He looked down at Callie, put one large hand very gently under her chin and turned her face up. It was wet with tears.
“Kate’ll look after you,” said Uncle Fred. “Tell her I said so. And give them all my love.”
Then he kissed her and walked off down the gangway, his hat pulled over one eye. Callie’s own eyes were dazzled with tears, and she never saw him come back again, but there he was, beside her, pouring quantities of silver into her hands.
“It’s all I’ve got with me,” said Uncle Fred. “Cheer up, old lady.”
Then he was really gone and Callie was left on deck crying in the hot West Indian sunshine, unable to wipe away her tears because both hands were full of Uncle Fred’s shillings and half-crowns and five-shilling pieces.
2
The voyage seemed to go on for ages and ages but Callie quite enjoyed it, and everyone was very kind to her, especially Mrs. Edwards’ amah, who slept in the same cabin as Callie and the Edwards’ baby — a little boy of ten months old, pretty and good-tempered.
Callie loved him and was always delighted to play with him whilst the amah washed his things or those of his mother.
Mrs. Edwards was quite nice, but talked to Callie as though she were terribly sorry for her, which made Callie feel ashamed because she wasn’t more unhappy about Grandmama’s death.
One day, when she was half asleep lying on a rug on deck, Callie had a kind of dream in which she thought she could hear two grown-up people talking, somewhere above her head, in hushed, peculiar voices.
“Mercifully, the child won’t realize any of it. They say that’s why the old lady stuck on out here, all these years.”
“Well, the son may be a waster and all the rest of it, but he’s a very striking-looking man and — well, dear, say what you like, he’s attractive.”
“Oh good gracious yes, my dear. He used to break a lot of hearts in Barbados, at one time. Of course, he drinks now.”
“But was he the one — —”
“No, no, no. The other one hasn’t been out here for years. He was the one they said such awful things about, after the wife was killed in a carriage accident. That was what they called it, but I believe they were on the very edge of a divorce.”
“What a mercy that the child won’t realize any of it. Who’s going to look after her at Home? The mother’s people?”
Callie suddenly felt afraid that they were talking about her. She screwed up her eyes without opening them and tensed all her muscles.
Immediately, one of the voices above her said Hush, and there was a silence.
Only long afterwards, as it seemed, when she had certainly been fast asleep, she was awakened by the same voices and this time she knew that one of them belonged to Mrs. Edwards.
“ … wandering about like Cain, poor wretch, I believe. Such a well-known family out here, too, though they’ve lost practically all their money — and they had a lot at one time.”
“And who is going to be responsible —— ?”
“Oh, there was a daughter. She married years and years ago and settled in the West of England.”
“And is that where the tragedy happened?”
“No, no. That was in South Wales. I believe they’ve some property there still, all going to rack and ruin. They’re a perfectly feckless lot, really — all but the old lady. Typical Creole family.”
And then, just as they’d said before:
“Mercifully, the child is too young to realize any of it.”
Callie never could feel sure whether she had really heard this conversation, or dreamed it. But, dream or reality, she remembered it.
3
Suddenly, as it seemed, the ship reached Tilbury very early one morning, and Callie, shivering with cold and excitement, was told to “look at England” and saw some green, flat land and little grey houses. Everybody stood about, amongst piles of luggage, and did nothing but ask how soon they’d be able to land. As a matter of fact they weren’t able to for hours, and Callie and most of the other children on the ship took off the hats and coats and gloves in which they’d been dressed up, and began to play about on deck just as usual.
At last Mrs. Edwards’ amah, clutching the baby and a tiny little bamboo chair on which she always squatted, hurried up to find Callie and told her that they really were to leave the ship at last.
And everybody seemed to be saying goodbye to everybody else, and asking for addresses, and several grown-up people kissed Callie and said” Poor little thing!”
Then they were in England.
It was still, Callie was surprised to learn, quite early in the morning. When at last they were all settled in the train, she looked out of the window and everything seemed very grey and wet and flat and there were drifts of white mist curling up out of the earth.
