“Hullo there! It’s all the same in the dark, as the nigger said to the nun!” roared Porty, peering at Mrs. Beeding to see who she was and hoping she was her daughter Mona. “Oh … Mrs. Beeding. Evening! Beastly night, isn’t it? Beg your pardon … didn’t mean to bring you up to the door. Mr. Lee in?”
“I was passing,” said Mrs. Beeding. “No. He’s gone to the pictures with the little girl.” (Tim had mentioned earlier in the evening that he wanted to take Amy out when asking his landlady if she knew where Amy was.)
“Oh, well, never mind, never mind. Just popped in,” said Porty, and was going away again without a trace of disappointment (the world is full of boys), when voices and footsteps were heard coming down the stairs.
“Good night,” said Mrs. Beeding, beginning to shut the door.
But it was too late.
“Hullo, Tiger!” roared Porty, as Tim and Amy came down into the hall. “Just caught you, you old bu … sorry, ladies, that was a near thing, wasn’t it! Ma here said you’d gone off to the pictures.”
“We’re just on our way,” said Tim, rather disagreeably.
“I’ll run you round, and we can drop in at the Chickens and have a quick one on the way. How’s that? How’s Amy to-night, eh?” And Porty gave her pigtail a spiteful wrench. He hated quiet, dull little girls of twelve. He did not mind them so much at about fourteen, especially if they were on the plump side.
“It’s her birthday,” said Tim, glancing down at his daughter. Poor monkey, she looked pretty sick, though she was trying not to. “But we’ve time for a quick one.”
“In you get.” Porty invitingly opened the door of the car, which smelled of stale tobacco smoke, and off they went.
“Just a quick one at the Chickens,” said Porty. “Ju-u-u-u-ust a leetle quick one, eh, Tiger?”
“All right.”
Amy sat at the back of the car, trying not to look at Porty’s wicked old face in the little mirror over his head. It was just visible in the dim light from the streets lamps; his greying eyebrows of long coarse hair and his cruel little eyes almost hidden in their deep sockets and his hooked nose and buttoned-in little mouth which twisted sideways when he laughed. His face was bright purply red.
He’s my idea of an ogre, thought Amy. Not a giant; they have beards and you can imagine them being kind. Ogre. He just exactly fits the word.
She began to think what she would do when she got home, to make up for missing Beau Geste. I can put away the coin that the American boy gave me in my box, and look up Vine Falls on the Atlas and start another chapter of The Wolf of Leningrad. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.
They stopped outside The Hen and Chickens.
Twenty minutes later, while Mrs. Beeding was locking up the shop for the night, she heard the side door open.
“Amy? Is that you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Beeding.”
Amy came and stood in the doorway that led from the passage into the shop. Her pale little face was expressionless.
“Never mind, luv.” Mrs. Beeding put a sheet of muslin over a tray of jam tarts. “You and Mona go next week, when you get your pocket-money. Mona’s going. It’s Pola Negri in Barbed Wire.”
“Yes, that sounds lovely,” said Amy, politely.
“Didn’t yer wait at all, luv?” Mrs. Beeding pulled down the blind across the window.
“Oh, no. I knew he wouldn’t come out till closing time.”
“Never you mind, luv. Have yer got a nice book to read?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“That’s right. Good night, then, Amy.”
“Good night, Mrs. Beeding, and thank you for the custard tarts. They were lovely.”
Mrs. Beeding went slowly downstairs and Amy went slowly up. The house was full of the delicious smell of freshly baked bread; Mr. Beeding was already at work in the bakehouse.
Back in the living-room, she re-lit the gas stove, drew the curtains more closely, pulled a chair up to the table and fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, then went into her own room to take off her hat and coat.
