Alfred and Emily (9 page)

Both women vigorously brushed while the candle flames swayed.

Then Daisy remarked, ‘Mary wrote and told me that you have all the children of the district hanging on your words.'

Emily let her brush drop and said, ‘Oh dear. Oh, Daisy, what have I done?' And she burst into tears, and flung herself back on her pillows.

Daisy let her brush rest and said, ‘But, Emily, whatever is the matter?'

‘Have I done wrong? Did she complain? Oh, Daisy…' And the sobbing intensified.

Daisy sat up straight, and said, ‘Emily!' in a scandalized voice. ‘What has got into you, Emily? Stop it at once.'

Emily muffled her sobs. ‘All these children coming here and Mary feeding them and being so kind.'

‘But, of course, she loves it.'

‘I didn't know it would happen, Daisy. It just – happened.'

‘But, Emily, it's wonderful.
Stop it
.'

‘Is it? Is it?'

‘Everyone admires you for it. You never did things by halves, did you? Stop crying.'

It was occurring to Daisy that Emily had recently lost a husband, but Daisy had secretly believed her friend would be pleased to get rid of him. William, as a poetical young doctor, had had all the nurses in love with him. But William Martin-

White was a different matter, stiff and severe, and people were afraid of him. She was. It did not occur to her that she herself was a pretty formidable figure in the hospital hierarchy.

Daisy enquired, ‘Are you thinking of marrying again, Emily?'

‘God, no,' said Emily, forcefully.

This confirmed what Daisy had thought and now she said, ‘Put out your candle. I want to tell you something.'

Emily obeyed. It was a little blue enamel candlestick, and the candle was a stump. She loved the pretty candlestick, and often left the candle burning, as a sort of company.

‘Now, Emily,' said Daisy, lying down, but leaving her candle burning enough to see if Emily had become herself again, ‘I haven't told you this, I am pretty sure, I've been running around and around, because of Rupert. He wants a wedding soon…But, you see, he is involved with a society for the children of the East End. I am sure you know this, but there is such dreadful poverty there.'

Emily had not for years been conscious of much poverty. The people who had come to her parties were all well-off, if not rich. When she came to think of it, servants were the closest she had come to London poverty. Here, in the weeks she had been with the Lanes, she had visited the Redways in their fine house and had not been in the cottages of the farm workers. Their children, she thought, were not lacking in anything. They were warmly dressed and had plenty to eat. She believed their schools weren't up to much, though.

Britain was wealthy, was booming, was at a level of
prosperity the leader writers and public figures congratulated themselves and everybody on. Britain had not had a war since the Boer War; nor were there wars in Western Europe, which was on a high level of well-being. It was enough only to contrast the dreadful situation of the old Austrian Empire and the Turkish Empire, in collapse, to know that keeping out of war was a recipe for prosperity.

Various skirmishes in Africa, which could have grown worse, were damped down, because ‘Why spoil what we have?' France, Germany, the Low Countries were booming.

But the riches of Britain, which was as full of big houses and high-living people as it in had been Edwardian times, did not seem to percolate downwards.

Daisy, keeping an eye on Emily in case she would start her crying again, sat up, and told her that the children of the East End (‘and I'm only talking about London, mind you') were as pitifully ill-fed, unclad, dirty ‘as a lot of little savages, Emily. Anyway, Rupert is going to set up this society, and we have a good many well-known supporters. We aim to change the East End. It is a disgrace that a great rich city like London should tolerate such poverty.' She went on for a while, saw that Emily had gone to sleep, and went to sleep herself.

Next day, Emily said she had taken in what Daisy had told her, and now that she was herself again, please would Daisy repeat it. While Emily and Mary admitted the hordes of children, ‘Tell us a story, Auntie, tell us a story,' Daisy briefed Emily, and begged for her support. ‘You are so good at this
kind of thing, Emily. We need your energy, your efficiency. I've told Rupert you must be with us, and he says he remembers you very well from your time at the hospital. So all you have to do is to say yes.'

