Kissing Kin (7 page)

“Oh,
may
I wear it, really? I’ve always loved pearls better than anything!” Camilla knelt beside Sally’s knees and felt the cool, satiny things slide round her throat and heard the click of the clasp in Sally’s fingers.

“Wait, now—let me look.” Sally’s hand on her shoulder held her there, level with the smiling violet eyes. “Yes, that’s right—now I must think—Sosthène, ring for Elvire.”

He touched a bell at the corner of the mantelpiece and then came towards them, a stemmed glass in either hand.

“It’s only sherry,” he said as Camilla glanced up at him uncertainly. “You need it after the journey.”

She took the glass and settled back on her heels, half against Cousin Sally’s knees and half against the sofa, and began to sip.

“Is someone else coming to dinner?” she asked, feeling a little more hopeful.

“My dear, the most tremendous surprise!” said Sally. “Archie is on his way to Gloucester from Oxford, and has got the night here! He rang up from the Hall half an hour ago and said not to say a word to Virginia, he would just
arrive!
He’s travelling by motor on some mysterious errand, and is going to bring Jenny Keane with him from the Hall. It will be more cheerful for you to have her to get acquainted with to-night, and nice for her to come away for a bit, she works much too hard.”

“Perhaps she’d let me see over the hospital,” said Camilla. “Some time when it’s convenient, I mean.”

“She would be glad to, I know. She thinks of nothing else nowadays, poor lamb.”

“I’m longing to see Archie, and I’d have put on my prettiest frock for him if I’d known!” Camilla remarked, just as Elvire came in—a gaunt, middle-aged Frenchwoman who had been Sally’s maid since the beginning of time.

Sally gave some quick, explicit orders in French, which Camilla only half caught, and Elvire, having said
Oui
madame,
three times without enthusiasm, went away again. They drank their wine and speculated about what was delaying Archie until she returned with a handful of jewels which she laid in Sally’s lap and retired.

“Ah,” said Sally with satisfaction, handing Sosthène her empty glass, and picked up a pair of tortoise-shell hair
ornaments
set with pearls, and a three-strand pearl bracelet with a diamond clasp. “Now we shall see. Hold up, child—the left side, I think—” With a light, expert touch she set the hair ornament at the edge of the smooth band which went round Camilla’s head, and glanced at Sosthène, who nodded, looking on from behind the sofa with his glass in his hand. “Just one,” said Sally, and put the other in Camilla’s paralysed hand, “You may have them both, in case you lose one, but you are to wear only one at a time, do you hear? Now this.” She slipped the bracelet on Camilla’s slim wrist and snapped its clasp. “These are for you to keep. They suit you.”

“To
keep!”
cried Camilla incredulously. “Oh, no, just to wear!—just for to-night because—because of Archie—I couldn’t possibly—”

“To keep,” said Sally firmly, closing Camilla’s fingers on the the second hair ornament which she had thrust back
impulsively
at its owner. “Tomorrow we will go through my jewel-case and you shall choose whatever you like.”

“But I
c-can’t
own things like this, I can’t have real pearls, they must be worth a fortune and I’m only—I’m just a poor relation from Richmond!” she finished hastily, trying to make Cousin Sally laugh with her, trying to make her see that such gifts were not for graceless young heathens from the
hinterlands
like herself. “We never
see
such things in Richmond, let
let alone wear them!” she hurried on. “Mother wouldn’t
allow
me, she’d have them locked up—”

“Your mother is not here,” said Sally. “Fortunately, it seems. I have many good jewels, my dear, they have always been a weakness of mine. Those which are suitable to your age and style you shall have now, while you are young enough to enjoy them, instead of—later. We shall have to do something about a dress, too. Not that what you are wearing is not very good. But something perhaps a little more—festive.”

“But I
have
a better one, a blue one,” Camilla assured her eagerly. “I was afraid it was too gay for to-night, I—should I fly up now and change before they come?”

“By no means,” said Sally kindly. “You are right for
tonight
just as you are. Sosthène, I want for her an ivory
brocade
—”

There were voices in the hall. Archie and Jenny had arrived.

Archie was as different as a brother could be from Oliver, though his smartly-cut captain’s uniform became his slender body and easy carriage as though he too had been bred to it instead of to the legal gown and wig he had forsaken at the beginning of the war. Camilla liked him at once and was fascinated by the single eyeglass, which she had never seen done before.

