‘I would love to, but the sea does not agree with me,’ she lied.
They looked doubtful. ‘It’s the smell, you see,’ she improvised. ‘It is very bad for my chest. But you will have many weeks there to enjoy yourselves.’
‘When we come back, we do Peter Pan again,’ Rabia said.
Their English had come on amazingly well over the last year and the play had been a great success within the harem, even though each of them, Lydia included, had been forced to act at least three parts.
‘Perhaps we could do a different play?’ she suggested.
‘What do we do?’ Rabia was already jumping up and down.
‘I will think about it while you’re away.’
She felt desperately sad at having to lie to children she loved, but it was necessary. On no account must she let them suspect their governess would not be at Topkapi when they returned. The Valide Sultan had been clear in her instructions, relayed by Sevda and repeated several times. Lydia kissed them both, one kiss for each cheek, and helped them into the carriage. It was the last time she would see them and she had to fight back the tears, pasting on a bright smile until the vehicle disappeared from sight.
Her world felt as though it had reached its end. The princesses would be by the seaside, but where would she be? Her future was still a large black hole. The days were ticking by and she must do something. The cloud that had menaced her from a distance would soon be a tempest, and she was in the middle of it. A cheap room in the city is what she must look for. She had heard only once from Ismet, a message delivered through her window by a furtive Latif. He had expressed the stilted hope that all was well with her, but nothing more. She had not replied but wondered now if she dared ask him for help – if she could find him. He would know of somewhere she could afford and he owed her that at least. But when she returned to her room, she found writing the note an impossible task. He had been cold and indifferent when they’d last met, so how would he react when he read of the baby? Shock, distaste, a desperation not to be involved in something so indecorous. She laboured for a long time on a carefully crafted message, but then tore it into small pieces. She could not do it – it was too humiliating.
A month to the day after the girls had left for their summer sojourn, the pains began. At first it was nothing worse than a cramp in her stomach and she rode it easily enough. But within the hour, the cramps had grown in intensity and the interlude between them become shorter. She had called out with that first sharp pain and three of the older women in the harem had bustled through her door. They have been waiting for this, she thought. Through the haze of pain, they helped her undress and laid her on a large sheet with which they had covered the divan. She was only vaguely aware of their preparations but saw bowls of water being brought and a stack of towels placed on the chest. She would have liked Sevda to hold her hand, but the young girl had been barred from the room. Instead, one of the women, a mother in the making herself, chafed Lydia’s hands while another laid sweet-smelling cloths on her forehead.
She tried not to call out again, but it took all her fortitude. At intervals, a searing pain roared through her as though her body was made of glass and was breaking in two. Then she could breathe again – though not for long. As her muscles twisted and squeezed harder and harder, the pain became unbearable and she began to drown in it, caught in the undertow of a wave she could not control. She yelled out again, and the women smiled in response and nodded knowingly. ‘Ssh,’ one said, making a soft sweeping action with her hand. They want me to relax, she thought. How stupid.
But she tried to let go, not fight the pain, allow the wave to pass unhindered until release came again. Two hours, three hours, half a day, passed. She had no notion of time. She was trapped in an underworld of pain and smiling women. Then at last, a colossal, overwhelming desire to push, and the pain left her. She was whole again. She heard the murmurs of the women, felt them washing and tidying her, and then a shawled bundle was put into her arms. She was aware of the door opening and Sevda appearing at her bedside, pink with pleasure.
‘Miss Lydia. You have son. He is beautiful.’
Chapter Twenty Seven
Constantinople, September 1906
Early that morning she had flung the windows wide, but the sudden return of high summer had made the room unbearably hot. Her son seemed not to mind. He lay, couched in her lap, while she waved a fan of peacock feathers to and fro, barely stirring the torpid air. He was a most obliging baby, Lydia thought, and stroked his cheek with her forefinger, any thought of his being an intruder abandoned since the moment she first held him in her arms. He opened one eye, looking for all the world like a buddha just awakened, and making his mother laugh.
