The Children's Hour Read online

Dear Elyot, if only I could really be of help to you. Do you have friends who could take the load occasionally or does Lavinia find them threatening? I know you’ve described certain – shall we say ‘interesting’ – scenes but you’ve made such light of them that I’ve probably underestimated how difficult it really is. Georgie is nothing to this. We had a very chequered relationship throughout our childhood and we’ve seen very little of each other for the last forty years. You and Lavinia have lived together all that time and it must be appalling for you, not only to feel so outcast but to watch someone you love disintegrating. Having had one tiny experience of it tonight I can only be amazed at your courage.

  His reply came quickly.

  From: Elyot

  To: Mina

  Your experience has been a different one, dear old friend, but just as demanding. You’ve seen a beloved sister crippled, suffering the agonies of frustration and remorse. You were plunged into a shocking disaster to which you had instantly to adapt, not only dealing with Nest but also relied upon heavily by various other members of your family. There has been a violence to your whole experience which is missing in ours. I see now that we have been slowly advancing into a mist of muddle, ‘Was I supposed to be back for lunch? Well, we all get things wrong sometime, never mind’; forgetfulness, ‘I simply cannot remember why I’ve come into this shop’; confusion, ‘I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. My mind’s gone utterly blank’, which, in themselves, are innocent enough until one realizes that the mist has deepened insidiously into a thick fog through which neither of us can find our bearings. I have to remain cheerful or she becomes anxious.

  This last sentence filled Mina with a terrible pity and reminded her, with an almost physical shock, of Mama during the war years at Ottercombe. She sat for some time, trying to come to a decision, and at last typed one more message to Elyot.

  From: Mina

  To: Elyot

  I’ve never known you have a holiday away from Lavinia in all the time we’ve been corresponding. Might it be sensible to have a break? Is there anyone to whom you could entrust Lavinia without feeling worried or guilty? Although it might, at present, sound like a busman’s holiday you could always come here for a few days. Don’t answer now. Think about it. We’ll talk tomorrow. Goodnight, Elyot.

  She closed down the computer, her heart knocking foolishly in her breast. Would he agree? Was it possible that she might, at last, meet the man who had been such a source of comfort to her?

  ‘You’re an old fool,’ she muttered, listening one last time for a sound from Georgie’s room before she closed her door. The dogs stirred, groaning a little, and Mina paused beside the rosewood table to look at the small objects that had been so familiar to her as a child. Towards the end of her life, these things had been kept on Mama’s bedside table: a delicately carved wooden rosary; a pretty, flowered Wedgwood bowl for special treats; a tall, narrow, engraved vase for one or two delicate blooms and, lastly, the small silver case that held a green glass bottle.

  Mina clipped open the silver top and held the bottle to her nose. Even now, twenty years after Mama’s death, the faint scent of the smelling-salts had the power to carry Mina back to those last years of her mother’s life, and beyond that, to the early years of the war.

  ‘I want to go to London with Papa,’ says Georgie, one July morning in 1940. ‘I don’t want to be stuck down here with a war going on. There must be something I could be doing and I can look after him until I decide what it is.’

  Lydia slips the thin blue sheets of her letter into the envelope and looks at her eldest daughter. How pretty she is, with her silky black hair rolled into a pageboy bob and her clear white skin; how lovely – and how determined. ‘You haven’t finished school,’ she answers patiently but firmly, ‘and you’re barely seventeen . . .’

  The Tinies watch anxiously, spoons suspended, as another battle of wills is joined across the breakfast table.

  ‘There’s no point in school any more,’ cries Georgie, exasperated by her mother’s refusal to face the hard fact of war. ‘If I wait another year I might have no choice in what I have to do. Papa says he can get me a job as a driver at the War Office.’

  Lydia picks up her coffee cup – and sets it down again – her fingers nervously smoothing the letter folded beside her empty plate.

  ‘In a year it might be over,’ she tells her children.

  ‘Oh, honestly!’ Georgie rolls her eyes in disgust. ‘That’s what they said about the last one: “It’ll be over by Christmas.” But it wasn’t, was it?’

