If there was one person she didn’t want to see at this moment it was Catherine Welby. She did not as a matter of fact wish to see anyone at all, but if you live in a village, it’s no good not wanting to see people, because you have to. She was perfectly well aware that James Lessiter’s return had set everyone remembering that they had once been engaged, and wondering how they would feel and look, and what they would say when they met. Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to let a village forget.
She did not get up when Catherine came in, but continued to bend forward over the table at which she was cutting a child’s frock out of an odd length of material. She had known Catherine for too many years to disturb herself, and if she were to take the hint and think her too busy to be disturbed, there would be no harm done. Her scissors snipped through the end of the stuff before she looked up to see Catherine lighting a cigarette.
“You look very busy, Rietta. Garments for the poor?”
The quick frown appeared again. In some curious way it gave a young, impulsive look to the dark, straight features. No one had ever called Rietta pretty-her cast of looks was too severe for that. “Pallas Athene, with a touch of the Gorgon’s head,” as a friend of James Lessiter’s had once said after being snubbed. But she had her moments of beauty- fleeting, stormy moments for the most part. As to the rest, her hair was dark, her eyes grey and finely lashed, her figure in the Greek tradition, and her manner a little on the abrupt side. She looked up now and said,
“What is it?”
Catherine had made herself very comfortable on the window-seat.
“Well, really, Rietta! You know, sewing isn’t your line-it always puts you in a bad temper. You ought to be thankful to me for coming round and interrupting you.”
“Well, I’m not. I want to get this done.”
Catherine waved her cigarette.
“I’m not stopping you, darling-you go on pinning the thing together. I just thought I’d come around and ask you whether you’ve seen James yet.”
This time Rietta didn’t let herself frown. She had a moment of black rage, because of course this was what everyone in Melling was wanting to know. Then she said in the expressionless voice which goes with being angry,
“No. Why should I?”
“I don’t know-you might have. As a matter of fact I haven’t either, but of course he only came last night. I wonder what he’s like, and whether he’s worn as well as we have. You know, Rietta, if you took the least trouble, you could look-well, thirty-four.”
“I don’t in the least want to look thirty-four.”
Catherine’s dark blue eyes opened widely.
“What’s the good of saying a silly thing like that? What you need is colour-you always did-and a softer expression. You ought to practise in front of the glass.”
Rietta’s lip twitched. Her anger was gone. She could enjoy Catherine. A picture of herself practising soft expressions at a looking-glass assuaged her a good deal.
“We might practise them together,” she said.
Catherine blew out a light cloud of smoke.
“Now you’re laughing at me. I thought you were going to bite my head off when I came in. I do wonder if James has got fat. Such a pity if he has-he was so nicelooking. You did make a most awfully handsome couple-only of course he ought to have fallen in love with somebody fair like me. You know, it was very nice of me not to try and take him away from you.”
Rietta Cray lifted those fine grey eyes of hers and allowed them to dwell for a moment upon Catherine. Since it was perfectly well known between them that Catherine had tried and failed, there appeared to be no need to say anything more about it. Rietta therefore said nothing. After a moment she went on pinning the small pink frock.
Catherine laughed amiably and returned to James Lessiter.
“I don’t know whether it’s worse to get stout or scraggy. James must be forty-five.” She drew at her cigarette and added, “He’s coming in to have coffee with me tonight. You’d better come too.”
“No, thank you.”
“You’d better. You’ll have to meet him some time. Get it over in a sensible friendly way when you can be looking your best, instead of bumping into him anywhere by chance when your hair is coming down in the rain, or half the village is lined up watching to see how you take it.”
For a brief moment a bright touch of scarlet gave Rietta Cray the colour she lacked. A dangerous anger had set it glowing. It was instantly controlled. She said,
“We’re not schoolgirls. There is nothing to take. If James is going to be here, naturally we shall meet. But I shall be very much surprised if he stays for long. He will find Melling very dull.”
“He has made a lot of money,” said Catherine in a pensive voice. “Look here, Rietta, do come off your high horse! It’s going to make a lot of difference to have Melling open again, and after all, you and I are James’s oldest friends. It can’t be very cheerful for him coming back to an empty house. I do think we must give him a bit of a welcome. Come along in to coffee this evening!”
Rietta gave her a straight look. It would have been so much more natural for Catherine to want to have-and keep- James Lessiter to herself. She was up to something, and presently, no doubt, the cat would slip out of the bag. Or most likely not a cat at all, but one of Catherine’s sleek, silky kittens, with innocent eyes and whiskers dripping with cream. Only you don’t get cream in bags, or anywhere else in this post-war world. She said nothing, only looked and allowed herself to smile just enough to let Catherine see that she hadn’t got away with it.
Did a little natural colour deepen the very careful tinting behind the thin haze of cigarette smoke? Catherine Welby got up gracefully and without haste.
“Well, come if you can,” she said. Then, turning before she reached the door, “Carr out?”
“He and Fancy have gone in to Lenton.”
Catherine Welby laughed.
“Is he going to marry her?”
“I shouldn’t advise you to ask him. I haven’t.”
“He’ll be damned silly if he does. She’s too like Marjory. It’ll be the same story all over again.”
“You haven’t any right to say that.”
Catherine blew her a kiss.
“Waste of time trying to high-hat me-you ought to know that after all these years. I’m just using my common sense, and you’d better use yours and choke him off if you don’t want another crash-I should think it would just about finish him. Did he ever find out who Marjory went off with?”
“No.”
“Well, she saved everyone a lot of trouble by not surviving. I mean, after she’d come back down and out and he’d taken her in and nursed her, he couldn’t very well have got a divorce, could he? Solitary instance of tact on her part, but rather wasted if he’s going to do the same thing all over again. Well, I’ll be seeing you.”
CHAPTER 4
Fancy Bell looked sideways under her long lashes and observed her companion’s gloom. With a faint sigh she turned to the much more agreeable spectacle of her own enchanting face and figure reflected in the looking-glass at the back of a milliner’s window. A bit daring that scarlet-hit or miss, as you might say-but to judge from the way in which practically every man they passed had looked and looked again, it was a hit all right. A lovely contrast they made, her and Carr. Very goodlooking he was-nobody could say anything different. And of course nothing like that dark, gloomy type for making a fair girl look even fairer than she was. And he was ever so nice really, only it would make things a lot easier if he would smile a bit and look as if he was enjoying her company. But of course you couldn’t have everything.
There was a hard core of common sense behind that very decorative façade. You couldn’t have everything, so you had to make up your mind just what you wanted most. Young men with plenty of money asked you to go away for weekends. Well, she wasn’t that sort of girl and she let them know it-no offence meant and none taken, but they didn’t generally try it on a second time. The show-girl business was all very well while it lasted, but it didn’t last for ever. The sensible person who was Frances expected Fancy to get her a chance of settling in life, and she knew just what she wanted-a lift in the world, but not such a big one that your in-laws were going to look down on you-enough money to have a nice little home and, say, three children-and someone to do all the rough work, because you don’t want to let yourself go, and she’d always kept her hands nice. Of course she’d have to do a good bit, especially after the babies came. She wouldn’t mind that. Frances had it all planned out. She was considering whether Carr Robertson would do for the lead in this private play of hers. He had a job and he had a little money of his own, and Fancy would find it quite easy to be in love with him, but Frances wasn’t going to let her do anything silly.