The Charmers (17 page)

“The last shop,” Diana went on, “the very last shop left in London, where you never see too much of anything, or a bad design, or anything that’s bad quality, or hear an ugly noise. You can forget that London’s changed since 1932—and yet the place is completely ‘with it.’ I’d like to go and live there. If they had a flat to let up in their top storey, I’d move in tonight.”

“I expect you do see a lot of changes, having lived abroad so long,” Christine said placidly. She looked across at Diana from her place on the lawn, where she was kneeling, with earth-covered fingers, on a piece of sacking.

She was learning that some Smith remarks could be offered to these people who were in almost every way so different from Smiths. Some, yes; but Smith pop-eyedness at different behaviour, Smith envious disapproval of other people’s possessions, these fell into a silence.

If she could have said
They’re stinking rich
or
Oh well, everyone to his taste
or uttered one of the airy obscenities that commonly dismissed such goings-on as did not appeal to her employers, she could have taken a more active part in the gossip at the evening meal. But she could neither get used to its tone nor imitate it, though it continued to fascinate her.

“Changes!” Diana now said deeply. “It’s heartbreaking. I can hardly bear it. All round Warren Street it looks as if there’d been atomic war. It was no beauty spot, heaven knows, thirty years ago, but need they have been quite so wholesale?”

“You can’t expect people to put up with dirt and overcrowding and no room to drive properly just because you enjoy looking at the picturesque,” said Mrs. Traill.

“I don’t expect them to put up with it. All I’m saying is, I miss my old London, the one I was young in.”

“You have to have progress.” Christine got up and dusted her skirt. “Well, I must go and get supper.”

“
That
is what sends me clawing up the wall about her,” Diana said vigorously in a moment. “‘
You have to have progress
’ … all these clichés. I damned well know you have to have it, it’s like some horrible natural law. I know you have to have it, all right, I just wish it was different.”

“At least
we
can lie up here in the garden and hear ourselves speak and smell the wallflowers,” said Mrs. Traill. “If we had to live down there, you might long and yearn for progress.”

“I know all that, my girl, as well as you do … Do you see any signs of her mind getting wider?”

“From time to time. But only a very little. She is quite shockingly indifferent to what’s going on in the rest of the world. The whole of India could starve to death this week-end, for all she cares.”

“I don’t care much myself.”

“I know you don’t but at least you do feel guilty …”

“Who says I do?” Diana sat up and began to collect her parcels. “I can’t do anything about it. And as for Africa, South, East, North and the Congo, it can tear itself to pieces so far as I am concerned. As soon as James retired I gave up feeling the slightest interest in any of them … except that it infuriates me to see the way they’re spoiled and pampered over here. What they need is a touch of the whip.”

Mrs. Traill shook her head.

“They do, Fabia. You haven’t lived among them … I don’t think anyone has the slightest right to judge the South Africans who hasn’t actually lived among blacks.”

“Most of them over here are Jamaicans …”

“The colour’s the same, isn’t it?”

She went into the house, leaving behind her a trail of some scent that was a blend of pepper and violets.

Christine had had more than one lecture from Mrs. Meredith about ‘training’ Mr. Johnson. Diana herself put the word in inverted commas.

“Now, you’ve got to get one thing, and really it’s only one because everything else depends on it—into your head:
firmness
. If you’re lucky enough to get a good one they make wonderful servants—more the kind to please Mrs. Traill than me, too much of this famous ‘gaiety’ and treating you like their mother and so on—and they’re marvellous with children, being nothing but children themselves. They’re natural thieves and liars and you mustn’t take too much notice of it. But it just isn’t fair to them to treat that boy as you would a white person. You
must
show him how things have got to be done, and keep on showing him.”

“I do, Mrs. Meredith. But he always says ‘Yes, I know that, yes, I know that.”

“Oh, they all think they know everything. That’s their inferiority complex … You must just ignore it.”

