"Oh, how silly," Louise said. "I'm not, and even if I were, what difference does it make? Couldn't you ask someone in the firm at least to give me an interview?"
He shook his head. The kettle began to roar gently. He put his hands on the arm of the chair, but Louise said: "Don't get up. Ill do it."
She made the tea and poured it out, and handed him his bread and butter and his dry biscuits.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, without touching the food. "A woman pouring tea," he said slowly. "What is there about it that looks so right? It always looks silly when a man does it. I even feel silly when I.do it for myself when I'm alone." He paused and then said: "I want to ask you something." He said it so solemnly that Louise thought:
Heavens! but all he asked was: "May I call you by your first name"?"
"Of course. I can't think why you haven't done it ages ago. Shall I call you Gordon?"
"If you like."
"I do like. Of course, when I work in your shop, I shall call you Mr. Disher when we meet among the haberdashery."
"Please don't keep harking back to that. Louise."
"What?"
"I was just trying it out." He did not say her name again that afternoon. He did not go back to calling her Mrs. Bickford, but he did not manage to call her Louise again.
"There's something else I wanted to say to you," he said, when they had finished tea. He got up and stood by his untidy worktable, looking out at the sharp roofs across the street. "That day you came to the shop. You were in some trouble, weren't you?"
"Yes, I was."
"I was afraid so. I wanted to write afterwards and say how sorry I was that you couldn't wait, but then, I didn't like to interfere."
"I wish you had written," Louise said. "I thought you just weren't interested. The worst part was having no one to tell about Eva."
"Eva?" He turned round. 'That's the one who has the flat, isn't it?"
"Yes. YouVe met her. She was in trouble, only she didn't know she was, and she wouldn't let me help her. But perhaps it's straightened itself out by now. She hasn't said a word about it in her letters, but I may find out when I see her tomorrow."
"Find out what?"
"Whether she and David are Oh, I'm not going to bore
you with it. You don't want to hear my family troubles."
"I do," he said, and she believed him, and told him about her scenes with Frances Graham and with Eva. Some of the words
that had been spoken had reiterated themselves so often in her mind since, that it was a relief to speak them out loud.
Tm sorry/' he said, when she had finished. Tm not surprised you were upset, but I'm sure you did all you could."
"No, I didn't. I said all the wrong things to Eva. I lost my chance to help her. You see, for so long, my girls haven't been used to taking advice from me. It's always they who give me advice. They treat me almost like the child, instead of the mother. It's comical, really. Goodness, is that the time? I must go if I'm to catch my train/'
'Til come to the station with you/' He helped her to her feet.
"Please don't bother. It isn't necessary."
"It's Christmas Eve. The streets are crowded. You should have a man with you." They were standing by the door. He took down Louise's coat, but instead of holding it out for her, he suddenly clutched it to him and began to speak very quickly, almost under his breath, so that Louise could hardly hear. "You're too much alone," he said. "I don't think you're happy. You shouldn't be thinking about a job. It's—it's pathetic. I won't let you be pathetic, and I won't get you an interview. That's not what I want for you."
He stopped speaking and gazed at her anxiously. What was he waiting for her to say? For a crazy moment, Louise thought that he was asking her to marry him. Then she saw a picture of herself in her mind, looking her age, and realized the absurdity of the thought. But what did he mean? How could she answer him without making a fool of herself if she did not know what he meant?
Embarrassed, she said something trivial, and then nervously, before she could stop herself, she laughed.
He made an odd little noise, and in the quick glimpse of his face before he turned away, Louise saw that she had hurt him.
He stood behind her and helped her on with her coat. "If you don't mind," he said, "perhaps I'd better not come to the station with you after all. I've had a slight cold, and it's raw out"
He hurried her out of the door as if he could not wait for her to go. Louise walked alone down the cold linoleum of the stairs, baffled and miserable, and hating herself for having hurt him, and for not knowing why she had hurt him.
