'The House At Hove' by Diana Gardner

From the upstairs drawing-room of No. 18, the house which my mother took at the beginning of 1920, we could see the white cliffs on the edge of the town and, running towards them, the backs of the driving waves – for the wind was nearly always from the south-west. It was a lovely house, bow-fronted, and faced by two pillars which ran up as high as the cornice below the roof. The terrace in which it was built stood a little higher than the promenade and on grey days the rich ochre of the houses struck a warm note against the cold asphalt of the wide front and the transparent green of the sea.

Although it had been built in the regency and its rooms were large it was still easy to run just after the last war. Then servants were plentiful, and because of the growth of the town the rents were not high – although Mother was unaffected by this last consideration, for when we went to Hove she was a wealthy woman: in the previous year, and two months before his death she had been reconciled with her father, who, twenty years before, had disinherited her when she left his comfortable home to go on the stage. At the time of which I write she was still comparatively young – about forty-two – with small hands, slender ankles and a long narrow head set aristocratically on a straight neck. Her eyes were large, and nearly black. It always puzzled me why Father chose her and, having chosen, why she accepted him – they were so different. He was nearly twenty years older and had lived most of his life with two maiden sisters. When they met he was making a survey of metal deposits in a piece of out-of-the-way country near Hull. He must have pitied the tired young actress who, late one Sunday night, was admitted to his boarding-house by a reluctant landlady because the hotels were full – or he may have been fascinated by her contrast with his sisters. On her side, his calmness and silences must have appealed to her.

Within a year of their marriage I was born, and two years later Tim arrived. Two years afterwards Father's work took him abroad – to the Gold Coast – but Mother would not go with him: this was the first big difficulty in their marriage, I have been told. Father, reserved and silent, left with few words and was away for four years. Until my grandfather died Mother managed to live within the income Father provided, but the day she came into her own money her extravagance burst out like a flood. She took the house at Hove, engaged five servants and a nurse for us and entertained recklessly. Although motoring was then a luxury, she bought a large car.

There was something terribly pathetic about Mother: she became the victim of those members of once noble families who fetch up at south coast watering-places, and who play their part for anyone willing to pay. Many were the evenings during that spring when Tim and I, lying in bed in our room at the top of the house, were wakened by the throb of motor-cars and the high laughter of some of Mother's departing friends. Among the voices we could hear hers – quick and over-eager – asking them to come again. As the cars turned beneath the trees their lamps flashed across the moulded ceiling, and after they had gone and Mother had come into the house, the night would grow suddenly quiet, except for a late bus hurrying back to its depot along the empty front.

Because the beach was stony and unfit for children (a cause of annoyance to Father when he retumed home that summer) we used to play in the gardens opposite. Tim amused himself with a big red ball, while Nurse sat with a novel. I can never think about this time in my life without a sinking of the heart. The quiet, sunny garden symbolises a great emptiness. Every now and again I used to look up at the long, elegant windows of the house which, although beautiful, could give me nothing that really mattered. Mother scarcely ever joined us. Sometimes she came in for a few minutes when she returned home for lunch, but she was seldom alone.

It was that summer, during the first week in July, that Mr Patton first came to the house. He was inclined to be corpulent, and gentle – a bachelor. He had travelled all over Europe making a collection of minatures which, I believe, is now famous. There was a kindness about him which made him, of all Mother's friends, the one we liked the most. His skin was pink and soft, and he wore light suits always adorned with a dark red buttonhole. Generally he brought us a box of sweets, and sometimes mother allowed us to have tea with them in the drawing-room upstairs. While Mr. Patton told us a fairy story which continued from one tea-party to the next Mother, beside the tea-set of apple green and gold, would listen with her hands behind her head.

In the late summer Father came home. Mr Patton, who had now become almost the only visitor to the house, kept away for some days. But he arrived one wet aftemoon just before tea. The wind was fierce that day, and the paddle-boat going down-Channel against the white breakers let out a taper of black smoke against the grey sea. Nurse took us up to the drawing-room. He stood with his back to the gilt mirror above the mantel, his hands behind him and his thin head bent over. He was greyer and narrower. He found it difficult to be natural with us and could manage only a swift pat on the tops of our heads. During tea Mother seemed to be nervous: she spoke rapidly and smiled continually. Her hair, generally piled up, had been demurely parted im the middle and drawn back.

Within a few days Mr Patton had resumed his visits. After dinner he would sit with Mother and Father at the open window of the drawing-room. I do not think the men spoke much to each other – they had so little in common. Mother seemed to do all the talking and, in a deep silence, wouid turn her head toward the lighted promenade. Then one evening – I have never managed to forget it - Mother and Mr Patton went out in the warm dusk for a walk From my bed I heard the front door bang and Mr Patton's low, friendly voice followed by Mother’s high laugh. The scent of Mr Patton’s cigar reached into the bedroom. I heard them going down the road, the ring of Mother’s heels growing fainter. I lay without moving, looking on to the gently stirring trees outside.

