Gerry came back in Manning's car and Matron was waiting with hot tea, and, although the spring was touching summer, a fire at which to sit.
After the tea Manning handed her a letter. She saw the Professor's scholarly writing, and opened and took out the single page.
It said the things she knew now, his failing health, his wish not to worry her. It told her not to be unhappy because he was glad. "I have been fortunate in my women. Benson once wrote: 'She was the staff on which he leaned, and the wings which gave him flight.' Thank you for the leaning staff, my Gerry, and now I turn to Helen, my wings."
It was signed simply, "Dad".
"There is quite a large mail, Geraldine," fussed Matron. "Would you like me to help you with it?"
"I don't think so, thank you. I believe I am going to get a lot of satisfaction reading other people's love of Father."
She did so till bedtime, garnering quiet happiness with every message. They came from so far, from such different people. She went to her room at last, and this time she slept.
But in the morning it overtook her again, the loneliness,
the emptiness, the realization that memories of him were now the only things to the end of her life.
If she had had her class to attend to, it would have been easier. But she had no one to look after, nothing at all to do. Matron, in misguided kindness, spared her the smallest effort. Gerry wanted to call out, "Don't consider, don't fuss over me. I'm not special, I'm very ordinary. I'm so ordinary I was not worthy of my father's confidence that he was dying, so why should you think now that I must not be touched?"
She wandered from room to room. She went down the gully. She packed away the Professor's personal things.
She was going through his books when Hilda brought in the afternoon mail, more letters of sympathy on chaste white paper—and another in a cheap envelope with blotted handwriting and Miss Prosset spelt with only one S.
She opened it curiously, aware of something hammering inside her as she did so. The writing was on a dirty crumpled sheet torn from the front of an old novel. It was bad writing and bad spelling, but it conveyed what it set out to do.
"Dear Miss Prosset," it said, and it finished, "Bert Betts." She read it through, then began again.
Tom's father, she learned, had been out to visit his son.
There was no explanation as to how or where the police had located him; no indication as to why he had not claimed Tom. "If you are interested," the letter said briefly, "as I think you are, you ought to see me. I am here any time at the above address."
The district was known vaguely to Gerry as a poor one —poorer, even, than the slum from which they had taken Tom.
She sat playing with the letter, reading it over. Once she took up the house phone to ring Manning. Then she put it down again.
"If you are interested. . . ." The four words kept repeating and repeating. In her desperation to shed her hopeless apathy she seized on them in longing.
Even as she fingered the envelope, creased and uncreased the sheet, she felt the heavy listlessness that had overcome her these last few days lessening its dreary load.
Where before she had seemed to stand looking down a
long and empty road, now the road waited, beckoned, opened up for her—and somewhere along it was Tom.
Gerry could not have said, when she did ring Manning, why she did not tell him the truth. She could not have said at what juncture she had found in those blotted words on the dirty page a need to keep the contents secret. She only knew that all at once this was a matter between herself and Betts.
Damien answered the phone with the same gentle consideration that had irritated her from Matron.
"What is it, Geraldine?"
"I wondered, seeing my programme is well ahead of schedule and the class is not expected for several weeks, if I could be spared for a few days."
"By all means. Where did you think of going?"
He had no right to ask but mechanically she answered him. There was something about Damien that expected—and always received—compliance.
"Sydney, Mr. Manning. I—I have an aunt there. She wants to see me."
. . . Was there the barest pause at the other end? Gerry could not have said. When his voice came it was as kindly and considerate as it had been since the Professor had died.
"Shall I arrange for a car to take you to Marlborough?"
"No need to, Mr. Manning, I can join the Breffny bus."
Damien said tentatively, "If you would wait a day longer
I could drive you down myself."
Gerry had a moment of panic picturing their arrival in Sydney, and Manning, in typical Manning-manner, demanding to know the suburb in which the aunt lived, the street, the house itself.
"No, really, it would be too much trouble."
