The Winds Of Heaven

by Monica Dickens

  However, she said to Miriam: "Take off your coat and sit down. Don't look so discouraged. I like it very well here, I promise you/'

  "But you can't live like this." Miriam sat down on the bunk and kept her coat on, huddling it about her. "It's—it's so meagre. Where do you keep your clothes?"

  "I don't need many." Louise made her voice very cheerful, "You know I've left most of my things with you. It's all right, Miriam, really. It does me very nicely."

  Miriam's conscience was troubling her uncomfortably. "We shouldn't have let you come here," she said, "only you were so stubborn about it. But you'll be coming to stay with us soon. For Easter if you like, as you did last year."

  "Oh, I don't know, dear. Perhaps I won't come this year. It's different now. I have a home of my own."

  "Home! Mother, don't be ridiculous. This is all right for a holiday, I dare say, though I'd loathe it myself, but you can't live here all the time. I've someone staying in your room now, but they'll be gone soon, and Eva will be back in the summer.

  She talks about signing a new contract with the BJB.C. Things can go on as they did before/*

  Going from one to the other, trying to pass the time and keep out of the way in someone else's house, temporizing with visit after visit, and no roots anywhere—what did other women do, who had been left alone without money or purpose in life? How did they bear this futile necessity to be housed somewhere, like a surplus piece of furniture?

  What did they do? If their children would not have them, they went to shabby hotels, or were pushed into old ladies' homes, if they were senile enough. It would be easier for the family, Louise thought, if I were an invalid. Then they could put me away in a nursing home without any qualms.

  When she got home, Miriam said to Arthur: "It's dreadful, Perfectly dreadful/'

  "Anne's baby? Poor thing, it can't look like its mother yet/'

  "Oh, Arthur, don't. You know I don't mean that. I mean the way Mother is living. We can't let her stay there. Well simply have to have her here, I'm afraid, when Priscilla goes."

  Arthur stroked his dark-blue chin, wondering how he could get out of this without appearing unkind. "Does your mother want to come?" he asked.

  "She says she doesn't, but you know what she is. She's being heroic. Oh, dear." Miriam sat down and patted her neat hair. "I do feel rather bad about it."

  "I don't see that you need. It's possible that she really doesn't mind living like a gipsy. Everyone isn't as sybaritic as you, remember. She's over the worst part now. She's stood the winter, and the weather will be getting wanner. The outdoor life. Some people like it."

  "She certainly seems to like it all right. I don't want to rush her into anything she doesn't want to do." Miriam began to let herself be persuaded, and to make excuses to her conscience, whose prickings were already becoming more feeble. Presently,

  as the days went by, the pricks ceased to be felt at all. She thought sometimes about her mother in the lonely, pitiful caravan, but she swiftly stifled her misgivings* Eva wrote airily that she did not know when she would be coming back. Anne seemed quite disinterested in what went on in the caravan. If the others could not bother about their mother, why should she be the one who always had to take the burden? It was not fair on Arthur.

  The holidays came. Ellen wanted to go and stay with her grandmother.

  "Do you think she ought?" Miriam asked Arthur. "She 11 see hardly anything of Simon. She'll miss all the parties here, and she's unsociable enough as it is. I don't think it's good for her to go off and lead that kind of uncivilized existence. She was terribly uncouth when she came back last time."

  "Oh, let her go," Arthur said. "Simon won't care."

  "Nor will you, will you?" Miriam looked at him closely.

  *Want me to be honest? Oh, forget it, Miriam. You know we swore right at the beginning that we'd never say any more about it if I agreed to take on the child. It's the only way."

  "Stop being so noble," Miriam said. "I know it's not been easy for you."

  "Easy! Good God " he flared up at her. "Of course it's

  not been easy. What do you think I am? Flow would any man like having to take another man's brat into his house, and keep quiet about it, and behave as if it was all one big happy family? But I did it. There was nothing else to do, if we weren't to have a scandal. I forgave you then, and I've never brought it up against you. You must give me that. Now shut up about it,"

  "Always so forgiving/' Miriam said r half to herself. "So un-reproaehful. That's what's made it such hell."

