It wasn’t until she was back in Norwich, in her digs on Clarence Road overlooking the marshalling yard, that something occurred to Marianne. Peter had not once said he loved her, in fact his main preoccupation had been that she and his daughter should get on. She brooded over this for a little, but then her practical side took over. Poor Peter had been totally bowled over by the news of her pregnancy, she could scarcely expect him to behave like a lovelorn swain when bluntly told that he was about to become a father. Naturally, he had thought at once of the feelings of his small daughter. Any decent man would have behaved just as Peter had.
Marianne had a bath, enjoying the fact that her landlady’s displeasure over anyone running water after nine p.m. was no longer of any importance to her. She tipped the best part of a jar of bathsalts into the hot water and lay there, day-dreaming. A white wedding dress with lilies of the valley in her hair was essential, as was an official photographer – she would send the photographs home, the best one to Dédé – with Peter’s Tess as one bridesmaid and her landlady’s daughter Bertha for the other. She thought a deep, rose-pink would be nice for the bridesmaids . . . or possibly a misty blue. When the water was cold she got out, dried herself and put on her nightgown, then made herself cocoa and cut a slice of cake, and got into bed. I’m going to be a married woman, she told herself happily, snuggling down. I’m going to make Peter the happiest man on earth, and that will make me happy.
But she wished he had said, just once, that he loved her.
Two
IN THE CARRIER’S
cart coming home, they sang all the songs they could think of, at the tops of their voices. War songs, love songs, sentimental songs, funny songs, the Throwers knew them all.
Though perhaps ‘knew them’ was a slight exaggeration, Tess thought, since Mr Thrower la-la-laed to everything, Mrs Thrower got most of the words in the wrong order and the little ones only knew the choruses; but it didn’t matter, because they were all so happy. The week had simply flown, and when they had locked up the bungalow for the last time and lined up for the carrier’s cart, you might have expected gloom, a few tears, even. But that wasn’t the Thrower way.
‘What’ve we had?’ roared Reggie Thrower as they began to sling their small belongings into the cart. It was clearly a family tradition, for the answer came at once from a dozen throats.
‘A luverly time!’
‘What’ve we sin?’ shouted Reggie, heaving Podge up into the cart.
‘We’re sin the sea!’ answered assorted Throwers at the tops of their excellent lungs.
‘What did we do?’
‘We swam an’ we fished!’ came the answer.
‘And how do we feel?’ asked Reggie, stowing his wife aboard in the space left by luggage and offspring.
‘We feel rare happy!’
Tess, sitting in splendour on one of the wooden benches which ran round the sides of the cart, could only add her voice to theirs, for it was true, wonderfully true! They had seen the sea, swum and fished, and though it was over, though it was back to ordinary life now, she still felt extraordinarily, exceedingly happy. What was more, she could swim. Not just the dog-paddle, not even just the breast-stroke, which was the real name, Janet said, for what Ned called ‘froggin’ it’, but a splashy, breathless but recognisable back-stroke as well!
Maybe it wasn’t the best back-stroke in the world, maybe she didn’t progress as far or as fast as she would have liked, but if flung into the water on her back, she would have been able to save herself without turning on to her front. Indeed, the thought of telling Daddy that she could swim quite made up for the misery of leaving the seaside behind. And besides, as Janet pointed out, they still had several weeks of the summer holidays left, in the course of which they could now do all sorts – they would have to learn to row, for a start, and there was a boy who lived on the other side of the Broad who owned a neat little sailing dinghy – they might prevail upon him to let them have a go: after all, they could both swim now.
So the journey home was undertaken in excellent spirits and when the cart turned into Deeping Lane and Tess saw the familiar shape of the Old House through the trees, she felt a deep surge of pleasure and contentment. Home! It was a good place to come back to, even though the holiday had been magical, and she had missed Peter. She found she could scarcely prevent herself from leaping off the cart and tearing into the Old House, shouting for him, bursting to tell him everything she had done. Her life had revolved round her father for as long as she could remember, and now that she was back from her wonderful holiday she could not wait to tell him all about it.
But wait she would have to, because she intended to help the Throwers to unload before running back along the lane to her home. It was only polite, after all they had done for her, and Peter set great store by politeness.
‘It costs nothing, but it smooths many a path,’ he was fond of saying. ‘Just a word of thanks or a helping hand can make someone’s day brighter, sweetheart.’
