Softly Grow the Poppies (36 page)

He hammered on the door with his fists, screaming to be let in, for even now the men, the fat man and the grey lady might be hot on his heels. Inside Dolly screeched, Peggy, the new kitchen maid, dropped the saucepan she was scrubbing with a great clatter and Maggie reached for the back of a chair and clung to it.

‘Shall us open t’door, Miss Davenport?’ Martha quavered.

‘We don’t know who it is, lass. It might be—’ And outside Will began to scream until his throat was raw. The whole household could hear him and the men in the rooms above the stables threw aside the playing cards and clattered down the outside stairs. The horses were plunging and rearing and Ned shouted to Eddie or anybody to calm them down.

Harry and his demented wife, still in the wisp of a nightgown Harry liked her to wear, burst into the kitchen. ‘What the devil . . .’ he began and without waiting to calm the servants he drew back the bolts and flung open the door.

The little boy was on his knees now, his screams turning into whimpers.

‘Will,’ whispered Harry, dazed, for they had thought him dead. The child on the doorstep was barely recognisable. Harry scooped him up and stepped back into the warm kitchen where the women began to moan. Rose was paralysed with shock, white-faced, white-lipped, trembling with horror, but at the same time a great bubble of joy worked its way up her body and like them all she began to weep at the wonder of it.

‘Master Will . . . chuck . . .’ Dolly managed to squeak and the boy squirmed from Harry’s arms, stumbled across the kitchen and flung himself at her. He crept on to her lap, her arms came round him and like a newly born babe he put his face in her breast, that which had comforted him so many times in his babyhood and the short boyhood he had known. His thumb went into his mouth and he cuddled himself into the love and safety of her arms.

The men crowded at the back door, Tom from his cosy kitchen and the fire where he read his
Echo
and behind him was Nessie in a warm and respectable dressing gown.

They were all speechless, none of them knowing what to say except Dolly, even at this momentous event in their lives. ‘Go and put summat decent on, our Rose.’ Jossy was eyeing his mistress who might have been naked for all the good the nightdress did. Then Dolly turned to the men and, unlike her, for she detested swearing, told them, ‘And you lot can bugger off an’ all. You’ll be told in the morning what’s happened to our little lad and who’s to blame. Bye, if I could get me hands on ’im I’d bloody strangle ’im wi’ me bare hands.’ She kissed the boy’s curls and then began to sing to him the lullaby she had when he was a baby.

‘Dolly, you sweared,’ the boy said sleepily round his thumb and they realised that this was their boy home again and they could not control their joyous tears.

Harry was stern, though his own face was still wet with tears. ‘You had best all go to your beds. Leave Will with Dolly. He’s where he wants and needs to be.’ He wanted to question Will but he knew this was not the right time.

‘I’m stayin’ wi’ Dolly,’ Nessie said firmly. ‘We could do with a cup of tea, me an’ Dolly, so off you go, all of you. You too, Tom.’ She placed a kiss on her husband’s cheek and shooed them all off.

‘You’ll bolt this door, lass, when us’ve gone, won’t you?’

‘Yes, love’. And after doing so the kitchen was empty of everyone but Dolly and her and the boy who, for the first time in six months, fell into a deep and untroubled sleep

They lay in one another’s arms, Rose still sniffing and wiping away the occasional tear.

‘Oh, Harry, oh, Harry, oh, Harry,’ she kept on saying. Before they cuddled into their bed they had checked on their own beautiful child. Rose whispered, did Harry not think her cot should be lifted into their room? As though afraid that what had happened to Will – whatever that might be – might happen to Poppy. Polly was in her bed but she was awake, ready, should it be needed, to give her life for the small being in her charge and Harry was pleasantly surprised that, being young and with a longing to know what was going on downstairs, she had not left Poppy on her own.

‘Everything is marvellous, Polly dear,’ Miss Rose said to her. ‘Master Will has come home. You’ll hear all about it in the morning,’ turning once more to gaze at the baby in the cot. ‘Now get some sleep. Will is with Dolly but – Polly dear, you will be shocked when you see him. He . . . he has been ill-treated, but those of us who love him must restore him to the Will we know and love. We’ll go now and tomorrow we will find out what has happened to him, who has done this terrible thing to him. Now go back to sleep and when Poppy wakes bring her straight to us.’

