The Shell Seekers (73 page)

"How terribly smart. What are you wearing?"

"My caftan. It's fairly threadbare, but if you half-close your eyes, the holes don't show."

"You'll look fantastic. When are you coming home?"

"Wednesday. We'll be back at Podmore's Thatch on Wednesday evening."

"I'll call you there."

"Do that, my darling. God bless you."

" 'Bye, Mumma."

She dialled Noel's number and waited for a moment or two, listening to the phone ringing out, but there was no reply. She put down the receiver. He was probably still off somewhere, in the country, on one of his long and social weekends. She picked up the instrument once more and called Nancy.

"The old Vicarage."

"George."

"Yes."

"Penelope here. Happy Easter!"

"Thank you," said George, but he did not return her greeting.

"Is Nancy around?"

"Yes, she's somewhere. Do you want to speak to her?"

(Why else should I be ringing, you silly man?) "If I could."

"Hold on, and I'll fetch her."

She waited. It was pleasant to lie there, relaxed and warm, propped by massive pillows, but Nancy took so long to come to the phone that she became impatient. What could the girl be doing? To pass the time, she picked up her book, and had even read a paragraph or two before, at last: "Hello."

She laid down the book. "Nancy. Where were you? At the bottom of the garden?"

"No."

"Did you have a good Easter?"

"Yes, thank you."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing in particular."

"Did you have visitors?"

"No."

Her voice was frigid. This was Nancy at her most disagree-able, her most offended. What could have happened now? "Nancy, what's wrong?"

"Why should anything be wrong?"

"I have no idea, but it obviously is." Silence. "Nancy, I think you'd better tell me."

"I just feel ... a little hurt and upset. That's all."

"What about?"

"What about? You ask me, as if you don't know perfectly well what about."

"I wouldn't ask you, if I knew."

"Wouldn't you be hurt if you were me? I hear nothing from you for weeks. Nothing. And then when I ring Podmore's Thatch to ask you and Antonia to come and spend Easter with us, I find that you've gone. Gone to Cornwall, taking her and that gardener with you, and all without a word to either George or myself."

So that was it. "To be honest, Nancy, I didn't think you'd be interested."

"It's not a question of being interested. It's a question of concern. Just taking off like that, without a word to anyone; anything could happen, and we wouldn't know where you were."

"Olivia knew."

"Oh, Olivia. Yes, of course she knew, and great satisfaction it gave her as well, being able to put me in the picture. I find it astonishing that you find it necessary to tell her what you're up to, and yet not a word to me." She was now in full flood. "Everything that happens, I seem to hear about second-hand, through Olivia. Everything you do. Everything you decide. Getting that gardener to work for you. Having Antonia to live with you, when I'd spent weeks of time and a good deal of hard cash putting advertisements into the newspaper for a housekeeper. Then selling the panels, and
giving away
The Shell Seekers
. Without a word of consultation with George and myself. It's impossible to understand. I am, after all, your eldest child. If you owe me nothing else, you could consider my feelings. And then disap-pearing off to Cornwall like that, with Antonia and the gardener in tow. A pair of strangers. And yet when I suggested Melanie and Rupert should come, you refused to countenance the idea. Your own grandchildren! But you take a pair of strangers. About whom none of us know anything at all. They're taking advantage of you, Mother. You surely can see that. Think you're a soft touch, no doubt, though I couldn't have believed that you could be so blind. It's all so hurtful ... so thoughtless . . ."

"Nancy ..."

". . . if this is how you behaved towards poor Daddy, it's no wonder he left you. It's enough to make anyone feel rejected and unwanted. Granny Keeling always said that you were the most unfeeling woman she'd ever known. We've tried to be responsible for you, George and I, but you don't make it easy for us. Going off, without a word . . . spending all that money. We all know what staying at The Sands will cost you . . . and giving The Shell Seekers away . . . when you know how much we all need ... so hurtful . . ."

Stored resentments boiled over. Nancy, by now almost incoherent, at last ran out of steam. For the first time, Penelope was able to get a word in edgewise.

"Have you finished?" she asked politely. Nancy made no answer. "May I speak now?"

"If you wish."

"I rang you up to wish you all a Happy Easter. Not to have a row. But if you want one, you can have one. In selling the panels, I simply did what you and Noel have been urging me to do for months. I got a hundred thousand pounds for them, as Olivia probably told you, and for the first time in my life, I decided to spend a little of it on myself. You know I'd been planning to come back to Porthkerris, because I asked you to come with me. I asked Noel, and I asked Olivia too. You all had excuses. You none of you wanted to come."

"Mother, I gave you my reasons. . . ."

"Excuses," Penelope repeated. "I had no intention of com-ing on my own. I wanted cheerful company, to share my plea-sure. So Antonia and Danus have come with me. I am not yet so senile that I cannot choose my own friends. And as for
The Shell Seekers
, that picture was mine. Don't ever forget that. Papa gave it to me as a wedding present, and now, with it hanging in the Art Gallery at Porthkerris, I feel I've simply handed it back to him. To him, and the thousands of ordinary people who will now be able to go and look at it, and perhaps know some of the comfort and pleasure that it's always given me."

"You can have no idea of its worth."

"I have a great deal more idea than you have ever had. You've lived with
The Shell Seekers
all your life, and scarcely looked at it."

"I didn't mean that."

"No, I know you didn't."

"It's . . ." Nancy groped for words. "It's as though you actually wanted to hurt us ... as though you disliked us . . ."

"Oh, Nancy."

". . . and why is it always Olivia you tell things too, and never me?"

"Perhaps because you seem to find it so hard to understand anything I ever do."

