“You’ll be up presently?”
“Yes. I’m fetching Jane now; she’s with Paula.”
Penny watched Charlotte until she reached the turn of the staircase, then she swallowed the lump and shrugged her shoulders. Queer what got you and what did not.
* * * * *
Hannah came into the kitchen; she slumped, creaking, into a chair. Mabel poured her out a cup of tea.
“How’s she look?”
“Terrible, quite herself, though. Sir John’s not back yet; he stayed to speak to his solicitor, that Mr. Pollock, she said. She said she’d wait tea for him. She looked as if she could have done with a cup.”
Mabel spread jam on her bread.
“A good brandy is what she needs, I should think. Is Miss Penny back?”
“She drove her Ladyship home.”
“Her Ladyship say anything about it?”
Hannah sipped some tea before answering.
“Didn’t know Mrs. Parks had telephoned us, of course. I was just going when she said, in that quiet way she has, ‘Oh, Hannah, you and Mabel will like to know. The Coroner found that my son killed himself while he was out of his mind.’”
Mabel poured herself out another cup of tea.
“She’ll be glad to get away. I shouldn’t fancy living in a house where my son shot himself.”
“I never did fancy this house, nor never will, even without people shooting themselves on the ground floor. I said to the first Lady Nettel, poor dear, when . . .”
“All right. I know what you said, but nobody’s asking you to stay. Sir John said we could go away and take a good holiday . . .”
“But you won’t go.”
Mabel was tired of the argument. She and Hannah had been arguing for days. She was oppressed by the misery of the house. It made her snap.
“That isn’t stopping you, is it? You’d think we were Siamese twins the way you go on.”
Hannah knew that Mabel knew how she felt. She knew why Mabel snapped. Mabel was only putting it on when she talked of Siamese twins; she wouldn’t feel right taking a holiday at a different time from herself. All the years they had worked together they had always taken holidays at the same time. They didn’t go to the same places. Hannah had spent her holidays decorously with aunts, and Mabel, in her young days, indecorously goodness knows where, and later with friends where she could get a good laugh; but they had always come back on the same day and made their room home for each other. She said, because she had to say something though she knew she had produced the argument before:
“We were nearly due for our holiday. It was May we had it last year because of the move.”
“When her Ladyship told me what was planned I said what I meant and I’ve stuck to it. Nothing you can say, Hannah old dear, is going to alter it. If you think I’m going to let Miss Penny, that doesn’t know one saucepan from another, have the run of my kitchen and store cupboard, you’re very much mistaken.”
Hannah cut herself a slice of bread. She knew exactly how Mabel felt; she did not like to think what state her carpets and furniture would be in when Mrs. Dill had been looking after them for a week or two, but there were worse things than seeing your carpets and furniture misused. Anything that to Hannah was a bit queer was anathema to her. She could not be herself in such an atmosphere. Straight all her life, living where everything was above the board, she was unfitted to cope with anything of the sort. She burst out:
“Ever since we came to London they’ve acted queerly. Why Mrs. Dill has got to come up here I don’t see; she’s got her own little flat. If we had shut these two floors up until Sir John had found a place in the country there wouldn’t have been any question of our stopping on.”
Mabel pushed the jam across.
“You’ve been told why she’s moving up often enough. There’s no room for a play-room for Jane on the ground floor.”
Hannah moved uncomfortably. Her stays let out a protesting wail.
“I know all that.”
Mabel had for some time been turning over an idea. She was no fool; she thought the family’s goings on peculiar to put it mildly, but the most peculiar thing, because it was so unlike him, was the way Sir John accepted that Miss Penny was responsible for Jane. Nothing would have let Mabel hand over her kitchen utensils and her stores to Penny at any time, but, apart from that, curiosity would have held her in London. It had crossed her mind while Hannah was speaking that perhaps she might give her a hint. Hannah always had hated London, no getting away from that. No getting away from the fact that she didn’t want to stay now, and was only staying because she herself wouldn’t go. When Mabel had decided to stay she had known Hannah would stop too. They neither of them could picture their lives without the other. Had they left to-morrow with Sir John and her Ladyship it might have been a very long holiday. Sir John and her Ladyship, like as not, would get stuck in that hotel in Devon for months before they heard of a house to suit. Still, it was hard on Hannah; perhaps a hint would help. She leant forward and lowered her voice.
