Deception

by Joan Aiken

  “Come, that is enough talk about money and wills,” announced Alvey, deciding to ignore this. “It is not a proper subject for any of us. We are all upset and worried—all the more reason for doing our best to look after the invalids, until they are better and the household is itself again. Nish and Tot, go and sit with your grandmother for half an hour before our lessons—see if you can engage her attention in any way—while I go to find out how—how Mamma is doing today.”

  Parthie is like an unexploded train of gunpowder, Alvey thought climbing the stair. Sooner or later, something will touch it off. But really, just now, I have too many other concerns pressing on me to be very troubled about her.

  What could Major Fenway conceivably be planning in regard to his friend’s father? Try as she would, her imagination completely failed to come up with any scheme for the amelioration of Sir Aydon’s nature. People do not change, she thought. How could such an alteration possibly be achieved? And yet, it was true, he had changed, for the worse; once, by all accounts, he had been an active, cheerful, vigorous army officer, and then an intrepid, tireless huntsman. That was why he was so angry and disappointed with James, with Tot—

  You have to face the facts, Alvey told herself at this point. You have fallen miserably in love with James. His face haunts you. You continually hear the inflections of his voice in your mind’s ear. If nobody were about, you would even go back into the dining-room and moon dismally over the broken eggshells on his plate, just because it was he who left them, he who sat in that particular chair. You are in the throes of a fit of lamentable, ignominious calf-love. You, my poor girl, are smitten with the greensickness, and the only consolation to be found is that, apart from yourself, nobody knows it. Except, possibly, James’s friend the Major, who gave you that strange, heedful, pitying look, as James said his hasty farewell.

  James will never take the least notice of me. To him, I am his half-sister Louisa, a disagreeable and priggish relative, too close to be considered as a person. And if he knew that I was not his sister—if he knew that, I do not believe that matters would be in any way helped. I would still be tinted with the disagreeable hue of Louisa; and, still worse, smeared with the stigma of an impostor, some kind of creeping, sneaking parasite who has invaded the family stronghold. He would repulse me as a deceiver, as a charlatan; he would utterly despise me.

  I have to put his image out of my mind.

  Easier said than done.

  What would Wicked Lord Love do in such circumstances?

  Lord Love’s creator knew very well what her story-child would do: he would call for his boots, tie his cravat in some unsurpassable manner, and go off to Watier’s, or The Cocoa Tree; he would watch a match between the Putney Pet and the Battersea Bruiser; he would wager a pony on a prime bit of blood at White’s, ride out with the Abingdon, or post down to Newmarket where his mare was the favourite; he would—but why continue? None of these resources were open to his progenitor.

  Instead she tapped on Lady Winship’s door and walked quietly into the large, gloomy, well-furnished room.

  Lady Winship was lying propped against a heap of pillows. Her aspect was more alert and wakeful than that of her mother-in-law; it was plain that she could think, remember, and look forward; it was equally plain that she was doing all these things, and deriving no pleasure from the process.

  “How do you find yourself, ma’am, this morning?” asked Alvey quietly, moving forward.

  “She’s wishful to go out, Miss Emmy, already,” said Ellen the maid, who was plaiting the frills of nightcaps, on a table near the window.

  “Out of doors? Already? Did Dr Cunningham give you leave to do so, ma’am?”

  Lady Winship shook her head slowly. She was still unusually pale; but that was probably due to the bloodletting. Dr Cunningham had drained her of several pints.

  “Air,” she said. “Must have air. Too close in here. Like a grave.”

  Alvey surveyed her doubtfully. The poor lady was in possession of her faculties, had sense, and knew what suited her best; why should she be deprived of what she felt would do her good?

  “Ma’am, it is very cold outdoors this morning—really too cold, I think, for someone as enfeebled by shock and—and severe treatments as you have been. But if the sun shines tomorrow, I do not see why you should be immured in the house—is there a wheelchair or basket-chair somewhere about the place?” she asked Ellen, forgetting that she might be expected to know such a thing. But the maid replied,

  “Yes, Miss Emmy, there’s the basket-chair that Master first used after he broke his legs and Amble used to push him about the grounds.”

