Children of the Archbishop (69 page)

Then as a kind of extra Christmas present he relaxed the prohibition about masters smoking in their private bedrooms. “I'm sure Dr. Trump won't mind,” he kept telling himself. “It's all so … so reasonable.” But here it would have been difficult for Canon Mallow to do otherwise, because he was by way of being a rather absent-minded kind of smoker himself. Quite often
he found himself with his own pipe in his mouth, and the old briar drawing nicely, without so much as the slightest recollection of having packed and lit it.

It was in the matter of the silent break-periods that Canon Mallow failed most conspicuously. But Dr. Trump had been a firm disciplinarian, and discipline dies slowly. Try as he could, Canon Mallow was not able to get the children to let themselves go properly. They walked when he felt that they should have run, and they talked in whispers when he would have liked to hear them shouting to one another. Altogether it was as though they had just slipped out of the classroom to attend a funeral.

Admittedly, things were a bit better already on the boys' side since he had given permission for a football to be used. And one of the ground-floor windows had gone already, lead-lights and everything.

But Canon Mallow was quite frank about the whole position.

“It's going to take years, literally years,” he said, “to knock the discipline out of them. I don't know yet whether I shall have time to succeed or not. But it's worth going on trying.”

But it was not at Broadstairs where Dr. Trump was still waiting to hear from the Missionary Society, or at the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital, that the really important things were happening. It was at Dame Eleanor's.

At first Dame Eleanor had been difficult. Convinced that somehow or other the presence of Sweetie was going to upset everything, she had sulked, refused to see the child, ignored her. And her agitation, her misgivings, had revealed themselves in a variety of ways. She was, for example, perpetually asking Margaret whether she was sure that she wasn't overtiring herself, and then ringing the bell for her unnecessarily just to make certain that she wasn't devoting too much of her attention to Sweetie. Even that, however, was in a sense excusable. Because the heart attacks, the chokings, the palpitations, the feeling (to use Dame Eleanor's own description of it) as though an elephant had gone to sleep upon her chest while an entire string orchestra was playing in her ears, had grown no better. She was entirely confined to her bed nowadays.

Admittedly, she was making the most of her imprisonment. The bedside table was loaded with papers, minutes, reports; and
her writing-case, red morocco outside and Russian leather within, was permanently open upon her knees. There was the illusion of still being at the hub of things. But she knew that it was only an illusion; knew that if the smallest thing went wrong—that even if her address-book or her fountain pen slid off the bedclothes on to the floor, she would have to start ringing that damn bell again in order to recover it. That was why she had to make sure that people were on their toes all the time, ready to come if she needed them.

But with her old possessiveness re-asserting itself, it was hardly to be expected that she would leave Sweetie alone altogether. Still keeping the child at arm's length—entirely out of sight, in fact, she began to manage her. She spoke of the need for friends of her own age. She hinted at idle hands. She recommended needlework and embroidery. She suggested that Sweetie might like to take lessons from the cook. She asked whether anything was being done about the child's music, and she reminded Margaret of the piano that stood there idle in the schoolroom. She became anxious that Sweetie's religious instruction was being scamped. She advised long walks. She wanted to know what books Sweetie was reading. She worried about her. She fretted.

The one thing that she did not do was to see her. But at last, curiosity overcame her. There was, however, more to it than mere idle curiosity. It was jealousy probably that was at the back of it. Margaret had just bought Sweetie some new clothes and Dame Eleanor suddenly decided that she must see them. She felt the need to know everything about them. What colour were they? Were they wool or a mixture? Where had Margaret gone for them? Had they got nice sensible hems that could be let down? Remembering Sweetie's age, was she sure that they were suitable? Were they winter weight, or summer, or just one of the in-betweens?

Then, when Margaret's answers all seemed to her so unsatisfying, so evasive somehow, Dame Eleanor resolved with equal suddenness that she must see not merely the clothes, but Sweetie wearing them. And, because at the back of her mind she knew that it was all a plot really, a subterfuge to insinuate herself, that the clothes as such meant nothing to her, she became self-conscious, even coy, about it.

