by Dodie Smith
Your little friend who hankers to be a king’s mistress strikes me as particularly funny because, believe it or not, I have an ex-king on my books! I supply him with young ladies who read aloud to him. But he’ll hardly be in need of a mistress as he must be quite ninety. He was one of my mother’s clients, way back in the early nineteen-hundreds when he lost his throne. I can’t remember what the name of his country was – or is; I suppose it’s under Communist domination now. Seriously, there might be a chance for your girl as you say she’s pretty – he insists on that and it’s not easy to find pretty girls who read aloud well. Anyway, if your friend thinks she could qualify tell her to see me soon as the job’s been open for a week. The pay’s very good. – Oh, don’t on any account mention the old gentleman’s ex-royal status as he has always preserved the strictest incognito.
Jane regretted the last sentence. Mention of an ex-king, even one of ninety, might have given the job a touch of glamour. As things were, she could only describe it as ‘reading aloud to an old gentleman’.
‘How ghastly!’ said Clare. ‘Though I do read aloud fairly well. I used to read plays with Merry before she got so friendly with Betty – though I never acted them, as Merry does.’
‘You’re not supposed to act when you’re just reading aloud,’ said Jane. ‘Do try for this, Clare.’
‘Oh, dear! Do you think I ought to, Richard?’
‘Not unless you want to. Frankly, I’d rather have you here. If you go, I shall have to run the house, now Cook and Edith are out all day. Still, I don’t want to stand in your way.’
‘I’m afraid I want my way to be stood in, unless it’s something more exciting than reading to an old gentleman. I’m sorry, Jane. I know I’m an ungrateful beast.’
‘Couldn’t you just go and see the old gentleman? You might like him. Anyway, here’s Miss Gifford’s address, if you change your mind.’ Jane tore off the top of the letter and handed it over.
Clare eyed the address with aversion. ‘It would cost a lot to go to London.’
Richard asked if she’d run out of money.
‘No, I’ve still a few pounds left but—’
He interrupted her. ‘I’ll finance this trip if you’ll take it.’
‘Or will you let me treat you to it?’ said Jane. ‘I’d particularly like to.’
But Clare would only say she’d think it over.
She won’t even do that, thought Jane. ‘Well, I must go or I shall be late for Miss Willy.’ She put Miss Gifford’s letter in her handbag and went out to get her car.
BOOK FOUR
Clare
1
In the Mantle of Merry
She put the torn-off address of Jane’s Miss Gifford into the pocket of her frilly apron and told herself she would need some solid aprons or overalls if she was to do as much housework as now seemed likely. How she loathed housework, especially when one did it all on one’s own! But she declined Richard’s offer to help with the washing-up, saying: ‘Let me feel I’m doing something to earn my keep.’
Bed-making without a companion was even worse than dish-washing; so much walking from side to side. But she finished at last and sat on her own bed wondering what to do with the rest of the morning. Her glance rested on her work-table. She would put away all her painting materials. In future any flowers on that table should be enjoyed, not painted. At present the very sight of the table depressed her; for months she had felt guilty when she didn’t paint and inadequate when she did.
She went to the box-room for a suitcase and noticed that Richard was below in the hall, reading The Times.
‘Don’t tell me you’re looking for a job,’ she called down.
He said he didn’t see how he could take one while everything was still so uncertain. ‘I couldn’t go away, anyhow – with Jane and Cook and Edith so determined to keep the home fires burning. And Merry might come back.’
‘It’d be awful if she found no lamp in the window,’ said Clare. ‘As for the home fires, we’ll die in the real winter if we don’t have the radiators on. And we’re almost out of coke.’
‘I know. And the last bill isn’t paid. Why the suitcase?’
She told him and went into her room where she cleared her work-table with satisfaction. Paints, drawing-board, sketch-books, all went into the suitcase with a pile of anaemic paintings – how was it she could see how bad they were yet not do better? She was ready to take the suitcase to the box-room when the front-door bell rang. Stepping onto the gallery, she looked down and listened as Richard went to the door.
