The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (144 page)

Belle waited for the expected reproach about not getting in touch when she’d had the ’flu. It didn’t come.

‘Your friend Drum Talbot,’ Mamma said at last, ‘is a
great
success.’

‘I’m so glad,’ said Belle, for something to say.

‘Absolutely wonderful with children. The twins adore him, and so does Cam— I mean, so does your papa.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Belle, standing at the balustrade. ‘I do know whom you mean.’

There was another silence. Belle looked down at the moonlit garden – at the tumbled mass of the bougainvillea and the distant bulk of the giant bamboo. The poinsettia at the bottom of the steps looked black. Like blood.

‘I’m afraid that at some stage,’ Mamma went on, twisting her rings, ‘you shall have to call on Great-Aunt May. She’s been asking to see you.’

Belle frowned. She hadn’t seen or heard from Great-Aunt May since that afternoon when she’d tried to tell her about Traherne. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why would she want to see me?’

‘I’ve no idea. She’s nearly a hundred, you know. Perhaps even she feels that her time will soon be up.’ Another twist of the rings. ‘I still find it amazing that you ended up at Cairngowrie,’ she went on with a lift of her eyebrows. ‘And you say that the fearsome Miss McAllister is still there?’

Belle nodded. ‘Although she’s not really fearsome when you get to know her.’

‘Ah. Indeed.’

Another silence.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mamma, ‘I almost forgot. Your friend is coming out. The Cornwallis girl?’

‘Dodo?’ said Belle, astonished.

Mamma blinked. ‘Um – no. The other one. Margaret?’

Belle’s spirits fell. ‘That’s her younger sister. I hardly know her.’

‘Ah,’ said Mamma. ‘I apologize. I’d forgotten.’

Another pause, while they reflected on that.

Of course she’s forgotten, thought Belle. How can one blame her, when she hasn’t seen her own daughter for seven years?

‘Anyway,’ Mamma said with a lift of her eyebrows, ‘she’s coming out in a few weeks’ time for an extended visit to her aunt, and apparently she’s hoping to do a little assistant nursing out at Burntwood. Reading to the officers, that sort of thing. You remember the old sanatorium on the other side of Falmouth? Well, now it’s an officers’ convalescent home. And I thought perhaps they’ll be able to find something for you to do, too? I understand that you were an enormous help to Sophie out in Flanders.’

She sounded as if she were talking to an acquaintance. Or trying to find something to do with the prodigal daughter.

‘I’m not sure that I’ll have time for that sort of thing,’ Belle said gently. ‘I came to see Papa.’

Mamma looked down at the coffee cups. ‘It’s just a shame,’ she said, ‘that it took something like this to bring you home.’ She spoke without reproach – it was simply an observation – but Belle felt a wave of guilt and regret.

She watched her mother smooth back her hair from her temples in a gesture she remembered. ‘You didn’t want to come back, did you, Belle?’

‘Of course I did,’ Belle said quickly. ‘When I got your wire, I was wild to—’

‘Oh, of course you wanted to see Papa. But you didn’t want to come back here. Not home. To Eden.’

Belle turned back to the garden. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Not really.’

‘Why not? Can’t you tell me?’

Belle tried to breathe, but that hot, prickly feeling was rising in her chest. From where she stood, she could see the giant bamboo down by the river; she could hear it creaking in the breeze, exactly as it had that day when Traherne . . .

It’s our secret. We wouldn’t want you to be found out, now would we?

Belle ran her hands over the smooth stone of the balustrade. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said over her shoulder.

‘Oh, Belle,’ her mother said quietly.

Belle stayed where she was, staring out at the garden. Behind her she heard the rustle of her mother’s skirts. She felt a sinking sense of failure and regret.

When she turned again, her mother had gone.

The hospital at Falmouth was, as Mamma said, only really equipped for minor injuries, but the staff had done their best by the master of Eden, and given him a private room on the side of the building furthest from the street.

According to Sophie, who’d spent some time talking to Dr Walpole, he’d been right not to move Papa to Kingston. ‘Head injuries are so unpredictable,’ she said, speaking in the studiedly objective way that people adopt when they’re keeping a tight rein on their emotions. ‘The infection’s flared up again; that’s what’s causing the fever and the drifting in and out of consciousness. But Dr Walpole believes he can bring it down. And if he can, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t get better.’

