Читать книгу East Is Always East - Pamela Wynne - Страница 5

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Mrs. Metcalfe had gone to bed directly after her sister-in-law’s visit for two reasons. One was that she was really tired. Mrs. Metcalfe was just forty-three, a tricky age for a highly-strung woman who has never really been satisfied emotionally. And the other was that she felt that she could not propound the idea of going to India to her children without a little more thought about it first. Flavia would want to go; Mrs. Metcalfe was quite certain about that. April might or might not want to go, but in any event she would be overruled by Flavia. As for what she wanted to do herself, Mrs. Metcalfe did not know. At the moment, she only felt that she wanted to be left alone. Letting Pear Tree Cottage had been an upheaval to her after the uneventful life she had led for so long. The packing up and leaving cupboards and drawers empty for the incoming tenants had been tiring. April had helped as much as she could, but Flavia had done nothing but make rather drastic suggestions. Certainly looking extremely pretty as she made them, but Mrs. Metcalfe had almost been ashamed of the unwelcome thought that one so soon got used to a person being pretty, but never used to him or her being selfish. Paul had been selfish in a way, thought Mrs. Metcalfe, feeling herself hideous and unnatural at even being able to think such a thing now that he was dead.

And now she lay and twisted about in her comfortable bed and reproached herself for having dismissed the girls with only a lazy murmur when they had come in keen to tell her all about what they had been doing since they had left the hotel that morning. But somehow she could not rouse herself. Louisa had tired her: tired and irritated her, and she could not undertake anything more until the next morning. She would sleep on her brother’s invitation and tell the girls about it in the morning.

And she did so. Sitting up in bed looking very young and nice with her shingled hair, Mrs. Metcalfe did not have breakfast: she contented herself with two slices of brown bread and butter with her early tea. The girls did have breakfast and they arrived from it gasping.

“The temperature of that dining-room! How the people stand it I can’t think!” Flavia had cast herself into the one easy chair and had begun to fan herself with the Morning Post.

“Yes, it’s astounding.” Mrs. Metcalfe had secretly taken hold of April’s hand, who had come up close to the bed. “I’ll take your tray away, Madeline,” April was smiling.

“You are not to call me by my Christian name, April!” Mrs. Metcalfe’s eyes were glinting with laughter as she spoke.

“Why? Mother’s so stiff.” April was walking to the door with the tray tucked under her arm. She came back and sat down on the end of the bed. “You’re desperately lazy,” she said slowly.

“I’m not in the least lazy,” said Mrs. Metcalfe. Even April, accustomed as she was to it, glowed inwardly at the love in her mother’s eyes. “I’ve got something to tell you both,” she said suddenly. “Something I can tell you better if I’m really warm and comfortable. It’s this. I’ve heard from Uncle Arthur—you know, the one in India. He wants us all to go out and stay with him for six months.”

“When?” Flavia spoke first, after a breathless silence.

“Soon. In two months’ time. To take our passages for the middle of October. The place where he is, Wandara, in the Punjab, is quite cold in the winter. Like a mild English winter, he says it is, only much nicer because it is dry.”

“Could we have fires out there?” April, from the end of the bed, spoke rapidly. Mrs. Metcalfe, looking at her child, felt a sensation of tears at her heart. The first thought for her! How could one ever be miserable about anything with a child like this, thought Mrs. Metcalfe, turning to fumble about under the pillow for her handkerchief.

“Yes, darling, of course we could. Uncle Arthur often talks about his lovely wood fires.” Mrs. Metcalfe’s eyes were tender. And then, conscience-stricken, she turned quickly to glance at her elder daughter. “What do you think about it, Flavia?” she asked.

“Think about it!” Flavia’s face was flushed and excited, “Why it’s the most gorgeous, the most heavenly thing in the world,” she gasped. “Mother! what a chance for us. Think of seeing it all: India, and the voyage and everything. Why I feel quite cracked already. Let’s go and get our tickets to-day. Can we?”

“Yes, I don’t see why not. The sooner we book them the better, and I believe you don’t have to pay at once.” Mrs. Metcalfe made a little movement of her feet.

April stirred and spoke. “Can we afford it, darling?” she asked. Her tender little brain was busy. How could she find out if her mother really wanted to go? she wondered. She herself did, desperately, and so of course did Flavia. But Madeline? The uprooting from Pear Tree Cottage had meant a great deal to her mother, April knew. And now another uprooting. Sometimes Madeline looked tired and as if she only wanted to be let alone. How could she find out what she really felt?

“I shall simply adore it,” said Mrs. Metcalfe suddenly. She disregarded April’s suggestion that it was going to cost a great deal of money. It was, but she would manage that somehow. She would sell something, and the six months’ visit would cost them very little because Arthur had made it very clear that they were to be his guests. Paul had left her with an income of eight hundred a year. Well, supposing she sold out enough to produce six hundred pounds she would still have lots of income left. Mrs. Metcalfe had thought all that out earlier that morning as she had lain and stared at the ceiling, waiting for her early tea.

“Would you really adore it?” April’s down-bent eyes had lost their look of tender anxiety. She turned them blazing on her mother. “Oh, I think I shall simply explode, I want to go so much,” she said, “Flavia, just think of it—the voyage and everything! Dances every night, perhaps! Mother, you will really have to get yourself some nice dresses for the evening,” said April.

“Yes, we shall want some clothes,” said Flavia emphatically. “We’ll go to Shaftesbury Avenue, they’ve got some heavenly things there. April and I were looking at them yesterday. Mother, when can we begin to get started about it all?”

“To-day,” said Mrs. Metcalfe. Her heart was singing in the most ridiculous way because again April had thought of her first. This was going to be the most wonderful adventure in the world for all of them, she thought. She laughed out loud.

“You are not to call me by my Christian name on the boat, April,” she said. “People will be simply scandalized if you do.”

“No, they won’t. They’ll know that it’s because you’re such a pet,” said April. She got off the end of the bed and walked up to her mother. “We are both always in blue and you’ve got to fit yourself out in the most entrancing mole colour,” she said. “Tiny little hats squashed down over your eyes with neat little paste ornaments in them, and dance dresses that fluff out. I don’t see why you shouldn’t have just as much fun as we do,” said April, suddenly looking thoughtful as it struck her that her mother did look astoundingly young. Not in the least like a stiff parent.

But Flavia was bored. It often bored her to see April and her mother together. They were so like sisters. April had got one sister, herself, thought Flavia decidedly, getting up out of her chair and suggesting that it was time they went.

April followed meekly. And Mrs. Metcalfe, left alone, tried not to think dreadful disloyal thoughts about how heavenly it would be if Flavia married very happily in India and left April and her free to travel about together and do exactly what they liked. But she couldn’t help thinking these thoughts, and so to stop it she got up. Louisa might scoff at the unpretentious little hotel in Ferndale Road, but at any rate they gave you awfully nice boiling-hot baths for nothing, thought Mrs. Metcalfe, collecting all her washing things in a flowered indiarubber sponge-bag and preparing to start off on her quest for the largest bathroom with the newest bath mat, already marked down during her few days’ stay at the slim hotel in the long terrace of slim houses.