“The Cambridge train?” A porter pushed her through. There wasn’t time to buy a ticket. A fat woman, puffing even more heavily, hurried through with her. They looked as if they were together.
Once sat down, she shook. To still herself, and to feel safer, she shut her eyes and feigned sleep.
Long, long station platform. Long, long straight road leading from it. No sign of a university.
“Excuse me, could you tell me which bus goes nearest to Clare College, please?”
Even when she got off the bus, she had to ask twice. It was dark now, which made it more difficult. I must not appear remarkable, she thought, as she came to the porter’s lodge.
The porter had his back to her. “Where do I find Mr. Michael Firth, please? I should know—I forgot.” She clutched the brown leather purse in her pocket, playing with the fastening.
He turned his head. “C staircase, miss. Left. He came in just ten minutes ago.”
How could she have been so stupid? If he had been out … Could she have said he expected her and asked to wait? It’ll be all right, she told herself. Once I’m with Michael, it’ll be all right.
She crept up the wooden staircase and knocked.
When he came to the door it was his feet she saw first. He was wearing the dark green house slippers she remembered from home.
“Christ Almighty. Willow!”
“I’m a surprise, Mike, I—”
“Anyone else from Our Lady of V? Is it some poisonous school excursion?”
She had meant to throw her arms around him. Dear Mike. But it wasn’t working out like that.
“You’d better come in. And explain.
“Have you had any tea?” he asked as he closed the door behind them. “I was just going to make a pot. Though it’ll be dinner in less than an hour. I’ve some crumpets somewhere.”
“I had a big lunch, thank you.”
The room had a plump chesterfield, brown leather, buttoned. She sat down stiffly on it.
“I’ll put the kettle on all the same.” She glimpsed a small room. Sink, gas ring. “And now—as you were explaining?”
“I haven’t. It’s rather difficult. I want to stay with you. Here, in your college. Till—”
“You must be crazy.”
“Only for a few days, Mike. Just till—I need to be away, I need—”
“Too bad, Cousin Willow. Too bad. Whatever you need. I mean, come up to tea, O.K., but you can’t … Christ. You can’t sleep here.”
“Just hide me a couple of days, Mike. Please. I—”
“But it’s a ghastly risk for me. Can’t you go to a hotel or something or get a train up home? Why run away from the wretched place in the first instance?”
“I just … I couldn’t be there another moment—”
“It came on rather suddenly, didn’t it?”
“They … Listen, Michael, this is the sort of thing they do, I can’t bear—”
“Hang on. The kettle.”
When he came back she tried to tell him something of what she’d been feeling. But despair, she thought, can’t be talked about, only felt. And worse, she began to cry.
“Not content with turning up like a bad penny, you’re going to drown me as well. Look here, Willow …”
But he must have had a kind heart because he toasted her some crumpets as well as giving her tea.
“I don’t know what else you’ll get to eat. You can hardly come down to dinner in college.”
“I can stay, then? You mean I’m staying?”
“If you won’t go I haven’t any choice. But, God, you’d better keep your head low.”
His black gown lay the other end of the chesterfield. He dragged it on, then went through to the bedroom and changed the house shoes. In the gown, he looked a different person.
“And for God’s sake, stay put. Don’t answer any knocks. I’ll shut the outer door, so no one will … If you want the lavatory or anything …”
The doors banged behind him. A minute later, he rushed in again. “Look, if you get peckish … I mean, lunch must have worn off and you’re going to need something.”
“I’m all right, Michael. Honest.”
“There’s some fruitcake Grandma sent in a tin somewhere, and some savory things from GP Jones.”
“I’m O.K.,” she insisted. When he’d left again, his gown flying behind him, she sat a few moments, eyes shut. Waves of fear, of might have been swept over her.
