Octavia (35 page)

‘But if I sell the house,’ Emmeline protested, ‘where will we live?’

The answer was obvious but it would have to be given tactfully and with Pa’s involvement. Octavia was aware that he was feeling crushed by the weight of the problem and needed gentling and reinstatement. Dear Pa. ‘Well now,’ she said, ‘that will depend on Pa. One possible solution would be for you to live here with us. What do you think about that, Pa?’

His agreement was relieved and immediate. ‘Of course,’ he said and leant forward to pat Emmeline’s shoulder. ‘Of course. I should have thought of it myself. Didn’t I tell you Tavy would know what to do?’ He smiled at them both and the smile rounded his cheeks and restored his face to its more familiar contours.

The split coal was hissing and emitting a stream of gas. Its neighbours shifted as if to accommodate its energy. ‘But there are so many of us,’ Emmeline said. ‘You couldn’t take us all in, surely.’

‘Why ever not?’ Octavia said. She was brisk with purpose, now that her father had agreed, solutions slotting into place in her mind, as neatly as the pieces of a jigsaw. ‘There’s plenty of room. We’ve got four bedrooms on the first floor, five if we use the dressing room, and then there are the two rooms on the second floor. You could have one of those. It’s not furnished, but furniture’s not going to be a problem is it? We shall all do very well here.’

‘But think of the cost,’ Emmeline said. ‘Even the housekeeping…’

‘I’m sure the girls will pay their own housekeeping,’ Octavia said. ‘That’s only right and fair and it will make them
feel independent. Johnnie won’t be able to if he’s to take up an apprenticeship – and no, you mustn’t deny him that, Em, not when he wants it so much. Once he’s articled he’ll pay us back and I daresay we can feed and clothe him between us in the meantime. Your keep will come out of the usual housekeeping because I shall expect you to run the house. You’ll make a much better fist of it than I can or ever could. Now dry your eyes and let’s have tea. I wonder if there’s any cake?’

‘There is,’ her father said, ‘but before you tackle it there is something else I would like you to consider.’

The two women waited.

‘It’s the matter of my study,’ he told them and there was a hint of the old impish quality about his expression. ‘I’ve been giving it consideration for some time now, Tavy, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a room at the top of the house is a little too much for my legs. Perhaps this would be a good time to move. I could have the dressing room. That would be quite big enough for me and my books, given how very little I do these days, and it would leave both the rooms on the second floor. That way we could have a bedroom for the girls to share and a bedroom each for the rest of us. What do you think?’

You’re giving up your special room, Octavia thought, leaving your special wallpaper and you know I can’t replace it. What a love you are!

Emmeline leapt from her chair, knelt at his feet and threw her arms round his neck. ‘You are the dearest uncle anyone could have,’ she cried. ‘The very, very dearest. There’s more good in your little finger than Ernest had in the whole of his body.’

So the matter was settled and her house was put on the market on Saturday morning. It took five extremely anxious
months before a buyer could be found, but just after the start of the new autumn term a builder made an offer for it and the nightmare of the mortgage was finally dealt with. Then it was just a matter of moving J-J’s study, calling in the decorators and deciding which furniture Emmeline wanted to bring with her.

‘I thought I’d never get rid of this house, you know,’ she said to Octavia, one quiet Sunday afternoon when the two of them were sorting out the china. ‘It’s been weighing me down for such a long time I thought it would go on for ever, with that dreadful mortgage mounting up and up and nobody coming to see it. And the longer it went on the more I hated it, poor house.’

‘Well, it’s over now,’ Octavia said, speaking briskly because she didn’t want her cousin to get tearful, ‘and in a few weeks you can put all your worries behind you.’

‘Thank God,’ Emmeline said. ‘It’ll be such a relief.’

‘And once you’ve moved and settled in,’ Octavia went on, ‘we shall have to start thinking about Christmas. We must invite both the young men to tea, don’t you think?’

But Emmeline was stuck in her anxiety about the house and didn’t hear what she’d said. ‘It’ll be such a relief,’ she repeated.

