The River Sings

by Sandra Leigh Price

  I started awake.

  She was dry and warm, my little Moses in her coracle, her pink tongue darting like a minnow. She was unharmed but my heart skipped in its race, for upon her coverlet, next to Amberline’s gift, was another, a perfectly river-smoothed white pebble. I rolled it in my palm, it was nearly as rare as a pearl, and tucked it into the pouch around my neck.

  The sounds from the camp came down to me on the wind, the gathering of them, the kin arrived for the baptism, and I steeled myself. Together my child and I had formed a knot of our own making, her hand curled in mine; who knew where the thread of her started and the thread of me ended.

  I struck the flint and kindled the fire and carefully lifted my baby to my breast, where she latched on and suckled, her eyes dark as the roiling sea.

  Everyone walked down from the camp and the noise of them startled me, a wild chatter, for I was now used to the gentle sounds of the riverbank and preferred the conversation of the magpies who had nested in the boughs of the willow as my company.

  Amberline walked amongst all the others but he looked apart in his neatly laundered clothes, his fairer hair filled with the sunshine. My father kept a cracking pace over the rise, itching to see his grandchild, to hold her in his arms. His face lit up at the sight of us and I lifted my hand to wave. Amberline came and stood in front of me stiffly and I saw the red thread wrapped around his wrist, his feet shifting uneasily on the ground. My mother stood beside him and encouraged him to step forward, all eyes watching him. Had my mother told him what was expected? He toyed with the red thread at his wrist, a fibrous constraint, and I wanted for him to meet my eye, his attention caught by all around us.

  Reluctantly I placed our daughter on the ground before him and there she lay, obliviously asleep, waiting for her father to claim her as his own. Amberline looked at me as the magpies started up their scolding and he froze, the weight of expectation pushing like a tide behind him. I nodded at him and he reached down and picked her up, then she snuggled into his chest and he blinked at me, surprised, with a grin. Carefully he unlooped the red thread from his wrist and placed it over her head, where it sat above her swaddling cloth, red as a vein. Redder than the birthmark that linked around the folds of her neck. I had thought it was just my blood, but it had proved a red mark on her skin and I was afraid that she had already been claimed with her cord by the water. The river’s own daughter.

  Down to the water’s edge Amberline carried her, the light turning the surface precious and shining. He scooped up a handful of water and let a tiny trickle fall across her brow.

  “Let her be known as Eglantine,” Amberline called out, his voice skimming across my ears. “My mother’s name.”

  “Eglantine,” he said again, the ownership in his voice making me squirm and reach for her, but Amberline was already in love, seeing his reflection mirrored in her tiny body, her fragile skin too tender for such a stamp. What was eglantine? The dog-rose, Christ’s prickled crown, the false scent of apples.

  I felt the heat surge from my breasts, up my throat and into my face. I had wanted to call her something altogether different: Darklis, Newsome, Defiance. Her name for the world. The name Eglantine was like thorns in my mouth, but I had given her yet another, a secret name. The sound the river made. Riverling.

  Amberline placed her back in my arms and her dark eyes looked past me to the glare of the river. How could I call her Eglantine? I would call her Little Egg instead. My magpie-girl with an eye for the shine, just like her father.

  TWO

  Eglantine, 1825

  Always the memory of water. When I closed my eyes I could hear the rushing of it sure and steady as my own heartbeat. I grew up hearing the other sounds of it – the shouts and calls of disembodied voices coming over the water, the seabirds, the clang of things being loaded and unloaded, the trills of whistles. But always the memory of water and I never knew why. I assumed it was because we lived by the river, but it always invaded my dreams; it was as vivid to me as my own breath and as constant, more vivid to me than the memory of my own mother. When I tried to recall her face it would never come; I scrunched my eyes tight, trying to remember, yet her face disappeared in the purl. When I tried to remember her voice, my ears roared with the current.

