Kissing Kin (6 page)

“Does—do you think Cousin Sally is ever homesick?” she asked hesitantly. “For Williamsburg, I mean.”

“I think sometimes she is,” he said gently. “Especially now, with her comfortable life in France broken off. I am all she has left of the old days there—all there is of sameness and security. At her age she is bound to feel that.”

“Yes, of course.” Camilla lingered, fingering her door knob. “Had I better not talk about America when it can be avoided? Or would she like to know that she’s not forgotten there, and that we’ve all grown up wondering about her—” And then she remembered that the uncertainty they had all felt was vaguely scandalous. “N-not that we knew much about her, of course,” she added, and wondered if she had not made it worse, for was not Sosthène himself a part of the mystery?

“Of all the people I have ever known, Sallee is best able to support life as it comes,” he said gravely. “She does not repine. I would not have you raise any barrier between you of tact or evasiveness. Answer all her questions, tell her little stories of your life, give her all the news from there—you need not be afraid. Never let her feel that you withhold. More than
anything
else in the world she needs love and care and
thoughtfulness
and homage—as indeed we all do—but Sallee has lost so much more of it than most of us ever have—she has had so much more to lose—I try constantly to make it up to her, now that what she calls the starving time has come—it is a Virginia phrase, is it not?”

“It was the old word for famine in the colonies, I think.”

“Yes—I had guessed. She is very brave—no one knows that so well as I do. But you can understand, I am sure, that for a woman of such beauty and such wealth—I do not mean only in the coin of the realm—to know that the sands are running out—”

“Is she ill?” cried Camilla, her eyes full of quick hot tears.

“No, no. And the last thing I want is for you to pity her.
But you are young and strong and—full of life. And you are of her own blood. You can help me, if you will, to keep her feeling warm and cherished and beloved, as she must be to live at all.”

“How? How can I?”

His shoulders rose a trifle at the case of it—at the simplicity of his request.

“Talk to her—tell her things—ask her advice on your own affairs, even if you must invent the affairs—pay her little
compliments
—tell her she is beautiful!”

“She
is
beautiful!”

“Ah, yes, she is. You see, I do not ask the impossible.”

“You mean you want me to take the place of Fabrice?” asked Camilla directly, and he gave her a long, smiling look with admiration in it.

“That is called catching on, I think,” he said. “Virginia has doubtless told you that Fabrice is—a disappointment. We sec very little of her here any more, we are too quiet for her taste. Sallee has hoped so much of you—I know that very well. And now that you have come, I can see that her hopes are all safe with you. You will be a breath of fresh air. But I keep you standing here, and you must rest before dinner.”

“Wait!” She laid an impulsive hand on
his sleeve and lifted it away again at once and felt her cheeks grow hot under his attentive, courteous gaze. “No, I—it doesn’t matter—I’ll ask you some other time—”

“We shall have plenty of time, and you must be tired now. The dressing-bell goes at seven and I should lie down until then if I were you.”

He turned away, with a smile like a caress, towards the stairs and the drawing-room where Cousin Sally was. Camilla shut the door and stood a moment leaning against the inside of it, wondering why her heart was pounding as though she had run uphill. She had touched his sleeve to hold him there beside her—why? What was she going to say to him? What did he think of her, backing down like that? She felt a fool, a
blundering, schoolgirlish idiot, all thumbs, abrupt, tactless,
gauche
would be his word for it. Left-handed. Was that what he thought of her now?
You
will
be
a
breath
of
fresh
air
….

Pressing cold, nervous fingers against her temples, she moved slowly to the bed and sat down on the edge of it limply, staring ahead of her at the cheery little coal fire which did its best to warm the spacious room—a room with old Chinese wallpaper and old Queen Anne furniture and a long view down the wintry garden towards the curve of the stream.

Camilla was not conscious of the room, which she would have explored with interest an hour before. Now she sat still on the edge of the bed, suddenly overwhelmed with weariness and a strange, paralysing depression whose cause was not clear to her. She felt wrung out and hung up to dry. Well, why? It was not such a dreary prospect ahead of her, to be nice to Cousin Sally because Fabrice, who was her own granddaughter, was a washout. And there would be plenty of time, he said, to talk to Sosthène.

