The Golden Lion

by Pamela Haines

  Dad asked once, ‘You’re not low-spirited about the leg? That sort of thing – it can get to you late.’

  Dick snapped back, ‘I never give it a thought. It’s not spoiling my work, is it? Anyway it’s war hero stuff, for what that’s worth nowadays …’ Already he’d noticed more and more of them on the streets now. The walking wounded, the disabled, fathers of families, placards on their chests: ‘Six mouths to feed.’ Uncomfortable reminder of a carnage less than two years ended. ‘I’m fortunate,’ he told Dad. ‘A job, enough money, prospects … What’s a gammy leg?’

  ‘Good lad,’ his father said. ‘Good lad.’

  He was a good lad, no doubt of that. But on his journeys to Bradford, he wished he weren’t so good, that he was able to be wicked, a bit of a lad. In his dreams, he wasn’t a lad at all but a merchant’s son, hidden inside the Golden Lion, the lucky one of the brothers, certain to win the Princess. And when he had won her, he wiped the tears from her eyes and gave her hearth and home (he had seen already the house in Middlesbrough that he would make theirs).

  He dreamed that she asked for his help: what she needed, she told him, was all of him. ‘I need your body,’ she said. In his dream he stood naked, but it seemed so natural. He gazed at himself, in the dream pointing ramrod up, hard, excited, full of longing and happiness and about to be fulfilled desire. ‘I need you,’ she said, not in her brisk voice but in a soft one he’d never heard before. She stood by the fire, the same fire which warmed his naked body. ‘I need him, and you, for babies,’ she said ‘Our babies. Oh, how I need and love you. You must have guessed, Dick.’

  He kept having dreams like that. They were mostly happy, sometimes sad. Once she laughed at him. Oh, may that never happen in real life …

  Uncle Arthur, after a loud snore, woke suddenly.

  ‘The price of yellow brass, we’ve not had a price for yellow brass.’

  ‘One and fourpence ha’penny,’ Dad told him brusquely.

  ‘If you said it, no one heard –’

  ‘Bernard has it in the notes –’ Dick could see his father’s impatience, worse now than his own though for different reasons. Market metal prices. He scribbled some figures on his sheet of paper: ‘Decorated Copper £95. Spelter £44 …’

  Since Easter he’d managed to visit Bradford twice, the first time four weeks after the chance meeting: he had had to wait all that while to pluck up courage. When he arrived at the Tea Rooms about midday, it had been full of Saturday shoppers. She was serving a roast and two veg meal for one and sixpence. He sat down at a table where an elderly couple were already eating. He thought it was a table she would wait on. Mrs Ackroyd was sitting behind the till. He imagined she’d seen him and disapproved. He felt the most noticeable person in the room, to everyone but Gwen.

  And then suddenly there she was. ‘If it isn’t our birdman again! They must keep you hard at it, having you travel for them Saturdays.’ Pencil poised: ‘What’ll it be, then?’

  ‘Roast beef, please. And a double of Yorkshire pudding if it’s you’ve made it –’ He spoke boldly. He saw the elderly couple register interest. He couldn’t resist telling them something about Gwen, his voice, manner becoming more and more proprietary: ‘… So you can guess, all the boys were really fond of her …’

  ‘Roses of No-Man’s-Land, they called them,’ the elderly man said. ‘Wonderful, weren’t they?’

  But none more wonderful than Gwen. ‘What about me coming round?’ he asked her, when at last he saw his chance. ‘After you close. Like last time.’

  ‘Didn’t you see the notice?’ she laid his slice of apple pie in front of him. ‘Closed at three-thirty today. Cousin Cuthbert from Australia, he’s over on a visit. We’re away to the station to meet him. Then a celebration meal, I shouldn’t wonder. A bit of a family reunion.’

  He could have wept with disappointment. She wasn’t to know he’d come especially, it wasn’t her fault, but now he wanted to say like a child, ‘Can I come too?’ Because of the dreams, perhaps, he saw himself already part of her life. At home in it. At home in her.

  She must have caught some of his disappointment. ‘If you’re at a loose end before your train goes –’ He thought she was going to say, ‘Come with us,’ but, ‘If you’ve a long wait,’ she went on, ‘there’s a good picture show at the Regent.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be all right,’ he said airily. ‘It was only a thought.’

