Part 24 (1/2)
And having given her order to the smiling French landlady (who wore a black shawl, a bright blue ap.r.o.n, and a brighter blue gla.s.s comb in her black hair), she led the others to a table in the sunny yard, under the wooden veranda. Its green paint had flaked off beneath those noisy gales, but the latticework was over-grown with pa.s.sion-flower vines and other vines, richly cl.u.s.tered with bunches of sweet white grapes.
”Our dessert,” said Mrs. Cartwright, nodding towards the fruit. ”Madame will come and cut the bunches while we are eating the Biscay sole.”
Lunch was brought; before she began upon the sole Mrs. Cartwright threw off the loose brown coat that she had worn for the crossing in the motor-boat, and appeared in a frock that Olwen had never seen before.
Yesterday, the girl had noticed, a carton-box had arrived for the writer at the hotel; doubtless this was the dress that it had contained....
It was of rough sky-blue crepy stuff with touches of creamy edging and of dull pink st.i.tchery, very simple, for all Mrs. Cartwright's clothes were simply cut. This was something more than simple, though, almost ...
trivial, was it? A frock for a more insignificant person? Olwen could not have told you why she shouldn't quite like that frock. It wasn't altogether that it seemed too young; and it did fit her, perfectly.
Perhaps the fact that Olwen noticed it at all showed how well the elder woman's clothes generally did suit her.
Today--not only her frock was different, but her mood was different. It puzzled little Olwen entirely....
As the sole and the potatoes in their jackets gave place to an admirably-cooked ham omelette, Mrs. Cartwright was saying almost audacious things, that pa.s.sed as swiftly as the shadows of the gulls swooped over the sands. And she seemed conscious that she was ”being different....” Why? It was almost as though she were playing at some game; she thought feverishly. As if half of her sat apart, watching the play, criticizing, exchanging notes with people who were not Miss Walsh, not Olwen.
The girl, having never before looked upon her friend as a riddle, sat wondering at her.... In that sheltered corner the savoury scents of the meal mingled with the inevitable pine scent and the tang of sea while the sun flung blue shadows upon the bright table and the plates; dancing delicate silhouettes of vine leaves and tendrils and pa.s.sion flowers.
There drifted to them from the woods the sound of the cow bells; ”tonkle--tankle--tonkle--” and from the sh.o.r.e the distant roar of breakers.
Suddenly, as the inn servant removed and brought coffee, Mrs. Cartwright broke out, apparently a propos of nothing.
”Ah, well!
”'Better an omelette _aux fines herbes_ where Love is, than the Carlton and a chaperon therewith.'
Forgive my quoting my own works, but I was thinking of one of those books of mine that I--that we never write. Plenty of other things in Life like that. Men we didn't marry, their babies that we've never had----”
Then she laughed.
”I wonder what people would have thought if I'd ever written that book.
It's the one I threatened your friend Captain Ross with, Olwen, the other night. Would you like to hear a bit of it, girls?”
And without waiting to hear whether they would or not, she went on in that deep, whimsical attractive voice of hers:
”'Don't tell your mother beforehand that I am a lady. Possibly I'm not. You won't know. But she will.'
I remember thinking of that when a great friend of mine in the navy told me about his engagement. He made a joke at the time about sailors and their _culte_ for _mesalliances_.... Here's another bit:
”'Always write to me when you're away. Never mind if you've nothing to say. It doesn't matter if you don't say anything.
Only write!'
I can see the young man now that I said that to,” said Mrs. Cartwright, and the expression in her eyes was of one who looks down from a hill-top upon the landmarks pa.s.sed, far back. ”He'd only been married a month to a school chum of mine, and was suddenly ordered off. He couldn't take her. I told him that even if the mail only went out twice a week there was no reason that it should not take three letters each time----”
Here Miss Walsh, who did not seem to be listening, broke in. ”I think that's very true.” She fingered in her bag an envelope with the printed label, ”Controle Postale Militaire,” and looked cheered.
”This young man numbered his letters after that. Then I remember a girl friend--ah! she's a grand-mamma now--married before I did. I remember her once saying something that I should have stolen from her.
”'Do you mind not giving me these useful solid, durable presents of leather, which you men love and which are hideous in our eyes? Why not something charming that won't last; scent, powder, or chocolates in a pretty box?'
And this, which is the last that I shall inflict upon you, dear yawners, n.o.body at all told me. I made it up, unaided, and by my little self.”