“Mrs. Meredith, I’ve been meaning to speak to you about this—he’s gone mad about this other place he goes to in Hampstead. He says he can’t come to us twice a week now, because he must go to them. They want him to go and live in, if you please. Quite condescending he was. I thought I’d just mention it.”

“What’s the attraction there?” Diana asked languidly. “More money?”

“Well, would you believe it, only three-and-six the hour! I was surprised. He let it slip last week.”

“Can’t be the money, then. I expect they spoil him and flatter him. You’d better talk to Mrs. Traill about it. If this were Africa I could soon tell you what to do. But it isn’t.”

Christine had been annoyed by this gradual revelation of Mr. Johnson’s growing allegiance to another household. It seemed to her both a slight to Pemberton Hall and a threat to herself; later on, she might have to descend into the Hades of Bensonia to look for another cleaner.

And he continued to arrive just before seven, instead of at six o’clock, as the original arrangement between them had said.

One evening, she opened the door to him at five to seven as usual, and, having had to toil up from the pleasant supper-table and leave an interesting discussion between the ladies
about
Glynis Lennox’s clothes, to say nothing of a plateful of supper she considered she had earned, Christinne was rightfully annoyed.

“I wish you could be on time,” she said sharply. “Look at that clock. Just on seven.”

Mr. Johnson rolled his eyes towards the dial of the grandfather clock, decorated with faded wreaths of flowers in pink and blue, that stood in the hall. His round head was bare to the summer breeze and his clean shirt open at the throat. A pair of slight grey trousers, apparently insecurely anchored, barely veiled his legs. He took no notice of what she had said, but, as if he were listening to some other sound, stood with head slightly bent, smiling. Then he looked up at her in the way he had that used, at first, to make her wonder a little what was coming; with eyes very white and very dark under his low brows.

“House say ‘happy welcome’,” he murmured.

“What?” Christine said, staring.

“House say that when I come in. Every time, I hear that. It is a kind and a gracious feeling, madame.”

“Yes … well …” Christine did not know quite what to say. If this was a way of turning off her rebuke—but she was not certain that it was—what a disarming one!

She said no more, but glanced round uncertainly, as if suddenly conscious of the house’s silence and the fading sunny light; behind Mr. Johnson’s pensively-lowered head, she saw the houses in the Square, and above them, clear depths of turquoise sky; the old trees looked heavy and richly green. It was very quiet; a quiet summer evening.

She looked at him again; it was true, there was just that feeling in the hall; it did say ‘happy welcome’, but she had a confused impression that something more than flowers and shining wood and clear walls was saying it.

“Yes … well,” she said again at last, in a tone less sure of itself, “you’d better get on now, everything’s ready for you.”

“I have my tea, two cup, and my sandwich about half-past eight,” instructed Mr. Johnson, hauling up the slight grey garments in preparation for his duties.

Christine’s retort, “We’ll see about that,” did not reach her lips. She went downstairs feeling confused, and the next thing she saw was Mr. Meredith smilingly refilling her glass.

“I wish she hadn’t said that about hating clothes,” Antonia Marriott was saying earnestly, “it’s quite serious, you know. Not now, I don’t mean now. Few people under thirty can wear their things, anyway, unless they’ve been trained. I mean later on. A lot of people of her age feel like that. They see divine clothes and they feel sort of helpless. You know—
Oh, I could never wear that
, and it makes them despairing and they think they hate them. Then they go on looking quite awful for years, and when the time comes, and they
realize
, it’s probably too late.” She paused, with eyes like blue saucers, and stared tragically at her friends.

“We all know clothes are your religion,” said Diana. “Everybody isn’t like that.”

Antonia just let the saucers sweep over the lines of Diana’s dress. Diana laughed.

“I know, darling, I know. The shoulders don’t quite fit and the waist’s wrong somewhere. I bought it in a hurry.”

