Loving, Living, Party Going (15 page)

But as soon as they were outside rain began to come down so thick that they hesitated. Edith said not unkind,

'That's a silly thing Bert to come without a hat.'

He looked back speechless and plastered his long streaming yellow hair down one cheek with a hand. While those two little girls
argued where they should go next to get out of the wet Edith looked at the lad derisively. She added as if in answer to a question,

'Oh it does mine good, the soft water curls my hair.'

Then while he regarded her, and he was yearning in the rain,
Miss Evelyn announced they'd decided that they'd go play in the Skull-pier
Gallery.

'All right if you want,' Edith replied, 'but not through the old premises or we'll dirty 'em wet as we are,' for this Gallery was built on to the far portion of the Castle beyond the part that was shut up. So they ran along a path round by the back past the dovecote and any number of doors set in the Castle's long high walls pierced with tall Gothic windows. Running they flashed along like in the reflection of a river on a grey day, and smashed through white puddles which spurted.

Squat under this great Gothic pile lay the complete copy of a Greek temple roofed, windowed and with two green bronze doors for entrance. The children dashed through an iron turnstile, which clicked into another darker daylight, into a vast hall lit by rain and dark skylights and which was filled with marble bronze and plaster statuary in rows.

'What shall we play?' the Misses Evelyn and Moira cried. Their sharp voices echoed, echoed. The place was damp. Albert kept his mackintosh on. Edith took off her scarf. She was brilliant, she glowed as she rang her curls like bells without a note.

'Blind man's buff,' she said. 'Oh let's,' the girls cried. It was plain this was what they had expected.

'You won't have no difficulty telling it's me,' Albert brought out as if he held a grievance, 'it's me,' the walls repeated.

'You stay mum or we'd never have invited you. We're not playing for you,' Edith told him.

On this there came a kind of faint mewing from the back. Albert started but stayed where he was while those others went hand in hand to see. Away in the depths, out from behind a group of robed men kneeling with heads and arms raised to heaven something small minced out into half light. It was a peacock which had come in to get out of the wet. 'You see her off these premises,' Edith told Albert, 'we don't aim to catch her when we're blindfolded. We don't want another death, the sauce,' she explained. But it took Albert
some time to get the creature out. He had to make it hop over that turnstile which caused it to squawk spinsterish. 'You'll have Paddy after you,' Edith called to him at the noise.

When he came back he found Miss Moira had been chosen, had had her eyes bound with the sopping 'I love you.' She stumbled about in flat spirals under a half-dressed lady that held a wreath at the end of her two long arms. Stifled with giggling Edith and Evelyn moved quiet on the outside circle while Albert stood numb. So that it was he was caught.

'Mr Raunce's Albert,' Miss Moira announced without hesitation, her short arms round his thighs. 'Kiss me,' she commanded. 'Kiss me,' the walls said back.

He bent down. His bang of yellow hair fell at right angles to his nose. He kissed her wet forhead over the scarf. Her child's skin was electric hot under a film of water.

Then it was his turn. There was only Edith tall enough to tie him and as 'I love you I love you' was knotted over his eyes he quietly drew a great breath perhaps to find out if Edith had left anything on this piece of stuff. He drew and drew again cautious as if he might be after a deep draught of her, of her skin, of herself. He was puffed already when his arms went out to go round and round and round her. But she was not there and for answer he had a storm of giggles which he could not tell one from the other and which went ricochet-ting from stone cold bosoms to damp streaming marble bellies, to and from huge oyster niches in the walls in which boys fought giant boas or idled with a flute, and which volleyed under green skylights empty in the ceiling. He went slow. He could hear feet slither. Then he turned in a flash. He had Edith. He stood awkward one hand on her stomach the other on the small of her back.

'Guess then,' he heard Miss Evelyn tell him out of sudden silence.

'Edith,' he said low.

'Kiss her then,' they shrieked disinterested, 'kiss her,' they shrieked again. In a tumult of these words re-echoed over and over from above from below and from all sides his hands began to grope awkward, not feeling at her body but more as if he wished to find his distance. 'Kiss her.'

'Come on then,' she said brisk. She stepped for the first time into his arms. Blinded as he was by those words knotted wet on his eyes he must have more than witnessed her as his head without direction
went nuzzling to where hers came at him in a short contact, and in spite of being so short more brilliant more soft and warm perhaps than his thousand dreams.

