Winterking (1987)
Page 31
pink nipple of a plump, white-faced woman between the
blunt fingers of his huge, blood-red hands.
Martin Callaghan turned his head irritably. “Is this the
world, then?” he asked in a low voice.
“Part of it," Wykeham told him.
“And the rest?”
But Wykeham was still watching the wood. Once it had
been spring there, then summer. Now even the last warmth
of autumn was leaving the air. As he watched, what he took
for a flock of wild gulls came swirling over the lawn.
Wykeham shut his eyes and still saw them. The sky was
turning white with their wings. They beat against the blank
screen of his eyelids, falling, settling down on the earth.
When he looked again, they were standing in front of
him.
Nora was first, before them all on the steps. But Willa
was mounting beside her.
“I have com e,” she said simply.
“As I promised,” Jane said.
“As you dreamed,” said another, coming nearer. Synchronously, a spirit of laughter touching their brains, the multitude smiled on him.
VI.
Winterking
I
1.
He waited as a man waits in a cell. The gray, silent hills,
drawn away from him, seemed to rise like the walls of a
prison. This also will be a place of darkness, he thought,
dismayed. He had a sense, again, of terrible emptiness, as
if the valley itself, in spite of cities and towns, in spite
of hedgerows and the hundred million boughs of the wood,
was, in fact, the pitch-dark corridor of a hideous dungeon.
Wykeham gave a second jerk to the reins. But as quickly as
the impression came it passed.
It was a dream, he was certain. Like any dream it
was a jumble of pieces, each seeming to make the others
impossible.
For one thing the long, twisting drive seemed to wind
toward the sea. A little breeze had sprung up, carrying the
wet flavor of salt. To his ears it carried as well the hurrying
sound of waves. Turning his back to it, he gave a kick to the
ribs of the stallion so that the animal broke into a lumbering
trot. When he made the last turn of the drive, he could see
Martin Callaghan waiting. Watching the intent, dark face in
the dusk, Wykeham forgot he was dreaming.
“Where in the name of God have you been, William?”
Martin shouted.
Wykeham dropped down by the front door, giving the
reins into the hands of the stableboy.
“How is she?”, he asked.
Martin made no reply.
Together they mounted the steps. But inside he knew it
was a dream again; he was in an unreal house that only
existed when he entered it. Still, it pleased him immeasurably
to see the house spring to life around him. Women, hearing
2 4 3
2 4 4
WINTERKING
his boots on the carpet, peered out of hallways, looking up
tenderly as he passed. He could smell potatoes and ham from
the kitchen and knew that Lizzy would have a huge dinner
waiting when he came down.
The room was on the third story, at the end of a passage
that ran along by the side of the house. A dim light showed
under the door.
When he went in, Morag was reading the service.
Holmes was drawing the sheet over the head. The head made
one mound, the breasts two large others. Wykeham knelt
down, pressed his hands along the sheet. He was surprised,
full of wonder.
“What did you expect?” Morag asked him.
“I’m the father, you son of a bitch.”
“It could not be helped,” Morag told him. “There was a
storm. She was caught in it.”
In the silence that followed, they could hear the wash of
the sea below the house. Wykeham tried to move away but
could not.
“God help m e,” he whispered.
The dream Callaghan stood behind him, watching
quietly.
“It is the way the world is now,” he said, unconcerned.
He might have stopped but did not.
He said: “Tell me just what it was you wanted.”
“Nothing.”
The dream Callaghan shrugged. “As you please,” he said.
But Wykeham cried out:
“Nothing more than I had.”
A frown settled heavily on Martin Callaghan’s face.
“Very well,” he said patiently, “but when?”
That, of course, Wykeham realized, had been the first
error. But, in a way, he had half expected it, for he was always
remembering a little more than he intended. Nonetheless,
there were worse fates than too many women. If that was all
that had gone wrong, he would live with it. He looked
directly at Nora’s slender corpse, aware that outside the
dream he had saved her, that when he woke she would be
whole again.
Beyond the window the gulls went on crying. In the
darkness he could hear the cold waves crashing on the beach.
He knew the sound. It was the same beach which, world
Winterising
2 4 5
after world, he had walked with Duinn, Still, it is a dream,
he thought, reassured.
Wykeham lifted his neck.
When he reached out his arm, it was morning. Beside
him there was a warm patch in the bed where Jane had been.
The sea was gone. By the gentle vagueness of the light he
knew it was snowing.
