Caroline England

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Yes, Mum, playing cricket with nasty strange boys.”

  Then he would add, in a very good imitation of her voice, “Don’t you think, dear, it would be more fun to be just ourselves?”

  Yet, in spite of his teasing and his independence,

  Laurence was the one of her children who gave her that intimacy which she felt ought to exist between a mother and her offspring. On their long walks to the castle and up and down Old Hastings, he discussed all his interests with her with complete freedom, and as well, that subject so popular with them both, the Manor and the Torrys’ history.

  Caroline did her best to ruin the happy terms she and Laurence were on by dragging Elizabeth out to walk with them, or by suggesting diversions which Helen and James could share as well. She succeeded now and again, but even her eyes could not fail to see how much happier the children were left to themselves. Elizabeth sulked. Helen never stopped asking how soon she could go back to the beach, and James cried with boredom.

  “Much better leave them to their digging, Ma’am,” Nanny suggested. “Little children don’t take much pleasure in going out in a carriage, not after the first five minutes.”

  Caroline was prepared to release the two small ones, but she could not see Elizabeth’s point of view. Laurence did his best.

  “Why make her come with us, Mum? She simply hates it, and it’s much nicer our being alone.”

  Caroline looked worried.

  “I’m so afraid it’s just she feels she isn’t wanted. I should be so upset if she thought I had any favourites among you children.”

  Laurence, for all his fondness for his mother, thought her a tremendous fool about somethings.

  “But you know what she’s like. She always has been an unsociable little beast. Come on, Mum, you only make everybody miserable if you drag her about.”

  When it was time to go back to London, Caroline was almost shocked to find how happy she had been. ‘However nice your children are,’ she felt, ‘a wife shouldn’t be happy without her husband.’

  Caroline needed all the energy and fortitude she had collected at Hastings. John came back from Annecy not only having doctored his second act but having finished his play, and from that moment living with him was nightmare. Ever since the success of George Cheviot he had been a bit of a figure in literary London and had grown accustomed to being treated with some respect. What he wrote was received with open arms, and so he felt it should be with a play. His idea was that he should submit the play and, after a day or two, he would be asked to go to the theatre and discuss the casting. He found the theatre’s casualness incomprehensible. He had no grasp of all the ramifications of the stage world. The enormous piles of manuscripts to be waded through. The difficulty of tying down an actor-manager to reading a play, however promising. He alternated between fury at what he described as “deliberate insults and despair.” No wonder they don’t bother to write. I always knew it was no good.” In whatever mood he was in, he was incapable of settling down to write something else. He fussed and fumed round the house, blaming Caroline, the children or the servants for this, that and the other, or dashing off bitter letters to his literary agent. John was a writer to whom even a novel was stillborn until he could feel readers giving his characters life. With a play this feeling was worse. To picture it lying about in some office, no nearer being given a public than the day on which he had finished it, made him feel he had produced a dead thing.

  Through the weeks of waiting Caroline was angelic. To her such a fuss about a play was idiotic. Why, it might have been one of the children who was ill. All the same, he was fussed, and even if she could not see why, she could do her best to help. It was real bad luck that made fate produce on the same morning for John a letter from his agents, and for Caroline one from Timothy Foldes.

  John was a changed person the second he had his news. He rushed round the table and hugged Caroline.

  “They’re taking it, darling. They’re taking it. Shall we celebrate to-night? How about a dinner and a theatre?”

  John was in too bursting spirits to notice the vague smile she gave him, or to think that ‘isn’t that nice?’ was rather an inadequate retort to his good news. Nor did he see how unwittingly she laid down the letter she was reading. He was too excited to notice anything, but dashed out into the hall, calling cheerfully to Caroline, “Help the great playwright on with his coat.”

  Caroline stood in the doorway and smiled a good-bye. It was mechanical, so was her wave, but they were sufficient. Then she went back to her letter.

  “My dear Mrs. England,—

  “Forgive a stranger writing to you, but I do so on behalf of your brother. As you doubtless know, he has left Milston Manor and is living with me in France. I understand from Ellison that you are not on speaking terms with your grandmother, but in case you have made friends over his scurrilous behaviour (for there is no quality so sure to draw a family together as scurrilous behaviour) I think you should know that I did a good Samaritan act in taking him away. It does not seem possible in your family to get anyone to grasp his mental state. But I would like to point out that he is very badly balanced, and a flick in either direction might topple him over. This really brings me to the point of this letter. Would it be possible to get the following list of relatives to cease writing rude letters? Mrs. Torrys (grandmother), George Torrys (uncle), Sylvia Hill (aunt), with vague gentleman attached, always described as ‘my husband says.’ This aged collection of grumblers is breaking Ellison’s nerve, which is to all decency, for who could possibly care for the opinion of an aunt or uncle? Ellison has put (on my advice) a young and energetic bailiff to look after the Manor. True, the rooms are shut, but the bailiff’s wife opens the windows twice a week. Truly, the flower garden is not being attended to, but flowers do not sell, and a man named Bates has orders to grow and market vegetables. Ellison’s tastes are not very cheap, and there seems no reason why he should not do what he likes with his own. This letter may seem to you frivolous, but do not disregard it. I have a disgracefully flippant manner, but I am fond of your brother and he is an appalling anxiety, and I do not want it added to.

