Authors: Elswyth Thane
“Well—that’s nice, isn’t it,” said Evadne, who was not accustomed to quite so direct an approach.
“And what’s more—it’s downstairs where there’s dancing.”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at dancing, I—”
“Well, believe it or not, I am,” said Stephen modestly. “I gotta be! You’ll pick it up from me in no time.”
“Well—I—”
“Let’s go,” said Stephen, and linked his arm in hers and marched her off to the lifts after the others.
Dinah was saying that she thought in view of the day’s news they needed to be gay, and that dinner downstairs would discourage brooding. A lot of other people apparently had the same idea, and the Savoy was full of well-dressed, well-bred British, who are inclined, as Kipling pointed out, to take their pleasures as Saint Lawrence took his grid.
As soon as a decent amount of soup had been consumed, Stephen turned to Evadne and said, “Come on,” and rose.
“I—don’t—” she faltered, rising too, and he kept her hand in his till they reached the edge of the floor, where he drew her into his arms and became the music. A little breathless, a little unyielding, she followed desperately.
“Let yourself go,” he murmured, and his cheek brushed her hair. “
Dance!
”
His right arm tightened, and they performed a spirited pirouette. “See?” said Stephen. “It’s fun. Try this one.”
She lost the step, fumbled with her feet, and gasped with embarrassment, looking up at him apologetically.
“I’m s-so sorry—I warned you—”
“My fault,” he grinned, and his eyes ran over the sedate, rather formal couples which surrounded them on the floor. “It’s a serious business here, I see—dancing.”
“They’re not—professionals,” she got out, and missed another step.
“Was that a crack?” he demanded in complete good humour. “No, I can see it wasn’t. Just a fact.”
“P-please slow up a little,” she begged unhappily.
“I can’t slow up, it’s
their
damn’ tempo, not mine,” he said. “Unless you want to go all off-beat like the Duke of Suburbia over there.” And he suddenly became a tall, blank-faced young man with teeth, moving majestically in superb disregard of the band, with his partner held stiffly at arm’s length as though she were dripping wet. Evadne laughed, and their feet got into a hopeless tangle. He drew her back again and resumed his own step, which she was learning to like. “That’s better,” he said before long. “You’re in America now. Relax.”
Evadne had never been held so closely in a dance before—she felt his breath on her cheek as they turned a corner, felt the perfect rhythm of his movement, was conscious of his stiff white shirt-front and the spiky collar above it, and the hard masculine authority of the arm which encircled her waist in his strong, clever lead. His left hand, which held her right, was neither hot nor clammy, neither awkwardly respectful nor flirtatious. It was just a warm, kind hand which one could cling to, and she did. For all his intensely personal attitude and open admiration, there was nothing tiresome about the way he held her. He did not encroach or presume. He was dancing. Before long Evadne was dancing too, with an ease and abandon she had never experienced before, so that they moved together as one person.
Then the music stopped and he said, “You catch on, don’t you. I suppose we must go back to the table now and then.”
“Well, how is she?” Sylvia asked him with family frankness when they sat down, and he answered simply, “A bit British at first, but I broke her down.”
Evadne blushed and glanced uncertainly round the table as they laughed, and Stephen thought compassionately, “The girl is shy—all tied up in knots. Who’s to blame for this?” And as he had never seen Virginia till tonight, for she had left Williamsburg before he was born, he assumed that it must be
her fault that Evadne was a mass of tensions, which was unjust.
They danced together again, just before the sweet was brought, and this time she came more willingly, and was pliant and easy in his arms.
“Things are going to be pretty hectic with me till after the opening,” he said as they danced. “But I don’t want to lose any time. How about your coming to the theatre tomorrow about twelve-thirty so we could have lunch together? I’ll take an hour.”
“Oh, no, not tomorrow, I’m afraid—on account of Hermione.” And though she refused unwillingly, she had still no idea of the magnitude of his offer—the star of a new show, who took his work very seriously, allowing an hour for lunch with a girl, on the first day of rehearsals for a London opening barely a fortnight away.
“Isn’t there anyone else to look after her?” he suggested.
“There’s Mrs. Spindle from nine to twelve—but Hermione doesn’t like her, so I’ll have to do the tray and take it in. Mrs. Spindle would be sure to muff it somehow.”
“You mean Hermione is right down sick in bed with this thing?”
“Oh, yes, we had a doctor. She’s miserable, running a temperature and all. You don’t get over it in a day.”
“Look out you don’t catch it yourself.”
