The Yellow Houses

by Stella Gibbons

  Wilfred and Mary had already pleasurably dissected the party. It was plain what the host’s feelings had been. But when Wilfred had seen him briefly that afternoon, Yasuhiro had seemed restored to serenity, even cheerfulness. Yes, he had walked on that Heath for four hours, getting back (he had not said ‘home’) at half past three, with more lines of his poem firmly in his head. ‘And they are true,’ he had said, fixing Wilfred with his clear dark eyes. ‘Good situation, Mr Davis. Now I work.’

  ‘What I can’t get over is him staying in bed till twelve this morning,’ Mary said, as they went down in the hotel lift to the station.

  ‘He was out till after three, love. And everybody likes a lie-in of a Sunday if they can get it.’

  ‘I know – I didn’t mean that. But taking it for granted that Mrs Cadman and I would clear everything up properly. Not even bothering to get up. You can see he’s been used to servants all his life.’

  ‘Well, I expect his family has, love.’

  Mary made a small face, and they made their way, under the vast ribbed roof amid echoing thunders, to where Wilfred’s train waited.

  It was making direful preliminary noises, and he hurried into it.

  He hung out of the window, and she stood beside it for a moment.

  ‘Bye, love. I’ll phone you,’ she said, smiling, as the monster began to move.

  She’s beautiful, her father thought in surprise, as he drew in his head. She always was, to me, of course. But now – why, several people stared at her this afternoon. I don’t mean startlingly beautiful, of course, more like . . . like a healthy young tree or fresh grass, really. That kind of beautiful.

  Settling himself in a corner seat, he glanced casually round at his fellow travellers, and his eye stopped at a slight, pale woman whose clothes contrived to give an impression of elegance, and whose fair hair straggled from under a fur cap. She had a briefcase on her lap and was about to open it, when she looked up and met his eyes. A smile slowly appeared, and she leant forward.

  ‘Isn’t it Mr Davis? . . . that wasn’t Mary? Was it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said proudly. ‘That was Mary, Mrs Anstruther. I’ve just been down for her engagement party, as a matter of fact . . .’

  ‘There! What did I tell you? Congratulations.’ She touched the seat at her side. ‘Come and sit here and tell me all your news.’

  ‘I’d like to, Mrs Anstruther – I’m a bit full of it all, to tell you the truth.’ He moved across to the indicated place.

  The faintest flowery scent came from Mrs Anstruther’s coat. Her earrings were of carved white coral. Following an experienced guiding murmur, he opened his mouth to begin.

  For nearly fifteen minutes, he related Mary’s history for the past year, answering his hearer’s skilful questions. When he finally announced the proposal that he should accompany the engaged pair to Japan, Julia actually stared.

  ‘Oh, one never knows!’ she breathed.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I was thinking aloud. It’s just that the most unexpected things happen to the most ord–– to the nicest, but really the most . . . everyday . . . people. Do you think you’ll like living there?’

  ‘I’ll be with Mary, so nothing else matters much,’ Wilfred said, and Julia nodded. ‘But there is that raw fish and sitting on the floor and all that,’ he wound up by saying. ‘I’ve got the fare home for us both, and I’m hanging on to it, Mrs Anstruther . . . That old chap running it all, over ninety. There’s almost bound to be differences. But we could do with a bit of that sort of authority over here, in my opinion.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we must encourage the idea of the old managing affairs for the middle-aged and the young.’ Julia’s slight smile was cold. ‘It’s unhealthy.’

  ‘Ah, there I don’t agree with you. Things have gone too far the other way, to my mind.’

  Wilfred glanced at her nervously. Her expression had become haughty and sad.

  ‘I hope all’s going well at Redpaths?’ he said, nervously. ‘Her mother would have been so – so upset at Mary’s leaving – like that. We both had such a high opinion of Redpaths, and I’m sure it’s done a lot for Mary – nice manners, and that.’

  ‘Thank you, yes. We flourish.’ He saw I was rattled and he’s trying to comfort me. Dammit, I will not be comforted. I wish I were a reincarnation of Mrs Pankhurst.

