Coming Home

  ‘From what Loveday told me, it sounds as though he's going to need a little help.’

  ‘He's going to be difficult to help, if he won't answer letters, and won't keep in touch.’

  ‘But he was such a friend of Edward's. For that reason alone, I feel we should all rally round. And he wrote such a dear letter when Edward was killed. And sent that sketch he'd done of Edward. It's Edgar's most precious possession. So much more telling than any photograph. It stands on Edgar's desk, so he looks at it every day of his life.’

  ‘I know. But it's not easy to rally round when Gus's home is at the other end of the country.’

  ‘He could come and stay. Do you think I could write and ask him to come and stay at Nancherrow?’

  ‘No. I don't think that would be a good idea at all. Later, perhaps. But not now.’

  ‘Because of Loveday?’

  ‘She doesn't want him here. And even if you asked him, I don't think he'd come. For the same reason.’

  ‘So what are we to do?’

  ‘I'll write again, in a little while, if only to get some sort of a response out of him. If I could get a reaction, we'd at least know where we stood. How he was faring. How he was settling down again.’

  ‘We were so fond of him, Edgar and I. I know he was with us for just a little time, but we became so fond of him…’ Her voice trailed away. She sighed.

  ‘Diana, don't brood over might-have-beens. It doesn't do any good, looking back, and saying if only.’

  ‘Do you blame me?’

  ‘Blame you?’

  ‘For letting her marry Walter?’

  ‘You could scarcely stop her. She was having Nathaniel.’

  ‘Nathaniel didn't matter. Nathaniel could have been born and lived at Nancherrow with us all quite happily. And if people talked, so what? I've never cared what people said.’

  The kettle boiled. Judith spooned coffee into the jug and filled it, and set it, for a moment, on the back of the range.

  ‘But she wanted to marry Walter.’

  ‘Yes. And we didn't just let her; in a way, we encouraged her. Our baby. Edward was gone, and I couldn't face losing Loveday as well. Marrying Walter meant she stayed near us. And we'd always liked him, despite his lack of polish and rough ways. Edgar liked him because he was so good with the horses, and because he'd always been so caring of Loveday, keeping an eye on her on hunting days, and helping her when she started working on the farm. He was her friend. I've always thought that the most important thing, when you get married, is to marry a friend. Passionate love cools down after a time, but friendship lasts forever. I really believed they were right for each other.’

  ‘Is there any reason to suppose that they're not?’

  Diana sighed. ‘No. Not really, I suppose. But she was only nineteen. Perhaps we should have been a little more firm, told her to wait…’

  ‘Diana, if you'd argued, she'd have just become more and more determined to get her own way…that's the way she's made. I tried to argue, that day in London, when she told me she was engaged, and I got my head bitten off for my pains.’

  The coffee was ready. Judith poured two mugs and set one down in front of Diana. From upstairs there commenced a droning roar, a bit like an aeroplane coming in to land. Phyllis, having dealt with her laundry, was now engaged in Hoovering the landing.

  Diana said, ‘I really thought it would work. It worked for me.’

  ‘I don't understand.’

  ‘Edgar was never my love, but he was always my friend. I knew him always, right through from when I was a little girl. He was a friend of my parents. I thought he was middle-aged. Ancient. He used to take me to the park, and we'd feed the ducks. And then the war started…the First War. And I was sixteen, and wildly in love with a young man I'd met at the Fourth of June, at Eton. He was in the Coldstream Guards, and he went off to France. And then he came home on leave. But of course he had to go back to France, and he was killed in the trenches. By now, I was seventeen. And I was pregnant.’

  Diana's voice never changed. She said all these things, evoking God knew what memories, and continued to sound as inconsequential as though she were describing a new and ravishing hat.

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Yes. Too careless, darling, but we weren't very streetwise in those days.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Edgar happened. I couldn't tell my parents, so I told Edgar. And Edgar said that he was going to marry me, and that he would be the father of my little baby, and that I would never, ever, have to be worried or troubled for the rest of my life.’ Diana laughed. ‘And that's what happened.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘Athena.’

