Children of the Archbishop (72 page)

It was late one evening, as Margaret was settling her down for the night, when Dame Eleanor first discussed the matter of Sweetie's marriage. There was nothing considered or deliberate about it; just a casual reference. But that was the way Dame Eleanor always did speak to Margaret about Sweetie nowadays, as though Margaret were just an interested outsider.

“Eighteen's not too early for a girl,” she said, as though it were another of those subjects on which she was an authority. “It's when she's in the late twenties that she finds it so difficult. The best thing a girl can do is to get married, and start having babies before she knows what's happening to her. That's the way it ought to be …”

She broke off for a moment and seemed to be considering something. She did not appear to be worried by the fact that she was contradicting everything that she had said during her whole active life, that she was being a bad Suffragette. It was something else altogether that had distracted her.

Along the corridor, the strains of Sweetie's gramophone were coming. It was louder than usual and Margaret asked if she should go and stop it. But Dame Eleanor would not hear of it.

“I like to think of her enjoying herself,” she said. “That's all that matters really; making people happy.”

The most persistent and also one of the nicest of the young men whom Dame Eleanor admitted to the house, was James Sturgess, old Admiral Sturgess's son. James Sturgess was in the Navy himself, and was not so pink and awkward as the others. Perhaps that was because he was older: he was twenty-six. But the difference of a few years did not matter; all to the good in fact, Dame Eleanor considered. And, best of all, Sweetie seemed to like him. But that was no wonder. At Sweetie's age, Dame Eleanor would have been ready to like him herself. There was something about all the Sturgesses that women found attractive. The Admiral, she remembered, used to cut in quite disgracefully at dances, and his partners had always forgiven him.

She kept telling herself, however, that she must not start getting sentimental about old times: it was not of herself but of Sweetie that she was thinking. And they made such a nice pair—James in one of those double-breasted dinner-jackets that his generation seemed to prefer, and Sweetie in the first of her proper evening dresses. Whenever she saw them together Dame Eleanor felt that she had steered things very well.

It was only Margaret who was worried. Dame Eleanor seemed to be taking so much for granted. She kept dropping stray remarks about it. “Couldn't get a steadier sort of man than James,” she said. “Just what Sweetie needs. Someone to keep her on the rails,” and, continuing with her thoughts, she added a moment later. “It's boy babies that always come first with the Sturgesses. Two boys and then a girl. I should know: I've seen three generations of them.” And when Margaret asked Dame Eleanor if she thought that Sweetie was really in love with James Sturgess, Dame Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. “What does a girl of eighteen know about love?” she asked. “She's pleased when he rings up, and that's the main thing.”

That night Margaret spoke to Sweetie. Not that it was easy. During the past year Sweetie had grown apart from her so much: she didn't seem to feel the need of her any more.

Sweetie was seated at the dressing-table spreading cream on her face when Margaret entered.

“Oh, it's you,” she said over her shoulder, and turned away again towards the mirror.

Margaret waited.

“I want to talk to you,” she said at last.

“What about?”

“About this James Sturgess.”

Sweetie said nothing. But she raised her eyebrows. Margaret could see the gesture in the glass.

“Are you in love with him?” Margaret asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I do.”

“Well, it's my business.”

“But it's mine, too, Sweetie. I want you to be happy.”

Sweetie turned and faced her.

“You may do now,” she said. “You didn't always.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, you wouldn't say where Ginger was, would you?” Sweetie demanded. “You wouldn't say, just because you didn't like him. You always hated Ginger.”

Margaret felt her nerves tightening. She got up and put her hand on Sweetie's shoulder.

“Are you still in love with Ginger?” she asked.

But Sweetie only thrust her away.

“Why do you come here?” she asked. “You're only trying to gloat over me. Leave me alone, can't you. I ask you. Please go.”

Margaret told Dame Eleanor of her misgivings. But she was only laughed at; and, worse than laughed at, snubbed. Any talking to Sweetie about her marriage, Dame Eleanor told her, she would do herself.

