Giant's Bread (33 page)

Nell did understand. She saw that Uncle Sydney was making it clear to her that no Bent money was coming her way. Myra would leave her money back to her own family. That, of course, was only natural. Nell would never have dreamed of anything else.

As a matter of fact, Uncle Sydney had at once tackled Myra as to whether there was a child coming. Myra said she didn't think so. Uncle Sydney said she had better make sure. ‘I don't know exactly how the law stands, but as it is, if you were to pop off tomorrow having left your money to Vernon, it might go to her. No good taking any chances.'

Myra said tearfully that it was very unkind of him to suggest that she was going to die.

‘Nothing of the sort. You women are all alike. Carrie sulked for a week when I insisted on her making a proper will. We don't want good money to go out of the family.'

Above all, he did not want good money to go to Nell. He disliked Nell whom he regarded as Enid's supplanter. And he loathed Mrs Vereker who always managed to make him feel hot and clumsy and uncertain about his hands.

‘Nell, of course, will take legal advice,' said Mrs Vereker sweetly.

‘Don't think
I
want to butt in,' said Uncle Sydney.

Nell felt a passionate pang of regret. If only she were going to have a child. Vernon had been so afraid for her. ‘It would be so dreadful for you, darling, if I were to be killed and you were left with all the trouble and worry of a child and very little money. Besides – you never know – you might die. I couldn't bear to risk it.'

And really, it
had
seemed better and more prudent to wait.

But now, she was sorry. Her mother's consolations had seemed coldly brutal to her.

‘You're not going to have a baby, are you, Nell? Well, I must say I'm thankful. Naturally, you'll marry again and it's so much better when there are no encumbrances.'

In answer to a passionate protest, Mrs Vereker had smiled. ‘I oughtn't to have said that just now. But you are only a girl still. Vernon himself would have wanted you to be happy.'

Nell thought: ‘Never! She doesn't understand!'

‘Well, well, it's a sad world,' said Mr Bent, surreptitiously helping himself to a sandwich. ‘The flower of our manhood being mown down. But all the same I'm proud of England. I'm proud of being an Englishman. I like to feel that I'm doing my bit in England just as much as these boys are doing it out there. We're doubling our output of explosives next month. Night and day shifts. I'm proud of Bent's, I can tell you.'

‘It must be wonderfully profitable,' said Mrs Vereker.

‘That's not the way I like to look at it,' said Mr Bent. ‘I like to look at it that I'm serving my country.'

‘Well, I hope we all try to do our bit,' said Mrs Levinne. ‘I have a working party twice a week, and I'm interethting myself in all these poor girls who are having war babieth.'

‘There's too much loose thinking going about,' said Mr Bent. ‘We mustn't get lax. England has never been lax.'

‘Well, we've got to look after the children at anyrate,' said Mrs Levinne. She added: ‘How is Joe? I thought I might see her here today.'

Both Uncle Sydney and Myra looked embarrassed. It was clear that Joe was what is known as a ‘delicate subject'. They skated lightly over the topic. War work in Paris – very busy – unable to get leave.

Mr Bent looked at his watch.

‘Myra, we've not too much time before the train. Must get back tonight. Carrie, my wife, you know, is very far from well. That's why she wasn't able to be here today.' He sighed. ‘It's odd how often things turn out for the best. It was a great disappointment to us not having a son. And yet, in a way, we've been spared a good deal. Think of the anxiety we might be in today. The ways of Providence are wonderful.'

Mrs Vereker said to Nell when they had taken leave of Mrs Levinne, who motored them back to London:

‘One thing I do hope, Nell, is that you won't think it your duty to see a lot of your in-laws. I dislike the way that woman wallowed in her grief more than I can tell you. She was thoroughly enjoying herself, though I dare say she'd have preferred a proper coffin.'

‘Oh, Mother – she was really unhappy. She was awfully fond of Vernon. As she said, he was all she had in the world.'

