Loving, Living, Party Going (12 page)

'That's nice I must say,' Miss Swift in her innocence replied. 'You draw your monthly wage yet you're gettin' like your girls, you want this and that besides.'

'You can leave my girls out of your conversation thanking you Miss Swift. They have more to put up with than you'll ever learn I hope.'

'Now you're being nothing but ridiculous. Poor nanny.' Miss Swift added and her face seemed to wrinkle as though about to cast a skin.

'No thank you,' Miss Burch said inconsequent and turned her back.

The nanny appeared to take hold of herself. She started on her way once more. 'I don't know I'm sure,' she said over her shoulder, making off to the medicine cupboard. She left Miss Burch outside that bedroom door but when she was back with a glass of water and a flat box in her hands, she found Miss Burch inside saying, 'yes Madam, no Madam,' at the side of the bed after all, plainly ill at ease yet taking instructions about what and about what not to pack.

But Agatha did not seem able to keep her eyes from those other pillows on Mrs Jack's double bed. These had been well beaten and the clothes were pulled up smooth over where that man's body must have lain yet she stared on and off. It must have been she could not help herself. Until the young lady told her to go as soon as she had so to speak been reinforced by Miss Swift's return. And Agatha left with a stiff back Once she was gone,

'Now take a sip and swallow it right down,' the nanny said as she bustled. Then added, 'It's liver that's what it is dear. They won't trouble to give themselves a walk to loosen the bowels. They get fat on your food and cups of tea and with leaning on their brooms.'

'Who do?' Mrs Jack asked. She was probably unsure of everything and everyone.

'Why those that's paid to keep the Castle fit for us to live in,' the nanny replied.

'Oh I'm tired. Your little girl's not slept well,' Mrs Jack broke out.

'Now isn't that a shame? You just lie back and let that pill do its duty. I'll tell your angels you'll be wanting them around midday. You go on as your old nanny says and you'll have clear cheeks for the young man.'

On this she left. The lady fell back as though exhausted. But her breakfast tray was bare. She must have found strength in between to eat it all.

'Well I've got to take those little draggers out this afternoon,' Edith announced at dinner the same day. 'It's not fair I tell you.'

'Hey?' Raunce asked at his most serious, 'and you who has
always made a point they were your favourites?'

'How's the work goin' to be finished? I'll ask you that,' she said quoting Miss Burch.

'You're the one to talk when you're not going to do none,' Kate put in.

'There'll be all the more for me tomorrer then,' was Edith's answer. 'You're not a girl to take on another's share and there's no reason why you should.'

'Now then that's plenty,' Miss Burch appealed to both.

'But there's a thing I won't do,' Edith went on in a lower tone, obstinately. 'Mrs Welch's Albert. Now I won't take 'im with them.'

'Be quiet both of you please. Oh my poor head. I've got a sick headache,' Miss Burch explained to Charley Raunce at which Kate muttered, 'I wasn't sayin' nothin'.'

'Look,' Charley announced at Edith, 'if you choose I'll come along.'

'Well that's a real step forward,' Miss Burch said looking kindly. Then she added as though unable to help herself, 'It should do you a mort of good.'

In spite of the differences grown fast as mushrooms and their bad temper on this day of days, Kate and Edith glanced at each other, a waste of giggling beginning behind their eyes.

'A turn in the air might be just what your sick headache needs,' he offered still at his most courteous to Miss Burch.

'Me?' she asked, 'and with all the packin' still to be done? A aspirin is all I shall get of fresh air this afternoon.'

'Well Edith could see to that while you took the children out,' Kate said. Her little eyes sparkled.

'Why you could never expect Miss Burch to go trail after them children when she feels the way she does, with God knows what Mrs Welch's kid will get up to,' Raunce said. 'About half past two then,' he went on to Edith, speaking rather fast. 'I'll be in my room.'

Kate started to choke, Edith to blush. Miss Burch did not appear to notice.

'I think I'll go lie down for ten minutes,' she informed those present. And Edith got out of Kate's sight by rising to follow her to ask if she would care for a cup of tea.

Outside, at a quarter to three, they both wore raincoats and Charley had his bowler hat. As the little girls raced about behind,
Charley bent down, picked up two peacock's feathers which he offered to Edith.

