The Bell Family

by Noel Streatfeild

  Cathy laughed and kissed her.

  ‘Don’t worry, pet, I’m sure Miss Bloggs is right, and it will go splendidly.’

  Long before the accompanist was due to arrive Ginnie was hopping first on one foot and then on the other. Suppose Miss Newton had forgotten? Suppose the accompanist had been run over? Then a small car drove up to the kerb, the door opened and out stepped Miss Newton herself.

  Nobody at St Winifred’s would have known Miss Newton that afternoon. She climbed up on the platform and settled down at the piano as if it were an old friend. She was pleased to see Jane, talked to all the family, and to Miss Bloggs, and had a grand discussion with Mrs Gage on old songs, but never once did she forget it was Ginnie’s concert.

  ‘Let me know the order of the programme. Are you making an opening speech?’

  Ginnie had given up that idea.

  ‘No. I thought I would just do it at the end.’

  ‘I don’t want to interfere, but I think I’d just say a word of welcome if I were you.’

  Ginnie was so startled to find Miss Newton there at all, let alone treating her so respectfully, that she would have agreed to stand on her head if Miss Newton had suggested it. She stepped to the front of the platform.

  ‘How do you do? I can’t make a proper speech, I’m not any good at it. This is Miss Newton, she’s my headmistress, and she’s playing the piano for everybody. Paul’s going to announce the names of the songs. Jane’s going to dance, Angus is going to sing and so is Daddy, and Mrs Gage is going to do community singing, like she does at outings.’

  Jane, standing at the side of the stage in her silver tunic, gave Paul a nudge.

  ‘Even though I’ve left St Winifred’s, when I see Miss Newton I still feel like Alice in Wonderland, you know: “Curtsey when you’re thinking, it saves time.”’

  Paul looked at Miss Newton.

  ‘Seems a good type to me.’

  Jane limbered up.

  ‘I think schoolmasters and schoolmistresses always seem good types to people who don’t go to their schools.’

  Miss Bloggs, while Ginnie was making her speech, whispered to Miss Newton:

  ‘Please play just the dear old favourites … the nice ones you know. We mustn’t forget this is the Parish Hall, Mrs Gage could, I think, be very easily carried away.’

  Miss Newton nodded as if in agreement, but privately she was sure Mrs Gage would sing exactly what she wanted to, without asking her advice. And she was quite right. Mrs Gage opened the concert, and right away she was a riot. She had only to sing a line, and she had all the old people singing with her. She would have taken up all the concert time, only Miss Newton gave some very loud finishing chords and called out:

  ‘That will have to be all for now, Mrs Gage, or my hands will drop off. Who’s next, Ginnie?’

  It really was a most successful concert. The old people enjoyed every moment of it, and when it was over it was not Ginnie who made a speech to the old people, but an old man in the audience who made a speech to her. He was a very distinguished-looking old man, and he started with a grand bow.

  The concert was over

  ‘On behalf of all here I wish to give our most heartfelt thanks. We understand this concert was arranged for us by the little lady they call Ginnie. I can assure you, Miss Ginnie, from the bottom of my heart that we have had a real treat this afternoon, and we would like to show our appreciation to you and all who entertained us in the usual way.’

  Then the old people clapped and clapped and the concert was over.

  The whole family, Mrs Gage and Miss Bloggs, saw Miss Newton into her car, and tried to thank her, but she would not be thanked.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed myself enormously. Hearing Mrs Gage sing is a tonic. I thought you sang beautifully, Angus, and “Cockles and Mussels” is an old favourite, Mr Bell. As for you, Jane, I’m proud of you, I’m glad we gave you that scholarship, for you are a credit to us. But, of course, top praise is for you, Ginnie. It was a lovely concert.’

  Having said good-bye to Mrs Gage and Miss Bloggs, the family, tired but pleased with themselves, trailed back to the vicarage. It seemed to have got stuffier while they had been in the Parish Hall, for a hot wind had got up and blew bits of grit around in an irritating way. Cathy paused on the doorstep and looked round her.

  ‘I’ve been so happy in this vicarage that often I forget how hideous it is here. Imagine, not a tree in sight! If this were August, and we were in Berkshire, this wind would make leaves rustic.’

  Jane put her arm through her father’s.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be a gorgeous evening for us to fish?’

