“That’s everything, I think, apart from the news … oh. No, there is one more thing. The top flat—that door at the top of the stairs, the one that’s locked. …”
“The one with … ‘Charles and Peggy Gaunt’ on it?”
“That’s it … well, Charles is mad keen to have it back. Apparently it isn’t enough for him to have a cottage in Wiltshire that has appeared in Vogue and Country Life, with Margie—that’s his new wife—running round it waiting on him hand and foot; he wants a pied à terre in town as well. Well, he isn’t going to have my flat. It’s mine, and I’m going to keep it. I don’t want to bother your mother just yet by letting it, because naturally she’s been through a pretty bad year and she’ll want some peace and quiet, but I might want to let it later on, and anyway why should he have it? It’s my house. Just because we shared the flat once … well, anyway, I’m telling you this because I want you to have the gen if Charles comes snooping round trying to get in. If once he did get in, it might be difficult to get him out again without a court case, and I don’t want that; it isn’t good publicity for me. So if he does turn up demanding to go up to the flat and telling some yarn or other any time during the next few days, ’phone me at once, and I’ll come and cope. I’ve got one key, but the worrying thing is that he’s quite capable of sneaking up the stairs and taking a wax impression of the lock—or John is. That quite clear?”
Nell nodded, trying—rather unsuccessfully—to take all this in.
Lady Fairfax got up from her dressing table and walked over to the bed and picked up a velvet coat. Then she looked at her niece.
“Nell, do you know what your parents’ income is?”
The Selys had been always bitterly poor, but they had never fallen into the habit of talking about it. Since Martin’s illness, Anna had taken Nell a little into her confidence about their affairs, because she had been really worried, but Nell could not discuss the subject without embarrassment.
“Mother has … a little under a hundred-and-twenty a year of her own, I think, Aunt Peggy. She didn’t tell me what Daddy’s last living … brought in … I don’t think it was much …”
“That we may safely assume,” Lady Fairfax said. “It never has been. Then wasn’t there some legacy, left to your father a little while ago? I saw it in The Telegraph.”
“Mr. Owen’s legacy, yes. He was at Oxford with Daddy and they were friends. It was three hundred pounds. But that was quite a long time ago, Aunt Peggy; it’s nearly two years now.”
“Do you know if your mother has received any dividends lately?”
“I don’t think so.” Nell’s voice was low and her tone reluctant. The typewriter in the next room was silent. Was Gardis Randolph listening? She felt unhappy and ashamed and a little angry with her aunt as well—which was ungrateful, of course.
“I see.” Lady Fairfax was opening a drawer in a cabinet. “Now here’s ten pounds and I want you to give it to your mother with my love. (Don’t give it to your father; I know what he is about money; he isn’t mean but it never occurs to him that people have to eat four times a day.) Tell her she’s not to worry about paying it back. And now for the piece of news, the reason I rang up and asked you to come here this evening. You have kept up your typing and shorthand, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, I have, Aunt Peggy,” Nell answered, not wondering what was coming next. She had guessed, and she had turned a deep pink, which Lady Fairfax, one of whose tasks it was on Television to explain the Youth of England to their elders and to themselves, no doubt put down to embarrassed gratitude.
“Good speeds at both? What are they, should you say?”
“Oh … a hundred at shorthand, and fifty at typing,” Nell said casually. She could almost feel a pair of Japanese-doll eyes boring through the wall at her, and see their ironical glitter. A hundred? said the glitter. And fifty? Fine.
“That’s quite good. Nothing extra-special but it will get by. I’m relieved to hear you’ve kept it up; I always knew that course at Claregates would come in useful one day.”
Nell said nothing. Her ten years at that boarding-school of some reputation and considerable bracingness in tradition had been made possible only because of Aunt Peggy, who not only possessed some pull with the most important of the Governors there, but had contributed, even in her most hard-up days, a quarterly cheque. As for the shorthand-typing course, taken during their final year by those fallen spirits who had not proved ‘bright’ enough to win places at the Universities or even get into the Upper Sixth, Nell remembered both its wearisomeness and the ease with which she had mastered it. But she had not kept it up. And now …
“Now you can use it,” Lady Fairfax announced. “I’ve got you a job.”
