The Edge of the Fall (35 page)

Celia hadn't thought as far as actually having it. She'd seen a book about ‘Your New Baby' in a shop, taken a surreptitious look. Everyone looked happy in it, not like Emmeline, screaming fit to wake the Savoy as she gave birth. ‘I don't think I want to do that, either. It's mine, isn't it?'

Emmeline dropped her head in her hands, groaned. ‘Yours and some man you don't know the first thing about. Celia, this is ridiculous. Also, cruel. This will break Papa's heart, you know that.'

Celia's heart lurched. Emmeline was right.

‘You were always his favourite, his little pet. You were the one going to make a brilliant marriage. Now here you are, about to have a baby by some soldier and you don't even know his
name
.'

Celia blushed. ‘I'm sorry, Emmeline.'

‘Don't apologise to me. It's Papa and Mama you'll have to beg forgiveness of. They said you were the one to make the fortunes of the family. After the rest of us made such a hash of it.' She seized Celia's arm, pulled her out of the room. ‘Celia, you've been living in the clouds, I can tell. You need to think about what to do. We'll have to arrange for you to go away until it's born.' She bustled over to Albert, slumbering on the sofa. Celia followed her.

‘Why should I go away? Mr Janus said it, even. He said that
a man who has a baby without being married is not excluded. That's true, isn't it?'

Emmeline patted Albert, rolled him towards the back of the sofa. ‘Oh, don't be silly, Celia. This is real life. Anyway, your man doesn't know he's having a baby, does he? Probably never will.'

‘No.' That was true. Tom must never know. He would never know. The child would be hers, entirely hers, and he would have no claim. ‘Stoneythorpe is the country, isn't it? We could stay there.'

‘But what do you imagine people would think? You'll never get married with this. With Arthur and everything.' Emmeline sat down, heavily. ‘Celia, you need to think. I know you often don't, but you really need to now. You can't keep this child. It will ruin your future. Jemima will know a way we can find a family for it, someone kind.' Celia looked away. ‘Sister, you have to listen to me. You can't do it.'

Celia stared at her sister. Lily was beginning to shuffle around. She'd start to wail soon. Celia closed her eyes, leant back against the wall. ‘You can't!' she heard Emmeline say. ‘Listen to sense.' She could, as she stood there, hear all the others saying the same. Mr Janus telling her it was ridiculous, Verena falling into hysterics, crying about their reputation, her father stoic and disappointed, all of them expecting her to do what they wished.

She opened her eyes. ‘You can't tell me,' she said. ‘You can't tell me what to do. It's up to me.'

‘What rubbish. You need to see sense.'

‘I can see sense. I am going to decide what to do later. When the time comes, that's when I'll decide.'

‘You'll make the right choice.' Lily was beginning to whimper.

‘I'll make my choice.'

‘A baby in there has warped your mind. It did mine. You'll see sense.' Lily was crying now. Emmeline turned, marched into the children's room and closed the door. Celia looked to where Albert was stretched out, dozing on the sofa. She hurried over to him, gathered him close in her arms, felt his skin warm against hers.

TWENTY-FIVE

London, March 1922

Celia

There were an awful lot of baby manuals. Celia started with Emmeline's, rocking Lily when she couldn't sleep or soothing Albert as she strained her eyes in the dim light to read about feeding or rest routines. It all seemed very complicated. She bought another one in a bookshop in Russell Square. ‘My sister is very worried about her new baby,' she announced loudly to the man, as she handed it over. He gazed at her, baffled. She'd hurried the paperback under her shawl and carried it back to Emmeline's flat. There, after everyone had gone to bed, she sat up on her bed, staring at the pages. It was like reading another language. She simply could not comprehend it – in May, she would have a baby. She'd lain on the ground in the darkness in Baden – and now she was going to have a baby.

Emmeline had told Mr Janus, who'd railed at Celia about irresponsibility – and said she might have exposed herself to disease. She blushed, said surely not (although Tom had said there had been others, so how could she know?). She threw the thought from her mind. Jemima also knew, restrained herself to hugging her and talking cryptically about how women should be able to express themselves as well as men. They hadn't yet told Verena or Rudolf. Celia had replied to their letters asking her to go and visit by saying she was too busy helping Emmeline. She'd agreed with her sister that she would go back to Stoneythorpe when she was eight or so months along – and then everybody would have to deal with it. Tom had written again, as had Hilde
and Johann. She'd ignored their letters. Other than that, her days had been the same. Emmeline gave her even more childcare to do, saying she had to learn. She moved around the flat, washing and dressing Lily and Albert, patting them to sleep, trying to teach them to hold a pencil. Maybe, she thought, if Lily wouldn't speak, she'd like to draw what she felt. But neither child wanted to, preferred to be read to or watch her draw.

‘You need a wedding ring,' Emmeline had said, the day after Celia had told her. ‘When you take the twins out, you need a wedding ring. Whenever you go out, actually. You can borrow mine.'

‘I won't have a wedding ring. That's lying.' Celia shook her head. ‘Surely Mr Janus would say it was hypocrisy.'

‘Oh poppycock. What does he know? You must borrow my ring.' Emmeline tugged it off and held it out.

‘It doesn't fit. I won't wear it anyway.'

Emmeline clutched her hand. ‘I'll make you!' Celia pulled her hand back. They fought for seconds, scrabbling at each other's hands, angry and breathless. Emmeline stopped, pulled away, snatching back the ring. ‘Do as you like!' she said, her face red and pained. ‘Do as you like and see where that gets you!'

Celia shrugged and shook her head. ‘I will!' She rushed to the kitchen, closed the door and put the kettle on to boil so the children wouldn't hear her cry.

She vowed not to wear a ring. Yet, after weeks of being stared at, people whispering behind her, men nodding, she relented, and borrowed Emmeline's. Her sister didn't say
I told you so
kindly.

