Mothering Sunday

by Noel Streatfeild

  Mr. Pickering was retouching the cap of one of the gnomes. He came, when he saw Anna, to the fence, and hung over it, waving as he talked a brush dripping with scarlet paint.

  “Nice day, Mrs. Caldwell. You want some narciss? I’ve some corkers out in me greenhouse.”

  Anna was examining her rhododendron. It was looking better she was glad to see; the leaves had less yellow in them and less of a downward droop. She turned smiling to Mr. Pickering. He was generous with his flowers, always offering her something, and it was good of him for he did not care to pick his flowers; they were part of the show to amaze his visitors. “My word, what a display, Fred old man!” “What price Monte Carlo!” The two gardens being separated merely by a wire fence it was no good Anna pretending she had flowers when she had not. Mr. Pickering, from a bathroom window, could see almost all her property and watched the progress of her garden with the eagerness he watched his own. She was glad that to-day she had a reason why he should not make a martyr of himself.

  “I think I have daffodils coming by this morning’s post. To-morrow is Mothering Sunday you know.”

  Mr. Pickering’s eyes shone. He never could hear enough of family occasions. The hard-working, small Fred Pickering, whose childhood was taken from him when he was seven, came forward and edged himself into Anna’s day.

  “Mothering Sunday? I never heard tell of that.”

  Anna smiled at the intent, childlike look on his face, for all the world as Tony’s used to look when she read him Peter Rabbit.

  “‘Those who go a-mothering find violets in the lane.’ That’s a very old saying. I believe the custom dates from the days when the children went away to work at a terribly young age, poor little things, especially the girls into service. On mid-Lent Sunday, which is to-morrow you know, they visited their mothers and on the way picked her a bunch of violets and the mother made them a cake. The cake was half boiled and half baked and was called a simnel cake. You must remember simnel cakes, Mr. Pickering; delicious they were, usually with little birds on them.”

  “Can’t say I do?” The child Fred edged closer. “And do all your children bring you flowers?”

  “My mother brought us up to keep Mothering Sunday, and I brought up my children the same way, but it’s not always flowers. Just any present. But my daughter Margaret, the doctor you know, has always given me daffodils ever since she was a baby.”

  “They did ought to bring them really.”

  Anna did not mean to react to that but she stiffened as if he had been too familiar. The child Fred vanished at once and old Fred was back saying nothing but looking at Anna in distress. Anna saw she had shown her dislike of that particular question, and knew by his face that she had made him feel he had asked something he should not, and, of all people, Mr. Pickering must never feel that. There was the slightest pause while she thought how best to atone. Then she saw her way. She could appear to confide in him; he would love that and at the same time she could put some half facts before him that she had long wanted him to believe.

  “My children are not very pleased with me. They don’t like my living alone. They disapproved of my sending that housekeeper I had away. Our children don’t understand us, do they? Mrs. Conrad was a good creature and a splendid cook and she was wonderful with plants, but I find, as I get older, I enjoy my privacy. And Miss Doe is with me every morning and does splendidly.”

