The Brontes Went to Woolworths

by Rachel Ferguson

  ‘And now, shall we try and get Miss Chisholm back? She was a fool, but not a bloody fool.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you give anything to know if La Martin spoke to Emily?’

  Mother smiled appreciatively, but her determination was fixed.

  ‘Let that sleeping dog lie.’

  ‘Couldn’t one write to her about something else, and find out, casually?’

  ‘Please not, my dear. It’s going to be bad enough with Sheil.’

  ‘You’ve noticed, too?’

  ‘Duffer!’ Mother put down the Martin letter. ‘What passes me is why Sheil is so afraid of them. I mean, she knows about Daddy’

  ‘It isn’t quite the same thing.’

  I was struggling to express what I felt. ‘And then, you know, coming on the top of Saffy – and what Miss Martin may have said. She – she had a temper.’

  Mother winced. ‘But, Sheil knew that Charlotte and Emily were dead.’

  ‘ or I wouldn’t have told her, of course. But it was the suddenness of it’

  It was no good; I – just – couldn’t get at the way to help Sheil. It was there, waiting, and that was all I knew. Mother and I found ourselves on the stairs, making for the schoolroom. Sheil was sitting at the toy theatre, tapping one of the – characters against the stage, and her mind somewhere else.

  ‘Petty, Miss Martin has got another post and we shan’t see her any more, and let’s have a spree until lessons begin again.’ There was relief in Sheil’s eyes, but I guessed that Miss Martin’s exit would soon cancel it out, and that she probably didn’t believe in the simplicity of the truth. One could see her, calculating . . .

  Lunch and tea were dreadful meals: two gaps at the table, mother anxiously joking, Sheil almost completely silent, Ironface failing to interest (though her aeroplane had crashed near Valenciennes and she was the talk of Paris), and Dion Saffyn unsure of his welcome, hanging between heaven and earth, poor wretch. One couldn’t shut oneself up and write to Katrine because one must be with Sheil, and when I couldn’t stand it all another second I said, ‘Toddy’s coming round this evening.’

  Mother shot a look of reproach at me, and Sheil’s brief glance accused me of treachery, with contempt thrown in. As her bedtime came round, mother said, ‘What are we going to do? If we put her in her room she may be lonely and frightened, and if we put her in your room she’ll think there is something to be afraid of. Why, you’re in your hat and coat! You’re not going out?’

  ‘I’m going to the Toddingtons’. ’

  ‘Darling, you can’t !’

  ‘About Sheil.’

  Mother stood and thought, then let me go without another word.

  24

  Ethel admitted me. Her ladyship was out but would be in shortly, for dinner. Yes, Sir Herbert was in. ‘Miss Deirdre Carne.’ He was in the study, and looked up with an expression I knew.

  ‘My dear Miss Deirdre, this is nice of you. Now, do make yourself comfortable. There. My wife will be in any minute, now.’

  ‘I came because I thought I should find you in, at this time. Sir Herbert, it’s about Sheil; I don’t quite know where to begin.’

  ‘One minute. She’s not ill, I trust?’

  ‘It’s not that. I’m wondering if you’re going to believe me.’

  He swept off his pince-nez, smiled at me with his old, tired eyes.

  ‘My dear, I have now got to the age when I can believe in as many as three impossible things before breakfast.’

  ‘But, it’s all rather unlikely ’

  ‘Deirdre, in the War there were two young airmen who, at a certain altitude, found a new race in the sky. Dragons. It never became widely known for the obvious reason, though it leaked out in the Occult Review, if I remember. Pray go on.’

  ‘Then, you do believe?’

  ‘Suppose we keep to the point.’

  ‘Well, then . . . We were in Yorkshire, this summer. We were miserable there. Sheil was ill. The place was near Keighley, and it didn’t like us.’

  ‘It?’

  ‘Some places are against one, from the start.’

  ‘I see. Yes. I know what you mean.’

  ‘We were table-turning one night, and we got into touch with the Brontës. They came through at once. Charlotte said, “Remember Anne, remember Elizabeth, remember Maria” . . . and then, “Sheil, go back in time.” And we went, next day. I don’t know why I didn’t connect Anne and the other two with Charlotte and Emily’

  ‘They were the elder sisters. They died practically at school,’ murmured Sir Herbert, absently, ‘Anne, the youngest, died at Scarborough many years later.’

