The Most Marvellous Summer. Бетти Нилс

TWO

      MR SCOTT-THURLOW WASN’T alone: there was a tall, willowy girl beside him, a fashion-plate, so slim that she might have been cut out of cardboard. She was exquisitely made up and her hair was a teased-out halo, lacquered into immobility. She was beautiful but there was no animation in her face; indeed, she looked bored, far more interested in arranging the pleats of her long skirt than viewing the large painting before which they stood.

      Matilda, after the first shock of delight, wanted perversely nothing so much as to get as far away from Mr Scott-Thurlow as possible, but Roseanne had seen him too. She darted up to him and caught his sleeve.

      ‘Fancy seeing you here, Mr Scott-Thurlow—’ for once she had forgotten her shyness ‘—and Matilda’s with me…’

      He took her hand and shook it gently and his voice was kind. ‘How delightful to see you again, Roseanne. Are you staying in town?’ He turned to his companion. ‘Rhoda, this is Roseanne Fox; we met in Dorset a few weeks ago.’ He smiled at Roseanne. ‘My fiancée, Rhoda Symes.’

      He looked past her to where Matilda was waiting and his smile faded, indeed he looked angry but so fleetingly that watching him she decided that she had imagined it. There was nothing else to do but to join Roseanne, greet him politely and be introduced in her turn to the girl with him.

      Rhoda Symes was everything that she wasn’t, reflected Matilda sadly, thinking of her own pleasant plumpness and kind of knowing that in the eyes of this girl she was just plain fat, size fourteen, wearing all the wrong make-up and with the wrong-coloured hair… All the same she gave the girl a friendly smile—if she was going to make Mr Scott-Thurlow a happy man, then she, Matilda, would make the best of it; she loved him too much to think otherwise.

      The girl was lovely. Matilda supposed that in all fairness if she were a man she would undoubtedly fall for all that elegant beauty.

      They stood and talked for a few minutes until Matilda observed that they still had almost the whole of the exhibition to see and since Roseanne was interested hadn’t they better get started?

      She bade Mr Scott-Thurlow a colourless goodbye and smiled without guile at Rhoda Symes, trying not to see the very large diamond on her left hand—a hand which that lady flourished rather too prominently.

      ‘I say,’ said Roseanne excitedly, ‘isn’t she absolutely lovely? I wonder if we’ll get asked to the wedding?’ She added, not meaning to be rude, ‘Not you, of course.’

      Matilda, contemplating a large oil-painting which she thought privately looked as though the artist had upset his paint pots over the canvas, agreed cheerfully to this remark; wild horses wouldn’t drag her to Mr Scott-Thurlow’s wedding—he was, as far as she was concerned, a closed book. Or so she told herself.

      Roseanne’s godmother gave a dinner party on the following evening; just a few friends, the Honourable Mrs Venables had said, most of them unattached men of suitable age with a complement of safely married ladies; Roseanne must have her chance and a dinner party was a very good way of getting to know people. Matilda was to attend too although her hostess would have been happier not to have had the competition; she consoled herself with the thought that men didn’t care for such bright red hair.

      Matilda did her best to look inconspicuous; she did her hair in a severe french pleat, wore an unassuming gown—grey crêpe and several years out of date—and stayed in the background as much as possible. Nevertheless she attracted the attention of the company, and since she was a nice, unassuming girl the ladies of the party liked her as well as the men. She did her best to see that Roseanne was a success and her godmother had to admit that Matilda hadn’t made any attempt to draw attention to herself. All the same, an excuse would have to be found for Roseanne to go without her to the dinner dance later that week, and Matilda, being told on the morning of that day that she looked poorly and perhaps it would be wise if she didn’t go out that evening, agreed for Roseanne’s sake that she had a very bad headache and an early night would do her the world of good.

      Of course, during the days she was expected to accompany Roseanne wherever she had a fancy to go, leaving her godmother to pursue her own busy social life, and it was a day or so after the dinner dance that they found themselves in the National Gallery. It was while they were admiring some splendid examples of the Netherlandish school that the young man standing close by spoke to them, or rather to Roseanne.

      ‘Forgive me,’ he began, ‘I overheard you discussing this picture—you know something about it, do you not? Are you interested in oil-paintings of that period?’

      When Roseanne nodded, her beaky nose quivering with the unexpectedness of it all, he asked, ‘You paint yourself?’ Then when she nodded again, ‘Then let me explain…’

      Which he did at some length, taking her from one painting to the next with Matilda, intrigued, keeping discreetly in the background. He seemed all right; he had a nice open face, not good-looking, but his gaze was direct, and he had introduced himself and shaken hands. ‘Bernard Stevens,’ he told them, working as a picture restorer for a famous art gallery and painting when he had the time. Roseanne had to be prised away from him after half an hour or so but only after she had promised to meet him there on the following morning, ostensibly to discuss more paintings but Matilda, studying her face, thought that was only partly the reason.

      ‘You won’t tell Aunt Maud?’ begged Roseanne.

      ‘Roseanne, you’re twenty-two, old enough to decide whom you want to know. Of course I shan’t breathe a word.’

      All the same she played discreet gooseberry the next morning, and again on the following afternoon, only now it was the Tate Gallery. She had been reassured to hear him mention the names of several people whom Roseanne’s godmother had talked of from time to time and he appeared well dressed and had good manners; she was no snob, but just supposing the gentle little flirtation turned into something more serious—she would have to answer to Lady Fox.

      They were to go to the theatre on the next evening, quite a small party and Matilda found herself paired off with an elderly man, a widower who told her at great length about his late wife’s ill health, and during the interval, when she had hoped to escape him for a short while, he led her firmly to the bar where he fetched her a tonic and lemon without asking her what she would like. ‘I don’t approve of pretty young ladies drinking alcohol,’ he told her and, because she had a kind heart, she accepted it nicely and sipped at it. She really needed something strong. Vodka? She had never tasted it. Brandy and soda? She looked around her—everyone there appeared to be drinking gin and tonic or champagne.

      She took another sip and while appearing attentive to her companion’s remarks—still about his wife too—glanced around her. There were some lovely dresses, and the grey crêpe was drowned in a sea of silks and satins. There was a vivid scarlet gown worn by someone with her back to Matilda and standing beside it, looking over the silk shoulder, was Mr Scott-Thurlow, watching her.

      She went pale with the strength of her feelings at the sight of him and then blushed. It seemed impossible for her to look away but she managed it and she hadn’t smiled because he had looked unsmilingly at her.

      She tossed off the tonic and lent a sympathetic ear to her companion’s description of his late wife’s asthma, murmuring in all the right places and not really hearing a word.

      She went to bed later, feeling unhappy, longing for a scarlet gown in which she might dazzle Mr Scott-Thurlow and at the same time wanting to go home then and there. She even wept a little and then her common sense came to the rescue; scarlet would look hideous with her hair and no way could she go home and leave Roseanne just as the girl was beginning to find her feet—perhaps she would find romance too.

      And it seemed likely; two days later, attending a preview of an up-and-coming portrait painter and this time with their hostess, Matilda was intrigued and delighted to see Bernard Stevens. He was with a friend of Mrs Venables and naturally enough was introduced, and presently he bore Roseanne off to make a tour of the rooms while Matilda stood between the two older ladies and listened with interest while Mrs Venables asked endless questions