Clara had been refreshed by the children’s service she had attended, and would have liked to tell Henry about it. Henry, apart from the fact that he did not want hymns recited to him, was rehearsing in his mind what Perce was to say to Clara. It would not be an easy afternoon for Clara was so convinced of the rightness of anything arranged by Simon it was hard to prepare her for the way the Perces lived. Jolting along on the tram Henry had tried several openings, but Clara dismissed them.
“You don’t understand, Henry. In my work I’ve been used to visiting all manner of homes. If my uncle, dear old man, chose this place for his greyhounds I am sure he had very good reasons.”
“What I was meanin’ was Perce’s set-up might seem a bit rough to you like.”
“As long as the dogs are happy and well fed I shall be quite satisfied.”
To Henry the journey to Perce’s home might, as he had told Nobby, be only a step, for he had always used generic terms for large areas of London: “up West,” “out Barking way.” Perce’s home and the mission were neighbours only in that they were both S.E. Clara panted beside Henry through a jigsaw of squalid little streets, under low railway arches and across bomb sites. Thinking of a tired body or tired feet was not only a sin, but made the tiredness worse. As she plodded along she attempted to keep her mind off herself, and her faith bright, not only in the ways of God but in the spot to which He had guided Simon to keep his dogs, by recalling how splendidly right Simon’s arrangements, that she had so far seen, had proved to be.
“It may seem rather a long walk, Henry, but there is sure to be a reason. Look at those dear people, the Borthwicks, bringing Julie and Andrew up splendidly. I’ve not yet decided about ‘The Goat in Gaiters,’ but if there must be public-houses how merciful there are kind folk like the Frossarts to live in them.”
Clara’s words took Henry’s mind off the coming visit to Perce. Must be a bit of all right having a pub. ‘Specially a pub like “The Goat in Gaiters.” Plenty of company, and your own hens and cows and that, and a nice field to keep them in. Clara was distressed to find that her thoughts refused to go where she sent them, but returned obstinately to her body. Constant service given to the bodies of others had caused her to ignore her own, but now it refused to be ignored. She had been tired recently; this would not have troubled her had it not meant it slowed up her thoughts and actions. It was, she supposed, only to be expected that she should be tired: there were the long journeys to and from the mission, and there were her responsibilities which, wrong though she knew it to be to worry, worried her. So difficult to reconcile the rules of life by which she had lived with the various properties she had been left. How could you keep your temperance vows and yet own a “Goat in Gaiters?” How reconcile your duty to God who, it was understood, disapproved of gambling, and your duty to a dear old uncle, who had entrusted to you not only racing dogs and race horses, but something called “Gamblers’ Luck Limited?” The missioner at the mission, dear good man though she had always found him to be, had been a little unhelpful when asked for advice. He had talked about the responsibility of riches, and had quoted the Bible: “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which be Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.” But when she had asked him to define which of Uncle Simon’s property should be considered God’s, and which Cæsar’s, he had seemed to suggest that if any profits there might be came to the mission then all her property, no matter how unlikely, belonged to God, whereas, if the profits went elsewhere, everything belonged to Cæsar. It was most confusing. It must, Clara supposed, be worry which made her, who all her life had slept soundly, now spend much of her nights awake. If it had not been that lack of sleep was making her muddle-headed she would not have minded her wakeful nights, for they gave her an opportunity to study Simon’s face in the family group. She drew great comfort from looking at Simon’s face; he seemed, with his twinkling eyes, so alive, as if he were on the verge of nodding to her and saying, “Don’t distress yourself, I’m sure you are doing your best.”
Clara tried not to let Henry see she was breathless and tired. It was so good of him to give up his Sunday afternoon for this visit to her dogs, but finally she had to ask him to slow down.
“A little slower, Henry, I’m rather a fat old thing, you know.”
Henry looked at Clara, and was dismayed, for she had turned a greyish colour.
“You look a bit rough, are you all right?”
Clara managed to laugh.
“Of course I am, but you were hurrying rather, and I’m not as young as I was.”
Henry put a hand under Clara’s arm.
“Just another coupl’a streets and across a bomb site and there we are. You lean on me.”
