“He wants a lift, I suppose,” Mr. Waite grumbled, “a silly thing to do, stopping me like that, I nearly went over him,” leaning forward to open the door, “can you make room there, Mrs.—er—? (not so much noise, kiddies, please!).”
“It’s my husband!” Alda said joyfully. “What a lovely ‘Christmas present for the March family’!”
By this time Mr. Waite (muttering that how they would fit him in he did not know) had got the door open, and was calling:
“Can we give you a lift?”
“Thanks very much; awfully good of you. Are you going anywhere near Naylor’s Farm?” answered Ronald, stepping forward, and then Alda, shielding Meg from the inrush of cold air, called out:
“Hullo, darling! It’s us.”
Louise and Jenny were leaning as far across the luckless Mr. Waite as they could get in order to greet their father and the former, having grasped the situation, was fussily moving tins and the folding pram and sacks about in order to make some room. Ronald’s exclamation of surprised pleasure was drowned in introductions, apologies, explanations and thanks, and some minutes elapsed while he was climbing into the car and crushing himself and his bundles down beside Alda, bringing the scent of snow and night freshness upon his rough coat.
“However did you manage it, lovey? We’d given up hope,” she said, clasping his hand as the car started again.
“I hadn’t, Father. I still thought you’d come,” said Louise.
“I’ve got something lovely for you, Father,” said Jenny.
“Good. So have I for you. From Belgium.”
“Oh Father! For us both?”
“One for each of you! Is that Meg in there?” peering at the bundle in Alda’s coat. “What’s the matter?” and his voice changed. “Isn’t she well?”
Alda explained, already feeling less anxious because of the comfort of his presence, and his daughters knelt on the seat with their backs to Mr. Waite in order to join in the conversation, while the latter morosely drove on, wondering how long the springs would stand the weight of six people, a folding perambulator, eight sacks of balancer meal, four large tins of cod liver oil and luggage crammed with rubbish from Belgium.
Presently he stopped the car, and roused them with slightly sarcastic politeness from their family conversation by announcing that they had arrived at the gap in the hedge leading to Pine Cottage.
“Oh, thank you so much,” said Alda, hastily preparing to climb out, “I hope we haven’t brought you out of your way? (Come along children, hurry up.)” Ronald was taking out his luggage and putting it down in the snowy road.
“I shall have to turn her round and go back, my turning is just down the road, but it isn’t far,” said Mr. Waite. “Glad I could be of any assistance. I hope the little kiddy will be better to-morrow. Good night. Good night, kiddies—a Merry Christmas,” and he disappeared into the darkness, which was less than total because of the widespread gleam from the snow and (for the clouds had now rolled eastwards and away) the brilliant starlight.
“Kiddies are baby goats. We aren’t,” said Jenny in a quiet, impertinent undertone to her sister.
“Kind hearts are more than coronets
And simple faith than Norman blood,”
quoted her father, pulling her hair. “Can you manage Meg, darling?” (to Alda) “I must have both hands for these cases and the pram.”
“Let me help, Father.”
“No, let go, Weez—I mean it—they’re very heavy. You can walk with me and tell me all the news.”
Faint unearthly light and a deep hush lay over the fields; when a star glided out now and then from behind the scudding brown clouds its bright eye entered the scene as if alive and watching them, and the snow sparkling and crinching underfoot in the torch-rays seemed protesting as if aroused from cold, light sleep. Suddenly bells began to peal, faintly and far away; another tower in the night took up the sound; then Saint Wilfred’s three miles off, and soon the air was filled with it. Strange, wild, rejoicing sound! untamed yet familiar, having nothing to do with any peace except that peace which comes after unimaginable struggle and passeth understanding, clanging and ringing out over the darkened earth to remind it of the unbelievable truth.
“How lovely,” said Alda, pausing for a moment and clasping Meg closer as she lifted her face to the starlit sky. “Of course—I’d forgotten—it’s Christmas Eve.”
Then, as the cottage came in sight, she exclaimed in astonishment: “Oh—look, the lights are on! Someone’s there!”
