‘We are going to have a holiday,’ he said. ‘A real holiday, Julia.’
Julia looked startled.
‘A second honeymoon!’ he cried.
‘Except for the children …’ hinted Julia, rather tactlessly, and almost indelicately.
‘Naturally,’ said the Reverend Herbert, frowning. He told her his plan.
He had kept twenty pounds out of the legacy, in cash – in his desk. It was there at this very moment. And it was all to be spent on a holiday, at the sea.
Herbert’s living was a country one, and so they hadn’t felt justified in going away every summer. It was, in fact, three years since they had been away – before Theodore was born, said Julia reminiscently.
Constance, aged four, had never even seen the sea.
‘When did you think of going, darling? It’s the end of June now – shall we be able to get in anywhere?’
‘Oh yes, I think so,’ said the Reverend Herbert brightly and firmly, meaning really that he hoped so. ‘Of course, we shouldn’t care for one of the fashionable, expensive, crowded places, should we, dear?’
‘No. But even—’
‘Cornwall, now, or North Devon – and that wouldn’t be too long a journey, which would mean less expense. We needn’t feel bound to any one date. Smith will take duty for me any Sunday I like, and we can get away on a Monday, and stay till the following Saturday week.’
‘What about Ethel?’
Ethel was their general servant. It was very difficult for Mrs Cliff-Hay to find a servant, and still more difficult for her to keep one. Ethel had been with them six months, and Julia’s great preoccupation in life, after the welfare of Herbert and the children, was how to make certain that Ethel would never leave.
‘Ethel will look after the house, of course.’
‘Dear, she won’t sleep here alone, I’m perfectly certain. You know what girls are.’
‘Well, well, we can settle about Ethel later, surely,’ said the Reverend Herbert rather peevishly. ‘Here am I, full of a surprise plan which I hope will be a joy and a pleasure to you, and all you can talk about is the wretched Ethel!’
It did indeed seem ungrateful, looked at in that way.
‘I didn’t really mean it like that,’ said Julia – although she had really meant it exactly like that. ‘Of course it’s a glorious idea, Herbert, and so kind of you to think of it all. I’d love it, naturally.’
‘It would do you good, dear,’ said Herbert, mollified at once. ‘We’ll cast off all responsibilities, for once, and simply enjoy ourselves. After all, we’re still young,’ he added wistfully. And Julia, in quick response to the wistfulness, answered at once: ‘Of course we are!’
She, as a matter of fact, was thirty-five, and Herbert eight years older. But she had a suspicion that they both looked more – Herbert because he was getting fat, and she because her hair was turning grey so very quickly. (It wouldn’t have shown, though, if her hair had only been fair instead of dark brown.)
Julia wrote to various places about rooms, and found, as she had expected, that everything was full up already, until the middle of October.
‘If one was on the spot …’ said Herbert thoughtfully. ‘I think, dearest, the only thing would be, if you didn’t very much mind, for you to go yourself to one of these places – say Bewlaigh, which is the shortest journey – and go round the town, and find a lodging or one of the less expensive hotels or boarding-houses. It’ll really save you time and trouble in endless writing, in the long run, and you’re sure to find something.’
Julia was rather astonished. He had never suggested that she should go away anywhere by herself, before, but it just showed how much his mind was set upon this plan of a holiday.
Julia went to Bewlaigh, a journey of about two-and-a-half hours by train. It was a nice hot day, and the sea looked very blue, and there were people bathing, and children playing on the sands and climbing over the rocks, and Julia thought of Martin and Constance and Theodore, and made up her mind then and there that she wouldn’t go home until she’d found rooms for them.
The place was small – only one cinema, no Pierrots, no bathing-machines, and only a very tiny pier. It couldn’t really be full up.
The station was in the middle of the little town, and she walked slowly up the parade, not looking much at the white, shining, square houses with green shutters, and striped sun-blinds, and gardens, that lined the roads, because she knew that these would be the most expensive of all the lodgings.
