Mennyms Alone Page 7

  Harrods was put on hold. Stocks and shares were sold, but the money was safely deposited in Building Society accounts where, when the time came, it would be possible to make ‘contingency’ plans by depositing letters, to be opened only ‘if the depositor should make no further transactions for a year and a day’. The time stipulated was purely arbitrary. It had a nice legal ring to it! The letters, in any case, would never be opened. Tulip was sure of that. But, in the extremely unlikely event that Magnus’s forecast should prove true, various charities would eventually reap the benefit. And each Building Society would believe that its eccentric depositors had left the country and had renounced all the riches of this world.

  Confirmation of these arrangements would be sent to their own solicitors of many years, Rothwell and Ramshaw. The solicitors who had been involved in the administration of Chesney Loftus’s estate were to be pushed into the background where Tulip felt they really belonged. Any hint of change was not to reach them unless it became inevitable. Tulip’s system had so many cross-threads that it was bound to work. Come to think of it, it was not unworthy of a lady who had for so long been an expert at not only following, but creating knitting patterns!

  The family deliberately avoided doing anything else that might be taken to be a ‘last thing’. Granpa’s Christmas outburst had been a deterrent. The trip to Town Moor with its strong element of danger had been an awful warning. But, in the middle of April, Vinetta could not resist the temptation to do the one thing she had never dared to do. She went with Hortensia and Googles for a walk to the park.

  For many years, Googles had had an old green pram which was taken no further than the back garden because Vinetta was terrified in case any one should stop and admire the baby. When Miss Quigley took over as nanny, Googles was taken on regular outings because Miss Quigley had complete confidence in her ability to go unnoticed. The old pram had been replaced with a small modern pram, dull grey colour, a sort of hooded carrycot on wheels. It had the virtue of being very inconspicuous.

  “Would you mind if I came along?” Vinetta asked one fine afternoon as Hortensia was preparing to go out. “I don’t think anyone would notice, especially if you were pushing the pram.”

  Hortensia smiled down at Vinetta. The nanny was taller and slimmer than her friend and employer. One might almost call her gaunt.

  “That’s a splendid idea,” she said. “It will do you good. And we’ll see about who pushes the pram!”

  They went along the street onto the main road, Hortensia pushing and very much in charge. Vinetta walked beside her, on the inside, with her right hand firmly gripping the handle-bar. They turned down the steep hill that led to the park gates. When they reached the bottom Hortensia said, “Now it’s your turn.”

  Self-consciously, Vinetta took over the pushing, both hands gripping the handle tightly. She looked, and felt, like a little girl taking out her new pram for the very first time. They went down the broad path to the lake. The park was quiet. The sun was shining but there was still a nip in the air – not quite summer yet. Both ladies were, naturally, wearing their glasses, their scarves and their gloves. Hortensia put the brake on the pram and they sat down on the park bench to enjoy the day.

  “We should do this more often,” said Vinetta. “I hadn’t realised how quiet the park could be. And we have a very clear view of anyone approaching.”

  Hortensia said nothing. She was looking straight ahead, over the lake, taking in the sun glinting on the water, the trees on the island trailing their branches in the lake. Above them, the sky was a pale, silky blue.

  “I don’t want to die,” said Hortensia, after they had sat in silence for some minutes. “I want to live forever. This is a world I can never ever tire of.”

  Vinetta did not know what to say, did not know how to respond to such intensity.

  “We speak only of what we know,” she said at last. “There are myriads of things we can’t know.”

  She looked at Hortensia before adding, “The unknown might be wonderful too.”

  Hortensia, already uncomfortable at having said so much, said briskly, “I think we should be going home now. Baby needs her tea.”

  Vinetta pushed the pram out of the park and up the hill, but when they came to the main road again, Hortensia took over.

  They walked on for some minutes in silence. Then Hortensia said, “I think I may have to spend a little time in my cupboard, Vinetta. Just a day or two. I need to think.”

  Vinetta looked embarrassed.

  “You mean you would like to have a short holiday?” she said with a struggle. To remember that Hortensia had once lived in the hall cupboard was surely taboo.

  Hortensia gave her a bitter smile.

  “No, Vinetta,” she said, “I do mean my cupboard. The pretends are all over, haven’t you realised that?”

  They turned the corner into Brocklehurst Grove.

  “I think it might be better if you walked on ahead now,” she said. “It’s nearly time for the children to come out of school. The street may be a little too busy for two of us together.”

  The weather grew warmer and the days grew longer, but the two friends never ventured out together again. For some reason that neither could quite pinpoint, the outing ultimately felt like a failure.

  CHAPTER 14

  Preparations

  THE PAGES TURNED on the calendar . . . April . . . May . . . June . . . July . . . Some preparations were made, but mostly life went on as if there were no deadline. On the first of September, Magnus called a meeting in his room for all but the youngest members of the family. Joshua was at work, but Magnus had come round to Soobie’s point of view. There was no point in troubling Joshua before it became necessary for him to leave his job at Sydenham’s. He would not argue, but he would not cooperate, and sometimes a sullen silence is harder to cope with than rage.

