Children of the Archbishop (13 page)

“My Goda!” Mr. Rapporta exclaimed. “Da wafers too. Firsta da cornets. Thenna da wafers.”

Dr. Trump remained calm.

“I will pay for what is broken,” he said coldly.

Mr. Rapporto let in the clutch.

“You paya all right,” he said. “You ruina me.”

Dr. Trump drew his knees up under his chin.

“Why you jumpa about so?” Mr. Rapporto asked. “You smasha so much.”

Dr. Trump did not reply. And Mr. Rapporto changed the subject.

“Whicha church?” he asked. “What timea da service?” Dr. Trump tried to smile.

“There is no church. And no service,” he said. “That is, I am on my way to tea.”

Mr. Rapporto nodded.

“Wherea she live?” he asked.

Again Dr. Trump tried to smile. But this time no smile would come.

“The Cedars, Putney Heath,” was all he said.

“O.K.,” Mr. Rapporto answered. “You holda tight.”

There was, however, nothing of which to take hold. Dr. Trump sat there, insecure and miserable, conscious that with every jolt of the car he was flung against other boxes all as fragile and as yielding
as the two that he had just demolished. He said nothing. He merely bit his lower lip and closed his eyes.

It was because he had closed his eyes that he was unaware how far they had come. After one particularly abrupt and vicious lurch, he took one quick and anxious glance around him and saw to his consternation that they had reached the front gates of The Cedars. Immediately, he sat bolt upright.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “This is far enough.”

But Mr. Rapporto took no notice.

“I finisha the job,” he replied. “I no letta you walk. I likea you.”

At this, Dr. Trump recognised that if the worst were to be avoided he would have to assert himself.

“I wish to be put down,” he said firmly. “In fact, I … I insist.”.

But Mr. Rapporto was a common sort of man. All that he did was to spit out of the window.

“Soa what?” he asked. “I insista too.”

As he said it, they turned the corner of the drive, and the house—white and spacious—came into view.

“Let me out,” screamed Dr. Trump. “Let me out.”

“You driva me nuts,” was all that Mr. Rapporto replied.

The daffodil and vermilion vanlet came finally to rest between an elderly and upright Daimler and a princely and highly-lacquered Rolls. As Dr. Trump sat there he could see the reflection of his own vulgar ice-cream cart in its panel. He looked away and made ready to go bounding up the steps. Then he stopped, frozen with horror as the front door was opened for him.

“Da cornets,” Mr. Rapporto was calling after him. “Anda da wafers. You paya me now.”

As Dr. Trump entered the drawing-room he gave a start of sheer surprise. It was all so exactly as he had imagined it—the silver tea service, the spirit lamp beneath the hanging kettle, the ancestors around the walls, even the spaniel slumbering on the rug. His peep into the future had been perfect and complete. He felt himself relaxing.

Dame Eleanor rose as he came in.

“You're late, Dr. Trump,” she said. “We've eaten everything.”

Dr. Trump smiled: he had rehearsed the answer to this one.

“Forgive me, Dame Eleanor,” he said. “I sheltered for a moment to allow the worst to pass.”

But it was no use.

“Worst of what?” Dame Eleanor asked.

“The … the rain,” he replied.

“Hasn't been raining here,” Dame Eleanor told him. “You must have imagined it.”

As she spoke the words, Dame Eleanor darted a knowing glance in Bishop Warple's direction.

The Bishop returned the glance. His face was sharp-featured and avian. And, as the mouth creased into a smile, the thin lips opened as though to release a shrill stream of bird-song. But all that emerged was a titter.

“Won't do, you know,” he said, turning towards Dr. Trump, and waving a thin episcopal forefinger. “Have to think of a better excuse next time.”

A feminine and supplementary titter from the window seat made Dr. Trump glance apprehensively in that direction. And, what he saw bewildered him. For now that he looked closely he could see that Bishop Warple was in two places at once: he was there on the window seat as well as in front of the fireplace. The face clearly outlined against the sky showed the same needle-pointed features, the same bright malignant eye, the same peckish tilt of the neck. Then, noticing the difference in the crest, he realised that he was looking not at the Bishop but at some lesser female Warple.

