Near Neighbours Read online

  Everything seemed to be mud-coloured or a peculiarly ugly dingy green. It was like being at the bottom of a dirty pond, Rowan thought as she sat down on a mud-coloured velvet chair. There was not a single bright or pretty thing in the whole room.

  Dorothea Balfour, from her seat on the sofa between two windows, where she could look across at Rowan, was perfectly certain that there was, at least for the moment, one bright and pretty thing in the drawing-room. Though the sunlight always had a struggle to get in between the écru net covering the lower panes, the blinds drawn halfway down, the heavy velvet curtains looped back with cords, the deep pelmet, it was not possible to keep it out altogether on a June afternoon, and now the golden shaft lay full on the girlish figure, touching the lights in her dark brown hair, showing up the red and white of her dress, the red of her lips, the brightness of her brown eyes. All the light in the room seemed to be concentrated on her; it was almost as if she shone back at the sun with a radiance of her own.

  “You are Miss Rowan Lenox, aren’t you?” asked Dorothea, though she knew this quite well already.

  Rowan smiled and nodded. “Yes, I’m Rowan, the third girl.”

  “You are very like your name,” said Miss Balfour.

  “Am I? I never thought of that. We think it was rather awful of the parents to call us after trees, and we envy Murray—my brother, because he escaped it by being a boy.”

  “I think it is a charming and original idea,” Miss Balfour said with most unusual firmness. “Especially as you are all like the trees you are named for.”

  Rowan laughed. “Isn’t that rather hard on my younger sister? Her name is Holly—”

  “The holly is a very beautiful tree,” answered Miss Balfour.

  “But very prickly.”

  “Not the top branches, where they are out of reach, and then, the leaves are such a deep glossy green, and the berries are so gay, and the little white flowers so pure and fresh.” Miss Balfour was speaking in quite an animated way, as if the subject really interested her.

  “I think it’s clever of you to know which of us is which,” said Rowan.

  Miss Balfour’s thin cheeks were suddenly flushed. “I’m afraid,” she said, painfully embarrassed, “that—that I have fallen into the bad habit of—of looking at you from that top window. You—you are all so gay and lively, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to see you.”

  Rowan’s instinctive sympathy made her answer at once quite composedly. “Oh, do you look at us? Because, you know, we’ve often looked at you!”

  Miss Balfour forgot her embarrassment in surprise. “I should never have thought that we were at all interesting to watch,” she exclaimed.

  “Oh, but you are! Awfully interesting! You see, we made up all sorts of stories about—” Rowan broke off just in time. “About you and your horrible sister,” she had been about to say.

  A small gilt clock striking six in a fussy tinkling chime saved her as she sat stricken to silence, her cheeks scarlet with shame.

  “Oh! I must fly!” she said thankfully, springing up from her chair. “We have high tea at six—”

  “High tea?” Miss Balfour echoed the words. “Do you always have high tea? Aren’t you very hungry later?”

  “Well, we don’t always have it. Sometimes we have cold supper. But we like to have the evenings free in summer when it’s light so long,” Rowan explained. “If we feel hungry at bedtime we have milk and cake or biscuits or—oh, anything. You see, Murray and Hazel play tennis, and they don’t get any time except in the evening. And Holly is always so fearfully hungry when she comes home from school. Really high tea is the best arrangement for us.”

  “And do you play tennis, too? Are you going to play this evening?”

  “Sometimes I play. I’m not very good, though. This evening I’m going to dance,” said Rowan.

  She was standing quite still as she spoke, but Miss Balfour was aware, most vividly, of an impression of swift graceful movement, airy as a bird’s flight.

  Almost uneasily she looked at the tall, slim young creature who had brought a momentary warmth and brilliance to the big dreary room. Surely she was different from other girls? Not that Dorothea knew any other girls, but she felt sure that they could not all be like Rowan Lenox, so glowing, so vital, and so sympathetic. . . . Aloud she said, though more as if she were talking to herself: “So that is what the frilly petticoat is for!”

