Chapter IV
Rose ToRRYS chose the new nurse. Not only did James feel that in her present state of health Selina should not be worried, but someone was to blame for the Naomi fiasco. It was not the man’s place to keep an eye on the female servants, and of course just now Selina was rather tied to her sofa, but it was most unfortunate; not the sort of thing that ought to occur in a decently run house. Such a thing must be put outside the bounds of possibility in the future, and the way to insure that was to put the matter into his mother’s hands. Affairs in the hands of Rose usually behaved properly.
Rose found Nurse Payne, and was so pleased with her find that she brought her down to the Manor herself. Admirable nurses did not grow on currant bushes, and having given much time to the finding of this one she determined to see her firmly rooted before she left the house.
On the afternoon of their arrival, Rose, work-bag in hand, joined her daughter-in-law in the drawing-room. Selina smiled at her, disguising the fact that she was nervous, under a look of welcome. She had always been a bit scared of James’s mother, feeling, quite rightly, that she considered her a fool. The years during which she had learned how to manage her household, and had schooled her mind into a belief in herself and the glory of her sex, had given Selina confidence and dignity, but she had never managed to get over her, original schoolgirl attitude to her mother-in-law. For one thing she was, so far, a failure in that, to the Torrys, most vital attribute, the bearing of sons.
Rose settled herself beside Selina on the sofa. She was looking extraordinarily handsome in a large way. She wore claret-coloured velvet, with a skirt so plainly cut that it made her ample behind, already accentuated with box-pleats, look most opulent. She had a natural gift for looking as though materials were upholstered on to her, and this particular dress with its chenille trimmings, rows of buttons, and Margot collarette, enhanced her likeness to an expensive sofa.
“It was very good of you to come, Mother.” Selina murmured. “And to go to such trouble finding Nurse.” Rose patted her hand kindly.
“That’s what mothers-in-law are for.” Rose’s voice was large and rich like her appearance. She opened her work-bag and shook out her knitting. She held it up and looked at Selina in a way which she intended to be playful. “This is a little coat for a little stranger we mustn’t mention. Blue you see, so that somebody’s Maid will remember that somebody has got to be a boy.”
Selina straightened her cap. She never wore caps as a rule, but Rose did not consider a wife should be without one. It was really depressing how childish she always felt with Rose, almost back at the age when she had played with Margaret. Of course her baby would be a boy, nobody could be more certain of it than she was, but somehow when Rose was about she lost all her confidence. How terrible if she never had a son. She thought of the Torrys’ family tree, that long line of women not one of whom had failed.
“Oh, I hope it’s a boy,” she said earnestly.
“Indeed yes.” Rose’s voice boomed so that the rouleau of ribbon on her cap shook. “No more girls my dear, until we have three sons in our quiver.” She smoothed her knitting. “About this nurse I have found for Caroline. An admirable woman, been with a very good family, where she has had entire charge.” She lingered on the last two words.
“Well Naomi had that. I never interfered.”
“No.” The monosyllable expressed all the interfering that Rose considered Selina should have done and had regrettably failed to do. “This woman’s references are excellent.”
“Did the children like her?”
Rose looked at her daughter-in-law with distaste. The girl had brought James an admirable fortune, but she wondered, not for the first time, if the creature were a fool.
“The children,” she said coldly, “somewhat naturally did not write the references. The parents were satisfied, and I prefer to know what the parents think.”
