To these beautiful words, Sister Mary Joseph’s answer was that the children had had a very pleasant afternoon, accompanied by a calm look which conveyed to Mrs. Warbury that she, Sister Mary Joseph, could give pleasure to anyone at any moment by simply existing and that, being always dressed in an extremely becoming uniform, she never needed to think of what effect she was making. She then gently moved a step aside and replaced a pink bow in one of her children’s hair. Mrs. Warbury, for whom one may be a little sorry, then tried to talk to Mrs. Bissell and to Miss Carmichael of St. Bathos School, but finding it somehow impossible to condescend to either of them gave it up as a bad job and floated graciously towards her son and Geraldine. Geraldine, hoping to propitiate her soul’s idol, said how lovely it would be if he could make a film of the entertainment to which young Mr. Warbury crushingly replied that there was enough junk on the market as it was.
As if the Warburys were not bad enough, Mme Brownscu chose this moment to force her way through the crowd, carrying a large wooden box. As she had not been invited no one was surprised or pleased to see her, but Kate, who simply could not help being kind, received her beside the Christmas Tree and said what a pity she hadn’t come before to see the children at tea.
‘I do not come because I am bringing something for you,’ said Mme Brownscu. ‘You English do not understand Christmas, which is a strongly religious festival. In Mixo-Lydia our peasants each slaughter a goose, which is eaten by all, and then they go to church.’
Kate said in England we usually went to church in the morning and had a goose, or more often a turkey, for lunch, so it was very nice to think that the Mixo-Lydians did the same sort of thing.
‘But I shall show you what it is to make a real Christmas,’ said Mme Brownscu, ignoring Kate. And thereupon she opened the box and placed it on a chair. It contained a small crèche with brightly painted paper figures of the Virgin and Child, Joseph, kings, shepherds and angels. On each side of it was a fat candle stump. These Mme Brownscu lighted.
Even the cheapest crèche at Christmas time sends a prickle up and down one’s spine and into one’s throat. Kate and her helpers found themselves almost gulping at the sight of the two flames illuminating the pretty, touching toy.
‘So. Now is the devil driven away,’ said Mme Brownscu with great complacency.
Such of the children as were near crowded round to look.
‘Oh, Mrs. Bissell,’ said Kate. ‘The doll on the top of the Christmas Tree.’
Mrs. Bissell, again calming the tumult by her extraordinary power, announced that the youngest girl present was to have the doll, which Miss Phelps got down from the tree. To avoid complications Mrs. Bissell had made previous inquiries in all four schools and ascertained that Patricia O’Rourke of St. Quantock’s was the youngest girl at the party. Sister Mary Joseph, who had been primed by Mrs Bissell, drew forward a little girl in a stiff pink organdie frock with an enchanting face, guiltless of all expression except greed and bewilderment, and a mop of fair curls. Miss Phelps put the doll into her arms and Sister Mary Joseph said thank you for her, as she was too shy to speak. The little girl stood by the crèche hugging her silver-clothed doll with its uninteresting china face and its crown and star.
‘What is it, Patricia?’ said Sister Mary Joseph, who saw her rather than heard her say something. She stooped and listened.
‘She wants to know if it is the Holy Virgin,’ said Sister Mary Joseph, smiling kindly down at her charge.
Mr. Hedgebottom, who was not looking at the crèche, as he afterwards explained to one of his assistant masters, but just happened to be there, heard the remark and looked at Sister Mary Joseph with all the gall of which his communist face was capable, and could barely control himself before such a hideous example of Mariolatry. At that moment one of his young scholars, a promising lad of nine or ten, pointed a very dirty sticky finger at the crèche and said in a loud voice, ‘What’s that?’
Sister Mary Joseph was human, but she behaved very well. She merely cast on the questioner a look of such compassion that Mr. Hedgebottom nearly burst. For the first time in his painstaking and unpleasant life he saw that entire ignorance of what he called fetishism had publicly humiliated him in the person of one of his most promising scholars and he clashed his uppers and unders together with rage, resolving to put his whole school through a course of religious teaching, of course from a purely economic and anti-Christian point of view, so that they should not let him down again in public. To add to his humiliation, Mr. Simon of the Pocklington Road School and Miss Carmichael of St. Bathos had been close by and witnessed his discomfiture, the one from a Baptist, the other from a C. of E. point of view, and though Mr. Hedgebottom bitterly despised them both, he would have liked them to be somewhere else.
