The Two Mrs. Abbotts

by D. E. Stevenson

  Markie was too kindhearted to wish that she had not cured Elmie’s wound, but she almost wished it. She reflected that things worked in an odd way in this odd world. It was because she had taken a good deal of trouble over Elmie’s finger that Elmie had returned to cause more trouble at Ganthorne Lodge. “How did you come?” asked Markie with a sigh. “Who brought you?”

  “Nobody brought me. I stood in the road an’ pointed.”

  “Did your parents know you were coming?”

  Elmie shook her head. “We ’ad a row,” she said. “Gor’ it was a row, too! We wos all shoutin’ fit ter rise the roof…then Dad ses, ‘Orl roight,’ ’e ses, ‘if my ’ouse ain’t good enough you can get out an’ stye out.’ So I ses, ‘Okay,’ an’ I walks out.”

  “Goodness!” said Markie in dismay.

  “I won’t go back, neither,” said Elmie.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to go back.”

  Elmie began to sob again. “Nobody wants me,” she wailed. “Nobody wants me an’ I don’t want nobody—I’d be better dead.”

  “Blow your nose, Elmie,” said Miss Marks, handing over her own large clean pocket handkerchief. “Wipe your eyes and don’t talk nonsense. We must think what is to be done.”

  “I’ll do anything if you let me stye,” declared Elmie, coming closer and laying a thin grimy hand on Markie’s arm. “I will reelly. I can sleep in the stible with Dapple so I won’t be no trouble…an’ I don’t need much food, just a few scraps that you can spare…I’ll work, too. I will, reelly, if you’ll jus’ let me stye…”

  The hoarse eager voice went on, making all the promises its owner could think of, making the most extravagant promises of hard work and good behavior…so much so that Markie’s heart was touched and she began to wonder whether it could possibly be arranged. The parents would have to be informed and their consent obtained, of course…

  “Well, anyway, we cannot do anything tonight,” said Markie at last. “You had better come up to the house and have something to eat.”

  “Just a crust,” said Elmie. “That’s all I want—an’ I can ’ave it ’ere—an’ I can sleep ’ere with Dapple. I won’t be no bother to nobody.”

  “You will do as you are told,” said Markie firmly.

  ***

  Jerry had been spending the evening at the Archway House. It was late when she got home and she expected Markie to be in bed, but she found Markie sitting by the fire, smoking like a chimney and reading the morning paper.

  “I had no time to read it before,” said Markie, laying it down. “Not that it matters because there is very little news. Everything seems to have reached a sort of deadlock…and the government is being urged to start a second front.”

  “It would be a seventh front,” replied Jerry. “At least that’s what Uncle Arthur says. He says it’s wrong and silly and dangerous for people to go on screaming for another front.”

  “Mr. Abbott’s views are always extremely sound,” declared Markie. Jerry nodded. She said, “But what on earth have you been doing with yourself if you haven’t had time to read the paper. I suppose you’ve been working at the cottage, cleaning up the Boles’s mess—I wish you wouldn’t, Markie. Isn’t there anybody you could get to help you?”

  “Fraser helped me,” replied Markie. She sighed and added, “I have done a good deal of cleaning today, one way and another.”

  “Thank goodness we’re rid of famille Boles!”

  “But we are not. Wilhelmina has returned.”

  “What! Elmie!”

  “I think we should call her Wilhelmina.”

  “Call her what you like—why on earth has she come back?”

  “She did not like Stepney.”

  “Markie, don’t be so mysterious!” cried Jerry. “You sit there like a heathen idol, smoking and smiling to yourself. Tell me what’s happened. Where is the child?”

  “In bed,” said Markie, smiling more broadly than before.

  “Not in this house, I hope!”

  “She’s perfectly clean, dear. I washed her thoroughly with carbolic soap and cut her hair. Really she is quite a nice-looking child. You wouldn’t know her.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t,” agreed Jerry. “Not if she’s clean.”

