Children of the Archbishop (71 page)

“What's this you've been telling Dame Eleanor about Ginger?” she demanded.

A half-smile crossed Sweetie's face.

“Oh nothing. Just that I'd like to see him again.”

“Can't you think of anything but Ginger? You promised to forget all about him.”

“You can't forget people just by promising.”

“But why do you have to bother about him so much?”

“Because I like him, I suppose,” Sweetie answered.

Margaret was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, she was quieter, gentler.

“You'll have to forget him sometime,” she said. “You'll want to get married yourself, one day, and then you'll spend all your time thinking about the man you're going to marry. And he won't be a bit like Ginger either. Don't you see, things can't never be the same again. If Ginger came here now he wouldn't know you.”

“I bet he would.”

“He wouldn't. You're different now.”

“Well, anyhow, I'd know him.”

Margaret paused.

“But can't you see,” she began again, “you'll meet lots of other people now. Nice people; people Dame Eleanor would like you to marry. Not people of Ginger's class.”

“Well, it's my class, too, isn't it?”

Margaret did not answer.

“If you don't do nothing that's silly,” she said, “you can be a lady for the rest of your life.”

Sweetie shrugged her shoulders.

“There's no fun in being a lady if you've got to be bossed about all the time,” she answered.

“You're an ungrateful girl, that's what you are,” Margaret told her. “You just think of nobody but yourself.”

“You said just now I only think about Ginger.” Sweetie swung round suddenly. “Where is he, anyhow?”

Margaret flushed.

“I don't know,” she said. “And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you.”

“I can find out.”

“That you can't.”

“I'll write to Canon Mallow. He knows where all the old boys are.”

“And he won't tell you because I'll warn him. I'll get Dame Eleanor to say that you're not to be told, not on no account.”

Sweetie threw her head back.

“I shall find out soon enough when I want to,” she said. “As soon as I'm ready I shall write and ask him to come here. I'll invite him. Dame Eleanor'll let me if I ask her. You can't stop that. She likes me better than she likes you.”

Margaret got up and stood in front of Sweetie. She was pale and her hands trembled.

“I'm sorry I ever troubled about you,” she said. “I'm sorry I didn't leave you to go into service. It's all you're fit for. You're just cheap and mean. Coming here and playing on an old lady's feelings …”

Sweetie drew in her breath sharply. She was calmer than Margaret.

“You got no right to say such things,” she said. “You aren't anybody. You're just one of the servants …”

It was then, to Sweetie's great surprise, that Margaret smacked her face.

It came as a complete shock to everybody when Canon Mallow suddenly announced that he wanted to get rid of Miss Britt.

There had been no warning of any kind: no open clashes of authority; no rows; not even any sign of bickering. Canon Larkin, in particular, was entirely unprepared for it. He had just resigned his position on the Parochial Schools Central Finance Committee in order to succeed Dame Eleanor as the new Chairman of Bodkin's, and he was looking forward to an orgy of statistical analysis. Already he was a step or two ahead of Dr. Trump. Dr. Trump had merely been concerned with seeing the ha'pence come out right: Canon Larkin was intent on breaking everything down into man-hours. Man-hours are the secret of everything, one of England's leading industrialists had told him.

Then, on Canon Larkin's very first day in the new job, Canon Mallow delivered his ultimatum. Either Miss Britt went or he would have to go himself, he insisted. Canon Mallow was very nice about it, of course; he didn't want to put anybody to any trouble. He even offered to stay on until the end of the term whichever way the vote of the Board might happen to go. And when Canon Larkin asked him what had led him to arrive at his irrevocable decision, Canon Mallow was unable to give any very satisfactory reply. It was simply, he said, that he felt that the Hospital needed someone who was warmer with the children; someone who didn't talk so much like a text-book, and cared for human beings for their own sakes. Someone, in short, who had a heart.