‘That's a phrase women like her are very fond of using. It means nothing at all. And you're not going to pretend to me that Vernon adored his mother. He merely tolerated her. They had nothing in common. He was a Deyre through and through.'

Nell couldn't deny that.

She stayed at her mother's flat in town for three weeks. Mrs Vereker was very kind within her own limits. She was not a sympathetic woman at any time, but she respected Nell's grief and did not intrude upon it. Upon practical matters her judgment was, as it always had been, excellent. There were various interviews with lawyers and Mrs Vereker was present at all of them.

Abbots Puissants was still let. The tenancy would be up the following year, and the lawyer strongly advised its sale rather than reletting it. Mrs Vereker, to Nell's surprise, did not seem to concur with this view. She suggested a further let of not too long duration.

‘So much may happen in a few years,' she said.

Mr Flemming looked hard at her and seemed to catch her meaning. His glance rested just for a moment on Nell, fair and childish-looking in her mourning.

‘As you say,' he remarked. ‘Much may happen. At any rate nothing need be decided for a year.'

Business matters settled, Nell returned to the hospital at Wiltsbury. She felt that there, and there only, could life be at all possible. Mrs Vereker did not oppose her. She was a sensible woman and she had her own plans.

A month after Vernon's death, Nell was once more back in the ward. Nobody ever referred to her loss and she was grateful. To carry on as usual was the motto of the moment.

Nell carried on.

‘There's someone asking for you, Nurse Deyre.'

‘For me?' Nell was surprised.

It must be Sebastian. Only he was likely to come down here and look her up. Did she want to see him or not? She hardly knew.

But to her great surprise her visitor was George Chetwynd. He explained that he was passing through Wiltsbury, and had stopped to see if he could see her. He asked whether she couldn't come out to lunch with him.

‘I thought you were on afternoon duty,' he explained.

‘I was changed to the morning shift yesterday. I'll ask Matron. We're not very busy.'

Permission was accorded her, and half an hour later she was sitting opposite George Chetwynd at the County Hotel with a plate of roast beef in front of her and a waiter hovering over her with a vast dish of cabbage.

‘The only vegetable the County Hotel knows,' observed Chetwynd.

He talked interestingly and made no reference to her loss. All he said was that her continuing to work here was the pluckiest thing he had ever heard of.

‘I can't tell you how I admire all you women. Carrying on, tackling one job after another. No fuss – no heroics – just sticking to it as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I think Englishwomen are fine.'

‘One must do something.'

‘I know. I can understand that feeling. Anything's better than sitting with your hands in your lap, eh?'

‘That's it.'

She was grateful. George always understood. He told her that he was off to Serbia in a day or two, organizing relief work there.

‘Frankly,' he said, ‘I'm ashamed of my country for not coming in. But they will. I'm convinced of that. It's only a matter of time. In the meantime we do what we can to alleviate the horrors of war.'

‘You look very well.'

He looked younger than she remembered him – well set up, bronzed, the grey in his hair a mere distinction rather than a sign of age.

‘I'm feeling well. Nothing like having plenty to do. Relief work's pretty strenuous.'

‘When are you off?'

‘Day after tomorrow.' He paused, then said in a different voice. ‘Look here – you didn't mind my looking you up like this? You don't feel I'd no business to butt in?'

‘No – no. It was very kind of you. Especially after I – I –'

‘You know I've never borne any rancour over that. I admire you for following your heart. You loved him and you didn't love me. But there's no reason we shouldn't be friends, is there?'

He looked so friendly, so very unsentimental, that Nell answered happily that there wasn't.

He said: ‘That's fine. And you'll let me do anything for you that a friend can? Advise you in any bothers that arise, I mean?'

Nell said she'd be only too grateful.

They left it like that. He departed in his car shortly after lunch, wringing her hand and saying he hoped they'd meet again in about six months' time, and begging her again to consult him if she were in a difficulty any time.

Nell promised that she would.

The winter was a bad one for Nell. She caught a cold, neglected to take proper care of herself, and was quite ill for a week or so. She was quite unfit to resume hospital work at the end of it, and Mrs Vereker carried her off to London to her flat. There she regained strength slowly.

