Children of the Archbishop (75 page)

“Oh no,” said Sweetie. “I think telephoning
would
be rather difficult.”

“Yes, perhaps you're right,” Canon Mallow answered. “I wasn't thinking.”

As he gave the slip of paper to Sweetie, she kissed him. And this pleased Canon Mallow a great deal. It was nice being able to make people so happy; and it was nice finding someone like Sweetie who really cared about someone else's feelings. Most girls in her position would simply have been thinking about getting married. So he kissed her back again.

“Well, that settles everything, doesn't it?” he said gently.

“Everything,” Sweetie answered.

When she left the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital, Sweetie did not return at once to Dame Eleanor's. She went down to the High Street instead and walked over to the cab-rank.

“Victoria,” she said.

There could be no two opinions on the matter: it was Sweetie's disappearance that finished Dame Eleanor. She just never got over the shock of it. Or the shame. A sick, tired old woman before it happened, she went all to pieces afterwards. And the way things turned out, she did not even see Sweetie again. Because by the time Sweetie, with a rather embarrassed-looking Ginger beside her, had been found by the Sussex Police it was too late for Dame Eleanor to see anybody.

Not that Sweetie deliberately kept her in suspense. It was not until after 10 o'clock that morning when Sweetie saw Canon Mallow, and by 6.30 the same evening a telegraph boy was already cycling up the long drive to The Cedars.

The telegram itself was simple, terse, laconic. “HAVE FOUND GINGER AND AM GOING TO MARRY HIM,” it said. “PLEASE EXPLAIN TO JAMES AND DAME ELEANOR AND DON'T WORRY. LOVE SWEETIE.” That was all. It was as though in some strange fashion she had never really doubted that things would turn out in that way and was merely confirming what had happened.

And, from the moment Margaret saw that telegram, she did not doubt what it contained. That didn't mean, of course, that her hands did not tremble as she opened the envelope. She knew that the telegram stood for the complete ruin and destruction of everything that she had planned. It meant that Sweetie would never be a lady now, and that her own last solemn warning, the admission that had meant humiliating herself in front of Sweetie, had been ignored completely. But, as she read, there was another feeling altogether inside her, a fierce, illogical, happy feeling. “That telegram was addressed to me,” she told herself. “I'm the one she turned to. It's me she wanted to know.”

Dame Eleanor insisted on seeing the telegram, though she might just as well have taken Margaret's word for what it said. For she was too far gone by then to be able to make out post-office handwriting on a post-office paper. The whole of the past six hours had followed a course of mounting anxiety, and she was now exhausted. She had rung up the police and the hospitals; and she had talked incessantly of murder, kidnapping and the white slave traffic.

Then, when everything had failed and it was apparent that Sweetie was lost completely, she sent for James. She had deliberately left him till last, she explained, because she did not want to worry him. But there was another and a stronger reason. And that was where the shame of it came in. She did not want to have to admit in front of a Sturgess—especially in front of one of the
young
Sturgesses—that something had gone wrong, alarmingly and disastrously wrong, with her own carefully made arrangements.

James, of course, came immediately; was actually in the room, in fact, when Margaret brought in the telegram. And Margaret felt sorry for him. He was such a thoroughly nice young man. Too nice. He just stood silent, biting his lip and looking down at his feet. He even remained nice when Dame Eleanor started to act as though something had gone wrong in one of her committees.

“Well, it's no use just standing around,” she said suddenly. “You'd better go and tell your father.”

James Sturgess shifted from one foot to the other.

“But isn't that all making it too definite?” he asked. “We can't even be sure that Sweetie really means it. Don't you think that if I went down and saw her …”

Dame Eleanor shook her head.

“If she'd wanted you, she'd have told you where to find her,” she said. “And if you did go you'd only be making a fool of yourself.” She paused. “You're well out of it, young man,” she went on. “Better now than later. Take my word for it. You're well out of it.”

Young James looked up from his feet for a moment. Ever since he had come into the room he had behaved as though he had just seen his feet for the first time and was fascinated. It was now with a wrench that he tore his eyes away from them.

