GOOD DAUGHTERS Page 12

  Jacov said, ‘There, you are free! I must make amends. Shall I cut you a rose?’

  ‘You haven’t got any, have you?’ Mummy would have said that Louise was being very pert. ‘I mean, you’ve only got brambles.’

  There was a slight scuffling, and he said, ‘You mustn’t move, or you’ll be caught by them again.’

  Louise gave a little gasp, half laughter, half anger, and then a smothered sound about which Alice could not be specific. After what seemed a long time, Louise’s voice rang out cheerfully, ‘Come along, Alice! Don’t stand there mooning.’

  When they were out in the road, she said, ‘Well, I never thought he had it in him! Come along, we’ll walk as far as the pillar-box while I put my hair up again.’

  That night, after their parents had said goodnight to Alice and Claire, Alice found it hard to sleep. She remembered what Jacov had said about Sonya not living to disappoint her father, and she felt very guilty about concealing the state of affairs in the Drummond household. She prayed that matters might be so arranged that her parents would be spared disappointment without the necessity of anyone dying young.

  Miss Lindsay wondered what was behind Miss Blaize’s interest in Alice Fairley. Was this her way of intimating that Miss Lindsay was paying too much attention to Ella Philpotts and Emmie Barker? Both girls had a crush on her and, since they were clever and amusing, she allowed them some licence – though she was always careful to appear disdainful. She asked a mystified Alice for her English notebooks, and drew Miss Blaize’s attention to the best of Alice’s work in the hope that this would prove that others besides Ella and Emmie benefited from her teaching.

  When the time came for Alice to keep her appointment with Miss Blaize, she approached the headmistress’s room with apprehension. It seemed, however, that the incident of the scripture lesson was not to be the subject of discussion. Instead, Miss Blaize talked generally about English literature, and told Alice about her travels in Greece and the Holy Land. Finally, as Alice was about to leave, she said, I have been reading some of your essays. You do realize that you have a gift for expressing the English language?’ Alice, anxious to be agreeable, said, ‘Yes, Miss Blaize.’

  She was relieved to have got off so lightly, and did not at the time think much about what Miss Blaize had said.

  Chapter Seven

  Summer seemed no sooner to have come than it was on the wane; the school had broken up and the Fairleys were preparing for their annual holidays, a procedure requiring no little delicacy and ingenuity. Mr Fairley was good about relatives in theory, but not when actually confronting them. His intentions were invariably praiseworthy, but the need to maintain an appearance of affability over a period of days – let alone weeks – in the company of people who did not share his ideas was beyond him. Consequently, evasive action had to be taken and the Fairley family usually spent their holiday at a place too far removed from either Cornwall or Sussex for there to be any question of visiting relatives. Neglect, however, was unthinkable and so ambassadors must be dispatched. This year, Alice was to go to Cornwall and Louise to Sussex. Claire and Mr Fairley were going to camp, Mr Fairley with the sea cadets and Claire with the Crusaders at Jordans. At the end of August the entire family would have two weeks at Sheringham.

  ‘What is the weather report?’ Judith asked at breakfast.

  Claire said, ‘Where will Lobby Lud be next week, Daddy?’ She enjoyed going up to men in straw boaters and saying, ‘You are Mr Lobby Lud. I claim the News Chronicle prize.’ The prize was ten pounds – twenty if the previous town had failed to produce a successful challenger – and Claire had made a list of things she intended to buy with it, including a new sewing machine for her mother.

  ‘Wherever it is, it won’t be Jordans.’ Her father put the paper down and Alice, on the pretext of looking for Lobby Lud’s timetable, turned the pages and had a quick glance at the entertainment guide. The notorious Story of Temple Drake had come to the West End; she had read that George Raft had refused to play the title role. What could be so uniquely dreadful that even George Raft, who had played so many gangster roles, should condemn it? Claire asked, ‘Where is he going to be?’

  ‘I can’t find it. You look for yourself.’

