Back To Billabong

"Do the beastly old map yourself, if you want it. I shan't, anyhow!"

"Wilfred!"

"Aw, Wil-fred!" The boy at the end of the schoolroom table, red-haired, snub-nosed and defiant, mimicked the protesting tone. "I've done it once, and I'm blessed if I do it again."

"No one would dream that it was ever meant for Africa." The young teacher glanced at the scrawled and blotted map before her. "It-it doesn't look like anything earthly. You must do it again, Wilfred."

"Don't you, Wilf." Wilfred's sister leaned back in her chair, tilting it on its hind legs.

"You have nothing to do with Wilfred's work, Avice. Go on with your French."

"Done it, thanks," said Avice. "And I suppose I can speak to my own brother if I like."

"No, you can't-in lesson time," said the teacher.

"Who's going to stop me?"

Cecilia Rainham controlled herself with an effort.

"Bring me your work," she said.

She went over the untidy French exercise with a quick eye. When she had finished it resembled a stormy sky-a groundwork of blue-black, blotted writing, lit by innumerable dashes of red. Cecilia put down her red pencil.

"It's hopeless, Avice. You haven't tried a bit. And you know it isn't hard-you did a far more difficult piece of translation without a mistake last Friday."

"Yes, but the pantomime was coming off on Saturday," said Wilfred, with a grin. "Jolly little chance of tickets from Bob if she didn't!"

"You shut up!" said Avice.

"Be quiet, both of you," Cecilia ordered, a spot of red in each pale cheek. "Remember, there will be other Saturdays. Bob will do nothing for you if I can't give him a decent report of you." It was the threat she hated using, but without it she was helpless. And the red-haired pair before her knew to a fraction the extent of her helplessness.

For the moment the threat was effective. Avice went back to her seat, taking with her the excited-looking French exercise, while Wilfred sullenly recommenced a dispirited attack upon the African coastline. Cecilia leaned back in her chair, and took up a half-knitted sock-to drop it hastily, as a long-drawn howl came from a low chair by the window.

"Whatever is the matter, Queenie?"

"I per-ricked my finger," sobbed the youngest Miss Rainham. She stood up, tears raining down her plump cheeks. No one, Cecilia thought, ever cried so easily, so copiously, and so frequently as Queenie. As she stood holding out a very grubby forefinger, on which appeared a minute spot of blood, great tears fell in splashes on the dark green linoleum, while others ran down her face to join them, and others trembled on her lower eyelids, propelled from some artesian fount within.

"Oh, dry up, Queenie!" said Wilfred irritably. "Anyone 'ud think you'd cut your silly finger off!"

"Well-it'th bleed-in'!" wailed Queenie. She dabbed the injured member with the pillow case she was hemming, adding a scarlet touch in pleasant contrast to its prevailing grime.

"Well-you're too big a girl to cry for a prick," said Cecilia wearily. "People who are nearly seven really don't cry except for something awfully bad."

"There-I'll tell the mater you said awfully!" Avice jeered. "Who bites our heads off for using slang, I'd like to know?"

"You wouldn't have much head left if I bit for every slang word you use," retorted her half-sister. "Do get on with your French, Avice-it's nearly half-past twelve, and you know Eliza will want to lay the table presently. Come here, Queenie." She took the pillow case, and unpicked a few stitches, which clearly indicated that the needle had been taking giant strides. "Just hem that last inch or two again, and see if you can't make it look nice. I believe the needle only stuck into your finger because you were making it sew so badly. Have you got a handkerchief?-but, of course, you haven't." She polished the fat, tear-stained cheek with her own. "Now run and sit down again."

Queenie turned to go obediently enough-she was too young, and possibly too fat, to plan, as yet, the deliberate malice in which her brother and sister took their chief pleasure. Unfortunately, Wilfred arrived at the end of Africa at the wrong moment for her. He pushed the atlas away from him with a jerk that overturned the ink bottle, sending a stream of ink towards Avice-who, shoving her chair backwards to escape the deluge, cannoned into Queenie, and brought her headlong to the floor. Howls broke out anew, mingled with a crisp interchange of abuse between the elder pair, while Cecilia vainly sought to lessen the inky flood with a duster. Upon this pleasant scene the door opened sharply.