  Magnus was sitting up in bed, at least five pillows supporting him. In his left hand he held a notebook open at a page on which he had written a long and detailed list. In his right, a pen was held poised ready to tick off each item.

  “Now,” he said when everyone was seated, “we have just one month to go. It must be a time of earnest effort. Let us consider everything that needs to be done.”

  He turned to Tulip.

  “Finances first. What have you done about them?”

  Tulip told him of her strategy. She was pleased to tell him that she had realised all of their investments and the large sums produced had been invested in various Building Societies. Everything done by post and telephone of course, everything checked and double-checked. She had not missed a single thing. All Magnus had to do was to tick down the page.

  When Tulip explained about her fail-safe procedure, he looked scornful.

  “A year and a day! Hmph! I don’t see any point in that,” he said, holding the pen poised high in the air, since these were items not included on his list of necessities. “You might as well have left straightforward letters. Whatever we may need in the hereafter, supposing there is one, money will not be part of it. And if you think there could be a last minute reprieve, think again. This premonition is too strong for anything so trivial.”

  Tulip refused to be drawn into an argument. She went on to tell of the arrangements with the solicitors – their own and those who still administered the Loftus estate.

  “I have done exactly as you told me,” she said. “Should the situation arise, it will be made quite clear to the firm of Cromarty, Varley and Thynne that this house and everything in it is to be handed over to the Gladstones. Our own solicitors will know exactly what to do after reading my instructions, such instructions to be read on and not before the first of December, unless I write and ask to have them returned unopened. That will give me plenty of time to get the letter back. This is all a game, of course. But I have played it straight. I just hope you appreciate my efforts.”

  She looked disdainful. Work done, to be undone. She had made profits along the way, but that was
incidental. Still, it was an achievement and not one of the others could have done so much.

  Magnus shrugged. If his wife still believed in life after the first of October, nothing else he could say was going to change her views. The main thing was to get the preparations made. “And I have arranged for the household bills to be paid by direct debit from the bank for up to six months after our departure,” Tulip continued. “That will give the Gladstones all the time they need to take over. We would not want to leave debts. Our solicitor will continue to be paid in the same way till the accounts are closed.”

  This was better, thought Magnus. No matter what she might say to the contrary, she was sounding less of a disbeliever.

  “Will there be enough money in the current account?” asked Magnus.

  “More than enough. That account will remain open for a year. Interest from the Building Societies will be paid directly into it. When it is closed any sum remaining will be paid over to charity. That too is in a sealed letter to be held unopened by the bank manager. I have also asked him to send out no bank statements until requested. You have put me to a lot of trouble, Magnus.”

  She looked at him critically, but she did want him to be pleased. On a purely intellectual level, she had enjoyed solving the puzzles Magnus had set. To go the extra step and fully believe in his nonsense was something she could not manage.

  Next Sir Magnus turned to Vinetta. He found her place on his list. Her outside business had included making children’s clothes for a boutique in Castledean.

  “You’ve stopped supplying clothes to that shop in town, I hope?” he said.

  “Long since,” said Vinetta. “I was not happy with the prices she was prepared to pay. Finishing with her had nothing to do with our present problem.”

  Then it was Miss Quigley’s turn.

  “I think you should stack your canvases in the garden shed,” said Sir Magnus. That may have sounded heartless, but he went on to redeem himself with his next words. “You are as good a painter as many a professional. If the canvases are hidden away they will be found some time later. They will be a mystery. Their intrinsic worth might be recognised by someone of artistic discernment. Cover them well so that the damp does not harm them. The remainder of your paints and paraphernalia can go in the bin. And do make sure that you return your library books.”

  Hortensia was astounded that he knew about the visits she paid to the public library. She should not have been. Not much escaped Sir Magnus. He might spend all of his days in bed, but he had his informers.

  Magnus turned to Soobie.

  “I have no outside interests, Granpa,” said Soobie before his grandfather could speak. “I jog in the evening. Weather permitting, I shall most probably go jogging on the thirtieth of September. But I shall stay at home on the first of October. That should satisfy you.”

  Granpa nodded. He looked down at the notebook.

  “That seems to cover everything, except that my son must hand in his notice at that confounded warehouse. You must see to that, Vinetta. He takes more notice of you than of anybody else.”

  The meeting was about to adjourn when Pilbeam asked a final question.

  “If we are really going to cease to live when October comes, it will be important for us to come to some decision as to where we should be when it happens.”

  They all looked at her. Possibilities flitted through their minds. The attic was the obvious place. It was there that Appleby had ceased to live. It was there in fact that they had all first come to life, though of the precise moment they had no recollection. All birth is ‘but a sleep and a forgetting’, even for rag dolls. The attic had been their store-cupboard, with dolls lying neatly in rows in the half that had long been empty. And though not one of them really remembered that, they were in silent agreement that the attic was the one place they would not consider. Fate might be about to claim them, but they had no intention of meeting her half way. And, besides, if this were just an old man’s folly, a gathering up there under the rafters on a dark autumn evening would be uncomfortable and ridiculous.

