Girl in a Blue Dress

by Gaynor Arnold

  “He still enjoyed it,” she says, sulkily.

  “Is enjoyment to be despised, then?” Carrie looks levelly at her. Kitty looks discomforted and doesn’t answer.

  All of a sudden Alfie chimes in: “Talking of money, Sissy and I have been going through his correspondence, and I think he must have got more begging letters than anyone in history. He seems to have answered them within the week, giving advice and encouragement. And from the sound of the replies, money too, sometimes. I never knew that. He always kept it quiet.”

  “Oh, he always cared for the poor more than for us! Show him a beggar and his heart would leap.” Kitty puts down her cup with emphasis.

  Eddie looks nettled. “Well at least he made sure his family was provided for.”

  “Are you making reference to Augustus?” She looks sharply at him.

  He shrugs. “Well, Kittiwake, I’m sorry to say that the whole of London knows about your husband’s debts. It’s common talk in the clubs. Fellows clam up when they see me because he’s my brother-in-law, but I know how much is involved because he tried to cadge from me himself.”

  “And you refused? Another Holier-Than-Thou?” She glowers at him.

  “I don’t have a bean, Kit. Or at least not in that league. Hundreds of pounds, you know. Moneylenders and God knows what. One thing Papa taught me was never to sign bills you know you couldn’t redeem.” He strokes his neat golden beard. “But from your excitement when you came in, I take it that you’ve persuaded the creditors to wait a bit now your fortune’s coming through.”

  Kitty’s face changes. “Oh, yes! We ran around half London last night. Such strange people in such outlandish places! Dark, dank alleys and poky upstairs rooms! And a Jew in robes and a little cap—like something from Papa’s novels! But Mr. Golding’s letters did the trick. And when they knew who I was, of course—that made a difference! They were so courteous, you’d hardly have thought they were trying to screw money out of me. It was suddenly all ‘dear Mithis Norrith,’ as if they hadn’t been threatening to have Augustus dragged from under our very roof ten minutes before.”

  “So it’s been agreed?” I am so glad my mission to Sissy has not been in vain.

  “We have a time to breathe at least. They’ve renewed the bills.”

  “Well, I’m glad of that.” Alfie stands up, agitating his watch “But take care, Kits. If this goes on, Augustus could run through your inheritance as quickly as his own—and before you even get it, at that!”

  She rounds on him, and he quails, as he always used to, but half-humorously, now. “You want to think badly of him, don’t you? This whole family’s always been against him! But you should see him! He couldn’t be more sorry for having landed us in this shameful situation. He even went down on his knees and begged me to forgive him.”

  “Said he wasn’t worthy of you, no doubt?” Eddie chimes in from his place by the mantelpiece.

  “Why is that amusing? A man can change his ways, can’t he? Without becoming a laughingstock?”

  “Oh, to be sure.” And Eddie starts to sing quietly: “I’d give you sixpence, sweetheart dear, But I hain’t got a penny, that much is clear …”

  Kitty ignores him. “I can honestly say that Augustus and I are more at one now than ever. We are embarking on a different mode of life. Once the debts are paid, there will be enough left over to set Augustus up in business. There is an opening he knows of in the wine-shipping trade—”

  Eddie raises his eyebrows.

  “—and I am to be active, too. I am to take my share. I shall give piano and singing lessons. And, if opportunity arises, and Lamming can arrange it, I may give dramatic recitals.” She looks round with a smile. “I think we shall do very well between us.”

  Carrie rises and takes her hand. “I’m so glad, Kitty. I’m sure you will have great success. I shall tell everyone I know, and I promise to send Lucy along for lessons as soon as she utters her first note.”

  Kitty glows with pleasure, and ruffles Lucy’s curls. “I’ll make you sing like an angel, Lucy. Doh-re-me-fah-soh-la-ti-doh!” She trills up the scale and the beauty of her voice fills the room like velvet.

  “You’ll have to curb that temper of yours, first, or you’ll find you have a school with no pupils,” laughs Alfie.

  “I am very patient with children, P. It’s adults who annoy me. Adults who talk humbug.”

