The Children's Book

another relation between men and women, hard to manage and rare to find.”

When she got back to the inn where they were staying, she found herself shrugging her whole body with a mix of emotions. Of course such talk aroused some kind of—yes, sexual—pricklings in her. It had to. She knew what desire was, and what its satisfaction was. But she had no idea whether she desired Herbert Methley. The presence of his body aroused her own in some way, but it was not clear to her that what it aroused wasn’t indifference, revulsion and distaste. He was not lovely to look at, as Humphry was. Though he had a kind of dreadful energy which is always— how did she know these things?—stirring, like a huge octopus quivering through water, or flailing on a slab and slipping back into the sea.

What was very certain was that she had had none of these thoughts at Elsie Warren’s age. They were a grown woman’s thoughts.

Benedict Fludd held classes in clay modelling in what had been the grand coach-house. Elsie had cleaned its little row of spider-webbed windows and Philip had brought tubs and buckets of clay and slip. There was a serious group of five young women from the Royal College, whose previous experience of ceramics had been painting tiles, and one or two young men also. Then there were locals who wanted to try their hands—Patty Dace, Arthur Dobbin, a schoolmaster from Lydd, and the new schoolmistress-to-be from Puxty, a young widow called Mrs. Oakeshott. Mrs. Oakeshott had come from the North, to make a new beginning, she said, after the tragic death of her young husband in a railway accident. She was accompanied by her small son, Robin, who would start school at Puxty in September, with the few Marsh children who attended—the whole school, from five to eleven, was only fourteen children. Frank Mallett, who was on the local education committee, had been delighted to find Mrs. Oakeshott, and was already afraid she would find the harsh weather and the loneliness unbearable. She had excellent qualifications and a mild wit. Her son had come with her to Purchase, accompanied by a kind of nursemaid, twig-limbed, diminutive, frizzy-haired, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, called Tabitha. Mrs. Oakeshott had a thick, coiled plait of strawberry-blonde hair, golden, creamy, rose-tinged. She had a fine face, square in shape, placid but watchful, and a delightful smile, when she smiled. She wore glasses, which she tended to mislay, and which were returned to her by the young men, and by Dobbin, when they found them in clumps of grass in the orchard, or lying amongst the drying pots in the studios. She was good at modelling.

Fludd had prevailed on Elsie to sit for the classes, although she sat there running over in her mind what should be fetched from the farm and the market for the next meal. No one dared contradict Benedict Fludd, in case he should cease to be amiable and become moody or irascible. He was teaching them to model a head. No one was modelling Elsie below the neck. They were trying to render her flying hair, and sharp mouth, and wide eyes. Mrs. Oakeshott’s effort was much the best. She had got the angle of the jaw and the neck right. The brows over the empty eyes were promising and lively.

Little Tabitha wandered about with the child, Robin, and came upon Violet Grimwith in the orchard, reading aloud to the assembled smaller Wellwoods, Florian, Robin and Harry. Hedda, rather sulky, was with this group but not of it. She was reading a book, lying on her stomach in the grass, thinking this was not enough for her, not enough, she would go mad with boredom.

Tabitha crept up to the very edge of the audience. Violet looked up. “Come and sit with us, if you like, why don’t you? What is the little boy called?”

“Robin. I look after him for his mum.” She was older than Hedda, but smaller. Violet said “Well, bring him into the circle, to listen to the story. We’re reading At the Back of the North Wind. Do you know that?”

“No, mam.”

“I do,” said Robin Oakeshott. He sat down, next to Robin Well-wood. “I like it. Go on reading.”

Violet gave him a measuring glance, and went on reading.

Mrs. Oakeshott offered her services to help with the play. She gave Imogen Fludd a hand with the costumes, and turned out to be deft with bits of glitter-braid, and abundant pleats for the pregnant Hermione. Olive liked her. Everyone liked her. It would have been hard not to.

Olive came upon Mrs. Oakeshott, in the place behind the yew hedge, where they waited to go on and off, adjusting the clasp of Humphry’s regal cloak. She saw Humphry’s hand, in the nape of Mrs. Oakeshott’s neck, his clever fingers feeling for tension, and relieving it, as he did for Olive herself. She stepped back.

“All the same, Marian,” said Humphry. “However sensible you are—we are—the whole idea is simply foolish. I wish you would go home.”

Marian Oakeshott rested her head—intimately—on Humphry’s shoulder.

“It is hard,” she said. And then, “I do love you, I do love you so very steadily, so very much, my dear, however hopelessly it must be.”

And Humphry said “Oh well, I love you too, that can’t be altered. But it can’t be, and you know it, you have always known it.”

And Marian Oakeshott put up her arms, and drew down Humphry’s head, and kissed him, and he gave a kind of groan, and grasped her, and kissed her back. Olive saw the crown of hair tremble and sway. She thought of marching forwards, and retreated.

Hedda lay in the long grass, with her skirt rucked up above her knickers, and her lengthening brown legs stretched out. She was fortunate not to have hay fever, as Phyllis did. She was not exactly reading The Golden Age. I am a snake in the grass, she thought, a secret snake. Violet was sitting on the roughly mown grass in the orchard, at some distance, in a low wicker armchair, sewing. Hedda spent a lot of time spying on Violet, as a revenge for the fact that Violet spied on her, going through her private drawers and notebooks. Hedda, like Phyllis, was perpetually agitated by being left out of the group of older children, Tom and Dorothy, Charles and Griselda, and now Geraint. But whereas Phyllis was plaintive, Hedda was enraged. She was the traitor in all tales of chivalry and in myths. She was Vivien, she was Morgan Le Fay, she was Loki. She despised the cow-eyed and the gentle, Elaine the lily maid, faithful Psyche, Baldur’s weeping wife, Nanna. She was a detective, who saw through appearances. No one was as nice as they seemed, was her rule of judging characters. She was the darkest of the children, with long black hair and very solid black brows, drawn in a frown more often than not, and long, black lashes which in themselves were beautiful, especially when she was asleep. She had no one to talk to about her investigations. Phyllis was an idiot. Florian was a baby. She had had hopes of Pomona, but Pomona was an idiot, too, of the same kind as Phyllis. Dorothy was who she hated, because she was older, and in the way, and got things Hedda didn’t get. And because she had Griselda, and they were together, and Hedda had no one. But Dorothy didn’t know what Hedda knew, or partly knew. She had even wondered about Tabitha as a sort of friend—it was odd that she, at ten, was certainly a young child, whereas Tabitha, at twelve, was supposed to be in charge of Robin Oakeshott, and was a sort of nursemaid. She saw that Tabitha’s simple manner was put on. Tabitha had her own thoughts, which she kept to herself. Hedda did not know what those thoughts were, and she saw Tabitha didn’t want her to know. Tabitha was acting, and could not afford a crack in the surface.

Olive came through the orchard, running, clutching her skirts. She pulled up a chair near Violet, and leaned forward, and hissed to her in a desperate whisper. Hedda could hear perfectly from where she was, and kept very still.

“I’ve just discovered something frightful, Vi. I don’t know what to do.”

She was all atremble.

“Tell me,” said Violet. Violet liked being told things, Hedda knew. “That woman—that Mrs. Oakeshott—who is no Mrs. anyone—she is the same woman—she is Maid Marian.”