  Later, when they were in their bedroom sorting out the few personal possessions they wanted to take with them, Claire said to Alice, ‘You’re going to miss Cru. camp.’ Her face wrinkled in displeasure. She liked others to share her enthusiasms; if they failed to do so, she began to question their worth.

  ‘I’m not all that keen on Crusaders.’ Alice leant out of the bedroom window. It was a warm, sunny day and she could hear the sound of someone hitting a tennis ball against a wall. ‘Daphne’s out in her garden practising.’

  Daphne and her family were going to Germany in spite of Mrs Drummond’s protests. Katia was going to her grandparents. As her grandparents lived in Bavaria, and Mr Drummond had talked about a holiday in Bavaria, Alice wondered whether they would meet. It was obvious from what Katia said that her grandparents were important people who lived in a very superior style; so perhaps this would impress the Drummonds, and then Katia and Daphne would be friends, which would make life much simpler.

  ‘You don’t play our game any more; and now you don’t like Crusaders.’ Claire sounded forlorn. She enjoyed her sister’s company more than that of anyone else, and was finding it hard to accept that companionship depends on the consent of both parties.

  Alice sat on the bed beside her. ‘I’ll think about you camping. Every evening, I’ll think of you sitting round the fire singing choruses.’ She began to sing, ‘Wide, wide as the ocean/High as the Heaven above,’ and Claire joined in, ‘Deep, deep as the deepest sea/Is my Saviour’s love.’

  Claire said, ‘Rub noses,’ and they rubbed their noses together, which was a family sign of reconciliation.

  Louise would be in the sixth form in the autumn. She had only scraped through matriculation but it was hoped that, provided she worked hard, she would get her Higher School Certificate. If she was successful in this, a long period of strain and unhappiness would lie ahead of her at university. Louise realized that the only way to convince her father of her unsuitability for the academic life was to take her exams and fail convincingly. It seemed a waste of two years of her life. If this was not hard enough to bear, her parents had arranged that she should spend a month on her uncle’s farm in Sussex, so that she could study in peace.

  ‘I would prefer to go to Falmouth,’ she had protested to her mother.

  ‘You’d never manage to do any studying with my mother around you!’

  It was not of study which Louse had been thinking. ‘Guy and his parents are staying at St Mawes for the next three weeks,’ she told Alice. ‘I’ve given them the grandparents’ address, so maybe you’ll see something of them. It’ll be a change from looking after the tribe.’

  They had a large number of Cornish cousins, all younger than Alice. Alice, who liked them but did not want to spend all her time looking after them, said hopefully, ‘I expect they’ve got friends of their own.’

  ‘They’ll bring their friends with them,’ Louise said.

  On arrival in Truro, Alice was confronted with an unexpected addition to her relatives. Her grandfather was waiting at the ticket barrier with a tall, bony young man who looked about him as though he wished he was somewhere else. On being introduced to Alice he studied her face thoughtfully, apparently not being one to commit himself to a ‘Good day’, let alone a smile without good reason.

  ‘This is your Cousin Ben,’ Joseph said while Ben was deciding what was due to Alice.

  Alice, having little expectation of surviving prolonged scrutiny with credit, said, ‘I haven’t got a Cousin Ben.’ This, her expression made plain, was a conviction she intended to uphold.

  Ben responded with a gust of laughter as inexplicable as his previous surliness. ‘There should be a law that no one has cousins thrust upon them without notice.’ He picked up Alice’s s
uitcase. ‘When I become Attorney General it will be my first consideration.’ He walked towards the exit swinging the heavy suitcase and menacing those around him. He seemed at one moment to be both self-conscious and unaware.

  On the bus he spoke little until the woman in the seat behind him began to tell the conductor about a sheep she had seen on her way in to Truro: it had been lying on its back, and if it was still lying on its back this evening, she wondered whether she should get off the bus and find the farmer. Ben turned round. ‘Why didn’t you do that this morning?’ His tone was so accusing that the woman embarked on a long defence involving an aunt in hospital in Truro and a dog with poor bowel control in Falmouth. Her days, it seemed, were passed travelling anxiously between the two. Ben gazed at her as if weighing her veracity in a matter of exceptional gravity.