The women were up early. When Jane came in from the
hallway, the kitchen was glowing with warmth. The kettle
steamed and puffs of drowsy smoke escaped from a crack in
the chimney. As though by right, Nora and Lizzy had the
best seats, with Olivia, on the edge of the bench, squeezed in
next to them. Mrs. Harwood, however, had to watch from the
corner, her hands resting protectively on her daughter’s small
shoulders. Between mouthfuls of jam, the child was trying to
count all the women. But the room was crowded and in the
confusion her eyes kept coming back to the Welsh girls.
Entwined in each other’s arms, they sat on the floor by the
wall exchanging glances and whispering about Fred Norfolk.
Braving the snow before daylight, he had already gone
twice to the shed where they had set up their housekeeping, to look in, he said, and see how they were doing.
Lizzy went to rinse her cup in the sink. She had a word or
two to say about Fred Norfolk and didn’t care much who
else heard. But as she stretched herself up there was a
thump on the porch.
A few too many thumps, Nora thought, who had been
expecting only Plum.
But when the door opened, it was Plum in fact, standing
on the threshold with half a hillside of snow on her
shoulders.
“Found her,” she said, panting, pulling in a bedraggled
young woman, an even greater shawl of snow covering
her.
The young woman blinked. Her skin, what they saw of
it, was blue and she was shivering. By the way she held
herself it seemed she feared something inside her would
break.
&nbs
p; The women sat her in a chair. They rubbed her all over,
toweling her long legs and thin arms until the skin was red
again and her hair a nest of limp, black curls.
2 4 6
WINTERKING
Plum dried herself.
“Like you,” she told Nora when Nora brought her a cup.
Plum drank it down.
“By the edge of the drive,” she said, “as you were.”
“Not like that I wasn’t,” Nora laughed.
“Mama,” the little girl said, “the lady— ”
Mrs. Harwood ushered the child from the room.
“Let’s try not to think of it,” said Olivia.
But the young woman by the stove was already asleep
and the talk left her even before it had started.
There were to be a great many women. The change
wouldn’t treat them all just the same. A few, perhaps, would
remain as they had been. Nonetheless, it was a new world
and the women had expected everything to be a bit strange
and were astonished when they remembered even the smallest
things exactly.
“This cup has a chip,” Lizzy said, “here on the bottom.
Now how would he know that?”
“Perhaps Fred— ” Olivia suggested.
“Don’t talk to me of Fred,” Lizzy snapped at her furiously.
But in a moment, on her own, she had launched into a long,
bitter complaint against the Welsh in general and Welsh girls
in particular.
“And what does Mr. Longford think of Mr. Morag?”
said Nora, speaking to Plum before Lizzy had run out of
curses.
“God have mercy!” Plum exclaimed loudly and grinned.
“It’s an odd life I’m in for.” She edged her way through the
crush toward the kettle. “Like a bag full of cats and myself in
between.”
Jane looked around nervously.
“Like my William,” she said.
“You mean Joseph,” said Willa, entering the conversation for the first time. “Only it’s all of us in the bag with him.”
Willa sighed.
She was a tall, handsome woman of about fifty. Her short
black hair was obviously dyed but that was the way she
remembered herself, a woman whose white skin had begun
to pucker under the eyes, that instead of the dazzling beauty
a dozen years younger whom Wykeham had transported to
seaside hotels on holidays. If she thought about it at all, she
would have said that now she was simply more comfortable.
W intering
2 4 7
But it was clear enough, Willa thought without wavering,
what Joseph saw in the girl.
“You’re the very image of myself,” she told Jane. “Although I don’t suppose it was only that he saw in you.” Her tone was hushed. It troubled Jane more than if she had
blubbered.
Jane said reproachfully:
“He can have who he wants.”
“Lord knows,” Willa said softly. “But, if we are any
measure, child, what he wants is always the same.”
Several new women had come in from the hall.
Jane looked around at them, staring. “He will marry
m e,” she announced.
In the chair by the stove the very pregnant young
woman started screaming.
He was on the stairs when His Grace noticed Nora.
Strands of her long yellow hair, shaken loose by exertion,
stuck to her neck. She was hurrying. In her arms were towels
and blankets, which she was carrying up to the third story, to
Wykeham’s room. There were plenty of bedrooms but in
most the men lingered. Wykeham, however, had quit his
room just as the house began bustling. His bed, Nora had
told them, was the biggest, and when it had become available, with three or four to help, they had brought the young woman and laid her down in it.
Nora moved toward the railing to let His Grace pass.
He held out a hand to stop her. “Have I seen you?” he
asked, watching her curiously.
