The Fleeting Years

by Connie Monk

  Zina didn’t argue. And so a new thread became woven into the pattern of their lives, a girl of about twenty, not one who’d undergone training as a children’s nurse and had a certificate to prove it, but one who had learnt through experience having lived with an aunt who had been happy to add to her family about every eighteen months. The girl’s name was Clara Hawthorne. Fair but not strikingly blonde, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, not one of the day’s slender fashion plates although it wasn’t so much that she was overweight as that her bones were well-covered and her bust rounded. Altogether she was a comfortable girl and she slipped into her role as if it were tailor-made for her. It seemed a case of history repeating itself, for her own mother had died when she’d been born. Her father, rector of a country parish, completely out of his depth with a baby, had looked for someone to care for her. Some seven years later the ‘someone’ had become her stepmother and four years after that her father had decided to take a missionary post in Africa. She had been sent to live with her Aunt Lou who already had four children and was soon to be brought to bed with the fifth. So Clara had gained first-hand experience of how to care for a baby, experience that had become more useful with the years as, by the time she was twenty and applied for the post at Newton House, her aunt had given her six more cousins. And Clara had no doubt about a career; looking after a baby was her idea of paradise.

  On the surface, water closed over the gap that had been left by Fiona’s death. Only the family knew the void, the grief and the guilt too that they had let her sink to such despair without realizing.

  It was a summer morning when Ruth was about eighteen months old when Zina went into the garden where Clara was standing watching the little girl.

  ‘I ought to go and get her,’ she said as she saw Zina. ‘Mr Marchand has a script with him, he must have come out to work. But just look how she’s chasing him.’

  They watched as, with the uncertain steps of the young, Ruth was following Peter as he made for the seat under the horse chestnut tree. She was calling something, no doubt words that meant something to her if not to anyone else. He heard her and turned round, then held out his hand so that she took it as soon as she reached him. Looking up at him she appeared to be having a lot to say, and he was certainly answering although how much he had understood only he knew.

  ‘Give them a few minutes. It’ll do him more good to have her for company than that script,’ Zina said. ‘You know, it’s like looking back through the years. As soon as Peter was home, Fiona would follow him like a shadow.’ From her tone Clara knew something of the happiness there had been in the house. ‘Life can be so cruel.’

  ‘“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” That’s what my father used to try and make me believe when I was small and things got broken or I was sad about something. But it’s a hard pill to swallow, isn’t it?’

  ‘The Lord taketh away and the Lord giveth. Can it work that way round, I wonder? Was losing Fiona part of a pattern so that Ruth would be given to us. Not that any child is given, they grow up so quickly and move on to live their own lives. Just look at the two of them on that seat; I believe she really thinks she’s having a conversation with him.’ Then, changing the subject, she added, ‘I’ll probably go back to London again with Peter this week if you’ve got nothing special lined up for your day off? Would you mind having a longer break next week instead? Are you quite sure you’re happy enough in the house with only Ruth for company – and Mrs Cripps in the mornings?’

  ‘Of course I am. I’ve never minded being on my own here. It’s funny, isn’t it, how some places give you such a warm, safe feeling.’

  ‘That’s a nice thing to say. It’s how Peter and I felt when we first found it and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else – except the odd weeks in London, but that’s certainly not for the sake of the place, just that over the years Peter has been away so much that it’s good to have some time together.’ She said it without thinking and then wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t her nature to let folk into her innermost thoughts.

  ‘Truly, I’m perfectly all right with just Ruth – and Mrs Cripps, of course, she’s a dear. I’d better go and get Ruth, or poor Mr Marchand will go to rehearsal without knowing his lines,’ Clara said with a laugh and immediately started towards the couple on the seat. Ruth saw her coming and climbed onto Peter’s knee, her arms tight around his neck.

