This Real Night Read Online Free Page B

which the rest of us put on only at the last moment, because we disapproved of them on principle; and she was watching Richard Quin and Rosamund play a game of chess. She was frowning, although Richard Quin was as ready to start as she was, and Rosamund was not coming with us. It worried Cordelia that Richard Quin was always playing games, and indeed as he and Rosamund sat at the chessboard they had a spendthrift and luxurious air, perhaps for no other reason than that they both were fair and the sunlight was pouring in on them. Nowadays Rosamund wore her hair up when she went out, but though she looked more grown-up than any of us she did not enjoy doing grown-up things as we did, and the minute she got home she used to raise her long hands and slowly draw out the pins from her hair and let it fall loose, slowly, curl by curl, over her shoulders. As I came in Richard Quin struck the board and set the red and white chessmen sprawling, and leaned across the table and tugged hard at one of these loose curls.
    ‘You have beaten me three times running,’ he said. ‘That’s against nature. The rule is that I beat you, you beat me, for ever and ever, amen.’
    ‘It would be like that,’ stammered Rosamund, ‘if today you weren’t thinking of something else.’
    ‘You never concentrate on anything,’ Cordelia told him.
    ‘Rosamund, I shall never understand this business about chess,’ I said. ‘You always say you are not clever, and you never got any prizes at school except for needlework and that horrible domestic science, and they didn’t think it worth while even putting you in for the Matric. Well, chess is a very difficult game, and Papa is a genius, and Richard Quin would be clever if he ever did any work, and yet you can beat them both. How can you do that if you’re not clever?’
    ‘It is quite simple,’ said Richard Quin. He had kept her long barley-sugar curl to twist between his fingers. ‘Rosamund hasn’t got a mind. But she does quite well without it. She thinks with her skin. The people who examine for the Matric don’t like that sort of thing, they don’t hold with it, as Kate says, but chess is different. So long as you can make the moves, chess doesn’t care if, like Rosamund, you just have something shining instead of a brain.’
    Without resentment Rosamund asked him, ‘Since I am like that, will I be able to be a good nurse?’
    But Richard Quin looked past her at the opening door. Mamma came in and went silently to an armchair and sat down. Cordelia and I inspected her to see if she were properly dressed for the party, but Richard Quin asked sharply, ‘What is the matter?’ and we saw that her face was quite white and that she was twisting a piece of paper in her hands. It was as if Papa were still living with us.
    ‘Children,’ she said, ‘a horrid thing has happened.’
    ‘Oh, not today! Not today!’ exclaimed Cordelia. ‘Mr Morpurgo will be here at any moment.’
    ‘There is a man who has come here from time to time to ask for money,’ said Mamma. ‘It is his trade, and of course such people must exist, and there would be no need for them to exist if everyone paid their debts. Oh, children, you must always pay your debts. This man came here first to ask for the rent, but you must not count that against Cousin Ralph, the house-agent did it without telling him. I wrote to your Cousin Ralph, asking him not to do it again, and explaining that it was useless, that when I had the money I paid the rent. He answered me quite nicely, saying that he had not known about the bailiff and would see to it that we were not bothered in this way again. Then another time this man came to ask for the rent for those offices your father and Mr Langham took for that company that never was started, something to do with ostrich feathers. And there were other times, but I forget them.’
    ‘Well, if he’s here now, it can’t be for the same reason,’ said Richard Quin, who had gone to sit on the