Children of the Archbishop (74 page)

Sweetie was crying now. And Margaret put both arms around her.

“But you … you do mean to marry James, don't you?” she asked, still with that same note of anxiety in her voice.

Sweetie paused again before replying.

“I … I don't know,” she said slowly. “I've told him I don't love him, not properly, I mean. But he says he doesn't mind. You see, that's the trouble—he loves me really.”

“And do you love him enough to marry him?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, be careful!” Margaret's voice had changed now. “Don't you go writing no more letters to Ginger,” she went on. “When you're married, you're not to look at another man, d'you hear me? Not even at Ginger if you ever find him.”

Sweetie turned away.

“I'm not afraid of myself.”

“Then you should be.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I know what happens when you're in love with somebody.”

“
You
do?”

“Yes. And I know more than you think I do about you. I know what goes on inside your mind. That's why I've always tried to bring you up proper. There's a special reason why you've got to be careful. There's bad in you. You look out.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Then I'll tell you,” Margaret said quietly, “I'm your mother.”

Sweetie had got up and was facing her. What she saw was the tired shapeless figure in the old dressing-gown, the cheap bedroom slippers, the untidy hair streaked with grey.

“I don't believe you,” she said.

Margaret's eyes were still fixed on her.

“I wasn't never going to tell you,” she said. “Not ever. But if you feel this way about Ginger it's better you should know. That's the way I felt about your father once.”

Sweetie was still standing apart staring at her.

“Do you really mean what you said just now?” she asked.

Margaret nodded.

“I can prove it to you if you want me to,” she told her. “I've still got the other bit of card I wrote your name on. I'm the one who called you ‘Sweetie.' I called you that because I loved you so.”

“Then why did you try to get rid of me?”

Margaret dropped her eyes.

“I couldn't afford to keep you. I wasn't never married, you see,” she said. “That's why I'm warning you. And nobody else must ever know about it. Not James or Dame Eleanor or anybody. It's just our secret. I wouldn't have told you now if things hadn't been this way. But it's only fair to you. Now you know what you've got to guard against.”

“Do … do I know my father?” Sweetie asked.

Margaret did not answer. She merely shook her head.

“Am I like him?” Sweetie asked.

Margaret, however, did not answer that question exactly. She seemed temporarily to have forgotten about Sweetie.

“He was such a lovely young man,” was what she said.

She didn't say anything more; just slid herself down into the chair that stood beside the fireplace and sat staring into the empty grate.

She was still like that when Sweetie came over to her.

Margaret slept no more when she got back to her room than she had before she left it. And she was angry with herself.

“I didn't never ought to have told her,” she kept repeating. “That I didn't. I never meant to neither. But she made me. Sweetie's the same as I used to be. There's that streak in her. I can see it. I had to tell her. There wasn't no choice. Now that I've warned her she can be careful. She mustn't let nothing go wrong now the way I did. He's such a nice gentleman, the one who wants to marry her. And good-looking, too. She won't never get a chance like that again. And it'll be all right so long as she's watching out for herself. It's just that she mustn't never let herself go, the way I did. I wasn't going to tell her about me. Not ever. But I had to. It wouldn't have been fair on her if …”

Then upstairs she heard the maids moving about, and she knew that to-morrow had come.

Margaret avoided Sweetie next morning. There are some things that can be said late at night that are unsayable, that don't even bear remembering, next morning.

And Sweetie herself went out quite early. When Dame Eleanor sent for her she wasn't there. But it wasn't far that Sweetie had gone. Only round to the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital, in fact.

The porter was new: Sweetie didn't recognise him. And it seemed strange having someone lead her to the Warden's room. As she went through the Cloisters past the Ridley Block, she felt suddenly as though she had never left the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital at all: as though all her life had been spent on those asphalt pavements; and as though there never had been a view beyond those walls. But somehow, now that she was back, it all seemed so much smaller. Smaller and shabbier and dirtier. The dormitories didn't appear so high as she had remembered them. Even the doorways were narrower. It was as though under the later layers of London soot that had descended, everything had been shrinking, dwindling, diminishing.

