“Oh, I am so sorry. But I have spoken,” said Julia wearily. “Over and over again. To my husband. And to the police. They don’t believe me. I’m an outsider.”
“And I’m black.” They exchanged a glance of total sympathy.
“But, surely”—Julia had been thinking about it—”at the hospital that night. They must have tested you for drugs. I told the ambulance men.”
“That’s queer. They certainly never did. I was put to bed and left to sleep it off, nice and quiet. Lucky for me I survived. But”—she spoke with professional fairness “things were a shambles at St. Helen’s that night, what with that highway disaster and then your fire. The ambulance men had been rushed off their feet all evening.”
“St. Helen’s?” It gave Julia an odd qualm. “So it was. I remember now, I’d taken it for granted we were going to the General.”
“St. Helen’s was nearest,” said Nurse Morris. “I was lucky they took me in.”
“I wonder.” It was odd to have forgotten her instinctive recoil when the ambulance stopped outside the hospital, and her relief at seeing a taxi pull up behind it and discharge its passenger. At the time, she had merely felt exhausted, and thought of the comfort of a hotel rather than a hospital bed. Now she could not help remembering the confusion that had surrounded her own previous admission to St. Helen’s. “Tell me,” she asked, surprising herself. “Do you ever give anaesthetics for a miscarriage?”
“Not a simple one,” said Nurse Morris, rising to her feet. “Well, Mrs. Rivers, there it is. You’re an hysteric and I’m a nurse who sleeps on duty. I expect we’ll live it down. And, by the way, thanks a million for saving my life.”
“An hysteric.” It should have warned her. That was what everyone was saying. No wonder if Breckon believed it. Besides, ruefully, she remembered that she had acted the part with him often enough. Not much use, now, all this time later, to tell herself that she had had some grounds for hysteria. Poor Breckon, torn between an hysterical wife and two scatty sisters. Not to mention Uncle Paul having tantrums and Raoul on the bottle.
A tear dropped on Breckon’s picture and she wiped it away with her handkerchief. She put the picture away and pulled herself together to start on her day. She had lost Breckon, once, when she gave him her ultimatum after that horrible month at the hotel, and again, finally, that disastrous morning in her London flat, when she let him see she had suspected him.
All over…all done with—and best forgotten. Let the past be the past. How gladly she would if only she could find Dominic. What would she do if she failed? Not go back to Sir Charles. And not yield to the temptation of those hoarded sleeping pills either. Odd to find that both these decisions had made themselves in the night. She had a debt to pay. If not to Dominic, then to other children like him. Surely, somewhere, there must be a place for her, working with them…for them?
No message this morning. She had almost given up hoping for one. Tarn, telephoning, said angrily that he had a black eye and had failed to get hold of Mr. Heyward. “I’ll have to meet him. For God’s sake, be careful today, girl. Keep away from dark corners, go sightseeing, stay with the crowds. Tomorrow, we’ll get to work.”
“Thanks.” But they must have known she would not obey him. Or not entirely. Where could she be safer than on the crowded vaporetti? Besides, it was all nonsense. The attack had to have been a random one. Putting it resolutely out of her mind, she bought her ticket at the Academia stop and decided to start the morning with the left bank. The first stage produced nothing, but the second one presented her with a problem. She passed the new cut, where the Linea Two boats turned off for the express route to the station. If she failed on the Grand Canal, she would try that. It looked wide enough, but surely too modern for the railings in Dominic’s picture.
It was a long, frustrating morning, and, holding her own on her chosen side of each vaporetto as she went to and fro, Julia began to think she hated people. Push chairs barked her ankles; suitcases banged her back; a rucksack wielded by an immense German nearly put out her eye. And it all took so long. Down to San Toma on the left side. Back to the Academia on the other. It was twelve o’clock already. But she could do four stops next time; the two she had already done both ways, and then two more, taking her within one stop of the Rialto Bridge, where Tarn’s hotel was, and, by her reckoning, about halfway down the Grand Canal.
Pushing her way with the crowd off the boat, she heard all the clocks of Venice striking twelve, and saw that the man from the ticket office had emerged with a blackboard, which he leaned up against his window before sauntering away in the direction of the café where she had lunched the day before. The message on the board was short and far from sweet. The service was suspended for two hours because of a lightning strike by the attendants.
Two hours. God, what a waste. She looked up the Academia in her guidebook, saw that it was open until one, and went in to confirm her suspicion that Tintoretto was a great bore. Then, nothing for it but to kill time over a pizza and a glass of wine in the café where, thank goodness, there were no Miss Browns today. Back sharp at two at the ferry stop, she joined the crowd that awaited the first boat, and just managed to push her way on board. For the first two stops, which she had investigated the day before, she let herself simply enjoy the small details of living along the canal, particularly the contrast between venerable palazzos that had been let go to romantic rack and ruin, and others, presumably bought and done up by big business, that sported elegant, restrained bits of bunting to advertise their wares. Then, at San Angelo, she moved over to the left-hand side of the boat and began to pay attention again. Aside from her first, exhausted trip up from the station, this was new ground—or rather new water. The boat was taking a long sweep across the canal, very wide here, towards the next stop, which her map showed on the left bank. She stiffened suddenly, trod on a high-heeled ankle, was sworn at, and took no notice. Ahead, on the left, trees leaned out over a dark railing.
