‘I can’t. Not until … Give me time …’
‘Will you answer one thing?’ Lily sounded so matter-of-fact, so adult that Elsie was taken off guard. ‘Tell me, Mam. Is he alive?’
Elsie’s breath was being suffocated out of her. She could not look Lily in the face and lie to her. She had always avoided Lily’s eyes when she lied. Now she looked straight into those clear grey eyes and whispered, ‘Yes. Yes. He is.’
‘And does he know who I am?’
‘Yes.’
Elsie could have cut out her tongue. She had made a mistake. She would regret for evermore telling Lily even that much, for the girl let go of her arm and said, in a choking little voice, ‘Then I hate him. He knows who I am, but he doesn’t love me. If he did, he’d tell. I don’t care tuppence who he is!’ Tears were streaming down her face.
Chapter Twelve
Magnus twisted his face out of the water, opened his mouth, gulped air and heard the roar of voices spurring him on. ‘Hammond! Hammond!’
He could hear Father’s voice. Five more strokes. Keep the legs going. He reached the rail, grabbed it and he’d done it. The flag went up. The noise was deafening. They were coming in on the other lanes, second, third, fourth. But he had won. He had won the swimming cup for his house. What a way to end your school days. Only one more battle to come – the right to leave school. He had to be helped out of the water, but that was all right. His left hip and knee, painless in the water, could not take the punishment of clambering out. He dropped down on to the ground, bent double to get his breath back. In the water his body was as good as anyone’s.
Father and Ian were sitting right behind the house captains.
Father, proud as Punch, leaned over to touch him. ‘Well done!’
‘Terrific!’ said Ian.
Magnus bared his teeth in a quick grimace before, shoulders hunched forward, mouth open, his breathing slowed and eased. And out of the water, the insidious, aching pains deep in his hips, knee and ankle came back to remind him of who and what he was.
He could live with the pain. He would not let it beat him or stop him from doing anything he wanted to do. Tomorrow, with Sylvia and Mother there to see him, pain would not matter when he climbed the steps to the platform to receive the cup for his house. If only Lily were here to see his moment of triumph.
In Edinburgh that evening Father took them all to dinner at the Cafe Royal, where they drank champagne to honour Magnus’s winning the trophy. Afterwards, back in the drawing room at Charlotte Square, Father said, ‘I think it’s a mistake, Magnus. Giving it all up. Why don’t you continue at school? Take your School Certificate.’
Uncle Mack, in his kindly way, said, ‘You are sixteen. You were years behind when you arrived here. Who knows what you might achieve.’ Uncle Mack of course believed that effort in equalled results out, no matter what natural ability one had.
Father said, ‘I wasn’t clever, Magnus. But I stayed on until I was eighteen and …’
‘You went to work with your father at Hammond Silks,’ said Magnus. ‘And what’s good enough for you …’ Magnus liked working at the mill. He liked the hustle and bustle, the noise, the sense of something done at the end of every day. Everyone liked him at the mill that would one day be his. The sooner he made himself indispensable to Father and the mill, the better. He said, ‘I’ve made my mind up. I’m leaving school.’
Mother said, ‘He should come home. Sylvia’s going to finishing school.’
Sylvia butted in with her opinion, which was exactly the same as Mother’s. ‘I’ll be in Lausanne, Father. Mother will be lost with me away and Magnus in Edinburgh.’
Mother added, ‘I will have all the time in the world for him.’
Magnus said, ‘I can take care of myself, Mother.’
Ian came to his rescue, ‘Why does he have to make up his mind today? The summer holidays are coming up. If we all get together down in Cheshire after my week’s sailing, we can see how he feels.’
In July Ian would be crewing for a friend, competing in a West Coast yacht race from Gourock on the Clyde to Formby point in Lancashire. They had asked Magnus to be fourth man, but he knew his strengths and weaknesses, and competitive sailing was beyond him. And boats … ? What use was sailing to a chap who would be running a mill? There was not a harbour or a coastline within fifty miles of Macclesfield.
Ian grinned at him. ‘Magnus, come upstairs. I want to ask a favour.’