“… that is, if she doesn't mind coming to see a poor bedridden old woman,” she finished up. “Some young people do, you know.”

Directly after tea was the time that was chosen. Margaret
in fact was already on her way to fetch Sweetie. She found her at the dressing-table when she reached the room. And as soon as Margaret entered Sweetie turned away and tried to conceal something. But Margaret had been too quick for her.

“What's that in your hand?” she asked.

“It's nothing.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, really …”

“Show it to me.”

“Oh, very well then.”

Sweetie opened her hand and held it in front of her. In it was a pair of tweezers. Margaret took them from her.

“What are these for?” she demanded.

“Plucking my eyebrows,” Sweetie told her.

Margaret thrust the tweezers away in the pocket of her house-dress. “Just you leave your eyebrows alone, d'you hear me. You don't want to go bothering about such things. Not at your age, you don't.”

Sweetie shrugged her shoulders.

“I hadn't started yet,” she said. “I was only choosing.”

When they had reached the door of Dame Eleanor's room, Margaret paused.

“Now listen,” she said. “Be nice to the lady. Say ‘how-d'you-do' when she speaks to you. And if she wants to shake hands remember it's this one.”

“I know that,” Sweetie answered. “And about saying ‘how-d'you-do!'”

Altogether, she could not make out what the fuss was about. She did not remember having seen Margaret so much agitated before. Did not remember even having seen her agitated at all in fact. But now she was trembling, actually trembling.

What Sweetie was not prepared for, however, was the size of the room and the smallness of Dame Eleanor. She had always thought of her as a large woman; the size of Mrs. Gurnett at least. Against the background of the Bodkin Hospital she had always seemed simply enormous. Whereas this was a tiny little old lady who was watching her out of the big pile of pillows. She looked as though she had been propped up specially for the occasion.

“I expect she's going to die soon,” Sweetie reflected. “Perhaps that's why she wants to see me now.”

But the little old lady still appeared to have plenty of life left
in her. Her voice didn't seem to have changed at all. Sweetie remembered it from Speech Days and Founder's Days. And the voice wasn't even being particularly nice to her. It was the same old Archbishop Bodkin Hospital voice.

“Come nearer, child,” it was saying. “I can't see you from right over there.”

Sweetie stepped forward.

“How-d'you-do?” she said.

The reply seemed to take Dame Eleanor aback a trifle.

“How-d'you-do,” she said, and extended a bony yellow hand on which the rings hung loosely.

“I hope you're better,” Sweetie answered. “I'm sorry to hear you've been ill.”

Dame Eleanor found herself looking at the child more closely. Practically every other child she had ever known, her own nieces and nephews among them, had a maddening and obstinate way of remaining silent and awkward when spoken to. But this child's manners were perfect. And she was certainly good-looking. Not a beauty by any means—beauties had gone out somewhere round about the time when Dame Eleanor herself had been a girl. But with those eyes and the shining blackness of her hair, she was undeniably good-looking. Dame Eleanor could understand now how it had come about that Ginger, or whatever the boy's name was, had been so much attracted to her.

“And there'll be plenty of others,” she reflected. “You may be sure of that. You can see she's that sort.”

As she looked, however, she became aware that Sweetie was studying her just as closely. There was a steadiness in the dark eyes that was strangely unnerving. And not a rude, staring steadiness, either. The mouth was creased up at the corners into the outlines of a polite social smile.

Dame Eleanor stopped regarding her.

“Do you like being here, child?” she asked abruptly.

“Oh yes, thank you,” Sweetie told her. “I think it's a beautiful house you live in.”

Dame Eleanor lay back against the pillows.

“I'm getting her sized up,” she thought. “She's a little minx, that's what she is. The pretty ones mostly are. And what they need is taking down a bit. Everyone's too nice to them, just because they're pretty.”