The girl he brought with him was small and fair, with a relaxed composure of manner which Camilla admired and envied. Jenny was completely at home in Virginia’s house, but then she would have been at home anywhere, she had a
self-possession
which came of generations of dignity and pride of place. She was simplicity itself. But at the same time she was Lady Jenny Keane, the Duke of Apethorpe’s only child. It showed in the way she held her brushed blonde head with its short gold hair curved under at the edges like a bell, and her small quiet hands, and her slow, rather deep voice with its pure vowels and perfect articulation. Jenny Keane was everything that Camilla desired to be—poised, groomed, self-contained, a
little aloof—grown-up. And yet Camilla doubted very much if Jenny was as old as she was herself.

They accepted a glass of sherry each and Jenny sat down by the fire. Just as Camilla was beginning to wonder if Archie was ever going upstairs to see Virginia she found his eyes upon her, and smiled up at him—reminding him as she did so of something pathetic that wagged its tail. He put his glass on the mantelpiece and went and sat down beside her.

“I was talking to Phoebe on the telephone a little while ago,” he said.

“In London?” Camilla wanted to ask if anything had gone wrong in St. James’s Square since she and Virginia had left it early that afternoon, but it seemed a silly sort of question, so she only looked at him and waited for him to go on.

“She asked me to bring you a message,” said Archie, and took her hands in both his. “Hold tight, my dear—your brother has been wounded.”

For a moment Camilla held tight gratefully, feeling herself go paper white, leaving a tense silence while she mastered a wave of giddiness. She had braced herself for this, of course, but not yet. Not so soon.

“Is it bad?” she heard herself asking at last.

“Pretty bad, I’m afraid.”

“Are you breaking something to me? Is he—dead?”

“No. Wounded. He will be sent back to England, I expect, before long. I’m trying to get in touch with Bracken over there, he’ll go and look him up and send us details.”

“Was there any word from Calvert?”

“No. Telegram from the War Office. Came an hour after you left. Now, don’t worry yet, my dear, we’ll know more about it soon.”

“Yes, I—I’m all right.” Camilla’s head came up resolutely. “Thank you for—did you come out of your way to tell me yourself?”

Archie grinned at her ruefully.

‘Well, the truth is, I was moving heaven and earth to get a few hours with Virginia,” he said.

“Of course, you—you must go up to her now.” Camilla let go of his sustaining hands. “How soon can we hear from Bracken?”

“Hard to say. It will be a few days, anyway. Now, drink this up and try to eat your dinner.” He took a fresh glass of sherry from Sosthène’s waiting hand and closed her fingers on its stem. “Drink it,” he insisted kindly, and she obeyed, and Sosthène took back the empty glass. “Jenny will stay here with you to-night if you want her,” Archie was saying. “We thought you might need company, and she’s been through a lot of this—she can tell you that most of the time there’s no need to worry.”

“I know,” said Camilla steadily. “Lots of them get well.”

“
Droves
of them, darling,” said Jenny from her chair across the hearthrug, and Camilla was grateful that she didn’t fuss and sympathize. “We’ll pull every wire in the place and get him sent down to the Hall and you can come and help look after him.”

Camilla stared at her with reviving hope.

“
Could
you do that?”

“Well, I have heard of such things,” said Jenny. “We can try, anyway. You know what a wizard Bracken is. Just like him to take it up with the Prime Minister!”

Archie stood up, and Sally told him that it had been arranged for him to have dinner upstairs in Virginia’s room, and he said How marvellous, and was gone. Virginia’s shriek of joyful surprise as he appeared in the doorway of her room was audible all the way down the stairs as the rest of them went in to dinner.

Jenny was a big help during the meal, and the three of them kept a rambling conversation going on around Camilla,
creating
an atmosphere of usualness and calm which was very bracing, while she assimilated the shock of Archie’s news and even found things to say herself. And meanwhile a corner of
her brain was thinking. I don’t really feel anything yet—it’s like hitting your head very hard—it will begin to hurt later—I’m really doing pretty well, so far—I’m not crying, am I—I’m able to eat—why don’t I
feel
more?—is it the wine they made me drink….

After dinner, having coffee in the drawing-room, she found herself talking in a normal sort of way to Jenny about the work in St. James’s Square as compared to Jenny’s job at the Hall—and Jenny was saying she wanted to take regular training so as to go out to France as a nursing Sister but everyone was dead against it, she couldn’t see why, as in some ways the work was actually easier than the sordid drudgery the VAD’s got, and it was certainly more interesting. Sally at once said No, Jenny was much too young to nurse great hulking men with dreadful wounds, that was for married women—or spinsters who had lost hope. Jenny laughed, and said, “How old-fashioned of you, darling!” and Sally said that anyway the Duke was quite right not to permit it.

