Poverty Castle (16 page)

After what they considered a reasonable interval – it was about twenty minutes – they went to Diana's room. Effie put her head in. ‘Finished your homework yet?'

‘I've hardly started.'

‘Oh. Well, we've read the letter and we want you to read it and tell us what you think.'

‘Good heavens, what's the hurry?'

‘You're being very aggravating, Diana Sempill.'

Behind her the others made noises of agreement. ‘We think he wants us to write to him. We don't know if we should.'

‘There's no law against it.'

‘We know that. We want your advice. He's got a pet white mouse. We think he calls it Diana or Di, after you.'

‘Thanks very much. I've always wanted to have a white mouse called after me.'

‘He doesn't say what its name is. We think he was too shy.'

‘Oh, come in, all of you. I can see I'll get no peace until I've read this wretched letter.'

They hurried in and sat on chair or bed or floor. They hadn't expected her to shed tears of joy but her impassiveness vexed and disappointed them.

‘Well?' asked Jeanie.

‘Well what?'

‘What do you think? Should we write and cheer him up?'

‘It's considered impolite not to answer a letter.'

‘What will we say?' asked Effie.

‘I'm sure you'll think of something.'

‘I'll tell him about Dominie Sampson,' said Rebecca. That was her white rabbit. She herself had given him the name. Her sisters didn't think it suited him at all.

‘Should we write one letter, signed by us all?' asked Jeanie. ‘Or should each of us write one of our own?'

‘Please yourselves,' said Diana.

‘I think each of us should write one of our own,' said Effie.

Her three sisters agreed. Diana was pretending to be back at her homework.

‘Will we let each other see what we've written?' asked Jeanie.

‘I don't mind anybody seeing mine,' said Effie.

‘Letters are supposed to be private,' remarked Diana.

‘I vote we show what we've written,' said Effie. She put up her hand. Jeanie and Rowena put up theirs.

‘You can't take a vote on a thing like that,' said Diana.

‘Why not?' said Effie. ‘That's democracy, isn't it?'

‘If one of us wants her letter to be private she's got a right.'

‘She wants to write a love letter,' said Effie.

‘As a matter of fact I might not bother to write at all. But you'll have to get it into your heads that you can't take a vote on everything.'

‘We've always done it before,' said Jeanie.

‘We were all children then.'

It was another indication that Diana had left them and gone over to the grown-ups.

R
EBECCA
'
S LETTER
, with Diana her patient amanuensis, took a long time.

She signed it herself, a large painstaking scrawl:
Rebecca Sempill
.

Rowena wrote hers herself and refused to let anyone correct the spelling or punctuation, as it would be cheating.

After much chewing of her pen Effie decided to concentrate on giving advice on how to succeed at cricket.

Jeanie was a great reader of school stories. This had an effect on her letter.

Diana's was brisk and informative.

In the end they realised that they would rather not read one another's letters. This wasn't just for Diana's sake but for all their sakes. They had not realised how revealing it was to put yourself on paper. Even sisters who loved you could not be trusted to understand exactly what you meant. They might think you were showing off.

The letters were put into one envelope, which was posted by Diana in Tarbeg.

Six days later came a reply, addressed to Diana only. They were all mentioned in it, she said, and offered to read it to them. They declined, with dignity. Speaking for them all, Effie said that they had known from the beginning that he hadn't really wanted to write to them but felt he had to, out of politeness. Well, he needn't have bothered. If he thought they liked writing letters to him he was mistaken. They had lots of more interesting things to do.

So Diana was the only one who wrote to him from then on.

T
HERE CAME
a time when Mama's prolonged disappointment at not having conceived a male child began to affect her health and her mind. She grew quite gaunt and her dwams lasted for hours instead of minutes. She became bad-tempered, even with Rebecca, then ten, but especially with Papa, at whom, suddenly, for no reason, she would shout incoherent accusations.

At first it seemed to the girls that the death of Granny Ruthven a few months previously might be the cause, but they could not see why she should blame poor Papa for that. He had taken them all to Edinburgh for the funeral.

One evening he stealthily invited Diana, then seventeen, and the twins who were fifteen, to his study. Rowena and Rebecca, he muttered, were too young to hear what he had to say.

As usual he had drunk more wine than he should. Now that they were no longer children the evening meal was dinner instead of high tea. This suited Papa's wine-drinking. Potato scones and wine had never gone well together.

‘I want to talk to you about your mother,' he said, hoarsely, as if he'd been crying. ‘She has been acting very strangely of late.'

