The Woman in the Wood Read online

  People said she would find another young man, but Will had been her love and no one else she met ever matched up to him. When Mr Mitcham had a stroke just as the war ended, becoming paralysed down his right side, Janice found solace in being needed.

  But after Mr Mitcham died, as Janice had told the twins, she felt that time hung on her hands. She even found herself thinking of moving on to another, more fulfilling job.

  Just as she was despairing, the twins arrived, and suddenly she was busy again. It was very satisfying to make rich desserts, hearty casseroles, cakes, apple pies and biscuits, and even to see a washing line full of drying clothes or a basket stuffed with clothes waiting for ironing. Yet it was even better to have the twins to talk to, to play board games with, to tuck into bed at night. She saw Alastair in their faces, sometimes heard his voice in theirs, but she was so very glad they hadn’t inherited his insular character.

  Alastair had been seventeen when she arrived at Nightingales. He was home from boarding school for the summer holiday, and looking back with acquired wisdom, Janice could see that they had both been brought up without any real care or affection, made to obey orders without question, and they knew nothing of the opposite sex. She couldn’t claim they ever became friends – any conversation was stilted and forced – yet there was a little something between them, an attraction, a sense that they had things in common. He taught her some card games, the ones she’d taught the twins. They would play in the kitchen in the evenings, with old Mrs Bodbury, the housekeeper at that time, checking on them now and then to see they weren’t doing anything more subversive.

  Then the following year Alastair went off to Oxford, and each time he came home again he seemed to grow further away from her. She would ask about his studies, what friends he’d made and if any of them were girls. He somewhat ruefully told her that girls didn’t like him.

  He was nearly twenty, Janice sixteen, when he brought Lily home for the first time. Alastair was not handsome – he had too big a forehead, his eyes were too pale, and the skin on his face had an odd, stretched look – but even so Janice was astounded he would even look twice at a whey-faced, ratty-haired girl like Lily Goldney. More worrying was that while Alastair was looking adoringly at her, she looked afraid of her own shadow.

  ‘She’s a poor wee thing,’ Mrs Bodbury proclaimed, making Janice glad that it wasn’t just her who was not impressed.

  Mrs Mitcham wasn’t the kind to take anyone under her wing and try to bring out the best in them, and Janice got to hear from the maid that Lily barely said a word at meals, hardly ate anything and appeared terrified of Alastair’s parents.

  Alastair didn’t bring her home again, and his parents thought he’d dropped her. Then to everyone’s astonishment, in 1935, four years later, he informed his parents he’d married Lily in her Kent village.

  Unsurprisingly, Mrs Mitcham was furious. ‘He’s thrown his life away,’ she ranted to her husband, at such a volume that Janice could hear her from the kitchen. ‘I’ve known potatoes with more personality. Mark my words, he’ll regret this.’

  But Alastair didn’t appear to regret anything. He had what Janice believed to be an important job in the Foreign Office, and he must have been well paid even back when most people were struggling in the Depression, because he bought a house. Janice had never been to London at that time, but she was told Holland Park was a very smart address and that the houses were huge. Later on she was to learn from Mrs Mitcham that he’d bought it with a legacy from his grandfather, adding with a disapproving sniff that it would be wasted on Lily as she had no sense of style.

  Lily must have been very relieved Alastair didn’t have to join up in 1939, as soon after she found she was pregnant. She went back to her family in Kent because she was afraid London would be bombed, but sadly she lost that baby at four months. Maybe that was the real start of the trouble with her nerves. Alastair had a good petrol allowance, which enabled him to drive down to Kent often and to Burley sometimes to see his parents. In 1944 he announced Lily was pregnant again.

  In late January of 1945 he arrived at Nightingales, as always bringing them butter, cheese, ham and other foodstuffs that were hard to get hold of. He was also brimming with joy about his news: he was the father of healthy twins, a boy and a girl. His face shining with happiness, he told them that the war would be over before long, and although he would be called on to go over to Europe on various missions, helping to sort out the problem of displaced people, Lily would be secure again and he hoped that together they could create a real family home in Holland Park.

