The Forgotten Story (22 page)

‘Well,' said Perry, ‘a rattling good job your aunt didn't see that, eh?' He laughed one of his old infectious laughs as they left the station, but his mouth twitched a little as if he had bitten on something that wasn't there.

‘Why?' asked Anthony, still warm inside.

‘Oh … You wouldn't understand. What it is to be young.' Perry sighed and stared a second at the tall boy by his side. ‘Wish I was young again. Innocent as a new-born infant. Clean as a baby's whistle. That's what I like to see.'

‘Perhaps I know more than you think,' said the boy.

‘Ah. Good luck to you if you do. Then why ask me silly questions?'

‘Well, I don't see why Aunt Madge should object to us saying goodbye to Pat.'

‘Us? Ha, ha!
You
can do what you like, boy; Auntie won't shed a tear.'

Silence fell as they began the long walk home. It seemed a long time since that first walk through the town on the day of his arrival with Patricia at his side. He wished that she was here now, not chuffering away in the direction of Truro. Then it had been high summer. Now winter was on hand and the sea in the harbour was grey and choppy. He glanced at the man walking beside him. Perhaps it was fancy, but Uncle Perry seemed recently to have lost something of his buccaneering look. Instead of being a hunter, you could fancy that he was now one of the hunted.

If Anthony had ever paused to look back over the weeks which followed Pat's departure he might have seen them as a bridge between two periods. The first was the period of decay, when the restaurant was shut and all life and vitality had gone out of the house and nothing at all seemed to happen; the second was the period of crisis when all that had been festering under the surface since Joe's death came to a head. But Anthony never did look back on this interim period. To him it was a time best forgotten.

To him it was a series of dull, grey, lonely days during which he slept and rose and washed and ate and pottered about the house, staring at the whip of the rain on the windows or going out for a brisk but dismal duty walk under heavy skies with a sharp wind cutting round the corners, or shopping for Aunt Madge with a huge wicker basket which now was never more than half filled while the shopkeepers rubbed their hands and treated him with respect though all the time out of the corners of their eyes they were watching him queerly. A period, he would have said, when nothing worth noting happened.

He would have been wrong. Had he been a little less unobservant, a little more aware of the under currents moving around him, he would have marked a number of minor events which showed which way the stream was running.

First there was the dismissal of Fanny. This happened so quickly that he could hardly believe his eyes. One day she was there, the next gone. Nor could he obtain from either of the adults an explanation for her going. When he put his questions Aunt Madge turned up her eyes and Uncle Perry grinned and shook his head behind his sister-in-law's back. Obviously she was not dispensed with for reasons of economy or because she was superfluous to the running of the household, as the two boy waiters had been when the restaurant closed. She had been very useful about the house, and the house was not the same for her absence. Only when he learned that she had been given a week's money in lieu of notice did he begin to suspect that she had been dismissed for some offence. Perhaps she had been caught stealing knives.

Anthony began to feel that the house had too much in common with the story of the Ten Little Black Boys. First Uncle Joe, and then there were seven. Second the two boy waiters, and then there were five. Next Patricia, and then there were four. After this, little Fanny, and now there were three. Anthony wondered when it would be his turn.

It could not come too soon. After Fanny's departure Aunt Madge took to staying in bed still longer in the mornings, and often the boy was the only one stirring before ten o'clock. Breakfast was not until eleven when Perry would join them, jovial but unshaven. Whereas in the old days Mrs Veal was always cooking, the closing of the restaurant appeared to have robbed her of the incentive, and meals were now designed for the least possible trouble.

There did not seem much prospect at present of his becoming another little Black Boy, he thought. His aunt had never been one for going out much, but another phenomenon of these strange weeks was that if she did leave the house Anthony must go with her. Not Perry but Anthony. He spent many a dreary hour in the dusty ante-room of Mr Cowdray's office while she conferred inside, later to walk back through the main street adjusting his pace to her slow, heaven-ordained progress. At first she wanted to take his arm, but he contrived to fall out of step so often that eventually she abandoned the idea.

