The Innocents

by Margery Sharp

  2

  Not that the Thursday had been entirely tranquil so far as I myself was concerned. We all knew Mrs. Bragg was failing, because for several Sundays running no milk had been stolen; but on Thursday just after breakfast our policeman arrived with a long face and asked if I’d mind going round till the undertaker sent a pro.; it didn’t seem right she should be left, he explained, on account of the cats. “There’s quite a comfortable chair,” he added encouragingly, “and I’ve sprinkled a bit of disinfectant about …”

  It was just as well. I am hardened to the disagreeable frowst of old people’s sickrooms, where the first response to illness is often to close every window; but the stench in Mrs. Bragg’s cottage was so to speak vintage. The whiff of her coat in the High Street but hinted at it. But at least it might be said that it wasn’t old Mrs. Bragg herself, even in death, who stank, the smell of cat overriding all others.

  Evidently the creatures hadn’t been let out for some days, and so naturally had had to relieve themselves where they could. I propped the door wide open, but obviously too late in the day to interest them (cats having very regular motions); only one or two nosed out, and almost immediately slunk in again, as though half-starved into lethargy. I did the best I could for them by filling half-a-dozen bowls and pans with tap-water and setting them on the floor. The cats lapped, mewed for something more, and then when no better was forthcoming subsided into patches of thin parti-coloured fur, like old mats.

  All this was before I looked at their owner. When I did, I saw easily why our policeman hadn’t hesitated to summon the undertaker. Flat on the floor, flat on her back—nose sharp as a pen, mouth and eyes rigidly open—old Mrs. Bragg was obviously dead as a doornail. I saw no danger to her from the cats, from either affection or hunger; they gave the body a rather wide berth.

  As our policeman had promised, there was a quite comfortable chair, an old-fashioned bentwood rocker which I actually recalled being knocked down at a Jumble for seven-and-six. It still had a sound cane back and seat; only I would have sat more comfortable in it had not every now and then, from the parti-coloured mats, a green or yellow eye opened …

  Our policeman was as good as his word, however; only a couple of hours elapsed ere he came back with a smooth-voiced professional who—took over.

  “And you’d better get the R.S.P.C.A.,” said I.

  What else to do with old Mrs. Bragg’s cats, but have them put down? At least a dozen, that is; sparing a pair of Persians and their kit. At first I couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Bragg came by them at all; then realized that Honoria had indeed made a clean sweep.

  I am happy to say the R.S.P.C.A. found them good homes quite immediately; and that the kit in maturity, under the name of Felix Suffolk Braggart, took Second Best in Class at the Olympia, London, cat show.

  3

  The day of the Jumble itself I as I say stayed at home. I expected Cecilia at first in the morning, then at least by tea-time; but when at half-past five there was still no sign could only suppose her still recuperating, and put my garden shoes on.

  East Anglia, especially near the coast, seems to have a climate of its own, and usually (or such is the general East Anglian belief), much better than anywhere else; warned in the papers All Southeast England, cloudy, we as often or not bask in unofficial sunshine. Even the calendar has less authority: though we were still only in May, the afternoon was so summer-hot, to step from the unshaded part of the terrace into the little copse was like going into a church—at least ten degrees cooler than outside. I greatly enjoyed the sensation, particularly as I was rather sweaty from separating catmint. (This should of course have been done earlier, but since I had Antoinette with me when was anything in my garden done by date?) The spicy scent clinging to my hands was peculiarly distinct above that rather muted, anonymous, twig-and-leaf smell which only in autumn develops a full bouquet; I was happy to look forward to that too, after the catmint gave up flowering …

  Below me, as I glanced down, I could see Antoinette grubbing among the artichokes like some happy little animal. I must confess I should have been pleased if she in turn had looked up, and perhaps smiled, at me, but then what better proof of a little animal’s complete trust than that it has learned to ignore one’s presence?

  Antoinette grubbed away contentedly. I loitered smelling the catmint on my hands, snapping off now and then a twig without a leaf-bud, observing with pleasure that a periwinkle (heeled in as untimely as I’d divided the catmint!) seemed to have decided to take root. Periwinkles are almost as favourite with me as artichokes—Tom Thumb and Prospero!

