Margo got to her feet. “Why don’t I go? I know where his house is and Louisa can stay and help you here.” She turned to Louisa. “Do you trust me with your car?”
Louisa nodded.
“Can I come with you to pick up my bike? It shouldn’t take long and I’m going to need it. My van is still at the mechanic’s. You can wait up at my house, Louisa. I’m sure I’ll be back before Conor turns up there. Once he goes off to one of his special places he’s always away for hours and I can never find him.”
“But shouldn’t you be here?”
“I’ll be as quick as I can. But I need my bike to deal with everything that must be done.”
“Very well,” she said, though she was concerned about how she would cope with the grieving boy and worried too that Leo had misjudged the child’s reaction.
Leo locked the front door of the bungalow so Conor couldn’t come in again to be with his mother on his own. After he and Margo had gone off, Louisa sat on a log outside, feeling terribly sad for Zinnia. The woman hadn’t stood a chance, and now not only was Elliot dead but she was too, leaving Conor an orphan. Louisa remembered, even now, how she had felt the day her own mother died. Her father had tried to spare her the pain but she had run into her parents’ bedroom and seen her mother laid out on the bed. The room had seemed very hot and there had been an overwhelming smell of lilies. Afterward she had never liked lilies and had become a fresh-air fiend. She had screamed until the ayah had led her away struggling and weeping. For ages everything had scared her until she learned how to put on a brave face. Now she worried about Conor out there somewhere all on his own. Maybe Leo was right and he needed time to let his mother’s death sink in, but he was so young and she couldn’t help thinking he shouldn’t be alone.
It wasn’t cold but she shivered. She took several long slow breaths and then made a move. When she got to the top of the hill, she was surprised to see the little boy sitting on the bench in front of Leo’s house. He didn’t look up at first so she went to sit beside him.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said.
No reply, just a desperately solemn look.
“Shall I tell you a story? It’s about a little girl who was the same age as you when her mother died.”
He glanced across at her and she could see his eyes were red from crying.
“She thought it was the end of the world. Is that how you feel?”
He nodded.
“She felt as if nothing would ever feel right again.”
He nodded again.
“And she felt she would never smile again.”
There was a long silence and Louisa listened to the birds and the wind shifting the branches of the trees. She looked up at the sky and saw there were patches of blue between the darker clouds, allowing weak sunlight to filter through.
“What happened to her?” he suddenly said, a look of panic in his eyes. “What happened to the little girl?”
“She was fine in the end but she was sad for a time.”
“I’m sad,” he said.
Leo’s houseboy came out and told them there was lemonade and tea inside, but it didn’t seem to even register with Conor.
“Come on,” Louisa said. “Come and have some lemonade. Maybe Kamu can find some biscuits too.”
The child got onto his feet but didn’t speak again.
They went inside and he sat hunched in on himself, his lemonade remaining untouched on the coffee table in front of him. Louisa sipped her tea and thought about Zinnia. She had so wanted not to care but had ended up feeling sorry for her, and now here was Zinnia and Elliot’s child sitting before her, with his heart breaking. How cruel life could be. She suddenly remembered what Margo had said about Irene wanting to scoop up the child, surely all the more so now that Zinnia had died.
When they heard the motorbike pulling up some time later, Conor leaped up and ran outside. She followed to see him hurl himself at Leo, whose eyes were creased with worry. She felt her own eyes water as Leo picked the boy up and wrapped him in a warm embrace. Only then did she hear the little boy sobbing.
Leo carried him in and the child remained on his lap with his arms firmly around his neck.
“It hurts,” the child said. “It hurts.”
Louisa could see how affected Leo was too when he answered in a gruff voice, “I know. It hurts me too.”
Louisa poured Leo a cup of tea and passed it to him. When Conor seemed to have fallen asleep, he carried the child to the bedroom and only then did he drink the tea, while sitting staring morosely at his feet. There was a long, painful silence during which Louisa could hear her own breathing.
“I saw the doctor with Margo,” he said eventually. “He’s coming over so I’ll have to go down to Zinnia’s soon.”
“I’ll stay here in case Conor wakes up.”
He glanced up at her. “Do you think he needs to see her again?”
“He saw her already? I mean after…”
“Yes.”
She put a hand on his arm and shook her head. “Then once is enough. Look, Leo, whatever I can do to help I will. I just want you to know. Just don’t think you have to do it alone.”
He smiled at her through what she could now see were tears. “By the way, the phone line is now installed—they came to finish the job yesterday. I’ll jot down my number in case you might need it.”
Zinnia’s tiny funeral had passed uneventfully and Leo had done his best to help Conor through it, holding his hand and hugging him from time to time. There were, no doubt, those who thought Conor too young to attend the funeral, but Louisa and Leo had talked it through and he had made up his mind. It was important Conor be there. She hadn’t allowed memories of Elliot’s funeral to get in the way of supporting Leo and the boy. Leo’s grief at Zinnia’s death was mainly silent, but she could tell from the way he looked so tense and sorrowful at times that it hurt him deeply. It was hard to know how close the two cousins had been, and clearly they were very different people, but that he felt her loss powerfully she had no doubt.
