The Bell Family

  ‘Pack it up, do. I tell you, I’ll do them for you.’

  Jane blew her nose, and tried to choke back a sob.

  ‘I won’t. It’s just as bad for you as it is for me.’

  ‘If you could see yourself.’

  That made Jane even more stubborn.

  ‘Oh, shut up, and don’t natter.’

  Paul decided to use force. He put an arm round Jane and with his free hand held her pen.

  ‘Now will you stop? I shan’t let you go until you do.’

  Jane struggled, and threw Paul off his balance. Before he came in she had refilled her fountain pen, and forgotten to screw the cap back on the ink. There was a splash, and the ink bottle fell into the box in which were her finished envelopes.

  With a howl Jane freed herself from Paul, seized some blotting-paper and knelt on the floor mopping furiously.

  ‘Oh, look what you’ve done! You’ve put ink all over my finished envelopes, they won’t pay me for them now, and I’ll have to pay for new envelopes to make up, and the carpet’s sopping….’

  Paul knelt beside her, scrubbing at the ink patches on the carpet. Then, as he worked, he came to a decision. It was nonsense going on like this. The ten pounds, even if they earned it, would go nowhere, they all needed more than a week’s change.

  ‘I say, Jane. Pack up the beastly envelopes. Put away your pen. I’m going to send a telegram. When I get the answer to it there’ll be enough money for a holiday for all of us.’

  Jane was crying so badly she could hardly speak.

  ‘Don’t be silly! A telegram where? Oh, goodness, I shouldn’t think it would be possible to be unhappier than I am now. It’s so hot, and everybody’s cross. Do you suppose anything nice will ever happen again?’

  Paul paused in his mopping.

  ‘Listen. I really can send a telegram. I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but I know I can trust you….’

  As they cleared the floor, Paul told Jane of the conversation he had with Grandfather in the theatre a year ago. He told her how he had decided to accept his offer on the very day she had won her scholarship. Of how he had written to Grandfather, and the offer was still open. When he had finished Jane was no longer crying, instead she was angry.

  ‘Paul Bell! Don’t you dare to send that telegram, or ever, ever think of Grandfather’s business again. Just now, because of no holiday, being poor seems to matter, but it doesn’t really, and you know it doesn’t. Just imagine what you’ll feel like when you’re old, thirty or something like that, and because of upsetting some ink now, you’re working in the wool business for ever and ever, instead of being a doctor.’

  Paul gave a last dab at the carpet.

  ‘I think that’s the best we can do with the floor. Being poor doesn’t matter to me, but it’s all of you.’

  Jane got up and faced him.

  ‘I suppose you see yourself as a Christian martyr, being thrown to the lions. Well, I don’t see you like that at all. I think you’re being a coward.’

  ‘I like that!’

  ‘It is cowardly, just for a holiday, to give up doing what you know you can do, for something you’d hate and be terrible at. And another thing, you’ve no right to throw yourself to the lions, for your family, without asking your family if they want you to be eaten for them. The least you can do is to ask them first, and I know what we’ll say.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Well, think now. How would you like it if secretly I gave up being a dancer to give you a holiday? Just imagine, whenever you looked at me, thinking: “If I hadn’t had that holiday Jane might have been dancing at Covent Garden.” Well, that’s how we’d be about you. We’d think if we hadn’t had that holiday you might have been Sir Paul Bell, surgeon to The Queen.’

  Although he had written to Grandfather, the idea that he might have to go into his business was always at the back of Paul’s mind. Also, he now knew, at the back of his mind, he had seen a grateful family saying thank you. Now what Jane said was like a window opening and letting sunshine into a dark room. She was right. He could never accept Grandfather’s offer, because the family would hate it if he did. It was a lovely releasing feeling to think that never again would the possibility of writing that letter crop up.

  ‘You’re an old ass,’ he told Jane; ‘but you’re perfectly right. You’d all loathe it if I said yes.’

  While Paul and Jane were talking, Ginnie had been sent up to wash before lunch. She had been going into her bedroom, but outside the door she heard Jane crying. Then she heard her say: ‘I wouldn’t mind if we had nearly finished, but it takes such thousands of envelopes to earn ten pounds.’ Looking thoughtful Ginnie tiptoed into the bathroom. Presently, as she washed, she spoke a thought out loud. ‘And me and Angus earning nothing! But somehow we’ll earn something this afternoon.’

