Complete works of nevil.., p.306
Complete Works of Nevil Shute, page 306
“Teasdale — Monica Teasdale. You’d better call me Monica.”
The child asked directly, “Then why did you call me Honey?”
The actress laughed. “Why, that’s what we call folks back in America, in Indiana where I was raised. I didn’t mean it for your name.”
“My name’s Elspeth,” said the child. “I’ve been sick six times.”
“Well, don’t you be sick again till Mrs. Scott wakes up, or maybe I’d not know what to do about it.”
“Why don’t you call her Shirley?”
“I don’t know — I only just met her today. That’s her name, is it?”
The child nodded. Then she said, “May I get up and go along the passage?”
“Surely,” said Miss Teasdale quickly. “Wait — you’d better put something on.” She looked around a little helplessly.
“It’s hanging up behind the door,” the child said. Miss Teasdale looked and found a very small, worn dressing-gown; Elspeth slipped it on, and put her feet in bedroom slippers, and went off. The actress moved to the bed, and smoothed out the bedclothes and pulled out the hot-water-bottles, which were cold, and then Elspeth was back again and climbing into bed.
The actress watched the little active figure in pyjamas getting into bed, watched with her hands full of hot-water-bottles and with her heart full of regret. She said, “How do you feel now?”
The child said, “My head aches when I move about.”
“Sure, it will do, after giving it a bump like that. Does it hurt when you stay still?”
“Not till I think of it. It hurts then.”
Miss Teasdale laughed. “I’ll get these bottles filled.”
“I don’t want them, please. They’re too hot.”
“Okay. Mrs. Scott left arrowroot upon the stove for you. Think you could take a cup of that?”
“No, thank you.”
The actress said, “Come on, honey, try a little bit. It’ll do you good.”
Elspeth said, “It can’t do me any good if I sick it all up.”
“You won’t.”
“I did last time.”
“You won’t this time.”
She went into the kitchen and found a cup and saucer and a tin of biscuits, and came back to the bedroom with the arrowroot and crackers on a little tray. The child obediently ate the food and said, “Do you live in America?”
“Most of the time,” the actress said.
“My daddy’s in America — not really in America. He’s in Canada. He went on Sunday.”
“I know it. I travelled over with him — that’s how I met him. Then I had to come back again directly, and he asked me if I’d come and see how you were getting on.”
Elspeth accepted this without much interest. “When’s he coming home?”
“Quite soon now, I think. Maybe this week.”
“He’s been away an awfully long time.”
“Only since Sunday, honey. This is Tuesday.”
“It seems an awfully long time,” the child said.
There was a jigsaw puzzle started upon my drawing-board. “Say,” said the actress, “that’s an elegant picture. Going to be Southampton Docks, isn’t it, with all the liners?” She fetched the board, and they began doing it together.
When I got home that night at about half-past six I found Shirley just waking up upon the sofa; she sat up sleepily as I came in and asked what time it was. We went together to the bedroom. Miss Teasdale got up as we came in. She had been reading to Elspeth; the bed was littered with books from our bookcase: The Oxford Book of English Verse, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and The Earthly Paradise. Elspeth had not been sick again, and they had had a cup of tea together and some bread and butter. “We finished the puzzle,” said the actress. “We’ve been reading for a while.”
Elspeth said to Shirley, “She does read well, Mrs. Scott. She reads much better than Miss Lansdowne, or anybody at school. You sort of actually see things happening when she’s reading out loud.”
Miss Teasdale laughed, a little self-consciously, which was odd in so sophisticated a woman. “I guess I’ve had some practice,” she said quietly.
“She says she’ll teach me to read like that when I get bigger,” Elspeth said.
“Sure I will, honey.” She gathered up the books. “You’ve got a nice selection of good books,” she said. “This author, William Morris — I’ve never met his work before. Elspeth wanted me to read her some of this.”
Shirley took over to give Elspeth a bath and make her ready for bed; I took Miss Teasdale into the sitting-room and mixed her a drink. “It’s been terribly kind of you to come and help us out like this,” I said, lighting her cigarette. “Shirley slept five hours this afternoon.”
She nodded. “I might say it’s kind of you folks to look after Mr. Honey’s little girl,” she said. “As I see it, you hadn’t any call to do so.”
I laughed. “Well, it was I who sent her father off.”
She nodded. “Surely.” And then she said, “I don’t know if you’ll believe me if I say it’s been a real pleasure to me, sitting here this afternoon, playing and reading with Elspeth,” she said. She hesitated. “Some women have a lot to do with children, and some don’t,” she said. “I’m one of the ones who don’t.”
I nodded. It seemed difficult to pursue that subject with this exotic woman. “We fixed up about Mr. Honey coming back from Gander,” I said. “An R.A.F. Lincoln is going to pick him up one day this week and bring him over.”
She nodded. “And what happens after that?”
I laughed. “Then we’re going to have the hell of a row.”
“Say, not over what he did at Gander, pulling up the wheels?”
“Oh, not with him,” I said. “We’re on his side — I think he did quite right. The trouble is we haven’t any evidence to prove it.”
