These Delights (7 page)

“
Tom Bowden’s
what
?”

“You know—the one he was engaged to, only he broke it off because so much tattooing had made her tough.”

Luke stared at her helplessly.

“Did
you
know that Tom was once engaged to a tattooed lady in a fair, Hester?” he asked his sister, who shook her head and smiled.

“No. Perhaps Vicky is making it up.”

She turned and looked at them both with surprise.

“Oh, no, Cousin Hester,” she said. “I thought you knew. He told me all about it this afternoon. He said he was fair mazed about her. She had a lighthouse on her back and a fox and hounds chasing each other all round her middle. Just imagine!”

Luke gave a shout of laughter.
“
To think that Tom Bowden’s been working for me for close on twelve years and I never heard that one before! Vicky, you must have a gift for charming people’s secrets out of them.”

“That can be a dangerous gift, sometimes,” said Hester enigmatically. Her eyes rested thoughtfully on Vicky’s fair head for a moment, then she rolled up her darning and put it away. “I think I’m going to bed now. Lou, you sit up much too late for a little boy of your age. Come along, dear.
Corky has made a hutch for your rabbit, and he’s safe for the night in the scullery.”

“Bibi’s used to bedrooms,” protested Lou, but he got up obediently
.

“Well, I don’t think bedrooms are suitable places for rabbits. Say good night and come to bed.”

“We’ll all go,” said Vicky, suddenly sleepy, as was her habit. “Come on, Pauline.”

They kissed Luke good night with their usual fervour and went, yawning, from the room
.

Diana rode over the next morning and found Vicky sitting on the low wall of the porch. Her
back
was propped against the wall of the house, and her long, bare legs drawn up to her chin, supporting a book, and she blinked sleepily in the sunlight.

“Good morning, Diana,” she said with friendly welcome, noting with admiration how well riding
cl
othes became Diana. “You have come on a horse?”

“Good morning, Vicky,” said Diana in her quiet, composed voice. “Is Luke about?”

“Somewhere,” Vicky replied, waving a vague hand.
“
You look well in breeches, Diana.”

“Jodhpurs,” corrected Diana, eyeing Vicky’s brief skirt with distaste. Really, the girl was hardly decent. “Do you ride?”

“Me?” Vicky’s eyes opened widely, then crinkled up with amusement. “I should fall off at once—but at once. The horse alarms me. He snorts and paws the ground with his foot.”

“Hoof,” said Diana automatically. “Oh, well, it’s no use trying to become a good horsewoman if you’re afraid of them. They always know.
”

“And you—you are not afraid?”

Diana laughed.

“W
ell
, hardly. I’ve had to do with horses all my life. As a matter of fact, there’s very little I
am
afraid of.
After all, fear is really irrational and usually unintelligent.”

“So?” said Vicky with interest. “Now, me, I am afraid of many things. The horse—but only because he is stronger than I and more stupid — and sometimes of thunderstorms because then I think the gods are angry and revengeful, and sometimes of quite little things like lovers quarrelling and drunk men, and even sometimes of my own thoughts. No, I do not think fear is always unintelligent.”

Diana’s level, dark eyebrows lifted. She thought Vicky was tiresome and simply talking for effect, and she answered the one remark which, to her, made sense.

“Horses are by no means stupid,” she said.

Vicky looked surprised.

“Oh, but they must be, not to know their own strength,” she pointed out reasonably.

Diana smiled a little condescendingly.

“You don’t understand horses,” was all she said.

“That is true,” Vicky agreed. “Diana, you have, of course, read this
Wuther
i
ng Heights
?”

Diana glanced at the book.

“No. That sort of thing isn’t much in my line.”

“But it is one of the classics,” exclaimed Vicky with surprise.
“
You should read it, it’s magnificent, and this fear we were speaking of—you can feel it.”

But Diana had had enough of the conversation.

“I’ve little time for reading,” she said. “There’s usually so much to be done. Oughtn’t you to be helping Hester with some of the household chores?”

“Cousin Hester? I think she is writing letters.”

“Well, three extra in the house makes a lot of work, you know. I’m going to look for Lu
k
e.”

