The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [0]
The Angel in the Corner
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 1
It was cold outside, and the winter afternoon was dropping darkly down to tea-time. In the nursery, the coal fire was a solid orange glow, capped with sticky black. Woollen underwear and towels were drying on the high brass fireguard, and the old nurse sat in the low chair, fumbling a darn with arthritic fingers.
Virginia was at the table, doing homework. When the flowered china clock on the mantelpiece struck the half hour, the nurse looked up and said a little crabbily, for she distrusted studying: ‘Time to put the books away, and set out the tea things.’
Virginia looked over her shoulder at the darkness gathering outside the window, and slid quickly off her chair to draw the curtains. Once she had seen a face looking in, and although it was only her father, she had not forgotten the terror of seeing it there in the shadows beyond the glass, like the face of a drowned man, washed over by the sea.
‘Tiny.’ She went to the chair of the bunchy old woman, who had nursed first her mother as a baby, and then herself. ‘Don’t forget what I told you about not dying.’
In the ugly, chilly house, half shut up to save expense, and restless with the noise of her mother’s heels, always in a hurry to go out somewhere, and her father’s petulant voice, the nursery was her refuge, and quiet, unchanging Tiny her best friend.
‘I’ll try dear,’ Tiny said, in the same comfortable tone with which she added: ‘Get the cups and plates out.’
As Virginia went to the chipped, oddly proportioned cupboard, which had held nursery china and toys for so long that it did not look ugly any more, the door from the hallway opened, and Virginia’s mother came in quickly, as she always moved. She was a firm-bodied, brisk woman, with dark, darting eyes and a disgruntled mouth. She shut the door behind her, and leaning against it, moved her mouth into a grin, although her eyes, looking everywhere about the room, had no smile in them.
‘Well, Tiny,’ she said, with an abrupt, strident laugh. ‘It’s happened. Just as I told you it would. You didn’t believe me, but you were wrong, you see, as usual.’
Virginia stood still by the cupboard, with a pink patterned plate in her hand. The old woman by the fire raised her eyes, screwing up the reddened, crêpey lids.
‘He’s left me.’ Again the unnatural laugh, mocking at emotion. ‘He’s gone. Never coming back. Never coming back, don’t you understand?’ She raised her voice irritably, in an attempt to ruffle the nurse into some reaction.
‘Mr Harold?’
‘Who else? Mr Harold. My beloved husband. Your father, Jinny.’ She narrowed her eyes at the schoolgirl, who still had not moved.
‘Miss Helen – please. Not like this.’ The nurse was shaking. She nodded towards Virginia. ‘Tell me about it later.’
‘Why not now?’ Virginia’s mother sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. ‘She has to know about it sooner or later. She’s ten. I’m not going to hide things from her, or feed her with fairy stories that will make it easier for her and more difficult for me. Jinny!’ She turned her sleek, black head sharply. ‘Don’t stand there like a piece of furniture. Say something.’
Virginia came forward with the plate in her hand. ‘Daddy’s gone?’
‘Yes, dear heart, and why should you care? He was never much use to you, and you can’t pretend you haven’t said you hated him.’
‘Hating,’ Virginia said, taking a breath, ‘is like a pain. But then, loving can be, too. You don’t always know which is which.’
‘Oh, don’t talk to me in clever riddles,’ her mother said. ‘It’s that school. You’ve been doing too much homework.’ She got up and took the exercise books off the table, moving about restlessly, looking for something to use as an ash-tray.
She chose the fire. She came to stand sideways in front of it, leaning her hip on the fender, flicking ash at the coals.
‘Thank God I’ve got my job,