Alfred and Emily (4 page)

Now Bert had not much noticed Emily before, probably he had scarcely known who she was. Now he went on, ‘Marrying in that church, is she? And I suppose you are going to trot off like a good little girl to the wedding.'

Betsy said equably, ‘Bert, I've known Emily for years. I was a probationer in her ward. I was under her for my training. she was good to me. Some of those sisters were real bullies, so I was lucky to get her.'

‘Sister McVeagh into Lady Muck,' shouted Bert. And he bowed clumsily, where he sat, a sort of obeisance, knocking over the toast in its rack.

‘Steady on,' said Mr. Redway. ‘I liked Emily McVeagh. She used to visit Mary Lane.'

‘Well, she won't be coming now,' said Bert. ‘She'll be too grand for that. St Bartholomew bloody Church, and the reception at the Savoy.' And he grabbed the invitation, apparently about to tear it.

Betsy took it from him, and said, ‘Bert, Emily is my friend. Please remember that.'

‘Remember it!' shouted Bert. ‘I expect you'll be reminding us often enough of your grand friends.'

Here Mrs. Redway, who kept a sick headache in store for such occasions, rose to her feet, murmuring, ‘My head…' and left the room.

‘That's enough, Bert,' said Mr. Redway.

‘And I suppose Alfred won't be grand enough for you now,' said Bert.

And Betsy, who was usually good for much worse ‘teasing' from Bert, burst into tears and went to the bedroom.

Mr. Redway was white with anger. ‘I've never been more ashamed…' And he walked out.

Alfred said, ‘And now, Bert, it's time you stopped all this.' He was probably thinking that ‘all' included his drinking. But Bert was not drunk. He had, however, reached that stage when a glass of water or a cup of tea could trigger off the drunkenness of the night before.

‘I'm getting tired of it, Bert. When it comes to making Betsy cry, then that's enough.'

‘But I was only teasing,' said Bert, really upset, both by his father's going, and by Alfred. ‘I was just joking, that was all.'

‘I don't know how often these days I have to comfort Betsy when she cries because of you.'

‘You're making a fuss about nothing,' blustered Bert.

‘Bert, if you can't stop goading Betsy I'm going to take her to live at the Lanes' until our house is done.'

‘You can't do that…you wouldn't do that…' And now Bert was really shaken.

‘Yes, I will,' said Alfred. ‘Listen, Bert, just listen…' And Alfred leaned forward, grabbed Bert by the shoulders, to make him listen. ‘Betsy is my wife,' said Alfred. ‘She has to come first.'

Bert, shocked, was ready to cry himself. ‘But, Alfred, you wouldn't…you couldn't.'

‘Yes,' said Alfred.

‘But it's not as bad as that,' said Bert. ‘It's simply not…'

‘You make her cry and I have to tell her you don't mean it, but now it's enough.'

‘But I love Betsy,' said Bert. ‘I don't make her cry, I just tease her a little.'

‘Well,' said Alfred, looking Bert hard in the face, ‘and
I
love her, and she's my wife.'

Bert said, ‘But you've only known her a little while.' And then, because of the absurdity of it, he went red and said, ‘I'll say I'm sorry,' and he rushed to the bedroom Betsy had taken refuge in, knocked, and ran in. Betsy was crying on her bed.

‘Betsy,' Bert shouted at her. ‘Betsy, I'm sorry. I'm a clumsy brute. I'm so sorry, Betsy.'

Alfred waited a few minutes, then pushed the door open. Bert was kneeling on the floor by Betsy, his head on her lap. It looked as if he might be asleep. Betsy gestured, ‘Rescue me…' And Alfred went to Bert, lifted him, saying, ‘Now, come on, old son, that's enough.' And he put his arm around Bert and steered him out of the room.

‘Thank you,' he heard from Betsy, as the two left.

Betsy and Daisy were to be bridesmaids at Emily's wedding, and today was the day Betsy was to go up to London for a rehearsal and to fit her dress.

She was to go with Mrs. Lane, who was matron of honour.

Soon Betsy came out of the room, dressed for London, and the two men were still at the breakfast table.

She did not look at Bert, but said to Alfred, ‘I'm leaving
now. Perhaps you had better not come.' Bert had been weeping, the sick, self-pitying tears of the alcoholic: it looked as if Alfred had been giving him a real talking-to.

