Saplings

  ‘He didn’t see her. I had my eye on her all day, of course. In the afternoon she played in the house team for the lacrosse cup. It was the children’s own idea to include her. They arranged it.’

  ‘She did her work as usual?’

  ‘Except prep. I took her off that and sent her with some of her friends to tidy the studio. It had to be done sometime.’

  ‘Obviously better doing something active.’

  ‘That’s all I could think of, she looks as if she ought to be in the sanatorium, but it’s kinder to keep her running around. In the evening I told the girls to start a general game. They took me at my word, fox and geese and all that sort of thing. You never heard such a noise.’

  ‘Has she slept at all?’

  ‘She wouldn’t like a special fuss made of her. We give all her room cocoa. Matron arranged with the doctor to put something in Laurel’s. I went in on Sunday at ten, midnight, and, as I happened to be awake, just after two. She was asleep then. Last night I was in twice.’

  ‘Mr. Phillips can’t get out of the boy where he went. He came off the train from the junction but he had lost his ticket. I can’t myself see that it matters where the poor child went as he’s back safely, but Mr. Phillips thinks he might tell his sister. I rather think I’ll take Laurel over, it will give me a chance to say something. I couldn’t do more than break the news on Sunday.’

  ‘She’s very sensitive, as you know, about being made conspicuous in any way.’

  ‘I thought she was getting over that.’

  ‘A little. We trod very carefully. There hasn’t been a soul in the school who hasn’t tried to say or do something kind, but I notice it’s all being done in that off-hand way children are so good at.’

  ‘I think you’ve done all that anyone could, tiding her over the first shock, but now I must step in. She looks wretched. I’ll have a word with the doctor. In the meantime tell her I’m taking her. You know how to do it so that it doesn’t sound unusual or alarming.’

  Tony had been sent to feed the school rabbits. Laurel found him. He looked surprised at seeing her and not pleased.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Miss Brownlow had to see your Mr. Phillips. She said I could come too if I liked. Where’s Kim?’

  ‘In the san.’

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘No.’

  Laurel took a cabbage leaf and poked it through the bars of the nearest cage. She glanced sideways at Tony. He looked queer. He seemed miles away. She felt in her pocket and brought out a bar of chocolate.

  ‘Here you are.’ Tony broke the bar in half. She shook her head. ‘I daren’t. I felt sickish in the car. I can’t think of anything worse than being sick in Miss Brownlow’s car.’

  Tony chewed the chocolate.

  ‘I suppose she’s jabber jabbering to Mr. Phillips.’

  ‘Mr. Phillips asked if you had been to see me yesterday.’

  ‘Sort of fool thing he would ask. Why should I go to see you?’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘A place.’

  ‘Is it a secret?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Laurel fidgeted a moment with another cabbage leaf, but Tony clearly did not want to talk. ‘I’ll go and see Kim.’

  Kim was in a nervous state. He had not taken in that his father being killed meant that he would never see him again. He knew that was what happened when people were dead, but it was only words. He would not have been surprised if he was now told his father was coming down next Sunday. What he had known was that people were worried about him. When, on Sunday evening, he had been fetched from the junior playroom he had sensed drama. When Mr. Phillips, with the skill of practice, had told him and Tony what had happened he had screamed. There was something in the atmosphere which informed him that it was an occasion for screams. Mr. Phillips had been disappointing, he had paid more attention to Tony, who just stared and did nothing. Then matron had been fetched and in no time he was in bed having orange jelly for supper. Later that evening, again because of something in the atmosphere, he had started to cry. When he cried matron had told him to be brave. Until that moment Kim had not understood there was anything to be brave about. It was confusing and frightening. His sobs rose to howls. The doctor was sent for and gave him a sedative.

  Kim was sitting up in bed doing a jig-saw when Laurel came in. She pulled off her coat, hat and gloves and sat down beside him. She picked up a bit of the puzzle. He snatched it from her.

  ‘You can’t do that part. It’s a lady’s dress, I’m doing it.’

