In spite of my emotion, I compelled myself to express the voice of reason.
‘But Emily dear, if your mother has decided that Robert must be sent to a school, what exactly do you hope to obtain by following me to Europe?’
‘Oh, first I wanted to run away, and send a telegram to Mother saying that I should come back only if she promised to keep Robert. But now, I believe Heaven itself has sent you here, for we are on our way to Calais, and I believe that we must fetch Robert ourselves, and bring him home.’
‘My dear child, I haven’t the least notion where he is, and we could not possibly simply arrive and carry him off! And then, I cannot, I cannot go back – I must travel to Stockholm, Emily. It is more important than anything.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘I know why you are going – you are going for Mr Weatherburn! Oh, Miss Duncan, of course whatever you can do for him is important – but not more important than anything. Please, please think for a moment if he were here, if he could be here for just one second, and you asked him what you should do now – what he would say? I know he would say that we must get Robert – he is so kind! We cannot leave Robert – you don’t know where he is, but I do! He is with that horrible Madame Bignon, whom I saw when Mother and I travelled here – that horrible woman who is keeping him for money, right in Calais, where we are going. He was the saddest little boy I ever saw, he clung to me so when Mother decided we had to leave. I only left because she said we might arrange for him to come home, although I had wanted him to join us there and then, but she said it was impossible! He loved me so, and cried terribly when I left … and oh, he looked so much like Father! Please, Miss Duncan – I won’t make you travel back to England with me – we will travel together to Stockholm, and bring Robert – I will take care of him all the time, just like a mother, and we will be as good as gold and help you in everything you do! We will help each other – you will see! I have travelled often, and can speak French, and some German, too, you know. And – Miss Duncan, look – I have brought ever so much money with me – all that I have ever received since I was small, and Edmund’s as well, and some more which I begged Uncle to lend me for an urgent secret reason. He did it, and didn’t ask me a single question!’
I hesitated, and was lost. Emily is so lovely, so firm in her gentle way, so tall and ladylike for her thirteen years, so decisive and able and just, that she brought me infinite consolation, and I felt that her presence would be precious to me. Already I knew that were I to send her back, I would desperately miss her loving company. I was so afraid of the long trip into unknown places, but Emily had already taken boats and trains and spoken foreign languages, and she was filled with courage and the desire to do right. I reflected as these thoughts went through my mind, and then turned to her.
‘We must send a telegram to your mother the moment we arrive in Calais,’ I said. ‘Then, we will find a small hotel. And if the little boy truly lives in the town, we can call on him. But I believe you may be too hopeful. Why should they allow him to leave with me?’
‘They will! I will say that you are my governess and we are calling to fetch him. They know me. And if they want money, we shall pay them,’ she said, and her very voice vibrated with the force that makes things happen. She turned to me, put her two hands on my shoulders, and looked up into my eyes.
‘We are really trying to do the same thing,’ she said seriously. ‘You are doing it for Mr Weatherburn, and I for Robert. You will see – together we will succeed.’
And Dora, it may well be that without her loving help and presence, I would have despaired. Calais was a scene of indescribable confusion; oh, the motley crowds that invaded the place! Sailors, Frenchmen and foreigners of all descriptions, dirty children and beggars swarmed all about the area of the port, which was loaded high with stacks of boxes and bags of goods of all sorts being delivered. I would not have had the slightest idea where to go, had I been alone. But Emily led me to a money-changing counter, then towed me through the streets to the very hotel where she had stayed with her mother, and expressing herself very prettily in French, enquired for a large room with two beds, and even asked if it would be possible to add a child’s cot. She bade me upstairs as though playing the hostess in her own home, and we washed and freshened up, ‘to give ourselves courage’, as she said.
Then we went to send a telegram to her mother. I wrote it out myself, my hand trembling with the unthinkableness of what I was doing. I was afraid of being accused of running off with the child, and sought the wording anxiously, as she bent over my shoulder.
