Bell Timson Page 7

  I was in the yard, pegging the sheets on the line, when I heard something that made my heart stand still. It was Jo’s bellow, at first in the distance, but coming nearer and nearer — up the entry. I let the wet sheets fall in the dirt, and before you could blink I had the yard door open. There was Jo, roaring at the top of her voice, with her fists in her eyes and not a sign of Kathleen. I snatched Jo up, looking up and down the entry, which happened to be empty, and tried to get her to tell me what had happened to her sister. All she could get out was: “She’s gone with the man.”

  With Jo still in my arms — she was such a lump I could hardly lift her — I ran to the shop; but somebody else had come in after the children, and the woman had been serving her and had not noticed them going out. I don’t know how long I spent, running up and down the street, asking everyone I saw if they had seen a little girl in a blue tweed coat; and it was not long before a crowd collected (Jo bawling all the time), and of course they all started talking about the things that happen to children who get picked up in the street by strange men. Jo was too much of a baby to tell me anything that would help, although I managed to gather that “the man” had come up to them as they came out of the shop and had offered Kathleen sweets. We don’t know to this day what possessed her to go off with him and leave Jo by herself.

  I rushed to the store to find George. I must have looked a sight, flying in with Jo in my arms, my arms bare from the washtub, my hair falling down, and the sweat running down my face. There was a woman in a fur coat, talking to George very la-di-da, and I pushed her away as if she was a side of bacon. “George!” I cried. “Kathleen’s gone!” I saw from the look on his face that he was as horrified as I, then I saw Hetty, who had seen there was something the matter, coming toward us from the cash desk, and that’s all I remember. Somebody snatched Jo from my arms, and I cracked down on the sawdust — we were in the provisions — and passed out in front of them all.

  It was five hours before we found Kathleen. George telephoned the police, then he put another girl at the desk and sent Hetty home with us. I shall never forget those five hours. I had not a gray hair in my head until that day; a week or two later I was combing out my brush and there were four, as white as silver. But it wasn’t until after the war — the first war — that I took to henna.

  It was nearly half past seven when a policeman walked in, with Kathleen holding his hand. She was as cool as you please, although I saw her give a quick look to see how angry I was. Hetty had got Jo into bed and luckily — I suppose because she had worn herself out with crying — she had fallen asleep like a log. I couldn’t say a word. I sat in the rocking chair, with Kathleen’s little body in my arms, until after nine o’clock. I did not even move to light the one or get the child her supper. I couldn’t; it was like being paralyzed. She hadn’t much to say for herself either — only that she was thirsty and her feet were cold. The policeman had answered my look with a nod, as much as to say, “All right,” and said he would be round to see me in the morning.

  Next day I tried to get Kathleen to tell me about it, but I did not get much out of her. The man had offered her sweets, as Jo said, and asked her to come for a walk with him.

  “But didn’t you think about leaving Jo?”

  Oh, Jo had started to cry and run off down the entry. The man said he couldn’t wait, and took Kathleen’s hand and walked very quickly down Ladysmith Road, that was a turning off our street, just the other side of the hardware shop. There were a lot of little jigging turnings off that which Kathleen had not seen before.

  “But weren’t you frightened — going away like that with a strange man?”

  No, it was fun. They pretended it was a game of hide-and-seek and they were going to get “home” first. Then, it appeared, they got on a bus — I could not understand Kathleen doing all this, for she wasn’t a friendly child, like Jo — and had what she called “a lovely ride” to what I afterward learned was Tooting Common, where the policeman found her sitting under a bush, the man having told her to wait for him.

  This was all she would tell me, and I did not know how to question her, for you don’t want to put things into a child’s mind. I asked her what the man had done, and she said, “Nothing,” but the way she said it told me that she was telling me a lie, and she knew something wrong had happened. I had to leave it at that, and at the policeman’s statement, which was that she hadn’t seemed frightened or upset but had come along with him readily enough. It was not until she was grown-up that Kathleen herself told me the whole story, which was what you might expect, although not so bad as it might have been.

  Whatever it was, something furtive had crept into Kathleen. She was much quieter, and although her behavior was better on the surface — as if she thought she ought to make up for the trouble she had caused me — I was not happy about her and never liked leaving her alone with Jo. And I knew I must get both of them away out of this squalid neighborhood at once, if it meant going out as a servant to pay their school fees. It also struck me that it would help to save money if I gave up the house and took an unfurnished room somewhere. We would have to arrange something for the holidays, but I was never one for crossing my bridges before I came to them. Some of the optimism I had got from that night with George at the music hall still lingered with me, and I was positive that I could begin to save if I hadn’t the house rent and the gas and the coal and the long dribble of little expenses a house seems to call for — especially when it is as old and gimcrack as ours was.

  Alice had promised that as soon as she considered I was sufficiently trained she would let me take over one or two of her simpler cases, which would enable her to give more time to the complicated ones which naturally paid better, although they demanded more of her energy. She was actually having to refuse work, and told me she could have doubled her income if she had taken a partner; but she was not sure yet if the practice would carry two of them, and she was afraid to let go of her Institute work, which still represented the backbone of her business and through which she made most of her contacts. I expect people will smile at the idea of me setting up as a masseur after only a few weeks’ training, but massage in those days was mainly patting, kneading, and rubbing, with some manipulation of the joints; all that electrical therapy and infrared and vibro had not come in, or was used only by a few advanced practitioners.