It was a small room, with one large window, covered by a faded purple curtain, overlooking large gardens with big trees. The floor had been painstakingly stained with permanganate of potash which was beginning to wear off and there was a blue rug beside the iron bedstead, a kitchen table for Amy’s mirror, brush and comb, and a battered wardrobe, painted white, for her clothes. It was a shabby little room, but every object there looked as though the owner loved it; and the patchy yellow walls blazed with pictures, carefully cut out and pasted on sheets of white paper. There were pictures from advertisements, fashion plates, magazine covers and travel pamphlets, all widely differing in subject but all gorgeously coloured and exciting or beautiful. She had an affectionate, refreshing look at them while she changed her shoes. Then she took from the back of the wardrobe, from behind her school hat, a penny bottle of purple ink, a purple pen, and a brown exercise book. On the cover was neatly printed
THE WOLF OF LENINGRAD
A Thrilling Story of
The Russian Revolution
She carried these into the next room, arranged them on the table, and sat down in front of them. Then she sighed deeply, uncorked the ink, dipped the pen into it, and slowly began to write.
The room was very quiet. Sometimes the child stretched out her wrist as though to rest it, or took a sip of water from the glass. Her little hand moved slowly, tracing the characters as though she loved doing it.
Presently she said, without looking up and in a voice quite different from her usual one, deeper, slow and absorbed:
“Mother.”
She paused just long enough for someone sitting reading to look up and answer:
“What, my pet?”
“I’ve done the bit about Tamara rescuing Ivan. Would you like to hear?”
Again a pause, just long enough for someone to put down their book and say:
“Yes, please, darling. You read it to me”
Then slowly, in the same deep absorbed voice, with her chin sunk in her hands and her gaze moving steadily over the page covered with neat purple writing, the child began to read aloud in the empty room.
CHAPTER II
TIM LEE, BORN LATE in their marriage to elderly parents, was the son of a don. His mother was a don’s daughter, and all the family’s friends were dons or appendages of dons, and a civilized, witty, intelligent, secure and privileged circle it was, very sure of its aims and of its position in the English picture.
Even when he was a little boy Tim found this life very dreary, and was not interested in the beautiful ancient colleges with their turf and their towers and their bells nor impressed by the wonderful old men, crusted with learning, about whom legends appeared in The Times.
Tim was too easily bored. That was the root of all his troubles and the anxiety he caused his family. He spent a great deal of his time asleep because he could never think what to do with himself when he was awake. He had no natural bent for any career and no ambition, and he was permanently discontented, for no reason that he could give. “Christ! Is that all?” was Tim’s attitude to life. “Not bad while it lasted, but … is that all?”
The only pastime that did not bore him was gambling, and the only company he could endure for ten minutes was that of racing touts, raffish commercials, slavish bartenders, a waiter with a tip for a race, a barber who could tell a dirty story, or chorus boys out of a job. Shady people, living on the extreme edge of honesty and security, whose lack of responsibility fed the lack of it in him, who temporarily lifted the leaden clouds of his boredom. The petty shifts and dangers of their lives excited him, as though he were watching sharp-eyed, stinking little animals picking their way through a jungle. He knew that they were what he called filthy fellows, but he never felt that he must renounce their company: the other sort of company bored him too much. The filthy fellows in their turn put up with him because he was handsome, amusing, unshockable and always had the price of a drink. His t
aste for low company distressed his family, who could not think where he got it from.
When he met Edie Kempe, daughter of a common old drunken estate agent in the town, at a party given by one of his low-class acquaintances, he fell in love with her more as a human being than as a woman. She carried a double charm for him: she was not a lady and it was impossible to imagine her being bored.
This thin dark pretty girl, neat and gay as a sailor, was extraordinarily popular with both men and women, not so much because she was kind (though she was certainly that) as because she cheered you up, people said, just to look at her. People felt that life, whoever else it got down, would never get Edie. She comforted people whom it had got down like the sight of a pretty picture or the sound of a cheerful tune.
Of course all the men she knew wanted to marry her (tempted by the prospect of having something to comfort them whenever they wanted comforting, which, as with most men, was pretty often) but Edie, in spite of the burden of her old father, did not want to settle down. Yet when Tim asked her to marry him the second time they met, without an instant’s hesitation she said yes. He was twenty-four, and she nineteen, and it was the autumn of 1913.
