The Children's Hour (36 page)

‘Nothing much.' She tried to keep her voice neutral. ‘I didn't hear you come in.'

Georgie edged past Nest's chair and sat down at the end of the sofa.

‘I couldn't sleep,' she said. Her gaze slid away from Nest towards the fire. ‘The wind is getting up.'

‘Mina should be home soon.' Nest took some deep, calming breaths and then, quite suddenly, she relaxed. She'd forgotten that Georgie had no power to harm her now.

‘I think you can be quite certain,' Mina had said, when she'd given Nest the letters, ‘that Georgie knows nothing about you and Connor and so has no idea about Lyddie.
This
is the secret Georgie knows. She's read them too.' She'd given a great gasp of relief. ‘Po-po-po. How wonderful to have everything in the open at last.'

‘Not quite everything. You're not suggesting that I should tell Lyddie,' Nest had looked anxiously at her sister, ‘not on top of everything else . . .?'

‘No, no.' Mina had shaken her head. ‘At least, not yet. Maybe the day will come for that, you must wait and see, but at least we can both relax a little now. It's you that Georgie associates with her secret, not Lyddie.'

Now, Nest looked at Georgie with compassion; her teeth were drawn, her reign of power was over.

‘Do you remember Timothy?' she asked quite naturally.

Georgie looked at her slyly and started to perform that strange bridling, shrugging movement, a little smile on her lips, her eyes sharp.

Nest thought: She's like a child who knows she has done something wrong, yet justifies it with this kind of ‘see if I care' defiance.

‘I know a secret,' Georgie said – and, from nowhere, Nest was caught up in a memory of a hot summer's afternoon: she and Timmie conducting a toys' tea-party under the trees on the lawn. Georgie was towering over the table and Timmie was frightened: she could feel his fear, running out through his hot hand into her own. Even when Mina appeared she could not restore the harmony; the happy atmosphere and sunny afternoon were scarred with the ugly stains of anger and cross voices and she, Nest, wept frightened tears wrung out of impotent helplessness and a sense of destruction: the foreshadowing of
the transience of childhood and the loss of innocence.

Now, more than sixty years later, she leaned forward and touched Georgie's arm gently.

‘So do I,' she said.

Walking back from the sea, Mina was experiencing an unusual blend of light-headedness and light-heartedness. The last few weeks, ever since Georgie's arrival, had taken their toll – dizzy spells and a terrible exhaustion – in a way that nursing Lydia and caring for Nest had never done. It was odd that such mental stress should be so much more deeply wearing than sustained physical effort. Towards the end, Lydia had become very demanding in terms of sheet washing and running up and down the stairs dozens of times a day; she'd required carefully planned meals and a great deal of company yet she'd rarely been fretful, never critical. She'd loved to have Mina with her – ‘Oh good, you've brought your coffee up too, we can have it together' – and she'd always loved Mina to read aloud to her. ‘Now, what is it this evening? Oh, yes, of course,
Twilight on the Floods
. Now, where had we got to?' The television had tended to make her anxious, finding it difficult sometimes to follow accents, or any fast-moving action, although she'd adored any kind of
costume drama and refused to miss a second of Wimbledon.

Mina had been grateful for any respite that gave her the opportunity to rest, although Lydia needed to know that she was somewhere near at hand. She'd always been delighted to see her grandchildren, especially happy when they were all at Ottercombe together, and she'd written regularly and at length to Josie's boys in America, showing their photographs proudly to anyone who might spare the time to look at them. Each winter her asthma attacks and bronchial infections had grown a little worse, yet she'd clung to life with surprising tenacity. Mina had held her frail frame whilst she inhaled friar's balsam, a towel over her head and the bowl, and they'd laughed together, even then, about the indignities of old age. She'd been nearly eighty when a series of strokes put an end to her patient suffering.

Mina pulled up the hood of her jacket against the rain, hunching against the wind. Great beeches, some still retaining their tiny hoard of copper, groaned restlessly above her head whilst at their feet, amongst thick bare roots, mallards rested from the hurly-burly of the rushing water. The dogs scampered amongst the reeds and up the steep sides of the cleave, following the tracks of badger and deer, and when she called to them the wind caught her voice and tossed it lightly away.

