The Brontes Went to Woolworths (11 page)

Agatha, praising Lady Toddington later to the elder girls, had delicately regretted the public compliment, and Katrine said, ‘Ah, but you see, Miss Martin, she’s got no s. no d.,’ and Agatha had hinted that she understood that Judges made very high incomes, and Katrine and Deirdre had burst into great noisy shouts of laughter.

Voices outside on the landing: Sheil’s shrill ‘Pass the preserves, please,’ and Deirdre’s, ‘Believe me, laddie, I was a riot at Hartlepool. The Guv’nor offered me ten pounds to play Harmlett, but I said, “I won’t touch it under fifteen, and that’s m’last word.” ’ Katrine cut in: ‘The Bard, laddie, the Bard needs playing. But pass me off with fit-ups and ask me to double in brass and I’m thrown away, dear boy, thrown away!’

Steps on the stairs, and Mrs Carne’s voice: ‘Trrr-a! mes enfants! Ah, Trotty, ça marche, hein? Amuses-toi bien, ma mignonne!’

‘Oh shut up, Ironface!’

‘Hé? Shot op? Mais, qu’est-ce que c’est, ce “shot op”?’

‘Go away. It’s pure affectation, Ironie – and you who came from a suburban village shop!’

Mrs Carne said, ‘Now you
have
done it! She’s flown back to Isidore.’ She added, ‘Ahem! Let’s be talking, said Mrs Kenwigs.’

Miss Martin began to cry. She remembered to muffle her face, because Deirdre had caught her, once before.

12

Really knowing the Toddingtons was, I should think, rather like marriage: sometimes it was disappointing and at others it exceeded expectation. The disappointments were affairs of the cook not being faithful and dour and Scotch, and called Grania, but an angular Cockney whose name was Bessie; and of the parlourmaid answering to the name of Ethel, who, so far from being tossy and called Henderson, is eminently approachable and seems really fond of both the Toddingtons, with a slight list to larboard in favour of Sir Herbert. But female servants always prefer the master of the house. I don’t read Freud, but I suspect that he would explain why, in gross and in detail particularly in the former. –

And then the rooms in the London house . . . Toddy’s study, for instance. The fireplace was, from our point of view, on the wrong side of the room, and his armchair on the right of the gas-stove instead of the left, while his bedroom was even on the incorrect side of the second-floor landing. Otherwise, it was very much as we had planned it.

When Lady Toddington first took me ‘over’ the house, after her At Home, I noted, of course, plenty of familiar things: an overcoat and a walking-stick and umbrella of Toddy’s, of which I have had photographs for eighteen months on my own mantelpiece, and one of his hideous little jam-pot collars on his dressing-table, and I knew all about that, too. It figures in all his portraits (except when he golfs at Sandwich, and then his neckwear is winged).

I remembered his college trophies, and found one or two, in study and dining-room, and I knew that in one of his cupboards hung his hunting-coat. I had never, so to speak, seen it in the flesh, but I knew when he had worn it last, and where.

Following in the wake of his wife I walked as though treading on glass. Liable to be confounded at every turn, my remarks were probably going to be shattering in one direction or another. Actually, I only made two false steps that afternoon. One for each plane. We had stepped on to familiar ground after much that was strange when she led me into the dining-room and gave me a cocktail, and this episode, and my relief at rejoining the current, made me incautious. Mildred absently looked out of the window and suddenly seemed to see her own window-boxes and said, ‘They’re half dead already. I’ll never have geraniums any more. Last summer we had lobelias.’

‘No. Calceolarias,’ I answered, putting down my glass. Luckily she failed to ‘hear between the lines,’ and only fastened on to the flower, which she said she was sick of.

The second occasion was infinitely more serious. It was also bad luck, as I might have easily come out with something traceable by her to a tangible source, such as news items or
Who’s Who
, had her conversational lead happened to veer in another direction.

She is, obviously, one of those open-hearted women who are apt to play expansiveness upon friend and acquaintance alike, and this again caught me off my guard. At the moment, I forgot that it was a manner rather than an accurate gauge of intimacy, and for that moment we were in the current again: we were Deirdre and Lady Mildred having cocktails, with Henderson shortly due to swim along the hall and take away the tray.

It must have been past seven, and she glanced at her wristwatch and said, ‘Lord! I must run and dress. We’ve got a crush on to-night.’ Then, in her sociable way, behind which I sensed that she meant it, ‘My dear, don’t marry a brainy man unless you’re brainy too. Must keep one’s end up all the time.’ ‘
That
’
s
not what he likes best,’ I answered.

