THE HOUSEHOLD OF four women and a man soon settled into a routine. At seven o’clock Miss Annamatta got up and replenished the almost extinct fire in the boiler and took everyone up a cup of tea, and laid and prepared the breakfast. Sometimes Miss Burton or Miss Fielding, if slightly indisposed, partook of this meal in bed. About a quarter to nine, which just gave the two of them time for a cigarette that led to a certain amount of eye-shutting on the part of Miss Fielding, Kenneth drove Betty into St. Alberics and dropped her at the Ministry of Applications (which was housed in Parkwood School for Girls, the latter having been evacuated to Penzance), before he went on to the elegant house in the High Street, built in 1783, which was the offices of Fielding, Fielding & Gaunt, Solicitors. About ten o’clock, having washed up the breakfast things, made all the beds and dusted the bedrooms, Miss Annamatta went into St. Alberics on a bicycle to do the shopping. There she got the rations every Wednesday, which was the day that all the rations seemed to arrive in St. Alberics, and sometimes stood in queues for fish, which caused Miss Fielding to shut her eyes but did not prevent her from eating the fish after Miss Annamatta had cooked it. After Miss Annamatta had prepared lunch for Miss Burton, Miss Fielding and herself, she mended holes torn in the household linen by the laundry, or tidied any cupboards that might be in disorder or performed any other small tasks that Miss Fielding might find for her to do. At half-past four Miss Burton and Miss Fielding, if neither of them had gone up to London or into St. Alberics, liked to drink their tea on a stone terrace at one side of the house which overlooked the rock garden, the tables and chairs being arranged and the tea prepared and carried out to the two ladies by Miss Annamatta who, it was tacitly understood, drank her own tea somewhere in secret, Miss Fielding indulgently making no attempt to find out where. Then Miss Annamatta was absent, presumably upon her own affairs, until six o’clock or so, when the house awoke from its afternoon hush and Kenneth returned from the office and just before seven or sometimes not until after eight, Betty came back from the Ministry of Applications. Dinner was prepared, set and dished up by Miss Annamatta, whose name Kenneth had now mastered and who dined with her employers. After Miss Annamatta had prepared coffee and carried it into the freshly purified drawing-room, the three older women sat chatting while Miss Annamatta washed up and tidied the kitchen and Kenneth worked in the vegetable garden, and at about half-past ten there began that brewing of Bengers or Horlicks or Ovaltine without which some people cannot get through the night: Kenneth and Betty usually had a drink, hoarded or obtained legally enough but with immense cunning and dash, and over it they made jokes; rather milder jokes than most people make over drinks nowadays because they were both what Miss Elizabeth Bowen might call “people of 1914.” Then, Miss Annamatta having put up such few black-outs as were necessary on these lingering summer evenings, everyone went to bed except Kenneth, who on most nights was out with the Home Guard. Miss Annamatta was paid a pound a week and all found.
The immunity from any form of war work enjoyed by Miss Fielding and Miss Burton will have struck the Gentle Reader. It had not been achieved without a struggle: not a struggle with the local authorities or those hortatory posters which make you feel a social outcast every time you go to the pictures, but a struggle with their own consciences. Miss Burton’s struggle was not a hard one; she was soon defiantly taking the line “Why should I? I’m sixty, and I rolled miles of bandages for four years in the Other War and one war in a lifetime is enough for anyone.” But Miss Fielding’s conscience was of quite another calibre; it went deeply into the question: it pointed out that not only must Miss Fielding, if she truly abode by her principles, refuse to join the W.V.S., she must also refuse to collect her salvage or watch for fires. In short, if Miss Fielding truly abode by her principles, she must try to behave exactly as if there were no war. She had had her worst struggle over the black-out, which, had she followed her principles to their logical limit, should never have darkened her windows at all. She had explained and defended her views to Kenneth and Miss Burton for the whole week immediately before war broke out, and the matter was only settled by the most unexpected action of Kenneth, who drove without her permission into St. Alberics on the final Saturday afternoon of peace, and bought up the last fifty yards of black-out material in the town. Miss Fielding had been solemnly angered with her brother and Miss Burton had never been so relieved in her life. If only Ken would do things like that more often! had been one of her reflections at the time.
