Paddington Green, page 2
There was no response to this from anyone except Martha, who looked up quickly and smiled at Miss Ingoldsby, who smiled swiftly back and went on unperturbed. ‘He would appear to be settling happily enough to life in the Shires,’ she said, ‘for he writes that he is hunting more than three times a week on occasion. I would never have thought such activities would interest him!’
‘It’s surprising what a man’ll do to please a rich wife and her family,’ Rupert said shortly, and William laughed and opened his mouth to make some ribald comment and then, catching Miss Ingoldsby’s cool glance, laughed again but subsided.
‘You may tell him that I look forward to receiving letters of my own from him,’ Abel said a little acidly. ‘It is gone eight months since his wedding and no more than two letters has he honoured me with! And while I do not in any way grudge you your correspondence, Miss Ingoldsby, it seems to me a trifle inequitable, shall we say, that you should be the object of so many of his communications.’
‘Ah, but you see, Mr Lackland, I answer each time he writes,’ Miss Ingoldsby said coolly and William laughed even more noisily, throwing back his head.
‘She got you there, Father! You are no better with your correspondence than any of us, to be sure, and you cannot blame the wretch if he sickens of writing always into the wind. He need expect no answers from me, that much is sure, for I have far too much to do—’
‘I want to talk to you about that,’ Abel said, and stood up, wiping his mouth upon his napkin. ‘That Conran is getting above himself in many ways, but I must deal with the affair in the proper manner. You must show me the records of the transactions of which he is complaining, and—’
William scowled, and Rupert looked up with a very similar expression on his face, so that for a moment they looked very much alike, with fair rather thin hair surmounting ruddy squarish faces, though Rupert had a more sardonic cast of countenance than the bonhomous William, and a much thinner body compared with William’s square solidity. Indeed, William looked far more like the sort of country bumpkin he most despised than the polished man of the town he considered himself to be (and great had been his rage when his sister Martha had once told him that he almost certainly drew his inheritance from his mother’s father, Daniel Coombe, who had been a complete countryman, and that he had as much hope of becoming a man of elegance as a cow had of becoming a thoroughbred racehorse).
‘I would take it ill, in William’s shoes, to see you take the man Conran’s part in any disagreement between them!’ Rupert said sharply. ‘The man is a weasel, with so puffed up an idea of himself that—’
Abel raised his eyebrows. ‘I do not consider myself to be taking any sort of stance in the matter! God damn it, I hardly know what the matter is! I have heard some stupid gossip, and I have no time for it, so the only thing to do is scotch it! I cannot do that until I have the facts, and so it is of some importance that I discuss it with William first! What affair is it of yours, anyway? You have enough to do dealing with your share of the surgery that bids fair to overwhelm us! It is William who handles the affairs of the manufactory, not you!’
Rupert was standing up now too. ‘That’s as may be—but I take leave to be interested when some jumped-up little jack-in-office takes it upon himself to set his face against my brother! The hospital is a Lackland affair, and none have any rights to—’
‘Aye,’ Abel said softly. ‘To an extent you are right, Rupert. A Lackland affair, indeed. Abel Lackland. Let’s have no nonsense from you about setting yourself in any position of especial eminence! My sons you may be, but Queen Eleanor’s is my hospital, and you no more important in it than any other of the people I employ there—not in the eyes of those other people. You understand me? In time to come perhaps you will indeed step into my shoes, but a long time to come it will be! Let me remind you, Rupert, that I am barely past my fiftieth birthday and have no notion of letting myself be put out to grass for many years yet! And while I stand there in my place, I can tell you that any matters that need dealing with will be dealt with in the same style, be the persons involved you or Nancy or the dirtiest scullery creature in the basement! No one shall ever say I show favour to any of my family—’
‘By God, you’re right there!’ Rupert said savagely. ‘No one ever could. Nor would wish to.’
