When the Bough Breaks (15 page)

‘I've just done the unforgivable,' he greeted her. ‘I've climbed over the gate for a short cut. Oliver Marley left this with me, with the request to bring it to you and the girls on Christmas Eve. My word, but don't you sound Christmassy!'

‘Tradition has to be upheld, war or no war. Won't you come in? That was very kind of Ollie. Let's drop it off in the sitting room so that the girls won't see it until the morning. When is his mother moving down from London?'

‘The first week in January, I believe.'

She hid the package under a cushion on the sofa just as Jess ran from the warm room.

‘Mum, it's still going round and round. Can you put it on again so Beth can learn the songs?'

‘Jess, where are your manners? Say hello to Mr Meredith and perhaps I'll see what I can do.'

So it was that a minute or two later she and Bruce were alone in the seldom used sitting room where the fire was laid ready to be lit the next morning while, from the warm room came the haunting sound of the treble voices of the boys of Winchester Cathedral choir.

‘Have you staff at the hall to prepare your meal tomorrow?'

‘I may go to the lodge. It depends how things are with Elspeth, my wife.'

That a wife was the reason for his frequent visits to the lodge had never entered her head.

‘Your wife?' She spoke before she could stop herself. If he was so secretive about his wife perhaps it was tactless to ask about her. ‘I didn't know you were married.'

‘Indeed I am. I know you're busy now, but when the holidays are over perhaps you would allow me to take you to visit her.' His reply went no way towards explaining why he had never previously spoken of her. And yet why should he? Kathie asked herself. They were comparative strangers, why should he have felt impelled to talk of his marriage? And yet there was something strange about keeping his domestic life so separate from his position at the hall. After a few seconds' hesitation, he went on, ‘We were married nearly seventeen years ago, she was just twenty and the loveliest creature you could see, and with a nature to match.'

‘Is she ill?' Kathie asked tentatively. There was something unnatural in the way he spoke of her, ‘she was' not ‘she is'. At thirty-seven, or thereabouts, she might have lost the innocent beauty of those early days, but changes come so gradually they are scarcely perceptible in someone you love.

He nodded. ‘We had a happy year. There was only one problem: her mother's deteriorating mental state, even though she was only in her forties. Then my father-in-law had a huge stroke and died within hours. It tipped the scales. She was a lost soul. Each time we visited she had slipped further away. We think of dementia as belonging to old age, but she was a beautiful, middle-aged woman. As a child Elspeth had had a nanny and, when she outgrew the need, Nanny Giles stayed on in the house, a sort of companion helper for my mother-in-law. But it wasn't many months after her husband's sudden death that it became obvious she needed more care than Nanny Giles could give. She became violent, wild, her whole character changed. She would look at Elspeth, her own daughter, and have no idea who she was. And it was just about at the same time that Elspeth was thrown from her horse when we were riding. The injury was to her head. In hospital she was in a coma; no one thought she would come out of it.' He looked at Kathie as if he had forgotten she was there as he let his mind slip back down the years. She read anguish in his eyes as she held his gaze.

‘Go on,' she whispered. ‘Elspeth came out of the coma?'

‘Do you believe in prayer? I prayed. God, how I prayed. First as she lay helpless, I prayed that she would wake and come back to me. She woke but she was lost to me, lost to everyone. Their doctor said it was in the family, for three generations the strain of dementia had been passed. The fall, the brain damage, perhaps they only speeded up what would ultimately have happened. In body and in spirit she was the loveliest person I'd ever known, and for a year or so we had shared complete happiness. On the first of January it will be sixteen years since the accident. In the beginning I watched for some sign of recognition. I was consumed by terror and misery. My prayer wasn't answered in the way I wanted. And yet, Kathie –' for the first time he called her by her Christian name, neither of them so much as noticing – ‘some sort of strength came, strength to face what our future was to be.'

‘And now?' She was frightened of what he'd tell her.

‘I don't know. She smiles at me; when I sit with her she never pulls away when I take her hand. Sometimes if I say something she will repeat a word or two. Whether she knows who I am, who
she
is, I don't know. Her manner is as gentle and sweet as it always was. I don't know –' he ran his hand through his hair, his tight control threatening to break – ‘I don't know. If I didn't see her each day, would she notice?'

