Cheerfulness Breaks In

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘ “Darling”,’ Mrs. Birkett read. ‘ “I hope you and Daddy are frightfully well. It is marvelous here and Juan Robinson the one I said about is going to take me to Asturias Point to bathe. There is a marvelous hairdresser in Las Palombas and I am having my hair done in quite a new way. I went to have it set this morning and Pedro which is the one that does it wasn’t there so I had to wait and when he did come he was so late that I couldn’t stay. He said he had been looking at the ships which John says was too marvelous but I must say it was fouly dispiriting and I am going again to-morrow. John says he knows two officers on the Acilles and a lot of other ones so I hope they will come ashore. There is lovely dancing at a club called Mickey Mouse which seems to be the same word here. Give my love to Geraldine and Phillip and Geff and anyone else except the Pettinger.

  ‘ “With heaps of love from

  ‘ “Rose.” ’

  We must say, injustice to Mrs. Birkett, that although she thought her daughter’s letter slightly foolish when she read it to herself, she had quite underestimated its effect when read aloud and only her great courage bore her up to the end.

  ‘It isn’t very much,’ she said nervously, and no one had ever heard her speak nervously before, ‘but it does seem so interesting to know that Rose was at Las Palombas when that marvellous battle was going on and really might have seen it.’

  Her brief apology had given her guests time to recover themselves and they were all loud in their gratitude for this stirring account of one of England’s most heroic sea fights. Captain Fairweather said John must have been absolutely sick not to be in it and if it weren’t for the Barsetshires he wished he had gone into the Navy himself. Kate said it was dreadful to think of the mothers and families of the men that had been killed, because even if people were one’s enemies it was dreadful to think how unhappy they must be and she knew exactly what she would feel like if it was Bobbie. Everard blanched visibly at this vision of his son aged fifteen months gloriously killed in action. Captain Fairweather said By Jove, yes, Bobbie, and fell respectfully silent, so that Mrs. Morland, who had been rapidly visualising her explorer son transported by magic from a thousand miles in the interior of South America to the scene of the naval battle and there dying a hero’s death, her naval son who was on the China Station circling half the globe in a few days only to perish among shot and flame, her third son having unknown to her become a Secret Service Agent and arrived at Las Palombas in time to foil an enemy plot at the expense of his life, not to speak of Tony, now well known to be with friends in Gloucestershire for part of the Christmas Vacation, having got into the Trans-Atlantic Air Services and so to Las Palombas and a heroic if unspecified end, surprised herself and made everyone else very uncomfortable by beginning to blow her nose violently.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said weakly as, her eyes dimmed with tears, she groped on the floor for a hairpin, ‘but it’s all the glory and the misery mixed up together on the top of the Treat. I think I’d better go to bed.’

  At that moment Simnet came in to say that Miss Geraldine was to report at the Hospital as soon as possible because a number of German measles had come in. The message, he added, had just come on the phone. He then waited to ride the whirlwind if necessary, but Mr. Birkett said, ‘Thanks, Simnet,’ so he had to retire, baulked.

  ‘Oh, Mummy, there isn’t a train to-night,’ said Geraldine. ‘Could I have the car?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Daddy,’ said Mrs. Birkett. ‘I know we’re rather low on petrol till the end of the month. I wish Matron had let you know sooner and you could have got the 9.43.’

  ‘You could have the car,’ said Mr. Birkett doubtfully, ‘but there’ll have to be someone to bring it back. I might send down to Mason—no, he is away till Monday.’

  ‘I’ll run Geraldine over, sir,’ said Captain Fairweather. ‘I’ve got all the petrol in the Army. I’ll have her at the door in a moment, Geraldine, if you get your whatnots together. Coming too, Philip?’

  Philip said he would and in a few minutes the three went off. Everard and Kate left almost at once, as the thought of a naval battle fought thousands of miles away and nearly a fortnight ago had filled them both with vague fears, which neither of them would have acknowledged to the other, as to the safety of Bobbie Carter, now asleep like a rose-petal jelly in his warm cot. Mrs. Morland retired to sublimate her feelings in her novel before she went to bed and the Birketts were able to sit and read in peace, a luxury in which they rarely indulged.

