The Four Graces (4 page)

“Oh, I didn't!” said Sal quickly.

There was a little silence; quite a comfortable sort of silence. The clock was still ticking away industriously.

“What a quiet house it is!” said Roderick Herd, lowering his voice to match the quietness.

“It's so old,” explained Sal. “Old people like being peaceful, so do old houses—at least that's what I think.”

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I've been exempted—if that's what you mean. I do the shopping, and cook—all that sort of thing.”

“Do you shop in Wandlebury?”

“Once a week,” said Sal. “We get most of our rations in Chevis Green because we like dealing with our friends.”

“I suppose you go to Wandlebury on Mondays,” said Captain Herd in a casual sort of tone.

“No,” replied Sal gravely. “I'm much too busy on Monday mornings.”

“Are you busy on Tuesdays?” he inquired. “I mean we might have coffee together at the Apollo and Boot.”

“Yes—no,” said Sal. “I go on Thursdays, but there's no time for coffee. It takes ages, standing in the queue for fish and things.” She hesitated, wondering whether to ask him to come here to tea. Liz would have asked him. Liz would have said, “Come over and see us; come whenever you like,” but Sal couldn't—the words wouldn't come.

He sighed and stood up. “I must go,” he said. “I ought to have been back before this. What a life!”

She went with him to the door. His motorbike was in the yard, leaning against the wall.

“I shall have to whizz,” he said, smiling at her.

“Don't whizz too fast,” said Sal anxiously.

He was not tall. In fact, he was just about her own height—so the very brown eyes were on a level with her own—but he was tremendously strong. You could see how strong he was by the way he wheeled out the heavy motorbike. He was tremendously self-confident, too. His brown face and his white teeth were rather an intriguing contrast. Sal watched him “whizz” down the road and then went back to the kitchen. She found Miss Marks's umbrella lying on the table.

Sal was laying tea in the schoolroom. When no outsider was expected, the Graces always had tea in the schoolroom; it was comfortable and informal, it encouraged comfortable, informal conversation (you could eat more and let your hair down, as Liz put it). The schoolroom was a very pleasant place; it was a long-shaped room, low-ceilinged, with windows facing south and west. The carpet was very shabby, so was the furniture, but the Graces had seen these things from infancy so the shabbiness did not worry them. Here were old-fashioned armchairs (in which Victorian ladies had sat, embroidering petticoats, or sewing lace collars onto their dresses), and a large sofa, shaped like a half-moon, which fitted into a corner; there were also a gate-legged table and a battered Sheraton bureau, and several bookcases, full of shabby books. The only modern note was struck by the electric kettle that stood in the grate…it was beginning to sing cheerfully as Sal chose the cups and plates from the cupboard in the wall. She chose them carefully for each one was different—they were, in fact, survivors of many different sets that had belonged to members of the Grace family in bygone days. The Coleport cup and saucer had come from old Mrs. Thynne—Sal's maternal grandmother—and the Dresden had belonged to Mr. Grace's aunt and had been bestowed upon Liz for her seventh birthday. There were two cups and several saucers and plates of the Limoges set, very fine and fluted and decorated with sprays of autumn leaves, which had been a wedding present to Mr. and Mrs. Grace—Sal remembered the days when this set had been complete. Other cups and saucers were souvenirs of visits to Bath and to Brighton and bore the heraldic devices of these towns. The remainder of the china reposing in the schoolroom cupboard had been discovered in a box in the attic. Some of it was good and some without intrinsic value, but the Graces found it interesting to speculate and to discuss where it had come from, and which of their ancestors had chosen and used it. The silver teapot was old and dented, but very bright, for Sal loved it and liked to see it shining. She warmed it carefully and measured out the tea—the kettle was boiling now.

“Joan doesn't mind when she has her holiday,” said Tilly, coming in.

“Oh, good,” said Sal, without enthusiasm. Liz came in after Tilly and shut the door. She sat down on a Victorian chair and stretched out her long legs before her; they looked longer and slimmer in the closely fitting breeches and heavy stockings and thick brown shoes she wore for her work on the farm. “Joan's going to Mant for her holiday,” said Liz in a casual voice.

