Determined to have no more truck with the washstand, he paid quick visits to ‘that door and that door’. Then he got into bed and stubbed his toe on the stone-cold stone hot-water bottle.
3
The Fiends
He slept badly, troubled by an elusive eiderdown and weighty blankets; all night he was either too cold or too warm. Annie’s knock wakened him to a grey morning with a high wind shaking the windows. Looking out at the stunted trees in the front garden he saw how advanced the autumn was here, and the sea far below looked wintry.
The bathroom proved little less awkward than the washstand. He accidentally pulled the plug out of the basin and lost most of his can of hot water. However, when finally shaved and washed, he felt slightly warmed by a sense of virtue. There was a glow of merit about cleanliness which entailed so much discomfort.
Miss Whitecliff awaited him at the breakfast table. She now wore a curious long housecoat which she referred to as her morning gown, when apologizing for its informality. He was touched to see the radiant smile with which she welcomed him, and even more touched when she said: ‘Oh, I had such a wonderful sleep after our stolen feast.’
Having seen the vast open spaces of the larder he expected little for breakfast, but there was enough marmalade to disguise the taste of the butter.
‘Tomorrow Lizzie will achieve an egg,’ said Miss Whitecliff.
‘That reminds me, I’m going shopping for you today and I think I should consult Lizzie first. All right if I see her after breakfast?’
Miss Whitecliff looked dubious. ‘They’ll be so busy then. But perhaps … one believes they have a cup of their nasty tea at eleven – my mother permitted that. It might be a good moment.’
When they finished breakfast Drew asked what she would like him to do. ‘Shall I read the morning paper to you?’
‘I’m afraid we don’t take one. During my mother’s last years she wouldn’t allow the news to come into the house – and one has gone on doing without it. It’s seldom good news, is it?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Perhaps I could just listen to the news summary on the radio.’ But even as he spoke he guessed that there would be no radio; in fact, not until he substituted the word ‘wireless’ did she understand what he meant. She then said: ‘Ah, yes, what a wonderful invention! So helpful in shipwrecks. And I found it quite fascinating, when an instrument was lent to us once. But my mother considered the distortion of music and voices most painful.’
They moved to the drawing-room.
‘Well, let’s talk about your memoir of your parents,’ said Drew brightly. ‘Do you plan to dictate it?’
She looked blank, then harassed. ‘One doesn’t quite know. One hasn’t thought …’
‘Suppose you just talk and I make notes?’
He got out the notebook he always carried and gently prodded her with questions but soon found that his note-taking was inhibiting her. So he gave it up, feeling almost sure the memoir would never be written – and quite sure it oughtn’t to be. Melicent and Albion Whitecliff had obviously been without any genuine talent and it would do no one any good to read about them. But it might do their daughter a lot of good to talk about them, or about anything else she fancied talking about. And he never found her boring, though he did find her vagueness and her transitions of mood – swift unaccountable distress followed by equally swift unaccountable recovery – very confusing. Sometimes he felt as if buffeted by a storm of feathers.
Just before eleven he said he would go and see Lizzie. Miss Whitecliff offered to introduce him, then added: ‘Or will that make it worse?’ She looked so apprehensive that he thought it undoubtedly might. He said he would go alone.
‘I shall be thinking of you all the time,’ she assured him, earnestly.
Well, now for the fiends. He paused in the hall and told himself he might need to be stern, especially with Lizzie. And he must guard against his instinct to like Annie. There was no doubt whatever that Miss Whitecliff wasn’t being properly looked after. He strode firmly along the passage – and resisted a sudden temptation to knock on the kitchen door.
Two little figures rose from the table as he entered. Lizzie was even smaller than Annie and more wizened. Her eyes were pale and her sparse hair was a dusty white. If Annie was a black fly, Lizzie was a colourless one – a midge, possibly.
He told them to sit down, and as there was no third chair he perched himself on the edge of the table. He then asked if he too might have a cup of tea. Annie provided him with a china cup and silver spoon. Lizzie enquired what his wishes were as regards milk and sugar. Both maids treated him with perfect civility but neither of them returned his smile – not, he decided, that they looked inimical; they merely looked wary.