‘Exactly so,’ Octavia said firmly. ‘Christmas is going to be the start of better times. You’ll see, my darling.’

It was certainly a very good time, even though the move had been rushed and difficult and reduced Emmeline to private tears. But by Christmas morning, her family was settled and she was quite herself again, down in the kitchen, slippered and aproned, preparing the meal and chattering with Tavy and her daughters. With four women to share the chores, dinner was
a great success and high tea was going to be even better because as Octavia had suggested, they’d invited Dora and Edith’s young men to join them. The two girls were so tremulously happy about it, and so ridiculously nervous, with their cheeks perpetually flushed, their brown eyes shining and their thick hair bouncing with every turn of their heads, that it did them all good just to see them.

Edith’s young man arrived as the hall clock was striking four, having waited at the end of the road until it was exactly the right time. He stood on the doorstep, wearing his brother’s best suit and beaming hopefully. He was short and slight – only a couple of inches taller than Edith – but there was a sharp-eyed, perky honesty about him which endeared him to Octavia in seconds. She and Emmeline greeted him together and Edith, who was lurking behind her mother’s wide skirts, introduced him breathlessly to her aunt as ‘Arthur-Ames-
I-told
-you-about’. Then they dragged him into the parlour to be introduced to J-J, after which there was another knock at the door and John Erskine arrived.

It was the happiest meal, for Arthur-Ames-I-told-you-about settled in easily and was soon telling them about the work he was doing in the garage – ‘the internal combustion engine is a giddy marvel’ – about his father who was injured in the war – ‘and never complains’ – and his brothers and sisters – ‘all working I’m glad to say’ – and confessing that he thought Edith was the finest girl a man could hope to find. His open admiration for her was too touching to be missed or misinterpreted.

‘They will marry,’ Octavia said to Emmeline when the two of them were in the kitchen, washing the tea things. ‘And he will be very good to her.’

‘Oh, I do hope so,’ Emmeline said. ‘And my Dora too. John is so quiet I sometimes wonder.’

‘He may be quiet,’ Octavia said, ‘but he loves her. You’ve only got to see them together to know that. If I’m any judge, you’ve got two very happy marriages to look forward to.’

The afternoon eased into a gossipy evening. The two girls played a selection of popular songs arranged as piano duets, and, after Edith had thrown out several very broad hints, Arthur offered to sing for them. To J-J’s amusement, the song he chose was an old one from the music halls, called ‘If it wasn’t fer the ’ouses in between’. He sang it well, suiting actions to the words, and the more they laughed at him, the better his performance became. Afterwards, they gathered around the fire to smoke cigarettes and cigars, drink port and eat nuts and
marrons glacés
, and were simply and effortlessly happy together. Dora and John sat comfortably side by side on the sofa, and Edith dared to sit on a cushion at Arthur’s feet and leant against his legs, which was a delight to them both. And warmed by port and good food and the blaze of the fire, Emmeline drifted into reminiscence.

‘Do you remember the day you moved to South Park Hill?’ she asked Octavia.

‘Never to be forgotten,’ Octavia said.

‘I can remember as if it were yesterday,’ Emmeline said. ‘How old would we have been? Nine? Ten? Algy was a baby, I do know that, sitting in his pram. We used to call him Podge. Do you remember? I wonder what he’s doing now. It’s such a long time since he went away and yes, I know he writes but it’s not the same as seeing him. He was such a pretty baby.’ The memory made her sigh and for a minute she was quiet, lost in her thoughts.

‘Maybe we could get him to come home again, Ma,’ Dora said and it seemed to Octavia that her tone was artful.

Emmeline was still too stuck in nostalgia to notice. ‘He went for good,’ she said dolefully. ‘No, no, I shan’t see him again.’

‘What if we were to write and tell him there was going to be a wedding?’ Dora said, and now the expression on her face was too bright to be missed.

‘Or two?’ her sister put in, beaming beside her. ‘That would bring him back, Ma, surely to goodness. Two weddings.’

