The Children's Hour Page 16

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Nest, wheeling towards the door, ‘I think I’d rather be physically crippled than mentally crippled. I’m not really making fun of Georgie, you know, it’s just a kind of letting off steam. Oh God, the frustration! And now, the fear on top of it. Sometimes, I think I might explode with it all. Anyway, none of it’s your fault. Sorry, Mina. Goodnight.’

  Distressed, Mina climbed the stairs, the dogs at her heels, clutching her mug in one hand, spectacles and book in the other, but, once the bedroom door was closed behind her, the tension slipped away and she entered into her little sanctuary with hopeful cheerfulness. The hot drink, a talk with Elyot, a chapter of her book; these were all pleasures to be savoured, along with the warm welcome that the dear and familiar objects offered and, later, the comfort of the bed, made luxuriously cosy with the electric blanket; a present from Hannah and Jack.

  ‘Po-po-po’ – each breath dispelled some tiny anxiety as the drink was placed carefully beside her computer and the dogs settled and curled themselves on their beds. She undressed, remembering other nights with candlelight and icy sheets, and hurried herself into the fleecy robe, murmuring a grateful prayer for the comfort she presently enjoyed. Tonight, she decided, returning to the alcove, switching on the computer, sipping the hot, sweet chocolate, tonight Elyot would not be reserved as a treat. No, tonight he would be first: she needed him. Her thin shoulders sagged with relief when she saw that there was a message from him, and she opened it eagerly.

  From: Elyot

  To: Mina

  My dear friend

  How are you? Not blown away, I hope? We’ve had a better day, today . . .

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Nest, however, could not sleep. The demons, against which she struggled with reasonable success during the day, returned at night to torment her. Frustration, resentment, guilt and despair: these were her night-time companions. As she sat in bed, propped about with pillows, she wondered if Georgie’s presence was good for any of them, even for Georgie herself. It seemed to Nest that, back here at Ottercombe, in the home of her youth, Georgie’s confusion was increased. Last weekend, she’d watched Jack’s children, and Jack himself, with a kind of painful intensity that had been quite upsetting to witness. It was clear – or so Nest thought – that she was travelling between the past and the present, trying to make sense of it, and failing. Sometimes she confused Mina with Mama, although for much of the time she was quite bright and alert. Nevertheless, she was dangerous. She’d already disinterred Mina’s love for Tony Luttrell; what else might she decide to uncover? It was clear that Mina was nervous, although she still denied that Georgie knew as much as she pretended.

  ‘She always enjoyed that sense of power,’ she’d said comfortingly. ‘Hinting at things and putting us all on edge. But when it came down to it, it was only things she’d imagined or half heard.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ Nest had answered, ‘if you have a guilty secret then that kind of thing makes you distinctly nervous. People have been murdered for behaving like Georgie.’

  The blurting out of Mina’s secret had seriously upset Nest. Not only was she furious for Mina’s sake – it might have been very embarrassing and distressing for her – it had made her frightened on her own behalf. In Nest’s opinion Georgie could not be trusted, and there was an end to it.

  ‘But what can we do?’ Mina had said despairingly. ‘I shall ask Helena to take her away if you’re really frightened.’

  ‘The trouble is, she might say something to Helena or Rupert. Or to anyone!’ Nest had looked quite wretched. ‘I don’t think I shall ever feel safe again.’

  ‘If you feel like that, then I shall talk to Helena at the weekend,’ Mina had answered firmly. ‘After all, at my age there are limits to how much I can do. She and Rupert must understand that. My first responsibility is to you and I can see that this is beginning to stress you.’

  Nest had shaken her head, torn between her own fear and pity for Georgie.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she’d said.

  As she sat in bed she fretted at her inconsistency yet, each time she saw Georgie’s vacant, lost expression, her heart contracted with compassion and she knew that she must cope with her own anxiety for a little longer. Knowing that a bad night lay ahead, Nest gave up any attempt at stoicism and took a sleeping tablet. Settling herself as comfortably as she could, she allowed her thoughts to drift, giving way at last to the memories she’d buried for so long.

