Celia's House

by D. E. Stevenson

  “There he is!” cried Mark. “There’s Daddy!” And he started to run after the train, followed more slowly by the rest of the party.

  “All well, Nannie?” Humphrey asked as he hugged and kissed the children.

  “All well, sir,” replied Nannie, nodding significantly over their heads.

  They went out of the station into the yard, where the new motorcar was waiting; it was an open car, very large and green, and it stood high off the ground. Its brass fittings winked and gleamed like gold in the bright afternoon sunshine.

  Humphrey looked at it with pride. “Well, Downie, how is she going?” he inquired.

  “Grand, sir,” replied Downie. “It took me a wee while to get used to, but I wouldn’t go back to horses—not now I wouldn’t. Takes ten minutes to get to the station instead of half an hour.”

  “Unless you have a puncture, of course,” Mark said gravely.

  They got in and drove off.

  “I want a pony, Daddy,” Edith began.

  “Now then,” said Nannie. “Now then, what did I tell you? I told you not to start asking your Daddy for things the very first moment.”

  “This isn’t the very first moment,” Edith said sulkily.

  “Billy has a new tooth,” said Joyce.

  “He’s got all his teeth now,” Nannie declared proudly.

  “But he was too small to come meet Daddy,” Joyce pointed out. “I’m six now,” she added.

  “Of course you are,” agreed Humphrey. He always felt shy with his children just at first. It was difficult to know how to talk to them, for they grew up so quickly that he could not keep pace. He went away leaving a lisping baby and returned to find it articulate. He was sorry that Joyce was six. At five she had been attractively babyish. She had sat on his knee and listened with bated breath to the story of Red Riding Hood. Now she was a person, self-possessed and incredibly mature…but she was still very pretty, thought her father, glancing at the round, rosy face and fair hair.

  “Everything is coming on very nicely after the rain,” said Nannie, making polite conversation.

  “Yes, it’s looking beautiful,” Humphrey agreed. “You’ve had a lot of rain have you?”

  “The weather has been very invidious,” she replied.

  She smiled complacently, as she always did when she produced her grand words, and Humphrey smiled too. For some reason, he was reminded of a monkey jacket that had been put on hastily and the buttons inserted into the wrong buttonholes—and that was exactly what happened, Humphrey thought. Nannie’s words were all right, but she put them into the wrong places, and the effect was quite as absurd as the effect produced by the wrongly buttoned garment.

  “We had peas for dinner,” Joyce informed him.

  “You’re having some tonight,” added Mark. “I saw Johnson bringing them into the kitchen.”

  “What were you doing in the kitchen, Mark?” Nannie inquired.

  “Talking to Mrs. Drummond,” mumbled Mark, getting rather red in the face.

  “You know you’ve no call to go into the kitchen and bother Mrs. Drummond!”

  “I wasn’t bothering; she likes me.”

  Nannie snorted. “Hmm. I know Mrs. Drummond. She likes you one day and the next day she’s complaining about you. Now listen to me—”

  “Honestly, Nannie! Mrs. Drummond said—”

  “No, Mark. Just listen to me. You know perfectly well…”

  Humphrey said nothing. He felt as if he were dreaming. He always had this feeling of unreality when he moved suddenly from one kind of life to the other. This life of the country, of home and trivialities and children’s chatter was superimposed, as it were, upon the austere life of a naval commander. He seemed to see one through the other and neither of them clearly. In a day or two he managed to adjust himself, of course; it was only just at first that he felt so strange.

  • • •

  Alice was overjoyed to see Humphrey—she always was—and the two of them had tea together on the terrace. It was exactly five years since Humphrey had taken tea on the terrace with Aunt Celia and today he was reminded very forcibly of that occasion. Alice was not like Aunt Celia, of course (in fact, one could scarcely imagine anyone more unlike), but everything else was the same: the smooth, green lawn, the stately trees, the golden light on the far-off hills…even the tea service, the scones and cakes, and the creamy butter in the crystal dish.

  “Where did you find that stool?” asked Humphrey, pointing to the carpet-covered hassock under Alice’s feet.

  “Becky found it,” she replied. “Becky said Aunt Celia always used it when she sat out on the terrace.”

  “I know she did,” said Humphrey.

  “Becky is a great comfort,” Alice continued. “Really, I don’t know what I would have done without Becky. I haven’t felt quite so well this time, and it has been terribly dull for me.”

  “This must be the last,” Humphrey said firmly.

  Alice nodded. “Yes, if it’s a girl, and I think it will be somehow. I’m sure this will be Celia.”

  Humphrey did not remind her that she had said exactly the same two years ago before Billy’s arrival upon the scene. Billy had been a disappointment—though not a very severe one, for, in her heart of hearts, Alice had wanted another son and there was plenty of time.

  “How does Nannie like the idea of another baby?” Humphrey inquired as he helped himself to a scone and buttered it lavishly.

  “She’s delighted; Nannie would like a new baby every year.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “But five in the nursery is quite enough,” Alice added firmly.

