“Is she off again?” said Mrs. Strang.
“Paris. It’s well to be some people, isn’t it? Nothing to do but smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails and throw money about. He’ll find himself in Queer Street, I should think, the way she’s carrying on.”
“Give over, Norah. You pop along, ducky,” Mrs. Strang told Julia — not in the least as though she expected Julia to take any real notice and go. “What’s it all about? I thought they weren’t going to Gay Paree till next week.”
“Oh, his leave is altered or something. I don’t know. They’re off tomorrow. I tell you, if there’s any more of this chopping and changing, I’m off. To think of me cleaning all that silver only yesterday!”
“There’s no rest for the wicked,” said Mrs. Strang in a perfectly cheerful voice. “I’m ready with my lunch when you are.”
“Her Ladyship would like it put off for a quarter of an hour,” said Norah, in suddenly mincing tones.
“She can’t have it, then. I want to be out of this house by two o’clock, and that’s that. Run on up, Norah, and sound the gong.”
“May I take the salad?” Julia asked.
“Of course you may, poor little mite, you. Whatever’ll become of you, I don’t know. Give Mrs. Strang a kiss before you go.”
Julia gave her the kiss and Mrs. Strang said she’d never seen such blue eyes, and she stroked Julia’s hair, and shook her head over her.
So mummie and uncle Tom were going to Paris the very next day.
Julia supposed they’d send her at once to the Plás.
They didn’t.
After more telephoning, and a few telegrams, mummie said that daddy would fetch Julia that very evening.
“Fetch me here?” said Julia, feeling quite odd at the idea of seeing mummie and daddy together again.
Then she saw that mummie, who had turned very red, didn’t mean that at all.
“No. It’s rather too far for him to come here. He’ll pick you up at the club.”
“Oh, good. Then I shall see Mullins. Will Terry come too?”
“I don’t know. Julia, run and see if you can find my blue shoes with the silver heels. I believe they’re in the cupboard in the bathroom.”
For most of the rest of the afternoon Julia helped with mummie’s packing. After a short, and not particularly nice, tea, Julia’s own packing was done. Half of the things she felt sure she was going to want were left behind, because mummie was in such a hurry and said: “There wouldn’t be room.”
There was heaps of room at the Plás, so she must mean daddy’s flat.
“Where do they live?” Julia suddenly enquired. “Quite near the British Museum. In a place called Raven Mews. Give Terry my best love.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t use that horrible expression.”
“Ok — I mean, I’ll try not to. But everybody does. Who’s taking me to the club?”
“Norah. I’ve got to go and get my hair done now — there won’t be time tomorrow.”
There never seemed to be time for anything, nowadays, thought Julia. She felt very tired, to her great surprise. She was scarcely ever tired. Probably it was the packing.
When she said goodbye to mummie, Julia almost felt she wanted to cry.
“I wish,” she said in a cross voice, “that you were taking me to the club. I hate Norah.”
She knew it was naughty to say that, and so was not surprised when mummie answered in a very vexed, sharp sort of way:
“Julia, you’re quite old enough to realize that I’m most fearfully rushed, having to start for Paris at a minute’s notice like this. I simply don’t know which way to turn, to get through all I’ve got to do. It’s absolutely impossible for me to take you all the way to my club — it’s inconvenient enough to have to spare Norah. Please try and be a help instead of grumbling and whining.”
“I’m sorry,” muttered Julia, ashamed.
It was a horrible sort of parting, even though mummie kissed her a lot at the end, and promised her a postcard from Paris with a picture of the Eiffel Tower.
Norah took her to the club, and they went by the District Railway, and there wasn’t a single moving staircase even when they changed to the Tube.
But when she saw Mullins and he smiled at her and said: “How are you, miss?” Julia felt happy again — especially when Norah had gone. Mullins asked after Terry. He said: “How is the young gentleman?” in a most interested voice, and listened to Julia’s answer very carefully.
