Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Terry looked about him unseeingly, and Julia rang the bell.

  “This is a nice room,” she said approvingly. “Gracious, there’s the grandfather clock, and your writing-desk! All the other furniture’s new, isn’t it?”

  “It belongs to the house. We’ve only taken it furnished, just for a little while. But some of my things are here. That makes it look like home, doesn’t it?”

  “Where are the rest of them?” Julia enquired, secretly hoping to hear that they’d been given to daddy.

  “In store,” said mummie. “I see you’re still fond of asking questions, Julia.”

  A new maid answered the bell. She was much younger than the last one they’d had at home, and very smartly dressed in green, with a little mob-cap and a frilly apron.

  She put down a silver kettle and a three-tiered cake-stand.

  Julia, who had already swiftly enumerated every item on the tea-table, saw with pleasure that the cake-stand had a plate of chocolate eclairs, one of mixed biscuits, and a splendid cake with white icing.

  “What a marvellous tea!” she said joyfully.

  The tea made everything seem more natural. They ate, and talked, and mummie asked them about school, just as she always did.

  She wasn’t different, after all.

  Only the house, and most of the furniture, and the servants.

  After tea Julia and Terry were shown their bedrooms, next door to each other. They were nice rooms, much larger than their old rooms, and furnished like grown-ups’ bedrooms. There was also another room, downstairs, that they were to use as a schoolroom. They’d never had a schoolroom before.

  Some of their books and other belongings were there but most of the furniture belonged to the house. “You’ll be careful of it, won’t you?” said mummie.

  Terry nodded, and Julia said “Oh yes,” and thought what fun it would be to jump on and off the sofa which was a kind of square divan, very low and broad.

  Then they went out into the garden.

  It didn’t seem much of a garden, actually, but she and Terry could probably have a certain amount of fun there.

  “Your bicycles are in that shed,” mummie said, pointing. “You’ll be able to have lovely rides on the Common.”

  “Like on the Heath at home,” agreed Julia.

  She looked at Terry.

  He seemed quite happy.

  Probably it was all going to be nice, after all. This conviction sent Julia at once into the highest spirits.

  Everything was fun, and the holidays had started.

  Then, all of a sudden, there was trouble about the trunks. The Captain had come back — mummie had explained that she was going out with him and must dress at once — and Julia herself had rashly — as she now saw — exclaimed: “What about our luggage?”

  And it appeared that it would be next door to impossible to get hold of the luggage that night. Julia’s was at the station — Terry’s was at the club — and it was now revealed that Terry had left in the train a small bag containing his things for the night.

  Mummie got most fearfully fussed, and it was clear to Julia that she was afraid the Captain was going to be angry.

  He wasn’t, although he said “Oh my God!” a good many times. He wasn’t even angry with Terry, although it was evident that he despised him frightfully for having left his bag in the train. There was a great deal of telephoning, and some instructions to the maid — her name was Norah — and then mummie rushed into the schoolroom, wearing a new evening frock, and said that all the boxes would arrive presently.

  Even Terry’s bag.

  “I’m very sorry to have given you such a lot of trouble,” said Terry mournfully.

  And the Captain, standing in the doorway, said “Oh my God!” once again.

  Mummie kissed them and said: “Norah will bring your suppers. Why don’t you go out into the garden?”

  “What time will you be back?” Terry asked.

  “Terribly late. After you’re asleep.”

  “What time must we go to bed?” said Julia, embarking on a familiar crusade. “Need I go before eight? Terry didn’t go till eight when he was my age. Hardly anybody of my age goes to bed till eight, at the very earliest.”

  “I say, Daphne, we’re going to be late. Come on. I want a drink before we start.”

  “Coming, darling.”

  “It isn’t,” said Julia, “as if I went to sleep at once. I never, never do. Just simply lie awake for hours and hours.”

  “Rubbish,” said the Captain — although no one had been speaking to him.

