After that interview Judith had settled back in Mercy and Ambrose’s house with something approaching contentment. She was greatly helped by Mercy’s plan to bring Miss Simpson over, and Mother she pushed out of her mind. She never dared think of how frightening she had looked, but instead filled her thoughts with dreams in which Mercy wanted her so badly that she said: “While you are in England, Judith, you must stay with us. I can’t think how Uncle Ambrose and I managed before you came.” By degrees a routine was arrived at. Each day she went with Mercy to the hospital, making herself useful in any way that offered. In the house she found some tasks, which, if not exactly hers, no one stopped her doing. She dusted the drawing-room, she washed some special china that lived in a cabinet, she tidied Mercy’s drawers. She was reaching for permission to take on the silver cleaning, and had her eyes on the flower arranging, when she learned that the next day she was once more to lunch with Lucy. Her face showed how she disliked the idea.
“Can I come back directly afterwards? Will you be in, Aunt Mercy? I can go with you to your hospital the next day, can’t I?”
Mercy, knowing what she was planning to ask Beatrice, was non-committal but kind.
“I’ll certainly be here when you get back, we’ll have tea together for nobody’s coming.”
Because of this promise Judith looked quite radiant when she came back from lunch with Lucy. The lunch had not gone off badly, Aunt Lucy had been a little less frightening than usual, and now she had a whole afternoon, until Uncle Ambrose came home, alone with Aunt Mercy. It would be a good moment to ask about the silver, perhaps it was the day when Aunt Mercy would say she did not know how she had managed without her. Because these were her thoughts she had no armour ready when Mercy said:
“Oh, Judith dear, I’ve had your Aunt Beatrice to luncheon. She has invited you to stay with them. You are going to-morrow. It will be fun for you to meet your cousins again.”
* * * * *
Beatrice arranged that Judith should be delivered in time for tea. She had an afternoon committee which should be over by then, and it would not be long before Catherine would be home to take the girl off her hands. As it happened Mercy received an S O S from her hospital so, supposing it could make little difference to Beatrice what time Judith arrived, she delivered her soon after two o’clock.
Robert had planned a happy afternoon playing his gramophone, listening to the radio, perhaps having a go at tidying his stamps, doing in fact, since she was out, what his Mother hated to see her children doing—messing about. From his bedroom he watched his Mother drive off in one direction, and saw Cynthia run off to her girl friends in the other, and was still lolling against his window when Mercy’s car stopped at the gate. Cars often stopped to deliver urgent envelopes for his Mother, so for a moment Robert was not interested, then he saw Judith and her suitcases and was appalled. That awful Judith arriving now and only him in the house, the little horror would probably expect to be entertained. He thought of flight through the back door, but before he could make a plan the cook, the only maid in that afternoon, came rather breathlessly to his door.
“It’s your cousin, her Aunt says she hopes it’s not too early, but she has to go to the hospital. Come and carry up the suitcases, and you’ll have to see after her till your Mother gets in, I’ve a cake to make so don’t come bothering.”
Judith, accustomed to orders from Mother, had accepted in silence the news she was sentenced to stay with the cousins, but fear made her feel physically ill. Alone in her bedroom she made herself re-live that terrible wedding evening, the memory of which she had forced to the back of her mind. She saw herself in the hall of the farm, running to meet the cousins, the pound note in her hand. She saw again the cruel eyes, and heard again the voices discussing her. “You’re not to talk to her, Rosebud, she’s a traitor. A traitor is the worst sort of beastly cad there is.” She remembered her last vision of the cousins, the awful faces they had made at her from the back of the car. None of that had ever been explained, it had been a horrid unexplained evil time so it had been packed away where she need not look at it. Now she was to stay with those same cousins. It was to be supposed they hated her now as they had hated her then, why not?
Mercy had noticed how pale and silent Judith had become since she had known she was to stay with her Winster relations; she had longed to put her arms round her and to tell her not to be miserable, if she did not want to stay with her cousins she need not, but she was convinced it would be wrong of her to be weak. It was unnatural for a girl of Judith’s age to enjoy being with a middle-aged Uncle and Aunt, probably after a few hours with her cousins she would be a different creature.
Robert, moving unwillingly to the hall, had no thought about Judith except that it was a beastly bore her being dumped on them, and particularly a bore she had turned up soon after two, instead of at four-thirty, so the Judith that was waiting in the hall came as a complete surprise. Robert had not reached the stage of being interested in all girls. He took part in mass interest at school, because it was the thing to do, but in his case it was mostly assumed. Recently, however, there had been moments when he had seen, or thought he had, what the excitement was about. Judith who, in spite of her youthful look, wore her clothes with distinction and was decidedly pretty, was, he saw at a glance, the sort the senior school talked about. He grinned at her.
“Hullo. Sorry I’m the only one in and all that. Give me those cases, I’ll carry them up.”
Judith did not relax; this must be a catch, he would say something rude in a minute.
“Thank you very much.”
Robert, marching ahead with the suitcases, looked at her over his shoulder.