She found that she was shivering, and was glad when — after the baby had been carefully put into his thick pelisse — the amah handed her a little shawl to go round her shoulders.
“We’re bound to feel it,” said Major Edwards, also shivering. “And it’s only February after all.”
He spoke sharply, as he always did, and then unfolded a newspaper and read it.
Mrs. Edwards, who had very fair hair that she was continually curling with tongs, and teeth rather like a rabbit’s, was excited because her sister was to meet them in London.
She kept on saying:
“I shall chaff old Ethel for not coming down to Tilbury. She’s too fond of her bed!”
Suddenly Major Edwards, looking at Callie, said:
“Who is meeting this child?”
“You sound like something out of the catechism, Sheridan.”
“Who is — —” began the Major again.
Mrs. Edwards seemed to feel that her little attempt at a joke had been rather a mistake.
“This Mrs. Ballantyne, or her husband, is to fetch her from the hotel as early as possible. I must say I should have thought”
“So should I,” said the Major, frowning.” Hasn’t she — why weren’t they at the docks?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Mrs Edwards said, suddenly rather cross. “Too far from Devonshire, I suppose. Mrs. Ballantyne, of course, has West Indian blood in her.”
“Nonsense!”
“She has, really, Sheridan. You must know. Her name was Fanny Lemprière and she was old Mrs. Charlecombe’s daughter by her first marriage.”
And the Major said:
“Good Lord!”
Callie wondered why, and hoped that she was going to like the Ballantynes.
She didn’t really very much like the Edwardses, except for the baby.
She liked them even less at the London hotel.
4
Ten o’clock came, and eleven, and no Mrs. Ballantyne appeared to fetch Callie.
The sister of Mrs. Edwards, who was not at all like her, but thin and dark and inclined to jump about as if she were strung on wires, had arrived long since, had had breakfast with them and besought her sister to come out shopping.
Major Edwards, immediately after breakfast, had announced that he must go out on business.
“But, Sheridan!” wailed Mrs. Edwards, who had been up since four o’clock, “won’t that seem rather odd?”
“Can’t help that, my dear. You must simply hand over the child — after all, it’s a woman’s job — and say that I’ve been obliged to go out.”
“I can’t think what can have happened to the woman.”
“You can’t expect punctuality from a Creole.”
It seemed, however, that Mrs. Edwards had expected it.
She sat in the hotel bedroom, on the dingy white coverlet of the big brass double-bed, that had knots of cotton sticking out all over it, whilst the amah unpacked and Callie played with the baby, and the sister stood at the window looking out into a pale-yellow fog through dingy Nottingham-lace curtains.
“Of course,” said the sister, “it’s the wrong time of year for a real fog, I suppose, but this certain
ly looks rather like one. If it gets any worse, we shall never be able to get a cab. And in any case, the sooner we start for the Stores, the better.”
“How can I? It would look awful, if I wasn’t here just when she arrived. As though I’d taken no care of the child at all.”
“I’m sure nobody could think that, after all you’ve done,” returned the sister kindly but absent-mindedly. “Of course, this Mrs. Bannister may turn up at any minute. I see someone now looking as if they were going to cross the street.”
Mrs. Edwards sprang up and hastened to the window, only to be disappointed.
“Ethel! It’s an old woman pushing a cart.”
“Yes, I see it is now. The fog is getting worse.”
Mrs. Edwards returned dejectedly to the double-bed and in the course of the next half-hour was twice summoned from it — once to verify her sister’s assertion that the fog would soon be like pea-soup, and once to repudiate a man with a wooden leg whom the sister had excitedly heralded as Mrs. Ballantyne come at last.
By eleven o’clock both sisters were exasperated.
“And we’ve only got two days in London before we go down to Sheridan’s mother! And I’ve got absolutely no clothes to wear!”
“Why not leave the children with the ayah and come?”
