Men and Angels Read online

  “I know,” said Judy. “I saw the one she wrote Mother. The new, the up-to-date finishing school, uniting the social demands of the old world with the practical demands of the new. Cooking, dressmaking, typing—everything but washing-up.—Wasn’t that it?”

  “Word for word. The fees sent both my aunts into a dead faint, but when they recovered, they sold the next-to-last piece of family plate—it’s quite true, they did—and fitted me out to be a credit to Madame Soublin.”

  “You were wonderful,” said Judy, eyes half closed in reminiscence. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw you—you came up the green corridor with Madame—she all bounce and bosom, and you gliding behind like a pale lily in that débutante-sports affair—remember?”

  “I remember,” smiled Rae. “I thought I was going to hate it—and how we all loved it! Two years of heaven.”

  “Two years—but where were the fees?” enquired Judy, returning to practical matters.

  “That’s exactly the way Madame Soublin put it. Where were the fees? My aunts had no idea, but when they got in touch with Uncle Fabian, they didn’t waste much time hoping, because he was—”

  “Young actresses?”

  “Yes. My aunts said nothing to me for over a year, and they scraped and scraped and—I know,” said Rae slowly, “that you think that they’re just two ordinary, rather plain people, but I think they’re wonderful.”

  “So do I. If they hadn’t paid the fees, you wouldn’t have stayed and then we’d never have met. But, Rae, to come back to your Uncle Fabian; what actress would go out with him just to get a drive round the Park?”

  “They don’t understand the situation just at first,” explained Rae. “He looks so expensive that they’re misled. But then it gradually—”

  “—dawns on them.—Why d’you go out with him, Rae? Why don’t you just cut him right out?”

  “Sentiment, I suppose,” said Rae thoughtfully. “He’s my only relation on my mother’s side, and I always imagine she would have liked me to bear with him. I don’t expect anything from him, so I never feel disappointed.—He even spoke of paying my rent here.”

  “But he only spoke!”

  “Yes. Then he talked of my keeping house for him, but by that time I knew pretty well what he was, and so I didn’t take it seriously. I’m sorry for him, in a way. ... If you’ll help me out with these things, I’ll wash them up.”

  “And I’ll ring up and tell Richard about tomorrow night. We’ll go to this show of Rosanna’s. And, Rae—you will try to like him, won’t you? It’s funny to say complimentary things about one’s own brother, but he really is marvellous. —Will you try?”

  “If he’s marvellous,” said Rae, with her accustomed calmness, “then I shan’t have to try.”

  Chapter 2

  Rae dressed carefully for the theatre party on the following night. She wanted to look well, but not too well; she wanted to make an effort to attract Richard Ashton, but she did not want to make the effort apparent to Judy. She had met Judy’s suggestions, she considered, with a subduing degree of coolness. Judy was a darling, but she was—in this matter—too open to be encouraged.

  Rae knew a great deal about Richard Ashton. She had lived for over a year with his photograph, which represented him as a dark, handsome, somewhat commanding young man. She had listened to long extracts from his letters to Judy, and had built up a picturesque, if inaccurate, background of Kenya farms, African lions and elephant hunts, interspersed with pleasant visits to Nairobi. She knew that he was given to teasing, that he was popular with both men and women; she knew that he had declared himself to be heartwhole, and had instructed his sister to find him a wife. Rae—like Judy—was of the opinion that he could go much farther and fare much worse, but she was more sensitive than Judy and a good deal more shy. If Richard Ashton showed any signs of liking her, decided Rae, putting the last touches to her make-up, she would be willing to respond; this evening would show whether there was going to be anything to respond to.

  It was a cheerless evening for a first meeting; rain fell heavily as Rae and Judy, sheltering under the porter’s umbrella, hurried from their door to the little blue car waiting at the pavement’s edge. Before Rae had opened the door on the other side, her hair was disordered and her thin shoes wet. She gathered the heavy folds of her dress round her, and Judy drove out of the side-road into the traffic of Baker Street.