  “Yours sincerely,

  “Timothy Foldes.”

  Caroline paced up and down the house all day. She could not settle to anything. If only John would come back. What should she do? Should she go at once to Paris and see Ellison? Should she go to-night to the Manor and find out exactly how the land lay? If only John would come in, he would advise her.

  It was evening before John came home. She heard the click of the garden gate. She ran into the hall. John came prancing up the steps. He seized hold of her hands. “We start to rehearse immediately after Christmas. There are two slight changes to make, but nothing to matter. Come along, darling, go and dress. Put on everything that’s lovely. We’ll eat all the things that are out of season.”

  Caroline hardly heard what he said.

  “John, I’ve been so longing for you to come home. Something dreadful has happened. Read this.”

  John was in such a seventh heaven of happiness that even reading a long letter which did not concern him failed to ruffle his temper.

  “Miserable boy,” he said cheerfully, when he had finished. “But really Caroline, what does it matter to us? To-night’s a party. We’re going out. Do let’s forget your wretched brother. It really isn’t our business.”

  “But John,” Caroline stared at him, “it’s the Manor. Think of it. The rooms are closed. A bailiff looking after our people. There’ve always been Torrys in the Manor.”

  John began to climb the stairs.

  “Don’t behave like a tragedy queen, darling. I’m going to have a bath. What are you going to wear?”

  Caroline caught his sleeve.

  “John, I don’t often ask you to help me, but you must this time. What am I to do?”

  “Do!” He stopped and turned r
ound and looked at her. “Nothing. What can you do?” Then in a softer voice, “Come on, darling, don’t spoil my day.”

  Caroline hardly heard what he said. She just registered that he had no advice to give, that anything she did, she must do on her own initiative. She came to a sudden resolve.

  “I shall go down to the Manor to-morrow morning. I can’t make any plans about what is to be done until I see for myself what arrangements are being made.” John went whistling up the stairs.

  “I don’t care where you go to-morrow so long as you look lovely to-night.”

  The word ‘to-night’ struck Caroline.

  “Must we go out to-night, John? It would be so much nicer sitting quietly here at home, and I do want to talk things over with you.”

  John had reached his dressing-room, but at her words he came back to the stairs.

  “Talk things over! Do you think I want to spend a dreary evening sitting here discussing your blasted brother? I’m your husband, and I’ve written a play on which I’ve built a lot. To-day I get good news of it at last, and all you do is to grouse about some little family quarrel. Well, you can sit at home and think about it by yourself, I’m happy and I don’t mean to be damped down by you. I’ll find somebody else to eat my dinner with me.”

  Chapter XVI

  CAROLINE pulled up her white kid gloves and settled her cloak more firmly on her shoulders, and stepped through the door into her box. Outwardly, her face was perfectly serene. Inwardly, she was shivering with nerves. Her horror of the literary world was as nothing to her horror of this new world into which John had plunged. Never had she thought of meeting actors and actresses. One knew the great names, of course, and perhaps might have run into some of them at receptions. But this sudden intimacy which meant that they came to her house, made her feel desperately inadequate. The whole of her upbringing, tastes, and the trend of her mind were unsuited to the demands made on her. She was incompetent to discuss amusingly this and that play and this and that performance. She felt that, to the actors and actresses who came to them for supper on Sundays, she was John’s dull wife. Sometimes John had said: “Weren’t you interested when Miss So-and-So was telling you about that tour? I thought she was tremendously amusing.” And Caroline, who had sat through a description of theatrical lodgings and trying journeys and stage arguments, had replied that she had been interested. But really she had listened in disgust. She thought the world of the theatre sordid, and wished to keep herself and her family out of it. From the first moment that John had attended a rehearsal, he had been like somebody drunk. She had done her best to be interested in this inflexion, and that inflexion, but she could see she was putting up a poor effect. To her mind John wrote words, and actors and actresses said them. Where they had to stand while they said them seemed to her about the only thing there was to discuss, once they had committed the words to memory. She could not see why John had to be in the theatre every day. She saw the whole theatrical world as something that was trying to break up her home. John had made a tentative suggestion that she should come to a rehearsal, but the thought of herself as ‘Author’s wife,’ being talked to by everybody, filled her with such dismay that John had laughed and said, “All right, we’ll leave it till the first night. But you’re so good at colours and things, I thought you might have some helpful suggestions to make.” And here was the first night. No good trying to remain in the background any more. She was John’s wife, sitting in a box for everybody to see, and painfully conscious of the glint of lorgnettes and opera­glasses.

