The first day at Greenway House
Malcolm took the back stairs down but didn’t like to do it. The back stairs were narrow and dim, and he and Joan weren’t the servants. They were guests in the house, weren’t they? Or if not guests, then the tenants, like a holiday let.
Never mind this do-gooding, this volunteering. They’d rented for the year in advance and the Mallowans should be happy for the income in times like these. Might be longer than a year if necessary, blasted war. There was no telling, no telling at all, how long they’d have to stay.
He should have the use of the proper stairs if he wanted them.
Toward the front of the house, a little daylight came in around a blackout shade pulled up. Lovely light, that. The shade open—did that mean the household was awake? He had hoped to have a look around early, before anyone could stop him, but the racket on the top floor had kept him from a good night’s rest. Children wailing, footsteps all hours.
They couldn’t stop him from looking around the place he lived now, could they?
He shuffled in his slippers toward forbidden fruit, past the gong and into the entrance hall.
He’d rather have stayed on at home, truth be told. They had a lovely house let on Jersey, but of course there was no denying it was a dangerous place, in German control now. This was technically their second evacuation, but he’d had no intention of becoming a prisoner of war, even in the comfort of his own drawing room. The other place, the chateau Joan’s children preferred in the Antibes, was entirely out of reach now that France had fallen. Who knew what shape it might be in when they got into it again? The pile in Scotland would have been best, but it had gone to Joan’s first husband’s children with his first wife. Well, it was enough to keep a man up at night, thinking of all the landholdings just out of his reach.
Malcolm pulled back the shade. An open, rolling hill led down to the river, trees all around. A nice patch that Mallowan fellow had got for himself. Only six thousand pounds of his wife’s money, he’d heard. One always had friends in common. If he’d had a chance at it for six thousand pounds, he’d have snatched it up, made a bloody palace of it. He looked around. He’d take down the dour-faced portraits, first thing.
He supposed he would never own a house like this. Or own one at all; he was at Joan’s mercy. The money George left her was running out, she said. But Malcolm wondered what they were saving it for. Money wanted to be spent.
The first room near the door was a parlor of sorts, good simple bones, wainscot and built-in shelving, a nice fireplace mantel—but enough bits and bobs sitting all about to make a secondhand shop. Plates and saucers and little porcelain things people went in for, frowsy little tables everywhere he turned. He went in, picking up a piece and turning it over now and again, weighing things, pricing them. The children must be kept out of this area completely, and now he thought of it, they should put away anything the Mallowan chap had dug up in the desert straightaway. Malcolm wouldn’t pay for any pagan idols these children broke, no.
He followed the carpets, a bit worn in places, to the next room and found a drawing room, homely and well-used. Now this was a fireplace. It was cold, but Malcolm could imagine the evenings spent here. Would they, though? These Mallowans, so called—he knew who they were—had the gall to restrict them to certain parts of the house. If he’d known that to be the arrangement, he would have had Joan talk them down in price.
The restrictions were for the children, surely—their grubby, grabby hands. He had two grown children, aside from Joan’s lot. He knew what children were about, and he didn’t need this litter of brats from London to remind him he was glad those years were long past.
He and Joan might have spent the war years holed up in Coventry or Wales, some sleepy place away from London, but not so far as this. Painting, writing letters, reading, the two of them. If they desired proper society, they could have had it on their own terms. But Joan wanted her war nursery. They should volunteer, she said, get the rent paid for with war funds if they had to evacuate the Channel Islands. They should have a safe place to tuck away that her children might come to, she said. He wondered, though. Did she want to feel needed now hers were grown? Was it only a chance to cuddle and coo for want of a grandchild?
He opened one of the window shutters to have a better look around the room. Nice, this. Comfortable sort of place, room to put your feet up. If only he had a cup of tea and something sweet, this would suit him down to the ground.
A newspaper lay on the floor near the fireplace. “Ha,” he said, pouncing. He could pay for a newspaper, of course, and no one had better suggest otherwise, but it was the luck of the thing, the happenstance. If he paid for a newspaper then of course he would have it, but if he found a newspaper, it was a matter of coincidence what all he might discover and know.
He chose a seat and gazed for a moment at the white light in the window. He should ask Joan where his easel had got to and take it out this afternoon, though he supposed the children might require some attention to get settled in. Those nurses should be the ones to see to the children’s needs, or what were they hired for? Free room and board, too, and escape from living situations Malcolm could only imagine to be dire. His mind drifted, thinking of the dark-haired one. Flashing eyes. Something pagan there, as well.
His luck held out: the newspaper was from that week. The photograph reproductions were astonishingly poor, and many of the top headlines were the same as the paper he’d cadged on the train down the day before.
His attention drifted back to the window.
