Alfred and Emily (10 page)

The proprietor, who knew Cedric, waved them to a table and pretended to tut-tut at Fiona's cheeks.

‘Now, just show you are a free spirit,' said Cedric to Fiona, who might be laughing, but she was not far from tears. ‘Rise above it.'

‘It seems I have no alternative,' said Fiona, and pretended to shake her fist at some people pointing at her I-am-for-Serbia hairdo.

‘Champagne,' said Cedric, which at once was brought. It seemed everyone was drinking champagne. In Longerfield
people drank champagne on birthdays and special occasions.

‘Aunt Emily,' said Fiona, ‘I am so ashamed. How can you ever take me seriously after this?'

‘I thought Aunt Emily would like to see how the death of empires can be celebrated by the way people do their hair,' said Cedric. ‘Would you believe it, Aunt Emily? Last night here, just outside these two restaurants, this one, Turkish Delights, and the Last Word, next door, they were fighting because girls wearing ringlets went into the Serbs.'

‘I wonder what the Serbs would say, or the Turks?' remarked Emily.

‘Oh, how frivolous, yes, you are right. But don't forget, we are the surplus generation; we have to assert ourselves.'

A newspaper had come out with a leader saying the young men were restless because there had been no war, and they felt they had not been tested. ‘They had been surplus to requirements.' At once the young men were wearing badges and buttons claiming they were Surplus.

Fiona, drinking champagne as if it were medicine, burst out with, ‘Aunt Emily – I hope I may call you aunt. I am not a Martin-White yet, though I shall soon be…This has been such an unlucky start. I did so want you to take me seriously.'

‘Of course she must take you seriously. She has seen you defy the opposing hordes of ringlet-wearers.'

‘Aunt Emily,' insisted Fiona, ‘I simply do have to tell you how much I admire this idea of yours.' And holding her champagne high so she could take restoring sips, she dabbed her wet eyes and, with scarlet cheeks, insisted, ‘You see, I've
been working in the East End now for months, and it is so awful. People never believe it when I tell them. The poverty is so bad. When I see the children, so thin, their poor little ribs sticking out, I simply can't believe that in this rich country of ours…'

Clearly Fiona had already had some practice in public speaking, and Emily interrupted to say, ‘But I was working with the poorest of the poor myself, when I was at the Royal Free.'

But Fiona was sweeping on. ‘If I can do anything at all to help you, I will. When Cedric told me about your plans, it was my wildest dream come true.'

And so she went on, while the waiters brought their plates.

‘Fiona,' said Cedric, ‘just let me interrupt. Aunt Emily, the food here is really very good…'

‘Oh, Cedric, food, yes, I know. And some of the people I saw in the East End hadn't had a square meal for months.'

A waiter came from the street entrance, bent to speak to a diner near the door and, with a triumphant glance around this enemy place, went out. The man whom the waiter had spoken to held up his hand. ‘We came from next door. From the Last Word. He says there is news that the battle at Kosovo ended last night. It's a big victory for the Serbs.'

‘Surely,' said Cedric, addressing everyone, ‘it ought to be called a draw because battles at Kosovo will certainly break out again.'

At this some people shouted at him. There wasn't a note of mockery in it, as there had been on the pavement.

A group of young men got up from the back of the restaurant and advanced on Cedric.

‘Good Lord,' said Cedric. ‘A lynch mob.'

The proprietor came running forward, waved back the threatening young men and said to Cedric, ‘Sir, in your own interests, do please leave,' and he indicated Fiona's flagrant cheeks under the Serbian locks.

Cedric got up, pulled up Fiona, and Emily got up too.

‘Never mind,' said Cedric. ‘I know a good place just near here.' And with one arm around Emily, the other around Fiona, he steered them out of Turkish Delights.

On the pavement the Serbian supporters were whooping and dancing.

‘No, Fiona,' said Cedric, ‘come away. Everyone knows you are a Serbie.' And he took them down the street to a restaurant where he was known.

‘Aunt Emily,' said Fiona, ‘I am a serious person. Please believe me.'

Next day at Emily's hotel, Cedric said that Fiona was mortified and desolate, he hoped Emily could see – and he was here to assure her that Fiona was as sensible a girl as anyone could wish.

