Children of the Archbishop (64 page)

Not that it had been easy. At first the Matron had been opposed to the whole idea: it seemed to her that the two children had got each other into quite enough trouble already, without being brought together again. But there was an extraordinary persistence about Sweetie where Ginger was concerned. And, in the end, the Matron yielded. Sweetie could see Ginger for five minutes in the Institution waiting-room, she said; for five minutes and no more, she added. What's more, she told Sweetie, she was going to be present herself the whole time just to make sure that they didn't get up to planning any more little jaunts together.

It was rather an awkward interview when it was finally arranged—Sweetie with her bad foot stuck straight out on the ankle-board, and Ginger standing stubbornly in front of the two of them and trying not to appear embarrassed. Ginger only looked at Sweetie twice, the Matron noticed. Once when he came in and then again his way out. The rest of the time he seemed to be staring mostly at the bandaged foot. But it was very different with Sweetie. She didn't take her eyes off him for a single minute. Just sat there, staring. She even swung her chair round so that she could get a last glimpse of him as he went back out through the door.

It was some time before the Matron understood, and, when she did, truth came to her with a sense of shock.

“Good gracious,” she told herself. “I do declare the child's in love with him.”

And, naturally, after that, she wouldn't hear of any further
meetings. Not that there would really have been time for any of them because Sweetie and Ginger were suddenly sent for.

The wheels that go round inside the machinery of the Children's Courts started turning, and the law was now ready for them. What was more, the law was taking the whole thing pretty seriously. There were to be no combined outings this time. Ginger was fixed up to go to a boys' remand home at Mill Hill, and Sweetie was booked for an institution at Blackheath. There was to be practically the whole width of London between the two of them.

They travelled down to London in separate trains, with Margaret following by the 4.45. And the Matron regretted that it was all over: Sweetie and Ginger had been about the most exciting thing that had ever happened in Arkleydale. As for Margaret, the Matron told her to her face that she was sorry that she was going. She could have done with her, and two or three more like her, at the Arkleydale and District, and, if at any time Margaret felt like returning, she had, as the Matron told her, only to say so.

But Margaret had no thought of going back there. Or back to the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital for that matter. Hadn't got anywhere at all to go to now, in fact. Sweetie's destination had been kept secret. The Matron herself didn't know where they were taking her. And when Margaret said good-bye to Sweetie up in Arkleydale, it was like losing her for ever.

She hadn't even got the money to go searching. When she had settled for her room in Arkleydale, she only had twenty-three shillings left in her handbag.

“I'll have to find some work,” she thought anxiously. “I must have some money for when I find Sweetie again.”

The one thought of finding Sweetie now filled her whole mind.

“They've taken her away from me. And I've got to find her. I've got to get her back somehow.”

She was sitting upright and rigid in the corner of the compartment, a rather shabby figure in an old blue coat and a hat with a cheap ornament. Her hands were clasped tightly together in her lap. The other passengers were reading, dozing, looking out of the window. But Margaret did not appear to be aware of them. Her thoughts were running in the rhythm of the train wheels. “I've
got to find her. I've got to find her. I've got to find her …” she was saying.

And when she reached London her mind was already made up. All the way down in the train she had been thinking about it. It seemed her last hope of discovering Sweetie.

“I'm going back to Dame Eleanor,” she told herself. “She's the only one who can help me. And she's got to do it. She's got to help me get Sweetie back again.”

It seemed strange going again up the long drive of The Cedars. And stranger still having to ring to be let in. It was all so familiar—the shape of the bell-pull, the way the curtains hung at the tall windows, the downward crescent of the steps—that she could not believe that she was no longer a part of it all. As she stood there, she could feel the beating of her heart …

“You can go up now,” she heard the housekeeper saying to her at last. “But don't say anything to worry her. You can see that she isn't well.”

The words came to her dimly. And, as she began to go up the broad staircase, she realised how tired she was. She had not eaten all day, and she was trembling. But she could not afford to be weak now. Everything depended on being stronger than Dame Eleanor.

