Judith

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Thank you very much, Aunt Beatrice, I shall like that. When I was here before I never went to galleries, or anything like that, it was mostly plays and restaurants, and of course Madame Tussaud’s.”

  Mealy-mouthed little beast, thought Beatrice. Behind his Mother’s back Robert gave Judith a wink and squeezed her hand. The wink and the squeeze said clearly “We’re friends, and we share a secret, so don’t let’s bother if growns are cross.”

  When Catherine came in, Robert, Judith and Cynthia were in the club, they were playing Scrabble, and Cynthia’s spelling had doubled them up with laughter. Catherine, just about to run upstairs, heard the laughter and paused, scowling, and at that moment her mother came into the hall.

  “Oh, Catherine, come into the drawing-room a moment, I want to talk to you.”

  Catherine heard another cascade of laughter led by Robert. She looked sourly at her Mother, her tone was ungracious.

  “What is it?”

  Catherine closed the drawing-room door.

  “I want to have a word with you before you see Judith. There’s a complication about her being in the house I had not foreseen. She looks a mere schoolgirl, but I suspect her appearance is deceiving, the result of being brought up abroad probably.”

  Catherine had changed remarkably little. Her early years had made a deep impression, and time was not lessening it. Old nurse’s kingdom, and later the dominion of Mrs. Dayton, had placed a barrier between herself and her parents, which she delighted in, for behind it she and Robert, and to a lesser degree Cynthia, lived alone. She had never accepted, and fought against the fact when it was presented to her, that she was now a grown herself, and belonged to the other side of the barrier. The difference in age between herself and Robert she remembered, was what it had always been, and because, in the natural way, she grew up first that did not mean she broke up the family alliance, and joined the parent group. She was too clear-sighted not to be conscious the relationship between herself and Robert and Cynthia was not what it had been, but she considered this a temporary loosening of bonds only, and was convinced they would be tied as closely together as ever when they were all grown up.

  Catherine had to fight down anxiety about Robert, he had been showing signs that he wanted to be more on his own, she was sure she could get him back to the old dependence on her, for he hated being sulked at, but it was worrying. Because of her determination not to be dragged from behind the barrier, ever since she had left school Catherine had glowered whenever her Mother had talked to her as a grown-up daughter, for she had no wish to be on those sort of terms with her, and wanted her to know it. Judith, bore though it was having her, belonged to hers, Robert’s and Cynthia’s world, and was not to be made an excuse for Mother-and-daughter talks. She sounded as resentful as she felt.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Beatrice had long ago accepted that she and Catherine would never be intimate with each other, and it suited her, in her busy life she had no space for a Mother-daughter relationship, it was something she had never had herself and would have disliked intensely had she had it. But her apartness from Catherine made it embarrassing when for once she had to talk of physical matters. She had never had to discuss physical subjects with her from an enlightening angle, for she knew from experience her school would handle the whole business admirably. Nor was it her habit to talk of physical matters, except from a national angle. It was easy at a public meeting to talk of anything from prostitution to birth control, but blush-making when a friend in private talked of change of life. It was horribly embarrassing now to talk of her suspicions to an impatient steely-eyed daughter.

  “When I came in this afternoon I thought Judith and Robert were in his bedroom. When they joined me I was sure I was right, they, particularly Judith, looked like people do when they have something to hide.”

  For a moment Catherine was so amazed by her Mother’s words that the room seemed to disintegrate. It is always a shock to learn for the first time that somebody who seems still a child is behaving as an adult, it was especially a shock because it was Robert; if Robert was doing anything of that sort his thoughts were even less hers than she had hoped. Then, before jealousy could settle in, Robert had to be defended, even if what her Mother said was true, Catherine was not going to side with her against him.

  “What a beastly mind you’ve got, as if Robert would look at Judith; he was being nice I suppose as no one else was in, most likely showing her his stamps or something.”

  Beatrice thought how plain Catherine looked when she lost her temper.

  “There’s no need to be rude, nor do you make what I am telling you less true by raising your voice. If Robert was looking after Judith as a duty, it was one he enjoyed, for directly he had swallowed his tea he asked her to go up to the club, he said he would play her some of his records. I made them wait until Cynthia came in, then I sent her up with them.”

  Catherine longed to shout, longed to say again it was all nonsense, but like an icy finger fear touched her. But she still would not move to her Mother’s side of the barrier.

  “If she’s that sort of girl what am I to do?”

  That was better. Beatrice relaxed.

  “I can arrange the days, I’ll map out a programme of sight-seeing and send Cynthia with them. I shall leave the evenings and Saturday and Sunday to you, just see they aren’t alone, that’s all, and don’t forget highly-sexed, rather flirtatious girls are often cunning.”

  Robert heard Catherine coming upstairs. It was Judith’s turn to play.

  “Hurry up, there’s Catherine coming.”

  Cynthia sprawled over the Scrabble board.

  “She’s sure to want to play, so we may as well start again. Playing with her isn’t much fun, she’s awfully good, I suppose it’s being secretary to a Member of Parliament, those sort of people always use long words.”

