The Silent Tide (44 page)

Major Michael Wood lingered on for many days in the grey lands between life and death, but the brain damage he’d sustained from his head injury was severe and he never regained consciousness. On the very day that Hugh’s mother was buried next to her husband in the graveyard of the parish church came the news that Jacqueline was now a widow.

Isabel

Christmas Day 1952 dawned in a doleful manner.

It didn’t even feel like Christmas, Isabel thought, turning from the window. Outside, a squally wind blew off the estuary and the sky was gunmetal grey. Hugh, to keep up his mother’s tradition, had gone to morning service, but Lorna was fretful and full of cold, so Isabel stayed behind with her. Having got the child off to sleep again, she was glad of the time alone in the house.

Jacqueline and her father, a retired country solicitor, whom Isabel had only met for the first time at the funeral, were expected to lunch. Fortunately, Mrs Catchpole and Lily had worked efficiently during the preceding days, preparing a brace of pheasants and several pans of vegetables as well as laying the dining-room table, so there wasn’t very much Isabel had to do. She had a moment ago placed the birds in the oven, as Mrs Catchpole had shown her, and parboiled the potatoes ready to roast. She needn’t rescue the pudding from the steamer for another hour. She could use this brief respite to open a parcel that had arrived from her mother.

She went to fetch it from where she’d left it, under the big Christmas tree in the drawing room amongst a small number of other packages – mostly presents for Lorna. She wanted to open it alone because she had some premonition about it. A bigger parcel had already arrived from the Barbers addressed to Hugh, Lorna and Isabel, so there must be something special about this extra one. She had to fetch her scissors to cut the old bits of knotted string.

The brown paper fell away and she found herself holding a square shallow box covered in black velvet. There was an envelope too, addressed merely to ‘Isabel’ in rather untidy italics. She opened the box and stared at the pearl necklace that lay there, its three strands shimmering in the winter light. It was beautiful, but dismay overcame her at what it meant. Her mother was giving her the most precious object she possessed, the only valuable thing that she had ever had from her own mother. Why was she giving it to Isabel? Why now, when it meant so much to her? Isabel remembered Pamela wearing it on only a very few occasions, her wedding to Hugh being the most recent. She took it out of the box and lifted it to the light, remembering how it had glowed around her mother’s neck. The fastening was lovely too, intricately wrought and inlaid with tiny diamonds. On an impulse she clipped it round her neck where it lay warm and heavy. Then she turned her attention to the letter.

There were several pages, written in pencil on cheap paper, and the address at the top was a surprise. It was a hospital ward – the same hospital where Pamela Barber had been admitted more than a year before, and where Isabel had visited her. She had a sudden picture of her mother lying in the bed, grey-faced and worn through.

Her first instinct was to refold the pages, so frightened was she to read what they contained, but then she steeled herself and started to decipher the straggling handwriting, so unlike her mother’s usual tidy italics.

My darling Izzy,

I expect you’ll be surprised to learn that I’m back in hospital again. I’m sorry not to have sent warning. I thought I wouldn’t need to come yet, but then it all happened quickly, you must ask your father about it. I’m afraid that the trouble I had last year returned in the summer, and I’m here for a few days for tests.

Forgive me if I’m not making much sense, darling, the medication they give me makes me stupid. I hope that you can read this. Your father is taking it and will post it with the necklace. I’m sure I will be with you for a long while yet, but I want you to have it now with all the love I have for you. You have always been very special to me, and are my eldest, and it seems right.

Penelope came to see me yesterday. It is the first time that we have talked properly for many years and we had so much to say to one another, I can’t tell you. Penelope is very fond of you, darling, and I’ve asked her to speak to you about a matter very close to both our hearts.

It’s very Christmassy in here. The nurses have seen to that with decorations and carol singing and the sweetest little Christmas tree. Your father is coming on Christmas Day with Lydia and the boys, and I’m sure we’ll have a very jolly time. We’ll think of you and Hugh and little Lorna with love. I hope that our parcel has arrived. There’s no need to rush to my bedside, I’m doing perfectly well, but when I get home after Christmas it would be lovely if you’d telephone.