  The arrangement was to be that Alice should see the patient, decide on the type of work that was necessary, and give the first treatment, while I watched; then she would say, “Now I’m going to hand you over to Mrs. Timson,” and I would carry on. I expected the patients to object at first, but very few of them did, and after a treatment or two they seemed to like me. Of course it was only the very simplest work: bowels or nervous headaches, mainly. The sort of thing anybody with a bit of common sense and good, firm hands could have done for them, instead of paying half a guinea a time — of which Alice very generously insisted I should take two thirds.

  But I am running a long way ahead. At the time I am talking about I was still learning what Alice called my “map,” and lying awake every night, wondering what in the world to do with Kathleen and Jo.

  Chapter V

  LOOKING BACK, it doesn’t seem fair: how I got all the advantages of being married to George Glaize without the nuisance of it. He was always there on guard, like the faithful old watchdog chained up to his kennel at the back door — yes, I’m afraid it was the back door in the end, although that was his fault. George was welcome to my best, but I am a busy woman, and I like my friends to help themselves. When I have visitors I always tell them, ‘There’s bells, my dears, and the house telephone if you want it; I keep my servants for use, not for ornament. You can stay as long as you like, so long as you look after yourselves and don’t expect me to play with you until the evening.” It suits most of our friends, but it doesn’t go with a diffident person like George.

  Oh dear, I must stop getting sentimental over poor old George. I never used to be, but
it was that last birthday of his that started me off — down at Birling Gap, the summer before the war; the second war, I mean — when, as God’s my judge, I didn’t mean to do it, but I let George down again.

  After he retired and bought his little bungalow in Sussex with Hetty to look after him, we did not see so much of each other, but, come hail or snow (which aren’t likely in July), the girls and I had to go down for his birthday, which was the high spot of George’s year. We generally took him a case of wine, for his doctor had knocked him off spirits, and, for a man who had not been educated in vintages, he had a very fair palate. It was worth while picking out a good claret or burgundy for George; to the former he was very partial, ever since Jo took the trouble to bring him back a dozen of Châteauneuf du Pape from her motor tour in the Rhone Valley. It always touched George to have the girls remember him; and, to tell the truth, I was never quite sure if he really liked what he called “the Pope” best, or whether he drank it ever after out of affection for Jo.

  George’s birthday was always the same: he had a great lunch for us, then a great tea, and a great dinner to finish up! The girls said they did not want to look at food for a week after Georges birthday. But that was his way of showing us we were welcome and the dearest things in his life. Poor old George. One must admit he didn’t brighten with the years, and it was pretty dull for the girls, as there was nothing to do after we had been round the garden and admired the roses and the runner beans but sit on the porch and talk about old times. By the time dinner was over we were stupid with overeating and felt like blown frogs. But we could not have disappointed George by going home early. Not until that unlucky birthday in July 1939.

  It happened to be the day before young Peter (Beetle) Curzon was married; he was throwing a big party at Claridge’s, and I had promised to go. He had made a point of it. “No Tim, no party,” was what he said when he rang me up.

  Well, I had pulled that boy out of a tight corner, and I did not like to go back on him. A dear little thing he was marrying; when he introduced me to her as “My oldest friend, Timmy,” I thought, Yes; and you ought to be ashamed of it. I thought how easily I could have ruined that pretty child’s wedding day, and I swore I’d have the skin off young Beetle if I ever heard of his making her unhappy. Impudence! They have no limit to it. You would have thought I’d have been the last person he would have wanted to see at his party, but there I was, by special invitation. I couldn’t resist giving him a pinch when he had the cheek to kiss me: “The skeleton at the feast,” I whispered. I thought there was no harm in giving him a dig to sober him. But not a bit of it; Beetle let out a roar of laughter. “Some skeleton!” he said as he looked at my green panne velvet and pearls. You can’t shame ‘em; well, so much the better.

  I never like to see a man down, and I had not forgotten the last time I saw Beetle Curzon — all white-faced and shivering, a very different person from the swaggering young rip who stood grinning at me on the eve of his wedding day.

  I had to get back in time to change, and although I tried to persuade the girls to stop on, they both insisted they had dates and must come home with me. We had gone down in Jo’s little tourer, because the Rolls was being overhauled; and she was driving with Kathleen beside her. I sat behind. I’ve always been one to take a back seat!

  “Poor old George!” said Kathleen. “Why don’t you marry him, Mother? You’d never notice him about the place.”

  Jo let out a laugh and said I wasn’t such an ass.

  Perhaps my conscience was biting me, although George had hidden his disappointment nobly and waved us off as cheerily as ever from the gate. The one who had shown her opinion was Hetty, who, instead of coming to shake hands and wish us good-by, had shouted she was busy in the scullery. It’s all right, Hetty, I thought. You can’t think less of me than I think of myself.