“You’ve changed, I suppose we all have, we were only kids when Charlotte was married.” He opened the spare bedroom door. “You’re in here. Shall I talk to you while you unpack?”
Judith managed to mutter “Yes”, but she was almost speechless. Could this be Robert, Robert who had said, “She’s a traitor, and a traitor is the worst sort of beastly cad there is”? Robert sat on the window-ledge.
“I’ve got ten days of the hols left, Cynthia’s got nine, but she’s not much good anyway, goes about all the time whispering and giggling with some girls in the next road.”
The cousins had all been terrifying, but none so terrifying, Judith remembered, as Catherine. None of the others had confided, told about what was to happen when they were grown-up, told about babies, made her think she was almost a sister, and then the very next evening had spoken of her as if she could not hear. “What’s she holding that pound for?” “Rosebud, you’re not to talk to her.” It was hard to keep the frightened note out of her voice.
“Where’s Catherine?”
Robert explained about Catherine’s job.
“She seems to like it all right. I’d simply hate it.”
Judith remembered every word said at the farm.
“Of course you wouldn’t like it, you’re going to farm, aren’t you?”
“Farm!” Robert’s face expressed horror. “I certainly am not, farming’s the last thing I’d do.”
Judith, walking to and fro between the cupboard and her cases, was beginning to relax. Robert might turn round and be dreadful presently, but he was nice for the time being, and that was a great deal.
“You’ve changed then. It was all arranged you were going to have a farm. Catherine was going to run it, and Cynthia was going to do the chickens.”
“I’ve thought I’d be a lot of things, including a diver, and a judge, but that was only when I was small.”
“Doesn’t Catherine still want to run the farm?”
Robert had a poker face. His voice remained casual.
“Shouldn’t think so, she never talks about it now, anyway I suppose she’ll get married, that’s what Mother wants her to do.”
Judith looked round the cupboard door, and for a mome
nt was the Catherine she remembered.
“I’ve planned for that. Whoever Robert marries has got to have a brother for me, and if possible one for Cynthia.”
Robert was enormously amused.
“However did you remember? It’s just like her now. Did she really say that?”
“Yes. I can remember all your voices, yours wasn’t like it is now. I remember when you were all asking about Father, how you said: ‘Child of a broken home, insecure background, all that yap’.”
The imitation enraptured Robert.
“I can’t think how you remember us. I don’t remember much about that wedding.”
Judith found that hard to believe.
“You must. We all stayed at Mrs. Branscombe’s farm, I shared a bedroom with Catherine, and Cynthia and Rosebud were in the big attic, you had a little room, I never saw yours. Our room had a wallpaper with daisies on it. Then there were pigs, lots of little pigs and . . .”
Robert was beginning to remember.
“And you blotted your copybook, didn’t you? You wouldn’t share the tips.”
Judith’s heart beat more quickly.
“It wasn’t my fault, I tried to, my Father gave us a pound, I tried to share it, none of you would take it.”
Suddenly the wedding was back. Robert remembered the glorious relief when he was freed from the wedding, and racing up the lane to get out of his wedding clothes. There had been trouble, though, he could remember Catherine going on and on about Judith, telling them all how to behave to her.
“Didn’t we put you to Coventry?”
Judith could not believe he did not remember.
“Yes, I never knew why. You said I was a traitor, and a traitor was the worst sort of beastly cad there is.”
“Did I. What a gorgeous line. Must have been playing cops and robbers. Anyway, who cares now?”
Judith gazed at him over an armload of blouses and pullovers. Who cares now? Did he mean none of that awful evening had been meant? She said:
“I thought you’d all still be hating me.”
Robert gave Judith a look which he usually reserved for his Father, half affection, half commiseration.
“I can’t answer for the girls, they may still remember, but they won’t hate you. I don’t suppose we did then really, it was mostly pretending I expect, like we used to be supposed to be at war with all growns.”
“Is that over too?”
“Of course, it was a sort of kids’ game.”
Judith laid the blouses and pullovers on a shelf, and opened her second case. It was mostly underclothes. She wondered if it was all right to unpack underclothes before Robert; Miss Simpson had always made “Prenez garde” clicking noises when a douane’s hands uncovered or pulled out anything of that sort.
“You’d better look out of the window, it’s my underclothes in here.”
Robert had not noticed what Judith was unpacking, nor would he have noticed. Because Judith drew attention to what she was doing he was embarrassed.
“I can go out if you’d rather . . .”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. I just thought . . . go on telling me about all of you. Do you and Catherine still do everything together?”
That question took Robert’s mind right away from Judith’s clothes, and straight back to the problem that had been nagging at him all the holidays. He stared into the street below. Catherine was being, he thought, tiresome. She had got her job, and ought to have her own friends, but she had not somehow, and still expected him to be hanging around doing nothing, just waiting for her to come in. It was all right to-day, he was not doing anything, but there had been some sticky times when he had spent the day with one friend or another, and they had persuaded him to stay on, and he had been out for the evening. Catherine had not made a direct row, she hardly could, as there was no reason on the face of it why he should be in when she came home, but she had been sort of stand-offish and difficult afterwards; she had a gift, too, for making him feel he had hurt her. He wished he could tell Judith, he was sure she would sympathise, but he could not quite do that, all the same it would be nice to talk to her about things. He swung round to face her, her unpacking forgotten.
