Aubrey said: “I’m going to send for Nanny Benson.”

“Is that your old nanny?”

“Yes.”

“She must be very old.”

“Old … but not too old.”

“I think perhaps we should choose someone younger.”

“Good Lord no! The heavens would fall if there was a baby at the Minster and Nanny Benson not in charge.”

“I will see her, then.”

He laughed.

“You’ll not only see her, my darling, you’ll engage her.

She looked after Stephen and me and she always said she would come back and look after our children. “

“How old was she when she looked after you?”

“Quite young … as nannies go. Thirty-five perhaps … when she left us.”

“Well, she must be at least sixty now.”

“She’s perennially young.”

“How long is it since you’ve seen her?”

“About a year or so. She comes to see us now and then. She was very upset about Stephen, although I believe I was always her favourite.”

I was not very pleased at the idea, but I thought that as Aubrey was so fond of his old nanny, it might be a good idea to have her. She had evidently been devoted to the family.

I talked to Amelia about her.

“Oh yes, Nanny Benson,” she said.

“She used to visit us now and then. Stephen thought that I should have her when …”

I said quickly: “She is an old retainer. I know how important they are in families like this.”

And I left it at that.

Nanny Benson arrived a week before the birth. My fears receded, for she was so much the typical nanny. If she was sixty she did not look so old.

She was garrulous and immediately looked on me as one of her charges.

She told me, in detail, anecdotes from the childhood of her boys, Aubrey and Stephen.

I thought her methods might be a little old-fashioned, but as Aubrey was so insistent that she should be in the nursery, I thought we might have a younger woman as well who should be of my choosing. But I did not want to be too much encumbered by a nursery staff. I intended to do a great deal of the looking after of my baby myself.

Th-n the day came. My pains started in the early morning and before nightfall I was delivered of a fine healthy boy.

I had never been so happy as when I lay back exhausted in my bed and they put my son in my arms.

He might look like an old gentleman of ninety with a red and wrinkled face, but to me he was the most beautiful thing on Earth.

From that moment he was my life.

The weeks which followed were completely given to him. I could not bear him to be out of my sight. I wanted to do everything for him. I knew now what it was to love another person wholeheartedly. When he cried I was in an agony of fear that something might be wrong with him; when he crowed to show he was content, I was blissfully happy. As soon as I awoke in the morning I would go to his cradle to assure myself that he was still alive. When I fancied he knew me, I was ecstatically happy.

He was to be called Julian. It was a name which had been used quite frequently in the St. Clare family.

Aubrey said: “One day, all this will be his. So it is as well to make a proper St. Clare of him. ” Aubrey was proud to have a son and heir, but apart from that, he did not show any particular interest in the boy. When I put him into his arms, he held him gingerly and Julian expressed his disapproval by screaming lustily until I took him, when he gurgled with contentment at the change.

Amelia planned to leave after the christening. I felt very sad about that, but I could not think about anything very much which did not concern my child.

The christening took place at the end of May. Little Julian behaved well and looked splendid in the St. Clare christening robes which Nanny Benson knew all about and which had been laundered under her eyes.

She had settled in very cosily.

“Into my old room,” she said. There she had a spirit lamp on which she constantly made cups of tea. She had quite an addiction to tea; and I knew that on occasions she laced it with whisky.

“Just a little bit of old Scotland,” she called it.

“Nothing like it to put a bit of life into you.”

She was quite easy to get along with because she did not interfere too much. I think she liked her comforts and no doubt was too old to want to take on the entire charge of a new baby, but she was so delighted to be back in the St. Clare nursery that I had not the heart to say her presence was not necessary besides, I really did not want anyone else to be with my baby. I wanted him all to myself!

I hardly noticed how little I saw of Aubrey. Often he went visiting friends and spent a few days away from the Minster. I did not miss him. My life was tuned to that of my son.

The time came for Amelia’s departure.

The night before she went she came to my room to say her last farewell, for neither of us wanted an emotional leave-taking in the morning.

It was late afternoon. Julian was asleep and so, I suspected, was Nanny Benson. She often dozed in the afternoon after partaking of tea augmented by ‘a little bit of old Scotland’.

“I shall be off fairly early in the morning,” said Amelia.

“I am going to miss you so much.”

“You’ll be all right. You have the boy … and Aubrey.”

“Yes.”

There was a silence and then she said: “I have been wanting to say something for a long time. I don’t know whether I should. It’s been worrying me quite a bit. Perhaps I shouldn’t … but somehow I think I ought.”

“What is it, Amelia?”

“It’s about… Aubrey.”

“Yes?”

She bit her lips.

“At times … Stephen was very worried about him.

There had been . trouble. “

My heart began to beat fast.

“Trouble? What trouble?”

“He was sometimes difficult. Well, not on the surface. He was very charming, really. It was just … Well, he became involved with some odd people. They did strange things.”

“What strange things?”

“I believe they lived rather wildly. He was sent down from the university. It may have been that he got into the habit there, Stephen had difficulty in hushing it up. Then he went abroad. I just think you ought to know. But perhaps you shouldn’t. That is how it has been going on in my mind. I’ve been turning it over and over, asking myself whether I should tell you or not. But I think it is better to be prepared.”

