Loving - Henry Green [15]
asked. 'Why d'you want to go on at me about him?' 'But supposin' it was Edie?' 'Well how would you have acted?' said Edith. 'Me? He would never've had to ask me twice. Not the way I am these days.' 'Oh Kate you are dreadful.' But Edith's voice was low. Kate's stroking was beginning to make her drowse. Then there was a real outcry from the peacocks. Kate slipped out of bed to look. She saw Mrs Jack walking down the drive far beneath with Captain Davenport who was pushing his bike. 'What is it?' Edith asked. 'Just those two again.' Then Edith got up to look. The girls blocked their window, made night in the room. 'What two?' Edith said her back to the darkness. And answered herself. 'Oh Mrs Jack and the Captain. But won't the children be disappointed. I know they was counting on their mother taking them out the little loves.' 'Well they can count on summat else then and so can she very likely,' Kate said. 'Now Kate you've no call to say such a thing.' Edith's voice was truly indignant. They could not hear their masters. 'It's not fair. You could get one of these,' Davenport was saying. 'Now Dermot,' she replied, 'you've no right to be beastly.' 'But a bike's the only way to get about these days,' he said. 'Darling I've already told you,' she said. 'She couldn't surely object to your having a bike Violet after all.' 'Oh I can't go on like this behind her back,' she announced from an expressionless face but with tears coming into her blue, blue eyes that matched the curtains in her room, 'no I can't Dermot any longer.' She stopped. She stamped the ground. 'Oh darling,' she said, 'I do wish I could get you out of my system.' 'Now you're upset,' he began. 'By the way,' he went on, 'what's the matter with that footman you've got here? He asked me how the salmon trout were runnin'. I thought everyone in Old Ireland knew it was close season.' 'Dermot you don't mean he suspects anything?' 'Suspect anything? My dear girl I only mentioned it to change the conversation. Good Lord I only meant he seemed a funny sort.' 'And why d'you say you wanted to change the conversation?' she asked. 'Now you're all upset.' 'You don't understand,' she wailed. 'All I meant was I'd rather have him than Eldon,' the Captain said with bitterness. But it seemed that she was not thinking of the servants. Charley now studied the black and red notebooks each afternoon. In the black he found Mr Eldon had written down peculiarities of those who were invited to Kinalty Castle with a note of the tips received on mentioning those peculiarities. But he did not as a rule spend long over this. There were not many people came to the Castle in wartime. In the red Charley found Mr Eldon had kept a record of everything he drew under the petty cash account, which was presented monthly to Mrs Tennant. At one end was a copy of each account on which he had been paid. Against every item was an index number. At the other end of this red notebook the leaves were numbered and at least one whole sheet was given over entirely to copious notes on the item in question. Thus with a charge for sashcord of 7s 6d in March 1938 which reappeared in September of that year in an amount of 6s 8d and did not recur until July 1939 at 8s 9d, Raunce turned up the page on sashcord to find that hardly a yard had been bought or used in these last three years and that Mr Eldon was reminding himself to charge for more but had not lived to do it. Once he had got the hang of things and had well studied the amount of corn bought for the peacocks at certain periods, Charley turned to that part which dealt only with the Cellar. By keeping open a Cellar Diary which had also to be shown each month to Mrs Tennant and by comparing the two,, he was able to refer from one to the other. Thus much that would otherwise have been obscure became plain. For instance it was Mrs Tennant's custom to have on tap a cask of whisky, which had to be replenished at regular intervals by means of ten-gallon jars shipped from Scotland. Not only had Mr Eldon never credited her with the empties, that was straightforward enough,