"A nice way you keep order at lessons," said Mrs. Mark Rainham acidly. "And the ink all over the cloth. Well, all I can say is, you'll pay for a new one, Cecilia."

"I did not knock it over," said Cecilia, in a low tone.

"It's your business to look after the children, and see that they do not destroy things," said her stepmother.

"The children will not obey me."

"Pouf!" said Mrs. Rainham. "A mere question of management. High-spirited children want tact in dealing with them, that is all. You never trouble to exercise any tact whatever." Her eyes dwelt fondly on her high-spirited son, whose red head was bent attentively over Africa while he traced a mighty mountain range along the course of the Nile. "Wilfred, have you nearly finished your work?"

"Nearly, Mater," said the industrious Wilfred, manufacturing mountains tirelessly. "Just got to stick in a few more things."

"Say 'put,' darling, not 'stick.' Cecilia, you might point out those little details-that is, if you took any interest in their English."

"Thethilia thaid 'awfully' jutht now," said Queenie, in a shrill pipe.

"I don't doubt it," said Mrs. Rainham, bitterly. "Of course, anyone brought up in Paris is too grand to trouble about English-but we think a good deal of these things in London." A little smile hovered on her thin lips, as Cecilia flushed, and Avice and her brother grinned broadly. The Mater could always make old Cecilia go as red as a beetroot, but it was fun to watch, especially when the sport beguiled the tedium of lessons.

A clatter of dishes on a tray heralded the approach of Eliza.

"It is time the table was clear," Mrs. Rainham said. "Wilfred, darling, I want you to post a letter. Put up your work and get your cap. Cecilia, you had better try to clean the cloth before lunch; it is ruined, of course, but do what you can with it. I will choose another the next time I am in London. And just make sure that the children's things are all in order for the dancing lesson this afternoon. Avice, did you put out your slippers to be cleaned?"

"Forgot all about it, Mater," said Avice cheerfully.

"Silly child-and it is Jackson's day off. Just brush them up for her, Cecilia. When the children have gone this afternoon, I want you to see to the drawing-room; some people are coming in to-night, and there are fresh flowers from Brown's to arrange."

Cecilia looked up, with a sudden flush of dismay. The children's dancing lesson gave her one free afternoon during the week.

"But-but I am going to meet Bob," she stammered.

"Oh, Bob will wait, no doubt; you need not keep him long, if you hasten yourself. Yes, Eliza, you can have the table." Mrs. Rainham left the room, with the children at her heels.

Cecilia whisked the lesson books hastily away; Eliza was waiting with a lowering brow, and Eliza was by no means a person to be offended. Maids were scarce enough in England in the months after the end of the war; and, even in easier times, there had been a dreary procession of arriving and departing servants in the Rainham household-the high-spirited characteristics of the children being apt to pall quickly upon anyone but their mother. In days when there happened to be no Eliza, it was Cecilia who naturally inherited the vacant place, adding the duties of house-maid to those of nurse, governess, companion and general factotum; all exacting posts, and all of them unpaid. As Mrs. Rainham gracefully remarked, when a girl was not earning her own living, as so many were, but was enjoying the comfort of home, the least she could do was to make herself useful.

"Half a minute, Eliza." She smiled at the slatternly girl. "Sorry to keep you waiting; there's a river of ink gone astray here." She placed the soaked cloth on the waste-paper basket and polished the top of the table vigorously.

"I'll bet it worn't you wot spilt it-but it's you wot 'as the cleanin' up," muttered Eliza. "Lemme rub that up now, Miss." She put down her tray and took the cloth from Cecilia's hand.

"Thanks, ever so, Eliza-but you've got plenty to do yourself."