  “The point is,” continued Markie, lighting another cigarette and inhaling deeply. “The point is what are we to do with Wilhelmina.”

  “Send her back to her parents, of course.”

  “Yes, dear. That does seem the solution at first sight, but I do not think she will go. I tried to reason with her, of course, but she seems adamant. She threatens to throw herself into the river if we turn her away—and I really believe she might carry out the threat.”

  “But Markie—”

  “There is much to be thought of,” continued Markie, who had given the matter a good deal of attention. “It is not such a simple problem as it appears. The child has run away from home, but her home is not what it should be. She has run away from her parents, but her parents have done little for her except to give her birth.”

  “Markie, listen,” began Jerry, trying to interrupt this flow of reasoned judgment.

  “No, dear,” said Markie. “I have thought it out and I want to give you my views. After I have finished I shall be delighted to listen to you. Wilhelmina has been brought up in squalor but now she realizes there is a better way of living; she has come back and is clinging to Ganthorne as a drowning man clings to a raft. Are we justified in pushing her back into the sea and allowing her to drown?”

  “What are you going to do with her?” asked Jerry, brushing aside all question of drowning men and rafts and coming straight to the point.

  “That is for you to decide.”

  Jerry laughed. She said, “What’s the use of me deciding when you’ve already decided. I hope it isn’t kidnapping or anything.”

  “My dear!” exclaimed Markie in horrified tones.

  “Well, it’s something like that. We aren’t justified in keeping her without her parents’ permission, and I don’t suppose they would give it, would they?”

  “She thinks not,” said Markie, looking a trifle embarrassed. “In fact she obtained my promise not to write to them.”

  “Won’t they be anxious about her?” asked Jerry. “I should think they’ll be in a most awful stew when they find she’s disappeared—they’ll put the police on her track or something.”

  “I raised that point with her,” replied Markie. “But Wilhelmina is quite certain that we need not envisage trouble of that nature. In fact the idea that her parents might seek help from the police seemed to amuse her considerably.”

  “Not ’arf they won’t,” said Jerry, smiling.

  “Those were her exact words,” nodded Markie, returning the smile somewhat ruefully. “Her choice of idiom is deplorable.”

  “You’ll soon sweat it out of her,” said Jerry.

  “Really, Jerry!”

  “It explains exactly what I mean,” declared Jerry. “Honestly it does. I couldn’t think of any other way of expressing it. Oh, of course, I know you haven’t been very successful with me, but Elmie’s young and green. You’ll—er—get her to talk like a book before you’ve had her very long. She must work, of course,” continued Jerry. “We’re all workers, here—and I won’t have her carrying on with the soldiers.”

  “I shall look after her,” said Markie. “I shall give her a little instruction—just a few little simple daily—”

  “That’s another thing—what about school?”

  “She has left school,” replied Markie. “The child is fourteen and in the eyes of the law her education is complete. In my opinion, of course—”

  “I know,” said Jerry, interrupting hastily, for she knew Markie’s opinion on this point and had no wish to hear it again. “I know all that, Markie. You’ll be able to teach h
er things, but you mustn’t let her bother you.”

  “It will be no trouble,” declared Markie. “No trouble at all.”

  In this statement Markie was perfectly sincere, for if there was one job she enjoyed more than another it was the job of improving people, of working with human nature in a malleable form. Girls were Markie’s specialty, young unformed characters, the women of the future—here was the very best material given into her hand.

  “I suppose her head is all right,” said Jerry as she rose and snibbed the window preparatory to going upstairs to bed.

  “It is well-shaped, dear,” replied Markie seriously—“and the ear is well formed and set. I think we shall have very little trouble with Wilhelmina.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Enter Miss Watt

  Markie was preparing supper in the pantry. It was to be a particularly good supper tonight because Miss Watt would be here…what would she be like, Markie wondered. It was just like Jerry to ask her to come, in that impulsive way, and of course Jerry had a perfect right to ask anyone she liked; but supposing Miss Watt were like cocoa (thought Markie as she stirred some of that useful and nutritious beverage into her custard and watched the whole pudding turn pale brown) supposing Miss Watt had a strong flavor and changed the whole atmosphere of their lives. Most people were like some ingredient—weren’t they?—and a pudding was never the same with an added ingredient. Sometimes of course the flavor of the pudding was improved (as Markie hoped the addition of cocoa would improve her pudding), but the question was whether the flavor of Ganthorne Lodge could be improved. Markie thought not.

