“Hoisted with my own petard,” she said.
The night wind stirred in the rushes outside her window, ruffling with its light whisper the deep calm peace of the night. Was she sorry? Her body began weeping from sheer weariness, yet she felt her spirit move within her, and with eagerness, like someone going home. She sobbed herself to sleep, yet when she slept she smiled.
CHAPTER
6
— 1 —
No, she was not sorry, she decided five months later, as she sat at her escritoire, set in the window of her upstairs sitting room, and worked at her housekeeping books. It was a lovely little room, and perhaps had once been a powdering closet. It had been a box room in Auntie Rose’s day, and had been papered with church almanacs. But through the almanacs Nadine’s quick eye had seen the ridge of paneling, and the first thing they had done in this house had been to strip off the almanacs and disclose it. Now the paneling had been painted cream color and the little room furnished with Nadine’s eighteenth-century escritoire, a Sheraton chair with a tapestry seat, a comfortable little armchair, and a corner cupboard with glass doors holding some precious bits of china. That was all the furniture there was room for, but there was a white sheepskin rug on the polished oak floor, a little old mirror hung on the wall, and there was a vase of late autumn roses on the escritoire. Beside Nadine, in her basket with its powder-blue cushion, Mary, the white Pekinese, lay fast asleep.
The powder-blue curtains framed a view that in the past five months had mysteriously become part of Nadine’s very soul, which was odd, for views had not hitherto meant much to her. But then, she said to herself, they had none of them been this view. She laid down her pen, propped her chin in her hands, and feasted upon it. Just below her the strip of garden that stretched from the house to the river wall was a blaze of color: purple and white Michaelmas daisies, scarlet dahlias, and early yellow chrysanthemums. They were enjoying an Indian summer, and in the bright warm sun the butterflies were sunning themselves on the Michaelmas daisies, and two slim willow wrens darted from flower clump to river wall and back again, appearing too happy to stay still. The river was blue, almost as still today as the tawny marshes, and beyond, the golden October woods swept to the blue of the sky. Through the open window there came no sound except the soft lap of the water against the wall, and the tap of a hammer from the boathouse where Ben was messing about with boats.
At the sound of that busy hammer Nadine’s face softened with sudden tenderness and compunction. Ben had not been able to go back to school this term. Lucilla had insisted that his mother take him to see a doctor about his cough, and his lungs were not satisfactory. Nothing to worry about, the doctor had said; a few months of laziness and fresh air would probably put things right. But there might have been something to worry about if Lucilla had not taken action, and Nadine was ashamed. “I’m a poor sort of mother,” she said to herself now. “I’ve got too tired to want to bother about anything. It was a good thing for Ben’s sake that we came here. And George’s too; he’s a new man.”
Yes, this move had justified itself, even though after the wild activity of the past few months she was, if possible, even more tired than she had been before. Yet it was chiefly her body that was tired now; her mind, which had been so weary and fretted in London, had been wonderfully rested by this house that was now her home. Hardly knowing what she did, she stretched out a hand and laid it upon the paneled wall beside her; it was warm in the sun, as though it were alive. Increasingly, as she lived here, Nadine had a feeling that this house had a personality of its own, some sort of great angel who grew with the growth of the house and was enriched, or otherwise, by those who lived here; and she felt too that this angel was well disposed towards her. It was a genial sort of angel, and remarkably patient. When she first arrived, with everything to do and feeling herself without the strength to do it, she had bitterly hated its body, the house, and it had suffered her hatred with the gentleness of an old dog who knows he gives offense with his matted coat, yet cannot unaided mend matters, though he would die to please you. But her hatred had not lasted long, for the response of the house to her onslaughts upon it had been so swift that the bitterness had ebbed away, and in its place had come the deep companionable love of those who strive together for the glory of God.
That had been Ben’s phrase. “For the glory of God!” he had cried as he stripped the almanacs from the paneling, and he had shouted it again at the top of his voice when he and Tommy had torn away the terrible overmantel and surround in the drawing room and revealed behind it a perfect Adam mantelpiece. George had protested at this battle cry, but Ben had stuck to it. This house was maison-dieu, and the stripping away of all that was unworthy and the building up of new beauty was in the nature of a crusade.