She walked on, thinking of Lyddie and Nest, praying that all would be well between them, remembering how Nest had worked to hide the pain of watching her daughter being loved and cherished by her sister whilst she was unable to play any part other than that of a fond aunt.

‘Sometimes,' Nest had told her privately, desperately, ‘I wonder if it would be better if I never saw her at all. I can't explain the longing to seize her and hold her and then, oh God! when Henrietta gives her to me I'm so afraid of breaking down, of simply getting up and running away with her, that I
hardly dare think about it and I sit like a dummy, so busy keeping my feelings under control that it's a complete waste.'

‘I have to say, Henrietta is being very good,' Mina had admitted. ‘She had all those miscarriages so she knows a little of what you feel, but I agree that having the contact must be agonizing.'

‘I've thought of going right away, perhaps abroad for a while, but Miss Ayres was so good about keeping my post available and being so broad-minded that I feel it would be terribly ungrateful. I used to ache for Connor,' she'd said, ‘and now I ache for Lyddie.'

Mina had put an arm about her, hugging her. ‘
Used
to ache for Connor?'

‘Yes.' Nest had looked at her, distracted for a moment, ‘It's odd, isn't it? Once Lyddie was born it was as if a curtain came down on all that. I felt quite cold, detached. Perhaps it was some kind of instinctive, merciful self-preservation. I think I'd go mad if I still felt the same way about him. Even when I see him with Lyddie I feel nothing but a sense of relief that he loves her so much. It makes me sure that I did the right thing – given that I couldn't keep her.'

Pausing to pick up some twigs and small branches, brought down by the gales and useful for kindling, Mina sighed with relief as she revelled in this new sense of freedom from the weight of secrets. Standing up suddenly, she felt quite light-headed again, and had to put her hand against a mossy tree-trunk to steady herself.

‘Isn't it odd,' Nest had cried almost indignantly, once she'd read the letters, ‘that Mama should have become pregnant by Timothy and yet was so horrified when it happened to me? So determined that I couldn't keep my baby, behaving as if it were all so shaming.'

‘I think you have to take several things into consideration,'
Mina had answered carefully. ‘First, and this is quite important, was the passage of time between your pregnancy and hers. It's amazing how people forget, how, looking back, it seems that it was quite different for them. Distance lends enchantment to the view. There was a deeply romantic element which she couldn't see in your case. If you'd been in a long-term relationship, had been madly in love, Mama might have reacted more understandingly. As it was, it was necessary to play that side of it down and you were obliged to make it all sound rather chancy. Poor Nest, you were bound by a loyalty which we couldn't explain to her. Second, and even more importantly, she was a married woman with the protection and status of a husband.'

‘Even so,' Nest had said, rather sadly, ‘I think she might have been a bit less Victorian about it, given the circumstances.'

‘I think she was utterly true to her Victorian upbringing, double standards and hypocrisy.' Mina had tried to make her laugh. ‘And you must admit that, once it was settled that Henrietta should take the baby, she couldn't have been sweeter.'

‘It's OK,' Nest had grinned at her, ‘I'm not going to go all hurt at this late stage, it's just all so incredible. I can't see myself breaking this one to Lyddie for a very long time, if at all. I think she's got enough on her plate.'

‘Well, I agree with that but it gives you an even stronger bond, doesn't it? And one day, who knows, you might be able to share it with her.'

‘Possibly. Our next meeting is going to be quite nerve-racking. I keep imagining that her generosity is too good to be true, as if she hasn't really taken it in, and when she does . . .'

‘Of course she's taken it in. That's nonsense. I think she'll
have much more difficulty coming to terms with Liam's defection.'

‘I wonder what she'll do.' Nest had looked sombre. ‘Do you think she'll go back to London?'

‘Back to her old job?' Mina had shaken her head. ‘I simply don't know. I can't imagine what would happen to the Bosun if she does. Jack might have him. They're hoping to have a puppy. Or we could have him here.'

‘Captain Cat might not like that.'