  Looking down between the saplings a few minutes later, to see Antoinette still busy and absorbed, I also saw Cecilia.

  She was wearing the caftan.

  Its thin yet voluminous folds of lavender and purple silk softened all angularity; above them her beautiful head reared with an especial, flowerlike grace. She looked like a tall iris walking. I have never seen her look so lovely, nor so much at home in a garden.

  4

  Antoinette had seen her too. I watched almost holding my breath as the round fair head lifted, instinctively ducked, then raised again to stare longer at Cecilia swaying across the lawn like a tall iris …

  The artichokes parted. Antoinette was coming out.

  I held my breath as she, first, allowed herself to be seen, then step by cautious step advanced. Cecilia, the tall iris, had the wit not to speak, to stand quite still—she too perhaps holding her breath?—only extended her hand, now empty of any bribe …

  Unfortunately what Antoinette placed in it was a dead frog.

  I do not blame Cecilia for screaming. Had I not once almost screamed myself, at the gift of a bullock’s eye? Naturally Cecilia screamed. But she also slapped down Antoinette’s hand, and as the little corpse dropped between them trampled it angrily, disgustedly underfoot; and then it was Antoinette screaming.

  Of course I was beside them in a moment, and at the sight of me she stopped, but while I was still explaining to Cecilia that from Antoinette the gift of a dead frog was a mark of high esteem, as silently and suddenly as a mole or hedgehog the child disappeared, and I knew all too well where I should find her.

  I must say Cecilia recovered herself very quickly. She made a great joke of it. “For heaven’s sake, have I an infant biologist on my hands? Was she going to dissect it? Where on earth in New York am I going to find frogs for her?” cried Cecilia, in humorous mock dismay—so I myself tried to seem to take it as lightly. But I was in fact very much concerned that the first time Antoinette approached her mother of her own accord, and with a gift, should have ended in disaster. For disaster it was, since to Cecilia’s offense in crushing the frog was added the offense of her screaming—the very reverse of any sound Antoinette could tolerate.

  “At least this time I’m not going to play hide-and-seek with her!” declared Cecilia—now humorously revengeful. “Actually I’d come just to show you I’m on my feet again. You were right, darling—when aren’t you?—I was tireder than I knew!”

  Well, obviously she’d been on her feet long enough to get to the Jumble; and had come also, I thought, to display her new acquisition. It was only natural, when she looked so lovely in it; but however much I admired her in Colonel Packett’s caftan (and however much I wanted to know how much she’d given for it), some perverseness made me refrain from comment. Nor did Cecilia draw attention to the garment—I suppose suddenly perceiving the same hole as I did in her explanation for not appearing earlier. We both behaved as though she wore nothing more out of the way than my own bagged skirt and darned cardigan—on my part, as I say, perversely: for even when I took her into the sitting-room for a glass of sherry I still had the impression of some lovely tall iris improbably strayed within doors …

  As though now decided to make a social occasion of it, Cecilia was really wonderfully interesting and entertaining as she described all the Fancy Balls and Gala Concerts she’d organized in aid of Bundles for Britain; and
touching, too, when she recalled Rab Guthrie’s eighteen-hour working day that left him too exhausted to accompany her to any one of them. Often, it appeared, Cecilia herself returned quite exhausted in the small hours of the morning just as he was getting up and making himself coffee, so that for all the years of the war they’d scarcely seen each other. I felt very sorry for Rab Guthrie—particularly as no more had he seen his daughter on a pony.

  “You must see Antoinette on a pony,” said I.

  “She rides? At least that’s something,” said Cecilia, “if she can ride in Central Park!”

