China Court

by Rumer Godden

  ‘Their house by now, I expect,’ said the second Grace.

  ‘So calm and cool!’ said Bella.

  ‘Well, would you expect them to show they are anything else?’ Mr Prendergast, who was watching too, would have liked to say that; in the way Tracy and Peter walked apart, careful not to touch one another, they reminded him of a stiff young couple he had seen at a Spanish wedding, arranged too, of course; and indeed, when they came into the room, Tracy’s mask of fright made her seem like some cold little infanta while Peter, in his nervousness, behaved like a young grandee, staying just inside the door and inclining his head to them instead of speaking.

  ‘Well?’ asked Bella. ‘Well?’

  ‘We sh-shall accept,’ said Tracy to Mr Prendergast. She had meant to speak evenly and with dignity, but it came out so jerkily that it sounded defiant. ‘There is no need to keep anyone waiting any longer. We have decided we sh-shall accept.’

  ‘And we hope it will be well,’ said Peter pleasantly. He genuinely meant it to be pleasant but – If I hadn’t spoken lightly I should have wept, he thought, and after Tracy’s seeming defiance it sounded mocking. The youngest Grace, who had got up to go to Tracy, sat down again; Tom cleared his throat uneasily and Bella looked Tracy up and down.

  ‘We shall accept.’ There was a long silence into which came the sound of the kettle just beginning to boil on its tripod over the methylated flame. ‘Very well,’ said Bella and shrugged. ‘Mr Prendergast is staying to tea,’ she said. ‘Since it is to be your house now, Tracy, I suggest you pour out.’

  Tea at China Court was a ritual: ‘an absurd anachronism,’ Bella said often.

  ‘But a delightful one,’ said Tom.

  Cecily had carried in the silver tray and lit the spirit-lamp under the kettle. The table now had a lace-edged embroidered cloth and on it was the pink tea set the third Grace had envied, with its shallow cups, its cream jug, a bowl for rinsing the cups, and its matching gold and pink enamelled spoons. Two teapots stood ready and warmed; the cups had to be warmed too for, ‘If the tea touches anything cold it loses the aroma.’ Mrs Quin impresses Tracy with that. ‘Only vandals,’ says Mrs Quin, ‘put in the milk first.’ The caddy had two compartments, for China and Indian tea; its small silver scoop was dented where the little boy Stace, in a temper, throws it on the floor and deliberately stamps on it. The sugar tongs were Georgian and shaped like scissors; there were small plates with silver knives and small, lace-edged napkins. ‘And the food! What food! What work!’ Bella groaned, though Tom’s and Dick’s and Harry’s and, yes, her own Walter’s, eyes glistened. ‘We have a cup of tea with a biscuit at home,’ said Walter yearningly. Now Cecily brought in saffron cake, buttered scones hot in a silver dish, brown bread-and butter cut thin as wafers, quince jelly and strawberry jam from the China Court quinces and strawberries; she had made shortbread, fruit cake, and, because Tracy likes them as a child, jumbles, thin rolled ginger snaps filled with cream. Of course in the days when Mrs Quin is alone there is not all this food, but all the same, ‘What work!’ said Bella and from the first afternoon she had declared, ‘Nowhere, nowhere in the world, except in England, does this slavery persist.’

  ‘We had tea often in New York,’ Tracy had said, though timidly, ‘and sometimes in Rome and it’s getting fashionable in France.’ She seemed fated to nettle her Aunt Bella and now she quailed. ‘P-pour out the tea?’

  She could see herself sitting on a straight-backed chair, her legs dangling because they cannot reach the floor, her clean dress spread around her – a child does not have tea with Mrs Quin in dungarees – while she watches her grandmother’s hand move over the tray, preparing, rinsing, measuring, and then dispensing. They are ugly mottled old hands stained with gardening and knotted with rheumatism, but they look graceful as they do this – because it is a graceful occupation, thought Tracy now, dignified, like a ceremony; and I shall disgrace it under all their eyes. Her aunts, trained by Mrs Quin, must, Tracy knew, be expert, no matter what they said, And they are so sure I shall make a mess of it, thought Tracy in panic and, ‘Please no, Aunt Bella. You pour,’ she was just going to say, when Peter stepped past her and pulled out her chair.

