A Winter's Child

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘Mother.’

  ‘Claire.’

  They embraced self-consciously, finding it easier than talking to each other.

  ‘You look well, mother.’

  ‘Darling – take off your gloves and your hat.’

  She did so, revealing her neat, gleaming, outrageously shorn head.

  ‘Good Heavens,’ said Dorothy, biting her lip, her hand going automatically to the heavy coils of her own waist-length tresses. But she had expected this, had read of it in the newspapers, heard of it in other families, had warned Edward. They had discussed it at some length and he had agreed – or at least she hoped he had agreed – not to make a fuss. For as Edward had pointed out, with some wit she had thought, hair grows. But she was flustered, nevertheless, and quite shocked to find her daughter looking not in the least boyish as might have been expected but, on the contrary, so very female. Sophisticated. That was the only word she could apply and it would be too much to hope – far too much – that Edward would like it.

  ‘Tea,’ she said, retreating to familiar ground. ‘Everything is ready. Do sit down.’

  And as she obediently took her place at the table Claire wondered how many times she had already witnessed this scene, how many times she would witness it again, her mother waiting with her tea kettle, biting her lip and frowning over the consistency of Edward’s jam and – in this still meagre postwar world – spreading on his toast her own share, and the maid’s share, of the butter.

  ‘Mother, how lovely to see you.’

  Yet there had never been any real closeness between them. Throughout the whole of Claire’s life Dorothy had been too preoccupied for motherhood, first with the problem of Claire’s feckless, spendthrift, gypsy-dark father: then with the hardships and humiliations of a debt-ridden widowhood: then with Edward. She had never regarded maternity as a joy in any case, only as a responsibility and she would have found difficulty in relating to Claire, who so very definitely had her father’s eyes – and therefore might just possibly be tainted with his disposition – even if Edward himself had managed to care for her.

  He had not.

  Perhaps – and then only perhaps – had she resembled her mother, he may have found her more acceptable. But the sight of his golden haired, pink and white Dorothy beside her dark almost foreign looking daughter never failed to make him uneasy.

  ‘Now, just who do you take after, little girl?’ certain ladies of Upper Heaton had been fond of asking, their arch manner reminding Edward so forcefully that his Dorothy had once enjoyed intimate relations with another man that he began, without fully understanding the reason, to exclude Claire whenever possible from outings and invitations, discouraging her from attending the suburban church where – his health permitting – he often played the organ. Boarding schools, he sometimes felt, had been the salvation of his nervous system, his digestion and his marriage.

  Whenever the school holidays permitted her return to Upper Heaton, Claire had moved carefully and quietly in the shadow of Edward’s resentment, his strained nerves, his weak chest, his murmurs of the heart and congestion of the lungs, a hundred devices of the jealous lover, the hypochondriac, to divert attention from an intruder to himself. She had had no hope and, therefore, no thought of pleasing him and, despite the excellence of her school reports and her own naturally good manners, had never done so until, to everyone’s surprise, she had married Jeremy Swanfield.

  The Swanfields had always meant a great deal to Edward, not merely as his most important clients, but as a family worthy, in his view, of the highest esteem. Yet when Miriam, as a kind gesture, had invited Claire to a tennis party his first reaction had been to forbid her to go.

  ‘I cannot take the risk,’ he had told Dorothy. ‘The girl will let me down.’

  But the even greater risk of offending Miriam by a refusal was more, in the end, than his nerves could bear and having reduced Claire to mulishness and then to tears by his warnings and his commands and the enormous fuss he had made about her hair and her shoes, he had taken her to the carefully manicured garden where she had met Jeremy.

  She remembered it now: a drowsy summer afternoon which had barely warmed the chill of Edward’s disapproval and then the miraculous excitement of a handsome young man staring at her, whispering ‘I must see you again’, wanting her. But that young man whose May time gaiety had won her heart and to whom very probably she would have remained faithful had he lived, still had no face. She could neither see him nor hear him. He had gone.

