Jenny was in her kitchen. Jack had bought her some bronze-coloured chrysanthemums to tone with her yellow curtains and walls. Jenny’s head seemed to get smaller as her body grew larger. She had on a loose, grey smock over a short, black skirt, bare legs and flat-heeled red shoes. She looked very young. She was sitting at her kitchen table with her head in her hands, her brown hair tumbling in two pools on to the white oilcloth covering. She jumped up as Mabel came in.
“Oh! It’s you . . . I thought it was Mrs. Bank—she’s late this morning—I do hope she’s coming—she isn’t often late like this—I mean, she’s always late but not always as late as this.”
Mabel looked round the kitchen. Not in too bad a state. Young Mr. Willis must have been at it. She had the lowest opinion of the Willis’s charlady, but it was no good saying that; the chances of Mrs. Willis getting another before the baby was born were very slim, and even that Mrs. Bank was probably better than nothing.
“Hannah will come up this afternoon and give you a hand. Half an hour of Hannah is worth more than two hours of your Mrs. Bank.”
“That’s what Mr. Willis says—but Mrs. Bank is company—I do hope she’s coming to-day.”
Mabel’s voice was brisk. She didn’t like the look of Jenny at all; she did not like the way she had been sitting when she came in. In all her experience she had never no known a married girl in such a state about having a baby. She had known plenty of unmarried ones that had needed watching to stop them throwing themselves into ponds and all the rest of it, but it seemed funny to get into such a state when you had your lines.
“Now, where’s this milk? You are a naughty girl, that’s yesterday’s bottle not finished. The government don’t spare extra milk for you to leave going sour.”
Jenny flushed.
“We can’t get a refrigerator yet—they’re terribly expensive—and Mrs. Bettelheim gave me some cream—I should have been sick if I had drunk everything.”
“One day I’ll pop out on Mr. Bettelheim when he’s coming up the stairs with his parcels. I say to Hannah I shall put a bit of soap outside my kitchen door, and it would be surprising when he slips what’ll roll in.”
“Mrs. Bettelheim says that it’s all legal, he’s allowed it because of the children.”
Mabel looked at Jenny out of the corner of her eye. She might be soft, as Mrs. Parks suspected, but she surely hadn’t swallowed that. Mabel did not believe that Jenny was soft. Of course Mrs. Parks had a better chance of knowing than she had, going regularly to an asylum as she did, but Mabel thought that fright was the trouble. Jenny, as far as she could see, had spoken in all innocence, but then Jenny was not thinking what she said. Mabel gave another glance at her. She did look wretched. Twitching hands, and now she noticed she’d been crying. A rough tenderness came over her. She came across to the girl and patted her shoulder.
“Why don’t you come and sit down in my kitchen for a bit till we see if Mrs. Bank turns up? You don’t want to mope, you know. You’ve not only got yourself to think about; we want a proper Sunny Jim for a baby . . .” She broke off for Jenny’s head was on her arms and she was sobbing. “My, whatever is it? Come on, tell old Mabel, you don’t want to upset yourself like this.”
Jenny made a great effort at self-control. She reduced her crying to gulps and moans, then raised her head.
“So sorry—bad day to-day—it’s nice of you—I’d like to come down, but I told Mrs. Bettelheim I’d go up any day to her if Mrs. Bank didn’t come . . .”
Mabel stood on the back stairs fingering Jenny’s bottle of milk. She looked up at the Bettelheims’ flat, then down towards her kitchen. It was not her place to interfere, but she did not like to leave Jenny alone. After a moment’s indecision she went up to the next floor.
Paula was cutting the breast off a guinea fowl. Heinrich thought little of guinea fowls. To him they were the common, lower inhabitants of the farmyard. He would, however, eat them if well cooked. Paula prized them highly. When Heinrich’s business took him away from London, which it sometimes did, and the shopping fell back on her feeble shoulders, her heart turned gratefully and lovingly to guinea fowls. To her shop counters, fishmonger’s slabs and butcher’s hooks yielded no more than for any other citizens; in fact, they often yielded less, because she was so unassuming that to her could be given pieces of fish and meat that braver housewives would have thrown back at the shopkeepers. Too well Paula knew what Heinrich could say at the table, even in front of the children when what was offered was the result of her shopping. Too well she knew that scornful look which came before, “You are a fool. Such food is not necessary. Do I shop in such a way?”
To-day Paula sang at her work; she had triumphed. A guinea fowl had been hanging on a hook, free to all to buy. No effort, no cajolement, just the simple question, “How much?” It was not a good guinea fowl, it was a scraggy, ill-fed bird and it had apparently walked from a distant farmyard to the poulterer’s hook. It cost the outrageous sum of eighteen and sixpence. When the poulterer had named this figure, Paula, before she could stop herself, had exclaimed, “Schrecklich!” The word had been said. It hung in the air, as visible to Paula as if she had waved a swastika. She looked at the poulterer, who was also her fishmonger, with cheeks flushed with shame. The fishmonger, who was also the poulterer, seemed to her a man with the manners of a king. He stroked the guinea fowl, dug it in the ribs with one finger, and then, just as if Paula’s word had never been spoken, said: “Shocking, that’s what it is, Mum, and no mistake. I can remember when I had rows of ’em, fat as butter, for a few shillings.”
