‘When . . . when Esther was born, there were two of us giving birth after the shipwreck.’ Monty nodded; he knew the story. He’d heard it from Esther, who had always delighted in the fact that she’d survived against the odds. ‘But my . . . my baby was stillborn. The other child, Esther, was small but healthy, and her mother was going to put her in an orphanage because the family in America didn’t consider the father suitable. That was all I knew; and when Ruth – Esther’s natural mother – begged me to take her baby and raise her as my own, with all the benefits that would bring, we . . . we swapped babies.’
‘So . . . so you are saying . . . ’
‘The father, Ruth’s young man, must have been black. That’s why the baby is the colour she is, but she is your daughter, Monty. Your flesh and blood.’
‘But’ – Monty was grappling to understand – ‘Esther is white.’ He looked at her, and for the first time the honey tint to her skin and the darkness of her eyes and hair took on a new significance. ‘She looks white,’ he said faintly.
‘That’s why I never suspected . . . ’ Harriet’s voice died away as she looked at Esther’s face. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘You’re not my mother?’ Esther felt faint and sick, whether from the birth or the enormity of what she was hearing, she wasn’t sure.
‘I am – I am your mother, in every way that matters.’
Theobald took them all by surprise as he lunged at Harriet, and it was only Rose flinging herself in front of her mistress that deflected the blow. As it was, Rose was hit with enough force to send her spinning to the floor; and then Theobald was on his wife, his hands around her throat, and Monty was yelling for Osborne to help him as he grappled with Theobald, who seemed to have the strength of ten men, in his rage.
Sheer pandemonium ensued, with Esther’s and Rose’s screams and the shouts of the men raising the whole house and sending more servants running to the room.
When Monty and Osborne finally managed to pull Theobald off his wife, Harriet appeared to be senseless and in a bad way. Rose was hysterical, and Esther was screaming at Theobald, ‘Get out! Get out of here!’ as she knelt in the bed clutching the baby, who was now adding her own high-pitched cries to the melee.
It took Monty, Osborne and the footman who had appeared in his nightclothes to force Theobald from the room, and once on the landing they manhandled him down the stairs, the four of them nearly going from top to bottom several times, before they finally managed to get him into his study. ‘Stay with him,’ Monty ordered Osborne and the footman, before dashing up the stairs again, convinced his mother-in-law had probably breathed her last, but as he entered the room, Harriet was coughing and spluttering as the housekeeper held a vial of smelling salts under her nose.
‘Shall I call the doctor, sir?’ One of the housemaids, who had been standing with her hands pressed to her mouth as he entered the room, now turned to Monty for guidance.
‘Yes, yes, do that. And, Mrs Norton, if I carry Mrs Wynford to her bedroom, can you and Rose stay with her until Dr Martin arrives? I don’t want her left alone – do you understand me? I want the two of you to stay with her.’ He wouldn’t put it past Theobald to try to attack Harriet again. ‘And you,’ he said to the other housemaid, who, like the first, was clad only in her nightdress and dressing gown, ‘stay here until I get back.’
Harriet was still barely conscious when he deposited her on her bed, but she clutched his hand as he was about to leave, whispering, ‘She . . . loves you.’
Monty couldn’t reply. At this moment he felt some affinity with Theobald towards the woman who had ruined all their lives. Esther wasn’t who he thought she was. Nothing was as he had thought. And his mother . . . He groaned inwardly. Hell and damnation – his mother. What was she going to say?
After everyone but the housemaid had left the room, Esther lay back against the pillows, willing the feeling of faintness and light-headedness to pass. The baby had stopped crying and was now nestled against her again, apparently fast asleep; but then, as Esther opened her eyes and looked down at her daughter, two bright eyes stared back at her.
‘Can I do anything for you, ma’am?’
The housemaid was hovering, clearly out of her depth at everything that had occurred, and suddenly Esther wanted nothing more than to be alone. ‘A cup of tea would be nice,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll be perfectly all right while you fetch it.’
