The Whicharts
Page 20
“Rubbish! that’s not Miss Jones. Miss Jones is in the shed.”
“What?” Quick, light steps sounded outside, and turning, Tania saw her mother framed in the doorway.
Chapter 21
IN all her dreams she had never imagined that her mother would look like this. So vivid, so lovely, so young. Incredibly far though she was removed from the old lady by the fireside that she had pictured, she knew at once who she was. The figure in the doorway spoke:
“I think there’s been some mistake. My aunt says—”
Turning, Tania picked up her Bible from the shelf behind her, and held it out. Her mother didn’t take it, for even as she had picked it up, Tania saw her recognise it, and realise who she must be. All the colour drained from her cheeks. She swayed slightly.
“It’s all right,” said Tania, her voice gruff with pity. “Don’t worry, I only came to look you up. I’m going now.”
Her mother put a restraining arm round her shoulders, then hurriedly withdrew it, ashamed of so eager a gesture:
“Don’t go,” she said, “I’m too terribly—oh too terribly—” she fumbled round for expressive words.
Her daughter grinned. Here was someone as tongue-tied as herself. With the grin they established a wordless understanding.
Lolling against the sacks of chicken food, they talked. Tania gave a skeleton portrait of her life. A very bare history, with all her feelings left out. Giving no reason for her sudden appearance, she finished up by saying:
“So I went to look for you in that house of yours up by Carlisle, and there they gave me this address, so I came down here.”
“But did you start looking for me yesterday morning?” her mother asked. Tania nodded. “Why, you must have driven simply miles then. How too dreadfully exhausting. It’s the world’s bore, but you ought to go to bed at once.”
Tania tried to protest, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she could hardly stand, though privately she put this down in part to a diet of doughnuts and biscuits. Her mother ordered a bath to be turned on for her, sent for her suitcase and promised to see her car safely garaged. All this was very pleasant, but hunger was gnawing at her vitals. “What’s the betting,” she said to herself, “that she thinks I’d rather have something light, and gives me milk and biscuits for my supper?” However, she was no sooner in bed than her dinner appeared on a tray, a large and substantial dinner of which she ate every morsel. As she swallowed her last mouthful, she lolled forward almost blind with sleep. She was just conscious that her mother appeared to say good-night, but she was only capable of a grunt in response.
She awoke to find the sun shining, and was startled to see it was nearly twelve o’clock. She leaped across to the window, and drew back the chintz curtains. Her windows faced the chickens, with Miss Jones’s back bent in toil among them, but her eyes skipped quickly over the near view, to gloat on a most heavenly stretch of downs. Gazing entranced, a glorious thought came to her. Perhaps her mother would let her stay here, and since she seemed very rich, would let her learn to fly. It would be an investment, for she could learn sky-writing, all that sort of thing. She could go in her car every morning to a flying-school, and come back and sleep here at night. No more moving about on tour. Her own car to drive in. Working hard for her ground licence, really understanding aeroplanes. Perhaps Maimie, and Daisy, and Nannie, coming to stay. The whole vision made her gasp, it was too perfect.
She was recalled from her dreams by her mother, who came in to say that she had seen she was awake, that it was too late for breakfast, but there was some tea coming for her:
“Would you be too tired,” she asked, “to drive us, you and me, up to town this afternoon? I thought we might stay there a couple of days, and then go on to Paris to get you some clothes, and then I rather thought we might go to Java.”
“Java?” Tania was startled. She had dimly heard of Java, because Amy Johnson had flown over it. But when one could stop in Sussex why go to Java, she wondered, unless of course one was flying there. “Fly there, do you mean?” she asked. “Fly! My gracious me, no. On a boat, you know. It’s the wrong time of year of course, but I don’t mind the heat, and I don’t suppose you will.” Tania didn’t answer. She was thinking what a pity it was that she was the only person in the world who liked having a home. The tea came in.
Throwing her mind on to food made her think of the chickens:
“We couldn’t leave all those chickens, could we?” she asked hopefully.