  I don’t know whom she means by this. Me, I suppose. And Eddie and Sissy. And Alfred, naturally. But I’m pleased that she has some occupation in mind, and I would not be surprised if she attempts the theatrical life. I wish I were as sure about Augustus in the wine-shipping trade. Wine is not the area I would have chosen for a man of his disposition. More and more I see that Alfred was right. But unlike him, I do not see that these matters are within my control.

  Kitty gives Alfie a playful push, and he half-heartedly pushes her back. They both laugh. “Pipsqueak!” she cries, and he responds: “Know-all!” Eddie has put on Master’s collar and is crawling around on his hands and knees, putting his beautiful clothes at risk, but not seeming to mind as he entertains young Lucy. I can see Alfred that first night: Over-excitement—a fault of mine when in the company of Young Persons. It’s as if the old days have returned, and I find my eyes moist at the sight of them all.

  “It’s so lovely to have you all here. If only Lou and Fanny will join us next time. Then we’ll all be a family again. Only Georgie will be missing.”

  “He’ll be back before Christmas,” says Eddie. “And you’ll never recognize him; he’s taller than any of us. He looks very fine in his uniform, but he still has no conversation worth speaking of.”

  Yes, I remember, a boy of few words. When Alfred once taxed him about it at the dinner table, Ada piped up, saying, “Don’t blame him, Papa. I think you have used up all his share and there is nothing left for him to say.” Which made us all laugh, and got Ada an extra kiss from Alfred for being so clever. “Never mind,” I say. “Seeing him will be enough.”

  After a while, Carrie intervenes in the romps, saying she will soon have to put Lucy to bed. Alfie takes out his father’s watch to check the time. “By the way, whose hair is this, M-mama? It cannot be Ada’s, surely? It seems the wrong color.”

  I shake my head. “No. It’s Alice’s.” I answer his unspoken question: “Papa was very fond of her.”

  “Oh.” He stares at the watchcase. “I see. But I didn’t know her; it seems odd to carry her hair around with me. Would you like it, Mama?”

  “Yes, I should.” The watch is Alfie’s now; and will hold his own memories—Carrie and Lucy and maybe others yet to come. As he picks out the curling strand, not very reverently, I realize that it has no significance for him at all. I hold out my hand and he drops it into my palm. I fold it into my handkerchief, and Alfie returns the watch to his pocket with an air of satisfaction. I feel a pang to think of Alice’s hair separated from its shrine of so many years, so lovingly looked at every day. But its devotee has gone, and it is no longer sacred.

  Alfie says they must depart immediately, before Lucy becomes overwrought. Lucy, however, thinks differently. She doesn’t want to leave her uncle and aunt—who have both been jumping around the floor as if they were organ-grinders’ monkeys—and protests loudly. We hear her wails all down the stairs and into the cab. Kitty dusts herself down and announces she has to speed off to meet Augustus who, she says, is measuring up a very pretty house in Fulham with a front parlor that will be ideal for giving lessons.

  “Good-bye, Mama,” she sings out. Her face is flushed and prettier than I have seen it for some time. I wonder if she is merely excited by the rough-and-tumble or if she is wearing rouge.

  I decide it doesn’t matter.

  24

  IT’S STRANGE TO BE ALONE WITH EDDIE, AND HE SEEMS somewhat uncomfortable, too, poking the fire for rather a long time before sitting back in the armchair. He eyes my out of-fashion plaid gown and my even more out-of-fashion figure in it. I, in turn, admire his
handsome features, and find it difficult to believe that he is the same Eddie who used to climb on my bed with his porcupine hair and rumpled clothes and tell me jokes from bits of paper he’d pull out of his pockets. He seems to read my mind. “No jokes today, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll expect an especially good one next time.”

  He smiles. He doesn’t look like Alfred, but he smiles like him. “I’ll bring the Mouse, too,” he says. “It’ll be good for her to get some fresh air. And I might prevail upon Fan as well.”

  I try to picture Fanny, but I can’t. Of all of them, she will have changed the most. And she won’t remember me at all. “Don’t force her,” I say. “I’d hate that.”

