The Children of the King

by Sonya Hartnett

  The raven-haired child gazed at her without smiling, perhaps wondering if she too would fall to pieces in the care of this lummox. All around them children were being escorted from the hall, hands waving, tears dropping. Spaces were opening up on the floor, leaving circles like vacated nests. Soon there would be little choice left for both those who would take, and those who would be taken. Without a word the evacuee reached for her case, and Cecily brightened. “So you’ll come?”

  “Yes,” said May, as if it wasn’t really anyone’s business. “I will.”

  The nicest sound was the crunch of gravel beneath tyres as the car swept onto the carriageway of Heron Hall. The journey had not been long, but Cecily, bundled between May and her mother, worn down and over-excited, had felt every mile as a torment. She wanted the travelling to be done. She wanted to step into the quiet world of Heron Hall. She wanted to show off to May Bright. As they passed through the ancient gates and along the elm-shaded drive, the girl put a hand to the window as if not truly believing what she saw, and Cecily felt the satisfaction of a goddess placing a newly crafted human upon the earth.

  Quite suddenly the arms of the elms parted, and there stood Heron Hall. A three-storey manor built of sandstone and countless panes of glass, the Hall was surrounded by pastures which rose and fell mellowly, and by copses of beech, oak and yew. The land was threaded by a river and its many rivulets, and after rain the ground became spongy and burped bubbles. Sturdy sheep grazed the fields, and navy-blue swallows chased each other up and down the dips of the land.

  Standing before the Hall’s front doors was a dog as black and shaggy as a bear, with clear ambitions of becoming the same size as one. “Byron!” Cecily scrambled from the car as the animal loped down the steps to meet her. Jeremy, in the front seat, turned to May. “I hope you’re not scared of dogs?” he asked.

  “I’m not scared of anything,” said May.

  The housekeeper, Mrs Winter, met them at the door. She was not typically a soft-hearted woman, but when told the small stranger was an evacuee she said, “Poor pup, we’ll take care of you.” Cecily beamed; it was all going swimmingly. “Where’s Uncle Peregrine?” she wanted to know, but her mother said, “Wash and dress first, you’re not presentable,” and sent the children upstairs with a wit’s-end flick of her hands.

  The staircase was grand, very wide at its foot, much narrower at its peak. It was like climbing a polished mountain. Cecily hauled herself up by the banister, beckoning the evacuee along. When they reached the summit of the landing, the window showed a view across pastures coloured like a bruise, purple and yellow and green. Daylight was waning, evening was near.

  Jeremy and Cecily had been coming to Heron Hall all their lives, and each had a favourite bedroom they considered their own. May Bright followed Cecily along the passage, her blue gaze taking in everything. She bumped into Cecily when the older girl stopped. “This is mine.” Pushing back a door revealed a spacious room with a carved fireplace and a rose-coloured quilt on the four-poster bed. A fire had been lit to take the chill off the air, and on the dresser stood a vat of water beside a folded towel.

  May peeked around the door frame. “Pretty.”

  “It’s lovely! I bet you’ve never seen such a lovely room. I bet you’ve never been inside a house as grand as this, have you? You must feel like you’re having a dream. You could have your own bedroom, but you’ll probably want to share with me. They’ll bring a little cot for you and put it in the corner.”

  “Can I have my own room?”

  Cecily looked at the girl. “Don’t you want to share?”

  “Well — at home I have my own room. I’m used to it.”

  Cecily had envisaged the two of them tucked up at night, giggling and whispering until sleep claimed them. It was disappointing to have the vision extinguished, and she wished she hadn’t given her guest the choice. “I’ll tell Mrs Winter.”

  “My suitcase is in the car. Shall I fetch it?”

  Cecily, whose affection for the evacuee had taken a knock, felt a healing surge of fondness for her. “Someone will bring it, don’t worry about things like that.” Suddenly charged, she made a swooping run into the room, flying like a cannonball onto the bed. “Somebody will bring it! Haven’t you heard of staff? Don’t tell me you don’t have them at your house?”

  It was an ugly thing to say, and Cecily knew it. She held her breath and glared at the ceiling as the girl crossed the room. Her legs were thin and her feet made no sound when they touched the floor. She stopped at the window and scanned the horizon. In the fireplace, something popped. “There’s a lake out there,” she remarked.

