Grass in Piccadilly Read online

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  Noel Streatfeild

  GRASS IN PICCADILLY

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  Also by Noel Streatfeild

  and available from Bello

  The Whicharts

  Parson’s Nine

  A Shepherdess of Sheep

  It Pays to be Good

  Caroline England

  Luke

  The Winter is Past

  I Ordered a Table for Six

  Myra Carrol

  Grass in Piccadilly

  Mothering Sunday

  Aunt Clara

  Judith

  The Silent Speaker

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  To

  MRS. DEREK RAWNSLEY

  Brenda, when fate in the shape of a shipping company, forced you to share a cabin with me, crossing the Atlantic, you not only allowed me to read the early part of this book to you but you opened one seasick eye and said: “Write some more. It takes my mind of my inside.” In gratitude for this compliment this dedication.

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  Penny gazed round the room. “How awful,” she thought, “trying to make this great barrack of a house habitable.” Her face showed her feelings. Her stepmother laughed.

  “I know. But what else?”

  “I wish Dad could sell the wretched hole. I always hated it.”

  Charlotte was fond of her stepdaughter and desperately sorry for her. She knew Penny would resent even a flavour of sympathy, and she was careful never to forget this, but sometimes there was a quality in the girl’s brittle, hard gayness that dragged at her heart. It dragged at it now. She had a legitimate excuse for intimacy; she could let Penny be the sympathiser. She crossed the room and laid an arm round the girl’s shoulders.

  “Who do you think would buy a house of five stories with a basement, no lift, and no central heating?”

  Penny trembled when she was annoyed. She trembled now, not because she was annoyed with any person but merely with the stupidity of the world.

  “It’s ghastly for you. Nothing could be more foul than running a boarding house.”

  “Flats, dear. It may be fun. Anyway, there’s nothing else we can do.”

  “But Dad loathes London.”

  “He’d loathe living in the country and seeing Peasefield turned into a building estate far worse. Besides, we must do something with this.”

  “I can’t think why the London County Council haven’t requisitioned it.”

  “The London County Council only requisition houses people want to keep. Your father practically offered to give them this, so of course they turned it down.”

  “Why couldn’t those miserable Belgians have gone on using it? They must still need some sort of relief.”

  “I thought that, but nobody does relief in other people’s houses except in wars. Very tiresome. Still, all those shelves they put up will be useful. It’s not good wood, but it’s nice to have any sort of wood. It’s lucky for us Mr. Parks is a carpenter. I suppose we shouldn’t use him without a permit, but as he’s living in our own basement perhaps nobody will mind.”

  Penny trembled again.

  “What hell living in a basement.”

  “A lot better than nothing. They’re delighted.”

  Penny jerked her shoulders free from Charlotte’s arm. She crossed to the window. Even her back expressed indignation. Charlotte smiled at that back. Nice of Penny to be so cross. It was only because she was sorry. Not just for the Parkses but for herself and John. Penny flung up the dirty window and peered down.

  “What a mess! When I was a kid there used to be some rather nice little houses over there.”

  “I expect they’ll build them again. I hope they don’t use that sharp thing that bounces its way into roads. Your father does hate noise.”

  “Queer the way plants and grass have grown.”

  Charlotte leaned over the girl’s shoulder.

  “That grass is rather like your father and me. Two country hay seeds transplanted to London.” She drew back, glancing at Penny’s profile. The bones showed far too clearly. How wretchedly fine-drawn and nervous the girl was. She lived very foolishly probably, but even so she ought not to be quite so emaciated.

  Penny was thinking of Charlotte. She knew Charlotte was looking at her, but she did not care. She supposed Charlotte spotted she had a hangover. She knew she never criticised, but just accepted what she found. She might regret those findings but she never threw stones. Just now, with the sun shining and showing up everything, Charlotte must be accepting that her hair had been re-tinted this week, that she had put on her make-up badly and had got up in a hurry. All true. Charlotte never put on her make-up badly; her hair was blued now; it might have been tinted at one time, but Penny doubted it, she was sure she never got up in a rush. Calm, sensible Charlotte. Rather on the fat side but soignée. Incredibly intelligent of her father to have married her. She wondered if Charlotte guessed she had met her this morning for a special purpose. Must have. Charlotte was not easily foxed. She would know she had not met her at ten-thirty in the morning to see over a house she had known all her life. She swung round.

  “Who’s going to live on the nursery floor?”

  Charlotte’s face lit up. This was more luck than she had hoped for. She had been certain that she would have to use all the tact at her command and all her persuasive powers, and then probably fail.

  “Your father won’t mind my telling you. He planned to fix it up for you if you liked it. He knows you hate the place you’re in now.”

  Penny had a face born for the poker table. She smiled vaguely and pleasantly at Charlotte. Through her head scrambled thoughts which caught at each other’s tails as they ran. Me! . . . I never thought of that . . . Would that be a better solution? . . . Wonderful to have no rent to pay . . . There’s no lift, everybody using the same stairs . . . They won’t mean to but they’ll pry, at least Hannah will and Mabel . . . Marvellous to have no rent to pay . . . But I half-promised . . .

