All that evening we sat proudly in our rooms and read our books, painted our pictures, made our clothes and talked our delirious never-ending talk, and as we glowed with virtue we heard the gusts of band and concert music floating up from downstairs.
The next night it was the same, the next and the next, but on the fourth evening, when most of us had gone to a dance, there was silence. There was silence the next night too, and we were perturbed. Our present seemed to have gone wrong. Our expert on the subject, a cheerful red-headed young man called Fry, went down at last, tapped on the door, and after a pause was admitted. The music began again almost at once, and he came out laughing.
The old dear had muddled the tuning, he explained, and went back to his etching in the studio under the roof.
The radio programme went through to the end that night, but next evening the set went wrong again, and after that there followed an awkward period when Fry was always at work upon it. He said all women were fools where delicate machinery was concerned, but that Miss Amber was an idiot.
After a while the more discerning among us began to entertain unhappy suspicions, which were confirmed one evening when Fry stalked into my room, where a gathering was taking place.
“You know, the old fool doesn’t like it,” he said wrathfully. “She prefers those dreadful old headphones. I even offered to fix them on the new set, but she wouldn’t have it. She was almost in tears, demented old lunatic!”
It was practically our first experience of the ingratitude that is the inevitable portion of the obstinately well-meaning, and we were indignant because we were also very hurt. Providentially for Miss Amber, however, we had our pride.
Later on, the new set somehow got into Fry’s studio and was afterwards sold.
Miss Amber made a pathetic little apology to me one day when she met me on the steps.
“I’d got used to my headphones,” she said. “It was so kind of all you young people, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same at all.”
After that episode, life in the house went on as before. We were torn and tried, invigorated and exalted by our exciting communal life, and she lived quietly and dully, going out to work every day and returning to her strangely satisfying headphones and caramels at night.
Then one night she died.
The landlady found her in bed. The battered little radio set was by her side and the phones were still over her ears. The doctor who called in said she had been ill for a long time.
She had few belongings, no debts, and a small insurance policy to cover her funeral. The odds and ends in her room, what there were of them, became the property of the landlady.
Some weeks after Miss Amber had vanished off the face of the earth as if she had never been, and her room had been re-let, Fry called me into his studio one day. His brown eyes were shocked and only half amused.
“I say,” he said, “that old bird was crazy. Look here.”
He pointed to a shabby radio case on the untidy table. It was little bigger than a shoe-box, and the lid, which had once been tacked down, was now prised open and its contents revealed. There was only a large and ordinary brick. The horrible, mean little fraud of the “rough-looking” man who had come into Miss Amber’s coal office was at last exposed.
Fry was spluttering, as he always did when excited.
“Mrs. Thingummy downstairs asked me to have a look at this,” he explained. “She swears Miss Amber used to plug her earphones into it and listen to all sorts of gossipy programmes with cookery recipes and heaven knows what in them, and the landlady wanted to hear them too. I couldn’t get a sound out of it, so I opened it up and this is what I found. Don’t you see, she couldn’t have heard anything at all! She was mad all the time, mad as a coot!”
I said nothing then, but I have remembered the incident all this time because, you see, Miss Amber was not mad. She was the sanest, happiest little woman I ever knew, and what world she listened in to and derived her untarnishable delight from I do not dare to think.
The Man With The Sack
There was a personal letter under the pile of greeting cards sent off a week too soon by earnest citizens who had taken the Postmaster-General’s annual warning a shade too seriously.
Mr. Campion tore it open and a cry from Sheila Turrett’s heart fell out
My darling Albert,
Please come for Christmas. It’s going to be poisonous. Mother has some queer ideas in her head and the Welkins are frightful. Mike is a dear. At least I like him and you will too. He is Mike Peters, the son of Ripley Peters who had to go to jail when the firm crashed. But it’s not Mike’s fault, is it? After all, a good many fathers ought to go to jail only they don’t get caught. I don’t mean George, of course, bless him (you ought to come if only for his sake. He’s like a depression leaving the Azores. It’s the thought of the Welkins, poor pet). I don’t like to ask you to waste your time on our troubles, but Ada Welkin is lousy with diamonds and Mother seems to think that Mike might pinch them, his father having been to jail. Darling, if you are faintly decent do come and back us up. After all, it is Christmas.
