Miss Ranskill Comes Home

by Barbara Euphan Todd

  ‘It might be useful if there was another war. People who know German might easily help to catch spies.’

  ‘There won’t be another war ever, you silly chump. This is a War to end Wars absolutely; everyone says so.’

  Miss Ranskill recalled Marjorie’s earnest face as she flicked over the pages, till she came to the ones that gave ‘News of old girls’.

  There, in repudiation of her mother’s cock-a-hoop statement, was a little notice:

  ‘Daphne Mallison (Hillrise, Hartmouth) has joined the WRNS and is enjoying her new life very much!’

  Miss Ranskill read other news slowly as a child mouthing through its first story-book, missing out some words and symbols, guessing at the meaning of others. Her contemporaries seemed to be doing remarkable things.

  Her finger was checked by a small obituary notice.

  ‘Mary, infant daughter of Molly Henderson (née Matthews), by enemy action.’

  The shocking little statement sent Miss Ranskill’s mind harking back – Molly Matthews, of course, that small red-headed second-former with the snuffle and the squeaky voice. Always in trouble for something or other, she remembered. She felt angry as she remembered how frequently Molly had been held up to ridicule.

  ‘The untidiest girl I have ever known. You are always losing something. First your hat, then your gym shoes, then your hockey-stick and now your drawing-board!’

  Poor Molly, well, she had lost more than a drawing-board now.

  The telephone bell rang.

  III

  Miss Ranskill held the receiver in a grip that whitened her knuckles.

  ‘Are you Hartmouth two-five-eight-?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Your call to Lynchurch is through. Go ahead, please.’

  ‘Hullo! Hullo!’

  She could almost smell the furniture polish in the home drawing-room now.

  ‘Hullo!’ the voice came faintly.

  ‘Is that you, Edith?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Edith, is that you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t hear you very well.’

  ‘Is that you, Edith?’ Miss Ranskill was almost bellowing by now. ‘Who is that speaking? Is Miss Ranskill in?’

  ‘No, this is Mrs Wilson speaking.’ The voice sounded exasperated. ‘There is nobody of the name of Ranskill here.’

  ‘But aren’t you Lynchurch five-five-eight?’

  ‘Yes, this is Lynchurch five-five-eight.’

  ‘I wanted to speak to my sister, Miss Edith Ranskill.’

  ‘This is Mrs Wilson speaking,’ repeated the plaintive voice. ‘I’m afraid you must have got the wrong number.’

  ‘Please,’ Miss Ranskill spoke chokingly. She was afraid of hearing that Edith was dead, so afraid that she dared not ask the direct question: ‘Please, are you speaking from a house called The White Cottage?’

  ‘The White Cottage, yes.’

  ‘Is it, is it your house?’

  ‘We are the present tenants.’

  Miss Ranskill felt sure that eyebrows were being raised in Hampshire, and she continued pleadingly:

  ‘I’m not asking out of curiosity –’

  An incredulous pip sounded in her ear, followed by another and another.

  ‘I’m asking because I’ve just come, I mean, I have been away for some time and I used to live in – in your house. I thought my sister was there now. If you could possibly help me.’

  She would hear the truth now and braced herself to receive it. Nervousness dulled her brain so that, at first, she scarcely took in the meaning of the words that seemed to come dimly and from a far country.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about your sister. We took over the house furnished from my husband’s predecessor about six months ago.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I’m afraid I must –’

  Miss Ranskill’s brain jumped to alertness again.

  ‘Don’t cut me off for a minute, please don’t cut me off. Could you tell me is there a white rug in front of the drawing-room fireplace and a Queen Anne bureau in the corner, and –?’ She suddenly realised the absurdity of the questions and said, ‘I’m only trying to find out if my sister let the house furnished or if –’

  ‘I see. Yes, there is a white rug and a Queen Anne bureau.’

  ‘And a Welsh dresser in the dining-room?’

  ‘Yes – a black oak dresser.’

  Hope came back and with it more acuteness.

