Felicity - Stands By

by Richmal Crompton

  “Rejewced to habject poverty with the landlord goin’ to turn me out this very night because I’ve no money to pay the rent,” she continued, sniffing. “It’s a crewel life, dearie, for them as is ’elpless in the grip of circumstances hover which they have no control.”

  She drew a breath and wiped the other eye.

  Felicity struggled desperately for some suitable comment, but she need not have troubled. Miss Smyth-Bruce’s oratory was independent of suitable comments. She only paused for breath.

  “An’ me starving,” she went pathetically on. “Me what’s had nothing to eat for days.” She pointed dramatically across the room to a cupboard. “My larder—empty!”

  She took out the handkerchief again. It was unfortunate from Miss Smyth-Bruce’s point of view that at that minute a little breeze came through the window and blew open the insecurely fastened cupboard, revealing a plentiful store of bread and butter and bacon and cheese and cake. But Miss Smyth-Bruce was not disconcerted

  “As a larder,” she said with dignity, “was of no use to me owing to me having no food to put in it, Hi kindly let one of the other lodgers use it. Do they pay me hanything for rent of it?” she asked rhetorically, throwing out her arms. “No! An’ do I soil me conscience by hever touching their vittles? No! As the Bible ’as it—I starve in the midst of plenty.”

  Felicity felt her small murmur of sympathy and admiration to be inadequate. Miss Smyth-Bruce continued.

  “An’ hall I want is work,” she said. “I’m a honest ’ardworking wo-lady, an’ hall I want is work. An’ is there work in the world for me?” She spread out her eloquent lace-decked arms again. “No!”

  Felicity roused herself from the stupor into which Miss Smyth-Bruce’s eloquence was throwing her. Now or never was the time to prove herself faithful to her principles.

  “Come home with me, Miss Smyth-Bruce,” she said earnestly. “I’m sure that we shall be able to find work for you.”

  Miss Smyth-Bruce blinked her bleary eyes. She looked a trifle disconcerted.

  “W-work, dearie?” she said in a meditative voice. “I’m not strong, you know, dearie. I—–”

  “Oh, your legs, of course,” said Felicity. “How are they?”

  “They’re so-so, dearie. Very so-so to-day, love.”

  “Well, come home with me, anyway,” said Felicity. “You can rest them till they’re better.”

  Miss Smyth-Bruce brightened. She glowed. She bridled.

  “Oh, yes, rest, dearie,” she said. “That will be very nice. Very nice indeed. I always say that anyone as is genteel needs plenty of rest. Don’t you agree with me, dearie? Now low work doesn’t suit me at all. Never did. Not since a child. But nice, refined work and not too much of it—well, that’s walking down another pair o’ shoes, as the poet ses, isn’t it, love? I’m sure you agree with me. As you say, rest before heverything.”

  “Can you come home with me now?” said Felicity.

  Miss Smyth-Bruce arose.

  “Certainly, dearie,” she said. “Excuse me one moment.”

  She vanished into an inner room and returned almost immediately. She wore an ancient, voluminous, black satin cloak, heavy with dusty and torn lace and ribbons. Her bonnet was indescribable. Suffice it to say that it was perched upon her wispy, untidy head, that it was a quivering nest of bedraggled black lace and faded imitation violets, that it was tied beneath her chin by two worn black ribbon strings. Her toilet was completed by a pair of black cotton gloves from which the ends of most of her fingers protruded unashamed. She went across to the filmy mirror on the overmantel and inspected her appearance. Evidently it pleased her. She turned to Felicity with a coy, radiant smile.

  “Got any powder, dearie?” she said.

  “No,” said Felicity.

  “Quite right, too,” said Miss Smyth-Bruce approvingly. “When I was your age I never used powder. In fact, dearie, when I was your age we might have been twins. Not offended, love, are you?”

  “No,” said Felicity; “are you ready?”

  During the journey Felicity’s spirits sank lower and lower. No one could have accused Felicity of cowardice, yet the thought of the moment when she must introduce her strange companion at Bridge-ways Hall sent little shivers up and down her spine. Of course, all Socialists had to go through this sort of thing, she supposed.

