Eva Trout (10 page)

“It has not yet eaten what it was given, Mother.”

“No? Too damp, I’m afraid.”

Louise, who had followed her mother into the drawing-room, sucking away at the crater of her gumboil, argued: “It can’t be quite out; it’s still busy smoking.”

“Never mind.—Has anyone put the kettle on?”

“Catrina,” complained her brother, “seems to be still given over to blood sports.”

“Will you, then, Louise dear—if you’re feeling able to? (She’s been very brave.) Eva, aren’t our crocuses cheerful?”

“Yes,” Eva agreed. “May I stay to tea?”

“We should not dream of letting you go! Particularly as I happen to know—as I know
you
know—that there isn’t anybody at home at Larkins. Mrs. Arble was on the bus with us, going in.”

“I thought,” said Henry, “they had a car of sorts.”

“It is being decarbonised, I believe she told me. By chance, she was on the seat just in front of us, so we had a word or two —she was very friendly. But Eva, this is the saddest news!”

“What?”

“Why, that you’re going away!—Henry, did you hear? Eva’s leaving Larkins. Almost any time, any day, Mrs. Arble says. She and her husband are, naturally, so sorry.”

“
I
could have told you they knew,” said Henry to Eva. He and she exchanged an inimical glare.

“Henry’s dazed,” said his mother.

“Anything but,” said Henry. “What I can’t see is, how anybody can be such a complete ostrich as some are.” He made it clear that this reference was to Eva—who, Amazon at bay, drawn up on the hearthrug, glowered in return.

“Dear Eva, you would rather have broken this news to us? What was I thinking of!” cried Mrs. Dancey. “Still, let’s all sit down quietly, now, till the kettle boils.” Happy to act on her own suggestion, she dropped luxuriously into a declivity of the sofa. “Come, Eva—come and be lazy too!” Eva complied: settling herself into place beside Mrs. Dancey she stuck out her long, strong legs, in fancy stockings. Henry turned away and damningly left the drawing-room. From the grate, during a lull in the gusts, yellowish coal fumes twisted up. With shy suddenness, the mother said to the orphan: “You won’t be lonely, where you are going to?” The orphan went rigid all over. Mrs. Dancey withdrew. She exclaimed: “What pretty stockings, so scarlet! Someone knitted them for you?”

“Who should?”

“No, I suppose not. What a clever shop, then.”

“Mrs. Dancey, I heard of cuckoos at school.
I
am like one?”

“No, no—except that they fly away. I have often wondered what it feels like being an only child; you see, I have never been one and never had one: Catrina was only an ‘only’ for such a short time. Do we sometimes seem stupid to you?”

“No.”

“So wrapped up in ourselves? You are so … independent.”

“Henry is independent.”

“Yes; and they all are, in their own ways. But that’s somehow different. It must be strange, there being only oneself. Nobody with one, no one at all like one … How I wish I had more imagination! Yet now you’re going away, it all seems too late—I shall always be sorry. Where
are
you going?”

“That is not yet decided.”

“I see. I shall pray for you, if you don’t mind. And remember, won’t you, that we love you here and here is always a home. You’ll come back?”

Mrs. Dancey, so saying, for the first time braved looking straight at Eva. The head of the one addressed hung down obliterated by hair. Out of the hair came a groan: “But I lie to you!”

“By nature, you are as honest as the day!”

“But what becomes of anyone’s nature, Mrs. Dancey?”

Louise came in, saying saintedly: “Tea’s ready.”

“Dear, find Henry and tell him to tell Father.—Are the macaroons out?”

“Out of what?”

“Out of the bag.—We bought macaroons, Eva.”

“What am I to do?” wondered the wonder-child. “I can’t bite on anything yet, and that dentist said, particularly, for me not to drink anything hot.”

THE HOUSE obtained by Eva, on North Foreland, was called Cathay. It had a lounge hall and a sun lounge, though not a swimming pool. Built around 1908, it had been modernised in the earlier 1920’s; the sun lounge, added by a voluptuary of the 1930’s, had since been blown out by a bomb but made good as war damage. Cathay, to be let furnished, had for so long and for so long unavailingly been on house agents’ books that it had by now faded from all but all of them. Only Denge & Donewell, a firm still modest, newly-established, still on the hunt for business, had latterly charged themselves with Cathay—their now great emotion on getting rid of it would have roused misgivings in any client but Eva. From all she heard of it, Cathay sounded exactly what she was after. And in a way, it was.

