The Charmers (29 page)

“I don’t
mind
,” she suddenly said, “but it’s a surprise and I don’t mind telling you I feel a bit—annoyed.”

“That’s only natural, dear,” Moira answered pitifully. Her
eyes
, moving over the large, still figure leaning against the window-frame, seemed to see all the Christines there had been since Christine had been a child; the cheerful dutiful girl who knew nothing about anything, the uncomplaining slave of electrical devices; the starved spirit slowly led out at last into the wider world. But she said no more.

It would also have been natural if Christine had given way to her strong curiosity and asked some questions about this girl much younger than Tom whom he meant to marry, but pride forbade her. She stared heavily out of the window for a moment longer, then determinedly began on a new subject with—

“I don’t know what to do about those foxglove seeds, Moira. I can’t go scattering them about anywhere; I should feel so silly.”

“It’s all right, I always tell people he gives them to to make a forget of it. It’s a kind of compliment, really, when he gives them to you.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Christine said, feeling her way into understanding why this should be so, and relieved to have something else than Tom Richards to think about.

“He thinks you’re—you’re
worthy
to spread about two million foxgloves round the place,” Moira explained. “It means he likes you.”

“Does it?”

“Yes, and old Frank doesn’t like everybody, believe you me. I tell him he’s an old
recluse
. But he does like you, he says you remind him of his favourite sister, the one who died.”

Christine meditated this. “Does he come of a large family?”

“Frank? Oh—huge. There were ten of them. They paired up, as kids in big families do, and he and Em were always the ones.”

Christine would have enjoyed, even amidst irritation, hearing more about Em. It was this sensation of amplitude, of having within herself stores of information about cosy, funny, nice people, diffused by Moira that was one of the things Christine found attractive in Avalon Road. But she was tingling with shock, and irritation and, behind that, the memory
of
that poetry. She wanted to be alone, to think about that—yes, that was what she wanted.

“
Hush’d Chorasmian waste
,” suddenly said Moira.

“What?”

“It’s another bit of the poem. I’ve just remembered it.”

“—What was that word? Chorus—something? Say it again.”

“
Hush’d Chorasmian waste
. Doesn’t it sound beautiful?”

Christine gave a nervous smile, but did not answer. In a moment she said—

“I’m glad Frank likes me. I like him, too.”

On this pleasanter note, she was taken up to see the attics; and nothing more of any significance passed until they were in the hall, saying good-bye: she had warned Moira that she would not be able to spend the evening at Avalon Road because she would be needed at home to get supper.

“Well … come again soon,” Moira said. She was tying up a bunch of stolen flowers with string taken from a drawer in the hall table; Christine was inspecting her hair in the looking-glass above the hat-stand. She hesitated—then went on. “Chris … I must say this.
Please
don’t let it make any difference to you being friends with us—this business about Tom, I mean. You won’t will you? Frank and I like you
so
much; we don’t want to lose you.” She smiled, looking up into Christine’s slightly surprised face. “You know, you’re like one of the family.”

“Of course I won’t,” Christine said emphatically—just stopping herself from saying it would take more than Tom Richards getting married to some bit of a girl to make her drop his sister. She tried to say something more, but failed; by this time she was so choked with unfamiliar thoughts and sensations that nothing would come out, and she could only repeat “
Of course
I won’t,” and affectionately return Moira’s parting kiss.

On the long, complicated bus-ride back to Highgate, she was so sunk in thought that more than once she was almost carried past the stop where she changed. Over and over again, she thought of that spinster’s defence heard so often in Mortimer
Road
—
I could have been married if I’d wanted to
—and Mortimer Road’s unvarying comment,
Oh yes I daresay
. Well, now she, Christine Smith, formerly of Mortimer Road, would never truthfully be able to say it; and she minded; she didn’t care a button about Tom Richards—queer to think that he had once been the admired and respected Mr. Richards of Lloyd and Farmer’s!—but she would have enjoyed being able to make the spinster’s defence and know that it was true. That was only natural, wasn’t it?

Gradually, however, bitterish thoughts faded into the background. The spell of Pemberton Hall had worked upon her to such effect that, if her soul may be compared to the keyboard of an organ, its stiff, mute stops had been wooed gently out, and made to give forth a faint music. And when the bus stopped at last outside Golders Green Station, she was actually thinking more of the poetry that Moira had said than of Tom and his new girl friend.

It had been like … like a kind of signpost pointing towards That Day: not the feeling itself, but belonging … belonging … like it, anyway. Like it.

See her giving up the Rustings because of Tom’s cooling off! No fear!

All the same, when she finally did get down from the bus, she was still feeling decidedly ‘off’ men, and when she encountered, by a casual glance, a huge Face on a political poster on a nearby hoarding, looking winningly at her and suggesting that she should Trust herself to it, she felt an instant sense of irritated repudiation.

She seldom thought about politics, and her usual response to any remark about them was the thought, spoken or unspoken—
at it again
—or
always going on about something
, and the wish that They would
shut up and give everybody a bit of peace
. After such an afternoon, the mere sight of this vast countenance was an affront. Soapy, thought Christine.

She got home in a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of mind.

BEFORE SHE REALISED
it, late summer had come and some leaves were turning among the trees in the Square, and everyone at Pemberton Hall had gone off on holiday.

