Chapter Eleven

 The Stuffed Rabbit 

It had been a long day for Darrell Rivers. 

    She peered into the cot. A branch tapped irregularly against the windowpane in the nursery. They had decided, during the overhaul of the house, this was the best room for the nursery. Darrell inspected the chubby creature lying in the cot. 

    She had been on the planet now for twenty months. 

    Darrell had bought the toy rabbit, which she had named St. Leonard, when the girl was born. She watched the toddler chew the ear of the now tatty rabbit and wiggle about. She wondered when it would be moved out of its cot. ‘Surely, it’ll be too old soon. She must have a proper bed.’ But Darrell was not all together knowledgeable about young children, which was one of the reasons she was hesitant to spend any time alone with it. She took off her yellow party hat and let it dangle by her side, her grip loose and uncaring. ‘Does the child,’ Darrell asked herself, ‘have a genuine attachment to the toy or has it only been placed there by Sally, to make me feel better?’ 

    Darrell contemplated how their lives had changed since their graduation from St. Andrew’s. ‘It seems a lifetime ago,’ she thought, feeling bored and tired. She leaned against the cot to see if she could stir the infant. Darrell thought an almost-two-year-old girl might be a bit cleverer than this. She inspected her face. It had Sally’s kindly cheeks, but Darrell supposed all babies have rosy cheeks. ‘Does it have Eddie’s eyes?’ They had met Edward in their final year. He sang in the choir. During an odd period of reflection, while Samantha was suffering through a bout of influenza, they had visited the chapel, and happened on Edward singing. 

    ‘Is she alright?’ Sally asked, returning to the nursery. 

    ‘You were only a moment,’ Darrell said, yawning. ‘Did your cousins have a nice time?’ 

    Sally had left the nursery to say good-bye to her extended family, who had visited for Eddie's birthday. Sally’s parents and her sister, Daffy, were staying in the house for the long weekend, along with Darrell. Darrell was pleased that the cousins had left. They were terribly dull, and she had hated having to make conversation, especially while the chocolate cake was being cut, and everyone was pretending to be excited, as the baby took a sloppy bite and pulled an immediately disgusted face. ‘I don’t think she likes it,’ Sally had said, in the kitchen, the whole party assembled, trying to make a joke of it. But Eddie liked his cake, and that was the main thing.  

    ‘I hope so,’ Sally said, answering Darrell’s question. ‘She’s tuckered out, look.’ Darrell looked. The girl was asleep. ‘Come on, shall we have coffee? Daffy has some poetry to read to us,’ Sally scoffed, ‘and I believe it’s rather funny.’ 

    ‘It is not funny!’ Darrell and Sally turned to the nursery threshold. Daffy was standing there, her hair all a mess, her shrewd eyes pinning Sally to her spot. ‘It’s not funny at all,’ Daffy went on, pleased that she had surprised the two women. ‘I shan’t read. It was all Mother’s idea anyway.’ 

    ‘Daffy, I didn’t mean to –’ but before Sally mustered her apology, Daffy had disappeared from the doorway. Darrell couldn’t help but smile. ‘I don’t know what’s funny,’ Sally said, rubbing her eyes. 

    ‘Neither does Daphne,’ Darrell retorted. They both laughed now. If Darrell wasn't so worn-out by the party, she might’ve liked to do one of her old walks. ‘I should avoid that spot, though,’ Darry thought, as Sally led her downstairs to the drawing room for coffee. Darrell thought about that spot. The cliff edge. She couldn’t help returning to it. ‘Perhaps my life is a story, planned out, with familiar rhythms to support the reader through their journey.’ Darrell had been thinking a good deal about fiction writing, since she had started writing a little for the paper. ‘A tale told by an idiot,’ Darrell smiled to herself, pleased that she had remembered an appropriate line from Shakespeare. Darrell had an article to finish for the day after tomorrow. She might start it tonight, or she might do all her work tomorrow, and perhaps she could write before breakfast tomorrow morning. She decided to leave the article until tomorrow. She barely had the energy to think, let alone compose five hundred words on the horticultural show. Eddie would drive her to London tomorrow, still high on his birthday, like a child, after breakfast, around ten o’clock, and that suited Darrell fine. She had barely spent time alone with Eddie, since they had all left St. Andrew's. 

    Darrell wondered, if a large manor house on the Cornish coast had been part of her inheritance, and her own aunt had died, if Edward would have chosen her, instead of Sally. 

    It had been a bone of contention in the Hope family, Darrell learned, that Aunt Mary had left her house to Sally. Aunt Mary had no children of her own, and her husband had died before her. She might’ve left the house to her sister, Sally’s mother, but she might as well have left it to Sally, her eldest niece, which she did. Darrell was in no position to pry, even if she wanted to. She thought it must be strange for Sally to live here. 

In the next room, Darrell could hear someone speaking softly. 

    She crawled onto the bed, which was far too small for her now, and put her ear to the wall. She could hear words intermittently. She seemed to hear the same words repeated. There was emphasis. ‘She must be practicing her poetry,’ Darrell thought, sitting on the bed, facing the wall. There were cracks in the plaster. Darrell wondered when the married couple would get round to decorating the second floor. ‘You’ve done a fine job with it,’ she’d said to Sally and Edward, in the generous hallway, when she’d arrived the day before the birthday party. ‘I’d barely recognise it.’ This had not been entirely true. Everywhere Darrell looked she saw traces of Aunt Mary. She switched off the lamp on the bedside table. In the next room, Daffy was awake past her bedtime. She would be eleven soon. A proper little lady. Darrell drifted to sleep and thought about the article she’d write tomorrow, while Daffy repeated the last line of her poem. 

Eddie had learned to drive tractors as a boy, on the farm, so when he drove a normal car, he maneuvered the clutch forcefully and had no patience for other drivers on the road. ‘Bloody hell! Can you not see, old man?’ Eddie shouted to the driver in front of him. ‘Some of us would like to get to where we’re going.’ The drive to London would take the whole morning. Darrell supposed Edward’s elder brothers, who ran the farm, were to blame for his erratic disposition, as they bullied him as a child. ‘I’m in no particular rush,’ Darrell said, feeling the wind rush through her hair, as Eddie overtook the driver. He had opened the car windows, as it was turning into a rather stuffy day. Darrell tried to relax. ‘That’s good of you to say, but you have your articles to write, and surely lots of people to meet.’ Eddie smiled and rested his hand on Darrell’s leg.