The Bachelor

by Stella Gibbons

  “All right. I’ll be up there this evening. Is——”

  “I shall ’ave to go out, sir, later on. A person promised to let me have a bit of fish for the Mr. Fothergills when they return to-morrow to luncheon. I don’t know quite how long I shall be. Wha——”

  “Well, all right, I suppose there’ll be someone to let me in?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir, me being alone in the flat with Mr. Fielding, and him in bed. What time will you be here, sir?”

  The warning three pips sounded.

  “As soon as I can get there. Surely you can wait——” began Kenneth irritably, and then was cut off in the middle of a sentence from the other end about the Mr. Fothergills having ordered a bit of fish and this person having——

  Kenneth swore, and went upstairs to find Betty, who put a few things into a suitcase for him and telephoned the station about trains while he was breaking the news to his sister and Dr. Stocke. Miss Fielding did not seem seriously disturbed out of her pipe-dream, and made no more than conventional expressions of regret; it was Dr. Stocke whose manner conveyed interest and concern. This did not decrease Kenneth’s irritability, and as he drove the car away down the lane under the trees streaming with rain, a man more torn between bad temper and anxiety could not have been found that evening in the whole of Hertfordshire.

  High up in her attic bedroom, Vartouhi was sitting at the window watching the rain, and every now and then putting a stitch into the bedspread, which flowed in brilliant waves of colour across her knees. Violet clouds hurried across the darkening grey-blue heavens, and the trees, their trunks and branches already lightly veiled in brown buds, swayed sighing in the wind. Vartouhi was singing to herself the Song of the Lilac-picker:

  I pick the heart-leaves,

  I pick the purple flowers,

  Honey is in the flowers

  And love is in my heart,

  I give you the leaves and flowers

  And I give you my heart.

  Is Mr. Kenneth driving away quickly, she thought, leaning forward the better to see the car go down the drive, and dimming the rainy window pane with her breath. She rubbed the mist away with one hand that held a needleful of brilliant yellow silk. Is gone, she thought. Is something the matter. And she resumed her little song.

  I pick the heart-leaves——

  In the clear twilight the colours on the bedspread glowed like a mosaic of dazzling summer flowers.

  CHAPTER 28

  AFTER A DISAGREEABLE journey, Kenneth arrived at 11 St. Charles’s Street at ten o’clock that night and found that the Mr. Fothergills lived in a block of old-fashioned service flats standing between a shop that dealt in old masters and a shop that dealt in hand-made shoes. The impenetrability of the black-out on this moonless night and the comparative inaccessibility of St. Charles’s Street, together with the extreme and aristocratic smallness of the ancient shops, which caused them to resemble two cupboards that had strayed into the world of trade and barter by mistake, almost made him miss the entrance to No. 11.

  A dim light burned in the hall, and he was able to discern that Mr. Fothergill and Mr. A. Fothergill inhabited Flat No. 3. He went up a softly carpeted stair; all was rather luxurious in a slightly Edwardian fashion, with palms in majolica pots and velvet curtains over the black-out. He wondered what the Mr. Fothergills were like, and also reflected how little he knew of his father’s life. How did he come to be lying ill in the flat of these two, who were apparently friends of his?

  Judson turned out to be a thin reproachful little elderly man, rather sour, and plainly concerned only with the comfort of Mr. Clifford and Mr. Aubrey and—also plainly—regarding Mr. Fielding, senior, as a nuisance likely to interfere with his lustrations. He showed Kenneth into an unexpectedly large bedroom whose size, however, was almost halved by the luxuriance of the velvet curtains and the thickness of the Aubusson carpet and the profusion of paintings of pretty dancers and naked girls by petits maîtres on the amber-brocaded walls. Each piece of furniture was antique and a treasure; the bed in which the old man lay uneasily sleeping was a little French four-poster with draperies scattered over with forget-me-nots and carnations. A fire was burning cheerfully. Kenneth glanced round him distastefully, reflecting that the old boys—he hoped, at least, that they were old—did themselves dam’ well, and wished heartily that he were in the greenhouse on a fine day at home.

