The Feast (5 page)

‘Don’t you like
marrons
glacés
?
’ asked Caroline.

‘I never had any,’ whispered Blanche.

‘Well … do try one.’ ‘N-no, thank you.’

‘Are you going for a holiday?’ Michael wanted to know.

‘Yeth,’ said Blanche, who lisped a little.

‘Where?’

‘Pendizack Manor Hotel.’

‘Oh!’ said the three Giffords.

Luke and Michael looked through the window to signal the news to Hebe. She gave them a warning scowl. One of Blanche’s sisters was just about to go down the corridor, and she wanted an ally to seize the second seat. But none of them felt inclined to join her. It was more fun in the corridor. They smiled and shook their heads. Hebe glared reproachfully. But she would not come out, though they beckoned to her.

‘That’s where we shall be staying,’ said Caroline to Blanche.

‘Where is your father?’ asked Michael.

‘He’th dead,’ said Blanche mournfully.

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

What with her dead father and her poor back they were all beginning to feel very sorry for her. Caroline again pressed her to take a sweet. But she explained that she had none to give them back.

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ said Caroline. ‘We have lots. We get parcels from America.’

Blanche timidly took the sweet.

‘Do you get parcels from America?’ asked Michael.

‘Yeth.’

‘What’s in them?’

‘I don’t know. Mother keepth them.’

‘We have feasts with ours,’ said Luke.

Blanche’s eyes widened. She stared at him in a kind of ecstasy.

At this moment her sister returned up the corridor and was offered a sweet too, which she accepted with the same reluctance, explaining that she had none to give back. They seemed to think that all gifts must have some kind of exchange value. The newcomer told them that her name was Beatrix and that the third sister was called Maud. Their surname, they said, was Cove.

‘Why don’t you go back into the carriage and rest your back?’ said Caroline to Blanche. ‘Beatrix can stay here with us.’

‘I like it here,’ said Blanche, fervently.

To her sister she murmured:

‘They have feasts.’

‘O-o-oh!’ breathed Beatrix.

Both sisters fell into a reverie, sucking sweets and staring at these wonderful Giffords.

The word
feast
had a magic significance for the little Coves. They had never been at a feast, but they had read about such doings. They had a book called
The
Madcap
of
St.
Monica’s
in which dormitory feasts were held at midnight. The word conveyed to them they knew not what of hospitality and convivial enjoyment. And their favourite game was to plan feasts which they would give if they were rich. A difficulty in collecting guests (for they knew very few people) had been
overcome
by Beatrix, who suggested that a notice might be put up on their house door saying: A GREAT FEAST IS TO BE HELD HERE. ALL ARE INVITED. And then everybody would come.

Their ignorance of the world was fantastic, for their mother could never afford to let them do anything or have anything that they wanted. But day dreams cost nothing and in day dreams they lived, nourishing their starved imaginations upon any food that they could find. These Giffords, these madcap children who had stepped straight out of a fairy tale, were a banquet.

‘Do you have a pony?’ asked Blanche at last.

Yes. The Giffords had a pony apiece. But these had been lent to their cousins when their country house was given up. Michael and Luke were only too pleased to describe the glories of this house and, though Caroline felt that they were boasting, she could not stop a recital which gave such obvious pleasure. Maud, in her turn, came out, was given sweets and included in the audience. The Giffords talked and the Coves listened, without
rancour and without envy, feeling themselves enriched by such an adventure. They could have knelt and worshipped the Giffords for doing and having so much.

‘And we have a Secret Society,’ said Luke. ‘Hebe started it. It’s called the Noble Covenant of Spartans. When we all get to Pendizack I daresay she’ll let you join.’

Poor Hebe, sitting alone in the carriage, too proud to leave her hard-won seat, a target for adult criticism, was tantalized by all this fraternization going on in the corridor. She felt that everybody was extremely disloyal. And she knew the bitterness experienced by all leaders. She had rushed in, she had been brave, she had got herself pinched, she had gained her point—only to find that her supporters had fled.

