Anna, Where Are You? (5 page)

It was about ten days later that Miss Silver went down to Deep End in the capacity of mother’s help to Mrs. Craddock. There had been a short preliminary interview with Mr. Craddock in the lounge of a private hotel, for which occasion the Jovian gentleman had discarded the belted blouse of Frank Abbott’s description for a suit of clerical grey in which he might very well have been taken for a clergyman of what used to be known as Broad Church views. He certainly had a very fine head of hair. For the rest, Mr. Craddock would pass for a handsome man, with a fresh complexion and eyes of a shade between blue and grey. It was obvious that he considered himself to be a person of importance and expected to be treated as such. He had the deep resonant voice and assured manner of a man who is accustomed to having his utterances received with respect.

Miss Silver demeaned herself accordingly. She had no need to play a part. She had only to go back to her old self and be the modest, tactful governess.

On Mr. Craddock’s side, he was able to congratulate himself upon her complete suitability. She was elderly, it was true, but elderly women who work for their living are often extremely tough and active, and if she obtained the post she would be anxious to keep it. He had had enough of girls—restless, emotional, always wanting something they couldn’t have. He expounded his views on the bringing up of children for twenty minutes, observed Miss Silver’s respectful attention with approval, and engaged her as mother’s help to Mrs. Craddock at a salary of two pounds a week, subject to her references being satisfactory.

As she gave the names of Mrs. Charles Moray and Mrs. Garth Albany, Miss Silver found herself filled with the deepest gratitude. It might well have been that this was the kind of post which she would by now have had to accept. The lot of the ageing governess is not an enviable one. She had indeed much to be thankful for.

A few days later she was taking a familiar train journey to Ledlington, where she changed and embarked upon one of those branch lines which pursue their leisurely course through rural England. The nearest station to Deep End was Dedham, five miles away, where she found that a rickety taxi had been ordered to meet her. The afternoon being by now well advanced, and an early mist having turned to a weeping rain, the drive gave her no more idea of the scenery than that it appeared to be of a flat and agricultural nature. But as the rain increased, the road began to follow a downward course. They went over a hump-backed bridge, the hedges ceased, there was a boggy emptiness on either side. And then a slight rise, until they turned in between tall stone pillars and followed an overshadowed drive to what had once been Deepe House and was now, at Mr. Craddock’s instance, Harmony. It was so nearly dark that Miss Silver could see nothing except a vague central mass flanked by two jutting wings.

The taxi drove into the courtyard and drew up at what had once been a side door opening from the right-hand wing. Miss Silver alighted, rang the bell, and paid her fare, after which the driver,who had not troubled to get out, started up the engine and rattled off down the drive.

Since Miss Silver, like Anna Ball, had not encumbered herself with too much luggage, she was not unduly disconcerted. Her two suit-cases stood beside her on the step. At a pinch she was prepared to carry them herself.

As she rang for the third time, there was the sound of a noisy rush, the door was flung back, and a cacophony of tooth-combs met her ear. It really seemed hardly possible that a combination of three children, three combs, and some toilet-paper could produce so much din. If there was a tune it was not discernible —the impact on the ear was just pure noise.

Miss Silver picked up her suit-cases, walked in, and found herself in an uncarpeted passage paved with stone and lighted only by a very low-powered bulb at the far end. Like shadows against this insufficient light there danced, shrieked, howled, and blew upon their combs, a long thin girl of twelve whom she knew to be Jennifer, and the two boys of seven and four who were Maurice and Benjy.

Miss Silver walked past them without paying any attention to their antics, upon which the performance on the combs passed into a loudly shrieked out “Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed!” But before there had been more than half a dozen repetitions of this rather sinister invitation a door on the left was flung open and Mr. Craddock appeared, very Olympian in a belted blouse of white wool. In the dusk of the passage this was as much as could be seen, but as the children vanished with loud quacking noises and he ushered her into the room from which he had emerged, Miss Silver perceived that his costume was completed by corduroy trousers of a rich shade of crimson, and that the blouse itself was a work of art embroidered with a number of figures which she presently discerned to be the signs of the Zodiac.

