The Diamond Waterfall

by Pamela Haines

  Flaxthorpe, Grandma, Erik. And at first no Michael. Later, when he arrived back after his terrible accident and brush with death, he was nothing like as awful, quite nice, in fact. A bit quiet, going off for solitary walks. He wasn’t even motor-car mad anymore.

  The convent, though, had had to be faced again that September. She had wanted to curl up in a little ball and hibernate. In the end she’d managed it by stages. (I’ve lived through a day, a week, a month.) The class work was easy; she’d caught up with everything. And the girls were just possible. By being around she’d grown acceptable. She couldn’t say she was popular but at least the heat was off.

  Christmas 1937 she’d been lucky. She became ill, too ill to go back to the convent. Only a septic throat to begin with—but then, oh joy, the throat no sooner healed and her temperature down than she had stomach pains. They turned out to be sub-acute appendicitis, which one night became suddenly acute. By the time she’d been operated on and convalesced there wasn’t enough term left to make a return worthwhile.

  She caught up again with the work in the summer. She was able to keep going because of the treat that awaited her—a visit to Canada to see the little ones and dear Aunt Bar.

  Then just three days before she sailed, she lost any goodwill she might have had from the nuns by her performance in the school play, Murder in a Nunnery. (The subject matter hadn’t worried her—it had none of it anything to do with real life.) Joanna Mays and her friends had held auditions. All Willow’s class wanted to be in it. The play’s heroine, Verity, a convent pupil who got in the way of all the investigations, was the big speaking part. Willow wanted it, but it went to Chrissie. They told Willow she was to play one of the nuns instead. Joanna said it was because she had been seen doing a scrumptious imitation of Mother Ursula. Would she please do it for the play? She did. And frightened herself in the process, she was so exactly Mother Ursula.

  Afterward she had asked Aunt Alice, “Did I—was I a bit too much?” And Aunt Alice had answered tactfully, “You should have met your uncle— he could take off anyone.”

  They had known. The Reverend Mutt in her speech afterward: little digs, allusions. I should have left out Mother Ursula’s sniff, she thought, and the way she scratches the dandruff under her veil with a fingernail. And the spit, lots of it, that gathers when she has a sentence of more than about twelve words. In rehearsals she’d moderated herself. On the night there had been no stopping her. A few girls thought she’d gone too far. “Just because your grandma was an actress …”

  Her report was terrible. “A potential bad influence, must be more serious and responsible in her attitudes”; “Willow’s head is easily turned—in the wrong direction.” Mother Ursula had contented herself with “A disappointing performance.” Others might think the reference was to Geography, but Willow knew.

  Canada was wonderful, just to be with the little ones again. But she had had to remember to take care—for after all Aunt Bar, dear as she was, was Reggie’s sister. Certain things could not be said. When the talk skated near the terrible thing, Aunt Bar would cleverly, and with a laugh usually (she was a happy person, and easy, and she made the little ones so happy), move on to something else.

  But underneath all the time was the sadness. It wasn’t possible, ever, to forget. It was there. And she never knew when it would surface to blacken a day, a night. The best, this year, was that she had been able, once or twice, to talk about it with Aunt Alice. “I’d like to know something, anything about my father. I’d like …” but she was never sure what it was she would like. For him to walk through the door? And be seen to be horrible? And wicked, because he had left Mummy with all the worry? Some people thought that was a smear, made up by awful Aunt Angie at the trial. I know otherwise. I don’t look like Reggie.

  She had heard while she was in Canada that Aunt Alice was ill. A cough she’d had during the summer had worsened and they were afraid for her lungs. “My mother was consumptive,” she wrote, “but since she was no blood relative of yours, you mustn’t fear.”

  Willow’s birthday had been while she was in Canada. Yesterday she had had another celebration at The Towers. The dread of returning hung over the tea party like a thick fog. Her throat felt choked. Upstairs sat the big green trunk, its trays already full of regulation blue blouses, gym tunic, hockey boots, shin pads, navy-blue panties, white knicker linings.