I told her briefly what the row was all about, and mentioned that I should be going out to Labrador myself. Then I asked her plans, and persuaded her to stay and have supper with us. “It’ll probably only be the same bit of cold meat you had for lunch,” I said. “We might cook up a Welsh rarebit or something, afterwards.” She called her office in Wardour Street, and ordered the car for nine o’clock to take her back to Claridge’s. Summoning the company’s car forty miles out into the country to pick her up at that time of night seemed the most natural thing in the world to her.
She was interested in Honey, and kept leading the conversation round to him. She wanted to know what place he held in the organisation of the R.A.E., what we thought about him in the office. I had some difficulty in answering that one. “He’s an inside man,” I said, using the words that the Director had used about him to me. “He’s deeply interested in research, and he doesn’t concern himself very much with user problems. Opinions vary about him; lots of people think he’s crackers.”
“Do you?” she asked.
I laughed. “No — I think he’s very good, within his own sphere. But I shan’t send him out upon a job again. From now on he stays in the laboratory, where he belongs.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. “He wants to get around and meet more people.”
I smiled at her. “He can do that at the week-ends. I don’t want any more Reindeers broken up.” That seemed badly phrased, and I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “I mean, a man who was more interested in operations would have found some other means of stopping that thing flying on.”
“I don’t know about that,” she objected. “The little man was in a mighty tough spot. Nobody believed him.”
“That’s what I mean,” I said. “He’s an inside man. If he’d been an athletic type six foot two in height and weighing fourteen stone, with a red face and a fist like a ham, they’d have believed him all right, and he wouldn’t have had to crash the aeroplane.”
“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully.
“He hated going, anyway,” I said. “I had to force him, and now I’m sorry that I did. I thought he was the best man to send. He’s only really happy on his own research.”
Later on, while we were eating the cold meat and salad, she said, “Have you got a lot of scientists like Mr. Honey in your organisation, Doctor?”
“Hundreds,” I said. “I’m one of them. We’re all bats in our own way.”
She said, “He knows an awful lot about a lot of things. I never mixed with scientists before. He was telling me about the end of the world coming, all from the Great Pyramid. Say, do you believe in that?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t. But then I didn’t really believe him first of all when he said the Reindeer tail was going bad on us. Now I think I do.” I turned to her. “There’s no doubt that he’s got a very penetrating mind,” I said. “He’s full of scientific curiosity. We’d have done better in the war if we’d paid some attention to his crazy notions.” I was thinking of the rockets.
“I think he’s a great little man,” she said quietly. “With a brain like that, and at the same time, so simple and so kind.”
Her car came for her at nine o’clock. She said to Shirley almost diffidently, “Mrs. Scott, do you think I might come down tomorrow and sit with Elspeth? I certainly would like to do that.”
Shirley said, “Oh please, don’t bother. It’s been terribly nice of you to help us out today, but we’ll be all right now. I think she’ll sleep tonight.”
The actress said, “It wouldn’t be a trouble. I’d be glad to do it. I did enjoy being with her this afternoon.”
Shirley said doubtfully, “Would you really like to? Haven’t you got more important things to do?”
Miss Teasdale shook her head. “I’ve got nothing fixed. I’ve got to be back on the West Coast in ten days from now, but up till then I’m free. I certainly would like to spend another day with her.”
Shirley laughed. “I won’t say ‘no’ to that. She’s got to stay in bed a week, and keeping her amused is going to be a job.”
“Okay,” said the actress. “I’ll be with you in the morning, around eleven o’clock.”
We stood and watched the car move off. Elspeth was still occupying our only bed so it was necessary for me to go and sleep in Honey’s house again, while Shirley slept on the sofa. “I rather like the sofa,” she said. “I’ll be all right there if Elspeth doesn’t keep on being sick all night again.”
We went back into the house to get my bag with my night things in it. Shirley walked round to the little villa in Copse Road with me; it was only ten minutes away and she felt that she could leave Elspeth for that time. “I was round there this morning,” she said as we went. “Isn’t it simply foul?”
I hadn’t noticed anything much wrong with it. “It hasn’t got much furniture in the sitting-room,” I said.
“I don’t mean that. Didn’t you see the kitchen floor? It’s absolutely filthy, and the scullery’s disgusting. It can’t have been properly washed out for years.”
We reached the house, and she took me and showed me all the horrors. They didn’t seem very bad to me, but then I am a man. Shirley said, “We can’t send Elspeth back here with the place like this — it isn’t healthy.” She thought for a minute. “I’ll come round tomorrow and have a go at it.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “It’s not our house, and we’ve not made it dirty.”
“We can’t leave it like this,” she said firmly. “If Miss Teasdale turns up, I’ll come round here tomorrow.”
“What about the school?”
“I’ve only got one period tomorrow.”
“I shouldn’t bank upon Miss Teasdale,” I said. “You’ll probably get a phone call saying she can’t make it.”
Shirley said, “I think she’ll come. Do you know — —”
She stopped.
“What?”
“Oh — nothing. It was just a stupid idea.”
“What’s that?”
She hesitated. “It would be funny if there was something between her and Mr. Honey, wouldn’t it?”
I stared at her. “There couldn’t be ...”