‘You are true to your namesake,’ she murmured into his ear.
The baby’s face puckered slightly. He was smiling at her, she was certain, and despite the heat she gathered him to her breast and hugged him tightly.
‘He smiled!’ she said to Sevda, who had come quietly into the room.
‘Really?’ The girl’s face expressed polite scepticism. ‘Babies do not smile for a month, maybe two?’
‘Well, Charlie did,’ Lydia said stoutly. ‘He is a happy baby.’
‘He is.’ Sevda came across to the window where Lydia sat and lifted the baby from her lap. ‘But maybe it is too hot to hold him.’
‘I suppose.’ Reluctantly, she let Charlie go, and her companion gently lowered his tiny form onto the cool sheet of the cradle. ‘Sevda, is he not the most beautiful child you have ever seen?’
The girl smiled indulgently. ‘You are in love with him, Miss Lydia.’
‘Is that so bad?’
‘Not bad. Not at all, but…’
The big ‘but’. Lydia knew what Sevda wanted to say but could not. Charlie was two weeks old and the time was passing quickly. Esma and Rabia would return to Topkapi the next week and their erstwhile governess must be gone. The girls had written already – a few lines of their best English – to say how much they were looking forward to seeing her again, and would she find them a particular book a cousin had mentioned. She had gone to the library and asked Harry Frome, who had found it immediately and set it aside. It was the only time she’d ventured beyond the haremlik for months and she made sure to be at her liveliest with anyone she met, wanting to allay any suspicion she was in trouble.
But she was, since she still had no idea of what she should do, other than to find a room. Sevda had stopped urging her to buy a ticket for the London-bound train, realising her friend was adamant that she would not, could not, return home. At some point, Lydia knew she must find the courage to write to her family, to reassure them she was well. She would say she intended to stay and travel a while in Turkey now that her contract at Topkapi was ended. She doubted she would have the courage to tell Alice that she had a nephew.
‘Today you must look for somewhere to live, Miss Lydia,’ Sevda dared to say at last. ‘Go into the city this evening when it is cooler and ask. I will come to the room and stay with the baby.’
‘I will go. But tomorrow.’ She wanted to push the future away, not think what it held for her, for Charlie. It would be a miserable room in the poorest part of a city she did not know; it was all her small pot of savings would buy. And for how long?
‘The women have made more clothes for you,’ her friend said brightly, trying to inject some hope into a hopeless situation.
‘More clothes! I shall soon be able to open a shop.’ A stack of beautifully embroidered gowns was already assembled on the chest top. ‘And I cannot even finish a small purse. Shame on me.’
‘You must take it with you when you leave.’
‘I will, dear Sevda, and I will embroider your name bright and bold so no one can mistake whose purse it is!’
Sevda spread the new garments across the existing pile. ‘I am sure you will need all of these. Baby will grow quickly.’
‘I know and I am most grateful. I must thank all the women before I
leave.’
She realised now how much she would miss the harem, or rather miss the comradeship the women offered. She was leaving for a world where she knew no one. When she walked through the palace gates, she would be completely alone. It was a terrifying prospect. For herself, she cared nothing, but for her baby, she was sick with worry.
Charlie’s birth had changed everything. Had changed her. He had brought alive feelings that for a long time she had suppressed. When her brother died, she had turned away; she had been desperate to save herself from the pain that pervaded every corner of the Pimlico house. But loving this new Charlie had been a revelation. She saw how selfish she had been. Unbearably selfish, cutting herself free at the expense of those who loved her. She hoped she was no longer that person. She had never meant to be.
