Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

  The sudden unexpected rush of love washed over Jenny, saturating her, flowing through her like rain. The smile froze on her face and her ears started to ring. She felt dizzy, out of place, as she raised a hand and pressed it against her chest as something almost akin to pain settled deep inside her. This brave, wonderful, beautiful Sarah was her twin sister. Who in the name of heaven would have thought it?

  As Sarah walked back to the table, her face still flushed with delighted amazement, Jenny took a couple of steps toward her. Big tears slipped down Jenny’s cheeks as she stretched out her arms. “I’m so proud of you, Sarah,” she said, her voice trembling. “I honestly didn’t know until just now how much I really cared.”

  Sarah was the first to back away, her smile glued on, eyes wide with innocent surprise.

  Jenny gave a little embarrassed laugh as she turned to look at Ada and Walter, both of them wide-eyed and staring, mouths hanging open. Andy was suddenly beside her, a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him as he handed her a tissue. She wiped her eyes but still held on to Sarah’s hand.

  “I feel like such a fool,” she said. “Guess I just got so excited for Sarah.”

  Ada’s eyebrows were raised almost to her hairline as she looked from Jenny, Sarah, and Andy, then to Walter and back again to the other three who stood close together by the table.

  “Is something going on here Walter and I don’t know about?”

  Jenny held on to the back of the chair while she waited for the dizziness and tightness in her chest to ease. She half opened her mouth to answer Ada’s question, had a sudden urge to stand on her chair and tell everybody in the room. But when she looked at Sarah, with that puzzled look of happy surprise still on her face, Jenny knew she owed it to her sister to tell her first.

  When Sarah placed the certificate and money in the middle of the table, Walter handed them back.

  “You keep them, love,” he said. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  She beamed. “OK. I’ll get my ears pierced so I can wear Lottie’s earrings.”

  “Why don’t you get the certificate framed,” Ada said. “That way you’ll always remember the fun we had tonight.”

  Jenny didn’t like the beads of perspiration glistening on Sarah’s forehead, but still couldn’t trust herself to speak.

  “I’d better take her home,” Andy said as if he’d read Jenny’s mind. “She’s had enough excitement for one night.”

  “How’d your uncle Angus get her away from Biddy?” Ada asked. “I’ll bet that wasn’t easy.”

  “It was for him,” Andy said as he took hold of Sarah’s hand and pulled her arm through his. “He told Biddy he wanted to do an around-the-clock check on her for a few days. You know how he is when he makes up his mind. Jon’s her doctor now of course, and Uncle Angus did call him in to get his consent.”

  He stretched his other hand out to Jenny. “Will you walk with us to the car.”

  Jenny picked up her purse, tears at last under control. “I had a real nice time,” she was able to say to Ada and Walter, even managed a smile and sly wink for Walter to let him know he now had Ada all to himself.

  Sarah walked between the two of them, linking arms, while Andy hung on to the precious certificate and envelope with the money.

  At the car, Jenny kissed Sarah on the cheek. “We had a lot of fun tonight, didn’t we.”

  Sarah nodded sleepily and put her arms round Jenny’s neck. “I wish you were my sister instead of my best friend,” she said, then climbed into the car.

  Andy smiled at Jenny. “Boy, is she in for a nice surprise.”

  “I’m glad, Andy. So glad,” Jenny said in a hoarse, almost choking voice.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length, then pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the mouth as the first big drops of rain began to fall.

  “Run inside before you get soaked,” he said. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jenny washed off her makeup and put on her nightgown and robe. The rain had stopped, just a summer shower that happened almost every other day or night in the Lake District. She sat in the rocker with her feet propped up on the ottoman while she relived the evening all over again, closed her eyes as she watched the transformed Sarah walk to the front to collect the prize. Jenny had sneaked a look at Andy, mainly because he was whistling and applauding louder than anybody. He had been as proud as she was. Still, even though tonight had been a three-hour break from the real world, and Jenny had realized at last how much she loved her sister, Sarah was still desperately sick and might not live if she didn’t get a kidney.

