No Highway (22 page)

I grinned. “She did. Just like an ordinary woman.”

“Really …” He asked me about Elspeth, and I told him.
And then he said, “You know, the thing that interested me most in Miss Teasdale’s story was the reaction of the pilot, Samuelson. He didn’t seem to be sorry that it was impossible to fly that aircraft any farther.”

“I know,” I said. “I think that wants looking into. He couldn’t have diagnosed anything wrong with the machine, though, from his own experience. I wonder if old Honey shook his confidence a bit?”

“Maybe,” he said. “About Honey, Scott. I’ve been talking to the Air Ministry. There’s an old Lincoln from the Navigation School due to fly from Winnipeg back here one day this week, and they’re instructing it to land at Gander and pick Honey up. I’ve got a draft signal here from us to him that I’d like you to look at.”

We got that off, and I went back to my office to deal with my overflowing
IN
basket.

Shirley, wearily cooking up a cup of arrowroot for Elspeth to see if she could keep that down, heard a ring at the door and thought it was the butcher; she was so tired she had already forgotten all about Miss Teasdale. She went with her overall on and a wisp of hair hanging down across her eyes and an enamel tray in her hand to receive the joint, and there was a most lovely and most beautifully turned out woman standing at the head of the dark staircase that led up to our flat. Her face was vaguely familiar and her voice soft and husky and slightly Middle West.

She said, “Say, it’s Mrs. Scott, is it?”

Shirley said, “Oh … of course. My husband rang me up.” She fumbled with the tray in her hands. “I’m so sorry—I thought it was someone else. Please, do come in.”

Miss Teasdale said, “I was visiting with Dr. Scott this morning, and he told me what a time you’re having with Mr. Honey’s little girl, and he suggested I could come and sit with her a while so you could get some sleep. I’d be glad to do that, if it suits you, Mrs. Scott. I’m free all day.”

Shirley said mechanically, “Oh, you don’t need to bother—really.” She hesitated. “Would you come in?”

Miss Teasdale took hold firmly as they went into the sitting-room. “My dear, you’re looking real tired,” she said. “I’m a kind of friend of Mr. Honey. I’m quite free to stay here up till ten o’clock tonight, or all night if it suits. Just show me where things are and where the little girl is, and then you get off to bed and get some sleep.”

Shirley stared at her. “Aren’t … don’t I know you?”

“Sure you know me, if you ever go to pictures,” said the actress. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t look after a sick child, same as anybody else.”

“Monica Teasdale?”

“That’s right.”

“But—do you know Mr. Honey?”

“Surely. Now you just——” She stopped and glanced out of the window at the Daimler. “Just one thing first of all, my dear,” she said quietly. “We don’t want any trouble here with Press or fans or anything. I don’t think anybody noticed when I came in. Do you mind—would you go down and tell the chauffeur he’s to go right back because I’m staying here a while? Say I’ll call them at the office later in the day.”

Shirley went down to the car in a state of tired bemusement; the chauffeur touched his cap to her, and the great car moved off. When she got back to the flat Miss Teasdale was not in the sitting-room; Shirley went down the passage to the bedroom and there she was, standing in the doorway, leaning reflectively against the jamb, looking in at Elspeth, who was sleeping in our double bed, with a basin at her side.

She turned at Shirley’s step. “She’s just the image of her father,” she said quietly.

Shirley stopped by her; together they stood looking at the sleeping child. “She is and she isn’t,” she said. “She’s got his features, but she’s awfully well proportioned. Look at her hands. I think she may be beautiful when she gets older.”

The actress said quietly, “That could be.” And then she said, “Did you know her mother?”

Shirley shook her head. “I only met Mr. Honey a few days ago.” She drew away from the door. “Don’t let’s wake her.”

They moved back to the sitting-room. “Say, is that the only bed you’ve got?” the actress asked.

Shirley nodded. “It’s only a small flat,” she said. “We’ve not been married very long.”

“Kind of difficult for nursing a sick child, isn’t it?”

“It’s a bit hard on Dennis—my husband. He had to go and sleep in Mr. Honey’s house last night.”

“Where did you sleep then?”

Shirley laughed. “I didn’t sleep much, anyway. I lay down on the sofa for a bit.”

