The Children's Hour

by Marcia Willett

  Nest had shaken her head, frowning. ‘I don’t think so. She only ever talked in a general way about them. It was good for her to have people to speak to and I know that some of them were looking after disabled people like me.’

  ‘Well, this chap seemed a bit worried not to have heard from her. His wife is ill in hospital, apparently, so I suspect she met him through some carers’ chat-room. Looking at their e-mails it’s clear that they’ve been very good friends. I’m going to print them off for you to read.’ He hesitated. ‘It probably sounds odd but I think you should read them too. Anyway, all her close contacts know now.’

  ‘It’s so good of you,’ she’d said, tears threatening again. ‘Sorry, what a fool I am!’

  ‘Have a good weep,’ he’d advised sympathetically. ‘I do, regularly.’

  Now, fully dressed and having got herself into her chair, she heard the sound of Lyddie’s voice talking to Jack, and Nogood Boyo’s high bark. It was Captain Cat who was feeling the loss of his mistress most; old Polly Garter was too old to be more than a little puzzled by her absence and Nogood Boyo was too young, too infatuated by the Bosun, to worry a great deal, but poor Captain Cat mourned Mina quite heart-rendingly. He’d adopted Nest as his protector, sitting beside her chair and following her about, until Lyddie ruthlessly dragged him out for walks with the others. The four of them were learning to sleep amicably in the kitchen together at night but, oddly, Nest was glad of Captain Cat’s companionship, his shared sadness, and she often lifted him onto her lap, murmuring to him, smoothing his warm white head, as Mina had in the past. He would be waiting for her now, with Lyddie and Jack.

  Straightening her shoulders, schooling her lips into a smile, she wheeled herself across the hall and into the kitchen.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  By the day of the funeral the house had been cleaned from top to bottom; in the drawing-room the firelight was reflected in the gleam of rosewood and mahogany; the scent of freesias filled the empty spaces; even the dogs’ beds had been washed. As the family waited for friends to return from the church, the house seemed ready to welcome them, with its familiar, homely smells of log fires, flowers, beeswax and dog.

  The rooms had responded to Lyddie’s violent whirl of cleaning and polishing, dusting and scrubbing.

  ‘It’s good to have something to do,’ she’d said – and had been instantly seized with compunction for Nest whose activity was so limited.

  ‘I’ll arrange the flowers,’ she’d said, almost with pleasure at the prospect. ‘At least I can do that.’

  Hannah had arrived two days before, having left the children with her mother. ‘I could possibly have managed Tobes,’ she’d said to Lyddie, ‘but not Flora. You need to be able to concentrate at times like these and I’m afraid that Tobes is in a very bad way. He adored Aunt Mina and I think it would simply be too much for him. In the end I decided to leave him too, and at least I can get on with the catering part without any distraction. How many are we going to be?’

  ‘I’m not too certain.’ Lyddie was trying hard not to burst into tears. It was odd how this grief suddenly came upon one, out of nowhere, twisting the heart. She swallowed the weight of tears in her throat. ‘We’ve got eight of us in the house, I think. Me and Nest; you and Jack; Helena and Rupert, and Aunt Josie is flying over from Philadelphia with her youngest son, Paul. Roger and Teresa are driving down early in the morning. But I don’t know how many people might turn up at the church tomorrow and then come back here afterwards.’

  Helena looked at her, noting the shadows beneath the eyes, the taut lines about the mouth.

  ‘Have you done the beds?’ she asked.

  Lyddie nodded. ‘We’re all ready. Only the food to do, and Jack’s collecting Josie and Paul from Taunton this afternoon. Helena and Rupert will be down this evening.’

  ‘Then come and sit with me in the kitchen and help me make a shopping list. We’ll go into Barnstaple and get everything and then have a quiet cup of coffee somewhere. Jack can keep an eye on Nest and the dogs.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Lyddie. Suddenly she longed to be away from Ottercombe, to see that the world was still carrying on as usual, to forget – for a brief moment – that she would never see Aunt Mina’s face again. ‘Thanks, Hannah. That would be really good.’

