by Kate Morton
I had started in the room with her, but as the contractions came harder and faster and the baby began to force its way out, she had surrendered more and more to delusion. Had stared at me, fear and anger in her face, shouted at me to leave, that it was all my fault. It was not uncommon for birthing women to lose their grasp, the doctor explained as he bid me do as she ask, to give themselves over to fantasy.
But I couldn’t leave her, not like that. I retired from her bedside but not from the room. As she lay on the bed and the doctor started to cut, I watched from the door and I saw her face. As she laid back her head, she breathed a sigh that looked an awful lot like relief. Release. She knew that if she didn’t fight it, she could go. It would all be over.
No, it wasn’t a sudden death; she’d been dying for months.
Afterwards, I was broken. Bereft. In an odd way, I had lost myself. That is what happens when you give your life and service to another person. You’re bound to them. Without Hannah, I was without function.
I had no capacity for feeling. Was emptied, just as surely as if someone had slit me open like a dying fish and scooped out everything inside. I performed perfunctory duties, though with Hannah gone there were few enough of those. I stayed a month like that, steering myself from one interchangeable location to another. Until one day I told Teddy I was leaving.
He wanted me to stay; when I refused he begged me to reconsider, for Hannah’s sake if not for his, for her memory. She had been fond of me, didn’t I know? Would want me to be a part of her daughter’s life, of Florence’s life.
But I couldn’t. I had no heart for it. I had no heart. I was blind to Mr Hamilton’s disapproval, Mrs Townsend’s tears. Had little concept of my own future, other than to know for certain it didn’t lie at Riverton.
How indescribably frightening it would have been, leaving Riverton, leaving service, if I’d had any sensation left. Better for me that I hadn’t: fear might have triumphed over grief and tied me forever to the house on the hill. For I knew nothing of life outside service. Was panicked by independence. Wary of going places, doing the simplest things, making my own decisions.
I found a little flat in the Marble Arch, though, and proceeded to live. I took what jobs I could-cleaning, waiting tables, stitching-resisted closeness, left when people started to ask too many questions, wanted more of me than I was able to give. In such occupation, I passed a decade. Waiting, though I didn’t know it, for the next war. And for Marcus, whose birth would do what my own daughter’s could not. Return to me what had been emptied by Hannah’s death.
In the meantime, I thought little of Riverton. Of all I had lost.
Let me rephrase: I refused to think of Riverton. If I found my mind, in a quiet moment of inactivity, roaming the nursery, lingering by the stairs in Lady Ashbury’s rose garden, balancing on the rim of the Icarus fountain, I quickly sought occupation.
But I did wonder about that little baby, Florence. My half-niece, I suppose. She was a pretty little thing. Hannah’s blonde hair but not her eyes. Big, brown eyes, they were. Perhaps they changed as she grew. That can happen. But I suspect they stayed brown, like her father’s. For she was Robbie’s daughter, wasn’t she?
I have given it quite some thought over the years. It is possible, of course, that despite Hannah’s failure to fall pregnant to Teddy all those years, she fell swiftly and unexpectedly in 1924. Stranger things have happened. But at the same time, isn’t it too convenient an explanation? Teddy and Hannah shared a bed infrequently in the latter years of their marriage, but Teddy had been anxious for a child at the beginning. For Hannah not to fall suggests, doesn’t it, that there was a problem with one of them? And as she proved with Florence, Hannah was able to conceive.
Isn’t it more likely then that Florence’s father was not Teddy? That she was conceived on the lake? That after months of being apart, when Hannah and Robbie met that night, in the near-finished summer house, they were unable to resist? The timing, after all, was right. Deborah certainly thought so. She took one look at those big dark eyes and her lips tightened. She knew.
Whether it was she who told Teddy, I don’t know. Perhaps he worked it out for himself. Whatever the case, Florence didn’t stay long at Riverton. Teddy could hardly be expected to keep her: a constant reminder of his cuckolding. The Luxtons all agreed it was best he put the whole sorry affair behind him. Settle down to running Riverton Manor, staging his political comeback.
