Poor Caroline (13 page)

Eleanor's uneasy questioning brought her to the corner of
a street. She found herself standing by the tables on which
a second-hand bookseller exposed his desolate wares. Inside
the shop were broken chairs, cracked dishes, fans, em
broideries, toilet utensils and stained engravings. At her
elbow were theological works, school books, and old faded novels, jumbled together in an open box. The books seemed
to have taken on the characteristics of the neighbourhood.
Once they had been full of vitality, the
glory of their writers.
Now, nobody wanted them. Compassion and melancholy descended upon Eleanor. She looked around her with dis
tress, and in the fading light her eye caught the name of the
street which turned beside her away from Richmond Road.

'Lucretia Road,' she read. Lucretia Road, now where had
she come upon that name before? 40 Lucretia Road, West
Kensington. She remembered that breakfast with the Smiths at Marshington six weeks ago, their contemptuous dismissal
of Poor Caroline as the skeleton in their family cupboard.
Eleanor's instinct was always to open doors and look at
skeletons.

She glanced at her wrist-watch. A quarter of an hour still
remained before she could return to the garage. She might
as well stroll along Lucretia Road to number 40. In her
mood of melancholy curiosity she liked to think that she had
a relative living in this street. She was not utterly a stranger.

Lucretia Road itself depressed her. It had evidently once
known better days. The houses were large, with deep
cavernous basements, and heavy porches supported on peel
ing plaster columns above the doors. On many porches
stood flimsy erections of coloured glass, that once had been
conservatories; but now discoloured clothes flapped idly
there, growing damper and dirtier through misguided efforts
to make them dry. Children with sore faces and dirty coats
scrambled up and down the area steps or squabbled drearily
in the gutter. Shabby women with slack, dispirited figures
trundled prams heavily laden with bulging parcels and
cross, unappetizing babies. 'Poor whites,' thought Eleanor.
'This is far worse than Johannesburg. Oh, Lord,' she
groaned in spirit, 'what a country.'

Number 40 was distinctly more respectable than its neigh
bours. No children clambered up its yellow-stoned steps.
If the columns of the porch were peeled like the bark of the
plane tree on the opposite pavement, the brass knob of the
door was newly polished. The hideous conservatory of
coloured glass above the balcony was in a state of tolerable
repair.

'So this is where Caroline lives,' thought Eleanor. 'How
very angry Aunt Enid would be if she thought that I had
called upon Poor Caroline.' Yet why shouldn't she? She
was not sociable, but she was adventurous. Curiosity allured
her. The South African habit of never passing a friend's
house influenced her. The temptation to do somethin
g of
which her Aunt Enid would disapprove decided her. With
her lips compressed, her eyes dancing, and her heart beating
quickly under her trim tailored coat, she tripped up the steps and rang the bell.

§3

'And so I knew that something nice would happen to-day,'
said Caroline.

They sat together in the leaping firelight, 'two bachelor girls just on our own,' giggled Caroline comfortably. They drank tea out of chipped cups of rather fine old china, and
ate bread and margarine and very stale seed cake,

'If I'd known you were coming, I'd have got a walnut
cake,' said Caroline, then added hastily, lest her guest should
take this as a hint that her unexpected visit was not wel
come, 'but of course a surprise visit is far, far nicer. Only it's
you who suffer, because I've been so busy these last few
weeks that my housekeeping has gone just all anyhow.'

The firelight was kind to the crowded room. It revealed
only for fleeting moments the large brass bedstead attempting with awkward bashfulness to hide behind a torn pink
curtain and the desk in the window almost drowned in
papers. Papers overflowed on to the floor, the chairs, the
bed. Another curtain hung bulging over an alcove by the
fireplace. A row of bookshelves beside the window, a screen
round an untidy washstand, a table and two chairs beside, the fire filled all the available space.

When Eleanor had arrived, she was shown up three flights
of steep stairs by a gaunt, very neat and thin-lipped woman,
who knocked peremptorily on a door, and announced^
'Visitor, Miss Smith,' and left her standing there on the dark landing, wishing she had not come, longing to turn and fly.

But from within the room had come the sound of doors
banging, papers rustling, curtain rings squealing along a metal pole, and the door had opened, revealing a short,
plump, animated woman, little taller than Eleanor herself,
who peered with short-sighted eyes into the gloom, and cried,
'Who's that? Who's that, Mrs. Hales?'

'I - I - is that Miss Denton-Smyth?' Eleanor had stam
mered. 'I'm Eleanor de la Roux. I think we're sort of
cousins. My car broke down in the road just outside, and I

had to wait a few minutes to get it mended. So I came to
call -just -just . . .'

The little woman fumbled among the many chains and
beads and ribbons which hung against her crimson bodice. She found one at last from which were suspended a pair of
tarnished but decorative lorgnettes. Up they went with a
click, opening agai
nst her round, peering, battered, viva
cious face.