Christmas at Miriam's was much the same as it had been last year: the children noisy and over-excited, with one of them in tears before bedtime, and the grown-ups alternating between merriment and irritability. In a million homes all over England, the same moods were prevailing at approximately the same time. The tolerance toward early-waking children, the unusual good humor at breakfast, the sedate party to church and the resolution that this year one really would go again before Easter, the excessive lunch, with the gaiety and seasonal sentiment rising to its peak when someone rose in an unbecoming paper hat and made an inept little speech, and everyone smiled at each other with love, and thought how good it was to be a family after all.
And then the let-down, the terrible Christmas afternoon, with the children quarrelsome and tired already of their new toys, and the grown-ups heavy with food and drink and the desire to get away from everybody and go to sleep.
Arthur went up to his room. He said he had to finish some work. "On Christmas Day?" the others protested. "Yes, on Christmas Day/' he said, but Miriam knew that if she went upstairs, she would find him lying on the bed with his shoes off.
Frank would have liked to do the same thing, but lacked the courage. When the children had been sent away and forbidden to reappear until tea time, he went into the drawing room with the women, and sat in an uncomfortable chair while they talked. Because Anne had refused to travel alone, he had for once risked leaving his livestock in the care of old Harry. While the women's conversation drifted about him, his mind was in his yard, thinking of all the things that Harry would undoubtedly neglect. The old man would never refuse a drink
at Christmas-time. He was probably outside the pub now waiting for it to open, while the pigs and chickens and goats protested their abandonment with despair.
I should never have come, Frank thought, trying to keep his eyes open, but Anny wanted it, and I can't refuse her at a time like this. He looked at his wife, enormous already, and wearing bulky clothes that made no attempt to conceal her shape. It's good for her to be with her family, he thought. Livens her up. Bit slow for her, it must be at times, living with me. That Eva, she's a gay one. Quick as a whistle, too. Funny how the girls are all so different.
Eva was being particularly gay this Christmas. The lines of her pointed face were all tilted upward. She did not seem to have a care in the world. She mentioned David once or twice, with casual bravado, ignoring the lack of response his name inspired among her family.
Was it possible, Louise wondered, that Frances Graham had been wrong, and that Eva and David would eventually be married after all? If that was the only thing that was going to make Eva happy, it would have to be swallowed, although it would be difficult now to receive with open arms a son-in-law whose wife she had met and liked. I shall not say a word though, Louise decided. If Eva and David come to me and say: We are going to be married, I must not cry: Oh, no, you can't! I shall have to smile, and not do anything to spoil Eva's happiness.
Eva was once more excited over the play about the prostitute turned faith healer, which was actually in rehearsal at last, and was to be produced in London in February. "This is what I've been waiting for all my life," Eva told her family, talking rather extravagantly, and with fluid movements of her hands, as actresses do when they talk about the theatre. "It's the biggest thing that's ever happened to me. You'll be proud of me y
et. You wait. I am Eva Bickford's sister, Miriam will say, and doors will open for her right and left; and Mother will have a fur coat. Gosh!" She leaned forward with her bare arms between
her knees—Eva never dressed warmly enough in the winter—"I just hope I can do it. I think I can. When I read the part right through for the first time, everyone said it was wonderful. Don't think Fm conceited. Maybe I am, but this is my biggest chance. If I can pull it off, I'll be talked about, written about, people will know my name. IVe already been interviewed by a magazine. There's going to be a story about me and the play, with lots of pictures. It's absolutely my part. Everybody says so. One of the boys has got some ghasdy woman hanging around—Myrna Laurie. Mother may have seen her way back in her heyday. She thought she was going to get the part, but she never had a hope. She'd be vile in it, and she's much too old, but you know what these passe actresses are. They never give up hope."
"It sounds like a hell of a play/' Anne said, "from what you've told us."
"You wouldn't understand it, dear. It's not written for people like you."
Anne grunted, and shifted her weight. She had indigestion. She often had indigestion these days. She could not think why any woman deliberately set out to have a baby. It worried Frank when she complained of this and that new discomfort every day, but when he was solicitous, she rejected him with: "Don't fuss. I'm pregnant; not dying."
