So Lucy had already talked to him. Of course. I could tell from a lightening in the corner of my eye that he’d turned his head to look at me.
‘Lucy doesn’t feel she’s quite been forgiven,’ he continued. ‘And it can be wounding, when forgiveness is begrudged.’
‘I see.’ I gave a short laugh, no humour in it. ‘She casts aspersions on my husband, and so I should apologize for wounding her.’
William was shaking his head several times slowly, not in negation so much as sorrow. ‘There’s no call for bitterness, Ellen. She meant nothing by it.’
Penny was creeping down the stairs in her dressing gown, her beret pulled low on her brow. That, and the way she froze when she saw us, gave her the air of a small, unsuccessful burglar.
‘Come down, Penny. Don’t be shy.’
In the kitchen William greeted her. ‘Hello there, lost sheep!’
I put a pan of peas on the heat. ‘Lost sheep?’
‘She couldn’t find her classroom. So I showed her the way.’
I stared from William to Penny. ‘Surely the teachers showed you your classroom on the first day?’
‘She didn’t arrive on the first day. Isn’t that right, Penny?’
Penny looked up at William and nodded, pressing her lips together.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Lady Brock did say you arrived late. What happened?’
‘Her ma never received the letter. The one that told ’em when to come, and what to bring, and so on.’ I could tell from his steady stare that William thought the letter was lying unopened at the bottom of Veronica Lacey’s handbag.
‘What bad luck. Now, could you lay the table, dear?’
The shepherd’s pie came out bubbling with a black rim. My guests sat, their eyes trained on the small fumaroles of steam escaping from the crisp mashed potato. I dug in with the serving spoon and they lifted their plates in due reverence. ‘Wait a while,’ I pleaded. ‘It’s so hot.’ But it was hard for them to resist. There was much blowing around mouthfuls, and great care taken when loading the fork with peas. Soon the plates shone, and second helpings were distributed. ‘I haven’t fed such hungry people for a long time,’ I told them.
Similar short work was made of an egg custard. William and I were exchanging a few words about the Upton Hall basements, the age of the boilers, when Penny suddenly said, ‘Granny made egg custard for me.’
She had been quiet all the way through the meal. I hadn’t expected conversation, after the day she had endured.
‘Did she, dear? That’s nice.’
‘Yes. She was wearing an overall with poppers on the side. I was about three. Anyway, Granny was talking to Mummy, and Mummy said to her, “Yes, Mummy.” And that’s when I realized that mothers had mothers too. It was an extremely interesting fact, and kind of a delicious one too, because I was eating egg custard at the same time.’
It was like a burble of fresh spring water, suddenly stopped up. Her cheeks went pink under our gaze.
‘That is interesting.’ I smiled at her. ‘Do you know, when I eat flaky pastry I always see a lady called Mrs Horne in my mind’s eye. She was kind, and so I taste the kindness in the pastry.’
She nodded, the blush fading, and picked up her spoon again.
When I returned from dropping William back at the school I found Penny had gone upstairs and curled herself up on my bed, on top of the blankets and counterpane. The single bedside lamp was on. When she saw me she stirred in the yellow light, raised her head and struggled upright, hampered by her dressing gown.
‘Were you asleep?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘This is your bed, isn’t it. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to be cosy. And the fire went out.’
‘It’s fine, Penny.’
‘Where do you want me to go?’
The room was saturated by a thick quietness. My limbs felt so heavy.
‘Get under the covers, dear.’ I nodded my head towards the steps up to the old dressing room. ‘I’ll make up another bed for myself next door.’
She lay still, following me only with her eyes as I passed back and forth with bed linen. Her deep fatigue made her gaze clear and dream-like at the same time. I fetched a thick blanket from the wardrobe and swung the door closed. The mirror caught the reflection of the bed and the child lying there. I glanced at her, away, and back again, and now her face had a dense, creamy pallor, and it was rounded like a small moon. A face I had not seen since wartime.
I stared into the glass. A pair of shining hazel eyes looked straight into mine. I held this extraordinary gaze. Three, four, five seconds passed, counted off by a pounding pulse in my ears.
At last I turned and looked back at Penny. Then once more to the mirror, where I saw her reflected exactly. The vision had gone.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Parr?’
I sat down heavily on the end of the bed. Eventually I found my voice. ‘I’m fine, thank you, dear.’ She blinked slowly, with a sudden solemnity that made the hairs rise on my scalp and fall again. She had brown eyes, hair a similar colour. Beyond that, she was nothing like. We sat in silence for a few moments.
Eventually I cleared my throat. ‘Penny, can I ask you something?’
She nodded.
‘Do you always wear that hat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even in bed?’
‘Especially in bed.’
She snuggled down, and soon lay as still and swaddled as if she’d fallen and become covered in drifting snow.
I tidied up downstairs, listened to the wireless. There would be no more rain. That, at least, was a blessing. Later I crept past Penny to the dressing room and lay wakeful on the narrow bed. I hadn’t slept here since Selwyn’s final illness. I picked up his clock, set it, and put it down. It rocked back and forth on the hardwood, making a tiny, high-pitched rumble. Through a chink in the curtains Southampton glowed dull orange from the sodium streetlamps, turning the night sky blind and dusty. Next door Penny stirred, muttered something, a repeated phrase, but I couldn’t hear it.
I was tired, that was all.
*
At seven in the morning the sky was clear. Penny didn’t move when I fetched clothes and left the bedroom. I had breakfast, and took a telephone call from Lucy. ‘Water’s down,’ she said curtly. ‘I can make it up to the kennels through Pipehouse. Ta for yesterday.’ I opened my mouth to reply, but she had already rung off.
I stood at the foot of the staircase and listened. It was strange to be in my own house, waiting for someone to wake. Selwyn had nearly always risen before me.
I climbed the stairs, glanced down the landing. The bathroom door was open, no one in there. No answer when I knocked on my bedroom door. I pushed it gently open to see the bed empty.
I moved into the room and approached the steps up into the smaller bedroom. There she was, standing by the window in her pyjamas and beret, holding the balsa wood hawk in her hand, the one that Edward had carved for me. She was weaving it back and forth through the air so that it dipped and swooped. Tilting her head and murmuring to the hawk in a private undertone, gesticulating with her free hand to make sure he understood. She said, ‘Good bird,’ kissed him, and began to dance him along the deep windowsill. Then she saw me, started, and blushed.
‘Good morning, Penny. Don’t worry, he likes conversation, and flying. They all do.’
There were twelve birds now, a variety of budgerigars, peacocks, parrots lined up on the windowsill, one for each time Edward had visited. The most recent, a merry little chicken, had been carved in 1971 when he came to stay with me after Selwyn died. He’d made that chicken while teaching the technique to William – I remembered them both hunched over the kitchen table, chips and chunks and curlicues of balsa wood everywhere on the floor, and Edward’s brown hands moving under William’s watchful craftsman’s eye.
‘Do you like them?’ I asked her.
She nodded. I waited for her to say more.