The thirteenth tale (49 page)

Swiftly, powerfully, the boy took the bird out of my grasp and
in a single movement he had done it.

He held the body out to me; I forced myself to take it. Warm,
heavy, still.

The sun shone on his hair as he looked at me. His look was worse
than the claws, worse than the beating wings. Worse than the limp body in my
hands.

Without a word he turned his back and walked away.

What good was the boy to me? My heart was not mine to give; it
belonged to another, and always had. I loved Emmeline.

I believe that Emmeline loved me, too. Only she loved Adeline
more. It is a painful thing to love a twin. When Adeline was there, Emmeline’s
heart was full. She had no need of me, and I was left on the outside, a
cast-off, a superfluity, a mere observer of the twins and their twinness.

Only when Adeline went roaming alone was there space in Emmeline’s
heart for another. Then her sorrow was my joy. Little by little I coaxed her
away from her loneliness, offering gifts of silver thread and shiny baubles,
until she almost forgot she had been abandoned and gave herself over to the
friendship and companionship I could offer. By a fire we played cards, sang,
talked. Together we were happy.

Until Adeline came back. Furious with cold and hunger, she would
come raging into the house, and the instant she was there, our world of two
came to an end, and I was on the outside again.

It wasn’t fair. Though Adeline beat her and pulled her hair,
Emmeline loved her. Though Adeline abandoned her, Emmeline loved her.

Whatever Adeline did, it altered nothing, for Emmeline’s love
was total. And me? My hair was copper like Adeline’s. My eyes were green like
Adeline’s. In the absence of Adeline, I could fool anyone. But I never fooled
Emmeline. Her heart knew the truth.

Emmeline had her baby in January.

No one knew. As she had grown bigger, so she had grown lazier;
it was no hardship for her to keep to the confines of the house. She was
content to stay inside, yawning in the library, the kitchen, her bedroom. Her
retreat was not noticed. Why should it have been? The only visitor to the house
was Mr. Lomax; he came on regular days at regular hours. Easy as pie to have
her out of the way by the time he knocked on the door.

Our contact with other people was slight. For meat and
vegetables we were self-sufficient—I never learned to like killing chickens,
but I learned to do it. As for other provisions, I went to the farm in person
to collect cheese and milk, and when once a week the shop sent a boy on a
bicycle with our other requirements, I met him on the drive and carried the
basket to the house myself. I thought it would be a sensible precaution to have
another twin seen by someone at least from time to time. Once, when Adeline
seemed calm enough, I gave her the coin and sent her to meet the boy on the
bicycle. “It was the other one today,” I imagined him saying, back at the shop.
“The weird one.” And I wondered what the doctor would make of it if the boy’s
account reached his ears. But it soon grew impossible to use Adeline like this
again. Emmeline’s pregnancy affected her twin curiously: For the first time in
her life she discovered an appetite. From being a scrawny bag of bones, she
developed plump curves and full breasts. There were times—in half-light, from
certain angles—when for a moment even I could not tell them apart. So from time
to time on a Wednesday morning, I would be Adeline. I would mess my hair, grime
my nails, set my face into a tight, agitated mask and go down the drive to meet
the boy on the bicycle. Seeing the speed of my gait as I came down the gravel
drive to meet him, he would know it was the other one. I could see his fingers
curl anxiously around his handlebars. Watching me surreptitiously, he handed
over the basket, then he pocketed his tip and was glad to bicycle away. The
following week, when he was met by me as myself, his smile had a touch of
relief in it.

