Kissing Kin (13 page)

As they went up the stairs together and reached the sanctuary of Bracken’s bedroom, Raymond said, “You’ll have to sort me out some, I guess. Who was the kind old bird with the moustache?”

“That’s the Duke,” said Bracken, stripping back the pale green counterpane from the bed and unfolding the satin eiderdown. “You tuck up here a while—I’ll take your boots off.”

“
Duke?
” Raymond repeated. “I oughtn’t to lay down here with my clothes on, ought I?” He folded up on the edge of the bed abruptly as Bracken knelt and lifted one foot from under him, resting it on his bent knee. “I could do that myself. A
real
duke?”

“None realer,” said Bracken, busy with the laces. “
Apethorpe
, he is. Lives the other side of the hill in a big house called Overcreech, and gets lonely with everyone away at the wars. Take it easy, now. I’ve got nothing else to do, and you must last the evening out. Don’t be afraid of him, though. He’s just like anybody else and wants to be friends.”

“Gee,” said Raymond. “I’m dining at the same table with a duke, am I?”

“What’s more important, you’re taking your hostess in to dinner.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means you’re the guest of honour, over and above the Duke. Let’s have your other foot.”

Raymond was looking alarmed.

“What do I have to do?” he asked. “Couldn’t I sit by Camilla?”

“She’s on your other side. You don’t have to do anything special, it’s just Virginia’s way of paying you a compliment.”

“Well, gee,” said Raymond again. “I don’t know if I—”

“Lie down and put your feet up,” said Bracken, piling up the pillows. “Shall I fill a pipe for you?”

“Please,” said Raymond, fishing it out of his pocket. “Say, she said something about presents, and I didn’t know—I never had a chance to—”

“It’s the custom at these Christmas parties for the hostess to have a little parcel for each guest,” Bracken assured him. “But the guests don’t have to give her one—usually theirs have been sent on ahead. The family presents were all opened this morning. You aren’t supposed to give anybody anything. Jenny and Clare and Fabrice weren’t here this morning either, so you’ll all probably have several apiece.”

“All the same, if I’d known I’d of brought her something,” said Raymond, and Bracken glanced up to find the dark, fenced-in look on his face again, drawing deep lines
downwards
from his blunt nose, the lips gone heavy and obstinate, the brilliant eyes hooded with their heavy lashes. “’Twould have been only polite if I’d brought her something,” he persisted, and Bracken thrust the filled pipe at him and struck a match.

“Now, don’t be an ass, what chance have you had to go shopping? Anybody knows that. I don’t think you realize what it means to this family to have you here,” he went on. “I wonder if you’ve any idea what this evening would have been like if nobody had brought Calvert in safely. You’ve made us all the greatest gift a man possibly could—because we are not mourning a dead boy here to-night. Can’t you see it like that?”

“Thanks,” said Raymond after a moment. “I’ll try to. Only—he should be here instead of me.”

“He’ll be here, finally. Meanwhile, let them make a fuss of you, they love it.”

“They’re all so kind,” Raymond marvelled, his teeth set on the pipe stem. “The one at the tea-table—why, you’d have thought I was the King, or something. Who was she?”

“Cousin Sally. A character. She’s lived in France as long as anybody can remember, till the war began. We’re pretty proud of her, one way and another. Sosthène belongs to her, you know. And Fabrice is her grand-daughter.”

“I don’t think I know which one Fabrice is.”

“You will!” Bracken promised. “Watch out for her, too. She’ll try to flirt with you.”

“Yeah?” said Raymond with a guarded upward glance.

“Don’t fall for it, that’s all,” said Bracken. “It’s a habit she has.”

“There’s one they call Jenny,” Raymond said, and the shielding lashes came down again.

“Ah, well, now you’re talking!” said Bracken. “You’re all right with Jenny, she’s a little trump. We must all rally round Jenny to-night, as a matter of fact, because Fabrice will be here and it was Fabrice who stole Jenny’s boy.”

“It was?” Raymond puffed on the pipe a moment. “Is he here too?”

“Not yet. May turn up. Got a perfect right to be here, of course, he’s Archie’s youngest brother. If he does arrive, Jenny mustn’t be left a minute without a partner. You can help us out on that because you won’t be dancing. Help to keep an eye on her, I mean, if the rest of us happen to be out on the dance floor.”