A moment later she was back in her room so dismayed that she felt physically sick. There was no mistaking that breathy, querulous voice: Aunt Winifred was below.
What had she come for? Richard had written saying he could not continue the allowance his father had paid her. No answer had come to this letter – and now it had come in the most catastrophic form imaginable.
Clare looked desperately at her window. Could she climb out and rush to the Swan? Cook and Edith would aid any fugitive from Aunt Winifred. But no friendly creeper offered a foothold and the ground was at least twelve feet below. She was trapped and at any moment Richard would call her down.
The wave of sickness passed and she told herself not to be a fool. She was grown-up now, not the bullied sixteen-year-old she had been during Aunt Winifred’s regime. She would sail downstairs and support Richard. But first she would try to glean what was happening. She opened her door a crack and listened.
Richard was saying, ‘But you’re far better off than we are, Aunt Winifred. You have a fixed income – and you own your house.’
‘But I’ve let the house, Richard. I intended to spend the winter in a guest house.’
‘Well, that seems a good idea—’
‘It’s an impossible idea, without the allowance your father always paid me. Good guest houses are expensive.’
‘Surely with the rent you’re getting from your house—’
‘Only nominal – to make sure it isn’t left empty. If you can’t continue my allowance I must come back here.’
‘But I’ve already told you what’s happening,’ said Richard. ‘There’ll be no one to wait on you.’
‘You say Clare’s still here.’
Quietly Clare closed her door and without a second’s hesitation opened the suitcase and tipped out its contents. Then, with a speed of which she would not have believed herself capable, she set about packing clothes. Her technique was to open drawer after drawer and take out some of the contents, without wasting time on being selective. Some handkerchiefs, some stockings, some underwear … everything was merely tossed in. Often she had seen this kind of packing done in films, by characters staging getaways, and thought that no one could ever pack like that. She had been wrong.
She scarcely hoped to get away without meeting Aunt Winifred. The great thing was to be ready to go the minute she got the chance. The suitcase, not large, was nearly full and she had not yet opened her wardrobe. Perhaps kind Jane would send some clothes after her. She crammed in her black chiffon dinner dress. Idiotic to pack like this – when she wasn’t even quite sure Richard would give in. Again she listened at her door.
He was now saying, ‘But you can’t have your old room. Miss Minton’s paying a good rent for it. You’ll have to make do with the small spare room.’
‘I can’t spend the winter in that bandbox. I’d better use your father’s room.’
‘But his clothes are still in it.’
‘They can be moved. Clare can do it. Please take my case upstairs and then send her to me. No, tell her to make me some tea while I wash. I’m extremely tired, after travelling all yesterday and a wretched night in a London hotel. Please tell Clare to hurry with the tea. The dear girl will be glad to see me.’
Again Clare closed her door. A wild hope had now awakened that she might avoid even meeting her aunt. She shoved the suitcase out of sight and looked around for a hiding place. By the time Richard knocked on her doo
r she had rolled under the bed.
He called her name, knocked louder and called louder. Then she heard him open the door and close it again. She waited several seconds before rolling out from under the bed and changing, in barely half a minute, into a fairly new grey woollen dress. Now for her coat … disaster! Last year’s winter coat was at the cleaners, her new one not yet delivered. Frantically she hunted through her wardrobe, though knowing she would find no substitute. She was about to make do with a summer coat when she remembered: in the box-room was the black coat misguidedly bought in the spring. It was unbecoming but reasonably warm.
Could she get it? Richard would be looking for her in the kitchen and the garden. Aunt Winifred would now be washing. Stepping out of her shoes, she raced to the box-room.
But where was the black coat – or the check skirt and turtle-necked sweater bought with it? A second later, she knew – when she discovered Merry’s school uniform. She might have guessed Merry would escape in disguise. Well, she too would do so. The only thing connected with school she had ever liked was the blue cloth cape worn in winter; it was circular, three-quarter length – but on her, Merry’s would be full-length, which was all to the good. She dragged it from its hanger and dashed back to her room.
