The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell Page 6

  It was all nearly too exciting and delightful to be borne with anything like calm and dignity.

  After the breaking up at school, Leoni spent a few days at the orphanage, in order to have her last Christmas there. This was less as a matter of sentiment than because she was now extremely well versed in filling stockings, distributing presents from the Christmas tree and drying the tears of those orphans who became so excited that their festivities threatened to end in woe.

  "I don't know quite what I shall do without you, Leoni," matron said. But as Leoni could not possibly imagine matron other than able to cope with any situation single-handed, she took this to be merely an unusual compliment in keeping with the general spirit of goodwill and one's own approaching departure.

  On a quite exceptionally horrid day in late December, Leoni set out from the orphanage, in the company of Miss Burnby, who was one of matron's junior assistants—though

  the word "junior" was used simply in connection with length of service and not with actual age, for Miss Burnby was well over fifty.

  She was a brisk lady, entirely devoid of sentiment in either its good or bad form, so that Leoni was given no opportunity to linger over farewells or cast wistful backward glances, even if she had been disposed to do so. All the _ same, she did allow herself one moment of final, romantic recollection as she passed through the historic gate for the last time.

  Waterloo on a wet December afternoon is not, of course, calculated to impress anyone with the glamor of the metropolis, and Leoni, on her arrival there, struggled bravely against a deepening sensation of disappointment and depression.

  The Dagrams lived in one of the southwestern suburbs, and Miss Burnby, with an air of assurance, which showed that she knew her London railway system well, hustled Leoni onto another train that was already pretty well crowded with early home-going city workers.

  "You'll be one of these in a few days* time,*' Miss Burnby told her, with an air of grim jocularity which drew a very thin line indeed between office workers and convicts.

  Leoni said she supposed she would, and tried to look dutifully elated at the prospect. She had just succeeded in looking at least cheerful about it when Miss Burnby added, "Only these are the early ones, of course. You'll be later, when the real crowds are."

  After that, conversation languished.

  Leoni felt no urge to renew it even when they left the train at a dingy local station, where the rain pattered down on the roof with monotonous persistence.

  Out in the street they fought their way along against a strong, capricious wind, which blew the rain under their umbrellas, turned back the corners of coats, the better to soak dresses underneath, and bumped their luggage against their legs.

  Leoni thought she had never felt so miserable or less anxious to face the future. And when Miss Burnby greeted the appearance of a long, drab street with, "Ah, this is the place, Leoni was hard put to suppress a sob.

  In her present mood, Leoni found the houses tall, narrow.

  blank and unfriendly. And at that moment she most bitterly regretted her choice to live and work in London (in spite of the *'prospects" and Lucas, she thought confusedly) and only wished herself back in the pleasant, spacious country town she had known all her life.

  However, Miss Burnby had already quickened her pace, partly in order to get in out of the rain and partly from satisfaction that their goal was in sight.

  It was she who marched briskly up the tiled path—so depressingly like all the other tiled paths—and rapped smartly on the door with the big shining knocker.

  The door was opened almost immediately by a pleasant-looking woman who was so much like an older edition of matron that Leoni suddenly experienced a terrific sensation of relief that made her almost as anxious to cry as her previous dismay had.

  "How do you do, Miss Burnby—and come in, you poor little thing, you must be nearly drowned! *' exclaimed Mrs. Dagram, who appeared to know Miss Burnby slightly.

  Dumb with shyness and relief, Leoni followed Miss Burnby into the hall, the door was shut and she immediately became aware of the fact that the house was much larger than it had appeared from the outside and that, however much its exterior might appear identical with those of its fellows, it had a character and atmosphere all its own.

  Leoni's experience of houses had been so extremely limited that sne had no idea how atmospheres could differ, or how much a house could take its character from the inhabitants. She only knew that this was a big, cozy, casual, rather untidy place where people were used to a live-and-let-live order of things, and wnere happiness was more a matter of day-to-day content than a thing of agitated emotions and heroics.

