The Innocents (7 page)

Not so long since, she'd have been frightened to the point of vomiting. Now she squirmed against me not in fear but in pleasure, and I could put her into bed, and go to bed myself, confident of a good night's sleep for us both.

As the war ended some of our pretty young wives (the lucky ones) welcomed back husbands safe and sound and moved away with them. Others were less lucky; but there was no such Spring-tide of mourning as I remembered in 1918. One husband who came back and stayed amongst us was Peter Amory, so disabled that to get his wife with child again from a wheelchair was another triumph of light over dark, over war and all that is against life, and I believe it was for this rather than for his medals the village regarded him as a hero.

6

Though Cecilia had connections, so evidently had many another impatient passenger, with civil airlines. The first Christmas of peace passed, then the New Year; it was spring again before she was able to set a date for seeking her only consolation—and even that not entirely firm. (“
If only my darling Rab were still alive!”
wrote Cecilia; by which I hoped she was realizing how much she owed him all round.) However I still felt it my duty to introduce into Antoinette's mind the notion that the war, of which she knew nothing, was over, and that a mother, of whom she had no more conception, was coming back to reclaim her.

I forced myself to make several attempts.—I say forced, because the notion of any change whatever (even from rice to tapioca, from cocoa to chocolate) so upset her; and indeed after a third attempt to introduce the prospect of a new mode of life altogether, she and I were so equally distressed, I cowardly gave up and leaned simply on the creed of blood calling to blood, as warranted by the Elizabethan dramatists.

Obviously Cecilia had connections of some sort; a good deal sooner than might have been expected, first by cable, then by telegram from London, then by word of mouth from Woolmers, I knew to expect Cecilia next afternoon.

As I have said, it was for mid-April cool but not cold, showery rather than rainy, and with that peculiarly autumnal tang in the air.

PART TWO

6

1

We were quite a little reception committee to welcome her, as her car drew up outside the guest-house. I was there of course; the Vicar and his wife, who had been having tea with the Admiral, brought him out too, and several lesser lights happened to be passing by.—Any cable or telegram is naturally common, or rather uncommon news in our village, moreover Woolmers has the advantage (from the village point of view), of no drive; all the garden lying behind, the front door opens directly on the road, which makes it easy to keep a check on comings and goings. As interested spectators I noticed Mrs. Page representing the Mothers' Union, Miss Holmes the Women's Institute, and Mrs. Cook of the fish-and-chips representing trade.

It is often rash of a beauty to return, even after no more than a few years' absence, to her beauty's cradle. Beautiful women who move much about the world enjoy a constantly renewed meed of admiration, as heads turn in restaurants, on a promenade-deck, at spa or fashionable watering-place; but the time comes when heads no longer turn; whereas a beauty who stays at home may keep her reputation as such in the face of all contrary evidence. The first time Cecilia came back she was thirty-four: now she was almost forty, and such an interval often makes all the difference to a woman's looks. But however overdriven on behalf of Bundles for Britain, no such considerations need have troubled Cecilia: a beauty she left us, and a beauty she returned.

Her bare head, the hair a little darker, shone like a ripe chestnut; her complexion, a little paler, but slightly tanned—it transpired she had come via Bermuda—instead of cream-and-roses was an even lovelier cream-and-honey. As she stepped from the car and stood smiling before us in her big traveling-coat of violet-coloured wool, Mrs. Page, and Miss Holmes and Mrs. Cook, and the Gibsons and the Admiral, we all, there is no other word, feasted our eyes …

But Cecilia had eyes only for myself. Absolutely ignoring everyone else—

“Where's Tony?” she cried. “Where's my darling daughter?”

I explained I'd left Antoinette at home, thinking it better they should meet first by themselves; whereupon Cecilia instantly kissed me—her cheek smelled of gardenias—and drew me with her back into the car to drive the quarter of a mile farther. As I hadn't remembered Rab Guthrie so silent, no more did I now remember Cecilia so affectionate. However she was naturally happy and excited.