“It must be Jean, Mother,” said Louise, dismayed. “Oh dear, and now father’s here and we did want him to ourselves, what a nuisance.”
“She is tiresome,” said Alda, tired, worried about Meg, and now really annoyed at the prospect of a spoiled Christmas. “I suppose she thought from my letter that there wasn’t the faintest chance of your coming,” to Ronald. “I’ve a good mind to send her packing off home again.”
Before he could answer, the front door opened and Jean, her fur coat swinging from her shoulders and her gilt hair swaying, hurried down the path crying eagerly:
“There you are, darlings! Come along in, you must be frozen. I’ve got a blazing fire for you and the kettle’s boiling.”
Then, as she saw that there were five dark figures instead of the expected four approaching her across the snow, her voice trailed off in dismay:
“Oh…oh dear. Is that Ronald?” peering into the dimness as she leant over the gate. “I thought you weren’t coming; Alda’s letter seemed so sure. Oh, I am sorry—butting in like this—such a bore for you.”
“Don’t be a goat, my dear girl, we’re very pleased to have you, but Meg was taken ill in church,” said Ronald, “and Alda’s rather fussed.”
“I am not,” said Alda, between her teeth. “Hullo, J. What a surprise. What time did you get here?”
“About half-past three. I’m awfully sorry, truly, Alda.”
“Can’t be helped. Actually, I shall be glad you’re here, when I’ve got Meg into bed and had some tea. Give me a hand with her, will you? the hot-water bottle’s in the dresser drawer in the kitchen.”
“O.K.” and Jean hurried back into the cottage while the others slowly climbed the steep little path to the porch, the children pulling off their hoods as they came.
“Oh, what a damned nuisance,” said Alda very softly to Ronald as he shut the front door.
8
ABOUT HALF-PAST SEVEN that same night a train, glowing with light and crowded with Christmas Eve passengers bound for the coastal towns and inland hamlets of Sussex, drew slowly out of Sillingham station, leaving a few people on the platform.
Most of these hurried away immediately as if on familiar ground and anxious to get home but one, who was tall and young and wore the Ayr green jersey and brief overcoat of the Women’s Land Army, walked slowly and wearily out of the station and, having given up her ticket to the porter, stood gazing uncertainly about her as if looking for somebody.
The road and the few houses with snow-covered roofs bowered in leafless trees were dark and silent. The noise of the train could be heard diminishing steadily into the distance and overhead the red and green lights on the signal by the bridge shone amidst clouds and stars. After a moment or two, she changed her shabby, bulging suitcase over to her other hand and set off slowly up the long road leading to the village, keeping her small head bent before the rising wind; the Land Army’s round hat was set well back to display a full pompadour of dyed golden hair and afforded her no protection.
When at last she reached the village and saw its one long street, slumbering beneath the snow but flashing and gleaming with Christmas lights from every curtained or shuttered cottage, she paused, and gazed again about her. As she did so, eight o’clock chimed from the church tower.
Sweet notes from the three old bells fell down through the dark air and spread away in ringing waves, and a few flakes of snow blew against her lifted face. This is the first snow I’ve tasted this year,
she thought, as a crystal drifted between her lips, so I ought to wish, and then she shut her eyes. Let me get a job on the stage very soon, she wished, and walked slowly on.
The place certainly did look pretty; but corny, of course, like an old-fashioned Christmas card, she thought, and even the pub’s shut—anyway, I’m not going to try muscling in there—and I suppose you could die in the street before anyone’d take you in and give you a cup of tea; gosh, a cup of tea’d be marvellous. Then, on the opposite side of the street, she caught sight of the Linga-Longa Café.
As usual, its windows were so steamy that it was impossible to see what was going on inside, but there were people, and they were moving about; and there was a notice hanging in the window that said OPEN. Hardly believing in her luck, she crossed the road and opened the door.
Immediately she encountered a stifling odour of stale frying that at any other time would have sent her straight out again, but she was so tired and hungry that desire for food and rest was stronger than disgust. She shut the door behind her and made her way between three or four tables crowded with raffish girls and loutish youths to a seat at the only empty one.
