The Brontes Went to Woolworths (19 page)

I glanced at her and saw that it wasn’t the anti-climax of departure or the bad-luck business that was in question. She wanted to get home.

I said, ‘Yes, of course. Come on.’ She shook Pipson’s hand. ‘Well, I wish you a very great success, and may you both come back soon.’

‘We must both try and click, Mrs Carne, as the saying is. I tell her to look on this as only a beginning,’ and to me, ‘God bless you. Don’t work too hard.’

‘Good-bye, darling. Write soon.’

‘Oh,
yes
.’

But mother walked away quickly in spite of the minutes she might have had.

‘What’s the rush, lammy?’

‘Oh . . . I just thought we’d better be off.’

I knew that tone. It meant that mother had her reasons.

20

When we turned the corner into our street and saw a wagonette, mother stopped hurrying.

W ‘It’s no use, now. They’ve come.’

‘Who?’

She grasped my wrist, but gently. ‘It’s all right. Keep your eye on the door. We may never see them again. Quick. Look!’ A figure was on the step.

‘Emily, you have been behaving badly.’

‘The dog is spoilt, and at times his nature is ill-conditioned.’ ‘The family is not returned. Come, my ain bonny lamb.’ The light from the lamp-post showed us, for perhaps five seconds, a small woman, wearing the new long skirt, and a taller figure, badly dressed, with clumsy sleeves that bunched on her shoulders. They took their places, the former after a short-sighted peering.

‘Well . . . ’ breathed mother. She was white, but taut with excitement.

Of course, when we were in the hall, I should have known in any case that it had had strangers. The house was simply humming with alien personalities. I opened the library door, but father wasn’t there. Mother was already half-way up the stairs.

On the landing, Crellie advanced to meet us, smiling and dancing, as terriers do. I slapped his back heartily to congratulate him on our return, and noticed that he flinched. We made the only noise; there was no sound from the closed doors of Sheil and Miss Martin, and mother said, ‘Thank God.’

I followed her into her room, and we both had a whisky and soda.

She said, ‘It was Yorkshire, of course.’

I saw. It explained much.

‘Well, what’s your theory?’

‘Possibly to satisfy themselves that Sheil was better
’ I shook my head. ‘That doesn’t quite fill the bill, with me.’

‘What, then?’

‘My dear, I think they came after Miss Martin.’

We talked, I imagine, for about half an hour, then I left. In my bed was Sheil, and one glance at her hurt me.

‘Why, you unmitigated limb!’

She had been crying herself ill, and there were rings round her eyes. ‘Sheil, pippit!’

‘Is mother home?’

‘Yes. Want to see her?’

‘No . . . I don’t want her worried, so I promised myself I wouldn’t try and see her.’

‘I rather like you, Sheil. What kind of matter is it?’

‘Deiry, Miss Martin says that Saffy is dead.’

I boiled with fury, and that made it difficult to think quickly. I heard myself saying, ‘My dear, he is dead, in a way. He caught a bad chill, poor Saffy, and I expect it was coming off the pier with Pauline and Ennis.’

To my immeasurable relief, she took it quietly. ‘But, after all, it doesn’t really matter. He’s as much with us as when he was alive, Sheil. We never saw him in London, did we? And creations like Saffy don’t snuff out, do they? He says, “Heaven is awfully slow, and the dam’ angels are all playing old stuff on their harps, and hated it when I gave ’em
Melodious Memories
and
Singing in the Bath-tub
on my banjo.” ’ She bored her russet head into my shoulder. ‘And you mean he’ll go on coming in and telling us about everything?’ ‘Lord bless you, yes. And oh! won’t there be scrapping matches now between him and Toddy! Duels, no less, my sweet creature! And we shall have to step between them, in our taffetas and red heels and say, “Nay, Sirs, I protest I am not worthy of this unmannerly brawl. Come, put up your blades!” and things like that.’

‘Deiry, those ladies
’ So she’d seen them? Staking my luck on the way she had taken the Dion Saffyn
débâcle
, I said, ‘Oh, yes. They’re rather like Saffy, you know.’ And then, an awful thing happened. She became small with fear; she seemed to grow thin before my eyes. All children, I suppose, are incalculable.

