The Little Girls (8 page)

“Everyone must be mad.”

“We are also right at the end of the Noilly Prat.”

The Mini came sailing in at the gate, to be brought to rest neatly behind the Hillman. Clare, saying something about the cattle, got out. She shook herself into order and looked round—taking in the lawns, the house, and the copper beech. “Nice,” she remarked contentedly, “isn’t this?”

“Sometimes. Today’s an inferno. Mumbo, what
do
you think? Frank’s not only ratted on London, Francis says, but now has a woman in the drawing-room!”

“Well, well.—Look, I should like a wash.”

“Oh, come in, come in!” Dinah propelled her guest through the Gothic porch into the neo-Jacobean hall. “And welcome, of course, and everything, Mumbo darling!

I suppose this still is my house, though I sometimes wonder.—Straight up, first on your right. No, sorry, second!— I’m all but out of my mind. The lengths I went to, arranging London: but oh, no—slippery as an eel! … I hope you’ll find everything,” Dinah shouted, despondently, after ascending Clare. “
I’ll
just, I think, now go and see about getting that harpie out.”

She lost no time in tackling the drawing-room door.

The big-windowed drawing-room, at this hour, was more dazzling than had been the open country. Sun, magnified by the plate glass through which it poured (windows she had left open were now shut), lavished itself on lavish bowls and tureens of early chrysanthemums, late dahlias, surviving roses, and with sunny malice lay on fine films of dust over the satiny surfaces of the furniture. Armchairs and sofas looked over-exposed and crushed. Blazing into the fire, the sun all but brought off its trick of putting the fire out; though wood ash, consuming itself at white heat, made the air pungent and faintly blue: Frank’s pipe, too, had been going for some time. Nor in other ways was the room as it last had been—a chic collapsible hat had become intimate with the faded needlework stool, opposite Dinah’s desk, on to which by the look it had been light-heartedly flung, and a magazine glossier and more knowing than any accustomed to enter Applegate had glissaded off something and lay sprawled on the floor. But athominess centred around the hearthrug, on which stood Frank entertaining Sheila, and Sheila svelte in a knitted suit. He balanced a glass of lager, she held on to a gin and tonic.

Into the room, not yet far from the door, Dinah came to halt—diffidently, one might almost have thought. Bemused, she wore a look of regret, regret at being without her sun-glasses. Slowly she drew one foot up, as though uncertain how much of the floor was hers to stand on. “So where have you been?” Frank asked, in a tone of marked reprobation. Simultaneously Sheila, with aplomb, nitched her glass on the chimneypiece, uttered a fearless laugh, and swung right round, extending a hand. “Why, Diana,”
she chanted, “isn’t this fun!”

“It’s not
you,
is it?”

“Oh dear, am I a shock? It’s been such years, hasn’t it?”

Frank, with an emphatic roll of the eyes, said: “Mrs. Artworth has had a rocky journey, you’ll be sorry to hear.”

“It’s not that, so much,” said the traveller pluckily. “But I
am
in a way knocked rather all in a heap—after all these years, Diana just walking in! And looking marvellous, Diana, all things considered. I honestly don’t think I should have known you.”

“I’m no longer ‘Diana.’”

“Oh? Such a pretty name, I remember my mother thought.”

“Mine didn’t; she hated that bristly goddess. Cousin Roland bullied her into it.”

“Not your father?”

“Oh, no.”

“We are ‘Dinah,’ now,” Frank told Sheila.

“You spoke of her as that, yes. I supposed it might just be a pet name.—Well, there you are: I
am
knocked all in a heap!”

“Weren’t you,” Dinah inquired, not only reasonably but with milky mildness, “expecting me here, though, surely, sooner or later?”

“You
were,”
asked the other swiftly, “expecting
me
?”

“Well, no. I regretfully wrote you off. But life”—Dinah turned, now, upon Frank a gaze rendered ethereal by pure fury—”is full of surprises. Today especially. So you didn’t feel up to London, Francis tells me?”

“Not when it came to the point, m’dear, no. No. Bit off colour this morning. In no right mood for viewing the kid.”

“That poor, poor little unwanted baby!”