“Mind you, Dame Eleanor,” he said, still speaking quietly, nicely, “we don't even know for certain that Sweetie sent the telegram. It could be a fake, you know.”

But it was obvious that Dame Eleanor was anxious no longer about murder, kidnapping and the white slave traffic.

“Don't you go trying to comfort yourself,” she said. “That telegram's from Sweetie all right.” As she spoke she faced round towards Margaret. “What do you say?” she demanded. “Is that telegram a fake, or isn't it?”

Margaret could not answer: she merely shook her head.

But there was no question about the telegram. It was from Sweetie all right. If anyone else had sent it, the telegram would have read “WE ARE GOING TO GET MARRIED”: as it was it had said: “AM GOING TO MARRY HIM.”

And that was precisely what Sweetie had been saying for the last twelve years.

There were two people, a girl and a young man, sitting, in the corner of a Brighton café. The police were looking for them. They were seated side by side and the girl was holding the young man's hand. In front of them on the marble table-top was a brooch: the girl had just put it there.

“Don't you remember it?” she asked.

He picked it up and looked at it, disengaging his hand from hers in order to do so. The brooch was obviously a cheap one. It was of silver-gilt in the shape of a shamrock with the word “MOTHER” inscribed across it.

The young man shook his head.

“You gave it me,” the girl told him. “That time up in Doncaster. I've kept it ever since. Have you got your tie-pin?”

“What tie-pin?”

“It doesn't matter.”

The young man took hold of her hand again.

“Don't you worry,” he said. “I'll get you a better brooch than that. Something you can really wear. I've got a good job now, I have.”

Dame Eleanor's attack, the first of the two really bad ones, came on that same night. When Margaret went in to her she
thought that Dame Eleanor was actually dying. But Dame Eleanor was not ready for dying just yet. She had too much on her mind. She was sitting up in bed leaning so far forward that the pillows no longer supported her, and she was trying to speak. Margaret went over and put her arm round her. It was like putting her arm around a child, Dame Eleanor had grown so thin.

“You lie still,” she said. “I'll fetch the doctor. I'll go for him now.”

But Dame Eleanor reached out and caught her by the arm. The old fingers fastened there.

“Not the doctor,” she said. “I … don't … don't … want the doctor. I want …”

She was too weak to say more and for a moment she simply lay there, still feebly holding Margaret's arm so that she could not go away from the bedside.

“It's … it's Thring I want,” she said at last.

Margaret looked at the clock.

“But Mr. Thring can't come now,” she said. “It's too late. I'll get him to come in the morning.”

“I mayn't be here in the morning,” Dame Eleanor replied. “He's got to come now. If I die …”

“You're not going to die,” Margaret told her. “I'll give you your tablets, they'll make you feel better.”

She measured out the dose into the little tumbler and held it to Dame Eleanor's lips.

“I'll get the doctor first and then Mr. Thring,” she said. “You want to be strong enough to talk to Mr. Thring when he comes, don't you?”

“I want Thring,” was all that Dame Eleanor answered. “I want Thring. Tell him he's got to come. Say that I'm dying and I want him. Say it's about Sweetie.”

It was 9.30 next morning when Mr. Thring called. And it was obvious that he knew what he was in for. He had his brief-case all ready, and he wore a drawn, harassed expression.

But he need not have worried. After last night's attack, Dame Eleanor was now at her quietest and most lucid. There was no need for any crossing out and writing over this morning. Dame Eleanor came straight to the point. And it was a simple one—to
erase all mention of Sweetie: to make quite certain that there was no loophole through which any of Dame Eleanor's money might get to her.

The only trouble was the time. This was will-making with the scythe waiting. Dame Eleanor would not hear of Mr. Thring's going back to his office to get the thing typed out properly. Nor would she agree to having a secretary come out to the house—even that was wasting precious, invaluable time; cutting things too fine for her liking. Mr. Thring had to sit down then and there and make a fair copy.

