GOOD DAUGHTERS

by MARY HOCKING

  Her tears, more than anything else, stirred Alice. She knelt beside her, pawing her shoulder. ‘Lou! I’m so sorry, dearest Lou!’

  They clung to each other. ‘You shouldn’t have to be sorry, it shouldn’t be like this,’ Louise sobbed. ‘It’s all wrong, the way we’ve been brought up.’ Family, chapel, school, the teaching, belief, aspiration, had sat so lightly on her all these years, how was she ever to have known this would be so difficult?

  Her mother called from the foot of the stairs. ‘Alice! Louise! I want one of you down here in the kitchen to help with supper.’

  Louise said, ‘I’ll go and tell her now.’ It was her moment. She recognized it and was glad and had no thought that, whether she wished it or not, it was also her mother’s moment.

  ‘Now?’ It was all happening too quickly for Alice.

  ‘I’ll feel better when I’ve done it.’ She hugged Alice and then, reverting to their old custom, rubbed noses. ‘Will you be here until I come back? It will be a help knowing you’re waiting here.’

  Alice clenched her hands and nodded. She listened to Louise going down the stairs. Something was about to happen that could not possibly happen, and she wanted to run out of the house and run and run and run. But she must wait for Louise as she had promised. She stood in front of the door, staring at the blue woollen dressing-gown to which, in order to cheer it up, Louise had attached a lace jabot given her for Christmas two years ago. Alice tried to remember the details of that Christmas so that she would not think of her mother at the stove in the kitchen, still unaware; of her father waiting for them to join him for the King’s broadcast; of Claire shrilly exhorting Rumpus not to tug on his lead. She could not believe it. Her body seemed about to crack apart the disbelief was so huge.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Judith glanced over her shoulder as Louise came into the kitchen. Louise did not answer and Judith turned to look at her. Something in Louise’s face other than the trace of recent tears made Judith’s voice sharp and hostile as she said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  Judith took a saucepan of Heinz baked beans off the gas-ring and wiped the palms of her hands on her apron. This accomplished, she faced her daughter. ‘Well?’

  ‘I haven’t . . .’ Louise stopped, wondering why she was doing it their way, as though it was unspeakably shameful.

  ‘You haven’t what?’ Judith had no idea what it was that Louise was about to tell her, but she felt that dread of betrayal from which no relationship, however loving, is ever completely free. ‘For goodness’ sake, Louise, what are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘I wanted it to be different from this, I wanted . . .’

  ‘Just tell me, will you? Have you broken something?’ She knew it wasn’t that, but she said it as if to warn her daughter against making worse admissions.

  ‘I haven’t got my period, if that’s the way you want it. I haven’t had it since March.’

  There was a pause, then Judith said quietly, ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What you think I’m saying. Only I wanted to tell you differently. I wanted you to understand that it’s all right, that I’m very happy and you don’t have to . . .’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’

  ‘Do you think I would have told you if I wasn’t sure? You knew, didn’t you?’

  She had never hitherto accepted that her experience of life might have been shared by her mother, imagining all things to have been new-minted for her.

  Her mother was looking at her as though one of them was drowning. In this moment, Louise saw how much her mother loved her. She saw that her mother had had such hopes for her and that now they had all gone. She watched hope go, leaving the eyes, usually so bright and challenging, without a single spark. She was astonished by this darkness and she wanted to cry out, ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’ Though what it was she needed to know, or whether it would have made any difference, she could not have said. ‘When did it happen? At that party?’

  Louise nodded.

  ‘This will kill your father, you know that, I suppose.’ She turned away, one hand pressed to her side. ‘Oh, Louise, how could you? How could you!’

  Louise thought impatiently, ‘It won’t kill him. People don’t die of life.’ She was intensely sad at the inability of those whom she loved to see things her way. She felt much older than her mother, and she wanted to comfort and protect her, to guide her through the confusion into the light of joy and common sense.

  ‘You had better stay here while I tell Daddy.’

