"I don't know." Fay stepped into the slight pause which followed the question—she had to make the most of small opportunities like this or the one-way conversation would flow on
forever
with Fay getting more and more bewildered. "I don't know—I haven't met him yet."
Toni Travers' mouth fell open in surprise. "You haven't? Then how did you get here? I sent him to meet you. You must have seen him—Mark always does what I ask him."
"Well, I'm afraid he didn't meet me. Perhaps he went to the wrong station or something—"
"Wrong station my foot!" the old lady was emphatic. "He met you at the airport."
"But I told you in my letter that I would be coming down by train—the tourist agency back home fixed all my tickets for me—"
Toni was not really listening any more, but a look of consternation clouded her eyes for a moment. "Oh dear—Mark will be cross," she sighed. "He's always telling me to be more accurate—but I really did think I'd got it right this time—"
At that precise moment after a rather peremptory knock at the door it burst open and a tall man came in. "Toni, you've done it again !" he spoke as he came. "Sent me off on another wild goose chase. There was no such person as your
—oh!" he stopped abruptly as his glance encountered Fay. "Oh—you've arrived, I see."
"Yes—I came down by rail," Fay explained, sorry for the long cold drive he must have had but not inclined to be apologetic since the mistake was none of her doing.
"Well, why didn't you say so?" he demanded, and Fay would have thought he was addressing her but for the fact that his keen dark eyes were fixed on Toni.
"I'm sorry, dear boy," she smiled at him sweetly, "but you know what I am—just a silly old woman. I expect I got things mixed, but it doesn't matter now—you're both here and I want you to like each other. She's just like I told you, Mark, isn't she? Golden curls, violet eyes and the loveliest complexion—pure cream and roses. Just like her photograph, only nicer—" As she was speaking Toni got up and crossed to a table behind Fay and came back again with a large photograph in her hand.
Fay recognised it as one of her mother taken when she had been about her own age, or perhaps a little younger.
Mark glanced a little grimly at the photograph, and remarked, "Yes—she's a little too much like that photograph. And it's stood on that table for as long as I can remember." Then he looked at the old lady again and his expression softened. "Oh dear, this is another of your gaffes, Toni dear. Why didn't you tell me that it was not your angel child I was to meet, but her daughter?"
For a moment Toni looked blank. "Oh goodness! Of course—how stupid of me. I am sorry—please forgive me, Mark dear. Somehow as one gets older the years fly past so quickly. I had forgotten—"
For the first time since she had entered this house Fay felt firm ground under her feet. Sickness, mental or physical, was one thing she did understand, and the realisation that Toni was a little sick in her mind explained so many things that had seemed more than odd. She took charge of the situation at once.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Travers," she smiled. "Mother has always told me so much about you that I feel as if I'd known you all those years too."
"I'll go and put the car away as I shan't be wanting it again to meet you with," Mark excused himself ungrammatically and, abruptly as he had come, disappeared from the room.
Toni Travers settled herself down again in her chair by the fire, sitting very upright and very much in command of things again. "Of course—it was terribly stupid of me. I remember perfectly. You're a nurse, aren't you? And I wrote to my friend the Matron of St. Edith's about you. Was it all right? Did she give you a post there?"
"Yes—and I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for the introduction. By all accounts St. Edith's is a splendid hospital and the experience there will be invaluable to me."
The bright dark eyes, so alive in the old lady's face, studied Fay for a few moments. Then, "You know you're far too pretty for a nurse," she commented. "You'd far better fall in with my plan—"
What that plan was Fay was not destined to hear, for with apparent inconsequence Toni harked back to a previous point in the conversation.
"I've a queer family," she confessed with a smile, "and I can't pretend that I understand or approve of them all—but then I'm an old woman, another generation altogether, so that probably explains it. But Mark's the best of the bunch —I do know that. In fact I don't know how I'd get along without him. You can always rely on Mark," she assured her guest.
The talk went on desultorily for a little longer, and then Toni dismissed her peremptorily, and Fay went back to the little bedroom which had been allotted to her.
She began to understand what Mrs. Horsfall had meant about the plumbing. The party was beginning to take baths, apparently, and the gurglings and bangings which went on in the pipes might have been a trifle alarming if she had not been warned.
As she drew the curtains against the night which had already set in Fay shivered. She wished again with devoutness that she had never come to England at all. Why hadn't she been satisfied with the pleasant, comfortable life in the Commemoration Hospital? Nursing was just as worth while
there as anywhere else, and probably there wasn't much more that even London could teach her.
In a moment of devastating honesty she had to admit to herself that there had been more to her decision to come to England than merely the desire to improve her qualifications. She had been brought up all her life to see the Old Country —Home—through the eyes of a very homesick woman who as the years sped by saw the past through glasses which became more and more deeply rose-tinted. Fay had taken it for granted that England was the same as it had been in her mother's youth—a land of gracious living, of kindness and good manners; of men who were not only all good-looking, but perfectly groomed and chivalrous in the extreme.
Already she knew that she was doomed to disappointment and began to suspect that there might come a time when she would be glad of the rougher manners but simpler honesty of "Down Under."
At the moment, however, there was nothing she could do about it. It was obvious that she would have to fend for herself here. As she had not the slightest idea of the routine of the house she would have to pluck up her courage, go downstairs and try to find the housekeeper, who had at least seemed a kindly soul. The kitchen quarters seemed the best place to try, and she guessed those to be beyond the door through which the children had disappeared.
She had just schooled herself to this task when there was a thump on her door, which opened to admit the head only of the smaller girl she had seen downstairs. "Mark says I've got to look after you," the head announced.
