“Eastbourne. How clever of you, Mr. Willis. You’ll write? Oh no, I think I must write to them myself. I’m sure that’s what Uncle Simon would wish, and carrying out his wishes exactly in the way he would like is what we all want, isn’t it? Oh no, Mr. Willis . . .”
“Strewth,” said Henry feelingly to the potato he was peeling.
* * * * *
Borthwick’s Circus was preparing for the first house when Samuel Borthwick received Clara’s letter. Sam was not one who enjoyed reading letters, he left letter reading and letter writing to his wife Bess; but he did glance at the signature and it bothered him. As ringmaster he did not get much time to think of anything but his artists and animals during the show, but at those moments when he could take his mind off his work he turned over the name Hilton, trying to remember where he had heard it before. As soon as the show was over he went in search of Bess. He found her sitting on a chair outside their caravan; he tossed Clara’s letter into what had once been her lap, but as she grew older had become a well-padded incline from waist to knees.
“That come. I haven’t read it.”
Bess read the letter, folded it, put it back in its envelope, then tucked it down the front of her dress between her gigantic breasts, and waddled laboriously up the caravan steps to prepare the tea. Increasing fat had in no way dimmed Bess’s wits; by the time the tea was ready and she and Sam seated at the table, she had digested Clara’s letter and decided what to do about it. There was fried fish for tea; she ate half hers before she was ready to speak.
“When you saw Ruby that last time in hospital before she passed over, what else did she say except about the children?”
At all times Sam dreaded Bess getting on to the subject of Ruby, but as a rule it was something he had done which started her off; to-day he had done nothing, so his tone showed resentment.
“Why bring her up now? You know all she said. I told you a hundred times, she asked if I’d train . . .”
Bess stopped him with an imperiously-raised fork.
“Did she say anything about a person called Hilton?”
Sam put down his knife and fork. Of course, that was it. Fool that he was not to have remembered. He could have kicked himself for giving Bess the letter to read. Not knowing what Clara had written he answered with caution.
“Come to think of it I believe she did. Why?”
“What was it she said?”
“Nothing really. Something about there being the name and address of a Mr. Hilton amongst her bits of things which she had given Julie when she was brought to see her. She said it was someone the kids could get help from if needed.”
“Didn’t you ask who he was?”
“No. Ruby was wandering a bit. Mentioned several names, but you know how she was about men.”
Bess eyed him sternly.
“I ought to.”
Sam hurried to cover his slip.
“Never thought of the name again till it caught my eye on that letter; it’s been nagging at me where I’d heard it.”
“It’s from a Clara Hilton, a niece she says, of the Mr. Hilton Ruby knew. Mr. Hilton’s just passed over and she’s come into what he had, and left her a list of things he wanted done, and one was to look up Julie and Andrew.”
“What for?”
Bess’s voice was carefully disinterested.
“How should I know? This Mr. Hilton knew Ruby at some time I suppose.”
“Maybe admired her act, there’s many remember that.”
Bess’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“Most men knew her closer than on a flying trapeze, as I’ve reason to know.”
Sam slammed down his teacup and got up.
“It’s a nice thing to spoil my tea raking up that past history which should be forgotten.”
“Can’t very well forget it with Julie and Andrew around.”
“That settles it. I’ll let them go; we’re lucky Andrew’s stayed with us so long, he’s had offers enough.”
Bess had not intended to goad Sam that far.
“How you do carry on. Of course they’re not going. We adopted them, didn’t we, and whatever I may think of their mother they’re like my own children, and you know it. Sit down and finish your tea.” She waited until Sam had resettled himself. “I’ll write to this Clara Hilton and tell her our next date is Hastings. If she could come on the Wednesday she could see the show, and the kids after.”
Sam pondered this while he finished his tea.
“Be all right I suppose; seems funny though, you’d think he’d have come himself if he was interested, not leave it to his niece to do when he was gone.”
Bess’s mind was on Clara’s visit.
“I’ll have a word with her during the show. I’ll ask her to say it was her was a friend of their mother’s. If they knew it was her uncle who was, it might get them thinking things, and we don’t want that, having brought them up to suppose Ruby had her marriage lines.”
“Julie’s still got the things Ruby left; it was Mr. Hilton she said was wrote down.”