  “Here come the bee’s knees and the camel’s hips—Willow Gilmartin you’ve grown disgustingly taller. Look, everyone, Willow’s got freckles. Didn’t you bring us back a Mountie? Have you seen the air-raid shelter? The Reverend Mutt had it all organized before. Chrissie’s brother’s in the Air Force.”

  She’d been right to feel doom. When she asked for Mother Hilda (“My aunt” brought only the response “I think you mean Mother Hilda, Willow.”), there seemed a conspiracy of silence. Then Mother John told her that her aunt was in Switzerland, in their house in Sion. East Anglia was too damp, too chill. The doctor had said …

  Why no letter, though? She wrote one herself immediately and gave it to a girl going out to tea with her parents the first weekend of term. She wrote to Grandma too, asking did she know if there was anything to worry about?

  The first week or two the days were sunny, it could still have been summer. She thought she might manage somehow. One way of making things bearable at nighttime was to read down in the bed with a flashlight after lights-out. Geraldine, who had the end bed and was very moody, had smuggled in a lot of detective novels. When she was feeling sweet-tempered she would lend Willow one. Like Murder in a Nunnery, they weren’t real had nothing to do with what happened to people, to Mummy, to Reggie.

  Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Nicholas Blake, Margery Allingham. Snuggled down, half afraid of the shadows in the silent dormitory, she read herself into sleepiness.

  Lessons. She waited always for them to become interesting. The monsoon countries, the tundra, the Repeal of the Corn Laws, causes of the French Revolution, past definite and pluperfect of dire, recevoir, pleuvoir. She would find herself halfway through a class not realizing which subject she was studying. All were covered in a uniform grayness. The coming of winter, scurrying of leaves in sudden autumn gusts.

  “Willow—Willow Gilmartin—step out here, please. No, up to the dais. Willow, perhaps you would like to tell us what you find so amusing about the Seven Sacraments? The rest of the class, who with the exception of Priscilla are Catholics, want to know what you find so mirth-provoking. Your own church is sadly lacking in sacraments by comparison, could it be that you are jealous?”

  “Yes—I mean no, Reverend Mother.”

  “Take that smirk off your face, please—at once, Willow. And come and see me after prep this evening.”

  “Willow Gilmartin, what is your explanation for not wearing a veil at benediction? An uncovered head, even of a non-Catholic, is an insult to the Blessed Sacrament.”

  “My veil blew out of my hand when I was opening the dormitory window, Mother.”

  “Reverend Mother, I have had to give Willow Gilmartin five bad conduct marks. The most any girl has had this term. Willow is not to sit in the library with the juniors, Mother John considers her a bad influence. Willow answered Sister back in the laundry, went for a walk outside the school grounds, had three trashy novels hidden under her mattress, hasn’t handed in her ordnance survey map to Mother Ursula …”

  It was difficult, almost impossible, to be alone unless you were ill. She walked out of the gates one afternoon, and half a mile to the next village—where she sat in the Protestant church. It had medieval wall paintings of devils with forks and gleeful expressions.

  She’d brought with her her favorite photograph. In it Mummy was about seventeen and very, very beautiful, her hair shining and thick, and the expression on her face so sweet that anyone—anyone—who saw her would want to love her. My father must have known her then, she told herself. Sometimes she imagined Mummy saying “I love you, I love you” to this shadowy pe
rson. Laying her head on his shoulder. Mummy would have inherited the Diamond Waterfall if it hadn’t been for Michael. (How beautiful she would have looked.… But she had told Willow she never wanted it.) She shut her ears now to the memory of Reggie drunk. That ugly, angry voice coming up the stairs.

  She sat there a long time just feeling peaceful. Around her, Harvest Festival fruits, grains, flowers. She put two sixpenny pieces in a box for the upkeep of the paintings and bought a booklet about them. When she got back to the convent they were going in to tea after hockey. She was in trouble, and got another bad conduct mark.

  No letter came from Aunt Alice, but she heard from Michael, which surprised her—and gave her a nice warm feeling, that he should have bothered.

