The Children's Hour (11 page)

‘I thought it was Nest or Timmie,' Mina tells her. ‘They have this game of hiding before lunch . . . Are you feeling unwell, Mama?'

Lydia straightens, holding on to the back of the sofa. ‘No, no. Well, perhaps a little tired. The babies were crying again last night but it's not their fault, poor sweets.'

Her face is thin and there is so much pain in her eyes that Mina is shocked: this is more than sleepless nights and crying babies. She has never questioned Mama before but she senses a shift in their relationship that might allow a new kind of intimacy. ‘Was your letter . . .? I saw you reading it at breakfast. Did it have bad news?'

Mina's eyes are on a level with her own, her look is grave and compassionate, and Lydia longs quite desperately for the luxury of confession. She must trust someone and why not this, the dearest of her daughters?

‘It was from Timothy,' she whispers. ‘He is being sent on some secret mission. He can't speak of it . . . Only to let us know that he will be gone for some time.'

Her eyes blur with tears, her lips tremble, and Mina instinctively puts her arms about her mother as she might with Timmie or with Nest.

‘Oh, poor Mama. We shall all miss him, shan't we? Will we be able to say goodbye to him?'

Her innocent acceptance soothes Lydia's guilt and gives her courage. It is heaven merely to be able to speak his name aloud.

‘No, no,' she says. ‘He can't possibly get away but I'm glad to share it with you, Mina. I've been expecting it. He makes light of it, naturally, but it's dangerous, I know it is . . .' She hesitates, looking anxiously into those clear untroubled eyes. ‘Perhaps we shouldn't mention it to the others?'

‘Oh, no,' agrees Mina at once. ‘They wouldn't understand and the Tinies might be frightened.'

‘Yes,' says Lydia, weak with relief. ‘That's what I thought. It's a secret between you and me, my dear child.'

Mina, feeling proud and very grown-up, kisses her mother lightly on the cheek. ‘It's lunch-time,' she says. ‘Go and make yourself pretty whilst I get the children organized.'

She hurries away, so as to intercept the children coming in from the garden, and Lydia goes upstairs, comforted.

In the terraced house in Truro something unusual was taking place. The Bosun lay at the foot of the stairs in the narrow hall, nose on paws, but he was far from sleep. His eyes watched anxiously as his two humans paced the long room, which stretched from the front of the house to the back, and he listened uneasily to their voices. Dog he might be but he knew very well that an important note was missing; a note that conveyed happiness and affirmed that all was well. Each time either approached the open doorway his tail beat humbly upon the floor, his ears pricking hopefully; once or twice he sat up, in an attempt to deflect their attention, but neither noticed him. Their feet passed to and fro, marking angry tracks across the carpet, and the sour, unhappy scent filled him with misery. With a tiny whine he settled himself again, nose on paws, waiting, listening.

‘OK, so it's I who am in the wrong entirely. I am at fault for taking exception to your opening a letter addressed to me. That's the way of it, is it?'

‘Oh, for Heaven's
sake
.' Lyddie was trembling with anger and shock: Liam's reaction had been quite unexpectedly violent. ‘It was a mistake. So I didn't look carefully at the address. So big deal. We
do
have a joint account at this bank, remember. Anyway, why all the secrecy? We're married, after all. Is it really so terrible that I should open one of your letters by mistake?'

He stopped pacing, so as to stare at her, and she was struck by the realization that he was utterly unfamiliar to her; the flow of chemistry that connected and fused them into a special, unique entity had been switched off. Lyddie felt an odd combination of fright and loneliness.

‘So that's fine, then,' he said, ‘except, you see, that I don't believe that it was a mistake.'

Lyddie swallowed, looking away from his wholly unfriendly, penetrating stare. Unfortunately his suspicion was all too true. Liam's increasing edginess had begun to worry her to the extent that, when the letter arrived with the flap not quite stuck down, she'd given way to a terrible need to see what was happening at the bank. She was deeply ashamed of herself but, even so, had been quite unprepared for the scorching blast of Liam's fury.

