The Brontes Went to Woolworths (5 page)

I suppose that nothing, no emotion, no personality, ever really dies, but hangs about in the atmosphere, waiting for one to get into touch, again, through something quite extraneous – any medium. . . ?

When we had got past the Sergeant, Pipson was waiting for us outside his dressing-room in a vest, a clanless kilt and a flannel dressing-gown. He had removed his wig of Caledonian carrot and his hair was brushed and sleek. He wrung my hands and said, ‘This is so kind of you.’ And I said, ‘I’ve brought my sister.’

‘I’m very glad indeed. Might I ask you both to come in? Mr Bagley, my seckertry.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ answered Katrine, and Bagley edged out while Pipson brought us cushions and footstools, and offered us whisky, brandy, port, gin and angostura and cigarettes, while his two dressers tried to take his spats off. ‘Now, never mind about the time, I’ll drive you home. Well now, how’s the work? I read your article on this Bastardy Bill with very great interest, and I’m with you, in the main, about everything you say. This class of kiddy . . . ’ Ten minutes later he flung a greasepaint-smeared towel aside and said, ‘I wish you’d write me a new number, Miss Carne. I’m not getting this Scotch one over.’

‘No. I noticed that.’

‘You did?’ He turned to Katrine. ‘I’m always grateful to people like your sister who’ll tell one the truth, Miss Carne. I went rotten to-night, and I know it.’ And to me, ‘Well, what about it?’

I shook my head. ‘I haven’t the touch. I should be either much too refined or so low you couldn’t sing it.’

‘What a joke, eh?’ He looked at Katrine with his sad, monkey eyes. ‘It may seem odd to you, Miss Carne, but I never sing or say a line I wouldn’t sing or say before you.’ And to me, ‘Well, dear, do think it over.’

‘Let’s write it now!’ said Katrine. Half a small glass of port and the proximity of Pipson were too much for her. ‘We’ll take a line each.’

‘I am going to ask you to forgive me while I change,’ and Pipson went into his inner room.

‘All right.’

‘You begin, dear.’

‘Play fair,’ I objected, ‘You’ll have to do your bit, change or no.’

I considered the rows of greasepaints on his dressing-table. ‘
I’m engaged in shaving scooters for the pips they put in jam
,’ I sang.

‘That’s torn it!’ called out Pipson, throwing his kilt through the door, and added, in his tenor,

‘
And I chip the ice from mutton that I sell as English lamb
.’

‘
I’m a pillar of the chapel ev’ry Sunday, yes I am!
’

‘And whatever should I do without me conscience?
’ chirped up Katrine.

Pipson put his head through the door, serious at once. ‘That’s a little controversial, Miss Carne, if you know what I mean. I’m Church of England, myself, but we’ve got to respect what other people believe in. So many people in my audience are Chapel, you’d be surprised.’

I saw that in another second Katrine would explode, but luckily Pipson’s chauffeur looked in and intimated that he was due at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in half an hour, and Pipson crated us in his enormous Daimler as though we were glass, or a loan collection of Flemish pictures, and said, ‘Night, Hopkins,’ and ‘God bless you, dear’ to the Sergeant and a passing turn, and we drove to our turning, and he thanked and blessed us for our company, and in our hall Katrine was so overcome that she sank on to the settle and said she’d leave her home for Pipson. I had gone for the letters at once. The post always intoxicates me; everything it throws on to the mat is a magic square or oblong which may alter your life. We were both humming with music, light and well-being, and in these states anything wonderful may be awaiting one. I pointed to the one letter for Katrine and was lost to the world in my own mail when she gave a little cry that brought me to earth in a second. I picked up the fallen sheet and said, ‘May I?’

‘DEAR MISS CARNE,

‘The committee has followed your work with attention for the two terms during which you have been a student, and has come to the conclusion that it is not justified in advising you to complete the course . . . ’

This was one of those bad moments which occasionally come to families.

I had so much to say that I struggled to select any bit of it and failed, as I usually do; all I managed was, ‘Shall I go down and see them, myself?’ I can fight for other people. And in the end, as usual, Katrine and I went and told mother about it, and I left them alone. Mother has a knack . . .

