The Children's Hour

by Marcia Willett

  Lydia is unable to contain her relief and joy, speeding across the hall and into his arms, holding him tightly. Timothy has been trained in a tougher school and is able to smile at Mina, shielding Lydia whilst he stretches a hand to her daughter.

  ‘Were you anxious?’ he asks her, his eyes creasing into a smile. ‘Did you fear for me, crossing the moor at night, wondering if I might meet Carver Doone or Tom Faggus?’

  Mina laughs, delighted at his ability to connect so quickly, touched that he remembers how her whole life is a world informed by fictional characters.

  ‘I was worried,’ she admits, ‘when you telephoned from Barnstaple and then the pips went and you were cut off. We both were. We knew you’d have to walk from Parracombe but I told Mama that this was nothing compared to what you’re used to.’ She smiles indulgently upon her mother, who is calmer now although her eyes are strangely brilliant, her cheeks flushed. ‘But we didn’t tell the Tinies, did we, Mama, or they’d never have gone to bed at all?’

  ‘I expect you’d like something to eat.’ Lydia schools her voice into a steadiness she does not feel and he smiles down at her. Their glances lock and linger, her hand tightens on his sleeve, but Mina is already leading the way into the kitchen.

  ‘We’re very lucky,’ she calls back to them, ‘that we have a farm so close. They give us cream and eggs and cheese. And Jenna – do you remember Jenna? – sometimes brings us a chicken or some rabbits that Seth catches. I think it’s better to be in the country in wartime although Georgie thinks we’re very dull. Did you see Papa and Georgie in London?’

  ‘No.’ By now they have joined her in the kitchen. ‘No, there was only just time to catch the train. They are well?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ As the kettle boils on the range and she prepares some simple food, Mina chatters happily. ‘They survived the Blitz, at least, although Mama tried to make Georgie come home. She thought it was a great adventure and insisted on staying with Papa. She’d like me to go to London but Mama needs me and I teach the children, although Henrietta and Josie are getting too big and they’ll be going away to school in the autumn. Timmie goes over to Trentishoe for lessons with the vicar. Papa says he must go away to school soon too . . .’

  Her chatter dies away as she becomes aware of the silence behind her. They both smile at her as she glances over her shoulder but she senses a tension.

  ‘You must be terribly tired,’ she says to Timothy. ‘We’ve been collecting wood in the cleave all afternoon so there’s a fire in the drawing-room. Why don’t you take your supper through on a tray? It’s all ready.’

  ‘That’s a lovely idea. Even with the range alight it feels so cold in here.’ Lydia is indeed trembling as she embraces Mina. ‘Goodnight, my dear child. It’s very late and it will be a busy day tomorrow. Away you go to bed, now.’

  ‘The house is full.’ Mina kisses Timothy too. ‘Our cousins are here with their babies. You’ve had to go into Papa’s dressing-room next to Mama. It’s quite small but we’ve made it comfortable, haven’t we, Mama?’

  ‘Very comfortable,’ smiles Lydia. ‘Have no fear. He’ll sleep well tonight.’

  She glances almost mischievously up at Timothy but his face has a brooding, almost impatient expression. Watching them, despite her sharing in Timothy’s homecoming, Mina feels suddenly excluded, no longer a participant. Lydia picks up the tray and Timothy follows her across the hall; neither of them glance up as Mina climbs the stairs and passes along the gallery, whispering a last ‘Goodnight’.

  The children are wild with delight when he appears at breakfast time. Even Henrietta and Josie, who are trying to outdo each other in the attempt to be sophisticated young women, forget their quarrels and readily resume their familiar relationship with him. He brings each of them a pretty, flowered silk scarf – blue for Henrietta, green for Josie, but otherwise identical. Delighted that he has not classed them with the Tinies, awed by the soft beauty of the silk, they rush away to find some garment that might be worthy of a marriage with such splendour.

  ‘How clever of you,’ says Mina with relief, ‘to give them the same thing, otherwise they would fight.’

  She does not see the tender glances Lydia and Timothy exchange, nor does she guess that there has been a certain amount of collusion with regard to the presents. Timmie has a model of a Spitfire, which renders him quite speechless with excitement, and Nest is given a charming rag doll, with a whole selection of clothes for it to wear.