  ‘Tea without sugar, and no cake, you see,’ said Edward archly, ‘which goes to prove that we on the home front have suffered too. Although, in this case, it hardly matters since we are dining at High Meadows this evening.’

  ‘Are we really?’

  Had the spoken sharply? Her mother raised a warning eyebrow conveying the old message ‘Don’t upset Edward’. But if she had been a little abrupt then Edward himself chose to ignore it, the prospect of High Meadows, of an afterdinner cigar with Benedict, a dimpling smile from Miriam, delighting him far beyond malice.

  ‘They must naturally wish to see you,’ said Dorothy quietly; and Claire, giving in far more easily than she liked to her mother’s unspoken plea of ‘You have only been in the house ten minutes. Please don’t cause unnecessary fuss’, obediently murmured, ‘Yes. So I imagine.’

  Neither one of them had referred directly to her service in France, to the war which had maimed a generation or to the uncertain peace in which Claire could see no guarantee for the future. Very abruptly, the room began to stifle her, the dark velvet curtains and the heavy oak panelling to close in, an air of distance to arise, not for the first time, between herself and these people – any people – who had not directly endured the constant likelihood of violent death.

  ‘Do you realize,’ she had already been told several times, ‘that we almost starved in England in 1918.’

  Do you know, she might have answered, that in 1918 I died in France. There were times when she believed she had.

  She knew, without needing to be told, that her mother had spent the war catering to Edward’s fastidious stomach, going from shop to shop with her market basket to stand in patient line with Miriam Swanfield’s cook whenever there was Sugar or anything amounting to a delicacy to be had. Claire knew the miles her mother had been prepared to walk, the farm tracks upon which she had hazarded her reputation and her feet, the insults she had endured for Edward’s fresh eggs and his illegal portion of extra cream, the coals she had carried to light his study fire when the sturdy young maid had gone off to make bullets and shells.

  But Edward had always preferred Dorothy to prepare his meals herself, trusting her as he trusted no one else with the correct balance of his diet. And cheerfully, with no thought of praise, she had performed miracles of ingenuity, while the German blockade had lasted, to tempt his appetite. For he had needed a clear head and an untroubled constitution to cope with the work of Faxby’s military tribunal which, from the start of conscription in 1916, had sat in judgement on those who wished to be excused from answering their country’s call to arms.

  An arduous task, he had made Dorothy well aware of it, and by no means a popular one. For these conscripts, after all, were not being sent out to die on the distant shores of our imperial territories in India and Africa, allowing the wounded – who would be professional soldiers in any case – plenty of time to heal on the long sea voyage home. This war was being fought next door, as it were, in France, a matter of a few hours away at most and the sight of those hospital ships constantly discharging recently and gruesomely maimed men into our ports had been intensely distressing to everyone.

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Claire who, having loaded those ships, could think of nothing else she wished to say. Nor could she really be expected to appreciate the pain it had cost Edward to fetch her from Faxby Station that day since one of the porters, refused exemption by Edward’s tribunal, had lost both legs somewhere near Bethune and was often to be found in the s
tation yard propelling himself in a wooden box on wheels and begging. Edward could never look at him without a shudder.

  ‘How terrible,’ said Claire.

  ‘Dreadful,’ agreed Edward although they were very far from meaning the same thing.

  But one point, at least, could brook no argument. The war was over. That much was quite certain and Edward, in common with many others who had lost nothing by it, believed it best forgotten.

  ‘My dear, why speak of it? What can be gained by dwelling on what – thank God – is past? One must look forward, not back, and I cannot tell you how much it delights me to see butter again. Although when one might expect to lay hands on a decent foie gras or a ripe Camembert I dare not imagine.’

  Claire smiled and lowered her head.

  ‘I will help you unpack,’ said Dorothy. And they went upstairs together to the rose pink bedroom Dorothy had decorated to suit the tastes of her own girlhood and in which Claire had never felt more than a guest.

