Threatened by consumption some years ago, he had never displayed a really robust physique. He was popularly supposed ‘to write’, but it was understood among his friends that enquiries as to literary output were not encouraged.
‘What are you thinking of, Tim?’
Mrs Allerton was alert. Her bright dark-brown eyes looked suspicious.
Tim Allerton grinned at her:
‘I was thinking of Egypt.’
‘Egypt?’ Mrs Allerton sounded doubtful.
‘Real warmth, darling. Lazy golden sands. The Nile. I’d like to go up the Nile, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, I’d like it.’ Her tone was dry. ‘But Egypt’s expensive, my dear. Not for those who have to count the pennies.’
Tim laughed. He rose, stretched himself. Suddenly he looked alive and eager. There was an excited note in his voice.
‘The expense will be my affair. Yes, darling. A little flutter on the Stock Exchange. With thoroughly satisfactory results. I heard this morning.’
‘This morning?’ said Mrs Allerton sharply. ‘You only had one letter and that-’
She stopped and bit her lip.
Tim looked momentarily undecided whether to be amused or annoyed. Amusement gained the day.
‘And that was from Joanna,’ he finished coolly. ‘Quite right, Mother. What a queen of detectives you’d make! The famous Hercule Poirot would have to look to his laurels if you were about.’
Mrs Allerton looked rather cross.
‘I just happened to see the handwriting-’
‘And knew it wasn’t that of a stockbroker? Quite right. As a matter of fact it was yesterday I heard from them. Poor Joanna’s handwriting is rather noticeable – sprawls about all over the envelope like an inebriated spider.’
‘What does Joanna say? Any news?’
Mrs Allerton strove to make her voice sound casual and ordinary. The friendship between her son and his second cousin, Joanna Southwood, always irritated her. Not, as she put it to herself, that there was ‘anything in it’. She was quite sure there wasn’t. Tim had never manifested a sentimental interest in Joanna, nor she in him. Their mutual attraction seemed to be founded on gossip and the possession of a large number of friends and acquaintances in common. They both liked people and discussing people. Joanna had an amusing if caustic tongue.
It was not because Mrs Allerton feared that Tim might fall in love with Joanna that she found herself always becoming a little stiff in manner if Joanna were present or when letters from her arrived.
It was some other feeling hard to define – perhaps an unacknowledged jealousy in the unfeigned pleasure Tim always seemed to take in Joanna’s society. He and his mother were such perfect companions that the sight of him absorbed and interested in another woman always startled Mrs Allerton slightly. She fancied, too, that her own presence on these occasions set some barrier between the two members of the younger generation. Often she had come upon them eagerly absorbed in some conversation and, at sight of her, their talk had wavered, had seemed to include her rather too purposefully and as in duty bound. Quite definitely, Mrs Allerton did not like Joanna Southwood. She thought her insincere, affected, and essentially superficial. She found it very hard to prevent herself saying so in unmeasured tones.
In answer to her question, Tim pulled the letter out of his pocket and glanced through it. It was quite a long letter, his mother noted.
‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘The Devenishes are getting a divorce. Old Monty’s been had up for being drunk in charge of a car. Windlesham’s gone to Canada. Seems he was pretty badly hit when Linnet Ridgeway turned him down. She’s definitely going to marry this land agent person.’
‘How extraordinary! Is he very dreadful?’
‘No, no, not at all. He’s one of the Devonshire Doyles. No money, of course – and he was actually engaged to one of Linnet’s best friends. Pretty thick, that.’
‘I don’t think it’s at all nice,’ said Mrs Allerton, flushing.
Tim flashed her a quick affectionate glance.
‘I know, darling. You don’t approve of snaffling other people’s husbands and all that sort of thing.’
‘In my day we had our standards,’ said Mrs Allerton. ‘And a very good thing too! Nowadays young people seem to think they can just go about doing anything they choose.’
Tim smiled.
‘They don’t only think it. They do it. Vide Linnet Ridgeway!’
‘Well, I think it’s horrid!’
Tim twinkled at her.
‘Cheer up, you old die-hard! Perhaps I agree with you. Anyway, I haven’t helped myself to anyone’s wife or fiancée yet.’
‘I’m sure you’d never do such a thing,’ said Mrs Allerton. She added with spirit, ‘I’ve brought you up properly.’
‘So the credit is yours, not mine.’
He smiled teasingly at her as he folded the letter and put it away again. Mrs Allerton let the thought just flash across her mind: ‘Most letters he shows to me. He only reads me snippets from Joanna’s.’
But she put the unworthy thought away from her, and decided, as ever, to behave like a gentlewoman.
‘Is Joanna enjoying life?’ she asked.
‘So so. Says she thinks of opening a delicatessen shop in Mayfair.’
‘She always talks about being hard up,’ said Mrs Allerton with a tinge of spite, ‘but she goes about everywhere and her clothes must cost her a lot. She’s always beautifully dressed.’
‘Ah, well,’ said Tim, ‘she probably doesn’t pay for them. No, mother, I don’t mean what your Edwardian mind suggests to you. I just mean quite literally that she leaves her bills unpaid.’
Mrs Allerton sighed.
‘I never know how people manage to do that.’
‘It’s a kind of special gift,’ said Tim. ‘If only you have sufficiently extravagant tastes, and absolutely no sense of money values, people will give you any amount of credit.’
‘Yes, but you come to the Bankruptcy Court in the end like poor Sir George Wode.’
‘You have a soft spot for that old horse coper – probably because he called you a rosebud in 1879 at a dance.’
‘I wasn’t born in 1879,’ Mrs Allerton retorted with spirit. ‘Sir George has charming manners, and I won’t have you calling him a horse coper.’
‘I’ve heard funny stories about him from people that know.’
‘You and Joanna don’t mind what you say about people; anything will do so long as it’s sufficiently illnatured.’
Tim raised his eyebrows.
‘My dear, you’re quite heated. I didn’t know old Wode was such a favourite of yours.’
‘You don’t realize how hard it was for him, having to sell Wode Hall. He cared terribly about that place.’
Tim suppressed the easy retort. After all, who was he to judge? Instead he said thoughtfully:
‘You know, I think you’re not far wrong there. Linnet asked him to come down and see what she’d done to the place, and he refused quite rudely.’
‘Of course. She ought to have known better than to ask him.’
‘And I believe he’s quite venomous about her – mutters things under his