Authors: Sarah Rayne
A Dark Dividing (13 page)
M
EL THOUGHT IT was curious how a seemingly small event could be a catalyst, and how it could finally push you across a private and very personal Rubicon—a Rubicon with which you had been struggling for several months. Or did I cross that particular Rubicon a long time ago without noticing?
The twins were four months old when the Parliamentary seat that Joe had been hoping would fall vacant finally did fall vacant. His adoption as Party candidate for the by-election was officially announced, and he told Mel that they must give a party. There were a number of people who would be involved in the campaigning and it would be a way to thank them in advance for the work they were going to do to get him elected.
This was all perfectly reasonable; Mel had always known that if Joe really did make this bid for Westminster there would have to be entertaining and various semi-public functions, and on balance she thought she would quite enjoy it. But then Joe said, in a too-casual voice, that they might as well regard the evening as the twins’ debut as well. Mel could buy them new outfits for the occasion—the cost did not matter, well, not within reason—and Joe would get some publicity shots taken of them beforehand. Now that he thought about it, they ought to invite a few other small children as company for the twins. It would look well on photographs afterwards, what did Mel think?
What Mel thought would not actually matter, because Joe would do what he wanted, regardless of her opinion. It was becoming obvious that the party for his campaigners was already taking second place in his mind, and that he was treating the evening as a major PR exercise to bring the twins to the attention of potential voters.
This was appalling. Mel would hate it for the twins, and the twins, who were already noticing people and responding to them, would hate it as well. It was unbearable to think of them being made use of, and to imagine them cast abruptly into the midst of other children—normal children—who would not understand about them, and who might stare at them or point. And I’d stare at all those children myself and feel resentful, and wonder why I couldn’t have given birth to normal babies like those other women!
What was even worse was that this was probably only the start: Joe would thrust the twins more and more into the limelight if he thought it would further his cause. I can’t let it happen, thought Mel. I can’t.
Joe went on with his plans for the party, regretting several times that they had not yet struck out with the purchase of a larger house which would create a much better impression, although perhaps it was better not to appear ostentatious or nouveau-riche, there was nothing more calculated to put people’s backs up. What had Mel bought to wear for the evening—? Oh my word, very dashing. Rather a bright green though, wasn’t it? Still, if she thought she could carry it off—And doubtless she would find other occasions to wear the dress again so as to get the full value of the cost, would she? And what would the twins be wearing? Oh—pale green for Simone and pale blue for Sonia? Well, doubtless Mel knew best, but he had always thought that pink was the prettiest colour for little girls. Nonsense, their hair was not red at all, or only the merest hint; a nice sugar-pink would have been very suitable. You had to think how colours would come out in black-and-white press photographs. Was it too late to exchange the outfits at the shop?
Martin Brannan and the paediatrician had given the twins an almost-clean bill of health. Weight gain was on course; heart, lungs, kidneys were all working properly for both the babies. The twins’ responses to stimuli were excellent—it was already apparent that Simone liked bright colours and Sonia liked sounds—and they were taking bright-eyed notice of the world around them, enjoying being talked to or sung to.
‘Start giving them as normal a life as you can from now on,’ Martin said to Mel. ‘Take them out and about; let’s toughen them up a bit. Wrap them up so that they aren’t especially noticeable—we don’t want them stared at by voyeurs—but let them get used to people and noise and shops and traffic. They mustn’t live in a glass cage.’
Mel reported all this to Joe, and then, striving to keep her voice ordinary, said, ‘They’d like to start assembling the surgical team for the operation. It’ll take a little while to do that—to get the right people together all at the same time—but if they start the preparations now Martin Brannan thinks the separation can probably be done before Christmas.’
‘Not a very pleasant time for a hospital stay,’ said Joe. ‘Two babies spending their first Christmas in a hospital bed—’
‘They’d be home well in time for Christmas.’
‘Even so, I think we’ll leave things as they are. Certainly until after the by-election.’
