The Children's Hour (10 page)

Timmie reflects on this for a moment. ‘But we don't see Papa much, anyway,' he points out at last, quite cheerfully. Another thought strikes him. ‘Shall we see Timothy? Will he have to do fighting?' he asks anxiously.

‘I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. But you and Nest are quite safe. Now come and have some tea.' She hesitates. ‘Perhaps it's best not to mention it, Timmie. Nest's quite happy now' – they look at Nest, who is redressing her teddy bear and singing to herself – ‘and Mama is . . . tired.'

He nods, feeling a delicious sense of adult complicity, and they follow her across the lawn and in through the french windows whilst the toys remain ranged about the table, forgotten and forlorn, as the twilight deepens and shadows stretch across the lawn.

Mina had other memories as she settled the dogs, the bedroom door slightly ajar so that she could hear Georgie should she get up. The familiar, well-loved surroundings soothed her and by the time she was wrapped in her long fleece robe – a birthday present from Lyddie – she felt ready for her nightly session on the Net. She read an e-mail from Josie, full of questions about Georgie, and sent a carefully edited report back. There was no point in worrying Josie, who was too far away to be able to help and would simply feel frustrated. With Elyot, however, she was much more honest.

From:
  Elyot
To:
      Mina

How are things with you? A truly bad day today with Lavinia. She doesn't recognize me and cries out in fear if I go near her. She's had times when she's confused me with other
people but this was terribly distressing. She's in bed now but I shall sit up for a while and hope to have a chat with you, if you're around this evening.

The knowledge that he, too, was suffering anxiety in a similar condition filled Mina with a kind of grateful relief and she was far less cautious than usual as she described the evening's events. He was swift with his reply.

From:
  Elyot
To:
      Mina

It's the combination of helplessness and fear, isn't it? I feel like this. Sometimes I simply want to shout at her because it seems impossible that she doesn't know me or could believe that I would wish to harm her. I feel hurt and terribly, terribly lonely.

Mina sat staring at these words, her heart aching with a longing to comfort him, warmed by a sense of comradeship.

From:
  Mina
To:
      Elyot

Dear Elyot, if only I could really be of help to you. Do you have friends who could take the load occasionally or does Lavinia find them threatening? I know you've described certain – shall we say ‘interesting' – scenes but you've made such light of them that I've probably underestimated how difficult it really is. Georgie is nothing to this. We had a very chequered relationship throughout our childhood and we've seen very little of each other for the last forty years. You and Lavinia have lived together all that time and it must
be appalling for you, not only to feel so outcast but to watch someone you love disintegrating. Having had one tiny experience of it tonight I can only be amazed at your courage.

His reply came quickly.

From:
  Elyot
To:
      Mina

Your experience has been a different one, dear old friend, but just as demanding. You've seen a beloved sister crippled, suffering the agonies of frustration and remorse. You were plunged into a shocking disaster to which you had instantly to adapt, not only dealing with Nest but also relied upon heavily by various other members of your family. There has been a violence to your whole experience which is missing in ours. I see now that we have been slowly advancing into a mist of muddle, ‘Was I supposed to be back for lunch? Well, we all get things wrong sometime, never mind'; forgetfulness, ‘I simply cannot remember why I've come into this shop'; confusion, ‘I've forgotten what I was going to say. My mind's gone utterly blank', which, in themselves, are innocent enough until one realizes that the mist has deepened insidiously into a thick fog through which neither of us can find our bearings. I have to remain cheerful or she becomes anxious.

This last sentence filled Mina with a terrible pity and reminded her, with an almost physical shock, of Mama during the war years at Ottercombe. She sat for some time, trying to come to a decision, and at last typed one more message to Elyot.

From:  
Mina
To:
      Elyot

I've never known you have a holiday away from Lavinia in all the time we've been corresponding. Might it be sensible to have a break? Is there anyone to whom you could entrust Lavinia without feeling worried or guilty? Although it might, at present, sound like a busman's holiday you could always come here for a few days. Don't answer now. Think about it. We'll talk tomorrow. Goodnight, Elyot.

