Vernon was, perhaps, a lonely little boy, but he never knew it. Because, you see, he had Mr Green and Poodle, Squirrel and Tree to play with.
3
For a long time Vernon was undecided as to where Mr Green’s home was. It came to him quite suddenly that of course Mr Green lived in the Forest. The Forest had always been fascinating to Vernon. One side of the Park bordered on it. There were high green palings and Vernon used to creep along them hoping for a crack that would let him see through. There were whisperings and sighings and rustlings all along, as though the trees were speaking to each other. Half-way down there was a door, but alas, it was always locked, so that Vernon could never see what it was really like inside the Forest.
Nurse, of course, would never take him there. She was like all nurses and preferred a good steady walk along the road, and no messing your feet up with them nasty damp leaves. So Vernon was never allowed to go in the Forest. It made him think of it all the more. Some day he would take tea there with Mr Green. Poodle and Squirrel and Tree were to have new suits for the occasion.
4
The nursery palled on Vernon. It was too small. He knew all there was to know about it. The garden was different. It was really a very exciting garden. There were so many different bits of it. The long walks between the clipped yew hedges with their ornamental birds, the water garden with the fat goldfish, the walled fruit garden, the wild garden with its almond trees in spring time and the copse of silver birch trees with bluebells growing underneath, and best of all the railed-off bit where the ruins of the old Abbey were. That was the place where Vernon would have liked to be left to his own devices – to climb and explore. But he never was. The rest of the garden he did much as he liked in. Winnie was always sent out with him but since by a remarkable coincidence they always seemed to encounter the second gardener, he could play his own games unhindered by too much kind attention on Winnie’s part.
5
Gradually Vernon’s world widened. The twin star, Mummy-Daddy, separated, became two distinct people. Daddy remained nebulous, but Mummy became quite a personage. She often paid visits to the nursery to ‘play with my darling little boy’. Vernon bore her visits with grave politeness, though it usually meant giving up the game that he himself was engaged upon and accepting one which was not, in his opinion, nearly so good. Lady visitors would sometimes come with her, and then she would squeeze Vernon tightly (which he hated) and cry:
‘It’s so wonderful to be a mother! I never get used to it! To have a darling baby boy of one’s very own.’
Very red, Vernon would extricate himself from her embrace. Because he wasn’t a baby boy at all. He was three years old.
Looking across the room one day, just after a scene like the above, he saw his father standing by the nursery door with sardonic eyes, watching him. Their eyes met. Something seemed to pass between them – comprehension – a sense of kinship.
His mother’s friends were talking.
‘Such a pity, Myra, that he doesn’t take after you. Your hair would be too lovely on a child.’
But Vernon had a sudden feeling of pride. He was like his father.
6
Vernon always remembered the day that the American lady came to lunch. To begin with, because of Nurse’s explanations about America which, as he realized later, she confused with Australia.
He went down to dessert in an awe-stricken state. If this lady had been at home in her own country, she would be walking about upside down with her head hanging down. Quite enough, this, to make him stare. And then, too, she used odd words for the simplest things.
‘Isn’t he too cute? See here, honey, I’ve gotten a box of candy for you. Won’t you come and fetch it?’
Vernon came gingerly; accepted the present. The lady clearly didn’t know what she was talking about. It wasn’t candy, but good Edinburgh Rock.
There were two gentlemen there also, one the husband of the American lady. This one said:
‘Do you know half a crown, my boy, when you see it?’
And it presently turned out that the half-crown was to be for his very own to keep. Altogether it was a wonderful day.
Vernon had never thought very much about his home. He knew that it was bigger than the Vicarage, where he sometimes went to tea, but he seldom played with any other children or went to their homes. So it came to him with a shock of wonder that day. The visitors were taken all over the house, and the American lady’s voice rose ceaselessly.
‘My, if that isn’t too wonderful. Did you ever see such a thing? Five hundred years, you say? Frank, listen to that. Henry the eighth – if it isn’t just like listening to English history. And the Abbey older still, you say?’
They went everywhere, through the long picture gallery where faces strangely like Vernon’s with dark eyes set close together and narrow heads looked out from the painted canvas arrogantly or with cold tolerance. There were meek women there in ruffs or with pearls twisted in their hair – the Deyre women had done best to be meek, married to wild lords who knew neither fear nor pity – who looked appraisingly at Myra Deyre, the last of their number, as she walked beneath them. From the picture gallery they went to the square hall, and from there to the Priest’s Chamber.
Vernon had been removed by Nurse long since. They found him again in the garden feeding the goldfish. Vernon’s father had gone into the house to get the keys of the Abbey ruins. The visitors were alone.
‘My, Frank,’ said the American lady. ‘Isn’t it too wonderful? All these years. Handed down from father to son. Romantic, that’s what I call it, just too romantic for anything. All these years. Just fancy! How is it done?’
It was then that the other gentleman spoke. He was not much of a talker, so far Vernon had not heard him speak at all. But he now unclosed his lips and uttered one word – a word so enchanting, so mysterious, so delightful that Vernon never forgot it.
