The Feast Page 11

They looked up to find old Mrs. Paley standing beside them on the path.

  ‘It’s only her back,’ explained Beatrix. ‘It always hurts. We rub it when it gets very bad.’

  ‘Let me try,’ said Mrs. Paley. ‘I’m rather good at rubbing.’

  She knelt beside Blanche and began to massage gently. As she worked she asked questions. How long had this back been bad? Always, they said: but amended this to ‘ever since Blanche had diphtheria.’ Did their mother know? Yes, she knew. Maud volunteered that their mother thought it must be growing pains.

  ‘Did the doctor say it was all right to rub it?’ asked Mrs. Paley. ‘Some bad backs shouldn’t be rubbed.’

  ‘Oh, the doctor didn’t see it,’ said Beatrix. ‘It’s not an illness; only a pain. We always rub it when she can’t sleep at night.’

  After a while Blanche declared that the pain was better and, between them, they got her to her feet. Going down hill, she explained, was especially difficult, but she could manage if the others helped her and she was sure that it must be late.

  The three set off, Beatrix and Maud supporting Blanche, each with an arm round her waist. They seemed to be in quite good spirits again, and as they staggered down the cliff path they began to pipe once more their tuneless anthem:

  O enter then his gates with praise!

  Approach with joy His courts unto!

  Mrs. Paley watched them anxiously until they got to the level sands.

  3. No Lady

  Nancibel, going down to the garden to get some mint, thought she saw a stranger hiding among the loganberries.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she called.

  He straightened up and came towards her, smiling broadly.

  ‘Why Bruce! Whatever are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m looking for the stables. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I work here. And this isn’t the way to the stables. Who said you could eat our loganberries?’

  ‘What do you mean … you work here?’ asked Bruce, with some agitation.

  ‘I’m housemaid.’

  ‘But I thought you lived up the cliff.’

  ‘I come in daily.’

  ‘Oh? I see.’

  He looked relieved, and picked up a cardboard suitcase which was left on the path, adding:

  ‘I wasn’t eating loganberries because there weren’t any. Do you know where the stables are?’

  ‘Through the door in the wall. Why?’

  ‘I’m to sleep in them.’

  ‘Oh! You’re stopping here? Your people are stopping here?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Funny! Mrs. Siddal never said anything, breakfast, about a new party coming.’

  ‘I don’t expect she knows. She was out when we came. The old man let us the rooms.’

  ‘Mr. Siddal! Well, I never!’

  ‘He’s an old boy friend of my … boss. So we asked for him at the door.’

  ‘Who opened the door then?’

  ‘A youth with adenoids.’

  ‘Oh him!’

  ‘Yes him! I’m glad you feel that way about him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t have to be jealous.’

  ‘Be your age. What happened?’

  ‘Well, we waited in the hall for a thousand years while adenoids went to wake Mr. Siddal. But at last he came and let the garden room to my boss. But there was no room for me in the Inn and so …’

  ‘Don’t be irreverent. You’ll be in the small loft, I expect. The Siddal boys and Fred have the other two.’

  ‘Lead me to it, then. Up the garden path!’

  ‘Lead yourself!’ said Nancibel. ‘It’s only through that door. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Aren’t you glad I’ve come?’ he called after her, as she turned away.

  ‘Sure,’ she cried, over her shoulder. ‘I haven’t had a good laugh, not since Saturday.’

  She ran off, hoping that she had not betrayed her pleasure in seeing him again. For she had thought a lot about him since Saturday night and had decided that he must really be very nice, in spite of his silly ways. Not every boy would take a telling off as good-humouredly as he had. And it would be amusing to have somebody young about the place: somebody lively, to make a change from Fred and his heavy breathing. ‘Nancibel! You are redundant!’ She would go bats if she heard that crack much oftener. And he’s a bit gone on me, she thought, which is good for my morale. All winter I haven’t cared if the fellows were gone on me or not, but I’m getting better now.’

  She pranced into the house with the light step and bright eye of a successful girl. I’ll see you again, she carolled at the sink, whenever the Spring breaks through again!

