“Seems a long time, don’t it, luv, since all we used to look at on May Day was the carthorses done up with their brasses and ribbons?” observed Mrs. Beeding. “I used to like that, when I was a girl first come to London. Me and Mr. Beeding used to go every year to see the procession in Regent’s Park.”
“And a long time ago, Mrs. Beeding,” said Amy, eagerly yet dreamily from her seat at the kitchen table, “they used to go out (Londoners, I mean) into the fields before it was light and bring home the May and decorate their houses with it.” Amy still dispensed tit-bits of legend and history to her foster-mother, just as she used when she was a little girl.
“Did they, luv. I reckon the country was nearer to London than it is now.”
“Yes. There were fields in Westminster then,” said Amy, in the same low dreamy tone. “It’s queer to think of, isn’t it, Mrs. Beeding?”
“There’s a lot of queer things in this world, luv.” Mrs. Beeding was making pastry for apple dumplings, and conversation was carried on to the comfortable sound of the roller on the pasteboard.
“That’s a new fur, isn’t it, luv?” said Mrs. Beeding presently.
Amy glanced at the rich brown jacket hanging carelessly on the cupboard door.
“Yes. I thought it might be cold on the boat.”
Then silence settled over the kitchen once more, broken only by the quick ticking of the clock and the soft thumping of the roller.
But on Amy’s side at least it was not altogether a peaceful silence. Her glance had happened to wander from the fur jacket to Mrs. Beeding’s worn and knotted hands, moving capably as they kneaded the dough, and the contrast between the luxurious, inanimate object hanging against the cupboard door and the two lively objects turning and pressing the white mass, had started thoughts in Amy’s mind that kept her very quiet for some moments.
The insolent way the coat hung against the door made it a stranger to everything else in the kitchen. The price of it would have bought up the kitchen’s furnishings ten times over, including that New World gas cooker on which Mrs. Beeding was anxiously yet proudly paying instalments. And especially was it a stranger to Mrs. Beeding’s hands, wrinkled by years of washing, already the hands of an old woman. The coat, for all its silky springy surface, looked a dead thing beside Mrs. Beeding’s hands. And Amy suddenly realized, as she sat there, how delicate Mrs. Beeding had always been about Amy’s change in fortune; and how the whole family, so soon as they realized that Amy was going to become famous and rich, had let her leave them, in body and in spirit, with never a word about what they had done for her when she was poor and unknown. It was true that Mrs. Beeding had been paid twelve and sixpence a week for Amy’s bed and her food, but no money could pay for the natural kindness with which the whole family had taken Amy in, and let her shelter among their casual daily life like a storm-weary bird in a warm quiet room. Why, this was the only place in all London where she felt at home! Her mother had sat at this very table shelling peas and talking to Mrs. Beeding; her father’s ghost, with greying gilt hair and charming smile, walked the stairs. She could come here whenever she liked; whenever her head ached and she felt frightened or lonely or depressed by her failure to talk to people at a grand party, she could come here and be a child again.
And what had she done for the Beedings, ever since she had been rich, to show her love and gratitude for what they had given her?
She had done nothing. Oh, they had had seats in the dress circle whenever a film made from one of her books had its première in London, and she sent them pretty scarves and elegant trifles at Christmas (“Give them something useless, my dear. People who live that drab sort of life adore useless pretties,” Lady Welwoodham had advised) but she had done nothing that really showed how much she loved the Beedings and the house in Highbury.
Now that she was going so far away from them, she realized for the first time what they meant to her, and she was suddenly, deeply ashamed.
I take all and give nothing, she thought. I’m selfish. In all the books I ever read when I was little, it said Think of Others. But I only think about stories and myself. Perhaps that’s why I’m so miserable?
A door slammed upstairs and a shrill voice called:
“Hullo—ee? Anybody home?”
“Aye. Aime’s here,” called Mrs. Beeding.
“What, again?” Dora’s voice came more faintly as she went upstairs to her room. “Sure the Duke of Westminster can spare you, Aime? I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Where’s Baby?” inquired Amy.