Louise had left the drawing room to fetch the baby clothes she had knitted.
"Good God," Anne said, dangling a tiny vest from her fingers. "What am I supposed to do with these? They're much too small."
"I knew you'd say that," Louise said placidly. "I could hear you saying it while I was knitting them,"
"Well, aren't you going to thank your mother for making them, Anny?" Frank had waked up and began to take an interest in the conversation when the baby was mentioned.
"That's all right," Louise said quickly, seeing the glare Anne gave him. "I enjoyed doing it. It gave me something to do. I'll
make some more when I go back, Anne, If you'll tell me what you want/'
"Good Lord, I don't know/' Anne said. "I thought one just wrapped the thing in shawls."
"Oh, Aunt Anne!" Ellen had come into the room, and was picking over the baby clothes with delight. "Don't you know anything about babies? I'll have to come over and show you. I used to do a lot of things for Simon and Judy, didn't I, Mummy?"
"You children were all told to leave us in peace until tea time," Miriam said.
"I know, but Simon has taken my books, and Judy won't let me play with the doll's house."
"Well, you can go up and fetch the bundle of clothes on my bed," Miriam said. "I put some of my baby things together for you, Anne. I don't imagine I'll ever need them again."
"Lucky devil," Anne said.
"I don't know," Miriam said thoughtfully. "I'd love to have another baby, as a matter of fact." To have a baby at thirty-five might make one feel that one was getting younger again, instead of older. Miriam hated the lines that were beginning to appear on her face, although no one else could see them under her careful make-up. Sometimes she felt that the best part of her life was over, the gaiety all gone. She thought back more often to the days of light-hearted excitement. The days of Philip, whom she might have married, and who had been killed in the war, still unhappy about her. The days of Colin, when emotions were everything and common sense a quality not yet painfully acquired. When she had sorrowed on her last birthday about the passing years, Arthur had said: "It's natural for you to feel restless. The change of life begins in a woman as early as thirty-six. I read it in a book," which had made her feel worse.
Arthur did not want another baby, but Miriam felt that it would be the making of her. She would know then that she was not finished.
"Another baby?" Ellen was saying. "Oh, that would be wonderful. Do let's have one, Mummy. Do let's."
"Would you like it?" Miriam smiled at her.
"More than anything in the world. Don't let's give our baby clothes to Aunt Anne."
"We'd better." Miriam sighed. "Run up and get them."
Louise went back to the Isle of Wight two days later. She minded going more this time than she had in October. Then, she had been almost glad to get away from her troubled family. Now she hated to leave them. Both Miriam and Arthur had been nicer to Ellen. Eva was on top of the world about the play, and happier, apparently, about David—why, Louise did not know, but at least she was happier. Anne was not smoking so much, and seemed very well, in spite of her grumbling. Going to Sybil's the first time had been quite exciting; a change of scene, a totally different kind of life. Now it was all too familiar. She had said all she could to Mrs. Maddox and Miss Dott and Mrs. Arbuthnot and Johnny and the Colonel and Miss Garnham, and the week-enders were never there long enough to make friends, even if they had been the kind of people who would want to make friends with Louise.
The Christmas days had been a welcome break from the disheveled monotony of life at Driffield Court. Sheltering in the cabin of the paddle-boat to Ryde, Louise felt as if she were going back to school after a half-term holiday at home. She did not want to go back, but there was nothing else to do. She could not have stayed on at Pleasant-ways? even if Miriam had asked her, for Miriam and Arthur were taking the children to Austria for winter sports after the New Year. Simon and Judy were wild to go, but Ellen was reluctant. She had been once before, and had hated trying to ski, and hurt her ankles trying to skate, and caught a cold with a painful ear infection.
"Couldn't I come to the hotel with you instead, Granny?" she had asked.
