Tom Tiddler’s Ground, page 3
“Yes, yes, of course!” (Behave as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Good heavens! Only two years married and already—!) “That makes four then.” Another finger shot up. “And your maid—”
“Oh, yes, Gladys! Don’t forget Gladys. She’s most important.”
“Oh, no. I mustn’t forget Gladys!” Gratefully they both clutched at Gladys as a topic of conversation. “That makes five, then—”
“Well, we’ve got six bedrooms altogether,” said Constance, “not counting the attics—I mean they’re really dilapidated—just lumber and no paper on the walls—would you like to see?”
“Oh, no, no! I’ll take your word for it the attics are hopeless. I know no one’s slept there for years. Well, what about the sixth bedroom, Constance. Can you?”
“Of course I will. I suppose I couldn’t—but perhaps every one says that?”
“Says what?” retorted Mrs. Latchford warily.
“Well, I was going to say—says they’d like a mother and baby. Have you any left?”
“Any left! My dear Constance! What everybody says, if you want to know, is that a mother and baby is the one thing they absolutely and definitely draw the line at!”
“What, even people who are mothers themselves?” cried Constance, horrified.
“Oh, all the more so!”
“They’d rather have children?”
“Children of school age—yes!”
“Of course, children of school age are very interesting, but I’m afraid they’ll find it more difficult than they think,” said Constance rather surprisingly.
“Oh, do you?” (Of course, it will be perfectly frightful, but I should have thought she’d have taken the sentimental point of view.)
“Yes—school age, you know, eight or nine—it’s too late already. You can’t catch them too young in this job, you can’t really. So terribly soon it’s too late.”
Job? Light suddenly dawned on Mrs. Latchford. Of course! Social work! That had been Constance’s job before her mother died and she had come home to look after her father. A “Club Leader” in North Kensington or something of the sort. Fancy her forgetting!
“Oh, of course, Constance, I’d forgotten you know what you’re talking about. That sounds rude, but you know what I mean.”
“They vary tremendously, of course,” said Constance apologetically. “Some of the families do marvels on very little money. I’ve the greatest admiration for them. But others! Well, poor children, they’re complete hooligans, of course, and you’re not going to alter that in a matter of weeks or even months, you know.”
How different people are when they’re on their own ground, thought Mrs. Latchford. Here’s a Constance who’s completely sure of herself, completely sensible. I expect she was an excellent club-leader.
“It’s the mother of the family whom most depends on really,” Constance continued. “If she’s a good manager and sensible about her own health—you know that’s one of the most difficult problems, the mothers don’t automatically come under the Health Insurance like the husbands do—”
“Yes, but, Constance. You say you want a mother and baby, and thank God you do. The baby may be young enough for you, but what about the mother? Won’t you find her rather difficult?”
“Oh, of course she’ll hate it, poor dear, after London. Who wouldn’t? But I’ll risk it for the baby’s sake.”
“Good gracious. Are you as fond of babies as all that? They’re an appalling nuisance,” said Mrs. Latchford reminiscently, mother of three.
“I love them,” said Constance simply.
“And what will your smart friend Caroline, with her Nanny and her silk-smocked offspring, say to your little slum-baby dropping its dummy about the place?”
“Are you trying to discourage me, Mrs. Latchford?” said Constance, smiling.
“Good heavens, no!” said Mrs. Latchford, suddenly recollecting herself. “Far from it!” (It was just that I saw a glimpse of the real Constance just now and went on probing curiously.) “I’m very grateful to you, and I’m sure it will all work out splendidly.”
“Oh, it won’t do anything as simple as that!” said Constance, laughing. “But I expect it will be fun. Quite like old times in a way. Must you really go now?”
“Oh, yes, I must. Where’s that damned list? Here it is.”
“I’ll tell Alfred all about your visit. He’ll be awfully interested.”
