Children of the Archbishop (76 page)

And, as she said it, she felt about fifteen again; fifteen, and at her first fancy dress party where she had been so excited that she had forgotten even to feel self-conscious.

The funeral was over and done with now, and the blinds were up again.

But the air of funerals and dissolution still hung about the place. There was a half-finished feeling to everything, as though the house itself were going to be buried next. It was quiet, too, with an unnatural tomblike quietness. The hush of the undertaker's mutes still hung about the staircase; and, in the drawing-room, there were dust sheets over all the furniture. But it was at night-time that it was at its worst. Nobody seemed to have the heart to turn on enough lights any longer. Not that there were many of them left to turn on anything. Out of the whole staff only Margaret and a caretaker now remained.

Margaret herself had been prepared to go along with the others. But Mr. Thring stopped it: it had been Dame Eleanor's wish, he said; and the bishop and the judge both confirmed it. They wanted someone, he explained, to go through all Dame Eleanor's personal belongings.

Margaret, however, was not thinking of Dame Eleanor any longer. Or even of Sweetie. She was thinking of herself. She had heard again from Mr. Thring, and Dame Eleanor had been true to her word all right: she had remembered her. “
To my companion, Margaret Hart, three months' salary and the sum of two hundred pounds if still in my employ
,” it ran.

And, of course, that altered everything. She could really begin to live now. It wasn't as though she were old yet; or at least not really old. Only just forty. She still felt like a woman. And the letters that she had been getting had always been full of that one idea.

Even the last one that had come less than a month ago had mentioned it: “…
if only I could raise the money somehow I'd send you your fare so that you could join me out here
” it had said. “I'
ve had about enough of knocking around without even a home to come back to in the evenings
…” And there was more in the same vein. “
The hotel job didn't turn out quite as I expected
” it explained, “
but I've gone in with one of my own sort now. It's a riding academy, and though yours truly is only a sort of glorified stable boy the life's all right—see photo enclosed. And don't forget that two can live as cheaply as one out here—a damn sight cheaper in some respects; all the boarding-houses rook you if you're single. So here's still hoping, even though I'm not exactly flush at the moment. Your last two pounds was a real godsend: I don't know what I would have done without it: you've been a brick all through, and I feel a worm taking your money. There isn't another woman
…”

Margaret put the letter down and took up the photograph. Up against a stable door it showed a tall, rangey man, still with that same handle-bar Guards moustache, and those shining, smiling teeth. He was dressed in a sweat shirt, and his body, she noticed, seemed to be dark all over. But that was the only change. The last twenty years didn't seem to have aged him. There wasn't a wrinkle anywhere on his face—just the linings that come of being out in all that sun. And the carefree look was still there despite the bad times he'd been through.

“He's a lovely man,” she suddenly said aloud. “That's what he is—he's lovely.”

It was the reply that wasn't so easy to write: but she blamed herself for that—she should have written to him sooner. As it was, she had to tell him everything.

“
Dear Derek
,” she wrote. “
Your mother died peacefully last week. I was with her at the end and she wasn't never in any pain, I can vouch for that. I didn't tell her about us so, of course, she died without knowing. It would only have upset her, so I thought better not. Now I've got a big surprise for you, Derek. You've got a grown-up daughter. I swore I wouldn't tell anyone while your mother was still alive. I was only one month gone when you sailed so of course I couldn't be sure. And I never told you because I was afraid you'd do something silly like trying to come back and then you'd
have been arrested like you said. She's getting married soon so she won't need me any longer. And, Derek, your mother left me two hundred pounds and I'm coming out to join you the way we always said I would. It isn't much Third, which means we'll still have something over when I get there. What happens about your allowance, have you heard? Oh, Derek, write and say you're glad. I won't actually sail until you've written because I want to be sure you weren't just being nice about wishing I could come, because I really can now
…”

She broke off because her fingers ached. Writing letters had always been difficult and this was the most difficult that she had ever tried to write. Her eyes were burning and she went across to the wash-basin to bathe them. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. On her face there were plenty of lines. And round the mouth, too, it was more than lined: it was saggy. There were cups under her eyes that she could see as she stared at the image of herself. Frowning only made them deeper, and she turned her head sideways. But then the light caught the hair at her temples: that was the worst of dark hair—it showed the grey so. And at the temples there was more than grey: there was white. She bit her lip and went over to the cheval-glass. She had put on weight since she had been back at Dame Eleanor's and the blouse that she was wearing seemed too tight for her. It bulged. But it wasn't only the blouse. It was the way she was standing. She did bulge nowadays. And throwing her shoulders back wasn't the answer, either. It didn't feel natural any longer, and she wouldn't be able to keep them like it anyhow.

Then she looked down at her feet. She was wearing her old bedroom slippers. Those bedroom slippers were just what she was made for nowadays. They were right for a tired, sagging sort of woman of forty.

She turned suddenly and picked up the letter that she had just written. And, when she had picked it up, she began to tear it, first into wide strips, then into narrow ones and finally across and across so that the sheet of notepaper was like confetti when she dropped it in the basket.

“He don't want me, not like I am now,” she told herself. “What he wants is me like I was when he first had me. I'd rather that's how he went on thinking about me. I don't want to see his face when he finds out. It wouldn't be fair on him. Not when he's kept himself so lovely.”

