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

Henrietta toils back from the beach with pretty stones in her bucket. The rock-garden becomes the main topic of conversation, the pinnacle of endeavour, whilst seed catalogues and reference books litter the morning-room table, varieties of plants ringed with circles of red ink. After tea, as Lydia sews, and Henrietta and Josie crayon busily and inaccurately in their colouring books, Timothy tells stories of travelling in the Pyrenees and the Alps, describing the flowers he has seen, and throwing in a few bandits for the sake of Mina, who listens round-eyed. Georgie sits ostentatiously on her father’s knee whilst Ambrose continues to smile paternalistically upon the whole group.
    Later, when Lydia and the children are alone again, strange packages arrive: rare and pretty plants from other countries, destined for the rock-garden. As the child grows within her, Lydia sings and plays with her daughters and waits for the spring when the white-bloomed hutchinsia will flower along with the yellow euryops daisy from South Africa. In the winter evenings, with the children tucked in bed, she takes the letters from her sewing-box: sheets of thin, flimsy paper, in blue-lined envelopes bearing exciting foreign stamps, covered with a looping, inky scrawl. A rosyglow from the oil lamp’s glass bowl, the crackling of wood in the grate, some stems of winter jasmine in a green vase, these inform the moment of intimacy as she shares her lover’s adventures, his fears, and the precious outpourings of love.
    In the light early evenings of a cold sweet spring, the lazy broken fluting of the blackbird’s song fills her with a poignant restlessness and, after the children’s hour, to their delight, she wraps them in warm clothes and takes them down to the beach. The sea’s surging song, as it sweeps across the ridged and buckled sand, calms her longing and quietens her need. She watches her children play but her thoughts are far away. Georgie and Mina have races, drawing the finishing line with a sharp stone, choosing a certain rock as an excellent starting post. The wet sand flies up under their hard little feet as they run, heads down, legs pumping.
    â€˜I won!’ cries Georgie boastfully. ‘Did you see me, Mama? I was first.’
    Mina doubles up breathlessly, bundling her flying black hair into an elastic band, and Lydia waves to them, laughing, holding her hands high to clap lightly, as she keeps an eye on Josie scrambling beside the rock pool. She knows that Georgie cheats and so it is Mina whom she holds for an extra second or two when they come running across the beach for a hug. Henrietta shows them her basket of shells and stones and, as the moon rises, netted and held in the bare branches of the trees up on the steep cleave, they gather their belongings and set off for home in the gathering twilight. Moths flit beneath the trees as bats dart and swoop above their heads, causing Henrietta to scream.
    â€˜Don’t be silly,’ says Georgie, copying Papa’s patronizing tone. ‘They won’t hurt you,’ but Henrietta clings to Mama’s hand. She rather enjoys screaming, it excites her, and sheusually ignores Georgie’s admonitions, resisting her oldest sister’s self-assumed role as Papa’s deputy, intuitively guessing that Mama doesn’t approve of it. She screams again, just to make her point, and then jumps along cheerfully, still holding to Lydia’s hand.
    â€˜Tired,’ says Josie, sitting down suddenly amongst the ferns beside the stream. ‘Carry.’
    â€˜Oh, darling,’ says Lydia anxiously. ‘Can you manage just a few more steps?’ She is weary too, and Josie is heavy. Lydia is fearful of losing the child within her, which she has managed – so far – to carry so successfully. ‘We’re very nearly home. Do try, darling.’
    â€˜Tired,’ whimpers Josie, beginning to grizzle, refusing to budge, and it is Mina who