Amberwell (Ayrton Family Book 1)

by D. E. Stevenson

  When the feed was prepared Nannie arranged all the paraphernalia on the table beside the fire and lifted the baby. He began to cry. It was not a loud cry but it was a very different sound from the pathetic whimper which Nell remembered, and which she did not think she would ever forget.

  “There now,” said Nannie cheerfully. “That’s more like the thing. Let’s see if you’ll take it out of a bottle like a proper man.” She cuddled him tightly against her and moistening the teat with milk put it to his lips. At first he would have nothing to do with it, he turned his head and shut his lips firmly.

  “Come away now, Stephen,” Nannie adjured him in wheedling tones. “Come away, there’s my wee doo …”

  Nell watched breathlessly while Nannie coaxed him and after a few moments the teat slipped into the tiny mouth and the baby began to suck feebly. “He’s taking it!” she exclaimed.

  Nannie was smiling. “We’re over the worst,” she said. “You’ll not have much trouble with him now he’s started.”

  “Do you really think I could manage?” asked Nell doubtfully.

  “You’ll manage all right,” declared Nannie. “See, he’s enjoying it now! If you’re worried you can come and wake me.”

  2

  Babies are queer, as the woman had said (the woman whose name Nell did not know but whose face remained quite clearly in her memory). Little Stephen, having been persuaded to live, recovered from his terrible experiences with remarkable rapidity. In a few days he was taking an interest in life and yelling for his bottle at the pitch of his voice if it did not appear at exactly the right moment. His face would pucker and become crimson with rage; he would beat the air with his doubled fists and go on yelling until he was gagged by the teat being thrust into his open mouth. Then and not till then there would be silence. Nell could not help laughing every time she witnessed this performance — but her laughter was not very far from tears.

  Mrs. Ayrton took little interest in the baby. She was glad he was better of course but his presence at Amberwell disorganised the household. Nannie was too busy to look after the house and Nell was so besotted with little Stephen that she could think of nothing else. When Mrs. Ayrton’s own children were small they had been kept in the background — properly cared for of course but not allowed to be a nuisance to their adult relations. Stephen definitely was a nuisance; his pram stood upon the terrace outside the morning-room window, because that was the most sheltered place and Nell could hear him if he cried … and if he cried Nell or Nannie — or sometimes both of them — would leave whatever they happened to be doing and rush to his assistance. Lunch was always late because Nell was upstairs in the nursery with Stephen and could not tear herself away from his charms at the proper hour. Tea-time was worse because Nannie had tea with Mrs. Duff (under the new regime) and Stephen was brought into the morning-room and laid upon the sofa where he kicked and gurgled and usurped all his aunt’s attention so that she was quite unfit for any sort of reasonable conversation.

  Mrs. Ayrton bore it as long as she could and then she rebelled.

  “Nell,” said Mrs. Ayrton at dinner one evening (it was the only peaceful meal). “Nell, don’t you think it would be a good plan if Connie had the baby?”

  “What!” exclaimed Nell.

  “Connie is quite willing to have him and bring him up with Gerry. She has a very good nurse, you know. Roger can pay her a little for having him. It seems an excellent plan.”

  Nell was so dismayed that she was speechless.

  “It will be better for little Stephen too,” continued Mrs. Ayrton complacently. “Gerry will be company for him. It isn’t good for children to be brought up alone. I’ll write to Connie to-night and —”

  “No!” cried Nell.

  “Oh, my dear, do be sensible! We can’t keep him here.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s nobody to look after him. Nannie is getting too old.”

  “Not if I help her. Nannie and I are perfectly capable of looking after him between us.”

  “But Nell —”

  “This is Stephen’s home,” said Nell firmly.

  Mrs. Ayrton looked at her meek daughter in amazement. As a matter of fact Nell was surprised at herself; she had not known before that there was a tigress inside her.

