might appear at any moment, cracking a whip. As soon as we decently could, which was not very soon, because nobody moved from the table until after Tom had struck four, we said good-bye, and fled for home.
The miserable Matt and Jassy were swinging on the garage gate.
‘So how was Lavender? Did she roar at your eyelids? Better go and wash before Fa sees you. You have been hours. Was it cod? Did you see the the badger?’
Linda burst into tears.
‘Leave me alone, you horrible Counter-Hons,’ she cried, and rushed upstairs to her bedroom.
Love had increased threefold in one short day.
*
On Saturday the blow fell.
‘Linda and Fanny, Fa wants you in the business-room. And sooner you than me by the look of him,’ said Jassy, meeting us in the drive as we came in from hunting. Our hearts plunged into our boots. We looked at each other with apprehension.
‘Better get it over,’ said Linda, and we hurried to the business-room, where we saw at once that the worst had occurred.
Aunt Sadie, looking unhappy, and Uncle Matthew, grinding his teeth, confronted us with our crime. The room was full of blue lightning flashing from his eyes, and Jove’s thunder was not more awful than what he now roared at us:
‘Do you realize,’ he said, ‘that, if you were married women, your husbands could divorce you for doing this?’
Linda began to say no they couldn’t. She knew the laws of divorce from having read the whole of the Russell case off newspapers with which the fires in the spare bedrooms were laid.
‘Don’t interrupt your father,’ said Aunt Sadie, with a warning look.
Uncle Matthew, however, did not even notice. He was in the full flood and violence of his storm.
‘Now we know you can’t be trusted to behave yourselves, we shall have to take certain steps. Fanny can go straight home to-morrow, and I never want you here again, do you understand? Emily will have to control you in future, if she can, but you’ll go the same way as your mother, sure as eggs is eggs. As for you, miss, there’s no more question of a London season now – we shall have to watch you in future every minute of the day – not very agreeable, to have a child one can’t trust – and there would be too many opportunities in London for slipping off. You can stew in your own juice here. And no more hunting this year. You’re damned lucky not to be thrashed; most fathers would give you a good hiding, do you hear? Now you can both go to bed, and you’re not to speak to each other before Fanny leaves. I’m sending her over in the car to-morrow.’
It was months before we knew how they found out. It seemed like magic, but the explanation was simple. Somebody had left a scarf in Tony Kroesig’s rooms, and he had rung up to ask whether it belonged to either of us.
8
A S always, Uncle Matthew’s bark was worse than his bite, though, while it lasted, it was the most terrible row within living memory at Alconleigh. I was sent back to Aunt Emily the next day, Linda waving and crying out of her bedroom window: ‘Oh, you
are
lucky, not to be me’ (most unlike her, her usual cry being ‘Isn’t it lovely to be lovely
me
’); and she was stopped from hunting once or twice. Then relaxation began, the thin end of the wedge, and gradually things returned to normal, though it was reckoned in the family that Uncle Matthew had got through a pair of dentures in record time.
Plans for the London season went on being made, and wenton including me. I heard afterwards that both Davey and John Fort William took it upon themselves to tell Aunt Sadie and Uncle Matthew (especially Uncle Matthew) that, according to modern ideas, what we had done was absolutely normal, though, of course, they were obliged to own that it was very wrong of us to have told so many and such shameless lies.
We both said we were very sorry, and promised faithfully that we would never act in such an underhand way again, but always ask Aunt Sadie if there was something
The miserable Matt and Jassy were swinging on the garage gate.
‘So how was Lavender? Did she roar at your eyelids? Better go and wash before Fa sees you. You have been hours. Was it cod? Did you see the the badger?’
Linda burst into tears.
‘Leave me alone, you horrible Counter-Hons,’ she cried, and rushed upstairs to her bedroom.
Love had increased threefold in one short day.
*
On Saturday the blow fell.
‘Linda and Fanny, Fa wants you in the business-room. And sooner you than me by the look of him,’ said Jassy, meeting us in the drive as we came in from hunting. Our hearts plunged into our boots. We looked at each other with apprehension.
‘Better get it over,’ said Linda, and we hurried to the business-room, where we saw at once that the worst had occurred.
Aunt Sadie, looking unhappy, and Uncle Matthew, grinding his teeth, confronted us with our crime. The room was full of blue lightning flashing from his eyes, and Jove’s thunder was not more awful than what he now roared at us:
‘Do you realize,’ he said, ‘that, if you were married women, your husbands could divorce you for doing this?’
Linda began to say no they couldn’t. She knew the laws of divorce from having read the whole of the Russell case off newspapers with which the fires in the spare bedrooms were laid.
‘Don’t interrupt your father,’ said Aunt Sadie, with a warning look.
Uncle Matthew, however, did not even notice. He was in the full flood and violence of his storm.
‘Now we know you can’t be trusted to behave yourselves, we shall have to take certain steps. Fanny can go straight home to-morrow, and I never want you here again, do you understand? Emily will have to control you in future, if she can, but you’ll go the same way as your mother, sure as eggs is eggs. As for you, miss, there’s no more question of a London season now – we shall have to watch you in future every minute of the day – not very agreeable, to have a child one can’t trust – and there would be too many opportunities in London for slipping off. You can stew in your own juice here. And no more hunting this year. You’re damned lucky not to be thrashed; most fathers would give you a good hiding, do you hear? Now you can both go to bed, and you’re not to speak to each other before Fanny leaves. I’m sending her over in the car to-morrow.’
It was months before we knew how they found out. It seemed like magic, but the explanation was simple. Somebody had left a scarf in Tony Kroesig’s rooms, and he had rung up to ask whether it belonged to either of us.
8
A S always, Uncle Matthew’s bark was worse than his bite, though, while it lasted, it was the most terrible row within living memory at Alconleigh. I was sent back to Aunt Emily the next day, Linda waving and crying out of her bedroom window: ‘Oh, you
are
lucky, not to be me’ (most unlike her, her usual cry being ‘Isn’t it lovely to be lovely
me
’); and she was stopped from hunting once or twice. Then relaxation began, the thin end of the wedge, and gradually things returned to normal, though it was reckoned in the family that Uncle Matthew had got through a pair of dentures in record time.
Plans for the London season went on being made, and wenton including me. I heard afterwards that both Davey and John Fort William took it upon themselves to tell Aunt Sadie and Uncle Matthew (especially Uncle Matthew) that, according to modern ideas, what we had done was absolutely normal, though, of course, they were obliged to own that it was very wrong of us to have told so many and such shameless lies.
We both said we were very sorry, and promised faithfully that we would never act in such an underhand way again, but always ask Aunt Sadie if there was something
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