by Jean Stubbs
The Lasserres wined and dined the middle-aged merchant while their bait glittered opposite and for the first time in his life Walter fell in love. He found it a glorious, a painful, an expensive awakening. He translated the girl’s reluctance as modesty and the Lasserres confirmed his view. He invited Gabrielle and her mother to his London home and introduced the child Nicholas. Madame inspected the house from cellar to attic and pronounced it worthy but inelegant. Gabrielle, in a final spurt of defiance, said she could not bear to live in such gloominess, so Madame suggested alterations and Walter agreed. Gabrielle insisted upon the engagement of a new nanny and housekeeper, rightly sensing that her position could be made difficult by the existing deities. Reluctantly, Walter agreed to this also. Every objection on Gabrielle’s part was met until, at length, she offered no more resistance. Then, realising she would have her way in all but inclination, pressured by her parents’ desire for a rich match and by Walter’s infatuation, she married him.
Lintott, mounting the whitened steps, looked on a residence very different from the former Carradine household. Though every house in the square was veiled in lace curtains, these were more elaborate than the rest. The usual opulent twilight of dark paint and heavy wallpaper had been lightened and cheered. No Highland scenes loomed from massive frames. Oval portraits, gilded mirrors tempted Lintott with frivolous vanity. But frivolity and vanity only roused his suspicion, so he sat at the edge of a drawing-room chair while Mrs Tilling put on her spectacles and read the letter from Nicholas.
He liked Mrs Tilling. She was his sort: plain, steady and comfortable. As she pursed her mouth and frowned a little, the better to understand the message, he ventured to speculate. Father probably a butler, mother a parlourmaid, brought up in service and dedicated to it. A stickler for detail, but able to keep her staff happy as well as efficient. Warm-hearted without being woolly-headed. Sharp of tongue and eye. Capable of a loyalty and affection which could neither be deterred by human failings, nor blinded by human charm. A tidy little body. A fine upright woman.
‘Well, sir,’ said Mrs Tilling, taking off her spectacles, folding the letter and replacing it in the envelope, ‘Mr Nicholas says to give you the run of the place, in a manner of speaking. Will you be wanting me to make a room ready for you?’
‘No thankee, ma’am. I have my home and good lady out at Richmond. I can come up and back as long as I have to. I shan’t trouble you.’
‘Would you care for a glass of Madeira, sir, or a glass of shrub to keep out the cold?’
‘I’d relish a cup of tea, ma’am, if that’s convenient. And somewhere more homely, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ Fearful of small ornaments, thick flowered carpets and thin-legged chairs.
She smiled, taking in his stout, polished boots, the aged suit immaculately brushed, the clean cheap linen. ‘I’ll get Alice to fetch a pot of tea to my room, sir. Would you come this way, if you please?’
‘Now, this is more like it, ma’am,’ said Lintott in relief. ‘Your children, ma’am?’ Inspecting the array of unpretentious photographs.
‘My nephews and nieces, sir. I was widowed very young, and then coming to a good position here I never married again. But I’ve been able to help them to better themselves, and they don’t forget me.’
The family shored up by her savings. Lintott accorded her silent respect as he nursed his teacup. ‘I dare say you know why Mr Carradine’s employed me, ma’am?’ he began, warmed. ‘And it’s a regular rum notion, as I told him.’
She nodded, hands folded in the lap of her black merino dress.
‘There’s precious little to go on, and you can probably tell me more than I’d find out for myself, if you’ll be so good. I hope I needn’t say,’ Lintott assured her, ‘that it’ll be in the strictest confidence. It’s not impertinence as makes me ferret round.’
Her head shook in negation.
‘Then I’ll put it this way, ma’am. If you want to know the ins and outs of a case you must know the folk involved. People act as they do because of what they are. If you find out what they are then you can more or less know how they’ll act to a given situation. So I’ll give us a start. Mr Carradine is out of my line of country, I admit that. But I’ve formed one or two opinions, and I’ll be glad to hear if they’re right or wrong. You’re attached to the gentleman, of course?’
