The Winds Of Heaven

by Monica Dickens

  and the familiar words and ritual had soothed and refreshed her. She felt happy today. She had received a delightfully affectionate letter from Eva yesterday, and coached by Miss Dott, she had turned the heel of a baby's boot at last. It distressed her to see the staff running themselves ragged on a Sunday, when they should be at leisure, like the people for whom they were running.

  When she said this to Miss Garnham, with whom she shared a table at lunch, to save space, Ruth had looked at her queerly, and said: "Are you a Socialist? Don't worry about them. They get paid for it," which sounded odd coming from the biographer of a social reformer.

  Louise kept out of the way all afternoon in her poky little room which never saw the sun, was always either too stuffy or too cold, and, with its gurgling cistern and its view of the Driffield Court dustbins, had obviously been designed for a Victorian servant. When she came downstairs and saw Ellen and Phyllis and the extra waitress pushing their way about, red-faced, among the litde tables, with loaded trays for the people who doubtless had only recendy eaten a good lunch, she could not bear to go into the residents' lounge and expect one of the girls to bring a tray to her. Why be such a drone? Perhaps she was a Socialist at heart, although it would kill Miriam to hear it. She made her way through the crowded hall, and pushed through the swing-door into the kitchen quarters, nearly knocking a tray of hot-water jugs from the hands of Ellen on the other side, who stared at her agape.

  Goldie was cutting bread and butter like a fury in the pantry, her long knife flailing, and the soft butter slapped on in lightning strokes.

  "If youVe come to see what's happened to your tea/* Goldie said, in a voice that showed she was reaching the end of her tether, "you can get right back in there and wait, same as everyone else."

  "Don't be cross, Goldie," Louise said. "I just came out to see if I could help. You're all so busy. I hate to sit and do nothing.'*

  "Busy is less than right," Goldie said, flailing and slapping without pause. "Don't ask me why we stand for it. There's cook and Mrs. Peace off their heads in there with all the boiling of water. No wonder their rock cakes wouldn't rise. Now go away, madam, do, and let me get on with my work/'

  "But I want to help," Louise insisted, refusing to be deterred. "I could put out the cakes and biscuits for you, couldn't I? I know how many go to a plate. Or shall I start washing up? There seems to be an awful pile of it." The staff had come many a time in deputations to Sybil to ask for a mechanical dishwasher. She intended to get them one, but always the money she had put aside for it was used for something else.

  Goldie shrugged her shoulders, and passed a buttery hand over her cloud of white hair. "Please yourself," she said, "but don't get in my way."

  Louise found an apron and tied it round her chubby waist. With enjoyment? she ran hot water and added soap powder, and started to plunge in the dirty plates and cups. She had not been near a sink since she was with Miriam. She remembered the time when she had washed up when the Cobbs were there, and Miriam had been so cross.

  "What's she doing here?" Ellen came in with a tray, and tipped the crockery from it untidily on to the laden draining-board.

  Goldie did not answer. If there was going to be a row, she was too tired to be dragged into it.

  "I'm helping." Louise looked up with a smile, her wrists in the soapy water. "You're so busy, I thought you'd be pleased."

  "It doesn't do," Ellen said darkly, clattering clean crockery onto her tray.

  When she came back with more dirty china she deliberately pushed against Louise. "I'm sorry, madam," she said viciously, "but you're in my way."

  Stepping aside, Louise accidentally splashed some water on to Ellen's apron. With a face like thunder, Ellen snatched the

  dish towel from her and rubbed at the mark with exaggerated care, although the apron was already far from clean. Louise turned back to the sink and pretended not to notice her.

  "What's she doing here?" The extra waitress came into the pantry. She was Ellen's friend, and copied her manners.

  "Says she's helping," Ellen grunted. "If you please/'

  "Well, I don't know." The other girl stood with a tray on her hip, and considered Louise's toiling figure disparagingly. "They didn't tell me there would be this sort of thing going on when I agreed to do the Sundays."

  Louise was so annoyed at their rejection of her kindness that she could only go on washing up without a word. To take off her apron and leave would be an admission of defeat she was not prepared to make.