His dismissive tone was so maddening that Mel had to beat down anger before replying. Then she said, ‘We can’t leave it much beyond six months. They’re being very clear about that. Joe, I know you’ve got qualms, but I was hoping you’d have come round to the idea by now.’ Pause. ‘You haven’t though, have you?’
‘No.’ This time there was no explanation, no it-is-God’s-will stuff.
‘That’s a pity,’ said Mel slowly. ‘I was hoping you would reconsider. It would be much better if you would.’
Martin Brannan had said the twins must not live inside a glass cage, but if Joe had his way they might be imprisoned in that cage for most of their lives.
Had any other mothers of conjoined twins faced such a dilemma? There had certainly been a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century parents who had sold their children to freak shows—and how akin to that was Joe’s behaviour now? It was rather disturbing to see parallels but Mel did see them. Still, most of the parents she had read about had seemed to be ordinary, more-or-less honourable men and women, who suffered agonies at their children’s condition and would do anything to ensure normal lives for them.
What about Charlotte Quinton, so briefly mentioned in just one of the books on conjoined twins? Charlotte’s twins had been born at the very end of the Victorian era, but the books did no more than list her name so there was no way of knowing whether her twins had survived, or, if they had, where or how they had lived. Mel kept wondering about Charlotte; probably because there had been just that brief, tantalizing reference to her and then nothing else. It made her a slightly mysterious, rather romantic figure.
It was actually quite odd that Charlotte’s twins did not seem to have been written about in any more detail—or was it? Perhaps they had died and there was no story to tell. Or perhaps there was a story but it had been kept from the public, or simply not been thought sufficiently interesting. Or, twisting things around the other way, perhaps the story had been so interesting that Charlotte had left the country. Changed her name, and disappeared—
Changed her name and disappeared…
Thank you, Charlotte, said Mel silently. Whatever happened to you and your twins, I think you’ve been instrumental in showing me what I’ve got to do.
Charlotte Quinton’s diaries:
31st January 1900
Breakfast with Mother and Father always a slightly peculiar event since marriage. Frequently feel relegated to maiden status again, and at times as if I have been summarily picked up and carried, willy-nilly, back into childhood.
But life here almost exactly as it always has been. Mother fussing over local politics—church fête, Lady Somebody’s musical evening, worried because Queen’s health giving concern—although what can you expect at her age, but such a pity if she dies in the summer with all the garden parties and people having to wear black, so unbecoming in hot weather…
Father tutting over world politics—Mafeking and Ladysmith in a fine old pickle although shouldn’t believe all you read, damned newspaper fellows will tell you anything… Anglo-German alliance doomed, mark his words, that man von Bulow no use to them as Chancellor…
My two young sisters, just starting to be emancipated from the schoolroom, are allowed down to dinner now except when guests are invited. They giggle together over fashion books, and secretly play ragtime jazz on the piano when Father is not around… Caroline has learnt the steps of the mazurka, and promises to teach me…
I found it all extraordinarily restful.
After breakfast told Mother that Maisie was thinking of taking post in a church orphanage in North London because she wanted to help children. Said I thought of going out to Mortmain to let her see the children there.
Felt dreadfully guilty because Mother, dear unsuspecting soul, thought this so thoughtful and responsible of me—dear Charlotte—and remarked that kitchen-maids were unfailingly ungrateful, always wanting to leave just when you had trained them to be properly useful, although one could hardly object to such a worthy ambition on Maisie’s part.
‘And although I believe there are certainly orphaned children in Mortmain, they say that a good many of the other inhabitants are a touch wanting, poor souls,’ she said lowering her voice, and then went on to remind me not to bother Edward with tittle-tattle about servants, since gentlemen never want to hear that kind of talk.
It’s a remarkable thing, but I only have to be back in this house for half a day before all of Mother’s precepts come flooding back. ‘Gentlemen like to talk about their own interests and to be listened to without interruption…’ ‘A lady never makes a scene…’ ‘Do not respond or react if someone is impolite enough to make a coarse remark in your hearing…’
I told Mother that Edward never takes any interest in servants anyway, and only interested in dinner being on time and house decently clean.
