Spring Magic

by D. E. Stevenson

  With kind regards and best wishes.

  I remain,

  Yours sincerely,

  JOHN DIGBY.

  There was a great deal to think about in this letter. First, his suggestion that Frances should take charge of a canteen, and second, the information that he was moving into No. 9 Wintringham Square. It was queer to think of Dr. Digby in the old house—queer to think of him moving about the familiar rooms and sitting in the easy-chairs. It was a good idea, of course (Frances saw that). The house was better to be let to Dr. Digby than to stand empty or to be taken over for housing purposes, and it would suit Dr. Digby, for it was not far from his own house and would be convenient for his patients. The canteen idea was rather alarming when Frances came to think of it. How could she possibly take over the management of a canteen and do all the catering? She had had no experience of running a canteen. She wouldn’t be able to do it properly. She would make a mess of it. Frances took up the letter and read it again. . . . “I feel sure that you are the right person for the job,” that was what Dr. Digby had written, and Dr. Digby had always said what he meant. . . . Perhaps, thought Frances doubtfully, perhaps I could do it . . . perhaps I ought to try.

  Frances decided to think it over and meanwhile she opened her other letter. It was a short note from Mr. MacDonald asking her to go to tea at the Castle on Tuesday. Frances had been so engrossed in the affairs of her new friends that she had not thought of Mr. MacDonald, but she thought of him now and decided that it would be pleasant to see him again.

  It was high time that Frances got up and had her bath, so she bounded out of bed and seized her towel . . . but as she opened the door she heard a man’s voice, so she drew back and waited for him to pass. It’s Major Crabbe, thought Frances, as she waited with the door slightly ajar. He’s come to see Elise.

  The voice grew louder, and it was obvious that its owner had paused in the doorway of Elise’s room for a few last words. “Good-bye,” said the voice. “Take care of yourself. You aren’t going to get up today, are you? I’ll look in to-night and see you again . . . good-bye, darling. . . .”

  Frances closed her door as the heavy boots passed and clattered down the stairs. She felt a trifle sick—there was a strange empty feeling within her—for Elise’s visitor was not Major Crabbe, it was Guy Tarlatan.

  Sitting on her bed with her towel still over her arm and her sponge tightly clasped in her other hand, Frances tried to reason with herself and to explain away the facts: they’re friends, said Frances to herself, they’re tremendous friends. They’ve travelled about all over the world together and shared all sorts of strange experiences . . . so it’s quite natural that Guy should be worried about her. They’re just friends—that’s all—Elise is devoted to her husband. This was perfectly true and was very good reasoning, but it did not convince Frances that there was nothing serious in what she had heard, for although she might explain away the words themselves—these new friends of hers often called each other “darling”—she could not explain away the tender solicitude of the voice. . . .

  It was a black day—one of the blackest Frances had known. It was a day of jumbled thoughts and strange discoveries. She had been living on the surface, talking and laughing with her new friends and trying to understand them, and so she had not had time to think of herself or to notice where she was going. Now she looked inward. She mooned about on the foreshore all the afternoon. She sat on the rocks and gazed at the sea. She rose and wandered along the cliff. Cairn looked different today: it looked unfriendly and forbidding, the sunshine was not so golden, the colours were less brilliant than before. Her thoughts went round and round and came back to the same place. However hard she tried to get out of the circle, her thoughts brought her back to the same place again.

  It was most important that she should give her mind to the consideration of Dr. Digby’s letter. She must decide whether or not she should accept the post at the canteen, but no sooner had she begun to think about it seriously, to envisage herself in charge of the canteen, ordering the food, and arranging the menus, than her thoughts suddenly whizzed off at a tangent and she found herself thinking of Guy and Elise. Why was she so upset, so knocked off her balance by the discovery she had made? If they were too fond of each other—too fond for ordinary friends—it was their affair and Major Crabbe’s, not hers at all. Why was she worrying herself silly over it? . . . Somehow or other Frances had not thought that Guy . . . Frances had thought that Guy . . .