“To Mant?” inquired Sal with interest. “I thought she was going to her uncle at Brighton.”

“Mant is a person, not a place,” explained Liz.

“A man or a woman?”

“A woman,” said Liz firmly. “She said, ‘I'll go to Mant. She can have me anytime so it doesn't matter when I get my holiday,' or words to that effect.”

“Mant!” said Sal, savoring the word thoughtfully. “Mrs. Mant, I suppose.”

“Miss Mant, perhaps.”

“Short for Mantalini?”

“Who knows?” said Liz, leaning back and cocking one leg over the other.

Tilly had taken no part in the discussion; she had begun to giggle. “Tilly knows,” said Sal, looking at her.

“I'm sorry, but you're both wrong,” declared Tilly. “Mant is m' uncle's wife.”

“What a
pity!
” said Sal regretfully. She took up the teapot and announced, “You can't have sugar because I want it for jam, and Joan forgot the saccharines.”

“Hell,” said Liz without rancor.

“If Father heard you—”

“But he can't, the darling,” reasoned Liz. “And anyhow, I only mean that place in Sweden—or is it Norway? Father wouldn't mind a bit if I said Birmingham.”

“It's those men—” began Sal.

“Not on your life,” interrupted Liz. “
Those
men
are scared stiff when I'm anywhere about. I think they're afraid I'd tell Father if they said damn. It cramps their style a lot. Can't we have jam?”

“Not today,” said Sal.

“You can have jam yesterday and tomorrow,” said Tilly solemnly as she helped herself to a cress sandwich and handed the plate to Liz.

“I don't mind much,” declared Liz. “I look forward to this all day—sprawling and drinking tea and saying whatever happens to come into my head. Heaven will be like this—not golden gates and harps.”

“Some people want harps,” objected Sal.

They were silent for a few minutes, munching cress.

“And anyhow,” said Sal at last. “You wouldn't appreciate doing as you like if you could do it all the time…like the people in the Abbey of Thélème. They were
obliged
to do what they liked all the time. It was a punishment.”

“Makes one believe in astrology—almost,” said Liz thoughtfully.

“What does?”

“People's lives. What you want in Heaven depends entirely upon what you've got here, and what you've got here depends upon Fate. Some people's lives are so dull and others' are so interesting.”

“It's you, really,” objected Sal. “Your life is what you make it.”

“Yes, it is. Some people would find it frightfully dull to be the daughter of the parson at Chevis Green.”

“But
we
don't,” cried Liz. “That's exactly what I mean. It's in you from the beginning. Either there's this mysterious thing in you that makes you happy—that makes you interested in everything and interesting to yourself—or else there isn't, and you're dull and dreary and discontented.”

“Who is dull and dreary and discontented?” inquired Mr. Grace, appearing suddenly in the doorway.

“Nobody, darling,” replied Liz. “Your daughters are quite contented with their lot. Isn't that nice for you?”

“Liz was saying we might have been, if we'd been born under different stars,” explained Tilly.

Mr. Grace sat down and accepted a cup of tea.

“Not really stars—it's just a way of putting it. Some people are born bored,” said Liz.

“Born bored!” echoed Mr. Grace. “I can't think of anything worse. Born with a soul blind to the beauties of nature and the peculiarities of one's fellow man.”

“Some people are,” said Liz. “If you don't understand people you aren't interested in them.”

“Solomon asked for an understanding heart.”

“Oh, but he had one already!” declared Sal. “I mean he wouldn't have asked for it if he hadn't got it.”

“Of course,” agreed Tilly. “People who are born bored don't want to understand.”

There was a short silence.

“I suppose we can offer a bed to William Single,” said Mr. Grace suddenly.

Three faces turned toward him with identical expressions of dismay, but Mr. Grace had rather expected this reaction, so he was not surprised. He stirred his tea and waited.

“William Single?” asked Sal, who was the first to find her voice.

“You may have heard me speak of him.”

“Never,” said Liz firmly.