And then, as soon as she went inside the room, she began to doubt herself. For Dame Eleanor looked so old. It was as though abruptly she had ceased even pretending that she was still only middle-aged. The bed-jacket buttoned across her shoulders was the garment of an old woman. Her hands without any of her rings upon them were old hands. Her hair was tattered and wispy around her shoulders. And her face had taken on all the lines and wrinkles that she had been smoothing and massaging and creaming away for years.

“I shouldn't never have left her,” she began telling herself. “Not like this. Not old the way she is.”

And, at that moment, Dame Eleanor began speaking.

“Did they send for you?” she asked. “I've been telling them to.”

There was something helpless and pathetic about the question. This wasn't the Dame Eleanor that Margaret knew.

“I came myself,” she said. “I wanted to see you.”

Dame Eleanor smiled.

“I'm glad. I need you here. You mustn't ever go away again. I want someone who understands to look after me …”

Dame Eleanor looked different by now. Margaret had waited on her, brushing out her hair and rebraiding it into two thin plaits, smoothing the pillows, rebuttoning the bed-jacket, straightening the eiderdown.

Then she drew herself up.

“I want to ask you something,” she began.

“What is it?”

“It's about Sweetie …”

But Dame Eleanor only shook her head.

“Not now,” she said. “I don't want to talk about it. Not to-night.”

“But I must talk to you,” Margaret went on.

Again Dame Eleanor shook her head.

“Don't you bother yourself about Sweetie,” she said. “They'll look after her. She'll go into an approved school all right. They'll find somewhere for her.”

“But Sweetie mustn't go to an approved school,” Margaret said suddenly, as though the words had been lurking there in her mind all the time. “She mustn't.”

Dame Eleanor gave a little gesture of irritation. This wasn't what she had expected. She had never imagined that Margaret, too, would begin pestering her, just at the moment when the one thing that she wanted to do was to rest and forget about it all.

“She's got to go somewhere where she can be looked after,” she said crossly. “There's no other way for it.”

“There is,” Margaret answered slowly. “That's … that's why I came here.”

Dame Eleanor twisted her head so that she could see Margaret better. She remembered now that there had always been something mysterious about her, something concealed somewhere. But—Margaret's face revealed nothing. Under the shadow of the dark hair, it was smooth and placid as it had always been. Only a little tired, perhaps. But not a hint, not even the merest suggestion, of what was going on inside her mind.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” she asked.

“I want you to let me have her here,” Margaret began slowly. And then, before Dame Eleanor could reply, she went on quickly. “She wouldn't be no trouble to you. Really, she wouldn't. I'd see to that. And she'd grow up a good girl with me looking after her. I promise she would. If I had her to myself, I could manage her, I know I could.”

Dame Eleanor arched out her neck from among the pillows that Margaret had arranged for her.

“Out of the question,” she said. “I wouldn't hear of it. Simply couldn't hear of it.” She paused. “Why don't you get married yourself and stop bothering about other people's children?”

She reached out for the glass of water as she finished, and Margaret rose and put it into her hand. When Dame Eleanor had drunk, Margaret took the glass from her and put it down again. She had made no reply but sat there quietly, almost as though waiting.

And, after a moment, Dame Eleanor spoke again. But her voice was fainter, the mere shadow of the voice that Margaret remembered.

“Just stay with me, dear,” she said. “Put the other idea out of your head, and look after me instead. I'll make it worth your while. You need never worry about anything again. Be sensible. We aren't any of us getting any younger. It's something to have a home, remember. And I've told you how much it would mean to me. Say that you'll stop here and look after me.”

Her hand was reaching out towards Margaret's as she was speaking. And Margaret wanted to take hold of it.

But she checked herself. She remembered why she had come and she knew that she would have to be strong. She got up out of reach of those tired, pleading fingers.

“Not unless Sweetie comes here, too,” she said, backing slowly away from the bedside. “Not without Sweetie.”

