Alfred and Emily (8 page)

There would have been something to show for it, whereas now she kept thinking: But that wasn't me, surely. Was it really me in that nice house that took up so much of my attention?

At lunch-time Mary brought in the child, for some little mess or other, and Emily was offered plates of this and that. Mary hardly ate. ‘She will have a nap now,' she said. ‘Well, a small child certainly does tell you your limitations.'

The child went with Mary to her bedroom, and Emily, glancing in, saw that both were asleep.

She went out into the lane, which had not changed, and she wandered along past clumps of daffodils and narcissi till she saw a big field, which she remembered. But it was full of noisy children running about, and then she saw a man she associated with cricket. Yes, that was Alfred Tayler and he was instructing what seemed like hundreds of children of various sizes, boys and girls, in the ways of cricket. Emily sat down, where she had before, under the oaks, to watch. It was all very noisy and energetic and when the cricket ball arrived near her feet, a much earlier Emily jumped up and threw the ball back towards the man, who caught it, with a laugh and little bow.
Soon he came over, and said, ‘I am sure I know you. But I am confused. That skirt…'

‘I am wearing Mary Lane's clothes,' said Emily. ‘I came down on an impulse and didn't bring the right things.'

‘Oh, yes,' said Alfred. ‘I see. I heard from Mary that you've had bad luck.'

Well, that was a way of putting it.

‘Yes, my husband died.'

‘That is very sad. I'm sorry.'

‘I've seen you playing cricket before, long ago.'

‘Not so long, surely,' said Alfred, gallantly, as two boys came running up. ‘These are Tom and Michael,' said Alfred. The two loud, excited boys were tugging their father away, back to the cricket pitch.

Alfred ran, the boys chasing him.

Could I have done that? wondered Emily. The boys were likeable lads, both dark and lean: like their father, she supposed.

She sat on, watching until Alfred came running back to say that tomorrow, if she liked, he would be doing sports with the children over there. There, she could see, were two workmen pushing a heavy roller each.

Alfred went running off, surrounded by the children.

The cottages and houses of the Redway farm were full of children. Emily went back to the Lanes' to find a heavily pregnant woman taking the child by the hand to lead her away from Mary.

‘No, it does me good to walk,' she said, though she was scarlet and perspiring and full of discomfort, Emily could see.

A dark woman, but it was not possible to see what she would look like when not pregnant.

‘I'm glad it's not long to go for her,' said Mary. ‘Being in the family way isn't poor Phyllis's line at all.'

And now, until suppertime, Mary told Emily about how ‘everyone' was concerned that any troubles Phyllis might have would start Bert off drinking again. ‘That is the problem, you see.'

What interested Emily was the ‘everyone'. And when Harold came back from the bank he too joined in, with how Alfred's wife was wonderful with Bert, no one knew what could have happened if Betsy hadn't been so good with Bert, because there was a time when everyone thought he was going straight towards the DTs.

Again Harold went off to the room he called his lair, and Mary said she was at her wit's end, there were mice again in the storeroom and really she thought that Mrs. Mew – the cat – wasn't earning her keep.

This house had been a farmhouse once, before it was absorbed by others, which collectively now wanted to be called a village. At the back there was a pantry, with marble shelves, where stood bowls of cream and milk, cheeses, ranks of eggs, slabs of yellow butter. Off that was the storeroom, with sacks of oats, flour, sugar, and on the floor piles of potatoes and onions, covered from the light.

Here, Mary mourned, a family of mice left their droppings on the floor and even in the pantry.

The provisions of the storeroom, the pantry, were attractive to Emily, contrasting them with the tight, orderly shelves in her house in London where food arrived, delivered every day.

Mary said, ‘Oh, Emily, I'm sorry. I'm off to bed. I know you must be feeling neglected.'

‘It's enough to be here,' said Emily, thinking that with Mary just there, a yard or so away, it was indeed enough. But she would have liked very much to go with Mary to the kitchen for a good old-fashioned unhurried chat.

‘You're not one to be knocked off course so easily,' said Mary, after a close look at Emily's forlorn face. ‘You're all right.' And she went off to bed.

