Fallen Skies Read online

  “A good old-fashioned nanny,” Muriel said with sudden enthusiasm. “What an excellent idea, Stephen! A sensible firm woman who can show Lily how to go on. Enough of this sloppy spoiling of the baby. A good nanny who can get them both into a routine.”

  Stephen did not warn Lily of this decision. He advertised under a box number and then wrote to the best of the replies inviting them to an interview at his office. John Pascoe raised an eyebrow at the office waiting room, filled with half a dozen dark-coated women with overwhelming black hats.

  “Nannies,” Stephen said to him on the stairs. “Lily came out of the hospital in such a rush that I’ve only now been able to start looking for one.”

  “I thought Lily was coping on her own?” John asked.

  Stephen shook his head. “She’s having a go,” he said. “But she really doesn’t know which way to start. She’s got no mother of her own of course, and she’s not got the sense of a kitten. She really needs a sensible woman to get her sorted out.”

  John Pascoe nodded. “Start as you mean to go on with babies,” he said. “We always did. Nanny and proper schoolroom hours from the first week.”

  Stephen nodded. “That’s what Mother says,” he said. “But Lily had to try it her way. She’s been overly involved with the baby. Smothering him, y’know.”

  “Well, a first child . . .” John said tolerantly.

  Stephen shook his head. “It’s not just that,” he said. “She’s hysterical. She won’t let it sleep alone. She won’t put it down. She feeds it all the time and won’t hear of a bottle. She’s not quite right where the baby’s concerned.”

  “Oh,” John said, at a loss.

  Stephen smiled. “We’ll get it sorted,” he said. “A good sensible woman. I’ll have her live in. There’s a big room on the first floor she can have as a nursery. Then we can all get back to normal.”

  He chose the woman that afternoon. She was to be addressed as Nanny Janes. She was to be served all her meals in the nursery. She would do light darning but no laundering. She would provide her own uniform and she was to have every other Thursday afternoon off. She explained to Stephen that she must have absolute control in the nursery. “I normally like to see Mother,” she said, “to make sure she understands how we are to go on.”

  “My wife is at home with the baby,” Stephen said. “I thought it would be more convenient for us all if I did the interviews here.”

  “I’ll take a trial month then, if you’re agreeable,” Nanny Janes said. She was a formidable woman, dark-faced and brown-haired. She carried an umbrella despite the warm sunshine outside the window. “A trial month, seeing as I have not had an opportunity to see Mother. She’s a young mother, I take it?”

  “Yes,” Stephen said. “And rather nervous.”

  Nanny Janes nodded magisterially. “I’m familiar with this sort of situation,” she said complacently. “I think you will find that I can put matters on a proper footing.” She deposited a thick wad of papers from her large handbag on to Stephen’s desk. “My references,” she said. “You are fortunate in finding me available at once. Owing to a Death.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Stephen said, glancing through the letters. There were a number of crested papers, and Stephen felt a frisson of satisfied snobbery. The nanny for his son would have wiped the bottoms of young lords.

  “I take it I can contact your former employers?”

  Nanny Janes nodded. “My last place was with the Harcourt family, their address and telephone number is there.”

  “You had the care of their baby?”

  “Twins,” Nanny Janes said. “They died in an accident while boating. I did indicate to the father that I thought them too young to be taken out on a yacht. But I was overruled.”

  Stephen put down the papers abruptly. “What happened?”

  “They drowned,” Nanny Janes said, without a flicker of emotion across her brown face. “Aged three years and eight months. Their mother was most distressed. Their father was saved but the boys went under. I was not present at the time.”

  Stephen looked at her impassive face and felt his familiar rage building at the woman’s detachment. She was like all women. She could see horror and remain untouched. “How inconvenient for you,” he said spitefully.

  Nanny Janes shook her head. “At the age of four I should have handed them over to a governess,” she said simply. “I had only four more months with them. And they provided me with an extra remuneration in recognition of my services.”

  Stephen felt chilled with an instant powerful sense that he was betraying Lily by handing over their son to this woman who could speak so calmly of the death of two children in her care. He quelled it almost at once. The very thing Lily needed to learn was detachment. This woman would be an excellent teacher.

  “Start tomorrow then,” he said briskly.

  Nanny Janes rose from her chair and extended her hand to take back her sheaf of references. “Tomorrow at nine,” she said.

  • • •

  Stephen tried several times to tell Lily that he had engaged a nanny for Christopher. When he came home from work Charlie was at the piano and Lily was leaning against it singing. “No, no!” Charlie said as Stephen came in. “More purity, Lily! Deep breath and get that top note and hold it!” He broke off when he saw Stephen. “Hello, Stephen! Good day at the office?”

  Stephen nodded to him. “Charlie,” he said in greeting. He looked around. Christopher was sleeping on the sofa, wedged in with cushions. He was wearing an exquisite white pin-tucked gown, his fair hair was growing slightly, his eyes were gently closed, his cheeks were rosy. One small hand, clenched in a fist, waved at his dreams from time to time. “I wonder he can sleep with you singing away in his ear, Lily,” Stephen said.

  Lily put a hand on his shoulder as he leaned over their child. “He’d have heard it in the womb,” she said. “It must sound quite right to him. He always goes off the moment we start.”

  Stephen shifted uneasily at Lily saying the word “womb” in the drawing room. “Really, Lily!”

  Lily’s hand dropped from his shoulder and she did not replace it.

  “That was nice, what you were singing,” Stephen said, straightening up and turning to the mantelpiece. “What is it?”

  “It’s a lied—” Charlie started to say but he caught himself in time. “A love song,” he said mendaciously. “Old English. Lily’s been invited to sing at a concert of classical music, in aid of charity. We were just running through the programme in case she wanted to do it.”

  “What charity?”

  “War-wounded,” Lily said. “One of your mother’s friends is organizing it. The Earl of March will be there, we’ll probably have to be introduced,” she added cunningly.

  Stephen nodded. “Oh, very well,” he said. “It sounds an awful bore.”

  Charlie shrugged. “That’s the price you pay for marrying a talented woman!” he said, smiling. “Lily has quite a few invitations to sing on the concert circuit. She’s even been asked to Goodwood House in the summer.”

  Stephen could not hide his pleasure. “Well, I suppose that’s virtually a royal command,” he said.

  “And useful for your work,” Charlie pointed out. “You make all sorts of contacts at a place like that.”

  Lily crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell for tea.

  Charlie got up from the piano. “I must go,” he said.

  “Oh, stay for tea,” Stephen said carelessly. “And then we’ll have a drink.”

  “Very well,” Charlie said. “I must tell you the gossip from the Troc, anyway.”

  Lily picked up the baby and laid him gently along her knees. He stirred a little in his sleep and opened his eyes. They were a deep luminous blue. “Hello, Christopher,” Lily said, her voice full of tenderness.

  Charlie told Stephen some story about a friend of theirs from the Troc while Lily and her baby, almost nose to nose, communed in whispers from Lily and little gurgles from her child