  All the way from Middlesbrough to Bradford for two helpings of Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, cabbage, roast and mashed potatoes and apple pie. And of course a glimpse of, a few words with, her. At least she’d said, as he limped over to where she was serving to say goodbye: ‘Next time you’ve to come this way, why don’t you scribble a little note? This address will do – and we’ll expect you. I could cook something special.’

  ‘All your cooking’s special –’

  ‘I didn’t make the Yorkshire pud today,’ she said. She was laughing at him. ‘But the apple pie, that was mine.’

  He waited for two weeks, then wrote to her. It was mid-May now. He invented some story about a cousin (I can have cousins too). This time he would tell her the truth about his love and the dreams and everything. ‘I’m free most of Sunday,’ he wrote, ‘if you are? I thought I’d stay on after I’ve seen him off.’ (Oh, that mythical cousin.) ‘What about a walk?’

  She wrote to him – he realized he’d never seen her handwriting before except for the scrawls on her order pad. ‘A walk in the fresh air would do me good. Come and eat with us first.’

  He was surprised after her week’s work she felt like cooking a proper meal. But she had done it all: lamb with fresh mint sauce, new peas, early potatoes, onion sauce, rhubarb fool and cream. He ate too much from greed, and to please her. Next time he would take them both to an hotel for a meal. A meal with wine, and liqueurs for both of them afterwards.

  He wondered if she’d be impatient with his limp on the walk. Mrs Ackroyd didn’t approve much of the idea. ‘Gwen’s used, aren’t you, Gwen? to a nice sit-down with the Referee and the Dispatch. Considering she’s on her feet all week –’

  Gwen had just changed, and was telling Dick the route (‘first we’ve to take the tram up to Shipley Glen …’) when from her seat by the window, Mrs Ackroyd called gleefully: ‘Rain. It’s coming on to wet.’ Within minutes the spotting had become a heavy downpour. He wasn’t sure whether he should leave. He stood a while awkwardly, watching the rain splash on to the street below.

  Gwen solved matters for him. ‘We’ll play Ludo – and wait for it stopping.’ She got out the board. Mrs Ackroyd left her knitting and joined them. But the rain didn’t stop. After Gwen had put the kettle on, he thought he must leave soon. They hadn’t had their walk. He hadn’t told her about his love and the dreams and everything.

  ‘It’s been a dull afternoon for you,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised you’ve not run home.’

  ‘Did you want me to?’ He wished Mrs Ackroyd weren’t always there, knitting and listening and breathing disapproval. ‘Have I overstayed, then?’

  ‘Daft,’ she said, opening the cupboard for the teacups. ‘It’s good if you weren’t bored. That’s grand.’

  ‘I have to be back again next month.’ He thought of lying, saying that the foundry was expanding to Bradford.

  Next time, he thought. Next time.

  But on his June visit, he found himself further than ever from saying anything. Once again it was wet. Gwen and he joked about how he brought the rain with him. Mrs Ackroyd cheated at Snakes and Ladders, and he wondered if Gwen noticed. For most of the early afternoon her mother had been singing Cyril’s praises. There seemed nothing he could not have done had he lived.

  ‘They say they’re crying out for folk with his mechanical savvy.’

  Dick was angry, thinking it might upset Gwen. But apart from not answering, she took little notice.

  When it was time to leave, they had not been alone together for even a minute. She came downstairs with him. It was to
o late to say anything now. At the front door, she lifted the latch.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Mrs Latimer, Miss Ackroyd, Gwen –’ he blurted it out ‘– I love you. That’s why, you see, why I came back, why I keep coming …’

  ‘Get away,’ she said, laughing but kindly, warm. He noticed she had flushed. ‘Get away with you.’ She gave him a sudden affectionate hug. ‘You only think that, Dick. It’s the nurse thing. That’s all it is. I’ve seen –’

  ‘No. I love you.’

  ‘They all say that. Only they don’t, not really. You just kept on longer than the others.’ She clasped his hand in both of hers. ‘You want to find a young lass. There’s lots about. After the war and everything – there’s no shortage, Dick.’

