The Changeling (13 page)

My mother laughed. “You are quite irreverent, Mama,” she said.

I treasured those moments with her. I should never forget them.

The day came. There was expectation in the house. Soon the ordeal would be over. My mother would be exultant and there would be a new member of the family.

Mrs. Polhenny had arrived. She said: “I delivered Jenny Stubbs’ baby last night … a lovely little girl. Jenny’s beside herself with glee.”

“Who is looking after her?” asked my grandmother.

“I’ve taken her over to my place … I did just before the birth was about to take place. I thought it best as I had Mrs. Lansdon’s coming. Leah’s home. She’s helping.”

“That’s good of you, Mrs. Polhenny.”

Mrs. Polhenny preened herself and looked more virtuous than ever.

“Well … she’s through. Now it’s Mrs. Lansdon’s turn.”

Later my grandmother said to me: “Her heart’s in the right place in spite of all that self-congratulation. It was good of her to take Jenny in.”

All seemed normal at the time. Jenny’s delivery had been an easy matter. We thought my mother’s would be the same.

Mrs. Polhenny arrived at eleven in the morning and by mid-afternoon we knew that all was not well. Dr. Wilmingham was sent for.

Benedict arrived. No one had met him at the station, but we were not surprised to see him for we guessed he would come to Cador for the birth. He wanted to go to my mother at once, but that was not allowed.

“But she will know that you are here,” said my grandmother, “and that should comfort her.”

Then began one of the most terrible periods of my life. I cannot remember it clearly. I have tried to shut it out of my mind because it brings so much anguish to recall it. I have succeeded to some extent, for now it is just like a blurred memory.

I do recall vividly though how terrible the waiting was, so I sat with my grandparents … and him. He could not sit still and kept pacing about the room, firing questions at us. How had she seemed? Why had he not been sent for earlier? Something ought to have been done.

My grandfather said: “For God’s sake, be calm, Benedict. She’ll be all right. She has the best attention.”

He said angrily: “She should have stayed in London.”

“Who knows?” said my grandmother. “We thought it was for the best.”

“Some petty country doctor! An old woman …”

I felt angry with him. He was blaming my grandparents. But I knew, as they did, that it was his excessive anxiety which made him as he was, and that it was an outlet for his fears and misery to blame someone.

The hours dragged on. I felt the clocks had all stopped. Waiting … waiting … and with every passing moment growing more afraid.

I cannot dwell on it. Cold fear had taken possession of me. And I knew it was an emotion I shared with them all. I was aware of my grandmother beside me. We looked at each other and neither of us attempted to hide what we felt. She took my hand and gripped it hard.

Then the doctor came. Mrs. Polhenny was with him. They did not have to speak. We knew. And the greatest desolation I had ever felt swept over me.

I
REMEMBER IN FLASHES
—flashes of sheer desperation and the most absolute wretchedness I have ever known. I can see us standing round her bed. How different she had been in life! She looked beautiful; there was a serenity in her face; she looked so white, so young—and so apart from us. I could not grasp the fact that I had lost her forever.

We hardly looked at the baby. I don’t think we could bear to do so. But for it, this would not have happened.

My grandparents were heartbroken. They had loved her so dearly. They were as stunned as I was. As for Benedict, I had rarely seen such misery as I saw in his face. In it there was a baffled anger against the world. I knew in that moment how deeply he had loved her. I think we all felt the need to get away, to be alone with our grief.

The doctor and Mrs. Polhenny concerned themselves with the child. I sensed, however, that they did not expect her to live. Feeding was a problem, but Mrs. Polhenny understood all about that. We were too stunned by our grief to be able to tear ourselves away from it and I do not know what we should have done without Mrs. Polhenny.

My grandmother said afterwards that we should always be grateful to her. She made little fuss but just continued caring for the child while we nursed our sorrow.

