The Silent Tide (30 page)

Hugh rang later that evening. ‘I’m in Suffolk. Didn’t that daffy girl give you my message?’ he asked in puzzlement.

‘Which girl – Cat? She might have tried, but I’ve hardly been in today.’

‘It’s Mother, she’s been taken ill. Mrs Catchpole rang me at lunchtime.’

‘Oh Hugh. Is it another asthma attack?’

‘The doctor wasn’t sure so he arranged for her to be taken into hospital. That’s where I am now. She has a very high temperature. There’s a possibility it’s pneumonia.’

‘Hugh!’ She had heard the anxiety in his voice. ‘What shall I do? Do you want me there?’

‘Stay put for the time being, I think. We’ll see how things are in the morning.’
With all this going on, the matter of Berec slipped to the back of her mind.

‘I can’t see any way round it,’ Hugh said, a fortnight later . ‘It’s very hard on you. I’m sorry.’ They were standing in Hugh’s old bedroom at Stone House. Isabel, arms folded, a cardigan draped on her shoulders, was staring out of the window across the garden , to the field with the donkeys and the wild marshes beyond. She was trying to take in what he’d just told her, though she’d known in her heart of hearts it was the only sensible decision and she must accept it.

She and Hugh would be moving here in order to look after his mother , who was now out of hospital and in bed in her room down the corridor. It had been pneumonia. Lavinia Morton had been left very weak and confused, though, and the doctor was unable to say how quickly she’d get well . Hugh’s mother was just sixty, but being asthmatic she was not as robust as some women her age so it might be a slow process. They’d keep the London flat on for the moment, Hugh said. It was on a long lease and he would need to be in London occasionally. So might she, she tried to tell herself , so might she.

‘Couldn’t we afford to have a companion for her?’ she said, turning to him, already knowing his answer.

‘I’ve thought of that. I can’t do it to her, Isabel.’ Hugh sat down on the bed and studied his hands: strong hands they were, but smooth-skinned, sensitive. ‘She is my mother, after all. I owe it to her.’

But I don’t,
Isabel wanted to say, and didn’t.

‘There’s every likelihood that she’ll recover very well, but I still don’t want to leave her on her own. And since you’ll be stopping work shortly anyway, it seems the obvious solution.’

‘I was hoping to continue going to the office for a while yet, Hugh. It’s five months till Christmas. I’m not ill, after all, only having a baby.’

‘You know I’m not happy with the idea of you doing that. You’ll exhaust yourself. And there’s no need, we’ve plenty of money . Surely McKinnon can send you some work here. Reading and so forth?’

She thought about this and finally nodded. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, for the moment defeated.

That night , waiting to fall asleep, she lay listening to the owls, the sough of the wind from the river, and considered how pleasant it might be here . One had, after all, to make the best of things. And as if in response , she felt for the very first time a tiny movement deep inside her, like the brushing of a butterfly’s wings. She held her breath. There it was again.

‘Hugh,’ she said, and he answered sleepily. She reached for his hand and placed it on her abdomen. ‘Feel there,’ she commanded. It was the baby, moving inside.

Emily

Sitting in her flat, Emily put down the pages she was reading. There was so much to take in: the rich variety of Isabel’s life in London, her happiness at being married to Hugh. Emily thought how content they seemed together, though it struck her that Isabel did two jobs, her publishing work and looking after Hugh when she came home in the evenings. And then other things crowding in: the discovery that a baby was growing inside her, the need to look after Hugh’s mother. Isabel’s life was changing in ways that she couldn’t control. Most women would have been happy about the baby, but there was bitterness and desperation in the tone of Isabel’s account. She clearly felt that her young life was closing down. There was still quite a bit of the account to read.

Emily got up and poured herself a glass of fruit juice from the fridge, then settled down again to find out what happened next.

Isabel

The summer of 1951 should have been one of the most idyllic of Isabel’s life. She was in the middle trimester of her pregnancy, the nausea of the early months entirely gone, and some of her former energy returned. She had exchanged London with its views of bombed-out buildings for a large and beautiful house in the depths of the lush Suffolk countryside. The weather was often warm and sunny. Since it wasn’t long since she’d been a schoolgirl, she still felt it natural for July and August to pass in idleness. Not that she was idle now exactly, but nor did she have to leave the house at an early hour to get to the office in Percy Street.

