Flowers on the Grass (9 page)

That was not the only night Doris had to help Mr. Brett off with his clothes, although it was the only night she did it in her dressing-gown. He was getting worse, but the worse he became the more she got used to him, so the more she put up with. She did not mind what she said to him. He was not like one of the other guests. He was just Mr. Brett in No. 4, and to be treated accordingly.

Sometimes he refused to get up and go to the art school. “You’ll lose that job,” Doris told him, dusting round the room. She would come back and make the bed later.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’ll get another.”

“Oh, will you?” said Doris, who liked to lecture him. “And what about references, pray?”

“I write my own,” he said. “That’s how I got this job.”

“That’s dishonest,” Doris said.

“Yes.”

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke that pipe in bed.” She nagged at his reflection while she dusted the dressing-table. “You’ll set yourself on fire one of these days and burn to death; that’s if you haven’t already drunk yourself to death first.”

“When I do, they’ll say of me in the lounge: ‘I can’t understand it. He was always so charming,’ like they do when a murderer is taken away. It will give them something to talk about for weeks. That can cancel out my unpaid bills.”

“Mr. Brett,” said Doris, turning round, “do you owe Mrs. P. money?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but I shall soon. I’m what is known as living beyond my means. I ought to find somewhere cheaper.”

That gave Doris a turn. It would be funny to have someone in No. 4 who went in and out by the front door. “I’ve brought two pair of socks back,” she said, putting them in the drawer. “The others were like colanders, not worth wasting wool on.”

She did not tell Jimmie about darning Mr. Brett’s socks, nor, of course, about undressing him. She did not mention Mr. Brett to him at all. This was not unusual, for she hardly
ever talked to Jimmie about the guests. On her half days and evenings, when she went to see him, she liked to get right away from the Lothian. Sometimes they stayed at his home and had tea or supper with his mother and sister. Sometimes she and Jimmie went for a walk. At least, Doris walked, and pushed Jimmie, who had been crippled in his legs since birth.

She had known him all her life. They had been engaged now for five years and were going to be married when Doris had put by enough out of her wages at the Lothian. She would have to go on working after they were married, for Jimmie could only do part-time work at the electrical factory, but if they could ever find a flat or a prefab Mrs. P. had said that Doris could live out and go in by the day. She would not have liked leaving the Lothian after all these years. It would be funny not to be there any more, almost like leaving home.

Jimmie’s mother said that she didn’t think it right for a cripple to marry, but Doris thought she was jealous of losing him after looking after him all this time. She saw nothing wrong in marrying a cripple. Even if they could not have children, they could always get themselves a nice dog. Often, when his mother was out, she had to do things for Jimmie. That was why it was nothing for her to undress Mr. Brett; but all the same, she did not tell Jimmie about him. Nor did she tell Mr. Brett about Jimmie. He never asked about her private affairs, so why should she tell him?

Tea in the Lothian lounge on Sundays was quite an occasion. Everybody was there, and there was fruit cake as well as toasted Sally Lunns, and sometimes chocolate biscuits, to stop the guests questioning what became of their points. Mrs. P. did not want a repetition of the tiresome affair last summer when Miss Willys, who had been advised by her doctor to eat raw prunes, had demanded her ration book so that she could buy them herself. When it was explained to her that her points had been spent long ago on golden syrup and tinned salmon, Miss Willys had retorted that whoever saw tinned salmon in this hotel it certainly wasn’t her, and that she, who took salt on her porridge, would henceforth regard her fellow-guests pouring treacle on theirs as, in effect, snatching the prunes from her very mouth.

It had blown over. They had all had salmon croquettes
two Sundays running, and Miss Willys settled down again into the best armchair, ruffled but quiescent.

She was not quiescent today, however. While Doris and Daphne were setting out the tea-things on the side table, Miss Willys was having a carry-on in the monotonous, running tone with which she had before now driven guests out of the lounge with their heads humming.

“Feet!” she was saying. “Feet over my head, last night, and then again this morning while I was washing before dinner. It’s not the first time either, I may tell you. I’ve seemed to hear footsteps; and I tell you, when one suffers from migraine, that kind of thing doesn’t help.”