  There are so many changes after the war. Georgie is married, now, to a young man at the Treasury, whilst Henrietta and Josie, still quarrelling, go to London and find jobs: Josie as a secretary in a department of London University and Henrietta in a small antique shop owned by a very wealthy, titled woman. To begin with, the first floor of the London house is turned into a flat for them but, when Ambrose dies of lung cancer just after his fifty-fourth birthday, the house is divided formally and the rest of it is let. Georgie promises to keep an eye on her two younger sisters and, when Mina returns to Ottercombe after Richard’s death, it is clear that Lydia is very happy to sink into a semi-invalidism. Her world has changed: Ambrose dead, Timothy dead, one daughter is married and another a widow. It seems that she no longer has the will or the energy to control the lives of her two strong-minded, single daughters and she lets them go to make their own way in this new, strange world.

  Mina comforts her. ‘Georgie will keep an eye,’ she tells her, ‘and there are friends of mine who will help them out if they have problems.’

  Lydia is content to believe her; Josie and Henrietta have worn her down during the last years of the war and she is delighted to have Mina home again. They settle down peacefully together to long periods of quiet, only enlivened when Nest and Timmie come home for the school holidays. For these two it seems that the old, happy days have returned. Soon they grow out of their make-believe games and begin to explore further afield than their beloved cleave: walking inland over the moor; cycling along the coastal road to Countisbury, shouting with excitement as they free-wheel down the steep slopes, groaning as they trudge up the hills, bent double over their handlebars. They go to the tiny village of Oare and explore the church, where Lorna Doone came to be married to John Ridd, and stand together at the altar where Lorna was shot down by the villainous Carver Doone. They descend from the wild, wind-blown coast road to the sudden, sheltering peace of wooded valleys and eat their picnic on the banks of the East Lyn or on a sunny, heather-covered slope, watching stonechats and whinchats flitting above the rounded grey stones. The only place forbidden to them is the wild, peaty bog-land called the Chains where, because of the pan of iron just below the surface, it is wet even in high summer and unwary walkers can sink up to their knees between the coarse tussocks of grass.

  Timmie, it seems, is destined for the army; he has all the eager zest for exploration and adventure that so defined his godfather, and Nest, watching him grow strong and tall, is filled, in turn, by pride and fear.

  ‘Does he have to be a soldier?’ she asks Mama one morning just before a new term. Mina has driven Timmie to the barber in Combe Martin – ‘Off to Sweedlepipe,’ she says. ‘Must get that hair cut!’ – and she and Mama are alone. ‘Supposing there’s another war?’

  Mama’s eyes look beyond her – as they so often do these days – to a far-off summer afternoon when she once stood in the hall, smiling at Timothy, holding his hand as he said, ‘I apologize for arriving unannounced . . .’.

  ‘Mama?’ says Nest questioningly – and Mama, returning to the present, takes a quick breath and touches her lightly on the cheek.

  ‘There is nothing we can do, my darling,’ she says gently. ‘He would be unhappy doing anything else.’

  Mina understands how she is suffering, and tries to comfort her, but Nest returns to school knowing that there are very few holidays left that she and Timmie will share.

  In the autumn of 1951 Timmie goes to Sandhurst and Nest embarks on her last year at school. Now, with
Nest at seventeen and Mina at twenty-eight, the two sisters are closer than they’ve ever been. Lydia seems to have withdrawn to those bygone years of the thirties; she drifts, happily vague, content with gardening or reading, quite ready for a little outing, with Mina at the wheel of the small Austin. Occasionally, Georgie visits with baby Helena, or Josie and Henrietta descend. Josie is now engaged to a young nuclear scientist and, since she no longer is a threat, Henrietta and she have become rather closer. Henrietta continues to play the field. Glamorous, amusing, confident, she has plenty of admirers but no special one. Despite her air of elegant sophistication she can be wickedly, cruelly funny and she makes Nest and Mina laugh until they cry, with her naughty imitations of Georgie’s Tom and Josie’s Alec.

  ‘Too yawn-making for words,’ she says, wrinkling her nose after one such performance. ‘Tom is only interested in the National Debt and Alec is bored by anything that isn’t in a test tube. He makes a point of despising normal people. He’s only happy in a laboratory. Poor old Josie. They might be off to America, did she tell you?’

