A Winter's Child Read Free Page A

better compensation could the girl offer for her impertinence in insisting that that pathetic little wedding, over and done with in ten mumbled minutes, had made her Jeremy’s next of kin so that his personal possessions, his kit bag, his letters, his diary, the very telegram announcing his death had been sent to this wife of three weeks, instead of to her, his mother?
    Yes, compensation certainly was due. Miriam had always believed that. And, after all, if the girl could stitch wounds she could certainly address invitation cards. If she could drive ambulances it seemed reasonable to assume that she could collect one’s shopping, meet the London train for one’s parcels, take a firm line with inconvenient callers, turn her hand to any number of helpful, essential, tedious things. And Miriam – it went without saying – would be very kind to her. What a splendid idea. Not, of course, that she was ready, just yet, to own up to it and thus spoil her little game of power and pretence with Benedict.
    He had been a silent, surly child just five years old when she had married his father, tall for his age and with good bones but alarmingly thin and pale, his dark eyes with their oddly disconcerting stare reminding her that his life’s experiences, until then, had been made up of the death of one parent and the neglect of the other. Being only thirteen years his senior Miriam had decided to play the bountiful elder sister, envisaging a delightful relationship based on her generosity, his gratitude. She had wished only to charm and amuse him, and because, beneath the excellent manners, the unnaturally cool exterior, he had remained uncharmed, unamused, had simply allowed her to be good to him – because his father would have thrashed him otherwise – she had felt disappointed to begin with, then hurt, then acutely resentful, accusing him in her heart of deliberately fastening upon her the role of ‘wicked stepmother’, when she knew herself to be so suited in every way to play the ‘good fairy’. But the birth of her own children, who had instantly and obligingly adored her, had absolved her from all blame. The fault, clearly, had been Benedict’s and Benedict’s alone. He was not shy after all, as she had charitably pretended, but unsociable; not ungrateful precisely, but simply unable to appreciate all the pleasant things she had been so ready to do for him. Breathing a sigh of relief she had confined her activities thereafter to his feeding and clothing and had otherwise left him alone.
    But, now that he had become a man, now that her husband had bequeathed him to her as a rock to lean on, how reassuring, how very pleasant it often was to lean for the fun of leaning – just to see how far he would allow her to go.
    â€˜Oh Benedict, don’t you see,’ she murmured, noticing with satisfaction that he had already glanced at the clock on her drawing room wall. No doubt he had pressing, profitable engagements that morning, men of substance with not much time to spare waiting for him in the oak-panelled office that had been her husband’s. Good. Then she would detain him for ten minutes and – if she managed it – would consider that she had won.
    â€˜Forgive me, Benedict dear, but gentlemen do not always see the implications in these matters. The girl was a very prettily behaved little thing as I recall. But now …! Heavens – we cannot even be sure that she has been nursing officers.’
    â€˜I imagine,’ said Benedict curtly, dryly, his eyes straying once again to the parlour clock, ‘that the anatomy is much the same.’
    â€˜Oh that,’ she said, not in the least dismayed, a gesture of her plump hand relegating the entire question of male anatomy to a proper insignificance. ‘Dear boy, I was referring to the language – the attitudes – the things that a common soldier might be likely to say – or even do. You