  “Well, eight o’clock for tonight — but it’s only because it’s the first night of the holidays. Goodnight, angels.”

  “Good-night,” said Julia joyfully. “Thank you very much.”

  The Captain said no good-nights. He walked out into the hall and mummie followed him.

  Julia heard him say:

  “You’ll have to draw it mild, my sweet, to begin with. I’m new to this family-life stunt.”

  Julia had a vague idea that “drawing it mild” was something to do with the drinks they were having. She followed them out into the hall.

  In the old days they’d always seen mummie and daddy off, for a party.

  She waved her hand as the car moved offhand was somehow relieved when not only mummie, but the Captain, waved in return.

  “Well!” said Julia, drawing a long breath.

  She turned back to Terry.

  “What shall we do?”

  Terry had taught her, last holidays, not to say “What shall we play?”

  They did play, though, when they were together. They had a host of imaginary characters, and Terry was marvellous at thinking of new things that had happened to them all, and telling about them. Julia bore her part in the lengthy dialogues, but it was Terry who invented the situations and put life into the people, and made Julia shriek with laughter at his jokes.

  Only twice was the game interrupted.

  Once Julia said:

  “I wish Chang was here — darling little Woolly Beast! I wonder when we shall go to grandmama’s and see him.”

  “I believe part of the time we’re going to stay with daddy,” Terry said. “At least, he said so when he came to see me at the House of Bondage last term.”

  “Oh, did he come and see you? I didn’t know. Was it fun?”

  “As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Not frightfully,”

  Terry answered, and she knew by his tone that he didn’t want to say any more.

  Later on when they were having supper — and Julia thankfully perceived that the standard of food at “Rosslyn” was a high one — Terry broke off in the middle of being an American Millionaire and abruptly asked whether she thought they’d really have to say “uncle Tom.”

  “I suppose so,” Julia said. “His head is too small for his body, isn’t it?”

  “Much. Don’t you hate him?”

  “I do, rather,” Julia replied.

  She knew without being told that Terry and the Captain weren’t going to get on well together and that was enough to make her feel sure that she quite soon would hate him, even if she didn’t already.

  What actually happened, Julia found, was that she hated uncle Tom in patches, and in other patches quite liked him.

  She hated him intensely the first, almost unbelievable, time that she heard mummie calling him “Tiger” and saw the way she looked at him. She hated him practically every time he spoke to Terry, and certainly every time that he spoke of him.

  On the other hand it gratified her to perceive, as she did almost at once, that the Captain thought her a very sporting child, plucky and capable, and what he called “spirited” — whatever that might mean. And, in his abrupt, rather off-hand way, he was, Julia had to admit, kind to her.

  He took her to a place called The Barracks and showed her the horses, which Julia adored, and offered to take her again, but Julia politely refused as soon as she found that the invitation wasn’t to be extend
ed to Terry as well. And she couldn’t help thinking rather better of him when he didn’t appear offended by such ingratitude, but looked almost as though he understood what lay behind it.

  Once he gave her half a crown.

  Not a moment before it was needed, either.

  Julia never could keep any money. Her pocket-money was spent, as it seemed, in a moment.

  When they met a Stop-Me on the Common Terry always treated her.

  Julia used to make desperate resolutions against accepting this generosity, but Terry always gently and gravely insisted.

  “Yes, really, Julia. You must. I want you to. I’d like it.”

  And Julia, moved by Terry’s kindness and goodness, and ashamed of her own improvidence, and terribly wanting the choc-bar or snofrute, always ended by taking it and letting Terry pay.

  On the whole, although everything was so different, life at “Rosslyn” seemed likely to be quite nice, except when mummie was in a hurry — which she practically always was because of going out somewhere with uncle Tom — or when uncle Tom had a fit of wanting to show Terry how to do something with his hands.

  Julia became extraordinarily expert at heading off these disastrous experiments. She’d often had to do the same thing at home, but uncle Tom was far less easily distracted from his purpose than daddy had been.

