Kingfisher Morning

by Charlotte Lamb

  'I'm Emma Leigh,' she said.

  'Their nurse, I understand?' His fierce eyes were penetrating, shrewd.

  'Yes,' she said flatly.

  'I don't think we ought to go,' Tracy said suddenly. 'Mummy wouldn't like it.'

  Emma hesitated, uncertain and troubled. Tracy might well be right. She did not know what to do. It was not really her decision, was it? She ought to let Ross decide. But what was she to say to this old man who held Robin's hand so tightly?

  'I think, perhaps, Tracy is right,' she said haltingly. 'I'm sorry…'

  'Tracy doesn't know what Mummy likes,' Robin said in his most adult, careful tone. 'She guesses— and usually she's wrong.' He looked at Emma seriously. 'Like she was about porridge and Donna. Tracy's bossy, awfully bossy.'

  Donna was staring into the parkland, her face suddenly full of shining excitement. 'I see something…what that?' Her words slid together in her eagerness to communicate, but Emma understood the drift of what she meant.

  A hundred yards away, beyond a clump of bushes, a young roe deer grazed peacefully.

  'A doe,' Leon Daumaury told Donna gruffly.

  Donna's smooth brow wrinkled. She lifted puzzled, doubtful eyes to his face. 'A doe?'

  'A female deer,' he told her, clearing his throat. 'You're very like your mother, my dear.'

  Donna giggled. So did Robin. Their grandfather looked at them in half-offended astonishment. 'What's funny?' he demanded.

  'You called Donna my dear,' Robin said. 'That's a deer, and Donna's a dear…' He and Donna giggled explosively. Tracy looked at them in silent disapproval, her face as stony as a monument.

  Mr Daumaury smiled, his face transformed as if by a miracle into a warm and living countenance, all his coldness and remoteness falling away.

  'The English language is very strange, isn't it, my dears?' He emphasised the word and was delighted by their immediate response.

  They shrieked with laughter, and Robin began to run forward, dragging the old man after him, while Donna toddled along beside them. Emma looked helplessly at Tracy who was staring at this scene in icy disgust.

  'I think we shall have to accept a fait accompli,' Emma said gently.

  Tracy set her lower lip in mutinous rejection. 'I'm going home!'

  Emma caught her arm. 'You can't! Not alone, Tracy. I'm afraid you must come with us. I can't allow you to go wandering off alone, you know that.'

  'Mummy doesn't like our grandfather,' Tracy repeated.

  'I don't think you're old enough to be certain what your mother likes or does not like,' Emma said very carefully. 'You may think you know, darling, but grown-ups sometimes don't even know themselves. Things are often more complicated than they seem on the surface. I think we should let Robin and Donna talk to Mr Daumaury if they want to—I'll explain to your mummy when I see her.'

  'She'll be furious with you,' Tracy said with undisguised triumph.

  'Oh, Tracy,' sighed Emma, 'why are you so difficult?' Was it because Tracy was the oldest? Did she feel the pressure of her younger brother and sister, did she feel the need to assert herself whenever she could?

  Emma looked down at the pale, set little face and was suddenly filled with pity and affection for the child. She knelt and held her, pressing her close, her lips touching Tracy's cold cheek. 'Don't look like that,' she whispered.

  Tracy suffered the indignity for a moment, then broke free and ran off into the park calling to Robin wait for her. Emma felt the pain of rejection for a moment, then she smiled and stood up. After all, Tracy had changed her mind, hadn't she? She had joined the others instead of sulking here alone. Some sort of contact had been made.

  Walking behind the little quartet, Emma thought with some amusement of the enormous education she was receiving from these children. She was supposed to be in charge of them, to be guiding and teaching them—she was supposed to be the clever adult. Yet she knew that she had learnt far more than she had taught. Tracy, Robin and Donna had opened her eyes to many hitherto unnoticed facets of human feeling and thinking. She was much the wiser for having known them. Each day she learnt something new. They were so fascinating, so complex, so enchanting, so maddening.

  Was this how mothers feel? she wondered. When they're not completely baffled, exhausted and drained of all their energies?

  Perhaps it was because one had to concentrate on another human being for so many hours, watch and anticipate its needs, its griefs, its nature. Usually one only observed oneself with that sort of depth, and one learned little from such internal scrutiny. Watching children revealed much about human nature in the raw.

