‘Shall it be said that among you such unhappy people exist? Are there any among you who would condemn any man or woman by whisper alone? I hope and pray there are not. What I would ask of you is to say to those who whisper, “Don’t bring me malice and rumour, bring me proof.” Few of us are worthy enough to cast stones, and even those who think themselves immaculate should hesitate before—’
‘Don’t point your finger at me!’ Mrs Lockheart was on her feet, her pretty charm wrecked by fury. ‘You are a hypocrite to side with a murderess!’
‘Madam,’ said the vicar, ‘be so good as to go to the vestry, and I’ll talk to you there.’
‘I’ll talk to you here!’
The vicar nodded to the organist, and the organ immediately drowned Mrs Lockheart’s voice. The vicar came down from the pulpit, and the congregation rose. Mrs Lockheart was a shocking sight in her fury, and people surged to leave the church. The vicar stood on the chancel step, waiting. The church cleared of choir and congregation, leaving Mrs Lockheart in confrontation with the vicar, who then spoke sternly and without compromise to her. She turned and rushed out. There was no-one to listen to her angry complaints, except elderly Mrs Hardiman.
‘Well, you can’t wonder at it, dearie,’ said Mrs Hardiman, when she could get a word in, ‘all them things you said don’t rightly sound the same as what our vicar said. Now you go ’ome and make yerself a hot cup of tea, and have a good sit down, like.’
‘You silly old fool,’ said Mrs Lockheart, and went away.
Out shopping the next morning, Miss Pilgrim was stopped by two neighbours. They were friendly far beyond expectation, rejoicing rather than apologetic. Cockneys rarely wore an apologetic air. It did not suit their hearty and challenging approach to life. ‘Sorry, ducks,’ said it all and did not embarrass either party.
‘You must come and ’ave a nice cup of tea, Miss Pilgrim, I don’t ’ardly know when the last time was.’
‘My old man was saying only yesterday you ’adn’t been in lately, Miss Pilgrim. Thinks a lot of you, Alf does. More shame on them as don’t ’old you in kind regard.’
‘Pity you missed church and all yesterday, Miss Pilgrim. The vicar, well, I never ’eard ’im so downright punishin’. Made everyone sit up, like.’
‘Really?’ said Miss Pilgrim. ‘What about?’
‘Well, ’e didn’t name no names, but ’e poured ’oly fire on all them whispers that’s been goin’ on. Been a shame, Miss Pilgrim, a downright shame. When you got a spare moment, come in and ’ave that nice cup of tea with me.’
‘Yes, and any time in my ’ouse, Miss Pilgrim.’
‘How kind,’ said Miss Pilgrim, and went immediately to the vicarage. The vicar was in and received her with a smile. ‘Vicar, what was your sermon about yesterday?’
‘My word, you do come straight to the point, Miss Pilgrim.’
‘I never see any reason not to. I’ve just listened to some extraordinary comments from Mrs Wills and Mrs Higgs.’
‘They were referring, probably, to a few remarks I made after my sermon, when I spoke about people who cast stones because of rumours and whispers.’
‘I am appalled you should take a certain person as seriously as that, vicar.’
‘The matter had taken on a very serious aspect, Miss Pilgrim. I make no apologies for my determination to protect your good name. I trust I’ve succeeded in discouraging the misguidedness of that certain person.’
‘Such nonsense, vicar. I’m only too glad I wasn’t there to listen to you.’
‘I’m glad myself. Your presence would have deterred me from speaking out.’
‘I should have been there, but my lodger—’ Miss Pilgrim came to an abrupt halt, and her lips compressed. ‘I cannot fault your motive, vicar, but really. Good morning.’
Jim, who was taking his holiday fortnight, less one day that he owed the club, returned from a visit to the Zoo, Orrice having endured the long day well, Effel a little tiredly in tow. They had never been to the Zoo before. Effel had been dumbstruck and chattering by turn. Orrice had fed the monkeys with the permitted nuts.
Miss Pilgrim requested Jim to see her as soon as he had freshened up. She received him in her kitchen. Her blue eyes fixed him.
‘You are an impertinent scoundrel, Mr Cooper,’ she said icily.
‘A what?’ said Jim.
