Children of the Archbishop (7 page)

Miss Bodkin shook her head, defeated. For all that she could make of it, it might have been so much gibberish that Dame Eleanor was talking at the other end. There was nothing for it, therefore, but for her to withdraw altogether from this world of shadows. But she was reckoning without the bright light of old Mr. Chitt. Leaning forward suddenly he placed his mouth right up against her patent acoustic box on the table.

“Boiler!” he shouted.

Miss Bodkin jerked back, startled. The instrument had not managed to make the word out; it had come simply as an explosion, a concussion right inside her head.

“Good gracious,” she said, looking resentfully in Mr. Chitt's direction.

Dame Eleanor glanced down at her watch. Because she wore it pinned closely to her bosom she had to contort herself to see the face. And what she saw alarmed her. At this rate, her other meetings—the Junior League of Innocence, the Unmarried Mothers, the NAVPTCW—would all be upon her before the ancient Miss Bodkin had understood. She turned to Dr. Trump.

“Write it down for her,” she said.

Dr. Trump caught Dame Eleanor's eye and smiled understandingly. Then taking out the gold-sheathed fountain-pen that had been presented to him by the troop of the Boys' Brigade that he had once commanded, he wrote rapidly in his large, cursive script on a piece of scribble-paper.

“Would you mind passing this to Miss Bodkin?” he asked Mr. Chigwell.

“I'm so sorry,” Mr. Chigwell replied meaninglessly, and passed it.

Meanwhile Dame Eleanor's eye had roved suspiciously farther down the Agenda.

“We had better come back to this one later,” she observed. “It seems to be a general extravagance competition this morning. What is the meaning of item number three, Dr. Trump?”

Dr. Trump consulted his own copy of the Agenda.

“Improved facilities in the senior girls' lavatory,” he began.

“I can read, thank you, Dr. Trump,” Dame Eleanor told him. “I want to know what it means?”

“It was the Matron who asked for them,” Dr. Trump explained.

Dame Eleanor turned her glance full on him.

“That still doesn't tell me what it means,” she replied.

Dr. Trump felt Canon Larkin's gaze fastening itself on him as well, and his blush returned.

“It's … it's fittings, I believe,” he said miserably.

Dame Eleanor was now glaring at him.

“Basins or pans?”

Before he could reply, however, Miss Bodkin had spoken.

“Why does Dr. Trump want a new boiler?” she asked.

“He doesn't,” Dame Eleanor snapped back at her. “Not now.”

“Oh, but he does,” Miss Bodkin persisted. “He says so here in his own handwriting.”

Dame Eleanor tapped hard on the table with her pencil.

“Order, Order,” she said. “We're dealing with item three now. Senior girls' lavatories.”

Miss Bodkin uttered a deep sigh.

“But why should they want a boiler in a lavatory?” she asked. “It seems a great deal of money.”

“They're not going to be given one,” Dame Eleanor assured her.

For a moment the little box responded nicely. And the information appeared to pacify Miss Bodkin.

“Oh, I didn't know it was being given,” she replied. “That's different. Is it Dr. Trump who's giving it?”

She turned her head in his direction as she said the words, and smiled gratefully on behalf of her ancestor. Dr. Trump shook his head and made a gesture of disavowal with his hands. Already, however, Mr. Chitt had anticipated him. Leaning forward once more towards Miss Bodkin's apparatus, he addressed it loudly.

“No boiler,” he shouted.

This time her acoustic instrument worked perfectly.

“Then why has Dr. Trump changed his mind?” she insisted. “It all seems very sudden.”

Dr. Trump recognised this for his opportunity. He would sort out this misunderstanding and Dame Eleanor would admire him for it. Rising from his place, he went down to the far end of the table and pointed with his forefinger at the items on Miss Bodkin's Agenda paper.

“Not item two, Miss Bodkin,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly as though Miss Bodkin were lip-reading. “Three.
Three
.,”

There was a brief pause.

“Three boilers?” Miss Bodkin asked. “All in one lavatory?”