Yours always (if you come),
Sheila
P.S. I’m in love with Mike.
On Christmas Eve the weather decided to be seasonable; a freezing overhead fog turned the city into night and the illuminated shop fronts had the traditional festive appearance even in the morning. It was more than just cold. The damp atmosphere soaked into the bones relentlessly and Mr. Campion’s recollection of Pharaoh’s Court, rising gaunt and bleak amid three hundred acres of ploughed clay and barren salting, all as flat as the estuary beyond, was not enhanced by the chill.
The thought of Sheila and her father cheered him a little, almost but not quite offsetting the prospect of Lady Mae in anxious mood. Buttoning himself into his thickest overcoat, he hoped for the best.
The railway station was a happy pandemonium. Everybody who could not visit the East coast for the holiday was, it seemed, sending presents there, and Mr. Campion, reminded of the custom, glanced anxiously at his suitcase, wondering if the box of cigars for George was too large or the casket of perfume for Mae too modest and if Sheila was still young enough to eat chocolates.
He caught the train with ease, no great feat since it was three-quarters of an hour late, and was sitting in his corner idly watching the hurrying throng on the platform when he caught sight of Charlie Spring. He recognised the face instandy, but the name came to him slowly from the sifting of his memory.
Jail had done Mr. Spring a certain amount of good, Mr. Campion reflected as his glance took in the other man’s square shoulders and developed chest. He had been a weedy wreck six months ago standing in the dock with the light from the roof shining down upon his low forehead, beneath which there peered out the stupidest eyes in the world.
At the moment he seemed very pleased with himself, a bad omen for the rest of the community, but Mr. Campion was not interested. It was Christmas and he had troubles of his own. However, from force of habit he made a mental note of the man and observed that he boarded the train a little lower down. Mr. Campion frowned. There was something about Charlie Spring which he had known and which now eluded him. He tried to remember the last and only time he had seen him. He himself had been in court as an observer and had heard Mr. Spring sentenced for breaking and entering just before his own case had been called. He remembered the flat official voice of the police detective who gave evidence. But there was something else, something definite and personal about the man which kept bobbing about in the back of his mind, escaping him completely whenever he tried to pin it down. It worried him vaguely, as such things do, all the way to Chelmsworth.
Charlie had left the train at Ipswich in the company of some one hundred and fifty fellow travellers. Mr. Campion spotted him as he passed the window, walking swiftly, his head bent and a large new suitcase in his hand.
It occurred to Campion that the man was not dressed in character.
He se
emed to remember him as a dilapidated but somewhat gaudy figure in a dirty check suit and a pink shirt, whereas at the moment his newish greatcoat was a model of sobriety and unobtrusiveness. Yet, it was no sartorial peculiarity that haunted his memory. It was something odd about the man, some idiosyncrasy, something slightly funny.
Still faintly irritated, Mr. Campion travelled a further ten miles to Chelmsworth. Few country railway stations present a rustic picturesqueness, even in summer, but at any time in the year Chelmsworth was remarkable for its windswept desolation. Mr. Campion alighted on a narrow slab of concrete, artificially raised above the level of the small town in the valley, and drew a draught of heady rain and brine-soaked air into his lungs. He was experiencing the first shock of finding it not unattractive when there was a clatter on the concrete and a small russet-clad figure appeared before him. He was aware of honey-brown eyes, red cheeks, white teeth, and a stray curl of red hair escaping from a rakish tweed cap in which a sprig of holly had been pinned.
“Bless you,” said Sheila Turrett fervently. “Come on. We’re hours late for lunch, they’ll all be champing like boarding house pests.”
She linked her arm through his and dragged him along.
“You’re more than a hero to come. I am so grateful and so is George. Perhaps it’ll start being Christmas now you’re here, which it hasn’t been so far in spite of the weather. Isn’t it glorious?”
