The Bell Family

by Noel Streatfeild

  Ginnie, watching the trying on, was lying on her stomach across her mother’s bed.

  ‘It is too short, Jane. But Miss Virginia Bell’s going to look awful in yellow.’

  Cathy got up and unbuttoned the dress.

  ‘I don’t believe it. Let’s try it on you. I think you’ll look a pet.’

  ‘It is too short’

  Ginnie climbed off the bed, and pulled off her school tunic and blouse.

  ‘A pet now, but you won’t think me a pet when you see me beside my dear cousin Veronica. She has her hair permanently waved, and a special cut to suit the shape of her head. Not that I mind, I feel superior to Veronica. When I see her at the party I shall think, “You poor mimsy-pimsy stuck-up minx.”’

  Cathy slipped the yellow frock over Ginnie’s head and buttoned it.

  ‘You shouldn’t think things like that, darling, though I do know what you mean. I do hope though, you’ll try and make Angus’s birthday party go, you know how sticky parties with Grandfather and Grandmother can be.’ She turned Ginnie round and stood her away from her. ‘There! Look at yourself in the glass. Anything wrong with that?’

  Ginnie crossed to the glass. Nobody could say that yellow was her colour, but she did look nicer than usual. She was quite surprised.

  ‘It’s not so bad, but you wait, when you see me against Veronica, shame will eat at your vitals.’

  Jane looked at Ginnie with her head on one side.

  ‘Don’t you think it ought to be shorter, she’s only ten?’

  Ginnie unbuttoned the frock.

  ‘No, thank you, I’ll wear it the length it is. I haven’t got thin legs like you.’

  Jane sat down on her father’s bed.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t got to wear your old black Mummy.’

  Cathy laughed.

  ‘Why? I’m quite fond of it.’

  Ginnie pulled her uniform over her head.

  ‘I’m not. It was Aunt Rose’s once, and it shames me you’re still wearing it.’

  Cathy hung the yellow dress back in the cupboard.

  ‘So long ago, I expect she’s forgotten she ever gave it me.’

  Jane hugged her knees.

  ‘Couldn’t the money box possibly manage some stuff for a dress for you?’

  Cathy closed the cupboard door.

  ‘Goose, of course it can’t. I shall enjoy the ballet so much I shan’t remember what I’ve got on.’

  Ginnie tied her tie.

  ‘We shall remember. You know how Aunt Rose is, she says things that sort of sound all right but are meant to be beastly.’ She minced towards her mother, imitating her aunt. ‘Do you mean to say you’ve got that old frock still, Cathy, dear?’

  The imitation was so good Cathy and Jane laughed. Cathy said:

  ‘She doesn’t mean to be unkind, but she’s got what your father calls a difficult nature.’

  Jane groaned.

  ‘Difficult nature! Daddy’s too good to live, he never says worse than that about anybody, but I could say a lot worse about Aunt Rose.’

  Ginnie bounced on to Cathy’s bed.

  ‘And I could about my awful Uncle Alfred, and his whiney-piney mimsy-pimsy daughter Veronica.’

  Jane was mentally redressing her mother.

  ‘If you had all the money you wanted, Mummy, what dress would you choose? I mean, suppose you could choose absolutely anything.’

  Cathy sat down by Jane.

  ‘I suppose all women, except very rich ones, have got some special frock they’ve always wanted. I’ve always wanted just once to have a really silly frock. You know the sort I mean, soft and very garden party-ish. I’ve never worn anything like that in my life.’

  Jane rubbed her cheek against Cathy’s arm.

  ‘Poor Mummy, what a shame!’

  Ginnie wriggled over and patted Cathy’s knee.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Bell, if I was Miss Bloggs I’d tell you fine feathers don’t make fine birds.’

  Cathy smiled.

  ‘And Miss Bloggs would be quite right.’ She turned to Jane. ‘Not poor Mummy at all, I dare say I wouldn’t like it if I had it, but it’s always fun imagining I would.’

  Jane tried to picture her mother before she was grown up.

  ‘Did Mumsmum know you wanted a frock like that?’

  Cathy put an arm round Jane.

  ‘Of course she did, bless her, just as I know the sort of frock you’d love to have; but what good would the silly sort of frock I wanted, have been to the daughter of a not-very-well-off country doctor, and what good would the sort of frocks Veronica wears at parties be to the daughter of a very badly-off London vicar?’