“Thanks awfully, Aunt Peggy,” Nell said, with the right emphasis, but cheeks growing pale.
“Yes. It’s five pounds a week, not much, of course, by present-day standards, but it’s a small firm, just starting, and you’ll be starting too. They’ll pay you more later, I expect. It’s largely run by a friend of mine, Gerald Hughes, and he gave me to understand that he’s rather ‘making’ the job for you just to please me, so you’ll do your best and not let me down, won’t you, poppet? The firm’s called Akkro Products, Limited, and you’ll be in the Accounts Department. They’re in Lecouver Street, off Tottenham Court Road. An exciting part of London, country mouse.” She smiled.
The typewriter had started again. “What do they make?” asked Nell … and indeed she would be interested to hear.
“Oh … well, I’m bothered if I know exactly. Plastics of some sort, I believe … But he’s an up-and-coming lad, our Gerald, and it’s a lively little firm. Very nice cloakrooms. I had tea with him there once (not in the cloakroom!). I know it’s rather springing things on you but—”
A clock struck seven. “Gardis! Go and see if the car’s there!” called Lady Fairfax, and Gardis came out wearing a black frock at the sight of which her employer exclaimed in disgust: “That dress! It might have been under your bed all night!” Nell heard the unamused laugh again as Gardis ran down the stairs.
Lady Fairfax went on: “She likes going about in those terrible sweaters and trousers, but she knows I disapprove, so she keeps a black frock stuffed in her desk and pops it on whenever I complain … what do you think of her?” An eye cool and sharp as a seagull’s was turned upon Nell; Peggy Fairfax the T.V. personality was collecting data about Young America from Young England.
“She’s awfully pretty,” Nell answered cautiously, but even as she used the word she felt that it was not the right one.
“Oh … pretty.” Lady Fairfax shrugged. “I think she’s like a baby golliwog-witch. Her people were very kind to me when I was over in the States at Christmas, and as there’d been some fuss (over a rather terrible young man, I gather) and she was crazy to study art over here, I asked her to come for six months as my secretary. (Only the social side, of course. No one girl could cope with my fan-mail.) But she’s quite hopeless. No idea of time and can’t even spell. She was at Bennington over there, I believe, but she’s completely uneducated.”
“Aunt Peggy, when do I start with—Akkro Products? And what time? I’m awfully sorry to bother you but—”
“It’s quite all right, darling, and you aren’t bothering a bit. I know how you feel. You’ve been chucked into something without warning and you’re scared stiff. But everything’s taped … Gardis will give you all the gen when I’ve gone. Now don’t let’s talk any more because I’ve got to relax. I’m going to this film première, Girl In The House, and the Royals will be there …”
Nell was still sitting on the dressing stool. Lady Fairfax sat on the bed and stared at the dark green wall with hands placed palm upwards in her lap, and the softly-lit luxurious bedroom became very quiet. The mirror-glass ceiling reflected the violet carpet in a thousand dim and glittering cubes. Nell remembered that less than two days ago at this time she had been walking along the road to Morley Magna under a grey evening sky betw
een budding trees, looking down at the lonely valley through the clear lonely air, but found no difficulty in realizing that she was where she was. She had found Morley Magna dull and half-dead. Aunt Peggy, using an expression Nell had come across only in the stories of L. T. Meade which her mother had owned in childhood, had called her a country mouse, but she was more than prepared to become a town one if given the chance, and she was not ‘scared stiff’ about the job that had been thrust upon her; she was annoyed. Grateful, of course, but very annoyed.
“Where can Gardis have got to?” Lady Fairfax was murmuring. “It really is extraordinary. Let her out of your sight for one minute …”
“Car’s here, Lady Fairfax,” and up the stairs bounded Gardis, all secretarial efficiency and smiles.
“Thank you.” She got up from the bed. “Were you getting it off the assembly line?”
“I just went down to the corner block to see if it was coming,” and Gardis returned to her typing.
