‘I’m not coming, Pamela. I’m staying here and you’re going on the boat with a nanny, a lady to look after you. Over the sea to your aunt. Aunt Hester.’
But she was running ahead to Lucy, who was standing by the apple tree. I watched her walk along the trunk. One foot in front of the other now, toes pointed, steady. A big girl. Lucy held out her hands but they weren’t needed any more. Mrs Horne came out of the cottage, followed by a warm breath of gravy and draining cabbage. She was drying her hands on a tea towel. ‘We’re not sent more than we can bear,’ she said. ‘You know that, my dear.’ Then she turned and went inside. She didn’t expect an answer. I wanted to thank her, for being so kind to me, always. But there would be time enough for that.
We had our light luncheon. I forced down a scrap of carrot, cabbage and potato patty. After the meal I went upstairs to get Pamela’s things ready for her journey. I met Elizabeth on the landing. She was holding the blanket waistcoat I’d made for Pamela.
‘I don’t know if he’ll want you to pack this.’ Loyally, Elizabeth refused to say his name.
‘I’ll ask him.’ I took the waistcoat. ‘It rains all the time there, you know. Damp and chilly.’
Elizabeth sighed. ‘Well, she’ll have cast-offs galore now, from the big family. She won’t wear a new thing till she’s eighteen and gets a dress for dances, and even then it’s touch and go. I know what it’s like, I had three older sisters. I thought stockings came with darns.’ She grasped my arm. ‘Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. I’m speaking out of turn.’
Because my face was obviously stretched into some sort of awful mask, as I contemplated Pamela tumbling away into this flock of children.
‘Never mind, Elizabeth,’ I told her.
There wasn’t much to pack: it would take a quarter of an hour at most. I fetched together the few dresses, stockings, a pair of shoes, a pair of wellingtons. Underwear. I checked under the bed in the dressing room and withdrew a few more peg dolls, some still dressed in Selwyn’s handkerchiefs. She could have the handkerchiefs too. If Selwyn protested, I’d buy him more after the war ended. Surely it would, some day.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, and then Aubrey put his head round the door. I looked up at him, and then continued to lay out vests on the bed. ‘These will last the summer, I daresay. She’ll need warmer ones in the autumn. But Hester will take charge of that.’
‘You’ve been terribly kind. Keeping her in clothes over the years.’
‘I was given coupons.’ My voice was lifeless, insolent. I moved around the room.
He came in and sat down on the bed. ‘I’m sorry about all of this.’
My shoulders sagged. ‘Really, I can’t see why you should be, since none of it’s your fault.’
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Thank you for the suitcase.’
It was one of Selwyn’s, awfully old. I thought he’d probably taken it to school. ‘You don’t have to continually apologize and thank.’ My voice rose. ‘You have no suitcase. I’ll give you one. There was no one to look after your daughter, so I did it. We all do what we must.’
He said nothing, adjusted the sling on his shoulder. I turned away from him and began to put Pamela’s clothes into the suitcase. The wellingtons in a shoe bag, her winter boots: they might be too small by Christmas, but they would go, anyway. Two of the three vests. All the stockings, all but one pair of knickers, all but one pair of socks. Small white socks, some irretrievably mud-stained however much we scrubbed, but serviceable. I would put in her nightdress and toilet things tomorrow, and shut the lid, and never see any of these clothes again.
‘Will it be as warm in London tomorrow, do you suppose?’ I asked Aubrey, in the same high voice. ‘She’d better take her hat. Shall Hester want this waistcoat?’ I held it up. ‘It’s made out of a blanket. Nice and cosy.’
I glanced up at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. He looked tired, discomfited. Catching my eye he forced an expression of manufactured cheer. ‘The house is glacial,’ he said. ‘The children play upstairs in their coats during the winter. So I’m sure it’ll come in handy.’
I put the waistcoat into the case. It was almost full. Where would she fit her toilet things, the Peg family, her book about London? I’d have to find another bag.
‘She thinks I’m coming too, Aubrey. We need to disabuse her.’ Despair passed through me like a breaking wave. I sat down next to him on the bed. ‘I did say. But you know how she runs off all the time. She didn’t hear me, or tried not to, at least. How are you going to manage in London? She’s not used to cities. I was thinking about it in church. You won’t be able to hold her hand and the suitcase—’
‘She might remember cities. She was in Plymouth, after all.’ He got to his feet so that I had to look up into his face. He seemed so young, this widower. It was almost ridiculous. I wondered how his face would change with the years. What sort of man he’d make, when he was Selwyn’s age. His brisk words cut off my thoughts. ‘My half-brother will meet us off the train. He’s much older than me and Hester. He works in the War Office, he’s an actuary. He’s a terrible old stick, he knows nothing about children, but he has a flat, and two functioning hands.’
We heard her feet on the stairs, and then she appeared in the doorway, beaming at Aubrey. ‘Guess what, we’re going to the Hall for tea. The Hall.’ She echoed herself, dragging the word out. ‘To show you the knight in armour.’ She came over to me and looked in the suitcase. ‘Oh, there’s my new waistcoat. I was looking for that.’ She picked it up and began to struggle into it, turning it upside down in her haste.
‘Pamela.’ I pulled the hem away from her shoulders. ‘Sit on the bed with me. Take this off. It’s too hot for today.’
She was hogtied, her arms bound into the waistcoat, but nonetheless scrambled onto the bed. ‘No it isn’t. It’s perfect.’
‘I’m not coming to Ireland with you,’ I said. ‘Pamela, are you listening? I’m staying here, and you’re going with your daddy.’
‘A mouse ate this blanket so it had to be cut up for clothes.’ She rolled away from me into a ball, kicking her foot against the suitcase. I got up and grabbed at the case before it fell onto the floor.
‘Pamela darling, I’m not coming—’
‘A family of mice. Squeak, squeak. Lucy’s got a waistcoat too, only hers is bigger but not much.’
Aubrey stood, bewildered.
‘You could help,’ I said.
‘Pamela, Ellen’s staying here and we’re going to London, just you and me. Then we’ll find a nice lady who will take you on the boat. She’ll make sure you have some chocolate—’
‘Stop talking. Stop talking, you horrible man.’ She sat up, threw off the waistcoat. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shiny and hard. ‘I’m going to the Hall with Mr Parr. You can go wherever you want. Go to London or Ireland or Australia or Canada and see if I jolly well care.’ She scrambled off the bed and bounded out of the room, across the landing and down the stairs.
I put the waistcoat in the suitcase and clicked it shut. I still needed to find another receptacle for the rest of her things, but I wouldn’t look now. Aubrey sat down again on the bed, shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, dear.’
‘She doesn’t particularly like chocolate. Chocolate cake, yes, but not chocolate on its own.’
‘I didn’t know.’ He seemed to slump further.
‘How could you?’ I crossed the room. ‘I’ll go and see where she is. Since you can think of nothing better than to sit there in that hopeless fashion.’ My lips were shaking with anger but it didn’t weaken me.
‘Ellen,’ he said as I left the room, but nothing more, and as I started down the stairs I glimpsed him hang his head.
20
I FOUND HER in the kitchen making tiny dough balls out of a piece of bread, the grime from her fingers greying the already grey dough. I firmed my mouth and said her name. She looked up.
‘I know you don’t want to go to Ireland,’ I said.