  Surprisingly, the arrival of Josie and Paul did much to lift the spirits. Josie had been away long enough for her grief to be a gentler affair; a warm recollection of happy times; of, ‘Oh! and do you remember . . .?’, which seemed to comfort Nest and animate her. She was fascinated by this tiny, thin, vital woman, very smart, very American, who looked so much like Henrietta, and to talk to her youngest son, Paul, who was quiet and good-looking with delightful manners. Jack and Rupert took him off into a corner with a bottle of whisky, whilst Helena told Lyddie and Hannah how Georgie had settled into the home.

  ‘It was strange at first,’ she said, ‘well, we expected that, but she was very quiet, a bit bemused. She doesn’t bother to answer us much or seem to know what’s going on. I go in every day on my way home from work, and we both visit at weekends, but she doesn’t take much notice of us. I really couldn’t see any point in bringing her down with us.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Lyddie quickly. ‘It would have been horrid. So confusing and frightening for her. At least her memories will be happy ones.’

  ‘Poor Helena,’ Hannah said sympathetically. ‘I think these terrible times are worse for the carers and the watchers than the ones who have gone beyond anxiety.’

  Helena looked at her gratefully. ‘I sometimes think that too. But then we don’t know what’s going on in their heads, do we? They might be suffering in a way we know nothing about.’

  Her eyes filled with tears and Lyddie took her hand. ‘Don’t,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘Don’t you dare, Helena, or we’ll all be at it’ – and the three of them had laughed, albeit shakily, together.

  ‘So many memories,’ Josie was saying to Nest. ‘Goodness, when I think back! Me and Henrietta fighting like cat and dog and Mina trying to keep the peace. Poor Mama! Of course, you and Timmie were just babies to us. Remember how we called you the Tinies?’ Her face clouded. ‘Oh, Nest. Timmie and Henrietta gone, and now Mina. All those years looking after Mama and then . . .’

  ‘And then all those years looking after me?’

  Nest was smiling but Josie grimaced. ‘Still Miss Big-Mouth,’ she said cheerfully. ‘That’s me! But Mina was a saint. I couldn’t wait to get away after the war years. Stuck down here with nothing to do. It wasn’t so bad in the early days of the war when we were small. Goodness, do you remember those wretched babies that came to stay with cousin Jean . . .?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Nest pretended to frown too, to cudgel her memory. ‘And do you remember Timothy?’

  Josie’s brow cleared. ‘Timothy,’ she said gently. ‘Of course I remember Timothy. He was like a visitor from another world. A fairy godfather. Oh, how we envied Timmie, Henrietta and me, his having Timothy as his godfather. Although he was so sweet to all of us, wasn’t he? Much nicer than Papa. Surely you can remember him, Nest?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I can. But not so well as you, I expect. Being that much younger . . .’

  ‘Sure. Well, he was something else, I can tell you. So good-looking and romantic. And all those places he went to . . .’

  ‘Mina used to talk about him sometimes,’ said Nest mendaciously, ‘but she couldn’t remember too much.’

  ‘Well,’ Josie settled herself more comfortably, her brain busy. ‘Let me see now . . .’

  ‘So,’ said Rupert, swallowing some whisky. ‘Everything under control?’

  Jack glanced round at his womenfolk. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I’ll be glad, though, when it’s this time tomorrow.’

  Rupert gave his shoulder an affectionate pat. ‘It’ll be OK,’ he said reassuringly.

  Jack topped up Paul’s glass. ‘Drink up. I hope you can stay for a while. How would you like to see life at first ha
nd in an English prep school?’

  And now here they were, standing awkwardly about, waiting for the first arrivals. Food had been laid out in the kitchen, and on the gate-legged table in the drawing-room, and bottles of wine were opened, breathing on the dresser, or chilling in the fridge. Chairs had been collected from all over the house, and china and glass dug out from cupboards. The sound of an engine, a car bumping down the drive; Lyddie looked at Nest and they exchanged a reassuring smile, a nod of mutual encouragement, as Jack came through from the kitchen and went to open the front door.

