plate.
Later in the afternoon, Clio found the two nannies together in the cubbyhole where the linen was folded. There was the same scent of starch and cleanliness that had drawn her back on the beach into the safe hold of childhood, but now she saw that both of the women had been crying. She knew they were afraid they would be dismissed for letting Grace go out in the boat.
‘It isn’t fair,’ Clio said hotly. ‘You couldn’t have stopped her. I couldn’t, nobody could. Grace always does what she wants.’ Anger bubbled up in her. Nanny Cooper had been with the Hirshes since Jake was born. She came from a house in one of the little brick terraces of west Oxford. The children had often been taken to visit her ancient parents. It was unthinkable that Grace should be responsible for her being sent away.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Nanny tried to console her. But it was one of the signs of the new day that Clio didn’t believe what she said.
In the evening Nathaniel arrived off the London train, summoned back early by Eleanor.
He called the three boys singly into a stuffy little room off the hallway that nobody had yet found a use for. They came out one by one, with stiff faces, and went up to their beds. When it came to Clio’s turn to be summoned she slipped into the room and found her father sitting in an armchair with his head resting on one hand. His expression and posture was so familiar from bedtimes at home in Oxford that her awareness of the small world’s benevolent order and fears for its loss swept over her again.
Nathaniel saw her face. ‘What is it, Clio?’
She had not meant to cry, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘I don’t want to grow up,’ she said stupidly.
He held out his hand, and made her settle on his lap as she had done when she was very small. ‘You have to,’ he told her. ‘Today was the beginning of it, wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose it was,’ Clio said at length.
But she found that her father could still reassure her, as he always had. He told her that there was no question of any blame being placed on Nanny Cooper for what Grace had done. And he told her that the changes, whatever they were, would only come by slow degrees. It was just that from today she would be ready for them.
‘What about Grace?’ Clio asked. ‘Is today the first day for her, as well?’
‘I don’t know so much about Grace,’ Nathaniel said gently. ‘I hope it is.’
Clio wanted to say some more, to make sure that Nathaniel knew Grace had insisted on going out in the Mabel, and that she had just been showing off when she leapt on to the seat. She supposed it was the same beginning to grow up that made her decide it would be better to keep quiet. She kissed her father instead, rubbing her cheek against the springy black mass of his beard.
‘Goodnight,’ she said quietly. As she went upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Grace she heard Nathaniel cross the hallway to the drawing room where the sisters were sitting together, and then the door closing on the low murmur of adult conversation.
Grace was still lying propped up on her pillows. Her dark hair had been brushed and it spread out in waves around her small face. A fire had been lit in the little iron grate, and the flickering light on the ceiling brought back memories of the night nursery and baby illnesses. Clio found herself instinctively sniffing for the scent of camphorated oil.
‘What’s happening down there?’ Grace asked cheerfully.
Clio didn’t return her smile. ‘Jake and Julius and Hugo have been put on the carpet for letting you out in the boat.’
‘It can’t have been too serious,’ Grace answered. ‘Jake and Julius have just been in to say goodnight. I thanked them very prettily for saving my life. They seemed quite happy.’
‘Aren’t you at all sorry for all the trouble you caused?’
Grace regarded her. ‘There isn’t anything to be gained from sorrow. It was an accident. I’m glad I’m not dead, that’s all.’ She stretched her arms lazily in her white nightgown. ‘I’m not ready to die. Nothing’s even begun yet.’
Clio didn’t try to say any more. She undressed in silence, and when she lay down she turned away from Grace and folded the sheet over her own head.
In the night, Grace dreamt that she was in the water again. The black weight of it poured over her, filling her lungs and choking the life out of her. When she opened her eyes she could see tiny faces hanging in the light, a long way over her head, and she knew that she was already dead and lying in the ground. She woke up, soaked in her own sweat and with a scream of terror rising in her throat. But she didn’t give voice to the scream. She wouldn’t wake Clio, or Nanny who was asleep in the room next door. Instead she held her pillow in her arms and bit down into it to maintain her silence. She kicked off the covers that constricted her, too much like the horrible weight of water, and lay until she shivered with the cold air drying the sweat on her skin.
At last, with her jaw aching from being clenched so tight, she knew that the nightmare had receded and she could trust herself not to cry out. Stiffly she drew the blankets over her shoulders and settled herself for sleep once again.
Downstairs, after Clio and the boys had gone up to bed, Nathaniel went into the drawing room where his wife and sister-in-law were sitting together. They had changed for dinner, and in their gowns with lace fichus and jewels and elaborate coiffures there was no outward sign of the day’s disturbances. He had not expected that there would be. Blanche and Eleanor were alike in their belief that civilized behaviour was the first essential of life. Nathaniel had been fascinated from the first meeting with her to discover how unconventional Eleanor could be, and yet still obey the rigid rules of her class. She had married him, after all, a Jew and a foreigner, and still remained as impeccably of the English upper classes as her sister the Countess. He smiled at the sight of the two of them.
Nathaniel kissed his wife fondly, and murmured to Blanche that she looked as beautiful as he had ever seen her, a credit to her own remarkable powers of composure after such a severe shock. Then he strolled away to the mahogany chiffonier and poured himself a large whisky and soda from the tray.
‘I still think we should try to reach John,’ Blanche announced.
Nathaniel sighed. They had already agreed that John would have been out with the guns all day, and that now he would have returned there was no real necessity to disturb him. ‘What could he do?’ he repeated, reasonably. ‘Leave the man to his pheasants and cards. Grace is all right. I have dealt with the boys.’
Blanche closed her eyes for a moment, shuddered a little. ‘It was all so very frightening.’ Her sister rested a hand on her arm in sympathy, looking appealingly up at her husband. Nathaniel took a stiff pull at his drink. He didn’t like having to act the disciplinarian, as he had done this evening to the three boys, particularly when he saw clearly enough that it was Grace who had been at fault. The business had made him hungry, and he was looking forward to his dinner. He was congratulating himself on not having to sit down to it with fussy, whiskery, humourless John Leominster for company. He did not want him summoned now, or at any time before he had conveyed himself back to Town or to Oxford.
‘It’s all over now,’ he soothed her. ‘Try to see it as a useful experience for them. Learning that rules are not made just to curb their pleasure.’
And I sound just as pompous about it as Leominster himself, Nathaniel thought. He laughed
