Born of Woman

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Well, you’d better talk it over with your lawyers. That’s what they’re there for, aren’t they?’ Lyn turned away. He refused to play solicitor himself, spend Christmas night chewing over Edward’s problems as householder and heir.

  ‘Of course, there is one solution.’ Edward was almost talking to himself.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I … What I’m trying to say is … I could get someone to look after the house for me—pay them, of course, for keeping it in good shape and administering it on my behalf—seeing to repairs and so on. Then maybe I could visit here sometimes—make it my base for just a month or two in your summer, when the weather’s milder and travelling much easier—a sort of holiday home or … The fares would be steep, so I couldn’t come too often, but, after all, I’ve worked hard all my life and had very little time for holidays, so far, and my parents left me money, so … The only problem is … I’d need someone who knows the area and wouldn’t mind the loneliness. What I’m trying to say is, if … if you, Lyn … No—you’d probably be offended, but …’

  Lyn stared at him. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Well, after all, it is your house—not legally, but in every other way You’ve lived there most of your life and your father’s family before you. All your memories are there, your past. Quite honestly, I’d feel a bit of a … brute turning you out, in any case. I may have been pressing for my rights, but not at the cost of depriving you of a roof over your head. So why not stay and sort of … hold the place on my behalf? It would solve several problems at once. After all, you’re going to need a home and …’

  Lyn could hardly find his voice. ‘You mean, you … you’d pay me, just for … living there and …?’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to pay someone, so why not the man who’s lived there thirty years and knows the problems?’

  Problems. Lyn tensed. The old boyhood fears were flooding back again—fears of ties, responsibilities—new fears now of being beholden to someone else. Expectations. Obligations.

  Edward was speaking more confidently now, as if he were warming to his own idea. ‘I ‘d keep control, of course. I’d like certain improvements put in hand—decent heating and lighting, for example. I’d pay you a proper annual salary to supervise all that, act as my … deputy, agent, manager—call it what you like. We can keep in touch by post and …’

  Lyn swung abruptly round to face the window. Executor again—that’s all it would add up to—running Edward’s errands, doing his repairs, while the master sipped mango-juice among the pohutukawas. Deputy, agent, manager, might just as well read servant, stooge and dogsbody. He butted his head against the icy snow-bound window.

  ‘You’d be able to paint, then, Lyn. I’d like to think of you taking up your art again. You should have quite a bit of time free. I wouldn’t expect you to do all the repairs yourself, of course. You’d need workmen for the tough jobs. Artists mustn‘t waste their skills. So long as you were on the spot to see they didn’t skimp the work, and took overall responsibility and …’

  Lyn winced. That word again. Yet wasn’t it money for nothing—jam on his bread, when he had despaired of even the driest smallest crust? Edward was paying, him to paint, for heaven’s sake—the thing he wanted most to do in his life. He would have time and cash enough to struggle with line and form, colour and texture, rather than with bills and boilers, stony ground. He would be salaried, secure—paid simply to keep a house alive. The cost of it, the burden, would now be on Edward’s back. A hundred different fears and frets were exploding in his mind. Was he angry, grateful, elated? He hardly knew, could hardly take it in. Hernhope was his again, yet not his. He could live there as Edward’s lackey and on his terms. His pride kicked against the contract. Yet some strange shivery dart of sheer relief seemed to be swooping through his body.

  He lifted his head from the window, traced a pattern on it. Was it crazy to rejoice? The thing was too damned pat. There was bound to be a catch in it. How did he know he still had skills at all? The paintings Edward had praised had been done twenty years ago. And artist up here meant pansy—he mustn’t forget that. He would never be accepted by that hale and simple community of farmers. They might despise him more now that he was under orders to a foreigner. Might despise himself.

  Yet wasn’t he helping Edward, shoring up his pride, allowing him to run away from cold and fear and loneliness by using fancy terms like deputy? And what about his batch of work this summer—that was recent stuff, and good—some of the best he’d ever done, in fact.

