Summer Pudding, page 6
“I hardly ever get into town, and when I do I don’t get time to go to bookshops; but you can’t say you never get any new books, Iris, you had those two great annuals at Christmas, there ought to be enough in them to keep you quiet for a year.”
Iris looked trustingly at Janet, expecting perfect understanding.
“It’s all short. I like a book to be all one and go on and on.”
“Well, off you run to your books now.” Gladys’ voice was brisk. “I want to talk to Miss Brain.”
Iris moved unwillingly.
“You will learn me, won’t you?”
Janet blew her a kiss.
“I expect so. Good-bye.”
Gladys poured coffee and milk into two cups and put one down beside Janet.
“You don’t take sugar, I expect,” she said firmly. “We none of us do nowadays, do we?”
Janet hated coffee without sugar, but she accepted it with an agreeing smile. At the same time she was surprised; of course sugar was precious, but she had not yet reached the point where she had none to offer a visitor, and Gladys did not look the sort to be parsimonious. Her big mouth seemed more likely to show a tendency to give too much.
“Iris seems a pet.”
Gladys stirred her coffee some while before answering.
“I do my duty by her, goodness knows, I couldn’t have done more if she were my own. You should have seen me nursing her with measles. The doctor said I was wonderful, and so did Donald.”
“All right,” Janet thought. “I’m not arguing with you.” Out loud she said:
“Sad for her having no mother.”
“That’s just it.” Gladys’ voice was eager. “She misses her. Try as I will I can’t give the attention to her I should like. I’m sure if you come you will do your best, but what she needs is other children. I’ve worked for months to get her away to a boarding school. I know it’s the best thing for her, and so the doctor thinks. I was thankful Sheila never meant to teach her. I do implore you don’t upset all my hard work. If you refuse to teach her, then Donald will have to agree to her going away.”
Janet felt awkward. Gladys was obviously sincere in her pleading. She had been looking after the child, and if she and the doctor believed she should be in a boarding school, it was tough a possible governess arriving out of the blue.
“She wouldn’t be going to school until September,” she suggested cautiously. “I might take her over until then and see how we got on.”
Gladys’ tone was rude.
“Well, of course, I can’t stop you.”
“Goodness!” thought Janet. “What is this?”
“After all, even if I don’t teach her, I suppose Mr. Sheldon might decide to have a resident governess rather than send her to school.”
“Oh, no, he won’t! I put a stop to that. If a governess lives in, I said, I go out.”
Janet, for a person of twenty-five, had led a sheltered life. There had been no other women in her office to chatter, and discuss things with her. At home their friends were the children of Maggie’s friends. They had their faults like everybody else, but on the whole they were simple and straightforward. They liked a good time and a good laugh. They fell in love, some of them, and if so they got married. They were not a complex lot. Now, listening to Gladys, Janet felt as if she were on the edge of something new. Gladys’ husky voice had deepened and smouldered as she spoke of Donald. “She loves him,” she told herself, and, even as the thought reached her, she felt a revulsion. This was not love as she knew it; it was not love as she wanted to know it. It was fierce and possessive. The glimpse she had of Gladys’ heart was as if, used to an English wood, she had peered into a tropical forest. She got up, awkward as a schoolgirl.
“Thank you for the coffee. I . . . I must go.”
Gladys looked as if she were going to say more, but she changed her mind. She seemed to accept that Janet intended to take the job. Her manner altered. Janet was no longer a guest. She nodded towards the door into the passage.
“You’ll find Donald in one of the barns. Ask Ben, the yardman.”
Donald was deep in a discussion with his horse-keeper. He smiled at Janet and said he would not be a minute, then went on with what he was saying. A lot of the talk was incomprehensible to her, especially the horse-keeper’s replies. The blacksmith was apparently ill, and a horse called Samson was in need of a shoe. Donald was arguing with the old man on the advisability of taking him somewhere called Molston to be shod. The discussion finished by Donald laughing, and giving the old man an affectionate push to send him off. He turned to Janet.