  “We’re late,” she commented. “It’s just as well I told Richard we’d meet him at the theatre.”

  “What’s the other man’s name?” asked Rae.

  “Clarke. No—Peake. No, not Peake, but something short like that. I didn’t think we needed a fourth—you and I and Richard could’ve had a nice threesome, but he said it looked unbalanced, so now this Peake or Whoever is coming, and he’ll be just as superfluous as he was the other evening.— Gosh, Rae, did you see that bit of driving? He scraped me by a hair.”

  “I thought you scraped him.”

  “Well, he ought to have moved. Can you wipe your window? I can’t see a thing. I’m not looking forward to this party much. You’ll talk to Richard and I’ll have to devote myself to—I wish I could think of his name. Perhaps it’s Deane. I seem to remember calling him Deane, but his conversation wasn’t the kind that keeps you on your toes, exactly. What he does get out—after an effort—isn’t worth answering. He brought up the war, and talked as though I’d never heard of it. When he said ‘But you’re too young to remember’ for the fifth time, I made an effort and told him that I knew all about it, because I’d been machine-gunned on a beach when I was at school, and if that wasn’t war, what was? So he came down a couple of octaves and—What did that vanman say, Rae?”

  “Well, I missed the actual—”

  “So did I,” said Judy regretfully. “I wish he’d shouted it a bit louder—I’m certain it was one I hadn’t heard before. Is it this turning for that garage, or the next? I think— Hell! wouldn’t you think people would signal before they shoot in front of you like that?—Here we are. No, I don’t have to take her in—the man does that. Come on, Rae—we’ve got to scoot.”

  Scooting, the girls reached the theatre to find the crowd in the foyer thinning. Judy looked from side to side in search of her brother.

  “There they are,” she said. “What d’you think of him, Rae?—D’you think he looks nice?”

  There was not very much time for Rae to make up her mind on the subject. She watched Richard Ashton and his companion walking towards them, and knew only that he was as tall and as good-looking as she had imagined. His voice was pleasant, but his greeting was brief; introducing his friend merely as ‘Edward’, he led the party with scarcely any pause to their seats; the lights were lowered almost immediately and the orchestra broke into a noisy overture. Speech was impossible, and Rae settled herself to await the rising of the curtain.

  The revue was not one of the current successes, and Rae found its humour a little broad. She was of a generation which thought nothing shocking except an ignorance of what was called Life, but she had drawn for herself a line between what she thought funny and what was slightly distasteful. She enjoyed the feeling of being close to Richard, and her interest in the stage only revived with the entrance of Rosanna Lee.

  Miss Lee walked slowly on to an empty stage, leaned in an effective manner against a backcloth representing a café, and sang a dirge about a girl whose lover had failed to keep an appointment. Rae, endeavouring to form an unbiased opinion, came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the performance which she could not have done equally well herself. Rosanna had, so far as she could see, no talent, no voice, and not a great deal of personality, but she agreed that there was a strong suggestion that the singer was holding something back. The applause was enthusiastic enough to allow Rosanna to come back twice and give a tired little droop before making way for an underclad chorus.

  The curtain dropped after the first half of the show and Richard turned to smile at Rae.

&n
bsp; “How?” he asked.

  “It’s got a lot of colour,” said Rae cautiously.

  “And did you understand all the allusions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You can put me right—half of them went over my head. That’s the worst of living out of London.— Drink?”

  “Thank you.”

  “How about you, Judy?” asked Richard. “Coming or staying?”

  Judy’s preference was written plainly upon her face for all to read, but her first eager assent was quenched by a feeling that she ought to let Rae and Richard go out alone. A side-glance at the thin, long-faced man beside her, however, obviously convinced her that ten minutes of his unadulterated company would be insupportable.

  “We’re coming,” she said.

