Wonder Cruise: A heartwarming holiday romance in the 1930s

by Ursula Bloom

  He looked up at his daughter. ‘What are you taking all that whisky for?’

  ‘It’s Mother. She’s got the most shocking cold.’

  ‘Then what’s the point in making her drunk?’

  ‘She’ll sleep on it. I shall have to give her enough or it won’t work. Too little won’t make her perspire.’

  Harold watched Isabel over the top of his book as she measured it out. The air was blue with smoke and the whole room very stuffy. The log fire leaked a little, so that the wood smoke escaped. Anna had done away with the nice Victorian grate and had had an olde-worlde ingle put in its place. Harold had disapproved from the beginning, declaring that half the heat would go up the chimney. It did, but half the smoke came down again! Anna had insisted on the ingle because they had one at the Manor House, it was just a silly bit of social snobbery on her part, and what Harold called ‘aping her betters’.

  He said, ‘Whisky toddy never does my cold any good at all, and I don’t think it’ll help your mother’s. She’ll only have a very bad headache in the morning.’

  ‘No, she won’t. I’m giving her an aspirin with it!’

  ‘Of course you know best. You would! If I’d answered my father like that, I know what would have happened to me. Your trouble is you’ve been spoilt. Now put half that whisky back and do as I tell you.’

  ‘It won’t do Mother any good if she only has half,’ said Isabel turning a dull strawberry shade under her sallow skin.

  ‘Rubbish! Your mother isn’t used to stimulants and it’ll do her a lot of good. You’re to do what I say and not argue. Put it back immediately,’ and he returned to the Russian horror.

  Isabel poured back half the whisky with a hand that shook from rage. Her best efforts were always being misinterpreted and she disliked it very much. She went out into the kitchen for a slice of lemon and some hot water.

  The war had depleted the staff badly, and no longer did the Walkers keep three good maids. Old Janet was all that they had now, and old Janet (she wasn’t so very old really) had been with them since Isabel was two and traded on it. She was sitting in the rocking-chair, knitting a sailor’s comforter which looked as if it could comfort nobody. It was a long navy blue string of knitting, on too large pins, hopelessly elastic. Isabel, full of good works, went over to the kettle steaming on the side of the stove.

  ‘Now what are you up to, miss?’ asked Janet, watching her over her steel-rimmed glasses, ‘mind you don’t spill that on my clean hearth, else I shall have something to say that yon hadn’t ought to hear.’

  ‘It’s a whisky toddy for Mother. She’s got a shocking cold.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Janet still knitting laboriously. ‘Why not let me take her up a nice bowl of bread and milk? That’s the stuff. It’d do her no end of good. What you’ve got there will only make her head ache.’

  ‘Now don’t be silly, Janet. I ought to know, I’ve done Red Cross classes.’

  ‘You’re always telling us that there, miss, and I don’t hold with them. A lot of nonsense, I think. A lot of funny business if you ask me.’

  In a grand manner, as though Janet’s words were beneath contempt, Isabel went across the kitchen with the hot toddy on a tray. She went through the hall and she caught sight of Joyce in the cold little morning-room busy with her prep. Joyce was at the untidy age and she was taking a long time to get out of that stage. Her hair, never her best point, hung in dark greasy wisps; it would not stay fluffy, or even flat, it hung in groups, with glimpses of neck between. She twined her legs in their black woollen stockings round the legs of her chair. She hunched.

  ‘Won’t it workout, Joycie?’ asked Isabel from the doorway.

  ‘It’s fractions. They’re a pest.’

  ‘Well, stick to it. Rome wasn’t won in a day.’

  ‘Built in a day, you mean.’

  ‘Won or built, it’s all the same thing.’ Isabel started upstairs. She felt vaguely irritated. Her father, Janet and Joyce all combined. Her mother was sitting up in bed with her nose swollen and looking like an unripe blue plum in the middle of her face. She was propped with soiled pillows, and wore a raspberry pink home-knitted bed-jacket of unlovely workmanship. She looked very ill and could hardly speak. ‘Now what have you brought me?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘You’ve got to drink it up, Mother.’ Isabel stood by the bed as directed in the Home Nursing Manual she possessed, and she put on her best medical voice. ‘It’s a whisky toddy and it’ll do you lots of good.’

