Read Online School for Love by Olivia Manning - Free Book Online Page B

her hair stood out in wisps. She came to the table holding knitted gloves and kept them on her knees during the meal.
    She took no notice of Frau Wagner’s polite remark, but feeling the fire on her legs she jerked round and looked at it: ‘So glad you did not fail to light the fire,’ she said, ‘I am fortunate in never feeling the cold myself, but they
say
the winters here are chilly. Well, let us have some nice hot soup.’
    She served the soup in a rapid, businesslike way, keeping her eyes off Frau Wagner. It was pale soup and no longer hot.
    ‘I see,’ Frau Wagner leant smiling towards Miss Bohun, ‘you have a Count for a butler! But how chic!’
    Miss Bohun, surprised now into looking at her, frowned, as bewildered as Felix had been: ‘We haven’t got a butler,’ she said.
    ‘Frau Wagner means Nikky,’ said Felix. ‘He brought in the soup.’
    ‘Oh!’ Miss Bohun made no other comment, but said: ‘Excuse me if I eat quickly; I’ve got to go out.’
    ‘But how extraordinary to find a Polish Count who will work, I have never known it.’ Frau Wagner laughed and gave Miss Bohun a sidelong glance. ‘He must do it for love, I think.’
    Miss Bohun put down her spoon and compressed her lips. She rang the bell.
    Frau Wagner gave an exaggerated sigh, saying: ‘Ah-ha,’ as she did so. ‘I, too, must work. In Vienna how different! My husband had a great factory. We had such a house, such a park – the Nazis took all, they took myhusband, too, and now I must work. I am a cook. To think! Once I could not make water, now I make all.’
    Mr Jewel guffawed and Felix began to giggle in spite of himself. Frau Wagner cocked an eye at them with the humorous sternness of a pantomime dame, revealing that she had had success before with that one. Miss Bohun, looking from one to the other of them, seemed bewildered, but when no one explained the joke, she became irritated and gave the bell a second ring. The others subsided under the noise. There was silence.
    ‘Really!’ Miss Bohun burst out. ‘What has happened to Frau Leszno?’ She was about to get up when Maria, wraith-thin, bent, her face dark and wrinkled as a prune, came in. Miss Bohun asked sharply: ‘Where is Frau Leszno?’
    ‘She sick.’
    ‘Sick!’ Miss Bohun spoke less with concern than with disgust. Maria picked up the empty tureen and as she went out with it Miss Bohun called after her: ‘Tell Frau Leszno to come here.’
    Everyone was silenced by Miss Bohun’s annoyance. They scarcely breathed until Maria returned with the second course.
    ‘Frau Leszno in bed,’ she said.
    ‘What’s the matter with her?’
    ‘She got headache.’
    ‘But she
can’t
have a headache.’ Miss Bohun spoke with such decision that, looking round at the others, she felt forced to explain. ‘Frau Leszno is a member of the “Ever-Readies”. We don’t believe in illness.’
    ‘So?’ Frau Wagner made an elegant move of interest.
    ‘Frau Leszno say light in kitchen very bad and give her a headache.’ Maria left the room.
    Miss Bohun clicked her tongue.
    Frau Wagner asked in a tone high with interest: ‘Please to tell me, what is this “Ever-Readies”? It is like a trade name, is it not?’
    ‘“The Ever-Ready Group of Wise Virgins” existed long before trade names.’
    ‘How interesting, but please to tell me about it. I am greatly curious.’
    Miss Bohun stood up to carve the meat. ‘I have no time now, I fear, to satisfy anyone’s curiosity.’
    ‘What a pity! But another time, yes?’
    ‘I cannot promise, Frau Wagner. We make a point of revealing our creed only to a select few. Please pass this to Frau Wagner.’ Miss Bohun gave to Felix on her left a plate which she might as easily have placed before Frau Wagner on her right. It held a sliver of meat so small that Felix felt compelled to say as he handed it over the table:
    ‘Are you sure you won’t have more than that?’
    ‘Oh no, oh no,’ said Frau Wagner, ‘I could not possibly eat