Love Bade Me Welcome

by Joan Smith

  “What about the nurse? Why wasn’t she watching her charge?”

  “She had to leave the room occasionally. She was feeling unwell herself that evening. She went to ask Millie for a draught. Emily was sleeping, so she didn’t lock the door behind her. It seemed later Emily was only pretending to sleep, and when she got her chance, she escaped and jumped to her death.”

  “Why not from her own bedroom window?”

  “That window is not so far from the ground. The first time she made the attempt, nurse told her she would only break her legs and be a cripple for life, so she got to the attic. The nurse raised a hue and cry when she got back and found her gone. She went shouting through the house. At the inquest, it was assumed the shouting is what finally drove Emily to jump. She had strange fantasies that the world was trying to harm her. It wasn’t true. Her husband loved her very much. He was heartbroken when she died.”

  “It’s strange Norman never told me about it,” I said, feeling a sympathy for the poor mother sunk in melancholia and killing herself when there was no reason.

  “It is strange, for it was much on his mind when he left. Perhaps it was a mistake to keep the truth from him. He didn’t know it till he was a grown man. But he was a very infant when it happened, and who would have the heart to tell a boy such a sad story when he started to grow up? No one had. We did not speak of it, except as an accident. She fell, he thought.”

  “When did he find out? Who told him?”

  “I believe ‘twas the Croffts, when he was courting Eglantine, you know. They feared the mother’s condition might show up in Norman. I know her father came here discussing it with Roger. But you must not worry your head over it. Norman seemed pretty normal.”

  Oh, but it was not normal to spend months copying out extracts and pretending they were your own work. After hearing this tale, nothing about my late husband seemed at all normal. Refusing to return to his own stately home and estate was strange and irregular behavior. The missing money and jewels were of a piece with the rest.

  Keeping the truth from me too—what a wretched thing to do! But if he was mad, there was a kind of sanity in it. If he had told me, I might well not have married him. That was why he hadn’t told me before, and afterwards, why perhaps he was afraid of losing my love. And if he was mad enough to think that, he was mad enough to think he could run away from his mother’s taint by leaving Wyngate, pretending it did not exist.

  We discussed it for a long time, and thought we had figured it out. “It was the discovery of his mother’s condition, and of course Eglantine’s rejection of his suit, that precipitated him into that bout of—well, what shall we call it?” Jarvis asked diffidently. “Not quite madness, but a lack of sanity. Irregular behavior.”

  “Irrational behavior, you mean,” I said, forcing the dreadful word out. A lunatic. I had married a lunatic—a clever, cunning lunatic, whose main preoccupation was to conceal his state from me. It even explained why he thought me so much better than I was. I was sane, utterly sensible and sane, and I loved him. And if I were the best, most beautiful of women besides, as he would have it, and still loved him—how could he be mad? I was a vindication or proof of his sanity. I felt I was being driven towards madness myself,

  “He acted quite normal till then,” Jarvis reminded me. “He graduated from university, Davinia. He was not a fool by any means.”

  “There must have been something wrong with the way he acted, or the Croffts wouldn’t have turned him down. He was so eligible in other ways.”

  “There were a few things—things that seem more significant now than they did at the time, actually. He could be moody—nearly despondent one week, and so merry you’d think he had won a crown the next. Did he get over that strange tendency to alternate in his moods? Why, I remember once in a fit of passion he heaved an inkwell at a footboy and knocked him senseless. Eglantine saw it too, which upset her a good deal.”

  “No, he never got over it,*’ I admitted. “He was moody, violent—but never towards me. He cuffed our general maid, for which I chastised him severely, and he apologized to her. He used to throw things around too—books and vases. Not often, but occasionally.”

  “And the drinking? He used to go on great drinking jags when he was in one of his despondent moods.”

  “He didn’t drink much.”

