Part 1 (2/2)
”Mother didn't come. She said it wasn't up her street ...”
”How right she was.”
”But you and I and Tom went.”
”Of course. Bundled up in sweaters and socks. I'm not sure I didn't wear a fur coat. But we were talking about Eustace. How old were you, Virginia? Seventeen? Fancy your remembering Eustace Philips after all these years.”
”You haven't answered my question. Is he still at Penfolda?”
”As the farm belonged to his father, and his father, and as far as I know his father before that, do you really think it likely that Eustace would up sticks and depart?”
”I suppose not. It's just that they were cutting hay this afternoon and I wondered if it was he who drove one of the combines. Do you ever see him, Alice?”
”Hardly ever. Not because we don't want to, understand me, but he's a hard-working farmer, and Tom's so busy being a tyc.o.o.n, that their paths don't often cross. Except sometimes they meet at the hare shoot, or the Boxing Day meet . . . you know the sort of thing.”
Virginia picked up her tea-cup and saucer, and observed, minutely, the rose painted upon its side.
”He's married,” she said.
”You say that as though you were stating an irrefutable fact.”
”Aren't I?”
”No, you're not. He never married. Heaven knows why. I always thought he was so attractive in a sun-burned, D. H. Lawrence-ish sort of way. There must have been a number of languis.h.i.+ng ladies in Lanyon, but he resisted the lot. He must like it that way.”
Eustace's wife, so swiftly imagined, as swiftly died, a wraith blown to nothing by the cold wind of reality. Instead, Virginia saw the Penfolda kitchen, cheerless and untidy, with the remains of the last meal abandoned on the table, dishes in the sink, an ashtray filled with cigarette stubs.
”Who looks after him?”
”I don't know. His mother died a couple of years ago I believe ... I don't know what he does. Perhaps he's got a s.e.xy housekeeper, or a domesticated mistress? I really don't know.”
And couldn't care less, her tone implied. She had finished sewing on the silk cord, now gave a couple of neat firm st.i.tches and then broke the thread with a little tug. ”There, that's done. Isn't it a divine colour? But it's really too hot to sew.” She laid it aside. ”Oh dear, I suppose I must go and see what we'll have for dinner. What would you say to a delicious fresh lobster?”
”I'd say 'pleased to see you.' ”
Alice stood up, unfolding her long height to tower over Virginia. ”Did you see your letters?”
”Yes, they're here.”
Alice stooped to pick up the tray. ”I'll leave you,” she said, ”to read them in peace.”
Keeping the best to the last, Virginia opened her mother-in-law's letter first. The envelope was dark blue, lined with navy blue tissue. The writing-paper was thick, the address blackly embossed at its head.
32 Welton Gardens, S.W.8.
My dear Virginia, I hope you are enjoying this wonderful weather, quite a heatwave and into the nineties yesterday. I expect you are swimming in Alice's pool, such a joy not having to drive to the beach every time you want to swim.
The children are both well and send their love. Nanny takes them into the park every day and they take their tea with them and eat it there. I took Cara to Harrods this morning to buy some new dresses, she is getting so tall and was quite out of her old ones. One is blue with appliqued flowers, the other pink with a little smocking. I think you would approve!
Tomorrow they are going to tea with the Manning-Prestons. Nanny is looking forward to a good gossip with their Nanny, and Susan is just the right age for Cara. It would be nice for them to be friends.
My regards to Alice, and let me know when you decide to come back to London, but we are managing beautifully, and don't want you to cut short your holiday at all for any reason. You really were due for one.
Affectionately, Dorothea Keile She read the letter twice, torn by conflicting emotions. Double meanings sprang at her from between the meticulously-penned, well-turned sentences. She saw her children in the park, the baked London gra.s.s turned yellow in the heat, trodden and tired, and fouled by dogs. She saw the white-hot morning sky high above the roof tops and the little girl being fitted into dresses that she would neither like nor want, but would be too polite to reject. She saw the Manning-Prestons's tall, terraced house, with the paved garden at the back where Mrs. Manning-Preston held her famous c.o.c.ktail parties, and where Cara and Susan would be sent to play while the Nannies talked about knitting patterns and what a terror Nanny Brigg's little charge was going to be. And she saw Cara standing silent, petrified with shyness, and Susan Manning-Preston treating her with contempt because Cara wore spectacles and Susan thought she was a ninny.
And ”we are managing beautifully.” The statement seemed to Virginia completely ambiguous. Who was ”we”? Nanny and the grandmother? Or did it include the children, Virginia's children? Did they let Cara sleep with the old Teddy that Nanny swore was unhygienic? Did they remember always to leave the light on so that Nicholas could get himself to the bathroom in the middle of the night? And were they ever left alone, disorganized, dirty, untidy, to play secret, pointless games in small corners of the garden, with perhaps a nut or a leaf, and all the imaginings that were contained within their small, clever, bewildering brains?
