School for Love

by Olivia Manning

  Ushering the two males before her, Miss Bohun shut the door behind her with a smart slam.

  9

  Next morning when Felix came down to breakfast he was surprised to find Mrs Ellis sitting alone at the table. She was drinking tea.

  He said at once as he sat down: ‘Wasn’t Nikky funny?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Mrs Ellis agreed in an abstracted way. She looked pale and gloomy, but Felix sighed with satisfaction as he contemplated the great diversity of life that, as in a pantomime transformation scene, was raising gauze after gauze for him. He said:

  ‘You know, I could never have guessed Nikky was so funny. It makes him much funnier somehow because I didn’t know.’ When Mrs Ellis said nothing he added: ‘And wasn’t Miss Bohun cross!’

  ‘She was damned insolent.’ Mrs Ellis’s sudden violence took Felix’s breath away. He was afraid she might be making up her mind to go.

  When Miss Bohun came she shouted cheerfully from the bottom stair: ‘Everyone here. How nice. A family party.’ She looked at Mrs Ellis, who did not raise her head, then said: ‘Oh, yes, I know,’ and hurried out into the courtyard.

  She came back with a little saucer on which sat a half-inch dice of butter. She placed this in front of Mrs Ellis impressively: ‘I am giving you extra butter.’

  Mrs Ellis, her elbows on the table, her cup held at her chin, stared at the butter and asked: ‘Why?’

  Miss Bohun kept her mouth tightly shut as she sat down. There was a short silence before she said: ‘I would have spoken last night had you been alone. Actually, I was kept late talking to a nurse from the hospital – a very nice girl, one of our “Ever-Readies”. She needed advice and during our conversation she told me something – in confidence, of course – that I must say I at first could not believe.’

  ‘And what was that?’ asked Mrs Ellis.

  ‘That you are going to have a baby.’

  Mrs Ellis, sipping her tea, made no reply.

  ‘Well, I was amazed. I realised, of course, when I came to think about it, that it must be true – I had noticed you were – well, altering in appearance, shall we say? But, really, I was amazed. I said: “You must be misinformed, Miss Tarkatian: if anyone would be likely to know, I would. After all I’m Mrs Ellis’s friend.”’

  ‘It is perfectly true,’ said Mrs Ellis without expression.

  ‘Well!’ said Miss Bohun, ‘I won’t say that I’m not a little hurt, but I thought to myself: I respect her reticence – and if she is – well, I must give her something extra; she needs it and it is my duty. There’s very little I can afford to give you, but I’ve decided to give you extra butter.’

  Mrs Ellis, sipping her tea, murmured coldly: ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘I wish I could afford to give you a daily glass of milk, but, alas!’ Miss Bohun sighed, leaving her sentence unfinished.

  Mrs Ellis put down her cup: ‘I was going to ask you – perhaps I could place an order for milk with your man?’

  ‘Oh!’ at first Miss Bohun seemed uncertain. ‘That would mean his calling every day.’ Then her tone changed: ‘But why not? You see, I sometimes give him half a piastre for calling, but you wouldn’t mind doing that, would you? I feel it pays to treat tradespeople well. The milk has to be boiled, of course, but the fire is alight anyway.’ As she talked her enthusiasm grew, for now she brought her hands together and let her voice soar: ‘Yes, what a good idea. I’ll tell Maria to speak to the man and order it.’ In her mounting enthusiasm she placed her hand on Mrs Ellis’s arm and said warmly: ‘And I want to tell you that I, for one, have no doubts at all – I’m sure it is your late husband’s baby.’

  For a few seconds Mrs Ellis sat as though she had not heard this remark; she had lifted her cup again, but without drinking suddenly put it down and turned on Miss Bohun, frowning. Miss Bohun smiled and tried to pat her arm, but Mrs Ellis stood up and away out of her reach. She said quietly, without anger but as though making an interesting revelation: ‘I can only think, Miss Bohun, that you are mad.’

  She went up the stairs. Miss Bohun flicked open her eyes to watch after her, then turned them, puzzled and pained, upon Felix. After a pause, she caught her breath and said: ‘Of course, she thinks I should not have spoken in front of you, Felix. I wasn’t thinking or I would have hesitated – but, dear me, what an exhibition! After all, you are quite a big boy – and it’s as well you should know about Mrs Ellis’s condition so you won’t keep dragging her out at night to cinemas, or wherever it is you go.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think she minds my knowing; she told me herself.’