  "What would you have liked me to do?" he asked scornfully, "Beaten you and turned you out?"

  "I don't know." Miriam shook her head. "It's all so long ago,

  I forget what I felt like then. I crawled to you, didn't I, and begged you to understand? As if you could/'

  "Oh, Miriam, I said shut up about it." Arthur turned away. 'Tor God's sake stop raking up the past in this morbid way. Send the child to her grandmother, and let's have no more talk about, it. It gives me a headache,"

  So Ellen went to the caravan, and although the weather had not improved, as Louise had promised Gordon it would, she and her grandmother were happy again, as they had been before, Louise tried not to think about the time when Ellen would be gone, back to school and she would be alone once more. She did not know whether she would be going to-Miriam's, or whether Eva would come back to London and have her at her flat, or whether Anne would ever uncover her spare room again. She lived merely in the present, and tried to-give Ellen the happiest holiday she had ever had.

  'Arent you coming home for your birthday?' Miriam wrote to Ellen. 7 think you should. You can have a yarty? if you tike.'

  "Oh, Granny, must I?" Ellen showed Louise the letter. "I don't want to. There's no one I care to ask to a party, and we were, going to have my birthday here, with the cake and everything."

  "Write to Mummy and say that I'll be disappointed if you don't stay," Louise suggested. "That might get over it."

  Miriam made no more objections. Louise and Ellen took the bus into town and bought the ingredients for the cake that Louise was going to risk making. Frank and Anne and the baby were asked up to share it. Ellen was making paper decorations for the caravan, and a frill for Gordon to wear. It would be quite a party. They had been planning it for days.

  The day before Ellen's birthday, Frank went away for a night to see his brother, who was ill. Anne, who was bored with the baby, and had nothing to do, although there was a pile of dirty washing dumped on the bathroom floor, wandered up to the caravan, and; beat on the door with a stick.

  Ellen opened the door, her hair like a mop and her face distraught. "The beastly stove has gone wrong again/* she said. "It would, just when Uncle Frank's away. Granny's so upset. She wanted to make my cake/'

  Louise was bending over the tiny stove, red in the face, and trying to manipulate a pair of pliers, as she had seen Frank do, only she was not sure which pipe he used them on.

  "Simple," Anne said. "You're out of gas."

  "We're not/' Louise stood upright, and pushed her hair away from her face. "I checked it. No, it's the same thing that always happens. Frank is the only one who can fix it. Will you tell him as soon as he comes back tomorrow?"

  "But that will be too late," Ellen said mournfully. "You'll never get the cake made in time for the party. You know how long it takes you."

  "Relax, child," Anne said. "It isn't the end of the world. Harry's fooling about in the yard. Why don't you get him to look at it?"

  'We did," Louise said. "He couldn't do anything. All he did was to tear one of the burners loose and be unable to get it back on again. He lent us this awful thing to cook our lunch on." She pointed to a rusty contraption in the middle of the floor. "It's a sort of primus. He uses it when he's got no coal for his range. I'm scared to death of it, but it will have to do us until Frank gets home."

  "Ill tell him," Anne said. "You'll blow yourselves up with that thing." The primus stove rocked as she kic
ked it. One of its legs was broken.

  By lunch time next day, the gas stove was still unmended. "Let me go and get Uncle Frank," Ellen begged. "I know he's home because I saw the car. It's getting so late. Well never be ready for the party, even if you make a sponge. Let me go and .ask him."

  "No, you can't/' Louise said. "He's busy, or he would have come straight away. He has so much to do, and I hate to bother

  him when he's always so kind. Hell come presently. Just be patient."

  Ellen grew more and more despondent as die afternoon advanced, and Frank still did not come. She went out several times to look for him in the yard, but a storm was getting up, and the wind and rain drove her inside again. The sky had darkened. It was like night time instead of four o'clock.

  "How the wind howls," Louise said. "I hate it, don't you? It's so relentless, the way it tears and batters at everything." She looked out of the little window. "How can the trees bear it, being pushed at and tormented and given no peace? I can't bear to have my hair blown about even for one minute, and this seems to have been going on for hours." She stayed by the streaming window, watching the lashed and darkened landscape. At the beginning of the gale, the trees and leafless bushes had bounced and danced as if they were glad to feel the movement. By now, they looked as if it had gone on too long for them. Louise knew how they felt. If only it would stop! The trees moved their petulant heads from side to side like tired children crying: "Oh, leave us alone!"