“Forgive m e,” she said. “There is a young woman.”
His hand had not left her elbow.
Nora’s eyes darted to the top of the landing. “You were
on the porch,” she said quickly, “when we came. You were
standing with William.”
He nodded but it was not what he meant. His eyes took
in the curve of her neck, the flamboyant blush that began at
her throat. Surprised by her vehemence, he smiled.
“Sir, I must,” she said firmly.
He watched her expression change from impatience to
anger.
“Go on, then,” he said.
But at the top of the stairs she looked back.
2 4 8
W1NTERKING
"There is a doctor,” she called to him. “Please, if you
could find him— ”
In the middle of the stairs Martin Callaghan turned.
Off the second floor landing were a half dozen rooms.
In the first two, when he knocked, he found strangers.
“Holmes,” he cried at the third and, without pausing, walked
in.
Holmes was sitting up in the bed. The woman was mostly
dressed. She was putting on stockings. Looking His Grace
over hastily, she grinned,
“You’re up early, Your Grace,” said Holmes.
“It’s habit. I’m sorry.”
Holmes began to search for his trousers.
“There’s a patient,” His Grace told him.
By now the young woman was sitting down at the mirror,
combing her hair. Just for a moment, when he had got his
trousers onto both legs and half buttoned his shirt, Holmes’s
eyes shifted back to her.
“Which of us, do you think, is responsible?” he asked
Callaghan.
His Grace did not see what was meant.
“I’ll be quick, my girl,” Holmes said fondly, “if I can.”
He went into the hall.
“There were nine of us,” Holmes continued, trying to be
perfectly clear. “But which of us,” he asked very seriously,
“thought of her?”
The young woman weighed down the bed. Her mountainous belly, spread over the sheet, frightened Martin Callaghan unreasonably. He sat at the far end, in the comer, giving
everyone room. He was not wanted but he had come in with
the doctor. He had climbed the stairs after him, holding the
railing. He had been compelled to go slowly so that Holmes,
who was hurrying, had been forced to look back. His Grace
waved him on.
There was a chair, thankfully. The Duke thrust his heavy
shoulders against the wood. But it was not his eyes, he
thought, but the snow falling that made the room dim. The
wind, sweeping across the roofs, made whines and moans as
real as the whispers of women. The woman he had met on
the stairs was busily filling the lamp. He consoled himself
by watching her back. Once she turned sideways to look at
W intering
2 4 9
him and then swiftly, her pale blue eyes still angry, looked
away.
“She seems very near,” Plum said flatly.
“She’s in labor already,” Holmes said. But his eyes
seemed uncertain. He guessed that the woman was trying to
estimate the extent of his knowledge and so mustered an air
of co
nfidence.
“An hour, perhaps,” he said. But honesty got the best of
him. “Perhaps longer.”
The women were looking from one to another.
“I’ll need a bowl of water,” Holmes said. "To wash my
hands. And a fire. Do you think we can get a fire? It's cold as
death up here.” He finished buttoning his shirt. “There were
other rooms, I suppose,” he said. “Something nearer the
kitchen. So why in the first place— ”
He broke off when he saw the young woman staring up
at him.
Her eyes wide and amused, she lay very still, watching.
Nora, not realizing his confusion, answered simply.
“Because it’s William’s bed,” she said. “So it’s fitting.
The baby will be William’s certainly.”
Plum was squinting at her.
Nora laughed.
“By the looks of us,” Nora told her, “there’ll soon be
a great many babies. But here’s this one already, though
the world’s not a day old.” Nora ran her fingers into her
dress.
“It’s his,” she said carefully. “Either something he wanted
or, if he didn’t, that came anyway.” She laughed again. “It’s
the one thing he never could stop, things coming back to
him.”
While Nora spoke, it seemed that Holmes scarcely
breathed. The young woman in the bed was smiling at
him. She was lying in the middle of the mattress, her
large dark eyes attentive and critical, yet smiling as
well.
“Yon needn’t worry,” Carolyn told him.
His hands moved quickly, bringing the lamp nearer,
holding it up next to her, to be certain she had spoken.
“You don’t have to think about it,” she repeated. “Needn’t
concern yourself.” She settled back on the pillows. “It’s
already done. I have seen him.”
2 5 0
W1NTERKING
He waited for her to continue.
Carolyn smiled at his slowness. “Out there," she said.
She tried to turn but some heaviness restrained her. She
must have them move the bed, she thought, so she might
look with no need of turning and could watch and study him
when he came again to the window. It was such a relief to see
how tall and strong he had already become. He must be very