“We couldn’t do without a new wing. A country house isn’t complete without a billiard-room,” Pamela said, with her limp, forced air of breeding, of doing the “correct thing.”
“And your brother will be bringing men down, week ends, no doubt.”
“Edred!” She caught the reins up tightly. “He will not come again.”
Mrs. Clutton looked at her shrewdly. Then she said:
“Tim and I are to live at Chelsea; one of those delightful new houses, all white paint and wrought iron. He has gone back to town. He is much too busy to stay. I am making all arrangements for leaving the Buttery at the end of the week. He was so delighted with the oak. When I showed him my notebook, full of rustic skeletons, he fairly shouted. It will make a most sensational thing to run in an up-to-date paper: daily installments, skillfully backed up by interviews, paragraphs, photographs of the Chelsea house, when we are settled.”
“There is nothing scandalous in all this.”
“How discursive I am! Never mind. You will hear it all, from the proper point of view, at the Mount. I can see them sitting in judgment! Annie Jayne, quoting her mother; that horrid Maria Furlonger, an animated sneer; dear Mrs. Turle, trying to pull both ways, enjoying the scandal and yet not wishing to take sides against me, in case Tim should turn out all right and be a vehicle for eligible bachelors. She has a fury for marrying Nancy.
“A married man should come back with his halter round his neck. Tim should have had the station fly full of boxes. He just walked in without a word—without a clean collar or a nightshirt. I thought that he was in Venezuela. When Tryphena saw us both come down next morning she dropped the butter-dish—hand-painted willow—the little fool! Then she sneaked off and told her mother. Mrs. Hone, very fat, very shiny with outraged virtue, came back to say that she couldn’t allow her girl to stay in such a place. Her children had always been brought up respectable. No one could say that one of her daughters had been compelled to marry in a hurry.”
“And you are going away? You won’t be here for my wedding—a week next Thursday.”
“I’m afraid not. But you must come and see us in town. I’ve told Tim all about you. He adores big, dun-haired girls. He likes women as he likes wine—with body.