  ‘But…’ But there was nothing to say.

  ‘Oh, darling, you're not shocked, are you? It was just another sort of love. I never felt I was using Edgar. And after all the turmoil and the passion and the tragedy and the despair, being with him was like slipping into a peaceful harbour, knowing that nothing could ever harm one again. And that's how it's stayed. That's how it's always been.’

  ‘Athena. I never suspected, not for a single instant.’

  ‘Why should you? Why should anybody? Edward was Edgar's first child, but no daughter was more loved than Athena. She looks like me, I know. But there is something of her father there that only Edgar and I would ever see. He was such a beautiful young man. Tall and blue-eyed, and fair. My mother used to call him an Adonis. “That boy,” she used to say, “is a veritable Adonis.”’

  ‘Does Athena know?’

  ‘No, of course she doesn't. Why should she ever be told? Edgar's her father. He always has been. It's odd, I haven't thought about it all for years. In fact, I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you now.’

  ‘Loveday.’

  ‘Of course. Justifying my actions. History repeating itself. Another hateful war, and a baby on the way, and the constant man one turns to. One's friend.’ She drank some of her coffee. ‘I've never told anyone else.’

  ‘I would never breathe a word.’

  ‘Darling, I know you wouldn't. What I'm trying to say is, Edgar is my life.’

  ‘I know.’

  They fell silent. Judith thought about Tommy Mortimer, and the enigma of his close relationship with Diana that she had never totally understood. But now, knowing the truth, completely understood. Edgar is my life. But he was older, set in his ways, a countryman through and through. Diana had lost her love, but never her youth. She had always needed that extra dimension, London, and concerts and parties and shopping and clothes. And lunch at the Ritz. Tommy Mortimer had been the key to that other world.

  ‘Darling, what are you looking so broody about?’

  ‘I was thinking about Tommy Mortimer.’

  ‘He was never my lover.’

  ‘I wasn't thinking that.’

  ‘He's not that sort of man. I don't mean that he's queer. Just comfortably sexless.’

  ‘When I first came to Nancherrow, and he was there…I couldn't work it out.’

  ‘Oh, darling, did you think Edgar should fling him from the front door?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘He was never a threat. Edgar knew that. Just a person I needed. And Edgar let me have him. Because he is the dearest, most generous man in the world. And has made me so happy. You see, it really worked for me. That's why I thought it was right for Loveday.’

  ‘Diana, it was Loveday's decision. Not yours.’

  At this moment, perhaps fortuitously, they were interrupted. From the front of the house, a door slammed, and then, ‘Judith!’

  Judith raised her voice. ‘I'm in the kitchen.’

  ‘Jess,’ said Diana. ‘How awful, I'd totally forgotten she was here.’ And they were laughing about this when the door burst open and Jess appeared, looking fairly tousled and cobwebby, but loud with satisfaction.

  ‘I've done it all, but I need some stuff to clean the windows.’ She caught sight of Diana, and hesitated. ‘I…I'm sorry. I didn't kn
ow you were here.’

  ‘Oh, darling Jess, don't be sorry. Just dropped in to bring some eggs and veggies. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Cleaning the Hut. It was filled with cobwebs and dead bluebottles and things, but I swept them all away. And there were two dead mice on the floor. We really ought to have a cat. Have we got any stuff for cleaning windows?’

  ‘I don't know. I'll look in a moment.’

  Diana smiled. ‘Isn't it the dearest little house? It was built for my children, Athena and Edward, and they used to spend hours, days, weeks there. Camping out and cooking terrible smelly sausages.’

  ‘When the summer comes, I'm going to sleep out there. All the time.’

  ‘Won't you be lonely?’

  ‘I shall take Morag with me for company.’

  ‘Do you want some coffee?’ Judith asked.

  Jess wrinkled her nose. ‘Not much.’

  ‘Have a mug of milk, then. And a biscuit or something.’

  ‘I want to get the windows cleaned.’