Emily said yes, but meanwhile other plans were hatching, which she discussed with Mary, who remarked that she wondered where Emily had got all her knowledge about books and stories. This caused Emily to write to her stepmother and ask if she could come and see her old books, if they still existed.

‘Your room hasn't been touched, and your father, I am sure, would like to see you.'

Emily went to London, feeling she was leaving her true self behind. Perhaps she should find a farmer to marry, she mused.

The house in Blackheath had not changed, with not so much as a lick of paint. She refused to remember childhood scenes and feelings and went straight in to her father, who was, these days, very large and red-faced.

‘You have had a loss, I hear,' said he. She had sent him a letter about her husband's death. ‘He had a heart-attack, did he? I had a bit of a stroke myself.'

‘Yes, it was a bad heart-attack.'

‘I am careful what I eat and drink.'

She discussed her father's health for a while and then went up to her room, which her stepmother said had not been touched.

She found it the same as when she had left it twenty-two
years ago. She briefly swung open the door of the wardrobe, caught a glimpse of her schoolgirl clothing, and shut the door hard. She was furious.

There was an old oak bookcase under the window, and she sat in front of it, on the floor, and looked hard at the faded old books. First, there was a pile of maps, and atlases: yes, she had done well at geography. On what principle had these books been chosen? Books had just appeared, addressed to her, and she had taken them to her room.
The Moonstone, The Woman
in White
. Sherlock Holmes.
Peter Pan
: yes, indeed, she had wept over Peter Pan. George Meredith, all of Dickens, from the look of it. All of Trollope.
Middlemarch
and
The Mill on
the Floss
. William Blake: yes, she had had to recite ‘O Rose, thou art sick' in class, but had had no idea what it was she was saying. The poems of Byron, Matthew Arnold, Shelley, Words-worth, Tennyson. Thomas Hardy – but not
Jude the Obscure
.
Moby Dick
, Hawthorne, John Keats. Shakespeare. The Lambs'
Tales from Shakespeare
. Lamb's essays.
Plain Tales from the Hills
. Palgrave's
Golden Treasury
. John Ruskin's
The Stones of Venice
,
Vanity Fair
…She had read lying on her bed, read here, where she was sitting. Books – a place of peace and calm, where she had been able to hide away from…Books were good. Reading was good. ‘Are you going up to read, Emily? That's good.'

He had done well for her, her father. And on a table, piled tidily, copies of Walter Scott, in dark red leather bindings, but no one had read them. That was odd, wasn't it? She went down to say to her father, ‘Thank you. You have no idea how well it has served me – reading.' But he was asleep and
snoring. She found her stepmother and suggested that surely it was time to get rid of her girlhood clothes.

So, with the chill of that ancient rupture from her father still on her, she left, while at the same time blessing him: Thank you.

She visited several bookshops, said she would be ordering a lot of books, and enquired about trade prices.

She went back to the Lanes', triumphant.

‘Thank you, Mary. It wouldn't have occurred to me to go and see what books I had,' and, when supper was over, she told Mary and Harold her plans, watching their faces for signs of doubt or disapproval. But both were pleased.

Harold said, ‘I knew you wouldn't just mope about. It isn't in you.'

Mary said, ‘I knew you'd come up with something really good.'

Harold went off to his lair, and the two women talked, until Mary said that Emily would need a good lawyer.

During this talk it emerged that Daisy would be in on these schemes. Not a word had been said by Daisy to her mother, nothing about her future, only that she wanted a quiet wedding, in a registry office, but if she, Mary, insisted, they could have a reception in a hotel – a small one.

Emily ended her news, saying, ‘You've been so good to me, Mary. A girl doesn't need a mother if she has a friend like you.'

The two wept in each other's arms, but for very different reasons.

* * *

Emily wrote to Cedric Martin-White, and the two met in Emily's house, which she entered reluctantly. What a pleasant, bright, airy place it was, how much nicer and brighter than the Lanes' house, yet she felt it like a shadow enclosing her. It disapproved of her! Why? Oh, how fanciful and silly.

Cedric and Emily sat at the great table that had held so many of William and Emily's dinner parties. Cedric, told he would have to take notes, had brought notebooks and pencils and sat there, opposite Emily, the very essence of a responsible businessman. He was, in fact, a lawyer.

