The Fancy (42 page)

They had both cried for him gently, and neither of them in the days that followed had ever said by word or look how nice it was to be alone. It was difficult at first to realise that they were alone.
His
presence had dominated the house too long to desert it all at once, and Mrs. Holt wandered about in a lost way, unable to indulge her own inclinati shrugged his shouldersI s.ons now that she at last had the chance. They were both so used to regulating their meal-times according to his stomach that they were now incapable of regulating them according to their own, so they kept to his time-table. Mrs. Holt went on cooking from habit the food that he had liked, and the first time they had their bacon fried instead of boiled it seemed quite disloyal.

They still talked quietly and shut doors softly and did not bang the lid of the dustbin. Once, when some boys shouted in the street, Wendy caught herself looking upward quickly, listening for the thump of the stick, with which since his stroke had robbed him of speech, he hadsapproval.

But although his spirit kept its eye on them for a long time, loth to leave them to their own devices, it gradually withdrew and they began imperceptibly to realise and enjoy their freedom. A great weight had been lifted from the little house. It even looked different from the outside, Wendy thought, less cowering into the earth. She cleaned the windows and whitened the step, and hoping her mother would not mind, took down the thick lace curtains which had kept out the light and his fear of people looking in from the street. He had never allowed flowers into the house, saying that they were unhealthy, but after a time she began to bring back little bunches and arrange them in jam jars, since they had never had any vases.

“Oh, how pretty,” her mother had exclaimed, seeing pansies and wallflowers on the table, and then looked guilty for a moment before she remembered that she need not.

Wendy asked Edward where she could buy a window-box and he made her one himself and went with her to the market to buy geranium
plants. One Sunday when Connie and Dorothy had taken the baby over to Schoolbred Buildings for the afternoon, Wendy and Mrs. Holt went to see his rabbits. They were in ecstasies over them and Wendy displayed a real aptitude, Edward thought, for the fundamental points of breeding, which he explained as they went round. They listened to him enthralled for as long as he chose to hold forth, and it ended by Edward giving Wendy a young doe in kindle and walking home with them carrying a hutch, while Wendy cradled the doe in her arms like a mother with her first baby. They had no garden, but Edward saw the doe comfortably installed in the lean-to coal-shed before going home to Connie and Dorothy, who had seen an accident on the way home, and finding that he did not want to hear the details, hardly spoke a word to him all evening. He was only too pleased, as he wanted to start an article to which the afternoon had inspired him : “YOUR FIRST DOE. Starting a Stud from Scratch.”

Wendy had never had a pet of her own. After her father’s death, his little dog, Lassie, after waiting to see who was going to give her her food, had attached herself to Wendy, but she was not her pet. Wendy had never liked the pop-eyed little toy with its spindling legs and sycophantic rat’s tail. She did not melt towards her with pride and adoration as she did every time she looked at her beloved doe.

It was quite different coming home these days. Even the street looked less shabby as she turned into it, hurrying to get home as she never had before. Then the house, with its green window boxes and a jar of pinks between the blue curtains in the sitting-room window, then opening the door and calling cheerfully to her mother, who had lost the power of calling out long ago, but would hurry into the hall and talk to her there instead of first drawing her into the kitchen and shutting the door ; finally hurrying to the coal-shed, with her heart in her mouth in case the babies had already arrived. Edward had said that a first litter was often early. Any day now she might come home and find the hay moving, as he had dem;
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. blyhescribed. Life was wonderful.

It stopped being wonderful when Mr. Holt’s sister came up from Newton Abbot to say she was going to turn them out of the house. It was her house, but they had lived in it for thirty years without an inkling of this possibility. But their lease was up at the end of this year, and now that her brother was dead, Mrs. Colquhoun did not see why she should renew it for his relict and daughter, whom she had never thought good enough for him. Indeed, it was an excellent opportunity of getting her own back on them after all these years, for she had always maintained that if her brother was queer, it was they who had driven him so.