‘But Mr Grant said . . . ’
‘I’ll be fine. Go on, you won’t get into trouble.’
Once the door had closed behind the girl, Esther touched the baby’s smooth velvet brow with the tip of a finger as she whispered, ‘You’re mine and I’ll keep you safe.’ Who would have thought such a tiny little being would have the effect of one of Hitler’s bombs in their lives? And why did she feel strangely numb about her mother’s revelation? She ought to be beside herself, but after the first shock, a peculiar calm had settled on her. Perhaps it was because she had to concentrate on her daughter right now? Her daughter, and Monty’s. Everything else – the fact that her mother wasn’t her mother, and her father wasn’t her father – had to come second. Her head was swimming with exhaustion and her limbs felt like lead, and although the knowledge of what her mother had said was at the back of her mind, it was as though it was all about someone else.
The baby stirred, her tiny hands flailing for a second, before one gripped Esther’s finger again. It was a firm grip and surprisingly strong, and as Esther gazed down into the small face, the baby yawned again, almost smacking her lips in the process. In spite of herself, Esther smiled, and it was at this moment that Monty walked back into the room.
He stared at her, at the woman he had loved from the first moment he had set eyes on her and who had been everything he had wanted in a wife, and it took all his control not to shout at her to wipe the smile off her face. That she could smile like that, after what had been revealed in this room! He was in turmoil – a turmoil worse than anything he’d endured after Salty’s death – and Esther could smile. It felt as though she had just punched him in the stomach.
‘Monty.’ She looked up and saw him standing there. ‘How is she? My mother?’
‘Resting.’ His voice was flat and cold.
‘She’ll be all right?’
He didn’t answer this, nor did he come towards her when she held out her hand. Instead he walked to the small fireplace and stood looking down into the glowing embers, with his back towards her as he said, ‘She did a terrible thing. You do understand what she said?’
Esther stared at him. His back was rigid and his hands were thrust into his pockets. She had imagined he would come hurrying back to comfort her, to tell her nothing mattered but that she and the baby were all right; and then he would hold his daughter, like any new father. Her heart began to thump hard. ‘She did what she thought was for the best.’
‘For whom?’ He swung round to face her. ‘She took someone else’s child, without knowing anything about the background of the parents, and then further compounded her crime by continuing the deception for years.’
‘Crime?’
‘What else would you call it?’
Please, please don’t be like this. Don’t look at me like this. I need kindness. I need you to put your arms round me and tell me that you love me. The words were in her head, but she didn’t voice them, staring at him as she read what was in his face. ‘I know it’s a shock,’ she said at last. ‘Imagine how I feel. But it doesn’t make any difference to us. To what we have. Does it?’ He didn’t answer, not until Esther repeated in a small voice, ‘Monty, does it?’
‘You have to understand how this will look to people. The baby, it’s . . . it’s so different. My mother would never accept it. You know what she’s like.’
‘She’s a her, not an it. Your daughter. And what’s your mother got to do with anything?’
‘She’s old-school, Esther. You know that.’
Pain was tearing at her now, but she kept her voice
from wobbling as she said, ‘What happened to that love you said would last till the end of time, and beyond? I’m the same girl you married less than a year ago. I haven’t changed.’
His head was lowered now as he muttered, ‘I know, I know.’
‘But?’ When he didn’t answer, she said again, ‘But?’
‘I . . . I need time. It’s a lot to take in.’
A lot to take in. She had just had a baby and in the same breath been told that her mother wasn’t her mother, and everything she had ever known was built on sinking sand, and he said it was a lot to take in? The strange but welcome bubble of calm that had cushioned her was dissolving. Shakily she said, ‘You’d better go then,’ never dreaming that he would actually leave her at a time when she had never needed him more.
‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’
His face screwed up in protest as she suddenly screamed at him, ‘Don’t bother! If you’re ashamed of us, don’t bother.’ It was only as she said the words that she knew she had hit the nail on the head, as Monty scurried from the room without saying anything more.