  ‘Five minutes for a fattening snack, and then you can go and get on with your dusting.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  ‘The milk's in the fridge, and the biscuits are in the tin. Help yourself.’

  Jess went over to the refrigerator and took out the milk bottle. She said, ‘Did you ring St Ursula's?’

  ‘Yes, and we've got an appointment with Miss Catto tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don't have to start right away, do I?’

  ‘No. But maybe at half-term.’

  ‘When's half-term?’

  ‘About the fifth of November.’

  Diana said, ‘Guy Fawkes Day.’

  Jess frowned. ‘What's Guy Fawkes Day?’

  ‘It's the most bestial celebration of a ghastly event, and we burn an effigy of poor Guy Fawkes on the bonfire. And let off fireworks and generally behave like a lot of heathens.’

  ‘It sounds rather fun.’

  ‘Are you going to be a day-girl or a boarder?’

  Jess gave one of her elaborate shrugs. ‘No idea.’ She took a mug off the dresser and poured her milk.

  Judith said, ‘Day-girl would be nicest, perhaps, but there's the question of transport and petrol. The buses are hopeless. Perhaps a weekly boarder. Whatever. We'll just have to see.’

  Jess had wrestled open the biscuit tin and found two Rich Teas. Eating the first, she came to lean against Judith's shoulder. She said, ‘Judith, I wish you'd look and see if you can find something for me to clean the windows with.’

  ‘…it all rather depends,’ said Miss Catto, ‘on how well Jess was grounded at her school in Singapore. How old was she, when she left?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘And no sort of schooling since?’

  ‘Not formal teaching. But the Dutch women in the camp were mostly the wives of tea-planters, and so educated and cultured. They did start classes for the children, but the Japanese took all their books away. So they were reduced to story-telling, and general knowledge and learning songs. They even managed a concert or two. One of the boys made Jess a recorder out of a bit of bamboo.’

  Miss Catto shook her head. She said sadly, ‘It's almost impossible to imagine.’

  They sat in Miss Catto's study, venue for so many important and vital occasions. Here Miss Catto had broken the news to Judith about Aunt Louise's fatal car accident. And it was in this room that Mr Baines had told her about Aunt Louise's legacy, and Judith's life had been changed and enriched ever since.

  It was now four o'clock in the afternoon. St Ursula's was strangely silent. At three, lessons had finished and all the girls trooped out of doors and up to the games field, there to gallop about on the muddy hockey pitches, or play netball. Only one or two senior girls remained behind, to study in the library, or practise the piano or the violin. From far off could be heard the faint sounds of scales being repeated over and over again.

  As far as outward appearances were concerned, St Ursula's had changed, and not for the better. The war years had left their mark; they had been years during which Miss Catto had battled on, in charge of not one school, but two, somehow dealing with the pressing and endless problems of insufficient space, meagrely rationed food, black-outs, air-raid warnings, a semi-qualified or elderly staff, and the very minimum of domestic and outdoor help.

  As a result, everything bore visible scars. The grounds, if not exactly overgrown, bore no resemblance to the immaculately ordered gardens of yesteryear, and from the window of Miss Catto's study could be seen the six hideous Nissen huts that had been built on what used to be the tennis and croquet lawns.

  Even Miss Catto's neat little study looked a bit battered, with papers piled upon her desk, and an old electric kettle sitting in the empty grate. The curtains (which Judith recognised) were quite obviously on their last legs, the pretty loose covers faded and holey, and the carpet threadbare and worn.

  Miss Catto hadn't come out of it all that well either. Still in her forties, she looked a good deal older. Her hair was now quite grey, and there were lines on her forehead and around her mouth. But she still wore that aura of quiet competence, and her eyes were just the same, wise and kindly, and bright with intelligence and humour. Judith, after an hour in her company, had not a single reservation about handing Jess over into her care.

  ‘I think perhaps we'd better start her off in the lower fourth. She'll be with a group of girls a year younger than she is, but they're a particularly nice lot, and I don't want her to be struggling with lessons and perhaps losing confidence.’