  ‘Oh no, dear! It always makes my head ache.’

  ‘We can deal with that later on. This’ll throw off your cold, and I’ve got a couple of aspirins ready for you to take with it.’

  ‘Yes, but I’d so much rather let the thing take its course.’

  ‘Now, Mother, that’s only being silly. You must drink this up and get rid of it all.’

  Poor Anna Walker felt that she would give anything if only Isabel would go away and leave her in peace. She felt deadly ill. ‘Really, dear, I know you mean to be kind, but I don’t think I want it.’

  Isabel was not to be fobbed off that way. She assumed the dictatorial manner that had made Sister declare that she was a born nurse. ‘Now, Mother, you’ve got to have it. Here it is and you must drink it up before it gets cold. Then it’s no good at all.’ And she held out the glass.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Anna dragged herself up a little and felt the pain stab her again; she reached for the glass with the knitted kettle holder round it so that she shouldn’t burn herself. Really, I think of everything, Isabel thought, and she knew then that her mother was afraid of her. Anna drank it down, shuddering violently, and groped under the heavy pillows for a soggy handkerchief, collapsing down into a huddle again. ‘It was horrible! For goodness’ sake go away and leave me in peace,’ she muttered.

  Isabel went downstairs, conscious of having done her duty and as usual being disliked for it. Life was singularly difficult. She saw Lilian just coming in at the front door, and standing there, her back to the interior, talking to someone who still waited without. Lilian had her uniform on; she was laughing nervously, and the man laughed back. Isabel thought that she recognized Geoffrey’s voice. Geoffrey was a forbidden young man who occasionally visited the local farm, but of course he couldn’t be here in November. A drift of fog came into the hall to emphasize that.

  Isabel moved more quickly; she wanted to make sure as to who it could be, but Lilian must have heard her, for she wheeled round, slammed the door to, and stood with her back to it, deliberately laughing at her sister. She looked attractive, with the white cap spread behind her in a fan and a few fair curls pulled audaciously from under it. It wasn’t the way that Sister liked to see the caps worn but it was the way that Lilian always managed to wear it, in spite of censure.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know? Well, you won’t find out.’

  ‘It was Geoffrey?’

  ‘What? In winter? Don’t be silly!’ and then noticing the empty glass, ‘Whatever have you got there? Have you been drinking in secret?’

  ‘It’s for Mother’s cold, she didn’t want to take it, but I made her.’

  ‘You bet you did! Poor old Mum!’ Lilian let her cloak slip off her shoulders and it fell on the carved chair. ‘Anyone in the morning-room?’

  ‘Joyce’s there doing her sums. Now don’t you go interrupting her, because she’s got to get them finished. Father’s reading about Russia in the dining-room.’

  ‘That won’t make him any more cheerful. I think I’ll go and see what Janet’s doing. Mother’s probably in a drunken stupor through you, and I don’t seem to be wanted anywhere else.’ She went down the little passage that led to the kitchen. The parquet left off abruptly where it had been presumed that no one would look further. It changed to stone which wept mournfully in bad weather and smelt of moisture.

  Isabel was annoyed; she was the only conscientious one, working hard and always to be
relied upon, yet she knew that Lilian would have a royal welcome in the kitchen. Janet had been almost rude to her, her father disappointing, Joyce hardly encouraging. She took up her sewing and went into the morning-room.

  ‘I’ve come to help you, Joycie,’ she said, hoping that it would be received well.

  Joyce looked at her with dull eyes. She was at an awkward stage, all legs and arms and never completely understanding herself. Although a darker edition of Lilian, she had not a single good feature in her face. Her hair was lank, her skin so sallow that it gave the impression of being dirty. Her lips unfortunately pale like the lining of an early mushroom. She had no interest in her clothes, and wore them much as a clothes-line would.