He woke to a clang. “What is it?” The paper lay on the carpets.
“Sorry, sir.” A young woman with a humorless sort of face squatted in the hearth with a metal pail of ashes at her feet. “I was trying to be quiet.”
“I don’t see that you were successful, young lady. Who are you?”
“The daily, sir. Edith.”
“Might you find a cup of tea for me, Edith?”
She looked at the pail miserably. “Yes, sir.”
He needed the toilet but now that he had tea coming, he sat impatiently, making plans for the day. He should have asked what was warm in the kitchen.
When the tea arrived, the cup was on a proper tray, carried by the butler.
Malcolm coughed into his hand. “I didn’t mean to bother you with it, Scarsdale.”
“Scaldwell, sir. I’m sure the mistress won’t mind you taking your refreshment here this morning, until you get your bearings. Sir.”
Arbuthnot heard what was meant. “Very good, very good.” They couldn’t be kept to the service quarters entirely, could they? Around the clock? He would have a word to this Mrs. Mallowan, if he had to. He might make a little trouble. If he had to. “A good position for you here, is it?”
“I find it so. Milk and sugar?”
Malcolm noticed he’d dropped the sir. “Better than a stick in the eye. Yes, milk and sugar.”
“Better indeed. One lump?”
“Two.” He ignored Scaldwell’s blinking face. He liked his pleasures, and he’d be damned if he gave them up. These Mallowans could afford a few fripperies from the looks of things. Yes, he knew what she was about. Fascinating the low sort of thing one might do for money, if one had to. “What time is madam awake in the morning?”
“She’ll be awake now, working.”
“Ah, she does that here, does she?” Tea was handed over. A shade dark to his liking. He could have poured his own milk, but the tray was out of reach now. On purpose.
“Her work? Sometimes. Her correspondence, of course. Contracts and proofs and such.”
“Look, Scallwell, you’re just the man I need to ask. It’s good you came along. I’ll need to set up somewhere in good light. I’m a painter, as I mentioned last night.”
“You’ll find exquisite light out on the hill over the river. Or if you like a hike—”
“I’m not one of those plain air types, chap.”
“Is it some kind of studio you want? Perhaps the stables. Mrs. Arbuthnot can bring it up with the mistress when she meets with her.”
“I could have a word myself,” Malcolm said.
“She’ll request you if she’d like to see you,” the butler said. “She keeps her own schedule—”
“Now, see here—”
“—as these days her secretary works in a munitions plant.” Scaldwell said this with a mix of wonder and distaste. “You’ll find your breakfast served in your sitting room at the proper time. Perhaps you could take yourself upstairs? Before the ladies of the house come down? Sir?”
Malcolm’s outrage dropped away. He was sitting in his dressing gown and slippers—like an old man, puttering about, senseless. Thank God the Mallowans hadn’t wandered in yet, the daughter, if she was at home. A telephone started to ring somewhere in the house. He dug himself out of the low couch, Scaldwell diving for the teacup as though he couldn’t be trusted with it.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He went quietly from there, passing only the daily maid, who waited outside the room for him to go.
He was nearly to the stairs—the service stairs, better not to run into anyone—when the butler caught up. “There’s a call for Mrs. Arbuthnot.”
“She’s asleep,” Malcolm grumbled. “Might you take a message? Here, I’ll see to it.”
The mouthpiece lay on a table in the entrance. It was a noisy connection. “Malcolm Arbuthnot here.”
A tin voice, a woman’s, came from far away. A trunk call, but then he wouldn’t have expected to hear from anyone locally. “I’d rather talk with Mrs. Arbuthnot if I may. It’s only that I owe her an apology—”
The connection was really rather bad, like the tide rushing up on the shore and some knocking as well.
“She’s indisposed, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Only I owe her an apology, you see,” the young woman said. “And if she still wanted me, I could be on my way this morning.”
“Wanted you for what?”
“I’m a nurse, sir.”
How many nurses should they have to feed and pay? “We’ve got a full docket of nurses at the moment, but I can have Mrs. Arbuthnot call around if we should need another.”
Malcolm could feel the presence of Scaldwell, waiting behind him to be finished. It didn’t cost anything to accept a long-distance call. Did it?
“Only I owe her—”
“An apology, yes, you said. I’ll pass it along,” Malcolm said. “Thank you for calling. I’ll let her know.”
After he hung up, he realized he had not taken the caller’s name. Scaldwell gestured to draw him toward the back corridor and held out the teacup. It would be cold now, but he would protect it with his life to prove this fellow wrong.
And next time, he would get hold of the milk and pour it himself.
As he climbed the stairs, Malcolm selected a few sentiments to share with Joan about the so-called butler. He chose the words carefully and let everything else fall from his mind.