Aunt Clara

by Noel Streatfeild

To raise their lowered morale George and Vera looked for Henry.

  Henry was washing the breakfast things in the kitchen, his ears alert for sounds from overhead. “Bet he wroughts ’em,” he thought. “No papers and on top of that they turns up. Can’t ’elp bein’ sorry for the poor old B.”

  George was a partner in a firm of solicitors. They were an old firm and had a large number of elderly clients, whose small incomes had been left in their charge. When it was necessary to see these clients it was usually George who saw them, with the result that he had acquired a manner which could shift easily from gently paternal to aloof severity, with a hint that the power of the law could, under certain circumstances, be invoked. He used the latter tone to Henry.

  “My Uncle seems to prefer to stay in this house. It’s not wise, nor what we wish, but he is getting on and it is understandable. You have undertaken a great responsibility, and as a family we will of course keep in constant contact with you.”

  Henry might have said a great deal, but he did not because he thought George a joke, and as he often said, he would put up with a lot for a good laugh.

  “I’ll do what I can for the old gen’leman, but as I s’pose ’e told you, I’m on night duty . . .”

  George had a well-controlled face, but Vera’s let her down. It was clear she was surprised. Henry began to enjoy himself. He thought of Simon staring sulkily at The Times and gave him in imagination an admiring pat on the back. “Not ’alf a comic the old pot and pan,” he thought. “Keeps ’isself to ’isself and why shouldn’t ’e? I bet ’e never told ’em nothin’.”

  George sounded as if the subject of his uncle’s nights was the very subject he had come to discuss.

  “A most unsatisfactory arrangement, most. Naturally something more suitable must be managed.”

  With large numbers of people becoming homeless nightly, Henry had already arranged with his post-warden that they would look out for a likely man to sleep in the house at night, but he was not telling George that. He said politely:

  “Yes, sir,” and looked expectant.

  George saw the expectant look and felt he was not making headway with Henry. Henry seemed difficult to impress. He had a dangerously confident air.

  “You must understand, my man, that we are a large family and fond of Mr. Hilton, and shall keep a careful eye on both his well-being and his affairs.”

  When George and Vera had gone Henry went whistling up the stairs to Simon.

  “Proper piece of starch, isn’t ’e? Didn’t ’alf look at me old-fashioned. You ought to ’ave ’eard ’im!”

  His imitation of George was very funny. Simon got over his bad temper and laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.

  “You haven’t seen the half of it. My brother William had five children. You wait, you’ll get to know them all before you’re through. God help you.”

  Simon’s prophecy came true. The war years drew Simon and Henry together. The first Christmas news came of the death of William. Simon made a joke of it.

  “Gone at last, has he? Been fadin’ ever since his wife died. God knows why, shockin’ fussy woman Constance was.”

  Henry was not deceived. William’s death had shaken Simon. He was his only brother, and his death brought the digging of his own grave nearer. “Looks proper rough, p’or old B,” he thought, and, as a mark of sympathy on his night off, he sat up late with Simon and got drunk with him.