  “You needn’t be so smart, my girls,” I told them. “I know who’d look the asses today, if it hadn’t been for George. And I’d like to know,” I went on, “where you’d have been, the pair of you, if I’d gone gallivanting off with a husband instead of stopping at home to look after you.”

  I think Kathleen said, “My God,” but she was lighting a cigarette. Jo did not answer, and I thought, That’s damped you down a bit, and serve you right, for disappointing George over dinner.

  Here I am, off at a tangent again; it seems as if I can’t follow the thread of my story. It must be old age.

  But it really makes me ashamed to confess that when I was so worried about the girls’ future it was George, again, who came to the rescue. He was the last person I would have consulted, but of course he knew I had it on my mind, and one evening when we were at the Haymakers (it was quite an understood thing now that Hetty came in once a week, and I had a couple of hours out with George) he said in his hesitating way:

  “I don’t know if you’ll fancy it, Bell, but there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

  “Who’s your girl friend this time?” I said, for I was always chaffing him about Hetty. It was just something to keep the conversation moving, and it amused me to see him flush up as red as a carrot and swear by all he’d got that Hetty was just a good, useful girl, and they never exchanged a word outside of business, except on the nights she came along to me.

  “It’s a Miss Cleveland, quite a lady,” he assured me. “Her and a friend keep the school on the other side of the common. You know the kids: straw hats with ribbons around them, striped pink-and-white like candy.”

  “I’d no idea you’d got such an eye for fashions, George.” I couldn’t stop teasing him.

  ‘Very nice-spoken ladies, both of them — especially Miss Cleveland; I fancy she’s the head.”

  “I know the school you mean,” I admitted. “But I can’t afford candy-striped ribbons, and, anyhow, it’s a day school, isn’t it? That’s not what I want at all.”

  “I know it isn’t,” said George patiently. “Still, I thought you might like to have a talk with Miss Cleveland. They’re giving up here and moving out to Egham, and going to start a boarding school. She came in to ask if we can undertake delivery, as she would like to go on dealing with us.”

  My mind was racing like a train. I was in such a mess, it could not be worse; might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.

  “She might be able to advise you,” George was saying.

  “I want more than advice, George; I want board and keep and a good education for the girls; that’s not as cheap as advice!”

  George looked sheepish.

  “Why don’t you let me take you over in the van tomorrow morning? I’m going myself, because I promised I’d help them to work out a few ideas for catering —”

  Now I was snob enough not to be very keen on the prospect of calling on the girls’ new headmistress (I was thinking of her as that already!) in a tradesman’s van; but I gave myself a shake and told myself I should be blessing old George. I went to the telephone box, rang up Nora, and arranged for her to have the girls for an hour; after all, she was Kathleen’s godmother, and it was up to her to do something for us. And at eleven o’clock next morning George and I were on the steps of the Lodge, as the school was called.

  I saw at a glance it was the sort of place I wanted. The children were in a playground at the side — not yelling and creating mayhem, as they did at the other school, but running about and enjoying themselves in some sort of game that was supervised by the mistress, a good-looking girl who, I thought, gave George and me rather a supercilious look; and I noticed they did not call her “Miss,” or “Teacher,” but addressed her by her name, like civilized little beings. They were all in a jam bun of uniform; I thought how nice Kathleen would look in those brown, pleated frocks, and hastily stopped myself wondering how I should pay for them. For of course I could never afford a school like this.

  I liked Miss Cleveland on sight. She was small and neat, in a well-cut tailor-made, and she asked me if I would like coffee and offered me a cigarette as a matter of course, as s
oon as we sat down. I was glad of that cigarette — which surprised me too; it made the situation more human and natural, somehow, and it gave me the feeling that Miss Cleveland was a woman of the world, to whom I could talk candidly, not wrapping things up and toning them down, as one expected to have to do with schoolmistresses. I found myself telling her all about Kathleen, and she was neither shocked nor sentimental.

  “I fully agree with you, Mrs. Timson, that she ought to be taken right away from her present environment. I’d like to see her and talk to her of course. I hope you’ll forgive me for being straight with you, but there’s always an element of risk in introducing a child with that experience into a children’s community.”

  Frankly that did give me a jolt, and even offended me a little: for it sounded as if Kathleen had some nasty kind of infection. But, on thinking it over, I saw she was right and respected her for her honesty. Then she told me the new boarding school was mainly for children of kindergarten age — rather young for Kathleen but all right for Jo; she used their names as if she knew them already. “But we are hoping to get a few older ones directly, and perhaps Kathleen will be the first of them.”

  This brought me up against it, for fees had not been mentioned. But by now I was liking Miss Cleveland so much that I started off again. I actually told her all about the divorce and the alimony, and how I was planning to earn my living and everything. I could see it was a facer for her — particularly the divorce part — but she stood up to it like a lady.

  “You’ve been very frank in telling me all this, Mrs. Timson, and I appreciate it,” she said after a little pause. “You are in a difficult position, but I can see you are a courageous woman.” There was no patronage in her tone, and she didn’t offer me sympathy, and this suited me down to the ground. She went on briskly, “Now what are we going to do about it?”