“I scarcely know him, of course, but we cannot condemn him to the Whistling Man.”

“Must he come to Chevis Green?” inquired Tilly anxiously. “I mean why—”

“There's a good deal to do, one way and another,” began Sal.

“He will be no trouble in the house,” declared Mr. Grace with his usual optimism.

“How do you know?” inquired Liz. “I mean if you scarcely know the man, you can't possibly know his habits.”

“He will require a bed,” said Mr. Grace firmly. “A bed and a seat at our board. I have no doubt he will bring—er—food tickets.”

“He must!” cried Sal in alarm.

“Why is he coming?” asked Liz. “When is he coming…and for how long?”

“What is he going to do?” asked Tilly.

“He is one of the greatest living authorities upon Roman Britain,” said Mr. Grace as if that explained everything, which perhaps it did.

“Birmingham!” exclaimed Liz emphatically.

“No, Oxford,” said Mr. Grace. “He has rooms in the High. He is coming to Chevis Green to examine some Roman remains. I am looking forward to his visit with keen interest.”

There was a short silence, broken by Tilly. “He certainly won't remember to bring his ration book,” she said.

It was Thursday morning, Sal's day for shopping in Wandlebury, and as it was fine and windless, she had bicycled the three miles instead of taking the bus. Now she was standing in the queue at the fishmonger's, pressed closely between Joan's mother and a fat man with a very bald head. Mrs. Aleman had come in the bus, of course, and the bus had been late. It usually was late on a Thursday morning. They stood in the queue for half an hour, and during that time Sal learned quite a lot about Joan, things she had not known before. It was odd, thought Sal, that you could know a person very well—as she knew Joan—and yet learn so much about her from another person. Joan came to the Vicarage every day, but she had a separate life at home…you might almost say Joan led a double life, thought Sal.

“Fretting, that's what she is,” said Mrs. Aleman. “Bob's a good 'usband to 'er in a way, but 'e don't write as often as 'e might, an' the days go by so quick. If she don't get a letter once a week she begins to think something's wrong. You'll 'ear soon enough, I said to 'er. You'll 'ear if anything's wrong. No news is good news, that's what I tell 'er.”

“Yes,” agreed Sal. “I didn't know she was so worried. Bob is in Shetland, isn't he?”

“Some such place,” agreed Mrs. Aleman. “It's the sharks she's worrying about—and them nasty little Japs. You read such awful things in the papers about them.”

“She needn't worry about sharks—or Japs,” declared Sal. “As a matter of fact— ”

“That's what I tell 'er, Miss Sal. Don't you worry, I said. If Bob's going to be bitten by a shark, 'e'll
be
bitten an' no amount of worrying will 'elp 'im.”

“I don't think there are any sharks in Shetland.”

“You tell 'er, Miss Sal. She'll listen to you. Lor', I 'ope there'll be a few 'addocks left. Mr. Aleman's sick of that Icelandic cod.”

“If you soak it—” began another woman.

“I know,” interrupted Mrs. Aleman. “It tells you on the wireless. You soak it till you're tired of seeing it lying in the bowl an' then you cook it, an' then it looks like a piece of white flannel that's been used for a poultice.”

“Tastes like it, too,” said the fat man in front.

Sal felt quite as strongly about Icelandic cod (it was food, and that was all you could say in its favor), so she was enchanted to find that there were a few haddocks upon the slab when her turn came to be served. Half a dozen haddocks were weighed out and rolled loosely in a sheet of yesterday's
Times
, which she had brought with her for this purpose. She clasped the parcel with both hands and wriggled out through the crowd. Several people near the end of the queue stopped her and inquired anxiously if there was any chance for them, and Sal was obliged to dash their hopes. She felt extremely greedy, of course, but if she had done as her better nature directed and bestowed her fish upon Mrs. Bouse, who had a delicate child, or upon Mrs. Feather, whose mother had just undergone an operation, her own father and sisters would have had to go supperless. I was early, thought Sal, trying to drown the voice of conscience. They could have come early, couldn't they? I've stood in the blinking queue for forty minutes, so there…but perhaps they couldn't come early, said conscience in a still, small voice.

