She almost made to rise; then her mouth opened and closed again on his words: ‘She’s a better nurse than that big battleship who tended me . . . ’
‘It isn’t right, it isn’t decent, she’s . . . ’
‘Oh, the decencies are seen to by Burgess.’
‘Burgess . . . you mean the tutor?’
‘Yes, the tutor. He comes in every day and sees to the main decencies, so have no fear, my dear Mother-in-law, the proprieties are being observed.’
‘I don’t like it.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Neither will Eileen.’
‘God in Heaven!’ It was as if he had been startled by the remark so quickly did he bounce up from the back of the chair. ‘What’s Eileen got to do with it, I ask you?’
‘She is still your wife.’
‘Then if she’s my wife she should be here. What do you think I’ve felt like all these bloody months being left . . . ’
‘I will not have you swearing in my presence, Mark.’
‘I’ll swear where I bloody well like, Mother-in-law, and if it doesn’t suit you, you know what you can do. But don’t you come here talking about morality or improprieties that would shock my wife, for I won’t have it. Her place is here with my children. Three days she has allowed me! My God! if I take it into my head I’ll keep them for good and let her fight it out.’
‘Don’t agitate yourself so, Mark, and don’t talk nonsense. The children’s place is with their mother.’
‘And her place is here!’
‘You should have thought about that some long time ago. Anyway, I have things to discuss with you, but the time is not now, I am tired after my journey. You don’t seem to appreciate, Mark, the trial that journey is to me.’
He drew in a number of deep breaths before lowering his head, when he muttered, ‘I do, I do; and I appreciate the effort you make.’ Then lifting his head, his voice still quiet, he said, ‘But can you appreciate what it is like for me to be tied to this chair, to this room? I’ve asked myself more and more of late, is it worth going on.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense! I won’t stay and listen to such weak prattle; I shall join you later.’
As she stormed out he couldn’t but marvel at her spirit; no-one knew her right age but she couldn’t be far from seventy. Had she passed some of it on to her daughter things might have been different. He lay back in his chair and looked towards the cage covering the stumps of his legs. If only he had been left with even one foot. He pulled himself up straight on the chair; he must make an effort and try this wooden leg business.
For two days the house had been alive with scampering feet and laughter. No longer were the children kept to the nursery floor; even Jane Forefoot-Meadows found it impossible to confine them, for as soon as her back was turned they were down in their father’s room or out in the grounds, or following Tilly around the house. They had at first viewed with surprise the change in the staff, particularly in the kitchen. They had accepted Katie in the nursery, but who was this little girl no older than Jessie Ann and not as big who was working in the kitchen? And there was no fat woman cooking there now but a tall woman with a big bony face.
During their first encounter Matthew had enquired imperiously of Biddy, ‘What is your name?’ and she had answered, ‘Biddy, master. What is yours?’
And without hesitation he had said, ‘Matthew.’
‘Well, how are you, Master Matthew?’
‘I am very well, thank you.’ The conversation wasn’t going as he imagined it should, and he had turned and looked at his brothers and Jessie Ann, and they had all burst out laughing, and it was Jessie Ann who said, ‘What are you making for our tea, Mrs Biddy?’
And Biddy had delighted her by bending down and whispering, ‘Fairy cakes, miss, with cream on their wings.’
As Biddy put it to Tilly later, the house was alive with life, and at seven o’clock on the evening of the second day when the life was filling the nursery with laughter it brought Mark’s head round towards the dressing-room door, calling, ‘What’s going on up there, Trotter?’
Tilly came into the bedroom and, pushing the table and his half-eaten supper away, she said, ‘I think they’re havin’ a bit of carry-on.’
‘Carry-on!’ He was still looking upwards. ‘It must be something to cause those gales of laughter. Go on up and see what it is.’
She smiled at him, saying, ‘They’ll want to come down if I go up, sir.’
‘And what harm is there in that?’ he demanded, poking his face towards her. ‘Their grandmother is at her supper and she’s likely to be there for another hour if I know her. Go on up.’
