The Brontes Went to Woolworths (20 page)

‘Oh no! You’ve got it well and truly mixed. That’s divorces.’

‘Then, she’s spending the day with a friend who is passing through London.’

And so one went on, making second-rate fun for mother to protect her and watching mother being matter of fact and rather hard, that one mightn’t be perturbed.

22

There was a writing-table in the Common Room at the St Agnes Settlement, and Agatha Martin, cautiously peeping in at the door, sat herself at it, took a piece of the stamped note-paper, and pondered.

Canning Town was extraordinarily noisy, or was it by contrast with the Carnes’ house? Dear me . . . the letter was going to be a very awkward one to write, and it was, somehow, so difficult to fix one’s thoughts. Arthur had greeted her when she arrived, unheralded, at about ten o’clock this morning. Agatha viewed her recent action with sincere amazement. How had one found the courage to do it? The fear lest the servants should hear one leaving, or meet one on the stairs. Dreadful. But, Arthur had welcomed one warmly; one had, already, a place in his life. (‘It’s not Agatha! My dear girl, come in, come in! This is better luck than I’d dared to hope for!’) And, her hands in his, he had bent to her until she had almost thought

Then, that talk in his study. ‘You’ll be much happier here, you know. Work? I guarantee to overwork you, my dear soul.’

And it was he who had sent the telegram to the Pater; he who had arranged for a messenger to deliver the letter to Mrs Carne and fetch the trunk in the Settlement van that collected jumble for bazaars and clothes for his poor. He had gone into the money question, almost robbing the subject of embarrassment. ‘We aren’t able to pay our regular workers, usually. They get their board, cubicle and washing. But if you’ll take on the business of acting as my secretary, and generally bottle-washing after me – eh? Ha, ha, ha! – I could offer you ten shillings a week, as well. You’d be more than worth it, to me. And now go and write your letter, and then I’ll introduce you to your colleagues. Topping women, some of them.’ And then, with his hand on her arm, ‘It’s not an easy life, you know. It’s the going over the same ground that breaks one, at times.’

Didn’t she know it! Sheil . . . one put last night at the back of one’s memory, and it slid forward . . .

Agatha poised her pen over the paper. Should she conclude by dropping a hint to Mrs Carne that the maid had been shockingly negligent about that Miss Bell? She had been waiting in the library, so must have called while the Carnes were at the station. And Muriel had not informed one – Agatha had explained it all in her bedroom. That chilly library, with no fire!

A weird sort of woman, Miss Bell. Very downright. Her reply to one’s apology: ‘Miss Martin, in my experience the governess is little more than an upper servant.’ Evidently a friend of Deirdre’s. She had admitted that she wrote, a little. Agatha had had, at last, to ask her name, and she hadn’t liked that. Journalists were probably touchy. And the answer: ‘But, I am expected. Your employer informed me that I might visit her family.’ That would be Katrine’s departure putting everything out of their heads. But on the whole, a likeable woman. Quite sympathetic, when one drew her out; interested in Arthur’s and the Pater’s photographs. Pointing to Arthur: ‘Does he write to you often?’ ‘Well, sometimes.’

‘But not as often as you wish. Is the post hour a time of torment to you, too?’ Very presuming. Agatha had said, quite sharply, ‘Nothing of the kind,’ and offered Miss Bell some cocoa, which was civilly refused. They talked of teaching, and Miss Bell said, quite violently, ‘It is detestable work!’ and then she had looked closely at the clock and said she could wait no longer, and begged Miss Martin not to venture into the cold hall, and left.

Agatha closed her eyes. And then, in the silence, that crying from Sheil that seemed to go on and on, and the voices of Mrs Carne and Deirdre in the hall. To-morrow morning that must be faced, and the certain unpleasantness: every trifle made a tragedy of by Deirdre and probably by the child’s mother, as well. Her very soul was sick of it. Sheil had stopped crying, but they might still come and make one miserable with fantastic accusation. They were already coming upstairs. Agatha instantly turned out her own light. She hardly knew, now, when the decision came to her.

Would Arthur consider that one had been unkind? It would be terrible to be unkind. One had, apparently, wounded, but what? A child like Sheil and a family like that were no fair test of one’s abilities.