I heard they sent Florence to America, that Jemima agreed to take her as sister to Gytha. She had always longed for more than one. Hannah would’ve been pleased, I think; would’ve preferred to imagine her daughter growing up a Hartford than a Luxton.
The tour ends and we are delivered to the entrance hall. Despite Beryl’s keen encouragement, Ursula and I bypass the gift shop.
I wait again on the iron seat while Ursula fetches the car. ‘I won’t be long,’ she promises. I tell her not to worry, my memories will keep me company.
‘Come again soon?’ Mr Hamilton says from the doorway.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think so, Mr Hamilton.’
He seems to understand, smiles briefly. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Townsend you said goodbye.’
I nod and he disappears, dissolves like watercolour into a dusty streak of sunlight.
Ursula helps me into the car. She has bought a bottle of water from a machine in the ticket booth and opens it for me when I am buckled into my seat. ‘Here you are,’ she says, feeding a straw into the spout and wrapping my hands around its cold sides.
She starts the engine and we drive slowly out of the car park. I am aware, vaguely, as we enter the dark leafy tunnel of the driveway, that it’s the last time I will take this particular journey, but I don’t look back.
We drive in silence for a time, until Ursula says, ‘You know, there’s one thing that’s always niggled me.’
‘Mmm?’
‘The Hartford sisters saw him do it, right?’ She sneaks a sideways glance at me. ‘But what were they doing down by the lake when they should have been up at the party?’
I do not answer and she glances at me again, wondering if perhaps I have not heard.
‘What did you decide?’ I say. ‘What happens in the film?’
‘They see him disappear, follow him to the lake and try to stop him.’ She shrugs. ‘I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find police interviews with either Emmeline or Hannah, so I had to sort of guess. It made the most sense.’
I nod.
‘Besides, the producers thought it more suspenseful than if they stumbled on him accidentally.’
I nod.
‘You can judge for yourself,’ she says. ‘When you see the film.’
I had once thought to attend the film’s premiere, but somehow I know it is beyond me now. Ursula seems to know too.
‘I’ll bring you a copy on video as soon as I can,’ she says.
‘I’d like that.’
She turns the car into the Heathview entrance. ‘Uh-oh,’ she says, eyes widening. She places a hand on mine. ‘Ready to face the music?’
Ruth is standing there, waiting. I expect to see her mouth sucked tight around her disapproval. But it isn’t. She is smiling. Fifty years dissolve and I see her as a girl. Before life had a chance to disappoint her. She is holding something; waving it. It is a letter, I realise. And I know who it is from.
SLIPPING OUT OF TIME
He is here. Marcus has come home. In the past week he’s been to see me every day. Sometimes Ruth comes with him; sometimes it’s just the two of us. We don’t always talk. Often he just sits beside me and holds my hand while I doze. I like him to hold my hand. It is the most companionable of gestures: a comfort from infancy to old age.
I am beginning to die. Nobody has told me, but I see it in their faces. The pleasant, soft expressions, the sad, smiling eyes, the kind whispers and glances that pass between them. And I feel it myself.
A quickening.
I am slipping out of time. The demar
cations I’ve observed for a lifetime are suddenly meaningless: seconds, minutes, hours, days. Mere words. All I have are moments.
Marcus brings a photograph. He hands it to me and I know before my eyes focus which one it is. It was a favourite of mine, is a favourite of mine, taken on an archaeological dig many years before. ‘Where did you find this?’ I say.
‘I’ve had it with me,’ he says sheepishly, running a hand through longish sun-lightened hair. ‘All the time I was away. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘I’m glad,’ I say.
‘I wanted a photo of you,’ he says. ‘I always loved this one, when I was a kid. You look so happy.’
‘I was. The very happiest.’ I look at the photo some more, then hand it back. He positions it on my bedside table so that I can see it whenever I care to look.
I wake from dozing and Marcus is by the window, looking out over the heath. At first I think Ruth is in the room with us, but she is not. The dark figure by the curtains is someone else. Something else. She appeared a little while ago. Has been here ever since. No one else can see her. She is waiting for me, I know, and I am almost ready. Early this morning I taped the last for Marcus. It is all done now and all said. The promise I made is broken and he will learn my secret.