  Ellen had fetched the cook to see what was going on. "That's my apron/' Mrs. Ellis announced. "I was keeping it clean for tomorrow."

  Louise took off the apron, and continued her work without it.

  "Does Mrs. V. know about this?" the cook asked ominously.

  "No, of course not!" Louise said, her temper rising. "She wouldn't have let me if I'd asked her. It was my own idea. I wanted to help you."

  "When we want help, we'll ask for it," Ellen said.

  Phyllis had come in now, and was standing with her mouth open, trying to take in what was afoot. Bells were ringing from the lounge, but tb^ staff remained to fight this out.

  "What's going on?" Mrs. Peace, deserting her bubbling kettles, loomed in the kitchen doorway, and was advised of the situation.

  "I never heard of such a thing," she said. "When I was at the Castle, the guests knew their place and respected the privacy of the staff. This is a rum concern, I must say."

  "A damn sight too rum," Ellen said. "I've had just about enough of it."

  "Now, Ellen," said Goldie, who had finally ceased to cut

  bread and butter, and was eating it unthinkingly, cramming the thin slices into her mouth, with a strenuous working of her lean jaws, "we've heard enough about your giving notice to last us a lifetime. All talk and no do, that's you."

  "Is it then?" Ellen snapped. "Don't think I couldn't walk out of here today and get a job ten times better. I've had offers, don't think I haven't. And from somewhere not a hundred miles from here, at that."

  "The Dragon Arms, I suppose," Goldie said. "That hole. I wouldn't be seen dead there."

  "It's a sight better than this dump. They treat you right in the kitchen there, that's all I'm saying. My friend Ida works there. They get the breasts of chicken, that's what they get."

  Mrs. Ellis puffed out her bosom. "If you are insinuating,

  young lady, that I don't feed my staff correct " she began,

  and so it went on, the acrimony hurled about the pantry like flurried snow, and Louise, the cause of it all, still standing by the sink, washing and rinsing, washing and rinsing, not daring to turn round lest she should scream at them.

  It was a full-scale row. Ted, who was off duty, heard the voices through the window, and came down from his room over the garage to join in. When Phyllis was in tears, although no one had spoken to her, Ellen hysterical, the cook puffed out like a balloon about to burst, and Goldie standing up and pointing at everybody with the finger that had a wart on the end of it, Sybil breezed in to see what had happened to the teas. i They told her, each trying to get in their word. Louise tried to tell her, too, but could not make her voice heard.

  "Shut up, everybody!" Sybil shouted. 'Til fire the lot of you if you don't get back in there and do your work."

  "You need not bother." Ellen suddenly dropped her voice to one of great refinement. She untied the strings of her apron with fingers that were fastidious, as if they were handling mud. "I'm leaving now."

  "You can't," Sybil said practically. "There isn't a bus."

  "You forget, I have my cycle," Ellen said with dignity. "You

  can send my things after me. Ill forward my address. My sister's, at Eastbourne." She made Eastbourne sound like Paradise. "How about you, Alice? Are you going to stay and be made a fool of?" The other waitress untied her apron strings without a word.

  "All right, Mrs. Ellis," Sybil said challengingly, "aren't you going, too? Oh, no, I forgot. Your bicycling days are over." Mrs. Ell
is gave her a filthy look, and banged through the door to the kitchen, taking Mrs. Peace with her.

  "Ted, you're off duty, I know," Sybil said, with a dazzling smile, "but be a dear and get your white coat and help finish the teas. Ill make up your time off tomorrow. Phyllis can manage if you help her, can't you, dear?"

  "You bet'm." Phyllis squared her thin shoulders. Perhaps she would be taken off the upstairs and be made head waitress now that Ellen was gone. She piled a tray enthusiastically with more than she could carry, and staggered out through the swing-door.

  "Goldie," Sybil said, "I'm surprised at you, letting this happen."

  "I didn't," Goldie retorted. "It wasn't my fault. Why do you always pick on me?"

  "Because you're the only one with any sense."