True to their promise, Stephen and Trudy were supplying her with plenty of reading and editing. At least once a week the postman would bring some well-wrapped manuscript accompanied by a neatly typed instruction from Trudy or a hastily scrawled comment from Cat. These notes Isabel scanned greedily, hoping for some snippet of gossip from the literary world to make her feel she still belonged. During the first weeks, Cat would sometimes telephone in a panic, wanting information concerning some author’s foibles or to put Stephen on the line with a query. She strained for the inference that she was missed. Though at first she welcomed these conversations, they left her longing to be back in the office and she was almost glad when the gaps between them lengthened. It was only a matter of getting used to her new life, she told herself, then her restlessness might cease.

Whilst she struggled to adapt, Hugh seemed sated with happiness that summer, for he’d found a rhythm that suited him. Once a week he’d spend a night or two in their London flat, which enabled him to visit the men who gave him commissions, men who were becoming his friends, to see plays or exhibitions and go to parties, though summer offered thin pickings for parties. When in Suffolk he would shut himself in his study, away from the busyness of the house, and write.

And Isabel would be left to attend to Hugh’s sick mother in the house that, though technically Hugh’s, was Lavinia Morton’s home.

‘Don’t!’

Isabel let fall the curtain as though it burned her. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, trying to make out the face of the woman in the bed. She rubbed her hands together nervously. ‘It’s so dark in here.’

‘Good,’ her mother-in-law mumbled.

‘I-I came to see if I could fetch you anything. Or read to you, perhaps.’

‘There’s nothing. That nurse woman – what d’you call her – where’s she gone now?’

‘Nurse Carbide. I don’t know. I’m sure that she’ll be back in a moment.’ Isabel sat down on the chair by the bed. Her eyes were getting used to the gloom and she thought Hugh’s mother looked horribly old, hanks of pewter-coloured hair spread wild on the pillow, her skin with a yellowish tinge. Isabel felt sorry for her. No wonder Lavinia Morton liked the darkness.

The woman was still complaining about the nurse. ‘Fusses about, not at all gentle, then never there when you want her.’

‘Are you sure I can’t help?’

‘The nurse, get the nurse. I need the article, you silly girl.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Isabel said, getting up quickly. She found Nurse Carbide and fled the scene, relieved that someone else would have to deal with the matter of the commode. Hugh’s mother was far from an easy patient and Isabel did not have the temperament to care for her.

For the first few weeks she didn’t have to, for after she was discharged from hospital, the sick woman was bedridden, and Hugh employed the retired nurse, who arrived on her creaking bicycle every weekday and saw to her medicines and her most personal needs. Mrs Catchpole, the matronly cook and housekeeper, would walk up as usual from the village after breakfast. She cleaned, prepared meals, and sent out the laundry. After she pointed out the extra work generated by Hugh and Isabel’s arrival, her cheerful sixteen-year-old daughter Lily was engaged to help.

These arrangements still left Hugh’s mother in her daughter-in-law’s care first thing in the morning, during the evening, and for part of the weekend. There was breakfast to assemble and take up on a tray, pills to count out and administer. There was the settlement of a dozen little tasks. After the first week, Hugh’s mother could get herself out to the bathroom, though once in the night she misjudged the uneven floor, fell, and had to be rescued. She grew stronger and got rid of the despised nurse. Although she would get up for part of the day, the doctor still recommended bedrest.

A large brass handbell now lived on the bedside table: it could be heard anywhere in the house. ‘Would you mind just . . .’ Lavinia would say when Isabel appeared in response, but if her words were more polite than they had been, the tone still meant an order. The task might be anything: rearranging pillows, finding a particular pair of spectacles, clearing up a spill, adjusting a curtain against the sun, finding one of the myriad medicines she used to relieve wheeziness, making a telephone call.

