The Beckoning Lady (7 page)

The thin man was gratifyingly interested.

“Mr. Farraday was only ill for a day, was he?”

“'E wasn't ill at all,” she protested. “You'd 'ave soon 'eard about it if he was ill. If 'e was poorly 'is little bell rang night and day. 'E was only sleeping. They do. Old
people sleep and sleep until you wonder why they bother to wake up.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“What could 'e say? Said 'e was dead. I could 'ave told 'im that. ‘Is poor old jaw was tied up by the time the doctor saw 'im.”

She returned to her pail of soapsuds.

“'E agreed it was sudden. Told us 'ow lucky we was. Said 'is 'eart 'adn't seemed so bad, but at 'is age and with 'is 'istory we couldn't be surprised at anything, and signed the doings. But we
was
surprised. The old chap 'isself wouldn't 'ave believed it if 'e 'adn't 'ad to.”

“He wanted to live, did he?” Mr. Campion had seen his old friend for a few minutes the week before his death, and had seen then that he was very tired. He was happy enough, but weary, and like some crumpled baby seemed anxious to get his head down to sleep.

“Come Gumper,” said Miss Diane unexpectedly. “'E'd made up 'is mind to live till Gumper night. 'E told me so.”

Mr. Campion blinked at her and she laughed.

“That's what they call it down 'ere,” she explained. “Gumper treason and plot. Guy Fawkes night to us Londoners, bonfire night. My old love said 'e was goin' to live till then. ‘That's right,' I said, ‘go to 'eaven on a rocket, so you shall.' But 'e didn't. Midsummer night, more like. That's what Saturday is, Mr. Tonker's party. Midsummer night, and William lyin' out there missin' all the bubbly.”

She rubbed soap in her eyes and distracted herself, and at that moment there was a shrill shout from Emma somewhere in the house.

“Four o'clock, Dinah!”

“Four o'clock!” echoed Miss Diane and rushed to put her head out of the garden door. “Four o'clock, Spurgeon!”

“Four o'clock!” an answering bellow resounded from the border, and Mr. Campion, who was taken off guard, was just in time to see a man in a straw hat fling down his
hoe among the lilies and sprint towards the house. He diagnosed some domestic emergency, but it seemed to be merely a matter of fetching coke from the shed to the kitchens. The operation was conducted at the double and was followed by a headlong dash with the garbage pails to the incinerator, after which the man strode away upstream from where, for some time past, there had come the sound of hammering.

The whole incident was mildly lunatic and Campion was still astonished by it when a voice he recognised floated in from the yard, and Minnie with a boy of about sixteen came in, carrying a load of stacked zinc baths between them.

Visitors from easy-going New York, which will suffer parading Irish and piping Scots without a qualm, were sometimes taken aback by a first sight of Minnie on her own home ground. Latter-day Rip Van Winkles had been known to pour themselves drinks with shaking hands, whilst under the impression that the classic adventure had somehow overtaken them in reverse. Minnie's America had been handed down to her by her father, who had left that country in 1902 and had not then been considered an advanced member of his generation. Like most painters, he was a simple and direct personality of strong affections, and his favourite authors were those of his childhood: Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper and Louisa Alcott. Minnie visited the country and kept up with her relatives there, but neither experience had succeeded in modernising her view. She too was a simple obstinate person with the memory of an elephant, who wore strange clothes. In her youth she had adopted the Mother-Hubbard as the perfect garment to suit her angularity and the eagle's beak nose of the Straws. She always worked with a stout apron for painting, and now, after twenty-five years, these had become as normal a part of her appearance as her John bob and piercing grey eyes. Since The Beckoning Lady was the kind of place where a covered wagon might easily be standing just round the corner, the effect at times was
disconcerting. At the moment she looked tired and a trifle harassed but it was clear that she was enjoying herself and in command of a complex situation.

The boy was very like her and was almost as tall. His hair was a corn-coloured mat and the laughter-wrinkles were already deep across his forehead and round his eyes. They planted the baths on the stones with a clatter and Minnie held out her hand.

