Giant's Bread (6 page)

It started very simply – something that Myra offered to do for Vernon and that he said he would rather have done by Nurse Frances.

He was on crutches now for a short and painful time every day, enjoying the novelty of it very much. He soon got tired, however, and was ready to go back to bed. Today, his mother had suggested his doing so, saying she would help him. But Vernon had been helped by her before. Those big white hands of hers were strangely clumsy. They hurt where they meant to help. He shrank from her well-meant efforts. He said he would wait for Nurse Frances who never hurt.

The words came out with the tactless honesty of children, and in a minute Myra Deyre was at white heat.

Nurse Frances came in two or three minutes later to be received with a flood of reproach.

Turning the boy against his own mother – cruel – wicked – They were all alike – everyone was against her – She had nothing in the world but Vernon and now he was being turned against her too.

So it went on – a ceaseless stream. Nurse Frances bore it patiently enough without surprise or rancour. Mrs Deyre, she knew, was that kind of woman. Scenes were a relief to her. And hard words, Nurse Frances reflected with grim humour, can only harm if the utterer is dear to you. She was sorry for Myra Deyre for she realized how much real unhappiness and misery lay behind these hysterical outbursts.

It was an unfortunate moment for Walter Deyre to choose to enter the nursery. For a moment or two he stood surprised, then he flushed angrily.

‘Really, Myra, I'm ashamed of you. You don't know what you're saying.'

She turned on him furiously.

‘I know what I'm saying well enough. And I know what you've been doing. Slinking in here every day – I've seen you. Always making love to some woman or other. Nursemaids, hospital nurses – it's all one to you.'

‘Myra – be quiet!'

He was really angry now. Myra Deyre felt a throb of fear. But she hurled her last piece of invective.

‘You're all alike, you hospital nurses. Flirting with other women's husbands. You ought to be ashamed of yourself – before the innocent child too – putting all sorts of things into his head. But you'll go out of my house. Yes, you'll go right out – and I shall tell Dr Coles what I think of you.'

‘Would you mind continuing this edifying scene elsewhere?' Her husband's voice was as she hated it most – cold and sneering. ‘Hardly judicious in front of your innocent child, is it? I apologize, Nurse, for what my wife has been saying. Come, Myra.'

She went – beginning to cry – weakly frightened at what she had done. As usual, she had said more than she meant.

‘You're cruel,' she sobbed. ‘Cruel. You'd like me to be dead. You hate me.'

She followed him out of the room. Nurse Frances put Vernon to bed. He wanted to ask questions but she talked of a dog, a big St Bernard, that she had had when she was a little girl and he was so much interested that he forgot everything else.

Much later that evening, Vernon's father came to the nursery. He looked white and ill. Nurse Frances rose and came to where he stood in the doorway.

‘I don't know what to say – how can I apologize – the things my wife said –'

Nurse Frances replied in a quiet matter-of-fact voice.

‘Oh, it's quite all right. I understand. I think, though, that I had better go as soon as it can be arranged. My being here makes Mrs Deyre unhappy, and then she works herself up.'

‘If she knew how wide of the mark her wild accusations are. That she should insult
you
–'

Nurse Frances laughed – not perhaps very convincingly.

‘I always think it's absurd when people complain about being insulted,' she said cheerfully. ‘Such a pompous word, isn't it? Please don't worry or think I mind. You know, Mr Deyre, your wife is –'

‘Yes?'

Her voice changed. It was grave and sad.

‘A very unhappy and lonely woman.'

‘Do you think that is entirely my fault?'

There was a pause. She lifted her eyes – those steady green eyes.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I do.'

He drew a long breath.

‘No one else but you would have said that to me. You – I suppose it's courage in you that I admire so much – your absolute fearless honesty. I'm sorry for Vernon that he should lose you before he need.'

She said gravely:

‘Don't blame yourself for things you needn't. This has not been your fault.'

‘Nurse Frances.' It was Vernon, eagerly from bed. ‘I don't want you to go away. Don't go away, please – not tonight.'

