Francie (12 page)

It was a true victory, not the less so because it was invisible to the older people. Neither Mr. Tennison nor Mr. Nelson seemed to notice anything wrong. Pop was used to his daughter exerting influence over young men, whereas Mr. Tennison never took the slightest interest in what the younger generation did. Mrs. Tennison was determined to consider the younger generation humorous, and only humorous, in any manifestation whatever; she merely laughed at whatever Mark or Peter said, without listening.

As for Jennifer, her thoughts, if any, were her own. Her expression didn't change. After the tea things had been piled on a tray and carried indoors, with the young men eagerly helping, she said abruptly, “Well, come on. Who's for tennis?”

Nobody replied. Francie dropped her eyes and the boys waited. Mrs. Tennison said at last, “You children needn't hold back on our account. We can play later.”

Still there was a pause. Francie said, “I don't believe I'll play, Jennifer. It's not a bit of good; I'm not up to your standard.”

“Nonsense,” said Jennifer. “You play perfectly well for a social game. Come on, let's have mixed doubles.”

“No, really, I'm not good enough. Go ahead, the rest of you, and I'll watch.”

“But—” Jennifer began.

“Go on, Peter; you can play Jenny. I've really had enough for the afternoon,” said Mark. “Too much tea, that's my trouble.”

In the end, it was Jennifer's parents who played.

Francie had expected to savor to the last drop her cup of triumph, but somehow it didn't work out that way. Jennifer showed no signs of dismay or disgruntlement. She continued behaving just as she had done before, dry, abrupt, and distant.

“I thought she'd seem younger and less of a threat,” thought Francie ruefully, “but she doesn't. She can still get me down, just the same as always.”

Francie even felt forced to respect her enemy, on a day when Mrs. Tennison's firm good humor failed her, and she had to go to bed with a sudden attack of arthritis.

“It's most inconvenient, I know,” Francie heard her saying to Jennifer from her pillow, “but the grim fact is I can't straighten my back out, poppet. It
is
inconvenient, today of all days, because there's the joint to prepare and I had meant to do you a gooseberry tart. I know these attacks. I'll be better tomorrow, but for the afternoon I'm afraid you'll have to carry on without me.”

“That's quite all right, Mummy,” said Jennifer. “I have Francie, and we'll manage.”

Her competent voice surprised Francie. “She must be mad,” she thought. “How can she manage a joint and a tart? I know I couldn't, anyway.”

But Jennifer did manage. She quietly took over the kitchen and proceeded to give a very good imitation of her mother. She prepared the joint, gave her orders to Francie with pleasant efficiency, cycled—accompanied by her respectful guest—into town to the baker's for a forgotten order of tea cake, and behaved in general as if housekeeping was the one thing she had always been trained to do.

“I do think you're a marvel, Jennifer,” Francie burst out as they prepared a tea tray for the invalid. “I'm perfectly certain I couldn't do all this, I can tell you that much.”

“Do all what?” asked Jennifer in honest surprise. “You mean the cooking? But I thought American girls were good cooks.”

“Some may be, but I've never picked it up myself. My aunt did all that. And you seem to know exactly how to go about it.”

“Cooking's something we've had to do all these years since the war began,” said Jennifer casually, mixing the piecrust. “There wasn't anyone to help out, you see. It was different before; the Mater had to learn late in life. She'll tell you herself, she couldn't boil an egg before the war, but as it was she had to learn, and so did I—we struggled through together, as it were. We had to get down to it, I can tell you, when all the domestic help went into the factories. It's just as well I did.” Her voice was cheerful. “I don't see any signs that we'll ever get more help, as things are going, but I don't mind cooking. I rather like it, as a matter of fact. If every study at school were as easily picked up, I'd be all right!”

Francie looked at her in wonder. Jennifer did not seem ill-pleased by the compliment, but she was confused, and broke off in relief when the little dog limped into the kitchen and gave her an excuse to change the subject.

“Bonzo, whatever is the matter with your paw? Let me look at it,” she said. She knelt down and picked up the dog's foot. “Oh, the poor beastie!” she cried. “Look at this, Francie; his poor claw is simply mangled. He must have cut it, or got caught in a snare.”

