by Dodie Smith
‘Plenty of time for that,’ said Jane, only too anxious to know what was expected of her.
They found the hall deserted except for Edith, who was plumping up cushions. Like a maid in some old play, Jane thought amusedly. And now she came to think of it the whole hall resembled stage sets seen in her childhood. The many bedroom doors above suggested a French farce; guests at a party could be received at the top of the stairs. She must remember to say this to Merry.
Edith went. Clare put more wood on the fire and offered Jane a cigarette. They agreed it was a good thing neither of them smoked.
‘Well, now,’ said Jane encouragingly. She could see Clare was very nervous.
‘It’s just that … I suppose it is all right? Father did explain? If I do decide to go to this art school …’
‘But he said it was settled.’
‘Not yet. I felt I must see you first. I was so afraid you might be like Father’s Aunt Winifred – she came to look after us when our grandmother died six years ago and we had the most awful year. Cook and Edith gave notice.’
‘What did she do to annoy them?’ asked Jane, hoping to avoid pitfalls.
‘Just fussed terribly. And nothing was ever quite right for her – that’s so depressing. In the end Father had to ask her to go, because we couldn’t run this great, awkward house without Cook and Edith and of course we could never replace them. I just took over though I was still at school then – there’s a good school near here so Merry and I haven’t had to go to a boarding school. I shall never be really domesticated but I’ve managed … somehow.’
‘I only hope I can manage as well,’ said Jane.
‘Oh, you will – far better. And Cook and Edith are splendid. It’s just that someone has to plan the meals and do the shopping and pay the bills – it’s a full time job; anyway, it is for me because I’m bad at it. And doing the flowers takes such ages.’
‘Then let me do them. I love arranging flowers.’
‘Really? I loathe it so much that it stops me from wanting to paint them. And they’re the only things I can paint, and not very well at that. I’m not clever, like the others are. But Father thinks I should go to an art school – and I must admit I don’t want to spend the whole of my life just running this house.’
You won’t, thought Jane. You’ll marry and run your own house. Why should such a very pretty girl be bothered to have a career? Aloud, she said: ‘Well, you hand everything over to me. I ought to have plenty of time unless your father leaves me a lot of work”.
‘I don’t think he’ll leave you any – and he doesn’t come home every weekend. He’s mainly counting on your releasing me. You see, as well as going to this art school he wants me to stay with him sometimes and meet people. Oh, dear, has he got you under false pretences? He felt a secretary would fit in better than a housekeeper, though he did see some housekeepers. He just went on seeing people until he found someone he thought we’d all like.’
Jane flushed with pleasure. ‘I hope he thought right.’
‘Indeed he did. Drew and I took to you at once and you can see Merry has. And Richard will. Of course you may not take to us.’
‘I have already,’ said Jane. ‘I can truly say I never started any job with such high hopes of being happy.’ She found it hard to believe that, less than two hours before, she had gazed down on Dome House, chilled by apprehension. Remembering, she looked up at the dome, now a pale circle of twilight.
‘Oh, I am glad,’ said Clare. ‘Let’s have some sherry, to celebrate.’
‘Heavens, I’m still full of tea!’ But Clare was already on her way to get the sherry. Jane noted how small and slight she was and how young she looked, years younger than twenty-one; though her figure was that of a miniature woman and not at all childish.
‘There! You can drink it while you unpack. Let me know when you want the boys to move your trunk to the box-room. Dinner’s at seven-thirty. Edith will bang the gong at seven – this family has to be warned to stop working – not that we dress for dinner. Oh, Merry and I sometimes change but only into any old dress. You just suit yourself. I’ll be in my room – that’s the second door beyond the bathroom – and please, please come and ask if there’s anything you need.’ Having opened Jane’s door for her, Clare sped along the gallery.
Jane wondered what more anyone could need, beyond this comfortable bedroom, this warmly welcoming household. Though there was one tiny fly in her ointment: it was a pity Rupert Carrington did not come home every weekend.