  “Really, Nell,” said Mrs. Ayrton crossly. “You’re behaving very strangely. If I choose to make an arrangement with Connie —”

  Nell’s fury rose like a flood. “You don’t seem to understand,” she exclaimed, trying without much success to control her voice. “You seem to forget Amberwell belongs to Roger. Stephen has far more right to live here than either you or I.”

  There was a moment’s horrified silence. Mrs. Ayrton’s face went as white as a sheet — and at the sight of her mother’s face Nell’s anger evaporated.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m terribly sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  Mrs. Ayrton did not speak and the subject was closed — nor was it ever reopened — but Mrs. Ayrton did not forget what Nell had said and the relations between mother and daughter which had never been cordial were considerably worsened. Perhaps Mrs. Ayrton did not realise this clearly herself, but the fact remains that after that unfortunate conversation her heart was closed to Nell. There was no outward breach, they spoke to each other as usual about everyday matters, but there was no real communication between them. This withdrawal affected Mrs. Ayrton far more seriously than Nell, for Nell had Stephen to love and care for, and Nell had staunch friends in Nannie and Mrs. Duff and Mr. Gray. Mrs. Ayrton had nobody. Her friends in the district were far too busy to come and see her, and they had no petrol to spare for social occasions. The Lamberts might have looked in occasionally of course, for they were within easy walking distance, but Poppet was not particularly fond of Marion — it was Will she liked — so it never occurred to her to visit Amberwell. Mrs. Ayrton was completely isolated; she had nothing to do, she never helped in the house, and she did not care for reading. It was no wonder that she brooded upon her troubles and became self-centred.

  3

  Roger had wanted his son to grow up at Amberwell; he had wanted Stephen to have his roots in Amberwell ground and to breathe Amberwell air and his wish was fulfilled. Little Stephen was out in his pram most of the day and his first conscious memory was of green leaves swaying gently above his head. Faces became important: the wrinkled face of Nannie, the smiling face of Aunt Nell. Incredibly soon Stephen could sit upon a rug on the nursery floor surrounded by a motley collection of rattles and woolly balls and teddy-bears, and after that it seemed no time at all until Stephen was staggering across the lawn. He was the most wonderful child in the world — according to his aunt.

  Roger was first in Egypt and then in the desert; he won the M.C. for Gallantry in Action at the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. Nell was proud of Roger, but she was also very anxious and when she wrote to him to congratulate him upon his prowess she reminded him of his promise that he “would not try to get himself killed.”

  Roger wrote fairly regularly — all through the Desert Campaign — but his letters were not spontaneous as they had been before; they might have been written by anybody, there was nothing of the real Roger in them. All that he had suffered was shut up inside him and the box was firmly locked. Nell wrote to Roger of course, but she was wise enough not to tell him too much about Stephen (it would have been easy to fill all her letters with Stephen’s doings but she resisted the temptation), instead she told Roger about Mrs. Duff’s latest saying, about the comic things that had happened at the Red Cross Fete and other local affairs. Unfortunately there were sad tidings as well, which had to be reported to Roger. Ian Findlater was killed (he was the elder of the two Findlater boys who used to play with Roger and Tom in the Amberwell gardens), Arnold Maddon, the doctor’s son, was badly wounded, and the garden-boy, whom Mr. Ayrton had tried so hard to keep, was taken prisoner by the Japanese.

  Tom wrote occasionally, but Tom’s
letters had never been very informative. He could not tell her where he was, of course, for censorship was strict, but Nell wished he would tell her something about himself and how he was getting on, and after some weeks of complete silence she wrote and told him so. He replied quite soon saying he was all right and she was not to worry and added that a poisonous snake had bitten Paul’s hand but it had done him no harm — much to everyone’s surprise. This stray piece of information puzzled Nell (she knew nobody called Paul and it was unlike Tom to hand out news about his friends) and then suddenly she remembered St. Paul’s adventure at Melita and came to the conclusion that Tom was informing her that his ship had called at Malta. The postscript clinched the matter:

  P.S. Don’t let on about Paul. He doesn’t want his people to know.

