The Children's Hour Read online

  ‘Oh.’ Georgie looked slightly put out. ‘But I wanted to go to Lynton this morning to get my new library book.’ She frowned. ‘Did I say that it was in?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nest quickly. ‘Quite right. The librarian phoned yesterday afternoon. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go to Lynton to get it.’

  ‘Of course not,’ agreed Mina. ‘I’ll drive you over later.’

  Her eyes met Nest’s privately – ‘and keep her out for as long as I can’ implicit in the glance – and Nest felt a lessening of tension. As they ate breakfast she wondered if it would be possible to keep Georgie and Lyddie apart for most of the time, although it would be a strain, but, even as she considered ways and means of achieving it, the dogs began to bark and they heard Lyddie’s voice in the hall.

  Mina reached her first, hugging her tightly, holding her close.

  ‘How lovely for us,’ she said. ‘My dear child . . .’ She looked into Lyddie’s eyes and held her again, murmuring little love words as she did to her dogs.

  Coming behind her, wheeling slowly, Nest could hardly bear to look at the pain on Lyddie’s face. She took the outstretched hand and clasped it tightly until Lyddie bent to kiss her.

  ‘I’m not doing very well,’ she muttered, tears threatening again, and Nest swallowed her own pain and anger on Lyddie’s behalf and gave the hand a little shake.

  ‘We’ll have a chat very soon,’ she said, ‘if you want to. Can you manage in front of Georgie?’

  Lyddie nodded, straightening up, trying to smile, and the two older women looked at her with affection and encouragement, enfolding her in their love, communicating their strength.

  ‘It’s the Bosun.’ She tried for a lighter note. ‘Shall I let him out? You know how Captain Cat terrifies him and he’s already anxious because he knows that things aren’t . . . quite right.’

  ‘Of course he must be let out,’ cried Mina, ‘and if Captain Cat can’t behave himself I shall shut him in the woodshed. Go and get him and then come and have some coffee. I’m just about to take Georgie off to Lynton, and you and Nest will be able to have a good old talk or whatever. I’ll let the dogs out for a while and you can bring the Bosun in so as to get him settled. They’ll be fine. Give me a shout when you’ve got him into the hall and I’ll let mine out of the kitchen door. That’ll faze ’em.’

  The Bosun was delighted to be set free, rushing away over the lawn, into the secret garden and then back again, tail waving, tongue lolling. He seemed relieved to be at Ottercombe, despite the potential anxiety of a run-in with Captain Cat, sensing the possibility of a security that had been absent for the last twenty-four hours in Truro. Presently they went inside, giving the all-clear to Mina, who opened the kitchen door with relief so that the three barking dogs, mad by now with inquisitive frustration, shot like furry white arrows into the courtyard, round to the front of the house and began to search for the intruder.

  ‘I’ll take them with me when we go,’ said Mina, bending to stroke the Bosun’s head. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll settle down. Poor old fellow, you must be worn out.’

  The Bosun flattened his ears, responding to the sympathetic tone, managing to look both pathetic and brave. He was exhausted: woken early from sleep, dragged off for a walk whilst it was barely light and then hurried into the car for a two-hour drive. His tail beat hopefully against Georgie’s chair and she looked at him consideringly whilst Mina slipped him a biscuit or two as a reward for his suffering. He crunched happily and Georgie patted his head.

  ‘You are a big chap,’ she said admiringly. ‘He’ll like a walk down to the beach, won’t he?’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ agreed Mina, ‘but Lyddie needs some coffee and you and I have to go to Lynton. Do you need anything else besides your library book?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Georgie looked distracted. ‘I can’t remember . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Mina was very calm. ‘We’ve got all morning to wander round. Go and get yourself ready while I make a shopping list.’

  Once she’d gone a constraint fell upon the three of them, covered by the necessity for coffee to be made for Lyddie whilst Nest agreed that she’d like some more, so that a small bustle ensued and each of them was careful not to look at the other. The atmosphere was lightened by the appearance of the three dogs at the kitchen door, where they stood in a row, staring indignantly through the glass at the Bosun as he lay stretched full length on the floor, deeply asleep.