'Whatever should I do with those?' she asked low.

'You wore one the week of the funeral,' he replied.

'Not now,' she said. They walked on with a space between.

'What's happened to all those blessed birds anyway?' he asked in a tired voice.

'It's the rain,' she answered. 'They don't like wet' There was a silence.

'Tell you where they'd be then,' he began again. 'Away in the stable back of Paddy's room.' She made no comment. 'Should we go in that direction?'

'Not now,' she said.

'If you liked I could find you some eggs? I know where they lay.'

She laughed. 'Oh no thanks all the same. That kind's no use,' and crossed her fingers in the raincoat pocket, against this lie perhaps.

'What kind then?' he asked.

'Oh I couldn't say,' she said.

'I get you,' he answered in a doubtful voice. Once more they both fell silent.

Meantime Kate had slipped out to the lampman's where he kept corn for his peacocks. Paddy was awake. He showed no surprise when she entered.

'I wasn't goin' to carry on when nobody else was workin',' she announced.

He sat where he was and grunted.

'Not your baby,' she said, wandering about to inspect this and that. She seemed familiar with the place. It was certainly not the first time she had been alone with him.

'What this old dump needs is a good scrub out,' she said, 'only you're too Irish to give it.'

He spoke then. He spoke in English and quite free although his accent was such you could take a file to it. But she must have understood.

'Not me,' she replied. 'What d'you take me for? You do your own chores for yourself thanks. I don't want none.'

He laughed. His mouth was fringed with great brown teeth. His light eyes shone through the grey hair over them.

'Look at you,' she said coming up slow, swinging her hips. 'Have you got no pride?'

He laughed again but sat quiet. She turned away saying, 'Where did you put it then?' She made a search amongst oddments overlaid with dust upon a thick shelf. He followed with his eyes and did not turn his head. As a result for a full minute one pupil was swivelled almost back of the nose he had on him whilst the other was nearly behind a temple but he grinned the while. Then she turned up a dog's comb of tinned iron. She blew on this to dust it.

Lifting the piece of broken mirror glass off a wall from between four nails which held it at the edges she said,

'Take a load of yourself while I do yer.'

Standing at the back of him she began to comb his head. She worked like a simple woman that rakes a beanfield and jerked his head back with each pull. As the hair on his forehead was lifted it uncovered a line of dirt, a tidemark, along where the laid beans of his hair started grey and black. He tilted the glass he held to watch.

'Heed yerself and the state you're in,' she said. 'Give over watchin' me.'

He muttered something. For once she could not have understood.

'Say that again,' she asked.

He spoke rapid for about thirty seconds after placing the bit of mirror between his knees. He turned to face her.

'Well that's your look out,' she answered when he was done. Kate's arms lay along her purple uniformed sides. He smelled of peat smoke and she of carbolic. She added in a softer voice, 'You want to find one of your Irish women as'll see to you.'

He put out a paw like to sugar cake.

'No you don't,' she cried sharp and dodged back. 'What's more if you can't sit there quiet as gold I'll get me gone. I've got my share to do back in the Castle.'

He muttered. He faced the way he had been, picked up the glass again.

'That's right,' she said, 'though lord knows this is good labour wasted,' and began on his head once more.

Then she started to talk almost as though to herself.

' 'E's out, out in the air for a walk Mr Charley Raunce is, the first time since nobody can remember. Ah but she's deep our Edith, deep as the lake there. "Will I take the little angels out bless their
little white hearts, sweetheart come too, along for the stroll." And if you don't believe you've only to risk a peek outside. Takin' 'is death he is. Round by the doves at the back I'll lay they are Paddy, billing an' all the rest. What d'you say to that you Irishman? Or they're over by the water. But what've you been at with your glory since I done it for you last? 'Ere,' she said, 'clear the combings off for yourself,' she said handing the comb back to him, 'I neyer made out I'd free the strakes for you into the bargain.'

Once her hands were disengaged she put these up to reroll her curls but halted before she touched. Then she sniffed at her fingers.

'Christ,' she said, 'what we girls have to put up with.' Then she added, 'You might give us a break and wash it occasionally.'

He said something.

