His lip trembled, but to his credit he didn’t begin crying again. “Yes, Mrs. Symonds.”
“Good. I’m glad you aren’t hurt, but you will have to have a punishment, with your aunt’s permission.” Mrs. Symonds glanced up at her, and Stella nodded, unsure. She’d never punished a child before.
“Now, I need an assistant for a big project in the library. Every afternoon for the next two weeks, you’re to come to the library right after school and help me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Symonds,” he murmured.
“Good.” Mrs. Symonds turned to Mrs. Yarley. “Please send the bill to Highbury House, and I will settle it.”
“A good amount of sugar went into those preserves,” said Mrs. Yarley.
“I will account for the loss of sugar as well,” Mrs. Symonds promised before turning to Stella. “Now, shall we walk home?”
“Come on, Bobby,” Stella beckoned after murmuring another apology to Mrs. Yarley.
The little boy walked by her side through the village, but as soon as they were clear of Church Street, he began to twist at her hand.
“Bobby, why don’t you run ahead and see if you can catch Mr. Gilligan in the lane? He was coming into the village to see about buying some more twine for the climbing roses,” said Mrs. Symonds.
As soon as Stella released his hand, Bobby was off like a shot. She watched him run away, the edge of his shirttail coming untucked.
“I thought that Mr. Gilligan went out this morning,” said Stella.
“He did,” said Mrs. Symonds.
They walked in silence for a while, Stella aware of the great divide between them.
“I prayed for a girl.”
Stella cast her a glance. “I’m sorry?”
“When I was carrying Robin, I prayed for a little girl. I thought it would be easier because at least I knew what it was like to be girl. But the moment I heard Robin cry, I knew he was what I wanted. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard, though.”
“When Mr. Symonds passed—”
Mrs. Symonds gave a little hollow laugh. “Long before that. Even before the war, Murray was back and forth to his London surgery. On Nanny’s Wednesday afternoons off, I would spend the hours wondering how I was going to make it through another moment of being alone with Robin. I would turn my back for one moment and he’d climb the nursery curtains or hop from sofa to end table.”
“What did you do when it became too much?” Stella asked.
“I once took him to the winter garden and locked us both in just so I could keep him from wandering off while I tried to finish embroidering Murray’s handkerchiefs.”
“Did it work?”
Mrs. Symonds’s laugh was genuine. “Of course not. If I looked away for one moment, he’d be trying to grab a rose or eat a worm he’d found.”
The moment should have been light—even filled with a warmth she’d never shared with her employer before—but Stella couldn’t laugh. Instead, she finally said the words that that been stuck in her throat for days. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“How to do what?” Mrs. Symonds asked gently.
“Be a mother to him.”
She knew she should feel something—and she did feel things. She missed her sister. She was furious at the bomb that had fallen on Joan’s flat. She was angry that Joan had died and scampered out of yet another responsibility. But mostly she felt an absence of love for this little boy.
Aunts weren’t supposed to pour their lives and souls into a child the way mothers did. Were they?
“You don’t have to be a mother to Bobby. That was your sister’s role,” said Mrs. Symonds.
“He’s all alone in the world,” she said.
“Doesn’t he have family on his father’s side?” her employer asked.
“No. None that Joan talked about, anyway.”
“Well, your nephew is not alone. He has you,” said Mrs. Symonds.
“I don’t know if I’m enough,” she confessed.
“None of us is. I believe that Father Devlin would say that that’s why we meet so many people in our lives,” said Mrs. Symonds.
Stella frowned. Never in all her years of working at Highbury House could she imagine that she would have a conversation like this with her employer.
As the empty brick pillars that had once held the gates of Highbury House came into view, Stella spotted Bobby leaning against one of the brick columns that framed the drive. He was huffing and puffing, as though he’d run a great race. Stella had a sneaking suspicion that when they got inside, she would also find him streaked with dust from the road that had stuck to splatters of syrup from the store.