Bess got up to clear the table.
“On your way to the big top send Julie to me. I’ll make it all right. Brought up nicely the way they’ve been they won’t get thinking things unless someone puts them into their heads.”
When Julie reached the Borthwicks’ caravan Bess had finished her letter to Clara and was stamping the envelope. Julie was a slim, well-made girl, with brown eyes and what should have been brown hair, but was peroxided and dyed a brassy gold, for neither Sam nor Bess thought brown hair good for show business. She was dressed ready for the parade in a pink tarlatan tutu; she had her wrap round her shoulders and clogs over her pink shoes. Bess looked at her, a loving smile on her lips.
“Hallo, dearie. There’s a friend of your Mum’s written to say she’s coming to see you and Andrew at Hastings. Name of Hilton, Clara Hilton.”
Julie sat on the table. She looked at Bess with amused affection.
“When did she know Mother?”
“I don’t know, dear, perhaps a school friend. She’ll tell you.”
From where Julie sat she could see down the front of Bess’s dress, and had spotted the envelope folded between her breasts. She asked, though she knew the answer before she spoke, if she could see the letter, and her eyes twinkled as Bess looked round in a puzzled way, and told her of course she could, but she did not know where she had put it, then, lest she was bothered with further questions, dismissed her by asking her to post her letter to Clara.
Julie clattered up the steps of her caravan. Andrew was lying on his bed in the outer room, reading a paper. Their mother had been red-headed and Andrew took after her. He had an athlete’s body, and the shut-up face of one who, dedicated to physical achievement, finds thought a burden. Julie rushed into her room and pulled open a drawer.
“Have you seen Mother’s envelope lately?” Then, triumphantly, “I’ve got it.” She brought an envelope into the outer room and sat down at the table. “Aunt Bess says there’s a friend of Mother’s coming to see us at Hastings, a woman called Hilton. I’m sure the name Hilton’s on Mother’s list.”
“There isn’t a woman on Mother’s list.”
“Of course not. That was only what Aunt Bess said, you know how she is. I thought so, here it is, Mr. Simon Hilton. He comes high on the list, so it looks as if he was one of the ones who was told he was our father.”
“Why’s a woman coming then?”
Julie put her mother’s letter back in its envelope.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t get hold of the letter, it was parked down Aunt Bess’s front. I should think he’s sending her, perhaps he’s ill or something. You know Aunt Bess only parks things down her front that are secret, so it would be my guess there was something in it about Mr. Simon Hilton being our father, for she’d never let Uncle Sam know anyone else thought they were if she could help it; after all, look at the things she makes him do because she pretends she thinks he is.”
Andrew sat up and went to the door and looked out.
“Nice queue for the cheaps. Perhaps she’s coming to see if we look like Mr. Simon Hilton, who’s her husband I suppose.”
“Won’t do her much good looking at me, it isn’t even as if I took after Mother, but you know what people are, they always see likenesses that they want to see. Look at the way Aunt Bess makes herself pretend to Uncle Sam we look like him, though she knows, except for your hair, you’re the image of that American Mother was doing her act with when you were thought of, and that everybody knows it.”
Andrew put his clogs over his ring shoes.
“I’d be glad if Mrs. Hilton did think we looked like Mr. Simon Hilton. I’m sorry for Uncle Sam, he’d be glad to have that cleared up.”
Julie looked at Andrew as if he were a child of eight instead of a youth of sixteen.
“Idiot! He’d hate it. Of course he doesn’t like Aunt Bess getting at him, but when she isn’t there he doesn’t mind people pretending we’re his, it makes him feel sort of manly; after all, Mother was the sort of person all kinds of men liked, and though Aunt Bess is an angel, nobody could say she was a glamour-puss.”
Andrew turned and looked at Julie.
“I shouldn’t think Mr. Simon Hilton’s wife could think you like him; he’s probably a very ordinary man, and Mother told you your father was a marquis, at least you think she did.”
Julie went into her room and put the letter back in the drawer.
“I wish I could remember exactly, but it was all such a muddle, and I was frightened in the hospital. I was thinking about it when we worked Maidstone. On the way we passed a big pub in South London called ‘The Marquis of Granby.’ You see, Mum couldn’t speak properly any more, and she might have been telling me she was staying there when I was started . . .”
