Children of the Archbishop (37 page)

But Mr. Prevarius assured them that it would not occur again. In any case, the Chinese altar was rather larger than he had reckoned on. And, with the four-foot six divan there wasn't space for another upright chair. Besides, all that he was now thinking of was bringing Desirée—his wee wifie, he must remember to call her—to his hide-out.

And she, he hoped, would be coming quietly up the stairs in the ordinary way.

Mr. Prevarius had been the tenant of the second floor front of 23a Deirdre Gardens for nearly six weeks before he decided to avail himself of its unique, its dizzy and delightful privileges.

The furnishings were complete by now. An imitation leopard-skin rug lay before the hearth; a gilded plaster Cupid smiled from the top of the Chinese altar; and the parchment lamp-shade with its gay hunting scene of jolly, pink-coated riders and russet-coloured hounds in pursuit of a shrinking and deceitful-looking fox, cast a discreet and intimate circle of light upon the outsize divan.

The only thing that Mr. Prevarius was not sure about was the joss-stick burner. He had only tried it with joss-sticks in it once. And that time he had made the mistake of not opening any of the windows. In consequence, he had been nearly stifled. For days afterwards his clothes—his Deirdre Gardens clothes—had been impregnated with a smell that was reminiscent of cheap handbag sachets and penny packets of cachous.

Perhaps, Mr. Prevarius told himself, they hadn't been the best joss-sticks. The real Chinese—the Chinese who lived in China, Asia—could not, he felt certain, have used this kind and have survived so long. But he was reluctant, nevertheless, to give them up altogether. There was something so … so
recherché
and exquisite about opening the door and saying quietly: “Not scent, my dear. Incense. An old Oriental custom. But still beautiful beneath our grey Western skies, do you not think?”

And now the moment had at last come for putting all this battery of charm and luxury to the supreme test. He had phoned up from the call-box at the corner of St. Mark's Avenue and made
his date with Desirée; he had bought a bottle of champagne and had even made arrangements with the fishmonger next door for the delivery of some ice. Finally, he had laid the scene with the Miss Lewises.

“To-night,” he had said, “I am hoping that my wife, my wee wifie, will be with me. That is, of course, only if the bairns are better. Puir Angus and little Jeannie have been real bad. But if all is well we should be rolling along … reaching London, that is … somewhere round about eleven. It is the night train—er, the late train I should say—that Mrs. Gordon will be catching.”

And by 10.55 everything was proceeding exactly according to plan. He and Desirée had enjoyed a pleasant evening together at the Plaza, with a bite at the Café Royal afterwards, and they were now in the taxi together, her head on his shoulder, as they passed Sloane Square.

“I don't know why I ever gave up the stage myself,” Desirée was saying dreamily. “It's the only life for a girl.”

“Or the concert platform,” Mr. Prevarius corrected her.

“What's that?”

“But think of your singing lessons,” Mr. Prevarius replied, allowing his hand to stray affectionately towards her knee. “When you left the convent in India you took up singing. Your father, the Colonel, had set his heart on it. Don't you remember?”

“That was afterwards,” Desirée told him, rather vaguely.

There was a pause and she shifted the conversation.

“How's business?” she inquired.

“Oh, so-so,” Mr. Prevarius answered. “Mustn't grumble, you know. Up one moment and down the next. But that's what life's like—all rough and smooth.”

“What sort of business
is
it?” Desirée went on. “Somehow I can't actually see you doing anything.”

In the darkness of the cab, Mr. Prevarius smiled.

“No?” he parried. “But I didn't always write songs, my dear.”

“You're a director of something, aren't you?” Desirée persisted.

Mr. Prevarius hesitated. He was almost beginning to regret that he had ever brought her. After all, there must be hundreds of other girls, thousands probably, who would be ready to be given a night on the tiles without getting so confoundedly inquisitive.

“Yes, I am a director of something,” he said finally. “If not
a large concern, at least an old one. In the City, you know. One of the smaller issuing houses.”

He leant forward and tapped sharply on the glass of the taxi.

“Here on the left,” he said. “Next door but one to the pub.”

Then he turned towards Desirée again.