  Jane looked up reproachfully at Cathy.

  ‘You’re getting at me, Mummy, you’re trying to make me behave like Queen Victoria and say, I will be good. You’re going to try and make me say: “I’ll be pleased with navy blue.”’

  Ginnie gasped.

  ‘Mummy! You can’t be going to make poor Jane wear navy blue for Uncle Alfred’s party, when that awful Veronica will be all pink frills and bows.’

  Cathy took Jane’s face in her hands.

  ‘Navy blue! Why on earth should I dress my daughter in navy blue for a party? Surely we get enough of that loathsome colour in your uniform.’

  Jane smiled.

  ‘I thought from the way you talked about the clothes for badly-off London vicars’ daughters you meant something useful.’

  ‘I only meant something that would wear well and wouldn’t fade. What a daughter I’ve got thinking I’d make her wear navy blue! Isn’t she a goose, Ginnie?’

  Jane flung her arms round her mother’s neck.

  ‘You’re the most gorgeous mother in the world.’

  Ginnie got off Cathy’s bed.

  ‘Though she isn’t sloppy like Miss Jane Bell, Miss Virginia Bell wouldn’t change her mother for any other. It’s my day to take Esau out. Do you think, as it’s so wet, just round the parish hall and back would do, Mummy?’

  ‘Certainly it’ll do, and don’t forget to put on your mackintosh and your wellingtons.’

  Ginnie moving made Jane remember the time.

  ‘I suppose we ought to go and see how the washing-up goes on.’

  Cathy was thinking of other things.

  ‘I wish I could be really the most gorgeous mother in the world to you, Jane, darling, and send you to a dancing school. Daddy and I think of it a lot, you know, but we can never see how it can be done, unless of course you won a scholarship, and quite truthfully St Winifred’s doesn’t think you have had enough training for that.’

  ‘Quite truthfully I don’t either, Mummy. Daddy once said in a sermon “Too late” were the saddest words in the English language. I don’t always agree with what Daddy says in his sermons, but I feel it in my bones that those two are true.’

  ‘My poor daughter, too late when you’re only just twelve!’ Then Cathy spoke much more briskly. ‘As a matter of fact, if we could afford first-class lessons for you it wouldn’t be too late at all. You’re what’s known as a born dancer, and you’re just the right build. All that’s wrong with you is that you’ve not been properly trained …’ She broke off. ‘That’s the telephone. I wonder if Ginnie will answer it, I’m sure Daddy’s gone to evensong.’ She went into the passage and hung over the banisters and called to Ginnie who was struggling into her wellingtons. ‘Answer that, darling.’

  Ginnie marched to the telephone and said grandly:

  ‘Hallo, hallo,’ then, in a very changed voice: ‘Oh, it’s you, Miss Newton. I’ll call Mummy.’

  Cathy went to the telephone. Jane followed her downstairs and looked anxiously at Ginnie.

  ‘What have you done now?’

  Ginnie, whose conscience for once was clear, looked proud.

  ‘Nothing. But a headmistress doesn’t ring up for nothing. It must be you this time, Jane.’

  A sort of dim echo of Miss Newton’s voice came from the receiver. After listening for some time Cathy sai
d: ‘Thank you so much for letting me know.’ Then, after another pause: ‘No, as you say, under the circumstances very unlikely.’ Another pause and then: ‘No, I think we need pay no attention to that. Good night, Miss Newton, and thank you for letting me know.’

  Jane and Ginnie spoke at the same time.

  Jane asked: ‘What’s unlikely?’ And Ginnie: ‘What aren’t we going to pay attention to?’

  Cathy smiled at their anxious faces.

  ‘It’s nothing, fortunately. There’s a new girl in your form, Ginnie, Alison something-or-other. Her mother told her not to go to school this morning, as she wasn’t well, but she went just the same. Luckily she was fetched out of your class before any of you spoke to her, and spent the day in Matron’s room.’

  Ginnie did not like the sound of that word ‘luckily,’ she felt as though she had swallowed a piece of ice.

  ‘Why luckily?’

  Cathy was amused by Ginnie’s anxious expression.

  ‘Because she’s got mumps.’