“Well. Now, Nell poppet, good-bye and good luck. You start next Monday morning. Ring me up soon and let me know how you’re getting on. And ring me up at once, night or day, if Charles comes snooping round after the flat. Oh,” she paused at the door, having bestowed on Nell as she passed her a delicious-smelling kiss, gracefully unhurried and presented with her two hands cupping Nell’s surprised face, “if you hear anything of John you might ring me up, too. Just remind him that I am his mother.”
Nell had never heard of exit-lines, but it occurred to her again as Aunt Peggy went out of the door that this was the way she spoke and behaved while appearing before her public. Then she forgot it. Monday morning. Next Monday! And this was Friday evening. She got up off the stool and advanced upon the half-open door whence came the sound of the typewriter, determined to begin asking Gardis for the … what was it her aunt had said? … j—something … at once; presumably Gardis would give her all the details about Akkro Products. But before she got to the door Gardis appeared, wriggling herself, snapping her fingers, and rolling her eyes as she sang to a peculiar rocking rhythm—
“Unfair to Gardis, unfair to G.
Fairfax’s Flour go off to de première
And never say good-bye to me …”
She stopped, and they looked at one another. Nell opened her mouth to speak.
“Is that yours?” Gardis enquired, pointing to something lying on the bed.
“Yes. Why?” Nell’s tone was neither defiant nor flustered; ten years at Claregates, whatever they had not done, had made her quite capable of dealing with malice or bullying, and here she recognized the unmistakable aura of both.
“Oh … nothing. Thought it was a dead cat. Don’t mind me, I’m just a crazy girl.” Her manner changed and became pleasant and business-like. “Now I expect you want to know all about your job, don’t you. I’ve got it all here. Come on in.”
Nell followed her into the little room, which was prettily furnished in pink and black as a miniature office, even down to Gardis’s portable typewriter which was enamelled Shocking Pink.
“Fairfax’s Flour has the office right next to her bedroom so’s she can lie out and just rela-a-x while she dictates,” confided Gardis, searching about in a singularly untidy desk, “park your fanny; shan’t be more than a coupla hours.”
Her voice was low-pitched and chuckling, and Nell had the impression that she emphasized these qualities; she also felt that, although what Gardis said was amusing, if confusing to someone fresh from Dorset, it was not good-naturedly so, and neither was it real: it was as if she were making fun of Americans who talked like that on the pictures. She was muttering as she searched, and Nell caught a word which she had heard the carter on Deywood Farm use when the horses were obstinate about being put into the traces. She knew that it was a bad word but not what it meant.
“Why do you call my aunt ‘Fairfax’s Flour’?” she asked, thinking it better to say something.
“Because she’s married to Sir Barclay Fairfax who made his money out of flour.” Gardis’s voice was now clear and unaffected as Nell’s own, “Didn’t you know it?”
“I knew she had married someone very rich. I didn’t know that he made his money out of flour. I’ve seen Fairfax’s Flour advertised in the country.”
“I guess I’ve lost it,” Gardis said, looking up from the desk where she was sitting, and whose contents were now scattered over the floor, and under her eyelashes at Nell. Nell said nothing, and she went on with the search, “And I had it typed so nicely.”
At last she got up. “No use, I’m afraid. It’s gone. Would you like to see one of my pictures?”
“Let me look.” Nell went over to the desk. “What does it look like?”
“It was all carefully typed …” Suddenly she slipped a hand into her skirt pocket. She pulled out a crumpled sheet and held it up with her eyes glittering maliciously, “Why, there it is! All the time.”
She gave it to Nell, who took it quickly and after scanning it and seeing with relief that all the details—address, telephone number, hours, salary, name of firm and that of her aunt’s friend, Hughes, seemed to be there, put it away in her disgracefully shabby bag.
“I guess you’d better come and be secretary to Fairfax’s Flour instead of me,” said Gardis, who had sat down again. “Fairfax himself is up north now, but he has a roving eye, as you say over here, and if I were his type I wouldn’t be safe. But I shouldn’t think you’re anybody’s type. And—honestly, I’m telling you for your own good—ankle socks in Town! I’ve seen some sights but that beats all. Now come and look at my picture.”
While she was speaking she had been carefully taking out from a portfolio-case a small canvas stretched on wood.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. Fairfax’s Flour said be sure to tell you not to be late on Monday morning, because if there’s anything that does make Mr. Hughes hopping mad, it is lateness. And she said to tell you he could be a devil to work for. So I’m telling you. There,” holding up the picture. “Like it?”
