The Two Mrs. Abbotts (8 page)

“What?” asked Helen.

“Nothing,” replied Janetta. “I mean of course it's quite true.”

This little conversation with Helen did not help Janetta at all, and
Love
Triumphant
got no further. Sometimes Janetta would rise in the morning and come down to breakfast full of good intentions to settle down and finish the story without any more fuss…but the moment she sat down at her desk and took up her pen she would discover within her bosom a loathing for the unfinished book—a loathing that, no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to overcome. The only thing comparable with this extraordinary sensation was the loathing for food Janetta had once experienced after a sharp bout of influenza. Then (as now) she would sit down to the table quite happily and after one look at the dish before her she would rise in disgust.

Helen badgered Janetta, which was the worst thing possible, of course, for the more Helen badgered the less Janetta felt inclined to work. Helen was always asking, “What about
Love
Triumphant
?” for Helen was not of the breed that can wait patiently and leave things to right themselves. She was a born meddler. In the garden, for instance, everything was directed by Helen. The raspberry canes, the sweet peas—even the ramblers were obliged to grow in the direction Helen thought best. She bent them to her will, tying them firmly to stake or trellis with pieces of green bass she carried in her pocket for the purpose. Janetta had always bent so easily—there had never been any trouble with Janetta until now.

A crinkle of anxiety became permanent between Helen's well-marked eyebrows, for the situation had perfectly appalling complications. It was Janetta's stories that kept the roof over their heads and cooked their food, and cleaned their shoes and dug their garden. She and Janetta ate the stories—and wore them. Helen had a lively recollection of the small stuffy house in Bayswater where they had lived before Janetta discovered her marvelous gift. The house smelt of cabbages—or sometimes of kippers—smuts drifted in whenever the windows were opened, children played hopscotch in the street. She remembered darning and patching and “making things do” and all the other discomforts and inconveniences attendant on poverty. And then Janetta had written her first story
Bride
of
May
and to their amazement it was accepted. Royalties went up by leaps and bounds and Janetta was launched upon her career.

Remembering all this and brooding over it as she went about her daily duties Helen worked herself into such a condition of alarm and despondency that she suddenly found she could bear it no longer—something would
have
to be done. Perhaps Mr. Abbott could do something about it. She must get hold of Mr. Abbott. After all (thought Helen) it was to Mr. Abbott's interest that
Love
Triumphant
should be finished and another book begun. The firm of Abbott and Spicer made a good income out of Janetta's books.

Now Mr. Abbott had come. There he sat, large and solid, kindly and benevolent, obviously anxious to help.

“I
wish
you would speak to her,” Miss Walters said, clasping and unclasping her hands in the extremity of her emotion. “I wish you would
speak
to her, Mr. Abbott. Tell her you want
Love
Triumphant
next week. She could easily finish it by then. You
will
speak to her, won't you?”

Mr. Abbott did not reply. He realized, of course, that it was his duty to the firm, his duty to his partner, to do all in his power to keep Miss Janetta's nose to the grindstone but the issue was enormously complicated by the fact that he disliked her books. He disliked them intensely. “High-powered tushery” was the phrase he had found to describe (for his own satisfaction) the latest effusion from her pen. Mr. Abbott had been called upon to perform unpleasant duties before, but never one that went so much against the grain.

“You don't mind speaking to her, do you?” asked Miss Walters anxiously.

“I do, rather,” said Mr. Abbott feebly.

“Why?” asked Miss Walters in surprise.

“Because—er—we don't care to press our authors,” he replied. “It's—well—it's against our principles, you see. Besides, if you've failed to—to persuade her it isn't likely I should succeed.”

“She might listen to you.”

“No, I don't think so—and anyhow it's against our principles.”

Miss Walters looked at him with contempt. She said, “Very well then, if you won't speak to her, I shall take the matter into my own hands.”

It was a curious thing to say, and Arthur Abbott, on his way home in the train, pondered upon the words and turned them over in his mind…for hadn't Miss Walters already done all that she could? Hadn't she come to the end of her resources before sending for him?

