A Mother's Love (26 page)

Sarah smiled. ‘That’s what’s preached. But people are human. They have feelings. They mourn because they feel empty, and no one should expect them to feel otherwise. Your mother is mourning her dead baby, and it’s making her ill. I just wish she wouldn’t wear such deep black. People don’t go in for that now so much as they did in my day.’ Her tone grew absent. ‘Why, only ten years ago a woman would wear deepest black for two full years if her husband died. Your mother did. At least she did the first year, when your …’

She stopped so abruptly that Sara looked up at her, thinking she had choked on something, the way a person will sometimes choke on their own spittle. But her great-aunt hadn’t choked at all. Her face hadn’t gone any funny colour, apart from a strange expression as she stared down at her. Sara felt driven to prompt her.

‘You said, Great-Aunt, when my … Who?’

‘Never mind!’ The tone was sharp. Hastily averting her eyes from Sara’s inquisitive probing, Sarah spotted a kiosk near to one of the park’s entrances with something like relief. ‘Oh look, Sara, refreshments! Shall we buy ourselves a cool drink or an ice cream?’

The mysterious unfinished sentence was swept instantly from Sara’s mind by such a wonderful idea. She concurred with cries of delight.

Great-Aunt had been right – her mother
was
strange, not for weeks but for months. If she had been distant towards Sara before she had that dead baby, she was more so now, as though she saw Sara as some sort of slimy insect that had crept out of a hole to touch her skin. She would practically recoil if Sara came too near.

There was no reason for it as far as she could see. She didn’t behave badly. She did all she could to be good. None of it helped. But for friends at school whose mothers behaved so lovingly towards them, it probably wouldn’t have hurt so much. But at times it
did
hurt, excruciatingly, like something bitter – she was coming to know what being bitter felt like. It wasn’t like any other feeling she knew. It was much more horrible.

Her father was strange, too. When her mother wasn’t there, he would sit her on his knee, kiss her tenderly, tell her how much he loved her and hold her close. But as soon as her mother came into the room he would put her from him as though guilty of something. And if he paid attention to her when Mother was there, she’d snap at him and tell him to ‘leave that child alone’. The awful part about it was that he would do as he was told; would never argue on Sara’s behalf. It made her feel mean.

Her mother was still not well by the time Christmas came. It was a miserable time, her mother refusing to leave the house, moping in her room, wanting only Jamie with her. The weather was damp and muggy, not at all like Christmas should be. Even though her grandparents came over for the day, nothing cheered up. Sara was glad to go back to school.

‘Why does Mummy hang on so much to Jamie?’ she asked towards the end of January as she sat with her father at the drawing-room window, watching one of those snow showers that promised to settle in, only to die disappointingly away.

‘Does she?’

He seemed preoccupied, his dark eyes intent on following the thick flakes weaving past the window panes. It was Sunday afternoon. Everything outside was silent, the park, hardly visible in the fall of snow, deserted. Indoors it was almost as hushed but for the steady, sonorous tick of the long clock in the hall and an occasional spit of gas from a piece of coal in the firegrate that Ellen had made up until it burned brightly enough to send cosy radiant heat into every corner.

Sara and her father were alone. Mrs Downey and Ellen were in the kitchen, taking their ease before preparing the evening meal. Mother was upstairs resting, as she did most of the time, Jamie beside her.

At two and a half, Jamie was still being treated like a baby, what with Mother cuddling him, dressing him in frills, and talking about how she didn’t want the day to come when he’d have to go into knickerbockers. She hardly ever let him out of her sight and he had come to rely on her for everything. He seldom took any notice of his father, and cried after her if she wasn’t there to pick him up. At the first whimper she would come hurrying to kiss him better.

Sara thought he was becoming just a spoiled little boy. In fact she didn’t like him all that much. Miss Gilbert would never have allowed him to make such a fuss. But Miss Gilbert wasn’t with them any more. Mother had dismissed her last September after Sara went back to school.

She remembered the tremendous row her parents had had over it, her father saying she should have kept Miss Gilbert on until Jamie was of school age; that she shouldn’t have got rid of her without consulting him. He had accused her of being jealous of her own son, said she was mollycoddling him, and he did understand her grief over the dead baby, but did she realise that he grieved too, but that life must go on?

