The Yellow Houses

by Stella Gibbons

  Suddenly, she had both. The door opened, and a glow shone out from the hall, and there stood a tall woman with an apron over her dress. She seemed to float, rather than run, down the snowy steps.

  ‘Merry Christmas!’ Her deep, warm voice came out boldly into the hush.

  ‘This is Mrs Cornforth,’ said Mr Taverner.

  ‘But please all call me Katherine,’ cried Mrs Cornforth, smiling round on them and taking Mrs Wheeby’s woolly hand in her own. ‘Hi, Sylvie! Mary! Come in, come in, supper’s nearly ready . . . And this is Dicky,’ to Mrs Wheeby, who had taken the cage from the more-than-willing Sylvia. ‘Oh can we have him out to sing for us while we eat? Let me take him.’

  Mrs Wheeby had painstakingly mustered her hostesses’ names, making Wilfred give her instruction in how to pronounce, even to spell, them, with much comment upon the queerness of ‘Dollette’. Now she came out unhurriedly with:

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Cornforth. But as for having him out at supper – Oh and a Merry Christmas to you, and so kind of you to ask us all, especially when one is uninvited – I’m afraid it won’t be Dicky’s time until ten o’clock. You see, I have trained him very carefully and dare not break his routine’ (pause, gasp). ‘It’s like a child – begin as you mean to go on.’

  Slowly they all climbed the steps, Katherine going ahead.

  ‘I quite understand. We’ll all look forward to ten o’clock.’

  ‘Merry Christmas – welcome,’ said a low voice. Another woman stood in the doorway. The light fell on her shining hair and blue-green dress, against which she nursed a black cat. ‘Mary – Sylvie dear – come in, come in. You must be cold . . .’

  Mrs Wheeby’s eyes became fixed on the cat even as she successfully brought out: ‘Good evening, Miss Dollette,’ on a gasp.

  Mr Taverner said quickly: ‘It’s all right, Mrs Wheeby. Antony doesn’t go for birds.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take your word for it, Mr Taverner, though I never met a cat yet who wouldn’t, if it got the chance.’

  They moved into the hall. The cat’s green eyes were fixed steadily on the cage. In the background, Mr Taverner moved a finger, and the eyes blinked and glanced aside.

  ‘Oil lamps! Well I never.’ Mrs Wheeby’s voice had a note that Wilfred had never heard in it – could it be delight?

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Sylvie was looking sulky. Doesn’t like it, he thought. Instant TV and chips is more her mark. Hope she won’t spoil things.

  He had introduced her to Mr Taverner as ‘a friend of Mary’s’, and Mr Taverner had accepted her without comment as an extra guest.

  ‘You’d like to see your rooms,’ announced Mrs Cornforth. ‘Dears –’ to Mary and Sylvie, ‘go straight upstairs. You’ll see your names on your doors.’

  ‘Mrs Wheeby, I thought you might be more comfortable without stairs to manage, so you’re here –’ turning to her. She led the way to a door opening off the hall, but almost immediately Mrs Wheeby stopped dead.

  ‘Well I never did, I never did,’ Mrs Wheeby said. ‘Kichijoten, as sure as my name is Edith Wheeby. Now where in the world, Mr Taverner, did you get hold of her?’

  ‘I bought her,’ Mr Taverner answered at once; rather loudly, Wilfred thought. ‘The – some – the authorities let me have her.’

  The statue stood in a niche, instead of in her previous place by the front door; she was on a wooden pedestal enamelled in black and gold, and the additional height gave majesty to her sweet, calm, unsmiling expression. She looked down at them, benevolent yet apart.

  ‘Well, you were lucky, very lucky, Mr Taverner. This house is full of things I never thought to see again.’

  Mrs Wheeby moved on, and Katherine opened a door on a room that appeared to be furnished entirely with pillows, cushions and a puffy white bed.

  Mr Taverner turned to Wilfred. ‘I say, will you mind sharing? With a boy I asked along?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Wilfred was dismayed. What sort of a boy? But he reinforced his acceptance with a nod.

  ‘He’s up in one of the attics now, watching a football match. Come along. It’s all right, you’ll like him,’ and he went up some stairs.

  Wilfred followed, not at all sure that he would. Mr Taverner pulled aside a curtain of yellow brocade, shredded and faded at the edges, and a scent of fern came out, growing stronger as they went down a passage. He opened a low, yellow-painted door.

