The Constant Nymph. Margaret Kennedy Kennedy
sat down and she took leisurely stock of the stranger. Usually she found the Karindehütte very dull. Albert’s guests were not always amusing. Too often they were like Lewis, whom she detested. This one, however, might have possibilities. He wore expensive clothes and his bulging eyes proclaimed him a conquest. She began, in her sleepy voice, to make remarks to him, punctuated by slow, evasive smiles. Trigorin, lost in the flame of those blue eyes, stammered replies in English which emotion had made almost unintelligible. He was as helpless as a swimmer swept away in a strong current. Lewis, nursing his knapsack on his knee, observed them and smiled to himself. Occasionally he got from the lady a glance which was by no means friendly and which hinted that he might remove himself.
She had not always disliked him so bitterly. Once, some years ago, she had felt very kindly towards him and as good as told him so. But he, in spite of her conspicuous attractions, of which he was fully sensible, rejected her advances with some brutality. He did not think her worth a breach with Sanger. She concealed her fury as best she could and continued to treat him civilly, at least in public, in the hope that Sanger might one day become jealous and forbid him the house. Sanger saw through her manoeuvres and, in his turn, did not consider her worth a quarrel with Lewis, whom he valued beyond any woman in the world. But she persisted in the stratagem, being too stupid to devise any other method of attack.
Presently Lewis bethought himself that he had better see Kate soon, if he wished to secure a bedroom to himself. He got up and was moving into the house when Linda called to him, over her shoulder:
‘Oh, Lewis!’
He waited.
‘You didn’t see Antonier anywhere on the way up, did you?’
‘No.’
‘God knows where she can have got to,’ piously commented Linda. ‘Albert seems to think it’s my fault, if you please! I tell him if he wants those girls looked after he’d better put them to school somewhere. Not that any decent school would keep them a week; but that’s another matter.’
‘A young lady is lost?’ enquired Trigorin, who was a little fogged. ‘One of your family?’
‘One of Albert’s children,’ replied the lady. ‘Not mine, you’ll please to remember, Mr Trigorin.’
‘She’ll turn up,’ said Lewis at the door. ‘These children all fall on their feet. Look at Sebastian!’
‘She’s not a child; that’s just where it is. She’s sixteen past,’ retorted Linda, adding ruminatively: ‘Dirty little cat!’
Lewis left them and went into the large open hall which served the family as dining-room. Through it a door led into the music-room, an almost empty chamber with a dais at one end and a grand piano. Here Kate stood before an open window, her hands held out before her and lightly clasped, while she took in deep breaths and let them out in long, high notes. They were full, clear, honest notes, very like Kate herself, who was the most honest thing alive. Her mother, Sanger’s first wife, had been Australian – clean, respectable, middle class, hard working and kind. Kate persisted in being all these things, in spite of her upbringing. She had none of the wildness of her half-brothers and sisters. She had rosy cheeks and neat, brown hair, was trim and comely, and wore shirt blouses. Her voice was promising and she worked strenuously, hoping, with her father’s backing, to succeed some day upon the operatic stage. She also ran the household and did all the work which the single manservant could not do. Every one respected and liked her. She was a little obtuse, but this was probably the salvation of her, since it enabled her to disregard the inconsistencies of her own life. A more perceptive young woman could hardly have gone on being so modest, sensible and affectionate without a little encouragement from her surroundings.
Lewis listened for a few seconds and called down the room: ‘Very nice indeed, Kate.’
‘Oh, it’s you? We’d given up expecting you. Have you got the thing for us to act on Father’s birthday?’
Kate and her brother Caryl gave their father his proper title. It was only Evelyn’s children who referred to him carelessly as Sanger.
‘I finished it this morning,’ said Lewis. ‘We can begin rehearsing after lunch.’
‘But the tiresome thing is that we can’t begin without Tony, and we don’t know where she is. Didn’t you hear?’
‘I heard she was off somewhere.’
‘I hope she’s all right,’ observed Kate, looking anxious. ‘I don’t like it. You know, she’s awfully silly sometimes.’
Lewis did know, and secretly thought that Antonia was bound to get into a scrape sooner or later. But he did not wish to distress Kate by saying so, and, to change the topic, remarked:
‘By the way, I brought a fat Russian ballet dancer up with me. I picked him up in the inn at Erfurt.’
‘Mr Trigorin? Yes, I know. Father invited him in the way he does, you know. I do hope he’ll be civil to him. He’s so furious with him for coming. He couldn’t remember who he was at first, when we got the letter. Where is he now?’
‘On the veranda.’
‘Oh! Is Linda there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’
Kate grew pink, but all she said was:
‘Then I needn’t bother about him. What is he like?’
‘He looks,’ said Lewis viciously, ‘like one of those men who exhibit performing fleas. And that’s all he is; on a wider scale of course. He’s done well out of it Linda likes his clothes.’
‘Oh, dear! Perhaps he won’t stay long! Father is fearfully busy writing a new last act to “The Mountains”. Often he’s up all night and Caryl too. Caryl’s had to put all his own work aside, poor dear. And the worst of it is, Father’s too ill to be working at all. I’m sure he is, and so is Caryl. You’ll be shocked when you see him. He looks all wasted and shrunken up sometimes, and his eyes so yellow and bloodshot. He gets queer, giddy turns, but he says it’s only because he’s thirsty!’
‘Can’t you make him see a doctor?’ asked Lewis anxiously.
‘No. He says perhaps he will when we leave here, if he isn’t better. He’s very difficult. Men are really perfectly impossible sometimes.’
‘Yes, aren’t they? I quite agree. But look here! Where am I going to sleep? Who else is here?’
‘Nobody. But the family is spread all over the house, and father turned Linda out of his room the other night and said she could go and sleep by herself until he had finished “The Mountains”. I’ve put Mr Trigorin in the spare room. Of course it’s got two beds in it …’
‘No, Kate. I’ll sleep on the doorstep, but not with the flea trainer. Is there nowhere else?’
‘Well, there’s the little room in the annexe. It’s very small and it’s never been disinfected since Tony and Tessa had scarlet fever there two years ago. I meant to burn a sulphur candle but I forgot. Do you mind?’
‘Not a bit. Germs are better than Trigorin any day.’
‘And it’s tiresome going out there if it rains. However, if you don’t mind … Let’s go across and have a look at it.’
They went out and climbed the hill at the back, a little way to a second hut. The lower part was used as a storehouse and the two bedrooms above were reached by an outer stair and balcony. Kate led him into a tiny room with two camp-beds in it and nothing else. Floor, walls and ceiling were of wooden planks and smelt of the forest. A dusty rosary hung from a nail by the door and the walls above the beds were covered with childish writing, for Teresa and Antonia had enlivened their scarlet fever by scribbling rude remarks about each other. Kate glanced at them and blushed. She did not like to think of Lewis reading these sisterly pleasantries, and determined to send Caryl at the first opportunity