The Diamond Waterfall (46 page)

Tears pricked behind her eyes. Hal gone now. Soldiers singing. Death behind them, until—next month perhaps. The weight of sadness. And more sadness.

No wonder her tears …

“Let the great big world keep turning, Never mind if I have you …”

That is what I shall do. That is what I shall be. It was so simple: everything that had happened, all that terrible … It was because God wanted her. This was what it was to be called by God. A nun.
Why did I never think?

“Let the great big world keep turning, Now I've found …”

A nun. That was how it would be. She thought, the tears streaming down her face:

I need never be an alone child again.

“Praise, my soul the King of heaven,”
sang the choir.
“To his feet thy tribute bring. Ransom'd, heal'd, restor'd, forgiven, Who like me his praise should sing?”

Sylvia, in the body of the church, sang loudly too. It was the only time she was bold, or raised her voice. She couldn't explain why Sunday morning service was something she loved so much. Just being in church: smell of beeswax, summer flowers. I love it. I loved it when I was eight. Now at eighteen I love it even more. …

Standing beside her singing, but not so loudly, was Mother, looking beautiful, and gracious, and distinguished. Mother has a lover, she said to herself. She had never mentioned it to Mother, nor Mother to her. Erik Ahlefeldt-Levetzau, who had come during the war—and stayed on. There was something rather grand, she thought, about having a lover. (Oh, beautiful word …) Perhaps I should be shocked, but it was Teddy who told me and who made it sound all right (as she makes
everything
all right). Mother needs someone. Daddy and she are not fond of each other, I've known that a long time. And now he is too ill to pay her attention. (If he makes a fuss of anyone, it's of me. He and I have always been friends.)

“Fatherlike, he tends and spares us, Well our feeble frame he knows, In his hands he gently bears us, Rescues us from all our foes …”

In the row in front, hat bobbing, was Mrs. Fisher. Dora Fisher, whom Mother could not stand. A pushy woman who had come to live in Flaxthorpe the first spring after the war (that sad, sad spring). Today her son Bertram was with her. He had been educated abroad and was only just home. Sylvia dreaded she might have to meet him.

If only she might turn her head. But looking around in church had never been approved of. Even as a child, craning timorously, she had felt Hal's glare on her. Although not good elsewhere, he had been good in church. Teddy too: Miss Butter-wouldn't-melt-in-your-mouth, as Nan-Nan used to say. But Sylvia, aged six, knew that Teddy, aged ten, wore that expression when she
was planning something really naughty. I was good, Sylvia thought, and
did not want to be.
I would have loved to be daring.

“Angels, help us to adore him; Ye behold him face to face … Praise him! Praise him!”

If she were to turn just a little, she would see the new doctor. Dr. Selwood. He came twice a week to visit her father. Sometimes he and she acknowledged each other on the stairs. Otherwise she knew little about him except that he had been in the war, as a doctor. He was excessively tall, that had been her first thought—and careworn.

All the Hawksworths were here today. They could be seen without moving her head at all. Mr. Hawksworth had a lovely moustache and always looked dashing. Mrs. Hawksworth was just—Mrs. Hawksworth. Friend of my childhood, always kind. (Jack … I wonder sometimes, if he'd lived, whether he wouldn't just have gone in the war?) Beautiful little Christopher, looking more like an angel each day. They say he's
very
naughty.

“Praise him! Praise him! Praise with us the God of Grace …”

The last lines, and a sudden raucous burst, out of tune, a few rows behind. Captain Gilmartin. Reggie. (“Forget all that Captain lark. The name's Reggie.”) He'd been staying since Easter, four months now, with his aunt, Mrs. Fraser, just outside Settstone. Sylvia had been invited his second week and from the moment he had seen her … I
wish
he wouldn't single me out, she thought. He was exhausting with his loud manner—and even more loud admiration of her.

But she had to be sorry for him. He had lost his left arm just at the end of the war. He never grumbled about it.

All part of the sadness of the war—she thought sometimes she would never shake it off. And if she could not—what hope for those who had
really
suffered?