'Crikey,' he said and took the scarf off in one piece. He seemed absolutely dazzled although it had become almost too dark to see his face.

'You tie it dear,' she said kneeling down to Miss Moira. 'He's that awkward,' she said in a cold voice.

But there was an interruption. As Edith knelt before the child a door in the wall opened with a grinding shriek of rusty hinge and Raunce entered upon a scene which this noise and perhaps also his presence had instantly turned to more stone.

'I figured this was where you could be found,' he said advancing smooth on Edith. She had raised a hand to her eyes as though to lift the scarf but she let her arm drop and faced him when he spoke, blind as any statue.

'Yes?' she said. 'What is it?'

'Won't you play Mr Raunce?' Miss Evelyn asked.

'Playin' eh?' he remarked to Albert.

'It's Thursday isn't it?' Edith enquired sharp. 'That's his half day off or always was. What's up?'

'Nothin',' he replied, 'only I just wondered how you might be getting along.'

'Is that all?' was her comment. At which Albert spoke for himself.

'We was havin' a game of blind man's buff,' he said.

'So I perceive Albert,' the butler remarked.

'Oh do come on do,' one of the little girls pleaded but Edith chose this moment to take that scarf off her eyes.

'You surely didn't pass through all that old part alone?' she asked.

'And why not?'

'Oh Charley I never could not in a month of Sundays. Not on my own.'

'Is that so?'

'You are pleasant I must say aren't you?' she said.

'Thanking you,' Raunce answered,

'Oh please come on Mr Raunce please,' the child entreated. 'Edith'll give you up her turn.'

'I'm past the age and that's a fact Miss Evelyn,' Raunce said almost nasty. 'For the matter of that I chucked this blind man's buff before I'd lived as many years as my lad here. In my time if we had nothing better to do than lark about on a half day we got on with our work.'

'Here,' Edith said, 'just a minute.' She led him aside. 'What's up Charley?'

'Nothing's up. What makes you ask?'

'You act so strange. Whatever's the matter then?'

'Oh honey,' he suddenly said low and urgent, 'I never seem to see you these days.'

'That's not a reason,' she objected. 'You know I've got to look after them with Miss Swift sick as she is.'

'Yes,' he said. 'There's always something or other in the way each time.'

'How's your neck dear?' she asked as she strolled away. She gradually led him nearer and nearer the door he had come in by.

'Oh it's bad,' he said. 'It hurts so Edith.'

'Well you shouldn't stand about in a damp place like here,' she replied. 'For land's sake I don't know how you managed those passages alone. They give me the creeps. And what's become of Badger with the peacock?'

'I gave that dog the slip. All the brains he's got is in his jaw. Once he's dropped anything 'e's lost that dog is. I put it away where they'll find it in the outside larder.'

She slapped a hand across her mouth. 'You hung it in the outside larder?'

He smiled for the first time. 'That's right,' he said.

'Lord,' she remarked, 'what'll old Mother Welch say when Jane or Mary tells 'er?' She began to giggle.

'Don't call 'er cook she don't like it,' Raunce replied broadly smiling.

'Now look you mustn't stay here Charley with that neck of yours. You get back out of this damp. I'll see if I can't manage to slip down after tea.'

'O K ducks. Give us a kiss.'

'Don't be daft,' she said, 'what in front of all of them?'

'O K. then,' he ended, 'I'll be seeing you.' And he shut that door soft although the hinges shrieked and groaned. Then he came in
once more, stared at the mechanism. 'Wants a drop of oil that does,' he remarked, winked and was gone again. As he walked off into grey dust-sheeted twilight he said two or three times to himself, 'How she has come on. You'd never know it was the same girlie,' he repeated.

'At last,' Miss Moira called out back in the Gallery, 'I thought we'd never get rid of him. Kneel Edith,' she said pulling that scarf out of Edith's pocket.