Jerry walked into the Archway House and shouted for Barbara, but there was no reply. I suppose she's out, thought Jerry in some annoyance. It was not often that Barbara was out at tea time. Jerry was about to depart when she heard a slight sound and she saw Simon's face staring at her between the banisters halfway up the stairs.

“Hallo!” she said.

“Hallo!” said Simon. “Mummy's out but you can come and have tea in the nursery if you like.”

“Did Dorcas say so?”

“Yes,” said Simon, nodding.

Jerry had had tea in the nursery before. She enjoyed the company of the young Abbotts and, although it sometimes made her a little sad to see them, she repressed the feeling and sat on it firmly. It was Fay that Jerry loved best, Fay with her entrancing curves, her sweetly serious baby face, her quaint old-fashioned remarks. Jerry would have given a good deal if she could have had a Fay of her very own—to cuddle and pet and take care of—and now that Sam was so far away she felt this more than ever. Jerry was aware that practically everyone liked Simon better than Fay—she could not understand why.

“Well now, this
is
nice,” declared Dorcas. “We didn't know we were going to have company, today, did we? How is Miss Marks keeping?”

“Very well, thank you,” replied Jerry, who always felt that she had to be on her best behavior in the nursery.

“How is Dapple keeping?” asked Fay solemnly.

“Silly, you don't ask how ponies are keeping!” Simon exclaimed.

“But I want to know,” said Fay. “I want to know how Dapple is keeping because I love him.”

“He's very well,” said Jerry hastily.

“Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. Walker have gone to tea at the Marvells',” Dorcas said.

“Is Mrs. Walker still here?”

“She stayed on because the doctor had to go to Edinburgh,” explained Dorcas. “It wasn't no good her going back to be there alone and it's nice for Mrs. Abbott having her. They were always great friends, the two of them.”

“When?” asked Simon. “Did Mummy live at Silverstream?”

“Pass your aunt the cake, Simon.”

“She isn't my aunt.”

“Of course she's your aunt.”

“No, she isn't any relation to me at all.”

“She's a relation to me,” said Fay.

“No, she isn't,” said Simon firmly. “Sam is your cousin, and—”

“Jerry is my cousiness, then,” declared Fay. “She's my cousiness and I love her.”

“I don't love her—not like Mummy, for instance,” said Simon in a thoughtful tone.

It gave Jerry such an odd feeling to be discussed like this—as if she were not there—that she changed the subject by asking what they were going to do tomorrow.

“Coming to tea with you,” said Simon promptly.

“Well—I don't think so,” said Jerry, slightly taken aback. “I mean—I'm—I'm rather busy. You must come some other day.”

“After the war,” said Fay, nodding understandingly.

“She always says that,” declared Dorcas.

“Oh, before
then
,” said Jerry.

“
Long
before
then
,” agreed Simon. “I want to play hide and seek with Arrol, like I did last time.”

“Harold,” said Dorcas. “I've told you dozens of times—they
do
get into such dreadful ways of talking, Mrs. Sam.”

“It is Arrol, Dorcas,” began Jerry.

“You've dropped your aitch!” cried Fay, pointing a chubby finger at her.

“His name is Arrol,” said Jerry very clearly. “It's A, double R, O, L. I don't know why, I'm sure, but—”

“There's a kind of motor car called that, isn't there?” asked Dorcas.

“And there's one called jeep,” declared Simon. “Jeep, Jeep, Jeep—wouldn't it be funny if I was called Jeep?”

Jerry agreed that it would. She was beginning to feel the strain, for she was not used to the conversation of children.

“It's an American car,” said Dorcas, who was well used to this sort of conversation and took each subject in turn with an open mind.

“I would like to be an American boy,” said Simon. “I would have lots of ice cream if I was an American boy.”

“You would be sick, then,” said Fay dogmatically.

“I wouldn't.”

“You would.”

“That's enough,” said Dorcas. “Drink up your milk. You haven't drunk any of it yet.”

“We can't come to tea the day after tomorrow because it's Mummy's birthday,” said Simon, wiping his mouth.

