The Alteration

       Her voice was wonderfully hoarse, but he could not tell her that, so he said, what was true enough, 'You speak just like an English person.'

       'Why not? I go to school in Coverley, and most of my friends are English.'

       'But you've been here only a year.'

       'That's enough time. My ears are quick.'

       Quick or not, they were thin and slightly pointed, and seemed to Hubert more intricate than most other folk's ears. 'Did you learn the language when you were in Naples?'

       'Yes, of course—some of it.'

       'Say something to me as they say it there.' He was not making conversation: he wanted to hear how her voice sounded with foreign words. 'Say, "I have a pretty blue frock just like this green one."'

       'Oh, no.'

       'Please, it can't be difficult.'

       'I don't want to.'

       He thought from her demeanour that his coaxing pleased her and that she meant to yield to it in the end. 'You've forgotten how to say it.'

       'Yes, I believe I have. Why oughtn't I?'

       'If you've forgotten how they speak in Naples, you must surely have forgotten how they speak in New England. How the people there speak, not your father and mother.'

       'Trash, I remember well. We were home after we left Naples and before we came here.'

       'Then say something as they say it. Anything—whatever you choose.'

       'I don't want to.'

       'If you won't say something, I shan't believe you remember how to.' The smile with which Hubert accompanied this had faded by half-way through.

       'Have you truly only ten years, young master?'

       'Eleven in July. But I'm-'

       'You don't look ten or eleven,' said Hilda van den Haag with her eyes wide open. 'You look like a little man.'

       'Do I so?' Hubert felt himself flush: in one sense he did not understand her, because in his world it was childish looks that were to be scorned; in another he understood well enough and to spare. Without any volition, he added, 'I'm sorry.'

       'Sorry, trash. How can you be sorry for what isn't your blame? Now I go to help my mother.'

       The help turned out to have to do with the big afternoon table that had been prepared, and in particular with attending to the wants of one or two of the younger children. As she did this, Hilda looked kind in a serious way, and sweet; perhaps she really was, thought Hubert, and tried to find justification for her harsh words to him just now. However she might appear, she must be shy; he had pressed her in a way most boys would not have resented, but a girl well might. He would find her again later and do what he could to make her like him; meanwhile, there was the table.

       Here two maidservants stood, not dark of skin but recognisable as Indians by their eyes and hair. By a procedure unfamiliar to Hubert, guests were served with their preferences and carried their own filled plates and glasses to seats scattered round the room. The fare, once again, was strange: Hubert perforce went by appearance and found, on inquiry, that he had chosen pecan pie, molasses cookies and Mexican bridal cake, together with a cold drink called Calvina mint tea. All were delicious. He ate and drank in a chair near the italian windows, next to a thin dark boy of twelve whose name was Louis, or Luis, and who, having soon established that Hubert had never visited Asia, told him in some detail about places in that continent. Hubert listened to quite a lot of this, though Louis seemed to have had the bad luck not to have come across much of interest on his travels, and, out of politeness towards his host, who glanced every so often in his direction, made a show of listening to it all. He was content: a careful survey had shown him earlier that there was no one present with the watchful yet withdrawn look he had come to recognise as the sign of a possible new friend or leader, and there was only one girl who appealed to him, and she was still looking after overgrown babies.

       While the remains of the meal were being cleared, van den Haag came over. The boys got to their feet.

       'I see you two have found plenty to talk about. Good—it doesn't always happen that way at these shows. Well now, if you'll give us leave, Louis, I must take Hubert off. We have some preparations to make.'

       'Forgive me, sir,' said Hubert a moment later, 'but are you sure this is the right occasion? Your guests are here to enjoy the company and the—'

       'My guests will feel mightily balked if I don't give them what I promised them, be assured of that.'

       'The young children won't enjoy it, will they?'

       'Any child, young or not so young, who does not will be removed into the garden: I've given instructions. So...'

       Van den Haag's gesture indicated the piano-forte by which, having mounted a low dais at the far end of the room, they now stood. It was handsomely cased in rosewood; more important to Hubert, it was one of the new six-octave instruments by Satie of Paris. Master Morley would have approved, and perhaps shown some surprise.

       'This a very fine piece, sir.'

       'I'm glad you think well of it, Hubert.' Van den Haag handed over the satchel Hubert had brought. 'What's your selection to be? You can hardly give us everything you have there.'

       'I thought you might advise me, sir.'

       'No, it must be what you yourself prefer, my boy.'

       'Thank you, sir. Then... the little Mozart song, "L'alouette en haut", the Schumann, "Nun muss ich fort", and the Valeriani, "I miei sospiri". A mixture of the...'

       'Of the familiar and the less familiar, just so. May I see the Mozart? Ah, of course, K.308b, the third of the set. I think I may be able to handle that. Yes, Hubert-you shouldn't stare so, it isn't very gladdening—I mean to accompany. I won't disgrace you, I undertake.'

       Hubert's recital was a great success. He knew himself he had never sung better, and it was obvious to him why: he had never in the past had anybody to sing for as that afternoon he had Hilda. Yet Hilda was nowhere to be seen-perhaps she was hidden behind someone else, perhaps she was listening from outside the room. At the end of the Valeriani he bowed briefly three times, waited for the considerable applause to die away, thanked van den Haag for his accompaniments, which had indeed been deft for a dilettante, and stepped down from the dais to signal the end of his performance. There were many calls for an extra, but he knew from experience that the attention of an audience of this kind would not remain intact after fifteen minutes at the most. He received personal congratulations from a Polish dignitary, from a priest with a Scandinavian accent, from a member of the Royal Opera House Company, even from Louis; not from Hilda. Then suddenly he saw her in the sun at the threshold of the garden doorway, and without thinking started towards her. Van den Haag was quickly at his side.

       'Hubert will need to relax himself after his efforts, my dear. Will you kindly conduct him round the garden? And well-minded, nay?'

       Two pairs of blue eyes looked into one another for a moment. Then the girl said, 'Oh, best. Ya ya, paps.'

       The garden was quite unlike the one behind the house in Tyburn Road. Except for two paved walks and a circular area partly surrounded by a clipped hedge of some yellowish shrub, it seemed almost wild, although there was colour enough. Hubert noticed a ground creeper with large purple-and-white flowers like inverted bells. He said, pointing, 'Is that a plant from New England?'

       'Yes, I think so.' Hilda spoke with encouraging friendliness. 'Many of the plants here come from home.'

       'Did your father put it there? It must grow quickly.'