At the Slipper House he kissed Pearl on arrival, and after her account of the recent happenings kissed her again. What happened after that surprised them both. It was less than satisfactory because of Emma’s lack of competence and Pearl’s determination not to risk pregnancy. It was momentous, however, and left them both a little dazed.
Emma, sitting below her on the stairs, said, ‘Perhaps Hattie will come tomorrow.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’ll have gone tomorrow.’
‘Then she’ll write.’
‘No. And even if she writes - it will already be too late.’
Pearl had of course not told Emma about her own feelings for John Robert or what she surmised of his for Hattie.
‘I can’t see why you think so. All right. John Robert said your job was at an end and said all those disobliging things, but he may change his mind after he’s calmed down and talked to Hattie. He can’t stop her from seeing you. And your relation with her is bound to change as she grows up anyway.’
‘I can’t be … related to Hattie … in any other way,’ said Pearl. This awful idea had only just occurred to her.
‘Why? I think that is nonsense. You think John Robert has really turned her against you?’
‘Even if he can’t persuade her that I’m a horrible person, he will have told her that she doesn’t need a maid any more, and that I am - just that.’
‘But she won’t think so!’
‘Oh - she - I don’t know, I don’t know.’ And Pearl began to cry. She had not cried all day. She put her head against the wall and cried into the wallpaper.
‘Oh don’t, don’t !’ said Emma. He knelt on the stairs and tried to put his arms round her, but she thrust him away. He said, ‘With Hattie - I feel sure - there isn’t any “too late”. Don’t cry. God, I wish there was something to drink in the house. Let’s go out to the Albert. Damn, it’ll be closed.’
‘You’d better go,’ said Pearl. She mopped her eyes on the hem of her dress.
‘Why can’t I stay?’
‘No.’
‘I want to be with you tomorrow. I’ll come back.’
‘Better not, whatever’s left for me - it’s in waiting alone.’
‘Yes - I see. But this, between us, is something.’
‘Oh, something. Anything is something.’
‘Well, you can’t make it nothing. I appear to have entered your life.’
‘There’s no such place. You’re just interested in this business.’
‘Well, it’s your business. I’m interested like in your green eyes.’
‘Don’t let’s have a stupid conversation. We aren’t anything to each other and can’t be.’
‘Why not, for heaven’s sake, because of class?’
‘Don’t be silly!’
‘Pearl, don’t be destructive, let’s just see.’
‘You’re in love with Tom McCaffrey.’
‘Well, maybe, but that’s just personal, subjective. I feel love for you.’
‘You don’t say you love me.’
‘I’m being curiously precise. I am grateful to you. And I do love you. And you are awfully interesting. And I want to protect you from all pains and terrors.’
Pearl, who had been staring down into the hall, turned and looked at him. He had resumed his narrow rimless glasses which enlarged his eyes. His hair, still damp and darkened, streaked away down into the disordered collar of his shirt.
‘Don’t look so mournful, girl.’
‘Was that you singing that night?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought it was. You have such a strange high voice - but beautiful.’
‘Yes. But what about us.’
‘I think I can only love my own sex. Like you. Not that anything has ever come of it.’
‘Do you love her - Hattie - like that?’
‘No. Hattie’s special. And what’s “like that” anyway? Everyone’s special.’
‘Exactly. Do you still want me to go?’
‘Yes.’
‘We won’t lose each other?’
‘I suppose not. I don’t know.’
Ten minutes later Emma had left the house. But he did not go to Travancore Avenue. He spent the night in the Ennistone Royal Hotel and returned to London early on Saturday morning.
What Brian McCaffrey later called ‘the family court-martial of George’ came about by accident.
The funeral of William Eastcote took place late on Saturday afternoon. There is a Quaker graveyard, a touching ‘dormitory’ with low uniformly patterned headstones, next to the Meeting House, but this was filled up in the last century, and the old Quaker families now bury their dead with the rest of us in the municipal graveyard adjacent to St Olaf’s Church in Burkestown. The coffin was taken there privately on Saturday morning, and shortly before the burial the Friends gathered in the little all-purpose chapel to conduct their ‘funeral meeting’ which on such occasions, according to Quaker custom, is the same in form as the ordinary Sunday meetings. The gathering was not large. All the Ennistone Friends were there, and a few others including Milton Eastcote. No one was moved to speak. Any eulogy of the deceased was felt to be unnecessary and out of place. Many people wept quietly in the silence. The coffin was then carried to the grave by Percy Bowcock, Robin Osmore, Dr Roach, Nicky Roach, Nathaniel Romage and Milton Eastcote. As the Gazette put it, ‘Bill the Lizard was mourned by everyone in Ennistone.’ Certainly the universal respect and affection in which he was held was evidenced by the arrival at the scene of nearly two thousand people who stood in the graveyard and upon the grass slopes above it (beyond which is the railway). This crowd stood in complete and impressive silence through the duration (almost half an hour) of the meeting, and only pushed forward a little during the interment. Afterwards, and quite spontaneously (it is not known who started it) this large crowd sang Jerusalem, a favourite of William’s and a song which, for some reason, everyone in Ennistone knows. On this moving and memorable occasion I (N) was present. Also present were Alex, Brian, Gabriel, Tom and Adam McCaffrey and Ruby. There was a sensation when George was seen in the crowd accompanied by Diane Sedleigh: this was the first recorded occasion of George being seen in public with his mistress. There was a rumour that Stella McCaffrey, in disguise, had also been seen, but this was false.
After the burial, and the spectacle, judged touchingly appropriate by her fellow citizens, of Anthea’s tears at the graveside, the mourners dispersed, some to go to the Institute, others to proceed to various public houses, there to reminisce about the good deeds of the deceased, and also to discuss the will, details of which had been broadcast by one of Robin Osmore’s clerks who had joined the considerable contingent who had repaired to the Green Man which was close by. William had left numerous bequests to friends and relations and to national and local charities. The Meeting House received a legacy ‘for maintaining the fabric’ large enough to dispel Nathaniel Romage’s anxiety for some time to come. Monies also went to the wasteland community centre, the Asian Centre, the Boys’ Club, the Salvation Army, and various other good causes and hard cases. However, a large slice of the cake, including the fine house in The Crescent, went to Anthea Eastcote; and for this partiality, the virtuous departed was soon being criticized by those who, while sincerely admiring him, were getting a little tired of hearing him praised.
The McCaffrey contingent, who were (except for George) standing together, were all in different ways deeply grieved at the death of one whom they had always regarded as ‘an example of goodness’ and ‘a place of healing’. Tom and Alex both privately wished that it had occurred to them to expose some of their recent troubles to William. Brian thought he ought to have consulted William about what to do should he lose his job. Gabriel felt that a silent guarantor of the reality of goodness had been taken away from her vulnerable world. She loved William very much and now wondered why she had never seemed to have time to see him. Adam regretted that because of a cricket match he had refused an invitation to tea at 34 The Crescent. In spite of their grief, the various McCaffreys shared that curious energy, almost a kind of elation, which survivors, if not too terribly bereaved, feel after a funeral. So that when Alex suggested that they should all go and swim, and then come back to Belmont and have a drink, this seemed a good idea, and it turned out that they had all, in anticipation of just this period after the solemnity, brought their swimming costumes.