Snow Angels (19 page)

‘Do you think I did this on purpose?’

She was quite lucid, Gil thought.

‘No.’

‘Perhaps I want to die.’

‘I don’t think you do. What about Matthew?’

‘Children have a future. What was my future to be?’

Gil didn’t know what to say to that. The sick feeling that hadn’t left him since the day before was almost enveloping him. He wished that all these people would leave the room. He wanted to say wild things to her.

‘You’re not crying, are you, Gil?’

‘No.’

‘You look as though you are. It’s the first time you’ve ever cried over me.’

‘You didn’t really do this on purpose?’

‘What, to punish you? Do you think I would? I will see you again you know. This isn’t the finish. Though I have to say that when I saw you here the first time, a great deal of the feeling I had had for you had already gone, but you did love me, more than you loved anyone else?’

‘Yes.’

Rhoda turned from the window. Gil could see her from the corner of his eye. Would she go on thinking that he was just responding to a dying woman?

‘I want to tell you something, Gil, something very important. I want you to look after Matthew.’

The silence changed again. It was not hostile, but it was as if the other people in the room felt left out, ignored, that they had realised she wanted nobody but him near her when she was dying. Her mother and father moved in their discomfort and Edward was watching him. Her voice was down to a whisper and even that seemed an effort, but everyone in the room could hear her words.

‘Of course we will.’

‘No, you.’ She tried to get up from the pillows and couldn’t. ‘Matthew is your son. I’m sorry that I deceived you. I had to lie. I thought I was the only one losing by it. Edward isn’t fit to look after him and he isn’t capable of fathering a child. If he says he is, then he lies. When he’s drunk he thinks he’s a man and he never was. Matthew is yours.’

The silence seemed to hang in the room for ever. Then Rhoda gave a hoarse cry and broke it. She ran. It was the only way she could ever meet disaster, by running away, Gil thought. If she had managed to pretend that Helen was not in her right mind, then the moment might have passed … Edward was on his feet. Charlotte went after Rhoda. Without looking, Gil could see his brother. There was nothing to lose between them; it had been over long since. He had known that his brother had used him as a pawn in some complicated game and that those
evenings at the billiard hall were not for him. The few days when Edward had seemed to care for him and even want his company were dispelled on the afternoon Edward had looked at him and then kissed Toby Emory on the mouth. They had not been born to love one another, as perhaps brothers often weren’t, though it seemed so wasteful to Gil. People born of the same parents were meant to go together like pieces of the same jigsaw, but he and his brother had been born to destroy one another and there was not even any pity in it. You could not point to a time and say here was where it went wrong. It was broken and lost and there was nothing but the ruins of it now. And Edward blamed him about Helen. He could understand that. He had always blamed himself over it and the shock of the child was cold on him.

Did Edward believe her? If he did, then in those seconds he had lost the only thing which kept him a Collingwood. If the child was not his, then there was nothing to hold him here. In a way it was what he had wanted. His freedom lay just beyond the door, but the pain of losing his son could not be worth it. As for the girl dying in the bed, he had betrayed her before she had betrayed him and her revenge was complete. Edward came across the room towards them.

‘Matthew’s my son, he’s mine. He’s mine! You said he was mine.’

Helen smiled faintly.

‘I tried to forgive you. You can try to forgive me.’

‘Never! I hope you burn in hell, you bitch!’

The confusion was somehow nothing to do with Gil. He took her into his arms.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ll look after Matthew.’

Edward was shouting and people were crying, but Helen lay quietly in his arms and smiled at him.

He didn’t know what time passed before his mother came back into the room.

‘She’s gone! I tried to stop her but she wouldn’t listen to me
and she’s gone out into the night and I’m so afraid!’ Charlotte went to William.