Later, arrangements would have to be made. I supposed the child would stay at Cador. I knew that when my grandmother recovered a little from this terrible blow it was what she would want … as I should. But just at first I could not bear to think of her and, miraculously it seemed to us afterwards, Mrs. Polhenny seemed to understand. She ceased to be the Lord’s avenging angel and became a practical nurse, giving herself to the care of the living while the rest of us mourned the dead.

We struggled through the remainder of that day and night, and in the morning, after I rose from my bed in which I had slept little, I realized that I had to go on with my life. My mother was dead and I had to accept that fact. This time I had really lost her.

We all seemed to be walking round in a state of shock—Benedict more than any of us. My grandfather tried to be calm and reasonable; he was trying to look ahead—anything to shut out the misery of the moment. The day for the funeral was decided on. She lay there in her coffin … she, who had been so alive, so merry, the most important person in my life.

I had my grandparents, of course, and I thanked God for them. And there was the child. She was weak, said Mrs. Polhenny, and she did not want us fussing over her. “Leave her be … just at first. Leave her to me.”

So we left her to Mrs. Polhenny and I think we were rather glad to do so.

The day of the funeral arrived. I shall never forget it … the coaches, the hearses, the undertakers in their morning dress, the scent of lilies. I was never able to smell them after without recalling that scene.

We stood round the grave; Benedict, my grandparents and I, holding my grandmother’s hand. I watched him as the clods fell on the coffin and I had never seen more abject despair in any face.

And then back to Cador which had become a house of mourning.

It had to change. Nothing lasted forever, I consoled myself.

The next day Benedict left. It was as though he could no longer bear to see any of us.

The carriage was at the door to take him to the station and we went down to say goodbye to him. My grandmother tried to console him. She was deeply conscious of his grief.

She said to him: “Leave everything for now, Benedict. We’ll work out something later on … when we are more settled. Rebecca and the child will stay here with us for the time being.”

I saw the look on his face when she mentioned the child. It was a bitter resentment, bordering on hatred. I knew that he had to blame someone to assuage his unbearable grief. He had to replace it with a stronger emotion. I could see he already resented the child and would always say to himself; But for her Angelet would be here.

I understood his feelings, for I too had experienced that bitter resentment and knew how it could take possession of one and warp one’s feelings—for just as he resented the child I had resented him. He was telling himself: But for this child she would be here today, and I was saying: But for you, Benedict Lansdon, I should have my mother as I always had before you came.

It was a relief when he had gone.

Pedrek’s grandparents, the Pencarrons, now showed more than ever what true and loyal friends they were. Their daughter Morwenna and my mother had had a London season together; Morwenna and her husband had gone to Australia with my parents; Pedrek and I had been born out there. There was a lasting bond between us and we were as one family.

After Benedict left, Mrs. Pencarron said to my grandmother: “I am going to take you, your husband and Rebecca back with me to Pencarron. I want you to stay, if only for a couple of nights.”

“There is the child …” said my grandmother.

Mrs. Pencarron looked sad for a moment. Then she said: “Mrs. Polhenny will look after the child. You need to get away … just for a little spell.”

My grandmother was finally persuaded and we left.

The Pencarrons did all they could to help us. It was no good though. My grandmother was very restive. She and I went for long walks together. She talked to me about my mother.

“I feel she is still with us, Rebecca. Don’t let’s try to shut her out. Let’s talk as though she is still with us.”

I told her how she had talked to me only a few weeks before.

“She asked me to care for the baby. ‘Always look after the child,’ she said. It would be my little brother or sister. It was strange the way she talked to me down by the pool.”

“That place meant something special to her.”

“Yes, I know. And now I look back I remember so well what she said. It was as though she knew she might not be here.”

My grandmother slipped her arm through mine. “We have the child, Rebecca.”

“At first none of us seemed to want her.”

“It was because …”

“Because her coming caused my mother’s death.”

“Poor little thing. What did she know about that? We must love the child, Rebecca. We shall, of course. She is your sister … my grandchild. It is what your mother would want … it is what she would expect.”

“And we have left her … already.”