  ‘Yes. I remember. Charlotte said she was dead “by the North Sea,” and Miss Martin, the governess, thought they were all the queens of England’

  ‘Take your time, my child. After all, you were on the Brontës’ territory. I could cite similar instances, elsewhere. There was the case of a friend of mine who walked right into the French Revolution at a little village called Marquis, near Wimereux. He saw the tumbrils and the tricoteuses . . . but I am interrupting. Was it the table-turning that upset Sheil? She is, I suppose, too young to realise the unique privilege’

  ‘Oh, she was in bed. We didn’t think of it like that, because you know what table-turning usually is; fake messages from John Bunyan and Cardinal Newman, and so on’

  ‘Yet, you left the next day?’

  ‘Yes. Any warning about Sheil, from even a spirit’

  He nodded, abruptly. ‘She had one of those low fevers, too.’

  ‘Well, well’ ‘

  I’d brought my novel along’

  ‘Forgive me, but does this bear on the trouble?’

  ‘I think so. Sir Herbert, there were pencilled criticisms on it that weren’t there before.’

  ‘Can you remember any?’

  ‘“Your thought here suffers confusion . . . we all feel the inherent worthlessness of such a nature as you depict . . . your Frenchman is, indeed, a laughable creature”’

  Sir Herbert looked at me. ‘I seem to recognise Charlotte’s touch.’

  ‘I think so, too; but when we got home, the pencil notes weren’t there.’

  ‘Really, Deirdre, I envy you profoundly! Go on.’

  ‘Charlotte asked if she could come and see us. And she and Emily came on All Souls’ Eve. We were out, and Sheil saw them both. Toddy – Sir Herbert, Miss Martin had been frightening Sheil. The night before, she’d tried to hit me. She lost her temper because she thought I was still on the Saga about you, and that I was making a fool of her about your having rung up . . . she took it out of Sheil when mother and I were out. She told her that Dion Saffyn was dead . . . and then Sheil saw Charlotte on the landing. Sheil had an instinct that it was Charlotte, and she was terrified. And now, we don’t know what to do for her.’

  ‘Deirdre, why are you asking me for help?’

  I faced that. Nothing seemed to matter much. ‘Because one always has. For over two years!’

  ‘And, have I never failed you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How have I helped?’

  ‘Oh . . . you congratulated me on my novel and took me to dinner at the Ritz, and you motored from Bristol to be with us when it was refused. You came to Katrine’s term-end show at the Dramatic School – things like that.’

  ‘ “The first to welcome, foremost to defend,” in short?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘And now, at last, chance (let’s call it that) has given me my belated opportunity to live up to myself . . . this Miss Martin . . . was she upset, too?’

  ‘She’s left us. Got another job. She hated Yorkshire, I’m glad to say, damn her!’

  ‘Now, now!’

  ‘She thought it “weird,” and resented being looked at by the villagers, and a red-haired boy who, I admit, was always drunk.’

  ‘Branwell Brontë,’ mused Sir Herbert.

  I stared. ‘Branwell. Of course. I never thought of that.’

&n
bsp; ‘I could shake you! I must go to that Inn, next summer.’

  ‘Well . . . that’s all. Mother thinks that Charlotte and Emily came to see if Sheil was well again, but I think the attraction was Miss Martin. She didn’t fit in, either, as a governess.’

  He joined his fingertips. ‘There is a third possibility.’

  ‘Oh, what?’

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that Charlotte and Emily were drawn to you, as a family, by a happiness they never had themselves?’

  It may have been his voice, soft yet plangent, or the strain of going to him for help, but abominably enough, I felt tears coming.

  ‘Emily hit Crellie,’ I stammered. ‘Is it imaginable she’d come back to do that?’

  He wheeled. ‘I think it is exactly what she would do. I’ve never forgiven her for the way she beat Keeper.’ He was going up and down the room so as not to see my face. ‘Very strong characters don’t change with death, Deirdre. At least, that’s my theory. If you believe they do, you must also believe in the extinction of the good. Extinction . . . m’m . . . I can’t accept extinction’

  Lady Toddington knocked and came in.