And the house had agreed and collaborated. Nadine had a supreme gift for furnishing and decorating, but never had she so enjoyed putting her gift to use as she had during these last few months. The angel had seemed to work with her, telling her what to do and how to do it, as though he too were an artist. . . . And it had been the house itself that had attracted to her assistance Malony, Annie-Laurie, and Smith. Nadine suddenly began to laugh as she thought of these three, after Jill her chief prop and stay, and dreaming in the sun she went back in memory to the first weeks at the Herb of Grace and the blessed day of their arrival.
— 2 —
After the first few days she had declared with bitter passion that she would not stay in this house, she would not, unless a bathroom and a lamp cleaner were put in, and the mice put out. She realized it would be impossible to install electric light for a long time to come, and she agreed with George that lamplight and candlelight were very beautiful, but she was not going to do the lamps herself. Nor was she going to live here without a bathroom. Nor with the mice. And if George did not wish her to leave him again he must see to it. Having delivered herself of this ultimatum she took a headache to her room, lay on her bed with it, and cried. George meanwhile spent the morning touring the neighborhood in the car and interviewing every plumber he could find, only to be told by each firm that though it would be delighted to undertake the General’s order at some future period, baths at present were unobtainable. George bought ten mousetraps, and came home very crestfallen to find Caroline helping Jill prepare lunch, while Ben and Tommy, as hungry as hunters after a morning’s hard work in the garden, were laying the table in the hope that that would hurry things on. But Nadine still lay in her room. It was the beginning of the summer holidays so the children were at home, with the exception of the twins. They were staying at Damerosehay in the care of Lucilla and Margaret so as to set Jill free to help get the house in order, and ease all friction with the oil of her gentle common sense.
“We’ll send Mrs. Eliot her lunch on a tray,” she said now to the miserable George. “You shall take it yourself, sir. Tired out, she is. What beautiful mousetraps, sir. I don’t know when I’ve seen finer mousetraps than those.”
She laid the tray swiftly and deftly with a special invalid lunch, setting a little vase of flowers upon it. George tramped up the stairs with it, carried it with heavy tread to Nadine, and set it upon the table beside her bed, upsetting the vase of flowers as he did so.
“How sweet of you, darling,” she said, mopping up the water, and hating herself now for her tears and her temper; in the old prewar days she had never cried. “Did you have any luck about the bath?”
“No,” said George, “but I bought ten mousetraps.”
“How splendid,” said Nadine. “What are you going to bait them with? We eat all our cheese ration.”
Again she hated herself, but George was not hurt this time by her sarcasm, for his attention was distracted by the most extraordinary chugging noise that came drifting in through the open window. He turned and looked out. “What the dickens!” he ejaculated.
Nadine, eying the perfectly fried fillets with approval, and thanking heaven that
Jill knew how to cook as well as how to look after small children, glanced indifferently at the strip of river framed by the window. Then her indifference changed to interest, and she slipped off her bed and went to stand by George. The most astonishing Heath Robinson contraption was chugging up the river. It looked as though it had originally been a coal barge, though it was now fitted with a motor engine and carried instead of coal the most extraordinary assortment of oddments that Nadine had ever seen. In the center of the barge was a bathing machine, its little windows hung with gay flowered curtains. Behind the bathing machine was strung a washing line from which brightly colored female undergarments fluttered out over what was apparently a vegetable garden planted in the stern of the boat. The front of the boat was filled up with the most amazing assortment of machinery; above towered a flagpost from which fluttered the Union Jack. At the top of the flagpost was a curious bunch of scintillating brightness that at this distance could not be identified as anything in particular. There appeared to be a crew of three, a male figure dimly discernible among the machinery, a female figure tangled up in the washing, and a cat cleaning its whiskers on top of the bathing machine. The boat had been traveling slowly down-river, but at sight of the Herb of Grace it slackened speed and it appeared that the crew were shouting remarks to each other. Then with much noise they steered for the shore and came to anchor beneath the garden wall. The lower part of the craft was now hidden from the astonished gaze of Nadine and George, but they could still see the flagpost with its flag, and the brightness above that now revealed itself as a bunch of bells that chimed softly and sweetly as the boat rocked to stillness. There were visible also the tops of some flourishing tomato plants growing in the vegetable garden, and the cat on top of the bathing machine. The latter was an immense tabby with a white shirt front, and it now ceased washing itself and gazed at Nadine and George with speculative interest. The top of a ladder now appeared above the garden wall.
