The Greengage Summer (5 page)

They came down the steps from the landing, stopped at the sight of us, and it was then that Eliot said, “Good God! An orphanage!”

Joss was too angry to notice that he spoke in English.

“Don’t worry,” she said bitingly, “we are not staying.” To us she said sharply, “Come on. We will take the luggage first and come back for Mother.”

She walked past Eliot to the door, her painting things under her arm; she had picked up two suitcases; Vicky, carrying Nebuchadnezzar’s basket, was holding to one of them. The rest of us
followed, loyally staggering too. Paul went to open the door, but Eliot stepped forward.

“Where are you going this time of night?”

“To the police.” Joss’s nostrils were pinched with temper.

“The police? Why?”

“Because of you
French
,” said Joss furiously.

“I’m not French, I’m English,” said Eliot.

Mother must have heard that. She gave a moan and said, “Please.” Eliot looked past us to her, and his face changed. “Zizi,” he said, “she’s ill.”

He went quickly to Mother, bent down and took her hand, feeling it as he questioned her, but after that ‘Please’ Mother did not speak again, and her head rolled against the
chair.

“She’s very ill, Zizi,” he said. “We must help.”

“But . . . our dinner.” Her English was pretty and clipped.

“All the same.”

“But we shall be late!”

“All the same.” It sounded like a command. “Irène,” he called to Madame Corbet, “ring Doctor Giroux”; and to Mauricette, “Open the
rooms.”

I heard Madame Corbet pick up the telephone, the maid shrugged and went to the keyboard. Paul took the suitcases from Joss, but Mademoiselle Zizi stayed where she had been, at the foot of the
steps, her beautiful dress held up.

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CHAPTER 8

D
INNER WAS
not comfortable that night. If anyone French came to the hotel, Eliot dined alone, not at the table by the screen, and tonight, all through
dinner, his eyes kept coming to Joss, still with that amazed look, and from her table Mademoiselle Zizi’s eyes followed his. At last she got up and left the dining-room. I do not think he
noticed her going.

We, at our table, had long waits because Paul did not come to us at all. He had on the white coat he wore when help was needed in the dining-room, but he only brought dishes to the service door
for Mauricette and took the dirty plates from her. I heard her order him, in angry whispers, to come in and help her, but he would not. Joss, of course, did not know it was different; she sat
innocently well mannered and patient, but Vicky began to nod with sleep and Willmouse yawned and even fidgeted. It was absurdly late for them, but for a long time now their bedtime had been
forgotten. I had given up worrying about it after that first day and Joss must have been bemused, because she did not say anything. “I never went to bed before eleven, not once,” Vicky
told Uncle William afterwards.

Hester beckoned to Paul to bring us the dish he was holding in the doorway, but he scowled and turned his back. There was celery soup, stuffed tomatoes, veal with potatoes, flageolet beans
served separately as they did here, cheese and fruit. We had only reached the veal when Mademoiselle Zizi called Eliot from the office. He threw his napkin down impatiently and went out. Soon the
visitors finished and left too, but Mauricette still walked past us, putting things away instead of bringing our fruit. We, who were familiar, began to be annoyed, but Joss said, “Naturally
they have to attend to the more important visitors first.”

She seemed not to know that Mauricette was taking it out on us, that Paul was shunning us. How could she? When Mauricette at last planked down our plate of greengages, the cut-glass bowl of
water for our fingers and the clean plates, Joss said, “Merci,” as if Mauricette had been normally polite. “Mademoiselle Zizi vous attend dans le bureau,” said Mauricette,
“si des fois vous auriez fini,” she added sarcastically.

Joss looked enquiringly at me; she was not used to Mauricette’s quick talking. “Mademoiselle Zizi wants us in the office,” I said. “Oh, Joss!”

She was a little startled, and we others looked at one another. The table, with us round it, seemed suddenly small and the dining-room big and foreign.

Joss looked at me in surprise. “We have been having it when Monsieur Armand and the others have theirs,” I explained to her.

“What others?”