She closed down the computer, her heart knocking foolishly in her breast. Would he agree? Was it possible that she might, at last, meet the man who had been such a source of comfort to her?

‘You're an old fool,' she muttered, listening one last time for a sound from Georgie's room before she closed her door. The dogs stirred, groaning a little, and Mina paused beside the rosewood table to look at the small objects that had been so familiar to her as a child. Towards the end of her life, these things had been kept on Mama's bedside table: a delicately carved wooden rosary; a pretty, flowered Wedgwood bowl for special treats; a tall, narrow, engraved vase for one or two delicate blooms and, lastly, the small silver case that held a green glass bottle.

Mina clipped open the silver top and held the bottle to her nose. Even now, twenty years after Mama's death, the faint scent of the smelling-salts had the power to carry Mina back to those last years of her mother's life, and beyond that, to the early years of the war.

‘I want to go to London with Papa,' says Georgie, one July morning in 1940. ‘I don't want to be stuck down here with
a war going on. There must be something I could be doing and I can look after him until I decide what it is.'

Lydia slips the thin blue sheets of her letter into the envelope and looks at her eldest daughter. How pretty she is, with her silky black hair rolled into a pageboy bob and her clear white skin; how lovely – and how determined. ‘You haven't finished school,' she answers patiently but firmly, ‘and you're barely seventeen . . .'

The Tinies watch anxiously, spoons suspended, as another battle of wills is joined across the breakfast table.

‘There's no
point
in school any more,' cries Georgie, exasperated by her mother's refusal to face the hard fact of war. ‘If I wait another year I might have no choice in what I have to do. Papa says he can get me a job as a driver at the War Office.'

Lydia picks up her coffee cup – and sets it down again – her fingers nervously smoothing the letter folded beside her empty plate.

‘In a year it might be over,' she tells her children.

‘Oh, honestly!' Georgie rolls her eyes in disgust. ‘That's what they said about the last one: “It'll be over by Christmas.” But it wasn't, was it?'

Only Mina hears the almost pleading note in Mama's voice and sees her flinch at Georgie's reply. She watches her mother's restless fingers and notes the bistre shadows beneath her eyes.

‘I think it would be a good idea for Georgie to go to London,' she says – and Georgie glances at her quickly, gratefully. ‘She'll have to do something soon and it will be nice for Papa to have her with him. They can look after each other. I can understand that she wants to be useful. We all do . . .'

Lydia stares at her. ‘Not you too?'

‘No, not me too.' Mina smiles at her reassuringly. ‘Not like that, anyway. I shall stay here and look after all of you. But Georgie's right. It's pointless going back to school and you can't cope with everything on your own, Mama. Not now, with Jean and Sarah and the babies as well as the Tinies.'

Lydia's two young cousins, with their children, have evacuated to Ottercombe, which is part of Georgie's reason for wishing to be gone. She is not naturally maternal and having to share a bedroom with Mina irritates her. The two young mothers, with two babies and a toddler between them, take up a great deal of space and, with the younger children unable to go to school, a great deal of organization is required.

‘How fortunate,' says Enid Goodenough, who still visits with her brother but less often due to petrol shortages, ‘that you have enough family to fill the house –' by this time evacuees from Bristol and Croydon are arriving on Exmoor – ‘so that you don't have to put up with strangers.'

‘I suppose we are,' agrees Lydia sweetly, unaware as usual of any undercurrent, ‘although nine children put a tremendous strain on the resources.'

‘We've only got one lavatory,' twelve-year-old Henrietta tells them importantly, ‘but lots of chamber pots, luckily. Although the babies—'

‘And Ambrose?' asks Enid, quickly changing the subject; she is not interested in chamber pots and babies. ‘How does he manage all alone?'

She manages to invest the last two words with a subtle inference that alerts Mina and causes even Lydia to frown.

‘He's very capable,' she answers calmly, ‘and Mrs Ponting goes in every day now that we have settled here for the duration. She's been looking after us for years and I feel quite sure that Ambrose has everything he needs.'