Both of Margaret's secrets are out by now: you know all that there is to know about her child, and about the father of her child. The woman in the raincoat isn't one of London's mysteries any longer.

She is putting on her raincoat again at this moment. Not the same raincoat, of course; even with all her care, the old one wore out about fifteen years ago. But it's still the same sort of thing; shapeless and clingy and mildly waterproof. She's got her suitcase—a reddish hardened cardboard affair with reinforced corners—packed already, and she is drawing on her gloves as she stands there. Her job's over. The three months are up and all Dame Eleanor's things are disposed of. It's time she was moving on.

Looked at in one way, there isn't very much to show for having stayed there. In her handbag, she's only got three pounds ten and a picture of Derek that she took from Dame Eleanor's dressing-table drawer. She found it right under the lining of the drawer, as though Dame Eleanor hadn't wanted to risk coming upon it suddenly but couldn't on the other hand bring herself to part with it altogether.

The three pounds ten is all Margaret's fault, of course. There was the two hundred pounds ready and waiting for her. But she gave the two hundred pounds to Sweetie for a wedding present; felt that Sweetie needed it more; and, in a way, had more claim to it.

That's why Margaret's going after another job. It is in a Children's Home again. And general help is what the job is called. Not that Margaret minds: she knows just what that means. It means stairs and nappies and floors and crockery, and odd cups of tea for the Sister and a bedroom somewhere right under the tiles again.

“But it's better that way,” she keeps thinking. “Plenty to do. Keep my mind off myself. Stop me brooding.”

There is no one, except the housekeeper, to say good-bye to as she leaves The Cedars. And because she isn't the sentimental kind, she doesn't go round the house having a last look at everything. She just goes straight down the stairs, putting the corner of the mat straight in the hall as she passes it, and out through the big front door, closing it behind her for the last time.

It is a long walk down the drive and the cardboard suitcase is heavy with all her winter things. But that can't be helped. There is nothing for it but to walk. It is right down to the bus-stop that she has to go. And the bus-stop is nearly half a mile from Dame Eleanor's.

Because of the time of year—it was late summer when Dame Eleanor died, just as she knew it would be—it is getting pretty dark now by tea-time; and Margaret had drunk a cup of tea with the caretaker before she had left The Cedars. The street lamps are on already, and a faint drizzle that makes the pavements shiny is beginning to come down. While she waits for the bus, she turns up the collar of her raincoat. You can't even see her face any longer. She is just anyone by now. The original mysterious woman in the raincoat. The one we followed. And lost in the darkness. And finally caught up with again.

She's the one the picture frame was made for. And the portrait is finished now. Margaret had used up all the emotion in her life. She's got to content herself with the memories of it from now on. And deep inside herself, she knows it. If she'd been in any real doubt in the matter she'd have bought that steamer ticket and gone out to South Africa, white hairs and felt bedroom slippers and all.

But the bus is drawing up in front of her. And Margaret is glad to be inside it. The drizzle has turned to rain, and it is coming down properly by now; bouncing up again off the road blocks in real Putney fashion. It is the corner of St. Mark's Avenue where the bus has stopped. But she can't see anything because the windows of the bus are streaming. Then, as the driver moves off again, she catches a glimpse of the lime-trees, the outline of the gatehouse set in the high stone wall, the gas-lamps and the tracks of watery light leading up to them. But that, too, vanishes and she is left to
the rain and the darkness. She is thinking of Sweetie. And all the time the bus is carrying her away from us.

Then the bend in the road comes. And she is gone for ever.

THE END

Norman Richard Collins was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, on October 3, 1907. By the time he was nine years old, at the William Ellis School in Hampstead, he displayed a talent for both writing and publishing. In January 1933, when he was twenty-five, he became assistant managing director in the publishing house run by Victor Gollancz. In 1941 Collins was forced to move to the BBC due to increasingly poor relationship with Gollancz, who resented Collins' talent and saw him as a rival. During this time he became known for his innovative programming which included Woman's Hour, which still airs today on BBC Radio Four. He rose to Controller of the BBC Television Service, later leaving to co-found what is now ITV after deciding a competitor to the BBC's monopoly was needed.
Alongside his busy career, Collins wrote fourteen novels and one work of non-fiction in his lifetime, most of which were popular successes, published begrudgingly by Gollancz. Collins also became well known for his innovative programming at the British Broadcasting Corporation during the late 1940s, and later for advocating and leading the movement toward commercial television broadcasting in Great Britain.
An unmistakable mark of Collins' power of application and creative energy was that he continued to write fiction throughout such an active working life. Although never a full-time writer he was a fluent and prolific author with sixteen titles and two plays to his credit between 1934 and 1981. An autographed edition of twelve of his novels was published during the 1960s.

Discover books by Norman Collinspublished by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/NormanCollins
Anna
Bond Street Story
Children of the Archbishop
‘I Shall Not Want'
Flames Coming out of the Top
Little Nelson
The Bat that Flits
The Facts of Fiction
The Governor's Lady
The Husband's Story

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 1951 by Collins & The Book Society
Copyright © 1951 Norman Collins
All rights reserved
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The moral right of the author is asserted.
eISBN: 9781448209682
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