Westwood (9 page)

The latter had grasped the baby clumsily but not weakly, for she was so alarmed by the responsibility suddenly thrust upon her that all the resourcefulness she possessed came to her aid. She settled the child in her arms with a confident and yet gentle touch that the little girl evidently liked, for she said some un intelligible cooing words, and suddenly smiled, showing two teeth.

‘I adore your little Mozart bow,’ said her mother carelessly, going ahead of Margaret down a passage. ‘Barnabas, lamb, shut the door. Yes, you may slam it. Here’ (she bent over a wide divan and shook up some cushions), ‘do sit down. Here’s her tin with a bead in it (isn’t it sinister, but she adores it), and Barnabas is making a house with the coal; he’ll do that for hours, only when Grantey comes she won’t let him, of course. It is angelic of you,’ she added, smiling at Margaret in an old, dim mirror on the wall as she tilted over her eyes a hat that was nothing but a huge black and white flower.

Margaret smiled and murmured something, trying to seem at ease. Her cheeks were burning. She had put the baby girl beside her on the divan, and still kept a hand on the child’s back as she plunged about. She was longing to look round the room and yet she wanted to go on looking at Mrs Niland, and she was also aware that there was a little staircase at the far end. Did it lead up to the studio?

Mrs Niland picked up an outsize handbag and some gloves and a mink coat from the floor. ‘Good-bye, Barnabas.’ The little boy gave her an absent kiss.

‘Have a nice party, Mummy,’ he said graciously, evidently repeating a formula and not taking his eyes off the coal.

‘Thank you, I’m sure. Tell Grantey there’s some dripping with lots of goobly in the frig, for your tea.’

‘Goobly – boobly,’ cried Barnabas, but still not looking up from his house.

‘Gooby – gooby –!’ echoed the baby, butting Margaret with her smooth fair head and chuckling.

‘What’s your name?’ demanded Mrs Niland, pausing at the door with the mink coat swinging from her shoulders. The light from the window shone on her brown hair where it was swept up from her white nape.

‘Margaret Steggles,’ said Margaret. She thought that her own voice sounded self-conscious and dull, and hated her name more than ever.

‘Good-bye, Margaret Steggles, and don’t murder my children. Good-bye, honeybunch,’ said Mrs Niland, addressing the baby. Margaret smiled and tried to sound gay as she said, ‘Good-bye!’ A second later she heard the front door slam. At the same instant the baby burst into tears.

‘Oh, good heavens – this won’t do – come here, darling –’ muttered Margaret distractedly, picking up the shaking little body. Tears were literally spurting from the tightly shut eyes. Margaret put her own cheek gently against the wet warm one, but the baby only roared the more.

‘She hates Mummy going out,’ observed Barnabas in a detached tone. ‘She always does that.’

‘What’s her name?’ demanded Margaret.

‘Emma.’

‘Emma, don’t cry – here –’ Margaret picked up the tin and rattled it. ‘Has this got a name?’ she demanded of the unforthcoming Barnabas, holding up the tin.

‘It hasn’t got a name,
really
.’ For the first time he glanced across at her. ‘It
were
called Weeny.’

‘Emma – look, darling, here’s Weeny. It hates to see you crying. Love Weeny, then.’

Emma hiccoughed, and was suddenly silent. Her wet grey eyes gazed up solemnly and reproachfully at Margaret while two tears ran slowly, slowly down.

‘Oh, you darling –’ whispered Margaret, gazing into the tiny face, red as a japonica flower.

‘Her nose is running,’ remarked Barnabas, and scrambled to his feet and came across with the handkerchief. ‘It’s all right. She hasn’t got a cold. It’s crying.’ He wiped Emma’s nose, and she gave a loud short snarl and wriggled away from him. ‘She hates having her nose wiped,’ he added, and wiped his own. ‘It’s all right. I haven’t got a cold, really. It’s only a snuffle, Grantey says,’ and he returned to his coals.

Emma now scrambled briskly off the divan and crawled away across the floor. Barnabas watched her warily until she had shuffled past his house and established herself amid a pile of bricks in a far corner; then he returned to his building with a quiet sigh of relief.

‘Bick!’ crowed Emma, smiling radiantly and holding up a brick to Margaret.

‘Yes, darling. Lovely!’

