by Nevil Shute
She finished washing the dishes without breaking anything, and found places for them in the cupboard where they seemed to fit. Then she took off her overall and did up her face in the small mirror of her flapjack. If she had married Eddie Stillson this would have been her life, the kitchen and children in Terre Haute or in some other city of the Middle West. She had done better for herself than that, or had she? She had seen India and China and the Philippines in films upon location, but Eddie Stillson’s wife could have learned as much as she about those countries by seeing the films. She had travelled once or twice in Europe for her holidays between the wars, but Eddie Stillson’s wife could have learned as much by reading the Geographic Magazine—possibly more. She had, however, tangible experiences that Eddie Stillson could not have provided. Twice she had started the Indianapolis Motor Race, in her own State. She had adventured three times into marriage. She had met interesting people in all walks of life; she had entertained Ambassadors. Now as her career was drawing to its close a life of idleness alone in an apartment lay ahead of her. All her experience and all the money she had earned had not secured for her a home and quiet interests for her old age, had not brought her children and grandchildren. She could never have those now, even if she married again. She smiled, a little cynically; for the fourth time. If ever she ventured into matrimony again she would look for very different qualities in a man.
She moved quietly to the sitting-room door and looked in; Shirley was asleep upon the sofa. She glanced around our room, thoughtfully, noting the second-hand carpet, the ten-year-old radio, the bookcases I had made in the evenings out of the planks of packing-cases stained with permanganate of potash. There were many flowers in the room because Shirley was fond of them; one spray of roses stood in a tall glass bottle etched with the legend MANOR FARM DAIRY. With a little pang she recognised the room for what it was, something she had never really known, the beginning of a home. Somehow, it seemed easier for folks to make a place like that when there wasn’t very much money. When you built a bookcase with your own hands instead of ordering it by telephone from the department store complete with books, it was a little tenuous link that bound you to the home.
She was forgetting her charge; she moved down the short corridor to the bedroom. Elspeth had turned over in bed; as the actress came to the door she moved and blinked sleepily, her hair over her eyes, only half awake. Miss Teasdale said, “It’s all right, honey. Mrs. Scott’s having a nice sleep and I said I’d stay around and look after you.”
Elspeth said, “What’s your name?”
“Teasdale—Monica Teasdale. You’d better call me Monica.”
The child asked directly, “Then why did you call me Honey?”
The actress laughed. “Why, that’s what we call folks back in America, in Indiana where I was raised. I didn’t mean it for your name.”
“My name’s Elspeth,” said the child. “I’ve been sick six times.”
“Well, don’t you be sick again till Mrs. Scott wakes up, or maybe I’d not know what to do about it.”
“Why don’t you call her Shirley?”
“I don’t know—I only just met her today. That’s her name, is it?”
The child nodded. Then she said, “May I get up and go along the passage?”
“Surely,” said Miss Teasdale quickly. “Wait—you’d better put something on.” She looked around a little helplessly.
“It’s hanging up behind the door,” the child said. Miss Teasdale looked and found a very small, worn dressing-gown; Elspeth slipped it on, and put her feet in bedroom slippers, and went off. The actress moved to the bed, and smoothed out the bedclothes and pulled out the hot-water bottles, which were cold, and then Elspeth was back again and climbing into bed.
The actress watched the little active figure in pyjamas getting into bed, watched with her hands full of hot-water bottles and with her heart full of regret. She said, “How do you feel now?”
The child said, “My head aches when I move about.”
“Sure, it will do after giving it a bump like that. Does it hurt when you stay still?”
“Not till I think of it. It hurts then.”
Miss Teasdale laughed. “I’ll get these bottles filled.”
“I don’t want them, please. They’re too hot.”
“Okay. Mrs. Scott left arrowroot upon the stove for you. Think you could take a cup of that?”
“No, thank you.”
The actress said, “Come on, honey, try a little bit. It’ll do you good.”
Elspeth said, “It can’t do me any good if I sick it all up.”
“You won’t.”
“I did last time.”
“You won’t this time.”
She went into the kitchen and found a cup and saucer and a tin of biscuits, and came back to the bedroom with the arrowroot and crackers on a little tray. The child obediently ate the food and said, “Do you live in America?”
“Most of the time,” the actress said.
“My daddy’s in America—not really in America. He’s in Canada. He went on Sunday.”
“I know it. I travelled over with him—that’s how I met him. Then I had to come back again directly, and he asked me if I’d come and see how you were getting on.”
Elspeth accepted this without much interest. “When’s he coming home?”
“Quite soon now, I think. Maybe this week.”
“He’s been away an awfully long time.”
“Only since Sunday, honey. This is Tuesday.”
“It seems an awfully long time,” the child said.
There was a jigsaw puzzle started upon my drawing-board. “Say,” said the actress, “that’s an elegant picture. Going to be Southampton Docks, isn’t it, with all the liners?” She fetched the board, and they began doing it together.
