Wendy hoped he didn’t think she had followed him here on purpose. She had been painfully shy of him since that awful night when her father had turned him out of the house. They had neither of them alluded to it, but although he had been as polite and considerate to her as usual, and even brought his stool alongside hers sometimes at tea-time, their conversation had never recaptured that spontaneous intimacy of the tea party in the little kitchen.
After what had happened, it was nice of him to talk to her at all. He couldn’t possibly like her, especially if he thought she was trailing him in his lunch hour. She would have liked to move to another table, but that might look funny, so she stayed and ate in unobtrusive silence, hoping she was not disturbing his reading.
It was Thursday and Edward was combing the show announcements of Backyard Breeding to see whether the proposed date for their show clashed with another in a neighbouring district. “Egliston Open Sweepstake Show. May 9th.” … “Briar Park and Hadleigh Open Table Show. At the Crown Hotel, May 14th. Calling all the Rabbit Fancy. Show Secs. DO NOT CLASH.” … “Wilford and Dis. Rabbit Club will hold a Members’ Show for the Red Cross on April 30th.” … “Morley Ann. Show aff. B.R.C. Spec. : Chinchilla Classes. Chin. fanciers keep yr. chins up!” No, it seemed to be all right. Good. He smiled, refolded the paper and put his knife and fork together on his empty plate. He was properly aware now of Wendy opposite him, picking her way among the surplus potatoes. Nice of her to come and sit at his table, and nice of her to sit there quietly while he was reading. Most girls would have started to chatter, stung to conversation by the sight of someone absorbed.
“Hope you didn’t think me rude,” he said. “I was just finishing something.”
“Don’t let me disturb you.” hundred yards an along
“Oh no, I’ve finished.” He put the paper in his overall pocket. “I’ll fetch you your sweet, shall I? What are you going to have? There’s——” he looked over his shoulder at the menu on the blackboard. “There’s hot jam roll or prunes and rice.”
“I’d like jam roll, but please don’t bother. I’ll get it.” She wiped her mouth with her handkerchief and started to get up.
“No, sit down, I’ll get it. Give me your ticket.”
He came back presently with two plates of prunes and rice. “Sorry, jam roll’s off as per usual.”
“It doesn’t matter. I like prunes.”
“Do you? So do I as a matter of fact. Not many people do though, do they?” Having agreed that this was so, they passed on to a discussion of other food and found they had quite a lot of tastes in common.
“Cigarette?” said Edward. “Oh no, you don’t smoke, do you?”
“Not often, but occasionally I do. I would rather like one now if I may.” She smoked it cautiously, in short puffs, and he thought a cigarette made her look more old-fashioned than ever, instead of more modern.
“How are your rabbits?” she asked, tapping non-existent ash into the ashtray. “Have you still got—Masterman, was it?”
Edward was delighted. “Fancy you remembering!” He told her about Masterman’s latest fitter and went on to tell her about the show. The canteen was beginning to empty now ; there was no one else at their table. She was far easier to talk to here than at the bench, where she seemed so reserved and the other girls were always listening or chipping in.
“You and your mother were going to come and see the rabbits, weren’t you?” he said, forgetting for a moment what had shattered that project. “I do wish you would. Perhaps you’d like to come to the Show? It might be rather interesting. We’ve got a very famous rabbit man coming to judge for us.”
“I’d love to,” said Wendy, “but I’m afraid I might not be able to get away. My father’s not well, you know——”
“Yes, of course,” he said quickly. He didn’t want to talk about that horrible old man with the prawn’s eyebrows and the working face. He didn’t want Wendy even to have to admit that he was her father. “Still, if you ever could get away, do come and see them. I’m sure you’d like them.” He saw the clock. “Gosh, I’d no idea it was so late. Come on, we’ll have to run for it if we want to clock in on time.” He hung back for her as they ran along the track, but in the crowd round the clocks, he lost her, and after looking for a moment, clocked himself in just on time.
By the time Wendy struggled to her clock against the stream of people coming in from outside, it was a minute past one and she had lost a quarter of an hour.