Andrew, now that the evening show was about to start, had lost interest in anything outside his work. Julie accepted this, it was always so. Resignedly she dropped the, to her, intriguing subject of her parentage, and followed Andrew towards the dressing tents.
Clara was having her breakfast when Bess’s letter arrived. Henry ran up the stairs with it, for he knew how pleased she would be. Clara had all her meals at a small table in the drawing-room. Henry stood in the door waving an envelope.
“They’ve wrote. Look, Miss Clara, it’s got Borthwick Circus printed.”
Clara read Bess’s letter. Then she looked anxiously at Henry.
“It’s from Mrs. Borthwick. She says they will be at Hastings next week, and if I go down on Wednesday I could see the show; she says Mr. Borthwick would be pleased to pass me in, do you know what that means?”
“Get in on the nod, free like.”
“How very kind, and I can meet the children afterwards. What’s worrying me is Mr. Willis. I don’t like not to tell him that we’re going, it would seem deceitful as he was so kind finding out where the circus was and everything, but I’m afraid he’s going to be cross with me.”
“You didn’t write to the kids, did you, not after promising ’im you wouldn’t?”
“Not to the children, to Mr. Borthwick, in the way Mr. Willis advised me not to. Not because I don’t trust Mr. Willis, but because before I wrote I looked at the family group. You know, Henry, it may sound foolish, but it’s a very speaking likeness of the dear old man, and I felt, looking at it, that he would not have liked any deception. He wrote openly and bravely in his will about the Marquis children, and looking at his portrait I knew that he would wish me to write quite openly to Mr. Borthwick. So I did.”
Henry thought of Simon, and his thoughts were not respectful to the dead. He could see him sitting up in bed, spectacles on nose, his eyebrows rising and falling as, choking with laughter, he described Clara looking at his portrait. “Lookin’ at me as if I were somethin’ in a church.” The worst of it was Henry could not say any of the things he knew about Simon to Clara, not out of loyalty to the old man’s memory, but because Clara would not so much disbelieve him as brush away what he said. “Oh, Henry, you don’t mean that, you were very fond of him, and try just as hard as I do to do everything as he would have liked it done.” Since Simon’s death Henry had time to see his friends. Amongst those he had looked up was his friend Nobby. To Nobby, after he had described Simon’s end and the contents of the will, he had struggled to explain the situation.
“Lovely lady she is, very religious-minded with it. It’s a shame leavin’ all those wishes, just’avin’ ’er on ’e was, and so she’ll know later when she sees everythin’.”
Nobby, though known as a rare one for a good laugh, did not laugh at the story of Clara’s inheritance; taking a religious-minded lady into places where she did not belong and had no right to be was no laughing matter.
“You did ought to tip ’er off ’enery. Straight you did.”
Henry fumbled for words to explain.
“You can’t. You see, she never knew ’im like, not to know ’im, and she thinks leavin’ ’er everythin’ was a sacred trust, those are ’er words. Well, what can I say? ‘urtin’ ’er would be like kickin’ a cat, you know, what can’t do nothin’ to protect itself.”
“What about the mouthpiece, what’s ’e say?”
Henry shook his head.
“Mr. Willis. Very pleasant gentleman, but I couldn’t fancy talking to ’im, not seein’ what I know. I keep me mouth shut when ’e’s around, what ’e finds out ’e finds out for himself. You take the dogs. Well, it’s all right really what’s done, and Perce treats them wonderful and Mrs. Perce is like a mother to ’em, but you know ’ow mouthpieces are, and Perce wouldn’t thank me bringin’ one along askirt’ questions and that.”
Now, as Clara admitted that she had done what Charles had advised her not to do, Henry thought of this conversation with Nobby. Mr. Willis might be a mouthpiece, and as such not far removed from a copper, but he had his uses. Nobby had been right there. He looked at Clara’s kind blue eyes gazing at him trustfully from behind her pince-nez, and spoke as he would have spoken to a well-intentioned but wrong-doing child.
“You didn’t ought to ’ave done that, Miss Clara, not after Mr. Willis tellin’ you not to, straight you didn’t; you don’t want to go tellin’ people thin’s what maybe they needn’t never know, it isn’t ’ealthy; next thin’ you know they’ll be askin’ for money.”