  ‘Ever been had?’ Mina remarked to nobody in particular – and even Lyddie laughed. Georgie appeared in her coat and hat, carrying a capacious bag, and Mina collected her belongings and hurried her away. There was the usual commotion as the dogs were encouraged into the camper, the engine started up and, finally, there was silence.

  Lyddie drank some coffee, blew her nose and stared at the table. Nest watched her sympathetically.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk that’s fine by me,’ she told her. ‘You don’t have to, you know. You might just want to think things through on neutral territory and give yourself some space. Do whatever you want to.’ She turned her wheelchair away from the table so that she could see Lydia’s rock-garden, and sipped some more coffee.

  ‘That’s what’s good about you and Aunt Mina,’ Lyddie said. ‘You’re like contemporaries. It’s odd, really. I couldn’t think where else to go. Roger and I have never been really close and I hardly know Teresa. I thought about Jack and Han but it didn’t seem fair with their house-load of children. In Truro there’s no spare space for moments like these, you see. No spare room to retreat to or a second living-room. And I just didn’t know how to handle it. Did Mina tell you?’

  ‘She said that Liam had been unfaithful with Rosie and probably one or two others.’ Nest continued to look out into the courtyard. ‘We gained the impression that he didn’t deny it.’

  ‘No, he didn’t deny it,’ said Lyddie bitterly, ‘nor did he feel that change was an option.’

  ‘It does rather make for an impasse,’ murmured Nest.

  ‘I was thinking about it for most of the night and for the drive here.’ Lyddie pushed her mug aside and put her head in her hands. ‘The thing is, you see, we lead such a strange life. I can’t just go back to how it was. Rosie’s right when she says that I shall never know now which of those women he’s been with. And I feel so humiliated. How could I walk into The Place again, knowing what I know?’

  ‘How clever of Rosie, wasn’t it? Those words were a death-knell to your relationship.’

  ‘He didn’t bother even to make a stab at protesting. He seems to feel that, because he married me, I shouldn’t mind. “The rest mean nothing.” I quote.’

  ‘And, as far as he’s concerned, that’s possibly true. The rest probably come under the same heading as a pint of beer or a good long walk. Necessary at that moment, briefly satisfying, but easily replaceable.’

  Lyddie’s chair scraped on the slates. ‘But you don’t think that I should go along with that, do you?’ She sounded anxious. ‘How would you feel if the man you adored was having it off with someone else?’

  There was a silence. The Bosun groaned in his sleep, stretching, whilst beyond the glass door a robin pecked at some toast crumbs.

  ‘I should feel gutted,’ Nest said at last. ‘I should feel betrayed, sick with jealousy, and utterly gutted. I wouldn’t want anyone to see me, I would feel incapable and helpless, but the worst and most humiliating thing of all would be the fact that I still loved him and wanted him more than anything else in the world.’

  ‘That’s much too close to be a guess,’ said Lyddie, after a while. ‘So what did you do when it happened to you?’

  ‘I didn’t have too many choices,’ answered Nest, ‘and we weren’t married. It was a different situation but if you’re asking if I fought my corner the answer is no. I was too humiliated and I couldn’t bear for anyone to know.’

  ‘Well, that’s a luxury I don’t get,’ said Lyddie grimly. ‘I feel quite sick wh
en I think of all the nights I’ve gone bouncing into that bloody wine bar and everyone’s been thinking, poor fool, if only she knew, while those women . . .’ She swallowed. ‘How could he do that to me?’

  Nest shook her head. ‘It makes you wonder if he thinks the same way as other people, doesn’t it?’ she asked. ‘It’s like cruelty to helpless children. It makes you wonder how people’s minds actually work. It’s as if there must be a bit missing somewhere or as if they genuinely feel that they have a divine right to operate outside the usual rules by which most people live. You can see that Liam is driven by some restless urge to achieve and this might be all of a piece with the sexual urge. It explains his passion for The Place and his will to make it succeed. At its best it’s amoral rather than immoral. It’s utterly tunnel-visioned, and everything – and everyone – is sacrificed to the greater plan.’ Nest glanced at Lyddie and was shocked by her white face and shadowed eyes. ‘You look exhausted,’ she said. ‘My poor darling, could you sleep, do you think?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep last night,’ Lyddie admitted, ‘and I’m absolutely bushed. My head feels as if it might split open at any moment.’