  I was especially pleased at this approval because I was already wondering how she and Antoinette had best re-encounter. On the heath Antoinette was always at her most normal, also there would be Honoria and the young Cockers throwing out so to speak a protective screen. Even when I told Cecilia the next lesson wasn’t till Tuesday, quite towards the end of the week she’d promised us, she seemed undisturbed, as though prepared to stay even longer. I wondered whether she too, under her lightness, had recognized a setback and the need for patience. She didn’t recur, for instance, to her plan to transfer Antoinette immediately to Woolmers. In short, I felt much encouraged; and we parted on such good terms, I was hardly surprised when for the second time Cecilia kissed me.

  “You will help?” breathed Cecilia. “Only you can, you know. You will help—both of us?”

  5

  Antoinette was where I expected; under her cot. This time I spoke to her rather firmly—not loudly, of course, but more firmly than usual. “Come out, Antoinette,” I told her. “I’m sorry, and Mummy’s sorry; but it was just an accident, and you mustn’t be such a baby any more …”

  From the darkness under the cot Antoinette’s small bright eyes regarded me unwinkingly.

  “Come out at once, Antoinette!” said I.

  She came. She crept out very slowly, but she came.—It was from this time that I noticed a sort of docility quite new in her. She seemed to feel she was being punished for something, but didn’t know what; so that her only resort was strict obedience. I confess it cut me to the heart that as Antoinette’s first human expression had been one of suspicion, her second was of resignation. But time and events had overtaken us.

  6

  What Cecilia paid for the caftan turned out to be five guineas—thanks to which the takings of the Jumble reached the unprecedented figure of nine pounds fifteen and ten. I was still sorry for Paul Amory’s disappointment, and meeting him next morning in the High Street took the opportunity to say so.—One meets everyone in the High Street, and Paul in his wheelchair is particularly, even if one wished to avoid him, as I did not, unavoidable.

  “I’m sorry about the caftan,” said I.

  “So is Betty,” said he, “but I went up to four quid. Then Mrs. Guthrie jumped.”

  He nonetheless sounded, and looked, less chagrined than one would have expected. In fact he appeared rather stimulated.

  “D’you know what?” added Paul. “She’s going to let me have a shot at her portrait. We had a bit of a chat together afterwards—she made quite a joke of our being rivals!—and she’s such a stunner, I couldn’t help asking.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said I.

  “And she’s promised to let me try,” rejoiced Paul, “even if it takes a month!”

  9

  1

  Even a week’s respite had heartened me; a month includes four. I only wondered how Betty would view a prospect to me personally so welcome, but she declared herself quite delighted at her husband’s branching out; for to do justice to a portrait of Cecilia, Paul Amory launched from water-colours into oils. (As he naïvely explained to me, he knew how, he’d done oils—this rather in the tone of a boy saying he’d done algebra.) Of course oil is a more expensive medium, but though I suspect Betty had to keep house more narrowly she never complained, even when the marble slab she used for pastry making was commandeered as a substitute palette. For water-colours, Paul in his wheelchair had managed very handily with his sketch-block propped on a sort of reading desk hinged to its footrest, and a jam-jar of water slung from one arm and his paintbox on his knees; but oils are more demanding. To support a canvas there had to be an easel set up; the marble slab required a table of its own. All this naturally made a great clutter in the sitting-room of a cottage as small as the Amorys’, as Cecilia was quick to realize; after a very few sittings all artistic paraphernalia was shifted to an empty garage at Woolmers. With petrol rationing still in force few visitors brought cars, and she may even have paid for its use. Paul openly rejoiced at having something so like a proper studio of his own, and out of Betty’s way; nothing however could have been more public, since the doors were necessarily kept wide open, for light. Fortunately they faced east, and in the mornings, with side windows as well, the garage was all that a studio should be.

  So Cecilia quite settled in, and spoke no more of any immediate departure. Indeed she began to talk quite as though she expected to spend the whole summer amongst us; she hadn’t realized, she declared, how much she’d enjoy being home again! The words gave me such hope as I hardly dared examine—what if Cecilia decided to stay in England for good?—and in East Anglia, within reach? For Antoinette it would be like a miracle; but miracles have happened. Naturally—as I say, I hardly dared examine the thought—I made no such premature suggestion to Cecilia; but still took the opportunity to remark that now there was more time, perhaps Antoinette might as well stay where she was used to being for a little longer.

