Great Meadow by Dirk Bogarde

she isn’t. She just tripped. I expect she was in a hurry to go out.’
    â€˜I mean it would be so terrible if she died, and especially at Christmas.’
    â€˜Well, she won’t. So don’t go on moaning.’
    â€˜I wasn’t moaning. Just saying. That’s different.’
    And then Lally came in, and she’d changed her overall and was in a starchy fresh white one, and she went into the kitchen and put on the kettle, and banged about a bit and asked us if we were behaving ourselves. Which we were.
    â€˜Is our mother all right now?’ I said.
    â€œCourse she is. She’s as fit as can be, don’t you fret. Mind you,’ said Lally, pouring boiling water into the teapot, ‘mind you, I wouldn’t swap sit-upons with her. She’ll be black and blue for a fortnight. Those silly heels she will wear! I’ve told her and told her. And she’s forever in a hurry.’ She took a tray of tea and went into the hall. ‘You can come up and see her . . . soon as maybe. She’s had a nasty fall, and she doesn’t want a whole tribe of children traipsing about her bedroom, you see if I’m right.’She started up the stairs and then turned and looked down at us.
    â€˜There’s no need for you two to stand there like a couple of empty bottles. She’ll be perfectly all right and we’re all going down to the cottage for Christmas as arranged. See?’
    â€˜All of us?’ I said.
    â€˜All of us,’ she said, going on up slowly and taking care not to spill the little milk jug. ‘And don’t forget tomorrow! Euston Station quick sharp to meet Cousin Flora. It never rains,’ she said going on up as if we couldn’t hear her, only we could, ‘but it pours!’
    Our Cousin Flora was really not bad. Even though she did come from Scotland and was quite difficult to understand when she spoke. Anyway, she was kith and kin, and real not invented. I liked her almost as much as my sister’s best friend at the convent, who was Giovanna Govoni and Italian but very easy to understand because she spoke English exactly like us. But Flora was Scots. So that made a difference. Our mother had asked her to come and have Christmas with us all because she didn’t have a mother, who had died when she was only a baby. All she had was a brother who was a bit grumpy, and a father who was very frightening and strict, wore rimless glasses and hurt your hand when he shook it and always called me ‘young feller’. So it seemed quite a kind thing to do to invite her to stay with us.
    A bit later on, just before we went to bed, we were allowed to go and see our mother in her room, which was all shadowy and very nice looking, only she seemed a bit miserable and hadn’t got any make-up on, which lookedsad too. But she said she was really quite all right, and that she would just have to stay in bed for a few days so we’d have to take over all her responsibilities and look after Cousin Flora and make her feel doubly at home. So we promised we would, and was it all right about going to the cottage for Christmas, and she said yes it was and that we’d go down with Lally on the Green-Line bus, which was terrifically exciting, and she and our father would drive down later on in time for Christmas Eve anyway. Then she seemed a bit weary, and kissed us, and said to be good and help Lally and above all make Cousin Flora feel that she was really and truly wanted.
    â€˜How can we do that?’ said my sister. ‘Make her feel we really want her?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Tell her, I suppose,’ I said.
    â€˜But then she might think that if we kept on telling her we did, that we didn’t, mightn’t she?’
    â€˜Well . . . you could give her something of yours that you really liked. I mean that would prove it.’
    â€˜What sort of thing?’
    â€˜Well . . . that doll of yours, Annabel Lee with the long legs.