  My earliest memory was wrapped up with Miss Poppet, my doll. I’d always seemed to have had her. She was made of wood and she was small, her little painted face as familiar to me as the lines of my hand. A little comb tucked in her painted hair. When I was at my saddest I would hold her in the space between my chin and my chest, then close my eyes and imagine my mother’s love around me like a blanket. I willed my mother to me and she never came, but my father was always there. He was the only parent I ever knew. We lived together in a grand house on the bankside of the River Thames, with my stepmother whom I called aunt and the housekeeper, and no one ever came to call.

  If my doll was the apple of my eye, I was the apple of my father’s.

  “Come here, apple of my eye, and give us a kiss,” my father said and offered me his pocket to search through. Within its confines I found a marzipan apple that he wrapped not in the street seller’s paper but in the folds of his monogrammed handkerchief that even then had the wrong initial upon it. When I questioned him, that he wasn’t a PF as the copperplate embroidery indicated, he guffawed and flicked me with the handkerchief’s fine tail until I took my first bite, and second, the bitter-sweetness of it too much. I would rather have had a real apple, the crisp bite, the fragrant juice run all down my chin, than an ill-gotten sweet, but I’d never have said so. To be in my father’s company was enough.

  My father encouraged me to search his other pocket.

  “Don’t let me feel your fingers even move,” he said and I tried to make my fingers dart inside, but the sugar from the marzipan made them sticky.

  “Try again,” he said, and I licked my fingers and tried again; there was something slippery between the lining and the pocket, something hard and round. I gave it a quick tug, and my father smacked my hand, captured like a moth; I’d failed at the task, but he let me pull it regardless. Something altogether finer than a marzipan fruit. From inside his pocket out snaked pearl after pearl, a perfect strand.

  “Papa!”

  My father lifted my braids and clipped the clasp securely together. My fingers ran over the combination of nacre and skin, captivated.

  “What do you think, Eglantine?” my father said. What did I think? I’d lost the capacity to think, just feeling the weight of them on my small chest, like silk across my collarbone. I longed for a mirror to see myself in, imagining myself a lady, so I made do with my fingers. Those pearls, wide as a smile.

  “Now try again,” he said as he plucked an elegant silken handkerchief out of his waistcoat pocket and wiped something from my face, before he concealed the handkerchief in his back pocket with a flourish. He pulled out another handkerchief from his coat sleeves and placed it in his coat pocket. Another he pulled from out of nowhere and stuffed into his trouser pocket. He jumped up and down then, the vibration on the floorboards sending a chill up my legs, a faint tinkling coming from within the confines of his clothes.

  “Come and find them, my girl, and they aren’t to make a sound.” I hadn’t seen any bells in the handkerchiefs and I said as much. My father smiled at me proudly. “First rule of the game is observation. You knew to use your eyes before your fingers. So if it’s no bells, what jingles?”

  “Things wrapped in the handkerchiefs of course.”

  “Observe. I’m a gentleman looking at the flower sellers, my nose is full of perfume, I lean down to select a posy. See what pocket is exposed, beware of your surroundings and who may be watching. Find your moment. Lean into the flowers yourself and use your spare hand. Conceal with your body. Let your fingers do all the work. Don’t let the width of your hand get caught when he stands. Clutch the item you’ve found into your palm and lean into the smell of flowers again. Don’t rush to get away. He doesn’t know
he’s a few ounces lighter. Don’t draw his attention. Don’t smile or make eye contact any more than is necessary. Maybe ask the time if he looks at you too long, unless you have lifted his watch. Then make your way.”

  My father bent over and smelled his imaginary flowers like an act in a pantomime; I saw the opening of his coat pocket, hooked my finger in and looped his pocket watch, feeling the fob chain trail along in my fingers, still warm from his body, until it pooled in my hand. He grabbed my wrist and the fob chain clattered to the ground, the watch safe in the claw of my fingers.

  “Try again.” This time my father stood with his arms held high as if reading an imaginary broadsheet held aloft, his coat pocket flapping open. He smiled at me, it was all a game, we’d been playing this game all my life. I was in and out of his pocket without my fingers touching the lining, a silver embossed cigarillo case already concealed in my own pocket before he even noticed.