  Later that same day he came into the kitchen to talk to Janice alone. She guessed his mother had been scathing about Lily’s ability to be a good wife and mother, and he needed to talk to someone who wasn’t so negative.

  ‘Mother seems to think Lily is shirking her duties as a wife and mother by staying in Kent,’ he confided. ‘But it would be madness to bring them home now when the V-2s are targeting London, wouldn’t it? I also said she needs her mother to help her, anyway; twins are very tiring.’

  Janice sensed his mother had been cruel, pouring scorn on Lily’s abilities and making her son feel he would always be surplus to requirements in the twins’ life as his mother-in-law would control everything.

  By then Janice had got to know Alastair much better and had come to see he wasn’t the cold-hearted copy of his mother that she’d once thought, but a loyal and caring man.

  His visit she would always remember best was in 1940, just after she got the news that her William had been killed as the troops retreated from Dunkirk. Alastair came into the kitchen to offer his condolences, and he hugged her and said he hoped she would find another good man in the fullness of time and have a whole parcel of children, because she deserved happiness.

  Over the years Janice had found you could assess a person’s true character by the way they reacted to serious situations and tragedies. He said and did just the right thing when William died, comforting her and proving he was capable of true compassion for others. She also remembered a time not so long after when he’d come down while the London Blitz was raging. He had a cup of tea with her in the kitchen and talked about the cruelty of war, separating people who should be together, destroying lovely old buildings and laying waste the very fabric of life as they had once known it.

  Once the war was finally over, Lily did return to London with the twins. Yet despite all the efforts Alastair expended to make life easier for his wife, including bringing Betty, a woman Lily had known all her life, back with them to act as housekeeper, things were not good.

  ‘I have to go away frequently,’ Alastair told Janice on one visit. ‘I can’t help it, it’s my job, but Lily either sulks or throws a tantrum every time. I don’t understand why. I’ve got her more than adequate help, she has Betty for company, and her mother comes up when she can. Lily barely looks at Duncan and Maisy, and she takes herself off to bed, blaming a riding accident she had years ago for making her nerves bad.’

  Janice knew that it must have been very hard for a proud man like Alastair to admit such things. She guessed, too, that every aspect of his marriage was affected, and she wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d given up on Lily and got a divorce.

  While not wanting to think of anyone in an asylum, especially as she’d grown so fond of the twins and knew how distressing they found it, Janice felt that Lily needed to be in that place. Over the years she’d gleaned a great deal about her, and, whether it was fair or not, she couldn’t help but secretly despise the woman for being so weak and not appreciating how lucky she was to have a home, a husband and two children.

  When William was killed, Janice had wanted to die too; there just didn’t seem to be anything to live for. But she pushed the thought away, got on with her work and told herself that thousands of other women had lost their menfolk at Dunkirk, and tens of thousands more would die before victory was won.

  Eventually the agony of loss turned to an ever-present ache, and
after a few years it was reduced to a sadness that she could cope with. Nowadays the reminders of him were only occasional; sometimes she shed a few tears, but mostly she smiled at the good memories. Alastair had said she should be proud of William’s bravery, and she was. Alastair’s kindness to her, when she needed it most, meant a great deal. One day she would tell his children about it and try to explain to them that they must trust their father, for he was a good man. She had the feeling that right now they thought he was devious and uncaring.

  When Janice went to collect Mrs Mitcham’s dinner tray that evening, the old lady asked her to sit down for a moment.

  ‘How did the children take the news of their mother staying in the asylum, or home as my son likes to call it?’ she asked briskly. ‘They were both like him, and didn’t show their feelings to me.’

  ‘They were upset and Maisy cried,’ Janice admitted. ‘But I think they were glad they are to stay here.’

  ‘Because of you, of course!’ The old lady lifted one eyebrow.

  ‘I don’t know about that. They like everything about being here,’ Janice said hurriedly.

  ‘I should’ve encouraged Alastair to court you. I knew he liked you.’

