The Children's Book

12

Prosper Cain was happy to be distracted, by Olive Wellwood, from the problems of the Museum. Various papers and magazines were on the attack, criticising the circulating exhibitions, expressing shock at the imprudent purchase of fakes, including the Palissy platter, and most of all complaining that the art education of the British had “idiotically and inexplicably become vested in the hands of soldiers.” The Museum was nothing more than an almshouse for the army. The present Director, Professor Middleton, was not a soldier, but a reclusive scholar from Cambridge, who was greatly ill at ease with Major-General Sir John Donnelly, head of the Department of Science and Art, and was also persecuted by the irascible aesthete James Weale, keeper of the Art Library. The atmosphere was sour, and Prosper Cain spent much of his time shuttling between incompatible people with unacceptable proposals. He had no one in whom to confide, and felt lonely. It was pleasant to be greeted by Mrs. Wellwood’s warm smile of admiring respect, to be asked for anecdotes and practical information that were easy and pleasant to impart. He noticed her condition, under her swinging Liberty dress. In some curious way it allowed him, safely, to recognise that she attracted him. She was like a lovely carving or painting, though he could hardly say so. She fixed her liquid dark eyes on him, and he relaxed, and smiled back. He asked how the tale of the child detectives was progressing. She said that the construction of a detective story was interesting.

“You know, Major, a story, especially a mystery story, is all topsyturvy. It works backwards, like tunnels of mirrors. The end is the cause of the beginning, so to speak. I need my resourceful children to find hidden things, and therefore I need to know who hid them, and where, and why. But really they were hidden in order to be found.”

Prosper Cain said he hadn’t thought of it that way. He asked if her own children helped her to write about child characters. He was not sure he knew how young people thought or felt, despite having two of his own.

Olive dropped her voice, and leaned towards him.

“You know, it’s a truism that writers for children must still be children themselves, deep down, must still feel childish feelings, and a child’s surprise at the world.”

“You write from your own inner child? I don’t know if my own still exists. Military life and museums do not encourage spontaneity.”

“I will share a secret with you. I don’t really like making up imaginary children. I get most frightfully bored by their little disputes and their innocence. I think the persisting child in myself inhabits Elfland—not pretty gauzy Fairyland but a more dangerous and wilder place altogether. I like watching invisible beings and strange creatures who creep into the real world from elsewhere, so to speak. I would like to write the Morte d’Arthur or ‘Goblin Market,’ not The Adventure of the Hidden Casket. But readers have an insatiable desire for these clever little persons who detect and have comic adventures. So I try to oblige them.”

She laughed. She said she was talking too much about herself, she was sorry, she would go back to her list of questions. Prosper Cain said he liked to hear about herself. Indeed, he said, he found her work—and her—fascinating. He hoped she would continue to treat him as a friend, and talk to him freely. “Most of my conversations,” said Prosper Cain, “are dull, formal and difficult.”

Olive said she could not believe that, and if it was really so, it was a pity, and should be remedied.

What they would next have said remained uncertain, as they were interrupted by Florence, who had found Geraint Fludd wandering in the South Court, all by himself. She had invited him to tea. He had said he had indeed hoped to come across her, there was something he was trying to get up the courage to ask her father…

Tea was called for, and brought. Olive studied Geraint. He was fifteen, two years older than Florence, who was demurely dressed as a young lady, in a serge skirt and a striped shirt, and looked older than she was. Geraint was dressed shabbily in worn breeches and a Norfolk jacket. His wrists were outside his cuffs. His skin was tanned like a gipsy, Olive thought, and he had dark red cheeks amongst the tan, and an elegant mouth. His hair was very curly and all over the place—a kind of Pan figure, Olive thought, a wild boy disguised as a real, ordinary boy, who would be interesting to insert into a story. He was both ill at ease and full of determination, she saw, watching him frown, watching him watch Major Cain over the rim of his cup. He did not know how to say what he had come to say, Olive saw, and Florence also saw. Florence said “Geraint has something he wishes to ask you, Papa. He came on purpose.”