It was then that Canon Larkin intervened. He had a fine rich voice that in its time had filled cathedrals. Clearing his throat, he spoke over the head of Mr. Chigwell.

“We've left the question of the boiler,” he explained. “This is something new.”

Miss Bodkin's frown of puzzlement returned.

“But it can't just be something new,” she pointed out. “It must be a new
something
.”

“Basins,” Canon Larkin boomed back at her.

“Or pans,” Dame Eleanor interjected. “Dr. Trump doesn't seem to know which.”

Canon Larkin pursed up his lips again.

“Then I move that the matter be put back till the next meeting for Dr. Trump to investigate,” Canon Larkin replied tersely.

“Do you hear that, Dr. Trump?” Dame Eleanor asked him. “
Investigate
”

“I will ask the Matron,” Dr. Trump replied.

He resented Canon Larkin's attitude and was deliberately cold in the manner of his reply.

But Dame Eleanor would have none of it.

“Nonsense, man,” she said. “Go and look for yourself. You're in charge here.”

She paused and continued to stare hard at him. Dr. Trump found himself wriggling. Then Dame Eleanor resumed.

“I'm afraid, my friend, you're being hood-winked,” she told him. “They're taking advantage of you.”

Dr. Trump's hands were tightly clasped together. The knuckle joints showed white under the strain.

“You mean about the … the lavatories?” he asked anxiously.

“And about the boilers. And all the rest of it. You're here to curb expenditure, Dr. Trump. Not to encourage it.”

Everyone turned again in his direction, and looked accusingly at the spendthrift. Even Miss Bodkin turned too and thrust out
the black acoustic box in his direction for the least whisper that might reach her. Like an echo from across a valley she had just caught the one word “boilers.”

“It's always the same with an unmarried man,” Dame Eleanor went on. “They're on to him in a pack. They were with Canon Mallow. What you need is someone who can see through them.”

“You … you mean an assistant?” Dr. Trump asked eagerly.

“I mean a wife,” Dame Eleanor retorted. “Someone to put an end to all this nonsense. What this place needs is discipline.”

Alone in his study—the desk was the right way round by now and the electric light had a new bulb in it—Dr. Trump was reading a letter. He had only just begun it, but already a twinge of irritation had run right through him.

“But why did he have to write at all?” he asked himself. “Surely he must realise how busy I am. How can he imagine that I care how he spends his retirement?”

But Canon Mallow could easily have imagined it. After all such a lot of interesting things had been happening to him. For a start, because he had been forced to go back with the keys of the Hospital, he had very nearly missed his train. And, in the result, there was less than two minutes to spare at Waterloo. Less than two minutes, that is, after the caboodle of luggage—the two tin boxes, the leather trunk, the wicker hamper, the hold-all, the suitcases and the religious pictures—had been safely stowed away in the guard's van.

On any showing, it had been cutting things pretty fine. Too fine, in fact. Because, in his excitement, Canon Mallow had forgotten that his book and his tin of tobacco were in the suitcase and there was no way of getting at them until the train reached Portsmouth. In consequence, there had been nothing for him to do the whole way down except stare out of the window and sit polishing and re-polishing the two presentation pipes that nestled together like unborn twins in the velvet and morocco leather fastness of their case. He had tried them in his mouth once or twice,
carefully turning his head away so that the other occupants of the carriage should not see that he was only playing at smoking. But it was no use: without tobacco even the best of pipes, even selected straight grains with a silver-band round the waistline, taste simply of fresh varnish and wet vulcanite.

And, while he was sitting there, he had wondered more than once why he was going to Portsmouth at all. In a sense, he knew, of course. It was because you can't go to Seaview without going to Portsmouth first: that's where the ferry starts. But why Sea-view? Why the Isle of Wight at all, in fact?

The answer was simple. It was all because of a cutting from an ecclesiastical newspaper which advertised a room in a house called Balaclava. It sounded such an extraordinarily nice sort of room, overlooking the garden with a view of the sea beyond—Canon Mallow had already pictured the whole thing, the sloping lawns, the blue ocean set in a little bay, the white yachts, the glinting dancing waves, the great liners passing. And that was not the end of it. There was full board and service as well, all thrown in for three guineas a week.