‘I’ve known Mr Nicholas since he was about five years old, sir.’
‘Just so. He’s one on his own, isn’t he? Leastways, artists may be alike for all I know, but I’ve never come across one before.’
‘We entertain a great deal, sir, with Mr Nicholas now being a member of the New English Art Club and that. I’ve had the honour of meeting Mr Wilson Steer and Mr Max Beerbohm, Mr Roger Fry and a many others. Mr Sickert left the country, on account of parting with his lady, two or three years since. But he’s living in France now, and I believe Mr Nicholas keeps in touch with him, and knows some of the French artists, too. I’m running on, sir, but what I meant to say was this — they’re all different, every one of them. Mr Beerbohm is a proper gentleman, for all his fun. Mr Sickert is a lovely-mannered gentleman, too, and well-turned out — but he’s a bit of a Bohemian. He has a taste for queer places and queer folk, like Mr Nicholas. Then that Mr Whistler is a regular autocrat, very high-handed. Talks down to everybody.’
‘I see, ma’am,’ said Lintott, who did not. He pulled the conversation on to familiar ground. ‘The second Mrs Carradine employed you, I believe?’
‘Yes, sir, and was a good mistress, though on the fussy side. Everything had to be as she liked it. I could have done without that Berthe Lecoq at my back, morning, noon and night,’ Mrs Tilling added frankly, ‘but beggars can’t be choosers. Not meaning I was a beggar, coming with the best references, only I needed the position. I’ll say this for Berthe, she could work. The house was in a rare pickle when I came to be interviewed. The workmen hadn’t been as quick as Mr Carradine hoped, and what with Madame’s trunks and boxes, and the paint-pots, we were fair put about.’
‘Sit down, if you please, Madame Tilling,’ said Gabrielle.
‘Thank you kindly, ma’am.’
Mrs Tilling sat correct and self-contained. Only the violets, quivering slightly on her best bonnet, betrayed her nervousness. She was young, at twenty-seven, to be applying for the post of housekeeper, but she needed work quickly.
Gabrielle Carradine’s black eyes rested briefly on the purple velvet flowers, studied the round good-natured face and capable hands, noted the firm mouth and chin, and the air that was respectful without being obsequious.
Behind Gabrielle stood a tall spare woman in her forties, whose eyes were harder and busier than those of her mistress.
‘You feel you are able to direct this big house, Madame Tilling?’
‘I have every confidence, ma’am, and would make it my business to please you.’
‘You are a widow? You have no little children?’
‘We’d been married only a few months before he died, ma’am. No children.’
‘That is sad,’ Gabrielle said briefly. She turned to Berthe Lecoq and spoke in French. ‘Her references are excellent. What do you think of her?’
‘She will work, madame. Look at her hands. She is strong, also she is genteel. She knows her place. She won’t chatter and idle. She is no bavardeuse.’
‘You prefer her to the others?’
‘Yes, madame.’
‘Good. Madame Tilling, this is my maid, Berthe Lecoq. She has been with my family since I was born. I wish her to stay with me and to take care of the little boy. There is work to do in this house, as you see. She will perhaps be able to help you. Only it is necessary that you like each other.’
Mrs Tilling studied the formidable figure, clad in unrelieved black. Oh well, in for a penny in for a pound. The wages were generous. She had liked the look of Walter Carradine, exuding kindness and a dazzled bewilderment that aroused her sympathy.
‘I don’t make enemies, ma’am, and
I’m reckoned to be easy to get on with. Does the lady speak English?’
‘A very few little words. You will teach her more.’
‘I’ll do my best, ma’am, and work’s work whether you’re English or French, to my mind.’
The small pointed face glanced at her imperiously, discerned her meaning, and smiled. She turned again to her maid, translating, and a phantom of a smile warmed Berthe’s countenance as she replied.
‘Berthe says you are a woman of good sense, Madame Tilling. So. When do you begin?’
‘As soon as you like, ma’am. My mistress is going abroad and we all have to find ourselves new places. She’ll let me go and be glad to know that I’m settled.’