I suppose we were in the car no more than two or three minutes, but they were filled to overflowing with delightful impressions. She emanated an aura of vitality and luxury of which we had been as long deprived as we had of French scent, and which equally refreshed.—A fold of thick, soft, violet-coloured tweed lapping over my mackintosh, I could hardly refrain from fingering what I knew would be soft, springy texture of cloth undoubtedly woven in Scotland, but for years For Export Only. I have described the colour as violet, but there were all the tints of heather in it. It was more a rosy lavender and in the folds purple. I still do not find it absurd that I took such pleasure in a mere patch of cloth; and at the moment (drawing in the scent of gardenias as well), suddenly remembered a child in a marquee wide-eyed as at the kiss of a fairy princess; and felt it was perhaps like a fairy godmother Cecilia came back for Antoinette.

2

As we entered my sitting-room Mrs. Brewer, who I saw had been letting Antoinette help her shell peas, tactfully withdrew—or rather scuttled out. (I appreciated the effort it must have cost her; she scuttled sidelong, crabwise, her eyes—like a crab's almost on stalks.) Cecilia too showed great tact. She didn't swoop to press Antoinette to her bosom. She just stood tall and beautiful and smelling of gardenias as the child stared up at her, and said, “Hi, my darling!” It was I who made a fool of myself.

For the Elizabethan dramatists proved broken reeds. Naturally, in this case, the mother (Cecilia) knew the child; but the child Antoinette merely stared as at a complete stranger, also remained completely mute.—Thinking back, I realized that even had she pronounced her one complete sentence—
“Hello, in my rucksack I have pepper, vermin and a tureen”
—Cecilia might have been less impressed than disconcerted. At the moment I realized only that something had to be said, and so made a fool of myself.

“Look, Antoinette,” said I, “here's your pretty mummy!”

Ready as I was to envisage Cecilia as a fairy godmother, even in my own ears the words rang false. Antoinette shifted her gaze to direct it upon me instead. I had never seen her give such an intelligent, searching look. Alas, it was also suspicious. Hitherto I'd never spoken a word to Antoinette she couldn't absolutely believe in; that she as often as not judged by tone rather than sense possibly helped her now to detect a falsity. She looked at me with—suspicion.

“And see what I've brought you!” exclaimed Cecilia.

It was a pretty thing indeed she produced from her big crocodile leather purse—another, littler purse, of pink silk embroidered with daisies, on a slim gilt chain. It was quite beautifully made, and obviously expensive, and to most little girls would no doubt have been a thing of joy. Antoinette regarded it without interest.

“And what will you give me, for this pretty thing?” enticed Cecilia.

Of course most children of eight are sophisticated in Forfeits, but it was still too difficult a game for Antoinette. She remained mute.

“A kiss?” suggested Cecilia, leaning with her hand outstretched in the very attitude I remembered so well. She had lost not a whit of her old grace! But Antoinette stood pat.

“She's shy,” Cecilia told me. “Take it for free, honey!”

With which she put the purse into Antoinette's hands; who turned and took it out into the garden.

I thought Cecilia acted wonderfully well. She just laughed and shrugged her shoulders as amiably as possible. She didn't stay many minutes, even, longer; she was naturally tired, and when she said she meant to bribe the chambermaid at Woolmers to bring her dinner in bed, I didn't blame her.

“Though I'd intended to grab Tony straightaway!” she regretted. “It's what I've been promising myself! But perhaps not just to-night, would you say?”

Indeed I would, and we left it that she should instead return for Antoinette in the morning.

“When I'll tell you all my wonderful plans for her!” added Cecilia gaily.

As soon as she was gone I went out into the garden myself, but the child was nowhere to be seen. I looked in all her favourite haunts, such as up in the thicket and under the artichokes; no Antoinette. Of course she had her own ways of getting back into the house: where I found her at last was under her cot.