  Through the landscaped vistas of the park they wandered while Leon Daumaury explained, showed and boasted of its marvels. He pointed out a silver pheasant, pale ghostly birds which shyly hid as they passed, their routed plumage making it hard to see them when they hid in shadow, although they were so large, stately as dowagers when they walked through the long grass. Robin was not enthusiastic.

  'I like the pheasants we see in the fields better than them,' he said simply. 'They're a jolly colour, brown and fat—like Mrs Pat's teapot. Or,' he added thoughtfully, glancing sideways at her, 'like Emma.'

  Emma laughed. So did Leon Daumaury, on an astonished bark. 'I hardly think your Emma is fat,' he added, though. 'She does have something of the colouring of a male pheasant, I grant you. Who is Mrs Pat, though?'

  'Don't you know Mrs Pat? She knows you,' said Robin.

  'And Edie,' Donna added loyally, nodding like a wise little Mandarin.

  'Edie?' The old man looked down at Donna, smiling encouragingly. 'Tell me about Edie and Mrs Pat. They sound very interesting.'

  'I love them,' said Donna, and the words encompassed volumes. Leon Daumaury looked a little taken aback, as if suddenly shown a glimpse of something he had not suspected existed.

  'They run the inn in the village,' Emma said swiftly.

  'Oh, those people,' Mr Daumaury said, in astonishment. 'Well, of course, I've seen them— from a distance.'

  'They've seen you, too,' Robin encouraged kindly.

  The old man was watching Donna's small face with wonder. 'Why do you love them?' he asked her abruptly.

  She lifted wide eyes. 'I do,' she said, baffled by her lack of the necessary words. She could not explain—she could state the fact, that was all. His question worried her, and she frowned.

  Emma slipped a hand over the tiny fingers which curled and clung to hers at once. Quietly she said, 'Donna loves Edie and Mrs Pat because they love her. They're kind and loving people, both of them.'

  'So,' said Leon Daumaury with a faint trace of disdain and a wry amusement, 'my silver pheasants are too grand for you three, are they? You prefer the common or garden pheasants you see every day?'

  'Common or field pheasants,' said Robin.

  His grandfather laughed again, that sharp, surprised bark of a sound. He looked at the boy with respect, then he looked at Emma. 'Sharp as a needle, this one,' he murmured.

  'Where are the flowers?' Donna asked Emma.

  'The gardens are nearer the house,' said Leon Daumaury himself in reply.

  They were walking along a wide path through open parkland, elegantly laid out by some genius of a landscape artist so that wherever the eye rested it fell upon some charming scene—a clump of rhododendrons, an oak tree, a silver birch. Suddenly the path twisted to the right and there, through the trees, they saw the house, surprisingly close to them.

  It was well deserving of its fame, an almost perfect specimen of its kind; exquisitely proportioned, built of creamy stone, with a portico over the front door, a row of flat, elegant windows and that air of being in good taste which was somehow typical of the eighteenth century.

  Robin stood and stared at it while his grandfather watched his face almost hungrily, his wrinkled features intent upon the boy and aware of nothing else.

  'Well?' he demanded when Robin remained silent.

  Robin lifted his clear, alarmingly adult eyes to him. 'I w
ish I lived in your house,' he said bluntly.

  Leon Daumaury's skin slowly flushed, his lower lip trembled, and he closed his lips together in an effort to stem the emotion Emma could read in his face. After a moment he said gruffly, 'I'm glad you like it.'

  They walked slowly round to the back of the house. A terrace ran along here, the wooden columns supporting a glass roof, and roses spilled everywhere in waves of scent and colour, despite the lateness of the season. 'In summer they're the talk of the county,' Leon Daumaury told Emma, seeing her eyes rest on the roses. 'We're proud of our roses at Queen's Daumaury.'

  'What's that?' asked Donna in dismay, shrinking back at a sudden raucous shriek.

  'Peacocks,' said Tracy abruptly.

  Her grandfather looked at her, his eyes keen. 'D'you like them?'

  'They show off,' Tracy said scornfully. 'All those feathers…'

  'Oh, pretty,' Donna cried, seeing a cock spread his tail feathers in glittering panoply. 'Oh, pretty!'

