Summer House

by Nichols, Mary

  ‘Another year gone,’ Laura said as she settled Robby on her knee. ‘I can’t believe how quickly it’s flown.’

  ‘In one way, perhaps, but in another it has crawled past in a sort of nightmare,’ Steve said. ‘Are we any further forward?’

  ‘Of course we are. You are well and strong again and that’s the most important thing. And, please God, the war is being won.’

  ‘I’m going back, you know,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I know. If that’s what you want…’ She stopped, longing to tell him not to go, that she loved him and needed him, but it wouldn’t be fair to put that burden on him. There was so much about her he didn’t know and might not like. ‘You must do what you think is right, Steve.’

  They fell silent. He wanted to ask if she could bear to overlook his scars and marry him, but he could not. It wasn’t so much the scars that held him back, not any more, but the knowledge that perhaps next time he wouldn’t be so lucky; no woman deserved to be widowed twice by war. Neither could he ignore the fact that Wayne Donovan hovered in the background. She never spoke of him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t think of him. Where was he? If he was in England, he’d be bound to come to Beckbridge as soon as he could, especially if he knew his parents were here.

  It was snowing as the bus drew up outside The Jolly Brewers. They gathered up their bags and the pushchair and started to walk the rest of the way. They had only gone a few yards when the twins caught them up. The school had broken up for the holiday and they were bored. They walked either side of Steve and Laura, effectively ending any chance of private conversation. At the end of the lane leading to the farm, they left Laura to continue alone.

  Pushing Robby, she turned into the drive of the Hall to see a tall man in a Canadian uniform walking towards her. Her first thought was that he had brought news of Wayne and her heart thumped uncomfortably, wondering if he had been wounded or worse. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. He had stopped walking and was staring at her as if he could not believe his eyes. ‘Were you looking for someone?’

  He pulled himself together. ‘You must be Laura.’

  ‘Yes. What can I do for you? Have you brought news of Wayne?’

  ‘No, that’s the problem. Look, is there somewhere we can talk?’

  ‘Come back to the house.’

  ‘I’d rather not. Not at the moment.’

  ‘How very mysterious. We can’t stand here, we’ll freeze. Let’s go to the summer house.’ She did not wait for an answer but set off across the grass. He hesitated, but when she did not look back, he followed.

  The short walk was accomplished in silence. His head was buzzing over his encounter with Helen, which had not been what he expected – but then he didn’t know what he had expected. Over the years he had always imagined her with her husband, living a life in which memories of him hardly impinged. To see this young lady walking towards him when his head was full of events of a quarter of a century before had given him a severe jolt. Here was Helen as she had been, the beautiful Helen of his fondest memories, the Helen he had loved, the one who had professed to love him. Here was the shining dark hair, the widow’s peak, the firm chin and expressive eyes. He tried telling himself his eyes were deceiving him but that didn’t work; she was real. He wanted to reach out and touch her, just to make sure. And here was the summer house where he and Helen had met and made love, where they had parted in tears. ‘Oh, Helen,’ he murmured.

  If she heard him she gave no indication of it as she opened the door and pushed Robby inside. He followed. ‘It’s not very warm in here,’ she said, shutting the door and bending to let Robby out of his chair to run about.

  ‘I won’t keep you long.’ He sat down on the bench and looked up at her. ‘You are so like Helen, it’s uncanny.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Oh yes, from way back.’

  She sat down suddenly. ‘You’re Oliver Donovan.’ This was her father, the man who had given her birth, the man Helen had loved, the man who had deserted her and never acknowledged his child. She wasn’t sure what she felt, but it wasn’t daughterly love. It was more a kind of detachment.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you seen Helen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  What had they talked about? Had he told Helen why he had deserted her in her hour of need and turned to Joyce’s sister? Had Helen explained about her? It might account for the strange looks he was giving her. ‘What did she tell you?’ Robby was clambering on the bench beside her to look out of the window at the lake and she put out a hand to steady him.