  Miss Quigley had been very subdued for the whole of this meeting. Ceasing to live meant dying, and dying was morbidly horrible. She would rather not talk about it. But one thing she felt sure of, if she were going to die, she would not want to die in Sir Magnus’s room.

  “I shall spend that evening in the hall cupboard,” she said. “Then if it really does happen, I shall feel safe.”

  “Safe, but alone, Hortensia,” said Vinetta. “That is not how it should be. We must all be together.”

  “You shall come to my room on the stroke of seven. Nothing will happen before then,” said Granpa, hardly conscious of what he was saying until he had said it. He did not bother to explain it away. “Don’t ask me how I know,” he said. “I just do.”

  “We can’t be found here,” said Miss Quigley, ingenuity coming to her rescue. “It is not fitting that the master-bedroom should be found full of dolls. If we are going to be just dolls with no life in us, we must be found in a cupboard.”

  “We couldn’t all fit in your cupboard,” Vinetta protested. “There’s barely room for one.”

  “No,” said Hortensia. “We are very big dolls. We would need a doll-room rather than a doll-cupboard, but it would not need to be as large a room as this.”

  “So what do you suggest?” asked Magnus.

  “Either of the rooms that used to be guest rooms long ago – Pilbeam’s room or Soobie’s.”

  It was Vinetta who had the last word.

  “No,” she said, “neither of those. There is one room in this house sacred to a dead daughter. We shall join her there. That will be the doll-room.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Problems

  HORTENSIA WAS NOTICEABLY quiet. It was rare for her to be so silent. She and Vinetta were sitting in the day nursery next afternoon. Googles was asleep. Vinetta looked anxiously at her friend and ally.

  “There’s something wrong,” she said. “What is it? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

  Hortensia shrugged. “There’s nothing to say,” she said. “There are no plans left to make. There is no future.”

  But Vinetta sensed that there was more to it than that. Something was niggling Miss Quigley, something other than their general situation. Vinetta was sewing a tape back onto one of Googles’s bibs. She put her work aside and brought all her concentration to bear on whatever problem Hortensia was nursing.

  “Come on, Hortensia,” she said. “I know there’s more to it than that. You have hardly spoken to me since yesterday, and you look so worried anyone would know there’s something wrong. You are not much good at hiding your feelings.”

  Hortensia looked embarrassed.

  “You’ll think me foolish,” she said, “but I really can’t help it. I would if I could, but I honestly can’t.”

  “Can’t help what?” said Vinetta.

  “On the day, on the first of October,” Hortensia began awkwardly, “I don’t want to go into Appleby’s room. I just don’t want to.”

  “Why ever not? We’ll all be together, all of us. That must be right.”

  “I don’t want to see Appleby,” said Hortensia. “I want to remember her as she was. I don’t want to see her lying dead.”

  Vinetta understood. It was the old phobia, the reason why her friend had refused to paint a picture of her dead daughter. It had not mattered much then. Now it did.

  “I think,” said Vinetta, “that we should go and see her now, this minute. She is lying peaceful and there is nothing about her to fear. The only way you are going to know that is by coming with me to see her.”

  “No!” said Hortensia sharply. “Please don’t ask.”

  “Yes,” said Vinetta. “I wouldn’t ask it at all, but it is for your own good. Come now.”

  She took Hortensia by the arm and pulled her firmly to her feet. Hortensia was propelled out of the door and to the bottom of the staircase. She did not resist but her whole stance besp
oke an unwillingness to go.

  “This is unkind of you, Vinetta,” she said. “You know how I feel. I’m not just afraid. I am terrified.”

  It was a pathetic admission but Vinetta’s resolve did not weaken. They walked slowly up the two flights of stairs. Hortensia leant heavily on the banister. Vinetta held one hand under her other elbow.

  “You’ll be surprised at how unfrightened you’ll be when you see her,” she said.

  Vinetta opened Appleby’s door. The room was sweet and clean and pretty. Hortensia tried not to look across at the bed. Vinetta, unwavering, led her towards it. Then they both stood and looked down at the lifeless figure of Appleby. Slowly, the expression on Hortensia’s face changed. She reached out one hand and touched a lock of red hair.

  “She is lovely and so peaceful,” said Hortensia. “She could just be sleeping.”

  It was some minutes before she added, “I’m glad you made me come.”

  “And if Magnus is right,” said Vinetta in a quiet, gentle voice, “that is how we will all be after the first of next month. It is not so very bad a fate.”

  Hortensia stroked Appleby’s hair back from her brow.

  “But who knows what comes after?” she said.

  “That surely is the mystery,” said Vinetta, “and the wonder.”

  Tulip had an entirely different problem. She did not believe that the first of October would be any other than the day before the second of October. She agreed to all the palaver of preparing and assembling in Appleby’s room, but she felt sure that it would be nothing but a damp squib. Life would go on, and all the preparations would have to be unravelled. Then, just as she had satisfied herself that everything that had been done could be undone, another thought occurred to her. What if, improbable though it was, life really did leave them? It might not leave forever. There was a time before they had lived, a time long, long ago. Then they must have been inanimate rag dolls. What happened to bring them to life? Tulip did not know. No one could know. But if it happened before, it could happen again.