  Silence fell. The four other passengers read and dozed. Lights came on in the carriage; London began to seem remote, and last night’s party to have the air of a dream. Wilfred was thinking with quiet enjoyment of the people in the Yellow House. Then something stirred in his memory.

  ‘Mrs Anstruther –’

  The face she turned to him was gentle and friendly.

  ‘Those two little girls, Samantha and Kelly, Mrs Singer’s two . . . My old Dad always kept an eye on them. Well, the whole street did, for that matter, but he was sort of special with them. He passed over several months ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Peacefully, I hope.’

  ‘Yes, in his sleep . . . Well, you know how things get about. I heard you were going to keep an eye on them. I just wondered how they’re getting along. Carrying on his interest, you might call it, I suppose . . . Pretty little things, both of them – nearly always round there whenever I looked in. I just wondered––’

  ‘Too pretty.’ Her tone made him stare. ‘They think of little else but becoming pop singers. But I hope to see them come through that ambition. They’re all right. They’re both in care, for the present, at that very good foster home, Bryant House, in Macclesfield Road. It’s run on the family system, there are about twelve children and an unusually satisfactory house-mother and father. Of course, with children of that background, semi-literate and precocious and encouraged in every undesirable attitude by their own families, it’s not easy to tell whether they’re really well-adjusted. But they ought to be capable of adapting. They’ve been experiencing the extended family in practice ever since they were born. That may have helped them to settle down.’

  ‘But are they happy?’

  The question seemed to irritate Julia. She almost snatched her suitcase off the rack as the train drew in to Torford, ignoring his movement to help.

  ‘Happy? Who’s happy, Mr Davis? We have to make do as best we can, with what we’ve got, and what we can get . . . No, no taxi, thanks, my husband’s meeting me. I’ve enjoyed hearing about Mary. Let me know how she gets on – and you, too. Don’t forget – I mean it. Goodbye.’

  She was gone, hurrying away with her hair tumbling down, into the Sunday evening crowd dispersing into the chill, slightly misty air. But as he was lifting his own case down from the rack, he heard her voice again.

  ‘Mr Davis –’

  He turned. She was back at the carriage door, giving an impression of hovering before taking flight again.

  ‘Sammy and Kelly come to us to play, every Saturday afternoon. I truly am keeping an eye on them. You mustn’t worry.’

  As soon as Wilfred opened the door of the Yellow House, he felt a new atmosphere.

  Something had gone.

  The calm and gentle gaiety of the hall had vanished. His glance moved across to the staircase, as he stood hesitating, with the open door behind him letting in the chill air of evening, and then he saw, with an astonishing disturbance along his nerves, that Kichijoten’s niche was empty.

  The drawing-room door opened, and Mr Taverner looked out.

  ‘Hullo. Nice to see you back. How did it go?’

  ‘Where’s Kichijoten?’ Wilfred demanded.

  Mr Taverner shrugged.

  ‘She’s had to go.’

  ‘But why? What’s the matter? Not – burglars, or vandals?’

  ‘Oh, nothing like that.’

  ‘I was only thinking – an isolated place like this – at least it’s isolated since demolition started.’ Mr Taverner was now going slowly upstairs, and Wilfred was following. ‘We’re in a dangerous district. I’ve heard people – dropou
ts, thugs, I don’t know – go past at night, singing. (If you can call it singing.)’

  ‘All districts are dangerous, my dear man.’

  ‘Will she – will Kichijoten be back soon?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s been – the hem of her robe has been slightly damaged, and it takes time and patience to put such things right.’

  ‘Patience? ’

  ‘ Especially, as we all know, in dangerous centuries. (I expect they had the deuce of a job getting a stone quern repaired, in the twelfth. That was one of the dangerous ones. Great changes. Always dangerous – and painful.) Come in and have some sherry – I want to hear about the party.’ He paused at the door of his room, and looked at Wilfred enquiringly.

  Wilfred had never seen Mr Taverner’s room, but as soon as he was invited to see it, all the slight peculiarities and small mysteries surrounding his mysterious friend seemed to coalesce, and to present themselves before him as one large question mark. I’ll get to know a bit more about him was the thought that crept into his mind.

  The walls were light green, the bed narrow, the shelves crammed with detective stories and thrillers. The well-waxed floor was covered by two or three mats of shining yellow reed.

