Free The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher Page A

wrong. I wasn't. And even if I'd plucked up the courage to have a row with Nanny, and asked her to leave, Anthony would never have heard of it. He thought the sun rose and fell on her head."
    At the mention of her son's name Lady Keile had gone a little pale. Her shoulders were consciously straight, her clasped hands tightened in her lap. She said, icily, "And I suppose now that no longer has to be considered."
    Virginia was instantly repentant. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that. But I'm left now. I'm on my own. The children are all I have. Perhaps I'm being selfish, but I need them. I need them so badly with me. I've missed them so much since I've been away."
    Outside, across the street, a car drew up, a man began to argue, a woman answered him in anger, her voice shrill with annoyance. As though the noise were more than she could stand, Lady Keile stood up and went over to close the window.
    She said, "I shall miss them too."
    If we had ever been close, thought Virginia, I could go now and put my arms around her and give her the comfort she is longing for. But it was not possible. Affection had existed between them, and respect. But never love, never familiarity.
    "Yes, I'm sure you will. You've been so wonderfully good to them, and to me. And I'm sorry."
    Her mother-in-law turned from the window, brisk again, emotion controlled. "I think," she said, making for the bell-pull which hung at the side of the fireplace, "that it would be a good idea if we were to have a cup of tea."
    The children returned at half past five, the front door opened and shut and their voices rose from the hall. Virginia laid down her tea-cup and sat quite still. Lady Keile waited until the footsteps had passed the landing outside the drawing-room door and were on their way upstairs to the nursery. Then she got up and went across the drawing-room and opened the door.
    "Cara. Nicholas."
    "Hallo, Granny."
    "There is someone here to see you." "Who?"
    "A lovely surprise. Come and see." Much later, after the children had gone upstairs for their bath and supper, after Virginia herself had bathed and changed into a clean cool silk dress, and before the gong rang for dinner, she went upstairs to the nursery to see Nanny.
    She found her alone, tidying away the children's supper things and straightening the room before she settled to her nightly session with the television.
    Not that the room needed straightening, but Nanny could not relax until every cushion was plump and straight on the sofa, every toy put away, and the children's dirty clothes discarded, and clean ones set out for the following morning. She had always been like this, revelling in the orderly pattern of her own rigid routine. And she had always looked the same, a neat spare woman, over sixty now, but with scarcely a trace of grey in her dark hair which she wore drawn back and fastened in a bun. She appeared to be ageless, the type that would continue, unchanging, until she was an old woman when she would suddenly become senile and die.
    She looked up as Virginia came into the room, and then hastily away again.
    "Hallo, Nanny."
    "Good evening."
    Her manner was frigid. Virginia shut the door and went to sit on the arm of the sofa. There was only one way to deal with Nanny in a mood and that was to jump right in off the deep end. "I'm sorry about this, Nanny."
    "I don't know what you mean, I'm sure."
    "I mean about my taking the children away. We're going back to Cornwall tomorrow morning. I've got seats on the train." Nanny folded the checked tablecloth, corner to corner into perfect squares. "Lady Keile said she'd spoken to you."
    "She certainly mentioned something about some hare-brained scheme . . . but it was hard to believe that my ears weren't playing me tricks."
    "Are you cross because I'm taking them, or because you're not coming too?"
    "Who's cross? Nobody's cross, I'm sure . . ."
    "Then you think it's a good idea?"
    "No, that I do not. But what I think doesn't seem to