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.‘This is my niece Laurel,’ said Dulcie rather nervously.She had put a macaroni cheese in the oven and was now worrying lest it should not be enough.‘I expect you’re in the middle of cooking dinner,’ Viola had said, which made Dulcie wonder whether she had not better open a tin of some kind of meat and have the macaroni cheese as a first course.Viola had always seemed to eat so little, and was it not, perhaps, better to begin as one meant to go on, with the bigger meal in the middle of the day and a rather small supper? Surely she would not expect meat twice a day?Viola also had her thoughts.It had seemed such a very long way in the taxi, as she watched the fare mounting up on the clock and familiar landmarks were left behind.Olympia had seemed the last bulwark of civilization.And then, when they came to the suburban roads, with people doing things in gardens, she had wanted to tap on the glass and tell the driver to turn back.Now, standing in the hall, she saw that the house was quite spacious.There was a glimpse of a pleasant garden through french windows — just like a scene in a play.Through another open door she could see a table laid for a meal — and there were several decanters on the Edwardian oak sideboard, one of which had some brownish-looking liquid in the bottom.Could it be whisky or sherry or brandy, perhaps, kept for ‘medicinal’ purposes only?‘You’ll want to see your room,’ said Dulcie, fussing rather.‘I’m afraid it’s got some old pictures in it — I mean just old, not in the sense of Old Masters.My mother was fond of them — they had belonged to her mother — so you see …’‘Yes, the taste of another age,’ said Viola in a detached tone, examining the pictures.‘How very prosperous “Prosperity” looks, with that elaborate coiffure, lace at the throat, and all those pearls.And beside her, on that well-polished mahogany table, a dish — or perhaps an epergne — filled with hot-house grapes and peaches.’‘Yes, but she has a nice expression,’ said Dulcie.‘Like the wife of a Conservative Member of Parliament about to open a bazaar, don’t you think?’‘“Adversity” seems more modern,’ Viola continued.‘That lank hair and waiflike expression — one sees so many typists and girls in coffee bars looking like that.’‘This is your bed, of course,’ said Dulcie, indicating the divan with its striped folk-weave cover.‘It’s rather narrow, but quite comfortable, I think.’Viola examined it, testing the mattress with her hand, as if Dulcie were an ordinary landlady and she were deciding whether to take the room or not.‘I’m sure it will be quite comfortable,’ she said.‘The bathroom is at the end of the passage,’ said Dulcie, ‘and supper will be ready whenever you are.There’s nothing to spoil.’Then it couldn’t be anything exquisite like a lobster souffle, Viola thought.She would smoke a cigarette while unpacking, and take her time.After a while she ventured out to the bathroom.It was an old-fashioned comfortable room with a faded rose-patterned carpet on the floor and the bath encased in mahogany.A shelf on the wall held a selection of books, their covers now faded and buckled by steam.Viola noticed The Brothers Karamazov, Poems of Gray and Collins, Enquire Within, The Angel in the House, and a few old Boots Library books, A Voice Through a Cloud, Some Tame Gazelle, and The Boys from Sharon.By the bath there was a tin of Gumption and a rag.Does she expect me to clean the bath.’ thought Viola with a sudden uprising of indignation.Of course one gave it a token swill around after use, leaving it perhaps not exactly as one would wish to find it, but Gumption and all that was hardly what she had expected.She went down to supper still feeling slightly indignant, as if she had really been giving the bath a good clean instead of only imagining herself doing it.‘There is some sherry here,’ said Dulcie in a surprised tone, going to the sideboard and lifting up the decanter Viola had seen through the open door.‘Would you like some?’‘Thank you, that would be nice …”‘Macaroni cheese is the first course.Then there will be cold meat and salad,’ said Dulcie rather firmly.‘Is that sherry all right?’‘Actually it seems to be whisky, but that’s even better.’‘How stupid of me! I don’t drink much myself, and now that I come to think of it my father did keep his whisky in that decanter.Wouldn’t you like some water or soda with it?’Sometimes neat whisky is the only drink, thought Viola, declin-ing Dulcie’s offer and wondering if there were to be many such meals, with the two of them making polite conversation and the silent niece watching them with the critical eyes of youth.Let them get on with it, thought Laurel.She would be off to her bed-sitting-room in Quince Square as soon as there was a vacancy in the house where Marian lived.She tried to cheer herself up by thinking of Paul, but all she could remember were his cold-looking hands and the wreaths of wax flowers not favoured by the better-class Kensington residents.Fancy that whisky being here all this time! thought Dulcie.Nobody had touched it since Father’s death three years ago.A house where there was drink that was not drunk — she had not imagined that her house would be such a one.She would go to the wine merchant tomorrow and order something suitable.But was this ‘beginning as she meant to go on! Wouldn’t it better to let Viola bring in her own secret bottles?The meal finished.‘Shall we wash up before we have coffee?’ Dulcie asked.‘I always think it’s nice to get the things out of the way.’‘Just as you like,’ said Viola, who had not imagined herself washing up.Her inclination would have been to leave everything till the morning.Laurel seemed to have disappeared to her room and soon afterwards the house was filled with sound — voices singing, if it could be called that, about somebody or something called a Bird-Dog — at least, that was how Dulcie in her confusion heard it, though perhaps it could hardly have been that.What were they going to do all the time, she and Viola, she wondered, as Viola silently dried the silver.Was the companionship of this rather odd woman what she really wanted? Supposing she did not get on with her after all?These thoughts, and others like them, went through Dulcie’s head as she stood bowed over the sink, but all she said was, ‘What about breakfast? What time would you like it?’‘Oh, I never eat it, thank you.If I could just make tea in my room — I see there’s a gas-ring.’‘Yes, of course,’ said Dulcie, relieved.‘I’ll give you the things.’‘I shall be rather busy,’ said Viola casually, ‘so you may not see very much of me.’‘You have some special job, then?’“Yes.Aylwin has asked me to do the index for his new book [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]