Resting her elbows among the stains and crumbs, she sighed and took off her hat, and a mane of rich healthy hair of a deep brown, contrasting with the dyed pompadour, tumbled in natural curls down her back, while she shook her head as if glad to be free of its weight.
“Yes?” inquired a slatternly girl a little older than herself, pausing at the table, and letting her spiteful, pretty eyes dwell upon the pompadour and the curls.
“A pot of tea and baked beans on toast, please.”
“No beans.”
“Bread and butter then—anything—I don’t care.”
“Bread and butter’s off. We got cakes.”
“Oo, yes. That’ll do.”
“Tea and cakes for one. Right,” and the waitress made her way towards the reeking kitchen visible through a half-open door at the end of the room, but paused to exchange jokes with a tableful of young men. Once she tried to get away, but they detained her, and minutes passed while she lingered there, jeering at them. Sylvia Scorby sighed angrily, then took a book from her overcoat pocket and set it in front of her on the table, bending over it with her fingers in her ears as if she were learning. It was Major Barbara.
In a minute, however, she had let the book drop and was staring about her. What a dirty place, she thought, but it must have been quite nice once.
That was exactly what the poor Linga-Longa Café had been: with its white shelves adorned by blue Japanese pottery, its branches of palm in the spring and of beech in the autumn, its two lady proprietresses and its former title of The Blue Plate. In those days, nearly seven years ago, it had been frequented by nice people living in nice houses in the neighbouring villages and on the local bus routes; it had been the place at which to meet for a cup of tea while waiting for your particular bus to arrive; it had been as clean, as pleasant, as respectable as The Myrtle Bough in Horsham itself, but first the evacuees had come, and then the war had come, and then the Bomb, and the two ladies who managed The Blue Plate had been so much shaken, both literally and metaphorically, that they had sold the lease, fittings and goodwill of their business for less than it was worth; and then the Battle of Britain had come, and then the Canadians and then the Americans, and then the Italian prisoners, and then the flying bombs and—last of all, dirtiest of all, most familiar to the eyes of the Sillingham people and yet most exotic of all—the gipsies themselves had come; and they had all, every one of them, patronised The Blue Plate, renamed the Linga-Longa, and every year it had grown steadily dirtier, noisier and less nice, until only the large old settees covered with filthy ragged chintz, where gardening gentlewomen and golfing colonels had once chatted and drunk tea, and the white brackets and shelves where the Japanese vases had once stood, remained of the former elegance. Gipsies sucked up their tea at the tables with baskets of stolen kingcups resting at their feet, lorry drivers wrangled over their change on the settees, and that was the story of the Linga-Longa Café.
As Sylvia’s eyes (beautiful eyes of a cloudy blue-grey, with heavy lids) moved slowly about the room, the door of the café opened and two Italian prisoners came in. The first swaggered forward with a knowing glance towards some girls at a table near the door, and Sylvia barely noticed the second one, because at that moment the waitress came up with her order, and she did not look up from arranging the teapot and her cup until a voice asked politely:
“May we sitta here, signora?” and the first of the two Italians stood beside her table, looking down at her.
“Oh yes, that’s all right,” she answered in a loud, fresh, friendly voice, and pulled her book towards her again as she took the first grateful draught of hot tea. The two men, having thanked her, sat down.
But once more it was useless; she could not read; and after a moment she was gazing about the room as she ate and drank, with an air of not really observing it and a frown on her white forehead. She had the face of a child, small and pale cheeked with a deeply-dimpled chin and pouting lips like those seen in portraits painted during the eighteenth century, and a long throat and full bosom. Sensitiveness, intelligence, thought, were all absent from that face, but its bloom suggested some sturdy flower of the hedges and foreshadowed a type of looks—bouncing, hoydenish and healthy—that might one day become fashionable.
The tea and cakes were good and they refreshed her; each time she lifted her eyelids and glanced about the room with the placidity of returning comfort, there was an entrancing flash of dreamy blue against the pallor of her cheeks which naturally attracted the admiring attention of the Italian who had spoken to her. He stared at her continuously and boldly, but the other, whose eyes were blue as her own, sat lost in sullen thought and barely glanced at her.