  “You asked me to help,” I reminded.

  Cecilia looked serious but not uncooperative.

  “You think it would? You don’t think Tony might resent my not wanting to have her straightaway?”

  I said no.

  “You don’t think it might give her a trauma?” persisted Cecilia.

  Again, though the psychoanalytic term was then unfamiliar to me, I said no. I was in fact simply saying no to any doubts of Cecilia’s whatever; and indeed without much further difficulty persuaded her to leave Antoinette a little longer where she was, and where Cecilia could so easily come and see her every day.

  As things turned out it was in my garden, not on the heath, that mother and child re-encountered; Antoinette’s Tuesday riding lesson never took place because Honoria went off to London. She had some business with her father’s solicitor, also she took his medals to sell at Spinks, and one of them (dating from the Boxer Rising) fetched such an unexpectedly high price, Honoria stayed on in town going to theatres and looking up old chums for a full month. Of course she left a locum, a superannuated carter who saw to the ponies in the way of feeding and grooming, but neither Mrs. Cocker nor I had sufficient confidence in the old gaffer to let him lead out a juvenile string. Antoinette and the young Cockers missed eight riding classes running.

  I didn’t blame Honoria, but I was put out. Apart from the importance of that first, missed occasion, Antoinette enjoyed her riding. Now we just had to wait until Honoria returned from the fleshpots.

  However, my garden was at least home ground, and Antoinette didn’t a second time actually hide from her mother. It was part of her new docility that when I said (firmly), “Look, Antoinette, here’s your pretty mummy come to see us, you’re to stay and say hello to her and not run away,”—Antoinette stayed.

  She stayed perplexed and resigned; but she stayed. Once, later, of her own accord she showed me her hands, empty of any treasure …

  Cecilia’s visits were paid each morning either before or after her sitting, so she could never stay long; but still as everyone knew she saw her daughter every day. The very briefness of these descents was in fact an advantage, as not overstraining Antoinette’s passive obedience; to Cecilia’s loving “Hi there, honey!” or “Hi there, my darling!” Antoinette never failed to return the hello she’d learned riding with the Cockers—this pleased Cecilia very much—and then stood silently listening to Cecilia’s chatter, or obediently followed her round the garden, for never
longer than half-an-hour. Cecilia chattered so much Antoinette’s silence was hardly apparent; indeed I remember Mrs. Gibson once telling me how pleased she’d been, passing by on the other side of the hedge, to hear the pair getting on so famously.

  I understand there was great admiration for Cecilia’s tact and sympathy at this point, she so fully recognizing how kind and useful I’d been to Antoinette that she was prepared not to reclaim her darling daughter quite there and then. Everyone knew (added Mrs. Gibson), how attached I was to the child, which in fact they did not.

  2

  There was no doubt that Paul Amory’s new paints and brushes, and his new easel and new studio, did him a lot of good. He had always been cheerful, in a resolute sort of way, but now there was such a light of enthusiasm in his eye that even immediately after a haircut he looked more than ever Byronic, and returned home to lunch—(he always, however long a sitting overran its time, went home to lunch, which Betty kept hot for him)—in wonderfully high spirits.

  But this was only one example of the pleasure that Cecilia, by her mere presence, brought amongst us. The war had been won by glum fortitude; everyone was tired. In London, one heard, as soon as the bombings stopped all anyone wanted to do was go to bed early. We in East Anglia, for the most part able to sleep our fill, and with nothing to keep us up, had on the contrary so overslept as to become dull as our neighbouring Norfolk’s dumplings; it was astonishing how soon Cecilia revived a little spirit of gaiety and sociability amongst us. Besides beauty, she brought vitality; it emanated from her like the scent of gardenias. (French, of which we had been so long deprived.) Her very clothes—nothing patched or makeshift—after years of austerity were a treat for sore eyes; have I not described what almost sensual pleasure I myself derived from a fold of violet-coloured tweed? Thus Cecilia moved amongst us a heartening reminder of all the luxuries of peace, and by her mere presence promoted quite a round of unaccustomed gaieties.