“Oh, I’m strong as a horse,” Evadne said, and he noted again her fragile throat and narrow waist and the lean, high cheekbones with a long, sweet curve to the jaw.
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Spindle?” he asked patiently.
“Matter with her? Nothing.”
“That Hermione doesn’t like her, I mean.”
“Oh, well, that—I don’t know, she talks a lot, bless her, and Hermione says she pries. I get along with her all right, but Hermione says I’m just naturally gregarious.”
“Good for you,” said Stephen. “Who
is
Hermione? I’m all at sea here, you know, among the cousins. Sylvia used to read
me bits of Jeff’s letters, but I never got the family sorted out from that.”
“I suppose we do seem rather a lot of people to you. Hermione is the girl I live with when I’m not at Farthingale with Mummy. We have a flat in Bayswater.”
“Yes, but how am I related to Hermione, for instance?” he asked, and Evadne hesitated conscientiously.
“I don’t think you are at all, really. She’s a Campion, like me, our fathers were brothers. But she is Oliver’s daughter by his first wife, so of course she isn’t related to Jeff.”
“Well, that clears that up. The next thing I want to know—”
But the dance ended then, and they returned to the table. He got her address and telephone number written down on a bit torn off the menu before the party broke up. He insisted on seeing her home in a taxi and made her promise to show him London after the opening night was off his mind. She hedged about this until finally he said, “What’s the matter, are you spoken for?”
“S-spoken for?” she repeated with that slight near-stammer of apologetic confusion which seemed to overtake her frequently and which he found entirely charming and a little pathetic—as though she anticipated some sort of reprimand for stupidity.
Stephen reached for her left hand in the dark of the taxi and deliberately felt the naked third finger, as he said, “Not engaged, are you?”
“Oh,
no
—no, of course not!” Her denial was hasty and shocked.
“Well, then, why all this quibbling about a few friendly dates?”
“It’s only that I—you see, when I go out like that it leaves Hermione alone in the flat, and—”
“Hasn’t she got any boy friends of her own?”
“N-no, you see Hermione doesn’t—doesn’t have many friends, and so—”
“Why not?” said Stephen, reasonably enough.
“Well, it’s hard to say, really, she—not everyone understands her—”
“And you do?”
“Oh, yes! Hermione and I are very close.”
“Mm-hm,” said Stephen, without approval. “But surely you can make her see that being a stranger here myself—”
“Perhaps you would like to come to tea at the flat—some day after she gets over this cold,” Evadne interrupted nervously.
“Is that permitted?”
“Yes, of course—we often have a few people in to tea, not
big
parties, you know, Hermione doesn’t like them.”
“Who pours?” asked Stephen.
“Hermione. Why?”
“I just asked,” he said.
“I make very nice cucumber sandwiches, everyone says—it’s a speciality at our teas. And there’s a little shop nearby that sells oatmeal cakes. Hermione hates fussing about in a kitchen, but I rather enjoy it. We leave the dishes for Mrs. Spindle in the morning. We live very simply,” she added on that recurrent note of apology.
“Do you like it?”
“Do I—?”
“Like living simply with Hermione.”
“Yes, of course! Mummy didn’t think it was a good idea at first, but I talked her into it, just to try, so she lets me pay my share, though Hermione says that wasn’t necessary. She has her own money and can do as she likes.”
“Mm-hm,” said Stephen, without satisfaction.
“Why do you sound like that? Have they been talking to you about Hermione?” she demanded suspiciously.
“Who?”
“The family.”
“Not had much chance, have they?”
“Jeff, then. Did Jeff write horrid things about her in his letters?”
“I told you I don’t remember much about Jeff’s letters. I
didn’t pay attention to them. I’m beginning to wish now that I had. Why would he write horrid things about Hermione?”
“Because they have never got along. Her father married Jeff’s mother, and Hermione always felt that it wasn’t right of him, after her own mother died during the war.”
“Lots of people have married again since the war,” Stephen pointed out sensibly. “It’s the only thing to do, to mend their lives and go on, if they can.”
“Yes, b-but you see—Oliver and Phoebe were in love, apparently,
before
Aunt Maia died.”
“Well, so what? Did they murder her?”
“Oh,
no,
it was during an air raid, she—”
“So what?” repeated Stephen inflexibly.
“Y-yes, I see what you mean in a way,” said Evadne faintly. “But all the same, I can see how Hermione feels too.”
“I can’t. It’s none of her business if her father chooses to marry again. He’s old enough to run his own life, I should think, without her opinions.”