Their mother’s gloom was lifted in an instant. ‘My darling girls!’ she said, rushing to gather them into her arms. ‘How perfectly wonderful! Oh, I’m so happy for you. I did so hope you would, now we’re settled, but I didn’t like to ask. When will it be? I mean, when will they be? Oh, you know what I mean.’

The two young men were blushing but nobody noticed. They were too caught up in the joy of the moment. ‘I’d marry your Dora tomorrow if it was up to me,’ John offered. ‘Yes, I would, Dolly. I’d marry you like a shot. You know I would. I’ve been asking and asking. Ever since…’ Then he stopped, looked at Emmeline, blushed even more deeply and tried to put it more delicately. ‘Ever since we could, if you know what I mean. She’s only just made up her mind.’

‘She was waiting for Edith,’ Arthur explained. ‘They always have to do everything together. You know how they are. Well, I don’t have to tell you, Mrs Thompson, do I? They’ll probably get married together.’

Emmeline was enraptured by such an idea. ‘A double wedding,’ she said. ‘But of course. What could be better?’

‘This,’ J-J said, ‘calls for champagne.’

That night, when John and Arthur had finally gone home, and her father had taken himself off to bed, when the table had been cleared and set ready for breakfast, and her new extended family were all upstairs, Octavia sat at her desk in her quiet bedroom and wrote up her journal. She ought to have been tired after such a long day but her mind was so full of old memories and new plans that when she finally got into bed she was too wakeful to sleep. She lay on her back under her familiar eiderdown, and gave herself up to reflection, and, as the hall clock marked off the quarters, past and present merged and blurred in her too-active brain.

During the last few months she’d been so busy it had been enough of an effort simply to cope with all the things that needed her attention. But now, lying there in the darkness of that deep winter night, she realised that the pattern of her life had changed again, that she was the one who had been making all the decisions, telling Emmeline what to do, encouraging Johnnie – and paying all the bills. I suppose I am the head of the family now, she thought. The idea didn’t daunt her. It was something that had been bound to happen sooner or later, simply in the nature of things. Pa had been relinquishing responsibilities for quite a long time, stepping away from decisions that he found too difficult to make, just as he avoided activities that were beyond his strength, like the long walk down to the post office or a lengthy stroll across the common, but the process had been so gradual she’d barely been aware of it. Now the change was not only unmistakable but virtually complete. Head of the family, she thought, gazing at the impenetrable blackness of the winter sky. It’s not a position I ever thought I’d hold. But it’s a natural progression. I’ve been leading the school for so many years, I
ought to be able to head a family, even when it’s a family of six adults as complicated as we are. I wonder when Dora and Edith
will
get married. It will be fun to organise the weddings. There hasn’t been a wedding in the family for such a long time. Not since Emmeline’s. I shall write to Algy tomorrow and tell him he simply must come home for it. It would be wonderful to see him again and Emmeline does miss him. I like young Arthur. He may not be much to look at but he’s very fond of Edith. He’ll make a good husband, if I’m any judge. A darn sight better than Ernest. And John is a darling, a nice quiet dependable man. I wonder where they’ll all live and how many children they’ll have?

It was an unalloyed pleasure to look into their future and, gratifying it, she finally drifted to sleep.

The bridal car smoothed to a halt before the church door,
be-ribboned
and important, the summer sun polishing its black roof until it gleamed as white as water. A pale hand appeared at the window, there was a strong scent of lilies and roses, and two faces peered out, one above the other, their auburn hair crowned with orange blossom, their veils put back.

‘Well?’ Edith asked her mother. ‘Is he here?’

‘Not yet,’ Emmeline said, stepping forward. She was looking very grand in a green silk dress with a long straight matching coat, which the shop girl had assured her was very slimming. But at that moment she really didn’t care about her outfit, for it wasn’t just her new corset that was pinching her. Even the huge brim of her fashionable straw hat couldn’t hide the fact that her face was creased with worry. ‘Could you bear to take another little turn around the block?’

‘Only if my John isn’t getting upset,’ Dora said. ‘I can’t have him getting upset.’