  "One thing I will say," Goldie said, sitting down, slightly mollified, to cut bread and butter again, "we're a sight better off without those two. Nothing but trouble, though 111 allow they didn't start it today. It all began when "

  "Oh, shut up, you old fool," Sybil said. "If I hear another word about it, I'll scream. Come along, Lou. Whatever you were doing, stop it, there's a dear." Gently she took away the mop which Louise was still holding distractedly. "I'll get the keys of the bar and we'll go and have a little drink to quiet our nerves. We'll forget it ever happened."

  She did forget, or at least, she did not mention it again, for which Louise was undyingly grateful. For a while, she felt self-conscious whenever she met any of the staff, but the at-

  mosphere simmered down, a new girl came, and left in two days with Miss Garnham's handbag, another girl was found, and the hotel settled down to its normal state. Louise would be leaving soon to spend the Christmas days with Miriam, and she hoped that when she came back, her faux pas would be completely forgotten.

  The Americans had left, but since Sybil would be needing Louise's first-floor room while she was away, it was not worth while for her to move. She stayed in her cramped little room upstairs, knitting industriously, so that she would have something to give to Anne when she saw her.

  She imagined Anne saying: "Good God! What am I supposed to do with these? They're much too small." Anne appeared to have no idea what the baby would be like, nor how she was going to deal with it. Louise could only hope that she would allow her to stay at the Stone Farm for a while after the baby was born, so that she could help her to care for it. She would enjoy that. Miriam had always known exactly what to do with her babies, and would never let Louise interfere.

  The night before Louise left the Isle of Wight, Sybil climbed the narrow stairs to talk to her in her room while she packed. She had brought her a bright yellow spotted silk blouse and a purple angora sweater. "Here," she said, throwing them down casually, "you can startle the family with these. No, go on— take them. Don't be silly. I don't want them. Just old rags/'

  Louise wondered whether Phyllis had felt like this when she offered her the cherry-red cardigan: glad to accept, but sorry to have to be glad.

  "What a beastly little room this is, Lou," Sybil said, sitting down on the bed, since there was nowhere else. "Never mind, you shall have your other one when you come back. You were awfully good about being pushed up here, but then you always are good about the things that happen to you. Wish I could say the same for myself."

  'Why? What's happened to you now?"

  "Oh—nothing unusual. Just Christmas Eve tomorrow, and

  nine people coming—God knows why they can't te sensible and spend Christmas in their own homes—and Ted has taken umbrage and declares hell leave before New Year's Eve, and the extra waiter hasn't turned up yet, which probably means the bastard isn't coming at all. Pity you can't stay and help in the kitchen."

  Louise looked at her and saw that she was smiling, and smiled herself in relief. This was the first time that the incident had been mentioned, and it was just like Sybil to bury it once and for all with a joke, so that it could leave no rancor.

  Til tell you what it is, Lou." Sybil lay back on the bed, with her head on Anne's baby clothes and her skirt pulled up above her thick calves. "I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth staying open in the winter at all."

  Louise stopped folding her clothes, and stayed motionless, bending over the suitcase with her hands among the garments.

  "It's true, I've always got the regulars and the week-end people, but that only just about makes it pay. It's always more difficult to get staff, and I tell you, although everyone thinks good old Sybil is in her element, being the life and soul of the party the whole year round, it's honestly beginning to get me down. I'm not as young as I was."

  "I've never heard you say that, Sybil. You always seem so young and gay."

  "The clown with a breaking heart, that's me. Passing it off with a sprightly laugh when the cook walks out and the guests complain and the china gets broken quicker than I can replace it. God! I get so sick of it sometimes. I'd like to pack up for the winter and go away somewhere like the south of France, if I could ever get Georgie uprooted. I could face the summer then. I think I'll do it next year. We'll have to put the poor old Colonel in a home, or something. Old Ma Maddox can go on the streets for all I care, and Dotty and Edith can pull their socks up and find themselves a flat. I'm tired of running about after people who are too lazy to look after themselves."

  But what about me? Louise's frightened heart called. The girls think I'm safe to come here every year. What could I say to them?

  She managed to compose her face before she turned round and said with a forced smile: "I think that's a wonderful idea. It would do you a world of good."