Oh, no, he won’t be, thought Mrs. Latchford, remounting her bicycle. He’ll like our smart Caroline, but not our little slum-baby. Now does Constance realize that, or is she really a fool where the man’s concerned? I’d love to know! Two bedrooms, indeed, and crazy about babies. Poor Constance! One’s always saying: “What a pity So-and-so never married.” Why doesn’t one ever say: “What a pity So-and-so did!” Yes, poor Constance. “Quite like old times,” she said, her eyes shining. She ought to have gone back to her work in London when her father died. Being married isn’t her line, and does she know it yet, or doesn’t she?
Punctually at three minutes past seven the telephone rang in Caroline’s house.
“Hello?” said Caroline, a trifle distractedly. “Who? Oh, hello, Constance, how are you?”
“How are you, my dear? You sound just the same!”
“Do I? How horrible! Same as what? Oh, but I’ve gone all enthusiastic over my new house. It isn’t new, of course. It’s one hundred and twenty years old, I’m glad to say, and it’s practically speaking in a slum, but we call it Regent’s Park and adore it.”
“I’m so glad you like it, Caroline. You haven’t been in long, have you? There was only your old number in the book, but the exchange—”
“Oh, yes, that’s one of the few things they’re intelligent about. We’ve been in three weeks, but it’s nothing like straight. For weeks we cooked sausages over a Primus in the tool-shed because the kitchen boiler was being done.”
“Did you really?” (But of course she didn’t! Her husband took her out to expensive restaurants.)
“Well—practically. I say, Constance, have you got a boiler in your house?”
“Have I got a boiler! My dear, I’ve got an old-fashioned coal range!”
Caroline was momentarily silenced.
“Oh, well—of course, you’re blasé, I expect. You see it’s all new to me after our beastly fool-proof flat. What’s your house like, Constance? Is it old?”
“Not particularly. Just rambling, and inconvenient. It’s the same house as we all lived in as children. It isn’t a vicarage any more, so they let me rent it again after I got married.”
“Oh, how is your husband, Constance? I didn’t ask after him before because at the moment houses thrill me, not husbands. But I shall come round to husbands again, I expect.”
“Alfred’s very well, thank you. How’s—er—John?”
“It’s his birthday to-morrow. I’m giving him a super shaving-brush. He’ll be thirty-eight. Nearly forty. Fantastic, isn’t it? Here he is, as a matter of fact, coming into the room.”
“Alfred’s older than that. He was in the last war, you know.”
“I do wish people wouldn’t say the last war in that ominous way.”
“Oh, my dear, that’s really what I’m ringing you up about. Look here, do you remember promising to come down to us if there was a war—in Oxford Street, that day? Well, the billeting officer’s just been round—”
“The what? My God, Constance, is it as bad as all that? I mean John and I are pooh-poohers. Like Gugnuncs, you know, only not in the least like. But if billeting officers are going to start scrounging around the country-side, it does sound a bit grim, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, well, it was only the doctor’s wife on a bicycle.”
“Oh, I see . . .”
“And, of course, it’s only precautionary in case. They must have it all worked out in advance, mustn’t they? I mean a big scheme like that—” (Pip, pip, pip.) “Well, what I really wanted to ask you was, have you made any other arrangements because we’d love to have you?”
“Well, no, we haven’t made any arrangements because of our pooh-pooh principles. . . . But, of course, I’m quite ready to admit that if it did come to bombs on the roof I should be one of the first to tuck Marguerite under my arm and fly to the country.”
“Well, Caroline, then promise to fly to us. We’d simply love to have you—all of you.”
“Would you really, darling? All of us? Constance, I call that marvellous of you. We’d be P.G.s, of course. That’s my tactful voice.”
“Well, that’s very sweet of you, and we’ll easily fix that up at the time. Just to cover expenses, of course. I wouldn’t dream of making anything out of you.”
“Wouldn’t you? Oh, I would in your case, darling. Give us macaroni cheese, or something awful for dinner every night, and buy yourself a new hat every time.”
“Caroline, you’re just the same! I’m afraid you’ll find the country terribly boring after London.”