  At this point Frances discovered that her eyes were full of tears. She brushed them away angrily. It was absurd to behave like this—quite absurd—Guy was nothing to her, nothing at all . . . he was just a chance acquaintance. There were no distractions at Cairn and so . . . so he had been quite pleased to talk to her . . . and of course she had been quite pleased to talk to him . . . quite pleased. She wasn’t a romantic young girl who imagined that every man she saw was in love with her. She was a sensible woman of twenty-five.

  Frances walked on quickly without the slightest idea where she was going. She had now begun to think of Elise, and of all that Elise had said . . . She had not understood what Elise meant, but now she was beginning to understand. . . . Elise had been trying to warn her off . . . quite kindly, of course, but still . . .

  Frances sat down and stared out to sea . . . the canteen . . . could she do it? She had arranged all the meals at Wintringham Square. She had done the catering, she had chosen meat and vegetables and paid the books. Uncle Henry had often complimented her upon her housekeeping and had told her she had a business head. This being so, perhaps she could run the canteen without getting into a mess. (This was where she and Guy had passed on their way back to the hotel after they had been cut off by the tide. This was the very rock—Frances remembered it—he had held out his hand and helped her down . . . and as they went up the beach they had made a pact together. Guy had smiled at her. “Mum’s the word, Frances,” he had said.) The canteen . . . could she do it? Should she try? Perhaps she had better sleep on it and write to Dr. Digby to-morrow . . . by that time she might be able to think more clearly. . . .

  It was late when Frances got back to the hotel. She pushed open the front door and found herself face to face with Guy. The encounter was so sudden and unexpected that she started back with a gasp.

  “Hallo, Frances, did I give you a fright?” he inquired.

  “No,” said Frances.

  “What have you been doing?”

  She tried to edge past him. “I’ve been on the shore,” she said.

  “I hope you kept an eye on the tide,” said Guy in a joky voice.

  Frances could not respond. It was difficult to speak at all, and quite impossible to joke with him. “I must go or I shall be late for dinner,” she said, making a dash for the stairs.

  Afterwards she was annoyed with herself. How much more dignified it would have been if she had carried off the situation with a high hand instead of running away from him like that.

  CHAPTER XVII

  “Dear Mr. Digby,” wrote Frances. “It is most awfully good of you to have found me a job. The only thing is I am not sure that I could do it properly, for, although I have had considerable experience in housekeeping, a canteen would be different. I should not like to accept the post and then find that I could not manage it. Do you think that your friend could give me some idea of—”

  The door opened and Tommy walked in. “Hallo, Frances!” she said. “I thought you were dead and buried.”

  Frances threw down her pen and smiled at Tommy affectionately. She was not sorry to be interrupted in her task, for her mind was still in considerable confusion. She did not want to accept the post, and she did not want to refuse it—Tommy’s appearance upon the scene was providential.

  “What have you been doing?” continued Tommy somewhat fretfully. “Why haven’t you been to see me? I thought you’d be sure to come yesterday. . .”

  “Yesterday,” said Frances, looking back on her black day. “Yesterday I
was thinking—”

  “Come to lunch,” said Tommy in more cheerful tones.

  “Today?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ve got a whole bag of herring roes at the fishmongers and I’m going to fry them. Do you know, the fishwoman was actually throwing them away.”

  “Was she?”

  “Throwing them away,” repeated Tommy in horror-stricken tones. “She was gouging them out and chucking them into a pail, so I asked her for some and she gave them to me for nothing.”

  “Are they good?” asked Frances.

  “They’re marvellous—simply marvellous. Come on, Frances, we’ll have coffee and herring roes. It will be a scrumptious feast.”

  Frances ought to have refused the invitation and finished her letter to Dr. Digby, but she was beguiled by Tommy’s charm. She seized her cardigan and slipped it on, and in a few minutes the two girls were walking along the sands towards Sea View.

  “What d’you think of Miss Cole?” asked Tommy suddenly.