"It would be no trouble. I'd go tomorrow, only I have this meeting—"
"My—aunt wants me as soon as possible. I'll travel by train, thank you."
Another ephemeral pause, then, "Very well, Miss Prosset, just as you please. And you will take the Breffny bus?"
Gerry said eagerly—too eagerly, "Yes."
Another pause from Damien, then:
"Before you go I'd like a word with you."
"Ye-s." This time it was Gerry's voice that was hesitant. "Can you come across to the master house now?" "No—no, I'm sorry, but I've promised some help to
Matron."
"I see. Then after dinner?"
Gerry hesitated again. "It would be later in the evening. When the boys are bedded down."
She was obviously trying to avoid a meeting. She wondered if he noticed. If he did, he did not betray it. "I'll expect you," he said, and rang off.
At eight she phoned to plead a headache.
"I'm sorry about that," said Manning, "there were a few topics I wished to discuss with you. One was Thomas Betts."
"Where is Tom? I'd like, if possible, to visit him."
"A home called Mount Clifford. I think a visit would be quite in order ... Geraldine . . ."
"Yes?"
"How is the head now?" His voice held more than inquiry, it held an intention.
She answered at once, and rather too anxiously. "I'm sorry, but it's no better. I think I'll go to bed."
There was a sound that could have been a sigh of disappointment. Gerry pretended she did not hear.
After a while he agreed reasonably, "Bed's the best place, I expect. I'll see you then in the morning. What bus will you catch—the usual one?"
Gerry said, "Yes," thinking to herself that she would be approaching Sydney by the time of the usual departure from Breffny. She wanted to avoid seeing Damien. There was something about him that broke down one's ability to hold on to a secret. She knew she would not be with him long before she was telling him about the letter from Bert Betts.
She awoke at dawn. It was not really an awakening because she had not actually slept, only rested while she waited for the light and her opportunity to depart.
She dressed quickly and took up the overnight bag she had packed before she went to bed. She did not wait to make tea. She could have that before the train left at Marlborough. She was anxious to be off.
She hurried down the hill. It was a grey, overcast morning, inclined, as spring mornings often are, to look back to
winter. The wind cut through the jacket of her suit, but once in the early fishing bus things were different. The seats were taken by the lobster men fetching in their catches to put on the refrigerator car at Marlborough, but they squeezed her in somehow, and the familiar smell of their tobacco and salt-caked clothes, their slow friendly talk, their smiling weather-worn faces made her feel warm again.
At Marlborough she got tea in a paper cup and a bun and found a window-seat.
She was aware, as the train moved off, that she was trembling with excitement. Small wonder, she thought abashed, here I am almost a woman, and this is actually the first time I have travelled by myself.
/> She recalled her days at teaching college when Mrs. Ferguson, to her chagrin, had always insisted on accompanying her down. She recalled each time she had returned and how Fergie had arranged for that.
She admitted to herself that if she was prudent now she would take a cab on her arrival at Sydney out to the Fergusons' suburban apartment and let those good folk take her once more under their wing. But Gerry knew, as she made this admission, that that was what she was not going to do. Mrs. Ferguson always pumped you as to where you were going; Mr. Ferguson as to what you were doing. Neither would approve of that address of Bert Betts's.
Several hours later she alighted at Central Station, trying to look aloof and as though her previous experience of lodgings had not been restricted to girls' hostels. She gave the name of a popular hotel.
She was fortunate, the clerk said, to get one of the last singles. She stood at the window a moment looking down on the traffic, hearing its clamour pleasantly muted now that it was seven storeys beneath. Then she decided to ring the Mount Clifford Home and ask about Tom.
She had no room connection. When the clerk had told her this she had said it did not matter. She had not added that perhaps it was better that way. She did not know yet how she was placed financially now that her father was gone, but she could not think there would be a great deal of money. In which case, she thought, I had better not spend too much.