  He wished now he hadn’t said it. He longed for the time back to do it right. Her hand was on the latch again. He asked, ‘Is it all right if I come back? I’ve not offended you?’

  She laughed affectionately. His eyes cast down, he stared at the wrinkled leather on the bar of her grey shoe. ‘You’ll have to promise me something, Dick. That we’ll hear no more of – what you just said. I’m nearly half as old again as you … Promise me.’

  How could he? To promise that. Of course he couldn’t. He said, ‘The first voice I heard, the first face I saw when I knew I was still alive, it was yours.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And that’s bound to be special … But that’s all it is.’

  ‘No,’ he said obstinately.

  ‘Yes, Dick. You’d be surprised how many of the boys were in love with us. Officers, tommies, the lot. Angels, roses, princesses – we were all those … Of course you were different. Our only birdman. But it’s the same thing.’

  He turned his head away, prodding at the linoleum floor with his stick. He thought of saying, ‘Is it because I’m a bit lame?’ but knew that was unworthy. Even more, it was not true.

  Stanley Taylor’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘The way things are, I move that in future contracts’d be best made only for fixed quantities. Fixed periods too …’

  Next time, he thought, next time. There must be some way to win her. Do I have to be a prince, then, to get a princess?

  ‘… A block of a thousand pounds of eight per cent priority preference shares, issued just for that purpose.’

  ‘This lad here, is he all right, then?’ asked Uncle Arthur. ‘Looks over the hills and far away to me …’

  Eleanor, out walking, wheeling the wicker perambulator in the sharp October sunshine. Tomorrow Eric would come to Thackton for the weekend. It would be his first sight of his grandson. Going now in the direction of the village, she felt both pride, and great joy. She hoped to meet someone, to meet many people – so that she could make introductions. This child that had been her care for little more than a week, that was still news in the village. This beautiful child. Maria’s child.

  A week of such excitement and happiness. Behind her the journey through to Paris where Dulcie had met her. Before that, the parting with Maria. And Maria’s parting with her child (such odd, fatigued indifference where Eleanor would have expected suffering. Was ready to help suffering …) After two days in Paris they were met by Basil in London. He had advised that it would be better not to try and prepare Mother. No telegrams from Florence or Paris or even London. ‘Present her with a surprise. It will be easier.’

  She wondered later whether he had been right. On a practical level there had been few problems. Dulcie had already arranged for clothes, bedding and so on to be at the ready. She had also engaged, secretly, a young girl who would come immediately as nurse. Amy Thackeray was the niece of Elsie, the housekeeper at Moorgarth, and had recently left a post as under-nursemaid in a Newcastle family. The timing was perfect.

  Mother had been sitting downstairs at her desk when Eleanor’s motor taxi drew up at the door.

  ‘What, in God’s name? Eleanor, what have you got there?’

  ‘A baby, Mother, An Italian bambino.’

  ‘Italian? Whose is it? Dear God, Eleanor –’ her voice, cold, cutting ‘– are you mad?’

  ‘Never more sane. And now, if you’ll allow me, we’re very tired from the journey.’ A mistake to have told her nothing, perhaps. But revenge is so sweet, she thought.

  ‘I always considered a visit to Italy unwise. You are not balanced enough to travel. And this second journey. So precipitate. You are unhinged …’

  But then there had been the arrival of Amy, and a cart with all the equipment. Cot, bedding, rubber bath, wicker perambulator. Fresh milk, bottles. Eleanor was amazed at Dulcie’s efficiency. Some milk was already boiled. Amy set to work at once. Small, neat, with dark hair plaited round her head, she had the complete assurance of one who comes from a large family: ‘You do it like this … and this … Mam told us allus … He’ll settle best if he’s wrapped this way.’

  Mother, outraged, waiting her moment, then making her way slowly upstairs to where Eleanor, alone now, sat in her room.

  ‘Words fail me, Eleanor. Have you gone mad?’

  ‘You asked me that already. No. I’ve made an impulsive but sensible decision. He’s an orphan. I shall adopt him.’

  ‘Dear God. How I am punished through my daughter.’ She sat herself on the velvet chair beneath Titian’s Portrait of an English Gentleman. ‘Dear God, Eleanor.’

  ‘I saw the baby in a Florentine orphanage. Nothing much is known of the parents. I made my arrangements out there.’

