Growing Up

by Angela Thirkell

  “And how’s Geraldine?” said Lydia, who had never known Rose, her senior by several years, very well.

  Mrs. Birkett looked worried.

  “She is quite well, and Geoff has been all through Libya without a scratch so far,” said Mrs. Birkett, “but she finds her little John so tiring. Not that she doesn’t adore him, but she is longing to go back to the Red Cross with Geoff away all the time and she cannot get a nurse in that out-of-the-way place where she would take a cottage, and it worries me very much. Last time she came to stay with us Kate most kindly had little John in her nursery and Geraldine looked a different girl. But she cried as I have never seen her cry since she was a little girl the night before she went away.”

  There was a pause. Mrs. Birkett thought sadly of poor Geraldine, pining to nurse, chained hand and foot by a baby whom she loved but could not take in her stride. Kate pondered on the peculiarity of people who found babies any trouble. Lydia was a prey to various bewildered emotions. If Kate said it being One’s Own children made everything easy, she must be right, for anything happier than Kate could not be. Yet there was Geraldine, with only one little boy, miserable and crying. Lydia Keith would have felt, and probably expressed, great contempt for people who cried because they had a baby to look after, their own baby too; but Lydia Merton became thoughtful and was silent, while Mrs. Birkett and Kate discussed rationing and points, till Mr. Birkett came in. As he and Everard met every day, and Mrs. Birkett and Kate met at least six times a week, not to speak of after chapel on Sundays, and they all supped at each others’ houses on alternate Sunday evenings, there was naturally a great deal to discuss and Lydia felt a little out of it, so she sat thinking her own thoughts; an occupation which Lydia Keith would have condemned as tending to melancholy and on the whole rot. Her attention was at length caught by the mention of her dearly loved second brother Colin, now a staff captain and very much enjoying his life. He had not much time to write and his letters were mostly to Lydia, so she had to pull herself back to reality and give her latest news which was but scanty.

  “Henry,” said Mrs. Birkett, “do you know people called Waring at Lambton? Lydia and her husband are going to stay with them. He is Sir Harry.”

  “Waring, Waring,” said Mr. Birkett. “There was a George Waring here during the last war. I never knew him, of course, but Lorimer used to speak about him,” he said, thinking of the old classical master who had died some years previously. “He said he had never met a nicer boy but totally resistant to Latin. His name is on the Roll of Honour in the Chapel. He went straight into the Army from school and was killed almost at once—now they put it off a bit longer, otherwise it’s all the same.”

  “Have you any news of Philip Winter?” asked Kate, sorry for the headmaster.

  Mr. Birkett said not very lately. When last Philip had written he said he expected to be moved again and would write. She knew, he supposed, that he was now a lieutenantcolonel. Then he went back to his work and the visitors took their leave.

  The next two days passed at their usual rate, though to Lydia, in spite of her great affection for her sister and her sister’s family, they appeared to drag. The washing came back by kindness of the fish, packing was done and Saturday morning dawned. When we say this, nothing would ever have happened if the world had waited for the dawning, for the black-out did not end till 8.33 and even then, owing to wind and rain, it was pitch dark for another hour or so and as Matron said to Jessie, one might just as well not try to dust at all as to dust by electric light, for as soon as it was really daylight, lo! and behold everything looked as if you hadn’t touched it.

  The journey from Southbridge to Lambton, which in the forgotten days of peace would have taken about thirty-five minutes by car, was now one of great inconvenience and slowness. Everard, who was very good at trains, had made a previous survey of the terrain and prepared the plans. After lunch the taxi owned by Mr. Brown of the Red Lion, who was allowed petrol for station work, was to fetch Lydia and two small suitcases and take them to Southbridge station. A large suitcase had been sent off by rail two days earlier, as the dearth of porters made it advisable to take no more than she could carry at a pinch, though even so she had overflowed into a large shopping-bag and a coat and a rug strapped together. From Southbridge she would go to Barchester where her train arrived at the precise moment when the Winter Overcotes train steamed out. After a decent interval she would take the next train for Winter Overcotes, arriving at the high level station three minutes after the departure of the low level train to Lambton. This left her with a wait of seventy-three minutes before the next train, and with luck, and if Mr. Coxon remembered to send the taxi to the station, she would get to Beliers Priory very late for tea.

