Felicity - Stands By

by Richmal Crompton

Felicity, looking very demure in the plainest of white crepe-de-Chine dresses, her red plait hanging down her back, dined with her grandfather and his secretary. Sir Digby was watching her closely. Of course, he’d not been mistaken. Hair or no hair, he’d not been mistaken. The little devil . . . “This man’s getting—–” The little devil . . . He began to breathe hard and quickly.

  “I’m glad to see you down, grandfather dear,” said Felicity pleasantly.

  “You didn’t know I was down before, did you?” he growled.

  She looked at him in innocent amazement.

  “How should I?” she said. “You were in your room at lunch. Frankie and I had it alone.”

  He growled again.

  “And where have you been this afternoon?” he said, his eyes fixed upon her narrowly.

  She put some salt in her soup very daintily.

  “I?” she said. “Oh, to-day’s my singing lesson day . . . And where have you been, grandfather dear?”

  “To Westsea,” he exploded.

  “Was it nice?” she said carelessly.

  “Never been there, have you?” he growled.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “lots of times. But I meant—was it nice to-day?”

  He subsided into partial silence, only growling ferociously at intervals. Felicity kept up a pleasant conversation with Franklin rather in the manner of a Society hostess. Franklin was thoroughly mystified. But, as Felicity well knew, the worst was not over. Her grandfather called her into the library after the meal.

  “Shut the door!” he bellowed. Felicity shut the door.

  “Now,” he thundered, “you little minx! You little devil! Deny it if you dare! You wore a black wig to deceive me, but—–”

  “I didn’t wear a black wig to deceive you,” said Felicity calmly. “I wore a black wig because my own hair clashed with the costume.”

  He gave a bellow of rage, but it changed abruptly into a chuckle . . . Felicity powdering her nose . . . Felicity calmly ordering that man to send him off . . . Felicity . . . the little devil . . . He’d secretly admired Felicity ever since, quite early in her childhood, he’d discovered that it was impossible to brow-beat her.

  “Why did you do it, you monkey?” he said.

  “I don’t see why I should tell you,” said his granddaughter.

  “I’ll give you ten pounds if you’ll tell me.”

  Felicity considered this offer in silence. Then she said, “If you’ll give me four hundred pounds, I’ll tell you.”

  She thought for the minute that he was going to have apoplexy. He went purple and breathed like a bull. But he suddenly did the most eccentric thing he’d ever done in his life. He went over to his desk and wrote her a cheque for four hundred pounds. She folded it up and put it into her purse.

  She went to the door, opened it, and turned back to look at him.

  “I wanted to make four hundred pounds for Ronald,” she said. “I only made four-and-six, but it’s all right now.”

  Then she fled.

  There pursued her down the corridor a furious bellow of rage that changed midway into a chuckle.

  Chapter Five

  Fate and Emerson Smith

  Probably, if Lady Montague had been at home, Felicity would never have been allowed to visit Fairyng at all, because there was not the slightest doubt that Mr. Bennet, of Fairyng, was Sausages. One might have forgiven him for being Tea or Soap or even Boot Blacking. But not Sausages. Moreover, the placard, by means of which Mr. Bennet advertised his wares throughout the length and breadth of England, was almost as low as the wares it advertised. The placard represented the upper portion of an enormous man, red-cheeked, red-nosed, wearing a table napkin tucked in at the base of his innumerable chins and a large, fat, anticipatory smile, and holding on a fork, in a podgy hand, half-way to his mouth a large piece of sausage. This work of art bore the legend “HE LIKES THEM AND SO WOULD YOU.” But one must be just. There were extenuating circumstances in the case. Mr. Bennet, at the outset of his career, had reluctantly decided not to give his own name to his sausages, because he didn’t think that it went with them. There was nothing arresting about “Bennet’s Sausages,” so he called them “Aladdin’s Sausages,” and had a little picture on the label, of Aladdin in his cave standing, stupefied with amazement and delight, before a string of Mr. Bennet’s sausages. So Mr. Bennet’s name was not in anyway contaminated by the association . . .

  It was this extenuating circumstance, and the fact that Mr. Bennet had married one of the Frymlons, of Frymlons (though she only lived a year after the marriage), that had induced Miss Barlow, of Minter House, Eastbourne, to admit Mr. Bennet’s only child, Priscilla, into her select educational establishment, where she had met Felicity.

