Dubious Legacy

by Mary Wesley

  Antonia said, ‘I know he did. Who told you?’ she asked slyly. ‘The Grants?’

  ‘Not the Grants. Of course not.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘The Jonathans did, and Maisie and Peter did, and I dare say the people at the Post Office would have the details.’ (And Matthew too, in an effort to pre-empt reproach, but she would not tell Antonia this.) ‘But you cannot suppose anything happened,’ said Barbara. ‘Not with Margaret.’

  ‘I can’t not,’ said Antonia, who would have felt better if the so-called ‘something’ had occurred.

  ‘The idea’s absurd,’ said Barbara.

  ‘No more absurd than your James and that woman Valerie,’ snapped Antonia.

  ‘We had not met when he had his little fling with Valerie,’ said Barbara, unruffled, ‘but what did Matthew tell you?

  ‘He said he fell asleep.’

  Barbara laughed. ‘I supposed he was pissed.’

  ‘He comes out of it so boringly,’ said Antonia, aggrieved.

  ‘Does any of it matter now?’ asked Barbara. ‘Look, the Jonathans are waving. Shall we go in? I begin to feel chilly.’

  Antonia and Barbara waved and the Jonathans, who had reached the point where they would lose sight of the girls, waved again.

  ‘Those stately galleons look as though they had been squabbling,’ said the younger man.

  ‘What would they squabble about? They are engrossed in baby talk, my dear. I do see Margaret’s point, they are grotesque. I can’t think how James and Matthew bear it,’ said his lover.

  ‘They brought it on themselves,’ said the younger man. ‘I keep remembering James, when I asked him what they had seen in Paris that time, he said, Nothing much; they had concentrated on the restaurants, eaten oysters at every meal for a fortnight.’

  ‘Rash. Wasn’t he sorry? Oysters!’

  ‘The reverse, rather smug.’

  ‘Careful, here he comes. Hullo, James, how are you?’ the Jonathans addressed James.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ said James, who had already sighted the Jonathans and half-hoped to avoid them.

  ‘Alone and palely loitering,’ said the younger man. ‘Come in and share our crumpets, we have crumpets for tea.’

  ‘Walking briskly, thank you, and in the pink,’ said James. ‘Loitering is not my style.’

  ‘Spare us a few minutes all the same,’ said the Jonathans. ‘We have been to see Margaret’s frightful colour scheme. Do us a kindness and tell us your thoughts as you walked so briskly.’

  Over my dead body, thought James; catch me confiding in these old poofs. ‘I was thinking about money,’ he said, and saw that he had successfully irritated them. ‘Did you say crumpets?’ He led the way into the Jonathans’ cottage. ‘So tell me about Margaret’s latest folly,’ he said. ‘I haven’t yet been invited to see it.’

  ‘I thought he’d never leave,’ said the older man an hour and a half later. ‘Sitting there expounding on stocks and shares. And he ate all the crumpets.’

  ‘An inadvertent good turn for your figure.’ His lover puffed out his moustache. ‘Could he really be thinking of money and look so happy?’

  ‘He is doing very well, and money makes Barbara happy. But don’t let’s be catty, you need not have described Margaret’s room in such detail or at such length.’

  ‘I thought I did it rather well!’

  ‘But no need to bore on with tiny minutiae; you were in danger of repeating yourself.’

  ‘I was repeating myself! I hoped to bore him into leaving.’

  ‘Well, clever Dick, you did not succeed. He just sat there eating our crumpets and looking beatific’

  James had not been listening. Hungry from his walk, he had enjoyed the crumpets. While pretending to listen he had relished not the crumpets but his good fortune. The Jonathans would never understand. They would think me crazy, he thought, if I told them that when I hold Barbara in my arms at night it is like holding a wonderful flower-pod; that our baby leaps and kicks under my hand; that I can put my ear to her stomach and listen to the child. I feel such happiness, he thought, there are times when I wish her pregnancy were longer. I enjoy this time so much. How could these two understand? If I told them I get a catch in my throat when I see Barbara’s lovely little navel stretched inside out by the baby, they would think me insane. They would feel disgust, not tenderness. Oh God, I am fortunate, James thought as he walked back to Cotteshaw in the winter dark; that fool in Harley Street may have been ninety per cent right but I have proved myself ten per cent righter. I never imagined I would feel a love like this.

