The Diamond Waterfall (58 page)

He did not seem interested in a name for the child either. She was glad about this. Part of her not being “ready” had been a reluctance to think about names. Now, looking at this brown-eyed, unusually long, fair-haired child, she kept saying to herself (and how afraid she'd been during labor that she might cry it out),
“Geoffrey's child.”
The second evening, falling asleep, she remembered suddenly his telling her once that his name, Selwood, meant “willow wood.”

“What about Willow?” she asked Reggie.

“Willow Gilmartin—bit of a mouthful, old thing. But if you want it.”

It was decided she should stay on at the cousins' in Harrogate for at least ten days. Malcolm and his car were dispatched with Reggie to fetch everything needed. The day they left, although summer, had a smell of autumn. It came through the open windows of the large guest room where she had her lying-in. It had been just such a day when she and Geoffrey had met by chance in Richmond. Now as she lay back on the pillows, Willow asleep in her cot, milky-mouthed, fresh from the breast—-she felt a strange autumnal happiness.
I have something of him.

She didn't expect the feeling to last. That evening, back from his trip, Reggie leaned over the cot, poking a finger at the blanketed bundle:

“What about a little brother, eh? Eh?”

As soon as Teddy walked into the big whitewashed room that was the orphanage nursery, the children began to call out:

“Tant' Teddie, c'est Tant' Teddie! Venez ici, Tant' Teddie!”
Several had soon gathered around her, the pleated panels of her blue woolen dress were tugged at, others had run off to fetch treasures to show her. The last to reach her was six-year-old Vincent, who had lost a leg two years ago. (The war will never be over, she thought, for he'd been the victim of one of the innumerable unexploded shells turned up each year by the plow on what had been the battlefields.) Now when he reached her, waited to be kissed, face alive with happiness, she thought, How easily they are made glad. Whereas she, she could only bring into this room, this October of 1924, her restlessness, her longing:
Why could Gib not have left me a child?

“Tant' Teddie, Tant' Teddie—regardez ce que j'ai fait”

Vincent had drawn her a large smiling cat with a red bow. He explained that
le bon Dieu
had made him so excellent at drawing to make up for the leg. He asked her over and over, did she like his cat?

This most ordinary of cats—she loved it. She told him she would take it with her to England tomorrow.

“Tant' Teddie, Tant' Teddie. Ne partez pas, Tant' Teddie!”

She went from them to the Place Louvois to meet Saint, who'd been working all afternoon in the Bibliothèque Nationale. They sat for a while in a cafe, both with a
fine à l'eau.
She smoked, lighting one up after the other because she hadn't done so at the orphanage—and because as always the visit had unsettled her. She thought idly, a little desperately, I might marry Saint, if he asked me. She pictured the children they might have.

“It's fairly discreet, I take it, your mother's wedding,” he said. “I mean, the bells won't be pealing out across Yorkshire?”

“Very discreet, yes. Very quiet.”

She was happy for Lily, that she was to be married to Erik at last. Her mother deserved this happiness. She looked forward also to the two months she was to spend at The Towers while Lily and Erik were away on a honeymoon cruise. Seeing something of Sylvia, perhaps, inviting Amy and her new husband, war veteran Gerald Vaughan, to spend time with her. Taking long peaceful walks in the autumn countryside.

“Your sister,” Saint was saying, “the one who married Gilmartin—I thought
they
had The Towers.”

“No. When she's twenty-five. It's all rather complicated, but she'll get everything then. The Diamond Waterfall. The lot. Reggie, I hope—I don't
think's
a fortune hunter.”

“Shall I marry
you
for your money? It might be an idea.”

“Why not?” She added lightly, “Be good while I'm gone, and remember, I hate you.”

“And I hate you, darling.”

At Lily's wedding Sylvia was pregnant. Reggie looked pleased with himself— and prosperous, although Teddy was unable to discover anything he was actually doing. He had a number of ideas, Sylvia told her, but they would take time. And of course they were not actually short of money.

She thought Sylvia too pale, but said nothing to her. Nor did she want to worry Lily, who had seemed upset enough when the marriage took place. She asked herself yet again Did Sylvia really have to marry him? I could have arranged something … France, Switzerland, a small village, “widowhood,” adoption. (I
must not think
how willingly, joyously,
I
would have adopted.) But she didn't confide in me.

