In spite of her brave words to Lady Steyne, Penney had felt just a little bit frightened about the job she had taken on, but she had prayed that she might be guided and the prayer had been answered by an inflowing of confidence, firm and sure and peaceful. Prayers are not always answered, as Penney well knew, but this one had been answered in no uncertain manner. It was going to be all right.
Having given her patient a suitably light breakfast and tidied her up a little, Penney collected the boxes of pellets and putting them in the medicine cupboard locked the door. A young woman who could sleep for sixteen hours at a stretch did not need drugs; she needed rest and nourishment and fresh air and that was what she was going to get while Penney was in charge of her. No trained nurse would have dared to take the responsibility but Penney shouldered it without a qualm.
Barbie slept and woke and was fed and went to sleep again. She was washed (very efficiently) when she felt like being washed – sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon, but never at crack of dawn – and this extraordinary treatment suited her so well that by the end of the week she was able to sit up in bed, propped with pillows, to chat with Aunt Amalie for a few minutes and enjoy her meals. The meals were delicious and were brought to her upon a black plastic tray with a crisply-ironed traycloth, and the food was laid out temptingly upon delicate china plates. The most fastidious invalid would have been tempted and Barbie was not really fastidious; she polished off everything that was brought her and began to ask for more.
Another week passed and every day the patient’s condition improved. There was an atmosphere of happiness in the house which affected everybody. Even Daphne the Daily felt it and sang loudly and cheerfully – though somewhat out of tune – as she went about her work. Occasionally Penney remonstrated with her in a tactful manner.
‘You needn’t bother,’ said Barbie. ‘At least not for me. I rather like to hear her singing “Cherry Ripe”; it’s cheerful. I’m not quite so keen on “Parted.” ’
Penney shuddered.
‘Oh, well, if you feel like that …’ said Barbie.
Barbie was ‘up’ today for the first time, sitting in a chair near the window.
‘You aren’t cold, are you?’ asked Penny anxiously.
‘How could I be cold? You’ve wrapped me up like a mummy. No, don’t shut the window, Penney; I like it open. The smell of flowers is delicious.’
‘Flowers! There aren’t any flowers; it’s February.’
‘Flowers,’ said Barbie. ‘Roses, stock, wall-flowers, and sweet peas; I can smell them all. Underwoods always smells of flowers, even in February. Perhaps it’s their ghosts; the ghosts of all the flowers that have blossomed in the garden! If I had died my ghost would have come back to Underwoods.’
‘What nonsense!’
‘No, not nonsense, Penney. I believe I would have died if it hadn’t been for Nell – and you – and I don’t see why ghosts shouldn’t come back to places they love and not only to places where they’ve been tortured.’
Penney was dusting the room (with a damp duster). She said, ‘Why did you want to die, Barbie?’ It was a question which had puzzled her considerably for she had got to know Barbie fairly well and Barbie was not the sort to lie down and die.
Barbie chuckled, she had a very infectious chuckle. ‘Perhaps it was just to spite Sister Smart.’
‘No, but honestly,’ said Penney.
‘Honestly?’ said Barbie thoughtfully. ‘Well, honestly I don’t think I did actually want to die. I was just so tired that I didn’t want to live. There’s quite a lot of difference.’
Penney agreed that there was quite a lot of difference.
‘How and where did you learn nursing, Penney?’
‘By being a patient.’
‘Oh, I see. By watching and noticing how to do things – and how not to do things.’
‘Yes.’
‘All nurses ought to be patients for a fairly long spell,’ declared Barbie with conviction.
‘Yes.’
‘It ought to be part of their training.’
‘I think so too.’
‘You do chatter, don’t you?’ said Barbie smiling.
Penney hesitated. ‘I suppose I am rather – silent.’
‘You listen and say nothing. I don’t know anything about you at all. Perhaps I notice it more because Nell and I talk a good deal.’ (Barbie was understating the case. When she and Nell got together they talked all the time, without stopping.) ‘Why are you so secretive, Penney dear?’ asked Barbie.
‘Not secretive,’ exclaimed Penney. ‘It’s just that people don’t really want to know. My life hasn’t been at all interesting, so why should I bore people by telling them about it?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean you should tell people the story of your life. I just mean you might let fall little bits of information occasionally; it would give you a background. You have no background, Penney. You’re just a dear, nice, kind person – but not very real.’
Penney might have answered that companion-housekeepers are not expected to be real people with backgrounds. They are paid to do a little cooking and a little housework, to be there when they are wanted and to make themselves scarce when they not, but she did not say it because it would not have been fair; Underwoods was different. At Underwoods she was treated like a human being.
‘For instance,’ continued Barbie, ‘when I said all nurses ought to have been patients you might have said, “I think so too – and that reminds me of the time I stayed with my grandmother at Brighton. She had a house there, and we used to walk along the pier every morning and sit in the sun.” ’
Penney chuckled.
‘Oh, it isn’t relevant,’ admitted Barbie. ‘But it might have reminded you – for some other reason or other – and I should have learnt painlessly that you had a grandmother who lived at Brighton.’
