13. A Trip for Ben’s Bones

Mrs Blewitt had been taken with the idea of Ben’s going to his grandparents as soon as he was well enough. The hospital had suggested their convalescent home by the sea, but that sounded unhomely and bleak to Mrs Blewitt, especially at this time of year. And Ben wanted to go to the country, he said.

To begin with, Ben would need to have breakfast in bed and other attentions which old Mr and Mrs Fitch could not be expected to undertake. So, first of all, he would come to his home from hospital. Mrs Blewitt began to get ready for him the bedroom that had belonged to May and Dilys.

Mrs Blewitt was glad to be busy and particularly glad to welcome Ben home at this time. She missed May and Dilys more than she had ever foreseen in the excitement of the preparations for the wedding, the wedding itself and the goodbyes afterwards. Now there was no one to talk to about the affairs that particularly interest women and girls. Soon after the wedding, at teatime, Mrs Blewitt had been about to speak of the Spring Sales, when she stopped herself with a cry: ‘What’s the use! With a houseful of men!’ Mr Blewitt, Paul and Frankie gazed at her dumbly, helplessly; and May and Dilys, in North London, were so far away.

Ben’s return only made one more man in the house, but at least he was a convalescent – someone she could fuss over. In the morning, when Mr Blewitt had gone to work and the younger boys had gone to school, Mrs Blewitt would slip upstairs to Ben’s bedroom and talk with him before starting her housework; and Ben was glad of company, after all, in that large, new room all his own. He had no particular use for solitude nowadays.

Mrs Blewitt would bring Grandpa’s letters upstairs to read aloud the bits that concerned Ben’s coming visit. The last letter had a postscript: Mrs Blewitt studied it, baffled. ‘I really can’t think what it means, Ben, except that it’s a message of some kind to you.’

‘Let me see.’ Ben read, in hurrying capitals: ‘TELL BEN T PUPED (9).’ He felt an emotion which he at once controlled. ‘It must mean that Tilly has pupped – had nine puppies.’

‘Well!’ said Mrs Blewitt. ‘Fancy! What a surprise!’ She thought a moment, and then looked at Ben anxiously, but his face was expressionless.

‘Do you think –’ he began slowly, and his mother at once dreaded that he would want the impossible – to have one of the puppies in London. ‘Do you think that I ought to tell Granny about losing the picture, when I go to stay?’

‘What picture?’ His mother had ceased to think of the woolwork picture soon after she had heard of its loss. She had never connected the picture with any dog that Ben might even impossibly hope to have.

‘The picture of the little girl’s dog called – called Chiquitito.’

‘Oh, that!’ Mrs Blewitt considered carefully. ‘I don’t think you really need to tell Granny, because after all the picture was given to you for your own – it was yours when you lost it. And telling Granny may make her sad, because the picture was a present to her from Uncle Willy. But, on the other hand, she’s quite likely to ask you about the picture some time, and then, of course, you’d have to tell her. So, on the whole – yes, if I were you, I think I’d tell her before she asks.’

‘I didn’t think of all those reasons, but I did somehow think that I should have to tell her.’ Ben sighed.

‘Don’t let Granny guess that the picture was never any good to you.’

‘I won’t.’

The day came for Ben’s journey into the country. His mother was coming with him to Castleford on a day excursion ticket, partly to see that his bones travelled safely, and partly because she always tried to manage one of her day trips to her parents between Christmas and Easter. Besides, she had a great deal to talk over with her mother.

The train reached Castleford in a fine February drizzle. Old Mr Fitch was waiting on the platform, with some shopping as usual, without Young Tilly, but with a large umbrella instead.

‘We shan’t need that, Pa,’ Mrs Blewitt said, after kissing him, ‘because we’re going by taxi.’

‘By taxi!’ cried Grandpa. ‘Why, whatever will your ma say!’

‘Just this once, because of Ben’s leg and ribs and collarbone. Bill gave me the money for it.’ Mrs Blewitt insisted. In the splendour of a taxi, the three of them drove from Castleford to Little Barley and beyond and bumped cautiously up the driftway to the Fitches’ front door.

They were, of course, much earlier than they would have been if they had waited to take the bus, and Granny Fitch was not expecting them. She was still in her wrap-round overall dress, and had been having a little sit-down in front of the fire. She had fallen asleep.

‘Ma!’ Mrs Blewitt called from the front door; and Mrs Fitch woke with a start and in some confusion of mind, so that – simply and solely, without time for thought – she saw her daughter. ‘Lil!’ she cried, and Lily Blewitt ran forward into her open arms. Ben hung back in the doorway, watching, feeling forgotten and odd for a moment, as he saw his own mother become the child of her mother.