I
married for love. Sylvia … I wonder?

The first weeks after Lily and Erik had left passed pleasantly enough. She thought of inviting Saint to join her, but felt this might not be fair to her mother. Sylvia she had not managed to persuade. “Come and stay in Paris later,” she said, “after the babe,” She hoped Reggie would not come. He exhausted her.

Because she could do so little for Sylvia, she pressed gifts on her always. Luxuries. This time it had been a giant box of chocolates from Debauve et Gallais. I would much rather give her time, and love, she had thought. If I were allowed.

Colorful postcards came from Lily and Erik. From Saint, the occasional letter. She walked a lot, more than she had for several years. She took care to avoid paths and ways that she had been with Gib. Both outside and inside The Towers, in the church, near the Vicarage, she could never be certain a memory might not leap out at her. Here, we first kissed. In this bed …
here
we believed we would be happy.

Days ran into each other. She knew that her restlessness only lay hidden. I could not be here
all
the time. One night in early November a savage wind tore at the last of the leaves, howling around the house. She felt it mirrored something in herself.

In the morning she felt sick and exhausted. Sitting at Lily's bureau in the
drawing room, she wrote to Saint. She was trying for a determinedly cheerful note, when one of the parlourmaids spoke:

“Mrs. Nicolson, ma'am, two persons want to see the mistress. I said as how … It's a woman and a little boy, ma'am, but they're—they ought to … the
back
door, ma'am.”

When they were shown in, the woman was very red in the face, and she appeared agitated. The boy, large, fair-haired, looked about five or six. The woman had hold of his hand. He gazed about him, staring at Teddy, who smiled at him. He smiled back slowly, revealing two missing front teeth.

The woman said:

“I'd best not beat about, Mrs. Nicolson. It were Lady Firth I'd a mind to speak to. But—you'll do. I'm not one for writing, you see, so I thought it'd be best to come here, like, and—fetch the lad up too—”

The boy, interrupting, said to Teddy directly:

“I'm Michael—Michael—”

The woman slapped his hand sharply. He didn't seem to mind. She did it with a kind of hurried affection, going on talking then as if she hadn't been interrupted:

“It's Slader, they call me. Nellie Slader from Kingsbridge. Father—Mr. Slader—and I, we was married '99. I'm North Riding, Pickering way. He's Devon. They're a strange lot down there, but they farm well enough.” She glanced over at Michael. “Telling him off, made a confusion, it has. Where did I reach?”

Teddy thought,
What is all this about?
She couldn't take her eyes off the boy, who had left the woman's side and was sitting on a tall tapestry chair, swinging his legs.

“It's been a sad journey. But I wanted to fetch the lad up, to show, like …” She paused. “To show Lady Firth her—grandson.”

“I'm sorry,” Teddy began, her voice puzzled. “I don't think—I mean—” She felt the boy's eyes on her.

“Mrs. Nicolson, I'd not have made this journey to tell fibs. This lad's a grandson right enough.”

Teddy was trembling. She lit a cigarette to calm herself, passing the cigarette box to Mrs. Slader. She said, “I shall ring for some coffee—or would you prefer tea? And perhaps some milk or lemonade for—Michael?”

Then in the silence that followed: “If you could
please
explain?”

“My niece, that was his mam—she died it'll be three month, and the lad —I'd have bringed him up myself and I wanted to tell Lady Firth that. I'd have done the job only that my niece, she asked afore she went …”

She'd become flustered now in the telling of her tale. Teddy said gently, “Can we go a bit further back? Perhaps to—the beginning?” She wondered too if the boy should be present? She said, “Would Michael like perhaps to play with some toys?”

“There's nowt he can't hear, Mrs. Nicolson. He's a good lad. There'll be nowt said, only what he's to be proud of.”

Teddy thought Michael looked as if he would like to cry. Her own mind raced.

