‘My thoughts are not very good company at the moment’ she said, with an awkward smile, ‘I think I should get away from them for a few hours.’
Celia said she thought so, too, that she was delighted, and that Jack would be home and he was enough to cheer anyone up; but in fact she was a little worried about the effect of LM’s gaunt misery on the general family mood.
And then there was the strain of keeping her pregnancy from Oliver; he had remarked that she was very thin, that she was clearly not eating properly, had asked her how he could possibly go away with any peace of mind if she wasn’t going to take care of herself?
‘Oliver I’m fine. Really. I’ve had a bit of a tummy upset, that’s all. Sickness and all that sort of nasty thing. So if I am thin, that’s what it is. But I’m much better now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite, quite sure. I feel wonderful.’
That was not quite true, for she was sleeping badly, as she always did when she was pregnant, and consequently was very tired; but the sickness had stopped, and she felt perfectly well enough to pretend. And mercifully she was indeed very thin. She had not wavered in her resolve not to tell him; but it was not easy, just the same.
Giles was causing her anxiety; he had come home from school in an odd state. She went down to fetch him, and he came out to the car perfectly composed, hugged her briefly and then climbed in beside her and sat, huddled very closely to her, not speaking much through the entire journey home. Once there, he shot up to the nursery where Nanny was greeted rather more enthusiastically than Celia had been. She told herself this was because at home he wasn’t being watched by his peers. He disappeared for a long time into Barty’s small room, and was quiet but cheerful at supper. But the next morning he came to find Celia.
‘Mummy, can I talk to you?’
‘Well, not for long, darling. I’m late already.’
‘Oh. Perhaps tonight then.’
‘Yes, that might be better.’
That evening he sat with her for a while, not saying very much at all, clearly nervous; but finally he took a deep breath and burst out, rather pink-faced, ‘Mummy, can I please, please leave school?’
‘Leave! But why? You’re doing so well, you had a splendid report, and you sounded so happy in your letters.’
‘They read our letters,’ said Giles.
‘Oh, I see. Well, what’s wrong?’
‘It’s the other boys. They’re horrible to me.’
‘What sort of horrible?’ asked Celia.
‘They tease me. All the time.’
‘Darling, everyone gets teased at school. It’s horrid but it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘It means a lot to me,’ said Giles. His voice was heavy.
She looked at him. ‘Tell me about it, what do they do?’
‘Call me horrible names.’
‘That doesn’t sound very serious.’
‘They’re really horrible names. And the prefect I have to fag for shouts at me and – and—’
‘What does he do, darling? He doesn’t ever hit you, does he?’
‘No,’ said Giles quickly.
Jarvis had made it clear to him that if he ever let on what they all did to him, his life would be hell. ‘And I mean hell, skewballs. Know what I mean?’
‘Well then. Shouting can’t be too bad. And you’re in the choir, I see, and starting the recorder. So it isn’t all bad. What do your friends say, do they find it difficult, too?’
‘I—’ Giles stopped. To say he hadn’t got any friends was too humiliating. It would brand him as a complete failure in his mother’s eyes. ‘They don’t like it much either,’ he said.
‘There you are then. You’re all in the same boat.’
‘Yes, but Mummy, I hate it, I’m so miserable and homesick and I miss you and Daddy so much – and—’ Perhaps he should tell her, perhaps he could. Risk the consequences from Jarvis; his mother was so clever, she would know what to do, how to manage it all, and if he didn’t tell her how bad it was, she couldn’t be expected to try to help.
‘It is quite bad,’ he said cautiously, ‘the other boys – they – they make me—’
‘Giles,’ said Celia. She felt rather weary suddenly. All the way home in the car she had been reading reports in the paper about the dreadful total of casualties just in those first few months of the war: there was talk of ninety per cent, if the injured and captured were counted in. One battalion alone had sent out eleven hundred men and had eighty left. Her mother had phoned that morning with grim news of deaths amongst their own friends: from the Grosvenors, the Gordon Lennoxes, the Crichtons, the Wellesleys. And she was having to say goodbye to Oliver, to send him off to what was beginning to seem almost certain death. A small boy’s homesickness at school seemed rather unimportant.
