by Betty Neels
It was too early to start the supper; her mother was still painting and Polly was in the dining-room, doing her homework. Mary sat down at the table and allowed herself the luxury of feeling scared and doubtful.
No way could she be more economical than she was now. They could sell the car, she supposed, but that would mean fares each time anyone had to go somewhere. They could give up Mrs Blackett, but she quailed at the prospect of running the place unaided; it was a large and awkward house, and she lacked the modern appliances to make running it easier.
‘I’ll get a job,’ said Mary aloud. ‘Mrs Blackett can stay, and I can get up earlier and go to bed later.’ She frowned, ‘What kind of job? It’ll have to be close by, and part-time if I can earn enough. Mother’s help? A shop? Housework?’
Mother’s help, she decided, and, having done so, instantly felt better. After all, it need only be for six months or so; once her father’s book was published everything would be all right.
Feeling quite cheerful, she went to the fridge—the remains of the lamb joint they had had could be turned into a shepherds pie. The sight of it reminded her that the butcher wanted to be paid—she would have to get a job as soon as possible.
She scanned the local paper the next morning and saw with satisfaction that there were several advertisements for mother’s helps, all of them local. She cut them out and decided to phone them all for an appointment.
She put the phone down after her fourth call-full-time, she had been told, and no dependents. The next call was more promising—part-time, ten in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon, Sundays free, sixty pounds a week and her midday dinner. Two children, said the voice. Four years old and five, boy and girl, lively and happy. The voice made an appointment for that afternoon and rang off.
Sixty pounds a week, reflected Mary, and it was only a short bus ride—one of the large houses overlooking the Heath. She could pay off the tradespeople, keep Mrs Blackett, and lay out the rest of the money as economically as possible. The reluctant thought that she hadn’t much liked the voice she decided to ignore.
Her father was out, her mother absorbedly painting and Polly not yet back from school. Mary, very neat, and hoping that she looked like a mother’s help, got on to a bus.
The house was just as she had expected—large, red-brick and solid, with a big garden separating it from the road. She rang the bell.
The door was opened by a small, thin girl in a grubby apron and suffering from a heavy cold. ‘Come on in,’ she invited, not waiting for Mary to speak. ‘The missus is expecting you.’
The girl opened a door in the large hall. ‘In here—Mrs Bennett, here’s the young lady.’
She padded off down the hall and Mary walked into the room. It was as she had secretly feared—the person matched the voice. She was a handsome young woman, if one didn’t mind the small eyes and the down-turned mouth, dressed in the height of fashion and wearing too much jewellery.
She was sitting in a deep chair by the window and said pleasantly enough, ‘Come in and sit down. I do hope you’ll do; the children are utterly charming, but they’re rather out of hand and I’m not much good with them. Have you brought your references with you?’
‘No, Mrs Bennett, but I can give you the names and addresses of several people who will vouch for me.’
‘You live in Hampstead?’
‘On the other side of the Heath.’
‘So you can get here by ten o’clock each morning? I go out a good deal—you’ll see to the children’s dinners, of course. No housework—there’s a daily woman as well as Maggie, who opened the door to you. She lives in. I expect you to keep the children amused and clean and tidy—and a walk every day; I’m a great believer in fresh air.’
‘They don’t go to school?’
‘No, Ben’s five, but he’s highly strung, and Grace is only four. Come up to the nursery and meet them.’
The nursery was up two flights of stairs, behind a baize door, and the two children were throwing toys around the room as they went in.
‘They are so high-spirited,’ said Mrs Bennett, and dodged the stuffed rabbit that her small son flung at her. ‘They get bored and Maggie can’t control them.’
Mary eyed them; the boy was big for his age, dark and too plump. He would grow into a handsome man, she decided, but perhaps not a very nice one. She resisted the impulse to stick her own tongue out in response to his and looked at Grace. A small girl, with light brown hair and large blue eyes, she was snivelling and her nose needed wiping. Mary felt a rush of pity for her; she needed a bath and clean clothes and her hair needed washing.