“You're Lady Firth's daughter, that's right, Mrs. Nicolson? Well, the lad —he's the son of your brother Henry. Hal, that was lost in the war. And his mam, you'll know her, she were Olive Ibbotson, from Lane Top Farm—”

Teddy said, interrupting her, “But of course my mother would have wanted … at once. If she …” Her voice faltered. “She would only wonder, I know, that Olive wasn't in touch with us when … it first happened.”

She was still trying to take it in. That Hal … that all those years up at the farm had led to this … that he had gotten Olive into trouble. Had possibly never known …

“She were a stubborn lass, were Olive. Right from the start. I said to her then—for I'd the care of her—I said, ‘Olive, you've a duty to the lad. Tell them,' I said. ‘Tell his folk.' But, ‘I'll not,' she said, ‘I'll not. Hal knew that, I've never been beholden,' she said, ‘and I'll not be it now.' I knew well, though, she worried on account of his schooling. There was times she'd be of two minds. We'd a happy house, though—I can promise you that, Mrs. Nicolson. And Olive, she were a bonny girl. There's pictures here'll show you.”

Teddy, looking at the photographs (recognizably an Ibbotson sitting somewhere on a harbor wall, grimacing in the sun—in another, holding a baby in long robes and smiling), thought, How unreal all this is. Mrs. Slader was putting them away—talking again:

“And then, when we'd all but lost Olive—it were consumption, like her mam afore her—she said then, those last days, ‘I've changed my mind, Auntie Nellie—I'll not burden you with him.' And I said to her, ‘It'll be no burden, we love him like as if he'd been ours.' She said then, ‘He's to go up to
—them.'
She'd often call you ‘them.'”

While they spoke Michael had been sitting, head forward, his legs swinging from the high-seated chair. Now he began to swing them faster, faster, so they kicked continually against the wood. Mrs. Slader stopped her talking and slapped his legs.

Teddy almost cried, “Don't!” but restrained herself. It was none of her business. Then realizing suddenly, But I'm more closely related than
she
is.
My nephew,
she thought.

Mrs. Slader said, “I've her lines here.”

Teddy, for a moment puzzled: “Lines?”

Michael spoke up. He said in his Devon accent, “Lines are for fishes.”

“Her
lines,”
Mrs. Slader went on, as if he hadn't spoken, “her lines to show when she were wed. When she wed your brother, Mrs. Nicolson.”

Teddy said, letting her breath out with a great sigh,
“What?”

“Daft it were, all secret like. I said to her, the times I said to her, ‘Wed in secret, all right,' I said, ‘but not after, not after...'”

She brought out an envelope and removed a sheet of paper. “The lines,” she said. “Go on now. Take a look.”

Teddy, stubbing out her cigarette, unfolded the paper with care.

They were such happy days, those first ones with Michael. At first, thinking the break would be too sudden for him, she had wanted Mrs. Slader to take him back to Devon for a week or two. She wasn't certain he realized he was actually coming to The Towers to
live.
But Mrs. Slader assured her it had all been carefully explained.

“The sooner he's begun on his new life …”

At five, he was an unusually self-possessed boy. At the same time Teddy could see that often he was bewildered. Apart from the enormous difference between Nellie Slader's house and The Towers, there was the absence not only of his mother but of the person who'd taken her place these last months.

Once he suddenly stopped what he was doing, sat down, and cried heart-brokenly. The local girl who'd been engaged as a nurse for him rushed to Teddy. But after saying half a dozen times, “Think I'll go back to Mam, think I'll go back to Mam …” he got up just as suddenly and ran off to play.

At night when she came to read to him, Teddy talked to him about Olive, and Hal too. She brought down from one of the attics some of his books,
The Blue Fairy Book.

“Soon your Grandma will be coming—she will love you a
lot …”

Totally absorbed in settling in Michael, she could hardly bear to deal with all the implications of his arrival. She felt that until her mother and Erik came back she should do nothing, tell no one. To the staff, she had half explained, and asked them to respect the confidence.

Sylvia she had told at once. That same afternoon, by telephone. Sylvia had wept with happiness, she had never for a moment doubted it was true, and had spoken of coming up to Yorkshire as soon as possible. But only a few days later Reggie had telephoned to say that she'd had a miscarriage. Yes, yes, she was all right. His sister, Angie, was there to help.