The House of Vandekar (21 page)

He was christened Richard Phillip. Beatrice had convinced herself that he was exactly like her dead son at that age, and Alice gave him the name to please her. She was silly and irritating, but helpless somehow. Adversity had robbed her of whatever solid strength she'd had. She clung to Alice in her sorrow over Hugo. Her one comfort was her grandchildren. She doted on Fern and was besotted by the baby boy.

They all were. Even Lily, who was inclined to be dour and overbrisk with little Fern, won both grandmothers' hearts by her devotion to the boy. He was lovely, she said, admiring him with Alice. Always smiling. Adding firmly, ‘Mr Hugo will be so pleased when he sees him. Make up for a lot, having a boy like that.'

Knowing her so well, Alice only said, ‘Yes, won't he,' and that was all they ever said. ‘He'll love you,' Alice assured her little son. ‘He'll be a wonderful father to you, and you'll make up to him for this awful thing, I know you will.' And she would kiss the downy head and hug him.

He was six months old when Hugo came back to Ashton. It was a stranger who walked through the door into the hall to be welcomed by his wife and family. Or rather limped, painfully and stiff-legged, with a stick. For a moment he and Alice looked at each other, but before she could move, Fern had rushed forward with a cry and flung her arms around his waist.

‘Darling,' Alice hurried to him. ‘Darling, welcome home!' She found Fern between them, holding tightly.

‘Alice,' he said, ‘how are you? There, darling, let Daddy and Mummy say hello …'

She embraced him; he embraced her. He didn't kiss her as he had kissed Fern. She quelled a pang of jealousy and disappointment. Didn't he know how hard she had worked to get him repatriated? Didn't he know how much anguish they had all felt for him? His mother, poor old thing, and Phoebe, who wouldn't go back home till he returned and was going towards him with that sweet smile of hers, saying, ‘Dear, dear Hugo, thank God you're safe home …' That damned child was still holding on to him, gripping one hand while he gave them all a brief embrace in turn.

‘Lily,' Alice commanded, and didn't realize the edge that had crept into her voice. ‘Bring Richard over here. Darling – this is your son.'

He had to accept him, she insisted. He had to see what a lovely child he was and believe that this was the baby he had begged her to have before he went away. Richard's future would depend upon it. He was the only father the boy would ever know. It seemed a long pause while Hugo looked at the child in Lily's arms. At last he said, ‘He's very like you, Alice. He'll be a good-looking chap when he grows up.'

She wanted to take the baby from Lily and say to Hugo, ‘Here, hold him,' but she didn't. ‘I think there's quite a look of you,' she replied. ‘Beatrice swears he's the image of Phillip when he was a baby. He was fair too, wasn't he?'

‘Only to start with,' Hugo answered. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say there is a look.'

Lily stepped forward. ‘Would you like to hold him, sir?'

He held the baby rather awkwardly. Richard gave a gurgling, infectious laugh. Hugo smiled briefly. ‘He is a nice little chap,' he said.

‘Daddy, Daddy …' That was Fern, tugging at his arm again. ‘I've made some lovely drawings for you; all specially coloured. Come and see them, please come …'

‘Of course I'll come.' He looked down at her and the smile became warm. ‘But not just yet. Alice, you'd better take the boy,' and he handed him back, which Alice knew was what Fern wanted.

‘It's good to be home,' he said. ‘You've kept everything going so well, Alice.'

They were alone at last. Dinner had been a strain, with Beatrice talking about Phillip and Fern trying to attract Hugo's attention. He had insisted she should stay up and join them. Phoebe didn't seem to notice anything; she was too kind-natured to see the hostilities behind the façade of his homecoming. But Alice, who had stripped the vegetable garden and used up the month's meat ration to provide a decent dinner, felt left out, almost ignored. For months now she had imagined his return. Dreading it sometimes, then anticipating it with hope of their making a new life together. She had changed so much – surely it would be easier for them to live together. They had the boy, there was a future. The war was going well. But Hugo was not the man who had left her. He was not the angry, hurt husband who had turned from her and found solace with another woman, the man so desperately in love he was prepared to beg for what was his by right. The husband who had gone off to the war, leaving a note for her when she woke up. ‘Thank you for making me so happy. I shall love you always.' That man had not come back.