  Sitting just outside the drawing-room door, Nest watched them come. She’d been surprised at the numbers in the church: trades-people from Lynton, some locals from the outlying farms, a few family friends and one or two strangers.

  Listening to the familiar words of the service, Lyddie’s hand tightly clasping hers, Nest had tried to empty her mind, to keep her eyes away from the coffin. Visions filled her eyes: Mina pushing her in the garden to show her the first primroses: Mina, singing as she drove across the coast road so that Nest could see the sea without feeling guilty; Mina talking to the dogs, her love murmurings followed by the little ‘po-po-po’ of sighing breath. Nest’s throat had ached with the pain of it, her heart was heavy and cold as lead in her breast; only Lyddie’s warm clasp had held her firm.

  Now she smiled at these dear souls – who had in their way loved Mina – as she accepted their gentle commiserations, thanking them for coming. Above the heads of an aged farmer and his wife, who were telling her that they could remember Lydia, she saw two men enter the house. They’d been at the church, right at the back, and, as she’d wheeled out, she’d glanced at them, thinking for a moment that she recognized the younger man. As the farmer and wife turned away, Nest watched the two men look about rather diffidently, saw Lyddie turn to greet them, holding out her hand with a smile.

  The younger man took it, smiling down at her, holding her hand in his.

  ‘I apologize for arriving unannounced,’ he said – and Nest felt a tiny shock wave as though the two, standing there together, were locked in some eternal memory.

  ‘I apologize for arriving unannounced.’

  ‘My father can’t drive at present and he asked me to bring him,’ he was saying, still holding Lyddie’s hand. ‘You won’t know who we are.’

  As the older man moved forward to stand beside him, Nest wheeled swiftly forward.

  ‘But I do,’ she said – and joy lifted her heart, as though Mina had touched her lightly upon her shoulder. She looked from the young face to the older one, and smiled with warm recognition. ‘You’re Tony Luttrell,’ she said, and put out her hand. ‘Welcome back to Ottercombe.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  In the days that followed, once Jack and Hannah had returned to Dorset, Josie and Paul to America, Helena and Rupert to Bristol, it was the promise of this new beginning that gave Lyddie and Nest courage to go forward.

  ‘Although it’s hardly a new friendship,’ Lyddie said. ‘After all, it’s more than forty years old. Oh, how fantastic it is! I feel that Mina sent them along specially. And you recognizing him like that after all those years!’

  ‘Well, I didn’t recognize Tony,’ Nest reminded Lyddie. ‘It was William I recognized.’ She chuckled. ‘How silly that sounds. The thing is, he looks so much like Tony looked when I first knew him. Quite a bit older, of course – William must be in his late thirties – but it’s there. When I saw them in the church I felt a sort of flicker but I was too overwrought to follow it through. It was when I saw him standing there with you . . .’

  She fell silent, unwilling to go further, to speak the words that William uttered, which her own father had said to Lydia so many years before. Lyddie was too absorbed to notice her withdrawal, so taken was she by this strange happening. She made Nest tell her Mina’s story over and over.

  ‘I’m not doing it as well as she would,’ Nest would cry in frustration. ‘It was Mina who was the story spinner,’ and then Lyddie must hear the other stories, of Nest and Timmie when they were the Tinies, of Henrietta’s on-going feud with Josie, despite their very real affection for one another; of picnics and the games they’d played, and of the stories that Mama had read them during the children’s hour.

  Lyddie would sigh with pleasure at the end of each telling, the thought of the life in the house stretching back, helping to heal her hurt from Liam and the loss of dear Aunt Mina.

  ‘William might be over tomorrow,’ she’d say casually – and she’d take the dogs down to the sea, trying to control the strange lifting of her heart at the thought of seeing him again.

  ‘It’s too soon,’ she’d tell herself savagely. ‘Don’t be a fool! You did this with Liam after James . . .’ but she knew that William was no Liam. His clear gaze and quiet smile betokened a quite different character and she felt at peace with him, relaxed and content. Both of them were recovering from broken relationships and neither was in any haste to rush into a new commitment. They were simply happy to spend time together, discovering one another. As they walked together in the woods, listening to the restless hush-hush of the waves on the shore, passing beneath the ghostly birches whose blood-red wands glowed in the late afternoon sunlight, a quietness stole upon her heart.