  Although Paul accepted he could not write to Grandfather, he did not agree that Jane could do any more envelopes that afternoon. In this he was supported by Mrs Gage. Jane called her to ask her advice about the ink on the carpet, and at once she took charge.

  ‘On the carpet! As far as I can see, there’s ink everywhere. Look at your frock, Jane, lucky it’s your blue. Take it off, dear, and I’ll get the worst out with a drop of milk. What ’appened?’

  ‘I was trying to stop Jane working,’ Paul explained. ‘I said she looked awful, and ought to have an afternoon off.’

  Mrs Gage looked at Jane.

  ‘Awful’s not the word, she looks like somethin’ the cat’s sicked up. If you ask me, you’re both actin’ silly, earnin’ a bit is all right but never goin’ out is foolishness, and you’re worryin’ your poor Mum to death. Now you both go for a walk after your dinner, and then when you come back you’ll feel ever so much fresher. Sittin’ cramped over the table write, write, write, it’s carryin’ thin’s too far, that is.’

  Jane gave Mrs Gage her frock.

  ‘But the envelopes …’

  Mrs Gage gave Jane a friendly push.

  ‘Go on, give your face a wash. You don’t want your Mum to see you’ve been cryin’. And drat the envelopes, you’ll do ’em twice as fast when you’ve ’ad a breath of fresh air.’

  Paul and Jane wanted to take Esau out with them, but Ginnie begged so hard for him to go out with her and Angus that they gave in. Angus was puzzled.

  ‘Why do we want Esau? As a matter of fact, I wasn’t going out this afternoon.’

  They were on the upstairs landing. Ginnie beckoned him into his bedroom, and shut the door.

  ‘Angus, my boy, Miss Virginia Bell has had a simply gorgeous idea. She and Mr Angus Bell are going to earn holiday money.’

  ‘How?’

  Ginnie lay across Paul’s bed.

  ‘How would you like to go to Paul and Jane, and throw down simply pounds and pounds, and say we earned that for our holiday?’

  Angus knew Ginnie’s ideas. He felt cautious.

  ‘How could we earn pounds and pounds?’

  Ginnie lowered her voice.

  ‘It’s not perhaps a way everybody might think the best way, but it’s a way, and really, Angus, it’s time we earned. There’s Paul and Jane slaving and slaving, and us doing nothing.’

  Angus was looking at his caterpillars.

  ‘What would we do?’

  ‘Well, first we make Esau wet, and don’t dry him.’

  Angus thought that mean.

  ‘Poor Esau! I think the miserablest thing is a wet dog.’

  ‘It’s very hot, so it won’t hurt him, and being wet will make him look thin, and that’s part of my plan. Then we’re going by bus, to where there are rich people. I think near St Winifred’s will do. There are lots of grand houses there, where rich people live, and they won’t know us nor that I go there to school, as I’m not in my uniform.’

  Angus left his caterpillars and came over to the bed.

  ‘When we get there what do we do to get pounds and pounds?’

  Ginnie turned over on her back, and
spoke in a don’t be-a-silly-little-boy voice.

  ‘You sing, Esau shivers because he’s wet, and I go round with a collecting box, and people fill it with money because we’re poor and hungry.’

  ‘But we aren’t poor and hungry.’

  ‘Don’t argue, my boy. People who can’t go for holidays are poor, and by the time we get there we’ll be hungry because it will be a long time since lunch.’

  Angus could feel that Ginnie was in a determined mood.

  ‘I shan’t like singing in a road.’

  Ginnie rolled over on her chest, and frowned.

  ‘Miss Virginia Bell hasn’t noticed that you mind dancing in the road.’

  ‘That’s because my legs feel like dancing, and not because people are going to give me pounds and pounds.’

  Ginnie was disgusted.

  ‘You’re a poor weak creature, Angus. Here’s me with a simply gorgeous way for us to earn money, for a holiday, so that Paul and Jane stop looking scorn at us, and all you do is to say you wouldn’t like singing in a road.’

  Angus was weakening.

  ‘But I won’t like it, and Esau won’t like sitting in the road while he’s wet.’