And so, life went on in the way it did.
Work was going well on the emporium and though Louisa was aware of a policeman outside her house from time to time, there had been no further sign of Cooper or De Vos, for which she was grateful. The weather trapped her indoors for much of the time, although, while it was still the monsoon season, they had bright days too. Despite that the air remained uncomfortably thick and humid.
She called in at the emporium and saw that it looked wonderful. Everything was clean and two carpenters were busy assembling the cabinets. The grilles for the back windows had been installed and she could now really picture how the whole place would look once freshly painted white. She couldn’t wait to see it packed with jewelry and silks, and buzzing with life.
She was just on her way home with the dogs when Leo roared up on his motorcycle. She hadn’t seen him for a week and had been missing him, and wondering how he was getting on with Conor. Now he parked outside her house and they went in together.
“Well,” she said as she hung up her hat and then took his jacket. “How are things?” She pointed at the sitting-room door. “Shall we go in?”
Camille came to ask if they’d like coffee and Louisa nodded.
“So?”
He seated himself on an easy chair. “To be honest, it’s not going well. We’re so busy and I haven’t the time to take care of Conor properly. Not in the way he needs. He spends far too long moping in the woods. Kamu’s looking after him while I’m here—but it’s not ideal.”
“You must be worried.”
He glanced at her and sighed. “Look, I know you offered to help…”
“And I meant it.”
“Would it be too much to ask if Conor could come here?”
She took a quick breath. “Oh!”
<
br /> “Just during the week. Kamu and I can manage the weekends, but it’s a woman’s presence he needs.”
Louisa thought about it. Perhaps it was a good idea but…She inhaled, feeling deeply uncertain. “Well, I suppose,” she said. “And Margo is here now. I’m sure she’d help; after all, she is his aunt.”
“So?”
“He needs to go to school.”
“And that’s maybe how we can sell it to him,” he said. “He’ll be coming here to spend time with his aunt while she’s here and to go to school.”
“Will that work?”
“I know he’ll hate leaving his beloved woods and his home.”
She looked at him, horrified. “He’s surely not living in Zinnia’s house?”
He shook his head. “No, I meant the plantation is his home. I have a boxroom we’ve made into a bedroom for him. I feel dreadful sending him away but I can’t think of another way.”
While Camille brought the coffee, they remained silent, Louisa thinking about what Leo had asked of her. She was full of contradictory feelings. On the one hand she wanted to help Leo but, on the other, even though she and Conor had gotten along well during the fishing trip, how would it feel to be faced with Elliot’s child every single day? She sat and gazed out of the window while Camille poured and then she sipped her coffee.
“What if,” she said, “we give it a trial, but if he’s unhappy we might have to think again.”
Margo came into the room at that point. “Gosh, you two look grim. Has something else happened?”
In a halting voice, Louisa explained her decision.
“Are you sure? I’ll do what I can, of course,” Margo said and then paused. “To be honest, I’ve been itching to see my young nephew again.”
Louisa felt a little strange. She was the one who was not a blood relative and yet she would have so much responsibility, and she suspected it wouldn’t be easy.
“When will you bring him?” she asked.
“Sooner the better. Will the day after tomorrow give you time to prepare?”
After he’d gone Louisa and Margo walked to Jonathan’s house to see if they could dig out any of her old childhood toys. Dolls had never appealed to her and mostly she had ridden her bike, but there would be board games, she thought, and books too. It might be worth a visit to the big toyshop in Colombo to buy tin soldiers, though she had no idea what the little boy liked.
The back door was usually left unlocked so they were able to make their way inside and then up to an unused room where Jonathan stored tea chests. Louisa shifted a few of them and found one marked with her own name. Inside was a faded box, for an old board game.
“It’s Pirate and Traveler,” she said. “I remember playing it with my dad. You had to draw a travel card which identified the journeys you had to make. You spun a wheel to determine how far you could move, and the person who arrived first won. The routes were based on real railroad and steamship lines. Gosh, it’s ages since I’ve seen this!”
“Do you think Conor might like it?”
“I have no idea. Let’s see what else there is.”
“He’d probably like toy soldiers.”
“I didn’t have any of those.”
“My mother has probably kept all of Elliot’s.”
Louisa stared at her. “Please don’t tell Irene Conor will be here. I can’t have her interfering at this stage. Things will be delicate enough without Irene wading in.”
“Understood,” Margo said.
“I’m sure I had a Meccano set. It’ll be here somewhere.”
“Isn’t that for boys?”
“Because Dad bought all my presents I was given a lot of stuff intended for boys. I loved it.”
“Why shouldn’t girls have the chance to make things too?”
“Absolutely. Anyway, if we can find it, it should come in handy.”
