Westwood

by Stella Gibbons

  Margaret was still recovering from this when Dick Fletcher opened the front door and went into the hall, and she received an impression of sunlight and soft bright colours and flowers.

  ‘Linda,’ he called, a little anxiously. ‘Darling, where are you? It’s Daddy.’

  The noise of the wind-bells died away to the softest tinkling as the wind slowly dropped into stillness. There was a moment’s silence. Then a young voice, not quite distinct and sounding as if speaking to itself, repeated,

  ‘It’s Daddy,’ and a child came down the hall against the sunlight from the garden.

  Margaret caught her breath, but it was with relief. The little face, lifted to her father’s with a smile, was dark and calm, like that of a Japanese. Her dark hair was plaited with red ribbons, and she wore a flowered summer dress. She fixed her eyes upon Margaret, the smile lingering as she gazed at her, but without surprise.

  ‘Daddy,’ she repeated, and put a soft little paw into his hand, still looking at Margaret.

  ‘This is Margaret. She’s very kind. She’s come to look after you while Mrs Coates is away, Linda. Say “How do you do, Margaret!”’ he said.

  The child came forward and obediently held out her hand. He watched, smiling anxiously, and glancing from one to the other.

  ‘How do you do, Margaret.’ Her speech was not exactly broken by a lisp but it was not completely clear. Margaret took her hand, and pity and revulsion were so mingled as she touched its cool skin that she had to make an effort to say, ‘How do you do, Linda,’ but she suddenly felt that she must make some gesture towards the child that would reassure the father, and she knelt down and put both her hands on Linda’s waist.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she coaxed. ‘In the garden? What were you doing? Tell me.’

  ‘In the sun,’ answered Linda, her smile widening, as her small, gentle dark eyes dwelt on Margaret’s smiling face. ‘It’s warm. I was so cold.’

  ‘We’ll have some tea,’ exclaimed her father, rubbing his hands and hurrying through to the kitchen. ‘Linda and I have had breakfast but you’d like some, wouldn’t you, Margaret?’

  ‘I’d love some,’ she answered, following him in and shutting the door. She glanced about the hall, which was scented by branches of lilac grouped in a large jar. The few pieces of modern mass-produced furniture and the parquet floor were well-kept and gleaming.

  ‘Will you show me where the cups are, Linda?’ suggested Margaret, and soon Linda was opening and shutting cupboards and clumsily but carefully putting plates on the table, chattering the while about poor Mrs Coates, who was ill and had to go to bed and be away from home. There was no trace of sorrow on her face and every now and again she gave a little laugh, empty and sweet as the sound of the wind-bells.

  ‘And the tea you put in there, Margaret. Put the water on it and make it hot. And then the lid. You put on the lid,’ she said, her voice sounding like the copy of an older voice that had said these things to her. ‘Bread and butter. It’s warm to-day, Margaret.’

  ‘Yes, Linda, it’s lovely. Presently you’ll show me the garden, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes. It’s nice in the garden. It’s warm.’

  The kitchen was painted blue and white, and all the tins and saucepans matched it. A white geranium growing in a blue pot stood on the window-sill, breathing out the faint aromatic scent of its leaves to the hot sunlight. A kitten wandered in from the garden half-way through breakfast, and Linda went off to play with it. Her father watched her go, then turned to Margaret.

  ‘Do you think she seems happy?’ he demanded.

  ‘Completely happy,’ she answered. ‘I can imagine one would get to love her,’ she added – not quite truthfully, for the vacancy in Linda’s eyes and her vague, unfinished movements made her flesh faintly creep. The child was completely unlike the monster of her fancy, but she was very different from a normal child, and the fairy prettiness of this house that was both her world and her prison did not make Margaret feel any less uncomfortable. It had none of the ordinary worn apperance of a London home in war-time, and she knew now why Dick Fletcher’s clothes were shabby and his flat in Moorgate comfortless; every penny of his handsome salary, except what he needed for his bare necessities, went on Westwood for Linda.

  She was still marvelling over that coincidence about the name. Opposite the house there was a clump of fine old trees still standing, part of the woods on the large estate where the houses had been built, which obviously gave it its name. Nevertheless, the coincidence struck her as uncanny.

