II

When I got back to the house I found Megan sitting on the veranda steps,her chin resting on her knees.

She greeted me with her usual lack of ceremony.

“Hallo,” she said. “Do you think I could come to lunch?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“If it’s chops, or anything difficult like that and they won’t go round, justtell me,” shouted Megan as I went round to apprize Partridge of the factthat there would be three to lunch.

I fancy that Partridge sniffed. She certainly managed to convey withoutsaying a word of any kind, that she didn’t think much of that Miss Megan.

I went back to the veranda.

“Is it quite all right?” asked Megan anxiously.

“Quite all right,” I said. “Irish stew.”

“Oh well, that’s rather like dogs’ dinner anyway, isn’t it? I mean it’smostly potato and flavour.”

“Quite,” I said.

I took out my cigarette case and offered it to Megan. She flushed.

“How nice of you.”

“Won’t you have one?”

“No, I don’t think I will, but it was very nice of you to offer it to me—justas though I was a real person.”

“Aren’t you a real person?” I said amused.

Megan shook her head, then, changing the subject, she stretched out along dusty leg for my inspection.

“I’ve darned my stockings,” she announced proudly.

I am not an authority on darning, but it did occur to me that the strangepuckered blot of violently contrasting wool was perhaps not quite a suc-cess.

“It’s much more uncomfortable than the hole,” said Megan.

“It looks as though it might be,” I agreed.

“Does your sister darn well?”

I tried to think if I had ever observed any of Joanna’s handiwork in thisdirection.

“I don’t know,” I had to confess.

“Well, what does she do when she gets a hole in her stocking?”

“I rather think,” I said reluctantly, “that she throws them away and buysanother pair.”

“Very sensible,” said Megan. “But I can’t do that. I get an allowance now—forty pounds a year. You can’t do much on that.”

I agreed.

“If only I wore black stockings, I could ink my legs,” said Megan sadly.

“That’s what I always did at school. Miss Batworthy, the mistress wholooked after our mending was like her name—blind as a bat. It was aw-fully useful.”

“It must have been,” I said.

We were silent while I smoked my pipe. It was quite a companionablesilence.

Megan broke it by saying suddenly and violently:

“I suppose you think I’m awful, like everyone else?”

I was so startled that my pipe fell out of my mouth. It was a meer-schaum, just colouring nicely, and it broke. I said angrily to Megan:

“Now, see what you’ve done.”

That most unaccountable of children, instead of being upset, merelygrinned broadly.

“I do like you,” she said.

It was a most warming remark. It is the remark that one fancies perhapserroneously that one’s dog would say if he could talk. It occurred to methat Megan, for all she looked like a horse, had the disposition of a dog.

She was certainly not quite human.

“What did you say before the catastrophe?” I asked, carefully picking upthe fragments of my cherished pipe.

“I said I supposed you thought me awful,” said Megan, but not at all inthe same tone she had said it before.

“Why should I?”

Megan said gravely:

“Because I am.”

I said sharply:

“Don’t be stupid.”

Megan shook her head.

“That’s just it. I’m not really stupid. People think I am. They don’t knowthat inside I know just what they’re like, and that all the time I’m hatingthem.”

“Hating them?”

“Yes,” said Megan.

Her eyes, those melancholy, unchildlike eyes, stared straight into mine,without blinking. It was a long mournful gaze.

“You would hate people if you were like me,” she said. “If you weren’twanted.”

“Don’t you think you’re being rather morbid?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Megan. “That’s what people always say when you’re sayingthe truth. And it is true. I’m not wanted and I can quite see why. Mummiedoesn’t like me a bit. I remind her, I think, of my father, who was cruel toher and pretty dreadful from all I can hear. Only mothers can’t say theydon’t want their children and just go away. Or eat them. Cats eat the kit-tens they don’t like. Awfully sensible, I think. No waste or mess. But hu-man mothers have to keep their children, and look after them. It hasn’tbeen so bad while I could be sent away to school—but you see, what Mum-mie would really like is to be just herself and my stepfather and the boys.”

I said slowly:

“I still think you’re morbid, Megan, but accepting some of what you sayas true, why don’t you go away and have a life of your own?”

She gave me an unchildlike smile.

“You mean take up a career. Earn my living?”

“Yes.”

“What at?”

“You could train for something, I suppose. Shorthand typing—bookkeep-ing.”

“I don’t believe I could. I am stupid about doing things. And besides—”

“Well?”

She had turned her face away, now she turned it slowly back again. Itwas crimson and there were tears in her eyes. She spoke now with all thechildishness back in her voice.

“Why should I go away? And be made to go away? They don’t want me,but I’ll stay. I’ll stay and make everyone sorry. I’ll make them all sorry.

Hateful pigs! I hate everyone here in Lymstock. They all think I’m stupidand ugly. I’ll show them. I’ll show them. I’ll—”

It was a childish, oddly pathetic rage.

I heard a step on the gravel round the corner of the house.

“Get up,” I said savagely. “Go into the house through the drawing room.

Go up to the first floor to the bathroom. End of the passage. Wash yourface. Quick.”

She sprang awkwardly to her feet and darted through the window asJoanna came round the corner of the house.

“Gosh, I’m hot,” she called out. She sat down beside me and fanned herface with the Tyrolean scarf that had been round her head. “Still I thinkI’m educating these damned brogues now. I’ve walked miles. I’ve learntone thing, you shouldn’t have these fancy holes in your brogues. The gorseprickles go through. Do you know, Jerry, I think we ought to have a dog?”

“So do I,” I said. “By the way, Megan is coming to lunch.”

“Is she? Good.”

“You like her?” I asked.

“I think she’s a changeling,” said Joanna. “Something left on a doorstep,you know, while the fairies take the right one away. It’s very interesting tomeet a changeling. Oof, I must go up and wash.”

“You can’t yet,” I said, “Megan is washing.”

“Oh, she’s been footslogging too, has she?”

Joanna took out her mirror and looked at her face long and earnestly. “Idon’t think I like this lipstick,” she announced presently.

Megan came out through the window. She was composed, moderatelyclean, and showed no signs of the recent storm. She looked doubtfully atJoanna.

“Hallo,” said Joanna, still preoccupied by her face. “I’m so glad you’vecome to lunch. Good gracious, I’ve got a freckle on my nose. I must dosomething about it. Freckles are so earnest and Scottish.”

Partridge came out and said coldly that luncheon was served.

“Come on,” said Joanna, getting up. “I’m starving.”

She put her arm through Megan’s and they went into the house to-gether.