Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Julia stopped herself just in time from asking why, if this was so, she and Terry had had to go to church every Sunday since they’d been at the Plás. But of course the answer was that it was part of grandmama’s old-fashionedness. Besides, she felt nearly sure that mummie and Peggy had forgotten all about her being there, and if they remembered they’d stop talking about interesting things. So she kept absolutely quiet, pretending to read Punch.

  “What do you do about les jeunes?” Peggy said.

  “Just about the same as everybody else, I suppose. They lisped the usual infant formulas. Mark seemed to think it was quite a good idea, and mother would have broken her heart if they hadn’t. And of course they learn the usual stuff at school. When they’re asked questions I’ve always said quite frankly that it didn’t seem to me to matter one way or the other. Of course, we’ve never taken them to church. They get more than enough of chapel at school.”

  “D’you know, Daphne — you’ll think me terribly reactionary — but I’m not a bit sure we’re on the right lines. Take a child like poor darling Terry, f’rinstance. Wouldn’t some sort of religion rather help to prop him up? I don’t mean the old harps-and-hellfire business, of course, but something rational and modern and at the same time sort of comforting. He does seem to me frightfully to need something.”

  “Yes, my dear, but then it would only be worse than ever when he found the whole thing was moonshine. One has to think of that. In a way, you know, I admire my Tiger’s attitude, though it’s utterly illogical. He thinks all kids ought to be made to go to church, and say their prayers, and believe the whole of the Bible word for word when they’re little and then they do as they like when they grow up.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t agree a bit. Intelligent children like yours aren’t going to swallow wholesale what they know perfectly well their parents don’t believe themselves.”

  “Tom hasn’t ever had much to do with kids, of course. He’s all right with — but doesn’t begin to understand the other one. I must say, it does make it terribly hard on me.”

  What on earth did mummie mean? It wasn’t her it was hard on. It was poor Terry.

  Julia, thinking about this, stopped listening and presently, without her having noticed it, grandpapa had come into the room and nobody was talking about anything interesting any more.

  Then it was supper-time and she was sent upstairs. Milk and biscuits, as usual. Still, they were nice biscuits, and some of them had sugar tops. Julia carefully divided them up so that she and Terry had each the same number and the same kinds, and the odd one she bit in half, so that it was absolutely fair.

  Then she engaged in her nightly endeavour to bite away the biscuit part from underneath her own sugar biscuits, so that only the sugar was left. One hardly ever succeeded.

  Just as the last sugar shell had broken, in spite of most careful biting, Terry’s footsteps sounded in the passage outside.

  Julia swallowed her remaining piece of biscuit whole and looked eagerly at the door. She didn’t jump up to meet him, because he’d certainly want her to behave just exactly as though nothing had happened.

  “Hullo!”

  “Hullo, Julia.”

  He looked all right again. Rather grave, but not miserable.

  “Do you know Peggy’s come?”

  “Oh, has she?” said Terry, sitting down at the table. “I didn’t know she was coming today. I haven’t seen anybody, I’ve only just arrived.” And after a silence, he added: “Mr. Drummond didn’t bring me, after all. He said he’d come over and see grandpapa tomorrow morning instead.”

  “Isn’t it funny, how people never do what they say they’re going to do, hardly. When I’m grownup I shall never change my mind about anything. Did you see Katherine and Ollie before you went?”

  “No. Only Mr. Drummond. I say, Julia, do you know what he gave me to drink?”

  “No. What?”

  “Brandy,” said Terry.

  “Gosh! Did he really?”

  “Yes. He didn’t tell me what it was, at first — just told me to drink it up, and I did, and it was absolutely foul. So I asked him what it was, and he said brandy.”

  “Fancy your having brandy!” said Julia, tremendously impressed. “I wish I could.”

  “I don’t think you’d like it. I don’t think anybody could. And it smells nearly as disgusting as it tastes.”

  “Was Mr. Drummond nice?”