  Then, when they’d been at “Rosslyn” about a week — only it seemed much longer because nothing was familiar — came the frightful affair of the herrings.

  “Terry, haven’t you ever been taught how to eat a herring?”

  “He’s like me,” said mummie, trying, evidently, to turn it off.

  “No, he isn’t. Look here. Slit it — slit it, boy!”

  Terry sat transfixed, not moving.

  “Do you hear what I say? Slit that herring there, and take out the backbone. That’s all you’ve got to do.”

  “Can I see?” asked Julia hastily, snatching up her own fork.

  “No, you can’t. Not till I’ve seen Terry do it properly. Look here. It’s perfectly simple.”

  The Captain demonstrated, and it really did look perfectly simple.

  “Now then.”

  Oh God, prayed Julia angrily, do let Terry do it right. Just this once!

  But God remained deaf. (In her juster moments, Julia knew that this was fair, because she didn’t really care much about God, or try to please Him, except when she wanted something very badly. So no wonder He didn’t answer her prayers.)

  “Darling, do let him alone. He’s all right,” said mummie in a nervous, exasperated sort of voice that would only make Terry more upset than ever.

  “Don’t be silly, funny-face. I’m going to do this my own way. You don’t want to make a baby of a boy of twelve years old. Come on, Terry old chap. Let’s see you make a clean job of it.”

  Terry, however, was far indeed from making a clean job of it. He prodded and pulled and tore at his unfortunate herring, scattering pieces of backbone in every direction, until his plate looked as though at least a dozen herrings had been sacrificed there.

  “My God!” said the Captain — not angrily, but in a kind of despairing voice. “Why can’t you simply do what you’re told? SLIT IT and TAKE OUT

  THE BACKBONE.”

  Terry stared wildly at the Captain.

  “Slit it.”

  There was a fearful silence.

  “What on earth is the matter with you?”

  Oh God, at least let him answer! Not just sit there looking terrified.

  When Terry did answer, though, it was disastrous.

  “I’d rather do it my own way,” he insanely replied, looking down at the wild and bony disorder that he had created.

  Julia gritted her teeth and asked in a loud voice for some more milk — but it wasn’t any use.

  “Then you’re a little fool,” said uncle Tom. “Almost as much of a little fool as you look, and that’s saying something.”

  “He does not look a little fool,” said Julia, looking full at the Captain and feeling herself turn scarlet.

  He looked back at her and to her astonishment he wasn’t angry.

  “You keep out of this, young woman. When I want your help, I’ll ask for it. Go and get a clean plate, Terry, and another herring.”

  “I don’t want another herring,” said Terry.

  “Leave him alone, Tiger. He’d better eat what’s on his plate.”

  “He’ll choke if he does,” said the Captain grimly.

  “Terry, would you rather have a boiled egg?” mummie suggested, looking rather white and cross.

  “He can have a boiled egg afterwards. I’m going to show him the proper way to slit up a herring.”

  For what seemed like hours they sat at the breakfast-table whilst the Captain directed Terry, and Terry slashed more and more wildly and grew whiter and whiter.

  “Upon my word,” said uncle Tom, “I couldn’t have believed it. How old are you?”

  Terry’s reply was an ear-splitting scream. A savage, abominable noise that had served to relieve many a moment of unbearable misery and exasperation when he was younger....

  It seemed to Julia years since she’d heard Terry shriek like that.

  “Stop that bloody row this instant and get out,” said the Captain, still calm and un-angered.

  And as Terry didn’t stir he took him by the shoulders, pulled him out of his chair, and pushed him firmly, but not roughly, out of the room.

  “Oh Tom!” said mummie. “I’m sorry — I know he’s maddening — but really, it’s worse than useless to bully a boy of that type.”