Clara was glad of Henry’s hand, but it shocked her that she should need it, for always before when hands were needed hers had been the ones to support.
“I must be eating too much. You feed me too well, Henry.”
“You don’t eat no more’n a sparrer; anyway I reckon you’re thinner than what you was before the old gentleman was took.”
“Nonsense. But if I am it’s all the travelling we do. The day at the circus and the day at Ashford. I’m usually such a stay-at-home old thing.”
“You didn’t ought to do too much, there’s no ’urry.”
Clara stopped.
“Oh, but Henry, there is. Did you hear that hymn we sung at the end of our service this afternoon? ‘Forward! Be our watchword, Steps and voices joined; Seek the things before us, Not a look behind.’”
Henry urged Clara on.
“’ymns is all right in their proper place, but you don’t want to take them too serious. What’s the ’urry? You seen the Marquis kids, an’ fixed up them comin’ to stay. You seen ‘The Goat in Gaiters.’ You’re seein’ the dogs . . .”
“But I have not seen my horses, nor Gamblers’ Luck Limited, and I’ve not seen Mrs. Gladys Smith.”
Henry saw this was his opportunity to put over his plan for visiting the horses.
“I been thinkin’ of the ’orses. It was Perce’s brother Alfie what used to keep ’em, you know, but Alfie’s dead now, and ’is son Andy carries on like. It come to me Mr. Willis might run us up to give ’em the once over when the kids is stayin’.”
“Oh, I don’t think I ought to trouble Mr. Willis, he’s been more than kind as it is.”
Henry directed Clara towards a large bomb site. He replied soberly, giving no hint of how funny he considered her answer to be.
“No ’arm in tellin’ ’im we’re goin’. ’e needn’t offer if ’e don’t feel like it.”
Clara stopped walking. She gazed across the bomb site.
“Do we have to cross that? Isn’t there a road?”
Henry could see how bleak the surroundings to the Perces’ home appeared to Clara.
“Road! Never ’ave roads along side of where racin’ dogs ’angs out. Quiet’s what they need. Perce and Mrs. Perce thinks no end of this place. Lovely walks the dogs get and no one narkin’ round.”
Clara was ashamed of herself. How distressing for Henry to think she queried Simon’s choice of a home for his dogs.
“I’m just an ignorant old thing, I’m afraid sometimes you must lose patience with me.” She had not sufficient energy to cross the bomb site without a rest. Unwilling to explain this she returned to the subject of her property. “Have you ever seen Gamblers’ Luck being played, Henry? Mr. Willis tells me it’s a kind of game.”
Henry knew that the money Simon had put into Gamblers’ Luck Limited had been a lucky investment. It had been at the Derby that Simon had first fallen in with the showman who had put up the idea. Simon, with Henry, had arrived early on the racecourse and Simon had said they would go over and see what was doing at the fair. Henry, who could throw a nice dart, had been collecting cigarettes by this means, at the moment when Simon and the showman got together, and so had missed the conversation during which Gamblers’ Luck was born. He knew old Simon had been pleased with him
self, for he had chuckled at intervals all that day, and in the following weeks, whenever he had attended a conference with the showman, had returned in remarkably good form. A year later Simon had travelled around watching Gamblers’ Luck working, and he had taken Henry with him. Henry thought nothing of Gamblers’ Luck as entertainment, but now that the question was asked he saw that Clara must be made to approve of it, as without her shares she might be short of money. As they picked their way round the remains of houses, rubble, and rubbish, he felt for words in which to make Clara see her property in a favourable light.
“Well, Miss Clara, it’s a kid’s game really. There’s two great wheels see. On one there’s pictures of birds, and on the other flowers. You get a ticket, and on it’s wrote the name of a bird, and the name of a flower. Robin Rose or Daisy Thrush. Well, presently the wheel starts to go round and there’s lights inside so you can see the pictures, and when the wheels stop the one what ’as the right bird opposite of the right flower gets a prize.”
“It sounds a very pretty game,” Clara panted. “The children would so enjoy it at the mission. What are the prizes?”
