The Constant Nymph. Margaret Kennedy Kennedy
he eat bacon?’ whispered Paulina in an audible aside, with a glance at Trigorin, who was waiting patiently beside his suitcases until somebody should take notice of him. ‘He looks a little like a Jew. We had an awful time once when Ikey Mo’s uncle was staying with us and we had nothing in the house …’
‘If he can’t eat bacon, there’ll be nothing else for him to eat,’ said Teresa, She turned to Trigorin and enquired baldly: ‘Are you a Jew?’
‘No,’ he said, a little stiffly. ‘I am from Russia.’
‘Well, there are Jews in Russia, aren’t there?’ she argued.
‘They are not as I,’ Trigorin told her.
‘Really?’ she said derisively. ‘We’ve all got something to be thankful for, haven’t we? You have got a lot of luggage. I hope there’ll be room for us all in the cart as well as the pig.’
‘It’s a very heavy pig,’ supplemented Paulina, exploding again into suppressed laughter. ‘Tessa and I had to drag it all the way from the slaughter-house.’
They turned towards the little village shop which stood close to the landing-stage. Lewis walked in front with a girl hanging lovingly on either arm; Trigorin toiled in the rear with his suitcases. Behind the shop they found a very small carriage shaped something like a victoria, and, at the sight of it, the mirth of the children became almost hysterical. They had hoisted the gutted carcase of the pig into an upright position on the back seat Draped in a tartan rug and crowned with Teresa’s straw hat, it was a horrible object but not unlike a stout German lady, when seen from a distance. The children, who thought it irresistibly funny, demanded eagerly if Lewis did not see a resemblance to Fräulein Brandt, the celebrated contralto.
‘Perhaps,’ said Lewis. ‘But do you expect us to sit on these cushions? They are all over pig.’
‘Your clothes won’t spoil, darling Lewis.’
‘They are all I have, darling Tessa. And what about Trigorin? He’s a gentleman.’
‘I shall go on high with the driver,’ stated the gentleman firmly.
‘Then,’ said Paulina, ‘Lewis and Tessa can sit on the back seat, and I on Lewis’s knee, and we’ll put the suitcases in front of us with Fräulein Brandt on top.’
With some difficulty they were all packed in, and the little cart started off up the valley at a great pace. Soon the village was left behind and their way lay through pine woods, along a rough, green track. In front of them a straight wall of stony mountain shut out the sky, and they seemed to be driving to the very foot of the barrier.
Teresa and Paulina Sanger were at this time about fourteen and twelve years of age. They were the children of Sanger’s second wife, who had been of gentle birth; from her they had inherited quick wits and considerable nervous instability. Both these qualities were betrayed in their eager, stammering speech and in the delicate impudence of their bearing. They had pale faces and small-boned, thin little bodies, fragile but intrepid. They had high, benevolent foreheads from which their long hair was pushed back and hung in an untended tangle down their backs. Teresa was the fairer and the plainer; her greenish eyes had in them a kind of secret hilarity as though she privately found life a very diverting affair. But she had begun lately to grow out of everything, especially jokes and clothes, and she really saw no prospect of getting new ones. Still, she laughed pretty often. Paulina was less inclined for compromise, a brilliant child, sometimes tempestuous, sometimes vividly gay, never sensible and always incurably wild. She had an extravagant and untutored taste in dress, and wore on this occasion a ragged gown of a brilliant red and green tartan which she had somehow managed to acquire. It was much too long for her, so she had kilted it up at intervals with pins, and in front it hung in vast folds over her flat little chest, being cut to fit a full bust. She used the space as a sort of pocket, stuffing in apples, sweets and handkerchiefs, which gave her figure a very lumpy look. Teresa wore the peasant dress of the country, a yellow frock, brief and full, with a square cut bodice and short sleeves. This she had touched up with a magenta apron. Both girls were barefoot. Both contrived to have, at unexpected moments and in spite of their rags, a certain arrogance of demeanour which proclaimed them the daughters of Evelyn Sanger, who had been a Churchill.
They chattered, incessantly all the way up the valley, and Paulina, producing peppermints from the bosom of her bright gown, refreshed the whole party, including Trigorin on the box.
‘You heard about Sebastian getting lost on the way up?’ she said. ‘You know at the place where he got left behind he met some Americans. And he told them he’d been kidnapped by anarchists and that he was really a Russian prince. I don’t expect they believed him. But they liked him. He said they kept telling each other how cute he was. They brought him on with them to Innsbruck, and he had a lovely time stopping with them at their hotel. When he got tired of it, he went to the manager of the Opera House, who’s a friend of Sanger’s, and borrowed enough money to get on here.’
‘And what did the Americans say?’
‘Oh, he left a note behind to say he’d made a mistake about who he was, but he’d had a blow on the head when quite a child which confused his memory. He said it had come to him all of a sudden that he was the son of Albert Sanger, and that he’d gone home. Bv the way, you didn’t see Tony anywhere in the town did you?’
‘Antonia? No I didn’t. Is she there?’
‘We don’t know where she is,’ said Teresa. ‘She’s been gone nearly a week now. She left a note to say she was going to stay a bit with a friend, but she’d be back for Sanger’s birthday.’
‘We can’t think what friend she can have gone to,’ added Paulina. ‘Sanger is quite annoyed about it He says he’ll belt her soundly when she gets back.’
‘And Linda says that if Tony gets into the habit of going off like this, it’s odds she’ll be bringing him home a grandchild one of these days,’ pursued Teresa. ‘And Sanger says she can take herself off for good if she does as there’s quite enough to support in our family as it is.’
‘He doesn’t mean half he says,’ commented Lewis.
‘I know,’ said Teresa, in a slightly lower voice. ‘He says he won’t stir out of his room while that fellow up there,’ she nodded at Trigorin’s broad back, ‘is in the house. He says that he never thought the fool would be such a fool as to come.’
‘Linda may like to talk to him,’ suggested Lewis.
‘I do hope she won’t,’ whispered Teresa. ‘Because that might make him stay. But if nobody takes any notice of him he might go away pretty soon. Why ever did Sanger invite him?’
‘Oh, you know what he is! He’d invite the Pope if he met him after dinner.’
‘Yes, I know. But the Pope wouldn’t come.’
‘What is this guy anyway?’ asked Paulina.
‘He dances in a ballet,’ Lewis told them.
This they took as a tremendous joke, but he assured them with gravity that it was so.
‘Well! I’ve heard of dancing elephants,’ declared Paulina at last.
She poked Trigorin in the back and he turned round, smiling benignantly down at her.
‘He says,’ she pointed at Lewis, ‘he says that you dance in a ballet. Do you?’
‘Ach no! I cannot dance.’
Both children turned indignantly on Lewis, crying:
‘Liar!’
But he, quite unabashed, declared that he had confused Trigorin with La Zhigalova, conveying an impression that Sanger’s unwelcome guest had been invited solely upon her account and could lay no other claim to distinction. Trigorin said nothing and turned away from the group in the carriage, not without a certain grotesque dignity. The children, aware that Lewis had scored in some way, and