‘If you please, Rupert, Mr Lackland.’ Miss Ingoldsby neither moved, nor raised her voice above the usual level, but her words cut easily across theirs. ‘I would ask you both to save your breath, for standing here and arguing will start your day off in a very sour fashion! The streets arc filling thick already for the processions and you will be hard put to it to make your way through the crowds. Do let me persuade you to keep your discussions for the hospital, for I am sure that after your journey there and time to consider your words you will find a better way to deal than by anger! Forgive my persistence but it really is time that you were about your affairs.’
There was a short silence and then Abel relaxed his shoulders, which had been as stiff and hard as though a board had been set across them, and nodded a little abruptly, but with some return of temper.
‘You are right, of course, Miss Ingoldsby. Your pardon, ma’am— and Martha—for our ill manners,’ and he turned and looked very directly at Rupert who glared back at him for a moment, and then without turning his head said gruffly, ‘Your pardon, Miss Ingoldsby, Martha—’ and turned sharply and left the room.
William remained still for a moment longer and then laughed, but there was less of real amusement in it now. He sounded uneasy and yet full of bravado. ‘Where would we be without ladies to control our masculine rages! Even you, Father, who are not famous for equanimity, must cool your furies in our Madam Mouse’s presence! Well, as she bade us talk at the hospital, we had better go, I imagine. It would take a braver man than I to argue with so formidable an opponent—’ and he made a florid bow in her direction, and followed his brother from the room.
Abel too moved towards the door, and then stopped, his hand on the knob. ‘I am sorry, Miss Ingoldsby, that you must suffer their impertinence,’ he said after a moment. ‘I sometimes think it would be better if they too were to set up their own establishments, but—’ he shrugged. ‘Well, they are men grown, and no longer schoolboys. I cannot always control them as I would wish.’ He gave a short laugh then. ‘I cannot even control a schoolboy! Oh, I am aware of his absence, Miss Ingoldsby. I may not have spoken of it, but I am aware!’
Miss Ingoldsby, not quite as unperturbed as she had been and indeed with a faint flush across her cheeks, said, ‘You need not apologize for Rupert and William, Mr Lackland! You must remember that I had the care of them when they were children, and I am quite able to tolerate their humours. As for Gussy—well, I would ask you not to concern yourself unduly. I will deal with him, with your permission, and he will show regret for whatever escapade it was that kept him from his bed last night.’
‘So, he has not returned yet?’ Abel said sharply, but Miss Ingoldsby at once shook her head.
‘Oh, he is back, to be sure, but I cannot deny that it was a shockingly late hour when he did return. However, it is a special time, is it not? It is not every day the Queen is married and—’
‘No, thank God, it is not.’ Abel said a little savagely, and pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘And I must indeed be on my way if I am to save anything out of the day. I give you carte blanche with the boy, Miss Ingoldsby. I know you will deal with him as is needful.’ And he nodded briefly at Martha and went, pulling the door sharply behind him, and gradually the two women relaxed, and looked understandingly at each other as the front door of the house slammed shut, and peace surged comfortingly back into the room.
Miss Ingoldsby poured for herself another cup of tea, and reflected that looking after such a houseful of Lacklands was a far from easy task. But a most rewarding one, her thoughts amended, and her lips curved contentedly as she sat and sipped and stared out at the rain that was still lashing the windows in cold fury, on Queen Victoria’s wedding day.
2
To the people at the Celia Supper Rooms in King Street, hard by Covent Garden, the notion that any person could possibly forget the fact that today was to see celebrated the nuptials of little Victoria and her German princeling would have been quite absurd. Even before the first drays had come rumbling into the cobbled streets from the storehouses of Kent and the gardens of Surrey and Middlesex, laden with the carefully garnered onions and carrots and sweet wrinkled little last-year apples, they had been busy preparing for the influx of business they expected. Indeed, Letty, the smallest and youngest and cheekiest of the waiting maids, swore that Madam C had not gone to bed at all, for at three in the morning she had found her employer standing beside her pallet, shaking her roughly and bidding her to be about her business.
