The Morning Gift (52 page)

But, of course, Penelope did come in, concerned for her motherhood, and within minutes the boys were at each other's throats and Thisbe was lying on the floor drumming her heels. Too many sages had made their way into Penelope Hartley's head: Rudolf Steiner who said children should not learn to read till their milk teeth were shed; the Sufi chieftain who set Penelope to her meditations instead of the washing up; A. S. Neill with his child-centered education. The poor, confused children of Penelope Hartley were so child-centered that they almost imploded each night in the confines of the tiny cottage - and tonight, as so often before, Ruth who was supposed to finish her work at seven, carried Thisbe upstairs and eased her into her nappies and sat with her till she slept.

And then the long evening began when she went to her attic under the eaves which was at least her own and looked out at the darkness and the rain, and longed for her mother and the lore and certainties of her own childhood and the painted cradle, now splintered wood, in which her baby should have lain.

But she wouldn't yield. It wasn't so long now - less than two months. She would see it through on her own.
Not whose I am, but who I am, there lies my search…
The lines of some half-remembered poem ran again through her head.

Only who
was
she? Someone who had loved and been rejected; a daughter who had caused her parents disappointment and pain… and now, soon, a mother who knew nothing.

And yet she had no regrets. She blamed no one, not even Verena, hissing her ultimatum in the cloakroom, threatening to expose her condition unless she left Thameside then and there, and for ever. In a way Verena had done her a service, bringing home the contempt and disgust with which the world might now regard her state. If her father, so strict, so upright, had turned his back on her as a fallen woman, Ruth couldn't have borne if. she'd have revealed the marriage and then it would have all have begun… finding Quin, letting him know… begging for a place in his life… And Verena had kept her own side of the bargain; no one at college knew what had happened or where she was.

Nor had Quin carried her dreamily from his sofa to his bed. He had said: 'Wait; there are things to be attended to.' He had said it very gently, very lovingly, cupping her face in his hands, but firmly: he had begun to leave her, and it was she who had clung on to him and said: 'No, no, you mustn't go!'… because even then she couldn't bear to be away from him. 'It's absolutely safe,' she'd said. 'It's my completely safe time; I
know
because of Dr Felton's wife and the thermometers. It's as safe as houses!'

She hadn't been lying; she'd believed it and he'd believed her. Only houses, these days, were not so very safe: houses in Guernica and Canton and Warsaw toppled like cards as bombs fell on them, and she'd been wrong. She'd been a whole week out in her calculations and that was another mark chalked up to Fraulein Lutzenholler and Professor Freud. She wasn't usually sloppy about dates - it was that damnable thing way below the level of reason which all along had wanted nothing except to belong to this one man.

And even now, an official 'unmarried mother' from whom the older villagers averted their eyes, even now when Quin had unmistakably rejected her, there was, deep down below the anxiety and fear for the future, an unquenchable sense of joy because she was carrying his child.

Only the child itself had lately disconcerted her. This fishlike creature still unable to breathe or eat except by her decree, had developed a will of its own. Ruth did not need the doctors in the antenatal clinic to which she travelled once a fortnight on innumerable buses, to tell her that her baby was fit and well, but what about its mental state - its obstinacy? It disagreed completely with Ruth's careful plans and was profoundly uninterested in her voyage of self-discovery.

Bowmont is only sixty miles away, it said, twisting its foot merrily round her spinal nerves.
You
may be an upstart and an outcast, but
I'm
half a Somerville.

I want, it said, my home.

At the end of November, Leonie received a visit from Mrs Burtt who had left the Willow to work in a munitions factory and was greatly missed by the customers. Smartly dressed in a new brown coat and a hat with a feather, she was carrying a small parcel wrapped in silver paper and seemed a little shy and tentative which was not her usual state.

'I'm sorry to be bothering you,' she said, 'but… well, I thought you wouldn't mind; you wouldn't take it amiss.'

'How could I do this?' asked Leonie. 'I am very happy to see you.'

She led Mrs Burtt into the sitting room, in which one could actually sit once more now that the piano had been sent back, and offered coffee which Mrs Burtt refused.