  He turned back to Edward, fumbled for an adequate reply, ‘Look, I … I don’t know what to say. It’s all a bit of a … shock. I simply wasn’t … I mean, Hester mightn’t have wanted you to leave, or me to … After all, she deliberately left the house to you and …’ He stopped. Had Hester perhaps arranged this whole affair? Was it simply a continuation of her power and presence in the house, the cellar? She had delayed him there with the buttons, trapped him in her territory until the snow was too treacherous to let him make his getaway. Even now, they were only a few short miles from Hernhope. The house was dragging him back, as it had done as a boy, a youth. Only now, the terms had changed. He was no longer a householder with a sullen demanding property, but an artist with a patron.

  Edward was leaning forward, legs apart, hands sawing the air in his enthusiasm. He seemed warmer, more alive. ‘I’d like you to make it a real family home—like it used to be in the book. Take your wife there. She likes the house, does she?’

  ‘Mm.’ Lyn was grudging. How could Edward refer to his wife as casually as that, as if there were no miles or barriers between them? Edward had enquired about his marriage on the first lap of the journey and he had tried to fob him off by telling him his wife was down in London, nursing a sick friend. What he hadn’t said was that the separation was permanent, the friend dangerous and entrenched. Jennifer would never sponge on Edward, anyway. She was tied to Susie and a baby, preferred playing at mothers and fathers to her real and barren marriage. Three months ago, she would have been overjoyed to have Hernhope as her home again.

  Now, he feared, she had turned her back on it. The offer had come too late.

  Edward was squashing his leg, turning towards him in his enthusiasm. ‘That’s good. If you have children, they can carry on the place. You mustn’t think I don’t understand the importance of that house, Lyn—its history and tradition. I hated what you said about it falling into ruin, when it’s my … er … mother’s house and … If that ever were to happen, then part of her would be destroyed, and you and …’

  Lyn closed his eyes and saw Jennifer coming under him—humping, gasping on the cellar floor. ‘My wife was …’ He swallowed, couldn’t get the word out—‘Pr … pregnant a year or so ago. She … lost the child.’ It had been a child—part of him, a brief unfinished sketch in his portfolio, which he had never claimed before.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Lyn.’

  ‘She … wants to try again. I’ve always been opposed, but now I …’ Lies, all lies. He was still opposed. And yet, if Jennifer agreed … if his wife came back, he would allow her almost anything. Allow himself.

  He felt himself stiffen, even in the cold. A ram again, mounting her, twenty times a night. All the ewes round him were in lamb. The tups had done their stuff and every flock would be doubled in the spring. New life, new start. He longed to be a part of it, to career down to Southwark for his mate, scoop her back up here, instal her triumphant in his house. It needn’t be too late. She could still be overjoyed. Hadn’t she told him so often they belonged here, used high-flown words like ‘mission’? She was right. Twice he had tried to cut himself off from Hernhope, and twice he had been drawn back to it. It might just work, with a wife to help and soothe. It wouldn’t be easy, rosy. It was often a struggle to paint at all—to trap truth in two dimensions, cage grandeur in a frame. The problems would still be there—the cold, the desolation. The house was old, difficult to run. There would still be gossip, Philistine
s, hostile tongues around him. Yet Jennifer could woo them and disarm them, tame the house and land as she had done before.

  Edward was restless again, trying to smooth his damp and crumpled trousers. ‘Mind you, I don’t expect my solicitors will be exactly overjoyed. They’re bound to bring up all manner of objections about tenants and probate and … Look, perhaps you’d better join me for that lunch tomorrow—if we ever get to Newcastle, that is. You could meet my legal friend, then, and we could draw up a formal contract with no loopholes or loose ends, decide on your salary, work out the priorities.’

  Lyn frowned. Edward sounded worse than Matthew. Two elder brothers, both making him conform and knuckle under.

  ‘After all, it is a very tricky situation in an already complex case. Though, in fact, I’d prefer to keep the issue of the house quite separate from the book. It’s a different matter entirely and what I intend to do on that front is contact Hartley Davies and see if they …’

  ‘Edward …?’ Lyn cut in, leaned forward. It was the first time he had used Ainsley’s Christian name. It sounded strange and almost dangerous on his lips. His shoulders were tensed, hands clutching at each other.