  The discovery when they got out at the station that she had lost her purse depressed her still more.

  Her purse was, as a matter of fact, at that moment reposing in one of Miss Smyth-Bruce’s inner pockets. Miss Smyth-Bruce had been trying to abstract Felicity’s purse from her bag since she met her and had at last managed it successfully in a tunnel.

  “Now,” she said in a tone of dismay, when Felicity told her of its loss, “you don’t say so, dearie! Well, it never pours but it rains, doesn’t it? It’s probably in the train. You write to Scotland Yard, love, and you’ll get it back. There’s a silver cloud to every lining, don’t forget, dearie. Now which is the way home, love? No conveyance to meet us? Never mind, love, I’m used to roughin’ it, Hi am!”

  With a light, free step, her head held high, her blue eyes full of courage and a sinking at her heart, Felicity led her protegee homewards.

  They entered the hall under the shocked gaze of Moult. Moult’s expression resembled that of a pious verger who has just seen the squire’s lady eating an orange in church. Felicity had hoped to have a few words of explanation alone with her aunt before introducing Miss Smyth-Bruce. But the drawing-room door was open and her aunt came out into the hall at once. The light in the hall was very dim,

  “Ah, Mary!” said Lady Montague. “Welcome from Russia, my dear!”

  Felicity had completely forgotten the cousin from Russia. She remembered her now with a start. She opened her mouth to correct the error, then closed it again. The mistake was at any rate a welcome respite.

  “Pronounced Marree, dear,” said Miss Smyth-Bruce, following Lady Montague from the dim hall into the full light of day in the drawing-room. There was a gasp of horror in the drawing-room as the full light of day fell upon Miss Smyth-Bruce. Lady Montague blenched and closed her eyes. Miss Smyth-Bruce was not disconcerted.

  “Pronounced Marree,” she repeated, smiling graciously upon the assembled company, then raising on high the black cotton gloved hand, she greeted Lady Montague with ultra-refined accents. “Haw do you do? So pleased to meet you!”

  Felicity stood in the doorway, looking round the room. Her grandfather had come downstairs. He was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, his gouty foot encased in bandages and raised on to a padded pouffe. His face went purple and the look of an enraged bull came into it as Miss Smyth-Bruce entered. The bishop was standing in front of the fireplace holding a cup and saucer in one hand and a cake in the other as he talked gravely to Rosemary. His mouth fell open and his nerveless hand let his cake drop upon the hearthrug as his gaze met Miss Smythe-Bruce. Lady Montague opened her eyes. It was still there. She closed them again and opened them again. It was still there. This horror was still there. And it was real. And it was Cousin Mary from Russia who had come on a visit of indefinite length. Lady Montague’s face was the face of one who has received a shattering shock and finds to her surprise that she is still alive.

  Miss Smyth-Bruce sat down and began to draw off the black cotton gloves, holding them almost at arm’s length with the air of a battered duchess.

  “Mary.” So they knew her and were expecting her. This family evidently meant to adopt her. She’d heard of such people—cranks, loonies, like this, but never had the luck to meet them before. She’d make the most of it, anyway. Her eyes roved round the room in search of small and easily removable valuables.

  The bishop was the first to recover. With a resource and self-possession worthy of a higher cause he turned politely to Miss Smyth-Bruce.

  “You—you’re from Russia, Miss—er—er—um?” he

  *

  Lady Montague was still too overcome to perform
any introductions.

  Russia. Miss Smyth-Bruce carried on a large business in begging letters, and considering that she had to pay the first floor back what she considered quite an extortionate sum for writing them (her own handwriting and orthography being of the more rudimentary type) she made a fair profit. She remembered vaguely that she had written one pathetic letter in the character of a Russian refugee. This must be the one. She sometimes got rather confused about her letters. Still, this was evidently the Russian one—it had fairly ‘‘clicked,” too.

  She turned the full force of her devastating smile upon the bishop, and the bishop blenched.

  “Yes,” she said elegantly. “Russia! An’ you’ve no idea, believe me, your grace, ’ere in peaceful Hengland, of them there Russians. Thieves an’ scoundrels, one an’ all, your reverence. As the Bible says, ‘all that is gold does not glitter’—believe me.”