  ‘Did you keep the maids on? Is old Emma with you because –’

  ‘No, we’ve only got my husband’s batman. I should think it is quite likely that your sister went away, like so many other people, when we became a prohibited area.’

  ‘Prohibited area?’ Miss Ranskill repeated the unfamiliar words.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m so sorry not to be more helpful. Perhaps the post office here would have an address. I daresay they’d forward a letter.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Ranskill flatly. ‘I wonder –’

  ‘I wish I could help. I must go now or the kettle will be boiling over. Goodbye.’

  The click of a receiver in Hampshire left Miss Ranskill lonely and homesick.

  Now, at this very moment, the copper kettle in her own kitchen was bubbling its readiness to make tea for a stranger. The stove was taking the reflection of a stranger’s skirt and the rag hearth-rug was soft beneath a tenant’s foot. She could almost hear the tinkle of the spoon against the teapot.

  Meanwhile she had no foothold in England except for an hour or so. Presently, she supposed, she would have to say goodbye to Marjorie, thank her for the nice tea-party, promise to be ‘certain to look her up again’ next time she was in the neighbourhood, and go. Where? Could she take a room in some hotel while a bank got in touch with her bank and a post office in Lynchurch forwarded a letter? Would any hotel proprietor take her in these clothes and without luggage, and could she bear the publicity of the public rooms, supposing one did? Would the mysterious thing called a coupon be her only passport to the hotel?

  Up to now she had always thought the Saracen maid, with her bleat of ‘London-Gilbert, Gilbert-London’ rather an idiot, but ‘Edith-England’ was an even vaguer address.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Miss Ranskill wondered what to do next. She strolled round the room, and was again shocked by her reflection in the mirror. Then a pair of nail-scissors on the dressing-table gave a hint that she might as well trim some of the jags of her rusty hair, for there was now no need to keep it long as she had done on the island, where it had been a substitute for darning thread. The Carpenter had made the shell needles.

  A woman’s glory is her hair, Miss Ranskill, that’s what they say. Where we’d be without yours beats me. I reckon when your old Nanny was brushing it she never thought you’d be hacking it off by the handful to coax the fire to light again. You’d have laughed though, wouldn’t you, when you were a little lass to think your hair would be used to tie the bait to fish-hooks and fix on buttons! Pretty hair too, I’d like to see it smoothed again. A silk handkerchief, that’s what my missus used to polish the children’s hair.

  All the same, she trimmed economically at first, till the hair swung free of her shoulders and showed a curved edge patterned by the scissors. In another ten minutes it only reached the tips of her ears and a sleeking of brilliantine made the rusty strands gleam. She looked younger now and less like a castaway. Marjorie’s scentless face-cream and powder made more improvement.

  It would be pleasant to take a book from the shelves and read herself into a different world, away from the difficult one she had left and from this new one that had no welcome.

  There was another row of books on top of the fumed oak writing-table, and they included a ready-reckoner, a dictionary, and a cookery book full of potato recipes. Miss Ranskill read a few more of the titles: Grow Your Own Food, The Kitchen Front, Food From the Garden, and I Was a Spy. Then she took the last book from its place.

  We’ll have p
lenty of time for reading when we get home, Miss Ranskill, reading and writing. I’ll write down all that we did on the island, I shouldn’t wonder.

  There was a relief-nibbed pen on the desk, an inkstand and a blotter. Somewhere in the crowded pigeon-holes there would be paper and envelopes. Marjorie could not possibly mind if she looked for them. They had often shared desks at St Catherine’s.

  There was plenty of paper but no new envelopes. The last pigeon-hole held a bundle of old ones, a packet of sticky labels, some ration books, and a stiff folded card bearing Marjorie’s name, address and a number.

  ‘Never mind,’ thought Miss Ranskill, ‘I’ll ask for an envelope later.’

