Celia's House

by D. E. Stevenson

  “Neither did I,” Celia replied frankly. “But needs must when the devil drives—”

  “She’s a marvelous cook,” declared Deb.

  These were the first words Deb had uttered since Mark’s arrival and Celia was exceedingly glad to hear them, for she had been rather anxious about Deb. Shocks were not good—even pleasant shocks—and Mark’s arrival had been so sudden and unexpected. Celia had been talking nonsense on purpose to restore the balance and to give Deb time to recover. Now that Deb had recovered, a change of air was indicated.

  “Take him away,” said Celia. “Take him into the library for pity’s sake. We’ll get no breakfast at all at this rate.”

  “But, Celia—”

  “Go away,” Celia cried, flapping her dishcloth at them. “Do go away. I hate having surgeon-commanders under my feet when I’m busy.”

  Deb smiled. She and Celia understood each other very well. She let Mark lead her away from the scene of action and they went into the library—which was the only public room in use—and sat down very close together on the sofa.

  “Darling,” Mark said happily.

  “Darling Mark,” Deb said with a sigh of bliss.

  They had not seen each other for three months and then only for a brief weekend in a crowded London hotel (it was nearly a year since Mark had been to Dunnian), so they had a good deal to talk about. Mark learned the news about the baby and was at once amazed and overjoyed and proud and apprehensive. He had ushered scores of babies into the world with very few mishaps, but this baby was different—this baby was already causing Mark anxiety. Deb reiterated the fears she had expressed to Celia, and Mark comforted her.

  “I’m too old now,” Deb declared.

  “No, darling,” said Mark. “No, of course not. You aren’t a bit too old. It will be perfectly all right—but you must take it easy, you know. You must rest and feed up. You’re far too thin.”

  “Yes,” agreed Deb, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Rest and feed up” sounded so easy.

  “You must get servants,” said Mark.

  “We can’t. They’re all doing war work. I don’t really mind it very much,” said Deb, smiling at him. “I’ve gotten quite used to it now, and the odd thing is I’ve become even more fond of dear old Dunnian since I started doing the housework. I know it so much better—every corner of it. I know every piece of furniture too, and I like polishing things and seeing them shining.”

  “It’s too much for you,” Mark said. “Dunnian is far too big—”

  “Yes, that’s true, of course. Too big and too disconnected—it isn’t a labor-saving sort of house. When Dunnian was planned you could get as much help as you wanted. That’s the whole trouble really.”

  “What about shutting it up and moving into a small house?”

  “We thought of that, but small houses aren’t to be had; besides, your father would be so unhappy if we had to leave Dunnian.” There was another reason too, but Deb did not mention it: she wanted Mark’s son to be born in Dunnian House.

  “The other rooms seem to be shut up,” said Mark. “I looked in and they were all full of furniture.”

  “Yes. You see Sharme was taken over by the War Office and Edith and Douglas had a week to clear out—so they sent most of their furniture here. It was Celia’s idea and rather a brain wave really. They were at their wits’ end what to do with the stuff. There’s furniture from Hastley Dean too; all the drawing room furniture and carpets and things. They’ve gotten evacuees in the drawing room.”

  Mark listened to all this in amazement. He had had letters from home, of course, but somehow the letters had not given him the slightest idea of what was happening in the country. It was not so much the changes that amazed him; it was the attitude of Deb and Celia that he found so remarkable.

  “Will they take Dunnian?” he asked.

  “No. They looked at it, of course, but there isn’t enough water. It would mean putting in a new pipeline or something. We haven’t got evacuees either, because it’s too far from the school. There were soldiers billeted here for a bit, but now they’ve found billets nearer Ryddelton.”

  “You never told me about it in your letters.”

  “Didn’t I?” she asked. “Oh, well, it all happened gradually. I suppose I didn’t realize it properly. It was no good bothering you—”

  “You didn’t tell me about it when I saw you in London.”

  “It was such a rush, wasn’t it,” said Deb. “We had lots of other things to talk about.” She rose as she spoke and added, “I must go help Celia to bring in the breakfast. I shan’t be long.”

