The Swallow and the Hummingbird (55 page)

Then one Sunday evening in mid-winter, as he sat in his study watching the snow falling outside his window, brooding on that fateful Christmas day he had fought with Rita on the estuary, there was a loud knocking on the door. He put down his brandy and padded through the hall where the fire blazed in the grate like it had always done in Primrose’s day, though the smoke didn’t smell quite as fragrant. He opened the door to see a bedraggled young girl standing in the snow, holding a small baby.

‘Come in, for God’s sake, you’ll catch your death of cold,’ he said briskly, taking her sodden arm. She stood in the hall, gazing around her with large, fearful eyes. The pallor of her face was accentuated by her white-blonde hair and purple lips. She must have been no more than sixteen years old, barely adult enough to have an infant. The baby slept against her, wrapped in her coat. ‘Are you in trouble?’ he asked, assuming her car must have broken down or lost her way in the snow.

‘Yes,’ she said and sniffed. ‘Are you Max de Guinzberg?’

‘Yes, I am. Look, I don’t want to interfere, but you’re very wet. Why don’t you take off that coat and I’ll lend you a dressing gown?’

‘Thank you,’ she replied and he detected a strong German accent. Curious, he left her by the fire and hurried upstairs to bring down a towel and gown. When he returned she had slipped out of her coat and was standing warming herself in front of the flames. Without a word she handed him her baby while she dried her hair with the towel and put on the dressing gown, which was delightfully warm from hanging against the hot pipes in the airing cupboard.

Max gazed down at the sleeping baby and felt something insistent pull at his heart. In his mind’s eye he saw the face of his baby sister. He remembered as a little boy holding Lydia in his arms as he held the infant now, staring into her features in wonder. He blinked away the image, but he recalled the prettiness of her face and the sense that she belonged to him. ‘What is her name?’ he asked.

‘Mitzi,’ replied the young girl. Max stared at her in amazement. ‘Mitzi was the name of my grandmother. Your mother, Mr de Guinzberg.’

‘Who are you?’ he asked slowly, his eyes misting with the trigger of a distant memory.

‘My name is Rebecca. My mother was Lydia, your sister.’

Max sat down on the old leather armchair beside the fire.
So this is what Primrose was trying to tell me
, he thought to himself.
‘All was not lost.’
‘But my sister died in the camps with my parents,’ he said, bewildered, handing back her child.

‘No, she didn’t.’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘When your parents sent you and Ruth to England a generous neighbour offered to look after Lydia until the trouble passed. The Germans came for your parents and took them away, but Lydia was safe. Lydia, my mother, grew up with these good people. At the end of the war they adopted her and in a bid to protect her they never told her about the family she had lost. She believed she was Lydia Steiner right up until she died a few years ago of a tumour.’

‘She never knew?’ Max was devastated that all the time he and Ruth had assumed their sister was dead, she had in fact been alive and living in Austria.

‘They felt very guilty about it and told her of her true identity just before she died. They gave her a box of photographs and sentimental things her mother had left her.’

‘Do you have that box?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Where?’ he asked, looking at the sodden coat she had draped over the hall table.

She lowered her eyes. ‘I left my bags outside.’

‘In the snow?’

‘I wasn’t sure you would want to see me.’

Max strode outside and retrieved the brown leather suitcase, wiping the snow off with his hand. ‘How did you get here?’ he asked. There was no sign of a car.

‘I took the train and a taxi.’

‘You’re a brave girl,’ he said kindly.

‘I’m desperate,’ she replied. ‘You’re the only family I have.’

‘Where is your husband?’

‘I don’t have a husband.’ She blushed.

‘I see.’

‘My boyfriend left me when I got pregnant.’ Max thought of Ruth and how close she had come to ending up in the same predicament as Rebecca. They had even both named their daughters Mitzi.

‘Have you come all the way from Austria?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me see the box,’ he said, wanting to be certain that she was the person she claimed to be.

She bent down to open the case. She had packed everything with great care. The few items of clothing were neatly folded. She lifted them up and pulled out a weathered cardboard box. Placing it on the table she lifted the lid. To Max’s amazement it was full of photographs of him and Ruth as children, of Lydia as a baby and later of her growing up. He slowly studied each one, dizzy with nostalgia and wonder.

‘This is my mother just after she had me,’ she said, pointing to the black and white photograph of a pretty young woman holding a small baby who strongly resembled Mitzi. ‘I miss her so much.’