  ‘She told you?’ Miss Bohun paused, then said: ‘Heigh-ho! I seem to be the only person not in her confidence.’

  Miss Bohun looked so upset that Felix attempted to mend the situation: ‘I’m sure she must have thought you knew, Miss Bohun. After all, that’s why she wants the whole house in the autumn.’

  ‘Did she tell you she’s taking the house in the autumn? Well, that’s far from certain. I’d rather you didn’t speak about it.’

  ‘Oh, I thought it was all settled.’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss it, Felix, if you don’t mind. I was quite ready to do Mrs Ellis a kindness if I could – but, dear me, it isn’t everyone nowadays that’s willing to have a baby in their house. I feel sorry for the poor thing – a widow and going to be a mother, it’s very sad – but I have to consider myself, as well, and you, too, my dear boy. I offered you a home. I know young mothers think the world should revolve round themselves and their offspring, but she can hardly expect to deprive you of your home.’

  ‘She said I could live here with her,’ said Felix eagerly.

  ‘She did, did she?’ Miss Bohun smiled a sour little smile. ‘So it’s all arranged! I’m afraid you don’t know this town, my dear boy. You are under my protection and I certainly could not let you involve yourself in a situation that might lead to gossip.’

  Felix was not clear what Miss Bohun meant by this remark so did not contest it, but out of his disappointment, he cried: ‘But this isn’t fair. You promised Mrs Ellis . . .’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Miss Bohun interrupted irritably, ‘the autumn is a long way off and many things may happen by then. Mrs Ellis and I will have to have a nice long chat about it all, but, meanwhile, Felix, I want you to promise not to discuss it, either with her or anyone else. If I find you discussing my affairs behind my back in this way, then I’ll just have to ask Mrs Ellis to go.’

  ‘All right,’ Felix said ungraciously and left the table. As he went along the landing passage he heard Mrs Ellis sobbing inside her room. He tapped the door and whispered her name.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked from inside.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  After a pause he asked with deep interest: ‘I say, do you really think Miss Bohun is mad?’

  ‘Oh, go away,’ said Mrs Ellis, and Felix had no choice but to go.

  A bleak atmosphere, like that which preceded the going of Mr Jewel, haunted the meals, but now it was not Miss Bohun who controlled the discomfort. Mrs Ellis had shut herself off in a silence that seemed to put Miss Bohun completely at a loss. Once or twice, perhaps attempting to test the surface of this frost, Miss Bohun had repeated, tentatively and unconvincingly, remarks like: ‘Well, here we are! Just a happy family!’ or ‘One day, Mrs Ellis, we really must have that cosy chat in my room,’ but Mrs Ellis made no sign that she had heard. When she did not come in to meals, Miss Bohun would sometimes say to Felix, meaningfully:

  ‘Mrs Ellis seems to be sulking about something. So childish of her. It spoils everything, we could be such a happy family.’

  Felix tried to get Mrs Ellis to tell him why she had so suddenly retired into silence and anger, but she refused to discuss it. He did, however, hear from her the story of the half-litre of milk that Maria ordered for her and placed in a jug in her room. On the first day the jug contained three glasses of milk, on the second only two and a half, and after
that never more than one and a half glasses or two. As the weather got warmer it was often sour. One day Mrs Ellis asked Maria why the quantity of the milk varied and why fresh milk so quickly became sour. Maria, who covered her lips with her fingers in her embarrassment, answered only the second half of her question.

  ‘Ah, it is the man – so dirty; he will not wash his cans.’

  ‘I see. And why is it that half a litre of milk one day makes three glasses and the next only two or even one and a half?’

  Maria, after a long silence, shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I suppose there is a reason?’

  Maria seemed to find the word she needed, for she said suddenly: ‘I do not divide it.’

  ‘Why divide it? Isn’t mine bought separately?’

  Maria shrugged her shoulders again, at a loss because questioned so sharply. She said, stammering a little: ‘Miss Bohun said she get extra for the house. Now she gets every day and she divide it.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Ellis. ‘Then to-morrow tell the man I want no more. I cannot drink sour milk.’