‘There she stood,’ she said now, as she sat curled up near the big fire in the main kitchen, before which a half-ox was slowly turning and just beginning to reek and change colour, ‘large as life an’ twice as natural, not an ’air of ’er ’ead so much as out o’ place, ’er gown as smooth as if she’d not so much as sat down, let alone laid down, and tellin’ me as I was a lazy cow—me as di’n’t get to me bed till gone eleven las’ night! I asks yer! ’S far as I’m concerned, mate, the bleedin’ Queen can go get ’erself spliced any bleedin’ day she likes, ’s long as she don’t go an’—’
‘Are you goin’ to whine all day, then?’ A tired-looking woman in her late twenties who was leaning against the side of the stone fireplace, her hands curled hungrily round a steaming mug, stared with eyes gleaming with ill temper at the group of girls clustered round the fire. ‘Because I tells yer, if you are, I’ll set about yer wiv my tongue—and me fists—and you’ll wish as missus’d take over. It’ll be enough to keep ourselves goin’ at all today, without you carryin’ on—’
‘You lay a finger on me, Betsey Brewer, and I’ll ‘ave Mr Jo on yer, and then where’ll you be?’ Letty cried shrilly.
‘Same place where she was before,’ one of the other girls said laconially. ‘Oh, can’t you just ’ear ‘im! “Don’t go arguing among yourselves, please not to argue! It do depress me so!”’
There was a snort of laughter from all of them at this and then, as Letty reached for the last hunk of bread soaked in meat juices and dripping, a noisy argument broke out between the six of them; and at the back of the big stone-flagged kitchen, in the darkness by the door, Jonah sighed softly and then slipped back unseen into the passageway outside.
He too had been up since long before dawn, helping by supervising the scrubbing of the big tables to clear them of the evidence of last night’s beer swilling, changing the flats behind the diminutive stage, rearranging the music scores, and dealing with the multitude of details that had to be considered when a change of programme was made, as it would be tonight, and had been as aware as any of them of Celia’s harrying presence. She had been everywhere this past two hours, ordering, chasing, nagging, occasionally slapping, so that the whole establishment had been in a fever of activity, brooms and brushes and pots whirling.
But now, at five o’clock, with the rain pouring noisily along the gutters outside and the black morning sky just beginning to lift a little over the eastern spires, all was ready. The stage was set, the powdery lime was ready to be flared in the iron holders above the wings, and beside them the new candles were tucked inside their shades above the music stands, while the boards were swept clear and the curtains looped back. The tables shone damply above the newly scrubbed stone flags, and the puddings and pasties, joints and soups, vegetables and syllabubs and jelly creams were all cooking busily in the kitchens. And preparation had at last stopped.
Celia had gone to wash herself and change her gown, ready for the arrival of the market men in search of breakfast victuals, the girls had gone to their own hard-earned breakfasts in the big kitchen, while the two men who worked with them, old Loppy and half-witted Will, together with young Sam the street boy who came and went from time to time to earn himself occasional scraps, had gone to draw the day’s beer barrels from the cellar. And Jonah had slipped upstairs to creep into the children’s room and look down on their sleeping faces and to touch Phoebe’s soft cheek with one loving finger before going to the kitchen himself to see to the making of some breakfast bread-and-milk for them.
Now, standing shivering a little outside the kitchen door in the dark cold passage and smelling the beer lees and faint odour of rotting vegetation coming from the market place so near his back door, he wondered at himself. Was he not the master in this place? Should he not have gone in there raging, as Celia would have done, to lash at them for their insolence in discussing their employers at all, to send them packing, breakfasts finished or not? Why should he stand skulking here, in the cold and dark, wondering whether he should go in to prepare some food for the children, like some frightened alley cat?
