III

In the Lodge¹ Mary Gerrard was looking round rather helplessly.

She hadn’t realized, somehow, how cramped² it all was.

Her past life rushed back over her in a flood. Mum making clothes for her dolls. Dad alwayscross and surly. Disliking her. Yes, disliking her….

She said suddenly to Nurse Hopkins:

“Dad didn’t say anything—send me any message before he died, did he?”

Nurse Hopkins said cheerfully and callously³:

“Oh, dear me, no. He was unconscious for an hour before he passed away.”

Mary said slowly:

“I feel perhaps I ought to have come down and looked after him. After all, he was my father.”

Nurse Hopkins said with a trace of embarrassment⁴:

“Now, just you listen to me, Mary: whether he was your father or not doesn’t enter into it.

Children don’t care much about their parents in these days, from what I can see, and a good manyparents don’t care for their children, either. Miss Lambert, at the secondary school, says that’s as itshould be. According to her, family life is all wrong, and children should be brought up by thestate. That’s as may be—just a glorified⁵ orphanage⁶, it sounds to me—but, anyway, it’s a waste ofbreath to go back over the past and sentimentalize. We’ve got to get on with living—that’s our joband not too easy, either, sometimes!”

Mary said slowly:

“I expect you’re right. But I feel perhaps it was my fault we didn’t get on better.”

Nurse Hopkins said robustly⁷:

“Nonsense.”

The word exploded like a bomb.

It quelled⁸ Mary. Nurse Hopkins turned to more practical matters.

“What are you going to do with the furniture? Store it? Or sell it?”

Mary said doubtfully:

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

Running a practical eye over it, Nurse Hopkins said:

“Some of it’s quite good and solid. You might store it and furnish a little flat of your own inLondon some day. Get rid of the rubbish. The chairs are good—so’s the table. And that’s a nicebureau—it’s the kind that’s out of fashion, but it’s solid mahogany, and they say Victorian stuffwill come in again one day. I’d get rid of that great wardrobe, if I were you. Too big to fit inanywhere. Takes up half the bedroom as it is.”

They made a list between them of pieces to be kept or let go.

Mary said:

“The lawyer’s been very kind—Mr. Seddon, I mean. He advanced me some money, so that Icould get started with my training fees and other expenses. It will be a month or so before themoney can be definitely made over to me, so he said.”

Nurse Hopkins said:

“How do you like your work?”

“I think I shall like it very much. It’s rather strenuous⁹ at first. I come home tired to death.”

Nurse Hopkins said grimly:

“I thought I was going to die when I was a probationer at St. Luke’s. I felt I could never stick itfor three years. But I did.”

They had sorted through the old man’s clothes. Now they came to a tin box full of papers.

Mary said:

“We must go through these, I suppose.”

They sat down one on each side of the table.

Nurse Hopkins grumbled¹⁰ as she started with a handful.

“Extraordinary what rubbish people keep! Newspaper cuttings! Old letters. All sorts of things!”

Mary said, unfolding a document:

“Here’s Dad’s and Mum’s marriage certificate. At St. Albans, 1919.”

Nurse Hopkins said:

“Marriage lines, that’s the old-fashioned term. Lots of the people in this village use that termyet.”

Mary said in a stifled¹¹ voice:

“But, Nurse—”

“What’s the matter?”

Mary Gerrard said in a shaky voice:

“Don’t you see? This is 1939. And I’m twenty-one. In 1919 I was a year old. That means—thatmeans—that my father and mother weren’t married till—till—afterwards.”

Nurse Hopkins frowned. She said robustly:

“Well, after all, what of it? Don’t go worrying about that, at this time of day!”

“But, Nurse, I can’t help it.”

Nurse Hopkins spoke¹² with authority:

“There’s many couples that don’t go to church till a bit after they should do so. But so long asthey do it in the end, what’s the odds¹³? That’s what I say!”

Mary said in a low voice:

“Is that why—do you think—my father never liked me? Because, perhaps my mother made himmarry her?”

Nurse Hopkins hesitated. She bit her lip, then she said:

“It wasn’t quite like that, I imagine.” She paused. “Oh, well, if you’re going to worry about it,you may as well know the truth: You aren’t Gerrard’s daughter at all.”

Mary said:

“Then that was why!”

Nurse Hopkins said: “Maybe.”

Mary said, a red spot suddenly burning in each cheek:

“I suppose it’s wrong of me, but I’m glad! I’ve always felt uncomfortable because I didn’t carefor my father, but if he wasn’t my father, well, that makes it all right! How did you know aboutit?”

Nurse Hopkins said:

“Gerrard talked about it a good deal before he died. I shut him up pretty sharply, but he didn’tcare. Naturally, I shouldn’t have said anything to you about it if this hadn’t cropped up.”

Mary said slowly:

“I wonder who my real father was….”

Nurse Hopkins hesitated. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. She appeared to be findingit hard to make up her mind on some point.

Then a shadow fell across the room, and the two women looked round to see Elinor Carlislestanding at the window.

Elinor said:

“Good morning.”

Nurse Hopkins said:

“Good morning, Miss Carlisle. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Mary said:

“Oh—good morning, Miss Elinor.”

Elinor said:

“I’ve been making some sandwiches. Won’t you come up and have some? It’s just on oneo’clock, and it’s such a bother to have to go home for lunch. I got enough for three on purpose.”

