Settling the Account (87 page)

‘Well, as I say, I did my “God bless Maurice
in Heaven”, and then I said to Mother, “Shouldn’t I say ‘God bless
Mama in Heaven’, too?” Goodness knows how she felt when I said
that, but she could hardly say no. So for years and years I prayed
for you every night.’

‘I did for you, too,’ Amy whispered.

‘Not as if I was dead, I hope. Mother’s
story satisfied me for years. Then when I was thirteen… well, I
went through a dreadful stage. Mother could do nothing right. I
used to argue with her more or less on principle. Were you ever
like that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Amy said. ‘I suppose… well,
I was twelve when Granny died, so I’d been busy looking after her
when she was sick, then I had Pa and the boys to do for. And I was
helping at the school for a while, too. I didn’t really have time
to fall out with people. I was nearly thirteen when Susannah came,
though, I used to have lots of rows with her.’

‘Looking back, I don’t think Mother was
usually at fault. Having met you both, I doubt if I could say the
same of Mrs Leith. Well, one day I’d been arguing with Mother
about… oh, I don’t even know what it was about. Something
ridiculous. I got myself worked up into quite a state, and I
suddenly flung at her, “You never understand what I want. I wish my
real mother hadn’t died.”
 
’

‘The poor woman!’ Amy said, shocked.

‘Yes. I don’t tell the story with any pride
in my own actions. Mother went quite white, and she left the room
without saying a word. We hardly spoke to each other the rest of
the day—I was far too stubborn to apologise, though I knew I
shouldn’t have said such a thing. But that evening, when I’d gone
up to my room, Mother came in and sat on the edge of the bed, very
stiff and quite unlike herself.

‘ “
I’m only going to
speak of this once,” she told me. “Your mother didn’t die.” I was
too stunned to say a word, I think I just lay there and gaped at
her like an idiot.

‘ “
She was a very young
girl, not much older than you are now, and she’d been dreadfully
wronged by a man. She couldn’t look after a child on her own, so
she gave you up to me.

‘ “
I’ve always been
grateful to that little girl,” she said. Then she leaned down and
gave me a kiss.’ Amy saw that Sarah’s eyes were brimming with
tears. ‘That tells you a good deal about Mother. I’d been hideous
to her that day, and she could still treat me so.’

‘I wanted you to have a mother like that,’
Amy said through her own tears. ‘I wanted people who’d be kind to
you.’

‘I never raised the subject with her again,
and I’d like to think I was less horrid to her from then on. I
suppose I’d begun to grow up at last.

‘But I didn’t stop thinking about you, and
wondering what you were like. When Father died I was helping Mother
go through his papers, and I came across my birth certificate. I
hid it away from Mother, but I used to pull it out and study it.
Your name on my certificate, the names you gave me, and your
brooch. That was all I had of you.’

‘Your birth certificate?’ Amy abruptly
realised the implication. ‘It had a blank where your father’s name
should have been, didn’t it? It looked as though I didn’t even know
who he was. That’s not true,’ she said urgently. ‘I did know who he
was.’

‘I know,’ said Sarah. ‘Even if I’d wondered
before, I’d be sure of it now that I know you.’

‘But didn’t you hate me when you saw that
big blank space?’ Amy asked, almost fearful of the answer. ‘I was
always frightened you’d hate me.’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Remember how Mother
had spoken of you. Thanks to her, I always thought of you as a
poor, frightened little girl. How could I hate you?

‘I didn’t start searching for you till after
Mother died. It wouldn’t have felt right to, I think she’d have
been hurt if I had. When I did start, I was surprised at how easy
it was. I had your name, and your age, from my birth certificate.
So I sent away for yours.’ She smiled at Amy. ‘That’s when I found
out you’d given me your mother’s name.

‘I had to look up Ruatane on a map. But
there was something about the name that rang a bell. Then I was
going through Mother’s old address book one day, and I found Lily’s
address.’

She laughed at the memory. ‘There it was,
staring up at me from the page. “Mrs William Leith (née Lily
Radford), Ruatane.” What could I do but take that as a sign that
fate was on my side? There was my cousin Lily—and of course she has
turned out to be a sort of cousin after all, although we’re not
related by blood—in the town that I was looking for, and what’s
more having married into your family. I had to assume that all
Leiths in a place the size of Ruatane were likely to be
related.

