Nella Last's Peace

by Patricia Malcolmson

  I picked up the local Mail to glance through, and felt my blood chill with horror and pity. A lad I’d known from a baby had been ‘found hanging’ in his cabin on his ship at Chatham. The father was a grammar school master when both boys were there. Arthur was a favourite with him because of his interest and work in drama. The only son, he was their idol, and brilliantly clever. They wanted him to be a doctor, but gave way to his wish to go as a cadet at Dartmouth. The mother went back to teaching so there should be plenty of money for Kenneth’s career, and now at twenty-six he is dead by his own hand, after all the horror of war. I felt sick with pity to think of the agony of mind and shattered nerves that would make anyone of twenty-six, with the career he loved before him, and all his life to enjoy, choosing to end it so dreadfully.

  Friday, 9 April. I had to go down to the hairdresser’s, and did a little shopping. I went out early so didn’t go into Jessie’s, for I intended going out this afternoon and thought I could have done any shopping then she needed. When I called in on my way back, I found her brother had come from Broughton, in answer to a phone call from George, who is distracted about Jessie’s nerves. She walks about all night and complains she cannot breathe if she lies down. Her eyes looked so wild and furtive I felt alarmed, and she wouldn’t let either Mrs Atkinson or I do anything, or get ready. Luckily George came in and I could see he was determined she should go to her mother’s again. I felt upset to see the change in the poor thing. Mrs Atkinson and I have tried in every way to be kind, but she didn’t even say goodbye and wouldn’t let us offer to do anything about shopping or looking after George, etc. She has suddenly developed a grudge against everything and everybody, and George the most of all. I hope she stays till she is thoroughly herself.

  Saturday, 10 April. My little attack of acidosis flamed up into a bad gastric attack. I felt feverish and ill when I came to bed, and woke at one o’clock, to be sick and ill till after six o’clock. I felt so shaky when I rose, but a cup of strong tea and bit of toast pulled me together. Mrs Atkinson came in looking upset. Before she was up, the phone had rung and Mr Atkinson answered. It was Mary Easton, Jessie’s friend at Broughton, who said in an anxious tone, ‘Could you contact George, please?’ Mr Atkinson has off every Saturday and George had told him last night he too had a day off and intended ‘pulling up a few neglected jobs in the garden’ before going to Broughton by the teatime train. Mr Atkinson brought him to the phone and after a few minutes’ talk George told Mr Atkinson, ‘Mary thinks I’d better come at once’, so we are wondering if Jessie is worse in some way. Her furtive eyes worried me. She seemed to let them glide vacantly over everything and everybody, with no interest or focus.

  Sunday, 11 April. Such a lovely day. I didn’t feel well and was glad of my usual Sunday rest, but I longed to be going to sit by Coniston Lake. I wrote two letters, read the Sunday Express and had a nap, rising to make lunch for 1.30. Soup, cold beef and salad, wholemeal bread and butter, cornflour mould with jam and a cup of tea. I dusted, packed the laundry, washed up and then sat on the edge of the rockery wall and gossiped to Margaret, who was sitting knitting. My neighbour on the other side gave me some yellow sunflower daisies – little roots – so I planted them. People sat or stood about in the surrounding gardens, glad to be in the sunshine. Children laughed and played happily. Sunshine does make a difference to us all, even to my happy little cat, who rolled on the lawn and stalked little insects in the grass. Arthur Procter comes home tonight, so Margaret will have someone to go out with. Her mother said the other day she ‘Would never have thought our Margaret could be so dull in the house – I don’t know what’s the matter with her.’ I often have thought Margaret should have been married and begun a family, at about twenty– twenty-one. Some girls mature early and if they have their family young seem to keep young and gay all their lives. If not, it’s as if something goes sour or runs wild in them.