  Humphrey did not answer that. He looked slightly uncomfortable and after a short hesitation he said, “Alice, you know Aunt Celia asked me to look after Joan.”

  “Yes, and you have looked after her. You’ve done all you could, haven’t you? Nobody could have done more.”

  “I’ve just gotten a letter from Joan,” said Humphrey, and he took it out of his pocket and began to unfold it.

  “Oh, goodness!” Alice exclaimed in great vexation. “Oh, goodness, I know what that means! You’ve never had a single letter from Joan that didn’t cause some sort of trouble. She’s in a fix, I suppose, and you’ve got to go south and see her. It’s always the way when you come home on leave, always.”

  “She isn’t exactly in a fix this time,” said Humphrey, smiling. “The fact is she’s going to be married.”

  “Married!”

  “Yes, to an Indian Army officer.”

  “What a mercy,” said Alice. “We’ll send her a really fine wedding present, and that will be the end of it.”

  “Well, not quite, I’m afraid. You see she can’t very well take Debbie to India with her—”

  “Humphrey, you don’t mean…”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. You see, I feel responsible really. If we don’t offer to have Debbie, she would just be sent to Cousin Henrietta, which wouldn’t be at all suitable.”

  “She’s the child’s grandmother.”

  “But she’s getting old. It would be much better for the child to come here.”

  “If Debbie is like her mother—” Alice began in horrified tones.

  “She isn’t,” Humphrey said quickly. “She isn’t the least like Joan. She’s a funny, mousey little creature, very small and quiet. Oh, I know it’s a nuisance, Alice, and I’m awfully sorry to have to worry you just now, but I don’t see what else can be done.”

  “But, Humphrey—”

  “Would one more child in the nursery make much difference?” Humphrey asked in a persuasive tone.

  Alice sighed. Men were so awfully queer; they didn’t understand. A strange child—probably very badly brought up—was to be dumped into her own well-ordered nursery and Humphrey thought it would not make much difference!


  “Nannie would soon get her into shape,” said Humphrey, who was less blind than his wife imagined.

  Alice sighed again. She saw it was no use saying anything more. If Humphrey thought it was their duty to have the child, they must have her and make the best of it.

  “The children have grown,” Humphrey said after a short silence. “They’re all very nice looking, but Joyce is the beauty of the family.”

  “Edith is pretty too,” Alice said quickly. “Edith is really the prettiest. She has such a lovely complexion and her hair is beautifully curly. You can’t judge Edith properly at the moment because of her teeth—no child can look her best without any front teeth, you know.”

  “Of course not,” agreed Humphrey. He was still feeling “wandered.” It seemed so odd to be sitting here on the terrace, with Alice, discussing children’s teeth and hair. At the same hour yesterday Humphrey had been standing on the bridge of his destroyer conning her into port. He remembered that someone had brought him a cup of tea—a large thick cup full of bright brown tea—and he had drunk it as he stood there, and been very glad of it. Of course teeth and hair were very important, especially girls’ teeth and hair (thought Humphrey vaguely), because, later on, good teeth and hair would help them to obtain good husbands.

  “What are you thinking about?” Alice inquired.

  “I can’t provide for the girls,” said Humphrey—for this was the point to which his thought had brought him.

  “They will marry, of course,” Alice said comfortably.

  Chapter Twelve

  Celia

  Of all the hours in the day, the one Humphrey most enjoyed was when Alice had gone up to bed and he was left alone to sit quietly by the drawing room fire with his pipe and his book. It was then that he had time to appreciate the peace that enveloped Dunnian; it was then that he could look around the beautifully proportioned room and take pleasure in the fact that it was his. When he was at sea, when he was keeping watch, this was the hour he remembered and for which he was homesick. He was very fond of Alice and the children and enjoyed their company, but his greatest happiness, and peace of the soul, came to him when he was alone.

  On this, his first night of leave, he felt the perfection of the hour more keenly than ever. (Someday he would retire and come to live at Dunnian, and there would be no more comings and goings, but, although he envisaged that time with a good deal of pleasure, he was aware that something would be lost. He would not appreciate Dunnian so much if he lived here all the while. It was the comings and goings that heightened his perception; it was the odd juxtaposition of the two different lives that made Dunnian seem so wonderful.) The windows stood wide open and it was almost dark outside—as dark as it ever is in June. A fire had been lit and a log of wood flamed fitfully on its bed of red ashes. It was all perfect. Humphrey raised his eyes and saw a star, faintly twinkling, and he remembered that Aunt Celia had sat here night after night watching for the first star.

  Ten minutes more—just one last cigarette—and then he must go upstairs to bed, thought Humphrey. Ten minutes more…

  He was just lighting the cigarette when he heard Alice calling him, and there was such urgency in her voice that he flung the cigarette into the fire and ran for his life. He took the stairs three steps at a time and found Alice standing on the landing in her nightdress.

  Humphrey had expected to find her in bed—he had thought of all sorts of contingencies during his mad rush upstairs—but Alice seemed all right, neither frightened nor very much perturbed.

  “Somebody came in,” Alice said with a puzzled air.

  “Came into your room?”