  An unintentional giggle slipped out from Janice. ‘You wouldn’t have approved of him seeing a lowly scullery maid.’

  ‘If I’d known how you would turn out, I would’ve given it my blessing,’ Mrs Mitcham said. ‘You are a good woman, Janice; you would have made a fine wife and mother, far better than I ever was. But that’s all water under the bridge. We can’t change the past, or our natures, but we can improve on the future. I wish the twins to be happy here. Have you got any suggestions as to what I could do to help that?’

  Janice thought this was a day of surprises: first to be told she would’ve been a good wife to Alastair, and now that Mrs Mitcham was concerned for the twins’ happiness.

  ‘You need to have them in and talk to them, on a regular basis,’ she said without any hesitation. ‘Just for a few minutes, perhaps when I give you your afternoon tea. The three of you could have it together.’

  ‘I never even did that with Alastair,’ the old lady said, sounding alarmed.

  ‘Quite so, maybe that’s why he finds it so hard to talk about his feelings,’ Janice said. ‘I’m sure you don’t wish the twins to have the same problem.’

  Mrs Mitcham waved her hands in a dismissive gesture. ‘People talk far too much about such things.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting you talk to the twins about feelings, but about their lessons with Mr Dove, or perhaps a bit of village gossip. Maybe you could tell them some stories about your own childhood here?’

  ‘They wouldn’t be interested in that, surely?’

  ‘I bet they would be,’ Janice said. ‘And you could play a few card games with them. They like playing cards.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say about their mother,’ her employer suddenly blurted out.

  ‘You only have to say she was shy and you never got to know her well. That is, after all, the truth,’ Janice said soothingly. ‘Turn their questions around, ask them about her.’

  ‘How is it that you always know the right thing to say?’

  Janice shrugged. ‘I suppose I try to put myself in other people’s shoes. And if I can’t think of anything nice to say, I say nothing.’

  ‘I wish I had that gift,’ the old lady said with a sigh. ‘Even when I’m trying to be pleasant it never seems to come out right. But maybe I can learn from the children.’

  ‘I think we can both learn from them,’ Janice said. ‘I’m really glad they’ll be staying with us, and we must endeavour to become a proper family.’

  4

  ‘Duncan, this precis on Jane Eyre is appalling.’ Mr Dove slammed Duncan’s homework book down on the table. ‘It appears you hadn’t grasped even the most fundamental idea of what the story is about. Did you actually read it?’

  The twins were sitting on either side of the table in their teacher’s kitchen, and Mr Dove was at the head of the table in a wheelchair, his back to the window. He was an attractive man in his thirties with thick fair hair which touched his collar. He was very conscious of this and had said he had to wait for a hairdresser to come and cut it in his home, as he couldn’t catch the bus to her. In Maisy’s opinion his hair was just fine, as were his white teeth and wide, sunny smile, but she felt his grey-blue eyes had seen too much sadness.

  ‘Yes, sir, well, at least most of it,’ Duncan replied a little sheepishly. ‘But it’s a girls’ book.’

  The teacher looked from one twin to the other and half smiled. ‘I gave Maisy Kidnapped to read, which some would consider more suitable for a boy. Yet she managed to write an excellent, well thought-out precis on it. A book becomes known as a classic because it is a good story and can be read by everyone, regardless of gender. So, Duncan, are you going to go through life ignoring everything you consider to be a touch feminine?’

  Duncan blushed. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it. So I want you to read it again properly during your holiday and write a new precis, proving you’ve not only read it but understand the dilemmas Jane Eyre had to deal with. I shall expect to see it when your lessons start again in September.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Duncan said. ‘Was my maths homework all right?’

  Mr Dove nodded. ‘Yes, it was excellent, but I’ll get back to that later. I want to move on to history now, and see what, if anything, you both remember from last week’s lesson about Henry the Eighth.’

  It was now close to the end of July and the twins had been having lessons with Mr Dove for ten weeks. They liked him far more than any of their previous teachers in London. He was interesting, caring and often very funny. Duncan, who was bright but sometimes lazy, had in the past only ever done just enough work to keep out of trouble; now he often found himself going an extra mile because he liked the way Mr Dove challenged him.