‘Of course I had to follow things through
after a sign like that. I only remembered Lily vaguely, she’s so
much older than I am, but I was prepared to impose on the
relationship. It was easy enough to get a position at the school,
they always struggle to find enough teachers in these country
areas.

‘Getting here was the easy part. Then I had
to find out which of the horde of women Lily seemed to be related
to was you, and then… well, that was hardest of all. Then I had to
find out how to tell you. I soon realised that it wouldn’t be easy
while
he
was alive, and I certainly didn’t want to get you
into trouble. And somehow there was never the right moment.’ She
smiled wryly. ‘The right moment. It’s taken me till now to find
it.’

Amy stared at her, hardly daring to believe
it all. ‘I wish you could have met Pa.’

‘Really? I might have had trouble being
polite to him. After all, he made you give me up.’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. Pa was always kind
to me. He only wanted the best for me.’

‘The best! Marrying that brute of a man! To
think of you, buffeted about like that. Packed off to such a man.
Oh, the injustice of it! A woman like you.’

‘I’m not a saint, Sarah,’ Amy said, uneasy
at such praise. ‘Don’t make me out to be one.’

‘You’re a martyr, then. A martyr to other
people’s ideas of propriety.’

Amy shook her head in confusion. ‘I was
trying to make up for things. I gave you away, and I married
Charlie. It was to make things right for everyone. To make up for
the wrong things I’d done.’

She hesitated, then asked the question to
which she dreaded the answer. ‘Do you want to know who your father
was?’

‘Do you want to tell me?’

‘No,’ Amy admitted. ‘But… but if you ask me,
I think I’ve got to tell you. You’ve the right to know.’

‘I’m not going to ask. Oh, I won’t pretend I
don’t have a little normal human curiosity about who he was. He
must have been tall, I do know that,’ she said, smiling at her tiny
mother. ‘But… how shall I put this? For one thing, he obviously
took little enough interest in my existence, since you had to give
me up, so I try to repay his indifference. And for another, I’ve
never in any way felt the lack of a father.

‘Mother was a lovely, lovely woman and I
loved her dearly. But we struggled to make sense of one another,
and not with any great success. She couldn’t understand why I had
such a passion for learning, and even less this desire of mine to
become a teacher. “But there’s no need, Sarah,” she’d say. “Your
father’s provided for your future, you don’t need to think of such
things.” But it wasn’t enough for me to sit around the house
counting my blessings and arranging flowers, or spending my
evenings at fashionable parties. I had to
do
things, I had
to
try
things. I wanted the world to be bigger than that. Do
you understand what I mean?’ she asked, a plea in her face.

‘Yes,’ Amy whispered. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Father did understand. Not about my wanting
to be a teacher, but about wanting to learn. I don’t think Father
took much notice of me when I was tiny. He got me for Mother as a
sort of toy—I don’t mean that to sound nasty, but he knew she
longed for a little girl, so he got me for her.

‘I think it must have come as a terrible
blow to him when Maurice died. It took him some time to realise
that the little creature with all those silly ribbons and laces and
curls was actually a human being, with some sort of brain. But I
adored him, always, and I was always begging to go with him when he
went out.’

She smiled at the memory. ‘He did used to
take me about with him, too. Even to business meetings sometimes,
when they weren’t particularly formal. Goodness knows what those
other men thought. I remember every now and then Mother would say,
“Couldn’t you spend a little time with me this morning, Sarah?” And
of course I’d stay home that day, and for a few days there’d be no
outings with Father. Only for a few days, though.

‘Father didn’t pay much attention to my
education at first. He was quite happy for me to go to the genteel
little school Mother chose for me, run—I’m sorry,
conducted
—by an elderly gentlewoman of reduced means. I
learned to read and write, and how to do acceptable
embroidery—though I was always too impatient to be very good at
needlework—but very little else.

‘When I finished there, Mother arranged for
me to go to one of those ridiculous schools for young ladies. The
sort that turns out girls who excel in a particular type of
silliness. I put up with it for one dreadful year. Then I made such
a fuss about not wanting to go back, and Father knew that I had a
few brains despite the best efforts of the elderly gentlewoman and
the teachers at the school for young ladies, so he insisted that I
go to a real school.

