Free The Beautiful Visit by Elizabeth Jane Howard

feeling a fool. It had been such a very stupid question. No one had ever said anything like that. ‘You’re cold,’ Michael had
said, and now, ‘You’re pretty, rather pretty.’ Some awful fascination led me on. I gripped the gate.
    ‘Elspeth, in what way am I pretty?’ It must be an important thing to know, because Deb had minded so much. ‘It’s not as silly as it sounds. At least, I’ve never
thought about it before, but it seems suddenly to matter. I don’t know many people. So I haven’t asked anyone else. I don’t do things very well. I want to start, and if I were
pretty – rather pretty – it ought to help, oughtn’t it? I mean a person should have something interesting or nice about them. I play the piano a bit, but not well enough to count.
I seem to have so much less than other people. It’s an awful feeling, because you have it by yourself just as much as with other people. So in what way would you say I was
pretty?’ I stopped. Everything I had said sounded inexpressibly foolish.
    Elspeth regarded me a moment in silence. Then in a clear voice with a hint of scorn in it she said, ‘You’re really worrying about whether you’ll get married. I don’t know whether you will. It seems such a queer thing to worry about. But I’ve noticed that quite sensible girls do. Boys don’t. It just happens to them.’
    ‘I don’t think I am.’
    ‘Well then you’re worrying about whether people will like you. That’s silly too. You shouldn’t mind so much. Deb doesn’t.’
    I was stung. ‘She does. She minds very much.’
    Elspeth looked at me curiously.
    ‘ Does she?’ she said softly, and jumped off the gate in silence. We picked up the branches and in a bewildered way I almost hated Elspeth. Why had she said that Deb
didn’t mind? Why was she so sure? Giving me her advice! Of course I had asked for it. She was only a child, much younger than I. She was in her own surroundings, that was all; she was at
ease, but where would she not be? In my limited experience I could think of nowhere. Of course she read books . . . Supposing that was important. No, Lucy didn’t read. She had said so. What
was it?
    ‘What’s the time?’ Elspeth broke in. ‘I wish I had a watch. It’s practically the only thing I want. I’ve asked for one for Christmas. Come on,
lunch.’ Her hands were covered with scratches and full of holly. ‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’ she said. She looked purely delighted.
    ‘Sorry I asked you such silly questions.’
    ‘That’s all right. I enjoy it really. They say I’m pompous, but I don’t care. It comes out of me like that.’
    ‘Do you always live here?’
    ‘Yes, at present. My mother is dead.’ She said it easily, looking at me, but her eyes suddenly went quite flat.
    I didn’t say anything, and seconds later she turned her head a little towards me, gratefully, as though she were acknowledging my silence.
    Walking along a track up a hill, we came upon a cottage. It was yellow, with a low untidy thatch, and it had two stunted elms beside it. A woman stood in the open door. She wore a vast
blue-flowered overall. Her hair was done in a hard bun at the back. She was holding a large baby with a grey face and pale curls and he was holding a painted horse by its tail, loosely, so
that the head swung against the woman.
    ‘Hello, Mrs Druid,’ said Elspeth. At this, three more children suddenly appeared from among the cabbages. They stared.
    ‘Good morning, Miss,’ said Mrs Druid.
    ‘We’ve been collecting holly.’
    ‘I see you ’ave.’
    ‘For the church.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Druid.
    ‘How’s George?’ said Elspeth. Mrs Druid shook the baby gloomily.
    ‘Better than he should be. He ’ad a ball of wool yesterday. Didn’t you, George?’
    George became convulsed over her shoulder and the horse flapped wildly.
    ‘He eats things,’ said Elspeth regarding him with respect.
    ‘It was only a little ball. Last week he eat arf a page of Druid’s