No Laughing Matter (10 page)

‘We must make up to them for what
we’ve
never had,’ Rupert said. He bent down and stroked the tortoiseshell kitten. ‘This one’s a girl. Tortoiseshells always are.’

Gladys announced: ‘Sue oughtn’t to keep milk in your room, Mag. If the Countess knew, there’d be blue murder.’

‘You flatter Sukey. I’m sure her blood isn’t blue like the Countess’s. It’s probably pink like Billy Pop’s.’ Marcus’s sisters laughed at his remark, but Rupert went back to the nursery.

Gladys said, ‘It’s a shame Marcus never has any schoolfriends round here at week-ends.’

‘If you remember the way she went on the last time he had a friend here …’

‘I wasn’t at home. Was she awful? Rotten luck, Marcus.’

‘I shouldn’t let her prevent me from asking friends here, thank you. It’s just that this is hardly a house I want to entertain in.’

Gladys burst into a guffaw, but a second later the Countess screamed from below, ‘Who’s making all that unnecessary noise? Margaret, didn’t you give my message? You wait till I come upstairs, you’ll wish you
had
been born Wendy. If your father had any…. Billy, Billy, leave those old papers for once and give me a hand with your children. Come upstairs.’

‘There
is
going to be murder,’ Margaret said. She put the kittens back into the basket. Gladys shut the box-room door and stood before it like a sentry.

‘Oh, don’t be such funks.’ Leaning over the banisters Marcus called, ‘It’s the kittens, darling.’

The Countess’ face peered up at him. She had taken off her boudoir cap and her thick black hair streamed over her shoulders.

‘Medusa,’ Marcus murmured.

‘What did you say? It was some impertinence, wasn’t it? I know that smug little smile. Anyway what are you doing on the landing? What kittens?’

‘Dear Leonora’s.’

‘Leonora?’

‘Our darling cat that was killed last week, that’s all.’

‘What do you mean “that’s all”? It was perfectly dreadful. Only a morbid child like you would want to dwell on it. Anyway what do you mean “
our
darling cat”.
I
was the one who looked after that cat. And old Regan. She doted on it. You children take old Regan far too much for granted. She’s a human being as well as a servant. What she did for that cat! She and I did everything for it. As far as you children were concerned, it might have died.’

‘It did,’ said Margaret.

‘There you are. The poor creature! It was an adorable cat too. A real alley cat. An independent cockney street cat. That cat and I understood one another.’

‘But you couldn’t remember its name,’ Rupert called from the nursery.

‘Learn to speak without shouting or shut up. You’re not acting now with the Mincing Lane Mummers. Names! That cat was a street arab. Street arabs don’t have names. Well, where is the
shameless
guttersnipe’s brood?’

‘You shouldn’t insult the dead.’

The Countess turned for a moment to stare at Marcus’s pear-shape face and large dark eyes. Then she struck him a sharp blow on the cheek with the palm of her hand.

‘You’re talking too much.’

She bent over the kittens and, picking up all five of them at once, she disposed of two in the wide sleeves of her Japanese kimono, the others she pressed to her flat breast.

‘They are a mongrel brood! Every colour of the rainbow. Adorable vulgar waifs of the London streets.’

The black and white kitten, alarmed by the swinging of its sleeve hammock, caught for a moment at her bare arm, but this did not check her sweetness.

‘
You’ll
have to be tamed! You Seven Dials kitten! They’re apaches. That’s what they are, they’re apaches! But who put them in
this
black hole of Calcutta? It isn’t fit even to be a box-room. It wouldn’t
be
one if our wage earner didn’t insist on a room of her own. I suppose they were shoved into this hole because they weren’t pure bred Persians. Oh dear, what snobs I have given birth to. But I must say you’re beautiful looking snobs, the lot of you. Even my barber’s
block, Rupert, and Gladys is becoming quite a handsome matron.’

‘And as for you, Countess,’ said Rupert, ‘is it Bernhardt and dog, or dog and bone?’

‘Yes, I know the joke, darling heart. But it is a silly one for you to make since you never saw the divine Sarah. Anyway my sort of figure will have its day, you mark my words. And you’re not going to stop me being a doting mother. You’re all quite beautiful.
Everyone
! Except, of course, snotty nosed little schoolboy Marcus. But then schoolboys shouldn’t be beautiful. That wouldn’t be quite decent. Except for you, Billy.’ Turning she addressed her husband’s head, as he appeared, blowing a little above the stair rail. ‘Your father was indecently pretty as a schoolboy. I have an enchanting
photograph
somewhere of him just at Marcus’s age. In his mortarboard. A little angel face. Weren’t you, pet? Oh, you don’t know the half of your father. Look Billy, these adorable kittens!’