  The sheep was still on its back when they came to the field, and Ben said he would investigate.

  ‘If it was like that this morning, it’s dead by now,’ the conductor said.

  ‘You’ll have to walk home, there isn’t another bus,’ Joseph warned.

  But Ben got off, and as the bus drove away they saw him climbing the gate leading into the field, body arching forward, neck stretched out, as though straining ahead of an unseen challenger. Joseph was moved to make one of his rare observations on a fellow man. ‘That’s how it will be with Ben, always climbing gates before he’s given them a push.’

  ‘I haven’t got a Cousin Ben, have I?’ Alice appealed to Ellen as soon as they were alone together.

  ‘He’s Joseph’s Cousin Cedric’s grandson. Your third cousin that would make him – or maybe he’s Joseph’s third cousin?’

  ‘Mummy never talks about him,’ Alice disposed of any claim to kinship.

  ‘She never got on with Lizzie, and she couldn’t forgive her for marrying first. But you did meet Ben once when you were very small. They lived in Bodmin, he and Lizzie. She died last month. That’s why he’s staying with us.’

  ‘Hasn’t he got a father?’

  ‘He has not,’ Ellen replied with satisfaction. ‘Lizzie married an American journalist, Walter Sherman. Everyone said at the wedding what a fine couple they made.’ She paused, staring at the wall as though visualizing the wedding party grouped on it.

  Alice, accustomed to such pauses, prompted, ‘Did you see something, Granny?’

  ‘I saw in his eyes he wasn’t going to live long. They didn’t go to America at once because he was travelling round Europe. Then in 1915 he went to New England to make arrangements for his family, though why he couldn’t have taken them with him, I shall never know; Lizzie was tough as wire, and she could have put up with a bit of discomfort until they found a place to live. But he was the kind must do it all himself. And when everything was settled to his liking he set off to fetch them. On the Lusitania. You know about the Lusitania?’ Alice nodded. ‘Two thousand drowned and Walter Sherman among them.’ Her eyes moved to the window, less piercing in their gaze as she regarded her old adversary. ‘He wasn’t even a sailor, but it took him just the same. Poor Lizzie.’

  ‘How old was Ben?’

  ‘He’d have been a year old. Lizzie was a hard woman and thought a lot of herself, but she was a worker. She put her pride in her pocket and took in lodgers. Scrimped and saved to give Ben a good education. He’s going to study for the law at London University, Alice. The first Tippet to go to university. Joseph didn’t say much when Ben told him, but I could see how proud he was. He put on his best suit and went down to The Crossed Keys that evening.’

  Alice tried to be sorry for Ben. The death of a parent was almost too dreadful to contemplate. But he did not grieve in any way recognizable to Alice, and although every morning she made a resolution to notice his suffering, other matters usually claimed her attention. At mealtimes she was aware, as he helped himself to more potatoes without being asked, that his bony wrists extended too far from the sleeves of his jacket. The jacket was also tight across the shoulders. His clothes had a hand-me-down look. He didn’t have much in the way of manners, either. He ate faster than his companions, and drummed his fingers impatiently on the table while he waited for them to finish. He was not greedy, however, and could never be tempted to another helping once he had had sufficient.

  ‘No wonder you’re fat,’ he said when Alice accepted more treacle pudding.

  ‘Alice enjoys her food,’ Ellen said fondly.

  Ben hardly ever mentioned his mother, but he talked a lot about his father. To Alice’s surprise, he had decided to help her to amuse the tribe. They played cricket on the sands, and Ben made up his own rules. Alice noted that the young did well under Ben’s dispensation. He told them stories about General Sherman who, he claimed, was his great-great-uncle, and he taught them ‘Marching through Georgia’. They marched up and down the beach, singing:

  ‘ “Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast”,

  So the saucy rebels said, – and ’twas a handsome boast,

  Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host,

  As we were marching through Georgia.’

  ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ the tribe shouted. ‘We bring the Jubilee!’