All she had wanted was to live life on her own terms, to be free of the shackles that bound all too tightly. As long as she could remember, she had nursed a powerful sense of injustice, an anger that women were not respected for themselves, but lacked any power to change their lives. She had wanted to make an impression on the world, but the world had not valued her rightly – not for her looks or her person, nor for her ability to manipulate and charm, but for the woman she was. Yet looks and charm were exactly what she had found herself deploying – her sense of a true self had proved surprisingly fragile. Until Charlie. In loving her child, she had found that deeper, truer self and for the first time in her life she felt at peace. If she still challenged, it was not now to change the world but to protect this small creature for whom she cared more than life itself. If she were still bold, it was to confront a censorious world for his sake.
When Sevda left, she spent a long time watching her small son sleep before reaching for her book. The room had grown even hotter as the sun rose high and Constantine the Great did not make for easy reading. Small dribbles of sweat dotted her forehead and she began rubbing her eyes and twisting her hair clear of her neck. She got up and walked across to the cot where Charlie slept on, undisturbed by the stifling atmosphere. If she were quick, she could run to the bathroom before he woke and sluice herself in cold water.
She was gone minutes only, but when she returned she saw the door to her room was open and a figure was bending over the carved wood cradle.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked sharply.
Naz spun round. ‘I look at baby. Beautiful.’
‘Yes, he is beautiful. But I do not want him disturbed.’ The protective armour she had grown strengthened even more.
‘It is boy.’
Lydia frowned. ‘Did you not know that?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well, now that you’ve confirmed it for yourself, perhaps you should go.’
Naz, understanding the word ‘go’, left quickly. Lydia’s serenity was momentarily punctured. She did not trust the girl and never would, yet Charlie slept peacefully still, unmolested. She dragged her chair across the room to sit by the cradle, and casting Constantine aside, gave herself up to contemplating her son’s perfection.
* * *
The next day she was again sitting by the window, this time feeding the baby, who was drinking noisily from her breast, when the door opened and Sevda came in, looking anxious.
‘What now?’ Lydia asked wearily. ‘You can tell the Valide Sultan I intend to leave on Monday.’
‘No, not Valide Sultan. But there is a message for you.’
‘Who on earth from?’ She noticed Sevda was looking paler than usual and her pulse quickened. The baby, sensing her tension, stopped sucking.
‘This note was delivered by Ibrahim.’ She waved a small piece of white paper in the air. ‘He works in the offices.’
‘I know who he is.’ Lydia moved the baby to the other breast and Charlie began feeding again. ‘But what does he want with me?’
‘It may be that Monsieur Paul has sent him,’ Sevda suggested delicately. ‘Ibrahim is his clerk.’
‘I can’t think it would be, but why don’t we find out? Read the message.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Of course, I’m sure. There is nothing he has to say I would wish to keep from you.’
Sevda opened the folded note and scanned the page. ‘He says – oh no, it is not from Monsieur Paul Boucher, but from Monsieur Valentin.’
Lydia felt a sickness settle in her stomach. The man’s name was enough to make her hold Charlie more tightly.
‘He say, “Please come to my son’s office this evening at six o’clock. He will not be there but I will. Come alone. I have a proposition for you.” It is signed Valentin Boucher. That is it. What can it mean?’
‘I have no idea and I won’t be going to find out.’
Sevda slumped onto the divan. ‘Do you think he knows?’ She nodded towards the now sleeping Charlie.
‘Naturally, he knows. He is omnipotent.’ She tried to joke, though she was feeling unnerved.
‘Then think, Miss Lydia. Maybe he offers you money to help with the baby. You will need it.’
She considered this for a while. ‘Do you really think that possible? If so, he would have to be a very different man from the one I met.’
‘Maybe his son ask him.’
‘Paul is controlled by his father. He would never dare suggest such a thing. And what about Paul’s wife? Offering money would be tantamount to admitting paternity.’
The girl did not understand and Lydia shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, Sevda. I cannot imagine why he wants to see me, but your suggestion is a good one. Just in case there is money for Charlie, I will go. I need every lira I can lay my hands on.’