"How can I understand when you behave in such an ex-traordinary way, never taking me into your confidence . . . treating me like a fool. ... It was always Olivia. You always loved Olivia. When we were children, it was always Olivia, so clever and so funny. You never tried to understand me ... if it hadn't been for Granny Keeling ..."

She had reached the point where, awash with self-pity, she was ready to recall every long-ago wrong she imagined had been inflicted upon her. Penelope, exhausted by the conversation, suddenly realized that she could take no more. She had already taken too much, and to have to listen to the adolescent blubs of a forty-three year old woman was more than she could bear.

She said, "Nancy, I think we should finish this conversa-tion."

"... I don't know what I would have done without Granny Keeling. Having her there, just made my life possible. ..."

"Goodbye, Nancy."

". . . because you never had any time for me ... never gave me anything. ..." Carefully replacing the receiver, Penel-ope hung up on her daughter. The angry, raised voice was, mercifully, silenced. At the open windows, filmy curtains stirred in the breeze. Her heart, as always after these distressing occasions, was going jiggety-jig. She reached for her pills, took two, washed them down with water, and lay back on the downy pillows, closing her eyes. She thought about simply giving in. She felt quite drained, and for a moment more than ready to succumb to ex- haustion, even tears. But she would not be upset by Nancy. She would not weep.

After a little, when her heart had settled down again, she put back the covers and got out of bed. She wore a cool and airy dressing-gown, and her long hair was loose. She went to the dressing-table and sat, eyeing, without much satisfaction, her own reflection. Then she reached for her hairbrush and began, with long, slow, and soothing strokes, to brush her hair.

It was always Olivia. You always loved Olivia.

That was true. From the moment she was born, and Penel-ope had first set eyes upon her, a tiny dark infant, with a nose too big for its plain little face, she had experienced this indescribable nearness to her. Because of Richard, Olivia was special. But that was all. She had never loved her more than Nancy and Noel. She had loved them all, her children. Loved each one the best, but for different reasons. Love, she had found, had a strange way of multiplying. Doubling, trebling itself, so that, as each child arrived, there was always more than enough to go round. And Nancy, the first-born, had had more than her share of love and attention. She thought of the small Nancy, so sturdy and engaging, staggering around the garden at Cam Cottage on her short fat legs. Chasing the hens, pushing the wheelbarrow Ernie had made for her, petted and spoiled by Doris, perpetually surrounded by loving arms and smiling faces. What had happened to that little girl? Was it really possible that Nancy had no recall whatsoever of those early days?

Sadly, it appeared that this was so.

You never gave me anything.

That was not true. She knew that it was not true. She had given Nancy what she had given all her children. A home, secu-rity, comfort, interest, a place to bring their friends, a stout front door to keep them safe from the outside world. She thought of the big basement in Oakley Street, smelling of garlic and herbs, and warm from the big stove and the open fire. She remembered them all, chattering like sparrows and hungry as hunters, pouring in on dark winter evenings from school; to drop their satchels, tear off their coats, and settle down to consume vast quantities of sausages, pasta, fish cakes, hot buttered toast, plum cake, and cocoa. She remembered that marvellous room at Christmas time, with the sprucy smell of the tree and Christmas cards strung everywhere, like washing, on lines of red ribbon. She thought of the summers, the French windows open to the garden beyond, the shade of the trees, the scent of tobacco plants and the wall-flowers. She thought of the children who had played, screaming aimlessly, in that garden. Nancy had been one of them.

She had given Nancy all this, but she had not been able to give Nancy what she wanted (Nancy never said "wanted," she said "needed"), because there had never been money enough to pay for the material possessions and lavish treats the girl craved. Party frocks, doll's perambulators, a pony, boarding school, a coming-out dance, and a London Season. A large and pretentious wedding had been the peak of her ambitions, but she had achieved this heart's desire only through the timely intervention of Dolly Keeling, who had arranged (and footed the bill for) the entire extravagant, embarrassing affair.

She laid down her brush at last. She was still enraged with Nancy, but the simple task had calmed her. Once more orderly, she felt better, stronger, in charge of herself, able to make deci-sions. She coiled, twisted the tail of hair, reached for her tortoise-shell pins, and drove them neatly, and with some force, into place.

Half an hour later, when Antonia came in search of her, she was back in bed. Sitting up, with pillows plumped, possessions to hand, and her book in her lap.

A tap at the door, and Antonia's voice. "Penelope?"

"Come in." The door opened, and Antonia's head appeared around the edge of it. "I just came to . . ." She entered the room, closing the door behind her. "You're in bed!" Her expression was one of the gravest concern. "What's wrong? Are you ill?"

Penelope closed the book. "No, not ill. Just a little tired. And I don't feel like coming down for dinner. I'm sorry. Were you waiting for me?"

"Not for long." Antonia lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. "We went down to the bar, but when you didn't come, Danus sent me up to see if anything was the matter."

Antonia, she saw, was dressed for the evening. She wore a narrow black skirt over which she had belted the oversized cream satin shirt that they had, together, bought in Cheltenham. Her copper-gold hair hung, shining and clean, to her shoulders, and her face, clear-skinned as a sweet apple, innocent of artifice. Save of course those amazingly long, black eyelashes.

"Don't you want anything to eat? Would you like me to call room service and have a tray sent up for you?"

"Perhaps. Later. But I can do that for myself."

"I expect," said Antonia accusingly, "that you've been doing too much, walking too far, without Danus and me to make sure that you didn't."

"I haven't overdone anything. I just got cross."

"But what was there to get cross about?"

"I rang Nancy to wish her a happy Easter and received a flood of abuse in return."

"How horrid of her. What on earth was it all about?"