Still Waters (16 page)

‘I’m sure my great-aunt would be most grateful,’ Andy said graciously. ‘If I might borrow your telephone I could let her know where I am. Aunt Hannah dines at eight,’ he added, ‘and I’ve a good way to go.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Marianne said. ‘Tess, show, er, Andy where the telephone is. And then take him up to the bathroom.’

The bathroom and indoor toilet were still a novelty to Tess and she was grateful to Marianne for them since it was her stepmother who had insisted that the fourth bedroom be converted before her child was born. But because the only remaining spare bedroom was officially for grown-up visitors until Cherie claimed it, Marianne insisted that Tesscouldnothaveovernightguests. Vainly had Tess pleaded that a friend of hers could share their room, that she and Cherie would not mind at all . . . Marianne simply said that until they either built on or moved somewhere larger, overnight guests for the children were not possible.

‘This way,’ Tess said briefly now, jerking her head at Andy. ‘I’ll show you the bathroom and go and get Cherie up whilst you wash, then I’ll tidy myself.’ They were crossing the cool, dark hallway and she pointed to the hall stand. ‘The phone’s there, you can use it now, if you like, or when you come down afterwards.’

‘Afterwards,’ Andy said, following her up the stairs. ‘D’you know your feet are black? Hell, mine are too . . . fancy having to wash after all that swimming!’

‘I know,’ Tess said. She hadn’t intended to do much washing, but she had noticed how dusty her feet had got. She thundered up the stairs, hoping to wake Cherie, showed Andy the bathroom and waited, politely, until he’d closed the door, then went along to the dressing-room.

Cherie was awake. She lay sideways across her counterpane, sucking her thumb, but struggled into a sitting position and smiled cherubically at her sister as soon as the door opened.

“Lo, Tess,’ she said. ‘Is tea ready?’

‘Almost,’ Tess said. It was as well not to say anything too definite, since if Cherie bounced downstairs demanding her tea, the chances were that Marianne would blame Tess for raising the child’s hopes before time. And if she said tea wasn’t ready, and Cherie bounced downstairs and demanded to know why not, then she would also be blamed, for disappointing her sister. All in all, almost was best.

‘Oh, good,’ Cherie said, then plonked down on the floor and began to straighten her white socks and don her sandals. That task finished, both girls went into Tess’s room where Cherie looked critically at her fair curls in the square of mirror on top of Tess’s chest of drawers, tweaked her butterfly bow straight and smoothed down her pink-and-white smock dress with both hands. Marianne still dressed Cherie like a baby, in silky little dresses with embroidery on them, though she was more than three years old now.

‘Am I all right, Tess?’ Cherie said, having admired herself in the mirror for a moment. It wouldn’t have mattered if she were covered in chocolate, or muddy from top to toe, her mother would think her perfect, Tess knew, but she nodded anyway, because it was true, Cherie was all right. ‘Is Maman home from the city? Did she bring me anything?’

Peter disapproved of Cherie’s assumption that her mother would always bring her presents, but Tess didn’t see that it mattered since Cherie was absolutely right: Marianne always brought her baby daughter some small gift. But she had seen nothing, so she just told Cherie she didn’t know and watched her small sister trot from the room and begin to descend the flight, right foot first on each stair.

Having dealt with her sister, Tess hovered outside the bathroom, wondering whether she should knock or not, but before she had made up her mind the door opened a short way and Andy’s face appeared.

‘Tess! Look, you couldn’t lend me some bags, could you? D’you have a brother or anything? These . . .’ he gestured to his shorts’. . . are a mess.’

‘Sorry, I don’t have a brother or anything,’ Tess said. ‘It’s the top of you that’ll worry my stepmother, though. I mean eating tea with a bare chest is probably just the sort of thing no Frenchman would dream of doing.’ She spoke a little sharply. She was well used to the pronouncement: ‘No Frenchman would dream of doing a thing like that!’ over the most innocent of pastimes, and sometimes it made her want to scream . . . and be more difficult than ever, of course.

Andy must have guessed how she felt, for he pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Like that is it? I thought so . . . what about an Aertex shirt, though? They look pretty much alike, the boys’ and the girls’, I don’t suppose Mrs Delamere would notice.’

‘I’m sure I can find a clean shirt,’ Tess said. ‘I’ve got some shorts, too. They’re a bit baggy, but they might do . . . want to try ’em?’

‘Try anything once,’ Andy said cheerfully. ‘Can I see your room?’

