‘You want me to look after your baby?’ It was more of a statement than a question, because she knew the answer in advance.
Alexa lifted her head from the pillow and looked at Margaret. ‘Would you?’ she asked. ‘Would you really?’ She dabbed her eyes dry and sat up in the berth. ‘I know you think I’m being cowardly and selfish,’ she said. ‘But what kind of a life can I offer a child? I have no home. I don’t know how to look after babies. I don’t know how to love them. I don’t want to be a mother.’
‘Be quiet, Alexa. You’re just going to work yourself up into tears again.’ The sharpness in Margaret’s voice was not accidental. Briefly she wondered how much of what the younger woman had said was sincere. Alexa was an actress, and a very talented one. She could cry as convincingly when it suited her to do so as when her heart was broken. But on this occasion it seemed likely that her feeling of panic, increased by her physical weakness, was genuine enough. When she acknowledged that she was being selfish, that was true as well, but to punish her for it by insisting that she must bear the whole responsibility for the upbringing of an unwanted child would also be to punish the child. Margaret’s love for Alexa was very deep: but deeper still was her passionate belief that every baby must be welcomed into the world with love. If Alexa was incapable of providing such a welcome, then somebody else must do it instead.
‘Yes, I will do what I can,’ Margaret said. ‘But only on conditions. I know now that when I adopted you I was wrong not to tell you the whole truth about your parentage – and you have suffered from it, in your relationship with Matthew. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. I’m prepared to bring the child up. I’m even prepared to adopt him legally, if only in order that he can have a surname which requires no lies either to him or to the outside world. But I should tell him right from the beginning that you are his mother. I should expect you to behave as his mother – to love him and to spend as much time as you can with him whenever you are in London, and to make him feel that it is your care for his security which prevents you from taking him with you on your travels.’
‘And his father?’ asked Alexa.
‘His father is Frank Davidson. He will need to know that as well, as soon as he is old enough to ask. And you must remember that Robert has to be considered. He will begin to ask his questions as soon as the baby is born.’
Alexa considered these proposals in silence. Then she looked steadily into Margaret’s eyes.
‘If you are to tell him all this,’ she said, ‘will you also tell him how his father and I ran hand in hand from the ball at which we became engaged, and were married in front of a judge only an hour before the earthquake struck San Francisco?’
Margaret swallowed the lump in her throat, accepting with distaste the difficulty which Alexa had pointed out earlier, of finding a solution which protected the unborn child without involving any kind of deception.
‘You may tell him that yourself,’ she said. ‘How can I know what happened after the ball, when I was at home in bed?’ Staggering with dizziness, Alexa left her berth and held Margaret in a long and tight embrace.
‘Thank you, dearest Margaret,’ she murmured. ‘No one ever had a better friend.’ Then, as she drew away, her eyes sparkled with their former liveliness. ‘But the baby won’t be a boy!’ she exclaimed. ‘A beautiful girl, with golden hair and Frank’s Irish eyes. We shall call her Francisca.’
PART V
Kate in England
1
The daughter of a missionary is expected to be of use to society rather than to decorate it. As Kate Lorimer walked across to Bristow Great House on a steamy Jamaican afternoon in 1909, the wide-brimmed hat which should have protected her complexion against the fierce sun swung from her wrist. After eighteen years of carelessness, one afternoon more or less would make no difference to the freckles which covered her face and arms. Her thick hair, tawny like a lion’s mane and almost as tangled, flowed unrestrained over her shoulders, and the hem of her skirt was frayed and muddy.
None of her family had ever tried to nag her into looking either smart or beautiful. Such an attitude would be vanity. Although the young ladies who lived in the city or the rich plantation houses might shield their skins from the sun with parasols and canopies, Kate had always been allowed to expose herself to the weather. It made no difference whether she was burning in the sun or drenched by the island’s torrential rain; she regarded the elements as her friends – and never more than now, when she was so soon to leave the extremes of a Caribbean climate to embark on a medical training.
Her parents took few of the home furloughs to which they were entitled, so it was many years since Kate had last visited England. But she remembered how cold the rain was there, and how weak the sun. The skies had always seemed to be grey, and the people in the streets huddled together inside drab clothing as though to escape from the atmosphere. Sometimes she was afraid that she might soon become as colourless as they, but such doubts were chased away by the surging energy which was carrying her at this moment across the banana plantation at a pace which none of the workers on the estate would have tried to copy.
Hurrying towards the house with a springy step which was almost a run, she stretched her senses to catch and imprison all the memories which would have to last her through the drab years to come: the heat battering at her skin, the brightness of the light which dazzled her eyes, the humidity of the air which filled her lungs, the trickle and splash of running water and the lush greenness of the vegetation which grew from it, the scents of blossom and of orange trees, the sudden harsh cries of birds and the hysterical laughter of a distant donkey.
Kate had been very young when, clutching her brother Brinsley by the hand to keep up her courage, she had first pushed a way through a curtain of creepers to find herself in the garden of Bristow Great House. Dusty and rotten though the building was, it had become at once the private retreat of the two children, an enchanted palace in which they could act out the stories they read and invent others of which they themselves were the original heroes.
