A Song Twice Over

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘Stolen?’ he suggested.

  ‘Yes, from the workroom. And put off talking to him until … Until I had the time, dammit – which I never had. Never. There was always something. Things I couldn’t tell a child about, could I? That’s what I tell myself now. And it’s excuses – excuses – that’s all – just to make myself feel better, because the truth is I hardly ever thought about it. He was just there. I just expected him to love me. I loved him. At least, I loved my little boy – and that’s who he was. And I wasted my time. Because he doesn’t know me and he doesn’t want to know me. He knows my mother, which is all right – all right – she looked after me, it seemed natural for her to be looking after him. I didn’t mind. I couldn’t afford to mind. We both did the best we could, my mother and I. She looked after the child and I earned the bread. I knew he loved her. So did I. If he’d even thought of me as a kind of older sister, it would have been something. But all I was to him was an intruder. A damned nuisance. And then an enemy who kept threatening to take Odette away. To have kept him here with me would have been cruel. Once I realized that – and I tried hard enough not to – Well – that’s why I sent him away.’

  ‘An act of love,’ he said.

  ‘What? What was that?’

  He did not repeat it. He stood up instead, poured her a glass of wine and then made her sit down beside him with instructions to drink up her good Old Sercial and dry her tears. He was being kind to her and the realization shocked and worried her so much that the effort of searching for his motives gradually restored her calm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, wiping her eyes with a wisp of cambric she did not intend anyone to steal from her workroom.

  He shrugged. ‘I have more confessions made to me than you might think. Are you better now?’

  She nodded, watching him like a hawk.

  ‘Then you really shouldn’t reproach yourself much more, or for much longer. How old is your boy? Seven? Eight? I went away to school at that age and took no harm. And before that I rarely remember seeing my mother for more than ten minutes a day. They used to dress me up and take me downstairs at tea-time so she could have a look at me. What lady with her social and charitable obligations to fulfil could be expected to take more notice of an infant than that? It is altogether the way things are done, my dear.’

  ‘In your world, I dare say it is.’ Her own world being so very far removed from it that she could imagine no similarity, no point of recognition between his childhood and Liam’s. Between the parties and dances and riding to hounds, the dinners and idle afternoons of gossip and flirtation which had filled his mother’s hours and the hard grind of her own.

  ‘I see little difference,’ he said airily, filling up her glass again. How many times was this? ‘Poor children go to the workhouse, rich children are sent away to school. It amounts to much the same.’

  Startled and scornful – since what did he know of workhouses? – she gulped her drink, coughed, and then, to ease the coughing, finished the glass. He gave her another.

  ‘You know nothing about it,’ she told him. ‘You’ve never been hungry. You can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like. And if you’re cold sometimes then it’s only because you’ve lived in the Tropics, not because there’s ever been a lack of fur blankets and rugs. You’ve always had a roof over your head, and a good one. Probably never less than a choice of two or three. And if you’ve always been sure of those things then you don’t know what hardship is.’

  Suddenly her contempt for him and for anyone and everyone who had never struggled and endured as she had, overwhelmed her. He saw poverty in terms of being unable to support a pack of foxhounds for a season or two and having quietly to dispose of half the family silver. She saw it in terms of boots and bread.

  Sitting up in her chair and raising her head she felt her superiority swirling around her like a wrap of ermine or sable, or something, at any rate, that was a cut above the black fox lining of the cloak he sometimes wore.

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve always had a roof, I’ll grant you that,’ he said, not appearing to notice the trailing magnificence of her furs. ‘But the kind of schools attended by young gentlemen such as I was, are designed to build character, you know, not for comfort. To turn out soldiers and statesmen and colonial governors and masters of foxhounds, not scholars. And the only way to build character, don’t you know, is through deprivation. I had to wash at a stand-pipe, my dear, in the school-yard every morning, and stand in line – a long line – winter or summer, stripped and waiting my turn. One may never learn to like it, but one learns to endure. That’s the great thing. So that if one happens to be posted to some particularly inhospitable corner of the empire there’s no fear of letting the side down by asking for tubs of decadent hot water. One learns to take a flogging too without batting an eyelid, much less making a sound, although it’s rather hoped one won’t develop a taste for that, even if some of the masters regrettably do. And although one can lead a good life in the army there are certain aspects of it one finds wearisome, to say the least. One gets shot at occasionally, for instance, which can be a bore. So my path has not always been strewn with roses …’

  The army? She could not imagine him taking orders from anyone, much less some heavy, pompous, elderly schoolboy like Colonel Covington-Pym whose wife, she knew, had sometimes been his mistress. Perhaps he had never been a soldier at all. Perhaps it was just a story to cover up something else. Happily, something worse? With the wine pleasantly swirling in her head she decided that he had been a smuggler, a white slaver, the captain of a convict ship to Australia. A pirate.

  She told him so and, with the smile that showed his teeth, he shook his head, not at all offended. ‘A soldier,’ he said. ‘My grandfather – General Sir Jarvis Covington-Pym – was obliging enough to buy me a commission in what is known as a crack regiment. The uniform would have pleased you. And I had a private income, in those days, just big enough to keep a few polo ponies and hunters and pay my mess bills. Not a bad life.’