  “Heron Lake,” said Cecily dully. “Where the herons live.”

  “I’ve never been to the country.”

  “What?” Cecily rolled onto her stomach. “Never?”

  “I once went to the beach for a holiday. But never to the countryside.”

  “Amazing!” Cecily genuinely thought it was. Everyone she knew passed at least a few weeks of each year in fine houses dotted around the landscape, riding ponies, eating too much, taking strolls, growing bored. It was a pleasant thing required to be done. “I feel sorry for you.”

  “I liked the beach.” The girl curled a knuckle on the glass. “My family doesn’t have lots of money, like yours does.”

  It was a new sensation for Cecily, to feel awkward about being well-off. Once again she wondered if she’d made a bad choice in evacuee. “I can’t help it. It isn’t my fault. Anyway, some people are much richer than we are. Compared to some people, we’re poor . . .”

  May said, “I can fetch my case, I don’t mind.”

  “Somebody will bring it!” Cecily blasted it like a bellows. “They have to — they always do — it’s the rule!” And buried her face in her arms. May Bright seemed a cranky kind of child, the type who listened too closely to what was said, who asked a lot of questions and made it necessary for a speaker to think before speaking: the future felt utterly spoiled. Perhaps the girl could be exchanged, or maybe it was safer just to return her and go without. Kindness to strangers evidently carried no guarantee of being repaid. Deflated, Cecily’s thoughts went to her father, left behind in the city. She pined for him already, and grew a little fishy-eyed. The sound of footsteps saved her from further subsidence — she leapt up and darted into the passage, accosting her brother at the top of the stairs. “Are you going down to see Uncle? You’re not presentable! Mama said we had to bathe first!”

  “Mother’s not in charge of the world,” Jeremy replied, in the tone of one who’s just realised it. He stepped past his sister, who watched as he descended the staircase in strides. Mother would be cross yet Jeremy wasn’t bothered: Cecily was impressed. Her brother had gone a bit odd today, and she liked this new version of him. Brimming once more with the joy of existence, she caught May by the wrist and dragged the evacuee down the stairs before the child had a chance to further spread her gloom.

  The main rooms of Heron Hall opened off the entrance hall and then, in a maze of doors and passages, off one another. Cecily hurried her charge through them, not pausing to explain. As they neared a particular door, however, she tweaked the child to a halt. “Now don’t be afraid,” she warned portentously. “Uncle Peregrine won’t hurt you. Just answer what he asks and don’t say anything else, all right? Don’t talk about being rich or — or — about anything, all right?”

  “All right,” said May.

  “Don’t ask where his wife is. He had one, but she died. She died, and their baby died, and now he’s all alone. So don’t ask about his wife and baby, all right?”

  “All right,” repeated May.

  “And don’t say anything — impolite. You know what impoliteness is, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “Good,” said Cecily. “I want to be proud of you.”

  Byron met them at the door. His huge head, black as coal, was as silkily soft as a duckling. May’s hand disappeared in the depths of his coat. “He
llo dog,” she murmured.

  It was a snug room they entered, one of the smallest and most homely of the rooms in Heron Hall. Its sky-grey walls were covered with paintings, and books and papers were scattered about, as were small puzzles and interesting objects, carved curios, carriage clocks, a typewriter, a gramophone. Underfoot were flattened rugs, and a fire karate-chopped at the throat of the chimney. There was a good smell of cigarette smoke mixed with toast and dog; this room was a den, the lair of Heron Hall’s owner. Here, rather than in any of the grander rooms, was where the house’s living was done.

  “Uncle Peregrine!” Cecily bounded forward to bob and hop before a man who stood by the mantelpiece. She would have pounced on him, but that was not allowed: this was a gentleman who preferred not to be rough-housed. So Cecily confined her greeting to this little loving dance, and her uncle smiled in a bemused way and said, “Good evening, Cecily.”

  Jeremy was settling in an armchair, and Heloise Lockwood was seated, less relaxedly, on a striped sofa which sprouted dog hair. Neither of them looked thrilled to have the girls in the room. Cecily turned adoring eyes to her uncle. “Are you pleased to see me?”