Later, in the stone ruins of the old slave hospital not far from the plantation house, Kate’s earliest determination to adopt her mother’s profession had revealed itself in the treatment of a succession of imaginary patients, or in persuading Brinsley to entrust himself to her bandaging. They had never brought their younger brothers and sister to share in the discovery, and neither of them spoke of it at home, lest the magic should be invaded and destroyed. To this day Kate did not know whether her parents had ever realized where their two eldest children spent so much of each day.
Perhaps there had once been a time, in the rich and slave-supported years when the house was first built and furnished, when it had achieved some illusion of grandeur. But Massa Matty had died, and not long afterwards the slaves had received their freedom. The new owner, whoever he was, had never found it worth while to take possession of his West Indian inheritance, and the house had been allowed to decay as the revenues of the plantation declined. Kate had never known it as anything but a ruin.
Nevertheless, it was her own private ruin, more of a home to her in some ways than the plain stone house which stood in the middle of Hope Valley. All the villagers brought their problems to the pastor and their infirmities to the doctor, and were never turned away: there was no privacy in that place. The house in Hope Valley had been Kate’s family home throughout her childhood. She belonged there – but Bristow Great House had belonged to her.
And to Brinsley, of course, until he was sent away to school; and also to Duke, who lived with his grandfather, Red Mattison, in what had once been the separate kitchen quarters of the Great House. His mother was Chelsea Mattison, the valley schoolteacher; but she was unmarried and had never made any public acknowledgement of the relationship.
Kate knew that her hopes of seeing Duke now to say goodbye were faint. He was older than she was, and soon after Brinsley’s departure for England he had found new employment on one of
the neighbouring plantations.
Some instinct told Kate that this would be her last look at Bristow Great House. Although during these past three years she had still brought her books to read on its overgrown terrace, or her notebooks to the little room which they had christened the study, the world of fantasy and dreams had already faded. As she grew up, she had come to use the dilapidated building more as a peaceful refuge in which to prepare for the career she had already chosen. Although she told herself now, as she stood in the mahogany-panelled drawing room, that she had come to say goodbye to her childhood, the truth was that she had already left it behind.
Nevertheless, she went through the rituals which she and Brinsley had invented twelve years earlier, tapping each wall in turn with a long stick to weave a magic fence through which no intruder would dare to burst. More realistically, she supposed that the old house would continue to rot away. Birds would fly between the sagging jalousies to build their nests inside rooms which were now to be abandoned again, fouling the floors with their droppings. Red’s goats would wander on to the verandahs, the rain would beat against the walls, and hurricanes would tear at the roof. Jamaica was an island in which new life sprang up exuberantly almost overnight – but decay advanced at very much the same speed.
She called Duke’s name for one last time, but there was no answer: she had not expected one. It was time to return to Hope Valley. Her mother would soon begin to worry lest there should be insufficient time for all that had to be done before the journey. Dragging her feet at first, Kate pushed a way back through the undergrowth for the last time, and then began to run. Today she seemed to be more than usually at the mercy of her moods: apprehensive about what lay ahead, but excited too. And England could not be too completely a foreign country when Brinsley would be waiting in Bristol to welcome her and Aunt Margaret had offered her a home in London.
An hour later her old clothes lay crumpled on the floor. Cleaned and mended, they would find a deserving home as soon as she had gone. Kate herself, shy beneath the stares of a continuing flow of well-wishers, stood very straight in her new travelling outfit. Her thick hair, brushed into an unusual orderliness and promptly strained into plaits, was pinned into a coil on the top of her head. She felt as though a single abrupt movement would bring the whole edifice tumbling down.
In a corner of the room, Grant was whining his indignation at being temporarily neglected. Although four years old by now, he tried to cling to his mother’s skirts as possessively as if he were still a baby and was fiercely resentful of anyone who claimed more of her attention than himself. This was not, as a matter of fact, something which very often happened. Lydia, who had encouraged independence in her elder children from an early age so that she might herself be free to attend to whichever members of the congregation needed her help, seemed to have changed character since his birth. As though to compensate him for his disability she continued to carry him long after he should have walked, consoled him when he should have been told to be brave, and spoiled him in every possible way.
Kate had an instinctive sympathy for the unfortunate. From her first sight of Grant’s deformed body she had been prepared to lavish her love on him, and this reaction had been strengthened when she realized that their father could hardly bear the sight of his youngest child. But as Grant had left the cradle and developed a personality of his own, it grew more and more difficult to remain sympathetic. Kate reminded herself that all young children are selfish, but Grant was remarkable for the force of will which he applied to getting his own way, using tears or tantrums, strength or weakness, as he judged which would best serve his purpose. It had become increasingly clear to Kate that it was her mother, and not Grant, who had become the underdog, and she made no attempt to conceal her disapproval.
‘It’s very common for an elder child to be jealous of a new baby,’ her mother had told her once. ‘But you must fight against the feeling, dear. It’s unworthy of you.’