“I will,” said Raymond.

“Fabrice will probably go to work on Adrian Carteret because he’s new,” Bracken said. “She always goes for a new man, and being a captain, he ranks you. Virginia will be livid, because she got Adrian expressly for Camilla.”

“Oh?” said Raymond, lifting his eyes again.

“Virginia always match-makes,” Bracken explained. “It doesn’t mean anything, and it very seldom works. But Camilla doesn’t seem to have
a beau, so Virginia, who abhors a vacuum, couldn’t rest till she’d rounded up somebody like Adrian, who doesn’t seem to have a girl at the moment. We’re gossiping like a couple of old nannies, aren’t we, but it’s a bit tough on you to walk into so complicated a family with blinkers on! The least I can do is to give you your bearings.”

Raymond nodded gravely.

“About this dinner,” he said after a moment. “Will there be a lot of forks?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Bracken reassured him. “You just work in from the outside. Left to right on the forks, right to left on the knives. You’ll come out even. There will be champagne. I don’t suppose I have to tell you that’s tricky stuff.”

“It is?” Raymond’s attentive gaze rested again on Bracken’s face.

“Like some women,” Bracken explained, “it seems mild and harmless. And then—
boom!”

“I’ll remember that,” said Raymond gratefully, and just then a brass gong resounded through the house and he sat bolt upright from the pillows. “What’s that?”

“Not a fire. Just the dressing-bell. Take it easy. People in uniform don’t have to change.” Bracken did not add that it was for Raymond’s peace of mind that this decision had been made. “It gives the girls a chance to pretty up, that’s all.” He rose lazily. “I’ll just have a wash and be out of your way in the bathroom.”

When he returned Raymond was dozing comfortably against the pillows. But there was a tightness round the corners of his mouth as they descended the stairs a half hour later and Bracken said, “Stagefright?” “I wish I had both hands for this,” Raymond replied stoically, and Bracken said, “Don’t worry, the girls will see you through.”

And they did. Seated at the end of the long table between
Camilla and Virginia, who had the Duke on her other hand, Raymond found dinner less of an ordeal than he had expected. Jenny was half-way down the side facing him, and he watched her discreetly as the meal went on—saw her laugh at the colonel with red tabs as though she had known him all her life (which she had), saw her touch glasses gaily with the French civilian in white tie and tails as the champagne went round, saw how her eyes crinkled up when she was amused, and how her firm little chin stuck out when she was serious—you wouldn’t trade her in for six of the other one, he concluded, for Fabrice’s obvious prettiness and soubrette ways had not impressed him during the brief encounter he had had with her in the drawing-room before dinner. Fabrice was stuck on
herself
. He knew that kind, whichever side of the tracks they came from. This Jenny was a mouse of a girl, kind of helpless and damp behind the ears still—the kind of a girl that got kicked in the teeth.

With an effort, he withdrew his attention from Jenny and returned it to Calvert’s sister. He liked Camilla. She was all right. Looked you straight in the eye, and didn’t put on any la-di-da. None of the people here went in for la-di-da. They had money and they lived like lords—some of them
were
lords—but they were regular. You knew where you were with them. Even the Duke. You wouldn’t expect a duke to be so friendly. There wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do to make you feel at home. No snobs here. They said you were one of the family and by golly you were. But you knew in your own soul that you didn’t really belong. Comes midnight, and your coach turns back into a pumpkin, and you wake up in the hospital with an operation hanging over you. Jenny worked at the hospital, but not in the surgical ward. Well, what if she did, or didn’t. Just looking at her wouldn’t get you anything but a headache. And Jenny, with real pearls around her little neck and a dress all fluff and shimmer and hair like washed gold—such
clean
-looking hair—Jenny belonged here. You didn’t start thinking about Jennys, at your age. But what sort
of bum could she have loved, to lose him to a—not that word, at this table—like Fabrice!

“I haven’t really been neglecting you,” Camilla was saying beside him. “Captain Carteret has been telling me what happens when you transfer to the Air Force. He was in the cavalry.”