‘Wait, I should not want to accuse you on suspicion alone. So first tell me if your fall yesterday morning was genuinely accidental or deviously contrived.’
‘Deviously contrived?’ Jim played for time to think. ‘Have you been reading Pickwick Papers, Miss Pilgrim?’
‘Not for many years, Mr Cooper. Be so good as to answer the question.’
‘Why are you asking it?’
‘Because I discovered this morning that the vicar addressed his congregation yesterday on the wearisome matter that has come about through the presence in this neighbourhood of Mrs Lockheart. He decided, apparently, that it was his duty to scotch every rumour. Providing I was not in the church myself.’
‘What a splendid chap,’ said Jim, at which Miss Pilgrim eyed him witheringly.
‘Strangely, Mr Cooper, I was unable to attend church. Why was that? Because I found you unconscious on my hall floor. Or so it seemed. I put aside any thought of leaving you there.’
‘You’re a natural Samaritan,’ said Jim.
‘You’re a natural humbug. Unconscious indeed. It’s my firm conviction that you tricked me, that you conspired with the vicar to keep me here, away from the service. Isn’t that so?’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what is true,’ said Jim, ‘and that’s the fact that I gave myself a nasty bump on the head. It’s still tender. But did the vicar actually give his congregation a talking-to? Damn good. He looks a gentle man of God to me, I’m glad to know he can deliver fire and brimstone when necessary. It’s my belief that fire and brimstone are a good old-fashioned remedy for people who stray from the path of love-thy-neighbour stuff. Next time I see the vicar I’ll shake his hand. I’m very much in favour of him standing up for an admirable woman like you. If that’s all, Miss Pilgrim, I’ll go and see to the kids’ supper. They’re both starving.’
Miss Pilgrim regarded him in a strangely helpless way. Her mouth quivered. She set it firmly again.
‘You deceived me, Mr Cooper.’
‘I thought the cause a good one,’ said Jim.
‘You actually had the audacity to connive with the vicar.’
‘Connive? That’s a bit much, old thing.’
‘I’m not an old thing, nor am I a simpleton.’
‘That’s the last thing I’d take you for,’ said Jim. ‘It’s true I had a chat with the vicar. We decided—’
‘Such impertinence!’
‘Oh, lord,’ said Jim.
‘It was unforgivable. I did not think I’d find both impertinence and deceit in you. What other dubious secrets do you have?’
Jim grinned, then spoke on impulse.
‘I’m illegitimate,’ he said, and Miss Pilgrim’s fearless eyes opened wide. ‘My parents weren’t married.’
She was silent for a moment before she spoke.
‘That is an accident of birth, for which you were not responsible, Mr Cooper. I was speaking of faults and failings, not of something unimportant.’
‘Unimportant?’ said Jim.
‘Uncle Jim? Uncle Jim?’ Orrice made himself heard from the top of the stairs. ‘I finished makin’ the bread and butter, shall I put the sausages on? Effel’s slicing the tomatoes. Uncle Jim?’
Jim put his head out of the kitchen door.
‘Good on you, laddie,’ he called. ‘Yes, put the sausages on. All of them. Don’t forget to prick them with a fork first.’
‘I fried sausages before,’ called Orrice, ‘I’m not daft, yer know, Uncle.’
‘That’s a fact, you’re not, old chap. All right, leave it to you. I’ll be up in a moment.’
‘Is that boy handling a hot pan on the gas ring?
’ asked Miss Pilgrim.
‘I’ve faith in Horace,’ said Jim. ‘What did you mean, my illegitimacy is unimportant?’
‘It’s the person who is important, Mr Cooper,’ said Miss Pilgrim in matter-of-fact fashion, ‘and how he or she face up to the world. You have faced up to it very well. You’ve overcome the disadvantages of your birth, your orphaned state, and a lost arm fighting for your country. Not many men with those disadvantages would look or behave as you do. You are a man, Mr Cooper, in the best sense of the word, and I hope you never think you have anything to be ashamed of. Except perhaps your deceitfulness. When I think of how concerned I was for you, I’m shocked at my naivety, knowing as I do now that you were lying there laughing at me.’