EMILY SAFE. HAD TO TRAVEL TO CONTINENT URGENTLY FOUND EMILY FOLLOWED ME ONTO BOAT. CANNOT RETURN NOR SEND EMILY ALONE SO TAKING HER WITH ME. HOPE RETURN WITHIN WEEK. DUNCAN.
I left the telegraph office filled with the fear that I would be followed, arrested, and accused of terrible misdeeds, at this critical time. I felt as though I had stolen one child and was about to steal a second. Full of misgivings, and yet deeply convinced that my fears were only for myself, whereas Emily truly walked in the Biblical ways of righteousness, I followed her through winding streets which she remembered perfectly, with the natural talent of a geometer, until we came to a miserable tenement house with peeling walls and cracked panes. There, we climbed to the very top of a horrible and rickety staircase smelling of onions, and knocked at the door. It was soon opened by a thin and undeniably evil-looking woman with a kerchief tied around her lank hair. She recognised Emily at once.
‘Ah, vous êtes revenue?’ she snarled unpleasantly.
‘Oui,’ said Emily with charming politeness, ‘voici ma gouvernante. Nous sommes venues emmener Robert.’
‘En effet, votre mère m’a ecrit qu’elle enverrait bientôt quelqu’un,’ said the unpleasant personage. Emily turned to me eagerly.
‘You see, Mother wrote that someone would soon come to take him, and she believes it is us!’ she whispered. Meanwhile, the lady had retired into the depths of her dingy flat, and was calling ‘Robert! Robert! Allez, viens vite!’
The little boy who then appeared was like another copy of poor little Edmund. He was extremely thin and fragile, his eyes were enormous and frightened, and he looked so abandoned and miserable that I understood all of Emily’s panic on his behalf. He looked from the woman to us as though wondering what was to befall him now, but when his eyes lit on Emily, he sprang towards her passionately and clutched her dress.
‘Oh, have you come to take me?’ he cried out in English.
‘Yes, yes, we have, come Robert, come with us now, darling! Come away – we shall leave, and you shall never come back here again!’ she answered, clasping him in her arms. ‘Pouvons-nous avoir ses vêtements?’ she added in her prim, studious French, turning to the woman.
The woman turned away, and soon came back with a canvas sack into which she had stuffed various ill-assorted rags.
‘Votre mère me doit de l’argent, mademoiselle,’ she began aggressively.
Emily took out her little purse, extracted a wad of notes, and handed them to the woman with a coolness worthy of a princess, then turned away, taking Robert by the hand, without even waiting to see if she would count the money, or complain. We heard vociferations and imprecations behind us as we descended, but she must have been too pleased to get rid of the undesirable little boy to insist further. Ten minutes after having arrived, we were on our way, with one little blonde boy in tow and one canvas sack of useless items. Emily poked into it with distaste.
‘Tomorrow we shall shop for him first thing,’ she began. Then, seeing my face, she suddenly clapped her hand to her forehead. ‘No, we shall not – we shall do what you need to do, dear Miss Duncan. I promise total obedience. Please tell me whatever it is, and we shall do it.’
I could not help laughing. ‘I need to travel to Brussels tomorrow, and see a lady who lives in a village near the city,’ I told her. ‘You shall help me with the tickets and the rooms, and if we are lucky, we shall find time to shop for little Robert tomorrow. For tonigh
t, let us be contented if he is washed and well fed.’
‘Oh, yes!’ she said joyfully. ‘We shall have dinner at the hotel, all three of us together. Come – let us go there now!’ And we did dine modestly on fish and green beans, served by a harassed waiter who expressed himself habitually in a peculiar mixture of French and English, which language he had personally developed to deal with the great numbers of English tourists who occupy the hotel daily. We then betook ourselves upstairs to our room, where we are at this very moment. Emily is washing Robert as best she can in front of the cracked washbasin behind the tattered screen, as I write to you.