  ‘I shan’t do them,’ said Joyce, ‘there’s a mistake. Miss Davis jotted them down and she’s marked off the wrong ones.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she has.’

  ‘Our form’s only up to page 182. These are on page 195. That can’t be right.’

  ‘Let me see?’ Isabel took the book and bent her head over it. She had had her hair bobbed a month before, and was very proud of the effect. Directly she saw the page she knew that there had been a mistake. ‘I’d go to bed, Joycie, you look tired out, don’t tell me you’ve been working on the wrong sums all this time? How very silly! You slip off, it’s past eight, for Lilian’s home. I heard her talking to a man on the step.’

  Joyce began to laugh. ‘Oh him!’ she said.

  ‘He,’ corrected Isabel. ‘Is it Geoffrey?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s Major Kemp. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘Major Kemp?’ Isabel bristled at the name. He was a patient at the Home. Major Kemp had lost a leg at Hill 60, and was getting about extraordinarily well on one leg and a stump alluded to as ‘Percy’. He had had a wife who had run off with a handsome stranger, which was appalling, but the Major refused to take it that way. He annoyed Isabel, who thought that he was in very bad taste. Also a flirt, even Sister had said so, having been heard to mutter in an unguarded moment, ‘That dreadful man!’ So Isabel had formed her own conclusions and it now dawned upon her that her sister had been enjoying a pleasant little flirtation right under her nose and that Lilian and that dreadful man must have been very amused by it.

  She said, ‘Lilian’s far too young to be flirting with a horrid man like that! How long has this been going on?’

  ‘I’m not telling tales. I wouldn’t have said a word only I thought you knew.’

  ‘Then you’ve known some time?’

  ‘So has everybody else.’

  Isabel went upstairs to look for her sister, whom she had heard leave Janet some little time before. Isabel was the only one who had her own room, furnished in her own girlish taste, with a few religious pictures, pink walls and carpet, and the Heads of Angels on her silver dressing set as given her by Aunt Edna on different birthdays. Lilian still shared with Joyce. It was obvious that Joyce would be coming up any moment now. ‘Come along to my room?’ Isabel suggested.

  ‘Now what do you want?’

  ‘Only a talk. Joyce’ll be up any minute.’

  ‘All right.’ Lilian slipped on a kimono of a flamboyant nature and followed across the landing with some suspicion. Isabel’s room was warmly comfortable. ‘Now what is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Lilian, that was Major Kemp!’

  ‘Who told you that one?’

  ‘I found out.’

  ‘Joyce of course! What a little mutt she is! Well, it was Major Kemp. What’s more he kissed me for luck, and I think he’s rather nice. He gave me this.’ She thrust out her arm, and fastened round it was an identity disc which made Isabel’s eyes boggle with horror. It read:

  Kemp, William Darcy. Major 25th Lons. C. of E., and gave a number.

  ‘How AWFUL!’ she gasped, for there seemed to be something appallingly intimate about wearing a man’s identity disc.

  ‘Why is it awful? It’s real silver.’

  ‘I think it’s shocking. It’s like being married to him. He’s had one wife already and everybody knows he’s no good.’

  ‘Lots of men have had their wives run away from them. It wasn’t his fault. She was possibly quite dreadful.’

  ‘Why?’ Isabel was flushed with indignation. It was very wrong that Lilian should behave like this.

  ‘It’s no good, Isabel. I like him. I can’t make myself dislike him just because you do. I think Bill’s nice, and that’s that.’

  ‘Bill! What do you think Mother would say if she knew?’

  ‘She will know soon. You’ll tell her.’

  ‘She’s far too ill to be worried, but if you go on with it, I shall have to tell her or Father, and I don’t want to. Really, Lil, I don’t want to.’ It was true. Isabel was forever at war with herself, trying to put life on a proper basis. She forced herself to do her duty and then despised herself for it, yet persisted because she knew that it was right.

  She went downstairs again, not knowing what to do. If she told her father he would be angry, he had never cared too much for his daughters and did not hide it. Harold had bragged that he always smiled, because cheerfulness was cheap, but he didn’t smile and was not cheerful about his three girls. He still longed bitterly for a son.