  ‘She is lovable, isn’t she?’ he said eagerly. ‘Mrs Coates is devoted to her. As soon as she came round after the raid she asked for Linda.’

  ‘However did it happen?’ asked Margaret. ‘Surely she hadn’t gone out and left the child alone in the house at night?’

  ‘Oh no, I was here. She’d gone over to see some friends at Finchley, and she was in their house when it was hit. They got her out almost at once, but she was hurt and didn’t come round until about three o’clock this morning. They ’phoned me to let me know that she was safe but would be in there for quite three weeks, and then I thought of you. I’ve got to go into the office this morning and on my way down I’ll look in at the Women’s Voluntary Services and see if they can send someone along later. The trouble is, you see, it isn’t quite an ordinary situation.’

  ‘No,’ answered Margaret thoughtfully. She was wondering just what she had let herself in for. It was clear that he did not want a stranger from the W.V.S., however kind and competent she might be, to look after Linda. It was also clear that she herself could not be here indefinitely. Yet he had thrown himself upon her mercy, and she felt that she must do all that she could, and even more. And meanwhile what was happening at Westwood-at-Highgate? Was The Shrapnel Hunters safe? And had Barnabas found his monkey? And what had the critics said about Kattë? Reluctantly she brought her thoughts back to the problem of Linda.

  ‘I was just wondering what’s the best thing to do,’ she began. ‘I can stay here to-night –’

  ‘Oh, that’s awfully good of you,’ he interrupted, ‘but I can be here to-night. If you could just stay here to-day, and then come over on Sunday; I’ve got to go down to Newmarket on a story this week-end but I needn’t leave until mid-day Sunday. The trouble is that I don’t know quite what time I’ll be back.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Margaret, smiling. ‘Don’t worry.

  ‘You are a brick,’ he said gratefully, and lit a cigarette, giving a long sigh. ‘Oh – I’m sorry.’ He offered her the case.

  Margaret’s week-end schemes for helping at Westwood-at-Highgate went up with the first puff of smoke, but (as so often happens when a cherished plan has been sacrificed to duty) she felt curiously happy. The warmth and peacefulness were soothing, and they sat over the pleasant litter of the teacups in silence.

  The little garden, visible through the open windows, was crowded with pink roses climbing over a miniature arcaded walk; the candid, gold and cherry-pink rose named Dorothy Perkins. Linda was singing a low, rhythmic song to herself as she played.

  ‘Roses are my favourite flowers,’ said Dick Fletcher suddenly, following Margaret’s glance.

  ‘Are they? Yes, they are lovely. You’ve got a fine show there. Who does the garden? You?’

  ‘Mrs Coates, mostly. She’s very keen.’

  Mrs Coates is a treasure, indeed, reflected Margaret. A marvellous housewife, fond of Linda, and green-fingered. I could have bet his favourite flower would be roses, he’s so absolutely ordinary. I wonder what his favourite flower is? – if he has one.

  (Mr Challis, should the reader care to know, favoured orchids. They are difficult to obtain, sophisticated, and expensive, all qualities which he liked. They also – if a flower can – look perverse, and he liked that, too. He was always failing to notice exquisite ordinary objects under his nose, and so he never noticed the tiny wild flowers which are perhaps the loveliest things in the world; at once sturdy and delicate, with th
eir pure scents that seem half wildness itself; the very breath and spirit of meadows distilled in a cup a quarter of an inch wide. But had the corncockle measured six inches across and cost half a guinea a spray, no one would have admired the corncockle more than Mr Challis.)

  ‘Do you mind if I telephone my mother and tell her what’s happened?’ asked Margaret.

  ‘No, of course not. I ought to have told you both before about Linda, but somehow – your father knows, of course.’

  ‘Does he?’ she exclaimed, very surprised. What extraordinary creatures men were, keeping secrets and never even hinting!

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s known for a long time,’ and he gave her a quick, ironical smile, as if he knew just what she was thinking. ‘I must go now, I’m afraid, but I’ll be back by five. If I were you I’d sit in the garden. It’s going to be blazing hot.’