‘Never,’ said Jim, astonished that someone so strictly-minded could dismiss his illegitimacy as unimportant. ‘You’re a magnificent woman.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Miss Pilgrim, and sighed. ‘I’m so many things, I’m angelic, generous, warm-hearted, remarkable, and now magnificent.’
‘Also perfection in a kitchen.’
She shook her head at him.
‘I’ve never known any man whose tongue runs away with him as much as yours,’ she said. ‘I am no better and no worse, I hope, than my neighbours. Please go and take charge of that hot pan before Horace sets the house alight.’
‘Yes, I’d better, I think.’
‘And don’t speak again of the accident of your birth as if it makes you less than you are.’
Jim smiled.
‘Remarkable,’ he said, and went upstairs to see how the sausages were doing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Miss Pilgrim did not accompany Jim and the children on their outing to Brighton. She had too much embroidery work on hand. Despite the rent she received, she still needed the extra income, for she was no more than solvent. She had very little to call on for a rainy day. She shared with the people of Walworth the strain of being as poor as a church mouse. She could not afford new clothes, and her wardrobe remained a well-preserved one. It was fortunate that in Walworth she could shop economically and well for the necessities of life, and she was a familiar figure to the market stallholders.
She was not turning out as much embroidery as formerly. She did not seem to have as much time. There were thieves about in the shape of her lodgers, who stole hours every week from her. She put her embroidery aside for an hour every evening, except at the weekends, in order to improve Horace’s diction. She put it aside frequently for Mr Cooper. She fretted at her slide into self-indulgence. Worse, at the fact that she was yielding so much of her privacy. But the burden she had taken on when accepting lodgers was of her own making, and she must endure it.
Of course, the time would come when her lodgers would leave. Mr Cooper would realize that if his wards were to have any kind of future, it should not be in Walworth lodgings. He must marry, he must give the children a mother, and give them all room to breathe in a rented house. He had affection for his manager’s daughter, Miss Keating. He really must begin to think seriously about her.
Miss Pilgrim’s teeth snapped a thread.
Effel turned in her bed, sighed, snuggled beneath the bedclothes and drifted into contented sleep. Orrice lay sound asleep beside Jim, the boy dead to the world. It was the last Friday of Jim’s holiday, and he had taken them to Hampshire again. They had met his grandmother, who had heaped apples and sweets on them, and been ever so nice to their guardian. Then they had had a picnic in the country, and a ramble in the afternoon.
While the kids slept the sleep of the contented and weary, Jim slept in fits and starts. Something was happening to his life. Something was not right with his life. Something was missing. He had the kids, he had things of his mother’s and new memories of her, he had comfortable lodgings, a steady if modest job, and a landlady whom he could not fault, even if she was a perfectionist in many things. He also had grandparents and the affectionate friendship of Molly. But there was still something missing.
He sat up. His nostrils twitched. There was an acrid element in the air. Silently, and without disturbing Orrice, he slipped from the bed in his flannel pyjamas. He opened the door and moved out on to the landing. The darkness of the hall and stairs was faintly broken by flickers of light. Smoke was rising from the hall. From the top of the stairs his startled eyes saw the cause. Against the front door was a heap of burning rags, the flames feeding on what he could smell, paraffin. By their light he saw a long rag depending from the letter-box, with flickering fire creeping up it. Doorpaint was peeling. Jim ran back into the bedroom, took his old, hard-wearing trenchcoat from its hook, ran down the stairs in his bare feet and into Miss Pilgrim’s kitchen. He plunged the coat into her scullery sink and turned on the tap. He flooded the coat, picked up the heavy, sopping garment, ran back into the hall and smothered the burning mass, using his one hand and his body. A tongue of flame, escaping the onslaught, caught his hand and scorched it. He moved, he extinguished the little burst of fire, plunging the hall into darkness, except that the doorpaint was beginning to burn. He lifted the soiled coat and killed the little running flames.
A door opened and Miss Pilgrim appeared, a lighted candle in its holder lifted high in her hand. Her hair was loose and flowing, and she was clad in a long white cotton nightgown. She gasped at the scene.
‘Mr Cooper – oh, my heavens, what’s happening? What is all that, and that smell, and that foul smoke?’