  ‘I’ll do this then, it’s sky.’

  The matron hovered round. She brought them tea. Hot buttered toast and a special cake. About five o’clock she told Laurel Miss Brownlow was ready for her. Laurel kissed Kim and put on her things. ‘Queer,’ said the matron afterwards. ‘Just played with a puzzle all the afternoon. Quite engrossed they were. Never spoke of anything else.’

  Driving over, Miss Brownlow had laid herself out to amuse Laurel. She had told her of her childhood. She had been educated in France. She was an entertaining talker. Laurel had partially relaxed. It was soothing to think that a person as important as Miss Brownlow had been a child, it made the world seem more solid. She liked to hear of an upbringing so different from her own, and, since it was not English, presumably inferior. If it had not been that she felt slightly sick she would have liked the drive in as far as she was capable of liking anything. At intervals since Sunday she had been sick. Only one of her friends knew and she was sworn to secrecy. The thought of a long drive alone with Miss Brownlow had not distressed her as much as the thought of being upset inside and being forced to ask Miss Brownlow to stop the car. It was an appalling idea and she would have endured agonies of discomfort rather than frame the words. As it happened she had worried unnecessarily. Miss Brownlow stopped the car several times to get out and pick flowers. She also took it for granted that when in a car you sucked barley sugar. Barley sugar had been given to all the Wiltshires when they were small for car sickness. Could it be possible, Laurel wondered, that a person so remote and goddess-like as Miss Brownlow was sometimes car sick?

  Laurel would have been amazed if, as they drove out of the gate of Wingsgate House, she could have seen into Miss Brownlow’s mind. The humility that knew that her training and great knowledge of girls was not going to help her now. That she must feel her way and trust to inspiration for the right words. She drove slowly, herself sucking barley sugar, to encourage Laurel to do the same. She asked about Kim and Tony, but casually so that there should be no feeling of prying into family affairs. At the crown of a hill she pointed to a wood.

  ‘That’s full of bluebells later on.’ She did not wait for Laurel’s polite response. ‘I think, if it’s fine, we might have a picnic there for your birthday. It comes about the right time.’

  Laurel was gratified that Miss Brownlow should know the date of her birthday. She made an effort to reply suitably.

  ‘I’ll be thirteen. Being thirteen will make me more responsible.’

  Miss Brownlow laughed.

  ‘Being any special age, even seventy, never made a person responsible. But as you get older we shall give you more responsibility.’

  Laurel sighed.

  ‘I know, prefects and all that.’

  Miss Brownlow stopped the car. There was a wide, lovely view. It gave her calmness and strength.

  ‘I shall see that you have your share of responsibilities. Your father wished it. From now on I consider you very specially in my care. You see, I liked your father so much and I know that’s what he would like.’

  There was silence. Laurel fought hard, but the words had been said. ‘He would have liked.’ The suffering kept to herself poured out.

  ‘Dad. Oh, Dad!’

  Miss Brownlow had Laurel in her arms. She did not know her crisp, sometimes biting, tongue knew such endearments. She had not realised that Laurel had accepted that she must bear her misery al
one and what a blessed relief it was to the child to break down utterly, to go on crying without restraint. She hardly knew what words of comfort she was whispering and still less that Laurel heard them. That, in a capsized world, she was arising, not alone but with her school round as comfort and security.

  Laurel was put to sleep in the matron’s room. The doctor gave her sleeping tablets. Just as she was dropping off she recalled something dreadful had happened and shot up with a jump. It was Miss Brownlow who, with a kiss, laid her down.

  ‘It’s all right, my child. Hold my hand. Everything can be mastered, even dreadful unhappiness. We’ll find a way together.’

  XXVIII

  The Colonel had aged. A general greyness covered him like a film. His back was as straight, and his manner as usual, but Alex’s death had hit him hard and this could be read by anyone with eyes able to see below the surface.

  Martin Phillips had eyes which seldom bothered with surfaces. He pulled forward an armchair, fetched a small table and placed on it cigarettes and an ash-tray. He sent for sherry. ‘Good stuff. Not much left. I always like an excuse for a glass of sherry at midday.’