  Lunch was rather silent. Everard had some school affairs on his mind; Kate was thinking how dreadful it was for Lydia to be leaving Bobbie and Angela and the baby; Lydia’s thoughts were with Noel, as indeed they mostly were, whether she knew it or not. The taxi was announced. Lydia, half-ashamed of her own impatience, hugged Kate and Bobbie, flung herself at Everard and rubbed her face against him, and shouldered her baggage. And when we say shouldered, it is no figure of speech, for having calculated that with only two hands she could not carry two suitcases, a large bag, a rug and coat bundle and her own handbag, she had ingeniously fastened two or three of them together with the other strap from her rug bundle and hung them over one shoulder after the manner of a Continental porter. With Mr. Brown’s help she got into the taxi. Edward, the invaluable odd man and an old friend, appeared round a corner and saluted, Everard and Kate waved, Bobbie’s hand was waved for him by his mother, Angela and the baby were held up at the nursery window by Nurse and Jessie, Lydia waved from the taxi with love and remorse for not wanting to stay longer, the taxi leapt and jarred itself down the drive and her visit was over.

  Everard and Kate went back into the house with Bobbie, for it was cold. Everard went into his study.

  “Go up to Nurse now, Bobbie,” said Kate, “and tell her Mummie is coming quite soon.”

  She watched Bobbie begin his stumping journey upstairs and followed Everard into his room.

  “I remember,” said Everard, “the summer I first came and met you and Lydia, how she suddenly discovered the Brownings. She said, with that delightful way she had of making discoveries as if no one else had ever made them before, that there was something about happy married life even more beautiful than being in love with people. Bless her, she is a living image of it.”

  “I am so glad it is Nurse’s afternoon out, Everard,” said Kate, “it will cheer me up to be with the children. I do wish you could be with us instead of in school.”

  “Well, I can’t,” said Everard, “and well you know it, my love. But I expect I’ll find school will cheer me up considerably. We shall miss our Lydia, shan’t we?”

  “Oh, Everard,” said Kate, almost in tears.

  “Never mind,” said Everard, putting an arm round her.

  “I don’t really,” said Kate, “because I know she wants to be with Noel. Do you know what I wish, Everard?”

  “Of course I do,” said her husband. “You want to know why Lydia hasn’t got any children. Your prophetic gloatings over young married women are patent to the meanest observer.”

  “I do not,” said Kate indignantly. “It is nothing to do with me at all. But, Everard, it does seem so sad.”

  “Why, darling?” said Everard. “She is nicer than ever and looks very well and very happy. Nothing sad about it. Give the girl time to look round.”

  “I was thinking,” said Kate earnestly, “of the day Lydia gave Baby his bottle and how beautiful they looked, and I thought how heavenly it would be if it was a baby of her own. She looked as if she wished Baby were hers.”

  “My precious idiot,” said Everard, kissing the top of her head and releasing her, “if ever I saw a young woman thoroughly bored by a job she was trying her competent best to do, it was Lydia. She was either laughing at Baby or wantin
g to shake him. And I must say,” added the fond father reflectively, “that he was making a perfectly hellish noise.”

  “You don’t understand at all,” said Kate with much dignity. But she relented and stroked Everard’s coat sleeve before going up to the nursery. Here her offspring were happily and virtuously employed, Bobbie and Angela on the floor with toys, the baby lying on his back holding his own toes and quite unable to account for their presence in his cot. Nurse, who had left everything tidy and the tea-things ready, now came out of the night nursery dressed to go out.

  “We shall feel quite lonely without Miss Lydia, madam,” she said. “What a picture she and Baby were when she gave him his bottle. As I was saying to Mrs. Birkett’s maid, it’s much to be hoped that Miss Lydia will be having a nice family of her own before long. After all, with a war on, there’s not much else to do, madam,” said Nurse, by whom every world event was judged by the probability or improbability of its producing nurse-fodder.

  “They looked very nice, Nurse, but Miss Lydia wasn’t very good at giving Baby his bottle,” said Kate, basely going over to Everard’s camp.