“Yes. But we shall go back and it will be different. We shall find our consolation in the child. We’ll tell them at Pencarron that we’ll go back tomorrow. They’re darlings, they’ll understand.”

They did and the very next day we returned to Cador.

We were greeted by a satisfied Mrs. Polhenny.

“The child is getting on well now,” she said. “She’s turned the corner. I’ve been with her night and day. I could see it was special care she wanted … though I didn’t think at one time I was going to pull her through. You’ll see the change in her. Screaming her head off now she is … that’s if something don’t please her ladyship.”

We were proudly taken to the nursery.

She was right. The baby had changed. She looked plumper … much more healthy … like a different child.

“She’ll get on like a house afire now,” said Mrs. Polhenny. “I can tell you it was touch and go with that one.”

I think from that moment we felt better. We had the baby to think of, to plan for.

We had been wise to take those few days at Pencarron.

They put a divide between us and the terrible shock of my mother’s death.

On our return it was as though we were brought face to face with the fact that we had our lives to lead. We realized that at the back of our minds had been the thought that the child was not going to survive, that there would be no living reminder of the beloved one’s death. Both Dr. Wilmingham and Mrs. Polhenny clearly thought the child would follow her mother, but by a miracle she was not only alive but a healthy baby. And she was here for us to love and cherish as my mother would have wished and expected us to do.

Now the child was all important to us and we began to move, in a small measure it was true, away from our grief.

There must be a christening. She was to be called Belinda Mary. My grandmother chose the name. “It just came to me,” she said; and from then on Belinda became a very definite person. We immediately noticed that there was something special about her; she was brighter than other children; we fancied—absurdly—that she knew us.

Mrs. Polhenny, fortunately, was free from other duties and she took on the role of nurse for a time. I was sure the child owed a great deal to her skill.

We needed a nurse, said my grandmother, and Mrs. Polhenny agreed.

It was about a week after we had returned from Pencarron that she came up with the suggestion.

“There’s my Leah,” she said. “I don’t know, but ever since she went up to High Tor to do that there needlework, she’s been unsettled like. I thought that a spell down at St. Ives with my sister would have made her want to stay at home for a bit …”

My grandmother and I exchanged meaningful glances. We could not imagine Leah’s wanting to return to that cottage where cleanliness ranked almost as high as godliness.

“Leah gets on well with little ones,” went on Mrs. Polhenny. “I’ve taught her a few things … and I’d be on hand. What I think might be an answer is for Leah to take on this job of nurse to the little ’un.”

“Leah!” cried my grandmother. “But Leah is a skilled needlewoman.”

“That means she’ll be able to make for the baby. She’d like that.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“Oh yes, I have that. And, believe me, she wants to do it. She’s tired of sitting over a piece of needlework. It’s bad for the eyes, too. She’s already feeling the need to rest them a bit. She’s been getting headaches. She wants to come here as the baby’s nurse. What she wouldn’t know, I’d tell her … and she’d have a real fondness for the little one.”

“Well,” said my grandmother, “if Leah would really like that, I think it would be an excellent idea.”

“I’ll send her along. She can have a talk with you.”

“It would solve the problem … and we’d have someone we know. I should like that.”

So Leah came and very soon was installed in the nursery. The baby seemed to take to her at once and it appeared to be an excellent arrangement.

We liked Leah. We always had, although, of course, we had not previously seen very much of her. She had always been shut away in the cottage and hardly ever emerged unless in the company of her mother.

Now she seemed like a different person … happier, I thought, and that did not surprise me. She was gentle and quiet. My grandmother said we were very lucky to have her.

Leah was blossoming into a beauty—a rather mysterious one with long dark hair and rather soulful brown eyes. Her care for the child was obvious. My grandmother said that when they were together she looked like a Renaissance portrait of the Madonna; and as soon as the baby began to show awareness it was to Leah she looked.

Our interest in the nursery helped us through those melancholy months. My grandparents and I talked constantly of Belinda. The first smile, the first tooth became a matter of great importance and interest to us.