Nurse Hopkins said in pleased surprise:

“Well, I must say, Miss Carlisle, that’s extremely thoughtful of you. It is a nuisance to have tobreak off what you’re doing and come all the way back from the village. I hoped we might finishthis morning. I went round and saw my cases early. But, there, turning out takes you longer thanyou think.”

Mary said gratefully:

“Thank you, Miss Elinor, it’s very kind of you.”

The three of them walked up the drive to the house. Elinor had left the front door open. Theypassed inside into the cool of the hall. Mary shivered a little. Elinor looked at her sharply.

She said:

“What is it?”

Mary said:

“Oh, nothing—just a shiver. It was coming in—out of the sun….”

Elinor said in a low voice:

“That’s queer. That’s what I felt this morning.”

Nurse Hopkins said in a loud, cheerful voice and with a laugh:

“Come, now, you’ll be pretending there are ghosts in the house next. I didn’t feel anything!”

Elinor smiled. She led the way into the morning room on the right of the front door. The blindswere up and the windows open. It looked cheerful.

Elinor went across the hall and brought back from the pantry a big plate of sandwiches. Shehanded it to Mary, saying:

“Have one?”

Mary took one. Elinor stood watching her for a moment as the girl’s even white teeth bit intothe sandwich.

She held her breath for a minute, then expelled it in a little sigh.

Absentmindedly she stood for a minute with the plate held to her waist, then at the sight ofNurse Hopkins’ slightly parted lips and hungry expression she flushed and quickly proffered¹⁴ theplate to the older woman.

Elinor took a sandwich herself. She said apologetically:

“I meant to make some coffee, but I forgot to get any. There’s some beer on that table, though,if anyone likes that?”

Nurse Hopkins said sadly:

“If only I’d thought to bring along some tea now.”

Elinor said absently:

“There’s a little tea still in the canister in the pantry.”

Nurse Hopkins’ face brightened.

“Then I’ll just pop out and put the kettle on. No milk, I suppose?”

Elinor said:

“Yes, I brought some.”

“Well, then, that’s all right,” said Nurse Hopkins and hurried out.

Elinor and Mary were alone together.

A queer tension crept into the atmosphere. Elinor, with an obvious effort, tried to makeconversation. Her lips were dry. She passed her tongue over them. She said, rather stiffly:

“You—like your work in London?”

“Yes, thank you. I—I’m very grateful to you—”

A sudden harsh sound broke from Elinor. A laugh so discordant¹⁵, so unlike her that Mary staredat her in surprise.

Elinor said:

“You needn’t be so grateful!”

Mary, rather embarrassed, said:

“I didn’t mean—that is—”

She stopped.

Elinor was staring at her—a glance so searching, so, yes, strange that Mary flinched¹⁶ under it.

She said:

“Is—is anything wrong?”

Elinor got up quickly. She said, turning away:

“What should be wrong?”

Mary murmured.

“You—you looked—”

Elinor said with a little laugh:

“Was I staring? I’m so sorry. I do sometimes—when I’m thinking of something else.”

Nurse Hopkins looked in at the door and remarked brightly, “I’ve put the kettle on,” and wentout again.

Elinor was taken with a sudden fit of laughter.

“Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on—we’ll all have tea! Doyou remember playing that, Mary, when we were children?”

“Yes, indeed I do.”

Elinor said:

“When we were children… It’s a pity, Mary isn’t it, that one can never go back…?”

Mary said:

“Would you like to go back?”

Elinor said with force:

“Yes… yes….”

Silence fell between them for a little while.

Then Mary said, her face flushing:

“Miss Elinor, you mustn’t think—”

She stopped, warned by the sudden stiffening¹⁷ of Elinor’s slender figure, the uplifted line of herchin.

Elinor said in a cold, steel-like voice:

“What mustn’t I think?”

Mary murmured:

“I—I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.”

Elinor’s body relaxed—as at a danger past.

Nurse Hopkins came in with a tray. On it was a brown teapot, and milk and three cups.

She said, quite unconscious of anticlimax¹⁸:

“Here’s the tea!”

She put the tray in front of Elinor. Elinor shook her head.

“I won’t have any.”

She pushed the tray along towards Mary.

Mary poured out two cups.

Nurse Hopkins sighed with satisfaction.

“It’s nice and strong.”

Elinor got up and moved over to the window. Nurse Hopkins said persuasively¹⁹:

“Are you sure you won’t have a cup, Miss Carlisle? Do you good.”

Elinor murmured, “No, thank you.”

Nurse Hopkins drained her cup, replaced it in the saucer and murmured:

“I’ll just turn off the kettle. I put it on in case we needed to fill up the pot again.”

She bustled²⁰ out.

Elinor wheeled round from the window.

She said, and her voice was suddenly charged with a desperate appeal:

“Mary…”

Mary Gerrard answered quickly:

“Yes?”

Slowly the light died out of Elinor’s face. The lips closed. The desperate pleading faded and lefta mere²¹ mask—frozen and still.

She said:

“Nothing.”

The silence came down heavily on the room.

Mary thought:

“How queer everything is today. As though—as though we were waiting for something.”

Elinor moved at last.

She came from the window and picked up the tea tray, placing on it the empty sandwich plate.

Mary jumped up.

“Oh, Miss Elinor, let me.”

Elinor said sharply:

“No, you stay here. I’ll do this.”

She carried the tray out of the room. She looked back, once, over her shoulder at Mary Gerrardby the window, young and alive and beautiful….

 

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