Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley Page A

back tonight.’
    ‘There you are, she’s coming.’ Polly turned to the man beside her. ‘I promised you should meet her, didn’t I?’
    ‘You did.’ He grinned.
    ‘Mind you are nice to her.’
    ‘I always am, surely.’ He looked pleased.
    ‘You can take her home after supper. I want an early night.’
    ‘But Polly—’
    ‘But Polly’s had enough, so off you go.’
    ‘Are you giving me my congé?’
    ‘Yes. That was the arrangement. It’s worked very well, now it’s over. Thanks a million and all that.’
    ‘You are a cold-blooded bitch.’
    ‘No, no,’ said Polly, laughing, ‘just practical.’
    ‘I’ve grown very fond of you. You’ve used me.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Polly, ‘I have. You’ve been an investment, a tutor.’
    ‘You’ve behaved like a young man in a brothel!’
    ‘And why not?’ said Polly who was ahead of her time.
    ‘Polly was ahead of her time,’ Helena said to Hamish years later, driving down the motorway. ‘And if you go on driving as fast as this you will cut your time short.’
    ‘She must have been a very attractive girl.’ Hamish slowed down a little. ‘Irritating, too,’ he added, knowing that Helena liked to gossip.
    ‘Yes, she could be irritating to some people but only if they were too pleased with themselves, got too big for their boots.’
    ‘Like me?’
    ‘I daresay yours fit a bit tight, you are your mother’s child.’
    ‘Was she pleased with herself?’
    ‘I wouldn’t say that. She just knew, how could she not, that she was the most lovely girl around.’
    ‘I bet she gave a lot of pleasure. Did she ever suffer? I’ve often wondered.’ Calypso’s son probed.
    ‘I wouldn’t know, my dear. Your mother is as proud as she is beautiful.’ Helena closed her eyes. I must pretend to doze, she thought, else I will be disloyal to Calypso and damage her child. She never really loved, so how could she suffer? ‘I stood on the sidelines and watched.’ Helena glanced at Calypso’s son. ‘They were all so young. Mine was the older generation. Not that I was altogether idle,’ she added, half to herself, and Hamish wondered what so ancient and shrunken a creature could have been like when his mother was twenty.
    ‘She was twenty when I was born.’
    ‘About that. She got her figure back instantly, I remember. Slim, she was.’
    ‘She still is.’
    ‘I was plump.’ Helena thought back to the days when Hamish was born. ‘Some men like women plump. I was the same age as your father, of course, not that he ever looked at me,’ she added as the car swerved slightly. ‘A very attractive man, your father. He liked slim girls.’
    ‘Who liked them plump?’ Hamish played along with reminiscence. ‘Apart from Great-uncle Richard, I mean.’
    ‘Poor Richard. He knew a lot about music, or so he thought.’
    ‘You are using my father as a red herring,’ said Hamish, using guesswork.
    ‘You are not stupid.’ Helena was amused in her eighties, remembering what she had gained when she lost her drawing room. It had not occurred to her, until she found herself on her back in the daffodil field, to consider Max Erstweiler as a lover. Having been married so long to Richard she had thought herself past that sort of thing.

Fifteen
    S OPHY AND OTHER GIRLS crossing London at the end of term were escorted to Liverpool Street by a mistress who handed them over to their relatives. Helena informed Polly of the times of arrival and expected her to meet Sophy, keep her for as long as necessary and put her on the next convenient train to Cornwall. Helena ignored the fact that Polly worked and might not be able to take time off.
    To overcome this difficulty Polly had given Sophy instructions to pretend to recognize anyone who approached her with glad cries of ‘Sophy, how are you?’ so that any suspicious mistress would be deceived. ‘If I can’t come myself, ducks, I’ll send a friend.’ Rather apprehensive to begin with, Sophy learned to enjoy the variety of her