She thought: “Mullins is a very intelligent man. Not a bit like that beastly Norah.”
“Mrs. Capper is in the drawing-room, miss.”
“What?” said Julia, thinking that she couldn’t have heard what he said.
“She’s waiting for you. Been here half an hour or more.”
“I don’t know anybody called Mrs. Capper. I’m waiting for daddy.”
“That’ll be it, then,” said Mullins.
He stood behind his little counter and looked at Julia very kindly.
“Daddy’s a bit busy today, most likely, and he couldn’t get here himself and so he’s asked this lady to come along and meet you. A Mrs. Capper she is, and been a member of this club for years. You may not know her, miss, but you know her daughter.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, miss. It’s the young lady as got married to your daddy the other day.”
“Oh,” said Julia, much startled. “Do you mean Petah?”
Mullins nodded.
Then the telephone bell rang and he turned to answer it.
Mrs. Capper! thought Julia. What next? Why couldn’t Petah have come herself, if daddy was busy at the office? She was perfectly sick of all these strange people, and anyway, she’d hoped Terry would be here, and he wasn’t. Julia felt again as if she might be going to cry — a thing she hated.
She sat on the radiator — which was very uncomfortable — and kicked with her heels.
“Very good, madam,” said Mullins into the telephone, and then he hooked up the receiver and came back to Julia.
“Have you had your tea?” he asked.
“Yes, and it was a horrible one,” Julia answered — not quite truthfully, for tea, though dull, had not been horrible.
“That’s bad,” Mullins rejoined, shaking his head. “Could you manage a toffee-drop, now?”
“Oh yes. Thank you very much.”
“Not a word to the wife,” said Mullins in a solemn way that made her laugh, and he handed her a tin that was half full of toffee-drops. “Now, when that’s finished, I’ll take you up to the drawing-room. You pop down there, behind the desk.”
Julia popped down behind the desk and ate her toffee. It was a crunchy kind and was soon gone, which was a pity.
A lady came and asked Mullins for stamps, and never knew that Julia was there at all, sitting on the floor close to Mullins’s enormous boots.
When she’d gone, Julia laughed, and Mullins looked down at her and smiled.
“She never saw me, and I was there all the time!”
“There’s a many things that the members of this club never see, and never will see either, if you ask me,” said Mullins. “Up you get.”
“I don’t much want to go with this old person.”
“There’s no help for it, miss, that I can see, and she’s not so particularly old either, and anyway, she wouldn’t thank you for calling her so.”
Julia reluctantly got up.
“How am I going to know which one she is?”
“I’ll take you right up to her myself and announce you as if you was the Princess Elizabeth herself,” said Mullins.
Julia was cheered by the prospect of making so impressive an appearance — and besides, the toffee had made her feel better.
She followed Mullins up the staircase and the carpet was so thick that their footsteps made no noise at all.
At the double-doors of the drawing-room Mullins turned and winked at her and Julia made a violent, but not successful, e
ffort to wink back.
Then he opened the door and said in a loud, splendid voice:
“Mrs. Archibald Capper, please!”
A lady dressed in green, with a black-and-green hat, put down her picture paper and looked round.
Mullins walked across the room — it was huge — and when he got quite near the sofa on which the lady in green was sitting, he said in a much lower but still extra-distinct voice:
“Miss Gray is here, if you please, madam.” Feeling very grown-up and elegant, Julia came forward from behind Mullins.
Mrs. Capper wasn’t nearly as old as she had expected her to be, considering that she was the mother of a person old enough to be married.
She had funny-looking hair, very dark-red, and a lot of paint on her face, and lipstick. When she smiled, she looked rather like a toad, her mouth was so wide.
She seemed cross.
“Well, Julia,” she said, “how are you?”
“Quite well, thank you.”
“Had your tea?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Then I think we’d better get a move on. Got any luggage?”
“It’s downstairs.”