  ‘Have you got to make that shocking row?’ asked Fred. ‘What you singing anyway?’

  ‘It’s a very old-fashioned song,’ said Nancibel. ‘My mum used to sing it.’

  Miss Ellis came into the scullery, looking important.

  ‘There’s a new party come,’ she announced. ‘With a chauffeur. He’ll be sleeping in the stables. You’d better take out sheets and make up his bed, Nancibel.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Ellis.’

  Bruce had found the small loft and was surveying it gloomily when she arrived with the sheets. It had wooden walls and ceiling, no rugs, and no furniture save a broken chair and a folding bed.

  ‘Austerity is our watchword,’ he said. ‘Am I allowed sheets on the bed?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve brought you some. And now listen! Don’t ever sit on that bed. If you do it shuts up with you in it, and it’s quite a job to get out. Fred had it at first and he got shut in it and if somebody hadn’t heard him yelling he’d be inside it still.’

  ‘How long was he there, actually?’

  ‘Oh … two or three days,’ said Nancibel, solemnly, spreading the sheets on the bed.

  ‘But how do I get in,’ asked Bruce, when they had both giggled a good deal, ‘when I go to bye-bye?’

  ‘You get in at the end and creep up it. You have to get out the same way.’

  ‘I’ll get into training. Tell me about the Siddal boys. There seem to be three, by the look of their room.’

  ‘Well, there’s Gerry. He’s the eldest. He’s very nice.’

  ‘Oh, is he? And good looking, I suppose?’

  ‘No. Nothing to write home about. Duff … that’s the second one … he’s a dream.’

  ‘Better looking than me?’

  ‘No. But he doesn’t shoot a line about Limehouse.’

  ‘Oh Nancibel! Must you bring that up? Is it fair?’

  ‘P’raps not,’ she agreed. ‘I won’t again unless you annoy me.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll never annoy you any more. You’ve changed my life.’

  ‘You don’t look a bit changed, to me.’

  ‘Oh, but I am. You can’t think.’

  He opened his suit-case and began to take out his possessions.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you ever since Saturday,’ he told her. ‘Wondering if I should see you again.’

  ‘What a lovely dressing-gown,’ exclaimed Nancibel.

  ‘Sweet, isn’t it?’

  ‘What’s all that typewriting?’

  ‘That’s part of my boss’s new book.’

  ‘Who is your boss?’

  Now for it, thought Bruce, hanging his dressing-gown on a nail. But it might have come at a worse moment.

  ‘Mrs. Lechene,’ he said airily.

  ‘Mrs. Lechene?’

  ‘Yes. I told you. She’s an authoress.’

  Had he told her? Nancibel could not remember. Surely she would remember if he had said he was working for a lady?

  ‘How did you get that job?’ she asked.

  Bruce hesitated, and remembered his vow to shoot no more lines.

  ‘I was Boots in a hotel where she …’ he began.

  ‘Oh,’ cried Nancibel. ‘Like in your book, you mean? That boy, he was Boots in a hotel, wasn’t he?’

  ‘You remember a lot about my book, c
onsidering you didn’t like it,’ said Bruce crossly.

  ‘Well, it’s funny him being a Boots and you being a Boots.’

  ‘I don’t see. One has to use one’s own experience.’

  ‘And this lady …’

  ‘She’s nothing to do with the woman in the book. It’s not autobiographical.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It’s not the story of my life,’ said Bruce hotly. ‘That’s all I mean.’

  ‘Well. I should hope not.’

  ‘We’ve had that out before. And anyway that book’s no good. I’m going to burn it and write another.’

  ‘Good for the fuel shortage.’

  ‘I’m going to write a book about a boy who got shut up inside a bed. And nobody knew where he was, because he was too proud to yell.’

  He paused.

  ‘Go on,’ said Nancibel.

  ‘I can’t. It’s so miserable. And you don’t like miserable books.’

  Heavy steps creaked on the loft ladder and a voice called sharply. His expression changed.

  ‘Bruce,’ said the voice again.

