‘Oh, you mustn’t dream of it. Far too much for Hazel.’
‘We couldn’t be sure of looking after you properly. Besides … we’ve got Hazel’s mother still. We all thought you could go with Bridie to some comfortable hotel. But now Bridie’s got this offer … this chance of getting into the Melchester Rep….’
‘Oh no … oh no! Bridie … her career …’
‘Personally I’d have thought she’d get other chances quite as good. However …’
‘A convalescent home for a few weeks.’
‘A bit odd … when you’ve got a large and devoted family …’
‘No, it’s not. Sensible. Find one and I’ll go to it. I don’t mind where I go as long as I’m not a bother.’
‘Dr Ames says you’ve got to be very careful for some time to come. Especially in the spring. So treacherous …’
He hesitated and added:
‘You wouldn’t think of going abroad? Somewhere nice and sunny? As soon as you’re fit to travel?’
‘Oh no. I’ve had enough of abroad to last me for a long time. And there’s your father …’
‘He’s all right with Mrs McKintosh …’
They had all, it seemed, decided to exalt Mrs McKintosh. Kate forbore to remind him of the Haggis Hag, since somebody was needed at the moment to stand by with friar’s balsam. In any case he was making off, reminding her that he was in a hurry because the baby would be born in six weeks’ time.
‘Getting into a flap, are they?’ said the woman in the next bed. ‘Who’s to look after you when you get out? It’s always the way. As long as you’re on the danger list they’d give their eyes for you. Once you’re off it! Whatever did you want to go and get ill for? The very idea!’
‘It’s very anti-social to get ill unexpectedly,’ said Kate.
‘I should say so. If you’re a Mum, it is. You mustn’t get ill without writing round, six months ahead, to let everyone know you mean to be at death’s door on 23 January at 4 a.m. exactly.’
Observing her companions and their visitors Kate perceived that her own predicament was not uncommon. The smiles, the tears, the rapturous relief, with which families welcomed the news of a sure recovery, had all vanished by the time that they took their loved one home.
Departures were bleak affairs. The relative who had been ‘sent to fetch her away’ stood impatiently holding a suitcase, while the ex-patient, shabby, in clothes hastily brought for her, pale, tired, less robust looking than she had been yesterday, scurried from bed to bed. A last word must be said to comrades whom she would probably never meet again, since they were not really her friends although they had recently been united in some mysterious, vital activity. Farewells to the nurses, who had been through nothing out of the ordinary, could be made with an easy, smiling gratitude. These others, with whom something had been shared, got a tacit Hail and Farewell, since some of them had fought their way back from the very wharf of Lethe, back to cups of tea and kindly gossip.
‘Good-bye, Mrs Peters. I hope your son gets through his exam … Good-bye, Miss Goddard. Here’s your magazine. Thank you so much for lending it … Good-bye, Mrs Benson! Best of luck to the new grandchild. Six weeks isn’t it? … Goodbye, Mrs Warburton. I’ll try to match that knitting wool for you … Good-bye … good-bye …’
The empty bed was made up. It stood waiting for a few hours. A stretcher trundled in. Another inert warrior was flung into the community to be cured by doctors, tended by nurses, and sustained in the will to live by Mrs Peters, Miss Goddard, Mrs Benson and Mrs Warburton.
Bridie, when next she danced in, was so much taken up with the offer from the Melchester Rep that Kate’s future remained for some time in abeyance. Then she suddenly let off a rocket.
‘Oh! About you. When you get out of here. It’s all settled. Aunt Fanny would love to have you. She rang Andrew up. The scarlet fever is over. Isn’t it lucky?’
‘Fanny?’ shrieked Kate.
‘She’ll bring you breakfast in bed and everything, and not let you catch a chill. We shall be quite easy in our minds about you.’
‘I will not! No, I will not!’
‘But, Mother …’
‘Go to Fanny! How would you like it?’
‘I should hate it. But she’s your sister. Andrew said you said you don’t mind where you go.’
‘I won’t go to Fanny. I didn’t know you were sadists.’