Alfred had been going to London with her: Betsy, Alfred and Mrs. Lane, a festive little party.

Outside the house Mr. Redway was standing, apparently waiting for her.

‘I'll go with you,' he said.

Betsy and her father-in-law proceeded up the path, which soon became a muddy lane.

When they reached the rutted mud, Mr. Redway said, ‘Hold on, I'll carry you across.' He put a large arm around the girl and lifted her, not only for the ten yards or so of the bad part, but until there was no mud. He set Betsy down gently and said, ‘Don't mind Bert. He's not so bad, really. And I think your Alfred will sort him out.'

Betsy was grateful, and said, ‘Thank you. I'm silly to get so upset.'

Meanwhile Bert had said to Alfred, ‘You are going to stay with me? You aren't going to London?'

‘No, I'm staying with you,' said Alfred. But he was wondering how much of this kind of adapting to Bert's weaknesses he must expect in the future.

‘Come on, let's go and have a look at the corn, Bert.'

Bert did not again mention Emily, or the wedding. Alfred would have gone with Betsy to London for the occasion, but when the day came he again said to Bert that he would not go: he would stay. Mr. Redway observed this and said, ‘It's good of
you, Alfred.' And he too went to where Alfred and Betsy's house was being built. Bert, Alfred and Mr. Redway stood watching the builders, making suggestions, and Bert said suddenly, ‘Betsy looked very nice in that dress.'

‘But that's not what she'll wear for the wedding,' said Alfred.

Bert seemed to be about to explode again, in anger, reproach, accusation.

Mr. Redway said, ‘Just think, Bert. What's all this about? Emily McVeagh is getting wed. That's it. That's all.'

And that was why Alfred never got to Emily's wedding.

But the trouble was, if Emily had wed, Bert had not. More than once people had teased him that he was on his way to the altar, but then it all came to nothing. He took to doing his courting where his family and Alfred could not see, but last week, a girl he really did like, when he was taking her home from a dance, saw him fall down, and then watched him being very sick. She told him this was not how she visualized her future – Alfred knew about it, but not the parents, and Bert begged him not to tell them.

‘They've been going on at me about getting married, but you don't seem to find it difficult.'

Now he had followed Betsy with his eyes, smiled when he looked at her, not knowing that he did, and Betsy told Alfred, ‘He's just like Rover.' This was Mr. Redway's big black dog, which adored her.

Then Betsy was being sick, and pregnant, and the doctor began joking that she must be having twins. She was large very
early, and now it was a question of whether the house would be ready in time for the birth.

‘I hope it will be. We don't have room here for a child,' moaned Mrs. Redway, as if Bert had not been brought up in what was a pretty sizeable house.

When Bert returned in the evenings, drunk, Betsy scolded him, and he made excuses, and then one morning, entering the kitchen for breakfast, he had a scarlet weal on his cheek: apparently he did not know it. And now Betsy, seeing it, began to cry and said, ‘Oh, Bert, you have to stop, you must,' while Bert dabbed at his cheek and succeeded in springing the blood, which ran. Betsy ran around to staunch the blood with her napkin while he joked and said it was worthwhile getting a bit of a scar, as she fussed over him.

‘It's not funny, Bert,' she said. ‘I've seen this before, with my cousin Edward. He was a drunk like you and he wouldn't stop and then he left the haycart brakes off and the cart ran back and killed him.'

Mrs. Redway was tittering and gasping. She had watched her son descend through states and conditions of drunkenness but apparently decided not to notice it.

‘Oh, Betsy,' she moaned. ‘Bert isn't…he isn't…'

‘Yes, he is,' said Mr. Redway. ‘And she's right, Bert, you have to stop.'

‘Or you'll be like my Uncle George,' said Betsy. ‘He drank himself to death a couple of Christmases ago.'

‘Betsy has an unlimited number of relatives who can be moral lessons to all of us,' said Alfred.

‘Well, yes, I have,' she said. ‘That's one good thing about being a member of a large family. And I'm sorry for you, Alfred. Not being.'

‘Well, there's my brother,' said Alfred. ‘But I am sure he never drinks anything but champagne.'

‘Champers is no good,' said Bert. ‘It gives you a headache.'

‘I wasn't joking,' said Betsy. She didn't like Alfred's snooty brother. ‘And there's my brother, Percy. No one ever says he's a drunk, but he is. On the way to the DTs,' said Betsy.

