Hugh dismissed her opinion but there was no denying that as time went on Roland didn’t progress the way the others did. He was slow to learn and didn’t seem to possess a child’s natural curiosity about the world. You could sit him on a hearth rug with a rag-book or a set of wooden bricks and he would still be there half an hour later gazing contentedly at the fire (well guarded against children) or Queenie the cat sitting next to him, attending to her toilette (less well guarded and much prone to malevolence). Roland could be set to any simple task, and spent much of his time willingly fetching and carrying for the girls, Bridget, even Mrs Glover was not above sending him on simple errands, a bag of sugar from the pantry, a wooden spoon from the jar. It seemed unlikely that he would be going to Hugh’s old school or entering Hugh’s old college, and Hugh grew fonder of the boy for that somehow.
‘Perhaps we should get him a dog,’ he suggested. ‘A dog always brings the best out in a boy.’ Bosun arrived, a large friendly animal with a tendency to herd and protect, and discerned immediately that he had been put in charge of something important.
At least the boy was placid, Hugh thought, unlike his dratted mother, or his own two eldest children who fought incessantly with each other. Ursula, of course, was different to all of them. She was watchful, as if she were trying to drink in the whole world through those little green eyes that were both his and hers. She was rather unnerving.
Mr Winton’s easel was set up to face the sea. He was quite pleased with what he had so far, the blues and greens and whites – and murky browns – of the Cornish seaside. Several passers-by paused in their journeys across the sands to observe the painting-in-progress. He hoped, in vain, for compliments.
A little fleet of white-sailed yachts skimmed the horizon, a race of some kind, Mr Winton presumed. He smudged some Chinese white on his own painted horizon and stood back to admire the results. Mr Winton saw yachts, others might have seen blobs of white paint. They would contrast rather well, he thought, with some figures on the seashore. The two little girls so intent on building a sandcastle would be perfect. He bit the tip of his brush as he gazed at his canvas. How to do it best, he wondered?
The sandcastle was Ursula’s suggestion. They should build, she said to Pamela, the best sandcastle ever. She had conjured up such a vivid image of this sandy citadel – moats and turrets and battlements – that Pamela could almost see the medieval ladies in their wimples waving to the knights as they clattered away on their horses over the drawbridge (a piece of driftwood was to be sought out for this purpose). They had set about this task with undivided energy although they were still at the heavy-engineering stage, digging a double moat that would eventually, when the tide turned, fill with seawater to protect those wimpled ladies from violent siege (by someone like Maurice, inevitably). Roland, their ever-obliging minion, was dispatched to scour the beach for decorative pebbles and the all-important drawbridge.
They were further along the beach from Sylvie and Bridget, who were immersed in their books while the new baby, Edward – Teddy – was sleeping on a blanket on the sand beneath the protection of a parasol. Maurice was dredging in rock pools at the far end of the beach. He had made new companions, rough local boys with whom he went swimming and scrabbling up cliffs. Boys were just boys to Maurice. He had not yet learned to evaluate them by accent and social standing.
Maurice had an indestructible quality and no one ever seemed to worry about him, least of all his mother.
Bosun, unfortunately, had been left behind with the Coles.
In time-honoured fashion, the sand from the moat was piled up in a central mound, the building material for the proposed fortress. Both girls, by now hot and sticky from their exertions, took a moment to stand back and contemplate this formless heap. Pamela felt more doubtful now about the turrets and battlements, the wimpled ladies seemed even more unlikely. The mound reminded Ursula of something, but what? Something familiar, yet nebulous and undefinable, no more than a shape in her brain. She was prone to these sensations, as if a memory was being tugged reluctantly out of its hiding place. She presumed it was the same for everyone.
Then this feeling was replaced by fear, a shadow of a thrill too, the kind that came with a thunderstorm rolling in, or a sea fog creeping towards the shore. Hazard could be anywhere, in the clouds, the waves, the little yachts on the horizon, the man painting at his easel. She set off at a purposeful trot to take her fears to Sylvie and have them soothed.
Ursula was a peculiar child, full of troublesome notions, in Sylvie’s opinion. She was forever answering Ursula’s anxious questions – What would we do if the house caught fire? Our train crashed? The river flooded? Practical advice, Sylvie had discovered, was the best way to allay these fears rather than dismissing them as unlikely (Why, dear, we would gather up our belongings and we would climb on the roof until the water receded).
Pamela, meanwhile, returned stoically to digging the moat. Mr Winton was entirely absorbed in the close brushwork necessary for Pamela’s sunhat. What a happy coincidence that those two little girls had chosen to build their sandcastle in the middle of his composition. He thought he might call it The Diggers. Or The Sand Diggers.
Sylvie was dozing over The Secret Agent and rather resented being woken. ‘What is it?’ she said. She glanced along the beach and saw Pamela digging industriously. Distant yelling and wild whooping suggested Maurice.
‘Where’s Roland?’ she asked.
‘Roland?’ Ursula said, looking around for their willing slave and failing to see him anywhere. ‘He’s looking for a drawbridge.’ Sylvie was on her feet now, anxiously scanning the beach.
‘A what?’
‘A drawbridge,’ Ursula repeated.
They concluded that he must have spotted a piece of wood in the sea and obediently waded out to collect it. He had no real understanding of danger and did not know how to swim, of course. If Bosun had been on watch on the beach he would have dog-paddled out into the waves, heedless of any peril, and snatched Roland back. In his absence, Archibald Winton, an amateur watercolourist from Birmingham, as the local paper referred to him, had attempted to rescue the child (Roland Todd, aged four, on holiday with his family). He had cast aside his paintbrush and swum out to sea and pulled the boy from the water, but, alas, to no avail. This clipping was carefully cut out and preserved for appreciation in Birmingham. In the course of three column inches Mr Winton had become both a hero and an artist. He imagined himself saying modestly, ‘Why, it was nothing,’ and – of course – it was nothing, for no one was saved.
Ursula watched as Mr Winton waded back through the waves, carrying Roland’s limp little body in his arms. Pamela and Ursula had thought the tide was going out but it was coming in, already filling the moat and lapping at the mound of sand which would soon be gone for ever. An ownerless hoop bowled past, driven by the breeze. Ursula stared out to sea while behind her on the beach a variety of strangers attempted to revive Roland. Pamela came and joined her and they held hands. The waves began to trickle in, covering their feet. If only they hadn’t been so intent on the sandcastle, Ursula thought. And it had seemed such a good idea.
‘Sorry about your boy, Mrs Todd, ma’am,’ George Glover mumbled. He touched an invisible cap on his head. Sylvie had mounted an expedition to see the harvest being brought in. They must rouse themselves from their torpid grief, she said. Following Roland’s drowning, the summer had been subdued, naturally. Roland seemed greater in his absence than he had done in his presence.