The Diamond Waterfall (20 page)

“In a moment I shall turn up the light, the ordinary light, so you may see how it all is nowadays—and then you can go.”

“So eager to be rid of me—your own uncle?”

“I don't like people in when I—”

“What about young Master Nicolson, eh?”

“That's different.” His hand stretched out, he stroked her ear. “Don't,” she said, “that's ticklish.”

“Allie, Allie, Allie—such a little child, aren't you?”

“Fifteen,” she said coldly. She moved the white ebonite dish with developer in it.

“Hardly the young lady, is it? Is it now? and you look, bless you, darling little niece, you look only thirteen. A
child.
That's why you could almost, couldn't you, sit on my knee still?”

She said angrily, “I don't like to sit on your knee. I never did. And I don't wish to be treated as a child.”

“Then why do you behave like one? Refusing to be friendly with me. What about filial love, filial embraces, and all that? If you can't show affection to those near and dear—charity, Alice, begins at home.”

“Not in the darkroom though.”

But he was breathing into her ear. “Alice. Alice. Alice.” His hot breath smelled of brandy, of ginger too. She said:

“Anyway, I shall be going out of here in a moment.”

“Without showing me anything?”

“What did you want to see then?” She thought of flinging open all the cupboards and being done with it. “I'll—”

“Show me something else, please.” He spoke rapidly, edgily. “Show me —will you show me, here, just by the ruby lamp, darling. Allie, you are quite my favorite. I have been so jealous of Robert, that he has all of his own such a little darling.”

I don't hear it right, she thought. Standing absolutely still in the half-darkness. And then, feeling his touch:

“I want to see. Look, I want to see, let me see, darling, I won't hurt you. I just want to see.” He spoke so fast, he couldn't be halted. His tone was kinder than she had ever heard. “I can feel, those little buds, where you just begin to be a woman. So small, so small. And the other, Alice, let me touch— I won't look, darling, if you just tell me, is it small and perfect down there, do you have hair—hair there, just beginning? No, no, I won't hurt—can I feel, I shall only feel.”

It is not real. His fingers
are not there.
The pain too. The
pain
is not real.

“Yes, but yes, Alice. No, don't mind, darling—let me. Let me feel, you darling darling half-
child
. Darling …”

Suddenly, she was another person, escaping from his grasp, that hateful arm clutching her shoulders, holding her tight, those fingers, feeling. She stood alone, shaking. Then she hit him very hard across the face. The very hardness of the face she hit surprised her, as did her satisfaction. She was amazed at her sense of power. She hit him again. He stepped back. Three plates, a bowl, some bottles. A crashing sound.

There was a terrible smell of chemicals, sulphur, ammonia. “Stinks,” he said, “stinks.” His voice trembled. “My God, stinks.” He said agitatedly, “Let's forget, quickly, shall we? Forget your uncle was ever silly, for that's all it was. A moment's silliness, eh?”

She did not reply. She had turned up the light. “Some of these chemicals,” she said after a moment, “if they get together, they could poison us. We might die. Gilbert, although he's only small,
he
knows better.”

“So we shan't say anything, shall we?” His voice was pleading, his appearance disheveled. She had never seen her perfectly groomed uncle in such disarray. “Shall we?”

“Please move out of the way. I have to clear these up
at once.”
She was very composed.

The remainder of that evening she continued to feel composed. Icy cold, and quite unreal. I don't have to think about it, she told herself. Once in bed, she did not sleep for a long while, and when she did, was woken soon by stomach cramps. By morning they were gone. She wanted though to tell someone about yesterday. She was feeling sick, her body heavy, her head aching. Uncle Lionel, thank God, had gone out shooting. She was asked to the luncheon,
but refused: “I have to go and see Mrs. Anstruther.” She would take her a Christmas present. And because she had been Mama's friend she would know, somehow, what to do.

Aunt Violet was in her small sitting room tying up parcels. She was delighted to see Alice. “Such a long time, my dear. Always busy now with photographs!” She turned her frail prettiness toward Alice.
“I've
been busy too. Arranging the chapel for Father Proudfoot—and then the convent at Thirsk —a little carol service. These are presents for the orphans.”

