(5/20)Over the Gate Page 7

  I began to laugh.

  'Well, there was that neighbour of yours who was in a constant state of inebriation and wanted someone to keep him from drinking—'

  'You can't count him,' said Amy firmly. 'He asked everyone.'

  'I can't think of anyone else at the moment,' I said.

  'I can tell you one thing,' said Amy, 'if you take up this attitude, and refuse to mae the Best of Yourself, then you are doomed to be an old maid.'

  'Suits me,' I said comfortably. 'Have some more tea.'

  Amy stirred her second cup thoughtfully.

  'There's still time,' she assured me. 'Look at Elsie Parker. Blundell, I mean. She's managed it.'

  'Blundell?' I queried. 'Not the Blundells who are moving to Fairacre?'

  Amy looked interested, and ceased stirring.

  'It's quite likely,' she said slowly. 'They are having a pair of cottages knocked into one house somewhere or other.'

  'It's here,' I assured her feelingly, 'I should know. The children spend most of their time watching the workmen. It was Mrs Pringle who mentioned the name Blundell, only this afternoon.'

  'That must be Elsie,' said Amy, 'and her newly-caught husband. Well, well, well! So they're settling in Fairacre!'

  Amy produced a beautiful powder box, a present from James after a week away, powdered her nose, and settled back in her chair.

  'Well, go on,' I urged. 'Tell me about my neighbours to be!'

  And, smiling indulgently, Amy began.

  It was generally agreed, in the little village of Bent, that Elsie Parker was an uncommonly pretty girl. She was the only child born to Roger and Lily Parker a year or two after the First World War. Her father returned from his arduous, if undistinguished, duties as an army baker to start afresh as part-owner of a small general store on the southern outskirts of Caxley.

  At first, he cycled the few miles to work on a venerable bicycle, but as the business prospered he changed to a small second-hand van with which he began to build up a modest delivery round. People liked Roger Parker. He was hardworking, honest and utterly reliable. If he said that he would bring the pickles in time for Monday's cold lunch, then you could be quite sure that the jar would be with you before the potatoes had come to the boil. He deserved to prosper, and he did.

  By the time Elsie was six, the shabby delivery van had been changed for two larger new ones which spent the day touring the district and the night safely locked up in the new shed at the rear of the general stores. Roger now owned a bull-nosed Morris tourer which he drove to work each morning. At the weekends he polished it lovingly and then took his wife and pretty little daughter for a drive.

  Elsie was the apple of her parents' eyes. She had a mop of yellow curls, lively blue eyes with exquisitely long curling lashes, and a smile that disarmed even the most curmudgeonly. Needless to say, she was the belle of the infants' class at Bent village school and was accompanied to and from that establishment by a bevy of small admirers.

  Her first proposal of marriage came when she was seven. It came from the shabbiest of her escorts, whose nose was constantly wet, despite a rag pinned to his dirty jersey, and whose attentions had long been deplored by Mrs Parker. Elsie turned him down promptly, but gave him one of her heart-turning smiles as she did so, for she was a kind child.

  It was an experience which was to occur many times in the future, and as time went on Elsie was to learn many refinements in the art of rejecting a suitor. But, as a first attempt and for one of such tender years, the present rejection was commendable—a blend of firmness and gentleness, lit by a certain light-hearted awareness of an honour received, which many an older maiden could not have bettered. The young man ran ahead to school, and after shedding a few hot tears in the blessed privacy of the boys' lavatory, recovered his good spirits and continued to accompany his goddess as before—without hope, certainly, but also without rancour.

  Hard on the heels of this proposal came another, from an urchin almost as disreputable as the first. He too was turned down, and in an unguarded moment Elsie mentioned both incidents to her mother. She was much distressed.

  'I can't think why such dirty boys like you!' exclaimed poor genteel Mrs Parker. 'You mustn't encourage them, Elsie. It won't do! It really won't do at all!'

  If Mrs Parker had been capable of giving the situation a moment's clear thought she would have realised that it was the very difference in her daughter's appearance and nature which acted as a magnet to the rough rumbustious boys. Those glossy curls, the freshly-starched voiles and the enchanting scent of Erasmic soap created a being of such sweet cleanliness that she was well-nigh irresistible to the lesser washed.