No one can go to the cinema every night no matter how worried he may be; and Dr. Trump had not as a matter of fact enjoyed what he had seen on his first visit. The entertainment that was offered had seemed to him to consist mostly of sex, violence and a brightly-lit type of Californian callousness that left him shocked and horrified. What, indeed, amazed him was that Mrs. Warple—the widow of a bishop he could not help reminding himself—should apparently have been ready to sit there all night fairly lapping it up, the sawn-off shot guns, the ten-second kisses,
the astonishing expanses of bosom seen suddenly in close-up, the screeching tyres in the car-chases, and all the rest of it.

But even if the cinema were spiritually closed to him, the need for it remained. For Mr Vivvyan Sparkes seemed at least as leisurely in issuing his report as he had been in paying-off the taxi-driver. More than a week had elapsed since the inquiry, and so far there had not been so much as a single word from the Home Office. The suspense of wondering what Mr. Sparkes was going to say was indeed becoming unbearable. That was why Dr. Trump had suffered three entirely sleepless nights. In consequence, he was not able to settle down to anything. Even the composition of a sermon proved too much for him and he had, in the end, been forced to redeliver one of his old ones—a long, rather involved address about Free Will and its place in the Team Spirit.

This evening, the eighth evening since the inquiry, Dr. Trump was even moodier and more despondent than usual. He decided that he must have some fresh air and some real exercise. He wanted to be able to stretch his legs properly somewhere where there would be no chance of meeting anyone.

His first thought was of the cloisters. But Mr. Dawlish, pipe reeking, was there already, shuffling rather than walking, sloppily taking his own evening exercise. From the back he looked like a shambling ill-trained bear. Dr. Trump registered the point: to-morrow he would send for him and ask him politely—request him—to pick up his feet and avoid setting a bad example to the boys.

And with the cloisters occupied, Dr. Trump wondered about the boys' playground. But Mr. Rushgrove was already in possession. Dressed in almost embarrassingly brief running shorts he was doing his daily three times round. The kitchen garden? That too was inhabited. Miss Britt, smooth, placid and apparently unworried by the inquiry, was walking up and down in conversation with Nurse Stedge. Miss Britt held a piece of paper in her hand—a diet sheet probably—and kept pointing at it.

It was then Dr. Trump remembered the Tower. The estimate had got through the Board at last, and the contractors were already at work upon the job. Their scaffolding around the Tower was like a giant constructional toy. Only his excessive preoccupation with other matters had kept him away from it for so long. And at the mere thought of what a surprise visit of inspection might reveal his pulse quickened. He was always at his best when inspecting.

He decided therefore to go straight up to the top balcony
and work downwards: there was a businesslike air to the arrangement that appealed to him. And, as he emerged on to the upper balcony, he drew in a deep breath of sheer contentment. The air was pure and uncontaminated up here. The lights of London were coming on below him, and the infants' block to the right was already a glowing honeycomb of illuminated cells. Gazing down into the whole expanse of the Archbishop Bodkin grounds that surrounded it, he found himself loving every stone and corner of the place.

“There's old Dawlish,” he began thinking almost affectionately. “He … he seems to belong there somehow …”

At the thought, Dr. Trump realised with a shock that he himself did not belong there—not in the sense in which Mr. Dawlish belonged. Dr. Trump was merely someone important who had suddenly arrived. Mr. Dawlish was a part of the fabric. Compared to Mr. Dawlish himself, he was an interloper …

He broke off, because suddenly a wave of faintness had come over him, and he passed his hand across his forehead. It was extraordinary this feeling, as though he and the Tower were slowly toppling forward. He bit his lip in sheer irritation.

“The stairs,” he told himself. “The stairs. Perhaps I took them rather fast. I must be more careful …”

He hated physical infirmity at all times; and at a moment like the present, when he might need all his strength to deal with Mr. Sparkes's report it was unbearable. He had, he was forced to admit, been feeling on the edge of things for days.