Before going back to the bench, Edward slipped up to the Final Assembly Shop to show Dick his draft for an advertisement. He read it over to him while Dick, who always started work dead on time, was assembling a control shaft.
The little collars and split pins which fixed the control levers to the rods were impossible for Dick’s hands, so Joseph, who was fiddling happily with the sump, had to keep popping up to do them. Every time Di he blew a kiss into the airI s.ck grunted : “Pin, Joe,” Joseph’s little head of a pould appear enquiringly round the supercharger, he would straighten his knees, jump on a wooden box and fix the pin with a twist of his delicate wrist.
“‘Grand Inauguration Show’, d’you think, or ‘Gala Inauguration Show’,” asked Edward frowning.
“What does he say?” asked Dick. He was really getting very tiresome.
“I haven’t asked him,” said Edward with wasted sarcasm. “I’m doing the ads.”
“Oh,” said Dick and thought. He took a mixture control rod from the trolley behind him, looked at it without enthusiasm, put it back in the tray and took out another one. “Just read it through again, old chap,” he said.
“I’ve read it once,” said Edward. “I can’t stop up here much longer or the girls’ll be getting themselves into all sorts of messes.” He hadn’t really come up here for ideas from Dick, but only for corroboration of his own opinion that the advertisement was rather telling. “‘A Unique Opportunity’,” he began. “Or, I say, Dick, ought it to be ‘An Unique’?”
“Pin, Joe!”
Dick rumbled the words over, while Joseph manipulated the split pin. “A unique … an unique … a unique … “He shook his head. “That’s a nice point, Ted. I’d better look that up for you. I’ll call in at the Library on my way home.” He hitched up his overall, produced one of his red notebooks and wrote : “Memo : Query An, A unique. Pub. Lib. 6.15. April 18th.”
“Right you are, Chum!” Joe hopped back to his native level and Dick tried the tightness of the collar by laying on it strain far greater than it would ever know.
Edward finished reading the advertisement and put it back in his pocket. “You think it’s all right, then? I’ve got to get back now. I’ll pop up again if I think of anything else. Why don’t you come down to me sometimes? You never do.”
“Down to the Inspection Shop?” said Dick and shook his head. “Too many girls. Pin, Joe!”
There was something going on when Edward got back to his bench. Instead of being spread out at their places, the girls were all clustered up at the wheelcase end, chattering. Some problem for him to straighten out. He felt bad about holding them up by not being there. He really ought not to do it, but there was so much to arrange and so little time to do it out of working hours. Dinah’s head looked up out of the crowd of bending grey backs as he approached.
“Eddie!” she called, beckoning. “Where on earth have you been? Do come here.”
“What’s up?” He strolled up to the group, feeling indispensable. Paddy King was sitting in the middle of them blushing. He had never seen her blush before ; it clashed with her hair.
“Well look,” said Dinah, “it’s the most exciting thing——”
“What is?” asked Edward, “found another German bullet or something?”
“Don’t be a twerp, Ed,” said Dinah. “It’s nothing to do with work. It’s Paddy, she——”
“Yes, Paddy’s hundred yards an along had a letter, isn’t it marvellous?” cut in Kitty, gabbling, her hair all over her face and he
r nose shiny. She was beginning to look a very funny shape already, although Edward supposed he ought not to notice it. It made her look younger than ever, and she carried her figure as if she didn’t know what to do with it.
“What, what, what?” They were all talking at him at once and he couldn’t understand, and then suddenly they stopped and Paddy said quietly : “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s a silly fuss. It’s only that I’ve heard my husband’s coming home.”
“Only!” shrieked someone. “After two years! Coming back as a Captain to some frightfully important job——”
“Shut up, you mustn’t say that.”
“Well, he did, in the letter.”
“He didn’t. He only hinted it. But honestly, Ed, isn’t it marvellous for her? I’d be half mad if it was me, but no such luck, with my old man sticking around at home being a key worker—oh, we didn’t tell you—he’s going to get a medal, isn’t he, Paddy?”
“She’ll go the Palace.”