As for the salvage, it would have remained shamelessly uncollected (for this was in the days before it was officially reckoned a crime to abandon a piece of string) had not Mrs. Archer, who was conscientious about salvage, felt compelled to take the Sunglades salvage under her wing. It may be imagined that this did not increase Mrs. Archer’s respect for Miss Fielding, who, though she shut her eyes whenever she saw Mrs. Archer smoothing out a sugar bag, did nothing to check her activities. If other people chose to notice the war, Miss Fielding did not propose to dissipate her energies by pointing out to them how misguided they were.
The fact was, whereas Miss Fielding’s mother had been large, handsome and clever, Miss Fielding was only large and handsome. None of her children had inherited Mrs. Fielding’s outstandingly good memory, grasp of the machinery of public affairs and capacity for putting her own plans into successful action; and her eldest daughter’s Work (consisting chiefly of organizing tea and sherry parties for influential foreigners who were interested in the preservation of world peace), while doing no harm and giving pleasure to many harmless persons, was easy and vague compared with the many years of hard personal toil put in by Mrs. Fielding in aid of local health and educational services in St. Alberics, whereby many helpless and unfortunate persons secured solid, lasting benefits.
Mrs. Fielding had been the possessor of one of those personalities like an enormous old-fashioned battlepiece, all over rearing horses and hussars hauling cannon out of the mud and soldiers expiring in the arms of their comrades with Napoleon or somebody of that sort in the middle of it; no one can ignore it, although it exhausts everybody to tears, and weaker spirits simply avoid the room where it hangs. Constance, Joan and Kenneth had of course been subjected to the full pressure of this personality from babyhood, and their mother had been unscrupulous in the extent to which she had moulded their minds. The girls had inherited much of their mother’s overwhelming personality without her brains, and in their teens they had already strikingly resembled her, with their ringing voices and vigorous movements, their air of completely knowing their own minds and being patient with other peoples,’ their handsome profiles and fine full figures and quantities of strong brown hair.
But Mrs. Fielding’s eyes had had a deeper blue than most women’s and her hair had curled at the tips and her neck and bosom had been unusually beautiful. Misled by these properties, the young and warm-hearted Mr. Eustace Fielding had made what was on his side at least a love-match with her; and Kenneth’s nature resembled that of his father rather than that of his mother. This had been a source of disappointment to Mrs. Fielding, and she had never scrupled to say as much. There was no trace of a lifelong grief in the handsome earnest face that looked out from so many silver frames in the drawing-room and bedrooms at Sunglades; yet Kenneth never encountered the gaze of his dead mother’s eyes without an uneasy sensation. And he never wondered why he had a lowish opinion of himself as a solicitor, a brother and a man. He only venerated the memory of his clever mother and admired his handsome, energetic sisters, to whose views and wills he had deferred ever since he could remember.
There were many photographs of Constance and Joan, as well as those of their mother, at Sunglades; those large faces with their powerful noses and confident eyes looked out at the visitor from the piano and the mantelpiece or suddenly stared up at you from behind a bowl of sweet peas, but there were no photographs of Mr. Eustace Fielding at Sunglades.
As soon as it became apparent that Miss Annamatta was strong enough to do the work at Sunglades and that her cooking, though exotic, was palatable, and that she was willing and intelligent, Miss Fielding relaxed; and proceeded to enjoy what was left of the summer and to take up, so far as it was possible to do, her interrupted work. Of course, Miss Annamatta could not run the house; Miss Fielding had to assist her by suggestions for the meals (especially for puddings, of which both she and Kenneth were fond and of which Miss Annamatta seemed never to have heard), and this meant more preoccupation with domestic affairs than Miss Fielding had suffered in the pre-war days when there had been Cook and Nancy and May. But, on the whole, her life was much pleasanter since Miss Annamatta had come, and on a certain afternoon when it was pouring with rain, and the girl had been there nearly three weeks, she remarked as much to Miss Burton. They were sitting in the drawing-room. Miss Fielding, who played the piano accurately if noisily, had been regaling Miss Burton with a long Beethoven. Miss Burton had been asleep.
“Dear me, it’s almost cold enough for a fire and I want my tea. It’s nearly four o’clock,” said Miss Fielding, blundering up off the piano stool and slamming Beethoven together. “Vartouhi—Vartouhi—!” she shouted, going out into the hall, “we’ll have tea now, please.”
Miss Fielding had decided that “Vartouhi” sounded prettier than “Miss Annamatta.”
“Please. In a moment I bring it,” answered the polite tones from the kitchen, and immediately there began that faint clashing of china that has sounded amid the battle’s fury in Libya and Crete and is the signature-tune of civilization.