“Why not? There’s Miss Jones. Anyway, neither Aunt Grace nor I have taken to them. I bought the place with them on it two days ago. I thought they’d be fun. They aren’t much.”
“Will Miss Lissen come to Java, too?”
“You can’t very well call her Miss Lissen, you know. Could you bear to call her Aunt Grace? No, she won’t come with us, she’s sick of travelling. When I told her about you last night she said, ‘Thank goodness, that means I can settle down.’ She’s travelled round and round the world with me, you know.”
Tania, completely shattered by this vision of herself and her mother travelling for ever, could think of nothing to say, so she took refuge in her teacup.
“Talking of names,” her mother went on, “I know it’s a disgusting bore for you, but you’ll have to call me something. Mother is too fantastic, and we can’t both be Tania.”
Tania nodded, appreciating the unnamed difficulties.
“Did my father ever call you anything besides Tania?” she asked.
“Well, he called me Mendelssohn sometimes.”
“Mendelssohn! Why?”
“He said I was a song without words. It was a joke, you know.”
Tania, marvelling at the sentimentality of “those old days” as she mentally stigmatised her mother’s girlhood, decided it .was as good a name as any other, and no one but themselves would ever know of its origin.
“Right. I’ll call you Mendelssohn,” she agreed. Mother and daughter drove to town that afternoon. Tania slightly consoled for turning her back on Sussex by the knowledge that a telegram had been dispatched to Nannie, asking her to bring Daisy to lunch the next day, and a prepaid one to Herbert asking for Maimie’s address.
London, seen from the angle of Brown’s Hotel, was an entirely different place from the London she had always known, and Maimie, Daisy, and Nannie seemed at first quite different people when they were being visitors. But after lunch her mother took Nannie off to her bedroom for a talk, and the sisters were left alone. Sitting together on a sofa, their heads touching, they stopped being different and became themselves. In spite of the fact that they had all met the previous Sunday, they had an immense amount to tell each other. Maimie, contrary to her usual custom, was the most reticent, Tania didn’t think she looked happy. Daisy, secure in Surbiton, the cherished, brilliant grandchild, was radiant. Whatever Tania might feel about herself, her sisters were enchanted at her good fortune.
They took the Dover boat express two days later. Maimie, Daisy, and Nannie saw them off. “See she wears something warm in them foreign parts, Mum,” said Nannie. “She turns livery that easy.”
“Good-bye, Tania,” said Daisy, with the tears dripping off her nose. Maimie slapped her on the back, and said nothing.
With her heart in her eyes Tania watched them, till the train turned round a bend.
“You’ll miss the others, I’m afraid,” said her mother sympathetically.
“Oh, I don’t know. I shan’t see much of Daisy now, I suppose, but when we’re home we shall always have Maimie with us more or less. Herbert’s not a bit permanent, you know.”
“No, I suppose not,” agreed her mother doubtfully. “I do hope you’ll like travelling, Tania,” she said, after a pause. “I want to take you about, and show you the world, and perhaps later on find you a husband.”
“I’d rather have an aeroplane,” exclaimed Tania, hor
rified out of her usual reticence.
“Would you? Do you want to fly? Well, could you bear to try travelling for a year first, and after that you can do what you like. I think you’ll find Java fun, you know. The people are too attractive, and they have—”
But Tania wasn’t listening. Her mind was on the skyline, where an aeroplane, like some giant silver bird, was darting towards them.
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Noel Streatfeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild was born in Sussex in 1895. She was one of five children born to the Anglican Bishop of Lewes and found vicarage life very restricting. During World War One, Noel and her siblings volunteered in hospital kitchens and put on plays to support war charities, which is where she discovered her talent on stage. She studied at RADA to pursue a career in the theatre and after ten years as an actress turned her attention to writing adult and children’s fiction. Her experiences in the arts heavily influenced her writing, most notably her famous children’s story Ballet Shoes which won a Carnegie Medal and was awarded an OBE in 1983. Noel Streatfeild died in 1986.
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First published 1931 by Collins
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