“Look at her, she doesn’t care.”
“Not much she doesn’t.” They hung around, teasing her, while Paddy sat with her usual stoop, fiddling with a gear shaft and not saying much. Edward had never seen her shy before. It must be a bit embarrassing, to have this horde on top of you when all you wanted was to be alone and think and glow inside yourself. He was filled with affection for her. She had never seemed a happy person, and no wonder ; two years away! Some people had all the tough luck. It would be grand now to see her happy. She’d get leave of course. His mind raced ahead and saw her dressing up, meeting a train. He could see it all ; the young man in uniform stepping down—he ought to have his arm in a sling by rights.
Gradually, he managed to chivvy the girls back to their jobs. It was nearly knocking off time on Saturday afternoon, when nobody felt like work, anyway, but Bob Condor, though locked in solemn conclave with some of the A.I.D., kept looking sharply over towards them and obviously wishing that ethics did not forbid him to walk out on the conclave.
Edward came back to Paddy when the girls had dispersed. “I’m awfully pleased,” he said. “It’s wizard for you.”
“Thanks,” said Paddy, without looking up.
“Yes,” went on Edward, “it really is the most wonderful news——”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake,” said Paddy suddenly, shrugging him off with her back. “Give the thing a rest. Anyone would think nobody’s husband had ever come home before.” Edward went understandingly away, refusing to be offended. It was her nerves, of course, after two years of worry, and then this shock and excitement…
Madeleine laid her hand gently on Paddy’s arm. “I didn’t say much when the girls were around,” she said. “But I just wanted to tell you, Paddy, dear, how very very happy I am for you.”
My God, thought Paddy, what is this? A conspiracy to make me feel bad? Don’t they know that Dicky and I have never got on so well as since we’ve been a thousand miles apart? Isn’t it enough that I’m dreading going back to that endless bickering, that I don’t even really know hundred yards an along whether I want him back or not, without having it rubbed in? I’ll count ten and then if she doesn’t take her hand off me, I’ll scream.
“So very, very glad,” urged Madeleine softly.
Paddy’s left arm was tense. Now she’s giving me the Look. I can’t look at her. Oh Lord, she’s going to cry, and I’m going to cry, too, and she’ll think it’s for the same reason and want to wallow. She bit her lip and then suddenly the angry muddled tears rushed away from her eyes and she heard with cold horror what Madeleine was saying :
“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I must tell someone. It only came this morning. Just ‘Missing,’ that’s all it said, so it could be worse —it—I’m glad it was me and not you. It’s worse for a wife than a mother, I always say, but Martin wasn’t—isn’t married. I’m so sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to tell you. I didn’t want to spoil your happiness.”
As E. Dexter Bell was paying for the advertisement, Edward had to show him the draft copy before he sent it to the local paper and Backyard Breeding.
Mr. Bell barely glanced at it. “My dear old boy,” he said, “you needn’t worry your head about that. I’ve already had one set out by my Mr. Upshott at the office, who does all our ads. I’ve got it on me somewhere.” He slapped his pockets. “I brought it home for you so that you could send it off and get the posters printed.”
“Posters?” said Edward.
“Yes, of course, must have posters. Let’s see, about five hundred you’ll want. Get ’em up all round the district—shops, hoardings, walls, pubs—you know.”
“But how am I going to put them up? I’m at the factory all day and it’s dark soon after I come out.”
“Good heavens, don’t ask me ; that’s your job. I’ve done all the donkey work for you as it is. Get hold of some kids. They’ll do it for a tanner.” Edward could not see the youth of Collis Park taking kindly to this suggestion. They all seemed to be scufflers in the gutter, jeerers and ringers of bells, and the refugee children from the railway district were no more than bandits. He read glumly through the advertisement, which was geometrically set out with a mapping pen in red and black ink. He thought it compared unfavourably with his own. It was professional all right, and clever : “The Collis Park Rabbit Club will hold their Annual Show,” as if they had been going for years, but it had no magnetism. You believed no more than the show was an “Outstanding Event” than you believed that a gaunt, inconvenient house was the “Commodious Gentleman’s Residence” of Mr. Upshott’s usual advertisements.