  ‘I think she's bright. If she's encouraged, I don't expect it will take her too long to catch up.’

  Jess, clearly, had taken to Miss Catto. At first, a bit overawed and nervous, she had answered Miss Catto's questions with no more than monosyllables, but it hadn't taken long for her to relax and lose her shyness, and after that the formal interview had turned into a chatty conversation, with lots of laughs. After a bit, there had come a knock on the door, and one of the senior girls presented herself and said that she had come to show Jess around the school. This girl wore a grey flannel skirt and a bright-blue pullover, thick white socks, and a pair of scuffed leather saddle shoes. Judith thought that she looked a great deal more attractive than she and Loveday at the same age, bundled as they had been into shapeless green tweed and brown lisle stockings.

  ‘Thank you, Elizabeth, that's very kind. I think half an hour? That should give you plenty of time. And remember to show Jess the dormitories and the gymnasium, and the music rooms.’

  ‘Yes, I will, Miss Catto.’ She had smiled, ‘Come on, Jess.’

  They had not yet returned.

  ‘…has she any languages?’

  ‘I think a little basic French. But she's probably forgotten it all by now.’

  ‘Maybe some extra coaching. But we don't want to overload the child. So, down to basics. When do you want her to start?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I would suggest as soon as possible. After half-term, maybe. That's the sixth of November.’

  It seemed terribly soon. ‘Could we discuss it with Jess? I want her to be part of it all. Feel she's making her own decisions.’

  ‘You are perfectly right. We'll have a committee meeting, the three of us, when she comes back. And is she going to be a day-girl or a boarder? She could be a weekly boarder if she wanted, but it's not an arrangement that I often recommend. It can be very disrupting, particularly if the child's circumstances are a little unusual. But, again, it's entirely up to you and Jess.’

  ‘I don't think she can be a day-girl. It's not possible, with so little petrol and so few buses.’

  ‘A boarder then? We'll talk about it. I am sure, when she has finished her little tour, she'll be reassured and realise that she's not going to be incarcerated in another terrible prison camp.’

  ‘I suppose we'll have to have a clothes list???
?

  Miss Catto smiled. ‘You'll be delighted to know that it has been considerably reduced. Scarcely covers a single page nowadays. Rules and regulations have had to go by the board. I sometimes think we were terribly old fashioned, positively Victorian, before the war. As it is, I love to see the girls all going about in their own cheerful clothes. Children should never be homogenised. Now, each one is very much her own person, and instantly recognisable.’ Across the desk, they looked at each other. ‘I promise you, my dear, that I will do my best to make sure that Jess is happy.’

  ‘I know you will.’

  ‘And you, Judith? How are you?’

  ‘I'm all right.’

  ‘And your life?’

  ‘I never got to University.’

  ‘I know. I know all about you, because I see Mr Baines from time to time, and he fills me in on your news. I was truly devastated about your mother and father, but at least you still have Jess. And, what is more, are able to make a home for her.’ She smiled. ‘But don't get bogged down in domesticity, Judith. You have too good a brain for that, too bright a future.’

  ‘I couldn't go to University now.’

  Miss Catto sighed. ‘No. I don't suppose you could. It would be a sort of regression. Never mind. We had a good try…Have you seen Loveday Carey-Lewis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she happy?’

  ‘She seems to be.’

  ‘I could never quite make up my mind what was going to become of Loveday. Usually I can gauge the pattern, the direction of a child's life; have some idea of how she will fare once she's left her school-days behind. But not Loveday. It was either euphoria or disaster, and I could never make up my mind which.’

  Judith considered this. ‘Perhaps half-way in between?’

  Miss Catto laughed. ‘Fair enough. Now, how about a cup of tea? Jess will be back in a moment, and I've got a few chocolate biscuits for her.’ She rose to her feet, hitching her tattered black gown up onto her shoulders. ‘The days of parlourmaids and tea-trays are long gone. So I boil my own kettle, and do very nicely for myself.’