  ‘Take some paracetamol and go to bed,’ suggested Nest. ‘If it doesn’t work, get up again and we’ll think of something else.’

  ‘I might just do that. Now that I’m here, and I’ve got it off my chest, I do feel as if I could sleep. No, don’t worry. I’ve got painkillers. Am I in my usual room? Great. I’ll see you later, then. And, thanks, Nest.’ She bent and kissed her cheek. ‘You’ve been brilliant.’

  It was only after she’d gone that Nest realized that, for the first time, Lyddie had dropped the prefix ‘Aunt’. She smiled a little; perhaps it was a compliment. She sat, still gazing out, listening to the Bosun’s regular breathing and thinking about Connor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It is Mina who, unaware of the real situation, arranges for Connor to take Nest out to tea just before the end of term. His letter to Mina, thanking her for his afternoon at Ottercombe, suggests it – very casually – since he will be near the school during the following weekend, ‘if your mother is happy about it,’ he adds, ‘and Nest’s headmistress allows it.’

  Nest is relieved to hear that Connor has managed to visit Ottercombe but Mina’s letter unconsciously strikes a warning note that makes her uneasy: ‘He’s great fun and made us laugh. Mama was very taken with him but not as much as he was with Henrietta, who was down for the weekend. Anyway, he’s sent a bread-and-butter and asks if you’d like to go out to tea . . .’

  ‘You seem to have been a great success with my family,’ she says lightly, once they are settled in the tea-shop in the little local town. There are other families with their daughters at nearby tables and she is obliged to behave with a decorum that she doesn’t feel at all. ‘Mina says Mama was very impressed with you.’

  ‘She’s a lovely woman.’ He seems calm, quite at ease, but she senses his tension. Fear seizes her and her fingers tear and crumple the paper napkin in her lap. ‘I can see where you get your looks, you and your sisters.’

  ‘We’re all very alike.’ She wants to take his hand, touch him, make him look at her properly, but from the corner of her eye she sees little Lettice Crowe’s mother, smart in navy foulard, watching them, trying to be noticed. ‘So what did you think of Mina?’

  ‘Ah, Mina.’ He smiles in the old familiar way that twists her heart. ‘She’s a darling, so she is. I would have recognized her anywhere from everything you’ve told me about her. She’s a rare soul.’

  ‘And Henrietta? Do you think she’s a rare soul? I hear you met her too?’

  The arrival of the tea gives Connor a moment in which to rally but Nest, watching his face, knows that her premonition is a true one. He smiles briefly at the waitress and sits forward in his chair, pretending to rearrange the cups, checking the hot water. At last he looks at her and the truth is there in his eyes for her to see.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I met Henrietta.’

  As he picks up the tea-strainer and the pot and fills the two cups, Nest knows that she could never have done it with so steady a hand. At this moment the full ten-year age-gap stretches its whole length between them: he is controlled, steady: she knows that at any moment she might cry. She thinks of Henrietta, of her beauty, ready wit and sophisticated confidence, and is miserably aware of her own immaturity. He places the milk and sugar near at hand and pushes her tea towards her.

  ‘Drink it.’

  The quiet, bitten-off command causes her to glance up at him. With a slight jerk of the head, he directs her attention to the other interested families and she responds instinctively, sipping her tea obediently, lifting her cup with a trembling hand and setting it back in the saucer with only a tiny clatter. He fills the teapot from the hot-water jug and offers the tiered stand of cakes, turning it slowly, almost teasingly, as though to tempt her appetite. She stares at them: rock buns adorned with glacé cherries, a long chocolate eclair, oozing synthetic cream, in a paper frill, an assortment of iced squares topped with crystallized orange pieces. Revulsion heaves in her stomach and she swallows with difficulty at the thought of the sticky sweetness. Connor continues to turn the plate, watching her. She takes a rock bun, the least offensive, and puts it on her plate.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ he says gently, ‘because I needed to tell you myself, not by a letter. And it’s not just to do with Henrietta. I’m too old for you, Nest, and you know that this is something that’s worried me from the beginning. When I met your family it underlined it. I’m Mina’s contemporary, older than Henrietta even. It never occurred to them, even for a second, that there could possibly be anything but a chance acquaintance between us, triggered by the fact that I had friends at Porlock. They still regard you as a child – oh, yes, I know you’re nearly eighteen – but suddenly I saw it with their eyes and I realized what I’d done.’

