“Are you boys ready?” she cried, just as coffee was brought in. “We can’t wait for coffee — come on! My instructor will be engaged.”
“How are you going, Pam?” asked Violet.
“Underground. It’s the quickest.”
“Oh, no, Pam. Take a taxi. Archie, you must!”
Between laughter and admonition, they were dispatched — Pamela, Archie and the two Temple boys, all laughing and talking, and exchanging allusions and references unintelligible to Alex.
The room seemed much quieter and darker when the hall-door had finally slammed behind them. Alex looked round her.
At the head of his own table, Cedric sat reflective. Violet lounged, smoking a cigarette and laughing, where Lady Isabel’s place had always been. Opposite Alex, Barbara, in her prim black, was leaning forward and speaking:
“What’s the attraction about this roller-skating? Pamela seems to do nothing else, when she isn’t dancing.”
“Every one’s doing it, my dear. I want to take it up myself, so as to reduce my figure, but it’s such an impossible place to get at. I’ve only been to Olympia for the Military Tournaments. But Pam has a perfect passion for getting about by the underground railway. Alex, isn’t Pam a refreshing person?”
Alex felt uncertain as to her meaning, and was startled at being addressed. She knew that she coloured and looked confused.
“My dear,” said Barbara impressively, “your nerves must simply have gone to pieces. Imagine jumping like that when you’re spoken to! Don’t you think she ought to do a rest-cure, Violet? There’s a place in Belgrave Street.”
“No, no,” said Violet’s kind, soft voice. “She’s coming to us. You must let us have her, Barbara, for a good long visit. Mustn’t she, Cedric?”
“Of course. You must have your old quarters upstairs, Alex.”
The kindness nearly made her cry. She felt as might a child, expecting to be scolded and punished, and unexpectedly met with smiles and re-assurance.
“Come up and see Baby,” said Violet. “She’s such a little love, and I want her to know her new auntie.”
“Violet, we really must talk business some time,” said Barbara, hesitating. “There are plans to be settled, you know — what Alex is going to do next.”
“She’s going to play with Rosemary next. Don’t worry, dear — we can talk plans any time. There’s really no hurry.”
Alex dimly surmised that the words, and the indolent, dégagée smile accompanying them, might be characteristic of her new sister-in-law.
Violet took her upstairs.
“The nursery is just the same — we haven’t changed a thing,” she told her.
Alex gave a cry of recognition at the top of the stairs. “Oh, the little gate that fenced off the landing! It was put up when Cedric was a baby, because he would run out and look through the balusters.”
“Was it, really?” cried Violet delightedly. “Cedric didn’t know that — he told me that it had always been there. I shall love having you, Alex, you’ll be able to tell me such lots of things about Cedric, when he was a little boy, that no one else knows. You see, there’s so little difference between him and Barbara, isn’t there?”
“I am only three years older than Barbara.”
“Then you’re the same age — or a little older than I am. I am twenty-nine — two whole years older than Cedric. Isn’t it dreadful?”
She laughed gaily as she turned the handle of the nursery door.
“Baby, precious, where are you?”
Alex followed her into the big, sunny room.
A young nurse, in stiff white piqué, sat sewing in the window, and a starched, blue-ribboned baby, with disordered, sunny curls, crawled about the floor at her feet.
When she saw her mother she began to run towards her, with outstretched hands and inarticulate coos of pleasure.
“Come along, then, and see your new Auntie.” Violet caught her up and lifted her into her arms.
“Isn’t she rather a love, Alex? Shall we look after her for a little while, while Nurse goes downstairs?”
Alex nodded. She felt as though she hardly dared speak, for fear of frightening the pretty little laughing child. Besides, the constriction was tightening in her throat.
Violet sank down into a low chair, with Rosemary still in her arms.
“I’ll stay with her, Nurse, if you like to go downstairs for half-an-hour.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
“Sit down and let’s be comfy, Alex. Isn’t this much nicer than being downstairs?”