Mrs. Warbury who was just about to go as no one paid any attention to her, saw two officers come into the gymnasium and postponed her departure, not knowing that they were nothing more romantic than Philip Winter and Captain Fairweather who had basely gone for a long walk instead of helping with the treat and were now making a belated appearance hoping to acquire merit. Geraldine, who was desperately trying to entertain young Mr. Warbury, and had almost given up any hope of having a few kind words from him, pounced on her old friends and offered them up to her idol.
‘Oh, Fritz,’ she said, ‘this is Philip Winter and Geoff Fairweather. Fritz makes the most marvellous films.’
‘I suppose I ought to salute your friends,’ said Mr. Warbury in a horrid way.
Philip and Captain Fairweather said in a general way what a ripping show it was.
‘Stinking, if you ask me, and in every sense of the word,’ said young Mr. Warbury, laughing at his own wit.
Philip, who had learnt a great deal about controlling his temper since the days when he was Junior Classics Master and rather a nuisance to his colleagues, said to Geraldine that all the children seemed very happy.
‘Happy!’ said young Mr. Warbury. ‘The whole thing is revolting. A lot of women working themselves up and playing at being Lady Bountifuls. Come and have a drink whatever your names are.’
‘No thanks,’ said Philip.
‘Have it your own way,’ said young Mr. Warbury. ‘Are you coming to see the studio, Geraldine, or won’t Matron let you?’
Poor Geraldine, with the earth rocking under her feet, said she’d love to come, but every time she rang up he was out or busy.
‘Ring again next week,’ said Mr. Warbury. ‘I should say I was busy. Some of you girls have an easy time running about the hospitals. My God, this is a rotten war. I’m getting a permit to go to America and I’ll have something to say about England when I get there.’
Anyone less silly than Geraldine would have realised that young Mr. Warbury must have had a drink or two before he came, which was at once apparent to Philip and Captain Fairweather. Geraldine went very pale and her eyes filled with tears, because she suddenly saw young Mr. Warbury exactly as he was and wished she could die at that very moment and be buried anonymously. Captain Fairweather, who had known her for a long time, in fact since he was in the Junior School, did not understand all her feelings, but her face and Mr. Warbury’s revolting manners were enough for him. He had always been a good boxer and nothing would have given him more pleasure than to land Mr. Warbury one on the chin, but a Christmas Treat for children, nuns, mothers, teachers and children below school age did not seem the right place to do it. He gripped Mr. Warbury powerfully by the arm and led him in ominous silence towards the exit.
‘Don’t do that,’ said young Mr. Warbury shrilly.
‘Don’t open your filthy little mouth again,’ said Captain Fairweather. ‘Show me your car.’
‘Mother!’ said Mr. Warbury.
‘I’ll find your mother,’ said Philip Winter, who was acting as escort on the other side. ‘Put him in the car, Geoff, and keep him there and I’ll tell Mrs. Warbury he’s sick. It’s all right, Geraldine,’ he added, seeing her expression of misery and fright. ‘Geoff
won’t hurt him.’
He then made his way to where Mrs. Warbury was boring Mrs. Birkett and Mrs. Morland dreadfully and told her that her son did not feel very well and was waiting for her in the car.
‘You will forgive me then if I fly,’ said Mrs. Warbury. ‘And it may be a kind of good-bye. I believe we are off to America almost at once. Oscar and Fritz are so sensitive and really England is no place to live in now. But you must come and have a drink before we go. Come on Friday, just a few old friends.’
Mrs. Birkett said she was afraid she and her husband were engaged.
‘Then you must come, Mrs. Morland,’ said Mrs. Warbury graciously. ‘There are some men coming that it would be useful for you to meet. Klaus Klaw-hammer is one of New York’s brightest literary agents and he would do quite a lot for you if you got on well with him.’
