Growing Up Read online

  This evening all was going smoothly, though Mr. Beedle could not help contrasting the passengers with his pre-war friends. When cars and petrol abounded Winter Overcotes had been the distributing centre for some fifteen miles round. Lord and Lady Bond at Staple Park, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer at Worsted, Sir Harry and Lady Waring at Beliers Priory, Mr. and Mrs. Middleton at Skeynes, all the best people in fact, were as apt as not to use Winter Overcotes, for there was even before the war only one through train a day down the local line which runs to the small junction at Shearings. Now all Mr. Beadle’s friends got out on the high level, stumbled downstairs in the blackout to the low level, waited for half an hour, and steamed slowly and jerkily in cold dark carriages to their various stations. The people who passed through Mr. Beedle’s booking-hall would always be treated courteously, for he knew what was due to himself and to the Line, but they were an alien race without the law, and very often on the shady side of it, trying to use a day return after the legal hours, or get away with a last month’s season ticket, thus driving the new ticket-collector to pale-faced frenzy.

  On the other side of the barrier a tall, good-looking, grey-haired woman was waiting for the crowd to go through. Mr. Beedle recognized Lady Waring and touched his cap.

  “Good evening, Beedle,” said Lady Waring. “I’m meeting Sir Harry for once, because I’ve been on Red Cross business all day and have a car. Do you think he has forgotten and gone down to the low level?”

  “I will go at once myself and see, my lady,” said Mr. Beedle. “Will you wait in my office? I have the stove going.”

  “Thanks, Beedle, I’d love to,” said Lady Waring, “but your platform ticket machine is empty.”

  “That will be quite all right, my lady,” said Mr. Beedle, shocked that Lady Waring should assume herself to be as other mortals. “Come through. Morple, don’t let that happen again.”

  Ever since the staff had been called up, the question of whose duty it was to look after the platform tickets had raged, dividing the remaining staff vertically, horizontally, sideways, causing friction at least twice a week. Willingly would Mr. Beedle have attended to it himself, but none knew better than he the exact point at which prestige is impaired. He could help with parcels, he had even as we know once swept the platform; but the line had to be drawn somewhere and the platform ticket machine was the limit. Unfortunately, Bill Morple also felt that it was the limit. A man who had (to help the war effort) taken a position far below his proper rank and what was more had to put up with sauce from people who thought themselves someone just because they had an out-of-date season to London; such a man, if he had any proper pride, would not fill the platform ticket machine. But unfortunately Mr. Beedle was his superior officer and could be quite nasty (by which Bill Morple meant that Mr. Beedle never lost his temper) if crossed. So as the last passenger had gone, Bill Morple, whistling the “International” rather badly to himself, went and did as he was told, while Mr. Beedle conducted Lady Waring to the station-master’s office, handed her to a chair, and went to look for her husband.

  By this time the 6.25 had gone and the station appeared empty. Fearing that Lady Waring might be right, Mr. Beedle walked down the platform towards the steps which led to the low level, when a group detached itself from the darkness and came rather noisily towards him. To his horror it consisted of Sir Harry pulling a large porter’s truck, Doris Phipps and Lily-Annie Pollett, with cigarettes in their mouths, pushing behind.

  “Evening, Beedle,” said Sir Henry, “I found these young women in difficulties, so I’m giving a hand. All these heavy cases are too much for girls. What’s in them, eh?”

  Mr. Beedle turned a small torch on them.

  “Stationery, Sir Harry, for the Barchester Life and General Assurance,” he said. “Their office in Barchester was taken over by the Ministry of Textile Shortage, so they took the Old Court House here where the Town Council had its offices, and the Town Council took over Woolstaplers’ Hall that had been got ready for an army convalescent home, and——”

  “Oh, that’s why they took my house for a convalescent home,” said Sir Harry. “I always wondered. Still, I don’t see why an insurance company needs all this stationery when there’s a paper shortage. Well, well. Is her ladyship anywhere about?”

  “In my office, General,” said Mr. Beedle.

  Sir Harry gave the trolley a strong pull to get it going again. Doris and Lily-Annie, who had been sitting on the back of it, were violently jolted and screamed with delight.