“Must be a sort of circus,” said Nadine.
“Great Scott!” ejaculated George. “They’re coming ashore!”
The man came first, climbing off the ladder onto the top of the wall with the nimbleness of a monkey. And he was like a monkey to look at. He had a brown, sad, puckered face, and dark hair cropped short. He was small in stature, thin and wiry, clothed in dark-blue dungarees and sweater, with a bright red scarf knotted about his throat. No less nimble was the girl who followed him, though much better-looking. She looked at this distance about eighteen years old, very thin, light, and graceful in her movements, with a little sunburned face delicately pointed at the chin, and wonderful, shining gold hair twisted in plaits about her small head. She wore a diminutive jade-green skirt and a yellow jumper, and her thin brown legs were bare. When the two of them were upon the wall the cat passed a paw thoughtfully behind its left ear, then took a flying leap and landed behind them. With the agility of tightrope walkers the three of them then marched in single file along the top of the wall and vanished in the direction of the front door. A moment after there was a knock, the heavy tread of Tommy marching to open the door, and then voices.
“Hadn’t you better go down, darling?” queried Nadine.
But George was gazing like a man mesmerized at the bunch of bells and the Union Jack and the tops of the tomato plants. There was a racket on the stairs and Tommy burst in.
George swung round. “Don’t make such a damnable noise!” he shouted loudly. “Do remember that your poor mother has the most frightful headache.”
“Sorry,” shouted Tommy, equally loudly. “Come along down, Father. There’s a splendid chap here, a sort of tinker. Mends anything. We’ve asked him to lunch.”
“Asked him to lunch?” ejaculated Nadine.
“Of course, Mother. This is an inn, you know, not a pub. We’re bound to give shelter and refreshment at any hour.”
“Did he ask for lunch?” demanded George.
“No. He asked for beer, and to sharpen our scissors and knives and sell us tomatoes. I had to tell him we hadn’t got the beer in yet but we were having cider and Spam for lunch, and he said he could make do with that. The girl’s jolly nice too. Awful pretty.”
“Go down at once, George,” said Nadine, her hand to her head. “And get rid of them.”
“You can’t get rid of them,” said Tommy indignantly. “This is an inn, I keep telling you.”
George went, followed by Tommy. Nadine carried her tray to the window, put it on the broad sill, sat down, and began to eat her fish. She felt much better after she had eaten a little; in fact, almost well. It was delicious fish but it would have been improved by a baked tomato. Nadine was of the school of thought that considers fish and tomatoes as inseparable as bacon and eggs. She finished her fish, ate the little junket that Jill had sent up with it, and then looked thoughtfully at the tops of the tomato plants showing above the garden wall. She’d just slip down, she thought, and see if the tomatoes were worth buying.
As she went down the stairs she heard a great clatter of knives and forks and conversation coming from the kitchen. George, evidently, had not found it possible to overrule Tommy’s invitation to lunch. She went out through the old ship’s door and round into the garden. Standing by the wall she found herself looking straight at the bunch of little bells at the top of the flagpost. They were pretty bells and she could fancy she still heard that fairy chiming coming from them. Then she took a look at the rest of the boat. It was most attractive. The bathing machine, a large one, had been divided to make two tiny cabins and a kitchen-living room. The kitchen had a little oil cooking stove in it, a tiny dresser with pretty china and some bright pots and pans, a table, a seat that let down from the wall, and a shelf for books. In each cabin was a bunk that could be used as a seat in the daytime, and from the roof of each hung an oil lamp. Nadine noted that these lamps had been well polished and well cared for by someone who evidently understood their tricks and their manners very well indeed.