  ‘If . . . we aren’t comfortable in here, Mr Taverner, well, we ought to be,’ said Wilfred, after a pause. ‘Of course, I can’t speak for him. But it’s just my cup of tea. And a fire! But the work! I hope your ladies haven’t been wearing themselves out?’

  ‘No. Oh no. And we do have some help. A couple come in,’ Mr Taverner assured him.

  Wilfred was staring absently at one of the two wickerwork bedsteads, with their white quilts and eiderdowns covered in softly coloured patchwork. An extraordinary phrase had shot through his head. It had left a faint uneasiness, strengthening the oddity, the inexplicability, which had been teasing him. The phrase had been a couple. He turned to his host, and could not be certain whether or not the ghost of a smile was just passing from his face. A couple of what?

  ‘Bathroom and loo in there.’ Mr Taverner pointed to a curtained alcove. ‘Now I’ll leave you. Supper in the kitchen – you know your way, don’t you? Take your time – nice to have you here.’

  He nodded, smiled, and was gone.

  Wilfred stood by the fire, looking down into the million-year-old enchantment of the flames. How quiet it was, and how odd he felt. But the oddness was familiar. He had experienced it before in the Yellow House.

  At that moment, as if to remind him that he was in the real world, a diesel train thundered along the railway at the end of the Crescent.

  Dismissing the sentence a couple of what as the memory of some silly joke, he crossed the carpet (just the colour of a yellow plum) and, going to the window, parted the curtains and looked out.

  The light from the window shone downwards on withered ferns laden with snow, growing in a wall above water, rippling over bright brown and grey pebbles. The back of the Yellow House must overlook the Tor, he thought; yes, he could remember playing on its banks in the railway meadows, sixty years ago – nearly. Trains and tiddlers. He and his chums could have asked for no more. Those meadows had been perfect.

  How clear the water was! Not a scrap of litter anywhere. He dropped the curtains, and turned back to the wickerwork furniture, the white-rose walls, the soft, shabby comfort of his bedroom. A pair of pyjamas on one of the beds caught his eye. They had an air of good quality. But probably Mr Taverner had lent them to this boy. Oh well . . . it might be all right . . . How had Mrs Cornforth known Sylvie’s name? He had introduced Sylvie to Mr Taverner in his own hall as ‘a friend of Mary’s’. There had been no telephone call by Mr Taverner to the Yellow House between that and their leaving. Mr Taverner had not shouted out, ‘Katherine, here’s Sylvie, a friend of Mary’s’, on their arrival.

  Mrs Cornforth’s greeting – ‘But please all call me Katherine – Hi, Sylvie, Mary’ – had been instantaneous with Sylvie’s first appearance.

  And Miss Dollette. Miss Dollette, too, had said ‘Mary – Sylvie dear – come in, come in.’ She had known, as well.

  He remembered so clearly – could in fact see the scene as if it were a picture. The glowing house, the street lamps veiled in drifting snow, the party getting out of the car.

  ‘But please all call me Katherine . . . Hi, Sylvie, Mary.’

  How – how on earth had she known?

  ‘Well,’ said Katherine eagerly to Mr Taverner in the hall, ‘does he like it?’

  ‘I think so. Unfortunately, I made a gaffe.’

  ‘Well thank goodness for once it was you, and not me . . .’

  ‘You made one too, my sweet . . . a much worse one. Who carolled out “Hi, Sylvie”?’

  Mrs Cornforth’s eyes widened and one ruby-ringed hand flew to her mouth.

 
‘Gosh I didn’t!’ she almost whispered.

  ‘Gosh you undeniably did, dear Katherine . . . How does Mrs Wheeby like hers? . . . Yes, yes, I’ll tell you what I did in a minute.’

  ‘Oh, she loves it. But she can’t call me Katherine.’ Mrs Cornforth began to giggle. ‘Most unfortunately, an aunt of her husband’s had a really unpleasant daughter who was called Katherine and it’s given her – Mrs Wheeby – a dislike of the name ever since. Nor could she possibly invite me to call her Edith (no reason given). But she hopes we may come to it. Now tell me what you did – quick.’

  Mr Taverner told.

  ‘I don’t call that so bad, Laf. It sounds quite ordinary.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I was also thinking.’

  ‘Oh. Well.’

  ‘And I’m pretty sure our dear man has started to think too in his way, of course. But he’s started.’

  ‘You be careful, then . . . oh . . .’ she linked her arm in his. ‘I love them all. I love them so much. Aren’t we lucky?’