Mr. Campion was forced to admit that there was a certain exhilaration in the air, a certain indefinable charm in the grey-brown shadows chasing in endless succession over the flat landscape.
“There’ll be snow tonight.” The girl glanced up at the featherbed sky. “Isn’t it. grand? Christmas always makes me feel so excited. I’ve got you a present. Remember to bring one for me?”
“I’m your guest,” said Mr. Campion with dignity. “I have a small packet of plain chocolate for you on Christmas morning, but I wish it to be a surprise.”
Sheila climbed into the car. “Anything will be welcome except diamonds,” she said cheerfully. “Ada Welkin’s getting diamonds, twelve thousand pounds’ worth, all to hang round a neck that would disgrace a crocodile. I’m sorry to sound so catty, but we’ve had these diamonds all through every meal since she came down.”
Mr. Campion clambered into the car beside her.
“Dear me,” he said. “I had hoped for a merry Christmas, peace and good will and all that. Village children bursting their lungs and everybody else’s eardrums in their attempts at religious song, while I listened replete with vast quantities of indigestible food.”
Sheila laughed. “You’re going to get your dear little village kids all right,” she said. “Not even Ada Welkin could dissuade mother from the Pharaoh’s Court annual Christmas party. You’ll have just time to sleep off your lunch, swallow a cup of tea, and then it’s all hands in the music room. There’s the mothers to entertain too, of course.”
Mr. Campion stirred and sighed gently as he adjusted his spectacles.
“I remember now,” he murmured. “George said something about it once. It’s a traditional function, isn’t it?”
“More or less.” Sheila spoke absently. “Mother revived it with modern improvements some years ago. They have a tea and a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus to hand round the presents,”
The prospect seemed to depress her and she relapsed into gloomy silence as the car shot over the dry, windswept roads.
Mr. Campion regarded her covertly. She had grown into a very pretty girl indeed, he decided, but he hoped the “son in the Peters crash” was worth the worry he saw in her forehead.
“What about the young gentleman with the erring father?” he ventured diffidently. “Is he at Pharaoh’s Court now?”
“Mike?” She brightened visibly. “Oh yes, rather. He’s been there for the best part of a week. George honestly likes him and I thought for one heavenly moment that he was going to cut the ice with mother, but that was before the Welkins came. Since then, of course, it hasn’t been easy. They came a day early, too, which is typical of them. They’ve been here two days already. The son is the nastiest, the old man runs him close and Ada is ghastly.”
“Horrid for them,” said Mr. Campion mildly.
Sheila did not smile.
“You’ll spot it at once when you see Ada,” she said, “so I may as well tell you. They’re fantastically rich and mother has been goat-touting. It’s got to be faced.”
“Goat-touting?”
Sheila nodded earnestly.
“Yes. Lots of society women do it. You must have seen the little ads in the personal columns: ‘Lady of title will chaperone young girl or arrange parties for an older woman”. Or ‘Lady X would entertain suitable guest for the London season”. In other words, Lady X will tout around any socially ambitious goat in exchange for a nice large, fat fee. It’s horrid, but I’m afraid that is how mother got hold of Ada in the first place. She had some pretty heavy bridge losses at one time. George doesn’t know a thing about it, of course, poor darling—and mustn’t. He’d be so shocked. I don’t know how he accounts for the Welkins.”
Mr. Campion said nothing. It was like Mae Turrett, he reflected, to visit her sins upon her family. Sheila was hurrying on.
“We’ve never seen the others before,” she said breathlessly. ’Mother gave two parties for Ada in the season and they had a box at the Opera to show some of the diamonds. I couldn’t understand why they wanted to drag the menfolk into it until they got here. Then it was disgustingly plain.”
Mr. Campion pricked up his ears.
“So nice for the dear children to get to know each other?” he suggested.
“Something like that.”
Mr. Campion sighed deeply.
Sheila negotiated a right-angled turn. Her forehead was wrinkled and her eyes thoughtful.