  “Yes. I thought at first it was Nannie, but it wasn’t Nannie; it wasn’t Becky either.”

  “You were dreaming, darling,” said Humphrey, putting his arm around her shoulders and leading her back to bed.

  “But I wasn’t asleep, Humphrey,” she replied. “How could I have been dreaming when I wasn’t asleep? I had only just gotten into bed and lain down. I was going to read for a little while…and then, all at once, I had a feeling that someone had come into the room, and when I looked up I saw her.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know, darling. It was nobody I had ever seen before.”

  She was speaking so calmly and naturally that only an anxious husband could have felt any apprehension, but Humphrey was an anxious husband. He was all the more apprehensive because it was so unlike Alice to “imagine things.”

  “It’s all right, dearest,” he soothed as she got into bed. “Lie down and go to sleep. It’s very late, you know.”

  “Who was she, I wonder,” Alice said as she lay down obediently.

  “You mustn’t alarm yourself, Alice.”

  “I’m not alarmed. There was nothing alarming about her. She was—she was friendly, you know. It wasn’t until she had gone that I began to feel a little frightened and to wonder who she was…so I called you.”

  “Yes, of course, but I’m sure you were dreaming—”

  “No, Humphrey, she was quite real,” Alice replied as she laid her head on the pillow. “She came and stood by my bed and smiled at me…an old lady with very bright eyes…and a beautiful diamond brooch.”

  “You were dreaming,” Humphrey said for the third time but with much less conviction.

  “Gray silk,” continued Alice in a sleepy voice. “Gray silk…it rustled when she moved…and lovely old Mechlin lace…and she was so tiny, no bigger than Edith—”

  “She’s gone, darling.”

  “—and a scent of roses,” Alice murmured as she closed her eyes. “A scent…of red…roses…”

  Was it imagination or did a faint scent of red roses linger in the air? Humphrey could not be sure.

  Celia Dunne was born very early the next morning with the least possible fuss. She was small and neatly made and from the very beginning of her life she was nice to look at, not red or wrinkled as the other babies had been. Her eyes were blue at first, but very soon they began to turn brown, and Humphrey, as he looked at her lying contentedly in her beribboned bassinet, could have sworn that there was recognition in them and something approaching a twinkle. He did not like it at all, for he hated anything queer (and anything queer in his own family was profoundly to be deprecated).

  Humphrey was so upset about it that he was very short indeed with Alice’s nurse when she remarked that Celia “wasn’t like a baby somehow.” (They were having lunch together in the morning room and Celia was barely three weeks old.)

  “What do you mean?” demanded Humphrey. “She looks to me just like any other baby.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean anything like that,” Nurse Walker declared hastily and somewhat enigmatically. “I just mean she has such a strong personality. I just mean she’s so very noticing for her age. You should have seen the way she looked about her when I carried her downstairs this morning—so pleased she seemed—as if the whole place belonged to her, dear wee lamb!”

  “Nonsense!” Humphrey exclaimed angrily.

  Nurse Walker was surprised. The commander was usually very pleasant and genial. She wondered what could have provoked him and made him so cross.

  “I hope you haven’t said anything like that to Mrs. Dunne,” Humphrey continued after a short silence. “She’s apt to be—er—rather fanciful and we don’t want to worry her.”

  Nurse Walker was even more surprised at this, for it had seemed to her a very innocent remark. Of course she had told Mrs. Dunne; mothers liked to hear things like that about their babies and Mrs. Dunne was no exception to the rule. Mrs. Dunne had not been worried; in fact, she had been very much amused and had laughed so heartily that she almost cried. It was this success that had encouraged Nurse Walker to repeat her little joke to the commander.

  “No, of course we mustn’t worry her,” Nurse Walker agreed in her most professional manner.

 
; Chapter Thirteen

  Debbie

  Humphrey found that Alice had forgotten all about her “dream.” She was calm and happy, pleased with Celia, and even more pleased with herself for her cleverness in producing Celia to order. Humphrey did not remind Alice of her dream; he was thankful she had forgotten it and only wished that he could forget about it himself. In spite of his slight feelings of discomfort that were connected with the new baby, Humphrey managed to enjoy his leave and did not miss Alice’s companionship as much as he expected because he found a companion in his elder son. Mark was now ten years old. He was still doing lessons with the Raeworth children, but during Humphrey’s leave he was released from his studies. Lessons were important, of course, but Humphrey considered it even more important that he and his son should become friends. Next term Mark was to go to a preparatory school called Welland House, and unless Humphrey could manage to wangle his leave in the official school holidays, he would never see Mark at all. The girls did not matter so much (Humphrey thought), so they continued to drive over to Hastley Dean every morning as usual. There was a certain amount of unpleasantness over this arrangement, but it did not reach Humphrey’s ears.

  Humphrey had always envisaged Mark in the navy, but now, as he became better acquainted with his son, he began to wonder whether the navy was the right thing for Mark; he sounded Mark carefully and found that Mark shared this doubt: Mark was not particularly keen to be a sailor, though he found his reasons difficult to explain.