Company in the Evening

by Ursula Orange

  I met Raymond again—just for lunch—and it all passed off most flippantly and excellently. I told him, of course, about Rene and Blakey and he took just the line I liked and wanted—passionate interest strongly tempered with humour. I suppose it was sympathy of a sort I got from him—but certainly not of the tabooed variety.

  I also told him (since Raymond is perfectly familiar with my childish streak) of the game I was playing on my dressing-table with a counter, Antonia’s chalks and a large sheet of squared paper. It was a version of snakes-and-ladders—the difference being that Life laid out the board as one went along. On a normal day when nothing particularly nice or nasty happened, one simply moved one’s counter along one square. On a day when something nice had occurred, one gleefully drew a ladder (appropriately graded as to length according to the extent of the ‘niceness’) and shot up to the top. Bad days necessitated drawing snakes, similarly graded, and descending down them. I amused myself by making them as brightly coloured and horrifically wriggly as possible, and even by giving them faces with some caricatured resemblance to either Blakey or Rene or Mrs. Hitchcock, as the case might be. I am not at all good at drawing, so I trust that this private amusement passed unnoticed. Both Blakey and Rene in any case thought I was slightly mad when they saw it; Antonia, on the other hand, although not entirely comprehending the rules of the game, obviously welcomed it as a really sensible idea, and, of her own accord, pressed me to borrow her most treasured chalk—a particularly virulent scarlet—for the snakes’ tongues.

  “How do you know whether you’ve won or not?” asked Raymond.

  He was the first person to take a really intelligent interest in the game. My heart warmed to him.

  “Well, I definitely lost in April, but then I only played for half a month. I’m starting the May board now. I think you’ve won if you get ‘home’ by the end of the month. Very exciting, the last week of the month, as you can imagine.”

  “The temptation to cheat must be terrific towards the end,” suggested Raymond.

  “Oh Raymond, you shock me! My integrity is such I just couldn’t.”

  “Well, let me know if it’s a near thing and I’ll try to produce a ladder for you at the crucial moment. Or am I being smug in supposing I could qualify as a ladder sometimes?”

  “Oh, of course a nice outing with you is a ladder, Raymond. The only thing is I’m not sure that a deliberately-produced ladder wouldn’t be cheating. What do you think?”

  “Yes. I see. One needs notice of that question, perhaps.”

  “There’s going to be the hell of either a snake or ladder towards the middle of this month,” I said. “My lunch with Dorothy Harper. It’s on Wednesday week. Settled at last.”

  “Dorothy Harper?” Raymond looked enquiring.

  “Yes—didn’t I tell you all about that? Oh no, of course I didn’t. It was Barry I once bored with the whole story.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “No, it doesn’t matter. It’s a long story, and it isn’t really very interesting and anyway, I’ve no business to talk about our authors outside the office.”

  “You seem to have told Barry,” said Raymond.

  I saw, to my surprise, that he looked a trifle hurt.

  “I know. I had no business to really, although actually Dorothy Harper isn’t her name.”

  “In that case, can’t I hear about it too?”

  “No—I don’t think so, please, Raymond. Not so much for reasons of professional secrecy as because—well, as because it’s a long story and will take up all our time together, and anyway I’d rather forget about it and enjoy myself while I’m out of the office and with you.”

  “‘Good-time-Raymond’—eh?” said Raymond a little sardonically.

  “Any objection?” I said, surprised.

  “Of course not. No objection in the world. Tell me, have you read that new book by . . .”

  And so on. It was a nice lunch together. That evening I went up a three-runged ladder, and the next day I had a letter from the widow person to say she could come to Harminster for an interview on the Tuesday week. I was very anxious for her to see the house and Antonia and what she would be taking on really properly, so I wrote back immediately clinching this and asking her to come to lunch and tea that day. It was the day before my lunch with Dorothy Harper. With any luck, I should now be able to interview that annoying woman with an easier mind. Again, I felt better.