‘The letter was
not
closed properly,' she answered evenly, sitting down at the table, crossing her arms beneath her breast, ‘and I hadn't looked to see to which of us it was addressed – there was quite a lot of post – but, yes, OK, when I realized that it was about The Place and not us, I looked anyway. I've been very worried about you and I thought you'd been trying to protect me from . . . whatever.'

He smiled, not a pleasant smile. ‘Ah, so you were worrying about me. What a devoted wife it is, imagine.'

Lyddie bit her lip, her cheeks burning. ‘It's very hard,' she told him, ‘to keep myself completely cut off from the
business you love so much and which supports us. It's . . . well, it's unnatural, can't you see that? You know all about
my
work and what I earn—'

‘And you know all about The Place. Mother of God, you're in there every day and treated like the Queen of Sheba! How can you say you're completely cut off from it?'

She uncrossed her arms, pleating her fingers together, trying to sort out her thoughts. ‘I'm treated like an honoured guest,' she agreed at last. ‘I know that – and I admit that I like it. Everyone enjoys feeling special and I'm no exception but, at the same time, I know even less about it than . . . than Rosie does.'

‘And what does Rosie know about anything?' he asked sharply.

She stared up at him, puzzled. ‘You know what I mean. She's . . .
involved
. OK, it's at a superficial level but it's more than I've got.'

‘I imagined that as my wife you wouldn't be concerned about what the barmaids think they know,' he answered stingingly.

‘I'm not. It's not
like
that. I don't want to work behind the bar or— Oh, let's stop this, can we?'

He raised his eyebrows, watching her. ‘I don't know. Can we?'

‘Oh, Liam, I'm truly sorry.' She controlled her longing to move towards him: his whole body language warned her off. ‘It was quite wrong to read your letter but you won't tell me anything. What would
you
do if you could tell something was worrying me but I wouldn't share it with you?'

‘I'd imagine that you were adult enough to have the right to your privacy and honour it accordingly.'

He might just as well have slapped her.

‘Yes,' she said on a deep, deep breath. ‘Well, there's no answer to that.'

‘And so now you know all about my problems how do you plan to lift the burden from my shoulders?'

She was silent, still smarting with embarrassment.

‘You see,' he continued after a moment or two, ‘it's not just me, is it? It's Joe. He might not like you knowing all his secrets too.'

‘But this wasn't to Joe, was it?' she replied miserably but determined to keep the record straight. ‘I imagine the company correspondence goes to The Place. This was to you, personally.'

‘So it was. But you read it anyway.'

‘Yes,' she said wearily. ‘I read it anyway and I know that you're going to increase the mortgage on this house.'

Silence. She looked at him, dark, saturnine and elegant, and was consumed with longing for him; it was utterly necessary to break down this barrier to their love.

‘Why?' she pleaded. ‘Why, Liam, when you know I can raise some money on the house in Iffley?' Her conversation with the Aunts and her subsequent resolution was so much dust and ashes now, in the face of his icy rejection. ‘Why won't you let me help you?'

‘I don't want to be “helped”.' He spoke the word with distaste. ‘I started this business and whether it stands or falls is up to me. Can you not understand that?'

‘Yes, yes, I can understand it. But don't I come into this at all? This house is yours but we share it now. Suppose you put it at risk by increasing the mortgage on it? It's my home too.'

‘So it is. But I shan't let you down. You'll have to learn to trust me.' A tiny pause; a light, very slight relaxation of his bunched muscles. ‘Do you find that impossible?'

‘No, of course not.' She felt too wretched to protest further; all she longed for was the old familiar harmony. ‘It's clear that The Place is a terrific success . . .' She hesitated, afraid of endangering the faint, very faint, warming of the arctic atmosphere between them. ‘I'm truly sorry, Liam . . .'

‘And so am I.' It wasn't clear whether he was referring to her misdemeanour or tendering an apology, but he touched her lightly on the head before moving swiftly to the door. ‘I've got an appointment in the town and I shall go straight on to The Place. See you later for supper, I expect.'

The door closed behind him: Lyddie sat quite still. It was terrible to be so much in love that almost nothing mattered except the beloved's kiss. She wrung her hands together, humiliated by the depth of her physical need for him, willing him to return, but only the Bosun appeared, padding gently, warily, to sit beside her, offering her the grateful, warming benefit of his love.