  When Mrs Helm was giving me the sunflower roots she said, ‘What did you think of Chislet?’ – Mr Helm is a magistrate and often met him, as Clerk to the Magistrates.* She said, ‘He has never been a happy man, and I think would have been off before, but he thought a lot of his old mother. She died last year and there was a lot of money in the family, so it looks as if he had waited to realise all before he went.’ Mrs Helm is a very religious woman and said sadly, ‘It’s a great pity – and even more for the mud it has stirred up’, and she named a string of prominent townsmen who were unfaithful to their wives, some just visiting different, rather shady women, two who travelled rather out of the town, where small children were growing up, suspicious like their wife’s family. She said, ‘There’s no goodness or honour left anywhere. Clergy and doctors are so changed. They are no different to ourselves. There’s no one to look up to’ …

  As we strolled slowly up from the cinema, a big Wesleyan church door opened, and the congregation came out. I knew most, if only by sight, and suddenly Mrs Helm’s rather whining voice came back to me as she said, ‘You don’t know who’s who nowadays. Mud is everywhere, only waiting to be stirred up.’ Amongst the ones coming out were two she had mentioned as well-known visitors to a ‘doubtful’ house. Two girls I well knew had been ‘fast’, to put it kindly, with both our own RAF and the Americans – I knew of two weekends spent at a quiet hotel near Spark Bridge – and could tell the girls knew most of the hotels of the Lakeland. Now they are married and look settled. There was a knot of men talking together. My husband said, ‘There’s three of the “Forty Thieves”’ – a name given to a few businessmen who buy and sell houses, etc., and it is said force prices up. I thought, ‘I suppose in every gathering of people a similar “bag” could have been made nowadays.’

  Monday, 12 April. To say I was amazed at my husband’s remarks as he sat down would be to put it mildly. He said, ‘I’m taking the car down to Kelly’s in the morning to get a car radio fixed I’ve ordered.’ I said, ‘But isn’t there a big tax on them?’ He said, ‘Yes, but isn’t there on everything, and isn’t life flying past with no signs of much for people like us?’ And he went on about ‘Two big wars in our married life’ and ‘Not having got much out of life’. I’d to firmly check an impulse to lay my hand on his brow and make him put out his tongue as I did when the boys were peevish and upset! He said, ‘Now when we are sitting by Coniston Lake or on the seashore we won’t be dull.’ I wondered if I wanted any noise when I sit by the lake. It has always been its beauty when only the splash of water, buzz of insects and occasional coo of wood pigeons from the wood, when the muted voices from a very odd rowing boat sound eerie and disembodied, when the wind blowing over the moors and through little gullies sounded like a whisper, which, if you could only hear plainly, would tell you all you ever wanted to know, but in its gentle soft rhythm was always a blessing.

  It’s very kind of him. I felt, though, it was ‘another green umbrella’, a phrase that is part of our family vocabulary. I always wear brown, dull maroon, soft copper or blue, and once chose an umbrella for a present when my husband asked what I needed. It was before all nice things disappeared, though they were rapidly being bought up. On Xmas morning I opened my parcel – obviously an umbrella – and speech completely left me. A really lovely and very expensive umbrella lay on the table – of harsh bright green, with a wreath of silver green leaves round. My husband looked at it complacently and said, ‘The girl wanted to persuade me to buy a plain brown thing – just as much as this one, too.’ Tactfully I worked on him in the holidays, and he agreed, ‘Perhaps brown would go better with your clothes’, but it was too late, the other was sold. My green umbrella has never been unfurled. I’ve stuck to my old brown one if carrying one ‘in case it rains’, and if I know I’m going out in the rain I dress accordingly, and as I like rain in my face, never carry an umbrella.

  The older I get the more I shrink from imposing my will on people. I often wish I could convince Edith she has nothing to fear of any influence I might have over Arthur. She seems to want to show me always ‘Arthur belongs t
o ME now’, and after that first visit, when she was so sweet, she began to build up a queer little attitude. We see so little of each other, and her mood of silence whenever we are alone, her way of shortly saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’, makes it difficult. Perhaps she will understand when she has a baby. After all, you have to experience relationships before understanding them.