“The what, Ethel? She isn’t an ayah.”
“The native. Probably this Mrs. Balestier won’t turn up to-day at all.”
“Oh, but, Ethel! Why not?”
“There may be a hundred reasons,” said the sister spaciously, and she added excitedly that Mrs. B. might have been knocked down and run over by a cab.
Mrs. Edwards protested faintly.
“Then,” said the sister more reasonably, “she’s made a mistake in the date and will turn up tomorrow. And you really can’t waste a whole day when you’ve only got two. Leave them with the”
“Amah, Ethel.”
“The amah, and come.”
Mrs. Edwards, alternately protesting and agreeing, allowed herself to be overpowered by a stronger will. Still talking, she began to put on her outdoor things again, to the accompaniment of her sister’s joyous urgings.
“Put baby down for his rest, amah, and you must stay with him till I come back. I shan’t be long,” said Mrs. Edwards.
Then she looked round. Callie was sitting on the floor, looking, Mrs. Edwards felt, good but doubtful, as though wondering what was going to happen next.
“What about —— ?” Mrs. Edwards mouthed to her sister, and she added, in a loud, clear voice:
“Wouldn’t you like a story-book, dear?”
“No, thank you,” said Callie in a surprised voice. “I’ve read all the ones I brought with me, and anyway, they aren’t unpacked.”
“Then you must find some nice way of amusing yourself while Mrs. Edwards is out,” said the sister firmly.
The eyes of Mrs. Edwards, at this, wandered involuntarily round the hotel bedroom, furnished with a mahogany suite, with luggage in every corner, and with the bed piled high with white folded garments and crumpled tissue paper from which rose, like unnaturally-shaped lifebuoys out of a pallid sea, the baby’s weighing-machine and enamel chamberpot.
“It would be brighter for her downstairs. She could watch the people coming and going in the hall. Or look out of the window.”
“Yes, that would be fun for her,” the sister decided and she gave Callie a brief, bright smile.
“Come along then, darling. Amah, missy will play downstairs while you stay with baby. We come back quite soon.”
“Very well, mem,” the amah agreed submissively.
She squatted on her little bamboo chair, close to the baby’s basket.
“I s’pose,” said Callie hopefully to Mrs. Edwards, “I couldn’t go out with you?”
Mrs. Edwards glanced in deep dismay at her sister.
“What about —— ?”
“Out of the question. The fog,” said the sister authoritatively. “I’m sure Callie is going to be a very good girl and not tiresome, and perhaps we’ll bring her back a surprise. Come along, dear. Mercy, how pale Baby looks when he’s asleep! Almost like a dead thing.”
Unaware of the horror with which Mrs. Edwards and Callie alike received this remark, she hurried them out of the bedroom into the long narrow corridor, over chocolate-coloured carpet and between high brown walls with embossed gilt paper and neat varnished doors at regular intervals, each with a number painted on it in bold black figures.
They sped down long flights of wide shallow stairs, red-carpeted and twisting dizzily, and reached the hall.
It was a place of red-plush upholstery, potted palms and enormous oil-paintings showing waterfalls, gorges and mountains.
“And there are plenty of nice books,” said the sister of Mrs. Edwards, snatching up a copy of The Mission to Seamen and a Great Western Railway Timetable and pressing them on Gallic “She’ll be all right here. Come along, come along. The fog is getting worse every minute.”
Pressing their muffs to their noses, the ladies hastened out into the street, where buses loomed through a yellow haze, and the sound of carriage-wheels was muffled, and the windows of shops and houses alike were beginning to display the glimmer of untimely gas-light.
“She’ll be all right, won’t she? I don’t like leaving her, but it’s not a fit day for her to be out. I must say, I think it’s too bad of Mrs. Ballantyne to have failed us like this.”
“Absolutely disgraceful. There can be no possible excuse. The child will be wretchedly neglected and unhappy, probably, with a woman of that sort. There’s a cab! We’ll go straight to the Army and Navy Stores.”
