White Boots (20 page)

“You know Mr King better than I do, could you talk to him?”

Nana was knitting a new pattern of a jersey, and had to count her stitches. In the pause she thought about Uncle David.

“What would I say? I dare say he'd get Mrs King to have the doctor along, but he'd only give her a tonic same as he did after the flu.”

“Couldn't you get Mr King to have a talk to Lalla, she's fond of him? And he might get to the bottom of what's troubling her.”

Nana considered it.

“Well, of course, I always said it's better going to a gentleman when you want advice. Seem to have more sense than a lady. I might do that. She doesn't see much of him really, being only her step-uncle and one to laugh at the skating and all. But it was him that told Lalla to speak her mind about having Harriet to work with her.” She turned over the problem a little longer. “I'll do that, Miss Goldthorpe, I can't say when, me not going much in their part of the house, but I'll manage it somehow.”

“And I'll have to talk with Max Lindblom; I'll see him sometime when the children aren't there, and ask whether there's any need for her to take that examination just now. Then I might have a talk with Harriet's mother, she's a very sensible woman, she might have an idea of what's upsetting the child. Harriet may have said something.”

Nana shook her head.

“Never. Harriet's Miss Quiet in my nursery, you never know what she's thinking. But you see Mrs Johnson, dear; it can't do any harm and it might do good. Anything's worth trying; it properly upsets me to see my blessed lamb the way she's looking now.”

MISS GOLDTHORPE SAW Max Lindblom one evening. He was giving a lesson when she reached the rink, but she waited until he had finished, then asked him if he could spare a moment.

“This is nothing to do with me, and I don't know what Mrs King would say if she knew I was seeing you, but Lalla isn't herself at all. She's quiet at her lessons, which is quite unlike her, and she gets cross easily, and that's unlike her too. She always was a child who liked to have her own way, and order people about, but she never does that now, almost I wish she would. You know, I think this test is worrying her.”

Max did not answer at once. He led Miss Goldthorpe to a seat where nobody could hear what they were saying.

“I do not wish her to try for this inter-gold test. There is no need; she is still very young, why should there be this rush?”

“I think she wants to get it over and done with. You know what great plans there are for her when she has finished these tests.”

Max made an angry, growling noise.

“It has been wrong from the beginning. The child has talent, yes. She has a good personality, yes. But these things do not necessarily make the great skater.”

“I couldn't agree with you more. I think it wretched that she feels that she must be a skater and nothing else. But she had been brought up to believe in a great future ever since she was a baby, and, except of course for that one time when she failed to pass a test, it's all been coming true. But now I gather there is something she can't do. I learn from Harriet she's working terribly hard, and still she can't do whatever it is.”

“She will do it, but not yet. The aunt should forbid skating for many months. Let us forget it, she should say, let us go away. You, I think, should tell the aunt to say these things.”

Miss Goldthorpe sighed. What a foolish young man he was!

“Mr Lindblom, I've told you before it's quite impossible for me to say anything like that to Mrs King. Last time when you asked me to say something to her I explained that if I did it would mean that I would be given notice, and I have no intention of being given notice. I'm not a vain woman, but I do
think that I'm useful to Lalla, and I therefore would do nothing to risk offending Mrs King.”

Max shrugged his shoulders.

“Then nothing can be done. I have told Lalla she should not attempt her inter-gold this spring.”

“Have you told Mrs King?”

Max lit a cigarette.

“The trouble is Harriet.”

Miss Goldthorpe's eyes opened very wide.

“Harriet! What has Harriet got to do with it?”

“Skating is a very expensive thing. To work properly you must have what Lalla gives Harriet: the good governess like yourself, the outside classes, everything specially arranged to fit in with the training. It is impossible to train properly and to attend a school. If I say to Mrs King give Lalla six months, and no skating, that will mean six months without lessons for Harriet.”

