The Brontes Went to Woolworths

by Rachel Ferguson

  ‘M’m . . . I see what you mean, but look here, Mill, supposing – – we did act in the manner you suggest . . . what should we say?’

  ‘That does need thinking out, I admit.’

  ‘Apparently, it must be something purely fantastic . . . could one, for instance, bid Miss Deirdre and Sheil to tea in Westminster Hall, in fancy dress? Or to play rounders in the Inner Temple with Hewart, and perhaps Eve and Scrutton?’ ‘Hah! You old pet ! No, that isn’t quite the line to take . . . Isn’t it a difficult game, Herb’?’

  ‘Terribly, terribly.’

  The lights struck his hair to silver as he pondered.

  16

  ‘How now, you secret, dark and midnight hag,’ I said, groping my way into the night nursery.

  ‘Oh, Deir’, I’m so more than glad it’s you!’

  I sat down near her, on the bed. ‘You’ve been getting wrong with La Martin.’

  ‘I only said I wanted Freddie Pipson to come and sleep with me. Don’t you think he’d be comforting?’

  ‘Um . . . I see what you mean,’ I admitted, cautiously. Pipson’s erstwhile rivals, a furry cat with one glass eye missing and a rabbit lined at salient points with pink velvet, were cast upon the floor. The cat had belonged to me; I’d taken it to bed every night until I was past thirteen. ‘But you’d better only say that kind of thing to us,’ I suggested.

  ‘Why? Is it rude?’

  ‘A little bit. And La Martin isn’t us-ish enough to understand, is she?’

  ‘No! She talked as though I’d made a heenious offence.’

  (The hell she did ). ‘Why did you want Freddie?’

  ‘It’s because of Toddy. He used to come in and sit on the bed and hug me. But he wouldn’t, now.’

  ‘Hey! Why not?’

  ‘He doesn’t care for me any more. He’s different ! He was “how do you do” at tea.’ A warm tear splashed on to my hand. I thought rapidly. ‘Perhaps he was afraid Mildred would be jealous?’

  ‘It wasn’t that. He could have made everything heavenly and he didn’t. He’s just a stupid old man!’ She nearly shouted.

  ‘Sheil! Toddy? Why, he’s a darling!’ But, again, I knew what she meant. ‘Now look here, minx and viperous vixen and very dirty doggess,’ I said, ‘you’re plain cross. You love Toddy ’ ‘I don’t, now.’

  ‘ and you’re being mean-pigs to him. What d’you think he’d say if he knew you’d thrown him over on the strength of one piffling tea-party?’ This seemed to be sinking in, and I laboured on. ‘He hasn’t any s.’s or d.’s, and we’ve all agreed he’d love them, so can’t we be d.’s?’

  ‘But they’re so dull!’

  ‘They needn’t be. Daddy never found us dull, and he was no end of a good fella. He used to say that for a young woman I was the nicest man he knew, and once when Katrine had chickenpox he put an O’Cedar mop on his head and imitated Martin Harvey far, far better thinging.’

  ‘Would he have liked me, do you think?’

  ‘My darling, don’t do the Little Orphan Annie on me. It doesn’t suit you a bit. You know he liked you.’ I was singularly relieved to hear the little crow of laughter that struggled up. ‘And don’t forget: Toddy is a darling. He’s fond of you, by the way.’

  ‘Does he love you, Deir’?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Sheil.’

  ‘Oh, when is he going to begin to love us again?’

  I’m rather wondering that, too.

  Someone was coming upstairs in a hurry, and mother stood in the doorway and snapped on the light. She had that look on her face which made one tense, a suppressed expression that Katrine and I associated with trouble.

  ‘Toddy’s rung up! ’

  ‘What does he seem to want?’ I said, relaxing, and surprised at her tactlessness. I tipped her the face that meant family complication, and, for once, she failed to take me up. ‘He’s on the phone now.’

  ‘Tell him it’s time he was in bed,’ I answered, underlining the peevish note. ‘Saffy’s been upstairs ten minutes.’

  ‘Is Polly out?’ asked Sheil faintly.

  ‘Yes, a stuck dinner at the Berkeley with some ’

  ‘Come along!’ and mother fairly pulled at us, seizing any part of one that offered a purchase.

  ‘What you mean?’ I was cross with tiredness; the teaparty and Sheil had drained me. Mother began to put on her Martinesque face, smiling self-consciously.

