Giant's Bread

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  ‘Oh, it’s quite all right. I understand. I think, though, that I had better go as soon as it can be arranged. My being here makes Mrs Deyre unhappy, and then she works herself up.’

  ‘If she knew how wide of the mark her wild accusations are. That she should insult you –’

  Nurse Frances laughed – not perhaps very convincingly.

  ‘I always think it’s absurd when people complain about being insulted,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Such a pompous word, isn’t it? Please don’t worry or think I mind. You know, Mr Deyre, your wife is –’

  ‘Yes?’

  Her voice changed. It was grave and sad.

  ‘A very unhappy and lonely woman.’

  ‘Do you think that is entirely my fault?’

  There was a pause. She lifted her eyes – those steady green eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’

  He drew a long breath.

  ‘No one else but you would have said that to me. You – I suppose it’s courage in you that I admire so much – your absolute fearless honesty. I’m sorry for Vernon that he should lose you before he need.’

  She said gravely:

  ‘Don’t blame yourself for things you needn’t. This has not been your fault.’

  ‘Nurse Frances.’ It was Vernon, eagerly from bed. ‘I don’t want you to go away. Don’t go away, please – not tonight.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Nurse Frances. ‘We’ve got to talk to Dr Coles about it.’

  Nurse Frances left three days later. Vernon wept bitterly. He had lost the first real friend he had ever had.

  Chapter Five

  1

  The years from five to nine remained somewhat dim in Vernon’s memory. Things changed – but so gradually as not to matter. Nurse did not return to her reign over the nursery. Her mother had had a stroke and was quite helpless and she was obliged to remain and look after her.

  Instead, a Miss Robbins was installed as Nursery Governess. A creature so extraordinarily colourless that Vernon could never afterwards even recall what she looked like. He must have become somewhat out of hand under her regime for he was sent to school just after his eighth birthday. On his first holidays he found his cousin Josephine installed.

  On her few visits to Abbots Puissants, Nina had never brought her small daughter with her. Indeed her visits had become rarer and rarer. Vernon, knowing things without thinking about them as children do, was perfectly well aware of two facts. One, that his father did not like Uncle Sydney but was always exceedingly polite to him. Two, that his mother did not like Aunt Nina and did not mind showing it.

  Sometimes, when Nina was sitting talking to Walter in the garden, Myra would join them and in the momentary pause that nearly always followed, she would say:

  ‘I suppose I’d better go away again. I see I’m in the way. No, thank you, Walter’ (this in answer to a protest, gently murmured). ‘I can see plainly enough when I’m not wanted.’

  She would move away, biting her lip, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, tears in her brown eyes. And, very quietly, Walter Deyre would raise his eyebrows.

  One day, Nina broke out:

  ‘She’s impossible! I can’t speak to you for ten minutes without an absurd scene. Walter, why did you do it? Why did you do it?’

  Vernon remembered how his father had looked round, gazing up at the house, then letting his eyes sweep far afield to where the ruins of the old Abbey just showed.

  ‘I cared for the place,’ he said slowly. ‘In the blood, I suppose. I didn’t want to let it go.’

  There had been a brief silence and then Nina had laughed – a queer short laugh.

  ‘We’re not a very satisfactory family,’ she said. ‘We’ve made a pretty good mess of things, you and I.’

  There was another pause and then his father had said:

  ‘Is it as bad as that?’

  Nina had drawn in her breath with a sharp hiss, she nodded.

  ‘Pretty well. I don’t think, Walter, that I can go on much longer. Fred hates the sight of me. Oh! we behave very prettily in public – no one would guess – but, my God, when we’re alone!’

  ‘Yes, but, my dear girl –’

  And then, for a while, Vernon heard no more. Their voices were lowered, his father seemed to be arguing with his aunt. Finally his voice rose again.

  ‘You can’t take a mad step like that. It’s not even as though you cared for Anstey. You don’t.’

  ‘I suppose not – but he’s crazy about me.’

  His father said something that sounded like ‘Social Ostriches’. Nina laughed again.