“I suppose it’s only a suitcase. I mean, you can manage it on a bus?”
“Oh yes,” said Julia, and for a moment she regretted uncle Tom’s magnificent car. Then she remembered that no luggage had ever been allowed in the car, and she also remembered that she’d never said goodbye to uncle Tom.
“Oh dear!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Julia. “I only just remembered something.”
“You can’t go back for anything now,” said Mrs. Capper briskly, and she led the way downstairs.
In the hall she had a long conversation with another lady, all about Bridge and how badly someone had played last night, and Julia felt very bored. Mullins was nowhere to be seen.
At last they started, Julia carrying the suitcase.
Norah had carried it on the way to the club.
It seemed fearfully heavy.
Julia set her teeth.
She wouldn’t even change it from one hand to the other, or it might look as if she couldn’t manage it.
Luckily the bus-stop was quite close. Mrs. Capper walked in a funny way, moving her behind from side to side.
“Here we are. No. 19.”
Julia, panting, tried to heave the suitcase up, but she had to let the conductor take it in the end.
Then she climbed in herself and sat down by Mrs. Capper.
“How is Terry?” she asked, wanting to be told that he was waiting for her at whatever place she was going to — she hoped it was daddy’s flat, but no longer felt certain.
“Who’s Terry?” said Mrs. Capper.
Julia looked at her, speechless.
“Oh! The boy. Yes. He’s your brother, of course, isn’t he. As far as I know he’s all right. He fell off a ladder or something, but there was no damage done, I believe.”
She laughed a little as she said it.
“Is that why he didn’t come today?” Julia asked.
“Not that I know of. I expect he had other fish to fry. He’s a good bit older than you are, isn’t he?”
“Two and a half years,” said Julia stiffly.
She didn’t at all like this person.
When Mrs. Capper spoke to her — which was only twice — she answered as shortly as possible. Presently she was told to get out.
The conductor handed down the suitcase — it was just as heavy as ever — and Julia and Mrs.
Capper walked along a street that had some rather exciting-looking little shops, with coloured wooden boxes and trays and balls in the windows.
Julia stopped to look, partly as an excuse for setting down the suitcase and partly because the things looked so nice.
“Come on, come on,” said Mrs. Capper. “For God’s sake, don’t dawdle in this utterly foul drizzle.”
She snatched up the suitcase.
“I can manage it,” said Julia quickly.
But Mrs. Capper took no notice and they carried it the rest of the way between them.
It wasn’t far.
They turned into a mews and stopped at the very first door. It was bright blue and had a doorknocker painted yellow.
Mrs. Capper banged on the door with it.
They could hear music coming from inside — either wireless or a gramophone.
“Why the hell aren’t they coming to open this door?” Mrs. Capper muttered, and she knocked again.
This time they heard very slow footsteps clumping heavily downstairs.
(These stairs evidently hadn’t got a lovely carpet like the club.)
Then the door opened, a very little way.
Mrs. Capper pushed vigorously and walked in, and Julia followed her.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Mrs. Capper. “Thanks.”
It was Terry.
He looked pale and very grave, and the minute he saw Julia she guessed, from his astonished face, that he hadn’t known she was coming.
But he looked frightfully pleased to see her.
“Oh, hallo!” Julia said, and she didn’t say anything more, because she felt so glad. But she kissed Terry very hard, behind Mrs. Capper’s back, and they went upstairs hand in hand.
“I never knew you were coming today,” Terry whispered.
“Has it been fun?”
Terry shook his head and made a face — but if he’d really been absolutely miserable, he wouldn’t have made the face. That only meant that things were queer, and not specially nice, but probably not specially nasty either.
“Where’s daddy?”
“At the office. He’ll come presently.”
There was a great deal of noise. People were talking very loud, and a gramophone was playing “Red Sails in the Sunset.”
“Is there a party?”
“There always is. At least, people are always coming,” Terry answered.