‘Captain Cat might have to lump it!'

They'd chuckled together and now, as Mina opened the kitchen door and she and the dogs went inside, she paused to give him a pat as if to make up for her callousness. She sent them to their beds to dry off a little, put the kettle on the hotplate and went through to the drawing-room. Nest was nowhere to be seen but Georgie was sitting at the end of the sofa, slumped a little, her head dropping forward on to her chest. There was a stillness about her, an immobility, and when Mina spoke her name she did not move. Heart in mouth, Mina went forward and bent over her.

‘Georgie,' she said huskily – and swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. ‘Georgie?'

Her sister opened an eye and looked at her.

‘Where on earth have you been?' she asked grumpily. ‘It must be long past tea-time.'

Mina straightened up and took a deep breath, controlling an urge to smack her hard.

‘The kettle's on,' she said. ‘It won't be long.'

Back in the kitchen she found that her hands were trembling as she lifted up the teapot.

‘Only one more week,' she told herself grimly – and began to make the tea.

From:
  Mina
To:
      Elyot

. . . although I have to say that afterwards I simply had to laugh. Probably nervous hysteria. Goodness, what a time it's been. Nest came into the kitchen and wondered what on earth was going on, the kettle boiling its head off and me sitting weeping with laughter. I have to say that for one terrible moment I thought Georgie was dead and, to be honest, I think my reaction was pure relief. Nest made the tea in the end and when we got back to the sitting-room Georgie was sitting up, almost aggressively perky, although I believe that she is beginning another stage of deterioration.

I shall be glad to be free of the responsibility – which sounds terrible because she is my sister – but I am getting too old for all these alarums and excursions. Lyddie will be back soon and poor Nest is very fidgety but it will be a great treat to have her with us until she's decided what she is going to do. Her money from the house near Oxford could set her up in some small flat – but where? I think that, legally, she's entitled to something from the house in Truro and even from the business but I guess that both are in thrall to the bank and Lyddie is not the kind to demand an eye for an eye. She can stay here for as long as she likes, of course . . .

From:
  Elyot
To:
      Mina

Take care of yourself, old friend. You deserve a good long rest. I am very glad to have William here to do the driving for me, my confidence is low at present and it's a great relief. Make certain that Lyddie has a good lawyer – not that it's any of my business . . .

‘I'm not sure that it's been good for me being with you two,' Lyddie said, as she and Hannah drove into Dorchester to do some shopping. ‘You are so right together. It points up everything I've lost.'

‘Are you sure?' asked Hannah. ‘I mean, did you actually have it in the first place with Liam? That absolute rightness?'

Lyddie stared out through the windscreen at the rain drifting across the gently rounded hills.

‘I suppose not,' she said at last. ‘Not ever quite like you and Jack – but there were moments . . .'

‘Of course there were,' said Hannah remorsefully. ‘Sorry. I'm really not trying to belittle what you had. It would be utterly wrong to pretend that Liam is some kind of monster and you were never happy with him. So many people do that, have you noticed? They convince themselves that things were never right and they deny all the happy times.'

‘I think that's more the case with the partner that has decided to go rather than with the one who's been left,' said Lyddie thoughtfully. ‘It seems necessary for the one who's
leaving to justify their actions to themselves – and to others – and so it becomes almost essential to persuade everyone that there were all kinds of problems. It's silly, really, although perfectly understandable.'

‘It
is
silly,' agreed Hannah, turning the car from the narrow lane into a wider road, ‘because all your friends generally know exactly how it's been and it's impossible to make them believe it. Maybe it's easier to kid yourself. On the other hand, there are the cases where the reverse applies. You watch friends being made thoroughly miserable and you wish the scales would drop from their eyes and they'd have the courage to get up and go.'

‘Is that what you thought about me?' asked Lyddie rather sadly.

‘No, love, of course not.' Hannah put out her hand briefly and clasped Lyddie's folded ones. ‘You
were
happy. The thing is, it's impossible to judge who might be right for someone you love. I have friends who are deliriously happy with people who would bore me rigid or drive me mad in ten minutes.'