  It was already very hot. Before he went, he pulled a striped curtain over the front door and let out an awning over a little balcony at the back of the house.

  Margaret and Linda stood at the door to wave him down the road, then turned slowly back into the house. It was ten o’clock. A heat haze shimmered over the pavement and the wind-bells hung motionless and silent.

  ‘Hot,’ said Linda, blinking and smiling up at her.

  ‘Very hot, Linda. Would you like to take off your shoes and stockings? Does Mrs Coates let you?’

  ‘Take my shoes and stockings off? Yes. When it’s hot, Linda, you may take your shoes and stockings off.’

  ‘And shall I pin your hair round your head? That will make it cooler for you.’

  ‘Yes, that will make it cooler. Isn’t it a lovely day?’

  She stood docilely in her pink and white bedroom while Margaret performed these little services for her and found her a pair of cool sandals. The braided hair increased her Japanese look and Margaret shuddered inwardly, though the effect was quaint and even attractive. She did not like touching Linda, and each time she did so it was a conquest of herself. When the child had gone to a shady part of the garden to play with sand, she went to telephone to her mother.

  It was a long conversation, for Mrs Steggles was full of amazement, indignation at what she regarded as Dick Fletcher’s slyness, and curiosity about Mrs Coates, the house, and Linda – in that order. She made Margaret (who quickly became impatient with her questions) describe the road, the rooms, Linda’s clothes and the extent of Mrs Coates’s injuries, and ended up by saying that there was not the slightest doubt that she was trying to marry Dick Fletcher.

  ‘Mother, what nonsense! I really must go now, I’ve got to wash up and dust.’

  ‘Well, you mark my words, she is, and she won’t like your getting a foot in there.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, it isn’t like that at all! I shan’t be coming here again after Sunday.’

  ‘Ah, you don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for; you mark my words.’

  ‘Mother, I simply must go now. Good-bye. I’ll be home about six.’

  After she had finished the housework, she decided she might allow herself to ring up Zita. It was only a quarter to eleven, but already she felt as if she had been at this other Westwood for days.

  Having offered Linda some milk and biscuits which the child placidly accepted, she went again to the telephone, but twice in a quarter of an hour she found the line to Westwood-at-Highgate engaged, and decided that she would telephone again later in the evening; evidently the telephone would be busy all day.

  Feeling more cut off from the outside world than ever, she wandered through the sunny rooms.

  A clock chimed too sweetly every quarter of an hour, and sometimes the wind-bells tinkled faintly in the warm breeze and then the sound died away. The rooms were decorated in pale pink or blue, with pictures by Margaret Tarrant of angels and children and rabbits, and there was a nursery in pale yellow with white shelves full of children’s books; the Beatrix Potters and the Arthur Ransomes and the M. E. Atkins, all new and all apparently unread. There were many large bright pictures of children picking primroses or playing with lambs, the type sold in the children’s department at Heal’s or Selfridge’s; and in the nursery in a miniature cot was a china doll exquisitely dressed in white, with long eyelashes lying upon her peachy cheeks in sleep.

  It’s the sort of house a child film star would live in, thought Margaret, whose association with the little Nilands had robbed her of some illusions about children. It’s got all the things grown-ups think that children like and none of the unexpected things – old dolls made out of stockings and grown-up books with gruesome pictures – that children really do.

  But Linda seems perfectly happy; it’s him I’m so sorry for.

  Presently she found a basket with some of Linda’s stockings to be darned and sat down with them in the drawing-room, where the French windows opened on the garden. The long, hot day wore on, and presently she found herself soothed by the quietness and peace. She prepared lunch for Linda and herself, having patiently extracted from the child information about what Mrs Coates usually gave her, and after the meal was cleared away and the washing-up done, the two wandered into the garden under a big varnished paper parasol which Margaret found, and Linda showed all her favourite places and treasures; not as an ordinary child would, by pointing and displaying, but by murmuring over them and sometimes glancing up at Margaret with her dim, smiling eyes. She was friendly and confiding and seemed to have no fear, and Margaret thought of the old belief that naturals were specially protected by God, and understood for the first time how the legend had arisen, for only a very cruel person would betray that happy and instinctive trust.

