Westwood (45 page)

When they had gone, the hall seemed empty and quiet and shadowed by evening.
Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh
, thought Margaret, gazing dreamily about her,
Shadows of the evening steal across the sky
– and now was the moment for Gerard Challis to be discovered sitting quietly in one of those deep chairs at the far end of the hall, or for Lady Challis to enter by an unsuspected door and engage her in a long and wonderful talk.

But neither of these events took place, and after a pause she put down her tray on a table and went out into the garden through a passage with a stone floor. Sounds of washing-up and voices came from an apartment at the side of this passage, and, glancing in, she saw Lady Challis, Bertie, and a fair young woman who was going to have a baby, standing by the sink and all employed. A weedy young man in peculiar clothes was standing by an Aga cooker, stirring something in a saucepan.

‘Hullo,’ said Lady Challis, pushing back a lock of curly hair with one damp finger. ‘Are you looking for Barnabas and Emma? She’s here,’ indicating a pile of miscellaneous cushions and rugs in a corner where lay Emma, fast asleep. ‘He’s outside with Jane and Dickon and the rest. He knows where he’s to sleep. If I were you, I’d put Emma in first.’

‘I shan’t wake her to wash her,’ whispered Margaret, lifting the warm, unexpectedly heavy little body from the cushions. Emma sighed and stirred but did not wake, and Margaret gathered her comfortably into her arms.

‘My dear!’ suddenly exclaimed the young man who was busy at the stove, ‘it tastes madly strange! Do you think it’s done?’

‘I expect it’s all right,’ said Lady Challis. ‘Try it on a plate. If it sticks it’s ready.’

‘I’ll show you where Emma’s to sleep,’ said the fair young woman, and Margaret followed her upstairs, pursued by cries from the garden: ‘Help! help! The grandfather’s gone mad again! Where’s the bicarbonate of soda?’

The fair young woman and Margaret exchanged glances and laughed.

‘They’re playing air-raids,’ said the fair young woman, ‘and Robert’s the grandfather who’s mad and keeps on having attacks.’

‘Was that why he was lying on the grass and kicking?’

‘I expect so. Jane and Claudia and my Edna are refugees from Norway, and they have to keep on taking the dolls into a shelter. Aren’t they queer, wanting to play raids down here? I’m only too glad to forget them.’

‘Do you live in London?’ inquired Margaret – softly, so as not to awaken Emma.

The fair young woman explained that she and her Edna had been bombed out some months ago. Her husband was fighting in Italy. Her mother was an old school-friend of Lady Challis’s, who was an absolute dear. ‘I’m Irene,’ she concluded, smiling.

‘I’m Margaret,’ said Margaret, smiling too. ‘Oh, I
do
like this place!’ she added suddenly. ‘I’d like to live here for ever!’

‘Well, there’s nowhere like your own home, I always say,’ said Irene, ‘but I must say I never thought Edna and me would have settled down here the way we have. It’s all Lady Challis, really. She isn’t a bit like the rest of her family, though,’ she added, lowering her voice. ‘I don’t know them awfully well. I was awfully thrilled to meet Hebe; I’ve seen her photo in
Home Chat
. She’s not as pretty as I thought she’d be and not very
pleasant
, is she?’

Margaret agreed heartily that she was not, but added that she thought Hebe was nicer than she seemed, at which Irene (who was evidently one of those women living in a flowery little frame, from which life appears to be both miniature and manageable) looked her disagreement but was too polite to argue.

When Emma was comfortably bedded down, Margaret went in search of Barnabas, whom she found lying on his stomach on top of the derelict shelter at the far end of the garden with a purple face and threatening the party cowering inside.

‘I’m a Messerschmitt!’ he roared, waving his feet ‘Unk-unk-unk-unk!’

‘You’ve been shot down,’ coldly said a tall child with long brown hair, putting her head out for a minute. ‘You’re on the ground, so you must have been shot down and you oughtn’t to be making that noise.’

‘Oh, Mother, oh, Mother, be careful!’ wailed a voice from the shelter.

‘I
am
being careful, darling, don’t worry,’ said the tall child, turning her large green eyes towards the voice. ‘How is the grandfather?’