Paula, as she sang, delicately carved off the guinea fowl what in courtesy might be called its breast. Heinrich sometimes liked a dish of breast of guinea fowl; he was even able between mouthfuls—he was a very quick eater, never laying down his knife and fork—to throw out a compliment. It was so fortunate that he did not mind dishes cooked especially for himself. If his own food pleased him he never questioned what was being eaten at the other end of the table. As Paula sang her mind was darting about. Irma at her dancing class. Irma past all dancing classes, fully trained, a leading ballerina. Irma coming forward and the theatre not only clapping but shouting, not caring at all that Irma was Jewish, caring only that she was an artist, not even caring that her mother and father and brother were not yet naturalised. Perhaps by then they would be naturalised. England was not a country to make much of its artists, but for the parents of a leading ballerina an exception might be made, you never knew.
Hans was home from school because of a cold. He came into the kitchen and stood at the end of the table, his face serious, screwed up to say something. It was always better that the children should not feel screwed up to say anything because, what they wanted, however urgent it might seem to them, might seem to Heinrich of less than no importance. In that case the wish would not be granted and sadness, sometimes with Hans, bitterness, was the result.
“Ach! Hans. Do you remember how much your father pays if he buys a guinea fowl?”
Hans was able to take his mind from his own affairs and give it entirely to somebody else’s. He was not only a gentle, docile boy, he was also serious. Sometimes it seemed to Paula impossible that he and Irma could be brother and sister. Of course Hans was born in Munich and had shared the sufferings of being driven away and living in exile, but at the time that had happened Hans was only a few months old; he had not known what was happening. He had not seemed to want anything but her arms and her breasts, with their plentiful, good milk. It would almost seem as if, with that milk, he had sucked up the fear, the degradation and the unhappiness. How otherwise account for so serious a child? He had never known anxiety, yet he had often the care-worn expression of a man, he who would not be ten until next month.
“How much did you spend?”
“Eighteen shillings and sixpence.”
“Father does not buy a guinea fowl, but if he should buy one he wo
uld not give more than ten shillings, if as much. That day he bought the big goose and the little chickens he paid a lot of money, but then they are controlled; it is necessary to pay so they never reached the restaurants or the shops.”
Paula dried her hands on her apron and stroked the hair out of Hans’s eyes.
“How does the cold feel? I will make you a cup of chocolate with whipped cream on the top.”
Hans did not appear to have heard what she said. His old, anxious brown eyes looked up into hers.
“Mother, it’s no good this learning the piano.”
Paula gave a nervous gasp. This was the sort of thing that Hans got screwed up about. He had, in fact, been screwed up about it for some long while, but fortunately he had not yet told Heinrich.
“Your father paid a lot of money for that so beautiful piano.” There was a pause while they both considered the Bechstein grand. When Hans had run across the fields at Peasefield to play on the Nettels’ piano, his piano playing had been a pleasure. It was when the Bechstein grand, with the utmost difficulty and much cursing and groaning from the workmen, had been established in the drawing-room, that piano playing had ceased to be a pleasure and had become an anxiety. It was then that an expensive master had been engaged; it was then that all Hans’s leisure had to be given to practise. “It is Benny Moses. He has been singing on the B.B.C. Your father does not like Mr. Moses, who is of less importance in the business, should have a son who sings on the B.B.C. while his children do nothing.”
Hans was not one to shirk facts.
“That is so.”
“It was a night at a dinner just before we came here. Mr. Moses was telling all the table of his son, and your father could not stand his . . .” Paula broke off, feeling for the right word.
Hans prompted her.
“Bragging.”
Paula hurried on as if she had known such a word all the time.
“Bragging and he spoke of your piano playing, he said you played very well, and so you do, son, for a little boy.”
“I can play by ear and for pleasure, but that is not a true gift.”
“You are sure?”
“At my last lesson Mr. Jones spoke of it. He is from Wales, he was playing in an orchestra and singing in a choir when he was seven. His father belonged to a famous choir that won a lot of prizes. His mother, too, sang; his sister played the violin. He told me they were very poor, but they ate and drank music. He said unless the music was so to you that it filled you like a good meal, then there was no point in working at it. He is nice, Mr. Jones.”
“But you enjoy working at the piano. Often you are there when all need to practise is finished.”
“I hate the exercises and the scales. I like to play for fun. Mr. Jones knows that, he said to tell Father.”
Paula and Hans exchanged a glance. In it was a picture of telling such a thing to Heinrich. Heinrich, so confident, so certain in everything he did, almost a magician in the way he made little things that he had stated casually come true just because he had said them. Paula went back to her guinea fowl. It would do no good for Hans to speak to his father. His father had said that Hans was remarkable at the piano, and so he had to be remarkable at the piano. There were, however, ways in which things could be arranged which might seem satisfactory to Heinrich and yet were not quite as he planned them.