“You never thought, I’d suppose, there might be a reason for us having Jane?” To Mabel’s astonishment, wave after wave of colour flooded Hannah’s cheeks till she looked like an over-ripe plum. “That’s the funny thing about old Hannah,” Mabel thought, “she’s so close, especially about the family, you never do know what she’s thought of.” Her eyes twinkled. “All right, old dear, no need to have apoplexy. Miss Penny isn’t the first nor she won’t be the last to make a mistake. Though, mind you, I’m surprised. I’d have thought she knew too much to get caught that way. If she’d come to me . . .”
Hannah knew just where that conversation was going to lead. She broke in hurriedly:
“Mr. Bill wasn’t killed until the January; he had leave the December previous; Jane was born by then. Do you think he knew, Mabel? About Mr. Duke, I mean.”
Mabel, in piecing together Penny’s story, had not allowed herself to consider that point. Mr. Bill was still a live figure to them both; they had known him from a baby until he was Miss Penny’s husband. It would be something for which you could not forgive Miss Penny if Mr. Bill had learnt the truth, loving Miss Penny as he did.
“That we shan’t ever know, and, if you ask me, the less we pry into that the better. What we can do is to give a hand now.” Her voice was almost wheedling. “You know you like helping with Jane. Later, when everything’s blown over and Mrs. Duke’s divorced, shouldn’t wonder if you find yourself watching me making a cake.”
Making a cake! Hannah, staring into her teacup, saw for a moment all the events of her life in Mabel’s cakes. Christmas cakes, birthday cakes, one wedding cake. She said, in a much happier tone:
“Lucky you made that birthday cake. Funny you did, really, not knowing.”
* * * * *
Paula was waiting for Penny. The children were playing in the passage; she could hear Irma’s excited voice, Hans’s deeper one and occasional squeaks from Jane. She was waiting in the kitchen; from there she could hear Penny’s step on the stairs and there she would give her tea. She was darning. Her needle went up and down making the darn a little work of art, but her mind was with Charlotte. Heinrich had said sympathy should not be shown. He had said he had been deceived. Sir John, always so proud and cold, should now eat the dust. Who was he to be proud who had a stepson in prison? In some way which Paula had not been able to follow, the deceitfulness of Sir John, who hid the news of stepsons in prison, was part of the deceitfulness of all the British, who naturalised Poles instead of naturalising German refugees. It was part of the deceitfulness of Mr. Shinwell, who made rules about lighting and fuel so hard that even clever Heinrich was defeated by them. Paula had not accepted Heinrich’s view. She had, in fact, been deceitful. It was, or should have been, distressing how the habit of being deceitful grew. Paula did not find it distressing because, since the day when she had firs
t tipped the laundryman to provide Charlotte with a laundry, deceitfulness had been part of her life, so much so that she was frequently unaware that Heinrich was being deceived. How was it possible to do nothing? How would it have been to bear such a son? She had read the newspapers, as who had not, and knew the story. Vividly Paula had seen Charlotte. She had lived in imagination through Charlotte’s gradual knowledge that she had given birth to a monster. Suppose it had been Hans! The papers said that very early there had been trouble with the police, but that would not be the first time Lady Nettel would have known anxiety. A mother would know long before there was a sign to the outside world. Ungeheuerlich! Thinking of Charlotte, Paula felt humble and ashamed. She raised her head from her darning and listened to the voice of Hans, so deep, so serious; her eyes filled with tears; how good was the lieber Gott. How ungrateful she was, she, so bang um’s Herz, and what had she to be apprehensive about? Wunderschöne Kinder. A geliebter Mann who earned much money, and was patient with a wife who was slow and a burden and unable to think in English. It was shameful how often she had felt low-hearted recalling the days of Munich, when Heinrich was not British and was, therefore, so much easier for a woman to understand. She had nothing, indeed nothing, of which to complain. And there was that brave Lady Nettel, who had seemed so composed and so fortunate, bearing this terrible sorrow. It had not been easy to write anything. Many letters had Paula composed in her head, but always—fortunately Heinrich did not know this—in German. In the end she had sent flowers. Even though it was now April the terrible weather had left its mark not only in leafless trees and bare shrubs, but in the price of flowers at the florists. It was sad and strange, but finding the money had merely been the work of a moment. It was sadder and stranger that having shamelessly taken the money from Heinrich her conscience was in no way troubled. Hans and Irma must have new shoes; the shoes displayed to Heinrich were one price and what was spent was another. The difference—thirty shillings for tulips for Lady Nettel. Beautiful tulips they were, and with them went one line on a sheet of notepaper: “I’m sorry you suffer. Paula Bettelheim.”
