“You’re just stirring it up again, Trixie. You haven’t looked at your card yet. Turn it over.”
Trixie did so, and gave a howl of anguish. “I’m ruined. I’m bankrupt. This isn’t fair. Make repairs on all your houses. I shall have to sell. Give me another drink. I’ve got to think about this one.” She took another mug of sherry and another chocolate.
“I’ll take Mayfair and Park Lane off you at half-price,” I said magnanimously.
“No you won’t. I’m not selling at half-price.”
“You’ve no option.”
“That’s what it is – obtion.” Chummy was obviously thinking deeply, as she gazed into her mug. “Obtion – the course of justice. And it’s an obtion, and you mustn’t do it.”
“There’s no such thing as an obtion.”
“Yes there is, and you mustn’t obtion the justice of the course. I know it. My father told me. Someone he knew obtioned the justice course, and I can’t remember what happened, but it happened.”
“Well thanks for nothing. A lot of help, I’m sure. Look, I’m going to auction these. Does anyone want these priceless properties? I’ll take eighty per cent. You won’t get a better chance. All right then, seventy per cent, I’m not going to sink to half price, I’ll have to do something else.”
At that moment Chummy’s legs got the cramp. They were too long to be kept in a confined space, and with a groan she stretched out, knocking the board for six.
“Well, that’s that,” said Trixie with satisfaction. “I’m the clear winner.”
“No you’re not. You haven’t made repairs to your houses.”
“I don’t have to.”
“Yes you do.”
“Now don’t you two start that again. Help me to clear up the board and the pieces. Chummy doesn’t look as if she’s going to be much help. There’s a drop left in the bottom of this second bottle. Do you want to share it between you? I’ve had enough.”
We did. Cynthia was shaking Chummy.
“Look, this is my bed. You go to your own bed.”
Suddenly Trixie grabbed Cynthia’s arm. “Oh my God! I’ve just had a dreadful thought.”
“What?” we said in chorus.
“Chummy’s on first call tonight.”
“Never! Oh no! What’s to be done?”
The three of us gazed at Chummy stretched full length, smiling sweetly and fast asleep on Cynthia’s bed. We looked at each other, and looked again at the sleeping form.
Cynthia spoke. “I’ll take first call tonight. There’s nothing else for it. Trixie was out last night, so I’ll take it if a call comes in. I’ve had less than you two anyway. We might as well leave Chummy here, and I’ll sleep in her room. We must throw away these bottles and open the windows to let in some fresh air, in case one of the Sisters comes up here tomorrow. Go and open the windows on the landing, at both ends, and in the bathroom. We’ve got to get a good draught blowing through.”
Thankful for Cynthia’s common sense I went to open the windows. The cold air hit me like a pain, and my head began to reel. The window flew out of my grasp and struck the brickwork. Cynthia came up and secured it.
“I’m going to wash these mugs and wash out the bottles too, to get rid of the smell. You had better go to bed. You’ll be on duty at 8 a.m. Don’t listen for the telephone. I’ll take any calls.”
She went to Chummy’s room and I to mine. For several nights I had lain awake, but that night I slept like a baby.
AUNT ANNE
As I entered Sister Monica Joan’s room she glared at me. “I’ll murder that fellow one of these days. You see if I don’t. The dirty old goat!”
Strong language for a reverend Sister. It was intriguing, but I knew from experience that straight questions seldom got straight answers. However, if I entered Sister Monica Joan’s world and, as far as possible, relived it with her, she would often recall whole scenes from long ago. So I said, “He’s always up to something. What is it this time?”
“You’ve seen him at it?”
I nodded, and waited.
“He’s always there. Lah-di-dahing around the factory gates in all his finery – silk shirt, bow tie and gold watch chain. I’ll give him a silk shirt – I’ll strangle him with his silk shirt, the old rascal.”
This was going to be rich. She needed no prompting to continue. “Those poor girls in the shirt-making factories. They are the lowest paid of all the workers, and they work the longest hours, too. There’s a grass bank outside the factory gate – you know the one I mean?” I nodded. “Well, he stands there in all his finery, twirling his moustache, and as the girls come out of the gate he throws coins, mostly copper, some silver, up the bank towards the wall, shouting. ‘Scramble, girls, scramble for it.’ And up the grass the girls go, shouting and pushing and laughing. There might even be a fight to get at a silver sixpence. The dirty old man.”
I was beginning to wonder why such a philanthropic act should provoke such vitriol.
Sister Monica continued even more angrily. “It’s degrading them. Those girls wear no knickers, you know. How can they afford such a luxury? That’s what he’s after, the debauched old satyr. And when they are menstruating they have no protection. The blood just runs down their legs. The smell is supposed to be enticing. I don’t know, perhaps it is. But it’s degrading for those poor girls who scramble for a penny that will buy them a bun or a drop of milk. I can’t bear to see women exploited in that way.”
I finally understood what she was on about. “But women have always been exploited for their sexuality.”
“Yes, I suppose so, and always will be, I fear. And no doubt some of them want to be. I dare say half the girls scrambling up the bank and sliding down with their skirts around their necks know what they are doing. But it pains me to see them degraded.”
She did not continue with her thoughts, but asked me to go and see Mrs B about tea, which I did. When I returned to the room, Sister Monica Joan was not there. The jewels had been uppermost in my mind for days, so quietly I looked into the bedside cabinet. The drawer was empty.
As she had made no reference in the past few days to my earlier discovery, I had assumed that she had forgotten all about it. Perhaps I had fondly imagined that she had forgotten about the jewels. But now I knew she had not forgotten a thing and had taken the precaution of hiding them elsewhere. But where? Had she tucked them into her mattress? She was quite capable of cutting a small hole, stuffing them in and sewing it up neatly. No one would ever know.
Trixie’s image of a crafty old vixen came to mind. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she was piling up wealth for some hidden purpose of her own. But at the age of ninety? It was hardly likely.
She swept back into the room in high spirits. No remorse, no shame that she had been caught stealing, no fear of future discoveries. Perhaps she had hidden them in the lavatory cistern or behind the bath.
Her opening comment was, as usual, quite baffling. “Twenty-seven dinner services, each with ninety-six pieces. I ask you, my dear, what sensible family could possibly need twenty-seven dinner services?”
Such a question requires a little thought before it can be answered.
Whilst I hesitated, she continued, “And fourteen sets of silver-plated cutlery. Would you believe it, every single piece, every fish fork or sugar tong, had to be counted and checked before it could be put away. Have you ever heard such nonsense? And they thought I would be content to spend my life counting fish forks.”
I was beginning to understand. One had to get used to following sideways the many strands of Sister Monica Joan’s thoughts. Perhaps the dinner services and the fish forks related to her family and her girlhood in the 1870s and 80s.