  Mr Taverner indicated an armchair: large, shabby, and so charged with persuasion and age that it suggested a person rather than a piece of furniture.

  Wilfred hesitated. ‘Isn’t that yours?’

  ‘When I start feeling no one else ought to sit in that, the end will be near . . . You try it.’

  Wilfred settled himself in the comfortable old thing. It’s as if it was some friend of his, he thought, staring out between the half-drawn curtains at an almost dark sky with one streak of light. ‘A sorrowful red eye,’ he remembered reading in some book.

  Then he glanced round the room. There was only one object in it that suggested personal life: the photograph of a beautiful, dark man in his early forties on the wall above the desk.

  ‘Cheers.’ Mr Taverner handed him a glass and lifted his own. ‘To Mary and Yasuhiro –’ and Wilfred muttered the names as he drank the toast. Mr Taverner had got hold of the boy’s name all right – but that was like him: always interested in other people’s affairs, but in a – a – civilized way, not nosily, like Sheila and Shirley and Joan . . . and if I don’t tell them soon, they’ll find out and then God help me.

  ‘How did the party go?’

  For an instant, Wilfred had a strange flash of memory. He was home from his first day at school, and his young mother was eagerly questioning him. With the flash there came such a feeling of safety! Then he returned to the present, and went into a description of the party, lingering on the quantity of flowers and the prettiness of it all.

  ‘I’m relieved to hear that appalling little girl Sylvie has got herself tied down,’ said Mr Taverner, when the tale was ended, ‘though I never cease to marvel how the most shrink-inducing people manage to find someone willing to shoulder them for life . . . Did I tell you about young Derek?’

  ‘That boy who was here at Christmas? No . . . You know, Mr Taverner, I was glancing through some book of poems, the new kind, at the Library soon after he left here, and I saw one – it was about a boy with Born to Lose branded on his shoulder. Not really, of course. Just how the writer imagined him. It made me think of young Derek.’

  ‘Yes . . . but that brand can mean less than it seems to, you know. A bit of our old friend Drama, there; Byron, and the legion of the Damned, and so forth. Look at me, I’m going to Hell. Easier – and more noticeable, don’t forget – than trying not to go there. And so few are admitted, anyway! Oh, it’s an exclusive club, Hell . . . Derek’s going to be all right now. A pretty, motherly little girl’s found him, and he’s found her, and they’re going to start life in a caravan, Derek’s saving up for it. They won’t marry at first. Those friends of mine he’s living with are helping him. They’ve put him on to a local farmer who’ll rent him a scrap of land, not too outrageously. The girl isn’t greedy, either. Amazing!’

  Wilfred remembered, with a small, guilty pain Pat’s plan for redecorating the house every three years, the re-carpeting and re-upholstering, the right glasses for drinks, the good-natured unflagging driving of himself until he had reached the highest position at the Town Hall that he could hope for.

  He switched himself back to the present.

  ‘Miss Dollette and Mrs Cornforth well, I hope?’

  ‘Mrs Cornforth . . . will be,’ Mr Taverner said. ‘Miss Dollette is not quite as happy as usual.’

  ‘Oh? Nothing serious, I hope . . . I’d better get used to the idea of change,’ he went on. ‘This time next year, it all seems to point to me being in Japan.’ Mr Taverner looked at him in silence, above his interlaced fingers. ‘I must say I’d sooner stay here. Born here, grew up and worked here, married here, lost my Pat here – yes, it’ll be a wrench all right. But Mary wants me to go, and she’ll be there wherever I land up. She’d go, of course, even if I didn’t – but I think she’s just a bit nervous. East is East, and all that. ’Course, I shan’t interfere – unless I see her put upon. That would be different.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be rather difficult to “interfere” with that particular son-in-law?’

  ‘I’m not so sure, Mr Taverner. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t as tough as he makes out.’

  ‘That’s a shrewd remark. What do you base it on?’

  ‘Oh – one or two little things, I suppose. And he’s a poet. You think of a poet as, well, not tough.’

  ‘Quite wrong, dear man, they’re as tough as the proverbial old boot. They have to be, to get the poetry written.’