  ‘We are. And you be careful too, Katherine, my sweetie-pie.’

  Most of the time they were at supper, Mary was thinking about her bedroom.

  She saw her bed, covered with a quilt of amber cotton and a dark red eiderdown, and the picture on the wall opposite: darkest blue irises, and their flat, greenish-blue leaves, and above them the kingfisher, so throbbing with the life and energy of spring that it seemed dancing in the air. It looked, to Mary, like a Japanese picture. She liked it very much.

  She glanced across the table at Sylvie, who was sitting next to Mrs Wheeby (and no doubt Mary would hear plenty about that, after supper). Sylvie looked slightly dazed. Mrs Wheeby was placidly disposing of a mound of mashed potato.

  Mary wondered if Sylvie liked her bedroom? Mary herself had only glanced in through the door, and had received an impression of pale mauve, a large record-player, a pile of records on the floor, and a gas fire roaring away as if preparing to blast off.

  Sylvie had turned away from a last passionate inspection of herself in a long glass, and came undulating towards the door in red velvet trousers and a grubby white lace blouse.

  ‘What say we ’ave a play of them records arter supper,’ she began at once. ‘We don’t want to be with Grandma and that . . . lot.’

  ‘I think they’re nice,’ Mary said in a low tone as they went downstairs. ‘Mrs Cornforth’s gorgeous.’

  Sylvie gave a warning sniff. ‘They’ll be on at us. I bet yer.’

  ‘No they won’t, if you don’t do anything to make them.’

  ‘I never done nothing! What ’ave I done?’ It was the usual whine.

  ‘Oh Syl. I only said don’t do anything.’

  ‘’Ere – like me blouse?’ Sylvie twirled herself round, eyes glittering, as they paused outside the kitchen door.

  ‘Smashing,’ Mary said loyally.

  ‘Tell yer sunnick.’ Sylvie put her face closer, but, for the first time since she had known her, it did not seem ugly to Mary. ‘’E give me that.’

  A pause. ‘That . . . boy? So you mean . . .’

  ‘ ’Oo d’ya think I meant?’ A snap, and the face was drawn back.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Syl, you––’

  Mary checked herself; she had been going to say that she never knew how Sylvie felt about ‘that boy’, but what was the point in saying that? She isn’t so mingy since we got here, decided Mary as they went into the kitchen.

  The starched white cloth covering the long table touched the floor on all sides, and the china was blue and red. Not posh, thought Mary. I thought there’d be wine – Mr Taverner’s a wine sort of man – but goody, we’re having tea.

  ‘What a nice kitchen,’ she said sedately to Miss Dollette.

  ‘I’m so glad you like it, dear. Will you ask Mrs Wheeby how she likes her tea? I’m afraid she won’t hear me.’ Mary thought so too; she could hardly hear Miss Dollette.

  It was noisy, though agreeably so. Mr Taverner was saying something that made everybody laugh; Mrs Wheeby was announcing that she had never hoped to see an open range again in this world, and Mrs Cornforth, gesticulating with a spoon, was asking people how many sausages they could manage?

  ‘You make it sound as if they were . . . horses,’ said Wilfred daringly, at which everybody laughed, and Sylvie came out unexpectedly with ‘Hope not,’ and everybody laughed again.

  Where’s the boy? Wilfred wondered. Cut supper to watch his football, I suppose. One of these young louts or soccer maniacs. Nice lookout for me. But then he decided that even if his unseen stable-mate was a football maniac, Mr Taverner would know how to manage him.

  Mrs Cornforth dominated the conversation . . . ‘There I was on the pier with the lobster hanging onto my skirt . . . the fishermen were absolute lambs . . . so I treated us all to ice creams . . .’ the stories floated on.

  Miss Dollette, at the head of the table, occasionally murmured to Wilfred. Did he think the sausages were too highly flavoured? They came from a farm in Lincolnshire belonging to a friend of Mr Taverner’s. What beautiful hair Mary had . . . Yes, she herself had arranged the mistletoe, Christmas roses and miniature gnomes in the middle of the table.

  ‘I am so fond of gnomes,’ said Miss Dollette.

  Funny people. Nice people. Wilfred was tired by the unaccustomed voices and laughter – the company – after months of living alone.

  He leant back for a moment, while Mr Taverner was assisting Mrs Cornforth in removing plates (the older guests had been forbidden to help), and looked dreamily down the long, brightly lit table and the smiling faces. He saw it, for a tiny flash of time, as a picture: a clear and happy picture. He liked them all, and the darling of his heart was beside him.