  ‘Well?’

  Lyn hesitated, swallowed, then spoke almost in a mumble. ‘You wouldn’t … drop the case, would you?’

  Edward drew himself up so swiftly, his head grazed the top of the car. ‘You’re really going too far, Lyn. I’ve offered you the house and a salary, but to expect me now to …’

  Lyn winced. Edward was right—and yet …‘I’m not asking for myself, Edward. Let’s face it, whatever the legal technicalities, I’ve hardly received a penny from that book, so no one can come to me to ask for cash. It’s … Matthew.’ He broke off. He had felt worried and uneasy over Matthew ever since Edward had mentioned his disappearance. What did it mean, the solicitor had lost contact with his client? Where had Matthew gone? He saw the solemn and bewhiskered Father Christmas handing him a fat expensive volume on Turner’s Sketchbooks, reproduced facsimile. There had been precious books before that, posted up to Mepperton. Hester had bridled—waste of money, waste of time. No—those books had helped to train him in his art, had also been a kind of caring, an investment in him, almost.

  He grabbed Edward’s arm. ‘I’m not defending Matthew. God alone knows what he’s up to. It’s just that …’ He couldn’t find the words, could only see the family harassed and in hiding. What would Anne be doing, silent stoic Anne, fretting in some bolt-hole? And Jennifer’s favourite, Charles, who was so painfully shy and conforming, hated change and upheaval?

  ‘Look here.’ Edward’s voice was shrill. ‘Matthew asked for trouble. He simply ignored the fact that I might still exist and have rights and claims of my own. He didn’t even show his lawyer that record of my birth. That’s irresponsible, if not downright devious.’

  ‘Yes, but your claims are accepted now. Hester acknowledged you as her first and elder son, treated you as her only son, in fact. She left nothing to me at all, and Matthew she didn’t even mention, despite the fact she nannied him all those years. He’s the one who doesn’t exist in her eyes.’ Strange to be pleading for Matthew, yet he was still in his debt from years ago—in debt for wife, house, job, as well as art books and critiques. No girl like Jennifer would have looked at him without Matthew as security and marriage-broker. Now he wanted to repay the debt, so his wife would be his, on his own terms, with no one standing over or between them. He yearned to marry her again, free from Matthew, far from London; grab her young and virginal, with Hester rejoicing now, not disapproving. He turned to Edward, still glowering next to him.

  ‘I …I know it’s a cheek to expect you to … withdraw when you’re owed a lot of cash and … but you don’t need that money, do you? You admitted that yourself. The Frasers left you everything—not just their house, but …’

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s the principle I’m concerned with.’

  ‘But you’ve won your case on principle. The whole world’s on your side. I’ve not read a single account which doesn’t see you as the injured party.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. The whole damned world knows I’m a …

  bastard now.’ Edward had never used the word before, spat it out as if it were poison in his mouth.

  ‘OK, but they’ll forget it—if only you’d allow them to. Just lie low for a while and they’ll turn on some other poor devil and harass him. The worst thing you can do is to keep hollering for your rights. That keeps the thing alive, keeps your name big news. You’re playing into their hands—and the lawyers’. It must be costing you a bomb, this case, and you admit yourself you’ve got nowhere yet at all.’

  ‘Matthew will have to pay my costs. That’ll all be part of the settlement.’

  ‘What settlement? You’re still a hundred years away from it. Why waste all your energy on pointless legal wrangling and make the lawyers rich? OK—so Matthew’s wronged you. He’s wronged me too, but …’

  ‘It’s completely different for you, Lyn. I’ve had my reputation damaged. That’s a very serious matter. And I’ve lost an important council election.’

