Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “Of course, you may!” Diana exclaimed. “Here you are.”

  She distributed guinea-pigs impartially, and earnestly consulted Cedric as to the bald patch on the Angora rabbit’s head.

  As they went back towards the house, Sadie Munroe said to him:

  “Do you mind not having any other boys here — only girls? I’m afraid it’s dull for you, but Aunt Esther’s boys will be here after lunch, only they had to go over and play tennis with some people this morning; it was all settled before we knew you were coming.”

  But Cedric did not seem to mind at all.

  At lunch Archie, as Alex had known he would be, was an immediate success.

  Even Mr. Cardew, who was bald and looked through Alex and Barbara and Cedric without seeing them when he shook hands with them, patted Archie’s curls and said:

  “Hullo, Bubbles!”

  “Come and sit next to me, you darling,” said Mrs. Cardew, “and you shall have two helpings of everything.”

  It was a very long luncheon-table, and Alex found herself placed between Sadie and a grey-headed gentleman, to whom she talked in a manner which seemed to herself to be very grown-up and efficient.

  Barbara was on the same side of the table and invisible to her, but she saw Cedric opposite, quite eagerly talking to Marie Munroe, which rather surprised Alex, who thought that her brother would despise all little girls of twelve.

  Quite a number of people whose names Alex did not know asked her about Lady Isabel, and she answered their inquiries readily, pleased to show off her self-possession, and the gulf separating her from the childishness of Barbara, who was giggling almost all through lunch in a manner that would unhesitatingly have been qualified by her parents as ill-bred.

  Lunch was nearly over when the two schoolboy sons of the house came rushing in, hot and excited, and demanding a share of dessert and coffee.

  “Barbarians,” tranquilly said Mrs. Cardew. “Sit down quietly now, Eric and Noel. I hope you said ‘How d’ you do’ to every one.”

  They had not done so, but both made a sort of circular salutation, and the elder boy dropped into a chair next to Alex, while Eric went to sit beside his mother.

  Noel Cardew was fifteen, a straight-featured, good-looking English boy, his fairness burned almost to brick-red, and with a very noticeable cast in one of his light-brown eyes.

  Alex looked at him furtively, and wondered what she could talk about.

  Noel spared her all trouble.

  “Do you ever take photographs?” he inquired earnestly. “I’ve just got a camera, one of those bran-new sorts, and a tripod, quarter-plate size. I want to do some groups after lunch. I’ve got a dark-room for developing, the tool-house, you know.”

  He talked rapidly and eagerly, half turned round in his chair so as almost to face Alex, and she tried to feel flattered by the exclusive monologue.

  She knew nothing about photography, but uttered little sympathetic ejaculations, and put one or two timid questions which Noel for the most part hardly seemed to hear.

  When Mrs. Cardew at length rose from her place, he turned from Alex at once, in the midst of what he was saying, and demanded vehemently:

  “Can’t we have a group on the terrace now? Do let me do a group on the terrace — the light will be just right now.”

  “Dear boy, you really mustn’t become a nuisance with that camera of yours — though he’s really extraordinarily clever at it,” said his mother, in a perfectly audible aside.

  “Would it bore you all very much to be victimized? You won’t keep us sitting in the glare too long, will you, dear boy?”

  Almost every one protested at the suggestion of being photographed, but while a good many of the gentlemen of the party disappeared noiselessly and rapidly before the group could be formed, all the ladies began to straighten their hats, and pull or push at their fringes. Noel kept them waiting in the hot sun for what seemed a long while, and Alex reflected rather gloomily that Mrs. Cardew showed a tolerance of his inconvenient passion for photography that would certainly not have been approved by her own parents.

  At last it was over, and Sadie jumped up, crying, “Now we can have some proper games! What shall we play at?”

  “Don’t get over-heated,” her aunt said, smiling and nodding as she moved away.

  “Do you like croquet?” Diana asked, and to Alex’ disappointment they embarked upon a long, wearisome game. She was not a good player, nor was Barbara, but Cedric surprised them all by the brilliant ease with which he piloted Marie Munroe and himself to victory.

  “I say, that’s jolly good!” Eric and Noel said, and gazed at their junior with respect.

  Alex felt pleased, but rather impatient too, and wished that it were she who was distinguishing herself.

  When they played hide-and-seek, however, her opportunity came. She could run faster than any of the other girls at Liège, and when Diana suggested picking up sides, she added good-naturedly:

  “Alex runs much faster than any of us — she’d better be captain for one side, and Noel the other.”

  Noel looked as though his own headship were a matter of course, but Alex felt constrained to say:

  “Oh, no, not me — You, Diana.”

  “Would you rather not? Very well. Cedric, then. Hurry up and choose your sides, boys. You start, Cedric.”

  “I’ll have Marie,” said Cedric unhesitatingly, and the little red-haired girl skipped over beside him with undisguised alacrity.

  “Noel?”

  Noel jerked his head in the direction of Alex.

  “You,” he said.

  She was immensely surprised and flattered, connecting his choice with the same attraction that had made him sit beside her at lunch, and not with her own reported prowess as a runner.

