Fantails (17 page)

Her small dark eyes swept the visitor from head to foot in an appraising scrutiny. “Ah, there you are! My
dear,
how nice you look! A new frock, nail varnish, and—yes,
nylons!
I should have told you it wasn’t going to be a party.”

Her words and manner, for all their admiring friendliness, contrived to imply that Alison was overdressed, although the linen frock was far less elaborate than her own. Alison felt uncomfortable and knew that she had flushed. Lightly she turned it aside. “The nylons were a present from Andrew. It’s lucky that he can send us an exciting parcel now and then! Some dried fruit and Turkish delight are on the way. I must bring some, when they come, for John.”

Hugh brought her a drink. “Is Andrew going to manage leave for the wedding?” he asked.

“He’s hoping so. I had a letter this afternoon.” Happily she told of Andrew’s good news.

Lucia, listening impatiently, saw an opportunity to lead the talk along the lines she wanted. She seized it. “How glad you’ll be to have him back! I suppose you’ll all go up to London to meet him and have a little celebration?”

How odd of her to ask that, Alison thought. She knows quite well we can’t afford that sort of thing! She answered, “No. He’ll come straight home. We practically never go to London.”

“It
is
a long way,” Lucia agreed. “Did you go when Kiranowski was at the Albert Hall?
What
an experience it was to hear him!”

“Yes, isn’t he marvellous! We went to hear him when he came to Norwich.”

Lucia was taken aback. “Really! I didn’t realise an artist of his standing would have played there.”

“Oh yes, we get first-class concerts there. I don’t think life in England is quite so centralised as before the war, do you? So many people who used to think that London was the hub of the universe as far as shopping was concerned have discovered that there are first-class shops in Norwich and York and Birmingham, for instance, and don’t go trekking off to Bond Street any more.”

“Oh—shops!”

“Other things, too. Always in the Christmas holidays and at Easter we go by bus or on our bicycles to interesting places—Framlingham Castle, Norwich Cathedral, the Stranger’s Hall, and the Castle Museum. Ipswich has a fine museum too, and a simply wonderful collection of pictures. Over books we’re lucky, too. The county library will get us anything we want. And in winter we have the University Extension Lectures. Nobody need feel cut off or out of things these days simply because they can’t afford to go to London!”

Things were not going at all as Lucia had intended. She had seen Alison as a quiet country mouse, ignorant of anything beyond domestic matters and the prosaic affairs of every day. Lucia had meant to lead her on to show her ignorance of such things as art and books and music, knowing that Hugh, with all his wide and varied interests, would find her limitations disappointing. Afterwards she would talk compassionately of the little Hamilton girl, would say how sad it was that the narrowness of her life should have frustrated the development of what ten or fifteen years ago might have been promising material. And Hugh, although he would be sorry for the girl, would henceforth see her merely as an ordinary, rather pathetic little person, and any dawning interest he might have felt for her would undoubtedly be nipped in the bud.

What Lucia had failed to realise was that she herself, with her interminable talk of Hugh and John and Melanie, Mrs. MacNeish’s cooking, her flat in London, and the shortcomings of her charwoman, had given Alison no opportunity when they were alone together of making any mention of her own interests. She was exasperated now by this inopportune discovery of her mistake, by Hugh’s intent expression as he looked at Alison’s animated face. And so she was relieved, instead of angered, by the appearance of an unexpected diversion in the arrival of John, who pranced in, clad in a blue dressing-gown whose sleeves were so long that they hid his hands. He flapped them. “Look at
me!
I’m a bird. I’m a crow.” He flung himself on Alison. “Jenny said you were here and so I came to see you.”

“I’m afraid Jenny is a very bad influence on someone I could mention,” Lucia said to Hugh. “He’d never have done this a week ago.”

Hugh did not answer. She was doubtful if he had even heard her. He was watching John and Alison, the confidence with which the small boy settled on her lap, his head against her shoulder, while with one finger he traced the pattern of a ship on her frock. “Nice little red ships! What have they got for cargoes, do you think?”

“Sprats.”

John touched another. “And this one?”

“Sprats too.”

“
I
think herrings. And in
this
one apples.”

“You haven’t been to see me for two days. And I’ve got something nice to tell you.”

“What?”