  Lady Montague was past coming to anyone’s help. She had sent Moult for her smelling salts, and she was lying back in her chair, her eyes fixed with fearful fascination upon Miss Smyth-Bruce. A shade of black was beginning to mingle with the purple on Sir Digby’s countenance. His first stupor was past. Rosemary remained frigidly aloof. Felicity sat demurely on a chair by the door. She had decided to let the situation take its course.

  The bishop alone rose to the occasion.

  ‘‘You met with—er—discomfort, I take it,” he said, “at the hands of the Bolshevists?”

  Miss Smyth-Bruce had just taken a sandwich from the cake-stand which stood beside her. She held it up daintily between thumb and first finger with all the other fingers cocked to their utmost capacity and turned to the bishop.

  “You’re right, your grace,” she said, and the dusty lace and violets of her bonnet quivered emphatically as she spoke. “I should say I did! Stripped me of practically he very thing except what I stand up in, rejewced me to habject poverty, and a nervous wreck. But a nice rest, a nice long rest’ll set me up fine!” She looked round the room and then turned to Lady Montague. “Classy little place you’ve got heaar,” she said.

  Lady Montague said nothing. She was dumb and paralysed with horror.

  Miss Smyth-Bruce turned to Sir Digby and looked him up and down from his furious face to his invalid foot. Then she turned again to Lady Montague.

  “Hubby hurt ’is foot?” she said. “Well, he has my sympathy, poor man. I know what it is. Tramping through Russia didn’t do my poor feet any good, either. Believe me.”

  This was more than Sir Digby could stand.

  He began to sputter furiously, his face a dull magenta.

  Felicity thought then that there must come an explosion from Sir Digby that would wreck the universe. But instead came a diversion.

  The door opened and a man in policeman’s uniform appeared. Now, Miss Smyth-Bruce’s past held sundry episodes that made the appearance of a man in policeman’s uniform unwelcome.

  There came the startling vision of Miss Smyth-Bruce in all her rusty draperies flying across the room, leaping with amazing agility over the low window-sill and scuttling down the drive.

  Lady Montague was too stupefied even to ask for the smelling salts.

  The policeman advanced. It was Ronald. He held the door open for a handsome, fashionably-dressed woman who followed him.

  “It’s Cousin Mary,” he said. “She missed the train she asked you to meet so rang me up to run her down here. Excuse my costume, but I’m going on to dinner with the Burtons and a fancy dress dance. I make rather a nice bobby, don’t I? I came down in an overcoat with my helmet in the dicky, so as not to make the Force jealous. Cousin Mary, this is everyone—Aunt Marcella, Rosemary, Felicity, grandfather. But, I say, who was your friend—the one who jumped out of the window?”

  Lady Montague was recovering. She had begun to recover as soon as the figure of Miss Smyth-Bruce had disappeared from view. She sat up very straight, blinked several times, then turned a cold, stern eye upon Felicity.

  “Perhaps you have something to say about this, Felicity?” she said grimly.

  Felicity looked from one to the other.

  Lady Montague’s face registered stern accusation, Sir Digby’s fury to the verge of apoplexy, the bishop’s pained resignation, Ronald’s amusement, and Cousin Mary’s surprise. And they were all looking at her in silence waiting for her to speak.

  “Yes,” said Felicity, “I’m on the horns of a dilemma. I mean I’m not a Socialist any longer. I mean, she couldn’t have had chronic legs, could she?”

  Then vivid memories of the past ten minutes overcame her, and burying her face in her handkerchief she fled from the room.

  Chapter Four

  Felicity Joins “The Oranges”

  “Ronald’s here,” said Felicity.

  “I know,” said Franklin. “Don’t sit on the desk, there’s a good girl. You always sit on the papers I want most, and then I’m held up till you choose to get off.”

  Felicity grinned with sixteen-year-old impudence and sat upon a large corner of the knee-hole desk, swinging slim, gleaming legs.

  “That’s why I do it,” she said. “You can’t attend to me properly with half your brains scribbling notes on nasty bits of paper. How do you know that Ronald’s here? Have you seen him?”

