“. . . but I’ll do it all,” she was saying. “The house is frightfully cheap and we shan’t need much. . . . I’ll do it all.”
CHAPTER IX
The lounge was full of sunshine when Frances came in from her walk, but the windows were all tightly closed and it smelt fusty and stale. She went across to the windows and opened them widely and the sea breeze swept in, scattering the papers on the table.
“I see you like fresh air,” said a voice from the corner, and Frances saw that Captain Tarlatan was sitting there reading a paper.
“I see you like fug,” said Frances, laughing.
“I don’t,” he replied. “I just accept things as they are. Neither fug nor a gale from the Atlantic has the power to upset my equilibrium.”
The gale from the Atlantic to which he referred was so strong and boisterous that Frances was obliged to moderate her passion for sea air. She shut one of the windows and left the other slightly open and sat down.
“Where is Tommy?” inquired Captain Tarlatan.
“I think she has gone over to the little house,” replied Frances. “I think so, but I’m not sure. Did you want to see her?”
“She asked me to tea but she’s probably forgotten,” replied Captain Tarlatan quite cheerfully.
Frances asked him to have tea with her, so they had tea together and chatted about various matters in a friendly manner. He was a little alarming to talk to, Frances found. He said the most incredible things with a perfectly serious face; but Frances had her trousers on today, she crossed her legs and felt rather dashing; she lit a cigarette.
“What’s the joke?” inquired her companion.
“The joke?” asked Frances in sunrise.
“You were smiling in an enigmatic manner,” he explained. “It seemed to me that you must be enjoying a particularly good joke and I wanted to share the fun.”
“You wouldn’t see anything funny in it.”
“I’m sorry you consider me lacking in a sense of humour.”
“It isn’t that,” she replied quickly. “It was just that I was thinking of someone I know . . .” She had thought suddenly of Aunt Zoë and had wondered what Aunt Zoë would have said if she could have been a spectator of the scene . . . it was no wonder that Frances had smiled to herself in an enigmatic manner.
He handed his cup for more tea and said in a resigned voice: “In that case I shall have to remain in ignorance, I suppose. It seems a pity, doesn’t it?”
Frances was unused to this sort of conversation, and although she was aware that he was teasing her she was unable to reply in kind. She was still searching for something to say when Captain Tarlatan changed the subject.
“Are you a painter?” he asked.
“No; every one asks me that. Do I look like one?”
He looked at her critically. “No,” he said. “No, you don’t. As a matter of fact it was what is usually known as a leading question. I wondered what you were doing here.”
“Having a holiday.”
“A holiday from what?”
“From work,” said Frances, laughing.
He laughed too. “All right,” he said. “All right, I shall find out for myself.”
“How will you find out?”
“By using my powers of observation. By deduction and elimination. To begin with, I’m quite sure you aren’t an actress.”
“How do you know?”
“You haven’t the poise,” he replied frankly. “For the same reason you aren’t a mannequin. You aren’t a nurse, and you aren’t in any of the women’s service organisations.”
“Perhaps I’m nothing at all,” suggested Frances.
“In less than a week I shall find out,” he said gravely.
Frances scarcely knew why she was disinclined to clear up the mystery. Perhaps it was because she was ashamed of having so little to tell. Her life—compared with the lives of these people—had been dull and unadventurous. . . .
“Hallo, here’s Midgey!” exclaimed Captain Tarlatan.
“Why do you call him that?” asked Frances as the tall broad-shouldered figure came up the path and hesitated for a moment at the door of the lounge.
“I don’t know,” replied Captain Tarlatan. “Every one calls him that. . . . Midgey, Miss Field wants to know who gave you that name.”
He was passing through the lounge and he stopped and put his hand on the back of a chair. “Middleton is my name,” he said evenly. “Perhaps Miss Field would be interested to know that my mother was a member of a well-known South American family. Her surname was Middleton.”