‘You mean – they are dead, too?’

‘They’ll never die, old darling. You see, they’ve made something that’s going to go on – for everybody, not only for us, as Saffy was
’

‘Deiry, is
everybody
dead?’ It was a wail.

‘Not me or mother, or Katrine, or Toddy and Lady Mildred, or Freddie Pipson, or Crellie, the ones who love you best.’ An idea occurred to me. ‘What made you think the ladies were dead?’

‘She hit Crellie, and the other one – the spectacles one – called her “Emily” . . . will they come any more? Everything was being awful and angry, and the house felt all wrong, and then they came.’

‘How “all wrong”?’

‘Miss Martin.’

I boiled again: nerved myself for a few words with Miss Martin in the morning. ‘Then what happened?’

‘The spectacles one went into Miss Martin’s bedroom and they talked.’

(
Miss Martin certainly hadn’t deserved this, confound her.
) ‘I see.’

‘And I didn’t hear them come. They were just there. Deiry, I think the Emily one was the one who hit Keeper.’

‘He probably deserved it. Look here, petty, would it amuse you to sleep in here, to-night? You’ll be much warmer for me than the hotwater bottle, and if you go off the boil, I’ll pour you back into the kettle!’

21

Half-Way through breakfast, I began to realise how peaceful we were being, and then the reason suddenly came to me. Miss Martin wasn’t at table. I was still raging, deep down, but how terrible it must be not to be wanted! Mother and I were played out, to judge by our faces, and Sheil had nothing to contribute at all. Katrine’s gap
ached one.

I said, ‘Miss Martin’s awfully late,’ and then mother began to realise it, too. ‘Just give her a call, Sheil.’ But when she saw Sheil’s look she said to me, ‘You go, darling, will you? You’ve finished.’

I knocked, waited, and opened the door. The room was empty. I stood and took it all in. The bed was neat, but seemed to have been lain on because the centre was flattened. All the photographs were gone; the trunk, initialled ‘A. E. M.’, was strapped. Even then I stopped to wonder what the ‘E.’ stood for. Eleanor, probably. It’s just the angular sort of second name she would get. And now we needn’t have a scene! I was merely glad. The next business was how to tell mother, alone, but she was already outside on the landing.

‘She’s hopped it,’ I murmured, and threw open Miss Martin’s door again, ‘and I must tell you things.’

‘But, Sheil?’

I went downstairs and told her that Miss Martin had gone out; took her myself to the schoolroom. Sheil’s face was impassive. Oh yes, she would find something to do, thank you, Deiry. Then I re-joined mother in Miss Martin’s room and told her everything.

‘But, where’s she
gone
?’ Mother looked round the room. ‘Cheltenham?’

‘Do we wire her people?’

‘No. We must hear, soonish; there’s her trunk, you know.’

‘Are you sorry she’s gone?’

Mother hesitated. ‘Well, in a way, I suppose. There’s always the breaking in a new one.’

I laughed. ‘Poor La Martin! And that’s the best one can do for her
’

‘I suppose it was pure funk,’ meditated mother, ‘and of course one sees the point of view . . . it was rather awful for her.’

‘And how like her to pack first! “With chattering teeth she wrapped the
Daily Mail
about her boots,”’ I jibed. But neither of us was amused. This sort of thing had never happened before, except sometimes in the case of cooks and house-parlourmaids, who, as a class, take staying out all night and even being turned out by policemen in their stride, but it struck one as almost incredible when it was a question of Miss Martin. And then, unpleasant aspects kept on presenting themselves. She might be one of those people whose brain became affected by the smallest psychic experience. Your materialist is apt to be always the first to buckle up.

‘ . . . and I wonder
when
she went?’

I shrugged. ‘Ask me another.’

‘Look here, darling, we’ll have to take on Sheil between us until we’re through all this.’

‘Of course. What do we tell her, mean-while?’

‘Until we hear, I think that Miss Martin is staying with friends
’