  ‘He really has rung up. He wants to speak to you or Sheil.’ ‘Whaaat? ’ ‘Hurry, darling.’

  ‘You don’t mean it!’

  We plucked Sheil out of bed, and then – she jibbed; outfaced us, valiant, crumpled, tearful. And frightened. I saw the battle and bewilderment in her eyes as mother’s manner penetrated.

  ‘You go. We’ll follow,’ said mother’s jerk of the head.

  ‘Hullo’ . . . I said.

  ‘Ah, Miss Carne, is that you?’

  ‘It’s – it’s Miss Deirdre Carne speaking.’

  ‘Will you think me very tiresome if I ask you to send a message to Sheil?’

  ‘Oh, no, no ’

  ‘Well . . . h’m! I stupidly forgot to mention this afternoon that Mathewson – in short, he most kindly charged himself with the selection of my food for luncheon to-day. It was – um – a very trying case, and he felt that I needed something rather better than the fare supplied.’

  ‘How nice of him! But then, he is a dear.’

  ‘Nice . . . m’m . . . yes, he is a very capital fellow. So he had a most excellent feast dispatched from Hampton Court Palace, concluding with grapes from the great vine.’

  ‘Oh no, Sir Herbert! He never did that. Tit-bits from Simpsons’ or the Cock Tavern, perhaps, but not George Five’s grapes.’

  ‘Oh dear . . . I see.’

  Rapidly I glanced up the stairs, then put my mouth close to the transmitter. ‘Sir Herbert, I can’t talk very loudly – can you hear?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes.’

  ‘Then, that’s not quite the right thing. I mean, Sheil knows as well as I do that Hampton Court is wrong. Look . . . tell her about what really happens. Anything. It’s the only way, now. If you have biscuits beside your bed at night, and whether you travel First, and things like that. You see, if it comes to that, we’re all bursting to know, too!’

  ‘Then, I’m not quite outside the pale?’

  ‘I should say not!’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw the descending procession. Oh well, neck or nothing. ‘Here’s Sheil, Toddy,’ I announced, and was too excited to feel sick. The look on Sheil’s face partly rewarded me. I put the receiver in her hand. (‘Say “Hullo”.’)

  ‘Hullo,’ admitted Sheil cautiously.

  ‘My dear, have I brought you out of bed?’

  ‘Yes. How do you do, Sir Herbert?’ (Damn all children). ‘“Sir Herbert”? What do you mean?’ At the offended tone Sheil brightened. ‘How do you do, Toddy?’

  ‘I’ve just had a whisky and soda, and I’m off to bed. Lady Mildred had one too.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘M’yes. She’s been reading, and then we talked.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And then Ethel came in and put the dog out.’

  ‘Who’s Ethel?’

  ‘Our parlourmaid. She gets fifty-five pounds a year.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. I don’t mind about that. You mean the Henderson one?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Henderson . . . when am I going to see you again, Sheil?’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t come round this evening, would you?’

  ‘I really am just off to bed, dear. But I will another night.’

  ‘Will you really?’

  ‘Yes, if I am not expected to meet that Saffyn fellow.’

  Shrill laughter tickled his ear, and he glanced over his shoulder at his wife.

  ‘You do hate him, don’t you!’

  ‘I don’t think of him. I merely refuse to acknowledge him socially,’ answered Sir Herbert stiffly, and again his ear was tickled.

  ‘Oh
Toddy, you are most lovely! . . . Toddy, what colour are your pyjamas?’

  With a faint groan, Mrs Carne leant against the banisters.

  ‘My pyjamas? Red satin with two rows of gold buttons.’

  ‘No. You know they can’t be that. Katrine thinks they come from Swan and Edgar ’

  ‘Katrine? Who is this lady?’

  ‘Ha, ha, har! Shall I introduce you again, Toddy?’

  ‘If you please.’

  ‘Miss Katrine Carne – my sister. Sir Herbert Toddington. And, it wasn’t Katrine who said that about your pyjamas. It was – it was somebody else. May I know what colour they are?’

  ‘Oh really, my dear, I think some are lavender and some green.’

  ‘Silk in the summer and silk and wool in the winter!’

  ‘May I ask what night-wear you have got on?’

  ‘Oh, just wincey and the blue dressing-gown.’