“This’ll show you the sort of man Kenneth Welkin is,” she said. ’It’s so petty and stupid that I’m almost ashamed to mention it, but it does show you. We’ve had a rather difficult time amusing the Welkins. This morning, when Mike and I were putting the final touches to the decorations, we asked Kenneth to help us. There was some stupid business over the mistletoe. Kenneth had been laying down the law about where it was to hang and we were a bit tired of him already when he started a lot of silly horseplay. I don’t mind being kissed under the misdetoe, of course, but—well, it’s the way you do these things, isn’t it?”
She stamped on the accelerator to emphasise her point, and Mr. Campion, not a nervous man, clutched the side of the car.
“Sorry,” said Sheila and went on with her story. “I tried to wiggle away after a bit, but when he wouldn’t let me go Mike suddenly lost his temper and told him to behave himself or he’d damn well knock his head off. It was awfully melodramatic and stupid, but it might have passed off and been forgotten if Kenneth hadn’t made a scene. First he said he wouldn’t be talked to like that, and then he made a reference to Mike’s father, which was unforgivable. I thought they were going to have a fight. Then, right in the middle of it, Mother fluttered in with a Santa Claus costume. She looked at Mike and said, “You’d better try it on, dear, I want you to be most realistic this afternoon.” Before he could reply, Kenneth butted in. He looked like a spoilt kid, all pink and furious. ‘I didn’t know you were going to be Father Christmas,” he said.”
Sheila Turrett paused for breath, her eyes wide.
“Well, can you imagine anything so idiotic?” she went on. “Mike had offered to do the job when he first came down because he wanted to make himself useful. Like everyone else, he regarded it as a chore. It never dawned on him that anyone would want to do it. Mother was surprised, too, I think. However, she just laughed and said, ‘You must fight it out between you” and fluttered away again, leaving us all three standing there. Kenneth picked up the costume. ‘It’s from Harridge’s,” he said. ‘My mother was with Lady Mae when she ordered it. I thought it was fixed up then that I was to wear it.””
Mr.
Campion laughed. He felt very old.
“I suppose Master Michael stepped aside and Master Kenneth appears as St. Nicholas?” he murmured.
“Well no, not exactly.” Sheila sounded a little embarrassed. “Mike was still angry, you see, so he suddenly decided to be obstinate. Mother had asked him to do the job, he said, and he was going to do it. I thought they were going to have an open row about it, which would have been quite too absurd, but at that moment the most idiotic thing of all happened. Old Mr. Welkin, who had been prowling about listening as usual, came in and told Kenneth he was to ‘give way” to Mike—literally, in so many words! It all sounds perfectly mad now I’ve told it to you, yet Mike is rather a darling.”
Mr. Campion detected a certain wistfulness in her final phrase and frowned.
Pharaoh’s Court looked mellow and inviting as they came up the drive some minutes later. The old house had captured the spirit of the season and Mr. Campion stepped out of a cold grey world into an entrance hall where the blaze from the hearth flickered on the glossy leaves of the holly festooned along the carved beams of the ceiling.
George Turrett, grey-haired and cherubic, was waiting for them. He grasped the visitor’s hand with fervour. “So glad you’ve come,” he murmured. “Devilish glad to see you, Campion.”
His extreme earnestness was apparent and Sheila put an arm round his neck.
“It’s a human face in the wilderness, isn’t it, darling?” she said.
Sir George’s guilty protest was cut short as Mr. Campion was shown upstairs to his room.
He saw the clock as he came down again a moment or so later. It burst upon him as he turned a corner in the corridor and came upon it standing on a console table. Even in his haste it arrested him. Mae Turrett had something of a reputation for interior decoration, but large country houses have a way of collecting furnishing oddities, however rigorous their owner’s taste may be.
Although he was not as a rule over-sensitive to artistic monstrosities, Mr. Campion paused in respectful astonishment before this example of the mid-Victorian baroque. A bewildered looking bronze lady, clad in a pink marble nightgown, was seated upon a gilt ormolu log, one end of which had been replaced by a blue and white enamel clock face. As he stared the contraption chimed loudly and aggressively.
Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories Page 12
