Miss Ranskill Comes Home

by Barbara Euphan Todd

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Have I been talking in my sleep?’

  Miss Ranskill hesitated. The remark about the flowers in the wounds became embarrassing as she thought about it. She guessed that a young man would not care to have his dreams overheard by a strange woman.

  ‘I’ve a reason for asking – it’s important, really it is.’

  ‘You muttered something a little time ago.’

  ‘What was it? I know doctors and nurses always lie, and swear that you haven’t uttered under anæsthetics, but you might tell me.’

  ‘You only said –’ again she hesitated.

  ‘Was it something indecent? If it was, you needn’t repeat it. Just give me a hint.’

  ‘No, it was only – I expect you were having a queer dream, you only said something about flowers in their wounds.’

  ‘Flowers in their wounds.’ He looked blank for a moment and then nodded his head. ‘Oh! yes, I remember now. It rather impressed me, I don’t know why. I’d better tell you or you’ll think I’m bats.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Miss Ranskill suddenly, ‘don’t tell me if you’d rather not.’

  Marjorie’s son looked grateful.

  ‘I might as well. It’s not the sort of thing I could tell mater: she’d think it so frightfully unhygienic. You see, I went to see one of our chaps in hospital today – a friend of mine. As a matter of fact, he died before I got there. It’s all right, you needn’t be sorry or anything. It wouldn’t have been any good, anyway, if he’d lived, I mean. He was too badly burnt. Blind, you know, and that’s not so much fun. Well, I met a nurse at that hospital who’d been out in Algiers when the big do was on there, and she said she couldn’t understand why it was that all the wounded, who kept coming in from one particular sector, had flowers in their wounds. She said it was quite uncanny. It turned out that they’d all copped it on one particular bit of road, and the wayside had been lined with flowers. Nothing in it, of course, really – only in war-time! I mean, she said it seemed queer, to see all those big wounds simply stuffed with little wayside flowers. It – I suppose it impressed me a bit. I don’t know why it should, simple enough really. I mean, if they’d fallen on to a muck-heap one wouldn’t have thought anything about it. Funny thing to talk about in my sleep?’

  He looked at her enquiringly, but Miss Ranskill guessed that silence would be the best answer.

  He gave a little gulp and asked, ‘Did I say anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure? Cross your heart and say die?’

  Miss Ranskill, supposing that he was afraid he might have given some important secret away, paused, while trying to choose the words that would reassure him.

  ‘Everyone lies to us. It’s so silly, when we are the people who know most of the truth. We must get a clearer view and see things in better proportion than they do. And yet they lie and lie and go on lying in their teeth about our chances of coming through and everything else. And when we want to marry they talk about war-weddings (war-weddings, my foot! Plenty of us are the result of those) and say there’ll be plenty of time to settle down after the war. They look at us and see divorce courts and orphans, and think we don’t know what they’re seeing.’

  He lit a cigarette, peered at Miss Ranskill through a smoke-puff and repeated his question, ‘You’re sure I didn’t say anything else in my sleep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You see, it’s important because, well, because I’m going to be married this morning and my dreams aren’t very pretty sometimes, and I don’t want to scare Lucy. The mater doesn’t know about the marriage, I mean I might have told her if it hadn’t been for all this horoosh, but when she comes back and finds the house in a muck she’ll be too busy organising and sort of forming threes. Besides –’ he paused, ‘besides, the mater won’t like Lucy as a daughter-in-law. She won’t think she’s suitable.’

  A procession of unsuitables paraded before Miss Ranskill’s mind’s eye – a predatory widow went undulating by, a barmaid flaunted her blowsiness, a chorus-girl shrieked, a vamp ogled, a married woman appeared unmistakably misunderstood. Possibly the young man saw them too, for he said, ‘She’s not a bit what you’d think.’

  ‘No,’ thought Miss Ranskill, ‘they never are,’ but she only said: ‘What is she like?’ and wished she need not hear the answer.

  ‘She’s,’ the airman puffed violently, ‘she’s so damned ordinary you wouldn’t believe in her.’

  ‘Then that’s all right.’