  "But, oh Lord/' Sybil sat up with her straw-like hair on end. "What about my poor old Lou? That would make things a bit tough for you, wouldn't it?"

  "You needn't worry about me," Louise said stoutly. "It's been wonderful coming here these two winters, but I'm not going to hang round your neck for ever." She thought of what George had said that day in the drive—"Sybil's hangers-on." How she disliked that man!

  "But where would you go, love?" Sybil asked. "I know how pinched you are, thanks to that bloody Dudley. Yes, I will speak ill of the dead, and you're either a saint or an idiot not to curse him to heaven yourself."

  "There's always the girls," Louise said uncertainly. "IVe always got the girls. They're wonderful to me."

  "Don't kid. I know you hate it badly enough being passed round from one to another of them all summer long, like a mangy cheese. It wouldn't be much fun having to do it all winter as well. I tell you what, Lou. I can't think why you don't get yourself a job. That's what I'd do if I'd been left with the dregs of the drink like you have."

  "But what could I do?" Louise asked, as she had so often asked herself. "I can't do anything."

  "Oh, shucks, nor can I, and look at me. Busy as a bee all day long, and making money to boot, though George always wants to plough it all back."

  "Well, but—it's different for you." You had some capital; you had something behind you, and a man as well; you weren't alone, Louise thought, but she said: "You're capable. You can run things. Catering and all that—why, I wouldn't even know how many cabbages to order for dinner."

  "We never have cabbage. Mrs. Ellis can't stand the smell of It cooking. Fm not suggesting you run a hotel. I wouldn't wish that on you. But there are thousands of jobs you could do"

  "Who would employ me? I'm not trained for anything, and I'm too old. No one can get a job when they're my age/*

  "Of course they can. Think of Mrs. Ellis, if we must think of her. She's as old as you."

  "But she can cook. I can't."

  "That's true, but you could—well, you could serve in a shop, or something. Any idiot can do that."

  "In a shop?" Louise's mind flew to Gordon Disher. "I wonder if I could. The girls would be horrified, but plenty of nice people work in shops. Very nice people. Oh, no, Sybil." She shook her head quickly. "I'd never get taken on, and if I was, I'd never be able to cope with it."

  "You're hopeless." Sybil swung
her legs off the bed. "Scared to death of yourself. You always were, at school. Remember how you ran off the platform at the concert because the piano looked at you? Have some guts, woman, and don't be so middle-aged. You're not finished yet."

  "Oh, Sybil," Louise cried impulsively. "You always do me good. I do love you."

  "Here, here. Steady on. No pashes here. Fm not the gym mistress." They both laughed at the memory of Miss Baggott, with her vast bloomers.

  "How silly I was," Louise said, remembering the thrills and the despair. "I would have died for her."

  "Soft," Sybil said. "Now with me, it was always boys."

  "Do you think they'd take me on in your shop?" Louise asked Mr. Disher, calling through the doorway to the bedroom, where he was getting the teacups from underneath the washbasin. He had written to her once at the hotel, saying: "When am I going to see you?" and so she had arranged to have the afternoon in London before going on to Miriam's.

  "Do I think what?" he asked incredulously, coming into the room.

  "That I could work in your shop. Selling things, like you. Oh, not beds, of course. That takes experience; but the kind of things on the ground floor that women sell."

  He seemed a little flustered. He put down the cups and went to plug in the kettle. "No—oh, no/' he said. "That wouldn't do at all/'

  "Why not? I feel I ought to try and find a job. I'm so useless."

  "No, please. It wouldn't be right/' He came to stand in front of her, and she looked up at him, bulking large over her, with his kind face folded into unusually troubled lines. "You

  shouldn't work. "You " He moved his hands, fumbling for

  words. "I mean, you haven't been brought up to it. It wouldn't be the thing."

  "You mean, I'm too old?" Louise asked. "I'm no older than you, and look at you."

  "Yes, look at me." He passed a hand over the bulge of his shabby waistcoat, and sat down heavily. "You know I don't mean that. I mean, it's because—well, you're a—you're a lady." He brought the word out with difficulty.