‘They topicked,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘I told Matthew afterwards, I’ve never seen anybody so angry. But I haven’t told you yet what it was that Sonia really came about. She’s sending Polly here for a week or two.’
‘No!’ we all cried in chorus.
‘Oh, the utter fascination!’ said Jassy. ‘But why?’
‘Polly wants to come, it was her idea, and Sonia can’t endure the sight of her for the present, which I can well understand. I must say I hesitated at first, but I am very fond of that little girl, you know, I really love her, and if she stays at home her mother will have driven her into an elopement within a week. If she comes here we might be able to influence her against this horrible marriage – and I don’t mean you, children. You’ll please try and be tactful for once in your lives.’
‘I will be,’ said Jassy, earnestly, ‘it’s dear little Vict. you must speak to, there’s no tack in her, and personally I think it was a great mistake ever to have told her at all – ow – help – help – Sadie, she’s killing me –’
‘I mean both of you,’ said Aunt Sadie, calmly, taking no notice whatever of the dog-fight in progress, ‘you can talk about the chubb at dinner, that ought to be a safe subject.’
‘What?’ they said, stopping the fight, ‘she’s not coming today?’
‘Yes, she is. After tea.’
‘Oh, what a thrill. Do you think the Lecturer will have himself carried into the house dressed up as a sack of wood?’
‘They shan’t meet under my roof,’ Aunt Sadie said firmly. ‘I promised Sonia that, but of course, I pointed out that I can’t control what Polly does elsewhere, I can only leave that to her own sense of what is in good taste, while she is staying with me.’
14
Polly soon made it clear that Aunt Sadie need have no misgivings about her behaviour while at Alconleigh. Her self-possession was complete, the only exterior indication that her life was at a crisis being an aura of happiness which transformed her whole aspect. Nothing she said or did was at all out of the usual or could have led anybody to suppose that she had recently been involved in scenes of such intensity, and it was obvious that she held no communication of any sort with Boy. She never went near the telephone, she did not sit all day scribbling letters, received very few, and none, so the children informed me, with a Silkin postmark; she hardly ever left the house and then only to get a breath of air with the rest of us, certainly not in order to go for long solitary walks which might end in lovers’ meetings.
Jassy and Victoria, romantic like all the Radletts, found this incomprehensible and most disappointing. They had expected to be plunged into an atmosphere of light opera, and had supposed that the Lecturer would hang, sighing but hopeful, about the precincts, that Polly would hang, sighing but expectant, out of a moonlit window, to be united, and put on the first stage of their journey to Gretna Green, by the ingenuity and enterprise of their two young friends.
They lugged a mattress and stocks of food into the Hons’ cupboard in case Boy wanted to hide there for a day or two. They had thought of everything, so they informed me, and were busy making a rope ladder. But Polly would not play.
‘If you have any letters for the post, Polly, you know what I mean, a letter – we could easily run down to the village with it on our bikes.’
‘Darling, you are kind, but they’ll go just as quickly if I put them on the hall table, won’t they?’
‘Oh, of course, you can do that if you like, but everybody will read the envelope and I just thought – Or any messages? There’s a telephone in the village post office, rather public, but you could talk in French.’
‘I don’t know French very well. Isn’t there a telephone here?’
‘Oh, it’s a brute, extensions all over the place. Now there’s a hollow tree in the park quite big enough for a man to hide in – quite dry and comfy – shall we show you?’
‘You must, one day. Too cold to go out today, I think.’
‘You know there’s a frightfully nice little temple in a wood the other side of the river, would you like us to take you there?’
‘Do you mean Faulkner’s Folly, where they have the meets? But, Jassy, I know it quite well, I’ve often seen it. Very pretty.’
‘What I really mean is the key is kept under a stone, and we could show you exactly where so that you could go inside.’
‘There’s nothing to see inside except cobwebs,’ I said, ‘it was never finished, you know.’
Jassy made a furious face at me. ‘Tackless,’ she muttered.
‘Let’s go there next summer, darlings,’ said Polly, ‘for a picnic. I can’t enjoy anything out of doors in this weather, my eyes water too much.’
The children slouched away, discouraged.
Polly exploded with laughter. ‘Aren’t they too heavenly? But I don’t really see the point of making all these great efforts to spend a few minutes with Boy in freezing cold temples, or to write to him about nothing at all when very soon I shall be with him for the whole rest of my life. Besides, I don’t want to annoy Lady Alconleigh when she is being such an angel to have me here.’
Aunt Sadie herself, while applauding Polly’s attitude, which relieved her of any need to worry, found it most unnatural.
‘Isn’t it strange,’ she said, ‘you can see by looking at her that she is very happy, but if it weren’t for that nobody could guess that she was in love. My girls always get so moony, writing reams all day, jumping when the telephone bell rings and so on, but there’s
