Читать книгу East Is Always East - Pamela Wynne - Страница 6

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Being a very understanding woman Mrs. Metcalfe knew exactly what would please her daughters most in the way of fitting themselves out for this great adventure. Flavia had excellent taste and was a very good shopper. Mrs. Metcalfe could trust her implicitly with any amount of money. So she went to see her nice broker in the City, took his advice, and sold out what he advised her to sell out. After the passages were paid for she had three hundred pounds left. She gave each of the girls sixty pounds; told them briefly the sort of clothes that they would want; said that she wished them to continue to dress alike and then left them to spend it as they chose. Both girls already had very nice moleskin coats, given them by an accommodating godmother. That they would want them in Wandara was certain, said Mrs. Metcalfe, and they would also want them for the first part of the voyage as they were going to start from Tilbury, and even the Mediterranean could be cold in late September and early October. They would also want quite four nice evening dresses, said their mother, who had found out all about everything from an old friend of hers who had married, gone out to India, and then come back and settled down in Eastbourne. But lots of the clothes that they had already would do. People who went East always got far too much, admonished the same friend from Eastbourne. “And for Heaven’s sake don’t buy topis till you get there,” she wrote excitedly. “If you go ashore at Port Said, take a sun umbrella and wear an ordinary hat. If you arrive in Wandara to stay with the Collector looking a fright in the wrong topis you’re finished for the whole of the cold weather,” wrote this same friend dramatically.

And fortunately the three women in the nice hotel in Ferndale Road were intelligent enough to listen to, and profit by, this intelligent advice. Both girls were wild with excitement at having so much money to spend. Every day was a delirium of shopping. They prowled up and down Shaftesbury Avenue staring in at windows. Flavia was brave enough to go into shops and come out again if she didn’t like the things they showed her. April was made nervous and self-conscious by this, but had to put up with it. And in the end she knew that Flavia had been right. Their outfit was beautiful. Their evening dresses, ridiculously inexpensive, were filmy and alluring. On one dramatic evening they called their mother into their bedroom and gave her a dress rehearsal. And then Mrs. Metcalfe was suddenly afraid. She was taking these two beautiful girls out to the East and she had no one to help her or advise her. Supposing anything happened to them? Supposing some unprincipled scoundrel got hold of her tender, helpless little April. Flavia was so much better able to take care of herself. But April! Her little snowdrop of a child, born when the snowdrops were just at their most beautiful after a late winter in the little Devonshire village. Married men were the danger in India, thought Mrs. Metcalfe, she had often heard it. Married men with their wives and families securely tucked away in England. You didn’t know that they were married until it was too late. Her precious little child’s heart, perhaps given innocently away, to be flung back at her after a dreadful agonizing interim. While the girls paraded up and down the room under the bright light Mrs. Metcalfe thought terrified thoughts. Her doing, all this! Supposing that any harm came of it?

And then she suddenly reflected that after all scores of girls went out to India every year. And that Arthur, being a widower, was very sensible. He would know beforehand whether people were married or not and tell her, so that she could warn the girls if she saw them becoming involved. That it was all going to be all right, as things always were all right if you did not worry. And that with two such lovely daughters she ought never to have a moment’s unhappiness about anything. Mrs. Metcalfe sat still with closed eyes as the girls had told her to do, while they changed into something else. And then as she sat there like that, she got a perfectly illogical thought that she too would like to dress up in some of her nice new evening clothes and parade up and down in front of somebody who would be interested and pleased. But who was there who would be? And then Mrs. Metcalfe flushed guiltily as she knew who there was. The tall middle-aged man who sat in the lounge and read his paper and spoke to nobody. Once or twice she had seen him watching her and then he had looked down at his paper again. There was something in his glance that had made her think that he thought she was nice. Nothing stupid, of course, she was far too old for that. But just nice. And thinking this, it was time for her to open her eyes again. Yes, certainly, her children had chosen their outfit beautifully: Mrs. Metcalfe was smiling with genuine pleasure and approval. Flavia was a very clever girl. Everything was just right, and the lovely starry blue suited them both to perfection.

“I’m so glad you’re pleased. Now what about your clothes?” April had taken off the last lovely filmy dance dress and was standing in her silk princess petticoat. Flavia was busy with many cardboard boxes and lots of tissue paper.

“Would you like to see one of my dinner dresses? Really, would you?” Mrs. Metcalfe suddenly felt excited.

“Of course we would!” Even Flavia was enthusiastic. “Go and put it on. You’ve heaps of time before we need change. Don’t wear it for dinner, though, or you’ll crush it so. Those velvet chairs in the lounge stick.”