  ‘That? We’d neither of us care.’

  ‘Anstey would in the end.’

  ‘Fred would divorce me – only too glad of the chance. Then we could marry.’

  ‘Even then –’

  ‘Walter on the social conventions! It has its humorous side!’

  ‘Women and men are very different,’ said Vernon’s father drily.

  ‘Oh! I know – I know. But anything’s better than this everlasting misery. Of course at the bottom of it all is that I still care for Fred – I always did. And he never cared for me.’

  ‘There’s the kid,’ said Walter Deyre. ‘You can’t go off and leave her.’

  ‘Can’t I? I’m not much of a mother, you know. As a matter of fact I’d take her with me. Fred wouldn’t care. He hates her as much as he hates me.’

  There was another pause, a long one this time. Then Nina said slowly:

  ‘What a ghastly tangle human beings can get themselves into. And in your case and mine, Walter, it’s all our own fault. We’re a nice family! We bring bad luck to ourselves and to anyone we have anything to do with.’

  Walter Deyre got up. He filled a pipe abstractedly, then moved slowly away. For the first time Nina noticed Vernon.

  ‘Hallo, child,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you were there. How much did you understand of all that, I wonder?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Vernon vaguely, shifting from foot to foot.

  Nina opened a chain bag, took out a tortoiseshell case and extracted a cigarette which she proceeded to light. Vernon watched her, fascinated. He had never seen a woman smoke.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Nina.

  ‘Mummy says,’ said Vernon, ‘that no nice woman would ever smoke. She said so to Miss Robbins.’

  ‘Oh, well!’ said Nina. She puffed out a cloud of smoke. ‘I expect she was quite right. I’m not a nice woman, you see, Vernon.’

  Vernon looked at her, vaguely distressed.

  ‘I think you’re very pretty,’ he said rather shyly.

  ‘That’s not the same thing,’ Nina’s smile widened. ‘Come here, Vernon.’

  He came obediently. Nina put her hands on his shoulders and looked him over quizzically. He submitted patiently. He never minded being touched by Aunt Nina. Her hands were light – not clutching like his mother’s.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nina. ‘You’re a Deyre – very much so. Rough luck on Myra, but there it is.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Vernon.

  ‘It means that you’re like your father’s family and not like your mother’s – worse luck for you.’

  ‘Why worse luck for me?’

  ‘Because the Deyres, Vernon, are neither happy nor successful. And they can’t make good.’

  What funny things Aunt Nina said! She said them half laughingly, so perhaps she didn’t mean them. And yet somehow – there was something in them that, though he didn’t understand, made him afraid.

  ‘Would it be better,’ he said suddenly, ‘to be like Uncle Sydney?’

  ‘Much better. Much better.’

  Vernon considered.

  ‘But then,’ he said slowly, ‘if I was like Uncle Sydney –’

  He stopped, trying to get his thoughts into words.

  ‘Yes, well?’

  ‘If I was Uncle Sydney, I should have to live at Larch Hurst – and not here.’

  Larch Hurst
was a stoutly built red brick villa near Birmingham where Vernon had once been taken to stay with Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie. It had three acres of superb pleasure grounds, a rose garden, a pergola, a goldfish tank, and two excellently fitted bathrooms.

  ‘And wouldn’t you like that?’ asked Nina, still watching him.

  ‘No!’ said Vernon. A great sigh broke from him, heaving his small chest. ‘I want to live here – always, always, always!’

  2

  Soon after this, something queer happened about Aunt Nina. His mother began to speak of her and his father managed to hush her down with a sideways glance at himself. He only carried away a couple of phrases: ‘It’s that poor child I’m so sorry for. You’ve only got to look at Nina to see she’s a bad lot and always will be.’

  The poor child, Vernon knew, was his cousin Josephine whom he had never seen, but to whom he sent presents at Christmas and duly received them in return. He wondered why Josephine was ‘poor’ and why his mother was sorry for her, and also why Aunt Nina was a bad lot – whatever that meant. He asked Miss Robbins, who got very pink and told him he mustn’t talk about ‘things like that’. Things like what? Vernon wondered.

