Non-combatants and Others Part 18

'You've got your cough worse,' said Kate, fitting the key into Violette's latch. 'You'd better go to bed straight, I think, and have a mustard leaf on after supper. You're the colour of a ghost, child.

Evie's back, I can hear.'

So could Alix.

'I shall go to bed,' she said. 'I don't want supper.'

While she was undressing, Evie came in, to wash her hands for supper.

Evie was radiant and merry.

'Hard luck your having to go back, Al,' said Evie, splas.h.i.+ng her face and hands. 'I'm stiff all over; I'm for a hot bath afterwards. We had a lovely time; simply screaming, it was. Mr. Doye is rather a sport.

They're all a jolly set, though. Even that Mr. Ingram, the one you were talking to, brightened up later on, though when first you turned back he looked as if he was at his father's funeral. You must have made an impression. But he got over it all right and was quite chirpy.'

'Was he?' said Alix.

'I've promised Mr. Doye to go out again with him, next Sat. He's quite determined. I don't know what Sid Vinney'll say, because I'd half promised him. But I don't care. Sid's an old silly, anyhow.'

Evie smothered herself in the towel, scrubbing her smooth skin that no scrubbing could hurt.

'Dommage, you being seedy,' said Evie, and pulled off her walking shoes.

'You'd have enjoyed the day no end. Still feeling sick? Oh, poor kid, bad luck.... Well, there's the bell, I must run. I've heaps more to tell you. But you'd better go off straight to sleep after supper; I won't disturb you when I come up.'

She ran downstairs. Alix heard her voice in the dining-room below, through supper. Evie had had a good day. Evie was lovely, and jolly, and kind, and a good sort, but Alix did not want to see her, or to hear her talk.

4

It was Kate who came up after supper, with a mustard leaf, which she put on Alix's chest.

'Shall I read to you till I take it off?' Kate said; and what she selected to read was the current issue of the _Sign_, the parish magazine she took in. (Mrs. Frampton took the _Peep of Day_, which was the magazine of the church she attended.)

The mustard leaf, an ancient and mild one, which needed keeping on for some time, allowed of reading the _Sign_ almost straight through, apart from the parish news on the outer pages, which, though absorbing, is local and ephemeral, and should not be treated as literature. Kate began with an article on the Organs in our Churches, worked on through a serial called Account Rendered; a poem on the Women of the Empire; a page on Waifs and Strays; A Few Words to Parents and Teachers on the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity; Thoughts to Rest Upon; Keeping Well, some Facts for our Families; The Pitman's Amen (a short story); Wholesome Food for Baby; and so at last to Our Query Corner, wherein the disturbed in mind were answered when they had during the month written to inquire, 'Why does my clergyman wors.h.i.+p a cross? Is not this against the second commandment?' 'What amus.e.m.e.nts, if any, may be allowed on Sunday?' 'If I take the Communion, should I go to dancing-cla.s.ses?' 'How can I turn from Low Church to High Church?' 'Should not churchwardens be Christians?' and about many other perplexing problems. The answers were intelligent and full, never a bald Yes, or No, or We do not know; they often included a recommendation to the inquirer to try and look at the matter from a wider, or higher, standpoint, and (usually) to read the little book by an eminent Canon that bore more particularly on his case.

Alix got it all, from the Organs in our Churches to the Christian Churchwardens, mixed up with the mustard leaf, so that it seemed a painful magazine, but, one hoped, profitable. She looked at Kate's small, prim head in the shadow under the gas, and thought how Kate had been through love and loss and jealousy and still survived. But Kate's love and loss and jealousy could not be so bad; it was like some one else's toothache.

'We do not quite understand your question,' read Kate. (This was on turning from Low to High.) 'You should try to detach yourself from these party names, which are often mischievous.... We think you might be helped by the following books.... Twenty-five minutes: I should think that must be enough, even for that old leaf. Does it smart much?'

'Dreadfully,' said Alix, who was tired of it.

'Well, two minutes more,' said Kate, and went on to the Churchwardens, who, it seemed, _should_ be Christians, if possible.

'Now then,' said Kate, advancing with cotton wool.

'Oo,' said Alix. 'It's been on too long, Kate.'

'You do make a fuss,' said Kate, padding her chest with cotton wool and tucking the clothes round her. 'Now you go off to Sleepy Town quick.'

Alix thought how kind Kate was. When one had any physical ailment, Violette came out strong. It was soft-hearted. Women are.

5

When Kate had gone, Alix lay with her eyes tight shut and her head throbbing, and tried to go to sleep, so that she need no longer make her brain ache with keeping things out. But she could not go to sleep. And she could not, in the silence and dark, keep things out; not Paul; nor the war; nor Basil; nor Evie.

At last Evie came. Alix, feigning sleep, lay with tight-shut eyes, face to the wall. Every movement of Evie, undressing in her frightful loveliness, was horribly clear. Alix was afraid Evie, in pa.s.sing her bed, would brush against her, and that she would have to scream. If only Evie would get to bed and to sleep.

Evie, after her undressing and was.h.i.+ng, knelt in prayer for thirty seconds (what was Evie's G.o.d, who should say? One cannot tell with people like Evie, or see into their minds), then took her loveliness to bed and fell sweetly asleep.

Alix knew from her breathing that she slept; then she unclenched her hands and relaxed her body and cried.

CHAPTER XI

ALIX AND EVIE

1

Basil had Evie on the brain. He liked her enormously. He was glad he had a month's more leave. He took to meeting her after she came out from her hat shop and seeing her home. They spent Sat.u.r.day afternoons together.

Alix saw them parting one Sat.u.r.day evening, as she came home. Spring Hill was dim and quiet, and they stood by the door into the Park, on the opposite side of the road to Violette, chaffing and saying good-bye.

Alix saw Basil suddenly kiss Evie. It might be the first time: in that case it would be an event for them both, and thrilling. Or it might be not the first time at all: in that case it would be a habit, and jolly.

Anyhow Evie said, 'Oh, go along and don't be a silly.... Are you coming in to-night?'

He said 'No' and laughed.

Then they saw Alix turning into Violette.

'There now,' said Evie. 'She must have seen you going on. Couldn't have missed it.... Whatever will she think?'

'She won't think anything,' said Basil Doye. 'Alix is a nice person, and minds her own business.'

'I believe it's her you're in love with really,' said Evie, teasing him.

He kissed her again, and said, 'Oh, do you?'

After a little more of the like conversation, which will easily be imagined, they parted. Evie went into Violette. She ran upstairs and into her dark bedroom and flung off her outdoor things. Turning, she saw Alix sitting on the edge of her bed.

'Goodness, how you startled me,' said Evie.

'Sorry,' said Alix. 'Got a toothache.' She was holding her face between her hands.

Evie said, 'Oh, bad luck. Try some aspirin. Or suck a clove.... I say, Al.'

'What?'