‘Where on earth have you been? I let Stroch go and . . .’
‘And I helped.’
Kim raced towards them.
‘He couldn’t see me or anything. I just called and he came as if he had been ours always.’
Laurel sat down and hugged the puppy.
‘It’s your turn, Tony. We thought you could go as far as the garden and then call. I believe he’s so absolutely ours he’ll squeeze under the gate.’
Tony ran up the ride. With every step happiness welled up in him. The sky was more blue. The pine and bracken smelt better. The ground had more spring. As he neared the garden gate he began to jump as well as run.
XXXV
The joining of Stroch to the family made the return to school hard for the children to bear. Even before the arrival of the puppy there was in them all a growing love for their home. Their possessions in the places where they themselves had placed them, waiting from holiday to holiday. Their discoveries, the spot where the Canadians were cutting down trees. The hollow tree big enough to hide the weapons of dead Home Guards if the Germans should land. The bank which must be visited next spring because last spring they had found lilies-of-the-valley growing wild. The hedge where this year there were fourteen birds’-nests. It was their second year for some things. This year they had been at school for the full glory of the rhododendrons and azaleas, but they had seen the buds forming in the Easter holidays and knew from the previous year what a show there would be. For two summers they had picked blackberries and bilberries and they had places named for them. ‘The blackberry sand-pit.’ ‘The bilberry common.’ There was a spot where in August gorse grew as nowhere else, a sheet of gold and scent that made you giddy.
As well there were the house things. Mustard, with string tied round his trouser legs, his face unchanging, wrinkled as a long-stored apple and the colour of the garden earth. Mrs. Oliver, with her cockney voice and her cockney ways, which years spent in the country would never eradicate and her superstitions which multiplied as she added country beliefs to her urban collection. There was above all Nannie. They had never had a home without Nannie. She was home. She might now be cook, but cut your finger, feel sick or be upset about something and the years rolled away and you were back in the nursery days, with Nannie’s warm, calm voice saying, ‘It will all be Sir Garnet Wolseley.’
Lena’s place in her home was not the one she would have chosen, but it was a niche growing in solidity. She was rather unpredictable. Wildly gay one minute, aloof and morose another. But she looked nice and she never forgot welcoming things. There were flowers in their rooms when they reached home each holidays. There were new books, jig-saws and games for wet days. There were organised treats. Cinemas and theatres in the winter, and expeditions by bus in the summer. She had come off the pedestal on which she had lived when Alex was alive. She was anything but guarded and treasured. She was the provider, the planner, and it was she who ruled their lives. But she was valued now as she had never been in her treasured days. None of the children would have thought the holidays had started properly if she was not at the station to welcome them. They did not like the days which she spent in London, it was all wrong that she was not about to sit at the top of the table at meals and answer when they shouted. None of them would have dreamed of confiding an innermost thought to her, she was not that sort of person. She was Mum, rather unpredictable but as much part of home as the garden path and the front door.
Finally, there was Walter. The American tenet that childhood is a fleeting state and must, no matter what is sacrificed, be made as perfect as possible, was bone of his bone. He thought that Lena and Nannie were altogether too fussy. There was too much talk about what the children might and might not do and how they behaved. He seemed to hear nothing but ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that,’ and had no idea that by pre-war standards the children were running wild. When he was about there were no rules, what went to the making up of his idea of a good time prevailed. He provided sentiment. Laurel adored being called ‘little sweetheart’. Kim was by turns everything Walter thought him. Little brother. Wonderful kid. Tuesday was Walter’s pet. There was nothing he would not have done for her. She was not a child easily spoilt, for she gave in full measure for all affection received. Walter thought her too cute to be true. He loved the way she put her hand in his and asked questions, and confided in him. By British standards he sentimentalised over her, and spoilt her, but Tuesday blossomed under his treatment. Tony was the one member of the family with whom Walter was not entirely comfortable. He took a lot of trouble with him, sensing a deep sore, but sure he was not the right person to probe. He taught Tony things. Wood lore from his college camping days. Things to make. He let Tony come to him, he seldom made an overture. He was rewarded, though he had no idea of it, by Tony’s liking. When Lena said at breakfast, ‘Uncle Walter’s coming down today,’ Tony was the first to say ‘Good’.