  A woman appeared in the loft doorway and stood there surveying them. Nancibel realized that this must be the lady authoress. An old friend of Mr. Siddal’s! Nothing surprising about that; boy and girl they must have been, sometime in the year dot. Authoress if you like, but no lady, poking her nose into the chauffeur’s room and staring in that funny way. What if she had caught him laughing with the housemaid? Ladies are careful not to notice that sort of thing. Mrs. Siddal never would.

  The seconds passed and the stare became an insult. Nancibel lifted her eyes and looked full at Anna, obscurely aware that it would not do to mutter excuse me and slip out. She must stand her ground and vindicate her right to be there. Like a big old white slug, she thought. Only slugs have the sense not to wear slacks. I shan’t say anything. I’ll let her feel she’s the one to intrude. She can speak first. Let’s hope Bruce has the sense to keep quiet.

  Bruce had not. He found Anna’s stare unendurable, as it slid, with meditative deliberation, over the curves of Nancibel. He broke in nervously:

  ‘We were just …’

  The eyes slid round to him. The pale mouth smiled slyly.

  ‘So I see,’ said Anna.

  Two can play at that game, thought Nancibel, and began an equally deliberate scrutiny of the enemy. No bra and no girdle, and if I had toes like that I wouldn’t wear sandals. We can play statues till the cows come home, duckie, if that’s your idea of fun and games.

  ‘Miss Thomas kindly …’ jabbered Bruce, ‘she brought my sheets.’

  Anna’s slow gaze shifted to the bed.

  ‘I … I’d better put the car away, hadn’t I?’

  ‘No hurry,’ said Anna, ‘if you’ve got anything better to do.’

  ‘Nothing! I’ve nothing better to do,’ he declared.

  Pushing past Anna, he rushed downstairs.

  Nancibel had finished making the bed, but she thought it better to do one or two trifling tasks about the room before she left it, so as to emphasize the fact that it was her job to be in it. So she picked up the typewritten sheets which Bruce had spilled out on the floor and put them on the window ledge.

  ‘I’m afraid I interrupted,’ observed Anna. ‘Has Bruce been telling you the story of his life?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Nancibel, smiling. ‘He told me that on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday?’ said Anna. ‘Saturday?’

  She crossed the room to sit on the bed, meaning obviously to get the whole story. But Nancibel saw that the moment for a strategic retreat had arrived.

  ‘Excuse me!’ she muttered, and rushed from the room.

  As she scrambled down the ladder she heard a crash and an oath. Anna had sat upon the Pendizack booby trap and was now sharing Fred’s fate. But she can get herself out, thought Nancibel, scurrying across the stable yard. She’s not a little skinny thing like Fred. Gracious! What language! Whatever she is, she’s no lady.

  4. Marshmallows

  Lady Gifford could not believe that a big place like Porthmerryn was really barren of marshmallows on the first day of a new ration period. She was sure that a thorough search might have produced them.

  ‘Did you explain it was for an invalid?’ she asked.

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Sir Henry. ‘There just were none. I tried everywhere.’

  ‘I expect there were plenty under the counter. All you mean is that you saw none.’

  ‘I saw some at Saundry’s, but Mrs. Cove bought the last before I could get to the counter.’

  ‘Mrs. Cove! I’m not surprised. Why did you let her get in front of you?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Eirene.’

  ‘No, dear. I don’t think so. If you were really sorry for me you’d try to make things easier instead of more difficult.’

  ‘I do all I can,’ he muttered.

  She flushed, sat up in bed, and spoke with unusual energy.

  ‘How can you say that when you force me to live in this horrible way when we could be perfectly comfortable? I heard from Veronica this morning. She says there’s plenty of everything in the Channel Islands if you’ve got the money to pay for it.’

  ‘Eirene, we’ve been into all this before….’

  ‘You force me to live in these coolie conditions….’

  ‘They are not coolie conditions. You know nothing whatever about coolie conditions….’

  ‘Don’t shout, Harry. Please don’t shout. You know how any kind of a scene upsets me. Can’t we discuss this quietly?’

  Sir Henry lowered his voice and stated that coolies eat nothing but rice.

