South Riding (59 page)

“No—it’s all packed, but I had a happy thought. Why shouldn’t I deliver that and the Maythorpe and Cold Harbour parcels by car when we take Midge home tomorrow? It would save postage.”

“That’s certainly an idea.” She sat, her hands full of the newly arrived letters and packages, frowning.

“The Shacks. . . . Have you heard what’s happening there?”

“Mrs. Mitchell’s leaving. She’s going to have another baby.”

“Where’s she going?”

“Her mother. She’ll have her back if she separates from Mr. Mitchell.”

“Oh, poor things. But for the time being I suppose it’s the only thing. It seems a pity, though. I could have got her a nurse. . . .”

She turned her thoughts to the other residents at the Shacks.

“If only the new housing scheme goes through, Holly might get a job there . . . they might move into one of the new houses.”

She remembered how bitterly Carne opposed the housing scheme. The complexity of life assailed her.

Without eagerness she began to open the envelopes. She was tired. The burden of life lay heavily on her shoulders. She looked across the room at Sybil, on her knees by the sofa wrapping a parcel. She thought: She should have married. How have I failed there? She was cut out to be a wife and mother. She sighed.

“Here’s a card from old Dr. Menzies. Have we sent anything?”

Below it was an envelope marked “Crown Hotel, Piccadilly,” and addressed to her in Carne’s stiff squarish writing.

She opened that, frowning a little because Carne was not a correspondent, and she was expecting to see him next day when Midge returned to spend Christmas with her father.

“D
EAR
M
RS
. B
EDDOWS
,” she read—” I am writing to ask another favour of you.” He was almost the only man who used the long old-fashioned “
f
” for “s.” “I wonder if it would be very inconvenient to you to keep Midge on for Christmas? I know that she is very happy at Willow Lodge, and I fear that if she came to Maythorpe I could not give her the festive season which a child ought to have. Castle is very bad and things are not too good with me at present. I have been inquiring about accommodation here for my wife but have found nothing suitable.

“Your ever grateful friend,

“R
OBT
. C
ARNE
”

It was the longest letter that he had ever written her.

“Things are not too good with me.” Ah, well she knew it. Maythorpe mortgaged and the bank impatient, Snaith eager to buy the farm—for a mental home; Castle dying, Muriel no better. Carne had said that he would stick at Maythorpe till he was forced off; he had said that he could last another year; but she knew that he had gone to Manchester to inquire about employment at a riding school there. He’s too old, her heart cried. He’s too old for that.

She remembered other Christmases at Maythorpe. Once in her childhood she had attended a dance there, when Robert’s grandfather was master. She remembered the great decorated kitchen, with holly hung from the rafters among the salt-rimed shrouded hams and puddings, a fiddler on the back stairs, and a feast of cake and fruit and pastries, wine and whisky. Always there had been carol-singing on the drive, the square hall blazing with lights and pennies for the children. Until this year Robert had kept up some pretension of festivity. Now no more. He had cut down the timber except round the house itself; the rooms were untenanted by guests; the glory had departed.

Her only comfort was that in his extremity he could turn to her. He trusted her.

She held his letter, her longing to help and comfort him surging over her. “Things are not too good with me.” It was the nearest approach to a complaint she had ever heard him make.

“Granny,” Peter broke into her reverie, “you’re wanted in the kitchen. The turkey’s too big for the tin.”

“Let me go,” Sybil began.

“No. I will.”

Rousing herself, glad of the need for action, she levered her weary body from the deep chair, and hurried off.

As usual, she found twenty details requiring her attention. Sybil might manage the housekeeping with competence and order, but the final word always was her mother’s. It was nearly half an hour before she returned. The afternoon was waning, and the hall was almost dark. From the dining-room came a burst of light and laughter. It seemed to her, as she opened the door, to be full of people. A clamour of voices greeted her. Midge’s shrill wild laugh, Peter’s cackling shout (his voice was breaking), Wendy’s glad guffaw, and another voice—deep and vibrating—Carne’s voice.

While her hands and tongue were busy in the kitchen, she had been thinking of him with such love and sorrow that this unexpected re-encounter shocked her almost as though she had met a ghost. She had been thinking of his lonely Christmas, picturing him in the empty dining-room, eating his dinner alone with Muriel’s portrait; she had been grieving over him, wondering what she could do to help him.

And now she saw him, seated by her fire, the centre of a delighted and boisterous uproar.

She could hardly believe her eyes.

He had brought his presents—a party dress of flowered silk for Midge, a hunting crop for Peter, a bracelet for Sybil, for Wendy a scarf of painted chiffon, for Jim, a tie-pin with a fox’s head, and for Willie a shagreen cigarette-box.

Midge saw her. “Granny, come in. Come in! Look what Daddy’s brought me!” She danced up and down, the rosy silk fluttering like a banner. Carne turned slowly and rose to greet her. Seen between those flushed excited faces his big dark figure seemed of other, different substance. He looks ill, she thought; he looks old. She began to reckon his age and decided that he must be fifty-three. He looks sixty. Oh, my dear, my poor one, what have they done to you?

“You’ve not come to fetch Midge away after all?” she asked.

He shook his head. The child sprang up and down.

“Oh, Granny, do say it suits me? Does it fit? Peter, don’t crush it!”

“Look at my crop, Gran.”

“And look at this lovely thing.” Sybil held out a round, freckled arm with the gold bangle clasped on to it. Watching Carne’s grave appreciation as he looked down at her pleasure, Emma Beddows thought, not for the first time—Oh, if he were free and could have married Sybil.

She moved towards him and began to inspect the presents. At first she thought he had gone crazy with extravagance. Then she began to recognise one by one the bracelet, the scarf, the cigarette-box. These were his things and Muriel’s. The former make-believe that she would return to use them was at an end.