“Guess!”

“You’ve got some little chickens?”

“No.”

“Ducklings?”

“No.”

“Andrew’s sent some grapefruit?”

“I’m expecting some nice things from Andrew very soon, and when they come you’re going to have some. But it isn’t that.”

“Tell me?” he coaxed her.

“How would you like to have one of the kittens for your own?”

He stared at her incredulous. “For my very own? To live in this house, here with me?”

“Yes. Here in this house, with you.”

“And could I call it Tiger?”

“You could call it anything you liked!”

“Oh!”
Bliss had made him almost speechless. It was in a whisper that he said “I never,
never
thought I’d have a kitten of my own!”

His happiness was so touching that there were tears in Alison’s eyes as she looked up at Hugh, though she was smiling.

But Lucia was not smiling. Lucia was furious—not that John should have a kitten, but that she herself was not the means of his possessing it. If she had got it for him or suggested to him that perhaps Alison might let him have one, nothing would have been more suitable and happy than that he should have it. But as it was—No.

“Oh dear!” she said, “I
hardly
think ... Alison, my dear, if only you had asked me first! Small people do take disappointments dreadfully to heart! But I’m afraid I scarcely think it’s wise. I never think a cat is healthy for a small child. They wander so, and carry all sorts of bacteria. And only the other day I read that one had smothered a tiny baby in a pram by sleeping on its face. I really
don’t
think—though I know you meant it kindly! Rabbits are
quite
another matter, aren’t they? Safely shut up in a hutch! But cats stray into all sorts of unsavoury places and bring back germs. I do feel it would be most unwise to run a risk of that sort. You agree, Hugh, don’t you?”

Surely, she thought, a doctor of all people would back up her argument!

Alison, taken aback, said, “I
am
so sorry, but I did ask—”

Hugh said shortly: “Of course. There isn’t any earthly reason why John shouldn’t have a kitten.”

But the ecstasy had faded from John’s face. Anxiously he looked from one grown-up to the other. Even when his father said that he might have the kitten, he still looked worried. “Germs! What’s germs? What do they do to you?” He searched his father’s face, then Alison’s, with wide, troubled eyes.

Exasperated and distressed, Alison realised that Lucia’s policy of training him by fear was having its effect. Disastrous effect! At five years old he had begun to look for danger. Calmly she told him, “All the world is full of germs. Didn’t you know? They’re in the air, and in the food you eat, and inside you yourself, so tiny you can’t see them. Bad ones make you ill. Good ones fight the bad ones. When they win, you’re well again.”

“Are they what makes me tickle sometimes?”

Alison’s lips twitched. “Perhaps. I don’t know much about them. You ask Daddy. He knows far more about these things than I do.”

“I’ll show you some to-morrow in a microscope, old boy,” Hugh promised.

Alison felt the small thin body relax against her shoulder. “So the kitten could bring back
good
germs?”

“Of course!” Outwardly calm, inwardly Hugh felt savage. Lucia meant well, but at this rate she would do the boy incalculable harm, with all her talk of what would happen to little boys who didn’t eat their share of vitamins, and how you ought to drink between meals because if you drank with them awful things would happen to your tummy, and now this about germs. Thank heaven Mrs. MacNeish was back at last! This evening after dinner he would have a talk with Lucia, tell her the time had come for him to shoulder his own household...

By curious coincidence, precisely as he thought of her, the housekeeper’s voice spoke from the door. “Excuse me, sir, but could I have a word with you for just a minute?” He knew her well enough to realise she would not summon him while a visitor was present without some urgent reason. Wondering what was amiss, whether MacNeish had cut himself or sprained his ankle or met with some other calamity, he said, “Of course, Mrs. MacNeish! I will be with you in a moment.” Turning he swung John up into his arms. “Come along, young fellow-my-lad! High time you were in bed!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but if you don’t mind I think it would be better to leave John here for the present.”