With my deepest love, darling,

Your mother

Isabel sat for a long time after finishing this, trying to accommodate herself to all it contained. Her mother had not actually said as much, but the subtext was clear. She was very ill. Isabel’s first reaction was fury, fury at her parents for telling her nothing. She got up, went into the hall and dialled the number of their house. It rang and rang, but no one answered. Perhaps they were out at the hospital. She slowly replaced the receiver, then went upstairs to find her address book. She dialled Aunt Penelope’s number in London, but again there was no one.

When Hugh returned from church he found her lying on the sofa, clutching the letter and weeping. Upstairs, Lorna had awoken and begun to cry.

Jacqueline, when she arrived with her father, had to rescue the pheasants from burning. As might be imagined, Christmas dinner was a subdued affair. Little Lorna grumbled her way through, refusing all food, her eyes unnaturally bright.

‘Hadn’t you better put her back to bed?’ Hugh asked.

Isabel felt Lorna’s face. ‘She’s running a temperature,’ she replied.

‘Poor little mite,’ Jacqueline said. ‘You finish your meal, I’ll take her up.’ And she hefted the child out of her high chair. ‘Oh, she’s not at all well.’

‘Let me take her,’ Isabel said, ‘please.’

‘No, really, I’ve finished,’ Jacqueline said and swept off with Lorna. Isabel didn’t like to argue in front of the men so sat down again, but her appetite was gone.

When Jacqueline came downstairs again, having left Lorna to sleep, they put off the washing-up to listen to the new Queen’s first Christmas broadcast on the wireless. Isabel tried telephoning her father again, but still there was no answer. She grew increasingly agitated. Stealing upstairs, she watched Lorna fret in her sleep and wondered if they should call the doctor.

When she returned to the drawing room and asked Hugh, he said not to bother the poor man on Christmas Day. ‘I think it is only a bad cold,’ Jacqueline assured her. Not long afterwards, Lorna woke up once more.

After Isabel fetched her downstairs, Hugh handed out the presents from around the tree. For Lorna, they’d bought a wooden trolley to push, filled with bricks. Although she was, at nearly a year old, unable to walk unaided, she tried her best to haul herself up and teetered briefly, clutching the handle, until the trolley shot forward and she fell with a wail. This did not deter her from trying again, each time becoming more tired and more tearful.

Jacqueline had bought gloves for Isabel, a tie for Hugh. Isabel handed over the gift from her and Hugh, some more of the favourite talcum powder. She was privately furious over Hugh’s present to herself, which was a pretty apron. Since she’d gone to some lengths to procure him four ounces of expensive tobacco, she was hurt that he’d made so little effort. A small package from her friend Vivienne cheered her up though: a little bar of creamy soap with an exotic smell. The note that accompanied it was full of happiness and she put it in her handbag to read again later.

Twilight was already stealing across the room, and Hugh was stoking up the fire against the evening chill, when the sound of a car was heard on the drive.

‘Who on earth can that be?’ Isabel wondered, going to the window. She did not recognise the blue-black car with its flowing lines and silver piping, nor did she immediately know the driver, a broad-shouldered man in a thick overcoat and with hat pulled down low, who walked round to open the passenger door. The elegant lady in a fashionable cloak who stepped out, however, was immediately familiar. Penelope’s brimmed hat lifted in a gust of wind and went sailing across the courtyard. Isabel laughed for the first time that day as the man she now saw was Reginald set off in dignified pursuit.

‘It’s Penelope!’ she dashed to open the front door. ‘Aunt Penelope,’ she cried out, hurrying to meet her. Her aunt greeted her with a graceful wave, and opened the car’s rear door. Out bounced Gelert and galloped, leash flying, across the flagstones towards Isabel.

‘We were staying at the beach house,’ Penelope explained as she gave Hugh her cape. ‘It’s delightfully cosy with the wind howling outside.’

‘We’ve had quite a decent meal at The Boar,’ Reginald said. ‘Do you know it?’ He was unusually talkative today.

‘Reg simply bullied the poor man there until he found us ham and potatoes.’

‘Nonsense, Pen, he was glad of our custom.’

