Legend

If she had not been ill so long it would have been harder. As it was—but there’s no use in writing down that black time. Afterwards I didn’t know what to do. The pension had stopped, of course. I’d managed to teach myself typing, though Mother couldn’t be left much; but I didn’t know shorthand, and I couldn’t get work, and my money was dwindling, and I was getting scared. I was ready to worship Anita when her letter came. She was sorry about Mother and she wanted a secretary. If I could type I could come.

I remember how excited I was. I’d always lived in such a tiny place and we couldn’t afford Mudie’s. To go to London, and meet interesting people, and live with a real writer, seemed too good to be true. And it helped that Anita and her mother were relations. Mother used to stay with Great-aunt Serle when she was little. Somehow that made things easier to me when I was missing Mother more than usual.

In the end, after all those expectations, I was only three weeks with Anita. They were a queer three weeks. I was afraid of her. She was one of those people who make you feel guilty. But she was kind to me. I typed most of the day, for she was a fluent worker and never spared either of us; but she took me to the theatre once, and I used to pour out when interesting people came to tea. In the first fortnight I met nine novelists and a poet; but I never found out who they were, because they all called each other by their Christian names and you couldn’t ask Anita questions. She had such a way of asking you why you asked. She used to glide about the room in a cloud of chiffon and cigarette smoke—she had half-shut pale eyes just the colour of the smoke—and pour out a stream of beautiful English in a pure cool voice; but if they interrupted her she used to stiffen and stop dead and in a minute she had glided away and begun to talk to someone else. Old Mrs. Serle used to sit in a corner and knit. She never dropped a stitch; but she always had her eyes on Anita. She was different from the rest of my people. She had an accent, not cockney exactly, but odd. She had had a hard life, I believe. Mother said of her once that her courage made up for everything. But she never told me what the everything was. Great-aunt’s memory was shaky. One day she would scarcely know you, and another day she would be sensible and kind, very kind. She liked parties. People used to come and talk to her because she made them laugh; but every now and then, when Anita was being brilliant about something, she would put up her long gnarled finger and say—‘Hush! Listen to my daughter!’ and her eyes would twinkle. But I never knew if she were proud of her or not.

Everybody said that Anita was brilliant. She could take a book to pieces so that you saw every good bit and every bad bit separated away into little compartments. But she spoiled things for you, books and people, at least she did for me. She sneered. She said of the Baxter girl once, for instance—‘She’s really too tactful. If you go to tea with her you are sure to be introduced to your oldest friend.’ And again—‘She always likes the right people for the wrong reasons.’

Of course one knows what she meant, but I liked the Baxter girl all the same. Beryl Baxter—but everyone called her the Baxter girl. She was kind to me because I was Anita’s cousin, and she used to talk to me when Anita wasn’t in the mood for her. She asked me to call her ‘Beryl’ almost at once. Anita used to be awfully rude to her sometimes, and then again she would have her to supper and spend an evening going through her MSS. and I could tell that she was giving her valuable help. The Baxter girl used to listen and agree so eagerly and take it away to re-write. I thought she was dreadfully grateful. I hated to hear her.