Bridie giggled and said:
‘Did anyone ever tell you about the table?’
‘What table?’
‘Why … when you … when we were dividing up the things in Edwardes Square she had the cheek to say all the Mortimer things ought to be given to her! The tallboy and those pictures … and eventually we fobbed her off by sending her that little table that’s been so rickety ever since that man broke it. The awful man, I forget his name, that Judith asked to supper once. And when she found what an invalid it is what do you think she did? Sent it to a very expensive place to be mended and told them to send the bill in to Father.’
‘I hope he refused to pay it!’
‘Oh, when did Father ever show fight? He just moaned about it and said he couldn’t refuse “at a time like this”. What was that man’s name who broke it? He’s quite vanished out of our lives.’
‘Fanny shall give it back now,’ declared Kate. ‘If it’s been mended it will do nicely for that space between the windows in Hazel’s drawing-room. She will have no excuse for not giving it back.’
‘My dear Mother! Who ever got anything out of Aunt Fanny?’
‘I shall,’ said Kate. ‘Andrew shall drive me down there one day. When I’m quite well again and the baby is born. It’s light and small, that table. It will go easily into the back of his car. We’ll have tea and just as we are going I shall say: “Oh, by the way, as we are here, we may as well take that table back.” And Andrew and I will carry it out to the car and drive off. And that’s another reason why I shouldn’t go near Fanny till I’m fighting fit.’
‘But in the meanwhile, you must go somewhere. Personally, I can’t think why Judith …’
‘A convalescent home.’
‘That’s a possibility. If we find you one, will you go to it?’
‘I’ll find one for myself.’
‘How can you?’
‘I’ll ask Sister. I’m sure this problem must often arise. She’ll know of somewhere. I’ll fix it up for myself.’
Bridie looked dubious, as though Kate’s power to make her own arrangements must be for ever suspect after her recent escapade.
‘As long as you promise not to do anything silly …’ she stipulated. ‘You’d better ask Judith, when she comes tomorrow, and see what she thinks.’
Judith did not come, owing to some nursery crisis, but Brian looked in on her behalf. By that time Kate had held a fruitful consultation with Sister. She was able to give Brian the particulars of an excellent, if expensive, convalescent home on the south coast to which she could be driven straight from the hospital. He gave the scheme a cordial blessing and presented her with a Get Well card from the children and a bunch of small bright tulips.
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘I do like them small. I hate them the size of footballs and four feet high. Why can’t we leave flowers alone? At Keritha they’ve planted little tulips all down the slopes below the house. I’ve never seen them, but I’m sure they must look enchanting.’
‘Ah, yes! Keritha,’ he said eagerly. ‘That does sound a very lovely place.’
He gave her a long, speculative look, while she handed the tulips to a nurse, and examined the children’s card, which had a picture of a rabbit ill in bed being nursed by another rabbit.
‘Did Timmie choose it himself?’ she asked.
‘Ça se voit! You can’t think Judith or I chose it? How is poor Edith Challoner getting on? You were worried about her. Have you heard from her?’
‘No. She was never one for writing letters.’
‘Really it was rather hard on them, havi
ng you snatched away like this.’
‘They were very kind to me.’
‘They’re fond of you. Old friends. Now, this convalescent home: it’s an excellent plan for the near future. As long as you need any special care and attention. But what are your plans after that?’
‘I haven’t made any yet.’
‘You’ve got to be very careful for some time. Very careful indeed. The doctor says so. Especially in the spring. It’s so cold, often, in England. March … April … May even! Frost in May … we get it quite often.’
‘Oh, I know. I promise to be careful.’
‘A warmer climate … you won’t be up to the exertion of house or flat hunting for some time.’
‘No. I’m afraid not.’
The nurse brought the tulips in a vase and put them on Kate’s locker. Brian swallowed once or twice and said:
‘We have … Judith has had … rather a bright idea. But she wasn’t quite sure what you’d think of it. We put it up to the others … all the family … we telephoned. They all approve, so long as you like it. But nobody felt quite sure … so I volunteered …’
Volunteered again? marvelled Kate. After that fiasco in Switzerland? What a man he was for rushing in! It must have something to do with his inner lack of confidence.