Eager to take up residence, she did so before anything could be reported about the Jaguar, which awaited developments in hiding in a lock-up round the corner from Henry’s school. No acute crisis arose from this hanging-fire, £273. 11s. 7d. having been discovered to be her bank balance, residuum of more than one quarter’s unspent allowance. She sent the cheque for the one month’s rent in advance, then drew out what remained in the bank in cash and brought it to Broadstairs on her person. She was met at the station by Mr. Denge, small and, on this occasion, anxious. At three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon in what now was March, not many passengers were alighting; from those there were, he picked Eva out by elimination. At the far end of the platform, against the sky, she stood in lonely importance. She wore the ocelot—yet somehow the cut of the jib of the massive coat made her less feline than para-military: she brought to mind Russian troops said to have passed through England in the later summer of 1914, leaving snow in the trains. Mr. Denge, hat raised, moved in with caution. “Miss Trout? Welcome!”

“Welcome,” said Eva absently. She was occupied in counting pieces of luggage—of the seven, one was a transformation suitcase and one a duffle-bag; the rest, corded bundles or mesh bags distended by objects wrapped up in newspaper. She had never transported luggage by train before. Her transistor she grasped along with the somewhat larger reptile handbag wondered at by Catrina. Mr. Denge was in luck; he secured a porter: the three of them made their way to the firm’s car, a conservative Rover, and loaded up. Mr. Denge threw the car convulsively into gear. “Must we go far?” asked his client, as they drove off.

“No distance!” sang out the professional optimist. “You are not familiar with our part of the world, Miss Trout?”

“No. That is why.”

“
I
see,” he said, accustomed to doing so. “You will find we are rich in associations, not to speak of celebrities past and present. Charles Dickens—”

“—Yes. Where do I buy a bicycle?”

“Now, immediately?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Denge altered course. “And, Miss Trout, groceries? This is your opportunity. I take it you
have
brought with you your plate and linen? As we pointed out in ours of the 23rd, those you provide. We trust that was understood?”

“No. What are they?”

“Ha-ha—sheets, and so on. Spoons and, ha-ha, forks.”

“How should I possess those?” asked Eva moodily. “Must I buy them? Are they very expensive?”

“Not necessarily. Had I foreseen, I’d have brought Mrs.

Denge along—bad she been available. Tuesdays however are ladies’ bridge afternoons; one of many social occasions in which you may find you would like to take part. Broadstairs is also animated in the evenings, more rather than less so out of season, when, less overrun by visitors, we are more exclusive. You will find in the better part of the town hotels with an international cuisine, not to speak of restaurants. Those, Mrs. Denge and I and our little circle frequent, on occasions—that is, from time to time. Mrs. Denge would, I think I can guarantee, be happy to introduce you, and not less, to assist you with any shopping … Meanwhile, just this and that, to carry you over? Miss Trout, though not having had instructions we took it upon ourselves to have gas reconnected, also the electricity. Water, needless to say. We took no steps, however, with regard to the telephone—that, you have to apply for.”

She flew into a panic. “I WON’T have one!”

“
I
see.”

They obtained the bicycle (which Eva had roped, forthwith, to the back of the Rover), one pair of floral sheets and their pillow-cases, a tricolor bath towel, a spoon, a fork and a knife, such groceries as Mr. Denge and his friend the grocer considered basic, a bottle of milk and a swiss roll. Mr. Denge darted to and fro under Eva’s feet. “Any oranges, Miss Trout, apples, dates or bananas?”

“No. I have spent enough.”

“
I
see. In that case, nothing of any kind to—ha-ha, drink?”

Eva did not reply: she had crossed the street to examine a Mr. Micawber cream jug. “Now,” she announced, looking round for her charioteer, “I want to go home.”

“
Home
?” cried he, fearing all was lost.

“Where is my house?”

The Rover turned out of town. Their way, on the left palisaded by terrace houses, then trimmed by villas, on the right was accorded glimpses of sea. Mr. Denge grew more tense as Cathay neared. “You are going,” he said, summoning all he had, “to be delighted. Cathay is a house of character.”

“Are there rats, mice?”

“We’ve had not a complaint on
that
score, I can assure you!”