Kathie put out a hand and laid it on his arm. They were little more than strangers and yet she was moved beyond words.

‘Perhaps your prayers have been answered. Perhaps the answer is there in her contentment.'

‘I try to believe that. She is like a contented baby, warm, well fed and loved. It breaks my heart to see her and yet I am thankful and – can you understand this, I wonder? – sometimes just sitting with her, feeling her hand holding mine with such trust, some of that peace and contentment rubs off onto me. Is that crazy?'

Kathie shook her head. ‘I think it's beautiful; it's a sort of pure, honest love that's not tainted by the mess of the world.'

He nodded.

‘That about says just what she is: pure, untainted by the mess of the world. She has no visitors, but if you could spare the time I would be grateful. Perhaps she won't even notice that you are from outside her normal world but, if she does, surely it would be good for her.'

‘Of course I'll come. The girls start back to school before you do, I expect, so the first day of their term I'll come with you to the lodge. Does Elspeth get taken for walks? If she isn't frightened off because I'm strange to her, I was thinking perhaps she could be brought down to Westways. There's something very, very . . .' She hesitated, groping for the right word. ‘Sort of full of
goodness
about outside work, nurturing plants.'

He gazed at her steadily and for a moment she was disconcerted by his unfathomable expression.

‘How could she be frightened off? My belief, indeed my hope and my reason for suggesting you let me take you to her, is that because she isn't like the rest of us, she will see beyond an unfamiliar stranger and know you for the person you are.'

‘Mum!' Jessie called as she rushed into the room, ‘come quick, Mum. It's gone all funny.'

Kathie listened. ‘. . . bleak midwinter, stormy winds did . . . bleak midwinter, stormy winds did . . .'

‘Nothing serious, love. The needle is stuck. I'll do it.'

‘Didn't I tell you, Beth? Mum knows what's happened; she's coming to put it right.'

Jess climbed on a chair so that she could see Kathie lightly touch the head of the gramophone, setting the stormy winds on their way. If it happened again she would be able to do it herself, she decided. There was much of her mother in Jess; she wasn't prepared to be beaten.

Those days of Christmas and New Year needed every ounce of Kathie's strength of character. Her salvation came from the two little girls and her determination to give them happy and lasting memories.

They returned to school on the first Thursday in January and so at mid-morning of that day Bruce called for her and together they walked up the hill to the main gate of the hall. Another morning and the earth might be rock hard and white with frost, but that Thursday the air was soft and the birds seemed to believe nature's call of spring had arrived. As soon as Kathie had set Sally and Sarah to work she had gone indoors to dress for her outing. Her wardrobe held nothing to inspire her, nothing except her ‘outfit' so, smiling to herself as she remembered the last time she had worn it, she had taken it off its hanger. January demanded a thick jumper under the jacket.

Immediately, Bruce recognized the effort she had made.

‘You look extremely smart,' he said, a twinkle in his eyes as he raised his brows.

Just weeks ago Kathie would have been annoyed and embarrassed. Now, though, she surprised herself by laughing.

‘I know what you're thinking, and you're right. I
did
make a supreme effort when I came to the hall to take you down a peg or two. Today is different. I put on what we call my outfit because I wanted to do my best for Elspeth.'

‘You look delightful, then and now. But, if I'm honest, I prefer you in those ghastly clown-like trousers and wellington boots.'

‘Hardly the right attire for going a-visiting.'

‘Will she so much as notice? Perhaps the idea of taking you there is crazy, but there seems to be a magic healing power in Westways – and it must stem from
you
. You worked something of a miracle with young Marley; and have you any idea what it has meant to me to be accepted in your home?'

This time his remark deprived her of words; she could respond to playful banter, but there was a depth of seriousness in his voice that made her uneasy. It was a relief when he held open the wrought iron gate of the hall and, opening the door of the lodge with his key, ushered her inside.