Her mother’s weeping had been dreadful to listen to, but this time he hadn’t cuddled her, wouldn’t have done so even if she’d let him. They hadn’t spoken for days afterwards. Eventually he did cuddle her and she cried all over again. Then they talked together for a long time in low tones, so Sara hadn’t heard what they were saying.

After that, however, she was met from school by her grandmother in a hired cab and taken home by her to await her father, who would eventually bring her home. It seemed an odd arrangement. After a quick supper it was up to her room. She missed Miss Gilbert being there, and quite suddenly her happy bedroom didn’t seem happy any more.

It was a gloomy time. A black wreath hung on the front door; nearly every front door had one as far as Sara could see. People passing in the street all wore some sort of mourning, everyone looking solemn.

All over the country people were displaying deep sadness. Queen Victoria was dead – had died quietly on Friday, 22 January 1901 – and a whole nation was in mourning, so Ellen told her, and would be so for several weeks to come.

It was Sunday. Sara had been put in a black velvet dress, a black velvet ribbon in her hair, which hardly showed amongst the darkness of her curls. She was to wear black during the week, too, but in cheaper material not half so nice to touch. Even Ellen’s housemaid pinafores had been hastily edged with cheap black crepe, and Cook looked as funereal as anyone could – her hat and coat, as well as her skirt and blouse, probably worn for every funeral she’d ever attended, had a rusty, greasy look. Even Jamie’s petticoats were trimmed with tiny black stitching. As for their parents, already in mourning for their dead baby, they didn’t look much different to usual.

Sara wished it was Monday, wished she was at school, then there would be something to do. She’d been taken to church this morning and it had been a most dreary service, all about the passing of a Great and most Gracious Queen who had Reigned for such a great Length of Time and with such Wisdom that she had become an Incorruptible Institution. Which meant absolutely nothing to Sara, much less the Queen herself.

Mother hadn’t gone. Saying that it brought back too many memories, she had retired instead to her room with Jamie, her lunch being taken up to her. Sara overheard her father muttering to himself as he came to the table that it sometimes made him wonder what was going on inside her that she dared not tell of. It sounded so cryptic, so unusually cynical, that Sara turned in surprise. He smiled hastily at her, the way some people will when caught doing something wrong.

After lunch, when Ellen had stoked the fire in the drawing room until the underside of the high mantelpiece and wood panelling of the fireplace glowed like dark toffee, everything warm and cosy chasing away the grey outside, he took her on his knee. Cuddling her, as her mother was probably cuddling Jamie, they played draughts, which she won so easily – three times to his once – that she suspected he had let her win. They stopped only when Ellen came in again to draw the gold-coloured chenille curtains to make the room even cosier.

With the evening descending, he left her to play by herself while he dressed for dinner. He returned looking splendid as usual, his fair, curling hair shiny and nicely parted on one side, his fair moustache soft as he dropped a kiss on her cheek. She told him she loved him, and he smiled and tweaked her nose. It was such a lovely feeling.

But when Mother came down with Jamie, her small, delicate figure elegantly attired in a beautifully shaped black silk velvet dinner gown, the atmosphere grew suddenly cold. Sara was almost glad to be banished to her room soon after, Ellen bringing dinner up to her.

The triple oval mirrors of Harriet’s walnut dressing table reflected her face three times, two of the faces looking at each other as though discussing her, the middle one only returning her gaze in lonely isolation.

All three reflections looked haggard. She was twenty-seven, but felt more like seventy, all youth and vivacity drained. Where was the newlywed whom Matthew had escorted down from a carriage outside a Paris theatre in a champagne-coloured evening gown? Had it been a champagne colour? She couldn’t remember. But she remembered the glitter of chandeliers. She remembered how she felt them glowing in her eyes as she hung on to Matthew’s arm, surveying the scene of rich elegance; remembered how she had felt as fine as any in the lovely dress Matthew had bought her; remembered how she had thought happily about her bright future.