  Fortunately, when the invitation arrived, Lady Montague was away paying a round of visits to her relations. Lady Montague paid a round of visits to her relations every year. She paid it in the spirit of a general inspecting his troops, and they received it in like spirit, holding their breath with apprehension and suspense, till she’d passed on, grim and majestic and disapproving, to the next victims. Lady Montague’s round of visits, however, do not come into this story except to explain why Felicity was allowed to tarnish her social exclusiveness by a visit to Mr. Bennet’s country seat, Fairyng.

  The invitation was sent to Felicity’s grandfather, Sir Digby Harborough, and Sir Digby happened to be in a good temper. A very good temper indeed. When the Bennet invitation arrived he hadn’t had even a twinge of gout for over a week.

  “D’you want to go?” he growled at Felicity.

  Sir Digby always growled. You didn’t tell whether he was in a good temper by whether he growled or not. You told by the note of his growl. This was quite a kind note.

  “Oh, yes,” said Felicity. “I’d love to.”

  “All right, then,” growled Sir Digby. “Go . . . Go, then . . . Do you good—nice little change for you . . . and shut the door after you.”

  Sir Digby always dismissed people by telling them to shut the door after them . . .

  A distant cousin of Mr. Bennet’s wife, who kept home for him, received Felicity in the drawing-room. She wore a thick shawl on her shoulder and an over-fed Pom on her knee. She had a large pale face, rather like an under-done pancake, and small eyes like two currants.

  “Dear child,” she said, “I’m so glad to see you. Excuse my not getting up. I’m so very delicate. My chest, you know. Not to speak of my nerves. It’s nothing but pure strength of will that keeps me alive. I don’t eat enough to feed a bird. Pure strength of will and the love of my sweet little Popsy here . . .”

  “Yap, yap!” said her sweet little Popsy with devastating shrillness.

  “Priscilla?” said Felicity anxiously. Somehow she’d expected Priscilla to meet her at the station.

  “Oh, my dear,” said the lady, distressed, “such a worry. Poor Priscilla’s sprained her ankle this morning. Nothing infectious or, of course, I wouldn’t have let you come . . . and, of course, nothing serious. Nothing to what I have to put up with day in, day out. Young people like Priscilla simply don’t know what real suffering means. . . . I suffer from constant ill-health. I eat hardly enough to keep a bird alive. . . . If it weren’t for the constant love and sympathy of my little Popsy here—–”

  “Yap, yap!” said her little Popsy there.

  “May I go up and see Priscilla?” said Felicity.

  “Certainly, dear . . . Just touch that bell, will you, dear? I don’t want to disturb dear Popsy by getting up, and sudden movements are so bad for the heart.” A housemaid entered. “Take Miss Harborough up to Miss Priscilla’s bedroom, please . . . You’ll excuse me if you don’t see me again till dinner time, won’t you, dear? I need such a lot of rest. So does Popsy . . . we’re both so delicate . . .”

  Priscilla was sitting up in bed. Her pale face in its frame of dark curls was flushed, her eyes red-rimmed. Quite evidently Priscilla had been crying.

  “Oh, Pins, darling,” she said,
“isn’t it dreadful? I ought to have wired to you not to come, but I couldn’t because I did want you so. I’m not really a bit bad, but I’ve got to stay in bed to-day. . . Oh, Pins, darling, it’s so lovely to see you, but it’ll be dull as ditch-water for you, and I know I oughtn’t to have let you come.”

  Felicity threw her hat carelessly on to a chest of drawers and flung back her tawny plait. Her youth and confidence and health seemed to fill the room. She whisked across it and drew the half-closed curtain to its fullest extent. She switched on the electric light, then took the poker and dealt firmly and effectually with the smouldering fire. The light flooded the room. The fire blazed up. She turned the invalid’s pillow, straightened her bed-clothes, and moistened her forehead with some eau-de-cologne which she found on the dressing-table.

  “I knew everything would be different when you came,” murmured Priscilla, nestling down in bed contentedly.

  “Now I’m sure you’re dying for tea,” said Felicity briskly. “I am. Shall I ring, or does it come up by itself.’’