Mount Clifford, she learned in the lobby bureau, was an
hour's journey by train, then a short bus ride. Yes, if she came this afternoon she could see Thomas Betts. Indeed, Tom was expecting another visitor.
Gerry rang off. She wondered if the other visitor was Tom's father.
She lunched on the roof garden then left for the Home —and Tom.
CHAPTER XXII
GERRY saw at once that Mount Clifford was a wise home, and her heart lifted.
Here was an institution where the child came first and furnishings a long way after. There was no window-dressing. The trodden scatter-rugs on the bare floor assured her of that. There was a faint air of shabbiness about the place but a strong air of love. Tom, if not ecstatically happy here, could never be sad. There was too much of the essential essence of home and family affection to permit that.
She found Tom on one of the wide sunny verandahs, and he came shyly forward and put out his hand.
"Hullo, Miss Prosset," he greeted.
"Hullo, Thomas."
They both stood smiling at each other, and, because she had a lot to say to him, Gerry suggested a stroll round the garden.
He hesitated. "I have another visitor to come yet, Miss Prosset, Aunty Beth."
Gerry was puzzled. She had gathered that Thomas, apart from his father, was quite alone now in the world, so how did one explain this aunt? She looked at the little boy speculatively. Perhaps, she decided, in the unassuming way some charity workers prefer not to advertise their good deeds, Aunty Beth was the name to these wards of some well-known benefactress.
She could see by Tom's eyes that he liked this Aunty Beth, and she remarked teasingly upon it.
"Oh, yes, I do, Miss Prosset." The little face was glowing.
"She comes often?"
"Each time she can. We don't have visitors every day. It's not allowed."
"Are you happy here, Tom?"
"Oh, yes, but—"
"But you'd sooner be home at Galdang?" Gerry smiled tenderly.
Tom hesitated. "I won't be at Galdang for quite a while, Miss Prosset."
Gerry, in her turn, hesitated. He was such a grave, wise little boy. How much, she wondered, did he know concerning his future? Especially now that his father had returned.
Aloud, she regretted, "Won't you, Tom? I'm sorry." Tom hastened to add confidently, "I shall be one day, of course, but not just now, Aunty Beth says—"
He spoke quite a while of Aunty Beth and what she said, then, with the rather old-world courtesy imbued in him by his mother, he whispered, "I was sad about Professor Prosset."
"Thank you, Thomas."
"Were you sad, Miss Prosset?"
"Yes, I was."
"I expect," said Tom with touching importance, "that by now he will have met my mother, Mrs. Betts."
"I think he will, Tom."
Tom caught his bottom lip beneath his small top teeth, of which two were missing, for a brief steadying moment. "She'll be glad to hear about me," he said.
Gerry waited. She waited for Tom to begin speaking of his father, but while she did the other visitor arrived, a tall, rather nervous woman in her early forties, with something vaguely familiar in her sun-tanned skin and her light blue eyes.
"Aunty Beth, this is Miss Prosset," said Tom.
The woman looked at Gerry quickly and searchingly, then smiled.
Gerry smiled back, still groping into her memory. Where had she met those eyes, that smile before?
The three of them talked—at least, thought Gerry a
little ruefully, there was continual happy chatter between Tom and Aunty Beth.
Too soon the bell was clanging, and the tall woman was kissing Tom's brow where Gerry was only shaking his little fist.
"I'll be here on Saturday," promised Aunty Beth. "With what you said?"
"Yes, dear." She smiled again, and together she and Gerry left.
"With what you said," she explained as they walked side by side down the avenue with the other visitors, "is a piece of pink coral. I promised it to Thomas."
"Coral—" said Gerry, and catching up on a memory at last, "of course, you're Elliott's mother."
"Olwen Bethel," nodded Tom's Aunty Beth, and she stopped and put out her hand.
"How long have you been visiting Thomas?" inquired Geraldine as they started off again.