She was very business-like with them. She came in a black coat and skirt and a fox fur, drank a cup of tea and ate the last of the biscuits, and told them that they had three months in which to find somewhere else to live.

She might as well have said three years. It was not so much finding somewhere, although that would be hard enough, but finding somewhere with a rent as small as they had always paid for this house. They had been hard up when Mr. Holt was alive, but at his death his pension from his old firm had ceased. They now had only Wendy’s earnings at Canning Kyles, which fluctuated according to output, and Mrs. Holt’s Old Age Pension. The mere expense of moving was unthinkable, and even if they found a cheap flat, there would be the furniture to store. They would never manage.

Mrs. Holt began to deny herself her mid-morning cup of tea and other things which she loved, saving pennies pathetically in a red tin pillar box on the mantelpiece. When Wendy began to suspect that she sometimes went without her lunch, she pretended that there was no need to worry. They would manage splendidly ; she was on the track of a dear little house out Collis Common way, well within their means. She even emptied the tin pillar box as a gesture and took her mother to the cinema on what was inside. She was not on the track of a house, Collis Common or any other way, but she had nearly three more months to search, so her mother could be spared for at least that long the dragging worry which now accompanied Wendy everywhere, and even clouded the joy of her doe’s long-awaited litter. And if
she
went without her lunch, that was quite a different thing. She had never been a big eater.

She did not tell Edward that anything was wrong and he did not suspect anything. She was always quiet and thin, and when she became a little quieter and a little thinner it was not very noticeable. In any case, he had a worry of his own. It was not financial : he was better off at the moment than he had ever been. Not only had a year as charge-hand brought him a rise, but his rabbits, which he now felt entitled to advertise as “The Ledward Strain” were fetching increasingly good prices both for sale and at stud.

“Making quite a name for yourself in the Fancy, you are,” Allan Colley had remarked at a show where a vast grandson of Freda’s had caused quite a sensation, and Edward had realised, to his surprise, that this might be so. His ascension in the rabbit world had been so gradual that he had not noticed when he ceased to be a novice and became proficient, when he ceased to be merely proficient and became an expert.

Although Edward did not think of himself in the same breath as Allan Colley, Cheviot Freemantle was an established feature of
Backyard Breeding
, as popular in his way as
Giganta.
People would have written to the editor if his articles had ceased to appear. They liked his practicality and the way his information, however instructive, was always flavoured with homely humour. Husbands bored their wives reading the at lunchtiman alongfunny bits out of Cheviot Freemantle to them after supper. The fee for the articles was not staggering, but it was a nice regular little cheque.

It was not money that was on Edward’s mind, it was the Collis Park Rabbit Club. Although outwardly prospering, it was as far, even farther than ever from being the informal, congenial fellowship of his plans. Dissatisfaction was creeping insidiously among its members. Edward was getting stilted letters, resignations were more frequent than applications for membership, people like Mr. Marchmont not only cherished sick thoughts, but gave voice to them, and Edward began to notice mutterings in corners at shows and Club meetings. Mr. Bell was unperturbed. He was planning to throw the Club open soon to professionals and was not concerned with the antics of the small fry. If they wanted to resign, let ’em. He was after bigger game. Dick Bennett, too, refused to see anything wrong, and at first Edward tried not to let it worry him either, but after the Grand Summer Show on Collis Common in September, he knew that he was justified in worrying.

He had reported the Show in
Backyard Breeding
as “an all round success with old man Sol for once not failing us, and a gratifyingly high standard obtaining in both Fur and Fancy classes. Spectators and exhibitors alike went home with the satisfaction of a day spent under the optimum conditions of weather and good fellowship,” forbearing to mention the all too noticeable discontent among the members at the number of prizes carried off by outside exhibitors.

Mr. Marchmont had tackled Edward inside the little Secretary’s tent where he sat checking the list of results after the judging was over.