Alex looked round the nursery. As Violet had said, it had not been altered. On the mantelpiece she suddenly saw the big white clock, supported by stout Dresden-china cherubs, that had been there ever since she could remember. It was ticking in a sedate, unalterable way.
Something in the sight of the clock, utterly familiar, and yet forgotten altogether during all her years away from Clevedon Square, suddenly caught at Alex. She made an involuntary, choking sound, and to her own dismay, sobs suddenly overpowered her.
“My poor dear!” said Violet compassionately. “Do cry — it’ll do you good, and Baby and I won’t mind, or ever tell a soul, will we, my Rosemary? I knew you’d feel much better when you’d had it out, and nobody will disturb us here.”
Alex had sunk on to the floor, and was leaning her head against Violet’s chair.
The soft, murmuring voice went on above her:
“I never heard of such a thing in my life as Barbara’s bringing you here today — she never explained when she telephoned that you hadn’t been in England for goodness knows how many years, let alone to this house. And, of course, I thought she’d settled it all with you, till I saw your face when she brought you into the drawing-room, all full of tiresome people, and brothers and sisters you hadn’t set eyes on for years. Then I knew, of course, and I could have smacked her. You poor child!”
“No, no,” sobbed Alex incoherently. “It’s only just at first, and coming back and finding them all so changed, and not knowing what I am going to do.”
“Do! Why, you’re coming here. Cedric and Rosemary and I want you, and Barbara doesn’t deserve to keep you after the way she’s begun. I’ll settle it all with her.”
“Oh, how kind you are to me!” cried Alex.
Violet bent down and kissed her.
“Kind! Why, aren’t I your sister, and Rosemary your one and only niece? Look at her, Alex, and see if she’s like any one. Cedric sometimes says she’s like your father.”
“A little, perhaps. But she’s very like you, I think.”
“Oh, I never had those great, round, grey eyes! Those are Cedric’s. And perhaps yours — they’re the same colour. Anyway, I believe she’s really very like what you must have been as a baby, Alex!”
It was evident that Violet was paying the highest compliment within her power.
Alex put out her hand timidly to little Rosemary. She was not at all shy, and seemed accustomed to being played with and admired, as she sat on her mother’s lap. Alex thought how pretty and happy she and Violet looked together. She was emotionally too much worn-out, and had for too many years felt herself to be completely and for ever outside the pale of warm, human happiness, to feel any pang of envy.
Presently Violet reluctantly gave up Rosemary to the nurse again, and said:
“I’m afraid we ought to go down. I don’t like to leave Barbara any longer. She never comes up here — hardly ever. Poor Barbara! I sometimes think it’s because she hasn’t any babies of her own. Let’s come down and find her, Alex.”
They found Barbara in the library, earnestly talking to Cedric, who was leaning back, smoking and looking very much bored.
He sprang up when they entered, and from his relieved manner and from Barbara’s abrupt silence, Alex conjectured that they had been discussing her own return.
She stood for a moment, forlorn and awkward, till Violet sank on to the big red-leather sofa, and held out her hand in invitation to
her.
“Give me a cigarette, Cedric. What have you and Barbara been plotting — like two conspirators?”
Cedric laughed, looking at her with a sort of indulgent pride, but Barbara said with determined rapidity:
“It’s all very well, Violet, to laugh, but we’ve got to talk business. After all, this unexpected step of Alex’ has made a lot of difference. One thought of her as absolutely settled — as father did, when he made his will.”
“You see, Alex,” Cedric told his sister, “the share which should have been yours was divided by father’s will between Barbara and Pamela, and there was no mention of you, except just for the fifty pounds a year which my father thought would pay your actual living expenses in the convent. He never thought of your coming away again.”
“How could he, after all these years?” ejaculated Barbara.
