The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [20]
Virginia was happy too, sitting there untroubled and warm, with the two of them so generously glad to have her. Strangely, although Mr Benberg was only an ineffectual dreamer, and Mrs Benberg seemed at times as mad as a hatter, they had managed to give her the help she had looked for in vain from her mother. Mrs Benberg’s enthusiasm was catching. Her optimism restored Virginia’s belief in herself and enabled her to see the day’s setback as a mere stumble on a staircase that she was bound to ascend.
Mrs Benberg raised her glass. The cherry brandy was touched with points of fire from the flames in the roaring grate. ‘A toast!’ she cried. ‘To your health, Virginia, and jolly good luck to you!’ She threw back her untidy head, tossed down the brandy, gasped in satisfaction, then settled back in her chair and suddenly picked up a length of orange wool from the table beside her and began to knit furiously.
‘Things will go well with you, love,’ she said, her eyes swivelling to follow the points of the long, thick needles. ‘Things will come to you. I feel that. I’m prophetic, did I tell you? Father knows. I see more than I should sometimes, don’t I, old friend?’ She chuckled over her knitting, wagging her head.
‘I’ve always felt that I might be lucky,’ Virginia said, leaning forward to stroke the harsh fur of the little brown dog, who lay with distended stomach on the hearthrug. It was almost on her lips to tell them what Tiny used to say about the guardian angel. Involuntarily, she glanced into the corner where a flourishing begonia tumbled its myriad little pink bells in a waterfall of blossom. She felt so safe in this room that it was possible to imagine that her angel stood there with calmly folded wings and a serene face, approving of her choice of friends.
Mrs Benberg flung down her knitting, and several stitches slid off the end of the fat needle. ‘Luck!’ she said scornfully. ‘There is no such thing as luck. Luck is a reward, not a chance gift. It’s only for those who fight for it. The people who say they’re unlucky don’t know that. They think they have been badly done by, when really they’ve done badly by themselves. But I tell you,’ she dropped her voice to a Biblical chant, ‘To him that hath shall be given. You know what that means, I suppose?’ She leaned forward with her skirt straining over her spread knees, and stared at Virginia with glowing eyes.
‘Yes, I think so. It always sounded unfair to me.’
‘Not unfair! Not, not! Why, it’s the very plum-stone and essence of fairness. It doesn’t mean that the rich people are going to get more money, and the poor are going to lose their pennies. Ridiculous notion. What it means is this. It means: to him that hath the courage to stand up to life shall be given chances, but to him that hath not the courage shall be taken away even those chances which he hath.’
She got up and walked about the room, making the furniture tremble. She was excited by what she had said. She grunted to herself, and made jerky upward movements of her hands. Then she stopped in her tracks, the light went out of her face, and she grew calm. ‘Time to let the dog out, Father,’ she said mildly. ‘It’s after ten.’
Virginia said that she must go home, and Mr Benberg and the dog took her into the frosted garden and let her out of the little creaking gate. He stood by the gate and waved, and Mrs Benberg waved strenuously from the front door, and called gaily after Virginia until she was out of earshot.
Virginia rode home on a bus through streets that were at first unfamiliar to her. The Benbergs lived far out in the northwest of London, at the end of one of those long roads, once a coaching way out of the city, and now