“Mauricette, Paul, Toinette, Nicole.” I was beginning to regret this childish helter-skelter week; it was partly regret that it was over, our happy obscurity was lost; Joss was
dragging us into the limelight.

“Who said you could change?”

Joss turned her eyes on Mademoiselle Zizi. Her voice was still gentle as she asked, “You want us to eat with your servants?”

Mademoiselle Zizi’s neck went red. “Mauricette cannot manage with so many in the dining-room.”

I should have accepted that, but Joss answered, “But Cecil says you often have sixty people for luncheon. Tonight we were only fifteen.”

“I do not wish”—Mademoiselle Zizi floundered a little—“to have children with adults.”

Joss’s soft answer came relentlessly. “But Monsieur le Colonel and Madame . . . I don’t know their name . . . had their little girl with them tonight.”

“Do not argue with Mademoiselle Zizi,” said Madame Corbet to Joss with such venom that Joss was surprised again.

“I—I’m sorry,” said Joss, “but our mother would not like it.”

“Your mother left you in my charge,” said Mademoiselle Zizi.

Joss could have taken refuge in being small, a child, but, “Could I?” asked Joss afterwards. “I am as big as I am.” I suppose she had to be, but I see now that what she
said was like a stone thrown into a pool; it spread ripples.

“Your mother left you in my charge,” Mademoiselle Zizi said.

“She left us in Mr. Eliot’s,” said Joss. “Shall we ask him what he thinks?”

I thought Mademoiselle Zizi was going to slap Joss, but she controlled herself and, after a moment, “You may have your dinner with the guests,” she said, “but I forbid you,
absolutely forbid you, to trouble Monsieur Eliot.”

“What
is
the matter with Paul?” asked Hester.

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CHAPTER 11

“I
F THIS
is how grown people feel,” said Joss, “they are even worse pigs than I thought.”

I said, perhaps tactlessly, “They know when to stop.”

“Do they!” said Joss. “Look at Mademoiselle Zizi.” But I had to be fair.

“Of all the grown-ups she is the only one who doesn’t seem to know,” and I sighed. “I suppose one has to learn even to drink.”

I did not remember getting into bed, but I had woken to find myself under the clothes though dressed. “Dressed in bed!” said Willmouse. “Cecil,
what
have you been
doing?” It was not often Willmouse asked questions, and when he had seen how unwell I was he had slipped on his vest and shorts, brushed his hair and gone out. I think he kept Hester and
Vicky away.

When I had gone in to Joss she too was in bed, the covers tucked carefully round her, her sandals placed neatly side by side on the rug, but she also was dressed. I felt so miserable that I woke
her and she was cross. Then, sitting up, she had taken in where she was, her crumpled dress, the smell on her hair and she gave a sound like a moan and shut her eyes.

We felt our bones were stained now indeed and, too shamed to go down to breakfast, we stayed in Joss’s room. “But it wasn’t our fault,” I argued and used a phrase I had
read in Monsieur Armand’s newspapers, “They drove us to it,” but Joss was more truthful than I.

“It was our fault,” she said wearily, “and we shall have to learn.”

“Learn what?”

“To manage.”

“Manage what?”

“Manage what happens to us better than this. I smell,” said Joss.

“I smell too,” I said.

“Not as badly as I do,” and once more she covered her eyes with her hand. It was only to shut out the light, but it looked tragic and I felt torn.

When something is badly needed it is amazing how an answer will come. I was moved to tell Joss about Monsieur Joubert. She was quiet as she listened, then she took her hand down. “You mean
he said, ‘Put it on my bill’, just like that?” she asked.

“Just like that.”

“He wasn’t angry?”

“Not with us.”

“And I was drunk.”

“Very.”

“Like those men by the canal.”

“Yes. He carried you up to bed.”

“Not . . . Eliot?”

“Eliot wanted to but Monsieur Joubert would not let him.”

Joss thought for a moment, then got out of bed, went to the washstand, poured water into the basin and began to splash her face. She did not speak while she dried her face and hands, then
stripped off her crumpled dress; I knew she was thinking very deeply or she would have told me to go away. At last, as she was putting on a clean dress I asked, “What are you going to
do?”