  Two years later Peterson’s ship was torpedoed. Simon was not able to bring himself to say outright to Henry “Then you’re all I’ve got. You won’t leave me, will you?” But when a week or so later in an off-hand way he remarked “Can’t you get hold of a bit of paint and do up your bedroom?” Henry interpreted his meaning. The longing of a lonely old man for the feeling of permanence that the newly painted bedroom would give him, so, though Henry considered the bedroom fine as it was, he got hold of some paint and touched up the window and door. As long as the war lasted Henry was a working lodger who received his keep, there was no talk of wages. Henry discovered how Simon liked things done and became something approaching a valet, and Simon accepted a changing world, and not only stood in food queues, but learnt to understand the Food Office, and could, under pressure, wash up or prepare vegetables. Slowly a peace dream evolved. Henry’s interests were horses and greyhounds, and so were Simon’s. Once in a way they managed to get to a race meeting, and how they enjoyed it. It became understood that peace for them both would mean endless race meetings. At last money was discussed: Henry would earn what Peterson had earned; it was not a lot, in fact it was miserly by the new standards, but Simon added “and pickin’s.” Henry, who had tumbled to some of Simon’s sources of income, agreed happily; he could see there would certainly be pickin’s. As the war years passed Henry got to know in person or to hear of Simon’s relations. There was Lady Cole. She was Alice. “Married a damned common feller, somethin’ to do with the buildin’ trade, got knighted for somethin’ or other.” There was Maurice Hilton. “Silly fool, took Holy Orders, as if a dog collar wasn’t bad enough, had to marry a woman called Doris. Maurice! Doris! Idiotic!” There was Sybil. “Married a nasty bit of work called Paul Levington. Nancy type of feller, can’t bear him near me. Ought to be a law preventin’ that kind of feller breedin’. You’ll meet his son, my great-nephew Claud, one day. Disgustin’. I’d have drowned him in a pail of water if he had been mine.” The second eldest of the nephews and nieces was the one Henry had first heard of. Clara, the unmarried one, who had lived with her father until his death, and been described by Simon as “a proper old maid.” Henry saw more of Clara than some of the other members of the family. She was a proper old maid, and the busy sort, always wanting to do good to somebody, but she had her uses. It was she who had found out that Peterson had a mother, and without bothering the old man, had come in one day, packed his things, despatched them, and found out that Mrs. Peterson was for the time being all right for money, and added, evidently considering it a duty, that of course she would keep an eye on the situation and let her uncle know if he ought to do something. What made Clara different from the other relatives was that when she visited the house it was always to do something practical and helpful, and she never wished to see her uncle.

  “No, thank you, Henry. I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me. And don’t tell him I came up with this moth stuff. He would think I was interfering; you and I know that carpets and curtains are unobtainable nowadays, but of course he doesn’t, dear old thing.”

  As well as the nephews and nieces, Henry met the great-nephews and great-nieces. George and Vera’s Ronnie and Rita were ordered to call on their uncle when they had leave, the one from his regiment, the other from the W.R.N.S., and their Freda was brought to see him just before she left school. Alice Cole, as instructed by her husband, tried to persuade her uncle to attend her Ann’s marriage to Cyril Hind, and when he refused brought Ann and Cyril, again on her husband’s instructions, to visit him. Simon had behaved reasonably well during the visit, but as the party left he had called Ann back and whispered “Don’t marry him. Feller’s a cad, smelt it the moment he came in.” Alice’s second girl, Myrtle, was already married by that time to a pilot in the Air Force. Henry did not meet her until 1944, after her Frank had been killed. Nobody could fail to pity Myrtle, who had not only sincerely loved her husband, but was very obviously carrying his child. Henry never forgot that first time he met Mrs. Brain, for it caused one of the worst outbreaks of temper from Simon that he had yet seen, and at the same time showed him a new side to his old gentleman. The burden of the angry words which poured from Simon was that it was stupid for boys and girl who married without a penny between them to have babies; but if they had them it was their own responsibility; it was no good making sheep’s eyes at their relatives, expecting help. They didn’t understand that money was damned tight, and though you might seem to be all right you might have got it tied up in things you couldn’t sell at the present time if you wanted to.

 
“Proper upset ’e was,” Henry told his friends at the warden’s post later, “but ’e’d kick the bucket rather than say so; but I knew why ’e was creatin’; ’e’d ’ave liked to ’ave told ’er not to worry, ’e’d give ’er enough to live on comfortable, but ’e ’asn’t got it, not to be sure of it. ’e surprised me straight ’e did, didn’t think ’e cared what ’appened to any of ’em, especially Lady Cole’s lot. Any’ow I reckon that Sir Frederick’s got plenty, anyway enough to see after ’is daughter and the baby.”