'I don't want to pry,' she said, after asking rather oddly if they would be undisturbed. 'But well, I really like her, you know, and people sometimes say things, but I know Ruth is as good as they make them. And her going off like that to have it on her own… well, it's like her. Not wanting to bother anyone. But I want her to know that whatever she's done I know she's a good girl and I'd like you to give this to her. Afterwards. Not before, because that's bad luck, but when it's all over. I knitted it myself.'

She laid the parcel on the table, and Leonie, who was having trouble with her breathing, stretched out her hand, 'May I see?' she said.

Mrs Burtt removed the wrapping paper. Pride shone for a moment on her face. 'Took me hours, that did. It's a brute of a pattern. It's those scallops, see? But it's come out nice, hasn't it? I kept it white to be on the safe side, but she can put a blue ribbon through it or a pink when it's all over.'

Leonie was still having difficulty with the business of drawing air into her lungs. 'Thank you - she will be so pleased. It is the most beautiful jacket. I will see that she has it… and tell her… what you have said.'

Mrs Burtt nodded. 'I don't want to know any more now,' she said. 'It's not my business. Just to know she's all right and the baby's safe.'

Leonie, swallowing the unbearable hurt her daughter had done her, said: 'Did she tell you… herself… about the baby?'

Mrs Burtt shook her head 'Bless you, no. She's no blabber. But I was one of four daughters and I've three girls of my own. I guessed soon enough. There's ways of being sick that's a bug in the tummy and there's ways that isn't. And she got so tired. I came out with it and I think it was a relief she could talk to someone.'

'And… where she was going… her plans? Did she tell you about that?'

'No. And I didn't ask her. I knew it wasn't Heini that was the father, so there wasn't any more for me to say.'

Leonie lifted her head. 'How did you know?' she asked.

'Well, you could see she didn't love 'im, couldn't you? Tried too hard all the time… And if it wasn't him, I wasn't going to go nosing around.'

'I didn't see… as well as you,' said Leonie out of her deep despair.

Mrs Burtt's work-roughened hand rested for a moment on her own. 'You was so close, the two of you,' she said. 'You loved her so much. It's a real killer, love is, if you want to see.'

Left alone, Leonie sat as still as a statue, holding the exquisite, tiny garment in her hands. Ruth had not trusted her. She had confided in a lady who washed dishes and not in her. She had gone off alone.

Professor Berger, returning home, found her still in a state of shock.

'What has happened, Leonie? What have you got there?'

'It's a baby's jacket.' She traced the scallops on the collar, the lacy frill, with blind fingers. 'Mrs Burtt brought it for Ruth.'

She watched as her husband's face changed; saw the incredulity, the dismay… then the tightness of anger,

'My God, that scoundrel, Heini. I'll
force
him to marry her,' he said furiously.

'Oh, Kurt, it isn't Heini's child. If it was she'd have gone with him.'

This was worse. His beloved, protected daughter a fallen woman, the bearer of an unknown child. Pitying him as he paced the room, Leonie had no energy to retrieve him from his conventional hell of moral outrage. What is it I have not understood? she thought. What is it that is missing here? And if I was right all along, how could it have come to this?

The doorbell rang, shrill and insistent. Neither of the Bergers moved.

'What are you going to do?' asked the Professor — and the sudden helplessness of this proud man did touch her.

'I'll tell you what I'm going to do,' she began.

A second ring… and now Fraulein Lutzenholler's door could be heard opening, and her indignant footsteps as she made her way downstairs. The easing of laws against refugees at the onset of hostilities meant she was allowed to practise her profession and, incredible as it seemed, people came to her room and paid to have her listen. Answering the doorbell would annoy this exalted person very much.

She returned, as displeased as Leonie had anticipated, and with her was a red-faced man in some kind of uniform.

'It's the rodent officer,' said Fraulein Lutzenholler - and as Leonie stared blankly at this man she had awaited with hope and passion for month after month: 'He has come about the mice.'

'Oh, yes… thank you…' Leonie rose, tried to collect herself.