  Tuesday, 13 April. I’ve felt wretchedly ill now for a week, nothing settling when I eat it, however simple. I was undecided whether to go to the whist drive, but finally decided I would, and spent a pleasant afternoon. I went into Mrs Atkinson’s when I came in to see some curtain patterns she had got, and the phone rang. It was Mary Easton, Jessie’s friend, who had been trying to get both of us in the afternoon. Her news shocked and distressed us. Poor Jessie is in a very bad way, though after last Wednesday, when I’d seen the furtive, aloof stare in her eyes, her news didn’t surprise me. Jessie’s parents are old – seventy-four and seventy-six – and past worrying, and they don’t like the idea Jessie may be like her two uncles, one of whom died in a home, and the other drowned himself in a nearby tarn. On Saturday night her father and brother took her for a walk, to try and make her sleep. She got away from them, and after a search they found her kneeling in church, sobbing bitterly. Mary took the law into her own hands and begged the family doctor, who knew poor Jessie from a child, to ‘Do something.’ He paid a casual friendly call, and has sent for George for a talk. George is one of those ‘fine big’ men who often are so negative. He doesn’t seem to bother, not even when he woke suddenly and found Jessie dressed and going out. Jessie has turned against everyone, even her dear little baby. She won’t even wash or feed it. I’ve a great sadness on me. She was the gayest, kindest and most gentle creature. She does need love and understanding …

  My husband brought the car back. The Ekco radio is a small, neat thing, fitting on the shelf under the dashboard, and has a very good tone. He is so delighted I felt a worm I couldn’t summon up a lot of enthusiasm. I felt how little it mattered somehow. I sat down to knit, but I will never make a knitter. Never have been either. I soon felt irritated and put it away, and as I felt sick, came to bed. I’ll have a cup of milk food later. That Nestlé’s dried milk food Cliff sends is so easily digested.

  Wednesday, 14 April. I woke dull, after a broken night. I couldn’t sleep for thinking of poor Jessie. I’d just finished breakfast when the postman came, and Cliff’s letter made me hoot with laughter – he is growing a beard! I felt whatever else that one is or has been, there’s never been a trace of dullness! Mrs Salisbury changed her day this week – she comes in the morning – so I did all my little odd jobs, and dusted and vacced. I was washed and changed by eleven o’clock, so I could go round to Jessie’s aunt to see if she had heard what the doctor had said yesterday. She cried bitterly – she is seventy-three, a year younger than her sister, Jessie’s mother. She said, ‘Oh, Mrs Last, what can I say? We are all so stunned. The doctor says Jessie must be watched day and night, and the baby kept out of her way, and that the next move is up to George.’ I thought of that wireless programme Lamentable Brother. I felt the doctor could have stressed the importance of the poor woman having the benefit of skilled attention and care as soon as possible and not merely thrown the discussion on poor George to have her put away. The doctor says it is ‘nothing that will pass’, and that it is too complete a breakdown for that. Her aunt said, ‘I once had a bad breakdown after an operation and had to go for a month’s holiday with my sister to Southport. Perhaps if it could be arranged, it would cure Jessie.’ I could have wept as I came home, to think of the dreadful cloud on poor kind Jessie, and that dear little baby.

  Thursday, 15 April. Mrs Salisbury came. Yesterday she had been to the Women’s Clinic. She has rather a bad prolapse, and they want her to go into the hospital – book now, for July. It’s a private ward, run by the Maternity Home doctor. The town pays part for all women patients, who only pay £2 a week, and I think another two guineas for the operation. Mrs Salisbury wonders if the Government will take over and she could come under the new scheme. It’s so muddling, it’s difficult to know these things.

  George called with a big bundle of laundry, to send when the van man called. He looks nearly dead with worry and loss of sleep. He said Jessie had stood against the wall in the kitchen since Sunday, never moving or speaking, eating or drinking. The doctor says she must be taken to a brain specialist at Lancaster, but I can see that George is hoping that the few days’ leave he has been given will see a change in the poor dear …

  My husband looked tired out. He has had a lot of worry lately with his work, and his mother takes all her troubles, real and imaginary, into the shop. Of all her family, she only turns to him, and when her ration books were lost again this week, it was an added worry for him. I’ve put my foot down. She shan’t have them again. I took the bus down to see her after tea, and told her I insisted on doing all her shopping in future. I’ve offered many times and been refused, but when I took a firm stand tonight she said, ‘I’d be very grateful.’ I was so taken back by her gratitude I looked closely at her. I feel she is perhaps failing quicker, since Grandad had his accident. I’ll go out in the morning and see her shopkeepers. She gets groceries from the shop where I deal, and shopkeepers are always kind and considerate to arrangements affecting old folks.