‘Giles darling,’ she said firmly, ‘we all have to learn to be brave about things. It’s part of growing up. There is a dreadful war on, and Daddy is going away to fight in it for us. Now, the last thing I want is for him to be worried about anything as he goes away. Anything at all. So I want you to be brave and cheerful, and certainly not mention any of this to him. It will get better, Giles. Daddy and your grandpapa, and just about everyone we know went through a bad time when they first went to school. They survived. Try to remember that.’
He looked at her solemnly for a long moment, and then without another word left the room, and went upstairs to the nursery. Later, mildly remorseful, she followed him, but heard him giggling with Barty. Obviously it wasn’t too bad.
Barty would not be with them; she was to spend Christmas Day with her family and she had been fizzing with excitement, choosing presents for everyone, wrapping parcels, helping Celia to do up a hamper with food and crackers and a bottle of port for her father. But as Celia set the last candle in place and turned her attention to the parcels, there was a knock on the front door. She opened it herself and saw Billy Miller standing there, stern-faced.
‘She’s not to come tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Barty’s not to come.’
‘Oh Billy, but why not? She’s looking forward to it so much.’
‘She can’t come,’ he said, ‘me mum’s not well.’
‘What sort of not well, Billy?’
‘She fell down the stairs. Doctor had to come. She’s broken her wrist and bumped her head, she’s in bed.’
‘Billy, that’s dreadful. Should I come and see her, can I get her anything?’
‘No,’ he said his face flushed, shifty with awkwardness, ‘no, don’t come. We’re best on our own.’
‘But is your father managing to look after her? And all the little ones?’
‘He’s fine,’ said Billy. ‘I’m helping him any case. Thanks,’ he added as a careful afterthought.
‘Oh Billy, I’m so sorry. Please give your mother my love. Did you walk here? It’s a long way.’
‘No it isn’t,’ he said sounding almost surprised, ‘only took me a bit of a while.’
‘I know, but it’s so cold. Look, let me send you back in the car. I’ve done a hamper for you all for Christmas Day, you can take it. Oh dear, Barty will be so disappointed. She’s not here, she’s gone to a carol service with Nanny and the twins. Anyway, let me call Truman, organise the car.’
‘Yeah, all right,’ said Billy.
He stood waiting for the car to be brought to the steps, gazing round him; clearly transfixed by the size of the house, the hall, the vast tree. Finally he said, ‘You live in the whole house do you?’
‘Well – yes,’ said Celia, slightly uncertainly, and then struggling to justify herself, ‘but there are a lot of us. Four children and my husband and me, and then there are—’ the servants, she had been going to say, and stopped, appalled at her own insensitivity. I’m getting like my mother, she thought, and hurried on, ‘my parents and my brother-in-law, and – well. Ever so many people. Ah, Truman. There you are. This young man, Billy Miller, Miss Barty’s oldest brother, wants you to take him home to his hous
e in Kennington and I would like you to take the hamper which Barty and I have prepared. It’s down in the kitchen. Cook will give it to you.’
The hamper was being loaded into the car and Billy was having a glass of lemonade as Barty arrived home; she flung herself at him, starry-eyed.
‘Oh Billy, how lovely to see you. Have you come to fetch me early, I can be ready in a minute . . .’
‘You can’t come,’ he said gruffly, ‘Mum’s ill. She says she can’t cope. But to tell you happy Christmas.’
‘Oh. Oh I see.’
Celia never forgot that moment; for Barty did not cry, nor even argue, but, ‘Yes, very well,’ she said, ‘I understand. Happy Christmas, Billy.’
She stood on tiptoe, gave him a kiss and then ran, very quickly, up the two flights of stairs to the nurseries without another word. Looking up after her, Celia felt awed that a little girl of seven should be capable of such iron self-control. But later, when she went up, Barty was lying face-down on her bed sobbing endlessly; Celia sat down beside her and took her in her arms.