  ‘Oh! no, it’s not, not with the mater: you ought to know that, if you were at school with her. If Lucy were a duchess that would be all right, and if she were a dustman’s daughter that would be all right too, more or less, because the mater would enjoy putting a jolly good face on it. But Lucy’s father is Brown of Brown and Gilson’s, the second-best ironmongers in Hartmouth, and she only scraped into the Tennis Club because she’d been sent to a fairly good boarding-school. The mater only just knows Mrs Brown on Committee Meetings, and says she’s “a nice little woman”. She thinks Lucy’s a “nice well-brought-up little girl” too: so she is, bless her! She doesn’t exactly say “pardon,” and she hasn’t got an accent, but the mater will spot “a tone”.’

  ‘Tell me about her,’ interrupted Miss Ranskill. ‘I don’t mean about her accent and tone and that sort of rubbish. Tell me what she’s like really.’

  ‘She, she’s comforting,’ answered Marjorie’s unexpected son, ‘I don’t mean comforting like a nurse, but you can’t feel fussed when you’re with her, because she isn’t afraid of anything. You see, she’s never been badly hurt. I think she believes that when we marry we’ll live happily ever after until we’re quite old and suddenly pop off together. I don’t think she’s ever thought I might be killed. So far, nobody she’s known has been killed. None of her relations, except sort of ancestors like grandparents and things, have died, either. You see, it is rather comforting to be with somebody like that when so many of one’s friends are being killed. You do see that?’

  Miss Ranskill nodded.

  ‘There’s only one thing – I’ve thought about that, of course, I don’t want to go and hurt her awfully by being killed. But – it’s difficult to explain – if she’s got to be hurt it would be better for me to do the hurting, because I love her. If she got burned or anything I’d want to dress the wounds because I’d think I’d be gentler than anyone else. I suppose one can’t be gentle over dying?’

  ‘Perhaps one can,’ Miss Ranskill remembered the benign dead face of the Carpenter.

  The young man said, ‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ and continued his description in jerks. ‘She’s middling pretty (rather lovely goldeny eyes) and middling clever and middling good at games. She laughs a lot, and she won’t make scenes. When I come home on leave she won’t want to go rushing about to parties every night; she’ll talk about the jumpers she’s knitting and silly things like that. She thinks I’m marvellous because I can put her sewing-machine right, but I bet anything you like that if she flies after the war she’ll never let me take her up. It’ll have to be a proper pilot who understands civil machines. She’s working at one of the Ministries in London and, for some reason or other, they haven’t hoofed her into any of the Forces. That’s a thing the mater won’t like either: she won’t like a daughter-in-law who isn’t in uniform. It’ll be rather a relief to me though to have a wife who hasn’t got a tin hat and a kit-bag. I’d hate to get our uniform mixed up. Don’t know why I’ve been telling you all this.’ He looked rather fierce. ‘P’raps you could sort of put it to my parents and explain. P’raps you could say it’s become a habit with me now to drop bombs and turn tail. You can say I’ll be coming back on a reconnaissance flight one of these days, will you?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Miss Ranskill. ‘But –’

  ‘I know: not easy. I would have told them tonight, I think, if things had been normal. But, you see, the trouble is the mater’s never grown up, and she won’t beli
eve that I have either. She’s playing at soldiers all the time, but I’m a real airman. And yet,’ he laughed, ‘she doesn’t mind air-raids a bit, and I’m scared stiff of them when I’m on the wrong side of the bombs. I like to be well above ’em: much safer.’

  The booming voice of the Carpenter filled Miss Ranskill’s mind.

  One night there was a hurricane,

  The sea was mountains rolling

  And Barney Barton chewed his wad

  And said to Billy Bowline:

  “A strong Nor’ easter’s blowin’, Bill,

  Hark! don’t you hear it roar now?

  Lord help ’em how I pities them

  Unhappy folks on shore now.”

  Automatically she continued the song herself:

  “And, as for them that’s out all day

  On business from their houses

  And late at night returning home

  To cheer their babes and spouses,

  While you and I, Bill, on the deck

  Are comfortably lying,

  My eye! what tiles and chimney-pots

  About their heads are flying.”

  ‘Jolly good show!’