  Anna had consoled Mr. Pickering—done more—made him feel an intimate, but he did not know what to answer. There were two Fred Pickerings; the childish one who owned the gnomes, frogs and distorting glass and the one who had started as a tea-boy and had finished as a managing director. Managing director Pickering puzzled a lot about Anna. He had an excellent resident couple called Robinson who looked after him, who, though it had taken time—for Anna’s housekeeper called herself “Lady housekeeper” and, as such, had at first thought herself above hob-nobbing with an ex-guardsman and his wife who had no pretensions to gentility—had been on intimate terms with Mrs. Conrad. Through this friendship they knew, and had passed on to their employer, just what a bombshell it had been to Mrs. Conrad when, three months’ ago, she had suddenly been given a fortnight’s holiday and, while on holiday, dismissed. Again through the Robinsons he knew that Anna had offered to pack all Mrs. Conrad’s things and send them after her, which she had indignantly refused. Of course, on the day she had come to pack, she had visited the Robinsons and possible reasons for her dismissal had been exhaustively discussed and a theory arrived at which, though it might have been contrived partly as a sop for Mrs. Conrad’s pride, seemed to them to be the only likely explanation. Poverty. That Anna, like everybody else living on a fixed income, was poorer was obvious. Her style of living had dropped lower and lower in the thirty-five years she had lived in her house. It was remembered that when she had first come to the neighbourhood there had been a nurse, two living-in maids and a handyman-gardener who drove the car. It was said that in spite of her husband’s job as land agent dying with him she was better off as a widow, for the story spread by her servants was that Mr. Caldwell had been shockingly extravagant. After the first world war she had economised by getting rid of the nurse and looking after the youngest children herself, but there were still two resident maids and, though the full-time man had been dispensed with, there was a part-time gardener who came every day, and there was still a car, driven well by Henry and Jane, and abominably by Anna. When the Pickerings had first arrived, there were still two resident maids, though different ones, and a daily part-time gardener, but the children were scattered, and Anna, still abominably, drove the car. When the second world war started the maids left, and later the gardener, and Miss Doe added Anna to her list of old folk, giving her at first what time she could and later, when one of her old people died, some hours each morning. After much effort Mrs. Conrad was added to the household and, just before the end of the war, old Smith took on the garden, giving Anna a half-day a week, and there was still a car growing shabbier and shabbier and still driven by Anna, when she had petrol, abominably. “It’s £ s. d., sir,” Robinson said. “You mark my words. It isn’t right though an old lady like that, and all the burglaries there have been lately. Mrs. Conrad said she thinks it was a sudden loss. She said she could see Mrs. Caldwell had something on her mind.” Mrs. Robinson, who was missing Mrs. Conrad, blamed Anna’s family. “Ought to be ashamed letting an old lady like that sleep alone in that lonely house. If I was that Sir Henry I couldn’t lie in my bed for thinking of her.” The Robinsons had urged that Fred should suggest that Mrs. Robinson went across last thing to see if there was any little thing she could do, and that Robinson should go round the house to see the windows were all fastened properly, but Fred had not been able to bring himself to make the suggestion. He valued Anna’s sympathy and—not friendship, that was too big a word, neighbourliness described it better—to risk a snub, and a snub, though delicately administered, he was almost sure he would get. He knew nothing of Anna’s finances but suspected that she might have had money in railways, her sort usually did, in which case her income would have dropped, and if that windbag Sir Henry was looking after her affairs he would not have the sense to try to make a little bit to cover her loss; he would have put her money in anything that looked safe and paid two and a half per cent. All the same he was not convinced that the Robinsons and Mrs. Conrad were right. That something had changed her three months ago he was convinced, but not money. He had met Anna once or twice at that time and she had put him in mind of himself when M’ria was first taken away. He had not had the Robinsons then and people had fussed him. His children had wanted to arrange for someone to look after him; one of his daughters had come and stayed for a week or two to get him straight. Getting him straight had included fiddling with M’ria’s things; that had upset him; it showed how bad she was that a child of hers dared touch her things. All he had wanted at that time was to be alone, to get right with himself and collect coura
ge for his next visit to the asylum. He had a feeling it was to get right with herself over something that was at the bottom of the change in Anna’s way of life. Why otherwise had she taken to wandering over the countryside, she who, except for shopping or church, seldom left her house or garden? And, because she had not the petrol, going on buses, too, half the time, though that was a good thing in a way as she certainly was not safe driving that car. Everybody had seen her in the bus queues and, if they asked where she was going, were told “Shopping.” And she let people think it was shopping too for she always carried a shopping bag, and most likely did stuff it with something in case she met any one she knew on the bus or on the way home. Shopping! What would she shop for, everybody knew where she bought her food, and she was the last person to look for extras off the ration in distant towns and villages. Then there was little Virginia. If Mrs. Caldwell felt, as he felt when M’ria was first taken away, then it might be she would not even want Virginia. He was sorry she would not see Virginia, and hoped she would feel able to have her to stay soon. He did miss Virginia. Treated his house like her own. “Hallo, Mr. Pickering. Still eating your breakfast? I had mine ages ago. Have you bought anything new since I was here last?” Virginia was the one to appreciate a gnome or rabbit. She had ideas, too. “I don’t think I like that rabbit there. He’s got just the face to be looking round something. Somehow on your lawn he looks wrong, sort of embarrassed.” “Oh, Mr. Pickering, I’ve bought you a present. I saw this little hat in a toy shop in the Burlington Arcade. Now, who shall wear it? It will have to be one of the ones under something because this hat would spoil in the rain.” He had heard, because Miss Doe had spread the news and the Robinsons soaked in news as if they were made of blotting paper, that the child’s mother kept asking if she could send her down. At the back of his mind Fred had an idea. It was not a clearly defined idea because he did not understand such things. There was this awful business of the youngest son. It was common knowledge that she would not have his name mentioned; it was said she hated him. That was all wrong, of course. No matter what your children did you should not feel like that about them. It was not a thing he cared to dwell on; it was a flaw in Mrs. Caldwell. Could it be that she was getting around to seeing that? Was she trying to get right with herself just as he had got right with himself about M’ria? Was she trying, in her hours alone or wandering the countryside, to think less hardly of the boy? Was that the reason why, every night the second it was dusk, she locked her doors and pulled the curtains? He had read in papers and that, where people shut themselves up to pray for help; he would not put that past Mrs. Caldwell.

