She could remember little of the rest of that night. Only that, curled in a ball, sore, frightened, in pain, she had sobbed for Mamma and the Virgin Mary and Za Rosetta.
Her eyes were swollen in the morning. She splashed them with cold water. She saw blood on the bedcover and tried to sponge it off. Between her legs felt raw now with an ache like toothache. She didn’t want to touch, even to wash herself.
Aunt Dulcie and Aunt Maimie were breakfasting downstairs. No one else was up. Aunt Maimie expressed concern at her fatigue: ‘You’re sure you drank no strong cider, dear?’
‘She was dancing with Pip Carstairs,’ Aunt Dulcie said. ‘Quite a gay blade at Oxford, I hear. They lead a fast life, some of these returned servicemen. He couldn’t believe you were only just sixteen, Maria dearest. He thought you at least eighteen.’
She avoided Peter that day. But he treated her as if nothing had happened, although she caught him once glancing at her warily. Later he said to her, ‘Remember what you promised.’ She told him, ‘I don’t have to keep that sort of promise.’ But she knew she would tell no one.
He said, ‘If there’s any fuss or complaints – I’ll say you started it. That you threw yourself at me. They’ll believe me. Everyone knows a man can’t say No.’
His threats frightened her. And, might he not do it again? Although she would not, could not, tell anyone – how she longed to! She counted the days until he returned to school. Dreading the nights. Why can’t I ask for a key to my door? And yet she could not.
She felt she had sinned. Going to Mass three days later with the Mulligans, she stayed away from Communion. She knew she was unclean even though she had washed herself several times over. Yet if she went to Confession, what would she say? She wanted with a terrible longing to be in Thackton. With Dick and Aunt Dulcie. There, and only there, could she begin to heal.
It was a snowy day when at last Peter left for school. Sitting in the new Crossley, wrapped in a rug, being driven to the station. Everyone came down to say goodbye. He was kissed by them all. She felt as she smelled his skin a fierce wave of terror. And of hate.
6
From where Eleanor sat by the window, she could see Ruddock the gardener going to and fro with the wheelbarrow, his back hunched, his legs bandy. Almost spring now, hope of summer to come, and perhaps warm afternoons sitting at the wooden table in the far garden. Tea and sandwiches, and pretending for a while that nothing had changed (Babs had not died, Guy was not buried in South Africa, there had never been a Great War). Summer and perhaps Eric on his way from the station to Moorgarth, looking in on them, charming Mother, making them both laugh.
And making my heart grow heavy, she thought. But wasn’t the heartache worth it just for those precious moments? Moments that Mother knew nothing about (if I may not love purely, she thought, at least I can love secretly). But meantime the best afternoon of the week was today, when Mother was driven to Lady Grimshaw’s to help with the disabled, and she knew that for at least three hours she would not hear those modulated but acid tones. ‘Eleanor, what are you doing down there?’
What am I doing? I am sitting, my hand stroking the soft wool of my green dress, now on the shoulder, now on the knee. For a second I shut my eyes. If only I dared be so wicked as to imagine that Eric’s hands stroked mine, stroked me. Knee, shoulder. More and more. And more. Wicked. I know with my reason that it’s sinful even to think about thinking about it. But oh God, oh God, we cannot choose whom we love …
The bell rang and she jumped. Dulcie was shown in, calling unexpectedly. Eleanor hadn’t even known she was in Thackton. Her first thought on seeing her was that her hair had lost its springiness. Limp, unlikely. (Impossible, though, for her not to look well dressed: an outfit in brown duvetyn trimmed with nutria, far too smart for the country, the skirt just a little shorter than anyone else’s.) And such an agitated Dulcie. A few sentences of small talk, Eleanor ringing for tea, and then:
‘Eleanor dearest, has Maria spoken to you at all? You see, dearest, something terrible has happened –’
‘I know nothing.’ Thoughts, pictures, raced through her mind. Disease, Sicily, some ghost from Maria’s past.
‘I thought – because she was here a few weeks ago, and because you take her to church and … that perhaps she’d confided in you?’
A few seconds’ silence, then: ‘May I know?’ Eleanor asked.