  Peter had been a working farmer for nearly five years now, but drawing rooms were in his blood and suddenly he was not a defensive young man, nor a nonchalant grandee leaning in the doorway, he was – a host, thought Mr Prendergast. He pulled up chairs for Bella and the Graces, took cups from Tracy and carried them to small tables, offered sugar and milk, handed plates – and talked, thought Mr Prendergast, easily and naturally covering up Tracy’s confusion.

  The youngest Grace and Mr Prendergast helped him; then Tom joined in, then Harry.

  ‘… a by-election, that’s certain. Old Ramsbottom’s announced he will retire.’

  ‘Who will the government put in?’

  ‘Tarrington’s a local man.’

  ‘Or Drayton. He was born in Canverisk.’

  ‘I expect Ramsbottom will get his baronetcy.’

  ‘Pity he ever stood. Too old.’

  ‘I had heard that Tom Dezvery—’

  ‘The Newquay Dezverys?’

  As the tension in the room eased, Tracy’s hands grew steady. She had been blindly copying her grandmother, seeing only those old mottled hands, but now she sat straighter as she put more hot water in the teapots – and was able to join in without a stammer or a blush, thought Tracy.

  ‘Peter, Aunt Bella hasn’t any jam.’

  ‘I think Uncle Tom would like a scone.’

  ‘Shall I cut you some cake?’

  ‘More tea, Aunt Bella?’

  They will do, thought Mr Prendergast. They will do, but when the last cup had been drunk, the last jumble eaten – ‘There wasn’t one left,’ said Cecily, pleased – the tension was back. Yes, they will have to face hostility, thought Mr Prendergast.

  The youngest Grace unwittingly began it.

  ‘You will be living here,’ she said. ‘Then what will you do with the house at Penbarrow?’

  ‘A farmer should live where his stock is,’ said Harry.

  ‘But we must live here,’ said Tracy.

  ‘In part of the house?’

  ‘In all of it,’ said Tracy and the obstinate look they were beginning to know came on her face; but I have to be obstinate, thought Tracy.

  ‘You won’t be able to keep it up.’

  ‘We shall try. We shall make it a little more modern, but I want to keep the house almost exactly as it is.’

  ‘How?’ asked Bella.

  ‘S-somehow.’ Tracy was beginning to stammer again.

  ‘We haven’t really discussed it,’ said Peter. ‘We haven’t had time. As Tracy says, we must modernize – and repair. I think I might move the dairy over to the stables here – we hope to electrify of course – and pull down those old ramshackle Penbarrow buildings. The house there could convert into two farm cottages.’

  ‘Very nice if you had the money,’ said Tom.

  ‘You won’t have the money. I have told you,’ said Walter, ‘when duty is paid …’

  A savagery seemed to possess Walter at the sight of those two hopeful young faces. Well, he had arranged to sell the Winterhalter and, I suspect, other things, thought Mr Prendergast.

  ‘These grandiose plans!’ said Walter.

  ‘They are not very grandiose,’ said Peter. ‘Only practical.’

  ‘Practical! I tell you, you are dreaming. Yes, your capital will be almost nil,’ said Walter with relish. ‘You will be up to your neck in debt before you have time to turn round.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a voice and, ‘Walter. It’s Mr—?’ said Bella but Walter was in spate.

  ‘I have warned you,’ he was saying, ‘but you wouldn’t listen to me. Oh no! Of course not. It’s Mrs Quin over again. Well, I can tell you, you will have to think again. Keep the house as it is! You will have to strip it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ cried Tracy in pain, and the other voices joined in.

&nb
sp; ‘You will find you will have to.’

  ‘Don’t live in dreamland.’

  ‘The house isn’t sacred, my dear.’

  ‘You will have to sell most of …’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Tracy. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Excuse me, Colonel,’ said the voice.

  ‘I shall keep it as it is,’ cried Tracy.

  ‘Penbarrow—’ began Peter, coming to her rescue.

  ‘Penbarrow!’ said Walter and snorted.

  ‘Penbarrow will do very well,’ said Peter trying not to lose his temper this time. ‘Very well, given a chance.’

  ‘And how will you give it a chance? Money doesn’t grow on Christmas trees,’ said Walter.

  ‘Colonel Scrymgeour—’ the voice persisted.

  ‘I could raise a mortgage on Penbarrow if I owned it,’ said Peter.

  ‘Contrary to St Omer belief,’ said Walter acidly, ‘mortgages have to be paid.’

  ‘That’s damned offensive,’ said Peter.