“How foolish I am.” Selina flushed. “I didn’t mean that, I only meant Caroline is still very little, and she was so fond of Naomi.” She felt Rose shudder. “I know she ought not to have been, but she was. I just hoped Nurse would understand that and—”
“I think you can safely leave Caroline in her hands. She knows the child’s age.” Rose spoke snubbingly, and meant it. What a weakling Selina was. How would the girl have handled her life? A husband who died at fifty leaving her with nine children, half of whom were still in the nursery and schoolroom. Probably she had never thought what her marriage meant to her mother-in-law. It was not easy to turn out of what had been your home for almost a quarter of a century, and hand it to a chit of a girl. Somehow she connected Selina in her mind with Lily, Henry’s mistress. She had never seen Lily, but others had, and she had gleaned that she too had been a silly little weakling. Queer how fond gentlemen were of silliness. Only a silly person could be so confused over this nurse business. If she were really worried as to whether her child were happy, why let her mother-in-law choose the nurse? She could not picture a moment when she would have allowed her mother-in-law, old Mary Torrys, to choose one for her. She remembered the last visit the old lady had paid her; it was when little Rose was a baby. She had come to her with some tale of a nursemaid smacking the child. She had made short work of that sort of interference. It had taken her no time to point out that she chose her domestics herself, and therefore could trust them, and that if the child was being smacked she doubtless deserved it. All the same she was glad Selina had left the nurse to her; after the disgraceful Naomi affair, a firm hand in the nursery would be a good thing. She must remember to give James a hint that Selina should be advised not to interfere.
Naomi, red-eyed, her words coming in gasps through her sobs, showed Nurse where everything lived. Just before tea was brought up the inspection finished, there was no further excuse to stay. She put on her jacket and tied her bonnet strings, then she moved towards the day-nursery. Nurse stopped her.
“No. No good-byes, those are my orders. ‘Let her show you everything and then go, but no upsetting the child.’ That’s what she said.”
The nurseries had been Naomi’s for over four years, She had felt so sodden with misery that she had been moving round almost in a dream, but now she was shaken out of her torpor by rage. This dried up stick of a woman to come in here with her ‘those are my orders’ and ‘no upsetting the child.’ Upsetting the child indeed! What could they do to upset her more than by taking her Naomi from her? She looked Nurse up and down, she forgot her nose was red, her eyes swollen, and remembered only the curves of her hips, and the soft roundness of her breasts. It was true she was leaving because she had been seen love-making. Bates was not the first man, and he would not be the last to desire her. What did this scarecrow know of love? Of pleasuring a man? Nothing, Naomi would be bound, and very little either of bringing happiness to a child. Her lips curled.
“She! Who is she?”
“Mrs. Torrys. Old Mrs. Torrys I mean, she who engaged me.”
“Oh, her!” It was wonderful what an edge of scorn could get into Naomi’s soft, burred speech. She gave Nurse a contemptuous push. “If she thinks I’m leaving that child without a kiss she’s wrong.” She swept with unconscious magnificence into the day-nursery, and sat on the floor by Caroline.
“Caroline my own pet. Naomi’s going away.”
Caroline looked up from the bricks with which she was playing. ‘Going away’ meant either that Naomi was going in by the carrier’s cart to the shops in the town, or going for a day to visit her home. Neither took long, and from either Naomi brought her a present.
“Where you goin’?” she asked cheerfully.
It had been Naomi’s thought to leave behind her some word that would hover in the nursery to comfort, as the child would surely need comfort. Caroline’s trusting look broke her. She had no more words than a bitch whose puppy is taken from her. A strange sound came that was more like a howl than a human cry. She g
ave the child a quick hug, and ran from the room. Caroline looked after her in surprise, then returned to her bricks.
Caroline looked up from a particularly successful tower she had built, to see the strange lady Grandmama had brought, standing beside her. She saw that she had changed from her pelisse and bonnet into an apron and cap. She balanced a brick on her tower.
“Are you stayin’ to tea with me?” she asked casually.
“Yes dear. Breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. In fact I’m staying with you altogether. Come along, we must wash that face, and those hands, and comb that hair. Tea will be here any minute.”
Caroline went placidly on with her building.
“My hands and face aren’t washed for tea,” she explained. She spoke earnestly, for she thought such ignorance of custom very stupid. “Fancy you thinking they was. They are for dinner, and when I go down to Mama, but not never for tea.”
“Wash before meals, that’s my rule young lady.” Nurse picked her up. In so doing she knocked over the tower.
