Cheerfulness Breaks In

by Angela Thirkell

  Mrs. Morland said that without being superstitious it seemed unlucky to call people gallant, because the moment they were gallant they got conquered by somebody.

  Miss Bent, making one of her rare incursions into the conversation, said what about Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania. Nobody had called them gallant, not for a single moment, but there they were.

  ‘But aren’t they the same?’ said Mrs. Morland. ‘I mean isn’t Latvia how the Lithuanians pronounce Lithuania, like the Italians pronouncing Florence Firenze?’

  ‘It was no good thinking of a name for Rydz in them,’ said Miss Hampton, ‘because there is simply nobody there.’

  Kate thought there must be somebody.

  ‘No one with a name,’ said Miss Bent. ‘We studied the question, but there was no one.’

  ‘Same trouble with Finland,’ said Miss Hampton. ‘Must do our best for them. But who is there in Finland, I mean with a name?’

  There was a short silence, broken by Kate, who said hadn’t somebody once got a Nobel prize or was she thinking of someone else.

  ‘There is Sibelius,’ said Mrs. Morland with the air of one making a concession.

  ‘Bent thought of that,’ said Miss Hampton, ‘but it wouldn’t do. If England were in trouble it wouldn’t do any good to call a dog Elgar. Isn’t there anyone else?’

  Miss Phelps said she once went to a concert at Queen’s Hall where there was a piece called the Return of Somebody. She wasn’t musical, she added, but there was something in the piece that got her though she couldn’t explain why.

  ‘The awful thing is,’ said Mrs. Morland, in her tragedy voice, ‘that I am even worse off than you are, Miss Hampton. You know my heroine that I told you about; and now she may have to be Finnish. I couldn’t make her an Esthonian or a Latvian, because they haven’t enough appeal. My publisher wants to have my typescript by the end of January at the very latest. Are there any women’s names in Finland? And then it will probably be Jugo-Slavia after all.’

  But before these important questions could be threshed out, Geraldine, looking very sulky, said Mother said would they go and look at the embroideries in the dining-room, because if no one went Mme Brownscu would be so disappointed. Miss Hampton, stopping Simnet and his tray, said they must all have another sherry and then they’d go.

  ‘Well, here’s fun,’ said Miss Phelps. ‘And don’t forget that you are going to help us to move the Billy to the other end of the field to-morrow, Miss Hampton. He’s too strong for Mother and me.’

  ‘That’s because you wear those ridiculous trousers,’ said Miss Hampton, who was in high good humour about the billy goat and had long been meaning to speak her mind about the trousers.

  ‘I can’t think why you don’t wear them,’ said Miss Phelps. ‘They’re a wonderful economy. Two pairs last me a year, except for the few weeks of summer.’

  ‘Well, I know exactly what I’d look like,’ said Miss Hampton, ‘neither a man nor a woman.’

  And she stuck her monocle into one eye defiantly.

  ‘Well, that’s exactly what you look like now,’ said Mrs. Phelps, pot-valiant with sherry.

  Everyone held her breath expecting a first-class row, but Miss Hampton, taking the remark in very good part, laughed uproariously and told Miss Bent that Mrs. Phelps had put one over on them this time. Kate, who in the absence of Rose, and the thundercloud presence of Geraldine, had constituted herself a temporary daughter to Mrs. Birkett, then gently and firmly shepherded a section of the party across into the dining-room. Here a number of pieces of rather dirty embroidery on very inferior material were disposed on the dining-room table. They were all of unusual shapes and no one quite knew what they were meant for, or if they were meant to be something else. M. Brownscu was installed behind a table near the door with a pile of small change spread out before him, evidently ready to receive customers, while his wife, smoking cigarettes whose stubs Kate’s eye at once detected all over the carpet and furniture, stood ready to chaffer. Mrs. Phelps, who had decided to spend five shillings, picked up something that might have been a rather hideous collar and looked at it. On the collar was pinned a piece of paper bearing the inscription £15,000. She thought this must be a mistake, so she showed it to her daughter who was equally puzzled.

  ‘I say, Miss Hampton,’ said Miss Phelps, ‘do look at this. Mme Whoeveritis must be mad.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Miss Hampton, examining the paper. ‘Fifteen thousand Lydions—that’s the currency in Mixo-Lydia. About five shillings. But you’d better offer four.’