Mrs. Morland had no pride at all, but she had a violent prejudice against agents, whom she had once described as being paid to make bad blood between authors and publishers, a point of view that had enchanted her own publisher Adrian Coates. Also she disliked Mrs. Warbury very much, and had indeed already cast her in her mind as the she-villain for one of her short stories that people liked so much. And all these feelings combined made her go very pink and talk with more vagueness than ever as she said,
‘Thank you so much, but I am really engaged that day, because of Mrs. Keith’s working party. And of course one can’t help being English and I do think England is nicer, even when it is awful, than anywhere else. And as a matter of fact I deal directly with my American publisher who seems very nice, so thank you so much but I must say no thank you.’
She then pushed some hairpins madly into her head and retired again to the washing up.
Mrs. Warbury, quite unabashed, gathered up her furs and her pearls and floated languidly after Philip to the exit. Here her escort produced a small torch and lighted her to the enormous car, in one corner of which young Mr. Warbury was sitting very cross and rather afraid, while Captain Fairweather and the chauffeur, who turned out to be an ex-corporal in the Barsetshires, talked about the difficulty of getting to America in safety, not without reference to the chauffeur’s young master who could have been seen going visibly greener if there had been any light to see him by.
‘Is it one of your heads again, my poor lamb?’ said Mrs. Warbury to the corner in which her son was huddled. ‘How nice of you boys to look after him. Come along and have a drink and then I’ll run you home. There’s always enough petrol for little me.’
Young Mr. Warbury could have killed his mother for this, but Captain Fairweather, answering rather untruthfully for himself and Philip, said they had to get back to camp.
‘You poor boys,’ said Mrs. Warbury, from the depth of the car and a fur rug. ‘What a pity you didn’t go to America before all this trouble, or get into a reserved occupation like Fritz. Are you sure you won’t come and have a short one?’
But both officers declined her offer. Under cover of the darkness Captain Fairweather slipped half a crown into the chauffeur’s hand, who speaking out of the side of his mouth expressed his opinion of what was inside the car and hoped the Captain would get a good smack at Jerry, adding that he was going into munitions himself that day fortnight and hoped the new chauffeur would drive all the family into a ditch. Upon which hope he drove away and Philip and Captain Fairweather returned to the gymnasium.
Here the party was rapidly thinning. Sister Mary Joseph with her flock had already gone, after thanking all the hostesses in a way that made them feel that they had on the whole been kindly and impartially weighed and found wanting. Mr. Hedgebottom and Mr. Simon were shepherding the last of their boys away from the Christmas Tree. Miss Carmichael, though tired, remembered that C. of E. gives one social status and was slightly outstaying her welcome.
‘Did you hear that poor little lad from the Hiram Road School?’ she said to Mme Brownscu, who was packing up the crèche. ‘Fancy not knowing what a crèche was. It does seem shocking to bring up all those lads like little heathen. It hardly seems feasible in a Christian country.’
‘To us,’ said Mme Brownscu, hitching her leopard-skin coat round her preparatory to her departure, ‘England is not Christian. Mixo-Lydia which is a strongly dévot—devoted country you would say—says Pouf of this religion which is all wrong. As well might you all be Yews. Grzány provk hadjda.’
Her last words were all the more terrifying as neither Miss Carmichael nor any of the helpers who were near had the faintest idea what they meant, nor indeed have we ourselves. Mrs. Bissell, who having once placed Mme Brownscu in her mind could not be troubled to reconsider her, said good-bye and hoped that all the poor Russians were well, at which and by Mrs. Bissell’s attitude of calm certitude, Mme Brownscu was so flabbergasted that she was for once deprived of the power of speech and went back to Mixo-Lydian House where she picked a frightful quarrel with the unhappy M. Brownscu that raged far into the night, with enthusiastic support on both sides from all her compatriots.
Miss Carmichael, who was not very quick in the uptake, suddenly realised that Mme Brownscu had compared the C. of E. with the Jewish faith and hurriedly collecting her scholars and teachers went off in a huff.
The helpers all looked at each other.
‘I think, Mrs. Carter,’ said Mrs. Bissell, ‘that we had better clear up at once. The longer you put anything off the longer it takes, and I must be back by half-past seven as Mrs. Dingle has to go and get her husband’s supper.’