'You got nowhere you mean?' she replied. 'Well I don't wonder they won't let you be free with their sink I must say. You've only to look at you. But what's wrong with a clean bucket? When Charley's little Bert has a mind to 'is boiler the water's O.K.,' she said and took the comb back. This time she began about his right ear. 'I'll give you a roll just 'ere exactly like the Captain. Oh the Captain,' and she laughed.

Paddy's enormous head began to show signs of order with parts of the tangle, which might have been laid by hail, starting to stand once more wildly on its own on his black beanfield of hair after a ground frost.

'But lord,' she remarked, 'whatever would my mother say to you Tarzan?'

'Look,' she announced, 'I'm fed up. You take hold and finish,' she told him handing back that comb.

'I'm fed up with you,' Mrs Welch said to her Albert at this precise moment as she sat him down at the kitchen table. 'So she wouldn't take you eh? Expect me to believe that eh?' She watched the boy with what appeared to be disfavour.

'That's what she said'm.'

'What did she say then?'

'When she come in the nursery I was like you said. I 'ad my coat zipped up and me 'at in me pocket. "No," she said, "not you Albert my little man, you go down in the kitchen," she says an' she give me a bit of toffee out of a bag.'

'Where is it?'

'I've ate it.'

'Is it in your pocket this minute along with your hat?'

'No'm.'

'Let me see if you're tellin' lies.' And Mrs Welch clambered to her feet, leaned right over that table. She felt in his coat.

'Is this it?' she asked bringing the thing out, a toffee in a screw of paper. She gingerly lowered herself back while she held this sweet out at arm's length, resting her bare arm along the table top. He made no reply.

'You wouldn't lie to me would yer?' she asked.

'No'm.'

'Then is this what she give you?'

He kept silent.

'You see what I'm goin' to do with this,' she went on, and unwrapped the sweet. Then she spat on it and threw the toffee into a can of ashes by the range. 'Now listen,' she continued, 'if ever I catch you taking what she offers I'll tan the 'ide right off you d'you h'understand?'

'Yes'm.'

'For why? Because she's a nasty little piece that considers we're not good enough for 'er, and very likely a thief into the bargain. With her precious Miss Moira this and little Miss Evelyn that. Never again no more. Right?'

'Yes'm.'

'And what are you goin' to do with yerself this afternoon of springtime that you can't go h'out with the others? I'll tell you. You're goin' to set to work my lad.'

The boy who had been gazing at the floor suddenly stared at her sharp.

'Yes,' she said, 'that comes as a bit of a surprise d'ain't it? Never you mind. You got to start some day. You won't always be runnin' around with gentry and their stuck-up maids. Now you see that saucepan, the one which's last on the left?'

He looked reluctant at three burnished rows hanging on the dresser, on nails through the holes in their steel handles.

'That's right,' she went on, 'the last on the left. You'll take that down so help me and you'll make a start scourin'. The young leddy was took faint. Took faint,' she repeated giving a short laugh as Kate had done. 'Yes. One time she was out with Mrs Tennant. "It's the
pots and pans," Mrs T. says to me after. "You'll oblige me by casting a look on them Madam," I said. "I can't help it Mrs Welch," she says, "I'm certain there was something in that sole or its sauce." Sauce indeed. But she never listened. So now you're going to make a start scourin' them saucepans. Even if you bring all the tin off and they get copper poison. Get on then.'

The boy got up slow.

'And don't you go break that thread I've 'ad put through the handles,' she cried frantic all of a sudden. 'You'll find where it's tied there by the side. I'm gettin' me chains and a padlock,' she explained grim as grim.

Kate had left the comb stuck at an angle in Paddy's head. The lampman sat where he was on a corn bin while she wandered round again. She came up to that glass division and looked through.

'Can a person eat them eggs?' she asked. He answered excitedly.

'That's all right,' she said. 'No need to get worked up. I only asked didn't I?'

He muttered something.

'Oh all right I know you set great store by the birds,' she replied, 'an' if you took one half the trouble over yourself as you do with their layin' why you'd be a different person altogether,' she explained.

He got up, made after her. 'No,' she said, 'no,' but she did not move as he came grinning. He reached round her middle and drank her in a kiss like a man home after a journey. He pressed her back against the glass that fronted that huge cabinet. Through the opening behind could be seen those peacocks getting up with a sort of chittering as though alarmed. She\sank into him as her knees gave way yet both of them stayed decent.