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  CUCKOO

  ANNE PIPER

  © Anne Piper

  Anne Piper has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents act, 1998, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1952 by Putnam & Co Ltd.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press.

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  THE GRANDMOTHER

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  Part II

  THE FRIEND

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  Part III

  THE AUNT

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  Part IV

  THE EMPLOYER

  Chapter I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  Part V

  THE CUCKOO

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  Part I

  THE GRANDMOTHER

  CHAPTER I

  I stood under a lime tree watching Prudence at the grave. She did not see me. She scrubbed over and over the green marks on the stone with a worn-down old brush; by her stood a bucket of muddy water that she must have fetched out of the stream at the bottom of the churchyard. Her heavy, dark hair hung across her face, her slide as usual had fallen out. Her eyes were screwed up against the sun. She should wear her glasses all the time, but she won’t.

  I walked across the grass to her.

  “Prudence, where’s your hair slide? It’s nearly tea-time.”

  “Here, Grannie.” She pulled it out of her pinafore pocket. I always make her wear a pinafore over her dresses, as I did myself when I was a girl. I know it’s old-fashioned, but it’s sensible, and Edith can’t be for ever washing cotton dresses. “It won’t stay shut,” she went on; “it hasn’t any teeth, this one. It just springs open all the time.”

  “We’ll have to get you a ribbon instead.”

  “Oh, no, Grannie, I’m too old for ribbons. They’d laugh at school.”

  “Well, perhaps Mr. Parker would thin out that front bit of your hair.”

  “Perhaps he would.” She sat back on her heels. “Grannie, do you think these green stains will ever come out? It’s having the trees so near. I wish my grave was right out in the open, down by the river somewhere.”

  “They look much paler,” I told her. “We’ll ask Edith for some Vim. That might help.”

  “Yes; or do you think if I brought some clean water from the house?”

  “You can’t carry a bucket of water half a mile.”

  “No, I suppose not.” She stood up, smoothed down the front of her pinafore. “Can I come under your parasol?”

  She slipped her arm in mine and we stood together for a minute looking down at the graves.

  “You’ve arranged those roses very prettily, Prudence.”

  “Don’t you think that vase sticks up too high out of the hole? I think a lower one would be better. The roses won’t last over tomorrow in this heat. I’ll have to come down again after school on Monday.”

  I wonder if she’ll do as much for me, when I’m lying here near my husband and my son. It makes me tremble with anger sometimes to see the worry and trouble that child takes over the grave. And it’s all her mother she’s doing it for; she tells me she can’t remember her father at all. Poor John, and he was so devoted to her. Once, he held the baby in his arms, saying, ‘Mother, I wouldn’t change this bundle of mischief for ten boys,’ — and that was after they knew Katharine could never have another.

  And Katharine was right against the child from the start, wouldn’t try to feed her, got that expensive Nannie, went gadding about the world, leaving her here with me for months on end, writing those silly books. A selfish, worthless, good-for-nothing wife and mother, if ever there was one. My John would be alive today, if she’d stopped with him, and made a proper home for him, and noticed when he started to get ill.

  Every day Prudence asks me about Katharine — ‘Did Mummy like this or that? What did Mummy wear at her wedding? What did she say when I was born? Did Mummy write you long letters when she was in America?’ — and so on and so on, until it’s as much as I can do to bring myself to answer her.

  Sometimes I get quite frightened that I’ll come to the end of my tether, and blurt out — ‘I hated your Mother, and if you had any sense you’d hate her too.’

  I can just imagine her big velvety eyes going round and frightened; she’d back away from me, she’d think I was mad, she’d run to Edith for reassurance, and I’d have lost her for ever. And she’s all I’ve got now. I want to keep her near me, it won’t be for long. And then what? I try not to think of what will happen to her when I’ve gone.

  “Well,” I said, “we must be getting back now, or Edith will be put out.”

  We climbed slowly up the hill together into the village, crossed the green, and wandered down the lane to the cottage, gathering sprays of cow-parsley on the way. I like the flowers in the house, as well as in the churchyard, to be fresh for Sunday. I always think cow-parsley makes such a good background to a big flower-piece.

  “Nearly five o’clock,” said Edith with a tight mouth, as she opened the front door to us.

  “It’s my fault, Edith,” Prudence said. “Grannie was very quick over her shopping, I kept her waiting in the cemetery.”

  I was glad to sit down in the drawing-room. That hill up from the church has been making me feel very giddy lately. It was stupid of me to go down on such a hot day. I should have waited for Prudence at the top, but she has no sense of time at all, and she might have stayed down there scrubbing away till it got dark. I lay back for a minute with my eyes shut, but just then Prudence came in with her pinafore off and her hair neatly brushed — Edith seemed to have succeeded in subduing the slide — so I sat bolt upright again. I don’t like the child to think I’m getting old, I make a point of being very brisk with her. I poured out tea, and we ate a couple of cucumber sandwiches and small pink sponge cakes each.