She only just stopped herself from actually running out of the room because she realised that was a habit she must get out of; but once on the landing she ran along the corridor and up the stairs and burst into the nursery, there to see Katie sitting on the mat before the nursery fire holding Jessie Ann while they both rocked with laughter. Luke was sitting at the nursery table, his arms spread out over it, his head between them, and Matthew was standing in front of John saying, ‘Say the other one. Say the other one.’
‘What is it?’ Tilly looked from one to the other but they just spluttered, until Katie, getting to her feet now and drying her eyes, said, ‘’Twas Master John, Tilly, he . . . he was saying a piece of poetry.’
‘It’s all about us.’ Jessie Ann came towards her, yelling, ‘It has our names in it, Trotter, even Papa’s.’
‘And is it that funny?’
It was Matthew who answered, ‘Yes; yes, it is, Trotter. Go on, John, say it again for Trotter. Go on.’
And John, his face one huge grin, took up his stance with feet planted slightly apart, hands joined behind his back, and began, stammering almost with each word:
‘Ma . . . Matthew, Mark, Luke and J . . . John,
Hold the c . . . cuddy till I get on.
If it k . . . kicks pull it . . . its tail
If it p . . . piddles hold the p . . . pail.’
Again they were doubled up, John as well now. He was on his knees and trying to stand on his head while the other children rolled in agonies of laughter, and Katie, her hand across her mouth, looked at Tilly and muttered, ‘They didn’t learn it here, believe me. One of the gardeners at their granny’s. An’ that isn’t all. The fellow must be from these parts ’cos they know “When I was a laddie”’ – she nodded – ‘you know, “When I was a laddie and lived with me granny”.’
‘Never!’ Tilly was biting down hard on her lip now. And then she muttered in an aside, ‘But that isn’t as bad as Matthew, Mark. I had me ears boxed once for singing it.’ She now turned from Katie, saying, ‘Quiet! Now quiet! Listen.’ They were all standing round her now, and she looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll take you downstairs to your papa if you promise to leave the minute I bid you, because your grandmama will come up immediately her supper is done. Promise?’
‘Yes, Trotter. Yes, Trotter.’
As they made for the door she cried at them, ‘Put your dressing gowns on,’ and they all scampered out of the schoolroom and into their rooms leaving Tilly and Katie looking at each other, both with their hands over their mouths now; then Tilly said, ‘He . . . the master, he heard the laughter.’
‘Can you hear as plain as that down there?’
‘Yes, when the noise is so loud.’
‘We’ll have to be careful . . . It’s lovely havin’ bairns in the house, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Katie, lovely. But I’ll tell you something, they’re different bairns to those I met at first. Eeh! they were demons, especially that Matthew.’
‘Aye’ – the smile slid from Katie’s face – ‘he’s a bit bossy is Master Matthew, wants his own way, wants to rule the roost.’
‘That’s nothing; you haven’t had a frog put in your bed or bowls of porridge splashed all over the table.’
‘Is that what you had?’
‘Oh yes, and more.’
The children came back into the room now,
crying in loud whispers, ‘Come on. Come on, Trotter.’
Taking John’s and Jessie’s hands, she ran them out of the room, but stopped at the top of the stairs, warning them, ‘Now, go quietly, tiptoe, because if your grandmother hears you she’ll be up like a shot.’
They nodded at her; then in exaggerated steps went quietly down the stairs, along the corridor and into their father’s room; but there they almost threw themselves on him, chattering and laughing, until Mark quietened them, saying in mock sternness, ‘I haven’t sent for you to have fun but to enquire what was making the noise and disturbing my supper.’
They pushed at each other now, sniggering and giggling; then Luke said, ‘It was John, Papa, he was saying a funny rhyme; but it’s about us.’
Oh dear me! Tilly groaned to herself. That’s one thing she should have done, she should have told them not to repeat that one.
Again Matthew was taking charge. Pulling his young brother to the side of the basket chair, he said, ‘Perform for Papa. Perform for Papa. Go on.’
And John performed for Papa; but there was no great burst of laughter at the end because they were all looking at their father’s face. His eyes were wide, his nose was twitching, his lips were slightly pursed. Was he vexed? He looked over their heads towards Tilly and he said one word, ‘Katie?’
