The Fox in the Attic (7 page)

Wantage straightened a fork that was slightly out of plumb: nothing else seemed amiss.

By rights Wantage was “off” now, and ought to be able to put up his feet in peace. But there was still Mr. Augustine's bag! Passing out through the serving-pantry he ordered a rather bucolic boot-and-knife boy, in tones of concentrated venom, to fetch the luggage out of the car and carry it up the back way.

That venomous tone of voice meant nothing: it was merely the correct way for Upper Servants to speak to Boys (indeed Wantage had rather a soft spot for Jimmy—hoped one day to make quite a proper Indoor of him). It meant no more than the tones of deferential benevolence he always used to all Gentry—who were stupid sods, most of them, in his experience. True, their word was their bond; but they acted spoilt, like babbies ...

Not that
all
babbies were spoilt—not his little Miss Polly-olly she wasn't! It was her Nanny was the spoilt one—that Mrs. Halloran the blooming nuisance ... and Minta the Under aiming to take after her: a little bitch hardly turned eighteen, I ask you! A slipper to her backside would do her a power.

Mrs. Winter agreed with him about those two, but constitutionally Nursery was a self-governing province where even a Housekeeper's writ did not run.

Wantage's back was giving him gyp; but he'd got that bag to unpack before he could look to a proper sit-down. “Off-duty” didn't mean a thing nowadays, not since the War with everywhere understaffed. Time was, he had known four footmen here at the Chase: but now—just fancy
Mellton
and the butler having to valet visiting gentlemen himself! How was he to keep his end up with Mrs. Winter—her with all those girls under, and him with no one under his sole command but Jimmy?

All those girls ... Mrs. Winter, with her black silk and her keys, was hard put to it to count them all. But that's what the Gentry (the old ones: war profiteers weren't Gentry) were come down to nowadays indoors:
girls
. Why, some houses and quite good ones too nowadays they even let women clean the silver! “Parlourmaids”... Mellton hadn't fallen as low as that yet, thank God.

But where was the satisfaction, rising to the top in Service and still no men under you? That was the sting. Outdoors, two keepers and a water-bailiff: an estate carpenter: six men in the Gardens still—and three (even not counting the exiled Trivett) in Stables! Only Indoors was so depleted, that's what was so unfair.

Mean!
The Master ought to bear in mind what was due from a Wadamy of Mellton Chase ...

As Wantage fitted the links into Augustine's white shirt ready for the evening he heaved a deep sigh that turned to a hiccup and left a nasty taste of heartburn in his mouth. Dead Sea Fruit! That's all his promotions had amounted to ever since he entered Service, from first to last.

When at last Wantage was free to relax it was the Housekeeper's Room he went to that afternoon, not his own Pantry; and he slumped into a comfortable basket chair there as near as possible to a breezy window.

Mrs. Winter was sitting bolt upright before the fire on a straight-backed hard chair loose-covered in a flowered chintz. Her hands were folded in her lap. Mrs. Winter never slumped—never appeared to wish to, even if her whalebone would have let her. Wantage studied her. Nowadays she looked like something poured into a mould: just brimming over the rim a little but not enough to slop. She didn't seem to possess a Shape of her own any more. It was hard to believe that once “Mrs. Winter” had been Maggie the lithe, long-legged young under-housemaid game as any for a spot of slap-and-tickle.

That was at Stumfort Castle, when he himself was a half-grown young footman—years before they had met again at Mellton Chase. Wantage licked his lips at certain recollections. Jimminey! He'd gone a bit too far with her that one time! Might both have lost their places only they were lucky and she didn't have it after all ...

He'd happened on her sudden, up the Tower—in the Feather-room, sitting on the floor refilling a featherbed and herself half drowned in feathers ... with her ankles showing. Her ankles—and the sight of her Shape sunk in all that sea of soft feathers—had been too much for him. Too much for both of them, seemingly.

But
after
! Picking hundreds of downy little feathers off his livery against time before going on duty in the Front Hall, sweating he'd miss some and they'd find him out ...

“A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Wantage,” said Mrs. Winter sweetly.

“Dead Sea Fruit, Maggie,” he answered hollowly.