  “It comes up or it doesn’t,” said Priscilla with a sigh. “I mean, they generally forget it—Cousin Sophia’s too delicate to see to things much.”

  Felicity rang the bell. She gave her order to the housemaid with all the famous Harborough haughtiness. She was furious with all these people for neglecting Priscilla. The housemaid was impressed as never before had she been impressed since she entered the Bennet household. “My eye,” she remarked in the servants’ hall, “she’s a one-er, she is. Looks an’ all, she’s got, too.”

  “Now,” said Felicity, curling up in the armchair by the fire like the loose-limbed young animal she was, “who comes up here to look after you?”

  “Well,” said Priscilla after a slight pause, “Cousin Sophia’s too delicate to stand the stairs, so she doesn’t come. The maids bring up my meals . . .”

  “What about your father?” said Felicity sternly. Priscilla flushed and turned away her face. Her underlip trembled slightly.

  “Oh, Pins,” she said, “I must tell you . . .You’d see for yourself,; anyway. Daddy’s so awfully sweet, really, but—it began about a month ago . . . he’s awfully simple and she’s—she’s a dreadful woman, but she flatters him and—you’ll see her, she’s staying here now . . . and oh, I’m sure she’ll get him in the end . . . and I couldn’t bear it. . . . People laugh at Daddy, but I know what a dear he is . . . but—but for this month he’s not been like himself at all . . . she—she doesn’t care what she does to get him . . .” Her voice died away.

  Felicity uncurled, herself and sat up.

  “Now you’re just not to worry,” she said firmly, “it’s going to come all right.”

  “Is it, Pins?” said Priscilla eagerly, “how do you know?”

  “I know it,” said Felicity with conviction.

  Priscilla lay back with a little sigh.

  “I remember it used to be like this at school,” she said dreamily. “Worries simply used to melt away when you came.”

  The housemaid entered with a tray of tea. She put it on the table by Felicity’s chair.

  Felicity put a slim hand on the teapot.

  “The tea’s half-cold,” she said calmly, “and so is the toast. They’re neither of them fit for an invalid. Please take them down and make some fresh.”

  The housemaid looked up pertly. When all was said and done, this was only a kid with her hair in a plait. Then she met Felicity’s blue, blue eyes and the starch went out of her.

  “Yes, miss,” she said meekly.

  Felicity went down the wide shallow staircase dressed for dinner. In the hall, by the fire, sat Cousin Sophia still wearing the shawl, and the Pom.

  “You’ve been with Priscilla, dear?” she enquired, moving her chair farther away as Felicity approached. “How is dear Priscilla? I’d go up to see her if I could, but stairs are so bad for one’s heart, and, after all, I have Popsy to consider. He’s nervous and the atmosphere of a sick room upsets him . . .” A gong sounded discreetly and musically in the distance. “Ah, dinner,” said Cousin Sophia, rising quite eagerly. “I always go in to meals, dear, and try to eat a little,” she explained to Felicity, “because, of course, as I say, one must live, but, really, I hardly eat enough to keep body and soul together . . . Ah, here comes James!”

  Mr. Bennet was descending the stairs. Mr. Bennet was for all the world like the advertisement of the sausages. He was almost as broad as he was long. His figure completely filled up the wide staircase as he descended. His chins resembled a range of innumerable mountains fading away into the distance. His face was red and round and smiling like an enormous baby’s. He was almost bald, but upon one side of his head grew a little plantation of long, straggly grey hairs which he carefully brushed over the rest of his head, distributing them as impartially as possible.

  He greeted Felicity.

  “Priscilla’s friend, ain’t it?” he said. “Pleased to meet you, my dear . . . Hard lines on poor old Pris bein’ laid up, ain’t it? But we’re very pleased to have you along with us, my dear, we are indeed. I used to hear a lot about you in the Minter House days . . . your games and pranks and what-not . . .” His eyes wandered restlessly to the staircase. “Mrs. Flower not come down yet, my dear?” he said to his cousin.

  “No, James, I haven’t seen her,” said Cousin Sophia. “I haven’t seen her since lunch, but I was lying down all the afternoon trying to get a wink of sleep . . . You know, I sleep so badly, dear,” she said to Felicity, “I really hardly get enough sleep to keep body and soul together.”