So now she stayed in the cart and jumped down when Janet did, seizing the nearest cardboard box in her arms and staggering up the path with it. It contained a great many jars of bottled shrimps – Mrs Thrower had not been idle during her holiday – and was extremely heavy, but just as Tess’s knees were beginning to buckle Luke overtook her and grabbed the box, so that was all right.
Tess returned to the cart, but Mrs Thrower, turning round and catching sight of her, immediately ordered her off.
‘Off you goo, gal Tess,’ she said. ‘We’re enjoyed havin’ you, but fair’s fair. Go an’ see your dad, now. My lazy lot can manage here.’
Tess didn’t need telling twice. She snatched up her bag and shouted her thanks, then ran along the dusty lane as fast as her legs could carry her, banging open the wooden gate of the Old House, scattering gravel as she skidded on the corner and arrived by the back door breathless, pink-cheeked.
She pushed the door open and entered the kitchen, throwing her bag down on the kitchen floor, opening her mouth to shout ‘Dad! I’m home!’ and then stopping short.
Peter was standing by the kitchen table with his hands resting on the shoulders of a strange young woman who was sitting at the table, with a recipe book open before her. Peter looked up as she entered, starting to smile, taking his hands quickly from the woman’s shoulders. He crossed the room to her in a couple of strides, enveloping her in a huge hug.
‘Darling! You’re early, how marvellous! What a good job I’d not started luncheon . . . oh, by the way, I’ve brought a friend to meet you.’ He turned Tess in his arm so that she was facing the strange woman. Tess saw that she had dark, fashionably bobbed hair, quite a lot of dark-red lipstick and powder and stuff on her pointy-chinned face, and very large black eyes. She was wearing a green, open-necked blouse and she had small gold studs in her ears. She wasn’t looking at Tess but at Peter, which Tess thought rather strange, especially when her father said: ‘Marianne, this is my daughter, Tess. Tess, Mademoiselle Marianne Dupré.’
The woman stood up. She did this slowly and carefully – gracefully, Tess thought, rather puzzled. Why should one want to stand up gracefully, for goodness sake? But she didn’t say so, of course, she just said, politely, ‘How do you do, Mademoiselle?’ and held out a hand which, she immediately realised, was extremely dirty and also rather sticky; humbugs had been handed round with great prodigality during the return journey.
‘How d’you do, Tess? Your father often speaks of you.’ Mile Dupré said, and took Tess’s sticky paw in hers. A rather odd expression flitted across her face as she did so, but she managed to extract herself without actually exclaiming aloud, to Tess’s relief. As she turned away, however, Tess saw, with shame and glee mixed, that mademoiselle was wiping her palm surreptitiously across the seat of her short navy-blue skirt.
‘Tess has been on holiday with friends for a week, Marianne,’ Peter said. He spoke a shade too loudly, Tess thought. ‘I’m sure she’s longing to tell us all about it, but she’ll have to do so whilst I start the lunch, or we shan’t eat until dinner time.’ He turned to Tess. ‘Are you going to take your bag upstairs, darling? And – and freshen up?’
Tess felt most peculiar, as though she was seeing everything through glass; she heard the words, but the meaning somehow eluded her. But she agreed that she would like to freshen up, picked up her bag and walked across the kitchen, opened the door, went into the hall, closed the door . . .
Stood by it, her head a little bent. Listening. Heard her father’s much-loved voice, lowered, worried.
‘My God, I handled that badly! But it was such a shock . . . I could have sworn the Throwers said they’d ordered the carrier for three this afternoon . . . I really am sorry . . . the poor little soul was so confused . . . Oh, if only I’d taken you home earlier, Marianne, when I’d meant to, this would never have happened.’
‘Why apologise, Peter? And what harm has it done? She is a good little girl, polite even when surprised. And she was just as surprised as we were, but she didn’t lose her composure.’
‘No, she took it well, considering, but it won’t help her relationship with either of us to have walked in on us like that. I’d planned it so nicely, too – she and I fetching you in the car, chatting on the journey . . . now all I feel is guilty,’ Peter said morosely. ‘What a fool I am – now it will be twice as difficult to tell her our news.’