Accordingly the whole band, including Philip Winter, Captain Fairweather and the Hosiers’ Boys, set to and by ten minutes past seven the débris had all been removed, the decorations taken down, the chairs stacked ready for removal, the Christmas Tree undressed and the floor swept clean. Mrs. and Miss Phelps took the tea-urns back to the British Legion in their little car. Miss Hampton and Miss Bent with Mannerheim escorted Mrs. Bissell to Maria Cottage, stopping on the way at the Red Lion for a short one, of which Mrs. Bissell with inalterable placidity also partook.
By previous arrangement the Carters and their guests were to come up to the Headmaster’s House for dinner, leaving Everard’s House free for a gigantic feast with which Matron proposed to regale the Hosiers’ Boys as a tribute of gratitude for their help. Mrs. Birkett had said no one must think of dressing, so they all walked up to the School together.
CHAPTER XII
NEWS OF THE FLEET
AT first everyone was rather tired, but under the influence of Mrs. Birkett’s good food and Mr. Birkett’s good drink they began to recover and by half-past nine, when they were comfortably in the drawing-room, they had all forgotten the major horrors of war as exemplified in the afternoon’s Treat. All but Geraldine. First love is an astounding experience and if the object happens to be totally unworthy and the love not really love at all, it makes little difference to the intensity or the pain. Geraldine, owing to seeing so much of her sister Rose, had long despised the tender passion. Her thoughts had been more of things of the intellect, such as being fairly good at maths and the horribleness of Miss Pettinger and the odiousness of Matron, and how one’s parents would ask questions and expect answers. Then suddenly young Mr. Warbury had come into her life, with his cheap assurance and his flashy good looks, and all was up with her. It must in fairness be said that young Mr. Warbury had given her no encouragement at all beyond being rather rude and offhand, but passion is self-nourished. Geraldine was not so silly as her sister, but far less dashing. Where Rose would have forced her way, quite unconscious that anyone could be busy, into the film studios and made Mr. Warbury take her out to dinner and dancing, and then forgotten him after a week for a newer swain, Geraldine was too timid in her love to assert herself at all. And as Mr. Warbury was not in the least interested in her it is not surprising that she got no further. She might have gone on like this for months, making a dejected doormat of herself before the man of her choice and blighting her home by moods of gloom, but for the events of the afternoon. She had seen
young Mr. Warbury beside Philip and Geoff, who were such old friends that she never thought about them, and suddenly she had seen that he was rude and no gentleman. At the sight her whole upbringing asserted itself and with violent revulsion she hated first him, and then far, far more bitterly, herself. How deeply did she wish that Matron had not given her twenty-four hours’ leave and that she could rush back to the hospital and there busy herself in swabs and bandages, but her parents expected her to stay the night and if she tried to alter her plans they would Ask Questions. And with these bitter thoughts it was all she could do to keep from crying. Her mother did notice her dejection and would dearly have liked to comfort her, but she knew her position too well and had to content herself with an occasional anxious glance in her daughter’s direction which made that unhappy creature wish that Mummy had never been born or that she herself were dead. The only piece of luck in the whole evening was that she sat at dinner between Philip and Captain Fairweather, who both had a fair idea of what had been happening and kept up a conversation under cover of which Geraldine could gulp almost unnoticed.
As was but natural Mrs. Birkett talked a good deal about Rose and her letters. As was also but natural, Captain Fairweather had heard nothing from his brother since the wedding, had every confidence in his well-being, and was pleased to hear that he and Rose were enjoying Las Palombas.
‘We had a letter from Rose,’ said Mrs. Birkett, ‘all about the naval battle. Would you like to see it, Geoff?’
Captain Fairweather said old John must have been pretty sick not to be in it and he’d love to hear. Mr. Birkett looked as if he did not particularly want to hear it, but said nothing. Mrs. Birkett went to her writing-table and brought back a letter in Rose’s well-known dashing handwriting, twenty-five words of which filled the largest sheet of paper.
‘If I read it aloud, everyone could hear it,’ she said, already a little nervous about its effect and perhaps feeling that her elder daughter’s idiosyncrasies of spelling would be less noticeable if orally transmitted. Captain Fairweather said that would be splendid.
Cheerfulness Breaks In Page 22