  “That will do capitally. I will engage to push you in that, ma’am, as far as you wish; if you, in the meantime, will resign yourself to another day in your chamber. Can I bring you anything to while away the hours?”

  “You are a good girl,” said Lady Winship vaguely. The large, absent grey eyes lifted and met those of Alvey with, for the first time, something approaching acknowledgement. Come, we are making progress, thought Alvey.

  “It is a kind thought,” Lady Winship went on. “But no—I wish for nothing. Yet perhaps—you might bring me paper and pencil. And the works of Sir Thomas Browne, which you may find in the library—I recall he wrote something about a quincunx—”

  Already, it seemed, she was planning the renewal of her destroyed kingdom. But then she seemed to reconsider.

  “No, it will not do. No, no, it will not do. Give me my testament.”

  But when handed the testament she made no effort to open it.

  Lessons with the children passed off quietly. Alvey had undertaken to have little Betsey as well as the elder two; since Tushie, the maid who generally cared for the two smallest children, was sharing with Duddy and Grace the nursing of old Mrs Winship. Betsey was a docile, calm-natured child, quite happy to sit for an hour at a time with a small pot of paint, colouring the trees and houses, ducks and hens, sheep and horses, that her elders kindly drew for her. In view of this nursery atmosphere, Alvey did not attempt to embark on studies at any serious level, but read aloud some chapters of history and some of Waverley. She reflected on the fact that neither Nish nor Tot alluded to Parthie’s parting shot at the breakfast table; this, she felt certain, was due not at all to lack of curiosity, but to a strangely adult innate tact and consideration which underlay much of their behaviour to herself.

  On the subject of James they were unaffectedly inquisitive, and Alvey saw no reason not to gratify this curiosity.

  “Why is Papa so angry with James?”

  “Because, instead of going back into the army, he wishes to learn to be a doctor, like Major Fenway. Instead of shooting people, he wants to find out how to mend them.”

  “Well I think he is right to do that,” said Nish. “Besides, how could he be a soldier with only one leg?”

  “Nelson had only one arm,” argued Tot. “And one eye.”

  “He was a sailor. They don’t have to march, or ride on horseback.”

  “They have to climb rigging.”

  “Admirals don’t. And Nelson was an admiral.”

  “Never mind that!” said Alvey, who could see this argument going on for hours. “Your Papa was angry because of course he has been a soldier himself—and so had his father—and I daresay he hoped that James might become a general or distinguish himself and win a medal. He was just very disappointed. Still, I daresay in time he will come about. It was foolish of James to wait so long before telling Papa what he planned to do. It gave Sir Aydon no time to grow accustomed to the idea. And so he just exploded with rage. And that upset your grandmother and caused her to have an attack.”

  “Will she get better from it?”

  “Major Fenway thinks she will. If we take a lot of pains with her. I am going to her now, to rub her hands for a while, and talk to her. Will you keep an eye on Betsey until Grace com
es for her.”

  “We’ll read her young Lochinvar,” said Nish. “She’ll like that, won’t you, Bet?”

  In the afternoon of the following day an unwontedly warm sun shone out, and Alvey, with the help of Ellen, half led, half carried Lady Winship downstairs, wrapped her in half a dozen layers of pelisses and shawls, and tucked her into the basket-chair.

  “I will push her back and forth along the terrace, Ellen, for half an hour,” said Alvey. “Then you come out and help me in with her again.”

  “Half an hour is not nearly long enough,” asserted Lady Winship.

  “If you still feel so at the end of that time, ma’am, you may stay out longer. But the chill settles down quickly, these afternoons.”

  To and fro along the terrace Alvey walked, wheeling the wicker chariot. The gate to Lady Winship’s garden faced them each time they came to the southern end of the walk, but Lady Winship did not ask to go through it; perhaps she dared not. To Alvey this was a great relief. Too many scalding emotions had been let loose during the last week; too many shattering scenes had taken place. She approved the stoic forbearance with which Lady Winship eyed the gate each time they approached it, and then deliberately turned her head away. It was not lack of courage; Charlotte was no coward; she was merely waiting until she had her strength gathered together again.