He nodded at her reassuringly. “Right! John, you’re in luck to-night!” Then he went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

What could be the matter? Alison had a vivid mental picture of Jenny, badly cut, in pools of blood, or MacNeish badly scalded and in agony. The only thing to do, particularly for John’s sake, was to go on talking cheerfully and quietly as though nothing unusual had happened. Lucia gave her little help. She was thoroughly exasperated with the way things had turned out. First Hugh had put away the photographs of Melanie, then Alison had shown herself to be no country bumpkin, no ignoramus, but intelligent and alert, with a capacity for making the most of such opportunities as came her way. And now, if only John hadn’t been left there, it would have been a splendid chance to talk of Hugh’s devotion to the memory of Melanie, to take her photographs from the bureau, show them to Alison, tell her, “He put them there only a few minutes before you came. They mean so much to him, he doesn’t care to have them out except when we’re alone ... If only all the silly girls and women who run after him could realise that no one can take Melanie’s place ... But with John here, one must be cautious. Pulling herself together, she was beginning to make some pretence of joining with Alison and John in their discussion as to whether a lion or a tiger would be more likely to win if they should meet and have a fight, when Hugh came back.

“I’m afraid Jenny’s not well,” he said. “It seems she’s not felt very bright for several days, heavy and headachey, but didn’t say much, as with Mrs. MacNeish away there was a good deal to be done—though apparently she did tell you this morning that she had had a headache, Lucia?”

“These girls make such a fuss about the slightest thing! We all get headaches now and then.”

“M’m. It’s a pity that you didn’t mention it to me ... Mrs. MacNeish didn’t like the look of her just now when she went down for John’s milk, and very sensibly thought I’d better see her before John went back to her. She has a temperature of 103. There’s very little doubt that she’s got measles.”

“
Measles!”
Lucia was horrified. “And nowadays it often leaves such serious after-effects!” She looked at John. “Oh
dear!”

Alison said quickly, “Poor old Jenny! Won’t she look funny if it’s measles—all covered with spots!”

John, who had begun to look alarmed when Lucia was speaking, was intrigued. “Spots? Like a leopard?”

“Not very like a leopard. Little pink spots.”

“Will they hurt her?”

“Not a bit,” his father told him reassuringly.

“Is it germs that makes the spots?”

“Yes. I shall have to give-her medicine to help the good germs in the battle. When they’ve won, then she’ll be well again.”

John lay back against Alison’s shoulder, considering this.

Lucia said, “Where is she now? Have you arranged to have her taken home?”

“
Home?
She can’t possibly go home! Her Mother has four other children all younger than Jenny. And there are only three bedrooms in their cottage.”

“But she can’t stay here!”

“Where else is she to stay?”

“
But—”
Lucia broke into French
,
“Notre petit Jean!
Si
—er
—si maigre! Si
—er—
delicat!
S’il attrape les
measles
il sera sans doute tres tres malade.”

J
ohn looked anxiously from one to another. “I don’t
like
you talking things that I can’t understand!”

Alison said, looking directly at Hugh, “It’s time for me to go. I’m going to ask you a tremendous favour. Jane has gone away for a week. I shall be lonely all by myself. I wonder if you’d lend me John for company?”

Hugh said slowly, ‘That really is most frightfully good of you. It certainly would make things a great deal easier—though I hate to land you with the bother—”

“Bother! I shall love it! John, will you come and stay with me?”

“In Fantails? And sleep there an’ everything?”

“Oh—
yes!
Can we go now? This minute?”

“This instant minute.”

“Lucia, perhaps you’d get his clothes,” Hugh said. “If Alison will take them I can carry him across.” The look he gave her gave her no alternative but to do as he had asked. But as she gathered clothes for John to wear tomorrow in a little heap Lucia’s hands were shaking with the passion of rage and jealousy that possessed her. John was
hers!
It was intolerable that Alison should come interfering in what was no concern of hers, under the guise of kindness, when in fact she did it simply to worm herself into Hugh’s good graces. Not that Lucia wanted Hugh. She hated him—had always hated him for taking Melanie from her. It was John she wanted, John who filled her whole existence now that Melanie was dead. She would have minded not at all, she would in fact have been delighted if she need never have seen Hugh again. But since it was impossible for her to be with John without remaining on good terms with his father she hid her animosity. And at all costs she must prevent Hugh from marrying a second time, for if he did, there would be no longer any question of her staying on with John. No second wife would want the first wife’s sister taking charge of her small stepson. No second wife, that is, who loved the child as Alison loved John. Somehow she must end the liking growing up between Alison and Hugh...