‘The poor little kittens have lost their mittens.’

‘Oh, don’t be so whimsical. Anyway this little ginger is going to do a number one if we’re not careful. Take them away at once, Marcus. But don’t put them back into that black hole or we’ll have an inspector or somebody fussing. Get a basket from Regan. Not that awful old thing. Where
did
you children find it? Oh, it’s Rag’s basket! Whoever kept that? How disgusting and sentimental! That’s your fault Billy, you’ve taught them sentimentality. Now remember, all of you, when someone dies whom you love – it doesn’t matter who it is, animal or friend – don’t hang on. Love them and forget them! It’s so much more healthy. Marcus, you’re going to drop them. Don’t droop so. You’re not holding a lily. Sukey had better deal with them. She likes being the little mother.’

‘You sent Sukey to the kitchen.’

‘
Sent
her to the kitchen! What do you mean, Margaret? She’s gone to help Regan.
Sent
her to the kitchen! Well of course I did. We don’t pay expensive fees to have her taught cooking if she’s never going to cook. Call down to her, Billy. She’s your daughter.’ She paused to hear Sukey’s response from the depths of the staircase well, then she went on. ‘You, Wendy, what’s your name, since Sukey can never be where she’s wanted, look into the next to bottom drawer of my chest of drawers and you’ll find a square of scarlet velvet. Put it under them in the basket. It’ll go with my red curtains in the dining-room. For that’s where the kittens must live, of course. Not all the time. They
must have a box of sand in the kitchen. Regan will explain to you about emptying and filling.’

‘Leonora used to go outside.’

‘Yes, and got killed as a result. No thank you. If you don’t really care about them enough to bother, then you’d much better wring their necks now.’

‘It’s more usual to drown unwanted kittens, Countess.’

‘But they’re not unwanted, Billy. Not by the children and me anyway. Their games are going to be so amusing. Gladys, you can get a ball or something for them tomorrow and then …’

‘You’re not to touch them. You’re not to. They’re my kittens!’

The Countess turned to see a red-faced Sukey shouting at her. Would she rush at her mother, who stared fixedly at her? Billy Pop put a hand on his daughter’s arm. ‘Steady, Sue, steady.’

‘That gold band has done nothing for that child’s teeth, Billy,’ the Countess remarked. ‘So they’re yours, are they, Sukey?’ She came closer to her daughter. ‘Sukey, the little mother, who shut them in a cupboard. Do you have any idea of what a long, slow death stifling is? Gasping for breath. Do you, Sukey, do you?’

The bathroom door opened and Quentin came out in an old mohair dressing gown. ‘They’re
our
kittens, mother. We’re all responsible for them. And, by the way, Margaret didn’t forget to impose silence on us.’

‘She’d have been perfectly justified if she had, wouldn’t you, Mag? I was absolutely beastly to her when she brought my breakfast. Remind me to be nicer to you all day, darling heart.’ The Countess went up to her eldest son and kissed him. ‘A nice long bath, darling? You always loved to soak. Acting Major Matthews and his kittens! No, Quentin, I can’t have your dignity demeaned like that. An Acting Major going up to Oxford is enough …’

‘London, Mother.’

‘So you keep telling me, dear, but they don’t have universities in London or if they have, they shouldn’t. Anyway a Major at a
University
is bad enough, but a Major with kittens…. All right, Sukey, you’ve said your piece. Don’t ruin the lunch as well. And speak nicely to Regan about putting a sand-box in the kitchen.’

But Sukey disregarded her mother. She was intent upon apology. ‘I’m sorry, Quentin. Of course, they’re
ours.
I didn’t mean to be
possessive
. I should never have said they were mine.’

‘Indeed you shouldn’t, Sukey. Anyway they’re mine now.’ Looking at her children the Countess felt quite warm towards them. ‘You shall
all
look after them for me. And now enough of kittens. What have you all been doing this morning?’

‘Look,’ Billy Pop held out a book he had taken from the shelves, ‘A first edition of
Virginibus
Puerisque.
It oughtn’t to be here with these old review copies. I remember so well finding it on a junk stall in the cattlemarket at Stirling when I was on a walking tour of the Midlothian.’