  Jerry had described her prospective P. G. and Jerry—in her own peculiar way—was rather good at describing people, so Markie had quite a definite idea of what Miss Watt would look like. She could not remember the exact words of the description but from it she had envisaged a nice-looking young woman, rather dressy in a mild way, with fair curls and brown eyes and a pink and white complexion, so when she saw the pony cart coming up the drive and hurried into the hall to welcome the guest and help with the luggage Markie was very much surprised. Miss Watt certainly had fair hair and brown eyes—an unusual combination—but there the resemblance between Markie’s conception and the real Miss Watt ended abruptly, for the real Miss Watt was certainly not “dressy” even in the mildest way. She was clad in a gray tweed suit and a blue viyella shirt with a collar and a tie, and when she removed her perfectly plain gray felt hat Markie saw that her hair was short and straight. (As short as a prewar man’s hair, thought Markie a trifle vaguely.) There are women, of course, who look “right” in mannish clothes and mannish haircuts, but Miss Watt looked odd—so Markie thought.

  “This is Markie,” said Jerry. “Miss Marks, Miss Watt…I’ve told you all about each other and Markie will give you some tea while I put Dapple away…or perhaps sherry if it’s too late for tea. Have we any, Markie?”

  “Of course,” said Markie. “Do come in, Miss Watt. There’s a good fire in the sitting room…or would you rather go straight up to your room? Supper will be ready in about half an hour.”

  Markie waited anxiously for Miss Watt’s answer to this inquiry—not that it mattered a pin whether she came into the sitting room and partook of sherry or went upstairs and unpacked, but because it mattered a great deal what sort of voice she had. There were some people who spoke clearly, with a sort of bell-like note in their voices (Jerry was one of these) and there were others who mumbled and muttered and ran their words together in a hopeless jumble of sound.

  A good deal depended upon Miss Watt’s voice—everything as far as Markie was concerned—for if Markie could not hear what Miss Watt said (or hearing, could not understand) life would be most uncomfortable. Oddly enough Markie had not noticed voices very much until she became deaf, but now voices were more important than anything else. This was one of the reasons she enjoyed the company of the soldiers…when she was with them she forgot she was deaf.

  Miss Watt replied quite audibly in a pleasantly modulated voice that she would love a glass of sherry if it really could be spared, and followed Miss Marks into the sitting room.

  “What a perfect room!” she exclaimed, standing in the doorway and looking around. “It looks so right, doesn’t it?”

  Markie knew what she meant and agreed. She was aware that strictly speaking the room was not right as regards period (the Elizabethan age was by no means a luxurious one and a room furnished strictly in period would have been uncomfortable to say the least of it), but the sitting room at Ganthorne seemed to strike the right note; the cushioned window seat, the few good pictures, and the well-worn, well-polished furniture harmonized with the oddly shaped, low-ceilinged room and the lozenge paned windows. Perhaps this was because they had all been here so long and grown old together.

  Supper was set for three on a gate-legged table and Markie explained that she and Jerry always had their meals here.

  “I know,” said Miss Watt. “Mrs. Abbott told me everything.” She sat down on the window seat as she spoke and looked around again. “How peaceful it is,” she added.

  “You may find it dull,” Markie suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Miss Watt. “I need peace.”

  “You’ve been living in London, perhaps?”

  “No, I’m used to the country. It wasn’t that sort of peace I meant. It was inside peace, really. Peace to be myself.”

  Jerry came in at that moment and they drank their sherry and chatted in a friendly way, but when Miss Watt had been conducted upstairs and left to wash for supper, Jerry seized Markie’s arm in a vicelike grip and dragged her into her bedroom and shut the door.

