An Unofficial rose

Chapter Four

'IT'S good of Felix to be so kind to A

He was standing with Mildred Finch in the big bow-window at Seton Blaise while Mildred arranged in a blue porcelain bowl the old-fashioned roses which A

'Yes, he's a kind-hearted boy, said Mildred absently. She thrust a white-quartered green-eyed Madame Hardy in between two lilac shaded pink-scrolled Louise Odiers and stood back to admire the result.

'All the same, she said, 'I must admit no one arranges flowers like A

Hugh, who was feeling very tired and more than usually troubled with the buzzing in his head, which today sounded like a perpetual distant murmur of voices, said defensively, 'Clare's been very kind to us. Mildred's mild but almost universal malice depressed him sometimes.

'Why wouldn't she be? said Mildred. 'It costs her nothing and satisfies her curiosity. But however much she clicks her tongue, she wishes really that poor Douglas was a wild violent man like Randall.’ Was Randall a wild violent man? Hugh did not know. He sat down on the A

'Do you think Randall is going to leave A

'No, certainly not, said Hugh. 'He makes a fuss, but he'll stay. A

'To prevent further discussion of Randall he said to Mildred, 'How's Beryl? That always set her off.

Beryl was the Finches’ daughter and only child, never apparently forgiven by her mother for not being a boy. Beryl, now in her thirties, was the principal of a teachers' training college in Staffordshire. Hugh, at their rare meetings, had liked her, appreciating her evident cleverness. He had been, he felt naively, unable to decide whether Mildred's show of contempt for her daughter was sincere or not.

' Always the same! said Mildred. 'That girl will never marry. She's always being the self-conscious vanguard of something or other; and men hate that. I suppose there wasn't much chance for her to be normal, with Humpo as queer as a coot all his life. But I doubt if she's the other thing either. I'd like to think she had some fun. She stripped a papery pink and white Rosa Mundi of its leaves and thrust it into the centre.

Hugh was constantly shocked at a liberality of speech in Mildred which bordered, he sometimes felt, on the vulgar. Of course, he had known her a very long time, ever since Humphrey, then his fellow- student at Cambridge, had produced her as his fiancйe. Humphrey had lint a better first and Humphrey had made a richer marriage. Hugh contemplated her now. She was not exactly a feminine type herself. Not feminine as dear Fa

The white skin of the cheeks by contrast had now a soft old look. The very blue eyes and the mouth were long, amused, often sarcastic. Her hair, a yellowish grey, had a short sensible cut which quite failed to control or even offer suggestions to its natural fluffiness, and her coiffure, never, the same from day to day or even hour to hour, had often a positively unkempt appearance; for Mildred was not always impeccably turned out. Yet she was the handsome, clever, bustling Mildred still. And his mind groped again for details of that kiss; but he could still remember nothing except that it was summer at Seton Blaise and he had kissed her. That had been just before the Emma business started; so perhaps it was not surprising that the record had been erased. Mildred had known Emma too, long ago; they had been eccentric lady students together, with beribboned straw boaters and chaperones and skirts that brushed the ground. But they had quite lost touch later, and Hugh was satisfied that Mildred had received no confidences touching himself.

'I think that'll do, don't you? said Mildred. She put the bowl of roses carefully on the mantelpiece. 'It's not up to A

Everyone had felt relieved at coming to Seton Blaise. After the slightly damp, slightly sinister, and more than slightly Randall-ridden atmosphere of Grayhallock, Seton Blaise seemed a haven of i

He crossed the drive with Mildred. The very dark blue Mercedes stood at the side of the house, its handsome glistening form standing out in the more intense evening light against a long bed of yuccas and tree peonies. As Mildred led him diagonally across the lawn in the direction of a distant deck-chair, he saw that Miranda had ceased her scuttling and was hovering about A