  However, he didn’t think much more about it, till four months later, when the matter was mentioned once more. This time no one noticed Vernon’s presence – feelings were running too high for that. His mother and father were in the middle of a vehement discussion. His mother, as usual, was vociferous, excited. His father was very quiet.

  ‘Disgraceful!’ Myra was saying. ‘Within three months of running away with one man to go off with another. It shows her up in her true light. I always knew what she was like. Men, men, men, nothing but men!’

  ‘You’re welcome to any opinion you choose, Myra. That’s not the point. I knew perfectly how it would strike you.’

  ‘And anyone else too, I should think! I can’t understand you, Walter. You call yourself an old family and all that –’

  ‘We are an old family,’ he put in quietly.

  ‘I should have thought you’d have minded a bit about the honour of your name. She’s disgraced it – and if you were a real man you’d cast her off utterly as she deserves.’

  ‘Traditional scene from the melodrama, in fact.’

  ‘You always sneer and laugh! Morals mean nothing to you – absolutely nothing.’

  ‘At the minute, as I’ve been trying to make you understand, it’s not a question of morals. It’s a question of my sister being destitute. I must go out to Monte Carlo and see what can be done. I should have thought anyone in their senses would see that.’

  ‘Thank you. You’re not very polite, are you? And whose fault is it she’s destitute, I should like to know? She had a good husband –’

  ‘No – not that.’

  ‘At any rate, he married her.’

  It was his father who flushed this time. He said, in a very low voice:

  ‘I can’t understand you, Myra. You’re a good woman – a kind, honourable, upright woman – and yet you can demean yourself to make a nasty mean taunt like that.’

  ‘That’s right! Abuse me! I’m used to it. You don’t mind what you say to me.’

  ‘That’s not true. I try to be as courteous as I can.’

  ‘Yes. And that’s partly why I hate you – you never do say right out. Always polite and sneering – your tongue in your cheek. All this keeping up appearances – why should one, I should like to know? Why should I care if everyone in the house knows what I feel?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt they do – thanks to the carrying power of your voice.’

  ‘There you are – sneering again. At any rate I’ve enjoyed telling you what I think of your precious sister. Running away with one man, going off with a second – and why can’t the second man keep her, I should like to know? Or is he tired of her already?’

  ‘I’ve already told you, but you didn’t listen. He’s threatened with galloping consumption – has had to throw up his job. He’s no private means.’

  ‘Ah! Nina brought her pigs to a bad market that time.’

  ‘There’s one thing about Nina – she’s never been actuated by motives of gain. She’s a fool – a damned fool or she wouldn’t have got herself into this mess. But it’s always her affections that run away with her common sense. It’s the deuce of a tangle. She won’t touch a penny from Fred. Anstey wants to make her an allowance – she won’t hear of it. And mind you, I agree with her. There are things one can’t do. But I’ve certainly got to go and see to things. I’m sorry if it annoys you, but there it is.’

  ‘You never do anything I want! You hate me! You do this on purpose to make me miserable. But there’s one thing. You don’t bring this precious sister of yours under this roof while I’m here. I’m not accustomed to meeting that kind of woman. You understand?’

  ‘You make your meaning almost offensively clear.’

  ‘If you bring her here, I go back to Birmingham.’

  There was a faint flicker in Walter Deyre’s eyes, and suddenly Vernon realized something that his mother did not. He had understood very little of the actual words of the conversation though he had grasped the essentials. Aunt Nina was ill or unhappy somewhere and Mummy was angry about it. She had said that if Aunt Nina came to Abbots Puissants, she would go back to Uncle Sydney at Birmingham. She had meant that as a threat – but Vernon knew that his father would be very pleased if she did go back to Birmingham. He knew it quite certainly and uncomprehendingly. It was like some of Miss Robbins’ punishments like not speaking for half an hour. She thought you minded that as much as not having jam for tea, and fortunately she had never discovered that you didn’t really mind it at all – in fact rather enjoyed it.