“Ask her to have it with us,” suggested Miss Burton, yawning and looking out of the window. The garden was brilliantly green under the dashing rain and petals were blowing in showers off a bush of yellow roses. The chilly air was faintly perfumed with wood smoke.
“Oh, all right, if you like.” Miss Fielding looked at once surprised and rather mysterious. “But she’s a strange little person. I don’t expect she will.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I don’t know if you have noticed, but she is very difficult to get at.”
“I can’t say that I have. She seems a nice little thing, rather quiet, but always very polite.”
“Oh, well, Bairamians are, of course. That’s nothing to go by. She might be hating us with all her heart but she would still be perfectly polite.”
“Like the Japanese. How unpleasant.”
“Bairamians are Orientals,” pronounced Miss Fielding. “One tends to forget that, because they are so independent and lead such active lives.”
“Like the Japanese, again.” Miss Burton yawned.
“And therefore their way of looking at things—their picture of life—is the reverse of our way,” elaborated Miss Fielding. “Now, if Vartouhi had been an English girl in a similar situation, alone in a foreign country with her own family and country in the hands of an—an invading power, she would have confided in me. She would have recognized my special gift for furthering sympathy between members of different races and poured out all her anxiety and grief. But she hasn’t said a word. Not one word. She has not even asked me if I could get news of her family through the Greek Red Cross, and she must know that I have useful connections of that sort.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t get on with her family,” suggested Miss Burton.
“Quite impossible. Bairamians have a strong family sense and lead a devoted family life,” said Miss Fielding decidedly, as though quoting from a book on spiders. “No, it is just that she is a funny little thing. Not exactly sly. No, I hesitate to use that word. But what does she do with herself from four o’clock to six every afternoon up in her bedroom? That is what I should like to know.”
“Goes to sleep, I expect. And often she has a bath.”
“Does she?” exclaimed Miss Fielding.
“Very often,” nodded Miss Burton, deciding not to relate that Vartouhi had one every afternoon.
“Well, Bairamians are among the cleaner Oriental races,” conceded Miss Fielding, still quoting from the spider book.
“And she writes letters,” went on Miss Burton, rearranging a rug over her feet, which were up on the chesterfield.
“Does she!” said Miss Fielding, much interested. “Funny little thing! I wonder who to? The Bairamian alphabet, of course, is based on the Roman lettering nowadays ; they adopted it on the same day that Kemal Ataturk introduced it in Turkey. But I am surprised that she writes fluently enough to write letters. How do you know she writes letters?”
“I see her carrying them off to the post every morning. Don’t you know anything about her people?”
“Nothing at all. I got her from Tekla House. They simply said that she spoke English and had been in England for about three years and had been employed at a café in Portsbourne, which she left because the hours were too long.”
Miss Burton raised her eyebrows and remarked, “That can’t have been much fun,” which was an expression she had picked up from Betty.
“Oh, I feel certain it was a good-class place,” said Miss Fielding. “Probably one of those home-made cake places where they do light lunches, run by ladies. I am sure Vartouhi has never been employed at a low-class place. Such experiences always leave their mark.”
“Still—Portsbourne, Connie. It’s up north and very rough, so one hears; full of wild Irish even before the war; goodness knows what it must be like now. But she is hardly the type to suit a rough sort of eating-house.”
“I don’t know what type she is, to tell you the truth.” Miss Fielding’s voice was a little sharper than usual. “I must say I prefer people to be a little less reserved. In these days of horror and hatred, surely it behoves us all, of whatever nationality, to open our hearts to each other freely and generously. I don’t know quite where I am with her.”
“Well, I shouldn’t worry about it——”
“I am not worrying about it, Frances.”
“—she isn’t at all a bad cook and she seems to have settled down very nicely,” soothed Miss Fielding, who in pre-Nazi-War days had suffered from foreigners coming to the house and freely and generously opening their hearts to anyone who would listen; and who did not wish Vartouhi encouraged to do likewise; and at that moment Vartouhi came in and began to arrange a low table for tea.
She seemed to have only two outer garments; the coat and skirt worn on her arrival, and the bright rayon dress whose crumpled condition had brought an offer of the use of the electric iron from Miss Fielding on her first evening there. This afternoon, as the weather was chilly, she wore the coat and skirt. Miss Burton and Miss Fielding made some remarks about the rain and then sat indolently watching her while she spread a delicate cloth and arranged the cups, her small sallow hands contrasting with the rich gold and crimson and blue of the Crown Derby service.
