Out of the rain of a bank holiday Monday

Oh how it did rain, on Monday! It was bank holiday of course, so what could one expect? Bill’s little vegetable plot was almost washed away, and all evidence of my murderous activities with slug pellets went with it. It was excellent weather for snails however, so I daresay I shall have to commit at least one more act of slaughter before he returns. I have never been fond of bank holidays, to tell the truth. It has always seemed to me that the world and its wife shut up shop and went elsewhere on such days – so that if one didn’t have anything particularly special and wonderful to do oneself , one must somehow have miserably failed at life.

I determined to do something anyway, weather notwithstanding, so I took up my largest umbrella and walked out across the empty common where the rain lashed down, thinking I would perhaps call on Pamela, to put her mind at rest over Frances and Mr Porteous. But when I reached her house, and thought of Roland, and teacups amidst the chintz, my nerve failed me and I strode right past, head down, hoping they wouldn’t catch sight of me and bid me come in. They didn’t – mercifully; so on I went, dismissing the idea of Frances, for some reason, and not yet feeling quite able to call unannounced on Rose, or anyone else. Well, there is no-one else, come to think of it. When I speak of Frances, and Pamela, and Rose Mountjoy, I come to the end of my present acquaintance.

I don’t even mention David Porteous, you will notice. Though the idea of calling upon him unexpectedly out of the rain did intrigue me for a moment. How would he respond, I wondered? And my answer came , swift as the falling rain itself: he would respond as he did to everything else, with perfect urbanity and charm. He would do what he could with his aunt’s teacups and, rising above any inadequacy he might feel over the condition of her armchairs, have me worshipping at the shrine in five minutes flat. I have a natural aversion to worshipping at shrines however – and besides, my boots were muddy and my hair a mess. So I walked past Mr Porteous’s house too, and continued on my random way.

There is something rather pleasant about walking in the rain in fact, when once one has become accustomed to it. So I let my footsteps take me where they would, along this narrow lane and that, enjoying the unaccustomed views of people’s rear gardens; arriving at the main Richmond to Kingston road at last, and crossing it, finding myself all of a sudden at the entrance to a sweet old garden centre. I had heard of this place, which has been transformed lately from pleasantly run-down nursery, to centre of excellence for all things horticultural, and latest place to go for fashionable out-of-Londoners, who want somewhere different for their lunch.

I was charmed with the place at once. What it consists of most of all, is three long old greenhouses , with an Italian-style covered courtyard in between. It has been set up as a commercial enterprise, I knew that, and most of what one sees is actually for sale. But I sensed the hand of a master craftsman here – whoever has made this place, I thought, has done it for the love of beauty alone. The greenhouses have been arranged as a series of extending vistas, with every object, large and small, having been given its own lovingly appointed place. So that interspersed among the towering orchids, and the scented climbers scrambling over roofs, are cabinets of old books and antique table linen; bottles of precious oils and spices; chairs and tables for sale, or simply to sit down upon - and a series of vast ornamental screens, and gates, and doorways, collected, I believe, from all around the world.

The courtyard was drenched and deserted today, so I wandered, charmed, about the greenhouses, picking up little delicacies and putting them in my basket as I went. I was conscious that there were people still sitting animatedly over lunch at one end of the larger greenhouse, but I hurried away from them and found a homelier place in which to buy a pot of steaming coffee and a slice of home-made cake. I could carry them, so the pleasant young man in the café told me, to any spot I would, so I sat down at an ancient table beside a screen - observing, with joy, that neither would have been out of place in the garden of a Tuscan palazzo; and it was here, that Rose Mountjoy found me.

She had come across from the place where the beautiful people sat; she came quietly, and caught me unawares. She was lunching with Lady Macauley and Belle, who had spotted me, she said, and wondered if I wouldn’t bring my coffee over and join them for half an hour? Thus it was that I found myself all at once in presence of Theodora - with only two minutes in which to make the transition between what I remembered of her, and what there is today. I was very excited at the time – but I relate it to you now with the relative quietness of recollection, and with what I hope will be a fair representation of the truth.

Lady Macauley, as Theodora has become, is a very fine, and still rather beautiful old lady. She is beautiful in that way that the Mitford sisters were in old age; which is to say small, and delicately thin, but dressed in palest lavender up to the throat; with facial bone structure more or less intact, and something strangely luminous still, about the eyes. Theodora’s eyes had been celebrated, in their time. Sonnets had been written about them, and nobody had ever been quite able to say whether they were mostly grey, or green, or simply silvery blue. I too found myself wondering about the precise colour of Theodora’s eyes; even as I was receiving Lady Macauley’s rather languid outstretched hand, and murmuring what I could by way of a response to her greeting.

It was only in what she actually said, that the myth of Theodora was finally dispelled for me, and I was able to see that what she had become was a rather spoilt and querulous old woman, who was examining me head to toe, and would be prepared to endure me only if she thought I might amuse her for an hour. “I have been hearing all about you” was what she actually said. “About you and your brother Bill, who is rather famous, they tell me. I gather you live in the old gatehouse, and that your brother is away at present. Which I think a pity, since I should like to have met him.”

It didn’t get very much better than that, to tell the truth. We were together for no more than ten minutes, talking rather desultorily of this and that, before the old lady suddenly decided she was impossibly weary, and ought to be taken home at once. I rose to see her go, but found she had forgotten me already. She didn’t offer me her hand again, and made no mention of a further meeting. And it was only after they had disappeared from sight at the end of the extending vista of the greenhouse, that I realised I had exchanged no word with Belle Macauley, who had sat silent throughout the short exchange, who had looked awkward, but whom I sensed I should have liked.

Bill was not encouraged, by the way, when I described this encounter to him over the telephone later that night. He thinks he’ll probably add an extra week to his fishing trip; since so far as he can see, I am resolved to make his life as uncomfortable as possible, and the dowager count is rising by the hour!