  In this mood of euphoria he overtook Henry trudging back from his farm. ‘Had a good day, Henry?’ he asked. The poor fellow would understand his feelings no better than the Jonathans, he thought, as they kicked off their gumboots by the back door.

  Henry said, ‘Yes, thanks,’ and looked kindly at his friend. ‘Your mouth turns up like a cat’s,’ he said. ‘Makes you look happy.’

  ‘But I am happy,’ said James.

  Henry said, ‘I am glad.’

  James said, ‘I hope we are not too great an imposition, the way we come in increasing numbers to occupy your house. Your hospitality stretches like elastic’

  Henry said, ‘My father had a quote about helping each other out, I forget how it went—but surely you know you are welcome.’

  ‘A present help in trouble—that the one?’ James offered.

  ‘No.’ Henry smothered a laugh. ‘No. Forgive me, James, but I have some telephoning to do. Why don’t you put in some practice and help Matthew. Antonia has left him in charge of their child while she perambulates with Barbara.’

  ‘OK,’ said James. ‘I’ll find him. I think Barbara is hoping to pry tips on maternity from Antonia.’

  ‘Matthew can supply you with the paternity angle,’ said Henry. ‘He has the experience.’

  ‘He does not feel as passionately as I do,’ said James. ‘He is almost indecently relaxed. I feel it’s unsafe to let Barbara out of my sight, I have to force myself.’ Then, seeing that Henry smiled, he said rather nastily, ‘I come of different stock from you.’

  Henry let this ambiguous swipe pass.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A FORTNIGHT BEFORE THEIR child was due, Barbara persuaded James to come to Cotteshaw. She wanted to get out of London, she said. She pined for country air. The weather, bright and frosty, was too good to be hanging about in London; hanging about would not make the baby come any faster.

  In point of fact James, loving and nervous, was making her twitchy, she told Antonia as they walked by the lake, their feet crunching on the frosted grass.

  ‘I am not due for two weeks; my mother says all first babies are late. It will take his mind off me if we are with you. You have been through it; Matthew can steady James’s nerve, and you,’ she said, ‘can steady mine.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Antonia. ‘If it were not for Henry, Matthew and James would be dogging us now, but he’s sent them out with their guns to pot a pheasant or shoot pigeon. Matthew went because I urged him to, and your James was only persuaded by the thought of taking a brace back to London. Henry said pheasant does something special for pregnant mums, and he believed him,’ she said, laughing.

  Barbara said, ‘Henry is a thoughtful and generous man. I am grateful.’

  Antonia said, ‘I suppose he is. Yes, I dare say you are right,’ and grinned.

  They walked slowly for Susie was with them, keeping up as best she could, stamping her miniature boots in her mother’s larger footprints.

  ‘What’s it like?’ Barbara questioned. ‘Can you tell me what to expect? I’m not very good with pain, never have been.’

  ‘You forget,’ Antonia said. ‘You are so pleased it’s over, and you’ve got the baby, you don’t think about it.’

  Barbara said, ‘I remember you swore never to repeat the experience.’

  Antonia said, ‘I am sure I said no such thing. I was so happy I forgot all about it. Anywa
y, you should have an easy time. You have wider hips than me.’

  Barbara said, ‘I don’t think I have. I suppose Matthew was overjoyed? That must have been lovely.’

  ‘To be honest,’ said Antonia, glancing back at her small daughter, ‘Matthew wanted a son.’

  ‘He seemed very pleased to me,’ said Barbara. ‘So he was not overjoyed? Goodness!’

  ‘Matthew’s into primogeniture,’ said Antonia shortly.

  ‘You will have a boy this time,’ consoled Barbara. ‘And as for me,’ she said a touch smugly, ‘James will be ecstatic whatever I have.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Antonia. ‘Come on, Susie, come away from the edge. Run, I am getting cold.’ She held out her hand to the toddler, who responded by sitting backwards onto the frosted grass. ‘And they talk of the joys of parenthood,’ she exclaimed as she jerked Susie to her feet.

  Susie began to cry.

  Barbara said, ‘Let me take her,’ and picked Susie up. ‘You shouldn’t be cross with her,’ she said. ‘You will make her jealous of her little brother.’

