A Little Treachery

22

Emmy began her story seriously, speaking without her usual tendency to quips and patter, and hiding, Catherine judged with surprise, a faint degree of perturbation. Why this was, did not appear. But her style soon took its normal way.

Feeling lonely, as she said, after Catherine had gone, she had decided on a walk; a walk with an object. She had intended to reconnoitre the house opposite, or perhaps its inhabitants were more in her mind, and, in particular, a hope of making contact with the helpful neighbour. She had soon reached the lane on the hillside, the serpentine course of which she had often traced from below, but only to find, just as Catherine had done, that nothing of the house could be seen from the depths of the lane.

However, Emmy had gone on briskly up the hill, in the spring sunshine, in a mood of bounding pleasure, sometimes stopping to listen to the birds – and how well Catherine could picture her little cat, listening to the birds! – standing there in the lane with alert, inquisitive, tiptoe air, with small, neat figure done up in a close-fitting coat of pronounced cut under a short fur cape of doubtful quality, of a type suitable for evening wear in town; with round, liquid-lighted eyes, so like the eyes of a night-creature, roving in their vivacious manner, intensely busy with the surfaces of things, nothing escaping them. Emmy had seen a snake. Yes, it really was a snake, and she had run like mad, having an idea that snakes could leap. ‘Just to think of it! If I’d been Eve, none of it would ever have happened. I wouldn’t have stopped to hear what any old serpent had got to say for itself.’ The little grass-snake had slithered away into the ditch, far more frightened than Emmy. And Emmy had resorted to a fag to steady her nerves.

Then the young woman had gone on under the great hedgerow trees and over the brow of the hill, in a deep lane which did not allow her much of a view, till on one side the ground began to fall away again, the hedgerow bank came to an end and was replaced by a dilapidated fencing; and here, suddenly, she had found herself looking down, through the swinging boughs of some vast chestnut trees, into a wonderful region, the strangest of wildernesses, into which the afternoon sun shone in strength. The ground fell away very abruptly, and the whole of the declivity was sheeted with a little yellow flower (with celandines, had Emmy known it), a glittering mosaic of the most marvellous intricacy, formed of shining, heart-shaped leaves and golden stars. This jewelled slope plunged down into a strange valley where there were glistening, boggy tracts of black earth, black with a great depth of rotting vegetation, through which various streams of water meandered, as if having escaped from artificial channels. But here, all over the valley bottom, was a wonderful spectacle. All along beside the waterways, in the black mud, grew masses of large golden flowers – Emmy did not know what these were, but she was ravished by their sight.

Moreover, the whole of the valley was dotted with outlandish forms which at once caught her amazed eye. These curious erections, something like straw beehives, were great plants of pampas grass which, neglected, left to their own devices in cold exile, rose out of the undergrowth with their dried leaves drawn up into this strange form; each plant having, besides, put forth a few fantastically tall, weirdly elongated stalks topped with small heads of greyish plumes. Emmy thought they looked like plumed spears stacked together. The swampy glisten of the black water, the glistening flowers, and this curious presentation of a ghostly kraal, bristling with assegais, all under a warm sun, had suggested a tropical region and a presage of Africa. (Catherine was arrested by this note, so queerly coincident.) Shrubs with long, glossy leaves, at the top of the slope, near the railing, laid their dark, scissor-blade fingers against the sunny hollow. In short, this strange place had obviously been at one time, many years ago, a cultivated water-garden. Even the varnished, roughly carven buds of the chestnuts, extruding furry leaves, had seemed to her, at this unwontedly close view, clumsy, barbaric, like something of primitive workmanship. And meanwhile the birds had all fallen silent, in the afternoon languor, save one with a monotonous cry.

‘How lovely – I wish I’d seen it! I must go there,’ Catherine exclaimed.

Emmy had squeezed through the fence and climbed down, ruining her light sandal shoes, mad to see the kingcups near to; but she could not reach them over that squelching marsh from which the sun drew up a strong odour of stagnation. ‘I wanted to get some plants. “Evidently just the thing,” I thought, “for our little ga-a-arden.” ’ She must have been by this time a trifle intoxicated by her adventure, for she had scrambled along in vast enjoyment, with no thought of her clothes. And clothes, with Emmy, were a serious matter. Not that she regarded them with the loving and romantic absorption of many young women, but she had a very sharp sense of them as things which had cost precious money. So Emmy now referred ruefully to her spoiled shoes and called herself a fool. Then my hat got clawed off, like Absalom, on a tree. Where did I think I was going when I set out – Bond Street? I felt good in that hat, it was a cheesy piece.’ Yet she had gone on. Perhaps she had responded so enthusiastically to the exotic scene because it had something about it of the theatre spectacle. In fact, she had had the striking idea that this African effect would make a gorgeous set for Robinson Crusoe.

‘By that time, having been so long by myself, I began to feel quite weird. Felt as if I’d lost the use of my tongue. And I jumped like old Crusoe himself when I heard someone hailing me.