  ‘That you were out shopping and to come back later if I wanted to talk to you. You see, we are worried about Wayne, his mother and I. We haven’t heard from him for months and we thought you might know where he is.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’

  ‘Surely he’s written to you? He might not be able to say where he is, but he could have told you he was well.’

  ‘He hasn’t written since he went back from leave last time.’ He didn’t know she was his daughter; she could tell by the way he was questioning her. It wasn’t up to her to tell him. If Helen had wanted him to know she would have told him herself.

  ‘Did you quarrel? His early letters were so full of you and his hope that you would agree to marry him. His only concern seemed to be that you might not want to live in Canada. We would not stand in his way if he wanted to stay in the UK, but it would make his mother and me very unhappy. He is our only child; we live for him. I wanted to ask you if that was the trouble, and if it was, to persuade you to change your mind and consent to live near us. We would make you very welcome. Life in Canada is good; Valerie will tell you that.’

  ‘Is Mrs Donovan here with you?’

  ‘Yes, she’s gone to Norwich with Joyce, visiting old friends, seeing how it’s changed. I took the opportunity to come and make your acquaintance; if the news was bad, I wanted to be the one to break it to her.’

  ‘If Wayne had been a casualty, surely you would have been told? As for my living in Canada; the subject never came up. Wayne and I are not thinking of marrying.’

  ‘You turned him down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That explains it.’

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Why his last letter was so strange. He didn’t mention you once. I think you have made him one very unhappy young man.’

  ‘I’m sorry for that, Major Donovan, but it simply could not be.’

  ‘Has he accepted that?’

  ‘I am sure he has. We have agreed to be good friends.’

  He stood up. ‘Then there’s no more to be said. I’m sorry I troubled you.’

  ‘And I’m sorry too, more than I can tell you.’ She scooped Robby up and strapped him in his pushchair. ‘I must be going. I’m on duty this evening and I have to give Robby his tea.’

  He held the door open for her to manoeuvre the pushchair outside. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll sit here for a while.’

  ‘Of course. Take all the time you want.’ She left him and hurried back to the house. The snow had turned to sleet, which stung her face.

  Oliver returned to the bench and sat down again. How often had he dreamt of this place, of meeting Helen, of talking of everything under the sun, of their love for each other and plans for the future? It had not been Helen who had wrecked those but her father. All through that terrifying battle at Passchendale, the only thing that had kept him going was the prospect of coming back to Helen. It was that which had kept him alive after he had been wounded. He remembered that acrimonious interview with the Earl as if it were yesterday. Why had he believed him, why had he not had more faith? Why, in heaven’s name, had he got so drunk that he had fallen into the arms of the first sympathetic woman he met and made her pregnant? At first he had looked on that as a kind of punishment and marrying her was something he had to do for his conscience’s sake, but as the years passed and the memory gradually dimmed, they had been happy, he and Val, working hard,
making a success of their lives and adoring Wayne. Anything that hurt his son, hurt him. It was as if he had been rejected all over again.

  He rose and went outside to stand looking at the lake. At this time of the year it was cold and uninviting. The reeds were brown and drooping, but there were still ducks bobbing up and down on it. And the old boathouse was still there, more dilapidated than ever. Strange that the boathouse should be falling apart but not the summer house. He looked back at it and realised it had been moved; it was a few yards further from the water. Where it had been was a bumpy square of yellowing grass; the tree that had once overhung it was a blackened stump. The whole thing had been destroyed and rebuilt. Who had done that and why? And who exactly was Laura? She was so like Helen, it had given him a tremendous shock, seeing her coming towards him. Were the two related? He knew very little about Helen’s relatives apart from the Earl and the Countess, and her cousin Kathy. That was the one who had married the farmer, the mother of the burnt airman. Their lives had moved on. All their lives.

  ‘Oh, what the hell,’ he said aloud and trudged back to the drive and out onto the road.

  ‘I met my father,’ Laura said bluntly. Robby had been given his tea and put to bed and now she and Helen were laying the table for their own meal.