“Stubborn old fellow. I often wonder whose farm this is. Well, what did you think of her?”
They were in one of the stables. She leant against the manger.
“I’ve never had much to do with children, but she seemed to me interesting. She’s very advanced for eight, isn’t she?”
“Too advanced, I think. That’s why I’m against a school. All schools push clever children on. I want her talked with and played with, but not worked; she’s too much alone.”
“At a good boarding school she’d have other children—” He moved; she stopped him with a gesture. “I’m not trying to get out of teaching her. As a matter of fact, I want the job, but I’m thinking of her.”
“Gladys has been talking. She’s full of this boarding school idea, she’s even got the doctor on her side. But that’s because she’s over anxious. The kid had measles pretty badly, and Gladys has been scared ever since. She’s as fond of Iris as if she were her own child, and it worries her she can’t give all the time to her she’d like. She thinks a governess in the daytime isn’t enough, she’d like her where there are matrons and all that. Before I came to the arrangement with Sheila I had thought of a resident governess, but, of course, that was impossible, it was stupid of me to think of it.” He looked apologetically at Janet as if he were afraid she was thinking him a fool. “Difficult for a male to get the hang of how a woman feels; I saw directly I suggested it that Gladys could not possibly be asked to share the drawing-room and all that with a woman she didn’t know.”
Janet lowered her eyes to hide the expression in them, which was not sympathetic to Gladys.
“All right, then, I’ll take Iris on.”
His voice vibrated with pleasure.
“Good. When will you start?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Better still.” His eyes ran over her. “I can see we are going to get on fine.” She walked to the door, and he kept pace with her. “Now, mind you, you’ve a free hand. Teach her what you like, but not too much sitting indoors. You can spend what you like within reason, you know, for books and all that. Just let me know what you want.”
They stood in the stable door. The rain was beating down in a sheet before them, turning the yard into mud, but neither of them noticed the weather. There was a warm glow of understanding and fellowship between them, that was as good as the sun coming out.
“You won’t hold it against your governess that you found her crying in a wood?”
He smiled.
“With a bit of moss on her chin.”
She stepped out into the yard. Then a thought struck her.
“By the way, we haven’t discussed money. I used to know a girl who lived out and came in to teach, and lend a hand, she got two guineas a week. Would that be all right?”
His face completely changed. He looked at her as if she were not the same woman he had been talking with a few seconds before.
“Two guineas! But . . .”
She tried to laugh away the discomfort between them.
“It sounds a lot, but, honestly, it’s quite fair, and I’m afraid I must earn that, or look for some other job.” His face was like iron. She laughed again, this time rather nervously. “Do I sound very mercenary?”
He hesitated as if he had something cutting to say. Then he changed his mind.
“Yes, you do. Under the circumstances you might have left it to me to do the fair thing. Your terms are not fair, but you’re holding a pistol to my head. I want Iris taught. You can have your two guineas.”
Janet stared at his back striding across the yard. She was horribly hurt. What did he mean? Under what circumstances’? Because Sheila had promised and let him down? That was no reason to get her sister cheap. She forgot to be hurt and, instead, was angry. She longed to run after him, to hold him by the arm and make him listen. He was spoilt by Gladys Batten. You can have your two guineas! What a way to talk! But she’d show him! She’d earn every penny of it. She’d make him ashamed.
Old Ben had been watching Janet and Donald from the shed where he had been mixing food for the turkeys. He watched Donald’s departure, and then Janet’s quick, angry march out of the yard. He shook his head.
“They do be wholly interested each in t’other.” He chuckled to himself. “Gladys has a time coming, shouldn’t wonder.”
Janet kept her anger to herself. She told her mother quietly that she had agreed to take on the job of teaching Iris. Maggie was puzzled; she felt there was something not quite right, but Janet would not be drawn.
“Did you see Iris?”
“Yes.”