  Fred felt he had been silent too long. There was no reply he could get his tongue round to answer what Anna had said. He was glad her children were upset at her living alone; all right for a few months but it wouldn’t do for always; she was not getting any younger. He never had mentioned Mrs. Conrad leaving and he was not going to start now. He did not know anything about Miss Doe except that she talked too much. He side-stepped from Anna’s affairs.

  “Well, if you don’t want them I’ll take a few extra narciss along on Sunday. M’ria won’t notice but that nurse that looks after her she’s a rare one for flowers.”

  “Mrs. Pickering will soon be able to sit out again. I remember how lovely you said the gardens were last year.”

  “I do hope so, but she’s been restless lately, very restless. The nurse says it’ll pass, that the doctor’s giving her something, but I don’t like to see it. You know, now and again she says something very upsetting. Last Sunday she’d been talking, all a lot of rubbish, and not sure who I was, and then she sits stiff in her chair and stares at the window and grips me hard. ‘Fred,’ she says, ‘I was always scared of bars.’”

  Anna longed, not for the first time when he was talking of M’ria, to lay a hand on Fred’s. It seemed as if something like that would show sympathy better than words; but Miss Macintosh’s training prevented her. Miss Macintosh, in her boned bodice, very upright at the end of the schoolroom table. “You are too demonstrative, Anna. You must control that. Because something touches you, or you find it beautiful, that is no reason to behave without reserve. No lady ever shows her feelings.”

  “I am sure she does not really notice bars.”

  “That’s what the nurse says but I can’t forget. Very upsetting it was, very.”

  Anna was torn with pity. She waited a moment or two before speaking, so that a change of subject should not seem heartless.

  “I must not be late for the postman. Not that I know the ones who come now in that van; of course it was too much for old Simpson and time he retired, but I do miss seeing him plodding up the hill.” Fred’s face was still bleak with pain so she rambled on. “Last year I had a tragedy. My son Henry, whose wife is an American, you know, sent me a wonderful parcel of food including a pound of rice. I had not had rice for a long time, such a treat, and when the parcel was handed to me the last of the rice was trickling out of the corner. Miss Doe picked up what she could and so did I but it’s not easy to find rice in a road. I never told Henry, of course. His wife is so clever at doing up a parcel she would have been most upset if she knew.”

  Little Fred edged old Fred out of the way. He liked the sound of a parcel done up cleverly.

  “Very fond of ribbons and that, the Americans, aren’t they?”