Though she was waiting for Penny, Paula was so deep in thoughts of Charlotte that she did not hear the girl until she stood in the kitchen door. She was shocked at Penny’s appearance. Ach, but she looked tired, the poor Liebling! It must have been a day most terrible. Penny was always pale, but now she was the colour of a spring leaf and so fragile. Paula’s instinct was to take Penny in her arms, but this was England and pressing to the breast was not only unusual, it gave offence. She expressed her dismay at Penny’s appearance by clicking her teeth against her tongue, and falling back on the one form of comfort it was proper to offer. It was not often that she was glad that more food came to her house than reached the homes of the British, but to-day that was good.
“Come, tea is waiting. For you there is an egg.”
Penny sank into a chair, too tired to be flippant.
“Not an egg, I’m not hungry, it would probably make me sick. Jane all right?”
Paula did not answer that in words, but held up a finger for silence so that Penny might hear the children’s voices.
“Did you eat lunch? Do not answer for I know you did not.”
“Actually, no, I did buy a cheese roll thing at the pub near the Coroner’s court, but it was all roll and no cheese so I left it, but I managed to get a double pink gin, for which I thanked God.”
Paula put Penny’s egg in boiling water.
“You were not too long.”
Penny folded her arms and leant on them. Her head felt as if it weighed too much, it fell forward. Her hair lay in two fair pools on the kitchen table.
“Actually, we were lucky. Mr. Pollock, Dad’s solicitor, thought there might be a postponement for further evidence. God knows what sort of evidence. We all told the truth the whole truth and nothing but . . .” She gave a sound that was something like a laugh. “Except poor Jack Willis, who got himself tangled up trying to pretend that Jenny thought the revolver was a baby’s rattle or something. Actually, the Coroner was madly nice; he saw that Jack Willis wasn’t exactly telling lies. He said Jenny never meant to use the thing and I dare say she didn’t, only, of course, as he said she never meant to use the thing it looked awfully queer my taking it down to my flat. The Coroner was nice to me too. I thought he’d have it in for me; after all, my story was pretty feeble. First I had to say that I took the revolver away from Jenny and put it in a drawer downstairs, although Jack Willis had said Jenny had never meant to use it. Then I had to say I hadn’t given it back to Jack Willis because I’d forgotten all about the wretched thing. Then I had to say that I told Peter which drawer it was in, and that it was loaded and that he could use it if he liked.”
Paula poured Penny out a cup of tea and made her take a slice of bread and butter.
“Come now, you eat.”
Penny ate a mouthful. The butter was good, she took another bite.
“That was the worst bit. Trying to explain why I told a drunk who had reached the alcholic remorse stage where the wretched thing was, and then left him alone. I must say it didn’t sound very bright.”
“The Coroner he believed you, yes?”
“That’s the odd thing. Everybody seemed to believe me. I was speaking the truth, but it didn’t sound like it. I must say legal types are madly just.”
“Mrs. Parks, she was there?”
Penny felt better and smiled.
“You bet, with her daughter Rene.” She giggled. “I tell you who else was there, Jack Willis’s mother. Mumsie.”
Paula took the egg out of the boiling water and set it in an egg-cup before Penny.
“Mrs. Parsons. I have seen her at the christening; a hat with feathers.”
“Not in a Coroner’s court. All black, a black toque thing with ribbon round it with huge white spots; she looked exactly like a woman at a matinée; I thought every minute she would say to a policeman, ‘I’ll have tea in the second interval.’ She’d two men with her; well, perhaps that’s exaggerating a bit. She told me about a Dougie and a Freddie, and I think this was them.” Penny cut the top off her egg. “I don’t know anything more revolting than middle-aged pansies, unless it’s middle-aged lesbians.”
Paula did not follow that and was, in any case, more interested in Penny’s meal than her story.