  ‘I’m sure you are looking most delightful.’

  ‘Oh no. Not a bit. Our things aren’t interesting, you know. But your lavender is most lovely . . . please, what was Lady Mildred reading?’

  ‘The Life of Charlotte Brontë, my dear.’

  ‘Have we got it, do you think?’

  ‘I should say, for certain. Ask Miss Deirdre.’

  ‘I’ll read it at once, if mother’ll let me. Is she alive still?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought perhaps she might be one of those sort of writers – like Thomas Hardy – who sounded as if they ought to be dead before they really were.’

  ‘My dear Madam Sheil, we must positively meet again very soon!’

  ‘Oh, very soon!’

  ‘And, my kindest thoughts to Miss Deirdre.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  ‘I must go now, dear.’

  ‘Are you yawning? I’ve seen you do that, you know.’

  ‘I plead guilty.’

  ‘Then I mustn’t keep you another second, or Lady Mildred will be down on me like the twinkling of a ton of bricks. Good-night, Austen Charles.’

  ‘Eh? Am I called that?’

  ‘Oh, not if you’d rather not. It’s only my name for you.’

  ‘M’m . . . I think I may quite like it. It’s a good name. I must be quite well connected. Well, bless you, dear.’

  ‘And you, too.’

  In the drawing-room, the Toddingtons looked at each other.

  ‘Herbert, you do look tired.’

  ‘My dear, I’d rather sum up for an hour than go through that again. But, I think I’ve acquitted myself with reasonable credit.’

  ‘Touch and go, here and there, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  17

  ‘What an old pearl!’ I said, as Sheil reverently replaced the receiver. Then I saw mother’s face, and knew there was some clearing up to be done before one could go to bed – and oh! how tired one is . . .

  Mother was trying to laugh it off, her way when uncertain.

  ‘Sheil, petty, what did he say when you asked him about the pyjamas?’

  For a second, the dazzle in Sheil’s eyes was clouded. ‘He was silly with me. He said they were red satin with gilt buttons. I hate that kind of joke. It isn’t a bit like Toddy. And, of course, it was just as you said, Mammy-dad. They are silk and wool in the winter.’

  We dropped mother at her door, still laughing; I stopped to execute a Spanish dance on the landing, snapping my fingers, and Sheil toddled ahead, singing ‘Je connais une belle mondaine.’ From her bedroom, Katrine heard us and joined in the ‘Ah, comme elle est chic! ’ with brio.

  And then, in the middle of it all, Miss Martin was suddenly with us. Her dun-coloured dressing-gown was adjusted to the last button. She probably has a bad circulation; her face was very pinched.

  ‘Deirdre! What are you doing, letting the child rush about like that? Do you know it’s past ten?’

  Sheil beamed. ‘That’s the time he always rings up, Miss Martin,’ and she did a high kick.

  ‘Don’t do that. What do you mean?’

  ‘Austen Charles! He’s rung up! And now I don’t need Freddy Pipson!’

  ‘Be quiet! Stop it at once!’ Her voice was shrill.

  Sheil stiffened, and everything but obedience went out of her face. This was a voice and manner we didn’t know. ‘Why do you tell stories like that?’

  ‘It’s true, Miss Martin,’ I answered.

  ‘I’m not speaking to you, Deirdre. Go back to bed at once, Sheil.’

  Sheil crimsoned. ‘He did ring up, and his pyjamas are lavender and green, and he’s had a drink and he and Lady Mildred are going to bed.’

  ‘And he told me that Mr Mathewson tried to get him some grapes from the Hampton Court vine for lunch,’ I added suavely. I meant to be maddening.

  The utterly incredible happened. Miss Martin flung up her hand. I was just in time; automatically caught her wrist. It was a narrow escape, because such a thing has never happened before in our lives.

  ‘I say, we are late!’ I stammered, and pretended to glance at her wristwatch in my grasp. ‘Sheil, Toddy’s in bed now, and he’ll think you a Most Racketty Young Person if you don’t cut off, too.’

  I don’t think she’d grasped the situation. I could see by her face that the telephone talk had once more established sway.

  Miss Martin and I were left on the landing. Her eyes were bewildered. She seemed scared, and my nerve nearly went when she began to whimper – on one note, like an animal. I could find nothing to say. One can’t accuse a woman so much older than oneself of the kind of thing that she had tried to do.

