Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

‘Died of wounds at Wipers,’ replied Mr Ives. ‘When you’ve been lumped together with people from all walks of life, deference ends up going to those who’ve earned it.’ He touched his cap, turned on his heel and fetched his bicycle from where it had been leaning against the gate pillar. He mounted it and rode back to Mottingham with a light heart.

MRS MCCOSH HAD ordered the annual spring clean, once again failing to recall that there was no longer the staff to perform it. Before the war, all the servants had banded together to take down the curtains, shift the furniture away from the walls, clear up after the sweeps, and, above all, gather the rugs and carpets and take them out for beating. In a large house the whole business could easily take a fortnight.

Millicent found herself expected to do all of it on her own, and she was at her wits’ end. Cookie was, naturally, cooking, and was disinclined to help, since she had never been required to do so before. Mary, since a lady maid was considered to be more than a mere servant, was unaskable. Mr Wragge had wrenched his back pulling up the last of the parsnips, and was groaning at home in bed, wondering if he would ever be mobile again.

Daniel arrived on his Henley late one Saturday morning in April, and, as he always did in April and May, reflected upon how extremely lucky he had been to be on Home Establishment and instructing at Upavon during Bloody April in 1917. He knew that otherwise he would not have survived the war. When he had returned to his squadron in July, he had found almost no one left that he recognised, and that most of his comrades had been shot down in ground attacks.

He met Sophie in the hallway, and she said, ‘I think you’ve got a loose tappet. Your Henley sounds egregiously valetudinarian.’

‘Gracious me,’ said Daniel. ‘You’re right of course. I did notice, but —’

‘You mean, it is stupendously teratitistic and inordinate that a mere handmaid of Adam should have noticed such a thing?’

‘Honestly, Sophie! Teratitistic? Where do you find all these funny words?’

‘If I need a new word, I make it up,’ said Sophie, pertly. ‘That one means “monstrous” I hope. The metilogomy is Greek.’

‘Metilogomy?’

‘Etymology, silly.’

‘Well, anyway,’ said Daniel, ‘I do know that you know everything about engines these days. It just takes some getting used to, the way that everything’s changed. Would you be offering to correct the fault yourself? I’m certain you know how to adjust a tappet.’

‘Piece of cake,’ said Sophie. ‘But it’s so bad for the hands, and trying to get the oil stains off afterwards dries the skin most terribly. Now that the war’s over I am most sublimely content to be a non-practising expert. I am prepared to stand over you and offer advice, encouragement, expostulation and verba sapienti. Yea, verily, I am prepared to be thy Nestor, but —’ and she raised her hands to show him — ‘I’ve only just done my nails.’

‘Hmm,’ said Daniel, ‘what a good egg you are. Is Fairhead here?’

‘He is imminent, and shortly to be manent. In time for lunch I do hope.’

‘And Esther?’

‘Out for a walk at the Tarn with Rosie. Mama is cleaning her air rifle, preparatory to further columbal slaughter, and Papa is due back from the Athenaeum incontinently.’

At that point Millicent reversed by, dragging a large roll of carpet towards the withdrawing room. She was making virtually no progress, and was in a sweat and a fluster.

‘Millicent! Let me help,’ said Daniel, taking up the carpet under one arm. ‘Where are we going?’

‘The garden, sir. Oh thank you, sir.’

‘What are we going to do with it? It’s damnably heavy.’

‘Beat it, sir. Get the dust out.’

Daniel found that a stout rope had been stretched across the lawn from a pear tree to a large hook set into the masonry of the garden wall.

‘It’s best if you put the carpet over at one end of the line, sir,’ said Millicent, ‘otherwise it droops something rotten.’

‘What shall we whack it with? May I join in? I can imagine it’s the Kaiser. Or my old housemaster. I can take vicarious revenge.’

‘There’s a carpet beater, but I like a broom handle. There’s nothing like a broom handle for beating carpets with, sir. And laundry bats work pretty nicely.’

‘I’ll use the beater and you can use your favourite weapon.’

Daniel took up the beater and swung it at the carpet. He was immediately enveloped in a cloud of choking and foul-tasting dust. ‘Oh good God!’ he exclaimed, leaping out of the way of the cloud.

Millicent put her hand to her mouth, and laughed. ‘Oh, sir! Excuse me, but you do want to make sure which way the wind is.’

‘Just like take-off and landing,’ said Daniel, spluttering. ‘I’m afraid I am a most ignorant amateur.’

‘It’s not often a gentleman gets to beat a carpet,’ said Millicent.

‘I’m a quick learner,’ said Daniel.

‘We’ll take turns,’ said Millicent. ‘You go that side, and I’ll go this side, and I’ll beat first and then you beat, and we don’t stop ’til there ain’t no more dust, hardly.’

‘Righto,’ said Daniel.

Ten minutes later, they carried the carpet up the steps of the conservatory, through the withdrawing room, and into the dining room. Daniel started to unroll it, but Millicent said, ‘I’ve got to give the floor a good sweep and a polish first, if you don’t mind, sir. The mistress has mixed up some beeswax and turpentine, and it’s to get used up, sir, or there’ll be what for.’

‘It’s all damned hard work, isn’t it, Millicent?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘Didn’t you ever think of leaving?’

‘Leaving, sir?’

‘Well, you could have worked at Woolwich or something. The wages were extraordinary, weren’t they? They went up by five and six once, didn’t they?’

‘It was fondness, sir. I didn’t leave because of the fondness.’

‘Fondness?’

‘I like it here, sir. I like Mr McCosh, and I like the sisters, and I like Cookie, and I even like the mistress. I like the cat and Mr Wragge, and I even liked the dog when there was one.’

‘Bouncer. He was a good old boy.’

‘And I didn’t want to be a canary anyway,’ said Millicent.

‘A canary?’

‘Those women at the arsenal, sir, they turned yellow, they did, ’cause of all the explosives they were packing in them shells, sir. We called ’em canaries.’

‘Good Lord, I had no idea!’

‘And I didn’t want to be a dilutee, neither, sir.’

‘Hmm, I never thought I’d hear that word again. It’s suddenly gone out of use, hasn’t it? You say you even like the mistress?’

Millicent nodded. ‘She wasn’t always, you know …’

‘Impossible?’

‘No, sir, she wasn’t. It was the Folkestone raid, sir, she was never the same after.’

‘I know. Miss Rosie told me. She says the same as you.’

‘Well, she had a friend called Mrs Cowburn, sir, and she had her head blown right off, and Mrs McCosh was there and found the bits of body, sir, and then there was the head of a little golden girl just sitting on the doorstep of a shop, and since then she ain’t been what she was at all, sir.’

‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘Thank you for reminding me.’

‘It’ll make a difference if you bear it in mind, sir,’ said Millicent.

‘You’re right, Millicent.’ Daniel paused, and then said, ‘Is there anything else I should know?’

‘There is, sir, but it’s not my place.’

‘I absolutely promise not to tell anyone anything that you tell me. Word of honour. Hope to die.’