by Ursula Bloom
Mr. Thorne avoided the subject of Dartmouth the next term. Both master and boy were very disappointed, but neither referred to it. Once when he was talking, and once only, Mrs. Thorne mentioned it. It was a Sunday, one of those days when Hugo had chosen four orange balls and she had stayed to talk.
‘My husband was so sorry,’ said she; and then quickly, because she saw the child colour and knew how he felt, ‘but you never can tell. Maybe something will happen. You ‒ you never know …’
He cherished the thought; it was a banner set flying bravely in his heart, and when he felt gloomy he would look into that heart, and he would see her words emblazoned on that banner atop the castle of hope. Maybe something would happen. You never knew …
Two
That was the Christmas term; not that Christmas had meant very much to Hugo. Emily had always filled him a stocking, and there were tangerines in the sideboard cupboard, to give their faint pomander scent to the wood, and also there were picturesque boxes of crystallised fruit and dates, and the miniature wooden crates of figs. He and his father generally ate their meal together, and found little to say to one another, but this Christmas was entirely different.
Late in the term Emily wrote to him at school, asking if he would care to come to stay with her at Portsmouth for a few days. She had a comfortable little home there, and was very happy. With only the gladdest memories of Southsea, Hugo hopefully forwarded the letter to his father, and received no reply to it. By this he gathered that the projected visit had met with disfavour, and gave up the idea.
It was late November when James Blair awoke one morning feeling exceedingly unwell. Illness he treated as a sign of weakness, and deliberately fought against it. He travelled to the City in the car as usual, arriving at Ludgate Hill only to find that he felt a good deal worse. He knew that his skin was alternately cold and burnt, and that his mouth had gone dry. Influenza was about, and he thought at once that one of those wretched secretaries, always so selfishly thoughtless of others, must have transferred a germ to him. He went inside to do a day’s work.
Ebenezer Minch was particularly trying. Ebenezer recognised that his master was in a more advanced stage of irritation than usual, and so became nervous, fumbling with latches and keys, dropping papers, and finally finishing everything by appearing with a letter from an opposition firm who believed that it would be greatly to their mutual advantage if they were to amalgamate.
James Blair rose above his desk. He had never been an imposing man, but at this particular moment he looked like a formidable vulture, its wings half spread over the letter which he hoped to consume as so much dead flesh. His sallow face was more horrible with the flush of fever, and his eyes becoming bright took on a lustre that was terrifying. They were bird-like and cruel. He stared at Ebenezer and began to speak, but no sound came. He stood there, shaping those hideously silent words, and the saliva, filling his mouth, issued in a silver dribble from one corner and slid down his chin. Ebenezer Minch would have run away if he had had the strength, but that was not given to him. For a moment he was helplessly stuck, and that was when James Blair fell.
After that there was pandemonium; never had the tea office been so stirred. A doctor came and said that it was a heart attack consequent upon influenza, and James Blair was sent to an expensive nursing home in the Devonshire Place district, where several hours later he recovered and was very angry to find that such action should have been taken whilst he was unconscious. It was more annoying for him to find that he would be a patient there for some weeks, and that an arrangement must be arrived at for his son’s holidays.
James was the last of the Blairs and had no relations upon whom he could call. He had quarrelled with his wife’s people, and although he knew that her father, an amiable old clergyman, was still alive in a pleasant living near Canterbury, where he had been for the past twenty years, nothing would have made James ask him to accept his grandson.
He thought of Emily.
He had been strongly opposed to the visit, not because it was Emily who offered it, but because Mr. Binns was a sailor. Now he felt that he might have been hasty, because perhaps this showed him the way out. Ebenezer Minch was instructed to write to Emily, and a cheque was sent to her. Later, Hugo was told by Mr. Thorne that he would not be returning to Lynton Lodge for those holidays, but would be put on the train from Waterloo to Portsmouth.
Hugo did not concern himself as to whether his father was seriously ill or not, because it did not occur to him that James Blair could die. The only thing that struck him was the joyful fact that he would be at the seaside, and that what Mrs. Thorne had said was true, you never could tell, and something had happened.
