Alice, even with Mrs. Killigrew, could not discuss Avis. But she, too, had noticed how Judith treasured little tasks and asked eagerly about each one. “Can I do it always?” “Can it be one of mine?”
“She’s a most helpful child. We shall miss her.”
Mrs. Killigrew had a trick of appearing to beckon with her head when she wished to say something intimate.
“That’s the half of it shouldn’t wonder. I don’t talk of her going away much, but when I tell her I’ll miss her she gives me ever such a queer look, and once she said, you know the funny way she talks, ‘Oh please do, Mrs. Killigrew darling, I do think it’s heart-warming to know you’re missed.’”
Charles had joined a nearby golf club and played golf most afternoons. He had wanted to teach Judith to play, but Alice had dissuaded him.
“You leave Judith with me. She mustn’t get used to having you all day, for you’ll soon be leaving for America, and anyway she wouldn’t keep her golf up. If I remember rightly, Avis played no games.”
While she gardened, often assisted by Judith, Alice tried to think how she could find out from Charles what had caused the break between himself and Avis. As he had happily married again, he might not mind telling her, and if there was no reason for bitterness, perhaps he and Avis might, because of Judith, write to each other. It was appalling to think that the child would fly away in a few weeks, and it might be years before they saw her again. There would, of course, from now on be letters, both to her and to Charles from Judith, but Alice doubted if they would tell much. At first perhaps, while they were living in the child’s mind, but gradually they would tail off into duty letters. While Alice was still fumbling for an opening, Charles presented it. It was after dinner, so Judith was in bed.
“I was thinking I’d go and see these horse trials, Bruce wrote to me by the afternoon post, he can get a few days off and knows somebody who will put us up.”
“Have you told Judith?”
Charles looked anxiously at his Mother.
“Not yet. She wouldn’t mind, would she?”
Alice was knitting, she laid her work on her knees, for she was not a knitter who could knit safely during an important conversation.
“It’s probably quite a good idea. It will break her in for the real separation when it comes.”
Charles wriggled uncomfortably.
“I don’t like thinking of that.”
“But you’ve got to. Charles, what are you going to do about Judith? You can’t let her go right out of your life again.”
Charles lit a cigarette.
“Difficult to know what to do. I’d like to take her back with me for a while, Marion would love it.”
Alice had to smile at that.
“You’re so like you were as a little boy. I remember you telling your Father you thought you could take your pony to school, that probably the matron would love it.”
Charles grinned.
“I’ve not improved, I’m afraid. But seriously, what can I do? Avis has done a wonderful job, and Judith’s devoted to her. Bit late for me to push my oar in.”
Alice hesitated, while she floundered for the right words.
“I think Avis has done quite well, but Judith has come on a lot since she has been here. I was wondering if you could make arrangements to keep more in touch in future . . .” She stopped there, silenced by the expression on Charles’s face. How did other Mothers get on familiar terms with their children? She never had with hers. Charles was clearly disliking the conversation, and why would he not, she never had been in his confidence, why should she expect to share his thoughts now?
Charles broke the uneasy silence.
“I should like to do that, but it’s not so easy, I mean Avis wouldn’t stand for it. It was decent of her letting Judy come over for so long . . .”
“You have the right to see her.”
“Yes, but two months is quite a time, after all she took her away just to avoid all this sort of thing . . .”
“This sort of thing”! Alice turned the words over in her head. “What sort of thing?” Then the meaning came to her.
“Us?”
Charles grinned sheepishly.
“You remember what the Stratford-Dericksons were like, never thought anyone fit to wash their feet. Always told Avis she had messed up her life marrying me. True in a way.”
“Nonsense.” Alice chose her words carefully. “She worked with her brothers during the war, didn’t she? I suppose they influenced her.”
Charles did not answer that directly.
“Helped Herbert in the publishing business, Angus was in the army. I thought she was doing it as war work, never knew she was planning it as a permanent thing. If I had I’d have been more tactful. I just came galloping in, full of the joy of spring, and shouted out ‘Pack your bags, we’re off to America’.”
“Was it because of her work she wouldn’t go?”
Charles was clearly finding this probing into the past disturbing and distasteful.
“Didn’t say so. Matter of fact she looked so queer I thought she was going to faint. Gave her some brandy. It was later she said if I was going to America I’d have to go alone.”
“Didn’t she give a reason?”
“Publishing was still difficult, paper shortage, all that. She was needed.”
“But she didn’t stay in the publishing business, she went abroad.”
“That’s right. That was because of her books, couldn’t write where it was cold, and there was no sun.”
“But you have a lot of sun in America, don’t you?”
“Too much in the summer, but she didn’t go abroad until after the divorce.”
“I suppose,” thought Alice, “she was going to leave him anyway. America was just an excuse. Was Charles only telling her half the story? Had Avis refused to go to America because he was unfaithful? Not very likely, for Charles was a truthful creature.” Alice, though certain she would drop some stitches, picked up her knitting again, it was something to do, and the clicking of her needles would fill in pauses in the conversation.
