The Diamond Waterfall

by Pamela Haines

  “I can’t remember, old thing. In bed … was I rough?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to answer him at all. Nor was the evening referred to again. But she knew that something had altered. For the first time, she began to wonder if there was a way out.

  “… When fate designed my lucky star—there must have been a holiday

  Above the singer’s voice, Reggie was talking about the new scheme, telling Claude and Sidney, “Sylvie’s not listening. Listen, Sylvie, as I was saying, we’ve an accountant all but signed on the dotted line. And the director of another hotel—he ought to know what he’s doing.

  “The old Smuggler’s Inn on the London Road. We’ll be developing a completely new hotel. Listen to this, Sylvie, our draft prospectus—listen. ‘A hotel enterprise represents without doubt a fruitful source of secure and profitable investment.’ That’s the sort of lingo, eh? We’ll be a public company with capital of over two hundred thousand, but raised through Belgium. That’s the stroke of genius. A trust in London but the banking in Brussels. Stockbroker there—a financial wizard, gets advance commission of course. We want to get contracts signed, plans approved. Get on with it. Mustn’t miss the opportunity. Really hit it this time.”

  “Why can’t I be, like others are, whose life is like the month of May?”

  My life, she thought to herself, as the jaunty chorus went on: if it were not for the children, I would walk out tomorrow. Somehow I would find the courage. Ten years, and for at least seven of those I have known that it is all hopeless. Reggie may succeed in business (nothing is impossible), but I can feel for him now only distrust, scorn, anger. I too would like a son, but the price has become too great. He has dragged me down. Childbirth—children born, and children lost, have weakened me. The sort of spirit I had as a girl (and if I had had to surmount the difficulties in marrying Geoffrey I would have been able to), that has gone. I am too proud to run back to The Towers, to weep on Mother’s shoulder, to disturb her happiness with Erik. And to go out into the world by myself, even with my own money behind me, of what use am I? Brought up as a lady and trained for nothing. I do not have a business head. And the children, except for my darling Willow, are Reggie’s. To them, he is the much loved Daddy. I cannot rob them of that just because, for me, it is all fast becoming impossible.

  I meant, oh how I meant to make this marriage work! How grateful I was to Reggie for rescuing me, believing he did it for love alone. Now pregnant and nauseated, I want to blame the Diamond Waterfall (forgetting, oh let me forget that I was wearing it, it was because I was wearing it when Geoffrey saw me), that it should have stirred such greed, that it should have been more important to him than love or true feelings. I never wanted the Waterfall. It never brought Mother happiness, although she confessed once that before marriage she had been excited, attracted by the splendor of owning and wearing it. Alice told me that her mother hated and dreaded it. Hal’s Olive, I cannot imagine that she would have wanted anything to do with it. One day, perhaps, Michael’s wife will be painted wearing it. May she be happy for possessing it. Perhaps it will be a changed world and all that magnificence will not seem like fetters, chains of bondage? Perhaps. I thank God that Willow is never likely to possess it.

  Willow, who must continue to think Reggie her father. She was grateful still for Reggie’s lack of curiosity. Once he spoke of “bad blood”: “Of course you can’t tell. Early days. But first sign of anything odd, we must stamp on it quick.” He often spoke of being a firm father, even a stern one; but when it came to it she did not think he could truly play the part. He would indulge them suddenly: a cluster of celluloid windmills, a Mickey Mouse in spongy rubber, a huge box of sweets. “Dollhouse, that’s what the girls need, get them a dollhouse. Remind me, Sylvie.” (It had been Lily who had in the end provided one.)

  “Shan’t be putting much capital in myself,” he was saying now. “Don’t need to. Haven’t got it anyway—not since your fiasco, old thing.”

  His anger against Michael, yet again. (He was barely civil to him on family occasions.) Stung, she said, “What about Ireland? Your—our—hotel venture in Ireland?”

  “Our mistake in Ireland, old thing, where we went wrong—not having people with us who knew the business. And living on the premises, trying to run it. All wrong. Now, this …”

  But Ireland—what had been the matter? It had been much more than a business venture gone wrong. She wondered if in the end the worst of it had not been Angie.