Hiding the pregnancy was not difficult. But I was troubled
during those months of waiting about the birth itself. I knew what the dangers
of labor might be. Isabelle’s mother had not survived her second labor, and I
could not put this thought out of my head for more than a few hours at a time.
That Emmeline should suffer, that her life should be put in danger—this was
unthinkable. On the other hand, the doctor had been no friend of ours and I did
not want him at the house. He had seen Isabelle and taken her away. That could
not be allowed to happen to Emmeline. He had separated Emmeline and Adeline.
That could not be allowed to happen to Emmeline and me. Besides, how could he
come without there being immediate complications? And although he had been
persuaded, though he did not understand it, that the girl in the mist had
broken through the carapace of the mute rag-doll Adeline who had once spent
several months with him, if he were once to realize that there were three girls
at Angelfield House, he would immediately see the truth of the affair. For a
single visit, for the birth itself, I could lock Adeline in the old nursery,
and we might get away with it. But once it was known there was a baby in the
house, there would be no end of visits. It would be impossible to keep our
secret.

I was well aware of the fragility of my position. I knew I
belonged here, I knew it was my place. I had no home but Angelfield, no love
but Emmeline, no life but this one here, yet I was under no illusions about how
tenuous my claim would seem to others. What friends did I have? The doctor
could hardly be expected to speak up for me, and though Mr. Lomax was kind to
me now, once he knew I had impersonated Adeline, it was inevitable that his attitude
would alter. Emmeline’s affection for me and mine for her would count as
nothing.

Emmeline herself, ignorant and placid, let the days of her
confinement pass by untroubled. For me the time was spent in an agony of
indecision. How to keep Emmeline safe? How to keep myself safe? Every day I put
off the decision to the next. During the first months I felt sure the solution
would come to me in time. Had I not resolved everything else, against the odds?
Then this, too, could be arranged. But as the time grew nearer, the problem
grew more urgent and I was no nearer a decision. I veered in the space of a
minute between grabbing my coat to go to the doctor’s house, there and then, to
tell him everything, and the contrary thought: that to do so was to reveal myself,
and that to reveal myself could only lead to my banishment. Tomorrow, I told
myself, as I replaced my coat on the hook. I will think of something tomorrow.

But then it was too late for tomorrow.

I woke to a cry. Emmeline!

But it was not Emmeline. Emmeline was huffing and panting; like
a beast she snorted and sweated; her eyes bulged and she showed her teeth, but
she did not cry out. She ate her pain and it turned to strength inside her. The
cry that had woken me, and the cries that continued to resound all around the
house, were not hers but Adeline’s, and they did not cease till morning, when
Emmeline’s infant, a boy, was delivered.

It was the seventh of January.

Emmeline slept; she smiled in her sleep.

I bathed the baby. He opened his eyes and goggled, astounded by
the touch of the warm water.

The sun rose.

The time for decisions had come and gone, and no decision had
been made, yet here we were, on the other side of disaster, and we were safe.

My life could go on.

FIRE

Miss Winter seemed to sense the arrival of Judith, for when the
housekeeper looked around the edge of the door, she found us in silence. She
had brought me cocoa on a tray but also offered to replace me if I wanted to
sleep. I shook my head. “I’m all right, thanks.”

Miss Winter also refused when Judith reminded her she could take
more of the white tablets if she needed them.

When Judith was gone, Miss Winter closed her eyes again.

‘How is the wolf?“ I asked.

‘Quiet in the corner,“ she said. ”Why shouldn’t he be? He is
certain of his victory. So he’s content to bide his time. He knows I’m not
going to make a fuss. We’ve agreed to terms.“

‘What terms?“

‘He is going to let me finish my story, and then I am going to
let him finish me.“

She told me the story of the fire, while the wolf counted down
the words.

I had never given a great deal of thought to the baby before he
arrived. I had considered the practical aspects of hiding a baby in the house,
certainly, and I had a plan for his future. If we could keep him secret for a
time, my intention was to allow his presence to be known later. Though it would
no doubt be whispered about, he could be introduced as the orphan child of a
distant member of the family, and if people chose to wonder about his exact
parentage, they were free to do so; nothing they could do would force us to
reveal the truth. When making these plans, I had envisaged the baby as a
difficulty that needed to be resolved. I had not taken into account that he was
my flesh and blood. I had not expected to love him.