It was the doctor and Canon Mallow—he had come round to say that he did hope that he had done the right thing in giving Sweetie Ginger's address—who witnessed it. And as soon as the paper was back in Mr. Thring's brief-case, Dame Eleanor closed her eyes. There was nothing more she wanted, she said. Just to have the light out and be given another hot-water bottle and be left alone.

Margaret sat with her all that afternoon. Most of the time Dame Eleanor dozed. But for quite long stretches she lay staring up at the ceiling, thinking. They were scattered, muddled sort of thoughts. Sometimes the past came near completely extinguishing the present, so that there was all that terrible trouble with Derek to contend with again; and sometimes the present receded almost indefinitely and Sweetie became just another of the Bodkin girls, one among so many, who, despite everything, had obstinately gone wrong somehow. She had been a pretty little girl, Dame Eleanor remembered, with large eyes and dark, shining hair, and only about half the size of the other children.

There wasn't much difference between sleeping and being awake by now. People came and looked at her and gave her sips of things and re-arranged the bedclothes and went away again. The doctor kept on coming. Derek looked in a couple of times, once in his uniform and once in that big check sports coat of his that she had never really liked, and he had a different girl on his arm each time; Sweetie came in to say good-night—she was looking pale again, Dame Eleanor thought, and seemed to be worrying about something; and that red-haired boy who was always running away came to borrow half a crown.

Then, quite unannounced, God Himself dropped in just to see how she was getting on. He was passing, He said, in a voice like Mr. Vivvyan Sparkes's, and it was no trouble really.

“Are you better?” He asked. “Feeling all right for the
journey? If you'd like an angel to carry your things you've only got to say so. Everything's ready. We're expecting you, you know.”

And Dame Eleanor made a supreme effort. She dropped one of her Court curtseys—which wasn't easy, having to do it in bed.

“It's very gracious of You to call,” she said. “Very gracious, indeed. If I'd known, I'd have made a point of being up. There are one or two facts You ought to know about me, but if You don't mind I'll dictate something when I get there because I'm rather sleepy at the moment. And please don't bother about an angel. I shall be coming just as I am—in my night things …”

At nine o'clock, the doctor thought that her brothers ought to be sent for. But when they came, she didn't appear to know them, however. She was worried by a sort of veil, a thin, invisible cobweb that had drifted across her face, and she kept trying to brush it away again.

There was one more lucid moment, a completely lucid one, shortly after midnight. The nurse had arrived by now but it was Margaret who was sitting at the bedside holding Dame Eleanor's hand. Dame Eleanor suddenly opened her eyes and looked at her.

“This is just the way I wanted it, dear,” she said. “It's such a comfort having you.” She paused. “I've been thinking,” she went on. “We're not really to blame about Sweetie. That's what happens when the stock's bad. If only we knew who the mother and father were we should probably be able to understand everything.” There was a longer pause this time. “Don't you worry, dear,” she said at last. “I've remembered you in the will, Mr. Thring knows all about it.”

Dame Eleanor did not speak again except to say that she was cold and that the lights were flickering. But it was only a mumble by now, and even Margaret could not make out what she was saying. She sat there with the thin, chilly hand—practically bone already—held tightly in hers, and thought about Sweetie.

“Perhaps it's better that way,” she was trying to tell herself. “If she loves Ginger, I didn't ought to have ever tried to stop it. And it's only her father who's different. She's the same sort as Ginger, really. Perhaps it'll work out all right.”

The next thing that Margaret remembered was the nurse telling her that it was all over. She still had Dame Eleanor's hand in hers, but it didn't belong to Dame Eleanor any longer.
The bed was empty really. Dame Eleanor herself, with all her cares and wills and committees left behind her, was living her last dream. She was far out in space somewhere, on the other side of the moon already, making for a star shaped like a cross, and growing smaller and smaller every minute.

“No, really, He shouldn't have bothered you,” her last words had been: they were addressed silently to the angel. “I said I was coming just as I was. I've brought nothing with me. Perhaps He can lend me something …”