After dinner they went to her sitting room. Several of the convalescents were sitting in the big hall, clustered around the wireless. They smiled at Alice, brightening when they saw her. They knew who the man was, walking on his artificial leg. Lucky sod, coming back to a wife like that …

Phoebe was the first to excuse herself. She bent over her son-in-law. ‘Good night, Hugo. I guess I'm a little tired. It's been such a happy day.'

Beatrice followed, taking the hint. Her eyes were moist when she embraced him. ‘Thank God I've got you left to me,' she said.

But Fern hung on and said, ‘Goodnight, Daddy,' and ‘Promise you'll see my drawings tomorrow,' until Alice was stung into impatience. ‘Come on, that's enough. It's long past your bedtime, so be a good girl and go right up to Miss Groves, will you?'

‘Yes, Mummy.' There was a look of reproach that made Alice feel she had been put into the wrong.

‘She's very pleased to have me back,' Hugo remarked.

‘We're all pleased,' Alice said, and Fern wasn't mentioned again.

‘It's good to be home,' he said again. He stretched in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position.

Alice saw him wince. ‘Does it still hurt?'

‘At times. It's not too bad. I'll get used to it in time, I expect. I'd forgotten what a charming room this is. Funny, all the good things one takes for granted. The civilized things, like a decent armchair to sit in and a drink in a glass that isn't a tin mug. Silly little details like that.'

He looked so weary that Alice said, ‘Darling, would you like a drink? Some of your good brandy. I had it brought up specially.'

‘That was thoughtful of you,' he said. ‘I think a nightcap would be very nice.'

She got up and poured him a generous measure. For a moment she warmed the balloon between her hands. ‘Thoughtful of you.' She could have been a stranger. It wasn't deliberate, she insisted. He had been so hurt himself, he had lost touch with the past.

She gave him the drink and sat close to him. ‘You've been through a terrible time, Hugo,' she said. ‘But try to realize that it's all over. You're home now, and I want to tell you I'm so happy and relieved. Darling, believe me.'

‘I do,' he answered. He sipped the brandy. ‘You've hardly changed at all. I used to imagine what you'd look like when I came back. Not that I thought I would. When that mine went up I remember thinking for one split second, this is it. But it wasn't, after all. Just a piece of my leg gone, that's all. Compared to what other people suffered, it wasn't much to bear. So many dead, that was the trouble.' He drank more deeply. He seemed to be talking to himself. ‘Not just our own, but so many Germans too. One dead man looks much like another. You forget who's the enemy. You think, Christ, how old was he? And the wounded in hospital. But you understand, don't you, Alice?' He turned and looked at her. ‘You've cared for men here who've been burned and mutilated and shocked to hell … What happened to Nicholas Armstrong in the end?'

It was as if he had suddenly bunched his fist and struck her.

‘He got better,' she said quietly. Her face had flamed with colour. ‘He went back to work for your friend James Wallace and was killed.'

‘I'm so sorry,' Hugo said. ‘You were very fond of him, weren't you?'

‘Yes, I suppose so. Why do you mention him, Hugo? Surely I wrote to you about him. He was your protégé, after all.' He knows, she thought. He knows about Nick. It's in his eyes when he looks at me. But, please God, not about the boy …

‘I heard afterwards that he became yours too,' he said. ‘Is there any more of that brandy? I'd get up myself but the bloody stump is rather rubbed after today.'

‘I'll get it,' she moved quickly, filled the glass a third full and took a deep swallow of it herself.

He said, ‘I've never seen you do that before. I thought you hated the stuff. You always said you did.'

‘I've changed my mind,' she answered. ‘Here.' She lit a cigarette. Time to think, to decide whether to take up the challenge and tell the truth if that was what he wanted. Or to let the moment slip. She couldn't do anything else. For Richard's sake. In this room, conceived here, with the door locked.

‘It's a small world, a war,' he said. ‘I shall be quite drunk if I down all this. You remember Dr Ferguson? The medic who was here in the early days?'

‘A red-haired Scot? Yes, I remember him. I got him thrown out.'

‘So he said,' Hugo remarked. ‘He turned up in the base hospital. Wasn't that an amazing coincidence? Very badly wounded. Been in an ambulance that got strafed. He heard who I was and started shouting at me. He was in the next bed, as it turned out. “Your bloody wife,” he said. “I wanted to put her boyfriend in the loony bin where he belonged …” He was quite off his head, of course. Babbling and yelling before he passed out. He died later on.'