“Out with them Brownies of hers. She doesn’t half love them. She’s going to camp with them in June. Pity the poor soul that has them little monkeys to keep out of mischief, I say. A whole fortnight of it!” Mrs. Beeding gave one of her rare laughs and put the dumplings in the oven.
“Mr. Beeding’ll be in presently, luv.”
“Oh, I’m glad. I was hoping I’d see him.”
Quick light steps pattered down the stairs and Dora came in.
“Hullo, Aime!” The two girls exchanged a peck of a kiss. “My god, poor pussy’s copped it at last!” Dora went on, catching sight of the fur jacket. “What a beauty! I say, can I try it on?”
Amy handed it to her and she slipped it on, turning this way and that, her thin plain clever face sparkling above the glossy fur. She was thirty now, and secretary to a director of her firm and earning five pounds a week, one of which went regularly into the Post Office Savings Bank every Friday evening. Tailored, neat and astringent in personality, she seemed settling into spinsterhood without regrets. Her “steady” had long since drifted away, discouraged by her efficiency and power to earn more money than he could, and she did not seem to mind his going. She had two or three close friends of her own age and type; thin, caustic girls with such nicknames as Slugs, Potty and The Marvel, who seemed bottled into an eternal Upper Fifth. They wore good classic coats and skirts with good silk blouses, and went cycling at week-ends in culottes (none of those shorts, thank you). She had done very well for herself, Dora had. So thought her mother, looking at her with a placid pride. Well, all the girls were doing well, come to that. Not like poor Maurice—and Dad. Mrs. Beeding shut off her thoughts at this point; and began to slice potatoes into fresh cold water while the girls gossiped.
“You’re in luck to-night, Aime; the Old Guy’s making a Personal Appearance,” said Dora presently. She was perched on the table, swinging her legs.
“That’s not the way to speak about your own sister.” Mrs. Beeding was setting the cloth as well as she could round her eldest daughter’s seat.
“Where’s Artie?” demanded Amy. She wanted to see them all.
“He’ll be in presently. They don’t shut till nine on Saturdays. He likes it all right. He’s had a cold ever since he’s been there, but he’ll be all right when the warm weather comes.”
Artie had just started as what can only be described as an outside-egg-boy at a big grocer’s in the High Street; a post which his mother announced at intervals would lead in time to his being a Branch Manager.
Then Mr. Beeding came in, and smiled at Amy tenderly out of his wet dark eyes, and asked eagerly if she was writing another book. He was the only Beeding who did not say her stories were a bit far-fetched; his starved yet lively Welsh imagination seized upon their strong, strange plots, their rich satsifying glow of atmosphere and colour, and relished them to the last page.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Beeding. I’ve nearly finished the one I told you about last time I was here. The Fire Walker, you know.”
“I must look out for it.”
“Oh, I’ll send you one, of course,” she murmured, rather embarrassed. She had not forgotten her remorseful thoughts of a little while ago; indeed, they lingered at the back of her mind throughout the visit.
A loud sniffing from Dora now heralded the arrival of Mona, the Old Guy in person, who came carefully downstairs on very high black suede heels accompanied by a strong blast of Mischief.
“
Hullo Mum, hullo Dad, hullo Dora, heart alive, girl, you’re skinnier than ever, how do you manage it? Hullo, Aime. Mum, I’m going to take my shoes off, they do fit me but I haven’t broken them in.” She sat down and kicked them off, her eyes fixed on Amy’s jacket, which Dora had replaced on the cupboard. “Heart alive, Aime Lee, is that yours?”
Amy nodded.
“I say, do let me look.” She hobbled over to the coat and fingered it. “I say, what is it? Mink?”
Amy nodded again.
“Good heavens alive, Aime Lee, however mu—” She stopped, gulped, and bent closer over the jacket. “Isn’t it gorgeous! Do let me try it on.”