‘Cedric,' said Emily, ‘don't you understand? I have been making plans thinking of me, and of my old friend Daisy, and perhaps one or two others, but here I am with you – and we have only recently got to know each other, and now there's Fiona and —'

‘But, Aunt Emily, you can't possibly imagine you can do all
you plan with just you and one or two others. For one thing, you'll need a secretary.'

‘I'll think about it all,' said Emily.

‘But not for too long,' said Cedric.

At once a letter arrived from Daisy, saying that two houses were going for a song not far from the one she and Emily had shared: Rupert had bought them for this new venture. At once Cedric arrived, and again, Emily having opened her house, the two sat at the great table in the dining-room.

‘And now, Aunt Emily!'

‘Daisy doesn't want to be bothered with business things: she's getting married. You must make the people involved, Daisy, her Rupert, me, you…'

‘And Fiona, I hope?'

‘Very well.'

‘You won't be sorry. She's such a good girl. I simply cannot believe my luck, getting her.'

And so it was, and Emily found herself very busy.

And very alone. Daisy was in the throes of ‘flowers and fuss'. So was Fiona.

Emily, alone in her big house, stared hard into her mirror and told herself that she was sad not because she wasn't getting married but because she believed she had never been married, not really. She compared herself and William with Daisy and Rupert – ‘But they are really fond of each other,' whispered Emily, thinking that this was a stern face looking back at her. She contrasted it with Daisy's, all smiles these days, and when she thought of the young couple, Cedric and
Fiona, tears definitely threatened. Just imagine her William joking and teasing, like Cedric – not to be thought of! Those two couples, one middle-aged, one so young, were both inside a kind of happiness Emily had never known. And so, Emily admonished her face, bleak enough, in the reflected light from the glass, there was something wrong with her. There must be. Cedric said that Fiona was ‘such fun'. Daisy wrote that ‘I am so happy, Emily, and never expected to be.'

But luckily there was plenty of work to do.

Cedric dropped in with documents, plans, ideas. ‘It's lucky, Aunt Emily, that nothing much is expected of a bridegroom. Poor Fiona.'

‘Cedric, I am getting letters by every post. Do we really want to staff our schools with society girls?'

‘I hope you are not calling Fiona a society girl, Aunt Emily.'

‘Look, Cedric.' She pushed towards him a heap of the letters.

‘I'll take these. I'm bound to know most of them. I'll make sure you choose right.'

And, again, ‘Cedric, surely we don't need so many bishops.'

‘You can never have too many bishops. We'll just choose the fanciest for our letterhead.'

He asked her to write down, in a paragraph, how she visualized their project in five years' time – and ten years' time. He said, ‘William left you a tidy sum, Aunt Emily, but not enough to pay for all you are planning. No, I'll draft you a nice little charity. We must have bishops for that. Archbishops would be better. And perhaps a royal or two. I tell you who we must
have to run all that. Fiona's cousin, Madge. She's really a whiz at all things charitable.'

How very odd, Emily thought. It's a question of schools and books for the poor, and suddenly I spend all my time with Lady this and the Honourable that, not to mention tea with bishops.

Daisy got herself wed, Fiona did too, and in no time the girl was Emily's right hand, always there, responsible, clever, everything Emily could have wished.

Then, the young couple's new house having fallen through, Emily let Cedric and Fiona her house, keeping a room for herself. But she liked better her flat in the house in Beak Street.

Within six months, the first William Martin-White school was open, and already a great success.

After the first school was opened, Mary Lane often came to London, though at first she was shocked by what she saw, the unhealthy little children of the East End: ‘We do have poverty in the country, yes,' she said, ‘but I've never seen anything as bad as this.' She stayed with Emily, when she was there, but there was a good bit of travelling to be done: requests for information about these Martin-White schools came from other cities. And soon there was a bonus, because Daisy, now the fuss and flowers were over, came often to observe and to help when she could. She planned to retire soon, so intriguing did she find the schools. Then Harold retired, and he too visited London, though never without saying how shocking he found it, a feverish, hysterical place. He had a ‘lair' in
Rupert and Daisy's house and there he and Rupert might sit to discuss the world and its affairs. Though not often, for Rupert was so busy.

Mary Lane told Emily that ‘the two wives', which was how she described Betsy and Phyllis, had set up a school, and it was doing well, using all kinds of tips from the Martin-White schools – there were soon three in London alone.