  They all stood, in satisfied silence, admiring the spread of colour. 'There's no denying it,' Emma said with a laugh, 'they are fantastic creatures, aren't they?' She looked at Tracy and smiled. 'I sympathise with your point of view, darling, but one has to admire them!'

  'I suppose they're very pretty,' Tracy reluctantly admitted.

  'You wait until you see the gardens in the spring,' said Leon Daumaury. 'We have a blue garden here—in the spring it's a sea of blue hyacinth, then later forget-me-not and love-in-a-mist, larkspur and iris…it's quite breathtaking.'

  'I love blue flowers,' said Tracy, on an involuntary surge of enthusiasm.

  'There's a wild garden, too,' the old man added. 'We call it the Coppice—there are hazel trees, a little stream and glades filled with bluebells and wood anemones in the spring, with cowslips and ladies' slippers and a dozen different varieties later. The gardeners leave it alone to encourage wild flowers to seed there—the birds carry the seeds in their beaks, you know, and some blow in on the wind.'

  'Dandelion clocks,' said Tracy knowingly.

  'Yes,' he nodded.

  Donna was standing at a french window, her nose pressed against the glass. 'Can we go in?' she asked her grandfather.

  Before he could answer a window was flung open above Donna and Amanda cried in sharp, angry tones, 'What are you doing here? Go away at once, you naughty child!'

  Leon Daumaury stepped forward. He had been hidden from Amanda's sight until he moved. Now she stared, going pale, having thought that Donna was alone.

  'Oh, I didn't see…I didn't know…'

  Sternly the old man said, 'You shouldn't have shouted at the child like that. You've frightened her.'

  Donna was not frightened, merely startled. Emma knew her well enough to recognise the look of mild contentment which now crept into the big blue eyes. Donna was enjoying this—she did not like Amanda and was glad to see her getting into trouble, particularly as Amanda had just made her jump in alarm.

  Amanda bit her lip and tried to appear contrite. 'I didn't recognise her. I just saw a strange child on the terrace, peering in the window, and I thought…'

  'Considering her obvious age you shouldn't have shouted, whatever she was doing—she's only a baby,' Leon Daumaury said coldly.

  Amanda flung Emma a look of bitter hatred. Emma knew whom Amanda blamed for this incident. Then, with a flicker of her lashes, the other girl smiled at the three children. 'Oh, they know me, don't you? We're old friends now. We understand each other.'

  'We certainly do,' said Robin in a hilarious imitation of Ross.

  His grandfather looked at him sharply. Emma wondered if he knew Ross, and perhaps recognised the turn of phrase, the tone. Of course, she thought—Ross had visited the house now and then to see Amanda. Leon Daumaury must know him, even if he detested Ross's sister for having married his son.

  Amanda opened the french windows and they all entered the room beyond. It was one of those much photographed for glossy magazines. A drawing-room in shades of pale blue and creamy beige—the walls papered with a silky sandy material, the carpet a tone poem in blue and cream, the furniture upholstered in blue brocade. Blue vases stood on occasional tables, containing exquisitely arranged flowers, dahlias in warm autumn shades which looked discreetly colourful against the muted elegance of the walls.

  The children looked out of place in here. Their humanity, their zest, was not in accord with the atmosphere of this monument to good taste.

  Robin and Tracy exchanged silent glances. Donna moved nearer to Emma and clutched her hand tightly.

  Leon Daumaury looked down at their expressive faces, and gave a very wry little smile. 'I'll take you to see the rest of the house quickly,' he said.

  It was all much the same—a house meant for adults leading elegant adult lives. The furniture was frail, highly polished, beautiful. Every finger-mark would show at once. Tables and chairs were dainty, thin-legged, finely balanced. The children shrank from them instinctively.

  'You don't like it,' said their grandfather flatly.

  'Is there a room for children?' asked Robin with an effort at politeness.

  Leon Daumaury smiled that wry smile. 'The nurseries? On the top floor. The attics, now. They haven't been used since…' He broke off.

  Since his son was a child? thought Emma. She wondered about the children's father—was he an archaeologist because his life in this elegant box of a house had made him the sort of man who could patiently disinter ancient lives?