  At the table Mrs Ellis behaved as though she were alone. One day she picked up her fork, looked closely at it, then pulled the edge of the table-cloth between its prongs.

  Miss Bohun tut-tutted and said apologetically: ‘I suppose Maria’s using a dirty dish-cloth again. I wish I had time to keep an eye on her, not that it would do much good. She’s old and I think it’s our duty to consider the old, don’t you?’

  Mrs Ellis stared before her, blankly unhearing.

  Miss Bohun would often chatter on, ignoring this lack of response, but a sort of plaintive shrillness, that Felix found painful would come into her tone. Although neither Miss Bohun nor Mrs Ellis considered his presence, he was probably the most discomforted person at the table. This caused him at times to break into the silence or into Miss Bohun’s monologue with a remark not only irrelevant but irritating to Miss Bohun, as when he said suddenly: ‘My mother had the softest skin in the world.’

  She snapped back: ‘How do you know?’ and Felix, nonplussed, felt he had achieved nothing. But even if he had some success its eventual result would be unfortunate, as when Miss Bohun asked him:

  ‘Well, Felix, what do you think of the sardines to-day?’

  Felix, who had been wondering what he was eating, replied with dishonest enthusiasm: ‘They’re very good.’

  At which Miss Bohun cried out in triumph: ‘There, you see, you could not tell the difference. I forgot the sardines to-day so I got Maria to slice some aubergine, dip the slïces in batter and fry those instead. They are good, aren’t they? And such an inexpensive substitute.’

  After that they had fried aubergine until Felix was nauseated by the smell of it. Miss Bohun would say: ‘Now, Felix, won’t you have another one of these little fish-things?’

  ‘No, thank you, Miss Bohun.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Ellis?’

  No reply from Mrs Ellis.

  ‘Of course, they’re not really fish, but I’m sure aubergine is just as good as fish. I believe firmly in vegetables. The best Indian sages eat nothing else. Don’t you find they agree with you, Felix?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Bohun.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Ellis?’

  No reply from Mrs Ellis.

  Miss Bohun’s satisfaction at having discovered this fish substitute lessened a little the table’s desolation, but in the end Felix cried out in spite of himself: ‘Oh, Miss Bohun, aubergine again!’

  ‘Why!’ Miss Bohun opened her eyes with surprise, ‘I thought you liked it.’

  ‘But not for every meal.’

  ‘If you knew the bother and expense of housekeeping these days, Felix, you would not be so finicky.’ Miss Bohun sighed: ‘Heigh-ho. I had hoped if there was another woman in the house we could take turns with the housekeeping, but . . .’

  At this Mrs Ellis, surprisingly, spoke: ‘I am quite willing to take my turn at housekeeping, Miss Bohun. After all, if we are, as you say, sharing expenses, you must have over £60 a month to run this house. I feel I could do something quite impressive on that.’

  Miss Bohun gave her a startled look and for some moments seemed to be reflecting in a perplexed way on what Mrs Ellis had said. She did not mention the subject again, but Mrs Ellis mentioned it to Felix: ‘Nikky says she runs that house on less than twenty pounds a month – so can you imagine she would let me do the housekeeping?’

  She no longer spoke of Miss Bohun as a joke, but instead with a contemptuous anger that troubled Felix because it seemed to prove Mrs Ellis to be unreasonable and involved in pettiness. He supposed Mrs Ellis had been upset by Miss Bohun’s remark about the baby belonging to her late husband, but he could not see the remark as being, after all, so very important. Miss Bohun was obviously trying to be kind and reassuring, but Mrs Ellis, for some reason, behaved as though she had received a deadly insult. One day he asked Mrs Ellis: ‘Why are you so cross with Miss Bohun?’

  She said: ‘I’m not going to tell you.’

  ‘Not ever?’ asked Felix.

  ‘No, not ever.’

  Felix was sorry for Miss Bohun and touched by her show of indifference to rebuff, but his adherence now was to Mrs Ellis, and when, without any reference to Miss Bohun, she said across the supper table to Felix: ‘Like to come out tonight?’ his embarrassment was completely lost in his delight.

