Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

“You’re very much younger than we expected,” he said when he had asked about her journey and received an enthusiastic reply about the beauty of the landscape and the kindness of her fellow travellers.

She acknowledged the possibility of this, tilting her head slightly in what seemed to be her considering mode.

“Might that be an advantage? I mean, there’s a lot to do.”

“Yes. But some of the older children are not easy.” He thought of Bruno, who that morning had defiled the Greek temple with his opinion of eurythmics, and Frank, who was on his fifth psychoanalyst and had seizures in unsuitable places when his will was crossed.

“I’m not afraid of children,” she said. “What are you afraid of then?”’

She pondered. He had already noticed that it was her hands which indicated what she was thinking quite as much as her face and now he watched as she cupped them, making them ready to receive her thoughts.

“Not being able to see, I think,” she said. “Being blind, you mean?”’

“No, not that. That would be terribly hard but Homer managed it and our blind piano tuner is one of the serenest people I know. I mean… not seeing because you’re obsessed by something that blots out the world. Some sort of mania or belief. Or passion. That awful kind of love that makes leaves and birds and cherry blossom invisible because it’s not the face of some man.”

For a moment he allowed hope to rise in him. Might she see how important it was, this job he was asking her to do? Might she have the humility to stay? Then he forced himself on to the denouement.

“I’m afraid I didn’t have the chance to lay out your duties completely in my letter. My secretary, Margaret Sinclair, will tell you anything you want to know, but briefly it’s a question of seeing that the children’s rooms are clean and tidy, that they get to bed on time, of collecting their laundry and so on. We try to see that everyone speaks English during the day. I suppose the English language is the single most important thing we have to offer now. Not because it is the language of Shakespeare,” he said wi/lly, touching the bust of the man who made the whole vexed question of being British into a source of pride, “but because increasingly parents look to England and America to save them from the scourge of Nazism. But at night you can let them chatter in their own tongue.”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course I will do all that, but I was wondering how much time I should spend—”’

Ah, here it comes, he thought, and his weariness was the greater because for a moment he had believed in her integrity.

“Ellen, I have to make one thing absolutely clear,” he said, not letting her explain to him that she was an experienced producer of operas for the Fabian Society or had understudied Ariel in Regent’s Park. “Your job is an arduous one and absolutely full time. Of course you could watch rehearsals at the weekend-last year we did The Lower Depths by Gorky-and if you wish it you could join the choir, although our music teacher has gone to fight in Spain. And the weekly meetings in which the productions are discussed are open to everyone, but—”’

Ellen’s eyes widened. She half rose from her chair.

“Oh please, I can’t sing at all. And I’m not very good at meetings. I was brought up with meetings and they always make me fall asleep. Surely—”’ She drew breath and tried again. “Of course I’ll do anything I have to do… but what I wanted to know is how much time I’m entitled to spend in the kitchen.”

“Entitled?”’

“Yes. Obviously the welfare of the children comes first, but it’s not easy to separate children from what they eat and I can’t supervise the kitchen staff without doing some of the cooking myself, it wouldn’t be fair on them. And quite honestly, Mr Bennet—”’

“Bennet. We’re very informal here.” Ellen, remembering the appendix scar, nodded. “Well, Bennet, I just think it would be rather unfair if I had to watch rehearsals and listen to meetings about The Lower Depths when I could be cooking.”

Bennet closed his mouth which had been very slightly open.

“You mean you have no desire at all to act? To be an actress?”’

“Good heavens no! I can’t think of anything worse-always in the dark and getting up at midday and worrying what people think about you.”

“Or to produce?”’

She leant back and clasped her hands behind her back. She looked thoughtful and-there was the word again — happy. “Oh yes, I’d like to produce. I’d like to produce a perfect crêpe suzette for everyone in the school. It’s easy for one person-but for a hundred and ten… That’s what interests me very much. How to quantify good food.” She broke off and looked out of the window. “Oh good, how very nice of them! What kind and helpful boys!”

Bennet followed her gaze. There were a lot of ways of describing Bruno and Frank, his two most objectionable seniors, but this was not one of them. Bruno was trundling a wheelbarrow on which were piled a broken spinning wheel, a shattered wooden chair and a pair of ancient bongo drums towards the kitchen gardens. Behind him followed Frank, dragging a sack from which various scrolls protruded and a battered guitar case.

“I asked them to make a bonfire. No one seemed to want the stuff in my room and they said they’d be very careful and only light it in the incinerator.” And, as Bennet was silent, “You don’t mind?”’

“No,” said Bennet. “I don’t mind at all.”

At the door, leaving to go, she paused. “There’s something I think we should have here.”

Bennet glanced at the letter from his stockbroker lying on his desk. “Is it expensive?”’

She smiled. “I don’t think so. I’d like us to have storks. Only I don’t know how to make them come. One needs a wheel, I think.”

“You must ask Marek, he’d know. He’ll be back in a few days.”

She nodded, thinking of the tortoise. “Yes,” she said, “he’d know. I see that.”

After she had gone, Bennet limped over to the window and looked out over the lake. Was it possible that something could go right? That she would stay and work-that in her care his children would be seen?

And Tamara is away, he thought. She had not, as he had asked her, organised the turning out of Ellen’s room, but when had Tamara done anything he had asked her? But he would not go down that road. Tonight he would not work late on the accounts. He would go to bed with a large whisky and golden Nausicaa in Homer’s tensile, homely, heart-stopping Greek.

“She won’t last a week,” said Ursula, sitting in her hideous striped pyjamas on the edge of her bed.

Sophie sniffed back her tears and agreed. With the advent of darkness the hope she had felt when she met Ellen had died. Ellen would barricade herself into her room like the others had done, Frank and Bruno would go on sliding up and down the corridor and crashing into doors-and her father would go further and further away, past America where he was giving lectures, and disappear over the rim of the world for ever.

“I get so tired,” she said.

Ursula shrugged. She didn’t mind Sophie as much as she minded most people, but she was soppy. Ursula got by on hatred-for her ancient grandparents in their horrible house in Bath, for Frank who teased her because she wore braces on her teeth, for Dr Hermine who breastfed her revolting baby during Movement Classes and expected Ursula to give birth to herself or be a fork. Above Ursula’s bed was a row of the only human beings for whom she felt concern: a series of Indian braves in full regalia.

The door opened and the new matron entered. “I came to say goodnight and see if you needed anything.”

She came over to Ursula’s bed, smiled down at her, put the bedclothes straight. For a dreadful moment Ursula thought she was going to kiss her, but she didn’t. She stood looking carefully at the labelled portraits Ursula had put up: Little Crow, Chief of the Santees, Geronimo, last of the Apaches and Ursula’s favourite, Big Foot, dying in the snow at Wounded Knee.