Authors: Elswyth Thane
He could hear a murmur of voices across the passage, during the delay. Hermione would be powdering her nose, he thought. Then Evadne returned.
“She was just sitting up to have some lunch,” she said. “She only wanted a cup of broth and some biscuits, but I’ve persuaded her to eat a bit of what you’ve brought. You may come as far as the door, but I shan’t allow you to go in for fear you’ll catch a germ before the opening.”
“I’d chance that,” said Stephen, who always avoided people with colds like the plague, and gargled after every contact with a crowd for days before a first night.
“No, you must keep at a distance, the doctor says it’s the infectious kind. You can look in from the doorway and I’ll take the flowers to her.”
She led the way across the passage and he paused at the threshold of the bedroom and said, with his grin, “How do you do? We missed you last night.”
“From what I hear you all got on very well without me,” said Hermione, and there was somehow an implication in the words, as though already she had sensed the tremendous new thing that had happened to him and Evadne as they danced, and would have prevented it if she had been there.
“Oh, well, the more the merrier,” he said lamely, thinking,
Cat.
I knew she would be a cat. This Won’t Do. She even looked rather like a cat, he thought, with strange light-grey eyes set at a slant, a small neat nose, and a tight mouth. Stephen’s very adequate knowledge of the female cosmos warned him that she was not, probably, looking her best.
“Darling, see what he’s brought you,” said Evadne at the bedside, and laid the big white cone on the coverlet.
“Thank you so much,” said Hermione perfunctorily, and opened back the paper to reveal large pink tea roses of a truly royal extravagance. “They
are
lovely. We have nothing fit to put them in, I’m afraid.”
But Evadne caught the cool, heavy blooms between her two hands and laid her face against them for a moment before she said. “There’s the silver pitcher. I’ll fetch that.”
“Not deep enough,” said Hermione.
“We’ll try it.” Evadne passed Stephen in the doorway. “It’s in the kitchen. I’ll fill it there.”
There was a pause, while Hermione said nothing to make him welcome.
“You must get better before our opening night,” he said. “It’s going to be quite a Thing.”
“Yes, all the family have got to be there, dead or alive,” she answered with a smile which showed her small white teeth. (A cat’s smile he thought.) “Bracken seems to have bought out the house, and everyone has got a new dress to wear.”
Evadne came back with the silver pitcher full of water, heavy in her hands. She set it down on the glass top of the dressing-table and began to stand the roses in it, one by one.
“You must cut the ends off the stems,” said Hermione, watching from the bed.
“Oh—yes, of course—” Evadne snatched up a pair of scissors from the dressing-table.
“No,” said Hermione. “You must use a sharp knife, and make a slanting cut.”
“Wouldn’t it be all right if I did that later. You see, Stephen’s brought all those things for lunch and it will take quite a while to get them undone, and he has only an hour till he must be back at the theatre.”
“You can’t mistreat lovely flowers like those,” said Hermione from her pillows. “Get a knife and do it properly.”
“Yes, darling,” said Evadne, and again she passed Stephen in the doorway on her way to the kitchen.
He leaned up against the door-post and there was a silence, till she returned with the knife. Rather clumsily, with hurried, reckless hands, while Hermione watched from the bed and Stephen waited in the doorway, she began to slice the end off
each stem before putting it into the pitcher. The mouth of the pitcher was too wide, and the roses slid about in it and went into slanting bunches instead of spraying out at appropriate distances from each other.
“It needs one of those things with holes in it at the bottom of the pitcher, to hold them up straight,” Evadne said at last, and Stephen wondered if her hands were really shaking or if he only thought so, and she wondered if he noticed, and hated him for looking.
“Really, darling, you’re hopeless with flowers,” said Hermione kindly from the bed, and there was a dagger in her voice.
“Yes, I know I am, I—Mummy always does them at home, I—” Evadne scooped at them desperately and they went into a bundle and stayed there.
“I’ll have to do them myself, later,” said Hermione, noticeably patient. “Never mind. I’ll get up and do them presently.” She rested her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes, forbearing and ill. “You mustn’t keep Stephen waiting for his lunch.”
“He’s brought dear little meat pies,” said Evadne, too lightly. “I’ll put them in the oven to warm.”