It was as though a blast of fresh air had blown through the house, Isabel thought, as she introduced them to Jacqueline and her father. The old man tried to get up, but Reginald stayed him then sat by him and started up a hearty conversation on the subject of gun dogs, about which astonishingly he seemed to know a great deal. Hugh stood nearby, packing his pipe with the new tobacco as he listened. Penelope paid polite attention to Lorna, whom Jacqueline was amusing on the floor with the building bricks. Isabel sat next to her aunt on the sofa, and stroked Gelert.

‘I had no idea that you were down this way,’ Isabel said. ‘It’s a lovely surprise.’

‘We came the night before last,’ Penelope said.

‘You’ve been to see my mother,’ Isabel said in a low voice. ‘She wrote to me. Tell me, how is she?’

It was as though a shadow fell across Penelope’s face. ‘We will speak about that,’ she whispered, ‘but not now, not here,’ and Isabel felt a kind of dread.

‘Extraordinary how that child looks like her,’ Penelope went on, staring at Lorna.

‘Does she?’ Isabel replied. ‘Sometimes I think she looks like pictures of Hugh as a baby, but I can’t see our side of the family in her at all.’

‘Oh, she does look like Pam. So strange.’

‘I suppose it’s not really.’ Penelope was cast in a mood Isabel had seen her in before – sad, less dégagée – She thought, surprised how glad she was to see her aunt.

She glanced round the room. How bright the house seemed suddenly. With the fire leaping in the grate the atmosphere was quite cheerful. They’d all been so dreary of late. Jacqueline had retreated to a chair by the fire, cuddling a sleepy Lorna. Hugh stood to one side, at the chimney piece, quietly smoking.

‘Shall I make some tea?’ she turned and asked Penelope, and saw her aunt surveying Hugh and Jacqueline with a concentrated sort of frown. There’s a Christmas cake of sorts.’ And now Isabel saw it too. Hugh, Jacqueline, Lorna. In the halo of light cast by the old table lamp on the mantelpiece, they formed a tableau like a little family. A sense of desolation stole over her.

Out in the kitchen she concentrated on taking up the kettle and filling it. She placed it on the hob, then stood wiping her hands on a towel. The teapot, she told herself. She opened the tea caddy and the musty fragrance of the tea was soothing. Everything was tumbling into place now. How could it be that she hadn’t seen it before?

The sound of tripping footsteps. She glanced up to see her aunt, her still-lovely face wearing an air of concern she’d never seen before. Penelope regarded her for a moment, then murmured, ‘You poor child,’ and came and stroked Isabel’s cheek.

Isabel grasped the hand and gave a great quivering sob. They stood there together for a moment, then Penelope gently withdrew and said, ‘We must stay calm and try to think.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can. I feel I must tell you. Stephen has often seen them together in London,’ Penelope said. Seeing slow tears course down Isabel’s cheeks, she produced a lace handkerchief from her handbag.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Isabel said, wiping her eyes.

‘You must confront him.’

‘He’s been so cold to me lately. It’s as though he blames me.’

‘What does he blame you for?’ Penelope remained cool, aloof, but her voice was gentle and her expression sympathetic. Isabel found she could think more clearly.

‘I never got on well with his mother, you see. And he thinks her death was my fault, I know he does.’

‘But that’s ridiculous.’

‘I should have realised how ill she was. I should. But it’s more than that. I’ve never been the kind of wife he wanted. I should have been more like
her.
It was Jacqueline whom
she
wanted for him.’

‘Surely that’s nonsense.’

‘It’s not. She told me. Then there’s Lorna. I didn’t know it would be like that, having a baby. How it takes you over. I’m very fond of Lorna . . .’

‘Of course you are,’ Penelope said. Her long, manicured fingers made a silky sound as she ran them together.

Isabel remembered the conversation she’d had with Penelope in the café in Percy Street. Penelope had never wanted a child. She wondered again if it was something to do with that which had darkened irreparably the relationship between the two sisters.

‘How is my mother?’ she asked.

‘It’s hard to say. There has to be another operation.’

‘Oh.’

The kettle was boiling away now and as she swirled water round the teapot to warm it, she told her aunt about the letter and the pearls. Penelope laid cups and saucers on a tray as she listened.

‘They might have gone to the neighbour’s house for Christmas,’ she said when Isabel explained about them not answering the telephone.