‘Very bad – e-r-r-r-r!’ came a snarling voice from the darkness.

‘One of the children is dead,’ observed a fat younger voice with satisfaction.

‘There’s no time to bury it, no time to bury it,’ said the tall child busily, drawing back into the shelter. ‘Dear, have you made the bed?’

‘Yes, dear, and supper’s ready. Come along, children,’ answered a little boy’s voice, unusually pure in quality. ‘Hurry up, the Alert will go again in a minute.’

Margaret peered into the shelter, where she could just make out the six children and a doll’s pram huddled together on some old blankets. Twelve eyes were instantly fixed upon her, waiting.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but Barnabas must come to bed now.’

‘Oh
no
!’ howled everybody, but in a hopeless tone that seemed to express formal protest rather than active resentment, while Barnabas said flatly: ‘I shan’t. It’s not my time.’

‘Yes it is your time, Barnabas,’ said the tall child sharply. ‘You know we go in ages. The babies go at six; Jeremy first, because he’s six months, and then William because he’s nine months, and then Emma, and Peter at half-past six because he’s four.’

‘Emma stayed up till seven this evening,’ interrupted Barnabas, ‘so why should I go at my
proper time if she doesn’t?’

‘The first evening doesn’t count,’ said the tall child. ‘I’m the eldest; I’m nine and a month and I don’t go until eight o’clock in the summer,’ she added to Margaret, graciously.

‘All right, I don’t mind what time any of the rest of you go, you all seem to have got in a muddle with your times, anyway, but Barnabas must come
now
.’

‘Go on, Barnabas,’ said the little boy with the pure voice, who was named Dickon, and Barnabas unwillingly began to crawl out.

‘Doesn’t anyone else want to come?” asked Margaret, betraying her inexperience by this absurd question. ‘Some of you
must
be getting sleepy. Who usually puts
you
to bed?’ addressing the smallest girl, who had tiny fair pigtails and a pink and white check dress.

‘Mummy, but she’s gone to the local,” said the little girl precisely. ‘She said someone
else
would put me to bed.’

‘Yes, Margaret would, she said,’ nodded the tall child, who seemed to be named Claudia, and then Margaret realized what she was in for.

‘Well, I am Margaret,’ she said determinedly, ‘and I’ve come to put you to bed. Come on, now. Youngest first. You –?’ pointing at Jane. ‘Are you youngest?’

‘Yes!’ shouted everybody, and Claudia added rapidly, waving her long fingers about, ‘then Edna, then Barnabas, then Dickon, then Robert, then me.’

‘All right, Edna, I think I see your mummy coming for you now, so Barnabas and Jane can come with me and surely Dickon and Robert and Claudia can put themselves to bed, can’t they?’

‘Of course,’ said Dickon and Robert. Claudia looked haughty, and announced:

‘I can put myself to bed but I
prefer
to be put to bed by my mummy.’

‘Has your mummy gone to the local too?’ inquired Margaret, giving Jane a hand (which Jane ignored) to help her out of the shelter.

‘No, she’s gone to say good-bye to my daddy,’ answered Claudia, looking suddenly grave. ‘He’s going Abroad.’

‘My daddy’s Abroad,’ said Edna, who was a cheerful little thing with bobbed hair and a missing front tooth, ‘in Italy.’

‘I’ll give you a hand, Claudia,’ said Margaret, wondering what time she herself would get to bed and if there would be any of the evening left after ‘
all were safely gathered in
.’ ‘If you’d like me to, that is?’

‘Thank you very much, if you would kindly plait my hair, I can’t manage it yet,’ said Claudia, shaking back her mane.

The next hour was occupied in supervising the washing of faces, and hearing prayers and tucking people up and dealing firmly with Claudia, who tried to start a conversation on the difference between a Tory and a Conservative which was evidently intended to keep Margaret by her bed until Margaret’s own hour for bed arrived. The latter found that her bedroom was in the middle of a nest of rooms where all the children slept, and as she tucked the last lot of bedclothes round the last child (who instantly thrust its feet out of bed, remarking, ‘My feet are simply
burning
’) she resigned herself to being aroused very early in the morning. As she came downstairs into the dining-hall an hour later, she was yawning, and wondering at what hour the household retired.