  Ruth was fighting her corner, clinging to Peter and shouting. Clara would have none of it. She lifted the child off him, said something to him and they both laughed then, carrying her yelling charge, started back towards the house. But Ruth had learnt when she was beaten and when screams would be wasted, so looking back at Peter she waved her hand and called what she imagined to be ‘Bye Gramp.’

  The next morning, with a feeling of freedom, Peter and Zina set off for London.

  ‘We were so lucky the day Clara came to us,’ she said contentedly. ‘Lots of young girls wouldn’t want to stay in a house alone with a baby.’

  ‘Yes, we were lucky finding her,’ he agreed, his mind already on something else. ‘I shall be pretty tied up this week, early rehearsals usually mean long days. Perhaps you’ll find some concerts to go to. If you can’t you’ll have to amuse yourself going shopping. Remember before we went to the States how you spent all the week at the shops kitting yourself out for competition.’ His words surprised her or, more particularly, something gentle in his tone as he looked back at what had been the beginning of such a dreadful time. He was half smiling as he remembered. ‘You looked stunning, I remember how proud of you I felt.’

  She laughed, not so much because of what he said as the relief it was that they could talk about it.

  ‘That’s more than Fiona did,’ she recalled, but at this distance in time there was nothing but affection in her tone as she remembered. ‘I was Queen of Frump in her sights. But to be fair, Peter, some of those glamorous creatures must have been older than I was and yet the bodies they flaunted gave no sign of it.’ She gave him a quick glance, frightened that even after all this time he wasn’t ready for such reminiscences.

  ‘She was a child, bless her, a frightened, worried child. Why couldn’t she have talked to us then, right at the beginning, Zee? Did she feel she couldn’t trust us? Did she really want that wedding?’

  What a relief it was to talk about it. Through all this time while they had grown ever fonder of Ruth, they had shunned facing the reason for her existence. Perhaps the first raw pain had dulled into an aching shadow of sadness that lay constantly at the back of their minds. Now their memories of Fiona weren’t of the morose girl of her final months but of the happy child she had been. Except for brief visits when they had gone to the States, usually separately, they found themselves overlooking the Hollywood period. They had played no part in her years there, even though they had been left in no doubt that she’d been living her dream.

  ‘She may not have wanted a wedding, but I am sure she was in love with Ivor, or at least thought she was,’ Zina answered him, uncertain whether she spoke the truth or whether she said it to take away some of the pain of Peter’s memories.

  They joined the motorway, mingling with the flow already on it. Monday morning and it was crowded, lorries pulling out from the slow lane to the middle one and sending ever more cars across to the third. Peter was concentrating on the road and for a while they were silent. In fact the nearer they came to London the less chance there was for conversation.

  For both of them Devon was home but, sure that Ruth was in loving hands with Clara, during the weeks of rehearsal, gratefully they slipped into a routine of both heading for London early Monday mornings and returning Friday evenings. The curtain was due to go up in the last week of September and it was at the beginning of that month when they arrived home after Friday midnight to find Tom’s car parked in the drive.

  ‘Lovely! Look who’s here, Peter! I didn’t think he had any engagements down this way. The lights are still on,
so he’s waited up for us.’

  ‘Great! He’s a good lad, he manages to get to see us so often.’ Then, not showing any sign of getting out of the car, he added, ‘Does he talk to you about a social life? He ought to be meeting people, people in the music world. He’s got off to a great start, but any career is helped by personal contacts.’

  ‘You’ll never make a party animal of Tom – and in that he’s not so different from a good many in his line. I suppose it’s different in the acting world; music is personal. I can’t explain, but I promise you, Tom’s fine. He never has needed to surround himself with people.’ Neither of them mentioned Fiona, Tom’s other half.

  There was no sound as they let themselves in but they could see a narrow shaft of light showing under the drawing-room door so expected that was where he must be, surprised that he hadn’t heard the car. But the drawing room was empty with the French doors open leading onto the back terrace where they could see a table laid, complete with their candelabra from the dining room and a bottle of something on ice.