Twice every Sunday he had to go to church with her. Again the slow parade through the narrow main street, dressed in their Sunday best, people nodding and wishing them good morning or good evening. She always insisted on sitting in one of the front pews and in staying behind to speak to the vicar after the service. Then came the slow walk back with more nodding and an occasional pause to pass a word, usually arriving home to find that Perry had burned the dinner or let the supper potatoes boil dry. Then Perry had to tell exactly what he had been doing while they were out and Aunt Madge would chudder away at her grievances all through dinner.

Anthony often thought of the remark made by Perry after they had seen Pat off, and he came to notice that if they were all three sitting in the parlour together in the evening and Perry rose or shifted his chair, Aunt Madge would at once look up from her knitting and adjust her eye-glasses and never take her gaze from him until he sat down again. Sometimes, too, she quietly watched him from a distance when he was washing up or sitting in his shirt sleeves in the kitchen smoking and reading his paper. Her face was like that of a plump Persian cat which reflected the temporary lights and shades of the outer world but gave away little of what was happening inside.

One evening they sent him out for beer. He ran across to The Ship and Sailor on the corner of the main street and found the bar crowded. Mr Treharne was behind the bar and he took the boy's order while talking to another man. Only when he handed the jug back over the counter, did he turn upon Anthony an inquisitive, knowing look.

‘Don't see much of your Uncle Perry these days, boy,' he said. ‘He's well, I hope?'

Anthony was getting used to sly glances.

‘Yes, thank you.' Politely he passed over the money.

‘Used to be one of our best customers,' said Mr Treharne. ‘Folks' habits change, I suppose.'

‘Can't come out for his own beer now,' said one of the men at the bar. ‘ 'As to send the nipper.'

Another said: ‘Reckon he's found a pair of apron strings lyin' around.'

There was a general laugh at this.

‘
And
they ain't his mother's.'

With cheeks burning Anthony waited patiently for his change.

‘Ever 'eard o' the Table of Affinity, eh, boy?' said the first.

He pretended not to hear.

‘Go an' ask your uncle. Maybe he do know …'

‘Deceased wife's sister or deceased husband's brother, 'tes all the same. A pity for she. They can't call the banns.'

‘Reckon they've done all but.'

Another roar of laughter greeted this.

‘What's it like in thur, boy, eh?' said the wag. ‘ Must be a cosy nest. Think there's room for me?'

‘Let the boy alone,' growled someone. ‘ Tesen't narthing to do with him.'

‘No' said the wag. ‘ ' Oo blames the gooseberry fur 'anging on the bush?'

With the laughter following in gusts Anthony pushed his way out through the crowd. In the welcome darkness outside he stopped a moment and found that he was trembling all over.

Patricia settled into her new work very quickly. She found her occupation, though always making demands on her nervous energy, curiously restful from one point of view. It was impersonal in the sense of having no concern with her private affairs, and after the hurly burly of the two previous months she gladly sank her individuality into that of the tireless Miss Gawthorpe.

She did not go home each weekend. She made the excuse that she could not get away, but this was not the real reason. Having got this post under a mild form of false pretences, and finding the work not unpleasant, she lived in a daily but decreasing terror of being found out. There were, she knew, people in Falmouth who would ‘feel it their duty' to write to Miss Gawthorpe if they knew she was employing ‘that Patricia Veal'. Her chief hope of escape was to keep out of their sight.

There occurred, however, a half term, and with it no reasonable way of avoiding a two-day holiday. She found the house dingier and more untidy and not so clean and her stepmother larger and more puffy, like a cake with too much yeast in it. Perry‘s chuckle was as frequent as ever, but was on a furtive note and there had been an increase in that curious nervous twitch about his mouth as if his upper lip were biting upon something which could not be properly secured. Anthony looked thin and self-contained and was less free in his manner, especially towards her. The candid gaze had gone from his blue eyes.

At the first opportunity she brought up the subject of his schooling with Madge.

Madge hedged. Or rather she created vacuums around isolated words, which was her way of being non-committal. Pat asked if she had heard from his father again and Madge said, no. Pat had the impression that she was still hedging. What did they propose to do with him after Christmas? Had they made any inquiries at Falmouth Grammar School? Madge turned up her eyes and said something about Perry having it in hand.