“She doesn't want to be bothered at a time like this,” she said decisively. “Leave her alone, that's the right thing to do. How can she possibly know whether she loves him until she's seen more of him? She's only a child: you're expecting her to behave like a grown woman.”

Dame Eleanor paused.

“If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to see Sweetie married,” she went on. “I know what's good for her: I've been studying
her. Take my word for it”—here Dame Eleanor faced Margaret squarely—“a girl like Sweetie needs a husband. And if the right one comes along now, it's only common sense …”

“But she doesn't love him,” Margaret interrupted her.

And it was then that Dame Eleanor lost her temper. She was rude in that old imperious way of hers, not caring how many feelings she was hurting.

“You're all the same,” she said. “Every one of you. Love, love, love as though there were nothing else in the world to think about. What do you know about being in love anyhow? If you'd ever been in love you'd have married somebody. It was children you always cared about, not husbands.”

Canon Mallow—rather to his own surprise when he came to think about it—had succeeded in his purpose: he had got rid of Miss Britt. Or rather, Miss Britt had done it for him. She could not, she said, even consider being criticised by anyone so unscientific as Canon Mallow. After Dr. Trump's departure, it seemed, she had remained at the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital only out of her keen sense of duty towards the children. And now that she knew that she was not appreciated she would like to leave immediately. She had, she said, eleven days of annual leave, three days of special leave, heaven knows how many days of compensatory leave all owing to her and would probably have had a severe breakdown if she had remained there even one day longer. Then, rather illogically—for by now the volcanoes had melted the main glacier and everything was suddenly fluid and unpredictable—she added that if Dr. Trump had still been there he would never have allowed it. It was obvious as she said it that she had admired the man; revered him; idolised him; even, in a chaste and chilly fashion, possibly, loved him a little.

But it was too late now to turn to Dr. Trump. In the P. & O. liner,
Sydney
, Dr. Trump was already approaching Suez on his voyage towards his brave new life. Violently sea-sick for the first
five days, he was now steadying himself with rusks and bowls of hot beef-tea. And he was magnificently disdainful of infirmity. Even though it was hot, swelteringly hot, in the little cabin, he was making no concessions to the climate. With his chair drawn up directly under the electric fan, he was busy with the Ku-Yu dictionary; engrossed; absorbed in it. And every few minutes he would throw his head back and try actually to pronounce something.

He had put in more than two hours' work already. But work was easy on board; or, at least, comparatively easy. There were no interruptions from either Felicity or Sebastian. So far as they were concerned, it had all turned out just as Dr. Trump had intended. They had stayed behind in Broadstairs.

Admittedly, the leave-taking had been painful and distressing. Felicity had been convinced that she would never again see her husband alive and face to face; and on the quayside she had wept like one who is already bereaved. But, even in tears, she had still not budged.

“Sebastian's chest must come first,” she had maintained firmly. “Sebastian's chest comes before everything.”

And so, here he was, on the high seas and practically a bachelor again. But only practically. For, as he sat there on the hard, upright chair with his Chinese text-book resting on the ledge of the wash-basin, there came a knock upon the cabin door. Dr. Trump started, and looked agonisedly round the room until his eyes came finally to rest upon the clothes closet. But it was no use. The knock had come a second time and, if he did not answer, he knew that in a moment the door handle would begin turning.

Why, why, he asked himself despairingly, had Mrs. Warple positively insisted on coming with him to Chungking?

“Come in, mother dear,” he said faintly.

The significant thing is that nobody seemed to miss the efficient Miss Britt; or Dr. Trump himself for that matter. The gap that had been left closed, miraculously. Naturally, Nurse Stedge, when Miss Britt left, moved up one, and now held the Matron's post—the one that had once been Mrs. Gurnett's. But as for Miss Britt herself, nobody seemed to notice that she had gone. Indeed, apart from a visit of protest from the local greengrocer who suddenly
found his turn-over cut by something like a half, Miss Britt's departure was entirely unregretted. Even there, however, the pleasure of the family butcher in the High Street, who began getting those nice orders again for forty pounds of stewing steak, or thirty pairs of rabbits, just about made up for the heartbreak of the greengrocer.

