White Boots. Noel Streatfeild
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and clever-looking. Usually he was too busy to do much talking, but this time he seemed in a talking mood. He opened the door of his car and told Harriet to hop into the seat beside him, he had got a visit or two to do and then he would take her home.
“I must say,” he agreed, “you do look a miserable little specimen; I hoped you’d pick up after that convalescent home the hospital sent you to.”
Harriet looked at him sadly, for she thought he was too nice to be so ignorant.
“I don’t see why I should have got better at that convalescent home.”
“It’s a famous place.”
“But it’s at the top of a cliff, and everything goes on at the bottom of the cliff, sea-bathing and the sands and everything nice like that. I could never go down because my legs were too cotton-woolish to bring me back.”
The doctor muttered something under his breath which sounded like “idiots”, then he said:
“Haven’t you any relations in the country that you could go and stay with for a bit?”
“No, we’ve only Uncle William; he’s only got two rooms and use of a bathroom and one of his two rooms is his kitchen. He shoots and catches and grows the things Daddy sells in the shop. Mummy says it’s a pity he wouldn’t have room for me because he eats all the best things, so all that food would do me good, but I don’t think it would because I’m not very hungry.”
The doctor thought about Harriet’s father’s shop and sighed. He could well believe Uncle William ate the best of everything for the shop looked as if he did. All he said was:
“You tell your father and mother I’ll be along to have a talk with them this evening.”
Since she had been ill Harriet was made to go to bed at the same time as Edward, which was half-past six. This was a terrible insult, because Edward was only just seven, whereas she was nearly ten, so when Dr Phillipson arrived, only Alec and Toby were up. The Johnsons lived over the shop. There was not a great deal of room for a family of six. There was a kitchen-dining room, there was a sitting room, one bedroom for the three boys, a slip of a room for Harriet and a bedroom for George and Olivia. When Dr Phillipson arrived Olivia was in the kitchen cooking the things George had not sold, Alec and Toby were doing their homework at one side of the table in the sitting room, while on the other side their father tried to work out the accounts. The days when their father did the accounts were bad days for Alec’s and Toby’s homework, because accounts were not their father’s strong point.
“Alec, if I charge ninepence each for four hundred cabbages, and twopence a pound for four dozen bundles of carrots, three and sixpence each for eight rabbits, and thirty shillings for miscellaneous fish, and we’ve only sold a quarter of the carrots, half the cabbages, one of the rabbits, and all the fish but three, but we’ve made a very nice profit on mushrooms, how much have I earned?”
Toby, who was eleven and had what his schoolmaster called a mathematical brain, was driven into a frenzy by these problems of his father’s. He was short-sighted, and had to wear spectacles, and a piece of his sandy-coloured hair was inclined to stand upright on the crown of his head. When his father asked questions about the finance of the shop, his eyes would glare from behind his spectacles, and the piece of hair on the crown of his head would stand bolt upright like a guardsman on parade. He would be in such a hurry to explain to his father that he could not present a mathematical problem in that form that his first words fell out on top of each other.
“But-Father-you-haven’t-told-Alec-the-price of the mushrooms on which the whole problem hangs, nor the individual prices of the fish.”
It was in the middle of one of these arguments that Olivia brought Dr Phillipson in. In spite of having to cook all the things Uncle William sent which would not sell, Olivia succeeded in looking at all times as if she was a hostess entertaining a very nice and amusing house party. In the kitchen she always wore an overall but underneath she had pretty clothes; they were usually very old because there was seldom money for new clothes, but she had a way of putting them on and of wearing them which seemed to say, “Yes, isn’t this pretty? How lucky I am to have nice clothes and time to wear them.” As she ushered Dr Phillipson into the sitting room it ceased to be full of George, Alec and Toby all arguing at the tops of their voices, and of Alec’s and Toby’s school books, and George’s dirty little bits of paper on which he kept his accounts, and she was showing a guest into a big, gracious drawing room.
“Dr Phillipson’s come to talk to us about Harriet.”
The Johnson children were properly brought up. Alec and Toby jumped to their feet murmuring, “Good evening, sir,” and Alec gave the doctor a chair facing George.
The doctor came straight to the point.
“Harriet is not getting on. Have you any relations in the country you could send her to?”
George, though he only had two, offered the doctor a cigarette.
“But of course, my dear fellow, my brother William has a splendid place, love to have her.”
The doctor was sure George would not have many cigarettes so he said he preferred to smoke his own. Olivia signalled to Alec and Toby not to argue.
“It’s quite true, Dr Phillipson, my brother-in-law William would love to have Harriet, but unfortunately he has only got two rooms, and he’s very much a bachelor. All my relations live in South Africa. We have nowhere to send Harriet or, of course, we would have sent her long ago.”
The doctor nodded, for he felt sure this was true. The Johnsons were the sort of people to do almost more than was possible for their children.
“It’s not doing her any good hanging about by the river at this time of year.”
Toby knew how Harriet felt.
“What she would like is to go back to school, wouldn’t she, Alec?”
Alec was very like his mother; he had some of her elegance and charm, but as well he had a very strongly developed strain of common sense. He could see that Harriet in her present daddy-long-legs stage was not really well enough for school.
“That’s what she wants, but she’s not fit for it, is she?”
“No, she needs to exercise those legs of hers. Do they do gymnasium or dancing at her school?”
“Not really,” said Olivia. “Just a little ballroom dancing once a week and physical exercises between classes, you know the sort of thing.”
The doctor turned to George.
“Would your finances run to sending her to a dancing school or a gymnasium? It would have to be a good one where they knew what they were doing.”
George cleared his throat. He hated that kind of question, partly because he was a very proud father who wanted to give his children every advantage, and who, except when he was asked direct questions by doctors, tried to pretend he did give them most advantages.
“I don’t think I could manage it just now. My father left me a bit, and Olivia will come into quite a lot some day, but just now we’re mainly dependent on the shop, and November’s a bit of an off-season. You see, my brother William…” His voice tailed away.
The doctor, who knew about the shop, felt sorry and filled in the pause by saying “Quite.” Then suddenly he had an idea.
“I’ll tell you what. How about skating? The manager of the rink is a patient of mine. I’ll have a word with him about Harriet. I’m sure he’d let her in for nothing. There’d be the business of the boots and skates, but I believe you can hire those.”
Alec nodded.
“You can. I think skating’s a good idea. If you can get your friend to give her a pass we’ll manage the boots and skates.”
The doctor got up.
“Good.