About what? They had absolutely nothing in common except looking after Cousin Sally—Sosthène didn’t know or care anything about the family in America, there was nothing in her own reminiscences which could possibly interest him, except the bit of war-time London she had seen and the one bad raid she had gone through, but there was nothing in that to impress anyone but herself, it had happened to hundreds of other people. He and Cousin Sally had seen much worse getting out of Belgium. She had nothing to offer him, there was nothing whatever about her own meagre, crude, childish, stammering self to interest him in the least. And she had to wait two endless hours before she could see him again….

She had no idea how long she had sat there on the edge of the bed before there was a knock on the door and Sally herself looked in.

“Not resting?” she asked in surprise. “Sosthène said that he advised you to lie down before dinner. I only came to see if you had everything you wanted.”

Camilla rose and went to put her arms around the slender, fragrant figure which had paused in the middle of the room.

“How
nice
you smell!” she said. “Is it you or your clothes? And wait till they hear at home that I have seen you at last and that you are just as beautiful as they always said you were!”

Sally’s answering embrace was a little tense, but relaxed at once and she was smiling.

“You know, of course, that by all the rules I should by now be dying in a gutter,” she remarked. “It’s really very
disobliging
of me, but I’ve never been anywhere
near
a gutter! Be sure to tell them that at home, won’t you!”

“They know it!” Camilla grinned, and Sally patted her cheek with a ringed hand.

“But that is not to say that you are to follow my example,” she said.

“Cousin Sally, tell me honestly—would you do it all the same again?”

Sally’s wide violet gaze went slowly away from Camilla’s face to rest on the door, somewhere beyond which was
Sosthène
and this life, whatever it was, that they lived together. Her small head with its red-gold crown of gleaming hair was very high and proud.

“For the same ending—yes,” she said without hesitation. “Don’t think I have never had my bad times—don’t think I have never shed bitter tears—but Sosthène said to me once, a long time ago it was, at our beginning. You shall never weep again, he said, and it has been so—even with the war, it has been so. I have lost my home, my old friends, perhaps my fortune—but with what I have left, there is nothing lost worth weeping for.”

Camilla, standing beside her in a long silence, thought, I must lie down after all, before I drop—I wonder if it’s influenza coming on—you feel very queer when that starts—

She made a blind, groping movement towards the bed, and Sally’s arm was around her waist.

“My dear, you are half dead with fatigue and I stand talking
here! Lie down, now, and let me put the eiderdown over you—like that—kick off your shoes, no one can possibly rest with shoes on—there—now close your eyes and drift a bit, you’re bound to hear the dressing-bell, I tell Virginia it would wake the dead—”

The eiderdown was expertly tucked in, especially at the hollow of the back where it was so comforting, all but one light was turned out, and the door closed softly behind her.

Camilla lay very still, as though hiding from something that was bound to pounce if she gave the slightest sign of life. Her fingers were damp and icy, her heartbeats were deafening, she was cold and frightened and alone. Desperately she numbed her mind, tried not to think, determined not to realize the relentless thing which waited in ambush at the back of her consciousness….

But not for long. There was no putting it off for long. It was gaining on her now—there was no refuge—no defence. It came….

Oh,
no,
I must not think of Sosthène….

Exhausted as she was, she had found it impossible to doze when the dressing-bell sounded brassily through the house. What a thing, she thought mistily, sitting up at once, and then lingering a moment, her head in her hands. What must I wear? The blue is best, but I was saving it for the Christmas party. That’s a month away. I’ll wear the blue to-night. No, you won’t any such thing, you’ll wear your old black, it’s only family and there’s no reason to put on any airs.

She swung her feet off the bed and stood up, feeling shaken and odd. There was another knock on the door and the elderly housemaid came in with a polished brass can of hot water and fussed round the wash-handstand, placing towels and soap.

“Will you want any help with your dress, miss?”