Oh, Dora – I feel as though you are near me, as though if I looked up I could see your sweet face in the candlelight. Surrounded by the peaceful domestic atmosphere, the gentle sounds of splashing, the scratching pen, the extraordinarily still and timeless moment in this quiet room – I feel we are all three protected, for a moment, within a magic circle, as though we have been allowed a brief rest in our struggle against the whirlpool of dreadful events which threaten us.
I feared this moment of being able to do nothing but wait. But it is not so – writing to you, and feeling Emily’s great release from anguish and little Robert’s incredulous wonderment at finding himself surrounded by love and care again, after so much misery and abandonment, make me realise that this moment is as full as all the others. I feel renewed courage; the map of Europe lies open before me – tomorrow to Belgium!
I will post this letter tomorrow, and write again at the very next one of these secret moments which seem to lie at the heart of the storm.
Your fearful, weary but courageous
Vanessa
Brussels, Tuesday, May 29th, 1888
My dearest Dora,
Today was so endlessly long, so filled with travel, with valises and stations and trains, carriages, horses, seeking addresses and hotels, that I feel as though I have been travelling for weeks!
And yet, we have been only from Calais to Brussels, and from Brussels to Wavre, or rather, to a farm in the nearby countryside, inhabited by a certain Madame Walters, formerly Miss Akers, sister to Mr Akers and his next of kin.
We arose early this morning; how sweet it was to see Robert’s flushed face asleep upon his tumbled pillow, and to see him awaken giggling from Emily’s sly tickles. Emily loves him with a fierce passion which mingles protectiveness for the abandoned and threatened waif, and (perhaps unconsciously) all her adoration for the father she twice lost, and whom Robert and Edmund closely resemble.
The little boy is really adorable; sweet, desperately eager to please, full of goodwill. He is bright-eyed, and I would guess that he must be a very lively and active little boy; I would naturally expect him to make a rumpus as little Violet and Mary do in class, and would love to see his cheeks flushed with some of their rosy colour. But he does not behave so; he is subdued and quiet, and seems to repress his natural energy. It cannot be easy for him, to have been twice snatched from familiar surroundings and flung into the unknown; the first experience must have taught him an unchildlike fear, which the second shall try its best to undo.
His father always spoke to him in English, so that although he may have forgotten a little during the last month, spent in the dreadful household we briefly saw, he still speaks charmingly. He is too young to have yet learnt to distinguish between tender, childish language, and ordinary speech. Today, taking Emily’s hand lovingly, he called her ‘my little birdie in a nest’, and she looked at him with amazement, then realised that she must be hearing, as though from the grave, the echo of her own father’s tender words to his child. Tender and loving the little boy’s parents obviously were, however at fault they may have been to be parents at all.
After breakfast in the crowded hotel dining room – I could swallow only tea, such was my haste to depart – we paid our bill, and hastened on foot through the streets to the railway station, whence we were soon on our way to Brussels. I could not take my eyes from the scenery outside; countryside, just as in England and not so very far, yet so different! The distance was not too long, and after a reasonable time, we found ourselves descending in the Belgian metropolis, which turned out to be hardly more than a delightful village with a lovely central square, in comparison with the bustling capharnaum of London. I felt quite at home there, in spite of the fact that many less English people were to be heard than at Calais; the streets are small, charming and reassuring, and many useful words such as Hotel and Restaurant are identical to the English, so that one does not feel unlettered as one walks through them; then, also, I am presently accompanied by an accomplished little Frenchman, who in spite of his tender years, comes gravely to our aid whenever we are missing the necessary words to express ourselves.
My first care was to send a telegram to poor Mrs Burke-Jones. I felt that I must not only reassure as to Emily’s well-being, but immediately break the news that we had taken little Robert, so that she could reflect upon her future decision concerning him (and also, perhaps, to avoid the fearful scene of breaking the news to her directly!). I spent some precious time over the wording, trying to explain all without undue waste of words, and finally wrote: Emily insisted take Robert from Calais. Both children well travelling Germany tomorrow. Duncan. I then set about the task of feeding my little brood, in spite of my burning impatience to hire a cab and ride at a gallop towards Wavre, and my tormenting fear that Madame Walters may be out for the day, or even away altogether, and that I might be obliged to wait, or to continue my journey without the knowledge I felt so certain she detained.