Of what might yet be. Even now they could be distrusting the telegram, checking it. The search may be on. She felt a mixture of light-headed fatigue and restlessness. She put more coal on the fire, got coal dust on her fingers and wiped them vigorously on her school dress—which had a wretched Our Lady of Victories badge on the front. In Michael’s bedroom she saw a patterned pullover and slipped it on. While she was there she heard a knock. “Don’t answer,” Michael had said. But a man already had his head around the sitting room door.
“Hi—I was looking for Mike.” He wasn’t quite as tall as she. He had a lively, bony face and moved quickly. He spoke with an American accent. He too wore a gown.
“He’s at dinner? Right, can you give him a message? I feel bad barging in, but well, I guess the outer door was open so … Can you tell him, please, his Cousin Jay came by and that the girl I was bringing tomorrow, she’s had to go away for the weekend. I figured he’d need to know for the numbers.”
As he spoke she thought he looked oddly at her face. She tried to change her expression to a more grown-up one, curling her Up. Her hands, with their bitten nails, lay in her lap.
As soon as he left, her quaking began again. She wanted too to go to the lavatory. Then the terrifying thought came to her: perhaps Michael had not really gone down to eat dinner? Perhaps he had gone to telephone Grandma?
When he came back, she said, “Your cousin dropped in. He—”
“Look, what did I say? Christ, you didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
She was hurt, but dignified. “I just took a message for you, that’s all. He obviously thought I’m your girl friend—”
“Girl friend, my foot. As if anyone would … Coal dust too, all over your face. And that must be my pullover.” He poked the fire. “Well, what was the message?” When she’d told him: “Dimwit,” he said, “I suppose you didn’t realize he’s your cousin too.”
She felt stupid. “I’m sorry, really.”
“Forget it. Jay’s all right as they go, but a bit electric. Live and all that— quite keen though to be friends.” “I thought he looked nice.”
“Great Aunt Daisy, one of her daughters’ sons. Don’t ask me which.”
“What’s the party tomorrow?”
“I’m giving it with another chap. We expect it to be quite a good thrash. One girl the less isn’t serious.”
“Have you got a girl friend?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said, but not unkindly. “No, thank you, as it happens …”
They sat a few moments. He leafed through a magazine. He said, “I’ve told someone about you. My friend Chas. He’ll be up later and we’ll have coffee.”
Chas had flashing eyes and teeth that showed a lot of pink gum. He said, “Poor Michael’s scared out of his wits. I’ve told him not to worry. We’ll look after you.”
While Michael filled the percolator, he said, “She’s coming to our thrash, I take it?”
“God, no. It’s just when they’ll start to search.” “Best thing. Hide her in a crowd.”
Michael said reluctantly, “I suppose we could dress her as a man. Boy anyway. I don’t know. It’s all mad.”
Willow burst into tears.
“Whoops,” he said, “there she goes again.”
She woke almost every half hour in the night. A clock struck outside with a high-pitched tone. Footsteps up and down the staircase. Footsteps beneath her window. Voices.
She lay in her liberty bodice, vest, and blue panties and linings. She kept her woolen stockings on,
too, though the suspenders poked a bit. She had Michael’s bed. He’d insisted, saying he would sleep on the chesterfield.
In the morning she was raw with fatigue, sick, empty, and more frightened than yesterday. Soon she was going to have to think, be calm, make a decision. Chas came down to see about the party. He and Michael wanted simply to put her on a train for York, telephoning home first. Obstinate with panic, she refused. She felt even less able to leave Michael’s room.
During the day they were busy with their party. They brought her food, which she tried to eat. Every now and then one of them would put a hand to his head and say:
“We’d better do something about all this. It’s … she’s a real problem. Tomorrow she’s positively absolutely got to go.”
She felt weakly obstinate. “They can come and get me.”
“It’s my whole Cambridge career in jeopardy, your cussedness,” Michael said.
Chas (the very one who’d said last night, “We’ll take care of you”) said now, “I suppose we could turn her in?” He no longer seemed to find it a joke. To Michael it had never been one.