Jerry was disloyal enough to feel rather glad that the pleasure of her cousin's company at Ganthorne was to be put off a little longer. “Oh yes, so it is,” she said. “What are you going to give Mummy for her birthday?”

Fay raised a milky mouth from her mug and said, “A pin!” and then she laughed uproariously, for she had her own peculiar sense of humor.

“It's a book,” said Simon, ignoring her completely. “We've bought it between us, Dorcas and me. We're going to write in it.”

“It's a Bible, really,” said Dorcas. “It seems a funny sort of present, but—”

“With pictures,” said Simon.

“Pictures of the devil,” said Fay. She hesitated and then added, “Three devils, there was.”

“Oh Fay!” cried Dorcas. “It was Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego!”

“Why was they cooking them?” asked Fay.

“You'd think she was a heathen,” said Dorcas after a moment's silence. “But really she knows
lots
of Bible stories, Mrs. Sam.”

“She knows about Daniel,” Simon declared. “You know Daniel, don't you, Fay?”

“The lions et him,” said Fay with relish—and she took a large bite of cake to show how it was done.

“Silly, they didn't eat him!” cried Simon.

“He et the lions, then,” suggested Fay a trifle doubtfully.

“Fay thinks of eating all the time,” explained Simon.

“I was wondering what we should write in the Bible,” said Dorcas, looking at Jerry inquiringly.

“I know what to write,” Simon declared. “I've seen it written in a book before. It's the proper thing to write in a book. Daddy has a book with that written in it and he said it made the book more valuable—that's what Daddy said.”

“What is it?” asked Jerry and Dorcas with one accord.

“With the author's compliments,” said Simon proudly.

Jerry was stricken helpless and Dorcas was trying patiently to explain why the inscription was unsuitable, when the door opened and Barbara appeared. She was a little surprised at the sudden silence that greeted her entrance and at the strangely guilty looks of the little party.

“You're all very quiet!” she exclaimed.

Simon rose and flung himself into her arms. “We've been playing a game,” said Simon glibly. “We've been playing ‘Silence in the Pig Market, the Old Sow Speaks First!'”

***

Jerry was not sorry to see Barbara. She explained her presence and followed Barbara downstairs to the drawing room, where the conversation was better suited to her intelligence. She and Barbara understood each other beautifully. They understood what each other was driving at with a minimum of language. One might have thought, to listen to them talking, that they slipped from one subject to another illogically and without sequence—but it was not so. They merely left things out. Most people's conversation is like a local train that stops at every station and lingers there for a few moments to allow time for its passengers to embark, but when the two Mrs. Abbotts got together they roared along like an express, missing out all the small unimportant stations in their headlong career.

Arthur and Sarah were in the drawing room, too, but they took no part in the conversation. Sarah because she was not used to it, and Arthur because he had not the right type of brain.

Sarah had now been at the Archway House for a fortnight and she was going home tomorrow—home to John and the children and the troubles and trials of housekeeping in war-time—and, far from dreading the prospect, Sarah was as excited as a girl. There was no need to
pretend
to herself that she missed John. She yearned for him. She felt as though her heart were being pulled out with strings. It's been lovely, she thought. It's done me a lot of good, and Barbara is a lamb—but, oh dear, how glad I shall be to get home! Thinking all this, Sarah had lost touch with the conversation; but now she pulled herself together and tried to follow it…and sometimes she thought she had caught it up and then she found she hadn't.

“…powdered borax is best,” Jerry was saying. “They can't bear powdered borax. You sprinkle it all along the wainscoting and it keeps them away.”

“Keeps what away?” asked Sarah, who was determined to make an effort.

“Cockroaches,” said Jerry. “And that reminds me—that's really what I came to tell you, Barbara—I'm going to have a paying guest.”

“Are you?” asked Barbara in surprise. “But Jerry—”

“I know,” declared Jerry. “I know all that, but she's coming with her eyes wide open—and it will be another woman in the house.”

Sarah was about to ask if she had agreed to pull her weight in the house and whether she was a reasonably good cook, but Barbara got in before her.