Endless bothers seemed to arise. Abbots Puissants appeared to need an entire new roof. New water pipes had to be installed. The fencing was in a bad state.

Nell appreciated for the first time the awful drain property can be. The rent was eaten up many times over with the necessary repairs, and Mrs Vereker had to come to the rescue to tide Nell over a difficult corner and not let her get too much into debt. They were living as penuriously as possible. Vanished were the days of outward show and credit. Mrs Vereker managed to make both ends meet by a very narrow margin, and would hardly have done that but for what she won at the bridge table. She was a first-class player and added materially to her income by play. She was out most of the day at a bridge club that still survived.

It was a dull unhappy life for Nell. Worried over money, not strong enough to undertake fresh work, nothing to do but sit and brood. Poverty combined with love in a cottage was one thing. Poverty without love to soften it was another. Sometimes Nell wondered how she was ever going to get through a life that stretched drear and bleak ahead of her. She couldn't bear things. She simply couldn't.

Then Mr Flemming urged her to make a decision concerning Abbots Puissants. The tenancy would be up in a month or two. Something must be done. He could not hold out any hopes of letting it for a higher rent. Nobody wanted to rent big places without central heating or modern conveniences. He strongly advised her to sell.

He knew the feeling her husband had had about the place. But since she herself was never likely to be able to afford to live in it …

Nell admitted the wisdom of what he said, but still pleaded for time to decide. She was reluctant to sell it, but she could not help feeling that the worry of Abbots Puissants once off her mind she would be relieved from her heaviest burden. Then one day Mr Flemming rang up to say that he had had a very good offer for Abbots Puissants. He mentioned a sum far in excess of her – or indeed his – expectations. He very strongly advised her to close with it without delay.

Nell hesitated a minute – then said ‘Yes.'

It was extraordinary how much happier she felt at once. Free of that terrible incubus! It wasn't as though Vernon had lived. Houses and estates were simply white elephants when you hadn't the necessary money to keep them up properly.

She was undisturbed even by a letter from Joe in Paris.

‘How
can
you sell Abbots Puissants when you know what Vernon felt about it? I should have thought it would be the last thing you could have done.'

She thought: ‘Joe doesn't understand.'

She wrote back:

‘What was I to do? I don't know where to turn for money. There's been the roof and the drains and the water – it's endless. I can't go on running into debt. Everything's so tiring I wish I were dead …'

Three days later she got a letter from George Chetwynd, asking if he might come and see her. He had, he said, something to confess.

Mrs Vereker was out. She received him alone. He broke it rather apprehensively to her. It was he who had purchased Abbots Puissants.

Just at first she recoiled from the idea. Not George! Not George at Abbots Puissants! Then with admirable common sense he argued the point.

Surely it was better that it should pass into his hands instead of those of a stranger? He hoped that sometimes she and her mother would come and stay there.

‘I'd like you to feel that your husband's home is open to you at any time. I want to change things there as little as possible. You shall advise me. Surely you prefer my having it, to its passing into the hands of some vulgarian who will fill it with gilt and spurious old masters?'

In the end she wondered why she had felt any objection. Better George than anyone. And he was so kind and understanding about everything. She was tired and worried. She broke down suddenly, cried on his shoulder whilst he put an arm round her and told her that everything was all right, that it was only because she'd been ill.

Nobody could have been kinder or more brotherly.

When she told her mother Mrs Vereker said:

‘I knew George was looking out for a place. It's lucky he's chosen Abbots Puissants. He's probably haggled less about the price simply because he was once in love with you.'

The remote way she said ‘once in love with you' made Nell feel comfortable. She had imagined that her mother might have ‘ideas' still about George Chetwynd.

That summer they went down and stayed at Abbots Puissants. They were the only guests. Nell had not been there since she was a child. A deep regret came upon her that she could not have lived there with Vernon. The house was truly beautiful, and so were the stately gardens and the ruined Abbey.