Amy Snow (50 page)

I pause in my reading to laugh at another memory of my old life. To give something to Penelope was akin to placing it in a vault, locking it, throwing it into the ocean, and then melting down the key for good measure. We went to the post office whenever there was anything to be posted, even though the servants could easily have done so. We went just for the pleasure of counting how many times in any given encounter she would refer to herself, with consummate pride, as “Miss Penelope Lambert, postmistress.”

Life is a richness of little details and minute encounters. In losing Aurelia, I have lost somebody with whom I can share a whole history. I should like to tell Henry these inconsequential things. I think perhaps he would understand. I think he might like to hear them.

If you are reading this letter, then you have met Louis. Amy, my
son
! Of course, he is
not
my son, not now, he is Joss and Elspeth's son and yet . . . I cannot help but think of him that way still.

By now (I mean as I write this) he will be nearly a year old. He may be crawling and babbling and chuckling but I have only ever seen him as a babe. Like the both of us, Amy, he was a winter baby. Born in November to gray skies, rain, and bare branches. Really, you would think I might have timed it better!

Oh, to be able to write to you of Louis, to be able to share my love for him with my dearest friend! But I must return to Twickenham first. This letter is intended to enlighten you, not to indulge myself (although I never say no to a little indulgence, as well you know).

So there was I in Twickenham, enjoying life with the Wisters to the full. I firmly pushed all thoughts of Bailor Dunthorne from my mind. I felt I was finally gulping down something I had long been denied. I thought it would fortify me to return to my parents. I even hoped, you know, to return early and surprise you. I missed you so.

Well, Robert Burns was quite right when he said: “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men an' even Vennaways / often go awry.” (Mr. Henley would tell me that I have taken license with the citation, but I'm sure Mr. Burns had a Vennaway or two lurking in an early draft.)

I frequently did battle with my health while I was there, Amy. I tried to make light of it in my letters to you, for I did not want you fearing I might not return. It was bad, and I had not expected that so soon.

I don't think I ever mentioned that Mrs. Bolton had left me by then. She had business in London and I would not be torn away from her relations. She returned a few weeks later, however, and took me aside only days later.

“Aurelia,” she said (you know she never was one for preamble), “tell me, is there any way that you might be pregnant?” That is a frank friend indeed!

She was much struck with the change in me, you see, the repeated bouts of sickness, my dizzy spells, and all before luncheon. Yet despite my weakness, she said, I glowed in a most particular way!

Will you think me very stupid if I tell you that it had never even crossed my mind? The biological indications were all there, of course, but I had been too busy to pay them any mind—too busy enjoying myself, too busy gritting my teeth with determination to stay alive and enjoy even more!

I answered her questions with my head spinning, and Mrs. B. suspected her guess was right. I knew it was. From never even dreaming of it, the knowledge rushed in on me all of a sudden. I
knew
I wasn't ready to die when I left Hatville! Something else was responsible for my malaise.

When I look back at the three-and-twenty years of my life, there are three moments that I remember with a special quality of memory, an extraordinary clarity—moments when I knew
absolutely
that my life was about to change forever. The first was finding you. The second was the day I collapsed in the orchard and learned I was not going to live forever, not even close. And the third was standing in the garden at Mulberry Lodge, understanding that I was with child. I put my hand on the trunk of the birch and saw it silver and black beneath my white hand. I see it still.

My dear Amy, you may imagine how I felt! Robin had promised me such a thing could not happen! I can only think these things are a very imprecise art, for he would not have wronged me in that way intentionally. Clearly, I could
never
go back to Hatville whilst I was pregnant and unmarried.

I remember writing down my options and a dismal little list they made (burned at once, naturally). Of course I might lose the child, as my mother had done so often. Yet somehow, given my body's recalcitrant nature, I knew that would not happen.

I could rid myself of it deliberately. Mrs. B. assured me that such a thing could be done if you knew the right (or perhaps the wrong!) people. It is illegal, you know, Amy, yet if I wished to do this, she would make discreet inquiries, she promised. Now there was another reason for secrecy, another person to protect. Imagine if my parents ever knew she had encouraged such a thing! But you, Amy, I want you to know everything.

Well, this option was not one I could consider. I can understand how women in desperate circumstances are driven to it. I was terrified, Amy. Yet despite my fear, I could not end the life of my child. You know me, Amy, I cannot kill a worm!

The third avenue then was to carry the child to term, if I lived that long, and then . . . ? Abandon it? Impossible. Keep it and spend the rest of my life in hiding . . . well, you know, Amy, there was great appeal in that! I might have sent for you and done just that if it were not for the fact of this infernal problem with my heart. All you needed was to be left adrift in the world with a newborn baby!

Or there was the possibility of giving it up for adoption to a loving family. (I say “it,” my dear, because of course I did not know then that “it” would be my Louis!) This was the unselfish choice, it seemed to me. A novel choice, then, for me!

It was the first alternative that gave me hope. But it was dependent on finding the right people and I knew of no one; no more did Mrs. B. Then again, the
secrecy
that would have to be involved . . . the length of time I would need to stay away from home . . . ! You may imagine how I stayed awake at night circling over the details and problems and possible solutions . . . All pleasure was at an end and in its place only this obsession with creating the perfect solution.

You might think I resented “it” for this abrupt termination of my newfound happiness, but I did not. Not for a moment. All I wanted was to protect it.

And that brings me to the heart of the matter. You and I both know that if I had come home with an illegitimate child, my parents would have raged and roared and the storm would have been vengeful. I imagined it in vivid detail, you may be sure! But then, Amy—and you know this too—they would have been reconciled. Their desperation for a continuance of the line would have done mighty battle with their outrage, and it would have won, I believe.