  When I came back, my husband was writing in the front room. I decided I’d cut out the piece of brown silk I have in. I’d got a pattern and felt in the mood. It’s a plain, well-cut pattern, relying on cut for any attraction. I detest drapes and bows here and bows there. It’s a pattern, too, that won’t date. It’s a great surprise often when I see how little the new look is worn by ordinary people, beyond a longer skirt and a softer shoulder line. I don’t see much change, even in visitors from larger towns. I suppose the fact of ‘utility’ with a more or less central control of fashion is the cause.

  I walked down the garden path with my little cat. Such a heavenly sweet night, with the smell of growing things, spring flowers, budding trees. Jessie and I planned to do our sewing on the lawn this summer. She said, ‘I’m going to live outdoors all summer. Perhaps that will be my best tonic.’ I looked across Mrs Atkinson’s lawn to the half-made rockery they had started, poor Jessie, and poor, poor George. I wondered who would look after the little baby. I listened to ITMA,† relaxed on the settee. I didn’t feel very appreciative. I didn’t feel in the humour for nonsense. I felt as if Jessie’s illness had broken the little ring fence round me, that it showed clearer and more focused the strife and chaos all round. A real good cry would have done me good, but I felt beyond tears. I felt a blanket of futility smothered me, mentally and physically. I’ll be very glad when Edith has had her baby and they are both well.

  Friday, 16 April. Mrs Howson was so shocked about capital punishment being abolished. Somehow poor Jessie’s illness has swung me for all time to the side of this decision. To see that gentle sweet woman so altered, to hear of the pitiful state she is in now, made me realise how little – none at all – ‘badness’ there is, only pitiful twists and warps, and that ‘only by the Grace of God’ do any of us escape. Bad people must be shut up safely. Doctors could study them, and perhaps help others afflicted, but punishment can only be revenge, which is evil. Mrs Howson said, ‘You have some very queer ways of looking at things, but Steve says you are always sincere, and that word used by Steve often means “You’ve got something there.”’ But she feels murder will increase now that people will not think ‘It’s not worth swinging for.’

  Saturday, 17 April. I was shaking my duster out of the stairs window, and I heard Mr Atkinson call, ‘Will you come down a few minutes, Mrs Last’ and found him talking to an elderly woman, the mother of a nearby confectioner. I felt my breath catch as I looked at her parcel, remembering suddenly today was Jessie’s birthday and that she had taken some marg for a birthday cake to be made. Mrs Waugh knew poor Jessie was very ill, but not just how ill. I peeped in the folds of the paper at th
e attractive little brick-shaped cake, snowy iced, with a spray of violets at each end and ‘Happy Birthday Wishes’ written between. We talked it over. George and Jessie’s brother are taking her to Lancaster on Monday – she is no better, and her physical health is failing rapidly. We decided the gay cake would only be another distress to poor George, and Mrs Waugh said her daughter could easily sell it and would credit the marg and make another cake when Jessie came home, if I could let them know when she was expected. As I resumed my dusting I felt I wished I knew …

  George called with the key. I don’t quite know why – there won’t be occasion to go in their house. He looked distraught. It’s a dreadful thing for a man to have to take his loved wife and leave her in a mental home. I longed to ask who had the baby. He said Jessie hadn’t spoken, cried or eaten for a week. When they coax her to sit or lie down she looks blank and vague and fights so desperately if they try and make her. The doctor gave her some kind of injection and they laid her down and took off her clothes, but in less than two hours she was up, had got some clothes on and was standing against the wall in the kitchen again. The doctor has stressed the fact he could do no more and wanted them to take Jessie to Lancaster for last Thursday. Now it has to be Monday to see this particular doctor. George seems incapable of thinking he will have to leave her. He seems to have a hazy idea of some magic which will bring back the Jessie he has always known. When I phoned to the laundry, I asked for the manageress and explained a man neighbour had left a huge pile of washing, and I’d be very obliged if a van man could make a detour off Abbey Road as our delivery and collection was over for this week, and added, ‘It’s a case of rather desperate illness. Will you please return it as soon as you can?’ It was only lifted Friday morning – and returned before tea today. I thanked the van man and expressed surprise, but he said, ‘We are human beings down there, you know, and try to please our customers.’ Just a week tonight since Jessie was found in church, kneeling and sobbing wildly, as if she felt all human help was failing her.