He drank some of his stewed, strong tea and then said cheerfully: ‘Well, we’d better have a talk about meals. Don’t you think so, Lizzie?’
‘As you wish, sir,’ said Lizzie.
‘I thought I’d go shopping for us all and buy some nice, fresh food.’ He paused for encouragement.
‘Very good, sir,’ said Lizzie.
‘Then will you let me have a list of what you need?’
He expected another formal ‘Very good, sir’. Instead, she said distantly: ‘That’s for Miss Blanche, sir.’
‘Well, I know one or two things she needs but I’m sure she’d prefer you to make the main list, as you plan the meals. Now, let’s see—’
To his surprise, she interrupted him, in a voice shaking with angry distress. ‘I don’t plan the meals. I won’t – I keep telling her. And it’ll be worse than ever now, with you here – a gentleman must have proper food. I can’t do it, sir. It’s making me ill, and Annie too – all that’s being pushed on to us. The mistress never expected it of us, not in fifty years.’
‘It’s worse for Lizzie than for me,’ said Annie. ‘I know the order of my work and it doesn’t change – except during spring cleaning; that was awful, with Miss Blanche refusing to give instructions.’
‘It’s every blessed day with me,’ said Lizzie. ‘“What shall we have, miss?” “Oh, anything will do, Lizzie.” “But we haven’t got anything, miss. Nobody’s ordered anything.” “Oh, haven’t they, Lizzie? How difficult.” And away she goes.’
Drew asked how the ordering was done.
‘We have to tell the tradesmen when they call, but that only works with the milkman. It’s not like the old days when the butcher called for orders and brought what you asked for. You have to write it down now, and if there’s nothing on order he doesn’t come at all. And the grocer only delivers up here twice a week and he wants a list – and she won’t make a list.’
‘But couldn’t you, Lizzie?’
‘No, sir. It’s for her to make lists and plan meals – and give me my orders as the mistress always did.’
He said gently, ‘I think perhaps Miss Whitecliff doesn’t feel capable of it.’
‘But she could try, sir,’ said Annie. ‘Lizzie’s tried and I’ve tried to help her but we’re not clever enough. And it makes Lizzie ill. All the blood rushes to her head.’
He was smitten by guilt. ‘I oughtn’t to have persuaded her to engage me. She needed a lady companion who could take over the housekeeping completely.’
‘No!’ Lizzie’s tone was violent. ‘Miss Blanche should do it herself. We wouldn’t want a strange woman giving orders. But we don’t mind you being here, sir. You can play to Miss Blanche – we heard you – and help her with the book the mistress wanted her to write. And Annie liked you the minute she set eyes on you.’
Enormously cheered he said: ‘And I like you both, very much indeed. We’ll work together, won’t we? I’ll help all I can.’
‘Please make Miss Blanche try,’ said Annie.
He said he would do his best. ‘But by degrees, Annie – I don’t want to upset her. And until she’s, well, ready to try, we must manage on our own. Now please help me with a shopping list. Have you a pad of paper? I’ve got a pencil.’
r /> ‘The pad’s finished,’ said Annie. ‘And Miss Blanche won’t get us another.’
He tore the middle sheets from his notebook. ‘First of all, tell me the shops you usually deal with.’
‘That’s for Miss Blanche to tell you,’ said Lizzie, her expression becoming wooden.
Annie clicked her tongue disapprovingly at her sister. ‘Someone’s got to help him.’ She then gave him the names of several shops.
‘And now, please tell me what you need,’ he said coaxingly. Annie looked at Lizzie who merely rose and said she must start getting lunch. ‘Not that it’ll be anything but scraps.’
‘Well, I’ll have mine out – that’ll make it easier, won’t it? And we’ll concentrate on a good dinner tonight. How about chicken, Lizzie?’