‘It was a girl’s school, but it actually
aimed to educate its pupils. Mother was shocked by the whole idea,
especially when she found that I’d be expected to take examinations
there, but I was terribly pleased with myself.’

Sarah smiled wryly. ‘My pride took a
well-deserved fall when I found that, thanks to the year at the
elegant school, I wasn’t up to the academic level of most of the
other girls, especially in mathematics. So Father got me a tutor,
and that shocked Mother even more. A
male
tutor! Mother used
to sit in the room with us all the time the tutor was there,
stitching away at her embroidery and watching us
disapprovingly.

‘I did catch up. Actually, I did quite well,
and Father seemed delighted. When I was old enough to discuss such
things sensibly, he explained that he wanted me to be able to look
after my business interests properly. By the time I was fifteen,
Father’s heart had begun to give him trouble, and he knew he might
not be there to see me into adulthood.

‘We discussed the issue quite rationally,
considering how much I hated the idea of losing him. He did suggest
marriage to a sensible man—I’m not sure if he had anyone in
particular in mind—but I left him in no doubt as to my feelings on
that score. He said that if I didn’t want a husband found for me,
then a decent education was the alternative. That way I could look
after my own interests, and I’d be less likely to fall into the
clutches of a scoundrel. Father did make me promise him that I’d
never marry a fool or a scoundrel, no matter how pretty a face he
had. It hasn’t been a difficult promise to keep.

‘Mother was shocked at how long my education
went on. She used to get quite distressed about it, especially when
she’d been taking tea with some of her more foolish friends. She
said I’d strain my brain, and become ill with it.’ Sarah shook her
head, smiling. ‘I don’t think I did.’

‘You’re perfect,’ Amy whispered. ‘Just
perfect.’ She held out her arms, and Sarah slipped into them.

*

Much later, Sarah raised her head from Amy’s
lap.

‘I’m going to leave now,’ she said
softly.

‘No!’ Amy clung convulsively to her.

‘Yes, I am.’ She disentangled herself from
Amy’s embrace and stood up. ‘I’ve given you a lot to think about,
and I want you to have some peace to take it all in.’

‘Will you come back?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Sarah smiled. ‘You’ll have
trouble keeping me away from now on.’

She looked down at Amy, her brow creased in
thought. ‘I’m not sure what to call you. I can’t bear to say “Mrs
Stewart” any longer, though I suppose I’ll have to in front of
other people. May I call you Amy when it’s just the two of us?’

‘If you want.’

‘I don’t think I can call you Mother, you
see. That’s what I called Mother, and it somehow belongs to
her.’

‘Of course,’ Amy said gravely. ‘It wouldn’t
be right.’
Say it
, she cried out silently.

‘Mother must have been older than you are
now when I was born, I think. I only remember her with grey hair.
You’re too young to be called Mother.’

She smiled down at Amy. ‘I wonder…’ she
said, her head tilted to one side. ‘Yes, that seems right. For
special times like today, at least.’ Her smile broadened as she
knelt down to Amy again. ‘Mama,’ she said softly.

It took some time for Sarah to disengage
from the fresh embrace, but she managed at last. ‘You’ll have Dave
coming home if we don’t get a move on, and I want you to have some
time to yourself before then. I really must go.’

Amy was still clinging to her arm as Sarah
was about to mount the horse. ‘I never said goodbye to you, Ann,’
she whispered.

Sarah smiled and kissed her again. ‘Now
you’re never going to have to.’

*

Amy wandered aimlessly around the garden in
front of the cottage, the sliver of moon barely giving enough light
for her to make out the shapes of the trees. She ran her hands over
their rough trunks and seemed to feel the life throbbing through
them.

The night was mild, and the darkness seemed
full of soft voices. Night birds were calling from the bush. Amy
wondered how she could ever have thought the low hooting of a
morepork had a mournful sound. There were spirits out there in the
gentle darkness; the easy spirits of those she had loved and who
had loved her. Even some benign vestige of Charlie might be there,
reluctant to abandon his precious land. Amy felt warmed through to
the centre of her being.