At eleven o’clock Father came to bed. Half an hour later Mother returned. She was alone. After the front door had shut behind her I heard her on the stairs and a moment later she was in our room. For some reason which I have always regretted, I kept my head on my pillow and pretended to be asleep. She came over to us. Tim stirred and she stopped dead. But as we remained quiet, she gently drew up the painted nursery chair between the beds and sat for a long while staring at us.

Next moming she took us on the promenade. She held our hands and asked us a lot of questions. She spoke rapidly, and laughed at anything we meant to be funny. At lunch she was silent. Father, wearing a high collar and a grey cravat took no notice of us. Afterwards we went upstairs to rest We did not see Mr Patton after that. In fact, he never again came to the house. Four days later Father went for a long walk on the Downs and since it was a wild day with rain in the air Nurse took us for a brisk waik down to Portslade. It was too windy to play with the ball and we were soon covered in sea-spray. When we retumed home for lunch Mother was not there.

After tea Father came in. He came straight to the nursery'and asked us if we knew where she was. His voice was high and seemed to falter. My heart dropped at the sight of his worn, thin face and anxious eyes. But he said nothing until the following morning, when he called us into the drawing-room, after breakfast. There he told us, as we stood on either side of Nurse, that Mother had left us. I can still see his thin neck and bent shoulders in the mirror behind. She had left what money remained to Tim and me but, standing in the now hollow room, I was aware only of bewilderment and betrayal.

*****

After Father had divorced her he did not go away again. He grew even more silent and remote, and left the management of our affairs to his sister, Frances, who came to live with us. Wc saw Mother only once more. On our way home from school about a year later, she came out of one of the shelters on the promenade and approached us hesitantly. She was thinner, and her eyes seemed brighter. For a moment I could do nothing but, as the tears came into her eyes, I dropped my satchel and fiung my arms round her, while Tim stamped his boots on the pavement making little shrieks of joy.

She turned us round and walked some of the way back, gripping our hands fiercely and asking us questions, one after the other. She was very excited and her voice kept rising. But when we reached the entrance to the terrace she stopped.

    ‘I can’t come any further.’ She sounded frightened.

    ‘But you’re coming home ?’ I said. I can never describe the desolation which came over me then.

    ‘I have made you late for lunch,’ faltered Mother, panic in her eyes. ‘Whatever will they say!’ Tim now hung to her arm.

    ‘You’re not going away again?’

This was too much for her. She burst out crying and pushed us away from her. Hardly knowing that she did she came back and kissed us hoth frantically, unable to look at us, and then turned away with a sob which came from low down in her throat. As she half ran down the road, leaving us staring after her, she did not look back.

The house, austere and lovely in the pale sunshine, was all that now remained. But I remember that, as we entered, the shadows in the hall seemed to have deepened – the staircase led to an empty drawing-room. Thereafter I dared not look too long at the big windows, closed because of the approach of winter, nor at the gilt mirror which reflected only my peaky face and the empty wall beyond.

In due course Mr Patton married Mother and they went to live in Switzerland. Four years later she died suddenly, at Montreux. It was a great shock, for she was still comparatively young. Father, as he grew older, finally lost all contact with us. When I was sixteen he had a stroke and died. Aunt Frances gave up the house and we went to live with Father’s other sister in the country.

And now this war has changed everything again. Tim is married, but has been sent to Egypt, and I am nursing in a big hospital in London. During the great blitzes I worked day and night and, finally, was sent away for a rest. I went to Brighton. While there I walked down the promenade to Hove. The sight of the buildings, like palaces in the yellow light, brought back to me the old agony of Mother’s going. And then, turning by the spring trees, into the terrace, I pulled up short: in that even row of beautiful houses there was a rent like a drawn tooth.

One evening in the winter of 1940 – quite early: about six – a bomb fell there, and all that is left of the house where we lived is a heap of rubble in which you can distinguish nothing except a little piece of the wrought iron banister which used to be on either side of the curved staircase.

© Diana Gardner 1943, taken from the collection Halfway Down the Cliff (1946)

Ordering books from Persephone

You can see a complete list of Persephone Books and order online here. Or you can email us, telephone on 020 7242 9292, send a fax to 020 7242 9272 or write to the following address: Persephone Books Ltd, 59 Lamb's Conduit Street, London WC1N 3NB All Persephone Books cost £10 each plus £2 postage (see more information on ordering). We can now send a book a month for six or twelve months - more >