‘What happened to your father?’ he asked.

‘My mother didn’t have a happy marriage. Life was hard. My father left her for another woman, who he married after she died. They were never divorced. I have no relationship with him.’

‘Are you an only child?’

‘Yes. I would never have bothered you, Mr de Guinzberg, if I hadn’t been desperate. I didn’t know where to turn. I have no money and a small baby . . .’ Her voice trailed off and she began to cry.

‘Rebecca,’ he said in a gentle voice, standing up and putting an arm around her. ‘You don’t know how happy I am that you have found me. Fate has led you to me. You are my sister’s child. You are all I have left of her.’

‘I have never been curious to find you,’ she began, but he interrupted.

‘It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. You’re a child yourself. You’re too young to bring up a baby on your own. You’re home now. You and Mitzi. You’re safe and I’m going to look after you, I promise.’ He put the lid on the box. ‘Come into the kitchen and let’s get you something to eat. You must be hungry, and how about Mitzi?’

‘I’m still feeding her myself, Mr de Guinzberg,’ she said, following him.

‘Call me Max,’ he said. ‘I’m your uncle, after all.’ With that Rebecca began to cry again, which woke Mitzi.

Max cooked her a Spanish omelette while she fed her baby discreetly beneath the dressing gown. She told him about her mother but he wanted to know more, right down to the smell of her skin. ‘She always smelt of roses, you know, the old-fashioned kind. As a child I used to play with her hair. Tie it up, plait it, wash it. She had lovely thick hair. Like yours. I have my father’s hair. He is blonde too, but his hair isn’t thick.’

‘Mine is not as thick as it was, but that is age,’ he said, turning to look at her.

She was a beautiful girl, now that she was no longer crying. Her eyes were the same colour as his, sodalite blue, the very bluest of blues, and her smile was wide and charming like her grandmother Mitzi’s, who had been celebrated for her loveliness.

Rebecca ate her omelette hungrily while Max went through her box with growing curiosity. There was a gold Star of David pendant and a diamond butterfly brooch that had belonged to his mother and a notebook of his father’s with prayers written out in his wiry handwriting, an old black Bible and a gold signet ring. He was amused to find an old theatre programme with his mother’s name emblazoned on the front. They had obviously scrounged around for keepsakes to leave in case they never returned. Max felt his throat constrict with emotion as he handled each item with reverence. Rebecca was too young to understand the significance of these things.

Once he had settled her into the bedroom that he and Ruth had slept in on their first night now over thirty years ago, he telephoned Ruth. She was as surprised as he had been. ‘Are you certain she is not a fraud?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely, she even looks like us.’

‘How could Lydia have had a child of sixteen now?’

‘Work it out. She would have been eighteen.’

‘That’s incredible.’

‘I know. It’s amazing. Rebecca barely looks old enough to have a child, but she’s made it all the way here from Austria on her own. She’s no fool and she’s efficient and capable, her suitcase was immaculately packed. She’s not a child. You have to come over tomorrow, as early as you can. The photographs are a miracle.’

‘I can’t believe that Lydia lived,’ she said quietly. ‘All this time we thought she was dead.’

‘I wish we had known her. The least I can do is look after her child,’ he said in a low voice.

‘You’re a very good man, Max.’

‘No, Ruth. Rebecca and Mitzi are a blessing.’

It was true. Max suddenly felt complete. The hollowness of spirit had been filled. He had a purpose far greater than any business could inspire.

The following morning when Max pulled open the curtains he saw to his amazement a pair of snow geese standing in the middle of the lawn. He blinked, then blinked again. They were still there, the sunlight catching their shiny white plumage as they looked down their short bills at the snowy garden. ‘I thought they lived in Canada,’ he muttered to himself, recalling the famous story of
The Snow Goose
by Paul Gallico. He shook his head and hastily dressed, smiling as he remembered the details of the evening before. How suddenly his life had changed. In a single moment. No day had ever looked more lovely.

As he walked down the stairs to the hall, the scent of wood from the dying embers in the grate was as it had been when Primrose had been alive. The house even felt the same again. With a light step he wandered into the kitchen. Mrs Gunter, the cook, would be arriving later to prepare lunch and dinner; until then he had the kitchen to himself and set about making coffee, tea, fruit juice, poached eggs, toast and porridge for Rebecca, not knowing what she would like best and wanting to please her.

