“Rather fun.”
“Dulcie doesn’t have much fun. She isn’t allowed to do any of the sports and things unless some of the Hotel visitors offer to take her out with them.”
“Why not? Expense or something?”
“I suppose so. Patrick, d’you like bouillabaisse?”
“I haven’t tasted it yet. We’re going to the Réserve to-morrow. That’ll do for my back, I think. Thanks awfully, Olwen.”
Olwen put the cork back into the bottle, but they continued to sit side by side, clasping their knees, on the warm surface of the rock.
After a perceptible hesitation, Patrick said, frowning at the water:
“I say, couldn’t you all come too, and have lunch at that bouillabaisse place to-morrow? You often do go, don’t you?”
“Oh yes. Daddy adores it, and so does Gwennie. At least, she probably only pretends to, because she thinks it’s grown-up. David simply loathes it. They usually give him an omelette instead. Mummie and I like it just moderately.”
“Well, couldn’t you manage to go there to-morrow? You see,” said Patrick drearily, “it’s so much more fun if there are a lot of people.”
“Do you think so?” asked Olwen, surprised. “I don’t mean that it wouldn’t be fun to go with your party, of course — but as a general rule, I like it better when it’s only just a few people, who all know one another awfully well.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be that, anyway, because of that beast Buckland.”
“He’s terribly foul, isn’t he?” said Olwen sympathetically. “We all simply loathe him. Why do you have to have him?”
Patrick drew a long breath.
“Well, you see, my father and mother, rather unfortunately, are separated, and mother got me — I was about eleven at the time it all happened, and I suppose father thought a kid of that age might be rather a bore to look after — and then she went to Egypt, and I spent my holidays with aunts and people, which was extraordinarily beastly, most of the time, and then when she came home again I was sent to Sherborne — where I am now, you know — and at first she had a flat in London and I used to go there for the holidays; then my father rather chipped in and said he’d like to have a go at me, so I went to him for a time or two, and that was all right. He lives in Scotland, and he taught me to fish. But this year, I spent the Easter hols. with mother and she was rather worried about expense and things, and said she was going to sell the furniture and get rid of the flat, and she seemed to think it would be rather fun to wander about for a bit, and a friend of hers called Mrs. Wolverton-Gush told her about this place, and said she’d be out here in August. As a matter of fact, she’s just arrived at some villa or other, quite near.”
Patrick stopped abruptly and seemed to find it difficult to go on. So Olwen said:
“Yes, I see. And where does the poisonous Buckland come in?”
“This ass of a woman, the Wolverton-Gush one — well, she’s frightfully nice really, I expect, but you know what I mean — It was her idea. She introduced him to mother, and sort of put it into her head that it would be a frightfully good idea to take him on as holiday tutor for me. If you ask me, Buckland was out of a job — and no wonder — and being more or less at a loose end, he worked it for all it was worth. Mother’s the most frightfully generous person, and I expect she gives him a jolly good screw.”
“I don’t see what he does to earn it.”
“Absolutely nothing. And he eats like a hog.”
“Yes, doesn’t he? Gwennie noticed that. She’s rather greedy herself, so of course she notices it in other people.”
“One expects a kid of eight to be greedy. Buckland lets mother pay for his drinks, too, and anything extra — like if we go in to St. Raphael and have ices. Nowadays I always say I don’t want an ice, if they suggest it, so as to do him down.”
“I don’t wonder. Does it succeed?”
“Not always. Once they went without me. Of course, mother didn’t twig at all. She just thought I really didn’t want an ice.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t think she even realises how much I hate the fellow.”
“Probably she doesn’t, or she’d get rid of him,” said Olwen, trying to make it sound like an assertion and not a question. “But you’ll tell her, won’t you, Patrick?”
“Oh, I expect so, sooner or later.” His voice was unconvincing. “I don’t suppose she really likes him herself, you know. It’s just that she’s so frightfully kind-hearted.”
“P’raps she doesn’t want to disappoint her friend — that Mrs. Thingamy-Gush who’s out here — and after you’ve gone home, it won’t matter.”