Alone, Esther stared down at the sleeping baby. She was so tiny and helpless. She hugged her daughter to her so fiercely that the baby awoke with a protesting cry. And when her tiny mouth opened wide, so did Esther’s, tears gushing from her eyes and down her nose, as she moaned her anguish into the terrible emptiness that had opened up and engulfed her.
Chapter Eight
‘There, there, Miss Esther, don’t take on so.’
At what point in her storm of weeping Rose came into the room, Esther didn’t know, but when her old nanny gently took the baby from her and settled her in the crib that had been placed in readiness at the end of the bed, Esther was too spent to protest.
Rose came and put her arms round Esther once the baby was quiet, cuddling her as though she was a little girl again, and murmuring comforting words that were meaningless in the circumstances. ‘It will all come right, you’ll see. Don’t cry, lass. Everything will sort itself out in time – it always does. There, there, Miss Esther. Don’t make yourself ill.’
They sat, rocking slightly to and fro, for some minutes before Esther could pull herself together and, when she could speak, she choked out, ‘He’s gone, Rose. Monty’s gone.’
‘He’ll be back, Miss Esther, never fear. He loves you, you know that. It’s just been a shock for him, that’s all. For all of us.’
‘You – you didn’t know?’
‘No one knew.’
‘All . . . ’ Esther gulped, swallowing hard. ‘All these years I thought she was my mother.’
‘She is your mother. In every way that matters she is your mother, all right? Now you listen to me, lass.’ Rose took her by the shoulders, staring into the drowned eyes. ‘No one could love you more than she does. You’ve been her sun, moon and stars from the minute you were born, you know that. At heart you know that, don’t you?’
Esther nodded, blowing her nose on the handkerchief Rose handed her. Yes, she knew that, but . . . ‘I feel I don’t know who I am, Rose,’ she whispered, thereby contradicting what she had just said to Monty. She was the same Esther, but she wasn’t. ‘My real mother, I know nothing about her; and my father, who was he? How did they meet? America have treated their black people so appallingly, haven’t they? Priscilla told me her GI isn’t even allowed to sit with white people on the buses. It’s awful. And . . . and she kept the truth from me, Rose.’
‘Your mother wants to talk to you and explain, as far as she can; she’s beside herself. Dr Martin’s just left, and she mustn’t leave her bed. Do you think, if I helped you, you could come to her room, Miss Esther?’
‘Is he there?’
‘Your father? No, he’s not there.’ Rose didn’t add that Theobald was drinking himself senseless in his study, or that when Dr Martin had tried to talk to him and explain how seriously ill his wife was, he had slammed the door in the good doctor’s face, nearly doing Dr Martin an injury in the process.
Esther looked at Rose. At the word ‘father’ a bolt of feeling – she didn’t know if it was relief or elation or hatred, or a mixture of all three – had shot through her. ‘He’s not my father. I am nothing to do with him, and I’m glad. He’s a vile, horrible man, Rose,’ she said softly, ‘I’m so glad I’m not his.’
‘Come and see your mother, Miss Esther. I’ll bring the baby, and you can lean on my arm.’
‘I’m not ill, Rose. I’ve had a baby, that’s all.’ Nevertheless, when she put her feet to the floor and stood up, Esther was glad of Rose’s support, as the room swam and dipped.
Harriet’s eyes were on the door as they entered her room and immediately she said to the housekeeper, who was sitting in a chair by the bed, ‘Would you fetch us a pot of tea, Mrs Norton?’
The housekeeper got to her feet and, as she passed them, she glanced at the baby in Rose’s arms, and Esther read the same expression that had been evident on the midwife’s face. For a moment she wanted to spring on the woman and slap her, but she restrained herself, going across to her mother and sinking into the chair that the housekeeper had vacated, while Rose stood with the baby at the end of the bed.
Harriet hadn’t known what to expect; she hadn’t even been sure Esther would come and see her. And so now, when Esther took her mother’s thin hand and pressed it between her own, the flood of relief brought tears.
‘It’s all right, Mama. Don’t cry,’ Esther murmured, her own face wet, but her use of the old affectionate term, rather than the more formal ‘Mother’ that she’d adopted as she’d got older, caused Harriet to lose control completely.