Before the children left for the autumn term each member of the household was instructed over and over again how to care for Stroch. This term the two schools tactfully returned on the same days. Even with the taxi at the door there were last words. Laurel flew down the garden.
‘Oh, Mr. Mustard, if Stroch should make a little hole in your garden don’t forget he’s young. Next holidays I’ll train him so that he knows weeds from vegetables and flowers.’
Tony pleaded with Nannie.
‘Mum has said she’ll take him for walks but you know how she hates walking. If she forgets, you will take him, won’t you? He’s such an outdoor dog.’
Tuesday cried at leaving the puppy. Mrs. Oliver consoled her.
‘Don’t you fret, ducks. Each of you ’as written out a piece so as I’ll remember what to do if he’s upset lookin’. Well, I’m puttin’ them in me lookin’ glass. Can’t ’elp seein’ them there, can I?’
Kim was already in the taxi. He snuggled against Lena.
‘I absolutely like school but I must say leaving Stroch gives me a queer feeling here,’ he held his stomach. ‘Will you swear, Mum, that every single day you’ll mind more what Stroch eats than what you do?’
Lena kissed him and called the others. The taxi drove off with the children’s faces pressed to the windows. Nannie was holding Stroch and Mrs. Oliver was making him wave a paw. Laurel swallowed a lump in her throat.
‘I feel as if we were his fathers and mothers being led away to concentration camps, and we shall never see him again.’
Kim drew himself up and looked grim and defiant.
‘This is a father despising the Germans.’
Lena laughed.
‘Silly darlings. We’ll take great care of him and he’ll be waiting to welcome you at Christmas, and not only you. I’ve written to Aunt Dot to ask if Maria and Alice can come to us for part of next holidays. Won’t that be fun?’
XXXVI
Christmas day was over. Walter had leave. He had taken an infinity of trouble to make the children’s Christmas happy and had succeeded past his imaginings. Kim, who was never afraid of the colourful phrase, told Mrs. Oliver, ‘It was a day shimmering with happiness and joy.’
Walter had not an easy time. It was increasingly difficult to curb Lena. With him securely in her life, she relapsed more and more into the Lena who had refused to allow Alex to become the family man, the Lena who insisted that she was first a wife and, a long way second, a mother. The fonder Walter grew of the children the more tenacious became her hold as mistress. She dared put her feelings into words to Walter in a way she would never have done to Alex. Perpetually drinking far too much, she was not squeamish in her choice of words when it came to reminding Walter of what she meant to him, nor, when words were impossible, was she too nice in selection of messages by glance. She did not exactly grudge the time he spent with, or planning for, the children, but she had to be sure he grudged the time. She was able, with a whispered, ‘Do you know what I wish?’ to stir him into a fever. If Walter had not loved children, and felt that thei
r innocence was a sacred trust, Lena, by words and looks, must have ruffled the children’s curiosity. It would have had to be something fairly blatant for, to the children, mothers behaved simply as mothers. They knew, though they never thought about it, that they had been produced by Lena’s union with their father, but he being dead they considered her physical life over. Walter knew that Lena could, if she had a drink or two, be blatant. He tried to safeguard the children by telling Lena before the Christmas holidays started that during the holidays there would not only be no love-making in the house, but, as far as he was concerned, very little drinking. As soon as the children arrived he doubled this safeguard by giving all his attention to them. He took them out to cut down their own Christmas tree. They went out with clippers and collected holly and, under Walter’s guidance, spent all Christmas Eve on the most elaborate scheme of decoration. It was Walter who got the whole party out to church on Christmas morning. Lena had suggested that he and she should decorate the tree in the afternoon but he was not risking it. He insisted that the children helped. His idea of a good Christmas ran to fun rather than sentiment, and he accentuated his taste. When Lena thought carols round the tree would be pretty, he produced Stroch in a silver coat with silver paper wings as a fairy queen. When Lena said, ‘Let’s have the lights out. A tree is so much prettier in the dark,’ he said, ‘Let’s have the lights on and see who gets the biggest parcel.’ He also scotched Lena’s ideas on games. When she said they would play Blind Man’s Buff and wanted to make him the blind man, ‘and you have to feel who you catch, you know, and say who it is,’ he saw who would be the first to be caught and tied the handkerchief round Nannie’s eyes. Even when the day was over and the children in bed he was firm with Lena. Whatever she said he parried with a joke, and succeeded in getting her up to bed sober and let her know he was locking his door.