  ‘Look here, Geraldine,’ said Captain Fairweather as they were nearing Barchester, Geraldine beside him and Philip in the back seat, ‘don’t worry about things.’

  Geraldine sniffed loudly and gratefully.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Captain Fairweather, apparently quite satisfied with her response. ‘And if you need anyone, I mean someone that isn’t your own family, to do anything for you, I can always wangle some leave as long as I’m in England.’

  Geraldine made a kind of mumbling noise, choked with her handkerchief.

  ‘After all,’ continued Captain Fairweather, conversationally, ‘damn that fellow, the police ought to arrest him with headlights like that, we’ve known each other quite a long time and John being married to Rose makes me your next of kin, or as near as. So if anyone bothers you, just write to me and I’ll turn up and lay him out. Do I go by Foregate or by Challoner Street?’

  ‘Challoner Street and then round by the Plough,’ said Geraldine, ‘and it’s angelic of you, Geoff, and I have been so miserable.’

  ‘Of course you have,’ said Captain Fairweather. ‘That’s why I mentioned it. Here we are. Get out, Philip.’

  Philip got out and strolled round to inspect the rear light of the car.

  ‘Listen,’ said Captain Fairweather. ‘Do you care for anyone? I don’t mean that little sweep—that was only a mistake. I mean anyone real?’

  Geraldine shook her head violently.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Captain Fairweather. ‘Then you’d better get used to liking me. You are too silly to go about alone. Not even as much sense as Rose,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘It’s angelic of you, Geoff,’ said Geraldine.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Captain Fairweather, giving her a hearty hug with his left arm. ‘We’ll probably get married, come the peace; or before that if it doesn’t. Now you go on nursing and let me know anything you want. Is that fixed?’

  ‘Thank you a million times,’ said Geraldine earnestly, as she got out of the car. ‘And I will try to be good.’

  ‘You’ll be good all right,’ said Captain Fairweather very kindly.

  Geraldine ran up the steps to the nurses’ entrance and was engulfed by the hospital. Philip came back and took his seat beside Captain Fairweather, who drove back at excessive speed, singing a cheerful song and vouchsafing no explanation to Philip, who did not need any. When they got to the Carters’ House Captain Fairweather told Philip that he was going over to the Birketts for a few moments and vanished into the darkness.

  The Birketts were surprised by the return of Geraldine’s escort and at once jumped to the conclusion that there had been an accident and Geraldine was dead and Captain Fairweather had come, singularly calm and unscathed, to tell them so.

  ‘Sorry to barge in, sir,’ said Captain Fairweather ‘but I thought you’d like to know I landed Geraldine at the Hospital all right. She’s got my address and if she wants me I’ll manage to get over at almost any time.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, Geoff,’ said Mrs. Birkett, wondering.

  ‘Being almost one of the family, with John and Rose married,’ said Captain Fairweather, ‘I don’t think it would be a bad plan if Geraldine and I got married. I just thought I’d break it to you.’

  As his future parents-in-law appeared to be struck all of a heap, he continued, standing over them with a pleasant impression of self-reliance and kindness,

  ‘She needs someone to look after her. That little blighter Wa
rbury won’t bother her again. I’m not as well off as John, because Aunt Emma didn’t leave me anything, but I’ll have a bit when Uncle Henry dies and the doctors have been saying for four years that it wouldn’t be long. So if you don’t want to turn me down, we might take that as settled.’

  The Birketts were so taken aback by this totally unexpected development that they were bereft of speech, till Mrs. Birkett recovered herself enough to ask weakly if Geraldine knew.

  ‘She knows all right,’ said Captain Fairweather. ‘I gave her the idea and it’ll soak in all right. She can get married whenever she likes. I should say before I get sent abroad would be better than after, because one never knows if one will come back.’

