Nursery Tea and Poison

by Anne Morice

  ‘Yes, it must, but presumably she’ll accustom herself to the idea gradually; learn to accept him, I mean, now that he’s become a reality, instead of some legendary figure living thousands of miles away.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope so, but you know how deep-rooted these obsessions are?’

  ‘And I suppose, if Pelham has come over to inspect his property, with the idea of moving in eventually, it’s going to make the problem even trickier?’

  ‘Whatever is that child doing with our tea, I wonder?’ Serena said, taking her attention away from me and tilting her head towards the door. ‘I’d better go and see what she’s up to.’

  Even as she spoke, some alarming crashes were heard from beyond the door and, in passing by me to open it, Serena laid a hand on my shoulder in what I took to be a restraining gesture, although I could see no reason for it.

  Lindy had found an enormous black tin tray, which I felt sure had never found its way outside the kitchen before in its whole career, had covered it with paper tissues and piled on a vast selection of unmatching crockery. She set it down on the sofa table and then stood back and beamed at us both triumphantly:

  ‘How’s that for a first attempt at tea making?’ she asked in breathless wonder. ‘Look, I found cookies . . . and jam . . . and . . . and honey!’ she went on excitedly, as though confident that Serena would be bowled over to learn that she possessed these items in her larder.

  ‘Very clever, darling! Tessa and I were just saying what a luxury it is to sit here gossiping while someone else does all the work. Now, are you going to pour out for us too?’

  So, evidently, for all her admiring protestations, Serena was not yet ready to include Lindy in any family discussion. I did not in the least regret the ban, in so far as it related to Primrose, for there had already been indications that I should be obliged to hear a good deal more on this subject during the forthcoming weekend. I was more curious, and at the same time less confident about tracking down the reasons for Serena’s untypical evasiveness on the question of Pelham.

  One compensation was that I had not long to wait to form my own impressions of him, for at this point he arrived in person, swaggering into the room, placing his open palm against the back of Lindy’s neck, before twisting her head round to give her a smacking kiss.

  This ceremony concluded, he took the cup of tea which she had been in the act of handing to Serena, walked with it to the fireplace where I was standing, embraced me warmly and said in the laziest of drawls:

  ‘Hallo, my darling! You must be the famous little god-daughter! Lovely to see you again!’

  I daresay that most people who spend long periods abroad end by falling into one of two categories. They either work overtime at acquiring local colour, becoming more papal than the pope, or else cling with such tenacity to their native characteristics that they end up as caricatures of the original. Perhaps for Englishmen the second course is more usual and Pelham had certainly followed it. His accent, clothes, even his haircut so typified a certain type of outdated stage aristocrat that I half expected him to suggest that we all went to Monte Carlo.

  Another surprise was that he did not look at all as I had pictured him. It was true that he was tall and dark and bold looking, with a somewhat arrogant manner, which was just as I had expected, but after that reality and imagination parted company. The mistake of course had been the same as Serena’s, of assuming that he would be a replica of an older Rupert, minus the black eye patch. I had no personal recollection whatever of Rupert, but the house was crammed with photographs of him at every stage of his short life, beginning with the beady eyed baby sitting up in its pram and glaring at the photographer, which adorned Nannie’s mantelpiece, right up to the snapshots of the aloof aquiline young man which had been taken only weeks before his death.

  There was nothing remotely aquiline about Pelham, for he was stout and flabby, with a loose, pouting lower lip, and age had coarsened his features as well. Sensual rather than aloof was the word to describe him, and never more so than when his eyes turned towards his wife.

  ‘Oh, come now, Pelham,’ Serena was saying in her mildly reproving tone, ‘you can’t seriously pretend to remember Tessa. She was only a tiny little girl when she came down to stay with my parents.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do,’ he insisted, putting an arm round my shoulder. ‘I remember her perfectly. It was just before I sailed away, and what’s more I remember how my naughty brother scared the wits out of her by wrapping himself in a tiger skin rug and yowling at the poor pet, so that she never stopped screaming for the rest of the afternoon. Unbelievable, it was.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lindy chirruped, ‘I remember you told me about that, Pel. Wasn’t that an awful thing to do? My goodness, Tessa, I can’t imagine why you don’t have phobias about it to this day.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Serena said unhappily. ‘Nannie has told me that story too, several times; but somehow it still doesn’t seem real to me. I suppose the truth is, I’ve tried to remember only the good things about Rupert.’

  There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, which she broke by saying quickly:

  ‘Well, come along, Tessa darling. If you’ve finished your tea, let’s go upstairs and make sure you’ve got everything you need.’

  2

  ‘You mustn’t forget to go next door and say hallo to Nannie,’ she reminded me when we reached my bedroom. It was a tiny, east facing room on the top floor in what had originally been the attics and then become part of the nursery suite when Serena moved in. Primrose and Nannie still occupied the old day and night nurseries and I believe the apricot room had functioned as a combined box room and pantry. However, Serena had unexceptionable taste, of a highly conventional style, and this, combined with her new affluence had transformed it into a positive bower of blossomed wallpaper and apricot velvet curtains.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I assured her. ‘How is the old . . . battleaxe?’