  “I wonder about those trips he used to go off on with his friend. That could have been an excuse to have a few days of heavy drinking, without your knowing it.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, though he didn’t come home looking hagged. Not with red eyes, I mean, nor looking dissipated. He was tired after. I put it down to the fatigue of traveling.”

  “He didn’t go digging in the canals, at any rate. Or if he did, he made no notes.”

  “Jarvis, do you think he might not have given me the estate jewelry because—what I mean is—he disliked Wyngate so much, that he didn’t want any sign of it on me? Does that make sense?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, “It would seem to make as much sense as the rest of it. I wonder what he did do with it.”

  “What proof is there he ever removed it from that London vault?”

  “They showed Homer the signed receipts. He removed it not long after his father died. I come to think he sold the stuff. It will never be found. And then we have to ask what he did with the money.”

  After we had talked a long time, I went into the topiary garden to walk and think. I spent a long, worried hour fearing Norman’s and his mother’s affliction might be visited on my child. Could I protect it by tender rearing? I thought not. If the seed were there, it would grow. It was almost a blessing Norman had died young. How I wished he had not given me this child before he went. No wonder the family were all dismayed when they discovered it. Homer’s losing his estate was a vexation for them, certainly, but to know this taint was to be carried into another generation of Blythes was infinitely worse. These weak-minded people had a tendency to die young, one way or another. Emily after one child, and Norman at thirty years. Maybe it was God’s apology for having created such imperfect beings. I looked up to see another of God’s errors smiling at me. Little Woodie had hopped out from a bush to pester me. I let him walk with me for a few moments, but it was too painful. I soon left.

  The boy was becoming worrisome. I could hardly leave the house without meeting him, always smiling at me with that vacant, tilt-eyed smile. I believe he hung about Wyngate only to see me. I felt pity for him, yet with such heavy worries for the sanity of my own child, he was more than I could endure. I made the error of saying so in front of Jarvis and Millie, and the latter went pattering straight off to summon Homer from his study. In a moment she was back, asking me if I would mind going to him there.

  It was unsettling, returning to the scene of our former intimacy and argument. Homer was pacing the room. His hair showed signs of having had hands run through it. “What is this, Davinia? The Durwood boy is following you around, pestering you? Millie says he jumped at you from behind a bush, frightening you.”

  “He did startle me. I hadn’t seen him lurking there,” I admitted.

  “I’ll speak to his parents about it. It is intolerable that you should be subjected to this in your condition. I have noticed lately you are paler, distracted.” His dark eyes scrutinized my face, while a worried frown settled between his brows. But I paid little heed to the frown. I was soon aware of another detail. That tension, electricity—whatever name can be given an intangible force that is quite palpable though invisible—was still there between us. It was an attraction of some kind. We stood two yards apart, and I think he had as much difficulty keeping the distance as I. His next words came as a total shock.

  “Is my presence here intolerable to you as well?” he asked bluntly. “I can remove to Farnley Mote, if it would ease your burden. I can still run Wyngate from there.”

  “Oh, no! Don’t leave me,” I said, the words coming spontaneously, and embarrassing me by their passion. “
Don’t leave Wyngate, I mean.”

  While the look of surprise was still on his face, Millie appeared at the door, come to see the excitement. “The sight of that addled boy is enough to deform Davinia’s baby,” she told Homer, taking superstition for fact. “You remember the Gorey girl, Homer, who gave birth to a girl after the coal man frightened her. The baby had a huge black mark on her arm, right where the coal man grabbed the mother. They do say he left the imprint of his five filthy fingers on the child. Ah, your lad will have slanted eyes, Davinia. See if he don’t.”

  “Hush up, you foolish woman,” Homer said.

  “Foolish, is it? You said yourself her boy was apt to prove a moonling.”

  “Wishful thinking,” I retaliated, stung at her unthinking cruelty, but more deeply at the realization of the gossip going on in the family when I was not present.