“Well, you lie right down on that sofa again and get some
sleep. I’ll sit in the bedroom to be near her if she wakes.” She was tired herself after two nights sitting up in an aircraft, but she did not want to sleep. She could rest sufficiently by sitting quiet by the sleeping child.

Shirley said, “It’s awfully kind of you—I would like to lie down a bit. Let me get some lunch first.” They went together to the kitchen; the actress watched, a little helplessly, while Shirley got out the cold meat and salad and put on a kettle. And then she said, “Would you like for me to take her up to Claridge’s? We’ve got a suite there permanently reserved where she could have a bedroom and a private nurse and everything …”

Shirley said quickly, “Oh thank you, but that wouldn’t do. She’d be worried to death—she wants to get back into her father’s house. She’s worrying that all their things will get stolen. It wouldn’t do to move her up to London—honestly it wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” said the older woman. “It was just an idea.” She watched Shirley for a minute, and then said, “What were you doing before you got yourself married?”

“I was a tracer.”

“In a drafting office?”

Shirley nodded. “That’s where I met Dennis.”

There was a long pause. “I was a stenographer,” the older woman said. “But that was quite a while ago.” She stood in thought, her mind full of memories of Eddie Stillson, the lame ledger clerk.

Shirley stared at her. “Really? I thought you were always in films.”

“You don’t get born that way,” Miss Teasdale said. “How old are you?”

Shirley said, “Twenty-four.”

“Well, I’ve been in pictures all your life, and maybe a bit longer. But I was a stenographer one time, in an insurance office.”

Shirley said curiously, “How did you come to meet Mr. Honey, Miss Teasdale?”

“It was this way.” They sat down to lunch at the dining-table in the little kitchen; as she heard all about it Shirley studied her visitor. She had never before sat and talked with any American; she was overwhelmed by the sophisticated, carefully tended beauty of the actress and confused by the real kindliness of the woman that lay under the sophistication. Above all, she was tired, too tired to take much in.

Miss Teasdale said, “Now, you go right into that sitting-room and lie down with a rug over you, and let me see you make yourself real comfortable and warm.”

Shirley said, “I’ll just wash these things up first.”

“Wash—oh, the dishes. No, you leave those where they are. I’ll see to them.”

It was too incongruous; the woman was not dressed for housework, her nails too carefully manicured for washing dishes, her costume too good. Shirley said, “No—really, it won’t take me a minute.”

“You do what I say.” Shirley was too tired to argue any more; she took off her overall and gave it to the actress, showed her the rusty tin that contained soda. “This double saucepan’s got arrowroot in it,” she said. “Keep it warm and give Elspeth a cup if she wakes up. The sugar’s here. She’d better not have anything else, and if she’s sick, just empty the bowl down the lavatory and wash it out, you know. Dr. Martin may look in this afternoon. It’s awfully kind of you.”

She went into the sitting-room and let down the end of the sofa; under the disciplinary eye of the older woman she lay down and pulled a rug over her. In ten minutes she was fast asleep.

Back in the kitchen, Monica Teasdale started gingerly upon the washing up. She had not done that in years because her negro house servants were genuinely fond of her, and had seldom let her down, but long ago Myra Tuppen had done it after every meal as a matter of course. The greasy feel of hot wet plates stirred memories in her. Old tunes came creeping back into her mind as she stood there at the sink, the dance tunes of her early youth,
Redwing, That Mysterious Rag
.… She stood there with these old tunes running through her head, washing the dishes mechanically, a middle-aged woman who had crept back into the past, when everything was bright and promising and new …

She finished washing the dishes without breaking anything, and found places for them in the cupboard where they seemed to fit. Then she took off her overall and did up her face in the small mirror of her flapjack. If she had married Eddie Stillson this would have been her life, the kitchen and children in Terre Haute or in some other city of the Middle West. She had done better for herself than that, or had she? She had seen India and China and the Philippines in films upon location, but Eddie Stillson’s wife could have learned as much as
she about those countries by seeing the films. She had travelled once or twice in Europe for her holidays between the wars, but Eddie Stillson’s wife could have learned as much by reading the
Geographic Magazine
—possibly more. She had, however, tangible experiences that Eddie Stillson could not have provided. Twice she had started the Indianapolis Motor Race, in her own State. She had adventured three times into marriage. She had met interesting people in all walks of life; she had entertained Ambassadors. Now as her career was drawing to its close a life of idleness alone in an apartment lay ahead of her. All her experience and all the money she had earned had not secured for her a home and quiet interests for her old age, had not brought her children and grandchildren. She could never have those now, even if she married again. She smiled, a little cynically; for the fourth time. If ever she ventured into matrimony again she would look for very different qualities in a man.