  It was characteristic, she felt at once, that Mrs. Dagram said little to her personally and seemed almost entirely concerned with Miss Burnby and the general matter of giving them both tea, and yet her wet things had been taken from her, a chair by the fire had been found for her, and she was free to enjoy a large and appetizing tea without the strain of making conversation just at a time when she felt she had hardly a word to say.

  Toward the end of tea the door opened and a little girl of

  about eleven came in. For a moment of rather obvious dismay she looked at Miss Burnby. Then she saw Leoni by the fire and came forward.

  ''Oh,you're Leoni, aren't you?" she said anxiously. "My name's Pauline, and I'm the youngest. All the others are grown up, but I still go to school. Isnl it sickening?"

  Leoni laughed.

  "Yes, I'm Leoni. And I've only just left school myself "

  "Oh, aren't you lucky " exclaimed Pauline. And then her mother told her to come and say hello to Miss Burnby— which she did, with correctness rather than enthusiasm.

  Miss Burnby actually had the temerity to repeat the old misstatement that schooldays were the best days of one's life.

  "I simply don't believe that," stated Pauline, politely but firmly, and then applied herself to tea and hot buttered scones.

  Soon after that Miss Burnby took her leave, having said goodbye to Leoni in the manner of one abandoning her to a slightly unpleasant fate, which she had herself been misguided enough to invite. Miss Burnby had spent her life as an assistant m orphanages and institutions throughout the country and honestly thought that any life that departed very far from these circumstances was hardly worth living.

  "Wasn't it awful? I thought she was you for a minute," Pauline told Leoni when their visitor had gone.

  "Yes. I saw you did," Leoni said and laughed. "She's quite nice, really," she added dutifully.

  "Oh, yes, I daresay," Pauline replied with an indifference impossible to describe.

  Then Mrs. Dagram said, "Why don't you take Leoni upstairs and show her her room now before the others come in? Perhaps she'd like you to help her unpack."

  This plan was approved by both Pauline and Leoni. So the little girl led the way upstairs, talking all the time, and showed Leoni into a small but comfortable room, where nothing looked exactly shabby, but everything had evidently seen a good deal of wear.

  "This was really the spare room, of course," Pauline explained, "but we've each put in something from our own rooms, so that it wouldn't look too visitorish. Look, I put that there—" She indicated a bright blue pincushion with

  such a large, pink, silk rose decorating it that it was hard to see where one could put any pins. "Do you like it?'*

  Leoni said with great earnestness that indeed she did.

  "It's not really much good for putting pins in," Pauline admitted frankly. "But it looks nice." And she stood contemplating the beauties of her own gift while Leoni did her very modest unpacking.

  The appearance of the blue lace dress drew from Pauline an exclamation of, "Oooh, I say! That's a beaut!" which Leoni felt, quite correctly, was very high praise indeed.

  "Tell me about the rest of the family," she said, as she completed the putting away of her possessions. "I don't really know anything about them except that there are four of you."

  Paul
ine was not at all iU-disposed to give her own version of the family dispositions, ages, appearances and histories.

  "Well, there s daddy, of course," she explained, but evidently felt unequal to the task of characterizing a parent and embarked on nothing further in his case than a mere statement of his existence. "And there's mummy, whom you know. Then the eldest of the four of us is Hugh. He's twenty-three and quite nice. Just like any older brother, you know."

  Leoni laughed and said she didn't know, never having had one.

  "I see. Well, Hugh's very nice, now I come to think of it." Pauline evidently reviewed her family in the light of having to do without them, and their stock went up accordingly. "He's quite generous with pocket money and extras and things, and as he's a chemist and clever in a way, he's useful about homework, if you know what I mean."

  Leoni said that she knew exactly what Pauline meant.

  "Then there's Valerie. She's really very pretty, only don't tell her I said so."

  "Why not?" Leoni wanted to know.

  "Oh, well, you don't really say that sort of thing about your own sister," Pauline explained, willing to give some kindly advice on the regulation of conduct and conversation in the bosom of a family. "Besides it might make her conceited, and she isn't at the moment. Valerie's twenty, but she likes to be thought a bit more. She goes to the ballet and talks a bit snottily about books no one else wants to read.