Sheila, during the combat, had snatched her glass back and polished off the contents. Now, picture of tact, she looked down her pretty nose, of which the tip was becoming pink. Tact went for nothing, unobserved: she abandoned it and let out a crowing titter. “Who’s had a baby, I long to know?”

“Merely,” said Dinah, seething, “his only daughter.”

“Major Wilkins’s? Oh.”

“As you are here, Frank, do look at poor Sheikie’s glass. Bone empty. And after driving such miles, I should rather like … Well, Sheikie, it’s fun you’re here, as you truly say, so let’s let bygones be bygones. You were mysterious, rather, a bit, though, weren’t you?”

“Fearful, have I been?” wondered Mrs. Artworth. “I truly did not know, up to the very last, whether I
could
pull out. One’s so tied up, isn’t one? One thing if not another. I actually was not sure till this very morning. I fully intended to phone or send you a telegram, but when it came to the point was in such a whirl, also knew you were bound to be here, on account of Mumbo.—And by the way, that is the first thing I meant to ask: where has she, now, vanished to? Not a sign of her anywhere on that train. Up and down, down and up I went, searching, searching. The ticket collector thought me rather peculiar. On top of which, I’d had to leave home at cockcrow. Southstone to right down here, in the same morning!”

“Very game of you,” said Frank, bringing back her glass.

“Not
another
? I wonder whether I ought to.” The doubt resolved itself. “Such luck,” Mrs. Artworth continued, “that I happened to have your address with me! You see, you’d said Mumbo’d know about everything. Out I got, at the station—”

“Not a soul there,” took up Frank, bringing Dinah a drink but nodding over his shoulder at the sufferer. “I could always have met her, as things turned out.—And meanwhile, where were
you
tearing off to? The wrong station?”

“A blasted heath.”

“So I ended up in a taxi,” said Sheila bravely. “I must say, you’re miles from anywhere, aren’t you? Chiefly, though, I was worried, and still am. What can have possibly happened to poor old Mumbo? Where she’s got to, one simply hasn’t a clue. I mean to say, where is our wandering girl?”

“Having a wash.”

“Oh,” said Sheila, by reflex. Slowly, though, the intelligence filtered through to her—she turned her face, which was colouring slowly, away from Dinah. “You can’t mean, here?”

“Yes I do. Here. Why not?”

“How did she get here?”

“Motor car.”

“When?”

“Just now. With me.”

“You
said
she’d be on the train!”

‘To which
you
said nothing.”

“Oh, stop it, Dicey! Don’t nag.—Does she know I’m here?”

“Know? No. We’d both sadly written you off.”

“Oh,” Sheila remarked, while her mermaid eyes became dreamy, then showed a decided glint. She smiled. “Then, in this case I’ll really be quite a shock.”

“Why? You’re not half such a wreck as you seem to think. Anyway, she saw you the other day.”

“Thanks. That was
not,
though, what I happened to mean—this time. What I meant is, she’s about to look quite a fool. Caught out. I’m rather sorry to say, she’s been underhand.”

“Mumbo?”

“Oh yes, I know she’s a soldier’s daughter.—Still, enough of that for the moment,” Sheila declared, lightly touching around her waves of blue-blonded hair with the hand not engaged in holding her glass. “The whole sad story would hardly be interesting to Major Wilkins.—We mustn’t bore you, must we?” she asked him.