‘Not for me to decide,’ said Lizzie, with cold disinterest. He looked beseechingly at Annie. She sighed heavlly, then said she’d do her best. ‘But I don’t know where to start, sir. There’s nothing we don’t need, really.’ He made suggestions, dragged item after item out of her. Again and again she broke off, saying she just couldn’t think any more, her dark little face quite agonized by the effort she was making. But eventually they achieved an enormously long list, not limited to food: cleaning materials were needed, tea towels, dusters, a new kettle … He began to feel daunted by the shopping ahead of him, and Annie suddenly alarmed him by saying, ‘I suppose it’s all right, such a terrible lot of things, when the money’s all been taken. The mistress’s money, sir – when she died, the Government took it.’
After a blank moment he guessed she was referring to death duties. ‘Not all of it, surely, Annie?’
‘Well, a lot of it, sir – according to Miss Blanche. And she has to go to her solicitor for every penny. You’ll ask her if it’s all right, this list? Tell her I’ve no more rags I can use for dusters and the tea towels are nothing but holes and the kettle’s leaking.’
‘Don’t worry, Annie,’ he said soothingly.
Lizzie came back into circulation. ‘That’s what I tell her. It’s not our business to wonder where the money’s coming from. The house has to be kept dean and we all have to eat.’
‘And more than you have been eating or you two girls will blow away.’ It was his habit to call Cook and Edith ‘you girls’ and he used the phrase without thinking. To his delight, both Annie and Lizzie gave wintry little giggles. Following up his advantage, he said, ‘Let’s have a nice heavy pudding tonight. What do you suggest, Lizzie?’
‘I’ll make what I’m told to,’ said Lizzie, and again retired from the conversation.
‘Jam roly-poly,’ he said decidedly. ‘That needs suet, 1 believe.’ He added it to his list. ‘And now I’m off.’
He wished he could go without seeing Miss Whitecliff. What was he to say to her? Just as little as possible, he decided.
When he entered the drawing-room she gave him one apprehensive look and then avoided his eyes.
‘Well, that was all right,’ he said cheerfully. ‘They weren’t at all fiendish.’
‘Not even Lizzie?’
‘Not really – though she wasn’t as helpful as Annie.’ He was careful to speak casually. ‘I fancy Lizzie feels the need of definite instructions.’
Still she averted her gaze. ‘That’s silly of her, isn’t it? Oh, Lizzie’s terrible.’ Suddenly she looked at him directly, her eyes blandly innocent. ‘Well, play me something.’
He said he must go shopping first and offered the list for her approval. She waved it away, saying she would leave it to him. He then asked if he could have some money in case he went to shops where she had no account.
She opened a drawer and took out a money box shaped like a safe. ‘Oh, dear! There’s none left. I must write for some more.’
‘Could I get it for you? I could take a cheque to your bank.’
‘Oh, I’ve no bank account. My mother had, of course, but I never needed one. And now Mr Severn keeps my money for me – my solicitor. He’ll send a clerk here with some – if one can only remember to write.’
‘I’ll do it for you when I come back,’ said Drew. ‘And for now, I’ll use my own money.’
‘How kind of you.’
When he said he would be out to lunch she looked distressed and suggested he should have it before he went. But he was determined to get out of the house as soon as he could. She was a sweet, touching creature but far dottier than he had thought, and the poor misnamed fiends were a bit peculiar, too. He needed a respite from them all.
What the hell was the real trouble? He tried to puzzle it out as he started his walk to the town. Miss Whitecliff obviously suffered from mental inertia which was, no doubt, very trying to her maids. But couldn’t they, after fifty years’ experience, help her out? Perhaps Lizzie’s obstinacy did deserve to be called fiendish. Anyway, it was preferable to think so rather than to suspect Miss Whitecliff of persecution mania.
Though he couldn’t help sympathizing with Lizzie, knowing that Cook, younger and more intelligent, expected Clare to plan all meals. And did Clare make heavy weather of it! Could it be so difficult? Surely if one used one’s wits …
By the time he was striding down the hill his spirits had risen. The sun had come out, the wind was less strong; he was hungry and intended to treat himself to a square meal – and at once. The shopping could wait until afterwards.
Reading a newspaper at the café he had the sensation of returning to the present-day world after a long, long absence.