Patrick turned and looked at her, for the first time in the conversation, and the faint expression of strain that habitually lay round his eyes and mouth was lightened for a moment.
“D’you know, I never thought of that. Of course, that’s what it is. She’d hate to disappoint Mrs. Wolverton-Gush, I know. And mother’s so awfully sort of — confiding, and liking everyone to be jolly and all that — that she simply doesn’t realise how frightfully the brute needs kicking.”
“Hallo, Olwen!”
Dulcie, swimming with quick, feeble little strokes, appeared round the point.
“Hallo,” Olwen responded unenthusiastically.
Patrick stood up.
“Well — —”
He dived head first into the water.
“Good one!” squeaked Dulcie. “Mr. Waller, wasn’t that a splendid dive?”
“Very good style indeed,” critically replied Denis, who had come round the point too late to see it.
He perceived Olwen still on the rock, and pulled himself out of the water to join her. He was bored with Dulcie, although he had tried to be nice to her, and he was attracted by Olwen’s beauty and by her air of good-breeding — two qualities to which he was peculiarly susceptible.
“Haven’t you been in the water yet?”
“Not yet. Did you see David and Gwennie? They’ve gone right over to the island.”
“We saw them. They’re climbing about there, with your father.”
“I think I’ll go too,” said Olwen, getting up.
Denis was disappointed. Probably she wanted to get away from him. Well, she was only a child — what did it matter whether she liked him or not? He stood up politely as Olwen in her turn dived.
“Hallo, Mrs. Romayne,” said Dulcie from the sea. “Oh, hallo, Mr. Buckland.”
Her greetings remained unanswered, and doubtless unheard, in the lively noise made by Mrs. Romayne’s screams of laughter and Buckland’s derisive return-shouts.
They were splashing one another merrily, disputing the possession of a scarlet rubber ball.
Denis stood laughing quietly from the rock, in order to look and feel as if he were taking part in whatever was going on. One of his many fears was that of being ignored, or left out of things, because he was in a dependent position.
“Buck, I simply hate you!”
The ball, unsteadily flung by Mrs. Romayne, went wide of the mark, and it was her son, Patrick, who went after it and threw it back at her.
She flung it at the tutor again, and this time it caught him on the head.
“All right, I’m going to duck you for that!”
“You brute — you’re not to!”
“Mother, catch!”
Patrick had the ball again, and was coming towards her, but she ignored him, her whole attention given to the horse-play with Buckland, as he caught hold of her by the shoulders and she struggled with him, her bathing-dress coming half off in the process.
“Look at you, you’re not even decent!”
“Whose fault is that?”
Denis Waller’s smile had become a very fixed and unnatural one. He was not in the least amused, but rather disgusted, and the look on Patrick Romayne’s face hurt him.
But almost at once the boy turned and swam away. Only Denis noticed that he had gone.
(3)
&n
bsp; Coral Romayne — she had long ago decided that her name should be Coral instead of the baptismal Amy — shuffled off her wet bathing-dress under the shelter of a very smart bathing-cloak with green-and-white stripes. Pulling on her pale-rose pyjama-trousers, she reflected, as she did many times in the course of every day, that her figure was simply marvellous.
It was.
Coral was forty-four, and as straight and slim as a well-built girl of twenty. Nothing had spread, anywhere. Automatically, her hands passed down the firm, flat outline of her hips and waist, and she smiled a little, with satisfaction, and then slipped over her head the pyjama-top.
On the rock beside her was an elaborate beach-bag, on green glass rings. Coral sat down and extracted from it everything that she wanted for the lengthy and complicated process of making up her face.
If only her face had remained as young as her figure!
She gazed into her little looking-glass, carefully not frowning because frowning made lines.
The white bathing-helmet was unbecoming, and she hastily took it off, and shook her hair loose. Every day it hurt her afresh that her hair, which once had been ash-blonde in colour and soft in texture, should by imperceptible degrees have become stiff and brittle and lifeless.
