Holding On (41 page)

Young Fred arrived at a trot, out of breath and rather damp about the knees.

‘I falled over,' he said cheerfully, ‘and all the water came out. Never mind.'

Fliss pressed her lips tightly together, swallowed her tears and smiled down at him. Fred might look like his father but he had his mother's sunny disposition. She blessed Susanna for her generosity in lending young Fred for all sorts of expeditions – to the moor, to the beach, shopping in Totnes – without injunctions or warnings, without any rules or regulations. When his new baby sister arrived Susanna had been delighted that Fred should have his own special privileges as befitted an elder brother and handed him over to Fliss with confidence. He was looking up at her now in hopeful expectation.

‘Never mind,' she agreed, taking out her handkerchief and wiping away the worst of the mud. ‘Time for a quick walk, would you say? I expect poor old Rex is getting bored in the car.'

Fred pursed up his lips judicially – he liked the way she consulted him, almost as if he were a grown-up person – and nodded. He slipped his hand into hers and they passed together between the marked places of quiet earth, beneath branches beginning to burst with fresh green buds, down the mossy path to the wrought-iron gate.

There had been changes at The Keep since Freddy's death. A certain formality, difficult to define but definitely felt, had vanished with her passing. The disintegration had begun in the final stages of her illness and now, four years on, the process was complete. An era was over. The kitchen, once Fox's and Ellen's domain – a domain which Freddy had rarely visited – had become the hub of the house. Mealtimes were more erratic and there was a certain liveliness which in no way impaired the peaceful qualities of The Keep. Prue could be heard singing in the bathroom, calling down the stairs; Caroline's voice would be raised, imploring someone – anyone – to answer the telephone; Theo, who had inherited Freddy's library of music, had become a little deaf and the strains of Bach or Schumann drifted from behind his door on to the wide landing.

Susanna and the children were regularly in and out, and the small room behind the drawing room had lost its sombre atmosphere in its transition from study to playroom. The two small cream brocade sofas, which stood facing each other on either side of the fireplace, were now covered with warm thick tartan rugs against damage from sandal buckles and sticky fingers; the walnut table was hidden by a brightly checked oilcloth so that paints and crayons might be used with impunity. The long climb to the nursery wing, proving wearisome for young legs and old, had inspired Prue to bring down the children's books and toys so that the next generation could be quietly entertained when it visited. Young Fred adored the marionette Muffin the Mule, whose jointed legs enabled it to sit or kneel or dance as the strings were manipulated, whilst Podger – Alison at the font but renamed by Kit, ‘Oh, she's such a
darling
little Podger' – was fascinated by the animals which lived inside the wooden ark with Mr and Mrs Noah. Podger's staggering steps were always directed to the big boat with its two doors which opened to reveal such treasures. The Noahs were a delightful pair: he with his round white patriarchal beard and carved flowing robes, she with her smooth black painted hair and comfortably ample form. Podger liked the assembling of the animals to be accompanied by song. They were an eclectic bunch. Bears and camels were paired alongside ducks and sheep which meant that there was a variety of musical choice. It might be ‘The animals went in two by two' or even ‘Old MacDonald had a farm' – Podger was not yet a purist and the pair of giraffes might be happily substituted for the pigs or kangaroos in the songs – but her very favourite was the one which her Aunt Fliss knew best. Their voices could often be heard raised in unison – Fliss's contralto, Podger's squeak and Fred's husky roar – as the animals were marched up the ramp into the dark.

The older children had their favourites, too. Edward loved his grandmother's smart toy soldiers in their castle, whilst Jolyon never tired of the strange mechanical toys which whirred or danced once they had been wound up with the large keys which must always be kept safely in a small linen bag. Bess loved these, too. There was an ice-cream vendor whose legs pedalled furiously as he propelled his blue and white container decorated with snow and penguins; there was a brightly painted and erratically hopping frog, as well as several pecking birds, but she loved best the dancing doll from Russia, which glided on hidden wheels, gently moving her head from side to side and occasionally pirouetting as she danced.