Maggie did her best, no doubt, but Mary suspected that she had more than enough to do in the house. She followed Mrs Bennett downstairs again, and was told that, provided her references were satisfactory, she could start in two days’ time—a Monday.
‘You’ll be paid weekly,’ said Mrs Bennett. ‘It’s an easy job and well paid.’
Mary murmured politely; she didn’t think it would be easy and she wasn’t sure that it was well paid, for she knew no one with a similar position, but it was the straw that the proverbial drowning man clutched at. Perhaps it wasn’t quite what she had hoped for but the thought of being able to look the butcher in the eye and pay him at the end of the week sent her spirits soaring.
She caught the bus home, her eyes sparkling, her pretty face alight with relief, so that the other passengers took a second look at her—to see someone so obviously pleased with life on a London bus was unusual and heartwarming.
Some of her euphoria ebbed away when she reached home. She had already decided to tell her mother that she felt the urge to do more than be at home all day; a little outside interest would be nice, she would say, and her mother would agree placidly. Her father would tell her to do whatever she wanted, his clever head so full of his learned book that he would have quite forgotten that if she hadn’t done something about it they would have been in a sorry way.
Not that she blamed either one of them; they were made that way, content with each other and their lives, never allowing unpleasantness to interfere with the placid way of life. The boys were no longer at home, Polly was nicely settled at her school, and Mary saw to everything...
It was Polly who would ask questions and raise objections, and Mrs Blackett, once more installed as the household help, would certainly have her say. Mary rehearsed suitable answers for the pair of them and hoped for the best.
‘It’s not fair,’ blazed Polly when she was told. ‘You ought to be out every night, dining and dancing in pretty dresses with someone super like Professor van Rakesma; I bet he’d take you somewhere. grand and you’d eat caviare...’
‘It’s only for a few months, Polly—Father was deceived into putting money into bogus shares; it really wasn’t his fault and I don’t mind a bit. I always have time to spare during the day; it’ll be fun to be paid for using it up.’
‘You’re fibbing. I think it’s beastly for you—you can have my pocket money...’
‘Thank you, love; that’s very generous of you, but I’ll have some pocket money each week, truly I shall.’ She began to improvise, to rid her sister’s face of its look of doubt. ‘If Arthur asks me out I’ll be able to go and have my hair done...’
‘Arthur,’ said Polly with scorn. ‘I wouldn’t waste my money on a decent hair-do for him!’
Mrs Blackett, when told the following morning, was outspoken. ‘It’s not for the likes of me to ask why you should go gallivanting round the place with a parcel of children, as though you ’aven’t enough to do ‘ere. I’ll not deny I’m glad ter be coming as usual, but extra time I can’t and won’t offer; I’ve got that old Mrs Caldwell two afternoons a week and Mr Trevor on Fridays—it’s as much as I can manage.’
‘If you’d just come as usual, Mrs Blackett, I’m sure we can cope. It’s only part-time.’
‘There’s part-time and part-time,’ said Mrs Blackett, ‘and a very elastic thing it can be, as you�
��ll no doubt discover, Miss Mary.’
Mrs Blackett was always gloomy, reflected Mary. It wasn’t going to be as bad as she had hinted; in fact, it would be a splendid way of solving the temporary problems which had arisen so swiftly and unexpectedly.
Only later, in bed in the shabby room she had slept in for years, did she allow her thoughts to return to the professor. It was silly to spend time thinking about him but it was difficult not to, since he was indelibly printed on to her brain. She wondered if in time she would be able to forget him, if he would become dim in her memory. Of one thing she was quite certain: Arthur—indeed any man—would never take his place.
Arthur came the next day. Mary had just got back from church and was wrapping an apron around what Polly called her ‘Sunday dress’, preparatory to cooking the midday dinner, when he parked his car by the front door and walked in.
‘Thought we’d go for a drive,’ he said, strolling into the kitchen. ‘I need to relax; I’ve had a busy week. Cut some sandwiches, Mary, and we’ll be off.’