  ‘Failing a little, I think. She had a lot of pain in her shoulder about a month ago and, although no one realised it at the time, it seems that it could have been a mild coronary. Then there’s the perennial indigestion, which she plagues us all with, although it’s simply because she will overeat.’

  ‘Honestly, Serena, you never cease to amaze me! Who else but you would keep an old family retainer on the premises in this day and age? Didn’t you know that sort of thing went out years ago?’

  ‘Yes, lots of people have told me so, but heaven knows how they dispose of them when they get old and feeble and have been with the family for nearly half a century. Nan’s over eighty now, you know.’

  ‘And likely to live to a hundred and four, the way you cosset her. Couldn’t she go to some old people’s home, where they’d keep her in order a bit? Somewhere nearby, where you and Primrose could visit her?’

  ‘My dear child, how could I be so heartless, when I have room enough here? She stood by me, you know, when I had no one else to turn to, and this is her home, just as much as mine. Besides, Rupert would . . .’

  ‘Turn in his grave?’

  She laughed: ‘I believe I was going to say something absurd like that, though of course it makes even less sense when someone is cremated. All the same, I do understand what people mean by the expression. If Rupert had known he was going to die, I feel sure he would have made some proper provision for her, and for Primrose and me as well, but how could he have known? He was twenty-six years old and they told him he had appendicitis. Still, wherever his spirit is now, I am sure it would give me no peace if I were to put his old Nan into a home.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but it’s not his spirit which has to live with her.’

  ‘No, although he would be much more patient with her than I am. And Pelham’s the same; he’s been an absolute brick in that way, spends practically every minute of the day with her, talking over old times, which of course is the one thing she really enjoys and can’t get enough of. I’m afraid I’m very inadequate in that respect. She t
ells me these stories over and over again about things that happened when the boys were little and half the time she gets the dates mixed up and confuses Rupert with Primrose, and I must confess that I find this continual dwelling on the past rather a bore.’

  ‘Me too. I’d go raving mad if I had to spend every day with her.’

  ‘Primrose doesn’t mind a bit, though; she positively enjoys it. It must be a family characteristic, I suppose, but Pelham really has surprised me. I certainly didn’t expect to find him so wrapped up in the past, specially now he has this new young wife he’s so obviously mad about. Wasn’t it strange, his getting married at his age?’

  ‘Perhaps he decided it was time he had an heir?’

  ‘No, apparently she can’t ever have children. I’m not sure why, but they both knew all about it when they married.’

  ‘Just as well, from your point of view, I suppose; but doesn’t she resent his spending so much time up in the nursery? All this old history can’t be much of a thrill for her?’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t have to listen to it herself, of course, but funnily enough she positively encourages Pelham. Most young women of her age might be rather irritated by it, but she’s so very sweet and understanding.’

  ‘Do you know how long they mean to stay?’ I asked, ‘or why they’ve come at all? I assume it wasn’t purely on Nannie’s account?’

  Serena had been fussing round the room while we talked, turning down the bed and touching up the flowers and evidently her mind had now switched back to an earlier topic, for she sat down on the dressing table stool, regarding me with great seriousness as she said:

  ‘And, you know, Tessa, it’s not really up to me to make the decisions about Nannie. I may find her a bore and a mischief maker, but as I’ve said, that’s not Primrose’s view at all. She’s absolutely devoted to Nan and would never, never consent to my sending her away.’

  ‘Then the best thing would be for Primrose to marry and have Nannie to live with her.’

  ‘I used to think that might be the solution in the end,’ Serena admitted, ‘but there doesn’t seem to be much prospect of it at present. She won’t even look at young men. At one time it looked as though she and Richard Soames might hit it off. He’s the young doctor who took over my father’s practice, if you remember? But somehow it all fizzled out. I am afraid Nannie may have put it into her head that he wasn’t good enough for her, which is arrant nonsense of course, but she’s stuffed the child’s head with so many fairy tales about her wonderful, glamorous father and uncle that all the boys she meets in real life seem terribly weedy and dim by comparison. It worries me really, because it’s not as though she had a career to support herself on. She’s dabbled about with all sorts of ideas, like training to be a vet and going to an agricultural college, but the trouble was that I could never afford much in the way of an education for her and you’d be surprised how many qualifications you need nowadays even to look after animals. That’s why I was so delighted when this job with Jake came along. I thought at least it would get her out of the house and make her learn to stand on her own feet, but I’m not so sure now that it was the right thing to do.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it has thrown her right into the very surroundings which all her fantasies are built on and it’s still more fuel to the flames. Not only is she spending her days in the house which she sees as rightfully hers, but it’s also the scene of all those dashing and romantic exploits she’s been fed on since she was a baby. If I’d had any sense, I’d have realised that substituting the big house for the nursery was the very last thing to cure her of these delusions. In fact, all it has done is to harden them.’

