during the last year, and I suspect you can give her some damn good advice. You know, her clothes, her hair, and things like that. I think she’s really a nice kid. Between ourselves, I think she’s worth two of Clotilde. I confess I have a weakness for Clotilde, but I know damn well it’s mostly because she’s such a knockout to look at. Clotilde knows what she wants and she’ll get it, regardless. It may be my fault for spoiling her, but her mother was very much the same type. When I was a young man I was a lousy judge of women, at least the ones I married. But to go back to poor June. I hope you will stay here for a month anyway; and if you can give her a little self-confidence and brighten her up a bit, you’ll have done your good deed for the year. We’re a pretty free and easy bunch out here, as you’re probably discovering, but I think you’ll live through it. If you can stand me, you ought to be able to take the rest of us, and you seem to be doing pretty well so far.’
A scurrying in the hall made Kate turn her head in time to see Bobbie dash into the room, slide back on her haunches for a moment in the midst of her rush, to look around her, and then make for Kate’s ankles with a series of little grunts and barks. Kate put down her hands to protect her stockings, and Bobbie, after a few growling charges, wheeled on her hind legs, her front paws waving, her ears swirling about her face like the curls of a ballerina, and dashed straight across the room for another arm-chair. Kate thought she was going to fling herself against it, but in the nick of time, without slackening her speed, she flattened herself out and half slid, half scrambled under the border of pleated chintz that touched the floor. Then almost at once her head appeared peeking from under the edge, her chin pressed close against the carpet, while her eyes gleamed up at Kate as if to challenge her to try to drag her out of this refuge.
‘Bobbie, come here! Bobbie, where are you?’
It was June’s voice, and the next instant she stepped into the room and came toward Kate with a smile that showed her large strong teeth. At the same time Bobbie’s head ducked under the chair, and then she scrambled out, holding in her mouth a very dirty doll made of string, which she brought over and dropped at Kate’s feet. But Kate had hardly time to notice her now, because she was so curious to see what June would be like as a ‘young girl’.
June shook her hand vigorously, leaned toward her as if to kiss her, and then straightened up as if she did not quite dare.
‘Kate!’ she exclaimed in her rather deep voice, which had always been the most attractive thing about her. ‘It’s the same old Katey! I was so afraid you might have changed. I was so afraid you might seem all grown-up and fancy, but you don’t look any different.’
It was not quite the same old June, Kate realized at once. Not only was she about a foot taller, several inches taller than Kate now, but she was far less stolid-looking. She still moved with awkward abruptness; her face was still too heavy, but it had a kind of intensity of expression, a liveliness at this minute of greeting, which suggested her father more than ever. Her complexion, too, dark and slightly oily, was at any rate much better than it had been. At present she was wearing too much lipstick of too pink a shade; her black hair fluffed in unbecoming wisps about her cheeks; and Kate who liked nothing better than fixing things over according to her own very particular taste, looked forward, as her father had suggested, to starting in at once on the reconstruction of her appearance. June, with a little tact and care, might be smart-looking, even distinguished. Kate was sure Mr. Gladstone had been right when he said she was worth two of Clotilde.
‘It’s great fun to be seeing you again’, Kate said. ‘It doesn’t seem as if it could be four years since we were together, except that you certainly have grown up, if I haven’t. And this is such a lovely place! I’ve never seen anything like it. You must show me all around. I’m sure we’ll have a wonderful summer, June.’
‘June, sweet,’ Mr. Gladstone said, with a touch of irony in his tone, which probably, Kate thought, had become so habitual that he was no longer aware of it, ‘I suggest that the first thing you show Kate is her own room. Felix took up her bags. And then she may doubtless want to be left in peace to unpack.’
‘I’d love to have June help me unpack’, said Kate. ‘That is, if she wants to.’
‘You bet I want to’, June said. ‘I’m crazy to see your clothes. You always had such pretty clothes.’
‘Well then, my little dears,’ Mr. Gladstone said, making only a token gesture as if to rise from his chair, ‘I’ll be seeing you before dinner.’
As the two girls walked upstairs side by side, Bobbie climbed ahead of them, putting first her two front feet on each step above her and then bringing up her hindquarters with a little bounce and jerk that made Kate think of a mechanical rabbit. At the top of the stairs they turned to the left along a pleasant hall, with green and white straw matting on the floor, and then turned to the right into another wing which led toward the back of the house.
Presently they reached the end of the corridor. ‘Here we are’, June said. ‘Your room will be this one straight ahead, and mine is here to the left. They’re next to each other.’
Kate pushed eagerly through the door into her room, and then couldn’t help smiling because she loved it so. On the floor there was the same green and white matting, whose damp smell reminded her of Matunuck. The chintz curtains had a pattern of cornflowers and poppies, and near the bed stood a luxurious chaise-longue.
‘It’s not so big,’ June said, ‘but I’ve always liked this room. I used to wish it was mine, but I couldn’t have it because it was used as a guest room. Do you like it, Kate?’
‘I just love it!’ Kate said. ‘I can’t imagine a nicer room.’
She walked gaily across to one of the windows. ‘And what a pretty view!’ she exclaimed. ‘It looks so quaint and peaceful.’
An oblong of turf, like a bowling green, stretched smoothly to a little house of white brick, with mossy red tiles and blue shutters like the main building; but this was as miniature and dainty as a cottage in a fairy tale. Behind it a wall of trees rose so steeply that she had to lean out of the window to look up at the sky. And from the little house she could hear the sound of a violin.
‘I suppose that’s Mr. – I suppose that’s Jo’, she said. ‘Felix told me about him.’
‘Yes, that’s Jo’, June said, and if Felix’s tone had suggested disapproval, June’s expressed real dislike. ‘He lives out there so his practising won’t disturb us, but sometimes when he plays late at night it keeps me awake. Mavis, that’s mother, accompanies him; she plays pretty well; but lately it’s been mostly Clotilde. She plays too.’
Kate smiled. ‘You don’t think much of him, do you?’ she said. ‘Felix didn’t seem to either, not that he wasn’t very polite. What’s wrong with him?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with him really,’ June said after a minute, ‘except that he’s a sponge. I don’t blame him so much. He’s no worse than the rest of them.’ And then her face darkened into a scowl, the kind of scowl Kate remembered when girls at school had bothered to tease her. ‘It’s just that it’s all so nasty. Everything’s nasty around here. It’s always been that way ever since I can remember. It’s not fair for things to be so nasty!’
Her face suddenly lightened, and she looked with the new intensity of her glance directly at Kate. ‘That’s one of the reasons I wanted you to come’, she said. ‘Because you won’t mind it, I guess. It’s not your family.’
At that moment Kate was so sorry for her that she felt like putting her arms around her and kissing her, but it might be just