  ‘I didn’t think you would like it,’ said Walter. His face was mottled with temper and triumph, while white patches were showing round Peter’s nostrils. In a moment, thought Tracy, he will really lose his temper – a red-haired temper – and there will be a fight – but, ‘Colonel Scrymgeour, you must excuse me …’ The voice was almost shouting now and, ‘Walter!’ Bella really shouted. ‘Walter! It’s Mr—’ In the strain of the moment Bella still could not think of the right name. ‘Walter! It’s Mr – Mr Alabaster.’

  It was Mr Alabaster, but not the quiet withdrawn Mr Alabaster they knew, in the brushed London suit, black tie worn in deference to Mrs Quin, neat hair and gold spectacles. Mr Alabaster was in his shirt sleeves, his hair on end, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, while his hands were filthy and he had smudges on his face where he had mopped his forehead with a handkerchief he had used as a duster.

  ‘Forgive me, but of importance, I think,’ said Mr Alabaster but he did not talk, he babbled. ‘If what I think I have found is what I think. But it is,’ he burst out, ‘I feel sure but all the same, it’s quite beyond my scope. With your permission I shall telephone, go up to the village and ring up. This will have to be for Mr Truscott himself. I am not sure, of course, but I strongly suspect. There is one I haven’t found, possibly worth most of all,’ said Mr Alabaster. ‘I happen to have some little knowledge of Horae—’

  ‘What is the man talking about?’ asked Walter.

  ‘You must excuse me. I happen to have a little knowledge of Horae. A Book of Hours. “The Hours of Robert Bonnefoy”. By its description it would seem to be of great quality, but she may not be reliable, of course, though what I have found as evidence … Yes, if we could find it I might be able to tell Mr Truscott with a little more certainty. I really feel quite shaken. I suppose none of you has ever looked, or thought of looking in that bookcase? Perhaps if you did you would not know … and more in the boxes, and under the papers. It all needs confirmation, of course. We will get Mr Truscott, or he will nominate … if I may telephone … It’s not my field but if I could find …’ And here Mr Alabaster became clear. ‘Can you tell me,’ said Mr Alabaster, ‘are there any other books in the house?’

  It was getting late when Cecily came down the hill. ‘I knew,’ said Cecily, ‘as soon as I saw Peter and Tracy walking up together from the garden. I didn’t wait for the village to get the news, I went straight up to Groundsel and Minna,’ but now she was aware she ought to hurry – or dinner will be late, she thought – but it was such a fine clear evening that she had to linger. Mild and sweet and the wind has dropped; more fine weather on the way, thought Cecily. It seemed to her a good omen.

  The sky over Penbarrow was a clear luminous primrose, but behind the hill and village it had the colours, Cecily thought, of some old-fashioned party dresses that the girls once had – Mrs Quin’s choices were always a little dowdy – dove-coloured chiffon with that faint blue satin that is backed with heliotrope. The grass under the last yellow light had turned to olive-green, the colour of grass in Victorian oleographs, and on the drive the rhododendrons were dark.

  The windows all along the house were dark, too, except for one flickering square in the office: Mr Alabaster using a candle? thought Cecily in surprise and, Why haven’t they lit the lamps? she wondered. I left them all ready – but the whole house seemed to be in twilight. ‘We were too busy to stop,’ said Tracy afterward. Bumble came to meet Cecily as she went in by the front door; there was no sign of August. ‘He never was one for servants,’ Cecily says often and without rancour. Moses would be in his armchair in the kitchen – and wanting his fish, thought Cecily. Trill was silent, gone to sleep in the darkness. Where is everyone? she wondered as she stood on a chair, the oak-seated chair she always used, to light the hanging lamps in the hall, and, as the wicks caught and the lamps threw a golden circle on the flags, by contrast the rooms, through their open doorways, the stairs and passages, only dusk-shadowed till then, grew darker. Wondering at their emptiness, Cecily went into the drawing room where twilight glimmered through the windows. They might have taken the tea out for me, thought Cecily, a little hurt. She picked up the tray, then, as she went down the passage to the kitchen wing, she heard babel coming from the office; Tracy came running down the front stairs, a Grace came down the back. More feet sounded overhead. ‘Are you playing hide and seek?’ asked Cecily.

  They were. From the White Room Tracy brought down a row of books: Dante’s Vita Nuova and a three-volume Divine Comedy; a Chaucer, a small Shakespeare, the Confessions of Saint Augustine, the Philobiblion of Richard de Bury. ‘They were on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, behind the “What Katy Did” books, behind them and some Penguins. Do you suppose,’ she asked awed, ‘these were Great-Aunt Eliza’s?’