‘She did live at Brighton,’ said Penney. ‘But she was far too busy to walk along the pier every morning. She ran a little school – just for tiny children – and taught them to read and write and do their sums.’
‘Go on,’ said Barbie encouragingly. ‘You’ve got the idea. It’s still quite painless.’
‘I lived with her,’ continued Penney obediently. ‘First I was a pupil and later a sort of pupil-teacher. She was a very clever, well-educated woman and taught me a lot. She wanted me to go to Girton, and when she died she left money to pay for my education – but I didn’t go.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
This might be painless to Barbie, but obviously it was not painless to Penney. She was twisting the duster in her hands and her face had gone quite white. ‘There was a good reason,’ said Penney. ‘My father was very badly off and I had two young brothers. It was more important that the boys should be properly educated.’
‘So they went to school and you stayed at home?’
‘Father said I would marry,’ said Penney in a very odd sort of voice. Then she glanced at the clock and added briskly, ‘You’ve been up for a whole hour. It’s high time you were back in bed.’
Shortly after this Nell rang up to ask if she might come and see Barbie on Sunday, and was invited to lunch.
‘But there will be two of us,’ said Nell. ‘Won’t that be a bother? Dr Headfort has offered to bring me in his car. It would be quite easy for us to have lunch at the hotel.’
‘Oh no, you must come here,’ said Amalie, who was a very hospitable person. ‘No bother at all. We shall look forward to having you, and please tell Dr Headfort it will be a great pleasure to meet him.’
‘He wants to see Barbie,’ explained Nell.
Barbie was delighted when she heard Nell was coming, but surprised at her choice of chauffeur. Having shared a flat for so long the two friends knew a great deal about each other.
‘Perhaps she couldn’t get anyone else to bring her,’ suggested Amalie.
‘She could have got half a dozen.’
‘Half a dozen!’ echoed Amalie.
; ‘Nell has to keep them off with barge poles,’ said Barbie darkly.
Strangely enough (or perhaps not strangely) this statement did not predispose Amalie in favour of Miss Babbington, so she was agreeably surprised when her luncheon guest arrived and proved to be a young friendly creature in tweeds and by no means one’s conception of a femme fatale. She was attractive of course but not ‘glamorous,’ thought Amalie. (The truth is women do not always see that particular quality in another woman and are often puzzled when they see men buzz round one of their number, like bees round a honey-pot, and leave another to languish by the wall.)
Dr Headfort was ‘ugly, but nice,’ his hostess decided. The two of them had a very pleasant chat while Nell went bounding upstairs to see the invalid.
‘Darling Barbie, you’re you again!’ cried Nell. ‘Only more beautiful and – and interesting-looking than ever.’
‘Yes, I’m me,’ agreed Barbie. ‘Not beautiful at all but quite human – thanks to you. If I’d stayed in that hospital another week I’d have been a beautiful memory … and I never said thank you for all you did. I never said I was pleased to go or anything. It was horrid of me.’
‘You weren’t pleased.’
‘No, I wasn’t really. I just wanted to be left in peace … not that there was any peace. It was pills and washings from morning to night and Sister Smart telling me to make an effort and get better.’
‘Odious woman!’ exclaimed Nell. ‘Don’t let’s talk about her.’
Barbie agreed to the ban. ‘Tell me things,’ she said, making room on the bed for her friend to sit down. ‘Tell me all. What have you been doing? Have you broken any more arms lately – or any more hearts?’
‘I don’t break things on purpose,’ replied Nell with her sudden enchanting smile. ‘How can I help it if things come apart in my hand? Oh Barbie,’ she continued. ‘There are new people in the Other Flat. It’s a woman and a child; I met them last night on the stairs and she spoke to me. She’s a widow, but very bright and hearty with yellow curls …’
Barbie listened to the account of the new neighbour without much interest, for there had been so many people in the Other Flat (which was just across the landing from the flat occupied by herself and Nell); so many different people and none of them very congenial. As a matter of fact there was something else Barbie wanted to know – and soon she found an opportunity to raise the question.
‘Why Dr Headfort?’ inquired Barbie. ‘I mean you like to keep business and pleasure in different compartments.’
‘Oh, this is really business. He wanted to see you; he’s interested in your virus.’
‘But I haven’t got it any more,’ Barbie pointed out.
‘He wants to ask you about it – and there was another reason too. You see I asked him for a day off to come down to Underwoods and he said if I waited till Sunday he would bring me in his car. Well, what could I say? Of course Roddy would have brought me –’
‘Or Peter – or Phil –’ murmured Barbie.
‘But Dr Headfort offered, so I couldn’t say no. Besides Peter has sold his car. Poor lamb, it died on him and he couldn’t afford to have it mended.’