  ‘Only by a handful of votes—that’s what I read in the Mail. Anyway, one lost election isn’t the end of the world. There’ll be another chance, won’t there? Why not go back and fight it? Stand up to those scandalmongers and show them you don’t care about the gossip. You said you had friends. Well, true friends don’t disown you. Bastardy’s not a crime, in any case.’ Lyn flushed. How could he be urging Edward to sally forth like some Knight of the Holy Grail, when he himself was a skulker and a coward who ran away from everything? Or was he actually trying to rouse himself, invoking guts and daring because he needed them in his own fight?

  Edward hadn’t answered. He seemed to be grappling with a score of different emotions. He muttered something, broke off, chewed his lip, heaved back in his seat.

  ‘I lost by exactly seven votes,’ he muttered, at last.

  ‘Well, there you are. It was obviously a very close-run thing—not the whole town turning against you.’ Edward didn’t appear to have heard. He was still slumped back in his seat, withdrawn into himself.

  ‘Edward …’ Lyn decided to strike, before he lost his chance. ‘So what d’you think? Will you let Matthew off, or at least settle privately without …?’

  Edward looked up. He no longer sounded petulant. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, slowly, ‘It’s a … very big question and I can’t possibly answer it here and now. It depends on a lot of different factors—one of them being your answer to my own question. Will you stay on at Hernhope?’

  Lyn drew in his breath. The silence was so deep, the sound seemed to shudder through it. Even the wind had dropped, and was no longer nagging and blustering round the car. Or maybe they could simply no longer hear it. The snow had built up so thickly on the windows, that they were insulated, shuttered. Lyn felt suddenly infinitely weary. He laid his head on the seat in front, tried to think coherently. Was Edward’s offer just a trap? Had he thought it out enough, all its implications? He could still refuse, opt to be a no one and a nomad, instead of replacing dependence on one half-brother with dependence on the other.

  He glanced across at Edward—blur and shadow still—reproduced his features in his mind. The balding pate, the lined and weathered face, the muscles turned to blubber, the age-spots on his hands. An old man and a bastard, sent away by Hester, disowned as her child. Edward wasn’t any threat. Dependence on him was different, hardly counted. Ainsley would soon be thirteen thousand miles away, not breathing down his neck, listening to every murmur through a bedroom wall. He would be free of both his half-brothers, left as only son.

  He realised now it was Matthew who was alien, Edward who was foreigner. Both of them lived in towns, spent their days in offices, saw life in terms of cash and contracts; both of them turned their backs on the wild unbridled country of their ancestors. He feared it, but stayed on. He might not have farmed the land or planted forests, but he h
ad captured it on paper and on canvas. You had to draw and paint in order to understand—sense the bones beneath the soil, the spine and sinews holding hills together. His art was born and rooted here, had always shrivelled in London, turned soft and superficial when he caged it up in studios. He would no longer have to grovel to Matthew for his livelihood, sell his talents to a commercial company who wanted only the flashy and the slick. He could show hills devouring hills, God’s thumb pressing down on forests, bruising skies. And in the night he could wrap his wife around him, hold her so tight, she could never stray again.

  Suddenly, he fumbled for the door-handle, heaved at the door which seemed to have stuck.

  Edward grabbed his arm. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Only for a pee. I’m bursting.’

  ‘Well, don’t go too far, this time, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Lyn slammed the door behind him, scrambled up the bank. The snow was no longer falling, but lay deep and white and treacherous, sucking down his shoes. It was easier to see, now. The moon looked pale and peaky, but trailed a grudging light which the snow itself reflected back at it. He turned his back, relieved himself—piss steaming on the snow—then struggled further up the hill, gazing out at the waste of white around him. The whole earth was hard and frozen, the stars too cold to shine, the sky as numb and leaden as the ground. Yet underneath that snow was grass and green, and beyond it whimpered April—milk in the ewes, bread in the furrow, himself in Jennifer. He longed to say ‘I will’ again, worship her with his body, endow her with all his worldly goods, even if they were Edward’s. They had married in the springtime—conventional enough, perhaps—but spring meant more up here. Resurrection after death, light after blindness, hope with soft feet and warm fingers treading down winter and despair.