  In idling in the garden and watching the goldfish and the kitten, the afternoon passed by, and at four o’clock she began preparations for tea. She felt as if she had been cut off from her own life for a very long time, and hoped that Dick Fletcher would not be late, for she was eager to get away and refresh herself with everyday life before she returned here to-morrow.

  ‘Daddy will be here soon, Linda,’ she said. ‘Will you go and pick some flowers to make the table look pretty for him?’

  ‘Daddy,’ murmured the child. ‘Linda pick roses,’ and she ran awkwardly out into the garden.

  ‘Roses,’ she repeated, standing by the table in a little while with a bunch of pink carnations, and smiling up at Margaret.

  ‘No, Linda, those are carnations. Come along, we’ll get the roses together.’

  While they were standing under the arcade pulling down the laden sprays, Dick Fletcher came out through the French windows and Linda ran to meet him. He lifted her off her feet with an effort, for she was not lightly built and he was a slight man, and called to Margaret:

  ‘Hullo! Had a nice lazy day? (Well, my darling, and how’s Linda?)’

  ‘Lovely, thank you,’ Margaret answered smiling, but she thought that he was taking her sacrifice of nine precious hours of leisure too lightly, and she made up her mind not to offer to come again after to-morrow.

  ‘Margaret mend Linda’s stockings,’ said Linda in her indistinct voice, whose sweetness almost compensated for its impediment.

  ‘Did she?’ he answered, swinging her backwards and forwards. ‘Isn’t she a grand girl? I’ll just go up and wash and then we’ll have some tea,’ he added to Margaret, who suddenly felt that she could not endure this atmosphere for another moment and had been about to suggest that she should go home immediately. Instead, she found herself saying:

  ‘Yes, it’s all ready; I’ll just make the tea,’ and soon they were sitting round the low table in the drawing-room and she was doing what she had never done in her life before; controlling her own feelings in order to make the occasion pleasant for a tired man. She did not realize what she was doing; she only felt sorry for him, as he unobtrusively guided his daughter’s clumsy hands and helped her with an occasional low tender word to eat and drink.

  When they were smoking after tea, he told her that he had been to the offices of the Women’s Voluntary Services, and
that they had promised to send one of their members in on Monday and during the whole of the coming week to cook Linda’s lunch and get her tea. He himself would live at the little house until Mrs Coates returned.

  ‘But what will Linda do all day?’ interrupted Margaret. ‘You can’t leave her alone.’

  ‘The people next door have promised to keep an eye on her,’ he said, frowning. ‘They’ve been very kind; everybody has, considering I don’t know any of the neighbours, really. But it’s a risk, of course.’

  ‘You can’t leave her here alone,’ said Margaret decidedly. ‘Just suppose something happened! She must come and stay with us.’

  He expressed relief and gratitude in his glance, but he said:

  ‘But what about your mother? You’re out all day, and –’

  ‘Mother won’t mind. When I get home this evening I’ll say I’ve told you Linda’s coming,’ and she laughed, more cheerfully than she felt, for she had spoken in haste and was already repenting.

  ‘Well, it’s awfully good of you, and it would be a godsend, but there’s another difficulty,’ he said hesitatingly. ‘Linda’s never been anywhere but here. She isn’t used to strange people or houses.’

  ‘Doesn’t she go shopping with Mrs Coates? She told me she did.’

  ‘Yes, she does, but that isn’t like staying with strangers.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right, really. She’s such a friendly little girl, anyone would like her.’

  His expression changed to a passionate tenderness. Margaret had used exactly the right words, and for one heavenly second his child had seemed normal. He glanced across the garden at the little figure playing in the sand, and said:

  ‘Yes, I do think that most people would like her. But it’s a big thing to ask your mother to do, all the same.’

  ‘I’ll telephone you later and tell you what we’ve arranged,’ she promised.

  Twenty minutes later she was flying, skimming like some released bird, down the road under the may bushes and breathing the delicious evening air. Oh! that house! That miniature fairy palace of eternal childhood that was no true childhood just because it was eternal! I must get Mother to say ‘yes,’ she thought. I don’t think I can bear to go back to-morrow for another day of it, sorry as I am for him. Poor, poor Dick.