But that wasn't a bit the way things worked out. Because, just when the sea air and the change and the cup of coffee on the ferry had made him feel better than he had felt for years, he suddenly folded right up. As the landlady opened the front door of Balaclava to receive her visitor—and having caught the train and the steamer and the tram and the taxi and all the rest of it, he was dead on time—she was confronted by a mass of luggage with the two pictures on top, and a sagging clerical figure who asked if she would mind if he sat down on the front step for a few moments because he had come over a bit faint.

After that, she got him straight up to bed without giving him a chance of taking so much as a glimpse at the garden. And, once in bed, Canon Mallow remained there. Thursday, Friday, Saturday all passed quietly and uneventfully, except for minor interruptions like cups of tea and Bovril, and toast and hot-water bottles. Not that he was thirsty or hungry or even cold. Just tired. Tired out, in fact. And beautifully sleepy. He kept pulling the bedclothes up closer to his chin and saying to himself: “Just another forty winks and I'll get up and take a look at the place. No point in rushing it. Far better to have my sleep out.”

It was the same, too, on Sunday. It wasn't until after lunch-time on Monday that he felt fit enough to put on his dressing-gown
and slippers and sit for half an hour or so in the arm-chair by the window.

He saw then that he hadn't missed much by not sitting out in the garden: it was very small, and appeared to be mostly wire trellis and crushed sea-shells, with two rustic seats that did not look as though they had been seriously designed for sitting on. The sea was there right enough: it was an inverted triangle between two roof tops, and it was khaki coloured. Besides that, it was raining. Quite fast, too. While he had been skulking in bed there must have been a real thorough drenching on the island … Then he pulled himself up abruptly. “Good gracious,” he exclaimed aloud. “I haven't written to Dr. Trump. There's such a lot I've got to tell him.”

In the end, it was towards the end of the week—Friday, in fact—when Canon Mallow finally got down to the letter. And, even then, he did not really feel equal to it. In consequence, it was a rambling, disconnected sort of letter, not a bit like the urgent, incisive note that he had meant to send.

“
Dear Dr. Trump
” it ran, “
I would have written sooner but for the fact that I unfortunately caught a slight chill and have been confined to bed ever since. I am now about again though still a trifle shaky, and have seen enough of Seaview to be able to tell what a delightful little place it is. The pier by Priory Bay is, I am told, the only suspension pier in the whole country, though I believe Brighton once had one. Considering the time of year, the weather is quite mild though the mornings are very sharp. Yesterday before breakfast I saw someone bathing
.

With so much on your hands I am sure that you must be very busy. I should have warned you that one of the ropes in the gymnasium is very frayed and not to be relied on. I think it is the one on the left by the door, but no doubt you could check this: we certainly don't want an accident and I meant to mention it before I left. Also, the contract for the liquid soap we use in the laundry comes up for renewal in January and Canon Larkin thinks that we might get a reduction. No doubt he will speak to you himself, but it's worth remembering. The matter, however, about which I really wanted to write to you is the little boy whom we all call Ginger. I've always been interested in him because, as you will discover, whenever anything goes wrong it's usually safe to assume that Ginger is at the bottom of it—at least so I always found. Not that he is, in the least, mischievous, only adventurous. He is exactly the kind of boy who really needs a father to steer and direct him and I would be particularly grateful if you could spare the time to keep
a personal eye on him. High spirits of his kind are far too precious to be wasted and I am not sure if Mr. Dawlish really appreciates them. Provided that Ginger is guided rather than driven I am confident that he is a leader in the making and that is exactly what our country needs. There are one or two other matters which I meant to refer to when I was writing, but I cannot at the moment recall them. I will write again when they come back into my mind
.

Wishing you every success in your important work and assuring you at any time of any help that I can render
,

Yours sincerely
,

Edward Mallow
.

PS.—Give my love to little Sweetie. I have a particularly soft spot in my heart for Sweetie and I feel sure that she will grow into a very charming little girl who will be a credit to the Hospital
”