Half-way down a long, soft-carpeted pa.s.sage she asked me to wait an instant.
She knocked at one of the many doors.
I heard my aunt"s voice inside. And whispering. Only one of the electric lights was turned on here, in the corridor. The air was heavy. The "Aunt Josephine" scent, foreign, dizzily sweet, was everywhere. A light-headed feeling came over me. I longed for an open window. They must all be shut as well as curtained. Between the many doors, paintings were hung. I had been vaguely conscious of these as we came up. I saw now they were pictures of women. Most of them seemed to be in different stages of the bath. One was asleep in a strange position, with nothing on. I was going past that one when I noticed the opposite door ajar. I stopped and listened.
"Bettina," I said softly.
A voice very different from Bettina"s answered in some language I did not know. I started back and, as I was going on, the door was opened wide. A lady stood on the threshold in a flood of light. A lady with a dazzling complexion. Her lips were so brightly red, they looked b.l.o.o.d.y.
She had diamonds in her ears, and a diamond necklace on a neck as white and smooth as china. Her yellow hair was disarranged as though she had been asleep. She was wearing a kimono of scarlet silk embroidered in silver.
She asked me something, not in French, not German, and not, I think, Italian. I said I was afraid I did not understand.
My aunt came noiseless down the long corridor, and the foreign lady hastily shut her door.
This other guest must be some very great person!
My aunt was dressed for dinner in a gown all covered with little shining scales, like a snake"s skin.
"What are you doing?" she said, in an odd tone as if she had caught me in something underhand. I explained that I was looking for Bettina. And I found courage to say that I was sorry our rooms were so far apart.
She took no notice of that. "You will see Bettina at dinner," she said, and it struck me she could be very stern.
I felt my heart begin to beat, but I managed to say that I was sure Betty would wait for me to help her to dress.
"I have told you she will have a maid to do all that is necessary."
"I hope you won"t mind," I said, "just for to-night. It is always my mother, or me, who dresses Bettina...."
She seemed to consider. I said to myself again: "Oh, dear, she doesn"t like me at all."
"Take her, Curran," she said. The hard-faced woman came and piloted me round the angle of the corridor to Betty"s door.
We fell into each other"s arms, and laughed and kissed, as though we had been parted for weeks.
I was determined not to let her know that Aunt Josephine and I were not liking one another. I only said I didn"t like her taste in pictures.
Betty tried to stand up for her. She reminded me of the statues and casts from the antique at Lord Helmstone"s. She asked me suddenly if I wasn"t well. I complained a little of the air. I thought we might have the window open while I did her hair. But Betty said, no. She had tried, and found she didn"t understand London fastenings. So she had rung for the maid, and the maid had said: "This isn"t the country"--and that people didn"t like their windows open in London. Betty thought it quite reasonable. London dust and "blacks" would soon ruin this pretty white room.
Betty defended everything.
When I complained that the scent everywhere was making me headachy, Betty said she liked it. She wished our mother would let us use scent.
The only thing Betty found the least fault with was the way I was doing her hair. She wanted it put up "in honour of London." But she looked such a darling with her short curls lying on her neck that I was doing it in the everyday way. And there wasn"t time now for anything more than to fasten on the little wreath, for the woman came to say madam had sent up for us. So I hurried Betty into her frock, the woman watching out of those hard eyes of hers. n.o.body in the whole of Betty"s life had looked at her like that. The woman didn"t want us to stop even to find a handkerchief. And after all, just as Betty was coming, the woman said: "Wait a minute," and wanted to shut the door. I stood on the threshold waiting. A gentleman was coming upstairs. With his hat on! He stared at me as he went by, and so did the footman who followed him. I drew back into the room and the woman shut the door.
"Who was that gentleman?" I asked. She seemed not to hear. So I asked again.
"_That_--oh, that is the doctor," she said. Naturally we asked if somebody was ill.
"Not very," she answered in such a peculiar way we said no more.
She stood and watched us as we went downstairs.
"Our first London dinner-party," Bettina whispered.
We took hands. We were shaking with excitement.
We saw ourselves going by in the mirrors between the golden columns.
The whole place was full of tall girls in white, and little girls in apple-green, wearing forget-me-not wreaths in their hair.
CHAPTER XXVII
AT DINNER
Down in the lower hall were the men-servants with their watchful eyes.
They showed us the drawing-room door.
As we came in, I was conscious again of Aunt Josephine"s appraising look. Then of the elaborate grey head turning towards an old man, as if to ask: Well, what do you think of my nieces? He had a red blotchy face.
The kind of red that is crossed by little purple lines like the tracery of very tortuous rivers on a map. The lines ran zigzagging into his nose, which was thick at the end, round and shining. He had no hair except a sandy fringe, and his eyes, which had no lashes, looked as if he had a cold. He was introduced as "an old friend of mine"--but she forgot to tell us his name. We heard him called Colonel. Through all the scent we could not help noticing that he smelled of brandy.
I looked round for the beautiful foreign lady. But I was prepared to find her late, after seeing her idling at her door, in a dressing-gown, so near the dinner-hour.
There was only one other person. A man of about thirty-six. Good-looking I thought--and not happy. He had a clear face, quite without colour. The skin very smooth and tight. His dry brown hair was thinning on the crown. He had nice hands. I noticed that when he stroked his close-fitting moustache. I did not like him because of his manner. I did not know what was wrong with it. Perhaps he was only absent-minded. But when I tried to imagine him talking to my mother I could not.
He was introduced first to Bettina. The others treated him as if he were very important. They talked about his new Rolls Royce, which turned out to be a motor-car. The Colonel tried to get him to say how many times he had been fined for "exceeding speed limit." Then they talked about "The Tartar." How he was always late. It would be a chance if he came at all.
Aunt Josephine was positive he would appear. "I wired to say it was all right."
"Just as well, perhaps, if he doesn"t come to-night," the good-looking man said. He would be in a devil of a temper.
Betty asked why would he? They said because his favourite horse had been "scratched." Betty thought it was nice of him to be so fond of his horse. But if it was only a scratch----
We did not know why they laughed. But we laughed too. We tried not to show how unintelligible the talk was. I listened very hard. I felt like a learner in a foreign tongue. I understood the words but not the sentences.
The Colonel looked at his watch in a discontented way. Then we went in to dinner.
I don"t think we sat in the order Aunt Josephine had meant. But the absent-minded man, who had taken me in, refused to change, or to let me.
I had the old Colonel on my left. Aunt Josephine of course at the head.
The empty place was between her and Betty.