With Prue's removal to The Keep the legacies of her own twins' childhood had also become part of the heritage. Most of Hal's books and toys had gone to his own home – his train set and his collection of Dinky and Matchbox cars, his
Biggles
and
Just William
books – but Kit's sets of
Lone Pine Five
and
Famous Five
books still kept Bess entertained for hours. Jamie, now eleven, had moved beyond the pleasure afforded by the toys, although he was always prepared to play with the younger ones, and now found his own private pleasure in scanning the bookshelves which lined the walls where the reading of previous generations of Chadwicks had accumulated. His warlike phase had passed – although the military life still fascinated him – and he was becoming a rather dreamy, imaginative boy, growing up to look like Miles but with a yearning spiritual capacity which was quite foreign to his father.

Today, with Susanna and the children over for lunch, the kitchen was a place of bustle and communal activity. Potatoes were cooking preparatory to being mashed with butter and milk, sausages were frying, scrubbed vegetables were waiting to be shovelled into the steamer.

‘Children's food is so delicious,' said Prue contentedly as, with Podger astride her hip, she turned the sausages with a fork. ‘Simple but so tasty. Jam roly-poly for pudding, darling, what do you think of that?'

Podger sucked her thumb meditatively. Beneath the thick dark fringe her brown eyes were thoughtful. Earlier she had managed to extract one of the small ducks from the ark and had kept it to examine it, turning it carefully in her small fingers, delighting in the yellow beak and legs and the skilful carving of the snowy white feathers. One of Fox's last tasks had been to repaint the Noahs' large family and the colours were as fresh and bright as they had been fifty years earlier. The duck looked rather like Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Podger was enchanted by her. When she heard Aunt Prue coming back along the passage to the playroom – having been called away to the telephone – Podger had secreted the duck in the pocket of her navy-blue corduroy pinafore. Aunt Prue had whisked her up and away to the kitchen where she had managed to crawl under the table so as to spend some more deliciously private moments with this small toy. So entranced had she been, dancing it upon the floor, making it waddle about, that Caroline had nearly trodden on her fingers and once again Aunt Prue had lifted her up, moving her out of the way of busy adult feet. The sudden movement had caused Podger to lose her grip on the duck and it had slid down Aunt Prue's front, between her shirt and her cardigan, and was now well beyond Podger's grasp.

She eyed the loose folds of her great-aunt's blue shetland cardigan, faintly distracted by the smell of the sausages. Podger enjoyed her food. She brought to each mealtime the gourmand's sense of dedication, and the aroma of frying sausage, along with the mental image of jam roly-poly pudding, began to edge the anxiety about the duck out of her mind. She knew that she should not have removed it – the nursery rules were still, on the whole, strictly obeyed – but at least it was quite safe. Podger decided that the matter was now out of her hands. She sighed deeply and smiled seraphically upon her Aunt Prue.

‘Thothidge,' she said pleasedly, without removing her thumb.

Prue joggled her, dancing a little to make her chuckle, and Caroline came back from a sortie to the larder and lifted Podger away and into the highchair.

‘Fliss and young Fred should be back,' she said, glancing at the mahogany-framed wall clock. ‘What can they be up to, I wonder.'

‘Plenty of time,' said Prue easily. ‘The vegetables aren't quite done yet. Isn't it nice to have Fliss back so close? I do hope Miles doesn't have to take a job a long way off. It will break her heart if she has to move away again.'

‘I suppose it depends on what he intends to do.' Caroline removed the saucepan, turned the potatoes into a large bowl which had been warming in the bottom oven, and began to mash them with a practised hand. ‘Rather difficult, I should think. The only thing he's really experienced in is man management. Has Fliss told you what his plans are?'

‘I don't think Fliss
knows
what his plans are.' Prue pushed the frying pan to the side of the Aga and opened the oven door so as to check on the pudding. ‘Just right. I'll take it out so that it can be cooling a little. Jam stays so terribly hot, doesn't it? No, as far as I can gather Miles hasn't decided anything yet.'

‘Well there's no great rush,' said Caroline. ‘He'll have a good pension. No point in hurrying these things. Will you go and call Theo or shall I?'

