Westwood (41 page)

Westwood had become noticeably and rapidly less comfortable since his daughter and the three children had come to live there and Mrs Grant had been ill, and Mr Challis was growing increasingly conscious of the fact. It irritated him that Seraphina seemed to enjoy the noise and bustle and the children’s belongings scattered all over the house; and she encouraged Hebe to go out to parties and picture-shows and first-nights and concerts and leave the children to the careless charge of Zita, while she herself, if she did not accompany Hebe, went off to other festivities of the same sort. Why could not his wife and daughter lead poetic, solitary lives, reading in the library or wandering in the shady garden, and keeping out of his way? That was what his own heroines always did (not that anybody ever wanted them to keep out of the way, of course; people, especially men, were always looking for them). Why must they rush about and laugh and talk such a lot? It created an exhausting atmosphere and one unfavourable to the creative spirit.

Maternity, if present at all, should be a passion, but Hebe neglected the children. Had not Mr Challis himself been compelled to take part in a painful scene which had occurred on the previous evening? He had found Barnabas, assisted only too willingly by Emma, attempting to clean Jeremy’s one tooth with his own toothbrush and a liberal allowance of toothpaste, and on being asked what on earth he was doing, he had replied that no one ever cleaned poor Jerry’s tooth, and it would go all green and fall out. Mr Challis, wincing at such plain speaking, had removed the surplus toothpaste from the roaring Jeremy’s mouth as best he could and distastefully replaced the light coverings out of which he had struggled in his sufferings and sternly dismissed Barnabas and Emma, who were standing side by side in their night attire and gazing up at him in silence, to their own room, where he subsequently heard them roaring in chorus, apparently overcome by remorse and fear. No one was looking after them; no one seemed to be in the house at all; everyone might have been dead for all the notice anyone took of the children’s cries.

Meanwhile, it seemed a very long time to wait until Saturday fortnight, and the next week-end would be spent in an exhausting and tedious expedition to the home of his mother in
Bedfordshire, accompanied by his wife, his daughter, his three grandchildren and Zita to help look after them. There was that to be got through, and then, in the background, unmentionable but unforgettable, was the fact of Hebe and Alexander’s quarrel, and the even more disturbing fact that Hebe had been living in her father’s house for nearly a month and had so far made no attempt to find a new home for herself and the children. Mr Challis supposed that if Alex had been there he would have made some attempt to find a house, but Alex was not there, and apparently Hebe had not heard from him since he went away; and no one had referred to the matter; Mr Challis disliked open discussion of these family problems, but he did feel that this gay blindness, this deliberate assumption that everything was going on as usual, was carrying things too far, especially when the direct result of it was rubber monsters left in the bath.

Mr Challis had always admired his daughter’s looks, and had at one time hoped that she would develop into a strikingly beautiful, witty creature of whom he could be proud; but after the age of fifteen she did not seem to him to have developed at all; she had had the same complexion and curls and plump body and downright manner then that she had now; and when people extravagantly praised her looks and style, her father only thought them easily pleased, and quietly recorded another disappointment for himself, another score against life, another setback in that search for perfection that was his master-passion.

But sometimes he remembered how she used to go for walks with him when she was a stout little girl of six; patiently collecting acorn-cups which she stowed away in her pockets and nodding satisfiedly to herself when she found an unusually large and shapely one, and scornfully throwing aside the small ones with broken edges which her younger brother, Auberon, tenderly retrieved and cherished. In those days he had been so proud of her, so fond of her, and so full of hope that she would grow up to resemble himself, that a strong impulse of affection (strong, at least, for Mr Challis) towards her lingered in his heart. It irritated and worried him to see the sulky silence by which she expressed her unhappiness, and he even thought of trying to find Alexander and having a talk with him about the situation, but he shrank from acting the unattractive part of interfering father-in-law; and besides, he respected Alexander’s right as an artist to go off and paint in solitude if he felt the compelling need; it was what he, Gerard Challis, would have done long ago if
he
had had Hebe and Barnabas and Emma and Jeremy all over
him
while he was trying to work. Hebe must suffer, he decided; her youthful egoism must be crushed and enslaved until a soul, a woman’s subtle, secret soul, was painfully born within her yet-childish body, and then she would find, perhaps, that Alexander, in wounding her, had given her a true and undying strength.