‘You’re worried about Edith,’ he suggested. ‘You could talk about nothing else when you were delirious.’
‘Couldn’t I? Who says so?’
‘I heard you myself.’
‘You weren’t here.’
‘Oh, yes I was. I came here with Judith and you were raving about an injection for Edith.’
‘Oh yes. But I’m not worried now. They’ve got somebody to give the injections.’
‘Still, it’s a much better climate than this. And, by all accounts, such a comfortable house. Luxurious! Troops of servants. And the Challoners so anxious to have you. Why shouldn’t you … for a few months … till the summer perhaps … till you are more fit to make permanent plans …’ – Brian’s smile was anxious but he managed to maintain it – ‘… why shouldn’t you go back to Keritha?’
PART SIX
‘AWAY! WE’RE BOUND AWAY!’
The lonely mountains o’er
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament:
From haunted spring and dale,
Edg’d with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent.
MILTON
1
‘Yes,’ said Kate, rousing herself from her memories. ‘Edwardes Square was sold even before I went back, for three months, that first winter. I was ill. I had pneumonia. The family decided that I needed a warmer climate.’
‘But you’re going back now?’ asked Selwyn.
‘Oh yes. I’m quite strong again. I dare say I shouldn’t have stayed so long if it hadn’t been for Edith. Besides, I couldn’t live for long anywhere else on my currency allowance.’
‘You don’t want to go back?’
‘Not much. I’ve grown very fond of Keritha. It’s such a friendly place. Not only the people, I mean. They’re nice, but I don’t really understand them very well. It’s the island itself that seems to be full of friends.’
‘I know. And when we go away we’ll lose them for ever.’
‘Oh no! Not necessarily for ever. I’m sure you could come back if you liked. Eugenia will be here. Dr Challoner said in the boat this afternoon that he hopes she’ll stay on. I’m sure she’d put you up.’
‘Ah, but my friends mightn’t be here. Somebody might have come and kicked them out.’
‘I don’t see. How could anybody kick them out?’
Selwyn lighted another of his new cigarettes before answering. Then he said:
‘Simply by convincing everybody that they aren’t there. That’s how they’ve been kicked out everywhere else. Once it’s happened, out they have to go. Think of all the deserted altars in these parts. Mere stones. Once something more. Some progressive fellow turns up and proves, in the interests of ter-ruth, that they’re nothing but stones and then … “each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat”.’
‘Progressive fellows who come here get stung by wild bees,’ said Kate. ‘Like tax collectors. The people take to the mountain and the intruders get stung to pieces. That’s why this island has always been left alone.’
‘What co-operative bees!’
‘Bees don’t like it if little boys tip stones into their nests.’
‘Oh. I see. So that’s why it’s called Keritha. Honeycomb!’
‘A polite name. There’s never been much honey. Is that Dr Challoner calling?’
‘Something’s bleating. Sounds more like a … No. It’s Milorthos Persi. Don’t worry. Let him come down here if he wants you. Why should you go up?’
Kate compromised by calling out in reply and remaining where she was.
‘Sounds upset,’ commented Selwyn. ‘Perhaps somebody’s told him about Eugenia.’
‘Ssh! I think he knows.’
The bleating had ceased and presently Dr Challoner appeared, indignantly waving a letter. The post-bag from Zagros had been flung into their boat just before they started for home. On the jetty at Keritha it was unpacked and the mail for the house set aside. Few letters ever arrived for other destinations. The dromokopi were not given to writing home although some sent money regularly to their families.
To receive a letter directly addressed to him on Keritha had surprised him, since Poste Restante Thasos had been the only address which he had left in College. The contents were most disturbing.
‘Those records,’ he panted as he joined the other two, ‘I’d no idea that any of them were valuable.’
‘I don’t suppose they were,’ said Kate. ‘Secondhand records never fetch much.’
‘Will you read this!’
