Free Sensible Life by Mary Wesley

devices.”
    “But her parents—”
    “I suspect that in this weather they spend their time in bed doing the things you look up in the dictionary,” said Rosa. “One sees the child, but she is rarely with her parents.”
    Milly thought Rosa’s suggestion coarse. She was of course Dutch, but even so … She kept her eyes on her knitting. She and Angus had never done anything like that in the daytime.
    Rosa gave her an amused glance. “That child is having a slap-dash education,” she said. “A couple of years with a governess in Italy on the cheap, small pensions , that sort of thing, and then the same in France. I hear she is learning Russian from one of the émigrés and now the parents plan to put her in a school in England when the mother rejoins the father in India.”
    “That’s what happens to the children, long separations. It’s sad, they hardly know their parents in some cases,” said Milly.
    “Perhaps this child does not wish to,” said Rosa.
    Milly thought Rosa was being rather harsh; she had probably got a garbled version from the hotel servants. “I expect she has a grandmother or kind aunts who will take care of her in the holidays.” She felt it necessary to present a happier picture; the child’s parents were, after all, English.
    “There are no aunts or uncles. The only grandmother died recently, I hear.”
    From the hotel servants, thought Milly. “Many parents have quite a struggle these days,” she said. “Look, for instance, at Hubert’s mother, Mrs. Wyndeatt-Whyte—”
    “Such a ridiculous name,” said Rosa.
    No more ridiculous than yours, thought Milly.
    “She has only her widow’s pension,” she said. “She tries to manage on that, and his rich relation will not help with one single penny.”
    “Hum,” said Rosa, feeling she had teased Milly enough. “He is a good-looking and nice-mannered boy. How does he spend his time while Cosmo plays enforced golf?”
    “He learns the piano,” said Milly, “goes for walks.”

ELEVEN
    B LANCO’S WALKS TOOK HIM no further than Madame Tarasova’s lodging above the horse butcher. On his way he called at the patisserie to buy cakes to share with his tiny Armenian teacher. After a certain amount of heart-searching she had been persuaded to drop the piano lessons in favour of French conversation. This arrangement suited Madame Tarasova; she could stitch at whatever garment she happened to be making while they talked. When she had placed the cakes on a plate, she would resume her sewing while Blanco, sitting astride the piano stool, asked questions. He was consumed with curiosity about the Revolution, thrilled to meet someone who had been in Russia in 1917. Maybe she had played no actual part, but she would have met people who had, people who would have given her first-hand accounts. He questioned her in schoolboy French. “Tell me what you saw. Your experiences, were they exciting?” He was avid for history at first-hand.
    Madame Tarasova, sitting opposite the plate of cakes, savoured them with her eyes.
    “Have one, go on, they are for you,” urged Blanco.
    “Presently,” said Madame Tarasova. “I like to look at them. Look,” she said, “this is for the child, isn’t it a pretty blue?”
    “The one I—”
    “Her maman has commissioned three—this blue, a green and a pink. Quite cheap material, but it is pretty. I would myself have chosen silk.” Madame Tarasova sighed. Blanco pushed the plate of cakes towards her. “Oh, Hubert, you spoil me.”
    “Tell me about the Revolution, The Bolsheviks; what were they like?”
    “Bolsheviks, Bolsheviks.” She helped herself to a cake.
    “Tell me what you saw,” urged Blanco.
    Madame Tarasova threaded a needle. “She will look her prettiest in the pink, but the material is rather ordinary.”
    “The Revolution, Madame?”
    “It was terrible. I was twenty years old in 1917, the year of disaster. So many young officers were killed in the war. They were so elegant, such