Now for the shopping. He went first to the grocers – established, he noticed, in 1896. As soon as he said he was Miss Whitecliff’s secretary, the manager was sent for. Was her credit no longer good? But it turned out that extra courtesy was intended. The manager was overjoyed to have an order.
‘Believe me, sir, not enough food has been going into that house to feed one woman, let alone three – and you’ll hear the same from other shops. The boy on the van asks for instructions every time he calls but more often than not they won’t give him any. We’ll make a special delivery this afternoon – it’ll be a pleasure. I tell you, we’ve been worried, after serving the family for over sixty years …’ If he felt any surprise that Miss Whitecliff had acquired a male secretary, he did not show it and again and again said he would do anything to oblige.
At every shop Drew went to he was received with the same eager courtesy and there was always an undercurrent of anxiety about Miss Whitecliff. But no one asked direct questions about her. He found this alarming. Was everyone tacitly admitting she wasn’t normal? He longed to ask questions himself but felt he couldn’t for various reasons, one of them being that he dreaded the answers he might get.
And smoothly though the shopping went he was bewildered when it came to buying perishable food. How long would it keep without refrigeration – and what quantities did one need? The butcher and the fishmonger helped with advice and he managed to order enough for several days and arrange for deliveries. But his sympathy with Lizzie was increasing. He now understood why planning meals made the blood rush to her head.
Still, he was pretty cheerful when he started his journey back to White Turrets, laden with everything for that evening’s dinner, plus a cookery book to help with meal planning, and flowers which were to be a present to Miss Whitecliff. And at the last moment he bought another present: some women’s magazines, intended for the fiends as well as their mistress; somehow he must get news of the present into that shrine of the past which now housed him.
He went indoors the back way, to leave the food and half the magazines in the kitchen. There was now a fire in the range so presumably he’d get a bath. Lizzie made no objection to going through his purchases with him and looked approvingly at the China tea. ‘Miss Blanche’ll be glad to have that. We’ve been out of it for weeks.’
‘And she’ll be pleased with those flowers,’ said Annie.
‘Who arranges flowers? I’m sure you do it beautifully.’ He looked hopefully at Annie.
‘Oh, no, sir
. Miss Blanche will want to do those.’
Would she? Surely arranging flowers was far more trouble than ordering the tea one wanted? But Annie was right. Miss Whitecliff, after thanking him ecstatically for his not very expensive pink chrysanthemums, hurried off to the pantry with them. He had a flash of understanding; this was a job she’d always done.
While she was gone, he made a list of his out-of-pocket expenses and asked, on her return, if he might write to her solicitor for her.
‘Oh, I’ve written already,’ she said proudly. ‘I’ve asked him for lots of money – and told him all about you.’
He thought she looked both happy and normal, standing there with the flowers, which she had arranged most efficiently. He asked if he could post her letter for her.
She said she’d posted it already. ‘That is, the postman took it; he’s very kind about taking letters. Oh, dear …’ Her happiness had clouded. ‘He brought me a letter from my great-niece. Do you think I need answer it?’
‘Does it call for an answer? If so, I could write – at your dictation.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure I shall let her know you’re here. She’s … a very interfering sort of girl. I must think about it.’ Then, casting all doubts aside, she said, ‘No, I won’t. I will write – at once. I want everyone to know how clever I’ve been to find you.’
4
Mr Cyril Severn
A week later, seated at his washstand now become his desk (Annie had obligingly removed the crockery), Drew took stock of his achievements. The household was now well fed. The bath water was always hot. Lizzie and Annie were cheerful, and Miss Whitecliff appeared to be blissful – except immediately after lunch when she looked slightly woebegone, it then being his custom to leave her for a couple of hours. He found this essential, as the planning of meals, without telephone or refrigerator, was most complicated. He had to think ahead, arrange that food came exactly when needed, either post his orders or have them ready for visiting tradesmen. And he could still get no help from Lizzie. She would take any amount of trouble over her admirable cooking, she welcomed every order he gave her, both she and Annie treated him with friendliness and gratitude; but he had come to realize that, though they would labour physically from morning till night, they were virtually incapable of the labour of thought.