  “Good evening, everybody,” said a sprightly voice from the top of the stairs.

  Mr. Bennet’s red face flushed purple and a rather comical little love-lorn smile came to his lips.

  A woman, handsome, stout, and well past her first youth, was coming downstairs. Her hair was of that vivid shade of gold with which Nature is less generous than art. It required little perception to see that Mrs. Flower owed hers to the more generous hand. She had applied black colouring matter to eyelashes and eyebrows with a lavishness worthy of a better cause. Neither face nor chest stood in need of colouring matter, but she had evidently attempted to tone down their vividness by a thick coating of white powder. She was dressed in a gown of silver tissue and had corseted her too, too-solid flesh so effectually that she looked as if she had been literally poured into her dress and, if there’d been one more drop, would have overflowed.

  “Well,’ she said, with a girlish little laugh, “there you all are! I do declare, Mr. Bennet, you do seem to get younger every day. Quite a boy you look from here!”

  Mr. Bennet’s smile grew more sheepishly delighted and his rubicund face grew more purple.

  He introduced Felicity.

  Mrs. Flower held out a red and massive arm with overelaborate politeness.

  “Sow pleased to meet you,” she said. “You will be nice company for poor Priscilla laid up as the pore child is. . . .” She turned her terrible roguish smile on to Mr. Bennet, then back to Felicity. “You’d never think he was the father of a grown-up daughter now, would you?” she said.

  Felicity’s clear, speedwell-blue eyes flitted from one to the other.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she said innocently at last.

  Mrs. Flower looked taken back and Mr. Bennet’s childlike smile faded.

  “Let’s go into dinner now,” said Cousin Sophia plaintively. “I never feel quite safe in the hall with Popsy. It’s so draughty . . . And I’m awfully worried to-day because I dreamed last night that he had a cold and I’m so afraid it may have been sent as a warning . . .”

  “All right,” said Mr. Bennet heartily, “let’s go in to dinner.”

  “Not that I want to eat anything,” said Cousin Sophia hastily, “I look upon eating simply as a duty.”

  Mrs. Flower talked a good deal during dinner. She was coy and roguish and merry and girlish. Mr. Bennet blushed and gazed at her incessantly. Felicity listened demurely, her eyes on her plate.
Cousin Sophia was too busy eating and feeding Popsy, who sat on a high stool by her side, to have attention to spare for anything else. Cousin Sophia, if she looked upon eating as a duty, quite evidently was a living contradiction to the theory that senses of duty no longer exist. Cousin Sophia had a sense of duty that did her credit. Cousin Sophia, who had said she ate only enough to keep a bird alive, ate at that meal alone enough to kill whole aviaries full of birds. Felicity watched her with fascinated wonder . . .

  Mrs. Flower was describing, evidently not for the first time, the more celebrated of her theatrical triumphs. Beneath her gush was a suspicion of deliberate care as if the pronunciation of some words and the aspiration of all aitches needed a certain amount of conscious attention.

  “I was Juliet, then. . . . I just adore Shakespeare, don’t you? . . . Oh, I adore him . . . there’s better speeches in Shakespeare, I always say, than in any other plays goin’ . . . but natchurally common people don’t understand it . . . it takes people of education to understand Shakespeare . . . Now, as soon as I set eyes on Mr. Bennet here I said to myself, I said, ‘Now there’s a man that’ll understand Shakespeare!’”

  Mr. Bennet’s sheepish grin dawned again upon his expansive rubicund countenance. But he was a truthful man and murmured: “I’ve never had no education. Not to speak of, that is.”

  This, however, did not disconcert Mrs. Flower.

  “Perhaps not, Mr. Bennet,” she said with a wave of a small fat hand. “Perhaps not . . . but there’s some that is born with an education . . . a sort of natural education . . . Now the moment I set eyes on you I said to myself, ‘There’s a man with a natural education.’ ”

  “Just a leetle more chicken for Popsy,” said Cousin Sophia to the waitress.

  “You were telling us about you as Juliet,” said Mr. Bennet with an admiring glance.

  Mrs. Flower became coy.

  “Well, I don’t know as I ought to,” she said, with a roguish little wriggle of her large body. “Really, I don’t think I can repeat some of the things people said about me in the papers . . . you’d think—well, you’d think I was so conceited.”