I had a queer sort of feeling, watching them all and listening;
perhaps it was due to what Father had been saying a few minutes before. It suddenly seemed astonishing that people should meet especially to eat together—because food goes into the mouth and talk comes out. And if you watch people eating and talking —really watch them-it is a very peculiar sight: hands so busy, forks going up and down, swallowings, words coming out between mouthfuls, jaws working like mad. The more you look at a dinner party, the odder it seems-all the candlelit faces, hands with dishes coming over shoulders, the owners of the hands moving round quietly taking no part in the laughter and conversation. I pulled my mind off the table and stared into the dimness beyond, and then I gradually saw the servants as real people, watching us, whispering instructions to each other, exchanging glances.
I noticed a girl from Godsend village and gave her a tiny wink—and wished I hadn’t, because she let out a little snort of laughter and then looked in terror at the butler. The next minute my left ear heard something which made my blood run cold—an expression I have always looked down on, but I really did get a cold shiver between my shoulders:
Mrs. Cotton was asking Father how long it was since he had published anything.
“A good twelve years,” he said in the blank voice which our family accepts as the close of a conversation. It had no such effect on Mrs. Cotton.
“You’ve thought it best to lie fallow,” she said.
“How few writers have the wisdom to do that.” Her tone was most understanding, almost reverent. Then she added briskly: “But it’s been long enough, don’t you think?”
I saw Father’s hand grip the table. For an awful second I thought he was going to push his chair back and walk out—as he so often does at home if any of us annoy him. But he just said, very quietly:
“I’ve given up writing, Mrs. Cotton. And now let’s talk of something interesting.”
“But this is interesting,” she said. I sneaked a look at her. She was very upright, all deep blue velvet and pearls-I don’t think I ever saw a woman look so noticeably clean. “And I warn you I’m quite unsnubbable, Mr. Mortmain. When a writer so potentially great as you keeps silent so long, it’s somebody’s duty to find out the reason. Automatically, one’s first guess is drink, but that’s obviously not your trouble. There must be some psychological—” Just then Neil spoke to me.
“Quiet, a minute,” I whispered, but I missed the rest of Mrs.
Cotton’s speech. Father said:
“Good God, you can’t say things like that to me at your own dinner table.”
“Oh, I always employ shock tactics with men of genius,” said Mrs. Cotton.
“And one has to employ them in public or the men of genius bolt.”
“I’m perfectly capable of bolting, in public or out,” said Father-but I could tell he wasn’t going to; there was an easy, amused tone in his voice that I hadn’t heard for years. He went on banteringly, “Tell me, are you unique or has the American club woman become more menacing since my day?” It seemed to me a terribly rude thing to say, even in fun, but Mrs. Cotton didn’t appear to mind in the least. She just said smilingly, “I don’t happen to be what you mean by a club woman. And anyway, I think we must cure you of this habit of generalizing about America on the strength of two short lecture tours.” Serve Father right—he has always talked as if he had brought America home in his trouser pocket. Naturally I wanted to go on listening, but I saw Mrs.
Cotton notice me; so I turned quickly to Neil.
“All right now,” I said.
“What was it?” he asked.
“Did you think you’d broken a tooth?”
I laughed and told him what I had been listening to. “You just wait,” he said.
“She’ll have him turning out master pieces eight hours a day-unless, of course, he goes for her with a cake-knife.”
I stared at him in amazement. He went on:
“Oh, she had our attorney send us all the details of the case. Made me laugh a lot. But I guess she was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a real attempt at murder.”
“Can you understand how a ridiculous thing like that could put him off his work?” I asked.
“Why, I don’t even understand your Father’s work when he was on it,” said Neil.
“I’m just not literary.”
After that, we talked of other things—I felt it would be polite to ask questions about America. He told me about his father’s ranch in California, where he had lived until he joined Mrs. Cotton and Simon. (it is strange to realize how little he has had to do with them.) I said it seemed very sad that the father had died before he could inherit Scoatney Hall.