The hall was deserted and peaceful; the front door stood open, and through it there was a breath-taking glimpse of the orchard in the clear blue twilight, each tree spreading its white clouds of bloom above the dim green-blue grass, and all glimmering ethereally away in walks and dells wet with dew. There was not a sound; not a thrush singing, nor the last call of a blackbird,
not even a cricket chirrupping; and into the hall was stealing that chill, soaked in the scent of hidden dew, that comes on May evenings, and is the very touch of Spring’s young hand.

There was a faint smell of burnt jam issuing from the kitchen, but of the weedy young man, Irene, Lady Challis, and the rest, there was no sign. Margaret went over to the fireplace and saw that the mass of delicate ashes in it masked a red glow, and as she was shivering, she ventured to put on some forest-wood that was stacked in the hearth, and soon the flames were playing prettily.

While she was warming herself, lonely and content, she became aware of distant voices making remarks which suggested that someone was about to set out on a bicycle for Cambridge, and presently the sounds mounted to a crescendo of farewells, then died away. There was a brief silence; then out of the jamperfumed passage Lady Challis appeared, dressed in an old house-coat, and came slowly across the hall towards the fire. Margaret’s heart beat faster. Would the wonderful talk now take place? But somehow she only wanted Lady Challis to rest, because she looked so tired.

‘That’s right, I’m glad you put some wood on, it gets so cold in the evenings,’ remarked Lady Challis absently, pulling up a chair and sitting down with a sigh. ‘I’ve just been seeing him off to Cambridge, poor dear.’

After a respectful pause Margaret said:

‘I hope he hasn’t had bad news?’ (The weedy young man, she presumed.)

‘Oh, no. No worse than usual. There’s always his father, of course – but we won’t go into that. No, when I said
poor
dear, I only meant I was sorry for him as one is for a beetle, don’t you know?’

Margaret said nothing, and Lady Challis leant back and shut her eyes. The twilight slowly deepened and the firelight began to throw shadows on the ceiling. Not a sound came from outside, and the house was still. Now and then Margaret quietly put a fresh stick on the fire and the fragrance of wood-smoke crept out on the air like the spirit of the house taking its evening walk. She hoped very much that Lady Challis was resting, and then became so lost in her own vague dreams that she was startled when Lady Challis remarked from behind the fingers that were shading her face:

‘In the five years that I have lived here, only two people of your age have sat in silence with me, and not started talking about themselves. One of them is you.’

Margaret glowed, and murmured something.

‘And I know you’ve got lots to say,’ went on Lady Challis sleepily, ‘haven’t you?’

‘Masses!’ answered Margaret, quietly but emphatically.

‘Well, some day you shall. Not this time, I expect, because you’ll be busy with the children, but you must come down by yourself one week-end later on, and then you shall talk and I will listen and try to help you.’

‘Oh –!’ breathed Margaret. ‘
Thank
you.’

‘I mean it. You telephone one Friday and say you’re coming, and I will be ready to listen. Now I don’t expect I shall say another word to you while you’re here, what with one thing and another, but don’t go and get all hurt and disappointed, because I always keep my word; you ask the children. Ah, here are the others.’

And she sat up, looking like an ageless spirit that had chosen to live in a wrinkled skin under silver hair; and the rest of the party came in from the local, ready to crowd round the fire and
remark on its pleasantness. Among them Margaret was surprised to see Gerard Challis; surely
he
had not been to the local too? But it transpired that he had, and had caused some respectful mirth among his juniors by bringing out a volume of Plato and reading it at a solitary table while he drank his one beer. He now lingered by the open door, apart from the gay group round the fire, gazing out into the orchard where it was almost dark, and the spell of his personal beauty so enchanted her that she found it difficult to keep from watching him.

At that moment he shut the door on the sweet darkness outside, and came over to the group beside the fire, where two of the more sophisticated young mothers made room for him, the ingenuous ones being too much in awe of his reputation to indicate that he should sit beside them. The rest of the evening passed pleasantly in gossip and laughter, and the drinking of tea, and Margaret was able to feel herself at home at least with one or two members of the party; but her only hope, so far as
he
was concerned, was a fervent one that he would not notice her any more during the week-end.