‘You can come and choose a shirt,’ Tess said, leading the way. She threw open the door. Her room was very hot and there were flies clustered on the window panes despite the fact that both windows were flung wide, but the view of the Broad made up for any trifling annoyance such as flies. The water was smooth and still as pewter, the trees massed on the margins, the reeds scarcely stirred in the light breeze. Tess smiled proudly around her. She adored her bedroom. Marianne rarely followed her in here, it was her refuge, unchanged from the days she and Peter had lived here alone, before the marriage. Her pictures and posters adorned the walls, her books were stacked on the two sets of deep bookshelves, her cupboards had home-made calendars, school timetables and favourite poems pinned upon them. No one, not even Cherie, was allowed to interfere with this room. She turned to Andy. ‘What d’you think?’

‘Nice,’ Andy said at once. ‘Cor, what a view!’

‘I’m used to it,’ Tess said, but she wasn’t. I never will be, she thought, going over to her chest of drawers and pulling out a white Aertex shirt and a pair of rather baggy khaki shorts. She had worn the shorts a lot before Marianne came, because they had been her father’s once, when he had been young. With a belt round the waist and the legs turned up they were all right, cooler and more practical than a skirt. But Marianne didn’t approve of girls wearing shorts, especially shorts with fly-buttons in front. Now, Tess held the clothing out. ‘Would that do?’

He took the shirt, held it against his chest, then took the shorts. ‘I’ll try ’em on,’ he said. ‘Here or the bathroom?’

‘Here. I’ll go and clean my teeth and spend a penny,’ Tess said happily. ‘Er, Andy . . .’

They both laughed. ‘Your stepmum has difficulty,’ Andy observed. ‘Perhaps she thinks the great-nephew of Lady Salter should be titled . . . you know, Little Lord Salter sort of thing.’

They laughed again. Comfortably. Companionably.

‘Well, she
is
French,’ Tess said.

‘True. Allowances must be made. The French are so – so –’

‘Stiff? Starchy? Stuck up?’

Andy flicked her with the Aertex shirt and Tess left him to change and went and cleaned her teeth, brushed her hair and then changed into her own clean clothing which she had selected, after some thought, before leaving her bedroom. She had decided to be tactful, for once, and has chosen a cotton dress with a full skirt and short sleeves. It was blue gingham with a white peter pan collar and Peter had once said he liked it. Marianne will approve, anyway, Tess thought, then remembered that Marianne didn’t always act consistently. A neat dress would please her one day, annoy her the next. But at least I’m trying, she told herself, combing her hair. It’ll be easier to be friends with Andy if I try with Marianne.

‘Aunt Hannah? It’s me, Herbert. I’m having tea with friends, is that all right? No, don’t keep dinner, I won’t be hungry twice in one evening! Yes, I’ll be home before dark. Oh . . . they’re called Delamere. I don’t know if you know them, but they live four or five miles from the Hall. Yes, quite a big family. Very nice, really. Yes, of course. Thanks, Aunt. Bye.’

Tess knew it was rude to listen, but she listened anyway, because it would have been ruder to walk away and leave Andy in the hall. And when Andy put the receiver down he sighed and grinned ruefully at her, and she thought to herself,
it isn’t only me who has funny relatives: that aunt of his can be funny, too.
And this comforted her, because anyone could see that Andy was all right, which might mean that she was all right, too.

Tea was lovely. Andy told them stories about his school and Marianne was fascinated and amused, and then he told them stories about life at the Hall which intrigued Marianne and interested Tess, too. And when tea was over he insisted that since Marianne had worked so hard to make them a delicious meal and would presently have to get her husband’s dinner, he and Tess would clear away, wash and wipe up. He proved adept with the little mop thing and rinsed everything under the cold tap so that there were no bits of cress or fragments of egg left on the plates, and he waited until Marianne had gone into the garden to pick some parsley for a sauce before instigating a mop-and-tea-towel fight, so that was all right. He won the fight by a narrow margin and when he heard Marianne approaching he seized the big mop and began vigorously attacking the wet floor, assuring his hostess that he believed in finishing a job properly, so had decided to clean the floor for her.

Some people might have disbelieved him, but so candid was his bespectacled gaze, so manfully frank his tone, that Tess almost believed him herself – and she had been the recipient of a good deal of the flung water.

‘My husband will be home quite soon now,’ Marianne said as the two of them headed towards the back door. ‘Won’t you stay, Andy, and meet him? He probably knows your great-aunt.’

