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“Oh well,” said Nash philosophically. “It can’t be helped. Better luck next time.”
I went out into the night. A dim figure was standing beside my car. To my astonishment I recognized Megan.
“Hallo!” she said. “I thought this was your car. What have you been doing?”
“What are you doing is much more to the point?” I said.
“I’m out for a walk. I like walking at night. Nobody stops you and says silly things, and I like the stars, and things smell better, and everyday things look all mysterious.”
“All of that I grant you freely,” I said. “But only cats and witches walk in the dark. They’ll wonder about you at home.”
“No, they won’t. They never wonder where I am or what I’m doing.”
“How are you getting on?” I asked.
“All right, I suppose.”
“Miss Holland look after you and all that?”
“Elsie’s all right. She can’t help being a perfect fool.”
“Unkind—but probably true,” I said. “Hop in and I’ll drive you home.”
It was not quite true that Megan was never missed.
Symmington was standing on the doorstep as we drove up.
He peered towards us. “Hallo, is Megan there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve brought her home.”
Symmington said sharply:
“You mustn’t go off like this without telling us, Megan. Miss Holland has been quite worried about you.”
Megan muttered something and went past him into the house. Symmington sighed.
“A grown-up girl is a great responsibility with no mother to look after her. She’s too old for school, I suppose.”
He looked towards me rather suspiciously.
“I suppose you took her for a drive?”
I thought it best to leave it like that.
Eleven
I
On the following day I went mad. Looking back on it, that is really the only explanation I can find.
I was due for my monthly visit to Marcus Kent… I went up by train. To my intense surprise Joanna elected to stay behind. As a rule she was eager to come and we usually stayed up for a couple of days.
This time, however, I proposed to return the same day by the evening train, but even so I was astonished at Joanna. She merely said enigmatically that she’d got plenty to do, and why spend hours in a nasty stuffy train when it was a lovely day in the country?
That, of course, was undeniable, but sounded very unlike Joanna.
She said she didn’t want the car, so I was to drive it to the station and leave it parked there against my return.
The station of Lymstock is situated, for some obscure reason known to railway companies only, quite half a mile from Lymstock itself. Halfway along the road I overtook Megan shuffling along in an aimless manner. I pulled up.
“Hallo, what are you doing?”
“Just out for a walk.”
“But not what is called a good brisk walk, I gather. You were crawling along like a dispirited crab.”
“Well, I wasn’t going anywhere particular.”
“Then you’d better come and see me off at the station.” I opened the door of the car and Megan jumped in.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“London. To see my doctor.”
“Your back’s not worse, is it?”
“No, it’s practically all right again. I’m expecting him to be very pleased about it.”
Megan nodded.
We drew up at the station. I parked the car and went in and bought my ticket at the booking office. There were very few people on the platform and nobody I knew.
“You wouldn’t like to lend me a penny, would you?” said Megan. “Then I’d get a bit of chocolate out of the slot machine.”
“Here you are, baby,” I said, handing her the coin in question. “Sure you wouldn’t like some clear gums or some throat pastilles as well?”
“I like chocolate best,” said Megan without suspecting sarcasm.
She went off to the chocolate machine, and I looked after her with a feeling of mounting irritation.
She was wearing trodden over shoes, and coarse unattractive stockings and a particularly shapeless jumper and skirt. I don’t know why all this should have infuriated me, but it did.
I said angrily as she came back:
“Why do you wear those disgusting stockings?”
Megan looked down at them, surprised.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“Everything’s the matter with them. They’re loathsome. And why wear a pullover like a decayed cabbage?”
“It’s all right, isn’t it? I’ve had it for years.”
“So I should imagine. And why do you—”
At this minute the train came in and interrupted my angry lecture.
I got into an empty first-class carriage, let down the window and leaned out to continue the conversation.
Megan stood below me, her face upturned. She asked me why I was so cross.
“I’m not cross.” I said untruly. “It just infuriates me to see you so slack, and not caring how you look.”
“I couldn’t look nice, anyway, so what does it matter?”
“My God,” I said. “I’d like to see you turned out properly. I’d like to take you to London and outfit you from tip to toe.”
“I wish you could,” said Megan.
The train began to move. I looked down into Megan’s upturned, wistful face.
And then, as I have said, madness came upon me.
I opened the door, grabbed Megan with one arm and fairly hauled her into the carriage.
There was an outraged shout from a porter, but all he could do was dexterously to bang shut the door again. I pulled Megan up from the floor where my impetuous action had landed her.
“What on earth did you do that for?” she demanded, rubbing one knee.
“Shut up,” I said. “You’re coming to London with me and when I’ve done with you you won’t know yourself. I’ll show you
what you can look like if you try. I’m tired of seeing you mooch about down at heel and all anyhow.”
“Oh!” said Megan in an ecstatic whisper.
The ticket collector came along and I bought Megan a return ticket. She sat in her corner looking at me in a kind of awed respect.
“I say,” she said when the man had gone. “You are sudden, aren’t you?”
“Very,” I said. “It runs in our family.”
How to explain to Megan the impulse that had come over me? She had looked like a wistful dog being left behind. She now had on her face the incredulous pleasure of the dog who has been taken on the walk after all.
“I suppose you don’t know London very well?” I said to Megan.
“Yes, I do,” said Megan. “I always went through it to school. And I’ve been to the dentist there and to a pantomime.”
“This,” I said darkly, “will be a different London.”
We arrived with half an hour to spare before my appointment in Harley Street.
I took a taxi and we drove straight to Mirotin, Joanna’s dressmaker. Mirotin is, in the flesh, an unconventional and breezy woman of forty-five, Mary Grey. She is a clever woman and very good company. I have always liked her.
I said to Megan. “You’re my cousin.”
“Why?”
“Don’t argue,” I said.
Mary Grey was being firm with a stout Jewess who was enamoured of a skintight powder-blue evening dress. I detached her and took her aside.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve brought a little cousin of mine along. Joanna was coming up but was prevented. But she said I could leave it all to you. You see what the girl looks like now?”
“My God, I do,” said Mary Grey with feeling.
“Well, I want her turned out right in every particular from head to foot. Carte blanche. Stockings, shoes, undies, everything! By the way, the man who does Joanna’s hair is close round here, isn’t he?”
“Antoine? Round the corner. I’ll see to that too.”
“You’re a woman in a thousand.”
“Oh, I shall enjoy it—apart from the money—and that’s not to be sneezed at in these days—half my damned brutes of women never pay their bills. But as I say, I shall enjoy it.” She shot a quick professional glance at Megan standing a little way away. “She’s got a lovely figure.”