“I’m sorry to keep going on, Charles, but you can’t let Judith drift out of your life again. I don’t doubt there was a good deal of unhappiness at the time, and probably both you and Avis said hard things, but it’s old history now. Don’t you think you could find some excuse to write to her? There’s Judith’s education, that’s a subject you have a right to discuss.”
“The governess sounds all right. Judith’s always talking about her.”
“Oh dear,” thought Alice, “he’s getting cross.”
“She sounds splendid, but apparently Avis is planning a school later. Couldn’t you write about that? I daresay it wouldn’t be possible, but if it was any help I’d love to have Judith for any holidays she couldn’t spend with her Mother.”
Charles got up, his back to Alice.
“Sorry, Mother, but it’s no good going on. When I wrote to Avis to ask her if Judy could come over for the wedding, Marion suggested I said a long get-together was better than an occasional short visit, and if I could see her now it wouldn’t matter if two or three years passed before I saw her again. Avis was very clear and to the point, she wrote, I’m quoting her more or less exactly: ‘I think two months should give you sufficient time to know Judith. Should you care to see her again, in two or three years’ time, please write’.”
“Two or three years’ time! Oh Charles! But . . .”
“There’s no ‘but’,” said Charles. “She was given the custody of Judy, and there’s an end to it. I shall write regularly to the child, of course, and I think she knows me well enough now to let me know if she wants anything, or if there’s any way in which I can help.”
There, for the time being, Alice had to leave the matter. It was hard to see how, under the circumstances, Cha
rles could correspond with Avis, nor what good would come of it if he did. The only hope, as he said, seemed to be in writing regularly to Judith.
Charles’s departure, even for a few days, upset Judith. She spoke of it quite naturally, calling it “Daddy’s horsy holiday”, but she became less natural, she forced French and Italian phrases into her conversation and constantly quoted Mother. “Mother doesn’t like horses or she would have had me taught to ride.” “Mother hates me doing things she can’t do with me.”
Father left on a Wednesday. That night Judith prayed:
“Mon Dieu, Vous savez que mon Père est parti ce matin en vacances. Pourriez-Vous faire en sorte qu’il souffre beaucoup de mon absence, et qu’il dise à son retour qu’il songe rentrer en Angleterre tous les ans à l’avenir. Je Vous en prie Jésu, si Vous pouvez faire cela, pourrait-il dire ‘Je dois rentrer à la maison tous les ans, car je ne supporte pas l’idée de ne pas te voir ma chérie’, ou des mots semblables. J’espère que Vous ne pensiez pas, mon Dieu, que je Vous demande beaucoup, mais il est si doux d’entendre des mots d’amour.”
While Charles was away Alice made a real effort to understand Judith. It was not a help that Judith was in her Mother-quoting mood, which Alice found excessively tiresome, but she managed to hide her feelings and was especially gentle and affectionate. After two Mother-ridden days, during which she had to hear all Mother had said about horses and riding, and she seemed to have said a good deal, she was rewarded. Mother, without fuss, slipped out of the conversation and Judith was herself again. Alice did not rush things. It was, she realised, the first time she had attempted to get inside a child’s mind. When her own four were growing up she had accepted they had various faults and virtues, and knew they would be likely to behave in given ways on given occasions. But she could not remember wondering why. She knew there were Mothers who worried themselves about their offspring, but she had, perhaps from laziness, allowed hers to grow up more or less as came natural to them. She was not convinced that with most children this was not the best method. In any case she doubted, looking back, if she could have altered her four even had she wished to, and when they were growing up she certainly had not had the wish. No one could have appeared to have a more admirable daughter than Beatrice. She could still see in her mind’s eye Dannie, as she had called her husband, passing Beatrice’s latest school report to her, and she could almost hear his voice saying: “I sometimes wonder, Alice, if we have given birth to an angel, no human girl could be as faultless as that school finds our Beatrice.” Dannie had been closer than she had to Charles, for they shared a passion for horses. But had Dannie understood how Charles’s mind worked? She doubted it, it was unlikely he tried to, for he had a horror of interference. He had not taken to Avis, but as far as she knew he had made no effort to try and see what Charles saw in her. Had she been closer perhaps to the younger two? Not really, not even to Charlotte who had lived alone with her after Dannie died. Charlotte had not been a paragon at school, like Beatrice, but her reports were good enough, and in the holidays she had been a self-contained child, making her own amusements. In fact she seemed an entirely satisfactory daughter, and now she had married that nice Edward she would no doubt be an entirely satisfactory wife. No, Alice decided, she had nothing on her conscience in regard to her own children, but also she had learnt nothing. She was trying to fumble her way into Judith’s mind, with no knowledge of the right way to set about it. Yet set about it she must, this was her one chance, perhaps for years, to gain Judith’s confidence. If she had that confidence, could feel certain the child knew she was in her life, knew she could be written to about anything, that she would come to her in an emergency, then perhaps she could watch her go back to her Mother with peace in her mind.