Andy, however, explained that he wasn’t used to boats and had a long scull ahead of him if he wasn’t to get home late and be in trouble with his great-aunt, and Marianne accepted this explanation and said that it was Cherie’s bedtime, so they had best say good-night to her.

Cherie came and kissed Tess, then kissed Andy, and asked innocently why she must go to bed earlier than Tess tonight.

‘Tess always comes to bed when I do,’ she said plaintively. ‘I like to know she’s in her room, then I aren’t alone upstairs.’

Andy looked shocked and Marianne angry.

‘How absurd you are, chick,’ she said to her spoilt little daughter. ‘When you were smaller, of course Tess shared your bedtime, but she’s a big girl now. She’ll be up for an hour or two yet.’

‘But Maman . . .’ Cherie began, and found herself whisked up in her mother’s arms and carried determinedly towards the stairs.

‘Good-night, Andy, good-night Tess,’ Marianne called over her shoulder. ‘Be in before dark please, Tess.’

Outside and under the trees, with the sun at last beginning to lose its heat, the two young people turned to each other.

‘Phew!’ Tess said. ‘I bet your great-aunt isn’t as bad as that!’

‘That’s what you think,’ Andy assured her. ‘Anyway, I quite like your stepmum. Once you can see how she is, she’s manageable.’

‘Not for me she isn’t,’ Tess said gloomily. ‘Besides, I don’t think I can see how she is. She’s a mystery, I never know what’s going to annoy her next.’

Andy smiled a trifle smugly. ‘You haven’t had my experience,’ he said. ‘You going to be on the Broad tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ Tess said at once. ‘D’you have a bike?’

‘Nope. But the gardener has. I might be able to borrow it.’

‘You might be able to borrow Mr Thrower’s, if you come over by boat again,’ Tess said eagerly. ‘Andy, how long are you staying with your great-aunt?’

They had reached the boats now and she was squatting down and untying the painter, pulling Andy’s little dinghy away from her own. Andy leaned over and began to push the boat out from the reeds.

‘Until school starts again, which is 22nd September. So I’ll come over by boat tomorrow then, shall I? I could bring a picnic, perhaps.’

‘That would be lovely,’ Tess said joyfully. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we pretend your aunt has asked me to luncheon? Marianne would be tickled pink, I’m sure of it, and that would make it easier for me to ask you to tea, next time.’

‘That’s a
good
wheeze,’ Andy said approvingly. ‘We’ll say you’re coming to the Hall for luncheon tomorrow . . . only not really, it’s too soon . . . and I’ll come to your place for tea. And I want another swimming lesson tomorrow, because I’d be stuck if my boat turned over, right now. And you might show me how to use the oars without splashing, and how to steer the bloody thing,’ he added.

‘Right,’ Tess said. ‘Do you know, I don’t usually like the summer holidays all that much – well, I do, because I love this place – but I get awfully lonely, here by myself for ten whole weeks. But with two of us . . . well, it’ll be grand.’

Five

BY THE END
of August Andy was swimming well. Tess was proud of his progress, and proud, too, of the way he now handled a boat.

‘There used to be a boy over on the other side of the Broad who had a sailing dinghy,’ she told Andy. ‘He taught me and Jan to handle it, I’m sure he’d teach you, as well, if you wanted to learn.’

But the boy didn’t seem to be around much any more, and besides, Andy said he didn’t want to learn to sail, not yet.

‘Learning to ride a bike was bad enough,’ he reminded her. ‘My arse was black and blue – my knees, as well.’

‘Shouldn’t say arse,’ Tess said absently. ‘Daddy says btm.’

‘My father says arse,’ Andy said firmly. ‘So I do. See?’

Tess saw. She was beginning to learn quite a lot about Andy. His father was a diplomat and lived abroad; right now he was in Russia somewhere, with Andy’s mother. When Andy had been small he had gone abroad with them, but not any more. Now he stayed at school in term-time and with relatives in the holidays. His elder brother, Charles, travelled out to see his parents during his vacs from Cambridge and his younger brother, James, was actually living with Sir Robert and Lady Anderson; it was only Andy who seemed cut off from his parents.

‘I don’t mind,’ he told Tess airily. ‘It’s something that seems to happen in families like mine. It happened to my older brother, too, between thirteen and sixteen, when he was getting his education. Besides, I’d rather be with Aunt Hannah, foreign embassies aren’t that much fun, and she’s not a bad old bird.’