Читать книгу Windlestraws - Bottome Phyllis - Страница 5

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The deep reverberating roar of the gong rolled through the house. Reggie had picked it up from a Buddhist monastery in Burma where it was meant to indicate the speechless passion of a god. He had thought it just the thing for a dinner-bell.

Jean stood alone at the top of the staircase; below her stretched the shadowy beauty of the big hall.

She had never before been in a house where space had so much character. The fine lines of an ancient craftsmanship were very little interfered with by time, and still less by the Falconers. Falconers always left well alone; what they accumulated went with what they already had, and if they acquired a contrast like the Burmese gong, it was only for the sake of making it serve their own more usual purposes.

Jean wondered, as she stood there, half afraid to go down into the twilight of the hall and half afraid to miss whatever the gong had sounded for if she stayed up, rather ruefully what she herself had been acquired for. Would she fit in with their vague flawless code? Could she be used like the gong was, only more silently, to improve their already perfect order? She hadn't been able to say a word to the magnificent young man in the garden, and if Reggie Falconer was built on the same scale what on earth was he likely to make of her? She shivered with horror as she thought of a bold blond giant yearning to get rid of her--and perhaps too polite to know how.

But she reminded herself that this wouldn't matter, Beatrice would get rid of her for him soon enough. She'd be just as startlingly beautiful and kind as she had been in engaging her--if Jean really was engaged--but perhaps a shade more definite. She'd make it seem as if unfortunately they'd failed to do for Jean what she always hoped they could do, not in the least that Jean hadn't herself come up to the scratch; but Jean would go just the same.

A door opened softly and Beatrice stood beside her, like a lilac tree in the moonlight, dressed in shimmering amethyst and silver.

'We're both frightfully early,' she said in her sociable intimate way. 'I usually go to see the children now. They ought to be asleep, but they won't be till I've seen them. Would you care to come too?'

They seemed to walk for a long way, through a gallery and up a staircase. 'This is a new wing,' Beatrice explained, 'but I would have it--though I've ruined the windows. Children must have air and light. The architect nearly wept when I told him what I wanted--he said it would break the Tudor line. I awfully like old houses--but flesh and blood matters more, don't you think? Ah, this is Mrs. Meadows. Mrs. Meadows, this is Miss Arbuthnot.'

A large and tranquil woman rose up in front of them. She stood like a pyramid in a desert--a vast solidity of bulk. She was spotlessly starched and had a manner as complete as that of a bench of bishops.

The day nursery was a long, empty, cornerless room; a frieze of rabbits and birds decorated the walls; under foot was a sparrow-egg-blue linoleum on which no dust could lie.

There were big cupboards for toys, a dresser filled with dwarf nursery china, a rocking-horse, a doll's house as large as a small cottage, and a motor van. Three small painted chairs with low tables attached to them reminded Jean of the tale of the three bears. The door stood open into a shadowy room beyond.

Jean wondered if she ought to address Mrs. Meadows, but she didn't dare. Mrs. Meadows looked like a being to whom all forms of address were as clear cut as the rules of a game, one of those quiet subtle games which if you do not know how to play you had better leave alone.

At their entrance, Mrs. Meadows had risen majestically from an armchair by the carefully guarded fireplace, and she stood before them in a sublime calm which neither speech nor silence could shake.

'We can go in, I suppose?' dropped Beatrice.

'Certainly, your Ladyship, you can go in,' said Mrs. Meadows in a deep impressive voice. 'They're not yet asleep.'

Jean suddenly realized that Mrs. Meadows' submission covered the spirit of revolt. Mrs. Meadows didn't want them to go in and Beatrice knew she didn't; but the odd part of it was that Beatrice, though she was going in, came as near defeat as she was ever likely to come; she said almost coaxingly, 'I shan't stay long, Nannie,' to which Mrs. Meadows replied nothing at all. A silvery voice cried 'Mummy!' and in a flash Beatrice was gone.

Then Mrs. Meadows really spoke. She said, looking indulgently at the open door, 'Her Ladyship takes great pleasure in running in and out. Her Ladyship was one of my babies, Miss. A most beautiful child she was, but one to have her own way, and Master Oliver is like her. If you go through this door, Miss, you'll find a room to the right leading out of it--Master Oliver's--and one to the left, which is the young ladies'. You'll find her Ladyship in Master Oliver's room.'

After Mrs. Meadows had spoken Jean had an odd feeling that she could never be quite so afraid of anything in the house again.

She opened the door to the right and saw Beatrice on her knees by a little blue bed, her arms round a boy who was like a Bellini angel.

They were hugging each other with a starved ecstasy of joy.

Oliver was five; the rush of his eager words a little inconvenienced him at times; then he fell back on his beautiful helpless smiles and waving hands. 'Your jingles in the ear hurt,' he exclaimed, drawing away from the head bent over him.

Without moving, his mother dashed her amethyst and pearl ear-rings on to the floor; and it struck Jean that anything, however precious, which came between them would be flung off with the same recklessness.

'Here's a lady to see you,' Beatrice said, drawing herself up at last and sitting on the bed beside him. 'Her big name's Miss Arbuthnot but her little one's Jean. To-morrow you must show her everything, the pony and the dogs and the rabbits.'