Ian stood at the window. He could see the spans and trusses of the great railway bridge from here, and the wide, glittering blue water of the Firth of Forth, with Fife and the Ochil Hills beyond. It would be good sailing next Saturday, if the weather held. But he could only spend the weekend on the water if Magnus would oblige. He said, ‘How would you like to take Rowena to her school-leaving dinner and dance on Saturday?’
‘Me? Does Rowena want me to take her?’
Ian said, ‘I said I would take her. But look at that water! Perfect sailing weather.’ He gave Magnus a smile of encouragement. ‘It won’t involve much dancing – but you are much better at it, dancing and larking with girls, than I am.’ Then before Magnus could think of a reason not to, he added, ‘Rowena would much rather show you off.’
‘Would she?’ Magnus straightened his shoulders. ‘I am actually quite a good dancer,’ he said.
Ian enjoyed teasing Magnus. ‘Not promised to anyone, eh, Magnus?’
‘I have a girlfriend. In Macclesfield. But it’s hush-hush at present,’ Magnus said.
‘You mean she doesn’t know you exist!’
‘She knows I exist, all right,’ Magnus protested. ‘I just haven’t got round to asking her out.’
Ian’s laugh rang out. ‘You are a bit of a masher on the quiet, are you?’ Then, ‘Will you do it? Can you take a whole evening on the dance floor?’ He had not meant it to sound like a challenge, but he saw from Magnus’s expression that that was exactly how it had sounded. He said, ‘I know you like to get your head down early. But if you could – I’d be grateful.’
‘Of course I’ll do it,’ Magnus said. He tipped his head back and gave Ian a supercilious look. ‘I’m surprised you are not interested in girls. You’re not a bad-looking sort.’
Ian’s laugh roared out. ‘I am normal, Magnus,’ he said. ‘When I find one I will probably go overboard. But I haven’t come across a girl yet who makes me want to dance.’
Later, in his room, Magnus thought about Ian’s way of looking at girls and life and the world. It struck Magnus as odd that any male, boy or man, could be unaware, as Ian apparently was, of the opposite sex. Perhaps Ian was like Father and would one day meet a girl and fall in love headlong, without warning. But Ian was not like Father. Magnus used to think Father was immune to the charms of any woman but Mother. That was until last year, when he discovered that Father, his idol, had feet of clay.
Magnus had discovered a terrible dark secret that lay heavy on him and made him see Father in a new light. And when he thought of how this knowledge had come to him, when he realised how easily it could have fallen into the hands of any of the other people involved, it must be nothing short of ordained that he should find it. It made goose-pimples stand up on his body when he thought of that long arm of coincidence or misfortune. The truth of Father’s past had been right under everyone’s nose, and the secret had fallen into Magnus’s lap.
Two months after Mrs Chancellor’s funeral Magnus and Sylvia had cycled down to Lindow Farm on a Saturday morning to see Lily and her nanna. Lily slept at Lindow on Fridays, as she had piano lessons on Saturday mornings.
Nanna greeted them with, ‘Eeh. Look at you two. Magnus, how you’ve grown up. And Sylvia.’
‘Is Lily in?’ Magnus asked though he could hear her playing a Clementi sonatina in the other room, going through her repertoire for the teacher.
‘She’ll be finished in twenty minutes,’ Nanna said. ‘Sit down. I’ll give you something to eat.’
They were sitting round the tab
le when Lily joined them, and Magnus stood up and made a space for her. He feasted his eyes on her. Her hair was loose, a curly cloud about her heart-shaped face, and the sight of her … delicate, quick, talented and clever … all the things he was not, made his heart leap with happiness. He said, ‘We dropped by to ask you to Archerfield this evening. Some friends are coming round …’
‘Thanks, but I can’t. I’m going back to Jordangate.’ She helped herself to a scone. ‘There’s a lot to do. I’m trying to earn my living.’ She reached for the tea pot, then, seeing Magnus’s crestfallen face, said, ‘I like earning my own money. But we’ve had so many improvements to the shop that I’m getting behind with the orders.’