Both men were subdued in comparison with the other occupants of the café, as if the gaiety of Christmas failed to touch them. They smoked and drank their weak sugarless coffee in silence save for an occasional quiet word in their own language, and all about them the noise and laughter grew louder as nine o’clock (when the Linga-Longa would close down for the four-day Christmas holiday) drew near.
Sylvia had nearly finished her meal when her book slipped from the table to the floor. Before she had time to stoop and pick it up, the livelier of the two Italians did so for her, and handed it to her with a polite smile.
“Thanks very much,” she said, smiling too.
He smiled again, with much display of poor teeth (for which the slums of Genoa were responsible) and exclaimed ironically, “Merry Christ-a-mas!” at the same time jerking his head towards one of the livelier tables while his dark eyes glinted mockingly.
“Well, why shouldn’t they?” she retorted, “they’ve been through enough, god-knows.”
“Me an’ my fren’, we far away from our home,” said Emilio, doing a quick change from mockery to pathos while his eyes wandered over her shabby suitcase and handbag to see if she were good for some cigarettes, “so we are sad-a, much, much.”
“That’s your fault. You backed the wrong horse. Too much Viva il Duce, eh?” and she made a gay sign to the waitress to bring the bill.
“No, no,” protested Emilio eagerly. “È finito—all that. He was bad man, much, much.”
“You’re right, comrade, he was,” she said, looking in her purse. “Look here, I suppose you don’t know the way to a place called Naylor’s Farm? Now let me guess the answer—you’ve never heard of it.”
The other Italian, who had been taking no notice of their conversation, glanced up, and Emilio exclaimed:
“Si, si, Naylor Farm—you want-a go there?”
“I do, comrade, and the sooner the quicker. Is it far from here?”
“Three mile.” It was the other Italian who spoke for the first time, and the words in that voice gave pleasure to the ear as if they had been two notes of music. Sylvia turned and stared at him while continuing to put scarlet paint upon her
childish mouth.
“It can talk!” she exclaimed, “I thought you were dumb, comrade,” and she grinned, for he certainly looked it.
Fabrio slowly lifted his eyes, and took a long look at her; her laughing mouth that displayed big white teeth, and the little round hat now replaced upon the back of her head, and finally he laughed too, and turned to Emilio, saying, “What a monkey-face, eh?” for her rich curls, her skin, her eyes, were obscured to him by her uniform, which seemed to him, as an Italian peasant, the most ridiculous and immodest dress that it was conceivable for a girl to wear, emphasising her hoydenishness so strongly that he was only conscious of blunt features and a wide smile.
Emilio, however, made a flattering comment on her looks, and then the two of them had a little talk about her in Italian, wondering how old she was, and what her name was, together with other details, some of which were far from being their business. They knew, of course, that she must be the “langurl” with whose prospective arrival Mr. Hoadley had contemptuously threatened them, and they also knew that he had intended to meet her that afternoon at the station with the car. Where had she been (Emilio suddenly inquired of her, speaking English again) when the Signor Oadlie had been to the station and not found her? He had been angry; much, much.
“That’s cheerful,” and Sylvia made a face. “What’s he like, anyway?”
Emilio shrugged up his shoulders almost to his ears, and intimated a complete lack of interest in Mr. Hoadley. Fabrio, who had now become silent again, made no movement, and the waitress came up with Sylvia’s bill, which the latter paid.
The room had grown noisier as closing-time approached, and was now stiflingly hot and oppressive from cigarette smoke and fumes from the kitchen. Sylvia had been the object of steady stares from some soldiers, and of furtive regard from a gipsy, dark and dirty, who was seated at a table nearby, and she was relieved that she had the two Italians at her table. Their manner was not so respectful as she would have liked it to be, but there was nothing alarming in Emilio’s frank stare of interest and the other one, the quiet one, she dismissed as just dumb (though had he been beautiful as a god he would not have attracted Sylvia, whose admiration was reserved for beings who were not men but shadows). She felt capable of handling both of them.