  Jenny thought about Debbie who lived three doors down on her street in Charlotte. Fifteen years ago, she had been near death, when her brother had donated one of his kidneys. Since then the brother had become a lawyer and Debbie had given birth to two healthy children, traveled through Europe and every Saturday played a pretty good game of golf. She lived a normal life and without the gift of her brother’s kidney she would either be dead or fastened to a machine three or four days a week.

  It would be harder for Sarah of course because she had other health problems besides kidney failure. She wasn’t sturdy, not physically, but so courageous. If anybody deserved a break, she did. Jenny closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the rocker.

  “I’ll make her well, Mom,” she said to the empty room. “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Next morning, when Jenny stopped at the desk, Uncle Tim’s envelope had just arrived by overnight express. She checked the contents, glanced quickly through the attached note, then stuffed the envelope in her pocket book and headed for the door. Walter, out front, dead heading his geraniums, straightened up and began kneading the small of his back as she walked toward him.

  “I’ve been thinking about last night,” he said. “I can’t remember when I had such a good time, thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You invited Ada didn’t you? I’d never have had the nerve. After you three left, we got to talking, and guess what? All this time she’s had her eye on me. She’s even invited me to her house to watch Gone With the Wind.”

  Jenny grinned. “Congratulations. I hope everything works out for you both.”

  “Thank you, Jenny, and thanks again for your help.”

  “I told you I didn’t do anything.”

  Walter dropped the wilted flower in the box at his feet. “You’ve done a lot more than you realize. There’s a new sparkle in Andy Ferguson’s eyes. And what about Sarah? I hate to see her so sick, but it didn’t seem to bother her last night. I haven’t seen her have such a good time in ages. She’ll miss you when you go. We all will.”

  Jenny cleared her throat. “Sarah loves working in the shop and can’t wait to get back.”

  “By the look of her, it’s going to take a miracle. A miracle or a brand new kidney.” He picked up the box. “Still, maybe if she gets on dialysis, it won’t be so bad. Will you be seeing her today?”

  “I’m on my way there now. She called me at six thirty. Wants to get her ears pierced.”

  “There, see what I mean? Don’t forget to tell her about Ada and me. Tell Andy too if you see him.”

  Jenny sauntered along Market Street, and threw up her hand to Harry, the postman, who returned the wave as he pedaled toward the inn.

  The doctor was sitting on a box painting the bench against the wall of his house. “Sarah’s upstairs,” he said as he struggled to his feet. “Said she was getting in the shower, and then wanted to sort out her clothes. You go on in while I stick this brush in a jar of water. Won’t be a tick.”

  Jenny went into the lounge and a few minutes later the doctor pushed the squeaky tea trolley into the room. He positioned it in front of her and eased himself into the chair opposite. Jenny studied the royal blue and pink knitted tea cosy pulled over the teapot like a woolly hat. There were holes for the s
pout and handle, and on the top was a cluster of crocheted petals in the form of a flower. There were two cups and saucers, sugar and milk, a plate of chocolate biscuits and the ever-present raspberry creams. Did the English ever stop making tea? Did anybody go inside a house anywhere in all of the country and not be offered a cup of tea as soon as they stepped over the doorstep? Even the window cleaner at Malone’s was given a mugful before he wet his chamois.

  Jenny pulled the envelope out of her bag and placed it on the slab of slate. “This came by Overnight Express. Here are my birth certificate, Mom’s marriage license, her death certificate. Uncle Tim threw in other things like photos of us through the years. There’s a letter from him stating I’m Beverly Pender Robinson’s daughter. Our minister witnessed it, as well as a lawyer who lives next door. Uncle Tim had it notarized, just to make sure.”

  “We won’t worry about that now,” Dr. Thorne said as he poured the tea. “I’ll get them over to the solicitors this afternoon. While you’re here, I want you to tell Sarah that you’re twins.”

  “You mean right now? Today?”