He hadn’t said, ‘Hello, Mary,’ or asked how she was, or even if she wished to go with him. She didn’t, and she bade him a cool good morning.
‘I’m cooking the dinner, Arthur; I can’t drop everything and come just like that.’
‘Polly can cook, for heaven’s sake.’ He added bossily, ‘Come on, old girl.’
‘I may be a girl but I’m not yet old,’ she said tartly. ‘Besides, I don’t want to; I haven’t the time...’
He laughed. ‘Rubbish. You’re here all day with nothing much to do.’
She let that pass. ‘There are things I have to do today,’ she told him evenly. ‘I’m starting a job tomorrow.’
‘A job? Whatever for?’
‘You have just reminded me that I am here all day with nothing much to do—I think a job will be rather interesting.’
Arthur frowned. ‘Well, when we’re married don’t think you’re going to be a career woman.’
‘Is this a proposal?’ asked Mary, and prodded the potatoes, turned down the gas and turned to face him.
He looked awkward. ‘Well, no, I’m not ready to marry yet. It’s something which needs careful consideration; I need another year or two before I settle down.’
‘I might possibly change my mind within the next year or two,’ said Mary gently. She emptied a bowl of peas into a pan of boiling water. ‘In fact, Arthur, I think I’ve changed it now, so you won’t need to worry about whether you’re ready to marry me or not.’
‘I say, old girl, you don’t mean that? I’d got quite used to the idea of our marrying when it was convenient.’
‘I do mean it. You see, Arthur, when I marry it won’t be because it’s convenient but because I’m so in love that I can’t imagine being anything else but married, if you see what I mean.’
‘Good Lord, what’s come over you, Mary? You’re not behaving normally.’
‘Yes, I am. Arthur, dear, go away and find another girl—someone young enough not to mind waiting until you’re ready to marry her.’ She left the stove and went and kissed his cheek. ‘Go along to the rectory; Millie’s home for the weekend and she’s had her eye on you for months.’
Arthur looked pleased. ‘Yes! Well, I might just call in. Mind you, I’m deeply hurt, Mary.’
‘Yes, Arthur—all the more reason to have a soothing companion to help you get over it. Millie’s very soothing.’
He had been gone for ten minutes before Polly came into the kitchen. ‘I’ve been up in the attic looking for a bit of old blanket for Bingo’s basket; Aunt Thirza threw the other one away—she said it smelt. I heard a car...’
‘Arthur. He wanted me to go out with him...’
‘Well, why didn’t you? I know he’s not a bit exciting—anyone less sexy...’ declared Polly. ‘You could have had a super meal somewhere.’
‘He wanted me to cut sandwiches.’
‘Sandwiches? Is that man mean? Don’t marry him, Mary, will you?’
‘No, love. He didn’t exactly propose, but he wanted to put me on hold until he felt like marrying me, so I refused him and told him to go and find someone else.’
Polly stared at her. ‘You don’t mind?’
‘Not one little bit. Nor, I think, did he. Will you get Mother and Father? Everything is ready.’
Going home again on the bus after her first day at Mrs Bennett’s, Mary wondered for a brief moment if she had been wise to reject Arthur’s ideas for their future.
She had set out that morning all agog to make a success of her job. She hadn’t known what to expect, although she had been cheerfully optimistic—she would get to know the children, enjoy taking care of them, playing with them and reading them stories, and seeing that they ate their meals.
It hadn’t been like that at all. The untidy little maid had let her in and told her that she was to go straight to the nursery. ‘She’s not up yet,’ she had observed, and sniffed. ‘Took her breakfast up not half an hour ago. The kids ’ad theirs in the nursery.’
The nursery had been a shambles; the children had been left to eat alone, that was obvious; moreover Grace had had an unfortunate accident and wet her knickers, and Ben was spooning the remains of his cornflakes over the floor.