  ‘Oh.’ Helen paused, a bundle of cutlery in her hand, and looked up at Laura. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He wanted to know if I knew where Wayne was and if I married him, would I consider living in Canada. I told him I did not know where his son was, and that I would not be marrying him. It made me feel – oh, I don’t know – mean, I suppose. He obviously thinks the world of Wayne.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him—’

  ‘No. I didn’t see the point. If you want him to know, you tell him.’

  ‘It’s not what I want, Laura, it’s what you want. How do you feel about it, bearing in mind it won’t make any difference to the way we live our lives? On the other hand, it might be nice for you to have someone besides me.’

  ‘Nice for me! I had a father once, one I adored, I don’t want another. And as you say, it won’t make any difference to us. I think I’ll just content myself with my two mothers.’ She smiled as she said it and saw the relief on Helen’s face. ‘Of course, he might find out. He did comment on how much I looked like you.’

  ‘Plenty of people have done that. We’ll just have to brazen it out as we’ve always done.’

  ‘Wayne might tell him.’

  ‘He’s not here, is he? And perhaps he won’t, if he thinks it will upset his mother.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. There is one thing, though…’ Laura paused. Meeting her father had not been the earth-shattering experience she had expected it to be. He did not arouse any feelings of affection in her, but she had been surprised to see a little of him in Robby. Robby’s hair had been dark, like Bob’s, at birth, but as he was growing out of babyhood now, in certain lights there was a slight auburn tinge to it which she had always thought he had inherited from her. She must have got it from her father, because she had noticed the same shade in Major Donovan’s hair. ‘There’s Robby.’

  ‘Yes, there’s Robby, but he’s too young to understand. It’s up to you what you tell him when he’s old enough.’

  ‘I feel like a conspirator. Was that how you and Mum felt when you were ordering my life for me?’

  ‘It wasn’t the way I wanted it, but what’s the good of going over it? We can’t change it. What we have to do is deal with the present and look to the future.’

  Laura pulled herself together and tried to be practical. ‘Yes, lets talk about Christmas and what we’re going to do. I’ve got a little something for all the patients and staff…’ She stopped speaking to go to the kitchen to fetch a casserole; it contained very little meat but the onion gravy was tasty. Helen followed to bring in the tureens of vegetables. Mrs Ward and two dailies from the village were busy washing up after the patients’ evening meal.

  ‘The boys have spent most of the day making paper chains with pictures cut from old magazines and flour paste,’ Helen said as they returned and sat down to their meal. ‘They are quite colourful. And Mr Ward brought the tree in.’

  ‘Yes, I saw it in the hall. I promised Robby he could help us trim it.’

  ‘What about the party?’

  ‘It’s mostly in hand. I’ll need a couple of strong men to help move the carpet out of the ballroom if we are going to have dancing, and we’ll need more chairs.’ The ballroom had been converted into a day room, with a carpet at one end with easy chairs, a radio and a bookcase. At the other was a table tennis table and a dartboard. ‘I’ll put Flying Officer Bowyer and Sergeant Pilot Newnes in the little room at the back of the west wing. They won’t feel up to partying and they’ll be quiet in there.’

  ‘It used to be the sewing room. In the days when I was a little girl, my mother employed a dressmaker and a general sewing woman to do the household mending. They were always busy.’ She laughed. ‘There was also a laundrywoman, and dairy maids and scullions, not to mention cooks, kitchen maids, chambermaids, parlourmaids, a butler and footmen. Most of those disappeared during the last war and what was left went one at a time afterwards. Except Mr and Mrs Ward. Apart from when the bomb dropped on the summer house, I can’t remember a time when they were not here, ministering to our needs. They could tell a tale or two.’

  ‘About you and me?’

  ‘I don’t know. They always pretended to believe the story my father told everyone, and as Richard never came back…’ Helen paused. ‘Enough of nostalgia. You were telling me about the party. Who’ve you invited?’