  ‘They look like hers,’ said Mr Alabaster. ‘This is a very old Chaucer.’ He was studying it reverently. ‘1532. It might be the first edition.’

  ‘Of Chaucer! But wouldn’t that be worth a tremendous amount?’

  ‘I should guess that it is fairly rare.’

  ‘And I wrote all over it!’ said Bella appalled. ‘I remember finding it when I was doing The Canterbury Tales for my Senior Cambridge.’

  ‘At least you wrote in pencil,’ said Mr Alabaster.

  There was a bookcase on the landing but, ‘Nothing. Nothing,’ said Mr Alabaster, waving its books aside. ‘These must have belonged to the house.’ He said that too of all the drawing-room books: the red leather set of Shakespeare; the bound volumes of Punch and Illustrated London News; and the shelf of tooled white-and-gold editions of Sesame and Lilies, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Ouida’s Two Little Wooden Shoes.

  ‘I remember they were for Sundays,’ said the youngest Grace, ‘and for looking at when we came in to the drawing room at five o’clock, with the Kate Greenaway books and Caldecott and the Just So Stories.’ The nursery yielded all the Coloured Fairy Books: the Orange, the Green, the Blue, and the Violet, as well as The Princess and the Goblin, Tanglewood Tales, and tattered copies of Little Women, Good Wives, and Jo’s Boys. ‘Little Women!’ cried the youngest Grace and took it into a corner. In the White Room cupboard too were a few Victorian books for girls on which Bella pounced with glee. ‘Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio,’ she read out, ‘Stories of Courage and Principle, or Fit to Be a Duchess. How delicious! Aunt Jane’s Hero, or Stepping Heavenwards, and look at the prices!’ cried Bella. ‘The Lily Series, one shilling each. The Girls’ Favourite Library, three and six.’

  In the attic, where Tom and Harry had taken a torch, they discovered among tied piles of papers a box of Chatterbox, The Coral Island. Henty. Jules Verne. ‘They were Stace’s, I expect,’ said Bella, but some of them are Borowis’s and John Henry’s, kept and handed down. In the attic too were more Punches, unbound but tied together with string, copies of The Landowners Gazette, Ceramic and Pottery Dealers and Blackwood’s Magazine.

  Cecily, going to the lamp room to fetch the rest of the lamps, almost collided with Tom
carrying a collection of family prayer-books, from the shelf where they had always been kept in the morning room. ‘What in the world is happening?’ asked Cecily. Tom did not answer. He had pushed open the office door with his shoulder and gone in.

  The office floor was littered with brown paper covers where Mr Alabaster had stripped them off. The china had been hurriedly transferred to the dining room, the books had been taken out of the bookcase and piled on the table; now Walter was reading out Eliza’s list while Mr Alabaster tried to identify each item and Mr Prendergast put them, one by one, carefully aside, separating them ‘from the dross,’ said Peter.

  ‘Whew! They are dirty,’ said Tom, and picking up one, gave the boards a brisk clap.

  ‘It would be better not to handle them like that,’ suggested Mr Alabaster. ‘They are old, you know.’

  ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy,’ Tom read out the title, puzzled by it as Eliza herself is puzzled years before. ‘Would anyone be interested in that?’ he asked.

  ‘I seem to remember a copy being sold in London last year,’ said Mr Prendergast, ‘for about a hundred and fifty pounds.’ Tom put the book down as quickly as if it scorched him.

  ‘You were right. This must be quite a hoard,’ he said to Mr Alabaster.

  ‘A hoard! She was in business!’ said Mr Alabaster.

  ‘It will make quite a sale after all,’ said Walter, as the piles grew.

  ‘I should say good but not outstanding,’ said Mr Alabaster.

  ‘Great Jupiter! What do you call outstanding?’ asked Tom.

  ‘I hoped, if we could have found the Bonnefoy Hours …’

  ‘Would this be it?’ asked Bella, who had gone upstairs again to ferret around. ‘It was in the bottom of the chest in the Porch Room.’

  ‘A Victorian missal,’ said Mr Alabaster turning it over. It is Lady Patrick’s ‘and not valuable?’ asked Bella so disappointed that she argues, ‘It’s written in Latin, half of it at any rate, and it has pictures. Are you sure?’