  “Yes, he was. I rather like him. He’s not what I should call a terrifically intelligent man, but he’s very kind, and he does try to understand things even when he doesn’t understand them, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh yes, I know what you mean. Not a bit like Lady Sybil.”

  “Oh no,” said Terry, and Julia knew by his voice that he thought Lady Sybil as loathsome as she did.

  She was encouraged to attempt an imitation.

  “Now, chinthen!” she began in a loud, artificial voice, and then was so much amused at her own wit that she burst out laughing.

  Terry laughed too, and they had a great deal of fun over being Lady Sybil, and saying “Now, chinthen!” over and over again to one another.

  Peggy came up to say good-night to them, and told them that grandmama had invited her to stay for two days.

  “Good!” said Terry and Julia together.

  “Did you know she was going to do that, or did you just come on the chance?” Julia enquired.

  “I knew she was going to ask me to stay one night, because your mother suggested it ages ago — but I didn’t know it was going to be two. That’ll give me quite a nice long time with you all, won’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Terry.

  Julia was remembering that in the old days, in Hampstead, Peggy had almost always come to supper with them every Sunday evening. Now why hadn’t she done that at “Rosslyn”? Before Julia could decide whether to ask this question aloud or not, Peggy had kissed them both and gone away to dress for dinner.

  “Are you going to have a bath, Julia?” Terry asked, when she’d gone.

  “I suppose so,” Julia was unwillingly forced to admit.

  “I only asked because if you don’t go soon, you’ll be frightfully late getting into bed, and you know what grandmama’ll say.”

  Julia knew very well what grandmama would say. She thought it was very kind of Terry to remind her, but she felt suddenly indignant at the idea of being found fault with by grandmama.

  “After all, I don’t really see what it’s got to do with grandmama,” she remarked loudly. “It isn’t as if I belonged here. It’s for mummie to be cross, surely, if anybody is. By the way, have you seen mummie since you got back?”

  “No.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Julia said apologetically, “but I had to say, about your having been sick. I said ‘slightly sick’ and Peggy was there at the time, so prob’ly there won’t be much fuss. They practically didn’t ask a single question.”

  “Good,” said Terry.

  He was looking unhappy again, and Julia could see that he was worrying about something. She wondered whether to barge in or not, and at last said rather timidly:

  “I suppose mummie’s in her room dressing, now, and that’s why she didn’t hear you come in.”

  Terry took the hint at once.

  “Should you think she’d like me to go and tell her I’m back?” he asked in his uncertain way.

  “I should think so.”

  Fortunately, when Terry opened the door to go out, the cat from the kitchen was sitting on the window-sill in the passage. She and Terry were great friends and he stopped to stroke her and talk to her a little, and Julia hoped that would take his mind off things and make him feel better.

  She herself went back into the schoolroom, scooped all the biscuit crumbs into a little heap and ate them, and then decided that there was nothing for it but to begin going to bed. It was a great bore, and as grandmama had forbidden her ever to lock the bathroom door there wasn’t even the comfort of smugg
ling a book in with her, as she frequently did at school.

  Julia, feeling slightly injured, proceeded to go to bed, and had done everything except say her prayers, when grandmama came up.

  “Did you have a nice time with the little

  Drummonds, darling?” she asked at once, exactly as Julia had known she would.

  “Yes thank you, grandmama.”

  “I’m so glad. I’ve been busy in the library with Nurse from the village almost the whole evening, or I should have seen you before, but I expect you’ve been with mummie.”

  “Yes. And Peggy’s come.”

  “I know she has.”

  Grandmama’s voice sounded as though she didn’t much approve of Peggy. It sounded still more so when she added:

  “Do you and Terry like Peggy?”

  “Yes,” said Julia. “Very much indeed.”

  And grandmama made no answer at all, only asked if Julia had remembered to brush her teeth. “Yes,” said Julia patiently.

  Grandmama asked her this almost every night, and Julia always had remembered.