‘Oh?' She felt quite calm now. No panic, just a slow anger coming to the surface. ‘Well, don't expect me to say I'm sorry. He behaved disgracefully. He brought the transfer on himself.'

‘I expect so,' he agreed. ‘Bad judge of character to cross you. I think I'll go to bed now. Can you take this? Thanks so much.'

Together they made the slow and, for him, painful progress up the stairs to their room. ‘When the war's over,' Alice said, ‘we'll get a lift put in.'

‘I won't need it by then,' he said. ‘It's just the first few months until you get used to these artificial things.'

Lily had done her best. She had culled flowers from the overgrown beds and arranged them on the dressing table. There was a fire burning, a wood fire, because there was no coal for domestic use. Their nightclothes were arranged on each side of the bed.

Hugo sat down heavily. ‘Do you want any help?' she asked him. ‘You know I don't mind.'

‘But I do,' he answered. ‘It's not very pretty when the limb comes off. Would you go into the bathroom until I call out? It won't take long.'

For a moment Alice weakened. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Hugo,' she began, ‘oh Hugo, I'm so terribly sorry …'

‘About what? My leg?'

‘About everything. I'll make it up to you, I promise.'

‘Don't worry about that,' he said. ‘You've always done your best. I'm glad about our boy. Fern needed a brother.'

Alice closed the bathroom door and leaned against it. ‘Our boy.' Thank God for that, at least. I'm sorry, Nick, my darling, but he must never, never know. He can think what he likes about you and me, but nothing must hurt Richard. Hugo would be merciless if he suspected that …

She heard him call and opened the door. He was already in bed. She came and climbed in beside him. The old, chill apprehension came on her, the fear that, even though disabled, he would want to touch her. He stretched out for the light. ‘I'm so tired,' he said. ‘So tired I could sleep for a year. Good night.'

The pattern of their life together was formed that night.

Hugo began calling the baby boy Richard Phillip. At times it seemed to Alice that he was clinging to the fancied resemblance to his dead brother, but she dismissed that as the prompting of her own guilty conscience. He paid dutiful visits to the nursery and said what a fine little chap he was, but the child never touched his heart. It was Fern he spent his time with, praising her drawings, teaching her to listen to the classical music he loved, winding the gramophone himself while she sat primly watching him. She was always watching him, willing him to notice her. She was bitterly jealous of her little brother, although she cooed and played with him when Hugo was there.

But Alice wasn't deceived. The hugs were a little too hearty and often the child began to cry. Once Alice surprised her in the nursery, pinching him savagely when she thought herself alone. Alice came up and pulled her away. She didn't say anything. She gave her a ringing box on the ears that sent her sprawling backwards on her bottom. Alice told the young nurserymaid that Fern was never to be left alone with the baby again.

Richard Phillip celebrated his third birthday in a world at peace. It was a small party, unlike the elaborate affairs organized for Fern when she was tiny. A few local children, no nannies in their smart uniforms. Not the big dining room, its long table spread with a dazzling white cloth, decorated with balloons from the chandelier and heaped with cakes, jellies and tiny sandwiches. An austerity party, Alice called it, making a joke of the meagre cake and teaparty food. A small gathering was held in the breakfast room, with Hugo and Fern and the two grandmothers, the neighbours' small tots of children propped up round the table. The little boy beamed his bright smile at everyone and tried to catch the candles on his cake instead of blowing them out.

Alice looked on with glowing pride. He was her treasure and her joy. She loved taking him round the grounds in Fern's huge old-fashioned perambulator, pointing out this and that to him, as Ashton slowly, very slowly, came back to life. But although the world was very diferent from the one when the war had broken out and she had given her extravagant ball to say farewell to peace, Hugo's fortune hadn't suffered. He was richer than ever. Supplies were difficult, labour impossibly short, but there was so much money at hand to overcome these difficulties that Alice's energy and determination were already working miracles. As she looked at her son she thought, next year it won't be like this. Next year you'll have a big party, like the ones Fern had, and more. And one day you'll have Ashton too. That always warmed her heart. The house she loved would pass to the human being she loved best in all the world. Nick's son.