  She took us in in a second, and on her face was the wife look, until Sir Herbert said, ‘We want you, Mildred.’ I had to look at her while the courtesies were observed, and after that she kept my hand in hers, and so we sat.

  He told her the first part; relating it, as it were, in words of one syllable, and her eyes grew round, and at the end she said, ‘Well I’m bothered! But you never know, with old houses,’ which made me give a gasp of hysterical laughter and not dare glance at Toddy. And then it was time for me again.

  It was amazingly difficult. The fear of a child was easy. ‘But Sheil knows that people sometimes return. There was father. It was the most natural thing in the world . . . she accepted it . . . Dion Saffyn . . . Miss Martin upsetting her ’

  ‘Can’t you tell her she dreamed the rest?’ said Lady Toddington.

  Her husband smiled dryly. ‘Dear Mildred! This is assistance indeed!’ On her face was the hurt-baby look; the fading-out that I had seen before, and guessed before that. Then, she seemed to remember – that is the only way I can describe her expression – and, releasing my hand, bent forward and tweaked his ear, and he twinkled and shook and, on looking back, I think that it was happiness that inspired her, for she turned to me. ‘What was the name of that pierrot – the one that Herbert doesn’t approve of?’

  I had to laugh. ‘Dion Saffyn.’

  ‘Um . . . look here, Deirdre (I’m calling you that, if you don’t mind). Can’t you make the Brontës like him – and Bottles, you know? Oh, how badly I’m explaining!’ But the audience of her life was listening. ‘I mean, bag them. Let them join in, too. If you can’t run away from them, run towards them. The kiddy must know, in her heart, that What’s-his-name and Bottles’ adventures are all made up, and we can make the Brontës just as real, and take the edge off the being frightened of them – shut up, Herbert! ’

  ‘I wasn’t dreaming of interrupting, my dear,’ answered Mr Justice Toddington humbly.

  ‘And I think we’ll have cocktails, now, because I’m not clever often, and it never lasts long, does it, Herbert?’

  ‘My dear, I take my hat off to you.’ He turned to me. ‘If I interpret her correctly, Mildred means that, for the little child, the fear was due to the fact that, as far as her experience went, Charlotte and Emily had no past. And that, in short, we must give them one.’

  ‘And a present as well; don’t forget that, Herbert.’

  ‘And a present. Quite so . . . m’m . . . dear me, London is quite filling up, as the gossip writers say! I trust that Emily will not try and control my diet. Her verbal parries with poor Mathewson should be epic.’

  We sat, savouring this for a bit, and then I had to say, ‘Sir Herbert, there’s one more thing. I’m so sorry, but – you’re coming round, this evening.’

  ‘M’m? Oh, I see what you mean.’ He gave a wintry smile. ‘Was it fixed up over the telephone?’

  ‘Mayn’t I come, too?’ Lady Toddington’s face fell. Greatly daring, I put my arm in hers. ‘There’s just one more thing,’ I ventured. ‘Now that we all know what to do, would you, perhaps – would it help if I gave you a few tips?’

  She patted my arm. ‘No you don’t, my dear! Let’s all make our own mistakes, not anybody else’s.’

  Sir Herbert was thinking. ‘But, Mildred . . . the Brontës . . . I could coach you up in them’

  ‘Hark at him! Coach nothing! I think they were a couple of dreary bores. I shall say whatever I feel like!’

  She tossed off her cocktail and looked wonderfully young.

  25

  Katrine and Freddie Pipson are in love. I take Crellie nearly every afternoon into Kensington Gardens to walk it off, and every now and again I re-read her letters.

  ‘MY OLDEST,

  ‘Once again I take pen in hand and hope you are the same. The provinces are plain Hell and the girls such ladydogs to me that, last night, I howled in the dressing-room, and took my things and made up in the WC next door. And even the limited rags one might be having Freddie Pipson won’t let me have. I am so pure that I shall surely burst. (I mean things like meals at hotels with parties; perfectly harmless.) Somehow, wherever I go, F. P. is there too, suggesting I shouldn’t.’