“I know. But I couldn’t have stayed on, Cedric, indeed I couldn’t. I know I ought to have found out sooner that I wasn’t fitted for the life — but if you knew what it’s all been like—”
Her voice broke huskily, and despair overwhelmed her at the thought of trying to explain what they would never understand.
“Poor little thing!” said Violet’s compassionate voice. “Of course, you couldn’t stay on. They’ve nearly killed you, as it is — wretched people!”
“No — no. They were kind—”
“The point is, Alex,” Barbara broke in, “that you’ve only got the wretched fifty pounds a year. Of course, I’d be more than glad to let you have what would naturally have been yours — but how on earth I’m to manage it, I don’t know. Cedric can tell you what a state poor Ralph left his affairs in — you’d never believe how little I have to live on. Of course, the money from father was a godsend, I don’t deny it. But if Cedric thinks it’s justice to give it back to you—”
She looked terribly anxious, gazing at her brother.
“No, no, Barbara!” said Alex, horrified. “I don’t want the money. Of course, you must keep it — you and Pamela.”
“That’s all very well, my dear Alex,” said Cedric sensibly, “but how do you propose to live? You must look at it from a practical point of view.”
“Then you think—” broke from Barbara irrepressibly.
“No, my dear, I don’t. One knows very well, as things are — as poor Ralph left things — it would be almost out of the question to expect—”
He looked helplessly at his wife.
“Of course, dear,” she said placidly. “But there’s Pamela’s share.”
“Pamela will marry, of course. She’s sure to marry, but until then — or at least until she comes of age — I don’t think — as her guardian—”
Cedric broke off, looking much harassed.
“If Pam married a rich man — which she probably will,” said Violet, with a low laugh.
“We can’t take distant possibilities into consideration,” Barbara interposed sharply. “We’re dealing with actual facts.”
Alex looked from one to the other with bewilderment. She hardly understood what they were all discussing. From the natural home of her childhood and girlhood, where she had lived as unthinking of ways and means as every other girl of her class and generation, she had passed into the convent world, where all was communal, and the rights of the individual a thing part shunned, part unknown. She could not, at first, grasp that Cedric and Barbara and Violet, perhaps Pam and Archie, too, were all wondering how she would be able to maintain herself on fifty pounds a year.
“Of course,” Barbara was saying, “Alex could come to me for a bit — I’d love to have you, dear — but you saw for yourself what a tiny place mine is — and there’s only Ada. I don’t quite know what she’d say to having two people instead of one, I must say—”
“We want her, too,” Violet exclaimed caressingly. “Let us have her for a little while, Barbara, — while you’re preparing Ada’s mind for the shock.” She broke into her low, gurgling laugh again.
Barbara looked infinitely relieved.
“What do you think, Alex? It isn’t that I wouldn’t love to have you — but there’s no denying that ways and means do count, and in a tiny household like mine, every item adds up.”
“Oh,” said Alex desperately, “I know what you must feel — the difficulty of — of knowing what to do with me. It’s always been like that, ever since I was a little girl. I’ve made a failure of everything. Don’t you remember — Barbara, you must — old Nurse saying, ‘Alex will never stick to anything’? And I never have, I never shall. I can only make dreadful muddles and failures, and upset you all. If only one could wreck one’s own life without interfering with other people’s!”
There was a silence, which Alex, after her outburst, knew very well was not one of comprehension. Then Cedric said gently:
“You mustn’t let yourself exaggerate, my dear. We’re very glad to have you with us again, one only can’t help wishing it had been rather sooner. But there’s no use in crying over spilt milk, and after all, as Violet says, there’s no hurry about anything. Come to us and have a good long rest — you look as though you needed it — and get a little flesh on your bones again. We can settle all the rest afterwards.”
Alex saw Barbara looking at her with furtive eagerness. She turned to her, with the utter dependence on another’s judgment that had become second nature to her.
“When shall I go?”
“My dear!” protested Barbara. “Of course, the longer you can stay with me the better I shall be pleased. It’s only that Ada—” She broke off at the sound of Violet’s irrepressible laugh.
