Good Behaviour Read Free Page A

you.’
    ‘And I heard the roaring and crying when you parted Mister Hamish from Miss Enid and put the two of them in hospital wards,
     male and female, to die on their own alone.’
    ‘At the time it was totally necessary.’
    ‘Necessary? That way you could get this house in your own two hands and boss and bully us through the years. Madam’s better
     off the way she is this red raw minute. She’s tired from you – tired to death. Death is right. We’re all killed from you and
     it’s a pity it’s not yourself lying there and your toes cocked for the grave and not a word more about you, God damn you!’
    Yes, she stood there across the bed saying these obscene, unbelievable things. Of course she loved Mummie, all servants did.
     Of course she was overwrought. I know all that – and she is ignorant to a degree, I allow for that too. Although there was
     a shocking force in what she said to me, it was beyond all sense or reason. It was so entirely and dreadfully false that it
     could not touch me. I felt as tall as a tree standing above all that passionate flood of words. I was determined to be kind
     to Rose. And understanding. And generous. I am her employer, I thought. I shall raise her wages quite substantially. She will
     never be able to resist me then, because she is greedy. I can afford to be kind to Rose. She will learn to lean on me.There is nobody in the world who needs me now and I must be kind to somebody.
    ‘You’re upset,’ I said gently. ‘Naturally you’re upset. You loved Mrs St Charles and I know you didn’t mean one word you’ve
     just said to me.’
    ‘I did too, Miss Aroon.’ She was like a drowning person, coming up for a last choking breath. ‘God help you, it’s the flaming
     truth.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I answered. ‘I’ve forgotten … I didn’t hear … I understand. Now we’ve both got to be practical. We must both
     be brave. I’ll ring up the doctor and you’ll take that tray to the kitchen, and put the mousse over a pot of boiling water
     – it may be hours till lunchtime.’
    She took up the tray, tears pouring down her face. Of course I had expected her to obey me, but I won’t deny that before she
     turned away from the bed, the tray, as it should have been, between her hands, I had been aware of a moment of danger. Now,
     apart from my shock and sorrow about Mummie, a feeling of satisfaction went through me – a kind of ripple that I needed. I
     needed it and I had it.
    I went into the hall and picked up the telephone. While I waited for the exchange (always criminally slow) to answer, I had
     time to consider how the punctual observance of the usual importances is the only way to behave at such times as these. And
     I do know how to behave – believe me, because I know. I have always known. All my life so far I have done everything for the
     best reasons and the most unselfish motives. I have lived for the people dearest to me, and I am at a loss to know why their
     lives have been at times so perplexingly unhappy. I have given them so much, I have given them everything, all I know how
     to give – Papa, Hubert,Richard, Mummie. At fifty-seven my brain is fairly bright, brighter than ever I sometimes think, and I have a cast-iron memory.
     If I look back beyond any shadow into the uncertainties and glories of our youth, perhaps I shall understand more about what
     became of us.

CHAPTER TWO
    When Hubert and I were children and after we grew up we lived at Temple Alice. Temple Alice had been built by Mummie’s ancestor,
     before he inherited his title and estates. He built the house for his bride, and he gave it her name. Now, the title extinct
     and the estates entirely dissipated, Temple Alice, after several generations as a dower house, came to Mummie when her mother
     died. Papa farmed the miserably few hundred acres that remained of the property. Mummie loved gardening. On fine days she
     would work in the woodland garden, taking the gardener away from