‘You must,’ Dulcie said. ‘You must. I can’t bear … this wretched knowledge. Forgive me that I’m so agitated –’
Eleanor listened, appalled. She didn’t want at first to believe it. Distaste, horror, disgust, pity, above all pity, warred within her. Also, and this must be pushed down at once, a fearful sick excitement. Eric, she thought: What will he do, how will he take it?
‘Eric is distraught. He’s been over to Rossall already to speak to Peter. It appears she led him on … He was almost – seduced. I don’t know what we are to think. A girl who was loved, adopted – and then. But it takes two, does it not?’
‘Maria, though … What does she -?’
‘She won’t speak of it at all. She spoke only enough to tell me. She has become hard and silent and knowing. And yet one is sad, and sorry for her –’
Her own foolish questions. ‘But is it certain?’
‘Certain,’ Dulcie said sadly. ‘Maria isn’t a hysterical child, or given to unnecessary dramatics. She’s – seen nothing for three months now … I’m taking her to Dr Cartwright on Thursday but he’ll only confirm –’
Eleanor said, ‘Practicalities. We must think about them at once.’ Her heart in spite of all, had gone out to Maria. (Sixteen. Myself at sixteen. Would I have known even what was happening to me?)
Dulcie said, ‘I’ve tried to tell myself she’s Italian, has developed earlier, that perhaps in some way it’s all different, not so serious, so terrible. But … Oh, what is to be done?’ she cried, drinking her tea in small anxious sips. Then, more calmly she said, ‘They must not marry. That is the one certain thing out of all this. No one is to make them marry.’
‘But do you fear that? Who’s suggested it? She hasn’t, surely?’
‘It is a solution of sorts, dearest, and some would advocate it … But an eighteen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl. Impossible.’
‘Not impossible. Just inadvisable. And wrong. It would be so wrong.’
‘Eleanor dearest, in the last twenty-four hours I must have thought of everything. And come up with nothing.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I wanted, you see, for Maria’s sake to be someone who would take over – to remove the worst of the worry from her. “Leave it to me,” I said with authority. You know me, I can be very just so – when I wish.’ She broke off a piece of seed cake but forgot to put it in her mouth. ‘No, they mustn’t marry. But equally she cannot rid herself of the child. She must be protected, supported, in case she should even think …’
‘It mustn’t even be mentioned,’ Eleanor said.
‘If she’d been a servant, she could have been married off. Someone local, farmer, shopkeeper. For a consideration, of course. Some of Maimie’s money.’
‘Maimie doesn’t know?’
‘Maimie must not know.’ Dulcie had gone quite white. Her hand shook as she picked up the cup. ‘As I said, dearest, that solution is only possible with the servant class. Maria is not that. She was our sacred trust and we’ve betrayed her. A girl should be safe in her own family. It’s not as if –’ She broke off. Going on, more calmly: ‘It must be adopted, of course. There must be somewhere she can go. A Home. Somewhere where it would be all right and she could have it and come back to us … Only, no – she could not come back … You see, oh, Eleanor dearest, I’d wanted so, by the time Eric arrives, to have some thoughts together.’
Her mouth was working. Suddenly she burst out: ‘You know, it’s upset me even more than it should because –’
‘Because what, darling Dulcie?’
‘Because it’s my story, our story, again. Oh, it isn’t, of
course, of course it isn’t our story. It’s Maria’s. Ours was quite different. We loved each other –’
‘Dulcie, you don’t make sense. Tell me.’
Tears beaded in her eyes: ‘I know I don’t – make sense. And it didn’t. At the time it didn’t. Victims. We were all victims. So long ago now. Fifteen, sixteen years …’
The carriage clock struck the half-hour. Mother, Eleanor thought – willing her to stay away. She said: ‘Fifteen years ago. You and I hadn’t even met.’
‘If you’d known me then, if we’d known each other, dearest, I would have confided in you. But then, ah then, I had nobody. There was some dreadful reason why – each person – couldn’t be the one confided in. Then later when I’d got to know you and we’d become friends, it wasn’t – there never seemed a time for such a dreadful secret. And what would you have thought of me? I couldn’t have borne you to have thought badly of me.’
‘But you can tell me now. Please, Dulcie dear.’
‘Jenny. It’s Jenny. She is – mine. Jenny’s my child.’