“Not for me,
please,”
said Hermoine delicately. “You
were
going to give me some broth, weren’t you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“After you and Stephen have your own lunch,” said Hermione. “There’s no hurry. I’m not hungry.”
Again Evadne passed him in the doorway, this time with her head held down because her eyes were full of tears. Stephen followed slowly, thinking hard. He knew now what he had come to find out, and it was worse than he thought.
“I’m afraid I’ve made you a lot of trouble,” he said, stepping back out of the way as she carried some of the parcels across the passage to the kitchen.
“It’s all right,” she said, not looking at him. “You bring the rest out here, will you, and we’ll put it on the plates.”
“I didn’t mean to cause extra trouble, like this,” he insisted,
arriving in the kitchen with the custards in their white fluted dishes. “I thought it would be fun, I mean—”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, her head still down, above the pies.
“Would it do any good if I went now?”
“No. Please don’t. It’s only because she doesn’t feel well.”
“Because if it would be any easier for you, I—”
She made no answer, putting the meat pies into the oven and lighting the fire. As she straightened he caught her by one shoulder, faced her towards him, and cupped her chin in a quick warm hand. Forced to look up at him, she stood quietly in his hold while her eyes spilled over with tears and her mouth trembled uncontrollably.
“Here,” he said gently. “Here, now, it’s not as bad as that.” He took the clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at the tears on her face.
“I’m
so
sorry she was like this today,” she said unsteadily. “She’s all on edge because of the fever. I shouldn’t have let you go in at all, but she
said
it was all right—”
“Now, look, honey, stop it, my feelings aren’t hurt a bit.”
“But the very first time you come here, and after you took all this trouble—”
“That doesn’t worry me, it’s the way she treats you I don’t like.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, it’s only—” The tears brimmed up again. “I’ve had three days of this, and I do
everything
wrong, and have to do it over again—”
“You poor kid.” He took her into his arms and she hid her face against his shoulder and shook with suppressed sobbing while he held her close, her cheek pressed against her hair. “It’s no fun nursing a job like that, you don’t have to tell me,” he said.
She straightened, gasping, and took the handkerchief from him and wiped her eyes, returned his property, and lighted the fire under a pan of broth on the stove.
“Please don’t say anything about this to anyone,” she said, very low. “They’re all down on her, anyway. I’ll just take the
broth in to her first, and then we’ll have our lunch in the living-room. I don’t want to make you late.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m the bride, you know,” he said comfortably. “They have to wait for me.”
They stood silently watching the broth come to a simmer, their shoulders touching. She poured it into a bowl and took it on a dainty tray to the bedroom.
“Watch the pies,” she said over her shoulder as she went.
A minute later she came back with the tray untouched, and set it down on the end of the sink.
“She says she’s sleepy now and doesn’t want it,” she reported without expression. “I’ll have to heat it up again later. We’ll put our things on trays and you can tell me all about the show while we eat. What did you do this morning?”
He filled the next few minutes with entertaining chat, until they were seated at the living-room table with their food.
“I’m afraid I can’t offer you a glass of sherry or anything like that,” she said anxiously then. “There’s no liquor in the house. It’s guidance.”
“What? Oh—I see—”
“Hermione never did take anything to drink, she doesn’t care for it. I used to like wine now and then, but it came to me that I didn’t need it at all, it was only an indulgence.”
“Is that bad?” asked Stephen, interested.
“We don’t believe in pampering oneself,” she said solemnly. “And our friends all feel the same way, so we do without it. I’m sorry if you’re accustomed to have it—”
“I’m not a drunkard myself, you know. As a matter of fact, I never take a drink during the day when I’m working. That’s not guidance, though, it’s just common sense.”
“Well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it, really,” she remarked pleasantly. “Stephen, this is a perfectly delicious lunch, and I do thank you for being so thoughtful and trying to help.”
“I meant to cheer things up a bit, but I’m afraid I rather put my foot in it instead. Will she be down on me now for the rest of my life?”
“I hope not. You must try again when she’s well.”
“Why must I?”
“That’s the way Jeff talks. It’s not fair, really it isn’t.”
As her eyes threatened to fill up again he changed the subject hastily.