The party began about eight. They’d never meant seriously that she should come to it. She thought of going to bed and burying her head under the sheets and forgetting. But when she’d been alone in the sitting room for about half an hour, she grew uneasy. Betty would be back at the convent by now. Perhaps the search had already begun?
Her school dress looked even more awful today. She saw there were food stains on the skirt. She sponged them off in the servants’ room. In Michael’s chest of drawers she found a penknife and cut away the convent badge. The dress looked worse without it so she took another of his pullovers, a smaller one this time. Then she washed her face. Her hair was still wavy from the plaits. She brushed it with one of his brushes. Then she felt light-headed and thought perhaps she should eat; she took some of Grandma’s fruitcake and a glass of water.
Then she set out up the staircase, following the sounds of voices, laughter, music.
“Hullo, hullo, hullo and who is this?” She was taken firmly by the arm and whirled into the room by a man with glasses and hair like a dishmop. She thought he might be a little tiddly.
Clinking of glasses, babble of voices. Faces blurred and merged.
“Blooming naiad,” the man with the dishmop head told her, “that’s what you are.”
Chas had seen her, Michael too. In a minute he was by her side. He whispered in her ear:
“For heavens sake. What are you doing? And my yellow pullover—” “It looks nice,” she said cheekily.
“Kid sister, you look a real kid sister.” But once again he didn’t go on being angry for long. He found her a glass of lemonade, then introduced her to a group of people over in a corner, whispering first, “You’re on your own now and serve you right.
“My cousin Willow,” he told them, “she’s staying with friends nearby to do some riding.” (How could he?) “So hence the absence of party togs.”
They were very nice to her. She steered the talk away swiftly from horses. Remembering that Tootles had been a cow kicker, she said, “It’s been a sickening weekend, too dreary for words. My mount was a cow kicker. I just can’t bear to talk about it.”
A fragment of conversation floated over:
“All Quiet on the Red Front … the gospel according to St. Marx …”
She hadn’t noticed that someone stood behind her. “Hi, there. We met last evening.”
She turned, the lemonade sploshing in her glass. When she saw who it was, she said, “You didn’t realize—I’m your cousin.”
“Is that true?”
“Well, if you’re our American cousin, yes. I’m Michael’s cousin, you see.”
“Let me guess. Are you the one with the fancy name? The lovely name. Willow?”
She nodded, spilling some of the lemonade.
“Well, I’m Jay. Like I said. Willow, let’s go over there, not too near the radio—and you tell me everything.”
She thought at first he knew something. And Michael had promised. She looked around to see where he or Chas had gotten to. Both were opening bottles near the door.
But it was about family Jay wanted to talk:
“I remember your aunt. Teddy, Cousin Teddy. She visited once when we lived with our grandmother.”
“She told me. Your sisters. A brother. Years ago—:”
“1923. I must have been seven, eight. She sang ‘I’m just wild about Harry’ to my kid brother—imagine that. He’s just started in medical school.”
“I never know who’s who.”
“My mother’s Ruth, the youngest of Daisy’s children. She’d be first cousin to your mother. Dad was killed in the war, before I was even born. He was half Jewish too—I guess that leaves me only one quarter. Mom married again in ’26. He’s a banker, and a fine person.”
She asked what he was doing here, and for how long.
“International law. How long’s up to Adolf Hitler. As it was I almost didn’t …” He took her empty glass. “Our side of the family, yours too, we’re really bad about keeping in touch. Our grandmothers exchange news, but us—apart from I’ve seen something of Michael, I’ve done nothing.”
While he spoke, she’d been feeling safer than at any time since she’d run away. Then suddenly, glancing at her watch—half-past nine. Panic. Surely by now?
“Hey there—something not right?”
“The nuns,” she said. “They’ll be coming after me any moment.” Her mouth felt weak, but stiff at the same time.
“Willow, this is some story.” Then, as if he really meant it: “Why don’t I help you? I can run faster than any nun.” He added, “Serious, though. If there’s anything I can do …”
“I can’t tell you here—it’s too difficult.”