"Thank goodness for Mark!" Fay breathed to herself, and said aloud, "Come in, won't you, and tell me your name."
"I'm Wendy." The head became a whole figure, and Fay saw that the child had changed the ankle socks for a pair of scarlet stockings which made her look more
gnome like
than ever. "Who're you? Are you really Toni's angel child?"
"No—that was my mother," Fay replied, wishing she could get rid of the feeling of inadequacy which this child produced in her. "Was that your sister I saw with you in the hall?"
"Helen? M'yes, she's a sort of sister. We've got the same
mother but different fathers," the child went on matter-of-factly. "Helen's father was stinking rich. I don't know who mine was, but he must have been something speshul."
"I see," Fay murmured. "Is your mother with you now?"
"Oh no. Mummy's on a cruise with Singh. She never stays in England in the winter if she can help it. Singh's stinking rich too—he's got a yacht and a palace and all that sort of thing. I like Singh," she finished. "Helen doesn't because he talks a bit funny, but I think he's all right."
"Where do you go to school?" Fay switched over to what she hoped would be a safer subject.
"It all depends," the gnome told her.
"Depends on what? You do have to go to school over here, don't you?"
"Oh yes, we have to go as a rule. But it depends on whether Toni pays the bills, where we go. When she pays up we go to Westcott—that's boarding. When she doesn't we have to go to village schools. What was it you wanted to know?"
"Eh?" Fay was a little startled by the abrupt question, and the child went on impatiently.
"Mark said you'd want to know things—what sort of things?"
"Oh—well, what time is dinner?"
"Supper at half past seven," said the child promptly. "I see—then I suppose we don't have to dress?"
For the first time Fay had the satisfaction of surprising her visitor. "What d'you mean? Of course we wear our clothes—it isn't that sort of supper, like cocoa and biscuits round the fire in our
pyjamas
."
"Thank you." Fay repressed an urgent desire to giggle. This mad household was making her a little light-headed and she wondered what she would be like by the time Christmas was over. She hadn't really met the rest of the party yet. "Is Mark your uncle?" she asked Wendy.
The child seethed to ponder for a moment, and then said, "He's—just Mark." Then, as if with a sudden inspiration, she went, "I'll tell you one thing—he's not my father. If he had been Mummy would've been stuck with him for keeps. Mark's that sort of person."
"Well, that's a good thing," Fay thought fervently.
"Can I go now?" Wendy was already edging towards the door.
"Yes—thank you very much for all your help." Fay was determined not to let her own manners deteriorate to the same level as the child's, but if she hoped to shame her she was disappointed, for the only change of expression in Wendy's face was one of scorn before the door closed behind her with a resounding bang.
Perhaps because she felt so thoroughly out of rapport with her surroundings Fay obeyed the summons of the dinner gong with reluctance and some trepidation. Once through the dining room door, however, all her apprehension vanished. She was in another and much more civilised world.
The long refectory table mirrored the candles which in threefold candelabra intersected its length. More candles shed a soft light from sconces on the walls. The rest of the party seemed already assembled there, and there was a general buzz of conversation as they stood or lounged over the backs of the chairs. They all seemed to be waiting for someone, and for a dreadful moment Fay wondered if she were late, but she was soon reassured. Though there were a few curious glances in her direction there was no lull in the chatter, and she would have felt lost indeed had not Mark come across to her. He was wearing a conventional lounge suit, and though he was the only man dressed in such formal attire the velvet-collared jackets and rather long hair of the other boys were not unsuitable in those surroundings.
"Come along," Mark smiled. "You're to sit next to me—for your sins," and he led her to the foot of the long table.
At her first sight of him Fay had thought him brusque, but now she remembered that he had just come back from a long and fruitless drive. Now she found warmth and comfort in his smile.
"You're looking very charming," he complimented her. "I suppose you are the angel child's daughter?"
"Yes," Fay smiled up at him
"You're very like her," he commented, staring down at
her quite unashamedly and with an intentness which in other circumstances she would have found embarrassing.
"She was much prettier—she was really lovely, always," Fay told him earnestly. Two years was not long and the memory of her parents would last her for her lifetime.
"Then I still maintain you're very like her," Mark said with a hint of mischief in his eyes which brought the pink to her cheeks.
A sudden cessation of the chatter spared Fay any fear that her blushes would be noticed. Everyone's attention was directed towards the door which had just opened to admit their hostess.
Toni wore a plain black dress with a collar of pearls. She looked very different now from the tweed-suited figure standing astride before the fire as Fay had seen her that afternoon, and as she moved to her place at the head of the table with a queenly dignity it was not hard to imagine her as she had been fifty years ago—at the height of her beauty. She still moved, Fay noticed, with consummate grace.
Mark had left her side to escort his grandmother to her place, from which she smiled down the table and said, "Good evening, everyone—I hope you've all been enjoying yourselves today?"
There was a chorus of reply : "Good evening, Toni," and "Yes, thank you." This was evidently a ritual, and as soon as Toni was seated everyone scrambled into their places and the chatter broke out again.
From her vantage point at the foot of the table on Mark's right hand Fay took stock of her fellow guests. No one had thought of introductions and she was left to her own resources to fathom out which was Bernard, or Derek, or Charlie, or Nigel amongst the young men present. The girls were a little easier because they were more distinctive. The redhead was Cynthia. Lucy was an ash-blonde, and Jill dark-haired with blue eyes. The girl on Mark's other side was the beauty of the party and betrayed her Italian ancestry in her black hair and dark eyes, like Toni's only not so alert. She ignored Fay entirely and addressed Mark continuously with a proprietorial air.