Because they are right, his private voice whispered to him. Because it does make me so wretched when people argue, when there are disagreements and shouting and hatefulness. I will do anything for peace, anything at all. Even stand here in the cold, while my own servants roast their toes before my coals—
But even though he tried to persuade himself he was a weak and foolish creature, and tried to whip up his own courage, he knew he could not. He would wait until Celia came sweeping downstairs to scatter her girls about their work before again entering that kitchen, for he could not, would not, face those insolent stares and knowing grins. As ever, he would let Celia handle the matter.
He went wearily upstairs again to the children’s room to stand in the doorway staring at their sleeping forms, as he so often did when he was in need of comfort. Life was so often so complex for him, so disagreeable in such silly little ways that he needed the nearness of the children to make himself cope with it all.
Yet it should not be so. He should not be so easily upset by minor irritations, such as ill-mannered servants or drunken customers or bad performers in the company. He should be as Celia was, strong and resilient—
At that thought he smiled a little to himself in the dimness. Like Celia! If only he could be! And how much happier might Celia be if he were? He knew of her unhappinesses, knew of the times she looked at him with her eyes—those deep grey eyes he had first seen staring at him across the Haymarket stage so long ago—dark with the misery of incomprehension. He knew how the passage of the past ten years had hardened and roughened and soured her as they had clawed and fought their way up from the disappointment of failure after failure of his carefully written plays, via the cheapest and dingiest of groups of strolling players, to this modest establishment of their own.
And not so modest any more, after all! They had taken the basement room in King Street as somewhere to live when they had come crawling wearily back to London with two-year-old Oliver, ailing and wheezing and looking fit to die, and Celia hugely pregnant with Phoebe, and somehow by dint of Celia’s determination and some good luck (his being engaged for a season as a super at Drury Lane theatre by Edmund Kean, just before he died, had been excellent luck indeed) they had taken the room above and then another, setting themselves up as chophouse keepers. And then, as hungry actors and singers started to entertain other customers for the price of their own supper, had developed the venture into the highly popular theatrical supper rooms it had become.
They owned the whole house now, had converted the entire ground floor into a most snug and elegant place with seating for above seventy-five hungry diners, as well as a neat stage upon which as many as four performers at a time could sing, and a tiny orchestra pit where three musicians could scrape and blow away together. With its red curtains and sparkling Frenchly-fashionable gasoliers and engraved mirrors in gilt frames it was indeed a credit to them both.
To Celia, he now thought bleakly. To Celia, for it had been she who had scraped and saved and planned and schemed and made it all possible, she who had borrowed money and dunned actors and singers and butchers and brewers and coffee merchants, she who had made it all happen. And he knew, now, what had happened to both of them as the years had gone by. As her energy had increased, fed by the success her efforts brought to them, so had her patience with him diminished, and so had he become more and more aware of his own shortcomings. He had looked at her whisking about the rooms and kitchens, and felt his very bones ache with tiredness at the sight of so much sheer animal strength, had doubted his own ability to compete and had shrunk back into himself and to the children, so that she in her lonely frustration had felt it more necessary than ever to work even harder, and thus had made him feel even more useless.
And so it had gone on, until now they lived in so very uneasy a way that they did not even know, most of the time, how uneasy it was. Jonah, always polite and kind and gentle, always eager to do anything she asked him, but knowing himself always a little remote from her, sometimes remembered those early days of their marriage when they had lain next each other in lumpy musty beds in dubious lodging houses, clutching each other in a desperation of loneliness and young doubt and fear, loving each other so much. It was only now that he knew how much he had loved her in those early days, knew how important their closeness had been. Now, when they were so often separated by the exigencies of the business and Celia’s abstraction with the details of running it all, he knew that much of their love was in the past. Well, not so much in the past, he amended his thoughts; it was the chance to talk to each other of their needs and feelings that lay behind them both.
Across the room Phoebe stirred and then rolled over to rearrange her sleeping body on knees and elbows, small rump stuck up in the air in endearing absurdity, and he pulled his thoughts away from his wife and the lines in which his life with her had fallen to move across to the child’s side and gaze down at her.