‘We've noticed, Papa,' said Effie.

‘She's not got cancer, has she?' asked Jeanie, in a terrified whisper.

‘It's nothing like that, thank God.'

‘Do you know the reason, Papa?' asked Diana, sternly. She did not have as much patience as her sisters with his vinous ramblings.

He stared at the paperweight made famous by John McLeish. ‘You've heard your mother express a wish for a baby boy?'

‘Hundreds of times,' said Effie.

‘It has become an obsession that could, I'm afraid, destroy her reason. She has got it into her head that she has let me down. I have assured her that it is not so. How could I, with five beautiful and talented daughters, feel ill-done by? Few fathers are as fortunate as I. Alas, she has continued to have this delusion that my life has been blighted.'

Something had, if not blighted his life, at any rate kept it from blooming. They did not think that it was the want of a son.

He had tears in his eyes. Excessive wine did that to him but to be fair so did affection. ‘I love you all,' he said.

‘She's not too old to have a child, is she?' asked Effie. ‘She's only forty-four. Lots of women have children at that age, don't they?'

Papa moaned, as if in pain.

‘Aren't there fertility pills she could take?' asked Jeanie.

‘Don't be ridiculous, Jeanie,' said Diana. ‘If Mama took those she could have five at a time, like a cat.'

‘And we couldn't give four away and just keep one,' said Effie.

‘It's not a joke, Effie,' said Diana.

‘I'm not laughing, am I?'

‘According to three doctors who have been consulted,' said Papa, ‘having only one child could kill your mother. She had a difficult time with Rebecca.'

They remembered.

‘If she wants a boy so much why doesn't she adopt one?' asked Jeanie.

‘The child has to be mine.' Papa closed his eyes. ‘You're not children any longer, you are young women. You know what causes pregnancy and what can prevent it. Your mother would never allow it to be prevented. So, in the light of the doctors' advice I had no alternative but to, in a sense, live apart from her. She has never forgiven me.'

‘Oh!' That was Effie's exclamation but it also expressed her
sisters' reaction. They had wondered, six years ago, why, on moving into Poverty Castle, Papa had insisted on having a bedroom of his own.

Papa opened his eyes and looked at them. ‘I need your help in getting your mother to accept the situation. It has not been your fault, as you've inevitably looked outwards more and more, but your mother feels you have neglected her, all of you but Rebecca.'

They nodded. Comparing their own attitude to Mama with their youngest sister's they had to admit that they had neglected her or at least had let their love for her be taken for granted.

‘It has been our fault,' said Effie. ‘We've been selfish.'

‘Is it really out of the question her having a baby?' asked Jeanie. ‘The doctors could be wrong. She'd be so happy. I mean, wouldn't it be worth the risk?'

‘No, it wouldn't,' said Diana, sharply. ‘Papa's right. We must help Mama get over this crisis. She'll become reconciled once she's past child-bearing age.'

‘That's what Dr Grant thinks,' said Papa.

During the weeks that followed, though they all lavished their love on Mama, she got worse. She took to carrying about one of Rebecca's dolls and calling it Roderick. They wondered if she was aware that it was a doll and was being provocative, in a not very sane way; or if she really believed it was a live baby, in which case she was dangerously deranged. Then one day the doll disappeared. It was not returned to Rebecca's collection but at any rate Mama no longer nursed it. They were all relieved. Until one evening she rushed into the living-room, screaming that they had killed her baby.

Papa tried to comfort her and got his face pummelled.

Rebecca ran upstairs for Diana.

Diana quickly came, taller than her mother, and put her arms round her tenderly but firmly. Her voice that could be so sharp was soft and persuasive. Mama soon grew quiet and let Diana take her up to her room.

None of them said anything till Diana returned half an hour later. Mama had taken a pill and was asleep.

Late that night Diana went to the twins' room. They were in bed. Effie switched on a bed-lamp. ‘What's wrong,' she asked. ‘Is it Mama?'

Diana sat on Effie's bed. ‘Not so loud. We don't want to waken the others. Yes, it's Mama. I know what's the matter with her. She told me.'

‘But I thought we knew what was the matter with her?' said Jeanie.

‘Yes, but there's something else. She thinks Papa has been unfaithful to her for years.'

‘You mean, has had other women?' asked Effie, incredulously.

‘Yes, though that's rather a crude way of putting it. She says that when he goes into Tarbeg for his Arts Club meetings and stays so late he's seeing another woman.'