  “Did you see the garden, after it happened?” she asked once, and Alvey simply answered, “Yes.”

  “Major Fenway is a good man,” Lady Winship observed, with apparent inconsequence, after a while.

  “Yes, I believe so,” Alvey answered quietly.

  “James is lucky to have him for a friend.”

  “He is, indeed. I hope they remain friends in Edinburgh,” Alvey agreed, very ready to carry on with any conservation that related to James.

  “I should be pleased to entertain the Major at Birkland again. It is a great pity that James put his father in such a passion. Aydon will not wish either of them to come now, I daresay. I am sorry for that.” Lady Winship did not express any opinion as to the rights and wrongs of the dispute; she spoke as dispassionately as if she were canvassing the merits of two different kinds of grass seed. “How does your grandmother go on? It is unfortunate that Dr Cunningham had left already when she took her seizure.”

  Alvey was not so sure about that. She felt that the old lady probably had a better chance of regaining her strength without the doctor’s drastic purgings and bleedings.

  “Major Fenway thinks she has a good chance of recovery.”

  Lady Winship sighed deeply. “How strong some of us are. How we hang on to our life.”

  Unlike that unhappy pair, thought Alvey, unlike that girl and her baby. She felt sure that Lady Winship’s thoughts were running in the same direction. How very queer this is, thought Alvey. I never had the care of my own mother in a situation such as this; I hardly know this odd woman, yet, in a way, I knew my own mother even less. I never had the chance . . .

  “I think, ma’am, it is time we went in,” she said gently. “The sun has almost left the flagstones. And, look, here is Ellen, come to help you indoors.”

  As they skirted the side of the stable-yard, which was the quickest way into the house, they encountered Sir Aydon, limping painfully along the cobbled way with the help of his two sticks. To Alvey’s astonishment, he did not pause to greet his wife, nor ask how she did; he had no comment to make, even, on seeing her out of doors. Alvey had been prepared for a scold, for some kind of admonition, but not for the total silence in which he passed them, with head bent forward and red face set in a bitter scowl. It felt just as if a wintry cloud had drifted by. Now what is he punishing her for? wondered Alvey indignantly. It is not as if she were James’s mother, after all!

  “Would you like to sit for a little in the drawing-room, ma’am?” she asked Lady Winship. “Or shall we take you back to your bed-chamber?”

  “I will go back to bed. The air did me good,” said Lady Winship in a quenched voice, “but I do find myself quite fatigued. It is very strange—just from being wheeled to and fro!”

  When Alvey had said to Isa, “I shall miss you,” she had by no means anticipated a situation like this. She had expected the usual family occasions, family meals, with the younger children, Parthie, the old lady, Sir Aydon and Lady Winship: normal domestic routine. She could not possibly have envisaged sitting at table à trois with Sir Aydon and Parthie and a chilly expanse of gleaming white linen stretching empty away on either side.

  “Send the younger ones to have their meal in the kitchen,” said Sir Aydon. “I can’t be bothered with ‘em,” and the younger ones had been glad to go. Now Sir Aydon chomped on his mutton in brooding silence, and Parthie cut up her food and pushed it about her plate without eating it.

  “I wonder when we shall hear from Meg and Isa?” Alvey remarked.

  Neither of her companions troubled to reply. But, after a longish pause, Sir Aydon said,—

  “You had best write to inform your sisters of—of the misfortunes that have overtaken their mother and grandmother. Isa may wish to return home.”

  “I am sure she will not,” said Parthie pertly.

  “Hold your tongue, miss!”

  “Would you not wish to write to Meg yourself, sir?”

  “Certainly not! Why should I want to do that?”

  “Very well; I will write,” Alvey said quietly.

  After the meal she made no pretence of lingering in the drawing-room; let Parthie pour Sir Aydon’s tea, if tea he required, and she chose to play the lady of the house; but Sir Aydon’s tendency of late had been to remain in the dining-room with his decanter of port until the decanter was empty, and then limp off, somewhat unsteadily, to the library, where he snored in an armchair until Amble and Stridge more or less carried him up to bed.