  Just to keep me in order, Antonia caught a cold. This, at the beginning of May, seemed a little unnecessary. However, since the weather was so much better, I thought it could not possibly amount to much. I did, however, decide that a bottle of Parrish’s food would do the child no harm. There was no doubt that she was growing very fast these days and beginning to look rather all legs and eyes. As a connoisseur of legs, I appreciated her growth. As a mother, I felt a trifle wary.

  Rene was, I think, quite disappointed when I pooh-poohed her suggestion that Philip should have some Parrish’s food too. I am sure she was secretly looking forward immensely to the time when she could ‘dose’ him.

  Chapter 11

  *

  Although it is part of my code always to refer to Antonia with a confident airiness, I am always surprised when people (not unnaturally) assume that I never worry about my child. I disapprove of worrying, being perfectly aware of the fact that the best type of mother for a child to have is one who takes the whole business instinctively in her stride—affection, correction, demands, obligations and all. I am also perfectly aware of the fact that I am not that type of person, and that I have often to make do with intelligence as a substitute for instinct. I try very hard not to appear to take my child too seriously, and I think on the whole I put up a pretty good show. But I do not—alas?—deceive myself.

  Had Antonia been a ‘difficult’ or ‘delicate’ child I might have had an even harder time of it. But she had always been, thank God, both healthy and normal. Of course I privately thought her very intelligent for her age, but that, I knew, was both healthy and normal of me.

  Apart from a bad cold or two, Antonia had never been ill at all until this time—ten days or so after my lunch-party with Raymond, I could hardly believe my ears when I was wakened in the middle of this Friday night by sobs from her bedroom. The cold she had had was practically gone, and in any case I had not had a disturbed night from Antonia since she was a tiny baby. Smugly I had attributed it to my virtue, not to hers. “Good care and management,” I had thought, “is absolutely all that is required.”

  With surprise, rather than alarm or compassion predominant in my mind, I hurried to investigate. The fact that I had to draw the black-out curtains before I put on the light, and, in fumbling with them, knocked over a vase on the window-sill, rather spoilt the effect of utter calm and reassurance that I would have wished to produce.

  Antonia, no longer crying but with the tears still wet on her cheeks, enquired with interest, how many pieces it had broken into.

  I felt a little cross. Was there anything the matter with her or not? She was sitting up, I now saw, and looking a little flushed perhaps.

  “What’s the matter, Antonia?” I tried to speak calmly, kindly and yet with a certain healthy briskness. “What on earth was that funny noise about?”

  Antonia, contriving suddenly to look pathetic, seemed uncertain of the answer to this question. Finally she remarked that she was too hot.

  I decided to accept this explanation and close the incident as quickly as possible. I took a blanket off her bed, turned her pillow over for her, blew her nose, assured her cheerfully that now she would be lovely and comfortable again and be able to go straight off to sleep, kissed her and said good night.

  “Mummy!” said Antonia, just as I was leading the room.

  “What, darling?”

  “You haven’t pulled the curtains back again.”

  As a matter of fact I had deliberately forgotten to do this. I very much hoped Antonia would not disturb me again, but, lacking
all precedent, for this sort of performance, I thought it prudent to prepare silently for the worst. However, since the last thing I wished to-do was to put any ideas of the sort into her head, I now obediently pulled back the curtains again and then said good night once more.

  Antonia gave a satisfied little sigh and seemed to smuggle down quite happily. It was more than I did, when I got back to my own room. I suppose mothers who have, in their time, weathered a certain number of disturbed nights, learn to fall asleep again instantly after a little midnight excursion of the sort. I couldn’t, although I think Antonia did. I lay awake for a solid hour, and there was no sound from her room. She did not call out again until I was once more heavily asleep. This second time was about three o’clock in the morning.

  Our conversation this time was a little more staccato.

  “Darling, what is the matter? You can’t go on waking us all up like this.” (Was I being too sharp with her?) “Have you got a pain anywhere, darling?” (Was this last too sympathetic?)

  “Yes,” said Antonia.