  ‘Did you ever know a poet, Mr Taverner? Really well, I mean?’

  ‘Once.’ He held up the bottle, questioningly.

  ‘No – thank you all the same. I must go and unpack, and then I’ve got to work out a route to Mrs Wheeby’s. I’m going over there for the day on Tuesday, and it’s a bit dicey with transport.’

  Wilfred was standing at the open door. The atmosphere pervading the silent, softly lit golden-white walls of the passage flowed out and touched him, persistent as the faint, disturbing scent of hawthorn.

  ‘Mr Taverner?’

  His host had sunk back into the big armchair. He looked across attentively, but the mask was in place.

  ‘Everything is all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not just now,’ Mr Taverner said after a pause. ‘And I won’t say “Don’t worry”. For a little while, we must worry, all of us in the Yellow House.’

  Wilfred stared. Then, suddenly irritable, he said shortly: ‘Oh well, I’ll be getting along. I’m a bit tired, carting all those flowers round to Miss Wayne’s church this morning in a force six gale. No picnic, I can tell you. Thanks for the drink.’

  ‘See you at supper,’ Mr Taverner smiled.

  Wilfred shut the door.

  *

  No peace, Wilfred was thinking, as he went along to his own room. You find a place where the people are so decent they seem more like – like – good spirits – than anybody in this world. Things straighten out fine for Mary. And then, damn me if we don’t all have to worry about something . . . I’m not told what. Not even here, there’s no peace.

  He went down to supper feeling aggressive and disliking the feeling.

  ‘In the dining room, tonight!’ Mrs Cornforth’s voice, bell-like and excited, startled him as she whirled past with a sheaf of gladioli, dahlias and copper leaves in her arms. He followed her into the room.

  The table was set; it glittered with silver and gleamed with glass. She stood over it, her red hair glittering, too, in the light, and began to arrange the flowers and leaves. The fern scent breathed strongly from her dress.

  ‘It looks grand,’ he said uneasily. ‘I didn’t know we were having company.’

  ‘We aren’t,’ she carolled, moving the heavy silver forks about. ‘It’s to welcome home “the father of the bride”.’

  ‘Well, that’s very kind of you �
�’

  ‘And I bought up every flower in Parkinson’s. Felicity may enjoy creeping round the suburbs for bits of weeds – I don’t,’ and she thrust some red leaves before Mr Taverner’s place. ‘I’ll be in the doghouse, of course, for making those little so-and-so’s do the silver – but it’s good for them, they’re getting too big for their new boots as it is . . .’

  She laughed. ‘Now I have done it, haven’t I? Naughty Katherine.’ She was not looking at him. Her voice died into an angry mutter as she thrust red chrysanthemums into a silver bowl.

  ‘Seems a lot, all that, just for – us,’ he said feebly at last; he would have liked to go away – to the kitchen, upstairs again, anywhere. But her beauty, and something else that was frightening yet imperative, kept him lingering – fascination, curiosity.

  She glanced across at him, and laughed.

  ‘Well, we’re the only ones who’ll enjoy it. Fat chance there is of getting the kind of company I like invited here. Give me the goats, every time, Wilfred. They’re more fun and more of a challenge too – if you must moralize –’

  ‘I don’t think I moralize, Mrs Cornforth,’ he said, after a pause in which irritation and fear rose in him like a tide. ‘I’m fairly broad-minded, I like to think, for a man of my upbringing . . . and education.’

  ‘You’re a dead, nice bore,’ she said, rearranging some leaves, not troubling to look at him. ‘There!’ Now she did look up. ‘It’s out. And do I feel better? No! I don’t.’

  She sat down at the table and put her face in her hands.

  Wilfred was feeling actual, physical pain in his heart. He did not love her; the word had never come near his thoughts of her. He slightly feared and disliked her in comparison with his feelings for the other two. But she was a beautiful woman . . . and . . . and . . . I know I’m well over sixty and I’ve had a perfectly ordinary life . . . I’m not tall, or clever, he thought. But my life’s been interesting to me, he thought passionately . . . That was the cruellest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I’ve always done my best.

  She lifted her head, and looked across at him and laughed.