‘DEAR MRS CARNE,

‘I have felt for some time, now, that I have not been making the headway with Sheil that I had hoped. She is, in some ways, unusual, and not, I find, easy to handle.

‘I have to tell you that I have accepted a secretarial and social worker’s post at the above address which was offered me, quite suddenly. I trust that you will overlook my leaving you, and beg that you will retain any salary due to me as some slight recompense for the inconvenience that, I greatly fear, I must have put you to.

‘Will you kindly allow the messenger to be given my trunk? (The name of the Settlement is on the van.)

‘A Miss Bell called last night
’

One was going to be happy, here. Hard work for definite ends, with Arthur. The distempered walls being decorated by all of us for Christmas; making the wreaths of greenery bought from street barrows, and comparing notes round the stove.

23

When Miss Martin’s letter arrived in the late afternoon, mother was so relieved that she said, ‘Burn and sink the woman!’ and wrote her a cheque for the time, and even the fraction of days, that she had been with us. The letter that accompanied it was on the ‘Of course if you feel you must go’ lines, and hoped and believed and also felt . . . and she was Miss Martin’s very sincerely.

‘And now, shall we try and get Miss Chisholm back? She was a fool, but not a
bloody
fool.’

‘Wouldn’t you give
anything
to know if La Martin spoke to Emily?’

Mother smiled appreciatively, but her determination was fixed.

‘Let that sleeping dog lie.’

‘Couldn’t one write to her about something else, and find out, casually?’

‘Please not, my dear. It’s going to be bad enough with Sheil.’

‘You’ve noticed, too?’

‘Duffer!’ Mother put down the Martin letter. ‘What passes me is why Sheil is so afraid of them. I mean, she knows about Daddy
’

‘It isn’t quite the same thing.’

I was struggling to express what I felt. ‘And then, you know, coming on the top of Saffy – and what Miss Martin may have said. She – she had a temper.’

Mother winced. ‘But, Sheil
knew
that Charlotte and Emily were dead.’

‘ or I wouldn’t have told her, of course. But it was the suddenness of it
’

It was no good; I – just – couldn’t get at the way to help Sheil. It was there, waiting, and that was all I knew. Mother and I found ourselves on the stairs, making for the schoolroom. Sheil was sitting at the toy theatre, tapping one of the – characters against the stage, and her mind somewhere else.

‘Petty, Miss Martin has got another post and we shan’t see her any more, and let’s have a spree until lessons begin again.’ There was relief in Sheil’s eyes, but I guessed that Miss Martin’s exit would soon cancel it out, and that she probably didn’t believe in the simplicity of the truth. One could see her, calculating . . .

Lunch and tea were dreadful meals: two gaps at the table, mother anxiously joking, Sheil almost completely silent, Ironface failing to interest (though her aeroplane had crashed near Valenciennes and she was the talk of Paris), and Dion Saffyn unsure of his welcome, hanging between heaven and earth, poor wretch. One couldn’t shut oneself up and write to Katrine because one must be with Sheil, and when I couldn’t stand it all another second I said, ‘Toddy’s coming round this evening.’

Mother shot a look of reproach at me, and Sheil’s brief glance accused me of treachery, with contempt thrown in. As her bedtime came round, mother said, ‘What are we going to do? If we put her in her room she may be lonely and frightened, and if we put her in your room she’ll think there
is
something to be afraid of. Why, you’re in your hat and coat! You’re
not
going out?’

‘I’m going to the Toddingtons’. ’

‘Darling, you
can’t
!’

‘About Sheil.’

Mother stood and thought, then let me go without another word.

24

Ethel admitted me. Her ladyship was out but would be in shortly, for dinner. Yes, Sir Herbert was in. ‘Miss Deirdre Carne.’ He was in the study, and looked up with an expression I knew.

‘My dear Miss Deirdre, this is nice of you. Now, do make yourself comfortable. There. My wife will be in any minute, now.’

‘I came because I thought I should find you in, at this time. Sir Herbert, it’s about Sheil; I don’t quite know where to begin.’

‘One minute. She’s not ill, I trust?’

‘It’s not that. I’m wondering if you’re going to believe me.’

He swept off his pince-nez, smiled at me with his old, tired eyes.

‘My dear, I have now got to the age when I can believe in as many as three impossible things before breakfast.’

‘But, it’s all rather
unlikely
’