Reserve was a habit with Nell but hypocrisy was not. She shook her head. “I think it’s too weird for words.”
“Oh, do you?” Gardis’s tone was dashed rather than offended, as she surveyed her picture lovingly. “The man who takes the class at the art-school I’m attending says I’m developing my technique rapidly and making a real advance. Are you mad because I said that about your coat and your socks?”
Again Nell shook her head. Her wardrobe was in fact a sort of Record of the Rocks, whose strata recorded the stages of her father’s life-work. She had had to rely for clothes, apart from her school uniform, largely upon whatever the eldest girl at the Big House in the village where his living was had finished with; thus, Rosemary Bratton at Hinchcombe Parva had supplied the pink taffeta trimmed with rouleaux which was Nell’s best dress; Diana Frazer-Finch the grey flannel suit she was wearing on this March evening; and Elizabeth Prideaux, with whom she had been at Claregates and to whom she still wrote and who occasionally replied from her finishing-school at Châteaux d’Oex, had given her a fur jacket. It was only bunny, but it was so soft and warm that she never put it on without seeming to feel, coming out from it, a breath of Elizabeth herself; her pouter-pigeon figure (known to the Claregates Sixth as Prideaux’s Pride), her passion for scent and young men, and her frank, free tongue. This was the jacket now lying on Lady Fairfax’s bed which Gardis had affected to mistake for a dead cat.
“Then I suppose it’s just æsthetic ignorance; you don’t know much about art. Fairfax’s Flour told me you’ve always lived in the country, isn’t that so?” Gardis had put the picture away and was now quickly taking off her dress. The undergarments revealed were so scanty and torn as to justify to Nell her own slight alarm at the beginning of the performance (they seemed black only in the sense that they matched their wearer’s hair, but the dustiness and stains of the trousers and sweater she now resumed by no means reassured Nell as to the essential purity of the rest).
“Yes,” she answered an
d added rather rashly, “and this is the first time I’ve been to London.”
“Is that so? You must get dear little John to show you the sights. He specializes in London. He’s writing a novel five times as long as Gone With the Wind about it.”
“I don’t suppose he’ll want to show me the sights. Do you know him, then?”
“Oh, he’s around from time to time. Fairfax’s Flour is crazy about him and I hate his guts and he hates mine. So now I’m going off to a party and I only hope he won’t be there.” Gardis was standing by the door, wearing the shaggy fur coat over her trousers but no hat, with her hair screwed up into a knob so tight and so high that it strained the skin of her forehead backwards. She looked at Nell for a moment.
“You’ll get home all right, won’t you?”
“I should think so. Why?”
“Because I’m in a hurry. Fairfax’s Flour did tell me to put you into a radiocab, with the fare back, and the fog’s coming up quite thick, but …”
“Of course I shall be all right.”
“Be seeing you, then. Don’t let me down with Akkro Products, will you, poppet. Good night.” She ran down the stairs. In a moment Nell heard the front door shut with a reverberation hinting that she enjoyed a loud noise.
Nell stood in the smart, softly lit room, looking without seeing them at the gay bottles and jars on her aunt’s dressing table. They glittered, like the ceiling and the pots containing exotic indoor plants, and Nell, who was suffering the onset of a feeling familiar to her at Claregates, waited crossly for the glitter to swim into that of tears. It did not come. She swallowed a lump, was relieved to find the feeling receding.
The luxurious quiet house smelt faintly of roasting chicken as she ran down the stairs and let herself out. Who on earth could be going to eat it?
CHAPTER TWO
BOY IN THE FOG
THE FOG, WHICH she had supposed to be a spiteful invention on the part of Gardis, turned out to be a fact. It had come up within half an hour like an invasion of ghosts. The road was unnaturally silent and distant footsteps were muffled; thick yellow haze veiled the street lamps, which in this backwater of St. John’s Wood were the old-fashioned kind that do not burn chemicals, and the end of the tree-shaded little road was invisible. She could just detect the sound of the distant traffic.
Here Be Dragons Page 2