‘Barty darling, don’t be so upset,’ she said, ‘I know it’s disappointing, but it couldn’t be helped, your mother is clearly very unwell. After Christmas we’ll go and see her together. And—’ she gave her a kiss, ‘and I can’t help being a bit glad, I was going to miss you tomorrow.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Barty said between hiccups, ‘they don’t want me. If they did, they’d manage somehow, and anyway, I could have helped, it would have been easier for Mum. They don’t want me any more, they think I’m not part of them.’
Celia went rather heavily down the stairs, her heart aching for Barty, and her head tight with panic at what she seemed to have brought upon her.
Christmas lunch was tense, in spite of the large party round the table. The Beckenhams had joined them; and to her mother’s amusement, Celia always insisted that the staff sat at the table on Christmas day. Celia had placed Lady Beckenham next to Jack who was in high spirits, full of tales of victories in France and seeing off the Hun; Lady Beckenham liked and approved of him, and often said how extraordinary it was that he and Oliver were brothers.
‘He’s such a decent chap, seems to like doing all the right things, ridden a lot out in India you know, Beckenham thinks the world of him.’
LM, pale and gaunt, was seated between Barty, who was quiet and solemn, and Nanny. LM had not spoken very much, although she was gallantly wearing a paper hat and had read out her motto and Nanny’s. She had eaten quite a lot of goose and ham, but now that the pudding had been brought in flaming to the table, by Oliver, she was simply pushing it round her plate. Celia watched her; poor LM, she really did look wretched. And then LM pushed her chair back, said, ‘Excuse me,’ rather quietly, walked through the door and collapsed in a limp heap on the hall floor. Oliver leapt up, picked her up in his arms like a child and started up the stairs with her, instructing Nanny to call Dr Perring; but not before Celia had seen, with a thud of shock, as the loose jacket which LM had been wearing slipped open, that the neat broad waistband of her skirt was unfastened, and that the stomach just beneath it domed upwards in the unmistakable shape of pregnancy.
‘You saw, didn’t you?’ said LM. She was too exhausted, too wretched to pretend any longer; lying listlessly on her pillows, waiting for Dr Perring, she had greeted Celia with a half smile and then turned her face to the window in silence. Celia sat down beside her and took her hand.
‘Yes,’ she said gently, ‘yes I saw. But nobody else did. LM, when – I mean—’
‘In May,’ said LM, ‘early May, I’m told.’
‘And why didn’t you say anything, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t know myself until a few weeks ago,’ said LM. ‘I thought – thought it was the change. And then – I felt so ashamed, so foolish—’
‘Oh LM, you shouldn’t. Feel either of those things. And besides – well, it’s wonderful. I think so anyway. What does – does your—’
‘Jago. He’s called Jago,’ said LM. The shadow of a smile crossed her face. ‘I really don’t feel I can go on referring to him as Mr Ford.’
‘What a marvellous name. Is it in our dictionary?’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘It should be. Well, what does he say?’
‘He doesn’t know.’
‘He doesn’t know? I thought letters got out to the front very quickly.’
‘They do. I haven’t told him. I’m not going to tell him.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t. You don’t understand. He couldn’t take it, he would find it unbearable.’
‘Unbearable? LM, why? You’re right, I certainly don’t understand, why should he feel that?’
And she sat there, holding LM’s hand, listening to the sad story of Annie, of Jago’s terror of pregnancy and childbirth, of LM’s own. ‘He would be horrified and so afraid. It would add to his burdens. You must know that, you haven’t told Oliver about . . .’
‘I know, I know, but of course, I will. Once he’s gone, isn’t so – worried about actually leaving, and isn’t going to make me promise to stop working, all that nonsense, I shall write and tell him, he’ll be happy then.’
‘Oh, Celia,’ said LM helplessly, ‘I don’t know what to do. I simply don’t.’
‘You have to tell him. You can’t make that sort of decision for him. It’s – well it’s wrong. It’s his child, as well as yours. He has a right to know about it.’