That evening she wore one of the outfits she had brought from England, hoping she looked serious and determined, a young woman who had come at Boucher’s request but would ask nothing from him. Just before six, she wrapped Charlie in his shawl and took him to the meeting room. The women were about to eat and slaves had already brought the large round trays piled high with dishes and placed them on small, portable tables. But as soon as Lydia appeared in the doorway, food was forgotten and the women gathered excitedly around her, clucking over the baby, cooing and stroking him, and waving wooden rattles with enthusiasm. An older woman took him from her arms when she explained she would be gone a very short while and began singing what sounded like a lullaby. He would be in good hands.
The office door was ajar when she arrived, and for a second she paused on the threshold. The last time she had been here, it was to play the opening scene to her downfall. But she would not think in that way. She could not wish Charlie away. Ever.
Valentin Boucher looked up as she walked through the door. ‘I am glad you came, Miss Verinder.’
‘Why would I not? I cannot stay long though.’ Her tone was brusque in an effort to control her nerves. The sight of this bear of a man had sent her stomach somersaulting.
‘Please sit.’
‘I prefer to stand.’
‘As you wish,’ he said indifferently.
They stood facing each other, their stony expressions a mirror image.
‘I will be brief. You have recently given birth to a child, a boy. I have reason to believe the child is related to me. Am I correct?’
She did not answer him.
‘I shall take your silence as assent. We need not discuss past history – I imagine it is painful to you – but then your future seems destined to be as painful.’
Sevda had been right. He had brought her here to offer her money. She did not want to take it, she wanted nothing to do with this man or his family, but she could not afford to reject a sum that might provide security for herself and her baby.
When she still made no response, he said, ‘I cannot see how you will cope with a small child when you are without support. Without a husband. The slightest suspicion that a woman is not chaste ensures she is looked down upon by everyone. Yours is not, shall we say, a regular situation. I am prepared to help you.’
Here it comes, she thought. Would that he
lp be enough to set her up in a small house of her own? The man was so rich he would hardly notice a dent in his stack of gold.
‘This is my proposal. I will take the boy and raise him as my grandson. He will have everything that money can buy. He will have a father and a mother – Elise will be a good mother. She has been disappointed in that regard. We have all been disappointed. But in this way we can alleviate a sad situation. In fact, two sad situations. My son will let it be known that he is adopting the orphaned child of a distant relative. It will be seen as a benevolent act for the child’s own good.’
Lydia grasped the back of a nearby chair. She thought she might faint for the first time in her life. She could hardly believe what she had heard. Boucher was not offering her money. He wanted Charlie – for Elise, for himself.
‘And for you, it is a way out,’ he continued smoothly. ‘You will leave Constantinople a free woman and return to London and your family without the burden of shame you carry. You can be certain we will never speak of this again. Your passage home will be paid – a first-class berth on the Orient Express.’
The man was actually serious. The proposition he had made was astonishing, shocking. Her limbs felt like cloth, ready to give way at any moment. Somehow she must continue to stand there and face him. ‘I—’ she began.
He held up his hand. ‘No, say nothing for the moment. In the circumstances, I consider it a generous proposal, but I see that it has taken you by surprise.’ He was a master of understatement, she thought, and tried to form a sentence that would not come. ‘You have a day in which to decide. Ibrahim will wait at the harem entrance after supper tomorrow and you will give him your decision. If you do not respond at that time, the offer will be withdrawn. But I cannot imagine you would be so foolish as to ignore a proposal so obviously beneficial to you. Once I have your decision, we will proceed.’
She stumbled to the door and, without any attempt to say goodbye, walked out into the courtyard and made her way blindly through the Gate of Felicity and across the gravel to the haremlik. Sevda was at the entrance waiting for her, and she collapsed into the girl’s arms, wracked by violent sobbing. When she was at last calm, her friend took her hand and led her like a small child along the winding corridors. Only when she had helped Lydia into bed, did she speak.
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