When the bus took the thirty-two sons of gentlemen (behaving very unlike the sons of gentlemen in the exuberance of their feelings) to the station, he was unusually gay. He even threw little Morton’s cap out of the window, and the bus had to be stopped for it to be retrieved from a dog-rose bush in the hedge. The driver was very angry, being already late, and used peculiar adjectives which made Mr. Powell annoyed.
‘Boys will be boys,’ said Mr. Powell.
He took them to London, and set some on the tubes, some on the Met., and two of them he took across to Waterloo in a taxi. It was thrilling to be sitting on either side of Mr. Powell, thought Hugo, he and Williamson, both very conscious of the honour. But Mr. Powell did not notice them very much, and certainly did not realise their glory at being so near to such a hero. He had asked a girl to lunch with him, and wasn’t sure that he’d get rid of these two dratted boys to be in time. So that it was with the greatest relief that he bundled them into a train. Williamson got out at Woking, and as a final offering pushed half a slab of chocolate on to his friend.
Emily met Hugo at the Town Station. She said, ‘Hello, ducks!’ with disappointing kindliness, and took his hand in hers, and wanted to carry his little bag where ‘everything for the night’ was put, according to the school curriculum. She took him for a long trek, and finally down the street till she came to number thirty-five, where she lived.
‘It’s ever so nice, ducks,’ she said, but to Hugo it was ordinary.
Inside, however, it was heaven.
The door was flat with the street, and the windows beside it and over it sparkled to testify to Emily’s industry. Inside was the best room, to be hurried through, a square room with a low ceiling and an over-draped mantel, on which reposed the shells, still whispering of the sea, the carved ivory idol, the pot-bellied Buddha, which Emily secretly thought rather rude, and the paper fans. There were handsome pictures of ships in which Mr. Binns had served, of ships’ companies: Row A squatting on the deck, Row B on chairs arranged along the deck, Row C standing behind, all pop-eyed and grimly glaring, or grinning with determination.
Behind all this was the friendly old back-room-cum-kitchen, with the little old-fashioned grate and the horse-hair sofa, bought in a sale at Bonfire Corner. Supper was laid for three, because Mr. Binns had shore leave, Emily informed Hugo. Mr. Binns appeared at once, still the same unchangeable Mr. Binns in his ‘number ones’, with the disrespectful ‘Hello, son!’ and the hearty slap on the back. That was the beginning of a dream holiday.
Mr. Binns slept ashore two nights out of the three, and he and Emily and Hugo made pleasant trips and excursions together. They went into the dockyard museum, and over H.M.S. Vernon to see the figureheads, and the gulls stalking on the green lawns with the harbour beyond. They went over to H.M.S. Excellent to see the zoo in charge of a friend of Mr. Binns, a certain Mr. Clutterbuck, a fascinating fellow with a wall eye and an attractive method of tooth-sucking. Mr. Clutterbuck had had trouble with the bear, which had taken a dislike to him. He told engaging stories.
On Christmas Day they went on board Mr. Binns’s ship and saw the mess tables set out for the Christmas dinner. There was holly and mistletoe, and ‘A Merry Christmas’ arranged in nuts and cigars, and that general air of festivity and over-eating which Hugo would never forget.
/>
It was the ecstasy of walking up the gangway to the ship, silvery with frost, for it was a white Christmas, that almost carried him away. He took Emily’s hand, not because he was afraid, but because this was almost too much in the way of exhilaration, and he had to get somebody to share it with him. This was a treat that he had not dared to dream about ‒ this entry into a new world so entirely cut off from the old one. Supposing that the ship suddenly put out to sea? Supposing that whilst he and Emily went round the mess decks admiringly the ship left the dockside and set off down Spithead? He kept hoping for it. Mrs. Thorne had said that you never could tell. Maybe something would happen. She was wrong this time. Nothing happened.