Raymond looked at the man in Air Force uniform who sat beyond her—the enviable man with a commission and pilot’s wings on his breast. Raymond’s face was dark and withdrawn, for the idea of flying was very dear to his heart and not a thing he cared to discuss with just anybody. He didn’t need to be told that he had a long way to go, from being a lance-corporal of a machine-gun crew. The blue eyes which met his were frank and smiling.

“Do anything I can to help, of course,” said Adrian Carteret, with a glance at the bandaged arm. “I shall be at the training school at Reading for several weeks more. Camilla has promised to let me know how you go on with that arm. Sir Quentin is a wizard, he’ll fix you up in no time.”

“I hope so, sir.”

“Drive a car?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ride a bike?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good shot?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, there you are, that’s the sort of thing they ask you, you’re practically
in!
”

They all laughed, and Raymond’s face softened. They were so kind. He had never seen such kind people.

“The trouble with me is, I hate machinery,” Adrian
confided
cheerfully. “I mean, it terrifies me. I’m perfectly certain to be killed by my own bus some day, simply because it won’t listen to reason.”

“Don’t you even like automobiles?” Raymond ventured incredulously.

“Not very much. That is, not when they go wrong, because I’m not one of those chaps who can fiddle about under the bonnet and start her up again. I suppose you got along all right with your gun?”

“Oh, yes,” said Raymond, unaware that the most subtle of social tricks had been played on him in all kindness of heart, as the other man confessed himself a duffer at Raymond’s game.

“He repairs it under fire,” said Camilla, from Calvert’s letters.

“I know that kind!” Adrian nodded. “Everyone else going to pieces all round, and this fellow sets to work with a spanner and a pair of tongs and pretty soon the beastly thing is as good as new! We want all that sort of thing we can get in the Air Force.”

“I’ll be there,” said Raymond recklessly.

“Sure to be.” Adrian raised his glass. “See you at Reading next!” he said.

Camilla snatched up hers.

“Reading!” she cried.

“Reading,” Raymond echoed politely, and they all drank to it.

At the end of the meal when everybody rose, Raymond watched the women leave the room together and glancing at Bracken for enlightenment found the men of the party gathering in at Archie’s end of the table, where decanters of wine were being placed and cigars handed round. The Duke turned up at his elbow and manœuvred him into a chair, and they had a long, intelligent discussion about deer-stalking and guns, although Raymond had no idea how it got started. He had accompanied his father on a hunting trip to Canada every autumn since his tenth birthday, and had even once got a moose. The Duke was delighted with him, and issued a cordial invitation to come up to Scotland for the very first shoot after the war ended. Raymond thanked him solemnly, and the Duke poured out another glass of port each and they drank to the day.

“Feller knows all about deer-huntin’,” said the Duke,
catching
Archie’s eye. “Wasted on the Army, what? Must get him into the Air Corps where he’ll be safe. Anybody knows they can’t go up when it rains, and it always rains in France, so there you are, eh, Carteret?”

“You’re entirely right, sir. Air Corps never does any work,” Adrian agreed, and Raymond looked slowly from one to the other and joined in the general grin. It was his own form of humour—rude, understated, low-voiced, and mendacious. He felt suddenly more relaxed and at ease then he had at any time yet that evening.

Meanwhile most of the drawing-room had been cleared for dancing, with the rugs rolled up and the furniture grouped more closely round the fire, where Clare on the sofa beside Virginia was saying, “Well, what do you think of him, after all? He seems to fit in pretty well.”

“Yes,” Virginia said thoughtfully. “I somehow had an idea he would.”

“I must confess I wondered,” Clare said. “Boys like Calvert who go in as privates form some very strange friendships. It’s all right out there, of course. But if Camilla should be taken with him”—she dropped her voice still lower—“it could happen, you know—you feel you want to know a bit more about him.”

“I don’t suppose anyone would object very much if she should be taken with him,” Virginia replied after a moment. “Such a thing must have occurred to Calvert, at least, when he sent him to us. You can see that Raymond wasn’t brought up quite—quite—the same, but he has great dignity, and the old lines of demarcation, or whatever you want to call it, are going pretty fast these days. Besides, I think he could learn almost anything.”

“He could learn grammar, anyway,” said Clare, and
Virginia
shot her a baleful glance, for she thought it unkind of Clare not to ignore his few small solecisms as she herself had tried to do even in her own mind. “What part of America
does he come from?” Clare continued with an entirely friendly interest.