Saplings

  ‘I can give you Lindsey’s address. She’ll send it on.’

  Ruth hesitated. The letter that Tony would send her to forward might be important. She looked at Dot’s hard, clever but honest face, and decided to be open with her.

  ‘I’m worried about Tony. Sometimes I think an outsider sees more than close relations. Of course I’ve had a great deal to do with the children. He’s going through a difficult stage. If he writes to his uncle it’s to ask him to come and see him. I thought perhaps I’d send a line explaining. I know it seems impertinent but I must do something. I know the Lieutenant-Commander. He was often in London.’

  Dot looked up the road.

  ‘Here’s the bus.’

  The bus ground its way to stop beside them. The two women climbed on, there were no seats, they shared a strap. Dot laid a finger on the top button of Ruth’s uniform.

  ‘I should have thought that you had enough to do looking after all those young women under you, but if you like to take an interest in my nephews and nieces, I’m the last one to stop you. I was very fond of my brother. When there’s room to get my hand into my bag for paper and a pencil I’ll write down my brother-in-law’s address.’

  XXXII

  Lena decided that on the whole the Christmas holidays had been a success. The children had been noisier than she cared for, and rather elusive, but they did seem to have enjoyed themselves. Even Christmas day, which she had so dreaded, had passed off nicely. Except for universal habits, such as hanging up stockings and Christmas dinner, she had meant to avoid those Christmas customs which were part of their family life and would, therefore, stress the absence of Alex. The children, however, would have none of that. They insisted on every smallest custom being remembered. It had made the day hideous for Lena but apparently in no way affected the children. Queer and insensitive of them, Lena thought, but she supposed children were like that. She racked her memory to try and recall how she had felt at their ages, but she had not a vivid memory and she had been a doted-on only child and had scarcely known momentary unhappiness, let alone tragedy. She had hoped during the holidays to get back her old relationship with the children. This she had not achieved.

  She could not find the words to explain to herself what change there was. They used to come to me, she thought, as if a mother was something rather precious. She could not discover how they regarded her now. She was the planner and provider. She had arranged, as there was no enemy action at the moment, the day visits to London for a pantomime and a children’s play. She had got to know those neighbours within reach and, no matter how difficult the rationing, she allowed the children to bring in friends to any meal. It worried her, and in fact she never quite admitted as a truth, that she was glad when the holidays were over. In retrospect it seemed as though the whole house had been put down somewhere like Waterloo station, and when the children left it settled back into its quiet woodland. Sometimes in the early morning, before she had taken any brandy, she had caught the frightening notion that she was behaving rather as if she were governing a savage tribe by the weak method of giving in to any demand to gain peace and some sort of order, but a nip of brandy dispelled such silly thoughts, and with a glow of pride she would get up, saying, ‘They’re having a good time and why shouldn’t they, bless them.’

  Laurel and Tuesday’s holidays finished two days later than the boys. Seeing the children off made two exhausting days for Lena as they had to be taken to London, the boys to Paddington and the girls to Waterloo, where they were handed over to some member of their school’s staffs. It was after the second trip that Lena, suffering from lowness of heart caused partly by a brandy hangover and partly by fatigue, felt the need for hearing somebody tell her that the holidays had been a success. She found Nannie in the kitchen.

  ‘Well, Nannie, they went off happily. Tuesday was smiling.’

  ‘Let’s hope she keeps smiling, ’m.’

  Nannie had offered no protest when she was told that Tuesday was to go to boarding school with Laurel, yet Lena had felt she disapproved. She wished that Nannie would speak her mind, it would give her a chance to explain that there was no school near, that at seven it was more than time she began being properly educated, and that it was bad for one child to be at home alone. She would also have liked to add that it was particularly bad for Tuesday, who was too much her nurse’s child and not sufficiently her mother’s. However, as Nannie had said nothing except to ask when the term began and to point out that Tuesday would need some new clothes, Lena had to keep her arguments to herself. This was an aggravation and made her wonder if she should try for a cook and get rid of Nannie, only she would not get a cook and if she did get one she certainly would not look after the children’s clothes as well as Nannie.

  ‘Little Maria’s very happy at that school.’

  Nannie opened her oven-door and had a look in.

  ‘Maria’s one thing and Tuesday’s another.’