‘Oh, Perry,' said Patricia. ‘You can't really leave anything to him. Not, I mean, like fixing up a boy's schooling. Isn't there some law nowadays about children
having
to go to school? He's missed one term already.'

Her stepmother said something indistinct about being very well aware of the law. She gave the impression that she would make a move almost any time now. There was clearly no point in spending a lot of money on the boy if he was likely to be moving again. Really just a question of finding a stop-gap.

This seemed the chance the girl had been waiting for. ‘If it's only that – and of course you're probably right – why not see about sending him to Miss Gawthorpe's? There are boys of twelve and thirteen there, and we do teach them manners, which is more than some schools do.'

Madge fumbled with her cameo brooch. In the deep lace folds of her dress something rose and fell and a faint breath, of a sigh escaped.

‘Away from home … Oh, no. My responsibility. No mother.
I
couldn't …'

‘I should be there to look after him.'

‘Oh, no … The travelling and …'

‘I believe Miss Gawthorpe might put him up. There is a bedroom vacant there, and I trunk she might be glad of someone to help in small ways. I haven't actually asked her –'

‘I should think not …'

‘I haven't actually asked her, but in that case I think she might be content with the ordinary day fee.'

Mrs Veal shook her head. ‘Oh, no …'

Patricia could always understand and appreciate a reasoned argument, but she still had a small girl's dislike of an unreasoned refusal.

‘Why not?'

‘Useful … he's useful here. Fanny has gone. A great deal to do. Your uncle naturally isn't … And I … Hi am not too well. Severe headaches. Rheumatism. I sometimes wonder how I carry on. A great help … Anthony. Besides … my nephew. Responsibility … And he's happy here.'

‘Why not put the idea to him and see if he likes it?'

Madge's chins shook above her lace collar. ‘Children. No idea … what is best for them … adult matter.'

‘I suppose you think I'm still a child.' said Patricia, feeling angry. It was not altogether being frustrated in this way that irritated her. But Aunt Madge seemed to have become so much more pontifical since she went away. This absurd dignity had been growing worse ever since she came in for the money.

‘Not at all,' said Madge. ‘But the matter. Hi must decide.'

‘Well, do for heaven's sake do something,' the girl said, swallowing her annoyance. ‘If you won't send him to Miss Gawthorpe's send him somewhere so that he has an interest in life. I don't think he looks as well as he did, and it surely can't be good for him just to mope about the house all day.'

‘We will decide. I will decide … as I think best. I will think … Hasty decisions never … Plenty of time. Christmas is …'

So Patricia left on the Monday morning without being able to fulfil the promise she had made herself. She felt thwarted and unreasonable, and vowed that if it were not for Anthony, Falmouth and stepmother would see no sight of her during the Christmas holidays. Something of her disappointment showed in her parting with Anthony, and he for his part felt separated from her by far more than a few weeks of idleness and doubt. This time they did not loss, but shook hands quietly, and very soon he was walking back through the town alone with his own thoughts.

Some time after Patricia went Aunt Madge finally agreed to allow Louisa's representatives – not Louisa – to make a search of the house for any later Will which Joe might have made. Mr Cowdray put this to Madge as a reasonable way of settling the dispute, but perhaps what weighed most with her was his remark that rumours were going about the town that Miss Veal had been unfairly dispossessed, and this seemed the obvious way of quietening them. Madge for all her dignity was very sensitive to public opinion.

The first Anthony knew of it was a suggestion from Aunt Madge that he should go across the river to St Mawes and take his lunch with him. The idea was such an odd one coming from her that he was too surprised to raise any objection, so the picnic was arranged. As an outing for a warm June day there was a good deal to commend it, but undertaken in November it was a fiasco. Having eaten his sandwiches much too early, he mooned about St Mawes gazing in at the handsome houses and gardens of the retired people who lived there, then took an earlier ferry back than he was expected to take and arrived at his home to find some of the rooms practically dismantled and his uncle and aunt arguing among the debris.