“On the contrary,” Frank returned, though with not altogether his former vigour. Worn out by hoping the girls would at last sit down, that he at last might take his weight off his feet, he languished in the vicinity of a window. “Absolutely the contrary, couldn’t be more so! It means something to me, I may say, to be told anything. As a rule I’m left in the dark as to what goes on; or so it seems to me—or is that my stupidity?” (Indignation recharged the batteries as he went along.) “In the dark absolutely as to plans for today—not aware, in fact, that anything had been planned. So far as I now understand, I have crashed a party, or—worse, no doubt?—a reunion. I can only say, no one gave me any idea. Efforts were made to get me out of the way, as I should have spotted. Been as blind as a bat. Should have been more popular—eh?— not here.” He gnashed his teeth, beneath the splendid moustache, at Dinah—who, early on in the discourse, had settled into her large chair, legs tucked under her, thereby causing Sheila to seek round for somewhere to perch herself, which she had finally done, with West End grace, on an arm of the other large chair, properly Frank’s. “London was indicated,” he went on. “Up to the mark or not (and I’m not, this morning, can’t tell you why), London it was to be. Why I was not told why, I might well wonder; but I’m damned if I’m going to—can’t be bothered… .” He let silence simmer, then turned again to Sheila. “Sorry,” he said, “too bad. But I’m not so sorry, you know, as I know I ought to be. I’ve at least had the pleasure of boring you for this last hour, and delightful it’s been! In case I don’t see you again, very many thanks. Now I must take myself home and look out some lunch.”

“How sad.”

“What there’ll be in the house,” ruminated Frank, “to eat, that is to say, I have no idea. Something, let’s hope.”

“Let’s,” said Dinah serenely. “What
you’re
to eat, Sheikie, don’t ask me. There are three chops.”

“Then that should be just right, shouldn’t it?”

“No. Two are for Mumbo.”

“Yes, my heavens!” Frank, on his way out, loomed over Dinah’s chair. “Two for ‘Mumbo,’ by all means. ‘Mumbo’ for ever! Who and what is ‘Mumbo’—if I may ask one question?”

“No, dear,” she pleaded, looking up at him fondly. “Not about anything more. Not now.”

The hall through which Frank strode was, being principally lit by the staircase window, darker in summer than in winter: outside the window grew the copper beech, and the tree when in foliage was a curtain. It still was in foliage, black-crimson. But something further, foreign, not there till now, intercepted the light dusked by the branches— on the halfway landing, someone or something stood looking out. Like anything at a height it appeared to float, though manifestly it was solid. The apparition (for such in effect it was) not so much scared the man as angered his nerves. If ever he saw a ghost, he had often said, he would stand no nonsense. He was not required, however, to stand anything: the impervious non-ghost affronted him by turning round. It remained in backview, its thick, overpowering stillness giving it an air not only of regardlessness of all time but of being in possession of this place. Loose about the house… . “Mumbo-jumbo!” he shouted to himself, internally, silently and violently. It had been his intention to track down Francis and ask him for a couple of eggs, but that he abandoned—he fled out through the porch out into the sun. And once out there, in the clear, he gave a
shake of the shoulders and found himself all but mopping his brow.

The tree itself did not keep Clare at the window, beautiful though a copper beech is in its late tarnish. What she beheld, by looking down, was the swing—which she watched as she might have done if it were in motion, though it had no occupant. Under it, a small bald patch had been kicked in the grass. But no ground-kicking, from whatever angle, with whatever force, can steer an unevenly hung swing out of the twirl. Higher you go, the crookeder —leaning, lurching. Great it is to master a crooked swing: greater than straighter swinging. There were three masters. Sheilcie a firework in daylight. Dicey upside down, hooked on by the knees, slapping instead of kicking at the earth as it flew under. Mumbo face down, stomach across the seat, flailing all four limbs. Pure from the pleasures of the air, any of them could have shot into Kingdom Come. But they had not.

Those were the days before love. These are the days after. Nothing has gone for nothing but the days between… . Clare now recollected having heard somebody, by the sound a man, leaving the house hurriedly— just now, was it? Or if not, when?

“There
you are! Have you had a whole bath?” Dicey, at the bottom of the stairs, looked up as though from the bottom of a well. She beckoned Mumbo down, into closer hearing. “Now, I’ll give you three guesses …”

“I shall only need one. It’s Shiekie?”

“Yes, and indeed.”

“Aha.”

“I don’t think,” Dinah admitted, “I was really surprised, either. Anyway, come on. She’s into the drink.”

“How does that take her?”

“So far, butter wouldn’t melt.—She’s inclined, though, I think, to be sore with you.”

An eight-egg omelette,
portugaise,
had been contrived in the kitchen, the idea being that it should stun appetite before the chops (which were cutlet-size) took the field. The idea had been Francis’s, on the strength of which he personally handed the omelette round.