Читать книгу Exile - Warwick Deeping - Страница 6

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Billy sat down on her bed and allowed her impressions to revolve and to settle. She took off her hat and gave her head a shake. She looked round the room. It was small and square. It had a red-tiled floor, biscuit-coloured walls, and lace curtains at the one high window. There were no pictures. The furniture included the wooden bedstead, a marble-topped chest of drawers, a marble-topped dressing-table, a wardrobe, two cane chairs and a little black table with a white cloth. It was the kind of room that remains anonymous until some personality takes possession of it and breathes into its staleness an individual perfume. It was as clean as a glass case in a jeweller’s shop. It seemed to smell faintly of soap.

Billy gave both the pillow and bed a dig with her fist. Yes, not so bad. She liked a good bed, and preference for good beds is a sign of a wholesome femininity. Maria had placed a jug of hot water in the basin, and Billy rose and unfastened her suitcase and took out her sponge-bag and brushes. A new cake of pink soap lay in the soapdish. One would not have expected pink soap in Miss Lord’s villa, but perhaps Maria was responsible for the pinkness.

Billy washed, and she washed with the thoroughness of a young woman who enjoyed it. No mere messing about with a piece of cotton wool and some face-powder. She was active with the towel. She shook and tossed her head like a healthy young animal.

Good business—washing, after two frowsty days in a stuffy train. Yes, on the whole she liked Miss Lord. A little chilly perhaps, but aseptic and knowable. And the lights of Tindaro, and the ascent through that mysterious dark town, and the little shops, and the dimly aspiring cypresses! It was good, jolly good. And she felt hungry.