  Only Mina hears the almost pleading note in Mama’s voice and sees her flinch at Georgie’s reply. She watches her mother’s restless fingers and notes the bistre shadows beneath her eyes.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea for Georgie to go to London,’ she says – and Georgie glances at her quickly, gratefully. ‘She’ll have to do something soon and it will be nice for Papa to have her with him. They can look after each other. I can understand that she wants to be useful. We all do . . .’

  Lydia stares at her. ‘Not you too?’

  ‘No, not me too.’ Mina smiles at her reassuringly. ‘Not like that, anyway. I shall stay here and look after all of you. But Georgie’s right. It’s pointless going back to school and you can’t cope with everything on your own, Mama. Not now, with Jean and Sarah and the babies as well as the Tinies.’

  Lydia’s two young cousins, with their children, have evacuated to Ottercombe, which is part of Georgie’s reason for wishing to be gone. She is not naturally maternal and having to share a bedroom with Mina irritates her. The two young mothers, with two babies and a toddler between them, take up a great deal of space and, with the younger children unable to go to school, a great deal of organization is required.

  ‘How fortunate,’ says Enid Goodenough, who still visits with her brother but less often due to petrol shortages, ‘that you have enough family to fill the house –’ by this time evacuees from Bristol and Croydon are arriving on Exmoor – ‘so that you don’t have to put up with strangers.’

  ‘I suppose we are,’ agrees Lydia sweetly, unaware as usual of any undercurrent, ‘although nine children put a tremendous strain on the resources.’

  ‘We’ve only got one lavatory,’ twelve-year-old Henrietta tells them importantly, ‘but lots of chamber pots, luckily. Although the babies—’

  ‘And Ambrose?’ asks Enid, quickly changing the subject; she is not interested in chamber pots and babies. ‘How does he manage all alone?’

  She manages to invest the last two words with a subtle inference that alerts Mina and causes even Lydia to frown.

  ‘He’s very capable,’ she answers calmly, ‘and Mrs Ponting goes in every day now that we have settled here for the duration. She’s been looking after us for years and I feel quite sure that Ambrose has everything he needs.’

  ‘Oh, I’m certain you can be confident about that . . .’

  Now, remembering those words and the sneering smile that accompanied them, Lydia suddenly thinks that Georgie’s idea is, perhaps, a good one.

  ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘I will speak to Papa. I can quite see that it must be frustrating for you here, now that you’re growing up. No parties or dances and no-one of your own age to meet, as well as being unable to contribute, even in a small way, to this terrible thing which is happening to our country. I’ll speak to him, I promise.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Georgie to Mina later, in their bedroom, just before lunch, ‘for sticking up for me. It seems a bit mean, though, leaving you to all this.’

  She riffles through their wardrobe, selecting and rejecting garments and watching herself in the long glass.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind a bit,’ answers Mina honestly. ‘I shan’t go back next term either. I shall teach Henrietta and Josie and the Tinies. It’ll be good practice if I want to be a teacher after the war. And Mama can’t possibly manage alone. Anyway, it’ll be nice for Papa – if he agrees. You’re not frightened about air raids?�
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  ‘Well, nothing’s happening, is it?’ Georgie shrugs as she turns away from the looking-glass and lies full length on her bed. ‘It’ll be fun. Sally Hunter says she’s having a terrific time. Lots of handsome young officers and parties and things. She drives an old general about, that’s what made me think of it. I might join the WRACs eventually.’

  ‘And did Papa really say that he could get you a job driving?’

  Georgie nods, hands behind head. ‘If you ask me he’s got a bit fed up with being on his own so much. He took me around a lot when I went up to London last time. Showing me off. You know? “And this is my eldest daughter, come to look after her old father”, that kind of thing. I liked it, rather. He’s still very good-looking, isn’t he? Well-preserved. I hadn’t realized how important he is and everyone was very nice to me. There was a woman who seemed to turn up everywhere we went who didn’t seem to like it much. She was very offhand with me. Once I saw her crying and he was reasoning with her but he looked horribly uncomfortable.’ Georgie frowns as she recalls her own reaction: distaste that her distinguished father should be obliged to look . . . well, shifty; undignified. ‘It was a bit odd.’