“You must suit yourself absolutely, of course.”
“Supposing you came to us at the end of the week?” Violet suggested. “Say Saturday. Pamela is going away then to pay one or two visits — and I shall have you all to myself.”
Alex looked at her wonderingly.
It seemed to her incredible that Violet should actually want her, so engrained was her sense of her own isolation of spirit. That terrible isolation of those who have definitely, and for long past, lost all self-confidence, and which can never be realized or penetrated by those outside.
“That will be delightful,” said Violet, seeming to take her acceptance for granted.
Barbara got up, smoothing her skirt gently.
“We really ought to be going, Alex. I said we’d be in to tea, and it takes such ages to get back.”
Alex rose submissively. She marvelled at the assurance of Barbara, even at the ease of her conventionally affectionate farewells.
“Well, good-bye, my dear. When are you coming out to the wilds to look me up?”
Then, without giving her sister-in-law time to reply, she added gaily, “You must ring me up and let me know, when you’ve a spare moment. You know I’m always a fixture. What a blessing the telephone is!”
“Then we’ll see you on Saturday, Alex,” said her brother. “Good! Take care of yourself, my dear.” He looked after her with an expression of concern, as the servant held open the door for her and Barbara and they went into the street. Alex could not believe that this kindly, rather pompous man was her younger brother.
“Cedric has grown very good-looking, but I didn’t expect to see him so — so old, somehow,” she said.
Barbara laughed.
“Time hasn’t stood still with any of us, you know. I think Violet looks older than he does — she is, of course. She’ll be a mountain in a few years’ time, if she doesn’t take care.”
“Oh, Barbara! I think she’s so pretty — and sweet.”
Barbara shrugged her shoulders very slightly.
“She and I have never made particularly violent friends, though I like her, of course. Pamela adores her — and I must say she’s been good to Pam. But her kindness doesn’t cost her anything. She’s always been rich, and had everything she wanted — she was the only girl, and her people adored her, and now Cedric lets her do everything she likes. She spends any amount of money — look at
her clothes, and the way she has little Rosemary always dressed in white.”
“Rosemary is lovely. It’s so extraordinary to think of Cedric’s child!”
Barbara tightened her lips.
“She ought to have been a boy, of course. Cedric pretended not to care, but it must have been a disappointment — and goodness only knows if Violet will ever—”
She stopped, throwing a quick glance out of the corners of her eyes at her sister.
Alex wondered why she did not finish her sentence, and what she had been about to say.
The constraint in her intercourse with Barbara was becoming more and more evident to her perceptions. It was clear that her sister did not intend to ask any questions as to the crisis through which Alex had passed, and when she had once ascertained that Alex had not “seen anybody” whilst in Rome, she did not refer to that either.
Alex wondered if Barbara would tell her anything of Ralph and their married life, but the reserve which had always been characteristic of Barbara since her nursery days, had hardened sensibly, and it was obvious that she wished neither to give nor to receive confidences.
She was quite ready, however, to discuss her brother Cedric and his wife, or the prospects of Pamela and Archie, and Alex listened all the evening to Barbara’s incisive little clear tones delivering shrewd comments and judgments. She again suggested that Alex should go to bed early, saying as she kissed her good-night:
“It’s quite delightful to have some one to talk to, for me. I generally read or sew all the evening.”
“It must be lonely for you, Barbara.”
“Oh, I don’t mind quiet,” she laughed, as though edging away from any hint of emotional topic. “But, of course, it’s nice to have some one for a change. Good-night.” She turned towards the door of the bedroom. “Oh, Alex! there’s just one thing — I know you’d rather I said it. If you wouldn’t mind, sometime — any time you think of it — just letting me have the money for those clothes we bought for you today. The bills have come in — I asked for them, as I don’t have an account. I knew you’d rather be reminded, knowing what pauper I am. I only wish I hadn’t got to worry you. Good-night, my dear. Sleep well.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 118