"Quite a while now. Elliott's letters Were full of the child. I decided I would like to see him for myself. So I wrote to Mr. Manning and he answered at once and told me where to come."
Gerry walked in thoughtful silence for a few moments. "Elliott's a nice boy," she ventured presently, to bridge the rather lengthy pause.
Mrs. Bethel's face lit up the way Gerry had often seen her son's face grow happy and eager.
"Oh, yes," she said, "He is."
They talked a while about Elliott. Gerry wondered how much the boy had confided to his mother; she wondered if his mother had any idea of how much he had told her.
If she did, Mrs. Bethel did not mention it. She talked lightly and easily, skirting adroitly round the subject that was herself.
She did not appear unhappy. In fact there was an animation about her that was too deep in her eyes and too imprinted in her smile to be assumed as only put on for the occasion. She is animated, she is happy, decided Gerry.
Because of that cheerfulness, Gerry found herself conversing just as cheerfully in return. She had meant to bring up the subject of Tom's father, but before she could get round to it their train had reached Central again, and with
a warm handclasp and her love to be given to Elliott, Mrs. Bethel left.
Gerry stood irresolute a while in the big airy entry, then decided to take stock of things over a cup of coffee in the refreshment rooms. She ordered a bun to go with it, but when the tray came she poured and buttered mechanically, then sat staring straight ahead. Reluctantly but frankly she came to the conclusion that so far she had achieved really nothing at all; that she would not achieve anything until she did what she had travelled down to do—see Bert Betts.
She asked herself whether, if Mrs. Bethel had not arrived at that moment, Thomas would have confided in her about his father. She wondered if Mrs. Bethel knew of Betts's return as well. Most of all she wondered why Tom was still at Mount Clifford Home, and not, as sons should be, living with his dad.
She took out her little memo-book and looked at the address she had copied from the single dirty sheet. She looked at it a long time, aware of a sudden unwillingness somewhere deep within her, a secret alarm telling her not to go.
But that was foolish
, she thought, and she was wasting time sitting here at the table, her bun uneaten, her coffee growing cold.
She paid her bill and went out. The afternoon was fading already. For a moment she felt like taking out the address and tearing it up and forgetting it. Tom was safe and cared for. What more could she ask than that?
Then she remembered the letter and that "if you are
interested."
Of course she was interested. Interest in Thomas was now her only straw to cling to . . . now that the Professor was gone .. . now that no longer, because of Cynthia, could she permit the memory of a house and its moods, laughing, snug, warm.
She recalled the hopeless apathy that had dissolved at once when Hilda had brought her Betts's note.
Yes, I am interested, she repeated, and of course I shall go.
She called a taxi before she could change her mind. She excused this expense by telling herself that she would not have known which way, and besides, it was almost dusk.
The driver nodded rather disapprovingly, she thought,
and gave her a sharp, inquisitive look. He was soon there. The place must be almost within the city confines. "I'll let you off here, miss. It's only a six-foot blind lane and I'd have to back out."
Gerry paid him and alighted. Instantly, she was aware that she had made a mistake arriving like this. It attracted attention. A cab will always attract attention. She felt herself the cynosure of all eyes as she stepped on to the kerb. The drab street, deserted at first glance, was really filled with people, leaning against walls, against posts, standing near dingy gutters, and every face seemed to have turned to look at her.
"Is this Cowry Lane?" That was another mistake. Better to have found out for herself than to invite again those curious stares.
Someone had stepped forward. Gerry did not notice him very much, for she had a queer heady feeling that all this was not happening at all, that she was dreaming it.
"What number?" The man's voice was nasal and rather blurred.
"Seven."
"Name of—?"
"Betts."
"This way," said the man, and he stepped in front of Gerry. She followed him down the side alley, forgiving the taxi-driver his refusal to extricate himself from Cowry Lane, for it was, she saw, extremely narrow. They stopped at the third peeling door.
Will You Surrender? Page 17