"Well, if I 'ave, I ain't the on'y one wot 'as," said Eliza darkly. Her wizened little face suddenly flushed. "Lor, Miss," she said confidentially, "you doan't know wot a success that 'at you trimmed for me is. It's a fair scream. I wore it larst night, an' me young man-'im wot's in the Royal Irish-well, it fair knocked 'im! An' 'e wants me to go out wiv 'im next Benk 'Oliday-out to 'Ampstead 'Eath. 'E never got as far as arstin' me that before. I know it was that 'at wot done it."

"Not it, Eliza," Cecilia laughed. "It was just your hair under the hat. I told you how pretty it would be, if you would only brush it more."

"Well, I never 'ad no brush till you give me your old one," said Eliza practically. "I did brush it, though, a nundred times every night, till Cook reckoned I was fair cracked. But 'air's on'y 'air, an' anyone 'as it-it's not every one 'as an 'at like that." She clattered plates upon the table violently. "You goin' out this awfternoon, Miss?"

"As soon as I can, Eliza." Cecilia's face fell. "I must arrange flowers first."

"I'll 'ave the vawses all ready wiv clean water for you," said Eliza. "An' don't you worry about the drorin'-room-I'll see as it's nice."

"Oh, you can't, Eliza-you have no time. I know it's silver-cleaning afternoon."

"Aw, I'll squeeze it in some'ow." Eliza stopped suddenly, at a decided footstep in the passage, and began to rattle spoons and forks with a vigour born of long practice. Cecilia picked up the inky cloth, and went out.

Her stepmother was standing by the hall-stand, apparently intent on examining Wilfred's straw hat. She spoke in a low tone as the girl passed her.

"I wish you did not find so much pleasure in gossiping with servants, Cecilia. It is such a bad example for Avice. I have spoken about it to you before."

Cecilia did not answer. She went upstairs with flaming cheeks, and draped the cloth across the hand basin in the bathroom, turning the tap vengefully. A stream of water flowed through the wide stain.

"There's more real kindness in that poor little Cockney's finger than there is in your whole body!" Cecilia whispered, apparently addressing the unoffending cloth-which, having begun life as a dingy green and black, did not seem greatly the worse for its new decoration. "Hateful old thing!" A smile suddenly twitched the corners of her mouth. "Well, she can't stop the money for a new cloth out of this quarter's allowance, because I've just got it. That's luck, anyhow. I'll give it to Bob to keep, in case she goes through my desk again." She poured some ammonia upon the stain, and rubbed gingerly, surveying the result with a tilted nose. It was not successful. "Shall I try petrol? But petrol's an awful price, and I've only got the little bottle I use for my gloves. Anyhow, the horrible old cloth is so old and thin that it will fall to pieces if I rub it. Oh, it's no use bothering about it-nothing will make it better." She squeezed the water from the cloth and spread the stained area over a chair to dry, looking disgustedly at her own dyed finger-nails. "Now for Avice's shoes before I scrub my hands."

Avice's shoes proved a lengthy task, since the younger Miss Rainham had apparently discovered some clay to walk through in Regent's Park on her way home from the last dancing lesson; and well-hardened clay resists ordinary cleaning methods, and demands edged tools. The luncheon bell rang loudly before Cecilia had finished. She gave the shoes a final hurried rub, and then fell to cleansing her hands; arriving in the dining-room, pink and breathless, some minutes later, to find a dreary piece of tepid mutton rapidly congealing on her plate.

"I think you might manage to be down in time for meals, Cecilia," was Mrs. Rainham's chilly greeting.

Cecilia said nothing. She had long realized the uselessness of any excuses. To be answered merely gave her stepmother occasion for further fault-finding-you might, as Cecilia told Bob, have a flawless defence for the sin of the moment, but in that case Mrs. Rainham merely changed her ground, and waxed eloquent about the sin of yesterday, or of last Friday week, for which there might happen to be no defence at all. It was so difficult to avoid being a criminal in Mrs. Rainham's eyes that Cecilia had almost given up the attempt. She attacked her greasy mutton and sloppy cabbage in silence, unpleasantly conscious of her stepmother's freezing glance.

