The Empty House

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  Alice’s expression stopped being patient and became exasperated.

  “But it’s so ridiculous! Look, if you feel so strongly about having the children down here, then have them by all means, they can stay here, but for heaven’s sake let Nanny come too.”

  Only yesterday the idea could have been tempting. But now Virginia never even let herself consider it.

  “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you discuss it with me?”

  “I don’t know. It was just something I had to do on my own.”

  “And where is Bosithick?”

  “It’s on the Lanyon road … You can’t see it from the road, but it’s got a sort of tower…”

  “The place where Aubrey Crane lived? But, Virginia, it’s ghastly. There’s nothing there but moor and wind and cliffs. You’ll be totally isolated!”

  Virginia tried to turn it into a joke. “You’ll have to come and see me. Make sure the children and I aren’t driving each other slowly insane.”

  But Alice did not laugh, and Virginia, seeing her frown and the disapproving set of her mouth, was suddenly, astonishingly reminded of her own mother. It was as though Alice was no longer Virginia’s contemporary, her friend, but had swung back a generation and from that lofty height was telling the young Virginia that she was being a fool. But perhaps, after all, this was not so strange. She had known Rowena Parsons long before Virginia was born, and the fact that she had no children of her own to contend with meant that her attitudes and opinions remained rigidly unchanged.

  She said at last, “It isn’t that I want to interfere, you know that. But I’ve known you all your life, and I can’t stand to one side and watch you do this insane thing.”

  “What’s so insane about having your children on holiday with you?”

  “It’s not just that, Virginia, and you know it. If you take them away from Lady Keile and Nanny without their approval, which I doubt very much you’ll get, there’s going to be one devil of a row.”

  Virginia felt sick at the thought of it. “Yes, I know.”

  “Nanny will probably take the most terrible umbrage and give in her notice.”

  “I know…”

  “Your mother-in-law will do everything she can to stop you.”

  “I know that too.”

  Alice stared at her, as though she were staring at a stranger. Then suddenly, she shrugged and laughed, in a hopeless sort of way. “I don’t understand. What made you suddenly so determined?”

  Virginia had said nothing about her encounter with Eustace Philips and had no intention of doing so.

  “Nothing. Nothing in particular.”

  “It must be the sea air,” said Alice. “Extraordinary what it does for people.” She picked a fallen newspaper off the floor, began folding it meticulously. “When are you going to London?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “And Lady Keile?”

  “I’ll phone her tonight. And Alice, I am sorry. And thank you for being so kind.”

  “I haven’t been kind, I’ve been critical and disapproving. But somehow, I always think of you as someone young and helpless. I feel responsible for you.”

  “I’m twenty-seven. And I’m not helpless. And I’m responsible for myself.”

  * * *

  Nanny answered the telephone. “Yes?”

  “Nanny?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Mrs. Keile.”

  “Oh, hallo! Do you want to speak to Lady Keile?”

  “Is she there?…”

  “Just a moment and I’ll get her.”

  “Nanny.”

  “Yes.”

  “How are the children?”

  “Oh, they’re very well. Having a lovely time. Just gone to bed.” (This was slipped in quickly in case Virginia should ask to speak to them.)

  “Is it hot?”

  Oh, yes. Lovely. Perfect weather. Hold on and I’ll tell Lady Keile you’re there.”

  There were the sounds of Nanny putting down the receiver, her footsteps going across the hall, her distant voice. “Lady Keile!”

  Virginia waited. If I was a woman who was taking to drink I would have one in my hand, right now. A great tall tumbler of dark-coloured whisky. But she wasn’t and her stomach lay heavy with impending doom.

  More footsteps, sharp neat, unmistakable. The receiver was lifted once more.

  “Virginia.”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  The situation was hideously complicated by the fact that Virginia had never known what to call her mother-in-law. “Call me Mother,” she had said kindly, as soon as Virginia and Anthony were married, but somehow this was impossible. And “Lady Keile” was worse. Virginia had compromised by only corresponding by postcard or telegram, and always calling her “you.”

  “How nice to hear you, dear. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m very well…”

  “And the weather? I believe you’re having a heatwave.”

  “Yes, it’s unbelievable. Look…”

  “How is Alice?”

  “She’s very well, too…”

  “And the darling children, they’ve been swimming today—the Turners have got a delicious pool in their garden, and invited Cara and Nicholas over for the afternoon. What a pity they’re in bed; why didn’t you call earlier?”

  Virginia said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  She closed her hand around the receiver until her knuckles ached. “I’ve been able to find a little cottage, quite near here. It’s near the sea, and I thought it would be nice for the children if they came down and we spent the rest of the holidays together.”

  She paused, waiting for comment but there was only silence.

  “The thing is, the weather is so beautiful and I feel so guilty enjoying it all on my own … and it would be good for them to have some sea air before we all have to go back to Scotland and they have to go back to school.”

  Lady Keile said, “A cottage? But I thought you were staying with Alice Lingard?”

  “Yes, I am. I have been. I’m calling from Wheal House now. But I’ve taken this cottage.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I want the children to come down and spend the rest of the holidays with me. I’ll come up tomorrow in the train to fetch them.”