  Louise’s eyes filled with tears at the word Daddy. ‘It shouldn’t be like this. It’s all wrong,’ she sobbed.

  Her mother, welcoming the tears and not heeding the words, said with bitter satisfaction, ‘You should have thought of that before now.’

  When her mother had gone, Louise began to feel afraid for the first time. The silence was filled with voices, all disapproving, and she could not pull herself together to answer because there were too many. ‘Oh Guy, Guy!’ she tried to extract him from this unseen company but failed to find him. He had been so near her during these last days, she could not bear the thought that they might drive him out.

  Judith was on her way, bearing the load of grief to its ultimate destination. Much as she pitied him, she needed Stanley’s grief to give appropriate expression to this terrible event and already as she climbed the stairs she was preparing herself for her own role as the one who must steer their vessel through the storm.

  In his study, Stanley was listening to the King and he put up a hand to stop Judith talking when she entered the room. ‘The Queen and I thank you from the depths of our hearts for the loyalty and – may I say? – the love with which this day and always you have surrounded us . . .’ Judith stood just inside the door, ignoring Stanley’s gesture that she should sit down. ‘To the children I would like to send a special message . . . I ask you to remember that in days to come you will be the citizens of a great Empire . . .’ The front door opened and shut and Claire and Rumpus clattered across to the kitchen. ‘. . . and when the time comes, be ready and proud to give to your country the service of your work, your mind and your heart . . .’

  Stanley switched off the wireless and said, ‘It would have been nice if our children could have been here to hear that.’

  ‘Stanley.’ Judith came to him and took his hand.

  ‘What is it?’ He looked down at his hand held in hers as though wondering if something had happened to it without his noticing.

  ‘I’ve got bad news for you.’

  He started, eyes staring fearfully. ‘Claire! She’s been run over!’ He struck out boldly, though in fact he was putting in train the process of whittling disaster down to acceptable proportions.

  She had wanted to break it gently to him, but had neither strength nor patience and, in any case, what gentle way was there? She said, ‘It’s Louise. She’s going to have a baby.’

  He looked at her so blankly she thought he could not have taken in what she had said. As the seconds ticked away the house seemed to lose patience and began to register fretful uneasiness: wood cracked, wind stirred in the chimney sending grit spattering in the hearth, a door banged to and fro. It was as if some vital ritual was being neglected, the chief mourner not fulfilling his function.

  ‘I mean it, Stanley,’ Judith prompted.

  He sat down, gripping the arms of his chair and staring in front of him, jaw slack. Judith, who had been ready to calm him, felt acutely the lack of wailing and beating of the breast.

  ‘Do you want to see her?’ she asked, unable to tolerate inactivity.

  ‘Yes.’ The idea seemed not to have occurred to him, but now he hauled himself towards it. ‘Of course I must see her.’ He stood up, positioning himself facing the door, woodenly, as if on sentry duty.

  ‘You mustn’t be harsh with her, Stanley.’

  He looked at her in amazement.

  Judith opened the door. Louise was waiting on the stairs.
She had composed herself and was determined to do justice to what was probably the most testing moment of her life. Some last residue of nervous triviality had, however, to be expelled: she said, ‘I’ve got Claire to mind the baked beans.’

  ‘It’s been a great shock to your father.’

  This was what Louise needed to strengthen her purpose: however shocked he might be, this time he was going to take note of her. As she came into the room she actually caught him in the act of hollowing his cheeks and pursing his lips in a melodramatic semblance of anguish. She stood still and said nothing, hoping he would not leave her thus too long because she was shaking inwardly and soon it would show.

  He said, with a note of appeal she had not prepared herself for, ‘Tell me it’s not true, my child.’

  She lifted her chin to the exact angle which she calculated would express pride but not defiance – for she had, after all, done nothing about which to be defiant. ‘It is true, Father.’ She had never called him Father before.

  ‘Come to me.’

  She very nearly panicked and then stepped forward two paces, unsure whether she had done the right thing.