Like Teddy and Alice. For them it was much, much worse. Alice, dear Alice, who loved me so and was such a wonderful big sister. Alice and Gib— that's how I remember her always. Then suddenly it was Teddy and Gib. (Now that Teddy has talked about it, a little, I know they were in Love. But oh, the shock when I first learned.) Alice, becoming a Roman Catholic
without telling us.
Then, hurrying back at the end of the war, the first Christmas. Scarcely time to see us. Rushing away at once to
be a nun.

And Teddy—who no longer lives with us. Who is quite well off now having been left a lot of money. Enough anyway to make her independent. She lives in a hotel in Paris, but I expect will soon buy an apartment. She's donated large sums to an orphanage which was going to close down, and now her letters are full of the time she spends with the children. Her money came from a Romanian who would have been her godfather, Mother said. So rich he could leave that sort of money to a friend's child.

But money cannot make up for losing a husband. Becoming a widow at
eighteen. She shuddered now, remembering that terrible winter of the peace. At nearly fifteen she had suddenly grown up. Gib coming home. Teddy's husband. Thin, sickly prisoner of war. But alive. Safe. And then … Oh, I don't want to remember.

And because of all that, she thought, because three persons lost their inheritance, I am to be rich. One day. I hope sometimes it will be never. Most of all I don't want to own that—it seems wrong even to think of it in church —that great cascade of diamonds. The Waterfall. Mother hates it. She told me once it had brought her only sadness.

But I'm reminded of it often. Daddy speaks of it. “It will be yours, Missy,” he says. He often calls me “Missy.” Then he says things like, “It's meant for your kind of beauty.” What beauty? When he said that the first time, I went and looked in a mirror. It may be … my hair. Or my skin. But it is none of my doing—and it only makes people like Reggie Gilmartin pester me. It is a burden already.

And yet I am a happy person, she thought, pulling her coat collar up to her neck. Her neck was too long, longer than other people's, and so a nuisance. She could not think why it was considered a sign of beauty.

I am a happy person, she thought, kneeling in prayer. Oh dear God, keep peace in the world and let there never be a war again.

“Little drinks? Drinkettes? You've time?”

Mrs. Fisher, bearing down on them outside the church. Her mouth seemed over full of teeth, and if you got too near, she spat. (In cold weather, Sylvia thought, it would freeze on your chin in little icicles.)

“Lily, my dear. And little Sylvia“—
I am not little, lama full head taller than she
—”you shall come too. I've already asked the dear doctor—so
distinguished,
don't you think? A Military Cross and I don't know what else besides. So
sad
about his wife.”

Reggie hovered nearby. She knew he wanted to speak to her. Just then Mrs. Fisher swept them off. “Now, at once. The motor will bring you back.” Getting with Mother into the high chauffeur-driven car, sitting squashed beside Dora Fisher, who smelled of mothballs, and Parma violet.

A solid comfortable Georgian house sitting four square. Inside it had been quite ruined. Or so Lily always said. Mrs. Fisher looked about her:

“Have we everybody, my dears? Sylvia, my little one, I'd
meant
to ask that boy who admires you so extravagantly—Lucy Fraser's nephew,
poor
Reggie. Oh dear, all these war cripples. Of course I'm quite distracted at the moment,
full
of ideas for Bertie's little dance. Dancette. Only two weeks now. Dear Lady Firth is coming, are you not?”

Mother smiled in a way Sylvia knew well. It would be a token appearance, if any, on the night.

“Bertram is
so
looking forward to it. It's only the
young
nowadays who know how to enjoy themselves. Bertie dear, come and talk to Miss Firth.”

A heavy, acne-pocked young man, who'd been standing sulkily by a giant arrangement of dried flowers and feathers, came and sat beside her:

“I say, do you like to dance?”

“Listen to him,” his mother said fondly.

Fortunately, Sylvia thought, nobody seemed to. Mother by now was talking quietly with Dr. Selwood and the wife of the retired clergyman. Three or four others were grouped near the window.

She managed as best she could, but the conversation died a natural death. She felt shy and ill at ease. She didn't like the sherry, which tasted too sweet. She wished she'd had the courage to ask for lemonade, or cider.

“Bertie, you're monopolizing the pretty girls again. Come over at once and talk to Colonel Backhouse.”