“Besides, I
am
a spinster,” said Jenny then, and her lips closed defiantly on the word, not smiling any more, and she looked back at Sally with her blue eyes very bright and dark as though the pupils had expanded, and her chin very high.

“Nonsense, you are
jeune f
ille,”
said Sally flatly. “And the world is still full of men who have eyes to see and hearts to give.”

“But I don’t want a man,” said Jenny wilfully, and the words came out very clean-cut and bitten off one by one. “I just want to be a nurse.”

“All men are not alike,” said Sally. “You may as well say you do not want a new hat. Sooner or later there is one which becomes you and you cannot resist.”

“And so you wear it for the rest of your life?” flashed Jenny, and shook her head. “That’s a rotten simile, darling—isn’t it, Sosthène?” There were queer, angry sparks in her eyes, and Camilla, watching her from across the hearthrug, recalled
Virginia’s reference to Gerald Campion, who had jilted Jenny for Fabrice and was now in France.

“Well, yes, perhaps it was,” Sally admitted easily before Sosthène could speak. “But it was to say that there are always more fish in the sea.”

“All rather scaly, I’m afraid,” said Jenny, still in that
clipped-off
way, not bitter, not flippant, but—disinterested.

“Oh, come,
come!
” Sosthène objected with affection, and “You have hurt his feelings!” cried Sally with mock concern.

“I’m sorry, just show me another Sosthène and I shall revise my opinions!” Jenny reached to pat him lightly on the sleeve. “But there is only one of these, and it is not for me!”

“Perhaps I can show you Calvert soon,” said Camilla generously, for she liked Jenny for trying to jest about her hurt, and she knew already what it was to covet Sosthène, and he was not for her either.

“I hope you can darling. And don’t think I’m sour about men because I’m not. Some of them are lambs.” Her lips were softer now, and her eyes smiled again. “I just want to be a nurse,” she repeated, acknowledging her obstinacy with a little foolish gesture of both hands.

“Wait five years,” said Sally. “And meanwhile, take Camilla over to the Hall and show her everything.”

“I’d be glad to,” said Jenny at once. “She could come back with Archie and me in the morning and I’ll find a way to get her home during the day. Can you ride a bicycle?” she asked Camilla, who nodded. “Then you can borrow mine to ride home. It’s only a couple of miles by the lane.”

Camilla accepted gratefully, aware that they were devising something to occupy her mind until Bracken could be heard from, but willing to be stage-managed to that end. She had no desire to worry and wonder and wait alone. And during the visit to the Hall there would be less time to think of Sosthène as well. Already she was counting on Jenny to save her—Jenny, who had somehow saved herself from one of the worst
humiliations
a woman can bear, and could still smile and make jokes
and hold her head high. Camilla hoped also to see Fabrice at the Hall. She was shamelessly curious now about the girl who could take a man away from Jenny. Any man. Gerald, as Gerald, didn’t really matter. Gerald was only the pawn. The players were the now unimaginable French girl, Fabrice, and the little aristocrat across the hearth who had lost. Or had she lost? Nothing worth having, surely. But she thought she had, that was the thing. Whatever Gerald was worth, himself, Jenny had taken the beating. And Jenny deserved the best. Even Calvert would not be too good for Jenny…. I’m
match-making
already, thought Camilla. Well, it
would
be nice. For everybody. I’d like Jenny for a sister…. I never thought to say that about anybody….

Camilla was able to accept the offer of Jenny’s
companionship
overnight with the same simplicity with which it was offered. They had dined late, and by the time Sally had drunk her coffee and sipped her
grand
mariner
in front of the
drawing-room
fire the clocks were striking ten, which was the time she usually retired to her room. Sosthène always accompanied her up the stairs, her hand in his elbow, and was not himself seen again until breakfast. Virginia, after tactfully providing them with adjoining rooms, had tried not to indulge in impertinent speculation regarding so early a disappearance of two people who seemed unlikely to require approximately eleven hours sleep each night. Once, prowling the passage in the small hours caring for a sick child, she had seen light under Cousin Sally’s door and had distinctly heard the murmur of Sosthène’s voice—reading aloud.