‘No, no, sir; they didn’t learn it here.’ Oh dear, he wasn’t going to laugh.
When his face began to crumple, the children scrambled towards him, but he put his hand up in a warning gesture, crying now, ‘Laugh if you dare. One sound out of you and up the stairs you fly, because don’t forget, the dining room is below here, and who is in the dining room?’
‘Grandmama.’ They all said the word together.
‘Yes, Grandmama.’
He looked at his small son whose face was bright with the fact that he had entertained them, but what had really made that coarse rhyme funny was the child’s stammer. It had worsened considerably during his absence from the house.
‘He knows a song, Papa, about Grandmama.’
‘About Grandmama?’
‘Yes, Papa.’ They all started to giggle now; then Luke said, ‘We all know it, Papa, but John sings it the best. Go on, John. Sing “When I was a laddie”.’
John seemed only too eager to please and, taking up his stance again, he began to sing now and he hardly stammered at all as, his face one big smile, he gaily went into the song:
‘When I was a laddie I lived with me granny,
And many a hammering she give m . . . me,
But now I’m a m . . . man I can hammer me granny,
And it serves her right for hammering me.’
He finished the last line with a rush and when Mark, unable to contain himself, lay back against the cushions, his hand tight against his mouth and his eyes now gleaming with tears of laughter, they fell upon him, all the while smothering their own laughter.
Pressing them from him, Mark said, ‘Who’s . . . who’s been teaching you these rhymes . . . your nurse?’
‘No, Papa; it’s Brigwell, one of the gardeners.’
‘Old Brigwell?’
‘Yes, Papa.’ They all nodded at him.
‘Oh, may he be forgiven! But he won’t be should your grandmama hear of any of these rhymes.’
‘Oh, we don’t let her hear,’ said Luke. ‘We sing all together, in the stables. Don’t we, Matthew?’
Mark looked at the boy whose fair head was no longer covered in curls. He couldn’t believe he was almost twelve years old, yet he looked older, and when Matthew, said, ‘Shall we all sing it for you, Papa? It sounds very jolly when we sing it all together,’ he moved his lips one over the other before saying, ‘Yes, yes; I should like to hear you sing it all together. But—’ He raised his hand and wagged his finger before pointing it towards the carpet, saying ‘Don’t forget who’s below.’
Scrambling now, they all stood in line at the foot of the basket chair, with Tilly who was already there, and it looked as if she, too, was about to perform. And she could have joined them, so happy did she feel inside, for she had never seen the master so light-hearted for months, in fact never at all, for his face now was looking like that of a young man; and so when they started her lips too moved in unison with theirs.
‘When I was a laddie I lived with me granny,
And many a hammering she give me,
But now I’m a man . . . ’
It was at this point that the door opened quietly and only Mark saw the visitor, and as the children were singing the words ‘I can hammer me granny’ he raised his hand slightly as if to warn them, but they were oblivious of the intruder, because the sound being made by their combined voices, although muted, was taking up all their attention. They finished the last line, ‘And serve her right for hammering me.’
‘What . . . is . . . this! What did I hear?’
The children turned really startled, and it was Jessie Ann who piped, ‘Just singing a little song for Papa, Grandmama.’
‘I heard what you were singing: hitting your granny’ – it would appear that she couldn’t allow her tongue to use the word hammering – ‘And it serves her right for hitting you. Where on earth have you learned such a thing?’ She was towering over them, and now her glance lifted to Tilly. ‘You have taught them this?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Then it’s that person up above. Mark, you must . . . ’
‘Hold your hand! Hold your hand! Goodnight, children. Goodnight. Come and say goodnight to me.’
They now scrambled to the couch and each placed his lips against his cheek before being hustled out of the room by Tilly.
‘That girl . . . !’
‘That girl’s got nothing to do with this issue, Mother-in-law. No-one here taught the children the rhymes.’
‘Vulgarity!’
‘Yes, indeed, vulgarity. But they didn’t learn it here.’
‘I don’t believe you . . . ’
‘Believe me or not.’ His tone was sharp. ‘You’ll have to go back to your own home to find out the person who brings a little merriment into their existence, and you’ll find it in your valued old retainer, none other than Brigwell.’