“Yes,” I said, ‘it is better to be prepared. Do you mean that he experimented in taking drugs? “

She looked at me in surprise. She did not reply for a moment but I knew that was what she did mean.

She avoided my eyes.

“People who do, can act very strangely when they are under the influence of them. Of course it was all long ago.

Perhaps it is over now. There was that man. I always thought he was to blame in some way. He was here once or twice. Stephen thought the world of him. He was a doctor . an authority on drugs. He had done all sorts of odd things . going native and all that. He has written about it . so frankly. I always felt a little afraid of him.

I suppose it in was because of what I had read. I wondered if it was through him that Aubrey had begun to experiment. Stephen always insisted that the doctor’s interest in drugs was to be able to use them for the good of mankind and that it was small-minded to regard other civilizations as backward because they differed from our own. In some ways they could be more advanced. Stephen and I almost quarrelled about the man.

“Damien sounds like Demon,” I said. And I thought of him as the Demon Doctor. Stephen said I was ridiculously prejudiced. Oh dear, perhaps I should not have spoken. Something just made me. I thought you ought to know. I - er think you should be watchful of Aubrey . and if ever that Dr. Damien should come here . be on your guard. “

She was looking at me fearfully and I said: “You did right to tell me.

I will be watchful. I hope I never have to see this man. Stephen gave me his book to read. It is mysterious and er sensual. and really rather disturbing. It has qualities like those I found in Sir Richard Burton’s books. They both fascinate and repel. “

“Stephen admired both men so much. I read only one. I had no desire to read more. Stephen used to say that when he read them it was like taking a trip into those far-off countries. The writing was so vivid.”

“It’s true,” I said.

“But I believe with you that the writers are dangerous men, even if remarkable. I believe they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.”

“I always thought that it was because of this man that Aubrey began to experiment. He may have wanted to see what effect drugs would have on a man like Aubrey. I don’t know. I’m only guessing. I don’t suppose Aubrey would do such a thing now …”

She looked at me anxiously. I understood perfectly what she was trying to tell me. I was beginning to fit together a picture of what very likely happened on that never-to be-forgotten night.

I almost told Amelia of it, but I could not bring myself to talk of it even to her. Of one thing I was sure: I would never endure that degradation again.

I thanked her for what she had told me, assuring her that she had been right to do so.

We did not say much more after that. We took a fond farewell and promised ourselves that we should meet again soon.

I suppose most unsatisfactory marriages break up gradually. The disintegration of mine certainly began on the night in Venice. True, I had made excuses for Aubrey, but I had always known that those impulses must have been in him somewhere, otherwise they would not have come out in any circumstances. I sensed that he was equally discontent with the marriage. I had failed him just as he had failed me. I was ready to believe that in these situations the blame cannot be all on one side.

I can say that when I married him it was with the intention of being a good wife. Perhaps he also first intended to be a good husband; but as his character was being revealed to me, I was realizing that I had made just about the biggest mistake a woman can make.

And yet . out of it had come Julian. And how could I regret anything that had brought me my child.

For the first two months after Julian’s birth I was too absorbed in him to think about much else.

Aubrey did say: “Aren’t you getting rather absurd, darling? After all, old Nanny Benson is there. Must you always be dashing off to the nursery?”

“Nanny Benson is rather old.”

“She has looked after children all her life. She’s more experienced than you are. You’re so nervous about that child, you’ll be upsetting him if you are not careful.”

There might be some truth in what he said; but I could not help it. I sensed the criticism in Aubrey’s words and manner. I was so overwhelmed by motherhood that I was not bothering to be a good wife.

Through Julian I formed a relationship with Mrs. Pollack, the housekeeper. Before, she had seemed to me a very formal woman, deeply conscious of her position in the household, humourless and something of a martinet. But since the coming of Julian she had changed. She looked completely different when she saw the baby; her face would be forced into a smile, which appeared to be most reluctant and was all the more genuine for that.

“I have to tell you. Madam,” she said as though admitting to something sinful, “I do like to see little babies.”

When I walked with him in the gardens, she would contrive to be there.

When she thought he smiled at her, she was filled with delight. When he grabbed her finger, she marvelled at his intelligence; and Mrs. Pollack’s adoration of my baby brought us closer together.

I sometimes had a cup of tea with her in her sitting-room, and took Julian with me. I felt a certain pleasure in having a friend in the house and such a stalwart, honest woman. She knew a little about babies too. She had had three of her own.

“All married and gone away now. Madam. But that’s how it is.” She shook her head slowly.

“You remember them as little ones when they depended on you … and then they’ve gone to live lives of their own. Oh, mine are good enough to me. I could go and live with my Annie, but I don’t think that’s right for the young somehow. I wish they could stay little babies.”

I was so pleased to find that Mrs. Pollack was quite human after all. I believed that she would have been a better nurse than Nanny Benson.

I asked her once why she had not found a post looking after children rather than keeping a household of servants in order.