  Ginnie sighed.

  ‘Ricky and me would be lying under raspberry canes, and eating and eating.’

  Angus hopped as he remembered Liza’s pets.

  ‘Oh, goodness, why isn’t it August now?’

  Alex patted Esau.

  ‘No one wishes that more than you do, old man, you’d rather chase rabbits than be dressed up as a baby at a parish concert, wouldn’t you?’

  In the letter box there was a telegram. It was addressed to Cathy. She tore it open, then stood staring at it.

  Alex was worried.

  ‘Anything wrong, darling?’

  Paul had a horrid thought.

  ‘Mumsmum or Mumsdad aren’t ill, are they?’

  Cathy pulled herself together.

  ‘Nobody’s ill. It’s from Uncle Jim. It says: “Bad fire. House completely burnt out. Writing. Jim.”’

  12

  A Busy Morning

  AT FIRST THE family were so sorry for Uncle Jim, Aunt Ann, Ricky and Liza that they did not see what the fire meant to them. But Uncle Jim’s first letter made the position perfectly clear. The fire was started by a fuse in the cellar. Everybody was out, and the fire had a good hold before anybody noticed it. A neighbour had rushed in and saved everything he could out of the surgery, and Aunt Ann had managed to rescue a lot of clothes and bed linen, and a certain amount of furniture had been pulled into the garden, but they had more or less lost everything. Fortunately, they were fully insured, but he doubted if the old house would be worth repairing. What they would probably do was to build a small house, which would be much easier to run. In the meantime they had got rooms in the village inn, and he had borrowed a room in the vicarage as a temporary surgery. Then he wrote:

  ‘We feel so badly about all of you. Where will you go for August? We’ve tried to see if we could find a room for you and Alex, and the children could camp, but everything seems booked up.’

  Cathy felt miserable, she had been brought up in the house, it was hateful to think what was left of it was to be pulled down, and a little new, probably ugly house, put up in its place.

  ‘Of course it’s the sensible thing to do,’ she told Alex; ‘but, oh, dear, how I hate to think of the house disappearing. Not only because I loved it so when I was a child, but for all those glorious Augusts we’ve spent there.’

  August in Berkshire was so much part of family life that at first it was almost impossible to take in that there was not only not going to be any Berkshire that year, but quite probably there would never again be a family holiday there. Then slowly, like the tide coming in, it swept over the children, that not only was there not going to be any Berkshire, but unless something wonderful turned up, they would not be going away at all.

  Every sort of scheme was put up. Alex put an advertisement in a church paper, offering to exchange parishes for a month with a country vicar, but even as he wrote the advertisement he told Cathy it was a waste of money.

  ‘It’s much too late, anybody who wants to come to London has arranged an exchange months ago.’

  ‘And anyway,’ Jane pointed out, ‘I can’t see why anyone would want this vicarage. If only we lived in a nice part of London we might have a chance.’

  ‘Anyway, I don’t want Daddy swopping parishes,’ said Cathy. ‘He’s arranged for somebody to do his work in August and he’s going to let him do it. He needs
a holiday.’

  Paul thought of Christmas.

  ‘If only we’d known Uncle Jim’s house was going to burn we could have saved Esau’s fifty pounds. Think of the splendid holiday we could have had with that.’

  Alex laughed.

  ‘Well, we didn’t know, and even if we had it’s very unlikely we’d have managed to hold on to it until now. But your mentioning that fifty pounds, Paul, has made me think. It’s difficult for you children, but I don’t want you to talk about what’s happened. People round here have hearts of gold, and it would be only too easy for some kind-hearted person to start a fund going to send us away. Well, we don’t want that. Nobody in these parts has much money, and anything they have should go on holidays for themselves. You’ll have to ask Mrs Gage to say nothing, Cathy.’

  Mrs Gage, when she heard what Alex had said, was furious.

  ‘I never ’eard such nonsense! Carries goodness too far, the vicar does. There ’e is lookin’ like a piece of string, what somebody’s chewed and spat out, and everybody sayin’ ’ow bad ’e needs ’is ’oliday, and how ’e’s not goin’ away, and nobody isn’t to know. Enough to turn the milk sour, it is. There’s many would be glad to ’elp, and some I can think of wouldn’t miss the money.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Cathy, ‘he’s trusting you to say nothing, so you won’t, will you?’