  The Colonel came straight to the point.

  ‘You’ve heard my daughter-in-law wants the children home for a bit.’

  ‘Yes. I got her letter yesterday.’

  The Colonel wondered about the letter, and covered up for it in case it should not have been what Alex would have wished.

  ‘Still very upset. Doctor’s kept her in bed these last three weeks.’ Martin looked sympathetic and gave an understanding nod. The Colonel spoke with more vigour. ‘My feeling is that it’s better to leave the boys where they are. I believe it’s what my son would have wished.’

  Martin played with a ruler. In the pause the sherry was brought in. He poured out two glasses. He put one beside the Colonel.

  ‘In the ordinary way I should agree with you.’ He went back to his desk and sipped his sherry. ‘We’re doing no good with Tony.’

  ‘What way?’

  ‘That day he ran away, you know, the day after you telephoned me. Something knocked him sideways.’

  ‘Might have been shock. Very close to his father.’

  ‘We’ve all had a go at him and we’ve a feeling he saw something. We had to call in the help of the police when he was missing. We didn’t check up once he was back but they think he went to London.’

  ‘Had a look at his home? Shocking mess.’

  ‘I doubt if a wrecked house means much to a child that age. He would normally take for granted another home would be provided. In Tony’s case the insecurity angle was established by his father’s death, but he still has his mother and you and so on. We don’t feel that in itself is the root of the trouble. Was it possible he could have seen anything to upset him?’

  ‘No. My son had intended going down to his home in Surrey. He was kept late at the factory and decided to stay the night in London. If there were a raid and he was kept he had given his word to his wife to sleep in the cellar. The bomb hit the place in the early hours of Sunday morning. They got at him by daylight. He could still speak. He died just as they got him into an ambulance.’

  ‘There was nobody else in the house? No pet cat or dog?’

  ‘No. Never had a dog because of living in London. If there was a cat they would have taken it to the country. What is it worries you about Tony?’

  ‘He’s brooding on something. He’s bad-tempered and morose, and he has nightmares. Wakes screaming. There’s a small room off matron’s we’ve put him to sleep in. I agree with you entirely about shifting children about, but I showed his mother’s letter to the doctor and he says running wild is probably the best thing for him, especially in new surroundings which he doesn’t connect with his father. Time the autumn term begins he’ll have had over three months on the loose.’

  The Colonel sipped his sherry. It was impossible to discuss a daughter-in-law with an outsider. You could not say that she was all to pieces and was having the children home for her own sake. You could not describe her sitting up in bed saying emotionally, as if she was acting in a play, ‘I want my babies.’ You could not help pitying the poor little thing, but she was not showing the self-control and stiff upper lip that you would expect. Only his conviction that Alex would thoroughly disapprove of the boys being allowed to believe that private grief should upset your normal life had brought him to Wingsgate House. There were no raids at present, he could not urge them as an excuse, but if this fellow Phillips would back him he might make Lena see reason. At least he could have a try.

  ‘What about Kim?’

  Martin laughed.

  ‘Three months’ holiday won’t hurt him. He’s a clever little devil. He’s got a temperament like a prima donna. He fits into no school pattern or ever will, but he’ll always fall on his feet. Is the girl going home too?’

  ‘Yes. Miss Brownlow’s been written to too. Laurel was the beginning of the business really. Doctor thought my daughter-in-law needed companionship to take her out of herself. He suggested bringing her home.’

  ‘What’s Miss Brownlow feel?’

  The Colonel finished his sherry.

  ‘Haven’t asked her. The question of Laurel was fixed before I went down this week-end to see my daughter-in-law.’ He got up. ‘I shall travel with the children. If it suits you I’ll collect them on Wednesday.’

  ‘I’ll bring the boys in so that you can tell them. If you let me know the train plans I’ll fix with Miss Brownlow about connecting with the girl. Nice to have some good news to tell them all. I suppose the kid isn’t born who doesn’t get a kick out of an unexpected holiday.’