She fished a small notebook and pencil out of her
handbag
. The notebook contained the rules of the Noble Covenant of Spartans. She had just decided to add a new one, although it could not become a law until the others had voted on it. After sucking her pencil for a while she wrote:

Mrs. Thomas was washing up the supper dishes.
Nancibel
came downstairs wearing a white dress with a red belt, red sandals and a red snood. She was still saving up for a red bag.

‘You going out?’ said her mother, turning round.

‘Yes. I’m going a walk with Alice. But I’ll help you with those first. I’m in no hurry.’

‘Don’t splash your dress. It looks nice. But I wish you’d wear your nylons.’

‘Oh Mum! Nobody does, not in the summer. I’m saving them for dances. Give me a cloth. I’ll wipe.’

‘Your legs is all bruises.’

‘They show through nylons. It’s those coke scoops banging against my shins.’

‘I meant to tell you that old Sour Puss, that Miss Ellis, came in to-day for the honey. Stuck here talking till I thought she’d taken root. I don’t know how you stand her, really I don’t.’

Nancibel laughed.

‘She’s been having kittens all day because Mrs. Siddal says she’s got to empty slops.’

‘Having kittens? Whatever d’you mean?’

‘Oh, you know … slang! What we used to say in the war. It’s R.A.F. slang really, means getting upset.’

‘Sounds common to me. I can’t understand half what you girls say these days. But this Miss Ellis? She strikes me as being a very nosey sort of person.’

‘Nosey as they come,’ agreed Nancibel. ‘here’s nothing she doesn’t know about the guests at Pendizack, believe me. She says that clergyman’s daughter that came this morning—you know, the one I told you about, supper … she says this girl sits in her room all the time grinding up a bit of broken glass with a nail file, and she’s got the powdered glass in a pill box; and Ellis makes out she means to murder somebody. You know … feed it to them.’

‘She would! She wanted to know every last thing about you. Wasn’t I worried about you? And how thankful she is she’s got no daughter because the girls don’t seem to care what they do these days. And we know what men are, she says. Only want one thing from us poor women. I felt like saying rubbish! There’s only one thing us poor women want from the men. But what’s she know about it, anyway? I bet there was never a queue outside
her
door.’

‘Oh, she knows more than you’d think,’ said Nancibel, hanging up the dish cloth. ‘She tells me the story of her life, sometimes, while she watches me do the work. It’s a different story every time, only for one thing. That everybody has given her a raw deal. That’s the same every time.’

‘You don’t mean to say she ever …’

‘She did? Or she says she did. And I was quite sorry for her the first time she told me because it seems the fellow ran off. But then it came out that he was her sister’s boy to start with, and she pinched him. And really, Mum, I don’t want to be spiteful, but I hate to think what her sister must be like if she’s less attractive than Miss Ellis. Well … you’ve seen Miss Ellis!’

‘I have. And she put me in mind of nothing so much as a toad. But that’s nothing,’ declared Mrs. Thomas. ‘Any woman can get any man she wants, for once
anyway
, if she’s willing to lower herself enough.’

‘That’s quite right,’ sighed Nancibel.

Something a little regretful about her sigh prompted her mother to add sharply:

‘I said for once, not for keeps. And it never comes to good.’

‘That’s right. I know. Well, this fellow did a vanishing act. But the sister was sore about it and all the family took her part, which is why Miss Ellis quarrelled with all her relations, and why she has to work when her family is wealthy. That’s what she says.’

Nancibel crossed to the mirror by the door to take a last glance at herself before she went out.

‘I shan’t be late,’ she said. ‘We’re just going along the parade for a bit to listen to the band.’

Mrs. Thomas came with her to the door and watched her go down the lane.

If only she could meet Somebody, thought the mother. Some nice fellow that would appreciate her and look after her. Not too young. Somebody superior. So sweet and so pretty, my sweet Nancibel. And clever with it.

Nobody’s good enough, and she’s well rid of that soppy Brian if she only knew it. But there’s nobody good enough round here.

For Mrs. Thomas came from the Home Counties, and despised the rustic population of Porthmerryn.

At the first little terrace at the top of the hill there was a cottage with a notice on the door:

Here Nancibel stopped to pick up her old school friend, Alice Leddra. They went down the steep hill, through the narrow streets, to the Marine Parade, where a band was playing and half the population of Porthmerryn was strolling up and down. Alice was full of a new boy whom she had picked up at the Drill Hall dance on
Wednesday
. He had said that he was staying at the Marine Parade Hotel, and she hoped that she might meet him again.