I would have died and my child would have been brought up by his own grandparents, in the home that his mother knew, and would have wanted for nothing in the world in the material sense. And yet . . .

I was forced to make a most thorough and dispassionate appraisal of my life. You know all my many advantages and all the ways in which I suffered. You know the great rage I had felt towards my parents. Yet I thought then about
them
, their upbringing, and, above all, about my mother's frequent pregnancies that always ended in tears and bloody sheets.

She lost so many children! While I wrestled with my conscience in Twickenham, I did not know
how
many—but I knew enough to feel sympathy for her now that I was with child myself. Since my return, I have learned that she lost
eleven
babies over the years. As well as bearing me! Having carried a child just once, I cannot imagine what she suffered. I believe she has been driven a little mad by it. It makes it possible for me to forgive the wrongs she has done me. And so you see I write with compassion in my heart, not the rage of a wronged daughter.

Nevertheless.

I did not want Hatville—
any part of it
—for
my
child.

Imagine had it been a girl! How could I knowingly put my own daughter in that position, after Lord Kenworthy, after
Bailor Dunthorne
, for heaven's sake? And as for a son . . . Still he might be constrained and inculcated with senseless ideas, still he might suffer if his spirit were anything like mine. Then again, what if he grew up to be just like them?
My
son? Oh no, Amy. No.

Weighty decisions, were they not? It was a great deal to consider, and my head was clouded with fear. Whatever I decided, I must act very quickly, for if I delayed much, then secrecy would no longer be an option. I needed medical support too, I knew.

Another choice: to keep child from father and father from child. But Robin was part of Hatville. That he would make a tender, kind father I doubted not at all. That he would bring up a child as I would wish, after I was gone, I could not be sure. Perhaps he would feel his child was better off with a fortune and a bloodline. Was he strong enough to keep it safe from the mighty Vennaways, should they ever find out? Another risk I dared not take.

My course was set. I decided I must live long enough to find the right parents for my child. I must live long enough to give birth. And I must live long enough to return to you and look after you a little longer. And I must do it all in secret. Well, I have never shied away from a challenge!

My decision made, I spoke to Mrs. B. She posted a discreet letter and shortly afterwards a reply came back. She informed me we were going to York. I was pleased, for it was far away.

I said nothing of my secret to the Wisters, though I wished to, many times.

Again I remember Michael's remark about Aurelia leaving them so suddenly, and another piece of the puzzle drops into place.

I fled from my friends, with a heart full of regret at doing so—yet it was nothing to the regret I felt every time I penned a letter to you.

At first, of course, I could not write a thing. I did not know what to say! So I made up an excuse which I hoped would alleviate your concern. I know now that it did not. It was hastily fabricated and doubtless inadequate. I wrote, too, with a mind to prying eyes. I thought a social whirl, a series of balls, would not overly disturb my parents. As for you, you must have thought I'd taken leave of my senses!

Why did I say
Derby
? Simply because Mrs. B. had a connection there whom she trusted to post letters on for me. I have never set foot in that town. In fact, there are a great many places I have never set foot. My grand tour of the kingdom, my exciting, self-indulgent journey from city to city to city, amounted to this: London, Twickenham, York. Then home.

We arrived in York after an excruciatingly long train journey. At least so it seemed to me, vulnerable as I was. From the safety and comfort of my desk, however, I marvel. In just eight hours one may travel the length of our country!

What do you make of the glorious wedding cake that is York Minster? Those endlessly rippling bells that drown out all thought from one's brain? (What a blessed relief
that
was!) The cunning little streets that look like something dreamed up by the brothers Grimm? I wish we could explore it together. Oh, believe me, I did not appreciate these things upon my arrival—I had much to occupy me without admiring scenery!

We stayed at the Jupiter Hotel. Perhaps by now you know it. There we met an old friend of Mrs. B.'s, the friend to whom she had written, the only person she could turn to in such a delicate situation—the only person who would be able to help. Of course that friend was Mrs. Ariadne Riverthorpe.

They had met, I came to learn, a decade or so earlier, at some intellectual gathering in Bath. The young Mrs. B., budding bluestocking, was greatly influenced by the old Mrs. R. and they had corresponded ever since. Mrs. R. continued to give advice and guidance—no doubt dreadful—to her protegée.

So Amy, I wonder how your time in Bath was? Thinking of it, sometimes I laugh and sometimes I feel very guilty! When I first met Mrs. R., I thought her the most arrogant, discourteous, unsympathetic woman who ever stalked our green earth. You may imagine the fireworks in those early days.

Yet the arguments we fought were not like those at Hatville Court. They were not poisonous. They were the necessary sparks caused by the coming together of two very obstinate people with a great many opinions. In the course of these rows, something dispensable burned away and we were left with the core of it. We were kindred spirits, I think (though I am vastly more delightful, I hope).

You may have learned by now that although Mrs. R. professes to suffer human companionship as a very inconvenient but unavoidable fact of life, in fact she thrives on intrigue and other people's business. Give her so much as a whiff of a situation and she is embroiled in it. She likes to feel useful. I believe she likes to think that the many hardships of her long life have not all been for nothing; that her many connections and experiences enable her to deal with almost anything. If possible, in short, she likes to help. Of course, I did not know all this about her
then
. In my confusion, all I was aware of was a very determined woman who seemed to swoop down from above and take charge of everything.

The first thing she did was summon a doctor of whose discretion she was utterly sure. That ensured my health would not deteriorate any further unnecessarily. The second, when she had assured herself that I was worth taking the trouble for, was to go and see her friends the Caplands. She had told me that they were very good and warm people with a loving marriage and no children.

“They are boringly devoted,” she told me in her world-weary way. “I suppose if anyone should raise another child in this tedious, overcrowded, cruel world of ours, it is them.”