Later that afternoon, just as Jack and his family were assembling for tea, the telephone rang. With a resigned gesture he hurried away to his study whilst Hannah groaned with irritation. Her energetic vivacity kept her as slender at thirty-three as she'd been at twenty, and she was pretty and stylish in a sharp, up-to-the-minute way; it was as easy to imagine her in some smart city restaurant as it was to see how utterly content she was in the cluttered kitchen of this school house in the Dorsetshire countryside. Despite looking after Jack and their children, as well as eight small boys during term-time, she still managed to keep her own catering business in operation – although, at present, it consisted mainly of cooking for lunch parties and very special occasions. She was devoted to her children and adored Jack, who teased her, drove her mad with his refusal
to be organized, but panicked privately lest anything should happen to his three very special people. Hannah knew all about this very real terror, and his desire to protect them from anything harmful, and tried to steer a sensible path that embraced reasonable caution and natural development.

When he came back into the kitchen he looked pre-occupied but he smiled at Toby across the table and slid into the seat beside his daughter's high chair.

‘Who was it?' demanded Hannah, ‘and
why
does the telephone ring the moment we all sit down at the table together? There's a conspiracy out there.'

‘Honey,' said Flora. ‘
Not
jam. No, no, no . . .'

‘Is there some resonance about the word “no”,' mused her father, moving the honey-pot with a practised thrust beyond Flora's sticky reach, ‘which lends itself to the childish imagination? Why not “yes” or “please”? Wasn't “no” the first word our darling daughter uttered? Not “Mum-mum-mum” or “Dad-dad-dad”, as I once understood was usually the case, but “No”.'

‘Actually,' answered Hannah, putting Marmite soldiers on Toby's plate, ‘it was “Bog off!” courtesy of young Jackson.'

Toby made round eyes and mouthed ‘Bog off!' at his father, who winked back at him.

‘What a lovely boy he was,' he said, with a reminiscent sigh. ‘We owed so much to him by the time he went.'

‘Yes,' agreed Hannah grimly. ‘Tobes's vocabulary was startlingly improved. OK, Flora, if you don't want it I shall give it to Caligula.'

Flora stared down at the enormous, predatory tabby cat they'd inherited from the former history master, and sniffed pathetically, eyes wet with frustrated tears. Toby watched sympathetically, instinctively knowing that her enormous
pride needed some kind of assuaging before she could back down.

‘It's new jam,' he told her encouragingly. ‘Not the old one. It's really, really nice.'

Flora's lower lip resumed its normal size and her arched limbs relaxed a little. She allowed, grudgingly, a tiny portion of bread and jam to be inserted into her mouth. When none of it reappeared her parents breathed deeply and smiled at each other, as if some great object had been achieved.

‘Tobes is destined for the Diplomatic Corps,' observed Jack, ‘if we've still got one in twenty years' time.'

‘Possibly,' agreed Hannah, ‘but who was it on the phone?'

‘Oh yes!' Remembering, Jack's face fell. ‘It was Lyddie. She can't get over to see us after all.'

‘Oh, no!' Hannah put down her mug of tea and stared at him in disappointment. ‘Why on earth not?'

He hesitated. ‘I'm not absolutely sure. She sounded really down but she insisted she was OK. Just said that everything was a bit on top of her and she couldn't get away.'

‘Rats!' said Hannah crossly. ‘I was really looking forward to it. We all were.'

‘I wanted to show her how I could ride my new bicycle,' said Toby sadly. ‘And I'd done a picture.'

‘And Flora wanted to show off her new word,' said Jack, trying to raise their spirits a little. ‘Didn't you, my darling?'

Flora scowled at him, cheeks bulging, crammed with bread and jam, and he grinned back at her.

‘What new word?' asked Toby, interested.

‘Jack!' warned Hannah. ‘That will do. It's not like Lyddie to stand us up. Are you sure she's OK?'

‘Not really,' admitted Jack. ‘I couldn't get anything out of her, though. The good news is that she's agreed to drive over to Ottercombe when we go on Saturday. She wants to
see the Aunts and I've made her promise, otherwise I've said we'll set Flora on her.'