  In a flash Jane saw all the awful things which would happen if Ginnie got mumps. She said in a wail:

  ‘Oh, Ginnie, mumps!’

  Cathy thought Jane was being silly, making a fuss about nothing.

  ‘There’s no need to sound so tragic. Ginnie never went near her, so there’s no quarantine.’

  Ginnie, to stop her voice from wobbling, took a deep breath before she spoke.

  ‘If I had been near her, how soon would it be that I caught mumps?’

  Cathy was moving towards the kitchen so she answered vaguely:

  ‘Somewhere inside three weeks, I think.’

  Jane followed Cathy down the hall.

  ‘If Ginnie had seen that girl, would she have been in quarantine?’

  ‘Certainly. We don’t want mumps in the house, she’d have gone into isolation right away.’

  Jane, in spite of urgent faces from Ginnie, persisted in her questioning.

  ‘No ballet party?’

  Cathy stopped, and took Jane by the shoulders and gave her a little shake.

  ‘No, nothing. But she didn’t go near the girl, so there’s no quarantine. Now will you stop asking questions, and let me see how the boys have managed with the washing-up. When you’ve taken Esau out, Ginnie, give him a rub down, he makes such a horrible mess in the hall.’

  Ginnie hardly heard what Cathy said.

  ‘How do you feel when you’re starting mumps?’

  Cathy laughed.

  ‘This girl Alison’s mumps is an obsession with you two. I can’t remember how I felt, it’s years since I had it, but I do remember my face swelled up the size of a pudding.’

  Jane waited until Cathy was safely in the kitchen. Then she whispered:

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t believe I smelt her breath, and that’s the way you catch things.’

  ‘You said you leant over her.’

  Ginnie looked fierce.

  ‘You’ve got to forget every word I’ve said. I don’t want to have quarantine.’

  Jane tried to think of something nice about quarantine.

  ‘You’d miss school, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  Ginnie shook her head furiously.

  ‘I missed school when there was scarlet fever, and all that happened was I had to sleep by myself in the drawing-room, and was sent to bed directly you came in from school, and the rest of the day I did housework with Mrs Gage and Mummy. It was simply awful.’

  Jane tried one last effort.

  ‘But if you get mumps you’ll give it to all of us. There wouldn’t be any ballet party, most likely I wouldn’t be able to dance the nymph. Think how awful you would feel if that happened, Ginnie.’

  Ginnie knew how awful she would feel, but she was not going to give in.

  ‘I won’t get mumps. I tell you I don’t think I breathed her breath, but as you’re fussy, I tell you what I will do. Every day I’ll measure my face, even if it gets a quarter of an inch bigger I’ll tell Mummy.’

  Jane was not comforted.

  ‘But you’ll have got it by then.’

  ‘Only the beginning of it. Now you absolutely promise you won’t say anything, don’t you?’

  The rules about tale-telling were very strong in the Bell family, it was one of the things it was impossible to do. But this mumps business was different. Jane knew there were times when tale-telling was right. Was this one of them?

  ‘Could I ask Paul what he thinks?’

  ‘No. You’re not to ask anybody. I’ll be very careful to sleep with my head the opposite way to your bed, and I’ll measure my face every day. Nobody could do more to be careful who isn’t even sure they smelt the mumps person’s breath.’

  Jane was still worried.

  ‘I do wish you’d let me talk to Paul.’

  Ginnie stamped her foot.

  ‘You’re a very selfish girl, Jane. Here’s me almost got mumps, and here’s you worrying me. As a matter of fact I don’t believe you’re thinking about me at all. I think you’re only thinking about not seeing the ballet and not dancing that silly nymph. Anyway, I don’t mean to have mumps, so stop fussing.’

  3

  Clothes

  IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE for a person as gay as Ginnie usually was to be worried about something, and nobody notice she was being unusual. Of course she did not worry all the time, but only when she remembered, so it was not so much the worrying Cathy noticed as the interest Ginnie was taking suddenly in her face. When Cathy did not understand something about her children she often asked advice from Mrs Gage, for Mrs Gage was very sensible.

  After nearly a week of rain Saturday was fine. Cathy, gay because of the sun, felt in the mood to talk. She was cooking kippers for breakfast.

  ‘Have you noticed anything odd about Ginnie, Mrs Gage?’