'Please go where you will. They are everywhere. The kitchen is bad… and the back bedroom.'

'That's all right, ma'am. I'll just get on with it. Looks like a sizable infestation you have here - I may have to take up some boards.'

He left the room and they could hear him moving about, tapping the walls, opening cupboards.

'I'll tell you what I'm going to do,' said Leonie, turning back to her husband. 'I'm going to take Ruth's letter to the post office and make them tell me where it comes from and then I'm going to go there and find her. And when I have found her I'm going to bring her back here and look after her and after my grandchild. And if the father's a chimney sweep I'm going to do it.' She swallowed. 'Even if he is a
Nazi
chimney sweep, because if Ruth gave herself to him it's because she loved him and she is my blood and yours also, so you will please
not -
'

A knock at the door and the rodent officer reappeared.

'I found this under the boards in the back room,' he said - and deposited on the table a large, square biscuit tin covered in mouse droppings and adorned with a picture of the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose patting a corgi dog.

She had come by bus as far as Alnwick, but there were eight miles still to go before she reached Bowmont. She'd have walked it easily enough in the old days, but not now, and she spent some of her meagre stock of money on a taxi as far as the village. It would have made sense to be set down by the house itself, but she couldn't face that. She didn't want to sweep up as a claimant - it was sanctuary she sought at Bowmont, not her rights.

The driver was worried; she had a suitcase, the afternoon was grey and chill, but she reassured him.

'I'll be all right,' she said. 'I need some air.'

She certainly looked as though she needed something, thought the driver, turning his cab, watching the bundled figure in its shabby cape set off up the hill.

There was nobody about and that was a blessing; there might have been people who recognized her and till she knew her fate she wanted to speak to no one. And her fate depended on a ferocious old woman known for her sharp temper and her strict and old-fashioned views.

'I hope you're satisfied,' she said bitterly, addressing her unborn child. She had fought a long battle, pitting her pride and independence against the creature's blind, stubborn thrust towards what it considered to be its home, and she had lost. Now, trudging up the hill, she tried to face the consequences of rejection. Where would she go if she was turned away? It was growing dark, she could hardly go back to Penelope whose advice she had ignored… whom, in a sense, she had left in the lurch. She was mad, coming here like this at the eleventh hour.

'Oh God, why did I listen? she thought, for the sense of dialogue between herself and the child had been with her from the start.

But she knew why. Even now, in the bitter cold of a raw December day with the storm clouds massing in the west and the light withdrawing itself in readiness for an endless winter night, she walked through a heart-stopping beauty, The wind-tossed trees, the tumble and thrust of the waves against the cliffs and Bowmont's tower etched against a violet sky, brought a sudden mist of tears to her eyes — and that was not very sensible nor very practical. She had to find her way, not stumble, for she was not alone.

Yet memories, as she made her way up the last stretch of road, came unbidden to weaken her further. The incredible clarity of the stars; the dazzling silver of the morning sea the first time she had walked towards it; the enfolding, unexpected warmth and fragrance of the garden — and she thought that if she was sent away again she would not know how to bear it.

She was on the gravel drive now and still she had encountered no one. Then as she reached the steps and put down her suitcase, she knew with certainty that her quest would fail. Aunt Frances hated refugees, she hated foreigners; she belonged to a bygone age. There was no sanctuary here, no safety, no hope.

She could hear the clang of the bell echoing inside the house. Would Turton even announce her, seeing her state? She belonged at the back door or in one of those dark genre paintings of banished women staggering out into the night.

The bolt was drawn back slowly… so slowly that Ruth would have had time to turn away down the steps.

'Yes? What is it?'

It was not Turton who stood there, not any of the servants. It was Aunt Frances herself, barring the way, showing no welcome, no inclination to move aside - not even when she recognized who it was that stood on her threshold.

'What on earth are you doing here?' she went on, horrified. 'This is no place for you!'

Ruth drew breath, lifted her head.
Not I, but thou…
She must fight for her child. But the words she brought out were halting, inadequate; she was suddenly so exhausted that she could hardly stand.