‘He’s bearing up extremely well,’ Emmeline told her. ‘He’s got his brother with him. And Johnnie don’t forget.’

‘And what about my Arthur?’ Edith wanted to know.

He was actually so nervous he was standing at the altar rail biting his nails, but Emmeline wasn’t going to tell her daughter that. ‘He’s bearing up well too.’

Dora deferred to her uncle, patient in the shadows of the car. ‘What do you think, Uncle J-J?’

‘Another five minutes,’ J-J suggested, smoothing his white moustache. ‘He’s come a long way to be at your wedding. We could spare him another five minutes.’

The brides exchanged glances. ‘Five minutes then,’ Dora said, ‘but no more. We can’t drive round the block forever, Ma. Even for you.’

‘You are the dearest girls,’ Emmeline said and she stood back so that the car could be driven away, her green shoes scuffing up a flutter of used confetti. ‘It’s too bad,’ she said to Octavia who had walked across to stand beside her, elegant in blue and grey. ‘All that fuss to get everything organised so that he’d be here in plenty of time. I thought we were doing really well. I mean six days’ leeway should have been plenty. And now this. Everybody driven up to the last minute and the girls waiting and everything at sixes and sevens. That ship’s got a lot to answer for, wretched thing.’

‘We shall laugh about it afterwards,’ Octavia tried to comfort.

‘I’m not laughing now,’ Emmeline told her grimly. ‘If it weren’t for upsetting the girls I could sit right down and cry. Oh, what does that fool think he’s doing?’ A black taxi was trying to turn in at the exit, right in the path of the bridal car. ‘If he doesn’t watch out there’ll be an accident. That’s all we need.’

Both cars screeched to a halt, sparks and gravel spinning from their wheels. The brides peered from the window again,
the bridesmaids were all eyes – and a stocky looking man in a crumpled fawn suit and the most peculiar hat came tumbling out of the taxi, clutching a battered carpet-bag.

‘Oh!’ Emmeline cried. ‘It’s him! He’s here! Algy! My darling boy!’ And she ran towards him arms outstretched.

There was a confusion of moving bodies and squealing voices. The darling boy was swept into her embrace, carpet bag and all, and hugged so tightly that his hat fell off his head and his brown face was flushed with pleasure; the bridesmaids left the church steps and rushed along the drive for a better view; the brides scrambled out of their car, and stood in the midst of the melee, their veils lifting behind them like twin sails, while their mother and their uncle danced round one another like excited children. And a strange man in an expensive grey suit got out of the taxi and stooped at the driver’s window to pay the fare.

Octavia had stood back to allow her cousin the first greeting, so she was the only one looking at the other passenger. There was something familiar about those long legs, the cut of that grey suit, the way he was bending towards the window. Something she’d seen before, something that was making her heart jump.

‘Oh, my good God!’ Emmeline cried. ‘It’s Tommy Meriton! Tommy, my dear man, how lovely to see you.’ And she swept upon him and kissed him soundly while her brother explained that they’d met on the ship and wasn’t that a bit of luck and it was all right to bring him along, wasn’t it?

‘I’d never have got here without him.’

‘Of course,’ Emmeline said, taking them both by the arm and steering them towards the church. ‘Of course. The more the merrier. Now come along do, the pair of you. My poor
brides have been waiting for ages, I’ll have you know, you bad boy, Algy. Oh, it
is
good to see you.’

It was left to Octavia to restore order, to ensure that the luggage was put out of the way in the porch, that the brides were ready and the bridesmaids were calm and standing in line, so she had no time to greet her unexpected guest, much though she would have liked to. He and the belated voyager were dragged off into the church while she was busy and installed in the front pew, to the great interest of the congregation and the considerable relief of the vicar, who’d been standing by the altar rail wearing his patient expression for so long it felt stuck to his face. By the time she finally slipped into the church herself, she only had a second to ease into the nearest pew before the organist was playing the wedding march and J-J was proceeding down the aisle with a bride on each arm.