Having thus got out of tackling Alexander and telling him he was making Hebe unhappy, Mr Challis put that problem rather successfully to the back of his mind. The problem of getting the four Nilands out of the house, however, remained as acute as ever.

If only he were in South America with Hilda! It had been hinted to him that there was a probability of his being sent there soon on an official mission, and he would take her with him as his secretary. She would be dazzled by the chance of getting away from the monotony and restrictions of life in England, and to him it would be one long delight to wander with her through the white streets and agate mountains of those sunlit lands. When they returned he would be refreshed and fortified to take up his struggle in the world once more, and she would have beautiful memories that would last her for the rest of her life.

Meanwhile, it seemed almost impossible to get her to Kew Gardens, let alone South America, and he did not care to write to her because he never put anything in writing to his little girls, and
every time he telephoned her at the Food Office he had to wait longer before she came to speak to him, and then she was pert, and she had told him bluntly that her father and mother thought it ever so funny that he never dropped in for Sunday tea or supper. (Mr Challis, of course, only smiled his fine inward smile at the picture of Hilda’s parents thinking anything
he
did peculiar; he took no interest in them; he only found it surprising that such dreary commonplace people should have produced Hilda. Still, such things did happen, and her flowering would be brief enough. How he pitied women!)

Sounds from the hall now indicated that the visitors were going. Mr Challis picked up
The Times
, certain that his privacy was shortly to be disturbed, and sure enough in a moment or two the door opened and in came Seraphina, her face still alight from conversation and laughter.

‘Darling, it’s
too
tragic,’ she began at once, ‘that nanny has fallen through.’

‘Do you mean the nurse Mrs Compton was talking about?’ he said, after a pause for recollection.

‘That’s the one.
Too
sickening. Margery Hallet’s girl has got her for the twins. And I thought we’d practically got our
hands
on her. Now there’s nobody to come down with us next week-end. Oh – are you working? I’m
frightfully
sorry, I’ll simply fly –’ and she was retreating with exaggerated caution when he said irritably:

‘It’s all right, I’m not working. Surely there will be enough of you to look after the children?’

‘Darling, Zita can’t come. She’s got to stay here and look after Grantey.’

‘Won’t the nurse be here?’

‘Only for an hour every day, darling. Grantey
is
better, you know.’

‘Is there no one else?’

‘’Fraid not, sweetie.’

‘Surely, you and Hebe can manage the children between you?’

‘We
could
, darling, but it would be rather
dim
for us and we shouldn’t see much of poor Great-granny.’

After a pause Mr Challis said: ‘I’m afraid I can offer only one solution; we must postpone the visit.’ Hope gleamed in his eye.

‘Oh, that’s
quite
impossible, Gerry; you know we
always
go,
every
year.’

Mr Challis was silent. The gleam vanished.

‘Well, I don’t want to worry you about it, sweetie,’ said Seraphina, preparing to depart. He took up
The Times
again.

‘Seraphina,’ he exclaimed, as she reached the door, ‘what about that friend of Zita’s – Miss – I never can remember her name. She is often here – you must know whom I mean. She appears to have plenty of leisure. Would she accompany you?’ (He did not say ‘us’; he intended to travel down by a later train.)

‘Who – Struggles?
Darling
, what a
wizard
scheme! I’ll get Zita to call her up at once – she can tell her
you
suggested it; that’ll make
all
the difference!’ Mr Challis did not look displeased, and his wife hurried away to set the wizard scheme in motion.

