The Dust That Falls from Dreams (43 page)

O
ne morning Mr McCosh stood on the top doorstep of the house, berating the grocer, Mr Ives, who stood before him at the bottom of the steps with his brown shop coat and apron on and his cap in his hands. Mr McCosh was in an uncharacteristically bad temper because both the Malay Rubber Company and the Argentine Railway Company had failed to pay dividends on time, and consequently he was temporarily in a state of deep financial embarrassment. Mr Ives was a solid fellow with a glossy chestnut-brown moustache, and one of his ears flopped over where it had been creased by a bullet.

‘Ives, how dare you?’ bellowed Mr McCosh. ‘How dare you come here demanding money in broad daylight? Have you no respect, man?’

‘I have respect for those who pay their account when it’s due, sir. Those who don’t, sir, I consider to be thieves and scoundrels.’

Mr McCosh was astonished. ‘You are calling me a thief and a scoundrel, man?’

‘You owe me for six months’ provisions,’ replied Mr Ives. ‘I have four employees, a wife and four children. You are not doing your duty by them, sir, when you force me to put them off work, or when my children get no meat and can’t have shoes. You either pay me, sir, or you will oblige me to instruct a bailiff.’

‘A bailiff? A bailiff?!’

‘The bailiff, sir, will enter your property, by force if necessary, and remove goods to the value that you owe, sir.’

‘I know what a bailiff is, Ives. You are threatening me with a bailiff? Do you know who I am, my man? Do you know what I do? I am an investor, a speculator! I build ships and railways and invest in rubber and gas masks and gadgets! Sometimes I have no money at all and sometimes I have an absurd amount. I move it
around the world. For six months I have had nothing, and next Monday I will have an absurd amount.’

‘Next Monday, sir?’

‘Yes, next Monday. Now get out of my sight, before I call the police.’

‘You are welcome to call the police,’ said Mr Ives.

‘Away with you, man, away with you!’

Mr Ives turned and walked away, with considerable dignity.

When he returned the following Monday, Millicent fetched Mr McCosh, who emerged moments later carrying an envelope. Instead of touching his cap and leaving, as expected, Mr Ives tore open the envelope and inspected its contents.

‘You have overpaid, sir,’ said Mr Ives.

‘No, I haven’t,’ retorted Mr McCosh impatiently, ‘I’ve paid not only the account but the outstanding interest on the money owed.’

‘That’s very good of you, sir,’ said Mr Ives, ‘but I would rather have the debts paid on time. In my business cash flow is everything. Without the flow, everything seizes up, sir.’

‘Quite, quite.’

Mr Ives withdrew an unsealed envelope from his pocket and handed it to Mr McCosh. ‘Be so kind as to deal with this now,’ he said.

Mr McCosh opened it and unfolded the paper within. He read: ‘ “I Hamilton McCosh promise henceforth to pay Mr Ives for his provisions promptly on the due date at the end of each month.” A contract?’

‘Yes, sir, it’s a contract. You sign and date it immediately, sir, or you will kindly take your business elsewhere.’

‘This is outrageous! It’s unheard of!’

‘You have the choice, sir. If you do not pay on time, the following week your kitchen will receive my third-quality box, and the week after it will receive nothing.’

‘Third quality, man?’

‘Third quality. It’s a box with the bruised apples and broken biscuits. Things a bit old and dried out, sir. Dented tins. Bread that’s about to turn or got some mildew you can scrape off. It’s what I do for those that’s down on their luck, sir, and that way nothing gets wasted and the poor folk get something to eat.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Hamilton McCosh. He could envisage Cookie’s reaction upon receipt of such a box, and the prospect was not one to be relished.

‘I will take my trade elsewhere!’ threatened Mr McCosh.

‘You won’t, sir, although you may attempt it. All of us round here, we have a blacklist, and we let each other know who not to do business with. You may find yourself, sir, going to market with a basket on your arm and buying third-quality stuff from duckers and divers.’

‘Wait here,’ said Mr McCosh, and he went into the morning room and signed and dated the contract.

‘I appreciate it, sir,’ said Mr Ives, tucking the sheet back into its envelope, and installing it in the pocket of his apron. ‘And another thing I’d appreciate, sir.’

‘Yes, man?’

