I don’t know how I got to know Mrs. Downie because she was exclusive. “Come to tea and bring your doings,” she invited. For the moment my “doings” were effigies of the two Doctors. The ‘Ups’ bought wooden dolls for me at the village shop in Stillfield. I adapted and costumed them to mimic characters.
Tea was set in the big bay-window of Mrs. Downie’s room. Her fine room at the end of the east wing overlooked not only the terrace but the whole countryside as well.
Mrs. Downie did not walk with ‘Ups’. She did not lie on the porch with ‘Semis’. She was not a ‘Down’. She reclined on a lounge chair in the window of her big room, surrounded by the newest books in clean jackets and the choicest flowers from London shops. Her meals were served to her there.
She lay now watching with amused interest my effigies being stitched into life. I was working on Dr. McNair’s undies. Mrs. Downie asked, “What do the Doctors say to their effigies?”
“Just laugh. I had trouble in getting Dr. Mack’s legs long enough and the right twist on Dr. Sally’s neck; you know her listening kink? I had to borrow Cook’s meat-saw, saw through the neck and glue it back twisted. I had to give Dr. Mack’s legs an extra joint.”
On the terrace below, heavy tea cups clanked, listless hands busied themselves over bits of needlework or knitting; round bright tams bobbed beneath us like toy balloons, floating singly, bunching for gossip. Jenny’s merry laugh floated up, other laughs, some infinitesimal joke. “Hush! . . . Doctor.” “Probably Dr. Mack is framed in her window!” I told Mrs. Downie.
Miss Brown and Lavinia Mole humping up the garden hill, tired, sweaty, wanting their tea. “A-choo! A-choo!” Angelina Judd somewhere behind the rise. Two men mounting the terrace steps; one limps, the other has a scar across his cheek.
“Out in Africa—,” says Limp. “I remember,” replies Scar.
The two men take their tea standing on the terrace, sipping slowly. A child’s sweater is held up for inspection, “Are those sleeves a pair?”
“True as scales.” “Nice colour, how many stitches?”
Dutch Boy
The bell, bobbing tams, closing doors, silence. Mrs. Downie turned from the window. “They are brave. I am a coward. Just seeing them is almost more than I can bear. Dr. Bottle advised. Tom begged.” She shrugged. “I stipulated that I should not eat or mix with them. Tom and I waited seven years to marry. They said I had quite outgrown the tendency. T.B. is hideous the way it lurks and pounces, long after you think you’re safe.”
Rest bell. Mrs. Downie settled into her lounge chair. I packed the Doctors’ effigies into their box, went to my room.
Mrs. Downie stayed in the San a few months, then she went with her husband to Sicily. From there she sent me what must have been glorious flowers. Alas, when I opened the box every flower was dead. She said she was sending me a box of flowers every week. I wrote, “Don’t. They come dead.” The San people said I was foolish, I should have let Mrs. Downie have the pleasure of thinking she had given me that joy. I felt that would be shamming, dishonest. I appreciated her thought and told her so. In the San they said, “Mrs. Downie has money. She would not miss their price. It is better to tell a minor fib than to disappoint.” They accused me of striding rough-shod over people’s more delicate feelings.
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