Henry thought back into the past. He remembered fine prizes by the standards of fairs in nineteen forty-seven, but he also remembered that whenever the crowd was big enough for the showman to risk it, no one held the winning ticket, though the crowd was made to believe that they did. If that was going on now, and there was no reason to suppose it was not since it had been part of the original plan, Miss Clara must be kept from noticing it; maybe the Marquis kids could help.
“All sorts. Dolls and that. I tell you what, the kids would enjoy it. I’ll ’ave a look round and find where it’s showin’. It’s always workin’ somewhere.”
Clara was used to seeing appalling living conditions, but the Perces’ house was a shock to her. It had, with the rest of the street of which it had been a part, been condemned for over thirty years. It was bug-ridden, damp and, when the Thames rose, infested by sewer rats. Of all the houses in an insanitary street the Perces’ had been the frailest, ricketiest and foulest. In the impoverished nineteen-thirties when authority had decided that, however hard the times, the street must go, the Perces’ house, the last in the row, had seemed to remain standing merely by being attached to its neighbour. Just as demolition work was about to start the war had broken out, and in nineteen-forty a land mine did the demolition work; but in the strange way of blast the Perces’ house was by-passed, and left standing alone in a wilderness of ruins. Even in nineteen-forty, with homes growing scarcer nightly, the house would have been allowed to fall of its own accord had not Perce and Mrs. Perce been in residence, and, seeing what had been an overcrowded area unsuitable for exercising dogs, in a night become an open space, admirable for their purpose, had refused to move. The house had therefore been shored up and, though authority frequently sighed over it, was allowed to stand since nobody could suggest alternative accommodation for the Perces with their dogs.
The Perces saw Clara and Henry picking their way across the ruins and went out to meet them. There was little to choose between Clara and Mrs. Perce in shape, and, cleanliness aside, a great similarity in dress. Instead of Clara’s sealskin coat Mrs. Perce wore what had been a coat of black velvet, its pile was now matted and had an appearance of growing in two directions. Clara, under her coat, wore a roomy maroon-coloured dress trimmed with coral braid, Mrs. Perce an equally roomy dress of green cloth trimmed with jet beading. On Clara’s head was a hat of shapeless black felt trimmed with a piece of velvet. Mrs. Perce had a similar hat trimmed with violets.
Clara used a little lavender water on her handkerchief when at the mission, for it was usual for her nose to meet unpleasant smells. In greeting Mrs. Perce she was glad of her handkerchief, for the smell exuded from Mrs. Perce’s clothes was formidable. Perce was a pot-bellied man who, in spite of shabby town clothes, had the air of a country man. It was easy, by closing the eyes, to re-dress him in the dateless, earth-coloured garments of a farm labourer. Both Perces shouted a boisterous welcome; the shouting was necessary for they had to make themselves heard above loud barkings of dogs. Greetings over, Mrs. Perce looked in friendly concern at Clara.
“You’re tired out, ducks, and no wonder; quite a step from ‘The Dog and Pigeon’ and crossing the bomb site doesn’t ’alf make you feel your feet.”
Perce gave Clara’s ribs a friendly nudge with his elbow.
“May be ‘ard on the feet, but what I say is it’s an ill wind: what done nobody a bit of good. The times I said to Mrs. Perce what we needs is a proper place for the dogs to exercise, for I used to have to take ’em walkin’ for miles, then what ’appens? ’itler drops a bomb, blows the ’ole place sky-’igh and there’s the place for our dogs, just where I wanted it. Might say it was an answer to prayer re’lly.”
Mrs. Perce laid a dirty hand on Clara’s arm.
“You come in, I got the kettle boilin’, better ’ave a sit down before you see the dogs.”
Clara was tired, but she had come to see her dogs, and was not shirking her duty.
“It’s very considerate of you, but I think I should see the dogs now before it’s quite dark.” Clara turned to Perce. “Henry tells me your mother was a friend of my dear old uncle’s.”
Perce had not been briefed only by Henry as to what should be said to Clara, but rehearsed by Mrs. Perce. He swallowed nervously, trying to recall exactly what he ought to reply. Henry prompted him.