“Let’s go down to Michael’s rooms—if it’s O.K. by him.”
She didn’t bother to ask Michael, telling Jay that of course it was O.K. Michael didn’t see her go, nor Charles.
They sat on opposite sides of the banked-up fire. It was easy, because she’d been wanting to tell someone. It meant going right back to the murder and the trial—he knew something of that, of course. He listened very carefully, to everything. When she’d finished he asked a few questions. Then he sat very still—although he didn’t seem still. (Electric, Michael had said.)
He told her then what she must do. “But only if you want to.… You see, I reckon you just don’t need to stay there at all. Only you have to tell the right people so they can do something about it. And that means your Grandma.… What you do first, is write the nuns. Very politely, courteously, but saying where they get off. Your grievances. And how really sorry you are they don’t have a better school. They won’t answer—but you’ll feel better.”
She must do it soon, he said. Tomorrow’s mail. No later.
Then: “Stay right here,” he said. She sat, not daring to move. He was back in what seemed seconds.
“I spoke with Mike—he says everything’s fine by him, and good-bye and good luck.”
It all seemed to be happening suddenly very fast.
“You didn’t have any luggage?” “Just my school coat and scarf.”
“O.K. Then you come with me. We’ll write that letter together first thing tomorrow. Right now I’m going to check you into the University Arms. After that we’ll call your Grandma. The hue and cry—it’ll have just about started up.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.” She felt weak with relief.
“We’ll tell the hotel you missed your train, that’s why you’ve no luggage. No, better, we’ll get a cab to my rooms and you can borrow a bag. Maybe some pajamas. I reckon you’re a half inch taller, but what the hell.”
Yes, Jay. No, Jay. Whatever you say, Jay. Bed and sleep, she thought, and safety. And then home.
18
“If you wish to smoke, Mrs. Nicolson, please feel at liberty. I shouldn’t like you to think you must behave as a pupil of t
his convent—”
“None of the girls smoke, Reverend Mother? How times have changed. I thought all schoolchildren surreptitiously puffed at cigarettes.”
The nun smiled icily. “Perhaps, Mrs. Nicolson, it is precisely this frivolous attitude to wrongdoing which has led your niece so astray?”
Teddy, folding her legs, stared across the room at the Infant Jesus of Prague, crowned and cloaked above the fireplace. “I’d be happy to think I’d had any influence on her at all. I admire her a great deal.”
“It would seem we are speaking about a different person. The girl to whom I refer has, among other outrages, sent us this.” As if they were unclean, she held up two sheets of paper covered in Willow’s large unformed hand. “Mrs. Nicolson, perhaps you would like to read what your niece has written?”
Oh my God, what am I doing here, Teddy thought. It’s always me to the rescue. This time it was only luck she’d been available. She’d decided soon after the Munich crisis to go to the States for a month, returned a week ago on the Normandie, and then suddenly wanted to be in Flaxthorpe. She had been there when Jay telephoned. His call had come ten minutes before Reverend Mother’s:
“There is as yet no call for panic, Mrs. Ahlefeldt-Levetzau, but we are a trifle concerned that little Willow hasn’t returned yet from a visit we thought to be sanctioned.” It had been some time before the nun realized she was talking to Teddy. She behaved then as if she’d been fobbed off with brass instead of gold:
“That is not Mrs. Ahlefeldt-Levetzau? In whom have I been confiding, then? Her daughter? I am speaking to an adult, I trust.”
What a silly woman, Teddy had thought. She thought it again now, as she skimmed through Willow’s manifesto. Spelling mistakes apart, it was quite impressive. Jay had mentioned to her that Willow would be “telling them where they get off.”
“I hope you are shocked, Mrs. Nicolson. Naturally I have not allowed any other member of the community to see it. There is enough suffering in the world without inflicting unnecessary wounds on innocent persons.”
Teddy thought, I shall not comment on what Willow has written. I shall not play into her hands at all. I need not even have come. It was at Mother’s request, and indirectly for Alice’s sake.
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