So when Margaret got home about eleven o’clock that evening, hot and weary, her mother at once met her with the information that that Miss Mandel-whatever-she-calls herself had been telephoning her all the evening; it was
very urgent
and would Margaret telephone her the
minute
she got in.

‘Oh, blow her!’ exclaimed Margaret, yielding to a natural exasperation. ‘I’ll bet it’s nothing important, it never is. Still, I s’pose I’d better,’ and she dumped her heavy suitcase on the floor
with a sigh.

‘P’raps you’ll get sick of running after other people’s troubles one day; you look worn out,’ said her mother, going upstairs to bed. ‘There are some sandwiches in the dining-room for you and some lemon and barley in the kitchen; I’ve had it keeping cool.’

‘Thank you, Mother, you are a dear,’ called Margaret gratefully, as she dialled the number of Westwood-at-Highgate.

‘Margaret! At last!’ exclaimed Zita’s voice. ‘All this evening I haf been ’phoning you. Listen with care, now. Mr Challis asks you to go with them all away for the week-end! There! How do you think?’

‘Mr Challis?’ repeated Margaret, with a thrilling sensation in the diaphragm. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am sure. It iss to help with the children. I cannot go (I am sorry, for Lady Challis iss a woman of great
Kultur
, most interesting), but here I must stay und see after Grantey und the house, so they ask you to go instead.’

‘It’s marvellous,’ breathed Margaret, with excitement, happiness, and a chilling doubt – oh,
could
she get out of looking after Linda just for two days? – struggling in her heart: ‘When is it? Next week-end?’

‘Yess. And all expenses they will pay, of course,’ Zita added in a lowered voice.

‘Oh’ – Margaret’s tone was impatient, ‘that doesn’t matter. Listen, Zita,’ she went on carefully, knowing that now, if ever, she must avoid treading on the touchy one’s toes, ‘it’s awfully kind of you to have suggested my going. I shall adore it; I’m just aching for a change. Will you please tell Mrs Challis I shall love to come and I’m awfully proud to be trusted with the children.’

‘There will be much to do. They can be devils,’ said Zita, again in the lowered voice.

‘Oh, well, I shall just have to do my best. Can I ’phone you up towards the end of next week and find out all the details? Or had I better come in and see Mrs Challis?’

‘I find it out from her, all of it, und tell you,’ said Zita importantly. ‘Oh well, think of me at home here alone while you all are enchoying yourself!’

‘I know, Zita. It’s awfully sweet of you. I do wish you were coming too.’

‘Oh, do not be so sorry for me; perhaps I go out to some beautiful concert while you are bathing them all!’

‘Yes – well – I hope you will,’ answered Margaret, thinking not for the first time how maddening Zita was. ‘I must ring off now, my dear, I’ve got forty exercises to correct before to-morrow. Good-bye, and thanks again, most awfully.’

He
asked me to go!
He
did, not Mrs Challis, she was thinking as she ate her supper in the tidy, silent kitchen with only the tick of the clock for company. Why on earth should he? I suppose he thinks I look
reliable
! Not very flattering, but one might look worse than reliable – though I’m sure it isn’t a thing he usually admires in women (she actually smiled to herself). If only I can get Dick to let me go!

When she arrived at Westwood-at-Brockdale the following evening, she found the kindly neighbour who kept an eye on Linda during the daytime had just left, and on the telephone-pad (proudly pointed out to her by Linda, hanging on her arm) she had written a message that had come about six o’clock. It was from Mrs Steggles; Margaret’s brother would be home on forty-eight hours’ leave next Saturday, and her mother ‘was afraid it was embarkation.’ Would Margaret ’phone up as soon as she got in.

Margaret’s first feeling was one of impatient despair; as though it wasn’t enough to have her
promise to Dick standing between her and the week-end with the Challises, Reg must come home on leave, and there would be an outcry if she failed to spend perhaps his last week-end in England at home with him and the family. But I
will
go, she vowed to herself, banging about the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal. I don’t see why I should be done out of something that I want so desperately.