But after all that, it was the happiest wedding and everything else went off without a hitch. John managed to make his responses without a single stutter and was given a loving pinch by way of praise for his prowess, and Arthur kissed his bride with such happy ardour that it brought tears to the eyes of nearly every woman in the congregation. And then they were out in the sunshine and the bright air was full of tumbling confetti and Octavia found herself standing side by side with Tommy Meriton and turned towards him wondering what she could say. He’d changed, there was no doubt about that. His lovely fair hair had dulled to brown and was cut severely short and he wasn’t as slim as he’d been when they parted, but he was still Tommy, his dark eyes exactly the same, his smile unchanged.

‘Hello, Tikki-Tavy,’ he said. ‘Surprised?’

The nickname made her heart lurch. ‘Very,’ she said. And was on the point of adding that he was the last person she’d expected to see – but checked herself in time. He might not take her candour quite so easily after all these years and she didn’t want to upset him. I’m growing cautious in my old age, she thought.

‘Couldn’t let him struggle here by himself,’ he said, as if he felt he ought to explain. ‘I don’t think he knew where he was when we docked.’

‘He knows where he is now,’ Octavia laughed. He was standing with his arm round Emmeline’s ample waist, beaming at the brides.

‘Yes, doesn’t he?’

‘Thank you for looking after him,’ Octavia said. ‘It was very good of you.’

He gave her a self-deprecating grin. ‘Least I could do.’

‘I hope we haven’t made you too late getting home.’

This time his grin was mischievous. ‘I phoned Elizabeth from the quayside,’ he said. ‘She knows I’m going to be late. Don’t worry. She’s used to it. If I travel by sea I rarely dock on time.’

The photographer was calling to them to stand in line for the family portrait. ‘If you would be so kind, ladies and gentlemen!’

‘Still, I suppose I’d better be getting back now,’ Tommy said. ‘Mustn’t hold up proceedings.’

Octavia didn’t want him to go. Not so soon. There wasn’t any need to rush away, was there? ‘You’re not holding up proceedings,’ she told him. ‘The very idea! Come and have your picture taken. That ship was so late a few more minutes won’t make any difference, will they?’

‘It’s a family portrait,’ he protested. ‘You heard what the man said.’

She took his arm and led him towards the group gathering on the steps. ‘If you’re not family,’ she said, ‘I don’t know who is.’

So he had his photograph taken, standing between Tavy and Em, and afterwards, at J-J’s insistence, he was persuaded to join the reception with the rest of the wedding party, where an extra place was set for him at the end of the long wedding table, next to Octavia.

‘This is like old times,’ he said as he took his seat.

She was so happy to be sitting beside him she was grinning like an idiot. She had to remind herself that she must make an effort to be sensible. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked him.

He smiled at her for a long time, remembering. ‘I could eat a horse,’ he said.

‘I don’t think horse is on the menu,’ she said, remembering too.

‘Which you know because you’ve seen it,’ he said. ‘Oh Tavy, you haven’t changed a bit!’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ she told him, laughing. ‘You’d be surprised how much I’ve changed.’

‘Not in essentials,’ he said. ‘Oh, I know you’re a power to be reckoned with – publicly, I mean – I’ve been following your career – but underneath you haven’t changed at all.’

‘Well, I won’t argue with you,’ she said.

He laughed at her. ‘If you don’t, it’ll be the first time ever.’

Algy was leaning across the table towards them, breaking into their
tête-à-tête
. ‘Top hole wedding, Tavy,’ he beamed. ‘Bonza food, bonza wine – and Em says there’s dancing afterwards. You’ve done us proud. Aren’t you glad you came back with me, Tommy?’

‘Yes,’ Tommy said. ‘I think you could say that.’ And he smiled at Octavia, his face shifting into the familiar happy contours she remembered so well. ‘Bags I the first waltz,’ he said.

Oh yes, she thought, dear Tommy. You can have every waltz there is.