  Mrs Gage sniffed.

  ‘You know me, proper clam when asked. But it turns me up, and it isn’t only the vicar. There’s Paul too tall by ’alf, and too thin, and not eatin’ like ’e ought. There’s Jane a proper disgrace. I was only sayin’ to ’er yesterday, get any thinner and you’ll slip down with the bath water. Angus could do with a bit more colour. And as for you, dear, you’re a nasty sight, put me in mind of a cabbage leaf what’s been left lyin’ around and gone soft. The only one of you lookin’ properly ’erself is Ginnie. She’s like my Margaret Rose, never off ’er food and a proper dragon for sleep.’

  However Ginnie looked, she was finding the days after her concert heavy going. The verger’s wife was delighted by her offer to look after her baby.

  ‘Oh, it is kind of you, dear. I feel proper knocked up by my teeth. If you’d just push the pram up and down outside the church, he loves a ride in his pram, don’t you, ducks?’

  Ginnie did not think the baby a ‘ducks.’ She thought it a very disagreeable baby. It would lie on its back, staring at her in what she thought was a very rude way, and when it was not staring at her it blew bubbles. Her only comfort was her entries in her Dedication book. ‘Spent from tea to nearly bedtime taking the verger’s baby out in its pram,’ looked, she thought, more imposing Service than she had expected.

  Only two nice things happened to lighten the family gloom. Jane had a very good report from Sadler’s Wells School, and Alex had a letter saying that Angus could go as a full-time pupil next year.

  ‘I suppose I’m pleased,’ Angus said, ‘but you can’t really be pleased about next year things. I like everything to happen now.’

  Alex laughed.

  ‘You’re an ungrateful boy. Think how miserable you would feel if they had written to say they wouldn’t take you.’

  Angus looked scornful.

  ‘It couldn’t happen. My legs know they are learning very well indeed.’

  ‘I wish my legs were sure,’ said Jane. ‘Everybody seemed fairly pleased, but now that good report has come I feel as if a load had fallen off my back. I think I’d die if they had written and said I’d never make a dancer.’

  Because they could not go away, Paul found the worry about joining Grandfather’s business nagging at him. He had written to Grandfather soon after Jane won her scholarship, saying that he had decided to be a doctor. Grandfather had written back and told him he was a fool, but he could always change his mind.

  ‘Any time you write to me promising to come into my business I will keep my word, and settle an allowance on you.’

  That allowance! In bed, and at odd moments during the day, Paul would see it in his mind’s eye. He could see more. He could see himself saying to the family: ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to have a holiday after all. I’ve fixed it for you.’

  Then, on the Wednesday after they had heard about the fire, Jane beckoned him into her bedroom. She shut the door in a very secret way.

  ‘Do you know any boys at your school who earn money at week-ends and in the holidays?

  Paul sat on Ginnie’s bed.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, even if it’s only for a week, Daddy must go away. He looks simply awful, and so does Mummy.’

  ‘I don’t believe we could earn enough for that.’

  ‘Why not? We’d only need about ten pounds. I’ve heard of an agency. It’s called The Helping Hand. I’m going there on Saturday to see if I can get some babysitting or something like that.’

  Paul laughed.

  ‘Doing Ginnie out of a job?’

  ‘That’s only for her Dedication book and she isn’t paid, but proper baby sitters are. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be one.’

  Paul was remembering a chance conversation.

  ‘There’s a chap I know who did some work at home of some sort, which brought in quite a bit. I know it must have because he bought books with the money he made, and they were jolly expensive books.’

  Jane’s eyes shone.

  ‘Good. Well, see him and find out what it was. I’m going to tell Ginnie and Angus we’re going to try and earn just in case there’s any way they can help, but I shouldn’t think there is, they’re too small to be much use.’

  As if no holiday was not enough tribulation for one week, Aunt Rose rang up to say that she, Uncle Alfred, Veronica, Grandfather and Grandmother would like to come to tea on Saturday.

  ‘We’re off to France, you know,’ she said in her whiney voice. ‘Alfred’s father and mother want to see you before we go. We’re motoring as far as Folkestone on Sunday, and going on to Dover on Monday morning in time to catch the boat. Alfred says can we all come to tea with you on Saturday?’

