The Children's Book

into a woman.”

Dorothy, determinedly medical, considered she had been a woman, willy-nilly, since her monthly Curse began. She had been proud of the bloodstains, and also, despite her academic anatomical interest, dismayed by the speed of the changes in her body. She was also niggled by the fact that it was Violet, not Olive, who had taken upon herself to explain this momentous event—about which Dorothy, of course, was already informed, through reading books. She thought, as she and Tom stumbled more or less companionably across the tiles, that Tom probably knew nothing at all about the Curse. She was right. But she had not stopped to think about Tom’s own reaction to puberty, which had tossed him about on waves of emotion, and rather disgusted him. He said, out of The Golden Age,

“You’re turning into a Grown-up. Is it nice?”

“You’re older than me. You should know.”

“Girls grow up quicker. They say. I’m not sure it is nice.”

The conversation was odd, rather formal, because they were in formal clothes, stepping formal patterns, between majolica pillars, to sentimental rhythms. Dorothy saw that Tom had chosen a daft moment to try to talk to her about something important. His hair was a shining mess. It was not parted and slicked down, like Julian’s hair, and Gerald’s and Charles’s, and Geraint’s, even though Geraint’s bush showed signs of rebellion. She gave a twitch to the waist of her shapely dress. She was thinking of an answer when the music stopped. Charles, who had put his name in her little starry book, came to claim her. She said to Tom

“Do go and ask Pomona to dance. Nobody seems to, and she looks desolate. It would be a kind act.”

Tom went over to Pomona, who was drooping a little, in a beautifully embroidered, less than perfectly tailored gown, white with a deep border of apple boughs, and embroidered strips of apple-blossom round waist, neck and sleeves.

Charles asked Dorothy if she was having a good time. He told her she looked quite the thing. He danced well—his mother had seen to that—and Dorothy followed, and they twirled cheerfully.

“What are you thinking?” Charles asked, after five minutes.

“Do you want the real answer?”

“I always do. There’s no sense in telling fibs. What are you thinking?”

“If I tell you, you must tell me.”

“Agreed.”

“I was thinking about how I can’t do quadratic equations, and how I never shall be able to, if you keep taking Mr. Susskind off to Germany on cultural trips just when I almost can. And I shall never matriculate, and never be a doctor.”

“What a very unromantic thought. There must be other tutors.”

“Well, this one knows what it is I don’t understand.”

A slow silence.

“You didn’t tell me what you are thinking?”

“Oddly, dear cousin, I was thinking in a sort of way about the same thing. I was thinking how nice it is in Munich, and about going secretly to cabarets which would give my mater a fit if she knew. You see, I am being honest.”

“Now we are at least talking to each other. What’s good about the cabarets?”

Charles said they were very avant-garde. And smoky. And that the police sometimes invaded them. He said he needed Joachim Susskind to do simultaneous translation.

“Ah,” said Dorothy, between fury and amusement, “but you don’t need him as I need him. Dog in a manger.”

Pomona’s little hand was chilly in Tom’s, and didn’t heat up. He felt sorry for her, which was good for him. She didn’t speak. He was looking into her mass of hair, which had embroidered flowers pinned into it. He said it must be wonderful to live in a magical place like the Denge Marsh.

In some ways it was, Pomona agreed.

Perhaps she was a bit lonely without Imogen, he ploughed on.

It wasn’t really Imogen, Pomona said in a small voice. It wasn’t very nice now Elsie had gone away.

Tom didn’t know about this. He asked where Elsie had gone, and was told, in a kind of gentle hiss, that she had gone to have a baby, and was coming back when it was all over, but that nobody was very cheerful because of this, neither Mama, nor Philip, nor Papa of course either.

There was another silence while Tom dredged up a reply. He was not going to ask about the baby, that was not what he would do. He repeated that the place was magical, and heard the banality in his own voice.

Pomona said

“From outside it is. I feel we’re under a spell. You know, behind one of those thickets in stories. We trail out to the orchard and back to the kitchen. And up to bed, and out to the orchard, and back to the kitchen. We sew. That’s part of the spell. We have to sew things or something dreadful will happen.”

If Dorothy had said all this, it would have been a joke. But Pomona’s voice was amiably monotonous.

“Well, I suppose you could go to College, like Imogen, couldn’t you?”

“And sew things? I don’t think so. I don’t think I’d be let go to College. Are you going to College?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Tom said evasively.

They trotted on, dancing neither well nor badly. Tom said

“There must be other things, besides sewing.”

“Pots,” said Pomona. “There are pots.”