He hadn't called her “Maggie” for years! Mrs. Winter lifted both white plump hands slightly from her lap, fitting the tips of the fingers together and contemplating them in silence. Then:

“Times have certainly changed,” she said.

Mr. Wantage closed his eyes.

Suddenly he opened them again: Polly was climbing into his lap. Polly was the only person in the whole house Front Stairs as well as Back who dared wander informally into the sacred “Room” like that. “I've come!” she said unnecessarily, and added: “That Jimmy's got a crown!”

“Careful, Duck,” said Mr. Wantage: “Mind my poor leg.”

“What's the matter with it?” she asked.

“Got a bone in it!” he answered dramatically. “Minta'll be looking for you,” he went on, with quite a wicked look in his bulging eyes.

“Yes she will!” said Polly, equally delighted: “Looking
everywhere
!”

“Hunting all over!” echoed Mr. Wantage: “You won't half cop it if she finds you here!”

But he knew, and she knew, that this was a sanctuary where even Minta'd never dare.

Mrs. Winter's thoughts were browsing very gently on the visitor, Mr. Augustine. For a brother and sister, how unlike in their ways he and the Mistress were! And yet, so fond. A pity to see him willfully living so strange: no good could come of it, you can't cut loose from your Station, no one can ... yet he had proved the soul of kindness about Nellie's Gwilym's old mother—took endless pains to find her somewhere on his own property, now that the birthplace she'd hankered back to was become a waterworks. Mr. Augustine was better than he'd let himself be, there
were
some like that ...

Then Mrs. Winter's stomach rumbled, and she looked at the clock. But that very moment came the expected knock and the door opened, briefly releasing into the “Room” a distant merry burst of young west-country voices and wild laughter with even a snapshot through it of “that Jimmy,” ham-frill for crown and sceptered with toasting-fork, prancing in the midst of a veritable bevy of “all those girls.”

It was Lily, the fifteen-year-old scullery-maid, who had just come in, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes still flashing. Lily had brought their tea, of course, with hot buttered scones straight from the oven, and cherrycake:

“Like a nice slice of cake, Love?” Mrs. Winter asked Polly. Even the glacé cherries in it were Mellton-grown and of her own candying. But Polly shook her head. Her cold had spoiled her appetite. Instead she begun plunging her hand in each of Mr. Wantage's pockets in turn to see what she could find. Gently he began to prise open her fingers to rescue his spectacles; but she insisted on placing them on his nose.

Mrs. Winter also was putting on her spectacles, for the tea-tray bore her usual weekly letter from her younger sister Nellie ... Poor Nellie! The clever one of the family—and the one Life had treated hardest.—Still, Nellie had Little Rachel to comfort her ...

“Mrs.” Winter's own title only marked professional status, like “Dr.” or “Rev.”; but Nellie had married, and married young. She had married a budding minister, a Welsh boy out of the mines. Clever as paint—but not strong, though, ever. Nellie was wed as soon as the young man got his first Call, to a chapel in the Rhondda Valley.

When the War came, being a minister of religion he didn't have to go—and how thankful Nellie had been! But her Portion of Trouble was coming to her just the same. 1915—three years married, the first baby at last and born big-headed! Water, of course ... Six months he died, the second already on the way.

Wasn't it anxiety enough for Nellie, wondering after that how the new one would turn out? Yet Gwilym (that was the father's outlandish name) must needs add to it. He took on now in a crazy fashion. He reckoned some sin of
his
had made the first one born that way: he must expiate his sin or the second would be the same.

Not to sit comfortable preaching the word in the Valleys to the ticking Chapel clock while other men died! That's how the notion took him. But the Army wouldn't have him for a chaplain: so he said he'd go for a stretcher-bearer, in the Medical Corps. It was for the unborn baby's sake he'd got to go, so he couldn't even wait for little Rachel-to-be to be born. Nellie couldn't hold him.

Nor could his angry deacons either: they were of a very pacifist turn, and counted stretchering nearly as bad as downright shooting—they'd never have him back after, not once he'd put on any kind or shape of army uniform! When he still went, they turned Nellie out of the Chapel house; for they'd have no soldier's brat born there.