  “Well, Markie?” said Jerry anxiously.

  “My dear,” began Markie in doubtful tones. “My dear child, if you mean what do I think—”

  “Of course I do. Markie, she’s quite different.”

  “Different?”

  “Quite, quite different,” said Jerry earnestly. “She’s like a different person, if you know what I mean.”

  “Different from what?”

  “From the person I met on Mr. Tupper’s doorstep.”

  “Do you mean she is not Miss Watt?” asked Markie in alarm.

  “No,” replied Jerry. “No, of course not. I mean she’s changed.”

  “But Jerry—”

  “Honestly, Markie, she’s—she’s got a different smell,” declared Jerry, wrinkling up her whole face in her effort to explain.

  “She seems very pleasant—” began Markie.

  “You don’t like her!” exclaimed Jerry. “I can see you don’t like her. Well, in that case, she’ll have to go—that’s all. Nobody’s coming to live here that you don’t like.”

  “I didn’t say I disliked Miss Watt.”

  “No, but you meant it.”

  “No,” said Markie. “No, you are too apt to jump to conclusions. Let us withhold judgment,” added Markie, nodding her head gravely. “Let us withhold judgment.”

  “What a bore!” said Jerry with a sigh.

  Markie could not help smiling. Jerry was impatient of delays, she liked everything settled; Jerry was too fond of dividing people into sheep and goats and too fond of carrying out this arbitrary division without due consideration.

  Supper was a pleasant meal. It consisted of stewed rabbit and mashed potatoes followed by the pale brown custard pudding Markie had been making when Miss Watt arrived. “Rabbit!” said Jerry in surprise.

  “Fraser gave it to me,” replied Markie smiling. “He got it yesterday when they were doing a tactical exercise on the moor. But perhaps one should not say too much about it.”

  “Mum’s the word,” agreed Jerry with an answering smile. “It’s like this, you see,” she added, turning to Miss Watt. “Fraser was born in Fife so he likes giving Markie presents.”

  Markie was about to elucidate Jerry’s
explanation—which seemed to her inadequate—but she found there was no need.

  “So you’re a Fifer, too!” exclaimed Miss Watt, turning to Markie. “No, I’m afraid I wasn’t actually born there, but my father was, and we used to spend our holidays at St. Andrews.”

  “Brothers and sisters?” asked Jerry with interest.

  “One sister a good deal older than myself,” replied Miss Watt. “Our parents died when I was quite small. I scarcely remember them.”

  “Your sister brought you up?” asked Markie.

  “Yes,” replied Miss Watt.

  She said no more about herself and Jerry returned to the subject of Fraser. “He’s Markie’s best boy,” she declared.

  Markie smiled for she was used to Jerry’s teasing.

  “He gives Markie packets of cigarettes,” said Jerry, nodding. “But unfortunately Markie is addicted to Turkish cigarettes—it’s her one extravagance—so Fraser’s particular brand isn’t much use to her…Which will you have?” added Jerry, for by this time they had finished supper and were partaking of coffee by the fire. “Will you have one of my gaspers or a Turk from Markie?”

  After a moment’s hesitation Miss Watt accepted a gasper and they all three lighted up with a spill from the fire.

  Cigarette smoking is so universal that one is apt to forget it requires a certain amount of practice, so when Markie and Jerry beheld their guest coughing and watering at the eyes they ascribed these unpleasant symptoms to a choking fit. But when the symptoms continued (and Miss Watt, holding her weed as far away from her as possible, took swift mouthfuls of smoke and expelled them still more swiftly with pursed lips and an expression of pained surprise) they realized that they were watching a novice at the game.

  “Throw it away,” suggested Miss Marks, pointing to the fire and exuding a cloud of warm gray smoke with the words.

  Miss Watt threw it away at once. “I didn’t know you had to learn,” she said in a regretful tone.

  Her companions had not known either. The memory of their first cigarettes was lost in the mists of time.