Edward liked his own much better. It was modelled on some of the more attractive ones from Backyard Breeding.
“Are You Getting Your Exhibits Ready,” it said, “For Our Unique Show at the Victory Hall?” etc., etc. “Our Unique” was the solution to the “a unique” or “an unique” difficulty. Dick Bennett had looked it up in his own Public Library, but then, travelling to the next borough for corroboration, had found that the dictionaries differed.
Edward returned the bit of paper to his pocket. If Mr. Bell’s ideas were so different, it was just as well he had not looked at it. He would probably think took a step nearer to her mother,W bit amateur.
“Right you are. Do that then,” said Mr. Bell with the confidence of a man used to having orders carried out. Edward noticed that Mr. Upshott, no doubt under instruction, had put : “Presidents : E. Dexter Bell, Esq., R. R. Bennett, Esq. ; Hon. Sec. : E. L. P. Ledward, Esq.” ; but he folded the paper and put it in his pocket without comment. Whenever he felt like kicking against the totalitarian Bell influence which seemed to be creeping into the Collis Park Rabbit Club, so democratically planned, he reminded himself that it was through Mr. Bell that he was at last going to meet Allan Colley. There couldn’t be much wrong with a man who was on such intimate terms with Colley.
As a fancier, too, Edward had to admire him. Whenever he returned from Mr. Bell’s rabbitry, scientifically housed in the outbuildings and garden behind “Uanmee”, he viewed with dissatisfaction the hybrid hutches in his own crowded strip of garden.
Not all Mr. Bell’s rabbits were quality, and some were undoubtedly inferior to Edward’s best stock, but they differed subtly as Hollywood film stars differ from English stars. They had glamour. Even the utility does who were used as foster-mothers had it. They knew they were Bell stock, therefore their coats were silkier, their eyes more bold and bright ; they basked in the nimbus of their owner’s pride. It may have been only that Edward usually saw them by electric light. All the outbuildings were wired, and when they were looking at the outdoor hutches, there was the searchlight torch to spotlight each occupant with a theatrical effect that Edward could never achieve in his garden with a bicycle lamp.
When he got home tonight from meeting Mr. Bell, he went straight through to the garden. Connie was neither in the living-room nor the kitchen, but he didn’t stop to call upstairs to her. He wanted to reassure himself by a sight of the latest litter sired by Masterm
an, his best yet. The doe was an enormous animal of the same strain, and these youngsters seemed to Edward to be outstandingly big for their age. He measured them every week with a tape measure, and had sent up statistics to Allan Colley’s “Enquire Within” column, and had received the answer that—yes, they were certainly very sizy, but Edward must not be over-confident as these early growers sometimes stopped before they reached maturity. With the Show in view, Edward had them on a forcing diet. The Lipmanns’ spring vegetables were coming along nicely and Ruth often had something under the counter for him. He always went in there ostensibly to buy something and pretended to be surprised when Ruth beckoned him behind the other customers’ backs.
“I don’t see why you keep bringing home all this potted meat,” Connie would grumble. “You hardly ever eat it, and what you do open goes mouldy before you finish it. Wicked waste I call it.”
He shone the bicycle lamp on the wire run against the far wall. There were three bucks and two does and he was going to exhibit them all except one at the show. Following his fancy of calling the rabbits after the girls at the factory, he had called the biggest Freda, because her whiskers were so fine. He was pinning all his hopes on her winning one of the Flemish classes. She would have romped home at a little show, but with all these big breeders exhibiting, you never knew what she might be up against. Would Colley like her? “If Colley doesn’t like you, Freda,” he said, thrusting a cabbage leaf at her nose which she was trying to screw through the wire, “I’ll put you in a pie and go in for cavies.” He might, too, though he would never put Freda in a pie. But he had oft a bottle of blyhen toyed with the idea of extending his fancy to guinea-pigs, if only he had the space. There was money in them and they were useful to the government in wartime.
The Fancy Page 22