Why did not the Longerfield school ask to be a Martin-White school? They did, and were refused: a stipulation was that there must be a Montessori teacher in every accredited school.

‘Well, never mind,' said Mary. ‘It's a good little school and I am sure you would think so. So, come down and see it.'

She did not press, and Emily might have wondered why. Something had happened that involved her, and perhaps it would be better, people decided, if she did not know about it. And she never did know: this was a credit to everyone's discretion.

Bert, who really couldn't stand Emily, though he wouldn't have been able to say why, had taken to mocking her storytelling – the mice and the cat and the birds, and so on. He mimicked her well, and people laughed at his ‘And then the dear little rats ate up all the cats and soon the mice…' and so on. The venom of his dislike for Emily made his mockery upsetting to her friends, and he was asked to desist, but he did not. And then the surprising thing happened. Some small children, hearing Bert's rather nasty mimicry, did not ‘take in' that this was criticism of their dear aunt Emily, and cried out,
‘Uncle Bert is telling stories, he is telling stories. Tell us a story, Uncle Bert…'

Bert was quite affronted, then shooed them away and even physically went away himself, to the end of the farm, but as soon as he reappeared, it began, ‘Here's Uncle Bert, tell us a story…'

‘And now,' said his wife, Phyllis, ‘you aren't going to be able to get out of this one, are you, Bert?'

Alfred, at first, laughed, for it was funny, this clumsy, shambling man, who had always seemed to be in the act of turning away from whomever he spoke to, or from a situation. How could he turn away from these children – two of them his own, all of whom he had known since they were born?

‘Well,' said Alfred to Bert, ‘why don't you have a shot at it, then? They aren't a critical audience.'

Bert could not bring himself to descend to mice and cats but there were horses now on the farm, and he tried to make up tales about them. But he really didn't have the knack. The children were indulgent: they sat around him, mouths open, eyes expectant always for the magic of Aunt Emily. And Bert could not do it. He simply could not.

He would say, ‘You know that new horse, Grey Boy? Well, we bought him at Doncaster for fifty pounds but he isn't worth that. He can't keep his pace.'

‘A story,' shouted the children. ‘A story, Uncle Bert.'

Mary Lane rescued Bert with gifts of children's books she brought from London. Bert would arrive at the school after the children's lunch and their nap, and read to them. At first
he could not prevent his voice deriding the simple tales, but the children knew he was doing this and said, ‘Not like that. Read it properly.'

This went on quite well, and Bert was kept at it by his wife and by Alfred and Betsy.

And then, as had happened before, he had ‘a bit of a relapse' – as Mary told Emily.

‘Yes, we did keep it up very well, but something got to him – we don't know what – and he was off, and Betsy took him in hand again, but this time it's Alfred too. Alfred and Bert are such friends, they could be brothers, and Alfred nearly went berserk when he found Bert drunk in a ditch outside the pub. Betsy told Bert he had to go back to reading to the children – though some of us are wondering if all those children pestering him didn't set him off. So he and Alfred are in our school every afternoon, reading to the children.'

‘Alfred is?' Emily couldn't grasp this at all.

‘It is a question of keeping Bert at it, do you see? Alfred finds him, wherever he is on the farm, and takes him to the school, and chooses what stories, and he reads, turn by turn with Bert, to the children. And Betsy drops in, too, and sometimes she reads. And so we do need a lot of books. I'd like it if you could donate some, the same as you have for the schools.'

Emily went to her chief suppliers, ordered them to send a good selection of children's books to Longerfield, and went down herself. She stayed with Mary, as usual, and slept in the room where she had slept so often, with Daisy in the other bed. The little blue enamel candlestick was there, in its proper
place, and she lit it to watch the shadows move on the low ceiling where a knot-hole in a beam, or a spider's web, could set off ideas and – when she needed them – stories for the children. Was it the same spider up there, a tiny blotch on the edge of its web? She liked to think so. She liked to think of this room as her real bedroom, this bed her own. These days she was so often in a new room, yet another bed, in towns she did not know, that a little spider's web, spread in the corner, seemed like an assurance that she, too, Emily McVeagh, had something steady and reliable in her. Her life seemed to have been a series of adjustments to arbitrary pressures.