The Army and Navy Stores occupied them for more than an hour, and by the time they emerged the fog — which had never been of the density that the sisters felt it to be — had lifted altogether, and there was still time to visit one or two other shops before returning to the hotel.
Hung with small parcels from every finger, and with the agreeable knowledge that other, larger ones would soon be delivered at the door, they re-entered the hall. Holding a top-hat against his chest and standing beneath a potted palm exactly as though he were waiting to be photographed, was a tall middle-aged man with a short square beard of red hair.
Both ladies noticed him and decorously slackened their pace.
The hall-porter, a dejected-looking man who looked both cold and cross, hurried up to them.
“That gentleman has been asking for you, madam.”
The eyes of all of them met, and the gentleman with the red beard stepped forward.
“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mrs. Edwards?” he enquired, addressing Mrs. Edwards’ sister.
The error was explained, the gentleman apologized, and said that his name was Ballantyne and that he had come to fetch his little charge.
“My wife, unfortunately, enjoys very poor health and, in fact, is almost an invalid. She was quite unable to undertake the journey from Devonshire.”
“I hope she won’t find the child too much for her. A dear little girl, though boys are always easier. I have a son myself,” said Mrs. Edwards with false modesty.
“My sister, who lives with us, will have the principal care of the little girl. We have five children of our own,” Mr. Ballantyne said.
“How nice!” effusively exclaimed the sister of Mrs. Edwards.
At the word “invalid” a full-grown fantasy had sprung to life within her brain, which was a very active one, of Mr. Ballantyne as a widower and the five children motherless, and herself as an angel of consolation in the bereaved household.
Mrs. Edwards broke into these flights of fancy by enquiring whether Mr. Ballantyne had seen Callie
He said that he had not.
He had understood that the little girl was upstairs with the amah.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Edwards, looking startled.
“No, no, she’s down here. Playing quite happily. I gave her a book myself,” asserted her sister, glancing sharply into every co
rner of the hall in turn to substantiate her words.
But she had spoken too soon.
Callie was not to be seen.
“I’ll run up and find her,” obligingly exclaimed the sister, instinctively beginning to show Mr. Ballantyne what a treasure she would be to any widower left with five children.
And she sped rapidly away up the stairs.
“Unless you think she ought to rest, I was proposing to take her down to Devonshire this afternoon. There is a good train to Exeter at two o’clock, and it connects with the local train to Culverleigh.”
“She’s quite ready. We haven’t unpacked her boxes.”
“We can take them on a cab to Paddington station, and she can have some luncheon in the refreshment room there.”
Mrs. Edwards agreed. It was her nature, and also the result of her training at the hands of Major Edwards, to agree with whatever was suggested by any man.
She asked, after a minute:
“Have you heard from Mr. Frederic Lemprière lately?”
“No.”
“Or the little girl’s father?”
“No.”
Mrs. Edwards hesitated, looked as if she meant to add something, changed her mind, and said instead:
“Callie is a dear little girl.”
“Very good of you to say so,” returned Mr. Ballantyne gravely.
He was a particularly grave man, with a large weather-beaten face, deeply tanned, very light-blue eyes and a head closely covered with thick red hair.
“My sister won’t be a minute,” Mrs. Edwards asserted, and Mr. Ballantyne said “No?” and silence fell.
It was a positive relief when the sister reappeared, holding Callie by the hand — although less of a relief when it was seen that Callie was in tears.
“This is — —” began Mrs. Edwards. “Why, what’s the matter, dear?”
“Nothing,” said Callie.
Tears dripped from her big hazel eyes, which were round and very bright, and down her face, and as each tear reached the corners of her mouth she industriously licked it away.
“She must have hurt herself,” declared Mrs. Edwards’ sister. “She must have pinched her little fingers in the door as we came out of the room. Let auntie have a look, darling.”
Callie shook her head. She had a very large head for her size, and a thick curtain of straight, soft brown hair.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 487