He hates me, thought Frances in surprise and some alarm as she met the strange veiled glance of his dark eyes.
“So that’s the reason,” Captain Tarlatan said lightly.
“Yes. I suppose you have told Miss Field why your nickname is Foxey.”
“I told her my name was Guy and left her to draw her own conclusions.”
“Are you sure it’s that kind of fox?”
Frances looked at the long-fingered hand which was gripping the back of the chair and noticed that the knuckles were white. There was a strange tenseness in the air. The air had suddenly become difficult to breathe.
“I am quite sure it’s that kind of fox,” said Captain Tarlatan in level tones, “but if you have any doubts about it I am willing to convince you.”
Captain Widgery hesitated, and then he said: “That house—Tommy’s crazy about it. There’s no bath and the lavatory is in a hut outside the back door . . .” He turned and went up the stairs.
It was funny—Frances saw that quite clearly—but somehow or other she did not feel inclined to laugh, and although Captain Tarlatan was smiling it was a grim sort of smile.
“Some day I shall have to strangle Widgery,” he said, and the mere fact that he had avoided using the absurd nickname gave the idle words a strange significance.
A good many things happened in the next few days. Tillie Liston moved into her bungalow on the hill; the Thynnes arrived in a large but somewhat shabby Austin and moved into theirs, and Tommy busied herself with preparations to move into Sea View. Cairn village, and in particular the Bordale Arms Hotel, became alive to the presence of soldiers in the vicinity. There was nowhere for the officers and men to go and nothing for them to do when they were off duty except stroll into Cairn and make friends with the inhabitants. The officers discovered that the Bordale Arms was quite a decent place and kept good wine, and scarcely a day passed but some of them dropped in for a meal. Mrs. MacNair was a capable woman; she realised her opportunity and took fortune at the flood. The meal at six-thirty vanished and, instead of it, Mrs MacNair provided tea at four-thirty and an excellent dinner at eight o’clock. Frances was sorry to see the change, for she had enjoyed the odd mixture of tea and supper, but it was quite amusing to see the officers dining—there were different ones nearly every night. Meanwhile the men had discovered the bar, and by eight o’clock it was always full of soldiers, laughing and talking and singing at the top of their voices. Mr, MacNair had never served so much beer in his life. Sometimes the bar was so full that the men could not get in and benches and tables were put out in the street. It was a strange sight to see the khaki-clad figures sitting there, drinking their beer and smoking and swopping stories. They sat there long after darkness had fallen and, owing to the lighting restrictions, they were forced to sit in the dark, but this did not seem to worry them. Sometimes at night, as Frances lay in bed, she could hear them talking beneath her side window and, unlike their officers, they were always discussing the war. They would talk of Dunkirk and of various other places in France and Belgium, and would discuss with absolute freedom the vicissitudes of that ill-starred campaign and the conduct of their allies. . . . She heard some strange language winging its way through the darkness, but somehow or other it did not shock her as much as one might expect. She realised that it was just “soldiers’ talk;” it was an unfortunate habit but it meant little or nothing—even to the men themselve
s. They would talk and talk . . . and then someone would start to play a few bars of a song on a mouth organ and in a moment they would all be singing at the tops of their voices. They sang “Over the Border”, “Down Mexico Way”, and all the songs made popular by Gracie Fields, and sometimes they sang songs from the last war, and sometimes ballads. Then Alec and Mr. MacNair would come out and Frances would hear the chink of glasses being collected, and there would be a good deal of joking and teasing and horseplay before the men strolled off down the road back to the camp. Frances lay and listened to the sound of their voices and the tramp of their feet dying away in the distance until she could hear nothing more and all was silence and darkness.
