At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell [39]
While indulging in these rather banal reflections, I became aware that the two sisters had begun to quarrel. I had not heard the beginning of the conversation that had led to this discord, but it seemed to be concerned with their respective visits that summer to Thrubworth, their brother’s house.
‘As you know, Erry always makes these difficulties,’ Frederica was saying. ‘It is not that I myself particularly want to go there and live in ghastly discomfort for several weeks and feel frightfully depressed at seeing the place fall to pieces. I would much rather go to the seaside or abroad. But it is nice for the children to see the house, and they enjoy going down to talk to the people at the farm, and all that sort of thing. So if you are determined to go at just that moment—’
‘All right, then,’ said Norah, smiling and showing her teeth like an angry little vixen, ‘I won’t go. Nothing easier. I don’t particularly want to go to the bloody place either, but it is my home, I suppose. Some people might think that ought to be taken into consideration. I was born there. I can’t say I’ve had many happy moments there, it’s true, but I like walking by myself in the woods—and I have plenty of other ways of amusing myself there without bothering either you or Erry or anyone else.’
Eleanor caught my eye with a look to be interpreted as indicating that high words of this kind were not unexpected in the circumstances, but that we should try to quell them. However, before dissension could develop further, it was cut short abruptly by the door of the room opening. A small, gnarled, dumpy, middle-aged woman stood on the threshold. She wore horn-rimmed spectacles and her short legs were enclosed, like Eleanor’s, in blue flannel trousers—somewhat shrunk, for her largely developed thighs seemed to strain their seams—into the pockets of which her hands were deeply plunged.
‘Why, hullo, Hopkins,’ said Norah Tolland, her face suddenly clearing, and showing, for the first time since I had been in the room, some signs of pleasure. ‘What can we do for you?’
‘Hullo, girls,’ said the woman at the door.
She made no attempt to reply to Norah’s question, continuing to gaze round the room, grinning broadly, but advancing no farther beyond the threshold. She gave the impression of someone doing a turn on the stage.
‘If you take to leaving your front door on the latch,’ she said at last, ‘you’ll find a man will walk in one of these days, and then where will you be, I should like to know? By Jove, I see a man has walked in already. Well, well, well, never mind. There are a lot of them about, so I suppose you can’t keep them out all the time. What I came up for, dear, was to borrow an egg, if you’ve got such a thing. Laid one lately, either of you?’
Norah Tolland laughed.
‘This is my sister, Lady Frederica Budd,’ she said. ‘And Mr.—’
‘Jenkins,’ said Eleanor, in answer to an appeal for my name.
Eleanor was, I thought, less pleased than Norah to see the woman they called Hopkins. In fact, she seemed somewhat put out by her arrival.
‘Pleased to meet you, my dear,’ said Hopkins, holding out her hand to Frederica; ‘and you, my boy,’ she added, smirking in my direction.
‘Miss Hopkins plays the piano most nights at the Merry Thought,’ said Eleanor.
This explanation seemed aimed principally at Frederica.
‘You ought to look in one night,’ said Hopkins. ‘But come soon, because I’ve got an engagement next month to appear with Max Pilgrim at the Café de Madrid. I’ll have to make sure that old queen, Max, doesn’t hog every number. It would be just like him. He’s as vain as a peacock. Can’t trust a man not to try and steal