  She sat down at the desk and began to write to her sister – ‘Dear Edith –’

  It was difficult to know how to begin. Stiff little sentences formed themselves in her mind. ‘I hope you are very well… . I hope this letter will find you… . You will be surprised to hear from me after so long, but I have just returned from a desert island… . I would have written before but have been so far away from post offices.’ Anything she could write would sound incredible. Her arrival might be inconvenient as well, because her death would have been presumed years ago, and Edith, as sole legatee, would have readjusted her own life, disposed of most of Nona’s possessions, and settled herself somewhere in a house for one. She would be playing the part of a brave woman with a great sorrow – the shock of her sister’s sudden and terrible death. The letter would steal thunder from the sorrow and set Edith to the counting of tea-cups and the pairing of sheets.

  Miss Ranskill crumpled the card in her left hand and stirred up the ink with her pen.

  The door opened and Marjorie strode in.

  ‘I’ll be forgetting my head next. I thought I’d got all the beastly lists. Can I come to the desk for a sec?’

  Miss Ranskill got up from the chair.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind my writing to Edith. I’ve just heard our house is in a prohibited area or something, and –’

  ‘You would think,’ said Marjorie, rootling through a pigeon-hole, ‘that they could remember to bring their own lists, wouldn’t you. No sense of responsibility – that’s their trouble.’

  She picked up the book Miss Ranskill had taken down and looked disapprovingly at the title. ‘That shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I’ll put it back.’

  A piece of crumpled card slipped from between the visitor’s fingers as she held out her hand for the book.

  Marjorie pounced on it. ‘I do like a clear desk,’ she announced as she began to smooth out the cardboard. ‘And it really is important to keep even waste-paper flat: it saves the salvage people such a lot of trouble.’

  Miss Ranskill waited for further reproof. It had always been the same at school when ink or an india-rubber or blotting-paper pellets in an ink-well had stirred Marjorie to speeches.

  ‘Gosh!’ she exclaimed now. ‘My identity card. My identity card, Nona, what have you done to it?’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry. I think I was just fiddling with it while I was trying to write that letter. I didn’t know I’d got anything in my hand. Is it something that matters?’

  ‘Something that matters! I ask you!’

  Marjorie’s cheeks were pinker than usual, and then she gave a little jerk of the head that had long been familiar to Miss Ranskill. Better nature, self-conscious better nature and good sportsmanship were going to take the place of annoyance. Fair play would be called up at any moment.

  ‘But, of course, it’s my fault, really. Serves me jolly well right for being so careless. I always do carry it in my wallet, but I was a bit fagged last night. Not that that’s any excuse. My being fagged doesn’t matter an atom. When one thinks of Russia.’

  Marjorie’s chin went up and she straddled her legs slightly as though she were taking firm stance on the burning deck. The gesture suggested a salute, and Miss Ranskill wondered why it was necessary.

  ‘Now where’s that list?’ Her friend rummaged in a pigeon-hole, snatched what she wanted and hurried to the door.

  ‘Tea will be ready in two ticks,’ she announced. ‘If you don’t hurry up, we’ll have wolfed all the buns. Heavens! what’s that?’

  One of her competent fingers was pointing to the dressing-table with its litter of rust-red hair.

  ‘It was so long and shaggy,’ said Miss Ranskill. ‘I’d meant to go to a hairdresser before I came, but –’

  ‘Aren’t you a scream!’ Marjorie delivered her last speech from the doorway. ‘Good old happy-go-lucky Nona. So long! See you at tea. After that we’ll have no end of a jaw.’

  The door shut with a bang and Miss Ranskill began to collect her rags of hair from the toilet-table. Before she had finished, the telephone-bell gave a brief tinkle and she snatched up the receiver.

  She had always been one of those people who never see a telegraph boy, even in a strange town, without expecting delivery of an important wire, and so it never occurred to her, even when a man’s voice asked, ‘Is that you, darling?’ that the call was not for her. ‘I say, this is rather important. Are you alone?’

  Before Miss Ranskill could open her mouth she heard the unmistakable voice of Marjorie replying, into a mouth-piece in some other room. ‘Yes, yes. What is it, Harry?’