Mary had done the obvious—cleaned Grace, led Ben away to wash his face and hands and then set about restoring order to the room. The house had been so quiet that they might have been alone in it, the three of them. Presumably Mrs Bennett had still been in her room, and the little maid had had enough to do without Mary bothering her for information. She’d found the children’s bedroom—the beds unmade, clothes all over the place—sought for sandals, put them on protesting small feet and had led the children downstairs.
‘Where are we going?’ said Ben and kicked her ankle.
‘For a walk.’ If ever a child needed his bottom smacked, Ben did. Perhaps if she walked for long enough and far enough they would both tire and be easier to manage.
The Heath was just across the road; she kept to the more frequented paths and presently let them run free and, sure enough, as they tired they became more manageable, so that by the time they reached the road again they were behaving like normal small children.
Mary, waiting to cross between the traffic, was hot and tired and longing for a cup of coffee. Her hair was coming loose from its French pleat and she was sure her nose shone. Professor van Rakesma, driving past, blinked and looked again. What on earth was the girl doing, clutching two children and looking a good deal less serene than usual? It was a pity he had no time to stop and find out. Mary didn’t see him, which, seeing that she felt herself not to be looking her best, was a good thing.
Mrs Bennett was up when they got back. ‘I expect to be told when you take the children out,’. she observed coldly.
‘If you had been here to tell I would have done so,’ said Mary reasonably. ‘The children were in the nursery; they had eaten their breakfast alone, Ben was throwing the cornflakes about and Grace had needed the lavatory and there had been no one to help her... It seemed the best thing to do was to clean them up and take them out on the Heath.’
Mrs Bennett had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘I overslept. They had better have their morning milk. I suppose you want a cup of coffee...? They have their dinner at half-past twelve and then they’re supposed to rest for an hour. I suppose you can find something to do—have you made their beds and tidied the room?’ She caught Mary’s eye. ‘Well, no, I suppose you haven’t had the time—you could do that later. I’m going out to lunch and do some shopping. I’ll be back before four o’clock.’
The rest of the day went quickly enough—too quickly in fact; it seemed that she was to be responsible for the children’s clothes and their bedroom, as well as the nursery where they ate their dinner. She helped Maggie carry it upstairs, and although she was hungry there was little opportunity to eat since Ben, unlike his small sister, was determined to do everything he could to be obnoxious.
Mary, wh
o hadn’t taken to Mrs Bennett, nevertheless was relieved to see her a few minutes after four o’clock.
At home she set about preparing the supper while Polly, just back from school, made the tea. ‘What was it like?’ she wanted to know.
‘Quite interesting...’ Mary was at the sink, peeling the potatoes.
‘Were they awful, the children? Did you have them all day?’
‘Well, yes. They did rest for an hour after their dinner—I read to them.’
‘It’s not as nice as you hoped,’ observed Poly. She poured the tea. ‘Here, drink this, Mary—tell me about it; Mother and Father needn’t know.’
‘Well, it wasn’t too bad. In fact, if I can tame the little boy and get organised I might quite like it.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I shall like it on Saturday when I get paid.’
It would be all right once she had got used to the job, she told herself as she got into bed and lay thinking about the professor until she went to sleep.
He was the first thing she thought of when she woke too, but there was no time to moon around. She got up and crept downstairs and started on the necessary housework.
It was a lovely morning—the birds were singing, the Heath beyond the garden looked delightful and the early morning traffic was just a distant hum. She made a mug of tea and took it on to the back doorstep. The professor would still be in bed, she reflected; probably he had spent the previous evening at some grand house as a dinner guest or had dined with some charming girl.
Mary gulped down her tea and went back to dusting the sitting-room—an occupation which allowed for free thought. Of course he lived in a splendid flat somewhere—and perhaps had a girlfriend. Her imagination took off ...
The professor was shaving, making a good job of it with the cut-throat razor held in a steady hand. Despite the fact that he had been up most of the night, called to the bedside of an eminent public figure who had suffered a severe heart attack, he was preparing for another busy day at the hospital.