  'Why don't you play with some of the other boys?' asked Mrs Parker. 'There's Jimmy Bassett and Stanley Roberts,' she went on, naming the firstborn at the flourishing new garage on the main road to Caxley, and the vicar's son who would be going on to his preparatory school next term. Mrs Parker had a nice regard for the social ladder.

  'Jimmy lisps,' said Miss Parker, speaking truly. 'And Stanley Roberts dropped a dead rat in old Mrs Turner's well last week,'

  'Stanley did?' exclaimed Mrs Parker, much shocked. 'The vicar's son? A dead rat?'

  'Mrs Turner's chapel,' explained Elsie succinctly.

  The matter was dropped.

  At the age often Elsie was taken from the village school and travelled daily into Caxley to attend a larger establishment run by some charming and hard-working nuns. She wore a cornflower blue uniform which enhanced the beauty of her colouring and very soon the schoolboys who travelled on the bus with her were jostling for the place beside her. Elsie treated them with happy impartiality, bestowing conversation, smiles and sympathy upon whichever escort had been lucky enough -or rough enough—to gain the seat next to her.

  On more than one occasion during her time at the convent school Elsie was drawn quietly aside by one of the sisters and given a few words of mild reproof. It was not fitting, she was told, to be seen at the centre of a crowd of the opposite sex day after day. It gave the school a bad name. She was advised to be polite but distant, kind but not too kind. Dreadful dangers, it was hinted, could attend too great an interest in the male sex.

  It was all rather hard on Elsie. She did not encourage the young men, they simply gravitated towards her as wasps to a sun-ripe pear. Her father, made aware of his daughter's attractions by a dulcet word or two from Sister Teresa, decided to take Elsie to school with him in the car and collect her again in the afternoon. But this state of affairs did not last long. It was most inconvenient for Roger to leave the business. Sometimes lacrosse or tennis kept Elsie late, sometimes a half-holiday meant that she was out early. Gradually the arrangement fell through, and Elsie returned to the bus and the adoration of her swains.

  At seventeen, still unscathed by love, Elsie left school and began training to be a nurse. She was at a hospital in London but spent as many week-ends as possible at Bent. By now Roger was what is known in the north as 'a warm man.' A wing had been built on to the small four-square house where Elsie had been born, and a field next door had been acquired to ensure future privacy. Roger, who as a young man had voted Liberal, bought his ready-made suits from a Caxley outfitters, and enjoyed mustard with mutton, now helped himself to mint sauce instead, had his suits made in London, and voted Conservative. He worked, if anything, harder than ever, was much respected in Caxley, and continued to give the same never-failing service which had built up the business.

  Mrs Parker, too, rose with her husband. Her hopes were centred on Elsie with more concentration than ever before. In London, she felt sure, there must be many eligible bachelors. Elsie could have whomsoever she wanted, of that she was positive, for she was now at her most beautiful and the stimulation of work and life in London had given her added gaiety and poise. At week-ends Mrs Parker combed the neighbourhood for likely young men, and the field next door was transformed into a tennis court, set about with the very latest garden chairs and a dashing swing seat with a canopy
and cushions covered in wistaria-entwined cretonne. Delicious snacks were eaten in the gnat-humming twilight, laughter set the tall lemonade glasses tinkling and die young men feasted their eyes on Elsie Parker, cool, adorable and completely untouched by love.

  Of course, it was inevitable that when Elsie fell in love the affair would be disastrous. As might be expected, Elsie's heart was first touched by a married man. He was a doctor who visited the hospital, an unremarkable man, running to fat, and so swarthy that he needed to shave twice a day. He had occasion to speak to Elsie, now and again, and had no idea of the emotion which he unwittingly aroused. His presence alone affected Elsie. Her legs trembled, her hands shook, her throat grew dry and her head grew dizzy. She found it almost impossible to take in his orders.

  'That Nurse Parker,' the doctor commented to one of his colleagues, 'is practically an imbecile. Talk about a dumb blonde!'