“This Mr. Jones, is he to be trusted?” Hans nodded, looking at his mother with faith. “Then I tell you what you must do. You practise always when your father is out. Only, perhaps once in three weeks, does he ask to hear you play in order to see that the money he is spending is not being wasted. What your father would wish is such pieces as give great display on the piano, perhaps something where one hand crosses over the other.”
“He’ll ask Mr. Moses to come and hear me. Mr. Moses is musical.”
Paula went on calmly carving the guinea fowl.
“When you are playing to please yourself then you play very well. Mr. Jones will find two or three such pieces; you can play them until they are perfect. Mr. Jones will get paid and everybody is satisfied . . .”
There was a knock on the kitchen door. Paula opened it. She did not know Mabel except by sight. A stranger always frightened her. Her reaction was the same as Jack’s and Jenny’s to the appearance of Hannah. Mabel was coming to complain. There was only one hopeful sign about Mabel and that was the bottle of milk that she was holding. People who came to complain would not bring with them a bottle of milk.
“Please to come in.”
Mabel had not been in any kitchen in the house save her own and Jenny’s. She looked round approvingly at Paula’s. Wonderfully good stuff she had and everything in its proper place. If there was one trait which particularly drew Mabel to any one it was a cook with method, a place for everything and everything in its proper place.
“Excuse me, Mum, it’s not my business, but I thought I’d better have a word with you about Mrs. Willis. She seems very poorly this morning.”
Paula nodded to Hans.
“Run along, I will bring you your chocolate later.” She waited until the door was closed, then she offered Mabel a chair. “Please to be seated.” She looked apologetically at the bird. “I am preparing this for to-night as my husband likes a nice dinner.”
Mabel was temporarily deflected from her mission. Guinea fowl!
“What did you pay for it? Shocking, they are. Why, they were three a penny back at Peasefield.”
“Eighteen and sixpence. It is too much.” She looked at Mabel. Mabel, sitting down, seemed even smaller than Mabel standing up. She had about her an alive interest that was endearing. In the big house at Peasefield, when they had lived in their two rooms, Paula had been so conscious that they could not possibly be wanted, and so anxious about Heinrich who, feeling ill-used because others had the cottage, was apt to forget that they still had something to be grateful for, that she had kept as far as possible out of sight. She had admired Mabel; she would see her sometimes hurrying down the garden for a piece of parsley or a handful of herbs. She would think with respect of the meals that little woman, who was very far from young, cooked in the great old-fashioned kitchen. “I’m not a good shopper.”
“Now that’s a thing I am, though I say it myself. Not that I get much chance in London, her Ladyship does it; she goes to Shepherd Market, does very well, I must say, considering, but I’d rather do my shopping myself. Did you buy that in Shepherd Market?”
Paula felt sure that Mabel’s sharp eyes had not missed Heinrich slipping up the back stairs with his arms full of parcels. Parcels he took no trouble to hide. A square brown paper parcel hanging from one finger any woman, especially a cook, would guess was two pounds of butter. A small can from another finger saying clearly to the observer, “This is farmhouse cream.” Under his arm a parcel which could be nothing but an entire ham. If he were bringing home poultry he took no trouble at all. If the bird were wrapped, and only too often they were not wrapped, feathers protruded from the paper. To Heinrich there was but one law which was that whoever else suffered it would not be the Bettelheims. It was better, far better, not to say urgent, to take Mabel’s mind away from where they did their shopping. She said gently:
“Mrs. Willis is not well. Mrs. Dill has spoken to me about her. Mrs. Dill said she would like to do something to help, but all day she is working and it is the daytime when Mrs. Willis is alone. Mrs. Dill said Lady Nettel would like to help, but she is thinking that she will make Mrs. Willis shy. Mrs. Dill said, if, when I was working, I would let her sit with me sometimes it would be good for her.”
“She looks properly to pieces this morning.”
“I do not think she is ill in her health. She sees the doctor, who will look after her when the baby is born. That is in order. But she is not well here . . .” Paula paused. Mabel looked at her expecting her to tap her forehead; instead Paula laid both hands
over her heart.
Mabel had to change her idea. So that was what Mrs. Bettelheim thought. Funny, she would have sworn that Mr. and Mrs. Willis got on together.
“She doesn’t get on with him?”
“Oh, but, yes. I think perhaps . . .” Paula hesitated; the English were so queer about love. What had been proper and indeed commonplace to talk about in Munich made the British look shocked, as if you had unveiled an indecency. “I do not know how to explain what I mean, but I think perhaps they love each other more than most young people. They have known each other when they were still children, and they have loved each other ever since.”
“What’s the matter with her then? When I came in this morning she was at the kitchen table with her head on her arms. She had been crying.”
Paula crossed her kitchen and fetched some mushrooms, which she peeled.
“It is often so.”
“Why? She’s not the first girl to have a baby and won’t be the last. What’s worrying her?”
Grass in Piccadilly Page 12