“How is Lady Nettel?”
“Not so good. They’re off all right to-morrow. I think she’ll perk up now this is over. She was awfully glad that it finished to-day, and I suppose she was glad they decided that he was out of his mind at the time.”
Paula sat down at the table with a cup of tea; she hoped, by giving an appearance of drinking tea—which she hated—that Penny, because of companionship, would make a better meal.
“And then you and Jane have the whole two floors to yourselves.”
“I don’t really want them. I hated storing my stuff and living with other people’s furniture, but I had to have my carpet cleaned, couldn’t very well go on living with Peter’s blood all over it. Actually, I wouldn’t have moved, only it’s a help to Charlotte. Walking straight out and leaving the maisonette with me in it she can get away to-morrow. She’s quite right, of course; it will be better for Jane. Besides, you know, Charlotte wanted the ground floor; she’s got a thing about London, she thinks it belongs to Londoners and she awfully wanted to help some of them. I told her she’d already housed the Parks but she’d got this milkman on her conscience. Mr. Parks is awfully upset at the milkman getting all the work he’s done on my bathroom and my fitted basin. I tell him he’s the most awful snob; why the hell shouldn’t the milkman have a bit of comfort? Mr. Parks is a strong Labour man and ought to approve, but all he says is, ‘It does seem a waste, madam.’ I can’t think why you want to get naturalised, Paula, we’re a very silly race.”
Paula had the satisfaction of seeing the egg disappear down Penny’s thr
oat. Without doubt as soon as she left her Penny would have several strong drinks. Strong drinks, in Paula’s opinion, were at no time good; on an empty inside they were a disaster. She was pleased to think of the good egg and the slices of bread and butter that now would form a wall against the inrush of gin or whisky.
“And you will have the good Mabel and the good Hannah to look after you.”
Penny laughed.
“Very respectable. I’d love to know what those two make of the situation, if they make anything of it at all. It’s nice having them. I’d have been awfully tied otherwise. I want to be a good mother and all that, but I know myself, there’ll be still evenings when I’ll be glad to go out.” She felt better, the egg, in giving her strength, was lifting her spirits. She laid a hand on Paula’s. “I don’t often say anything, Paula, but you’ve been madly nice, not just to me, everybody in the house likes you. I don’t generally slop about saying these things, but I thought you ought to know.”
Paula stared at Penny.
“Me! How is that? There is so little I have been able to do, and if there has been anything the pleasure has been for me.”
Penny got up.
“Jane sounds all right, can I leave her with you for another half-hour?” She stooped and gave Paula a kiss. “That’s it, you old idiot, quoting your extraordinary English, that’s why you’re so nice, when you do things for us the pleasure is for you. Actually, I don’t know anybody else I could say that about.”
* * * * *
Jack Willis limped up the back stairs. Somehow what he found when he reached home, and what he thought he would find when he was thinking about reaching home never quite matched up. As he sat in the bus homeward bound, he would see his pink and blue room with Jenny looking lovely sitting in the middle of it with Vera, looking equally lovely, on her knee. In the bus Jenny was always interested in the store; she wanted to know every little thing that had happened to him in the day. In the bus it took the thick end of an hour telling Jenny the things that had happened in the day; nothing was too small to interest her. When he came home, for just a minute he would feel as though something were missing, something wrong. Then the lovely reality of Jenny and Vera would sweep him away and he accepted life as it was. To-day, hurrying back from the Coroner’s court, he had thought Jenny would be waiting, trembling, to know how he had got on, what he had said or not said about that blasted gun, what he had said or not said about her. She would be sitting demurely waiting with the tea-table beside her, and Vera perhaps in her bassinet. Jenny would not say anything but he would know how anxious she was. He wondered if she had seen the paper; if she had seen the paper then she would know most of what he had said. Anyway, sooner or later, she would know, for Mumsie would be sure to telephone. He never had thought Mumsie so hot, but he thought nothing at all of her now, sitting in the court in that silly spotted hat, gaping like some damn’ lizard. She would bring Freddie and Dougie, must have someone to yatter to, probably would have brought those bloody little dogs if she had the nerve. No, it wouldn’t be any good lying to Jenny; the great thing with Jenny was to tell her things in an ordinary way, nothing to get her in a state.
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