  Mrs Gage looked up from scrubbing the kitchen floor.

  ‘She’s always a caution. Seems a bit quieter off and on like.’

  Cathy gave the kippers a prod with her fork.

  ‘She’s never been a vain child, but quite suddenly she’s taken to staring at herself in looking-glasses. Did any of your children do that when they were ten?’

  Mrs Gage thought the matter over.

  ‘Come to think of it my Margaret Rose was chronic at it. But then she had ’ad the looks, which Ginnie ’asn’t. Shouldn’t wonder if something ’asn’t been said at the school, children often acts up after somethin’s been said that way.’

  Cathy left the kippers and put some tea in the teapot.

  ‘Ginnie’s never been a child to care what was said about her, she’s always made fun of her appearance.’

  Mrs Gage went back to her scrubbing.

  ‘She’s taken a vain fit, maybe, but what I say is you’ve got the face ’eaven sent you, and no amount of thinking about it won’t alter it, so it’s no good creatin’.’

  Cathy thought of her fat, plain little Ginnie, and smiled.

  ‘I don’t think we need take quite such a gloomy view as that. Lots of girls have started fat and without any looks have grown up with figures like film stars, and lovely faces. Ginnie has got plenty of time to become beautiful. I wonder whether you’d have a talk with her. You’ll have her to yourself while Jane and I are out buying the stuff for her frock. If something has been said at school which has upset her you’re the right person to find out about it, she thinks a lot of what you say.’

  Mrs Gage in her scrubbing had reached the tidy bin. She pulled at a piece of newspaper which was sticking out of it.

  ‘Right-o, dear.’ She opened the bin and took out the paper. ‘Funny how the paper thin’s comes wrapped in always seems to ’ave better bits in it than the paper what you buys to read. Look at this piece the kippers come in, isn’t that a smashin’ dog?’

  Cathy moved round and looked over Mrs Gage’s shoulder at a large photograph of a poodle.

  ‘He’s beautiful.’

  Mrs Gage folded the paper so tha
t she could read it.

  ‘Oh, it’s a competition. Look what’s wrote. “’ave you got a camera? Enter your dog now for the most beautiful dog in Britain competition. First prize fifty pounds.” Well, I never! Better show this to young Paul, ’e’s got a camera.’

  ‘I dare say the competition’s over, you know how old fishmongers’ newspapers often are. Is the date still on it?’

  ‘No. It’s come off where the fish stuck, but you could buy today’s copy and see.’

  Cathy’s mind was not really on the competition, but on the day ahead of her. How lucky it was such a lovely morning! They so seldom went to the west end of London to shop, it would have been cruel luck if it had rained. Going with Jane to choose new stuff for the frock would be fun, for their clothes were so often altered from secondhand ones that came in bundles for needy clergy. If there was one job Cathy hated more than another it was turning other people’s old garments into clothes for her family. How nice to ride on the top of a bus, crossing the Thames, watching the tugs, the seagulls and seeing Big Ben. She said, answering her own thoughts:

  ‘Oh, what a lovely morning!’

  Mrs Gage was more practical.

  ‘I said to Mr Gage as I woke up this mornin’: “Nice it’s fine for Mrs Bell and Jane for their shoppin’, but it’s a funny thin’, the day I do the vicar’s study as my good deed, the sun always shines after a wet week.” ’

  Cathy looked fondly at Mrs Gage’s back.

  ‘It’s angelic of you to do it, and I’m glad the sun shines, as a reward.’

  Mrs Gage sniffed.

  ‘Reward nothin’. It ’appens regular as clockwork. Out pops the sun, and the parishioners look out of their windows and seein’ the sun again says to theirselves: “I could do with a nice walk after all that rain, now where shall I go? I know, I’ll pop along and call on the vicar!”’

  ‘They don’t come to see him unless there’s something to see him about.’

  Mrs Gage’s hearty laugh roared out.

  ‘That’s what you think, dear. But you’d be surprised. They ’oard thin’s for a fine Saturday, they know the weddin’s got to be fixed, and the baby christened or that, but do they come on a wet Saturday? Not them. They wait till it comes out nice, like this mornin’, then they march in and sit in our ’all, waitin’ to walk with their muddy boots right across the study carpet which I’ve just washed.’