‘Then that is done. One moment, Madame Tilling. There are servants who are here a long time. It is necessary only to change the little boy’s nurse and the housekeeper. But Berthe does not like all the servants. She says they are idle.’
Oh Lor’, thought Mrs Tilling. I’m going to have my staff sorted out for me, too.
‘Well, ma’am, perhaps you’d let me see how we go on for a few weeks? If any of them aren’t worth their wages they’ll be sent off, you may be sure.’
Gabrielle translated, and Berthe gave a grudging nod.
‘One more small thing, Madame Tilling. I do not like that you call me “ma’am”. That is well in England, but you will call me “madame” if you please.’
‘Very well, ma’am — madame.’
Then the charm broke through and Gabrielle cried, smiling, ‘And since you are so genteel I shall call you “Mrs Tilling”. Yes?’
The gleam of rapport was comforting. The newly-appointed housekeeper bobbed a curtsey, which was repeated by the violets, and began a seven-year marathon which she now summed up to Lintott.
‘By the time I’d made myself understood, and kept everybody on an even keel, sir, I could’ve run the British Empire single-handed!’
‘I get the picture,’ said Lintott, ‘and it’s a bit different to the one Mr Carradine gave me. But not much different from the impression I got off Mrs Carradine’s photograph.’
‘You can tell more from her painted portraits, and the house, sir. If you’ve finished your tea I’ll show you round. Madame was only eighteen when she married, but she could have been a hundred the way she set her mind to something and got it. She’d been trained as few young brides are. She had her eyes on everything, and Berthe was right behind her. It must have cost poor Mr Carradine a fortune. And she was a funny one with the money. I’ve known her spend forty and fifty pound on a piece of furniture she fancied, and then hunt a few pence short in the housekeeping accounts all morning. This was her own room that she called the Petty Salon.’
Very small, in shades of dark and pale rose, the white paintwork picked out in gold, the square gilded mirror large upon one wall. A buttoned chaise-longue stretched beneath the window. China elegancies cluttered little tables.
‘The lady was fond of mirrors, wasn’t she, ma’am?’
‘Ah well! She had the looks, sir, and she liked to look at herself. She was Catholic by faith, like most of these French people. Went to mass, and said her prayers with beads, and that. But she might have been a Pagan for all the good religion did her. I’ve seen her properly down in the dumps over something. Then she’d jump up, look in the glass, set her hair to rights, and hum a tune to herself. The little girl, Miss Odette, was just the same. Here they are, sir, as like as peas in a pod.’ Head to head in a painted prison. Mother and daughter. Wilful, pretty mouths, narrow black eyes, straight noses, massed black curls. Odette in a white dress with a gold bracelet on her left wrist. Was it the bracelet, perhaps?
‘But Madame really cared for that child. Oh, she was wonderful with Mr Nicholas. I’d have thought, losing his own Nanny and having that Berthe instead and a new stepmother, he’d be unhappy. But they treated him like a man, sir, even though he was only five. They treated him like royalty. His father never had the polish, though very affable and polite. He never had the easiness of Mr Nicholas — they did that for him, the polish. Still, as I say, the one she loved was Miss Odette. There was a softness about her then that I never saw with anybody else. It was a picture to see them together, and they knew it. They had those two men besotted, I can tell you.’
‘Where is my Nicki? Does he wish to go for a drive with us, or is he tired of our company?’
‘Here, Mamma!’ cried the boy, flushed and handsome.
‘But what does he work at so very hard?’ Gabrielle asked the governess, who detested her.
‘Latin, madame.’
Gabrielle pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, in comradeship with Nicholas, who hid a smile and waited for the rout that would follow.
‘But that is a dead language, Miss Bell, and so dull.’
‘If Mr Nicholas is to enter Marlborough, madame, he will need to do a great deal better with Latin than he has done.’
‘But he speaks French as well as I, Miss Bell, and that is more useful.’
‘Latin is compulsory, madame. French is an extra.’