After that they came across another tea chest marked Louisa and inside, among other things, they found a one-eyed teddy bear with worn fur.
“My goodness. It’s Albert the bear. He slept with me every night until I was twelve. Look at his arms. They’re all wonky.” She smelled his fur then hugged him to her. “You never know, Conor might like Albert.”
The little bear had awoken the past and she stood surrounded by mementoes of her childhood, feeling a little frayed. Albert had been her comfort after her mother died and she used to confide her deepest secrets to him. The memory was special, but reminded her that firm ground was never quite as firm as you thought it was.
“What else is there?” Margo asked.
She sighed and stopped replaying the past.
“I had jigsaw puzzles, but I never had a train set or any model cars. Let’s see if there are any other boxes.”
Margo pulled out a small box marked Noah. “I wonder what’s in here?” she said.
“It may be my wooden Noah’s ark. I played with it all the time.”
Margo undid the string and opened the box. She pulled out a figure of a zebra. “Gosh, this is beautiful.” She took out more animals and finally the figures of Noah and his wife, and then the ark itself. “It’s so well made.”
“I’d forgotten about these,” Louisa said.
Though it was lovely to rediscover these toys, much of her childhood had been tinged with sadness following her mother’s death; she could still feel the isolation and an awful sense of not being like other girls. It wasn’t hard to imagine how Conor must be feeling following the loss of both father and mother, and now he would feel as if he was being rejected by Leo. She ran her fingers through her hair and hoped they were making the right decision.
Suddenly she remembered a butterfly collection a friend of her father had given her. Maybe Conor would like that?
They found the display case of butterflies, then gathered together the toys they’d unearthed and bagged them up to carry back to Louisa’s. On the way out, Louisa spotted her father in his study and asked Margo to wait while she went in to have a word.
“I thought you’d be at the cutting house?” she said.
He smiled at her. “No, I’ve paperwork here to see to.”
“I’ve just been collecting some of my old toys,” she said. “Conor is going to be staying with me during the week.”
Her father looked startled and rose from his chair. “Goodness, that seems rather unwise. Are you sure?”
She gazed at his kind face and sighed. “As sure as I can be which, to be honest, isn’t very, but I have to help Leo.”
“But Elliot’s illegitimate child?”
She frowned. “Conor can’t help who he is, can he?”
“Won’t it be terribly hard for you?”
“It might be.”
Jonathan looked worried. “Think of how we’ll explain it to people. Can you imagine the outcry? Everyone will be asking about this child who has suddenly come to stay with you.”
“I’ll just say he’s…well, I’m not sure actually.”
“Think about it. People are already gossiping. You wouldn’t want them turning up their noses at Conor, especially if he’s going to be going to school. People can be so cruel, especially the Elspeth Markhams of this world.”
“I had thought he would go to school, but you’re right, people already know Elliot had a son. I heard them talking at the ball.”
“Won’t you have a rethink? If you do go ahead you’ll have to be prepared to really tough it out.”
She nodded.
“Well, it has to be your decision, but take note of what I’ve said. On another matter,” he added, now with an edge to his voice, “I saw De Vos yesterday hanging around outside your house. He moved off when he saw me.”
“I imagine he still wants the money.”
“Hasn’t he come back to you yet?”
S
he shook her head.
“Make sure you keep your doors locked back and front.”
* * *
—
The day Leo brought Conor to Louisa’s the rain had stopped and the sky looked washed-out and pale. They had arrived in his now fixed van, an old Crossley army ambulance; the back of a motorbike wasn’t suitable for a young child, and he needed to bring a carryall of Conor’s clothes and other belongings.
Louisa and Margo watched as the child climbed out of the van, hanging his head and staring at the ground, his face expressionless.
“Come on, Conor,” Leo said. “Say hello to Louisa.”
The child did not speak.
“And look, here’s your aunt Margo.”
“Hello Aunt,” the little boy said, glancing up at Margo shyly.
“Hello,” she said. “I hope we are going to become great friends.”
He didn’t reply. At least he’d acknowledged Margo, Louisa thought. It might take a little longer before he would communicate with her. It made her feel uncomfortable but it was to be expected from a traumatized child.
“Have you time for some refreshment, Leo?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I’m very behind.”
Suddenly the child wrapped his arms around Leo and held on tightly.
Leo bent down. “Now, Conor, I promise I’ll take you back to the plantation at the end of the week, but you need to go to school now here in Galle and Louisa has agreed to look after you.”
“I want you and Kamu.”
Leo stroked the child’s hair. “Come now. You know that won’t work. You’re a big boy and I am sure you’re going to be brave.”
Conor let go of Leo and kicked the wheels of the van.
As Leo sighed, Louisa thought how small and lost the child looked.
Leo reached for Conor again and then crouched beside him. “I’ve explained how it must be. But it’s just for now, and you’ll have lots of new things to do here, won’t he, Louisa?”
The Sapphire Widow Page 26