  ‘Why did you give it up, then?’

  ‘Oh – at their request.’

  ‘You mean they threw you out?’

  ‘I do.’

  How wonderful. She had, in fact, no real idea just why young officers might be dismissed from their regiments. She simply hoped that, in his case, it had been something very bad. Although if it had caused any real scandal – if he had cheated at cards, or led his men into an ambush and left them there – would he now be on such excellent terms with his extremely conventional cousin, Colonel Covington-Pym? Doubting it, her elation faded.

  ‘I was insubordinate,’ he said.

  ‘Is that all?’ It was something she could have been accused of every day of her life.

  ‘If one works at it sufficiently and regularly then it tends to be enough.’

  ‘Were you in disgrace?’

  ‘I was.’

  She felt considerably pleased about that.

  ‘And did they break your sword and cut off your medals?’ She really did hope so.

  He smiled. ‘Hardly so dramatic as that. My grandfather, after all, was a general. But bad enough. However – I rallied. Instead of shooting myself or drinking myself to death I went out to the West Indies and made myself some money in rum and sugar and cloves. Now that really was a good life.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay there?’

  ‘Do you wish I had? I came back when my father died. As lord of a manor which had been sold years before and of what was left of the manor lands. Enough to make me a handsome fortune when the time is ripe. I think you really are a little better now, aren’t you? There’s no healer more certain, it often seems to me, than curiosity.’

  So that was it. ‘Thank you. I’m quite well now,’ she said almost primly and then, very suddenly, she was not. Once again – and really very suddenly and well nigh completely this time – her grief had come over her. And this time, in this pitiful, terrible, astounding moment, she could escape neither the gr
ief nor the revelation of its source. For what she wanted now was neither her mother nor her son but her father Kieron Adeane, the enchanter of her girlhood, the seeker of rainbows, the sower of magical seeds which blossomed unfailingly into vivid, highly scented flowers of laughter; a garden of easily scattered but never-to-be forgotten fascinations. She did not forget them. Nor did she forget the hand he had held out to her only this morning, not asking her forgiveness so much as offering to take her riding all over again on his final rainbow, to make a princess of her as he had always promised, as she had always been to him in his blithe, butterfly-textured heart.

  He loved her, in his fashion, and had always done so. A light, lilting, effervescent love which, no matter how easily blown about by every passing breeze, could enchant her still.

  This morning she had refused it. She would refuse it now, she supposed, should he suddenly appear before her in a puff of golden smoke, in the manner of enchanters. But, nevertheless, what she truly longed for was to be with him now, walking arm-in-arm on the deck of a great ship, sailing into adventure. The Adeanes against the world. And of those Adeanes there had always been an inner wheel, ‘the two of us’, a handsome father and daughter, made in the same mould, casting the same glittering shadow.

  Her life had lacked colour since he had left it. The realization devastated her. And jumping to her feet, needing to do something, anything, whatever came first to hand, she reached for the wine bottle and found it empty.

  ‘Have you another?’ he said.

  She brought it and he opened it for her and filled her glass.

  ‘This Madeira is a potent brew,’ he warned her. ‘You should take care.’

  ‘I always do,’ she snapped.

  ‘Very well. It is simply part of one’s training as an officer and a gentleman to give these warnings when drinking with women. Should they be disregarded one feels entitled, of course, to take what advantage one can and no complaints in the morning. So I have been brought up to believe.’

  She was barely listening. Beginning to pace up and down the room, feeling caged and hounded and in the grip of a choking agitation, she could not rid herself of the image of her father, the memories of all that he had been to her until her faith in him had died and she had turned her back. And although that faith had withered far beyond recall she knew now that she would always miss it. Would never feel entirely whole or natural or safe again.

  It was unfair.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said, her thoughts racing so fast that her words, unable to keep pace, seemed to be stumbling over each other. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be part of a family. How could you – away at school and in the army –? You don’t know how much I – how it was …’

  ‘How was it?’

  She fought against her need to tell him. No. She must stop this and at once before she had stripped herself too near the bone, shown him too much. No. Even through the wine she knew she must calm herself. Must keep what she could of her dignity and her secrets. And it was the reminder of secrets, and her urgent need to distract his attention which made her say recklessly, ‘Let’s talk about your father, not mine. How did he happen to lose his money?’

  Raising his own glass to his lips and taking a reflective sip the subject did not appear to trouble him.

  ‘Oh – in a thoroughly commonplace manner. He gambled. He bought the favours of expensive women. He drank.’

  ‘And your mother?’ Had she not been rather more than half-drunk she would not have dared to ask. But now, her head feeling incredibly light and somewhat higher than usual on her shoulders, she did not care for the consequences. Tame and tedious things in any case. And if he chose to make any revelations she hoped they would be shocking enough, terrible enough, to fill her mind with something that was not her father. Or Liam.

  He looked at her for a moment with speculation.

  ‘Ah yes. My mother. You have evidently heard some talk about her. What is it?’

  ‘That she died …’

  ‘Quite so. But how?’