  ‘I shall miss her. I enjoyed giving her lessons.’ She waited for Nannie to shut the oven-door and attend to her. ‘I thought they enjoyed the holidays, didn’t you?’

  Nannie stared in front of her, placidly stroking the overall that she now wore in place of her nursery apron. Her eyes appeared, as usual, unclouded by thought. She was registering rather than thinking. ‘Very out of hand they were. Tuesday’s going the same way as the rest. Mrs. Wiltshire doesn’t mind. Queer, she was always one for nice manners. Mustn’t be upset, poor thing.’ Her words fell out in the soothing tone which belonged to the nursery.

  ‘Yes ’m. Very nice, ’m.’

  Lena lingered. She would have liked to have forced a more definite statement. She recognized ‘very nice, ’m’ as that kind of approval which was always waiting on Nannie’s tongue for a well-built brick house or sand castle, and had nothing to do with her opinion. Nannie, however, was busy with her cooking. She plodded around on her large flat black shoes. She was more than on the spread now. She was definitely fat. When she was walking about there seemed only room for herself. She was also very much captain of her ship when in the kitchen, and was able by merely glancing round to make a loiterer feel ashamed. Lena went to Mrs. Oliver.

  ‘Good-morning, Mrs. Oliver. Rather less work today for you, I’m glad to say. We shall miss the children though, shan’t we?’

  Mrs. Oliver was dusting. She paused and leant against a piece of furniture.

  ‘You’ve said it. I don’t know ’ow you ’ave the ’eart to send them away. I never could have any of mine.’

  Lena looked worried.

  ‘I hate schools, but it’s what my husband had arranged.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t wonder if we have some of them back soon.’ Mrs. Oliver lowered her voice. ‘In me teacup last night there was something funny coming to a house where I was but not where I live. My daughter read it. “Mum,” she said, “look at this. There’s a big surprise and it’s to do with arrival by train.” There was the train as clear as anything.’

  ‘It needn’t be the children. I had a letter from my mother in America, a son of an old friend of hers is coming over. He’ll be coming down, I expect, and I’ve got a lot of sisters-in-law who might come and see me.’

  ‘No. We reckoned it was the children, that’s what my daughter said. “Mark my words, Mum,” she said, “the children are coming back.” ’

  ‘It’s to be hoped they aren’t. It would mean illness or something. I thought they enjoyed their Christmas holidays, didn’t you?’

  Mrs. Oliver shook her head and looked knowing.

  ‘You can never tell with children. They laugh fit to split their sides, but there’s things going on in their hearts that would surprise us.’

  ‘But you saw a lot of Laurel. Didn’t you think she seemed happy?’

  ‘She enjoyed herself all right. Going to the pantomime and that, but she doesn’t care for that school.’

  ‘Children never like school, but they have to be educated.’

  Mrs. Oliver went back to her
dusting. In her opinion, if she had a daughter of rising fourteen who didn’t like school, she would take her away from it on her fourteenth birthday and put her to work. People like Mrs. Wiltshire never did things like that, so it was no good talking.

  Mustard was manuring a bed.

  ‘How did you think the boys enjoyed their holidays?’

  Mustard had not considered the point. He did not care for being interrupted in his work by foolish questions.

  ‘Tony’ll do.’

  ‘Didn’t you think he looked better?’

  Mustard considered children as he would plants. If two plants of the same family, raised from the same batch of seedlings grew side by side and one flourished and one did not, he moved the one that did not flourish and tried it somewhere else. This was why the little world of his garden flourished and so cocked a snook, as it were, at the wild world outside, where one tree grew to cut the light and air from another and clambering things crawled over flowers and crushed the life out of them.

  ‘Young Kim looks a sight better. It seems he sits more sweet in that school.’

  Lena turned away. It was true Kim did look marvellous, and he was so amusing. It was nobody’s fault, it did not mean there was anything the matter with Tony, it just was that Kim was unusual. Nobody had given her the answer that she wanted. She had tried so hard, she really did feel that she had succeeded. Of course it was silly to care what Nannie, Mrs. Oliver or Mustard said. She was the children’s mother and she knew best. She went back indoors. There was a fire in the dining-room. She stood by it and warmed her hands. The children had changed. They had ceased to be her good-mannered little family. They had become noisy, rough and, now and again, unmanageable. She was often afraid to correct them. In order to keep on good terms with them she let things go by that she never would have in the old days and Alex would have certainly never allowed. But these holidays had been a lot better than last summer; then she had felt that Laurel and Tony almost avoided her, but this Christmas they had not done that, though their manner to her had changed. How tiresome of Nannie and Mrs. Oliver and Mustard to carp and put doubts into her mind. She had been so happy and now she felt awful. She looked at the clock. It was not twelve, a bit early for a drink, still, she needed cheering.