 

From upstairs, Theo was watching Fliss and young Fred disembarking from the car. Fred's gumboots had been removed and transferred to Susanna's car and now his shoes were being put on and laced up whilst Rex gambolled round, his feathery tail waving as he paused to lick Fred's face. Theo looked down upon Fliss's fair head, bent over Fred as he sat sideways on the passenger seat, legs dangling. This was the third generation of children he'd watched from this window but he knew that it must also be the last. He'd suffered an unusually severe bronchitis attack during the winter and there were occasions when he felt alarmingly weak and frail. He missed Freddy painfully but still felt her to be somehow present, half expecting to come upon her, in the hall, at the piano, in the garden. His loneliness was assuaged by the companionship of Prue and Caroline, and he blessed Freddy a hundred times a day for preparing the way for Prue's presence at The Keep. She was the bridge over which he and Caroline might pass so that they were now fused together as a group with no real barriers between any of them.

He almost wished that he could give Caroline an allowance instead of paying her a salary, thereby truly making her one of the family but he knew that her sense of what was proper would make it difficult to raise the matter. In any case, Prue had removed any of the remaining awkwardnesses which were already beginning to disappear during Freddy's illness. It had been quite impossible – even if he had wished it – to keep up those barriers whilst he and Caroline shared the burden, each supporting the other, giving and receiving comfort.

He delighted in the almost sisterly relationship which existed between Caroline and Prue, grateful that they included him in their plans and expeditions, welcoming him, loving him. He tried to imagine how he might be managing alone, had he not moved to The Keep, in his rather bleak little flat in Southsea and knew how lucky he was to be a part of this happy, if rather odd, family. Gus and Susanna and their children kept The Keep's occupants young in spirit and the regular visits of the other members of the family gave the place an almost festive atmosphere. One never quite knew when Mole might arrive for a weekend or Kit might telephone to ask if she and Sin could come to breathe the country air. Once, shortly after Freddy's death, Clarrie had accompanied them and Theo had enjoyed his company enormously so that now he too had become a frequent guest.

Everything was as Freddy had hoped and planned for The Keep except for her one central concept: that Hal would move in and take over the reins. No one could quite understand why he had never done so, choosing instead to buy a house in the Meon valley. He and Maria and the boys had lived there for the last four years but now he had been given the command of HMS
Broadsword
, which was based in Devonport, and the rest of the family were waiting to see whether the moment had come for Hal to fulfil his grandmother's wish and become master of The Keep. Hal himself had always refused to be drawn on the subject, evading it with a smile and a shrug but with a tightening of the lips which warned off the inquisitive. Even Prue, who considered that she had a mother's licence to probe, had extracted no reasons. The only advantage to his staying in Hampshire – as far as she could see – was that he was always at hand for the twinnies at school in the New Forest.

‘We have to remember,' Fliss had pointed out, ‘that Maria's not far from her own parents there and she and the boys will have made lots of friends. I think it's a bit unreasonable to ask her to lift and shift. She knows no one down here and the boys have settled at school. Just because we love it here doesn't mean it's everyone's idea of bliss. And Hal's been mainly based in Portsmouth or London. We have to remember that, too.'

Theo remembered that Prue had looked almost cross at such a reasonable and balanced view and had made one or two dark remarks about Maria's obduracy. However, Hal and his family had remained in Hampshire – until now. With his first posting to the West Country for eight years it would be interesting to see what would happen.

Interesting, too, to see what Miles was planning. Theo had a strong suspicion that Miles was hatching plans about which Fliss knew nothing. It was something in his manner when he talked about his courses and what type of career he was drawn to which had alerted Theo's interest. There was a kind of suppressed excitement about him just lately which made Theo feel faintly anxious. Miles had always worked on the ‘need-to-know' basis with Fliss; there was no real consultation or discussion. He had been too old to change when he married her, convinced that he knew what would be best for them both and acting accordingly. Theo knew that Fliss had been too young and inexperienced to take a stand at the beginning and that she had conducted her marriage on the principle of going along with him as far as was possible, whilst tactfully but firmly holding out for what she felt was right.