  “But what sort of a cottage?”

  “Just a cottage. A holiday cottage…”

  “Well, if that’s what you want…” Virginia began to breathe a sigh of relief. “… But it seems hard luck on Nanny. It’s not often she gets the chance of being in London and seeing all her own friends.” The relief swiftly died. Virginia went back into the attack again.

  “Nanny doesn’t have to come.”

  Lady Keile was confused. “I’m sorry, the line’s not very clear. I thought you said Nanny didn’t have to come.”

  “She doesn’t. I can look after the children. There’s not room for her anyway. I mean there isn’t a bedroom for her, or a nursery … and it’s terribly isolated, and she’d hate it.”

  “You mean you intend taking the children away from Nanny?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she’ll be most terribly upset.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid she will, but…”

  “Virginia…” Lady Keile’s voice was upset, distressed. “Virginia, we can’t talk about this over the telephone.”

  Virginia imagined Nanny on the upstairs landing, listening to the one-sided conversation.

  “We don’t need to. I’m coming up to London tomorrow. I’ll be with you about five o’clock. We can talk about it then.”

  “I think,” said Lady Keile, “that that would be best.”

  And she rang off.

  The next morning Virginia drove to Penzance, left her car in the station park and caught the train to London. It was another hot, cloudless morning and she had not had time to reserve a seat, and, despite the fact that she managed to g
et hold of a porter and tip him handsomely, he could only find her an empty corner in a carriage that was already uncomfortably full. Her fellow passengers were going home at the end of their annual holidays, grumpy and disconsolate at the thought of returning to work, and resentful at leaving the sea and the beaches on such a perfect day.

  There was a family, a father and mother and two children. The baby slept damply in its mother’s arms, but as the sun climbed higher into the unwinking sky and the train rattled northwards through the shimmering heat of a midsummer noon, the elder child became more and more fractious, whining, grizzling, never still, and grinding his dirty sandalled feet on to Virginia’s every time he wanted to look out the window. At one point, in order to keep the child quiet, his father bought him an orangeade, but no sooner was the bottle opened than the train lurched and the entire contents went all over the front of Virginia’s dress.

  The child was promptly slapped by his distracted mother and roared. The baby woke up and added his wails to his brother’s. The father said, “Now look what you’ve done,” and gave the child a shake for good measure, and Virginia, trying to mop herself up with face tissues, protested that it didn’t matter, it couldn’t be helped, it didn’t matter at all.

  After a good deal of screaming the child subsided into hiccuping sobs. A bottle was produced from somewhere and stuffed into the baby’s mouth. It sucked for a bit, and then stopped sucking, struggled into a sitting position and was sick.

  And Virginia lit a cigarette and looked firmly out of the window and prayed, “Don’t let Cara and Nicholas ever be like that. Don’t let them ever be like that on a railway journey, otherwise I shall go stark, staring mad.”

  London was airless and stuffy, the great cavern of Paddington Station hideous with noise and aimless, hurrying crowds. As soon as she was off the train Virginia, carrying her suitcase, and filthy and crumpled in her stained, sticky dress, walked the length of the platform to the booking-office and, like a secret agent making sure of his escape route, bought tickets and reserved three seats on the Riviera for the following morning. Only then did she return to the taxi rank, wait in the long queue, and finally capture a cab to take her home.

  “Thirty-two Melton Gardens, please. Kensington.”

  “OK. ’op in.”

  They went down by Sussex Gardens, across the park. The brown grass was littered with picnicking families, children in scanty clothes, couples entwined beneath the shade of trees. In Brompton Road there were window boxes bright with flowers, shop windows filled with clothes “For Cruising,” the first of the rush hour crowds was being sucked, a steady stream of humanity, down Knightsbridge Underground.

  The cab turned into the network of quiet squares that lay behind Kensington High Street, edged down narrow roads lined with parked cars, and finally turned the corner into Melton Gardens.

  “It’s the house by the pillar box.”

  The taxi stopped. Virginia got out, put her case on the pavement, opened her bag for the fare. The driver said, “Thanks very much,” and snapped up his flag, and Virginia picked up her case and turned towards the house and, as she did so, the black-painted door opened and her mother-in-law waited to let her in.

  She was tall, slim, immensely good-looking. Even on this breathless day she looked cool and uncrushed, not a wrinkle in her linen dress, not a hair out of place.

  Virginia went up the steps towards her.

  “How clever of you to know I was here.”

  “I was looking out of the drawing-room window. I saw the taxi.”

  Her expression was friendly, smiling, but quite implacable, like the matron of a lunatic asylum come to admit a new patient. They kissed, touching cheeks.

  “Did you have a terrible journey?” She closed the door behind them. The cool, pale-coloured hall smelt of beeswax and roses. At the far end steps led down to the glass side door, and beyond it could be seen the garden, the chestnut tree, the children’s swing.

  “Yes, it was ghastly. I feel filthy and a revolting child spilt orange juice all over me.” The house was silent. “Where are the children?”