It was a little while before Harriet could compose herself, and in the meantime Mrs Norton had brought a tray of tea and been told to go to bed by Rose, who now settled herself in a chair by the window with the sleeping baby as Harriet began to speak. ‘I need to tell you all of it, Esther, or as much as I know. But before I do, I want you to understand I love you as my own child – more, if anything, and your mother loved you too. She let you go for your sake, not hers. You must believe that. She was desperate to save you from the orphanage.’
Esther listened as her mother talked and, when Harriet later paused for breath, she said quietly, ‘So my parents did love each other? They wanted to be together?’
‘Oh yes. Just as you were born she called his name. I’ve never forgotten it. Yes, Ruth loved him, and she believed he loved her. It was her parents who separated them.’
Esther nodded. ‘And her name was Flaggerty. Where in America was she from?’
Harriet’s brow wrinkled. ‘I’m not sure exactly. I know Ruth told me the family settled in New York when they first arrived in America, and they survived in a kind of shanty town. She had been brought up on stories of what both sets of her grandparents had endured, and how fiercely proud they were that sheer hard work and determination had elevated them to high society, but I think Ruth’s family were in Cincinnati, or was it Albany? I don’t remember. She said her family were politically minded and ambitious. I believe her father was something big in the Democratic Party and had been elected to the city council; there was even talk of the mayor’s office itself in the future. Nothing could stand in the way of their ambition, she said, and with some bitterness.’
Harriet lay back against the stack of pillows behind her, her hand going to her chest as the pain that had gripped her earlier came again.
‘This is too much for you – we’ll talk tomorrow.’
‘No.’ She caught at Esther’s hand again. ‘No, stay, child. I need you to understand. We both loved you, your mother and I.’
‘I do understand.’ It was true. Esther could see how it had all come about, and it went some way to soothing the hurt and sense of – what? she asked herself – betrayal? Desolation? Bewilderment? All that, and more.
‘I should have told you a long time ago. I see that now, but I was frightened it would spoil what we had.’ Harriet’s voice had the catch of tears in it. ‘I’m sorr
y, I’m so, so sorry, my darling.’ Her gaze went to the child. ‘Can I hold her?’
At Esther’s nod, Rose brought the baby and positioned her in Harriet’s arms. She was still sleeping, her full rosebud mouth pursed and making little sucking movements now and again. ‘I had no idea,’ Harriet murmured, as though to herself. ‘Ruth never even hinted that it was because Michael was black . . . ’
‘Would it have made any difference? If you had known?’
Harriet looked into the beloved face and knew she had to lie as she had never lied before. ‘Not for a moment,’ she said softly. ‘I wanted you with all my heart and soul, and mind and body.’ And that was true enough. But would she have taken Ruth’s baby, knowing what might happen in the future? The very thing that had happened, with all of the complications that would ensue and the prejudice Esther and the baby would now have to endure? Harriet knew she wasn’t a brave person, for she would have left Theobald years ago if she was.
But she hadn’t known. And she was glad she hadn’t, she told herself fiercely. Her life had been enriched beyond measure because of Ruth’s deception, which had only been done out of love and wanting the best for her child.
Esther moved to sit on the bed beside her mother and the two of them gazed down at the sleeping baby, and when Esther snuggled up to Harriet as she had been apt to do as a small child and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, Harriet knew a moment of deep thankfulness. Whatever the future held, however this worked out, she and Esther would see it through together. For her daughter and her granddaughter, she would stand up to Theobald, no matter what the cost to herself. But for Esther, her own life would have been miserable over the last years, as he flaunted one mistress after another in her face and belittled her in a hundred different ways. He was a cruel man, as well as an arrogant and spiteful one, and only she – and maybe Rose – knew what she’d had to endure over the years.
She glanced at Rose now, over Esther’s head, and Rose’s gaze was waiting for her. The two women smiled at each other and there was no condemnation in Rose’s face.
The Colours of Love Page 9