The Mouse by Frances King. Part 3.
Watch on KineScope.
Fortunately, however, his symphony was saved by the arrival in the flat below of a retired prep-schoolmaster. This man, who had suffered a slight stroke after his wife’s death, needed someone to help with his cooking and cleaning, and Vernon put it to Stella that it would be an act of charity to help the poor old boy in his hour of distress. Stella received, of course, a token payment; for the man was not poor, and as Vernon pointed out, ‘He’d probably much rather keep his independence. One must think of such things.’
The arrangement was not, however, wholly satisfactory. Often when Vernon needed Stella to copy music for him, to run an errand or to make him a cup of tea, she would be downstairs. He began to feel that the old man imposed on her; and it was no use Stella saying that he was really most kind and paid her extra if she stayed for more than the hour, for Vernon would only answer: ‘You are a sweet-natured little thing. Anyone can get the better of you.’ Mr Errin (for that was his name) also had a dog, of indeterminate breed and sex, which was so old that it spent its whole day stretched out asleep on one of the flower-beds of the garden which was shared by the two flats; the poor creature appeared to like the warm moisture of the earth. Vernon himself did not work in the garden – it brought on his fibrositis – but Stella did, and it upset him to see the dog crush the flowers which she had planted with so much care. More than once he had to complain (of course in his usual friendly fashion) to old Mr Errin. Mavis also disliked the dog, being afraid it would eat her mouse; though on the rare occasions when, by accident, the animals came face to face, they appeared to feel nothing but a mild curiosity towards each other.
‘Do you really like the old chap?’ Vernon asked Stella.
‘Yes, of course I do. He’s awfully sweet and kind … By the way, he said he would lend us that twenty pounds for the rent.’
‘You didn’t ask him, did you?’ Vernon said, horrified.
‘Well – yes… I did.’
‘Have you no pride?’
‘But I thought… you said … As we were going to be turned out of the flat if we couldn’t pay’
Vernon ran his fingers through Stella’s luxuriant hair: ‘Silly!’ he said. ‘No one minds borrowing off relations. That’s what relations are for. But from someone we hardly know-‘
‘Oh, Mr Errin’s a real friend’, Stella protested. She saw the smile fade from her husband’s face, and she added with a note of fearfulness in her voice: ‘Isn’t he?’ Vernon’s fingers tightened in her hair, so that it felt as if an electric current were shooting among the roots.
A week later Vernon was going to have lunch with a publisher; he was already late, as he had had to talk to Mavis severely about not teasing her mouse (she loved it, of course, and didn’t mean to hurt it; but he couldn’t bear to see her pulling it along by its tail, or pinching it between her fingers until it emitted its shrill, frightened squeaks) and now he found that a button was missing from the suit he wanted to wear. It was a suit barely three months old and he felt angry with the Savile Row tailors who had made it for him, and even more angry with Stella for not having noticed that the button needed sewing, when she put the suit away for him. ‘Stella, old thing!’ he had shouted amiably. But Stella was not in the flat.
He looked at his watch and saw that it was ten past twelve; Stella was supposed to finish her work for Mr Errin at twelve o’clock precisely. So he went down in his dressing-gown and rang at their neighbour’s bell. ‘Oh, Mr Thurible!’ Mr Errin exclaimed. ‘Do come in, won’t you? Stella – your wife’ – as Mr Errin corrected himself, he blushed like a schoolboy – ‘that is – we are just drinking a cup of coffee together. Won’t you come in and join us?’
Vernon gave his frank and charming smile. ‘It’s awfully decent of you, but I’m afraid it’ll have to be another time. I’m dashing out to meet my publisher, and the button has come off my one and only suit. I don’t want to hurry Stella, but if she could sew it on for me-
‘But of course, darling!’ Stella had overheard the conversation and now rushed out of the sitting-room, in an overall and with her hair bound up in a scarf. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t have noticed when I put it away.’ The Thuribles both thanked Mr Errin for his offer of the coffee and apologized for leaving so hurriedly. Vernon put his arm round Stella’s waist and squeezed her as they went upstairs: but (no doubt from the haste with which he had dressed) he was trembling from head to foot.
‘You look just like a little charwoman,’ he teased.
‘Do I, darling?’
‘Which, of course, is what you are now!’ They both laughed together.