“You must forgive bachelor quarters,” he said. “They're simple—but sufficient.”

Considering the lateness of the hour, 23a had an unusually wakeful air about it. To Mr. Prevarius's surprise there were lights blazing in the hall, in the Miss Lewises' sitting-room and in the large basement kitchen down below.

He was even more surprised, however, when the front door opened just as they reached the top step and Miss Lewis the elder stood there smiling at them.

“Come on in, dear Mrs. Gordon,” she said. “Indeed to goodness how tired you must be after that terrible long journey. But you can just relax now. There's no need to lift a hand whatever …”

Her face dropped a little, Mr. Prevarius thought, as Desirée stepped into the brightly lit hall and Miss Lewis caught sight of her. It had occurred to him earlier that evening that Desirée was wearing an unusual amount of make-up, and the large black beauty spot on one cheek was by way of being a mistake. But he had entirely failed to make allowances for the extremes of hospitality of which the emotional Welsh race is capable. For already Desirée was being snatched from him and led upstairs by the ancient Miss Lewis.

“It is into my room you must go, Mrs. Gordon, to put off your travelling clothes,” she said. “Then you can unpack everything you need …” She broke off abruptly. “But what have you?” she asked. “Where are your bags, indeed?”

Mr. Prevarius started. He hadn't thought of bags.

“Oh those,” he said hurriedly. “A misunderstanding at the station. Sheer carelessness on the porter's part. The station-master has been told. But you know how it is—all gold braid and inefficiency.”

“What's going on here?” Desirée asked him.

But by now Mr. Prevarius was close enough behind to give a playful warning pinch.

“The luggage. At Paddington … I mean King's Cross,” he explained hurriedly. “You remember, dear. We shall simply have to rough it as we are.”

They had reached the door of Miss Lewis's bedroom by now, and it was suddenly opened and closed again in Mr. Prevarius's face. He was alone on the landing, and Desirée and Miss Lewis were closeted inside.

As he stood there, he felt the sweat breaking out on his forehead again. There was Desirée shut up with the landlady, not knowing that she had just come down from St. Andrews, not knowing that her husband was a university examiner, not knowing that she had two wee bairns—even Mr. Prevarius could not remember their names—not even knowing that she was Scottish.

And when he opened the door of his little snuggery, there was another shock in store for him. The golden-hearted Miss Lewises had done their utmost for him. For amid the exquisiteness of ebony and lacquer, a small nasty table with a hideous tablecloth had been wheeled in; and up against it were two horse-hair chairs. But it was the way the table had been laid that distressed him most. Two kinds of sandwiches, a Swiss roll, a seed-cake, a plate of ham, an obviously tinned tongue and a great bowl of egg-salad were arranged around a large earthenware tea-pot. Mr. Prevarius's bottle of champagne stood indignantly in the mid-centre.

He was still standing there gloomily contemplating this ruin of so much beauty when Desirée and Miss Lewis returned.

“And how relieved indeed you must be that the bairns are better,” Miss Lewis began immediately. “Mrs. Gordon did not credit how you had been worrying yourself. Like a sick man with the toothache, I told her. But all that's over and forgotten now.”

“Quite forgotten,” Mr. Prevarius answered truthfully.

“But it's your meal you're wanting,” Miss Lewis said tactfully. “Make a good start and I'll bring up the potatoes while Mrs. Gordon is pouring out …”

The interruptions were too frequent to allow of much intimacy while the meal was proceeding, and Mr. Prevarius and Desirée ate in silence. There was an apple tart that Miss Lewis had been keeping hot for them. And some cheese and radishes. And another jug of hot water in case the tea was getting stewed. It was not, indeed, until Mr. Prevarius had given Miss Lewis a hand with the table and had bumped it downstairs for her that there was even
the slightest promise of an uninterrupted moment alone with Desirée.

“It's kind you are,” Miss Lewis told him. “These corners, indeed. I could never have moved it without you. My sister helped me to bring it up.”

“And she is in bed now?” Mr. Prevarius asked enviously.

“Indeed to goodness no,” Miss Lewis told him. “She is out telephoning.”