  She is still acting, her mother thought – but then, so is he.

  He laid his hands on his daughter’s shoulders and looked into her face. He is going to forgive me, Louise thought, keeping her composure with difficulty; then I am supposed to fall on him weeping with gratitude. His eyes traced the lines of her face wonderingly as though it was some precious object which had only recently come into his possession. He said, ‘My darling child!’ It was his great gift to her and she rejected it promptly.

  ‘I’m not a fallen woman. Daddy.’

  He stepped back. Her mother said, ‘Louise!’

  Father and daughter faced each other, the one concerned with plumbing the depths of the situation in which they now found themselves, the other with illuminating the heights. Mr Fairley’s face was suddenly suffused with blood. He said, ‘What is it you think has happened? Perhaps you will tell me that.’ In spite of his anger he was at some disadvantage, since he needed help from his daughter – whereas she appeared to require none from him.

  ‘Guy and I love each other,’ She spoke the not very exceptional words as though they had been coined especially for her and Guy; and, looking at her face, one could only assume that this was indeed how she saw it. ‘Everything will be all right,’ she said. ‘If only you will leave it to Guy and me and not complicate things, I promise you it will be all right.’

  The colour drained from her father’s face except for two veined patches on his cheeks which burned as though hot wires had been pressed against them. ‘ “It will be all right”,’ he repeated. ‘Is this all you have to say for yourself? Under what possible circumstances can you imagine that this will be “all right”? Don’t you realize how others will regard you, how it will affect you for the rest of your life and those who love you? Can you really imagine that this is a situation devoid of complications? “It will be all right”! If you can be so heedless of this, what will become of you? You will go from bad to worse, like some poor creature who has not had the advantage of . . .’

  ‘All right, Stanley,’ Judith warned.

  ‘IT IS NOT ALL RIGHT!’

  ‘It’s right, then,’ Louise shouted, ‘You know what right means, don’t you? Why do you have to make it all so complicated? I’m no good when things get tangled up, I just have to hold on hard to what I know is right and then I can see my way plain and straightforward.’

  ‘Right, plain, straightforward . . . Is it possible that you have lived among us without understanding anything? All that mother and I have tried to give to you over the years, has that meant nothing to you?’

  ‘I know you both love me and I love you. What else is it supposed to mean?’

  ‘You can’t argue with her while she’s in this state, Stanley.’

  ‘Louise.’ He modulated his voice but was unable to keep it steady. His eyes protruded with the effort to reach her and a vein stood out on his temple. ‘Louise, every day at breakfast we read the Bible together and we pray. Have you absorbed nothing from this?’

  ‘Jesus didn’t throw stones at the woman taken in adultery and I haven’t committed adultery!’

  He spoke in the hushed whisper which could yet reach the back row in chapel. ‘You dare to use His name at such a time!’

  ‘I follow His commandments just as you do.’ The more quietly he spoke the more Louise shouted. ‘I love the Lord my God and my neighbour as myself and those are the two that count because HE SAID SO!’

  ‘The whole street must be hearing every word of this,’ Judith said.

  Stanley Fairley turned and went to the window, not with the purpose of checking how much could be heard but in order to collect himself, to work out what had gone so terribly wrong. Unfortunately, as he looked into the street the first thing which caught his eye was a FOR SALE notice by the gate of the house opposite. This brought vividly to his mind the day when they had moved in here. He had paid off the mortgage on the house in Sussex and this was the first house he had owned. As he looked up at it he had felt so proud that he could provide his family with this splendid home, and he had thought of the other things he would be able to do for them now that he had a headship. Tears came to his eyes when he recalled how they had worked on the house and garden. There wasn’t a shrub he had planted without thinking of the pleasure it would give them all. Only recently he had secretly decided to have a telephone installed. Such little things – they seemed pathetically inadequate now – and yet what joy had gone into the planning of them! What was his life if it was not this house and the physical and emotional capital he had invested in it? And now it had come to this! He had intended to tell Louise that he loved her, that whatever happened he would stand by her instead of which . . . If only she had shown some appreciation of the enormity of her offence (and, coincidentally, the generosity of his response) he would have taken her in his arms. What he would have done after that he had no idea, just as he had no idea of what he should do now.