  “Let’s have a cuppa first.”

  He pushed a cup of tea in front of her and placed the biscuits in the middle of the trolley. Funny how she was already calling the cookies biscuits.

  “Tell me about your home,” he said. “You know, what life is like in Charlotte. Anything that comes to mind.”

  Jenny reached for the milk pitcher, and while she sipped her tea, told the doctor how Charlotte had trebled in size over the last fifty years. It had turned from a sleepy Southern town into one of the largest banking centers in the United States, how it was impossible to go more than a couple of miles without seeing some sort of construction, how whole subdivisions sprang up almost overnight.

  “It’s not all brand new of course,” Jenny said. “Some of the houses in our section of town are sixty or more years old. I’ve just sold our house and I know I’m going to miss it. There are willow oaks that form a canopy of shade over the whole road. I wish you could see Charlotte in April, Dr. Thorne. That’s when the azaleas and dogwoods bloom. There’s no place in the world any prettier.”

  “It sounds a lovely place,” Dr. Thorne said.

  Jenny noticed the doctor’s wry smile as he picked up his cup. Had he thought she was bragging? “Ah, I only told about the good parts. Charlotte’s got the crack houses and the homeless like big cities everywhere. Not only that, we’ve torn down so many old and lovely buildings, just to make way for new stuff. We’ve got developers everywhere and it’s God help anyone who stands in the way of a bulldozer.”

  She looked out the window and from where she sat could just see the roof of Stoney Beck’s village hall, at least a couple of hundred years old.

  “Nothing like living here, ay,” Dr. Thorne said. “If someone who’s been in the village churchyard for the last couple of hundred years, rose up out of his grave and walked down Market Street, he’d recognize almost everything. He could probably find his same old stool he sat on in the Hare and Hounds. Nothing much changes here.”

  “I think Stoney Beck is a little bit of heaven. If I could change just one thing here, I honestly don’t know what it would be. Apart from the scenery, there’s this sense of time standing still that we don’t get at home. I feel as if I’ve been ferried back to the middle ages. Yet the neat thing is the people are so up to date.”

  Like a schoolboy, Dr. Thorne pushed a couple of chocolate biscuits aside and went for a raspberry cream. “Andy told me your father was ill for a long time before he died. I don’t mean to pry, Jenny, but need to know because of Sarah. What did he die of?”

  Jenny put her hands around her knees to stop the sudden shaking, while at the same time looking around the room for something to latch on to. The same tiger stared back at her from his wallpaper jungle. This time his face was a mask as if he had more important things on his mind. She looked along the wallpaper and watched the back of him slink into the undergrowth.

  “My Dad had Huntington’s disease,” she said. “His mother and all three siblings died of it.” She patted the top of the envelope. “His death certificate’s in here too.”

  The very air in the room felt charged as she reached for the top button of her blouse to undo it, give herself space to breathe, only to discover she had on her green cotton turtleneck.

  “That must have been very hard,” Dr. Thorne said at last, a deep frown creasing his forehead. “Have you been tested?”

  When she didn’t answer, he repeated the question. “You do know there’s a foolproof way to determine if you’re carrying the gene don’t you? Sarah will need to be tested too.”

  Jenny took a deep breath and let it out in a long slow sigh. “I don’t need to be tested and neither will Sarah. You see, dad, well he wasn’t my—, I mean he wasn’t our real father, not our biological one. I didn’t know until the very night my Mother died. That’s when she told me.”

  The doctor set his cup back on the saucer with a clatter.

  “Did she tell you who your real father was?”

  Jenny nodded without looking at him, her gaze on the trolley. Her tea was getting cold, biscuit untouched. Dr. Thorne leaned forward. “I’m not trying to meddle, and if this didn’t involve Sarah, I wouldn’t dream of asking. But if Michael Robinson wasn’t your father, who was?”

  “Can we talk about this later? I just don’t feel like getting into it now.”