Thank Heaven, my fears proved groundless. After a modest meal, we proceeded to hire a hansom – the man was peculiar and leered, and I felt nervous, and began to feel that the presence of Emily and little Robert protects me greatly from many vexations – and he drove us several leagues, to a tiny village on the outskirts of Wavre. There, we were compelled to ask him to wait, as Emily and Robert descended and asked an old farmer passing down the lane with a load of hay, if he knew where Madame Walters resided. The man knew, of course, as the village is entirely visible from one end to other when standing at a single spot, and he showed us her farmhouse, standing at the edge of the fields some way off. Our cab driver took us as near as he could, but the way became muddy, and he began to become angry, and demanded his fare. I dared not demur, and paid him the rather exorbitant sum he required – thank goodness dear Emily had once again reminded me of the necessity to obtain something of the local currency at the railway station – after which we descended and he went cantering off to Brussels, although we had asked him to await our return.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ cried Emily gamely, ‘we shall walk back, if need be; I do not think it was over a few miles! Or perhaps we shall find a farmer’s wagon to take us back.’
Lifting our skirts, we stepped along the muddy lane, seeking as best we could to place our feet upon the various rocks and stones, until we came to the path leading to the farmhouse. My hopes rose as I saw the thread of smoke rising from the chimney, and the light which glowed within the cheerful windows against the dark, grey day.
We knocked at the door, which was soon opened by a woman no older than Mrs Burke-Jones, with brown hair pulled away from her face tightly, and an enormous apron – her face was wary, but not unfriendly. The sound of our English voices appeared to hearten her.
‘We are so terribly sorry to disturb you,’ I said, ‘but we have come a long way to see Madame Walters on urgent business.’
‘I am she,’ she said, speaking her native tongue almost as though it were rusty with disuse. ‘You are lucky to find me in today; I should be working out in the fields, but I am unwell.’
She led us inside; the door gave directly onto a spacious farmhouse kitchen, with an enormous fireplace and a large wooden table, surrounded by benches. We sat down, and she set a kettle directly over the fire on a hook, set mugs of milk and biscuits in front of the children, and enquired of us whence we came, and for what purpose.
Her eyes flashed. ‘I was told that the murderer had been arrested, and will be condemned!’ she snapped.
Before I could reply, Emily leapt to her feet. ‘Oh no, dear Madame Walters,’ she cried urgently, leaning forward, clinging to the table in her urgency. ‘It is a mistake, a dreadful mistake! Mr Weatherburn never killed your brother. He could not possibly have done it! Please, please believe us!’
The face of the lady changed several times at Emily’s words – first she seemed affected by Emily’s desperate tones, but then it flashed across her mind that we must, then, be friends or family of he who she had been assured was the murderer. She stared at us with hostility.
‘I am sure I can do nothing for you,’ she said quite coldly.
I feared that we had begun badly, and became alarmed at the prospect of being summarily ejected. I decided to adopt a different tactic, and speak only of manuscripts, and not of murderers. I glanced at Emily, hoping she could read my thoughts.
‘I want to tell Madame Walters about her brother’s mathematical idea,’ I said.
‘Oh – look at the lovely cat!’ suddenly interjected Robert, as a very large grey animal entered the kitchen with a distinguished step, its extremely furry tail erect, and stopped enquiringly in front of him. He immediately slipped off the settle, and began to play with the creature under the table. Madame Walters smiled, looking slightly mollified.
‘Her name is Reine,’ she told him, leaning down to watch for a moment, and reaching under the table to pass her hand through the cat’s thick, soft fur.
The Three-Body Problem Page 20