She went to the window and stood looking down on the large back garden with its wide herbaceous borders. At the far end was a small thatched barn with a window in the gable end; Richard’s music room, no doubt. Beyond the garden she could see a narrow lane, then a patchwork of meadowland and stubble under a vast, pale sunset. She sighed happily and turned to her trunk.
By the time the gong sounded she had unpacked all she wished to unpack. Her summer clothes, cleaned and packed in tissue paper, could be left at the bottom of the trunk. She imagined shaking them out, next year, then mentally touched wood, but she had no serious qualms. Never yet had she lost a job; she merely left jobs when she tired of them, and it would be a long, long time before she tired of this job. At the moment she would cheerfully have signed on for life.
Now the quiet house was coming to life. She heard doors opening and closing, voices, a radio – no, it was television; she recognized the programme. Quickly she changed into the newest of her three dark crepe dresses – dark crepe got one tactfully through most evening meals, whether dinner, supper or high-tea. Then she went downstairs.
Drew and Merry were in the hail, watching television. Jane found herself accepting another glass of sherry. Clare came from the kitchen with a plate of cheese straws. At twenty-five past seven, Richard raced through the hall and upstairs, saying: ‘I’m late – I know! But I’ll be ready.’ He came down just as dinner was served, looking even more handsome than Jane had remembered.
‘Such a bore, leaving television for meals,’ said Merry. ‘I’d like them on trays but Cook won’t hear of it.’
Richard now seemed less preoccupied; indeed, Jane found his manners very good. He settled her on his right and talked to her most politely, once he had served the truly magnificent steak-and-kidney pudding. She noticed that helpings went to the kitchen for Cook and Edith. ‘We do that so that they can get finished and join us for television,’ he explained.
Jane asked him the history of Dome House and learned that it had been built in 1820. His grandmother had found it in the late nineteen-thirties, much dilapidated, and been able to get a long lease at a very low rental on condition that she did the repairs. They had barely been finished before the war began.
‘I can just remember the war here,’ said Clare. ‘The dome had to be boarded up. And Grand – that’s what we called our grandmother – took in a lot of refugees as well as Richard and me, and then Drew as a baby. You can’t imagine how cold the house was when we couldn’t heat it properly.’
‘Still, I always liked it,’ said Richard. ‘And the village. But not the people who live in the village. It’s full of old ladies.’
‘Very nice old ladies,’ said Drew.
‘Drew collects them,’ Merry explained. ‘Goes to tea with them and tries to get period details for his novel. It’s to be set in the Edwardian era.’
Jane asked what had made him choose that.
‘My grandmother was an inveterate frequenter of sales at country houses,’ said Drew. ‘That’s why this house is full of large, valueless furniture which no one else wanted. She also bought books, including a collection of little red ones known, around fifty years ago, as Nelson’s Sevenpennys. Clare cherished the historical romances and I wallowed in the society novels and fell in love with the Edwardians. If she and I are quaint old-world characters it’s entirely due to Nelson’s Red Sevenpennys.’
‘Oh, is Clare interested in history?’ asked Jane.
‘Not real history,’
said Drew. ‘Just little red heels tapping the Pump Room floor and swords drawn in a flash to defend a lady’s honour. And kings’ mistresses – most of them charming girls even if they hadn’t any honour to defend.’
‘There were lovely Ruritanian novels, too,’ said Clare. ‘But I like Dumas best of all. He didn’t come in Nelson’s Sevenpennys. Grand said you could get him for sixpence in those days but I’ve had to pay seven shillings or more for mine.’
Jane was able to say she’d read The Three Musketeers. Clare offered to lend her all the sequels but was cut short by Merry. ‘Miss Minton’s much too modern to bother about your frowsty old Dumas. Now will everyone stop talking and concentrate on eating or we shall be late for that serial Edith likes.’
Having accepted a second helping of steak-and-kidney pudding, Jane was thankful when it was followed only by fruit salad – and cheese for anyone who wanted it; nobody did.
