‘Well, that seems reasonable.’

‘It’s not – it’s not! She’s doing it to spite me! I tell you she got herself a new coat in town the other day – big soft checks of rust and brown! And this one is much more my style – bold squares of black and white with an emerald strip! I tell you it’s me! And as soon as my back is turned she’ll give it to Mabel! – I know she will! Unless – Oh, Janet, couldn’t you say something – couldn’t you stop her?’

‘No, I don’t think I could.’

‘You mean you won’t! You don’t care – nobody does!’

Janet controlled herself. She found it difficult to carry on a conversation with Meriel for more than five minutes without wanting to shake her. She thought regretfully that her moral character must be deteriorating. She made a real effort.

‘Now look here – why don’t you wait until Adriana is alone, and then ask her quietly about the coat? If she has said she wants to keep it for a bit she won’t have given it to Mabel, and you can’t very well ask for it now. But you could tell her how much you liked it and say you hope she won’t give it to anyone else.’

Meriel went into a pose.

‘And you think that would stop her? How little you know about us! If she thought I had set my heart on anything, it would just make her determined to keep it from me – yes, it would! And have me there to look on while she gave it away to somebody else! It is the sort of thing she would enjoy. You see, you have the ordinary commonplace mind – no, don’t be offended. It must be wonderful to take the everyday things as they come and never look beneath the surface or long to walk among the stars! I wish I could be like that, but it’s no use. And you can’t begin to understand Adriana or me, so it is no good your trying. But we see clearly enough about each other. She knows just what will hurt me, and I can see her enjoying it. It isn’t a happy thing to be able to see into someone else’s mind. Be thankful that you were not born that way. I see too much, and sometimes I shudder at what I see!’ She passed a hand across her eyes and went trailing out of the room.

When Janet had finished with Stella’s clothes she made her way to Adriana’s room. She found a scene which resembled a dress shop. Clothes of every description trailed from the chairs, hung over the back of the couch, and were piled wherever there was room to pile them. The coat described by Meriel was very much to the fore. Adriana was, in fact, in the act of slipping it off.

It was certainly striking. The sharp black and white of the twelve-inch checks, the vivid green of the stripe which crossed them, made Janet blink and reflect that it would certainly be a trying garment for poor old Mabel Preston. Much more suitable for Meriel really. She could see her looking dramatic and rather handsome in it.

Adriana waved it at her.

‘Just take this down when you go, and hang it in the cloakroom. I’m giving it to Mabel, and Meriel has been throwing a fit of the sulks about it, so I thought the best thing was to put it downstairs and go on wearing it once or twice myself. Mabel can use it too if she wants to, and then she can just take it with her when she goes and there won’t be any fuss. Meriel is the end when she sets her mind on anything!!’

Janet made her voice soft and coaxing.

‘She really does want it very badly.’

Adriana gave a dry laugh.

‘Did she send you to ask me for it?’

‘Well, I said I wouldn’t-’

Adriana tapped her on the cheek.

‘Don’t let people make use of you, or you’ll end up somewhere under foot. You can have no idea what Meriel is like when she wants something she can’t have.’

‘And she really can’t have the coat?’

Adriana frowned.

‘No, she can’t, and I’ll tell you why. It’s much too marked, and I’ve worn it too much myself. I don’t choose to have people say I keep Meriel so short she has to wear my cast-off clothes. And they would, you know. Everyone within a ten-mile radius has seen me in that coat, and you must admit that it’s once-seen-never-forgotten – now, isn’t it?’

As Janet turned to the door with the coat on her arm, Mabel Preston came in from the bedroom in a black and yellow cocktail dress which imparted a most unfortunate resemblance to a wasp. She had pulled her dry red hair into rather wild-looking puffs and she had been experimenting with Adriana’s rouge and lipstick. The result had to be seen to be believed, but it was obvious that she was extremely pleased with it. She came into the room with quite a good imitation of the mannequin’s glide.

‘There!’ she said. ‘How’s that? Pretty good, don’t you think? And nobody remembers black, so it will be all right if I wear it to your party tomorrow – won’t it, darling? And shan’t I feel smart! Quite new too! No one would think it had ever been worn – at least not unless you looked right into it, and nobody is going to do that.’

Janet made her escape. She took the coat along to the nursery, and when she went to fetch Stella from the Vicarage she carried it downstairs with her and hung it in the cloakroom.

Chapter Sixteen

Ninian stayed the night in town. He rang up at seven, demanded Janet on the nursery extension, and was rather lavish with the time.

‘Is the child in bed?… Good! I thought I had calculated rather neatly. Now listen! The linoleum is quite a pleasing shade – wear and tear negligible. And the curtains are a bit of all right. How good will you be at visualizing them from a description? Just turn on the imagination.’

‘Meriel told me this morning that I haven’t got any. I’m the fortunate possessor of a perfectly commonplace mind, with none of the perceptions which are such a burden to sensitive people.’

She heard him laugh.

‘Never mind, I’ll come back tomorrow and protect you. Now do your best about the curtains. The bedroom is north-east, and the ones there are a nice creamy yellow with a pattern of hollyhocks. Calculated to give the illusion that the sun is shining even if it hasn’t let out a blink for days. Quite nice to wake up to, don’t you think?’

‘Ninian-’

‘Darling, don’t interrupt. You are supposed to be listening. I was rather taken with the living-room curtains. A pleasing shade of green, and lined, so they oughtn’t to fade. They really are a good colour – very restful to the eye. So I’ve taken the plunge and told Hemming we’ll have the lot. I hope you approve?’

‘Ninian-’

‘It will be your own fault if you don’t, because I wanted you to come up with me, and you could have managed quite easily. So when – or shall we say if – you wake up and hate the hollyhock curtains, you will just have to remind yourself that you rushed upon your doom.’

‘Ninian-’

‘Woman, let be! This is my show, and I want to talk. It is your part to listen – resign yourself to it! I have also said I will take over-’ He proceeded to waste time in enumerating things like a front door mat, a kitchen cupboard. ‘His aunt has things like that built in – superiority of Scottish houses! Also a rack for drying clothes, and two more or less fitted book-cases.’

As he described all these things in minute detail with comments and interjections obviously designed to draw her fire, Janet considered that she would really be thwarting him better if she just held her tongue. There is nothing quite so damping as to let off fireworks with no one to scream or say ‘Oh!’ when they go up. He had been talking for quite a time before he checked to say,

‘Darling, you’re still there?’

Janet said, ‘Just.’

‘I thought you might have swooned with ecstasy.’

‘At hearing you talk a lot of nonsense? There’s nothing so very new about that.’

‘Darling, that came out pure Scots.

‘ “The accents of the Doric tongue

Upon her lightest murmur hung-”

‘I believe those beautiful lines to be original, but I won’t swear they were not written by Sir Walter Scott in one of his more exalted moments.’