  ‘Just about everyone. All those at Bridge Farm, of course, the parson and his wife and daughters, the doctor and his wife, the teachers at the school, and Joyce. I suggested if any of her family managed to get home for Christmas they would be welcome too. At the time I didn’t know Major Donovan and his wife were going to be there. Now I’m in a bit of a quandary. How can we leave them out?’

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘I don’t want you upset by them.’

  ‘I won’t be.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. I’ll pretend to be glad to see someone from long ago, and I’ll be friendly towards them in the condescending kind of way my mother used for servants and underlings; after all, Valerie was a chambermaid at one time. And if anyone says you look like me, I’ll just say I’ve heard it all before and we might have the same great-great-grandmother, or something of that sort.’

  ‘It will be an awful strain for you, and I did so want everyone to be relaxed and to enjoy themselves.’

  ‘I’m a good actress, Laura, and I’ve spent years perfecting a stiff upper lip – twenty-five years, as a matter of fact. Don’t worry about me. Look to yourself.’

  ‘I’ll be too busy to worry about them. Besides, when I met Oliver, I looked at him and I thought, “This is my father, his blood runs in my veins,” but I felt nothing at all.’

  ‘Then here’s to Christmas.’ Helen raised her glass of water. ‘And may it be the last one of the war.’

  ‘Amen to that.’

  ‘Happy Christmas everyone!’ Steve was the last to come down for his breakfast. His mother and the twins had been up for hours; his mother to get the turkey they had been fattening into the oven, the twins because they were too excited to stay in bed. Long before dawn they had discovered the paintboxes, the jigsaws, the new socks, which they suspected Aunty Kathy had knitted, and the Cox’s apples, which had been in store since October – but what excited them more than anything was that their father had arrived just as they were going to bed the night before.

  ‘You are not to go and disturb him,’ Kathy said as soon as they appeared in the kitchen. ‘If you can’t stay in bed, find something quiet to do until they get up.’ She smiled as she said it, remembering Daphne’s exuberant greeting when she saw her husband on the doormat. She had flung herself at him, winding her legs about his waist and kissing hi
m over and over again. ‘Hold on, old girl,’ he had said, grinning all over his face. ‘Let me get in the door.’

  She had dragged him in and Alec kissed or shook hands with everyone. Christmas seemed to start from there. Homemade beer appeared, along with homemade elderberry wine and a bottle of whisky William had been hoarding. Steve was home and needing his bed, so Alec and Daphne had gone over to the stable flat. Meg had gone home for a few days’ leave.

  Gradually, one by one, they appeared in the kitchen for breakfast. William followed the twins because he had to see to the animals and do the milking before he could sit down to enjoy his breakfast. Daphne and Alec came next, glowing from their loving and anxious not to neglect the twins; then Jenny came to help her mother make breakfast while Alice set about laying the table and, when that was done, poked about among the presents under the tree, as curious as a child to feel the parcels and guess who had given what. And finally Steve arrived, washed, dressed and shaved.

  ‘Happy Christmas, son,’ Kathy said, putting fried eggs on one large dish and bacon on another. ‘Now we’re all here.’

  ‘I met Ken Moreton at Liverpool Street last night,’ Alec said as they all sat around the table. ‘We travelled down together.’

  ‘Oh, how nice for Joyce,’ Kathy said. ‘She’ll be pleased as punch.’

  ‘I might go to the pub after church,’ Steve said. ‘Have a natter with him, see what he’s been up to in my absence. He’s bound to be there.’

  The church was already filling up when Kathy and William herded their brood into their usual pew. As the organist played softly, the congregation looked about them and smiled at each other, mouthing ‘Happy Christmas’. Steve was surprised to see the Moretons occupying the pew across the aisle; they were not usually churchgoers, but he supposed Christmas was an exception, particularly as they had guests – guests, moreover, they would want to show off. There was Joyce and her mother, and another woman in a fur coat and a hat which reminded him of pictures of Robin Hood. Stella was there, looking very grown-up, and Ken, in uniform. And then there was Major Donovan and beside him another man in uniform. ‘Wayne,’ Jenny whispered beside him. ‘The only one who’s missing is Ian.’