They all murmured sympathetically, for they had learned by now that if they did not oblige at first Miss Willys would go on plugging her migraine until they did.

Mr. Brett, who was sitting on a stool by the fire, hitched himself nearer to Miss Willys. “Go on,” he said, looking up at her like “The Boyhood of Raleigh”, which hung on the wall of the lounge. “This is thrilling.”

Doris looked hard at him through her thick spectacles, but he would not look at her.

“It may seem so to you, Mr. Brett,” said Miss Willys, “and I must admit that now you make me feel quite an adventuress, but I tell you frankly I was cold as marble with fear last night, literally as marble. I quite thought a man was trying to get into my room.”

“Thought or hoped?” muttered Daphne, who never realised what a carrying whisper she had. Doris hustled her out to fetch the tea and hot water. She was not sorry to get out of the room herself. It made her feel hot all over to see Mr. Brett sitting there as cool as you please.

She did not think Miss Willys would mention it to Mrs. P., for they had never been on much more than good-morning terms since the affair of the prunes, but one of the other guests might. Mr. Finck was being very interested when Doris came back to pour the tea. The tip of his nose was waggling like a semaphore and he was even talking of setting up a patrol to watch the back roof at night. Mr. Dangerfield had declined to join him, but Mr. Brett was enthusiastic. There was a nerve for you. Doris would have to tell him off about it later.

Mr. Brett, however, chose to stay out all night again. When Doris took in his morning tea, with a lecture prepared,
there was his bed turned down just as she had left it, with his pyjamas and slippers laid out, and the food she had left for the dog congealing on the tiles before the gas fire. Doris put the plate into the bottom of the wardrobe, and tucked in the bed and pulled up the counterpane, to look as if Mr. Brett was already up and out. When Mrs. P. enquired for him before she served the breakfast kedgeree, Doris surprised herself by saying that he was taking an early class at the school and would breakfast out. She was so little practised in telling lies, for she had seldom had anything to conceal before, that she was quite pleased to find how successfully she achieved this one.

Mrs. P. said no more. She had given up wishing that Mr. Brett would tell her when he was going to be out for meals, and was considering a new wording of the notice about Felicity to cover this. If she did, Mr. Brett would be the first guest to cause a whole new set of cards to be printed and tacked up. He could say that for himself, thought Doris.

He stayed away another night, and again Doris had to tell a lie at breakfast. Mr. Parker, overhearing her doing it, remarked: “What an energetic, industrious young man he seems to be.”

“He will go far,” said Miss Willys. “You mark my words. He has the same phrenological traits as my brother had. I used to read heads, you know.”

Someone asked her if she had been bothered with any more footsteps, and when she said no, Doris was terrified that they might put two and two together. Although she was relieved when they did not, she felt a little scornful of them, too, for the dumb lot they were. It had never struck her before just how dumb, but now, seeing them sitting there like sheep, meekly swallowing their potato cakes, which were half cold again this morning, Doris was suddenly filled with despair at the thought that there was no reason why they should not stay on and on here for ever, until they or she died.

Oh well, never mind. Mr. Brett would be back this evening. That would liven things up. She would tell him what they had said about him. That would make him laugh. Energetic! They ought to see him as she did, laid out on his bed half sozzled and half asleep.

He did not come back for supper that night, but after supper came a strange visitor for Mrs. P. When Doris answered the doorbell and saw the woman in the black old-fashioned
dress and crazy hat, she thought she had seen the white moon face before, although she could not think where.

“What name shall I say?” But the name was not familiar.

She showed her into Mrs. P.’s sitting-room, and soon after, while Doris and Daphne and Ferdie were having their supper, Mrs. P.’s bell rang with its own brisk buzz so different from the other bells, although they were all on the same circuit. Ferdie swore, although it was not he who would have to answer it. Daphne swore, too, which Doris did not like in a girl of her age. She liked it even less that Daphne was so lazy. She created so much about going up to answer the bell that it was simpler to go oneself.

“Put the coffee back on the stove,” she called over her shoulder. “No doubt the visitor wants a cup.”

If the visitor wanted coffee, she was not getting any. She and Mrs. P. were sitting as far away from each other as the arrangement of the chairs in the small room allowed. Mrs. P. had on the cold face she reserved for guests who did really bad things like dropping shaving-cream jars into the basin and cracking the porcelain.