Walter had to leave on Boxing Day. He had enjoyed his Christmas but he was relieved. He had known it was running a risk staying in the house while the children were home.
‘When are you coming back?’ the children queried.
He kissed the girls and dug a fist into the boys’ ribs.
‘I’ve got to go some place north for a day or two. Shan’t be able to stay the night but I’ll be down in a week’s time.’
Laurel clung to his arm.
‘You promise? Alice and Maria will be here and Alice is my great friend and I’ve absolutely sworn she’ll meet you.’
Alice and Maria, on top of her own family, were too much for Lena. The weather was bad and the children indoors a good deal. The noise was deafening. As soon as Walter reached the house he knew he had picked on a day when Lena was going to be impossible. She had started the morning on brandy, her head ached, her nerves were to pieces, she wanted Walter’s arms round her, she wanted to be loved. Walter took a quick decision. He told the children to get on their things. Yes, he knew it was raining, but he was fuller of grime than a railway engine, he had got to have a walk. He joined Lena in the drawing-room, shutting the door behind him. She was half crying.
‘I’m so lonely and miserable and when you come down you go straight out with the children.’
He held her by the shoulders.
‘Look here, beautiful, ring up the hire car place and book a table for dinner at that hotel with a comedy name.’
‘What’s the good of that? A beastly chauffeur with us the whole time.’
He gave her a gentle, affectionate shake.
‘You must come to London one day soon. Meanwhile, unless that place has deteriorated, they’ve got good Scotch in their bar.’
Walter knew when at the railway station he said goodbye to Lena and sent her home in the car that she had drunk too much. He had done his best to prevent her but she had retaliated by ordering her own drinks and, since she overtipped the barman, she had no difficulty.
‘They’ll all be in bed,’ he reminded her. ‘You got your key?’
She clung to his hand.
‘Yes. Come back with me. We can get you to London in time for your work tomorrow. Please, Walter. I do need you, I feel like Hell.’
Walter looked anxiously at the back of the chauffeur’s head. He gave Lena’s hand a quick squeeze and slammed the car door.
Lena lay back in the corner of the car. She was trembling all over. How was she to endure herself? Walter was cruel, it was better not to come down at all if he was going to leave her in this frustrated state. She felt in her bag for her handkerchief. She had taken to carrying a flask. Her fingers knocked against it. It was full of brandy, she tipped it up and swallowed it all.
Nannie heard Lena fall. She pulled on her dressing-gown. As she passed Laurel’s door it opened and Laurel and Alice came out.
‘What’s happened?’
Alice was gaping over the banisters.
‘It’s Aunt Lena. She’s sitting on the floor.’
Nannie, Alice and Laurel went down. They looked to Lena’s hazy vision very funny. She began to laugh.
Laurel was scared.
‘Get up, Mum. What’s up?’
Nannie tried to pull Lena to her feet. Lena rocked with laughter.
‘I can’t get up. My legs feel as if they were made of wool. Nice, soft, fleecy wool.’
Alice took command.
‘You take one of her arms, Laurel, and I’ll take the other and Nannie push behind.’
In this way, after some labour, they got Lena up the stairs and into her room. Nannie shooed the two girls out.
‘You run along now, I’ll see to your mother, Laurel. It’s a touch of flu’ I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Flu’ nothing,’ said Lena. ‘I’m drunk. Oh, my God, I’m going to be sick.’
Alice and Laurel went back to their beds. Laurel’s face was crimson.
‘Was Mum drunk?’
