Sounds from the hall now indicated that the visitors were going. Mr Challis picked up The Times, certain that his privacy was shortly to be disturbed, and sure enough in a moment or two the door opened and in came Seraphina, her face still alight from conversation and laughter.
‘Darling, it’s too tragic,’ she began at once, ‘that nanny has fallen through.’
‘Do you mean the nurse Mrs Compton was talking about?’ he said, after a pause for recollection.
‘That’s the one. Too sickening. Margery Hallet’s girl has got her for the twins. And I thought we’d practically got our hands on her. Now there’s nobody to come down with us next week-end. Oh – are you working? I’m frightfully sorry, I’ll simply fly –’ and she was retreating with exaggerated caution when he said irritably:
‘It’s all right, I’m not working. Surely there will be enough of you to look after the children?’
‘Darling, Zita can’t come. She’s got to stay here and look after Grantey.’
‘Won’t the nurse be here?’
‘Only for an hour every day, darling. Grantey is better, you know.’
‘Is there no one else?’
‘’Fraid not, sweetie.’
‘Surely, you and Hebe can manage the children between you?’
‘We could, darling, but it would be rather dim for us and we shouldn’t see much of poor Great-granny.’
After a pause Mr Challis said: ‘I’m afraid I can offer only one solution; we must postpone the visit.’ Hope gleamed in his eye.
‘Oh, that’s quite impossible, Gerry; you know we always go, every year.’
Mr Challis was silent. The gleam vanished.
‘Well, I don’t want to worry you about it, sweetie,’ said Seraphina, preparing to depart. He took up The Times again.
‘Seraphina,’ he exclaimed, as she reached the door, ‘what about that friend of Zita’s – Miss – I never can remember her name. She is often here – you must know whom I mean. She appears to have plenty of leisure. Would she accompany you?’ (He did not say ‘us’; he intended to travel down by a later train.)
‘Who – Struggles? Darling, what a wizard scheme! I’ll get Zita to call her up at once – she can tell her you suggested it; that’ll make all the difference!’ Mr Challis did not look displeased, and his wife hurried away to set the wizard scheme in motion.
So when Margaret got home about eleven o’clock that evening, hot and weary, her mother at once met her with the information that that Miss Mandel-whatever-she-calls herself had been telephoning her all the evening; it was very urgent and would Margaret telephone her the minute she got in.
‘Oh, blow her!’ exclaimed Margaret, yielding to a natural exasperation. ‘I’ll bet it’s nothing important, it never is. Still, I s’pose I’d better,’ and she dumped her heavy suitcase on the floor with a sigh.
‘P’raps you’ll get sick of running after other people’s troubles one day; you look worn out,’ said her mother, going upstairs to bed. ‘There are some sandwiches in the dining-room for you and some lemon and barley in the kitchen; I’ve had it keeping cool.’
‘Thank you, Mother, you are a dear,’ called Margaret gratefully, as she dialled the number of Westwood-at-Highgate.
‘Margaret! At last!’ exclaimed Zita’s voice. ‘All this evening I haf been ’phoning you. Listen with care, now. Mr Challis asks you to go with them all away for the week-end! There! How do you think?’
‘Mr Challis?’ repeated Margaret, with a thrilling sensation in the diaphragm. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am sure. It iss to help with the children. I cannot go (I am sorry, for Lady Challis iss a woman of great Kultur, most interesting), but here I must stay und see after Grantey und the house, so they ask you to go instead.’
‘It’s marvellous,’ breathed Margaret, with excitement, happiness, and a chilling doubt – oh, could she get out of looking after Linda just for two days? – struggling in her heart: ‘When is it? Next week-end?’
‘Yess. And all expenses they will pay, of course,’ Zita added in a lowered voice.
‘Oh’ – Margaret’s tone was impatient, ‘that doesn’t matter. Listen, Zita,’ she went on carefully, knowing that now, if ever, she must avoid treading on the touchy one’s toes, ‘it’s awfully kind of you to have suggested my going. I shall adore it; I’m just aching for a change. Will you please tell Mrs Challis I shall love to come and I’m awfully proud to be trusted with the children.’
‘There will be much to do. They can be devils,’ said Zita, again in the lowered voice.