Nancibel was sceptical.

‘Stopping at the Marine Parade? Then whatever was he doing at the Drill Hall? They’ve dances every night at the M.P., and a much better band.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t like the M.P. dances. He says the people there make him sick. Nothing but business men and their bong zammies.’

‘Bong how much?’

‘Bong zammies. You know … French for tarts. He’s ever so good looking, Nance. And can he dance! But you see he doesn’t feel at home anywhere because of his childhood.’

‘What was the matter with his childhood?’

‘Well, really, it’s quite a romance. You see he was born in a slum…. You know … in Limehouse. An awful place. And all his family was on the dole. But he got out of it and got himself educated and made a lot of artistic friends, and now he’s a writer.’

‘Good gracious! When did he tell you all this? At the Drill Hall?’

‘Yes. You see he said he felt he could talk to me. He felt I was sort of different.’

‘Alice, I know you never left home because you were in the net factory. But even in Porthmerryn there were the G.I.’s. What’s kept you so green?’

‘He’s not what you think,’ said Alice a little crossly. ‘He’s not the type boy you’d have met when you were in the A.T.S.’

‘I never met any type boy that didn’t want to talk about himself, and they all told me I was different. But I will say I never met one that made enough money writing to stop at the M.P. Let’s hope he sends some of it back to his poor family in Limehouse.’

They had moved to the sea wall and were leaning on the parapet, listening to selections from
Il
Trovatore
played by the band. Dusk was falling and the lights of the harbour were beginning to shine in the water. The sea was very calm. An occasional wave fell with an indolent flop on the shingle. Across the bay Pencarrick
Lighthouse
sent a long beam through the air, sweeping from the horizon to the mysterious, dim mass of houses on the hill.

‘There he is!’ cried Alice suddenly.

She pointed out an astonishingly beautiful young man who was wandering moodily all by himself on the shingle.

Nancibel’s heart missed a beat. And then it nearly stopped altogether from sheer surprise. For she had believed that such moments were over and done with for ever and ever. She had thought that her heart was broken. Nor did she want to have it mended; she had decided to get along without it.

‘Isn’t he lovely?’ breathed Alice.

‘A slum?’ said Nancibel.’ What a tale! He never came out of no slum. It takes orange juice and Grade A milk to grow that sort.’

And a moment later, when he looked up, recognized Alice and flashed a dazzling smile, she added:

‘Why, look at his teeth! I know slummies when I see them.’

‘You know everything, don’t you, Nancibel Thomas?’

‘They’re tough all right, some of them. But they’re short, and they don’t have teeth like a film star.’

He was crossing the shingle and climbing the flight of stone steps up to the parade. Alice poked a curl back under her snood.

‘And what’s his name?’ asked Nancibel. ‘You didn’t say.’

‘Bruce.’

He was standing before them. Alice said:

‘This is my friend, Miss Thomas.’

And Nancibel was included in that brilliant smile for a couple of seconds before it vanished. The discovery that she was Somebody, not just another girl, wiped it clean off his face. He stared, hesitated, and suggested that they should all go and eat ices at the Harbour Café.

‘We want to listen to the band,’ Alice said.

‘You can’t do that,’ protested Bruce. ‘It’s terrible. You girls can’t want to listen to terrible music like this.’

‘O.K.,’ said Alice. ‘We’ll go to the harbour.’

For it had occurred to her that they would meet many more of her personal friends down that way, and she wanted to show off her new escort.

The three of them set off: and the scandalous account which he gave them of the goings on at the Marine Parade made it a very pleasant walk.

‘Five thousand clothing coupons,’ he assured them. ‘All stolen, of course. And the thing is done quite openly. The head waiter hawks them in the dining-room.’

Alice exclaimed and wanted to hear more. Nancibel said nothing, though she smiled at them both in a genial way. It’s all waiters’ talk, she was thinking. He
pretends
to have the gen on the visitors, but no visitor would know so much as that. He’s some kind of servant….