  Walter Nissen came down to lunch on a Sunday. He was homesick for America. He was working under a completely tireless commanding officer whose job it was to arrange for suitable accommodation for the thousands of men and their vehicles who were on their way to the London area. Walter’s family had a lot of money, he came from a lovely home, and landing in London in cold, grey weather, though his hotel was comfortable, his spirit had been bruised by the dinginess of the blitzed or evacuated houses which he had to inspect, and the damp cold ate into his bones. He knew the British had lived through shocking times, but he had spasms when he longed to give the entire nation a good shake. He felt they were complacent over their discomforts and that if this were America more would be done to put things right. He had also had something of a spiritual set-back. He had always been violently anti-fascist. He had wanted to fight what he saw in his mind as the powers of evil. It had been a blow to him when he had been shown that he could be made useful right away in a non-combatant job. On the other hand he had been glad to be a forerunner of the American Army. The British had been having one hell of a time, it was a pretty fine thing for them to know that an enormous army was on the way. He was far too well informed to think for a second that the war against Germany would finish quickly, but poor Britain, stretched out like an overstrained piece of elastic to cover the seas and the skies while attempting to get together the men and the weapons to finish the business, must see the coming of America just as Noah had once seen the dove with the leaf in its beak. He found that the British not only did not think that way but that their attitude was hurtful. They said Pearl Harbour had forced America into the war. Perhaps she would be able to help in beating Hitler, but she had nothing to show yet. The British were waiting with critical eyes to see what she would do. Saviour nothing – their saviour, if they had one, was Russia. Walter forgot that, by the nature of his work, he was not meeting necessarily good thinkers, he fell into the mistake of judging the thought of the whole by that section which crossed his path.

  Walter had not been impressed by his introduction to Lena. He thought her mother the sort of tiresome woman surrounded by small dogs of which there were far too many in his own family. However, hers was one of the few near London introductory letters that he carried. The rest were to the owners of stately homes and his mother, who had been to Europe every year before the war, had impressed on her son that war or peace visits to these were better reserved for warm weather.

  It was a spring day when Walter came to lunch. A day which, though in March, would not have disgraced June. There were primroses out in the garden, and prunus’ caught the breath with their pink charm. There was a delicate green fuzz on the trees where the leaves were budding. Lena was looking lovely but pathetic in her black frock. He knew the outline of her story. That there were four children and her husband had been killed in an air-raid, but no more. He saw her only slightly distorted by his sympathy. She was about his own age. He liked an utterly feminine woman.

  Lena saw the sympathy and admiration in his eyes, and that Walter was exceedingly good-looking. The pall of depression which dimmed her days lifted slightly. She greeted him with more natural gaiety than she had shown since Alex’s death. They went in to have a cocktail, glad of each other.

  After lunch they took a short walk, then they sat over the drawing-room fire and Walter talked. He talked out of himself much of his disillusionment. Lena said very little but she looked interested and full of admiration.

  ‘It’s wonderful to feel we aren’t alone any more,’ she said. ‘Now you Americans are fighting with us this ghastly war will soon be over.’

  He liked that, it was not a woman’s job to understand wars, and it was their job to trust men to fight for them.

  After a while he came off his own concerns and asked about the children. He loved children and felt sentimental about them. Nobody was better at drawing a sentimental picture of her children than Lena. In her gentle, soft voice she described them one by one. Tony, so like his father. My funny, loving little Laurel. Kim, so brilliant and amusing. My baby Tuesday.

  ‘But oh, Walter!’ They had become Walter and Lena before lunch. ‘I feel so helpless bringing them up alone.’

  Walter was so moved there was a lump in his throat. He lit a cigarette and, after a pause, began to tell her about his family. He had married rather young. He had three children. Wonderful kids but he didn’t see much of them. His wife did not care for the East, she came from the South. It was a long story with a picture of his separated home, his wife and children living most of the year with her parents. He expanded, for Lena was a wonderful listener, she hardly said anything but she was clearly absorbed.