“Oh, no, I shan’t.” (I shall ring off if she’s going to irritate me by telling me I’m just the same like that.) “And anyway, Constance, much as I’d adore it all, I tell you there won’t be a war. Not just after we’d moved. It would be too awful. Damn, now I’ve spilt my gin in my agony—John, darling, mop it up, will you? Constance, I must ring off. Good-bye and thanks tremendously. It’s a weight off my mind, as they say.”
“Good-bye, Caroline dear. I’m so glad you will then.”
She was glad, and yet, as she replaced the receiver, a slight frown wrinkled her forehead. Caroline was just the same. Caroline “played” at having a boiler just as she had “played” at being married. Caroline spilt her gin and John darling would mop it up. Somehow it wasn’t very like life in Chesterford. Macaroni cheese? Well, funnily enough, she and Alfred were having macaroni cheese that very evening. And here was Alfred.
“Hello, Alfred dear! Had a good day?”
“Constance, I wish you’d tell Mary’s kids not to yell ‘Hello, Uncle Alf!’ all over the village.”
“Well, dear, you are their Uncle Alfred.”
Alfred turned on his heel and went out of the room.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Constance, her hands dropping to her sides. (He used to kiss me when he came home from work. I only said he was their Uncle Alfred. Have I always irritated people without noticing it.)
“That’s the Constance-woman I told you about, John,” explained Caroline. “Well, I suppose one might do worse.”
“You sounded bosom chums on the ’phone.”
“Oh, well, that’s just a way we old girls have. When one’s shared one’s break biscuits for years, you know. . . . Got an evening paper, have you? What’s the news like?”
“Bad,” said John, slumping wearily into a chair.
“You look a bit haggard. You’re not really worrying, are you?”
“Good God! Aren’t you? It may be the end of everything.”
“Have a drink?”
“Thanks.”
“I expect it will just be another Munich, you know.”
“Christ! I hope not.”
“Oh, dear! Have two drinks.”
“Darling. I do envy you. Don’t you ever worry about anything, Caroline?”
“Well, not about Poles and Czechs and things,” said Caroline candidly. “But if you really think we shall have to leave this house just as we’ve got into it, I shall certainly worry.”
A weighty pause.
“Well, what’s this Constance woman like?” said John finally, with hideous relevance.
“Constance? A clergyman’s daughter, youngest, and only girl, in a large family. Awfully good at darning elder brothers’ socks and that sort of thing.”
“Doesn’t sound much your line, my sweet.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think we talk the same language now at all. We were terrific chums at school. That was in the days when I had a soul. I remember taking Constance into the boot-cupboard one day to tell her I’d Lost My Faith.”
“Did she tell you where you’d better look for it again?”
“I expect so. She was a year or two older than me. I think she said she’d been through that Stage or something like that.”
“You’ll have to tell her you’ve gone and mislaid the thing again, you careless girl.”
“I shall keep off the topic. There’ll be a lot of topics I shall have to keep off, I expect. Oh, John, it won’t really happen, will it?” (Ask him again now he’s in a better temper.)
“I’m afraid so, darling.”
Another weighty pause.
“What’s Constance’s surname, Caroline?”
“Smith. She was Constance Handasyde.”
“Handasyde? I knew a Handasyde once.”
“Did you? When?”
“Oh—years ago.” (Pity I mentioned it.) “I shouldn’t think it’s any relation.”
“What was his Christian name?”
“George.”
“Oh, I expect it was one of Constance’s elder brothers. She has several. There was one called George. I remember now. She knitted him a scarf at school.”
“Well, I shouldn’t think he wore it then.”
“You shock me. Wasn’t he the sort of man who wore scarves knitted by his schoolgirl sister?”
“Not a bit when I knew him. He was rather a wild lad. I don’t suppose it’s the same Handasyde though.”
“Oh, but I’ve set my heart on him being her brother. ‘How small the world is!’ I shall say repeatedly.”
“Will you?” (Damn.)
