Читать книгу Betwixt and Between - Jessica Stilling - Страница 11

LONDON . eNgLaND 1901

A message came to the house as Mrs. Darling waited for her children to return from the park. The message had come late as far as Mrs. Darling was concerned, and she had been pacing back and forth inside her darkened foyer with its Turkish carpets and red cloth lampshades, when a little boy handed her a note written in a messy, rushed script asking her to “Come to Saint Thomas’ Hospital—child injured.”

Mrs. Darling hired a coach to take her to the hospital, grabbing her bag and rushing right out into the street. She hadn’t considered her husband, figuring that whoever had left that message must also have had the wherewithal to find him. Nevertheless, when she arrived at the hospital it was only Netty and the boys waiting in a tiny entranceway. A secretary who wore a long, linen dress that appeared just a tad too dingy to be worn to work sat behind a large wooden desk, pushing the hair that had fallen out of her loose bun out of her eyes. It didn’t look as if her husband had been there and it was only Netty—Netty ringing her hands, Netty pacing back and forth, Netty shaking her head at herself as if she couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself into this predicament.

“What’s wrong with you?” Mrs. Darling asked once she arrived as John and Michael (she’d never truly consented to calling her youngest son Paul, the name did not seem to suit him) ran up to her. It took her a moment, but only a moment, to realize that Winifred wasn’t with them.

“It’s Winifred, Mrs. Darling, the two of them were playing on the bridge and I told them to stop, really I did, but they just wouldn’t listen and she fell right into the water. Hit her head, she hit her head,” Netty cried.

“What’s wrong with my daughter, where is she, why can’t I see her?” Mrs. Darling demanded of the secretary, ignoring Netty. As a woman who lived in Bloomsbury with an estate that averaged £1200 a year she acted as if this secretary, like her servants, should naturally drop everything for her. She strode toward the calm woman, who sat at her desk, eyes downcast as if she couldn’t see her.

“She’s in with the doctor, he’ll come out and speak to you when he’s ready,” the woman replied with a professional distance.

“Where is my husband? Netty, didn’t you have a message sent to his office?”

“I thought about it, Mrs. Darling, really I did,” the bumbling woman cried, twisting a stained white handkerchief between her red, blotchy hands. “But I forgot where he worked and I thought if you came here, you could find him.”

“Oh, you. . . .” Mrs. Darling steamed, annoyance masking her worry. She strode back to the secretary’s desk and snatched a piece of stationary. She then grabbed a fountain pen that had been lying near the edge of the table and wrote furiously. When she finished she handed the folded paper to Netty. “There you go, it will be the last thing you do for this family. Send word to my husband at the office, the address is there and if he doesn’t come within the hour, Netty, I’ll have the police sent after you.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Netty responded, hustling out the front door as if she hadn’t noticed at all that she’d been fired.

Mrs. Darling waited nearly the entire hour for her husband to come, but finally he strode in through the front doors, his broad chest out, coattails following behind him. The boys were playing on the floor, using a cushion as a sea-faring vessel as they “en-garde”-ed at each other, more to keep themselves occupied, more to keep their minds away from the worry in the room, than for play.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked and Mrs. Darling nearly sighed. He was always, whenever things were imperfect, what’s-the-meaning-of-this-ing as if it got him anywhere; it was the same as John and Michael with their en gardeing everywhere. “I got off of work and. . .”

“Winifred is in the hospital. I’ve been here an hour and the doctor hasn’t come out. Netty was here an hour before that and I don’t know what could be wrong with her,” Mrs. Darling explained, looking over at the secretary, who kept her head down, going through papers, though it was as plain as day that she wasn’t really working on them. “What is wrong with this place?” she cried out, getting up. She started pacing as her husband looked out the window and John and Michael continued playing.

“I’m Redhanded Jack,” John cried, standing on a short wooden bench. “And you’re a yellow-livered codfish.”