Part 50 (2/2)

'Stand up and give me your hand.'

Angus soared upwards but kept his hands to himself.

'I mean to shake your hand,' bawled Uncle Stephen, in his quarter-deck manner; even though he had never mounted a quarter-deck, except perhaps on Navy Day.

Angus extended his proper hand, and Uncle Stephen wrenched it firmly.

When Millie and he were for a moment alone together in the little hall, something that could not happen often, Uncle Stephen asked her a question.

'Have you a strap? For those two, I mean.'

'Of course not, Uncle Stephen. We prefer to rely on persuasion and, naturally, love.'

Uncle Stephen yelled with laughter. Then he became very serious. 'Well, get one. And use it frequently. I've seen what I've seen in this house. I know what I'm talking about. Get two, while you're about it. The Educational Supply a.s.sociation will probably help you.'

'Phineas will never use anything like that.'

'Then you'd better consider leaving him, Millie dear, because there's trouble coming. You can always make a home with me and bring the boys with you. You know that, Millie. There's a welcome for you at any time. Now: one more kiss and I must vamoose.'

As soon as the front door shut, Angus, who had been watching and listening to the scene through the hole the twins had made in the upstairs woodwork, almost fell on her in every sense.

Back in the drawing room she saw that Rodney, released from thrall, had resumed his tea, and had already eaten everything that had been left. Noting this, Angus began to bawl.

It might be all right later, but at that hour Millie was afraid lest the neighbours intervene: Hubert and Morwena Ellsworthy, who were ostentatiously childless.

'Don't cry, Ang,' said Rodney, putting his arm tightly round Angus's shoulder. 'Uncle Stephen always hogs the lot. You know that.'

Angus's rage of weeping failed to abate.

Rodney gave him a tender and succulent kiss on the cheek.

'We'll go to the Lavender Bag,' he said. 'I'm still hungry too. I think I've got the worms. I expect you have as well. Race you. Ready. Steady... Go.'

As the race began on the spot, the picking up and clearing up for Millie to do were not confined to the tea things.

The Lavender Bag was a cafe at the other end of the Parade. It was run by the Misses Palmerston, four of them. It was a nice enough place in its way, and useful for the release through long lunchtimes and teatimes of high spirits or low spirits, as the case might be. Millie went there often, and so did her friends, though soon she would have no friends. Some of them distrusted her already because they knew she had a degree.

Now Millie suddenly set down the cake tray she was holding. She took care not to let the large crumbs fall to the carpet.

'Oh G.o.d,' gulped Millie, sinking to the edge of the settee and almost to her knees. 'G.o.d, please, G.o.d. What have I done to be punished? Please tell me, G.o.d, and I'll do something else.'

Only some outside intervention could possibly avail.

She had never been very good at having things out with anyone, not even with girl friends, and Phineas had undoubtedly weakened her further. All the same, something simply had to be attempted, however recurrent, however foredoomed.

To make a special occasion of it, she put on a dress, even though it had to be a dress that Phineas would recognise: at least, she supposed he must. The boys were still rampaging about at the Lavender Bag, which in the summer remained open for light snacks until 8P.M. They liked to run round the tables wolfing everything that others had left on plates and in saucers. The Misses Palmerston merely looked on with small, lined smiles. Simultaneously the boys were normal children and flas.h.i.+ng young blades.

'Why should you feel at the end of your tether?' enquired Phineas. 'After all, every day's your own. Certainly far more than my days are mine.'

If only one could give him a proper drink before one attempted to talk seriously with him; that is, to talk about oneself!

'It's the boys, Phineas. You don't know what it's like being at home with them all day.'

'The holidays won't last for ever.'

'After only a week, I'm almost insane.' She tried to rivet his attention. 'I mean it, Phineas.'

Millie knew extremely well that she herself would be far more eloquent and convincing if Phineas's abstinence had not years ago deprived her too, though with never the hint of an express prohibition, but rather the contrary. When she was reading, she had learned of the Saxons never taking action unless the matter had been considered by the council, first when sober and then when drunk. It was the approach that was needed now.

'What's the matter with the boys this time?' asked Phineas.

Millie twitched. 'They're far too tall and big. How long is it since you looked at them, Phineas?'

'Being tall's hardly their fault. I'm tall myself and I'm their father.'

'You're tall in a different way. You're willowy. They're like two great red bulls in the house.'

'I'm afraid we have to look to your family for that aspect of it. Consider your Uncle Nero, if I may venture to mention him.'

'I don't like him being called that.'

'But you can't deny he's bulky. There's no one of his build anywhere up my family tree, as far as I am aware. For better or for worse, of course. There are more troublesome things than st.u.r.diness, especially in growing boys.'

Millie did not have to be told. She had often reflected that Phineas, seeping tiredly over the settee at the end of the day's absence, was like an immensely long anchovy, always with the same expression at the end of it; and in the next bed it was, of course, far worse.

'Then you're not prepared to help in any way? Suppose I have a breakdown?'

'There's be no danger of that, Millie, if only you could persuade yourself to eat more sensibly.'

'Perhaps you could persuade your sons of that?'

'I shall try to do when they are older. At present, they are simply omnivorous, like all young animals. It is a stage we go through and then try to pa.s.s beyond.'

'Then you do admit that they are like animals?'

'I suppose it depends partly upon which animals.'

Millie knew perfectly well, however, that for her they were not like animals, or not exactly; and despite what she had said to Phineas. They were like something far more frightening.

'Uncle Stephen was very upset by them before you came home.'

Phineas merely smiled at her. He had all but finished the lactose drink which he consumed every evening before their meal.

<script>