  Rowan stared at her. “Goodness, did you hear all that too? Oh—!” Her voice rose in dismay. “Miss Balfour, I must fly! I’ll have to iron it, and there are yards and yards of frill—”

  “Of course, my dear,” said Dorothea, and led the way from the room, down the dark staircase to the gloomy well of the hall.

  Here, as she opened the door, letting a long stream of sunshine in, she said: “It was kind of you to come. Thank you.”

  “Oh!” Rowan paused on the step. “I—I never said any of the things I came to say, Miss Balfour! I’m so sorry—”

  “You didn’t need to say them, I knew what you meant quite as well without,” said Miss Balfour. “I hope you will come again, and soon.”

  “I will!” cried Rowan. “I really will, very soon!”

  And with a smile and a wave, she was gone, darting down the steps of Number Four and up the next door ones almost in one bound. Dorothea Balfour turned back into the hall. She felt cheered and in some way younger. As she passed the top of the stair winding down to the basement she paused and sniffed. There was a pleasant smell of cooking wafting up from the kitchen regions, a most unusual smell, that of something frying.

  After a second’s hesitation she went into the dining-room, where she saw that the table was already set for her supper, and rang the bell. It was never any good calling over the stair to Edna, for the echo only came back up the dark well, and one’s voice was not heard in the kitchen. Besides, Belle always insisted that Edna should be summoned “properly,” by ringing the bell. Having rung it, however, Dorothea went back to the hall, and as soon as Edna’s pale scared face appeared below, she called down to her.

  “Edna! What is that smell?”

  “Oh, Miss Dottie! It was just—I thought you should take your supper early this evening. I’m sure you’ve hardly had a proper bite all day,” said Edna. “And—I was frying the fish, ’um, in egg and breadcrumb, an’ doing it up with a nice little bit of parsley an’ lemon. Seemed ter me it would be more tempting-like than steamed. But I’ve only just begun it, Miss Dottie. I can still steam yours if you’d rather.”

  She did not look up, but Dorothea knew quite well what she was thinking. Belle had never allowed them to have their fish fried. It was always steamed by her orders.

  “I am sure it will be very nice fried, Edna,” said Miss Balfour. “And how thoughtful of you to put supper forward. I will take it whenever you are ready.”

  “Yes’um, Miss Dottie. I’ll only be a few more minutes,” said Edna, and dived back to the basement like a rabbit to its burrow.

  “What a good soul she is!” thought Dorothea Balfour. “But how I wish she wouldn’t call me Miss Dottie! I’ve always hated being called Dot and Dottie. . . . I wonder if I could persuade her to say ‘Miss Dorothea’ instead? It is really a nice-sounding name, Dorothea. Dignified . . .”

  CHAPTER 3

  If Rowan had not realized already that she was late, the tinkle of cutlery on china, the buzz of voices from the dining-room would have told her.

  The dining-room door was half open, and the aperture was filled by the back view of the youngest Miss Lenox’s sturdy form as she argued hotly with persons inside the room.

  “Well, I’m going to get it! But all the same I think it’s a beastly shame to send me when it was Rowan’s turn to set the table.”

  “Horrors!” thought Rowan. “It was my turn to set the table, and I forgot all about it!”

  And as Holly, with an indignant flounce of the tartan kilted skirt which she insisted on wearing, regardless of her figure’s rather pron
ounced curves, erupted backwards into the hall, Rowan said mildly:

  “I’ll get whatever it is, Holly. I’m sorry.”

  “Ho!” snorted Holly, her cheeks very red, her dark eyes flashing. “So you should be!”

  “Well, what have you come for? Tell me and I’ll fetch it.” When Holly was on the war-path she was very prickly indeed, and it was useless to try to appease her.

  “Jam,” replied Holly curtly. “Though why anyone should want jam after wolfing stuffed eggs and salad and lemon meringue pie and iced coffee, I just don’t know!”

  “Iced coffee? Good for Mummy . . . who does want jam, Holly?” said Rowan.

  “Darling Murray, of course, so don’t get anything dull like last year’s plum. It’s a scandal the way Mummy spoils that boy,” she said darkly. “Favouritism! Rank favouritism!”

  As always, her own eloquence had restored her to good humour, and now she grinned quite amiably.

