Hickory Dickory Dock

Mrs Hubbard went upstairs loosening the collar of her coat. She sighed as she turned in the direction of Mrs Nicoletis’s room.

‘In one of her states again, I suppose,’ she muttered.

She tapped on the door and entered.

Mrs Nicoletis’s sitting-room was kept very hot. The big electric fire had all its bars turned on and the window was tightly shut. Mrs Nicoletis was sitting smoking on a sofa surrounded by a lot of rather dirty silk and velvet sofa cushions. She was a big dark woman, still good-looking, with a bad-tempered mouth and enormous brown eyes.

‘Ah! So there you are.’ Mrs Nicoletis made it sound like an accusation.

Mrs Hubbard, true to her Lemon blood, was unperturbed.

‘Yes,’ she said tartly, ‘I’m here. I was told you wanted to see me specially.’

‘Yes, indeed I do. It is monstrous, no less, monstrous!’

‘What’s monstrous?’

‘These bills! Your accounts!’ Mrs Nicoletis produced a sheaf of papers from beneath a cushion in the manner of a successful conjuror. ‘What are we feeding these miserable students on? Foie gras and quails? Is this the Ritz? Who do they think they are, these students?’

‘Young people with a healthy appetite,’ said Mrs Hubbard. ‘They get a good breakfast and a decent evening meal—plain food but nourishing. It all works out very economically.’

‘Economically? Economically? You dare to say that to me? When I am being ruined?’

‘You make a very substantial profit, Mrs Nicoletis, out of this place. For students, the rates are on the high side.’

‘But am I not always full? Do I ever have a vacancy that is not applied for three times over? Am I not sent students by the British Council, by London University Lodging Board—by the Embassies—by the French Lycée? Are not there always three applications for every vacancy?’

‘That’s very largely because the meals here are appetising and sufficient. Young people must be properly fed.’

‘Bah! These totals are scandalous. It is that Italian cook and her husband. They swindle you over the food.’

‘Oh no, they don’t, Mrs Nicoletis. I can assure you that no foreigner is going to put anything over on me.’

‘Then it is you yourself—you who are robbing me.’

Mrs Hubbard remained unperturbed.

‘I can’t allow you to say things like that,’ she said, in the voice an old-fashioned Nanny might have used to a particularly truculent charge. ‘It isn’t a nice thing to do, and one of these days it will land you in trouble.’

‘Ah!’ Mrs Nicoletis threw the sheaf of bills dramatically up in the air whence they fluttered to the ground in all directions. Mrs Hubbard bent and picked them up, pursing her lips. ‘You enrage me,’ shouted her employer.

‘I dare say,’ said Mrs Hubbard, ‘but it’s bad for you, you know, getting all worked up. Tempers are bad for the blood pressure.’

‘You admit that these totals are higher than those of last week?’

‘Of course they are. There’s been some very good cut price stuff going at Lampson’s Stores. I’ve taken advantage of it. Next week’s totals will be below average.’

Mrs Nicoletis looked sulky.

‘You explain everything so plausibly.’

‘There.’ Mrs Hubbard put the bills in a neat pile on the table. ‘Anything else?’

‘The American girl, Sally Finch, she talks of leaving—I do not want her to go. She is a Fulbright scholar. She will bring here other Fulbright scholars. She must not leave.’

‘What’s her reason for leaving?’

Mrs Nicoletis humped monumental shoulders.

‘How can I remember? It was not genuine. I could tell that. I always know.’

Mrs Hubbard nodded thoughtfully. She was inclined to believe Mrs Nicoletis on that point.

‘Sally hasn’t said anything to me,’ she said.

‘But you will talk to her?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And if it is these coloured students, these Indians, these Negresses—then they can all go, you understand? The colour bar, it means everything to these Americans—and for me it is the Americans that matter—as for these coloured ones—scram!’

She made a dramatic gesture.

‘Not while I’m in charge,’ said Mrs Hubbard coldly. ‘And anyway, you’re wrong. There’s no feeling of that sort here amongst the students, and Sally certainly isn’t like that. She and Mr Akibombo have lunch together quite often, and nobody could be blacker than he is.’

‘Then it is Communists—you know what the Americans are about Communists. Nigel Chapman now—he is a Communist.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Yes, yes. You should have heard what he was saying the other evening.’

‘Nigel will say anything to annoy people. He is very tiresome that way.’

‘You know them all so well. Dear Mrs Hubbard, you are wonderful! I say to myself again and again—what should I do without Mrs Hubbard? I rely on you utterly. You are a wonderful, wonderful woman.’

‘After the powder, the jam,’ said Mrs Hubbard.

‘What is that?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll do what I can.’

She left the room, cutting short a gushing speech of thanks.

Muttering to herself: ‘Wasting my time—what a maddening woman she is!’ she hurried along the passage and into her own sitting-room.

But there was to be no peace for Mrs Hubbard as yet. A tall figure rose to her feet as Mrs Hubbard entered and said:

‘I should be glad to speak to you for a few minutes, please.’