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

I

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 dryly.

“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 much did you understand of all that, I wonder?”

“I don’t know,” said Vernon vaguely, shifting from foot to foot.

Nina opened a chain bag, took out a tortoiseshell case and extracted a cigarette which she proceeded to light. Vernon watched her, fascinated. He had never seen a woman smoke.

“What’s the matter?” said Nina.

“Mummy says,” said Vernon, “that no nice woman would ever smoke. She said so to Miss Robbins.”

“Oh! well,” said Nina. She puffed out a cloud of smoke. “I expect she was quite right. I’m not a nice woman, you see, Vernon.”

Vernon looked at her, vaguely distressed.

“I think you’re very pretty,” he said rather shyly.

“That’s not the same thing,” Nina’s smile widened. “Come here, Vernon.”

He came obediently. Nina put her hands on his shoulders and looked him over quizzically. He submitted patiently. He never minded being touched by Aunt Nina. Her hands were light⁠—not clutching like his mother’s.

“Yes,” said Nina. “You’re a Deyre⁠—very much so. Rough luck on Myra, but there it is.”

“What does that mean?” said Vernon.

“It means that you’re like your father’s family and not like your mother’s⁠—worse luck for you.”

“Why worse luck for me?”

“Because the Deyres, Vernon, are neither happy nor successful. And they can’t make good.”

What funny things Aunt Nina said! She said them half laughingly, so perhaps she didn’t mean them. And yet, somehow, there was something in them that, though he didn’t understand, made him afraid.

“Would it be better,” he said suddenly, “to be like Uncle Sydney?”

“Much better. Much much better.”

Vernon considered.

“But then,” he said slowly, “if I was like Uncle Sydney⁠—”

He stopped, trying to get his thoughts into words.

“Yes, well?”

“If I was Uncle Sydney, I should have to live at Larch Hurst⁠—and not here.”

Larch Hurst was a stoutly built red brick villa near Birmingham where Vernon had once been taken to stay with Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie. It had three acres of superb pleasure grounds, a rose garden, a pergola, a goldfish tank, and two excellently fitted bathrooms.

“And wouldn’t you like that?” asked Nina, still watching him.

“No!” said Vernon. A great sigh broke from him, heaving his small chest. “I want to live here⁠—always, always, always!”