  By this time his shock tactics had reduced Mr. and Mrs. Birkett to such a state of imbecility that they would have agreed equally to marriage by special licence on the following morning or an engagement lasting ten years. When they compared notes afterwards they found that nothing better than tags from Victorian novels had floated into their minds, Mr. Birkett having with difficulty subdued his inclination to say, ‘Bless you, my boy; and may she make you happy,’ and Mrs. Birkett having an almost irresistible impulse to say that she felt she was not losing a daughter, but gaining a son. Both were a little ashamed to discover that cliché can be the best expression of emotion and both secretly regretted that they had not had the fun of giving vent to it.

  Mrs. Birkett was the first to pull herself together.

  ‘It seems so sudden, Geoff,’ she said, reflecting even as the words left her mouth that it was rather the affianced than the affianced’s mother who ought to use those time-consecrated words, ‘but I’m sure Geraldine will be very happy with you and I can really think of nothing nicer.’

  ‘Well, it surprised me as much as it surprised you,’ said Captain Fairweather with great candour, ‘but when I saw that little swine frightening Geraldine I thought the Barsetshires ought to do something about it. Anyway I’ve known her since I was a kid—and she was a pretty ghastly kid herself,’ said the gallant Captain meditatively, ‘so we ought to make a do of it. John will be pleased. He likes Geraldine.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Birkett, determined to offer all she had to give, ‘there is something in Rose’s letter that you’d like to hear, Geoff, but I didn’t read it aloud. Wait a minute.’

  She went to her writing-table, found Rose’s letter and handed it to Captain Fairweather, pointing to the last paragraph. Captain Fairweather read the following words.

  ‘P.S. I don’t remember if I said in my last letter, but I’m going to have a baby in August. It seemed a bit dispiriting at first but now I think it’s absolutely marvelous and he is to be William after Daddy Geffrey after Geff or if it’s twins Amy after you Kate because of Kate. The Dr. which is Juan Robinson’s father I said about says be sensible but have a good time isn’t it marvelous With heaps of love from Rose.’

  Captain Fairweather grinned from ear to ear and handed the letter back to Mrs. Birkett.

  ‘Jolly good,’ he remarked, ‘I didn’t quite get it all the first time, but I see what she means. We’ll call ours Rose, or if he’s a boy John. Well, I must be getting along. Thanks most awfully for the Christmas Treat and dinner and everything, Mrs. Birkett. Good night, sir.’

  He departed, leaving the Birketts shattered, but on the whole content. Though neither of them would have said it for worlds, the prospect of their younger daughter being married filled them with a sense of relief, only comparable to that which they had felt when Rose was safely off their hands. They were good parents and would rather have gone on putting up with Geraldine than seen her married to the Warbury of her choice, though they knew that if she had wanted it they were powerless to prevent her. But to think of her in the reliable keeping of Fairweather Senior, who (and though one should not think of such things they are of the utmost importance) would not be badly off, was as good as having a hot bath and a large tea after a long walk in the rain. As for the possibilities, the probabilities, of some quick tragedy cutting across Geoff and Geraldine’s life, on these it was worse than useless to brood and from them they resolutely turned their minds.

  On his return to Mr. Carter’s House, Captain Fairweather found his host and hostess and Philip Winter very comfortable in the study, with a large fire and pipes and drinks. From what Philip had told them the Carters were not unprepared for Captain Fairweather’s news, but they managed to receive it as a complete surprise and with far more outward manifestations of joy than the Birketts had shown. When Kate went to bed the two soldiers fell into army talk, of which Everard took advantage to finish the House reports. At a quarter to twelve he had signed the last and when he had put them into their envelopes he got up and stretched himself.

  ‘I am sorry, Everard,’ said Philip, conscience-stricken. ‘I had forgotten you were alive.’

  ‘But I am,’ said Everard, sitting down in a large chair by the fire. ‘It was pleasantly like old days to hear you talking, Philip.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Philip, whose conscience appeared to be rearing its head in more directions than one, ‘why you didn’t kick me out of the House, Everard. I haven’t a great opinion of myself now, but when I think what a frightful, blethering, Communist nuisance I was, with every antenna, if that word has a singular, out to find offence and take it, I feel I ought to be condemned to live in the London School of Economics for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You weren’t too bad,’ said Everard. ‘Do you remember when you accused Swan of looking at you through his spectacles?’