  "Perhaps they won't be able to come from the house in this storm." Ellen's doleful voice recalled Louise to the caravan.

  "They'll come. Frank promised. And Anne's mad enough to bring the baby out in any weather."

  "But what will they eat, Granny? We can't give them baked beans. Aunt Anne has them all the time, anyway."

  "I'll make some griddle scones," Louise said, glad to think of something to do to take her mind off the storm. "I know I swore I'd never light Harry's stove again after what it did this morning, but I'll try. Stand well back, Ellen."

  "I'm getting up here." Ellen scrambled to the top bunk, taking Gordon with her. They peered over the edge as Louise worked the pump, then, holding her breath, lit a match and jumped back as the stove flared and roared. She stood by and watched it suspiciously until it settled down and began to burn more calmly.

  "There!" she said, looking up triumphantly to the top bunk. "'Nothing to it, you see/'

  Ellen and Gordon lay on their stomachs and watched the fierce little blue and yellow flames, while Louise mixed the batter for the scones. Outside, the storm seemed to be gaining strength. The caravan creaked like an old ship in a gale, and sometimes it shuddered, as if the wind that struck it were -a wave.

  Louise had put the frying pan on the stove to heat With .her tongue between her lips, she was preparing to spoon out the batter. Her hand jerked and the batter splashed over the floor as .the full force of the wind slapped against the side of the caravan with a sound of fury. The caravan rocked, gave a sickening lurch, and Ellen and Gordon fell out of the bunk together as it toppled sideways .against the tree and stayed there with the floor at a crazy angle,

  The stove had slid across to the wall. It tipped over, and instantly the carpet was alight In a moment the caravan was a box of flames. "Get out, Ellen! Get out!" Louise screamed. She heard Ellen whimpering as she tugged at the door. She could see nothing through the scorching smoke. She groped to the door, as Ellen wrenched it open and the wind rushed in and fanned the flames to the .ceiling. Louise fell out onto the wet grass. The door was on the upper side, and it seemed a long way to the ground.

  "Ellen!" she shouted. A window fell in and die black smoke curled out towards her. "Ellen—run! Get away from it!" Gordon was running across the field, barking hysterically against the wind. There was no sign of Ellen.

  Sobbing, choking, Louise climbed back into the inferno of the caravan and found Ellen on the floor, where she had fallen when the wind rushed in. Blindly, with her clothes on fire, Louise plunged for the doorway, and fell out onto the ground with the unconscious child in her arms*

  8.

  JL HERE was a knock on the kitchen door. Frank got up to open It. Behind him, the sisters sat in silence. They had said everything there was to say.

  Harry was standing outside, shifting from foot to foot. "What do you want?'' Frank asked. "I can't come up to the yard today, You know that. Youll have to manage by yourself/'

  "I didn't come for that It's me dinner time, I come to know, what about my little stove? I'm out of coal, and I need it"

  "What stove? What are you talking about?"

  Harry told him. Without ,a word, Frank shut the door on the old man and turned back into the room.

  "You knew about the stove, didn't you?" He walked towards Anne. "You went up there while I was away. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I meant to, Frank. I forgot"

  "Forgot." Frank let his hands fall to his sides. His face was blank and hopeless. "You girls forgot pretty well everything about your mother, it seems to me."

  Miriam shifted in her chair. "Oh, be quiet," she said. "What business is it of yours?"

  "Just that I happen to care about your mother,"

  "And we don't, I suppose?" Eva said sharply.

  "I'm saying nothing." Frank turned away and went upstairs to his crying baby.

  "She's not asleep yet/' the nurse said, "but she's drowsy. Don't talk too much, and don't stay very long."

  "Is she all right?"

  "She will be. It will take time."

  "And the child?"

  "That will take longer. She's badly burned. They've taken her to the Children's Hospital." The nurse opened the door. "Someone to see you," she said gently, and Gordon Disher trod shyly up to the bed.