Someone tried to push past her to the side, and she took hold of the rail with both hands, muttering a furious “Prego” over her shoulder. The railing looked right. The garden behind looked possible. And—the glimpse had been so quick she could not be sure—but something brightly coloured. A child’s toy? A swing? A slide? A boy’s? Dominic’s?
She got off the boat at San Silvestro, actually shaking with excitement. The stop was on a wide fondamenta, with, farther down, an outbreak of café tables, but she turned back the way the boat had come, and pushed through loitering crowds until she reached the blank wall that ended the pavement. No way from here into the garden she had seen. She looked at her map, retraced her steps, and took the first, narrow, left turn. Left again. Now she must be almost directly behind the garden. And here, set in the high wall, was one of those elegant, characteristic, blank Venetian doors. A letterbox; a number; no name. But, high up on the right, an old-fashioned bell push. Tarn had said she must wait for him if she found anything. Ridiculous. How could she wait? She knew now that, in her heart, she had never meant to.
Firmly pulled, the bell jangled somewhere inside the house. Standing there, in the empty lane, Julia had the strangest, most unpleasant feeling of being under observation. She turned, quickly, and a curtain, on the second floor of the house across the way, fell gently back into place. It might mean anything. An old person, perhaps, with nothing to do but look out of the window? Anyway, the sound of footsteps behind that blank, black door drew all her attention. What in the world was she going to say?
A maid, very neat, very smart, in black and white, opened the door and looked at her enquiringly. For a moment, her mind was a complete blank. Then, “There is a child here?” she asked, in her fluent Italian.
“Si, signora?” The girl made it a question.
Julia took a firm step into the tiled hall and looked about her. Everything she saw spelt money, well spent. The whole interior of the palazzo must have been gutted and replaced in a plain modern style that pleased her. She took another
step forward, recognizing a picture on the wall as one of Grandma Moses’ primitives. “May I speak to the lady of the house?” She managed a calm confidence she was very far from feeling.
“The lady?” The girl looked puzzled. “But there is no lady. Only the signor.”
“Oh.” How strange. “Then, if I might see him?” She took another tentative step forward towards the big balustraded central stair that led up to the main floor.
Now the girl was barring her way, politely, but with some firmness. “I must first ask,” she said. “The signora’s name?”
“Mrs. Rivers.” Julia saw a flicker of something—amazement?—cross the sallow face.
“I will tell the signor.” The girl gestured to an antique settle that stood against one wall of the big, cool entrance hall.
“Thank you.” Julia shook her head and moved over to look at the lively little picture of flowers and children as the girl ran up and round the corner of the stairs. How would one get out to the garden? Doors on each side of the stairway, at the back of the hall, must lead to it, by the way, probably, of the servants’ quarters. But her situation was odd enough as it was. She turned away from those tempting doors to take a quick inventory of her own appearance in a huge looking glass that hung to the right of the entrance. Yes, she would pass muster in this elegant house. Sir Charles had taught her well. The dark, cool-looking figure in the glass might have stepped out of Vogue. Inside, somewhere, cowered the slum child, and all the nameless faces and fears that haunted her. Outside, all looked well with her. How strange it was…
She pulled fresh white gloves out of her bag and turned to meet the maid, who was coming downstairs, looking, surely, flustered.
“He says you are to come up, signora.”
“Thank you.” Following the girl up shallow stairs, Julia thought that something had shaken her badly. For the first time, she wished, passionately, that she had not followed impulse and come alone. She should have waited for Tarn.
The upper hall was tiled like the one below, but narrower. The maid opened a big door and ushered Julia into a room full of light. Huge windows along the canal side of the palazzo had their shutters thrown back to let in morning sunshine, which was reflected, dazzlingly, by a mirror-wall on either side of the doorway. A man, standing to receive her, was, for a moment, only a silhouette against the light.
Behind her, the door shut softly on the maid. Julia took a hesitant step forward. “My apologies for this intrusion,” she began in Italian, and then, “Dear God, Breckon!”
“So it is you. ‘Mrs. Rivers.’ I trust you don’t expect a welcome.”
“But—I don’t understand.” It was true. She understood nothing, and, least of all, what had happened to Breckon. No wonder she had not recognised him in silhouette against the light. Where was the dark-suited, formal young man she had married? This stranger had fair, well-brushed curling hair down to his shoulders and wore a scarlet silk shirt with narrow black corduroys. Only the face, looking at her with something beyond dislike, had not changed, except that she had never seen him look so brown and healthy, and surely, impossibly, younger?
“Why should you understand?” He placed a chair for her with its back to the window. “And, more important, why the hell are you here? A little late, surely, for that?”
“You mean—” It was extraordinary: at once too good to be true, and too painful to be borne. “You have got him? Dominic?”
“My son. Yes. No thanks to you.” And then, “How in God’s name do you know his name?”
“I had a letter.” Ignoring the chair, she moved towards the window. “Breckon, please, may I see him?”