  “I’ll speak to his parents,” Homer said, and turned on his heel to leave. He had his carriage called, and set out that minute to speak to the parents.

  For a few days Woodie was not seen, but he soon came creeping back. His mother spoke to me at church, apologized for the bother. I felt so sorry for her, I wanted to weep.

  “He’s a harmless boy, really, Lady Blythe,” she assured me. Concern for the boy had etched deep grooves in her face. “It’s only that he dotes on you so. He is never silent about the pretty lady at Wyngate. And you so kind to him.”

  I looked a question, wondering what he had told her, for I had been hard on the poor lad. “Going for little walks with him and all. Some folks do be so cruel, they cuff little Woodie aside. He has his feelings, same as normal folks do.”

  “Of course he has,” I told her. “Pray don’t give it another thought.”

  I would develop more fortitude in this affair. I was as foolish as Millie, to let the boy’s condition influence my actions. He was harmless and friendly. I did not complain of him again, and he did come back, but the revulsion I could not control. It was in my blood, a wish to run when I saw him approaching with his simple smile.

  I took the idea he felt akin to me because of my child, that he knew in some instinctive way there was another like himself being created inside me. I would tolerate his company for as long as I could, never more than a few moments, then I would return to the house. I checked to see if he was about before I went out, but never saw him. He would suddenly appear from nowhere. He came from the direction of the stable, I thought. He was fond of horses and other animals.

  Homer did not speak again of returning to Farnley Mote. There was still a strain in our relations, but less than before I blurted out my ill-advised request for him not to leave. There was no resumption of the tea parties, and certainly no spoken words of love or anything like it. I can best describe the atmosphere by saying we were overly conscious of each other, and whether it was hostility or its reverse that prompted that acute perception, I did not know. I only know that when I looked up from a book or sewing, it was four pence to a groat he would be looking at me, and I was more than once caught out in the same act myself.

  Cousin Bulow continued to call. We went out together, but not on any more all-day excursions. One day we went into Bridgewater, and another we visited Miss Crofft and her family, who expressed polite interest in meeting me. More often we walked around the park of Wyngate. He commented on my emotional state.

  “What is going on here to have upset you so, Davinia? You used to have pale roses in those cheeks. Now I see pale anemones, and some dark circles under those eyes that I dislike to see.”

  “I have learned the truth about Norman’s mother, and his own—instability.” I answered, choosing my words carefully.

  “Who told you?” he asked, his voice loud with indignation. “What monumental stupidity, to trouble you with their imaginings at such a time. Peace and calmness are vital to a mother-to-be. What did they tell you, to have wrought this awful change in you?”

  “The truth. I had already come to suspect Norman was odd, but that it was an hereditary thing... You can imagine how I fear for my child’s sanity.”

  “Davinia, this is the most arrant of nonsense. You should know better than to listen to Millie. Emily was not insane. She suffered a quite normal bout of depression after Norman’s birth. Many women do. Modern doctors know it, if such antiques as they have saddled you with do not.”

  “There is no denying she jumped to her death, Bulow. That is not normal, no matter what you say.”

  “Nobody saw her jump. I don’t mean to imply she was pushed, but my family have always maintained she fell. It is perfectly natural she should escape that room they had her locked up in when she had her chance. I imagine the poor woman only wanted to get some fresh air, to feel the sun on her head and shoulders, maybe go for a little walk. They kept her drugged half to death. She probably stumbled when she heard the nurse pelting along after her, shouting and raising a clamor. That was the decision at the inquest—accidental death— and why Millie should disturb you with any other interpretation is not far from criminal, in my view.”

  “You’re probably right. I’m overly nervous,” I said, but I remembered it wasn’t the senile Millie who told me that tale; it was Jarvis.

  “As to Norman, what did she tell you about him?”

  “His moods, his drinking, his despondency when the Croffts told him about his mother, and when Eglantine refused his offer.”