  I really like it here, even better than before. Second year has everything. Cambridge looking very fine just now. I’ll have to arrange for you to visit—maybe in the summer? Have been wondering about trying to do some acting, ADC or Mummers (Grandma coming out?). Trouble is it can easily take up all your time if you’re not careful. I expect I shan’t bother—I’m a lazy so-and-so.… Guess what? One of our American cousins is here! Ex-Harvard and doing I think international law at Peterhouse. Anyway there was a note for me at the porter’s lodge. I expect to meet him sometime. And now a quick line to Stingo—I might go over to the Other Place (Oxford!) for a visit, if I can’t persuade him here.

  She became ill again. This time it was miserable, her bladder. It began with a terrible burning pain and then there was blood as well so that she had to go and speak to Mother Vincent in the infirmary. The doctor was sent for. He said it was cystitis. Her grandmother was telephoned, and as a result she heard she was to stay in the infirmary for at least a week. They were afraid for her kidneys. It had been something to do with kidneys that had killed Mummy.

  Betty and Maureen came up to see her. They said that Mother Ursula was very cross because Willow still hadn’t handed in her ordnance survey map. “Honestly, do get it done. She’s being really frightful on account of you. I’ll lend you my mapping pen if you like. And here’s some Turkish Delight. Hard luck you’re going to miss half-term.”

  Homesickness hit her suddenly. It was just as she’d felt that first term, only worse. It came in great waves—it was truly named sickness. And now she would miss half-term as well Grandma sent a parcel of food, but she had no appetite. The chocolate cake smelled of home and The Towers and was too precious to eat. The pain in her bladder was almost gone, the bitter medicine which burned her mouth dry almost finished. In two days the week would be up.

  Mother Ursula came to see her. Willow had the map ready. It lay on the wide bedside table, together with the framed photo of the little ones, taken with Ludwig on Jessica’s knee.

  She was looking at the photograph of her mother when the nun came in. By staring hard she could imagine Sylvia Firth, young girl, at The Towers. See her hps move, hear her voice—younger, brighter. It was like traveling in time.

  She put her hand over it when she heard Mother Ursula. Don’t let her see. She turned back the sheet to cover it.

  “I did the map, Mother. I’m sorry it’s late. I’ve been in here—”

  “The delay was long before that, Willow. You can hardly use illness, if it is illness, as an excuse …”

  “It’s not worth a visit to the infirmary just to tell me that.”

  “Willow, I have already put up with an unprecedented amount of impudence from you, nor is malingering attractive. It seems that whenever you wish to escape class work, you take to your bed. Is that not the truth?”

  I shan’t answer her, Willow thought. No answer is the best answer of all.

  The spit had gathered at the corners of Mother Ursula’s mouth:

  “Did you hear me? You are perfectly fit, and should be back in class.”

  She stooped and peered at Ludwig and the little ones. “Those are your sisters, Willow?”

  Willow turned her head away. Please God make her go.

  “I see we are not even civil enough to reply to a question. If you cannot take a reprimand—I notice also there is no photograph of your mother. I have never seen one in the dormitory. The other girls …”

  “I don’t want a photograph of her there, that’s why.”

  “Why ever not? Your own mother. Willow, my child—”

  “I said I don’t want a photograph of her there.”

  “It’s usual to add ‘Mother’ when addressing me. I’ve had to speak of this before. Willow, I read the trial, your mother’s trial. I know everything. I know it in all its sordid details.” Spit landed on the sheet. “You should be praying for her, Willow. Even as a non-Catholic, you have learned surely to pray? Why not put out a photograph and show the world that you are not ashamed of her? For you are, are you not? Is that not the reason why we never see her? You too could be a sinner of that sort. Anyone, anyone can fall in that way.” She grew more and more impassioned, carried away by her rhetoric. “You are ashamed of her, aren’t you? You should be ashamed of that shame, Willow.”

  The words were like sharp-pointed stones. Pain stretched tight across Willow’s throat.

  “Ashamed, Willow!”

  She is sick, Willow thought. It is she who should be in the infirmary.