(Note: Not sure this is entirely true, since just before leaving London, caught Edward eyeing Maisie’s replacement, who’s a bit of a sauce-box, I suspect.)
Mother then asked after Edward, and dutifully inquired about his mother, whom she cannot bear although we have to pretend otherwise.
So
comforting to hear Mamma being teeth-grittingly polite about the old bat.
Have been offered the use of the trap for the expedition to Mortmain, with Griggs to drive it—‘Since you are bound to still feel in delicate health, Charlotte’—but I have said we do not need Griggs. Admittedly I have not driven pony-trap since marrying Edward, but do not think it’s something one forgets.
Hope Mortmain House, close to, is not as forbidding as it looks from the road.
Later
Mortmain House is more forbidding close to than it looks from the road, in fact think it is the ugliest, most evil-humoured house I have ever seen.
We had to leave the trap on the roadside, with the pony loosely tethered to a tree, and then walk up the steep track. So much for delicate health!
The closer we got to the house, the more I began to entertain serious doubts as to my plan for the daisie’s baby, because this did not look in the least like a place where a helpless child ought to be left, in fact it did not look like a place where anyone ought to be left. If Floy had been here he would have started to spin dark fantastical tales about the place and its occupants, and about the old trees with their knurled trunks that looked as if faces leered out from them, but I only saw the unsightliness of the black stones, and the smearily dirty windowpanes, and the unkempt bushes and unweeded paths.
But managed to assume cheerful manner for Maisie (who was looking more terrified by the minute), and said it was a great mistake to judge anything by its appearance: once inside, house most likely very cheerful and bright.
She did not believe me of course, and do not blame her. Bad enough to be facing prospect of giving birth to fatherless child, without prospect of leaving the poor mite in this gloomy place. Hope fishmonger’s assistant was worth all this, but seriously doubt it.
The thick shrubbery screened quite a lot of the house’s front and probably made most of the downstairs rooms horridly dark, although at least somebody had clipped parts of the bushes into a semblance of tidiness. But as we approached I had the eerie feeling that we had taken a wrong turning somewhere, Maisie and I, and that we had stepped out of our own Time and into a wholly different one. Remembered how I had once wished for a pathway into the future, so that I could foresee awkward situations and sidestep them, and half-wondered whether I had unwittingly found one this afternoon. Found this disturbing, but the most disturbing part was not that we might have stumbled out of our own Time (read Mr Wells’s excellent book last year and would love to travel through Time, although not quite as far as the characters in
The Time Machine
did!). No, the eerie part was that I could not tell if it was the Past or the Present we might have stumbled into.
There was no door knocker, so I used my furled umbrella (v. useful thing, a furled umbrella), and rapped smartly on the door. We waited. And waited. The minutes ticked by and I was just thinking that if this was the Future it was not very efficient, when Maisie said, ‘There’s smoke coming from the chimneys, mum.’
‘Where? Oh yes, so there is. Then I daresay it’s simply that they didn’t hear our knock. It’s a big house, after all. I think we’ll try the door, Maisie; we’re here on perfectly legitimate business.’ On reflection, do not think the word ‘legitimate’ entirely tactful, given circumstances, but Maisie did not seem to notice.
So I reached out to the vast iron ring-handle, and turned it. It protested a bit, and then it turned on its moorings, and I pushed open the door.
The hinges shrieked like a thousand banshees in torment, and once we had stepped inside the heavy old door swung back on itself, thudding into place like a tombstone being displaced on Judgement Day, and if that was the sound the inhabitants of Mortmain had to put up with every time anyone came in or went out, am not surprised that some of them are, as Mother phrased it, a touch wanting.