“She’s a dear little thing, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think of Miss Batten? I’ve only spoken to her once, and I found her not my type, but Sheila likes her.”
“I didn’t see her long enough to form an opinion.”
“I’m sure you’ll like Mr. Sheldon. Don’t you think he seems nice?”
“I didn’t think about him except as Iris’ father.”
Maggie sighed. Really, her daughters were difficult! Sheila, who could think of nothing but men, and Janet, who never thought about them at all. She had been just the same about Mr. Trent. It was not until the war started that she had even known that he was young. You could, as she had told herself, have knocked her down with a feather when Janet had said he had joined up. “Joined up!” she had gasped. “But surely they aren’t taking old men.”
“Old men!” Janet had looked amused. “I don’t think he’s thirty.”
“Janet Brain,” Maggie had said, “do you mean to tell me you’ve been working in that office all these years and you never told me Mr. Trent was young?”
“Why should I?” Janet had asked, puzzled. “I didn’t know you’d be interested!” Really, an exasperating daughter, and here she was at it again. “I didn’t think of him except as Iris’ father!” Maggie could have shaken her. Of course she did not want her thinking of all men in a silly way, but it really was time she began to notice they existed.
Sheila also questioned Janet; she used her own oblique method. “Did you get muddy going up to the farm? Awful, isn’t it, on a wet day?”
“I don’t mind a little mud. How about you getting a little on you walking to the bus to go to the Labour Exchange?”
“There’s not all that rush. I suppose I can wait for a fine day. It’s the duty of everybody to keep well in wartime. I heard that on the wireless. It won’t be any good my going to the Labour Exchange if I get a chill from it, and have to stop in bed for weeks.”
“I shouldn’t think it’s much of a risk.”
“I suppose, as you’re in such a rush about me getting a job, you’ve decided to teach that awful Iris.”
“I don’t think she’s awful, she seems a nice kid. As a matter of fact, I have.”
Sheila wandered round the room fiddling with the ornaments.
“Well, I hope Mr. Sheldon’s satisfied now.” As Janet did not answer she shot her an anxious look over her shoulder. “Is he?”
“At having me instead of you? I think so. I gather, as a family, we were expected to produce a governess, and we have.”
“Did he say that?” Sheila gave Janet another fleeting, anxious look. “What else did he say?”
Janet was in no mood to have her hurt probed.
“I don’t remember. Why are you so interested? I’ve taken on the job and that’s all that can concern you, isn’t it?”
Sheila gave one of her wriggles.
“There’s no need to be cross. I was just being friendly. It isn’t a sin to be interested in what your sister earns and all that, is it?”
Janet saw the wriggle, and being used to Sheila, knew that she felt cornered. She also knew that they had come to the crux of the conversation on the word ‘earn’. It was so true to Sheila’s method to produce casually the object of a talk, as if it had been under discussion for quite a while. Often, when Sheila had tried to screw information out of her in this way in the past, she had teased her by holding it back. This time she did not feel like teasing. The word ‘earn’ was like a clumsy finger prodding her hurt. She could not conceive why Sheila should care what her money was to be, and she certainly was not going to tell her. To avoid an angry answer, she took a grip on herself, and said lightly, “I’ve fixed everything,” and went out of the room.
Janet would have been startled if she could have seen Sheila’s reaction to this remark. She looked after Janet, a flush spreading over her face. “She is mean,” she muttered. “I believe he’s told her, that’s why she’s cross, and she just isn’t telling me because she wants me to go on worrying.”
Janet gave a lot of care to her appearance the next morning. The rain had gone and it looked like being a fine day. She had some pretty, short-sleeved summer frocks, one of which she would have liked to have worn, but she rejected them and put on a long-sleeved, navy-blue dress, made of light woollen material that she had worn in the office. It had a neat white pique collar, and gave her a tidy, trim look. She wore her hair cut rather short, but long enough at the sides to curl back over her ears. This morning she put pins in these curls to hold them severely in place. When she was dressed she examined herself in the glass. There was no long mirror in her bedroom, so she tilted the dressing-table mirror backwards and forwards and saw herself in bits. “I’ll do,” she told herself. “Lisle stockings, flat-heeled country shoes, quiet dress, up to the throat and down to the wrists. Mouse-coloured hair, neat enough to be unbecoming; I shouldn’t think anybody could look more like a governess than I do. He shan’t say that he doesn’t get something that looks right for his two guineas.”