  “You done yet, girl?” Without pause my fingers sought out the other pocket and evacuated a ring box which I had concealed under my armpit, before I overreached and got my fingers caught in his breast pocket. He smacked my fingers flat against the soft lining.

  “Better, apple of my eye. Again,” he commanded. It was the only time I ever recalled my father showing me how to do anything. His encouragement was something he’d saved up all until now and I felt the glow of it.

  Makepeace the housekeeper passed in the hallway, we heard her footsteps. My father bid me stop and unlooped the pearls from my throat and poured them back into his pocket with a serpentine clink.

  Makepeace entered the room, her dark skirt sweeping across the threshold and concealing the shine of her silver chatelaine. Her lace cap kept her hair tidy and neat and gave her face the look of a daisy closing its petals at sundown. She stared at my father and me and I saw that she knew what had been happening in the room only moments before, but she said nothing.

  “Come along, child, kiss your father goodnight.” And I did so obediently before she led me down to the kitchen, where a hipbath steamed. I watched as she rolled up her sleeves and put her apron on, before she took a scoop of water and spilled it on the floor purposefully.

  “Why do you do that?” I said, my curiosity an itch.

  Makepeace looked at me but just smiled as she did every time I asked the question that she never felt the need to answer. “Off with your clothes now, before the water cools.”

  I did as I was instructed and slipped my foot into the water, my toe breaking the surface until I stood like a crane with one foot in and one foot out, watching the rippling of my own reflection and seeing another face looking back at me. Makepeace unfurled the doll from my fingers, smoothed her wooden face with her thumbs and placed her on a chair within reach if I needed her, then she poured a ladle of water over my shoulders, warm as sleep, the smell of soap a dream. When the water started to cool, Makepeace helped me step out and folded me into a towel as I watched the water swoop into the space where I had been and the cold lapped around me. Goose flesh pricked at my shoulderblades, bone fins, until my nightgown was pulled down over my head. She roped my hair into a neat braid and smoothed the lick of hair that rebelled and fell over my face. My hair, dark like hers. Dark like my doll’s.

  “Come, your Aunt Ada wants to bid you goodnight,” she said and I dutifully followed behind in my little slippers and walked up the stairs to Ada’s room, every creak of the stairs ran up my legs, my doll’s earrings tinkling in my hand.

  Ada lay in her bed, all the pillows supporting her upright, her belly huge beneath the quilt. She was dozing while Makepeace gently ushered me inside and I waited patiently for her to wake up while running my finger over all the surfaces, silk coverlet, satin wood, silver jewellery box, tapestry, longing to turn the lamp up to see it all better.

  “Eglantine?” Ada said, easing herself up onto her elbows. “Come closer, child.”

  I crept closer. Though I loved Ada’s room, Ada’s love confused me. She was all caresses, all longing, her touch made me feel she was trying to shape me into something else, something all her own.

  “Yes, Aunt,” I said and sat where she patted, my feet dangling, the cool air milling around my ankles; I wanted nothing more than to tuck my legs beneath her coverlet and soak in some of her warmth. She snatched my hand and laid it on the hill of her belly.

  “Feel that?” she said and I felt the pulse of movement beneath the film of her nightgown, the tautness of her skin, and was sick with the vertigo of it – how had the baby got in there, how would it get out? I pulled my hand away then Ada caressed my hair and used the end of my braid to tickle my cheek. I feigned a smile.

  “Put dolly here and get my jewellery box for me, there’s a dear,” she said, and reluctantly I placed my doll against her leg in the warm space I had carved from the bedclothes then lifted the silver box from her dresser. A thin white powdery line of dust traced the outline of where it had been, the ghost of the box, I felt compelled to blow it away. The box was as big as Makepeace’s Bible and I heard the treasures clanking within it, minus her pearls: those were in the pink-shell lining of my father’s coat pocket.

  The surface of the box was bereft of anything except the swirl of an ornate letter A. With swollen fingers Ada lifted the lid and inside all her treasures shone against the red-heart interior of velvet.