Jim dropped his coat over the smoking mass.
‘Someone tried to bfurn your house down, Miss Pilgrim.’
‘Look at you – wait.’ She turned on the gas and lit the hall mantle with the candle. The hall glowed with light. She paid no heed to the scarred front door or the covered heap of blackened rags. ‘Come into the kitchen.’
Jim took a look at his soaked trenchcoat lying heavily over the mass. Escaping smoke was lessening. He followed Miss Pilgrim into the kitchen. She lit the mantle there.
‘There’s a mess to clear up,’ he said.
‘Never mind that for the moment. Look at your hand. Go to the scullery sink and run cold water over it.’
‘It’s just a slight burn.’
‘Please don’t argue. Come.’ She went to the scullery sink and turned on the tap. Jim placed his hand under the cold running water. It eased the burning sensation at once. She pushed back the sleeve of his pyjama jacket. ‘Let your hand stay there for three minutes. Clear cold water is the best immediate antidote, did you know that?’
‘Some people use cold tea. In the field hospitals during the war, the medics used ointment and bandages.’
‘Probably as they did during the Crimean war,’ said the unflappable Miss Pilgrim. ‘Mr Cooper, thank you for what you’ve just done. The children haven’t woken up?’
‘No, and I hope they won’t. Someone stuffed a hell of a lot of paraffin-soaked rags through your letter-box on to your mat, and set fire to them with a long rag that was already alight, of course. It could only have been Mrs Lockheart. You’ll have to face it, she’s off her rocker.’
‘Well, you aren’t, Mr Cooper, you have a great deal of good sense. Thank goodness the fire woke you up.’
‘I happened to be awake at the time. I smelled the stuff.’
‘God sometimes takes care of us, and is sometimes indifferent. Who can blame Him, when so many of us are such wretched creatures? But this time, you were His instrument of care.’ She turned the tap off and looked at his hand. ‘There, we’ve saved it blistering. Do it again in a couple of minutes, then we’ll see if it needs covering up. I do not cover ordinary burns up myself.’
‘I’ll go and look at that mess, to make sure it’s out.’
‘I’ll do that. You stay here.’ Miss Pilgrim went and inspected the charred heap. When she returned she said, ‘Your coat is ruined. I shall buy you a new one.’ It would cost what she could not really afford, but there could be no question of Mr Cooper paying for it himself.
‘But you’re insured against fir
e, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes, of course. All the contents.’
‘Then the insurance company will pay. Also for the cost of making good any damage. That’ll be for the landlord to settle, through his insurance.’
‘Dear me,’ she said, ‘I can’t be myself not to have thought of that.’
‘About Mrs Lockheart, you’ll have to do something,’ said Jim.
‘That poor woman is a mental case, Mr Cooper. She has been in an asylum for years. She’s out now, obviously, but is still not quite sane.’
‘Not quite sane? She’s a lunatic.’
‘Come, Mr Cooper, don’t raise your voice, you’ll wake the children.’ Miss Pilgrim turned the tap on again. ‘Let’s try some more cold water.’
Jim placed his hand under the stream and smiled at her.
‘There aren’t many like you, are there?’ he said.
‘Like me? What do you mean?’
‘That my admiration for you is total.’
‘I thought it wouldn’t be long before your nonsense made its entrance.’ She turned the tap off and inspected his hand again. ‘There, I’m sure we’ve nothing to worry about with that. Hold still.’ She went into the kitchen, opened a dresser drawer and came back with a large piece of cotton wool, which she used to dab his hand dry. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘I am proud of you, Mr Cooper, and consider myself fortunate to have you as my lodger. Now you may return to your bed.’
‘As your lodger, might I point out I’m not a small boy, Miss Pilgrim?’
‘I’m glad you’re not,’ she said. ‘Small boys are terrors. Luckily, Horace is an exception. Yes, go up now, Mr Cooper, I’m very grateful that you saved us all, but you have your work to go to in the morning.’
‘I’ll clear the mess up first, I’ll dump it outside.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Pilgrim, ‘I am not going to have it on my doorstep for everyone to look at in the morning. I’ll get a bucket and carry it out to the dustbin at my back door.’
Two for Three Farthings Page 29