“Getting hungry?” she inquired of Laura.
“A little. But I can wait,” answered Laura politely.
“That’s right,” said Marina, off whose own appetite the edge had no doubt been taken by her various nibblings. “Now there’s only the chemist.”
They rode to another street, entered a druggist’s, and the same thing on a smaller scale was repeated, except that here Marina did no tasting, but for a stray gelatine or jujube. By the time the shop door closed behind them, Laura could almost have eaten liquorice powder. It was two o’clock, and she was faint with hunger.
“We’ll be home in plenty of time,” said Marina, consulting a neat watch. “Dinner’s not till three today, because of father.”
Again a tramway jerked them forward. Some half mile from their destination, Marina rose.
“We’ll get out here. I have to call at the butcher’s.”
At a quarter to three, it was a very white-faced, exhausted little girl that followed her companion into the house.
“Well, I guess you’ll have a fine healthy appetite for dinner,” said Marina, as she showed her where to hang up her hat and wash her hands.
Godmother was equally optimistic. From the sofa of the morning-room, where she sat knitting, she said: “Well, you’ve had a fine morning’s gadding about I must say! How are you? And how’s your dear mother?”
“Quite well, thank you.”
Godmother scratched her head with a spare needle, and the attention she had had for Laura evaporated. “I hope, Marina, you told Graves about those empty jam-jars he didn’t take back last time?”
Marina, without lifting her eyes from a letter she was reading, returned: “Indeed I didn’t. He made such a rumpus about the sugar-boxes that I thought I’d try to sell them to Petersen instead.”
Godmother grunted, but did not question Marina’s decision. “And what news have you from your dear mother?” she asked again, without looking at Laura—just as she never looked at the stocking she held, but always over the top of it.
Here, however, the dinner-bell rang, and Laura, spared the task of giving more superfluous information, followed the two ladies to the dining-room. The other members of the family were waiting at the table. Godmother’s husband—he was a lawyer—was a morose, black-bearded man who, for the most part, kept his eyes fixed on his plate. Laura had heard it said that he and Godmother did not get on well together; she supposed this meant that they did not care to talk to each other, for they never exchanged a direct word: if they had to communicate, it was done by means of a third person. There was the elder daughter, Georgina, dumpier and still brusquer than Marina, the eldest son, a bank-clerk who was something of a dandy and did not waste civility on little girls; and lastly there were two boys, slightly younger than Laura, black-haired, pug-nosed, pugnacious little creatures, who stood in awe of their father, and were all the wilder when not under his eye.
Godmother mumbled a blessing; and the soup was eaten in silence.
During the meat course, the bank-clerk complained in extreme displeasure of the way the laundress had of late dressed his collars—these were so high that, as Laura was not slow to notice, he had to look straight down the two sides of his nose to see his plate—and announced that he would not be home for tea, as he had an appointment to meet some “chappies” at five, and in the evening was going to take a lady friend to Brock’s Fireworks. These particulars were received without comment. As the family plied its pudding-spoons, Georgina in her turn made a statement.
“Joey’s coming to take me driving at four.”
It looked as if this remark, too, would founder on the general indifference. Then Marina said warningly, as if recalling her parent’s thoughts: “Mother!”
Awakened, Godmother jerked out: “Indeed and I hope if you go you’ll take the boys with you!”
“Indeed and I don’t see why we should!”
“Very well, then, you’ll stop at home. If Joey doesn’t choose to come to the point—”
“Now hold your tongue, mother!”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“Crikey!” said the younger boy, Erwin, in a low voice. “Joey’s got to take us riding.”
“If you and Joey can’t get yourselves properly engaged,” snapped Godmother, “then you shan’t go driving without the boys, and that’s the end of it.”
Like dogs barking at one another, thought Laura, listening to the loveless bandying of words—she was unused to the snappishness of the Irish manner, which sounds so much worse than it is meant to be: and she was chilled anew by it when, over the telephone, she heard Georgy holding a heated conversation with Joey.
He was a fat young man, with hanging cheeks, small eyes, and a lazy, lopsided walk.
“Hello—here’s a little girl! What’s her name?—Say, this kiddy can come along too.”
As it had leaked out that Marina’s afternoon would be spent between the shelves of her storeroom, preparing for the incoming goods, Laura gratefully accepted the offer.
They drove to Marlborough Tower. With their backs to the horse sat the two boys, mercilessly alert for any display of fondness on the part of the lovers; sat Laura, with her straight, inquisitive black eyes. Hence Joey and Georgy were silent, since, except to declare their feelings, they had nothing to say to each