The room into which they had come was warm and well lighted. There were book-lined walls, a large writing-table, thick curtains, and some comfortable chairs. A wood fire burned pleasantly on the wide, deep hearth. Advancing towards it, Miss Silver remarked upon its cheerful glow.

“Really quite a chilly afternoon.”

Mr. Craddock beamed.

“There is no welcome like a fire,” he said in the resonant voice which gave an air of importance to the words and an almost ecclesiastical flavour to a passing reference to the children’s noisy greeting. “Such high spirits. The privilege of youth.”

She was replying in a non-committal manner, when the door was opened and there came in a little woman carrying a loaded tray. The sound of scuttering footsteps suggested that it was one of the children who had opened the door.

Mr. Craddock waved a majestic hand.

“My wife, Mrs. Craddock. Emily, this is Miss Silver who is going to be so kind as to help you. This is most opportune—she will be glad of some refreshment after her cold journey.”

He made no effort to help his wife, and she was too much encumbered to do more than murmur a few breathless and rather unintelligible words before setting down the heavy tray. Since there was no table ready to receive it, it had perforce to be accommodated on the writing-table, a circumstance which called forth a rebuke from Mr. Craddock.

“My dear Emily, would it not be as well to have the tea-table in readiness before you bring in the tray? A little forethought, my dear—a little forethought.”

If it did not occur to him that he might have exercised this forethought himself, it certainly did not occur to Mrs. Craddock. A nervous start, an indistinguishable murmur of apology, and she was busying herself with dragging forward a gate-legged table and setting the tray on it. Her surprised, “Oh, thank you!” as Miss Silver hastened to assist her showed how little she was accustomed to being helped. The tray was a great deal too heavy for so frail a person. Mr. Craddock found Miss Silver regarding him in a manner so little suggestive of admiration as to cause him some annoyance.

Looking back afterwards, she was to consider her first impressions of the Craddocks. That he was desirous of producing an effect, she was at once aware. There was nothing very strange about this. A man with a fine exterior and some natural advantages may readily be tempted to assume a part which he is not really qualified to play. To look like Jove does not imply a power to wield the thunder. As for Mrs. Craddock, she was, as Frank Abbott had said, quite literally wrapped in the domestic overall, a garment of faded print which hung limply on her small, thin frame. She was very thin and a good deal bent. Her little pinched face was deeply lined. A pair of faded blue eyes looked nervously from her husband to Miss Silver, and then as a matter of habit back again to her husband. She admired him, she was afraid of him, she made haste to do his slightest bidding.

Over what she now discovered to be health tea with an odd lingering flavour of camomile, Miss Silver began to talk to her about the children. Jennifer was twelve, Maurice was seven, and Benjy four.

“They have so much energy,” said Mrs. Craddock in the soft tired voice which seemed to slur the words because it really had not strength enough to sustain them. “I hope you will not find them too difficult to manage.” Mr. Craddock cut himself a large slice of home-made cake.

“There must, of course, be no coercion,” he said. “That is understood, is it not? The free expression and development of individuality is a cardinal point. Freedom to express, freedom to develop, freedom to come face to face with the Ultimate and fulfil its purpose—these are essentials. I can rely on you to give them full scope?”

Replying that she would do her best, Miss Silver could not help wondering which of these freedoms had fallen to Mrs. Craddock’s share.

“Emily,” said Mr. Craddock in his deepest tones, “you are neglecting Miss Silver. Her cup is empty.” He turned a benignant gaze upon the guest. “My own special herbal tea— healthful and invigorating. I experimented for months before I satisfied my exacting taste. The gathering of the herbs is in accordance with the dictates of astrological science—those under the moon’s influence to be gathered at the full of the moon, those under Venus and the other planets at the appropriate times. There is a vast mass of accumulated lore on the subject. But there are fields still unexplored. It is in connection with these that I hope my name may yet go down to posterity. Meanwhile my health tea is a humble offering to progress.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I am afraid I am very ignorant about such matters. They must require a great deal of study.”