‘Of course not,' said Nurse Frances. ‘We've got to talk to Dr Coles about it.'

Nurse Frances left three days later. Vernon wept bitterly. He had lost the first real friend he had ever had.

The years from five to nine remained somewhat dim in Vernon's memory. Things changed – but so gradually as not to matter. Nurse did not return to her reign over the nursery. Her mother had had a stroke and was quite helpless and she was obliged to remain and look after her.

Instead, a Miss Robbins was installed as Nursery Governess. A creature so extraordinarily colourless that Vernon could never afterwards even recall what she looked like. He must have become somewhat out of hand under her regime for he was sent to school just after his eighth birthday. On his first holidays he found his cousin Josephine installed.

On her few visits to Abbots Puissants, Nina had never brought her small daughter with her. Indeed her visits had become rarer and rarer. Vernon, knowing things without thinking about them as children do, was perfectly well aware of two facts. One, that his father did not like Uncle Sydney but was always exceedingly polite to him. Two, that his mother did not like Aunt Nina and did not mind showing it.

Sometimes, when Nina was sitting talking to Walter in the garden, Myra would join them and in the momentary pause that nearly always followed, she would say:

‘I suppose I'd better go away again. I see I'm in the way. No, thank you, Walter' (this in answer to a protest, gently murmured). ‘I can see plainly enough when I'm not wanted.'

She would move away, biting her lip, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, tears in her brown eyes. And, very quietly, Walter Deyre would raise his eyebrows.

One day, Nina broke out:

‘She's impossible! I can't speak to you for ten minutes without an absurd scene. Walter, why did you do it? Why
did
you do it?'

Vernon remembered how his father had looked round, gazing up at the house, then letting his eyes sweep far afield to where the ruins of the old Abbey just showed.

‘I cared for the place,' he said slowly. ‘In the blood, I suppose. I didn't want to let it go.'

There had been a brief silence and then Nina had laughed – a queer short laugh.

‘We're not a very satisfactory family,' she said. ‘We've made a pretty good mess of things, you and I.'

There was another pause and then his father had said:

‘Is it as bad as that?'

Nina had drawn in her breath with a sharp hiss, she nodded.

‘Pretty well. I don't think, Walter, that I can go on much longer. Fred hates the sight of me. Oh! we behave very prettily in public – no one would guess – but, my God, when we're alone!'

‘Yes, but, my dear girl –'

And then, for a while, Vernon heard no more. Their voices were lowered, his father seemed to be arguing with his aunt. Finally his voice rose again.

‘You can't take a mad step like that. It's not even as though you cared for Anstey. You don't.'

‘I suppose not – but he's crazy about me.'

His father said something that sounded like ‘Social Ostriches'. Nina laughed again.

‘That? We'd neither of us care.'

‘Anstey would in the end.'

‘Fred would divorce me – only too glad of the chance. Then we could marry.'

‘Even then –'

‘Walter on the social conventions! It has its humorous side!'

‘Women and men are very different,' said Vernon's father drily.

‘Oh! I know – I know. But anything's better than this everlasting misery. Of course at the bottom of it all is that I still care for Fred – I always did. And he never cared for me.'

‘There's the kid,' said Walter Deyre. ‘You can't go off and leave her.'

‘Can't I? I'm not much of a mother, you know. As a matter of fact I'd take her with me. Fred wouldn't care. He hates her as much as he hates me.'

There was another pause, a long one this time. Then Nina said slowly:

‘What a ghastly tangle human beings can get themselves into. And in your case and mine, Walter, it's all our own fault. We're a nice family! We bring bad luck to ourselves and to anyone we have anything to do with.'

Walter Deyre got up. He filled a pipe abstractedly, then moved slowly away. For the first time Nina noticed Vernon.

‘Hallo, child,' she said. ‘I didn't see you were there. How much did you understand of all that, I wonder?'

‘I don't know,' said Vernon vaguely, shifting from foot to foot.