(Oh Mother, do not come home now.)
‘Our child. Eric’s and mine.’
She stopped and looked over at Eleanor. Her hands were joined, twisting on her lap. ‘You see, Eleanor dearest, you are shocked. A Roman Catholic – what must you think! A married man. And then –’
Oh, but yes, Eleanor thought, yes, I am shocked. Shocked. As one who receives a blow. She said, ‘You don’t need to tell me if you don’t wish.’
‘No, I want to, truly. I’ve wanted to tell you –’ She laughed drily: ‘You know, the other day I could almost have told Maria. And would have, if I’d felt it would have helped. But you can see now why, when I heard her tale, I thought: Oh dear God, is it to begin all over again?’
‘Jenny knows none of this?’
Dulcie shook her head. ‘And must not … Remember, “Oh, I wish Aunt Dulcie was my mother, why isn’t Aunt Dulcie …?” It used to wring my heart. It still does … It’s all been so difficult – and yet I wanted to go on living with Maimie and Eric. I chose to. Eric had asked that it should be so … Everything to be as it had been.’
Everything? Eleanor asked herself.
‘No, not everything, of course. We had been in love, had a love-affair, and then became – what? I often wonder. Never, of course, what we’d first been. Sometimes a glimpse of that light-heartedness when I was Maimie’s little sister come to live with them, to be a help and support … It seemed such a good idea then, you see. There were difficulties, of course – Maimie spoke of Eric with impatience, I could only see his charm. She said, “He only wanted my money. To start the business, to start the foundry.” His father – he was much influenced by his father, Eleanor. And anyway, it had happened. It was done.’
Eleanor’s heart thumped still, her mouth was dry.
‘And then he and I, thrown together by her illness. Threatened consumption (she who’s so stout now). I sometimes played hostess when she was indisposed. But it wasn’t like this tale of Maria’s. No. We loved and knew nothing could come of it. Your wife’s sister – what does the Bible have to say? And the law too, the law of England. There was of course never meant to be an accident –’
Eleanor glanced anxiously at the clock. Mother: putting on her coat, scarf, gloves.
‘And then and then – running to Eric, for I had to run to him – telling him what I feared. My sick terror, Eleanor. At first I’d wanted to keep it to myself – just as Maria told me she did. To disappear, telling no one. But where, and how? Yet when I told Eric, when we began to share the horror, the realization of what we’d done, it seemed, you know, that sharing made it not better but somehow worse.’
(Oh, let it rain, let it snow. Let Mother be delayed.)
‘And then he told Maimie … He told her there and then. That same day. Once over the first shock, you see, he behaved with great decisiveness. And Maimie said, quite calmly, “I guessed something of this. What you deserve, the two of you, has happened to you.” Not a word of real reproach. I wish she had. She merely looked superior, as if we’d been naughty children. “What are we going to do about it?” she said. Eric told her, “Dulcie will keep the child, somehow.” You see, I couldn’t let my child be taken by strangers. He knew this – and yet what was I to do, Eleanor? An unmarried mother. It was not to be thought of … In Bohemian circles possibly. But not in our world. And then Maimie said, amazingly, “The little bastard had better be ours, then. Isn’t that what you’re trying to ask?” Eric said yes, but in that case it wouldn’t be a bastard, would it? Cheeking her, you know, at a moment like that –
‘It was given out, you see, that Maimie was to go to Switzerland because of her lungs. The dangers of childbearing after a consumption threat … By that time Dr Cartwright was in our confidence. And of course she could not go without me for company. What a story! And yet people believed. It had somehow plausibility … She left very soon, I followed three weeks later. Eric’s sister Harriet came to be mother to the children. Maimie and I were several months in the Valais – a village above Montreux. The nearest thing to hell on earth. Cooped up together with a hate, on her part, untinged by any charity. I used to think: When all this is over I shall go away, ignore the child, allow Eric to rear it as his own. But … I had Jenny, and a month later we brought her home. Born prematurely, we said, but healthy. Beautiful, and Maimie’s. I wanted her, you know.’ Her voice broke. ‘I could not have borne to leave her. My intentions – everything went by the board.’
The outer door banged. ‘Mother,’ Eleanor said.