  ‘Imagine all those things being in that small holdall,’ marvels Mina. It does not occur to her, now that she is grown-up, that she might have a present. Nor does she suspect that Mama has been given a gift privately, and she watches the Tinies with genuine pleasure as they examine their toys. Timothy waits until she is alone before he takes his opportunity.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he says, as she stands peeling potatoes in the scullery. Jean and Sarah have taken the younger children down to the beach and the house is quiet. He hands her the package and watches her face as she quickly wipes her hands on the towel before she takes the book out of the bag. The mere fact that it is a book, doubly precious in these times, causes her to gasp with delight but when she sees the title, then ‘Oh, not an M. J. Farrell,’ she cries. ‘Oh, this is the nicest thing you could have given me. I loved Taking Chances and Devoted Ladies and I’ve read them so many times they’re falling to bits. This must be her latest one. Oh, thank you,’ and she flings her arms about him and hugs him tightly. ‘You’ve written in it, haven’t you?’ She checks anxiously and then grins at him again. ‘I can’t wait to start it.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait a little longer,’ he smiles, touched as always by her warmth and her likeness to Lydia. ‘I want you to take some photographs for me.’

  ‘Me?’ she asks, surprised but flattered. ‘I’m not terribly good at it,’ she warns him. ‘I cut off people’s heads and feet, but I’ll try.’

  ‘Good girl,’ he says. ‘Most of the children are down at the beach but Nest and Mama are about. You can practise on them and when the others come back you’ll be an experienced photographer.’

  She looks again at the book, imagining the treasure it holds, and puts it carefully back into its bag.

  ‘Come along,’ he says, ‘before we lose the sunshine,’ and she follows him through the hall and out into the garden.

  *

  It is Ambrose who breaks the news, four months later; telephoning from London on a sultry July afternoon when the children are at the beach. Suspecting nothing, he feels that it is he who requires sympathy: he has, after all, lost a very good friend.

  ‘One of the best,’ he says, over and over, until Lydia feels that she might slam down the receiver. ‘Poor old Timothy, I always thought he was indestructible. I shall really miss him. They don’t make ’em like that any more. One of the best . . .’

  When Mina arrives back, Lydia is sitting in the drawing-room, dry-eyed, her hands stroking and smoothing the last letter, which had arrived a week before. She stares at Mina, frowning a little, her eyes blank.

  ‘Mama . . .?’

  ‘He is dead,’ she says almost matter-of-factly. ‘Dead.’

  Mina knows at once that she is speaking of Timothy, not Papa, and she goes quickly from the room into the hall, where the children are disentangling shrimping nets from buckets and arguing together.

  ‘Take them into the morning-room,’ she says to Henrietta, ‘and then go and find Jean or Sarah and ask them to give you all some tea. Keep them quiet if you can, Henrietta. Mama is not well.’

  In the drawing-room, Lydia is still sitting motionless in her chair beside her sewing-box. Mina picks up a stool and perches close to her, taking the letter so that she might hold Mama’s hands and placing it carefully on the top of the sewing-box. They sit together in silence, Mina gently cradling the icy hands, whilst the sun sinks slowly behind the cliff and the garden is filled with shadows.

  No word is spoken: the tears come later.

  CHAPTER
TWELVE

  ‘Sorry,’ said Nest later, when they were clearing up after lunch. ‘I had a complete sense of humour failure. I’m sure you’re right and it’s just that she’s so confused. Anyway, there’s no reason to take it out on you.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering whether I should tell Helena that we simply can’t cope.’ Mina emptied the washing-up water away and wiped round the sink. ‘If it’s a deteriorating process then it may go in stages. Today we can manage, tomorrow we can’t. I shouldn’t have agreed to it at all.’

  ‘We agreed,’ Nest pointed out. ‘It was a joint decision. It was just her coming into my room—’

  ‘I know,’ said Mina quickly. ‘I’m sure she meant no harm. And you were always over-imaginative.’

  Nest began to chuckle. ‘I think we both were. All those books we read. I can’t begin to count how many characters I was in love with. Mr Rochester. Steerforth. Ralph Hingston – do you remember Mama reading Portrait of Clare to us? How I adored Ralph.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, yes.’ Mina put away the last plate and paused, remembering. ‘Albert Campion. Berry. Richard Hannay. And Peter Wimsey . . .’