  I can’t help wishing Edith would learn to make some other sort of cake besides sponges, but when someone’s been with you forty years you realise it’s too late for changes. She started on the sponges twenty years ago, when Albert was alive and first went on to an invalid diet, and she’s never stopped since. Still, at my age one shouldn’t need to fuss about one’s food any more. It’s just a little irritating and sometimes I get a yearning for a slice of rich Dundee, but I couldn’t hurt Edith’s feelings by bringing in what she calls “boughten” cake.

  “Grannie darling,” Prudence said after tea, “can I bring my homework in here? It’s cooler than the kitchen.”

  “Of course, darling.” I picked up my knitting.

  I was at work on a green jumper for the church sale. I am a very quick knitter. But it was such a close evening. My hands fell into my lap again while the child went out to fetch her books. My glasses misted over, I polished them up energetically, and tried to push the past away from me but it kept creeping back. I could see John sitting in the drawing-room at the Vicarage the time he came down from London to tell me about Katharine.

  “You’ll love her, Mother,” he said. How curiously simple men are. “She’s so beautiful, you won’t be able to believe she’s chosen me.”

  “But John dear,” I said, “you’re very handsome too.” So he was, he had a fine head, he was very tall too, well over six foot, and big horn-rimmed glasses look quite distinguished on a man.

  “Bless you, Mother,” he said, laughing. “You’re prejudiced. Besides, I’m not very gay company for a girl, you know. I’ve been wrapped up in medicine al
l these years. I’ve hardly put my nose outside the hospital. I shall have to get some wider interests to keep a clever girl like Katharine.”

  I almost snorted. In my day a girl took on her husband’s interests and was glad to do so, not the other way round. Everything he said about Katharine made her sound worse to me.

  “There are heaps of men in love with her, Mother,” he said, in a silly sort of awestruck voice. “And she’s turned them all down for me.”

  Evidently she was a flirt as well as a miss-know-all, but I managed to hold my tongue. “I hope you’ll be able to bring her down soon to see me,” I said.

  “Oh yes of course, I hope so.” He frowned slightly. “We were coming down together this week-end, but at the last moment she had some important business and could not get away. She told me to tell you how sorry she was.”

  I’d like to know what business could be more important than making a good impression on your future mother-in-law, but aloud I only said, “Oh, what business was that?”

  “Something to do with her new book that’s coming out next month.”

  “Oh,” I said. I wasn’t impressed. I remember I was doing a bit of green knitting then too, I’ve never been fond of green since.

  About a fortnight later, he brought her. They just came down from London for the Sunday afternoon, they were too busy even to stay the night. It was raining and we spent the whole afternoon in the drawing-room. Katharine kept looking around her as if she’d never seen a room like it before; it was quite an ordinary room too. I suppose I have rather too many pieces of china and knick-knacks, but you don’t grow to sixty, as I was then, without collecting a good many barnacles about you on the way.

  Albert had changed parishes several times. Grateful parishioners have strange tastes when it comes to farewell presents. I’ve always particularly hated the big black marble clock with little pillars that now stands on the chimneypiece in this room. It keeps excellent time though, so I’ve never quite had the heart to put it away. As for the pink chintz and curtains I brought here with me, I think they are prettier now they are faded, than they were when they were new in 1910. But I could see Katharine didn’t think much of them at the Vicarage.

  I must admit she was beautiful, my daughter-in-law. She had one of those flawless creamy skins we’d have given a fortune for in 1890, but seem rather wasted nowadays when any girl can cake herself with make-up. And Prudence has her eyes, deep, large and dark like a cow, but a most intelligent cow. But I didn’t like Katharine a bit. I knew she wouldn’t make John happy, and she didn’t either. Not that he ever said so to me. He was always loyal to her. Even on his death-bed, when Katharine was out in Brazil, he spoke kindly of her. She flew back once she got the cable, but what with gallivanting about the jungle that wasn’t until a fortnight after I’d buried him.

  “Mother,” he said to me, poor boy, “tell Katharine I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for her.”

  They’d have saved him if he hadn’t been so tired. He drove himself to death trying to forget about her, and what she was up to. But never a word against her — oh no.

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand her, Mother dear,” he told me. I understood her well enough. Well enough to see that she’d deserted her husband and child. She killed John as surely as if she’d put arsenic in his tea.

  Prudence startled me coming back softly into the room in sandals. “Don’t do that child,” I snapped at her, “you made me jump.”

  “Sorry, Grannie,” she said. “I came in quietly, I thought you were asleep.”

  “Nonsense, I wasn’t asleep. I was just thinking for a minute or two with my eyes shut.”

  “Shall I open the window a little now? It’s cooler and there might be a breeze.”

  “Yes do, my dear,” I said, picking up my knitting again.

  Prudence piled all the tea things on the tray and turned up the cloth at one side of the table. She settled down to copy out some sums. After a minute or two she looked up at me again.

  “Grannie, you know that time you and Mummy and I all went to the sea together. Who looked after me?”

  “You still had Nannie then, darling. She looked after you.”

  “Didn’t Mummy at all?”

