but he was busy cramming a giant chubb in its death throes into his hare pocket, and took no notice.
‘And now,’ said Jassy, as we raced up the hill, ‘for worming it all out of Sadie.’
It was not, in fact, necessary to do any worming, Aunt Sadie was bursting with her news. She was more human and natural with her younger
