Читать книгу The Day of Small Things - Anna Masterton Buchan - Страница 8

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‘ ... all the men and women merely players.’

AS YOU LIKE IT.

Nicole made no effort to stage-manage Althea Gort’s first sight of the Harbour House, as she had so carefully done for her mother. She cared little what the girl thought of the house and its inhabitants, in fact she harboured a secret ashamed hope that she would hate it at sight and leave at the first opportunity.

Nicole meant to do her best for Althea, she was their guest and as such must have every consideration. She had herself seen to it that the white upper chamber looking across the sea had been made to look as attractive as possible. But she was honestly puzzled as to what they were to do with the girl. She was eighteen, or was it nineteen? Almost a decade younger than herself. At that age her life had been overshadowed by the War, but this child probably lived for pleasure. Lights, crowds, dance-music, magic of heat and sound, cocktails, lipstick, clothes constantly renewed—those probably made up the sum of her enjoyment. What would she do with the decorous round of the Harbour House? Of course they must get other boys and girls to play with her—Nicole smiled to find herself forced into the position of maiden aunt! The Erskines were considered Bright Young People in Kirkmeikle, though probably they would fall far short in this London girl’s eyes. They were older than Althea, more her own age, she remembered. Lady Fenton would play with her; she liked to go about with very young girls and be kittenish; and, anyway, she concluded, if Althea were bored she didn’t need to stay.

The visitor was expected in the late afternoon.

‘Much the nicest time,’ Lady Jane said. ‘She will get tea and go to her room till dinner, and probably she will go early to bed and we can all begin and make friends in the morning light.’

Nicole looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know about the morning light being conducive to friendship. You’re such an optimist, Mums—But I hope it will be all right. As you say, the worst will be over when we get the greetings said. How I hate strangers coming!’ She leant down to pat Spider’s nose. ‘So do you, I know. All right, old man, we’ll go for a run along the sands.... Must I meet her, Mums? Won’t Harris do? I’ll tell you what, I’ll order a closed car and send Harris.’

‘Oh no, darling. Go yourself in the little car, it would be so much more friendly! The luggage can be sent down later. The child will feel strange perhaps....’

‘Perhaps,’ Nicole broke in. ‘My dear, nothing shakes the composure of the girl of to-day....’

There was only one passenger from the train that could be the expected guest, and Nicole went up to a tall young girl with a fur coat over her arm and a dressing-bag at her feet, and said: ‘I expect you’re Althea? I’m Nicole Rutherfurd.... A porter will bring down your luggage if you’ll see if it’s all there, and I have my small car here.

‘This is Spider.’ Nicole made the introduction when they left the station and found that small black-and-white gentleman occupying the driver’s seat. ‘Get down, silly. Jump in, will you, Althea, and put that rug round you. I expect you find it pretty cold here. Now then ... we’ve only a very short way to go. What sort of journey had you? Oh ... good.’

Lady Jane was waiting in the hall to kiss and welcome her guest, and they went at once upstairs for tea.

Nicole took stock of the girl as she made tea and her mother made conversation, and was amused to find that she was almost exactly as she had pictured her. Very tall, as so many girls are now, she had long slim legs, a small pointed face with very dark blue eyes; a golden-brown curl on each cheek, a string of pearls, ear-rings, a good deal of make-up. She spoke in a quick, almost breathless, way, and her voice was pleasant. She had taken off her tweed coat, and sat in a fawn jumper suit, in a chintz chair with ‘lugs,’ her legs stretched out before her, answering Lady Jane’s questions.

‘And your Aunt Blanchie, how is she?’

‘Oh, Blanchie’s all right. She’s only gone to bed for safety.’ She gave a small mirthless laugh. ‘She does hate so to be upset, poor dear. I expect she’s up to-day and preparing to go off to Egypt now that she’s got me shunted.’

Nicole laughed. ‘I shouldn’t at all wonder. Will you have your tea there, or sit in at the table? Anyway, make a meal of your tea as we say in our hearty country way.... This is your first visit to Scotland, isn’t it? No, I’m not going to ask you what you think of it.’

‘You would have some time in Edinburgh to-day?’ said Lady Jane. ‘I envy you seeing it for the first time.... Do take jam with your muffin.’

‘Shall I? Thanks.... I spent the morning sight-seeing. The friend I travelled with wanted to see the Memorial. It’s pretty good, I thought.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ said Nicole. ‘The bed-rock coming through the floor.... And the cold blue windows seem to me so right, all of a piece with the cold grey city and the cold blue Firth.’

Althea turned to look out of the window. ‘Is that,’ she asked, ‘the Firth of Forth I’m looking at now?’

Lady Jane shook her head. ‘No, that is the real sea.’

‘Oh, the Atlantic?’

‘No, the North Sea.’

Althea took another muffin. ‘I don’t think I knew there was a North Sea,’ she announced calmly. ‘Where does it go to?’

‘To “Norraway ower the faem,” ’ said Nicole. ‘Did you ever hear of the king who sat in Dunfermline town drinking the blood-red wine?’

‘ ’Fraid not. What else did he do besides drink?’

‘He sent Sir Patrick Spens over the sea with other Scots lords.... Yes, seas are very confusing. I remember, coming home from India the Captain asked another girl and myself what sea we were navigating at the moment. I guessed the Persian Gulf, and my friend said confidently, “The Baltic.” ’

‘How amusing!’ said Althea, and Nicole retired behind the teapot.