They got married first and told Tim’s people afterwards. Mr. and Mrs. Lee were naturally hurt by Tim’s secrecy and wished that he had chosen a lady, but they were prepared to make the best of the situation, suggesting that the young people should take a small flat near them and that Tim, who had taken a Second in History, should try for a job in a good preparatory school outside the town, backed by his father’s help.
But Tim refused, and Edie stood by him. They wanted to leave the town, which they both disliked, and go to London. There was a scene in which Tim showed a frighteningly cold ill-temper, and then he got his way. His father gave him shares bringing in two hundred a year and warned him that if the money were not prudently used he would get no more, and the two young people went off.
Tim’s parents were grieved: but they were also a little relieved. They, whose life was a web of responsibilities, had produced a son who was a monster of irresponsibility with a taste for shady company that bewildered them and a passion for games of chance that frightened them. He did not seem like a child of theirs at all. They had always been good friends, sufficient for one another, and now they drew even closer together. Three years after Tim’s marriage they were killed in a climbing accident in Skye, and Tim came into a little more money, and felt some secret relief, in his turn, that a few more roots had snapped. He did not lie to himself about his feelings, and knew that he had never tried to like his parents. They did not speak his language.
In London he did a few months schoolmastering at a bad day school, helping his salary with slices from his capital. He had sold the shares, and he and Edie had good times running around in a cheap car, dancing in cheap places, and going to pits at theatres. They were both happy, Edie because she had a happy nature, and Tim because he was not bored and because Edie was there, and in London there were plenty of places to gamble.
In August, 1914, Tim rushed into the Army, delighted at the prospect of some excitement, and late in 1915, while he was in France, the tiny dark-haired Amy was born—and with her, Edie’s sense of responsibility.
When Tim came home finally in 1916, with a convenient wound that would not let him go back, he found Edie changed. She was still unfussy, gay and casual about everything except Amy and her well-being, but that she took very seriously indeed. She was not so unreasonable as to force Tim to buy a house or stick in a job if he was bored with it, but she took to making rows about his beloved gambling, saying that they needed the money to buy shoes and holidays and good fresh food for Amy.
Tim, who would have found this intolerably tiresome in any other woman, made excuses for Edie. He did not stop gambling, but he gave her as much money as he could possibly scrape up apart from his gambling, and as she made excuses for him, too, they were happy again.
Edie accepted the fact that Tim did not care much for Amy, whom he had never wanted. He found her an amusing little animal for five minutes, but he was not interested in her progress and if she cried he got furious. Edie did not resent this: she could give Amy enough love for both, she thought, and that was what she did.
As the little girl grew older, and the money that Tim earned by selling cars on commission, helping a friend run a night club, or an occasional bit of journalism, grew less and his savage boredom more easily roused, Edie became expert at whisking Amy out of his way and keeping her quietly employed with a book or her paper dolls … (Amy called them “cut-outs”) … and very clever at planning festivals and surprises on pennies. If anyone had asked Edie after ten years of marriage if she loved Tim, she would have answered “Of course,” and meant it. She was a simple woman who took the ups and downs of life for granted and she had not a strain of bitterness in her nature. Tim was the lover of her youth, he had given her Amy whom she passionately loved, and they had stuck to each other without either of them thinking twice about another man or woman, for ten years. Had anyone asked Tim the same question about Edie he would have said, “I suppose so. Yes, I think I must love her,” and as neither of them missed having possessions, friends or security so long as they could be together, with enough to eat, with Amy in good health to satisfy Edie, and Tim with an odd pound for his gambling, theirs may fairly be called a happy marriage.
Amy inherited her mother’s loving nature and her power to get happiness out of little ordinary things, but she was not so happy, and shyer. Her smallness made her afraid of people and of the world that seemed so huge. She suffered from a lack of fats and starch like all the babies born in the war-years, and though she was healthy, she was not robust. Edie fed her carefully, but she never “fleshed up” as Mrs. Beeding called it, and she remained very small and rather plain, with her pale complexion, straight features and large light-brown eyes, and her pigtail of fine dark hair with a ripple in it. Her hair and her pearls of teeth were her only beauties.