  Walter Deyre walked up and down the room. Vernon watched him, puzzled. That his father was fighting out a battle in his own mind, he knew. But he couldn’t understand what it was all about.

  ‘Well?’ said Myra.

  She was rather beautiful just at that moment – a great big woman, magnificently proportioned, her head thrown back and the sunlight streaming in on her golden red hair. A fit mate for some Viking seafarer.

  ‘I made you the mistress of this house, Myra,’ said Walter Deyre. ‘If you object to my sister coming to it, naturally she will not come.’

  He moved towards the door. There he paused and looked back at her. ‘If Llewellyn dies – which seems almost certain, Nina must try to get some kind of a job. Then there will be the child to think of. Do your objections apply to her?’

  ‘Do you think I want a girl in my home who will turn out like her mother?’

  His father said quietly: ‘Yes or no would have been quite sufficient answer.’

  He went out. Myra stood staring after him. Tears stood in her eyes and began to fall. Vernon did not like tears. He edged towards the door – but not in time.

  ‘Darling – come to me.’

  He had to come. He was enfolded – hugged. Fragments of phrases reiterated in his ears.

  ‘You’ll make up to me – you, my own boy – you shan’t be like them – horrid, sneering. You won’t fail me – you’ll never fail me – will you? Swear it – my boy, my own boy.’

  He knew it all so well. He said what was wanted of him – yes and no in the right places. How he hated the whole business. It always happened so close to your ears.

  That evening after tea, Myra was in quite another mood. She was writing a letter at her writing table and looked up gaily as Vernon entered.

  ‘I’m writing to Daddy. Perhaps, very soon, your Aunt Nina and your cousin Josephine will come to stay. Won’t that be lovely?’

  But they didn’t come. Myra said to herself that really Walter was incomprehensible. Just because she’d said a few things she really didn’t mean …

  Vernon was not very surprised, somehow. He hadn’t thought they would come.

  Aunt Nina had said she wasn’t a nice woman – but she was very pretty …

  Chapter Six

  1
/>   If Vernon had been capable of summing up the events of the next few years, he could best have done it in one word – Scenes! Everlasting and ever recurring scenes.

  And he began to notice a curious phenomenon. After each scene his mother looked larger and his father looked smaller. Emotional storms of reproach and invective exhilarated Myra mentally and physically. She emerged from them refreshed, soothed – full of good will towards all the world.

  With Walter Deyre it was the opposite. He shrank into himself, every sensitive fibre in his nature shrinking from the onslaught. The faint polite sarcasm that was his weapon of defence never failed to goad his wife to the utmost fury. His quiet weary self-control exasperated her as nothing else could have done.

  Not that she was lacking for very real grounds of complaint. Walter Deyre spent less and less time at Abbots Puissants. When he did return his eyes had baggy pouches under them and his hand shook. He took little notice of Vernon, and yet the child was always conscious of an underlying sympathy. It was tacitly understood that Walter should not ‘interfere’ with the child. A mother was the person who should have the say. Apart from supervising the boy’s riding, Walter stood aside. Not to do so would have roused fresh matter for discussion and reproach. He was ready to admit that Myra had all the virtues and was a most careful and attentive mother.

  And yet he sometimes had the feeling that he could give the boy something that she could not. The trouble was that they were both shy of each other. To neither of them was it easy to express their feelings – a thing Myra would have found incomprehensible. They remained gravely polite to each other.

  But when a ‘scene’ was in progress, Vernon was full of silent sympathy. He knew exactly how his father was feeling – knew how that loud angry voice hurt the ears and the head. He knew, of course, that Mummy must be right – Mummy was always right, that was an article of belief not to be questioned – but all the same, he was unconsciously on his father’s side.

  Things went from bad to worse – came to a crisis. Mummy remained locked in her room for two days – servants whispered delightedly in corners – and Uncle Sydney arrived on the scene to see what he could do.