  The next thing would be: “That’s a good girl.” It was.

  “Did you see Lady Sybil?”

  “Only for a few minutes. And we saw Mr. Drummond too. He’s coming up to see grandpapa tomorrow, he says.”

  “Is he? Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, my pet. I hope you told Lady Sybil so, when you thanked her for having you.”

  “Yes, I did. I always do. Where’s Chang, grandmama?”

  “In the hall waiting for the gong, I expect. I must go, darling. Has mummie been in to say good-night yet?”

  “No. She comes up after dinner and I may read till then,” Julia said rapidly and firmly. Grandmama might not approve of her reading in bed — and in fact certainly didn’t — but she couldn’t forbid it, if mummie allowed it.

  “Very well, darling. She’ll hear you say your prayers. Good-night, my precious.”

  Julia put her arms round grandmama’s neck and hugged her, thinking how lovely she smelt, and how nice and soft her powdery face was.

  Then she settled down comfortably to read a frightfully sad, but good, book called East Lynne.

  Time passed like a flash.

  Mummie came in, and Julia had to wrench herself out of East Lynne to pay attention to her — and even then, she didn’t succeed very well.

  “Can’t I go on reading for five minutes more after you’ve gone?” she pleaded.

  “It’s too late, darling,” mummie answered, in a voice that showed she would give in if one went on begging. So Julia went on begging and was told that just for this once she might have five minutes more, as a great treat.

  “Terry’ll be going to bed in five minutes, he can tell you when to stop.”

  Mummie kissed her again, and went away.

  She hadn’t said anything about Julia’s prayers. Very often she didn’t, and one reminded her — but after all, did it really matter? When they thought she wasn’t attending mummie and Peggy had practically said that religion and church were thought rather old-fashioned by modern people, so probably saying one’s prayers was too.

  Julia went on reading until Terry looked in on his way to bed.

  He just said “Good-night, Julia” at the door, and she thought his voice sounded as though he’d been crying again.

  Julia lay, uneasy and worried, in the dark.

  She didn’t think any more about East Lynne. Only about Terry and — oddly enough — the chasing and killing of those rabbits in the field.

  She had thought, and hoped, that she’d forgotten all about that — but she hadn’t, a bit. She could now hear, in her own mind, the shouts of the men and the barking of the dogs all over again, and she could plainly see the scuttling rabbits, and the heavy sticks coming down, and especially — and worst of all — the rabbit that had twisted itself about in that awful way on the ground, with the blood coming out of its eye.

  Julia groaned, and bit the sheet, and threw herself about, and said several swear-words.

  Nothing did any good.

  And to make it all worse she kept on remembering that exactly the same thing was happening to poor Terry as was happening to her, only probably worse — if anything could be worse — because he always minded things so much more.

  She knew now, for absolutely certain, that it was that which had upset him so dreadfully. Had he, she wondered, told mummie about it.

  Julia herself felt that she could never have mentioned it to anybody in the world — it was much too dreadful. She only hoped that nobody would ever ask her about it. Then she might forget.

  Meanwhile, it was impossible to go to sleep.

  It must by this time be nearly the middle of the night, thought Julia in despair.

  She sat up, and thumped her pillow and turned it over. Then she got out of bed and plumped down on her knees on the floor.

  “Please God,” prayed Julia, “let me get to sleep at once and not think any more, and let Terry be all right and not miserable, and I’m sorry I didn’t say my prayers before, and help me to be good for Chrissake amen. And please don’t let the rabbits have suffered at all and let them all have gone to Heaven amen.”

  XII

  SOMETHING was wrong, and Julia was aware that it had to do with her and Terry.

  The grown-ups had long talks together, and mummie’s voice got very loud and high, and grandmama wore her shocked expression practically all the time, and even grandpapa seemed much graver than usual.

  Peggy was cheerful enough, but mummie seemed to call her away to talk to her every time that she started playing a game with Terry and Julia.