After a hasty glance at the letter she exclaimed:
‘What! Ronnie Sinclair!’
‘You know him?’
‘He’s a friend of my husband’s. They share a flat.’
‘Does he know what he’s talking about?’
‘Records. Yes. I expect so. He collects them.’
She read on and handed the letter back, saying:
‘Yes. I think there was one of Patti.’
‘What has been done with it? You see what he offers? If I’d had the faintest idea … I know nothing whatever about music.’
Selwyn suggested that, since it must be a song, it would either be amongst those given to the islanders, or amongst the discards which he and Kate had stacked up the night before. A move was made to the house and the stack was examined. No record of Patti turned up.
‘Then Keritha must have got it,’ said Kate. ‘I wish I could remember …’
‘I think I do,’ said Selwyn. ‘It was in French, and they laughed their heads off, but took it because they liked her voice.’
‘Probably smashed by now,’ growled Challoner.
‘I don’t think so. There was an argument. They were going to give it to somebody who sings very well herself. On their way …’
Selwyn broke off. His jaw fell.
‘We must find out who this person is,’ said Dr Challoner. ‘We must explain that it was a mistake and ask for it back. That woman … Eugenia … she probably knows who has got it. Let’s have her here and ask her.’
Neither Kate nor Selwyn made a move. The same disconcerting notion had occurred to both of them. Despite their murmured protests that the record might now be impossible to trace a summons to Eugenia was presently bellowed through the house. She appeared, looking a little surprised. It was the first time that her new lord had ever addressed her directly and the first time that anybody, in that household, had ever yelled for her with so little ceremony. Standing in the doorway, her hands crossed on her stomach, she awaited his commands.
‘Ask her! Ask her!’
‘What, exactly?’ muttered Selwyn.
‘Ask her if she knows who h
as got that record.’
After a short conversation with Eugenia, Selwyn reported gloomily that the record had been thrown over the bridge.
‘Nonsense! Why does she say so? She can’t be certain. They wouldn’t have selected one on purpose to throw away. You said yourself they wanted to give it to somebody.’
‘She’s quite certain,’ said Selwyn.
‘Mrs Benson! Do you believe this?’
‘I’m afraid I do. I’m very sorry.’
‘I don’t. Somebody has got it. Somebody knows it’s valuable and means to hang on to it. I don’t trust these people a yard …’
He dismissed Eugenia with a gesture and turned on Kate:
‘You haven’t really told me what she said.’
‘Yes, we did,’ said Kate, her unlucky temper flaring. ‘She said that was the record they offered to the waterfall … I mean’ – she flushed scarlet – ‘… the one they threw over the bridge.’
‘Offered to … just now you said they were going to give it to somebody. They don’t, surely, think that a waterfall is somebody?’
‘I don’t know,’ sighed Kate unhappily.
‘Like spitting,’ said Selwyn, coming to her rescue. ‘In some parts of Europe, even now, it’s supposed to be unlucky not to spit over a bridge if you cross it.’
‘Not in the least like spitting. That’s a survival. A symbol of sacrifice. To propitiate the spirit of the river. And you said they were taking it to somebody who sings.’
‘Well, actually, a waterfall does sing.’
‘It sings? What does it sing, may I ask?’
Selwyn took from his pocket the piece of paper upon which he had that afternoon scored the song of Keritha.
‘This!’
‘I know nothing whatever about music,’ said Dr Challoner, waving it away.
‘Then how can you know whether it sings or not?’
‘You’ve very nearly got it,’ said Kate, glancing over the little score. ‘Only it needs half semitones. I’ve listened to it often enough to know. That plop! at every fifth bar is just right.’
Dr Challoner turned away, convinced that the pair of them were deliberately keeping him in the dark. Until now he had believed Mrs Benson to be a trustworthy sort of person, but he would rely on her no longer. She knew more than she would admit of the mysteries reported by Tipton. On the trip home he had not mentioned them, flinching from so ridiculous a subject, and he was now glad that he had not done so. She would only have told him lies.
The Forgotten Smile Page 20