Unfortunately the mink jacket would not meet across Mona’s mauve jumper, for Mona was going to have a baby in four months and had got exceeding fat, and as this failure made her rather cross, a slight gloom fell over the proceedings. If everyone had not been used to the Old Guy it would have been more than slight. However, they all knew her little ways, so the cloud soon blew over; and when they drew up their chairs to the table, where the tasty brown sausages sizzled in savoury-yellow batter, supported by two dishes of crisp yet fat golden chips, everyone was cheerful. Mr. Beeding sat in silence, but a faint smile sometimes passed over his tallowy face, and Mrs. Beeding poured out the strong tea and ladled the potatoes, listening to the chatter of the three young women and occasionally putting in a downright, sensible word, and the big kitchen rang with laughter as it used when Amy was a child.
Artie came in half-way through the meal, his face rosy and pleasing to look upon in spite of his cold and some spots, and announced that Maurice wouldn’t be in till late, he’d gone off with the Fasheest marchers.
“Sloppy ha’porth,” commented Dora. “No sugar, Mum. I’m slimming.”
Everybody laughed except Mrs. Beeding. She was thinking how Maurice would look at her sometimes under the brim of his jaunty, greasy hat when she ticked him off, and say jeeringly: “Yes, it’s Dad and me’re the unlucky ones in this family,” and that would always shut her up. Then he would go off to the Dog Racing track, swanking up the street in his shabby overcoat with the big padded shoulders and the buttonholes worn and dragged into strings. He had some mysterious half-time job up there, that kept him in money for cigarettes and the Pools. Them Pools! What with Dad having his bit every now and then on the horses, and Dora always joining in her office sweepstakes for the Derby and the Oaks and the Grand National and the Lincoln, and Artie doing the same with the staff at his shop, and Mona going in for those competitions in the picture papers about Can You Choose Clothes with huge cash prizes—it seemed to Mrs. Beeding that her family, together with most of England, was turning into Something-for-Nothingers; gamblers, eager to make money without working for it. Poor Maurice. Her boy. But he was bone lazy, as well. Funny; the boys seemed all wrong nowadays; it was the girls who had the grit and got the brass, too.
It was nice having old Aime to supper in the kitchen again, thought the Beedings in their different ways. The mink jacket, the West-End flat, the posh parties, had not pepped up old Aime at all. She still said Yes, Mrs. Beeding, and No, Mrs. Beeding and giggled at Dora’s jokes. Even Mona had to admit, when tackled by Dora after Amy’s first visit to the family since her installation at Hyde House, that Aime did not stick it on at all.
And they were all so used to her that it was easy to forget that she was Amy Lee, whose photo was always appearing in the papers (quite a thrill, seeing old Aime’s pan in the Daily Express!) whose books were always being filmed. Amy Lee? Oh yes, we know her awfully well, my Mum practically brought her up. And they were all so proud, the self-respecting, independent Yorkshire strain of their mother’s blood so dominated the emotional Welsh strain of their father’s, that they never said, even among themselves, “She might have done a bit more for us now she’s got all that money.” Even Maurice never said it, even Mona, with her envy of Amy’s clothes and her supposed hob-nobbings with film-stars.
After supper they sat in the Lounge, talking and laughing, and the rest of the evening passed very pleasantly. Baby came in later, having been seen to her own door by a conscientious Brown Owl who lived a bit further down the Walk. Her thick gold curls bobbed under her Brownie hat just as Dora’s and Mona’s used to when they were her age, but she was far prettier than her sisters had ever been. She turned her head away with an embarrassed grin when Amy greeted her, for she had been only six years old when Amy left Highbury and she was a little shy of her.
“Go and get yer supper, luv,” said Mrs. Beeding.
“Oh, Mum!”
“Now, don’t be silly. They won’t hurt you, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them. Go along now, a great girl like you. What would yer Brownies say?”
“Well, can I bring it upstairs to eat?”
“You go along, now. Artie, you go with her and kill the beetles for her.”
Artie got up grumbling from the wireless cabinet and went after his sister. How wonderful that lemon yellow Beeding hair was! Amy watched the light on Baby’s head as she went out of the room, and thought that their curls were like three magic wigs; only Baby’s seemed to belong to her face, Dora’s and Mona’s seemed dropped above their plain countenances by a spell.