  Julia first began to guess what it was all about from something Peggy said to her when they were alone.

  “Are those Drummond children any good?”

  “No. Horrible.”

  “I thought they sounded pretty foul.”

  “Oh, they are. They don’t go to school — at least, the boys don’t yet and Katherine isn’t going to ever, and Katherine tells tales. Has she been telling any about me?” asked Julia suspiciously.

  “Were there any to tell?”

  “Well, yes, there were, rather.”

  “Little hog. Katherine I mean. Not you.”

  Julia laughed.

  “She said she was going to tell her mother about something I said.”

  Had Peggy heard about it already? Julia watched Peggy carefully, and saw her hesitate.

  Then Peggy said: “If you’d rather not answer, just say so. But were you by any chance rash enough to give Katherine your views on the subject of adultery?”

  Put like that, in a funny kind of way, Julia didn’t mind this question a bit. She even giggled a little as she answered it.

  “Yes. I’m afraid I was.”

  “Well, personally, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. But perhaps I needn’t tell you that Lady Sybil Drummond, or whatever her silly name is, doesn’t agree with me.”

  “How d’you know?” said Julia, much startled.

  “I’m sorry to say that she’s made rather a fuss about it. In fact, she came up here yesterday morning with Mr. Drummond and saw your grandmother.”

  “Gosh! Just about that?”

  “Well, no, it wasn’t just about that. But she complained about that. She seemed to think it would upset the minds of her innocent little children. I didn’t know there were any people left who still brought up their children as that woman apparently does.”

  Julia wasn’t paying much attention.

  “That’s why grandmama hasn’t seemed very pleased with me,” she decided. “I wondered what it was. But why hasn’t she scolded me?”

  “Mummie wouldn’t let her. She said you hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  “No more I haven’t,” declared Julia — who hadn’t felt at all sure about this before. “I think grandmama’s terribly old-fashioned, don’t you?”

  “Most people of her age are. But you do like staying with her, don’t you?”
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  “Quite,” said Julia, purposely making it sound unenthusiastic — for she was getting rather tired of being at the Plás.

  “What’s the date?” she suddenly asked Peggy.

  “August the twenty-seventh. Why?”

  “It’s funny, but these are the only holidays I’ve ever known that had a middle. Usually they just have a beginning, and then an end, and no middle at all. But this time they seem to be all middle.”

  Peggy looked at her and then suggested that they should go and find Terry and ask what he’d like to do.

  “Will you play with us? Oh, good!” cried Julia.

  The rest of the morning was fun.

  After lunch Peggy went away, and Julia was frightfully sorry. She had an awful feeling that now there wasn’t a visitor in the house any more things that she didn’t want to hear were going to be said.

  Why couldn’t things be nice and like they used to be?

  “I want to talk to Terry,” mummie had said, and taken him into the rose-garden, and Julia had been left, disconsolate and cross, to kick her heels against the terrace wall.

  She hated being left out of things — and besides, she wasn’t sure that she could quite trust mummie with Terry, nowadays. He often came away from talks with her looking more miserable than before.

  Luckily, just as she was angrily thinking this, Chang came strolling out of the house into the sunshine. Julia rushed to meet him, and they fell over one another and rolled about on the gravel together, Chang barking and Julia screaming with laughter.

  The library window flew open.

  “Julia! Julia! Get up directly!”

  Grandmama’s voice sounded fearfully severe.

  “I can’t!” called back Julia, taking an extra roll.

  “Yes, you can. Get up at once and don’t let the dog maul you about like that.”

  The dog! What a way to speak about darling little Chang!

  Julia muttered, and got up very slowly. She cast an indignant glance at grandmama standing at the window and was quite startled to see how terribly grave she was looking.

  Surely it couldn’t be just because she’d romped with Chang?

  Julia tried an experimental smile, and even said in a conciliating tone “I’m sorry, grandmama,” but to her great horror she received no answering smile.