  Robert, to hurry the game, leant sideways to look at Judith’s rack of letters, and at that moment Catherine came into the room.

  Although she had often seen outsiders in her family group, Catherine had known that they had not mattered, for to Robert too they were outsiders. Now, with eyes opened by her Mother, she saw a picture that temporarily destroyed her reasoning powers. An utterly contented trio, who wanted her so little they did not for a moment look up as she came in. Judith, she saw, was pretty, infuriatingly pretty, the sort of prettiness you could not deny, or argue out of existence, and, her distorted vision suggested, aware of it, and using her awareness to play up to Robert. The same distorted vision did not show her Robert trying to find a long word to be made from the letters in Judith’s rack, but a Robert sloppily leaning over Judith so that he could touch her face. The same distorted vision refused to allow her to accept that Cynthia, her plaits falling on to the Scrabble board, was her usual self, delighted to join in any game, but showed her a Cynthia playing up to Judith, because she was pretty, instead of rushing to welcome her sister home.

  Catherine, though scorched through by jealousy, had learned enough discipline at school to hold on to a modicum of self-control, it would be a mistake to show too clearly what she felt, for it might push Robert even closer to Judith.

  “Hullo, Judith, you haven’t changed much.”

  Robert’s head shot up, Catherine was on the warpath. Why? Cynthia’s head, too, shot up and it was she who answered.

  “I think she’s changed no end. I don’t remember her being pretty like she is now, when she was a bridesmaid.”

  Catherine came to the table, struggling for control of her tongue, but it defeated her.

  “I hope she has changed, we had to send her to Coventry last time. Have you changed, Judith? You were an awful little show-off then.” She watched the happiness die out of Judith’s eyes and fear take its place. She tipped the letters off the Scrabble board into the box, and began turning them face downwards. “However much the others m
ay forget I remember things, and don’t think you’ll get away with anything this time.” She emphasised the word “anything”, “because I’ll be watching you.”

  Shocked, Robert and Cynthia gasped at Catherine, but both knew from experience it was no good saying anything when she was in a temper. After an embarrassed pause Robert muttered:

  “Better draw to see who starts.”

  * * * * *

  Robert and Cynthia got on well, but that did not mean they wished to spend every minute of their holidays together. Cynthia was a child who lived vividly; phases which left scarcely a mark on other girls were intense experiences to her, and through her they became intense experiences to others. She had just reached the doting on film and television stars stage when Judith came to stay, she was sharing the experience with two schoolgirl sisters who lived nearby. The doting had an end product—autographs. Like three generals planning a campaign the three girls planned their autograph hunting. They searched the papers for news of their heroes and heroines, and planned how to capture them. Beatrice and the parents of the other girls would have been appalled if they could have seen their offspring hanging about hotels and restaurants at a time when they believed them to be playing tennis, or otherwise healthily employed. Robert knew of Cynthia’s latest craze and accepted it tolerantly, Cynthia was always in the middle of something, this time it happened to be celebrities. It never crossed his mind that Cynthia would give up her autograph hunting to go around with himself and Judith, and it never crossed Cynthia’s mind to suppose Robert would expect her to, what held both their minds was how to prevent the growns, and on this occasion growns included Catherine, from knowing they were disobeyed.

  “I shouldn’t think it’ll be difficult,” Robert said, “only tiresome. We’ll have to start out together, and come home together, that’s all.”

  The days were planned by Beatrice. On wet days they were to visit museums and picture galleries, on fine days Hampton Court, the Zoo, Kew Gardens and other outdoor spots which Robert told Judith provided his Mother’s favourite things: air, exercise and education.

  “We have to go to the places,” he apologised, “because if we don’t we are sure to be caught out with questions, but we needn’t stay long or look at more than we want to.”

  Each day Robert liked Judith more. He liked the way she did whatever he suggested without arguing. He liked the way she listened, and was so interested in all he told her of his school, that in one day she could speak of most of the masters and a lot of his friends by their nicknames. He liked the way she looked at him, not exactly humbly, but as if she was lucky to be with him, and it was pleasant being with a girl who did not argue but said about everything “You choose, Robert,” or “You decide, Robert.” He got a kick, too, from the looks outsiders gave them, he could see when they went into restaurants that people were thinking Judith was pretty. What he never grasped was that he was the first young creature of either sex that Judith had known well enough to count as a friend. It was not possible for him to understand how absorbing to Judith was family life. He knew she could not hear enough about it, but he did not understand why. There was only one point on which they disagreed, and that was Catherine’s attitude. To Robert, Catherine was Catherine, she was the possessive sort, she always had been, but to Judith she was frightening, she believed she loathed her, and that to him was nonsense.

  “What’s it got to do with her if Cynthia is with us or not? I know we haven’t told her, but that’s because she’s more or less a grown, and might think she ought to pass it on, but only as sense of duty and all that.”

  Robert liked people to be pleasant, so he went to an infinity of trouble over his arrangements for depositing and collecting Cynthia, for if his Mother knew she was being disobeyed the rest of the holidays would be one long nag. But his dislike of a fuss, and what Judith felt, he could feel and see were not in the same class. The change in Judith began the moment the day was over and they turned towards the place where they were to collect Cynthia. He tried teasing her about it.