Mrs. Rainham was a short, stout woman, with colourless, rather pinched features, and a wealth of glorious red hair. Some one had once told her that her profile was classic, and she still rejoiced in believing it, was always photographed from a side view, and wore in the house loose and flowing garments of strange tints, calculated to bring out the colour of her glowing tresses. Cecilia, who worshipped colour with every bit of her artist soul, adored her stepmother's hair as thoroughly as she detested her dresses. Bob, who was blunt and inartistic, merely detested her from every point of view. "Don't see what you find to rave about in it," he said. "All the warmth of her disposition has simply gone to her head."

There was certainly little warmth in Mrs. Rainham's heart, where her stepdaughter was concerned. She disapproved very thoroughly of Cecilia in every detail-of her pretty face and delicate colouring, of the fair hair that rippled and curled and gleamed in a manner so light-hearted as to seem distinctly out of place in the dingy room, of the slender grace that was in vivid contrast to her own stoutness. She resented the very way Cecilia put on her clothes-simple clothes, but worn with an air that made her own elaborate dresses cheap and common by comparison. It was so easy for her to look well turned out; and it would never be easy to dress Avice, who bade fair to resemble her mother in build, and had already a passion for frills and trimmings, and a contempt for plain things. Mrs. Rainham had an uneasy conviction that the girl who bore all her scathing comments in silence actually dared to criticize her in her own mind-perhaps openly to Bob, whose blue eyes held many unspoken things as he looked at her. Once she had overheard him say to Cecilia: "She looks like an over-ornamented pie!" Cecilia had laughed, and Mrs. Rainham had passed on, unsuspected, her mind full of a wild surmise. They would never dare to mean her-and yet-that new dress of hers was plastered with queer little bits of purposeless trimmings. She never again wore it without that terrible sentence creeping into her mind. And she had been so pleased with it, too! An over-ornamented pie. If she could only have been sure they meant her!

She thought of it again as she sat looking at Cecilia. The new dress was lying on her bed, ready to be worn that afternoon; and Cecilia was going to meet Bob-Bob, who had uttered the horrible remark. Well, at least there should be no haste about the meeting. It would do Bob no harm to cool his heels for a little. She set her thin lips tightly together, as she helped the rice pudding.

The meal ended, amidst loud grumbles from Wilfred that the pudding was rice; and Cecilia hurried off to find the flowers and arrange them. The florist's box was near the vases left ready by the faithful Eliza; she cut the string with a happy exclamation of "Daffodils!" as she lifted the lid. Daffodils were always a joy; this afternoon they were doubly welcome, because easy to arrange. She sorted them into long-necked vases swiftly, carrying each vase, when filled, to the drawing-room-a painful apartment, crowded with knick-knacks until it resembled a bazaar stall, with knobby and unsteady bamboo furniture and much drapery of a would-be artistic nature. It was stuffy and airless. Cecilia wrinkled her pretty nose as she entered. Mrs. Rainham held pronounced views on the subject of what she termed the "fresh-air fad," and declined to let London air-a smoky commodity at best-attack her cherished carpets; with the result that Cecilia breathed freely only in her little attic, which had no carpet at all.

The lady of the house rustled in, in her flowing robe, as Cecilia put the last vase into position on the piano-finding room for it with difficulty amid a collection of photograph frames and china ornaments. She carried some music, and cast a critical eye round the room.

"This place looks as if it had not been properly dusted for a week," she remarked. "See to it before you go, Cecilia." She opened the piano. "Just come and try the accompaniment to this song-it's rather difficult, and I want to sing it to-night."

