‘Who’s Greta?’ I said.
‘She came first as an au pair—no, not quite that, perhaps. But anyway I’d had a French girl who lived with us for a year, for French, and then Greta came from Germany, for German. Greta was different. Everything was different once Greta came.’
‘You’re very fond of her?’ I asked.
‘She helps me,’ said Ellie. ‘She’s on my side. She arranges so that I can do things and go places. She’ll tell lies for me. I couldn’t have got away to come down to Gipsy’s Acre if it hadn’t been for Greta. She’s keeping me company and looking after me in London while my stepmother’s in Paris. I write two or three letters and if I go off anywhere Greta posts them every three or four days so that they have a London postmark.’
‘Why did you want to go down to Gipsy’s Acre though?’ I asked. ‘What for?’
She didn’t answer at once.
‘Greta and I arranged it,’ she said. ‘She’s rather wonderful,’ she went on. ‘She thinks of things, you know. She suggests ideas.’
‘What’s this Greta like?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Greta’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Tall and blonde. She can do anything.’
‘I don’t think I’d like her,’ I said.
Ellie laughed.
‘Oh yes you would. I’m sure you would. She’s very clever, too.’
‘I don’t like clever girls,’ I said. ‘And I don’t like tall blonde girls. I like small girls with hair like autumn leaves.’
‘I believe you’re jealous of Greta,’ said Ellie.
‘Perhaps I am. You’re very fond of her, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am very fond of her. She’s made all the difference in my life.’
‘And it was she who suggested you went down there. Why, I wonder? There’s not much to see or do in that part of the world. I find it rather mysterious.’
‘It’s our secret,’ said Ellie and looked embarrassed.
‘Yours and Greta’s? Tell me.’
She shook her head. ‘I must have some secrets of my own,’ she said.
‘Does your Greta know you’re meeting me?’
‘She knows I’m meeting someone. That’s all. She doesn’t ask questions. She knows I’m happy.’
After that there was a week when I didn’t see Ellie. Her stepmother had come back from Paris, also someone whom she called Uncle Frank, and she explained almost casually that she was having a birthday, and that they were giving a big party for her in London.
‘I shan’t be able to get away,’ she said. ‘Not for the next week. But after that—after that, it’ll be different.’
‘Why will it be different after that?’
‘I shall be able to do what I like then.’
‘With Greta’s help as usual?’ I said.
It used to make Ellie laugh the way I talked about Greta. She’d say, ‘You’re so silly to be jealous of her. One day you must meet her. You’ll like her.’
‘I don’t like bossy girls,’ I said obstinately.
‘Why do you think she’s bossy?’
‘By the way you talk about her. She’s always busy arranging something.’
‘She’s very efficient,’ said Ellie. ‘She arranges things very well. That’s why my stepmother relies on her so much.’
I asked what her Uncle Frank was like.
She said, ‘I don’t know him really so very well. He was my father’s sister’s husband, not a real relation. I think he’s always been rather a rolling stone and got into trouble once or twice. You know the way people talk about someone and sort of hint things.’
‘Not socially acceptable?’ I asked. ‘Bad lot?’
‘Oh, nothing really bad I think, but he used to get into scrapes, I believe. Financial ones. And trustees and lawyers and people used to have to get him out of them. Pay up for things.’
‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘He’s the bad hat of the family. I expect I’d get on better with him than I would with the paragon Greta.’
‘He can make himself very agreeable when he likes,’ said Ellie. ‘He’s good company.’
‘But you don’t really like him?’ I asked sharply.
‘I think I do … It’s just that sometimes, oh I can’t explain it. I just feel I don’t know what he’s thinking or planning.’
‘One of our planners, is he?’
‘I don’t know what he’s really like,’ said Ellie again.
She didn’t ever suggest that I should meet any of her family. I wondered sometimes if I ought to say something about it myself. I didn’t know how she felt about the subject. I asked her straight out at last.
‘Look here, Ellie,’ I said, ‘do you think I ought to—meet your family or would you rather I didn’t?’
‘I don’t want you to meet them,’ she said at once.
‘I know I’m not much—’ I said.
‘I don’t mean it that way, not a bit! I mean they’d make a fuss. I can’t stand a fuss.’
‘I sometimes feel,’ I said, ‘that this is rather a hole and corner business. It puts me in a rather bad light, don’t you think?’
‘I’m old enough to have my own friends,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m nearly twenty-one. When I am twenty-one I can have my own friends and nobody can stop me. But now you see—well, as I say there’d be a terrible fuss and they’d cart me off somewhere so that I couldn’t meet you. There’d be—oh do, do let’s go on as we are now.’
‘Suits me if it suits you,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t want to be, well, too underhand about everything.’
‘It’s not being underhand. It’s just having a friend one can talk to and say things to. It’s someone one can—’ she smiled suddenly, ‘one can make-believe with. You don’t know how wonderful that is.’
Yes, there was a lot of that—make-believe! More and more our times together were to turn out that way. Sometimes it was me. More often it was Ellie who’d say, ‘Let’s suppose that we’ve bought Gipsy’s Acre and that we’re building a house there.’
I had told her a lot about Santonix and about the houses he’d built. I tried to describe to her the kind of houses they were and the way he thought about things. I don’t think I described it very well because I’m not good at describing things. Ellie no doubt had her own picture of the house—our house. We didn’t say ‘our house’ but we knew that’s what we meant …
So for over a week I wasn’t to see Ellie. I had taken out what savings I had (there weren’t many), and I’d bought her a little green shamrock ring made of some Irish bog stone. I’d given it to her for a birthday present and she’d loved it and looked very happy.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
She didn’t wear much jewellery and when she did I had no doubt it was real diamonds and emeralds and things like that but she liked my Irish ring.
‘It will be the birthday present I like best,’ she said.
Then