Vicky gave a puzzled little shrug and returned to her book. She was still reading an hour later, when Pauline hailed her from the stable yard.

“Diana is riding a black horse round the field and jumping over things. Come and watch,” she shouted.

Vicky shut her book reluctantly, and, tucking it under her arm, ran to join her sister.

“
They look very handsome,” Pauline said as they made their way to the field. “The horse is black and shining and Diana looks black and shining, too. Papa would have liked to paint them.”

“Papa could never do animals’ legs, like that man who always stood his cattle in long grass,” said Vicky. “Where’s Lou?”

“Watching for the piano-tuner. He wishes to practise but he says the piano hurts his ears.”

“Is it a good make?”

“Nothing special. An English upright, very old, I think, with funny little silk curtains and scones for candles.” They joined Luke, who was lean
ing on a gate watching Diana tak
ing the black across the field in a perfect figure of eight.

“Hullo!” he said, when he saw them. “Diana’s giving me a display. Come and watch.”

They watched breathlessly, warming immediately to such a skilled performance.

“No,” said Vicky softly, “I can see she would not be afraid. She rides magnificently. What poetry, what rhythm! Lou should be here to see. It is like Beethoven’s Sixth.”

He laughed, but he found Vicky’s constantly changing expression was almost as fascinating to watch as Diana’s equine exhibition.

“Here’s an admirer for you!” he called as Diana, having jumped a low hurdle with perfect timing, eased Comet to a walk and pulled up beside them. “She’s just compared you to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony.”

Diana thought that was just the sort of rema
rk
Vicky would make.

“Isn’t that rather extravagant?” she said coolly.

“Oh, no,” said Vicky quickly. “All perfect movement must be like music and verse and even toe prose. It flows and is controlled just as you were controlling your horse and your own body. It was beautiful.”

“Well, I suppose that’s your way of being complimentary,” said Diana, a little embarrassed, but she looked more kindly at Vicky, whose open admiration was written plainly in her face. “He’s improved, hasn’t he, Luke?”

“
Yes, he’s coming on nicely. You’ve certainly done a good job of schooling.” Luke caught Vicky’s puzzled gaze, and added with unexpected humor: “I suppose, Vicky, Marthe’s young man would have clasped his lady in his arms and cried: ‘My dear one, you were superb!’
”

“Yes, he would,” said Vicky, still looking puzzled. “Diana was superb. But you, you think only of the horse.” He gave her wind-tossed hair a tweak and Pauline giggled.

“Imagine Marthe on a horse! Oh, Vicky, that is a funny thought!”

They both dissolved into helpless laughter, and Diana, flushed, and looking very handsome, said:

“I don’t know what you’re all talking about, but Comet ought to be back to the stable. He’s sweating a bit now.” Diana could not like the
Jordan
s. To her everything about them seemed extravagant; their little foreign gestures and turns of phrase, their lack of restraint, and their odd
,
gamin-like charm. They exaggerated absurdly and half the time they did not behave like children at all. She found herself instinctively trying to snub and was annoyed that she did so. Once or twice she thought Luke glanced at her a little curiously, and although the children themselves seemed unresentful of criticism, their looks of surprise were patent to all.

Through lunch she firmly steered the conversation back to the farm, talking almost exclusively to Luke and ignoring the Jordans, who would break in with irrelevant questions, and when they had all finished and left the dining
room, she rather pointedly suggested that she and Luke should sit for hair an hour on the loggia and discuss the new shippon she intended to build.

“And you of course, too, Hester,” she said politely, as if she was already hostess at Monk’s Farm.

“No,” replied Hester pleasantly, “I’m going to finish my letters and then do some gardening. Why don’t you children walk down the hill and explore the village? You could collect my shoes from the cobbler’s at the same time. They should be ready by now.”

They said they would like to do this and would take Bibi for an airing and possibly find some English rabbits, but as they were starting, the piano-tuner arrived and everything had to be abandoned immediately while they accompanied him to the disused room which had always been known as the parlor, where the piano stood, and watched him at work.

On the loggia, Diana was making an effort to be gracious. “Father seemed very taken with your young cousins, Luke. He wants you to bring them over to the Manor some time. You seem to have had a hectic
morning
yesterday, from all accounts.”