“Look here, Ledward,” Mr. Marchmont had said, planting himself in the entrance so that the stuffy little tent rapidly became suffocating, “it’s not good enough. That’s all I have to say : it’s not good enough.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” said Edward, who understood only too well. “Is anything wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong,” replied Mr. Marchmont, his naturally red complexion deepening to an interesting shade of magenta round the nose. “Everything’s wrong, with this Club and everything about it. In plain English, Ledward, I don’t like the way it’s run. We’re supposed to be an amateur organisation—correct me if I’m wrong—but whenever we have a show, you let in every Tom, Dick and Harry of an outsider and professional, and what’s the result? The
bona fide
members, the people who after all the Show’s supposed to be
for
, are cut right out ; they simply don’t get a chance. Frankly, Ledward, it’s not good enough.”

“Oh yes, of course,” said Edward tactlessly, “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was your Havana didn’t get more than a third ; I personally thought there was no comparison between her and the winning doe. I can’t agree with the judge’s decision over that.”

“I wasn’t speaking about myself,” said Mr. Marchmont hastily. “I was speaking for my fellow Club members. I don’t mind telling you there’s a great many besides me—Mrs. Ledbetter for one, and Mr. Simkiss, and Miss Newberry—oh, I could name you a dozen more who
are not satisfied with the way things are run. There’s a certain element—mind you I’m naming no names, Ledward—I merely say that there’s a certain undesirable element that’s infecting the whole policy of the Club took a step nearer to her mother,ouaf, and I thought I ought to tell you that unless something’s done about it, I for one shall resign.” He paused to see whether Edward blanched, and added darkly : “And I believe I shall not be alone.”

There was no need for him to name names. Edward knew only too well to whom he was referring. Everything that Mr. Marchmont said had been an echo of his own thoughts, and yet all he could say was : “Oh come now, Mr. Marchmont, we mustn’t be too hasty. Aren’t you perhaps exaggerating just a little? I’m sure I’ve never noticed any lack of confidence among the Club members. In any case, I’ll look into the matter, since you’ve raised it, and I can promise you that if I find any cause, etc., etc… . you can rest assured that in the future, etc., etc… . “He tried to mollify him, hypocritically, but Mr. Marchmont refused to be mollified and with a final : “I for one shall resign,” made as dignified a withdrawal as was possible with his figure.

What could Edward do? Nobody more than he desired to rid the Club of the “undesirable element,” but how could one get rid of an element that had wormed its way, not only into the Club but into his private life? Even if the Club could carry on without him—and could it? Who had provided the marquees today, for example?—How could he make trouble with a man who had established himself as
persona grata
in his own house, who was honorary godfather to Dorothy’s baby, and who furthermore was his own wife’s employer? Connie would never forgive him.

He had sounded her once, asking her casually : “How d’you get on with Bell at the office, Connie?”

“Very well,” she said, surprised. “Everyone does, I should think—except you. You don’t like him, I know.”

“What d’you mean?” said Edward, taken aback. He thought he had disguised this. “Of course I like him.”

“No.” Connie shook her head with a superior smile. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how funny you are in your manner to him sometimes, even if he’s gentleman enough not to remark it. I don’t know what he must think of you, when he’s always been so friendly. I’m sure I should be ashamed to let a man see I was jealous of him being in a better position.”

“Jealous!” said Edward. “That’s ridiculous. Why should I be jealous of him in Heaven’s name? I’ve told you already, I think he’s a grand chap. I’ve got nothing against him personally ; it’s just that I don’t always agree with some of his ideas in connection with the Club.”

“Oh you and that Club!” said Connie disgustedly. “Your life’s ruled by that silly little affair. As to his share in it, from what I hear, though I must say I’m not interested, the Club couldn’t carry on without him.”

“Of course he’s done an awful lot for us—too much perhaps. You
see, Con, it’s only meant to be a little Club for amateurs and he’s trying to make it too big and take it out of the range of the people for whom it was meant. Some of his ideas are too grand.”

“Well, that’s natural, I suppose, a man like him, with his own business. You could hardly expect him to think on the same level as some of the people you’ve got hold of : railway workers and errand boys and postmen and goodness knows what all.” Her tone included charge-hands in aircraft factories.