She paused.

“Better than sleeping under hay-ricks?” she asked.

Sweetie paused, too. But she kept her eyes on Dame Eleanor all the time. And the smile, the polite social smile had not even flickered.

“That was only tempor'y,” she answered. “There wasn't anywhere else to go.”

Dame Eleanor raised her eyebrows. Were all fourteen-year-old girls like this nowadays? she wondered. Perhaps it was something to do with progress and the spirit of the age. At fourteen, she herself had still been in the schoolroom; tall, silent, embarrassed whenever she came down if anybody spoke to her.

“Perhaps there
is
something unusual about her,” she reflected: “I'll get Miss Phrynne to look up her record sometime. We have had children by girls of quite good families …”

She pulled herself up sharply. That was the worst of being old and ill, both at the same time: it made you lose your grip on your own thoughts. This wasn't in the least what she had intended. She had invited Margaret to bring Sweetie here simply so that she could see whether she was being dressed properly, and now she was just wasting her opportunity.

“Nearer, child,” she said again. “I still can't see you properly.”

Sweetie came right up to the bedside this time. And with the last step forward she had come suddenly into the focus of Dame Eleanor's lorgnette. Dame Eleanor took another long, quizzing look at her. And she had to admit it: yes, she had underestimated the child. There was more than ordinary good looks in that face. The eyelashes were as long as an actress's.

But she knew too much to spoil minxes by flattering them. And all that she said was: “You've got a pretty little face, dear. But you ought to do something about those eyebrows. They're all over the place: they're spoiling you.”

She paused.

“And now let's see what Margaret's been buying for you.”

The emphasis was obvious already: Dame Eleanor was speaking already as though Sweetie was hers, and Margaret had simply been carrying out a small commission on her instructions.

And even though the hand that shot out was old, it was still expert. Dame Eleanor had always claimed that she knew more about materials than any dressmaker. And what her fingers encountered now disgusted her. The dress—it was a blue one with white collar and cuffs, and white bows upon the pockets—was scarcely made of any material at all. It was the merest rubbish; cheap and smart-looking and nasty.

“Where did you get it?” she demanded.

“At a shop in Putney,” Margaret told her.

Dame Eleanor shock her head.

“Shouldn't have gone there,” she said. “Why didn't you go to Marshall's? They've got a proper juvenile department. They'd have looked after you.”

“I'll remember next time,” Margaret answered.

“And what did you pay for it?”

“Twenty-five and nine,” Margaret replied.

It was a lot of money twenty-five and nine when it came out of a weekly wage of thirty shillings. And it was because there were so many other things that Sweetie needed that Margaret herself was still wearing the same black dress, the same shabby blue overcoat in which she had met Sweetie at the Remand Home.

But Dame Eleanor only shook her head.

“Simply throwing good money away,” she said. “That's all it is—just throwing it away. I've told you before it's cheap clothes that cost the most in the long run. Look at me. Some of my dresses are ten years old, and they're still as good as when I bought them. Why? Merely because I paid a proper price for them in the first place.”

She paused: her heart was fluttering again. That's the state she was in nowadays. She couldn't even discuss clothes without half-killing herself. And she didn't want to do anything silly, like fainting or having one of her really bad attacks, while the child was still in the room. So she pressed her left hand up against her heart to steady it.

But it was no use. She must get rid of the child somehow; must be able to be quiet again. She didn't, however, want simply to send her away abruptly. All children are sensitive about that sort of thing, and don't forgive easily. And she wanted Sweetie to like her. She had always prided herself on the fact that she was popular with children; had, in fact, believed for years that if only things had gone differently with that son of hers she would have been the absolutely perfect kind of grandmother.

So she made a final effort.

“I'll give you a new dress … dear. A different one … For a present,” she said.

Her breath was coming out jerkily by now, and she had difficulty in making the words sound natural.

“Margaret'll take you … You will, won't you, Margaret? Buy her the best … Tell them to put it down to my account.”