‘Oh, well, I shall just have to do my best. Can I ’phone you up towards the end of next week and find out all the details? Or had I better come in and see Mrs Challis?’
‘I find it out from her, all of it, und tell you,’ said Zita importantly. ‘Oh well, think of me at home here alone while you all are enchoying yourself!’
‘I know, Zita. It’s awfully sweet of you. I do wish you were coming too.’
‘Oh, do not be so sorry for me; perhaps I go out to some beautiful concert while you are bathing them all!’
‘Yes – well – I hope you will,’ answered Margaret, thinking not for the first time how maddening Zita was. ‘I must ring off now, my dear, I’ve got forty exercises to correct before to-morrow. Good-bye, and thanks again, most awfully.’
He asked me to go! He did, not Mrs Challis, she was thinking as she ate her supper in the tidy, silent kitchen with only the tick of the clock for company. Why on earth should he? I suppose he thinks I look reliable! Not very flattering, but one might look worse than reliable – though I’m sure it isn’t a thing he usually admires in women (she actually smiled to herself). If only I can get Dick to let me go!
When she arrived at Westwood-at-Brockdale the following evening, she found the kindly neighbour who kept an eye on Linda during the daytime had just left, and on the telephone-pad (proudly pointed out to her by Linda, hanging on her arm) she had written a message that had come about six o’clock. It was from Mrs Steggles; Margaret’s brother would be home on forty-eight hours’ leave next Saturday, and her mother ‘was afraid it was embarkation.’ Would Margaret ’phone up as soon as she got in.
Margaret’s first feeling was one of impatient despair; as though it wasn’t enough to have her promise to Dick standing between her and the week-end with the Challises, Reg must come home on leave, and there would be an outcry if she failed to spend perhaps his last week-end in England at home with him and the family. But I will go, she vowed to herself, banging about the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal. I don’t see why I should be done out of something that I want so desperately.
‘Margaret’s cross,’ whispered Linda, who had been glancing up at her now and again from the corner of the table, where she was playing with some pastry, with a timid, puzzled expression.
‘No, my pet,’ said Margaret, shocked and remorseful, checking her violent movements and putting an arm for a moment about her shoulders. ‘Not a bit cross. I’m sorry I made such a noise,’ and for the first time she kissed the child’s cheek. She did so without thinking, only wanting to comfort her, and remembered to move more gently about the room, and not to frown; and presently Linda’s expression was tranquil again.
‘Dick,’ Margaret said nervously, while they were washing up after supper, ‘would you mind very much if I deserted you on Saturday and Sunday?’
He looked surprised, but not in the least annoyed.
‘Of course not, we can manage. It’s been awfully good of you coming over here night after night; don’t think I don’t appreciate it. As a matter of fact, I had a letter from Mrs Coates this morning’ (he felt in his pocket, but evidently changed his mind about showing it to her, for he withdrew his hand empty and looked slightly embarrassed), ‘and they think she’ll be out of hospital sooner than she supposed. About another ten days, they said.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Margaret, not feeling that it was at all good. She had become fond of Linda and
– why not face it? – rather fond of Dick too; she was so sorry for him, and she liked the sensation of being useful and wanted, and did not relish the prospect of Mrs Coates’s returning to take charge again.
‘I don’t know what we should have done without you,’ he went on, putting away the plates he had dried. ‘We shall miss you this week-end. Where are you off to?’ he added, fixing his large, bright, tired eyes with a teasing expression upon her conscious face. ‘Pub-crawling?’
‘It’s Reg; he’s got forty-eight hours and Mother thinks it’s embarkation leave,’ she answered, ashamed to admit that she was going off for a week-end with some elegant and socially superior acquaintances.
‘Oh, is that it? Poor old Reg; so he’s for it,’ he murmured, hanging up the damp tea-towel. He had long, thin hands; sensitive and well-kept and matching his fine skin. ‘I’m sorry for your mother and father. It’s a filthy business.’