Caroline was furious. She had built the tower, and had meant, in due course, to knock it down herself. She hated this strange lady. She kicked.
“Go away. Go away. Where’s Naomi? I want Naomi.” Quite unmoved, Nurse tucked her under her arm, and carried her into the next room. She sat heron her bed, while she poured water into the basin, then she pulled up a chair, stood the child on it, and forced her hands into the water.
“Little ladies never kick,” she scolded.
Caroline was by now thoroughly scared. Four and a half years spent in Naomi’s placid company had unfitted her for rough methods. She screamed.
Nurse believed in what she called ‘starting as you mean to go on.’ Utter obedience, and ‘no noise in my nursery,’ were two of her rules. She turned Caroline round to face her, and shook her violently.
“Will you be quiet, and let me wash you. Naomi’s gone. You won’t see her any more. I’m here instead of Naomi. You call me Nurse, and you do what I say.” She shook the child again. “Have you understood? Naomi’s gone away. It’s me that’s going to look after you now.”
Time meant nothing to Caroline. It was sufficient horror that Naomi was out of hearing, that she did not come when she called. What was clear was that for the moment she was alone with this terrifying stranger, whose hard bony face was bent over her. She yelled with fright.
Nurse gave her another good shake, and turned her back to face the basin. There she washed her hands, and, in spite of the child’s open mouth and streaming eyes, her face, and combed her hair. She then buttoned her into a clean pinafore, and carried her back into the other room, and popped her firmly into her highchair.
Caroline was past all reason. Nothing could have soothed her except the reappearance of Naomi, and even if that had occurred, it would have taken time. Her yells became hysterical when she saw this stranger handling the tea things. Nurse, however, paid no attention, she might have been deaf; she quietly finished pouring out a mug of milk.
“There dear. Drink that, and let’s have no more of that silly noise.”
Caroline did not want milk; her mug with her robin on it was of the ordinary familiar things; no one should give her milk but Naomi. In a frenzy she pushed it from her.
The milk upset. It streamed across the cloth, and dripped into a white pool on the carpet. Nurse was not standing for naughtiness of that description. She snatched the child out of her chair, carried her into the nightnursery, laid her on her bed, turned her over on to her face, and whipped her. She had not had much cause to whip her previous charges; in an incredibly short time they had learnt to obey quickly, and play quietly. She was not aware that she had missed the exercise, she was not aware now just how much satisfaction she was getting. Her lips puffed out, her eyes gleamed; she beat a shade longer, and a shade harder than she had meant.
“There.” Reluctantly she stopped and sat Caroline up. “Will you be a good girl and do everything I say, and eat your tea properly, and no more crying? Or do you want Nurse to have to smack you again?”
Caroline had never even been smacked in her life, and what she had just undergone scarcely belonged to that heading. She was utterly cowed. Sobs still shook her, but they were the ripples from the thrown stone; she might have been carved from wood she was so still, only her scared eyes followed the awful creature who had taken possession of her nurseries.
“I’ll be good,” she whispered.
“Say ‘I’ll be good, Nurse dear,” the creature demanded.
“I’ll be good Nurse dear.” All tone was gone from the voice, it was just a recording machine.
Caroline was surprised after tea to be changed into her muslin to go down to the drawing-room as usual. She had supposed that nothing customary would ever happen again. When she was dressed her hand was held, and she was taken down the stairs; on the bottom step the creature stopped, and kissed her.
“There, we are going to love one another. You must tell Mama that.”
Caroline said nothing. She had no more idea why the creature kissed her than why she beat her. She heard something about ‘tell Mama,’ but she paid no attention, she never told things to anyone but Naomi. What should she tell Mama? A lady she scarcely knew.
“You must answer, dear, when spoken to. Say ‘Yes Nurse, we shall love each other.’”
Caroline repeated the formula.
When the drawing-room door opened Selina looked up anxiously.
“There you are pet. How has she been, Nurse? Oh, she has been crying.”