“You’ll stay for tea?”

“No. I’ve got to get back. Castle’s bad to-night. I’ve promised to go round there.”

“Then you’ll have a drink? Get him one, Sybil.”

“No, thank you very much.”

“Did you ride over?”

“No. I’ve got Hicks with the trap. I don’t want to keep the horse waiting too long.”

“Then I’ll come to the door with you.”

On her return from the kitchen, she had forgotten to remove her apron. Passing the mirror in the hall she saw reflected her plump, sturdy, plebeian figure beside his tall one, and sighed, desiring the impossible—that she could be young and lovely and desirable, that she could comfort him in his adversity.

He said, “Is it really all right about Midge?”

“Perfect for us, but you’ll miss her.”

“I shall be all right.”

“Look here, why don’t you come and eat your dinner with us?”

“I’ve promised to stand by Mrs. Castle—”

“But . . .” she saw his resolution and changed the subject “How d’you think Midge is looking?”

“Splendid. This is the place for her. I—well—I wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

She had opened the door. Its oblong was filled with the pale star-flecked radiance of the green evening sky. Hicks was leading his trap up and down the road outside the gate, its yellow lights crossing and turning beyond the dark laurel hedge. Carne leaned against the door-post. She saw fatigue in all his slow calm gestures.

“I’ve been talking to my solicitors this morning,” he said, “and I want to ask you a tremendous favour. Don’t answer now. Think it over. If anything happened to me, would you be Midge’s guardian?”

“But my dear boy! I’m seventy-two—old enough to be your mother.”

“I dare say. But you’re young enough in some ways to be my daughter,” he said, and she could hear in his voice rather than read on his face his friendly grin. “And I was nearly knocked down by a taxi in Manchester. It made me think of my latter end. If anything happened to me—the child would be rather lost. By the way, I’ve written to Sedgmire about Muriel.”

“Oh!”

Mrs. Beddows realised what that implied.

“If I died, I expect they’d look after Muriel. They always would have done—if I’d leave her alone.” He tossed his cigarette on to the path. “But Midge is a different matter. I don’t want those Harrogate people to handle her.”

“Quite.”

“She wouldn’t be any financial burden. I’ve kept up my insurance. Five thousand when I’m sixty or if I die before that. It’s hers, of course. Only, I want to be sure I’m not putting too much on you.”

“No—no. I love the child. I’d do anything . . .”

“I know you would. That’s just it. I exploit your goodness. I always have done.”

She could hardly breathe. Joy, release, triumph enfolded her.

“I don’t think you know how fond I am of you,” she said.

“Perhaps I do.”

Hicks had turned the horse again; the dog cart was approaching them, its lamps faint and small beside the great lights of the passing motor-cars. In another moment this little interlude of tenderness would be over.

“By the way,” he added, “that reminds me.” He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and brought out a little box wrapped in tissue paper. “I brought a little present for you too.”

“For me?”

“Yes. I want you to have it. You will know why. Goodbye. Merry Christmas to you.”

He took her hand, smiled, then very gravely stooped and kissed her soft wrinkled cheek and was off, out of the gate. She heard him call to Hicks; she saw the moving lights stop still; he climbed into the cart; he shook the reins, then the hoofs were off again, trot-trotting away from her into the starlight.

She put her hand to her face and touched it gently. He had never kissed her before. She had not dreamed of it. With trembling hands she began to undo her Christmas present. The paper contained a small brown case lined with white velvet, and on the velvet lay the brooch, a spray of emeralds, diamonds and rubies, which he had bought for Muriel when Midge was born. He had slipped into the lid a little card on which he had written, “For Midge’s Granny, in gratitude.”

“I want you to have it,” he had said. “You will know why.” She knew why.

She had tried to give to Midge the protective love which her mother could not give. He had recognised her endeavour and was grateful. He had given her the brooch he bought for Muriel, and he had kissed her.

She knew now where she stood with him, and she was happy. Her jealousy and pain were taken from her. Whatever problems and griefs still lay before her—and she had no doubt, that they would still be many—she realised that her long years of patient loyalty and service had at least brought this difficult and strange relationship through to triumphant confidence and love.

I
T WAS
Christmas Eve, and the children had been wild with excitement. No matter how much Lydia might protest that she had nothing for them, they still persisted in believing that Christmas must be Christmas. Certainly, earlier in the afternoon Miss Beddows had driven round with a piece of beef, some oranges and crackers. Lydia would prepare a dinner with these for them to-morrow. “If Daisy had only made her coconut ice now—” Bert had said.

But of what use was Christmas?

Lydia sat by the oil stove in the outer room, too tired to move. She was facing a bitterness of disappointment which destroyed her. She wanted to go to bed and to sleep and never wake again. There was no hope in life; promises were treacherous; pleasure poisoned.

In the next room lay her sisters, Daisy, Kitty and Alice with the baby. Beside her on the bunk Lennie slept. Sometimes he ground his teeth and tossed his arms about. He had never been really well since he had measles.

Bert was spending Christmas with the Alcocks. They had accepted him now as Vi’s young man. He had got free. He talked of going to lodge in Kiplington, protesting that really it would be better for his family, since Mr. Holly was now on transitional benefit, “and if old Tadman gives me a rise they’ll only dock it off Dad’s allowance.” It sounded logical enough.

In any case, why should Bert stay there—among the squalor, the discomfort, the wretchedness of the railway coach? Lydia, groping for grievances, found justice. She was fond of her brother and could not see why his life should be spoiled as well as hers. But because she was intelligent enough to learn generosity, this did not mean that she was without resentment.