Shocked and distressed beyond measure, Minnie did all the kind offices that were possible, and when the spasm had passed, tidied up in her quiet, methodical way. Lois sat where Minnie had guided her, on the small hard chair which was all that the place could offer. She was as white as her dress, her features sharp, the fine skin drenched with sweat, but as Minnie turned round from the basin, she drew a long breath and said,
“I’m all right now.”
“Shall I help you upstairs?”
Lois took another of those breaths, moved a little, and said,
“No, I don’t need help. I’m all right now. Just wait a minute.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“A little water-” She took two or three sips, and straightened up. “I’m all right-that’s going to stay. I can’t think what came over me.” Her brows drew together in a frown. “It must have been the mushrooms. Mrs. Maniple must have been careless. The fact is, she’s getting past her work. I’ll have to speak to Jimmy.”
Minnie Mercer knew better than to make any comment, but she couldn’t help looking grieved, and it needed no more than that. Lois let her temper go.
“Of course you’ll stand up for her! Even if she poisons me! But it mightn’t have been me, you know-it might have been Jimmy! You wouldn’t be quite so calm about it then, or quite so sorry for Mrs. Maniple!”
“Mrs. Latter-” Minnie’s gentle protest got no farther than that.
Lois got up, steadying herself by the chair.
“I really don’t feel fit to have an argument. I’m going up to my room… No, I shan’t need you. You’d better go back to the drawing-room. And you’re not to say a word to anyone-do you hear? Not one single word. If I don’t come down in ten minutes, you can come up. But it’s over-I’m sure about that. Only I can’t go back looking like this.”
It was really no more than ten minutes before she opened the drawing-room door and came in, her white dress trailing, a faint clear colour in her cheeks. To Jimmy and to Ellie Street she looked just as she had looked at dinner. Even to Minnie there was very little trace of what had passed. Julia thought, “Damn it all-she’s lovely!”
Antony gave her a hard scrutinizing look as she went past him. If that was her own colour, he’d eat his hat. But in the dining-room it had been her own-he was quite positive on that score. He allowed himself to wonder-
CHAPTER 6
Julia put out the light, waited for the darkness round her to clear, and went surefooted through it to the window. She drew the curtains back across the bay and stood there looking out. The three windows were open, casements wide and the night air coming in like a soft enchanting tide. The room looked to the side of the house. There was a clear sky, but no moon yet. Beyond a small formal garden there were the black mysterious shapes of trees. There was no wind. Nothing moved under that clear sky.
She came to the bed beside Ellie’s and got in, humping the pillows at her back, because this was what they had both been waiting for-Ellie to talk and she to listen. As she settled down, Ellie’s hand came out and clutched hers.
“Oh, Julia-” It was a sigh of utter relief. And then without any warning Ellie began to cry.
All day long, and for many days, the tears had lain cold and heavy at her heart, and at night she had kept them frozen there because she did not dare to let them fall. It would be like letting go, and she didn’t dare to let go, because she mightn’t be able to take hold again. Only now that Julia was here it was different. She could cry, and Julia would stop her when she had cried enough.
Julia let her cry, not touching her except that she left her hand in Ellie’s-not speaking, but just being there. All their life Julia had been there. That meant security for Ellie. It was always Julia who led and Ellie who followed, Julia who dragged her into scrapes and then miraculously got her out of them again. Somehow deeply, despairingly, Ellie clung to the idea that Julia could get her out of this, which wasn’t a scrape but the threatening of everything she cared for. Even as the tears ran down and soaked her pillow, she began to feel warm waves of comfort coming from Julia.
Presently Julia’s voice came to her, warm too, and deep.
“Ellie, you’ve cried enough.”
“I expect-I have-”
“Then stop! Have you got a handkerchief?”
Ellie said, “Yes,” on a sob. She let go of Julia, felt under her pillow, and blew her nose.
“Now don’t cry any more. You’d better tell me what it’s all about.”
There was another sob, and a big one.
“It’s Ronnie!”
“He might be dead, and he isn’t,” said Julia. “Suppose you think about that and stop crying.”
“I know-it’s wicked of me, isn’t it?”
“Idiotic!” said Julia.
Ellie began to feel better. There is something extraordinarily reassuring about being told that your fears are idiotic. She felt for Julia’s hand again, and found it comforting and strong.
“I expect I am. But Matron says he’ll never get better where he is, and I’m so frightened Lois won’t have him here.”
“She won’t if you’re frightened. The more you’re frightened of people like Lois, the more they trample.”
Ellie caught her breath.
“I know. But I can’t help it-I am frightened.”
“It’s fatal,” said Julia.
Ellie clung to her hand.
“It’s no good saying things like that. I can’t help it-it’s the way I’m made. She’s a trampler, and I’m a doormat, and she’ll go on wiping her feet on me until I end up like Minnie, only not half so good.”
“She will if you let her,” said Julia.
“I can’t stop her. But I’m going to speak to Jimmy tomorrow-not that it will do any good-”
“I don’t know-it might. I could speak to him, too, and- perhaps Antony. Between us we might get him to the point of remembering that it’s his house, and that if he wants to have Ronnie here it’s his business.”
Ellie said in an extinguished voice,
“You don’t know Lois-she’d get round him somehow- she always does.”
“Well, I think we’ll have a go at it.”
She felt rather than knew that Ellie was trembling.
“It won’t be any good-she gets her own way. You know old Mrs. Marsh-”
“What has she got to do with it?”
“I’m telling you. When her son came home from India she just didn’t know how to be happy enough, and he was quite good to her in his stupid fat way.”
“Oh, he wasn’t as bad as that-I rather liked Joe Marsh.”
Ellie pulled at her hand.
“He’s got fatter and stupider. And he’s married an odious girl from Crampton-as hard as nails-she really is. Lois has her up here to sew. Honestly, she’s a most frightful girl. You should hear Manny on the subject.”
“I probably shall.”
“Well, this horrible Gladys had made up her mind from the beginning that she was going to get rid of Mrs. Marsh, and she’s done it. With her stiff leg, she can’t take a regular job, but she did things like minding babies while the mothers went to the cinema, and she liked doing it. And it was her cottage, where she’d lived ever since she married Joe’s father, and that beast of a girl just pushed her out of it and got her taken away to the institute.”
There was a little pause before Julia said,
“What has that got to do with Lois?”
The answer came in a breathless hurry.
“Lois put it into her head, and backed her up. Manny’s raging. The Marshes are some sort of cousins-”
“Does Jimmy know?”
“I don’t know-not how it was done anyhow. He thinks she’s had to go to the infirmary because of her leg.”
Julia said in a surprised voice,
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“It wouldn’t do any good. It’s the sort of thing that’s happening all the time, only Jimmy can’t see it. Lois puts it her way, and he can’t see anything else. She wants old Hodson’s cottage for some friends of hers, and you’ll see she’ll get it.”