'Who's that? What did you say?' And then as though the lorgnettes had indeed enlightened her, though, in that dark
landing she could not possibly have seen anything clearly, she cried with rapture. 'Why, Eleanor - Eleanor de la Roux?
Of course. My little cousin from South Africa!' and dropping the lorgnettes that chimed and jangled against all her festooning beads and seals and pencils, she stretched out
short arms in tight crimson velvet sleeves, and drew Eleanor
into a warm embrace.

'Well, isn't this nice? Well, isn't this nice? Come in and
let me have a look at you,' she chirruped, taking the girl
by both hands and pulling her into the firelit room. 'My
little cousin from South Africa. Dear
Agatha's daughter. Why, of course I remember Agatha. A lovely girl. One of
the sweetest girls I knew. And you're like her, my dear.
You've got her eyes, I believe. Real hazel. I always say there's nothing like hazel. And long lashes. But she was
taller. You're like me, my dear. Little - little but good,
they say.
Small body, large heart. Well, well. And to
think you should come and call upon me. That
was
nice of you. I
am
pleased. And you are stopping in London? When
did you arrive? You haven't had tea, have you? I've just
got the kettle on. And your car broke down? Do you drive
yourself? Oh, you modern girls, how I envy you. I should
certainly have had a car.
And
flown. Do you fly? I always
say now that I shall have to wait until I'm an angel. Still,
you never know. Perhaps I shall do it yet, now that I'm
making my fortune at last.' She bent over the fire, poking
it vigorously. The flames leapt up. The kettle sang. The
firelight illuminated her face with grotesque lines and
shadows. She crouched above her kettle like a witch brew
ing enchantments.

'She
is
like a witch,' thought Eleanor. 'You're cosy here,'
she said aloud.

Caroline caught at the compliment. 'Yes, I am!' she cried. 'There's nothing like a bed-sitting-room, I always say. Then
you have your books and papers all around you and can
work to any hour of the night or day.'

'Do you often work at night?'

'Oh,
quite
often. Especially now since I went into busi
ness. The director of a company has great responsibilities,
I can tell you. Dear Enid would tell you of my work, didn't she? I expect she's been very busy preparing for Christmas
and that's why she hasn't had time to write to me herself. I
know that those grand old-fashioned Yorkshire Christmasses
take a
great
deal of preparation, and I'm so glad, dear, that you went straight to Marshington when you came to Eng
land. It would never have done to miss seeing our real
York
shire
hospitality.' She was laying the cloth, fetching cups
from the fireplace, and bringing teaspoons and knives from a battered tin biscuit-box. 'Of course, here in London I can't offer my friends the hospitality I should like. You know the pioneer is bound to go through some rather dark and lonely times. Wasn't it Robert Owen who said, "Pioneering doesn't pay?" But that was in a moment of bitterness, and of course
we all have our moments of bitterness.' She made tea in a
chipped brown tea-pot. She bade Eleanor draw up her
chair. 'But now,
of course,
I am reaping the reward of my
labours. I suppose you never heard how much dear Enid
and Robert intend to invest with us, did you? Perhaps they would not talk about it in front of you. Of course, I am hoping to be able to reserve quite a number of shares for them. But if you
are
writing you might just mention that it would
be as well to let me know
soon.
You might just say casually
that I thought about three thousand, just as a kind of be
ginning. It's a
really
good thing. We're going to sweep the
country soon.'

As though she had never had a listener in her life before,
Caroline poured forth the details of the Christian Cinema
Company. She told Eleanor of its vicissitudes, its hopes,
its possibilities. She told her of the wonders of the Tona
Perfecta Film, the obstinacy of Mr. Macafee, and his final
ultimatum. She told her of the last Board meeting. 'An
Extraordinary Meeting, my dear, and you're a relation or
I would not tell you company secrets, for of course in a way
it's all confidential, but you're a Smith and I want you to
understand exactly my position so that when you see dear
Enid and Robert you can put it to them.' She told her how
Mr. Macafee had repeated his offer, and how Mr. Isenbaum
had not been present. ' "Unavoidably detained," he wired,
and of course I was terribly upset because of course I had
felt sure that he was the man who was going to save us; but
of
course
I always say God moves in a mysterious way His
wonders to perform. And if it's not Mr. Isenbaum, it will be someone else. These delays are sent to
try
us — to purify us as by fire. And in any case I persuaded Mr. Macafee to give
us another month - till the end of January. I must say that
I take a little credit for that. I had him out to lunch, you
know, and talked to him like a
mother.
I felt afterwards that I had been wrestling against the powers of darkness. But he
gave way.'

She was a witch. Her brown eyes glowed; her bosom
heaved. She built up for Eleanor a glowing, romantic pic
ture of High Finance and Big Business inspired by Idealism,
of Art and Ethics reconciled at last.