  “I’ll come and help you to find the jam,” she said, tucking her hand through Rowan’s arm and leaning heavily on her. “And I might as well see if there are any biscuits at the same time.”

  “After wolfing stuffed eggs and all the rest?” murmured Rowan, making for the pantry.

  Holly squeezed her arm. “Now, don’t be a pig!” she begged. “I need nourishment, because of the amount of brain-work I have to do for those horrible Highers.”

  “Dear me,” said Rowan, as she reached for a pot of raspberry jam, and scooped its contents into a glass dish. “Do they work you harder than Murray has to for his C.A. finals? I’ve always been told they were very stiff.”

  “I bet they aren’t any worse than Highers,” retorted Holly. “Oh, joy! There are squashed fly biscuits as well as digestive! I’ll take some of each, I think—don’t scrape any more off that spoon, Rowan, I want to lick it!”

  “Put it in the sink when you’ve finished, then,” said Rowan. She handed over the spoon, still with a generous blob of jam on it, and made her way to the dining-room.

  “Oh, there you are, Rowan! You’re terribly late,” said Mrs. Lenox. “Have you seen Holly? She is supposed to be fetching some jam, but from the time she is taking she might be making it and picking the fruit into the bargain!”

  “I’ve brought the jam. Holly is just coming. And I’m sorry to be so late,” said Rowan, sitting down at her place between Murray and Hazel.

  “Who set the table?” she added. “Was it Holly, by any chance?”

  “Holly? Of course it wasn’t. She didn’t get in until six. Hazel set it. And I must say, Rowan,” said Mrs. Lenox, “that though you are usually very good about remembering your turn, you chose a very awkward day to forget it, when you are all going out.”

  “I’ll wash up for you, Hazel,” said Rowan.

  “You’ll be late for dancing if you do.”

  “No, I won’t. It doesn’t start until half-past eight, and I can do it in ten minutes by bus, if I’m lucky. But—oh! I forgot, Willow said I could have her petticoat—the white one with the frills—and I haven’t ironed it. Blast!” cried Rowan despairingly.

  “It’s all right. I’ve done it,” said Hazel.

  “Angel! I suppose you did Willow’s nightie as well?”

  Hazel nodded, smiling. “I got home early, for once, and I had something of my own to iron, and the whole lot only took twenty minutes. But where were you, Rowan?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” began Rowan in a cautious undertone, glancing at the other members of the family. Then, realizing that the uproar created by Holly trying to convince Mrs. Lenox of her urgent need for extra nourishment in the shape of biscuits would drown any other conversation, she turned to Hazel and said quickly and softly:

  “I went next door to see Miss Balfour. I wonder Willow didn’t tell you.”

  “She only said that you had gone off on one of your madder crusades,” answered Hazel. “But what made you do it, Rowan?”

  “She looked so lonely, so lost, somehow. I saw her peering down from that top window, you know how she does?”

  “Didn’t she mind? Didn’t she think it was a queer thing for you to do? What on earth did you say to her?”

  “No, she didn’t mind, I think she was glad to have somebody to talk to,” Rowan said slowly. “She would like to be friends with us, Hazel. I don’t believe she knows anyone. I think her sister never allowed her to make friends.”

  “Poor old soul!” said kind-hearted Hazel. “I’m sure Mummy will be nice to her if she is given a chance—”

  “You tell Mummy, Hazel. I feel rather a fool about it,” said Rowan. “All the same, I’m not sorry I went.”

  “Now, girls, if you’ve finished, you ought to be clearing away and washing up. It’s after seven.” Mrs. Lenox, speaking briskly, put an end to their talk, and all three girls jumped up and began their various jobs with the speed of practice.

  While Hazel and Rowan piled the used dishes and silver on a tray, Holly, heaving care-worn sighs and muttering that she had an essay to write, put away the salt and pepper and folded the table-cloth.

  “What’s your essay about, Holly?” asked Hazel.

  “The Poet, the Mystic and the Lover are all God-intoxicated Men,” said Holly, with gloomy pride.