  ‘At last!’ he greeted them, coming through the French door. In his usual way he shook hands with his father and hugged his mother, then he turned to the candlelit terrace where they could see a shadow of someone hovering.

  ‘This is quite a reception?’ Peter said, a question in his voice.

  ‘Is it something special? An exciting booking?’ Zina came straight to the point, her eyes shining with love and pride.

  ‘A very exciting booking,’ he answered, going back towards the mysterious shadow on the terrace. ‘Don’t hide yourself away, chump.’ Hardly the way to speak to a visitor holding his professional ladder! Peter looked at Zina with eyebrows raised, to be answered by a slight shrug of her shoulders.

  Whatever, or whoever, they were expecting, it wasn’t Clara, dressed in a pretty floral summer dress (the kind of dress that would have made ex-Hollywood Fiona look on her with scorn) and with stars in her eyes.

  ‘Mum, Dad, you must be blind if you hadn’t realized. But one thing I’m sure: you are going to love the daughter-in-law I’m giving you.’

  Peter was the quicker of the two to recover his wits, or at least to half recover them. ‘Well, I’m damned! But when did all this happen?’ Then seeing the uncertain way Clara was looking, first at him then at Zina, he held out his arms to her. ‘What do you mean “we are going to love her”, she feels like part of the family already.’

  Zina hugged first Tom and then Clara; everyone talked at once. That it was already well after midnight mattered not a jot. For them all, the warm summer night might have been mid-evening. Clara had prepared supper, Tom uncorked the champagne, Peter went to the cellar to fetch a second bottle (a good thing Jenny hadn’t been there to cast a jaundiced eye on his overexcited foolishness).

  ‘What was it you said about a booking?’ Zina asked as they sat at the table where, despite the mild night, there was the first hint of autumn decay in the scent of the garden; but it was masked by the smell of the citrus candles aimed at keeping any remaining midges at bay.

  ‘Mother, how dim can you be?’ Tom laughed. ‘This booking isn’t for one evening of glory, it’s for life.’

  Perhaps it was the showman in Peter that couldn’t be denied. He stood up and raised his glass. ‘I want us all, all, not just Zina and me, to raise our glasses to the future of the next generation of Marchands.’ For a second he paused, casting a glance at Zina before he went on: ‘May you two be as blessed as we have been, and still are, bound by an invisible cord that grows stronger with the years. And may your years be long.’ Just for a second his gaze held Zina’s and they read each other’s thoughts and felt Fiona’s presence very close.

  By the time the meal was over, two bottles of champagne consumed, the dishes packed into one dishwasher and the glasses into a second, they knew it would be a short night before Ruth shouted for attention.

  ‘We ought to toss for which of us collects her and takes her to bed for a cuddle in a couple of hours or so when she decides that it’s morning.’ That was Tom’s idea and watching them, for the first time, Zina recognized what she ought to have seen months ago. Why else had Tom made the journey so often? As far as she and Peter were concerned, he never changed, but they had remarked on his frequent visits and been too blind to see. Perhaps Clara wasn’t the sort of girl they expected him to lose his heart to, taking it for granted that he would look for someone from the musical circle where he fitted so comfortably.

  ‘Love is a funny thing,’ Peter said as he finally got into bed. ‘Is she what we would have expected for him? She’s nice, she’s a sweet girl, wholesome might describe her – but not the sort young chaps would be queuing up for.’

  ‘I feel extraordinarily happy about it. I believe she is good enough for him, and for me to say that of any girl is an accolade. Lovely evening, wasn’t it?’ She snuggled closer to him wrapping one leg across his. ‘Peter, what you said, did you really mean it or was it just that it made a good toast?’

  ‘You need to ask? If their marriage is as complete as ours then, come what may, nothing – and I mean that, nothing – can divide them.’ Perhaps they’d all had a little too much excitement and champagne, and that may have had something to do with the way he raised himself, leaning on one elbow and looked down on her. ‘Zee, when I’m away, when you’re not with me, it’s as if I’m not complete. It’s more than just that I love you, and I do with all my heart and soul, but it’s something apart from that. How could I ever be all that I am without you – and how could you be all that you are without me?’

