‘It was a little too much for me, but it was a nice party, Thea.’
Althea said, ‘Yes.’
‘It does one good to get out of the rut and see fresh people.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I am so glad you agree with me, darling, because I was thinking a little change would be good for both of us. You know that place we went to two years ago. I didn’t care for the hotel, but there was one right on the front which I thought looked rather nice – The Avonmouth, I think it was called. We had tea there once or twice, if you remember, and the cakes were really good. We might try that.’
Althea looked at her with a faintly startled air. She was a long way off and she didn’t want to come back. She said,
‘Go away – now? But why?’
‘Darling, you weren’t really listening. Going out this evening made me feel that it would be good for us to get away for a change.’
This time it got home. Something spoke – ‘She wants to get you away from Nicky.’ Aloud she said,
‘Mother, we couldn’t afford it.’
Mrs Graham kept her smile.
‘Now, darling, don’t be hasty. We have got to be practical about this, and I have thought it all out. You know the Mediterranean cruise we were thinking about – well, I am afraid it might be too much for me, and I hear the society is really very mixed, so perhaps something quieter. And as to not being able to afford it’ – she gave a little silvery laugh – ‘why it wouldn’t cost a quarter of what the cruise would have done. So you see, we should actually be saving money.’
Her speedwell-blue eyes looked up innocently. Althea could never remember when she had not known that look for what it was – a danger signal. Even as a child she had been able to recognize it as a warning that she was going to be asked to do something she didn’t like. She stiffened herself to resist it now.
‘We couldn’t afford the cruise, and we can’t afford to go away to an hotel like the Avonmouth. It’s quite out of the question. We are overdrawn at the bank.’
Mrs Graham sighed.
‘It sounds so sordid when you put it that way, I meant it to be a little pleasure for us both. And I am afraid it’s my fault. I oughtn’t to have got that blue dress, but it was so becoming and just right for the evening if we had gone on the cruise.’
Althea said slowly,
‘I would rather not go away just now.’
‘But I think you need the change, darling. I’m not thinking about myself of course, though Dr Barrington has been urging me to get away to the sea. I am just trying to think what is best for you. You know, people will talk, and you did make yourself rather conspicuous this evening. Nettie Pimm said you were out of the room for quite half an hour with Nicholas Carey. I didn’t see you go, or I would have tried to stop you. Nettie didn’t say it at all unkindly, but I could see that she thought it a pity you should give people the opportunity to say you were running after him.’
If Mrs Graham expected this to sting Althea’s pride she was disappointed. She certainly flushed a little, but she smiled in a dreamy way which was very alarming, and she said in quite a soft kind of voice,
‘Oh, I’m not running after Nicky.’
‘People will say you are.’
‘They will be wrong.’
Thea, I don’t understand you at all. You must realize that there’s nothing quite so dead as an old flirtation. He flirted with you, and he went away for five years. Did he write even once – or so much as let us know whether he was alive or dead? He didn’t, and you know it. But he has the impertinence to come back and make you conspicuous by flirting with you all over again! Can’t you imagine what people must be saying? The least you can do is to show him that he can’t just pick you up one minute and drop you the next! I should have thought you would have had more pride!’
Althea wasn’t feeling proud, she was feeling safe. Her mother’s words were like flies that buzz on the outside of a window-pane – the window is shut against them and they can’t get in. They made a stupid noise a long way off. She was still smiling when she got to her feet. It was time to fill her mother’s hot water-bottle and to get her to bed. At the door she turned and said,
‘Please don’t worry – there’s no need. I don’t want to flirt with Nicholas, and he doesn’t want to flirt with me.’
ELEVEN
I CAN’T THINK why you want it,’ said Ella Harrison.
Fred Worple flashed his teeth in what he considered to be a fascinating smile.
‘You don’t have to think about it at all, ducks.’
They were lunching together in town. Since a crowd of people were doing the same thing and a jazz band was playing, it was as good a place for private conversation as anyone could wish. To both of them noise, glitter and plenty to drink were the essentials of enjoyment. Mr Worple’s hint that she could mind her own business was not taken amiss. She said,
‘You know, I could help you if I had any idea of what you were driving at.’
‘I just want to buy that house – that’s all.’
‘Sure?’
‘Certain.’
‘It’s too big for you.’
‘Not when I get married and have half a dozen kids.’
There was a sharp anger in her. She spoke just a little too quickly.
‘Who is the girl?’
‘Nobody – anybody – what about Miss Althea Graham?’
She said, ‘Nonsense!’
He laughed. He had better not laugh at her like that.
‘Well, I don’t know – she’s not bad-looking. And I’ll tell you something – the house is in her name.’
‘What!’
He nodded.
‘Bert Martin let it for them last year, and it was the girl who signed the agreement. He didn’t mean to give anything away, but we were talking, and when I said, “Give me a chance and I’ll get round the old lady,” he came out with, “Well, the house belongs to Miss Graham – you’d be wasting your time.” So I thought to myself, “Fred, my boy, what about it? If you can get round an old woman you can get round a young one. Marry the girl and you get the house, free, gratis and for nothing. Money in your pocket, and nothing to pay for except a wedding ring.” What do you think of that for a bright idea?’
What Ella Harrison thought about it wouldn’t bear saying. He was kidding of course, poking at her to see if he couldn’t make her wild just like he used to do in the old days. She’d been fool enough to rise for it then, and she’d be a fool if she rose for it now. What did he want, stirring her up again like this? If she wasn’t so bored with Jack, if everything wasn’t so damned flat, she would tell him where he got off! Dangling another girl at her, even if he was only kidding! She said with an appearance of frankness,
‘She wouldn’t look at you.’
‘That’s all you know. There she is, a good-looking girl moped to death with an invalid mother, and I come along, take her out a bit, splash the money around and give her a good time – it stands to reason she’d jump at it.’
Ella shook her head. She wasn’t going to let him get that rise.
‘You’re not her sort. Besides there’s someone she was more or less engaged to, only her mother got it broken off and he went abroad, but he’s come back and from what I can make out it’s likely to be on again. Though what he sees in her…’
He laughed.
‘Oh, well, it was just a thought. I might think about cutting him out, or I mightn’t. What’s the odds so long as I get the house?’
She said, ‘I don’t know what you want it for.’
It was next day that Althea found Mr Worple at her elbow in the High Street. He said ‘Good-morning,’ and before she had any idea what he was going to do he took her shopping-bag out of her hand.
‘It’s much too heavy for you. I’ll carry it.’
She stiffened.
‘Thank you, but I’d rather…’
He didn’t give her time to finish her sentence. A smile was flashed at her.