“Give Monsieur Joubert one of my paintings,” she said.

“But, Joss! He is famous. He gets hundreds of pounds for a portrait. He has paintings in big galleries like the Salon and the Academy.”

“Not the Academy. The Uffizi in Florence. They have just bought some of his,” said Joss calmly, putting on her shoes.

“He is to have an exhibition in London this year,” I argued; “Madame Corbet said so. He . . . he won’t be bothered with a girl, Joss. He is Marc Joubert. Madame Corbert
says he is one of the best painters in the world.”

“Then he will know when a painting is good,” said Joss.

She was, of course, right. Monsieur Joubert did not send her away; he held the little painting at arm’s length, looked at it again, put it up on a chair and went away from it. Nor was he
play-acting—I do not think Monsieur Joubert ever acted. We all stood round in a chorus while a familiar catechism began. “You did this yourself?”

“Yes,” said Joss, and we nodded.

“No one helped you?”

“No,” and we shook our heads.

“Then what are you doing mixing yourself up with other things?” asked Monsieur Joubert.

Joss said uncertainly, “There
are
other things.”

The answer came back, “Not for you.”

“I am going to an art school soon,” said Joss.

“When?”

“Perhaps when the holidays are over.”

“Painters don’t have holidays,” said Monsieur Joubert. “They don’t know how. Why an art school?”

“I need to learn to draw,” said Joss meekly.

I thought he would say ‘Nonsense’ but he nodded. “That won’t spoil you. When Madame your mother is better I will speak with her,” and he said to me, “Does she
talk?”

“Mother?” I asked, startled.

“Mademoiselle.” He pointed at Joss.

“Oh! She! Sometimes.”

He pounced. “Not all times?”

“Oh no! That’s Hester.”

“Then,” said Monsieur Joubert, “Mademoiselle Joss can come and paint with me. Not near but near enough, but no other child must come,” and he said fiercely to the rest of
us, “Keep away!”

We nodded again, our eyes wide with respect. This, we knew, was something different from Eliot.

Eliot made one approach to Joss. Before dinner she stayed out on the terrace so that she need not meet him in the bar. Mademoiselle Zizi was talking to some American arrivals and he went
out.

“Joss.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. Joss, I had to do that.”

Joss said nothing.

“You won’t talk to me?” asked Eliot.

“No,” said Joss.

“Tomorrow I’m not going to Paris and . . .”

“I will be busy tomorrow,” and it was true, not an excuse.

From that day we were split as we had been . . . before Eliot, I thought. Vicky went back to Monsieur Armand, Willmouse stayed in his cherry bank atelier, Hester and I rambled alone. Joss got up
in the mornings now as early as Monsieur Joubert; almost before it was light she was out on the bank—she too was painting two pictures—and she went early to bed. “There is no
light then. I might as well go to bed,” she said. The other people in the house hardly saw her at all.

As Hester and I dawdled at the cove we would watch her. She had none of the trappings Monsieur Joubert had, not even a camp stool; she sat on an upturned wooden box and held her board on her
knee. She had not any proper canvas, only a piece of linen stretched on the board, but Monsieur Joubert showed her a way of washing it over with two or three coats of white—“not paint,
tempera,” said Joss—to make it smooth. He had given her a flat tin box filled with jars of tempera and, “One day, he will help me with oils,” she said. Worst of all she had
no umbrella and she had to sit out in the heat with only her old straw hat to shade her and that had been bent when it was packed so that the straw had split; I could not imagine Joss consenting
under any other circumstances to wear it. Every now and then she climbed down the bank and wetted her handkerchief to spread on the crown; even so, she was sickly pale at the end of the day.

“Monsieur Joubert ought to send you in.”

“He doesn’t notice me,” said Joss with pride. She knew how to please him and she only interrupted her work to join us when we went to pay our evening visit to Mother. We were
allowed to go and see Mother every day now and, “I’m painting,” Joss told her and Mother looked relieved.