“What a joyous occasion this is, is it not? And the Hawksworths too, all in the same year.” She lowered her voice, half glancing at Gilbert, “I am doing all I can, here, of course. Poor dear Mr. Nicolson …”
The boy continued to stand in front of Alice, where he had been placed. She could not think of anything even remotely polite to say. She had been intending to go in five minutes, when she had drunk her cup of weak tea. Up to the darkroom to begin at once the pictures she had taken this afternoon.
She saw that he was looking at her. “Did you eat some of the christening cake?” she asked. “Have you been given some?”
He shook his head. “No, thank you.” His voice was so low she could scarcely catch the words. “I had enough, thank you.” His tone was very polite.
She said, “Fm not hungry either. I don’t eat very much. I don’t believe in it. If you eat,” she said, “you can’t fly.”
He looked up suddenly; interest flashed across his face. She could not think why she had said it. Although it was of course the truth.
He frowned. “I don’t partic”—and he stumbled over the word—“particularlely want to be a bird.”
She said then, matter-of-factly, “Let’s leave all this food and—people. Come with me.”
Where to go? She could not take him to Nan-Nan, who would soon be, if she weren’t already, fussing, supervising the nurserymaids, the care of the baby…. Fräulein was not in her room but down at the party.
“Come with me.” She went out into the hall, not looking to see if he followed her.
“He’s called Henry,” she said idly as they walked along, “after my grandfather, and also I think after my father’s elder brother, who died in a railway accident. But we are to call him Hal.” (“See if I care,” she said to herself, “see if I care.”)
“Did you notice me taking photographs?” she asked. “You were not there, I think. We could go up to my special photograph room. You may see then how I set about developing.”
They went up the stairs to the darkroom. She rattled the keys importantly. He may come in this once, she said to herself. It is a special occasion. Then as she opened the door, she regretted her offer.
“Well, here it is.” But he only stood there politely. Too politely.
“Come over here,” she said. “These are tin dishes for washing the plates —I’ve coated them with bath enamel myself.” He gazed wonderingly, she hoped admiringly.
“All the real work has to be done in the dark, of course,” she said importantly.
Once or twice he asked her a question but it was with great effort, in a small closed-up voice, as if his throat were sewn too tight. At one stage, he said suddenly, very politely:
“Thank you. It’s all—very interesting.”
“Do you want to go?” She thought that perhaps he had had enough by now. And she—she would rather be alone.
“No. I mean, yes. No, I …” His voice faltered. Then broke. He caught his breath. She saw that he was shaking. Almost in tears.
She could think of nothing to say. Nothing to do, either. After a few seconds:
“Is it about …” She hesitated. The word was sacred to her too. “Is it about—your mother?”
He nodded. The tears spilled over. And then he was weeping in earnest. She did not know what to do. She was at once elated and frightened. She must deal with this.
He stood quite still, shoulders shaking, tears coursing along the freckles. There was no sound except for his sobbing. He should not, must not, cry alone for a mother.
“I heard—that she died.”
Still he wept. She laid down the printing frame that she held. She stretched out her arms, and drew him toward her. (Almost, she thought afterward, as if it were done for her.) Her arms enclosed him just as she would wish to be clasped and comforted.
They were the same height, almost exactly. As she pulled his head against hers, she felt his tears dampen her cheek. His body was bony against her.
She wasn’t sure when she began to cry, but it seemed staunchless. A great well of tears. They rocked, sobbed, rocked in each other’s arms.
It was he who stopped first, suddenly drawing himself up, searching in the pockets of his jacket for a handkerchief. While he blew his nose, she said, surprised by the steadiness of her voice:
“If there’s nothing else you want to see, we must go back, I think. They will wonder where we are.”
He didn’t speak on the walk back. As they neared the hall and drawing room, she said lightly, “If you are interested—in photography—then I could invite you again. To see how it is done.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice still flat. “Yes—please, Miss Firth.”