When she came down she looked entirely different. She had washed her hair, applied some makeup, dressed in a pair of jeans and a pale blue sweater. She looked older than her years and her smile betrayed her contentment. In her arms she held Mitzi, who was awake and blinking around with curiosity.

‘Is all this for me?’ she asked, when she saw the breakfast laid out on the table.

‘I didn’t know what you’d want,’ he replied with a shrug.

‘Thank you. I don’t know where to begin.’ Her laugh was soft and woody.

‘Why don’t you give Mitzi to me? She won’t mind, will she?’ he suggested enthusiastically. ‘Then you can eat.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. She’s my great-niece.’

‘You’re not a typical man, are you?’

‘I don’t have children of my own,’ he replied, smiling sadly. He took the baby from her. She lay in his arms, trying to pat his chin with her small, podgy hand.

‘Max, when you said last night that I had come home, did you mean it?’ she gazed at him apprehensively.

‘I meant every word. You’re family. You belong here.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘You don’t have to, Rebecca. You see, I have grown up believing my sister to be dead. That thought has haunted me for years. If you hadn’t turned up last night, I would never have known the truth. I would have died an unhappy man. Now I will die happy knowing that she had you and little Mitzi here. She had a future after all and it is my future too.’ He looked at her puzzled face. ‘Do you understand?’

‘I think so,’ she replied slowly.

‘It doesn’t matter. Eat your breakfast because my sister Ruth is coming over to meet you this morning, then I think we should go shopping. Poor Mitzi doesn’t even have a cot!’

When Ruth arrived she embraced her brother and then spontaneously wrapped her arms around Rebecca. She gazed at her niece with glassy eyes not knowing what to say. In her features she recognized her mother and Max, even herself. She no longer needed explanations. She knew that Rebecca was family. She sensed it in her heart for she had shed light into the dark corner that had contained the same shadows as Max’s. Finally, she was able to speak about the past. The three of them walked around the garden in the snow, sharing stories, igniting memories, asking questions that only Rebecca could answer. They took turns carrying Mitzi, showing their niece her new home, staring into the face of the future, the horrors of the past lost in her innocence. They drank coffee and cried over the photographs. Rebecca remembered her mother, and Ruth and Max were at last able to remember theirs.

When Rita arrived for lunch she noticed at once something magical had taken place. ‘Do you know the house feels different?’ she said to Max. ‘It smells different.’

‘Yes, I smell it too,’ he agreed with a smile.

‘Smoky, woody, cosy, like it used to.’

‘Did you see the snow geese?’

‘There are snow geese?’ she exclaimed excitedly.

‘Two of them. I opened my curtains this morning and there they were.’

‘You know they come from Canada. They migrate to Mexico.’

‘Well, they’re right here at Elvestree.’

‘That’s miraculous,’ she gasped.

‘Not nearly as miraculous as Rebecca.’

‘That is true.’ She touched his arm fondly and said a little sadly, ‘I’m so happy for you, Max.’

Rita wished she could turn her life around, too. She was now in her forties and the hope of having children had gone. George was no more than a memory, a transparent puff of smoke with no substance. She toyed with her ring absent-mindedly and wondered what her future held, now that Max had a family. Once he had loved her. The irony was that now she loved him. It hadn’t come in a flash of lightning but grown slowly upon her so that she had barely been aware of the changing nature of her heart. For a long time she hadn’t dared acknowledge it. But now Max’s life was taking a different course she realized that he was leaving her behind and she minded.

As Rebecca and Mitzi settled into Elvestree the magic returned with the spring. The blossom was far more spectacular than anywhere else, the rare vegetables and fruit grew in abundance, baffling the gardeners, and birds from all over the world settled to build their nests in the leafy trees that had observed this mysterious corner of England for centuries. Wagtails and puffins, waxbills, even an albatross was seen on the estuary. The house once more resonated with laughter as Rebecca and Ruth watched their children play on the lawn. Rebecca made friends easily and Max enjoyed the sounds of clattering in the kitchen as she invited other young mothers for tea with their toddlers. They grew as close as a father and daughter could ever be. Rita watched them with mounting envy. Although she too had grown to love Rebecca and Mitzi she was saddened that his attention was now diverted. He no longer gazed upon her with longing. She remembered the snowy day on the estuary and wondered whether he had forgotten how to love her.