Now Alfred began laughing, and choked.

‘Oh, Betsy,' he said.

Bert, relieved at the laughter, laughed too, and Betsy said sharply, ‘It's not funny. If you don't stop, Bert, you'll be dead before you know it.'

Alfred laughed again and Betsy ran out of the room, crying.

‘That's a shame,' said Mr. Redway. ‘You mustn't tease her, in her condition.' Betsy came back, eyes red, and Mr. Redway got up and took her to the chair. ‘You are quite right, Betsy,' he said.

‘And now I'm going to finish saying my piece,' said Betsy. ‘When my Uncle George got so bad, he went to a man in London. He's a famous doctor, and that's where you must go too, Bert.'

Bert, seeing that he was cornered, said, yes, he'd go one of these days.

‘No,' said Betsy. ‘I'll take you. I'll get the address from my mother and I'll write and make an appointment.'

And she did.

On the day of the appointment it was very hot, and she was flushed and uncomfortable, but she said to Alfred, ‘No, I'll take him. If you go with him he'll give you the slip and find a pub. He's afraid of me, you see, but not of you.'

‘Afraid of you?' said Alfred. ‘Who could be?'

‘You'll see,' said Betsy.

Mr. Redway said she could ride to the station on the old white mare, but Betsy said she wouldn't enjoy the motion of the horse. She would walk.

They set off, Mr. Redway, Alfred, Bert and Betsy, along the dusty rutted lane to the station.

Betsy was looking quite sick with the heat, but she said, ‘Don't fuss. I'm all right. And this is important.'

She bribed the guard to find a coupé and she and Bert got on.

Alfred and Mr. Redway watched the train pull away.

‘Well, Alfred,' said Mr. Redway, ‘you've got a prize girl there.'

‘Yes,' said Alfred. ‘I know.'

In London Betsy put her arm through Bert's and said, ‘And now, Bert, you're not to go running off for a drink.'

Bert, who had been planning just that, said, ‘I promise.'

At the doctor's in Wimpole Street, Betsy told the receptionist that this was Mr. Redway and she had made an appointment for him, and she took him by the arm into the waiting-room.

‘I say, Betsy, aren't you riding me a bit too hard?'

‘No. This has to be done, Bert.'

When the receptionist called them, Betsy took him to the
doctor's door, saw him in, and then sat down heavily in the waiting-room: she really was feeling knocked out.

But she had her eye on the doctor's door and ran to it when, after a good long time, more than an hour, it opened. She received Bert, smiled at the doctor, said, ‘I was the one who wrote to you.'

‘And a very good letter it was,' said the great man.

Down in the street, Bert saw that Betsy was scarlet and sweating, and he called a taxi and helped her into it.

And still she held him tight by the arm, and all the way to the train, and again found the guard and gave him money for a coupé.

The guard was more alarmed about Betsy than about Bert, who was sober today.

At the station the other end were Mr. Redway and Alfred, and with them holding her arm on either side, they set off home through the lanes that smelled of may blossom.

‘Oh, that smell,' said Betsy. ‘It makes me want to be sick.'

But she held out, got home, and went to lie down.

It was suppertime.

Mrs. Redway, in her most suffering, gasping voice, at once demanded to know what the doctor had said. It seemed she imagined she would hear, ‘Nothing much.' But Bert said, ‘He told me if I didn't stop drinking I would be dead in ten years.'

Mrs. Redway dabbed her eyes, moaned, ‘Oh, no,' and seemed as if she would faint.

‘And so, Bert,' said his father, ‘that's it. You've got to do it.'

The supper ended. Bert went out to the side of the house
where there was a bench. Alfred followed him, at Mr. Redway's look. He was afraid he would have sneaked off to the pub, but Bert sat on the bench in the late sunlight. Alfred sat by him and Bert said in a low voice, ‘It's made me think, Alf. I really didn't believe it was as bad as that.'

‘You've been pretty bad,' said Alfred.

Bert slumped there, shifted his feet about, sighed, coughed, and sent glances at Alfred.

‘No,' said Alfred. He was finding this gaoler role hard: an easy-going chap, he was, and now he faced months – years – of saying, ‘No, Bert. No.'

After a while Bert said, ‘I'll turn in.' Alfred did not watch him to see if he did go in: it would be easy for Bert to escape. But he was thinking that if he were Betsy, he would watch, and intervene, if he had to.