  Judith said, ‘Have you written to Guy?’

  Stanley Fairley groaned at this example of how relentlessly women reject the essential in favour of the peripheral.

  ‘I can’t write now,’ Louise answered. ‘Things have got in the way. I have to wait until I can see it all quite simply again.’

  ‘But you must write to him! Otherwise he will hear it from his mother.’

  ‘I have to wait.’

  Judith said, ‘Louise, you must listen . . .’ and then stopped. Her voice was muffled when she went on, ‘I think we had all better have something to eat and then we can talk about this.’

  She went out of the room. In the kitchen, Claire was sitting on a chair and Rumpus on the mat; both looked very subdued. Claire said, ‘The baked beans burnt, Mummy.’

  ‘That’s all right; I’ll take over now.’

  ‘Mummy, why had Lou been crying?’

  Then she saw that her mother was crying violently so that her breath whooped in her throat as if she was choking. Rumpus slunk under the table. Claire raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs in time to see Louise going into her bedroom. Through the half¬open door she saw Alice. She ran down the corridor to join her sisters.

  ‘Mummy’s crying,’ she said.

  Louise flung herself down on her bed. ‘Oh, Alice, I never thought it would be as bad as this! I thought there might be a terrible row and they wouldn’t want me any more, or that they would love me so much they would be able to understand. I couldn’t be sure which it would be because Daddy is so passionate and Mummy can be so awfully unsympathetic. But I never thought they wouldn’t understand anything and still go on loving me!’

  ‘What don’t they understand?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Take her away and tell her, Alice. And don’t worry. It will be all right. I know that it will be all right so long as people don’t interfere. You believe that, don’t you?’

  Alice nod
ded. She marvelled at Louise’s bravery.

  ‘What is going to be all right?’ Claire asked when they were in their own bedroom. She looked as if she was not sure that she wanted to know, but when Alice told her she seemed to take it well. At supper she sat quietly, not eating much, looking from her mother to her father, avoiding Louise. Suddenly, while Judith was pouring tea, she cried, ‘Are we going away? Shall I pack?’

  Judith said, ‘Of course we are not going away, Claire.’

  ‘But we can’t stay here!’ Her voice was shrill. ‘We can’t!’ The freckles stood out on her pale face like a powdering of nutmeg on milk.

  ‘As far as you are concerned everything will be the same,’ Judith said wearily. ‘You’ll go to school tomorrow and . . .’

  ‘I’m not going to school! I couldn’t ever go to school again! I’ll never go out again. I shall stay in the house for ever and ever and ever!’

  Alice was dismayed to find that even at such a time she was resentful of Claire’s ability to focus attention on herself.

  Judith said, ‘I think you had better go to bed. I’ll come up with you.’

  As they left the room, Claire was saying, ‘I won’t go to school. Mummy, I won’t!’

  Alice did the washing up. When she went up to bed she could hear her mother and father talking to Louise in the sitting-room.

  Claire was in her pyjamas, brushing her hair in front of the dressing table. Her protests about not going to school, though still vociferous, had the monotony of defeat.

  ‘I shall be going, too,’ Alice said.

  ‘People will know, won’t they?’

  ‘The Imminghams will have to know. I think that’s what they are talking about downstairs.’

  People would look in a certain way and things would be said, slyly, or even shouted, as Claire could imagine Maisie doing. How were they ever to bear the disgrace, they who had been so much better than other people? Claire watched in the mirror as her grief spilled over. What would happen to their father? How could he still preach in the chapel and be the best headmaster in Acton and run the sea cadets . . . Her face, pulled this way and that like a rubber mask, was now stretched to the limit. ‘And Crusaders,’ she sobbed. ‘I couldn’t ever go again. They’d all pray for us.’