  They mounted to the top of the house. On this floor the carpets vanished. The floorboards were varnished a dark brown, polished and shiny. The doors were varnished, too, and the only light came from a skylight in the roof.

  They opened the door and the children went forward slowly into a long, narrow room with strange, uneven ceilings, many odd corners and sloping walls.

  'Oh!' breathed Robin in delight, then he ran forward. In the middle of the room, on a very worn piece of carpet, stood an old rocking horse, his mane thinned out by clasping hands, his colours dim and faded but his eyes as bright as ever.

  Robin was on his back in a flash. Donna cried, 'Me too!'

  Emma lifted her on to the horse, and she clutched Robin round the waist while he ecstatically rocked away. Tracy gazed round the room, staring at the bookshelves loaded with well-read children's books, the toy cupboard left open so that a dogeared teddy bear peered out at them, the table and chairs, the quaint old nursery pictures of lambs with ribbons round their necks and little girls in summery hats.

  She went to the window and looked out over the park. Emma heard her sigh. 'It's nice up here. The nicest place we've seen.'

  Leon Daumaury watched them in silence. Emma suspected that he was moved to tears, but the light was fast fading and she could not be sure.

  'It's raining,' Tracy said suddenly. 'How dark it's getting! Is it a storm, Emma?'

  Emma anxiously joined her. The sky was black and clouded. 'I'm afraid it does look very stormy. We must hurry back to our lunch.'

  'Have it here,' Leon Daumaury said gruffly.

  Emma shook her head. 'Thank you, but no. It's ready for us at the cottage.'

  She had popped it into the oven before they left—a nice warming casserole. It would be spoiled if they did not go back soon.

  Robin was reluctant to part with his new friend the rocking horse. He gave him a last loving pat as he was borne away. Donna cried, too, and was cross with Emma for a few moments before she forgot all about it.

  'I'll send you back in the car,' the old man said as they made their way down the shining staircase to the marble-floored hall.

  'Thank you,' said Emma. She would have preferred to walk, but it would take too long. They would have to get back quickly.

  Mr Daumaury stood on the steps, waving to them, as the car drew away. The children waved back as long as he was in their view, then leaned back to enjoy the luxury of the sleek, purring limousine.

  'A great car, isn't it?' Robin commented to Emma.
/>   She smiled and nodded.

  'I don't like that house,' Tracy said in her flattest, most disapproving voice.

  Robin looked at her, his rosy round cheeks and bright eyes a contrast to her pale face. 'You're only saying that because you think Mummy will be cross we went there,' he said, with his customary shrewdness.

  'I'm not, clever,' Tracy snapped.

  'I want a big horse too,' Donna commented softly, snuggling up to Emma. 'A horse that rocks backwards and forwards.' To emphasise her point she began to rock vigorously, her thumb in her mouth like the stopper in a bottle.

  'Yes, I liked the rocking horse too,' Robin agreed with quiet enthusiasm.

  'Uncle Ross will be cross,' Tracy said.

  'Why should he?' Robin demanded scornfully.

  'If Mummy had wanted us to go to see our grandfather, Uncle Ross would have taken us there,' Tracy replied.

  Emma felt a pang of bitter alarm at the words. Tracy was unanswerably right. Ross would have done so, of course.

  Ross was at the cottage when they arrived. He came slowly down to the gate as they climbed out of the limousine. Emma saw his unreadable face, the eyes watching without giving anything away, and her heart sank. Was he going to be angry? She began to marshal her arguments hurriedly—she had not intended to visit the house, it had been a chain of unforeseeable accidents which had led them there and brought them into contact with old Mr Daumaury.

  Robin walked up to his uncle calmly, like an early Christian facing the lions.

  'Hallo, Uncle Ross. We've been to see our grandfather,' he said in his direct manner. 'I like him.'

  Ross looked down at his nephew thoughtfully, then up at Emma, eyes narrowed. 'So? Have you, indeed? How did that come to happen, I wonder?'

  She began to explain hastily, stammering, 'We went f-f-for a walk, you see, and we found ourselves in a lane we'd never seen before, and there was…'

  'A little fairy gate,' Donna offered sweetly, sliding her hand into her uncle's and smiling beatifically at him. 'And out came our grandfather and we went to see his house, but it was too big. Then we saw where his rocky horse lived and we liked that…'