“I suppose there couldn’t. But one or two things she said made me kind of wonder.”
She went away, and I got in a couple of hours upon the AIRCRAFT FLYING AT HIGH MACH NUMBERS before I got too sleepy.
Next morning, in the office, the Director sent for me. “I have arranged a meeting for eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said, “ — at the Ministry. It’s going to be quite a big meeting, with representatives of C.A.T.O. and the Company, and M.C.A., as well as the M. of S. and ourselves. You’ll bring up everything we’re likely to require?”
“Very good, sir. You’ll be coming up yourself?”
“Oh, I think so. I think we shall need all the weight that we can muster, Scott.”
“What about Honey, sir?” I asked. “Will he be back?”
“I rather doubt it. I think we may have to get along without him. I only know that the Lincoln is picking him up at Gander one day this week.”
“Pity,” I said. “It would have been better if we could have had him there.”
He nodded. “Carnegie wanted to see Sir Phillip Dolbear’s letter about Honey’s work. I sent him a copy of that yesterday.”
I made a grimace. It was impossible to hide up evidence like that, but it wasn’t going to make it any easier for us to persuade them that the Reindeer tail was dangerous.
“They’re getting back the pilot of the Reindeer, Captain Samuelson, in time for the meeting, I understand. We should get an informed account from him upon exactly what took place.”
“I don’t like that,” I said. “We’re going to get the Organisation’s account of what happened, but not our own. If we’re going to have the pilot of the aircraft, we should have Honey too.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve got to work on the assumption we shall get a fair account. You wouldn’t suggest bringing in Miss Monica Teasdale, I suppose?”
I grinned. “I don’t think she could add much to our meeting, except glamour.”
He said grimly, “Well, we may need light relief before this thing blows over.” He paused. “I forgot to say, the Treasury are sending somebody, to hold a watching brief for the expenditures involved.”
I left him, and went down to the old balloon shed to see how the Reindeer tail on test was getting on. It was now running day and night; the graphs showed nothing yet that we could cite as any evidence of trouble. I had hoped that something would have turned up in the readings that I could take with me to the meeting as an evidence of abnormality, as a warning. There was nothing of that sort at all.
“I don’t think there will be, sir,” young Simmons said. “Mr. Honey was convinced that it would go on like this right up to the end.”
While I was down there, Miss Learoyd rang through. “There’s a lady waiting in the Reception to see you,” she said. “A Miss Corder.”
I said, “Do you know who she is?”
“She’s got a letter to give you from Mr. Honey, sir.”
I blinked; another woman from Honey. “All right,” I said. “Have her shown up and ask her to wait. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
When I got up to my office there was a tall, dark girl sitting on an upright chair against the wall, waiting for me. She was dressed quietly in a dark blue coat and skirt; she wore a very simple hat. She was quite young, very attractive, and with the most beautiful features and colouring.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” I said. “It’s Miss Corser, is it?”
She had risen to her feet as I entered. “Corder,” she said. “I have a letter for you, sir, from Mr. Honey.” She opened her bag and gave it to me. “He said that it was very urgent, so I thought it would be better if I brought it down by hand.”
“Oh — thank you,” I said. “When did he give you this?”
“Last night, sir,” she said, “at about ten o’clock — just before I left Gander.” She explained, “I was one of the stewardesses on the Reindeer that got damaged at Gander, the one that Mr. Honey crossed in. Most of the aircrew are staying at Gander with the aircraft, but we stewards were recalled to London. I suppose they’ll put me in another aircraft; there’s no point in keeping us with the machine till it’s repaired. So as I was to come back last night, Mr. Honey asked me if I would bring this letter with me and let you have it immediately I landed. I thought I’d better bring it down at once.”
“You landed this morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
She stood silent, holding her bag in her hands before her while I opened and read the letter.
It was not a very long one. He said that I must know all the facts by that time from Miss Teasdale. He had been thinking it all over, and while he did not see what else he could have done, he realised that his action must have let down the reputation of the R.A.E. He said that for some time past he had felt that perhaps he was out of place in the department, and it might well be that this was the time when he should make a break and find some other employment. He did not want to embarrass me in any way, but he would like me to consider that letter as his resignation.
I said quietly, “Oh, damn ...” and read it through again, biting my lip. It was another complication in this business; if Honey resigned, how could I maintain my attitude of taking a firm line by showing confidence in his judgment? He would have to be persuaded to withdraw his resignation and fight this thing through with me, and now he was in Gander, inaccessible. I raised my eyes, and the dark stewardess was staring at me in distress.
I said, “Well ... thank you for bringing me this, Miss Corder. I’ll have to think it over.” I paused, and then said, “Do you know what’s in it?”
“I think so — more or less.” She stared at me appealingly. “It’s his resignation, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “That’s right. I didn’t want him to resign.”
“You didn’t want him to? He thought you’d all be so angry with him.”
I cursed the comedy of misunderstandings. “I’m not angry with him,” I replied. “I wish he hadn’t had to stop it flying in that way, but if that was the only way to ground it, then I think he did quite right. I’m backing him up all I can. Probably lose my own job over this, before we’re through.”