In my bedroom I walked about and fidgeted till two o’clock, addressing the committee in telling and acidulous phrases. It was money they were out for . . . if Katrine was so unsatisfactory a student it was their plain duty to have informed her after her first term . . . I hesitate to designate their action as a plant, but how could they square their treatment of my sister with the undoubted fact that students patently more unsuitable than her were not only retained but promoted? . . . Boiling, muttering, I prowled. I wrote it all down, for the written statement invariably calms me.

How sorry and indignant and sympathetic Toddy would be when he heard! But Katrine wouldn’t be in a state, for a few days yet, for us to tell him about it at lunch or dinner . . .

Would Mildred play up? Would the kindly Brockley in her come up trumps? I rather thought so.

I stood in front of a photograph of Toddington leaving the Old Bailey, and said, ‘Oh, Toddy, we’re in
such
a mess!’ and then I cried, and then, in the odious way that these things intrude themselves, I began to dramatise the situation and to plan a story about it for
The Rattler
, and I wrote out the plot, crying all the time, and got into bed at three, and had no sleep till five o’clock.

In the morning there was a letter by my plate refusing my novel.

6

In the schoolroom, Agatha Martin was writing to her eldest sister in Cheltenham.

‘DEAREST FLOSSIE,

‘I have not heard from you for a week, so that makes seven days without a letter.

‘I cannot tell you, tho’ you should know, after all this time, how one looks to the post, when one is with new families.

‘I think I am settling down very fairly well. Mrs Carne is, I think, a v. nice woman, though a little bit weird! Anyway, she is v. nice to me, they all are. The two elder girls v. wellmannered, on the whole. They both do things. Katrine (eldest) is studying for the stage, but I think it may v. probably be only a hobby, tho’ she is v. pretty in the brunette style, and speaks her parts loudly and clearly. Deirdre is a journalist, as I have told you (?), and really gets taken, and Mrs Carne seems to let her go about to v. weird places alone. I don’t pretend to understand the modern girl. Sheil, my little girl, is a sweet kiddy to look at, but a
v
. weird child. A kiddy who says whimsical things every now and again I could understand and cope with. (Do you remember Kenneth Barlow who said that “King Henry died of a surfeit of
lampshades
,” and how heartily we laughed over it? He meant
lampreys
!!!) But Sheil isn’t amusing a bit, that way; she talks in such a silly way about things and people, sometimes. It’s perfectly harmless, of course, and I am sure I can get her out of it, in time, but one sometimes can’t make out when she knows she is “making up” and when she believes she is telling the truth. For instance, she told me yesterday that Crellie (their terrier) once thought he was the Pope, and had a procession to the Vatican, and he wore a cope, and just as the service was beginning, he was sick on the altar steps.

‘But I shall watch all that. And the only scrap of foundation for the whole thing is that the dog is always vomiting because he will bathe so in the Serpentine, and swallows it. And even the elder girls go on about him, and sort of intone “
In Seculae Seculorum”
sometimes when they see him, and call out “magnificats” whenever there is a Tom on the wall, and they say he “talks” with a cockney accent, and sometimes meals are a perfect
Beldam
(do forgive! I mean Bedlam, of course) of cockney, and of what Crellie “said.” It’s so ridiculous, and not funny, as I said. I love a joke, but this is
v.
wearing. And the latest seems to be about – of all persons in the world – Mr Justice Toddington; I fancy he was the Judge on the Poisoned Caramels case about three years ago? They are all silly about him, and talk in such a way that I can never make out how much is play and how much serious. They know him in private life, so I expect to meet him any day, now. He is certainly exceedingly generous, and I have often heard them talking amongst themselves of the presents he makes them on birthdays and at Xmas, so I await the next birthday with the greatest curiosity !!

‘But my work with the child may be difficult; I shall have to be extra careful to be
commonplace
, and try to bring her to see that there is plenty of mirth in
everyday
things – more than in fanciful things which never could possibly happen.