Marcus senses I have woken. He turns. Smiles. His glorious broad smile. ‘Grace.’ He comes away from the window, stands by me. ‘Would you like something? A glass of water?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
I watch him: his lean shape housed in loose clothing. Jeans and a T-shirt, the uniform of today’s youth. In his face I see the boy he was, the child who followed me from room to room, asking questions, demanding stories: about the places I’d been, the artefacts I’d unearthed, the big old house on the hill and the children with their game. I see the young man who delighted me when he said he wanted to be a writer. Asked me to read some of his work, tell him what I thought. I see the grown man, caught in grief’s web, helpless. Unwilling to be helped.
I shift slightly, clear my throat. There is something I need to ask him. ‘Marcus,’ I say.
He looks sideways from beneath a lock of brown hair. ‘Grace?’
I study his eyes, hoping, I suppose, for the truth. ‘How are you?’
To his credit he doesn’t dismiss me. He sits, props me against my pillows, smooths my hair and hands me a cup of water. ‘I think I’m going to be all right,’ he says.
There is so much I would like to say, to reassure him. But I am too weak. Too tired. I can only nod my head.
•
Ursula comes. She kisses my cheek. I want to open my eyes; to thank her for caring about the Hartfords, for remembering them, but I can’t. Marcus looks after things. I hear him, accepting the video tape, thanking her, assuring her I’ll be glad to see it. That I’ve spoken highly of her. He asks if the premiere went well.
‘It was great,’ she says. ‘I was nervous as anything but it went off without a hitch. Even had a good review or two.’
‘I saw that,’ says Marcus. ‘A very good write-up in the Guardian. “Haunting”, didn’t they say, “subtly beautiful”? Congratulations.’
‘Thank you,’ says Ursula, and I can picture her shy, pleased smile.
‘Grace was sorry she couldn’t make it.’
‘I know,’ says Ursula. ‘So was I. I’d have loved her to be there.’ Her voice brightens. ‘My own grandmother came though. All the way from America.’
‘Wow,’ says Marcus. ‘That’s dedication.’
‘Poetic actually,’ says Ursula. ‘She’s the one who got me interested in the story. She’s a distant relation to the Hartford sisters. A second cousin, I think. She was born in England but her mother moved them to the States when she was little, after her father died in the First World War.’
‘That’s great she was able to come and see what she inspired.’
‘Couldn’t have stopped her if I’d wanted to,’ says Ursula, laughing. ‘Grandma Florence has never taken no for an answer.’
Ursula comes near. I sense her. She picks up the photograph on my bedside table. ‘I haven’t seen this before. Doesn’t Grace look beautiful? Who’s this with her?’
Marcus smiles; I hear it in his voice. ‘That’s Alfred.’
There is a pause.
‘My grandmother is not a conventional woman,’ says Marcus, fondness in his voice. ‘Much to my mother’s disapproval, at the grand age of sixty-five she took a lover. Evidently she’d known him years before. He tracked her down.’
‘A romantic,’ says Ursula.
‘Yeah,’ says Marcus. ‘Alfred was great. They didn’t marry but they were together almost twenty years. Grace used to say she’d let him go once before and she didn’t believe in making the same mistake twice.’
‘That sounds like Grace,’ says Ursula.
‘Alfred used to tease her: he’d say it was just as well she was an archaeologist. The older he got, the more interested in him she became.’
Ursula laughs. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He went in his sleep,’ Marcus says. ‘Nine years ago. That’s when Grace moved in here.’
A warm breeze drifts in from the open window, across my closed eyelids. It is afternoon, I think.
Marcus is here. He’s been here some time. I can hear him, near me, scratching away with pen and paper. Sighing every so often. Standing up, walking to the window, the bathroom, the door.
It is later. Ruth comes. She is at my side, strokes my face, kisses my forehead. I can smell the floral of her Coty powder. She sits.
‘Are you writing something?’ she says to Marcus. She is tentative. Her voice strained.
Be generous, Marcus; she’s trying.
‘I’m not sure,’ he says. There’s a pause. ‘I’m thinking about it.’
I can hear them, breathing. Say something, one of you.
‘Inspector Adams?’