Miss Phrynne was quite overwhelmed when Sweetie came in. She had always shared Dr. Trump's opinion of Sweetie and had never approved of her in the slightest. Not at the time that is. So far as she was concerned, Sweetie was simply the girl who had disgraced Archbishop Bodkin's. But, naturally, Dame Eleanor's interest in her had changed everything. It was all quite different now. It was difficult to believe that there could be anything seriously wrong with a girl dressed as Sweetie was now dressed. So she greeted her warmly.

“This is a lovely surprise,” she said. “Just fancy, it's our Sweetie come back to us. I may still call you Sweetie, mayn't I? I can't tell you how we've all missed you. And I must congratulate you. It's all been like a fairy-tale, hasn't it?”

“Just like a fairy-tale,” Sweetie answered. “Is Canon Mallow in, please?”

There was an urgency, an impatience about her, that Miss
Phrynne noticed immediately. But, even so, they couldn't find Canon Mallow. He was over in the infants' side somewhere, talking to the little ones. He came at once, however, as soon as he heard who it was that was waiting for him. He only hoped that it wasn't his advice that Sweetie had come for. Supposing, for example, that she asked him outright what he thought about marrying the naval chap, what on earth was he going to say?

Sweetie was sitting there in his room when he got back to it. And it touched the sentimental side of him as soon as he looked at her.

“No, of course not,” he told himself as soon as he saw how slight and delicate she was. “It was quite wrong of me. She couldn't have gone into domestic service. She's not the right type at all. Most-unsuitable.” And he realised then what a good thing it was that he hadn't tried to interfere in any way.

Sweetie jumped up as soon as he came in.

“Hallo, Canon Mallow,” she said.

“Hallo, Sweetie.”

“I shan't keep you very long. I'm sure you're busy.”

But Canon Mallow only smiled.

“Not really,” he said. “They don't really need me here, you know. It's just that it's useful to have someone about when Larkin can't be here.” He paused. He was sure that Sweetie hadn't come to talk about him, or about Canon Larkin, and he was just wasting her time. So he started again. “What is it, Sweetie?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you remember I came once before?” she asked him.

Canon Mallow nodded.

“You wanted to know that boy's address,” he said. “And I wouldn't tell you. I remember. What is it this time?”

Sweetie smiled at him.

“I wanted to say ‘thank you' for not telling me,” she replied.

“Say ‘thank you' for not telling you …” Canon Mallow repeated.

He was puzzled, frankly puzzled. But Sweetie was evidently trying to explain.

“You see,” she went on. “At the time I thought I was in love with him.”

“I know you did,” Canon Mallow answered. “That's why I wouldn't tell you.”

He smiled self-indulgently at the memory of the deep Levantine cunning that he had displayed. Some people had accused Canon
Mallow of being the sort of man who is easily duped. Perhaps he was, sometimes. But he had certainly seen right through Sweetie on that occasion.

“Do you know, I used to lie awake at nights just thinking about him,” Sweetie continued.

Canon Mallow smiled again.

“Well, never mind,” he told her. “You aren't the first girl to have done that. They all do it sometimes. Men, too, for that matter.”

Sweetie paused.

“But it was you who saved me,” she went on. “Because if I'd gone on thinking about Ginger”—Canon Mallow flipped his fingers suddenly. Of course, that was it: fancy his forgetting the name “Ginger”—“I should never have been going to marry James.”

“Are you in love with him?” Canon Mallow asked rather abruptly.

Sweetie turned her large dark eyes full on him.

“If I wasn't, I shouldn't be marrying him, should I?” she asked.

As she said it, Canon Mallow felt the load of doubts and misgivings lifting from his mind. He got up and put his hand on Sweetie's shoulder.

“That's all I wanted to hear,” he told her. “If a girl's really in love with a man it's worth all the rest put together.”