“Oh, but I am Alice. And you’re Gilbert—”
“Gib,” he said, and smiled suddenly. “I’m Gib.”
Before her supper that evening she had to go upstairs and see Belle Maman, to say good night. Belle Maman had gone to bed early and sat up, not in swansdown this time, but lemon chiffon ruffles and a cascade of lace. The room was a bowery of hothouse flowers. Nowadays she didn’t have the baby with her ever. He slept in the night nursery that had once been Alice’s.
“I wanted to thank you—for everything, Alice. You did very well. It was altogether a lovely day, was it not?”
She felt light-headed, as if she walked on air. Almost lighthearted. She would like to smile, perhaps even at Belle Maman, to say, “I think I have made a friend today.”
She turned. Better not to look at Belle Maman’s face. She stared at a watercolor of a moorland scene which hung between the two windows.
“I hope my photographs come out all right,” she said.
8
As winter turned to spring, then slowly into early summer—languor was what she felt. Where, oh where was the Lily of yesterday? I should not, she thought, really should not feel like this. I have a fine baby boy, safely delivered, whom I love.
Yet all was not right. In the long months after her return from Paris, she had felt certain that after the birth she would be herself again. Meanwhile, she had been spared any dread of Robert’s approaching her. From the moment he knew of the baby, “We must do nothing,” he said, “to endanger my son.”
Perhaps she should be thankful for her present weakness, the perfect excuse on the mercifully rare occasions he showed interest. Dr. Sowerby had spoken to him too, explaining that the “delicate tissues” must be allowed to heal. He mentioned “nervous strain.” She felt only despair.
Her relationship with Alice was no help to either of them. God knows, she thought, I have tried. The fund of goodwill, of love, which she had brought with her just a year ago must be almost exhausted. Affection spurned, interest misunderstood as interference. And for Alice herself, how often things went wrong. The christening, for example. Those photographs. Complete failures. It appeared she had put the glass instead of the film side of the plates next to the lens. The upset had been terrible. Lily had had to arrange another grouping, with herself dressed up again and as many of those originally present as possible. But Alice, upset still, behaved as if it were everyone’s fault but her own.
Social life continued. Bejeweled, she sat through dinner parties, often drowsy before the soup course was through, longing only to escape into sleep. Once, in Paris, she had sparkled. Teodor, Sophie. How she missed those few weeks!
On hearing the news of Hal’s birth, they had at once dispatched an enormous bearskin for the baby. She treasured the gift as earnest of their friendship.
Gifts. It wasn’t as if Robert were not generous, if generosity were to be measured by gifts. For seeing her like this, so low-spirited:
“Shall I buy you something? Tell me what you covet.” A slight pursing of the lips. “Name anything within reason and it shall be sent for. Surely something must cheer?”
But nothing cheered. That was the problem. And such anxiety she thought it would affect the child. She imagined him catching it as if it were some illness.
&nbs
p; She wondered what she would have done without Sadie’s friendship. Sadie’s baby, Jack, was perfect. A full head of hair, several teeth. Hal, dark like Robert and Lionel, had only scanty hair yet, and a large, lolling, anxious head. Lily was anxious too. She could not bear to watch him bathed for fear he might be dropped.
Now Sadie was expecting again, at Christmas. She did not seem to mind (but then, Lily thought, she is not bedecked in jewels before the act). Sometimes she would look at Sadie, and wonder what it must be like not to fear? Sadie’s husband, Charlie, twenty-eight at the most, fair-haired, with a luxuriant drooping moustache and easy charm.
The only cheer was all the good news of Daisy. She and her family had been in the States over a year now, and had moved from Boston to New York. They lived on East Broadway, where they had been able to afford property. Joszef had put capital into the real estate business of a distant cousin. The cousin was astute, far more than Joszef, Daisy said. And now with the extra money, making it possible to take out smaller mortgages on apartments for letting on the East Side, they were already doing well. They were sometimes homesick—she for Yorkshire, he for Russia, but all in all they were happy— and hopeful. The children were in school and already Sara and Ruth had been put ahead twice, and Joe once. She herself found time now to help with poorer immigrants. She had thought of a little simple nursing.