  ‘No.’ Nest shook her head, nose wrinkling. ‘No, not Wimsey. He was rather mere.’

  Mina grinned at her. ‘“Personally I am a bit parshial to mere people”,’ she quoted and they laughed together, a whole shared past flowing richly between them.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ Georgie was watching them from the doorway.

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’ Nest fought down an unworthy impulse, remembering the tiny, bitter, childhood struggles for power, resisting the temptation to exclude her oldest sister. ‘We were talking about all the people we’d been in love with. Just being silly.’

  ‘It’s funny you should say that.’ Georgie came further into the kitchen, smiling at them: a sly, knowing smile. ‘I was only thinking earlier about Tony Luttrell. Do you remember him, Mina?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mina after a moment. ‘Yes, of course I remember him.’

  ‘I think I remember him too.’ Nest frowned thoughtfully. ‘Although I must have been quite young. How odd! I remember him with Mama, being terribly upset . . .’ Too late she caught sight of Mina’s face, grim with hurt, and, confused and surprised, hurried to repair the blunder. ‘We were thinking of going out, Georgie,’ she said. ‘We’re going to the Valley of the Rocks. I wonder if Mother Meldrum’s Tea Rooms is still open . . .?’ She could hear herself gabbling, aware of Georgie’s watchful, almost amused gaze flicking between them.

  ‘I’m sure it will be.’ Mina seemed to have regained her serenity. ‘With weather like this it’ll be open until after half-term at least. We might be able to have a walk so bring a warm jacket, Georgie. I’ll go and find the dogs, Nest, and then we’ll get your chair into the camper.’

  They drove slowly up the steep drive, turning left, eastwards towards Lynton, over the high road on the edge of the Down, which plunged precipitously into the Channel. This afternoon, the water dazzled in the autumn sunshine, the silky skin of the sea rippling lustrously until it met with the sheer grey cliffs where it broke in gentle creamy foam against the unyielding rock. The dying bracken streaked the moors with shades of russet and amber, camouflaging the shy, tawny deer, and shaggy, heavy-headed ponies kicked up their heels or cropped the close-grazed turf. Below them a raft of gulls, snow-white against the sapphire waves, drifted inshore whilst others screamed derisively from their precarious roosts on the high stony ledges.

  As the camper, holding left at Holdstone Down Cross, plunged into the narrow lane that led to Trentishoe church, Nest was thinking of the expression on Mina’s face. Staring out at the tall bushes of spiky gorse in bright brimstone flower, watching a flock of chaffinches fluttering above the beech-mast, she still felt as if she had unintentionally pried into something very secret.

  Nest thought: Tony Luttrell. I do remember him.

  She clung to the back of Georgie’s seat, murmuring soothingly to the dogs, as they bumped sharply downhill beside the church, passing beneath the ragstone wall of a high-perched cottage and the old farmhouse with its recently converted outbuildings, into the deep, single-tracked cleave. Images were forming in her head: a young man standing on the terrace, laughing with Mina and Mama, a cigarette cocked lightly in the fingers of one hand whilst the other gesticulates, embellishing a scene that he describes to them; a thin face with a long, mobile mouth. Tony Luttrell: how odd that Georgie should think of him after all these years.

  ‘I’d forgotten,’ said Georgie slowly, as the road dipped into the wooded lanes of the Heddon Valley, ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful it is.’

  The other two smiled, her appreciation binding them briefly together so that they travelled for a while in a peaceful, harmonious silence, between the stone-faced banks topped with neatly clipped beech hedges, the turning leaves glowing coppery gold.

  Unreeling like a silent film, the pictures continued to project onto Nest’s inner eye: a young Mina with Tony Luttrell in some kind of uniform, sitting together on the sofa in the drawing-room, and, once, very smart in a dinner jacket whilst Mina clings to his arm in a cloudy, rose-coloured chiffon. Nest frowned, cudgelling her memory, aware that a sense of affection informed these memories, recalling that she too had liked him. He had been kind, she thought, playing racing demon with her and Timmie and – oh, yes! – he’d owned a little open-topped sports car, so dashing and romantic. They’d taken turns to sit in the driving-seat, pretending to drive it. Timmie had worn Tony’s pale yellow, washed-leather string gloves, far too big on his small hands.