She looked so gentle, so kind, Mama's friend. How many times had she not wept in those arms? Had they not
both
wept when Mama was betrayed by Belle Maman?

“Alice dear, what a lovely gift? May I—shall I
guess?”

“Please, dearest Aunt Violet, something dreadful has happened.”

“Yes, dear.” Her eyes opened wide. But she was not quite, not quite concentrating.

“My uncle. He—you see, when he was alone with me, he …” But she did not know what words to use. If only, without explanation, Aunt Violet would take her in her arms (beautifully smelling, faint flower scents).

“Aunt Violet, what he did was to ask if he …” She stumbled over the words. “And then he asked if he might touch me, there. And he hurt me, so I hit him.” She wasn't crying, but her voice, she could hardly control the tremble in it. Any moment now, and she would break down.

“So you see, I hit him, you see, because it was so dreadful. Aunt Violet, I'm so
unhappy/”

“This lovely little carved bird is from New Zealand,” Aunt Violet said, holding up a toy in smooth pale wood. She looked over toward the window. “I think we shall have snow. Should you like a white Christmas, Alice?”

“Didn't you hear?
He, he …” She was almost shouting now.

“The nuns have arranged such a lovely crib, with quite the most beautiful
bambino.”
She reached for her scissors. “Would you hold this string now, please, my dear? I don't see how ever I am to get it all done by Christmas.”

Her cotton drawers were stained. She thought she had cut herself. Then when she was in the downstairs cloakroom—outside, sounds of people returning from the day's shooting—she was appalled to see blood in the water. Mine, she thought, it is from
me.
White and shaking, she made her way upstairs, locked the door of her room. She didn't want to look but forced herself to. There was a wound,
must
be a wound.

It was something
he
had done, when he touched her. She saw now a thin sluggish trickle of blood. She stood on the towel, her legs apart, the china washbasin beneath her. Then with the jug of cold water she poured and poured, over
that
place. To wash it away. To wash everything, all of it, all to
do with it, away. Then she prayed to God, who could do anything, that He would make it as if it had never been.

The wound healed. By Christmas Eve it was all gone. Uncle Lionel she avoided as much as possible. On Christmas morning, walking by Belle Maman's room, she caught sight of herself in the long cheval glass. She paused: this is me, Alice. Then suddenly, to her horror, she saw that she was not clearly Alice at all. She was a blurred mass. She peered at her body. How could Uncle Lionel have thought her childlike? I am fat. All these months while I've been happy with my camera, Gib, the new baby, I have been eating. I was hungry and ate meals. Now I am fat, and puffy. It was that very puffiness which Uncle had wanted to grasp in his hands. Whatever he had said, that was what he
meant

It was better then not to eat, or so little that it hardly mattered. Just like after Mama's death. If you were clever, no one noticed. (I could even
be sick
if by chance I have taken too much.) And at Christmas dinner it was not too difficult since there were so many people: visiting aunts and great-aunts, elderly cousins, chubby Hal brought in to be made a fuss of.

But she did not go quite unremarked. Hawk-eyed Aunt Minnie, at eighty-five, missing nothing:

“Alice has no appetite. On
Christmas
Day—the young,” she said in a loud voice, “eat sweetmeats all day from the first unwrapping of the stocking. They are incorrigible. But a child of that age—she should know better.” And when Alice mumbled something: “Speak up, child!”

Five minutes later Alice was very rude to Uncle Lionel, refusing to answer a polite question. It was bad enough when she was pert, but this, it could not be allowed. Belle Maman spoke sharply.

“No, no,” Uncle Lionel said. “If Alice wishes to play the little madam— let us salute her. Peace and goodwill to men, and all that. Eh, Alice?”

“Oh, go and boil yourself,
why don't you go and boil yourself?”
She heard the words. They did not come from her. “Don't speak to me,” she said. “Don't speak to me.”

“Alice!
Alice
!” A shocked Papa and Belle Maman. She must go up to her room. At once. Gasps. Snorts of disapproval. “She is impossible,” someone said.