And if not? Nobody wanted to fill in the rest.

Ben took the twins off to Gardner’s for an ice, and Sophie asked Mamma if she’d care to come too. Mamma shook her head. ‘I’ll stay out here till they tell us he’s ready to be seen, then go in with Belle.’

‘Well, then,’ said Sophie, with a glance at Belle. ‘I’ll leave you two alone for a while.’

Belle sat beside her mother in the corridor, feeling exhausted, and strangely nervous. She’d slept badly, waking often to the sound of the tree-ferns tapping on the louvres, and the north wind whistling through the house. When at last she’d fallen into a fitful sleep, she’d had the old nightmare. She was back in Papa’s study, and he didn’t know who she was.

‘Belle?’

She gave a start.

Mamma had risen to her feet, and was looking down at her curiously. ‘Dr Walpole says we may go in.’

Her father lay in a bed by the window. Through the louvres, slatted light gilded his fair head. He was only a little greyer at the temples than Belle remembered, and he didn’t look ill at all. Just a narrow strip of bandage across the forehead, and the strapping across the ribs showing at the neck of his nightshirt. The hand that lay on the coverlet looked as tanned and strong as ever.

Mamma went to the side of the bed by the window and pulled up a stool, leaving Belle the chair on the other side. Belle’s nervousness increased as she went forward and sat down, and took his hand.

Seven years, and now here she was, holding his hand. It felt warm and strong. When she touched the thick, raised vein on the back, she felt the blood pulsing beneath the skin.

Sadness welled up in her throat. This hand had picked her up when she’d fallen off her swing; it had dried her tears when Pilate the horse had trodden on her foot. This hand had helped her buckle the collar on her mastiff puppy, and held her upright when she sat her pony, Muffin, for the very first time.

As the tears rolled down her cheeks, she felt at last that she was home. How could she have stayed away so long?

After a while he turned his head, and his eyebrows drew together in a frown. Then he opened his eyes and gazed up at her.

Belle saw with a surge of joy that the light grey eyes were as bright and clear as ever. She pressed his hand. ‘Papa,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me. Belle.’

‘Belle?’

Through her tears she tried to smile. ‘Yes, Papa. Belle. Your daughter.’

The frown deepened. ‘But – you’re not my daughter,’ he said. ‘Who are you? You’re not my little girl.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

‘Just give him time,’ Ben told her as they walked on the lawns at Fever Hill. ‘The man’s recovering from a head wound. That does things to you. God knows, when I first came round, I didn’t even know who
I
was.’

Belle did not reply. After several days of drifting in and out of consciousness, Papa had finally rallied, and been pronounced out of danger. But she hadn’t been back to see him. She couldn’t bear it if he still didn’t know who she was.

‘Besides,’ said Ben, ‘in a way he was right, wasn’t he? You’re not his little girl any more.’

She threw him a startled glance.

‘You’re grown up, love. Funny thing is, it’s only happened over the past few months.’

‘What do you mean?’

He studied her, his eyepatch making him look more like a pirate than ever. ‘Something about you. A new assurance? Being out in France did you good. It’s as if at last you seem to know who you are.’

‘And I didn‘t before?’

‘What, all those years in London?’ He barked a laugh. ‘Not a chance! You were like a frightened little girl trying on disguises.’

His shrewdness took her aback. But even if he was right . . . ‘I just wish,’ she said, ‘that Papa had known who I was.’

‘He will. Just give him time.’

Two days later, she let Ben persuade her to try again.

‘In fact,’ he said as he handed her out of the motor, ‘you’re doing me a favour. Sophie’s been on at me to visit him, and I’ve been putting it off. Never liked hospitals at the best of times.’

She knew he was only saying that to make her feel better. And she wished that she wasn’t shaking so hard.

Ben pretended not to notice, and almost before she realized it they were at the bedside.

Papa was asleep. He looked the same as he had when she’d last seen him: not ill at all.

Her stomach tightened.

He opened his eyes and studied her for a moment. ‘My God, but you’ve changed.’

Belle swallowed.

Papa’s mouth curled in the almost-smile that was habitual with him. ‘I was always glad that you were so dark. Like your mother.’