  They had no idea what that was, but they waved their spades triumphantly in the air. They strutted beside the English Channel, shouting, none more exultant than Ben:

  ‘So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,

  As we were marching through Georgia.’

  One evening in the second week of her stay, as they walked back from the beach together, Ben said severely to Alice, ‘This is your holiday.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She wondered what she had done wrong.

  ‘You’re much too good-natured. You should ditch the kids and do whatever you want.’ They walked in silence for a few moments, then he said rather awkwardly, ‘I would like to give you a treat.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied irritably. ‘You have to decide. Surely there is something you’d like to do.’

  ‘Oh, there is!’ she responded immediately. ‘I’d like to go to the pictures, please.’

  ‘The pictures!’ He had obviously envisaged something he would also enjoy. ‘In this weather?’

  ‘It’s called Spy 13. It’s got Gary Cooper in it.’

  ‘Gary Cooper?’ He studied her face and then, making an effort not to sound grudging, conceded, ‘Well, I can see we have to go.’

  They set out for the cinema the following afternoon. The sun glinted on the still water in the harbour; the pavement was hot beneath Alice’s sandals, and the salt in the air stung her face. She waited for Ben to say he could not go to the pictures on such a glorious day, but he merely asked where she wanted to sit. She said in the shilling seats if he didn’t mind – ‘in case of fleas’.

  By the time the censor’s certificate came up with the words Spy 13 written on it, Alice could barely nerve herself to look at the screen. When Gary Cooper first appeared, she screwed up her eyes and only gradually allowed herself to discover him. Miraculously, he was all she had dreamt he would be. The action took place during the Civil War. Alice did not like to see real blood, but the sight of Gary Cooper with a bloodstained bandage round his head made her feel as though something inside her head had melted and liquid warmth was spreading through her whole body.

  ‘What about Gary Cooper, then?’ Ben asked when they came out of the cinema.

  ‘I liked him,’ Alice replied sedately.

  ‘But the film . . .’ he began and then, seeing her face, contented himself with saying, ‘I don’t think civil war is like that.’ He talked about General Sherman.

  It was not of General Sherman that Alice was thinking. At last she had discovered the kind of hero for whom she was looking. He was tough and manly, but with an ingrained sensitivity; beneath that hard shell of bone there was a heart that beat in time with Nature, an understanding that could penetrate the mysteries of a woman’s reserve. Whatever his past errors – be it
jail break, cattle rustling, gambling – he would do the right thing at the right moment. Cousin Ben undoubtedly lacked Gary Cooper’s gentle strength; and she suspected that not only would he fail to do the right thing at the right moment, but he had no awareness of what constituted the right moment. She held her dream to herself and said nothing.

  That night as she lay in bed, Alice thought about the film and relived the more romantic moments. She thought of the men in their uniforms, and the women in their pretty dresses and the magnolias and the moonlight, and she wished desperately that she could go through an experience like that. It was so unlike her father’s war memories: civil war was much more poignant.

  Towards the end of the week the Imminghams called. Both Guy and his father wore white flannels and blue blazers. They looked alike in other ways, both tall and shy, though Guy had an eagerness about him which his father lacked. Mr Immingham gave the impression of a man who fears he may at any moment accidentally do something wrong. He stuttered slightly as he greeted Ellen.

  Mrs Immingham was dressed in a cream linen costume, and she wore a cream panama hat which shaded her face and kept her skin from getting burnt. As she entered the sitting-room she darted little glances around her, noting objects, such as the ship in the bottle, as though their unfamiliarity threatened her. When Alice pointed out the view of the harbour, she replied, ‘We always stay at St Mawes.’ Her offended tone implied that Alice should have known it was impossible for the Imminghams to stay anywhere else.

  She was a soft, pink woman who wore an expression of doing something to which she was unused; she even sat down as though this was an exercise involving no little risk to her person. Once settled, her plump hands soothed the folds of her skirt. While the others engaged in the usual introductory chatter, she gazed reproachfully at her husband and Guy. It was apparent she had not wanted to come, and could not imagine why her menfolk should have subjected her to this.