It had been agreed between Janet and Maggie the night before, that just for two or three days, until Janet had settled down in her new job, Maggie might do the cooking, and get the breakfast. In return she promised not to touch the garden, and to use Sheila for part of the housework, leaving the rest for Janet when she got back from Iris. Maggie had agreed the more readily because she was sure Janet would find Iris a whole-time job, and by degrees she would be able to slip back into doing everything, just as before. She had the breakfast on the table when Janet came down. Her lips twitched at the corners.
“A nice plain sailor hat, and some good gloves, would finish off the picture.”
Janet grinned.
“I haven’t overdone it, have I?” She helped herself to toast. “I don’t want to look as if I were playing at the job.”
“You don’t. I had to laugh because you’ve tried so hard you look self-conscious. Are you coming back to dinner?” The thought of meals had not crossed Janet’s mind. She stopped spreading her toast while she considered. What luck her mother had mentioned the subject! She imagined she was meant to feed with Iris at the farm, but how awful if she had taken it for granted. How still more awful if she was expected to go home; it would look as if she were trying to pick up perquisites on top of the two guineas.
“I think I’ll take bread and cheese today. I forgot to ask about dinner.”
“No need to take anything; either you’re having it here or there. You can ask Miss Batten what’s expected. I don’t know if farms get more to eat than we do; if they don’t I expect they’d rather you came back because of your rations, but if they want you to stay you could register with their butcher, and take up some cooking fat and sugar.”
Janet interrupted Maggie’s planning.
“No, I’d rather take bread and cheese, if you can spare it. Sheila could take my books to the Food Office and get my other books today, couldn’t she?”
“Don’t be silly, of course you can have the cheese. It’s not your ration I’m worrying about, it’s only it’s so silly to eat scrappy bits out of a bag when you’ve a good dinner waiting for you a couple of fields away.”
“Just for today I’d like to be independent. You do see how I feel, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t!” Maggie looked amusedly at her daughter. “I think you’re behaving like a goose, which is not like you.”
At a quarter to nine Janet, with her parcel of bread and cheese hung on one finger, started for the farm. She had not dared to put on a hat for fear of further teasing from Maggie. In spite of her uneasiness about the day ahead, she could not help her heart uplifting as she walked. It was such a lovely morning, the rain had brought out all the scents of the country. The good smell of wet earth, the mixed smells of clover, beans, hay, mustard, wheat, barley and wild flowers. Overhead a lark, rising higher and higher, sang as if he wished to burst with joy at being alive.
Her arrival at the farm, which Janet was dreading, was made easier by Iris. She was waiting for her at the gate, and as she came in sight gave a pleased whoop and ran towards her and flung herself on her.
“Good morning, Miss Brain. Gladys says I’ve got to call you that, but I call Sheila, Sheila, so couldn’t I call you Janet? I call Barbara, Barbara, but that’s different because Uncle Dick told me to. You see, he says she’s almost a relation, at least he hopes she will be one day. I know that because Mrs. Honeywell, who helps Gladys, told me she was what she’d call ‘Uncle Dick’s steady’, and I asked him if she was, and that’s when he told me to call her Barbara.”
Janet was turning over the child’s request. What would Donald feel about Christian names? Gladys Batten seemed to be called by hers. It would be humiliating to give permission if Iris was then ordered by her father to revert to the formal ‘miss’.
“We’ll have to see,” she said, making her voice warm and friendly so that Iris could not feel snubbed. “Your father may not like Christian names for a governess.”