“Not like we used to, of course, when she had school holidays, but I mostly see her in the evenings.”
“What do you do all day?”
“Lots of things, now you’re here I’ll have to take you around I expect.” He laughed. “I don’t mean I wouldn’t like to, but I mean I’d have had to whether I liked or not. Do you like looking at pictures? I do, rather, we could see some if you felt like it.”
Judith did not really care much for pictures, but she was willing to go anywhere Robert wanted to go, and to look as if she was enjoying what he enjoyed.
“Thank you very much, I should like that.”
Robert felt an urge to confide. He leant towards her.
“You know, when you were asking me if I was going to farm, well, would you like to know what I really want to be?”
Judith too had forgotten her underclothes.
“What?”
“I want to write.”
“Write what?”
“Books. As a matter of fact, no one knows this, but I’ve written most of one. You wouldn’t like me to read it to you sometime, would you?”
Judith could hardly believe what she had heard. Was it possible that Robert wanted, really wanted, to read his book to her?
“I’d love it. If I finish unpacking couldn’t you read some now, before anybody comes in?”
They went to Robert’s bedroom. Robert sat in a chair by the window, Judith curled up on his bed. The book was written in longhand, and covered a respectable pile of paper.
An hour and a half later Beatrice came home to a quiet house. She raised her voice and called Robert, but he did not hear her. It was the cook who gave her the news that Judith had arrived early. Beatrice supposed Robert and Judith must be upstairs. There were two rooms at the top of the house which had been the nurseries, one was now Robert’s bedroom, and the other the children’s sitting-room, known as the club. Beatrice, having been to her room to take off her outdoor clothes, paused at the bottom of the stairs leading to the club, and again called Robert. This time he heard her. Robert shouted “Coming”, then hurriedly piled his papers together. Judith scrambled off the bed.
“What a pity, just as we’d got to such an exciting place.”
Robert hid his book.
“We’ll find another time to read it.” They hurried to the door. “Don’t forget it’s a secret, nobody but you knows I’ve written it, and nobody must.”
Beatrice having heard Robert’s “Coming” turned towards her drawing-room and tea, then something made her pause. That was odd, surely his voice had come from his bedroom. She turned and looked back. She could not see the doors of either the bedroom or the club, but she heard a door open, and her impression was that it was Robert’s bedroom door. Whatever could the children have been doing in there all the afternoon?
Judith and Robert, when they joined her, looked like children do caught out on some secret business, as well Judith looked flustered, for she had not had time to wash or tidy her hair, and from what she could remember of Beatrice she was the last Aunt before whom to appear untidy.
Beatrice’s quick eye took in the two, and mentally she shot back to her school prefect days. In those days “something nasty”, for which all prefects were on the watch, had never concerned men or boys, for the girls were never alone with either. It was many years since she had been a prefect, but she still, she discovered, had a nose for it, and her nose suggested “something nasty” now. However, she kept her thoughts from her face.
“Hullo, Judith. How are you, dear? How has Robert been looking after you?”
It was an unlucky question. Judith had been brought up to answer when spoken to, t
o look the speaker in the eye, and to smile. It was difficult to do these things when you were unable to answer truthfully, and could not think what made-up reply to give. She flushed, she dropped her eyes.
“I unpacked, and then . . .”
Robert was accustomed to prevarication, it was seldom a good idea, in his experience, to give a grown a straight answer.
“Looked at my stamps, and played the gramophone. Do you know, Judith’s keen on pictures? I thought I’d like to take her to the National Gallery sometime.”
Judith’s behaviour had convinced Beatrice her nose had not deceived her, “something nasty” had certainly been going on, lascivious pawings probably, no great harm done, but decidedly unhealthy. To be expected, she supposed, from a girl with Judith’s background, mixing only with foreigners, she must see she was healthily employed every minute of the ten days she was in the house. That sort of highly-sexed girl could be a great anxiety, and she certainly did not want Cynthia getting ideas. Out loud she said:
“Of course she must see the National Gallery, and all the other galleries. I’ll make plans for each day you are with us, Judith.”
From his Mother’s tone of voice Robert could hear she was not pleased about something, but that was no novelty, so it did not worry him. He supposed she was thinking he had frittered away his afternoon; he thanked the gods that she did not know what he had really done with it, for she would have considered his book reading frittering in a major way. What Beatrice was really thinking was past his imagination, and he would have been shocked and appallingly embarrassed if he had known.
Judith too, heard the edge on Beatrice’s voice, and wondered anxiously if she always spoke like that now, she remembered the tone well: “If your child can’t talk English, Charles, it’s time you sent her to school over here.” But when she had said that she was, for some unexplained reason, cross; was she cross now? She tried to frame an answer that would please.
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