Sal ignored conscience. She crossed the road to her bicycle, which was leaning against a wall, and was just stretching out her hand toward it when something soft and heavy struck her in the middle of the back. It was such a powerful blow that Sal lost her balance and fell forward against the handlebars…the bicycle slid from the wall (Sal clinging to it desperately the while) and the pedal caught her ankle with a vicious kick. Meanwhile, the haddocks burst through their inadequate wrapping and scattered themselves all over the pavement in a silvery shower. Sal lay there for a moment because she could not move, she was sprawling full length over the bicycle.

“I
beg
your pardon,” exclaimed a strong deep voice, a voice full of the most intense anxiety and solicitude. “I can't tell you how sorry—this is terrible. Are you seriously injured?”

“Help me up,” said Sal, who was beginning to realize what she must look like to the gathering crowd.

A strong hand immediately appeared under each of her elbows and she was lifted bodily from the bicycle and set upon her feet.

“There,” said her rescuer. “There now. How do you feel? Not—er—injured in any way? No bones—er—broken?”

“No-o,” said Sal, looking at him. He was an enormous man, clad in a somewhat shapeless tweed suit; his head was bare, and his thick brown wavy hair was floating in the breeze.

“Dreadful,” he said. “Dreadful! I really can't begin to tell you how sorry I am.” And he took a large silk handkerchief out of his pocket and began to dust Sal's skirt very carefully, as if he were dusting a Dresden china figurine.

Sal let him. She was still feeling a bit dazed.

“And now the fish,” he said, bending and beginning to gather them into his hands. But this was not so easy for their slippery bodies eluded him, sliding from his grasp and leaping into the air as if they were alive.

Sal leaned against the wall and began to laugh and with that he laughed too, deeply and heartily, his whole immense body heaving with the uncontrollable spasms.

“So good of you—to take it like this,” he panted. “It was a terrible thing to do. I just stepped back—to allow one lady to pass—and in so doing—upset another.” He stepped back as he spoke and knocked another passerby off the pavement.

Sal saw it was time to intervene. She seized his arm and drew him into the doorway of the baker's shop. “There,” she said, holding him. “There, now.”

He still shook. He was like a volcano gradually settling down after an eruption. “So clumsy,” he murmured, mopping his eyes with the handkerchief he had used to dust Sal. “So dreadfully clumsy. I beg your pardon a thousand times. What more can I say?”

“You can't,” said Sal. “I mean you've said more than enough already.”

“And your fish,” he lamented. “Your—er—whitings. What
can
we do?”

“I'll pick them up in a minute,” said Sal, giggling feebly.

“No!” he cried, struck by a sudden brilliant idea. “No, they are uneatable—I shall buy you some more fish. Why didn't I think of it before?”

“You can't—” began Sal.

“Of course I can! Whiting, turbot, sole—whatever you like. You have only to say the word.”

Sal gazed at him. Here was a creature from another world! Here was a man who (obviously) did not know there was war! Here was somebody who (most probably) had never heard of Icelandic cod. She was speechless. She was paralyzed.

Already he had crossed the road to the fishmonger's and was shouldering his way gently but firmly through the waiting queue. He's never seen a queue, either, thought Sal in dismay, and she abandoned bicycle and fish to rush after him and rescue him again. But this time he had reached the door, and oddly enough nobody was offering any resistance. “Pardon me,” she heard him say as he pushed Mrs. Toop aside—Mrs. Toop, the wife of the butcher at Chevis Green, a virago if ever there was one—and Mrs. Toop moved and allowed him to pass. He was now inside the shop. Sal peered through the window and saw his huge form making its way down the aisle between the empty marble slabs.

“
Well
,” said Sal to herself. She could say no more.

Sal returned to her bicycle and found that some good Samaritan had dealt with the situation, propping the bicycle against the wall and filling the basket with fish. There was no paper around them, of course, and they looked a trifle the worse of their experience—a little dusty and just a trifle mangled. Should one take them home, wondered Sal, looking at them with aversion. Could one wash them thoroughly and skin them, and make them into a fish pie? Was it possible that people who did not know their past might eat them in a fish pie and relish them?