  “Where?” Rapidly I tried to recall what she would have eaten that day. I had myself been at the office. Blakey had reported nothing untoward, but I now wished heartily that I had had more opportunity of observing Antonia myself the previous day. Perhaps this divided control was a mistake after all.

  Antonia did not seem to be sure where the pain, to which she had so instantly assented, was. Again I wondered if she was merely playing an entertaining game with me.

  “Does your tummy feel uncomfortable?” I suggested.

  “Yes,” said Antonia readily.

  I had my doubts. However, I fetched a hot-water bottle, filled it at the hot tap and adjured her to go to sleep again cuddling it to her. Even as I did this, I thought it was probably a poor idea. The hot-water bottle would get cold or she would lie uncomfortably across it and get wakened up again. Still, I had at least had the illusion of doing something.

  There were, however, no more disturbances that night. Obviously, had I been the calm competent, non-fussy mother I so passionately pretended to be, I need have lost no more than about twenty minutes sleep in all. I did, however, lose between three and four hours, and when Blakey brought me tea at half-past seven I felt as if I had hardly slept at all. I also felt that, at the very moment when she knocked on the door, I was just slipping out of uneasy dozing into really deep and refreshing slumber. With an effort I roused myself to ask Blakey if she had heard the disturbance in the night, and whether there had seemed anything in the least wrong with Antonia the previous day.

  The great thing about Blakey is that she permits me to be Antonia’s mother. (Trained Nannies ‘in entire charge’ cannot, I think, help feeling that the mother is merely an irrelevant nuisance.) Blakey is generous enough to think my remarks about Antonia rather more than the foolish prattlings of an untrained amateur, and consequently I talk to her frankly without silently joining battle in an attempt to keep my end up. I confided to her now my doubts about whether or to what extent Antonia had been ‘playing up,’ and Blakey did not insinuate once that it was a pity she hadn’t dealt with the situation—she would have known.

  Indeed she was at her nicest, with all her real qualities of humanity and warmth of heart uppermost. I felt once again she was ‘one of the family,’ and it was a very comforting sensation after all that had happened between us. Of course it made the thought of so shortly parting with her much worse, but, for the moment, I would not allow myself to think about that.

  Blakey, on my instructions, peeped round Antonia’s door to see if she was still asleep, and came back to report that she was. “And, if you don’t mind me suggesting it, Miss Vicky, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep again yourself, and I’ll bring you your breakfast on a tray later. Anyone can see you haven’t had a good night yourself by the looks of you.”

  “No, I think I’ll get up to breakfast as usual, and rest this afternoon, perhaps,” I said.

  Tired as I was, my tumbled bed repelled me. I had been too long wakeful in it already that night.

  Antonia was still asleep when I went down to breakfast. Although I was by now fairly well persuaded that there was nothing much the matter with her, I decided as a matter of convenience to take her up breakfast in bed when I had finished my own, and let her get up immediately afterwards.

  When I brought up her breakfast-tray she was awake and greeted me with a cheerful, “Hello, Mummy, is it half-past seven? Can I come and dress in your room?”

  Probably, I thought, she had entirely forgotten she had woken me twice in the night. Well—so would I, and dismiss all thoughts of her being ill out of my mind at once. Obviously she was perfectly all right.

  “No, it’s much later than half-past seven! You were still asleep when I went down to breakfast, darling, so I’ve brought you yours up on a tray and you can have it in bed before getting up to-day.”

  “For a treat?” said Antonia brightly.

  “Er—yes.”

  “Oh, how lovely!” said Antonia gleefully. “Shall I wear my dressing-gown and sit up with the pillow behind me like you do sometimes?”

  I wanted to hug her and smack her simultaneously—hug her for being so thrilled about her ‘treat,’ smack her for fooling me that she was going to be ill.

  “Here’s your cornflakes, Antonia. Now for heaven’s sake be careful and don’t spill anything.”

  “What else am I having besides cornflakes? I know—BACON! I can smell it. Oo, good, bacon.”