  By that time, in the late twenties, Angie’s visits had been getting longer and longer, more and more frequent. She did not seem to have anything very definite to do. It was difficult to tell if she was interested in marriage, or had merely given up hope. She mentioned occasionally a man who had been killed in Italy, on the Asiago plateau, in 1918. “Sort of an understanding,” she said once off handedly. “Don’t know if it would have come to anything. I’m just one of the old maids washed up by the war. Then sickening beauties like you come along and take blighters like my bro.”

  Reggie said she hadn’t much capital, and an income so small she had to supplement it with infra dig jobs as companion to old hens with too much dibs. So of course it was better she could come to them. She was so much fun anyway. “It’s always fun when old Angie’s around.”

  Reggie had fewer fits of gloom when Angie was there. Angie did not allow gloom. Her relentless cheeriness, her predictable slang. Sylvia would wait with irritable dread.

  “Look at what I’ve got for a bro—isn’t he sickening, aren’t you sickening, Reggie? Time to pip off now, come on, Reggie, Sylvie, let’s ooze.”

  The idea had been for Angie to help them in Ireland. The hotel was in Killarney. Distant Anglo-Irish cousins of Reggie’s mother, their fine house mercifully spared from burning in the Troubles, to become a country-house hotel. Reggie was to run it for them and to have a share in the proceeds, but without investing any capital. He was full of ideas.

  It had seemed so safe. Good fishing, beautiful scenery. Irish-Americans would come in search of their roots.

  Willow and the baby, Lucy, loved it. Ludwig, who went with them, seemed the happiest of all.

  The first winter there she was pregnant. She was working very hard, determined to make the hotel a success. Reggie, always the genial host: willing, eager to sit drinking of an evening with his guests. Sylvia, exhausted, would lie sleepless upstairs.

  She carried the child to six months. A stillbirth, and the much-wanted son. She felt certain that never again would she conceive a boy, that she had had her chance.

  Guests came, but not enough, and sadly they never came twice. Sylvia wondered sometimes if it was Angie. Lying in bed after the stillbirth she could hear under her window Angie bossing, not just their staff but the guests too. Her tone ribbing, but also offensive.

  “Why ever take a child up the Gap of Dunloe? They can’t appreciate it.” … “You didn’t go in a jaunting car at your age?”

  Stronger, but not yet able to work, Sylvia would often sit with the guests, delighted to find things in common: someone whose sister was a nun in Alice’s order, a couple who lived in Paris, even a love of the same book. And Ludwig, when he could be persauded to come indoors, always won hearts.

  Oliver Pulham, a bachelor, ex-Army (he did not care to reminisce with Reggie, although they seemed to have been near each other in Flanders), was one of the guests the summer she was convalescing. A businessman, he found that because of the war’s effect on his nerves, he needed every now and then to escape somewhere peaceful. Over the weeks he was there, she got into the habit of talking to him at morning coffee-time.

  They had been drawn together by an instance of Angie’s bossiness. When bustling through the morning room where Sylvia sat reading, and Oliver, newly arrived, leafed through a magazine, she had cried:

  “Indoors, Mr. Pulham? This sickening rain we’ve had, and now when the clouds roll by, look at you, in a stuffy room.”

  “Crikey,” Oliver said, mopping his
brow as Angie disappeared. Catching Sylvia’s eye. “Is she always …?”

  Sylvia had smiled, nodding conspiratorially. And then Willow, her main source of happiness in those days, had come running up, had sat herself on Oliver’s knee.

  She enjoyed their conversations, Willow often making a charming third. Oliver had a little niece of exactly the same age. Everything Willow said enchanted him.

  And then—the dreadful evening. Sylvia, not able to sleep, went downstairs to make a hot drink. Suddenly, in the hall alcove below the string staircase, she saw an avenging angel, Jaeger dressing-gowned figure of Angie:

  “I know where you’ve been, Sylvie—” Her whole manner, accusing. “You’ve been in his room, haven’t you?”

  “What on earth?”