No, the real source of anxiety within the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital was the laundry. The laundry finances were giving trouble again. Convinced that the girls were being over-worked, Canon Mallow had been rather too easy with them. He had engaged eleven extra staff and the effect was beginning to be felt. The profits had declined steadily since Canon Mallow's return, and the Chairman, Canon Larkin, was now spending most of his time finding out why this should be. He had already got as far as determining that it took as much as 3 of a man-hour to wash, starch and iron a collar. And, by the following spring, he was convinced that he would have been able to stop the rot.

But there was more to it than mere statistical analysis.

“I fear, I very sadly fear,” he found himself saying all too often nowadays, “that things will not come right until there have been further changes. After all, you know, Mallow is over seventy …”

There was one other ex-Bodkinian who had already faced change, and all the anguish that is implied in separation. That was Mr. Prevarius. Disgraced, shunned, ruined, a double outcast in ecclesiastical circles, he had just signed a twelve-week contract with the Leicester Square Majestic. Admittedly, the hours were long. But the pay was reasonable—the same as a Cabinet Minister's. And he was allowed to play his own stuff—Mr. Spike Jerome had stipulated that when he fixed up the contract.

At this very moment, Mr. Prevarius was on the job. Clothed in an all white evening suit he was seated at the console of a mammoth Wurlitzer that was illuminated like an incandescent
bombe-glacé
. The
bombe-glacé
was rising from its pit, and a magenta light was being sprayed on Mr. Prevarius from the projector room. He was playing already as he came up—playing quietly, scarcely more than a whisper in fact; and mournfully; and with soul.

“Love's the Divinest Thing” the piece was called—it was his own latest number—and he played as he was thinking about
his own divorce proceedings. It was Mr. Twiddle, not Desirée, who was in his mind as the deep vibrations of the Wurlitzer brought lumps into the audience's throat and started hands reaching out for hands everywhere from the two and fours to the nine and sixes.

It was Dame Eleanor's idea that Sweetie should be given a coming out party. And it was her eighteenth birthday that was chosen for it.

“Dame Eleanor's giving you a new dress for it,” Margaret told Sweetie. “It's going to be a white one.”

She was pleased nowadays when she was able to tell Sweetie something. It showed that she was still in Dame Eleanor's confidence.

But Sweetie only smiled.

“I know,” she said. “She told me.” Then she turned to Margaret. “What are you going to wear?” she asked.

Margaret shrugged her shoulders.

“Don't you worry about me,” she said. “I'll be too busy doing things to worry about what I'm going to wear.”

“Have you got a party dress?” Sweetie asked.

Margaret paused.

“Not for that kind of party,” she said.

Sweetie would not be put off, however.

“Borrow the blue one of cook's,” she told her. “You'll look very nice in it. You're both about the same size.” She paused. “And I've told you before,” she went on, “it's silly of you, really it is, giving me a birthday present when you haven't even got all the clothes you want. You're too generous: that's the trouble with you. I want you to promise now that if I ever do get married you're not going to give me a wedding present.”

Margaret smiled.

“I'm not going to promise anything,” she told her. “It's too early. You may be glad of it by then. You never know …”

But there she checked herself. What she had said just now
surprised her. The words had come from nowhere, and she didn't know why she had said them.

Sweetie, however, hadn't taken them seriously. She was only laughing at her.

“I believe you'd like to see me poor again,” she said. “Then you could do everything for me.”

And, going up to Margaret, she kissed her.

It was not often these days that Sweetie kissed her. She seemed to have outgrown that sort of thing. And, at the party, Margaret could see how grown-up she really was. She was a young woman. And it was wonderful watching all these people, with Sweetie as the centre. James Sturgess was close beside her, and she was smiling; smiling at everyone.