  Henry met what he called “The Reverend Hilton” and Simon called “My damned fool nephew Maurice,” his wife, Doris, and their two schoolgirl daughters, Alice and Marjorie, at the time of Ann Cole’s wedding. Henry respected clergy. His father, not one given to respecting anybody, had hit him on one occasion for throwing a stone at the local Roman Catholic priest who was passing on his bicycle. “If I catch you doin’ that again you won’t ’alf cop it. You treat reverends proper, if you don’t need ’em before, you’ll need ’em for your buryin’.” The warning had taken root, when clergy crossed his path Henry remembered it. It shocked him, therefore, when Maurice Hilton, supported by his wife Doris, spent the whole time they were with their uncle telling him how poorly paid the clergy were, how nothing had been done to raise their income to match the cost of living, and how hard it was to give the girls a good education. Henry had heard these things with his own ears, for they had asked for tea and he was in and out of the room all the time they were in the house. “Sniv’lin’ type,” he thought, “only come ’ere for what ’e can get, ought to know better seein’ who ’e is.”

  The niece Sybil, her husband Paul Levington and his son Claud Henry only met once during the war, and then merely to open the front door for them for he was on his way to bed; but, fleeting glimpse though it was, he could tell that Simon had not exaggerated when he had described Paul as “nancy type,” and as for Claud! Claud had some heart trouble, which kept him out of the Services, and so was working at one of the ministries. Henry, watching him mince up the stairs in his rather too well-tailored suit, remembered what Simon had said about putting the baby in a pail of water and laughed. “’e ’asn’t ’alf got a comic lot of relatives, p’or old B.”

  * * * * *

  Henry, climbing the stairs with the paper, heard the angry, prolonged ringing of Simon’s bell. When the warden’s service was disbanded he had exchanged his blue tunic for the white linen coats that had been made for Peterson. He had disliked wearing them as he considered them degrading, but clothes being rationed he had been glad of anything to wear, and after a time had become accustomed to them, and had even on Simon’s behalf ordered himself some new ones. Now, as the bell rang, he took Simon’s letters out of one of his pockets. “If I had any sense I’d post this lot down the pan,” he thought. “No sense ’is relatives ’aven’t got, upsetting the p’or old B.” Then he opened Simon’s door.

  “’Mornin’, sir. Thought I’d ’ave you creatin’ but that’s nothin’ to what you’ll do when you’ve ’ad a dekko at this lot.” Henry put the letters in Simon’s hands. “Looks like they’ve all wrote. Smells like a put-up job to me.”

  Simon scowled at the letters.

  “I don’t see why my post should make you ten minutes late. Not taken to readin’ my letters now, have you?”

  Henry neatly placed two extra pillows behind the old man’s back.

  “Our postman’s ’ome from ’is ’oliday.”

  Simon’s eyes gleamed.

  “How’s he been doin’?”

  “’orrible. That chap ’e gets ’is information from has been no good lately, because the man ’e gets ’is information from, the one ’o works for a private trainer, has been away. I told the postman to pick us another smasher like that dog ’e gave us at Wimbledon.”

  Simon was turning over his letters, a look of disgust on his face. It was as if they exuded an unpleasant smell.

  “What do they want? They’re up to somethin’.”

  “Don’t ask me, sir. You ’ave a nice read of ’em while I get your breakfast.”

  When Henry came back with the breakfast tray Simon was in a temper. He had never had much colour, and with age the little he had had disappeared. In repose his face had the beauty of a skeleton leaf, the bone structure gleamingly white. His few remaining hairs were the same tint as his face, but his eyes had retained their colour, and in contrast appeared, if anything, more blue than they had in his youth, as they flashed with rage or twinkled with sly amusement. Now, as he looked up at Henry, they had a frosty glint, and there was a patch of colour on each cheekbone.

  “What d’you think my damn family have thought up now, Henry?”