“I’ll do it for you,” Miss Marriott said eagerly, “I’ve half-an-hour to spare.”

“You can’t possibly do it in half-an-hour.”

“I could just pin it …”

“You’re not going to just pin it. Your Mr. Herz would be delighted to get here and find you on your knees with your mouth full of pins.”

“He wouldn’t mind. He knows all about pins and things; he made his little money in the rag trade.”

“Going to marry him, Antonia?” James asked amiably.

“I might.” Antonia got up from the table, not looking at anybody. “I don’t know what it is, I just seem to get tireder and tireder and tireder.”

She suddenly put her hands up to her face, and stood there. There was a short silence, then Mrs. Traill soothingly said that she would be better after her holiday, adding that she supposed she would go to that heavenly place in Bermuda where her mother would be staying?

“Well,
I
think it would be better if she went somewhere
quite by herself
,” Diana said firmly, ignoring a shake of the head from Mrs. Traill; Antonia took her hands down from her face, smiled dewily round on everyone, and remarked that she must go up and do things to her face.

“Sorry,” she called over her shoulder as she undulated out of the room.

“Diana, why must you always try to put her off being with her mother?” demanded Mrs. Traill.

“Because I think she’s a pernicious influence. She wants to keep her as the beautifully-dressed little girl who’s grown up just enough to hold down a marvellous job.”

“I’m sure you’re absolutely wrong. She’s been encouraging her to marry for years.”

“Precious lot there is to encourage! She’ll never marry anyone—why should she?”

“I think she might, Diana, if she could find someone who’d agree to a
mariage blanc
.”

“I suppose you think Mr. Herz might?”

While Mrs. Traill was pondering this with a dubious pursing of the lips, James got up and went out with a remark about the heavyweight match being on in three minutes.

“I don’t, somehow, think he would …”

“Fabia, it was a joke, my girl—J-O-K-E, you know. What people laugh at.”

“Often people are very
sensitive
under that rather worldly exterior. We can’t ever really
know
people …”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake … come out and look at the lights.”

“I will when I’ve finished this.” Mrs. Traill held up her glass. “Have some more … Had it occurred to you that Clive might?”

“Might what?
Mariage blanc
? No, it had not. He’s a perfectly ordinary sweet human person. No nonsense of that kind about him.”

“He does still—” Mrs. Traill glanced at Christine, who was unobtrusively beginning to clear the table—“Haven’t you noticed?”

“I have indeed. I’m only so surprised that I can’t believe
it
—after all these years. I thought it would wear off after a few weeks but it doesn’t seem to have. Of course, I never have understood why Antonia gets them the way she does. She’s very unvital—and that’s old hat, if you like—and she’s frigid. Can you imagine anything less attractive?

“Oh, outside of the raw thing, you can never tell what’s going to get them. One noticeable thing about Antonia is, you’d be sure she’d never give any trouble or be bitchy. She’s sweet, and she’s placid. And so pretty, Diana. It’s an old-fashioned type but she
is
pretty.”

“She hasn’t been placid lately. I’ve never seen anyone so changed. I admit she used to be.”

“It’s since this Ferenc business. It must be frightful for her. I think she’d been relying for years on marrying Nigel and retiring.”

Diana made a face.

“It wouldn’t suit you or me, of course. I’d rather—well, there are a whole heap of things I’d rather do. But she’s been living in that world ever since she was nineteen, remember, and she’s rather forgotten what the real world’s like, I sometimes think. And though he’s a bit odd in some ways—”

Diana gave a small shout of hard laughter.

“Well,” Mrs. Traill, colouring, looked almost angry. “I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. This Ferenc business is the first bit of serious trouble there’s been. I don’t think she loves Nigel in the ordinary sense of the word but I think she’s awfully fond of him, and she was relying on him for her old age, and her pride’s hurt and she feels miserable and lost. They’ve always got on so well together, and I think he’s genuinely fond of her.”