“Albert, how nice of you. Amanda told us you were here. There's a frightful lot to do still. You haven't met Westy, have you? Isn't it a blessed miracle? He's in quarantine for mumps. Sent home from school last night. The angels do take care of us. Now, this is Westinghouse Straw, my grand-nephew. My father married twice, you know.” She had a slow deep voice, very English in intonation.

The youngster shook hands. “After that you just have to work it out,” he said with a hint of apology, which reminded Campion of Leo mopping up after one of Poppy's clangers. “My sister and I are the children of the painter's eldest son. Our parents wanted us educated over here, and so we just moved in on Minnie. Annabelle is over at the boat house, keeping an eye on the chain-gang, or at least we hope so. Aunt Hatt's dog is minding the cellar, and at least we know he'll raise the roof if anything happens.”

Minnie sat down at the table and sagged a little.

“Wouldn't it be awful if they started opening them?” she said. “That would shake old Tonker.”

Westy shot a horrified glance at her. “They might,” he said. “You don't seem to know how young they are.”

“They're all right.” Minnie spoke with complete conviction. “They've got an orange-juice bar they're running down there, and they're all going over to the cottage for tea in a minute.”

“I didn't think they'd drink it,” said Westy with dignity, “but they might pull the wires off to hear the bang.”

“Nonsense, they're not fools.” She had the sublime faith
of her type of matriarch. “I
never
have
stupid
children here. Now.” She fished in the pocket of her skirt and brought out a bundle of crumpled lists fastened with a safety-pin. “That's done the baths. You'll clean them, Dinah, will you? They're only dusty. Then, when you've finished, write Ice with this bit of chalk on the two best, and leave them all here. Albert, would you like to catch the donkey?”

“Frankly,” said Mr. Campion, who had met the beast, “no.”

“I agree,” put in Westy hastily. “That's a job for Jake, Minnie. He likes it.”

“Well, will you see he does? Then you can harness the tub, and the baths and the six boxes of glasses can all go down together. Don't forget to get yourself some tea. This goes on for days and you'll get utterly exhausted and hate it if you don't eat. Have a lump of cake now.”

“Okay ma'am, I'll get it as I go by. Any message for the cottage?”

She examined the list carefully. “No—unless. . . . ‘
Tell Jake about stomach
' . . . . Westy, I wonder if that wouldn't come better from you.”

“What's that?”

“Well—” she hesitated and her fierce eyes were deeply serious, “—no one minds how a man dresses nowadays, and all that sort of rubbish has gone for good, but sometimes when people haven't seen one before and they're new to the place they get sort of embarrassed. Do you see what I mean?”

Westy began to laugh. He had just reached the age when the full rich absurdity of his elders had burst upon him in glorious treasure-trove.

“In other words, if Jake won't shave and doesn't have a hair cut, he must do up his shirt?” he suggested.

Minnie's laughter, which always seemed to take her unawares, burst from her famous nose in a snort.

“Well, the bottom buttons anyway,” she said, “
if
he does up the neck. It's the great bow-tie and hairy belly effect which gives strangers a start. Do you think you
could put it to him really tactfully? Be careful. He's a funny boy. You know what happened once.”

“When someone tipped him?”

“Yes, well, that was utterly unforeseen. It's so unusual nowadays. The poor man was a Jewish box manufacturer and one of Wally's best clients. He had a Rolls and Jake liked the lines of it, so he showed him how to get it in without scratching it. The man gave him half a dollar and, oh dear!”

The boy was sympathetically serious. “He hit him, didn't he?” he said gravely.

“Hit him!” Minnie was indignant. “Not only did he throw him down so that he was stunned, but he took
all
his money, about thirty pounds. He sent ten pounds of it to the Artists' Benevolent Fund right away that afternoon, and threw the rest in the pond. My God, there was a row!”

“What happened?” Mr. Campion was forced to ask the question in spite of himself.

Minnie went back to her list. “Oh, Tonker squared it,” she said indifferently. “The man was awfully decent about it. They all came to stay afterwards. Nice noisy people. I painted the daughter. A name like Potter-Higham. Oh Westy, the chairs from the village hall.”

He nodded. “I'll talk to Scat. He's up here working on the Wherry. That's going to be whacky. Be seeing you.” He padded off, calling in at the pantry on his way.

