The children came home on three different days. The doctor did not want to make an invalid of Lena, but she had to conserve her strength if she was to make a success of the holidays. Lena arranged to have the children escorted across London, and he had patients near the station and offered to meet the children.
The first to arrive was Tony. The last part of his summer holidays had not been so bad, he had liked working on a farm. He had enjoyed a couple of days in London with Dot and Henry. Even the most embarrassing talks with Andrew had been made less unbearable by Sylvia’s tip about the peas. He was getting on all right at school, though, of course, he still felt a bit new. He had been looking forward to coming home. He hung out of the carriage window watching for Lena.
The doctor was overworked, looking after his own practice and that of another doctor who had been called up. He never could get through his round as quickly as he expected, he was always a little late, but that everybody understood. Tony had been standing by his luggage outside the station for close on half an hour when the doctor arrived.
‘Hallo, young fellow my lad! I told your mother I’d meet you. Got held up over a broken arm.’
While they were getting his luggage on to the car Tony said:
‘I was expecting my mother.’
‘The taxi is dropping to bits, and it’s better for your mother not to do more than she must.’
Tony fastened a strap round his trunk. He felt chilled by his welcome. Half an hour’s wait, and then to hear Mum was still ill. He wanted he hardly knew what. A vague mixture of welcome, affection and being very much wanted. As he got into the car he said grumpily.
‘Is she still ill? I thought she was all right again.’
The doctor caught the inflection in Tony’s voice. He guessed something of what was behind it. Children were inclined to have pipe dreams of home. Cruelly easy to disappoint them. Tony especially. He had been in a queer way the first time he had seen him. Been in half a mind to put him in the hands of a psychologist. Boy must be fourteen now, or thereabouts. Lot of chivalry at that age. Might be good for the boy and good for his mother if he dropped a hint that as the man of the house he might be a bit firm with her. Take care of her. See she didn’t overtax herself. Just as he started to speak there was a shout from a passing car. It was a fellow doctor. Through their car windows a case was discussed. When the doctor started his car again he was considering what he had been discussing, and had forgotten what he had meant to say to Tony.
Lena was nervous of meeting Tony. Had she changed? Would he be disappointed? She was over-eager. She drew him into the drawing room where tea was waiting. She kept up a steady flood of questions. It was all artificial, it was not what Tony needed. His answers grew shorter. He looked morose. Lena got frightened. She was changed. He was not as fond of her as he had been. To add to her fears she heard the old Tony out in the kitchen, teasing Nannie, asking Mrs. Oliver to read his teacup. ‘It’s just me,’ Lena thought. ‘I’m treating him all wrong somehow.’ When Tony came back to the fire she said, with forced joviality:
‘I thought you and I would go and cut down the Christmas tree tomorrow. We could plan it together. It would be rather fun, don’t you think?’
Tony was playing with a wildly excited Stroch. He was making him bark, which Lena found a hideous noise.
‘I don’t see why you need bother. If you want a tree cut, I’ll do it with Mr. Mustard.’
Kim arrived next, he was enchanting with Lena, and made Tony look and feel boorish in comparison. Kim had heard from Selina that she was going to ask Lena to spare him for the last two weeks of the holidays, as they were giving another show. Kim intended to take part in that show, but he knew it would take a bit of wangling to get away. Obviously the first step was to ingratiate himself with Lena. He had carefully planned his greeting. He had supposed it would take place before an audience on the railway station, but he was not put off by it taking place in the hall. He paused a moment, his arms flung wide, then he hurled himself at Lena.
‘Mum. Most gorgeous, exquisite Mum. I’ve been simply miserable while you were ill, and it was dreadful in the summer not coming home.’
Lena hugged him, her eyes shining. This was wonderful. She was wanted. Darling Kim. Darling little Kim.
Kim was the only one who said how much he had missed Lena. Laurel and Tuesday, when they arrived, gave practically their whole attention to Stroch. There was nothing about Laurel to show that she had marked a calendar, scratching out the passing days to bring her home-coming nearer. Nothing to show the harm Lindsey had done her. Nothing to show the hurt she had in her heart because Walter had ceased to write. Nothing to show that the term had been almost unbearable, because the panache she had worn from receiving letters from an American had fallen from her. Nothing to show Lena how to tackle her, or to warn her that one of her first remarks should not be: ‘I must try and get you some clothes, darling. You do look a funny in that little frill of a skirt.’
Tuesday was affectionate but aloof. Lena took her on her knee as she had always done, and the child sat there, quiet and apparently contented, but she was not the old Tuesday. Lena wanted words and hugs and she got acquiescence.
They spent an outwardly happy holiday. The children were truly glad to be home, but they had grown away from each other. Tony drifted off and worked and gossiped with Mustard, and was out with boys of the neighbourhood. Laurel let herself be left out. ‘He won’t want to be bothered with me.’ Even Tuesday went about alone and rather resented interruptions. In the house on wet days, and in the garden on fine, she played by herself. ‘Look, Bobbie, Gipsy likes Stroch, I told you he would.’
Kim went to stay with the Llewellyns. Lena told him of the invitation.
