The Children's Hour Read online

  Mina makes a face. ‘Good heavens,’ she says. ‘It makes you sound like some kind of gorilla’ – and they laugh together.

  Even Mama, once everything is settled – ‘once I knuckled under,’ says Nest – becomes affectionate and sweet-tempered again.

  Perhaps the acceptance, the giving in, is the mainspring of this release of a new kind of contentment. The horror and the fear, the terror for her child’s future – and her own – gives way to a calm confidence. At Ottercombe, it is as if she’s stepped out of the world, hidden from its censorious gaze, and is able to offer herself wholly to this wonderful new experience without thinking of the future. The three women pick up the threads of the life Nest had left five years before and she sinks contentedly into the warmth of Mina’s caring. She walks for miles over the moor and spends hours watching the sea, revelling in the softly stealing, all-pervading sense of peace that its unceasing movement always brings to her.

  Timmie visits as often as he can, bringing Anthea and small Jack, lending his support. He, like Mama, has no idea of the identity of Nest’s lover and it is never discussed. He simply offers encouragement and unconditional love, as is Timmie’s way. They all adore Jack, especially Lydia, who loves to hold him on her lap where he sprawls, relaxed and sleepy. When Nest cuddles him, feeling his warm heavy weight, touching his flushed cheek and feathery hair, it seems impossible that she should not hold her own child like this. Yet some sense of self-preservation refuses to allow such thoughts to develop, pushing them gently but firmly away so that quietude fills her soul again and soothes her heart. It is agreed that she should be allowed to choose her child’s name and Nest has no doubts in her mind: if the baby were a boy he is to be named Timothy; if a girl, Lydia.

  During that winter and into the early spring, Lydia succumbs as usual to attacks of asthma and bronchial problems. Nest listens to her racking coughing and watches her increasing frailty with anxiety, thinking of those war years, when Mina was living in London, and Mama read aloud The Country Child and O’Shaughnessy’s poetry. The positions are now reversed and it is she who reads to Lydia as they sit by the fire in the drawing-room whilst Mina sews or knits small garments for the baby.

  ‘Do you ever get lonely?’ she asks Mina one evening, after Lydia is in bed. She remembers how she’d gone away to start a new life five years before, leaving Mina with Lydia isolated at Ottercombe, and she feels a pang of guilt.

  ‘Lonely?’ Mina considers the thought. ‘I don’t think so. I have Mama who, as you see, requires quite a lot of care and, to be honest, I think I’m a naturally solitary person and I have the house and garden to look after. I’ve always had this passion for books, for stories. I live in them, you see, and the people are quite real to me. They are my friends and I’ve always found their worlds much more satisfying than the reality outside.’

  Yet when the outside world imposes itself upon her, Mina responds with courage and cheerfulness. Nest knows that during her own bad times, first losing Connor, then those empty, agonizing weeks – mercifully few before she’d had to start the new term – after Henrietta takes the baby away, and, later again, the months immediately after the accident, it is Mina who holds her firm, instilling the will to go on, forcing her back to life.

  Nest stirred restlessly, glanced at her bedside clock – nearly half-past one – and decided that she needed a hot drink. She edged herself out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown and got herself into her chair. Opening the door quietly, listening for a moment, she wheeled across the hall and into the kitchen. She was sitting beside the table drinking camomile tea when Mina came in.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘You too? Not brooding, I hope?’

  ‘I was a bit.’ Nest set her mug down. ‘Thinking back to the accident, you know. Trying to decide whether Henrietta actually took in what I said. I keep going over it. It was a soaking night, terrible rain, if you remember. The wipers were going and the traffic was quite bad; the tyres swishing on the wet road. I was almost shouting, well, we all were. Connor and I had drunk too much and Henrietta was in a state because she was beginning to see that she might not get her own way. She wasn’t used to that and she was starting to panic. She was very defensive, cross that I was involved, and she knew that Connor had roped me in so as to support him. She was snappy. “I may not be Lyddie’s mother,” she said, very sarcastic, and, quite without thinking, I said, “No, but Connor is her father . . .” I remember stopping short, clapping my hand over my mouth, and she turned her head very sharply and they looked at each other. And then the car just clipped the lorry coming in the other direction and we were spinning and spinning out of control. I’ll never forget the terrible sounds . . .’