Having so recently expounded her plans to Mary, Emily had them at her fingertips and it did not take long to tell Cedric what she wanted.

He said at once that it did not seem clear what Daisy's and her Rupert's role was in all this. Were they discussing one or different organizations?

‘I think we want roughly the same things.'

‘I can make provisions for a society with similar parallel aims, or two societies. You are very sure of what you want, Aunt Emily.'

‘Yes, very.'

‘Then, why don't you set up a society or trust, or whatever we decide, run entirely by yourself? There is a great deal to be said for a single controlling voice. The more people you add, the more possible disagreements, and even quarrels. Do you know this Rupert?'

‘Everyone knows of him. Rupert Fenn-Richards.'

‘Oh, him. You should have said so. Because you'll need a list of people like bishops and the eminent to add respectability and renown to your proceedings.'

‘Oh dear.'

‘But if you are going to run this thing alone, I want to suggest you have me in. You can always twist me around your little finger, Aunt Emily. I am not likely to oppose your wishes. I like everything you say about it. A lawyer is always a good thing to have, you know.'

‘Ideally, I'd like myself, Daisy Lane and you, then.'

‘Would her husband be happy to be sponsor, to add a general sheen of honour? If he could rope in some more of his kind, so much the better.'

Emily said, ‘And, after all,
I
know quite a lot of people of that kind.' So her dinner parties were turning out to be useful. ‘As for Rupert, he's so busy I doubt he'd do much in the way of actual work. For that matter, if Daisy's going to be married, I expect the pressure will come on for her to stop.' Emily had no idea how resentful she sounded.

Cedric laughed and said, ‘That emboldens me to make a further suggestion. That my fiancée, Fiona, come in with you as an active member.'

‘But I've never met her,' said Emily, already jealous of ceding authority.

‘But I hope that will soon be remedied. I hope you will agree to have lunch with us – perhaps tomorrow? She's mad keen on this idea of yours. What little you said in your letter
was enough to fire her; she hasn't talked of anything else. She has already done a good bit of charity work in the East End, but nothing as good as your idea.'

‘Suppose I don't like her?'

‘Then say no. But I'll be able to wind her around my little finger. You'll see.' His smile was appropriate for a soon-to-be-married man, and Emily saw it and laughed.

‘Oh, that is what you think now.'

‘I don't want a wife who sits at home and has tea parties.' Then, seeing Emily was annoyed, he added, ‘Of course, if she came up with anything as remarkable as your musical evenings…Did I say she is a musician? She is. You really can't do everything yourself, Aunt Emily.'

Emily had in fact been visualizing just that, even though her secret musings included, We'll have our schools in all the cities of Britain.

‘Tomorrow, lunch?'

‘I am going to stay in a hotel,' said Emily. ‘This place is giving me the creeps.'

‘Do you think William has taken to a bit of haunting? I for one wouldn't put it past him. And for me, as you know I'll take this house off you within a week, if you like. Fiona would love it. Did I tell you she's a Lady in her own right?'

Emily looked across the traffic at a pavement where it seemed Cedric and his Fiona were in altercation. But they were laughing. They were surrounded by mostly young people, all
gesticulating – jeering? – and laughing. It was like a chorus for a musical, with Cedric and Fiona as principals. Or was it a hairdressers' convention? She approached, dodging cars, seeing that every girl's head was in one of two modes. Some cheeks had on them a lacquered lock, like the ‘cowlicks' of other times, looking like wood, so solid and sharp were they, in brown, yellow, black, blonde and even, once or twice, grey. The other coiffure was the one Emily already knew, the bunch of ringlets on each cheek, which meant a supporter of the Turks. As Emily arrived at the two, Cedric had his arm around Fiona, confronting an opposing crowd of ringleted girls. ‘We are going to eat,' said Cedric. ‘The food is good.' The ringleted girls gave way as Fiona went through them into the Turkish Delights restaurant. Her hair was in the other mode.

‘I shall not introduce you,' said Cedric, embracing Emily too. ‘By now you must be quite sick of hearing about each other.'