  'It's love,' said the other laconically. He was sharper-eyed than most.

  'Rubbish!' snorted Elsie's hero, and dismissed the whole conversation from his mind. He had a perfectly good wife, four children, a house with a mortgage, and no intention of getting entangled with a silly chit of a nurse, even if she was as handsome as Nurse Parker.

  Elsie's love grew as the months went by, although it was given no encouragement. At week-ends her mother noted the abstracted air, the paler cheek, the slight, but becoming, loss of weight. She longed to be taken into her daughter's confidence, relishing her role as understanding mother, but Elsie said nothing. In an earnest desire to cheer the girl Mrs Parker began to plan a small party for her nineteenth birthday.

  'Oh, mum!' protested Elsie, when the project was broached. 'Let's skip my birthday this year. Honestly, I just don't feel like a lot of fuss.'

  'You'll thoroughly enjoy it,' said Mrs Parker firmly. 'You've been moping long enough—about what I can't say, though I can guess—and, it's time you pulled yourself together. I'll make all the arrangements.'

  'I'd much rather you did nothing,' replied Elsie shortly. She had no energy or time for anything else but her preoccupation with the adored. Her mother, however, was undeterred. Invitations went out, food and drink were ordered, the local dressmaker was summoned to take Mrs Parker's ever-increasing measurements, and one Saturday night in June was appointed as the time of celebration. Scarcely aware of what was happening, Elsie acquiesced listlessly in the plans.

  Work at the hospital seemed doubly hard in the warm weather. There was too, an air of profound disquiet hanging over the whole nation, for this was 1939 and the threat of world war came closer daily.

  On the day before Elsie's birthday party the weather was close and thundery. Patients complained in their hot crumpled beds, nurses' tempers were short and the doctors' were even shorter. Shortest of all, it seemed, was the temper of Elsie's beloved. He was a sorely tried man. One of his children had mumps, his wife was prostrated with a migraine which could well last a week, his mother-in-law, whom he detested, was advancing plans to make her permanent home with theirs, the cat had been sick in full and revolting view of the breakfast table, and he had had considerable difficulty in starting his car that morning.

  On arrival at the hospital he found that one of his cases in the men's surgical ward had developed alarming complications, and it was this that Elsie overheard him discussing with the sister on duty. Elsie was busy sluicing rubber sheets but could hear the beloved voice above the splashing of the water.

  'Keep a nurse by him for the next hour,' he was saying, his words clipped with anxiety. Sister's reply was inaudible.

  'Anyone you like,' responded the doctor. 'Anyone but Nurse Parker. She gets worse as she goes on.'

  Elsie dropped the sheet she was washing and ducked her head as though she had received a physical blow. She felt stunned with shock. As from a great distance, she surveyed her submerged hands resting on the bottom of the deep sink. The clear cold water acted as a magnifying glass, and every hair and pore looked gigantic. Elsie observed the tiny bubbles on the fleshy part of her thumb, uncannily like the seed pearls her father had given her on her confirmation day.

  Her mind seemed to dwell, with unusual clarity, on many things long forgotten. The terrible words, uttered a second before, and all that they implied, had as yet no real meaning for her. She remembered the beads of sweat on the hairy upper hp of one of her sixth-form admirers whom she had not met, or thought of, for years. She remembered bright hundreds and thousands, scattered on plates of junket, which she used to love as a child. She dwelt with compulsive intensity on the visual memory of a spider's web spangled with drops of dew. And all the time her gaze was fixed upon the tiny bubbles clustering on her thumb.

  She was roused from her trance by the sound of sister returning. All that day she went automatically about her duties, oblivious of the world about her. Late that night, lying straight and cold in her bed at the nurses' hostel, the tears began to flow, running down the side of her temple and dripping silently into the pillow. She wept noiselessly at first, and then, as the treachery and cruelty of those dreadful words began to burn into her, the paroxysm increased in intensity until she was choking with tears, her head throbbing and her chest aching with pain.

  When dawn came she was red-eyed, swollen-faced and in a state of complete exhaustion.

