“We each go our own way,” said Sal coolly. “That’s why we get on. When Jane’s at home for any length of time, I usually go away. That leaves her free to have anybody she likes staying in my room. But most of the time she’s away — hotels in the winter, and cruises in the summer.”
This singular partnership had persisted for a number of years, and might therefore be accepted as a success.
“That woman makes marvellous coffee,” Claudia admitted gratefully.
“Doesn’t she? Have some more. There’s plenty here.”
“Thank you, I think I will.”
“When do you go down to Eastbourne for Maurice’s show?”
“Friday night, if I can, though I can’t imagine how I shall get through the work. I may have to put off going till Saturday morning, but I don’t want to.”
“Ingatestone gets back to-day, and Frances would stay on till the end of the week.”
“I know. I’ve already arranged it with her. But she can only help downstairs, after all. She can’t do my work for me.”
“Is there much?”
“A good deal.”
They said nothing further.
2
In the office Mrs Ingatestone was once more in possession of her desk, her files, and her telephone extension.
She had established Diana at a small convalescent home near Bournemouth, had seen her improve almost in the first twenty-four hours, had defiantly sold out a tiny fragment of her tiny capital to defray expenses, and had spent the previous evening in applying to her head the canary-coloured liquid that produced such remarkable results.
The conviction of having rejuvenated her appearance by this means, almost as much as her ten days’ absence from the routine of the office, helped to exhilarate her. Strongest of all was her determination to show Mrs Winsloe how grateful she was, and how ready to set to work.
Miss Frayle and Miss Collier, after their fashion, welcomed their colleague with their customary affectation of indifference, supplemented by various small attentions.
On her desk she found a bunch of sweet-smelling violets, placed there by Frayle, and a little plant growing in a pot — the offering of Collier.
Young Edie, taking round tea at eleven o’clock, shyly indicated that she had selected the biscuits known to be those preferred by Mrs Ingatestone.
“Miss Frayle’s gone off biscuits altogether,” she said confidentially. “And she won’t touch milk, even in her tea. Only lemon. She says she’s going on a diet.”
“Silly girl,” said Mrs Ingatestone indulgently.
She had before now seen her juniors embark upon diets recommended by the daily press — Woman’s Page — or the friend of a friend, or, in the case of Miss Frayle, a boy whom she had once met in a train and whom she alleged to have been studying dietetics at an American College in the Middle-West. Mrs Ingatestone remembered only too well the resultant paper-bags filled with tomatoes that had invaded the office, and the smell of oranges against which she had so angrily protested. She remembered clearly the effect of the diet on Frayle’s temper. It was a comfort to remember as well that these distressing experiments seldom endured for more than three days.
Mrs Ingatestone, unmoved by aesthetic considerations, drank her tea and ate her biscuits, listened to Frances Ladislaw explaining various points in connection with her work, and thanked her heartily.
“I really have enjoyed it,” Frances said. “I hope you won’t find a lot of mistakes. The two girls have been so kind about helping me, and telling me anything they could.”
“They’re nice girls, both of them. What I should call thoroughly kind-hearted, in spite of their silly ways. I often think,” said Mrs Ingatestone, “that it doesn’t do to judge by appearances.”
Frances agreed that it didn’t.
“But I must say,” she admitted, “that I like their appearance. I can’t imagine how they find time to take all that trouble and turn themselves out so beautifully.”
“Ah,” said Mrs Ingatestone. “That’s now. Wait till they marry — if they do. You’d be surprised how quickly that type of girl goes to pieces, once she’s got a husband. No more perms or manicures, or bothering about putting on weight. They just let themselves go — slop about in old clothes all the morning at their work, eat sweets and read stories in the afternoon, and worry the poor husband to take them out to the pictures in the evening. Till the baby arrives, of course — that is to say those that make up their minds to have one at all. After that, it’s all U.P. with spending any money or having any more fun. And a woman’s looks soon go, if she never has any fun.
