The Brontes Went to Woolworths (18 page)

‘My dear Madam Sheil, we must positively meet again very soon!’

‘Oh,
very
soon!’

‘And, my kindest thoughts to Miss Deirdre.’

‘I’ll tell her.’

‘I must go now, dear.’

‘Are you yawning? I’ve seen you do that, you know.’

‘I plead guilty.’

‘Then I mustn’t keep you another
second
, or Lady Mildred will be down on me like the twinkling of a ton of bricks. Good-night, Austen Charles.’

‘Eh? Am I called that?’

‘Oh, not if you’d rather not. It’s only my name for you.’

‘M’m . . . I think I may quite like it. It’s a good name. I must be quite well connected. Well, bless you, dear.’

‘And you, too.’

In the drawing-room, the Toddingtons looked at each other.

‘Herbert, you
do
look tired.’

‘My dear, I’d rather sum up for an hour than go through that again. But, I think I’ve acquitted myself with reasonable credit.’

‘Touch and go, here and there, eh?’

‘Yes.’

17

‘What an old pearl!’ I said, as Sheil reverently replaced the receiver. Then I saw mother’s face, and knew there was some clearing up to be done before one could go to bed – and oh! how tired one is . . .

Mother was trying to laugh it off, her way when uncertain.

‘Sheil, petty, what
did
he say when you asked him about the pyjamas?’

For a second, the dazzle in Sheil’s eyes was clouded. ‘He was silly with me. He said they were red satin with gilt buttons. I hate that kind of joke. It isn’t a bit
like
Toddy. And, of course, it was just as you said, Mammy-dad. They
are
silk and wool in the winter.’

We dropped mother at her door, still laughing; I stopped to execute a Spanish dance on the landing, snapping my fingers, and Sheil toddled ahead, singing ‘
Je connais une belle
mondaine
.’ From her bedroom, Katrine heard us and joined in the ‘
Ah, comme elle est chic!
’ with brio.

And then, in the middle of it all, Miss Martin was suddenly with us. Her dun-coloured dressing-gown was adjusted to the last button. She probably has a bad circulation; her face was very pinched.

‘Deirdre! What are you doing, letting the child rush about like that? Do you know it’s past ten?’

Sheil beamed. ‘That’s the time he always rings up, Miss Martin,’ and she did a high kick.

‘Don’t do that. What do you mean?’

‘Austen Charles! He’s rung up! And now I don’t need Freddy Pipson!’

‘Be quiet! Stop it at once!’ Her voice was shrill.

Sheil stiffened, and everything but obedience went out of her face. This was a voice and manner we didn’t know. ‘Why do you tell stories like that?’

‘It’s true, Miss Martin,’ I answered.

‘I’m not speaking to you, Deirdre. Go back to bed at once, Sheil.’

Sheil crimsoned. ‘He
did
ring up, and his pyjamas are lavender and green, and he’s had a drink and he and Lady Mildred are going to bed.’

‘And he told me that Mr Mathewson tried to get him some grapes from the Hampton Court vine for lunch,’ I added suavely. I meant to be maddening.

The utterly incredible happened. Miss Martin flung up her hand. I was just in time; automatically caught her wrist. It was a narrow escape, because such a thing has never happened before in our lives.

‘I say, we
are
late!’ I stammered, and pretended to glance at her wristwatch in my grasp. ‘Sheil, Toddy’s in bed now, and he’ll think you a Most Racketty Young Person if you don’t cut off, too.’

I don’t think she’d grasped the situation. I could see by her face that the telephone talk had once more established sway.

Miss Martin and I were left on the landing. Her eyes were bewildered. She seemed scared, and my nerve nearly went when she began to whimper – on one note, like an animal. I could find nothing to say. One can’t accuse a woman so much older than oneself of the kind of thing that she had tried to do.

‘You brought it on yourself,’ she mumbled.

‘Miss Martin, you must be crazy.’

Her pale eyes became terrified. ‘Don’t say that! If I were, it’s you – all of you . . . I sometimes think you are all strange.’

‘Oh, is that it? But, must you hit me on that account?’

‘I have apologised. I am not well.’

‘You certainly don’t look it. Miss Martin, I can’t stand on my feet much longer, but Sir Herbert did ring up. Couldn’t you
see
we weren’t lying to you?’

‘No. I never can. It’s hopeless to talk to you. You don’t understand. Good night.’

Mother mustn’t be told, because it would upset her badly. Sheil must never know. Katrine mustn’t be told because to-morrow is the first of November and she starts her tour, and must be kept well for it.

That left father and Toddy. Perhaps we shall see father to-morrow as it’s All Souls’ Eve, and he won’t get excited and distressed. The dead don’t. They are only calm and wise and friendly.

I was shaking, but I wondered that I wasn’t more upset. It is Toddy, of course. He is now the Toddy we know and the Toddy we’re going to know. Already he’s begun to share with me the being the man of the family.

18

In the schoolroom Agatha Martin sat hunched in a chair. The day was over at last. She even had the house to herself, with Sheil and the servants in bed; the others were at the station. And one couldn’t even savour the quiet sanity of the atmosphere, because of last night. She didn’t believe that Deirdre had told Mrs Carne. But that was the least part of it. If one did that sort of thing once, one might do it again . . .

Crazy. Would that account for her loss of authority with the child? Families were very awful things: showed one face to each other and another to the stranger within their gates. If one left, would last night count in the testimonial? Back to more children, with remembrance of failure to arrange in the new bedroom with one’s things. One was never going to forgive the child for that. Katrine was gone, but that still left three – the worst of them. Breakfast, to which one must come down, had been just tolerable owing to the unusual silence all round. There were no lessons because of Katrine leaving. They seemed to spend the day in Katrine’s room, giving one leisure to remember last night. It would have been the child, if Deirdre hadn’t stood in the way. Then one hated children? And they were one’s bread and butter. A dull crash. Miss Martin opened Sheil’s door. Something in her welcomed the opportunity . . .

