Young Mrs. Savage, page 6
7
Dan left on Tuesday morning. He was going straight to Leith to take up his new job. Dinah had a fortnight to pack up and get ready for the move. A fortnight seemed a long time and Dinah had decided to take it easy, to do a little each day and not get over-tired. She began by going over the house and trying to decide what she should leave out for Dora Powell and what she must put away. There was mumps at the school so she kept the children at home, for she could not risk their getting mumps now. They would play in the garden, of course, and would not bother her. Unfortunately the children had other views. They had no wish to play in the garden; they were much too excited about their prospective holiday to settle down to their usual games. Dinah found them under her feet all day, getting in her way and asking silly questions and nearly driving her mad.
“Go out and play,” Dinah kept saying. “Why don’t you play in the tent?” And she would drive them out with all sorts of suggestions as to what they should play . . . but in ten minutes they would be back again.
“Mummy!” cried Polly, running into the room when Dinah was trying to decide whether it would be better to put up clean, but rather faded curtains in the sitting-room, or to leave the present curtains which were in better condition but slightly soiled . . . or whether to send the good curtains to be cleaned and chance them being back in time. “Mummy, listen!” cried Polly, tugging her skirt. “I’ve just thought, hadn’t I better take my old shorts to Seatown and leave my best ones at home.”
“But they’re too small, and—”
“I can just squeeze into them. I can, really. My new ones might get spoilt playing on the sands . . . and Mummy can I take Rose’s pram?”
“No,” said Dinah, firmly.
“But Mummy, why?”
Dinah explained why and chased her away, and a few moments later Nigel appeared with a large stamp-album.
“I’d better take this, hadn’t I?” Nigel said. “It won’t take up much room. If there isn’t room for it in the suitcase I could tie it up with string and carry it myself.”
“But Nigel, you haven’t looked at your stamps for months!”
“I want my stamps. I want to take them.”
“There will be lots to do at Seatown. You don’t want to sit indoors doing stamps.”
“But, Mummy, supposing it’s wet?”
“It won’t be wet,” said Dinah, recklessly.
Mark tried to help and Dinah, most ungratefully, found his attempts to be of service even more annoying than the unhelpfulness of her less conscientious children. He followed her round, saying: “I’ll carry that, Mummy. Where shall I put it? Shall I take the ornaments off the mantelpiece for you? Would you like me to start packing my box?”
“I’d rather you went out and played in the garden, Mark!”
“But Dan said you weren’t to get tired. Are you sure you aren’t tired, Mummy?”
She was extremely tired—all the more tired by Mark’s solicitude—but she assured him rather shortly that she was not tired at all.
“I could pack my box,” he urged. “I ought to start soon, oughtn’t I? We’ll never be ready in time if we don’t start to pack.”
As the days went by the children became more and more annoying; they quarrelled amongst themselves; they were rude and irritable; they refused to do what they were told. Dinah could not think what on earth had happened to them; she tried reasoning with them and, when that failed, she punished them by sending them to bed . . . and then quite suddenly she realised the truth: it was she who was cross and irritable. She had so much on her mind that she had no patience to spare for the children! I ought to send myself to bed, thought Dinah remorsefully; but that would be no punishment; in fact I can’t think of anything I should like better.
Having discovered the source of the trouble Dinah made an effort to be cheerful and pleasant, and the atmosphere immediately improved. The suitcases were brought out and the children packed assiduously, packed and unpacked several times a day.
“Look, Mummy!” Polly said. “I can pack Rose and her bed and my tea-set—only there isn’t room for clothes. I shan’t need many clothes at Seatown, shall I?”
“You’ll need some,” replied Dinah. “As a matter of fact you won’t need toys. You’ll be playing on the sands all day.”
“I’ll take it out and try again,” said Polly, with a sigh.
Dinah nodded. She found this phase less trying, for packing kept them quiet and busy and left her free to get on with her work.
By this time there were only five days left and Dinah decided that she must turn out the cupboard under the stairs. She intended to take everything out of the cupboard and clean it and then put back the things she wanted to keep. It was a roomy cupboard, so if it were tidied up there would be plenty of space left for things she wanted to stow away while her tenants were in the house. She donned an overall, tied a duster over her head and began the job.