“Well, I mustn’t chatter like this, must I? But I think we’re all straight here now. I’m waiting for Mrs Winsloe to see me.”
Edie came in to fetch the tea things.
“Do you know whether Mrs Winsloe has got the red light burning?”
“It was on just now,” Edie said. “I’ll have another look.”
She presently put her head round the door.
“Light’s just gone off, Mrs Ingatestone.”
“Then I think I’ll go up. She may not,” said Mrs Ingatestone modestly, “have realized that I’m back.”
On the stairs she met Miss Frayle coming down.
“Is Mrs Winsloe disengaged?”
“Yeah. Christ! what a mass of nerves that woman is.”
“Now, now, now — Frayle.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. God help her child, if she goes down to him in this mood. Still, I believe young Maurice is her favourite. He’d be mine too — give me a boy every time.”
“Is it all right to go in now?”
“As right as it ever will be. As a matter of fact she asked for you.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” demanded Mrs Ingatestone, bouncing up to Claudia’s door and then knocking at it very quietly.
3
The day’s work had proved heavy.
Claudia decided that she could not spare time to go out for lunch, and ordered some sandwiches and coffee to be sent in.
At three o’clock Anna telephoned.
“Have you heard from Copper yet?”
“There hasn’t been time. He only went up this morning.”
“He might have telegraphed. Darling, aren’t you glad about it?”
“Of course I am. If he gets it, and if it’s all right.”
“Of course he’ll get it, and of course it’s going to be all right. Why shouldn’t it be?”
“Why indeed. Did Adolf tell you I rang him up last night? It was a great relief to hear that he knows about the whole thing, and thinks it’s sound.”
“Yes, he does. Adolf’s always right about that kind of thing. Claudia, are you staying up in town to-night?”
“Yes. I shan’t go back to Arling now till I get back from Eastbourne. I’m going down there on Friday night, if I can possibly get away, for Maurice’s school play. Unluckily I’ve got a frightful rush of work on — so I may have to put off going till Saturday morning. But I don’t want to — he’ll be disappointed; it means I get so much less time with him.”
“Well, look, can you dine with me to-night? Adolf has to go and meet some man somewhere, and I shall be by myself. We could do a play if you liked.”
“I’m too tired for a play. Thank you all the same, Anna dear.”
“Poor darling!” came Anna’s warm, affectionate tones. “I’m so sorry. We won’t go anywhere. Just sit and talk quietly.”
“I’d love to. What time?”
“Any time you like. Half-past seven?”
“Too early. I shan’t be through by then.”
“Oh, Claudia! What a shame. You could call it a day at six o’clock, surely.”
“Not if I’m to get down to Maurice on Friday evening. Could you make it eight-fifteen, Anna?”
“All right. I’ll expect you then. Don’t bother to dress unless you want to.”
“Oh, I keep a change at Sal’s flat. Goodbye, darling. Till this eve
ning.”
“Goodbye, my dear.”
4
Anna turned to her husband.
“She sounds frightfully overstrained. She says she’ll dine here quietly with me this evening.”
“Any news of Copper?”
“She hadn’t heard. Of course, he only went up this morning.”
There was a pause, and then Anna burst out:
“Of course, he’d have telegraphed what’s happened if he didn’t know — poor wretch! — that she’s going to prevent him by hook or by crook, from taking up this work. He may not know that he knows it, but he does, all the same.”
Adolf nodded.
He looked sorry.
“You’ve got to remember that Claudia doesn’t know it either,” he suggested. “I’m sure she thinks she’s weighing the whole thing quite impartially. She asked me several questions last night.”
“Hoping all the time that you’d say it was a bad show, and he oughtn’t to have anything to do with it! I know. There’s one thing, Adolf — we’ve got to back Copper up over this. Make him believe in himself, somehow, and if necessary find him the money.”
“All right, sweet. You know I’ll do anything you want.”