‘You will no longer address me as “man” or “Ives”. I will address you as “sir”, and you will address me as “Mr Ives”. I was a company sergeant major by the end of the war and I got used to the officers calling me “mister”, so I am sticking with it.’

‘Good God! Whatever next?! Whatever happened to deference?’

‘Died of wounds at Wipers,’ replied Mr Ives. ‘When you’ve been lumped together with people from all walks of life, deference ends up going to those who’ve earned it.’ He touched his cap, turned on his heel and fetched his bicycle from where it had been leaning against the gate pillar. He mounted it and rode back to Mottingham with a light heart.

M
rs McCosh had ordered the annual spring clean, once again failing to recall that there was no longer the staff to perform it. Before the war, all the servants had banded together to take down the curtains, shift the furniture away from the walls, clear up after the sweeps, and, above all, gather the rugs and carpets and take them out for beating. In a large house the whole business could easily take a fortnight.

Millicent found herself expected to do all of it on her own, and she was at her wits’ end. Cookie was, naturally, cooking, and was disinclined to help, since she had never been required to do so before. Mary, since a lady maid was considered to be more than a mere servant, was unaskable. Mr Wragge had wrenched his back pulling up the last of the parsnips, and was groaning at home in bed, wondering if he would ever be mobile again.

Daniel arrived on his Henley late one Saturday morning in April, and, as he always did in April and May, reflected upon how extremely lucky he had been to be on Home Establishment and instructing at Upavon during Bloody April in 1917. He knew that otherwise he would not have survived the war. When he had returned to his squadron in July, he had found almost no one left that he recognised, and that most of his comrades had been shot down in ground attacks.

He met Sophie in the hallway, and she said, ‘I think you’ve got a loose tappet. Your Henley sounds egregiously valetudinarian.’

‘Gracious me,’ said Daniel. ‘You’re right of course. I did notice, but –’

‘You mean, it is stupendously teratitistic and inordinate that a mere handmaid of Adam should have noticed such a thing?’

‘Honestly, Sophie! Teratitistic? Where do you find all these funny words?’

‘If I need a new word, I make it up,’ said Sophie, pertly. ‘That one means “monstrous” I hope. The metilogomy is Greek.’ ‘Metilogomy?’

‘Etymology, silly.’

‘Well, anyway,’ said Daniel, ‘I do know that you know everything about engines these days. It just takes some getting used to, the way that everything’s changed. Would you be offering to correct the fault yourself? I’m certain you know how to adjust a tappet.’

‘Piece of cake,’ said Sophie. ‘But it’s so bad for the hands, and trying to get the oil stains off afterwards dries the skin most terribly. Now that the war’s over I am most sublimely content to be a non-practising expert. I am prepared to stand over you and offer advice, encouragement, expostulation and verba sapienti. Yea, verily, I am prepared to be thy Nestor, but –’ and she raised her hands to show him – ‘I’ve only just done my nails.’

‘Hmm,’ said Daniel, ‘what a good egg you are. Is Fairhead here?’

‘He is imminent, and shortly to be manent. In time for lunch I do hope.’

‘And Esther?’

‘Out for a walk at the Tarn with Rosie. Mama is cleaning her air rifle, preparatory to further columbal slaughter, and Papa is due back from the Athenaeum incontinently.’

At that point Millicent reversed by, dragging a large roll of carpet towards the withdrawing room. She was making virtually no progress, and was in a sweat and a fluster.

‘Millicent! Let me help,’ said Daniel, taking up the carpet under one arm. ‘Where are we going?’

‘The garden, sir. Oh thank you, sir.’

‘What are we going to do with it? It’s damnably heavy.’

‘Beat it, sir. Get the dust out.’

Daniel found that a stout rope had been stretched across the lawn from a pear tree to a large hook set into the masonry of the garden wall.

‘It’s best if you put the carpet over at one end of the line, sir,’ said Millicent, ‘otherwise it droops something rotten.’

‘What shall we whack it with? May I join in? I can imagine it’s the Kaiser. Or my old housemaster. I can take vicarious revenge.’

‘There’s a carpet beater, but I like a broom handle. There’s nothing like a broom handle for beating carpets with, sir. And laundry bats work pretty nicely.’

‘I’ll use the beater and you can use your favourite weapon.’