  “Decent of Dad. Doesn’t he need the money?”

  “No. We’re living rent free though the rates are very high, but the third and fourth floors will cover those.”

  “Have you let them yet?”

  “Yes. The Bettelheims have the fourth.”

  “What, those refugees! I thought they hadn’t any money.”

  “I know, isn’t it queer? But I think refugees are all like that. They arrive looking dreadful. Mrs. Bettelheim arrived at Peasefield with a handkerchief tied under her chin and horrible shoes, like a scene in a film where people go off singing to the salt mines. But on the first cold day there she was in Persian lamb.”

  “I can’t think why you’re letting to them. Dad never liked Mr. Bettelheim.”

  Charlotte sighed.

  “I know. But they have Hans and Irma, and Mr. Bettelheim was very angry when your father sold Peasefield, Mr. Bettelheim said all those things about wishing he was in the national home which is what he calls Palestine—never a very lucky subject with your father. But Mrs. Bettelheim has such frightened eyes. Anyway, I talked your father into it.”

  “All I can say is lucky it’s the fourth floor. Who’s got the third?”

  “People called Willis. He’s lost one leg. They were some of the hundreds who answered the advertisement. He rang up Peasefield and came down that afternoon. They’re expecting a baby. I haven’t met her, but they’ve very good references . . .”

  Charlotte’s voice trailed away. Penny was curious.

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Perhaps nothing. I just had a feel
ing that when he asked for the flat he was asking for help.”

  “Where do they live now?”

  “He’s in London all the week; she’s at Hastings or Eastbourne—I forget which. He wants her to be with him.”

  “If the third and fourth floors are decently let Dad wouldn’t want much for the nursery floor, would he?”

  Charlotte accepted that Penny had some plan for the nursery floor. That was why she had written she would meet her here. It had been foolish to suppose Penny wanted it for herself. Much more likely she had some of her queer friends in need of help.

  “Do you know people who need it badly?”

  Penny lit a cigarette.

  “Their name is Duke. She’s an actress; he writes. There’s one child, a girl. They’re living with his people in a foul hole. I think the whole thing will break up if they don’t get a place of their own. Freda Duke says the walls are so bloody thin they don’t really sleep alone.”

  Charlotte was putting on her gloves. She seemed intent on smoothing the fingers, but Penny had all her attention. Penny was pleading for help just as the one-legged Mr. Willis had done. Charlotte had not known why Mr. Willis needed help, and she could not imagine why Penny should need it, but she knew only too well what it was like to need help and not get it.

  “I’m sure it can be arranged. There will have to be references, of course. Shall I speak to your father or will you?”

  “Oh, you.”

  Penny smiled, it was almost affectionate. Charlotte dared to slip an arm through hers. She led the girl towards the door.

  “Of course it will be terribly small but we’ve done nothing about the ground floor. Your father doesn’t want to let it, but I know Hannah won’t want to clean it. It could be made very nice. That downstair cloakroom will convert into a good bathroom, and the old flower room will make a kitchen and then, of course, the dining-room is a nice size, and that room at the back could be a dear little bedroom . . .”

  Penny had to take her arm out of Charlotte’s because they were going downstairs, but she smiled again as she did it. “How nice Charlotte is,” she thought; “she thinks I don’t want to be rushed into anything, but it would be heaven.” Out loud she said:

  “It’s quite an idea that. I don’t think the Dukes could pay more than seventy-five pounds a year.”

  Those Dukes! thought Charlotte. It sounds as if we’ll have to have them.

  “I expect that can be arranged. I’ll talk to your father directly I get back to-night and ring you in the morning. As we go out let’s take a look at the ground floor. You only remember it as a rather dark dining-room, but I think you’ll see it has possibilities.”

  * * * * *

  A boy and a girl were kissing in the shadow of some ruins. The girl at last pulled away.

  “Give over, do. Give us a cig.” They puffed happily, the night air cooling their ardour. The girl pointed her cigarette at the back of the house in front of them. “People movin’ in there. My Mum said a week or two back she saw two women leanin’ out of that window, and my Dad says the board sayin’ ‘To be let or sold’ ’as been took down in front, and there’s workmen in.”

  “Wouldn’t care for a house that size. Give me a pre-fab.”

  “My Mum says they won’t put pre-fabs here, they’re goin’ to build permanents.” The girl looked at him shyly. “Wouldn’t be half bad havin’ a home here.”

  The boy had only just started work. Anything permanent was beyond his means and his dreams. He did not want the girl thinking of such things. There was a lot of fun to be had without anything permanent. He kicked at a piece of groundsel at his feet.

  “Spring’s come; look at the flowers.” They looked at the wild flowers, many of them about to bud. They were children of London, so accustomed to the miracle that they saw nothing mysterious in wild flowers growing where, as far as minds could recall, there had always been buildings. The boy threw away his cigarette and drew the girl to him. “Come on, give us another kiss.”

  A newsagent was walking round the square. He nodded to the caretaker of a house still requisitioned by the government.

  “That right, the owners are going to live there?”