“And to think, darling Lily, my darling sister, if it hadn’t been for you, I’d as likely be selling herrings on Orchard Street.”
Toward the end of May, Robert sent her to the seaside: Filey on the east coast. Alice too, because she looked peaky. Fräulein was a heavy presence. In the absence of Miss Fairgrieves, Alice was meant to have lessons with Lily every morning. For the last week they had the company of Violet Anstruther, which Lily found trying, although it perked Alice up. There was much fussing about religion. A day was spent visiting a convent in Filey. Lily said tartly:
“I am surprised Sir Robert is not worried you may influence the child.” Violet Anstruther replied, lips pursed tight:
“There is no fear of that. I was her dear mother’s friend, a special relationship. Alice trusts me.” But Lily, who avoided her socially when at home, found it difficult to cope with her here. There was a scene or two, words, Alice bursting into tears. (“Look what you’ve done!” exclaimed Violet Anstruther.)
The weather, so cold for May. She worried about Hal, writing home every day to ask for news.
In her dream Sophie and she were alone in a fairy-tale, turreted castle. Sophie wore the Diamond Waterfall. She said to Lily, “It suits me much better, yes? Come to my country and I show you.” Suddenly Lily was among mountains, dark green forest. Water tumbling headlong into the valley, the light, dazzling.
She liked to think later that the dream was prophetic. Returning to Flaxthorpe, she found a letter from Sophie, postmarked Geneva. Written part in French and part in halting English, it said that they planned to visit London and then Scotland, and though it would be almost the grouse shooting season there, they would come for the twelfth of August to Yorkshire, taking up Robert’s invitation. Teodor was very keen. “Instead of Scotland he decide he shoot you,” Sophie wrote.
She held the letter with trembling hands, filled with longing to see them again.
“Why not?” Robert said. “If it’ll make you even in the smallest degree more cheerful.” He lifted his glass. “Lionel must come up of course.”
They arrived, from another world, on a rainy evening in early August, but it was as if they had brought the sun with them. She wanted to run straight into their arms.
Sophie wore an outfit in tartan. Three tartans, since the skirt, jacket, and blouse were all different. She had had them made up to order while in Edinburgh. She told Lily:
“Our crown princess is daughter of Duke of Edinburgh—so I wear this for her, who is so little, so charming.”
“We are spared Teodor in the kilt, I see,” remarked Robert. Lionel, who had been up now a week at Flaxthorpe:
“Naturally. They cannot be made wide enough.”
But to Lily, ridiculous or no, they were utterly lovable. The first evening, within half an hour of arrival, Sophie said:
“I must see this baby.” It was half-past nine at night, the nurseries sacrosanct. “Yes, please, I must.” Admiring him, she said, the first time she had mentioned it, “Our little one, which was lost—you are so fortunate.”
In Flaxthorpe they loved everything. When the villagers stared, they smiled and waved as if on a royal tour. They needed to rest, they said, but showed no signs of doing so. So many places they had been to, so many people.
“And happy everywhere. Laugh, we are all day laughing, you see, look at his face—a laugh, a smile—”
“At or with us?” Lionel asked.
“Oh, we laugh at with them all one together,” Sophie said. “It is happiness. And also we see Oxford. Oxford because our nephew was one year there. We meet friends of Valentin, and also it rains and rains.”
Alice was allowed down to dinner one evening. She stared at the visitors beneath a furrowed brow. Teodor chucked her under the chin suddenly, affectionately, and as suddenly Sophie threw an arm about her. Alice seemed not to mind, even perhaps to like it.