  Deb had scarcely gone when Humphrey walked in, looking very clean and tidy, though perhaps a trifle shabbier than usual. His brown tweed suit was faded and darned at the elbows; his shoes were old but exquisitely polished.

  “Mark!” he exclaimed in surprise and delight. “What good wind has brought you home! This is grand! How are you, my boy! You’re looking the picture of health!”

  “Is everything all right, Dad?” Mark asked, smiling at this reversal of the usual question.

  “Everything’s fine, my lad,” replied Humphrey. “Those girls are bricks. You ought to be proud of your wife and your sister; they’re keeping the home fires burning.” He began to move about the room as he spoke, opening a drawer and taking out a cloth and spreading it on the table near the window. It was the table at which Mark used to study his medical books—how long ago it seemed!

  Mark went to his aid, but Humphrey waved him away. “This is one of my jobs,” he explained. “I’m good at it too. You’ll only muddle me if you interfere. Knives and forks…” continued Humphrey, opening another drawer. “And spoons, of course…and cruets…”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier in a smaller house, Dad?”

  “Easier, perhaps,” agreed Humphrey. “But I don’t want to leave Dunnian, and that monster of iniquity isn’t going to drive me out of my home if I can help it. For one thing I promised Aunt Celia that the place shouldn’t be shut up and, for another, I prefer to be here to look after it. Dunnian might be burned to the ground if someone wasn’t here…it’s full of other people’s furniture too.”

  “I don’t know how you manage—”

  Humphrey nodded. “We manage all right. The girls run the house. I do all the shoes, of course, and any little odd jobs that I can. We have plenty of fresh vegetables from the garden and I’ve started keeping hens. I didn’t like them at first, but I’m getting quite fond of the creatures. If we left Dunnian we wouldn’t have that, of course, and we would need more meat—”

  Breakfast was a cheerful meal and Mark began to feel less concern for his family. Obviously they had enough to eat and, although they were all thinner, they seemed well and happy.

  There were changes outside the house as well as inside (Mark found). A good deal of ground had been put into potatoes, and the remainder, which was laid out in vegetables, was looked after by Humphrey and old Johnson and a village lad. They were lucky to have Johnson, for although he was over eighty he was still able for light work such as pruning and staking and tying up the peas. Old Johnson was the “head gardener” and Humphrey took orders from him cheerfully, for Johnson knew exactly what must be done and what could be left undone with impunity. The paths were weedy and the hedges needed thinning and the greenhouses looked as if they would be the better of a coat of paint, but the place was by no means derelict.

  “We’ve got to have every bit of ground under cultivation,” old Johnson explained. “That’s how I see it, Mr. Mark. It doesn’t matter about the looks of the place—not till we’ve got Hitler where we want him.”

  There were several large brown patches on the lawn. Mark pointed them out to his father and asked what had caused them.

  “A pity, isn’t it?” said Humphrey. “We’ll have to rake those up and sow them when we have time. It was firebo
mbs—incendiaries—they made a tremendous blaze. We had a shower of them here. Two fell on the roof, but they rolled off without doing any damage. Dunnian roof is as strong as armor plating. I was ready for them, of course,” Humphrey said complacently. “We’d practiced firefighting, the girls and I, and we had the stirrup pump ready in a twinkling and buckets and everything—”

  Mark had a feeling Humphrey was quite sorry that his preparations had been needless. “What on earth were they doing here?” he asked. “What induced them to drop incendiaries on Dunnian?”

  “It was a single plane—lost itself, I suppose—but as a matter of fact there are very few places, even in the depths of the country, that have never seen a bomb. You know Walkers’ cottage away up the glen?”

  “Yes, of course. Mrs. Walker used to give us a glass of milk when we were fishing there.”

  “They bombed the Walkers’ cottage,” said Humphrey. “Mrs. Walker ran out of the cottage when the bomb fell and the Hun came down and picked her off with a machine gun.”

  “Dad!”