  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were hockey days. Sometimes Mother Benedict took them, wearing leather boots and with the skirt of her habit tied up. The weather had turned colder. Willow’s hands were stiff and sore as she tightened the laces of her hockey boots. Chilblains already on three of her fingers. She felt tired all the time, and sad.

  They had made her play wing first, then center forward because with her long legs she could run so fast. Dribbling the ball, faster, faster, pass to Maureen, who passes to Geraldine, who passes to Chrissie, who trips and falls headlong. Oh gosh, what miserable bad luck, oh bad luck, Chrissie.

  The afternoon was raw and she caught her breath painfully as she ran. When the whistle sounded across the pitch, she was reminded suddenly of prison. Her mother had been in prison. The last time they took me to see her, she was in the prison hospital. She died in prison.

  Armistice Day came and went. In the two minutes’ silence in the big classroom, she thought of Uncle Hal, whom she had never known, of Uncle Gib, who had survived prisoner-of-war camp only to die of Spanish flu, of Teddy, who had never married again.… She thought of all the sadness in her family and in herself and could not bear it.

  She was in trouble with the nuns almost every day now. Her sadness taken for sulks, her pent-up misery for impudence. She found she could not remember, even if she’d wished, the lists of this and that—Corn Laws, Polonius’ advice to Laertes, the principal exports of Malaya. Mother Ursula watched her all the time.

  I cannot go on. She remembered often Michael and his kind letter. Dear, dear Michael, who was family.

  It was Betty’s birthday next Saturday and her parents were taking her out to lunch. “Mumsy says I can bring someone. We’re going to the Angel at Bury St. Edmunds and then on home. Who’s coming? Eeny meeny miney moe. Willow, it’s you.”

  Geraldine lived at Bury St. Edmunds and often went home on Saturdays. She’d invited Willow twice. Willow told Betty, “I won’t stay for the weekend. I’ll go on to Geraldine’s for tea. Her parents can bring me back.”

  She hadn’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Lewin since the episode of Tootles in her first term. Mr. Lewin teased her about it now. The smelly setter Farmer was still there in the car. She wore her school mac over her navy-blue Sunday dress and had been allowed to wash her hair because of the outing. Also, she could have it loose. The plaits made it very wavy. She had ten shillings pocket money with her, the remainder of the pound she had for the term. Betty had said they might shop afterward.

  At the Angel at Bury St. Edmunds, when she had just been served with some mushroom soup, she stood up: “Excuse me, I need to go to the ladies’—”

  “But you went when we arrived,” Betty cried indignantly. “Mumsy, she’s just been—”r />
  Her mother murmured something and her father said, “Manners, Miss Elizabeth.”

  She went straight to the reception desk, then changed her mind. They would remember her, later. She walked a few yards down the street, trying not to shiver in her serge dress. In a newsagent’s, she asked, “Can you tell me anything about trains to Cambridge?”

  They had taken her soup away to keep it warm. “I’m awfully sorry,” she said, sitting down again. “I haven’t been very well.”

  “Willow’s always in the infirmary, Mumsy,” Betty said. “Because she’s infirm, you see.”

  “Ha, ha,” said Willow with a sudden burst of spirit. She felt an enormous sense of excitement. And yet was so tense she could scarcely eat the large vanilla and strawberry ice she felt forced to order.

  When they had drunk coffee in the lounge and talked for a while, Willow said she would go on to Geraldine’s.

  “Are you sure you’re fit enough?” Mrs. Lewin asked.

  “Yes, yes,” she said hastily. “And I know which house it is, thank you.”

  Betty said, “Table tennis. I bet my big present’s a Ping-Pong table. Is it a Ping-Pong table, Mumsy?”

  As soon as she left them, Willow went to the post office. She sent a telegram to the convent: willow gilmartin remains weekend with us no reply necessary good wishes lewin.

  At Geraldine’s home she told them, “I just came in to say thank you very much, I’ve decided after all to spend the weekend at Betty’s. I expect they’ll lend me some wash things.”

  A few yards from the house she broke into a run. When she reached the station she was breathing heavily and there was a pain near her appendix scar.

  She’d pushed her horrid distinguishing school scarf down into the top of her mac. It gave her an odd-looking bust.