  “He didn’t drink any more than the next fellow. As to the Croffts’ telling him about his mother, it was not the case. They gave him no reason for rejecting his offer. That pleasant duty fell to his half-brother, I believe.”

  “Homer told him?”

  “Yes, in the most brutal way imaginable. Norman came to me in a state of distraction, to ask if it was true that his mother was a lunatic, and himself likely to have inherited the strain. I tried to calm him, to reason with him. But there was no denying the Croffts had rejected him because of a concern about his mother’s sanity. Rumor, gossip—they are wretched wrongdoers. Norman became obsessed with the idea he was tainted. Any overindulging in drink occurred then, as a direct result of external causes. He was drinking to forget. He came to hate Wyngate, his half-brother, his father—the lot of them. I am the one who suggested he get away for a bit. I never meant for him to forsake Wyngate entirely, but I thought a change of scene would do him a world of good. Then he met you, and the rest you know. You made him so happy he vowed he would never return. One can hardly blame him. He used to write me such eulogies; he was living in a dream, from which he never wished to awaken. He was doing some interesting work on Roman remains. Ah, it is such a pity. I think he would have lived to a ripe and happy old age, and I also think, Davinia, that your child is going to be perfectly normal. Don’t let them frighten you.”

  “I’m not frightened. I’m worried. It is natural.”

  “Indeed it is. I would be less worried if you were in the hands of a proper doctor. Mather is an excellent man for these nervous cases. He’d give you some tonic to help you over this spell. Will you let me send him around?”

  “The family recommended Nevans. I don’t like to hurt their feelings,”

  “Have they shown such concern for yours?” he asked gently.

  “No, they have not. Ask him to come to me tomorrow afternoon. Or is it a nuisance to you to get in touch with him?”

  “It is always a pleasure to serve you, in any way I can. And my dear, if they dislike it, you don’t have to stay with them, you know. I would always be happy to have you at the Barrows. It is not so grand a place as Wyngate, but happier. And I too am family.”

  “You’re very kind,” I said, grateful for his friendship.

  “I am also selfish. I am jealous of Homer, having you beneath his roof.”

  “It’s not settled yet it is his roof,” I reminded him.

  He tossed his shoulders. “One way or the other, he’ll get Wyngate,” he said wearily. “Between his own wits and his mother’s help, he’ll end up cock of the walk. Ever since Rog
er married Thal, there has been that sort of—feeling, if you understand me—that Homer would be the eventual heir. Norman was sent off to university, and Homer was introduced into the running pf the estate. Maybe that’s why they were at such pains to make Norman out to be insane, or to drive him mad. What a spoke you stuck in their wheel! They didn’t expect that. You could almost hear the gears going round when they learned it. How are we to get Wyngate away from her? I don’t doubt it will be best all around if you have a girl, Davinia. Then you’ll be no danger to them, and their ambitions. It’s not worth it—a house and a bit of land.”

  “The Blythes specialize in boys, I understand. You almost make me wonder which of the brothers was more mad—Homer, or Norman.”

  “Let us say both are, or were, in Norman’s case, a little unusual. A madness for ambition is the more dangerous of the two sorts. You know where to come, if you feel... threatened in any way.”

  “I’m not ready to cry craven, but I’ll remember your offer. I thank you, Cousin Bulow.”

  “Think about it,” he urged. We returned to the house, our arms linked.

  I made no fuss about changing doctors, but mentioned it casually at dinner that evening. “I have decided to have Dr. Mather for my lying in. Should I write to Nevans, Homer, or tell him next time he is here to see Thal?”

  “When did you decide that?” he asked, blinking. “We know nothing of the man. He is new here. Nevans we have known forever.”

  “I prefer a younger man, one more in touch with modern methods,” I answered, and served myself some green peas, with no display of emotion.

  “This is Bulow’s doings,” Jarvis said, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

  “Yes, he speaks highly of the new man. His mother uses him, I believe.”