  'A cold,' she told her fellow nurses. 'I'm going home this afternoon anyway. I'll get over it during the week-end.' She was reported sick, took the two aspirins handed to her, and fell to weeping again. In the early afternoon she rose, dressed, packed her case and went to the station. She felt like a very frail old lady just recovering from a serious illness.

  The sight that met her eyes on her return home brought her almost to a state of collapse. In the long room of the new wing she found her mother. The blonde parquet floor, the pride of Mrs Parker's heart, was stripped of its rugs and shone with much polishing. Against the wall stood tables already dressed in virgin-white cloths. Flowers were banked on window sills, lamps were wreathed with garlands. The room awaited young company, music, laughter and, above all, the gay presence of the daughter of the house.

  Elsie put down her case very carefully. She felt that she might overbalance or even faint dead away. Her mother looked at her with a smile. She seemed not to notice anything amiss. Her mind was too occupied with ices, cherry sticks, blanched almonds and wine glasses to register much else.

  'I'm ill,' announced Elsie. Her voice seemed to sound a long way off. She tried again, intent on making herself understood.

  'I'm not well,' she said a little louder. 'I can't be at the party.'

  'Elsie!' breathed Mrs Parker incredulously. She advanced towards her, her poor face working. 'Can't come to the party? But, Elsie, you must—you simply must!'

  She gave a small despairing gesture with one hand indicating the preparations. Elsie leant against the wall and closed her eyes. Inside her eyelids was imprinted the face of the man she loved. She studied it intently. Her mother was speaking again. Now her voice was firmer, her resolution returning.

  'A nice lay-down,' she was saying. 'Slip under the eiderdown for an hour or two. I'll bring you up your tea and an Aspro. You'll soon be as right as ninepence.'

  As if in a dream, Elsie found herself being propelled upstairs, her clothes removed, and her unprotesting body thrust into her bed. Still concentrating on her beloved's swarthy face she dropped instantly into a heavy sleep.

  Her mother roused her at seven. The anxiety in Mrs Parker's face brought all Elsie's misery flooding back. She longed to turn away and abandon herself again to grief, but her mother, she knew, could not be disappointed. She rose and dressed, automatically making-up that lovely face which seemed recovered from its earlier ravages, and going at last to take her place in the hall to welcome her guests. She felt as though some part of her had died, and that she dragged it with her, a cold heavy weight, draining strength from her.

  To outward appearances she seemed much as usual, lovely, smiling and as desirable as ever. Halfway thro
ugh the evening, the vicar's son engineered a trip into the garden with his hostess, and there poured out his heart whilst offering his dank hand. With all her habitual skill Elsie extricated herself and contrived to leave the young man tolerably resigned. During the last waltz, she received her second proposal of the evening, but was cool-headed enough to realise that claret-cup had enflamed this suitor as much as her own looks. He was thanked, refused and mollified, all within the time it took to dance from the French windows to the dining table. Grief, it seemed, had not dulled either Elsie's wits or her attractions.

  She returned to work, her passion still raging. Elsie thought bitterly that those who say that unrequited love soon dies know very little of the matter. In the face of her beloved's impatience, and even dislike, despite the torturing memory of those chance-heard words, Elsie adored him more as the weeks went by. It was enough to walk the same corridors, to touch the same door-handles, to read the same hospital notices. When, on September the third, war was declared and a week later she heard that he had gone into the R.A.F. and was to be posted almost immediately as medical officer to a windswept station in Scotland, she felt that she could not live without his presence.

  But work, with all its blessed urgency, drove complete despair away. There were patients to be evacuated, wards to reorganise and a hundred and one matters to attend to. Only at night, before she fell asleep, did Elsie have any time to mourn her beloved, and then the pain was almost more than she could bear.

  On Christmas Eve she heard terrible news. The doctor and two other officers had been killed in a car accident as they returned to the station late one foggy night. After the first few days of shock and grief, an extraordinary change came over Elsie. It was as though released, at last, from the bondage of her infatuation, she found freedom. It was over. Nothing could hurt him now, and nothing could hurt Elsie for that reason. She could look around, begin to live again, welcome kindness, affection and admiration and, perhaps, one day, return it.