“Yes,” smiled Luke, “Bibi certainly complicated matters.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “I’m afraid you don’t like them, Diana.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she replied. “After all, they are only children, but—well, they are a little overpowering, don’t you think?”

Luke’s eyes were preoccupied.

“No, I don’t think so. They are just rather more mature than the average English child, but they are so alive, so interested in everything.”

“They should all be at proper schools,” she said, “where they’d get the corners rubbed off.”

“I don’t suppose there’d be enough money for what you call proper schools for all of them,” he said gently.

“What a pity,” she replied. “It’s too late for Vicky, of course, but the other two could still become ordina
r
y average human beings.”

“And why too late for Vicky?” he asked, amused.

“Well. I mean she’s a little old for school, unless it was a finishing school, and nowadays, I don’t believe girls do so much of that. They get jobs,” she said.

“Well, doubtless Vicky too will get a job when they return to France,” Luke said a little shortly. “As I said, money is not plentiful.”

Through the open window came the opening bars of a Chopin
etude
, clear
and sure, sounding strange and a little unnatural to Diana, who had never known music at Monk’s Farm before.

“That tuner chap is good,” said Luke with surprise, when Vicky burst out through the french windows.

“That isn’t the tuner, it’s Lou,” she cried, her eyes dancing with pleasure. “I told you he was good, Luke. Come and listen. The man has finished and the piano really has a very sweet tone.”

They followed her into the parlor, where Hester was already standing by the piano, Pauline beside her, clasping Bibi in her arms. The man who had done the tuning stood just inside the doorway, his bag in his hand, listening appreciatively.

Lou played, oblivious of his audience. His small hands barely seemed to stretch the octave, but he played surely and delicately, and without music.

“Marvellous, isn’t he?” whispered the piano-tuner to Luke. “Wouldn’t think a little kid could play like that, would you? He’ll make his name when he grows up, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“It is a little stiff,” said Lou, suddenly stopping, “but the tone is good. Now give me Bibi.”

“Play the
rigadon
,
the one Louis composed,” said Vicky, and he played it, a charming, gay little air based on an old French folk song which made Vicky tap her feet and snap her fingers with unselfconscious abandon.

“Is he not good?” Vicky demanded naively of the company when Lou shut the piano and snatched his rabbit out of Pauline’s arms.

“Yes,” said Luke seriously. “I should say he had great talent, wouldn’t you, Hester?”

“I’m not a judge of these things,” said Hester quietly, “but it seemed a remarkable performance to me.”

“Well, I must be off,” the piano-tuner said. “Thanks for the concert, young man. I’ll look out for your name in the future.”

“Wait for me, I’ll see you off,” said Lou, suddenly bored with the conversation.

“Well, I must own, Vicky, you have cause to be proud,” Hester remarked when he had gone.

“Yes, rather astonishing, don’t you think, Diana?” said Luke.

Diana had been inspecting the room, wondering what she could make of it later on.

“He certainly seems to play well,” she admitted, “but is it wise to encourage a child of that age to think he’s remarkable?”

Vicky laughed.

“Lou would never think he was remarkable,” she said. “Playing the piano is like running or walking to
him.”

“But he knows he’s good,” Diana persisted. “He can hardly help it with everyone saying so in his hearing.”

“Of course he knows he’s good,” said Vicky impatiently. “Just as you know you’re good when you ride.”

Diana looked annoyed. Vicky had a flair for nibbing her up the wrong way and being in the right about it.

“Well, I think I must be getting
back
,” she said. “Mother has a bridge party this afternoon, and she’ll want me to dispense tea. Where’s Snipe? In the kitchen, I suppose, as usual. I do wish you’d tell Corky not to feed him, Luke.”

“The spaniel? Is he yours?” asked Pauline. “We made him a bed in our suitcase and he slept there all through lunch. He is a nice dog and so soft to kiss.”

“
Please don’t slop over him, Pauline,” Diana said a little sharply. “He’s not used to it and it makes them soft. Coming,
Lu
ke?”

“And we,” said Vicky, catching her sister’s indignant eye, “must go to the village and fetch Cousin Hester’s shoes.”