  The approval came, not from Marjorie’s son, but from Marjorie herself. Her voice came rollicking down the cellar stairs.

  ‘Good old Nona! Do you remember the sing-song we had at St Cat’s the night of the big thunderstorm? Your voice hasn’t changed a bit.’

  Yes, Miss Ranskill remembered, and continued to remember so vividly that if the feet, clattering down the steps, had carried a crocodile of schoolgirls into the cellar she would not have been surprised.

  Marjorie was followed by two other people. One was middle-aged, plump and fair, the other was little and slim.

  ‘Rex!’ shouted Marjorie. ‘Darling, wherever did you spring from? Grand to see you! Nona, I don’t think you know – may I introduce Miss Ranskill – Mrs Brown – Miss Lucy Brown. Nona, Mrs Brown’s house has just been blitzed and she’s magnificent about it, simply magnificent. Mrs Brown, Miss Ranskill is an old school-friend of mine. She has just returned from one of our islands.’

  ‘Really,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘I do think it’s splendid the way women are turning up from all parts of the Empire to help in our war effort, really I do.’ Her voice was a little tremulous.

  ‘You must get her to tell you all about it,’ added Marjorie. ‘Rex, it is wizard to see you. Have you seen Daddy yet? Have you had any good prangs lately?’

  III

  The cellar was very full of people who were all talking at once. Mrs Bostock had joined the company and was shouting descriptions of the quantity, the quality, and the permeating powers of the dust in the kitchen.

  Doctor Mallison had returned from the candle-lit bedroom of a woman who had given birth to twins. He was now trying humbly and eagerly to bridge by words the great gulf of years that lay between him and his son. He longed to know him as one man knows another, to forego all relationship, and make a new friend, but he could only sound patronising. Once, when the boy was four, he had looked up from his porridge bowl and said, ‘Hullo, Mallison!’ through milky lips, and, as his father had replied with a grave ‘Hullo, Mallison,’ he had had a vision of a day when they would talk as equals and exchange opinions, forgetting that the years would not lessen the division that lay between them then.

  ‘What about a whisky and soda?’ he suggested.

  ‘Bit too early in the day for me, thanks, Dad.’

  Sixteen years ago the father had refused toffee for the same reason.

  ‘How you can eat that muck at this time in the morning!’

  He remembered his anger on the day when the boy had spurned his own profession.

  ‘There’s no future in the air. You’d have fun for a few years and then be done for – nothing to do, but idle your life away.’

  ‘Depends if there’s a war or not. Anyway, I want to live while I can.’

  And now there was a war and the boy was living – while he could.

  Doctor Mallison tried to make amends now for all past misunderstandings by saying – ‘I’d give a lot to be doing what you’re doing now.’

  The younger man, wary of sentiment, replied. ‘Oh! I don’t know. Better stick to your baby-snatching, Dad, it’s more profitable than bombing them.’

  Mrs Brown spoke from her seat in a deck-chair.

  ‘I’m certain you never bomb babies, Rex. I’m sure none of our boys do.’

  Marjorie took up her Casabianca stance.

  ‘My son must obey his orders, whatever they are.’

  ‘Oh! they don’t send us out to bomb crèches. Funny, though, we must be lining the pockets of the Hun doctors. Still, I don’t suppose Jerry does Dad’s practice much harm. Bought any boxes of fur coats lately, mater?’

  ‘Darling,’ begged Marjorie, ‘don’t, even in fun, suggest that I could ever be a war profiteer.’

  ‘Twenty-five years ago,’ said Doctor Mallison, ‘if I had been making what you’re making now …’

  ‘Oh! I don’t do too badly as a hired assassin.’

  ‘Now, Rex,’ Mrs Brown wagged a plump forefinger, ‘you won’t get any nice girl to marry you if you talk like that.’

  ‘Rex likes engines better than girls,’ announced Marjorie. ‘All the same, he doesn’t mean a word he says: he’s as proud of his uniform as I am of mine.’

  Rex gave a slight shudder, and his mother continued:

  ‘Now, we’d better see about making up beds. Even if the Browns’ house has been blitzed and ours badly shaken we’re not going to give Hitler the satisfaction of keeping us up all night.’

