Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “Have you got the party feeling?” she muttered to Terry, as the car drew up before the door.

  He nodded.

  Before they had time to ring the bell they saw the twins, Fergus and David, coming round the house.

  They were dressed exactly alike in grey shorts and singlets, and their hair looked redder than ever. Julia despised them immediately.

  “Hullo!”

  “Oh, hullo!”

  They all shook hands, and Fergus stretched across Terry to shake hands with Julia, and all the hands got mixed up, and they laughed.

  But when that was over nobody seemed to know what to do or say next and they just stood and looked at one another.

  At last Julia, to break the silence, said:

  “Where’s Katherine?”

  “She’s getting the tennis-court ready.”

  “Oh,” said Julia.

  “Would you like to go and find her?” David enquired politely.

  “I should think we might,” Julia said, and was afraid that she hadn’t sounded very nice — but it was so difficult to know what to say. She pulled hard, through her frock, at her knickers, which were sticking to her again, and thought how glad she was that grandmama wasn’t there to tell her not to do that.

  Whilst they walked round the house — which was enormous, and had three magnolias on one side of it — Julia kept close to Terry and let the twins walk on together ahead.

  None of them said a word.

  Katherine was easier to get on with than the twins. She came to meet them as soon as they got within sight of the tennis-court, and spoke to them in a grown-up sort of way.

  She was very tall — taller even than Terry — and her hair was done in a thick pigtail falling right down to her waist. Julia felt rather envious of the pigtail, although she told herself that it looked old-fashioned.

  “It’s very hot, isn’t it?” Katherine said.

  “Boiling,” Julia answered.

  She hoped they weren’t going to play tennis. Her own tennis was very bad, and although Terry played much better than she did he wasn’t anything like as good as Katherine. Besides, five was a hopeless number.

  “Would you rather stay out or go indoors?” Katherine relentlessly enquired, looking straight at Terry.

  “I don’t mind at all,” said Terry.

  “But you must say.”

  “What would everybody else like?”

  “Go indoors,” said Julia, trying to guess which Terry really wanted to do.

  “Stay out,” shouted the twins. “Let’s go and see the corn being cut in Morgan’s Field.”

  “Would Julia and Terry like that?” Katherine enquired — exactly like a grown-up person.

  “Very much, thank you,” said Terry gravely.

  “Very much,” echoed Julia, feeling that anything would be better than just hanging about.

  Things then became very much easier. There was a steep slope at the end of the tennis-court, and they all ran down it, and later on there was a ditch that was called a ha-ha, which gave them something to talk about, and although Julia continued to feel that she didn’t much like Katherine, quite suddenly she found that she did like the twins, after all.

  The field was a huge one, and it was partly covered with sheaves and uncut corn, and partly with short prickly stubble. It was frightfully interesting to watch the reaping-and-binding machine as it mowed down the standing corn and then threw it out in sheaves, all neatly tied up. And although Terry didn’t care for the machine, or even look at it much, Julia saw that he was interested by the sheaves and by a white dog belonging to one of the men.

  She was astonished when Katherine said:

  “I’m afraid it’s tea-time. But we can come back afterwards.”

  They went back to the house. Ollie, whom Julia had forgotten all about, was in the schoolroom and shook hands very high up in the air, just as she’d done last year.

  The smell of the schoolroom also “came back” to Julia — a sort of mixture of geranium leaf, and dogs, and strawberry jam, and polished floor, she thought.

  Tea wasn’t very exciting — though the spongecake was good. Ollie did most of the talking, asking questions about school. Julia replied to these as shortly as possible, because she always hated talking about school except to people who were actually part of it. Terry, she knew, shared this feeling.

  Once Ollie said, very brightly indeed:

  “That’s a lovely dog your grannie has got now, isn’t it? The Chow, I mean.”

  “He’s ours,” Julia replied, coldly and distinctly. “Not grandmama’s. We’ve always had him.”