  “I quite agree with you,” said the Captain calmly. “That’s why I didn’t bully him. But unless you want every man he meets to loathe him at sight, you’ll bundle master Terry off to his public school before he’s many weeks older.”

  In the old days, when daddy had sent Terry from the room in disgrace, mummie had always followed him, to comfort him. She loved Terry more than she loved daddy.

  Julia waited to see if she would follow him now.

  She didn’t.

  So she loved uncle Tom best.

  What a shame, thought Julia indignantly.

  She fully realized that Terry had behaved idiotically, but at the same time she felt that he couldn’t, somehow, help it. Actually, it was much worse for him than for anybody else. In any case, scolding or punishment made him worse.

  Now he’d be miserable all day, and very likely cross as well, and they wouldn’t have any fun.

  Julia muttered a few bad words under her breath. It comforted her slightly to remember that, at school, she had a great reputation for the number and variety of her bad words.

  III

  THREE rather important things all seemed to come together, almost immediately after the awful day of the herrings.

  Julia discovered that the cook, Mrs. Strang — a very kind person, besides being a marvellous cook — had got a set of false teeth and didn’t mind being asked about them.

  The School Reports arrived.

  And there was some fearful difficulty going on between mummie and daddy and uncle Tom, about money. Money, to pay for Julia and Terry.

  Of course Julia knew — she’d heard it often enough, said by mummie and mummie’s friends — that children were a fearful expense. They had to go to school — goodness alone knew why — and have meals, and new clothes because they were always growing out of their old ones, and Julia had to go to an expensive dentist because of her plate, and Terry was quite often taken to see the doctor.

  These expenses, hitherto, had been talked about and groaned over, especially by daddy, but still, they’d been taken for granted.

  Now, however, it seemed that mummie and daddy were actually quarrelling over who should pay for such things.

  So they weren’t going to stay friends, as mummie had said they would, after all.

  Julia even experienced, from time to time, a faint wonder as to whether she and Terry would ever see daddy again until they we
re quite grown-up. And by that time, very likely, daddy wouldn’t be alive any longer.

  Meanwhile mummie — all by herself — commented on the School Reports.

  She’d put off reading them for two days, to Julia’s disgust, because uncle Tom wanted her, and she wasn’t really terribly interested in them, even now.

  She praised Julia’s work and her high place in the school, and then said that she must try and get a better Conduct note next time.

  “I’m perfectly good,” said Julia, outraged.

  “No, you’re not. They say that you make a great deal too much noise, and are very untidy. I quite agree, about the untidiness especially. You must learn to put your things away properly. They’re left lying about all over the place.”

  Julia set her mouth into an expression of complete incredulity and said nothing.

  “Daphne!” shouted the Captain’s voice. “The old man wants us to go round for cocktails and meet his new woman. Are you on?”

  “Yes, of course. I’d love to.”

  Mummie dropped the Report, and rushed upstairs.

  Julia, frowning, took up the Report and read it through. She was gratified, but not surprised, to see herself described as a child of excellent abilities, with powers of concentration much above the average. She also verified the less complimentary remarks about her noisiness, and her untidy ways, and decided that they were perfectly true.

  Then she saw that Terry’s Report was lying underneath hers.

  She could not resist glancing at it.

  Heavens, what horrible niggling handwriting they all wrote! Still, one could make out that most subjects were marked “Fair” or “Very Fair.” Latin and English were both “Very Good.”

  The remarks of the headmaster, at the end, were the most legible.

  “His abilities are difficult to gauge, and his work inclined to be erratic. Terry must learn to concentrate and not waste his time in day-dreaming. He needs to acquire more backbone before he can make the best use of his undoubted abilities. He is too easily discouraged, at present, and has no belief in himself.”

  Not very interesting, after all.

  Julia replaced the Reports exactly where mummie had left them, and hurried upstairs to her own room. It had occurred to her that reading what Miss Roberts had written would almost certainly put it into mummie’s head to go and see if her room was tidy.