‘Then off we go,’ said Merry.
The Carringtons rose en masse. Richard and Drew put away place mats and napkins. Clare and Merry carried plates and glasses to the kitchen. Jane, following with the fruit-salad bowl, found Edith half-way through the washing up, Cook making coffee and Burly finishing the steak-and-kidney pudding. In a matter of minutes the entire kitchen party was en route for the hall, where Drew was making up the fire while Richard adjusted the television. Cook and Edith were settled on the sofa and handed coffee and peppermint creams. Jane began to understand why the Carringtons had kept their maids for fifteen years.
Burly was given warm milk in a saucer on the hearthstone, then boosted on to the sofa beside Cook. After accepting a peppermint cream he went to sleep.
Richard put the lights out. The serial began, prefaced by ominous music.
‘Creepy,’ said Edith.
Drew, sitting between the maids, insisted on holding their hands.
‘I don’t know what Miss Minton will think of you,’ said Cook, complacently.
It dawned on Jane that the maids had Nanny status.
She had never particularly enjoyed television which she had usually watched with employers who, she felt, might prefer to be on their own; often she had excused herself and gone to her room to read. And she could not, now, follow the serial, already in its fifth instalment. But she found so much enjoyment that she asked herself the reason. Partly, of course, it was due to relief. A new job had started more than well; she had been kindly received and was now well-fed, warm and comfortable. But there was more to it than that. She was conscious of a happiness in which one could positively luxuriate. Who had created such an atmosphere? Four young people, two maids and a portly dog? She did not feel that Rupert Carrington could have had a share in it. Much as she liked him, he had seemed to her lacking in the serenity she now felt around her.
Did any of his children resemble him? She scanned their faces, lit by the flicker of television: Richard’s darkly handsome, Clare’s delicately pretty. Drew and Merry, alike in their small, neat features, had very different expressions; Drew’s was reflective, Merry’s vivacious. Only Clare had a look of her father and that was mainly due to their similar fairness. For an instant Jane saw his face vividly. How different his streamlined city offices were from this old family house. Such a very charming man … The serial ended to a repeat of the ominous music. Reverie retreated.
The next programme dealt with world affairs and was said by Drew to be ‘too earnest affairs’. And the alternative was a Western which nobody wanted; Merry said she hated seeing horses fall, and Cook said gunfire disturbed Burly. So the sound was turned down and the little figures gesticulated silently about world affairs.
Drew said: ‘I think one reason we like television is that we can control it. Those people in the box are our slaves. We can summon them when we want them and there’s no doubt we get quite fond of them; but we still remain ruthless and powerful, capable of turning them into silent darkness.’
Merry was watching the screen. ‘I’d rather turn them right off than keep them on and silent. Just look at them, pleading to be heard.’
Richard said: ‘It doesn’t make much difference to me what programme’s on. I just like the miracle of the thing – it stirs my imagination. Oh, let the poor devils have their say.’
So world affairs had an innings and Jane thought Richard, Drew and Merry made well-informed comments on them. Cook and Edith also let fall several shrewd remarks. Only Clare remained completely uninterested. When the programme ended she said, ‘I know I’m a half-wit but that kind of thing makes me ache with boredom. And now it’s the dreary old News.’
‘Our Clare doesn’t much care for real life,’ Drew told Jane. ‘What she needs is to live in a book, the kind that no longer gets written.’
The News was followed by a play which was generally liked, but Jane still found her own thoughts more interesting and was glad when it ended. Cook then hoisted herself and Burly from the sofa and solicited orders for hot drinks. Nobody wanted any but Jane was glad to accept the suggestion of a hot-water bottle; she had a theory that first nights in a new bed were abnormally cold, though that might not be the case in this most comfortable house. She went up for her bottle and dropped it over the gallery to Edith. Clare came up to press bath essence on her and say that Edith would call her at eight-fifteen for breakfast at nine – ‘If that’s all right?’ Richard, Drew and Merry said friendly good nights, Merry adding: ‘We all think you’re terribly nice.’