‘Well, anyway, I must say she looked odd, stuck up there, right above me on the opposite slope. Tall, dressed all in black, and, on top of that, she’s got a mass of fair hair, almost white, it is, but natural. A natural peroxide, I should call her, not quite the real thing. Besides, she shouted at me.’

‘Shouted?’

‘Well, you know what the voices of classy folk are like? She called out and told me I was trespassing. “I suppose you’re aware you’re on private ground?” “I’m just an innocent kid,” I said, “after the flowers”; and I cheeked her back a bit and then discovered who she was. The owner. “Well,” I said, measuring up the slope with my eye, “count ten before you shoot.” “Oh, don’t bother, I didn’t mean to reprimand you. You’re the girl who’s staying with Miss Hare, aren’t you? From Flytton’s cottage.” “I am,” “but we don’t call it that. We call it Flytton Hall.” She beckoned me up to her and pointed out where I could get over the stream – so she said. Anything to oblige. I paddled around a bit and then started to mountaineer, ruining the remains of my outfit. Country’s all right but should be better kept. By now I’d judged she was a local bigwig, and I thought if she’d got a real taste for water I might hear something to your advantage, you see, there might be a bit of business doing with the cottage. Hence my exertions. I made it – though, as it turned out, all for nothing. “Well, I think my husband once spoke to Miss Hare about her garden, didn’t he?” “Some chap did – offered her sixpence for the cottage. I don’t know whether he was your hubby. Reverend Mother” – for behold a crucifix as big as a coat-hanger dangling on her chest. “Yes, that was my husband. The name’s Stewart.” “A grand old Hebrew name,” I said. “But you don’t mean to say this ground’s yours, too? You’ve got a funny taste in gray-ound, if I may say so.” “Yes, my husband is going to reclaim it and build here. Then of course we shall leave.” Off to fresh woods and pastures new – literally!

‘So that’s what the future holds, my dear. He got that ground dirt-cheap and he’s going to slap up a housing estate and make a pile, and then pull out and leave you all to it. That kind of shark.’

Catherine smiled. ‘So I understood. But he’ll first have to come up against the Council and Housing Authorities?’ she suggested, though not hopefully.

‘He’ll have got that all worked out. I as good as said what I thought. She’s got a scornful manner. She pointed round and told me to use my eyes. Sure enough, it was the same old thing, no denying it, on getting a close view, a real home from home. Water, water, mud, old saucepans, boots, prams and worse, rotten logs and branches tumbling at all angles, and ivy – all the trees bulging with the stuff and half of them just held up by it. A shambles! “Do you think we bought it from a prosperous owner?” ’

Emmy had given such a lively imitation of the woman’s voice and gestures that Catherine had received the most vivid impression of her personalty: an imperious type, with a somewhat haughty and intense manner; so vivid an impression that it was disquieting. This imagined portrait became a sort of dark trouble and agitation with Emmy’s next words.

‘So then she began to ask questions about you. “Oh,” I thought, “so that’s your line,” and I sat down on it. For of course I wasn’t going to discuss your affairs, my dear – but I did happen to mention, just to make conversation, that you had gone to town to fetch a small boy who was to stay with us. Now, I’d already noticed something rather funny – that’s to say, that she seemed to have a kind of down on you – not what she said so much, but the way she spoke. After I’d told her about Simon, then, she didn’t answer for a moment, and I peeped at her, side-view. We were walking then along a path which was less full of obstacles. She was frowning. She’s got one of those florid faces which sometimes go with that hair, thin but red, it makes her look angry. Then she snapped out, “Poor child! I pity him!” Naturally I asked why. And then she said you were not the sort of woman who ought to have a child in your charge. Was I indignant! However, I was determined to keep polite and friendly, in case anything came of it. So I humoured her. “One of the children told me she throws stones at them, he showed me a bruise.” “What, one of those little innocents who’ve kicked her front door to matchwood and make a cock-shy of the place every day as they go by? Little liar!” I said. “I’d like to get at his seat. I’d give him bruises!”

‘By this time we’d come up to the house and – better late than never – what did I now find but that we might have gone by the lane instead of taking that short cut that had ripped half my clothes off me – for there we were, with the lane just below and an exit to hand. However, she’d got me so hypnotized that I went in with her when she asked me. We went into a room straight off the lawn. More religious kickshaws, like the one on her chest. I didn’t much rejoice in being shut up with her, she looks like a woman who’d box your ears for two pins, just to keep things going in the right direction. “Behave yourself, girl!” “Don’t answer me like that, girl!” – every minute I expected it. “Never mind,” I thought. “If she says any more against my best friend, why, there’s a limit and the fur’ll fly.” So I sang your praises. And what d’you think the woman came out with then? She said, “I hate her.” Of course I made pop-eyes. Then she tried to laugh it off. “Don’t be absurd, girl – don’t you know a joke when you hear it?” Joke! She looked a bit silly, laughed and said, all scornful, “Well, dislike her, then.” ’

‘Hates me?’ Catherine whispered.

Emmy now had a curious air of hedging. ‘Well . . . for one thing . . . she’s fond of kids, or sets up to be. So then she told me how it was she’d met you and spoken to you.’

But Catherine cried out at that.