‘But, darling, I can’t spare you. You don’t want to go, do you?’
Kim looked as if he might cry.
‘Of course I don’t. I’d simply hate to leave my darling Mum, but as it’s for the Red Cross I expect I ought to. They do need money dreadfully, don’t they?’
Laurel and Tuesday’s holidays finished two days later than Tony’s. They left, as they had arrived, giving most of their attention to Stroch.
‘Good-bye, most angel dog. You will see he gets walks, Mum. A dachshund so easily gets fat.’
Tuesday leant out of the taxi, kissing her hands, but Lena thought it unlikely the kisses were for her. Utterly exhausted and depressed she went up to her bedroom and cried.
XLIX
Uncle Charles was first heard of in Lena’s letters. He did not start as Uncle Charles. He was to Tony, ‘There is a friend of mine I so want you to meet in the holidays, Sir Charles Garden. He’s so interested to hear about you.’ To Laurel. ‘I wore my new frock last week. I was lunching with a Sir Charles Garden. I told him you liked the frock, he said he must meet you, that you had a good taste.’ To Kim. ‘If enemy action stops I shall take you to London next holidays. I’ve a friend, Sir Charles Garden, that you’ll like. Perhaps we’ll go to a matinée.’ To Tuesday. ‘A friend of mine, Sir Charles Garden, was down on Sunday, and he thought Stroch one of the nicest dogs he had ever seen.’
It was when Lena went to see the children that he slipped into being Uncle Charles. Just a casual reference. ‘That friend of mine, Sir Charles Garden, I think you better call him Uncle Charles, was asking if you cared for fishing.’ ‘Oh, darlings, we’re going to have such fun at Easter if only this nasty bombing stops. That friend of mine, Sir Charles Garden, he says you can call him Uncle Charles, is full of lovely ideas. He thinks you ought to see some theatres, Laurel, and we thought you’d enjoy the ballet, Tuesday.’ ‘Uncle Charles is really excited about meeting you. He says he was keen on theatricals as a boy. Still, I don’t expect he was as good as you.’
Lindsey ran into Lena lunching with Charles at the Ritz and spread the news. ‘Rather a plain man and a bit common but obviously very nice. I had a feeling he was really fond of Lena. Would it not be splendid if he married her? A proper background for those children
, which is just what they need.’
Charles was in love with Lena. He was fifty-two, still wealthy in spite of all taxation could do to his income. He was self-made, his father had been an elementary school-master, his mother a lady’s maid. A mixture of brilliance and drive had got him where he was, owner of a vast chain of shops and chairman of a dozen subsidiary companies. His life had been all work and not much pleasure. He had a setback in his love affairs, he had fallen desperately in love when he was thirty, but the girl turned him down. Charles was so dominant, a woman he loved could have everything she wanted provided he chose the things, and dictated when they were to be used or worn. She could travel in the utmost luxury where she liked, provided it was where he liked, and at the moment he chose.
In the years since his broken love affairs, Charles had remained heart-whole. He took mistresses, but he despised them, they were an acquisitive lot and only stayed with him for what they could get. He met Lena at a lunch party soon after Christmas. She had been in need of distraction and had rung up friends and made a few engagements. Charles had been wondering since that lunch if fate had not been laying a restraining hand on his shoulders all the years, knowing that in his fifty-second year she had perfect happiness waiting for him. Little Lena, so lonely, so pathetic, needing a strong man to look after her, to spoil her, and order her about.
Charles intended to marry Lena. He never considered her as a mistress. Lena wanted to marry Charles but she found the waiting hard. It was lovely to be respected but she was not built for waiting. Charles decreed they must not announce the engagement until after the Easter holidays. ‘The children must know me and look upon me as their father.’
Charles, amongst other possessions, had a mansion in Wales. He dismissed Lena’s little house in a few words. ‘I shall sell this house when the war’s over and the military give up my place, and make a home for the children there. Meanwhile you and I will live in my suite at the Savoy, and get down in the holidays when we can.’
Nothing could change Charles. Even if Lena had tried to say anything it would have done no good. He was the plan-maker, it never crossed his mind that a girl of nearly sixteen, and a boy of fourteen, both of whom remembered their father perfectly, would resent an outsider dictating to them.
Charles came down the first Sunday after the children were home for Easter. He was a big man, and he seemed to fill the hall. Lena, nervously, for it was so important the children should like Charles, introduced them. Charles was tired and thirsty. He greeted the children pleasantly, but even as he was doing so he was planning his next move. He opened the kitchen door.
‘Ice, and some of that lager I sent down last week. In the drawing-room.’
Mrs. Oliver did not come on Sundays, there was only Nannie in the kitchen. Laurel, flushing, looked at her mother.
‘Do you want it? I’ll get it if you do.’
Charles pulled one of Laurel’s plaits.
‘What I want your mother wants. Run along and get it, I like a girl to be helpful.’
Tony had never felt possessive about his home, but now a slow anger rose in him. He said nothing but followed Laurel into the kitchen. Nannie was in the larder getting the lager. Laurel and Tony stared at each other.
‘What a simply ghastly man. What a nerve, saying he likes girls to be helpful. What business is it of his if I am or not?’
