Free Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West Page A

larger glasses kept in reserve in case someone wanted to drink wine. He filled it full, nodding in approval at his image in the mirror facing the bar, and raised it to his lips, but paused to say, with the solemnity of a man keeping a lonely tryst with truth, ‘B stands for Bates and for balls.’
    It was not a moment on which I could intrude, and I meant to go away, but just then the door opened on Aunt Lily. She did not speak, but slowly shook her head from side to side, and clicked her tongue.
    ‘Here,’ said Uncle Len, and gave her too a draught of port in a wine-glass.
    She raised her eyebrows and beamed at the special generosity but could not speak until she had refreshed herself. ‘All that,’ she said, ‘just for asking how the world began.’
    ‘For mercy’s sake, Lil,’ exclaimed Uncle Len. ‘Is that what started him off? You ought to have a better headpiece on you. That’s not a question that would bring a short answer out of Os.’
    ‘Oh, blame me, of course,’ said Aunt Lily, ‘but it’s a short question, and so it ought to get a short answer. That’s only logical.’
    ‘Logical?’ exclaimed Uncle Len. ‘Oh, Lil, that it’s not.’
    ‘What, a short question shouldn’t get a short answer? What’s not logical about that?’
    ‘Never mind,’ groaned Uncle Len. ‘If you can’t see it, you can’t.’ But they felt better as they drank their port, and presently he asked, ‘Has he finished?’
    ‘No. Milly took over listening when I left.’
    ‘We’ll get back,’ he said. ‘And it’s a little thing really, when you think how fond he is of Nancy.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Aunt Lily, ‘now we know she’ll be all right when we’ve gone.’
    They emptied their glasses and dutifully left the bar, and when I got back to the parlour they had taken up their burden and were on opposite sides of the hearth, with Aunt Milly in the basket-chair in between, all wagging their heads reverently as Oswald, one elbow on the chimneypiece, brought his story to a confident close.
    The perorative cadence of his voice inspired Uncle Len to say, ‘Hear, hear,’ and Aunt Lily to say, ‘Well, it’s a comfort to really know,’ and Aunt Milly to say, ‘Tea, you must need your tea after all that, Oswald,’ and they rose to their feet and went about their business. But they had spoken so graciously that he was undisturbed by their speed, and told me happily how sorry he was that I hadn’t heard the little thing he had been trying to explain. He said that it was funny to think that when he had started teaching he had found it difficult, now he reckoned that he could make anyone understand anything. He surveyed himself complacently at the chimneypiece and straightened his tie, but instantly lost interest in himself and asked wistfully if I thought there was any chance that Nancy would catch an earlier train. Mary had spoken the truth when she said that no man had ever shown any signs of being as nice as Oswald was about Nancy.
    We would not really have liked to be Nancy, because she could not play the piano and she had not been the daughter of Papa and Mamma, nor Richard Quin’s sister. But we would have been quite pleased to be Nancy on her wedding-day. It was one of those weddings at which more than two persons are married, which are as general as springtime, which revive the affections of all present. We went to bed the night before with a comfortable feeling that everything was ready for the first step towards a huge advancement in our happiness. Rosamund could not leave London till the morning, so even though Kate had a bedroom to herself there was a room left over, where Nancy’s white dress and veil lay on the bed like an unfearsome ghost. We would have liked to leave them overnight on a hanger, but that would have meant pinning the shoulders of the dress close to the wood, lest it slip down to the floor, and we could not bear to spoil the gleaming satin even with pinpricks. The bouquet, which had been