  She didn’t want to approach him now. On the bottom stair an idea came to her. She’d tackle Major Kemp herself. It might be difficult but she had never yet shirked a duty.

  At eight next morning Isabel was at the Home. Her shift was four hours, and she preferred to take the mornings; besides, today one of Dr. Palmer’s daughters was with her. There were fifteen patients in the Home, all convalescent, and their tray breakfasts had already gone up. Major Kemp had finished his, and had hopped along the corridor to his bath. Isabel picked up the tray, looking disapprovingly at the artificial limb on the chair. Hopping was dangerous when the previous shift had just washed over the landings.

  ‘He’s so foolish,’ she said to Mildred Palmer, an over-plump girl with freckles.

  ‘He’s fast,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘He’s never looked at me, of course,’ said Mildred, trying to gather up four rubber hot-water bottles and a dirty breakfast tray and make one journey of the lot, ‘but then Daddy says he likes them pretty.’

  ‘Yes, he seems to,’ Isabel agreed.

  She did not relish the idea of speaking to Major Kemp, but it had to be done. She finished collecting trays and hot-water bottles, and started on some of the bedrooms where the men had gone down to the common room. Major Kemp was always one of the last. He liked the day to be warmed for him, himself to be fed and life to be pleasant. The fourth son of a comfortable business man, he had been the idol of his mother and knew that he had a way with women. Life had gone well for him until he lost his leg at Hill 60. It was funny that he had had no pain, but had suddenly become conscious of immobility and an increasing weakness. He had tried to crawl through the mud like a lame beetle, and was pulled back all the time by something that his dimming intelligence could not place. As though he were being lassoed by invisible ropes and his legs refused to work for him. Then the ambulance and the first-aid post, and again the ambulance and the darkness, shot through with the flame of distant explosions. Suddenly a woman’s voice telling him ‘It was your leg’, and his acceptance of it quite calmly, as though it didn’t matter at all. Curiously enough he had never let it matter. He had taken it in his stride. He’d ride again, play tennis, and dance. It was a pity that Rugger was done with, but anyway he was getting a bit old for it. Bill Kemp was a brave man, who could ‘accept those two impostors’ just the same! Life is afraid of men who have the courage to treat it that way.

  He hopped out of the bathroom that he had occupied for an inordinate time and he dressed slowly. There came a sharp autocratic knocking at the door just as he was buttoning his tunic. It was Isabel.

  ‘Hello? Want to get on with the bed?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s getting late, Major.’ He supposed she couldn’t help that school-mar
mish tone, but it galled him.

  ‘Sorry. It all takes time. Getting Percy shipshape is the snag. I’m not used to him yet, he goes bad on me.’

  In ten minutes Isabel knew that Sister would be coming upstairs to do her rounds, and that would mean an interruption she could not afford to have. She stripped the bed briskly, she was always particularly brisk when on the verge of a scene, then she said, ‘Major Kemp, you brought my sister home last night. I heard you.’

  ‘Did you now? I suppose there is no law against my bringing your sister home?’

  ‘Lilian’s very young. Somebody has to be responsible for her.’

  ‘And you’re in loco parentis. Well, well, well! I shouldn’t have thought you were very old either.’

  ‘Please understand, Major Kemp, that I’m worried about Lilian. I don’t want to have to tell my people, but I very much wish you wouldn’t do this.’

  ‘Wish I wouldn’t do what?’

  Isabel had known that Bill Kemp would make it as difficult as he could for her. She moistened her lips nervously and began again. ‘I heard you both outside, then Lilian came in in one of her silly moods, and she ‒ well, she told me about it.’

  ‘How very foolish of her!’ He sat on the dressing-stool, his artificial leg stuck out in front of him, a hair-brush in either hand. ‘Now I’d have attributed Lilian with more sense.’

  ‘Lilian is very young.’

  ‘Don’t keep harping on that. It sounds absurd from a chit of twenty,’ he snapped back.