He went upstairs to say good night to Linda, who was being encouraged by Margaret to undress and wash herself at night, and Margaret went into the dining-room to put away the tablecloth, for they had been having supper in the kitchen. In her abstraction of mind over Reg and the Challises and Dick and Linda, she opened the wrong drawer, and was surprised to find a face gazing up at her. It was the photograph of a woman, and in one corner there was the sprawling signature, ‘Yours ever, Elsie.’ Margaret, with a glance over her shoulder, bent down and studied it more closely, for letters had arrived at Westwood-at-Brockdale addressed to Mrs Elsie Coates, and she knew that this must be she. It was half with the object of being able to give her mother (who was consumed with curiosity about Mrs Coates) a description of her personal appearance that she examined the photograph, but when she had finished doing so, and had shut the drawer again, her whole attitude towards Dick, and the house at Brockdale, and her own position there, and her mother’s views on the probable ambitions of Mrs Coates, had undergone a complete and rather disconcerting change; for Mrs Coates was not the faded matronly creature of her supposing; Mrs Coates could not be a day over thirty-five and Mrs Coates was pretty.
23
At half-past four on Friday afternoon, Margaret, almost sick with nervousness, was standing outside the front door of Westwood-at-Highgate.
It had meant a rush to get away from school in time to meet the rest of the party at the house, and she had had high words with her mother about being away from home for her brother’s last week-end in England, but she was here! Here with her suitcase packed and only her very bright eyes to betray her painful excitement, and surely nothing could happen to stop her going with them now!
‘Oh, God, here you are,’ announced Hebe, who opened the front door to her. The remark was not as discouraging as it might have been, for the tone implied, we’re all in this together and isn’t it a rigid bind. ‘I suppose you realize you’ve got to carry Jeremy?’
‘Of course,’ answered Margaret, who hadn’t.
‘Oh, well, so long as my mamma made it clear. I’ll take him if he gets too awful. Cortway’s just bringing the car round. Mummy, give Margaret Jeremy, will you?’
Mrs Challis came forward smilingly, and put Jeremy, a large form in a linen suit who looked hopelessly wakeful and already inclined to dance up and down, into Margaret’s arms. She sat down composedly with him on the nearest chair, and he gazed up portentously into her face until she had to laugh.
‘I thought his Moses-basket would be even more of a sweat,’ said Hebe, also sitting down. ‘Thank God it isn’t a long journey. Barnabas, don’t do that to Emma.’
‘Why not?’
‘She hates it. How would you like it?’
Then there was silence for a little while. The front door stood open, and the brilliant sunlight of half-past two miscalling itself half-past four flooded into the hall, making the faded green and rose of the carpet seem dimmer, and the marble urns filled with blue delphiniums and white lupins look the cooler, by contrast. Everyone seemed slightly on edge with the heat and disinclined to talk. Mrs Challis, who was dressed in an exotically printed cotton suitable for wearing in the country and a fine straw hat, sat silently gazing first at her grandchildren and then at her daughter, whose clothes were also countrified and made of cotton; even her severe little hat was of the same stuff as her dress, stitched and starched to keep it in shape. Margaret’s own clothes were merely cool and inconspicuous.
‘Where’s Grandpa?’ demanded Barnabas, uttering aloud the silent question in Margaret’s heart; though she, of course, did not think of Mr Challis as Grandpa, and it came as a distinct shock to hear him thus described.
‘At the Ministry,’ answered Hebe, adding in a mutter, ‘he’s seeing to that.’
‘Isn’t he coming to see Great-granny?’
‘Gey-ganny,’ murmured Emma, busily picking at a button on her dress.
‘Yes, you’re going to see her,’ said Margaret, thinking it well to establish a link with Emma as soon as possible. ‘Won’t that be nice? Come over and tell Jeremy all about it.’
Emma obediently came over and stood by her knee, gazing frowningly up at her from under a white muslin sun-bonnet.
‘Isn’t he going to see Great-granny?’ repeated Barnabas.
‘Presently,’ said Hebe, and stood up. ‘Thank God, here’s the car. Get in, will you,’ to Margaret. ‘I’ll bring the others.
It was such a disappointment to Margaret to hear that Mr Challis was not travelling with them that she went off into a day-dream as they all settled themselves in the big, slightly shabby car; which still seemed more impressive than any car she had ever been in because it had once cost a thousand pounds. She came out of her dream only when they were half-way down Highgate Hill, and Barnabas aroused her by kneeling up to look out of the window with his feet grinding into her lap. She glanced at Hebe and Mrs Challis, who were in animated discussion, and wondered if she were supposed to correct him when necessary. She had not quite enough courage. On the other side of her, Emma had now struggled up and was peering out of the back window, but she was so small and soft that her weight as she leant against Margaret’s shoulder was rather pleasant than otherwise. Barnabas continued to grind absently with his bony knees and Margaret suffered in silence. Suddenly his mother’s small capable hand reached across, and without looking round or interrupting her conversation, she pushed his feet aside.