“He wouldn’t have lived in it, anyway,” said Neil.
“He’d never have settled down anywhere but in America—any more than I shall.”
I almost began to say “But your brother’s going to live here, isn’t he?” but I stopped myself. Neil had sounded so cross that I felt it might be a sore subject. I asked him if he liked Rose’s dress-mostly to change the conversation.
He said: “Not very much, if you want the honest truth it too fussy for me. But she looks very pretty in it.
Knows it, too, doesn’t she?”
There was a twinkle in his eye which took off the rudeness. And I must admit that Rose was knowing it all over the place. The most wonderful frozen pudding came round then and while Neil helped himself, I let my left ear listen to Father and Mrs. Cotton again. They seemed to be getting on splendidly, though it did sound a bit like a shouting match. I saw Topaz look across anxiously, then look relieved: Father was chuckling.
“Oh, talk to the Vicar-give me a rest,” he said.
“But I shall return to the attack,” said Mrs.
Cotton. Her eyes were sparkling and she looked about twice as healthy as anyone normally does.
“Well, how are you enjoying your first grownup dinner party?”
Father asked me-it was the first word he had spoken to me throughout the meal but I could hardly blame him for that. He was rather flushed and somehow larger than usual—there was a touch of the magnificence I still remember about him from pre-cake-knife days.
He had a slight return of it when he married Topaz, but it didn’t last. The awful thought came to me that he might be going to fall in love with Mrs. Cotton. She was talking to him again within a couple of minutes. Soon after that the females left the table.
As we went upstairs, Topaz slipped her arm through mine.
“Could you hear?” she whispered.
“Is he really enjoying himself?
Or was he just putting it on?”
I told her I thought it was genuine.
“It’s wonderful to see him like that”—but her voice sounded wistful. It is one of her theories that a woman must never be jealous, never try to hold a man against his will; but I could tell that she hadn’t enjoyed seeing someone else bring Father to life.
Mrs. Cotton’s bedroom was lovely-there were lots of flowers, and new books lying around and a chaise-longue piled with fascinating little cushions; and a wood fire—it must be heaven to have fire in one’s bedroom. The bathroom was unbelievable—the walls were looking-glass! And there was a glass table with at least half a-dozen bottles of scent and toilet water on it. (americans say “perfume” instead of “scent”—much more correct, really; I don’t know why “perfume” should be considered affected in England.) “Simon says this bathroom’s an outrage on the house,” said Mrs.
Cotton, “but I’ve no use for antiquity in bathrooms.”
“Isn’t it lovely?” I said to Rose.
“Glorious,” she said, in an almost tragic voice. I could see she was liking it so much that it really hurt her.
When we had tidied up we went to the Long Gallery-it stretches the full length of the house and as it is narrow it seems even longer than it is. It has three fireplaces and there were fires in all of them, but it wasn’t at all too hot. Rose an
d I strolled along looking at the pictures and statues and interesting things in glass cases, while Mrs.
Cotton talked to Topaz. Mrs.
Fox-Cotton had disappeared after dinner;
I suppose she went off to her own bedroom.
We got to the fireplace at the far end of the gallery and stood looking back at the others; we could hear their voices but not a word of what they were saying, so we felt it was safe to talk.
“What sort of a time did you have at dinner?” I asked.
She said it had been boring—she didn’t like Mr.
Fox-Cotton and, anyway, he had only been interested in Topaz:
“So I concentrated on the wonderful food. What did you and Neil talk about?”
“Amongst other things, he said you looked very pretty,” I told “What else?” “About America, mostly.” I remembered as much as I could for her, particularly about the ranch in California; I had liked the sound of it.
“What, cows and things?” she said, disgustedly.
“Is he going back there?”
“Oh, it was sold when the Father died. But he did say he’d like to have a ranch himself if ever he could afford it.”
“But aren’t they very rich?”