  “That’s where you’ve just come from, isn’t it? That side of the hotel.” Sylvia said angrily, “Look, Angie, I came down for a warm drink. Now I’d like—”

  But Angie blocked her way:

  “Don’t give me that sickening piffle. You can’t keep your filthy eyes and hands off him, can you? I know your sort of girl, Sylvie. Major Pulham—”

  “Angie, this is nonsense. And it’s not the time—”

  “It is. I have you in flagrante delicto—isn’t that what they call it? I’ve a good mind to go and wake Reggie—”

  “Keep out of our room—”

  “Temper, temper! If Reggie knew. Only he shan’t. He’s been through enough. First to be maimed, and then deceived …”

  “Angie—stop this nonsense. And let me pass by …”

  “Accused of lies, am I? Any insult is good enough for an unmarried woman, the war’s flotsam. You think because you snared a good man and now make a mockery of him you can throw your sickening insults about. My bro who deserved—” She suddenly lowered her voice as if ashamed. “It’s true, isn’t it? That—Willow isn’t his.”

  Faint with shock, Sylvia thought, Of course Reggie told no one. (But a sister … perhaps he had thought a sister all right?)

  “That child isn’t Reggie’s, it doesn’t even look like him. Don’t think Reggie blabbed, he was at a pretty low ebb when he told me, a bit tanked.”

  “For God’s sake, Angie—”

  “Had enough, have you? It must be very uncomfortable hearing all these home truths. Who is the father anyway? I expect you lied about that too. Someone in Flaxthorpe?”

  My God, help me. Two in the morning. I want only to faint away for love of Geoffrey. But I shall not weep, I shall not faint.

  “I’m not surprised you don’t answer. I’m too jolly well near the truth, aren’t I? Want to know my guess? I think it was Bertie Fisher. That mother of his—it would have been terrible, wouldn’t it? And you wouldn’t want to marry him when you could have my bro, my lovely bro. So you didn’t even tell Bertie. And Reggie, Reggie believes your cock and bull—sorry your cock and cow story—”

  Sylvia pushed past her roughly, surprised at her strength. She must be somewhere alone, to cry.

  He did not marry me for the Waterfall, she told herself over and over, as she wept alone in the linen room. (Where else could she feel safe?) He did not marry me for the Waterfall.

  Next morning she was careful not to be in the coffee lounge at eleven. She stayed as much as possible in the living quarters with the children. When later she caught sight of Oliver, she walked hurriedly the other way. By taking care it was possible never again to have a direct conversation with him. She saw he was puzzled, and hurt. But she felt frozen. Fear made her cold, and distant.

  Angie, the next day, was her old self, friendly in an overwhelming, edgy way. It was as if the scene in the hall had never been. Perhaps I dreamed it? But she felt that it could happen again at any time. I shall always be watched now.

  In the days following Reggie’s announcement of the hotel scheme, it seemed to Sylvia that here at last was something that would work. Already it had progressed further, faster, than any previous one. Normally she might be cynical—all those evenings he’d come home the worse for whiskey upon whiskey, accompanied by a complete stranger, his future partner in some mad enterprise—selling this, that, setting up a golf club on ground which would allow only eight holes.

  No matter now in 1932 that there was world recession, economic crisis, massive depression and unemployment—it was explained to her that a hotel in a good situation could not fail since people had still to do business and, traveling, must stay somewhere. The very address “London Road” showed the excellent siting.

  As to his partners: Sidney Johnson, managing director of another hotel, brought with him expertise and, even more important, confidence. Individuals, banks, and so on, Reggie explained, would invest if Sidney was involved. With his small tight body, toothbrush moustache, and line in forced compliments, she was not sure she cared for him. But what matter? Enough if he was good for the scheme.

  Claude Mulcaster, solicitor: clean-cut, dark, slightly diffident, also exuded an air of trustworthiness. She didn’t like being in his company either. He reminded her irrationally of the long-dead Uncle Lionel, with whom she’d never felt at ease.

  It was he who was the cause of yet another of those distressing scenes, this time a dinner out to discuss the enterprise. Angie was invited along. Afterward in the ladies’ room—probably she had drunk too much—she had hissed at Sylvia:

  “I’m not going to say much now and certainly not a word to Bro—but it hasn’t gone unnoticed, you know—”

  Sylvia said tiredly, “Not again. Who is it now?”

  “Claude Mulcaster, you little fool—and don’t pretend. Something’s going on between you two, isn’t it?”