  “There you are, girls,” said Sir Harry, stopping suddenly outside the station-master’s office, so that both girls screamed again. “Run along and don’t smoke too much. Bad for you.”

  “Thanks ever so,” said Lily-Annie.

  “Isn’t he a lovely man,” said Doris Phipps, loudly and admiringly.

  “Now then, you girls,” said Mr. Beedle. “That’s enough. It’s Sir Harry Waring that’s been kind enough to help you. Time you went off duty now.”

  Both girls said “Ow,” and Lily-Annie remarked that she’d laugh fit to die if she called anyone Sir Harry, to which Doris Phipps answered that it was reelly Sir Henry, but people called him Sir Harry because he was a Bart.

  “What’s that?” said Lily-Annie.

  “Ow; just what they are,” said Doris. “Come on, or we’ll miss the train. Sid Pollett’s in the van to-night. Hullo, Bill. Lazy boy you are. Why didn’t you give me and Lily-Annie a hand with the truck?”

  “Old Beedle made me fill the platform ticket machine,” said Bill Morple. “If we was in Russia things ’ud be different. In Russia they’re all alike and no one gives orders. If we was in Russia old Beedle’d get the Order of the Boot, coming it over me the way he does.”

  “There’s plenty of help for them as asks,” said Lily-Annie. “Dawris and me got a ride on the truck. Sir Henry Waring gave us a ride with the parcels.”

  “And he’s a Bart and a reel gentleman,” said Doris Phipps.

  “He’s a lovely man,” said Lily-Annie. “Quite my ideel.”

  “In Russia,” said Bill Morple, “both you girls would be in the Red Army and a good job too.”

  “If we was in Russia we shouldn’t be here,” said Lily-Annie, “and then we shouldn’t see you, and that ’ud be a blessing. Come on, Dawris.”

  With loud laughter both girls clattered down the steps, leaving Bill Morple to hang angrily about till the 7.5 up had come and gone and he could go off duty. Mr. Beedle put the Warings into their car and retired to his office and his papers, somehow cheered by the meeting.

  Beliers Priory, towards which the Warings were driving through the dark, was built near the site of a pre-Reformation abbey of which little now remained but the ground-plan, exquisitely inlaid in green turf by H.M. Office of Works just before the war, and a string of pools known as the Dipping Ponds, probably stew ponds for the abbot’s table. The Priory, so called for no reason, unless the proximity of the abbey ruins was one, was built some seventy years ago by Sir Harry Waring’s grandfather. His wife, a City heiress of considerable beauty, had persuaded him to employ an architect much in favour in her circles. The result was a pile which combined inconvenience and discomfort in the highest form. It was built round a central hall into which a skylight gently dripped whenever it rained, so that Sir Harry’s earliest remembrances were of bowls and basins on the floor tripping up the unwary. The bedrooms on the first floor were approached by a dark corridor, only lighted by leaded casements opening upon the hall. The kitchens were down several hundred yards of stone passage, the housekeeper’s room looked north into a fine laurel hedge, the kitchen, like the hall, was lighted only from the roof and badly at that. Guests, ladies’ maids and valets were often lost for a quarter of an hour at a time. The one bathroom in the original plan was about twenty feet by thirty and fifteen feet high and the bath a massive affair in a wide mahogany surround on a kind of dais, with an apse over the round end. Sir Harry’s father had divided the original bathroom into cubicles for hi
s hunting friends and sacrificed one or two of the smaller dressing-rooms to make bathrooms for the ladies, but the original water system which burnt about twenty tons of coal a week was still in full fling, copper pipes and all.