Alice had thought the whole adventure rather exciting.
‘I think so. I’ve seen drunk soldiers and they’re like that.’
‘But mothers don’t get drunk.’
Alice looked at Laurel’s stricken face.
‘I shouldn’t fuss. Yours doesn’t usually. I expect it was just a mistake.’
‘But it’s hateful, she wasn’t a bit like herself.’
‘I know, but I still wouldn’t fuss. It quite likely won’t happen again. I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anybody. Dad went to a British Legion dinner once and he got drunk. I heard Mum tell him so the next day. She said, “You must expect a headache if you get as drunk as you were last night.”’
Laurel visualised her Uncle Paul and was comforted.
‘Really! I wish I didn’t have to grow up. Do you know, Alice, I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve not been told things wrong. I mean, we’re told that children behave badly and grown-ups are always right. I wonder if we shan’t find that grown-ups do worse things than children.’
‘I’ve thought that a long time,’ Alice yawned. ‘Well, I’m going to sleep and so’ll you unless you’re an ass.’
Laurel lay down and for a few minutes there was silence. Then she called urgently:
‘Alice. Alice.’ Alice grunted. ‘I’m sorry to wake you but this is important, you must listen. It was nice of you to tell me about Uncle Paul and, of course, I’ll never tell anybody. You won’t either, will you? About Mum, I mean.’
Alice sat up.
‘You really are the limit, Laurel, to wake me up to ask a silly question like that. Of course I shan’t tell anybody. Is it likely!’
XXXVII
Dot met her daughters in London. They were full of excited gossip. They had enjoyed themselves immensely. Stroch and Uncle Walter figured in a big way in their conversations. Dot was too busy to listen with more than half an ear. There was shopping to be done for next term, which was beginning in two days’ time. If they were to get everything done, lunch, and catch their train, they must hurry. In Selfridges she sent Alice to choose herself a new school hat, while she took Maria to the shoe department.
Maria ke
pt up a non-stop conversation. Dot answered now and again, ‘Yes, darling,’ ‘No, darling,’ and when some shoes were being tried on halted the flow for a moment or two. ‘You are certain you like those? They don’t touch anywhere, do they? You understand about coupons, darling? They are meant to be too big, they’ve got to last.’
The shoes purchased, Maria’s dammed-up conversation flowed again.
‘And one night me and Tuesday heard the most tremendous bang, and then we heard doors and voices, so we got out of bed, which we weren’t allowed to do, and we peeped over the banisters and what do you think it was?’
Dot was examining Maria’s ration book to be sure that the right number of coupons had been taken.
‘What, darling?’
‘It was Aunt Lena. She was sitting on the floor laughing and laughing.’
Maria had at last got her mother’s attention.
‘What?’
‘And Alice was there and Nannie and Laurel. And do you know, Aunt Lena couldn’t get up alone and Alice and Laurel had to pull and Nannie pushed,’ Maria got off her chair, ‘and she came upstairs like this.’ Maria imitated Lena unable to walk without support. ‘When she was halfway up Tuesday and me had to go back to bed or Nannie would have seen us and been angry.’
Maria was attracting the attention of other parents and guardians. Dot took her by the hand.
‘Very funny, darling. Your Aunt Lena was playing I expect to make Alice and Laurel laugh. Now, tell me about the puppy. What did you say his name was?’
Before Alice left for school Dot tried to draw her on the subject of Lena. She had no success. Alice peered at her mother through her glasses and parried every question.
‘Oh yes, Aunt Lena was very well.’ ‘No, Aunt Lena didn’t seem to find it dull in the country.’ ‘No, Aunt Lena never went out to dinner except when she went to London for the day and then she came back late.’ ‘I don’t know how late. We were in bed.’ Over Walter she was more forthcoming. ‘Uncle Walter’s American. He’s the nicest man, Mummy, I ever knew except Daddy.’ ‘Well, I suppose he started by being a friend of Aunt Lena’s, but really now he comes more to see the cousins.’ ‘When Aunt Lena goes to London she sees Uncle Walter.’