  “Oh, we all took you on the beach sometimes when Nannie wanted a rest. You get on with those sums; you’ll never have them finished. You don’t want to have homework left over on Sunday, do you?”

  “No, I suppose not. I’ve got to write an essay on what I want to do when I grow up too.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I shall say I want to go on living here, and I shall look after you, Grannie. I think I’d like a car and I shall learn to drive it, and we’ll drive about all over Sussex looking at things.”

  “That would be very nice, darling, but I don’t think it’s quite what they mean. Wouldn’t you like to be a doctor like Daddy?”

  “I’d rather be a writer like Mummy.” For a minute I quite felt like slapping the child. I knitted very fast instead and missed a couple of stitches of my pattern. I had to go back over the row unpicking it.

  “I think it’s time I went and did the flowers,” I said abruptly. I’d picked them in the early morning and left them soaking up to their necks in a bucket of water in my flower room. Lupins and larkspur for the back and pinks and roses in front, with cow-parsley to fluff out the whole effect at the side. My twitching nerves began to settle down as I stripped the lower leaves and banged the woody stems with a little hammer I keep in there. I have all the vases and jugs handy in a cupboard beside the sink. Through the open door I could see across the yard to the splendid rows of swelling peas in the kitchen garden. Edith came out of the back door and hung a couple of tea cloths up to dry between me and the peas.

  “If you use so much bleach on those cloths they’ll rot,” I called out to her.

  “Ain’t rotted in two years,” replied Edith shortly. But she added in a gentler voice: “Miss Prudence is looking peaky. Needs a dose to my mind. You ought to be sitting down yourself, out all afternoon in the heat. You ain’t so young as you were.”

  “I’m only a couple of years ahead of you. Sit down yourself.” I said. Funny the way Edith and I speak to each other now. Forty years ago when she came to me as cook we had two other maids, besides a governess for John. She and I only met when I went in at ten o’clock to order for the day. We seldom exchanged a word that hadn’t to do with food. Now she’s alone except for a woman who comes in twice a week to scrub the floors. Edith doesn’t like to have her, thinks it’s a weakness, but the rheumatism in her knees is so bad now, there’s no question of bending them.

  “I expect it’s the heat upsetting Miss Prudence,” I added.

  “You should let her go down and swim in the river with them village children,” said Edith.

  “No,” I said. “What’s the good of her taking the bus into town every day to go to a better class school, and then picking up bad language from the village children at weekends?”

  “Once a lady always a lady,” said Edith darkly. “The children wouldn’t do her no harm. I don’t hold with this lah-di-dah school you’re sending her to anyway. It only gives her airs.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Edith. Prudence has no airs. Besides, they say the teaching’s very good.”

  “All the more reason against it. She’ll grow up like her ma if she’s well taught, and then where’ll you be? Cast off like an old boot, I shouldn’t wonder, after all you’ve done for her.”

  “Now you’re talking real nonsense, Edith. Prudence is like her father in every way, she’s not a bit like her mother. She’s the most sweet-natured, generous little girl I ever came across.”

  “Looks like her ma, all the same. Going to be another beauty, too, in ten years’ time.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose either of us’ll be here to see it — and besides she has those awful glasses,” I finished triumphantly.

  “Glasses is only a hindrance when they are worn on the nose,�
� Edith pointed out. It was quite true, try as we might, we could neither of us persuade Prudence to wear her glasses all day. She told us they hurt her nose or her ears, however often I took her back to the oculist. She swore she wore them at school, and as she couldn’t see the black-board without, I believed her. She had good reports in all subjects except Scripture, which was rather a sorrow to me.

  CHAPTER II

  The dew was white on my little front lawn as I walked down the flagged path on my way to church early next morning. It would be another scorcher, but not for an hour or so. Miss Larkins came out of her gate up the road from me, and I knew I was in good time. I glanced back to see the curtains still drawn in Prudence’s window. She sleeps late for a child. When I was young my sisters and I were always up as soon as it grew light. It was on a morning just like this that my sister Rose took off her shoes and stockings and ran in the long, wet grass in the orchard. She knew if she got her feet cold it stopped her period — so it did too. She never had it again for seven years. Nobody ever told us anything in my young days — I wonder if it’s time I spoke to Prudence? She’s eleven soon, and well developed. I must ask the vicar’s wife, her Jean must be all of fourteen now. I think I’ll put it off a bit. It will seem strange to Prudence coming from an old woman like me. Perhaps the vicar’s wife would tell her for me?

  The grass between the grave stones brushed my ankles, and as I knelt down in my pew I could feel my stockings rubbing wet against each other. But there’s no harm wet feet can do to me now.

  Guide me, God, about Prudence, I prayed. She’s all I’ve got. Help me to do what’s best for her. Don’t let her grow up beautiful, please don’t let her be too beautiful. Let her be plain, but charming, and let her make some good man happy and let her not want anything but that. You know that should be enough for any normal woman, that and her own children, so many children she has no time to think about herself. Please don’t let her be unnatural. Let her not take after her mother.