  That sort, you know. But she*s really quite nice. She nearly got engaged to somebody frightful at the beginning of the year. I quite wished mother would say she couldn t bring him home, but now I see mother was much too sensible for that. She pressed Valerie to bring him home whenever she liked and was terribly nice to him. We were all as nice as we could be, and then I suppose Valerie gradually saw what a chump he was, compared to us, and it fizzled out. Hugh said afterward that he was an intellectual snob. Tm not quite sure what that is, but it's something frightful, if Leonard was one."

  Leoni laughed a good deal and privately thought how nice and sensible Mrs. Dagram must oe.

  "And who's the fourth one?" she wanted to know.

  "Oh, that's Trudie," Pauline explained, and grinned suddenly, as though something amused her irresistibly about her second sister. "Her name's really Gertrude, of course, but we call her Trudie because we don't like Gertie. She's not a bit pretty but awfully funny and nice. She's seventeen and I don't know how to explain anything else about her. You'll see for yourself That s the whole family,, except auntie, of course."

  Leonie wondered why auntie was "of course," and in-| quired on that point.

  "Oh, well. It's funny to think of anyone not knowing about auntie, I suppose," Pauline explained vaguely. "She's

  3uite old. More than sixty, I should think, because she's addy's aunt, not ours. She's awfully sharp and rather critical, but she can tell marvelous stories. She's a theatrical dresser—the kind that evening newspapers call 'a great character.' You'd be surprised how often she's been interviewed by newspapers when famous actresses die or do something else startling. She's a bit of a trial because of her toneue, but it's useful because of theater tickets," Pauline explained elliptically.

  Leoni said she supposed it must be, and couldn't help thinking that she had come into an extraordinarily interesting family.

  "Let's go down now," Pauline said. "I expect the others are in, and they'll want to meet you."

  Leoni, who had been vaguely aware that the front door had opened and shut several times during their conversa-

  tion, aereed and, feeling a trifle nervous, followed Pauline down the stairs and into the dining room again.

  The table had been pushed back, and around the big open fire sat, sprawled or stood the various members of the Dagram family.

  Hugh was rather earnestly expounding some argument as they came in, and his sisters were giving him a certain amount of tolerant attention. But the sharp-featured, gray-haired little woman who was sitting by the side of the fire and knitting with ferocious energy just said the one word, "Nonsense!" without even looking up and Leoni thought that this could be no other than auntie.

  Either because of the rebuke or because of their entrance, Hugh stopped in mid career. Whereupon, with practiced skill, Pauline seized the opportunity to announce with a certain degree of importance, "This is Leoni. You can finish your speech later, Hugh.*'

  "I had finished," Hugh declared, "How d'you do, Leoni? Come and find a seat in the warm. Move along, Val."

  The pretty girl who was obviously Valerie obligingly moved ner chair to enlarge the circle around the fire, and Hugh pulled forward one of the shabby, comfortable fireside chairs, of which there seemed to Leoni at that moment to be an inexhaustible supply.

  Everyone said "Hello, and "What a foul night," and "Yes, isn't it?" more or less at once, during which Leoni was able to look around and find them all very much as Pauline had described them. At least, superficially so.

  Valerie really was extremely pretty in a faintly "arty" way—her eyes were large and thoughtful and a lustrous brown, and her hair worn almost to her shoulders, with the ends and the short fringe curled under. She smiled at Leoni in quite a friendly way, but seemed slightly remote from the general proceedings.

  Trudie, on the other hand, was anything but remote. She was also anything but pretty. She had a round, rather impudent little face, and her brown eyes were not at all thoughtful and lustrous. They were bright and snapping, and ner smooth dark hair was cut boyishly short. She grinned at Leoni and remarked, "You were a real orphan of the storm tonight, weren't you? Didn't you nearly get drowned on the way here?"

  "Nearly. But we reached home just as I was giving up hope,** Leoni said.

  They all laughed in a friendly way and Hugh said, "It's 'home' already, is it? That's good."