“No, thanks, I can manage, I expect you have all you can do these days.”

“Thank you, miss.”

She smiled, and went noiselessly away.

Camilla took the black chiffon dress out of the wardrobe—it had short sleeves and a full-petalled skirt, with a pink velvet rose caught on the left hip—she had worn it to informal dances and family parties in Richmond for the past two years. Firmly she closed the wardrobe door and laid the dress on the bed. It was quite good enough for anybody.

She got out of her travelling clothes, pinned back her hair and washed her face and touched it up very carefully—
Virginia
permitted her a film of rouge on her cheeks and lips and a light dusting of powder, with the remark that she might as well begin, everyone came to it because of being so tired all the time and it was better than looking ghastly and heroic.

While she was brushing out her hair Camilla wondered what Calvert would say if she had it cut short like Virginia’s—and decided to ask him next time she wrote. She caught hold of it just below her ears on each side and bunched it out
experimentally
. Its softness was becoming to her high cheek-bones and sharp jaw line. She leaned closer to the glass, studying her face as she had never paused to do before. Wide-open grey eyes looked back at her under high, curving brows—a long, straight mouth with childish, sensitive lips—the throat was too small, like the neck of a colt—the forehead was high beneath the heavy natural waves of chestnut hair. No great beauty—not by Sally’s nineteenth-century standards—but clean-looking—
bred-
looking
—like a promising colt. Camilla, realizing none of this, made a face at herself in the glass and began to twist up her hair into the usual heavy knot at the back of her neck. It dragged away from her face—made her chin stick out, made her
forehead
higher. She tore out the pins and began again, attempting Phoebe’s style with the wide smooth band of hair wrapped closely round her head. To her surprise it stayed up. She pulled it looser round her small ears, doubtfully. Would they think she was copying Phoebe? Did it matter if they did? No one but Virginia would know it was the first time she had worn it this way. And it did make her look less—less stick-in-the-mud-ish.
Phoebe fastened hers with a square tortoise-shell pin either side. Camilla wondered if Phoebe would mind if she got big pins too. Oh, only when she was off duty like this, of course. The rest of the time the bun was more suitable. Unless she had it cut….

She put on the black dress and the black silk stockings which went with it, and the black satin slippers with undercut heels, and looked at herself again anxiously—the new hair style made her taller—gave her fine-boned face and slender neck
something
she had never seen in herself before. The word her youthful humility of spirit forbade her was
elegance.
It brought out her inborn look of race. But the quite unconscious
excitement
which shimmered all round her was due to the presence in the house of a stranger she was resolved not to try to know better.

While she still hesitated before the mirror the brassy gong went again, and when she reached the drawing-room Sally and Sosthène were already there, Sosthène in a velvet dinner jacket with a black tie, Sally resplendently décolletée and covered with jewels. Virginia had decided to have a tray in bed, and Camilla wondered with a darting panic if she had to dine alone with these two, and instantly despaired of making sufficient adult conversation to last out the meal. Sally must have seen something of her consternation, for she held out a welcoming hand crusted with diamonds and said at once, “Come along, child, and have a glass of wine with us. Or has Virginia taught you to drink those horrible cocktails up in London?”

“No, I—don’t as a rule take anything before dinner,” said Camilla, and gave her left hand into Sally’s warm clasp
gratefully
. “Unless there’s a raid on, and I need Dutch courage!”

“Such cold hands,” said Sally, holding Camilla’s tell-tale fingers between her palms. “How nice you look, my dear, Sosthène, we won’t wait for the others, they must have broken down somewhere. Pour the wine now.”

Sosthène had risen from the sofa when Camilla came in,
and he went to the tray where a cut-glass decanter and
frail-stemmed
glasses stood, and began to pour the sherry, while Sally continued to appraise Camilla’s appearance with interest.

“Yes—very nice indeed,” she nodded. “But I little
too
chaste, perhaps. Here, you must have these.” She unclasped the
necklace
at her throat and held it out—a double strand of graduated pearls. “Stoop down, child, I’ll put it on for you.”