Oddly enough, the noise did not worry Frances in the least. She liked to hear the men enjoying themselves—they deserved a little enjoyment after all they had been through. Whenever she saw them, strolling in the street or sitting at the wooden tables, her heart went out to them in a flood of warm friendship and gratitude. They were her soldiers—so she felt—they were ready to defend her country with their lives. There was nothing she would not have done for them in return. She would have liked to speak to them, but she had no idea what to say and she was far too shy to attempt it. One evening when she was coming back from a walk she passed near a table at which four men were sitting, and suddenly she felt that she must do something for them, so she took a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and put it on the table as she passed, and then fled for her life before the men had recovered from their astonishment sufficiently to thank her for it. Afterwards her cheeks burnt with shame at the gauche way in which she had presented her gift—how differently Tommy would have done it!
CHAPTER X
Tommy had been so busy preparing her new home and ordering the necessary furniture that, in the last few days, Frances had only seen her once—dashing into the hotel for a belated meal—but now the arrangements were almost complete and Frances received an invitation to come over and see the results of Tommy’s labours. Frances had seen possibilities in the house but, even so, she was surprised at the transformation. She stood in the doorway for a moment and looked round in amazement. The last time she had been here the room had been empty and dirty, the windows streaked with salt from the sea spray, the corners festooned with cobwebs, but Mrs. MacNair had been as good as her word and the place was now as clean and shining as soap and water and elbow-grease could make it, and the hired furniture which had arrived that morning had been put in place.
“It’s perfectly lovely,” Frances declared.
“It’s the darlingest little house in the world,” agreed Tommy with satisfaction and some pride.
“. . . and you’ve been most awfully clever about it,” added Frances. She was surprised to find that Tommy had a practical side to her nature; the carpets fitted exactly, the curtains were the right length and breadth, and the furniture was neither too large nor too small.
When asked how this had been achieved Tommy replied: “I measured everything, of course—what else could I have done?”
It was the only thing to have done, but Frances could not see Tommy doing it . . . she had thought Tommy a trifle scatter-brained.
The kitchen was nice too. It was clean and shining, and shelves were well stocked with pots and pans and china dishes of all sorts. Frances remarked on the numbers of cups and saucers and plates. “It looks as if you were prepared to entertain the regiment,” she said with a smile.
“It’s because I hate washing up,” explained Tommy gravely. “Mrs. MacNair is coming every morning for a few hours and I shall leave all the dishes for her to wash. She said she didn’t mind.”
They were working about as they talked, putting the finishing touches to the little house—the little touches that are so important.
“Is Mrs. MacNair going to do the cooking?” Frances inquired.
“No, I’m going to do it myself,” replied Tommy. “I’m rather good at cooking—you wouldn’t think it, would you?”
“Why shouldn’t you be good at it?”
“I don’t know, but nobody believes that I can cook. I suppose I must have an uncook-like appearance or something.”
Frances looked up at her (she was standing on the steps arranging the sitting-room curtains). It was true that her appearance was unlike the general idea of a cook. She looked young and fairy-like and there were blue shadows round her eyes.
“You’re tired,” said Frances in concern. “You’ve been doing far too much. Why didn’t you let me help?”
“There was nothing much that you could do,” said Tommy. “I mean, I had to think it all out myself—it’s thinking that tires me, not doing things.” She finished the job and came down. “There,” she said, looking at the curtains critically and giving them a tweak to arrange their folds. “There, it’s finished and I hope to goodness they’re really light-proof. The blackout was the worst part.”
“It always is,” said Frances.
Tommy was looking round the room now. “It’s the nicest house I’ve ever had,” she declared. “The very nicest. I’ve chosen the furniture myself and I’ve never been able to do that before. It’s a home—a real home, isn’t it?”
Frances remembered the big gloomy house in Wintringham Square and decided that this little house—with all its drawbacks—was infinitely preferable. Tommy had chosen comfortable modern furniture for her sitting-room: there were three easy-chairs and several smaller ones; there was a round gate-legged table and a small bookcase; the carpet was green with little sprigs of flowers; there were a few good prints on the walls; Tommy had filled a brown jar with pussy willows and had stood it in the corner.