“Do stay and have it with us, won’t you?” suddenly invited The Usurper, looking out of Miss Burton’s faded brown eyes with imperious charm, just as Vartouhi had set down the teapot and was going out of the room.
“Yes, do, Vartouhi,” seconded Miss Fielding graciously. “It is so lonely all by yourself in the—all by yourself,” she ended, not being quite sure where Vartouhi usually did have her tea.
“In this room with you, too also?” asked Vartouhi, pausing at the door.
Miss Fielding smilingly nodded.
“Thank you.” Vartouhi came back to the table and sat down upright on the edge of a chair, and Miss Burton studied her face, wondering if she were pleased to be there or not, but it was impossible to tell.
Miss Fielding vigorously dispensed tea, talking all the time to Vartouhi about shopping and cooking and queues, and Vartouhi sipped, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Fielding’s face. She’s as unselfconscious and mysterious as a cat, thought Miss Burton, and suddenly became filled with curiosity about her.
“Do you have tea in Bairamia, Vartouhi?” she inquired, in a lull while Miss Fielding’s mouth was full.
Vartouhi shook her head, but before she could answer Miss Fielding said cheerfully:
“Oh, no, Bairamians are great coffee drinkers, aren’t they, Vartouhi? Not coffee as we know it, Frankie, but thick as syrup and very sweet and black. I had to show Vartouhi how to make coffee in the English way.”
Miss Burton thought this a pity but did not say so.
“And one of the traditional duties of the eldest daughter is to prepare her father’s coffee at sunset, isn’t it, Vartouhi?”
Vartouhi smiled and nodded.
“I expect you often used to do that for your father, didn’t you? or perhaps you are not the eldest?” pursued Miss Fielding, who, to tell the truth, loved knowing everything about people and unconsciously used the Brotherhood of Man as a lever for prising their family skeletons out of foreigners’ cupboards.
“I am not the oldest, no. I am the three.”
“The three?” repeated Miss Burton, puzzled.
“She means the third sister, I expect. You have two elder sisters, is that it, Vartouhi? Two older than you?”
Vartouhi nodded. Her expression became if possible even more polite.
“How nice.” Miss Fielding took a piece of cake. “I have only one sister, Joan. She is married and lives in London. Are any of your sisters married?”
Vartouhi nodded.
“Both of them, or only one?” Miss Fielding’s tone was playful, even as the elephant sports with the tree he is tearing down and eating.
“One,” said Vartouhi.
“How nice,” said Miss Fielding again. Miss Burton looked at her with respect. She herself was very interested in these facts about Vartouhi’s family but could never have persevered in the face of such silent, smiling, polite reluctance.
“And has she any children?”
“I have one nice,” said Vartouhi. “I may eat one of those small biscuit, please?”
“What did you say, my dear?” demanded Miss Fielding, startled. “You have one——?”
“One of the small biscuit, please?”
“Yes, of course.” Miss Fielding confusedly held out the plate. Miss Burton was less surprised, for she was fairly sure that it would turn out to be another case of international misunderstanding due to differences in language and the next moment it did, for Miss Fielding suddenly nodded and said vehemently:
“Oh, a niece, a little girl. Your married sister has a little girl and she is your niece (not nice).”
Vartouhi nodded.
“And what is her name?”
“I am not remembering what is her name. Is three year since I am seeing her. Miss Fielding, I go and get more boiling water, I forget it, and now tea is almost cool and here is Mr. Fielding coming for tea.”
She got up and bobbed her curtsy and went quickly out of the room just as Kenneth drove the car past the french windows on the way to the garage, with a wave of his hand for the occupants of the drawing-room as he went by.
“How early Kenneth is! Really, he does less and less at the office every week,” said Miss Fielding discontentedly. Then, lowering her voice, “You noticed? She obviously doesn’t want to talk about her family. That’s quite absurd, saying she didn’t remember her niece’s name.”
“Perhaps her sister lives miles away or something and they didn’t see much of each other,” said Miss Burton, who felt a little ashamed for them both. “I expect she just can’t bear to talk about them. After all, they may all be dead.”
“Nonsense; even if they are, it never does any good to bottle things up. Morbid. Well, Kenneth,” as her brother came into the room smiling and rubbing his hands, “how very early you are! and what weather you’ve brought with you!”