  Maisy was not as clever as her brother, but she’d always been a plodder, staying up late to finish homework which she presented neatly with no spelling mistakes. At her old school she’d been praised for this, but Mr Dove was more interested in his pupils getting carried away with the tasks he’d set them than caring about whether their handwriting was neat. Because of the way he presented English literature and history to her, Maisy was becoming passionate about both subjects.

  After almost four months the twins were now entirely settled at their grandmother’s. On Sunday afternoons she always asked them into her sitting room for afternoon tea, and they dreaded it because it was so strained. Yet they sensed she was really trying, so they tried too, and sometimes they found a bit of common ground to discuss, which pleased them all.

  Their previous life in London was hardly ever mentioned now – not to her, to Janice or even to each other – and they certainly didn’t want to go back.

  Yet it did sadden them that there were no letters from their mother. Their father wrote once a week enclosing a postal order for their pocket money. His letters were all very similar: a question as to what they were studying with Mr Dove, comments on the weather, a reminder they were to do all they could to help their grandmother and Janice, and finally a brief comment about their mother.

  ‘Your mother is quite comfortable … Your mother is eating better … Your mother enjoys sitting outside in the sun.’ Never once was there a message from her to them. He didn’t even add that he knew how she was because he’d visited her or whether these tiny newsflashes had just come from him telephoning the nursing home.

  They dutifully replied each week, but it was a chore because they hardly knew what to say to him. Mostly they described what books they were reading, the meals Janice had cooked and what was coming up in the garden.

  Mr Dove spoke to them about their parents after the second week of lessons with him. Duncan had remarked that he didn’t know why their father always asked what they were learning as he clearly didn’t care about his children at all.


  ‘Asking what you are learning is the only way some adults can show they care,’ Mr Dove responded.

  ‘But that’s weird. Why not ask if we’re happy or if we’ve made new friends here?’ Duncan retorted.

  ‘Perhaps your father doesn’t really understand the importance of happiness, or of having friends.’

  Duncan pulled a bewildered face. ‘Everyone knows that!’

  Dove smiled. ‘Not everyone. You, Duncan, are lucky to have a twin sister you are very close to. You two are ready-made friends and you make each other happy. But maybe your father never had a real friend, and no one ever concerned themselves about whether he was happy. It is forces such as these which shape our adult character and personality.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Duncan said, shaking his head.

  ‘Well, lucky children get loving and attentive parents, and in time they grow up, marry and have children of their own who they are loving and attentive to. But the unlucky ones who have cruel or neglectful parents are likely to treat their own children just the same. It is called “learned behaviour”.’

  ‘But our father isn’t cruel and he hasn’t neglected us,’ Maisy spoke up indignantly.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting he had,’ Dove said. ‘I was just trying to make you look at why your father is the way he is.’

  ‘He’s like our grandmother, you mean?’ Duncan suggested.

  Dove grimaced, neither confirming nor denying it.

  ‘Can we change him?’ Maisy asked.

  ‘You could try writing to ask if he misses you, and say you miss him and hope he might come here to see you.’

  ‘He’d probably just ignore that.’ Duncan shrugged. ‘He stuck Mother in a home to get rid of her and shoved us down here for the same reason.’

  ‘I don’t for one moment believe that.’ Dove wagged a disapproving finger at Duncan. ‘I know I’ve never met your father, but I’m a hundred percent sure he just has difficulty in speaking about anything to do with emotions. He’s not alone in this; all over England there are men who were damaged by the war. Some by sights they’d seen or things that had happened to them, but a great many more came home to find the baby they left at the start of war was now a five- or six-year-old who resented a stranger getting between it and its mother. That proved almost worse than the war to some men. Your father might not have been on active service, but he rarely saw you two as babies because he had to go to Europe to sort out the problems there soon after you were born. As I understand it, he couldn’t be with you all for about three years in fact.’