‘How very sad. Come here, poor boy, and let me feel your head. You are fevered. Berthe! Feel this poor boy’s fever. Does your head ache, my Nicki?’
Miss Bell’s expression dared him to lie.
‘No, Mama,’ he said regretfully.
‘Worse and worse. A fever with no ache. What do you think, Berthe?’ to her maid, who was carrying Odette.
Berthe’s smile only appeared when either her practical nature or love of battle was roused. The governess, who had proved a worthy combatant, set her spectacles straight and glared at Berthe.
‘It is nothing, Madame,’ said Gabrielle’s champion laconically, ‘that fresh air will not cure.’
‘And what of his Latin?’ Miss Bell demanded.
‘We drive only for an hour in Hyde Park. He returns refreshed and works very hard. Do you not, Nicki?’
‘Yes, Mama, I promise. I honestly do promise, Miss Bell,’ placating her.
‘And poor Miss Bell, who is red with fatigue, may rest also,’ said Gabrielle, smiling. ‘All the work and no play, as you English say, makes Jack a dull boy. And to be dull is to be a bore. Come, Nicki. Now, what is it that you do when a lady asks you to accompany her?’
The boy bowed and kissed her extended hand, smelling so deliciously of French perfume. Miss Bell, defeated, clicked her tongue and shook her head as they departed.
‘She always dressed the little girl in white,’ said Mrs Tilling, ‘and nothing but the best. They were off to Paris three and four months of the year, broken into separate visits. I looked after Mr Carradine and the house. He’d join them when he could, but he was busy, poor gentleman. Off they’d go. Madame and Berthe and the two children, and an empty trunk as well as the other luggage. When they came back it’d be full of new clothes. She never shopped in London. Lace, made by the nuns, and everything stitched by hand. It was a good thing Mr Nicholas was sent away to school or he’d never have learned his letters.’
‘I have only two things to say to you, my boy,’ said Walter Carradine kindly. ‘Take full advantage of the education you are being offered and never do anything of which you would be ashamed to tell us.’
‘When do I begin, Papa?’
‘At the end of September, my boy, so you have the summer before you.’
He could only offer money, being unable to express his feelings, so patted Nicholas’s shoulder and slipped a sovereign into his hand.
Upstairs, in feminine disarray, Gabrielle cried, ‘My poor Nicki! Come, sit here and amuse Odette while we pack. So you will be torn from us? Why do the English love to send their children away to school? What monsters! We shall be sad without you. What do you wish to say, Miss Bell?’
The governess was standing in suppressed wrath at the bedroom door. ‘If you will excuse me, madame, I think it highly improper that a big boy of eleven should be in a lady’s room at such a time.’
‘Improper?’ said Gabrielle lazil
y, ‘but I am his maman, Miss Bell.’
‘English boys do not watch their mammas packing — garments,’ replied the governess, and her spectacles shone on the lace-edged stays, flounced petticoats and frilled drawers.
‘Ah, Miss Bell, I shall not quarrel with you. I hold you in such respect. But I do not agree with your English education, and I do not speak of Latin for that is your duty. I speak of the education for life. How shall a man learn anything of women if he is set apart from them always? Our Nicki will go to a school full of boys and they will teach him to despise us and to be very polite. Much later, when they cannot hide his interest in women, they will teach him to esteem some and to use others...’
‘Mrs Carradine! Is this the way to speak in front of a maiden lady and an impressionable young boy?’
‘I think so,’ Gabrielle replied composedly. ‘I speak the truth. Is that so terrible? I do not wish my Nicki to think of women as goddesses or slaves. So he watches us pack? It is better that I let him watch than that he peeps through a keyhole. The peeping is improper, not the watching.’
Imperturbably, Berthe continued to shake out and fold underwear, to lay it between sheets of tissue. ‘I have no further place in this establishment,’ said Miss Bell with dignity. ‘I should be obliged, Mrs Carradine, if you would find a replacement. It has been difficult enough,’ she added, trembling, ‘to teach Mr Nicholas, with the amount of interference I have borne. To teach Miss Odette would be quite impossible.’