‘Eh?’

I fell upon the subject. ‘Toddy’s rather easy to misunderstand. We used to, until we got the hang of him. That austere business, you know . . . but he loves best to sit and smoke and be chaffed, and lots of books, and a dog to take out
’

‘
Chaffed?
Herbert?’

‘Yes. He knows his manner frightens people, and inside him he wants people who’ll get past all that . . . ’

‘Well
!’

‘There are so few people, Lady Mildred, who have the time or enthusiasm to – to dig for one, don’t you find it so?’ I was actually, in the excitement of the moment, putting in a word for Toddy; was trying to break down the smart, Harrods-and-Pekingese side of Mildred that we all believed existed, superimposed on the kindly Brockley that we all agreed was there. We know now that the dressy, Harrods side of her had never seriously existed at all – it was one of our bad guesses. Inevitably one makes a few.

She put her glass down on the tray. ‘My dear girl, how long have you known my husband?’

That was an easy one. ‘I don’t know him.’

‘But
?’

‘I’ve met him once, for half an hour, on the bazaar evening,’ I answered, speaking like a witness in the police court.

‘Oh I see.’ She seemed to be engaged in some mental wrestling match.

‘And, by the way, I must have seemed abominably impertinent. I’m afraid we all call him “Toddy,” at home, and I’m awfully sorry but we call you “Lady Mildred.” ’

‘Toddy’ . . . she toyed with it. ‘He’d bite your nose off if you ever called him it.’

‘I’ll sell it,’ I answered, smiling at her.

‘Nothing doing, my dear. I should catch it too.’

‘I believe he’d adore it. He’d pretend not to for ages, but he’d go away and shake all over – you know his way, and then come back and make one of his long-lip faces at you . . . Good Lord! I’d better go!’ I ended, appalled.

‘Have another? No? I’m going to. Well, you seem to have thought it all out!’

‘I’m dreadfully sorry, and I
am
going!’

‘Don’t, unless you must. You know, I like you. I don’t know many young girls, I wish I did. I can’t make you out, but I ought to be used to that b’now, with people . . . you know, I’m the sort that ought to have a hat trimmed with ostrich tips and a feather boa, instead of model gowns and shingles and trying to live up to everybody.’

‘You’re a
dear
,’ I said.

Somehow, one had never arranged to get really fond of Mildred, before . . . I wondered what difference it was going to make?

‘I’m glad. Nice to be liked, ain’t it? Even if it’s only reflected glory. Bless you, I’m used to that.

‘It isn’t that, a bit.’

‘Come up and let’s hunt out a photo of Herbert for you. He hates me saying “photo,” by the way. Can’t imagine why.’ ‘Does he object to “whatever” too, on the same principle?’ I chuckled.

‘Probably. But what
is
the principle? Now, here we are.’ She opened a bureau and slid a sheaf of Toddy’s portraits on to the sofa, and began to offer me various prints. I vetted the lot in no time, though I pored over the studio photographs.

‘Oh yes, that one was taken outside the Old Bailey . . . yes . . . the Barkston Gardens case . . . on the golf-links at Sandwich . . . thank you awfully, but I’ve got that one . . . yes, I remember this . . . that’s not one of my favourites, besides, I’ve got it.’ She looked at me in a bovine amaze, and we suddenly began to giggle.

‘If you’d just put the one or two aside you
don’t
happen
’ said Lady Toddington, and howled. I pointed with a trembling finger to three studio portraits.

‘Tha – tha – those . . . I can’t imagine how I came to overlook them, ha, ha, ha!’

‘I shall begin to suspect you of I really don’t know what,’ announced my hostess.

‘
I
do,’ I answered, blowing my nose, ‘but you’d be wrong, worse luck,’ and we roared once more.

Lady Toddington began to remove her rings. ‘No, but have you really got a crush on him?’

‘Well, yes and no,’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘It’s not quite as simple as that, you know.’

‘But –look at his age. It seems so unnatural.’

She’d be sure to say that. Even the nicest women are apt to have Mrs Peachum minds. They would be horrified if one told them what they really meant.

‘Don’t you think,’ I answered, picking my words, ‘that it’s rather – bad luck on people to have to give up being loved because they’re old?’

‘Of course I do! But, a girl of your age . . . ’

‘I’m afraid that dog won’t bark, Lady Toddington. Look at Sheil. She adores him. You remember her?’

‘The little thing!’ . . . Lady Toddington went off at a tangent. ‘I like your family.’

‘Good chaps, aren’t they?’