Lady Jane took up the burden of the conversation. She had a way, when things were at all difficult, of talking gently on, not waiting for an answer, not seeming to expect interest, and Nicole enjoyed her tea in grateful silence, merely throwing in a response now and then.

Althea ate very fast for about ten minutes, drank three cups of tea in quick succession, and then, not waiting to be offered cigarettes, she produced her own case and a very long holder, and changing from the big arm-chair into Lady Jane’s own low chair, she lay back in great ease.

Effie removed the tea-things, and Lady Jane sat down near a light with her embroidery. Nicole knelt on a window-seat, watching the tide creep in.

‘Wouldn’t you like to see your room now?’ she said presently.

Althea did not trouble to turn her head. ‘I’m all right, thanks. When d’you dine?’

‘Seven-thirty.’

She turned her wrist to the light. ‘Half-past five now. I needn’t stir for an age. I think I’ll have a sleep! This fire’s so jolly warm.’

‘Do,’ said Nicole, politely urgent, and settled herself by the writing-table to answer letters. As she addressed an envelope she told herself, with rather grim amusement, that so long as the visitor stayed she would probably be a better correspondent than ever she had been. Writing letters and doing embroidery seemed the only way of occupying the time while these long shapely legs were stretched before the fire, and this insolent child lay and blew smoke rings. Impossible to settle down to read with such a disturbing element in the house. Already the peaceful atmosphere was gone. Even her mother had a dispossessed air as she sat pulling the thread through the stuff pensively, like a queen in exile.

Nicole began to reply to an invitation from Vera Erskine.

‘Althea Gort has just arrived,’ she wrote, ‘and I am sure she will love to go with me to dine with you on Friday. I’m afraid she will find this quiet place rather dull....’ She glanced across at the little made-up face in the firelight, and added, ‘though we shall do our best to amuse her.’

She wondered if Vera and Althea would get on well together. Vera was a hearty creature, very keen on hunting, proficient at all games, a tireless dancer, and ready always to be amused and interested. Well, that was something, anyway, for Althea to do, and they were lunching the next day at Knebworth—Mrs. Heggie and Althea, that would be diverting! and going to tea at Windywalls on Thursday. Quite a giddy whirl! But Althea was hardly the sort of girl to be interested in strangers, and she probably hadn’t the manners to hide her boredom. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Her mother had brought the girl here. On her head was the success or failure of the plan.

She took up another sheet of paper and began a letter to Jean Douglas, one of the Rutherfurds’ oldest friends on the Borders, and interested in everything that happened to Nicole and her mother. At the moment she was shut up at her home, Kingshouse, with a husband suffering from sciatica, and letters were doubly welcome.

‘Althea Gort came this afternoon. She has the longest legs and the shortest skirts on record, and is very pretty. At present she is sound asleep in Mother’s own chair. I’ve only known her for an hour, but already I see why poor Blanchie gave it up and went to bed. I can well imagine that this young woman loose in London would be a terror. Happily she can’t do much in Kirkmeikle, and even Langtoun offers little scope. But what are we to do with her? Obviously she regards us, more or less, as her jailers, and is as resentful as she can be at being sent here.... Mother refuses to meet my eyes, and sits at her embroidery looking like Queen Mary in Lochleven! ... All the same, Mistress Jean, it’s not really amusing, for I can see Althea will play havoc with our peace. It sounds horribly selfish to say so, and to grudge hospitality to a girl who hasn’t got a home. When you think of it she has never had a chance to be a normal nice girl. Both her parents outside the pale: unwanted: knocked about from one relative to another, she was bound to develop a protective shell. I expect that is why she has such casual manners and an air of not caring a fig for any one. She feels herself up against the world, poor babe! At present, as I say, she is definitely hostile to us, but perhaps Mother’s disarming gentleness and simplicity will soften her. I expect she’s afraid I’ll come the elder sister or the maiden aunt over her. She makes me feel at once very young and quite old! ...’

It was very quiet in the pretty room: you could hear the ripple of the water on the sand outside, and the far-away cry of a sea-bird. Nicole wrote, her mother stitched and stitched, while her thoughts wove other patterns. Althea, broad awake—her dose had been little more than a pretence—watched the scene through half-shut eyes.

Later, she came down to dinner such a bizarre figure that Effie, who was young and unsophisticated, forgot all she had been taught about never appearing to look at any one, nor listening to the conversation, and frankly stared. The question which interested her was, would that brilliant red come off when the young lady drank, or was it water-proof, wine-proof, and coffee-proof? She had been helping Harris to unpack for Miss Gort, and never had she seen such clothes, so many aids to the toilet. She felt vaguely elated to be in the same house as such a strange and beautiful lady.

When they returned to the drawing-room, Althea went to the piano, and without being asked, sat down and began to play scraps of one thing and another, from Chopin to the songs from the latest revue. Lady Jane and her daughter had perforce to listen: there was no chance of reading or talking.

After Nicole had gone up with their guest to see that she had everything she wanted, she came back to the drawing-room and looked reproachfully at her mother.

‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Mums? You have need to be. Talk about ruining a home! ...’

‘It won’t be so bad when we get to know her,’ Lady Jane pleaded.

‘It’ll be worse,’ said Nicole, ‘much worse.’