Getting close to Judith, Alice felt, should include getting a picture of her home life. This proved difficult. It was natural, Alice supposed, but what Judith chattered about was the life she was leading now. What Mrs. Killigrew had said or done, the three dogs, the countryside, the garden. She talked a lot about her Father, of whom she was obviously becoming fond and proud: “Daddy knows absolutely everything about birds.” “There simply isn’t anything in the country that Daddy doesn’t know.” “Daddy says so, so it must be right.” But when Alice tried to turn the child’s conversation to her Mother, she found she was getting nowhere. She saw glimpses through Judith’s eyes, of innumerable places in which she had lived, but she never saw Avis. “And that’s odd and troubling,” Alice thought, “because I do see Miss Simpson.”
“Simpsy’s simply marvellous when we move, Granny. She always wears the same sort of clothes, and they never get untidy like mine do, and she actually likes packing. You know how some people get cross when they’re tired, Simpsy never does, she’s always exactly the same. Isn’t it lovely to be like that, you can never disappoint people if you’re always the same, can you?”
“Simpsy has never really lived in England, but her Father and Mother lived in a place called Sidmouth until they died. I’d awfully like to get a postcard of Sidmouth to send her. You see, though she never lived there, she counted it as home because her Father and Mother lived there. Of course I’ve never had a home like that, but I can see what a lot it meant to Simpsy, you see now she’s only got her sister Mary, who has a tea shop in Rome. I don’t think a sister is the same as parents, do you, Granny?”
“No, Mother can’t usually take me to church. She wants to awfully, but she generally has to work on Sundays. Simpsy and I go. There’s always a Protestant church. You won’t be shocked, Granny, will you, if I tell you something? Though Simpsy’s absolutely a Protestant, and terribly religious, she sometimes burns candles to Saint Jude in a Catholic church. I wouldn’t think God would grudge Saint Jude a candle or two, would you?”
It was Mrs. Killigrew who scented that there was some trouble in Judith’s mind connected with the wedding.
“The more I see of Judith, the more I don’t know what to make of her. She’s not like other children, is she? I mean, with Miss Beatrice’s lot, or Mister Bruce’s little Hugh and Helen you know where you are, butter won’t melt in their mouths when you’ve your eye on them, and up to any devilment when your back’s turned. But that’s child-like. Judith never gets up to anything, nor never wants to. I said to her: ‘If you’re so fond of cooking, why don’t you cook at home? I know you move about, but there’s always a kitchen I suppose.’ And do you know, ma’am, she gave me ever so funny a look, and said: ‘I don’t think it would be approved’, so I said: ‘Approved by who? That Marie that’s cooking for you now?’ She didn’t answer that, just got one of her funny scared looks.”
“I wish there were children of her age about, but they’re all at school. She’s not been enough with children.”
Mrs. Killigrew nodded.
“True enough. But she hasn’t the wish, neither. Mrs. Branscombe said she started off thick as thieves with her cousins and that little Rosebud up at the farm, but by breakfast the next morning nobody was speaking to her. She said when the car came for the children they carried on while their parents was listening, with no end of saying good-byes and that, but as the car leaves she sees them pulling shocking faces at the child.”
Alice remembered looks exchanged by Robert and Catherine, and the way Catherine had collected Robert, Cynthia and Rosebud, sweeping them before her out of the door as if, as her face said plainly, they would catch plague if they stayed any longer in the same room as Judith. To Mrs. Killigrew she said lightly that children took strong likes and dislikes, but she churned over her words in her mind, and decided to see if she could put things right between the cousins. She was not telling Judith so, but she hoped, if Avis sent her to school in England, it might be to the one her cousins went to. In the ordinary way it would not be likely, but living abroad Avis would be out of touch with English schools, and might ask advice, and the obvious advantage from a seeing-off and meeting point of view, of having relations at the
same school, might weigh with her. But the first step to getting Judith to school with her cousins would probably come from Judith wishing it.
The afternoon before Charles returned, Alice took Judith and the dogs for a walk. Their path lay close to the Branscombes’ farm. Alice pointed it out.
“We might call in on Mrs. Branscombe, you haven’t seen her since the wedding.”
Judith spoke quickly.
“We can’t. Ham’s awful with chickens.”
“If you would like to see her again I’ll use my coat belt as a lead.”
Judith had moved slightly ahead so her face could not be seen.
“No thank you, Granny, don’t let’s call on anybody, it’s lovely being just us and the dogs.”
“I never asked you, were you comfortable at the farm? Was it fun sharing a room with Catherine?”
Judith’s voice was toneless.
“Very pleasant, thank you.”
If I’m not careful, thought Alice, she’ll answer me in French.
“They are a devoted lot, Catherine, Robert and Cynthia, I believe. I hope they didn’t make you feel an outsider; if they did they wouldn’t have meant it.”
Judith could see again the cruel eyes staring at her. Could see her hand holding the pound note. Could hear the cousins’ voices. “Probably thinks we want it. Doesn’t know it stinks.” “Must be mad.” “Has she got to eat with us?” “You’re too young to understand, Rosebud, but she’s a traitor.” “And a traitor is the worst sort of beastly cad there is.” Her mouth went dry. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. She felt faintly sick. It had been terrible. After being liked, almost one of the family. But no one must know. What had happened was her own dreadful secret. She spoke at first slowly then, as her story grew, in a cascade of words. For the time being what she said she believed.
Judith Page 7