  Cathy could feel Rose did not want to come to them the day before she left, and she did not blame her. But she knew Alfred, if he said a thing was going to happen, it happened.

  ‘We’ll love to have you of course. Lucky you going to France.’

  Rose sounded more whiney than ever.

  ‘It’s a terrible drive to St Jean de Luz, we’ll all be exhausted by the time we get there. Alfred wanted to fly, but it was hopeless, you can’t take much on a plane, and you need such a mass of clothes in a place like St Jean.’

  Cathy tried to imagine St Jean de Luz.

  ‘I suppose you do.’

  ‘And talking of clothes,’ Rose went on, ‘my maid has turned out a lot of things of Veronica’s and mine that we’ll never wear again. The chauffeur’s dropping the parcel in on you this morning, Good-bye, dear, see you on Saturday.’

  As usual, when she needed comfort, Cathy turned to Mrs Gage.

  ‘There’s a parcel coming from Lady Bell. I ought to be grateful, but I don’t feel like sorting clothes in this heat.’

  ‘Funny, I seen a parcel in me teacup breakfast-time.’ Mrs Gage thought Cathy looked paler than usual. She was washing up, but she left the sink to pull a chair away from the table. ‘Come and ’ave a nice sit down. We don’t ’ave to unpack Lady Bell’s parcel just because she sent it, do we?’

  Cathy sat, and, which was very unlike her, drooped despairingly.

  ‘But we do. She, Sir Alfred, Veronica, and the vicar’s parents are all coming to tea on Saturday, they’re just off to France for a holiday. We must unpack it before she comes, so at least I know what she’s sent.’

  Mrs Gage, in her mind, threw her washing-up water at Aunt Rose.

  ‘Makes you mad, don’t it? Sorry to speak rough of the vicar’s relatives, but they’re swank-pots—no good sayin’ different. France! I’d France them. Goin’ off where they like, and there’s you all needin’ a ’oliday so bad, gettin’ a parce
l of old clothes.’

  Cathy half got up.

  ‘I’ll start the beds.’

  Mrs Gage jerked her head in a commanding way.

  ‘You’ll stay right where you are till I done ’ere. Nothin’ like a bit of comp’ny when you’re down-’earted.’

  Cathy rested her head in her hands.

  ‘I don’t mind admitting I’m down-hearted. Of course, I’m worried about my brother, but I’m still more worried about my family. They simply must get away for a bit. If only it hadn’t been so sudden. I could have fixed something. And you know how it is, Mrs Gage, when you’re going away you feel things can wait, but now we’re not going, I see how much wants doing. The dining-room’s a disgrace, there’s a piece of paper coming off the hall wall, the big armchair in the drawing-room has an enormous hole. I simply can’t let the family see the house like this on Saturday. I must do something to tidy it up.’

  Mrs Gage had finished the washing-up. She patted Cathy’s arm.

  ‘Don’t you worry, dear. I’ll take some paste to the paper in the ’all, and you can run round with a brush of paint. And I’ll give the ’ouse such a turn-out by Saturday, whatever else Lady Bell and that Sir Alfred find to turn their noses up at it won’t be our vicarage.’

  Cathy was in the kitchen when Mrs Gage staggered in with the parcel from Aunt Rose, and put it on the table. Mrs Gage gave an imitation of Uncle Alfred’s chauffeur, Hodges.

  ‘This parcel is from ’er Ladyship for Mrs Bell.’

  Cathy laughed.

  ‘Get the scissors, and let’s see what she’s sent. Perhaps I can find something to cover the drawing-room arm chair.’

  Aunt Rose’s parcels were always beautifully packed by her maid, but as a rule there was not much in them that was exactly what was wanted. This parcel was no exception. There were frilly dresses of Veronica’s, which were too small for Jane and wrong for Ginnie. There were lace evening dresses, and chiffon blouses that would go with nothing, elaborate house-coats and smart hats. The plain clothes, which would have been a Godsend, seldom came in the parcels, for when they were in good condition Aunt Rose sold them or gave them to her maid, it was only now and again something really useful, like the black frock, came to Cathy. In this parcel the most useful thing was a garment made of brown velvet. Cathy thought it was a house-coat, but Mrs Gage thought it was an evening dress. Whatever it had been, it had an immensely wide skirt, and Cathy fell on it with a cry of joy.