  Mrs. Phelps, who had bargained in every port where the British Navy is known, took the collar over to Mme Brownscu and said firmly, ‘Three and sixpence.’

  ‘You wish us to starve then?’ said Mme Brownscu throwing her cigarette on to the polished sideboard from which the anxious Kate rescued it. ‘It is not for amusing themselves that my compatriots work, it is for their bread. Fifteen thousand Lydions, that is to say five shillings sixpence or nearabouts.’

  ‘Three and ninepence,’ said Mrs. Phelps.

  Mme Brownscu, at last in her element, launched an attack on English hospitality which would so abuse penniless exiles as to make them sacrifice a piece of work, the fruit of months of patient toil, for five shillings and threepence. But Mrs. Phelps was as keen an amateur of chaffering as Mme Brownscu herself and for several minutes the battle hung suspended. Miss Hampton, who was prepared to buy with her usual generosity, came over to the chafferers, carrying a traycloth which looked a little less hideous and amateur than the other articles. Both buyer and seller had stuck for the moment, the one at four and threepence, the other at four and ninepence.

  ‘Time you settled a price,’ said Miss Hampton. ‘I drove a Red Cross Ambulance all over Mixo-Lydia in 1918. Know them all well. Give me the embroidery.’

  Mrs. Phelps, hypnotised, handed the collar to Miss Hampton, who slapping it down on the table said a few words in Mixo-Lydian. Mme Brownscu answered volubly in her native language and thrust the collar into Miss Hampton’s hands, adding to it a small square piece of embroidery in a primitive cross-stitch.

  ‘There you are,’ said Miss Hampton, handing the goods to Mrs. Phelps. ‘Four and sixpence and she is giving you the other bit for luck because you are the first purchaser. Czjrejok it is called.’

  Further incursions of guests now came into the room and under the influence of Mr. Birkett’s good sherry the horrid embroideries were snapped up at sums varying from 5,000 to 25,000 Lydions. Mme Brownscu kept a suspicious eye on purchasers and from time to time went to see that her husband was giving the right change. Miss Hampton, who had been back to the drawing-room and collected some more sherry, approached M. Brownscu and said a few jovial words in Mixo-Lydian.

  ‘Czy, pròvka, pròvka, pròvka,’ said M. Brownscu, huddling his sheepskin coat more tightly round him and looking at Miss Hampton with terror.

  ‘He expresses “No, never, never, never”,’ said his wife, kindly satisfying the curiosity of those present. ‘I shall tell you he was having frost-bitten feet in the Red Cross Ambulance and these English ladies were so good to him and give him a bath, mais ce n’est pas l’habitude du pays et cela lui a porté sur le foie. II a une santé qu’il faut ménager et depuis lors il a pris les infirmières anglaises en horreur. C’est un tic, mais que voulez-vous? C’est comme ça chez nous. We ‘ate what we do not like.’

  ‘Was anything wrong with the tea?’ asked kind Kate, anxiously.

  ‘HATE!’ said Mme Brownscu, so vehemently that Kate wished Everard were there to look after her.

  But Everard, who had come on later, was safely in the drawing-room, having a refreshing talk with Mr. Birkett and Mr. Bissell about the School Certificate examination, during which he and Mr. Birkett honestly tried to see why it was more important than birth, death, or marriage, while Mr. Bissell on his side did his very best to make allowance for the Capittleist point of view that if you had been at a private school (by which name he thought of what his
fellow-talkers called Public Schools) exams mysteriously didn’t matter, whereas every right-thinking person knew they were the whole end of education. But they got on very well and none of them were pleased when Mr. Hopkins, the Hosiers’ Boys Science Master, joined their party.

  ‘Have some sherry, Hopkins,’ said Mr. Birkett.

  Mr. Hopkins said sherry was for those who could afford it.

  ‘Well, I can afford it,’ said Mr. Birkett, ‘so have a glass. It’s quite dry.’

  Mr. Hopkins accepted a glass and drank it venomously.

  The Dean of Barchester, who had just arrived, came up to speak to Mr. Birkett, and Mr. Hopkins gave his gaiters a look of class hatred that should have burst all their buttons.

