Something in Disguise Read Free Page A

Mrs Green who does for us three times a week, but she’s
sulking because of the caterers so she’s not doing for us today.” So then she went mincing off to Liz who says that ironing is dangerous because her dress is too tight under the arms.
She really does look awful in it, but she’s ironing just the same. We may not have servants, I told Rosemary, but the house is fraught with splendid little women. Rosemary said something
about Alice being a bit weepy.’
    May looked concerned: ‘I’ll go and see her. Where’s –’
    ‘My stepfather is bullying the caterers. You look much less awful than Liz, I must say. Who usually does this filthy job?’
    ‘Alice used to. From now on it’ll be me.’
    ‘Make Daddo do it.’
    ‘Oliver – don’t call him that. Just for today. It upsets him. He’s afraid you’re laughing at him.’
    ‘His fears are absolutely grounded, I’m afraid.’ Then he looked at her again and said, ‘You know what I think?’ He had lit two cigarettes and put one in her
mouth. ‘I think you should get out. After two years of this you must know it can only get worse.’
    ‘Please darling, shut up.’
    ‘Right. Sorry. I just want you to know,’ he added in a quavering manner, ‘that vulgar and pretentious though it is, you can always make your home with me.’
    ‘Good,’ she said in a more comfortable voice, and went.
    Herbert Browne-Lacey, May’s husband, Alice’s father and the stepfather of Oliver and Elizabeth, had given up the caterers in despair (the fellows didn’t seem
to understand a word he said to them, as though he was talking Dutch or Hindi) and was now stalking up and down the side of the lawn which was banked by rhododendrons beginning to flower. He was in
full morning dress and walked slowly, holding his grey top hat behind his back in both hands: the wind was very uncertain. His feelings were sharply divided: naturally any father would feel so at
the marriage of his only daughter. He was glad that she was getting married in some ways, and sorry in others. He would miss her; he thought of innumerable things: the way she made his
middle-morning beef tea; her ironing the newspaper if May got hold of it first (women were the devil with newspapers and it was absolutely unnecessary for them to read them anyway), how good she
was with the dogs (the long, wet walks, kennel-cleaning and feeding), her housewifely activities (the house had twenty-five rooms but Alice had helped to make it possible to do with the one char),
and as for boots and the odd medal (he touched his left breast and there was a reassuring clink), why, she was jolly nearly up to his old batman’s standards. Of course she was marrying a
prosperous, steady young man. Leslie Mount was clearly going far; the only thing that worried the colonel was whether he had a sense of direction. Money wasn’t everything . . . He began to
think about money. The wedding was costing far more than he had meant it to: on the other hand, he would no longer be responsible for Alice. When he had told Leslie that Alice was worth her weight
in gold he had felt that he was simply being appropriately sentimental: now, he began to wonder whether there wasn’t some truth in the remark. May, bless her, of course, was so confoundedly
unworldly: not always impractical – she made damn good curries of left-overs, not hot enough, but damn good – but she had her head in the clouds too much of the time to recognize the
value of money. She did things and bought things quite often that were totally unnecessary. Totally unnecessary, he repeated, working himself into one of his minor righteous rages. And those
children of hers were totally out of hand. They were responsible for her worst extravagances: it would have been much better to put the boy into the army than to send him to a fiendishly
expensive university, and as for the girl, what was the point of having her taught domestic science – again, at fiendish expense –