Giant’s Bread · Book I · I · Chapter 1 1 5

V

Gradually Vernon’s world widened. The twin star, Mummy-Daddy, separated, became two distinct people. Daddy remained nebulous, but Mummy became quite a personage. She often paid visits to the nursery to “play with my darling little boy.” Vernon bore her visits with grave politeness, though it usually meant giving up the game that he himself was engaged upon and accepting one which was not, in his opinion, nearly so good. Lady visitors would sometimes come with her, and then she would squeeze Vernon tightly (which he hated) and cry:

“It’s so wonderful to be a mother! I never get used to it! To have a darling baby boy of one’s very own.”

Very red, Vernon would extricate himself from her embrace. Because he wasn’t a baby boy at all. He was three years old.

Looking across the room one day, just after a scene like the above, he saw his father standing by the nursery door with sardonic eyes, watching him. Their eyes met. Something seemed to pass between them⁠—comprehension⁠—a sense of kinship.

His mother’s friends were talking.

“Such a pity, Myra, that he doesn’t take after you. Your hair would be too lovely on a child.”

But Vernon had a sudden feeling of pride. He was like his father.