“Sent by God,” said Minnie casually. “What on earth would happen without them all? I can't go tearing about like a two-year-old. Painting the house nearly killed me.”

“Landscape? That's a new departure.” Campion was interested and she grinned at him.

“Don't be a clot. I mean the house. We colour-washed it, Dinah and I, in April. Didn't you notice?”

Mr. Campion regarded her with astonishment. “I thought it looked very nice,” he said.

“It bleary well ought to,” remarked Diane from the sink, “She did the top and I did the bottom. Gord we was in a mess! And stiff—blimey!”

“But why?”

“Because it looked like death,” said Minnie frankly. “We concreted Will's little terrace as well, and now he'll never use it. Oh dear, I do miss the old pet, Albert. I keep thinking I hear his little bell. He used to ring when he wanted anything.”

“And when you took your 'ands out of the water and dried 'em and got in there, 'e'd forgotten what it was,” added Diane, laughing.

“You saw the room we made him out of the old dairy, did you?” Minnie hoisted herself to her feet. “Come and look. It made it possible. Once he was bedridden we couldn't manage the stairs. It's very pleasant. Scat—that's Scatty Williams' son, you remember—knocked a south window in for me so that he could see the river.”

As she spoke she led him out into the garden and along a bricked path to the disused dairy. The door was locked but she produced the key from her pocket and they went in. It had made a charming room which as yet was much as its owner had left it, and all the homeliness and sharp realism of old age was there. There was no design and no pretence, but great comfort and an airiness unusual in such apartments. The new window reached from floor to ceiling and outside there was a little concrete platform just big enough for the high hospital bed to be wheeled out upon it.

Minnie sat down in the rocking-chair before the window. “I used to sit here and mend, and shout at the old villain,” she said. “He was quite happy, you know, Albert,” she said. “He used to sleep all day and nearly all night, but he wasn't bored and he wasn't a fool.”

Mr. Campion was wandering about the room. The pathetic medicines were still on the mantelshelf: talc and old-fashioned pills and a small white box labelled “The tablets.”

“How did he get here in the first place?” Campion said presently, taking up the box and eyeing its contents through one lens of his glasses. “Did he get left over at a
party, or did Tonker bring him to you as a birthday present or something?”

“No.” She seemed to be wondering about it herself. “Oh, I remember. Of course. He was evacuated. They bombed London.”

“So they did,” he agreed. “And he drifted down here, then, did he, and just settled?”

“I suppose he did,” she admitted. “We'd known him for ages before that. He was a good old boy, Albert.”

“I liked him,” said Campion. “He had such stupendous innocence. What are these things in here?”

“Those?” She edged round to look at the box he held out to her. “Pluminal, I think. He used to have one a night, sometimes two in the latter part of the time. The doctor gave it to us. He used to take it with his last drink.”

Mr. Campion put the box back and moved on to the chest of drawers where, in lonely glory, stood Uncle William's tantalus. The centre bottle had still a quarter-inch of Scotch in it, and from the little drawer below an orange envelope of a kind now familiar in Britain peeped out unblushingly.

“Football pools?” he enquired. “Did he still do those?”

“Rather! And he still had a bit on a horse. One of the last things he did was to pay his bookie. Old Solly L., you know. He's coming to the party. It was a whacking great bill, I'm afraid, but Will paid it and it left him pretty well broke. Solly was overcome. He came down to see him. They had a glorious session. I thought he'd given Will a new lease of life. I filled the pools in, of course. They're a must, aren't they?”

Mr. Campion considered querying this remarkable statement but changed his mind. At the moment, Uncle William's death was his chief concern. So he said instead:

“I suppose that window was kept wide all day?”

“Not lately,” she said sadly. “He'd started getting so cold.”

Mr. Campion crossed the room to stand beside her, and looked down over the flowers at the stream.

“Was he insured?” he enquired with uncharacteristic bluntness.

Minnie glanced at him oddly. “No dear, he wasn't. He was too old before he thought of it and besides—” she hesitated and finally laughed. “He'd given most of his money to me you know—made it over to me four and a half years ago. That's why he wanted to live to November. The five-year gift period ended then and there wouldn't have been death duties to pay. I don't think it was wrong of me to take it in the first place, do you? I was in a jam and he hadn't a soul in the world.”