Gil put Helen’s body carefully down and then he swiftly left the room. He sped down the stairs and, pausing only to collect a coat, opened the front door. It was a savage night. Wind blew the rain almost horizontally. He could see by the hall lights, then he was out into the bitter weather and the door was closed behind him. He called her name, moving away, trying to think where she might have gone – not far, surely, in this. Then he thought of how she would be feeling, of what Jos had done and of what he had done. She might go anywhere. It was almost impossible to see, but he knew the countryside around his home so he went to all the places that they had gone together and those that had been her favourites. He shouted her name and the wind took it away a thousand times. He didn’t know which direction to go in, so he tried to go everywhere.

It was the longest night of his life and he was soaked through within minutes. He stepped in deep water every so often, banged himself off trees where there was no light. The wind whipped rain across his face, his feet and fingers were numb and his hair provided a way for rain to make its way into his eyes so that it stung and inside his collar and down past his shirt. The rain turned to sleet and, halfway through the night, to snow and though some sensible part of himself said that she would have gone home, he stayed out in case she had not done so. When morning came the snow was worse than ever; it was a blizzard. When darkness fell again, he returned to the lights of the house.

There was an uneasy silence in the hall. He threw off his heavy coat and made his way into the drawing-room. His mother and Helen’s mother were there by the fire with Matthew. His mother looked up briefly, her mother not at all.

‘She came home?’ he said, but he knew the answer before his mother gave it.

‘No. Your father and Edward and her father and all the other men are out looking for her.’

He found dry clothes and went back out, but the blizzard was worse than ever and the light began to fail in early afternoon. From time to time he heard her name shouted, but he didn’t meet any of the others. He went on and on and felt as though now he could go on until the end of time. It was dark again and he was lost. He was trudging through deep snow and fell over something and knew that God was watching. Even a second or two without the knowledge would have been some consolation, but there was no doubt that he had found her. It reminded him very much of being small and watching farmers take their dead lambs from snow drifts. She was too cold for there to be any life left in her. He knew then that everything that mattered was over, that all the promise of the world was finished and that whatever happened now was the merest detail. But for Matthew, he would have stayed there. Helen’s words went round and round in his head. Edward would not take the child. His father and mother would take it and bring it up as they had brought him up. It was not a thought for men who scared easily. William, having only one grandchild, would not let Helen’s parents have him to live with them. He would train the child for the business; he would beat him and humiliate him and …

He held Rhoda in his arms, much as he had held Helen those few hours ago. How strange, how unkind, how very terrible, to be punished with such sweeping purity so that there was nothing left that could be redeemed. He picked her out of the snowdrift and carried her home, away from the fells that she had loved so much, where she had left her spirit, where she had spent her last hours heartbroken because of what he had done. They would not meet again. He would go straight to hell and his sweet precious wife, whom men had treated so badly, would go to God and nobody would hurt her again. And God had other plans for him, he could sense it; it was not over yet.

He slipped several times. She became heavy and the wind and the snow took his balance from him with the dead weight in his arms. He slid down slopes which had been banksides and fields
before the whiteness devoured them. The night went on and on as though the Day of Judgement had arrived, which it had. There would be no daylight again. At last, however, he came within sight of the house. He was inclined to leave her body on the doorstep as the little black-and-white cat he had had as a boy would leave mice as offerings, but he managed to open the front door and make his way into the hall and from there to the drawing-room.

They were all gathered. Rhoda’s mother, who looked like her for the first time, burst into a screaming torrent of accusations and tears. Jos Allsop came forward and tried to take Rhoda from him and Gil swung away.

‘Give me my daughter.’

‘She was never your daughter, you bastard!’

‘Give her to me. I’m going to kill you!’

They took her from him.

‘She’s dead,’ Allsop said unnecessarily as he and Edward and William leaned over her, after they had put her onto the sofa and put a blanket around her. ‘She’s frozen, trying to get back to her mother and me, trying to get away from him and that mucky bitch!’

Gil glanced around. He had not noticed, but Helen’s parents were not there. He didn’t know what Jos Allsop was talking about. Nobody was dead. In a minute, Rhoda would open her eyes and smile and say how funny that he had been fooled and everything would be all right again. Helen and her parents had gone home. He waited and waited for her to open her eyes.