  “Then why doesn’t he live with you?” David enquired.

  “He does,” Julia cried, before she could stop herself.

  “What a story! He’s been at the Plás for simply ages.”

  “Only paying a visit there, because we’ve left the house we used to live in and the new one isn’t ours. At least, I mean, it’s just a house with furniture in it, that mummie — that uncle — that we’re renting.”

  “How funny,” said Fergus.

  “That will do, Fergus,” said Ollie.

  “Chang will come home directly we’ve got a house. Why, he’s belonged to us ever since he was a tiny puppy. He’s entirely ours.”

  “I wouldn’t like to have a dog that belonged to me staying months and months with other people. I expect he’s forgotten all about your house by now,” David said.

  Horrible boy!

  Julia shot him a look of intense hatred. She didn’t say another word though, because she knew, from experience at school, that the more one showed what one was feeling the more other people went on teasing.

  Then, to her immense astonishment, Terry suddenly spoke of his own accord — a thing he never did, as a rule.

  “Julia’s quite right. Chang belongs to my father, but it isn’t convenient for us to have him in London just now. Besides, a large dog like that is better in the country.”

  When Terry had said this, very seriously and in rather a loud voice, everybody was silent for a moment — and Julia thought that Ollie and the Drummonds were nearly as much surprised as she was herself.

  She thought that it was marvellous of Terry to have spoken like that, and it made her adore him more than ever. If possible, she added to herself.

  Nothing else that was very interesting happened.

  Julia tried hard to find out if Katherine had any new and exciting-sounding books, but Katherine wasn’t in the least interested in books, and couldn’t understand why anybody else should be.

  She kept on saying that if they went into the garden again, they might find her mother had come in.

  “She’s been opening a Sale of Work on the other side of the county,” Katherine explained.

  She said it at least three times, as though it was something to be proud of.

  Julia purposely refrained from asking anything about the Sale of Work, but she heard Terry enquiring where it was, and whether a great many people would be there, and if Katherine’s mother was going to make a speech.

  Julia remorsefully thought how very, very good Terry was. He didn’t really like Katherine any better than she did, but there he was — being nice and polite to her.

  When they went into the garden again — without Ollie — Lady Sybil Drummond wasn’t there, to Julia’s relief, although she had to pretend to be disappointed when Katherine kept on saying what a pity it was.

  “Let’s go back to the cornfield,” said David. “It ought to be nearly finished by now, I should think.”

  It was funny how different the cornfield looked when they got back to it.

  Everything had changed in the short time they’d been away.

  For one thing, there were a lot more people than there had been before, and they were all making a noise — shouting, and yelling, and the dogs — there were several new dogs now — barking excitedly. Some boys were brandishing sticks, and one was beating a shock of corn. Most of the corn was stook
ed now.

  For a second Julia didn’t understand.

  Then she saw that they were driving rabbits of all sizes out into the open.

  “Look, look!” shouted the twins, and Fergus cried out to one of the dogs: “After him, boy!”

  A very tiny rabbit darted straight at them, then suddenly doubled and turned, and Julia saw a big farm lad bring a heavy stick down on its head so that it dropped, killed.

  That was what they were doing.

  Frightening the rabbits, that had been hidden in the corn before it was cut, out into the open field, and then either hitting them on the head, or setting the dogs after them, to chase and catch and kill them.

  Julia felt rather sick, and terribly miserable about the tiny rabbit that lay motionless almost at her feet.

  She looked quickly round at the Drummonds.

  The boys were shouting and jumping, terrifically excited.

  Katherine, catching Julia’s eye, smiled rather apologetically.

  “It seems rather a shame, doesn’t it?” she shouted above the hubbub. But the next moment she too was jumping and screaming, urging on the dogs.

  So Julia understood that one was expected to think it all fine fun, and join in with the others.

  Perhaps the rabbits didn’t really mind?

  She set her teeth, and watched what was happening intently and carefully.