  The doctor, it appeared, had not been summoned. Judson had been engaged for most of the day in polishing the silver and making a layer-trifle of which Mr. Clifford and Mr. Aubrey were particularly fond and which they had ordered for luncheon to-morrow. They would be put out, said Judson immovably, to find Mr. Fielding so poorly. He had been a bit poorly when they left on Monday but they had been sure he would be better by the time they came home. It was very awkward, ended Judson, standing by the door and gazing reproachfully at the figure in the bed.

  It ended with Kenneth arranging with his father, who awoke from his restless doze about midnight, that he would find a doctor to-morrow morning. Mr. Fielding was rational in manner and speech and pathetically glad to see his son, and Kenneth was relieved to hear him say that a pain in his side was better than it had been earlier in the evening. After swallowing some hot drink reluctantly prepared by Judson, he fell asleep again; and Kenneth further shattered Judson’s world by announcing that he must spend the night there. Where could he sleep?

  It appeared that there was only Mr. Clifford’s room or Mr. Aubrey’s room. Judson seemed to think that this settled the matter, and Kenneth would now be prepared to curl up like Fido on the mat. However, on being impatiently told that his guest would sleep in whichever room was nearest to that of the invalid, he led the way to a smaller bedroom, every muscle of his person breathing forth indignation and dismay, and finally established Kenneth between fresh sheets of wonderfully fine linen, lavendered and monogrammed, and in the midst of more brocade-covered walls, tulipwood chairs, Dutch marquetry chests-of-drawers, and luscious little Renoir and Corot landscapes.

  Thank heaven, thought Kenneth drowsily as he dozed off, at least it doesn’t smell of scent.

  With the morning, the problems of the previous night reappeared, but augmented. Mr. Fielding was certainly worse; he complained of the pain in his side and of headache, and could not even drink the tea prepared in silence by Judson. Kenneth went out before the meal and with some difficulty found a doctor, who promised to come in an hour, which he did, and pronounced Mr. Fielding to be suffering from pneumonia.

  There is no need to recount in detail the events of that most trying day: the mounting agitation and final despair of Judson on hearing that the patient could on no account be moved and that a night and day nurse must immediately be installed; the bustling return of Mr. Clifford and Mr. Aubrey at luncheon-time, pleasantly ready for their bit of fish and layer-trifle; their dismay at finding Fielding a sick man and his son here; their complete lack of any attempt to hide that dismay, and the string of suggestions they made, all tending towards getting their friend out of their flat as speedily as possible.

  Kenneth gathered that these two personable, very wealthy and gay brothers in their middle sixties had become acquainted with his father some four years ago when all three were interested in the same theatrical venture into which they were putting capital. He had been in the habit of spending a night at their flat from time to time, and his perfect health and lively powers as a raconteur made him a welcome visitor when he had recently come to stay with them for a longer period. But they had never intended him to have pneumonia there; they were never ill; they knew nothing about illness; it bored and frightened them; and here they were, at the beginning of the fine weather, with a thousand things to do and see, and an old man with pneumonia and his large dull, obstinate son on their hands. The Mr. Fothergills could have wept.

  They made themselves so unhelpful during the first half-hour of Kenneth’s meeting them that he was dismayed at the prospect of seeing a good deal of them during the n
ext week or so. However, he need not have worried, for when he returned from the post office where he had been telephoning the news to his sisters (he had not liked to ask more favours of the Mr. Fothergills), he found Judson packing a great number of elegant clothes and a few cherished objets d’art and was informed that Mr. Clifford and Mr. Aubrey were moving temporarily into rooms at a nearby hotel. He was to be left alone with his father and the two nurses.

  He apologized profusely for turning them out of their home; indeed, he did feel very distressed at the trouble he and his father were causing them, but his distress was considerably mitigated by their grudging acceptance of his apologies. Dammit, thought Kenneth, if this is the worst they ever have to put up with, they’ll be lucky.

  To his immense relief Judson went with them.

