‘Mummy!’ said Wilfrid, as soon as she went into the nursery. ‘Is Mrs Cow coming?’
‘Wilfrid’s afraid of Mrs Cow,’ said Corinna.
‘I am not,’ said Wilfrid.
‘Why would anyone be afraid of a dear old lady?’ said Nanny.
‘Yes, thank you, Nanny,’ said Daphne. ‘Now, my darlings, are you going to give Granny Sawle a special surprise?’
‘Will it be the same surprise as last time?’ said Corinna.
Daphne thought for a second and said, ‘This time it will be a double surprise.’ For Wilfrid these rituals, invented by his sister, were still sickeningly exciting, but Corinna herself was beginning to think them beneath her. ‘We must all be sweet to Mrs Cow,’ Daphne said. ‘She is not very well.’
‘Is she infectious?’ said Corinna, who had only just got over the measles.
‘Not that sort of unwell,’ said Daphne. ‘She has awful arthritis. I’m afraid she’s in a great deal of pain.’
‘Poor lady,’ said Wilfrid, visibly attempting a maturer view of her.
‘I know…’ said Daphne, ‘poor lady.’ She perched selfconsciously on the upholstered top of the high fender. ‘No fire today, then, Nanny?’ she said.
‘Well, my lady, we thought it was almost nice enough to do without.’
‘Are you warm enough, Corinna?’
‘Yes, just about, Mother,’ said Corinna, and glanced uneasily at Mrs Copeland.
‘I am rather cold,’ said Wilfrid, who tended to adopt a grievance once it had been pointed out to him.
‘Then let’s run downstairs and get warmed up,’ said Daphne, in happy contravention of Nanny’s number one rule, and getting up briskly.
‘No two-at-a-time, mind, Wilfrid!’ said Nanny.
‘You can be sure he will be all right with me,’ said Daphne.
When they were out in the top passage, Wilfrid said, ‘Is Mrs Cow stopping for the night?’
‘Wilfrid, of course,’ said Corinna, as if at the end of her patience, ‘she’s coming on the train with Granny Sawle.’
‘Uncle George will take them home on Sunday, after lunch,’ said Daphne; and finding herself holding his hand, she said, ‘I thought it would be nice if you showed her up to her room.’
‘Then I will show Granny up to her room,’ said Corinna, making it harder for Wilfrid to get out of.
‘But what about Wilkes?’ said Wilfrid ingeniously.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Wilkes can put his feet up, and have a nice cup of tea, what do you think?’ said Daphne, and laughed delightedly until Wilfrid joined in on a more tentative note.
On the top stairs, they trotted down hand-in-hand, and in step, which did require a measure of discipline. Then from the window on the first-floor landing she saw the car arriving from the station. ‘They’re here… oh, darlings, run!’ she said, shaking off the children’s hands.
‘Oh, Mummy…’ said Wilfrid, transfixed with anxious excitement.
‘Come on!’ said Corinna; and they pelted down the three bright turns of polished oak, Wilfrid losing his footing on the last corner and bumping down very fast over several steps on his hip, his bottom. Daphne tensed herself, with a touch of annoyance, but now he was limping across the hall and round the table (looking just like his father), and by the time he started self-righteously to wail he was already distracted by the need to do the next thing.
Wilkes appeared, with the new Scottish boy, and Daphne let them go ahead and tackle the car for a minute while she watched from the porch. Awful to admit, but her pleasure at seeing her mother again was a touch defensive: she was thinking of the things her husband would say about her after she’d gone. Wilkes deferred to Freda very properly and smilingly, with his usual intuitive sense of what a guest might need. To Daphne herself she seemed an attractive figure, pretty, flushed, in a new blue dress well above the ankle and a fashionable little hat, with her own anxieties about the visit peeping out very touchingly. The handsome boy was helping Clara Kalbeck, a tactfully physical business: she came over the gravel slowly and determinedly, swathed in black, on two sticks, following Freda like her own old age.
2
Wilfrid glanced across at his sister, and then put his eye back to the chink between the shutters. His leg was burning, and his heart was thumping, but he still hoped to do it right. He saw Robbie come in to the house with the suitcases – he leant forward to watch him and nudged the door open with his cheek. ‘Not till I say,’ said Corinna. Robbie looked up and gave them a wink.
‘I know,’ muttered Wilfrid, and peered at her in the shadows with a mixture of awe and annoyance. The others seemed stuck in the porch, in endless adult talk. He could tell they were talking nonsense. He wanted to shout out at once, and he was also quite scared, as Corinna had said. The weekend loomed above him, with its shadowy guests and challenges. More people were coming tomorrow – Uncle George and Aunt Madeleine, he knew, and a man from London called Uncle Sebby. They would all be talking and talking, but at some point they would have to stop and Corinna would play the piano and Wilfrid would do his dance. He felt hollow with worry and excitement. When a fire was lit in the hall, this little cave-like passage was warm and stuffy, but today it smelt of cold stone. He was glad he had someone with him. At last Granny Sawle stepped in through the front door, and just for a second she glanced at the fireplace, with a dead look, so that Wilfrid knew she was expecting the surprise – though somehow this didn’t spoil it, in a way it made it better, and as soon as she’d dutifully turned her back he flung open his shutters and shouted, ‘Hello, Granny – ’
‘Not yet!’ wailed Corinna. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Wilfrid,’ but Granny had spun round already, a hand pressed to her heart.
‘Oh!’ she said, ‘oh!’ – and so Corinna pushed open her shutters too and shouted the correct announcement, which was, ‘Welcome to Corley Court, Granny Sawle and Mrs Kalbeck!’ with Wilfrid in hilarious unison, riding roughshod over his own mistake, and even though Mrs Kalbeck hadn’t yet made it into the house.
‘It’s too amazing!’ said Granny. ‘The very walls have voices.’ Wilfrid giggled in delight. ‘Ah, Dudley, dear’ – now his father had come in, and the dog barking. She raised her voice – ‘This ancient fireplace has miraculous properties!’
‘Rubbish, Rubbish!’ his father shouted, as the dog ran yelping and shivering towards the front door. ‘Here, Rubbish, come here! Pipe down!’; though Rubbish as usual did no such thing, and wanted to give everyone a Corley welcome of his own.
‘Quite magical!’ Granny held on.
‘Well, it won’t be magical for much longer,’ said his father, in his meaning voice, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Come on out of there, will you!’ though it wasn’t clear now if he was shouting at the children or the dog.
‘Wilfrid messed it up,’ said Corinna in a further announcement, as Mrs Kalbeck leant in through the front door, on one stick after the other, clearly alarmed as Rubbish leapt up and waltzed with her for a moment with his front paws on her tummy – she took two panting steps backwards, and the dog dropped down and sniffed excitedly round her legs, her round black shoes. After that it took a while for her to see where the young girl’s voice was coming from.
‘Frau Kalbeck, marvellous to see you again,’ said Dudley, limping quickly but very heavily across to her, so that he seemed to be playing with her, aping her or just joining in, you couldn’t tell. ‘Please ignore my children.’
‘Oh, but darling,’ said their mother, ‘the children have asked to show the guests up to their rooms.’