  “No,” said Franklin. “I’ve heard him. Or, rather, I haven’t heard him—I’ve heard Sir Digby.”

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Oh, yes—it’s a bad day, isn’t it? An upstairs day. Is he very—gouty? Gouty is a euph—whatever you call it.”

  “Euphemism, you mean, Pins.”

  “Yes, Frankie. You’re awfully cultured. Fancy knowing words like that. Without a dictionary, too. Well, to return to my nicest and only unmarried brother—what exactly did you hear?”

  “I heard Sir Digby speaking to him.”

  “Not speaking, Frankie,” said Felicity reprovingly—“not speaking. Don’t let your respect for grandfather run away with your sense of truth. You may have heard him roaring. Or bellowing. But not speaking. He doesn’t speak on his bad days. Oh, here is Ronald.”

  A tall, pleasant-looking and very handsome young man entered.

  “Hallo, Franklin,” he said, shaking hands with the secretary, and then: “Hallo, Pins,” pulling her pigtail.

  He sat down on the desk beside her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “You’ve been getting into trouble, Ron,” said Felicity, with mock sternness. “Frankie heard.”

  Ronald grinned.

  “I should think he did,” he said. “I should think everyone from here to London heard. I have rotten luck. I can come down here for no particular reason and find the old boy quite jovial, but if ever I come down in a hole and wanting a little grandfatherly pecuniary assistance, I always hit on him in a foul temper.”

  “Gout, dear,” said Felicity. “We always call it gout. It sounds better. Nobody’s quite sure which is the cause and which is the effect—but the result is the same. What have you been doing, Ron—drinking or betting?”

  “Neither, you impertinent young hussy. I was idiot enough to back a bill for another idiot and I’ve got let in.”

  “How much?”

  “Four hundred quid.”

  “Ron!” said Felicity. “Frankie, listen to that! Have you got four hundred quid to lend us? We’ll pay you when we get our next Saturday pennies.”

  “I haven’t,” said Franklin, “or you could have it with pleasure.”

  “He’s longing to get on with his work, Ron,” said Felicity, “and I’m sitting on all this morning’s correspondence. He’s trying to be patient, but he’ll get an attack of gout if we stay much longer. Let’s leave him to his nasty bills and love-letters. Let’s go and find the dogs.”

  She went out whistling. Ronald stayed for a few minutes talking to Franklin, then followed her. They walked through the open front door into the sunny drive.

  “Nice chap, Franklin,” said Ronald.

  “He’s an absolute
duck,” said Felicity. “I don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s a sort of anti-whatever-you-call-it to grandfather and Aunt Marcella. I should turn into a stone-dead mummy in a day if I were left quite alone with them. But, Ron darling, what about you? What are you going to do about the money?”

  He shrugged and laughed.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said. “I shall manage somehow.”

  “You won’t try grandfather again?”

  “Good lord, no.”

  She glanced at him quickly. She read anxiety beneath his light manner.

  “Don’t you worry your old red head over that,” he said again, pulling her thick copper plait affectionately.

  They had reached the stable now and the dogs sprang out at them in welcome. Then they walked through the woods and up the hill. Ronald did not refer to the money again. He was the most charming of companions, and he liked Felicity. He refused to stay for lunch, and Felicity went down to the station with him to see him off. As he said good-bye he slipped a pound note into her hand.

  “Sorry it can’t be more this time, kid,” he said, “but times is ’ard.”

  As the train moved off he leant out of the carriage and waved a smiling “good-bye” to her.

  She walked away very slowly, holding her pound note in her hand.

  Felicity had worshipped Ronald from childhood.

  She went to the library again, where Franklin was still busy at the desk.

  She took out her pound note and held it meditatively.

  “Frankie,” she said, “do you know of any way of turning one pound into four hundred?”

  “No, my child,” he said, “or I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Of course, there’s betting,” she said; “but you never can be absolutely certain which horse is going to win.”

  “That is the drawback to betting,” agreed Franklin drily. “I’ve often found that.”

  “Isn’t there any way one could make four hundred pounds in a day or in a week?”

  “There’s the stage,” said Franklin.

  “The stage!” cried Felicity. “Now why didn’t I think of that before? How does one get on the stage, Frankie?”