Here she forced herself to think coherently. Had she forgotten anything vital? Money! She had a five-pound note in her jewel box. As she got it, she regretted that her diamond wristwatch, once her mother’s, was away having its clasp mended. Her father had taken it for her – where? She had no idea. Anyway, perhaps he’d sold it, to help his escape. She wouldn’t grudge that; but it was a pity not, like Merry, to have something pawnable.
She gave a last look around the room and saw her discarded apron with the address of Jane’s Miss Gifford protruding from the pocket. She snatched it out, put it in her handbag, flung on the blue cloak and picked up her suitcase. Now nothing should stop her, not even if Aunt Winifred stood at the top of the stairs with a flaming sword.
But there was no sign of her aunt or Richard. She tiptoed along the gallery, went cautiously downstairs, then made a dash for the front door, flung it open and left it open behind her. She intended to run full tilt to the village and she did run down the drive and for fifty yards or so, with the suitcase thumping against her. Then she slowed to an exhausted walk. Please heaven the village taxi would be available!
It was, and she was soon on her way to the station, thankful that the driver, partially deaf and wholly unsociable, showed no desire to talk. She could sit back, regain her breath and think.
But thinking proved not altogether pleasurable. She was proud of escaping but ashamed of leaving Richard in the lurch – and without even a farewell note. She could telephone from the station, but suppose Aunt Winifred answered the telephone? A telegram would be better but what could she say in it? Only that she’d gone – and he’d know that soon enough. The untidy state of her usually tidy room would reveal her frantic packing and he’d have no difficulty in guessing the reason. It then occurred to her that her departure might actually help him, for if their aunt had no one to wait on her she might leave. This idea was most cheering, as was the thought of Aunt Winifred fending for herself in a stone-cold house. If Richard had any sense he’d die of cold rather than turn on the heating.
She now counted her money. The ten-mile taxi fare would be ruinous but she could manage it, and her fare to London, without breaking into her five-pound note. She would have to spend the night at some cheap hotel. How cheap were cheap hotels and where were they to be found? And suppose she didn’t get the job of reading to the old gentleman? But she wouldn’t look ahead. Enough for now that she’d escaped – she who believed herself so lacking in initiative. Almost, she could bless Aunt Winifred. But not quite.
She spent the rest of the drive re-organizing her packing and (thank goodness she’d packed her nail-scissors) unpicking the school badge from Merry’s cloak. Arrived at the station, she had to wait an hour for the slowest train of the day and did not get to London until after three o’clock. Though hungry, she was unwilling to waste time or money on a proper meal but a station sandwich proved filling. She then set out, bravely determined to reach Miss Gifford.
For Clare, London was always an indeterminate whirl of buses, buildings and people. (She could never understand how Merry and Drew could be so happily at home there. Richard, like herself, got lost.) On sunny days, the indeterminate whirl was vaguely yellow; today it was vaguely grey. The worst days of all were when the whirl was seen through rain, but all London days were bewildering. This afternoon, after making the most careful inquiries, she actually got on the right bus, but it was the right bus going in the wrong direction. By the time she had got off, been swept past by many buses because she wasn’t waiting at a bus stop, taken the wrong bus because she had forgotten which she wanted, changed buses again, got off at the wrong place and misunderstood a policeman’s directions, it was a quarter to five and she finally reached Miss Gifford only to find her preparing to close her office.
It was a most unimpressive office, at the top of the steep stairs of an old house in a back street. And Miss Gifford was not Clare’s idea of a business woman. She was elderly, her white hair was untidy, her black dress as dowdy as her office. But her voice had a high, bright authority and her manner was brisk.