‘Imagine if you had your own,' said Emmeline. ‘Imagine if we found that man and he gave you one.'

‘I wouldn't know where to find him.'

‘Well, we shall have to try.'

Mr Janus demanded detail after detail about the officer, how he spoke (she said she thought he was from Devon, slow vowels), long descriptions of his appearance, his uniform, even his shoes. After the first interrogation, she sat up late at night and wrote
a description of the man, so she wouldn't trip up. He had dark, slicked-back hair, small eyes, a large nose and a good chin line, a wide smile, thin body, small of stature and smartly dressed. She said he didn't say much – ‘I bet he didn't!' said Emmeline – and that he'd seemed kind.

‘He was probably demobbed around when you met him, August, if he was still in uniform,' said Mr Janus, during one of the conversations. ‘We might start from there.'

‘Or perhaps,' Celia perked up, rather quickly, ‘perhaps he just didn't want to take it off. I've heard of soldiers like that.'
Tom
, she thought. It would be easy if she just told them the truth. Emmeline would start on her –
you and the servant!
– but at least he would be a husband. Or at least
there
. She could just write to him. And say what?
You slaughtered my brother. I'm having your baby
.

She entertained strange thoughts, denying the truth, telling herself that she couldn't really be having a baby because of what they did that night, it must have come some other way. The truth laughed at her in her head.

Sometimes, late at night, she even thought about Captain Evans. She could pin it on him, say somehow that something worked in the right way. He was such a gentleman, he'd probably allow it.
Such a wicked lie
, she told herself. But what if the baby came out and looked like Tom? Then everybody would know.

‘Hmm, true,' said Mr Janus, still pondering the uniform. ‘But I'll look into it, all the same.' He sent Mr Sparks off for a list of all the regiments demobbed around the time: the 6th Norfolk, 7th London, 2nd Scotland, 3rd North Wales, four from the West Midlands. ‘No one from Devon,' he said, wonderingly.

‘Maybe he was in that London one,' said Emmeline, peering over his shoulder. ‘Can you get that list?'

‘I don't think he was in a London one,' Celia said, hastily.

‘Well, we can try,' said Mr Janus. ‘I'll ask for the names. I'll say that he promised to marry you. Not the rest.'

‘Well, he didn't promise to marry her, did he?' said Emmeline.

‘I didn't ask,' shot back Celia.

‘Your mistake.'

The search carried on through the weeks, as Celia grew bigger, slower on her feet, too tired to play with the twins, her ankles doubled in size. She went to the doctor, with her wedding ring. He told her to rest, talked on about eating well. She told him that all she wanted to do was eat. Mr Sparks brought them a list of the London regiment and they scoured over it, hoping she might recognise a name. He even got more details on the men by bribing the official. Celia shook her head at all of it. ‘No,' she said. ‘I don't recognise anything.' Emmeline was furious. ‘You were supposed to be clever!' she said.

‘I've forgotten everything,' she said. ‘Sorry.' She pulled the voluminous gown and shawl around her. She was looking like the statue of Queen Victoria now – the lower half of her like the wide plinth. She wanted to sleep all day, dozed late in the morning, slept after lunch. Then at night, she lay awake, gazing at the ceiling in the darkness. That was when she felt closest to him – she still felt sure he was a boy. ‘What name would you like?' she said. One rang back in her mind:
Tom
. She pushed it away, everything, even the days together as children, riding over the fields, laughing, catching tadpoles in the pond. None of it was true any more, all ruined by what had happened in France.

Michael
, she said to the baby.
Your name is Michael
.

One newspaper article she'd read suggested women should sing to the babies inside them. She'd tried, but only felt silly, singing out at the wall, and she couldn't sing the baby songs, like ‘Twinkle Twinkle'. Instead, she read to him from her works of Shakespeare, beginning with the earlier plays.

‘It might have a double effect,' she said to her baby. ‘I might learn some more Shakespeare. I've forgotten everything I knew at Winterbourne.' Last time she'd recited Shakespeare had been in the ambulance – and she'd forgotten that, forced it out of her mind, as she had done with everything from then.

Romeo and Juliet
was the first one. ‘This means you can disobey your parents if you like,' she said. ‘Sometimes, it's best to. I disobeyed mine. If I'm ever really wrong, you can too.'

Ay me! Sad hours seem long
.

Was that my father that went hence so fast?

She lay there in the darkness, reciting the lines. Outside, she thought, the city was silent, all darkness, everyone asleep. Only a few were awake: the night workers fixing the Underground, rebuilding London's roads. They and she, lying awake in the flat in Bedford Square, talking of love in Venice. ‘I won't read you the bits about death,' she whispered.

Emmeline wrote a letter to Verena telling her that Celia wasn't very well with a cold.

‘It's not much of a preparation,' she said. ‘But it might be a start to tell her you're indisposed.'

‘Celia!' Emmeline was shouting. Celia tried to rouse herself. She could hear her sister crying out, but she couldn't raise her head.

Emmeline ran to her bed. ‘Celia!' She sat on the bed. It sagged heavily. ‘A letter from Mama. Papa isn't well.'

Celia tried to pull herself up.

‘Look!' She shook the letter at her. ‘Look at this. She said he's in bed, got pneumonia. He's asking for us. She wants us to visit.' Celia rubbed her eyes. ‘Well, we have to go. We must go.'

‘But if we go and you're like this, it might shock him so much that it makes him worse. He might die.'

‘He won't die.'

‘He might.'

‘But what if we never go and he dies?'

‘You'll kill him.'

‘We have to see him, Emmeline. Mama needs us too. Come on, let's pack up the twins' things.' Celia hauled herself up. ‘Emmeline! Let's go.'

TWENTY-SIX