  “That is quite to be expected with the first, madam,” said Nurse, with the condescension of one to whom all babies were an open book. “Good-bye, Bobbie and Angela, and mind you’re good. Baby’s bottle is all ready for you to hot up, madam.”

  Lydia’s feeling of remorse soon vanished as she clanked towards the station, passing several old friends on her way through the village. Admiral Phelps and the Vicar were arguing about the care of the church bells outside the lychgate; Mrs. and Miss Phelps were to be seen over the hedge of Jutland Cottage chasing a large billy-goat in the field. Miss Hampton and Miss Bent from Adelina Cottage came down the street with their elephant-faced little dog, at present called Eisenhower. Eileen, the exquisite blonde from the Red Lion, was patting her coiffure in front of a shop window. It all felt very friendly and Lydia suddenly had a small pang for a real home. Life with Everard and Kate, after two years of hotels and rooms, had seemed so pleasant, so natural, so unwarlike. She had an impulse to ask Mr. Brown if he could drive her to her old home, Northbridge Manor. True, it was let for the duration, but she would dearly love to see it. Perhaps the present occupiers would let her look at the drawing-room, where Noel had come to her in her loneliness after her father died, or walk on the terrace where she had once walked with him on a cold winter’s day, and neither of them had known what their hearts were saying. Then she reminded herself that one could not take a taxi for more than ten miles, that she would miss her train, and that by so doing she would delay her meeting with Noel. She did not laugh at herself, for she did not readily laugh, but she shook herself impatiently.

  The short journey was soon over and Lydia found herself on the platform of Southbridge station with plenty of time. Here there were no familiar faces and her nostalgia began to fade. Presently the train came in, so she lugged her suitcases into a carriage and in fifteen minutes was in Barchester. Not a porter was to be seen, so glad of her foresight she slung her suitcases about her and went to the exit to ask the ticket-collector, the only official in sight, the platform for Winter Overcotes. Her way lay by the whole length of the longest platform, down a flight of steps, through a subway narrow at the best and impeded with anti-blast sandbagged barriers, up a flight of steps at the further side, and along the platform to a bay where a train was waiting with WINTER OVERCOTES on a board above it. Strong though she was, her hands, arms, back and shoulders ached from the unwonted strain and she was glad to rest in an empty carriage. After half an hour or so a train came in at the other side of the platform, gorged with people. As Lydia idly contemplated it, a porter went down the platform shouting, “Winter Overcotes and London only.” A horrible doubt leapt to Lydia’s heart.

  “Hi!” she shrieked out of the carriage window. “Am I right for Winter Overcotes?”

  The porter looked round and stopped.

  “Over the other side, miss,” he said, with the kindly manner of Barsetshire porters.

  “Oh Lord!” shouted Lydia. “But this train says Winter Overcotes.”

  “That’s the local, miss,” said the porter. “She doesn’t go till half-past seven. You’ll have to run, miss.”

  In a panic Lydia got out of the carriage, picked up her luggage somehow and dragged it across the platform. The guard had his whistle to his mouth and his flag raised. Lydia dashed at the nearest door, pushed her luggage in, and almost fell in after it. The whistle sounded and the train started.

  Lydia, who had not been able to get to Barchester during her stay at Southbridge, had vaguely hoped that she might see friend or two in the train; perhaps the Dean, or Mrs. Crawley, from whom she could get news of her friend, Octavia Crawley; perhaps Sir Edmund Pridham, who was often in the town on county business; even her old headmistress, the much disliked Miss Pettinger. But the carriage was full of people who had no business to be in or near Barchester at all. Alien faces, alien languages, were on every side. Cheap tobacco, cheap lipstick, cheap nail-polish, cheap furs, cheap scent characterized the women; a ring on the right hand, pointed unpolished shoes, black-shaven faces distinguished the men. Nearly every one sniffed continuously. As both sides of the carriage were full and no one showed any symptom of making a place for her to perch on, Lydia, recognizing their perfect legal right to remaining four a side, dragged her luggage through the compartment under eight pairs of unfriendly, contemptuous, or indifferent eyes, and got into the corridor which was indeed full of soldiers, but Lydia felt she could stand more happily with them than with the insolent strangers in the carriage, and her spirits rose again at the thought of Noel, so that when the train passed through Northbridge Halt she could look across to the trees to where her old home stood without any sad thoughts.