Dora and Mona had gone upstairs together and Mr. Beeding had descended to his hell in the bakehouse, so Amy and Mrs. Beeding were alone when Amy, gazing at her foster-mother, suddenly saw that she was old. Her cheeks were sunken and her broad back stooped. Amy experienced such a shock that she could not control herself, and she exclaimed impulsively:
“Dear Mrs. Beeding! I shall miss you when I’m away!”
“That’s real nice of yer, luv,” answered Mrs. Beeding, looking up from her knitting. “I’ll miss you too, Amy, you’re like one o’ me own.”
There was a little silence.
“Did yer ever go to that place in the country, where yer Dad and Mother was born, Amy? You was talking about going last summer.”
Amy nodded, staring into the bright red stove.
“I didn’t find anybody. I hoped there might be someone, some relations perhaps, belonging to Mother, but there weren’t. My grandfather’s offices had just been pulled down, a week or two before I went. The chemist opposite remembered him. He told me—he said he remembered him quite well.”
She would never forget the contemptuous pity in the old Scots chemist’s voice when he spoke of her grandfather. But then, too, she would always remember how his tone had softened when he spoke of “the daughter—that was a bonny girl, it did you good to hear her laugh. Did you know her, perhaps?” But she would never tell that to Mrs. Beeding, nor to anyone.
“It was a lovely place,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “The bells kept ringing; near, you know, and then far away, all day.”
“Give you the miseries, bells,” said Mrs. Beeding severely. After a pause—
“Amy, you must be right lonely up in that place o’ yours. When’re you goin’ to get married?”
Amy stared at her, then opened her mouth, but could think of nothing to say and so was silent. Mrs. Beeding went on.
“Me and Miss Lathom both think the same about you. I was up at the School the other day. They had a Bazaar to get money for that Missionary Society o’ theirs that they are always going on about, and I went along to see if there was anything would do for Baby. I had quite a long talk with Miss Lathom about you.”
“Did you?” said Amy feebly.
“Aye. She’s an educated woman, Miss Lathom is (though she’s that sensible with it you’d never notice it), but she agreed wi’ me. She thinks you ought to get married.”
“I’m not lonely, Mrs. Beeding, honestly I’m not,” protested Amy. Not even to her foster-mother could she tell her vague, nameless troubles.
“Oh, yes you are. And lookin’ peaky, too.”
“I’m all right, really.”
“When did y’have a headache last?”
“Oh … day before yesterday … but——”
“And cried, too, I’ll lay.”
“Oh, well … not much, truly. At least——”
“There y’are. I can see, I’m not blind, like some. Now what you ought to do is ter find some nice young man at one o’ those posh parties you go to, and marry him.”
“But I don’t want to, I’m all right, I don’t want to marry anybody, it ’ud be awful, I shouldn’t know what to do, with somebody there all the time.” Amy said, a little wildly.
“Everybody ought to get married,” pronounced Mrs. Beeding, “because it’s natural. It’s good for human beings like rain’s good for the plants. Look at Mona, she’s twice the girl since she married Syd. Not that she ever was much, Mona,” she added, after a pause in which the knitting stayed suspended, and its owner reflected.
“Oh, well, p’raps you’ll find someone in America,” she concluded, glancing keenly at Amy’s troubled face. “Anyway, that’s what you ought to do, so you keep it in mind.”
“Have you seen Old Porty lately?” said Amy quickly, determined to change the subject.
“There!” Mrs. Beeding excitedly raised the knitting and lowered it again. “I knew I had something to tell yer! He’s lost his job.”
“Porty has?”
“Aye. He met Dora in the High Street one night last week and told her. After fifteen years. No pension, not even a bonus. Just told him he was too old and packed him off with a month’s pay.”
“Good, I’m glad,” said Amy, fiercely, yet with a dreary ring in her young voice. “Beastly old thing, serve him right.”
“Aye. And ’tisn’t as though he hadn’t had all the fun he wanted while his money lasted, the wicked old sinner. I’ll lay he never put a penny by, neither.”
“What’ll he do, Mrs. Beeding?” Amy was trying not to think about Porty’s ageing, veined hands on the wheel of his car, as she had seen them four years ago. I’m not sorry for him, wicked ugly old pig, he deserves it, she thought hardly.