The Stranger’s Child

of betrayal discoloured the following seconds.

‘Is this Harry?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said, feeling her shame still more.

‘The man who gave you the gramophone.’

‘Oh, yes, well he’s given us all kinds of things. He’s given Hubert a gun, and… lots of things. The Complete Works of Sheridan.’

‘I imagine Huey might appreciate some of these gifts rather more than others,’ said Cecil, again familiar and casual.

‘Well… He gave me a dressing set, with a scent bottle, which I’m not old enough for, and silver-backed brushes.’

‘He sounds like Father Christmas,’ said Cecil; and with a hint of boredom, looking round, ‘What a jolly fellow.’

‘Hmm. He’s very generous, I suppose, but he’s not a bit jolly. You’ll see.’ She glanced up at him, still strangely indignant both with him and with Harry, but he was gazing at the top of the spinney, where they’d met last night, as if at something much more intriguing. ‘He goes to Germany a great deal, he does import-export, you know. He brings us back things.’

‘And you think all these presents are his way of… paying court to your mamma,’ said Cecil.

‘I fear so.’

Cecil’s splendid profile, the autocratic nose and slightly bulbous eye, seemed poised for judgement; but when he turned and smiled she felt the sudden return of his attention and kindness. ‘But, my dear child, you’ve no need to fear unless you think she returns his feelings.’

‘Oh, I don’t know…!’ She was flustered, by having come so far, and by this unexpected word child, which was what her mother herself called her, quite naturally, though often with a hint of criticism. She had got it last night, once or twice, when she was trying to make Cecil feel at home and asking him questions. He must have heard her say it. Now she felt some not quite nice rhetorical advantage had been taken of her – he’d humbled her at the very moment he was meant to be cheering her up.

Cecil smiled. ‘I tell you what. I’ll have a good look at him, as a total outsider, and let you know what I think.’

‘All right…’ said Daphne, not at all sure about this compromise.

‘Ah!’ said Cecil, sitting forward in his chair. George was coming across the lawn, his jacket hooked over his shoulder, and whistling cheerily. Then he stood looking down at them, with a question hidden somewhere in his smile.

‘What is that thing you’re always whistling?’ said Daphne.

‘I don’t know,’ said George. ‘It’s a song my gyp sings, “When I sees you, my heart goes boomps-a- daisy”.’

‘Really…! I’d have thought if you had to whistle, you’d have chosen something nice,’ and seeing a chance to bring them all back to the subject of last night – ‘such as The Flying Dutchman, for instance.’

George pressed his hand to his heart and started on the lovely part of Senta’s Ballad, staring at her with his eyebrows raised and slowly shaking his head, as if to throw his own self-consciousness over to her. He had a sweet high swooping whistle, but he put in so much vibrato he made the song sound rather silly, and soon he couldn’t keep his lips together and the whistle became a breathy laugh.

‘Hah…’ muttered Cecil, seeming slightly uncomfortable, standing up and slipping his notebook into his jacket pocket. Then, with a cold smile, ‘No… I can’t whistle, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, with your tin ear!’ said Daphne.

‘I’m just going to take this precious book inside,’ he said, holding up Daphne’s little album. And they watched him cross the lawn and go in by the garden door.

‘So what were you talking about to Cess?’ said George, looking down at her again with his funny smile.

She picked over the grass in front of her, in a teasing delay. Her first thought, surprisingly strong, was that her own relations with Cecil, going on quite independently of George’s, if not entirely satisfactorily, must be kept as secret as possible. She felt there was something there, which mustn’t be exposed to reason or mockery. ‘We were talking about you, of course,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ said George, ‘that must have been interesting.’

Daphne gave a soft snort at this. ‘If you must know, Cecil was asking if you had any particular girlfriends.’

‘Oh,’ said George, more airily this time, ‘and what did you say?’ – he had started blushing, and turned away in a vain attempt to conceal the fact. Now he was gazing off down the garden, as if he’d just noticed something interesting. It was quite unexpected, and it even took Daphne, with her sisterly intuition, a few moments to understand, and then shout out,

‘Oh, George, you have!’

‘What…? Oh nonsense…’ George said. ‘Be quiet!’

‘You have, you have!’ said Daphne, feeling at once how the joy of discovery was shadowed by the sense of being left behind.

8

Once the gentlemen had gone out, Jonah set off upstairs, and was almost at the top when he found he’d forgotten Mr Cecil’s shoes, and turned back to get them. But just then he heard voices in the hall below. They must have gone into the study for a minute, to the right of the front door: now they were by the hall-stand, getting their hats. Jonah stood where he was, not hiding, but in the shadows, on the turn of the stair.

‘Is this one yours?’ Cecil said.

‘Oh, you ass,’ said George. ‘Come on, let’s get out. I’ll bring this, I think, just in case.’

‘Good idea… How do I look?’

‘You look quite decent, for once. Jonah must be doing all right for you.’

‘Oh, Jonah’s a dream,’ said Cecil. ‘Did I tell you, I’m taking him back to Corley with me.’

‘Oh no, you don’t!’ There was a little tussle that Jonah couldn’t see, giggling and gasping, voices under their breath, ‘… ow!… for God’s sake, Cecil…’ and then the noise of the front door opening. Jonah went up three steps and peeped out of the little window. Cecil vaulted the garden gate, and George seemed to think about it, just for a moment, and then opened it and went out. Cecil was already some way down the lane.

Jonah waited a minute longer where he was, looking up the last three stairs and across the landing towards the spare-room door. Jonah’s a dream – what a way they talked… though it must mean things were going all right, he was doing it all convincingly. He didn’t think Mrs Sawle would let Cecil take him away, and he certainly didn’t want to leave home. He’d been into Harrow, of course, many times, and Edgware, and once to the Alexandra Palace to hear the organ… He went on up. The landing was dark, with its oak panelling and thick Turkey carpet, but the bedrooms were flung open so as to air and were full of light. He could hear Veronica, the housemaid, in Mr Hubert’s room, her grunts as she shook and thumped the pillows; she talked to herself, in a pleasant, businesslike mutter, ‘… there you are… up we go… thank you very much…’. Jonah felt he had understood something, they had decided he was ready. He looked forward to straightening the room and taking his time with Cecil’s things, examining the buttons and pockets in more detail. He would never have said it to anyone downstairs, but he thought if he learned valeting it could be a job for him, in a year or two’s time. One day, perhaps, he would let Mr Cecil, or someone very like him, take him away after all.

Then he pushed open the door, and saw at once he knew nothing, they’d told him nothing about what went on between bedtime and breakfast. It was like stepping into another house. Or else, he felt, as he took two or three short steps into the room, or else this Mr Cecil Valance was a lunatic; and at this thought he gave a sort of staring giggle. Well, he would have to wait for Veronica. The bed was all over the floor as if a fight had taken place in it. He looked at the shaving-water cold and scummy in the basin, the shaving-brush lying in a wet ring on top of the bookcase. He frowned at the clothes strewn over the floor and across the little armchair with a new and painful