She, for her part, however, was looking even harder at him. And because she was looking so fixedly, so intently, he felt himself growing self-conscious. The blush returned. And, when he spoke, he stammered.

The next moment, a tall sad-looking man by the fire addressed nobody in particular.

“It rained once at Roehampton,” he said slowly. “I remember it. Cats-and-dogs at one end and bright sunshine at t'other. Most extraordinary.”

Dr. Trump smiled gratefully.

“It was like that to-day,” he said.

The sad-looking man fixed his attention on him like a magistrate.

“Were you there?” he asked.

“I was caught in it,” Dr. Trump replied.

“At Roehampton?”

“No. At the top of St. Mark's Avenue.”

“Don't know it,” the sad-looking man answered. “This was years ago. I was playing tennis at the time. Lawn tennis.”

There was a temporary respite while Dr. Trump sipped his tea and the others talked among themselves. The sad-looking man had just remembered something about a waterfall that he had once seen in Norway—and Bishop Warple was making signalling motions to his double in the window seat. He was inviting her to come and join them. Dr. Trump felt better. The tea was warming. And so was the fire. Too warm, in fact. It was making his trouser legs steam. And as they steamed they emitted a strong smell like wet sheep.

Bishop Warple drew in his breath sharply.

“Someone's scorching,” he observed.

And it was not only the Bishop who had noticed it. The spaniel was now awake and curious. He tottered to his feet and came lumbering over. Then, after sniffing for a moment, he growled.

Dame Eleanor seemed surprised.

“The last person Rover did that to was a pickpocket,” she said. “It was in a crowd. Rover detected him instantly.”

“We had pickpockets once at Roehampton,” the sad-looking man observed. “A pair of 'em. Cleaned out the lockers. Never caught 'em.”

He broke off suddenly and contemplated the cloud of vapour around Dr. Trump's shins.

“Fellow
is
wet, you know,” he remarked to the room at large.

But it was another and a gentler voice surprisingly close to Dr. Trump's ear that took up the theme. A movement beside him caused him to turn his head and he found himself looking full into the pale greenish-grey eyes of Miss Warple.

“Why you're soaking,” she said.

“Not really,” Dr. Trump assured her.

“But you are,” Miss Warple went on. “You ought to go home and change. You'll catch your death of cold. Why don't you?”

Here at last was someone being deliberately nice to him and Dr. Trump responded.

“I think perhaps I should,” he replied, “but really I assure you I won't, thank you. I mean it's nothing. Just dampness.”

Miss Warple drew closer.

“That's the way pneumonia starts,” she told him. “Neglecting to take precautions.”

But before Dr. Trump could reply, Dame Eleanor had spoken again.

“What are those two whispering about?” she asked, darting another of her quick malicious glances at the Bishop. “More tea, Dr. Trump?”

“Thank you, yes,” Dr. Trump replied. “I mean, no. That is, I still have some.”

“Well, when you've finished, why not take Miss Warple into the garden and let her show you the rhododendrons,” Dame Eleanor suggested. “That is, if it's stopped raining.”

Again that hideous glance was exchanged, and again Dr. Trump tried to show that as a good fellow he did not in the least mind being laughed at. But slowly and chillingly he became aware that it was no ordinary piece of mockery this time. Dame Eleanor was wearing the expression of someone who has brought off a lucky coup at cards. And the Bishop was nodding his head up and down like a mandarin. They were evidently congratulating each other upon something. And with a sickly faint sensation, Dr. Trump guessed that he was the object of it.

“Oh do,” Miss Warple said. “I love rhododendrons.”

Miss Warple, however, did not manage to get as far as the rhododendrons that she loved so much. Dr. Trump was still sitting on the springy edge of the couch trying to appear comfortable and at ease with his teacup and saucer in his hand when the door opened and Margaret came in. Dr. Trump looked up for a moment and his expression changed instantly. At the memory of the last time he had seen her—spied on her, rather—and of his thoughts afterwards, he blushed. Blushed a deep fiery red that would not die away again.