Anything not directly overlooking the blue, sparkling sea would be cheaper.
She turned up a little side road, called Prospect Road. The Prospect, if taken literally, referred to a number of small, grey stone villas, all exactly alike, duplicated in two long rows. Almost every window had a card in it, bearing the word: Apartments.
Julia tried the first one.
‘Full up till the end of September,’ said the woman pleasantly.
The next one was full up till October. So were the third and the fourth and the fifth. The fifth doubted very much if there was anything to be had anywhere in Bewlaigh so late in the day. Rooms were generally booked in the winter, or the early spring – sometimes the year before, if people wanted to return to the same house.
But Julia could try Mrs Parker, in York Terrace – the last house but one on the left as you went down.
Julia said that she was much obliged, and went to York Terrace. She had expected to have great difficulty in finding what she wanted, and was neither surprised, nor very much discouraged.
With three children and not much money, it was never easy to get in anywhere.
She passed a pink house, with ‘Board-Residence’ placarded on the balcony, on her way to York Terrace, and went in, just in case, and asked for the manageress.
The manageress thought she might have rooms, when would it be for?
‘Any date in July or August,’ said Julia. ‘Two rooms, and a double bed and a single one in each, or else three single beds in one room, for the children—’
‘Oh,’ said the manageress, differently. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but we don’t really care about taking children. How old would they be?’
‘Five and four and nearly two,’ said Julia, conscious that these were, of all ages, the most damning.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the manageress firmly.
They wished one another a good morning, and separated.
York Terrace was on the top of a hill. It would be a terrific climb up from the sands, but it needn’t take more than fifteen minutes even with the pram.
‘The last house but one on the left, as you went down …’
It was called, poetically, ‘Eventide’. It reminded Julia vaguely of some hymn, which seemed suitable. Perhaps a good omen, or was that being superstitious?
‘Mrs Parker?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was wondering if you had any rooms vacant any time in July or August—’ glibly began Julia, in the formula that she had now used seven times within an hour.
‘Any time in July or August,’ said Mrs Parker.
‘Any time.’
‘I’ve the middle of July practically vacant, owing to a party having failed. How long would you be wanting the rooms, and for how many?’
Julia gave particulars, not slurring the ages of the children.
Her heart leapt when Mrs Parker asked if she would care to see the rooms.
One front bedroom – one back one on the same floor, the requisite number of beds, and a small sitting-room downstairs.
‘What are your terms for these rooms?’
‘Six guineas a week, after the first week in July. I have to try and make up, in the season, for all the rest of the year, when I may get no let at all,’ said Mrs Parker mournfully.
Six guineas wasn’t too bad. But Julia knew about landladies.
‘Does that include cooking and attendance?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lighting – if any?’
‘Lighting is an extra. It
varies so much.’
‘Baths?’
‘Baths is naturally an extra. Sixpence, a hot bath is.’
‘And what about early-morning tea?’ said Mrs Cliff-Hay, having learnt all the moves in the game by painful experience three and a half years ago at Ilfracombe.
She could see that Mrs Parker, while resenting this catechism, at the same time respected her for it. She replied curtly, but not unkindly, that early-morning tea would be sixpence – without bread and butter.
‘Just the two cups,’ said Mrs Parker.
Julia engaged the rooms.
‘In time for tea on the 15th,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Shall I order in some bread, and milk, and butter, and what quantity of milk shall you be requiring, and will you want cake, or jam, for tea?’
Julia gave the required information.
‘Plain or fancy?’ Mrs Parker further demanded, referring to the cakes for tea.
It was evident that she had been keeping lodgings for years, Julia thought, and said, ‘Plain, please. Buns. Six penny ones would do. We shall be bringing the baby’s pram.’
‘That’ll be all right. At the back.’
All being thus made clear between them, Julia Cliff-Hay promised to send a postcard confirming the time of their arrival, and walked back to the station again.
As there wasn’t a train for an hour and a half, she had time to go slowly, and to have a cup of tea on the way.