  ‘You never said their house had been blitzed,’ said Doctor Mallison.

  ‘Didn’t I?’ said Marjorie casually. ‘But, that’s why they’re here, of course. Mrs Brown was magnificent, quite magnificent. And now we’re not going to talk about that any more, are we, Mrs Brown?’

  ‘I don’t seem to realise it yet. I’m bound to suffer for it later though, and have a reaction. I’m like that. I always have been. I remember when –’

  ‘Well, you won’t this time,’ Marjorie’s voice was fierce. ‘Action and reaction are equal and opposite, so we won’t think about them. Come along now, Mrs Bostock, you and I will go and make up some beds: that will take us out of ourselves.’

  ‘Mike up beds at this time of night indeed!’ shrilled Mrs Bostock. ‘Have you seen the stite of the rooms?’

  ‘Oh! please don’t bother about beds,’ begged Mrs Brown. ‘If I could just have a blanket I shan’t need anything else. I shall be perfectly warm in my siren-suit.’

  She pushed her hands into the pocket of a blue-serge garment that reminded Miss Ranskill of the one-piece pyjama suits worn by small children.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what I should ever have done without this one, though my husband did pretend to be shocked when I bought it. “You’ll be going into rompers next,” he said. Rompers, indeed! “Never you mind,” I said, “the time may come –” Well, the time has come,’ she sighed. ‘Yes, indeed it has.’

  Now the girl spoke for the first time, addressing, so Miss Ranskill knew, not the two women but Marjorie’s son.

  ‘I haven’t anything in the world but what I stand up in – not a single thing.’

  She was wearing a brown tweed skirt and a white sweater. Her bare toes showed through the strapping of her childish sandals. Her straight brown hair had a nursery look.

  ‘You’re luckier than I am,’ said her mother. ‘You’ve all your London things safe in Town.’

  ‘But I haven’t. I brought them all back.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  The golden-brown eyes flickered and then looked wary.

  ‘Oh! just to mend and – and sort over.’

  ‘If only you’d been in a uniformed job everything would have been easy,’ announced Marjorie. ‘You’d only have had to ask for a new issue of everything.’

  ‘Yes, and now I haven’t got a rag.’

  ‘You l
ook –’ began Rex, and then checked by his mother’s stare, supplemented ‘all right’ for the word in his mind. ‘You look quite all right.’

  ‘But not for always.’

  The girl stood in her wedding garments, a Cinderella of a bride.

  ‘It seems,’ she said, ‘it seems so funny to be The Enemy. Fancy my things being bombed.’

  Miss Ranskill had seen that look before in the eyes of a very young rabbit early one morning. It had stopped nibbling clover, raised the dewy quivering nose that could catch a hint of menace more surely than the pink transparent ears. The rabbit’s eyes had spoken. ‘Then there’s something more in my world than clover and dew and mother and all the rest of us. Something bad.’ Then it had terrified itself to a flurry and its white scut had flashed out signals of reproach all the way from the clover-patch to the burrow.

  ‘Fancy my things being bombed. Somehow I never –’

  ‘Come on, and let’s dig out blankets,’ said Marjorie, deaf to the words behind the words – ‘Fancy my man being vulnerable!’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Two of the kittens were beginning to open their eyes, but the third, a tortoiseshell, maintained blind indifference to the light that gave shape to the wickerwork around it. In a day or two now, its sisters would discover, by diffident paw-pats, that shapes can be felt, that looming straws can become enchanting playthings, and reward by strokings more pleasurable than the licking of a mother’s tongue. The tortoiseshell kitten was in no hurry, the warmth of its mother delighted it; that was enough for the time.

  Miss Ranskill, in her corner of the third-class carriage, felt in much the same mood. Two newspapers lay unopened on the lap of her new grey skirt. Presently she would try to understand their contents, but for the moment it was enough to watch the landscape flicking past, to see the flourishing of the may-flowered hedges and be dazzled by the fields of the cloth of gold.

  But what went ye out for to see? But what went ye out for to see?

  The engine chugged out the tune insistently and a loose button on the sleeve of the woman opposite joggled on its thread in rhythm. But what went ye out for to see? But what went ye out for to see?