“Perhaps we oughtn't to look at the rhododendrons after all,” he heard Miss Warple saying. “I'm sure you've caught a chill.”

And it's really about time we met the girl, this Margaret of Dame Eleanor's.

But it's difficult to tell with parlourmaids. Particularly with
good ones. They are as professional and impersonal as waiters. Their private lives may be anything. Or nothing. And it is the same with their thoughts. You never know what they are thinking. Their eyes reveal nothing. They may be dreaming of abstruse love affairs, or simply concentrating on the coffee spoons. You can't even be sure whether their expression changes once they have carried out the tray. And that is because no good parlourmaid ever allows herself to be caught off guard for a single instant. The mask goes on with the apron. And, if it comes off anywhere, it is on the other side of the bedroom door, right up at the top flight of stairs where the carpet stops and the strip of plain lino begins.

As for ladies' companions, they have to be more impersonal still. You simply can't have a woman with views of her own. And habits—even quite innocent ones like always folding the newspaper out flat before reading it, or making a point of going over to see if the radiator is turned off properly—can become quite as irritating as views. The whole secret of a good ladies' companion is always to be there and never to be noticed. If you are aware of the woman even for a single moment, if you can't entirely forget her mere physical presence in the room, it is a clear sign that you should get rid of her.

That, at least, was Dame Eleanor's view. And, in consequence, she had worked her way through a whole regiment of women in her time. One by one they had proved themselves human and therefore ineligible. Unexpected failings, pronounced and therefore fatal characteristics, had successively revealed themselves. There had been Miss Ridley, for instance: forty-two, strictly C. of E., excellent references from a titled family—she had developed Christian Science; Miss Arbuthnot, thirty-nine, well connected, musical in a quiet, inoffensive way—there were her perpetual colds; Miss Perriter, twenty-six, mousy, almost abnormally silent and a thoroughly competent letter-writer—her preternatural fear of burglars rendered her too unrestful. With Miss Stanley, aged forty-four, it was the Second Coming, and with Miss Gibbs, aged thirty-three, it was her teeth. So the list went on; always some unsuspected defect that made further employment impossible. Dame Eleanor, in fact, had just about come to the end of her tether and had decided on promoting Margaret.

At any rate, she felt that she would know what she was doing. It would be no shot in the dark this time, with a lot of valueless references to ponder over. Margaret had been with her for the best part of seven years. Admittedly, the first two of them had been
spent almost exclusively in the kitchen. But Dame Eleanor was a keen manager: she had kept an eye on her even then. And when the girl was first allowed to appear at table, naturally she had watched her more closely.

At first she had not been quite suitable. There was too much life in her. She had radiated a crude, animal health. And, with the food that Dame Eleanor provided, she looked as though she were fairly bursting out of her clothes. But Dame Eleanor and the housekeeper between them eventually managed to quieten her down and get her to do her thick dark hair so that tendrils of it did not keep escaping from under the lace cap. Her parent's death, too, helped matters enormously. She went away buxom, red-cheeked, immature. But, brought face to face with the grimmer realities of life, she changed completely. By the time she came back, she was almost anæmic-looking; and quieter. Dame Eleanor took one look at her, and made her a parlourmaid straight away.

Even so, she had not taken any great pains with her because she was so sure that the girl was bound to get married and leave her. But either Margaret was unusually aloof, or the youth of Putney had less classical tastes. Whatever it was, Dame Eleanor's forebodings came to nothing. Margaret had no young man; showed no interest in young men in general; did not even, so far as Dame Eleanor could observe, exchange glances with them. Except for those excursions to the orphanage on Thursday afternoons, Margaret remained as firmly resident at The Cedars as though she had been brought up there. The only time that she had ever asked for an extra day off duty was at Christmas when she wanted to help arrange the Hospital decorations.

Of course, with a girl of Margaret's background for companion, it would be inevitable that Dame Eleanor would have to do more things for herself. She wouldn't be able to throw unwanted correspondence across the breakfast table to her as she had been in Miss Perriter's day. And Margaret didn't really understand little things like seating-plans for dinner, and which blooms to cut from the hot-house, and whom to admit when Dame Eleanor had said quite definitely that she was out.