Children of the Archbishop (42 page)

She was tall, pale, chilly to the touch, and silent. In her interview she emphasised that she had two interests—providing proper
school meals—here she held up one of her diplomas to prove it—and supervising the
minds
of the children that she was feeding. This was proved equally by her other diploma. And it was certainly obvious that she knew everything about Children. Everything that is except how to set about having any of her own. But with so many cheerful millions all providing her with subjects, she seemed perfectly content with things as they were.

Otherwise, she would probably have done something about her appearance. Her hair, for instance. Thin, sandy-coloured and already prematurely streaked with grey, it fitted her head so closely that it might have been applied with a stick-on transfer; and, considering its smallness, the knob of hair at the back seemed unusually full of pins. Then again her spectacles. Very few women look well in rimless spectacles, and Miss Britt's had a hard, purely scientific glitter to them. And pens. Fashion has been very unkind to women in the matter of pens. The two still don't seem to go together somehow, and, in consequence, women's pens usually have to be carried about in handbags along with the latchkey and miscellaneous small change. But Miss Britt refused to accept this disability. She carried hers, openly clipped to the breast pocket of her blouse—a fountain-pen, a propelling pencil and a plain white handkerchief all ready to hand and all permanently on view.

The watch, too, was like a man's. Was a man's, in fact. Miss Britt wore it boldly and conspicuously like a knuckle-duster that had slipped up over the wrist. And somehow the glasses, the pen, the propelling pencil and the watch did not seem to go with children: they did not belong to the world of nurseries and celluloid ducks. But that only goes to show how misleading appearances can be. Because Miss Britt belonged to children and to nothing else. She had
studied
them. Studied them with a clear, appraising eye that is usually brought to bear on another species. She knew everything about them—their comfort, habits, their fantasy world and their repressions, their over-compensations and their revenge motives. It was as though, after ten thousand years, the race had reluctantly yielded up its secrets.

It was Miss Britt's conviction that a properly balanced diet was the primary requirement of a truly happy childhood. And her first researches into Archbishop Bodkin meals appalled her. When she called for diet-sheets, there were none. For nearly three hundred years, it appeared, successive Matrons had simply been buying in enormous quantities of meat and vegetables and
flour and lard and stuff and then cooking it. In consequence, the carbohydrates had won an easy pernicious victory. And as for Vitamins B and D, it was sheer good fortune if one ever went down a Bodkin throat at all.

But Miss Britt altered all that straight away. The old arrangement of stew and rice pudding on Mondays, liver and jam tart on Tuesdays, and so on throughout the week, was discarded. And, in its place, was substituted a modern menu, as closely balanced as a hairspring and fairly reeking in all the vitamins. Raw vegetables was the basis of it—with raw fruit as well in season. Cabbage, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, turnips with plenty of cheese, all carefully shredded into digestible-sized fragments and with a little lemon squeezed over them, replaced the unhealthy slabs of meat and potfuls of boiled vegetables that had been served previously.

It was against the boiling of vegetables that Miss Britt had set her face most firmly.

“If you served the vegetable water and threw away the cooked vegetables,” she told the assembled kitchen staff in her high clear voice, “you would be doing the children more good. As it is, the drains get the best part and the children get the rubbish. In future we must do things differently. Quite the other way round, in fact.”

Then, as soon as Miss Britt was assured that her charges were at last being properly fed, she turned her attention to the Infirmary.

And, remember, that she was no stranger to infirmaries. That was why she spotted immediately that there was something strange about Margaret. Nor did it take Miss Britt long to discover what it was. The woman, in short, was an impostor. A well-meaning but totally unqualified impostor. The fact that she
was
well-meaning had nothing to do with it. Miss Britt was forced to point out this fact to Nurse Stedge, who obstinately kept on repeating that she couldn't get along without her.

“We shall see,” was all Miss Britt replied. “We shall see.”

And having said it, she decided that she would speak to Margaret herself.