  She nodded, feeling the burning sting of tears and their wetness on her cheeks (and again perhaps the champagne had something to do with it, not with the truth of what they said but of their willingness to put into words the love that was so much part of their daily life). Gently he smoothed her tears away as wordlessly he eased himself above her and wordlessly she drew him close. There were so many facets to their love-making, from joyous, sensuous lust and pure carefree physical pleasure to something akin to ending their day in a moment of thankfulness at where life had brought them, but whatever form it took it was always spurred on by the love that bound them.

  Tonight as he entered her he raised himself so that, by the light from the bedside lamp, they looked at each other. There was no wild passion in what they did, it was like a re-avowal of all they had pledged nearly a quarter of a century ago. This could have nothing to do with their shared grief when they had lost Fiona, and yet for both of them it was as if they were touched by the hand of peace. As long as they had each other, as long as they shared all that they were and the love that had brought her into the world, then surely they would never lose her.

  Early the following year Tom and Clara were married. It was a quiet wedding in the village church of Myddlesham. Clara’s Uncle Teddy gave her away, her Aunt Lou took the place of the bride’s mother, but none of their many children came. It would have been a case of all or none and Teddy and Lou decided on none and gave themselves the rare treat of a few days away from home staying at Newton House while Lou’s elder sister moved in to look after the family. It was seldom they had time to see each other as anything but parents.

  ‘This is such a happy day,’ Lou said to Zina as they sat by the log fire, while upstairs tomorrow’s bride and groom were bathing Ruth and putting her to bed. Tomorrow, by this time in the evening, they would be on a plane for their honeymoon in Italy. ‘She is a dear girl, true gold all through and she and Tom are just right for each other. She loves music. Until she came to live with us she had piano lessons, but with a brood like we seemed set on producing we couldn’t contemplate letting any one of them have more than any of the others.’ Then with a laugh that spoke of contentment, she added, ‘So all of them learnt to do without. But soon after she came to live with us she asked if she could join the church choir and they always gave her the solo parts – you know, the first verse of a hymn, that sort of thing. She has a nice voice.’

  ‘
Does Tom know that? He’s never said.’

  Lou Caldecott chuckled. ‘I shouldn’t think so for a moment. When you fall in love with a man on his way to becoming an internationally known violinist you don’t boast about having sung in the church choir.’

  ‘I’d boast about it if I had and I’d been given the solos. But, yes, she is a sweet girl and Peter and I are delighted. We shall miss her. When they come back from their honeymoon she will move around with him, going wherever he’s playing and living in digs or hotels, but I don’t know where they will choose for a base. Somewhere mid-England, I suppose.’

  But it didn’t work out like that. For the fortnight of their honeymoon Zina took care of Ruth, interviewing two unsatisfactory candidates for a replacement for Clara and going to bed each night more tired than she cared to admit. Then the couple came home to be greeted by wild excitement from the toddler. Apart from her, only Zina was there to greet them.

  ‘Up me, Unc Tom, up me,’ she shouted tugging at the leg of his trousers. He ‘upped’ her and was rewarded with a bear-like hug before he passed her over to waiting Clara. And when it came to time for her bath and bed it was as if Clara were still her carer.

  ‘We’ve been talking while we’ve been away Mrs Marcha—’ Clara started when she and Tom came down from settling Ruth for the night.

  ‘You must break that habit,’ Zina interrupted her, laughing. ‘Call me Mother, Mum or Zina, I’m easy which you choose.’

  ‘Then can I say Mum the same as Tom does? I’d really like that. I called my stepmother by her Christian name, and then there was Aunt Lou, and she was just like a mother to me but she was still Aunt Lou and I always envied the others being able to say Mum.’

  ‘That’s settled then, and Peter will be Dad – unless, having a father of your own you’d rather say Peter.’