Edie was not a solemn woman. She brought Amy up very simply, with as little fuss as she kept house in whatever three-roomed flat Tim chose to dump his family down. Always put things away after you, she told Amy; change your shoes when you come in from a walk, keep your neck wrapped up in cold weather, brush your hair and wash your face and clean your teeth every night, no matter how tired you are. Don’t bolt your food. Be polite to old people. Be loving to little children and animals. Don’t answer back, count ten instead. (Yes, I know I do, but I’m grown up. It’s different for grown-ups.) Don’t walk on the grass except in the summer, when it’s dry. Try and change your underclothing twice a week. (One of the earliest pictures Amy remembered was her small knickers and petticoats, white flannel in winter, white cotton in summer, drying on the clothes-horse in front of the gas stove. Tim would dodge carefully round the horse three times, then snatch it up and carry it to a far corner, setting it down so violently that it quivered and a petticoat fell on the floor.)
Say your prayers every night, Edie told her little daughter. Our Father Which Art in Heaven, is the best one. It says everything you want, you see; asking God for your food, and to forgive you for being naughty, and saying you’ll try to do what He wants you to, and asking Him to save you from all the bad, cruel things in the world. But Edie did not tell Amy what the bad, cruel things were because she herself was not very conscious of them. They were all about her, but though she knew that they were there, they could not frighten her or make her feel that life was dreadful.
But Amy was frightened. When she and Edie went shopping she held on very tightly to her mother’s hand because the people were so big and bumped into her so hard. The sharp smell of fruit, the faint sick smell at the butcher’s, the choking wood and paraffin smell in the ironmonger’s, were all too strong for her and made her long to get outside the shops. The broad cruel wheels of the ’buses frightened her and the blunt snouts of motor-cars.
“There’s nothing to be frightened of, pet.” Her mother’s word
s went like a comforting song through her childhood. “Mother’s here. It’s all right.”
Edie read her daughter stories about brave men who fought Indians or rescued people from wrecked ships or rode for help through mountain passes where lurked the cruel savages. “Now you must be like that,” Edie would end cheerfully, slapping the book shut. “He wasn’t afraid, was he?”
“Wasn’t he ever afraid, once, Mum? Not one teeny, teeny bit, no bigger than that?” A finger and thumb of doll-like smallness were held out, almost touching, while Amy gazed up earnestly into her mother’s face. “Not once. Not one teeny bit,” very firmly. “Now you be like that too, lovey. God will always take care of you if only you aren’t afraid, and it will all come right in the end. You’ll see.”
So Amy grew up with Captain Scott and the boy riders of the Pony Express for her heroes, and later on Lindbergh and the first airmen to make solo flights across deserts and oceans; and the films she liked best were Westerns. She was not brought up like a boy, for she played no games at school except a little genteel netball and all her private pastimes, such as cutting out paper figures or writing stories, were peaceful and quiet, but her mind, partly because of its natural turn and partly because of Edie’s training, was very unlike the minds of other little girls of her age and had a boy-like directness.
Just after Amy’s eleventh birthday, when they had been at Highbury eight months, Edie was sitting one day in the sitting-room of the Highbury flat, letting down the hem of her daughter’s gym tunic and thinking about her. If only she can get over this nerviness, being afraid of the traffic and all that, and Tim doesn’t chuck up his job with that old scream of a Prize and she can stay on at school, she ought to be all right, bless her. She’s grown a lot this term, but she’s no thinner than she was last, and that’s a good sign … now I suppose this ought to be finished off with prussian binding … I’ll just run round and get a bit. Shan’t fag to change my shoes, even if they do let water. Edie slipped on her coat and hurried out into the rain in her house shoes. She caught a cold that turned to influenza, and in a week she was dead.