Since Mrs. Craddock had filled up her cup, she had perforce to drink a second and stronger infusion of the health tea. Considered as an offering to progress, it appeared to her inadequate, since its only merit was that it was hot, and this might have been achieved by the simple boiling of a kettle. She could not help reflecting that Mr. Craddock’s labours had involved a sad waste of time.

In the course of the next half hour she heard a good deal more about these labours. Mr. Craddock, it appeared, was engaged upon a Great Work. He required perfect quiet, both for the preliminary meditations which such a task required and for the actual literary work involved. There were also experiments of so delicate a nature that the least interruption would be fatal to their success. To this end he reserved for himself what he alluded to as a Retreat in the otherwise unused central block of the house.

“It is not generally habitable, and parts of it are far from safe. As regards the children, I have been obliged to lay an embargo on it. Much as I dislike rules or any attempt to curtail their perfect freedom of action, you will, I am sure, understand that in this case there is no alternative.” He was helping himself to strawberry jam as he spoke and spreading it thickly upon the current slice of cake.

“Mr. Craddock must have perfect quiet,” said Mrs. Craddock in a faint twittering voice. “He must never be disturbed.”

When Miss Silver was presently conducted to her room, it was by Mrs. Craddock. No one, least of all Mr. Craddock, having attempted to do anything about her suit-cases, she picked up one herself and saw Mrs. Craddock stoop for the other. Since the farther door had been closed, there was nothing to restrain her from saying in a decidedly disapproving manner,

“It is really too heavy for you. Perhaps Mr. Craddock—”

Emily Craddock shook her head.

“Oh, no—I am quite used to carrying things. We have taken up too much of his time already.”

Four slices of buttered toast, three slices of cake and jam, and half a plate of biscuits had taken up a very fair share of the time alluded to, but it was certainly not the moment to remark upon it. Each carrying a suit-case, they turned to the left, and came into a small square hall from which a staircase ran up to the second floor. But before they could set foot on it there was a sound of flying footsteps behind them and, all in a rush, there was Jennifer with an arm about her mother’s shoulders, shaking her, snatching the suit-case away with her free hand, and scolding in a rapid undertone.

“I won’t have it—you know perfectly well I won’t! Why does she let you? She’s come here to help you, hasn’t she? At least that’s what she’s supposed to have come for. Why doesn’t she do it? I’d put up with her if she did. You!” She stared across Mrs. Craddock’s shoulder at Miss Silver. “What’s the good of you if you can’t stop her carrying things?”

There was an unchildlike fury in the dark eyes. Miss Silver met it steadily. She said,

“I hope to be able to do so, Jennifer. If you will carry the case and show me my room, there will be no need for your mother to come up.”

There was a moment of hostility, a moment of fading antagonism, a moment when Jennifer stood frowning and uncertain. Then she gave Mrs. Craddock quite a rough push, said, “Be off with you!” and ran up the stairs without waiting.

Miss Silver followed at leisure. She was perfectly able to carry her suit-case, but she had no intention of hurrying. She wondered a little whether Jennifer would be in sight when she reached the landing which corresponded with the hall below. It was crossed by a long passage upon which rooms opened to either side. A faint light illuminated the stair-head, but the passages were dark, and Jennifer had vanished in the darkness.

Miss Silver took a chance and walked down the right-hand passage. She was nearing the end of it, when a door flew open and light streamed out to the accompaniment of Jennifer’s mocking laughter. It broke off suddenly.

“You didn’t scream!”

“I could see no reason to scream.”

“Do you always see reason?”

The child’s voice accused her of something—she wondered what? She said in her most equable tones,

“It is a very good plan.”

As she came into the room, Jennifer backed away from her, tall and thin in old patched shorts and a faded scarlet jersey. The long bare legs were brown, the long thin feet were naked in their sandals. Miss Silver was reminded of a startled foal. There was the same mixture of awkwardness and grace, the toss of the head with which a straying forelock was shaken back. There was no timidity, but an alert wariness. From a safe distance Jennifer said,