But when tomorrow came and the next day and the one after that it seemed the terrifying experience that their Will had suffered had changed the cheerful boy they had known irrevocably. He was bathed by Dolly and the scratches that the brambles and the rough tree bark had made on his wild dash through the woods were soothed with comforting salve but it seemed the torment he had gone through would not let him be. He screamed in the night about a ‘grey lady’ who hit his hands with a ruler, which indeed were cracked and sore, and so his little bed was moved into Dolly’s bedroom in order that she would be there when he needed her.

‘Who is the “grey lady”, sweetheart?’ Rose asked him, gently trying to draw him on to her lap, for Dolly was showing the strain of her constant nursing.

‘Bad, she was bad, Rose,’ he began to whimper, then reached out for Dolly who it seemed was the only one who could comfort him.

Harry telephoned the inspector of police who said he would be right over to question the child, for kidnapping was a major criminal offence.

‘Inspector, I beg you to wait for a week or two. Will is in a dreadful state. He has been abused; no, no, not sexually. At least our doctor does not think so but I wanted to let you know he is back home with us. I’m letting the doctor see him again and he will let us know when he is up to being questioned and if . . . if . . .’

‘I understand, Sir Harry, and will wait to hear from you. The villains will be long gone after all this time. If the child remembers where he was we can take action.’

‘Thank you, Inspector,’ he replied and hung up.

Dolly was in her rocking-chair, gently rocking the badly traumatised child as though he were no older than the infant daughter of Rose and Harry. The boy’s thumb was firmly plugged into his mouth. The maids moved about the kitchen almost on tip-toe, speaking in whispers, afraid to alarm the pathetic little boy who had mischievously plagued the life out of them six months ago. Mrs Philips had made some almond biscuits especially for him because they had been his favourites but he turned his head away and shrank from her. They all wanted to weep for this terror-stricken child but when they heard the doctor’s voice in the hall once again they breathed a sigh of relief. He was a lovely man was Dr Standish and would soon sort out what was to be done with the severely damaged child.

But it was not the doctor who brought their Will back to them but the baby who Rose had brought down to the kitchen to fetch the bottle of milk that was warming on the stove. Poppy was doing well on the mixture of her mother’s breast and Mellin’s baby food and was halfway to being weaned. Rose wanted to help her husband on the vast estate that was Summer Place and chafed at being tied to the nursery.

Poppy noticed Will at once and staring into her mother’s face with that intensity babies have began to babble and point, then laughed as though she and her mother shared a huge joke.

Will stirred in Dolly’s arms and though he still clung to her with one hand he sat up and looked curiously at the baby. They all watched and waited, waited for they knew not what, but when Will spoke they wanted to hug each other for surely this was a start.

‘Who that?’ he asked, reverting to the baby talk of years ago.

‘She’s Poppy, darling,’ Rose said quietly. ‘She is my daughter and Harry is her father. We would like you to be her big brother. Would you like her to sit on your knee? No, no, you don’t need to leave Dolly’s lap but Dolly would like you
both
to sit on her knee. Is that all right, sweetheart?’

No one dared breathe and when Will, settling himself firmly on Dolly’s knee, held out his arms, Rose placed the laughing baby on his knee, hoping poor old Dolly could bear the weight of both of them.

‘Poppy,’ Will said and the baby chuckled and patted his cheek. Rose stayed close, ready to catch Poppy should Will drop her but he smiled down at her in wonder and then up at Rose. He clearly didn’t understand but he looked so kindly at the baby they all began to relax. Poppy waited for this new face to speak.

‘She my sister?’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘Rose and Harry her mama and papa?’

‘Yes.’

‘I got no mama and papa.’ Sadly.

‘Yes you have, Will. Harry and I are going to be your mama and papa and Poppy is your little sister to play with. Do you remember Polly who worked here in the kitchen?’

‘No?’ Then cringed back against Dolly as if expecting a blow for the wrong answer.

‘That’s all right, my love, Polly sleeps in the nursery with Poppy and you could sleep there, too. Would you like that?’

They stood like statues, the kitchen-maid, the housemaids, Mrs Philips, Nessie and Rose.