‘Look, Elspeth my pet,' Nanny Giles said to her charge as Bruce and Kathie came into the sitting room, ‘here's Mr Bruce and he's brought you a visitor.'

The woman seated on the sofa in front of the fire nodded, her mouth opening in a smile. Kathie couldn't let herself look towards Bruce; she was moved with sympathy that physically ached.

‘Hello my dear,' he said, stooping to kiss his wife's forehead as he sat down by her side and indicated to Kathie to take the nearby armchair. His words brought a nod of Elspeth's head, in fact more than a nod, it continued at the same momentum as she looked past him to Kathie.

‘I live just down the road,' Kathie said. ‘Bruce and I walked here together. It's such a perfect morning. Just look at that glorious blue sky.' She pointed to the window and was rewarded by Elspeth turning her nodding head to admire the day. ‘Where I live we have a field full of things we grow – vegetables, I mean. Perhaps you would like to come and see me when you and Nanny go for a walk?' She addressed the invitation to Elspeth, but looked to Nanny Giles for approval.

‘Why now, Elspeth my pet, wouldn't that be just champion.'

But Elspeth's attention was lost. As Bruce had sat by her, so he had automatically taken her hand feeling her fingers entwine themselves with his. Kathie tried not to look at them as he raised their clasped hands to move against his cheek. Make her show some sort of response, she begged silently, surprising herself that it should matter so much to her. She hardly knew him at all and his poor ‘lost' wife was a complete stranger, but she couldn't bear to remember how he had exposed his heart to her when he'd talked on Christmas Eve. We're so lucky, Den and me. Even though he's away we are never separated, not as these two are as they sit holding hands. What sort of hell has Bruce lived through during the years that have brought them to this?

Ten minutes later she and Bruce were on their way back down the hill. Their previous easy bantering conversation had gone and yet neither of them was ready to talk about the still beautiful, but ‘empty' woman they had just left.

That same afternoon while Kathie was putting every ounce of her energy into turning the soil which had been ploughed in her first effort to master the motorized digger, Elspeth and Nanny Giles arrived. Nothing could ever really break through the fog that was Elspeth's mind, but her first visit to Westways came nearer than anything had for a very long time. She must have been aware of her surroundings, for when the nurse tried to lead her to the gate she pulled back, not wanting to leave.

‘Nice warm fire at home, my pet,' the nurse said encouragingly. ‘Give Nanny your hand like a good girl.'

The good girl let her hand be taken, she walked by the nurse's side, but time and again she turned her head to look at what they were leaving.

‘Poor woman,' Sarah said as she and Sally watched the couple depart. ‘Gosh, but doesn't it make you count your blessings when you think of your own family. I bet she's not as old as our mums are.'

‘Why do you reckon he married her?' Sally wondered. ‘I bet back in those days, when they got hitched, I mean, I bet he was a real dish.'

‘And so must she have been. She's good looking now, except that her face is sort of blank. Fancy, he keeps her there in the lodge and no one, not even the locals who come in to the pub, chaps who never miss a trick, none of them have an inkling that the headmaster has a wife. Don't let's say anything, Sal. Be rotten for him to have the village talking.' It wasn't said lightly. Sarah's conscience had to battle, for it would have been a great talking point in the bar. ‘I expect they gossip just as much at that chapel your dad's so tied up with as they do in the pubs.'

‘I expect they do. But they might want to show Mr What's-his-name, her husband, that they were sorry for him.'

‘Bet he'd hate that. Well, anyway, I know I would if I were in his shoes. Have you filled your box of parsnips yet? My turnips are about ready. It'd save Mrs Hawthorne having to stop the digging if we suggested taking the old cart to the village. What do you say?'

So, ten minutes or so later the old hand cart was loaded with the day's delivery and they set off to the village. In the four months they had been at Westways they had forgotten all about looking for work in more comfortable surroundings and relished the challenge of keeping the all-female market garden as productive as it ever had been.

That afternoon was the first of Elspeth's frequent visits. It became an almost daily habit if the weather was fine. There was no doubt she enjoyed walking between the rows of vegetables, the smile never leaving her face. But as to recognition, it was as if each visit was her first.