The interview with Margaret did not take very long because Miss Britt was so expert, so sure of herself.

“Everyone tells me how good you were during the epidemic,”
she said, “and the last thing we want is to lose you. It's only that we can't afford to have unqualified nurses. Children are so precious, you see.”

“I know they are,” Margaret replied.

But Miss Britt had misunderstood her. Already she was speaking again in that high, senior-prefect voice of hers.

“I was sure you would,” she said. “I don't really know you. But everyone's told me I could rely on you.” She paused. “And that's not all,” she said. “The Warden has spoken to Dame Eleanor. And she's quite prepared to have you back.”

There was another pause and then Miss Britt's clear steady voice resumed.

“Apparently the new companion hasn't proved a success,” it went on, “and Dame Eleanor wants to make a change anyway. So everything's turned out for the best, hasn't it?”

“But I don't want to go back,” Margaret told her.

Miss Britt smiled. It was a faint, sun-in-February interviewish kind of smile.

“I'm sure there are plenty of other posts open to you,” she said. “From what Dame Eleanor told the Warden, she thinks most highly of you and she'll be ready to give you an excellent reference. I'm sure the Warden would, too, if we asked him.”

Margaret stood there without speaking. Her eyes were fixed full on Miss Britt's smiling ones, but she herself was not smiling. She was still thinking of Sweetie. Thinking a lot of things about Sweetie.

“I want to stay here,” she said.

It was only then that Miss Britt's smile faded.

“But, as I explained, that's impossible,” she said. “Our nurses
must
be qualified. They must have their diploma.”

As she came to “diploma,” her voice rose slightly. It was as though she were saluting the word, almost curtseying to it. And it was obvious that she thought she had brought the discussion to an end. Otherwise, she would not have removed the cap from her fountain-pen and reached out for the greengrocery bills.

But Margaret had not finished. She stood there unmoving. A tall pale figure—she was noticeably paler than she had been when she first came to the Archbishop Bodkin home—those large, dark eyes of hers fixed on Miss Britt.

“If I got my diploma could I stay?” Margaret asked.

Miss Britt smiled again. A genuine smile, this time. The extreme silliness of the question had amused her.

“Diplomas aren't as easy to get as all that,” she said. “Otherwise everyone would have one. Diplomas need study and application and hard work.”

Margaret leant forward.

“If I work hard,” she asked, “could I get my diploma? I mean really hard. I don't mind how hard I work as long as I can stay here.”

It was, Miss Britt decided, not amusing any longer. It was pathetic. There was a streak of stupid obstinacy in the woman that was like a peasant's. And she remembered now that Margaret had been a country girl. Evidently there were some things that she just couldn't understand.

“It's out of the question,” Miss Britt told her. “We can't have you until you're qualified. And even if we could, we're not a training college. It's no use thinking about it. You came here in an emergency. And now the emergency's over, well … there just isn't anything to stop for.”

“But the children …” Margaret began.

“What about them?”

“They need me.”

This was really too much. And Miss Britt resented it. She snapped the top back on her pen and screwed it up hard.

“It's not for you to worry about the children,” she said sharply. “They're my responsibility. And now,” here Miss Britt got up from her desk and went over towards the door, “I'm afraid I've other things to attend to.

But still Margaret had not moved. She really was pathetic now, because she seemed to have no self-respect left to her.

“Isn't there anything else I could do?” she asked. “I don't mind what it is. Cleaning. Anything. I don't mind if I'm just a ward maid.”

Miss Britt did not reply immediately. There was something so earnest about the woman that she didn't want to hurt her feelings.

So all that she said was: “I won't give you my answer now. Come back in the morning when you've thought more about it. Remember, being a ward maid is very rough work. People should've been brought up to it.”

“I was brought up to it,” Margaret said bluntly.

And then Miss Britt did one of those things that only those who have been used to authority can do. She went up to Margaret and laid her hand on her arm.