  Mina had her arm about her, cradling against her breast, rocking her.

  ‘She might never have heard you,’ she said. ‘Guilt can distort the truth. She might simply have turned her head to hear better.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Nest took her hands away from her face. ‘Anyway, I agree with you about Lyddie not knowing. You are absolutely right about that. I just wish I knew how she’s feeling about . . . the other thing.’

  Mina straightened up, pushing her hands into her dressing-gown pocket, her fingers encountering the rosary where she’d put it quite unconsciously earlier, when she’d decided to come downstairs. She stood for a moment and then took a deep breath, ‘po-po-po’, and dropped the rosary on the table beside Nest’s mug. Nest looked at it.

  ‘That was Mama’s, wasn’t it?’ she asked, momentarily distracted. ‘Didn’t Timothy give it to her?’

  Mina put the kettle on the Esse and chose a mug. ‘Not as such,’ she said, ‘although it was Timothy’s. It came to Mama with the rest of his things after he died.’

  ‘That was odd, wasn’t it?’ Nest picked up the rosary and let the beads slip through her fingers. ‘Why Mama? Didn’t he have a family?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. All her letters to him came back with it and a few other things. Timothy didn’t own a great deal, as far as I know. The flat he rented in London had been bombed and he hadn’t much with him when he died. Just his rosary and the letters and a few photographs.’

  ‘I remember letters arriving from him.’ Nest was smiling a little now, remembering happier times. ‘And occasionally presents for us.’

  ‘Timothy had the gift of empathy,’ said Mina. ‘He grew to know us all and his presents were very distinctive and absolutely right. He was an explorer and a soldier and I think that he was doing secret service things in the war. He was Papa’s friend and he came home with him one day and stayed for nearly a month. It was the summer before Timmie was born and one of the happiest summers I can remember.’ She poured boiling water on her sachet of tea and waited for a moment. ‘We all simply adored him. It was Timothy who gave us our names.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Nest looked startled, completely distracted now, as Mina had intended, from the horrors of that ten-year-old accident. ‘Gave us our names? How could he?’

  ‘Before Timmie was born we were called by shortened versions of our names. At least, by Papa we were. Mama tried to prevent it and she called us by our full names but Papa was trying to make a point. I didn’t realize at the time but I see it now.’ She hesitated a little, dropping the sachet into the rubbish bin, stirring the tea thoughtfully. ‘There was a little streak of brutality in Papa. Oh, not a physical cruelty but a hardness, an insensitivity. He never considered how anyone else might feel and didn’t particularly care if he hurt. He called us George, Bill, Henry and Jo. I can remember that day, you know, when Timothy arrived. We came up from the beach and Papa introduced us. He used to call us the bandar-log, jokingly. “Here are the bandar-log,” he said, and then he told Timothy our names. “But why?” Timothy asked. He looked puzzled, almost distressed. “Such pretty children,” he said. And Papa said, “It’s the next best thing to having boys,” or something like that, and I saw Mama’s face. So did Timothy. It was as if she had been struck. He began to give us different names, k
inder and more feminine.’

  ‘And what did Papa say?’ asked Nest, rapt as always by Mina’s story-spinning.

  ‘The thing was that he loved Timothy too.’ Mina came to sit at the table. ‘Everyone did. He was irresistible: we all fought to sit next to him or hold his hand. We saved up our treasures to show him and did drawings for him. And he looked so handsome. Do you remember? Very tall and fair with a brown face. He looked as if he spent all his time in the open air and he was very tough and yet there was this kindness.’ A little pause. ‘You know about Papa’s widow in London, of course,’ – Nest nodded – ‘but I was never sure how much Mama knew about her. Nothing in those early days, I’m sure, but I can see that he used her asthma attacks as an excuse to get us out of London whenever possible. Not that this was any punishment to her – she adored Ottercombe – but I wonder if she might have missed Papa, or adult company. She’d had several miscarriages and she was never very strong but Timothy warmed her into life. Does that sound silly? She flowered and grew in his company and he was a buffer between all of us and Papa’s insensitivity. We were all in love with him, I think, not just Mama.’