Belle’s eyes began to sting. Behind her, she heard Ben get to his feet and leave the room.

She took her father’s hand. ‘How do you feel, Papa?’

He frowned slightly. ‘Oh, no tears, Belle. Please. Never could bear to see a woman cry.’

She nodded, and fumbled for her handkerchief.

‘I’m told,’ he began, ‘that on your first visit, I didn’t know who you were.’

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ she sniffed.

‘Of course it does. It’s just – you look so different. So grown-up and sophisticated.’

Belle tried to smile. Since she’d arrived in Jamaica, she’d made a conscious effort to tone down her make-up and her London grooming, so as to avoid disconcerting her mother. The fact that her father still found her ‘sophisticated’ was touching. But it also emphasized the gulf between them.

She thought about her life in London. About Osbourne and the influenza, and Cairngowrie and Adam. There was so much that Papa didn’t know.

With a pang she realized that even though he recognized her now, he still didn’t really know who she was. She had stayed away too long.

The following month, Papa came home. Dr Walpole allowed it on the strict understanding that he was to get out of bed for no more than two hours every afternoon, and then only to sit on the verandah for a change of scene.

‘Change of scene?’ growled Papa when Dr Walpole was barely out of earshot. ‘What the devil does he mean? Our bedroom looks out onto the verandah, the view’s exactly the same. If he wants me to have a change of scene, he should let me go and visit the works.’

He would have done so, too, if Mamma hadn’t put her foot down.

Once he was back, Eden became a hub of activity, with Ben and Sophie visiting daily, as well as friends and well-wishers from all over the Northside calling to pay their respects. Belle felt like an onlooker caught up in someone else’s family gathering on false pretences.

Eventually she couldn’t take it any longer, and moved out to stay with Ben and Sophie at Fever Hill, citing its proximity to Burntwood Sanatorium as an excuse.

The weeks passed.

She got on famously with Ben and Sophie, and visited Eden punctiliously twice a week.

She volunteered for work at Burntwood from Mondays to Thursdays, and was accepted with alacrity.

She befriended Dodo’s little sister Margaret, a boisterous, russet-haired fourteen-year-old with the gawky charm of a red setter puppy, who took to following her about and pestering her with questions about photography.

Finally, she mustered the courage to write to Maud. After a long delay, she received a terse note informing her that Adam was ‘on the mend’ but still couldn’t speak, and was now in the convalescent hospital at Farnborough.

March gave way to April, and April to May. Belle tried to put Adam out of her mind, and went on working at Burntwood, and visiting Eden.

She and her father were always polite and even affectionate to one another. He would ask her about Flanders and photography, while she would ask him about the estate, taking care to show that she’d paid attention to his letters over the years, and had kept up with developments. But when all that was dealt with, the silences would grow, and they’d both be relieved when she stood up to leave.

With Mamma, things were worse. In a strange way, it had been easier when Papa was in danger, because at least that had brought them together. Now that he was getting better, the old constraint had re-emerged.

‘She’s probably just a little confused,’ said Sophie as they drove towards Burntwood one morning.

Belle stared at her. ‘She hardly gives that impression. It’s almost as if she resents my being here. Or else she’s still angry with me for not getting in touch during the ’flu. Whatever it is, whenever I see her, neither of us knows what to say.’

The driver swerved to avoid a goat, and Sophie glanced back to make sure that it had survived. ‘But, Belle,’ she said, ‘that’s just an impression that she gives. You’re not the only one in the family who can act.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, think about it. She hasn’t seen you for seven years, and in all that time it was poor Sib who was more of a mother to you than she. And then when you do come home, it’s because of your father, not her; and then you end up staying not at Eden, but with us at Fever Hill. Of course she doesn’t understand it. Frankly, neither do I.’

‘Fever Hill is closer to Burntwood,’ Belle said quickly.

‘Only by a couple of miles,’ Sophie pointed out.

‘Mamma was the one who suggested that I find something to do. She was the one who suggested I help out at Burntwood.’

‘Mm,’ said Sophie.

Belle said, ‘You think I’m avoiding her.’

‘I think you’re avoiding everyone,’ said Sophie. ‘Ever since you got here you’ve cut yourself off. I can’t help wondering why.’