“All right,” and Mrs. Metcalfe had gone. She ran downstairs. Because even she had been pleased when she had seen herself in the long glass in the palely upholstered fitting room in the big shop. It had not been dear, either. She got into the soft velvet folds of it eagerly. What a mercy she had kept her figure, she thought, tipping the mirror on her dressing-table at an angle so that it caught the reflection of the long glass in the wardrobe. And the three-fold necklace of pearls from Ciro’s was lovely too. The paste clasp made them look so much more as if they were real. Mrs. Metcalfe showed her still excellent teeth in a little happy smile as she switched off the electric light and ran out on to the landing. She felt like a girl again in her beautiful new dress. Happier than a girl really, because, from her own recollection youth was not the desperately happy time that it was supposed to be. One was too self-distrustful: too apprehensive of the unknown future that yawned ahead of one, to be really happy, thought Mrs. Metcalfe, not looking where she was going because she was so absorbed in her sudden thought of the two young things upstairs whom she had brought into the world and whom she had not the least idea really how to bring up.

This was the opportunity that John Maxwell had been waiting for and that he knew would come his way if he waited long enough. He burst out laughing.

“Not a bit,” he smiled as Mrs. Metcalfe gasped a hurried apology.

“Oh, but I must have hurt you!”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m going upstairs to my daughters to show them my new dress. We’re all going out to India,” said Mrs. Metcalfe in a sudden burst of confidence. “We’ve all bought new clothes and I suddenly felt that I wanted to show them to my girls.”

“I don’t wonder.” John Maxwell stood looking down on to Mrs. Metcalfe’s dark hair, in which white threads were beginning to sparkle. “Show it to me first though. I love nice clothes.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes, of course I do. What man doesn’t? Yes, it suits you well.” John Maxwell’s deep grey eyes were appreciative. Mrs. Metcalfe was a very pretty woman, he decided briefly. Where was her husband? Unless she was a widow, why was she alone like this?

“You must think I’m funny to talk to you like this,” said Mrs. Metcalfe, speaking rather breathlessly. “But have you ever had the feeling that you want someone of your own age to think you look nice? I’ve got it awfully just now. I suppose I’m not quite old enough to absolutely find all my happiness in thinking that other people look nice.”

“Yes, I know the feeling very well indeed,” said John Maxwell. “Most people of our age get it sooner or later. Walk along as far as that wardrobe and back again, and then I’ll give you a considered opinion on the great garment.”

Mrs. Metcalfe walked. And as she walked she felt a thrill of excitement at this sudden adventure. She thought of her two girls upstairs waiting for her and felt that she didn’t mind. This tall man looked so awfully nice in his tails and white tie. He must be going out to a dinner party. A swift disappointment ran over her at the thought that he would therefore not be in the lounge when they went in to have their coffee there.

“Yes, it’s charming,” John Maxwell spoke after a little pause. Mrs. Metcalfe had come back and was standing looking up at him. “Black suits you,” he said. “When are you going out to India?”

“At the end of the month. My brother is out there in the I.C.S. I am a widow,” Mrs. Metcalfe suddenly got a strong feeling that she wanted this nice man to know all about her.

“I see. You have two very beautiful daughters,” said John Maxwell warmly. “And it is amazing how alike they are. At first I could not tell them apart. Now I can.”

“Yes?”

“One of them has a slightly different expression on her mouth,” said John Maxwell.

“Ah, that must be April,” exclaimed Mrs. Metcalfe. And then she suddenly remembered April, upstairs waiting for her. “I must go,” she hesitated.

“Yes, and so must I,” John Maxwell drew a flat gold watch on a watered ribbon out of his pocket. “Well, thank you for letting me share in the dress rehearsal,” he smiled.

“Yes,” and then shyly and like a child Mrs. Metcalfe bolted away up the staircase without saying any more. But when she got to the top she unwisely turned round. And there he was still standing and looking up after her. Mrs. Metcalfe hesitated, and then very reprehensibly ran all the way down the stairs again.

“I hope you’ll enjoy yourself to-night wherever you’re going,” she stammered.

“I’m sure I shall. But it was nice of you to think of it. That’s what one misses too, someone really to mind whether one enjoys oneself or not,” said John Maxwell, and the look in his eyes was very delightful.

“Oh, my daughters do mind,” Mrs. Metcalfe was suddenly frightened at what she had done. She turned to bolt up the stairs again.

“I am sure they do.” John Maxwell said the words to Mrs. Metcalfe’s frightened and retreating back. He laughed a little quietly to himself as without looking back again she fled round the corner of the landing. And then he went on down the stairs into the narrow hall to collect a taxi.