  ‘That boy had a devilish and subtle mind,’ said Philip. ‘I still believe that he forced his mother to buy those spectacles so that he could look at me through them. Where is he?’

  ‘Cambridge,’ said Everard, ‘my old college. He gets called up next month.’

  ‘I think, sir,’ said Captain Fairweather, ‘it’s almost rottener for schoolmasters than anyone. I mean all these youngsters getting called up.’

  ‘That’s nice of you, Geoff,’ said Everard. ‘It takes the heart out of one sometimes. But it isn’t one’s own body that is going to be blown up or drowned, and one has no right to such damned sensibility about things. It doesn’t help. One can’t help envying Swan and all the others. If only there were something to do. Anything but schoolmastering; keeping safe.’

  Philip, in all his experience of Everard had never heard him speak with such impatience and realised, with the sensitiveness that had formerly made him such a nuisance to himself and his colleagues, how much Everard, and thousands of men of his age, in his position, might be suffering; but found nothing to say.

  Captain Fairweather with the patience that the good professional fighter has for the civilian said:

  ‘It’s rotten for you, sir. That’s where fellows that aren’t brainy like John and me are so lucky. I expect you brood a lot. I’ve noticed that pretty well everyone wants to be doing something different. If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, I think it’s a jolly good job. I mean looking after all these kids. Lots of our fellows have got brothers or nephews or cousins here and they’re all glad to think of the kids having a good time. That’s thanks to you and old Pa Birky and the rest, sir. I admit we get most of the fun, but that’s our job. And we don’t have all your troubles with rationing and evacuees. I can tell you one sometimes feels a bit ashamed with nothing to worry about and all you people sweating away teaching and running the games and the exams. It’s really a frightfully decent show, sir.’

  He was then afraid that he had talked too much, shook hands violently and went off to bed, where he fell asleep at once and to Kate’s intense pleasure did not come down to breakfast till ten o’clock.

  Everard and Philip left alone looked at each other.

  ‘That’s a good boy,’ said Philip. ‘Geraldine’s in luck. He sees straight, which is more than the brainy ones as he calls them can always do. I suppose I’m a bit of a giddy harumfrodite, myself; soldier and schoolmaster too. You know, Everard, you�
�re an extraordinarily good fellow yourself, though severely handicapped by brains.’

  ‘To think that I should live to hear my Junior Housemaster talk like that to me,’ said Everard. ‘Signs of the times. You go up and I’ll put out the lights.’

  CHAPTER XIII

  BRIEF WINTER INTERLUDE

  TWO days after Christmas it began to snow in Barsetshire. By the end of the next week the whole county was one vast skating rink on which men, women, horses, motors, lorries and bicycles slipped and slithered and swore. The Hosiers’ Boys, who had never seen a country winter before, went about with grateful hearts for benefits conferred. The river rose and flooded the cricket ground a foot deep, so that the Hosiers’ Boys had the supreme bliss of rowing on it on a Friday and skating on it on a Saturday. Mr. Birkett had holes punched in an old boiler and turned it into a brazier which the Hosiers’ Boys kept supplied with wood from Thumble Coppice. The skaters, who came in dozens from the neighbourhood, warmed their hands and feet at its glow and gratefully drank hot soup which Mrs. Birkett and Mrs. Morland brought down in fish kettles and heated. Mrs. Phelps suddenly showed herself a first-class skater and for once justifying her trousers and lumber jacket performed the most dazzling evolutions with Everard Carter. Kate brought Bobbie down in his perambulator, and as he slept the whole time he was considered to have enjoyed himself very much and shown great intelligence. All the evacuees slid in one corner, threw snowballs at each other with uncertain aim, got wet through twice a day, were smacked, dried and put to bed by their foster mothers and returned next day as full of zeal as ever. Manners, the nicest of the Hosiers’ Boys, made with the assistance of Edward the odd man a wooden sledge, upon which he gave rides to the children below school age.