  The look on Dr. Thorne’s face let Jenny know he was aware of her discomfort, but in his obvious need to get at the truth he shoved the blade in further. “Sarah told Andy and me what happened at St. Mary’s. She said you told Father Woodleigh the girl in the picture with him was your mother.”

  He held out his hands, palms upwards. “What’s his role in this, Jenny? Sarah said the picture was taken in front of the Hare but I’m dashed if I can remember him. I may be out of line here but have to know. Is it he? Is Father Woodleigh your father?”

  “Yes.” Jenny leaned back in her chair and let her gaze wander around the room as she related the full story, starting with the night her mother told her Michael Robinson was not her father and ending with the letter she’d given to the priest yesterday.

  “I had no idea what he’d do when I told him. But the news made him happy. Can you believe it? I was just blown away by the look on his face. We still don’t know how his bishop or his parish will take this. They probably know by now. Someone’s bound to say that their priest’s the father of twin bastards? He could lose everything.”

  “Everything but you and Sarah.” Dr. Thorne brushed a few biscuit crumbs from his lap then got up and stood in front of her. “I’m sorry you had to tell all this. I know it was hard, but what with Biddy going off the rails, I needed to know.”

  “Yes and even though I dreaded telling you, I’m glad now. You had to know sometime and you weren’t shocked like I thought you’d be.”

  “Who am I to judge? Who is anyone?” He went to the sideboard and picked up a file folder. “If you’ll just read through these papers, then sign them, I can get them over to the solicitors.”

  ***

  Jenny sat beside Sarah on the white wicker bench in the back garden, and as simply and gently as she could, told her about Beverly, the young American who stayed in the Lake District to have her baby.

  “It wasn’t just one baby,” Jenny said. “Beverly had twins. Twin girls. And she could only take one back to her home in America.”

  Sarah leaned forward, lips slightly apart. “Ah, two teeny babies. Why could she only take one?”

  “She didn’t have a lot of money, and you know how much babies cost.”

  “Ah, poor Beverly, and poor baby left behind.”

  “Yes, but the baby didn’t mind. You see two very special people adopted her and she was very happy.”

  Sarah straightened her skirt with her hands. “That’s exactly what happened to me. Mummy and Daddy picked me out of zillions of babies.”

  “This baby�
�s name was Sarah too and she grew up right here in Stoney Beck.”

  “She did? Whereabouts?”

  “In Glen Ellen.”

  Sarah’s brow puckered as she slowly shook her head. “I think I’m the only Sarah who’s ever lived at Glen Ellen, but it couldn’t—”

  “Yes it could,” Jenny whispered, clutching Sarah’s wrist. “That baby girl was you. Beverly was your mother as well as mine. Those babies were you and me. We’re sisters, Sarah. You and I are twins.”

  Sarah giggled and gave Jenny a little push. “Somebody’s pulling your leg. Twins look the same, not different like us. Look at your hair, thick as anything. She held out her hand and stroked Jenny’s face. “And just feel your skin. It’s soft and creamy while mine’s all splotchy. You’re so nice and tall and thin and everything.”

  “No, no, listen to me,” Jenny said, her hands on Sarah’s shoulders. “We really are twins. I was the twin Beverly took back, and you were adopted by the two people who wanted you more than anything in the world.”

  Sarah lowered her head and for at least a minute while she fiddled with a loose piece of wicker, trying to stick it back in place. Finally she looked up at Jenny, her eyes full of hurt. “Beverly didn’t want me did she?” Her voice was soft, sad. “Biddy was right. Nobody wants mongoloid babies if they can get a better one.”

  “That’s not true. Mom loved us both the same, but she was desperate. With two tiny babies and no husband, she just didn’t know what to do. She was only young, even younger than we are now. The two wonderful people who adopted you couldn’t have children of their own so they begged Beverly to let them have you. Not me, Sarah. You. They especially wanted you.” She reached for Sarah’s hand, ran her fingers across the bitten, stubby nails. “People like me are a dime a dozen. But you, you’re special. You’re one in a thousand.”