  Rae always accepted the first drink she was offered; as she never drank it, the label made little difference. She had tried earnestly to accustom herself to even the mildest of cocktails, and had found that they gave her a sensation of mingled sleepiness and sickness and ruined what small conversational powers she possessed. When Judy was with her, she was at ease, for Judy, on whom the most shattering mixtures had no effect whatsoever, substituted her empty glass for Rae’s full one.

  The four stood holding their drinks at one end of the bar, talking as well as the jostling crowd round them would permit. Judy made a strong effort to interest herself in Edward’s conversation, and Richard was free to talk to Rae. He looked at her with an unembarrassed scrutiny as he talked; she was his sister’s closest friend, and he evidently saw no reason for concealing his interest.

  “How do you like living with Judy?” he asked.

  “Oh”—Rae smiled—“it seems to work very well.”

  “It ought to,” he said. “You’re a well-contrasted pair—she can do all the talking while you have all the ideas. Does she do her share of the washing-up?”

  “No.”

  “Ah! You do the lot?”

  “Not quite. It’s on a business basis,” explained Rae in her level tones. “She pays more, I do more. The rent—even half of it—was a bit out of my reach.”

  “Surprise Number One,” said Richard. “You’re like one of these quietly opulent girls.”

  “I’m only quiet.”

  “You can’t be too quiet if you understood all those offside jokes they were giving out.—What did you think of your old schoolmate?”

  “Rosanna? I—well, it seems a bit difficult to see how she—how—”

  “How she ever persuaded anybody to give her a bit part?”

  “Yes. She isn’t really—I don’t say that I could do any better, but—”

  “But all the same, you’re pretty sure you could. Surprise Number Two. I felt sure you’d be the generous, loyal type.”

  In spite of the lazy casualness of his manner, Rae felt herself stung to self-defence.

  “I’m a little prejudiced,” she said. “She used to borrow my clothes without asking—and my wardrobe wasn’t really built to accommodate two.”

  “Borrow? But she looks half your size!”

  “She is—but she thought nothing of taking in a sizable tuck or two wherever it was needed. You had to do quite a lot of dressmaking when you eventually got the garments back.”

  “I can see that would sour a girl,” said Richard. “Why didn’t she borrow Judy’s?”

  “Because she did it once and I made her see that once was too many,” said Judy, glad to abandon Edward. “She didn’t do it any more. But Rae can’t tread on people’s faces, and so she gets put upon. She needs protection.—Hey! What d’you think you’re doing?”

  “Protecting her,” said Richard, tightening his grasp on her wrist. “Is that, or is it not Rae’s drink?”

  “ ’Course it’s Rae’s. Lemme go—I’m going to drink it. I don’t do this because I want the stuff, but because—oh, there’s the bell, Richard—let me go!”

  “Sure you don’t want it?” Richard asked Rae, his grip still firm.

  “Quite sure, thanks.”

  Richard released his sister and shepherded the party back to their seats.

  “Next time I ask you to have one,” he asked Rae, “do I drink it myself?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Richard’s voice came in a low murmur through the darkness.

  “A grand girl to take out,” he said. “When shall we begin?”

  They began immediately after the show. Standing outside the theatre, they discussed the relative merits of a restaurant or a night club.

  “What do you think, Edward?” asked Richard.

  Edward, thus publicly appealed to, found himself bereft of the half-dozen suggestions which had passed through his mind only a moment ago.

  “Well, I really don’t” he began, and stopped. “What I was going to suggest—”

  Judy looked at him with an exaggerated expectancy that did nothing to help him.

  “You were saying?” she asked politely.

  “Yes. Never get it out,” explained Edward.

  “We’ve got all night,” said Judy. “And all tomorrow and all—”

  “Shut up, Judy,” said Richard.

  “Oh no, don’t,” implored Edward. “My mother used to do the—She used to get just like Judy and—No, I mean, do go on.”

  “We’re waiting to,” said Judy. “The point is, where do we go on to?”

  “Heard of a place, once. Can’t call it to—Well, perhaps. Yes. The Waterside.”