“I can hardly stop you looking out of the window. But if you mean, talk to him: no. You lost that right when you abandoned him. We’ve come a long way, he and I. You’re not going to spoil it now. I told him you were dead. It seemed…kindest.”
It was salt in the old wound, but she was absorbed in gazing down out of the wide window at the garden, with its small grass-plot, its fringe of trees, and all that apparatus for happy childhood. It was probably the brightly coloured, child-sized slide that had caught her attention from the canal. And, there, at the top, sat a fair-haired boy, his good hand held by a dark, beautiful, smiling girl, who now, gently, pushed him off to zoom down the slide, exploding with happy laughter as he went.
“How could you?” asked Breckon. And then, “No, I don’t want to know. It’s enough that you did.”
“Yes.” She looked up at him with tear-drowned eyes. “You’re right. Only—I was ill, Breckon. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It didn’t occur to you to get in touch with me? I am, after all, his father. That’s obvious enough, poor little bastard.” They stood together, in an odd appearance of amity, looking down at their child, who was now making skilful use of his left arm to help his right one as he climbed back up the ladder to the top of the slide.
“He’s wonderfully better,” she said.
“Of course he is! If you knew what he’s been through. But that’s no affair of yours.”
“Breckon! I meant to write to you. After he was born.” The words came painfully. “Only, when he was like that…After what you said, that last morning, how could I? Besides”—she was trying to be honest with herself as well as with him—”I suppose, in a way it was an excuse. I didn’t want to, you see. Get in touch with you. I didn’t think it was any of your business. After you didn’t answer my letters. After…oh, after all of it. And, of course, before he was born, I thought I could manage. On my own. Only—I was ill, afterwards. That’s another reason I didn’t write. By the time I was strong enough, it seemed too late. The lawyer said—” She was blushing, horribly, painfully, remembering how gently Sir Charles’ young lawyer had broken it to her. “Dominic was born late,” she explained. “Three weeks. He said—the lawyer—you might not believe…And the doctors said I couldn’t cope on my own. He needed so much. So—” She would not tell this angry stranger about the breakdown that had followed her decision. But, “It was you all along?” she asked. “You adopted him?”
“My son.”
“How did you know?”
“No thanks to you. By sheer good luck. I was passing through London, on my way here. I”—just for a moment his expression softened—”I remembered what I’d said that morning, too. I wanted to make sure you were all right. Maybe had found someone else…So I called your office and was told you were in the hospital. After that, it was simple.”
“You didn’t come to see me.”
“Why should I? You hadn’t told me.” It was unanswerable.
“And you’ve had him ever since?”
“Well, of course.”
“And knew I was looking for him, and didn’t tell me.” In so much that was unbearable, this was the worst.
“No. How should I know you were looking for him?
I left instructions, at the start, that there must be no back trail. Theoretically, mind you, there never is, but I made extra sure.”
“You certainly did. But—” She was completely in a fog, and found herself, oddly, remembering that morning, back at Charleston, when only river mist had saved her. “Breckon, what are you doing here? I don’t understand anything…”
“Why should you?” But, now, curiously, he sounded defensive. “In a way,” he said with an effort, “I suppose I owe you an apology, Julia.”
“Oh?” Below them, in the garden, the child had grown tired of the slide, and he and his dark-haired companion had moved over, hand in hand, to the small swing that hung from an ilex. And, below them in the house, the doorbell jangled.
“You were right about La Rivière ,” he said. “Something very queer was going on there. I—decided to come away.”
“Breckon, why? What happened?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“I—don’t know.” She spoke the words slowly, fighting tears.
“My family,” he said, and then, in Italian, “Yes, Maria?”
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br /> “There are two ladies.” She handed him a letter, “They ask to see you.”
“Excuse me?” Formally, to Julia, who suspected him of being relieved at the interruption. He opened the letter and read it with his old quick concentration. “I’ll have to see them,” he said. “Friends of the girls. Leaving tonight. Besides, we’ve said all there is.”
“No!” She had not thought. she could be so angry.
“How can you say that? I want to see my child, Breckon. I mean to see him. Besides, there’s more.” She must tell him about the anonymous letters.
“You are not going to see the child.” The carefully spaced words carried their own sense of finality, and Julia saw the maid flash him a puzzled glance for their tone. He turned to her. “Show the ladies up.” And then, in face of Julia’s impending outburst, “I have to see them. Give me the name of your hotel. I’ll ring you—Not tonight. I’m busy. Tomorrow. Anything you want to say, say then. And then, that’s all.”
“You’re cruel!” Tears blinded her and she turned away from the window, through which she could no longer see.
“As cruel as you were when you abandoned him?” And then, once again with evident relief, he turned to the door, where Maria was ushering in—the Miss Browns.
“Mr. Rivers.” The expression of the elder of the two showed that she was aware of the quarrel they had interrupted. “How good of you to see us.” And then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dazzling light of the room, “Good gracious, and Mrs. Rivers?” The question hung, half-spoken in the air.
It got no answer. “How do you do.” Breckon shook the two outstretched hands. And then, inevitably, “You know Mrs. Rivers?”
“We met on the train,” the elder Miss Brown explained.
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