Oliver nodded gravely, lifting celestial starry eyes to Jean. 'Only me,' he said firmly, 'only my dogs, my pony, only my 'abbits.'

His mother drew her fingers through his short crisp curls, trying to disguise her tenderness. 'Oh, no!' she said. 'Anne and Bridget must do their showing too! You can do it together.'

''N I won't show her noffin'!' said Oliver with a sudden alarming scowl.

'What are their names?' pleaded Jean, trusting that the privilege of Adam might shatter his vivid egoism.

'Names noffin'!' repeated Oliver stoutly.

'Well, your own pony----' compromised Beatrice.

'You can show her that quite alone; and its name is----'

Oliver, mollified, took the words out of her mouth.

'Its name's Merryfought, like chickens have when you wish a wish--and I'm going to hunt him next season with Uncle Ian.'

Beatrice had recovered her serene calmness. She let the vexed question of hunting slide. They discussed Merrythought at length, his height, his pace, his jumping powers--and Jean, who had never ridden in her life, watched without participation the perfect unity of their minds. A brief transition produced prayers.

Oliver kneeled with his head against Beatrice's heart, her arms round him, and dashed through the verse of a hymn; his concentration was on speed, and he kicked out a shell-pink foot behind him to emphasize it.

Then he briefly blessed his family by name--the sequence interested Jean. Nannie followed Mummy, then Uncle Ian, Bridget, Anne, and Daddy. He explained to Jean briefly over his mother's shoulder; 'Now my own prayer--I make it new everly night. "Pray God make my pony, my dog, and my 'abbits mine forever and ever. Amen."'

The blue-pyjamaed, shell-pink figure bounded back into the nest of bedclothes. 'Bend over me!' he ordered his mother. Beatrice stooped to kiss him; in a moment his arms held her fast. 'Now 'oo can't ever go!' he cried exultantly. 'That's my trick! Love makes 'oo so clever!'

The voices of the two little girls called plaintively from the other room, 'Mummy! Mummy!' Beatrice tore herself away at last, accepting as a happy afterthought the ear-rings Jean picked up, from the floor.

The two little girls were lovely, but their loveliness had a less exotic quality. They were pink and white, with very blue eyes and corn-coloured hair, each had a diminutive pink bed, with a white satin eiderdown sprinkled over with apple blossoms. The walls of their room were painted a deep cream with a dado of apple trees in full flower.

Beatrice gave herself to the little girls afresh, with a cool happy sweetness.

It was plain they not only adored her but were all of them utterly at home with her. She was their home--but less of her was theirs than Oliver occupied; for them she wouldn't so recklessly have torn off her ear-rings. She sat on each bed in turn, and drew Jean into the circle of their interests.

She was to go with them to-morrow to the sea. She was to paddle. Anne could swim, but Bridget could only float--at least if Uncle Ian's hand was under her head she could float! Oliver couldn't do anything but sit in the waves while they ran over him. Anne, who was eight, explained most of what Jean had better know. Bridget only clung to her mother's hand as if it might be taken from her if she wasn't careful.

Oliver shouted words and refrains of songs from his room through the open door, although it wasn't his turn. Nobody stopped him, and Jean found herself wanting to go back to him. The little girls were much more friendly, but their eyes hadn't his wild sparkle. Bridget cried out suddenly, 'Where's Daddy?' and a strange silence crept into the room. Beatrice sat still saying nothing at all; the smile on her lips ceased to grow--it just stood still--and the lurking dimples in her cheeks waited for the smile to come alive again.

'Later on Daddy will come,' said Mrs. Meadows's deep voice from the other room, and over the queer dropped silence, the happy chatter spread again. They couldn't bear it when the dinner-gong rolled its deep call through the house; they were stoical cheerful children who had been brought up never to cry, so they remembered instead all the important questions Beatrice hadn't settled.

Anne wanted to know how God made kittens. Oliver produced a sore toe, Bridget wanted to say a new prayer. 'Please keep the sea where it was to-day, to-morrow, and don't let it whuffle up too much.'

'Now don't ask your mother any more questions,' said the imperious voice of Mrs. Meadows.

Only Oliver went on after this. He said one of his toes was redder than the other--see if it wasn't! Beatrice saw it and cried: 'You've pinched it, you little imp!' and off they went to the sound of Oliver's triumphant chuckles.

On the other side of the door the laughing girl Beatrice was gone. She had become suddenly a very great lady. Not at all an unkind or portentous one, but just coldly and gracefully great. She froze the happy praises on Jean's lips; Jean couldn't say now that she loved the children or what she thought of Oliver. She could only wonder why Beatrice should possess everything--not only frosty Tudor houses and her dazzling beauty--but those beings built out of love and sunshine, hardly of mere flesh and blood, and yet with all these great possessions should shut herself suddenly behind high stone walls.

They walked downstairs side by side into the brilliant lighted well of the hall.

At the foot of the stairs Ian waited for them, and standing with his back to the fireplace was a tall fair man with a single eyeglass--precisely the blond cool giant of Jean's worst fears. She couldn't see him very plainly; her eyes wandered in spite of themselves back to Ian. She caught for an astonished moment on his upturned brow the same fierce possessive scowl which had ruffled Oliver's tender forehead.