‘No,’ says Marcus quickly. ‘I’m considering doing something new.’
‘Oh?’
‘Grace sent me some tapes.’
‘Tapes?’
‘Like letters but recorded.’
‘She didn’t tell me,’ Ruth says quietly. ‘What does she say?’
‘All sorts of things.’
‘Does she… does she mention me?’
‘Sometimes. She talks about what she does each day, but also about the past. She’s lived an amazing life, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ says Ruth.
‘A whole century, from domestic service to a doctorate in archaeology. I’d like to write about her.’ A pause. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Why would I mind?’ says Ruth. ‘Of course I don’t. Why would I mind?’
‘I don’t know…’ I can hear Marcus shrug. ‘Just had a feeling you might.’
‘I’d like to read it,’ says Ruth firmly. ‘You should write it.’
‘It’ll be a change,’ says Marcus. ‘Something different.’
‘Not a mystery.’
Marcus laughs. ‘No. Not a mystery. Just a nice safe history.’
Ah, my darling. But there is no such thing.
I am awake. Marcus is beside me in the chair, scribbling on a notepad. He looks up.
‘Hello there, Grace,’ he says, and he smiles. He puts his notepad aside. ‘I’m glad you’re awake. I wanted to thank you.’
Thank me? I raise my eyebrows.
‘For the tapes.’ He is holding my hand now. ‘The stories you sent. I’d forgotten how much I liked stories. Reading them, listening to them. Writing them. Since Rebecca… It was such a shock… I just couldn’t…’ He takes a deep breath, gives me a little smile. Begins again. ‘I’d forgotten how much I needed stories.’
Gladness-or is it hope?-hums warmly beneath my ribs. I want to encourage him. Make him understand that time is the master of perspective. A dispassionate master, breathtakingly efficient. I must make some attempt for he says softly, ‘Don’t speak.’ He lifts a hand, strokes my forehead gently with his thumb. ‘Just
rest now, Grace.’
I close my eyes. How long do I lie like that? Do I sleep?
When I open my eyes again I say, ‘There is one more.’ My voice is hoarse from lack of use. ‘One more tape.’ I point to the chest of drawers and he goes to look.
He finds the cassette stacked by the photographs. ‘This one?’
I nod.
‘Where’s your cassette player?’ he says.
‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘Not now. For later.’
He is momentarily surprised.
‘For after,’ I say.
He doesn’t say, after what? He doesn’t need to. He tucks it in his shirt pocket and pats it. Smiles at me and comes to stroke my cheek.
‘Thank you, Grace,’ he says softly. ‘What am I going to do without you?’
‘You’re going to be all right,’ I say.
‘Do you promise?’
I don’t make promises, not any more. But I use all my energy to reach up and clutch his hand.
It is dusk: I can tell by the purple light. Ruth is at my bedroom door, a bag under her arm, eyes wide with concern. ‘I’m not too late, am I?’
Marcus gets up and takes her bag, gives her a hug. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not too late.’
We’re going to watch the film, Ursula’s film, all of us together. A family event. Ruth and Marcus have organised it and seeing them together, making plans, I’m not about to interfere.
Ruth comes to kiss me, arranges a chair so she can sit by my bed.
Another knock at the door. Ursula.
Another kiss on my cheek.
‘You made it.’ This is Marcus, pleased.
‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ says Ursula. ‘Thanks for asking me.’
She sits on my other side.
‘I’ll just drop the blinds,’ says Marcus. ‘Ready?’
The light dims. Marcus drags a chair to sit beside Ursula. Whispers something that makes her laugh. I am enveloped by a welcome sense of conclusion.
The music starts and the film begins. Ruth reaches over and squeezes my hand. We are watching a car, from a great distance, as it winds along a country road. A man and a woman side by side in the front seat, smoking. The woman wears sequins and a feather boa. They reach the Riverton driveway and the car winds its way to the top, and there it is. The house. Huge and cold. She has captured perfectly its bizarre and ruinous glory. A footman comes to greet them and we are in the servants’ hall. I can tell by the floor. The noises. Champagne flutes. Nervous excitement. Up the stairs. The door opens. Across the hall, out onto the terrace.