“Really Selina,” Rose boomed. “What harm is there in a few tears? Spoilt children have to learn. That’s right, isn’t it Nurse?”
“Yes indeed, Ma’am.” Nurse looked at Selina. “It was nothing. If I might suggest, I would not mention it. Just get out a book, or a nice game.”
Rose lowered her voice.
“It was N. going I suppose?”
“Yes Ma’am, but we shall be all right to-morrow. Little children have short memories.”
Selina opened the cupboard where she kept toys, and took out a paper-weight. It was one that Caroline loved. She shook it and gave it to her.
Caroline sat on the floor and stared through the glass.
The two poor men in the boat, the large green waves and the whirling snow. It was just as usual, but nothing was as usual to-day. She went on sitting in silence, holding the weight in her two hands, and when the snowstorm died she let it rest, not troubling to shake it up again.
Selina brought out a box of painted bricks, and a little donkey-cart filled with fruit. Caroline, given these things to play with, obediently played, but her lack of interest was pitifully apparent, as were, if anyone had been observant, the scared glances she threw at intervals at the door. When, promptly at six-thirty, it opened she gave one quick look at the figure who came in. Had Naomi come back?
“Come along, Miss Caroline, time for sleepy-heads to go to bed. Kiss Mama, and Grandmama good-night.” Obediently Caroline scrambled to her feet, kissed her mother, then raised her face to Rose. Rose pecked her cheek, then held both her hands.
“Grandmama doesn’t love sulky little girls. When I was your age my Mama never played games with me on the floor, I sat beside her on a stool with my needlework. If my dear Mama had played with me I should have been very grateful, I should never have sat silent and scowling.” She let Caroline’s hands go, and turned to Selina. “You know dear, on my fourth birthday I was able to read a chapter of the Gospel. I think that somebody we know would be a brighter little person if hands and mind were employed.”
Selina looked thoughtfully at the door as it closed. “Perhaps she should start simple lessons,” she agreed vaguely. She folded her work and got up. Rose glanced at her.
“Where are you going, my dear?” Selina flushed.
“To the nursery. I thought Caroline looked miserable.”
She turned to the door, as she did so James came in. “Ah, James.” Behind Selina’s back Rose threw him a meaning look. “You are just in time to stop this foolish little wife of yours from running up and down stairs, worrying over Caroline. I have taken a lot of trouble to get you a first-class nurse, so that at this important time our little mother can be free to look after herself.” James put his arm round Selina, and kissed her. “Foolish Selina. Mama did not bring nine of us up without learning how to choose a nurse.”
Selina leant against him, cheered by his protecting arm. “No, I suppose not.”
“We certainly cannot have you running up and down the stairs, it is not good for you. Besides,” he laid his lips on her hair, “what time is over from looking after yourself I think ought to be spent in looking after me.”
Chapter V
HOWEVER fondly James might speak he meant what he said. His wife was being sufficiently little of a companion without her suddenly constituting herself an extra nurse for Caroline. His mother, though making every allowance for Selina’s state of health (while, at the same time, pointing out that she herself at similar times had needed no allowances), told James clearly that she was affronted at the way in which a nurse of her selection had been received. She had not, she said, brought up nine children without knowing how a nursery should be run. She thought that dear James should make it clear that dear Selina had but one duty to consider at the moment, and that was to guard her health. There must be no repetition of that silly illness she had last time. Running up and down several flights of stairs every minute of the day to see if a spoilt child was entirely happy in her nurseries, was not suitable behaviour for a young woman in her condition. Most of this James repeated when he had Selina by his side in bed. He made what he said sound as much like his own thoughts as possible, but naturally Selina was not deceived, she knew at once whose words they were. Nevertheless she listened sweetly, for James embellished what he had to say with ‘Dear Love’ and ‘My sweet wife’; and though, just before he dropped asleep, he made it a command that she should not again climb the nursery stairs until after the child was born, she was sufficiently feminine to adore it. She never could resist James when he ordered her about. He made her feel such a sheltered flower.
Caroline England Page 3