  Ginnie got up. With a wave of her hand she dismissed Angus.

  ‘Very well, if you and Esau don’t mind poor Mummy looking so dreadfully tired everybody’s talking about it, and poor Daddy looking so thin that, as Mrs Gage says, you can see through him when he’s in the pulpit, I suppose I can’t make you. But me, I’d be proud to put in my Dedication book for today’s Service “Collected money for needy family to have holiday.”’

  ‘I want Daddy and Mummy to have a holiday as much as you do, it’s only I don’t want to sing. Still, if it’s only one afternoon, and I didn’t have to sing for very long …’

  ‘You’ll have to sing just as long as people give us money. Now, we’ll go downstairs very quietly into the kitchen. There’s no one there. Then you take Esau outside the back door, and for goodness’ sake hold him tight, because I’m going to pour jugs and jugs of water over him.’

  Though Ginnie and Angus did not know it, as they went out of the back door Miss Bloggs was coming in at the front door. She knocked on Alex’s study door.

  ‘Can I come in, Vicar?’

  Because it was supposed to be holiday time Alex had been reading a thriller. Rather sadly he put it down and opened the door.

  ‘Of course.’

  Miss Bloggs came in, talking as she came.

  ‘It’s that holiday camp for French students at St Winifred’s. I went up there, as I promised you, but I cannot make the director of the party understand about the special service for them on Sunday. I spoke very distinctly, but I fear my French is a little rusty.’

  Alex pulled a chair forward for Miss Bloggs.

  ‘I expect mine is too.’

  Miss Bloggs sat down.

  ‘I said église several times, and Dimanche, but the director spoke so fast that I’m afraid I did not quite follow what he said. I wonder, could you spare the time to come up with me this afternoon?’

  If Cathy had known what Miss Bloggs was saying, she would have been very cross with her. But Cathy was in the dining-room ironing, so Alex, looking as if going to the holiday camp at St Winifred’s was the one thing he wanted to do, went out with Miss Bloggs.

  Miss Bloggs and Alex walked part of the way to St Winifred’s, because, as Miss Bloggs said, there was nothing like a lungful of God’s good air. Alex privately thought God’s air was not smelling good in south-east London that afternoon, but he was quite glad of a walk.

  In the garden at St Winifred’s Alex met the very charming director in charge of the holiday camp, and in no time fixed up with him for the service on Sunday.

  ‘Now you know my telephone number,’ Alex said as he turned to go, ‘if you want me, don’t hesitate to ring me up.’

  ‘It is a pleasure,’ said Miss Bloggs in English, ‘to do anything we can, we are all brothers under the skin.’

  The director was puzzled and he turned to Alex.

  ‘’ow is that, m’sieur?’

  Alex wished Miss Bloggs would not say things that were so difficult to translate. He fumbled for words.

  ‘M’zelle Bloggs dit nous sommes frères audessous de peau.’

  From the way the French director looked at Miss Bloggs, Alex could see he had not made a success of that translation, so he changed the subject.

  ‘What are your young people looking at over the gate there?’

  The director looked across the tennis courts.

  ‘Ah, c’est drôle.’ He beckoned to Alex and Miss Bloggs to follow him. ‘M’sieur regardez, c’est comique ça.’

  Alex and Miss Bloggs followed the director across the tennis courts to the side gate. At first they could not see what was happening, for half the students were hanging over it. Murmurs came from them. ‘Ah, les pauvres petites!’ ‘Regardez le chien.’ Then an English voice in the road said: ‘I’d like to give that dog a decent meal, doesn’t look as though he’d eaten for a week.’ Then Alex saw Ginnie. Her back was to him, but what she was doing was perfectly clear. She had a money box and into it people were dropping coins. What she said was perfectly clear too.

  ‘Thank you so much. Actually, Esau isn’t really hungry, but every penny helps.’

  The voices round rose.

  ‘It’s a shame, that’s what it is.’ ‘Nicely spoken too.’ ‘Ah, le pauvre petit chien.’ ‘Poor little scrap.’ ‘Terrible to see kids reduced to this sort of thing.’ ‘C’est malheureux, n’est ce pas?’

  Then Alex heard Angus’s voice.

  ‘I’ve sung everything I know, Ginnie.’

  ‘Sing a hymn, you haven’t done that yet.’