  “My blood boils when I think of it,” declared Humphrey. “My blood boils…if only I could get at them, Mark, if only I could do something! If only I were thirty years younger!” He was silent for a moment and then he continued. “It’s a horrible world, Mark. The whole foundation of society is rocking; everything is in the melting pot. I wish Celia had someone to look after her when I’m gone.”

  “Deb and I—”

  “Oh, I know,” said Humphrey, “but it isn’t the same. The other girls are married. They’ve got their husbands to look after them. I wish to goodness Aunt Celia hadn’t made that ridiculous will. I wish Dunnian was to be yours; if you and Deb were to be here when I’ve gone, I wouldn’t mind so much…” He was silent for a moment and then he sighed and added, “Celia and Dunnian—who will look after them when I’m gone?”

  “I wonder why Celia hasn’t married.”

  “It isn’t for want of asking,” said Humphrey, smiling. “Celia doesn’t like any of them—says they’re dull and stupid, says they’re all turned out of the same mold.”

  “Andrew Raeworth—” Mark began.

  “I know. Nice fellow, Andrew, and crazy about Celia, but she won’t look at him.”

  “What does she say?”

  “Says nothing—just smiles—doesn’t even get angry when I tell her she’ll be an old maid. One day when I pressed her she said she was ‘waiting.’”

  Mark laughed at his father’s disgusted expression.

  “You may laugh,” said Humphrey. “It seems to me she’s waiting for an angel straight from heaven.”

  “An angel wouldn’t suit Celia at all,” Mark declared.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Second Chance

  Humphrey emerged from Dunnian House and set off toward the gate. He did this every morning at exactly ten fifty and Deb sometimes set her watch as she saw the slight upright figure of her father-in-law walking smartly down the drive. It was part of Humphrey’s “war work” to meet the postman at the side gate and save him the extra time and trouble of delivering the letters at Dunnian House.

  Humphrey had had a pretty hard time in the last war, but he found this war a good deal harder to bear. Inactivity was hard to bear. Sometimes he felt cross and impatient. Why couldn’t he do something? It was horrible having to potter about in the garden when other men were fighting and dying all over the world. They wouldn’t even have him in the Home Guard—he was too old. Seventy-two sounded old, of course, but Humphrey was as strong and fit as any man of sixty, and men of sixty were accepted by the Home Guard. He could shoot Germans as well as anyone—and, by heaven, he would shoot Germans if they showed their faces here!

  Humphrey straightened his back and marched on, swinging his stick as he went. He noted that the trees and bushes needed trimming. They were encroaching on the drive, and the gravel was full of weeds, but it was no good worrying about that; there were other, more important things to be done. Once the war was over and the men came back, they would soon get the old place shipshape.

  At eleven oh five precisely, Humphrey reached the small side gate that led onto the main road, and a few moments later, the postman appeared. He got off his bicycle and greeted Humphrey with a naval salute, for he was an old sailor and had served in the last war.

  “Good morning, Finlay,” said Humphrey.

  “Good morning, sir. Looks like rain.”

  “I don’t think so, Finlay,” replied Humphrey, looking at the sky, which was cloudy and gray. “There’s too much wind in the upper strata. If the clouds break it will be a very warm day.”

  “They don’t look like breaking to me.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Humphrey said gravely.

  They discussed the weather every morning and usually exchanged views on the progress of the war. Finlay’s son was in the navy; he was serving on the same ship as Billy Dunne—so the two fathers had a good deal in common.

  Presently the letters changed hands and Finlay mounted his bicycle and rode away, but Humphrey did not return to the house at once. He leaned on the little gate and ruminated sadly on his age, on the stupidity of the government in not making use of fit and hearty men—and like matters.

  He was roused from his reverie by the sound of footsteps on the road, and, looking up, he saw a man coming toward him…a youngish officer in uniform, marching along in the very middle of the road with his head well up and his arms swinging smartly. He looked as if he ought to be leading a regiment, but he was quite alone. The young man was singing as he marched, singing in a very pleasant baritone; he was singing something about Santander and the Mexico Plains—the tune and the words were, alike, strange to Humphrey. His uniform was strange too; it was khaki but slightly different from the usual pattern, and he had a slightly foreign air…yet, as he came nearer, Humphrey had an odd feeling that he had seen the man before…

  “Good morning,” said Humphrey.