But when the meal and speeches were done and the two wedding cakes had been cut to crumbs with a great deal of giggling and the band had struck up for the first dance of the afternoon, he was dragged off by Algy ‘to meet the families and do the honours, men of the family and all that sort of thing.’ And as Algy was cheerfully sozzled by then and not in a mood to take a refusal, he shrugged his elegant shoulders and did as he was told, grimacing at Octavia as he left her. There was nothing for it but to join her cousin in one of the rather uncomfortable chairs at the edge of the dance floor and watch as the two bridal pairs took to the floor to lead the dance. It was better that way. She couldn’t really expect him to dance with her. It wouldn’t have been proper.

‘I do so hope they’ll be happy,’ Emmeline said, smiling at Dora as she and John drifted past, cradled in each other’s arms. ‘It’s the one thing I’ve always wanted, for them to be happy. I made such a bad mistake marrying Ernest.’

Octavia didn’t contradict her. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I remember how he treated your boys, slapping their legs and calling them milksops. Poor little things. It was brutal.’

‘I didn’t know anything about him, that was the trouble,’ Emmeline confided. ‘I thought it was enough for him to be a good provider, a man with a good job. You’re so silly when you’re young. But I paid for it. I knew it was a mistake right from the wedding night. Too late then, of course. Once you’ve
made your decision you have to go through with it, don’t you? But it
was
a mistake and if I had my life to live again I’d do things very differently. Oh, I do so hope it will be better for my darlings.’

‘It will be,’ Octavia told her. ‘Look at them. They’re blissfully happy. Both of them.’

‘Do you have regrets?’ Emmeline asked. ‘About Tommy, I mean.’

The question caught Octavia off guard but she answered it sensibly. ‘No,’ she said briskly. ‘I don’t. Regrets are a waste of time. I’ve got too much to do to sit around feeling sorry for myself.’ But then she noticed that Emmeline’s face was falling and realised that her words had been too brusque and could have been taken as a criticism, so she rushed to explain. ‘If I’d married him, Em, I couldn’t have run my school and think what a waste that would have been. No, I made my decision and I stuck by it and I don’t regret it. I’ve been royally rewarded.’

Algy was pushing his way back to them through the dancers. Thanks to the wine and his exertions and the heat of the room, his face was an even darker brown than it had been when he arrived. But, as both women noticed, even though he was tiddly, he looked fit and stocky and full of himself, and he hadn’t coughed once since he arrived. ‘Come on, sis,’ he said to Emmeline. ‘Time you were dancing.’

‘I can’t dance,’ Emmeline protested. ‘I’m too fat.’

‘Rot!’ her brother said. ‘You’re not fat. A bit on the stout side maybe but you should see some of the women in Australia.’

‘No, honestly Algy,’ Emmeline said, tempted but dithering. ‘I can’t. Really. I haven’t danced for years. I’m too old. I’ve
probably forgotten how. Anyway I can’t leave Tavy on her own. That wouldn’t be kind.’

‘Tavy’s dancing with me,’ Tommy said, from behind them. ‘She promised. Didn’t you, Tavy?’ He held out his hand to her and, when she took it, guided her to her feet.

And then they were on the dance floor and waltzing together, as easily as if they’d never been parted and had danced with one another every day of their lives. It was extraordinary, exhilarating, dizzying. To be held so close with his hand warm in the small of her back guiding her, breathing in the lovely clean smell of his skin, smiling into his eyes. I’m dreaming, she thought. This can’t really be happening. And she struggled to find something acceptable to say, something to steer the conversation away from the disconcerting strength of her feelings.

‘What were you doing in Australia?’ she asked. That was safe enough.

‘Nothing at all, old thing, because I wasn’t there.’

‘I thought you and Algy met on the ship.’

‘So we did. I joined it at Alexandria,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been in the Middle East.’

That was better. Now she could take an intelligent interest. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘Being diplomatic.’

‘What about?’

‘A Jewish homeland.’

‘Ah!’ There’d been talk of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine ever since 1920, when the British had been given the mandate there, but nothing had ever come of it. ‘Is it likely, do you think?’

‘Not really,’ he admitted. ‘It’s uphill work to get the
Palestinians to even consider it. But likely or not we have to keep trying. There are bad times coming.’