‘Brumagem,’ said the other gentleman.
And before Vernon could ask him (as he meant to do) what that marvellous word meant, another diversion occurred.
His mother came out of the house. There was a sunset behind her – a scene painter’s sunset of crude gold and red. Against that background Vernon saw his mother – saw her for the first time – a magnificent woman with white skin and red gold hair – a being like the pictures in his fairy book, saw her suddenly as something wonderful and beautiful.
He was never to forget that strange moment. She was his mother and she was beautiful and he loved her. Something hurt him inside, like a pain – only it wasn’t a pain. And there was a queer booming noise inside his head – a thundering noise that ended up high and sweet like a bird’s note. Altogether a very wonderful moment.
And mixed up with it was that magic word Brumagem.
Chapter Two
1
Winnie the nursemaid was going away. It all happened very suddenly. The other servants whispered together. Winnie cried. She cried and cried. Nurse gave her what she called a Talking To and after that Winnie cried more than ever. There was something terrible about Nurse, she seemed larger than usual and she crackled more. Winnie, Vernon knew, was going away because of Father. He accepted that fact without any particular interest or curiosity. Nursemaids did sometimes go away because of Father.
His mother was shut in her room. She too was crying. Vernon could hear her through the door. She did not send for him and it did not occur to him to go to her. Indeed he was vaguely relieved. He hated the noise of crying, the gulping sound, the long-drawn sniffs, and it always happened so close to your ears. People who were crying always hugged you. Vernon hated those kind of noises close to his ears. There was nothing in the world he hated more than the wrong sort of noise. It made you feel all curled up like a leaf in your middle. That was the jolly part about Mr Green. He never made the wrong kind of noise.
Winnie was packing her boxes. Nurse was in with her – a less awful Nurse now – almost a human Nurse.
‘Now you let t
his be a warning to you, my girl,’ said Nurse. ‘No carryings on in your next place.’
Winnie sniffed something about no real harm.
‘And no more there wouldn’t be, I should hope, with Me in charge,’ said Nurse. ‘A lot comes, I daresay, of having red hair. Red-haired girls are always flighty, so my dear mother used to say. I’m not saying you’re a bad girl. But what you’ve done is unbecoming. Unbecoming – I can’t say more than that.’
And, as Vernon had often noticed after using this particular phrase, she proceeded to say a good deal more. But he did not listen, for he was pondering on the word Unbecoming. Becoming, he knew, was a thing you said about a hat. Where did a hat come in?
‘What’s unbecoming, Nurse?’ he asked later in the day.
Nurse, with her mouth full of pins, for she was cutting out a linen suit for Vernon, replied.
‘Unsuitable.’
‘What’s unsuitable?’
‘Little boys going on asking foolish questions,’ said Nurse, with the deftness of a long professional career behind her.
2
That afternoon Vernon’s father came into the nursery. There was a queer furtive look about him – unhappy and defiant. He winced slightly before Vernon’s round interested gaze.
‘Hullo, Vernon.’
‘Hullo, Father.’
‘I’m going to London. Goodbye, old chap.’
‘Are you going to London because you kissed Winnie?’ inquired Vernon with interest.
His father uttered the kind of word that Vernon knew he was not supposed to hear – much less ever repeat. It was, he knew, a word that gentlemen used but little boys didn’t. So great a fascination did that fact lend it, that Vernon was in the habit of sending himself to sleep by repeating it over to himself in company with another forbidden word. The other word was Corsets.
‘Who the devil told you that?’
‘Nobody told me,’ said Vernon after reflecting a minute.
‘Then how did you know?’
‘Didn’t you, then?’ inquired Vernon.
His father crossed the room without answering.
‘Winnie kisses me sometimes,’ remarked Vernon. ‘But I didn’t like it much. I have to kiss her too. The gardener kisses her a lot. He seems to like it. I think kissing’s silly. Should I like kissing Winnie better if I was grown up, Father?’
‘Yes,’ he said deliberately. ‘I think you would. Sons, you know, sometimes grow up very like their fathers.’
‘I’d like to be like you,’ said Vernon. ‘You’re a jolly good rider. Sam said so. He said there wasn’t your equal in the county and that a better judge of horse flesh never lived.’ Vernon brought out the latter words rapidly. ‘I’d rather be like you than Mummy. Mummy gives a horse a sore back. Sam said so.’
There was a further pause.
‘Mummy’s gotaheadacheanlyingdown,’ proceeded Vernon.
‘I know.’
‘Have you said goodbye to her?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to? Because you’ll have to be quick. That’s the dogcart coming round now.’
‘I expect I shan’t have time.’
Vernon nodded wisely.
‘I daresay that would be a good plan. I don’t like having to kiss people when they’re crying. I don’t like Mummy kissing me much anyway. She squeezes too hard and she talks in your ear. I think I’d almost rather kiss Winnie. Which would you, Father?’