  ‘No one seems to know.’ Was she running her head into a noose? Did it really matter? And then, as he got up and came towards her, she felt a whisper – only faint as yet, but persistent – of fear.

  ‘Shall I tell you?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  He halted a yard away from her. ‘Come close to me, Cara,’ he said. ‘I believe one must whisper these things.’

  She came, against her will and her better judgement, like a rabbit to a snare she thought angrily, biting her lip. Yet she stood there, nevertheless, and allowed him, without any protest, to put his hands around her neck, the musky heat of him absorbing her as always into his atmosphere, her senses which had been unsteady to begin with, starting now to swim not altogether unpleasantly beyond her reach.

  ‘It was like this,’ he said. ‘She met my father at the head of the manor stairs. He made some accusations which she denied. He put his hands around her throat to squeeze the truth from her – am I hurting you, Cara? No? Good. She continued to deny. He continued to squeeze. Don’t let me get carried away by my performance, will you? Since I am his son, after all, and have his blood in me. A violent man. Always a wild look in his eye, like a horse just before it bolts. You know what I mean. My poor mother. She fell dead at his feet. So the parlourmaid said, at any rate.’

  ‘Christie.’

  ‘While the cook appears to have seen things quite otherwise. He took her by the shoulders to shake out the truth, not squeeze it – like this – and then, when he had it and could not bear it, he picked her up and threw her over the gallery rail down into the hall. A drop quite sufficient to kill anybody. According to cook. Although there was the groom, of course, who … Are you not enjoying this, Cara?’

  ‘No. You are.’

  His hands slid down her arms and then, arriving at her wrists, lingered a moment and let her go.

  ‘Then come close to me again, since you can hardly stand up on your own it seems, and I’ll whisper another version into your ear. Will you come?’

  She came, entering his atmosphere like crossing a threshold, a different air to breathe, a slower pulse beat, a captivity her arms were suddenly too heavy, her body too lethargic to resist. An enchanter – this man – of a different kind to her father.

  An enchanter nevertheless.

  ‘They were a turbulent pair,’ he said. ‘You may not have found her beautiful for she was very much a Covington-Pym. And since I very closely resemble him you would obviously not have thought him handsome. They were cousins and had the same nature. Passionate. Uncontrolled. Or mad, according to who is telling the story. It is the nature of both the Goldsboroughs and the Covington-Pyms. They lost their heads easily. They were both prone to the kind of killing rage which drove you, not too long ago, to attack my poor boy Oliver. But what lit the spark for my parents was jealousy. It became the essence of their life together. Monumental battles. Followed by extravagant reconciliations. They needed their jealousy. It added a spice – a dash of flavour. It occurs to me that they may have found lovemaking difficult without it. And so they manufactured it. I am ready to swear that she was never unfaithful to him either by word or deed.’

  ‘And he?’

  ‘Oh – only casually as men are from time to time. Mainly to hurt her so she could hurt him back and they could have their orgy of reconciliation – hours, my dear, and days locked up together behind her bedroom door. A little habit which had always had the servants muttering that he might have killed her. Well – on the day she died it is quite true that they met at the head of the stairs. But what the parlourmaid did not remember was that she had chased him up from the stableyard – had been lying in wait for him there, it seems, to menace him with a dressage whip which he had really been obliged, poor chap, to take away from her. Somewhat by force, one imagines. So the groom’s tale that he beat her to death has that much foundation. Yes, he did have his hands on her throat at one stage and he did shake her. Probably
because he couldn’t see well enough, at the time, to slap her with any accuracy, having so much blood in his eyes. Oh – did I forget? She’d cut him rather badly, down in the stables, with her whip. One gash across the forehead and another from eye to chin. The reason for it all seems scarcely important. She had been flirting, to tease him. Or he had been flirting. Or both. She broke free and aimed a blow at him. He ducked. She stumbled. She was wearing a riding-habit with a trailing skirt. I think it likely that she caught her foot in the hem. You may remember that the stairs at the manor are steep and were uncarpeted in our day. The hall is stone-flagged and was uncarpeted too. And possibly she was frailer than she seemed. Most of us tend to be. So – he may have been responsible for her death but he most certainly did not intend it. It broke him, of course. He vowed, then and there, to kill himself in order to join her, and no doubt she would have handed him the pistol to do it with had she been able. Regrettably he chose the very slow method of drink and all that goes with it. A sad story. Of which I have given you the most accurate version possible. Since I was present, of course, down below in the hall, home from school for the holidays, hiding and watching as children in violent households tend to do.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For me? Make love to me, then, and heal my scars.’

  She stiffened and tried to pull away from him, finding his sudden change of subject coarse and offensive. For she had seen the figure of that fourteen-year-old boy very clearly, watching in the shadows, letting the storm break over his head, thinking perhaps that if this was the love of adult man for adult woman then he would be better off without it. Worrying, even, in case these same mad emotions might be lurking somewhere in him. She had been feeling sorry for that child and now, opening her eyes to the mocking, callous, entirely haughty and entirely passionless man before her she was aware only of her only folly. How could she even be sure that he had told her the truth.

  ‘How can you talk about that,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust, ‘when you’ve just been talking about your mother? And did it really scar you?’ She doubted it.