Having decided that it was afternoon, he wondered whether the postman had come and whether there was anything from Nicky. Moving cautiously, for he had quite the feeling of having been rather ill, he began descending the stairs, but was forced to stop and sit down half way, overcome by giddiness. He clung desperately to the bannisters, forlorn and frightened but pretending to himself to be jaunty. Mother Noom, he muttered, she met her death falling downstairs, did Mother Noom; I mustn’t do that, I mustn’t die yet a bit, there may be a letter from Nicky downstairs. I must get down somehow; can’t sit here all day. His head drooped to his knees, and after a while he felt the giddiness passing and was able to resume the hazardous journey. Holding on to the bannisters he shuffled on his bottom from stair to stair, not trusting himself to stand until he was safely down.
He stood up. The house seemed to sway a little, but not so badly as before. Hugging the wall he made his way slowly towards the kitchen, the room most in use, hoping with all his heart that Jane was not there. Likely enough she’d be in the dairy or the wash-house. He hoped she was not in the kitchen, for she was hiding something from him and there might be a letter from Nicky. He remembered something about a letter, remembered vaguely how a white shape had fluttered before his eyes like a huge butterfly; and now, gaining the kitchen, and finding it empty as he had wished, he paused and looked round, as if nosing for scent. A letter from Nicky, and Jane was keeping it from him! The likeliest place was the broad window-sill where Jane kept a miscellany of the things— encountered in her periodic tidying-up—that did not seem to belong to any other place; a church calendar embodying a coloured picture of the Good Shepherd, a pile of household bills held down by an eight-ounce weight, cooking recipes cut out of the Mercester Chronicle, and a sixpenny packet of stationery. Ashamed to be prying, but still indignant and resolved, he searched for five minutes among these things without finding anything to the purpose. And now the mantel-shelf, he thought; he felt breathless, for this delay was edging his excitement with anxiety. But before turning to the mantel-shelf he lifted Jane’s work-box from its place on the sill, and there, where the box had been, lay a sheet of folded paper.
Ah, what’s this! He unfolded the paper, flattened it on the sill, and fumbled for his spectacle-case. A letter from the War Office, he could decipher that much, but the rest was blurred to his weak sight. He found his spectacles and put them on. That’s better! That’s splendid! Now, let’s see what they … What’s it mean? Killed in action … killed … that means he won’t come back … poor Willy! But before he had read the letter to the end his mind was clear again. He stared into the idiot face of outrage. My son Nicky, my little son … now you’re fit to kiss the ladies, Nicky … O Jesus let me die.
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © Gerald Bullett
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ISBN: 9781448203956
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The Pandervils Page 41