“Darling,” said Anna.
Presently he asked:
“Do you suppose Copper’s ever thought of leaving his wife?”
“I know he has. It was years ago. He actually suggested a separation to Claudia, and she wouldn’t hear of it. She said they must think of the children first, and keep a home together for them.”
“Well,” said Adolf quite gravely, “I think he’d have shown more sense if he’d just cleared out.”
“I think so too. But that’s exactly the kind of thing that a man like Copper never does. Everything’s against him — upbringing, and convention, and his own lack of resolution. Copper would have been all right as somebody’s eldest son, before the war, with an income of five or six thousand a year. But nowadays — with everything in the world upside down — he’s not much good. He can’t stand up to it.”
“He’s got to stand up to taking this job,” said Adolf rather grimly, “or he’ll hear a few truths about himself from me.”
“A few truths about Claudia would be more to the point,” cried Anna. “I only hope I shan’t tell them to her myself this evening. No, I won’t — poor darling. She’s tired to death. I could hear it in her voice. And anyway it wouldn’t do any good. Telling Claudia home-truths is like hurling oneself against a glacier. Everything just slides off, and the impact only hurts oneself. That dreadful, calm, dispassionate way Claudia has of listening, and discussing, and admitting everything — all so fair, and analytical, and so utterly, utterly false! Oh, Adolf! don’t let me talk like this. I do love her — I used to admire her so, and think her so wonderful, when we were little.”
“Sure,” said Adolf. “You love her. You wouldn’t be working yourself up like this if you didn’t. There’s a great deal that’s very attractive about Claudia.”
“There is, isn’t there? I wish she’d married some man much stronger than herself.”
“It might have taken some time to find one,” remarked Adolf. “Don’t you think now you’d better keep quiet and let me ring down and tell them to send you up some tea or a cocktail or something?”
“I’ve got my masseuse coming at four. That’ll rest me. I’ll have a drink or something afterwards. Shall you be back quite early this evening?”
“I shall be through with talking business to Maclean by nine. He’s leaving London on the ten o’clock train. I can go to the club and get some Bridge, or come right back here. Whichever you’d rather.”
“I think I’d like to have her to myself. Somehow I’ve got to make Claudia see that Copper’s got to take this job, even if it means chucking up Arling and starting somewhere else.”
Adolf emitted a low whistle.
“Sell Arling? That’d be a bit hard on her, I must say.”
“They may not have to. I don’t know. I only know that Claudia is not going to persuade me, whatever she may do to herself, that there’s any reason why that wretched husband of hers shouldn’t take his chance of regaining some self-respect at last.”
5
Now, I’m going to be nice, and behave really well, Anna told herself, as her maid held open the door of the bedroom for her and she went down the passage and into the elaborately modern sitting-room of the flat.
It held a shiny black glass octagonal table, some chromium-plated pieces of furniture that included a radio-gramophone, a number of turquoise-blue and purple cushions, and a single tall, square vase of opalescent glass containing a branch of shell-flowers.
The two enormous windows were curtained in an ostentatiously simple coarse white net.
Above the electric fire, flush to the wall, was a large diamond-shaped clock. The hands were slender oxidized daisies. There were no numerals; only little purple dots in the appropriate places. This room, which also served as dining-room, was rather a difficult one to live up to, Anna always felt.
She wore a very plain black dress and her longest pearl necklace and carried an ivory cigarette-holder, and hoped that she struck no jarring note with her surroundings.
Claudia, when she arrived, was also in black. She looked pale, but greeted Anna with great cheerfulness.
“Darling, this is lovely. I had a sudden idea — I can’t think why — that I was going to find Mother here. I can’t help being glad I haven’t. You know what I mean.”
“Oh dear yes, I know what you mean exactly. Poor darling Mummy. She’s coming to lunch tomorrow. Have a drink.”
“I’d love one.”