Isabel carried out these instructions as readily as she could and tried not to show resentment. It must be awful to be ill, she upbraided herself, and to feel so helpless, and Hugh’s mother, once so capable, must hate it. She herself could be moody and complaining, and she remembered with shame how she’d ordered Hugh around during her own period of being confined to bed after the threat of miscarriage two months before.

What they’d expected to be a short-term difficulty – helping Hugh’s mother to recover from an acute illness – became a long-term problem almost without anyone noticing.

July turned to August. The doctor now advised that the patient get up in the mornings, and he prescribed a programme of light activity. If the day was warm, Isabel was to settle her mother-in-law outside with books and a newspaper. The patient was given a walking-frame and encouraged to amble about the garden with someone to assist her. She was to take a nap in the afternoon and later to enjoy some stimulating activity such as a visit from a friend. Hugh’s mother had many acquaintances but few close friends. There were one or two good souls who came faithfully. The Rector’s wife was one, a plain-faced but sunny-natured woman. She didn’t seem to notice how Hugh’s mother patronised her.

Isabel’s aim after breakfast, Hugh’s mother allowing, was to settle at the dining-room table, sharpen her pencil and begin editing a manuscript or writing a reader’s report. It was always only a matter of time, though, before she’d be interrupted by the jangling of the handbell. If Isabel was lucky, Mrs Catchpole might call out, ‘Don’t you worry yourself, dear, I’ll see to her,’ but even then Isabel would wait, tense, in case she was needed after all, before she could relax and resume her work.

Sometimes, however, Mrs Catchpole might be out or immersed in some task, so Isabel would sigh angrily, push back her chair and go to find out what was needed. Then it might be five minutes or half the morning before she could return to her work.

By the end of August, Hugh’s mother was almost back to her normal competent self. Oddly, this didn’t stop her from interrupting Isabel. During her illness she had gradually gained the upper hand. Now that Isabel felt it fair to fight back, they were locked in bitter silent warfare.

She’d hear Lavinia Morton’s wheezy breathing long before the woman herself entered the dining room –
her
dining room, as she saw it. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ she would say very deliberately, ‘but would you mind removing your books from the drawing room. The Rector will be calling and I do like things to look straight.’

Or, ‘Do you have the newspaper or has Hugh got it?’ The implication was that Isabel should locate it. Strangely, Hugh’s mother never disturbed her son with these questions.

Hugh was always easy with his mother, solicitous of her comfort. When Isabel complained to him in the seclusion of their bedroom, his brow would wrinkle in a frown.

‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean to interrupt,’ he’d say. ‘It’s a bit difficult when it is her home.’ Or, ‘I’m sure she’s only trying to help.’

‘You take her side all the time,’ Isabel cried once.

‘I don’t think it’s a question of sides,’ he said. ‘There are no sides. I hardly believe she’s being deliberately offensive.’

His mother was no longer exactly rude, but she expected her views to prevail. For Hugh, this was normal life.

Sometimes, his mother would watch Isabel tidy up the books or locate the newspaper and say something like, ‘You are working very hard at the moment, dear, do you honestly think it’s good for you?’ Or she’d try to distract her with some local task, which needed volunteers. There were, it seemed, endless hassocks to be embroidered for the church, or cakes baked for a charity sale. ‘I suggested to the Rector that you might like to help. It would introduce you to some other ladies, you know.’

Isabel wondered if she ought to want to do this, but the fact remained that she didn’t. She attended church one Sunday, but none of the younger women who spoke to her seemed her sort at all. When Hugh asked her, with some exasperation, why they weren’t, she couldn’t give an answer that satisfied him. ‘They aren’t interested in anything,’ she said. ‘Not the things that I’m interested in, anyway.’

She missed Vivienne badly, and her friends at the office. Vivienne went away with her family for a fortnight and sent a postcard of a Cornish beach.
I’ll write again with news,
it said, but no further letter came and when Isabel rang the house in Highgate on a whim one evening, nobody answered. She wondered how matters stood with Theo. She hoped nothing was wrong. She was extremely anxious about Berec, too, and wrote to him, but there was no reply.

‘Perhaps you ought to help prepare for the autumn bazaar,’ Hugh said doubtfully. ‘It’ll get you out a little.’