Bertie left her reluctantly. A voice said:

“I think we have met only at the bottom of the stairs. Or was it the top?”

“Halfway,” she said. “Halfway. You were in rather a hurry—”

“Only too likely, I'm afraid. Although it shouldn't be. It's just, what time I have I like to give to the patients. In between, I hurry. But I wouldn't wish to appear a hurrying person.”

“Just hurried,” she said. He smiled. He was sitting now on a leather stool at her feet. He was so tall that he had to lean forward, chin an knees. “Hurried is different,” she said. “It's a temporary thing—I think. A
state.
You won't spend your whole life like that.” She paused. “Or will you?”

He put his head on one side, smiling again. He seemed to be deciding something. “Yes,” he said, “I rather fear that I will.”

For a few seconds, they were both silent. Then: “You—” she began, and “Do you—” he said.

“Sorry, I'm so sorry!”

“My
dears!”
whooped Dora Fisher. “There goes
another
man monopolizing little Sylvia. Sylvia deaf, come and tell all the ladies what you're going to wear for Bertie's party. I expect you to be quite the mirror of fashion— with a mother once a
stage star.”

It was a dress of silk georgette in two shades of orange, made up by their dressmaker. Mother had sent to London for patterns. “That one,” she'd said of their choice, “girlish but not fussy. It is never right to look fussy.” Then she'd added thoughtfully:

“A little party like Dora Fisher's. It's probably all right—even though you haven't come out.”

But Sylvia did not want to come out. To be a debutante and presented at Court (presentations that had only just begun again last summer after the interruption of war). To be on show. But she didn't dare to rebel, to say
(although she wanted to—so much!), “I think I'll stay at home and not bother—thank you.”

“Grierson will go with you to the Fishers' and wait with the servants, then accompany you back not later than one o'clock. Although you may leave earlier, of course—if you find you are not enjoying yourself.”

But she did enjoy herself. At least until the strange after-supper event. The dance music (she who spent quiet mornings with Chopin) had a rhythm she could not ignore. Her feet began to tap even before she had stepped out onto the floor.

Bertie was at the gramophone, winding the handle frantically. Then, hair plastered to his temples, he jerked her around the room. Conversation wasn't necessary. Of that she was glad.

Reggie was there. He embarrassed her at once by turning away from his partner and staring fixedly at her.

Bertie panted, “I say, you certainly can twinkle. You're awfully good.” Then, looking about him hurriedly: “The noise box. I must—”

Sitting on one of the chairs lined up against the wall was the younger Hawksworth girl, Edie, looking lonely. She was a sallow, pudgy-featured girl. Sylvia had never been a particular friend—the age difference, although small now, had seemed in childhood impossible. The older sister, Amy, Teddy's friend, was married now. Edie, at twenty, looked already thirty.

Sylvia sat on the chair next to hers. “I
do
like your shoes, Edie.” Fine silver kid, single strapped, revealing a slim ankle. Edie smiled slowly. Her lumpish face smoothing a little.

“I know scarcely anyone …” Sylvia began, when suddenly she saw Reggie standing in front of them. He ignored Edie.

“Miss Firth, if I could have the pleasure …” He scarcely waited for her to agree. He was very flushed. She hoped it wasn't from drink, remembering some remark overheard. His right hand clasping her waist was uncomfortably tight—perhaps because he had no left hand to hold hers. She could sense the slight imbalance. He was breathing heavily. When he didn't speak, she said awkwardly:

“Isn't that English weather, Captain Gilmartin? Rain like this when dancing on the lawn was planned—”

He said abruptly, rudely almost, “The name's
Reggie.”

“Of course—Reggie.” He looked for the moment like an angry schoolboy. The expression on Hal's face when … Memory slipped, and was lost. Something in the schoolroom? Our darling Gib, his tutor. Jack who drowned. Hal …

Death intruded suddenly into the dance.

“Will you mind awfully if
I
call you—Sylvia?” His clasp tightened. But the music had stopped. It was over. A Mr. Scarfe, whom she had met vaguely last week, asked for a dance. Pale of hair and eye, he was pleasant
enough, his ungloved hand cool. He smiled and told her she was quite lovely.