  “Not much,” admitted Frances.

  “A minx, my dear,” declared Tommy, nodding her head. “A minx—that’s what she is. I’ve told Tillie to get rid of the woman but Tillie won’t—or can’t.”

  “How do you mean ‘can’t’?” asked Frances.

  “I suppose I mean she hasn’t the guts. She’s a ‘shall I, shan’t I’ sort of person, isn’t she? Just the sort of person to allow herself to be trampled on by a minx. Miss Cole runs the whole family. I liked her at first.”

  “She doesn’t understand Winkie,” Frances said.

  Tommy opened the door of the little house and shouted “Ellen!” and Mrs. MacNair appeared from the kitchen with floury hands.

  “Ellen, we’re having a party,” said Tommy. “A luncheon. You know what that means, don’t you? A luncheon is much grander than a lunch.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Widgery,” said Ellen, smiling.

  Frances had a feeling that Ellen MacNair would have smiled and agreed no matter what Tommy had said. She would have said, “Yes, Mrs. Widgery,” to the most extravagant nonsense which Tommy’s brain could devise.

  “You’re making scones,” said Tommy, taking off her hat and throwing it on to a chair.

  “Just a few,” agreed Ellen. “The ones I made yesterday have all gone.”

  “It’s because you make them far too well,” explained Tommy seriously. “I mean, they’re too good. If only you would make them heavy and doughy—like those I made—they would last far longer and it would be much more economical. My scones lasted nearly a week.”

  Ellen gave a hoot of laughter and disappeared.

  “Now,” said Tommy, running her fingers through her hair.

  “Now then, Frances, I’m going to fry the roes. . . . No, you can’t come and help. I don’t need help and there isn’t room for three women in the kitchen. Are you hungry? I must know definitely because if you’re hungry I shall cook all the roes. I’m simply starving.”

  Frances had not felt inclined for breakfast, but the walk, combined with Tommy’s company, had done her good. “Fairly hungry,” she replied after a moment’s thought.

  “Good,” said Tommy. “I’ll cook the lot. . . . Here’s my book of horrors. You can have a look at it while you’re waiting.”

  The book of horrors, to which Tommy referred, and which she now produced from the bottom shelf of the bookcase, was a large sketch-book held together by an elastic band. It was full of hastily sketched portraits of Tommy’s friends and acquaintances. Frances had heard of Tommy’s malicious pencil and now she was to see the fruits of it. She turned over the pages of the book with interest and amusement. The portraits were small, sometimes there were three or four on the same page, and a great many of them were sketches of people that Frances had never seen—people that Tommy had encountered during her travels—but each little portrait had so much character and personality that Frances was sure the likeness must be good. Here and there she found a face that she knew, and these she looked at with especial interest—Tillie and Jack Liston, Angela Thynne, Tommy’s own heart-shaped face with its small pugnacious nose, the two young subalterns, Mark and Barry, whom Frances had met the last time she was here. She decided that the sketches were neither true portraits nor caricatures, but were somewhere between the two—just where depended upon the artist’s feelings. For instance, Mark’s portrait was practically true, and Angela’s was to all intents and purposes a caricature. Frances turned over the page and her heart gave a leap . . . this was Guy Tarlatan, of course. His thin face was just a trifle leaner here than it was in real life and his firm chin a trifle more pronounced. Tommy had caught the tilt of his head, the half-serious, half-mocking look in his eye . . . it was one of the best portraits in the book. Just opposite Guy was Elise—which was strangely significant—and her portrait was good too.

  Frances looked from one to the other and suddenly it struck her that the faces were alike: they were much the same shape and their expressions were almost identical. She was so surprised to find this likeness that she pointed it out to Tommy, who had just appeared with a tray of cutlery and was scattering knives and forks about the table.

  “Yes, of course, brothers and sisters are often alike,” said Tommy, and vanished before Frances had found words to express her astonishment.