They went to dinner with the Hawksworths at the Hall. Sadie, her figure thickening a little now, was a vivacious hostess. For Lily the evening was spoiled a little because she was persuaded, no, ordered, to wear the Waterfall. Then Robert and Charlie initiated a boring discussion about trouble with the Boers in South Africa, and the possibility of more armed conflict there— filling Lily with fear. Anything nowadays that might rock her world, and her thoughts flew to the cradle. Might it be rocked only by Nan-Nan’s loving hands!
At the end of one day’s shooting, Teodor said to Robert, “My dear fellow, you shoot us—soon, yes?”
Robert, who had never taken the invitation seriously, brushed it away. Sophie said to Lily, later the same day:
“The little one, the baby, it doesn’t make you happy. I see that.”
“I’m just—I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Sometimes persons are sad after a baby. It’s no good I tell you to be happy. It must come out of the heart.”
How to explain that her unhappiness didn’t matter, except for its effects on her baby? She could not express the terror she felt that one day, going into the nursery, she would see mirrored in the child her own despair.
She said only, “Oh, Sophie—I am not good for him. He would be better without me.”
“No,” Sophie said, “that is not truth. But a little time away from him, so that you become better, that is good.” “I worry when I’m away—”
“If you visit us, then you do not worry. A little visit to us, in Romania, yes?”
“Yes.” She said it without thinking.
But after that conversation, events moved with lightning rapidity. Robert could not, would not, pay a visit to such distant parts, but if it would revive Lily’s spirits, then she must go back with them. Dr. Sowerby echoed this. Such a complete change would be of immense help to both mother and child.
It was not yet decided how long she should go for, but it would be at least two months. Romania. She said to Alice:
“Let me show you, dear, in the atlas.”
“I don’t want to see, thank you. You may go where you please.”
9
“We don’t see Bucharest yet,” Sophie told her, “we go straight for Sinaia, in the mountains. These mountains make you well again.”
She was surprised not to suffer more from heat, from fatigue, as the so-called express dragged its way across Europe. Sophie and Teodor were thoughtful for her comfort always: wines, brandy, cushions, fans, ear plugs, boxes of sweetmeats, mosquito nets. Sophie, gazing from the window, fanned herself and said she had become too old for traveling. “I don’t understand, really, what for we are so mad to do this. …”
Their route was through Vienna, then Budapest, and on into T
ransylvania. They had been two nights in London first so that all the formalities could be arranged. From the moment of leaving, at Charing Cross, Lily’s excitement had been complete. She forgot the sick foreboding which, after visiting baby Hal for the last time, had kept her awake, heart thumping at three in the morning.
Some excitement in reaching Budapest—then on and on through flat countryside. They stopped at a small station where some peasants danced and sang to a mouth organ. Then climbing up, through the Tömös Pass to Predeal and the frontier. Predeal station was half in Hungary and half in Romania. A guard, wearing black kid gloves, snatched Lily’s passport from her and added to the Grand Imperial Austro-Hungarian stamp something further. She could not read it.
On and on, into Romania. They stopped, hot and dusty, at Asuga and drank some of its famous beer. The Bucegi Mountains rose up, snow-capped. The fir trees grew high. The lower slopes were covered with flowers. It was strange, it was exciting; she was light-headed with fatigue. The air through the open carriage window was like champagne.
The train drew into a small station. “Here is our Sinaia,” cried Sophie.
She almost sang the name. “Sin-ah-i-a. The pearl of our Carpathian Mountains, Lily.”
Dearest Sadie,
My dearest friend, I want never to feel so sad again as these last months. It cannot have been good for a little child to see his mother so.
You will be happy to know that I have begun to get better already. I want this letter to arrive soon, so that you can share everything with me! Dear, dear Sadie … But first of all, the air—and the countryside—if you can imagine mountains like Switzerland but with the trees growing much higher up: great wild wild frightening forests of fir and pine. And yes, just as in the fairy tales, in the cold winter months the wolves come down. This winter past, three children and an old man lost in a village near here.
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