?’
Then, as we returned no answer, ‘ K promise .’
Katrine yawned and said, ‘All right.’
‘ D promise .’
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘ R promise .’
But mother is too old a hand to be caught that way, and I could see that she removed her hand for a second, and made the sign of the cross.
If one could say of a table that it expressed contempt in sound, that is the word I should select for the performance of ours. At this gesture, it was for all the world like the rappings of overbearing knuckles.
‘ Anglican. No Popery !’
Mother smiled to herself, and Miss Martin went ‘hoo!’ right up in her head. We silenced the hail of raps with our promises, the table rocked into a corner and we shuffled with it.
‘ Sheil – go – back – in – time .’
After that it would say nothing.
Miss Martin said it was perfectly weird.
As I moved about the bedroom, Sheil stirred in her sleep, and gave a husky little crow.
I stood a minute in the middle of the floor, and slinging my dressing-gown round me, opened the door. Mother’s room was at the end of the passage.
Outside, she was coming towards me.
‘Well . . . what about it?’
‘I agree with you,’ I answered.
‘There’s nothing serious the matter with her, but at the same time’
‘I know.’
We packed the following day.
And so, Katrine and I were able to be at Dion Saffyn’s funeral. We hid in a back pew, and when those with a right to be present had laid their wreaths and driven away, we came forward and put our flowers with the rest.
In the church, I could recognise nobody, but Katrine pulled my cuff and whispered, ‘That’s Pauline – the fair girl up in front. She’s changed a bit, but it’s Pauline. I remember her face . . . ’ As we left the churchyard, I said, ‘K, I do hope you don’t want hymns for your funeral. They make one feel’
‘Not much! Have what you like, if I do go off first. I’d like some of German’s Nell Gwynne dances.’
‘Why can’t they let one have a medley of all the music one’s ever liked? After all, it’s more “us” than The Day Thou Gavest or anything of that kind.’
‘I know. I love all sorts of things: Gathering Peascods , and Vanity of Vanities , and I’m One of the Ruins Cromwell Knocked About a Bit , and if one asked for them, they’d say one was irreverent. Aren’t people incredible? What are we going to do now?’
‘Cinema? That ought to kill or cure.’
‘Couldn’t stick it.’
‘Tea?’
‘Couldn’t down a thing.’
‘Better be on our own.’
‘Right you are.’
I walked and walked, confused with the way things were going and by the fact that I was in London in August. Somehow, the sight of town was rather improper, like seeing your grandmother in her combinations. You knew she wore them, but the shock was none the less. London in August was one of the sights automatically kept from you, like major operations, and yet I have always suspicioned I could love it at forbidden times. One misses so much by slavery to dates and clocks. How many Londoners have seen the vegetables unpacked in Covent Garden? Or the day dawn in Kensington Gardens, or breakfasted at Greenwich and gone back by steamer? And if it comes to that, how many of us have seen the country in October, with wet apples thumping overnight on to the ground? Poor little Pauline and Ennis. What a break-up! I wonder what they do? Saffy really has got a London office, and when I am in Leicester Square, I pass it and look up at the windows.
Sheil is better already, but she and mother must go away again and finish up the business. Saffy’s death would throw Pauline out of a job, I had said to mother, and then I remembered that probably she had never been in it . . . she may even be married . . .
Oh well, there’s always work.
9
I was returning from Kensington Gardens, the aquatic Crellie, wringing, beaming, and full of pond-water and tiddlers, lumbering on ahead. I adore the autumn and all its smells,
Then, as we returned no answer, ‘ K promise .’
Katrine yawned and said, ‘All right.’
‘ D promise .’
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘ R promise .’
But mother is too old a hand to be caught that way, and I could see that she removed her hand for a second, and made the sign of the cross.
If one could say of a table that it expressed contempt in sound, that is the word I should select for the performance of ours. At this gesture, it was for all the world like the rappings of overbearing knuckles.
‘ Anglican. No Popery !’
Mother smiled to herself, and Miss Martin went ‘hoo!’ right up in her head. We silenced the hail of raps with our promises, the table rocked into a corner and we shuffled with it.
‘ Sheil – go – back – in – time .’
After that it would say nothing.
Miss Martin said it was perfectly weird.
As I moved about the bedroom, Sheil stirred in her sleep, and gave a husky little crow.
I stood a minute in the middle of the floor, and slinging my dressing-gown round me, opened the door. Mother’s room was at the end of the passage.
Outside, she was coming towards me.
‘Well . . . what about it?’
‘I agree with you,’ I answered.
‘There’s nothing serious the matter with her, but at the same time’
‘I know.’
We packed the following day.
And so, Katrine and I were able to be at Dion Saffyn’s funeral. We hid in a back pew, and when those with a right to be present had laid their wreaths and driven away, we came forward and put our flowers with the rest.
In the church, I could recognise nobody, but Katrine pulled my cuff and whispered, ‘That’s Pauline – the fair girl up in front. She’s changed a bit, but it’s Pauline. I remember her face . . . ’ As we left the churchyard, I said, ‘K, I do hope you don’t want hymns for your funeral. They make one feel’
‘Not much! Have what you like, if I do go off first. I’d like some of German’s Nell Gwynne dances.’
‘Why can’t they let one have a medley of all the music one’s ever liked? After all, it’s more “us” than The Day Thou Gavest or anything of that kind.’
‘I know. I love all sorts of things: Gathering Peascods , and Vanity of Vanities , and I’m One of the Ruins Cromwell Knocked About a Bit , and if one asked for them, they’d say one was irreverent. Aren’t people incredible? What are we going to do now?’
‘Cinema? That ought to kill or cure.’
‘Couldn’t stick it.’
‘Tea?’
‘Couldn’t down a thing.’
‘Better be on our own.’
‘Right you are.’
I walked and walked, confused with the way things were going and by the fact that I was in London in August. Somehow, the sight of town was rather improper, like seeing your grandmother in her combinations. You knew she wore them, but the shock was none the less. London in August was one of the sights automatically kept from you, like major operations, and yet I have always suspicioned I could love it at forbidden times. One misses so much by slavery to dates and clocks. How many Londoners have seen the vegetables unpacked in Covent Garden? Or the day dawn in Kensington Gardens, or breakfasted at Greenwich and gone back by steamer? And if it comes to that, how many of us have seen the country in October, with wet apples thumping overnight on to the ground? Poor little Pauline and Ennis. What a break-up! I wonder what they do? Saffy really has got a London office, and when I am in Leicester Square, I pass it and look up at the windows.
Sheil is better already, but she and mother must go away again and finish up the business. Saffy’s death would throw Pauline out of a job, I had said to mother, and then I remembered that probably she had never been in it . . . she may even be married . . .
Oh well, there’s always work.
9
I was returning from Kensington Gardens, the aquatic Crellie, wringing, beaming, and full of pond-water and tiddlers, lumbering on ahead. I adore the autumn and all its smells,
Similar Books