  “Good Lord! What do you know about mystics and lovers, my girl?” demanded Murray, who was standing near the window idly twirling the tassel of the blind-cord. “Let alone poets! Anyhow, you’ve got it all wrong. It should be—

  ‘The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

  Are of imagination all compact.’”

  “That sounds better than the one the Beetle gave us,” said Holly critically. “Is it Shakespeare?”

  “It is, my ignorant pet. Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  “Well, I’ll put it in my essay. It ought to please the Beetle. She’s always complaining that we don’t read the classics,” Holly said, shutting the sideboard drawer with a hearty bang.

  “I don’t like to hear you speak of Miss Beadnell by that stupid nickname,” said Mrs. Lenox.

  “Oh goodness, Mummy, everyone calls her the Beetle,” said Holly indulgently. “I’d feel a fool if I started calling her Miss Beadnell.”

  “Well, run along now and write your essay,” said Mrs. Lenox, giving it up as useless. “You can do it in the study, as Murray is going out.”

  “Don’t meddle with my papers, then, or touch my pens and pencils!” shouted Murray, as Holly left the room, crashing the door to behind her.

  Shortly after eight o’clock silence descended on Number Six Kirkaldy Crescent.

  Mrs. Lenox looked in at Holly, struggling inkily and with many groans over her Poet, Mystic and Lover (“absurd subjects they give these children to write about!” she thought privately) and having frequent recourse to the paper bag of fruit drops at her elbow, presumably for inspiration.

  “Don’t make yourself sick on those sweets,” said Mrs. Lenox automatically.

  As automatically Holly replied that it was impossible to be sick on quarter of a pound of wholesome boiled sweets, and her pocket-money did not permit her to buy more.

  “I am glad to hear it. They are shockingly bad for your teeth,” said her mother and left her before she could think of a really crushing retort.

  It was too fine an evening to spend indoors, Mrs. Lenox thought, so she made her way down to the basement, collected her gardening gloves and a small fork from the huge scullery which was now used almost entirely to house bicycles and tools, and went out to weed the end border.

  At fifty-two, Edith Lenox was still a very pretty woman. Her dark hair was so lightly sprinkled with silver that it looked as if it had been touched by hoar frost. Her eyes were bright, her skin soft and smooth, her figure slim and upright. It was difficult to believe that she had a married daughter and that the youngest of her five children was sixteen.

  “Of course, Edith will marry again,” her sister and her friends had said confidently, after John Lenox had been killed somewhere on the bitter road t
o Dunkirk in 1940. “She is much too pretty not to. Besides, she needs a man to look after her.”

  But the years had gone on, and Mrs. Lenox remained a widow. She removed to Edinburgh partly because it had been her husband’s home as a boy, partly on account of the good educational facilities it afforded. It was safer, too, for the children during the War. She had bought the house in Kirkaldy Crescent at a low price—it was too large for most people—and settled down to bring up her family with competent composure.

  If she ever felt lost or frightened without her husband no one was allowed to know it. She went on her way quietly, cooking, mending, sewing, and later, as the children grew up and were able to help, turning the bleak rectangle behind the house into a garden.

  To her own surprise Mrs. Lenox discovered that the digging and planting and weeding which she had begun us a duty because the garden had been an eyesore, soon became a pleasure. She liked the feel of earth in her hands, the warmth of sun on her bent back, and there seemed to be time to think while she wrestled with obstinate weeds, no matter how hot it made her. This evening she was having one of her periodical mental reviews of her family, lining them up and inspecting them with what she fondly imagined to be a dispassionate eye. There was nothing wrong with their appearance: between them she and John had produced five exceedingly nice-looking children. Not one of them was outstandingly handsome, but not one was plain enough to be overshadowed by the others.

  As Mrs. Lenox always insisted that they had inherited their good points from their father, she felt free to admire them with out any false modesty. Thinking of Willow’s slender silvery fairness, Hazel’s nut-brown hair and green-flecked eyes, Rowan’s grace of movement and brilliant colouring, Holly’s dark curls (of course, Holly could hardly be judged fairly at her present rather lumpish stage)—Mrs. Lenox never failed to congratulate herself on having given her daughters the names which suited them so well, though they were apt to grumble over them at times.