‘Is that the time?’ Dulcie hesitated.
The door opened:
‘Miss Rowland – Dulcie, my dear, how delightful to find you entertaining my bored – I almost said boring – daughter … I’ve had such a busy afternoon. Lady Grimshaw says she doesn’t know what she would do without me. Did you hear that, Eleanor? I don’t think Eleanor appreciates me, you know.’
She lived through the next few days, her mind in a ferment. Poor Maria – Maria with her quiet beauty, looking so often like a young Madonna (Raphael’s Madonna of the Chair, second from the left, half way down her bedroom wall), and now to be a mother because those heavy-lidded eyes, that ripe body, had led her, and Peter, astray. But lying in bed at night, she could think only of Eric – and Dulcie. Such a shock and yet she seemed always to have known. I knew without knowing, she thought, remembering the scent of danger (had it not been danger?) she had caught on that first visit to Moorgarth.
The day after Dulcie’s visit she walked up to the house. But Dulcie had left, gone back to Middlesbrough, Elsie said. The family would all be coming down on Friday.
She saw from the window of her room the train arrive at the station. They are here. It was all she could do not to stand at the front gate waiting for them, for Eric, to pass. She felt heavy with powerlessness. She could be kind, she could listen, sympathize, but what could she do?
After the evening meal, her restlessness overwhelmed her. To escape from Mother, she dressed for outside, saying she was going to visit an ailing friend.
She walked along the road in the moonlight. Almost full moon – lovers’ moon. She took the turning before the Robin Hood Inn, past the neglected cattle shed and down the grassy lane. Damp glistened on the drystone wall, the only sounds her footsteps, the sighing of the night breeze, rushing water in the beck. The fence was broken, someone had repaired it with a piece of iron bedstead: soon the water would make it rusty.
She felt very calm suddenly. A cloud passed in front of the moon. Beneath her feet now the crunch of dead bracken. Her heart, which had been racing all evening, beat steadily. I know what must be done.
She stood still. It was as if someone spoke for her. Not God – but someone sent by Him? We are here on earth to help each other, she thought. Not just the ‘to love and serve God in this world and to be happy with Him in the next’ of the penny catechism. No, let us love one another as God loved.
Eric, hurt, conf
used by the news Dulcie has given him. But I, who am not allowed to love him – I can help. Thirty-eight – I don’t expect now that I shall ever have a child, or a husband. But Eric’s grandchild (why not?) can become my child. Oh dear God – To help Maria. And to help the baby, the helpless baby.
She turned towards home, resisting the temptation to go on into Moorgarth – to tell them now …
This was the Plan. Italy, with all her art treasures – why should she not visit Italy? Maria and I, we shall go together. Everyone will hear that she has gone to London to join Ida and to do, say, secretarial work. In Italy I shall find a convent for Maria. Yes, a convent. The nuns will be kind. (Forget Babs’s death.) About this they must be kind. When she is settled, I shall come back. Then another visit when the baby is two or three months. I shall bring it back. Adopt it. Mother cannot stop me. I own the house, after all. The baby will be an Italian orphan that I have befriended (God knows, Maria looks Italian enough – and Peter is darkhaired …)
She stopped at Wilcock’s field, leaning for a few moments over the gate. In the elms at the far end, the rooks were silent. Gone to rest. It will be all right, she told herself. Oh Eric, how I love you.
‘Mother, I’m going to visit Italy. Tuscany. Pisa, Florence … to see for myself some of the paintings I’ve loved for so long –’ Her voice surprised her with its defiant note.
‘Did you hear, Mother? A trip to Italy. By myself. At the end of this month.’
‘The very idea! So sudden … Who’s to see to me, I should like to know? And you aren’t accustomed to travel – have you ever travelled by yourself? Even with everything arranged by Cook’s you will manage to lose yourself or your belongings. I remember that time at the convent …’
7
My future, Dick thought. It stretched before him, impossible to change. But, he thought, at least I am alive. (Dry, unemotional voice of the surgeon: ‘You are of course very fortunate to have any use of your lower limbs …’) He had only to glance around to see how much worse off others were. Apart from one leg shorter than the other, and a foot that dragged slightly, he was fit and healthy.
The Golden Lion Page 10