  “What would you like to try on this evening, ma petite Eglantine?” She smiled at me, her face pale. I ran my fingers over all the accumulated gems of her life – ruby earrings, a coral rattle, a pearl ring. She didn’t notice that her strand of pearls was missing? Perhaps she kept them in one of the drawers of her dresser. Colour flooded my face with the shame of wearing them without her permission, when she was always so generous in all that she had, even to me, a small child.

  “What about these?” she said, holding the earrings up to my face. “Petite Eglantine just like Miss Poppet.” She screwed them onto my ears, the weight of them pulling at my lobes, and I looked in the mirror as she instructed. I didn’t see any resemblance to Miss Poppet’s red glass diamonds, but I saw the pull of my earlobes and thought they looked like something a fisherman might use to bait a hook rather than something on which to hang a jewel.

  Makepeace breezed into the room and frowned at me with my earlobes dangling and I quickly tried to pull off the earrings, my earlobes pulsing through the small gap, drawing blood. Makepeace watched me as I placed them back in the jewellery box.

  “Come now, Eglantine, time for bed,” she said, not unkindly. “Say goodnight to your aunt.” I obediently kissed her on her cheek, gathered up the remaining jewels and returned the box to the dresser, my doll beneath my arm. Ada was a series of white hills beneath the coverlet, her face smiling above. “Sleep well, little Eglantine.”

  I went up to the nursery, Makepeace’s skirts a dark cloud along with my thoughts, the house whistling with draught. Why was Ada’s baby going to have her as a mother, where was mine? As we climbed to the top of the house I heard the rain start to pound, hitting at the slate and rolling down the drain, louder and louder with each step. The river would be roiling brown with it.

  Inside the nursery I stood on a chair near the window to peer at the river and see the boats rise and pitch, to watch the rain puncture the fog, but the night had closed in, all was darkness except for the lamps that winked in and out on the water. The fire glowed in the grate and Makepeace pulled back the bed for me, removing the warmer.

  “Makepeace, where is my mama?” I said. The closeness of the night pressed in on me and I was glad to slip between the sheets of my bed, warm and crisp, but the coldness was in me, running like the river, longing for her but unable to even imagine her face, her voice. I ran my hands over my own face but found nothing familiar there.

  “She’s never far away, I’m sure,” Makepeace said. Her voice was all control to cover the little crack in it. “Sleep well,” she said and kissed me on my hair and closed the door. I listened to the hollow sound of her footsteps as sh
e wound her way back down to the kitchen.

  THREE

  Eglantine, 1825

  I lay in the darkness listening to the whole house settle. The rain began hitting the window in sheets and sent the fire spitting in the grate, sparks extinguished before they were sucked up the flue. I tossed off the bedclothes and stood on the chair again and watched the rain slice across the glass, each raindrop a precious stone, the lights on the water dancing now, all the vessels obscured by the fog, all the lights like fireflies. I grew sleepy, my breath becoming visible with my forehead against the glass. If Makepeace said my mother wasn’t very far away, where was she? Why had I never seen her? Could she see me now? My eyes were growing heavy following the cloaking and revealing of the lights, the steady beat of the rain, when I heard a commotion on the stairs.

  I crept, heavy limbed, to the door and creaked it open, the draught licking around my ankles like a cat. A loud cry burst through the house and raced up the stairs like a spirit; all the little hairs on my arms wavered. Ada’s baby had come. I stood listening for its cry, feeling jealous that the baby would have a mother when I had none, until I pinched myself on my arm, sending the flesh between my fingers red. Ada had been nothing but kind to me, patient. She liked to brush my hair, loop it into strange styles, treating me like a living doll, and I let her though I hated it, resentful of her touch, prickly like my name, prickly by nature.

  The front door opened and the roar of the rain came through the house, disguising a gentleman’s voice as he announced who he was. He was ushered up the stairs, his shadow leading him, before Makepeace whisked open Ada’s door and he disappeared. I took a few steps further out and peered down, but all that was left of the mysterious visitor were the dark stains of his wet footsteps. A cry came and I held my heart and prayed for Ada and her baby that they be safe.