When Louise had suggested this to Miriam, Miriam had
said: "Goodness, no, with everything booked. Of course she has to come. She needs that kind of air. She doesn't really want to stay hehind. She's just trying to wheedle you into giving her something she can't have. She can't possibly moon around in that crazy hotel for the rest of the holidays."
That crazy hotel was just as crazy as ever. Sybil was at her wits' end about the extra staff for New Year's Eve. Goldie had a sty, and went about witch-like, with a black patch over one eye, and the other baleful. She had returned Louise to her large room, however, although she had not been told to. Louise unpacked, went into Ryde to buy some more wool, and settled down to pass the raw young months of the new year as best she could.
On New Year's Eve, the bar was crowded. Sybil had managed to charm an extension licence out of the local authorities, and everyone stayed to drink the New Year in. Louise went up to her room after dinner, but she had to come down for a drink at midnight. It would be middle-aged not to. Even Mrs. Mad-dox was there, enthroned in a corner with a glass of the champagne that Sybil had ordered for all her regulars, watching the bubbles rising and breaking on the surface, as if each one held a grain of poison.
Sybil was in her best form. She had been in the bar nearly all evening, and was flushed, with purple veins appearing on her cheeks, and her mascara melted in a smudge along her upper lids. Everyone was toasting her and offering her drinks. A man who always had to organize something wherever he might be, was slipping round among the guests, organizing them into singing For She's a Jolly Good Fellow, as soon as Auld Lang Syne was over.
At five minutes to midnight, George came in, looking as dressed-up as he always did when he took off his rough country clothes and put on a blue suit. He took a beer from Ted, and stood at the end of the bar with it, nodding to the people he knew without speaking. The clock above die bar pointed to
midnight. From the hall came the first stroke of the gong, pounded by Goldie, who was to sound eight bells.
While she pounded, everyone was quiet, holding a glass, and wearing the reverent face he assumed for the two minutes' silence on Armistice Day. Just as, on November the eleventh, people try to remember the fallen with gratitude, but find their minds wandering, so >now they tried, in a blurred way, to realize the significance of the moment when the mistakes and petty sins of the old year could be forgo
tten in the hope that the new one would bring them all they wanted.
As the last note of the gong reverberated into silence, Louise found one hand grasped by Johnny and the other by Miss Garnham, and was swept into the swaying, unbearable sadness of Auld Lang Syne. The motley crowd of people were emotionally united, although in cold blood most of them had little use for each other.
Glasses were raised. A toast was drunk. Louise's glass was empty, but she tipped it back with the rest.
"Now!" cried the man who loved to organize. He waved his
arms. "For she's a jolly good fellow " a woman started,
much too high, and the others turned toward Sybil and joined shrilly in.
Sybil threw back her head and laughed with pleasure. Suddenly her head dropped on to her chest, her glass smashed to the floor, and she doubled up and toppled slowly from her stool, while the singing died, and the voice of someone who had not seen, quavered: "and so say all of us."
"Passed out/' someone said quite clearly into the silence, and wished he had not said it.
"Don't be a fool." The local doctor pushed his way through the gaping crowd. "It's a heart attack."
"Get out of here! Clear out everybody!" George raged at his speechless guests. "Don't stand there staring like a pack of fools. The party's over. Get out before you're thrown out, and leave Sybil alone." They went, in umbrage, and in disappoint-
ment that they could not stay to see what was going to happen, Would old Sybil kick the bucket, or what? "Poor old girl/' they said, as they went subdued to their cars. "You can't go on drinking like that for ever and get away with it."
Louise stayed in the bar. George had not noticed her. She stayed far off and wished that she could take to herself some of the pain that was racking Sybil. Goldie was kneeling on the floor in tears, with her eye-patch pushed up on her forehead, clutching Sybil's hand. Neither the doctor nor George sent her away.
Sybil looked up, her eyes sunk like a very old woman. "A damn pack of horses," she gasped, through her struggles to breathe. "Like a damn pack of horses on my chest."
The Winds Of Heaven Page 21