  XXIX

  It was a modern house. It lay up a private road to the edge of the wood. It was big and had plenty of rooms. The garden had been made by clearing part of the wood. A fine lawn had been laid and there were herbaceous borders, but most of the garden was of the wooded type. First, masses of azaleas, rhododendrons and flowering trees, then spruce, larch and birch until it reverted to real woodland.

  When the children first saw the garden the rhododendrons and azaleas were in flower. They had never lived in rhododendron country before and they were startled and intoxicated by the scent and blaze of the azaleas, and the piled mass of rhododendron flowers. The weather was fine and the garden and the surrounding country absorbed and hid the children. To Laurel and Tony the house was a place to avoid. As they approached the front door Laurel assumed an air of bumptiousness and truculence and Tony looked sour and ill-at-ease.

  To Lena, Laurel and Tony’s attitude was the last dreg of bitterness. She had been so prepared to sacrifice herself. So full of plans. ‘I must pull myself together for their sakes.’ ‘I’ll be gay.’ ‘I won’t mind what happens to me, I’ll think only of them.’ Before the children arrived she took endless trouble. Flowers on Laurel’s dressing-table. Tony’s trains laid out and waiting for him in a spare room. The favourite books and ornaments of all three on the tables beside their beds. On the day when they arrived she was waiting in the doorway. For the first time since Alex had been killed she had been into the nearest town and had her hair done. Her face was nicely made up and she had discarded her black and put on a cheerful cherry-coloured wool dress.

  The journey had been tiring. Laurel, crushed at being dragged from her school, had scarcely spoken, staring glumly out of the window. Tony, too, barely uttered a word and when he did it was rudely. Kim had saved the situation. He was enchanted to come home for a holiday. They were not alone in the railway carriage and almost at once he had the ear of the other passengers and amused himself by showing off. The Colonel had not reproved him, he disliked that trait in Kim as much as Alex had done, but on this occasion it had its uses. It covered the silences of the other two. He dreaded the arrival at the house. It would not have surprised him if Lena had made an emotional scene. He was touched at her gallantry, standing there with her painted face and cherry frock, smiling as if her world had not powdered under her
feet. Because their arrival had been so much easier than the children had anticipated they were less difficult than they had been on the journey. Even Tony had flung himself on his mother, kissing her rapturously. The Colonel had to depart the next morning and he left considerably comforted. It looked as if this bringing the children home was a good idea. There was more stuff in little Lena than he had supposed. Perhaps she would make a good job of bringing her children up single-handed.

  Lena had no real servants. Nannie was cook. Mrs. Oliver, a cockney evacuee, came in for three or four hours a day to do the housework, and there was an aged gardener-handyman known locally as ‘Old Mustard’. On the first morning after the Colonel had left Lena explained the situation. She took a ‘It’ll be such fun’ tone.

  ‘Everybody’s called up, darlings. You’ll give Nannie and Mrs. Oliver a hand in the house and kitchen, won’t you, Laurel? And, Tony, I’d like you to take on the cleaning of the shoes, and there’re lots of jobs in the garden that both you little boys can do to help Mustard. We’ll all work and then it will be like a game.’

  Laurel and Mrs. Oliver made friends over the bed making.

  ‘I left London with me daughter and her kids, ducks, today’s the day for turning the mattress, but never on a Friday or a Sunday or you come into bad luck. My daughter had shockin’ bad luck from turning a mattress on a Friday.’

  Mrs. Oliver and her relations seemed to exist on the spin of a coin. Everything that happened to them was caused by passing under ladders, meeting black cats, tripping over dropped nails and the arrangement of tea-leaves in their teacups. Laurel was thrilled. She had a natural inclination for domestic things and any work done with Mrs. Oliver would have been a pleasure. The beds finished she followed her into the drawing-room and helped to dust.

  ‘Go on, Mrs. Oliver, tell me what happened to your grandson because he found the threepenny bit.’