when she at last spared it an impatient thought, and as she opened the front door of her new home, it seemed an ordinary dull little house that needed painting, standing in an ordinary dull little road.
4
The next day there was of course a great deal to do and Margaret was busy all the morning, but she announced firmly that she was going for a walk in the afternoon, and although her mother grumbled she afterwards admitted that it was a nice day and a walk might do Margaret good; she wouldn’t get much time for walks once school started.
Margaret observed with mixed feelings signs that her mother was about to start upon one of her famous lightning friendships. This time it was with their neighbour on the left, who had come in with a delicate tray of tea and thin bread and butter an hour or so after the Steggles’s arrival. Mrs Steggles could not say enough of such kindness, so thoughtful, so neighbourly! Mrs Piper must come in and have tea with them the moment they were settled; she seemed such a nice woman, quite their sort, not a bit like a London woman, and had Margaret noticed how nicely her home was kept? Quite the neatest garden in the road, and the only other house with frilled curtains. It was quite a coincidence, being next door to each other and both having frilled curtains.
Mrs Steggles’s jealous and irritable temperament made her unconsciously desire the friendship and affection which it kept at bay, and occasionally her loneliness drove her to make violent friendships with women she hardly knew, whose acquaintance she had made in a teashop or a queue. At first all would go well, and no praise could be too high for the new friend, but soon her nature would assert itself, and she would begin to find fault and give unwanted advice, and the friendship would rapidly cool until it was extinct. Each failure added to her bitterness, for it never occurred to her that it might be her fault, and she accused everybody of being jealous and spiteful and two-faced. Mrs Piper of the tea-tray seemed a pleasant enough person, and Margaret hoped that living next door as she did she might prove to be more lasting than her mother’s other flashes-in-the-pan, and provide her with companionship and an interest outside her own home. But the omens were much as usual, and not good.
However, she had forgotten all about it when she set out at two o’clock that afternoon to walk across to Hampstead. She had been perplexed about what time to start, for at all costs she must avoid arriving at Lamb Cottage anywhere near tea-time, in case they should think she was trying to get herself invited to the meal, and she finally decided to present herself at exactly three o’clock.
The villages of Highgate and Hampstead confront one another across a mile or so of small valleys and hills and copses, the whole expanse of some six hundred acres of open land raised upon two broad and swelling hills which look over the immense grey expanse of old London ontheir southern side and the ever-growing red and white expanse of new London upon their northern. Each village upon its hill is marked by a church spire, and both are landmarks for miles. Both villages are romantic and charming, with narrow hilly streets and little two-hundred-year-old houses, and here and there a great mansion of William and Mary’s or James the First’s reign, such as Fenton House in Hampstead and Cromwell House in Highgate; but their chief charm dwells in their cold air, which seems perpetually scented with April, and in the glimpses at the end of their steep alleys of some massive elm or oak, with beyond its branches that abrupt drop into the complex smoky pattern (formed by a thousand shades of grey in winter and of delicate cream and smoke-blue in summer) of London.
The afternoon was fine and windless, and many people were working on the allotments which since the Second World War had spread over the southern slope of Parliament Hill and the sunny valley lying
4
The next day there was of course a great deal to do and Margaret was busy all the morning, but she announced firmly that she was going for a walk in the afternoon, and although her mother grumbled she afterwards admitted that it was a nice day and a walk might do Margaret good; she wouldn’t get much time for walks once school started.
Margaret observed with mixed feelings signs that her mother was about to start upon one of her famous lightning friendships. This time it was with their neighbour on the left, who had come in with a delicate tray of tea and thin bread and butter an hour or so after the Steggles’s arrival. Mrs Steggles could not say enough of such kindness, so thoughtful, so neighbourly! Mrs Piper must come in and have tea with them the moment they were settled; she seemed such a nice woman, quite their sort, not a bit like a London woman, and had Margaret noticed how nicely her home was kept? Quite the neatest garden in the road, and the only other house with frilled curtains. It was quite a coincidence, being next door to each other and both having frilled curtains.
Mrs Steggles’s jealous and irritable temperament made her unconsciously desire the friendship and affection which it kept at bay, and occasionally her loneliness drove her to make violent friendships with women she hardly knew, whose acquaintance she had made in a teashop or a queue. At first all would go well, and no praise could be too high for the new friend, but soon her nature would assert itself, and she would begin to find fault and give unwanted advice, and the friendship would rapidly cool until it was extinct. Each failure added to her bitterness, for it never occurred to her that it might be her fault, and she accused everybody of being jealous and spiteful and two-faced. Mrs Piper of the tea-tray seemed a pleasant enough person, and Margaret hoped that living next door as she did she might prove to be more lasting than her mother’s other flashes-in-the-pan, and provide her with companionship and an interest outside her own home. But the omens were much as usual, and not good.
However, she had forgotten all about it when she set out at two o’clock that afternoon to walk across to Hampstead. She had been perplexed about what time to start, for at all costs she must avoid arriving at Lamb Cottage anywhere near tea-time, in case they should think she was trying to get herself invited to the meal, and she finally decided to present herself at exactly three o’clock.
The villages of Highgate and Hampstead confront one another across a mile or so of small valleys and hills and copses, the whole expanse of some six hundred acres of open land raised upon two broad and swelling hills which look over the immense grey expanse of old London ontheir southern side and the ever-growing red and white expanse of new London upon their northern. Each village upon its hill is marked by a church spire, and both are landmarks for miles. Both villages are romantic and charming, with narrow hilly streets and little two-hundred-year-old houses, and here and there a great mansion of William and Mary’s or James the First’s reign, such as Fenton House in Hampstead and Cromwell House in Highgate; but their chief charm dwells in their cold air, which seems perpetually scented with April, and in the glimpses at the end of their steep alleys of some massive elm or oak, with beyond its branches that abrupt drop into the complex smoky pattern (formed by a thousand shades of grey in winter and of delicate cream and smoke-blue in summer) of London.
The afternoon was fine and windless, and many people were working on the allotments which since the Second World War had spread over the southern slope of Parliament Hill and the sunny valley lying
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