  Henry placed the bed-table over Simon’s knees. It was rising five years ago that Simon had taken to his bedroom more or less permanently. A sharp attack of influenza had affected an already diseased heart. The doctor had said he doubted if the old man would be able to get about much in future. He had added sensibly that he didn’t want to bully the old fellow. He had had a pretty good innings, but there was no need to make a prisoner of him, he had a right to depart in his own way. Henry must use tact to get him to stay at home as much as possible, but it was unlikely he would have the energy to do much. The doctor had been right; there was no statement from Simon, but as day followed day, ordinary convalescence from influenza slipped into semi-invalidism, and Simon left such of his affairs, which would take him out of the house, in Henry’s hands. In many ways Simon seemed to enjoy life from outside, brought to him second-hand by Henry, more than he had enjoyed the dreary post-war life he had seen for himself. Henry was clever with him. It was bad for the old man to be upset, and with ingenuity almost anything could be told in such a way that he would not be upset. When something he had money in went wrong Henry often held up the news until he could couple it with something that had gone right. Even when that was not possible there was usually a funny side to make him laugh. Trouble always came from the same direction, one or other of his relations. Henry respected relations, however tiresome. Relatives were relatives, and as such had their rights. When alive, if necessary, a share of what you had, even to a bit of your home; in death regular visits to their graves and flowers. Association with Simon had taught him that he was without conscience when it came to relations. Never once, when he had the health and strength to do it, had he visited his only brother’s grave. He had never sent flowers, not even a bit of holly at Christmas. It was true his relations only troubled about him because they hoped for a bit when he was gone, but that was natural; if relations had a bit he supposed you would hope for a share of it one day. What he really held against Simon’s relatives was the stupid way they behaved. They ought to know the old man hated being visited without notice, yet they all did it. They all knew he hated presents, but at Christmas and on his birthday presents turned up. They all knew letters bored him, but they all wrote, and even made the great-great nephews and nieces write as soon as they could hold a pencil. To-day was the worst ever. Except for special days he never remembered them all writing by the same post. He looked anxiously at the colour on Simon’s cheekbones.

  “No need to excite yourself whatever they’ve wrote. We’ve got better thin’s to do than worry about letters. You ’ave a look at the papers and pick us some winners, and ’ave a look what I’ve got for your breakfast.”

  Simon looked at his plate, and was pleased but was not going to admit it.

  “What is it?”

  “A kidney, and you eat it while it’s ’ot, I ’ad to crawl to the butcher like a bloomin’ snake to get it.”

  Simon ate a piece of kidney.

  “It’s about me birthday.”

  Henry poured out Simon’s coffee.

  “August. Well, we could do with a bit of cheerin’ up in August. No good races and that. I reckon now we don’t get away, as a month it’s a bit off.”

  The colour flared more brightly on Simon’s cheekbones. He laid down his knife and fork and searched a
mongst his letters and threw one to Henry.

  “Read that. It’s from me nephew George’s wife.”

  Henry read the letter.

  “DEAREST UNCLE SIMON,

  “Your family would like to make an occasion of your eightieth birthday. August is such a difficult month that we have decided that the last Saturday in July would be a better time and would suit everybody. George could call for you in a hire car with an experienced driver, who can help Henry carry you down. We thought a quiet family luncheon in a private room would be what you would like.

  “I believe most of the family are also writing, but if you would let us know your answer we will pass it on.

  “Your affectionate niece,

  “VERA”

  Henry put the letter back in its envelope.

  “You can say no. You don’t ’ave to go just because you’ve ’ad an invite. You’ll ’ave to be a bit of a ’oly friar, can’t say right out you don’t want to go, but we’ll think up somethin’.”

  Simon was not attending to Henry, he was following a private train of thought, and the longer he followed it the angrier he grew.

  “July! July! Me family want to celebrate me eightieth birthday in July! August is a difficult month! But I happened to be born in August. I’m goin’ to be eighty in August, and nobody is goin’ to fob me off with a party in July, because it suits ’em better than the proper day.”

  Henry pushed the cup and saucer nearer to Simon’s hand.

  “’ow you do run on. Eat your breakfast and stop creatin’. After breakfast you can write an’ say you won’t ’ave no party. Matter of fact you far better not, you’ve only been out once this year, and then you carried on alarmin’ when we was gettin’ you down the stairs.”

  Simon pointed at the rest of the letters with his fork.

  “Never heard such impertinence. If I keep me birthday at all I’ll keep it on the right day, and not on some fancy time picked to suit themselves by me nephews and nieces.” He swallowed his last piece of kidney. “Take this plate and pass those letters here, I’ll read you some of the charmin’ thin’s they say.”