  He chuckles. “I couldn’t force her however hard I tried. She doesn’t take the slightest notice of anybody—even Papa. When she came up to see me at Oxford last year, she got poor Dodsworth to punt us up and down the river the whole afternoon while she recited all the verses of The Lady of Shalott draped in an Indian shawl. I had to tell him she was only fifteen and still at school, but he was so smitten he insisted we take her out to dinner at the Randolph. If Papa had got wind of it, she’d have been in hot water, but she’s too damned clever to be found out. In fact, she’s too damned clever—full stop.”

  “She does well at school, then?”

  He pulls a face. “Yes and no. Too contrary. Only last month Miss B wrote to Papa asking him to bring her to a ‘better understanding of her responsibilities.’ Of course, Papa had her on the carpet, going on about the money he was paying for her education while the children of the poor were starving in gutters, and how she should be ashamed of herself; and how work was something we all had to do, and how he himself would have had no success without hard work, and so forth. But she smiled sweetly at him and said that she didn’t see why she should pretend to be interested in Euclid and Latin when there were so many more intriguing things in the world; and that she’d prefer to educate herself along her own lines, if he didn’t mind, and let him give the money he saved to the said starving children. ‘I believe some of the best people are self-educated,’ she said. And he started to laugh. That’s the thing about her. You can’t be cross with her for long.”

  “Oh, do bring her, if you can.”

  “I promise.” He hesitates. “But you must promise something, too.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” I feel uneasy. I dislike making promises. Kitty is always trying to bully me into them, whether it’s going back to Chiswick or admitting the fabled Truth. I hope Eddie is not going to do the same.

  He takes out two ten-pound notes: “For Mr. Collins’s account.”

  I color. “There’s no need. I manage very well. And anyway, twenty pounds is ridiculous.”

  “Reason not the need. Take it, please. I’ll only spend it on kid gloves and satin weskits. I’m ashamed the Old Man left you so short, and it’ll make me feel better if I know you’re a shade more comfortable. You want me to feel better, don’t you?” He smiles that golden smile. He is impossible to resist.

  “Very well.” I tuck the money into my sleeve. “I believe you could disarm anybody with that smile, Eddie. I doubt any young lady is safe.”

  “Oh, they’re pretty safe. Alfie’s the romantic one. The way he went on about Carrie, day and night! A fellow could hardly stand it.”

  “Oh, yes! It’s been wonderful to see them so happy together. But I can’t believe you’re indifferent to the fair sex, Eddie. Your father was very romantic at your age.”

  Eddie gives me a droll look.

  “I see you find that amusing, but Papa was almost exactly your age when we met. He used to walk miles to see me. And he wrote such wonderful letters!”

  “Ah, no doubt. But letters are the easy part. Especially when you are as steeped in ink as the One and Only. It’s easy to imagine love, not quite so easy to live it, I think.”

  I look at his neat head, his fine, intelligent face. “How wise you have grown, Eddie! Quite the philosopher.”

  He shakes his head. “A mere observation. As far as I can see, marriage is a deuced difficult proposition. Two people too young to know their own minds agreeing to live together for the rest of their lives. Perfect madness!”

  “How would you have it then, Eddie? What would you put in its place?”

  He shrugs. “Oh, I don’t have the answer. My philosophy doesn’t extend that far. I suppose I’ll bow to the inevitable one day. But I’m in no hurry.”

  I watch his face. “You’re thinking that Papa and I hardly set a good example.”

  He smiles wryly. “Well, the Idyll Shattered, and all that. Happy Times Vanished. Children Forlorn.”

  “Not too forlorn, I hope. You children have much to be grateful for. A doting father, a loving aunt, a good education, travels abroad …”

  He says nothing.

  “And the Idyll, as you call it, is still there; the happy times are still in our memories.”

  “Ah, the Good Old Memories,” he says sarcastically. “The bright, magic-lantern shows of the never-to-be-forgotten past. Holidays and Christmases such as no one ever had since Time Hin Memoriam.”

  “But they were wonderful, Eddie! Remember Abanazar?”

  “Who could forget?”

  “And in the summer—all those impromptu excursions!”

  “Get your bathing drawers. We’re off to Margate!” Eddie does Alfred’s cockney voice to perfection.