  ‘Which we can’t get,’ said Eirene Gifford triumphantly. ‘So we’re worse off than coolies. I’m sure I should be only too glad to eat rice … I love risotto … but Mr. Strachey won’t let me have it because the workers don’t care for it. All my friends in America say they do not know how we manage on our rations. Everybody who can get out is getting out, except us.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, Eirene, that there’s nothing to stop you going to Guernsey if you want to.’

  ‘But it’s no good unless you come too. I’d have to pay income tax. We can’t get off income tax unless we both go.’

  ‘I’ve told you I’m not going, and I’ve told you why.’

  ‘You think it’s unpatriotic. You think patriotism matters more than your wife and family.’

  ‘Well … yes. I suppose I do.’

  ‘Then don’t pretend you’re sorry for me. If you want to see me starve for the sake of a government you never voted for … a Government that says you aren’t worth a tinker’s curse….’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, it did. You aren’t organized Labour. Mr. Shinwell said that everyone who isn’t Organized Labour is not worth a tinker’s curse.’

  ‘Shinwell isn’t the entire Government.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Mr. Attlee daren’t sack him, though he can’t get us any coal.’

  ‘Well, Eirene, if Shinwell called me his blue-eyed boy, would you be content to let me stay on the Bench and do my job?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Harry. You know he never would.’

  ‘I must admit it’s not very likely.’

  ‘And for the sake of these people, who only want to liquidate you, the children are to be under-nourished …’

  ‘I really don’t think they are.’

  ‘Of course they are. They’re only getting fifteen hundred calories when they ought to get three thousand.’

  ‘A day or a week?’

  She was silent for a moment, and he was sure that she did not know.

  ‘They don’t look undernourished,’ he said. ‘Compared with the Coves …’

  ‘The Coves,’ said Eirene, ‘are apparently going to get all the marshmallows in Porthmerryn.’

  ‘Too bad. Did Shinwell arrange that or Strachey?’

  ‘Both,’ said Lady Gifford. ‘If the Conservatives
had got in we shouldn’t have had these shortages. Look, Harry: perhaps Mrs. Cove might be willing to exchange. She might like some of my nougat instead.’

  ‘If she’d wanted nougat she’d have bought it. There was plenty.’

  ‘You could tell her how ill I am. But don’t worry. Just go on saying you’re sorry, and don’t make the slightest effort to help me.’

  She fell back upon her pillows again and her eyes filled with tears.

  Sir Henry hesitated and then stole out of the room. In a quarter of an hour he was back again with a bag of marshmallows which he put upon the table beside her bed.

  ‘Harry! Where did you get them?’

  She took one and tasted it critically, wrinkling up her nose.

  ‘Mrs. Cove.’

  ‘She exchanged them for mine?’

  ‘Er … no. She sold them to me.’

  ‘Good heavens!’

  She tasted another and added:

  ‘They aren’t very nice. Did she offer or did you ask?’

  ‘I offered an exchange and she refused. Then she mentioned that her children don’t care much for sweets. They prefer books. She said they often sell their sweets to buy books. So then I offered to buy their marshmallows.’

  ‘How much did you give?’

  ‘Eight and six.’

  ‘But Harry! That’s fantastic. More than three times what she gave.’

  ‘I thought it pretty stiff, but she said they couldn’t get a decent book for less. And I knew you wanted the sweets.’

  There was a tap on the door and Hebe appeared, also carrying a paper bag.

  ‘Why darling,’ exclaimed Lady Gifford. ‘Good morning! Have you been having a good time? What have you been doing? Give me a kiss.’

  Hebe extended her cheek and, as she received the caress, her lips moved in the silent curse of the Spartans.

  ‘We went into Porthmerryn for our sweets,’ she said, putting her bag on the counterpane. ‘These are marshmallows. I got them because I know you like them best.’

  ‘Why … how darling of you! But I can’t take them, you know. Not your sweet ration.’

  ‘You always do,’ said Hebe coldly. ‘I don’t care for sweets.’

  She gave a hard glance at the bag already in Lady Gifford’s hands, and ran off.

  ‘Hebe’s austerity,’ said Lady Gifford, ‘is really formidable.’