  These weeks had been hateful; she was glad really that the first night was here at last. Perhaps it would mean that John would work in his study again. That the garden gate would be shut and they all one family under one roof. She knew that John felt that she had shown lack of interest in his play, and there was some truth in his statement. But if it came to that, had not he shown lack of interest in the Manor, which mattered far more? It seemed to her incredible that he could think that it would not fill her mind. All those weary journeys on that slow train up and down. Bates was doing what he could with the garden, but already it looked ill-kept. What could one gardener do with a place that size? There were dead leaves blowing up the terrace. She had been so ashamed that twice she had taken a brush and swept them away herself. If it looked bad now, what would it look like in a few months’ time? John was so queer about Ellison. The obvious thing for her to do was to go over to Paris and see him and reason with him. It was possible that his friend was right that a country life did not suit him. Perhaps he ought to have a little pied-à-terre in London. Perhaps he would do better to take up some profession. But John said, “You can’t go over there”; and suggested nothing else. Oh, it was a very good thing the play was produced at last, so John could settle down and be normal again.

  The lights were beginning to dim. The orchestra was fading out, when the door opened and John slid in quietly and sat on Caroline’s left, hidden from the audience by the hangings. Caroline smiled at him. He took her hand.

  “Don’t you look lovely. Every inch a queen.”

  She looked at his forehead and saw beads of perspiration.

  “Are you ill? Have you got a temperature?” He squeezed her hand.

  “I should think you are about the best antidote to nerves a man could have.”

  “Are you nervous?” Caroline looked surprised. “But you haven’t got any words to remember.”

  He grinned.

  “Other people can forget mine. Ssh! the curtain’s going up.”

  Caroline had only a very bare idea of the plot of Candytuft . John had read her bits, but she found a play muddling when read. He had also told her the story, but unfortunately something he had said had made her think of Laurence and she had wondered if he was happy, and what he was doing, and suddenly realised she was not taking in a word. She had not hurt his feelings by asking him to repeat his story, but had said with fervour when he finished, “That ought to make an interesting play.”

  “And amusing?” John asked. “Don’t you think it’s an amusing plot?”

  “Oh, very,” Caroline agreed. So it was with very little idea of what she was going to see that she saw the curtain rise. Dimly she had supposed that a play called Candytuft would be about gardens, and it was with surprise that she saw some chambers in the Temple. It was difficult for her to concentrate on the action, owing to John’s mutters. “They missed that.”

  “They took that one.”

  “Fancy that getting across the footlights.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “Oh, the fool, he made a mess of that line, and it is so important.” Caroline tried to react with wifely sympathy and yet take a wifely interest in the play. She was sorry for the nice-looking boy. He was so like John in many ways. He was in love with a girl of a different class. He had got on in the world and it was only when you saw his really dreadful old father that you realised where he had come from. She was very sorry for him in the scene with the girl’s parents. Horrible, to be so unkind. She did not know how John could write about such nasty people. By the end of the act she had forgotten John and his mutterings. Just before the curtain came down, the boy said: “Doesn’t love matter at all?” Did it matter at all? As the curtain fell her eyes were swimming with tears. Of course it mattered. It mattered terribly. She turned to say to John, “Oh, I do hope it all turns out right,” and found he had gone.

  There seemed to be one advantage in having a husband that wrote a play, it pleased your relations. Louisa and Elizabeth, who had so often promised to stay and never turned up, suddenly became quite effusive. They both wrote and said they would come with their husbands for the first night. Caroline was enchanted.

  “Oh, John, Louisa and Elizabeth are coming to see your play. Isn’t it nice of them?”

  John was not at all impressed.

  “You write and tell them they can buy their own tickets then.
You’ve done nothing but ask those sisters to stay since they were married. I don’t see why we need bother with them now.”

  “But John, it isn’t a bother. It will be a tremendous treat to see them again. They can sit in the box with me. There’s always a lot of room in a box.”

  “They will do nothing of the sort,” John retorted. “Do you think I’m going to be driven mad by your chattering, whispering sisters? If it will please you to entertain them, I’ll get them seats.”

  Caroline would have liked to have asked them all to stay, but John refused pointblank.

  “I don’t know them and I’m not in the mood to force myself to be polite. Ask them any other time you like, but not now.”

  In the end Caroline wrote a tactful letter and invited them all to dine before going to the theatre. “I’m sorry I can’t ask you to sit in the box, but I shall see you in the intervals.”

  In the second interval Elizabeth had found some friends and only Louisa came up to the box. The play was going magnificently and for a moment or two they talked about it, then Louisa suddenly pulled her chair forward.

  “Oh, Caroline, I knew I had a bit of news for you. You know that Eric is on the Committee of the hospital now? His father thinks he should be if he’s going to stand for Parliament, and I had to go on the Ladies’ Linen Committee. Very tiresome, but one must do these things. The other day the matron asked me to go round the wards, and in a bed I saw a funny, shrivelled-up old thing, and I thought, ‘I know that face,’ and who do you think it was? That old frump we had as governess. Do you remember her? Longy.”

  “Longy! She must be quite old now. What’s the matter with her?”

  Louisa smoothed out her skirts.

  “It’s rather dreadful. The matron said starvation. It seemed she had been existing on bread and water for days when they found her. She had kept herself, sewing or something. She got rheumatism in her hands. Poor old dear. It was most upsetting.”

  “What did you do?”