  Nest smiled to herself as the camper slowed to negotiate the bustle outside the Hunter’s Inn where a coach-party stood; some looking hopefully towards the National Trust shop, some of them booted for serious walking.

  ‘We could have tea here on the way back,’ suggested Mina. ‘Jan always takes good care of us and Georgie would like Charlie, the peacock, don’t you think, Nest?’

  ‘Mmm? Oh, yes, probably. Let’s see what the time is when we get to Mother Meldrum’s, shall we? Do you remember the wild peacocks, Georgie?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Georgie sounded sulky, irritable as always when she was treated as a visitor rather than a local. ‘Of course I remember them.’

  The fragile harmony was in danger of being shattered and Nest was prey to a familiar guilty uneasiness.

  ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Sorry. Silly of me . . .’ and bent to pat Polly Garter, curled on the blanket at her feet.

  ‘Not far now,’ said Mina pacifically, as they chugged across field-topped cliffs above Woody Bay, and Nest eagerly craned back towards the west to see a tanker, out of Avonmouth, passing slowly down the Channel; on the further shore, the hills of Wales dreamed tranquilly; insubstantial and mysterious.

  Georgie stared from the window, soothed again by the beauty and the peace, her mind temporarily, happily, rooted in the present. She tensed a little in her seat as Mina slowed the camper on the mossy bridge so that they might watch the waterfall tumbling down a rocky cliff-face, where alder and hazel leaned together and hart’s-tongue fern and pennywort clung in crevices.

  ‘There’s the folly,’ she said presently, pointing excitedly to the Duty Point Tower, standing above Cuddycleave Wood.

  She fell silent again but remained alert as Mina stretched to pay their toll and the camper moved slowly on, past Lee Abbey and into the narrow valley road between the craggy, piled rocks. Voices from her childhood murmured in her ears; memories of other journeys in the car with restless siblings, and Mama, always ready to protect Papa from irritation with a game: I-spy or spotting. ‘I wonder who will be first to see a pony?’ or ‘A choccy for whoever spots a buzzard,’ and Georgie, sitting with her nose pressed against the window, watching, determined to be first.

  ‘Castle Rock,’ she cried triumphantly, now, pleased to be first again, determined to prove her local knowledge. ‘Look, Mina. Do you see the goats? Up there on Rugged Jack?’

  Mina, too gratefu
l for this exhibition of sanity to deprive her of her triumph, spoke sharply to Captain Cat – who was inclined to resent the goats – and allowed Georgie also to notch up the White Lady, thus completely restoring her sister’s good humour.

  Watching the wild goats, bearded and horned, playing amongst the boulders on the gorse-covered slopes, Nest’s memory still reeled slowly across nearly sixty years: Tony pleading with Mama, his face tight with despair, and, later, Mina weeping. Why? Had Mama refused to give her approval to the match? Why should she?

  The past, however, refused to give up its secrets and, presently, seeing that Mother Meldrum’s was open for business, they stopped to have some tea.

  That evening, with Georgie in bed, exhausted by the day’s outing, and Nest finally settled, Mina went gladly to her room, the dogs clattering about her feet. There had been no message from Elyot yesterday evening and she was beginning to fear that she might have been too forward in suggesting a visit to Ottercombe. Perhaps he was finding it difficult to frame a refusal that was both polite and convincing?

  ‘Po-po-po,’ the air escaped her lips on an outward exhalation of breath as she undressed slowly. Manhandling the camper through the steep countryside was beginning to be an effort for her, and her neck and arms ached alarmingly, yet she dreaded the time when she might be unable to drive. How would they manage, so far from shops, so isolated, if she had to give up driving?

  Mina thrust these fears away, comforted as always by her familiar belongings, murmuring love words to the dogs as they stirred and yawned upon their beds. Despair – the enemy within – was always tensed, ready to muscle into a moment of cheerfulness, to wrestle down a fragile contentment. She undressed slowly, rather painfully, grateful for the warmth from the radiator. Central heating, like electricity, had come late to Ottercombe and Mina could still remember icy rooms, dressing beneath the bedclothes, huddling round the fire in the drawing-room. Only the kitchen with the range, later replaced by an oil-fired Esse, had been really warm.