  The young man saw Humphrey and stopped. “Good morning,” he replied, smiling in a friendly manner.

  Humphrey looked at him in approval. He was very nice to look at, well set up, strong and virile, with a suntanned face and bright brown eyes. Seen at close quarters there was still that oddness about him: he was at the same time strange and familiar… Why, of course: he’s an American, thought Humphrey suddenly. That accounts for the difference in the uniform!

  “Are you chaps coming to this neighborhood?” Humphrey asked with interest.

  “No, sir,” replied the young man. “I believe I’m right in saying I’m the only American citizen within two hundred miles of this place. I’m spending a few days at Ryddelton, that’s all.”

  Humphrey took out his cigarette case and offered it. They both lit up.

  “How d’you like being here?” Humphrey inquired.

  “It’s fine. I like it. The coloring gets me—the greenness of the grass. There’s a funny kind of feeling about Scotland. It’s strange and yet it’s not strange. I thought I was coming to the war,” he added with a smile that disclosed a row of extremely fine white teeth.

  “It’s peaceful enough here.”

  “It’s the most peaceful place I ever struck—and the people are peaceful. There’s peace in their eyes. I got you all wrong at first,” he continued. “I thought you folk were a bit halfhearted about the war, but I soon found my mistake. You don’t talk about it much. You’ve gotten past that. You’ve just settled down to win it.”

  “How did you find that out?” asked Humphrey.

  “Various ways. I’ll tell you one of them. I met a girl in the train—a smart girl and as pretty as a picture. She was going to London to meet her brother and have a good time. I felt a bit envious of her brother,” he added with a smile.

  “Well, what about her?” Humphrey asked with an answering grin. “What was there about this girl that made you
open your eyes?”

  “I talked to her,” he replied. “I said to her, ‘The war doesn’t bother you much, does it?’ She didn’t answer—not in words—but she took off her gloves and showed me her hands. I’d expected to see white soft hands manicured with red enamel—she looked that sort of girl—and I got a bit of a shock when I looked at them. They were stained with chemicals and scarred with burns. ‘You needn’t look like that,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m proud of them.’ She was working at munitions—something special, it was, but she didn’t tell me exactly. She was getting what she called ‘danger money.’ What do you make of that?”

  “Pretty good,” said Humphrey.

  He sighed. “Well, sir, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “It’s good and it’s bad.”

  “What else have you found out about us?” asked Humphrey.

  “The food question bothers me. We get our own food, so it doesn’t affect me personally, but it seems to me you folk aren’t getting enough.”

  “Plenty to keep us fit,” Humphrey said quickly.

  “Well, it looks that way,” admitted the American. “I haven’t seen any signs of malnutrition, but they wouldn’t like your rations where I come from. Two ounces of butter a week per person and eight ounces of sugar, and not a drop of cream…I’ve seen our cook put more butter in a cake than you get here in a month.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Are you a regular officer?” asked Humphrey.

  “West Point,” replied the American, smiling. “It’s the same as your Sandhurst.”

  “I know,” said Humphrey, returning the smile. Humphrey was used to judging men (to summing them up quickly) and he had taken a fancy to this one. He’s all right, Humphrey decided, and this was the highest possible praise.

  “What part of America do you come from?” Humphrey asked. “I know parts of New England…”

  “Virginia,” said the young man. He hesitated and then, seeing that this very nice-looking old gentleman seemed interested in him, he decided to elaborate his answer a bit. “I lived with my grandfather,” he said. “It happened like this: my father died and my mother married again, so I was sent to Glenway, my grandfather’s place near Raleigh, Virginia. My grandfather brought me up. He died last fall and the place was sold. It was a bit of a shock, for it had always been my home. It gives you a funny feeling to have no home.”