When I got home that night at about half-past six I found Shirley just waking up upon the sofa; she sat up sleepily as I came in and asked what time it was. We went together to the bedroom. Miss Teasdale got up as we came in. She had been reading to Elspeth; the bed was littered with books from our bookcase: The Oxford Book of English Verse, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and The Earthly Paradise. Elspeth had not been sick again, and they had had a cup of tea together and some bread and butter. “We finished the puzzle,” said the actress. “We’ve been reading for a while.”
Elspeth said to Shirley, “She does read well, Mrs. Scott. She reads much better than Miss Lansdowne or anybody at school. You sort of actually see things happening when she’s reading out loud.”
Miss Teasdale laughed, a little self-consciously, which was odd in so sophisticated a woman. “I guess I’ve had some practice,” she said quietly.
“She says she’ll teach me to read like that when I get bigger,” Elspeth said.
“Sure I will, honey.” She gathered up the books. “You’ve got a nice selection of good books,” she said. “This author, William Morris—I’ve never met his work before. Elspeth wanted me to read her some of this.”
Shirley took over to give Elspeth a bath and make her ready for bed; I took Miss Teasdale into the sitting-room and mixed her a drink. “It’s been terribly kind of you to come and help us out like this,” I said, lighting her cigarette. “Shirley slept five hours this afternoon.”
She nodded. “I might say it’s kind of you folks to look after Mr. Honey’s little girl,” she said. “As I see it, you hadn’t any call to do so.”
I laughed. “Well, it was I who sent her father off.”
She nodded. “Surely.” And then she said, “I don’t know if you’ll believe me if I say it’s been a real pleasure to me, sitting here this afternoon, playing and reading with Elspeth.”
She hesitated. “Some women have a lot to do with children, and some don’t,” she said. “I’m one of the ones who don’t.”
I nodded. It seemed difficult to pursue that subject with this exotic woman. “We fixed up about Mr. Honey coming back from Gander,” I said. “An R.A.F. Lincoln is going to
pick him up one day this week and bring him over.”
She nodded. “And what happens after that?”
I laughed. “Then we’re going to have the hell of a row.”
“Say, not over what he did at Gander, pulling up the wheels?”
“Oh, not with him,” I said. “We’re on his side—I think he did quite right. The trouble is we haven’t any evidence to prove it.”
I told her briefly what the row was all about, and mentioned that I should be going out to Labrador myself. Then I asked her plans, and persuaded her to stay and have supper with us. “It’ll probably only be the same bit of cold meat you had for lunch,” I said. “We might cook up a Welsh rarebit or something, afterwards.” She called her office in Wardour Street and ordered the car for nine o’clock to take her back to Claridge’s. Summoning the company’s car forty miles out into the country to pick her up at that time of night seemed the most natural thing in the world to her.
She was interested in Honey, and kept leading the conversation round to him. She wanted to know what place he held in the organisation of the R.A.E., what we thought about him in the office. I had some difficulty in answering that one. “He’s an inside man,” I said, using the words that the Director had used about him to me. “He’s deeply interested in research and he doesn’t concern himself very much with user problems. Opinions vary about him; lots of people think he’s crackers.”
“Do you?” she asked.
I laughed. “No—I think he’s very good, within his own sphere. But I shan’t send him out upon a job again. From now on he stays in the laboratory, where he belongs.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. “He wants to get around and meet more people.”
I smiled at her. “He can do that at the week-ends. I don’t want any more Reindeers broken up.” That seemed badly phrased, and I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “I mean, a man who was more interested in operations would have found some other means of stopping that thing flying on.”
“I don’t know about that,” she objected. “The little man was in a mighty tough spot. Nobody believed him.”
“That’s what I mean,” I said. “He’s an inside man. If he’d been an athletic type six foot two in height and weighing fourteen stone, with a red face and a fist like a ham, they’d have believed him all right, and he wouldn’t have had to crash the aeroplane.”
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully.
“He hated going, anyway,” I said. “I had to force him, and now I’m sorry that I did. I thought he was the best man to send. He’s only really happy on his own research.”
Later on, while we were eating the cold meat and salad, she said, “Have you got a lot of scientists like Mr. Honey in your organisation, Doctor?’
“Hundreds,” I said. “I’m one of them. We’re all bats in our own way.”
She said, “He knows an awful lot about a lot of things. I never mixed with scientists before. He was telling me about the end of the world coming, all from the Great Pyramid. Say, do you believe in that?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t. But then I didn’t really believe him first of all when he said the Reindeer tail was going bad on us. Now I think I do.” I turned to her. “There’s no doubt that he’s got a very penetrating mind,” I said. “He’s full of scientific curiosity. We’d have done better in the war if we’d paid some attention to his crazy notions.” I was thinking of the rockets.
“I think he’s a great little man,” she said quietly. “With a brain like that and at the same time so simple and so kind.”
Her car came for her at nine o’clock. She said to Shirley almost diffidently, “Mrs. Scott, do you think I might come down tomorrow and sit with Elspeth? I certainly would like to do that.”
Shirley said, “Oh please, don’t bother. It’s been terribly nice of you to help us out today, but we’ll be all right now. I think she’ll sleep tonight.”