Cecilia sat down before the piano, with woe in her heart. Her stepmother's delusion that she could sing was one of the minor trials of her life. She had been thoroughly trained in Paris, under a master who had prophesied great things for her; now her hours at the Rainhams' tinkly piano, playing dreary accompaniments to sentimental songs with Mrs. Rainham's weak soprano wobbling and flattening on the high notes, were hours of real distress, from which she would escape feeling her teeth on edge. Her stepmother, however, had thoroughly enjoyed herself since the discovery that no accompaniment presented any difficulty to Cecilia. It saved her a world of trouble in practising; moreover, when standing, it was far easier to let herself go in the affecting passages, which always suffered from scantiness of breath when she was sitting down. Therefore she would stand beside Cecilia, pouring forth song after song, with her head slightly on one side, and one hand resting lightly on the piano-an attitude which, after experiment with a mirror, she had decided upon as especially becoming.

The song of the moment did make some demands upon her attention. It had a disconcerting way of changing from sharps to flats; trouble being caused by the singer failing to change also. Cecilia took her through it patiently, going over and over again the tricky passages, and devoutly wishing that Providence in supplying her stepmother with boundless energy, a tireless voice and an enormous stock of songs, had also equipped her with an ear for music. At length the lady desisted from her efforts.

"That's quite all right," she said, with satisfaction. "I'll sing it to-night. The Simons will be here, and they do like to hear what's new. Go on with your dusting; I'll just run through a few pieces, and you can tell me if I go wrong."

Cecilia hesitated, glancing at the clock.

"It is getting very late," she said. "Eliza told me she could dust the room."

"Eliza!" said Mrs. Rainham. "Why, it's her silver day; she had no business to tell you anything of the sort-and neither had you, to ask her to do it. Goodness knows it's hard enough to make the lazy thing do her own work. Just get your duster, and make sure as you come down that the children are properly dressed for the dancing class." She broke into a waltz.

Cecilia ran. Sounds of woe greeted her as she neared Avice's room, and she entered, to find that damsel plunged in despair over a missing button.

"It was on all right last time I wore the beastly dress," wailed she. "If you'd look after my clothes like Mater said you had to, I wouldn't be late. Whatever am I to do? I can't make the old dress shut with a safety pin."

"No, you certainly can't," said her half-sister. "Never mind; there are spare buttons for that frock, and I can sew one on." She accomplished the task with difficulty, since Avice appeared quite unable to stand still.

"Now, are you ready, Avice? Shoes, hat, gloves-where are your gloves? How do you ever manage to find anything in that drawer?" She rooted swiftly in a wild chaos, and finally unearthed the gloves. "Yes, you'll do. Now, where's Wilfred?" Search revealed Wilfred, who hated dancing, reading a "penny dreadful" in his room-ready to start, save for the trifling detail of having neglected to wash an extremely dirty face. Cecilia managed to make him repair the omission, after a struggle, and saw them off with a thankful heart-which sank anew as she heard a neighbouring clock strike three. Three-and already she should be meeting Bob in Hyde Park. She fled for a duster, and hurried to the drawing-room. Eliza encountered her on the way.

"Now, wotcher goin' to do wiv that duster, Miss?" she inquired. "I told yer I'd do it for yer."

"Mrs. Rainham is waiting for me to do it, Eliza. I'm sorry."

"Ow!" Eliza's expression and her tilted nose spoke volumes. "Suppose she finks I wouldn't clean 'er old silver proper. Silver, indeed!-'lectrer-plyte, an' common at that. Just you cut and run as soon as she's out of the 'ouse, Miss; I know she's goin', 'cause 'er green and yaller dress is a-airin' on 'er bed."

"It's not much good, Eliza. I ought to be in the Park now." Cecilia knew she should not allow the girl to speak of her mistress so contemptuously. But she was disheartened enough at the moment not to care.

"Lor!" said Eliza. "A bloomin' shyme, I calls it!"

Cecilia found her stepmother happily engaged upon a succession of wrong notes that made her wince. She dusted the room swiftly, aware all the time of a watchful eye. Occasionally came a crisp comment: "You didn't dust that window-sill." "Cecilia, that table has four legs-did you only notice two?"-the effort to speak while playing generally bringing the performer with vigour upon a wrong chord. The so-called music became almost a physical torment to the over-strained girl.