He was Emmeline’s, that was reason enough. He was Ambrose’s.
That was a subject I did not dwell on. But he was also mine. I marveled at his
pearly skin, at the pink jut of his lips, at the tentative movements of his
tiny hands. The ferocity of my desire to protect him overwhelmed me: I wanted
to protect him for Emmeline’s sake, to protect her for his sake, to protect the
two of them for myself. Watching him and Emmeline together, I could not drag my
eyes away. They were beautiful. My one desire was to keep them safe. And I soon
learned that they needed a guardian to keep them safe.

Adeline was jealous of the baby. More jealous than she had been
of Hester, more jealous than of me. It was only to be expected: Emmeline had
been fond of Hester, she loved me, but neither of these affections had touched
the supremacy of her feeling for Adeline. But the baby… ah, the baby was
different. The baby usurped all.

I should not have been surprised at the extent of Adeline’s
hatred. I knew how ugly her anger could be, had witnessed the extent of her
violence. Yet the day I first understood the lengths she might go to, I could
scarcely believe it. Passing Emmeline’s bedroom, I silently pushed the door
open to see if she was still sleeping. I found Adeline in the room, leaning
over the crib by the bed, and something in her posture alarmed me. Hearing my
step, she started, then turned and rushed past me out of the room. In her hands
she clutched a small cushion.

I felt compelled to dash to the cot. The infant was sleeping
soundly, hand curled by his ear, breathing his light, delicate baby breath.

Safe!

Until next time.

I began to spy on Adeline. My old days of haunting came in
useful again as from behind curtains and yew trees I watched her. There was a
randomness in her actions; indoors or outdoors, taking no notice of the time of
day or the weather, she engaged in meaningless, repeated actions. She was
obeying dictates that were outside my understanding. But gradually one activity
came particularly to my attention. Once, twice, three times a day, she came to
the coach house and left it again, carrying a can of petrol with her each time.
She took the can to the drawing room, or the library or the garden. Then she
would seem to lose interest. She knew what she was doing, but distantly, half
forgetful. When she wasn’t looking I took the cans away. Whatever did she make
of the disappearing cans? She must have thought they had some animus of their
own, that they could move about at will. Or perhaps she took her memories of
moving them for dreams or plans yet to be realized. Whatever the reason, she
did not seem to find it strange that they were not where she had left them. Yet
despite the waywardness of the petrol cans, she persisted in fetching them from
the coach house, and secreting them in various places around the house.

I seemed to spend half my day returning the cans to the coach
louse. But one day, not wanting to leave Emmeline and the baby asleep and
unprotected, I put one instead in the library. Out of sight, behind he books,
on an upper shelf. And it occurred to me that perhaps this was a better place.
Because, by always returning them to the coach house, all I was doing was
ensuring that it would go on forever. A merry-go-round. By removing them from
the circuit altogether, perhaps I might put an end to the rigmarole.

Watching her tired me out, but she! She never tired. A little
sleep went a long way with her. She could be up and about at any hour of the night.
And I was getting sleepy. One day, in the early evening, Emmeline went to bed.
The boy was in his cot in her room. He’d been colicky, awake and wailing all
day, but now, feeling better, he slept soundly.

I drew the curtains.

It was time to go and check on Adeline. I was tired of always
being vigilant. Watching Emmeline and her child while they slept, watching
Adeline while they were awake, I hardly slept at all. How peaceful it was in
the room. Emmeline’s breathing, slowing me down, relaxing me. And alongside it,
the light touch of air that was the baby breathing. I remember listening to
them, the harmony of it, thinking how tranquil it was, thinking of a way of
describing it—that was how I always entertained myself, the putting into words
of things I saw and heard—and I thought I would have to describe how the
breathing seemed to penetrate me, take over my breath, as though we were all
part of the same thing, me and Emmeline and our baby, all three one breath. It
took hold of me, this idea, and I felt myself drifting off with them, into
sleep.