  Nell smiled as she folded up the letter and put it away.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  One morning when Nell went down to help Mrs. Duff with the breakfast she was surprised to hear a man’s voice coming from the kitchen. In fact she was more than surprised, and stood for a moment with her hand upon the knob of the kitchen door, rooted to the ground with astonishment. Mr. Gray was the only man left at Amberwell — and those were certainly not the well-known rumbling tones of Mr. Gray.

  After a few moments she pulled herself together and opened the door — and there was Tom! Tom whom she had last heard of in Malta! He was sitting at the kitchen table eating bacon and eggs and talking with his mouth full. In front of him stood Mrs. Duff watching with fond indulgence while the whole week’s ration of the household rapidly disappeared before her eyes.

  “Oh my!” Mrs. Duff was saying. “Oh maircy! Oh, Mr. Tom, it’s like a story-book.”

  “Tom!” cried Nell. “Oh, Tom, how lovely! Where have you dropped from?”

  “Hallo, Nellie!” exclaimed Tom, rising and wiping his mouth and kissing her with brotherly affection. Nobody but Tom ever called her Nellie. “Hallo, Nellie! Let me look at you. Do you know that you’re getting extraordinarily pretty?”

  “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

  “I didn’t want Hitler to hear about it,” replied Tom in hushed accents.

  “He slept in his bed with no sheets, Miss Nell.”

  “I did indeed,” nodded Tom. “It was a frightful hardship. Fancy having to sleep in a bed with blankets and no sheets! And this house is terribly difficult to break into. It took me the best part of twenty minutes to force an entrance. Well, well, what a homecoming!”

  “If you’d told us you were coming” began Mrs. Duff.

  “You should have known,” declared Tom. “You should study telepathy and then you’d know the proper moment to hang out the flags and roll out the red carpet.” He sat down and went on with his breakfast.

  “You always was the worst!” exclaimed Mrs. Duff laughing.

  Tom nodded. “I always was the worst and you always loved me best, didn’t you, Duffy?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Duff blatantly.

  “You broke into the house?” asked Nell, interrupting these fond exchanges. The news caused her anxiety. Amberwell House was so big and rambling and she herself was the only able-bodied person in the place. She had spent quite a lot of time and thought — and money — in making Amberwell House burglar-proof, and here was evidence to show she had failed.

  “It was difficult,” replied Tom, taking a piece of bread and mopping up the remains of bacon-fat, in a manner which would have distressed Nannie considerably. “It was very difficult indeed. You’ve got new-fangled snibs on all the ground-floor windows; I couldn’t open them with my knife.”

  “Good,” said Nell smiling.

  “Not good at all. I had to climb on to the scullery roof and crawl in through one of the bathroom windows.”

  “I’ll put a snib on it,” said Nell.

  Tom had finished and cleaned his plate. “Look here, Duffy,” he said. “If it wouldn’t be a bother I’d like some more. Nobody cooks bacon like you.”

  “Oh, Mr. Tom, there’s not a bit!” cried Mrs. Duff in dismay.

  “No more bacon in the house?”

  “There’s a war on,” Nell told him.

  “You mean —”

  “That was our week’s ration, that was,” said Nell and she began to laugh at Tom’s horrified expression.

  “Golly!” he exclaimed. “D’you mean to tell me I’ve eaten your whole week’s ration? But that’s awful! Duffy, why on earth did you let me?”

  Then, all at once, the gaiety and nonsense drained out of him and his face looked tired and old.

  The change was alarming. Nell was quite horrified; she remembered Roger saying that old Tom was not heartless enough for a war. She did not know what to say, but she had to say something to break the unbearable silence that had fallen upon them so suddenly.

  “Why don’t you have a walk in the garden,” suggested Nell. “We’re going to have our breakfast now, but you don’t want to sit and watch us eating. You’ll find Mr. Gray somewhere about; he’ll be awfully pleased to see you.” Tom rose without a word and went out.

  “Oh, Miss Nell!” exclaimed Mrs. Duff. “Oh Goodness! I thought he was going to faint.”

  “I know,” agreed Nell. “It was frightening. He’s had a bad time. Perhaps he’ll be better when he’s had a few days leave.”