“Mrs. Whistler wishes to go. Please show her out,” she said, and it sounded to Doris as if she meant: Throw her out.

“Ah-ha!” The visitor’s little black eyes fastened on Doris. “That’s the person. There she is.” Doris stood stock still, frowning, mystified. “That’s the person I’ve seen looking out of the window, standing there as bold as brass.”

“Naturally,” said Mrs. P., “she might be seen at any window of this hotel, since she is head chambermaid here.”

Head chambermaid! thought Doris. That was a good one. What was Daphne then—the tail? You had to hand it to Mrs. P. She did know how to lay it on when she got swanky.

Mrs. Whistler, however, was unimpressed. “Oh, don’t tell me,” she cried. “You try and make this out a respectable house, but I’ve had my eye on you for years. I haven’t wasted my time.”

“I’m sure you haven’t,” said Mrs. P. smoothly.

“You ask her.” Mrs. Whistler pointed a glove with holes in the fingertips at Doris. “You ask her if a man doesn’t go in and out of one of your back bedrooms by the roof.”

Doris knew now what it meant when people in books wished the earth would open and swallow them up, although if the floor of Mrs. P.’s sitting-room did that, it would land her
on top of the knife machine in the boot hole. “I don’t understand,” she hedged. “What is being talked about?”

“It’s hardly worth repeating,” said Mrs. P., “and I certainly don’t want it passed on outside these walls, but this Mrs. Whistler”—her pronunciation of the “h” made the name sound an insult—“comes to me with some preposterous fol-de-rol about a man climbing in the window of that second-floor room at the back.”

“Oh—oh—you mean Miss Rawlings’s room,” lied Doris wildly.

“No, no.” Mrs. P. tapped her foot and frowned. “Hers looks to the front. You know that. No, this must be No. 4 she’s talking about. Why, that’s Mr. Brett’s room! There you see-” She swept triumphantly round on Mrs. Whistler, who stood her ground, nodding her great head grimly. “You see—all your innuendoes, and that’s a gentleman’s room your precious apparition is supposed to be visiting.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Whistler, hitching her voluminous dress up in front of her in a satisfied way, and chewing on her gums, “that makes it even worse, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. P. pretended not to know what she was talking about, but strode to the door, flung it open and bade Mrs. Whistler go before she called the police, which dramatic scene was deeply appreciated by Curtis Lewin, who was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs trying to think of something to do.

Although Mrs. P. was in a tremendous state of affront, she could not resist going up to see from which house Mrs. Whistler had been spying.

“Is Mr. Brett home yet?”

Doris made a mental review of the room—dog plate inside the wardrobe, whiskey bottles on top, tooth-glass washed—yes, Mrs. P. could safely go in.

They went into No. 4 together, just in time to see a dark bulk silhouetted half in and half out of the window, dragging after it a lesser bulk which let out a small yelp. Mrs. P. switched on the light with a click like a rifle shot, and Mr. Brett gave a yelp himself and fell from the window-sill to the floor with the dog on top of him.

Doris had got to go. The guests knew that, although they did not know why. They only knew that all day she had gone
about with a face like cheese, taking off her glasses if anyone said a kindly word, to scrub at her eyes.

When Mr. Brett came home that evening, by the front door, with his hands in his pockets, moodily, without the dog, Doris was laying the tables for supper, the cruets swimming in the mist that had kept steaming up her glasses all day. When she saw him go past the door, she rattled a fork against a plate, and he turned, looked in and came to her.

“You look rough,” she said.

“I am. What is it about the seaside that’s so depressing? You don’t look so hot yourself.”

Doris turned her face away. “I’ve got my notice.”

“Because of me? Because of the dog?” he asked incredulously.

Doris nodded, dumbly straightening Mr. Dangerfield’s pudding spoon and fork.

“Good God!” said Mr. Brett. “Where is the old——?”

He used another word that Doris did not care to hear, but this time she did not mind.

“In her sitting-room—oh, but you can’t go in now. She’s having her quiet time.”

“I’ll rowdy it up for her,” said Mr. Brett, and left Doris palpitating.