The actress said, “It wouldn’t be a trouble. I’d be glad to do it. I did enjoy being with her this afternoon.”
Shirley said doubtfully, “Would you really like to? Haven’t you got more important things to do?”
Miss Teasdale shook her head. “I’ve got nothing fixed. I’ve got to be back on the West Coast in ten days from now, but up till then I’m free. I certainly would like to spend another day with her.”
Shirley laughed. “I won’t say no to that. She’s got to stay in bed a week, and keeping her amused is going to be a job.”
“Okay,” said the actress. “I’ll be with you in the morning, around eleven o’clock.”
We stood and watched the car move off. Elspeth was still occupying our only bed, so it was necessary for me to go and sleep in Honey’s house again, while Shirley slept on the sofa. “I rather like the sofa,” she said. “I’ll be all right there if Elspeth doesn’t keep on being sick all night again.”
We went back into the house to get my bag with my night things in it. Shirley walked round to the little villa in Copse Road with me; it was only ten minutes away and she felt that she could leave Elspeth for that time. “I was round there this morning,” she said as we went. “Isn’t it simply foul?”
I hadn’t noticed anything much wrong with it. “It hasn’t got much furniture in the sitting-room,” I said.
“I don’t mean that. Didn’t you see the kitchen floor? It’s absolutely filthy; and the scullery’s disgusting. It can’t have been properly washed out for years.”
We reached the house, and she took me and showed me all the horrors. They didn’t seem very bad to me, but then I am a man. Shirley said, “We can’t send Elspeth back here with the place like this—it isn’t healthy.” She thought for a minute. “I’ll come round tomorrow and have a go at it.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “It’s not our house and we’ve not made it dirty.”
“We can’t leave it like this,” she said firmly. “If Miss Teasdale turns up, I’ll come round here tomorrow.”
“What about the school?”
“I’ve only got one period tomorrow.”
“I shouldn’t bank upon Miss Teasdale,” I said. “You’ll probably get a phone call saying she can’t make it.”
Shirley said, “I think she’ll come. Do you know——” She stopped.
“What?”
“Oh—nothing. It was just a stupid idea.”
“What’s that?”
She hesitated. “It would be funny if there was something between her and Mr. Honey, wouldn’t it?”
I stared at her. “There couldn’t be …”
“I suppose there couldn’t. But one or two things she said made me kind of wonder.”
She went away, and I got in a couple of hours upon the “Aircraft Flying at High Mach Numbers” before I got too sleepy.
Next morning, in the office, the Director sent for me. “I have arranged a meeting for eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said, “at the Ministry. It’s going to be quite a big meeting, with representatives of C.A.T.O. and the Company, and M.C.A., as well as the M. of S. and ourselves. You’ll bring up everything we’re likely to require?”
“Very good, sir. You’ll be coming up yourself?”
“Oh, I think so. I think we shall need all the weight that we can muster, Scott.”
“What about Honey, sir?” I asked. “Will he be back?”
“I rather doubt it. I think we may have to get along without him. I only know that the Lincoln is picking him up at Gander one day this week.”
“Pity,” I said. “It would have been better if we could have had him there.”
He nodded. “Carnegie wanted to see Sir Phillip Dolbear’s letter about Honey’s work. I sent him a copy of that yesterday.”
I made a grimace. It was impossible to hide up evidence like that, but it wasn’t going to make it any easier for us to persuade them that the Reindeer tail was dangerous.
“They’re getting back the pilot of the Reindeer, Captain Samuel
son, in time for the meeting, I understand. We should get an informed account from him upon exactly what took place.”
“I don’t like that,” I said. “We’re going to get the Organisation’s account of what happened, but not our own. If we’re going to have the pilot of the aircraft, we should have Honey too.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve got to work on the assumption we shall get a fair account. You wouldn’t suggest bringing in Miss Monica Teasdale, I suppose?”
I grinned. “I don’t think she could add much to our meeting, except glamour.”
He said grimly. “Well, we may need light relief before this thing blows over.” He paused. “I forgot to say, the Treasury are sending somebody, to hold a watching brief for the expenditures involved.”
I left him, and went down to the old balloon shed to see how the Reindeer tail on test was getting on. It was now running day and night; the graphs showed nothing yet that we could cite as any evidence of trouble. I had hoped that something would have turned up in the readings that I could take with me to the meeting as an evidence of abnormality, as a warning. There was nothing of that sort at all.
“I don’t think there will be, sir,” young Simmons said. “Mr. Honey was convinced that it would go on like this right up to the end.”
While I was down there, Miss Learoyd rang through. “There’s a lady waiting in the Reception to see you,” she said. “A Miss Corder.”
I said, “Do you know who she is?”
“She’s got a letter to give you from Mr. Honey, sir.”
I blinked; another woman from Honey. “All right,” I said. “Have her shown up and ask her to wait. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
When I got up to my office there was a tall, dark girl sitting on an upright chair against the wall, waiting for me. She was dressed quietly in a dark blue coat and skirt; she wore a very simple hat. She was quite young, very attractive, and with the most beautiful features and colouring.