  ‘Heavens – what terrible luggage.’ But Dorothy was a practical woman who had never been able to afford the luxury of squeamishness and went down on her knees at once, undoing straps and buckles with large capable hands, perfectly at ease with Claire when their relationship remained at the level of undergarments, the stitching of frayed hems, train timetables, the roughness or smoothness of a Channel crossing. Slowly, deftly, she sorted her daughter’s possessions into neat piles as she had always done on her return from school, one for the laundry-maid, one for the sewing room, one for the local jumble sale. And if it shocked or surprised her that the starched cotton camisoles and petticoats with which she had sent Claire away had been discarded in favour of what could only be called by the new and decidedly wicked word ‘lingerie’she gave no sign, simply whisking those flimsy garments of silk and lace and crepe de Chine quickly away before – Claire supposed – the maids should see them.

  For half an hour the two women worked side by side, Dorothy talking quietly and, she hoped, safely of the domestic and parochial issues which not only dominated her life but with which she was at ease, the delicate matter of who should present the prizes at Upper Heaton’s Annual Flower Show, the eternal servant problem particularly now that the girls were returning from the munitions factories in such an awkward frame of mind, spending the colossal wages they had been earning on fur coats, of all things – would you believe it? – and strutting around the millinery department of Taylor & Timms as if they were as good as anybody.

  ‘But at least,’ she concluded cheerfully, ‘now that the war is over there are no more bandages to roll and no more Balaclavas to knit. And no more queues.’

  ‘It must have been terrible,’ said Claire and with a brief very quiet smile she sat down in the armchair by the window, stretching herself full length against the deeply upholstered, gently sloping seat, and lit a cigarette which she smoked not with the brittle smartness of a Nola Swanfield but with the leisured satisfaction which Faxby was, as yet, accustomed to see only in its gentlemen.

  ‘You smoke,’ said Dorothy, not accusingly but her head coming up with the alertness of a terrier on the scent of a rabbit. ‘I rather thought you would.’

  And closing her eyes, still lazily, luxuriously reclining, Claire inhaled once again, not with defiance but amusement and said almost dreamily, ‘I know mother. Not in front of Edward.’

  Still on her knees by the suitcases Dorothy shrugged her shoulders, a little heavier than they used to be but still white marble to Edward in the candlelight, her fair skin flushing with one of her quick bursts of indignation since she was mild with no one but her husband and always rushed to defend him.

  ‘Well you may think him fussy. In fact I dare say you do. But he hates to be confronted with – well – things he doesn’t expect. And it would simply never enter his head that you might smoke a cigarette.’

  ‘Then how do you know he would object?’

  ‘Claire! Because I just do.’

  How many times had she heard that? Too many to count. Simply too many altogether. But, sitting in the deep, softly padded chair with the cool spring sun on her face, the thought of daffodils in the garden below her and old branches sprouting their tender new green, she was too comfortable for anger, still inclining to amusement and understanding rather than condemnation. Her mother, she knew, would wash those scandalous undergarments of black crepe de Chine and peach-coloured silk herself and dry them in secret so that the laundry-maid should not gossip to the maid next door and give all Upper Heaton cause to wonder if all they had heard about women at war was true. What did it really matter? She had worn the garments to please Paul and was not ashamed of it. She simply regretted that she had been too young and shy and innocent to do the same for Jeremy. In an ideal world it would have been possible to tell her mother so, and to be understood. But Claire had schooled herself long ago to accept the limitations of the world in which she lived. She could not talk to her mother. But she understood her anxieties, her uncertainties, her needs. She knew why her mother behaved as she did and, therefore, allowed herself no right to be unkind.

  ‘All right, mother. I won’t smoke in front of Edward. And I won’t let him catch me smoking elsewhere.’

  She had given in easily, without pain. But Dorothy, as always, could not feel she had won a victory until there had first been a battle.

  ‘It may seem trivial to you Claire. But apart from everything else this is Edward’s house.’