  ‘Your arrangements. And to whose home have you brought this child?’

  ‘Ours.’

  ‘Mine, you mean –’

  ‘No. Since we are to be so particular – my house.’ She was surprised at the ease of it all. ‘I think you forget the conditions of Father’s will. My house, if I look after you – and I do. He did not stipulate I should not adopt a child.’

  ‘You are out of your mind. Brazen. Hysterical –’

  ‘I was never calmer.’

  ‘Hysterical, my dear. Suffering perhaps from early middle age … There is no question. This child must go to an orphanage.’

  ‘He came from one, Mother.’

  ‘Then he must go back to another. To the Sisters of Charity at – where is it? Basil will know. Basil will deal with this – and you.’

  Her trump card. She waited now, calmly, to play it.

  ‘Basil knows all about this, Mother.’ She watched her mother’s face. ‘And he thoroughly approves. It was his colleague in Florence who helped me make the arrangements.’

  Mrs Dennison, showing only by a twitch of one cheek that she was disconcerted, remarked: ‘You did not think, any of you, to let me know earlier about this invasion of our calm, ordered life? The peace I can reasonably expect in my old age –’

  ‘Oh, stuff and nonsense,’ Eleanor said. ‘You’re not required to do anything. I shall keep all that side of things well away. I wired Dulcie – it was she arranged Amy.’

  ‘I see. Miss Rowland is telegraphed, yet I am told nothing.’

  ‘I knew how it would be if I did. What sort of greeting I should get. That is the fact, you see.’

  Her mother jabbed at the bedside rug with her stick.

  ‘That is the fact, you see,’ Eleanor repeated. ‘Your Christian charity, your vaunted Catholicism, where is it, that you cannot take in a waif and stray? I was hungry and you gave Me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink.’

  Her mother rose, with difficulty.

  ‘How self-righteous you are, my dear. And how little you know of life –’

  I don’t mind, Eleanor thought joyfully. I don’t mind.

  It had been not just her calmness that amazed Eleanor. It was her happiness. It had welled up in her at first sight of the child. To be as soon hidden when she saw Maria. Maria, standing by the cot in the convent cell. Hair pinned severely back. Her features lifeless, heavy. For Maria it couldn’t be all right. Best not to refer to the upset of June – the thoughtless escape to Sicily: Maria seeming unable to imagine
the worry she would cause. And her own attempts, doomed, to get into Maria’s head. I do not know what it is like to be pregnant, to be from another country, to be an orphan – to be Maria.

  Sister Ignazio said, in front of Maria, that they had all forgiven her for the fright she had given them. ‘It was a wicked thing to do, was it not, Maria?’

  Eleanor had felt shame then because during that dreadful panic, exchanging of telegrams and telephone calls, there had been her own cold nugget of fear – that she was about to lose the child, about to lose Eric.

  He was to be called Guy, she had explained to Maria.

  ‘Your brother’s memory. Is that how you honour it?’ Mother had said that first evening, pursing her lips together as if in pain. ‘What does Basil have to say? His brother’s name for a little dago scrap?’ But later when she asked, ‘Who is to pay for all this help? His upbringing, his education? His education, Eleanor?’ Eleanor had been able to say, proudly,

  ‘All seen to. It is some of it to do with Basil. And the Jesuits.’ Yes, that was it. The Jesuits …

  Perfect child, sleeping peacefully through the stormy weather, autumn equinox, of his first days in Thackton. His cot in the room once set aside for Basil’s visits, now the night nursery and facing out on to the long garden. The day nursery, formerly a guest room, faced the road and was to be barred so that he could watch the world in safety.

  Dulcie had visited yesterday bringing with her an excited Jenny who knew Dulcie had been to Paris, who was part of the secret that an orphan was to be adopted – but who knew nothing of the real truth. (Eleanor, glad of this, wondered, did not perhaps too many people know already?) She had rushed delightedly to the cot. ‘Isn’t he absolutely – oh, how sweet! Those hands, and the tiny nails – I’ve never really looked at a baby before. Aunt Dulcie,’ and she linked her arm round Dulcie’s waist, ‘darling Aunt Dulcie, did I look as sweet? You were there, do you remember did I look as sweet, as dinky as that?’