Nina opened a chain bag, took out a tortoiseshell case and extracted a cigarette which she proceeded to light. Vernon watched her, fascinated. He had never seen a woman smoke.

‘What's the matter?' said Nina.

‘Mummy says,' said Vernon, ‘that no nice woman would ever smoke. She said so to Miss Robbins.'

‘Oh, well!' said Nina. She puffed out a cloud of smoke. ‘I expect she was quite right. I'm not a nice woman, you see, Vernon.'

Vernon looked at her, vaguely distressed.

‘I think you're very pretty,' he said rather shyly.

‘That's not the same thing,' Nina's smile widened. ‘Come here, Vernon.'

He came obediently. Nina put her hands on his shoulders and looked him over quizzically. He submitted patiently. He never minded being touched by Aunt Nina. Her hands were light – not clutching like his mother's.

‘Yes,' said Nina. ‘You're a Deyre – very much so. Rough luck on Myra, but there it is.'

‘What does that mean?' said Vernon.

‘It means that you're like your father's family and not like your mother's – worse luck for you.'

‘Why worse luck for me?'

‘Because the Deyres, Vernon, are neither happy nor successful. And they can't make good.'

What funny things Aunt Nina said! She said them half laughingly, so perhaps she didn't mean them. And yet somehow – there was something in them that, though he didn't understand, made him afraid.

‘Would it be better,' he said suddenly, ‘to be like Uncle Sydney?'

‘Much better. Much better.'

Vernon considered.

‘But then,' he said slowly, ‘if I was like Uncle Sydney –'

He stopped, trying to get his thoughts into words.

‘Yes, well?'

‘If I was Uncle Sydney, I should have to live at Larch Hurst – and not here.'

Larch Hurst was a stoutly built red brick villa near Birmingham where Vernon had once been taken to stay with Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie. It had three acres of superb pleasure grounds, a rose garden, a pergola, a goldfish tank, and two excellently fitted bathrooms.

‘And wouldn't you like that?' asked Nina, still watching him.

‘No!' said Vernon. A great sigh broke from him, heaving his small chest. ‘I want to live
here
– always, always, always!'

Soon after this, something queer happened about Aunt Nina. His mother began to speak of her and his father managed to hush her down with a sideways glance at himself. He only carried away a couple of phrases: ‘It's that poor child I'm so sorry for. You've only got to look at Nina to see she's a bad lot and always will be.'

The poor child, Vernon knew, was his cousin Josephine whom he had never seen, but to whom he sent presents at Christmas and duly received them in return. He wondered why Josephine was ‘poor' and why his mother was sorry for her, and also why Aunt Nina was a bad lot – whatever that meant. He asked Miss Robbins, who got very pink and told him he mustn't talk about ‘things like that'. Things like what? Vernon wondered.

However, he didn't think much more about it, till four months later, when the matter was mentioned once more. This time no one noticed Vernon's presence – feelings were running too high for that. His mother and father were in the middle of a vehement discussion. His mother, as usual, was vociferous, excited. His father was very quiet.

‘Disgraceful!' Myra was saying. ‘Within three months of running away with one man to go off with another. It shows her up in her true light. I always knew what she was like. Men, men, men, nothing but men!'

‘You're welcome to any opinion you choose, Myra. That's not the point. I knew perfectly how it would strike you.'

‘And anyone else too, I should think! I can't understand you, Walter. You call yourself an old family and all that –'

‘We are an old family,' he put in quietly.

‘I should have thought you'd have minded a bit about the honour of your name. She's disgraced it – and if you were a real man you'd cast her off utterly as she deserves.'

‘Traditional scene from the melodrama, in fact.'

‘You always sneer and laugh! Morals mean nothing to you – absolutely nothing.'

‘At the minute, as I've been trying to make you understand, it's not a question of morals. It's a question of my sister being destitute. I must go out to Monte Carlo and see what can be done. I should have thought anyone in their senses would see that.'

‘Thank you. You're not very polite, are you? And whose fault is it she's destitute, I should like to know? She had a good husband –'

‘No – not that.'