She Came Back

CHAPTER 2

Mrs. Armitage looked up from the Air Force pullover she was knitting, and immediately dropped a stitch. She was large, fair, and extremely good-natured. She wore aged tweeds and a battered felt hat which was generally over one ear. A spare knitting-needle of a horribly bright pink was thrust into a thick disordered fuzz of hair. Once almost too golden, it was now in a streaky half-way stage which probably went better with the freckled skin, light eyes, and wide genial mouth. The tweeds were, or had been, a regrettable mustard. She would have been the first to admit that they clashed with the room. It would have been quite in character if she had said, “But just think of a room that wouldn’t clash with me!”

This particular room had been decorated for A

Mrs. Armitage leaned towards her niece Lyndall, who was sitting on the hearth-rug dropping fir cones on a reluctant fire, and said in her usual irrelevant ma

“There’s one good thing about the war anyway-if we had to sit in that awful purse-proud drawing-room I should want to scream, like the girls who wrote to the Daily Mirror the other day.”

Lyn wrinkled her nose and said, “What girls?”

Mrs. Armitage dragged the knitting-needle from her hair.

“Three of them,” she said. “They were bored with their job, and they said they wanted to scream every so often. Well, I should if I had to sit in a room with seven chandeliers and about fifty mirrors.”

Lyndall blew a kiss.

“Only six, darling-I counted them yesterday-and three chandeliers. And I quite agree, but why purse-proud?”

“Because Sir Ambrose Jocelyn, who was A

Lyn giggled. She was a little thing, slim and pale, with rather nice grey eyes and a lot of soft dark hair in a bush of curls. She reached for the pullover.

“Two, darling. You shouldn’t take your eye off the ball. Better give it to me.”

“No-I’ll pick them up myself-I can if I put my mind to it. Yes, I suppose it was lucky for Philip that A

Lyndall’s colour rose.

“A

Mrs. Armitage coerced a stitch into its place on the pink needle and said vaguely,

“Oh, yes, A

Lyn’s colour brightened.

“She was!”

“Oh, yes, my dear.” The light eyes blinked. “Of course I remember you had a-what do you call it-a crush on her when you were a schoolgirl, didn’t you? I had forgotten. But you didn’t see much of her after that-did you?”

Lyndall shook her head.

“Only at the wedding. But I’ve never forgotten the summer holidays the year before the war, when A

Mildred Armitage looked across her dishevelled knitting.

“They both liked their own way,” she said. “They were both only children, and A

Lyn’s eyes came to her face with a wondering look.

“Is Philip proud?”

“Oh, my dear-proud!”

“Well, is he?”

Mrs. Armitage shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, well-” she said. “Anyhow there wasn’t a great deal of time for things to go wrong, was there? And perhaps they wouldn’t have gone wrong at all-or perhaps they would have gone wrong and come right again. It’s no use worrying about it now-she’s gone, and there it is. You can think about her as kindly as you like.”

“She was wonderful to me.” The three times repeated phrase had the effect of a response in some private litany of loyalty and regret. “It was lovely of her to have me for a bridesmaid.”

She got up and went back to the middle of the room, tilting her head and looking up at the full-length painting over the mantelpiece. It was Amory’s famous Girl with a Fur Coat, and it had been painted from A

Lyndall’s eyes widened. She went on looking at the picture, all its colours bright under the electric light. A

“Why weren’t you fond of her?”

The knitting sank in a heap on the mustard-coloured lap. The pale eyes blinked as if with surprise.

“My darling child, I hardly knew her. A

Lyndall went on looking at her with those wide, accusing eyes.

“Why didn’t you like her?”

She said like, but she meant love. How could anyone have known A

Mildred Armitage made a small vexed sound.

“How on earth do I know! One doesn’t get fond of people in a hurry like that-not at my age. She was young, she was pretty, she had pots of money, and Mrs. Kendal obviously meant her to marry Philip. Well, she married him, and it didn’t last long enough for anyone to know how it would have turned out.”