He was disconcerted by his father’s abrupt withdrawal from the room. Nurse had come in a moment before. She stood respectfully aside to let the master pass, and Vernon had a vague idea that she had managed to make his father uncomfortable.
Katie, the under-housemaid, came in to lay tea. Vernon built bricks in the corner. The old peaceful nursery atmosphere closed round him again.
3
There was a sudden interruption. His mother stood in the doorway. Her eyes were swollen with crying. She dabbed them with a handkerchief. She stood there theatrically miserable.
‘He’s gone,’ she cried. ‘Without a word to me. Without a word. Oh, my little son. My little son.’
She swept across the floor and gathered Vernon in her arms. The tower, at least one storey higher than any he had ever built before, crashed into ruins. His mother’s voice, loud and distraught, burrowed into his ear.
‘My child – my little son – swear that you’ll never forsake me – swear it – swear it –’
Nurse came across to them.
‘There, Ma’am, there, Ma’am, don’t take on so. You’d better get back to bed. Edith shall bring you a nice cup of hot tea.’
Her tone was authoritative – severe.
His mother still sobbed and clasped him closer. Vernon’s whole body began to stiffen in resistance. He could bear it a little while longer – a very little while longer – and he’d do anything Mummy wanted if only she’d let go of him.
‘You must make up to me, Vernon – make up to me for the suffering your father has caused me – Oh, my God, what shall I do?’
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Vernon was aware of Katie, silent, ecstatic, enjoying the scene.
‘Come along, Ma’am,’ said Nurse. ‘You’ll only upset the child.’
The authority in her voice was so marked this time that Vernon’s mother succumbed to it. Leaning weakly on Nurse’s arm, she allowed herself to be led from the room.
Nurse returned a few minutes later very red in the face.
‘My,’ said Katie, ‘didn’t she take on? Regular hysterics – that’s what they call it! Well, this has been a to do! You don’t think she’ll do a mischief to herself, do you? Those nasty ponds in the garden. The Master is a one – not that he hasn’t a lot to put up with from Her. All them scenes and Tantrums –’
‘That’ll do, my girl,’ said Nurse. ‘You can get back to your work, and under-servants discussing a matter of this kind with their betters is a thing that I’ve never known take place in a gentleman’s house. Your mother ought to have trained you better.’
With a toss of her head, Katie withdrew. Nurse moved round the nursery table, shifting cups and plates with unwonted sharpness. Her lips moved, muttering to herself.
‘Putting ideas into the child’s head. I’ve no patience with it …’
Chapter Three
1
A new nursemaid came, a thin white girl with protruding eyes. Her name was Isabel, but she was called Susan as being ‘more suitable’. This puzzled Vernon very much. He asked Nurse for an explanation.
‘There are names that are suitable to the gentry, Master Vernon, and names that are suitable for servants. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Then why is her real name Isabel?’
‘There are people who when they christen their children set themselves up to ape their betters.’
The word ape had a distracting influence on Vernon. Apes were monkeys. Did people christen their children at the zoo?
‘I thought people were christened in church.’
‘So they are, Master Vernon.’
Very puzzling – why was everything so puzzling? Why were things more puzzling than they used to be? Why did one person tell you one thing and another person something quite different?
‘Nurse, how do babies come?’
‘You’ve asked me that before, Master Vernon. The little angels bring them in the night through the window.’
‘That Am-am-am –’
‘Don’t stammer, Master Vernon.’
‘Amenkun lady who came – she said I was found under a gooseberry bush.’
‘That’s the way they do with American babies,’ said Nurse serenely.
Vernon heaved a sigh of relief. Of course! He felt a throb of gratitude to Nurse. She always knew. She made the unsteady swaying universe stand still again. And she never laughed. His mother did. He had heard her say to other ladies, ‘He asks me the quaintest questions. Just listen to this. Aren’t children funny and adorable?’
But Vern
on couldn’t see that he was funny or adorable at all. He just wanted to know. You’d got to know. That was part of growing up. When you were grown up you knew everything and had gold sovereigns in your purse.
2
The world went on widening.
There were, for instance, uncles and aunts.
Uncle Sydney was Mummy’s brother. He was short and stout and had rather a red face. He had a habit of humming tunes and of rattling the money in his trouser pockets. He was fond of making jokes, but Vernon did not always think his jokes very funny.
‘Supposing,’ Uncle Sydney would say, ‘I were to put on your hat? Hey? What should I look like, do you think?’
Curious, the questions grown up people asked! Curious – and also difficult, because if there was one thing that Nurse was always impressing upon Vernon, it was that little boys must never make personal remarks.
‘Come now,’ said Uncle Sydney perseveringly. ‘What should I look like? There –’ he snatched up the linen affair in question and balanced it on top of his head. ‘What do I look like – eh?’
Well, if one must answer, one must. Vernon said politely and a little wearily:
‘I think you look rather silly.’
‘That boy of yours has no sense of humour, Myra,’ said Uncle Sydney to his mother. ‘No sense of humour at all. A pity.’
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