“So we leave here tomorrow. Good old Hunterbury. We’ve had some good times here.”
Elinor said:
“Do you mind its being sold?”
“Oh, no, no! I quite see it’s the best thing to be done.”
There was a silence. Elinor picked up her letter, glanced through it to see if it was all right. Then she sealed and stamped it.
Six
Letter from Nurse O’Brien to Nurse Hopkins, July 14th:
Laborough Court
Dear Hopkins,—Have been meaning to write to you for some days now. This is a lovely house and the pictures, I believe, quite famous. But I can’t say it’s as comfortable as Hunterbury was, if you know what I mean. Being in the dead country it’s difficult to get maids, and the girls they have got are a raw lot, and some of them not too obliging, and though I’m sure I’m never one to give trouble, meals sent up on a tray should at least be hot, and no facilities for boiling a kettle, and the tea not always made with boiling water! Still, all that’s neither here nor there. The patient’s a nice quiet gentleman—double pneumonia, but the crisis is past and doctor says going on well.
What I’ve got to tell you that will really interest you is the very queerest coincidence you ever knew. In the drawing room, on the grand piano, there’s a photograph in a big silver frame; and would you believe it, it’s the same photograph that I told you about—the one signed Lewis that old Mrs. Welman asked for. Well, of course, I was intrigued—and who wouldn’t be? And I asked the butler who it was, which he answered at once saying it was Lady Rattery’s brother—Sir Lewis Rycroft. He lived, it seems, not far from here and he was killed in the War. Very sad, wasn’t it? I asked casual like was he married, and the butler said yes, but that Lady Rycroft went into a lunatic asylum, poor thing, soon after the marriage. She was still alive, he said. Now, isn’t that interesting? And we were quite wrong, you see, in all our ideas. They must have been very fond of each other, he and Mrs. W., and unable to marry because of the wife being in an asylum. Just like the pictures, isn’t it? And her remembering all those years and looking at his photograph just before she died. He was killed in 1917, the butler said. Quite a romance, that’s what I feel.
Have you seen that new picture with Myrna Loy? I saw it was coming to Maidensford this week. No cinema anywhere near here! Oh, it’s awful to be buried in the country. No wonder they can’t get decent maids!
Well, goodbye for the present, dear, write and tell me all the news.
Yours sincerely,
Eileen O’Brien
Letter from Nurse Hopkins to Nurse O’Brien, July 14th:
Rose Cottage
Dear O’Brien,—Everything goes on here much as usual. Hunterbury is deserted—all the servants gone and a board up: For Sale. I saw Mrs. Bishop the other day, she is staying with her sister who lives about a mile away. She was very upset, as you can imagine, at the place being sold. It seems she made sure Miss Carlisle would marry Mr. Welman and live there. Mrs. B. says that the engagement is off! Miss Carlisle went away to London soon after you left. She was very peculiar in her manner once or twice. I really didn’t know what to make of her! Mary Gerrard has gone to London and is starting to train for a masseuse. Very sensible of her, I think. Miss Carlisle’s going to settle two thousand pounds on her, which I call very handsome and more than what many would do.
By the way, it’s funny how things come about. Do you remember telling me something about a photograph signed Lewis that Mrs. Welman showed you? I was having a chat the other day with Mrs. Slattery (she was housekeeper to old Dr. Ransome who had the practice before Dr. Lord), and of course she’s lived here all her life and knows a lot about the gentry round about. I just brought the subject up in a casual manner, speaking of Christian names and saying that the name of Lewis was uncommon and amongst others she mentioned Sir Lewis Rycroft over at Forbes Park. He served in the War in the 17th Lancers and was killed towards the end of the War. So I said he was a great friend of Mrs. Welman’s at Hunterbury, wasn’t he? And at once she gave me a look and said, Yes, very close friends they’d been, and some said more than friends, but that she herself wasn’t one to talk—and why shouldn’t they be friends? So I said but surely Mrs. Welman was a widow at the time, and she said Oh yes, she was a widow. So, dear, I saw at once she meant something by that, so I said it was odd then, that they’d never married, and she said at once, “They couldn’t marry. He’d got a wife in a lunatic asylum!” So now, you see, we know all about it! Curious the way things come about, isn’t it? Considering the easy way you get divorces nowadays, it does seem a shame that insanity shouldn’t have been a ground for it then.
Do you remember a good-looking young chap, Ted Bigland, who used to hang around after Mary Gerrard a lot? He’s been at me for her address in London, but I haven’t given it to him. In my opinion, Mary’s a cut above Ted Bigland. I don’t know if you realized it, dear, but Mr. R—W—was very taken with her. A pity, because it’s made trouble. Mark my words, that’s the reason for the engagement between him and Miss Carlisle being off. And, if you ask me, it’s hit her badly. I don’t know what she saw in him, I’m sure—he wouldn’t have been my cup of tea, but I hear from a reliable source that she’s always been madly in love with him. It does seem a mix-up, doesn’t it? And she’s got all that money, too. I believe he was always led to expect his aunt would leave him something substantial.
Old Gerrard at the Lodge is failing rapidly—has had several nasty dizzy spells. He’s just as rude and cross-grained as ever. He actually said the other day that Mary wasn’t his daughter. “Well,” I said, “I’d be ashamed to say a thing like that about your wife if I were you.” He just looked at me and said, “You’re nothing but a fool. You don’t understand.” Polite, wasn’t it? I took him up pretty sharply, I can tell you. His wife was lady’s maid to Mrs. Welman before her marriage, I believe.
I saw The Good Earth last week. It was lovely! Women have to put up with a lot in China, it seems.
Yours ever,
Jessie Hopkins
Post-card from Nurse Hopkins to Nurse O’Brien:
Fancy our letters just crossing! Isn’t this weather awful?
Post-card from Nurse O’Brien to Nurse Hopkins:
Got your letter this morning. What a coincidence!
Letter from Roderick Welman to Elinor Carlisle, July 15th:
Dear Elinor,—Just got your letter. No, really, I have no feelings about Hunterbury being sold. Nice of you to consult me. I think you’re doing the wisest thing if you don’t fancy living there, which you obviously don’t. You may have some difficulty in getting rid of it, though. It’s a biggish place for present-day needs, though, of course, it’s been modernized and is up to date, with good servants’ quarters, and gas and electric light and all that. Anyway, I hope you’ll have luck!
The heat here is glorious. I spend hours in the sea. Rather a funny crowd of people, but I don’t mix much. You told me once that I wasn’t a good mixer. I’m afraid it’s true. I find most of the human race extraordinarily repulsive. They probably reciprocate this feeling.