“Yes,” Charley agreed, happy and free.
“There’s something she wanted me to mention, now she’s not here for the moment,” Mrs Grant said.
“Yes?” he prompted, beginning to feel excited.
“It’s about Mr Middlewitch,” the older woman went on. Charley felt let down. “I don’t say I think the world of that man myself, but after all we’re all here to help one another, aren’t we? And now I’ve come to realize what Nancy’s nature is, I can’t believe she’d be mistaken in anyone. She’s so sensitive that she simply learns father’s wants before he has time to realize what they may be. I know. I’ve seen it,” she insisted.
He sat quiet, waiting, and drank in this praise.
“No, it’s only that Mr Middlewitch has lost his job. Some little disagreement at the office, nothing unpleasant I’m sure. He’s told her. Now, if you could put a word in for him, where you work, I’m certain it would make all the difference. You see the control’s speaking of sending him up north. Because he explained to me there’s a young lady he’s interested in. Just now it would break his heart to be moved out of London, with things as they are between the two of them.”
“Who’s the girl?” Charley asked, beginning to dread.
“Well, dear, as father always would say, a confidence is a confidence, it’s sacred, and it’s not for us to break it. Why, I do declare,” she then cried out, delighted, “I believe I can see what’s troubling you. He’s nothing to her. You needn’t think of that again. He even mentioned the name, as a matter of fact. She’s a young lady out in South London. Now, Charley Barley, whatever made you such a goose?”
“Me?” he said. “I didn’t say a word.” He was horrified at what he seemed to have let out.
“You young people,” she commented, peaceably. “So you will, won’t you? That’s settled then.”
He could not be sure what she meant, did not dare ask. She saw the look on his face, and giggled.
“Don’t mind me,” she begged. “I might be your own mother, when all’s said and done. Why not put a word in for him, which is all I’m suggesting? Every day I open the papers I see how short-handed everyone is, and I don’t imagine where you work can be any different. He’s a boy father helped when he first came to London, son of an old business associate I believe. I’m sure Gerald would be ever so grateful if you could. It was for father’s sake Nance asked me to mention him.”
“Can’t rush things. I’ll have to look about me,” Charley promised, intending to do no such thing.
“I can set my mind at rest on that, then,” Mrs Grant announced. “But I won’t breathe a word if you’d rather I didn’t.”
“And how have you been keeping, mother?”
“There, that’s like the old days once more, your calling me mother again,” she said. “Dear, dear, it does bring it all back. You two children sitting in here as bold as brass, just like you were grown up, seeming to dare father and me to come in and disturb you. Many’s the laugh he and I had over it, bless him. But Rose was so wilful, wasn’t she? Of course, it’s true she was an only child. No one could say a thing to her, could they?”
He no longer wanted to hear about Rose. To change the subject he tried to bring things back to health.
“You’re looking very fit,” he said.
She misunderstood his drift.
“You don’t like talking about her, do you?” she gently asked. “Yes, it does come hard at first. You know for a long time after that happened I couldn’t bear it, I had to put the whole thing behind me or lose my reason. Then the doctors gave father some wrong counsel, and he used to keep on to make me remember. Oh, things weren’t easy for me, I’m sure.”
“I came down, d’you recollect?” he said, to get her off Rose.
“I don’t know whether I do or I don’t,” she replied, and he was horrified to find a sudden look of sly cunning begin to spread over her placid face.
“When’s the cat expecting her kittens?” he hastily enquired, proud that he’d thought of it.
She would not meet his eyes. She began looking sideways. Then he was shocked to see that she was covering her mouth with a hand.
“Asking me a lot of questions,” she mumbled.
At that moment Nance came back. She took all this in, at a glance. “He only wanted his bed made more comfortable,” she announced, in a cheerful tone of voice. “Now he’s dozed off into such a nice sleep. And mother, I really do believe you should lie down for a moment, if you’re to sit up with him later.”
“Yes dear,” the older woman agreed. She went out on Nancy’s arm, without saying goodbye to Charley.
“Don’t you go,” Nancy said over her shoulder, in what he took to be a menacing voice, “I’ll have something to say to you, later.”
He sat on, feeling guilty.
When she came back she asked, “Now what have you been saying to her?” but, from the tone she used, she did not seem to be put out. Indeed she appeared to take everything about this house in her stride, and, at the same time, to pump life into it.
“Me? Nothing,” he said.
“You’ve been on about your Rose, I’ll be bound,” she told him, and seemed disinterested. “That’s always liable to bring back one of mother’s turns. And Rose can still do the same with you, you know she can.”
“She can’t,” he protested.
“Tell that to the Japs,” she replied.
“Which is an Arthur Middlewitch expression,” he said, with resentment.
“And why not?” she asked.
“Only that Mrs Grant says, now, you want to find him a job.”
“Don’t let’s argue,” she answered, still quite calm and friendly. “Art’s all right. He’s no more than another lame dog the wrong side of a stile. No, I wasn’t questioning your turning the conversation onto the daughter. It was people’s hearts I blamed, which lead them to do hurt to themselves. I know. I’ve had some.”
“You mean your husband?” he brought out, daring, and as though he had made a wicked discovery. There was a pause. He was careful not to look at her.
“Well, what did your Rose mean to you?” she began, rather wild. “Was she a part of you? Did you wake with her in the morning? Did you know what was in her mind when she was a thousand miles overseas. Oh Phil,” she said, and could not go on.
He felt an absolute criminal.
“Now what’s this?” he weakly protested.
“I’m sorry,” she replied, pulling herself together. “It wasn’t your fault. I started it,” she said. “Tell you what, let’s get out of here for a few minutes. Everyone’s been on edge in this house, lately.”
“What about your work?”
“I’m off on Saturday nights, didn’t you know?”
“But can she manage? I mean, will it be all right?”
“Yes, you needn’t fuss,” she said. “The moment mother hears that bell he has, she’s round his bed, day or night. There’s not much she lets me do, really. It’s everything for her, his being like he is.”
“Are you certain?”
“Oh well, if you don’t want to come. I was only thinking I couldn’t stand this another moment, if I didn’t get a breath of air.”
“If you say it’s O.K.,” he said. It seemed heartless that Mrs Grant should be left alone with the sick man, just when she had been taken up to rest. But he humbly realized he knew very little. And this is just what she proceeded to tell him.
“Don’t look at me with that expression on your face,” she said, very friendly. “You can’t understand about her, never will I expect. Now, don’t go and forget we’re off for a stroll in less than five minutes. It would be like you,” she called back to him, as she went to put on her shoes.