  “No need to wear your going-home look yet, we shan’t be back for at least an hour,” or “Turned stone cold yet? You ought to get your teeth chattering, there’s Cynthia, we shall soon be home now.”

  But teasing, or even scolding, did no good, Robert had to accept that to Judith the evenings in his home brought on the sort of feeling he had before he had a tooth out, or used to have, in his prep school days, the night before he went back to school.

  Cynthia never noticed anything was wrong, for on the homeward bus she was so full of her day that she would have been unlikely to notice if Judith had become unconscious. It was in the mornings that she noticed Judith, and then she found her the greatest fun. As they grew further and further from home, Judith grew gayer and gayer. Usually, before they left the bus she had both herself and Robert in fits of laughter with her imitations of foreign characters, the Stratford-Derickson Uncles, Lucy, but more often of the cockney daily, Mrs. Welsh, being given orders by Beatrice. Often before she left the bus, Cynthia, who was never restrained, was laughing so heartily she could have fallen off her seat if Robert had not caught hold of her.

  The pattern of the days Robert spent with Judith changed very little. In the morning they reached wherever they were instructed to go. At once Robert set about acquiring general knowledge of the place.

  “What we want is the general set-up, and an idea about the most important points and a guide book to show we’ve been.”

  Such knowledge as he thought necessary acquired, the next point to be considered was food. Beatrice gave him money daily for inexpensive lunches for three, but he and Judith were not dependent on this, for Basil had surreptitiously slipped his son five pounds.

  “Take Judith to some nice places. Let me know if you need more. She doesn’t look too happy, give her as good a time as you can, sorry about Cynthia, hope she isn’t too much of a nuisance.”

  Over lunch they planned their afternoon, if wet a cinema, if fine a walk, but wherever they went and whatever they did, the conversation soon turned to Robert’s book. He describing the characters and outlining the future story, and she, her eyes shining, her face upturned to his, listening as though his book was to her the most important thing in her life. Each day before they turned for home she said the same thing.

  “You will read me the rest before the end of the holidays, won’t you?”

  Robert, carried away by interest in his story, and Judith’s enthusiasm, always replied hopefully, but in his heart he could not see how the reading was to be managed. He could not take the book out, for it was bulky, and his Mother was bound to ask what it was, and in the house never was he even for five minutes alone with Judith.

  It was hard for Beatrice and Catherine to find much to like in Judith, for when they saw her she was at her worst. She was terrified of both of them, and being afraid gave her a furtive look. Their feelings about her were not helped by the fact that the two males clearly admired her. Basil for once gave up his negative attitude and came down squarely on Judith’s side. He thought her a pretty gentle little thing, and he hated to see her so nervous, when Beatrice spoke to her she almost cringed. She brought out all the chivalry in him, and there was a great deal hidden away behind the rather pompous, running to fat, successful business man his world knew; he would see the little thing was not bullied, even if it meant standing up to Beatrice, which was something he had avoided for years. Robert’s fondness for Judith was better disguised, though like his Father he was prepared to fly to defend if necessary. He found his Father’s attitude rather naïve, and watched its effect on his Mother with amusement.

  “Poor old Dad,” he thought, “he means well, but he’s putting a match to it, if he isn’t careful he’ll cause an explosion.”

  Judith had stayed with the Carlyles for a week before her cousins and Basil heard she was to go to a stage school. Beatrice had deliberately not mentio
ned it, thinking it might make Catherine unsettled in her rather prosaic job. She supposed the news would come out, but not through her, for she intended, by ignoring the school, to belittle it. Actually the news had not come out, for Catherine had no interest in Judith except to get her away from Robert, and Judith talked very little about herself to Robert, and Cynthia took it for granted someone as old as Judith would be going to a finishing school, establishments which did not interest her. Then, out of the blue at the dinner table one night, Basil, feeling Judith had been silent too long and searching round for a subject to draw her out, asked:

  “What school are they sending you to, Judith?”

  Judith had no wish to be talked to, but thought that at least that was a nice straightforward question.

  “The West End School for Drama and Speech Training.”

  If she had thrown her plate at Basil she could not have caused more of a sensation. Catherine could not believe what she had heard. Why send Judith to a stage school?

  “A stage school! What on earth for?”

  “Goodness, Judith,” gasped Cynthia, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, “how gorgeous! Fancy if you became a star, and had people wanting your autograph.”

  Robert was nearly as puzzled as Catherine, he thought Judith awfully nice, but she did not seem the type to be an actress.

  “How odd you never told us.”

  Judith wondered if perhaps he was hurt.

  “You never asked.”

  Basil, though also amazed, managed not to show it.

  “I never knew you were keen on acting.”

  Cynthia leant towards her Father.

  “You haven’t heard her imitations, they’re simply marvellous, you ought to hear her doing . . .”

  Robert was sitting next to Cynthia, he kicked her ankle to warn her to stop, for funny though he thought it was, he could not imagine his Mother would enjoy hearing Judith imitating her.

  “Types she’s met abroad, and her Uncles, her Stratford-Derickson ones.”