She moved quietly to the sitting-room door and looked in; Shirley was asleep upon the sofa. She glanced around our room, thoughtfully, noting the second-hand carpet, the ten-year-old radio, the bookcases I had made in the evenings out of the planks of packing-cases stained with permanganate of potash. There were many flowers in the room because Shirley was fond of them; one spray of roses stood in a tall glass bottle etched with the legend
MANOR FARM DAIRY
. With a little pang she recognised the room for what it was, something she had never really known, the beginning of a home. Somehow, it seemed easier for folks to make a place like that when there wasn’t very much money. When you built a bookcase with your own hands instead of ordering it by telephone from the department store complete with books, it was a little tenuous link that bound you to the home.

She was forgetting her charge; she moved down the short corridor to the bedroom. Elspeth had turned over in bed; as the actress came to the door she moved and blinked sleepily, her hair over her eyes, only half awake. Miss Teasdale said, “It’s all right, honey. Mrs. Scott’s having a nice sleep and I said I’d stay around and look after you.”

Elspeth said, “What’s your name?”

“Teasdale—Monica Teasdale. You’d better call me Monica.”

The child asked directly, “Then why did you call me Honey?”

The actress laughed. “Why, that’s what we call folks back
in America, in Indiana where I was raised. I didn’t mean it for your name.”

“My name’s Elspeth,” said the child. “I’ve been sick six times.”

“Well, don’t you be sick again till Mrs. Scott wakes up, or maybe I’d not know what to do about it.”

“Why don’t you call her Shirley?”

“I don’t know—I only just met her today. That’s her name, is it?”

The child nodded. Then she said, “May I get up and go along the passage?”

“Surely,” said Miss Teasdale quickly. “Wait—you’d better put something on.” She looked around a little helplessly.

“It’s hanging up behind the door,” the child said. Miss Teasdale looked and found a very small, worn dressing-gown; Elspeth slipped it on, and put her feet in bedroom slippers, and went off. The actress moved to the bed, and smoothed out the bedclothes and pulled out the hot-water bottles, which were cold, and then Elspeth was back again and climbing into bed.

The actress watched the little active figure in pyjamas getting into bed, watched with her hands full of hot-water bottles and with her heart full of regret. She said, “How do you feel now?”

The child said, “My head aches when I move about.”

“Sure, it will do after giving it a bump like that. Does it hurt when you stay still?”

“Not till I think of it. It hurts then.”

Miss Teasdale laughed. “I’ll get these bottles filled.”

“I don’t want them, please. They’re too hot.”

“Okay. Mrs. Scott left arrowroot upon the stove for you. Think you could take a cup of that?”

“No, thank you.”

The actress said, “Come on, honey, try a little bit. It’ll do you good.”

Elspeth said, “It can’t do me any good if I sick it all up.”

“You won’t.”

“I did last time.”

“You won’t this time.”

She went into the kitchen and found a cup and saucer and a tin of biscuits, and came back to the bedroom with the arrowroot and crackers on a little tray. The child obediently ate the food and said, “Do you live in America?”

“Most of the time,” the actress said.

“My daddy’s in America—not really in America. He’s in Canada. He went on Sunday.”

“I know it. I travelled over with him—that’s how I met him. Then I had to come back again directly, and he asked me if I’d come and see how you were getting on.”

Elspeth accepted this without much interest. “When’s he coming home?”

“Quite soon now, I think. Maybe this week.”

“He’s been away an awfully long time.”

“Only since Sunday, honey. This is Tuesday.”

“It seems an awfully long time,” the child said.

There was a jigsaw puzzle started upon my drawing-board. “Say,” said the actress, “that’s an elegant picture. Going to be Southampton Docks, isn’t it, with all the liners?” She fetched the board, and they began doing it together.