  Nest is fascinated by her beautiful, modern, older sister and is beginning to think that it will be fun, when she leaves school, to go to London and try her wings. Yet Henrietta has none of the deep-down stability of Mina, nor the shared love of books and language, and it is still with Mina that Nest feels happiest. Henrietta has a febrile quality, a quick-witted lack of tolerance that means that those who are caught in her spell must be continually on their toes so as to stay in favour. During the Christmas holidays, with time to spend with her younger sister, Henrietta senses future competition and she is quick to lay the foundation for any developing relationship.

  ‘Do you really think that all that hair hanging down your back suits you? Makes you look peaky, I think. Perhaps a perm would liven it up,’ and, ‘Goodness, I forget how behind the times you are down here. I hope you won’t wear those frumpy clothes when you come to London. I know rationing’s been grim and Utility’s ghastly, but even so . . .’

  By the time Henrietta has gone, Nest feels faintly breathless and quite inadequate. She anxiously inspects her meagre wardrobe and bunches her hair about her head, peering at herself in the glass.

  ‘Do you think I should have my hair cut off?’ she asks Mina, who comes in with some aired laundry.

  Mina meets her anxious eyes in the looking-glass, sees the old-but-good tweed skirt laid out on the bed, and knows that Henrietta’s one-upmanship has been at work.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she says positively. ‘It looks wonderful, all long and silky. Much nicer than a dried-out frizz. I notice Henrietta keeps hers long, although she always wears it up these days. You know, that is really such a nice tweed. Beautifully cut. Makes you look so slim.’

  Nest is comforted but decides that perhaps London can wait until the Easter holidays. She and Mina embark on a feast of Nancy Mitford’s books, new words and phrases enter their vocabulary, and Lydia smiles to see them so happy together.

  When the Easter holidays come, however, the possibility of going to London is postponed yet again. Lydia has a recurrence of her asthmatic troubles and Mina is much preoccupied with looking after her, leaving Nest to deal with mundane jobs about the house and much of the cooking. Nest is quite happy and, one soft, warm afternoon in early April, she wanders down to the beach. In the cleave familiar sights greet her eyes – a spray of budding white blossom on the wild pear tree, the drooping purple heads of the dog violet, pale green catkins hanging from the silver birch – whilst she listens to the distant laughter of the yaffingale and, closer to, the chiff-chaff utters its two random notes followed by a soft chirring call.

  As she passes out onto the beach she stops, startled by the sight of the figure of a man, lying stretched on a rock, his face turned up to the sunshine. Out in the bay a small boat bobs, sails furled casually on the deck, and a wooden dinghy is pulled up on the shingle. Once or twice small boats have taken shelter in the cove from sudden squalls but never before, to her knowledge, has the sailor come ashore. Nest moves forward cautiously, to take a closer look, but she disturbs a gull, fishing in a rock-pool, who flies up with a raucous cry. The man raises his head, shielding his eyes against the sun, sees her and slews round on the rock, staring.

  She stands still, watching him: his cord trousers are rolled above his ankles, he wears a thick, oiled fisherman’s sweater and old sand-shoes on his feet.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, not moving from the rock. ‘It’s hot as June in this cove and I couldn’t resist it. Have you come to tell me I’m trespassing or are you simply a passing dryad?’

  She is transfixed by his light Irish voice and the utter beauty of him, so wild and casual there upon the rock.

  ‘No,’ she says at last, foolishly.

  ‘No to which?’ he asks teasingly. ‘To the dryad or the trespassing? Or is it both?’

  She smiles, then, possessed by a sudden glorious upswing of spirits. ‘You are trespassing,’ she says, crossing the beach towards him. ‘But I won’t tell on you.’

  He laughs, not standing but waiting until she reaches the rock. His knees are drawn up now, his arms linked loosely around them as he watches her approach. His red-brown hair glints in the sunlight and his eyes are a dark, bright blue.

  ‘And me hoping you were a dryad,’ he says ruefully. ‘Wouldn’t it just be my old luck? So you own this magic place, do you?’

  ‘Well, not me,’ she answers, looking down at him, confused, breathing fast, already wanting to touch the crisp hair and rub the salty fold of his jersey between her fingers. ‘My family own it.’