  "Oh—" Leoni stopped and flushed slightly. "I suppose that's rather silly."

  "Not in the least. Sign of intelligence and unusual powers of adaptation in one so young," Hugh assured her with a smile.

  "When do you start in on your job?" Trudie demanded then.

  "Tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow! In the middle of a week! How grim."

  "Nonsense. It's better that way," Pauline declared. "You only have halfway to go until the weekend."

  "There's something in that," Trudie agreed. "I was just thinking how nice it is to have a few days before you plunge into the fray."

  "I think I'd rather begin right away," Leoni said.

  "Is that youthful enthusiasm or a desire to get the first day over?" Trudie inquired.

  "A bit of both, I expect," Leoni admitted with a smile.

  "Well, don't mind if you appear to behave like a congenital idiot on your first day. One always does," Trudie explained reassuringly.

  "Does one?" Leoni looked doubtful and a bit dismayed.

  "Always," declared all three wage earners in chorus.

  And Valerie added kindly, "It really doesn't matter. No one expects very much of you the "first day—at least, not unless the boss is extremely unreasonable. And mistakes can usually be rubbed out."

  "It's a good thing you girls aren't switchmen," remarked auntie tartly at that moment.

  "Hear, hear, auntie!" agreed Trudie with great cordiality. "I'd just hate to spend my days in a sort of glass box. But what has that to do with the conversation?"

  "You can't rub out mistakes in a switch tower," retorted auntie darkly. "They mean collisions."

  As this was quite unanswerable no one offered to vgue the point.

  Instead, Trudie began to give Leoni some more advice on

  how to get through the complication of *'the first day*' without too much wear and tear on her nerves.

  Regarding her confident httle adviser with some respect, Leoni could not help asking how long she herself had oeen earning her living.

  "Oh, only two months,'* Trudie admitted airily. '*But you'd be surprised how soon you get used to it."

  ''Don't go by Trudie," Hugh advised Leoni. "She happens to have eno
ugh assurance to sink a battleship. But you'll be all right in a few days. Would you like me to take you up to your oflRce for the first time tomorrow? I don't expect you know your way about here at all, and I have the morning off, so I can if you like."

  "Would you?" Leoni regarded him with astonished gratitude. "It would be a tremendous relief Only—" she hesitated and flushed again anxiously "—is it a bit stupid to imagine that I can't manage on my own? Ought I to be able to?'^

  "No, of course not," Hugh assured her. "Where is your office?**

  Leoni said she hadn*t the least idea, but produced the address from her handbag, and Hugh studied it with a judicial air.

  "That*s right in the city,** he assured her, and he and his sisters immediately entered into a lively discussion on the rival merits of subway or bus.

  "Vandeem, Morrion and Morrion,'* Valerie read out over her brother's shoulder. "I seem to know the name. They're big exporters, aren't they?**

  Leoni said they were, feeling faintly gratified that her future employers should be known to these obvious authorities on the world of office life.

  "I went to school with Mr. Vandeem*s daughter. That*s how I got the job,'' she explained a little shyly.

  Trudie whistled in an impressed fashion.

  "A friend at court, eh? That's useful,'' she declared.

  "Oh, well, Mr. Vandeem doesn't work at the London office," Leoni hastened to add. "The Morrions run that part ofit."

  Hugh was just beginning to ask when she had to be there in the morning, when suddenly auntie interrupted with one astonishing question, "Is Lucas Morrion one of that lot?**

  "Why—yes,'* Leoni turned large surprised eyes on her.

  "Hm!" was the sole comment on that, but uttered with such a wealth of scornful disapproval that Leoni could not contain herself

  "Why do you say it like that? What... what do you know about Lucas Morrion?*'

  "Enough to tell you to mind your step with him, young woman." Auntie looked up suddenly from her knitting to fix Leoni with the driest and most knowledgeable glance she had ever encountered. "He isn't likely to notice your existence, of course, as you'll only be a junior shorthand-typist. And that's just as well. The Lucas Morrions of this world don't make very safe companions for innocents at large."