‘Difficult, perhaps. But essential, my dear.’ The Frenchwoman’s voice was soft and purring, like cream, but there was an undertone to it which was neither soft nor creamy.
So that’s what they mean when they say
an iron hand in a velvet glove,
Tess thought, surprising herself with her perspicacity. Because she had sensed the steel beneath Miss Dupré’s light tone. And what is it they’re going to tell me? It sounds as though I shan’t like it one bit.
‘Yes, of course,’ Peter said. ‘Look, we’d better get luncheon, act normally. If I scrape some potatoes, could you pod some peas? There’s a brown paper bag of ’em in the pantry. And if you could just rinse the chops – they were intended for dinner but I’ll get something else – then at least we can eat when Tess comes down.’
‘I’ll scrape the potatoes,’ the Frenchwoman said. She sounded happy now, as though she were smiling. ‘And I’ll rinse the chops and pod the peas . . . I am the woman of the house, after all.’
‘Oh, are you?’ There was the sound of a soft scuffle, during which the Frenchwoman giggled and Peter breathed rather heavily, then Tess thought she heard someone approaching the door and belted, on tiptoe, for the stairs.
She was up them and had her hand on her bedroom doorknob when the kitchen door opened softly, then, seconds later, closed again. She was trying to catch me spying, Tess thought triumphantly, slinging her bag on to the bed and following it. Well, she didn’t – as if I would! She lay on her stomach for a moment, then sat up and reached for her hairbrush, beginning to brush out her tangled locks. It occurred to her, belatedly, that if ‘mademoiselle’ had been a bit faster she really would have caught Tess listening . . . only I wasn’t spying, exactly, Tess told herself. What I was doing was simply trying to find out what on
earth
is going on. Why should Daddy bring a young woman home to meet me? He’s never brought anyone home before that I can remember.
Still, it was no use standing here, hairbrush poised, worrying. She finished brushing her hair, poured water into her poppy basin, washed, then selected a clean blue cotton dress and white socks from her chest of drawers. She dressed, added new brown sandals, then looked long and hard at herself in the mirror. A pattern-child looked back – face tanned from the sun and shiny from the vigorous application of soap and water, tidy blue dress, nice white socks.
Good. Daddy would approve, and hopefully, once the French lady had gone he would tell her just what had been going on in her absence. Tess licked her finger and smoothed down her eyebrows – a trick she had seen someone do once, long ago – and turned towards the stairs.
In the kitchen, Peter watched as Marianne scraped potatoes for lunch. Dully, the refrain:
How could I have been such an idiot?
echoed through his head. The very first meeting between Marianne and his daughter should have been carefully stage-managed, should have taken place on neutral ground, preceded by kind and careful explanations. He had
told
Marianne that Tess was returning that day, had said he would drive into the city that night and tell her how the explanations had gone; he had taken it for granted that she would not come over to the Old House. But she had come and he had reasoned that since Tess wasn’t being picked up by the carrier until three . . .
‘It could have been worse,’ Marianne said over her shoulder, whilst continuing to scrape potatoes. She sounded gay; carefree, even. ‘We could have been in bed.’
Peter gulped. Worse? My God, that was the stuff of nightmares . . . come to think of it, they could easily have been indulging in some pretty heavy canoodling . . . but so far as he could recall they’d simply been studying a recipe book . . .
‘You’re right,’ he said hollowly. ‘I wonder if you ought to go, Marianne? I can finish the luncheon.’
‘That would look very odd indeed,’ Marianne said primly, continuing to scrape. ‘What on earth would the child think? Well, she’d begin to wonder whether there was more to this than met the eye, that’s what.’
‘She’s wondering that already,’ Peter said heavily. ‘She’s a bright kid, my Tess. But you’re right, of course. You can leave after luncheon. Then we’ll talk, Tess and myself.’
‘You can run me home,’ Marianne said. Firmly. ‘I’m not catching buses in my condition.’
This was too much for Peter. He gave a derisive laugh. ‘Not catching buses? A week ago you cycled all the way from Norwich to Barton, woman, so don’t give me that.’
Marianne finished the last potato, popped it into the pan and turned towards him, going over to the roller towel on the back of the door to wipe her hands. Then she looked over her shoulder at him and grinned. Peter’s heart gave a double bump. She was so pretty when she looked at him like that, pretty and naughty, and as tempting as a ripe strawberry to a blackbird.