Magnus said, ‘Do you have to do them on a Saturday?’
She said, ‘I won’t have time next week. The piano and bookcase are being delivered on Monday. From Mrs Chancellor, remember?’
‘Haven’t you got them yet?’ Sylvia said. ‘Father said he’d have them sent round at once.’
‘It’s not your father’s fault. Mam and I asked him to keep them for a few weeks until the new sitting room was finished.’
In her letters she told Magnus what everything cost, saying, ‘Mam has spent £8 on an Axminster carpet in autumn shades, twelve guineas on a three-piece suite in brown Rexine with velvet cushions and £1.17.6 each on two big leather things that Mam calls pouffes and I call tuffets. We have a pearl glass light bowl that hangs on chains from the ceiling and we bought a standard lamp with a fancy fringed shade which cost nineteen shillings and eleven pence.’
Lily counted every penny. Magnus thought it a wonderful virtue.
Lily’s letters to him were peppered with ‘Mam has taken on a counter hand, Miss Duffield …’ and ‘Mam said …’ and so on, as if he, Magnus, were as fond of her mother as she was. In fact he did not have much respect for Lily’s mother. He would never tell a soul what his opinion was, but for himself he thought of Mrs Stanway as a selfish woman – a woman at the mercy of her passions, whatever they were.
Lily said, ‘The books were delivered in tea chests. They have been standing in the downstairs passageway for weeks. And books being so heavy, I’ve had to take them up an armful at a time and stack them in a corner until the bookcase comes.’
Magnus said, ‘If the bookcase is coming on Monday, can I help you sort the books out?’
‘Would you, Magnus? Monday, then.’
He arrived early on Monday because Father dropped him off in Jordangate before going on to the mill. He hadn’t thought Lily would be up and about at nine o’clock but she was already in the shop. She said, ‘The furniture was delivered at eight o’clock. I’ve been up for two hours.’
‘You’ve done it all?’ he said.
‘I’ve made a start,’ she corrected him as they went up the stairs. ‘But I keep getting bogged down. Mrs Chancellor was a true romantic.’ Magnus had never thought of her that way. ‘How do you know?’
She pushed open the sitting room door, and it was just as she had described it. ‘Very cosy,’ he said.
She indicated the stacks of books. ‘Let’s put the big reference books, Illustrated Home Lawyer, Chambers Twentieth-Century Dictionary and The Book of Good Health, on the top shelf.’ She went to the heap of books, took an armful off the top and brought them to where he stood by the great bookcase. Her face was flushed with pleasure in ownership. She said, ‘These books are going to open my eyes, Magnus. There’s that controversial book by Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id. There are two books by Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species and Selection in Relation to Sex.’
She said ‘sex’ without a blush, seeing no human sexual connotation in it, and Magnus went pink and changed the subject, stroking the wood of the bookcase. ‘This is a very valuable piece of furniture, Lily. Father says it’s George III, made in seventeen-seventy from flame mahogany wood. He says it’s as good as having money in the bank.’
‘Your father let me have it without protest.’ She was surprised. ‘When your mother said it was worthless.’
He laughed. ‘He would.’
‘Why?’
‘He likes to prove that he knows more than she does. Likes to win an argument. He will tell her one day.’
‘He’ll be too late,’ she said. ‘It’s mine. I’ll never part with it.’ She put the books she held in the crook of her arm, stroked the wood and then said, ‘Did you know that Mrs Chancellor wrote on fly leaves and end papers? She jotted things in the margins. And in place of bookmarks she used picture postcards and made notes on them. It’s taking ages to sort the books out because these markers are always inserted at important passages. There are poems about unrequited love. And on one she wrote, “My life has a purpose. I think of my infant son and blind, protective love wells up in my heart. Will I ever be able to refuse him anything?”’ Lily’s eyes were shining. ‘Isn’t that beautiful, Magnus?’
He nodded, and she went on, opening a book at a sentimental poem about kindness, the page marked by a picture postcard bearing Mrs Chancellor’s thoughts: ‘I could not go on unless I believed, as I do, that my darling Ray would not needlessly set foot upon a worm.’