  ‘Put her down, she is quite able to walk,’ snapped Antonia. ‘If I don’t have a boy this time,’ she said, ‘Matthew can stuff his primogeniture. Put her down,’ she repeated. ‘You should not be heaving weights in your condition. Matthew must learn,’ she said, ‘that two tots per couple is quite enough on this overcrowded planet.’

  ‘And if it’s another girl this time?’ Barbara kissed Susie’s plump cheek.

  ‘He must lump it,’ said Antonia robustly.

  ‘I don’t think James sees further than the bliss of one.’ Barbara kissed the child again and set her down to walk between them, holding hands.

  ‘Poor little Suez,’ Antonia said more kindly. ‘Susie Suez,’ she teased her child. ‘Thank the Lord,’ she said, ‘that there isn’t a world crisis raging at the moment with the threat of petrol rationing there was then.’

  Barbara laughed. Susie, born during the Middle East crisis of 1956, was often referred to as ‘Suez’. ‘It’s a terrible nickname,’ she said, ‘you must drop it. Her friends at school will call her “Sewage”.’

  ‘The Jonathans already do.’ Antonia grinned. ‘Now that’s a marriage which has lasted,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘No tiny sewages to aggravate, just their two sweet selves.’

  ‘I had not thought of it as a marriage,’ said Barbara, uneasy that Antonia should be thinking of marriage lasting—or not.

  Antonia said, ‘What else would you call it? They share a house, they share an occupation, they share a bed, they—’

  ‘Share love?’ suggested Barbara doubtfully.

  Antonia said roughly, ‘Well, I haven’t watched through the keyhole, but it’s love all right.’

  Barbara said again, ‘I had not thought of it that way.’ And, as they walked on, each holding one of Susie’s hands, she thought of the marriages she knew, shying away from her parents’; of Antonia’s, which was not always straightforward, and her own to James, loving and giving, she thought gratefully. Then, noting Antonia’s discontent, she wondered whether Antonia in bed with Matthew ever in imagination substituted someone else in his place? Henry, for instance.

  ‘Henry has an odd sort of marriage,’ she said, ‘and that lasts.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Antonia, ‘here comes Margaret dressed in red, showing off her figure to annoy us.’

  ‘Not agoraphobic today,’ remarked Barbara.

  ‘Patently not. Hullo, Margaret,’ Antonia shouted. ‘Nice to see you up and about. Come and walk with us.’

  ‘It will be nicer when you no longer blot the landscape like a couple of barrage balloons,’ said Margaret equably. ‘Hullo, Sewage,’ she said, coming up to them. ‘Like to hold my hand?’

  To Antonia’s annoyance Susie ran to her and Margaret, catching her by the hand, ran with her along the path by the water, making her jump with her short legs to keep up. Her own legs, long and slender, were encased in tight dark red trousers, over which she wore a heavy scarlet jacket. When the child failed to keep up, she took both her hands and swung her round and round. Susie shrieked with delight.

  ‘You’ll make her throw up,’ shouted Antonia. Margaret whirled the child round again before setting her down.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like a child of your own?’ Barbara asked. ‘You looked so happy doing that,’ she said, ‘and beautiful. The sun caught your hair.’

  Margaret said, ‘People like me don’t have children. The idea’s obscene.’

  Barbara swallowed. ‘You say that for effect,’ she said. ‘Admit it, you would love to have a child.’

  ‘If I did, I would drown it,’ said Margaret.

  Deciding that Margaret joked, Barbara laughed. (Later, discussing her with James, she explained that Margaret had been so much better lately, getting up, joining a bit in life, shopping, it was possible to interpret her remarks as a form of humour—if one stretched it a bit, tried to be charitable, she said.) So, laughing, she said, ‘Oh, Margaret, you desire to shock,’ and smiled at Susie, who looked up at Margaret, tugged at the hem of her jacket and cried, ‘Swing! Swing!’

  Margaret said, ‘In a moment,’ pushing the child’s hand away.

  ‘You and Susie seem to get on rather well,’ said Antonia, puzzled by her daughter’s behaviour. (One knows, she said later to Matthew, that small children’s taste is invariably bad.)

  ‘Pilar lets her trail along when she is working for me,’ said Margaret, ‘when, as so often, you are taking advantage of her time. I know Sewage quite well, don’t I, Sewage?’

  Susie, looking up adoringly, said: ‘Yes. Swing? Swing?’

  ‘Run, then,’ said Margaret, ‘run,’ and she chased the child along the bank until, catching her, she took her hands and began whirling her round and round, laughing as the child shrieked with terror and delight.