Emma was silent for a little while, burrowing in the box, and Margaret, breathing more freely now, took her opportunity to look round the room.

A little indignation mingled with her dazed admiration for the surprising Mrs Niland. She would have liked to say to some imaginary listener: ‘The poor little mites; she just walked out and left them like that with a total stranger and the room hadn’t been dusted for days and the fire was
nearly out’ – but in fact the few pieces of old furniture gleamed like satin, and the red carpet was well brushed. The panelled walls were painted a strange bluish-green, and instead of pictures there were vases of white Italian pottery hanging at intervals, filled with bouquets of violets and white hyacinths which deliciously scented the warm air. A low fire burnt in the basket-grate, but Margaret thought that the house was centrally heated. The one small window, at which hung curtains of yellow Chinese brocade, looked over a gravel yard with a fountain in the middle and some bushes of Portugal laurel in blue tubs, but beyond this, as is often the case in Hampstead, there was a dismal view of blank walls and ugly roofs. The red carpet, on which toys were scattered, fitted closely to the wainscoting, and there were no draughts; the children, the many books on their white shelves, and the luxurious flowers silently breathing forth their perfume seemed enclosed in a hushed, warm cavern hollowed from some deeply coloured jewel, while the chilly world of autumn sunlight outside seemed unreal. Margaret remained quite still, relaxing and forgetting her nervousness as she reclined among the cushions and gazed about her.

‘We went on the Heath this morning,’ suddenly remarked Barnabas. ‘With Stephen and Barbara.’

‘Oh. Er – was that nice? Don’t you go to school?’

‘I’m going when I’m six.’

‘Oh, that
will
be fun, won’t it? And when will you be six?’

‘Fourteenth of January. I’m going to have a trike, too.’ Then there was silence once more. Emma fortunately seemed contented with her bricks and Barnabas’s house now had three storeys. Margaret wondered if she ought to tell him not to make marks on the carpet, but decided not to say anything; Grantey would attend to that when she came. Margaret hoped that she would not come just yet, for she was enjoying the beauty about her, and impressing its details upon her mind so that she could recall them when she was alone. She could not get over the flowers; those large dark violets curving on their nacreous stems among broad green leaves; and, more amazing still, the delicate, pale double blossom of Parma violets! She had not seen Parma violets for years; she had not known that there were any still to be had in the whole of the British Isles! They must have cost a small fortune, she thought, and even with money they wouldn’t have been easy to get, but
she
looks as if she would always get everything she wanted. She could vividly recall every detail of Mrs Niland’s face; satiny hazel nuts and the white petals of wild flowers seemed to have been translated into her hair and cheeks. I never saw anybody like her, thought Margaret, and yet she isn’t all that striking. It’s just that you can’t help watching her.

Suddenly there was an agitated knocking at the front door.

‘That’s Grantey,’ said Barnabas, scrambling up. ‘I’ll go.’

‘Ar goo,’ repeated Emma instantly from her corner, scattering bricks in every direction and getting purposefully on to her feet and tottering towards the door.

‘No, Emma lovey – I don’t think –’ began Margaret, hastily going over to her and gently taking hold of her little arms.

‘Ar goo – ar goo!’ cried Emma, pulling herself away.

‘All right, then, let’s go together,’ said Margaret, holding out a hand instead; but Emma ignored it and hurried down the passage to the front door, which Barnabas had just opened.

A small severe-looking woman in a raincoat and felt hat stepped into the hall, exclaiming, ‘Well, Barnabas, and did you think Grantey was lost? The naughty old bus wouldn’t wait for me, so I had to wait for the next one. Come and give Grantey a kiss, then.’

Barnabas obediently held up an unenthusiastic face.

‘And where’s my Emma?’ cried Grantey, advancing down the passage and giving Margaret – who was lurking by the sitting-room door – a very keen glance. She caught up Emma and kissed her. ‘Where’s Mother, Barnabas?’ she demanded more quietly, still looking at Margaret.

‘She’s gone out to her party,’ piped up Barnabas, before Margaret, who was feeling awkward, could begin to explain. ‘You were
awfully
late, Grantey, and that lady came to the door with Mummy’s ration book. She found it on the Heath. So Mummy asked her to stay and be with us until you came.’