They drank their cocktails, and talked quietly and without constraint.
“I’ve got a marvellous dinner for you,” said Anna frankly. “Quite a little tiny one, but lovely. I saw the chef myself. They do things beautifully here.”
“Yes, don’t they?” Claudia agreed happily.
The years slipped away from them, and they were once again two young girls — sisters dwelling beneath one roof, sharing one environment, and understanding one another with the profound, complete, and effortless intimacy of childhood.
6
Never, afterwards, could Anna remember at exactly what stage she found herself saying heatedly to Claudia all those things that she had so definitely resolved not to say. The remains of the tiny, but lovely, little dinner had been quietly taken away. They had had coffee and smoked cigarettes.
Claudia leant back on the divan that was so much more comfortable than it looked, and Anna extended her graceful length on one of the stainless-steel armchairs.
Quite suddenly they were in the midst of it.
It wasn’t about Copper, at first.
It was about Taffy.
They had not discussed the matter again since Claudia’s promise, given at Arling in August, of thinking it over.
“We’ve settled to stay here till after Christmas, and go back to America early in January. What about Taffy?”
“You mean, about taking her with you?”
“Of course. What else could I mean?”
Claudia laughed a little.
“I’m sorry. It was a silly way of putting it. I suppose I wasn’t really thinking about the words, but the actual question of her going or not. Don’t think me ungrateful, Anna, because heaven knows I’m not, it’s most wonderful of you — and Adolf, of course — even to have thought of it. But I’m afraid it’s no.”
“Why?” said Anna, her voice and her colour both rising — to her own vexation.
“Two or three reasons, my dear. I’ve thought about this very, very carefully, and tried to view it just as impartially as I possibly could, for Taffy’s sake. And I’m pretty sure that I should say exactly the same if she was somebody else’s daughter, not mine at all.
“Taffy’s not altogether an easy child to understand. You’ll agree with me about that, I know. I’m not even sure if, well as you know her, you really t
horoughly understand her. Wait a minute, please, Anna — I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that it’s I who don’t understand Taffy. For the sake of the argument, my dear, I’ll concede at once that I don’t. I don’t want to be like poor Mother, heaven knows, always saying that she could read us both like little books. (Do you remember how frantic it used to make us?)
“But seriously: like most intelligent girls, Taffy is going through a stage of dramatizing herself. She’ll outgrow it, of course. But I do feel that the right atmosphere is rather specially important for her. At present she’s just one of a number of other school-girls of more or less her own age and standing — not specially important, in any way. That’s exactly what she needs. I may add that her headmistress, to whom I’ve talked, entirely agrees with me.”
“So I should imagine,” Anna angrily interpolated. “She isn’t going to be such a fool as to suggest that you’d better send one of her most promising girls somewhere else.”
“Anna dear, what nonsense! As if one pupil could possibly make any difference in a school of nearly three hundred. Besides, Taffy isn’t as brilliant as all that. Nor is Miss Corry that kind of woman. Any advice she gave me was disinterested. And quite apart from her advice, I’ve made up my own mind.”
“I thought your children were always to be allowed to take their own decisions.”
“That’s not quite a fair argument, is it? You can bring anything to the reductio ad absurdum, I suppose, but it doesn’t really mean anything very much. There’s no decision for Taffy to take in this case, for the simple reason that she can’t possibly know what she’s deciding. I can take into account — as she can’t — the probable effect upon her, psychologically, of going to America, to an American College, and spending the most important years of her development out there.”
“And what,” Anna ironically demanded, “would the effect be?”
“Anna — Anna darling,” said her sister piteously, “please don’t sound so dreadfully vexed. If only you’d believe that I’m trying hard to be perfectly honest over this — perfectly fair to Taffy, and to you, and to myself as well. After all, you’ll admit it would be easier for me to accept your extraordinarily generous offer, and let her go. Selfishly speaking, it would lessen my responsibilities very considerably.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 443