“Yes, I know,” Evadne conceded meekly. “But Hermione is very sensitive. And she adored her mother.”
“Mm-hm,” said Stephen, without sympathy. “Must make it nice for Phoebe!”
“Well, between you and me, I think that was one reason Oliver let Hermione take the flat. Because of Phoebe. Hermione was rather hurt about that. She said they were only too glad to be rid of her.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Stephen unfeelingly. “But what about you?”
“Oh, I enjoy being with Hermione,” she assured him. “She’s all right once you get to know her. Most people don’t bother to try.”
“People who enjoy being hard to know usually aren’t worth the trouble,” Stephen said sagely.
“I don’t think Hermione does enjoy it, it’s only that she’s very reserved and perhaps expects too much of people. Actually I’m sorry for her. There, I don’t say that to everybody!” she added impulsively as the cab stopped before a big block of flats
in the Queen’s Road. “I daren’t ask you to come in, she’s probably got to sleep by now.” Evadne held out her hand and lifted her face to him with her radiant, all-over smile revealed by a nearby street lamp. “Good night, Stephen, thank you for seeing me home. We’ll meet again soon, I hope.”
“We certainly will,” he agreed, and planted another kiss on her lips.
As Evadne went up in the automatic lift she discovered with a genuinely sinking feeling that she had not learned much after all about what Bracken thought of the situation in the Rhineland, and she began hastily to arrange an account of the evening to give to Hermione. Stephen returned thoughtfully to the Savoy in the taxi, and realized that he had not heard one word from Evadne about God. And Sylvia, putting out her light at the hotel, was reflecting that she had never seen Stephen less preoccupied and jumpy about an opening night.
At a quarter past twelve the following day the doorbell of the flat in Bayswater rang. Evadne, who was preparing Hermione’s luncheon tray in the kitchen, said, “Oh, hang it all!” and dried her hands and went to see what it was. Then she said, “Oh—hullo,” and stood there rather blankly, holding the door.
Stephen stood outside on the threshold, his arms piled high with parcels.
“Mind if I come in?” he suggested after a suitable interval. “Some of this is heavy.”
“Oh—yes—do come in.” Evadne faded back before him and he passed her down the narrow passage and into the living-room, where he paused and turned towards her again as she followed him in a stunned silence.
“If you will sort of unload me from the top—” he said, and she began still without a word to lay the parcels he was stacked with on the table. “I don’t want you to think I have rushed all over the town and collected this stuff myself,” he
said. “That would be giving a false impression. I am putting on a show, but I have a most efficient secretary, and there is a place called Fortnum and Mason’s. They did it all.”
“Oh, Stephen, that’s so expensive,” she murmured. “And what a lot of things … Oh, Stephen, it’s a whole meal!”
“That was the general idea. You wouldn’t lunch with me, so I have brought lunch to you. There are three of everything,” he added gravely, as she sent an involuntary anxious glance towards what he surmised was the door of Hermione’s bedroom. “All you have to do is dish it up,” he said. “They advised that you warm the meat pies in the oven and put the custards in the fridge until wanted.”
“Yes—I will—” said Evadne, and stood staring down at the neatly wrapped parcels on the table as though she didn’t know where to begin.
“I thought perhaps I might be allowed to present the flowers to the invalid in person,” he remarked, and lifted the large paper cone. “Nothing like foses for the morale, the book says. Would she mind if I just looked in to say hullo?”
“Well—I’ll ask her.” Evadne backed away from the table, still looking spellbound, and departed for the bedroom.
Stephen waited, glancing about the impersonal furnished flat with some curiosity. No photographs, no sewing, no games, no—feminine clutter. What did they do here, in the evenings? How did they amuse themselves? A radio. Books, a few. He couldn’t see the titles without snooping, but they were obviously sober books, on a high plane of thought. Stephen, whose own rooms were strewn with all kinds of books from detective stories to the toughest reading there was, with solitaire cards and jigsaw puzzles and chessmen and sheet music and an open piano and gramophone records and fan mail and press cuttings and ringing telephones and stacks of portrait proofs and stills, in the midst of which he existed tidily and happily and always knew where everything was, could not imagine life in surroundings so bleak and bare and uninteresting. They had lived here—how long?—and left no imprint. He wondered about Evadne’s room at home, at Farthingale, the room she had
grown up in and occupied outside of Hermione’s influence. Surely that would be more human? Surely she had accumulated
something?
This place was as austerely functional as a nun’s cell.