All Else Confusion. Betty Neels

the three of them crossed the cobbled yard to where Nancy lived in a boxed-off corner of the enormous barn. Once the days were longer and it was warmer she would go out in the small field behind this building, sharing it with a neighbouring farmer’s two horses and a couple of goats, but today she was standing in her snug shelter very neat and tidy after little Audrey’s grooming.

      She knew Matt as well as her owners and obediently lifted first one hoof and then the other, munching the carrots Annis had thoughtfully brought with her and responding, much to Annis’s surprise, with every sign of pleasure to Jake Royle’s gentle scratching of her ears.

      ‘Must like you,’ observed Matt, looking up. ‘She’s a crotchety old lady with strangers. Still got some serviceable teeth, too.’

      ‘Yes, you said she was off her feed.’ He slid a large, well manicured hand from an ear to the little beast’s lip and lifted it gently. ‘Could there be an abscess, I wonder?’ He uttered the question in such a friendly, almost meek voice, that Annis, prepared to snub him at every turn, found herself saying: ‘I hadn’t thought of that—she’s always having trouble with her feet and I expected it to be that this time.’ She tickled Nancy’s other ear. ‘Open your mouth, love.’

      It took the remaining carrots and the three of them to persuade Nancy to allow them to take a look at her teeth. Annis, with her fiery head almost in Nancy’s jaws and quite forgetting that she didn’t like Jake Royle, exclaimed: ‘You’re quite right, how clever of you! It’s at the back on the right.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘I’ll get the vet.’

      Matt said: ‘Oh, hard luck—he’s just put up his fees, too.’

      ‘I’ve got some birthday money left,’ said Annis matter-of-factly. She had forgotten that Jake Royle was still there; he had a stillness which made him invisible, a knack of melting into his surroundings. He didn’t move now, only stared hard at her. She made a striking picture too, despite the old coat and wellingtons, and her hair in a wavy tangled mass. She tossed it impatiently out of her eyes and invited them into the Rectory for coffee. ‘You’ll have to have it in the kitchen,’ she warned them, ‘we’re getting the sitting room ready for the Mothers’ Union tea-party.’

      She gave Nancy a final pat and led them back and through the kitchen door where they kicked off their boots and laid them neatly beside hers. Even in his socks Jake Royle was a very large man indeed.

      The kitchen was large, stone-flagged and old-fashioned. There were no built-in cupboards, concealed ironing boards bread bins or vegetable racks and the sink was an enormous one of well scrubbed Victorian stone. But it was a pleasant room, much used by the whole family, its plain wooden table encircled by an assortment of chairs and two down-at-heel armchairs on either side of the elderly Aga, put in by the rector the winter before last in an effort to modernise the place. Both chairs were occupied, a seal point Siamese was sitting erect in one of them, the other was occupied by a rather tatty dog with quantities of long hair and a sweeping tail. Neither of them took any notice of the newcomers although Matt said: ‘Hullo, Sapphro, hullo Hairy,’ as he took his seat at the table.

      ‘Sit down, Jake,’ said Mrs Fothergill invitingly. ‘You don’t mind if I call you that?—Mr Royle’s so stiff, isn’t it? Coffee’s just ready—everyone will be here in a minute.’

      Annis had gone to phone the vet and came back with little Audrey, the rest of them following. Only the Rector didn’t arrive. ‘His sermon,’ explained Mrs Fothergill. ‘He likes to beat it into shape before lunch.’

      She poured coffee into an assortment of mugs and Annis bore one away for her father. She would have liked to have taken hers too, but that might have looked rude and her mother was a great one for manners—besides, being the eldest she had to set a good example to the others.

      Over coffee, Jake Royle maintained an easy flow of talk without pushing himself forward; he merely introduced topics of conversation from time to time and then left it to everyone else to talk. And the Fothergills were great talkers; being such a large family they held different opinions about almost everything—besides, it was a way of passing the evenings. There wasn’t much to do in the village and Millbury was off the main road which ran between Shaftesbury and Yeovil; too far to walk to the bus, although Annis did a good deal of cycling round the village and the two smaller parishes her father served. There was a car, of course, an essential for her father with such a far-flung flock, but it had seen better days and it was heavy on petrol too. Only the Rector, Annis and Edward drove it, nursing it along the narrow lanes and up and down the steep hills. Mrs Fothergill, a born optimist, went in for every competition which offered a car as prize, but as yet she had had no luck. One day the car was going to conk out and would have to be replaced, but no one dwelt on that. When tackled the Rector was apt to intone ‘Sufficient unto the day…’ which put a stop to further speculation.

      They were talking about cars now, at least the men and three boys were. Anyone would think, thought Annis gloomily, that there was nothing else upon this earth but cars. She listened to the more interesting bits, but in between she allowed her mind to wander. She still didn’t like Jake Royle, but she had to admit that he had more than his share of good looks, and the very size of him made him someone to look at twice. Not that she had the least interest in him… She picked up the big enamel coffee pot from its place on the Aga and offered second cups, caught his eye and blushed because it was only too apparent that he had read her thoughts.

      He and Matt went presently and Mrs Fothergill said a little wistfully: ‘What a very nice man. I suppose he’ll be going back to New Zealand soon—such a pity.’

      ‘He doesn’t live there,’ Edward observed, ‘only goes there once in a while—he had intended going back in a couple of weeks, but he said that something had come up to make him change his mind.’

      Mrs Fothergill couldn’t help taking a quick peep at her two elder daughters. Mary looked pleased and surprised, Annis’s lovely face wore no expression upon it at all. Nor did she show any elation when later that day Mrs Avery telephoned to ask them, with the exception of James, Emma and little Audrey, to go to dinner in two days’ time. Mrs Fothergill and Mary immediately fell to discussing what they should wear, but when they tried to draw Annis into the discussion, she proved singularly uninterested.

      ‘It’ll have to be the blue velvet,’ she told them. ‘I know I’ve had it years, but this isn’t London and fashion hasn’t changed all that much.’

      A statement with which Mr Royle couldn’t agree. He dated it unerringly as being five years old and on the dowdy side, bought with an eye to its being useful rather than becoming. But the dark blue set off the hair very well, he conceded that, and the dress, however badly cut, couldn’t disguise her splendid figure. She was a young woman who would look magnificent if she were properly dressed.

      He greeted her with casual politeness and engaged her mother in conversation, while Matt made his way across the drawing-room to ask her how Nancy did. They became engrossed in the donkey’s treatment and exactly what had been done, but presently they were joined by Mrs Avery, and with a hurried promise to come over on the following morning, Matt wandered off to talk to Mary.

      The dinner party was small, the Fothergills being augmented by the doctor and his wife and daughter, and since they had all lived in the village for years, they were on the best of terms. Presently they all went across the gloomy raftered hall to the dining room, an equally gloomy room, its walls oak-panelled and the great table ringed by antique and uncomfortable chairs. Colonel Avery never ceased grumbling about them, but since the idea of replacing family heirlooms with something more modern wasn’t to be entertained, everyone put up with them in silence.

      But even though the room was gloomy, the people in it weren’t: the talk became quite animated as they ate their way through chilled melon, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and sprouts and rounded off this very English meal with Charlotte Russe. There was Stilton after that, and since Mrs Avery was too old-fashioned to change her ways, the ladies, very animated after the excellent claret the Colonel had given them, left the men round the table and went back to the drawing-room.

      Here