‘Brigwell! I don’t believe it.’
‘Believe it or not, Brigwell taught them that little ditty. And more. You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Brigwell has been in our family . . . well as’ – she tossed her head – ‘as long as I have.’
‘Yes, and likely he found it very dull.’
‘Mark!’
‘What do you know what goes on in people’s minds, what they do in their spare time? You’ve lived behind a moat in your pseudo-castle since you were a girl.’
He stopped abruptly and they stared at each other; then she said, with deep indignation in her tone, ‘I am beginning to see another side to Eileen’s existence in this house for you talk like a . . . ’
‘Like a what?’
‘A man who has stepped down from his class.’
After a moment longer, and while continuing to stare at her, he laid his head back against the cushions and let out a mirthless laugh; then almost childishly he made use of her words by saying, ‘Oh, if only I could step down from anywhere at this moment, what I would not give.’
‘I can well understand that, but your manner certainly doesn’t beg sympathy.’
‘Who is begging sympathy?’ He was again glaring at her.
‘Oh, Mark!’ She tossed her head now, the artificial coils in her hair bouncing as if they would jump away from her scalp; and then her whole manner changing, she said, ‘I had hoped to have a quiet talk with you tonight about . . . about a private matter, but I can see you’re not in the mood, so I will leave it until tomorrow.’
‘I won’t be in any better mood tomorrow, Mother-in-law, so sit yourself down and get started on your private conversation.’
He sounded weary and his tone took the edge off the bluntness of his words, and after a moment she seate
d herself in the chair to the side of the fire and opposite him; then arranging the three overskirts of her gaberdine dress, she placed her two long narrow feet together, joined her hands in her lap, then said, ‘’Tis difficult to know where to begin when touching on your private life.’
He did not help by word or sign, but waited.
‘Eileen wishes me to assure you that, as sorry as she is for your predicament, there is no possibility of her returning here. That being so, she wishes to be fair to you and offers you a legal separation, and you could settle on her a sum, a moderate sum . . . ’
There was another pause while she waited now for some response to her words, but when none came her hands moved from her lap and, as if she had just put on her gown, she adjusted the row of small silk bows leading from the neck to the waist; and there her fingers became still as she said, ‘She thinks it would be to your advantage.’
Again Mark made no answer. But during the last few minutes while he had been listening to his mother-in-law his body had stiffened, and he had the impression that his toes were pushing past the cage and against the shawl covering it. His feet began to pain him and the pain now spread up his legs until it reached his waist, and there it took the form of a wire band constricting him.
‘Now please, Mark, don’t be angry. She is thinking of your interest too.’
‘Be damned, she is! Legal separation! Do you know something? She’s a fool. A legal separation would be a judicial separation and in such a case I could claim custody of the children.’
‘No!’
‘Oh yes, Mother-in-law, yes . . . My God! a moderate sum, when I’m having to beggar myself to pay her what I do. It’s a wonder she hasn’t thought of divorce; but perhaps she has and has found out that a woman can’t divorce her husband for infidelity only. Now Mother-in-law—’ He pulled himself further down the chair and leant towards her until he was almost within an arm’s length of her as he cried, ‘You can go back and tell my dear wife that if she’s not careful I shall yell it out aloud in court that she never allowed me her bed after John was born, and that the invalid business was a put-up game; very much so, because my children informed me only this morning that Mama goes out walking now; Mama goes out driving now; Mama went to the theatre last week. And too, Mr Swinburne took Mama all round the picture gallery; and Mr Swinburne took Matthew and Luke and Mama to a musical afternoon . . . Mama has suddenly got the use of her legs, hasn’t she, Mother-in-law? Oh—’ Slowly he eased himself back on to his cushions; then looking at the blanched face of his mother-in-law, he said, ‘You go back and tell your daughter I’ll strike a bargain with her. If she returns my children to me without any fuss I’ll increase her personal allowance, but if she doesn’t I can, as I’ve said, apply for a judicial separation, in which case the law will give me custody of my own children.’
Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 35