Mr. Prevarius asked no further questions. He was still trying to repair the ruins of the evening. Going back into the room, he extinguished all the lights except for the hunting scene. Then he lit the fresh consignment of joss-sticks that he had just bought. They were his first mistake, because they immediately brought Miss Lewis upstairs again to say that she could smell burning. And, even when she was satisfied, Desirée said that the smell gave her a headache and Mr. Prevarius had to extinguish them.

It seemed then that rest had at last come to them. Desirée lay in Mr. Prevarius's arms, staring up at the jolly-looking huntsmen, and Mr. Prevarius sat gazing into the gas-fire and humming. Desirée was still inclined to be suspicious and resentful, but Mr. Prevarius was busy in the rôle of comforter.

“Just an innocent deception to protect milady's honour,” he explained to her. “No woman can afford to be too careful. And my little story about the children should allay all doubts. It was only for your sake that I thought of it …”

They were interrupted by a loud knocking on the door. It was Miss Lewis again, and her excitement was uncontrollable.

“It's the luggage, indeed it is,” she said triumphantly. “All this time you've been here my sister has been telephoning. They think they've identified it, indeed they do. The Lost Property is open all night, so Mr. Gordon can go back for it. They're expecting him. I'll sit here and talk to you till he returns.” Miss Lewis paused breathlessly. “Oh, the relief it'll be to you to have your own things again.”

Dr. Trump's first child—and, as it subsequently proved, his only one—had been born at six o'clock that morning. In consequence, Dr. Trump was beside himself. He was enfolded in a bright new bliss. A son too! Sebastian Samuel they were going to call him. And at the mere thought of what it meant to have an heir, Dr. Trump kept repeating the names over and over to himself like a kind of spell.

He stood there in his purple dressing-gown in front of the bedroom fireplace gazing down at the tiny form, the pink crumpled face, the pigmy hands of the baby that had just been placed within his arms. And, as he gazed, he radiated. His face and dressing-gown both glowed. Compared with Felicity, pale among the pillows, Dr. Trump was like something that had stepped down from a stained-glass window.

“My nose. My forehead. My ears,” he was thinking. “Felicity's expression somehow—but that, of course, may change. My hands. My fingernails. And undeniably my chin.”

And then the happiest thought of all came to him. The child was the grandson of a Bishop! But even this sacred and paternal moment was not left inviolate. From nowhere, angry and disturbing memories of Mrs. Gurnett came crowding in.

For Mrs. Gurnett's own lawyers had played themselves to a standstill with the Bridlington firm, and there was nothing more left to confirm or acknowledge. Less lawyers' fees, the money now stood to Mrs. Gurnett's account. And it had all happened exactly as Mrs. Gurnett had intended. The moment the money was actually hers, she resigned. What was more, two of the nurses—both silly, rather hysterical creatures—decided that they would go too. No real reason for it; just a sense of drama. Then a kitchen-maid, practically a half-wit, caught the fever of resignation and started packing in sympathy. Thus, in a stroke, there were four vacancies for Dr. Trump to fill—the post of matron and three lesser posts.

Naturally there was a Governors' Meeting to discuss the situation. But Dame Eleanor on that occasion was in one of her pooh-poohing sort of moods.

“Well,” she said brightly, “there's nothing else for it. Dr. Trump will just have to manage as best he can, until we find the right people. Luckily it's the Summer term. We don't have epidemics in the Summer.”

“We don't have epidemics in the Summer”: it was more than once on the end of Dr. Trump's tongue to remind Dame Eleanor of those words of hers.

Not that it would have done any good. Merely have led to unpleasantness and recriminations, and that kind of thing. But the temptation was there all right. And, on any showing the time sequence was certainly remarkable. It was in June when Dame Eleanor uttered the fateful sentence. And by the August, the whole Hospital was properly in the thick of one.

It all started off quietly enough. Indeed, right up to the Tuesday evening Nurse Stedge felt confident that she had the whole situation comfortably in hand. Simply an outbreak of snuffly summer colds: that was all it was. She had dealt with summer colds before, and thought practically nothing of them. What really worried her was that Dr. Trump had set August aside for redecorating the infirmary and, now, with three new cases in it, the painters would have to be put off again.