With that Emily had to be satisfied, but she lingered a while in the storeroom. Mrs. Mew wandered in, like a visitor, just as if she did not know more was expected of her, and sat staring indifferently at a little hole in the corner, which Emily supposed must be a mousehole.

She drank cocoa. Now, when had she last done that? Yes, it was at Daisy's: they had been drinking cocoa last thing at night all through their training, and when Emily went to visit her.

Emily went to bed and thought that she had been here not two full days and was already feeling promptings of remorse about her listless state. She was not one to be knocked off course, had said Mary. Well, she had been, knocked down, knocked to pieces. And what
was
her course?

The next day the little girl came again to be with Mary, and Emily went off in the afternoon to watch the children with two men, one the energetic, always-on-the-move Alfred, and a tall, lazy, shambling fellow she supposed was the famous Bert. She sat away a little distance, hiding from the chilly spring airs in Mary's fur coat, which she suspected was rabbit, nothing like the sleek black moleskin of her own town coat.

There would be a big sports day tomorrow for the children of the area, and Emily planned to be there, but next day Phyllis called for Mary, saying she felt some pains but did not know if these were real birth pains but please would kind Mary…

Emily was left with Josie in the little conservatory, or semi-outdoors room. Josie showed she was well used to liking all kinds of different adults by liking Emily, at once climbing on her lap and expecting to be rocked and held.

Emily was thinking, amazed, But I've done all this, it's not true that I am useless at it. Of course, she had loved doing her stint during training in the children's wards. Sister Emily McVeagh had loved children – so it had gone – and Josie was being held in practised arms.

But then there was the day ahead, and Emily had to entertain the child, who expected it.

The cat wandered in. Josie knew and liked it. The cat wandered out.

‘Where is she going?' asked Josie, and this casual enquiry began it all: everything in Emily's new life began just then.

‘I think she is going to the storeroom. There are mice there.'

‘Yes, pussies love mice,' mused this country child. ‘Poor mice. Well, I hope she doesn't find them.'

‘I think these mice must be clever. They have been living in the storeroom for some time.'

‘But the cat is bigger than they are.'

‘But they are clever,' said Emily. ‘They hide when she chases them.'

‘I wonder where they hide?'

‘Mr. Lane leaves his outdoor boots in the storeroom. I expect they hide in those.'

‘Yes, and the cat can't get into the boots, can she?'

‘No, the mice creep right down into the toes and wait until the cat goes off and they can creep out.'

‘I wonder what the mice like to eat best?'

‘I think, cats.'

‘And cheese,' said the child. ‘I like cheese.'

‘Let's look and see.' And Emily and Josie went to the storeroom. On the way the child picked up Mrs. Mew, who remained limp until they reached there, when she energetically twisted free and ran off back to her chair.

Emily and Josie surveyed the plenty of the pantry. The eggs rose up a wall on their racks, and Josie said, ‘I think a mouse would like to eat the eggs, but how would it get through the shells?'

‘A clever mouse would push an egg off and it would crash on the floor and then all the mice could gather around and eat it.'

‘Look, there are Mr. Lane's boots. If the egg fell into a boot
I expect Mr. Lane would be cross with the mice.'

‘Or suppose Mr. Lane put on a boot and found something wriggling down at the end, and he said, Who is that nibbling at my toe?'

Josie found this hilarious and flung herself on to the floor to laugh.

Back in the little room where her toys were, she ignored them and said, ‘Tell me some more about the mice.'

And then began the epic tales of the mice, their adventures with the stores, the eggs, the cheese, the cat…Emily had had no idea she could do this, keep up the invention of storytelling as long as the child said, ‘And then? What happened then?'

Mary Lane came back, said that Phyllis was probably going into labour but the midwife was coming. She heard some of Emily's inventions and, like the child, said, ‘Do go on, Emily.'

And Emily went on.

Next morning, a little friend of Josie's came with her to spend the day with Mary Lane and both at once clamoured for ‘A story – tell us about the mice.'

The children could not get enough of the mice and their adventures, of Mrs. Mew and hers, and then there were the birds in the branches, visible through the windows on to the garden.