The light was burning. ‘Sheil! Do you know the time?’

‘Mother said I could read a little in bed, tonight, because of Katrine and not being allowed to see her and Freddie Pipson off.’

‘Did she say you might read until twenty to twelve?’

‘My gracious snakes! I was reading about Charlotte Brontë, Miss Martin. I expect perhaps you know all about her. They had a dog called Keeper, and Emily – the cross one was a beast to him once, and I got fed up with all of them; and isn’t Keeper a silly name for a dog? It’s as bad as Tray or Fido. Crellie would be silly, only it’s short for Creilagh, and that’s Gaelic for “wasp”.’

‘Will you go to sleep!’ Agatha heard her voice crack. Sheil looked at her, astounded. ‘Miss Martin, when will mother and Deirdre come back?’ Her voice was urgent.

‘Don’t ask me! They are quite capable of electing to go off to Bradford with that Mr Pipson.’

Sheil lay down. One was beginning to be uneasy, so one sang to keep one’s courage up.

‘I’m the Captain of the Loyal Kitchen Rangers!’

Miss Martin heard that, too, and came in again.

‘Sheil, I know how much you dislike me. All this disobedience is part of it, I suppose. Once and for all, be
quiet
.’

Was Miss Martin crying? One had never seen a grownup doing that, and when one had got over the afraid part, one was so sorry it made one feel sick.

‘Oh, Miss Martin, you’re so tired and I’ve kept you awake. I
am
sorry! Don’t you think, perhaps, if you got back into bed and thought about someone you’re very fond of, they would be kind of there? It always sends me off. Have you anybody special?’

‘Don’t be impertinent.’

‘Truly, I didn’t mean to be; I’m only telling you how things help
us
.’

Agatha Martin became singularly like a human being. ‘I’m sick of your stories. They are all nonsense. You must learn to see things as they are, my dear child. All this invented stuff about Sir Herbert Toddington is making you perfectly stupid.’

Sheil looked bewildered. ‘But do you mean he
didn’t
ring up, last night? But, I
heard
him.’ Miss Martin was so positive, it almost made one wonder . . .

‘As to that, it may be true, but I want the Saffyn business definitely stopped. It’s unwholesome.’ Agatha was beginning to enjoy herself. Freedom was in sight. ‘Just say to yourself that you never knew him, and that he is dead.’ Sheil laughed. ‘Oh, poor old Saffy! You hate him as much as Toddy does! He really is a live person, you know – I mean, not like Ironface. He has an office in Leicester Square. Deirdre’s seen it.’

Miss Martin took her opportunity. ‘Possibly, but the fact remains that he died in the summer of heart failure, following influenza. I saw the notice myself. And now, go to sleep, please.’

But Sheil had followed her to the door, and in that second of time she had seen. One wasn’t supposed to show things before visitors – especially before a friend of Miss Martin. The room was so black. If one turned on the light, Miss Martin would see it, and come in again. Sheil cowered. And look at and speak to one in a way one had never had, that made one’s inside cold. Mother and Deiry weren’t in sight, even. The street was empty, except for a wagonette – with a horse in the shafts, drawn up at the front door, and another lady getting out. Miss Martin was talking to the first one, but quite soon they went into her bedroom and shut the door.

Crellie! Perhaps he would come up before mother put him to bed in the library. In the hall, she heard his growl. ‘Crellie, Crellie! Oh,
Crellie
!’

There was a rustle in the hall.

‘You must learn not to bite,’ and a yelp.

Someone had hit Crellie, hard. His toe-nails rattled on the stairs. He joined Sheil on the landing, his hackles up, every tooth in his head showing.

19

What horrible things theatrical companies do! And Katrine was beginning to be one of them, so we stood very close to her on the platform and tried, that way, to postpone her loss. We pipsonised in self-defence.

‘Oh well, dear, we’re here to-day and gone to-morrow,
as the saying is.’

‘Well, bye-bye, ducks, I’ll be popping off home now, an’ chance it.’

Then mother, with a line she had salved from Corney Grain, and that we kept for departures, ‘Good-bye, goodbye, dear.
Tell mother I shan
’
t want the skirt
.’

We were bright, and rather awfully funny. The pinch of desolation comes before and afterwards, never at the time. I saw the company cat three carriages away; under the arc lights she looked like something found in the Thames, because her make-up had turned blue. Only one of the comedians had the heart to comeed at such an hour. He, poor toad, had a gag of his own, which he half sang.

‘I want to
know
when I’m dead!’

Then Pipson appeared, and the world became saner. He stood, bare-headed, talking to us. ‘What an hour, eh, Miss Carne! Why does one do it?’ then, to mother, ‘I’ll drive her to the rooms, Mrs Carne, you needn’t be in the slightest degree – you know!’ And mother did know, and they looked at each other, and the whole affair was suddenly an amusing jaunt.

I don’t know if I was making something out of nothing, but I got the impression that Pipson looked at Katrine in an extra way. It’s so difficult to say, with a nature like his that is gold right through, and would protect the plainest woman on earth if he thought she needed it.

‘Hullo, Boy!’

‘How’s the one and only Gladeyes?’

‘Good evening, Mr Pipson.’

‘I want to
know
when I’m dead!’

Mother had smiled her limit: she was giving little signs of restiveness. ‘Don’t you think we might
?’