  ‘You brought it on yourself,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Miss Martin, you must be crazy.’

  Her pale eyes became terrified. ‘Don’t say that! If I were, it’s you – all of you . . . I sometimes think you are all strange.’

  ‘Oh, is that it? But, must you hit me on that account?’

  ‘I have apologised. I am not well.’

  ‘You certainly don’t look it. Miss Martin, I can’t stand on my feet much longer, but Sir Herbert did ring up. Couldn’t you see we weren’t lying to you?’

  ‘No. I never can. It’s hopeless to talk to you. You don’t understand. Good night.’

  Mother mustn’t be told, because it would upset her badly. Sheil must never know. Katrine mustn’t be told because to-morrow is the first of November and she starts her tour, and must be kept well for it.

  That left father and Toddy. Perhaps we shall see father to-morrow as it’s All Souls’ Eve, and he won’t get excited and distressed. The dead don’t. They are only calm and wise and friendly.

  I was shaking, but I wondered that I wasn’t more upset. It is Toddy, of course. He is now the Toddy we know and the Toddy we’re going to know. Already he’s begun to share with me the being the man of the family.

  18

  In the schoolroom Agatha Martin sat hunched in a chair. The day was over at last. She even had the house to herself, with Sheil and the servants in bed; the others were at the station. And one couldn’t even savour the quiet sanity of the atmosphere, because of last night. She didn’t believe that Deirdre had told Mrs Carne. But that was the least part of it. If one did that sort of thing once, one might do it again . . .

  Crazy. Would that account for her loss of authority with the child? Families were very awful things: showed one face to each other and another to the stranger within their gates. If one left, would last night count in the testimonial? Back to more children, with remembrance of failure to arrange in the new bedroom with one’s things. One was never going to forgive the child for that. Katrine was gone, but that still left three – the worst of them. Breakfast, to which one must come down, had been just tolerable owing to the unusual silence all round. There were no lessons because of Katrine leaving. They seemed to spend the day in Katrine’s room, giving one leisure to remember last night. It would have been the child, if Deirdre hadn’t stood in the way. Then one hated children? And they were one’s bread and butter. A dull crash.
Miss Martin opened Sheil’s door. Something in her welcomed the opportunity . . .

  The light was burning. ‘Sheil! Do you know the time?’

  ‘Mother said I could read a little in bed, tonight, because of Katrine and not being allowed to see her and Freddie Pipson off.’

  ‘Did she say you might read until twenty to twelve?’

  ‘My gracious snakes! I was reading about Charlotte Brontë, Miss Martin. I expect perhaps you know all about her. They had a dog called Keeper, and Emily – the cross one was a beast to him once, and I got fed up with all of them; and isn’t Keeper a silly name for a dog? It’s as bad as Tray or Fido. Crellie would be silly, only it’s short for Creilagh, and that’s Gaelic for “wasp”.’

  ‘Will you go to sleep!’ Agatha heard her voice crack. Sheil looked at her, astounded. ‘Miss Martin, when will mother and Deirdre come back?’ Her voice was urgent.

  ‘Don’t ask me! They are quite capable of electing to go off to Bradford with that Mr Pipson.’

  Sheil lay down. One was beginning to be uneasy, so one sang to keep one’s courage up.

  ‘I’m the Captain of the Loyal Kitchen Rangers!’

  Miss Martin heard that, too, and came in again.

  ‘Sheil, I know how much you dislike me. All this disobedience is part of it, I suppose. Once and for all, be quiet.’

  Was Miss Martin crying? One had never seen a grownup doing that, and when one had got over the afraid part, one was so sorry it made one feel sick.

  ‘Oh, Miss Martin, you’re so tired and I’ve kept you awake. I am sorry! Don’t you think, perhaps, if you got back into bed and thought about someone you’re very fond of, they would be kind of there? It always sends me off. Have you anybody special?’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent.’

  ‘Truly, I didn’t mean to be; I’m only telling you how things help us.’

  Agatha Martin became singularly like a human being. ‘I’m sick of your stories. They are all nonsense. You must learn to see things as they are, my dear child. All this invented stuff about Sir Herbert Toddington is making you perfectly stupid.’

  Sheil looked bewildered. ‘But do you mean he didn’t ring up, last night? But, I heard him.’ Miss Martin was so positive, it almost made one wonder . . .