  The noise was deafening.

  Suddenly, the excitement seemed to get hold of her too. She began to shout and spring about, and cheer whenever a rabbit fell. Even when she saw one that had only been half killed, twisting about on the rough stubble with blood streaming out of its eye, she just looked away from it and went on yelling and jumping. Then a man appeared with a gun, and there was the sound of a shot.

  The other noises died down.

  Everyone watched the man with the gun.

  Katherine jumped at the noise of each shot, and didn’t seem to be enjoying herself any more.

  “I think most of the fun’s over now,” she said. “We might as well go. Mother may be back by this time.”

  Julia didn’t care whether Lady Sybil Drummond was back or not, but she was glad to be going away from the cornfield.

  “I wonder how many they got,” said Fergus greedily.

  “Oh, lots,” David asserted confidently. “And they’re going to do the other field tomorrow, and there’ll be heaps more. I hope we go down to see the fun.”

  Fun, thought Julia doubtfully. Had it been fun?

  Of course, people who lived in the country had special things of their own to do, that amused them — like hunting, and collecting birds’ eggs, and this business of knocking down a lot of rabbits and seeing them killed. If one didn’t pretend to like it too, they’d certainly despise one and think one a baby.

  Then, exactly as if she’d been hit in the middle of her chest quite unexpectedly, she remembered Terry.

  Good heavens, how could she have forgotten him?

  Julia looked wildly round.

  “Where’s Terry?” she gasped.

  The others didn’t seem to know.

  “Perhaps he went back to the house,” suggested Katherine.

  As if Terry would do a bad-mannered thing like that, when he was always so polite!

  “I saw him a minute ago. At least I think I did,” Fergus said in a vague kind of way. “I suppose he got bored.”

  “I expect we’ll find him at the house,” Katherine added.

  Julia was perfectly certain that they wouldn’t.

  She looked all round her. Terry was absolutely nowhere to be seen.

  What on earth ought she to do? He’d simply hate her to make a fuss — and besides, what would be the use?

  “Come on,” said Katherine. “We’ll see if mother’s home yet.”

  Damn your mother, thought Julia, sulkily following, and all the time looking for any sign of Terry.

  There was none.

  The others didn’t seem to care at all. They began to talk about motor-cars, and how somebody called Colonel Baird — of whom Julia had never heard — had just bought a perfectly splendid streamline saloon.

  Julia, briefly but competently, boasted about the car at “Rosslyn.”

  “Whose is it?” said Fergus.

  “My stepfather’s,” said Julia boldly.

  “Your what?”

  “Fergus, that’s rude,” Katherine admonished him. “Look, there’s a swallow, flying quite low down over the pond. That means rain.”

  “How can she have a stepfather when her father’s not dead?” said Fergus.

  “Good gracious me,” cried Julia, turning on him in a fury; “haven’t you ever heard of divorces? Heaps of people get divorces nowadays. If you don’t know that, I shouldn’t think you knew anything — not any more than a baby.”

  “Baby yourself!” shouted Fergus.

  Katherine went on saying: “Be quiet. You mustn’t quarrel. You know you mustn’t.”

  Nobody took any notice, although Julia heard her quite well.

  David, who naturally always took his twin’s part, joined in.

  “I think divorce is a bad word,” he announced grandly. “I’m sure it’s one of the things you aren’t supposed to talk about.”

  “Like a baby!” scoffed Julia. “Anybody can set you’ve never been to school. People who go to school talk about anything they like, let me tell you. There’s nothing they don’t know about — absolutely nothing in the world!”

  “I know just as much as you do, and so does Fergus. Every bit as much.”

  “You don’t. You didn’t even know what being divorced was.”

  “I don’t suppose you know yourself,” shouted Fergus.

  “Yes, I do,” said Julia quickly. “It’s the same as committing adultery. Adultery with a woman unknown.”

