Whilst Mark was shaking hands and greeting his aunt and Phyllida with the fewest possible words, Dicky was kissing them both and rattling off compliments, good wishes, and enquiries.
“You’re a smash hit in that dress, Aunt Grace- isn’t she, Mark? I say-you’ve got ’em all on too, haven’t you? The old diamond star well to the fore! Do you remember when you tied it on to the top of the Christmas tree and Phyl nearly cried herself into a fit because she wanted it for keeps?”
“I didn’t!”
“Oh, yes, you did. You were only three, so we won’t hold it up against you. You were awfully pretty then-wasn’t she, Aunt Grace-pretty enough to stick on the Christmas tree with the star?”
Grace Paradine stood there smiling with Dicky’s arm at her waist. Praise of Phyllida was the incense of which she could never have enough.
Dicky burst out laughing.
“Pity she’s gone off so-isn’t it, darling?”
And then the door opened and Lane announced Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose, Miss Ambrose, and Miss Pennington. They all came in together-Frank Ambrose big and fair, with a pale, heavy face; his pretty dark wife Irene, with her air of having dressed in a hurry; his sister Brenda, mannish, with thick cropped hair as fair as his and the same very light blue eyes. One of the very worst quarrels which periodically shook the Ambrose household had followed upon a suggestion by Irene and her sister Lydia Pennington that Brenda’s appearance would be very much improved if she would darken her almost white eyelashes. Lydia had most obligingly proffered experienced help, but the whole affair had gone up in smoke.
Lydia ’s own lashes bore witness to her skill. Nature had made them as red as her hair, but she had no idea of sitting down under anything of that sort. Her grey-green eyes now sparkled jewel-bright between lashes as dark as Phyllida’s own. For the rest, she was a little bit of a thing who always managed to look as if she were about to take part in a mannequin parade. The latest clothes, the latest shoes, the latest way of doing the hair, the latest and most startling lipstick and nail-polish-these were Lydia. She made talk wherever she went. Men dangled and pursued, but never quite caught up with her. Dick Paradine proposed to her every time she came to stay. She fluttered up to him now and deftly evaded a kiss.
“Hullo, Dicky! Hullo, Phyl! I believe you’ve grown. I must get higher heels on my shoes. You’re such an immense family. Look at Mr. Paradine, and Aunt Grace, and Frank, and you-and Mark. Miles up in the air, all of you-so remote!”
Dicky had an arm about her.
“Not me, darling. You mayn’t have noticed it, but I’m quite nice and near.”
She leaned back, laughing up at him.
“I never do notice you-that’s why I love you so passionately.” Then, with a turn of her head which brought it against Dicky’s shoulder, she was looking up at Mark.
“Happy New Year, darling.”
He made no answer, only turned and pushed at the fire with his foot. A log crashed in, and a flurry of sparks went up.
“Snubbed!” said Lydia in a mournful tone. Then she disengaged herself and ran across to Miss Paradine. “Will I do, Aunt Grace? Or is he going to be shocked as usual? I wanted to come in my new brocade trousers-gorgeous furniture stuff and no coupons-but Frank lectured me and Irene lectured me till my spirit was broken, so here I am all jeune fille in a skirt.”
“You look very nice, my dear,” said Grace Paradine. She smiled and added, “You always do.”
The skirt cleared the floor and stood out rather stiff. It was of heavy cream satin, and there was nothing at all jeune fille about it. It was worn with a top of cream and gold brocade, high in the neck and long in the sleeve. The red hair was piled as high as it would go in an elaborate arrangement of puffs and curls.
Beside her her sister Irene looked dowdy and washed-out. She had been in the middle of telling Grace Paradine just how much cleverer her Jimmy was than any of the other children in his class at the kindergarten. As soon as Lydia turned away she resumed her narrative.
Lydia caught Phyllida by the arm and swung her round.
“Look at Irene in that old black rag! Isn’t she an awful warning? If I ever begin to feel myself slipping I just take a good strong look at her and it does the trick. She’s still pretty, but it won’t go on-she’s going down the domestic drain just as fast as ever she can. Come along over here and tell me all about everything. Golly-isn’t this an awful room for me- my hair and all this crimson! Pity I didn’t go the whole hog and sport the emerald trouserings. One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
“Uncle James would have had a fit,” said Phyllida. She pulled down a fat velvet cushion with gold tassels which was balancing on the back of one of the brocaded couches and sank gracefully against it. “You can’t really wear anything but black or white in this house. I made up my mind to that years ago.”
The room was very large and very lofty. Its three tall windows were draped in ruby velvet. Between them and over the white marble mantelshelf hung mirrors heavily framed in gold. A ruby carpet covered the floor. Couches, chairs, and stools all flamed in red brocade. Two large chandeliers dispensed a brilliant light broken into rainbows by elaborately cut lustres and drops. Vulgarity had been avoided only by a hairsbreadth, yet somehow it had been avoided. The effect was heavily old-fashioned-a scene from some mid-Victorian novel-but for all the colour, the marble, and the gilding, it had a kind of period dignity. Queen Victoria might have received in it. Prince Albert might have sat at the grand piano and played Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words.
Lydia leaned across from the other corner of the couch.
“Go on-tell me everything! Quick-before someone tears us apart! They will in about half a second. What are you doing? I thought you’d prized yourself loose and gone off on your own.”
“Only to Birleton,” said Phyllida. “I’m secretary of the Convalescent Home there.”
She did not look at Lydia, but Lydia looked at her-a green, determined glance.
“Why didn’t you go right away-into one of the Services or something? I nearly screamed with rage when Irene wrote and said you’d got caught up in this convalescent show and were doing it from here on a push-bike.”
Phyllida looked down into her lap.
“It was too far,” she said listlessly. “Aunt Grace wanted me to try, but I couldn’t keep it up in the black-out-she saw that. So I live at the Home now. I’ve got a week’s leave if I want it, but I expect I shall go back in a day or two. I’d rather be doing something.”
Lydia darted another of those glances.
“Aunt Grace hates it, doesn’t she?”
Phyllida nodded.
Lydia went on.
“How many times a week does she come along and take you out to lunch?”
There was nothing in the words, but the tone was a challenging one. Phyllida looked up, her eyes dark and hurt.
“She misses me-she can’t help that. She’s been very good. Lydia, you know what she’s done for me.”
“Well, what has she done for you? She adopted you, but you don’t suppose she did it to please you, do you? People don’t adopt a baby for the baby’s sake. They do it for exactly the same reason that they get a puppy or a kitten-because they want something to pet. Nobody asks the puppy or the kitten if it wants to be petted-nobody asks the baby.”
Phyllida put out a hand.
“ Lydia -please-you mustn’t! She loved my father and mother. They were her greatest friends- faraway cousins too. I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t adopted me. There wasn’t a penny, you know. Nobody wanted me. I do owe her everything.”
Lydia caught the hand and pinched it lightly.
“All right, chicken. Don’t over-pay your debts- that’s all.”
Phyllida drew back. She opened her lips as if she were going to speak, shut them again, and then said in a hurry,