  The sisters exchange a glance, puzzled, slightly fearful; on the edge of exposing some adult secret. Instinctively, each retreats from discussing it further.

  ‘Well then, perhaps it’s a good thing you’re going,’ says Mina. ‘You can tell me when the parties are on and I’ll try to get up for one.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ Georgie is full of generous goodwill. ‘But you’ll need some decent clothes. What fun it will be.’

  Mina watches as her elder sister swings herself off the bed, notices the silky pleated skirt clinging to her long white legs.

  ‘Isn’t that Mama’s skirt?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Georgie twirls. ‘It’s a Fortuny. I found it in her wardrobe in London. She bought it in Venice ages ago and she simply never wears it so I asked to borrow it. After all, there’s not a lot of use for it down here, is there? She’s got loads of things she never wears now. Look at this jacket. It’s vicuna.’ Georgie twirls again, holding it against her. ‘What d’you think?’

  Mina, glancing down at her cotton frock, feels a twinge of pure envy. ‘It’s a bit mere,’ she says casually.

  Georgie shoots her sister a sharp glance. ‘Mere’ has been a favourite word ever since they rediscovered The Young Visiters on the bookshelf in the nursery. It is a code word between them that they apply secretly, to people, places, events, and can reduce them to fits of giggles. Quite suddenly, Georgie feels a huge surge of love for Mina, their differences forgotten in this unexpected experience of true sibling affection.

  ‘You’ll come to London, won’t you?’ she says. ‘Sally’s meeting simply loads of gorgeous men.’

  ‘Course I shall,’ says Mina. ‘Anyway, you can write and tell me all about it. Hurry up and change, lunch will be ready soon.’

  As she goes downstairs, she sees someone moving about in the drawing-room and crosses the hall, wondering if it is one of the Tinies; but it is Lydia who sits on her heels before her sewing-box, putting something away. She glances over her shoulder as Mina comes in and there is the sudden crackle of paper and the sharp little bang of a drawer closing.

  ‘I thought it was Nest or Timmie,’ Mina tells her. ‘They have this game of hiding before lunch . . . Are you feeling unwell, Mama?’

  Lydia straightens, holding on to the back of the sofa. ‘No, no. Well, perhaps a little tired. The babies were crying again last night but it’s not their fault, poor sweets.’

  Her face is thin and there is so much pain in her eyes that Mina is shocked: this is more than sleepless nights and crying babies. She has never questioned Mama before but she senses a shift in their relationship that might allow a new kind of intimacy. ‘Was your letter . . .? I saw you reading it at breakfast. Did it have bad news?’

  Mina’s eyes are on a level with her own, her look is grave and compassionate, and Lydia longs quite desperately for the luxury of confession. She must trust someone and why not this, the dearest of her daughters?

  ‘It was from Timothy,’ she whispers. ‘He is being sent on some secret mission. He can’t speak of it . . . Only to let us know that he will be gone for some time.’

  Her eyes blur with tears, her lips tremble, and Mina instinctively puts her arms about her mother as she might with Timmie or with Nest.

  ‘Oh, poor Mama. We shall all miss him, shan’t we? Will we be able to say goodbye to him?’

  Her innocent acceptance soothes Lydia’s guilt and gives her courage. It is heaven merely to be able to speak his name aloud.

  ‘No, no,’ she says. ‘He can’t possibly get away but I’m glad to share it with you, Mina. I’ve been expecting it. He makes light of it, naturally, but it’s dangerous, I know it is . . .’ She hesitates, looking anxiously into those clear untroubled eyes. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t mention it to the others?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ agrees Mina at once. ‘They wouldn’t understand and the Tinies might be frightened.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Lydia, weak with relief. ‘That’s what I thought. It’s a secret between you and me, my dear child.’

  Mina, feeling proud and very grown-up, kisses her mother lightly on the cheek. ‘It’s lunch-time,’ she says. ‘Go and make yourself pretty whilst I get the children organized.’