Then she turned her attention to the vegetable garden in the stern. It had two beds, one planted with tomato plants bearing beautiful ripe red tomatoes, and the other with lettuces and radishes with a border of pansies round the edge. These beds had been made—Nadine gazed and gazed again—by filling two large baths with earth. Two large baths.
Her headache vanished as though it had never been. She did not hesitate. She hastened to the kitchen and entered upon a scene of conviviality that would scarcely have met with her approval had there been room in her mind for anything except baths. George, her children, Jill, and the two strangers were seated at the kitchen table drinking cider and devouring Spam and salad off the beautiful willow-pattern china as though they had known each other for years. The cat was under the table, also partaking of nourishment off a willow-pattern plate. George, it was true, looked a little self-conscious, but he seemed to be enjoying himself all the same. Everyone else was completely at their ease, with the exception of Mary the Pekinese, who was sitting on the window sill gazing at the cat, and frozen stiff with horror at finding herself in such plebeian company. There was a vacant place at one end of the table, opposite George, and as soon as she saw Nadine Jill got up and pulled the chair back. “We hoped you would feel well enough to join us, madam,” she said. “You had such a light lunch. Could you fancy toast and a cup of coffee? It won’t take a minute.”
“Yes, I could, Jill. Thank you,” said Nadine, and took the empty place. She was not quite sure that they had been hoping she would join them, but Jill could always be relied on to say what would best help everyone over an awkward moment.
“My wife,” said George, red-faced but courtly. No matter how flustered he was always a good host. “Mr.—er—”
“Jim Malony,” said the monkey-faced man, and standing up courteously he bowed to Nadine with the most surprising grace, his bright yet sad dark eyes twinkling with friendliness. “And this is my daughter, Annie-Laurie.”
Annie-Laurie
turned her little brown face towards her hostess and smiled shyly. She had a queer crooked smile like that of a beseeching child, though at a second glance one saw that she was very far from being a child. Her beautiful bright blue eyes were deeply and maturely anxious, and though her crooked smile had a child’s appeal it died very abruptly, and her lips in repose had a woman’s hard control. It was a resolutely sealed-in face, yet the hidden wretchedness was not quite masked by the bravery. Nadine was not a naturally maternal woman, yet she had borne children, and at sight of that face she felt a stab of pain at her heart. She glanced at Jill, heating coffee at the kitchen stove, and their eyes met pitifully. . . . There was undoubtedly something very wrong with this girl. . . . And yet at the same time there was something very right with her, a direct simplicity in her beseeching, a vitality that leaped like a pure flame. Nadine answered the smile, but for once found herself without words.
The rather painful little pause was broken by Tommy, who indicated the region below the kitchen table with a gesture.
“The cat Smith,” he told his mother. “Enjoying the trimmings of your fillets.”
Then the conversation flowed on again where Nadine’s entrance had interrupted it, rich and racy, upon the subjects of fish, boats, rivers, and riverside inns. It was sustained chiefly by Tommy and Jim Malony, but George, Ben, and Caroline flung in eager questions now and then. Annie-Laurie said little. She ate daintily, and every now and then she smiled at her father with the tenderness of a woman who has heard her man’s tales many times before, but is glad to see him happy in their repetition. Her attitude to him was much more wifely than daughterly. And indeed he seemed scarcely old enough to be her father, for in spite of his puckered face he was obviously a youngish man. Nor was she in the least like him; she was very fair beneath her sunburn. His attitude to her was obvious in every glance he sent her; it was lovingly anxious, protective, like that of an adoring old watchdog. He was a born raconteur. Jokes, vivid little anecdotes, shreds and scraps of information about all sorts of out-of-the-way subjects kept them enthralled. He talked in a husky croaking voice that was yet unusually articulate, and his Irish brogue seemed too rich and glorious to be true.