“Although really I think it would be more suitable if I parked myself on George and you went to Constance,” continued Caroline.
“God forbid! Why?”
“Oh, well, you’re such a Good Husband, darling. Faithful, provident, temperate. Constance would appreciate you properly.”
“Thank you. What about her own husband? Think he’d suit you?”
“No. I’ve never seen him, but it’s whispered in the school corridors on Old Girls’ Day that Constance has married beneath her, John. Horror and concern.”
“Well, it sounds a funny household for you to park yourself on, darling.”
“What will you do, John?”
“Yes, it had just occurred to me that you might enquire about that. Well, I shall stay here, I suppose.”
“Oh, John! You lucky devil! When it’s me that adores the house so.”
“Sorry.” A pause. “I shall miss you terribly.”
“Now you’ve made me feel a selfish pig, John.”
Silence.
“Did you mean to make me feel a selfish pig, darling?” (Or was it just his natural irritating goodness?)
“As a matter of fact, I did,” said John, picking up the Evening Standard and barricading himself against further talk, just as he succeeded in gaining for the first time that evening his wife’s whole and undivided interest and attention.
III
The village of Chesterford presented a most unusual appearance. Colonel Henryson (Queen’s Bays, retired) shifted uneasily from foot to foot on the green. Heavy foot to heavy foot, for the gallant Colonel was dressed in full decontamination outfit. Mrs. Henryson, head of the local Red Cross, was marshalling her V.A.D.s in front of the village inn, considerably impeded by a group of village children who were playing games with their new gas-masks. (The school had been shut for three weeks until the air-raid shelters were finished.) In the village hall a group of ladies were feverishly planning a future “play-centre” for the evacuated children. (“We must do something with them till the school opens again, and the Girl Guide Hut would do splendidly!”) At the same Girl Guide Hut the President of the Infant Welfare was distractedly piling tins of Cow and Gate into a wheelbarrow. She had just been told everything must be cleared out immediately. The Army, it seemed, had commandeered the hut for a canteen. There was a queue at the local stationer’s because every one was trying to buy drawing-pins and brown (or preferably black) paper for their windows. There was a queue at the school where the A.R.P. warden was taking down the names and addresses of those who still had no gas-masks, and pointing out to each one how it was entirely his or her own fault. There was the biggest queue of all at the station, where a trainful of evacuees was expected any moment. It was now after lunch and the train had been scheduled to arrive at 9.15 A.M. sharp; but there was a general feeling that it would be highly unpatriotic to go away and wait comfortably at home. Sir Robert Conway’s chauffeur had turned the wireless on in the Daimler, and a little group had gathered round to listen and were hearing how the Government was confident that the British people would, under no circumstances, behave in a panic-stricken manner. Some instructions followed about never going out without a label fixed securely to one’s clothing, giving one’s full name and address.
Constance who, unlike most of the well-to-do inhabitants of the village, had no car to sit in (Alfred usually had a borrowed one from his business to use, but Constance had never learnt to drive), hurried about and listened to all the rumours.
“I say, Mrs. Smith, have you heard? Ten expectant mothers at the Old Farm.”
“Hello, Constance. Do you know we’re going to have some lunatics as well? So don’t rush at the train, Mrs. Randolph says.”
“The station-master says the train’s left Maidstone.”
“The station-master says the train hasn’t started from London yet.”
“Constance, I hear you’re a slacker.” (This from Mrs. Randolph herself, the village cat.) “I hear you’ve filled up your house with your own friends.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t—really, Mrs. Randolph.” Constance was instantly distressed. “It’s true I have a friend and her little girl coming down—I promised her ages ago, but not because I wanted to avoid anybody else—but I’m having a mother and baby, too; and it’s so difficult because I do want to be at the station to meet the poor thing, and she may have luggage, so I brought Gladys, too, to help, and that leaves the house empty; and Caroline—that’s my friend, you know—is motoring down and may arrive any moment. Oh, dear, it is awkward!”