Francie tried to look, but a familiar weakness assailed her. “I'm awfully sorry, Jennifer, honestly, but I can't bear the sight of blood. I get nauseated. Do you mind if I don't come close?”

“No, of course, not at all, but you might fetch the surgical gauze from the cabinet over the bath—that is if your legs haven't given way.”

Francie bit her lip. She had told the truth; she had always been silly about blood, but there was no help for it. Under the lash of Jennifer's scorn she meekly fetched and carried, while the English girl, still showing a surprising capability that Francie had never suspected, washed and bandaged the dog's paw midst a resentful silence: Hostility reigned again.

“Yet for a while there,” reflected Francie, “she was quite decent. I must admit she
is
a good housekeeper. Just like a grown woman, really. Maybe these kids aren't as babyish as I thought.”

Lately Francie had found no time to write her customary long letter to Ruth. It wasn't that the days were crowded with dates; to her disgusted surprise Mark didn't ask for a date at all, though she had fully expected him to do so when he took his leave after the tennis party. He had merely lingered a little saying good-bye, as if he wanted to do something about the matter but didn't quite know what. Now if he'd lived in Jefferson, thought Francie, he'd merely have said, “Are you busy Saturday night?” or at least, “I'll give you a ring in the morning.”

Maybe he was afraid of the Tennisons. But what was wrong about dating? She never thought about the fact that dates are costly. American boys always managed.

So, unfortunately, it wasn't Mark or Peter who was keeping her busy; it was the weather. This remained determinedly fine, so that when she and Jennifer weren't cycling into town on errands for the household, or helping Mrs. Tennison with the cooking like good little girls, they were expected to be out of doors. They played tennis—Jennifer displayed better manners nowadays on the court, observed Francie, or perhaps her own game was really improving—and they went on picnics or walks,
en famille
. The Tennisons were determined to do their duty as hosts, and to show off the English countryside. Ordinarily they had to be very careful with their rationed petrol, but Mr. Tennison had saved some up for the occasion and on one day they even drove a long way out for picnic tea in a little wood. Not once, however, did they go to the movies.

As long as it was only for a few days, Francie told herself she didn't mind. But it would have been much better if Mark or even Peter had been along on the walks and the picnic. She wondered if she could have been mistaken, too confident, too conceited. Perhaps Mark hadn't really noticed her at all, she thought. These months in the strange country of England had made Francie begin to look at herself from the outside, wondering a little what the other girls at school thought of her. In Jefferson it had never occurred to her to wonder; they all felt the same way about things. But here—

“They'd think I was bats if they knew how often I think about Mark,” she admitted to herself. “They're never keen on boys. Anyway, am I really keen on him? Or is it just that I like to have something going on?”

She pondered this difficult question, during the long dull hours. It might even be, she felt, that Mark's only attraction was that Jennifer in her immature way liked him too.

On the fourth day in walked Mark himself, at last, carrying his tennis racket. After thinking about him so much Francie was surprised to see him. He wasn't quite so attractive as she had thought. Or was he?

She and Jennifer took turns playing him or each other, but it was a dull day and before tea it began to rain. The girls had to give him tea by themselves, for Pop and Mr. Tennison had gone up to town on a business matter and Mrs. Tennison was out interviewing a new charlady. Poor Mrs. Tennison, thought Francie, always working, standing in line to buy fish, or trying to locate a good dressmaker to alter her old clothes, or hunting high and low for curtain material. Aunt Norah never had to put in half so much time on her house. And with all Jennifer's mother's work, the food wasn't easy to manage anyway. Having to be careful with sugar, having to plan so many meals without meat—really, “the Mater” was wonderful. Francie, happy that Mark had come to tea, began feeling very kindly toward the Tennison family.

At last Jennifer muttered something about getting hot water and went into the kitchen. Francie was just thinking that it was significant how Jennifer had given up the school uniform, and blossomed out in regular frocks, when Mark said, hastily, “You know, Peter's most awfully smitten with you.”