  I had not the heart to tell her that I had meant her to breakfast invalidishly off cereal alone, and I now saw no necessity for suggesting to her that she was ill and had better do so. Bacon, it was true, had been cooked for Rene and me, and I was pretty certain there was still some left. I told her to eat up her cornflakes while I went and fetched it. I did so, cut it up, removed her empty cornflake bowl, handed her the bacon-plate and spoon, and proceeded to tidy up the room while she ate. In a way I rather enjoyed dancing attendance on the child like this, although in another way I resented the slight feeling that I had been made a fool of.

  “Mummy—” said Antonia suddenly, in the middle of some trifling conversation.

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Need I finish my bacon?”

  I looked at her, surprised. Bacon is one of Antonia’s favourite foods and she had seemed particularly delighted at the novelty of eating it in bed. Was there something really the matter with her after all? Oh, how heartily sick I was of this seesawing to and fro! Couldn’t I make up my mind once and for all?

  “Darling, is your tummy still feeling funny or what is it? Now do tell me just what it is.”

  “It’s not my tummy, Mummy. It’s my ear. This ear. It’s feeling funny and hurting again—like it did last night.”

  “But darling!” Full of amazement and compassion I knelt by the bed to put my arms encouragingly round her. “Why ever didn’t you tell Mummy so last night? You never said a word about your ear.”

  “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t sure . . . I thought p’raps it was my tummy when you said so,” was Antonia’s rather uncertain answer.

  I did not press her further. Children’s behaviour is often inscrutable at the bestof times, and I suddenly saw that Antonia was suffering from exactly the same difficulty in this business as I was—inexperience. If I, from lack of practice in illness, found it hard to make up my mind whether there was anything the matter with her or not, so precisely did Antonia. She knew no more than I did about how to behave on such occasions, was just as uncertain as I had been about whether she was being naughty or hot last night. We were a puzzled pair who had yet to work out between us the correct pattern of behaviour between sick child and ministering mother.

  I peered anxiously down the small pink ear offered for inspection, and was alarmed to see a slight discharge, already apparently dried up. Horrid thoughts of bursting abscesses floated into my mind. I knew absolutely nothing about ears, and would have chosen a tummy upset for preferenc
e any time. Having been a bilious child myself in my youth, I knew all about those—including the fact that one nowadays calls it ‘acidosis’ and explains to one’s friends that it is not greedy but clever children who are prone to such attacks.

  I murmured non-committally but reassuringly at the ear, kissed the nape of Antonia’s neck because it suddenly looked rather appealing and pathetic, and remarked brightly that I thought we’d get Dr. Lambert to come and have a look, and tell us how to stop the ear being so silly and naughty. Antonia should stay in bed until she came.

  “Oh, but I thought you said I could get up as soon as I’d finished my breakfast, Mummy? I want to go and play in the sand-pit.”

  Really it was extraordinarily difficult to know how ill a child was feeling!

  “But it will be much more fun to play when Dr. Lambert has stopped your ear hurting,” I said reasonably.

  “It’s stopped hurting now,” said Antonia instantly.

  “Never mind. It had better have a little rest,” I said firmly.

  For some unknown reason the idea of her ear ‘resting’ appealed to Antonia as extraordinarily funny. She giggled all the time I was tidying her bed and taking her temperature. She was, I discovered after a good deal of peering, a fraction above normal. Anxious as I was about her, I felt almost relieved that my line of conduct was now clearly marked out—bed and the doctor. I was also heartily glad to think that I had not to go to the office again till Monday. By Monday, surely, she would be recovered? I had always Beard that children’s powers of recuperation were marvellous.

  All the way downstairs to the telephone I reassured myself, and then, while I was looking up the number I laughed at myself for finding so much reassurance necessary. Things really weren’t serious enough to have to tell oneself they weren’t so bad after all.

  I could have wished that there did not exist this unfortunate coldness between Dr. Lambert and myself. As I took off the receiver I damned Rene once more for her share in that disastrous business—just as heartily and just as unfairly as ever.