  “And how we’d all have to shout together when we saw the sea? The sea, the sea! The salty sea! The slithery-slippery-shimmery sea!”

  “Oh, yes,” he says, “the shouting was obligatory.”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it, Eddie. I remember your face. You and Georgie riding two-at-a-time on the donkeys, and sailing your boats in the little pools until the tide rushed up and nearly washed them away! And Papa running into the waves to rescue them, and the wind whipping his sailor hat off so he had to go after that, too! Oh, Eddie, what larks, eh?”

  “Oh, Papa was full of beans then! But a deal of the time he was almost invisible. I swear I had visions of his coat-tails perpetually vanishing round corners. And I’d run after him only to find a trail of cigar smoke by the front door and the sound of carriage wheels as he drove away.” He shakes his head. “You know, Mama, every night after Bessie had got us ready for bed, I used to press my face against the nursery window, straining to see him turn the corner with that jaunty step of his, hoping against hope that he’d come back with a new trick or a new story—and that this time I’d be the one to sit on his lap to hear it. Sometimes I would be so sick with longing for him, I’d almost ache in my bones—”

  “Oh, Eddie! You never once showed it.” He was the child who always seemed contented, absorbed in himself, resilient to the vicissitudes of family life.

  “Good Lor’, no!” He ruffles his hair, and a spike or two appears. “I saw the way Kit went on, as if she were the only one who loved him. And Lou was almost as bad. I was damned if I’d do the same. I always made sure I hid in a cupboard to shed my tears. Even Georgie didn’t know.”

  I am dumbfounded. I’d never realized that Eddie had suffered so. It was always poor Alfie I’d felt the need to comfort. I take Eddie’s hand. “But, you know, don’t you, that your father loved you all equally? And that he missed you more than anything when he was away?”

  Eddie shakes his head. “I doubt that, to be honest. I think we went out of his mind like that”—he snaps his fingers—“as soon as he turned the corner; as soon as he was into the book, living everything in his head. We didn’t matter twopence then.”

  “No, Eddie, you’re wrong. He used to take your pictures with him. And he’d write so longingly about seeing you all again, about being back in the family bosom.”

  Eddie raises his eyebrows, gives me that droll look again.

  “Don’t you remember how he once traveled all through the night from Exeter to London outside the mail coach, to be with us by morning? He came home a veritable mud-man, with his
hat in shreds. You will not believe how I have rattled and racketed and knocked myself about! How I have held on, when there was nothing to hold on to but an equally knocked-about lawyer in a Welsh wig. How the wind howled around us! How the lightning flashed! I tell you, I almost lost hope of ever seeing my dear family again, convinced that the coachman was the Devil himself and we were being driven on a particularly ill-maintained road to Hell!”

  Eddie laughs in spite of himself. “That happened before I was born, you know—although he told us about it on innumerable occasions, so we could all understand what a regular out-and-out family man he was. But it was only a coach journey, after all.”

  “But it was no mean feat in those days, Eddie—all drafts and jolts and wet straw and more than a chance that you’d overturn and end up in a ditch. He could have stayed in a comfortable inn. Most men would have. But your father loved his family.”

  “His idea of it, you mean: that collective hullabaloo with him at the center.”

  “Eddie!”

  “That’s harsh, I know! But I hated the way everybody scrummaged for his attention; and how he seemed to thrive on it all, as if the family were a miniature version of his damned Public. He had no real idea of me—what I liked or didn’t like. I was only a boy with porcupine hair. And who did he say was his favorite child? Kitty? Alfie? Ada, even? No. Edward Cleverly, of course!”

  I feel my color rising. “Oh, I see you are of Kitty’s mind after all. You think your father could do nothing right!”

  He looks at me directly. “No, Mama, I’ve always given the Old Man his due. We got on pretty well at the end, you know—played billiards, went riding, smoked the odd cigar. I didn’t try to beat him at his own game, you see. I realized a long time ago that no one could win a battle with Pa—not his publishers, not his friends, and certainly not his family. You could make yourself miserable fighting him, or you could accept his will and make the best of it. You realized that in the end, didn’t you? That’s why you went so quietly.”