  And

  ‘It’s simply awful to be so dry-nursed. Last night a party of naval officers took the stage box and sent us in a couple of bottles of beer each (I gave mine to dresser), and they invited us out en bloc and I wanted to go and F. P. suddenly came out of the stage door and put me into his car without a with-your-leave, and so on. He then apologised all the way home, and came out with one heavenly pipsonism after another I must save them all up for you. One of the gems of the collection was, “I’m well aware, Miss Katrine, that when you’re in Rome you must do as do does, but you, if you’ll excuse me, are an exception.” I said, “Don’t name it, Mr Pipson. The girls all think I’m living with you, as it is.” And he said, “Ah. I was afraid they might,” which left me stymied. I couldn’t say “How rude of you!” or “The pleasure is mine.” And he sighed and looked out of the window, and he would that his heart could utter the thoughts that arose in him Tennyson.’

  And

  ‘ . . . I took your tip, and now often come out with the language the Gurls use, and Freddie Pipson heard me in the wings, and came up to me after the curtain and said he knew it was none of his business, and he was taking a liberty, but it distressed him to hear me, and he was sure my dear mother wouldn’t like it, and he felt to blame for putting me in such surroundings. I felt so awful that I told him why I did it, and he took my hand and squeezed it and said he knew, and bought me an enormous bunch of chrysanthemums – the adorable kind with mop-heads. And I’m falling for him with a sickening thud.

  ‘PS – There is a three minutes black-out at one part of the show, and my place is by Freddie for the next number, and if he’d been that kind, I might be going to be the happy mother of twins, by now. What a waste of perfectly good darkness!’

  The worst of it is that, not only has one got the habit of sympathy with Katrine, but in many ways we are and think alike; so it’s hopeless to write and tell her to leave the show and not see Pipson any more. I wouldn’t, myself. Running away from love is never any good at all, to our sort. It only deepens the feeling, and it’s better to stay and wear it down.

  ‘Really, Deiry my lamb, my luck is right off. Freddie met me in the passage the other night, and I freely confess I was looking awfully nice – I’d have kissed me like a shot if I’d been a man – and then one of those crises, as Ironface calls them, arose in which the whole place was blotted out and there were only just us two, and then he looked at me in the unmistakable way and said to himself more than to me, “My dear,” and went into his dressing-room. (He was wearing a scratch wig and a low comedy dot at each end of his mouth, but some men are never ridiculous.) I’m the Captain of the Loyal
Kitchen Rangers – with a vengeance. Oh, dear! The Brontës: What a moment! Tell me lots more about ’em. Poor old Martin! She was the original bromide, wasn’t she? I think if somebody would quite firmly and politely seduce her she’d feel lots better. There’s a rumour we’ll be in town for Christmas.’

  If this is going on, I shall either go to Chatham myself, or talk to Toddy about it. It’s not Freddie Pipson that I don’t trust, bless him! Katrine doesn’t really understand men a bit, and would give them infinitely more in small change than the immoral type, out of the sheer happiness of her heart, just because she wants so little, where the other sort of young woman holds back everything, to grab everything, in the end.

  ‘ . . . Deiry, could one marry Freddie? I can see that he’s mine, all right. The thing is that he’s so awfully eligible – so unlike the usual men with wives being angry in the offing. And on the completely vulgar side, he’s rolling in money . . . ’

  I could see how Pipson was filling her mind by the way she barely alluded to the Toddingtons. And I have done a mean thing: betrayed my good little friend, and he’d be the first to say I was right.

  I wrote: ‘Katrine, my Plainest, it can’t be done. We are both born snobs and disbelieve in marrying out of our class, and sooner or later you’d begin to resent the situation. I’ve seen some of his relations, you know, in the dressing-room. One of them is called Sydney, and looks it, and he says “Naow” and “Haow” and lives at Herne Hill. Can you conceive being called Katrine by him? Or hearing him call Sheil Sheil? He’d have the right to. Pipson’s got a sisterin-law. She’s a small turn and a pestilent little tick. They’d come and spend Sundays with you. Could you bear Pipson as a surname? Katrine Pipson?