Читать книгу The Chinese Shawl - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 4

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Laura had never enjoyed herself so much in her life. There was that sparkle in the atmosphere, and everyone was so kind. They all knew each other so well, and they might so easily have crowded her out, but she didn’t feel like a stranger at all.

When dinner was over they danced in the famous Gold Room. Laura danced first with Douglas Maxwell, and then with Carey Desborough. She said,

“I’m not really tall enough.”

He smiled down at her and said in a pleasant, cheerful voice,

“Oh, we’ll get along.”

“Is Tanis taller than I am?”

She tilted her head and saw the smile go out. He said, with an effect of being casual,

“Oh, I don’t know—I shouldn’t think so.”

She danced with Robin after that. About halfway through they stood out for a moment and watched. Against the gold background the rhythmic movement had the effect of a kaleidoscope slowed down to the pace of a slow-moving melody. Laura watched with fascinated eyes. She had lived very quietly. She had never seen anything like this before. She was as thrilled as a child at its first Christmas tree. Light, colour, music, kindness made an enchanting pattern. She saw Helen Douglas go by, tall and very fair, in a dress of midnight blue. She was with Carey Desborough. Their heights matched perfectly. She saw Petra and Alistair. Petra was laughing, but Alistair looked across the room to where Tanis stood with his brother Douglas.

Robin laughed.

“Don’t you want to dance?”

Laura gave a long, happy sigh.

“I want to dance, and I want to watch, and I want to talk to everyone. There ought to be at least six of me to enjoy it all properly.”

“You are a comic kid!”

“I’m twenty-one. I’m grown up. I’m of age. I can squander my enormous fortune.”

“I didn’t know you’d got one.”

“Four hundred a year,” said Laura. “Three hundred of it comes from letting the Priory to Cousin Agnes Fane, so it doesn’t really count, because you can’t squander a house. But it gives me a lovely feeling to think that I can snatch the other three thousand pounds away from Mr. Metcalfe and just play ducks and drakes with it.”

“You’d much better stick to it. What sort of ducks and drakes do you want to make?”

Laura laughed happily.

“Oh, I don’t. It’s just a perfectly lovely thought.”

Robin’s Scottish brow displayed a frown.

“It must have been badly invested for you to be getting only three and a half per cent on it.”

But Laura was tired of the subject of her money. She had no idea of wasting any more time upon it. She pulled Robin out into the dance again. They went by quite close to Alistair and Petra. Laura said,

“I like her so much. Who is she? Have you known her a long time? Is she engaged to Alistair?”

Robin’s frown seemed to have come to stay. He answered only the last of her questions.

“Not officially. As a matter of fact he’s gone a bit off the deep end about Tanis. She takes people that way. Not me, you know—I’m a cautious bird. When I see a net all laid out with nice little pellets of poisoned grain, I beat it for the great wide spaces.”

“Oh—Robin, how horrid of you! She isn’t like that!”

“You just wait. She specializes in other girls’ boy friends.”

“It sounds revolting.”

“Not a bit of it—it’s all done with kindness. I’ve watched her at it for years. She’s kind to the girl, and she’s kind to the chap, and she goes on being kind to him till the girl gets crowded out, and then after a bit she gets bored and he gets crowded out too. She doesn’t want any of them for keeps, you know. She just wants half a dozen of them trailing round, licking her boots and paying her taxis, and ready to cut each other’s throats. She enjoys that part of it a lot.”

His tone was so savage that it rasped Laura’s nerves. She looked up at him, half frightened, and saw the fair-skinned boyish face set in lines that added ten years to his age.

“I didn’t think Alistair would be such a fool,” he said. And then, with a jerk that sent them both out of step, “What do we want to talk about the woman for? She’ll get herself murdered some day. She makes me see red!”

She danced next with Alistair. Interesting from the point of view of wanting to be right in the middle of these people and their emotions, but from the personal point of view perhaps a little arid, because Alistair did nothing but talk about Tanis—how wonderful she was—“She’s just been making the most marvellous film”—how beautiful, how extraordinarily kind and unselfish.

“I don’t honestly believe she ever thinks about herself at all. Take me for instance. I’m just a very distant cousin, and I’ve never known her particularly well before. She’s just been giving up her time to making my leave the most marvellous success. Why, she’d have let me fetch her tonight, only unfortunately Helen had already told Petra I was bringing her, so Tanis had to get Carey to come with her instead. I happen to know he bores her a bit. He’s one of the best, you know, but that doesn’t always cut any ice with women. Anyhow that’s another instance of her kindness—she’s been most awfully good to him. He crashed, you know, and he’s been rather a long time getting right. Tanis—” It was all Tanis.

Laura was fascinated and interested, but it did just occur to her to wonder how long the interest would last if this was Alistair’s usual form, and whether he talked like this to Petra. He told her all about how much Cousin Agnes adored Tanis—“She and Lucy brought her up, you know. They both adore her—but who wouldn’t? And then she went on the stage....” Laura gathered that Cousin Agnes had been rather narrowminded about this, and that the stage career hadn’t been quite the glowing success which was Tanis’s due, entirely owing to the main jealousies and cabals which her extraordinary beauty and talent had provoked. It appeared that Tanis had glided into the pleasanter role of the gifted amateur with professional experience. Then she had been seen by Isidore Levinstein and given, first a test, and then a marvellous part in a marvellous film. She had been working herself to death on it, but now it was finished and she was resting. That was why it was so marvellous of her to give up her time to someone like him. But that was just like her—she never thought about herself. She was so different from other people that they simply didn’t understand her. They were absolutely incapable of understanding such marvellous unselfishness....