By this time they were in a room — it was a large one although the staircase had been very small and narrow — and the noise was louder than ever. People standing about, and shouting, and a gramophone playing, and a lot of smoke so that everything seemed to be in a kind of blue haze.
“Hallo, Julia,” said Petah.
She was sprawling on a pouffe, dressed in black trousers and a red shirt, and holding a very long cigarette-holder.
“Hallo,” said Julia amiably.
“Mark’ll be here by and by. Till he comes, just do anything you like. These are some of my friends. You needn’t take any notice of them.”
She waved her cigarette-holder, and Julia was quite surprised to see that there were really only about three other people in the room, not counting Mrs. Capper — two men, and a lady with the most untidy hair Julia had ever seen and a very crooked mouth.
“Are you Petah’s new belonging?” said this lady.
“I do adore Petah as a mothah,” said one of the young men. “Petah, my sweet, do you see yourself as the madonna type?”
“Oh, has Petah gone all maternal?” said the other young man. “How utterly marvellous. Shall we see you sewing at little garments and whatnots?”
“If you ask me,” said Mrs. Capper — though nobody had asked her anything at all— “the person who’s going to suffer under this new infliction is Petah’s mama. I beg to inform you that it was I who staggered to this very door with a child under one arm and a suitcase under the other. I demand a drink.”
Julia noticed then that they were all holding glasses and drinking.
She went and stood by the gramophone, where Terry was.
Nobody took any notice of them, which was a comfort.
“When are we going to Chepstow, Terry? Do you know?”
“As soon as they can have us. The day after tomorrow I think — but they’re always making and un-making all the plans. Why did you come today?”
“Mummie’s going to Paris. She sent you her best love.”
“Do you like Mrs. Capper?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. Do you like Petah?”
“Fairly. I haven’t seen her, much. She stays in bed all the morning. I’ve been to the pictures every afternoon.”
“How marvellous! Shall I?”
“I should think so. She lets one do anything one likes. Of course, tomorrow’s Saturday and daddy’ll be at home.”
Julia had almost forgotten about daddy, in these strange surroundings.
She could hear scraps of what the grown-ups were screaming at one another.
“Petah, when are you coming to Cornwall? The Langleys are going to be there.”
“My dear, Langley’s got the most awful brunette in tow.”
“Sonia is too furious...”
“She’s having a baby.”
“They’re all going domestic...”
“More madonnas.”
Then a very queer remark, in Petah’s loud, drawling voice:
“Do madonnas eat their young?”
There were shrieks of laughter and Julia said to Terry:
“What is a madonna?”
Before he could answer, the door opened and daddy came in.
He looked — and Julia was really surprised to see it — just the same as ever. Just the same as he’d always looked at home.
Daddy was gazing round the room — he hadn’t seen her. Julia started forward.
Then she saw that it was Petah he’d been looking for. He went up to her and she reached up her hand and then put out her tongue at him and daddy laughed. And he said:
“Cheeroh, everybody.”
After that he saw Julia.
“Hallo, poppet!”
“Hallo, daddy,” said Julia. She went up to him, and he kissed her and asked: “How’s mummie?”
“Quite well, thank you.”
“Been having good holidays?”
“Yes thank you, daddy.”
“Here’s your drink, Mark,” Petah said, giving him one.
Daddy kept Julia beside him, and when he sat down he took her on his knee.
Julia looked apologetically at Terry, now all by himself, but he was reading Punchy sitting on the floor.
It was a large room, with some odd and rather ugly pictures on the walls mostly of naked people with funnily-shaped heads and bodies, and there was a divan in one corner covered with a lovely piece of red stuff that had little bits of shiny tin stuck all over it, and in another corner there was a table with a glass case on it, and under the glass there were some wax apples and pears. Julia thought how lovely they were and how much she’d like to touch them. She could feel their smoothness, and their round shapes, in her mind.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 452