  ‘I know, mother.’

  ‘And he does have a bad chest.’

  ‘Mother.’ Her voice had not hardened but cooled slightly. ‘He smokes a cigar himself occasionally, if there is someone like Benedict Swanfield to give him one.’

  The last phrase had been true but ungracious, possibly unnecessary. She waited for Dorothy to tell her so. But at the magic word of Swanfield, Dorothy’s quite charming flush of anger faded and she at once became very serious and preoccupied, as one might expect a lady-in-waiting to look when talking of her queen.

  ‘Such a clever man,’ she said abstractedly. ‘Edward has such a high opinion of him. You had better have a good rest this afternoon since he will want to talk to you tonight.’

  ‘Edward?’

  ‘For goodness’sake, no. Mr Benedict Swanfield. Claire – you are not going to be silly are you? I had wondered.’

  ‘Silly about what, mother?’

  ‘About your position with the Swanfields.’

  ‘What position is that?’

  Dorothy Lyall rose to her feet slowly, quite heavily, and stood for a moment biting her lip, looking worried and puzzled as she had done at her tea table and then, shaking her head, heaved a great sigh.

  ‘So you are going to be silly. I was afraid so.’ And she managed, but only just, to prevent herself from adding ‘Your father was just the same’.

  ‘What does Edward want me to do, mother?’

  ‘Heavens – it is not a question of Edward …’

  ‘Mother.’ And although she was no longer amused or tolerant her voice was steady, unwilling to be manoeuvred or emotionally pressured but perfectly ready to be rational. ‘To you, mother it is always a question of Edward. So you had better tell me what he wants.’

  ‘And why should I not consider him? What you seem to forget, Claire is that he and I…’

  ‘I know. We are agreed on that. What does he want?’

  ‘Only your good. And don’t raise your eyebrows at me in that scornful manner because it is the perfect truth. The Swanfields are important people, the most important we know, and if Mrs Miriam Swanfield is good enough to offer you a home at High Meadows then – Heavens – most girls in Faxby would give their eye-teeth for the chance.’

  ‘No, mother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But she had known, from the moment her husband had made his wishes clear to her, exactly what Claire would say. She had already rehearsed the dry-mouthed little speech with which she would convey to him her daughter’s refusal. But what
she could not convey was the calm yet troubling authority with which Claire had spoken, no act of defiance which could be browbeaten or otherwise overcome, but the reasoned decision of a woman who would only listen to reason. And how could she tell this rational, resourceful woman how Edward had actually rubbed his hands with glee, had even hummed tunelessly but recognizably with delight, when Benedict Swanfield had informed him of the family’s plans for Claire? As Jeremy’s wife there was a place for her at High Meadows where she might make herself useful to Jeremy’s mother. She would have her own room, her personal maid, her monthly allowance, the glorious advantage of Swanfield credit in Faxby’s better shops, the use of a Swanfield motor car. And even more important than all this, her residence at High Meadows must surely carry with it permission for her mother and her mother’s husband to call as one would call on relatives and close friends, freely and without invitation. It would be a new lease of life for Edward. How could she tell her daughter that? And then, meeting Claire’s eyes, she flushed a mottled, awkward red as she realized how easily and quickly her daughter had understood.

  ‘I’m sorry, mother.’

  She was, in fact, very sorry indeed. But it would be Dorothy, not Claire, who would have to endure the reproaches of Edward who was often peevish in his disappointments, the barbed hints of ingratitude, the effect on his nervous indigestion which would require Dorothy’s ministrations the whole of a sleepless night. How could she force Claire to change her mind? Edward would expect her to make the attempt. But she could no longer turn the key in the door, could not threaten this girl – this woman – with anything that would be likely to frighten her. Could she plead? Could she appeal to Claire’s loyalty or her affection? Suddenly and very heavily as if some weight had struck the back of her neck, she hung her head, ashamed of the answer to her own question and of the tears in her eyes.