  Brother and sister, thought Frances—brother and sister! She was so overwhelmed by this sudden revelation that for a moment she felt quite faint. The room spun round uncomfortably and the book slid on to the floor. What a fool she had been! What an idiot to worry herself silly! Why hadn’t she thought of this explanation? She saw at once that it explained everything—that it was a full and perfect solution to the problem of Guy and Elise. Frances felt better now; she picked up the book and looked at the portraits again. They were very much alike, they were so alike that their relationship was obvious to the most casual glance. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? The answer was that the likeness between Guy and Elise was much more apparent in the sketches than it was in real life, for the likeness lay in the bony structure of their faces and the unlikeness lay in their colouring and in the texture of their skins. Guy was fair and Elise was dark; Guy’s face was ruddy and tanned and weather-beaten, and Elise had a smooth, pale, delicate complexion . . . these differences had acted as a disguise.

  Frances had got thus far in her reflections when Tommy emerged from the kitchen with a rack of toast. “National bread,” she said as she put it on the table. “It makes lovely toast. I hope we’ll go on having it after the war.”

  “I didn’t know they were brother and sister,” Frances said.

  “Guy and Elise? I thought every one knew—but I keep on forgetting you’re such a recent acquisition. Colonel Tarlatan commanded the regiment. There have always been Tarlatans in the Green Buzzards.”

  “So she was the Colonel’s daughter!”

  *“Yes, of course. She came out to India when she was seventeen and all the subalterns fell in love with her. She was perfectly lovely, of course.”

  “She still is,” said Frances thoughtfully. “Don’t you think so?” but Tommy had vanished again so the question remained unanswered.

  “What’s happened?” said Tommy when they had settled down to their meal and the herring roes were disappearing like melting snow.

  “What’s happened?” repeated Frances in some bewilderment.

  Tommy nodded. “That’s what I said—what’s happened? I thought you were a bit under the weather this morning, but now you’re on top of the world. You needn’t tell me unless you want to.”

  “I don’t think I can,” replied Frances, smiling. “I mean—I think—I think I’d rather not . . . You know, Tommy, your drawings are simply marvellous. You ought to take it up seriously and make something out of it. Why don’t you?”

  “Because I’m me,” said Tommy promptly. “I can do things in a hurry when I feel in the mood; I can make a rough sketch and it’s like the person, but if I try to tidy it up it loses all its sting. It’s the same
with hats—”

  “The same with hats!” echoed Frances

  “Yes, I can make a frightfully chic hat with some bits of ribbon and a few pins, but, when I take the pins out and start sewing it, the whole thing becomes a mess.”

  “But, Tommy—”

  “I know,” nodded Tommy gravely. “I know it’s a dreadful confession, but unfortunately that’s how I’m made. I’m awfully good at starting things but I’m a bad finisher. Perhaps if I had learnt to draw—or to make hats—it would have been different. I’ve never had any discipline, you see. I’ve always galloped along through life and done what I wanted when I wanted to do it. I’ve had some nasty falls, but they haven’t taught me much. I just picked myself up and galloped on.”

  “You’re brave,” said Frances impulsively.

  “Not brave, just headstrong,” declared Tommy with a grin. “My mother would tell you that . . . it’s a pity you can’t meet my mother; she would like you.”

  “Where does she live?” asked Frances.

  “She lives near Aberdeen—it’s our old home, you see. She hasn’t been very well lately,” added Tommy with a frown. “She wants me to go and see her, but the fact is I hate leaving Midge . . . and I couldn’t take him, even if he could get leave, because he and Mother don’t understand each other.”

  Frances made sympathetic sounds—it was difficult to know what to say.

  “Yes,” agreed Tommy. “Yes, it’s very unfortunate. Mother is quite horrid to poor Midge sometimes, and of course he feels it because he is so sensitive.”

  “Have you done your mother’s portrait?” asked Frances, who was anxious to change the subject.

  “No,” replied Tommy. “She’s difficult—have you seen your own? Oh, yes, you’re in the book of horrors. I don’t need to have people in front of me to draw them; in fact I can do it better from memory.”