  Here Miss Ranskill should, and would, had she not been for so long a stranger to the land where people of her kind do not read other people’s letters or listen to other people’s telephone conversation, have hung up the receiver. But her mind was clumsy in this queer new world just as her feet were awkward on a carpeted floor, so she listened as a child might have done.

  ‘Have you a visitor with you?’

  ‘Yes, an old school-friend, Nona –’

  ‘Still in the house?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Thank God for that. Now listen. You’ve got to keep her. Make any excuse you like. Get her to stay the night.’

  ‘But, Harry, it’s Mrs Bostock’s night out and I’ve got my fire-watching and there’s scarcely a thing to eat.’

  ‘How queer,’ thought Miss Ranskill. ‘Doctor Mallison didn’t seem to want me this morning: now he does, and Marjorie doesn’t.’

  It was impossible now not to go on listening. She must discover if she were expected to say goodbye after tea and go. Go where? It didn’t matter so much as all that. She had slept on sand before.

  ‘I can’t help that. You’ve got to keep her. I’ve just seen White.’

  ‘White? Oh! Harry, did he give you the sausage meat? I did ring up and he said he’d try to deliver, but –’

  ‘I don’t mean White, the butcher, I mean White, the police inspector.’

  ‘Harry! Whatever for?’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to say too much about anything on the telephone – but – Sure you’re alone?’

  ‘Yes, I’m speaking from the surgery. Go on.’

  ‘Well, your old school-friend is wanted by the police. She’s been talking rather oddly in the shops and this morning she did a bolt from the Navy.’

  ‘Do you mean she’s deserted from the Wrens? Oh! Harry!’

  ‘I’ll be round as soon as I can, and so will the police.’

  ‘Harry, I just can’t believe that any St Cat’s girl – It’s too beastly.’

  ‘It’s not too pleasant for me either. Bye-bye, dear, see you soon.’

  A receiver clicked downstairs and the one held fast in Miss Ranskill’s grip became as silent as a sea-shell on a mantelpiece.

  What had she said and what had she done and what did the term ‘running away from the Navy’ imply? How could she explain that she had run away from nothing but the sight of her own face in a mirror and the embarrassment it might bring to a nice young man! Marjorie had hinted at desertion, but did women who were rescued from the sea join the Navy automatically? Had the law become an absurdity? Miss Ranskill knew none of the answers, but she was frightened and her head began to ache ba
dly.

  She had expected life to be simplified by clicking of switches, striking of matches, and turning of taps, but the faces of her own country-folks were less friendly than the sneering profiles of the sea-gulls on the island.

  The sound of steps on the landing reminded her that it was time to move away from the telephone. Then the door opened and a new strange Marjorie came in – a Marjorie turned wary, an overgrown schoolgirl trying to be a sleuth.

  ‘I say,’ she began, ‘I meant to ask you before, only there’s been so much to do; you will stay the night, won’t you? You simply must.’

  She had only glanced once at her school-friend’s face and now she was addressing its reflection in the mirror. Miss Ranskill answered a reflection too.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she said.

  ‘Are you – were you going to stay in Hartmouth for long?’

  ‘No, I – I’ve got to make other arrangements as soon as possible, get in touch with my sister and buy some clothes; I haven’t any but these.’

  She touched her threadbare skirt and glanced down at her bare feet.

  ‘You mean you’ve no other clothes at all?’

  Miss Ranskill shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’ Suspicion edged Marjorie’s voice.

  ‘I tried to get some this morning but they said I must have coupons or something. I hadn’t got any, of course.’

  ‘Why, of course? People in the Services’ (there was slight emphasis on the last word) ‘don’t have coupons because they have everything given to them. Everyone else has a book of clothing-coupons. Of course, if you’ve lost yours, or used them up, it’s your lookout.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you could have helped,’ said Miss Ranskill. ‘I asked in the shop and I gave your name. I didn’t think you’d mind, but it wasn’t any good.’

  ‘Of course I’d like to help.’ Marjorie’s fingers were fiddling with the tufts of her old friend’s scattered hair. ‘You ought to know that. Only there are some things one just can’t help over. I mean, it’s so frightfully difficult to explain, I mean –’