  “Julia!” screamed Katherine — and she sounded so genuinely shocked that Julia began to feel alarmed, and to wonder what in the World had made her say such a thing.

  Adultery, she knew perfectly well, was not the kind of word one ought to use at all. Even when it came into Scripture Lessons no one ever asked what it meant, because it was so rude. What its connection with divorce might be, Julia couldn’t imagine — but she was perfectly certain that they’d got something to do with one another, all the same.

  This was being the most horrible afternoon.

  “I’m sorry, Julia,” said Katherine, in her most grown-up and dignified way, “but I shall simply have to tell mother what’s happened. You see, she trusts the boys to me, and if she knows you say things like you did just now, she certainly won’t want you to come here again.”

  “I never want to come again, thank you,” muttered Julia. “I’d rather be shot.”

  Inwardly she felt terribly ashamed, and also somewhat aghast. Tell! Would Katherine really tell?

  “As for you, David and Fergus,” Katherine went on, “I think you’ve been almost as naughty as Julia. Quarrelling like that with a visitor!”

  The boys began begging her not to tell their mother. That was what came of not going to school, evidently. Katherine thought nothing of telling tales.

  But despising Katherine wasn’t going to help her if Lady Sybil Drummond complained to grandmama. And what had happened to Terry, and where was he? Julia, feeling frantic, stalked along behind Katherine, making faces and muttering below her breath, and kicking viciously at every stone within reach.

  X

  ONE nasty thing happening after another — faster than one would have thought possible... Julia pinched her arm hard, in the faint hope that it might perhaps be all a dream.

  It wasn’t.

  There was Katherine’s mother, wearing a grey coat and skirt and a shirt with a high collar and a very hideous hat, standing on the terrace just near a long window that led into the dining-room — and talking to her rather loud and fast, was Ollie.

  Julia caught some of the words she was saying.

  “... I simply told William to go after the boy a
nd see if he could do anything — but he’s locked himself in there—”

  “Children!” said Lady Sybil — and Julia remembered at once her odd way of talking, as though her teeth were always clenched together, so that it sounded exactly as if she were saying “Chinthen!”

  “Chinthen! What on earth have you been up to?”

  “Nothing, mother,” said Katherine, in a rather frightened voice. She didn’t sound in the least grown-up or bossy now.

  “What have you been doing to Terry?”

  “Terry?” screamed Julia. “Where is he?”

  Lady Sybil looked at her very coldly. “How-d’y’-do,” she said.

  “Oh, how-do-you-do!” Julia cried, hopping from one foot to the other and madly pulling at the seat of her frock, which was now sticking to her worse than ever. “Please, is anything the matter with Terry?”

  “Quite a lot is the matter with Terry, I should think,” Lady Sybil answered, in a way that almost sounded as if she was making a joke of it. “Why didn’t one of you come up to the house with him if he wasn’t feeling well?”

  “We didn’t know he wasn’t feeling well,” said Katherine. “We were in the field, mother, and he just went away and left us.”

  Julia scowled at her. Trying to make it sound as if Terry had been rude, was she?

  “Where is Terry, please?” she demanded. “Where little girls can’t follow him,” retorted Lady Sybil.

  Then she said to David in a low voice:

  “Go along to the place by the hall, and ask Terry if he’s all right. Tell him he must unlock the door.” David started off towards the house. Julia hesitated for a second, then decided that she must go with him. And off she walked, as fast as she possibly could without running. She heard Lady Sybil call after her, “Wait a minute, child!” but she took no notice.

  Then there were quick footsteps coming behind her. Julia glanced over her shoulder, saw Ollie, and began to run. But it was a long way, round the side of the enormous house to the hall-door, and Ollie caught her up almost at once.

  “You’re hurting me! Let go!” shrieked Julia as Ollie’s hand descended on her shoulder.

  “Didn’t you hear Lady Sybil calling you? You can’t go with David just now. Terry isn’t very well, and he’s locked himself into the lavatory.”