Once Rachel was weaned, Nellie got a war-job teaching infant school in Gloucester.

As for Rachel—the sweetest little maid she grew and clever as a little monkey! A proper little fairy. No wonder her mother was all wrapped up in her! Her Aunt Maggie was downright fearful sometimes of the mother's doting, it was so greedy: yet even a mere aunt couldn't help marveling at the little thing, and doting a bit likewise.

Thus Mrs. Winter had never quite succeeded in setting Polly on a pedestal as the rest of the household at the Chase all did: for she couldn't help comparing Polly with Nellie's Little Rachel. Polly was a nice little thing, but nothing to write home about.

Rachel was a year older than Polly, true; but anyway she was twice as clever, twice as pretty, twice as good. A little angel on earth. And what a Fancy! The
things
she
said
! Nellie's letters were always full of Rachel's Sayings and her aunt used to read them aloud to Mr. Wantage: she couldn't help it.

Polly never said wonderful Sayings like that you could put in a book! Yet it was Polly who would grow up with all the advantages ... This made Mrs. Winter bitterly jealous at times: but she tried to curb her jealousy. It wasn't Polly's fault, being born with the silver spoon: there was no sense or fairness taking it out on
her
.

When Gwilym came back from the war his deacons kept their word: they wouldn't even see him. So he took on a tin mission church in Gloucester, down by the docks. But then their troubles began afresh. For now, six years after Rachel's birth, Nellie was expecting again. She hadn't looked for it or intended it and somehow she sort of couldn't get used to the idea at all.

The fact was, by now Nellie had got so wrapped up in Little Rachel she just couldn't bear the thought of having another! She positively blamed the intruder in her womb for pretending to any place in the heart that by rights was wholly Rachel's.

Moreover she had a good open reason too for thinking this child ought never to be born. Everyone knows that whatever doctors say the Consumption is hereditary, and six months ago Gwilym had started spitting blood.

Gwilym was away in a sanatorium now; so once more Nellie was left to face childbirth alone, but this time hating the baby to come and with a conviction it would be born infected—if not a downright monster like the first.

Thus it was with rather a troubled face that Mrs. Winter opened the envelope and took out the carefully-written sheet of ruled paper. But the news on the whole was good. Gwilym had written to say he felt ever so much better, they'd be bound to let him home soon. Nellie herself was in good health considering, though the birth might begin any hour now at the time of writing. No ‘Sayings,' for once, of Little Rachel's ... But of course! Rachel was away visiting with her Grandma. The doctor had insisted on hospital when Nellie's time should come—ill though they could afford it; so the child had been sent off a week ago.

Mrs. Winter put the letter down and began to muse. She was troubled—not by the letter but in her own mind, at herself. Why had she allowed Little Rachel to be sent to a grandmother none too anxious to have her, instead of asking Mrs. Wadamy to let the child come here for a week or two? Mrs. Wadamy would have been willing, no doubt of it: quite apart from her natural kindness of heart she'd have been glad of a nice little playmate for Polly. No, Mrs. Winter's reluctance had come from somewhere in her own self.

“Proper Pride,” she tried to tell herself: a not wanting to be “Beholden.” But she knew in her own heart that wasn't the real reason ...
Mrs. Winter couldn't bear the thought of seeing those two children together
, that was the fact! Miss Polly with all the world open to her: Rachel ... Rachel, probably working in a shop by fourteen years of age and her ankles swelling with the standing.

But once she had tracked down the reason in her own mind Mrs. Winter characteristically decided that it wasn't good enough—sheer selfishness! It would be lovely for Rachel here, do her all the good in the world; and it would be good for lonely little Polly too, having a real child to play with instead of just dumb animals. The children themselves wouldn't worry about their unequal futures: they'd be happy enough together, love each other kindly! At that age, Rachel the little leader no doubt and Polly the devoted little slave.

So Mrs. Winter made up her mind. It wasn't too late, thank goodness, even now: Gwilym's old mother would be glad not to have the child longer than could be helped—she didn't find it too easy getting about these days, Nellie had said, yet the longer (Mrs. Winter felt) the poor little new baby had a clear field, the better its chances of arousing the mother-love so strangely withheld.