  Cedric’s reputation for gallantry suffered somewhat in his next selections, which fell with characteristic common sense on Noel’s brother Eric, and upon Barbara. Noel took Sadie and Diana, and they drew lots for Archie.

  The game proved long and exciting, played all over the terrace and shrubbery.

  Alex screamed and laughed with the others, and enjoyed herself, although she found time to wish that Barbara were not so stupid and priggish about keeping on her gloves, because old Nurse had said she must, and to wonder very much why Cedric appeared so pleased with the society of red-haired, chattering Marie, whose side he never left.

  Presently, as she was looking for somewhere to hide, Noel Cardew joined her.

  “Come on with me — I know a place where they’ll never find us,” he told her, and led her on tip-toe to where a very small, disused ice-house was half-hidden in a clump of flowering shrubs.

  Noel pushed open the door with very little effort, and they crept into the semi-darkness and sat on the floor, pulling the door to behind them. Noel whispered softly:

  “Isn’t it cool in here? I am hot.”

  “So am I.”

  Alex was wondering nervously what she could talk about to interest him, and to make him go on liking her. Evidently he did like her, or he would not have sat next her at lunch and told her about his photography, and afterwards have chosen her for his partner at hide-and-seek.

  Alex, though she did not know it, possessed a combination that is utterly fatal to any charm: she was unfeignedly astonished that any one should be attracted by her, and at the same time agonizedly anxious to be liked.

  She wanted now, wildly and nervously, to maintain the interest which she thought she had excited in her companion.

  She found the silence unbearable. Noel would think her dull, or imagine that she was bored.

  “Is this where you do your developing?” she asked in an interested voice, although she remembered perfectly that he had said he used a tool-house for his dark-room.

  “No — we’ve got the tool-house for that. Why, there wouldn’t be room to stand up in here. Sometimes I get my things developed and printed for me at a shop, you know. Chemists will generally do it for one — though, of
course, I prefer doing my own. But there isn’t time, except in the holidays, and then one’s always running short of some stuff or other. The other day I ruined a simply splendid group — awfully good, it would have been: mother and a whole lot of people out on the steps — like we were today, you know—” He paused for sheer lack of breath.

  “I hope the one you took today will be good,” said Alex, her heart beating quickly.

  “Oh, yes, sure to be, with a day like this. Some fellows say you can get just as much effect on a dull day, using a larger stop, but, of course, that’s all nonsense really. I say, I’m not boring you, am I?”

  He hardly waited to hear her impassioned negative before going on, still discussing photographic methods.

  It was quite true that Alex was not bored, although she was hardly listening to what he said. But his voice went on and on, and it flattered her that he should want to talk to her so exclusively, as though secure of her sympathy.

  “... And they say colour-photography will be the next thing. I believe one could get some jolly good effects down here. Young Eric is all for messing about with beastly paints and stuff, but I don’t agree with that.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “My plan is to get hold of a real outfit, as soon as they get the thing perfected, and then be one of the pioneers, you know. I say, I hope you don’t think this is awful cheek—”

  “Oh, no!”

  “This isn’t a bad place for experiments, I will say. You see, you can get the sea, and quite decent scenery, and any amount of view and stuff. I say, what ages they are finding us,” he broke off suddenly.

  Alex felt deeply mortified. Evidently Noel was bored, after all. But in another minute he began to talk again.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if one of these days I tried my hand at doing sort of book stuff. You know, photographs for illustrations. I believe it’s going to pay no end.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Oh, scenery, you know, and perhaps houses and things. Sure I’m not boring you?”

  “No, indeed, I’m very interested.”

  “It is rather interesting,” Noel agreed simply.

  “Another thing I’m keen on is swimming. Rather different, you’ll say; but then one can’t do one thing all the time, and, of course, the swimming is first class at school. I went in for some competition and stuff last term; high diving, you know.”

  “Oh, did you win?”

  “Can’t say I did. Young Eric got a cup of sorts, racing, but I just missed the diving. Some day I shall have another try, I daresay. You know, I’ve got rather a funny theory about swimming. I don’t know whether you’ll see what I mean at all — in fact, I daresay it’ll sound more or less mad, to you — but I believe we do it the wrong way.”

  “Oh,” said Alex, wishing at the same time that she could divest herself of the eternal monosyllable. “Do tell me about it.”

  “Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain, but I think we’re all taught the wrong way to begin with. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to any one to look at the way fishes swim.”

  Alex thought that Noel must really be very original and clever, and tried to feel more flattered than ever at being selected as the recipient of his theories.

  “I believe the whole thing could be revolutionized and done much better — but I’m afraid I’m always simply chockfull of ideas of that kind.”

  “But that’s so interesting,” Alex said, not consciously insincere.

  “Don’t you have all sorts of ideas like that yourself?” he asked eagerly, filling her with a moment’s anticipation that he was about to give the conversation a personal turn. “I think it makes life so much more interesting if one goes into things; not just stay on the surface, you know, but go into the way things are done.”

  Alex thought she heard some one coming towards their hiding-place, and wanted to tell Noel to stop talking, or they would be found, but she checked the impulse, fearful lest he should think her unsympathetic.