Miss Goldthorpe switched her mind from Lalla to Harriet. Harriet was stronger now; in spite of influenza and the cold winter she seemed well; she was always frail-looking compared to Lalla but that did not mean she was delicate.

“I don't think you need worry about Harriet. Of course skating has done wonders for her, poor child, but she's much stronger now and she could practise if she wanted to. Mr Matthews, you know, very kindly lets her come here free of charge.”

Max looked pityingly at Miss Goldthorpe, as if he were thinking, “How can I make this poor, ignorant woman see what is so clear to me?” Then he saw his next pupil was waiting. He got up, said goodnight, and went back on the ice.

It was a nasty night, with driving rain. Outside the rink Miss Goldthorpe put up her umbrella and walked towards her bus stop, but before she reached it a gust of wind caught the umbrella and turned it inside out. While she was struggling with it she felt it taken from her hands, and when she blinked away the rain which was in her eyes, she saw that her rescuer was Alec. Alec had the bag which had held papers over his arm, for he had just finished his evening round.

“Hullo, Miss Goldthorpe, were you coming to see us?”

Miss Goldthorpe had been thinking of nothing but how nice it would be to sit in front of a fire and read a book, but now that Alec suggested it, she saw that this was the obvious moment to call on Mrs Johnson.

Miss Goldthorpe got a lovely welcome from the Johnsons, especially from Harriet, but Olivia guessed she would not have come to see them on a nasty wet night without some reason. She told Toby to take Miss Goldthorpe's wet coat and umbrella and put them in the bathroom, and when she saw George pushing a chair up to the sitting-room fire she stopped him.

“Miss Goldthorpe is staying to supper with us and I'm going to ask her to help me cook it. I'm afraid it's a poor feeding night.
March never seems a lucky month for William.”

George was not hearing his brother William run down.

“You can't say that. There were five duck eggs yesterday as well as all those splendid winter greens.”

Toby looked up from his homework.

“People don't come to us for duck eggs, and the greens weren't splendid, the brussels sprouts had gone bad.”

Harriet was playing snap with Edward.

“There were some turnips as well, I saw Mummy washing them.”

Edward looked reproachfully at his father.

“You can say what you like, about Uncle William, but nobody can't say that soup, soup, soup every evening is nice, and that's what we have to eat, made with his old vegetables. A lady said to me today I was looking pale, and I told her that was because I ate too much soup.”

Olivia laughed.

“What nonsense! You don't look pale and you don't have soup every evening, and you know it. As a matter of fact tonight it's curried duck eggs and vegetables, and you know you'll like that. Come along, Miss Goldthorpe, don't listen to these grumblers.”

In the kitchen Olivia shut the door and gave Miss Goldthorpe a chair while she went about her work. The kitchen-dining room was so cosy that in no time Miss Goldthorpe had told Olivia all about Lalla; how worried she
and Nana were, of how she had seen Max, and what he had said.

Olivia had by this time boiled the duck eggs hard; she gave them to Miss Goldthorpe and asked her to take off their shells.

“It seems to me a lot of fuss about nothing. If it was one of my children I wouldn't let them go near a rink again if I thought it was worrying them. But I suppose Lalla is different; as they are determined to make a skater of her I suppose she has got to pass these wretched tests. Is there no one who can make the child see it's silly to go in for it now, as her instructor thinks she shouldn't?”

Miss Goldthorpe carefully shelled an egg.

“To have to tell her aunt that, would seem to Lalla admitting that she was not the success she's expected to be.”

Olivia gave her curry sauce a savage stir.

“If only I could speak my mind just once to Mrs King. I'm a mild woman, but you'd be surprised what I would say.”

“I wouldn't. I've never really lost my temper, it has never seemed worth while. But, do you know, sometimes when I think of the way Mrs King has brought up poor Lalla I wish I could whip her. Extraordinary, for I don't hold with corporal punishment.”

“What about Mr King? George says he's nice, can't he do anything?”

