Patricia Wentworth: Latter End

There was a silence. There were a great many things which Julia could have said. She thought perhaps she had better not say them. Soothing down was what Ellie wanted, not raking up. She held her tongue because she couldn’t think of anything soothing to say.

After a moment Ellie burst out again.

“It will be just the same about Ronnie-you see if it isn’t! Jimmy will say yes to me, and to you, and to Antony, and then Lois will get hold of him and he’ll say no, because she’ll make him believe that it’s much better for Ronnie to be in a hospital or a convalescent home, just as it’s much better for Mrs. Marsh to be in the institute, and for poor old Hodson to be in London with a daughter-in-law who doesn’t want him. I wouldn’t mind so much if she was honest about it. She isn’t. She’s got to pretend that it’s what’s best for everyone, instead of saying bang out that it’s just what she wants.”

Julia said in her deep voice,

“Stop shaking, Ellie. And stop working yourself into a state over Lois. It doesn’t do any good, and it wears you out. She’s poison all right-I always knew she was. But she’s here, and she’s Jimmy’s wife. Something can be done about Ronnie. That’s why I’m here. Now the first thing that suggests itself is a job where they would let you have him with you.”

Ellie caught her breath.

“It isn’t any good. I’ve tried. I put in an advertisement, with a box number. There were only two answers, and they were both from slave drivers. All the work of a house- cooking and everything. I couldn’t have done it and looked after Ronnie too.”

“What did you say in the advertisement?”

“I tried to make it stand out-there were such a lot of people wanting things. So I put, ‘I want a domestic job where I can have my husband with me. He has lost a leg.’ ”

“And you only got two answers?”

“That’s all.”

Julia lay frowning in the half-light. The moon had risen. She could see the footrail of her bed and of Ellie’s bed. She could see the black mass of the old-fashioned wardrobe against the wall beyond. The three bright windows showed the illumined sky. She said slowly,

“Ellie-”

“Yes?”

“If Ronnie could go to a really nice convalescent home, mightn’t it be better for him than having rows with Lois, here?”

She felt Ellie’s hand jerk and pull away.

“I shouldn’t see him-”

“But if it made him well? He would be able to take up his job, and you would be together all the time.”

Ellie said in a muffled voice,

“I didn’t think you’d be against me too.”

“I’m not.”

It was like Julia not to make protestations.

“You don’t understand.”

“Then hadn’t you better explain?”

Ellie’s hand crept back, catching at hers.

“We’re not getting a chance. We had a month together, and after that two week-ends, and since then he’s been in hospital. It isn’t giving us a chance. I go over there, and I’m tired before I start. I haven’t got any go or any colour, and half the time I can’t think of anything to say. I can’t be amusing, or gay, or any of the things he needs.” She burst into tears all over again. “Oh, Julia, he’s got such a pretty nurse!”

Out of the choking sounds that followed, a battered sentence emerged.

“Sometimes-I feel-as if I could-kill Lois.”

Julia got Jimmy Latter alone after breakfast next morning. He was smoking a pipe on the terrace, and she dragged him into the study and shut the door. Lois had altered the drawing-room almost beyond recognition-new covers, new curtains, new carpets, new ornaments, and all the furniture moved around and changed. But she hadn’t started on the study yet. There were the old shabby rugs on the floor, the old brown curtains at the windows, the old shabby books on the shelves. Of course no one ever studied here or ever had, but it was Jimmy’s room, and it had been his father’s before him, and Julia felt a lot better when she had got him there and the door was shut. She would have locked it if she could, but the key had been lost a long time ago, nobody knew how or when.

She sat on the arm of one of the big chairs and said, “Jimmy, I want to talk to you about Ronnie.” Antony had always told her she hadn’t any tact, and when she flung back, “But what’s the good of beating about the bush? If I’m going to say a thing I say it,” he usually laughed and said, “You’re telling me!”

Well, she had said what she had come to say, and Jimmy was frowning, his pipe in his hand and the smoke going up between them. Even before he spoke she knew that Lois had got in first.

“You know, Julia, it won’t do-having him here, I mean. It simply won’t do. Of course it’s natural Ellie should want it, and I’d be pleased enough to have him, poor chap-you know that. But, as Lois says, Ellie would kill herself looking after him. You’ve only to look at her to see she’s not fit for it. Why, the poor chap’s a cripple-she couldn’t possibly manage. I tell you I’m very worried about her as it is. Here she is, at home, with every comfort, and Lois to look after her, and she looks like a ghost-no colour, no spirits. And you want her to take on a heavy nursing job like that. I won’t hear of it!” Julia’s cheeks flew two red flags. She had very seldom been so angry. She had just sense enough to know that if she wanted to play Ellie’s game she mustn’t let her temper go. If it had been a game of her own, she would have thrown the cards on the table with a will and counted it well lost for the pleasure of saying what she thought about Lois. But it was Ellie’s game.

Her cheeks flamed and her eyes smouldered, but she controlled her tongue. Jimmy, looking at her a little uneasily, was struck by her likeness to Marcia. And he had not only been very fond of Marcia, but he had respected her judgment. This, and the likeness, began insensibly to colour his thoughts. Julia’s silence gave them time. When she spoke at last, her voice was pitched quite low.

“Jimmy-do you remember what staff you had here before the war?”

He said, “That’s a long time ago. Everything’s different now.”

“I know. But all the same, do you remember? There was Mrs. Maniple, with a kitchenmaid under her, and the between-maid after twelve o’clock, and Mrs. Huggins to scrub the floors. That’s on the kitchen side. For the rest of the house there was a butler, house-parlour maid, housemaid, the between-maid till twelve o’clock, and Mrs. Huggins any time there was extra work-people staying, or spring-cleaning- all that kind of thing.”

He took an angry pull at his pipe.

“What’s the good of talking like that? Everyone’s had to cut down.”

“I know they have. But just think for a minute, Jimmy, and you’ll see why Ellie looks tired. She and Minnie are doing what it used to take a man and three maids to do.”

“You’re leaving Lois out.”

Julia looked at him.

“Yes-I’m leaving Lois out.”

He turned away, went off to the writing-table, and stood there with his back to her, picking up first one thing and then another from a crowded pen-tray-picking them up and dropping them again with flustered, jerky fingers. When he turned round his face was red. He said angrily,

“What do you mean by that?”

Julia’s right hand lay clenched in her lap. She drove the nails into her palm. She mustn’t let Jimmy see that she was angry too. She couldn’t manage him that way. Mummie never got angry with him or with anyone. That was why everyone listened to her. If only things didn’t boil inside you until you felt you didn’t care-

She’d got to care about Ellie. She managed such a temperate, reasonable voice that it surprised her.