  At Winter Overcotes a soldier obligingly helped her down with her luggage and the train went away. Seeing the station-master, she asked him when the next train for Lambton went.

  “Five-ten, miss, from the low level,” said Mr. Beedle. “Only twenty minutes to wait, miss. The London train was very late.”

  “I don’t suppose there is a porter,” said Lydia, looking at her luggage. “I’m going to Lady Waring’s.”

  “Oh, are you Mrs. Merton, madam?” said Mr. Beedle. “Excuse me, but I had a message about you. There’s an officer, Major Merton, your husband I believe, madam, was here this morning. He was going to London and he said I was to be sure to look out for you because he mightn’t be back in time to meet you. He said he would be down for the 6.25 from here at latest, madam.”

  “Oh, thanks awfully,” said Lydia. “Do I go from this platform?”

  “No, madam, from the low level,” said Mr. Beedle. “You have plenty of time and I will send one of the young lady porters to help you with your things. Five-ten, madam.”

  Lydia was cheered by this proof of Noel’s thought for her—not that she wanted any proof—but rather dashed by the thought that he would not be at Beliers to help her to meet her unknown host and hostess. As she stood wondering what the Warings would be like, Doris Phipps and Lily-Annie came up, impelled thereto by Mr. Beedle’s authority and their own curiosity.

  “Well you have got some luggage and no mistake,” said Lily-Annie. “Why don’t you put it in the van?”

  Lydia said she would with pleasure, but there usually weren’t any porters.

  “We’ll put it in for you all right,” said Doris Phipps. “It’s a pity Sid Crackman isn’t the guard on your train—he’s a lovely man. He let Lily-Annie and I go to Barchester in the van with him one day.”

  “You are lucky,” said Lydia with undisguised envy. “I’ve only once been in a guard’s van in my life, when I was quite small.”

  Conversing amicably in a way that would have shocked Mr. Beedle to the core, Lydia and her attendant nymphs walked along the platform to the steps.

  “Remember the day Bill Morple chucked the sack of potatoes down the steps?” said Doris Phipps to Lily-Annie. “I’ve nev
er laughed so much, seeing him pick them all off the line. I thought they’d have rolled to Worsted. There you are,” she added kindly to Lydia. “Lily-Annie or me’ll come along and give you a hand when the train comes in, see?”

  Left alone in the gathering gloom of a dark day on a platform overshadowed by the great viaduct of the high level, Lydia felt depressed again. She thought of waiting for the 6.25 and Noel’s company, but he might be detained, it would be dark, and if she had to meet the Warings it had better be done. Besides, a taxi was to meet her at the station and it would be uncivil to delay. Passengers for the Shearings Junction line began to arrive, mostly village women with shopping-baskets. Some soldiers on leave found friends among them and there was a good deal of laughter. Lydia’s mood of depression returned. Doris Phipps carefully pushing a truck with a number of cardboard boxes on it stopped to light a fresh cigarette.

  “Five-ten’s late again,” said Doris to Lydia.

  While she spoke Lydia was conscious of a tiny insistent sound, rather like a kettle on the boil, or the noise made by a little jet of gas burning in a lump of coal. She looked at the truck.

  “Noisy little beggars, aren’t they?” said Doris.

  “Go on,” said Lily-Annie, who was making up her lips. “I bet you made more noise than that when you were a day old.”

  Both girls laughed loudly.

  “Day-old chicks,” said Lily-Annie, seeing Lydia’s perplexed look. “Come from Southbridge they did and going on to Lambton.”

  “All alone?” said Lydia.

  “Well, the old hen was coming, but she got called up,” said Lily-Annie, but seeing Lydia’s look of real concern she added, “They’re all right, miss. The head porter at Barchester takes them off the Southbridge train and puts them in the porters’ room till the London train comes. And if we didn’t treat them nice when they got here, Mr. Beedle would fair skin us, wouldn’t he, Dawris? Remember the day Bill Morple dropped one of the boxes? Mr. Beedle didn’t half tell him off.”