Herbert, hearing of her success, was delighted, and said twice in the course of the evening that it would be a second honeymoon, and although Julia – who had been young, ignorant, and frightened, at the time – had not enjoyed her honeymoon at all, she had long ago succeeded in forgetting this with her conscious mind, and now agreed with him quite happily, and looked forward eagerly to the holiday.
The question of Ethel was settled about a week later, after a good deal of difficulty. She was to go home to her mother and take the Cliff-Hays’ cat with her, and the Rectory was to be shut up, and the gardener would keep an eye on it.
‘But Ethel’s mother always puts some nonsense into her head, and goodness knows if we shall ever get her back,’ thought Julia. ‘And if Ethel isn’t here, and the house is empty, we can’t very well have in the sweep, as I should have liked. It’ll have to wait till we get back.’
When twelve o’clock on the 15th of July came, the packing was done, the suit-case and portmanteau belonging to Herbert, and a small tin trunk containing the effects of Julia and the three children, were locked and labelled, the basket, with sandwiches and bananas in it, stood ready. Ethel, with the protesting cat in a little hamper, waited at the back door, the village Ford that was to take them to the station was due in twenty minutes – and Herbert, Julia and their two elder children waited anxiously for the infant Theodore to wake from his morning sleep, so that the pram could be put into its sacking and get its label tied to the handle.
‘You know how it’ll upset him if we do wake him. I’d wake him in a minute, if it didn’t mean that he’ll be so cross all the way down,’ said Julia for about the seventh time.
‘That’s all very well, dear, but I can’t tie the covering on to the pram all in a minute, and we do not want to miss the train.’
‘Miss the train!’ echoed Martin, aged five, in great dismay.
‘Shall I have a spade, Daddy?’ said little Constance.
‘If you’re good, dear.’
‘I can’t think why he’s sleeping so late this morning – it’s always the way when one doesn’t want them to—’
Julia made a hasty trip to the front door, outside which stood the pram. Theodore, inside it, still slept peacefully.
‘Daddy, shall I have a spade?’ Constance said, earnestly.
‘Yes, darling.’
‘A real spade, Daddy?’
‘Yes, yes, certainly, when we get there. I say, Julia, you must really wake the child. This is nonsense.’
‘I’d wake him in a minute, if it didn’t mean that he’ll be so cross all the way down. I can’t think why he’s sleeping like this – he never does as a rule, but it’s always the way—’
Ethel appeared in the hall.
‘The car is just coming up the lane, ’m. Didn’t we ought to wake Baby?’
‘He’ll be so cross – there! isn’t he moving?’
‘Mummie,’ said Constance in a voice of passionate and uncontrollable anxiety, ‘can’t I have a spade?’
‘Certainly, my pet, you shall have a spade. I promise you. Well, if that’s the car, Ethel …’
Ethel darted towards the pram.
Theodore was awakened, and cried pitifully, and Julia hurried him into the house, and changed all the clothes he had on for other, similar clothes, that were clean instead of dirty, and Herbert tied up the pram and helped the driver to put the luggage on the car.
‘Martin dear, run and tell Mother that we shall miss the train,’ said Herbert, who had all his life suffered from train-fever.
Martin rushed in, shrieking: ‘We shall miss the train, we shall miss the train!’ And Julia said, ‘Oh no, darling’, soothingly, and finished off Baby as quickly as she could, and ran out with him to the car.
‘Can I sit in front?’ said Martin.
‘No, me,’ said Constance.
‘Daddy will sit in front.’
‘With me on his lap—’
‘No, me!’
‘It’s Martin’s turn,’ said Julia, who had to remember these things. ‘Constance darling, come and sit with Mother and Theodore in the back.’
‘Tell me a story, Mother!’ cried Constance.
Julia immediately said, ‘Once upon a time there was a little pig who lived in a wood and – wave good-bye to Ethel, darling – Baby wave his little hand – ta-ta, Ethel! Are you all right. Herbert?’