  ‘It’s amazing to see Margaret enjoying herself. She looks quite lovely when she laughs,’ said Barbara, watching. ‘D’you think she’s getting better from her agoraphobia?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s ever had it,’ said Antonia. ‘It’s all pretence. She’s comfortable in bed and doesn’t have to work. She hasn’t enough brain to get really bored, but I admit,’ she said grudgingly, ‘that she has the most marvellous figure. Gosh,’ she said, ‘I shall be glad to get my body to myself again.’

  ‘I have thoroughly enjoyed being pregnant,’ said Barbara. ‘James and I—Oh, should she go so near the edge? What a stupid thing to say, that she would drown a child if she had one.’

  ‘She tries to get a rise, says things like that for effect. Oh! Careful, you fool!’ Antonia’s voice failed as Margaret, swinging Susie, slipped on the frozen ground and, staggering back to regain her balance, let go of Susie, who appeared to fly away from her to land with a splash in the lake.

  Antonia and Barbara plunged into the water.

  ‘Her hands slipped out of mine,’ Margaret said from the bank.

  Barbara and Antonia, waist deep in water, held Susie, silent and stunned in shock, between them.

  ‘You should have taken your wellies off,’ said Margaret.

  Susie, taking a deep breath, began to scream.

  ‘Oh well, she’s obviously all right,’ said Margaret, standing back from the edge.

  Henry, crossing the field with his dogs, had sighted Margaret in her red coat talking with Antonia and Barbara and was amused by their contrasting shapes. When next he looked Margaret was apparently alone. He began to run.

  Antonia, up to her armpits in water, was yelling when he arrived, her voice almost drowning her daughter’s. Neither she nor Barbara, encumbered by their pregnancy, were finding it easy to move. Both women held tightly to the child.

  Leaning from the bank, Henry took Susie from them, put her down safely, then, stepping into the lake, pulled the two out.

  ‘It was an accident.’ Barbara had never seen Henry’s face white.

  ‘She tried to drown her.’ Antonia hiccuped with cold. ‘She’s a murderer. Loo
k, she’s walking away.’

  ‘She didn’t want to get wet too, don’t exaggerate.’ Barbara’s teeth began to chatter. ‘It was an accident,’ she repeated.

  ‘I told you you should have taken your boots off,’ Margaret called over her shoulder.

  Henry said, ‘Boots?’ and looked at the women’s feet.

  Antonia said, ‘They are in the water.’ She began to laugh as Lysander breasted into the lake to retrieve a boot which, retaining a little air, had bobbed to the surface.

  Barbara said, ‘Suction,’ and began to weep. ‘Mud.’

  Henry said, ‘My turtle doves. Quick,’ he said, kissing Antonia, ‘let’s get you home. I don’t want to lose my babies.’

  Barbara whispered, ‘Yours—?’ as Henry kissed her in turn, and he, with his mouth on hers, said, ‘James’s.’ And then, ‘Let me wring some of the water from your skirts, it will be easier to walk. Can you manage without boots? The grass is soft. Hurry,’ he said, ‘or you will freeze. It’s going to snow, the sky went dark as you plunged into the lake—dramatic moment—Here, let me carry the child.’ He worked to keep their spirits up. ‘Come on, my brave girls.’

  ‘Margaret,’ Antonia gasped. ‘She—’

  ‘Margaret is a very stupid woman,’ said Henry grimly. ‘The only idea in her head is herself. I once got a psychiatrist to see her, and he said, “There is nothing I can do for a brain that size.” Look, Susie,’ he said to the child, who was whimpering with cold, ‘Hector’s bringing Mummy’s boot. We’ll soon get you warm and dry,’ he said. ‘Ah, there’s your pa. Matthew,’ he shouted, ‘James,’ and waved at the distant figures strolling home with their guns. ‘Over here,’ he called.

  They were halfway to the house and James and Matthew were running to meet them when Antonia’s pains started.

  ‘Oh, Christ! Oh, bloody hell.’ She held on to Henry. ‘You wanted to know,’ she said to Barbara. ‘Ouch! This is what the pains are like. I am giving you a live demonstration.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘PILAR?’ MARGARET SHOUTED AS she let herself into the house. ‘Pilar,’ she called, standing in the hall. ‘Pilar.’