  Nest glanced up quickly from the rosary, which she was threading through her fingers.

  ‘Not just Mama?’ she repeated questioningly.

  ‘They fell in love,’ said Mina dreamily. ‘I didn’t understand then, I was too young, but I know it now – and, anyway, I read the letters.’

  Nest was wide-eyed. ‘Were they love letters?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Once I’d read them everything fell into place. That amazing summer, before Timmie was born . . .’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Nest slowly. ‘“Before Timmie was born.” You used that phrase just now. That’s it, isn’t it? This is the secret that Georgie knows. You said once, “There are other secrets,” and then you clammed up. I see it now. A boy after all those girls and Timmie was tall and fair – even his name! Oh, I know that Timothy was his godfather, but even so. I’m right, aren’t I? Timothy was Timmie’s father. Good grief, fancy Mama—’

  ‘It’s not quite right,’ interrupted Mina gently. ‘Although it’s what other people believed too. The wretched Sneerwells were always hinting at it. But it wasn’t quite like that although there is a tiny truth in it. Timothy relaxed Mama, he made her happy and confident, and I think it was because of that she was able to conceive. But Timmie was Papa’s son. It wasn’t until the following year that Timothy and Mama became lovers. It’s you who are their child, Nest. You were the love-child, the baby he adored but couldn’t acknowledge.’

  She stopped speaking and the silence flowed into the kitchen, filling the spaces.

  ‘Timothy’s child?’

  ‘She loved him so much.’ Mina felt it was important that Nest should know this. ‘It’s odd how history repeats itself, isn’t it? Mama and Timothy. Me and Tony. You and Connor.’

  Nest looked at her and Mina saw that there was no horror or distress on her face, only a kind of awed amazement.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ she said. ‘Start again and tell me everything you know.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lyddie dropped her case on the bed and looked around the small room. There was only just enough space for the chest of drawers and a chair beside the bed.

  ‘Thank goodness there’s a hanging cupboard built into the wall,’ Hannah said. ‘It would have been impossible to cram a wardrobe in here – it’s hardly more than a cupboard – but at least visitors haven’t got to share with Tobes or Flora.’

  ‘It’s great.’ Lyddie looked appreciatively at the vase on the chest, with its arrangement of autumn berries and beech leaves; the folded fluffy towels on top of which lay a new tablet of deliciously scented soap. ‘Thanks, Han, it’s brilliant.’

  ‘Come down when you’ve got yourself sorted.’

  She disappeared and Lyddie unpacked the little case, squeezed it between the foot of the bed and the wall, and set her spongebag beside the tilting-glass on the chest. Before she’d left Truro she’d packed the contents of her office – laptop, reference books, charts – into the car, given her four favourite and most useful editors her mobile telephone number and sorted out her winter clothes. She would have to go back, of course, but she needed to make this a significant break; a gesture that indicated that she was making a new beginning.

  The Bosun had looked anxious as he’d watched his space in the back of the estate car being eroded but there had been enough room for him to jump onto his own bed, which was flanked by a box containing a week’s rations and his dinner bowl. When she’d left London some of Lyddie’s belongings had gone to Ottercombe and a few things to Oxford and, as she drove to Dorset, she felt a deep sense of relief that she had a second home to which she might flee. Roger and Teresa would have been willing to put her up for a while but the house in Iffley no longer seemed like home. Teresa had put her mark very strongly upon it and, anyway, neither of them were as dear to her as Mina and Nest, or Jack and Hannah.

  As she drove to Dorset she wondered, as she often had in the past, why it should be that she’d been so much closer to Jack than she’d ever been to Roger.

  ‘Roger doesn’t know?’ she’d asked Mina anxiously.

  ‘No, no,’ she’d answered soothingly. ‘He was only three or four years old. No, Roger has no idea of it.’

  She realized, on that journey from Truro, that it would be easier to disclose Nest’s revelation to Jack than to Roger, although she’d begun to see that it would be impossible to tell anyone at all. After all, it was not her secret to tell; there were too many people involved. However, there was more to it than that. Although she could imagine the comfort it would be to share it all with Jack, she knew that it was too early, that she needed time to digest it, to discover her own true feelings about her new identity, before she could open it up to other reactions. Nevertheless, it was an odd sensation to think of Roger as her half-brother as well as, bizarrely, her cousin.