  “He’s got a fortnight — that’s what he said. I’ll take a walk down to the lodge this afternoon and see if Mrs. Gray could lend me a wee bit of bacon for to-morrow morning,” said Mrs. Duff.

  2

  Tom needed more than a few days to recover his equilibrium. He was terribly restless — sometimes unnaturally gay, sometimes silent and gloomy — Nell noticed that he could not bear to be in the room when her mother was there. Mrs. Ayrton’s banal conversation irritated him and he had no patience with her when she got muddled and repeated herself. Tom did not say anything, he merely got up and went away.

  Nell was so worried about Tom that she neglected some of her duties and went for long walks with him across the moors or along the shore, but she could not neglect all her duties and presently she discovered that, left to himself, Tom sought out the company of his nephew. Stephen was now two years old, walking sturdily and talking a great deal — though not very clearly. The two played together very happily, they sat upon a rug on the lawn and Tom built towers of small, gaily-coloured cardboard boxes for Stephen to knock over. It seemed a monotonous occupation but neither of them grew tired of it.

  “You never saw Clare, did you?” said Tom one morning when Stephen had been dragged off by Nannie to have his rest.

  “No,” said Nell with a sigh.

  “The kid’s awfully like her, you know. I only saw Clare once — went and stayed with them in Salisbury for a week-end — they were terrifyingly happy.”

  “Terrifyingly?” asked Nell, sitting down beside him on the rug.

  “Yes, it terrified me. I felt it couldn’t last. Perfect things don’t last.”

  “Imperfect things don’t last either,” said Nell thoughtfully. “I suppose even the war will be over some day, Tom, are you sorry you went into the Navy?”

  “That’s a funny thing to ask,” said Tom. “I’ve been sorry lots of times and glad lots of times if you really want to know … sorry in the middle of a North Sea blizzard and glad when the sun shone and the sea was blue. You know, Nell, I wanted to go into the Navy when I was a kid and Father wouldn’t let me. I was as sick as mud and I went about for years with a chip on my shoulder. It wasn’t until Father was dead and I went to see the lawyer, Mr. Dalgleish, that I discovered why. I mean Father had quite good reasons; he had thought it all out and wanted to do the best for me. It wasn’t just a whim. If only he had told me at the time it would have saved all the bitterness.”

  Tom was building another tower of boxes but there was nobody to knock them over. “I like kids,” he said. “And Stephen is rather special. It’s fun watching him. Sometimes he looks a bit like Roger — and he laughs like Anne — and then, at
other times, he’s all Clare. Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Nell.

  There was a little silence and then Tom looked up with his engaging grin which made him look so young — so like the Tom of long ago. “I’m better,” he said. “I was pretty nearly round the bend. I expect you noticed. It’s just as well I’m better because my leave is up. I’m off to-morrow at daybreak.”

  Nell knew this. She had been watching the days fly past.

  “Amberwell has cured me,” continued Tom in a reflective tone. “You and Stephen have helped a lot — but it was Amberwell, really. But don’t worry about me,” added Tom, balancing the last and smallest box upon the top of the tower with precision. “Just look at that! The old hand is as steady as a rock.”

  “Good,” said Nell, trying to smile.

  “You are worrying,” said Tom. “I wish you wouldn’t. No, that’s not quite true. It’s rather nice to know that somebody is worrying a little, but don’t worry too much.” He rose and added, “I promised Mr. Gray I’d do a bit of digging.”

  Nell watched him as he strolled off; she would have liked to bury Tom in a deep hole in the garden and keep him there safely until this ghastly war was over.

  It was a miserably wet morning for Tom’s departure. Nell got up very early to give him his breakfast but when she went down to the kitchen Mrs. Duff was there already, frying a large pan of bacon. Nell wondered where she had managed to collect it, but forbore to inquire. As the breakfast was under control she went out to get the car to drive Tom to the station but here again she was forestalled. Mr. Gray was in the garage; the car had been started and was running smoothly.