On hearing who Clare was, she said: ‘Enterprising of you to come to London so soon but you should have got to me earlier. Now it’s too late for today – or is it? Mr Rowley won’t see anyone after five but you might get there in time if I put you in a taxi. I must leave now, anyway; I’ve a train to catch. Here, take this …’
She scribbled an introduction on a card, handed it to Clare and whisked her out of the office and down the stairs before Clare had caught her breath from hurrying up them. She then raced after Miss Gifford along the back street and into a main thoroughfare, trying to catch information thrown over Miss Gifford’s shoulder. All she heard clearly was that one had to be tactful with Mr Rowley’s nurse. ‘I always find her pleasant when we talk on the telephone but some girls have fallen foul of her. Oh, dear, you’ve barely ten minutes! Taxi!’
By dint of signalling to, and shouting at, every taxi empty or full, Miss Gifford eventually got one, got Clare into it, slammed the door and gave instructions to the driver. She then talked at the closed window. Clare hastily lowered it but by then the taxi was moving, so all she heard were instructions to try again tomorrow if she failed to get in tonight.
She sat back and sighed with relief, momentarily only, for she then began worrying about the taxi fare. Would she have enough to pay it without changing her five-pound note? If not, would the driver change it? And if he wouldn’t, then what? She counted what was in her purse, then searched her handbag for stray coins: net glean, one halfpenny. The taxi kept stopping in traffic blocks, during which time the taxi-meter always, most unfairly, ticked up. She glanced at her watch. Already it was five to five. She was just giving up all hope when the taxi put on a spurt of speed, turned a corner and drew up.
A smiling commissionaire opened the door, took her case and helped her out. She handed the entire contents of her purse to the driver and asked if it was enough. He counted the money carefully and offered, not very pushingly, to return a shilling. Reckless with relief, she said: ‘Oh, that’s for you,’ then followed the commissionaire into the hotel – for a hotel it was and a very grand one and its ornate clock said three minutes to five.
The commissionaire looked at her inquiringly.
‘Mr Rowley,’ she said. ‘Before five.’
An impressive hall-porter heard her and shook his head.
‘You’re too late, miss. No use sending you up now.’
‘Oh, please!’ She gave the porter an appealing look.
‘Well, we’ll try, anyway,’ said the porter, his manner becoming fatherly. ‘Page!’ An extremely small page was suddenly by his side. ‘Take this young lady up to Mr Rowley as fast as you can. Hurry, now!’
The lift was waiting. As they went up, the page and the lift man exchanged glances. ‘Nurse won’t let her in,’ said the lift man. ‘It’s not five yet,’ said the page, ‘but we’ll have to run for it.’ Up and up – Clare lost count of the floors. Then the lift door opened and she was running after the page along a wide corridor. They stopped outside a mahogany door and the page pressed a bell. ‘Well, I got the bell rung before five,’ he said triumphantly.
Ought she to tip him? Well, not with her five-pound note. She said: ‘Thank you so much. I’m sorry I gave my last shilling to the taxi-driver.’
The page gave her a look of heartfelt sympathy. ‘Gee, miss,’ he said, speaking what he fondly thought was American. ‘I sure hope you get the job.’
She was about to explain that it wasn’t that kind of last shilling when the door was opened by an elderly, uniformed nurse. At that moment, a clock with a silvery but penetrating chime began to strike.
‘Hear that?’ said the nurse to the page in an ominous tone.
‘We had to wait for the lift,’ said the page, untruthfully.
The nurse now turned her attention to Clare and after a long critical look said: ‘Well, you can come in but he may be too tired to see you. Here you are, page.’ She handed him a coin from a bowl that stood on a table in the little entrance hall.
‘Thanks, Nurse.’ He gave Clare a parting smile before the door was closed on him.
‘Sit down, please,’ said the nurse and then left Clare alone in the hall. She counted the doors that opened into it: five, including the front door, all dosed and all somehow looking as if they would never open again. But in a few minutes one did and the nurse reappeared.
‘Mr Rowley will see you.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Just remember he’s ninety, dear. And don’t be surprised at anything.’