Uncle pleaded for her. “I don't mind. I like spirit. No, I
insist
she stays.”

It was horrid that he should take her part. Aunt Minnie said:

“It is all the sweetmeats. Injurious sugar, you may depend upon it.”

The Towers,
8th December 1901

My Valentin, my darling,

Last night I dreamed about that little waterfall in the Prahova Valley—and was sick with longing. (You know really of what waterfall I dreamed.) And then this evening for a dinner party I was obliged to wear the hated
other
waterfall. It's become useless to make scenes about it, so I tell myself little follies such as the one that every diamond is a tear of sorrow that we are parted—forever (I try not to think that, and while I can still write …). My twentieth letter only, how is that for discipline? (You have cheated, who put
five
in the one envelope! It was lucky no one but I saw the post that day!) Four weeks ago I managed a visit to Oxford. And somehow sneaked a sight of Christ Church (wet and cold, alas) but at least I could walk about and think
“he
looked on these stones, he went up
that
staircase.”

I have too much time for memories. The ways in which I pass my days—entertaining for Robert, visiting sick families in Flaxthorpe and its environs, trying to be friend as well as stepmother to Alice— they do not take up all of my mind. Another child? I am tempted. But then I would wish it to be yours again, my darling.

My friend Sadie expects her third child already. Her husband is safely back from the war in Africa, although very weak on his return. Enteric fever.

Our child,
dearest! Yes, yes, she
is
like you. Staring at her, I convince myself that it's true—and it
is!
I enclose this little drawing I've made, which is no feat of draftsmanship, and a small lock of her hair (she has so much!). Next time I shall send a picture that Alice will take. Her photography has really become very good.

My darling, about Other Women—there is no need to say anything and it is best that I don't think of it and
you
don't speak of it again. The kind of life you lead, the sort of person you are—it would
not be natural. And since
we have no future,
it would be madness, such fidelity on your part. For me it's easy, and will I think remain so—but that is different! It was a mistake that we should try to discuss it in letters, which lend themselves so easily to misunderstandings. Those letters which are so precious to me because they have in them the very sound of your voice. The writing paper which smells of your cigarettes.

Alice, seen standing directly under the great light in the music room, dressed in her new frock of red faille. It seemed to Lily that under the stiff material there was scarcely a body at all. She told herself that Alice had had always that pinched look, had all the time she'd known her been thin. And yet … February now, and in three months the child would be seventeen. She was scarcely developed at all. It was difficult to think of her as more than about thirteen. (Is that why I push out of my mind always that boy from the Vicarage—already so tall? No one has as yet made any remarks, but if we suggest there should always be a third person in the darkroom, will that not put ideas into their heads?)

The painful thinness, that was a different matter, and must be dealt with
now.
Dr. Sowerby must examine Alice thoroughly. But first she must speak to her.

Embarrassedly she asked, “It's—is everything all right with you each month?”

Alice looked puzzled.

“But, dear—at sixteen. Nan-Nan spoke to you, of course. I …” She floundered, ashamed of her neglect.

“No,” Alice said when Lily had explained. “Nothing like that happens.” She had flushed painfully. She said, with head averted, “Yes, once, a few years ago. I didn't think …”

Her mother's disease, tuberculosis. Surely, Lily thought, that is our greatest fear. And should be, must be Robert's too. And yet, no cough, no fever. Perhaps after all it was only the “green sickness” she remembered from her girlhood. Chlorosis, with iron the remedy.

And indeed that was what Dr. Sowerby thought. He suggested a visit to Harrogate, to take the chalybeate waters with their high iron content. Also she
must
put on weight. Must have cod liver oil, cream.

Alice rebelled at the cod liver oil. “I shall be sick.” It wasn't possible really to make someone of her age take it. Yet something must be done, or what would her future be? Talk of her “coming out,” doing a London Season, was no more than talk: an idea of Robert's glanced at in conversation with Lionel, and mentioned only once to Alice, who would have none of it. Lily doubted it would happen. With an excellent dowry, although no longer the
heiress, Alice would have to take her chance among the local eligibles. But for that, both her looks and her health would have to improve.