“They won’t unless they are in need, and if they’re in need, then they must have it; it was Mr. Hilton’s wish they should be kept from want.”
“You oughtn’t to be allowed out, that’s a fact. I tell you one thin’, if you don’t ring up Mr. Willis I will, ’e says to me, I was to look after you; ’ow was I to know you was writin’ on the sly, tellin’ them thin’s what there was no need they should know.”
Clara got up.
“I’ll tell him myself. I don’t really mind his knowing now. I wrote what my conscience told me to write, and even if he’s cross he can’t take that letter back.”
Charles groaned when he heard Clara’s confession. He had tried to persuade her if she must write, to let him rough out the letter she should write. Clara had refused, but he thought he had got a promise out of her that her letter would not mention the possibility of Simon being their father.
“Miss Hilton! You are difficult to help. Don’t you see what you may have done? You won’t have a farthing for yourself if you go round telling people your uncle might be their father, and they are to be kept from want.”
“But it’s what Uncle Simon wished.”
“Well, you can’t go to Hastings alone.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m not used to circus people. Henry’s coming with me, and imagine, Mr. Borthwick is passing us in, which Henry says means free seats, isn’t that kind? Do you know, nobody ever gave me a free seat for anything before.”
Charles, apart from not caring to miss anything, could not feel Henry would be sufficient guard. He could picture Clara, pleased with the circus, making reckless promises right and lef
t.
“If you like I’ll drive you down.”
Clara gave a pleased squeak.
“Oh, how very kind! I’ll tell Henry at once. What a treat! A drive to Hastings and a circus: I’m afraid you’ll think me very silly, but I’m like a child at the thought of the circus, I haven’t seen one for years.”
On the next Wednesday the first house was about to begin when Charles’s green Jaguar turned into the circus parking ground. Bess, from the door of her caravan, watched Charles open the door for Clara. She was not close enough to see more than Clara’s outline. “Looks a bit homely for a friend of Ruby’s,” she thought. “Still, she needn’t have been in show business, and I daresay Ruby would have gone off a bit herself if she was still alive.”
Andrew did not see the car arrive, but Julie had been watching out for it.
“She’s in front, I saw her passed in,” she told Andrew as she climbed on the rosin back for the parade. “She came in a posh car, with two men. I shouldn’t think it’s her car, she looks poor. I hope Mr. Simon Hilton isn’t ill or something and expects us to cough up.”
“Us! Why should he?”
“I’m your poor old father stuff.”
Andrew walked on stilts for the parade. He climbed a stepladder and sat on the top of it to fasten the stilts. When they were on and someone had pulled his trouser legs over them, he had digested what Julie had said. He leant down to her.
“If he’s really poor, we’d have to do something I suppose; we’ve got a bit in the Post Office, and if he knew our mother I expect she had quite a bit off him.”
Julie fluffed up the skirt of her tutu.
“Don’t you dare mention our savings. I suppose we might help a little if he knew Mother, but she’s got no real right to ask us to help him, and don’t you let her think she has.”
Clara was given a pass for a plush-lined ringside box seating four. Charles, not usually given to thinking of the effect he might have on others, glancing round, wondered with amusement what anyone looking their way would make of their party. To meet the Marquis children Clara was wearing what she considered her best outfit, a grey dress in her usual voluminous style, trimmed with beaded braiding, over it she wore a loose black coat, and a rather end-of-summer black straw hat, trimmed with what had once been expensive flowers. Utterly unself-conscious, she beamed happily at the ring and the audience through her pince-nez, uttering at intervals pleased, childlike chirrups. “Isn’t this a treat?” “Oh look, Henry, that’s where they are coming from, do you see those horses?” “What lovely seats, how kind of Mr, Borthwick!” On her left sat Henry in a shiny blue suit, holding a black bowler, which had belonged to Simon. His body was rigid, but his sparrow-like eyes under his thinning hair darted from side to side missing nothing. No one around them looked as though they were psychologists, but had they been how would they place Henry in juxtaposition to Clara? Or himself in relation to either? To visit the circus he was wearing ordinary country clothes; he might, of course, be taken for Clara’s son, only Clara looked so virginal.
Aunt Clara Page 10