  ‘Do they so?’ His voice is warmly intimate, his glance keen. ‘And will you share it with me for this afternoon, lady?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she answers simply, so sweetly, that he jumps up and makes her an old-fashioned bow.

  ‘My name is Connor Lachlin,’ he says.

  ‘And mine is Nest,’ she answers – and holds out her hand.

  When he takes it – and carries it briefly to his lips – she feels that she might faint with wild, longing joy and, when they sit together on the rock and he retains her hand in his warm one, she knows how, at last, between a moment and a moment, the world can change for ever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nest stirred, her dreams disturbed. Drugged with medication, unwilling to waken, yet she was aware of someone standing close to her. Her eyelids, weighted with sleep, fluttered open but it was too dark to see anything clearly and past images still crowded upon her vision. A denser shape detached itself from the shadows and leaned over her; she felt the breath upon her face and did not know whether she still dreamed. Her body, heavy and relaxed, was incapable of movement yet she knew fear and tried to speak.

  The form still hovered above her and she was aware of hands lightly moving upon her. Her skin shrivelled and shrank from the touch, her muscles contracting in horror, but she could not lift her arms or make any sound apart from the groaning that issued from her dry throat.

  ‘Mama.’ The word was little more than a whisper. ‘Why is it dark in here, Mama? Why are you lying down in the morning-room?’

  Trying to rouse herself, Nest felt herself to be swimming in treacle, and ‘No,’ she tried to say. ‘No, I am not Mama . . .’ but the words would not be formed.

  ‘I know a secret, Mama. Your secret.’ The whispering voice was horrid in its knowing confidentiality. ‘Why don’t you speak to me? Shall I tell your secret, Mama?’

  In an enormous effort of will, Nest raised her arms – oh! how heavy they were – and feebly gripped Georgie’s wrists.

  ‘It’s me!’ she muttered. ‘It’s me. Nest. Not Mama. It’s Nest . . .’

  Exhausted from the effort, she fell back against her pillows, dimly aware of a new quality of silence: surprise, perhaps, and confusion.

  ‘Nest?’ Georgie seemed to be considering this. She began to chuckle a little. ‘Nest. I know about you too, Nest. I know a secret. Shall I tell?’

  ‘No!’ cried Nest –
but the shout that rang in her head was merely a whisper and she closed her eyes as a great weariness overtook her, sweeping her back to where she longed to be, no longer aware of Georgie or of the door opening quietly and then closing, very softly.

  She dreamed again, her arms still outflung upon the quilt, her eyelids fluttering as she watched the past replay itself before her.

  During that week, whilst Mina is occupied with Lydia, Connor sails to the cove nearly every day. He is staying in Porlock, at a small cottage owned by a friend, and the boat is part of the deal.

  ‘It’s a chancy old coast,’ he tells Nest, ‘but when you’ve sailed off the west coast of Ireland you should be able to manage the Bristol Channel.’

  He is a professor of history at one of the Oxford colleges and is at least ten years older than she is: a fact that worries him a little as the days pass.

  ‘As if it matters,’ she cries. ‘Think of Maxim de Winter and the girl in Rebecca. Age isn’t important.’

  She attributes to him all the manly graces which, nearly ten years before, Mina has bestowed upon Tony but Connor is not an impressionable young man with no experience: in fact, his holiday in Porlock is specifically to put distance between himself and a girl who is pursuing him. To be fair, he has not wilfully led her on – nevertheless he has not discouraged her too much either. Connor likes to be loved. With Nest, however, he sees all the responsibility of encouraging a much younger, innocent girl; a girl, moreover, with a respectable family at her back.

  ‘I think I should meet them,’ he says, ‘Mina and Mama. I’m behaving like a thief, lady, and I feel uncomfortable with myself.’

  His principles only serve to make her love him more, yet she postpones the meeting, fearing that somehow the magic will be spoiled. One morning she tells Mina that she is going for a long ride and sneaks away on her bicycle, meeting Connor on the road over Trentishoe Down. He cannot resist the spice of adventure or the romantic secrecy, and the bike is hidden in the furze whilst they flee away in his old convertible, travelling roads she once passed over with Timmie, laughing and singing together as the warm west wind streams through their hair and stings their skin alive to every light touch between them.