Magnus loved being with Lily like this; content, helping her, watching her, asking where this volume or that should go. She said, ‘By the way, if you want to borrow any of them … ! You may have read them all already. But if there’s anything of interest–’
There was. At the bottom of the last heap Magnus saw a slim volume bound in navy-blue leather: Haemophilia: Clinical and Genetic Aspects. Why would Mrs Chancellor want to know about his disease? He picked it up and opened it, and as he did so, a letter slid out; an old letter whose envelope bore the stamp of King Edward’s reign. It was addressed to Miss Sarah Pilkington and, there was no mistaking it, it was written in Father’s spidery, sloping hand with flourishes on the capitals. It sent a shocking feeling through him, just holding it.
He glanced at Lily. She had not seen it. She was busy, on her hands and knees, placing the little red leather-bound books, Oxford University Press Classics, on the bottom shelf. Magnus quickly slipped the letter into his jacket pocket and gave the book his full attention. It was an American volume that contained dozens of histories of haemophiliacs and their heredity. There were charts and family trees showing the passage of the disease down the generations. The passage Mrs Chancellor had marked in this book read: The fact that haemophilia is transmitted through the female greatly increases the difficulty of tracing the disease, for there is a change of surname in almost every generation. She had marked the passage and underscored ‘transmitted through the female’. There was also a large exclamation mark in the margin.
It was not until he was alone in his room that night that he withdrew the old letter from the envelope and read it.
Archerfield House, 5 January 1915
My dear Sarah,
Where have you been hiding these last weeks? My letters have gone unanswered. I have missed you. I wanted to talk to you and I have not seen you since the night last November when I came, undeserving, to your bed and you gave yourself so generously. Your love gave me such comfort.
I am glad there have been no repercussions. My one regret is that on that memorable night it was clear to both of us, from my ineptitude as a lover and the storms of tears that overcame you, that I was not the man for you.
I want you to be the first to hear, before the announcement in the papers, that Miss Catriona Mackenzie and I are to be married in Edinburgh next week. We met at Christmas and immediately lost our hearts to one another. I know you will wish us well and I hope that you, my dearest and best friend, will become as beloved a friend to Catriona as you are to me. Yours for ever in friendship, John.
Magnus read the letter over again, appalled. Then he sat for half an hour with it in his hands. What could he do? Show Father the letter? Of course not. How could a chap go to his father and say, ‘Did you write this?’ or ‘Look what I have found!’ or ‘Explain yourself, sir!’
At
first he tried to pretend that the letter meant no more than a young man’s exaggerated outburst. But plainly it wasn’t. No man would write a letter like that if it were not true. No matter how he tried to deceive himself, it was quite clear. Father had written this letter to Miss Sarah Pilkington. And Mrs Sarah Chancellor had left the letter in the book; probably forgotten. Ray was born nine months after the November night Father talked about – the night when he went into Miss Sarah Pilkington’s bed. And, if the letter itself were not enough proof, he only had to ask why Mrs Chancellor had bought a book on haemophilia. His own father was the natural father of Ray Chancellor. How could Father not have known? He had been away, fighting a war – that was why. And so had Mr Chancellor. Had Mrs Chancellor pulled the wool over her husband’s and Father’s eyes?
But worst of all – the letter could have fallen into anyone’s hands. All those years on the shelf at Park Lane, under lock and key perhaps but easily obtained by a determined person. Since then, Father had helped pack the books. Goose-pimples rose on his arms as he asked himself what might have resulted if Mother had found the letter. Then the books were left in the passageway of Lily’s house, where she or her mother could have discovered the letter. Nobody had found it but he, Magnus. And he could do nothing about it.
Lily wished Mam had applied herself to making the money multiply by buying houses. Mam had previously said how much she admired Mr Chancellor’s astuteness in buying property. But she wouldn’t. She said, ‘The money’s safe where it is. We have a higher station in life and I’ve only spent a hundred pounds, all told.’ Mam looked after the shop accounts and kept her legacy, and Lily put half of her private earnings into her bank account.
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