It was years since the cupboard had been properly cleaned and Dinah had forgotten what was in it. She dragged everything out: Gilbert’s skis, old badminton rackets, a lamp with a frayed flex, pictures, ornaments, boxes of books, brown paper parcels, a bed-table with a broken leg, golf clubs, a sled, rolls of wall-paper. Some of the things could be sent to the Jumble Sale, and the others . . . but what did she want to keep?
Nothing, thought Dinah, looking at the stuff with loathing.
“Oh, Mummy!” exclaimed Mark, who had approached unobserved and was regarding the accumulated rubbish with awe and wonder. “Oh, Mummy, what treasures!”
The exclamation was a signal to the others—or at least it acted as a signal—Polly came running downstairs and Nigel appeared from the garden.
“Oh, Mark, what rubbish!” said Dinah, with a sigh. “Rubbish!” cried Polly. “D’you mean you don’t want the things? Could I have this bed-table for Rose?”
“I’ll have these!” Nigel declared, seizing the badminton rackets. “What are they for, Mummy?”
“And this picture for my room,” added Polly. “Please can I have this picture, Mummy?”
“What are those long wooden things?” asked Nigel.
“Skis,” said Dinah. “They’re for sliding in the snow—you’ve seen pictures of people skiing, haven’t you?”
“I’ll take them to Seatown,” said Nigel. “They’ll be lovely for sliding in the sand. I can, can’t I, Mummy? I’ll tie them together and carry them myself.”
“No,” said Dinah firmly. “No, you can’t! You can each choose one thing out of the rubbish and the rest can go to the sale.”
“I’ll choose this!” cried Mark, holding up a fat album with a red morocco cover. “Can I have this, Mummy? It’s got pictures in it.”
Dinah recognised the book at once. It was her photograph album. She took it from Mark and, sitting down on the bottom steps of the stairs, began to turn over the pages. The children crowded round, leaning against her shoulder and breathing down her neck; but Dinah was so used to being crowded and breathed upon by children that she did not mind.
“Pictures of children!” said Polly. “Who are they?”
“The Dees, of course—that’s Dan with his golf clubs.”
“The Dees!” exclaimed Mark. “Oh Mummy, how marvellous! Polly, it’s the Dees. That’s Dan again, sitting on a rock . . . and there’s Mummy!”
“Mummy when she was a little girl!” exclaimed Nigel, in amazement.
They were still looking at the little pictures (some dear as the day when they were printed, some yellow and faded, some half obliterated by streaks of white) when the front door opened and Irene Barnard walked in.
“Goodness! What are you doing?” she exclaimed. “I thought you would be knee-deep in suitcases—”
“I ought to be!” said Dinah ruefully.
“It’s photographs,” explained Polly. “Look, that’s Mummy when she was the same age as me!”
Irene had come to help, but instead of helping she sat down beside Dinah on the stairs and prepared to enjoy herself.
“Packing can wait,” she declared. “I love old photographs. Who’s that? No, don’t tell me. It’s Dan and Dinah and three little coal miners having a picnic on the sands.”
“They aren’t really coal miners,” said Mark, seriously. “They’re the Hart boys—Mummy said so. It’s because the light was bad.”
“Who’s the young man on the horse?” asked Irene with interest.
“Malcolm Armstrong,” replied Dinah. “Dan and I had a secret passion for Malcolm Armstrong. He was a sort of hero and we made up stories about him. We used to go along the links and hide amongst the sandhills and watch him playing golf. We used to see him riding along the sands. He always waved when he saw us, and sometimes stopped and spoke to us but he was much older than we were and, to tell the truth, we preferred to admire him from a distance . . . That’s Nannie, of course,” added Dinah, pointing to another snapshot. “It’s a bit out of focus so you can’t see what she’s really like . . . And that’s Craigie Lodge with Father’s car standing at the gate.”
“Dan diving,” suggested Irene, pointing.
“Yes, he won second prize at a diving competition at the swimming pool,” said Dinah proudly, “and those two old ladies are the two Miss Stevens. We used to go to tea with them sometimes. There are the Hart boys again. They lived in a lovely old house with a huge garden . . . and that’s Tom.”