Laura began to feel as if she were listening to a gramophone record.

It was after her third dance with Carey Desborough that he took her to sit out in one of the small alcoves off the dancing-floor. She saw him looking at her with an expression which she could not interpret—searching, quizzical—she didn’t know. She thought there was a trace of bitter humour, and she wondered why.

“You’re a cousin of Tanis’s, aren’t you?”

The label set off a very faint spark in Laura’s mind. Her chin lifted a shade as she said,

“Yes—I’m Laura Fane.”

He said, “You’re not like her,” in a musing voice, and a whole shower of sparks went up.

“Why should I be?”

He smiled disarmingly. It made the most extraordinary difference to his face. Oddly enough, it was when he smiled that she saw how sad his eyes were—dark, disenchanted eyes. He said,

“I didn’t mean that. Don’t be angry. What I meant was that you’re rather like her to look at—but you’re quite a different sort of person.”

“I don’t think I’m like her to look at.”

“Not really—just the colouring. But that’s accounted for if you’re cousins. It’s unusual, you know. Does it run right through the family?”

“I don’t know—I’ve never seen any of them. That’s why I was so excited about meeting Tanis. I’ve never met any of my Fane relations except the Maxwells, and they don’t really count because they take off miles further up on the family tree, before the feud.”

“Am I allowed to ask about the feud? I’ve never met one at close quarters before.”

“Oh, it isn’t a secret. You can’t have that sort of family split without everyone knowing, and it was a long time ago—before I was born.”

“A very long time ago!”

Laura looked at him suspiciously. He was perfectly grave. She said in a hurry,

“My father ran away with my mother instead of making the marriage the family had planned for him.”

“And they cut him off with a shilling.”

Laura showed two dimples.

“They couldn’t do that. The Priory belonged to him. And anyhow there weren’t any shillings except the ones he would have had if he had married Cousin Agnes. She had lots from her mother, who was quite a big heiress. She’s been renting the place ever since. You see, my father was in the Navy, and he couldn’t afford to live there anyhow, and nor could I, so it’s just as well that Cousin Agnes wants to. I believe she simply adores the place. It is funny to think I’ve never seen it.”

“Why don’t you go down there?”

“She’s never asked me.”

Her voice sounded faintly forlorn, like a child left out of a party. He wondered how old she was. He said,

“Where do you live then? What do you do? Your father and mother—”

She shook her head mournfully.

“They died when I was five. I don’t really remember them—only like a story that you’ve heard, and you wish you could remember it.”

He thought, “She’s awfully young.” He felt what you feel towards a child—kindness—the response to an unconscious appeal. He said quietly,

“Well, someone looked after you.”

“Oh, yes—my mother’s sister—very kind, and just a little bit strict. She sits on committees—women’s welfare, and education, and all that sort of thing—and since the war evacuees.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m secretary to a convalescent home for soldiers, and I drive the billeting officer round—she’s a woman—and of course A.R.P.—and odd jobs for Aunt Theresa—”

Carey Desborough laughed.

“And what do you do in your spare time?”

“I don’t think I have any.” She laughed suddenly too. “Oh, that’s what you meant?” The dimples appeared again. “Well, there are always odd jobs—we’ve only got one maid. And sometimes I go to the pictures, and I have been known to dance, but not on a floor like this.”

“The simple life!” His eyes smiled at her.

“I’m a country cousin,” said Laura. Her voice was small and meek, but the grey-green eyes had a sparkle as they met his. Then the black lashes dropped. It was quite effective, but she hadn’t meant to do it. She just couldn’t look at him any longer. Something behind the smile hurt her at her heart. It was a soft heart and easily hurt.

To her horrified surprise she felt herself blushing. The colour burned in her cheeks.

Carey laughed. He said in a friendly, teasing tone,

“I haven’t seen a girl blush for years. How do you do it?”

Somehow that seemed to make it all right again. The sparkle returned. She said,

“I don’t—it does itself. Isn’t it horrid?”

“Not very.”

“Oh, but it is. It does it for nothing at all, and I never know when it’s going to let me down. I used to get horribly teased about it at school.”

They went on talking whilst the next dance came and went. She found she was telling him all sorts of things about Aunt Theresa, and the convalescent home, and their one and only bomb, and it was all quite easy and natural, and as if she had known him ever since she could remember.

“And how did you tear yourself away?”

Laura answered him quite seriously.

“Well, I hadn’t had a holiday since the war started—but it’s not a real holiday. I’m twenty-one, so I had to come up and see Mr. Metcalfe who is my lawyer and trustee. The holiday is just tacked on.”

“Then you ought to make the most of it. How long have you got?”

“I think about a week. It depends on Mr. Metcalfe.”

“When do you see him?”

“Tomorrow, at twelve.”

“Then suppose you lunch with me afterwards and we do a show?”

Laura blushed again, this time with pleasure.

“Oh, I should love to!”