Once Edith was blinded the little girls let out piercing shrieks and dodged as in laughter she moved her arms as though swimming towards them. Their cries reverberated round the Gallery. Miss Evelyn hopped on one leg pressing her snub nose upwards with the palm of a hand When Edith came near, Miss Moira would turn and slip by Edith's blind wrists looking round over a shoulder ready to dodge again after Miss Evelyn had ducked under. But Albert stood like a statue and must have hoped he would be found. As he was. Yet when her fingers knew him which they did at once she murmured 'I don't want you,' and to shrieks from the others of 'You'll never catch us,' this immemorial game went on before witnesses in bronze in marble and plaster, echoed up and down over and over again.

Back in his room Raunce unlocked the drawer in which he kept the red and black notebooks. He verified that they were there. Then he drew pencil and paper towards him, laboriously made out the date and the address then settled down to write to his mother.

'Dear Mother,'
he began, 7
hope you are well. I am. There has been nothing fresh here. Mrs Tennant has gone to England to stay. While she is over she hopes to see Mr Jack who is on leave just at present. Mrs Jack has also gone to be with them. So we are on our own here now and will be for a bit I expect.

'Mother 1 am very worried over this bombing for you. Don't wait until he comes to get your Anderson shelter fixed. Get it done now Mother dear and it will be something off my mind.

'I often wish I was with you dear but you know the way I'm placed. Once I should leave this country then I'm in their power over there. There's the Labour Exchange with the Army waiting. It's hard to know what to do best.

'Mother what would you say to your coming here. Who knows but there might be a change in my situation one of these days.
You've often said it was time I settled down. But not a word to anyone dear, there's nothing said yet. But I've my eye on a nice little place in the park what the married butler before Mr Eldon had. Think of it will you Mother. And mind not a word not even to my sister Bell.

'Well I must close now. But I certainly am worried about you with all this bombing. Tell her, that's Bell 1 mean, to be sure and look after you all right. Your loving son Charley.'

Then he inked it in. And he wrote the address with his pencil and then inked that. Finally he slipped in the Money Order. After he had stamped the envelope he laid his head down on his arms and dropped off to sleep at once.

When a few days later as she lay in bed Miss Swift was paid a call by Miss Burch she was able to cut short the thanks having expressed what was necessary on the first of two visits of sympathy Miss Burch had already paid. But on the subject of her symptoms she left nothing out.

'I wonder you don't ask Doctor Connolly to put his rule over you,' Miss Burch remarked at last.

'Poor nanny,' Miss Swift exclaimed. 'That man?' she added as if injured.

'There's not another within reaching distance only the native doctors and we won't speak about them. Now they've taken their petrol away that is.'

'You'd never expect me to see him, Miss Burch, after what we witnessed every one of us with Mr Eldon. Why it was no more than a crime if I'm to put a name to it.'

'Mr Eldon he died of a broken heart Miss Swift. There was a lot he told nobody.'

'I'm sure I trembled for him as he lay there Miss Burch but then you see I knew. What training I've had was the best even if I've never served with a hospital. I could tell you things. There was a place I was in, I had him from a baby. The doctors gave him up, gave him up dear and they had two in from Harley Street. It was simple enough really. There he was such a good little chap. Lancelot his name was, his mother was Lady Mercy Swinley. Well one night when they were all gone I was watching for I never left his side, day and night I watched him yes, so I leant forward and looked into his
little face and I could see he was going before my very eyes. It was all or nothing Miss Burch. So I took him up and I shook him. Yes and I slapped hard. My heart was in my mouth but he gave a kind of convulsive heave of his whole body and brought it all up. I'd known all along there was something stuck in his gullet but there they wouldn't listen. He brought it up. It was black as pitch. Then after I'd changed his bed things he fell into such a sweet sleep. Something made me do it there you are. But I shook so afterwards I dropped the cup when I poured myself a cup of tea. That hospital nurse couldn't fathom it once she came back. But I knew better.'

'Well,' said Miss Burch. 'But wasn't that the lady I read about the other day, the mother I mean?'

'Yes,' the nanny answered, 'times are hard for a number of them now, there's big changes under way. I shouldn't wonder if things were never the same say what you will. But don't mistake me. I wouldn't put myself above a doctor. Though we can all bear witness about Mr Eldon how that poor man lay calling on a name and Doctor Connolly no more than paid him a call every so often, when we all know what we had under our very eyes with him growing weaker each day that passed, I don't say but someone might have taken matters into their own hands. And I'm sure they could have made free with my medicine cupboard and welcome.'