He came toward her across the street, looking like a god (Zeus, thought Sal—or, no, it's Jove) with his eyes shining and the sun in his hair. “Salmon!” he cried, holding out a neat brown paper package. “Salmon from the Tay! You like salmon, I hope.”

“But how—” cried Sal. “And, goodness, you must have paid a fortune for it.”

He was immediately crestfallen. All the godliness seeped away. Sal's heart was melted within her.

“Salmon,” he repeated, holding it out to her pleadingly.

Sal took it. “But he hadn't any—” she began.

“It arrived in a box straight from the Tay.”

“Straight from Heaven,” murmured Sal. “Or Olympia,” she amended, remembering she had thought him like Jove.

“There were other people in the shop,” he continued. “One or two of them seemed a trifle disagreeable. The war,” he added, nodding his head. “Yes, that's the explanation. People are feeling a bit strained and their manners suffer.”

“So you know about the war,” said Sal gravely.

“They wouldn't have me,” he said, shaking his head. “I'm over forty and in a reserved occupation. They took the younger men—weeds compared with me. It seems strange that they didn't take me, doesn't it?”

It was just as well, thought Sal. They were well advised not to have him, for he would have spoiled the symmetry of any regiment. He might easily have knocked the colonel off his horse, thought Sal, looking at him. He would almost certainly have trodden upon a mine or shot one of his comrades by mistake. Give him a grenade to throw, and ten to one he would have dropped it…no, he was better at home.

She found, somewhat to her embarrassment, that he had attached himself to her, following her from shop to shop and holding her bicycle while she went in and bought sugar and hen food and soap. It was embarrassing because he was so large, because he was constantly getting in people's way, stopping to apologize and, in so doing, blocking the pavement. It was like having an enormous dog, thought Sal. One felt responsible for his behavior. Though why one should feel responsible for him when one had only just met him, and would never see him again, it was difficult to say. She was further embarrassed by the notion that they might meet Captain Herd, for although she had told him definitely that there would be no time for “elevenses” at the Apollo and Boot, it was quite possible that he would ignore the warning—he had seemed that sort of person. If he met them, what was she to do? She could not introduce her new acquisition because she did not know his name. Liz could have carried off the whole adventure; in fact, Liz would have enjoyed it. By this time she would have found out the man's name and most of his history, or, if necessary, she would have shaken him off politely and gone on her way unencumbered. However, there was no sign at all of Captain Herd and the moment was approaching when he must get rid of her companion and ride home.

“That's all,” said Sal at last. “Thank you very much for carrying the parcels, and thank you again for the salmon. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” he said vaguely and somewhat forlornly.

Sal hesitated. “Where are you going?” she asked. “I mean do you know your way?”

“I can find out,” he replied. “It's a place called Chevis Green.”

“Chevis Green! That's where I live,” cried Sal in surprise.

“You live there? How very strange,” said her new friend happily. “Perhaps you know Mr. Grace. I'm going to stay with him.”

“You're going to stay with him!” echoed Sal incredulously.

The big man nodded.

“Does he—does he
know
?” asked Sal. And then, suddenly, light broke. “Goodness, you must be William Single!” she exclaimed.

Mr. Single admitted that he was.

Sal was gazing at him. I might have guessed, she thought. Yet how could she? An authority upon Roman Britain sounded old and dried up. Sal had envisaged their prospective guest as bald and bearded, pedantic in the extreme. She had envisaged him as vague and unpractical—and of course he was—but—

Mr. Single waited for a few moments and then he said, “I don't think Mr. Grace is actually expecting me today, but I got away sooner than I expected. Do you think he'll mind?”

“
He
won't mind,” said Sal, trying to think whether there was enough food in the house, and if not how she could obtain more.

“You know Mr. Grace,” said her new friend. “Perhaps you know his children. He has four little girls.”

“I am one of them,” said Sal dramatically.