‘Oh, how can you be so selfish, Billy? Just the same rambling egotism as your mother. “Do you remember that picnic on the Island?” “Do you remember, Will, when you forgot yourself at the Christmas party, dear little boy?” At least she has the excuse of being senile. But you! Can’t you live in the present for a moment? Don’t you want to know what your children are doing? You’d have done better to
write
a few more books instead of
finding
them. Life isn’t just to be found, you have to work for it. There’s nothing to laugh about, Marcus. Your father’s a brilliant man. If he didn’t lack application he’d be somebody. And now I’ve no time to hear what my children have to say, because I have to dress up for your mother. If Grannie M. didn’t insist on sitting up to table, we could all have a nice nursery picnic.
You’d
have liked that, wouldn’t you, Quentin?’

‘I dare say Quentin picnicked quite often enough at the Front,’ Margaret said.

‘Nonsense. You none of you remember Quentin. You’ve forgotten him while he’s been away defending his country. He has the simplest of tastes, haven’t you, darling heart?’

But Billy Pop was clearly in an interrupting mood. ‘Just to get the record straight I’d like to remind you, Countess, that the formal occasion is as much on your aunt’s account as on my mother’s.’

‘Billy darling, I do love you when you’re touchy. But if I can’t have my picnic, I shall have my revenge. I’ll wear a hat at luncheon just to see your mother’s bewildered face. She can never remember whether I’m doing the right thing or the wrong.’ She began to laugh as she thought of Granny M.’s old head shaking with the difficulties of etiquette. Blowing a kiss to her family, she went downstairs to her bathroom to dress.

Billy Pop was absorbed in
Virginibus
Puerisque
,
but he could feel that his waiting children expected some remark from him.

‘If only Stevenson hadn’t whoremongered after that French harlot the novel, but had stuck to his ane fair Scots bride the essay! He was a natural rover, you know. When he could get away from fixed forms and let his fancy wander, he was superb. Listen to this.’

‘We are listening, Father.’

The sound of Gladys’s voice coming distantly made him look up. They had all gone back to their rooms. He decided not to read the extract. Instead, he said, ‘I doubt if it’s true. Your mother as usual was being generous. I didn’t really have it in me to be anyone.’ Getting no reply, he added, ‘But I’ve tried to be a friend to you children.’ In face of their continued silence he decided to take his treasure trove down to his study. As he went downstairs he called, ‘When I eventually have to pay Charon his fare, you will look back on me as a grey man. Not memorable like your mother. But perhaps you may say to yourselves, He wasn’t such a bad old stick.’

*

Rejecting all old sticks bad or good, the Matthews children began to use their Sunday morning leisure. In the nursery Marcus, craving for the newest and smartest, began to paint in a chic Vogue background for his models. In the nursery, too, determining on a new world where reason and humane feelings would reign, Quentin set himself to the recommended book
Self
Government
In
Industry.
In the bathroom, Rupert, rubbing lotion into his hair, thought of a new sort of play where all would happen naturally in a natural setting–lovers ‘quarrels, for instance, in a bathroom, but not of course an old squalid geysered bathroom like this, a scene all jazz design and gay silk dressing-gowns and hairbrushes, bottles of scent and of expensive hair oil flying across the room in a lovers’ witty battle of words. Beatrice and Benedict brought up-to-date in a Riviera villa perhaps, or a suite at the Ritz, or a gay Paris atelier. Gladys, checking her Post Office savings book as she balanced on the edge of her bed, thought of the new world lying open to girls, a new world that with such interest she would open to them in her brand new employment office with its brand new punch card system of classification, and the newest portable typewriting machines in Kingsway, she and her one or two sensible bachelor girl aides. And Alfred had offered to invest
£
100 for every
£
50 of her own capital. Margaret, sitting at her dressing table, wisps of dark hair brushing the virgin pages of her exercise book, worried and frowned over this new story that would at last have its just
proportions. Sukey, who was trying out a new eggless recipe, turned from mixing batter for the toad-in-the-hole to see Regan lift each of the pheasants in turn and sniff at them. The light for a moment caught at some bristly featheriness left by incomplete plucking of the largest bird and then glanced on to the dark hairs that protruded from the mole on Regan’s chin. She looked away and concentrated on whipping the batter. When she turned again to make her plea for the kittens Regan was flicking into her mouth a speck of raw giblet from the kitchen table.