  She hurries away, so as to intercept the children coming in from the garden, and Lydia goes upstairs, comforted.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In the terraced house in Truro something unusual was taking place. The Bosun lay at the foot of the stairs in the narrow hall, nose on paws, but he was far from sleep. His eyes watched anxiously as his two humans paced the long room, which stretched from the front of the house to the back, and he listened uneasily to their voices. Dog he might be but he knew very well that an important note was missing; a note that conveyed happiness and affirmed that all was well. Each time either approached the open doorway his tail beat humbly upon the floor, his ears pricking hopefully; once or twice he sat up, in an attempt to deflect their attention, but neither noticed him. Their feet passed to and fro, marking angry tracks across the carpet, and the sour, unhappy scent filled him with misery. With a tiny whine he settled himself again, nose on paws, waiting, listening.

  ‘OK, so it’s I who am in the wrong entirely. I am at fault for taking exception to your opening a letter addressed to me. That’s the way of it, is it?’

  ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake.’ Lyddie was trembling with anger and shock: Liam’s reaction had been quite unexpectedly violent. ‘It was a mistake. So I didn’t look carefully at the address. So big deal. We do have a joint account at this bank, remember. Anyway, why all the secrecy? We’re married, after all. Is it really so terrible that I should open one of your letters by mistake?’

  He stopped pacing, so as to stare at her, and she was struck by the realization that he was utterly unfamiliar to her; the flow of chemistry that connected and fused them into a special, unique entity had been switched off. Lyddie felt an odd combination of fright and loneliness.

  ‘So that’s fine, then,’ he said, ‘except, you see, that I don’t believe that it was a mistake.’

  Lyddie swallowed, looking away from his wholly unfriendly, penetrating stare. Unfortunately his suspicion was all too true. Liam’s increasing edginess had begun to worry her to the extent that, when the letter arrived with the flap not quite stuck down, she’d given way to a terrible need to see what was happening at the bank. She was deeply ashamed of herself but, even so, had been quite unprepared for the scorching blast of Liam’s fury.

  ‘The letter was not closed properly,’ she answered evenly, sitting down at the table, crossing her arms beneath her breast, ‘and I hadn’t looked to see to which of us it was addressed – there was quite a lot of post – but, yes, OK, when I realized that it was about The Place and not us, I looked anyway. I’ve been very worried about you and I thought you’d been trying to protect me from .
. . whatever.’

  He smiled, not a pleasant smile. ‘Ah, so you were worrying about me. What a devoted wife it is, imagine.’

  Lyddie bit her lip, her cheeks burning. ‘It’s very hard,’ she told him, ‘to keep myself completely cut off from the business you love so much and which supports us. It’s . . . well, it’s unnatural, can’t you see that? You know all about my work and what I earn—’

  ‘And you know all about The Place. Mother of God, you’re in there every day and treated like the Queen of Sheba! How can you say you’re completely cut off from it?’

  She uncrossed her arms, pleating her fingers together, trying to sort out her thoughts. ‘I’m treated like an honoured guest,’ she agreed at last. ‘I know that – and I admit that I like it. Everyone enjoys feeling special and I’m no exception but, at the same time, I know even less about it than . . . than Rosie does.’

  ‘And what does Rosie know about anything?’ he asked sharply.

  She stared up at him, puzzled. ‘You know what I mean. She’s . . . involved. OK, it’s at a superficial level but it’s more than I’ve got.’

  ‘I imagined that as my wife you wouldn’t be concerned about what the barmaids think they know,’ he answered stingingly.

  ‘I’m not. It’s not like that. I don’t want to work behind the bar or— Oh, let’s stop this, can we?’

  He raised his eyebrows, watching her. ‘I don’t know. Can we?’

  ‘Oh, Liam, I’m truly sorry.’ She controlled her longing to move towards him: his whole body language warned her off. ‘It was quite wrong to read your letter but you won’t tell me anything. What would you do if you could tell something was worrying me but I wouldn’t share it with you?’

  ‘I’d imagine that you were adult enough to have the right to your privacy and honour it accordingly.’

  He might just as well have slapped her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said on a deep, deep breath. ‘Well, there’s no answer to that.’

  ‘And so now you know all about my problems how do you plan to lift the burden from my shoulders?’