They went to see the pantomime at Pompey Hippodrome, and the second house too, which was far more manly than the first house, to which children were usually taken. Hugo had never been to a theatre before, and was wildly excited. There was the immense thrill of sitting between Emily and Mr. Binns, who had a special cigar for the occasion, and on a tip-up chair in faded plush. There was the excitement of watching the people coming in, and the moment when the orchestra arrived (to a tremendous ovation, accompanied by whistling). There was the wild singing of the popular song, ‘Oh Hell! Oh Hell! Oh Helen do be mine!’ joined in uproariously by Mr. Binns, and immediately echoed by Hugo.
‘Oh, you mustn’t,’ said Emily; ‘it isn’t nice; your father wouldn’t like it, really he wouldn’t!’
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ said Mr. Binns encouragingly, ‘it’s only a bit o’ fun!’
And they sang all the more lustily, glorying in the fact that Emily was quite right and that his father wouldn’t like it. Then the curtain rolled up, with a fine swirl of dust, and the robber bandits were there, all singularly feminine in build, with pirate hats and a bold display of pink cotton tights. There was the ogre’s castle in the background.
‘Oh!’ said Hugo breathlessly.
‘Ah, you wait for the comic, son, the comic’s the one to wait for,’ said Mr. Binns knowingly.
When the ‘comic’ came he was indeed well worth waiting for. Red-nosed, in bell-bottomed trousers, with a backcloth of sea and a bollard to sit on. A proper old-time A.B. was the comic, with delicious back-chat. He sang raucously, and although Hugo could not understand many of the jokes he always laughed gaily with the others, and kept beating his small knees with excitement, so that Emily remonstrated, and said:
‘You’ll be getting beyond yourself, Master Hugo; you stop it, ducks.’
But Mr. Binns was more understanding. ‘He’s all right; he’s only enjoying himself.’
It was so very amusing when the comic sang, and so funny when the officer came in and the comic threw his cap at him; so screamingly funny when the officer turned and remonstrated, and the comic said: ‘Garn, get along with you!’
There was the lady who sang a lovely sentimental song afterwards, and the scene with the little donkey in it ‒ a real little donkey. And the comic came back, wanting to ride it, whilst the donkey did not want to be ridden, and bucked, whilst the house rocked. Hugo laughed so much that his cheeks ached and the glands in his neck throbbed, and he felt quite ill, but not for the world would he have admitted it. He had some ice cream out of a carton, and Mr. Binns let him lick out the carton afterwards, shocking Emily horribly.
Then the final curtain fell, and everybody stood up for ‘God Save the King’, and Mr. Binns did not look like Mr. Binns at all, but like some automaton who had been wound up to do an act. Hugo, standing beside him, knew that his own head felt queerly stiff, and that the back of his neck ached because he had laughed so much, and that now that it was all over he was very, very tired.
It was lovely by the sea, even though it was winter time and he couldn’t bathe. He and Emily walked out to Eastney one day, with the wind blowing off the water, cold and stinging to the ears, and the smell of it reminiscent of weed drenched in salt. It was low tide, and there was an island of sand just a little way off the shore. They stood to watch the gulls paddling there, and the little waves running up it, a shorter distance each time, leaving curved runnels on the sand, like marks on a shell. There were long grasses and sedges by the bleak road which led down to this shore, and they were nearly all bleached white, and salty-flavoured as of the sea. There were pebbles too, blown landwards by the gales, and when Hugo picked them up he could see how smoothly they had been washed by the water.
‘It’s nice, Emily,’ he said.
‘Yes, ducks,’ she replied; but it was in the tone of voice that told him that her mind was back in the Landport Drapery where she hoped to do some shopping on their return.
They went to Portchester Castle another day, with a biting wind and the threat of snow, the sky leaden behind the old mottled grey walls. He did not care so much for that, because all his time he wanted to be beside the shore, or in the dockyard watching the ships, or on the Hard, where the timbers floated in the timber basin and there was the sound of the trains in the Harbour Station.
He spent the whole of his holiday at Portsmouth and his father was hardly mentioned. Once Emily told him that James Blair was getting better, but that it was a slow job, and the child noticed that she did not express much sympathy on his behalf.