  ‘News looks bad, I’m afraid,’ said the Dean. ‘We can but hope in these dark days.’

  Mr. Birkett offered him some sherry.

  ‘Hope and trust,’ said the Dean, accepting it. ‘Finland is a small nation, but she will not lightly give up a freedom won at such cost from her powerful neighbour. I had forgotten how good your sherry is, Birkett. Yes; these are dark days and will be darker yet.’

  Everyone felt that this remark, though doubtless true, was not of a nature suited to a sherry party, for hope and trust, though admirable in themselves, are damping to the spirit. When we say everyone, we are only thinking of people we like, for Mr. Hopkins, the Adam’s apple in his skinny throat working violently with hatred of nearly everything, said hope and trust were all very well, but we should have made a pact with Moscow two years ago. He hoped, he said, to see the Red Army at Helsingfors within a week and the Hammer and Sickle floating over the whole of Finland.

  Everard Carter with deplorable levity said what a very good name the Hammer and Sickle would be for a pub.

  Mr. Needham who had driven the Dean and family over said, looking very hard at Mr. Hopkins, that if he saw a pub called the Hammer and Sickle he would give it a wide berth as the beer would probably be poisoned. He then blushed bright scarlet up to the roots of his fair hair and wondered if the Dean would be offended.

  ‘My dear Needham!’ said the Dean with a deprecating but on the whole not disapproving smile, ‘speaking as one who— —’

  The doctor’s wife said she thought the Russians drank vodka.

  ‘That, we are given to understand, is so,’ said the Dean, thus imparting a kind of benediction and at the same time showing the doctor’s wife that she had spoken out of place. ‘Speaking, as I was about to say, as one who knows well that beautiful country of forest and lakes,’ the Dean continued, ‘and has taken a deep interest in its language and culture, I feel we should all use the time-honoured if to our ears less euphonious name of Helsinki, in which I am sure Mr.— —?’

  He paused. His secretary, who was admirable at getting to know who everyone was, murmured, ‘Mr. Hopkins, science master of the Hosiers’ Boys Foundation School.’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ said the Dean. ‘I am sure that Mr. Hopkins, I think I have the name rightly, learned as he is in the exact sciences,’ and into these words the Dean rather unkindly managed to throw the whole contempt of a classical man for a subject that even Cambridge must be slightly ashamed of encouraging, ‘would agree with me that where philology leads, we must follow. I had myself the privilege of attending a Conference in Finland last summer and it was a privilege indeed. Our arrival at Helsinki, as I think,’ he added with a smile, ‘we have agreed to call it, on a fine June morning was an experience I shall never forget. Neither, though here I may be accused of very materialistic views, shall I forget the first meal we had on landing. When I tell you, Birkett— —’

  It was by now evident that what the Dean really wanted to do was to describe his six days in Finland. As respect for his cloth made it difficult to interrupt him, he was able to carry his hearers, by train and steamer, over the southern part of the country, and those who had not heard it before felt that it was so dull that they would almost prefer to hear yet once again how he went to Portugal the summer before.

  As for Mr. Hopkins, his rage cannot be expressed. Just when he had seen a chance of telling a group of influential, though of course absolutely uneducated and wrong-thinking men what they ought to think about Russia, a man who was no better than a Roman (for Mr. Hopkins was a loyal son of the brand of Undenomi-nationalism peculiar to his birthplace in Glamorganshire) was allowed to get away with the whole of the talk, simply because he wore gaiters. What was worse, he himself had been publicly convicted of using the bourgeois word Helsingfors, when heaven knew he had been saying Helsinki to himself for a considerable time. And Mr. Hopkins, on whom Mr. Birkett’s sherry had had an inflaming effect, expressed upon his features a scorn that should have withered everyone present. He would have gnashed his teeth with rage, but that his uppers were a bit loose and he didn’t like to spend any more money on the dentist. So he went into the hall where Simnet, who despised him, helped him into his coat with a deference that made Mr. Hopkins wish more than ever that England had made a Trade Pact with Russia, in which case (so he fondly thought) the Hosiers’ Boys would never have had to be evacuated to Southbridge and he would not have been thrown into a world where people read The Times as a matter of course and were bigoted, ignorant and stuck-up. He was about to shake any dust that Mrs. Birkett’s excellent head-housemaid had not taken up with the Hoover that morning from his feet when Miss Phelps, zealous as always in any cause that presented itself to her, saw him go past the dining-room door and advancing upon him in trousered majesty took him in tow and hauled him into the dining-room where we shall at present leave him.