Mrs. Traill departed with a friend, small, calm and tough as herself, for Montenegro; the Merediths were paying a round of visits to friends, returning to the Hall for a few days between these occasions, Miss Marriott flew off to one of the warm islands somewhere for three weeks, and Mr. Lennox went to America, to play on Broadway the part he had played in London. Christine was left alone in the spacious, sunny house.

She enjoyed this season of idleness and quiet. There had been kind, if unfussy, enquiries about whether she wouldn’t mind sleeping alone in that great place? Wouldn’t she like to invite a friend to stay? But
of course
she could! Didn’t she know that?

No, Christine didn’t want a friend to stay, and she wouldn’t be nervous.

So they all went away, and Pemberton Hall and Christine were left to entertain one another.

It was a quiet, busy time. She experimented with some elaborate cooking, concentrating on what might be described as Famous Cakes of The Western World, and trying her hand at Maids of Honour and even Lady Baltimore, which—quite unknown to Christine—is the only cake ever to have given its name to a novel. But this failed, in her opinion, because she couldn’t buy pecan nuts anywhere, not even at some of the grand London shops patronized by Diana Meredith.

But when they were made there was no one there to show them to and eat them with. She invited Moira over to tea every week, and that was very enjoyable, only—only—after Moira had gone, the house seemed larger, and quieter than ever.

Still beautiful, still offering that ‘happy welcome’ once detected by Mr. Johnson. But that wasn’t enough.

You needed to hear it said in a human voice.

She missed her employers. Their peculiar group-atmosphere of charm, casualness and amusing malice had crept into her veins like some irresistible drug, and there wasn’t any denying that the days were long. Pleasant, but long.

Those people across the Square whose wireless was always playing Old Favourites of the Thirties didn’t seem to have gone away; for music floated through the Long Room every long, warm, drowsy afternoon while the pigeons cooed and stuffed themselves in the Square and the first leaves sailed down. It might have been in the house itself; gay ripples from a piano, silly, sweet songs in a man’s agreeable tenor, occasionally an old music-hall favourite. Christine would hum, or even softly whistle, to herself as she recognized airs popular in her girlhood.

The glamorous atmosphere diffused by her employers, however, was not completely absent; they knew interesting people, as well as being interesting themselves, and sometimes she saw a Name or a familiar face in her favourite newspaper.

For instance, about the middle of the month Mrs. Marriott married Lord Belsize! (Christine felt that it should be announced like this, rather than as “Mrs. Marriott and Lord Belsize were married.”) She bought two papers that morning, and there were photographs in both and a paragraph in that ‘Londoner’s Diary’, though it wasn’t what you might call interesting, being all about how Lord Belsize used to keep some kind of pig from dying out, up in Yorkshire. Who would want to read about that? And years ago, anyway.

Mrs. Marriott had come out ever so clear, wearing one of those caps, with more petals all over it than Christine had ever seen on one before, and looking more like a Pekinese than ever. Lord Belsize appeared to be shrinking from the camera; at least, his expression suggested it, though his stance was soldierly, as befitted an ex-Guardee. Christine took the papers over to Avalon Road to show to Moira. They both said, poor old man, which was satisfactory.

Then, towards the end of the month, Nigel Rooth’s had an early dress show, and Christine marvelled over a photograph of Ferenc Brigg’s designs and his hair, which he wore in a fringe and tucked behind his ears. She gave less attention to one of a suit by Miss Marriott, whose lines, classic in their simplicity, yet had just the effortless touches of exaggeration needed to make them beautiful. They seemed dull somehow—to Christine at least—after seeing his. For he had at last designed a suit, just as Antonia had dared him to and feared that he would. It was a trouser-suit, perversely smart.

Early in September, Moira told her, Tom and his Glenda were getting married. He had bought a small house; Christine was relieved to hear that it was at Woking, miles the other side of London. Moira talked quite openly and frequently about his plans, as if taking it for granted that Christine’s hard feelings, such as they were, had healed themselves, and this was a fact; they had. All the same, Woking was near enough.

It often seemed queer to her, now, to think that her best friend was Mr. Richards’ sister.

Miss Marriott was the first to come home.

She arrived late one afternoon, squired by Peter-whose-other-name-Christine-had-never-heard, and Mr. Herz; they were all in Peter’s car.

“Oh, Miss Marriott, I do wish I’d known—I’d have had everything ready for you. Your flat is all dusted; I did it yesterday, but I’d have put some flowers …”

“Sweet of you, but it’s all right … we’re going out to dinner almost at once … Peter! That’s apricot liqueur in there …
careful
!”

They followed her up the steps, Mr. Herz plump and dark and elegant, Peter looking pink and foolish, as usual.

Miss Marriott actually looked plump, too. Why, she must have been a big girl before she started modelling, thought Christine, who knew that this was how Antonia had begun on her career. She could not help staring; she did not know that she was doing it.

“Yes, I know I’ve got enormous,” Antonia said good-naturedly, turning to smile, almost to laugh, at her, as they came into the hall. “I suppose I’ll have to start taking it off soon, but it is such bliss not having to worry about dieting on the top of everything else … how pretty everything looks … bliss to be back, really …”

She passed a hand over her hair, paled by the sun, looking less arranged than formerly. Her skin was delicately brown and her eyes glittered as if reflecting the summer seas she had been drowsing beside.