  “Very. Of course my daughter-in-law has been here so long that she feels English,” Anna did not qualify this statement, but the thought of Carol feeling English always made her eyes twinkle, “but she still keeps many American ways and doing up parcels delightfully is one of them; she puts the rest of the family to shame.”

  “When do you open the parcels? Right away, or keep them for Sunday?”

  “They should be kept for Sunday, of course, but it’s not possible. There will be the daffodils; they must go straight into water, poor things; then I never know what’s in the others. My daughter-in-law, Carol, marks their parcel clearly ‘Perishable’ if it is perishable, and so, as a rule, does my eldest girl, Jane, and her presents are usually some form of food for she is convinced I starve myself. Last year she sent at least three months’ sweet ration. Very wrong of her, for if there are sweets to spare her children should have them. The younger ones are at the hungry age. You’ve seen them, of course, when they have stayed near here.”

  Fred had, of course, seen the Betler family when they came to visit their grandmother, but he had only known one of them. Alistair, the eldest. In one short conversation with him there had been an intimacy, so sharp that Fred had felt acutely Alistair being killed. Even now, though the boy had been dead four years, he could still see him. He had not been commissioned long, and being stationed somewhere near he had spent one night with his grandmother to show her how he looked in his uniform. Fred had been touching up one of his plaster rabbits when he saw him roaming round the garden. He had said something and then suggested a drink. Alistair had jumped the dividing fence and they sat outside with their beer. They had talked of Anna, gardens and shooting. Alistair, it seemed, would rather roam about with a gun than do anything else. Then a plane had roared over rather low. Alistair had said, “Hedge hopping, poor bastard! That’s my job too.” Fred had thought about hedge hopping and looked at Alistair so calmly drinking beer, and had said, not expecting a reply, “Not much margin for error, is there?” There had been a faint pause in which he had watched the boy see his fate, then Alistair had answered, “None at all.”

  To Fred days of remembrance for those killed in the war were days of remembrance to countless Alistairs. He subscribed largely to all Air Force appeals for funds, and, though of course he never said so to any one, he wrote each cheque to the memory of Alistair Betler. Alistair had no place in his life and he felt Anna and, of course, her daughter, Mrs. Betler, let alone Mrs. Betler’s husband the K.C., would think it an impertinence if they knew how often he thought of the boy and how clearly he could still see
him and hear him say, “None at all,” so he felt a little uneasy when Anna spoke of her daughter, Jane, and her family.

  “Yes, indeed. Must be grown up, the eldest girl.”

  “Yes, Anthea is nineteen. Alistair—he was killed, you remember—would have been twenty-two this year. Peter is sixteen; Lucia’s fourteen and the youngest, Andrew, is twelve.”

  “I dare say their Granny sends them more sweets and that than she gets sent to her.”

  “They’ve got a good mother and father to look after them.” Anna hurried on, conscious she had spoken abruptly. “The parcel that has to be opened at once is Virginia’s mother’s, always supposing there is one, for she is the scatterbrain of the family. In hers there might be anything from half the fruit in Covent Garden to exotic bath essences, which I never use without wondering what my governess would say if she could smell my bathroom.”

  A shout made them both turn. Miss Doe was hurrying towards them.

  “Coo-ee. Coo-ee. Mrs. Cald-well. I know somebody who’s going to be very lucky in a minute. The post van has got to the corner.”

  Anna smiled at Fred. He would, she knew, go to his gate to watch her take her parcels in. Doe would go back into the house and yell excited comments from the spare bedroom window, which overlooked the road. There was plenty of time. Anna walked slowly towards the house. To have her hands free she laid her flowers on a window-ledge. Then she went to the gate. The postman had delivered the mail to the nearest house. Anna’s was the next stop. She waited, smiling. It was pleasant, whether you were seven or seventy, to get presents. The van grunted up the hill in low gear. It reached Anna’s gate. The postman raised a hand in salute and drove by. He stopped next door to give Fred Pickering his letters.