“Oh, she's pretty, is she?” said Barbara, nodding.

“Attractive,” amended Jerry, screwing up her eyes as if she were visualizing her prospective P. G. “Yes, quite definitely attractive—not that it matters much because almost anything in petticoats would do.”

“How did you—”

“That was the funniest thing,” declared Jerry, laughing. “I never meant to, really. I found her in Wandlebury Square, just outside Mr. Tupper's office—you know his musty old office that looks exactly as if it ought to belong to Mr. Pecksniff.”

Barbara knew it well. One of the oddest things that had ever happened to her had happened to her in Mr. Tupper's office.

“I was just going in,” continued Jerry. “It was really to see the old mole about the stable roof, when the door opened and she came out and stood there looking around in a vague sort of way as if she didn't know what to do next. So I said was she looking for anything and she said no—and then she said yes—and then she smiled and said she was looking for rooms.”

“Mr. Tupper wouldn't help her much,” said Barbara with conviction.

“He hadn't,” agreed Jerry, “and of course I knew it was hopeless because the place is packed with evacuees and what not. I knew for certain because I've been trying for ages to get rooms in Wandlebury for one of my soldier's wives.”

“Does he keep a harem?” asked Arthur, coming to life suddenly and peering at Jerry over the top of his newspaper.

“A harem!” echoed Jerry. “Oh, I see what you mean. You are a tease, Uncle Arthur. You know quite well I meant the wife of one of my soldiers. It was her smile I liked,” continued Jerry, with a charming smile of her very own. “No, not the soldier's wife's smile. I haven't seen her except a sort of smudged snapshot, in a coal heaver's hat, surrounded with children…”

Arthur roared with laughter.

“I wish you wouldn't, Uncle Arthur,” said Jerry, chuckling herself. “I wish you'd read your paper. You put me off and muddle me. It was all your fault for bringing in the soldier's wife to begin with. She doesn't come into it at all except that I couldn't get rooms for her.”

“Go on,” said Barbara, who wanted to hear the end of the story. “Go on, Jerry. You liked her smile.”

“I like people with nice smiles,” said Jerry. “So I liked
her.
So I said I had a house and I could give her a room for a bit if she didn't mind living in the middle of an army.”

“Jerry,” began Barbara in anxious tones.

“No, honestly,” said Jerry, shaking her head.

“But you didn't.”

“Yes, I did. I considered it quite a lot before I said a word. I was exactly like a drowning man. You know how a drowning man sees his whole life pass before his eyes in a few moments? Well, I saw my whole life just like that as I stood on Mr. Tupper's doorstep…Markie and myself and the cooking and doing the lamps and digging the garden…and Bobbie, of course.”

“Bobbie?” asked Barbara.

“Captain Appleyard,” said Jerry. “You know him, darling. He's the one with the doggy eyes. If she could just take him off my hands I would
pay
her to come.”

“You never told me.”

“But it's only lately,” said Jerry. “I mean I can
manage
him all right, but he
is
rather a nuisance, poor lamb…all the more of a nuisance because I like him awfully. She seemed a little doubtful at first but when I told her the house was Elizabethan and we had lamps and a ghost she got tremendously keen.”

“Did she!” exclaimed Barbara in some surprise, for to her mind lamps and ghosts were definite drawbacks.

“She can ride,” added Jerry. “That clinched it, really. Of course we haggled over it. We went and had a cup of coffee at Cooke's and haggled like anything. She wanted to pay three pounds a week and I said I wouldn't take more than two—so then she said fifty bob and that was that.”

“You won't make anything out of it,” said Barbara thoughtfully.

“I don't really want to,” replied Jerry. “If she fits into the scheme of things and takes Bobbie off my hands…”

“You ought to have references,” Arthur said.

“She's all right. You'll like her, Uncle Arthur.”

“Will Markie like her?” Barbara inquired.

“Oh!” said Jerry. “But Markie likes most people, really—unless their head is the wrong shape.”

“When is she coming?” asked Sarah.