‘There was still Roddy and Phil –’
‘You don’t understand,’ declared Nell. ‘This is a business trip. Dr Headfort wanted to know all about your virus – and he didn’t want to give me a day off in the middle of the week. I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Nothing,’ said Barbie hastily. ‘But I still think it was nice of him – and of course I’ll tell him anything he likes.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Spring came slowly to Underwoods. It was the most beautiful Spring Barbie had ever seen, for after lingering in the shadows so long she was in love with life – in love with the birds’ song, and the tiny green leaves appearing on the trees and hedges. She was in love with the moist air which kissed her cheek and with the big white clouds which sailed slowly across the blue sky and disappeared over the hill. At first she could not go far, her legs were too uncertain, and she was content to dawdle in the garden until Penney came and fetched her in. As a child she had known the garden – every stone of it – and now she renewed her memories.
In all these years the garden at Underwoods had changed very little. Barbie was glad when she saw the old thorn-tree growing beside the gate which led to the woods. It had been old when she was a child, but it looked no older and was putting forth tender little buds of green. There was a rectangular lily-pond with a white-painted seat beside it, and behind the seat there was a high stone wall covered with grey and yellow lichen. Barbie greeted the wall as a friend and put her hand upon it; she remembered that she and Edward used to run along the flat top when they were children – it made her dizzy to think of it now. From this sheltered spot there was a lovely view of fields and trees and a silver trout stream which wound its way through the quiet English country to the far horizon.
Beyond the wall was the tiny paddock, tilted towards the sun like a square green handkerchief, lifted by one corner, and at the bottom end of the paddock was the little wooden shed where the donkey used to live. Barbie and Edward had called the donkey Amos – he knew his name and came to them when they called. The donkey had gone, of course, but the shed remained and the paddock was still starred with white daisies and golden buttercups.
In a little while Barbie was able to walk as far as the village – and that had not changed either. The street was crooked and on either side was a jumble of houses; houses of different heights and sizes, built at different periods, but somehow blending into a harmonious whole. Long ago the main road had run through the village and past the gate of Underwoods, but that was before Barbie’s time. When the branch road had been made, and the new bridge built over the river, the village of Shepherdsford had gone to sleep. Occasionally in the summer it was awakened by the arrival of a bus which spilled out a strange crowd of visitors to lunch at The Owl Inn and wander round the old-fashioned shops buying postcards and little cheap brooches – made in Birmingham – and walk up the stony path to the ruins of Shepherdsford Abbey drowsing in a grove of ancient oaks … but the invasion took place very seldom, and did not last long, for to tell the truth there was not very much to see. There was just an old village with very poor shops and a pile of ruins in the woods!
In Underwoods itself life went smoothly and pleasantly. Barbie chatted to Aunt Amalie and helped Penney in the house and was busy altering her clothes. She had lost so much weight that everything she possessed had to be altered, and as she was determined to remain slim and elegant she went about the business with a will. In addition she was ‘teaching Penney to talk’ and in the process was learning a good deal about Penney’s background. They had jokes together and sometimes were so overcome by mirth that they were obliged to stop in the middle of making a bed.
It was the end of April when Edward Steyne rang up and suggested coming for the week-end. Barbie answered the telephone and assured him that he would be welcome.
‘How lovely it will be to see you!’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘And I want to see you,’ he replied. ‘I’d have come down before this but I’ve been terribly busy. You know I’ve got a new job, don’t you?’
Barbie knew this of course. Edward had tried several different kinds of jobs. He had been in a bank for a time, then he had gone to South Africa to an orange farm. Last autumn he had returned and become junior partner in a well-known firm of stockbrokers in the City. Barbie, who was in business herself, was aware that he could not have done so without capital and felt sure that Aunt Amalie must have provided this.
‘Do you like your new job?’ asked Barbie.
‘Oh, rather,’ replied Edward. ‘It’s very interesting. I’m settled now. I’ve done with roving – tell you all about it tomorrow.’
There were great preparations for Edward’s arrival. Barbie lent a hand until she was chased into the garden by Penney to get fresh air, for although her patient was
now convalescent Penney still ordered her about.
There was a huge cushion of primroses in a sheltered corner of the garden; Barbie had been watching it for days. She had seen the first delicate bud unfold and every day there had been more flowers – she had counted them as a miser counts his gold. Today the flowers were uncountable, the whole cushion was a solid mass of gold – and the scent was delicious beyond words. Barbie was kneeling upon the bank, enraptured, when she heard footsteps on the path and looking up saw Aunt Amalie.
‘Look at them!’ cried Barbie. ‘Aren’t they darlings? I really believe primroses are my favourite flowers … and of course primroses grow bigger and better at Underwoods than anywhere else in the world.’
‘You love Underwoods, don’t you?’
‘Every bit of it! Every stick and stone! Even the snails,’ declared Barbie looking up and laughing. ‘I’ve been watching that snail on the wall – he’s big and beautiful and his shell is full of rainbow colours. He isn’t just an ordinary snail.’
Amalie was not very fond of snails and she was thinking of something else which had nothing to do with the creatures. ‘Listen, Barbie,’ she said. ‘I’ve never told you, but I think the time has come when you ought to know. When I die Underwoods will come to you.’
Barbie gazed at her in astonishment. ‘To me?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Ned left it like that in his Will.’
‘But – what about Edward? I don’t understand –’
‘There were reasons.’
The Tall Stranger Page 4