  He now settled down to a strange dreamlike life. He felt cut off from the outside world by his anxiety for his father and by the muffling luxury of the flat and the bright nunlike cheerfulness of the two nurses, although both were pleasant girls, and he grew to rely on them for help and company. All his boyhood love for his father was revived by this time of anxiety for his life; and he promised himself that if the old man lived he should be offered a home at Sunglades for the rest of his days, and hang Connie. He did not suppose that his father would ever be so sprightly again, for the illness had taken a serious form and at his age people do not recover completely from such experiences, and if the old boy had suddenly grown old and feeble there was all the more reason to see that he was properly looked after. It would be company for himself; and there’ll be two of us to stand out against Connie, he thought.

  The prospect stretching before him did not seem cheerful, as he reflected on it in the evenings while sitting in the exquisitely furnished little drawing-room with an unread book across his knees. There would be three ageing people and a very old man living in that large house, which would seem to get larger and quieter as houses always did as the occupants shrank in size and grew more fixed and subdued in their habits. There was youth still alive in Kenneth and it stirred protestingly at this dismal picture.

  He got up and stood at the window, which had a pleasant view across the trees of St. James’s Square to the sober façade of the London Library. A little girl was crossing the road with her hand in her mother’s, and he could distinctly hear, above the distant sounds of the traffic in Piccadilly, her clear little voice. It’s a sad thing when a man gets old without any children, thought Kenneth, turning away from the window.

  His depression was increased by his dislike of the Brothers Fothergill, in whom bachelorhood had, so to speak, run to seed and provided a warning to those not yet completely enmeshed in it. A couple of selfish old tabbies, he thought them, with their pictures and their bits of silver and their special teacups which they could not do without and their slavish Judson. They made him think of those lines of Burns’s, a poet whose warm and vigorous rhymes he had loved in his youth:

  O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

  To see oursels as others see us!

  It must be years since they thought about anyone but themselves, he reflected, and probably they’ve no idea how they strike other people. Probably I haven’t, either, and I’m as bad.

  He began to long for the time to return to Sunglades, which was temporarily at least enlivened by the presence of a gay pretty woman and a charming child. It’ll seem all the duller, though, after they’ve gone, he thought.

  Mr. Fielding’s illness approached its crisis. There came a day when Mrs. Miles arrived in a taxi and conferred in low tones with her brother as to the advisability of sending for Constance. But that day passed, and the old man lived; and from then on he began to get better. He was very weak, and seemed to cling to Kenneth, who saw that it was impossible yet to think of leaving him.

  As soon as he was out of danger a new feature presented itself; the popping in and out of Judson, who of course had his own key and perfect right to come in and out whenever he chose, to fetch some bit of Spode or Georgian jam-spoon that Mr. Clifford could not bear to be without for another minute. He nipped in and out without speaking to any of the invaders, but he invariably shut any windows that might be open (and both the nurses liked open windows) for fear the gales of St. James’s Square might damage the Tissots. These visits did not add to Kenneth’s comfort and by the end of a fortnight he was wishing heartily that he and his father were at home again. He had kept in touch by telephone with his partner, Mr. Gaunt, and had obtained compassionate leave from the Home Guard (not without robust inquiries made in private by Mr. Arkwright as to why the blazes one of those Fielding women couldn’t have gone instead), and when he spoke to Connie on the telephone she assured him that “everything was all right.” Nevertheless, he was anxious to be at home again.

  We must now return to Sunglades and find out if everything really was all right.

  The first few days of Kenneth’s absence passed pleasantly for Miss Fielding. She was not fond enough of her father to feel painful anxiety about him, although of course her sense of family duty prevented her from being completely indifferent to his fate, and the absence of Kenneth, with his unconcealed dislike of Dr. Stocke, was decidedly a relief. Miss Burton and Betty remarked occasionally how queer the house seemed without Ken and how glad they would be to have him home again, and Vartouhi surprised everyone (and even caused a little suspicion to arise in the Stocke-bemused mind of Miss Fielding) by inquiring determinedly every morning at breakfast, “How is the father of Mr. Kenneth to-day, Miss Fielding, please? Is a varry poor old gentleman,” and by showing in various ways that she pitied the invalid and wished heartily that he might recover. She also missed Kenneth; his kind ways, his smile, and his ready attention to, and interest in, her small problems and doings. But this feeling she kept to herself.