“I still haven’t figured out exactly how you and I are related to each other,” he observed.
“Well, let’s see—your father is my mother’s—wait, now, they did explain it to me.” Evadne shut her eyes tight for concentration, and said as though reading it off the resulting blackness, “Your father’s father and my mother’s mother were double first cousins.”
“
Well!
”
said Stephen in exaggerated surprise. “Does that mean all our children will be idiots?”
For a moment he faced the dreadful possibility that his future wife might be backward in her sense of humour. It could not affect the way he felt about her if she was, as he was past praying for on that, but it might complicate or retard her progress towards feeling the same way about him. For a moment only, Evadne regarded him with large puzzled eyes, taken utterly by surprise. Then the corners of her mouth deepened, and her face turned rosy under his gaze, as she tipped back her head and laughed—and laughed. More than the joke was really worth, more than anyone accustomed to his brand of absurdity would have accorded it, as though from mere relief that there was a joke to laugh at. It occurred to him that Evadne had not encountered enough foolishness in her life, and he wondered what the family could have been thinking of. Meanwhile he sat grinning happily across the table at the modern miracle of a girl who could
blush.
“You
are
a
fool, Stephen,” she said then, and it was praise.
During the pause before they began on the custard, the telephone rang, and he noted as Evadne answered it that it was so situated that Hermione in her bedroom and himself in the living-room
had
to hear every word she said. And it was evident at once that this was embarrassing to her. She spoke briefly, non-committally, a few times, and then said on a rising
note of defensiveness, “But I
can’t,
Victor, not possibly, I … No, she’s still in bed…. But we had a doctor yesterday, and he said she mustn’t get up till the temperature came down…. Ninety-nine point four….”
Hermione’s voice came distinctly from the bedroom.
“Don’t
dare
to let him come here,” it said.
“No, not today, Victor, really,” said Evadne, with a badgered glance over her shoulder. “No, it’s better not, the doctor said it was the infectious kind…. Oh, nonsense, I’m strong as a horse, I never get colds…. Yes, I know…. Yes, I will….” This time the badgered glance was for Stephen, unavoidably listening from his chair at the living-room table. “No, Victor, I won’t…. Yes, I
know,
but—” Again the defensive note, and at the same time apology and confusion. (As though the fellow had some
right,
thought Stephen, looking out the window, pretending not to hear.) “Yes, Victor…. Well, not for a few days, I … Yes, Victor…. Yes, as soon as I can…. Yes, please do. Goodbye.”
“What did he want?” said Hermione’s voice from the bedroom, peevishly.
“He just rang up to ask how you were.”
“It didn’t take as long as that to tell him,” said Hermione, and Stephen thought, Cat.
“Well, he wanted to bring you some fruit or flowers or something, but I put him off, I didn’t think you felt up to it. Would you like your broth now?” She rose and started towards the bedroom.
“There’s no hurry, is there? Are you going out?”
“No, of course not.”
Their voices dropped. There was some kind of discussion. Stephen rose uneasily, and was still on his feet, his hat in his hand, when Evadne appeared again in the living-room doorway.
“I’d better go now,” he said. “You’ve got your hands full today.”
“But you haven’t had any of that beautiful custard—” She was drooping and distressed.
“You eat it,” he said. “All of it. Do you good.” He walked across the room and put an arm round her shoulders, hugging her up to him, laying his lips against her temple where the brilliant hair was brushed back in a shining wave. “They’re waiting for me at the theatre,” he said. “If they weren’t, I’d stay and help you do the dishes. Next time I will.”
“I didn’t know if you’d ever come again,” she said forlornly, with a glance at the half-eaten meal on the table.
“Look,” said Stephen. “I’m here for keeps, see? No ifs, buts, or ands.” Again he set his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his. “Now, get this,” he said just above a whisper, serious for once in his life. “It’s too soon, but I want you to have it all the same, and don’t think I won’t bring it up again. From now on, it’s you and me,
together
,
and the hell with ’em all.” He kissed her, gently but not lightly, and this time felt a tremor of response before he let her go. “See what I mean?” he said, and left her standing speechless and incredulous in the middle of the room, and found his own way to the door without a word to Hermione as he went.