Her confidence in myself was restored soon enough. I persuaded her out into the garden again (where she was always most at ease), and let her squat or wander about, and repeated all our familiar rhymes, until a much later bedtime than usual. Thus I asked Antoinette's forgiveness, as I am quite sure she understood, though she remained grave and as it were judicious; she was sorry for me because I'd done something wrong; and if it seems absurd to attribute any such feelings to an innocent, I can only say that so it was, and that she forgave me because she was sorry for me. Properly (however belatedly) in bed after the Lord's Prayer she chimed in with vermin just as usual. Her confidence, as I say, was restored; which made it all the more difficult when I talked to Cecilia again next morning.

I was still hoping for a fairy godmother. If Antoinette had shown nothing but suspicion, who but myself was to blame, for having flinched before my duty of preparation? Might not Cinderella too, thought I, in the first moment of surprise, have taken the Good Fairy for a witch? But to turn rats into coach-horses is quite a different thing from turning them into psychiatrists.

7

1

Darling, what you've done for my infant I'll never, never be able to repay!” opened Cecilia warmly. “If it hadn't been
you
she was with I'd have just had to swim the Atlantic! But I always knew she couldn't be in better hands; and so did her father.”

I said I was very happy to hear it.—We were by ourselves; I had let Antoinette go with Mrs. Brewer to see the Brewer rabbits, which though she'd seen scores of times already were perennially interesting to her. I felt it better that a conversation I foresaw as being important should be uninterrupted.

“And Mr. Hancock,” added Cecilia—I thought not quite tactfully; it reminded me that despite Rab Guthrie's high opinion I had nonetheless been so to speak inspected …

“But now,” went on Cecilia, looking more serious, “there must obviously be changes.
Physically
she looks wonderful—much, much
sturdier!
—and of course that's half the battle.”

I could only imagine Cecilia had forgotten what her daughter looked like. Antoinette was always sturdy. However the implication that there was another half of the battle still to be won was entirely just, and I felt relieved that Cecilia seemed to show so much awareness. But when she added, almost in parenthesis, that her immediate plan was to take Antoinette straight back to New York by air, I was simply appalled.

Though I suppose I should have been prepared for this, I was not. As I told Mr. Hancock, and it was still true, Antoinette had never been even on a bus; such a transit as was now proposed, unless after long preparation, and then constant familiar reassurance
en route
, might well prove disastrous. That she would have her mother with her made no iota of difference, in view of the painful fact that her mother was still a total stranger.

So I saw that I'd have to speak plainly to Cecilia even sooner than I'd intended; only at that moment she jumped up and demanded to be shown where her babe had been sleeping. She'd tried so hard to picture it, she said, just as she'd tried so hard to picture every single minute of the day what Tony was doing at the same moment.—The time-lag between England and New York being I understand some five hours, I saw that indeed it must have been difficult, especially when Antoinette went to bed—in New York about midnight, plump in the middle of a Bundles for Britain Gala. I made no comment, however, and showed Cecilia upstairs. It was quite a pleasure to follow at her beautiful skirts of honey-coloured cashmere! But without her big traveling coat one saw that from being slender she had grown very thin, almost angular; so perhaps organizing galas was harder work than I'd imagined.

At the sight of Antoinette's cot extended by a piano-seat she appeared so appalled, I was only glad she hadn't been able to picture it. Personally I had grown too used to the contrivance even to notice it as such, but I dare say to Cecilia it looked like some makeshift in a slum.

“I could easily have got something bigger,” I hastened to explain. “In fact, I once did; but Antoinette's very fond of her cot.”

At that Cecilia smiled tolerantly.

“Such a babe, she was fond of Bridget too!—the Irish girl we had before Miss Swanson …”

“Miss Swanson who was so completely qualified?” asked I.

“Well, of course,” said Cecilia. “She cost the earth, but she was worth it.—Who told you about her?”

“You did,” said I. “That is, you mentioned her, the first time I saw Antoinette.”

“What a memory!” exclaimed Cecilia. “Look, why not let's go down again, and I'll beg a coffee?”

She was very restless. It was a sort of interruption to our talk I hadn't bargained for.—Happening to glance out of the window, I moreover saw Antoinette and Mrs. Brewer prematurely returning. But I felt fairly sure Mrs. Brewer wouldn't bring the child indoors, and having really no option in any case took Cecilia back to the sitting-room.