It was permanent waving that had done it. No head of hair could stand up against it, year after year. And that time she’d dyed it had been disastrous, too. There was still a faint greenish tinge to be seen on one side of her head.
Coral ran a comb through her hair, sighing.
Then she gently patted the tiny little lines round her eyes. They were very nearly imperceptible — and her eyes were, and always would be, a lovely grey-blue between their darkened lashes. She smeared a very little rouge into her cheeks, and powdered her nose, chin, and forehead with an ochrish powder.
Before applying her lipstick, Coral scrutinised her front teeth very earnestly in the mirror. They were all right — still. And the few that weren’t her own were at the back, thank Heaven, and no one could possibly guess.
She reddened her mouth thoroughly. It was a very pretty and alluring mouth still, and there was as yet no sign of a double chin beneath it.
Coral’s terror of advancing years was by far the most real thing in her life. She lived only for the excitement of her succession of affairs with men, and it was to her almost unendurable to envisage an existence in which she would cease to be sexually attractive.
So far, there were no signs that she had lost any of her power, and indeed since her separation from Patrick’s father, and resultant freedom, it seemed to have increased. There was always someone.
Romayne was a rich man, and he gave her a generous allowance, for herself and for the boy. He knew — and Coral knew that he knew — that he could easily have divorced her — but Romayne was a man of religious scruples.
Coral did not mind. She had no particular wish to marry again. All that she wanted was to go on receiving the allowance, and to be free to go where she liked and do as she liked. She was extravagant, and never out of debt, but she had a natural light-heartedness that enabled her to throw off every impression except the ones of the moment.
She had come to the South of France partly to get away from her creditors in London, and partly at the instigation of a new friend recently met at a suburban Bridge Club — a Mrs. Wolverton-Gush.
“Gushie’ll expect me to go and look her up to-night, I suppose,” thought Coral, lacing up her bathing-shoes. “I can’t imagine Gushie out here, wearing a bathing-dress.”
She giggled at the thought, for Mrs. Wolverton-Gush was large, and Coral had never seen her dressed in anything except tight, black, pseudo-smart London garments, with touches of white, or of jade-green. She was the widow, she said, of a civil engineer, and had no children. A dishonest trustee, who had eventually committed suicide, was held by Mrs. Wolverton-Gush responsible for the fact that she was obliged to work for her living. She had, at various times, run a Tea-shop, a Registry Office, a Nursing Home, and a Hostel for Professional Women. Once or twice Mrs. Wolverton-Gush, in a stately way, had borrowed five or ten pounds from Carol, who was open-handed and liked to boast of it. The money had always been paid back again.
It was Mrs. Wolverton-Gush who had introduced Buckland to Mrs. Romayne, at a party given by Coral in London. She had suggested, almost immediately afterwards, that “a great boy like Patrick” ought to have a holiday-tutor, who would be able to drive the car, and swim, and play games with him. A tutor would be invaluable, if they went to the South of France.
“Your friend, Buck, is looking for a job. He’s done things of that kind heaps of times,” said Coral.
“I dare say he’d take it on. He admires you tremendously. Not that I’d advise you to engage him unless you really feel it would be the best thing for Patrick,” had replied Mrs. Wolverton-Gush.
Coral was amused. She knew very well that the whole thing had been arranged beforehand, and that if an engagement for Buckland resulted, Mrs. Wolverton-Gush would claim a commission from him.
Coral cared not at all. Her quarter’s allowance had just been paid, she was feeling rich, and the idea of having a big, good-looking young man at her beck and call in a smart Hotel on the Côte d’Azur, appealed to her. And to be tête-à-tête with Patrick, whom she found inarticulate and distressingly innocent, often bored her very much.
Buckland treated her with exactly the sort of familiarity that most flattered her, and Coral assured herself that the fact of his being nearly sixteen years younger than herself — whether he knew it or not — would prevent either of them from taking a possible affair too seriously.