“Oh, shut up,” I whispered, and took a quick look at Mrs. Cotton;
but we were really quite safe.
“I don’t suppose Neil’s rich and it probably takes all Simon’s money to keep this place up. Come on, we’d better go back.”
As we reached the fireplace in the middle of the gallery, Mrs. Fox Cotton came in. It was the first time I’d had a really good look at her.
She is small, not much bigger than I am, with straight black hair done in an enormous knob low on her neck, and a very dark skin.
Both skin and hair look greasy to me.
Topaz says the modelling of the face is beautiful and I do see that, but I don’t think the modelling would be damaged by a real good wash. She was wearing a clinging dark green dress, so shiny that it looked almost slimy-it made me think of sea-weed. Her Christian name, believe it or not, is Leda.
Rose and I walked to meet her but she sat down on a sofa, put her feet up and opened an old calf-bound book she had brought in with her.
“Do you mind?” she said.
“I want to finish this before we go back to London tomorrow.”
“What is it?” I asked, out of politeness.
“Oh, it’s no book for little girls,” she said.
She has the silliest voice, a little tinny bleat; she barely bothers to open her mouth and the words just slide through her teeth. In view of what happened later, I put it on record that it was then I first decided that I didn’t like her.
The men came in then-I noticed she was quick enough to stop reading for them. Father and Simon seemed to be finishing a literary argument; I hoped they’d had a really good discussion downstairs. It was interesting to notice where the men went: Father and the Vicar talked to Mrs. Cotton, Aubrey Fox-Cotton made a dive for Topaz, Simon and Neil came towards Rose and me-but Mrs. Fox-Cotton got off her sofa and intercepted Simon.
“Did you know there’s a picture here with a look of you?” she told him, and put her arm through his and marched him along the gallery.
“Oh, I noticed that,” I said. Rose and Neil and I walked after them, which I bet didn’t please Mrs. FC.
at all.
It was one of the earliest pictures -Elizabethan, I think; there was a small white ruff at the top of the man’s high collar. It was just a head and shoulders against a dark background.
“It’s probably only the beard that’s like,” said Simon.
“No, the eyes,” said Mrs. Fox-Cotton.
“The eyebrows mostly,” I said, “the little twist at the corners. And the hair the way it grows on the forehead, in a peak.”
Rose was staring hard at the picture. Simon asked her what she thought. She turned and looked at him intently; she seemed to be taking in his features one by one. Yet when she finally answered she only said: “Oh, a little like, perhaps,” rather vaguely.
I had a feeling that she had been thinking about something quite different from the picture, something to do with Simon himself; and had come back from a very long way, to find us all waiting for her answer.
We strolled back to the others. Topaz and Aubrey Fox-Cotton were looking at pictures too; they were with the eighteenth-century Cottons.
“I’ve got it,” he said suddenly to Topaz, “you’re really a Blake. Isn’t she, Leda?”
Mrs. F-C. seemed to take a mild interest in this. She gave Topaz a long, appraising stare and said: “Yes, if she had more flesh on her bones.”
“Rose is a Romney,” said Simon.
“She’s quite a bit like Lady Hamilton.” It was the first time I had heard him use her Christian name.
“And Cassandra’s a Reynolds, of course the little girl with the mousetrap.”
“I’m not!” I said indignantly.
“I hate that picture. The mouse is terrified, the cat’s hungry and the girl’s a cruel little beast. I refuse to be her.”
“Ah, but you’d let the mouse out of the trap and find a nice dead sardine for the cat,” said Simon. I began to like him a little better.
The others were busy thinking of a painter for Mrs. Fox-Cotton.
They finally decided on a Surrealist named Dali.
“With snakes coming out of her ears,” said Mr. Fox-Cotton. I haven’t the faintest idea what Surrealism is, but I can easily imagine snakes in Mrs. F-C’s ears-and I certainly shouldn’t blame them for coming out.
After that, it was decided that we should dance.
