SIXTEEN

Only the children slept well that night. Aunt Hetty lay, worrying over what lay ahead: would Lalla want to take the children away from them? Angel tossed and turned, wondering what Rob was feeling and thinking that when things seemed to be going well, they always disappointed her, after all. Edith was not even undressed: she stood at her bedroom window, waiting for the bugler to begin his lament. She was still seething, from her encounter with Lalla earlier. She determined that Lalla would not spoil her special relationship with the family. Rob lay on top of his bed covers, arms clasped behind his head as if he were waiting for something to happen.

Lalla crossed to the washstand and stubbed out her cigarette in the soap dish. She wore a plain cotton nightgown in pale blue, with a matching wrap. These old houses were never quiet at night, she thought, the creaks and sighs echoed her own disquiet. She sprinkled a little eau de cologne on her palms and ran her fingers through her hair, to disguise the tell-tale smell of smoke.

She inched the door open, padded silently on bare feet, down the stairs to Rob’s room. She gave the door knob a little rattle, an old signal from the days when she was a guest in the house, before they were married. Not that anything untoward had occurred then, she thought, with a sudden smile, Rob was always so proper and Aunt Hetty had always been nearby. Only Lalla had a past . . .

It was a long minute before Rob opened the door, for he had donned his dressing gown and slippers. He did not show surprise. He motioned her inside, pulled forward the cane armchair, removed his pile of clothes from the seat. She sat down, as he turned the lamp wick up.

‘You expected me?’ she asked. Without the vivid makeup she looked very pale, young and vulnerable.

‘Are you happy?’ he returned. He sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Do you really care?’

‘I care.’

‘Am I happy with Gerald, is that what you mean? I only know I can’t live without him. He’ll never marry me, Rob, I accept that – it’s an all-consuming love we share for each other. Please believe that I did love you when I married you, that I was sure, then, that Gerald was part of the past . . . If you’d only been here, when he sought me out again –’

‘How could I help being away – fighting for my country!’

‘I would have taken the children with me, you know, though I guess Aunt Hetty would have fought tooth-and-nail to keep them, on your behalf. But he only wanted me – that’s why we’ve never had children of our own.’

‘Do you want a divorce, Lalla, is that it?’

‘Only if you wish it, if you intend to remarry . . . ’

‘At present, I intend no such thing.’

‘Then, let’s not put ourselves through the pain of such a final act: it would hurt the children too, I think –’

‘All the while we are still married, Lalla, I imagine Alice and Tony harbour hopes that their mother may return to them, one day. Perhaps it’s for the best, I really don’t know.’

‘I just came, tonight, to reassure you that the children will always be with you, Rob. That is the only fair thing I have done for you.’ She rose, came over to the bed, sat close beside him, lifted his hand, gently unclenched it. ‘Don’t let there be anger between us, Rob – I take all the blame, all the responsibility for what happened. I want us still to be friends.’

‘Is that possible?’ he asked sadly.

She pressed her face against his shoulder. She gave a sly, unexpected nip at his waist. ‘You have kept in shape, Rob – no surplus flesh . . . ’

‘And you are too thin, Lalla, much too thin.’ His arm circled her waist. ‘I don’t think you’d be like this, if you really were happy.’

‘I’ve always been a restless spirit. I was born to be on the move, always seeking, I think. Will you kiss me goodnight, for old time’s sake, Rob?’

Her lips were as full, warm and yielding, as he had dreamed. It was a brief kiss, then he put her from him. ‘You must go back to your room, now, Lalla. Goodnight.’

*

The bugler played the first, uncertain notes. She was coming swiftly towards him, across the grass.

Edith saw a light in the window upstairs, the room she knew to be Rob’s. Was he watching the bugler, too – or was there some other reason? She couldn’t stem her suspicions, the stab of jealousy.

‘Jess?’ the bugler questioned.

‘It doesn’t seem that she will come tonight. Let me take you back to the barn, to your bed, my dear.’ The nurse in her was uppermost now.

*

When Rob brought up the copper cans of hot water, whispering feathery smoke, Angel was in Alice’s room, examining Alice’s ear, as she scrupulously did each day.

‘Aunt Hetty thought it looked rather red inside, yesterday,’ Alice told her father, a trifle anxiously.

‘No discharge,’ Angel reassured her. ‘Will you wash and dress now, Alice? You will want to be up earlier this week, with your mother here, eh? The excitement doesn’t seem to be doing her any harm, Rob!’ she added, for his benefit.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring your can through, Angel.’

He placed it on the washstand, after closing the connecting door. Angel was all too conscious that she was clad only in her nightdress. She knew she must present a rumpled, straight-out-of-bed appearance.

As if completing a conversation which they had not even begun, he said, ‘She hasn’t returned to me, as I always hoped, whatever I avowed, but I’m sure that she does still love the children, even though she doesn’t love me, and she has a right to see them, and they, of course, have a right to be with her . . . It will be hard, Angel, but I would like to think I can be generous enough to make this a happy few days for Alice and Tony – Lalla, too . . . D’you understand? D’you think I am right?’ This was a question he had patently agonised over, most of the night, for he looked tired and bleary-eyed.

‘Yes, you are right.’ She was wryly aware that he had not stopped to think of the impropriety of talking to her in her bedroom and that he had not even noticed that she was still in her night attire. She went on, positively, ‘The children will love you even more for this, when they are older.’ She was very sure of that.

‘Thank you, Angel.’ His smile was bleak. ‘We haven’t known you long, but we all have a staunch ally in you, that’s obvious.’ As he went out through the door, he said, ‘Lalla is a night person, she will sleep-in, no doubt. She always had her breakfast in bed, in the old days. Aunt Hetty is already busy at the stove, by the way, and Tony will see to the bugler, while Jess is away.’

‘I heard him again, last night,’ she said.

‘So did I. I looked out and I saw Edith leading him away.’

‘He must wonder where Jess is.’

‘Edith will put him in the picture. What a good friend she is to us, too.’