  The crowd moved a little, and Alex could see Angus. Ginnie had done her best to dress him for the part, his face was dirty, his hair hung over his eyes and he was wearing a torn shirt. His voice rose clear and true, and silenced the talkers.

  ‘All things bright and beautiful,

  All creatures great and small.

  All things wise and wonderful….’

  On the word ‘wonderful’ Alex had pushed through the students and was standing beside Angus.

  ‘Every penny helps’

  ‘Stop singing, Angus.’

  Ginnie was furious.

  ‘Oh, Daddy, what are you doing here spoiling everything?’

  ‘I think it’s more a question of what are you doing here, Ginnie?’

  Alex went back to the director and asked him in French to move his students away. He explained that Ginnie and Angus were his children. This caused a sensation. Eyebrows and hands flew into the air. Everybody round told each other the news.

  ‘Ce sont les enfants de M’sieur le Curé.’ ‘Ah, ce n’est pas possible!’ ‘Mais c’est tout à fait extraordinaire.’

  The director spoke in a loud voice.

  ‘Depêchez-vous, tout le monde.’

  Everybody drifted away, except Alex and Miss Bloggs. Alex was really angry, but he tried hard not to show it.

  ‘Have you taken money from all those people, Ginnie?’

  Ginnie shook her box.

  ‘Everybody who would give me anything. One person gave me half a crown.’

  Alex thought perhaps Angus would explain better.

  ‘Why were you singing?’

  Quite suddenly, from being part of a splendid enterprise, Ginnie saw that she was in disgrace.

  ‘It was nothing to do with Angus, it was me who thought of it. You see, we had to earn money.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Daddy, we can’t tell you that. It’s a secret, isn’t it, Angus?’

  Alex’s voice was stern.

  ‘I’m afraid this can’t be a secret. You’ve taken money under false pretences.’

  Ginnie thought Alex was being unfair.

  ‘There was nothing false about it. We are poor, and anyway, Esau did most of it really, he looks so miserable when he’s wet.’


  Miss Bloggs was sorry for everybody.

  ‘Oh, dear! Most distressing!’

  Alex took Ginnie by one arm and Angus by the other.

  ‘We’re doing no good standing here. The best thing we can do is to catch a bus home. Perhaps on the way you will explain to me what has been happening.’

  But, on the bus, Alex got no nearer understanding, for Ginnie and Angus would only say they needed money, and would not say what it was for. After Miss Bloggs had got off the bus Alex remembered Ginnie’s Dedication book.

  ‘Was it anything to do with service for that book of yours?

  ‘Well, I was putting it in my book, but that wasn’t the reason we were doing it.’

  Alex tried to be patient.

  ‘What exactly were you entering in your book?’

  Ginnie, too, was losing patience.

  ‘I keep telling you and telling you I can’t tell you, Daddy. If I did, you’d know our secret.’

  ‘It isn’t only Ginnie’s and my secret, it’s Jane’s and Paul’s too,’ Angus explained.

  Alex gave up.

  ‘All right, I’ll wait for my answer until I get in and can have a talk with Paul and Jane. Whatever this secret may be, if it means that you and Angus do what you know to be wrong it’s got to finish.’

  But when Alex, Ginnie and Angus reached the vicarage there was no talking to Paul and Jane. Jane, after her walk with Paul, had meant to go back to her envelope addressing, but climbing the stairs she felt peculiar. Mrs Gage heard her fall, and came running to her, calling for Cathy.

  Cathy knelt beside Jane.

  ‘Jane! Jane, darling!’

  Mrs Gage lifted Jane’s shoulders on to Cathy’s knees.

  ‘There we are, dear. Ups-a-daisy.’

  ‘Whatever happened to her?’ Cathy asked. ‘Did she hurt herself?’

  ‘No, dear. Just come all over like.’

  Jane opened her eyes. Mrs Gage smiled at her.

  ‘You lean against your Mum, while I fetch a drop of water.’

  Cathy stroked Jane’s hair.

  ‘My poor pet. You’ve been doing too much.’

  Jane was still feeling peculiar

  ‘Everything’s going round and round.’

  Mrs Gage came back with the water.

  ‘Drink this, dear, but from the look of you you could do with a nip of something stronger.’