“Tom who?” inquired Irene.
“Tom Cunningham,” said Dinah.
They wasted a good hour over the photograph album, but Irene salved her conscience by staying to help Dinah clean the cupboard and put everything straight.
“Now don’t bother about things,” said Irene as she went away. “There’s no earthly need to clean the house any more—Dora will be quite pleased with it. I wouldn’t have suggested Dora taking the house if I’d known you would wear yourself to a shadow with all this cleaning. Dora isn’t fussy—and, of course, she’s used to London smuts, so your house will seem as clean as a new pin.”
Dinah felt that the drawers should be lined with clean paper so she did them when Irene had gone, but she did no more cleaning, partly because Irene had said not to, and partly because she simply hadn’t time, for it was on the day following the cleaning of the cupboard that everything began to go wrong.
The first calamity was Dinah’s fault and hers alone. She dropped the teapot on the kitchen floor and saw it smash into a dozen pieces before her eyes. It was the only large teapot she had, and naturally Mrs. Powell (with her large family) would require a large teapot! Dinah looked at the débris in horror, for she was aware that she would be very lucky indeed if she could buy another teapot in Nettleham. Dinah was aware that if she had happened to want a statuette of a lady in negligé, or a china dog of a breed unknown and undreamt of in the sacred precincts of Crufts’ she could have got it quite easily. If she had wanted a bright blue pottery bowl ornamented with birds of paradise, or a vase of crimson glass with a gilt edge, or even a large glass box—which one imagined must be intended to hold powder since it seemed unsuitable for any other purpose—Dinah could have gone out and bought it without the slightest difficulty (without having to wait in a queue), for these things were in good supply and every china shop in Nettleham was fully stocked with them; but if Dinah happened to require a teapot or a milk jug or a mixing-bowl or cups and saucers or plates or, indeed, anything useful and necessary for an ordinary household she could just go on wanting them, for such things were not to be had for love or money in post-war Britain. Dinah had often wondered why. She had gone the length of asking the woman in the china shop why it was that china dogs could be turned out by the gross and china teapots could not. Wouldn’t it be better if factories, at present engaged in making china statuettes, could turn their attention to cups and saucers? But the woman had merely murmured something about the quota and continued to discuss Greta Garbo’s hair-do with her fellow assistant. “Quota” was one of those new words, one of those words which excused every shortage, one of those words which every housewife in Britain was having dinned into her ears every hour of every day. If you wanted shoes, or dish cloths, or bowls, or biscuits, you couldn’t get them because of this mysterious quota. You just had to do without.
All this passed through Dinah’s mind with the speed of an express train as she gathered up the pieces of her teapot and threw them into the rubbish bin. I shan’t try to get a teapot, she decided. I shall just get out my silver one and clean it for Mrs. Powell.
After that troubles came thick and fast. Polly tore her jumper on a nail in the trellis and it took Dinah the whole evening to darn it. Nigel fell out of the tree and hurt his foot.
Soot came down the chimney in the sitting-room and the electric light fused. Margy was sick—having sucked the paint off a small wooden cart—and the Starkie’s cat came in through the kitchen window and ate the fish which had just arrived for the children’s dinner. Dinah coped with all these catastrophes as they occurred. She was inured to catastrophes of this sort. They absorbed a good deal of time and energy, but she battled through.
The last day came. Dinah awoke and lay for a few minutes thinking of all she must do—everything must be done by tonight, for they were leaving early to-morrow morning. She began to go through her list but before she had got very far the door opened and the two little boys appeared in their dressing-gowns.
“Look at him!” cried Nigel. “Look at Mark! He’s got mumps, hasn’t he, Mummy?”
Mark’s face was swollen.
“It isn’t,” said Mark earnestly. “It’s only swollen one side, Mummy.”
“Of course it’s mumps!” jeered Nigel. “You’ve got mumps, that’s what you’ve got. You won’t be able to go to Seatown, now. You’ll have to stay here all by yourself—won’t he, Mummy? You can’t go to Seatown with mumps! Oh, Mark, you do look queer!”