“That's how I feel,” Sweetie answered.

Canon Mallow began searching round for his pipe. This was being a far easier interview than he had expected.

“And, of course, it's just the same for the man,” he went on. “A man's got to love the girl in just the same way to be happy …”

He stopped because something almost like a sob had come from Sweetie.

“That's why I came to see you,” she said. “That's really what I want to talk about.”

Canon Mallow broke off his search. His pipe must be somewhere. He had been smoking earlier this morning. But a pipe wasn't important compared with what Sweetie was saying.

“Do you mean you think he doesn't love you?” he asked. “Are you sure? It may only be his manner, you know. A lot of men are shy about showing a girl how much they really love her.”

“Oh, it isn't James I'm thinking about,” Sweetie replied. “I'm not worried about James. Dear James loves me tremendously. It's Ginger.”

“Ginger! But how does Ginger come into it?” Canon Mallow asked.

He was becoming confused again. If only he could have found his pipe it would have been easier. He could always think more clearly about important things if he was smoking.

“But he does,” Sweetie assured him. “Ginger was in love with me once, you see.”

Canon Mallow shrugged his shoulders.

“Mustn't take that too seriously,” he said. “He was only a boy at the time. He's still only a lad now for that matter.”

“He's nineteen,” Sweetie answered.

“Well, what of it? He'll have got over it the same as you have.”

Sweetie paused.

“I wish I could be sure of that,” she said. “But you see I promised to marry him once, and he said he'd wait for ever for me. It just wouldn't be right if he thought that I was still waiting for him, somewhere.”

Canon Mallow patted Sweetie's hand.

“I think you're worrying yourself about nothing,” he told her. “Those sort of promises don't count for anything.”

Sweetie smiled.

“That's what James said when I told him,” she replied. Then the smile vanished. “But I can't feel like that. I feel I've got to break it off properly. If I write and tell him I don't love him any more, then I think I should feel better about it. It won't be an easy letter to write but I'd rather do it than not. I feel I owe it to James, too, somehow: he doesn't, but I do. I was awake all last night thinking about it.”

Canon Mallow paused.

“Well, let's be sensible about it,” he said. He had just found his pipe behind the blotter and was now wondering where the tobacco could be. “You don't think that perhaps it might upset Ginger hearing from you after all this time.”

“I should be very careful what I said,” Sweetie told him.

“Well, of course, you know best,” he said. “But we don't want to revive a lot of old memories, do we? That might have quite the wrong effect.”

“But I'm only doing it so that he shan't feel hurt.”

“Yes, of course. I remember now. That's the whole idea, isn't it?”

The tobacco had mysteriously come into his hand somehow, as though it had grown up through the table-top like a mushroom while he was just sitting there. And as soon as he had started to pack his pipe, he felt better about everything; blander; more sure of himself.

“Well, if you've set your heart on it, I can't see much harm in it
now
” he went on, carefully emphasising the word “now” to show how circumstances had changed everything. “Or much good for that matter. But it's entirely up to you. Only keep it short and to the point, that's the main thing. He wasn't a very literary kind of boy.”

“I'll remember,” Sweetie promised.

Canon Mallow was at the filing-cabinet. It was a legacy of Dr. Trump's, this filing-cabinet; and because Miss Phrynne kept it up-to-date for him, it was really quite ridiculously easy to find whatever he wanted. Take Ginger for instance. There it all was in front of him.

WOODS, Herbert (“Ginger”) January 24th, 1933—June 12th, 1935, Thatford Farm School, Thatford, Norfolk. June 13th, 1935—March 10th, 1936, Fordson Tractor Works, Dagenham; July 14th, 1936 Pyramid Motor Garage, Dome Road, Brighton, Sussex.

“Well, that's the last address,” Canon Mallow told her, as he copied it out for her. “Pyramid Garage, Dome Road, Brighton. I don't think he's left it Of course, you could always phone up and make sure.”