Then Mrs Fitch held her daughter from her, adjusted her spectacles, and peered sharply at the large-faced clock. ‘But you certainly didn’t come by the bus.’

‘We hired a car,’ Mrs Blewitt said.

‘Hired a – Joe!’

‘It was Lily would do it,’ Grandpa said hastily.

‘But the expense!’

‘Bill paid for it, Ma.’

‘I don’t care who paid for it,’ said Granny; ‘and you probably tipped the driver.’

‘Bill gave me the money for that too. It was all because of Ben, you know, Ma.’

‘Ah, Ben …’ Granny shifted her attention to Ben, who now came forward to be kissed. Then Granny, forgetting the taxi at least for the time being, bade Grandpa come in, and not let all the warmth out of the open door, and put the umbrella into the scullery, open if it were wet, furled if it were dry – which it was, but Grandpa was given no chance of saying so.

Grandpa did as he was told. As he went, he took from the corner of the kitchen-range a chipped enamel bowl from which rose a faint, warm, gravy smell. He saw Ben watching, and winked at him. Ben quietly left his mother and grandmother talking together and followed Grandpa into the scullery.

‘Where are they? Where is she?’

Grandpa put the umbrella away, ran a little cold water into the dog-stew to cool it, set it on the floor, and answered: ‘The puppies are in the old sty down the garden, but Till’s just outside now, if I know her.’

He opened the back-door, and there was Young Tilly waiting in the shelter of the porch. She came in with a preoccupied air – no more than an unsurprised wag of the tail even to Ben – and made straight for her dinner. She ate quickly, in large mouthfuls.

‘She needs to eat well, with those nine greedy pups,’ said Grandpa.

When she had finished, Tilly sat down, looked at Ben, moved her tail again, lay down, and seemed to go to sleep.

Ben was disappointed and a little shocked: ‘Shouldn’t she go back to them again, at once?’ he asked.

‘They’re all right by themselves for a bit, and she knows it,’ said Grandpa. ‘She’s a good mother, but she’s not one of these young, fond ones. She feels a bit old for pups, I dare say, and she wearies of them. Then she stays here.’

‘Shall we go and look at Tilly’s puppies?’ said Ben, half to Tilly herself. She only opened one eye at her name, and did not respond. Grandpa, too, said that they had better postpone going until the rain had eased off a bit. Besides, Granny was calling to them both, asking whether they expected to have their dinners carried to them in the scullery.

Mrs Blewitt, with Grandpa’s help, got the dinner, while Ben was made to rest on the sofa. Granny, after leaving full directions, went upstairs slowly but determinedly to change into the black silk dress which she had planned to wear for this visit.

They had hot-pot for dinner, followed by pancakes made by Mrs Blewitt. They were old Mr Fitch’s favourite, but he could not manage the tossing. Then they had cups of tea and slices of home-made cake that Mrs Blewitt had brought with her. And then the table was cleared and Mrs Blewitt spread out the wedding photographs.

Granny pored over them: the bride and bridesmaid and page and bridegroom – ‘I only hope he wears well’ – and the guests. Grandpa took pleasure in pointing out any representations of himself – especially one which showed him wearing his hat. ‘It wasn’t wasted, then,’ Granny commented.

‘And this –’ Mrs Blewitt ended up with a snapshot photograph. ‘This is the house they’re living in – May and Charlie, and Dilys, too, of course. They have a flat on this floor.’

Granny looked. ‘Well, I suppose that’s how people have to live in London.’

‘But they’re lucky, Ma; and I’m as pleased as they are about it, of course, except that – well, if only they weren’t so far away!’

‘That’s what comes to you, when children grow up,’ Granny said.

‘And it isn’t just that I miss them: they’re still so young – it’s Dilys I think of most, of course. They live in a nice place, really they do – hilly, so it’s lovely air, for London; but it’s all among strangers, and so far from us …’

Granny was listening closely, nodding. Mrs Blewitt said, ‘Really, I’ve been thinking –’ Then she glanced at Ben, who was also listening. She looked out of the window. ‘It’s stopped raining, Ben. Wouldn’t you like a little stroll outside?’

Ben jumped up and looked expectantly at his grandfather. But first of all Grandpa had been looking at photographs, and now he seemed to be forgetfully settling down to a nap. Ben reminded him: ‘Couldn’t we go down the garden for a bit?’

‘Ah?’ said Grandpa, drowsily.

‘Joe, Lil and I want to talk, so you’ll take the boy now and show him those dratted puppies.’

And Grandpa and Ben went.