‘Yes, I – I – that’s about it,’ said Margaret, coming forward with an affected, nervous laugh, ‘Mrs Niland did ask me to. I was scared stiff; I’m not used to such small kiddies, but we managed all right, didn’t we, Barnabas?’

Barnabas gave her a long stare. ‘Don’t know,’ he said at last, humping his shoulders, and put his hands in his pockets and strolled back into the sitting-room. Margaret thought what an unpleasant little boy he was.

‘Oh, that was how it was, was it?’ said Grantey, and she gave a slight grim smile which indicated both pride in Mrs Niland’s odd ways and a refusal to comment upon them. ‘Well, I hope they were good.’

‘Oh, yes, they were both very good,’ said Margaret eagerly, hoping to delay the moment of her departure. ‘Emma did cry a little after her mother – Mrs Niland – had gone, but she soon cheered up and she’s been playing with her bricks as good as gold ever since.’

‘And what’s Barnabas been doing? Playing with the coal?’ playfully demanded Grantey as she moved towards the sitting-room, but in such a tone as to suggest that not for an instant did she believe such a breach of the conventions could have been taking place.

‘No,’ said Barnabas instantly, and Margaret’s quick glance towards the corner revealed only the neatly filled scuttle and an expanse of carpet from which every trace of black dust had been removed. Her respect and dislike for Barnabas increased.

‘Oh no, of course not,’ said Grantey ironically, also surveying this picture. ‘Believe it or not, as they say.’ And Margaret, like Barnabas, was left uneasily wondering whether she did or did not know the truth. ‘Well,’ she went on, addressing Margaret, ‘you’ll feel like a cup of tea after looking after these little beings for all that time; I’m going to have one and I’m sure you won’t say no.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ began Margaret, ‘but –’

‘Now come along, it won’t take a minute, and the children’ll be having theirs, too,’ said Grantey. ‘We always have it at half-past three or a quarter to four because they have their lunch at twelve.’

Her tone was not effusive, but Margaret received the impression that she would be welcome if she did stay. In fact, Mrs Grant was fond of society and a new face, and one of these long afternoons alone with the children at Hampstead (though they were a part of her work that was pleasant to her) would be all the pleasanter for a little company. Miss Hebe would not have asked this young woman to stay with the children if she had not liked the look of her, and Grantey herself approved of Margaret’s quiet clothes and obvious admiration for the Niland establishment.

‘Well, it’s very kind of you, if you’re sure I shan’t be eating up your rations,’ said Margaret, delighted at the invitation. Grantey took no notice of this remark, for she ignored the war as far as was possible, regarding it as a tiresome interruption of the activities of the two households which she served.

She made Margaret take off her scarf and gloves and leave them in the little hall, and soon they were getting tea in the kitchen, which was a mere large cupboard at the back of the cottage but painted white and equipped with every contemporary device for making housework harder because they will go wrong. Grantey took down a large tray and began to put cups and plates on it.

‘We’ll have tea in the nursery; it gets the last of the sun,’ she said. The children had already gone up, taking their toys with them. ‘That’s right; you cut some bread, and we’ll make them their dripping toast upstairs.’

Margaret had not been so happy for months. There is a soothing quality in the presence of a person who is absorbed in what they are doing at the moment; who does not ask questions of life or comment upon its more striking strangenesses, and Grantey possessed this quality in a high degree. She was without imagination and humour, those troublers of our peace here below, and to the passionate and self-conscious Margaret, already thrilled at being in the beautiful little house of a genius, her personality was both calming and pleasant. Margaret was not the only one who had been thus pacified by it. In the first night of the blitz on London, Alexander Niland had been steadied by overhearing Grantey admonishing the wakeful Barnabas – ‘Go to sleep now, like a good boy; it’s only bombs.’

Grantey did not talk much while they were preparing the tray; but when they were seated round the table in the unexpectedly large and sunny nursery, and Barnabas and Emma were silently eating their dripping toast with every appearance of enjoyment, she made it clear that she was going to hear all about that ration book. Margaret was more than willing to tell her, for a little sore feeling lingered in her heart at Mrs Niland’s casual acceptance of the situation. A lost ration book was very important in Margaret’s circle; indeed, she could not, upon careful reflection, think of any circle in which it would not be considered important. It must either be that Mrs Niland never bothered about anything, or else she had everything that was tiresome done for her by other people. But she needn’t have been
quite
so casual about it, thought Margaret.