‘Oh, I'm certain you can be confident about
that
. . .'

Now, remembering those words and the sneering smile that accompanied them, Lydia suddenly thinks that Georgie's idea is, perhaps, a good one.

‘Very well,' she says. ‘I will speak to Papa. I can quite see that it must be frustrating for you here, now that you're growing up. No parties or dances and no-one of your own age to meet, as well as being unable to contribute, even in a small way, to this terrible thing which is happening to our country. I'll speak to him, I promise.'

‘Thanks,' says Georgie to Mina later, in their bedroom, just before lunch, ‘for sticking up for me. It seems a bit mean, though, leaving you to all this.'

She riffles through their wardrobe, selecting and rejecting garments and watching herself in the long glass.

‘Oh, I don't mind a bit,' answers Mina honestly. ‘I shan't go back next term either. I shall teach Henrietta and Josie and the Tinies. It'll be good practice if I want to be a teacher after the war. And Mama can't possibly manage alone. Anyway, it'll be nice for Papa – if he agrees. You're not frightened about air raids?'

‘Well, nothing's happening, is it?' Georgie shrugs as she turns away from the looking-glass and lies full length on her bed. ‘It'll be fun. Sally Hunter says she's having a terrific time. Lots of handsome young officers and parties and things. She drives an old general about, that's what made me think of it. I might join the WRACs eventually.'

‘And did Papa really say that he could get you a job driving?'

Georgie nods, hands behind head. ‘If you ask me he's got a bit fed up with being on his own so much. He took me around a lot when I went up to London last time. Showing me off. You know? “And this is my eldest daughter, come to
look after her old father”, that kind of thing. I liked it, rather. He's still very good-looking, isn't he? Well-preserved. I hadn't realized how important he is and everyone was very nice to me. There was a woman who seemed to turn up everywhere we went who didn't seem to like it much. She was very offhand with me. Once I saw her crying and he was reasoning with her but he looked horribly uncomfortable.' Georgie frowns as she recalls her own reaction: distaste that her distinguished father should be obliged to look . . . well, shifty; undignified. ‘It was a bit odd.'

The sisters exchange a glance, puzzled, slightly fearful; on the edge of exposing some adult secret. Instinctively, each retreats from discussing it further.

‘Well then, perhaps it's a good thing you're going,' says Mina. ‘You can tell me when the parties are on and I'll try to get up for one.'

‘Of course I will.' Georgie is full of generous goodwill. ‘But you'll need some decent clothes. What fun it will be.'

Mina watches as her elder sister swings herself off the bed, notices the silky pleated skirt clinging to her long white legs.

‘Isn't that Mama's skirt?'

‘Mmm.' Georgie twirls. ‘It's a Fortuny. I found it in her wardrobe in London. She bought it in Venice ages ago and she simply never wears it so I asked to borrow it. After all, there's not a lot of use for it down here, is there? She's got loads of things she never wears now. Look at this jacket. It's vicuna.' Georgie twirls again, holding it against her. ‘What d'you think?'

Mina, glancing down at her cotton frock, feels a twinge of pure envy. ‘It's a bit mere,' she says casually.

Georgie shoots her sister a sharp glance. ‘Mere' has been a favourite word ever since they rediscovered
The Young
Visiters
on the bookshelf in the nursery. It is a code word between them that they apply secretly, to people, places, events, and can reduce them to fits of giggles. Quite suddenly, Georgie feels a huge surge of love for Mina, their differences forgotten in this unexpected experience of true sibling affection.

‘You'll come to London, won't you?' she says. ‘Sally's meeting simply loads of gorgeous men.'

‘Course I shall,' says Mina. ‘Anyway, you can write and tell me all about it. Hurry up and change, lunch will be ready soon.'

As she goes downstairs, she sees someone moving about in the drawing-room and crosses the hall, wondering if it is one of the Tinies; but it is Lydia who sits on her heels before her sewing-box, putting something away. She glances over her shoulder as Mina comes in and there is the sudden crackle of paper and the sharp little bang of a drawer closing.