  Outside the Yellow House, there was the snowy darkness over the sooty, littered fields; the crammed and snarling traffic; the millions of people who were vaguely unhappy. Not much real happiness in this world, he thought, except here and there. In flashes, as you might say. In flashes.

  The pudding was treacle.

  ‘I’m slimmin’, said Sylvie instantly.

  ‘Right you are, apple or orange jelly?’ Mrs Cornforth’s question was carolled out almost before Sylvie’s sentence was finished.

  That’s the style, thought Wilfred.

  ‘Oh come on, Syl,’ from Mary.

  ‘All right – seein’ it’s Christmas.’ Sylvie grinned suddenly, and Wilfred thought uneasily of the lecture Pat would have given her.

  But how would the people in the Yellow House deal with someone who wanted to do something really bad? His thoughts, uncomfortable for a moment, turned again to the unknown boy.

  ‘No washing-up for guests. Rule of the house,’ proclaimed Mr Taverner, when the pudding had been eaten, deftly sliding himself between Mrs Wheeby and the door of the scullery (and that’s a word I haven’t used for a good many years, thought Wilfred). ‘Won’t you all come along?’

  Sylvie paused in the hall, while the others were following Mrs Cornforth towards a door opened by Mr Taverner, revealing a room furnished in yellow and once bright, now faded, pink brocade. Sylvie caught at Mary’s arm.

  ‘Comin’ upstairs? Play them records? We don’t want to go sittin’ round . . . be on at us about something, you see.’

  ‘I want to be with Dad,’ Mary answered in the same low tone. ‘You go, if you want to . . . they won’t mind.’

  ‘They better not!’ Sylvie flashed. ‘See yer.’

  She glided up the stairs, and Mary just caught the delighted, amused smile that Mrs Cornforth sent after her. Liberty Hall. Suits me, thought Mary, and settled herself on a tuffet, in front of a splendid fire, at her father’s knee.

  Sylvie went quickly up the stairs. The silence, and the golden glow from the walls, excited her, and she was full of good food. She found the door with ‘Sylvie’ so surprisingly running across it in silver writing – then paused.

  Someone was using the record-player; she heard the familiar voices of the Seekers. Cheek! Bloody cheek, and w
ho could it be? She flung open the door.

  She stopped dead. A thin boy with limp dark hair to his shoulders was hunched before the fire, rocking in time to the sounds. As the door opened he looked up, and ceased to move. His expression changed. A mask seemed to come down, and he stared at her steadily. He did not speak.

  ‘Well I’m buggered,’ Sylvie said at last. ‘Look ’oo’s ’ere.’

  There was silence. The voices howled on and the gas heater hissed. There was a sweet woody scent in the room.

  ‘Wouldn’t never a come if I’d known you was goin’ to be ’ere,’ Sylvie muttered at last, not moving from the door.

  ‘Nor me neither,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Don’t you worry. Never wanted to see you again, I didn’t.’

  She stared downwards, moving a foot to and fro.

  ‘How’d you get ’ere, anyway?’ she demanded at last.

  ‘He picked me up. The long guy. In Veeley Road. Says he wants me to spend Christmas with him.’

  ‘You seen ’im before?’ she said sharply.

  ‘’Course I never seen ’im before. Come up in a car – bleedin’ perfect stranger.’

  ‘Veeley Road – that’s all knocked down now,’ she said, and the boy stared at her stonily.

  ‘Tell me sunnick I don’t know,’ he said.

  Sylvie moved slowly forward, drawn by the warmth from the fire.

  ‘I come with a friend. ’E’s a friend of ’er dad’s. The long one is, mean t’say,’ she said slowly, watching him.

  ‘S’pose it’s a bloody coincidence, then. But it’s funny. It’s very funny. That’s all I got to say. Last person in the world I expected to see,’ Derek said.

  ‘Last one yer wanted to, too. Go on, say it.’

  ‘I never said that, Syl. I said . . . never expected to see you again. That’s all.’

  ‘Then I must be the last one you wanted to see – mustn’t I?’

  ‘Oh belt up.’ He dropped his head onto his hunched knees and was quiet.

  ‘Well, it’s not me wot’s going ’ome. Don’t see why I should.’ Her voice was a whine.

  ‘And nor ’m I.’ He raised his head. ‘I been here since last night. I was here first.’