“I was tellin’ Miss Clara Mr. ’ilton was like a father to you and Alfie, that’s right, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Perce was quicker on the uptake than Perce. Her meetings with her mother-in-law had mainly been in the police courts, where she had gone in place of Perce to pay her fines for soliciting, or for being drunk and incapable. Poor Marie, when she had known her, could have been nobody’s fancy, but both Perce and Alfie could vaguely remember the good days when she had been pretty, and there was always money about. They remembered how Mr. Hilton would arrive suddenly at the comfortable little suburban house where they had lived, his pockets bulging with presents, a bottle of wine under each arm. His arrival meant they were almost immediately sent to bed, but both recalled there were compensations, how they went to sleep replete with sweets, clutching expensive toys. Neither Perce nor Alfie remembered what had happened next. Other men came to the house, and their mother was frequently drunk, and later took to street walking, but both knew that Simon had no part in their changed conditions, but had remained fond of their mother and a friend to her sons. Through Simon, Perce and Alfie had spent their summers in the country, which was the beginning of Alfie’s interest in horses and, later, Perce’s in dogs, and it was Simon who had started them on their careers. Mrs. Perce had, in the past, discussed with both Alfie and Perce the possibility of their being Simon’s sons, but neither had believed it. Their theory was that their mother, though a hopeless bad lot, had been a charmer when young and that Simon, though probably well aware of what she was and what she would become, had genuinely loved her. As far as they knew she had treated him abominably, but he had been given real affection by both of them. “You don’t want to tell Miss Clara no more than what you must about your Ma, Perce,” Henry had said. “She’s dead and gone now, and there’s no need Miss Clara should be upset ’earing what she was; proper turned up she’d be, seein’ what a store she sets by the old B, callin’ ’is wishes sacred and that. All you needs to say is your Ma was a friend of ’is and tell ’er ’ow you remembers ’is bringin’ you presents and that.” To recall these words Mrs. Perce gave Perce a nudge as she spoke.
“Go on, Perce, you tell Miss ’ilton of the time ’e brought you a little engine.” She turned to Clara. “Always talkin’ of it ’e is, and so did ’is brother Alfie, ’o’s gone now p’or soul.”
Clara looked thoughtfully at Perce. From his age it seemed more likely that he was a son of Simon’s than that Simon had fathered the Marquis children. But had that been so, surely it would have been mentione
d in his wishes. She felt Perce was ill-at-ease, and this distressed her, for it was not what Simon had intended. Probably, poor man, he did not realise that she was accustomed to hearing of nasty things, and had guessed that his mother and her uncle had been too intimate.
“I think, sad though it may be, we must accept that your dear mother and my uncle lived as man and wife.”
The Perces were profoundly shocked. Mrs. Perce said frigidly:
“That’s as may be. Now, if you follow Perce we’ll show you the dogs.”
While patting innumerable barking, bouncing dogs Clara puzzled what she had said to upset the Perces. Never having seen Marie, especially the latter-day Marie, who was still painfully visible in the memories of the Perces, she could not know how her suggestion that Marie had lived with Simon as his wife scandalised them. Whatever his faults Simon had been a real gentleman, as his niece should know, and though he might have had a friend he was not the sort to lower himself by living with her. Clara, while attempting to catch the names of each dog as it was introduced, came to the conclusion that Henry was to blame, for he had definitely hinted that Uncle Simon had loved Perce’s mother. Of course Henry had not said in so many words what he meant by the word “love,” but what he believed the situation to have been was implicit in his manner. If Henry’s supposition were correct, it was clear the Perces either knew nothing about it, or wished to know nothing about it. Clara, giving an extra pat to each dog as an aid to soothing ruffled feelings, decided that probably Perce’s mother’s liaison with Uncle Simon, if it had occurred, was the one slip in an otherwise blameless life. Respectability, Clara had noticed, was especially highly valued by such people as the Perces, it was not taken for granted as it was in some other sections of the community. If you were respectable you talked about it, and at a hint that anyone doubted your word there was certainly a shouting match, and sometimes a fight. What a distressing thing that she should have said what she had; no wonder the Perces were offended, they must have felt she was insulting the memory of their dead.
Aunt Clara Page 16