‘I was never jealous of Brinsley, never,’ protested Kate. ‘Nor of Mary or Alexander. When the little ones died, I was as sad as you were – you know that. It’s Grant who is jealous of me. And you’re allowing him to make you too tired, Mother. It would be better for him in any case if he were to play with other small children in a natural way.’
‘His misfortune –’ began Lydia; but Kate had interrupted her.
‘Yes, he is lame, and of course I am sorry for it. But although he appears awkward, I don’t believe he feels any pain when he walks. He needs to have more exercise than a normal child, not less. And he ought not to grow up thinking himself too unusual. His misfortune doesn’t make him more important than everyone else.’
At the time of that conversation, Kate had been sensitive enough to her mother’s distress not to press the matter too far. But since then, Lydia’s tiredness had deepened to the point of exhaustion and Ralph, seeing this as clearly as Kate, had become rougher in his attempts to discipline his young son. This in return had led to quarrelling between the two adults, destroying the calm happiness which had ruled the household before Grant’s birth. Finding it hard to be tolerant of her little brother’s demanding nature, Kate felt now an unworthy satisfaction in the knowledge that for once she was the centre of attraction, and that Grant realized it.
‘I feel ashamed to send you to England with so few new clothes,’ her mother fussed. ‘But if we’d made more here, I’m afraid they might have appeared dowdy when you reached London, and not warm enough for a colder climate. Sophie will take you shopping in Bristol as soon as you have had a day or two to settle down.’
‘It seems wrong to expect too much from the generosity of my relations,’ Kate said: although she was well enough aware of her need for a new wardrobe. ‘Especially since they already do so much for Brinsley.’
‘They won’t be out of pocket.’ Her father had joined them now that she was dressed. ‘I’d intended to explain the financial arrangements to you while we were on the train to Kingston, but I can as easily tell you now. I have my own bank account in England, and I have authorized both William and Margaret to draw on it for your needs, as they already have for Brinsley’s. You surely didn’t think that your uncle was shouldering the burden of Brinsley’s school fees? I don’t want to disparage his generosity – the home he provides for Brinsley in the school holidays is something money could never buy. But when it comes to the disbursement of cash, it will be my money that you spend.’
‘For my fees as well?’
‘Of course. And I’ve done my best to make it clear to Margaret that she must accept enough from us to pay for the food that you eat in her house, even though the room in which you lodge may cost her nothing to offer. Whatever sums you need for spending-money she will also draw from my account. You will discuss the amount together when you have some idea of your commitments. Naturally I expect you to live as economically as possible, but whatever money you need for your essential expenses will be available to you.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. Thank you, Father,’ said Kate.
The news came as a relief as well as a surprise. It had seemed natural enough that her mother, a doctor herself, should have supported Kate’s ambitions when they were first expressed; and she had been grateful, too, that her father raised no objection of principle to her wish to study medicine. Kate knew that in this respect she was more fortunate than many other girls of her own age holding the same ambition.
But although she was glad of her parents’ moral support, the question of money had worried her. The Hope Valley community was self-supporting in food, while clothes were as likely as not to be obtained on a barter system and were rarely renewed except on special occasions such as this one. Kate herself never handled cash. She knew that her father did business on behalf of the whole community, and from its profits paid a schoolteacher and bought books for the children and supplies for the hospital. But to finance the long training of a medical student would need resources which a missionary pastor could not be ex
pected to have at his disposal. If Kate had not asked questions before, it was because she feared that to know the truth might be a humiliation. She was aware that her Bristol relations were wealthy – and rather than abandon her vocation she was prepared to accept help from anyone – but she would not have enjoyed being a dependant.
Perhaps, she thought, her father enjoyed the benefit of some family trust in England. Although he himself had chosen to embrace a life of poverty in Jamaica, he might well feel no objection to using for his children’s benefit whatever provision had been left to him by his own father. Kate knew very little about her grandfather, who had died more than ten years before she was born, but she did know that he had been a rich man.
‘You have another visitor,’ called Lydia.
Kate stepped out on to the verandah and her eyes lit up with pleasure as she saw that Duke was standing there. For his part, he stared at her as though he had never seen her before.
‘That’s one smart young lady,’ he said at last, his white teeth flashing in a grin. Although his skin was so light in colour, his smile was wholly of the island. ‘I came to say goodbye and wish you good times. Maybe we don’t meet again after this.’
‘But I shall come back,’ protested Kate. ‘I know it’s a long training, but this is my home. Of course we shall see each other again. I shall still need someone to practise my bandaging on when I come.’
‘I’ll wait for that,’ said Duke. ‘Just so long as you never call me “boy”.’ He must have seen the flush that showed he had hurt her feelings, for he was quick to withdraw. ‘You always did fall for every tease I could think up. You remember that time there was a caterpillar on your foot and I told you the hairs had poisoned your skin and the only cure was for you to hang upside down till all the blood was drained out of your leg.’
‘Your teases never were very funny,’ said Kate, but she was smiling again. Her father, who had been listening from the back of the verandah, stepped forward to interrupt.
The Lorimer Legacy Page 27