‘You must slap him down,’ she commanded, giving Margaret a brief, cross smile, ‘or he’ll get away with murder.’
Margaret murmured something, and the rest of the journey was passed in a silent bodily struggle between herself and Barnabas, which ended in a draw, but with herself both heated and annoyed, while Jeremy already seemed to weigh three times as much as he had at first.
At the station, Cortway went to get the tickets while the Challis ladies strolled ahead of Margaret and the children towards the barrier, Mrs Challis occasionally glancing round with her vague, kind, brilliant smile to make sure that they had not all fallen between the train and the platform. Margaret was compelled to hold Jeremy with one aching arm, for she had to give the other hand to Emma, and Barnabas kept her heart in her mouth by skirmishing between the porters and the piles of luggage and other passengers. Like most children, he became ravenously hungry a quarter of an hour after leaving the house on any journey, and he now demanded tea.
‘Oh, but you had tea, Barnabas, before you came out,’ said Margaret, wondering if she dare let go of Emma’s hand to move Jeremy on to her other arm; the one holding him ached intolerably.
‘No, I didn’t. Did we, Emma? (Say we didn’t),’ he added in a hoarse, hissing whisper, and blew in her ear.
‘Don’t!’ shrieked Emma, coming to an abrupt halt and going scarlet in the face, and jerking away from Margaret’s hand.
‘I didn’t do anything, did I? a lovey, precious Emma?’ His voice was now sinister with false affection.
‘E’!’ said Emma, gazing indignantly up at Margaret. ‘Barney bo!’
‘Don’t do that, Barnaba
s,’ said Margaret firmly, taking advantage of the pause to move Jeremy (who was silently gazing down at the goings-on of his relations with every appearance of interest) on to her other arm.
‘I want some tea,’ repeated Barnabas. ‘We didn’t have any before we came out and if I don’t have tea before I go on a train I’m sick. Always. You ask Mummy.’
‘Great-granny will have a lovely tea for you, I expect,’ said Margaret, relieved to see Cortway at the barrier with the tickets, and that their train was in.
‘Cawwy,’ demanded Emma, halting once more and flinging up her arms imploringly.
‘No, Margaret can’t carry Emma now, she must carry poor Jeremy because he can’t walk yet.’
Emma received this with a look of complete non-comprehension and repeated her request with a quivering lip.
‘I’ll carry you,’ offered Barnabas, flinging his arms round her and beginning to haul her upwards so that her garments slid up and displayed her stomach.
‘No, oh no!’ cried Emma, struggling. Margaret was looking wildly round for somewhere to lay Jeremy down while she parted them, when Cortway’s voice said authoritatively: ‘Here, here, what’s all this? You put her down at once; I never heard of such a thing,’ and Barnabas abruptly set Emma upon her feet.
‘Very kind of you but you’ll strain your inside,’ added Cortway. ‘It’s too hot for carryings this evening. You go along with Miss Steggles and see what a nice place in the train you’ve got. Good evening, Miss,’ nodding and touching his cap to Margaret. ‘You’ve got your hands full,’ and he moved off into the crowd, obviously intending to sit over the evening paper for half an hour with a pot of tea.
It is not necessary to describe the hour and a half’s journey – which included a change of train – in detail; those of our readers who are mothers will realize that it was made up of wrigglings, requests for food, drink, and excursions along the corridor, drawings in breath upon the windowpane, comments upon fellow passengers, promenades up and down the carriage and a brief fit of roaring from Jeremy. By the time Mrs Challis leaned across smilingly and said: ‘It’s the next station; cheer up!’ Margaret was limp and irritable, and wondering if Zita were cross with her again, for she had not come to the door to see the party off (Oh, well I can’t help it if she is, she thought with a sigh), and was becoming increasingly annoyed with Mrs Challis and Hebe, who only smiled or frowned absently at the children’s behaviour and seemed to have resigned them entirely to herself.