“Ask away,” said Prosper, full of an unusual benign goodwill, pleased by Olive’s presence and also by the interruption—and therefore the safe prolongation—of their intimate moment.

“It’s hard,” said Geraint. He meant to ask Major Cain to help to sell his father’s work, to help to get the pottery on its feet again. But he could not plead, and should not betray the family’s appalling poverty—not least because that would be self-defeating. Major Cain would think very ill of him if he did that.

Olive watched him seeking inside himself for the right words. She was already turning him into one of her detecting children—that sense of adult responsibility in a child was a useful emotion to study. Also the blush, and the reticence. She said

“I believe you have—or your family has—been able to help the lost boy I met when I first came here—the runaway boy Julian and my Tom pursued in the cellarage? How is he doing? His drawings were delightful. Is he still with you?”

“Yes, he is. Yes, that’s partly why I’ve come. He’s been helping my father—working with my father—and they’ve got the kiln going and made a lot of ware that my father seems really pleased with. I wanted to ask you—to ask you—if you would come and look at what they are making.” He hesitated. “My family isn’t practical. It must be the most unpractical family in the country, I sometimes think. Nobody thinks—”

Geraint looked desperately round the room. Prosper, Olive, and Florence were all looking at him with courteous encouragement.

“Nobody thinks, sir, about how to sell anything, or get anyone to come and look at what’s been made. My mother and sisters are very artistic.” Despite himself a note of pure contempt crept into this adjective. “We had that man Dobbin, you know, who was at the Midsummer party and the puppet show—he wanted to help my father, and he wanted to set up some sort of school, or community in Purchase Hall—there’s plenty of room, it could work. But he couldn’t help my father—he hasn’t the aptitude, they said—and my father kept getting angry, and Dobbin went to live with the vicar. But he said you said my father has genius, and that the Museum has some of his work and I thought—I thought you might understand what should be done next. Or anyway come and look at the new work. My father really likes Philip—I’ve never seen him work like this before.”

He hesitated. He blushed again. Olive thoughthis blush wasdelightful.

“The thing is—nobody has even thought of paying Philip. It isn’t really right. I seem to be the only one who thinks about these things— who will buy the pots, where the—the clay, and the chemicals—and—and our food,” he said in a rush, “will come from.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, very red indeed now, wishing already that he hadn’t mentioned the food.

Prosper Cain looked appropriately serious. Florence cut a piece of cake for Geraint.

“I shall come to Rye. I shall bring Florence and Julian, who has a holiday, and I shall come to see this new work, and think what may best be done. Your father is indeed a genius, and is indeed impractical, like many great men. Should I write to him, or simply appear?”

“Write,” said Geraint, “in a general sort of way. Don’t say I came.”

“Of course not. I shall come next weekend, which is Julian’s holiday. It will all appear quite casual.”

“May I come?” said Olive impulsively. “I should dearly like to see the new work, too. I may be able to help. Or Humphry may, he knows all sorts of financial people. I could bring Tom and Dorothy, it will be a pleasant excursion …”

Prosper said he would be very happy if she came. Geraint thought of saying that large numbers of visitors might have a bad effect on his father, and then thought he had achieved all he could have hoped, and should let things be. Olive read his mind in his face.

“I don’t think we should all necessarily bother your father, not all at once. We will linger in the background and see if we can be helpful. And look at the sea, it will be wonderful to see the sea again.”

Geraint smiled at her. She smiled back. “And you? What do you mean to do with your life? Are you artistic?”

“Good Lord, no,” said Geraint, with excessive vehemence. “It got left out of me altogether, anyone would think I was a changeling. I’m clumsy with my hands, and my family say I have no taste.”

“So what do you hope to do, then?”

“What I want,” said Geraint, relaxing after his huge effort, “what I want, is to make a lot of money and be comfortable. I’d like to be in a bank, or something. I don’t know where to start.”

“You start by asking my husband,” said Olive, who loved giving people things. “He gave up his bank position, but he knows exactly how to set about finding one. When you are quite sure that is what you want.”

“Oh, I am. I think and think about it. I am quite sure.”