  Lady Keile began to lead the way upstairs to the drawing-room. “They’re out with Nanny. I thought perhaps it would be better. They won’t be long, not more than half an hour. That should give us time to get this all thrashed out.”

  Treading behind her, Virginia said nothing. Lady Keile reached the top of the stairs, crossed the small landing and went in through the drawing-room door and Virginia followed her, and, despite her anxiety of mind, was struck, as always, by the timeless beauty of the room, the perfect proportions of the long windows which faced out over the street, open today, the fine net curtains stirring. There were long mirrors, filling the room with reflected light and these gave back images of highly polished antique furniture, tall cabinets of blue and white Meissen plates, and the flowers with which Lady Keile had always surrounded herself.

  They faced each other across the pale, fitted carpet. Lady Keile said, “We may as well be comfortable,” and lowered herself, straight as a ramrod, into a formal, wide-lapped French chair.

  Virginia sat too, on the very edge of the sofa, and tried not to feel like a domestic servant being interviewed for a job. She said, “There really isn’t anything to thrash out, you know.”

  “I thought I must have misunderstood you on the telephone last night.”

  “No, you didn’t misunderstand me. I decided two days ago that I wanted the children with me. I decided it was ridiculous, me being in Cornwall and them in London, specially during the summer holidays. So I went to a solicitor and I found this little house. And I’ve paid the rent and I’ve got the keys. I can move in right away.”

  “Does Alice Lingard know about this?”

  “Of course. And she offered to have the children at Wheal House, but by then I’d committed myself and couldn’t go back.”

  “But Virginia, you surely can’t mean that you want them without Nanny?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But you’ll never manage.”

  “I shall have to try.”

  “What you mean is that you want the children to yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t being a little … selfish?”

  “Selfish?”

  “Yes, selfish. You’re not thinking of the children, are you? Only yourself.”

  “Perhaps I am thinking of myself, but I’m thinking of the children too.”

  “You can’t be if you intend taking them away from Nanny.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “I had to, of course. She had to have some idea of what I understood you wanted to do. But I hoped I would be able to change your mind.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say very much. But I could tell that she was very upset.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “You must think of Nanny, Virginia. Those children are her life. You must consider her.”

  “With the best will in the world I don’t see that she comes into this.”

  “Of course she comes into it. She comes into everything that we do. Why, she’s family, she’s been part of the family for years, ever since Anthony was a tiny boy … and the way she’s looked after those babies of yours, she’s devoted herself, given her life to them. And you say she doesn’t come into this.”

  “She wasn’t my Nanny,” said Virginia. “She didn’t look after me when I was a little girl. You can’t expect me to feel quite the same about her as you do.”

  “You really mean to say you feel no sort of loyalty towards her? After letting her bring up your children? After virtually living with her for eight years at Kirkton? I must say you fooled me. I always thought there was a very happy atmosphere between you.”

  “If there was a happy atmosphere it was because of me. It was because I gave in to Nanny over every little thing, just to keep the peace. Because if she didn’t get her own way, she would go into a sulk that would last
for days, and I simply couldn’t bear it.”

  “I always imagined you were the mistress of your own home.”

  “Well, you were wrong. I wasn’t. And even if I’d plucked up the courage to have a row with Nanny, and asked her to leave, Anthony would never have heard of it. He thought the sun rose and fell on her head.”

  At the mention of her son’s name Lady Keile had gone a little pale. Her shoulders were consciously straight, her clasped hands tightened in her lap. She said, icily, “And I suppose now that no longer has to be considered.”

  Virginia was instantly repentant. “I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean that. But I’m left now. I’m on my own. The children are all I have. Perhaps I’m being selfish, but I need them. I need them so badly with me. I’ve missed them so much since I’ve been away.”

  Outside, across the street, a car drew up, a man began to argue, a woman answered him in anger, her voice shrill with annoyance. As though the noise were more than she could stand, Lady Keile stood up and went over to close the window.

  She said, “I shall miss them too.”

  If we had ever been close, thought Virginia, I could go now and put my arms around her and give her the comfort she is longing for. But it was not possible. Affection had existed between them, and respect. But never love, never familiarity.

  “Yes, I’m sure you will. You’ve been so wonderfully good to them, and to me. And I’m sorry.”

  Her mother-in-law turned from the window, brisk again, emotion controlled. “I think,” she said, making for the bell-pull which hung at the side of the fireplace, “that it would be a good idea if we were to have a cup of tea.”

  The children returned at half past five. the front door opened and shut and their voices rose from the hall. Virginia laid down her tea-cup and sat quite still. Lady Keile waited until the footsteps had passed the landing outside the drawing-room door and were on their way upstairs to the nursery. Then she got up and went across the drawing-room and opened the door.

  “Cara. Nicholas.”

  “Hallo, Granny.”

  “There is someone here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “A lovely surprise. Come and see.”

  Much later, after the children had gone upstairs for their bath and supper, after Virginia herself had bathed and changed into a clean cool silk dress, and before the gong rang for dinner, she went upstairs to the nursery to see Nanny.