The Willow Pool. Elizabeth Elgin
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laughing or smiling on those photographs?
Who were you, Ma? Who am I? And why does this house have a hold over you and me? Why did you tell me with your thoughts that I must come here?
‘Hey! A penny for them! I asked if you’d like to see the other part of the house, but you were miles away.’
‘I was thinkin’ that you know so much about your family and I know nuthink at all about mine.’
‘But you must know something – your mother and father and your grandparents – unless you were a foundling.’
‘What’s a foundling?’ Meg scowled, sorry she had said what she had.
‘An orphan of the storm, an abandoned child …’
‘Well, I wasn’t! You know I had a mother! But I never knew my father. He was a seaman and died at sea of plague, or something. Anyway, they sewed his body in sailcloth and weighted it and buried him at sea. That’s all I know. Never knew my grandparents’
She told stinking lies too. Her father dying at sea, indeed! Mind, if he had, that was the way he’d have gone, because Kip once told her that was how it was. One of Kip’s crew had died of yellow fever and they’d got him overboard pretty quick, he’d said, so it wouldn’t spread.
‘I never knew my grandpa; can hardly remember my father either. Sometimes bits come back, but they are very hazy. But I’ve got a gran, and you can share her with me, Meg. So are we going to have a look at the brick house, then?’
‘Won’t we get into trouble? Won’t there be guards?’
‘Not a bod in sight. Oh, someone comes about once a month to check the place over, and sometimes a van arrives and things are taken in. Mummy says she thinks that either documents or records or works of art are stored there. Well, they couldn’t leave all the stuff in London for the Luftwaffe to bomb, could they? Museums and art galleries were emptied as soon as war started, don’t forget. Maybe some of it is here, snug and safe – who knows?’
‘But don’t you care, Polly, about them nicking your house?’
‘No! Why should I? All I care about is that this war is over as soon as maybe, and that Davie and Mark will come through it safely – and all the servicemen and women. Wars are wrong and stupid. Look what happened to my father. His war wounds slowly killed him!’ Tears came once more, and Meg knew she was thinking about Davie again.
‘Ar hey, girl! Nuthink’s going to happen to your feller! How could it, when he’s never out of your thoughts? And your brother’s goin’ to be all right too, so how about you and me doin’ a tour of the place? Then you can take me to meet your gran, eh?’
‘Yes, of course!’ Polly pulled her hand across her eyes. ‘And Nanny too.’
‘Y-yes …’ Daft old Nanny, who lived in a pretend world and stuck pins in pictures and had tantrums you walked away from. No harm in her at all! Childlike, Mrs John said. So why, all at once, did Meg not want to visit the nursery? Why did just thinking about it make her uneasy, even though she would be meeting an old lady who had brought up two generations of Kenworthys and who Polly obviously loved; Mrs John too! Why should she feel peculiar about meeting someone she had only before seen on a photograph as a nanny in long skirts, a baby boy in her arms?
She did not know what gave her the creepy feeling. Sufficient to say she would know soon enough if her fears held substance. This very afternoon, in fact, when they climbed the stairs to the nursery.
The wide, cushioned windowsill in her bedroom made a comfortable seat and Meg sat, arms around knees, looking out over fields and trees to the distant evening sky. It was past ten and the light was beginning to fade, blurring the outlines of trees and hedges, rounding them with mist. Twilight here was gentler than at Tippet’s Yard, where the fading of the light made outlines of buildings sharp and dark against the skyline. Here at Candlefold a bird sang to warn against the ending of the day, and all about was soft and hushed.
The white-painted walls of the room reflected the light from the window and softened into palest apricot; over the weathercock atop the stables, the first star appeared, low in the sky. Did you wish on first stars? Starlight star bright, first star I’ve seen tonight … Did you close your eyes and cross your fingers and wish to stay here for ever and sleep always in this blue-flowered room?
Meg closed her eyes to call back the day that had been: she and Polly pushing through a gap in the hedge and into the garden of the house the faceless ones had taken, to gaze at its shuttered windows, neglected lawns, the broad sweep of weed-choked steps. She had seen it all before in a photograph. … 1916. Garden Party … wounded soldiers. The tussocked grass was fine-trimmed then, and roses that ran wild over the front of the house were once trained into obedience. Afterwards, they had climbed the stairs to the nursery.
‘Can I come in? Polly pushed open the door. ‘I’ve brought someone to see you.’
Nanny Boag in a rocking chair, knitted slippers on her feet. She wore a printed cotton dress, and an embroidered pinafore tied at the waist. She looked younger than the long-skirted, black-bonneted lady in the photograph. Her cheeks were plump, her eyes wide as she turned eagerly.
‘Polly, dear! How nice of you to bring your little friend! What is your name, child?’
‘Meg.’
‘Meg who? Cat got your tongue? Did your nanny bring you? Where is she?’
‘In the kitchen, talking to Cook,’ Polly hastened, pink-cheeked.
‘Doesn’t Nanny get a kiss then, or have we forgotten our manners?’ The elderly woman offered her cheek; dutifully Polly kissed it.
‘Were you having a little sleep? Did we wake you? Shall we come back later?’
‘Sleep? Goodness me, no! Nanny hasn’t time to sleep! I was just thinking about Scotland and all the packing to be done! August already, and the year flown by! Go and play with your friend, dear, and don’t get into mischief! And put your bonnet on, or you’ll get freckles! Close the door quietly!’
Her eyelids drooped, her chin fell on her chest.
‘Heaven help us! What’s to do with the old girl?’ Meg gasped as they tiptoed away. ‘August? Goin’ to Scotland? It’s May!’
‘We stopped going to Scotland before Pa died. We used always to go in August, I believe.’
‘So we are both little girls, and my nanny is talking to Cook – only there isn’t a cook!’
‘Not any more.’
‘I thought she’d be – well – sterner.’
‘She was once. Now she seems to have got smaller and more frail.’
‘And if I take her tea up tomorrow, will she remember me?’
‘I doubt it,’ Polly smiled. ‘I’ll introduce you again, in the morning.’
Childlike, Meg frowned. Frail? Oh, she might be that, but her eyes had been sharp and beady; had taken in every detail of Polly’s little friend.
They had met Polly’s mother then, closing the door of Mrs Kenworthy’s room, a finger to her lips.
‘Mother-in-law is sleeping. Perhaps you could look in on her later?’
Meg picked up the tray from the floor outside the door, asking if there was anything she could do. ‘I came to help, Mrs John, and I’ve hardly done a thing.’
‘Then you can make tea. Use the small pot. We’ll count today as your settling-in day. And when we’ve had tea, will you go with Polly to feed the hens and collect the eggs? I could do with a few for a baked custard for supper.’
‘It isn’t right your mother should work so hard,’ Meg protested as they crossed the courtyard, making for the henhouse. ‘I mean – she once had people to do the housework for her, and a cook,