  “Slightly,” he said. Cecily grinned; another day she might have bombarded him with chatter about blackouts and air raids, about leaving Father and the journey on the train and the crocodile line of children, but to set an example for the evacuee she chose to behave less like a hurricane and more like a young lady. “Look what we’ve brought with us,” she said, wagging a hand to beckon the newcomer. “This is May Bright. She’s been evacuated from London. I chose her at the town hall — just like picking a kitten from a basket!”

  May Bright released her grip on Byron’s coat and stepped nearer to Mr Lockwood. Her host at Heron Hall was, in appearance, like a wily criminal from an adventure tale. He was tall and lean, and his face was shadowy, and he wore his dark hair long, like a mane, which May had never seen a real-life man do. His eyes, too, were very black, as if only night-time sights were invited into them. There was something mysterious about him, something beyond the fact that he looked like a sly magician, beyond his wife and baby having died, beyond his intolerance of questioning. There was something about him that made you feel he knew more about you than you did. If he’d had a weasel up his sleeve, a knife in his belt, or the ability to change into a jackdaw, none of it would have surprised.

  Standing before such a man, no handshake or how-do-you-do seemed fitting. Instead, May did an unusual thing: she bowed. She bowed low enough to see Peregrine Lockwood’s feet, which were clad in sloppy brown slippers.

  Cecily screamed. “Oh, she’s bowing — stand up, you silly thing! You don’t have to bow — Uncle Peregrine’s not the king! Mama, did you see — May bowed!”

  “Hush!” hissed Heloise, whose cheeks nevertheless turned rouge on the child’s behalf.

  Jeremy, however, didn’t laugh. He, too, honoured Peregrine. And when May lifted her gaze, she saw that Peregrine wasn’t laughing either. He said, “You are a welcome guest in this house, Miss Bright. I hope we can keep you safe.”

  Cecily used her brains and stopped chortling, and made herself as overlookable as possible by plumping down beside Byron at the end of a sofa. May huddled by the dog’s head and the two girls shared patting duties as the conversation, interrupted by their arrival, resumed.

  Peregrine said, “So Humphrey finally decided it was time you left London. I was starting to wonder what he was waiting for. A submarine chugging up the Thames, perhaps.”

  “Humphrey is my father,” whispered Cecily to May. “He and Uncle Peregrine are brothers.”

  “He shouldn’t have done it,” said Jeremy.

  Peregrine looked at his nephew. “You think you should have stayed?”

  “Not Cecily and Mama — they should be here. But I could have stayed with Father. I’m not a child.”

  Heloise said, “It’s good of you to have us, Peregrine. I’m concerned about Humphrey, of course, but I’m glad we’re finally here.”

  “Humphrey knows how to take care of himself.”

  “It’s a necessary thing for someone in his position to know. But I can’t help feeling that this war will soon put every man, woman and child in peril. No corner of the world will know peace.”

  “Then why have we come?” asked Jeremy. “If it’s not safe anywhere, I should have stayed home —”

  “Jem, don’t be rude!”

  “I’m not being rude —”

  “Don’t be wilfully obtuse, Jeremy. For the time being, we’re safer here than anywhere.”

  Peregrine said, “I shall tell Mrs Winter to keep a truncheon at the ready.”

  Heloise looked wounded. “You may laugh, Peregrine, but it’s not funny. In fact it’s bleak and terrible. France has fallen. This nation stands exposed on every side. Anything could happen now. Invasion. Occupation. Our way of life torn apart by strangers. Our future in such awful, awful hands —”

  “Let’s be quiet!” Cecily smacked the floor. “That’s enough now! May is getting frightened.”

  Peregrine’s eyes lighted down like two hawks. “Are we scaring you, May?”

  “She’s not scared.” Jeremy craned to see past the wing of his chair. “She’s not scared of anything.”

  Alarmed to find herself pulled into the discussion and, worse, made its central object, May changed the subject. “My father went to France,” she offered.

  The statement cooled the room. “Your father’s a soldier?” asked Peregrine.

  “He wasn’t before the war, but he became one.”

  “He volunteered?”

  “Yes, volunteered.”

  “France!” said Cecily. “Are you very worried about him?”