  He leans forward, smiling very slightly, as if telling her a story; deliberately disguising the tension of the moment from her school friends and their parents. It is a grotesque parody of the intimacy for which she yearns and she sees now why he was careful to seat her so that she is partly protected from their interest. Mrs Crowe is still trying to catch Connor’s eye.

  ‘Cradle-snatching, they call it.’ His warm, flexible voice makes it sound almost amusing. ‘I can’t do it, Nest. It was one of those magic interludes which happen out of the real world but shrivel once they’re exposed to harsh reality. I knew that when I met your family.’

  She takes another sip of tea and crumbles the corner of the rock bun. Her sheltered life at Ottercombe and at school has not equipped her for this kind of experience. If they were alone, she could plead with him, hold on to him, try to change his mind, but what can she do here in this flowery, genteel environment surrounded by her watchful peers?

  ‘Try not to be too hard on me. It’s not easy, Nest, I promise you, letting you go.’

  Oddly, it’s the plea for sympathy that stiffens her spine. She pushes her plate aside, dropping the remains of the napkin upon it.

  ‘I have the most terrible headache,’ she says, quite clearly, so that others might hear if they’re listening. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Connor, but I can’t manage any cake. Do you think we might go back now?’

  She smiles at her friends as she passes between them on her way out, ignoring Mrs Crowe’s ostentatious gesture of concern, and they drive the half a mile to the school in silence. He is too intelligent to risk any further conversation which might lead to tears or appeals or recrimination: he conceals his own sadness, knowing that she needs all her pride and courage to get back inside with her dignity intact.

  A few days later, she receives a short letter from him, a repetition of the things he has already said – kind but firm – but still she cannot quite take it all in: she loves him too much. In fact she is back at Ottercombe, more than a month later, before Nest truly believes that it is over, that he will not telephone or suddenly appear,
telling her that it was all a dreadful mistake. She makes up scenarios in which he returns to her; she rushes to answer the telephone and to pick up the post, longing to tell Mina the whole truth but unable to admit it even to herself. Then, on the morning of 15 August, Mina receives a letter from Henrietta.

  As Mina reads Henrietta’s letter aloud – but carefully edited – to Lydia, as they are at breakfast in the morning-room, Nest understands at last that it is finished.

  ‘ “Connor and I are seeing rather a lot of one another” – You remember Connor, Mama? He came to visit us here. – “and he comes to London quite often. We’ve discovered one or two mutual friends and he’s invited me to a party in Oxford next weekend, which sounds rather fun . . .”’

  Nest is gripped with such agonizing jealousy that the rest of the letter passes unheeded. She pictures them together knowing that now she has no chance at all of regaining his love. Once he has spent a period of time with the most glamorous of all her sisters how could she possibly hope to compete?

  Mina finishes the letter, folding the sheets and putting it beside her plate, whilst Nest stares into a bleak emptiness; a future that no longer contains Connor. The rain, beating against the windows, lowers her spirits further.

  ‘I can’t remember a wetter summer,’ says Lydia. ‘The lawn is like a sponge.’

  ‘Lots of the rivers are flooding,’ says Mina, ‘but surely it can’t go on like this much longer. Even our own little stream is over its banks.’

  There is some kind of melancholy satisfaction to be had from the walk to the beach, although Nest watches anxiously as a duck with her ducklings is swept at high speed on the current; tumbling against boulders and overhanging branches, they scramble almost comically in their mother’s wake, seeking a quiet shelter in a peaceful backwater. Following them, Nest is so preoccupied that it is some time before she truly appreciates the weight of water flowing down from the high moors. All manner of tiny springs gush from the rock-face as though – as the locals say – the rocks are being squeezed, swelling the stream as it cascades to the beach. To begin with, the drama of the scene, the ceaseless roaring of the water, the crying of the gulls, is in keeping with her mood. Nevertheless, she has on odd sense of foreboding; as if, today, nature’s force is too great for her. Usually its implacable size and power brings solace, putting her puny fears into perspective, but today there is a rising ferocity in the sheer noise of it: the water tumbling from the cliffs, the waves crashing onto the beach, the increasing heaviness of the rain drumming on the rocks.