Noel Streatfeild - White Boots

“Mummy, mustn’t it be simply awful to be Lalla? Imagine going home every day with no one to talk to, except Nana, who knows what’s happened because she was there all the time. Wouldn’t you think to be only one like Lalla was the most awful thing that could happen to anybody?”

Olivia thought of the three cars and the chauffeur, and Lalla’s lovely clothes, and of the funny food they had to eat at home, and the shop that never paid. Then she thought of George and the boys, and the fun of hearing about Alec’s first day on the paper round, and how everybody would want to know about Harriet’s afternoon at the rink. Perhaps it was nicer to laugh till you were almost sick over the queer shop-leavings you had to eat, than to have the grandest dinner in the world served in lonely state to two people in a nursery. She squeezed Harriet’s hand.

“Awful. Poor Lalla, we must make a vow, Harriet. Aunt Claudia or no Aunt Claudia let’s make friends with Lalla.”

LALLA’S HOUSE WAS the exact opposite of Harriet’s house. It was not far away, but in a much grander neighbourhood. It was a charming, low, white house lying back in a big garden, with sloping lawns leading down to the river. Where the lawn and the river joined there was a little landing stage, to which, in the summer, Lalla’s Uncle David kept his motor launch tied. Lalla’s rooms were at the top of the house. A big, low room looking over the river, which had been her nursery, was now her schoolroom, and another big room next to it, which had been her night nursery, was now her bedroom. As well there was a room for Nana and a bathroom. Her bedroom was the sort of bedroom that most girls of her age would like to have. The carpet was blue and the bedspread and curtains white with wreaths of pink roses tied with blue ribbons on them, and there was a frill of the same material round her dressing-table. The only ugly thing in the room was the glass case over her bed in which the skates and boots in which her father was drowned were kept. The nicest skating boots in the world are not ornamental, and these, although they had been polished, looked as though someone had been drowned in them, for the black leather had got a brownish-green look. Underneath the case was a plaque which Aunt Claudia had put up. It had the name of Lalla’s father on it, the date on which he was born, and the date on which he was drowned, and underneath that he was the world’s champion figure skater. Above the case Aunt Claudia had put some words from the Bible: “Go, and do thou likewise.” This made people smile for it sounded rather as if Aunt Claudia meant Lalla to be drowned. Lalla did not care whether anybody smiled at the glass case or not, for she thought it idiotic keeping old skates and boots in the glass case, and knew from what Nana had told her that her father and mother would have thought it idiotic; in fact she was sure everybody thought it idiotic except Aunt Claudia.

The schoolroom, which Lalla sometimes forgot to call the schoolroom and called the nursery, was another very pretty room. It had a blue carpet and blue walls, lemon-yellow curtains and lemon-yellow seats to the chairs, and cushions to the window seats. It still had proper nursery things like Lalla’s rocking-horse and dolls’ house, and a toy cupboard simply bulging with toys, but as well it had low bookcases, full of books, pretty china ornaments, good pictures and a wireless set. The only things which did not go with the room were on a shelf which ran all down one wall; this was full of the silver trophies that her father had won. It is a very nice thing to win silver trophies, but a great many of them all together do not look pretty; the only time Lalla liked the trophies was at Christmas, because then she filled them with holly, and they looked gay. Although every trophy and medal had her father’s name on it, where he had won it, what for, and the date on which it had been won, Aunt Claudia was afraid Lalla might forget to read the inscriptions, which was sensible of her because Lalla certainly would not have read them, so underneath the whole length of the shelf was a quotation from Sir Walter Scott altered by Aunt Claudia to fit a girl by changing “his” and “him” into “her”. “Her square-turn’d joints and strength of limb, Show’d her no carpet knight so trim, But in close fight a champion grim.” When Aunt Claudia came to the nursery she would sometimes read the lines out loud in a very grand acting way. She hoped hearing them said like that would inspire Lalla to further effort, but all it did was to make Lalla decide that she would never read any book by Sir Walter Scott. Sometimes Lalla and Nana had a little joke about the verse; Lalla would jump out of her bed or her bath and fling herself on Nana saying “Her square-turn’d joints and strength of limb” and then she would butt Nana with her head and say “That butt never came from a carpet knight, did it?”

On the day that Lalla met Harriet she and Nana had an exceptionally gay tea. Nana had let Lalla do what she loved doing, which was kneeling by the fire making her own toast, instead of having it sent up hot and buttered from the kitchen, which meant the top slice had hardly any butter on it because it had run through to the bottom one. They talked about Harriet and the rink, Lalla in an excited way and Nana rather cautiously. Lalla laughed at Nana and said she was being “mimsy-pimsy” and asked if it was because she didn’t like the Johnsons. Nana shook her head.

“I liked them very much, dear; Mrs Johnson’s a real lady, as anyone can see, and little Harriet, for all she’s so shabby, has been brought up as a little lady should. But I don’t want you to go fixing your heart on having her here. You know what it is, your Aunt Claudia has got strict ideas of who you should know, and I don’t think, if she was to see Harriet, she would think she was your sort, not having the money to live as you do.” Nana could see this was going to make Lalla angry, so she added:“Now don’t answer back, dear, you know I’m speaking sense. I don’t think it matters about what money a person has, no more than you do, but your aunt’s your guardian, and she sets great store by money, and you know you’ve been brought up never to want for anything, so you must be a good girl and not mind too much if you’re not allowed to have Harriet here.”

“But I want to go to Harriet’s house. I want to be in a family.”

“I dare say, but maybe want will have to be your master. The one that pays the piper calls the tune, and the piping in this house is done by your Aunt Claudia, and you know it.”

Nana had only just finished saying this when the door opened and Aunt Claudia walked in. Nana was swallowing a sip of tea, and she was so upset at Aunt Claudia having so narrowly missed hearing what she had said that she choked. Lalla thought this funny and began to giggle. Aunt Claudia did not like either choking or giggling, and her voice sounded as though she did not. She was a very nice-looking aunt in a hard sort of way. She had fair hair that looked as if it had been gummed into place, because there was never one hair out of order; her face was always beautifully made up, so that cold winds, hot weather, even colds in the head, never made any difference to it. She wore beautiful, expensive clothes and lovely jewels. Although she felt annoyed to find Nana choking and Lalla giggling, she did not let it show on her face, because she knew that made wrinkles. The only place where it showed was in her blue eyes, which had a sparkish look.