"If she would only stop-if she would only go away!" she found herself murmuring, over and over. Even the thought of Bob waiting in Hyde Park in the chill east wind became dim beside that horrible piano, banging and tinkling in her ear. She dusted mechanically, picking up one cheap ornament after another-leaving the collection upon the piano until the last, in the hope that by the time she reached it the thirst for music would have departed from the performer. But Mrs. Rainham's tea appointment was not yet; she was thoroughly enjoying herself, the charm of her own execution added to the knowledge that Cecilia was miserable, and Bob waiting somewhere, with what patience he might. She held on to the bitter end, while the girl dusted the piano's burden with a set face. Then she finished a long and painful run, and shut the piano with a bang.

"There-I've had quite a nice practice, and it isn't often the drawing-room gets really decently dusted," she remarked. "Nothing like the eye of the mistress; I think I must practise every day while you are dusting, Cecilia. Oh, and, Cecilia, give the legs of the piano a good rubbing. Dear me, I must go and dress."

Cecilia dragged herself upstairs a few minutes later. All the spring was gone out of her; it really did not seem to matter much now whether she met Bob or not; she was too tired to care. This was only a sample of many days; so it had been for two years-so it would be for two more, until she was twenty-one, and her own mistress. But it did not seem possible that she could endure through another two years.

She reached her own room, and was about to shut the door, when the harsh voice rasped upwards.

"Cecilia! Cecilia! Come here a minute."

The girl went down slowly. Mrs. Rainham was standing before her mirror.

"Just come and hook my dress, Cecilia. This new dressmaker has a knack of making everything hard to fasten. There-see that you start with the right hook and eye."

At the moment, physical contact with her stepmother was almost the last straw for the girl. She obeyed in silence, shrinking back as far as she could from the stout, over-scented body and the powdered face with the thin lips. Mrs. Rainham watched her with a little smile.

"Yes, that's all right," she said. "Now, my hat, Cecilia-it's in the bandbox under the bed. I can't stoop in this dress, that's the worst of it. And my gloves are in that box on the chest of drawers-the white pair. Hurry, Cecilia, my appointment is for four o'clock."

"Mine was for three o'clock," said the girl in a low voice.

"Oh, well, you should manage your work better. I always tell you that. Nothing like method in getting through every day. However, Bob is only your brother-it would be more serious if it was a young man you were meeting. Brothers don't matter much."

Cecilia flamed round upon her.

"Bob is more to me than anyone in the world," she cried. "And I would rather keep any other man waiting."

"Really? But I shouldn't think it very likely that you'll ever have to trouble about other young men, Cecilia; you're not the sort. Too thin and scraggy." Mrs. Rainham surveyed her own generous proportions in the glass, and gathered up her gloves with a pleased air. For the moment she could not possibly believe that anyone could have referred to her as "an over-ornamented pie." "Good-bye, Cecilia; don't be late for tea." She sailed down the stairs.

Even the bang of the hall door failed to convey any relief to Cecilia. For the second time she toiled upstairs, to the bare freshness of her little room. Generally, it had a tonic effect upon her; to-day it seemed that nothing could help her. She leaned her head against the window, a wave of homesick loneliness flooding all her soul. So deep were its waters that she did not hear the hall door open and close again, and presently swift feet pounding up the stairs. Someone battered on her door.

"Cecilia! Are you there?"

She ran to open the door. Bob stood there, a short, muscular fellow, in Air Force blue, with twinkling eyes. She put out her hands to him with a little pitiful gesture.

"Don't say that horrible name again," she whispered. "If anyone else calls me Cecilia I'll just go mad."

Bob came in, and flung a brotherly arm round her shoulders.

"Has it been so beastly?" he said. "Poor little Tommy. Oh, Tommy, I saw the over-ornamented pie sailing down the street, and I dived into a side alley until she'd gone out of range. I guessed from her proud and happy face that you'd been scarified."

"Scarified!" murmured Cecilia. But Bob was not listening. His face was radiant.

"I couldn't wait in the park any longer," he said. "I had to come and tell you. Tommy, old thing-I'm demobilized!"