The Willow Pool. Elizabeth Elgin
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like him to marry. After all, he’s twenty-four.’
‘Suppose your ma wants a grandson so the Kenworthys can carry on here. Why did you never grab him for yourself, Polly?’
‘Never gave it a thought – after all, he is my brother …’
‘Yes, but only by adoption, so him and you aren’t blood kin. Hadn’t you ever thought it would be lawful if you had fallen for him?’
‘N-no. All I ever wanted was for him to be my big brother. Falling in love with him never entered my head. And thank heaven it didn’t! Davie is the one I want!’
‘Can see what you mean. Reckon if you had fallen for him, there’d always have been a kind of – of – What’s the word I’m looking for?’
‘Incest?’ Polly raised a surprised eyebrow.
‘That’s it! Would’ve smacked of incest, wouldn’t it, in a roundabout way?’
‘It could have. But he seemed ages older than me when I was growing up. His friends treated me like a little girl – which I was, to them. And Mark always treated me as his kid sister, so the awful situation didn’t arise.’
‘You were waiting for Davie,’ Meg nodded, ‘though you didn’t know it.’
‘Waiting for Davie. It just about sums it up. Waiting for letters, for phone calls if he’s lucky enough to get through, waiting for his next leave; waiting to be twenty-one, then Mummy will know we aren’t going to change our minds about each other. One long wait …’
‘Ar, cheer up, queen! One of these days, when you’re least expectin’ him, he’ll be there on the doorstep!’
‘And if that happens, Meg, I wouldn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. You see, unexpected leave is often embarkation leave! But we’ll take the tea upstairs before we have our own. About time you met Nanny Boag – properly, I mean!’
‘Ar. Prop’ly.’ And hope, Meg thought, that the daft old girl had come back to earth again; hope she wasn’t still Polly’s little friend, whose nanny was in the kitchen gossiping with Candlefold’s cook!
‘Tea for upstairs.’ Mary Kenworthy was arranging cups and saucers on two small trays.
‘So sit yourself down, Mrs John. Me and Polly will take it. Don’t forget I haven’t met Nanny yet – not properly, that is.’
‘Well, she’s fine, today – or she was when I took her breakfast up. Mind, her mood changes can come on without warning, so fingers crossed.’
‘You take Gran’s first,’ Polly said as they crossed the great echoing hall, making for the stone arch in the corner of the room and the stone stairs that rose from it, ‘and I’ll take Nanny’s – prepare her for a surprise, and your second coming! Let’s hope she isn’t in – in –’
‘Cloud cuckoo land again,’ Meg grinned.
‘Fingers crossed!’ Polly smiled back, thinking yet again how lovely it was to have someone her own age about the place.
Nanny Boag had not been in cloud cuckoo land, and anyone, Meg thought as she sipped tea at the kitchen table, could have been forgiven for thinking she ever had!
‘Meg Blundell, is it?’ Emily Boag’s eyes had swept Meg from head to toes. ‘So why haven’t I met you before, miss? You arrived yesterday, at lunchtime. Where have you been until now?’
‘I – I – we-e-ll, we came, and –’
‘Yes! We came yesterday, but you were so busy planning the Scotland trip that Meg and I thought we’d better leave you to it!’ Polly had hastened.
‘Scotland, for goodness’ sake! We haven’t been to Scotland these twenty years past! What on earth are you thinking about, Polly Kenworthy? Is it your time of the month, or are you so head-in-the-clouds over your young man that you can’t think straight? But I’m glad you have come, Meg Blundell. Mrs John could do with some help. My, but I remember when there was a cook and kitchenmaid here, and two housemaids and a parlour maid as well as myself in the nursery. Things have changed since that man Hitler started the war! When it’s all over, I hope they hang him! Maybe, if we hadn’t been so gentlemanly with the Germans at the end of the last war things might have been very different. I shall never forgive the Kaiser for what happened to John. Such a good child; such a gentle young man. It wasn’t right to make a soldier of him, send him to the trenches!’
Shuddering, she had closed her eyes and hugged her cardigan round her, setting her chair rocking in agitation.
‘Oh, thump!’ Polly had gasped. ‘She’s pulled up the drawbridge again!’
For a moment the old woman sat, shoulders hunched. Then she’d opened her eyes, straightened her back and smiled fondly.
‘Off you go then, whilst I drink my tea! Take your little friend with you, Polly dear, and don’t forget to tell her nanny you are going out to play. And remember your bonnets!’
‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ Meg had whispered. ‘Back to square one again! Never mind! Third time lucky. Next time she sees me she might just remember I’m Meg! And don’t look so miserable. Give and take, eh? After all, the old girl doesn’t know she’s doing it!’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Polly had flung as they closed the door behind them. ‘Sure, I mean, that she doesn’t know she’s doing it!’
‘But you said, and your mother too, that you –’
‘That we have to humour her because she doesn’t know where she is or what time of the day it is, most times? Well, sometimes I’m not convinced! Sometimes I think she does know what she’s doing!’
‘But your mother said her mind has gone; that mostly she had shut the world out.’
‘Yes, but is she as senile as she’d have us believe, Meg? Sometimes I think it’s all an act and that she’s putting on Mummy’s good nature so she can still have people running after her like it was the old days! She’s got Mummy fooled and even I accept it, most of the time! But like you saw, she can be as bright as a button one minute, then just go back into her other world as the mood suits her!’ Her eyes had filled with tears and she’d shaken her head impatiently. ‘Oh, don’t take any notice of me! I’m in one of my miserable moods, I suppose, because there wasn’t a letter from Davie this morning! I always get fratchy if he doesn’t write and do peevish things like taking it out on Nanny – who really is senile!’
‘Like you said, Polly girl – sixpence short of a shilling. She can’t help it, I suppose, for wanting to put the clock back. I often wished I could have done the same after Ma died; wished I’d made her go to that sanatorium, charity ward or not!’
‘Meg! Please don’t upset yourself. We’re both of us getting in a tizzy, wishing we’d done something – or hadn’t done or said something. I shouldn’t have said things about Nanny, who can’t help being –’
‘Nutty as a fruitcake!’ Meg had sucked in a deep breath then forced her lips into a smile. ‘Cheer up, queen! There’ll be two letters tomorrow! There might even be a phone call tonight!’
‘Yes. And even if there isn’t, at least I’m young and fit and not in pain like Gran.’
‘Or daft as a brush like Nanny Boag. Now let’s get our tea. Then I think I’ll give the outside steps a good scrub!’
Stone steps leading to the thick, nail-studded door, worn into hollows by generations of Kenworthy feet. Safe and enduring, those steps, and four hundred years old.
Now, as she drank her tea, Meg wondered how many times Dolly Blundell had scrubbed them. It was a sobering thought.