  When the war fell on England the Warings were at their wits’ end and saw themselves reduced to living in the staff quarters and letting the rest of the house decay, so they were on the whole grateful when, as we have heard, the army convalescent home that was to have been in Woolstaplers’ Hall was transferred to the Priory. The owners found themselves indeed living in the servants’ quarters, but though a more lavish age had thought them poky, they were far more comfortable than the great cold suites of rooms in the house, and the War Office, while putting in central heating and several dozen fixed basins, saw no objection to running the heating across to the servants’ wing and installing five surplus basins, two baths and an up-to-date gas cooker. An elderly kitchen-maid and an elderly housemaid were saved from the wreckage of the staff. Lady Waring’s ex-nannie who had been retired on a pension (there would never be any grandchildren for her to spoil since George Waring was killed just before the Armistice) ordered her widowed daughter to leave London and those nasty raids and come to her ladyship as useful maid. Selina Crockett came on approval. A pretty, plump creature, nearer fifty than forty, with uncontrollable tendrils of dark hair streaked with silver, and liquid eyes which filled with tears on the slightest provocation, she was as mild as her notable old mother was fierce and snappish, and being immediately approved, slipped into the life of the Priory as if she had always been in service.

  Lady Waring sometimes wondered whether she ought to be so comfortable, but as Sir Harry worked in town four days a week on matters connected with regimental charities, spent two days’ hard work on county jobs and was rarely free on Sundays, besides doing a good deal of the gardening, she hoped her comfort would be forgiven, wherever these things are judged, because it made a restful home for her husband. Sir Harry in much the same way felt that his lines had fallen in far too pleasant places for an old soldier, but was thankful that his wife, who between Red Cross, Girl Guides, Working Parties, Women’s Voluntary Service and a dozen other activities was as busy as he, besides less often having her evenings free, had a safe refuge for her brief leisure and Selina to look after her.

  Lady Waring drove the little car straight into the garage. Her husband locked it and they walked over to their own quarters. It was a cold raw evening and as Sir Harry opened the front door the blast of superheating which the War Office bestowed on them was extremely welcome. Selina Crockett came hurrying into the sitting-room to take her mistress’s coat and parcels.

  “What’s the matter, Selina? You’ve been crying,” said Lady Waring.

  “Oh no, my lady,” said Selina, crystal drops welling in her large eyes, “it’s only I was upset about Matron.”

  “What has Matron been up to?” asked Sir Harry, amused. “By Jove, it’s nice to see a fire. I get sick of all these offices with nothing but central heating. Been pinching the nurses’ rations?”

  “Oh no, sir,” said Selina wiping her eyes. “It’s her cat she was so fond of. It’s dead. She is so upset, my lady.”

  “Dear, dear,” said Lady Waring, not much interested in a cat with whom she was not personally acquainted.

  “It was dreadful, my lady,” Selina continued, again shedding a few lustrous tears. “Private Jenks borrowed a gun from Mr. Margett after tea to shoot a rabbit and he saw pussy climbing a tree and thought she was a squirrel, so he shot her, and it was the first time he’d got a squirrel and he was so pleased, and then he went to pick it up and it was Matron’s cat. He knew pussy at once because she was quite a favourite and only the day before some of the boys put her in a gas-mask and took a snap of her with her little face peeping out. Private Jenks was so upset, my lady. He wrapped her up in his handkerchief and brought her to Matron and said, ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve got here, miss,’ and Sister said Matron was so upset. And she’s coming in after dinner, please, Sir Harry.”

  “Who? Sister?” asked Sir Harry.

  “Oh no, Sir Harry. Matron,” said Selina. “She wants you to speak to Mr. Margett about letting the boys have guns. She says they’ll be shooting each other next, though that’s not so bad, she said, as a poor innocent little cat. Poor pussy looked so lovely when she was dead, Sir Harry. I know I oughtn’t to cry about a cat, my lady, but I am so upset.”

  She wiped her eyes apologetically, picked up coats and parcels and left the room.

  “Wonderful the way that woman can cry without sniffing,” said Sir Harry.

  “Dear Sophy!” said his wife.

  Sir Harry looked up from his evening paper.

  “Only literature, Harry,” said Lady Waring.

  “That’s all right, my dear,” said Sir Harry admiringly, and Lady Waring felt for the many thousandth time since her marriage what a prig she was and how little was the value of all the books she had been brought up on and lived by, whose people and phrases coloured her daily thoughts and modes of speech, compared with the honesty and common sense of her husband and his unfailing sense of duty. She wished, as so often before, that she could put this into words for her husband, to express her almost humble admiration of his goodness and kindness; but, as usual, too many tools to her hand, she hesitated among the exquisite choice of words that the English language offers, was helplessly dumb, and found no better solution than to kiss the thinning hair on the top of Sir Harry’s head.