The last night of all Mr. Binns came ashore early on the winter afternoon, grey-blue with the whisper of frost. Hugo had been allowed to go to the Unicorn Gate alone to meet him. He waited outside, his hands stuck in his pockets, and thought how beautiful it would be if Mr. Binns were his father, and he himself was the son of a sailor waiting for ‘Dad’ to come home. Presently out came the men, striding along bravely in their ‘number ones’, caps stuck jauntily, and bell-bottomed trousers circling round their ankles.
‘Hello, son,’ said Mr. Binns. ‘Well, now, I’ve got a bit of shopping to do’; and instead of turning homewards, they went along by the dockyard wall toward the Hard.
They walked very fast, and not for the world would Hugo admit that he had difficulty in keeping up; but he swung his arms, and marched beside Mr. Binns, very pink. They went first of all to a tiny shop for some special tobacco which Mr. Binns always bought. They stepped down into the shop, dark and low, where in amongst the black beams that striped the dripping plaster walls were lurid advertisements of cigarettes. Old Mr. Shadwell, who kept it, had a long white beard, so long that it reminded Hugo of a roller towel; he wore a smoking cap with a tassel, and had tin earrings in his ears. Long ago he had sailed in one of the windjammers, twice round the Cape of Good Hope, which ‘makes a man of you,’ so he said. They bought the tobacco and went on to a fun fair in a little alleyway, with its slot machines where, for a penny, you could see a man hanged, with a tolling bell to boot, or could play football for twopence, or make a penny loop the loop, and get it back if you succeeded, and with the added attraction of an additional penny if you did it in record time. Mr. Binns was very clever with pennies looping the loop. The two stayed here for some time. They made tenpence, and then went to the penny peepshow where you turned a handle and saw the most exciting things. But Mr. Binns saw one called ‘Nights in Paris’ and he went red about the ears and said that it was no place for a child really. Then he looked at his watch, amazed to find the wasted time that had passed, it was so very much later than he had expected it to be.
‘Lumme!’ said Mr. Binns, ‘and I’ve still got to get that haddock. You wait a minute, son,’ and he nipped out into the street quickly.
Left alone, Hugo turned to the peepshow labelled ‘Nights in Paris’. The temptation was enormous and nobody had said that he wasn’t to have a look. He set his school cap back and stuck his eyes to it, turning the handle very slowly. Then he saw two girls undressing; they wore silly clothes, with full bloomers, frilled at the knees, and the old-fashioned corsets laced up at the backs. They stood there in their absurd shifts, looking much like the earlier cinematograph stars, then one of them got into bed. There was nothing in it, nothing at all. It was just silly. Hugo could not understand why Mr. Binns had gone so red,
and had been so annoyed. The boy went to the entrance to the gun alley, and saw Mr. Binns, with the haddock done up in a piece of newspaper, coming quickly along the kerb. It was beginning to snow.
‘We’ll have to look sharp,’ said Mr. Binns, ‘or Emily’ll be worried. Now, best foot forward, son.’
He’d always remember this. He’d always remember marching along, just the two of them, and forgetting about the silly peepshow in the joy of stepping along side by side with the tobacco and the haddock, and the knowledge that Emily would be waiting for them with a relish for tea. It was the last night by the sea; to-morrow he would be back home.
Mr. Minch managed the office in Mr. Blair’s absence, taking charge. For the time being he established himself in the private room, and occupied the imperial chair. His coat hung on the sacred hanger, his bowler hat was thrust into the dark recess of the cupboard, in the manner of his master’s. He ordered the secretaries about, and warned Miss Helstone that her bilious tendencies must not give way to official demands.
‘The boss’ll never die whilst that horrid little beast lives,’ Miss Helstone confided to Miss Piper.
Miss Piper did not care; she looked upon the office as merely the means to an end, and when she had made enough to buy her trousseau and her house linen she was going to get married. And jolly glad she’d be, she told people. She had hair like a bird’s nest, and a small triangular face, whimsy, with a cast in her eye. Her fiancé was admiring, and she believed that she attracted men, and was always boasting about it, in quite a nice way, of course, but still it was boasting.
‘Who cares for Mr. Minch?’ she said. ‘He isn’t like a man at all; just a silly old woman; and did you ever see such things as those button boots of his?’