“Love of children is a very beautiful thing,” she said. “God
intended women to love children. But there are other ways of doing God's work besides nursing. What you ought to do is to get married. Get married, my dear, and have children of your own.”

Mr. Prevarius had overcome his misgivings. Had bunged in a reply the same evening, in fact. Nevertheless, when the time for the appointment came round, he was doubtful whether or not to go through with it. For a start, the box number had turned out not to be that of the young woman herself, but merely of a marriage bureau. And when Mr. Prevarius arrived and saw the collection of brass bell-pushes beside the door he thought for a moment that he must have mistaken the address.

He was surprised, too, even disappointed, by the informality of the office arrangements. It was a man in his shirt-sleeves who opened the door. And when Mr. Prevarius inquired diffidently for the Eros Agency, the man said, “Oh, ‘er,” and jerked his thump upwards, adding: “Second landing.”

It was so dark going up the stairs once the front door had been shut behind him that Mr. Prevarius found himself groping and fumbling. Indeed, only the thought that somewhere at the top of this shadowy and unprepossessing staircase a genteel young lady of good figure might be waiting for him made him persevere. Otherwise he would have turned tail and run. But he had reached the second landing by now, and facing him was a white painted door that bore the words “Eros Agency. Please ring.”

It was one of those cheap clockwork bells that are screwed on to the back of the woodwork. As soon as Mr. Prevarius had touched it, he sprang back again because the buzzing right under his finger-tip was so sudden and so near.

But there was no time for nervousness now. The door had opened and he realised that he was being inspected by a young woman. She was not even a nice young woman. There was too much of the tired slug about her, a limpness; a moistness even. She was, in fact, about the plainest young woman whom he had ever seen.

“Namepleasehaveyouanappointment?” the young woman said in a flat, weary-sounding voice.

“I have,” Mr. Prevarius replied. “For 2.30. And the name is FitzWinter. Algernon FitzWinter. Captain Algernon FitzWinter, retired.”

There was no mistake, not a trace of hesitation this time: he had been practising it all the way on the bus. But all the same he had imagined himself saying it to someone a little more personable. He had imagined a rather gay receptionist at such an agency. And then he understood: it was precisely because it was just such an agency that it had such a receptionist. Anything better would have been snapped up immediately by a disappointed client.

“Would you take a seat in the waiting-room,” she asked. “It won't-belong now.”

The poet in Mr. Prevarius was stirred.

“Poor thing,” he reflected. “Poor unlovely and unwanted thing. Always the bridesmaid. How many many romances must she have seen blossom—always out of reach.”

The waiting-room itself was uncomfortably reminiscent of a dentist's: Mr. Prevarius began thinking of drills and forceps and bent, spiky metal things. The words “rinse please” rose up within his mind. The main difference was that this room was darker. Much darker. The walls were green. And the heavy brown velvet curtains had not been looped back far enough to admit much light. What did penetrate was drained and filtered by coffee-coloured muslin. The light, in consequence, was pale and watery as though the Eros Agency had its waiting-room somewhere at the bottom of the Sargasso Sea.

It took Mr. Prevarius some time to adjust his eyes to the dimness. And, as he did so, he became aware of another occupant, a female occupant, already seated there. He looked harder, and then relaxed. This was not the dream-girl. The woman was past middle-age and wore a battered, peevish expression like a sub-postmistress in Christmas week. “Surely she must be waiting for something else,” he told himself. “She … she can't be thinking of starting up again at her time of life.” He paused. “But who knows?” he reflected. “Nature is very wonderful.”

And trade in the Eros Agency was certainly pretty brisk. The sub-postmistress was called almost immediately, and she was replaced at once by a large fattish man in a check suit who sat with his bowler hat covering the lower part of his face as though
he were afraid of being recognised. Then a plump blowzy woman in a thick veil, with wisps of reddish hair escaping from under a picture hat, was shown in. And Mr. Prevarius was still thinking that there might be something doing if only the fat man would lower his hat and the blowzy woman would lift her veil, when he heard his own name called.