“I understood they inhabited empty buildings.”

“You were quite misinformed. Are you nervous, Miss Trout —nervous of rodents?”

“No. I am fond of animals.”

“You have no dog?”

“No—but I might.” (Why not?)

“No friend like a dog. But professionally speaking I ought to warn you—they cause damage.”

They now entered a region of grass-verged roads with eroded surfaces, which gave the impression of being obfuscated. Nowhere was anybody about, or any other vehicle in motion. Though bald on its sea frontage, along the cliff-top, the promontory had inland an intense secretiveness, everything being sunk within bastion hedges impossible to see through or over. The forceful growth of the hedges had here and there burst open the wooden fencing beneath; and this same sappy-leafed evergreen which composed the hedges also bushed up gardens, smothering as it flourished. This was no arboretum: sycamores stunted and now leafless and birch strangled by ivy put up a losing fight. From amidst this rose semi-mansions; each with its balconies, mansardes, gables and windowed turrets turned, like an ever-expectant sunflower, to the absent sun. All were silent, some shuttered, some boarded up. “Many people,” said Mr. Denge, “are away.”

Though sunless, the sky was large with the light of spring. Gulls skimmed inland. The chalk-white lighthouse stood apart on a tumulus of its own.

The Rover wound down a road and bumped to a stop. Mr. Denge got manfully out, heaved open a gate, got back and drove through on to an asphalt sweep. In the cracks of the asphalt persisted wintry weeds. This was Cathay: Eva lifted her eyes to it. Spacious, as promised, it was not yet falling down. Above a porch with deep ornamental eaves were leaded windows between exterior plumbing. “We are now on the north side,” said Mr. Denge. “The more desirable rooms face the other way.” The derelict garden ran south also: the English Channel appeared in gashes, some of them largish, between backviews of dwellings edging the cliff. The sea was sheeny as steel today.

Eva, on the return from a swift reconnaissance, let Mr. Denge let her into Cathay. He immediately plonked his hat down, in a proprietary manner she did not care for, on a refectory table—the first of Cathay’s appointments to meet her eye. This interior, the entrance or lounge hall, was a darkling salmon-pink where it was not beset by oak just too black to be old. Antlers and ironwork (candle brackets) studed the walls. One breathed a musty aroma—at once dear to her. “Trifle stuffy in here?” murmured Mr. Denge. He made free with one of the windows, throwing it open.

Eva could not, now, wait for him to be gone. Walking decidedly away from him, she set out on a tour of the reception rooms. These opened into each other, through flattened arches, and had many bay and some subsidiary windows, of which some were blotted out by the evergreen pressing congested foliage against their panes. The sun lounge, plastered along the southern front of the dining-room, had been so very unfortunate in this matter that it now more resembled a charnel arbour: there was nothing to sit on in it, and no wonder. The double drawing-room was furnished: carpets and parquet were dotted with brocade-clad armchairs and sofas, trefoil-shaped tables and standard lamps with tilted, worn shades. You could see that everything had its history: chair-backs wore grease-darkened circles where heads had rested, and chair-arms, tables and flooring not only were mapped by wandering stains but abounded in small charred troughs burned by cigarettes … In some other life, Eva had been shown a knocked-about doll-house (had it not stood on a verandah, somewhere?) and knelt down to look deeply into its dramatic rooms. She had desired it. She was the more won over, consequently, by what was now round her—and the more elated.
This
, she possessed.

There was a
manoir-style
dining-room suite. The new proprietor worked on stuck sideboard drawers till they jerked open, corks rolling about inside. The contents of the china closet were three odd saucers and four chipped cocktail glasses with crowing cocks on them. From the kitchen, Eva retreated —Mr. Denge, last heard of dumping the luggage, had got in there and was trying out matches on gas appliances. Bangs resulted, one being a loud explosion—gun shy, Eva made for the upper floor. Here were more bay windows, folded-up triple mirrors and stripped-down large beds still smelling of something. Mr. Denge ran her down, finally, in a black-tiled bathroom she was admiring. “All in excellent order, so far!” he was glad to report.

“Thank you,” Eva said unforthcomingly.

“Now I’m just running round making certain there are no air-locks.” He applied strength to a tarnished bath tap, which coughed twice then had a hemorrhage of dark-rusted water. “That will
run
clean, in no time.”