The Country Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

it myself.’
    â€˜She may as well learn where things are kept,’ said Pamela meaningfully, fixing him where he stood with her eyes. ‘She’ll feel more at home once she knows her way around.’
    â€˜I’m quite happy to do it,’ I said, anxious that my offer was becoming tarnished in this tug-of-war. ‘Just tell me where you keep the cups.’
    â€˜In the cupboard directly in front of you,’ said Pamela. ‘That’s the one! That’s right.’
    I opened the cupboard and there indeed were the cups; not, incidentally, aligned in orderly rows, but stacked in a jumble of conflicting shapes and patterns. I selected one painted a cheerful red.
    â€˜Thomas been yet?’ said Mr Madden behind me. ‘I want to tell him about that gate. Bloody nuisance.’
    â€˜He telephoned earlier. He’s had to drive his wife to the dentist.’ Pamela laughed, and began to speak in a voluble country brogue. ‘
Mrs Ma-adde? The wife’s been taken poorly with ‘er tooth. She’s in tumble pain.’
    â€˜Well, did he say when he’d be over?’ said Mr Madden.
    â€˜Mr Thomas is our gardener,’ said Pamela, turning to me. ‘He’s a very dear old chap, but he does find things like telephones rather difficult. It scares the living daylights out of you.
That you, Mrs Ma-adde?
’ she said, doing her deafening imitation again, in spite of the scant encouragement she’d received for it. ‘He said he’d be over later, darling, so do stop worrying.’
    We were all seated around the table by this time, Mr Madden with his tea now in front of him. I could not prevent myself from being intrigued by what I had seen of the Maddens’ relationship to each other, and the part in it which I had so far played. There was something almost combative in the way they behaved, and by my playing a part I only mean that the presence of a third person appeared to have set their game in motion, as a net would a tennis match or a pitch a bout of football. I noticed – not without some satisfaction, I’m afraid – that Mr Madden had seemed far happier in the car with me than he did in the presence of Pamela. Indeed, he looked rather sullen, staring down at his tea like an adolescent, his black hair flopping over his eyes, his large frame recumbent with that limpness slightly menacing in men, as if at any moment they could explode.
    â€˜Jolly good,’ he said.
    â€˜I think Stella would probably like some time to just regroup,’ said Pamela after a pause. She said it brightly, looking at Mr Madden. ‘Shall I take her over and settle her in?’
    Mr Madden, still slumped in his chair, took in a large quantity of air and held it in his lungs so that his cheeks puffed out. He nodded vigorously, and then expelled the air slowly through his nostrils.
    â€˜Right!’ Pamela stood up and grinned at me slightly wildly. ‘Shall we go?’
    I stood up obediently and began immediately to make my way to the door. Behind me, Pamela lingered.
    â€˜Darling, you won’t forget to dig up some potatoes and things for dinner, will you? And if there are any gooseberries left you could get those too and I’ll make a pie.’
    There was a brief silence.
    â€˜Right,’ said Mr Madden. I heard his chair scrape across the floor. ‘I’ll go and do that now.’
    Pamela’s footsteps came behind me, and I moved forwards through the doorway. Ahead of me was a small and very dark hallway which I did not remember, with three doors, all of them closed. I stopped, confused, and felt Pamela crowd behind me.
    â€˜It’s the one on the left,’ she said. ‘That’s it.’
    We entered a long, narrow corridor, with white walls and a low ceiling.
    â€˜Right down to the end,’ said Pamela from behind.
    I proceeded to the end of the corridor, which lay around a bend, where I found a door. There being no