  The dogmatic schoolboy voice went on and on — swimming, photography, cricket, and then photography again. Alex, determined to feel pleased and interested, could only contribute an occasional monosyllable, sometimes only an inarticulate sound, expressive of sympathy.

  And at the end of it all, when she was half proud and half irritated at the thought that they must have been sitting there in the semi-darkness for at least an hour, Noel exclaimed:

  “I say, they are slow finding us. I should think it must be quite tea-time, shouldn’t you? How would it be if we came out now?”

  “Yes, let’s,” said Alex, trying to keep the mortification out of her voice.

  They emerged into the sunlight again, and Noel pulled out his watch.

  “It’s only a quarter past four. I thought it would be much later,” he remarked candidly. “I wonder where they all are. I expect they’ll want to know where we’ve been hiding, but you won’t give it away, will you? It’s a jolly good place, and the others don’t know about it.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  Alex revived a little at the idea of being entrusted with a secret.

  “Do you often play hide-and-seek?”

  “Oh, just to amuse the girls, in the summer holidays. They’ve spent the last three summers with us, you know. Next year I suppose they’ll go to America, lucky kids!”

  “I’d love to go to America, wouldn’t you?” Alex asked, with considerable over-emphasis.

  “Pretty well. I tell you what I’d really like to do — I shall do it one day, too — make a regular tour of England, with a camera. I don’t know whether you’ll think it’s nonsense, of course, but my idea has always been that people go rushing abroad to see other countries before they really know their own. Now, my plan would be that I’d simply start at Land’s End, in Cornwall, just taking each principal town as it came on my way, you know, and exploring thoroughly. I shouldn’t mind going off the main track, you know, if I heard of any little place that had an old church or castle or something worth looking at. I don’t know whether you’re at all keen on old buildings?”

  “Oh, yes,” Alex said doubtfully; “I’ve seen Liège and Louvain, in Belgium—”

  “Ah, but I’m talking about English places,” Noel interrupted her inexorably. “Of course the foreign ones are splendid too, and I mean to run over and have a look at them some day, but my theory is that one ought to see something of one’s own land first. Now take Devonshire. There are simply millions of old churches in Devonshire, and what I should do, would be to have a note-book with me, and simply jot down my impressions. Then with photographs one might get out quite a sort of record, if you know what I mean—”

  Alex was rather glad that her companion should be talking to her so eagerly as they came in sight of a group of people on the terrace.

  “Here are the truants,” said Mrs. Cardew, laughing, and Diana Munroe exclaimed that Aunt Esther had called them all to tea, and they had given up further hunt for them.

  “Noel always finds extraordinary places to hide in,” she added rather disparagingly.

  It was evident that Noel was not very popular with the American cousins.

  “That boy would be very good looking if he had not that terrible cast,” Alex overheard one lady say to another, as the visitors were waiting on the steps for the pony-carriage to take them away. The grey-haired man next to whom Alex had sat at lunch, and who evidently did not know any of the group of children apart, nodded in the direction of little Archie, flushed and excited, trying to climb the terrace wall, surrounded by adoring ladies.

  “That’s the little chap for my money.”

  “Isn’t he a darling? That’s one of Isabel Clare’s children — so are the two girls in blue. I couldn’t believe anything so tall was really hers.”

  “Oh, yes — I noticed one of them — rather like her mother?”

  Alex felt sure that she ought not to listen, and at the same time kept motionless lest they should notice her and lower their v
oices.

  She felt eagerly anxious to overhear what the grey-haired gentleman might have to say after the very grown-up way in which she had made conversation with him at lunch, and having been a very pretty and much-admired drawing-room child in her nursery days, could not altogether divest herself of the expectation that she must still be found pretty and entertaining.

  But the grey-haired gentleman said impartially:

  “They are neither of them a patch on Lady Isabel, are they?”

  “They are at the awkward age,” laughed the lady to whom he was talking. “One of them sat next to you at lunch, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. Not quite so natural as the other children. That little, red-haired American girl, now — a regular child—”

  Alex, with a face grown suddenly scarlet, left Barbara, shyly, and Cedric, briefly, to thank their hostess for the pleasant day they had spent.

  A new, and far more painful self-consciousness than any she had yet known, hampered her tongue and her movements, until they were safely in the pony-carriage half-way down the drive.

  “They are nice, aren’t they?” said Barbara. “I’m sure they are nicer than Queenie.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Alex contradicted mechanically.

  “Well, Marie and Diana are, anyway.” She looked slyly at Cedric. “Don’t you think so, Cedric?”

  “How can I tell whether they are any nicer, as you call it, than another kid whom I’ve never seen?” inquired Cedric reasonably.

  “But didn’t you like Marie?”

  “She’s all right.”

  Barbara giggled in the way most disliked by her family, the authorities of whom stigmatized the habit as “vulgar,” and Cedric said severely:

  “I shouldn’t think decent girls would want to play with you at all, if you don’t leave off that idiotic trick of cackling.”

  But Barbara, who was not at all easily crushed, continued to giggle silently at intervals.

  “Why are you so silly?” Alex asked her crossly, as they were going to bed that night.