‘And I you,’ said Jane, whole-heartedly.
She had, in the course of her numerous resident jobs, lived in the same house with many young people and usually got on well with them. But she had often found them gauche, untidy and even dirty. Never before had she run into beautifully groomed, beautifully mannered youth, reminding her of friends known in her childhood. She felt as if in some pleasant pocket of the past, but one which had full access to the present; for she could not feel that the young Carringtons, with the possible exception of Clare, were old-fashioned. The others struck her as completely up to date, in spite of Drew’s reference to himself as a quaint, old-world character. And if Claire was old-fashioned it was in a very off-key way, seeing that she was uninterested in domesticity and loathed arranging flowers.
‘It’s just that the whole household’s unique in my experience,’ thought Jane with satisfaction, lying in her scented bath.
She was not given to lolling in baths, seldom having achieved baths worth lolling in. The water so often ran cold, bathroom doors were so often rattled impatiently. But she was reluctant to leave this bath and lay listening to someone’s bedside radio; only when the music stopped did she get out. She left the bathroom feeling boiled, guiltily sybaritic and extremely happy. The house was silent now, and dark except for the dull glow from the dying fire below.
What should she think of, on her way to sleep? Her interview with charming Rupert Carrington or her evening with his charming children? Rupert Carrington won by a head. How very comfortable this bed was! Everything was wonderful … too, too wonderful …
2
Tuesday
She could not remember ever before being brought early-morning tea and biscuits and rather feared they had spoilt her appetite for breakfast; after tea and dinner at Dome House she had begun to take more interest in food than she usually did. She wasn’t at all hungry as she opened her door to go downstairs. Then the smell of coffee and bacon was wafted up to her and she was instantly very hungry indeed.
Seeing Merry in the hall, she resisted her desire to clutch the handrail of the staircase.
‘Splendid,’ said Merry. ‘You sailed down like a duchess.’ Drew rose to ask if she had slept well; Clare said, ‘How punctual you are!’ and rang the gong for Richard. He came down and looked at Jane with faint surprise but greeted her pleasantly.
Sunlight flooded in through the hall’s tall windows and into the dining-room. Breakfast was as lavish as she had expected; fruit and cereals were followed by bacon and eggs, though there was not – as, with nostalgi
c memories of country-house plays, she had faintly hoped – a dish of kidneys kept warm by a spirit lamp.
Drew made her toast on his electric toaster. There was a toaster in front of each young Carrington.
‘Father bought them as a family Christmas present,’ said Clare, ‘because we were always fussing about really hot toast. Of course the wires are a nuisance; so’s the noise.
‘’One should think of it as musique concrète,’ said Jane, and felt proud of herself when Richard smiled and said he’d consider a quartet for toasters. While finishing up with toast and marmalade she asked herself if she could manage such a breakfast every day and strongly suspected she could.
‘I must tell you the order of the day,’ said Clare. ‘Cook and Edith are going out. They have to take their time off mid-week in case Father comes home at the weekend. We always give them lunch at the Swan, in the village. The food’s rather good and Burly’s allowed in the dining-room. Then we drive them to stay with their married sister till tomorrow night. They leave us sandwiches for this evening and we get our own meals tomorrow – or go to the Swan again.’
‘I can cook a bit,’ said Jane.
‘How lovely! I’m hopeless at it. This afternoon Richard and I want to shop in our market town. You could come with us but there’ll be a squash in the car until we’ve delivered Cook and Edith and Burly – he goes with them. If you don’t come, you’ll be on your own here as Drew’s going to tea with one of his old ladies and Merry’s spending the afternoon with a friend.’
‘With Betty. I told you about her. You could come too, and talk about theatres.’
Jane would have been glad to, or to go with the others; but even more, she fancied being alone at Dome House. She told Clare she wanted to plan the flowers before they next needed doing. ‘Planning’s half the battle – knowing which vase should go where and what flowers should go in it …’