  He is in a bad way, thought Alvey; but I do not see what can be done about it.

  She almost ran up the stairs to her room, and Lord Love.

  The outings with Lady Winship in a wheelchair proved such a success that, rather to Alvey’s surprise, they became a regular daily habit. Between the two participants it developed into a kind of conspiracy; Lady Winship was well enough, after a week or so, to get up, walk, and resume some of her household duties; she herself knew this, Ellen knew it, Alvey knew it, but the return to normal routine was somehow continually postponed. The time had not come yet; when it would come, who could say?

  Meanwhile Alvey, unexpectedly, found herself enjoying the odd, quite unanticipated communication that was growing up, on these daily walks, between herself and the older woman.

  Pushing somebody in a wheelchair is an especial situation. It has about it a touch of the relationship between priest and penitent in the confessional; the two persons concerned cannot see one another’s faces, it is an interchange of voices only; and the dialogue, furthermore, is aided, eased, and encouraged by the accompaniment of steady motion, the passage of fresh air, and continually changing scenery. Though, to be sure, all the pair did was promenade back and forth along the terrace. Going up the drive or down to the river was not to be attempted; both these ways were too steep to allow the propulsion of the heavy chair and its heavier occupant.

  Yet these walks, to and fro, to and fro, over the same ground, with the wide prospect of the Hungry Water valley and the Cheviot hills, appeared to unloose some long-standing constriction in Lady Winship. She began to talk. And Alvey, listening, wondering, unjudging, curious, was content to play a passive part, merely prompting the flow by an occasional question.

  “When I first married your father . . . oh, twenty-five years ago . . . James is twenty-six . . . I knew perfectly well that he did not love me as he had loved Maria. In fact,” said Lady Winship simply, “he did not love me at all. He wanted a mother for the boy.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I thought so, yes, of course. What
does a girl of that age know about love? Nothing in the world. I had read a few novels—as girls do. I thought that marriage was the end of the tale. It never occurred to me that there would be life after marriage; apart, that is, from having my own carriage and being able to order what I liked for dinner.”

  Slowly, with divagations and back-trackings, but, it seemed, very few concealments, no hesitations, no apologies, Lady Winship meandered through the history of her married life. “Childbirth is very bad. Let no one tell you otherwise. If Isa wishes to remain unmarried and avoid it, I cannot truly say that she has chosen the worser part. Childbirth is a pain that men cannot at all comprehend. They lay down rules for it, to their own satisfaction . . . Perhaps they feel contrition in their own way? I do not know. I have suffered it fourteen times—”

  “Fourteen, ma’am?”

  It was fortunate, Alvey thought, that Lady Winship could not see her face of shock as she received this information. Meg, Louisa, Isa, Parthie, Tot, Nish, little Betsey, Kate . . . where were the other six?

  “Many of you died at birth. My first three did so, before Meg was born. And one after, between Meg and yourself. Aydon was very displeased at that. And then, to have four girls in succession . . . he began to think I would never have a boy. And, when Tot was born, he was so puny and ailing; was not expected to live; Aydon was very aggrieved about that too, especially as it was not long after he had sold out of the service; he was missing the military life and companionship. That made him impatient and he did not care to be thwarted.

  “That was when I began making my flower-garden . . . It gave me something else to think about . . .”

  “I wonder, ma’am, that you were able to do so much in the garden—to achieve all that you have. For—so much of the time—you must have been increasing—”

  “Yes, it was often difficult. For, unlike some women, I do not feel at all well when I am breeding. Some say it is the best time for them. That was never so in my case. The first four or five months I was always sick and wretched; could not eat, almost any food nauseated me; my head ached, I vomited continually; then, at a later stage, I always suffer from congestion of the—of the lower extremities—which makes walking any distance exceedingly painful. And sitting down, also,” she added detachedly, after some thought. “And then, of course, one’s back aches so wretchedly.”