‘How is the Pater? And has the Bouverie Society a good summer programme? How
excellent
Canon Stepney was on “The Gentle Art of Laughter,” last winter! I sent a line from his lecture to the
Morning Post
for “The Trivet,” but with no result. I heard from Mabel, yesterday. Her old lady seems to be breaking up, poor thing, and Mabel is beginning to be a little anxious about the Future. Violet writes that she is getting her girls on capitally at hockey and that her school is to play Bradley this term.’

Miss Martin put down her pen and stretched her hand and contemplated the schoolroom. Mabel and Flossie on the mantelpiece, Violet on a carved bracket. The men were in her bedroom. Captain Martin (retired) by her bedside, and Mr Francis on the dressing-table. Miss Martin’s chin trembled. Those photographs . . . she could see the studio in the avenue which they had all attended when they realised that they must, as a home, disperse; knew her own portrait was represented in the two other bedrooms she would never see: in Bournemouth (Mabel), in Hampshire (Violet). Flossie’s alone was dearly familiar, but the Pater must have a daughter at home. It was cheaper than a second servant. He would be lost without her. She knew his ways. The extra frame – Mr Francis, was peculiar to Agatha, and Miss Martin began to dwell on him, once more. He had never actually proposed (men, somehow, didn’t do that), but there had been, not quite an understanding, perhaps, but much mutual regard, and, on one side, a passion of admiration. But, of course, a junior curate’s stipend . . . the Pater’s pension . . .

Mr Francis: so unlike the humorous paper conception of a curate. Always a joke. (‘And where is Miss Betty? I begin to suspect she is all my eye!’)

Manly . . .

From the bedrooms a flight below came voices.

DEIRDRE’S: ‘What’s Toddy doing now?’

MRS CARNE’S: ‘Asleep. It’s late. Hurry into bed, lamb.’

DEIRDRE’S: ‘With one ivory claw against his little face!’ (
Sounds of tooth-brushing
).

KATRINE’S: ‘What are his pyjamas like?’

MRS CARNE’S: ‘Blue and white, from Swan and Edgar.’

DEIRDRE’S: ‘Darling! Can you
see
Toddy getting his things there!’

MRS CARNE’S: ‘I expect he gets them by the half-dozen from the place in St James’s Street where he bought the dressing-gown last summer that was too long for him, and he was so annoyed with us for offering to shorten it.’

Miss Martin sighed.

7

We were to leave for Yorkshire three days after Katrine’s letter came. Miss Martin was to have a fortnight in Cheltenham and then join us. We’ve told her about Katrine; what use trying to conceal it? I was honestly glad the Martin, at least, was going to be happy, and regardless of possible consequences, I sought her company. But the creature, cornered, simply isn’t there. Oh well, I understand. Oh, how I understand!

I went into the schoolroom to try and outface the dismantled and trunkish atmosphere everywhere else, but it’s no use. That atmosphere is all over the house.

Toddington is still on circuit, and I wonder what his wife’s plans are? He’s in Bristol, so one won’t even see him before one leaves, and then he gets ten weeks’ vacation before the Michaelmas Term begins. Mother says he’s sure to ring us up a lot, in Yorkshire, as he would if we were in America. He must have got a feminine streak in him, to be so understanding, but all the nicest men have, just as all the best women have a dash of masculine in their make-up. I hope Mildred has, too, but I never felt we really knew her, though we came nearer ever since she kicked her shoes off and said ‘whatever.’

Katrine and I were sitting in the library the day before we left town, and I began to wonder if one might talk about everything, for she had gone about the house dreadfully bright for two days, now, and prompted the Martin to remark to me that she was taking it wonderfully well . . .

I caught Katrine’s eye.

‘Hang it, K, that Dramatic School isn’t the only pebble on the beach. You’ve had a lot of fun out of it, but it’s an awful time-waster. There are shorter cuts than that.’

‘Such as?’

‘The stage, fool!’

‘Tah!’

‘If you mean business, go out and get a job. It’s done, you know.’

‘Oh my dear soul, don’t talk that “earn while learning” stuff to
me
.’

‘It would be a lark, K. Think of the frightful people you’d meet, and singing “Bird of Love Fly Back” at auditions, and being told by an overdressed Hebrew in a hat two sizes too small that he’d “let you know in a few days”! They all say that. It means you don’t get the job and he doesn’t write to you,’ I urged. Katrine brightened.