“Nice,” said Tommy with a little sigh.
Frances nodded. “Awfully nice,” she agreed.
“And all your doing,” added Tommy, looking at her affectionately.
“My doing?”
“Yes, of course. If it hadn’t been for you we should have had to live in the hotel. Thank you, Frances.”
“I hope you will be very happy here, Tommy,” replied Frances.
They looked at each other and smiled.
“I shall be happy,” declared Tommy after a little pause. “It’s what I’ve always wanted—I’ve always thought it would be lovely to have a tiny cottage and nobody in it at all except Midge and me. I’ve thought how lovely it would be to cook and wash for Midge, to be alone at night, miles from every one. I’ve often envied ploughmen’s wives. Life would be so simple—and love would be simple too.”
Frances had been laying the fire in the sitting-room fireplace. It was an old-fashioned cottage grate and there was a little platform at the side for a kettle. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Tommy. “Love would be simple?” she asked, wrinkling her brows in bewilderment.
“Yes,” said Tommy. “Love’s a most awfully difficult thing to manage—but don’t listen to me, Frances, I talk too much. Shall we have tea?”
“Tea here?”
“Why not? I think it would be fun. I’ve got all the doings—and biscuits and things. Light the fire.”
“You ought to light your own fire.”
“Light it for me,” Tommy said.
Half an hour later they were sitting by the fire having tea. It was the first meal in the new house and it was a friendly, cheerful meal. Frances was pouring out the tea and Tommy was sitting on the hearthrug.
“That’s one of the things about your own house,” Tommy declared. “I mean, you can sit on the floor. I always do.”
“It seems rather a waste to have hired three perfectly good chairs.”
“One is for Midge and one is for you,” replied Tommy gravely, “and the other is for any chance visitor who happens to drop in. You’ll come often, won’t you?”
“If you want me,” Frances said.
“I do want you—I always say what I mean.”
They cleared away the tea-things, locked up the little house, and strolled back to the hotel. “It’s lovely to think that it’s all read
y,” said Tommy suddenly. “We could sleep there to-night, couldn’t we? He’s sure to like it when he sees it. Nobody could not like it, could they?”
“Nobody,” said Frances with, conviction.
The hotel was very quiet for dinner, but after dinner the Listons appeared and a car came in from the camp with Captain Widgery and Guy Tarlatan; a few moments later the door opened and a girl looked in and said: “Hallo, everybody!” and was greeted with shouts of “Hallo, Angela!” from the assembled company.
Frances had taken up her position in a corner of the lounge, and from this strategic point she was able to see everything that was going on without having to talk to any one herself—this was what she liked, for she found these people interesting to watch. The thought crossed her mind that it must be rather fun to belong to a regiment. They all knew each other so well, they were so friendly and cheerful, laughing and talking and teasing each other. She was interested in the arrival of Angela Thynne—this was the Colonel’s ewe lamb, the girl who sparkled in an amusing manner! Frances, looking at her with critical eyes, decided that she was too brilliant to be real. She was wearing navy-blue trousers and an emerald-green shirt, open at the neck; there were long gold ear-rings in her ears, and her lips and nails were scarlet. Her hair was fair and she wore it in loose curls round her neck; her eyelashes were long and dark and curling. She was pretty and vivacious; even Frances—who for some reason had taken a dislike to her on first sight—was forced to admit that she was very pretty indeed.
Mrs. Liston came over and sat down beside Frances. She said: “I’ve been on my feet all day. There was so much to do. The children are coming to-morrow.” She was very pale and her hair was more wispy than usual.
“You’re tired,” Frances, said sympathetically.
“Yes. Yes, I am. I didn’t know I was tired until suddenly—suddenly I felt as if I were going to cry . . . but it’s quite a nice bungalow.” She hesitated and then added in a vague sort of voice: “This place reminds me of India.”
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