Mark burst into loud roars of sorrow and dismay, and Dinah felt inclined to follow suit. It was only now, when she saw her holiday disappearing from view, that she realised how much she had been looking forward to it; so much that the disappointment was almost more than she could bear. Dinah could have cried—but it was no good crying; there was far too much to do. Everything must be put off, thought Dinah, as she rose and flung on her clothes. Wires must be dispatched to Nannie, to Dan, to Mrs. Powell, and all the arrangements she had made must be cancelled . . . But first the doctor, decided Dinah, running downstairs, half-dressed, to the telephone.
Dr. Godden had known Dinah for years and knew what a struggle she had had. He had been more than delighted when he heard she was going to Scotland for a holiday, so the news that Mark had mumps was received by him with exclamations of horror and distress.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “What awful bad luck! Are you sure it’s mumps? Look here, Mrs. Savage, hold everything; I’ll be up in half an hour. It may not be mumps.”
Dinah was certain it was mumps. She was so beside herself with worry, and so angry with Nigel for his unsympathetic attitude that she made no attempt to soften the blow to him or to Polly.
“We shall all have to stay at home,” said Dinah. “We can’t possibly go to Seatown and leave Mark behind—besides you’re both certain to get it too.”
“Not go!” cried Nigel, aghast.
“No!” said Dinah, and she swept out of the dining-room leaving Polly and Nigel to weep into their porridge.
Dr. Godden arrived within the appointed half-hour and marched into the nursery, unheralded. “What have we here?” he inquired cheerfully. “What has the young villain been doing?”
Mark was sitting up in bed, weeping copiously. His face was streaked with tears.
“Let’s have a look at you,” said Dr. Godden. “Open your mouth wide . . . No, that’s not mumps!”
“Not mumps?” exclaimed Dinah, incredulously.
“Definitely not,” declared Dr. Godden. “The swelling is due to the eruption of a molar. In other words Mark is teething!”
Dinah was speechless with amazement.
“He’s six years old, isn’t he?” continued the doctor. “That’s the age children cut their first permanent molars. Usually these teeth appear without much trouble and nobody notices their appearance, but Mark has always had trouble with his teeth, hasn’t he, Mrs. Savage?”
“He certainly has,” agreed Dinah, laughing a trifle hysterically.
“Can I go to Seatown?” asked the patient, anxiously.
“Of course you can! The tooth is through—I can feel it—and the swelling will probably disappear in a few hours. There’s nothing whatever to prevent your going to Seatown.”
“What a comfort you are!” said Dinah as she followed Dr. Godden downstairs and showed him out of the door. “I don’t know what we should do without doctors. I suppose I was an idiot, but I was certain it was mumps.”
“The fear was father to the thought,” returned Dr. Godden, smiling and taking his hat up. “In my experience it often is—far more often than the wish. Mind you have a good holiday and enjoy yourself; you need it badly.”
8
The old house at Seatown in which the Dees had been born and brought up, and which now belonged to Mrs. Anderson, stood in a terrace of houses along the East Bay. Each house faced the sea and was surrounded by a small garden. In front was a narrow road, a low wall, a few tufts of coarse grass and then the sands. In winter the sea broke over the wall, and the windows of the houses were misted with salt spray. When the tide was out there was a lovely sweep of golden sands, a half-moon stretching from the harbour rocks (thrusting out among the waves like a giant’s boot) to another smaller huddle of black rocks to eastward. Beyond these eastward rocks was a smaller bay with a burn running down to the sea; and beyond this, cliffs of crumbling grey stone.
The fashionable part of Seatown lay to westward of the town proper and consisted of a goodly number of large houses (built of grey or red stone or covered with white harling) which were dotted about on the hill and along the edge of the golf course. If you came to Seatown for golf it was better to stay in the West End. The lovely green sweep of the course lay spread out before your windows and you could watch your friends setting forth upon the great adventure of the game and returning elated with their prowess, or bowed by their misfortunes, as the case might be. But many people who came to Seatown for their summer holidays preferred the unfashionable East Bay, for here you were nearer the sea; you could hear the sigh and murmur of the waves as you lay in bed, and the breeze that moved the curtains at your bedroom window was straight off the water.