  ‘The cinema again?’ asked Miss Bohun with hurt casualness. ‘I do hope, Felix, you’ll not stay out too late,’ but she received no reply beyond Felix’s: ‘No, Miss Bohun,’ and then they were gone.

  After that Miss Bohun’s manner changed. She, too, retreated into grievance and long periods of silence would descend on the meal tables. When she spoke it was with sudden outbursts of aggressive cheerfulness: ‘Well, I must be off to my “Ever-Readies”. Dear me, how nice it is to have something to do . . . to feel that one is really of use in the world. And there are such splendid people at the “Ever-Readies” – such a jolly crowd. No sulking there.’

  Felix felt these innuendos to be very unfair. He had no wish to sulk; his silence came from the feeling that now Miss Bohun had somehow got back into the right, not only Mrs Ellis but he himself was in the wrong. For some reason he felt guilty whenever he went out with Mrs Ellis, but this guilt was suddenly lifted when Miss Bohun one day announced in loud, decided tones: ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, but I am forced to put up the rent.’

  Mrs Ellis’s head gave a startled, upward jerk and she looked at Miss Bohun in spite of herself. Miss Bohun seemed satisfied with this result. Felix, waiting in some dismay to hear more, saw her lips set momentarily with placid composure, then she said quietly: ‘I do not want to do this, of course, but milk has gone up another piastre – the summer shortage, of course – and yesterday we had eggs. I want you to eat well, but everything has to be paid for. Now there’s some talk of raising the price of fish. There seems no end to the increase in expenditure; so, I’m afraid I shall require five pounds extra from each of you this month.’

  Felix looked at Mrs Ellis, but she did not speak. He wanted her to protest, but could think of nothing to say himself. For the rest of the meal, during which Miss Bohun kept humming to herself the tune of ‘Jerusalem the Golden’, he wondered miserably whether the Consul would be willing to pay this money.

  Towards the end, when Miss Bohun was least expecting it, Mrs Ellis asked in a remote, cold voice: ‘I believe there is a Government control on pension prices. The price of a single room with meals is controlled at twenty pounds a month.’

  Miss Bohun replied: ‘I’m afraid the people who fix those prices know nothing about the expense of running a home these days.’

  ‘But most prices are controlled, and you never deal on the black market.’

  Miss Bohun gave a slight click with her tongue and replied irritably: ‘If you mean you cannot see your way clear to pay the extra five pounds, then I shall be forced to make further economies.’

  ‘Heaven forbid,’ said Mrs Ellis.
She had finished her meal but she sat still for several minutes, then she said rapidly and not without effort: ‘And are you putting up the rent of the front bedroom as well?’

  Miss Bohun had been about to lift her fingers from her finger-bowl. Now, although she stared at them, she seemed to forget to move them. Suddenly she said accusingly: ‘Who told you I receive rent for the front bedroom?’

  Mrs Ellis smiled to herself and rose from the table. Before she could go Miss Bohun, remembering her fingers and lifting them out and drying them on her handkerchief, said with calm dignity: ‘I am not a rich woman, Mrs Ellis. No doubt you are used to those fortunate people whose worldly wealth permits them to give their services to their faith. I wish I were one of them. I am not. My private money is very small – just two hundred pounds a year. . . .’

  ‘Really,’ interrupted Mrs Ellis, ‘I wish I had a private income of two hundred pounds a year.’

  ‘As I said, Mrs Ellis, I’m not a rich woman, neither am I a young one. My mother left me my little income and it’s all I’ve ever had given me. I have never had a husband to keep me, or even to die and leave me a comfortable pension. No, I have had to rely on myself all along. I have had to build up for my own old age. Having no wish to be dependent on others, I must work while I can and work hard.’

  She stood up, paused to glance at them in silence, then, turning slowly, went up the stairs. It must have seemed to her, as it did to the others, that she had administered an unanswerable rebuke. A few moments passed before Mrs Ellis roused herself and said: ‘Well, I’m damned.’

  Felix, recovering from Miss Bohun’s censure only to remember its origins, said: ‘How awful! Another five quid a month. I won’t have any pocket money at all now.’

  ‘Why should we pay it? Whatever she says, she can’t justify charging twenty-five pounds. This wretched service, these workhouse meals – I shall send her a note and tell her that I’m not eating in any more. I’ll pay only for the room.’