• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1142 0

like a room in some extremely expensive sanatorium. Comfortable modern chairs in grey loose covers had replaced the old clutter of cane and chintz and heavy-fringed velvet. The dark dadoed walls and the coffered ceiling, with its twelve inset panels depicting the months, had been smoothly boxed in, and on the new walls a few of the original pictures were hung beside very different work. There was old Sir Eustace, and his young wife Geraldine, two full-length portraits designed to glance tenderly at each other, but now divided by a large almost “abstract” painting of a factory perhaps or a prison. Daphne turned and looked at Sir Edwin, more respectfully hung on the facing wall, beside the rather chilling portrait of her mother-in-law. This had been done a few years before the War, and showed her in a dark red dress, her hair drawn back, a shining absence of doubt in her large pale eyes. She was holding a closed fan, like a lacquered black baton. Here nothing came between the couple, but still a vague air of satire seemed to threaten them, in their carved and gilded frames. In the old drawing-room, where the curtains, even when roped back, had been so bulky that they kept out much of the light, Daphne had loved to sit and almost, in a way, to hide; but no such refuge was offered by the new one, and she decided to go upstairs and see if the children were ready.

“Mummy!” said Wilfrid, as soon as she went into the nursery. “Is Mrs. Cow coming?”

“Wilfrid’s afraid of Mrs. Cow,” said Corinna.

“I am not,” said Wilfrid.

“Why would anyone be afraid of a dear old lady?” said Nanny.

“Yes, thank you, Nanny,” said Daphne. “Now, my darlings, are you going to give Granny Sawle a special surprise?”

“Will it be the same surprise as last time?” said Corinna.

Daphne thought for a second and said, “This time it will be a double surprise.” For Wilfrid these rituals, invented by his sister, were still sickeningly exciting, but Corinna herself was beginning to think them beneath her. “We must all be sweet to Mrs. Cow,” Daphne said. “She is not very well.”

“Is she infectious?” said Corinna, who had only just got over the measles.

“Not that sort of unwell,” said Daphne. “She has awful arthritis. I’m afraid she’s in a great deal of pain.”

“Poor lady,” said Wilfrid, visibly attempting a maturer view of her.

“I know …,” said Daphne, “poor lady.” She perched self-consciously on the upholstered top of the high fender. “No fire today, then, Nanny?” she said.

“Well, my lady, we thought it was almost nice enough to do without.”

“Are you warm enough, Corinna?”

“Yes, just about, Mother,” said Corinna, and glanced uneasily at Mrs. Copeland.

“I am rather cold,” said Wilfrid, who tended to adopt a grievance once it had been pointed out to him.

“Then let’s run downstairs and get warmed up,” said Daphne, in happy contravention of Nanny’s number one rule, and getting up briskly.

“No two-at-a-time, mind, Wilfrid!” said Nanny.

“You can be sure he will be all right with me,” said Daphne.

When they were out in the top passage, Wilfrid said, “Is Mrs. Cow stopping for the night?”

“Wilfrid, of course,” said Corinna, as if at the end of her patience, “she’s coming on the train with Granny Sawle.”

“Uncle George will take them home on Sunday, after lunch,” said Daphne; and finding herself holding his hand, she said, “I thought it would be nice if you showed her up to her room.”

“Then I will show Granny up to her room,” said Corinna, making it harder for Wilfrid to get out of.

“But what about Wilkes?” said Wilfrid ingeniously.

“Oh, I don’t know. Wilkes can put his feet up, and have a nice cup of tea, what do you think?” said Daphne, and laughed delightedly until Wilfrid joined in on a more tentative note.

On the top stairs, they trotted down hand-in-hand, and in step, which did require a measure of discipline. Then from the window on the first-floor landing she saw the car arriving from the station. “They’re here … oh, darlings, run!” she said, shaking off the children’s hands.

“Oh, Mummy …,” said Wilfrid, transfixed with anxious excitement.

“Come