As the door closed we both froze, expecting people to instantly appear and demand to know our business, but nothing moved anywhere. There was a lingering smell of mildew and mice and everywhere was rather dark, with a dismal, depressed gloom that made me feel as if we had gone into a tunnel. But after a moment my eyes adjusted, and I could see that we were in a good-sized hall with some nice old panelling covering the walls, although it was a shame that no one had bothered to polish or even dust it. Several doors opened off the hall, and there was a wide staircase at the back, with sagging shallow treads and a beautiful carved banister.
Whoever had built the original Mortmain House had clearly been a person of some discernment. Have a half-memory of Father once saying that it was some seventeenth-century squire who speculated in one of the South Sea Bubble schemes and lost all his money, poor man, although Father never had much sympathy with unwise speculation, not the behaviour of a gentleman and think yourself lucky, Charlotte, that Edward so very reliable when it comes to financial affairs.
‘We’ll take a look round,’ I said firmly to Maisie.
Now I admit that this was not the most sensible decision, in fact writing this entry in the privacy of my old bedroom (marvellous not to have to share a bed with Edward for a while!), I will freely admit that it was the action of a fool.
But we went in, Maisie and I, Folly and Innocence hand in hand into the lions’ den or the devil’s lair, whichever it was, and I called out to know if anyone was here. (‘Always be polite, Charlotte, no matter the circumstances…’) A horrid echo of my voice came back at us, exactly as if the place might be empty after all, and the poor little daisie cringed with fright. (Brought up in East End, one of a family of fourteen, and not used to so much empty space.) So to bolster up her courage (to say nothing of my own), I said we would take a look round.
Mortmain is a terrible place. The walls are damp and everywhere smells disgusting, and we had to step over puddles on the floors where the condensation had dripped off. At least, I pretended it was condensation—alternative explanations too revolting to contemplate. There’s a maze of dark, dank corridors that immediately made me think about the labyrinth where the minotaur lived, arrogantly demanding a feast of virgin once a year. (Why are monsters in fables nearly always male, I wonder, and why was it always virgins they wanted?)
As we went through the corridors we kept hearing the clatter of crockery from somewhere unidentifiable and invisible, and several times we caught the scents of food cooking. Not very nice food from the smell of it either, in fact boiled cabbage and Lenten pottage if you ask me, but it was a note of domesticity that ought to have been cheering (something reassuringly down-to-earth about boiled cabbage). But it was not cheering at all, because every time we tried to go towards the sounds, thinking to at least find sculleries if we did not find anything else, we seemed to go deeper into the gloom. Like a nightmare where you can see the place you want to reach but you never manage to get close to it. I began to wonder if we should have brought a ball of twine with us, or at the very least a stick of charcoal to mark the blind alleys.
Was just thinking that in spite of boiled cabbage Mortmain must have been abandoned, when we rounded a corner where two corridors converged, and without warning saw a child. At first I thought it was a patch of shadow but then it moved and I saw that it was a child of perhaps ten years old. And the pity of it was that I could not at first tell if it was a boy or a girl, so thin and so raggedly clad and shorn-haired was it.
‘Intruders?’ said the little creature. ‘Come to view us, have you?’ It was not quite the local accent, but there was a faint lilt that reminded me that we were almost in Wales and that the Welsh make the most beautiful music, and I could not help thinking how, under different circumstances, this rough, suspicious little voice might have sung the wonderful Welsh ballads and love songs and war laments.
I said, as gently as I could, ‘Certainly we have not come to view you. Only to visit. To see what kind of place this is.’
The child considered us, head on one side, and I suddenly ached to reach out to it, and hug some warmth into its suspicious face, and ruffle its short hair into silky curls and tell it that the world was a good place outside these walls. Did not do so, of course. Could hear Mother’s shocked voice saying, But it might have
fleas
, Charlotte, or headlice. Did not much care if it had both, but had to fight sudden rush of emotion, and remind myself very firmly that if Viola and Sorrel had lived their childhoods would have been very different from this! Stupid way to think! Still, for several minutes I had to struggle not to show my feelings—‘A lady never makes a scene, Charlotte.’