William looked at him. The soft look was gone. Gil backed away just a little. He was a child again and his father was going to beat him beyond pain and lock him into a room so cold that his body would go numb.

This was not happening. There was an old saying, what was it? Yes, he had it. Something about God only giving people what they could bear. Things like this didn’t happen. Nobody could bear this, not even the strongest, ablest person in the world could
bear this. Rhoda was asleep; she was cold; it had been a bad night. She was not dead. She could not be dead.

Allsop went for him, but his father and Edward were in the way. Gil was glad. His father knew and everything would be all right. His father cared for him now, because of the things he had done and would tell Jos Allsop that there was no place for anger here and no need and everything would be all right.

‘Leave him,’ William said.

‘I’m going to kill him! Now or later, it doesn’t matter to me.’

‘Give me the child,’ William said to Charlotte and her face changed. She held Matthew close to her and began to cry and protest. Gil couldn’t understand why. Her crying was almost a wail.

‘It isn’t true. Helen was out of her mind with fever. You know she was. You can’t do this. I won’t let you. He’s the only grandchild we’ve got or will have now. If you can’t think of anything else, think of the family. He’s your heir. He’s the only person to inherit. He’s the only one we’ve got.’

They prised the child from her. Matthew was crying at all the upset. Gil wasn’t surprised. His father thrust the child forward, for some reason, at him.

‘Take him and get out.’

Charlotte was almost screaming. Gil stared at the small, struggling boy.

‘It’s too cold for him to go anywhere,’ he said sensibly. ‘It’s a blizzard.’

The men were actually holding Charlotte back and she was fighting with them, his demure and elegant mother.

‘Take him.’

Gil took the child if only to shut him up, for he had begun fighting and screaming too, just like his grandmother.

‘You will never come back here again, do you understand? You are not my son. You are not welcome here for the rest of your life and neither is your bastard.’

Gil looked at him. There was an explanation somewhere, but
he couldn’t think of it and Matthew was not happy with Gil. He kicked and fought and great tears ran down his face.

‘You could keep him here just for tonight. I would go and I could send for him when the weather is better.’

‘Take him and go.’

‘Right,’ Gil said, matter-of-factly, and he took the screaming, kicking child and let two of the servants usher him beyond the front door. He stood on the step as they bolted the door behind him. He waited as though the weather was going to improve, when it was obvious that it was not. As the child’s screams and kickings subsided because it was so cold, Gil undid his coat and put Matthew inside it. Then he began to walk away from the house, up the drive. Matthew was no longer fighting, though he was still crying.

Gil began to walk and his mind soon turned to practicalities. He had no money on him; he had nothing and it was snowing hard.

It took him most of the night to walk to Newcastle because the snow was so very deep and the wind had blown great drifts into the hedges and the insides of the road and on the road itself where there was no protection. He kept losing his way so although it was not a long way, it seemed it. It was early morning when he reached Jesmond and banged on the door of Henderson Reed’s house.

Kate had just got up, by the look of her. She ushered him into the sitting-room and hastily cleaned the grate and emptied the ashes before assembling a new fire. Matthew had long since fallen asleep. Gil put him down on the sofa, carefully not bringing to mind the images of Rhoda. Henderson came down the stairs, fastening his dressing-gown.

‘What in hell’s name is going on?’ he said, looking from Gil to the child and back again.

‘I need a favour, Henderson.’ To Gil’s surprise his voice worked and it sounded clear and steady.

‘Name it.’

‘Will you keep Matthew here for a few days? It won’t be long. It’s just for now. It’s so cold outside and he’s so very little.’

Henderson was giving him a special look, one Gil hadn’t seen before, as though Gil was a rather likeable imbecile and had to be humoured.

‘I won’t ever ask anything of you again as long as I live,’ Gil offered. ‘I swear it to you before God. Please.’