  Lyddie had shaken her head, confused but not particularly dismayed. It had always been difficult to get close to Roger; he was very self-contained and he had a waspish, sometimes cruel, tongue, which wounded although he’d smile and say, ‘It was only a joke,’ and appear contemptuous of her sensitivity. From her earliest memories Jack had been a warm, friendly child; caring and thoughtful for others’ needs and always very funny. At least Jack was still her cousin, nothing changed that.

  He was waiting for her when she’d finished unpacking and came down to the kitchen, sitting on the floor with his back against a cupboard, his legs stretched out in front of him, talking to the Bosun, who sat beside him gazing with a blend of amazement and affection into Jack’s face. Lyddie burst out laughing and, immediately, the tiny knot of fear and pain in her gut began to unwind and dissolve.

  ‘Caligula upset him,’ Jack was explaining. ‘Dogs are very sensitive people and Caligula was very rude. Wasn’t he?’ he asked the Bosun, who licked Jack’s nose gratefully and beat his tail upon the floor.

  ‘Quite mad,’ observed Hannah resignedly. ‘But don’t let it worry you. I suppose you realize that the Bosun is going to cause havoc when the boys get back after supper. Bedtime is going to be a very interesting experience.’

  ‘I’ve only ever been here in the holidays,’ agreed Lyddie, ‘or at half-term. Oh dear, we’ll have to hide him in the garage.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ replied Jack indignantly. ‘His nerves are quite lacerated enough already. The boys will be delighted. I can’t wait to see their faces. Has Hannah told you that we’re going to get a dog?’

  ‘No.’ Lyddie smiled, delighted at the thought. ‘Goodness, Tobes must be out of his mind at the prospect.’

  ‘He doesn’t know yet.’ Hannah poured Lyddie’s tea. ‘We decided to wait until the holidays begin to give us a flying start with the house-training and I couldn’t cope with the thought of his asking every five minutes how long it was to the end of term.’

  Jack gave the Bosun a hug and
climbed to his feet. ‘You look very tired and rather fraught,’ he studied Lyddie closely, ‘and later on you shall have a very large drink. I’m not really allowed to start until the little darlings are all in bed. Not allowed to be drunk in charge of a dormitory.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean that we can’t,’ said Hannah firmly, nodding encouragingly at Lyddie. ‘Anyway, he’s only here to say hello before he goes off to supervise prep and then supper. We can’t wait for him.’

  ‘Such unselfishness,’ observed Jack to nobody in particular.

  Lyddie chuckled. ‘Sounds good to me. Never mind, Jack. You’ll soon catch up.’

  ‘I thought you might walk over to the school with me,’ he said. ‘Stretch your legs after the drive and give the Bosun a gallop.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘That’s a really good idea.’

  ‘Let her finish her tea,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ll sort our supper out. Oh, how wonderful not to have to preside over the children’s tea!’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Jack gloomily. ‘Have you ever seen a hundred and fifty small boys between the ages of eight and twelve masticating in unison? No? Well, don’t bother. It could put you off food for life.’

  Later, as they paced across the smooth turf beneath the chestnut trees, where each autumn the boys gathered conkers, Lyddie tucked her hand in his arm and he smiled down at her.

  ‘Poor old love,’ he said. ‘Want to talk?’

  ‘I’ll tell you something strange,’ she said. ‘I feel sick to my stomach when I think how Liam’s behaved, and I still want him and feel that it’s a tragic waste, but behind all that is a sense of . . . well, almost relief. Oh!’ she cried in frustration. ‘It’s so difficult to explain this because it sounds as if I don’t care and I do. My heart flips when I think of him, and I feel bereft, but the whole way through, Jack, there was this weird feeling of unreality. Can you understand that? Like I was on a holiday where none of the normal rules of daily life applied. Oh, I was working, and that was real enough, but it was odd, working at home all day and then going to The Place every evening and joshing with Joe. I told myself that thousands of people live like that, running hotels and pubs, but it still seemed unreal.’