Yes, you’ll go right out—and I shall tell Dr Coles what I think of you.’
‘Would you mind continuing this edifying scene elsewhere?’ Her husband’s voice was as she hated it most—cold and sneering. ‘Hardly judicious in front of your innocent child, is it? I apologize, Nurse, for what my wife has been saying. Come, Myra.’
She went—beginning to cry—weakly frightened at what she had done. As usual, she had said more than she meant.
‘You’re cruel,’ she sobbed. ‘Cruel. You’d like me to be dead. You hate me.’
She followed him out of the room. Nurse Frances put Vernon to bed. He wanted to ask questions but she talked of a dog, a big St Bernard, that she had had when she was a little girl and he was so much interested that he forgot everything else.
Much later that evening, Vernon’s father came to the nursery. He looked white and ill. Nurse Frances rose and came to where he stood in the doorway.
‘I don’t know what to say—how can I apologize—the things my wife said—’
Nurse Frances replied in a quiet matter-of-fact voice.
‘Oh, it’s quite all right. I understand. I think, though, that I had better go as soon as it can be arranged. My being here makes Mrs Deyre unhappy, and then she works herself up.’
‘If she knew how wide of the mark her wild accusations are. That she should insult you—’
Nurse Frances laughed—not perhaps very convincingly.
‘I always think it’s absurd when people complain about being insulted,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Such a pompous word, isn’t it? Please don’t worry or think I mind. You know, Mr Deyre, your wife is—’
‘Yes?’
Her voice changed. It was grave and sad.
‘A very unhappy and lonely woman.’
‘Do you think that is entirely my fault?’
There was a pause. She lifted her eyes—those steady green eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’
He drew a long breath.
‘No one else but you would have said that to me. You—I suppose it’s courage in you that I admire so much—your absolute fearless honesty. I’m sorry for Vernon that he should lose you before he need.’
She said gravely:
‘Don’t blame yourself for things you needn’t. This has not been your fault.’
‘Nurse Frances.’ It was Vernon, eagerly from bed. ‘I don’t want you to go away. Don’t go away, please—not tonight.’
‘Of course not,’ said Nurse Frances. ‘We’ve got to talk to Dr Coles about it.’
Nurse Frances left three days later. Vernon wept bitterly. He had lost the first real friend he had ever had.
The years from five to nine remained somewhat dim in Vernon’s memory. Things changed—but so gradually as not to matter. Nurse did not return to her reign over the nursery. Her mother had had a stroke and was quite helpless and she was obliged to remain and look after her.
Instead, a Miss Robbins was installed as Nursery Governess. A creature so extraordinarily colourless that Vernon could never afterwards even recall what she looked like. He must have become somewhat out of hand under her regime for he was sent to school just after his eighth birthday. On his first holidays he found his cousin Josephine installed.
On her few visits to Abbots Puissants, Nina had never brought her small daughter with her. Indeed her visits had become rarer and rarer. Vernon, knowing things without thinking about them as children do, was perfectly well aware of two facts. One, that his father did not like Uncle Sydney but was always exceedingly polite to him. Two, that his mother did not like Aunt Nina and did not mind showing it.
Sometimes, when Nina was sitting talking to Walter in the garden, Myra would join them and in the momentary pause that nearly always followed, she would say:
‘I suppose I’d better go away again. I see I’m in the way. No, thank you, Walter’ (this in answer to a protest, gently murmured). ‘I can see plainly enough when I’m not wanted.’
She would move away, biting her lip, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, tears in her brown eyes. And, very quietly, Walter Deyre would raise his eyebrows.
One day, Nina broke out:
‘She’s impossible! I can’t speak to you for ten minutes without an absurd scene. Walter, why did you do it? Why did you do it?’
Vernon remembered how his father had looked round, gazing up at the house, then letting his eyes sweep far afield to where the ruins of the old Abbey just showed.
‘I cared for the place,’ he said slowly. ‘In the blood, I suppose. I didn’t want to let it go.’
There had been a brief silence and then Nina had laughed—a queer short laugh.
‘We’re not a very satisfactory family,’ she said. ‘We’ve made a pretty good mess of things, you and I.’
There was another pause and then his father had said:
‘Is it as bad as that?’
Nina had drawn in her breath with a sharp hiss, she nodded.
‘Pretty well. I don’t think, Walter, that I can go on much longer. Fred hates the sight of me. Oh! we behave very prettily in public—no one would guess—but, my God, when we’re alone!’
‘Yes, but, my dear girl—’
And then, for a while, Vernon heard no more. Their voices were lowered, his father seemed to be arguing with his aunt. Finally his voice rose again.
‘You can’t take a mad step like that. It’s not even as though you cared for Anstey. You don’t.’
‘I suppose not—but he’s crazy about me.’
His father said something that sounded like ‘Social Ostriches’. Nina laughed again.
‘That? We’d neither of us care.’
‘Anstey would in the end.’
‘Fred would divorce me—only too glad of the chance. Then we could marry.’
‘Even then—’
‘Walter on the social conventions! It has its humorous side!’
‘Women and men are very different,’ said Vernon’s father drily.
‘Oh! I know—I know. But anything’s better than this everlasting misery. Of course at the bottom of it all is that I still care for Fred—I always did. And he never cared for me.’
‘There’s the kid,’ said Walter Deyre. ‘You can’t go off and leave her.’
‘Can’t I? I’m not much of a mother, you know. As a matter of fact I’d take her with me. Fred wouldn’t care. He hates her as much as he hates me.’
There was another pause, a long one this time. Then Nina said slowly:
‘What a ghastly tangle human beings can get themselves into. And in your case and mine, Walter, it’s all our own fault. We’re a nice family! We bring bad luck to ourselves and to anyone we have anything to do with.’
Walter Deyre got up. He filled a pipe abstractedly, then moved slowly away. For the first time Nina noticed Vernon.
‘Hallo, child,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you were there. How