‘No,’ said LM after a long silence, considering this ‘I can’t tell him. Maybe afterwards, when the child is safely delivered and I’ve survived. If I do.’
‘Of course you’ll survive,’ said Celia briskly. ‘Childbirth is painful and uncomfortable but with proper care it’s not really very dangerous. I realise that Jago’s wife died in childbirth, but there were special reasons. And a good doctor would probably have identifed them, been able to deal with them.’
‘I am rather old, don’t you think,’ said LM, ‘to be having a first child?’
‘I don’t know. What are you – forty? Yes. But you’re very well and very strong. The way you hump those books about – you’ll have to stop that, you know. What does your doctor say?’
‘Exactly that. That I am well and strong.’
‘So – are you pleased at all? You must be.’
‘No,’ said LM, ‘not really. I’m not. I don’t want a child, my life isn’t geared to having a child, I don’t like children.’
‘You like my children.’
‘Only in small doses’ said LM, managing to smile. ‘I cannot imagine being with one twenty-four hours a day.’
‘Well you won’t have to be’, said Celia just slightly stiffly. ‘Obviously you’ll have a nanny.’ She found it difficult to hear that her children were less than adorable to anyone. ‘What – what do you think you are going to do? Afterwards, I mean.’
‘Heaven knows. I’ve tried not to think about it.’
‘Well I’m afraid you’ll have to think about it. It isn’t going to go away, your little baby.’
‘No,’ said LM, ‘Unfortunately, it’s not.’
The baby was about the size of a small puppy, the doctor had said. In spite of everything, of the shock the horror, the dread, she had found that strangely touching. The thought of it sitting there inside her, growing. She would feel it kick soon, the doctor had also said; this seemed less attractive. Something wriggling, moving about inside her. An invasion of her, of her body.
‘I am quite, quite sure of two things,’ said Celia standing up. There was the sound of voices on the stairs; Dr Perring had arrived, summoned from his Christmas dinner. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell the doctor, you don’t have to do it. You have to tell Jago. It amounts to – to theft, not doing so. And you will – you will love that baby. When it arrives. I promise you that. Ah, Dr Perring. How kind of you to come. Merry Christmas. If I could just have a quiet word . . .’
Leaving the house was terrible for
Oliver. His departure had been delayed and he was allowed to stay a further day. He got dressed in his uniform.
‘Oh, you look so handsome’, said Celia, determinedly positive as always, ‘years younger and desperately dashing, like Jack. If you’re not careful I shall tear that off you again, and make you late for your train.’
They had agreed that she would say goodbye to him at the house; he would find that easier, he said. They had said their own personal private farewells the night before; he had made love to her more gently, more tenderly than she could ever remember, moving in her so slowly and carefully she could scarcely feel it. She knew why and said so.
‘You know you have to change now, don’t you? Become aggressive, harsh, inflict pain. This is your last chance to be the real Oliver. Isn’t that right?’
‘That is right’ he said, kissing her; she tasted salt, realised he was crying, and felt her own tears rise to join his. ‘It frightens me, Celia, how well you know me. How am I going to live without you? Am I going to change, so you don’t know me any more?’
‘Of course not,’ she said, ‘you won’t change for me. I know you won’t.’ But she lay awake for much of the night, staring at the window, dreading the dawn, and thinking that however perfectly she knew him, he could not read her one tenth as accurately. And that given her circumstances, given her secret baby, that was just as well.
‘Bye, Giles, old man. Look after Mummy for me,’ said Oliver.
He picked Giles up, noticing how thin he was, how frail he felt in his arms. Giles clung to him, burrowed his face into his chest.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Why not? I need you to.’
‘I won’t be here,’ said Giles with childish logic. ‘I’ll be at school. I could come home again,’ he added, his voice light with hope. Oliver pulled back, looked at him. The small face was very intense, the large, dark eyes burning.
‘I don’t like it, Daddy,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t like it at school.’
‘You don’t? That’s not what you said the other day.’
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