  Nest too was comforted; not only by the sight of Lyddie and William together but by Tony’s company. How extraordinary it was that he should reappear now, as a result of Mina’s death, to be such a staunch comfort to her. He came with William when he could; Lavinia was failing and he tried to be with her for as long as was practicable each day.

  ‘If only Mina had known who you were,’ Nest had mourned when Tony explained how he’d received Jack’s e-mail, described how he and Mina had ‘talked’.

  ‘I was afraid to tell her,’ he’d said, his still-handsome face sad. ‘It was so amazing when I first saw her name. She made no attempt to hide it. Why should she? I was more cautious when I started experimenting on the Internet and decided to use a part anagram of Tony Luttrell and call myself Elyot. It wasn’t long before she mentioned Ottercombe and you, and then I knew. Oh, Nest, I can’t tell you what I felt! How often I longed to tell her the truth. But I didn’t know whether she still hated me and I was afraid to take the chance. I needed her too much.’

  ‘She never hated you,’ said Nest gently – and found herself telling Mina’s story yet again, the whole truth of it, so that Tony was unable to contain his emotion and they sat together in the dusk, comforting each other.

  ‘She needed you too,’ she told him. ‘You helped her through these last few years. You must know that.’ She hesitated. ‘I have to say that Jack printed off your “conversations” and showed them to me. Forgive me for that but it meant so much to see that she had all that love and support from you. Perhaps it was better this way, for all sorts of reasons.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ He blew his nose. ‘I shall never forget that e-mail from Jack. It was exactly as if I’d lost her all over again. I simply had to come, just once, to see this house and you.’

  ‘And now you’ll come often, I hope,’ she said. ‘You and William.’

  He looked at her, his eyes bright with unshed tears. ‘It would mean so much. Thank you, Nest.’

  So now, with Christmas less than a week away, they were waiting for more visitors: for Jack and Hannah and the children, and the puppy.

  ‘I think it’s utterly noble of you to have us all,’ said Hannah, on the telephone to Lyddie. ‘Poor Captain Cat!’

  ‘He’s learning to adapt,’ said Lyddie robustly, ‘like the rest of us. It’s really good of you to come, Han. Don’t think I can’t imagine what it must be like to transport two children and all your Christmas this far.’

  ‘We can’t wait,’ promised Hannah. ‘Once Tobes knew that you had a chimney worthy of Father Christmas he was ecstatic. A Christmas with five dogs? I ask you. What more could life hold?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to make the house Flora-worthy.’ Lyddie sounded anxious. ‘
When you look at it in terms of a crawling child, a house is a mine-field.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Hannah drily. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be just fine. And you’ve got the tree?’

  ‘In a bucket in the shed,’ said Lyddie promptly, ‘and lots of decorations. Oh, Han, I can’t wait to see you all.’

  ‘Ditto,’ replied Hannah cheerfully. ‘Jack’s bringing the booze, by the way. Says he doesn’t trust either of you with his delicate palate.’ A pause. ‘Quite,’ agreed Hannah. ‘I was silenced too. Then I hit him!’

  Lyddie burst out laughing. ‘Give them a hug from us. Speaks soon. ’Bye.’

  Now a peaceful silence hangs over the house. William has arrived and taken Lyddie and the dogs off to the beach; everything is in readiness. Slowly Nest wheels her chair out of the shadows, the rubber tyres rolling softly across the cracked mosaic floor, and pauses outside the drawing-room. Brightly wrapped Christmas presents are piled upon the ancient settle and a jar of spindle-berries stands on the oak table beside the lamp, whose light glints on the big copper plate. Silence fills the high spaces of the hall and flows about her as she bends her head to listen, her eyes closed. She can no longer see Georgie and Mina, with Timmie propped between them on the sofa, nor Josie, working at her jigsaw on the floor, whilst Henrietta leans to look at the pictures in the book. Mama’s voice is stilled, the children are gone.

  Their story is finished; a new chapter is beginning.