  It must be stated with regret that no one in the drawing-room noticed his absence. The Dean, having got his audience back to Helsinki and on board the S.S. Porphyria, moved away and came face to face with Lydia Keith, who had only just arrived.

  ‘Hullo, Dr. Crawley,’ said Lydia, giving him one of her friendly and painful handshakes. ‘Let’s go and talk to Admiral Phelps and the Vicar. It’s about God Save the King and I know they’ll get it all wrong.’

  The Dean, who was very fond of Lydia and often felt as if she were one of his own daughters, though not so dull as some of them, was quite willing to do as she asked and following her stalwart lead came down like a shepherd on the fold upon the corner where the Vicar and his churchwarden were discussing for the third or fourth time the question of whether God Save the King was to be sung standing or kneeling. The Vicar would willingly have discussed subjects of more general or less doctrinal interest, but the Admiral was determined to win his pastor over to his way of thinking before the Church Council met, in which case he knew he could manage the rest of the members.

  If Lydia had hoped—and she probably had—that the Dean would suddenly burst in with bell, book and candle and settle the whole matter, she was not to be gratified. Dr. Crawley had no illusions as to the power of a Dean and while willing to listen to the arguments on both sides was not going to commit himself. But Lydia herself had no such scruples.

  ‘If you want to sing God Save the King, you want to sing it,’ she announced, ‘and if you kneel down your diaphragm is all squashed together and that’s where your voice comes from, at least your breath control does. And I think it’s disloyal not to stand up, don’t you, Admiral Phelps? If anyone didn’t stand up to sing God Save the King I’d think they were a Traitor,’ said Lydia defiantly.

  The Vicar, who did not know Lydia well and was rather terrified by her, said he was certain that nothing was further from any thought of disloyalty than the attitude of those who felt it incumbent upon them to kneel, but he must in all such matters be guided by his own conscience and the ruling of those set in authority over him.

  ‘If you mean the Bishop, you might as well say so,’ said Admiral Phelps. ‘We all know his views.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of the Bishop at all,’ said Lydia indignandy. ‘If you had read the Thirty-Nine Articles you would know that the Supreme Governor of the Church of England is the King, because it says so. At
any rate it says so in the Preface. And it says it again near the end, doesn’t it, Mr. Danby?’

  The Vicar, thus appealed to, had to admit that Lydia’s premises were correct.

  ‘Very well then. The King says people ought to stand up to sing God Save the King,’ said Lydia, ‘at least they always do stand up, so it comes to the same thing. I wouldn’t feel I was singing God Save the King at all if I knelt down.’

  ‘The Bishop of Barchester, while feeling that everyone should act according to his conscience, prefers it to be sung kneeling,’ said the Dean. ‘In the Cathedral we stand,’ he added in an unimportant voice.

  The Admiral, who knew, as did the Dean, that the Vicar of Southbridge hated his Bishop’s views on nearly every point (though not half so much as did his fellow-Vicar at Pomfret Madrigal), felt that everything was shaping as he would wish it and said no more. A voice behind Lydia said, ‘I didn’t know you knew the Thirty-Nine Articles, Lydia.’

  Lydia turned and saw her friend Noel Merton.

  ‘Where on earth did you come from, Noel?’ she asked.

  ‘In general,’ said Noel, ‘from I mayn’t say where, but in particular from the Deanery. I would have come to Northbridge,’ he added hastily, seeing a faint cloud of disappointment on Lydia’s face, ‘but I only knew late last night that I would be getting leave and I thought it might upset your mother. How is she?’

  Lydia said she was pretty well.

  ‘You wouldn’t care to have me for lunch to-morrow, would you?’ Noel asked.

  Lydia lifted troubled eyes to him.

  ‘Of course I’d care,’ she said, ‘but to-morrow’s my day at the evacuated children’s Communal Kitchen, and if one once begins changing— —’

  ‘I know,’ said Noel. ‘What time is your Kitchen over?’

  Lydia said one o’clock for the children, but the helpers usually hadn’t finished washing up till after half past.