Miss Goldthorpe explained that Nana was seeing him but how difficult it was for him to interfere. Then she said:

“I wonder if you would see Lalla. I've been planning a treat for her on Saturday. I've taken seats for a musical entertainment;
the advertisements say it's funny; I was not inviting Harriet as I know you like to have her on Saturday afternoons, and from what I read this comedy couldn't do her any good educationally… I wonder, would you use my seat and take Lalla, and have a talk with her? It would be a great kindness.”

“Bless you, of course I will. I shall enjoy it. I love musical comedies, and hardly ever get a chance to see one. And of course I'll talk to Lalla, but I don't know if I can help. I haven't seen her for weeks, what with influenza and the foul weather, and last time I saw her she was on top of the world. I can't imagine that child except on top of the world.”

“That, I think, may be the trouble; she can't imagine herself in any other place.”

Miss Goldthorpe was a poor liar. On Saturday, in the car driving to the theatre, she told Lalla a halting story of a book she had to return, and of how, as Mrs Johnson was in the West End, she was using her seat. Lalla laughed at her.

“It's no good telling me that, Goldie. Harriet's mother never would be this end of London on a Saturday with all of them home, and you know it. I bet it's just you so hated to see a musical comedy you gave your seat away. Isn't that it?”

Miss Goldthorpe was glad Lalla had hit on something near the truth.

“Well, dear, I don't like musical plays.”

Lalla put her arm through Miss Goldthorpe's and rubbed her cheek on her shoulder.

“And you paid for the seats. You didn't dare tell Aunt Claudia this was educational, did you?”

“It was a little present for you.”

Lalla hugged Miss Goldthorpe's arm closer.

“Dear Goldie, you're an angel, and however much a beast I seem, I truly love you.”

Olivia was shocked at Lalla's appearance. The round, gay, bouncing Lalla she knew had disappeared, and in her place was a thinner, almost serious Lalla, with most of the bounce gone out of her. Olivia was thankful to find that the gayness and the bounce were not quite gone, for the play was very funny and Lalla not only got bouncing and gay from laughing, but in the intervals made Olivia laugh by her imitations of the actors. Miss Goldthorpe had arranged that Olivia should take Lalla home in a taxi, but Olivia thought a taxi would be too quick over the journey, for her and Lalla to have a proper talk.

“How about going home on the top of a bus?”

Lalla was charmed.

“Could we? Do you know, I've hardly ever been on a bus. Aunt Claudia is afraid of germs.”

Olivia looked pityingly at Lalla. Poor lamb! Even a bus was a treat. If only she could steal her and take her home with her.

Olivia was not a mother who asked her children to tell her things. She tried to make them feel she was always interested in anything they would like to tell her, but if they did not want to talk about something that was their own affair. Because of this
it was difficult for her to make Lalla talk, but in the theatre she had planned a way to do it. She started by telling her she was thinner, and asked if it was her diet, and when Lalla explained that the dieting had finished, she said she wondered if she was outgrowing her strength, which was something which easily happened at her age.

“It happened to me. Do you know, I was nearly as tall as I am now when I was not much older than you are.”

“But I'm not much taller, only thinner.”

“It's the same thing. It means using a lot of energy in growing up, and then there isn't as much energy for other things. I was brought up in South Africa, you know, and riding was my thing. I loved horses more than anything else in the world, and was supposed to be a marvellous horsewoman, but outgrowing my strength affected my riding. I suppose my horses could feel I wasn't as full of pep as usual.”

Lalla looked suspiciously at Olivia out of the corner of her eyes. Had Harriet told her about how she could not do loops? Olivia did not look like somebody saying something on purpose. In fact she had stopped talking about outgrowing your strength and was talking about the funny man in the play. Lalla joined in and soon was acting for Olivia most of the parts, and they were both laughing again at the jokes. But underneath what she was saying, and underneath her laughing, Lalla knew something nice had happened. It was as if there had been a tight, hard band round her middle, and somehow Olivia had loosened
it and made her feel better. Presently she asked a question.