The Wedding Party Read Free Page A

woods. Andthere’s a stream. I could very likely do some fishing.’
    â€˜Wouldn’t you find it rather lonely? I mean, with winter—’
    â€˜Probably. But then that wouldn’t be any change.’
    The words penetrated her deeply. She was now at a loss for anything to say and drank at her sherry sharply.
    â€˜Anyway I haven’t absolutely made up my mind. I’m going over to have another look this afternoon.’
    â€˜Oh! yes.’
    Looking at her glass and seeing it almost empty he begged to be allowed to buy her another sherry. She quickly said no, she didn’t think she would and then as abruptly changed her mind. He went over to the bar to give the order and came back rather nervously with another sherry and another glass of beer. A dribble of sherry spilled over the lip of the glass and ran on to the table as he set it down.
    â€˜Oh! I’m terribly sorry – I’ve spilt some.’
    â€˜Oh! don’t worry. The glass was very full.’
    â€˜Clumsy of me all the same.’
    He took a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and mopped up the few drops of sherry and then folded it just as neatly and put it back again. This meticulous little gesture affected her sharply, but still not as much as the words he uttered next.
    â€˜I don’t suppose you’d care to run over with me? It’s rather a pretty drive—’
    â€˜It’s awfully kind of you.’ Miss Kingsford felt warmly, uneasily thrilled. ‘Do you really—’
    â€˜You have your rest and I’ll be ready about three. Is thatall right? It really isn’t all that far and there’s plenty of daylight still.’
    After lunch she lay on the bed, eyes closed but sleepless. A recurrent vision of Mr Willoughby utterly alone in a caravan in an isolated, leafless orchard haunted her. It was wintertime; she saw snow on the ground and on the black apple branches. Once or twice the dog, toffee-less, still in disgrace, stirred in its basket and once she said:
    â€˜Don’t fuss. We’re not listening. Like it or not that’s where you’re going to stay.’
    The drive into the country was, as Mr Willoughby said, very pretty. Whole woods of hornbeam were already turning a tender yellow. Fat port-wine berries hung heavily from all the hawthorns. Apples glowed from orchards like rosy-orange lanterns and a few late cream feathers of meadowsweet still flowered about the hedgerows.
    â€˜Rather nice country don’t you think?’
    â€˜Yes, I suppose so. But I still prefer ours, back in Kent.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yes, I always feel it’s somehow sort of smug over here.’
    Mr Willoughby drove the car at last into a valley of gentle slopes broken by strips of oak and hazel woodland and at the farthest end of it by an apple orchard of four or five acres still bright with unpicked fruit. A few sheep were grazing under the apple-trees. Mr Willoughby parked the car in a gateway and said:
    â€˜Well, here we are. Come over and see what you think of it.’
    The trailer caravan, a green, light two-berth affair rather shabby and flaky, like the little guest-house, from wind and weather, stood in the farthest corner of the orchard, away from the road. When Mr Willoughby unlocked the door it instantly struck Miss Kingsford as being very poky. You couldn’t swing a cat. There was a queer, musty, churchy smell in the air. It was sort of dead, she thought.
    â€˜I think it’s quite homely in its way, don’t you?’ Mr Willoughby said. ‘And you can just see the stream.’
    Without answering Miss Kingsford peered about at bunks, cupboards, crockery, saucepans and a small shelf of books and then through the windows with their faded puce curtains at the stream flowing past, twenty yards away, between banks of alder trees.
    â€˜Well,’ Mr Willoughby said. ‘What’s your impression?’
    â€˜Oh! I couldn’t