‘I never had no mama and papa,’ he said tearfully and they were choked with emotion, all of them. What he said was, they supposed, quite true. Charlie had been no more than a child himself and Miss Alice had run off with another man but Will had never lacked for love from them all. Now it seemed he was to be Miss Rose and Sir Harry’s son, so how was that to be achieved?

Dr Standish chose that moment to walk into the kitchen and he and Harry watched this miracle, for that was what it was. The baby and Will seemed to find each other fascinating so they both left quietly and made for the front door. James Standish was a compassionate man and he could see already that the boy was responding to the love that was being wrapped around him.

‘You intend to adopt the boy, Sir Harry?’ he asked tentatively.

‘We do, Doctor. Can you think of any reason why we shouldn’t?’

‘None. You’ll make a nice little family, sir, and if there is anything I can do to help or you feel the boy needs me you have only to telephone.’

‘I will find the bastard who did this to the boy, my brother’s boy, and I’ll give him the biggest hiding he has ever had in his life.’

‘I have one request, sir.’

‘What is that, Doctor?’

‘That I hold your coat while you do it.’

I
t became a familiar sight to see Will pushing the perambulator with Poppy chattering away to him and pointing to anything and everything that caught her attention. He seemed to know what she was saying, at least Polly who walked behind them thought so. Everyone noticed that Polly was very protective of both of them, following them round the garden and on most days into the stable yard where the men made a big fuss of them. Once upon a time Will had given the horses and his pony a lump of sugar on the flat of his palm as Eddie showed him but now he just kept his distance, for the animals came nuzzling their heads over the stable door looking to him for a treat and it alarmed him, as so many things did these days.

‘’Ere, Master Will, give ’em a bit of apple,’ Eddie said, but Will shook his head. The stable boys were saddened. Where was the vivid child who had driven them to distraction with his tricks?
That
Master Will wouldn’t have been seen dead pushing a perambulator!

They did not venture far from the house as the young dare-devil was not the boy he had once been. He was haunted by the ‘grey lady’ who often walked through his dreams or rather his nightmares, screaming for Rose or Harry, his mother and father as they had become. Poppy was his sister and he was astounded when Rose told him he would have another brother or sister very soon.

‘Can it be a brother, please, Rose . . . er, Mother?’ he pleaded.

‘Why, darling? Would you not like a little baby girl to play with? You and Poppy are great friends. She loves to roll on the floor with you and soon she will learn to walk.’

‘When, Mother?’

‘She is nine months old now so it should be soon.’

The solemn little boy considered this. ‘She can walk in the garden with me?’

‘Yes, and when she is old enough Father will get her a pony and Molly and you can ride out in—’

‘Oh no, no, no, Mother, please not outside. The grey lady might get her and hit her hands.’

Rose swept him into her arms and held him tightly, kissing him; it had begun to be clear to them that the grey lady was a monster who might never leave him. She rocked him and kissed him, telling him how much they loved him and that no one would ever hurt him again or take him away from them. And – with Sergeant Mark guarding and encouraging him – the little boy gradually gained more confidence.

In November 1921 Rose was delivered of another girl, a bonny girl who was the image of Will, the Summers strain coming through again. Harry and Charlie who had been brothers: Will, who was Charlie’s son and Harry’s nephew, had the same glossy dark curls, deep brown eyes as Poppy, the only difference between them being Poppy’s copper-golden hair and eyes the colour of a golden guinea like her mother.

Will was not best pleased since he had wanted a brother but they all thought it was a good sign: perhaps it meant that Will was regaining some of his spirit. He already had a sister who was placid, good-natured, ready to please everyone, and the games they played, watched over by Polly, were all of Will’s making. Poppy was walking now and the interest she took in the new baby was perfunctory since she loved Will, and followed him – when she could – wherever he went but never beyond the high walls that surrounded the well-kept gardens of Summer Place. Will’s pony grew fat in the lush pasture near the stable yard and Harry wondered if Will would ever ride her again.

But Eloise, or Elly as she was quickly named, soon made her requirements known and by her first birthday she ruled the nursery. Will, now seven years old, was annoyed by her wide and wicked smile and was amazed at the effect it had on everyone.