‘Quite, thank you, dear. Have you any room for your feet?’
‘Yes, thank you … Lived in a wood and went out every day to look for acorns …’
The story lasted until they reached the station, when Julia said: ‘Get out carefully, my pet, and wait for Mother.’
‘Am I going to have a spade for the sands?’
‘Yes, you shall all have spades.’
On these lines, the journey proceeded. Herbert was very kind, and took his turn in amusing the fractious Theodore, and Julia told stories, and reassured Constance about her spade, and from time to time smiled her pleasure at the holiday having really begun, and received Herbert’s equally pleased and sympathetic smile in return. And it was a fine day, even if not a very warm one.
Everything was ready for them at ‘Eventide,’ down to the six plain buns upon the tea-table; and the moment tea was finished, they went out.
‘To the shops, please, dear,’ Julia said. ‘I’ve got to order the things for our meals to-morrow. It’s Sunday, you know, and she’s got nothing in for us, except just the milk and the bread.’
‘And shall we get my spade now, Mother?’ said Constance in a trustful, uncomplaining voice.
‘Yes, of course. Poor little thing, you have been patient!’ cried Julia, really believing this, owing to the fabulous number of times that she had heard her daughter’s request.
‘Will you let me have some money, Herbert?’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said the Reverend Herbert, and he took Martin’s hand.
‘Is the pram undone, darling? Because of Baby. It’s too early to put him to bed, and besides, I couldn’t leave him alone, in a strange room, anyway – but we ought to hurry, because the shops shut at six.’
They unwrapped the pram, and set out. Julia had a list, and they went – as fast as the pram, the narrow streets, the people, their unfamiliarity with the locality, and the short legs of Martin and Constance – would permit from the butcher to the grocer, and the grocer to the greengrocer, and the greengrocer to the baker. Everything seemed to be a little more expensive than the same things would have been at home, but one expected that, on a holiday.
When the shopping was done
– and it included spades, buckets and sand-shoes for all the children – it was time for Julia to go back and put Theodore to bed.
Herbert took the other two down to the sands. He was so good about the children, Julia reflected thankfully. Even at home, where he was busy, he often helped her with them on Ethel’s afternoon out. Theodore was good, and went to sleep quickly, and Julia had done nearly all the unpacking before Herbert and the elder children came back, and she had to put Martin and Constance to bed.
At half-past seven Mr and Mrs Cliff-Hay had supper. Mrs Parker had made it perfectly clear that when she said ‘No cooking’ in the evenings, she included things like potatoes, or even cocoa. But Julia had brought a spirit lamp, and boiled water herself, which made them independent.
After supper Herbert wanted to go for a walk, and Julia, who didn’t like leaving the children, and was very tired besides, reluctantly went with him. She was but an abstracted companion, and Herbert, disappointed, was quite ready to come in again by nine o’clock. By ten, Julia, who could scarcely keep her eyes open, having seen that Martin and Constance and Theodore were all sleeping, went to bed herself.
‘You won’t be quite so tired, I hope, at nights, after a few days’ holiday,’ said the Reverend Herbert, when he in his turn got into the double bed.
He tried to make his voice sound only kind, and not resentful, but the effort was wasted upon Julia, who was sleeping like the dead.
II
The days sped by, only too quickly.
The order of them was always the same.
Between six and half-past six, Theodore woke, and was taken into his parents’ bed so that he might not disturb the other two children, who seldom opened their eyes till seven o’clock. At half-past seven Mrs Parker brought the early-morning tea – without bread and butter – and Julia got up, and washed and dressed and brushed the three children.
At half-past eight they had breakfast.
Then the sands – Julia doing the necessary shopping on the way. There was always something to be ordered, or bought, for the children.
The weather wasn’t too bad, for an English July. Julia thought it rather chilly, but then she had to adjust her pace to that of the baby, who could only toddle about, or sit on the sands scooping holes with his fingers.
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 84