  Louise looked at him without speaking. "Ellen might die," she said at last.

  "She won't. She can't. You saved her life. I read it in the papers. I had to come. Forgive me."

  "Ellen might die," she repeated, as if she had not heard him. "They've taken her away."

  "Just to the Children's Hospital. The nurse told me. She said it would take time, but "

  "Time—yes. She might be ill for months. Shell need so much care. And loving. How will she get that from Miriam? How can she live?" She looked at him blankly. "It was her birthday,"

  He nodded, standing over her, out of proportion in his bulky overcoat in the tiny, pale green room.

  "I thought you were dead," Louise said, remembering. "Why didn't you write?"

  "I was ashamed," he said. "I took a drink, you know, because I was upset about you, though that doesn't excuse it."

  "About me?" Louise frowned under the bandage that came down almost to her scorched eyebrows.

  "Yes. Perhaps you don't remember. I asked you to marry me, and you laughed."

  The drugs had taken away Louise's pain. She lay unmoving, floating on a mist between the ceiling and the bed. It was an effort to think back to Christmas Eve, and herself walking alone down the long, cold flight of stairs. "I didn't know what you meant," she said.

  "Ill have to make it plainer this time. Don't laugh again, I've come to ask you if you will marry me/'

  "Oh, no." Louise lifted her bandaged arm and let it fall despairingly. "Please don't try to be kind. I'm tired of people having to be kind to me."

  "For heaven's sake, Louise," he said, and she realized that it was only the second time he had ever called her by her name, Tm not trying to be kind. I'm asking you to be kind to me,"

  "Thank you." Louise smiled. Her swollen eyelids fluttered and dropped.

  'We could have Ellen with us later on, perhaps," he said. 'We could care for her. She could be like—like our child."

  Louise opened her eyes for a moment, and the shy eagerness of his face was still behind her lids when they dropped again of their own weight. "The girls are coming soon," she said drowsily. "I don't think I can keep awake for them. Will you see them for me, and tell them what you and I are going to do? And

  t
ell them " Her voice trailed off to a whisper. He leaned

  over the bed to catch her words. Half in a dream, she saw her daughters' faces—disapproving, amused, incredulous. "Whatever will the girls say?" she murmured, and fell asleep with a chuckle.

  Miriam and Eva and Anne advanced together down the polished corridor, looking at the doors, and trying not to make a noise with their heels. A Sister in a dark blue dress came out of the kitchen, small and brisk, and absurdly young to be a Sister.

  "Mrs. Bickford?" she said. "Oh, yes, her daughters. I'm afraid she's asleep at the moment. She's under drugs. I shall have to ask you to come back later, unless you'd like to wait."

  The sisters hesitated. Each had prepared what she would say to her mother. They felt let down, and could not decide for the moment what to do.

  "There is a gentleman waiting to see you," the nurse said.

  "I've put him in my office. Perhaps you could talk to him right away, as he has a train to catch,"

  The sisters looked at each other. Who could it be at a time like this? A lawyer? A policeman? What did he want of them?

  "Well, come on," Eva said. "We'll have to see him/' They went into the small, square office, with the tidily arranged desk, and the drug cupboard, and the tea tray, and the pictures of Sister in groups with other nurses, Mr. Disher was standing in the middle of the room with his hands folded,

  "Please sit down/' he said. Miriam took the chair by the desk. Anne and Eva took the straight chairs by the wall, where nurses sat to be told what to do, or what they had done wrong. They sat and looked at Mr. Disher, prepared to be a little arrogant with him; but he stood calmly before them, less like a schoolboy before three examiners than like a teacher instructing three schoolgirls.

  **My name is Gordon Disher," he said. "Miss Eva knows me. You other ladies/* he nodded to Miriam and Anne, "probably know me, if at all, as 'Mother's friend who sells beds/ "

  He paused. They did not say anything to encourage him, "I don't know what you'll think/* he went on, "but the truth of it is this. Your mother and I are to be married. I hope you don't mind too much. Oh, no," he said, seeing Miriam's face, "it's not impossible. I shall have to retire in two years,, but we can just manage on my pension, if I keep on writing books/'