‘More!' chanted the children.

Mary sat in a rocking-chair in a corner and smiled, and said again, ‘Emily, you are so good at it. Where do you get all these ideas from?'

‘I don't know,' said Emily.

More children came. They crowded into the little room and Mary provided milk and cake and apples.

Then some bigger children arrived, among them Alfred's boys, but would they be satisfied with the adventures and ordeals of mice and blackbirds?

Emily widened her repertoire to include the many dogs of the farm, as well as the cats, the rabbits that could often be observed from these very windows. She found herself enquiring from Harold and Mary about the habits of ferrets, foxes and badgers. Then a message came from Mr. Redway, brought by the boys, that he would be obliged if she could go there and confirm that Tom really did have some musical talent, which was what his teacher had said.

Along went Emily through the fields, and found Mr. Redway, Mrs. Redway, Alfred, a pretty fat woman, who was Betsy, and the two boys.

There was a good grand piano in the Redways' sitting-room: all the farmhouses and cottages had uprights. The children sang easily and without shyness, and snatches of music were part of the storytelling.

Tom stood by the piano as she played, watched by the family, and Emily put him through his paces, said, ‘Yes, your teacher is right. He should have music lessons.'

‘That can be arranged,' said Mr. Redway at once.

‘I don't know where he gets it from,' said Betsy. ‘Not from me.'

‘It's my father,' said Alfred. ‘The child's grandfather. I think he has spent his life in that church, playing the organ.'

Messages were coming to the Lanes for Emily, from all kinds of parents, asking her to come and judge their off-spring's talents.

Meanwhile, the storytelling was going on, and every day there were more children.

‘They are hungry for it,' said Emily.

‘Starving for it,' said Mary. ‘And, so, what are you going to do, Emily?'

At this point Daisy came down to visit her parents, partly because Emily was there. She arrived at suppertime and the four went to the table.

Mary had been cooking all morning. ‘Daisy does like a nice bit of stew.' ‘She loves rice pudding, if it has some nutmeg.' Daisy's appetite had always been something for any mother to despair over, but Mary seemed to have forgotten that, and Emily held her peace.

Daisy's weekend case was smart and new and so was her jacket, and Emily thought, That's for the benefit of Rupert, then. Daisy didn't much care about smartness. Rupert was Daisy's fiancé, and almost before they sat down Harold said, ‘And when are we going to have the honour of meeting this chap of yours?'

Mary had met Rupert at a lunch in London, but Harold had only been told. ‘He's very nice,' Mary had reported, but there was a tone in her voice that meant more could have been said. ‘I thought of bringing him down for a weekend soon,' said

Daisy and Emily knew Daisy was carefully not saying how very busy her distinguished surgeon was.

Mary did go up to London to see Daisy and there had been shopping trips, and she had seen where Daisy worked, watched the life of the busy hospital, but she did not know what Daisy did, thought, or how she spent time off. Her experience had been so far from her daughter's yet she longed to know more. Her over-timid questions to Daisy were meant to provide information she could understand, even start discussion. Daisy did not like this probing and replied briefly.

The table was laden with hardly touched dishes, though Harold took second helpings, mostly to please Mary.

‘And I expect you girls will want to have your talk,' said Mary, and got up to light the candles on the sideboard. She was prepared to concede the usefulness of electric light, but she preferred lamplight and candles.

When Emily and Daisy went into the room Emily had been using, Daisy lit a candle beside her bed and Emily lit hers.

Daisy put on a nightdress with sleeves and a high neck, but Emily had pyjamas of dark blue, with scarlet piping. They sat up in bed and brushed their hair. Daisy had kept her coil of already greying fair hair, and Emily had a shingle. She had been saying to Mary that a shingle needed cutting once a week and she thought she'd give it up. The shingle and the bobs Emily's smart friends wore had begun because of the riots and civil wars that marked the end of the Hapsburgs. The insurgents and rebels wore very short hair. Turkey, falling into
the same chaos of rebellion, provided the fashionable world with coiffures supposed to be modelled on what people imagined of the seraglio.