  “Of course she’s worried about him! Don’t be thick, Cecily.”

  May glanced around at her adopted family, who gazed back as if she were a most exotic thing. When she spoke, it was carefully. “My mum says being worried can’t change what happens. It can’t make things better. So you should just live and — be happy about what’s good. That’s what I think, anyway.”

  Cecily stared, impressed by this windfall of wisdom. At home on quiet evenings she had sometimes watched her brother and father playing chess, and this conversation had been like one of those games, and May’s contribution was the calm surprising move which Daddy always encouraged Jeremy to play. Peregrine looked at his sister-in-law and said, “I’m sure Humphrey and his friends will be disappointed you don’t trust them to keep us safe,” and Heloise answered, “Oh, men! I’ve lost all faith in them.” To which Peregrine laughed in a charmed kind of way, and the discussion was finished; and it was difficult to tell who had triumphed, and who had been forced to lay down their king.

  There was a tap at the door, and a maid announced, “Dinner is served for Mrs Lockwood and the children.”

  Peregrine looked at his guests. “I hope it’s not too early to eat? Mrs Winter thought you’d like an early dinner after your long day. It’s lamb, Cook tells me. The last lamb the butcher’s apprentice slaughtered before he signed up, apparently.”

  Jeremy said “Huh,” in an exhaling way; Cecily thought that anything which stopped the lambs being slaughtered couldn’t be a completely bad thing. Heloise rose, plucking at wisps of dog hair. Jeremy slipped across the room to open the door for her. Cecily kissed Byron’s brow and unfolded her dependable legs. In the doorway she paused: “Aren’t you coming, Uncle?”

  “No,” he said, and added, “I hope you’ll be happy here, May.”

  And May, although it was grossly impolite, didn’t reply. Mr Lockwood had stepped away from the fire and it was only now that she saw her host walked with a limp. She smiled daftly and was yanked into the passage by Cecily, who hissed hotly in her ear.

  “Don’t speak! Don’t say anything. He had polio when he was a boy. Do you know what polio is? It’s a disease that makes people crippled. Don’t mention it to him, that’s very bad manners. But you can’t catch polio, so you mustn�
�t be afraid.”

  The consistency of her courage had been much questioned over the course of this endless day. Yet again May vowed, “I’m not afraid.”

  “This is a good house, you’ll like it here —”

  “I know.”

  “So you mustn’t act shy and silly, not ever. Shy people are just irritating. And you mustn’t be scared of Uncle Peregrine. I know he’s not what you’re used to, but —”

  “I like him,” said May.

  “Good! But don’t bow to him again, all right? That was peculiar. You looked like a little drinking bird.”

  “Hmm,” said May.

  “Now let’s dash, or we’ll be late for dinner. Cook doesn’t like lateness. Timeliness is the rule!”

  “Let’s go then,” said May. “I’m fast like a whippet.”

  Cecily stepped back, cocking her head. This evacuee she’d chosen was certainly bizarre, but at some unrecognised moment she had decided to keep her. “What are you smiling about?” she asked; and suddenly snuffles of laughter were swelling in her nose and plumped out her cheeks. “You’re going to bow again one day, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe.” May shrugged. “If I’m in the mood.”

  Cecily giggled so much she had to cover her mouth. It had all been precarious and could have gone badly, but now things promised to be fine.

  Dawn came early in those short weeks of summer. The sun rose limpid over the hills, pale and tired despite its youth. Its heatless light reached over miles of marsh, crept across streams and slunk over rocks, cast thin shadows from robins and shone dimly off dew, and finally crawled, with a daddy-longlegs’s fragility, up the walls of Heron Hall to Cecily’s window, there to stare through the glass like a starved cat. Morning was here.

  Cecily stretched beneath her rose-coloured quilt, her mind a pleasant field of emptiness. Heloise had done nothing about sending the children to school, and ten days of idleness had wiped Cecily’s brain almost clean of thought. She lived each hour as if she were a corked bottle adrift on the sea, with no demands upon her except to present herself three times daily to the table. There was, of course, the matter of the evacuee, who was prone to bouts of independence and required supervision; but Cecily had taken to the role of instructor with ease, and found it hardly any bother to be constantly criticising and instructing.