  ‘Cheer up!’ I said. ‘Perhaps the cure will come all by itself, without any effort on your part. I mean, now that she’s actually met Pelham, the truth will soon sink in that he’s not a knight in shining armour, but just an ordinary middle-aged uncle, and the stardust is bound to fall from her eyes, don’t you think? Well, no, I suppose that’s ridiculous, really.’

  ‘Why do you say so? I thought you’d made a very good point.’

  ‘But, you see, Serena, after making it, it struck me that, middle-aged uncle or not, he can hardly be all that ordinary if he’s snared someone so young and pretty as Lindy. You and I may not be exactly bowled over, but he probably has some irresistible attraction for the romantic teenager.’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t agree with that at all. Fundamentally, he’s not in the least the type that Primrose admires. I think you were right the first time and that she’ll soon be thoroughly disillusioned. Or rather, she’ll get the whole thing into perspective. Well, bless you for coming, dearest. It’s such a relief to pour my petty little problems into a sympathetic ear. And now I must go and battle with the really serious problem of dinner. Alice Thorne is very kindly coming in to give me a hand with it, but don’t breathe a word of that to Nannie or she’ll send her tray down untouched and we shall have more trouble on our hands.’

  Since the reasons for my invitation to West Lodge had been made abundantly clear, I could scarcely complain if the choice of topics for discussion were Serena’s rather than mine, but it had not escaped me that both my attempts to delve any deeper into the motives and plans of the returning prodigal had been blandly evaded. So, having drawn a blank with her, I found a new approach to the subject and invited Lindy to come for a walk in the park before the sun went down.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1

  Chargrove House was only ten minutes walk from West Lodge by way of its formal approach, a continuation of the main drive, but halfway along it Lindy and I struck off to the right, following a footpath which meandered round to a walled kitchen garden behind the stable block.

  The drive was bordered, on either side, by a sloping grass verge, backed by tall trees and with flowering shrubs and smaller ornamental trees in the foreground. Some of the trees must have been planted centuries before, and doubtless there had been a house on the present site for even longer than that, but the existing residence was the work of the shipping grandfather, who had much to answer for, as it was an ill-proportioned, red brick Edwardian pile, heavily overloaded with gables and somewhat resembling a blown up, rustic labour exchange. It was not nearly so spacious as it appeared from outside, consisting of a relatively small number of poky rooms linked together by a series of immensely long and draughty corridors, but the exterior was quite awe-inspiring in its size and vulgarity.

  ‘How does it feel to be the owner of all this?’ I asked Lindy, with a sweeping gesture of the hand to indicate that I referred to the setting rather than the house. ‘Pretty good, I imagine?’

  ‘I don’t feel in the least like any of it does belong to me.’

  ‘No? Still, it’s amazing how one can adapt oneself to new ideas. I daresay this one will grow on you.’

  ‘No, honestly, Tessa, I think it’ll more likely just fade away like a dream, or like something I read about in a book, but never really experienced.’

  ‘But when you’re actually living here . . .’

  ‘Living here?’ she squealed. ‘Whatever gave you the idea we intended living here?’

  ‘I suppose I just took it for granted. I know it couldn’t happen immediately, but I believe Jake only has it on a short lease and it is Pelham’s house, after all. It would be natural for him to want to retire here in his old age.’

  ‘Gosh, no, Tessa, please believe me, you’ve got it all wrong. This just happens to be a stopover on our world trip. Soon as it’s over, we’ll be back where we started out from, in good old California. Naturally, when we were planning it we wanted to take in England and meet some of Pelham’s folks and I’m so happy we did. I think Serena’s just adorable, though she scares me some.’

  ‘So how long do you mean to stay?’

  ‘Two, three weeks, I guess. We’re going to Paris after this and then home. Goodness, I can’t wait to see Paris. I bet you’ve been there lots of times, haven’t you? You know something,
Tessa?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is the very first time in my whole life I’ve been abroad.’

  ‘And now you have, aren’t you tempted to stay?’

  ‘Oh, I want to see every bit of it I can while I’m here, but it’s not for me, that I do know. Please don’t misunderstand me though, Tessa. I think this country is beautiful, I really do. I never saw anywhere so green, green, green; but it’s not for me, period.’

  ‘And yet you were brought up in the country, weren’t you? Serena tells me your family had a farm.’

  ‘Sure they did and could I wait to get away from it? The short answer is No. My father was okay, my mother I hated.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘My mother’s still there, with her churchgoing and her sewing circle. My father died a year or two back. Guess I’ve been searching for someone to take his place ever since. What they call an oedipus in reverse.’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘Anyway, where we lived wasn’t anything like this. I couldn’t have imagined a place like this even existed.’

  ‘Didn’t Pelham tell you about it?’

  We were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, resting from the uphill climb and she leant over sideways, so that her hair fell forward, hiding her face, and plucked a blade of grass which she began to chew. After a few nibbles she said:

  ‘Yes, in a way, he did, but it was more like things that happened here than the place itself. Probably he just took that for granted.’