  “You must be crazed—”

  Angrily she had left the ladies’ room ahead of Angie, then remembered her rings left by the washbasin. She had to hurry back, colliding with Angie in the corridor. When she’d returned to the table where they were drinking coffee, Angie had been laughing and friendly. “Whatever kept you?”

  Over the next few months plans for the hotel were drawn up and approved. “Isn’t it the tops?” Angie said. “I think the blighter’s really onto something.” Sylvia lent Reggie four hundred as his share of the advance commission to the financiers in Brussels. “It’ll be back soon, with interest of course. The three of us, we’ve borrowed up to the limit to secure the hotel. Then there are the architect’s fees and so on.”

  The spring saw them showing signs of impatience. But it was all right, everything O.K., Reggie told her, Sidney told her, Claude told her. Laughing at her expectant-mother anxiety: “Little Women—they’re all the same. True, Reggie, old chap? Fuss, fuss, fuss.”

  “Safe as houses,” Sidney told her, “safe as hotels.”

  “Like Killarney?”

  “Sylvie”—Angie speaking—“you’re imposs … Killarney wasn’t Reggie’s fault.”

  Work had begun on the conversion. Sylvia was driven with Willow to see the structure of the restaurant. She asked some questions. Where was the money coming from, since the trust had not yet received injections of capital from Belgium? Claude explained patiently that it had been borrowed from a London bank on a short-term loan (“shows the confidence they have in the scheme”). It would be mad to miss the possibility of excellent trade in the summer months, all through not being open.

  Just after Easter she had her baby, two weeks early. Reggie, less put out than the monthly nurse, who had had scarcely time to unpack her bag, seemed distracted—showing no disappointment that it was another girl. He remarked only, kissing her as she lay half propped with pillows:

  “Looks all right to me, old thing. Quick enough, weren’t you? Caught us all out …”He paused. “Bound to be a bouncing boy next time. Better have a bit of rest, eh?” He seemed not to be concentrating, speaking as if in caricature of himself. “Have to go now, sorry can’t be with you tonight of all nights but promised to dine with Claude—rather urgent talk. Hotel matters—”

  “It’s all right? Everything’s all right?”

/>   “Topping. Couldn’t be better. Just some stupid hiccup.”

  The baby was to be called Elizabeth, after Reggie’s grandmother. The name was Willow’s idea, and Sylvia thought it a good one. But he scarcely listened when she told him.

  Willow said, “I’ll call my first baby after you, Mummy. Sylvia’s the bestest name.” She threw her arms about Sylvia, burrowing her head in her bed jacket.

  Sylvia said, “Babies can be boys, you know.”

  Willow said nothing. She was bent over the cot. “I expect we’ll call her Beth. Isn’t she dark? I’d like to be dark, my friend Janet that comes to tea sometimes, she has black eyes.”

  Reggie, home unexpectedly early, shooed her out. “I’ve business to talk to Mummy—there’s a good girl.” Always affectionate, she stood on tiptoes and kissed his moustache.

  At once Reggie sat on the easy chair beside the bed.

  “Thing is, Sylvie, I’m in rather a rush. Need a yes or no quickly. Bit of a fix. Money’s coming through any day from the Belgies—it’s all in order, paper work, all that—but we need to put up a bit extra just now. Before it comes through.”

  “How much?” she asked wearily, suddenly overcome with tiredness.

  “Rather a lot, old thing. Unfortunately. Not that it’s a worry. It’s just the inconvenience, and a chap hates asking.”

  “Reggie dear, say, and be over with it. Nurse comes in soon—the five o’clock feed. I must stay calm.”

  “How much is on deposit, old thing? You said once—I know with stocks and all that, one can hardly … well, not in a hurry anyway—”

  “Accessible? I suppose I could get—say a few thousand?”

  “Make it ten, could you, old love? Ten would just about—in fact, have to have ten. To get us right. A week’s loan. Two at the most—”

  Knocking at the door, Nurse Matthews: “I’ve had a lovely walk, daffies out all over the park. Now we’re going to have to ask Daddy to leave the room.”

  Angie came to stay, but only for a long weekend. She had a post in Switzerland as companion-secretary until Christmas.