The Children's Hour by Marcia Willett Read Free Book Online

scullery, but the other half was a cheerful, cosy area. The square pine table was set beneath the window and a wicker chair stood beside the glass-paned door, which opened into the little courtyard. There were bookshelves here, and photographs in assorted frames stood on the windowsill alongside a blue china pot of tiny cyclamen. The whole space had been arranged to accommodate Nest’s wheelchair without sacrificing the comfortable, intimate atmosphere that Mina had created in the latter years of her mother’s life.
    â€˜Just right for two, but for three . . .?’ wondered Mina anxiously – and then pulled herself together.
    There was plenty of room for Georgie; it was simply that there hadn’t been more than two people living in the house for more than forty years and, naturally, some adjustments would have to be made.
    â€˜And it’s only for a short while,’ she said aloud, opening the door so that the dogs might go outside. ‘A little holiday. It’ll be fun.’
    The dogs disappeared into the wild, exciting garden beyond the courtyard and Mina filled the kettle and put it on the Esse, her remark hanging rather forlornly in the silence. With the tiny, explosive ‘po-po-po’ escaping her lips, after tying her dressing-gown more tightly round her spare frame, she took the scissors from a selection of utensils in an old Kilner jar and cut a few grapes from the bunch in the fruit bowl. She sliced them carefully into halves, collected together some pieces of bread and went outside to feed the birds. She crumbled the bread on to the bird-table andchecked that the feeders were full of nuts and seed, but the pieces of grape she scattered carefully amongst the rocks of the alpine garden which, long ago, Lydia had made.
    Captain Cat was the first back, hoping for his biscuit, and Mina took a handful from the box and carried them to the door. Nogood Boyo arrived as if by magic but Mina waited until old Polly Garter came pottering into the courtyard before she rationed the biscuits out: two each and a pat and a murmuring of love for the three of them.
    She took her mug of tea, turned the wicker chair so that it stood in the sun and, sipping gratefully, watched for the blackbird. The dogs scrunched their biscuits, Nogood Boyo finishing first and watching hopefully in case the other two should leave a crumb. Captain Cat warned him off with a throaty rumble but Polly Garter, mother and grandmother, allowed him to edge in close for a neglected morsel.
    Mina smiled as she watched them and murmured: ‘You’d be a good Boyo, if anyone would let you!’
    The blackbird came running amongst the rocks, dark as a shadow, with only his yellow beak to give him away. The dogs, grooming themselves in the sunshine, didn’t see him find his breakfast amongst the parahebe’s last pale blooms, sheltering beneath the branched stems and drooping red flowers of the zauschneria as he pecked the sweet, delicious fruit. It was his mate, hopping over the rocks, scattering sparkling, flashing drops of dew from the feathery blue leaves of the juniper, who chased him away.
    The bird-table was alive with movement and colour: the flick of tiny wings, a rippling of gold and blue, smooth-feathered heads darting and pecking. Mina finished her tea but continued to watch, dreaming and remembering in the sun.
    *
    It is Timothy who encourages the building of the rock-garden. In the days long before tubs and pot-plants, the courtyard is a rather dreary place with its rock wall and mossy flagstones. Lydia likes to cook, to grow herbs beside the kitchen door, and Timothy shows how she could build a miniature garden full of colour to delight her as she works. Ambrose is smilingly tolerant of anything that Timothy suggests and waves them off to search for appropriate plants at nurseries in Ilfracombe and Barnstaple.
    Georgie and Mina struggle through the garden carrying between them shapely rocks, and even