  “The Waterside, then,” said Richard.

  “No.” Judy spoke decisively. “I don’t like night clubs much, anyway, but that one’s out—Rosanna goes on there after the theatre and does a turn—and I’m not going to sit through Rosanna twice in one evening. What’s wrong with a restaurant? I’m hungry—let’s just go somewhere and eat.”

  They went, Rae and Richard in a taxi, Edward in Judy’s little car. He was noticeably paler when he arrived at the restaurant, but the experience seemed to have increased his obvious admiration for Judy. Undaunted by her inattention, he made several attempts throughout the meal to complete a sentence, without, however, much success. He began well—he leaned forward and got out his first few words with ease and fluency, but before the subject-matter could be heard, the sound of his own voice had frightened him into silence. Rae, watching—for the first time—a human being quite unmoved by Judy’s incivility, found herself liking him more and more. His bland indifference, even when Judy subjected him to what she termed the deep-freeze, made her feel that there was a good deal more in him than he allowed to appear. Richard watched him appreciatively and turned to Rae with a smile.

  “He’s a wonderful fellow,” he said, as though Edward were not present. “Know what he did on board? Got permission to hold a children’s party on his birthday—to celebrate his quarter-century. The steward put up a wonderful tea and Edward provided some of Simon Arzt’s best toys. He made us line all the kids up on the upper deck while—”

  “Before tea,” put in Edward.

  “That’s it—he got us to line them up just before tea to watch Father Neptune coming on board with the toys. Then young Edward—dressed as Father Neptune—clambers up, nice and wet, from the lower deck and—”

  There was a tearing sound; Rae and Judy, looking up in alarm, identified it as Edward’s laugh.

  “Good disguise,” he chuckled.

  “Too good,” proceeded Richard. “It might have been the Old Man of the Sea in person—dripping seaweed, clutching his trident, sea-green whiskers. .. .”

  “The children must have loved it,” said Rae.

  “You think so? The children,” said Richard, “gave one combined scream and threw several combined fits. They were all taken to their cabins and given sedatives, and their parents spent the rest of the voyage telling Edward what they thought of him.”

  “Good tea,” commented Edward.

  “Yes, we enjoyed that, I must say.—Let’s eat something now.”

  Judy discovered that Edward could not only
translate the menu into English, but could also tell her what each dish was composed of. After watching the two in unexpectedly amicable conversation, Richard turned to Rae.

  “Does Judy have to eat your food for you, too?” he asked.

  “No—I can do that pretty well, thanks.—How do you find England?”

  “England? Oh, mine’s only a tourist’s view now, I’m afraid. I see the changes, but nothing touches me too closely. People grumble, but then, people always did. It’s difficult to get them off the subject of food, but that’s not altogether the result of the new conditions, either. I had an Aunt Jane who used to travel extensively in the old, old days—long before your time—and all she ever talked about when she got back was the good food you got in the Hotel This, or the bad food you got in the Hotel That. Snow on a mountain reminded her of thick cream on her trifle; rivers were gravy, and sunsets were strawberry and vanilla ices.— Thick soup, or the watery kind?”

  “Thick, please—unless they’ve got that nice cold jelly kind.”

  “How like Aunt Jane.—They have. And to follow, as they say? What do you think should have the privilege of following the iced soup down that so-slender throat?”

  He spoke in the half-bantering tone he habitually used, and Judy spoke impulsively.

  “Richard, you’re not to tease her. She isn’t used to it.”

  “She will be. What,” asked Richard, “are you two doing about holidays?”

  “Holidays? You mean, when’re we taking them?”

  “Yes. When, where and for how long?”

  “I can go away when I like,” said Judy. “Rae can’t, though—and I shan’t be free in June, because I told the Agency I’d take a job down at Allbrook.”

  “The Allbrook six miles from Thorpe?” asked Richard.

  “Yes. I thought it might be nice to be near home—I could run over to Thorpe and see Mother now and again.”

  “What’s the job?” asked Richard.