  So all went well at Sunglades, until a certain morning when Kenneth had been away for nearly a week.

  CHAPTER 29

  IT WAS AN extremely cold day. An east wind was blowing round the house, turning the petal-tips of the white and pink tulips an ugly brown and giving to the sky that peculiar light, with shreds of grey cloud floating low, that is only seen when the wind is in this quarter. All the household were peacefully eating their cornflakes and reading their correspondence when suddenly an exclamation from Dr. Stocke caused everyone to start.

  “Ass!” cried Dr. Stocke (but in his native tongue) and he dashed a letter down upon the table, “Stupid and unfeeling boy! It is too late!”

  “Is something wrong, Gustav?” inquired Miss Fielding with more anxiety than had ever been heard in her voice for the misfortunes of her own family, while Betty and Miss Burton murmured something about hoping that it was not bad news. Vartouhi, behind her tea-cup, looked pleased.

  “Yes, it is bad,” replied Dr. Stocke, immediately recovering himself but speaking with an angry sparkle in his eye, “Thank you for your kind inquiries. Constance, I must go to London at once. I should be most grateful if you would telephone to the Council for me and say that I shall be unable to address a gathering of students there this afternoon, but that I hope to do so to-morrow at the same time. Will you do this for me?”

  “Of course,” said Miss Fielding, brightening slightly at the indication that he would not be long away, “Er—shall you be in to dinner?”

  “I must ask, Constance, if you will be kind enough to let me leave that question in doubt,” said Dr. Stocke, his accent growing more noticeable as he paused to address her on his way to the door, “but I shall certainly return by luncheon time to-morrow, and I must apologize most sincerely at having thus upset the domestic arrangements. If I might speak to you alone in the small study in fifteen minutes I will tell you briefly what has happened.”

  Dr. Stocke then hurried upstairs to pack a bag of needments while Miss Fielding retired, presumably to await the appointed hour; and Betty and Miss Burton looked at one another and simultaneously exploded into giggles.

  “I must ask, Constance, if you will
be kind enough——” said Vartouhi, also giggling and prancing towards the door with a recognizable imitation of Dr. Stocke’s voice and walk, “… if I might speak to you alone …” and up came her hand to her mouth and behind it her dark eyes danced in malicious delight. “Is a fool, that man,” ended Vartouhi with a long sigh, wheeling forward the dumbwaiter. “Praise be to God the All-Merciful that he will not be here to lunch!”

  As the words left her lips, Miss Fielding’s head came round the door, which had been left ajar. Betty and Miss Burton sat frozen: she had heard every word. She was looking extremely cross, and said very coldly:

  “Get the table cleared at once and then wash up as quickly as you can. I want some things fetched from St. Alberics. Don’t waste your time, please, and don’t giggle in that ill-bred silly way.” And she slammed the door.

  “She’s worried,” said Miss Burton, in excuse for her cousin.

  “I do not care,” and Vartouhi gaily put out her tongue as she wheeled the dumbwaiter away.

  Miss Fielding’s face was no more cheerful half an hour later when she encountered Miss Burton on the landing and confided to her that Dr. Stocke’s eldest son, a youth of eighteen, had been misguided enough to join one of the Air Forces of the United Nations, flying to England especially for that purpose with a party of young men from one of the occupied countries whose frontier ran parallel with his own. They had stolen a bomber that was under repair from a Nazi airfield, and taken off in a snowstorm on one engine (Miss Burton could not keep back the “How splendid!” that burst from her lips at this point), and after a hair-raising trip had pancaked down on an airfield in Scotland, very pleased with themselves. No wonder Dr. Stocke was annoyed.

  Miss Fielding recounted this saga in a low shocked voice as if it were something shameful out of one of the more popular Sunday journals, and her temper was not improved when, at the end of it, Miss Burton said stoutly, “Well, I still think it’s splendid, Constance. Dear boys! And fancy them knowing how to fly a bomber at all, that’s what’s so wonderful. You or I couldn’t fly one if it was to save the British Empire.”