  “I’m going to have my bath now,” she said, in a voice meant to explain to any unseen power that was hovering about how very unsentimental she really was. “I always feel so dirty after a day in Winter Overcotes. And Lucasta Bond was more trying than usual.”

  Sir Harry made an affectionate, absent-minded and approving noise.

  “Please, my lady,” said Selina, appearing at the door, “it’s Mr. Hamp. He says he is sorry but he couldn’t get here sooner and could you see him now.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Lady Waring. “I suppose so, Selina. Harry, do you mind?”

  “Mind what, dear?” said Sir Harry, looking up over the newspaper.

  “Mr. Hamp,” said his wife. “He has had my black skirt for four months and if I don’t let him try it on now I’ll probably not get it for another four months. I would take him into my bedroom but Selina stupidly turned the heating off when she was cleaning it and has only just turned it on, and he feels the cold in his head ever since nineteen-fifteen. We won’t disturb you.”

  “Carry on,” said Sir Harry.

  Selina opened the door again and let in Mr. Hamp, carrying over his arm the black skirt, swathed in a kind of cerecloth of shiny holland. Reft from the bespoke tailoring business at Worsted during the last war he had been sent to India where he got sunstroke and was kicked on the head by a mule. The result of these combined operations had been the loss of most of his hair, which had never grown again, and on the top of his head a peculiar bump or shelf which had a morbid attraction for his customers. By a providential arrangement he was a better hand with skirts than with coats, so while he circled about his ladies on his knees, his mouth full of pins, or measuring stick in hand, they were able to have a good look at the bump or shelf and wonder where on earth he kept his brains. Ever since his double accident he had been morbidly sensitive to cold, and his head was apt to assume a violet hue very terrifying to those who were not used to it. Though really a man’s tailor, he was willing to do his best for the local ladies and was not a bad hand at alterations.

  Lady Waring greeted him and said she would slip the skirt on in her room and come back. Accompanied by Selina, she disappeared.

  “Evening,” said Sir Harry. “Sit down.”

  Mr. Hamp, who had risen to the rank of corporal on the very day the mule kicked him, knew better than to sit down in the presence of a general and stiffened.

  “Things going all right?” said Sir Harry, who had already forgotten exactly who Mr. Hamp was and why
he was in the room, but wanted to show good feeling.

  “Well, sir, if you like to call them all right I suppose they are all right in a manner of speaking,” said Mr. Hamp cautiously, “but not what you’d really call all right.”

  “Bad show, eh?” said Sir Harry, still feeling his way.

  “Well, I don’t know about that, sir,” said Mr. Hamp broad-mindedly, “but what I say is, only a man as has cut trousers knows what trousers is.”

  “Rather,” said Sir Harry.

  “You see, sir,” said Mr. Hamp, encouraged by Sir Harry’s interest, “take a nice pair of gent’s trousers, say in a light summer suiting. If you leave a cuff, or turn-up as you may say, you make your turn-up and there it is.”

  He paused to let this sink in.

  “Eh?” said Sir Harry. “Oh, yes, there it is.”

  “Well, sir,” continued Mr. Hamp, “here comes the Government and says the cuff, or turn-up if I make myself clear, uses too much stuff, so it says, No more cuffs. Well, sir, a gentleman like you can easy see the mistake there.”

  “To tell you the truth, I can’t,” said Sir Harry. “It seems to me that a trouser with a cuff must use more stuff than a trouser without a cuff.”

  “Ah! that’s what they say,” said Mr. Hamp. “But if you’ll permit me to demonstrate, sir, I’ll prove to you the exact contrary. Now, look at your cuff, sir, a nice well-tailored cuff. To make that cuff, sir, you cut the leg so many inches longer than you need it, you turn it up so, stitch it so, and there you are.”

  As he spoke he kneeled in his enthusiasm and gave a practical demonstration by seizing the cuff of Sir Harry’s right trouser leg in his practised hands and turning it down. A halfpenny rolled out.

  “Good God! there’s the halfpenny I couldn’t find last night,” said Sir Harry, who always balanced his petty cash before he went to bed. “And what a filthy lot of fluff.”