“Is he?” Francie felt slightly astonished. After all, it was Mark she had put in all that work on—not Peter.

“Yes. Awfully.” He turned bright red with the effort of making such a personal remark. “I've never seen old Peter so smitten. He never looks at girls, in the ordinary way. It must be your being American. You American girls
are
different, you know.”

“I guess we must be,” said Francie. “Well, I mean, it's only natural in a way. We're brought up so differently.”

“So I should imagine,” said Mark. “English girls are jolly, of course, and all that, but you're—well, different. I don't know if you understand what I mean. The point I'm trying to make is, do you think your father might bring you to Oxford one of these days? Americans tend rather to like Oxford, I've noticed.”

“Well, I don't know. Pop's usually busy, and—”

“Peter would be most awfully bucked,” he said. Then Jennifer came back.

It was still raining after they had cleared away the tea things, so they went into the library where the occasion seemed to call for something special, and Francie suddenly had an idea. “Shall we try out my new phonograph?” she asked. “I've brought some records I just got from the States.”

They cleared a place on the desk for the machine and put on one of the new records. The music blared out. Francie's foot tapped restlessly. “This one's spiffing, isn't it?” she said. She began to dance by herself, unself-consciously, as she was accustomed to do in Jefferson. Mark stared in admiration, Jennifer gaped in simple horror.

“And now the other side,” cried Francie, happily. “You must have heard this one, Mark—‘Baby, It's Cold Outside.' This is the best version yet. Just listen!”

She danced around the library, her eyes shining. “Come on!” she cried.

Mark joined her, though he protested he had never tried this new style of dancing, which seemed more of an individual effort than one of partnership.

“Come, I'll teach you,” cried Francie. He caught on quickly. Round and round the rather small room they went, alone, together, alone again, together again, and all the time Jennifer stared as if she didn't quite know what to make of it. In a few more minutes, Francie thought, Mark would be really good.

The library door opened, and there stood Jennifer's Mater and Francie's Pop. It occurred to Francie that Mrs. Tennison didn't seem at all pleased with the merry scene. Pop, though, waved cheerfully and said, “How you doing?”

Mark stopped dancing and looked guilty. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Tennison,” he said. “Francie's just showing me the latest from the States.”

The record had come to an end as he talked, but Francie felt no impulse to put on another one. She was reminded somehow of that scene in the train with Miss West.

Mrs. Tennison sat down in the now silent room. “How is your mother, Mark?” she asked brightly.

Mark went home soon afterwards, and dinner with the Tennisons was a very quiet affair. Nobody was rude to Francie, nobody was stiff; as for Jennifer, she simply behaved as she always did at home, in a noncommittal manner. But something was very wrong.

“Now what have I done?” Francie asked Pop when they were alone.

“The Tennisons probably never hear that kind of music, and you'll have to admit it does take getting used to—I found it hard myself. And maybe they've never seen that kind of dancing. Never mind, honey, I know you didn't do anything wrong. We can't always please all the people all the time.” He patted her shoulder. “Don't worry about it,” he said.

That was all very well, but how, Francie asked herself when she was upstairs, could she stop worrying? It was a simply horrid feeling, and in somebody else's house, too—Jennifer's house, which made it much worse.

Pop had said—but Pop was only Pop; he didn't really know what it was like. It was perfectly ghastly, to feel like this in somebody else's house, in somebody else's country.

After a few tears, Francie went to sleep.

CHAPTER 7

The morning after they came back to London the Nelsons were quiet at their hotel breakfast. Pop was thinking, no doubt, about oil, but Francie brooded on the ill-starred holiday visit, and she was inclined to be listless and mopey. This time, she felt, it hadn't been her fault at all; hadn't Pop himself been on her side? He hadn't said a word about doing as the Romans do. Which meant that Mrs. Tennison was unjust, and Jennifer was a cat, and England was too difficult for words. Her American friends seemed far away. The only bright spot on the British map at the moment was Penelope, yet even at the thought of Penelope Francie did not cheer up. She felt worse, for Penny had written that she'd developed troubles of her own during the holiday.