‘It’s as if this was his house, not ours. I never met such a cad.’
Even on that first Sunday the patch of darkness showed in Charles’s happiness. As the days passed the patch spread. The air attacks on London, which had been renewed in February, had died down. Charles told Lena to bring the children to London.
‘Splendid shelter under the Savoy. I’ll take rooms for them all,’ but the children refused the invitation. Laurel and Tony from a fierce jealous hatred, Tuesday because she preferred to stay at home with the others, Kim because Charles treated him as part of the family group and not as an individual. By the end of the holidays the children had banded together and were atrociously rude to Charles. They did not resent so bitterly his adoption of their mother, as the way he treated their home. It was the only home they had possessed since Regent’s Park and was peculiarly theirs, to the last bush. Charles was always outraging their sense of possession. ‘Tell Mustard I’ll send down some creosote for that fence.’ ‘Tell Mustard I’m having some seedlings delivered. They are to be planted right away.’ ‘I’ll get the roof overhauled, no harm in having it looked at.’
The tragedy was Charles had no idea why the children did not like him. This house was theirs and he intended to put it on the market at the right time and make a nice bit of profit for them. He wanted to adopt them and give them a fine home and everything he thought they should have. What could be making them so impossible except that they were spoilt, badly brought up children?
Charles, having made up his mind on a course of action, always took it. He had planned before the children returned to their schools to announce to them that he was marrying their mother. He saw no reason to change his plans. Lena, who could feel there would be a row, suggested writing, but Charles overruled her.
‘Nonsense. Come down and tell them myself. The girls go back on the Monday, don’t they? I’ll be down on Sunday.’
Charles made his announcement as he made announcements of good news at Board meetings.
‘I’m glad to say your mother is going to be my wife. We shall be married in June. I hope you will look upon me as your father.’
There was stunned silence.
Laurel’s heart pumped. A father! This big, common, ordering-about man marrying Mum! Taking Dad’s place! She gulped and raced out of the room, slamming the drawing-room door. She lay face downwards on her bed, sobbing. ‘Oh Dad. Dad.’
Tony saw red. He began to shout.
‘I can’t stop you marrying Mum, but you’ll never be our father. Never. We’d rather be dead.’
Tuesday was terrified. There was another change coming. Black specks flickered before her eyes and in her ears she heard bells ringing.
Kim alone saw the situation clearly. They had been the most important people in Mum’s life, and in everybody else’s whom Mum knew. Now Mum was getting married and they would come second. Kim was not accepting that. He spoke with drama.
‘We’ll manage for ourselves, thank you. We’re not wanting a father.’
Lena would have been crushed and bowed by this avalanche of disapproval but Charles was not standing any nonsense.
‘I shall announce our engagement right away. We’ll be married quietly by special licence as soon as it comes through. You are not to worry yourself about the children. They are my worry from now on.’
L
Elsa, the Colonel, Dot, Lindsey, Sylvia and Selina attended the wedding, Andrew assisted at the Service. Charles gave a family luncheon before he and Lena left for a week’s honeymoon in Scotland. When they had departed the family drew together. There was a general expression of thankfulness.
‘Splendid man,’ said Elsa. ‘Can’t imagine what he sees in Lena, but it could not be more satisfactory.’
The Colonel broke in.
‘Always liked the little thing myself.’
‘I know you did, but now she’s not my son’s wife I don’t mind saying I have never cared for her. Lacks stamina. Inherits it from that unpleasant woman, her mother.’
‘Thank goodness he’s going to take on the children,’ said Lindsey. ‘So sensible about them. Says they are being difficult but he won’t stand any nonsense.’
Sylvia hesitated to say what was in her mind.
‘They will be difficult at first, after all, he isn’t Alex.’
Dot spoke briskly.
‘We may as well be honest. Except for Lindsey we’ve children of our own, and we don’t want to look after nieces and nephews, though we would have done, as we did when Lena was ill, if we had been obliged to.’
‘Not again,’ said Lindsey.
Dot was sorry he
r parents were there and she could not say, ‘That’s taught you not to interfere.’ She went on.
‘Charles says the children are being difficult. He also says he is not going to have Lena bothered, which means he will stand no nonsense. At the same time he’s being good to them. He’s arranging for riding lessons and buying them a pony.’
Andrew had been half listening.
‘He’s a good man. I spoke to him about Tony. He feels his duty there. The boy needs a father.’
Selina said nothing. She was depressed by Lena’s marriage. Charles already talked as if Kim was his boy.
The Colonel looked round his family.
‘They are still Alex’s children, even though they have a stepfather. The long summer holiday will give them time to shake down. We can’t interfere even though we would . . .’
‘Nonsense,’ said Elsa. ‘My grandchildren are my grandchildren. I shall certainly interfere if I think necessary.’
The Colonel went on as if she had not spoken.
‘He seems, if rather a rough diamond, a good-hearted man. He won’t mind, if we felt there was anything about the children’s upbringing of which Alex would not have approved, if we say so.’
It was the more annoying to Dot in the face of such family rejoicing to find Laurel unbearably difficult and Alice siding with her.