Wild Strawberries: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) by Angela Thirkell

Author:Angela Thirkell [Thirkell, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781405516716
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2012-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

9

Lady Emily Pays a Call

At the end of July, Martin came home for the holidays. He had been growing in every direction during the summer term and was looking extremely handsome. As the Boulles were to arrive at the vicarage on the first of August, there was no time to be lost, and Martin threw himself with energy into the business of rounding up the village eleven and arranging for the cricket match which was to take place on his seventeenth birthday between the tenant farmers and the estate employees, stiffened by David, Martin and John. There was to be tea in the racquet-court in the interval. A dinner party at Rushwater House, followed by a dance, would conclude the festivities. If the preparations made the Leslies think with a pang of their eldest son’s coming of age, they resolutely put the thought away from them.

Agnes, who was ordering a new evening dress for herself, wanted to get one for Mary, but Mr Leslie, hearing of it, insisted that it should be his present.

‘Get what you like,’ he said. ‘Don’t think if it will last or not. Just get something that will make you look your best. Must do us credit, you know. Go up to town with Agnes, and she’ll see you get the right thing. Good taste, Agnes.’

Indeed Agnes’s clothes, joint product of her own taste, an inspired dressmaker, and a wealthy husband who liked to see his wife well turned out, were always perfect. The commission was much to her liking, and she wrote to John to suggest that they should lunch with him in town. John was delighted and a date was fixed. Mary, while feeling that life as far as she was concerned was over, found the prospect of a new dress not unattractive. Besides, one might see David in London.

The question which now agitated Lady Emily was, should she call on Madame Boulle before Martin went for his first French lesson or after. None of her considerable social experience in the past appeared to be the slightest help to her in this matter. On the very day when the Boulle family were to come into the vicarage she was still undecided.

‘If I call before Martin goes,’ she argued at lunch, ‘they might think I was coming to see if they looked good enough for Martin, but if I don’t go till after he has had a lesson there, it may seem rude. When Papa was being a Governor in India, people used to come and write their names in the book, but that, of course, was so many years ago, and none of us were French. Mr Banister says they are very nice simple people, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Henry, what would you do?’

‘About what, Emily?’

‘Calling on the Boulles.’

‘Calling on who? Oh, Banister’s tenants. Yes, my dear, call on them, of course.’

‘Ask them to tea, Mamma, and we could have the children down,’ said Agnes.

‘Children?’ said Mr Leslie, lifting his eyes from the peach he was peeling.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.