  “Not live. Belongs to a Sir John Nettel. Makin’ flats of it, they are.”

  “Livin’ there themselves?”

  “That’s right. That’s what I ’eard.”

  The newsagent moved into the middle of the street. He saw papers in piles, expensive weeklies and monthlies amongst them, being delivered for every floor. He saw the dim beginning of prosperity for himself and Cissie. It was a piece of news too good to keep. With the briefest nod to the caretaker he hurried home.

  A policeman walked round the square. He threw the light of his torch into the area. He tried the front doors, he nodded to the caretaker.

  “That right, people movin’ in?” He jerked his head at the Nettels’ house.

  The policeman was young. The caretaker liked to be questioned as an authority. Taking the square from its wartime angle he was the oldest inhabitant.

  “Not yet. Lot of men workin’ there. Bein’ converted into flats.”

  The policeman looked up at the unlighted windows.

  “Good thing, too. Good-night.”

  * * * * *

  Hannah laid her aprons in a drawer. She had been brought up to think a housemaid should look upholstered. Now, though she had sunk to that unsuitable figure in a gentleman’s house, a house-parlourmaid, she was not letting herself go. Rather she was accentuating all those features that stamped her as an establishment servant. Let others wear those overalls in the morning; nasty, sloppy looking things. Some even had the impudence to wear a white coat as if they were a doctor; she still had some good prints, going a bit, but neat. Be a funny morning that found her dressed for work in anything else. Hannah’s mother, who had been a housemaid herself, had brought Hannah up to respect a bust. No apron bib could expect to sit well on the undefined and the wobbly. An apron bib called for inflexibility and uplift. Stays were not what they were. Hannah only knew of one firm who could provide the amount of bones and the height of bones that she approved. She liked to hear a good creak when she stooped or knelt. Hannah was born with curves, “and very nice, too,” her mother had told her. “You must have a curve for an apron bow.” With the years it was not only her bust and her behind which curved. She bulged—in spite of stays—in front.

  Stooping to the drawer to lay her aprons in a neat pile Hannah creaked and, because of the pressure of her stays, spoke rather gustily. She and the cook, Mabel, had argued ever since they had first heard Peasefield was to be sold. They continued the argument in some form whenever they were alone.

  “We should have said no from the beginning, Mabel. I said to her, ‘m’Lady, I’ve been with Sir John over thirty years and I’ve no wish to make a change, m’Lady, but I never have liked London.’” Mabel heard this statement in some form two or three times a day and did not answer. Hannah creaked to an upright position and went to her bed for another pile of aprons. “I said to the first Lady Nettel, poor dear, when she first married—this was before that first war—and used to come to this house for the season, ‘Don’t take me, m’Lady. Peasefield is my home. I couldn’t fancy London.’”

  Mabel was half-inside the vast mahogany wardrobe.

  “Your things to the left, mine to the right, same as in our room at Peasefield.”

  She came out of the cupboard and crossed to her bed to fetch her best winter coat. She was a tiny little woman, still, at sixty, spry as a cat. She had none of Hannah’s respect for tradition as such, her respect was for her own traditions. She had ruled a kitchen for years and known what it was to have several kitchenmaids under her, and power had bred in her scorn for most of womankind and their ways. For men she had a soft corner. Peasefield gossip had said she had been a deal too soft in her younger days. Mabel sn
apped her fingers at gossip. That she did a thing made that thing not merely right but admirable.

  Hannah looked at the wardrobe.

  “I don’t like to see that in our room. Best spare bedroom it’ll always be to me.”

  Mabel stood on tiptoe to hang up her coat.

  “Only just good enough for me.” She looked round the room. “I’ll say as I’ve said all along, we might go a lot further and fare worse. We do know him, and I speak as I find, I must say she’s pleasant and easy to manage.”

  “I’ve nothing against her. I wish Sir John had married someone we knew. I never have got over her coming from nowhere. The first time I unpacked for her she was married.”

  “She knows her place. With things as they are that’s a lot. London or no London I will have people who know their place. We’re single handed up here, and when you and I have our day there’s no one to do for them like we could manage at Peasefield, but that doesn’t alter things. I’ve made it clear there’s going to be none of this cooking things for themselves in my kitchen. ‘When I’m out, m’Lady,’ I said, ‘you and Sir John will eat in a restaurant.’ Took it quite calm.”

  “’Course it’s easier for you. Your kitchen is your kitchen wherever you are, but two floors of a house with a whole lot of strangers marching up and down our back stairs is not what I’m used to.”

  “You’ll be lucky if they stick to the back stairs. Those Bettelheims have been grumbling already. I heard her tell him so.”

  Hannah snorted.

  “Let me catch any of them on my front stairs and I’ll show them what. Sir John himself said he wouldn’t have it. ‘Don’t want to meet a lot of damn strangers in my own house.’ Those were his very words. I was glad he spoke so plain. She might have given in.”

  “You seen the third floor?”

  “No, nor the nursery. Looks terrible all those names on the front door.”

  “What must be must. Terrible if people ring the wrong bell. I see you enjoying yourself running down to let in friends of those Bettelheims.”