Daniel took up the beater and swung it at the carpet. He was immediately enveloped in a cloud of choking and foul-tasting dust. ‘Oh good God!’ he exclaimed, leaping out of the way of the cloud.

Millicent put her hand to her mouth, and laughed. ‘Oh, sir! Excuse me, but you do want to make sure which way the wind is.’

‘Just like take-off and landing,’ said Daniel, spluttering. ‘I’m afraid I am a most ignorant amateur.’

‘It’s not often a gentleman gets to beat a carpet,’ said Millicent.

‘I’m a quick learner,’ said Daniel.

‘We’ll take turns,’ said Millicent. ‘You go that side, and I’ll go this side, and I’ll beat first and then you beat, and we don’t stop ’til there ain’t no more dust, hardly.’

‘Righto,’ said Daniel.

Ten minutes later, they carried the carpet up the steps of the conservatory, through the withdrawing room, and into the dining room. Daniel started to unroll it, but Millicent said, ‘I’ve got to give the floor a good sweep and a polish first, if you don’t mind, sir. The mistress has mixed up some beeswax and turpentine, and it’s to get used up, sir, or there’ll be what for.’

‘It’s all damned hard work, isn’t it, Millicent?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘Didn’t you ever think of leaving?’

‘Leaving, sir?’

‘Well, you could have worked at Woolwich or something. The wages were extraordinary, weren’t they? They went up by five and six once, didn’t they?’

‘It was fondness, sir. I didn’t leave because of the fondness.’

‘Fondness?’

‘I like it here, sir. I like Mr McCosh, and I like the sisters, and I like Cookie, and I even like the mistress. I like the cat and Mr Wragge, and I even liked the dog when there was one.’

‘Bouncer. He was a good old boy.’

‘And I didn’t want to be a canary anyway,’ said Millicent.

‘A canary?’

‘Those women at the arsenal, sir, they turned yellow, they did, ’cause of all the explosives they were packing in them shells, sir. We called ’em canaries.’

‘Good Lord, I had no idea!’

‘And I didn’t want to be a dilutee, neither, sir.’

‘Hmm, I never thought I’d hear that word again. It’s suddenly gone out of use, hasn’t it? You say you even like the mistress?’

Millicent nodded. ‘She wasn’t always, you know…’

‘Impossible?’

‘No, sir, she wasn’t. It was the Folkestone raid, sir, she was never the same after.’

‘I know. Miss Rosie told me. She says the same as you.’

‘Well, she had a friend called Mrs Cowburn, sir, and she had her head blown right off, and Mrs McCosh was there and found the bits of body, sir, and then there was the head of a little golden girl just sitting on the doorstep of a shop, and since then she ain’t been what she was at all, sir.’

‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘Thank you for reminding me.’

‘It’ll make a difference if you bear it in mind, sir,’ said Millicent.

‘You’re right, Millicent.’ Daniel paused, and then said, ‘Is there anything else I should know?’

‘There is, sir, but it’s not my place.’

‘I absolutely promise not to tell anyone anything that you tell me. Word of honour. Hope to die.’

Millicent hesitated. ‘Well, sir, she plays the violin, like an angel she does.’

‘We thought she’d given up. When does she do it?’

‘When everyone’s out, sir, ’cept me and Cookie, ’cause we don’t count. She takes that big Bible off the lectern thing in the morning room, and she puts her music there, and she plays like nobody’s business. It’s like nightingales, sir, all sad and lovely. And if she sees anyone coming in the drive, she packs it all up straight away, and the Bible goes back on the stand, like she’s ashamed or something.’ ‘Well, gracious me. I never would have guessed.’

‘She’s as good as anyone could be,’ said Millicent. She looked up at him and bit her lip. ‘Not that I know about it much, sir.’

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

‘Well, sir, she’s as good at golf as Mr McCosh is, and it was ’er when she was ladies’ captain who got the rules changed at the club, so the ladies could play on the men’s.’

‘And could the men play on the ladies’?’

‘Dunno, sir.’

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

‘Well, sir, please don’t, like, pass it on, sir.’

He held up two fingers. ‘Scout’s honour.’