She found that her hands were shaking. She was a fool to get into this state. Nanny had looked after the children since they were born, she knew all their idiosyncrasies and n.o.body could cope with Nicholas's sudden rages better than she.
(But should he have such rages? At six, shouldn't he have grown out of them? What frustration sparks them off?) And Nanny was gentle with Cara. She made dolls' clothes and knitted scarves and sweaters for the teddies out of left-over bits of wool. And she let Cara wheel her doll's perambulator into the park; over the crossing by the Albert Memorial, they went. (But did she read to Cara, the books that Cara loved? The Borrowers and The Railway Children and every word of The Secret Garden.) Did she love the children, or simply possess them?
These were all familiar questions which, lately, had been raising themselves with ever-increasing frequency within the confines of Virginia's own head. But never answered. Knowing that she was evading a vital issue, she would shelve her own anxiety, always with some excuse to herself. I can't think about it now, I'm too tired. Perhaps in a couple of years when Nicholas goes away to Prep. school, perhaps then I'll tell my mother-in-law that I don't need Nanny any longer; I'll say to Nanny it's time to go, to find another new baby to look after. And perhaps just now I'm too emotional, I wouldn't be good for the children; they're better with Nanny: after all, she's been looking after children for forty years.
Like a familiar sedative the well-worn excuses came pat, blunting Virginia's uneasy conscience. She put the blue letter back into its expensive envelope and turned, in relief, to the second one. But the relief was short-lived. Cara had borrowed her grandmother's writing-paper, but the sentences this time were neither meticulously penned nor well-turned. The ink was blotched and the lines ran down the side of the paper as though the words were tumbling hopelessly downhill.
Darling Mother, I hope you are having a good time. I hope it is nise wether. It is hot in London. I have to go and have tea with Susan Maning Preston. I dont no what we will play. Last night Nicholas screemed and Granny had to give him a pit He went all red. One of my dolls eyes has come out and I cant find it. Please will you rite to me soon and tell me when we are going hack to Kirkton.
With love from Cara.
PS. Dont forget to rite.
She folded the letter and put it away. Across the garden, across the lawns, the blue of Alice's swimming-pool glimmered like a jewel. The cooling air was filled with bird-song and the scent of flowers. From inside the house she could hear Alice's voice talking to Mrs. Jilkes, the cook, doubtless about the lobster which they were going to eat for dinner.
She felt helpless, totally inadequate. She thought of asking Alice to have the children here, and in the next instant knew that it was impossible. Alice's house was not designed for children, her life did not cater for their inclusion. She would be irritated beyond words by Cara forgetting to change her gum-boots, or by Nicholas kicking his football into the treasured flower-borders, or drawing ”pictures” on the wallpaper. For without Nanny, he would doubtless be impossible because he was always twice as naughty without her to keep an eye on him.
Without Nanny. Those were the operative words. On her own. She had to have them on her own.
And yet the very thought filled her with dread. What would she do with them? Where would they go? Like feelers her thoughts probed around, searching for ideas. A hotel? But hotels here would be filled to the brim with summer visitors and terribly expensive. Besides, Nicholas in a hotel would be as nerve-racking as Nicholas at Wheal House. She thought of hiring a caravan, or camping with them on the beach, like the summer migration of hippies, who lit fires of driftwood and slept curled up on the chilly sand.
Of course, there was always Kirkton. Some time, she would have to go back. But all her instincts s.h.i.+ed away from the thought of returning to Scotland, to the house where she had lived with Anthony, the place where her children had been born, the only place they thought of as home. Thinking of Kirkton, she saw tree shadows flickering on pale walls, the cold northern light reflected on the white ceilings, the sound of her own feet going up the uncarpeted, polished stairway. She thought of clear autumn evenings when the first skeins of geese flew over, and the park, in front of the house, sweeping down to the banks of the deep, swift-flowing river . . .
No. Not yet. Cara would have to wait. Later, perhaps, they would go back to Kirkton. Not yet. Behind her a door slammed, and she was jerked back to reality by the arrival of Tom Lingard, back from work. She heard him call Alice, then drop his brief-case on the hall-table, and come out to the patio in search of his wife.
”Hallo, Virginia.” He bent and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ”All alone? Where's Alice?”
”Interviewing a lobster in the kitchen.”
”Letters from the children? All well? Well done, that's great ...” One of Tom's idiosyncrasies was that he never bothered to wait for an answer to any of his questions. Virginia sometimes wondered if this was the secret of his outstanding success. ”What have you been doing all day? Lying in the sun? That's the job. How about coming and having a swim with me now? The exercise'll do you good after all this lazing about. We'll get Alice to come too ...” He went, spring-footed and bursting with energy, back into the house and down the pa.s.sage towards the kitchen, bellowing for his wife. And Virginia, grateful for directions, stood up and collected her mail and went indoors, obediently, and upstairs to her bedroom to change into a bikini.
Chapter 2.
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