  Lena heard scarcely a word of what Walter told her. Her eyes ran over him. Her thoughts made shivers run up and down her spine. Her cheeks burned.

  Walter stayed to dinner. They drank a great deal of whisky. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, the closing of the door meant that they were in each other’s arms.

  ‘Can we go up to your room?’

  Lena was gasping as if she had been running.

  ‘Not until Nannie goes to bed and I can’t wait that long.’

  XXXIII

  ‘Now, Tuesday, you mustn’t mind not wearing a school uniform, heaps of the little ones don’t. And you will come to me about everything, won’t you? I’ll spend every minute I can with you.’

  Tuesday had heard Laurel say these things on the train. She had not been interested in the part about a uniform, but she got a lot from Laurel’s tone. It was protective. Tuesday hummed contentedly. Ever since they had left London people had come and gone. First Dad and Mum and then Miss Glover. The world outside the nursery seemed a frightening place. Tuesday had subconsciously decid
ed to remain a baby. Then came the move to the new home with Mum once more in the permanent background, and Laurel, Tony and Kim not on a short holiday but in the house for months. The nursery disappeared for Nannie was in the kitchen and Tuesday, for the first time, was left to the care of her brothers and sister. The string which tied her to her babyhood wore thin. She was now part of the family, with her own place in it, yet she was comfortingly the little one, and received from Laurel and Tony especial care. The autumn term had not been happy. Her lessons with Lena had been a moderate success. Lena was moody and petted Tuesday one day and was aloof the next. Tuesday turned back to Nannie; many of the subconscious habits formed to link her to her babyhood would have come back only she had influenza and was petted and cossetted to the extent of her need. Then came the Christmas holidays. The family returned, the niche, so very much her own in the summer, was waiting for her. She found the strain of the past months evaporating, she was again in the group. She did not in the least fear going to school. It was what the others did, besides, Laurel would be with her.

  Laurel suffered for Tuesday. She was such a baby. It was so horrible at school, and Tuesday had not got a uniform. Of course heaps of the little ones did not have any, but Maria did. Then suddenly her breath was caught, as if in winter she had seen dog roses. Tuesday needed her. Foxglove had said that. She had said, ‘There’s one thing I know at which you shine, and that’s at being a good eldest sister.’ She had found the answer. Let the other girls be games champions, actresses and dancers, she was going to be a mother to Tuesday. That was how she would stand out. Let them call her The Frog, she would be above minding.

  Tuesday had never been happier. There was a Mrs. Fellows, with a small daughter of her own, in charge of the little ones. She was really fond of children and made an especial pet of Tuesday, partly because Maria had told her that Alex had been killed, but more because Tuesday was an endearing little creature and charming to look at. That phrase, ‘one happy family’ was true in Mrs. Fellows’ section of Greenwood House Over the Way. The regular hours, the unchanging days, the sense of having her own place in a large pattern was what Tuesday needed. The children were treated as the young part of the house and yet they were well away from babyhood. Even under Mrs. Fellows there were responsibilities, which, to the children picked to carry them out, seemed of enormous importance. Mrs. Fellows had noticed that Tuesday was inclined to shrink backwards rather than step forward into the world. In her first days she had clung to Maria and hung about waiting for Laurel. Mrs. Fellows would never interfere between sisters. She always had a smile for Laurel however often she appeared in her part of the house, and that was every moment of Laurel’s free time; but she had to see that Tuesday stood squarely on her feet without support. After the first three weeks she made an announcement at the end of luncheon. It was a list of what she called ‘officers’. It finished with Tuesday. She was put in charge of the sweet cupboard, a position, because of the temptations it offered, considered an honour. Tuesday heard her name called and her task. She had a moment’s surprise which was so intense she felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She was a little one, people looked after her, they never expected her to look after things. School jokes flew round her head like bats. ‘I bet Tuesday eats the lot.’ ‘I shall count every sweet from Sunday to Sunday.’ ‘I’ll know if you’ve had even a suck of mine, Tuesday.’ At that moment the chord tying Tuesday to her babyhood began to break. Later Laurel, her pigtails flying, rushed into the junior playroom.