Her interpretation of the word “affair” was, however, elastic. In a haze of good-humour, occasioned by recently taken exercise, the consciousness of Buckland’s proximity, and the prospect of drinks and noise and people as soon as they should get back to the Hotel, Mrs. Romayne sang to herself as she tied the last shoelace.
Buckland, swinging round a corner, almost ran into her.
“Give me a cigarette,” she commanded.
“I was just bringing them along. Here — keep still. I’ll light it for you.”
He was holding her arm when Patrick pulled himself up from the water and came across the rock, dripping.
“Had a good swim, Patrick? Where are the others?” called out Buckland.
“I don’t know.”
The boy vanished behind a rock.
“What a surly young beggar it is!” muttered Buckland. “Did you hear the way he spoke to me?”
“What’s upset him?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, it’s your job to find out, isn’t it?” observed Mrs. Romayne without rancour. “You’re his tutor, aren’t you?”
“If you say so,” grinned Buckland, looking straight into her eyes. “Personally, I should have thought there were lots of things I could do better than chasing about after a schoolboy who hasn’t got the manners of a Hottentot.”
Coral laughed. She was not paying much attention to his words, but her pulses were beating faster than usual as his warm grasp tightened strongly on her arm.
(4)
Mervyn Morgan did not go into the water to meet his two younger children. He watched them, swimming well and steadily, the boy David keeping slightly ahead of his sister.
“Daddy!”
“Hallo.”
David climbed up beside his father. He was a silent little boy, very sturdy and freckled. Mervyn liked him the best of his children, because he was a boy, and also because he was the least critical of the three.
“Is mummy here?” Mervyn asked.
“No, she didn’t come. Patrick’s mother brought us down in the Buick.”
After that they sat in silence, except for occasional monosyllabic replies shouted to Gwennie, who was haranguing them from the sea.
She was a moon-faced, gregarious child, of indomitable vitality and considerable intelligence.
When she, also, landed, Mervyn said
, “Well done!” because Gwennie was a girl, and he felt that girls needed encouragement, especially when they performed feats of physical strength or endurance.
Gwennie threw herself flat on the rock and went on talking. She was fat, but firm — delightfully brown and sturdy, with eyes like big blue jewels set in apricot-bloom.
“Me and David are the only people who’ve done any real swimming this afternoon. Olwen and Patrick are just sitting talking, and Dulcie hadn’t even begun undressing when we started. She came down in her beach pyjamas. Dulcie says her daddy says, little ladies don’t wear shorts. So I said I s’pose he wouldn’t think Olwen a lady, or me, or anybody.”
Gwennie emitted a short, scornful laugh.
Mervyn smiled, but paid no attention whatever. It seldom occurred to him to listen to the conversation of his children, unless one of them was seriously seeking information about sport, or machinery, or natural history. He left it to his wife, Mary, to enlighten them on other topics, although he was reluctantly aware that Mary’s opinions and his own differed in many directions. Nevertheless, it was his optimistic conviction that Olwen and David and Gwennie would all eventually grow up into orthodox Christians, and good Conservatives, with only a very cautious and modified adherence to the principles of the League of Nations.
“... And Mr. Waller never seems to go into the water at all. He just sits about, getting himself sunburnt. Him and me are having a competition in brownness.”
“Which is winning?” David enquired.
“I am,” said Gwennie firmly.
Why hadn’t Mary come down, Mervyn wondered. It was a mistake to let the children go about with people like Mrs. Romayne, and that common fellow calling himself a tutor. Mary should have known better.
It was Captain Morgan’s custom to pass judgment, usually silently, on his wife’s management of their children. He was very fond of her, but he thought her unpractical, and with ideas of which his mother would never have approved. His mother, actually, had been a censorious and narrow-minded Welshwoman, of the type that seeks to secure her children’s affection, rather than their development as independent beings, but of this Mervyn Morgan was not at all aware. He had been brought up to believe that whatever the mothers of other people might be, his own was sacred, and to that belief — as to most of those in which he had been brought up — he still adhered, at forty-eight years old.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 384