All that he did was to stick to his story: “… it doesn't matter so much about the qualifications,” he persisted, “so long as she's a human being. There's no actual harm, I suppose, in vegetarianism: I'd just rather not, if you follow me. And I don't think kissing the little ones is wrong: I believe it's good for them. The children here might just as well be so many tadpoles the way that Miss Britt looks after them …”

But by then bigger things were happening at the Archbishop
Bodkin Hospital. Mr. Prevarius had been cited as co-respondent in the divorce case of Twiddle versus Twiddle. And here Canon Larkin had felt compelled to act immediately. There was no hesitation. Scandal of any kind, and more particularly scandal connected with divorce was anathema to him. As soon as he saw the paragraph in the evening paper—“TOP HIT-WRITER CITED” was the heading—he sent for Mr. Prevarius. And he was brutal. A more massive personality than Dr. Trump, he was also more commanding.

“Unclean,” he said loudly and menacingly as soon as he had heard all the circumstances. “Distinctly unclean. Mr. Prevarius, you must leave us. We have no further need of your services. You may go to-night. Must go to-night, in fact. You positively shall go.”

The speed of the dismissal was all deliberate and pre-determined. Above all things, Canon Larkin wanted to act before Canon Mallow's natural kindness of heart, his gentleness, could begin complicating matters.

Nor was there any appeal elsewhere. Mr. Prevarius, in fact, was finished. A ruined man, broken in spirit, not daring to look anyone in the eye, he crept out of the big Gothic gate and made his way back miserably to the mews-flat that he had taken, after he had been humiliatingly turned out of Deirdre Gardens by the outraged Miss Lewises. And even the magic of knowing that Desirée would be there in the mews waiting for him, in a complete set of salmon pink negligée that he had just bought her, seemed somehow to have evaporated.

But it was not the fact that he had been cited under his own name—apparently the musk rat in the shabby bowler had been a veritable Javert among detectives—that haunted him. It was the truth about Desirée's name that hurt.

There was something so silly, so damn silly, he could not help feeling, about being cited by an injured husband called Twiddle. If it had really been “Manners” which is what Desirée had first told him, Mr. Prevarius would not have minded half so much. And there was still the danger that the other ridiculous name, McTurk, would come popping up again.

Twiddle and McTurk: Mr. Prevarius shuddered.

Dame Eleanor was too much preoccupied by her own affairs to care very much about Mr. Prevarius when Canon Mallow told her.

“They're mostly bad eggs, those organists,” she said cryptically. “You be careful who you get next time. Why not try a woman? There must be women who can play the organ. It's not hard work: it's all done by electricity nowadays.”

And with that she dismissed the matter from her mind. It was something legal, something to do with her will that was occupying her thoughts. Margaret knew that much. Mr. Thring had been out to the house twice already. And he was coming again this afternoon.

The meeting proved to be an unusually long one. Mr. Thring called immediately after lunch and by five o'clock he was still there. He was a large elderly man like a sedate, grizzled buffalo, and, by teatime, he looked as if Indians had been after him. His chief trouble lay in the fact that Dame Eleanor had asked him to come alone. She disliked, she said, having strange clerks and secretaries fussing about in her bedroom. In consequence, Mr. Thring had to be forced to write things down to her dictation. And this had not been easy. Dame Eleanor was not the woman she had been: her thoughts nowadays came in bolts and snatches rather than in a continuous stream. And, when she wasn't dictating, she was asking Mr. Thring to cross out what she had just said. At the end of three hours, Mr. Thring's pad looked as if he had been drawing maps of tube railways.

There was one little incident that left Margaret puzzled. It happened around teatime. Dame Eleanor had just rung for her to bring down the digitalis tablets, when Sweetie came in to pay her regular afternoon visit. But this time, for some reason, she appeared to have forgotten about the child entirely. She brought down the lid of the writing-case with a bang and told Sweetie to go away again.

“Outside with you, miss,” she said. “Out you go. All in good time. We don't want you here now.”

It was all so sudden and unexpected that Margaret looked up startled. Had something gone wrong she wondered anxiously. Had Sweetie been rude to Dame Eleanor? Had they quarrelled? But it was all over as quickly as it had begun. For as soon as Sweetie had got to the door, Dame Eleanor called her back again; right
back. Made her come over to her chair, in fact. And, when she was within arm's reach, she pulled her down and kissed her.

“My little Sweetie doesn't understand,” she said. “But how could she? This is my secret, not hers. Not yet. Now say how d'you do to Mr. Thring, and then run away and leave us. We're very busy, aren't we, Mr. Thring? We've got our work to do.”