“In the hall,” said Neil, “because the Victrola’s down there.” Mrs.
Cotton and Father and the Vicar stayed behind talking.
“We shall be one man short,” complained Mrs.
Fox-Cotton as we went downstairs.
I said I would watch as I don’t know modern dances. (neither does Rose, really, but she did try them once or twice at Aunt Millicent’s parties.) “What kind do you know?” asked Simon, teasingly.
“Sarabandes, cour antes and pa vanes?” I told him just waltzes and polkas.
Mother showed us those when we were little.
“I’ll teach you,” said Neil. He put a record on the gramophone-I had expected a Victrola to be something much more exciting-and then came back to me, but I said I’d rather watch for the first few dances.
“Oh, come on, Cassandra,” he said, but Mrs.
Fox-Cotton butted in.
“Let the child watch if she wants to. Dance this with me.” I settled it by running up the stairs.
I sat on the top step looking down on them.
Rose danced with Simon, Topaz with Mr. Fox-Cotton. I must say Mrs. Fox-Cotton danced beautifully, though she seemed almost to be lying on Neil’s chest. Rose’s dress looked lovely but she kept on missing steps. Topaz was holding herself stiff as a poker—she thinks modern dancing is vulgar—but Mr. Fox-Cotton danced so well that she gradually relaxed. It was fascinating watching them all from up there. The hall was very dimly lit, the oak floor looked dark as water by night.
I noticed the mysterious old-house smell again but mixed with Mrs.
Fox-Cotton’s scent—a rich, mysterious scent, not a bit like flowers.
I leaned against the carved banisters and listened to the music and felt quite different from any way I have ever felt before -softer, very beautiful and as if a great many men were in love with me and I might very easily be in love with them. I had the most curious feeling in my solar plexus—a vulnerable feeling is the nearest I can get to it; I was investigating it in a pleasant, hazy sort of way, staring down at a big bowl of white tulips against the uncurtained great window, when all of a sudden I went quite cold with shock.
There were two faces floating in the black glass of the window.
The next instant they were gone. I strained my eyes to see them again. The dancers kept passing the w
indow, hiding it from me.
Suddenly the faces were back, but grown fainter.
They grew clear again-and just then the record finished. The dancers stopped, the faces vanished.
Aubrey Fox-Cotton shouted: “Did you see that, Simon? Two of the villagers staring in again.”
“That’s the worst of a right-of-way so close to the house,” Simon explained to Rose.
“Oh, hell, what does it matter?” said Neil.
“Let them watch if they want to.”
“But it startled Mother badly the other night. I think I’ll just ask them not to, if I can catch them.”
Simon went to the door and opened it. I ran full tilt down the stairs, and across to him. There was a light above the door which made everything seem pitch black beyond.
“Don’t catch them,” I whispered.
He smiled down at me in astonishment.
“Good heavens, I’m not going to hurt them.” He went down the steps and shouted: “Anyone there?”
There was a stifled laugh quite close.
“They’re behind the cedar,” said Simon and started to walk towards it. I was praying they would bolt but no sound of it came.
I grabbed Simon’s arm and whispered: “Please come back—please say you couldn’t find them. It’s Thomas and Stephen.”
Simon let out a snort of laughter.
“They must have cycled over,” I said.
“Please don’t be annoyed.
It’s just that they hankered to see the fun.” He called out: “Thomas, Stephen-where are you his Come in and talk to us.”
They didn’t answer. We walked towards the cedar.
Suddenly they made a dash for it—and Thomas promptly tripped over something and fell full length. I called: “Come on, both of you-it’s perfectly all right,” Simon went to help Thomas up-I knew he wasn’t hurt because he was laughing so much. My eyes were used to the darkness by then and I could see Stephen some yards away; he had stopped but he wasn’t coming towards us. I went over and took him by the hand.
“I’m so dreadfully sorry,” he whispered.
“I
know it was a terrible thing to do.”
“Nonsense,” I said.