‘Well, sir, when she was young she was led on something rotten by that Lord Denmore. Right up the garden path, sir, and it nearly did for her altogether, sir. That’s why she married so late in life, sir. She’s older than the master, by a long chalk.’

‘How long is a long chalk?’

‘’Bout five years, sir. And another thing, sir, the mistress was a suffragette. Caused quite a stir.’

‘I seem to remember Miss Rosie telling me that once. A suffragette? Not a suffragist?’

‘No, sir, a proper “ette”. She was out and about with them Pankhursts. Going to them WSPC meetings at the Queen’s Head, and them suffragette teas.’

‘Good Lord – was she throwing bricks at windows and jumping out in front of horses, and getting force-fed?’

‘Don’t know, sir. The coppers didn’t get her, far as I know. She was on the Conservative Association too, sir. Still is.’

‘And what did Mr McCosh think of her being out and about with the Pankhursts?’

‘Mr McCosh has always been a bit ahead, hasn’t he? He said as far as he was concerned she damned well ought to have the vote. And me too, come to that. Excusing the language, sir.’

‘How do you know all this, Millicent?’

‘Gets passed down the servants, sir. We know more about that lot than they do.’

‘Millicent, do you like compliments?’

‘My mum said never trust a gentleman with compliments.’

‘Your mother was right, but nonetheless, I want to say that I think you’re a delightful girl. I hope everything works out for you.’

‘Can I tell you something what’s been bothering me, sir?’

‘Yes, Millicent, of course.’

‘You won’t take it wrong of me?’

‘I very much doubt it.’

‘Well, sir, if you don’t mind me saying, sir, I think you should take Miss Rosie to France and go and visit Mr Ashbridge’s grave.’

‘Do you? Good Lord, I never –’

‘I did something like that, sir. I went to see my Hutch. I went with Dusty, and now me and Dusty’s married, and everything’s all right.’

‘It worked for you, eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She looked around, as if suspicious of being watched. ‘The mistress will tell you off for helping me, you know, sir. Improper and all that, she’ll call it.’

‘I rather fear that she will.’

That evening Daniel was in the conservatory enjoying the light pattering of rain on the glass, when Fairhead came in.

‘Ah, there you are. Avoiding the lady of the house again, I take it? Not on deep patrol today?’

‘No, I’m not avoiding her. I’m beginning to think I should make more allowance, in fact. I’ve received some sobering revelations. People have a far greater hinterland than you can possibly imagine, don’t you think? Besides, as you know, she’s recovering in bed.’

‘From having her finger severely bitten by a parrot when she called on Mrs Smart,’ said Fairhead. ‘You’d think that a woman of her age and experience would know better than to offer her finger to a parrot.’

‘You would. Anyway, to get back to your question – they’re all playing cards, and I really don’t enjoy cards any more. We played a vast amount in the Flying Corps, when the weather was dud. If you got hold of a book, it was like finding the Holy Grail. Thank God I could read books in French. Obviously they were easier to find. I used to like chess, but my opponent got a Blighty wound, and when he came back he was shot down the day after. It’s surprising how quickly one lost the knack. Have you noticed that there aren’t any gasbag cars any more?’

‘I have now that you’ve mentioned it. You don’t seem very cheerful. Got a fit of the glums?’

‘Feeling a bit useless. What exactly am I for, Fairhead?’

‘I think you’re for giving Esther and Rosie the best possible life.’

‘I’m really not useful unless there’s a war on,’ said Daniel.

‘Twitchy, eh?’ said Fairhead. ‘Don’t blame you actually. Comes to me often enough. When you’ve been biting on red meat for years, you’ve got no patience for fairy cake and meringue, have you?’

‘Everything I learned will be lost,’ said Daniel. ‘I am an encyclopedia of redundant information.’

‘Example?’

‘Well, a tank trail looks exactly like a snail trail, except with a tank on the end of it. And if you want to hear what shells sound like when they’re passing by, you can just switch off the engine. And, if you want to go out and shoot down a balloon, you should load the belt in groups of three. First a Sparklet, so you can see where the bullets are going, then a Brock to blow the fabric open, and then a Pomeroy or a Buckingham to set the gas on fire.’

Fairhead absorbed this information, got out his pipe, packed it thoughtfully and lit it.

‘I see what you mean,’ he said at last. ‘That’s pretty damned useless.’