It was nearly a week later when Margaret understood. Mr. Thring was there again, and Dame Eleanor sent for Margaret. Spread out on the desk-flap was a document bound in red tape, and with little red seals upon it.

“Come in,” Dame Eleanor told her. “I want to talk to you. It's about Sweetie.” She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “Have you ever wondered what would become of Sweetie if anything happened to me?” she asked.

Margaret nodded.

“I have,” she said. “Often. I've been worried about it.”

The answer was just what Dame Eleanor had wanted to hear: she smiled contentedly.

“Well, you needn't worry any more,” she said. “We've seen to all that. She's been provided for. Well provided for. Our Sweetie's a very fortunate young lady, isn't she, Mr. Thring?”

Mr. Thring nodded gloomily. There had been so many changes that it was difficult to remember precisely how fortunate Sweetie really was.

But Dame Eleanor was not bothering about Mr. Thring. She had kept her eyes fixed on Margaret's face while she was speaking. There was no change of expression there, however: it was the same smooth, placid face that Dame Eleanor had always known. And the far-off look in the eyes vexed Dame Eleanor.

“Well, aren't you going to say anything?” she asked sharply.

There was a pause.

“I'm too happy,” Margaret told her. “Really I am. There isn't anything I can say. It's all so good of you.”

She put up her hand and brushed away the tears that had come suddenly into her eyes. The gesture satisfied Dame Eleanor: she gave the same contented smile that she had given when she had shown Sweetie her room. But a moment later she drew her lips in. That was because the thumpetty-THUMP-thump of her heart was just starting. She had been talking too much. And she had to be careful. If she were snuffed out now she wouldn't have achieved anything. She beckoned to Margaret to come nearer.

“And … and there's something for you, too, dear,” she said. “That's only fair. If it hadn't been for you I should never have met Sweetie. Besides, I want you to stand by her. Sweetie's one of the family now. If I go first there must be someone to look after her, someone who cares. And you've always seemed so fond of her. …”

Sweetie was improving steadily. Dame Eleanor had put Sweetie's hair into the hands of a good hairdresser, and he had got some shape into it. But her eyelashes, without any help from a hairdresser, were every bit as good as her hair. And her eyes, deep and dark as a Madonna's, were really remarkable. The photograph of Sweetie that now stood on Dame Eleanor's dressing-table showed what magnificent eyes they were.

What was more important, however, was that Sweetie had outgrown her earlier restlessness. Even Margaret could see that she was settling down. It must have been a year at least since she had so much as mentioned Ginger. There were, of course, sudden crazes, sillinesses: she wanted to travel; run a riding-school; become a mannequin; be an air-hostess. But that is the kind of thing to be expected when a girl is getting on for eighteen.

And the real trouble was that she hadn't any friends. Dame Eleanor had done her best for her. She had invited some very nice girls from Cheltenham and Roedean. But it was no use. They wore the same kind of clothes; had the same manners; spoke with the same voices even, now that Sweetie had been given elocution lessons. There, however, it stopped. They had nothing, apparently, in common. It was all too plain that Sweetie wasn't very much interested in girls.

And, as for Dame Eleanor, she wasn't very much interested in young men; not for the present, at least. She changed her mind suddenly because of the young men whom Sweetie was meeting at her dancing-class. It was a thoroughly select dancing-class, with none but the nicest young men attending it. But Dame
Eleanor decided that they were probably neither select nor nice enough. Slowly, carefully, she began admitting a trickle of young men of her own choosing. They arrived at The Cedars, pink, awkward, polite, self-conscious. They had the air of having been to Cheltenham or Roedean themselves.

And Sweetie despised the lot of them.

Dame Eleanor was secretly relieved. It was not that she wanted to keep Sweetie to herself for ever. On the contrary, she derived obvious pleasure from the thought that Sweetie would get married soon and have children of her own. It was the natural order of things, she kept telling herself. And for her part it was something to look forward to, something that would make up for the gap in her own life. All that she wanted was to be certain that it should be the right young man. There was her money as well as Sweetie's happiness to be considered. But they were absolutely interlocked, she could see that. She felt convinced, too, that if she could find someone who was worthy of the money, Sweetie's happiness would follow automatically.