What bright future? A husband who ploughed his life into a journal that never seemed to go anywhere. Two miscarriages. A poor dead baby. A small boy whose health struck her as being so dubious that she feared he might never reach adulthood. And – still the most tenacious – Sara, a daughter who never ceased to remind her of pain and subjection and violence. Would that memory never fade? Would she ever cease to shudder whenever she thought of it?

Harriet forced her mind to blankness, bent towards her reflection to study it, the other two simultaneously bending forward to consult each other.

All three showed Ellen’s unsuccessful efforts to brush some life into her hair. Where was the lustrous auburn she had once been so proud of? There were dark rings under her eyes. The corners of her mouth were drawn down, making her look a bit like Annie; Annie, who’d always been sour by nature, taking after, it was said, their mother’s mother, who had apparently been a bit of a tartar. Harriet, who had never had those traits, flinched at the shape her mouth now assumed. A smile would remedy it, but somehow a smile wouldn’t come.

Despondently, she picked up the cut-glass tumbler beside her and drained its dregs in two small hurried sips. She still couldn’t gulp down brandy, but a small sip always made her feel better. The glass needed refilling – only a little, enough to fortify her. She wouldn’t ring for Ellen to bring up the decanter. It made it all too obvious. No, she’d go down herself.

She felt a fraction unsteady getting up from the dressing chair. It was often like this. The grief made her weak. Would she ever get over the grief? Ten months had passed, but the pain of it had hardly diminished at all.

Pulling her loose housegown closer about her thin shape, Harriet moved carefully towards the door. She felt lightheaded. The stairs when she reached them fell away at an alarming angle, but by holding tightly to the bannisters she managed to negotiate them. Feeling quite proud at having done so, she made her way into the deserted dining room, where Matthew’s cabinet stood.

The decanter was half full. Best to make sure it remained that way when Ellen went to get some more. Though lately, Matthew had been eyeing it, frowning slightly. She’d never given him cause to suspect anything untoward. She was very careful about that – knew when to call a halt, when to hide herself from him if she thought it might show; always gargled with scented water and sucked mint toffees.

At the cabinet, she listened. The house was quiet. From the stairs to the basement came distant muffled voices – Mrs Downey talking to a tradesman. Ellen was out shopping. Jamie was sleeping. Sara should have been at school but she had a cold and had stayed at home. But she knew better than to come downstairs. And Matthew was at the office.

She lifted the heavy cut-glass stopper. No need to use too much, just enough to help her stop thinking … Jamie would never have a little brother for company now, poor Jamie. And poor little Matthew … the name she’d given the child so cruelly taken on the very brink of life.

Painstakingly she tipped the smallest of measures into her glass, replaced the stopper, replaced the decanter, then cuddled the glass to her bosom.

‘Poor little Matthew,’ she murmured, gazing into the tumbler. Tears flooded her eyes, blurring her sight. ‘My poor little lost lamb …’

A movement behind her brought her twisting round so sharply towards it that she nearly lost her balance. Sara stood in the doorway, dark curls framing her pretty face, deep blue eyes wide with surprise.

Harriet’s voice grated sharp as a crow’s. ‘What’re you doing here?’

The child looked startled. ‘I heard someone. I thought it was Daddy.’

‘Daddy’s out!’

‘I thought …’

‘You know he’s out. Why’ve you come down here?’

‘I thought …’

‘You thought you’d find out what I was doing. Spying on me. Why’re you spying on me? Who asked you to spy on me?’

‘N-no one, Mummy.’

‘It’s your father who’s put you up to this. He’s always watching me – watching me through you. Still trying to get his own back on me …’

‘Daddy didn’t …’

‘Not that daddy, you fool! You evil little spy. It’s him who put you up to it. From down there …’

Down there in Hell, still waiting for her. Her eyes roamed about the room. He might be watching her from any corner. Or through those deep blue eyes of his child, eyes so like his …

‘He took my baby. My poor baby …’ She was dissolving into tears, imploring him to leave her alone. ‘It wasn’t my fault – I never meant to push you. But you were so cruel to me.’

Sara came forward and held out her hands, hoping to comfort. Seeing the move, Harriet recoiled, backing into the small occasional table behind her. She staggered as it crashed to the floor, the tumbler falling from her hand to shatter against the polished brass fender.