Through the tree trunks I spied a fox, and it brought back memories of my brothers and me hunting with sticks instead of guns. Though one time, Laurence had surreptitiously taken our uncle’s Boer War rifle and, believing it was not loaded, had pulled the trigger, only to learn that it was when a bullet clipped my ear. There is a tiny piece missing from it now. The force of the rifle had thrown Laurence backward hard onto the ground, winded and screeching with indignation. Edgar had grabbed the rifle, lifted him up by the shirt, and punched him on the jaw to add to the misery of his fall, and Laurence had run off wailing. I didn’t feel the wound on my ear, but I saw the blood and began crying also. Edgar had checked my ear, told me it was still there but the small nick hadn’t improved my looks any, and I had laughed through the tears. He had been there for all my early follies. And I found the memory of my brother’s bright-blue eyes, crinkling all the way to his wide-mouthed smile, so clear at that moment that I found the tops of my cheeks were suddenly wet with tears.
I hadn’t grieved for long at the initial news of Edgar. There had been too many other things to deal with in the early stages: Mother’s declining health, losing many of our farmers to the war effort, and the ongoing and exacting management of our finances. By the time the war was over and Laurence—who had also joined the fighting toward the end of it—arrived home uninjured, the news of Edgar missing had grown old. Though Mother still felt it acutely, and I fought to believe and make sense of it.
Now Mariette was here verifying his death, and these words of finality reignited the grief.
Edgar had died for a cause. A necessary death, we were told. The Germans had not got their way. In some sense that sounded right, but what was right about war?
I wiped away the tears and thought that I must get to the truth of Mariette and her news. I must spend time with her. I must learn everything she had to tell me. I would do it for Mother, but I would do it for the child also. A small child, if he were indeed Edgar’s, deserved the truth as well.
I rode my gray gelding back to the stables and turned at the last moment to see Peggy at the front door, waving to draw my attention before walking hurriedly toward me. By the time I dismounted, she had drawn close, appearing very anxious.
“It’s the woman. She is in the hall. She is leaving with the child.”
Peggy took the reins from me to walk the horse back into the stable as I moved quickly to enter the house. Mariette was just inside the door and wearing a different dress, a black one with lace at the hem, and the boy was in a corduroy coat, ready for travel.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “that I have bothered you with all this. I will leave. I know it has been hard on your mother, and I don’t expect anything from you.”
I noticed that there were beads of sweat on her forehead and her skin was a paler shade today so that the shadows beneath her dark eyes stood out in a frightening way. Her breaths were also shallow, and she had trouble focusing on me.
“Mrs. . . . Mariette,” I stumbled. By the marriage it suggested her name was now my own, which was most difficult yet to say. “You must stay. I don’t doubt your story, but there are things I would still like to know.”
It was hard to explain or tell her that I was dubious of her story without offending her. It was a delicate balance between what she told me and what I felt in my heart was missing.
“I can’t stay. I really can’t,” she said, and leaned down to pick up the child. “In some way it feels wrong that I have come.”
She walked out the front door and down the steps, and I felt a sense of helplessness, almost loss. I did not want her gone. I did not want the child gone. In a most unusual sense, it felt as if Edgar were leaving a second time.
I followed her outside.
“You must let me drive you to the train or wherever it is you wish to go. It is too long by the walking trails to get there, especially with the child.”
“We will be fine, Monsieur Watts,” she said, looking beyond at the road. “We walked yesterday and made it here all right.”
She appeared confident in her speech, but I felt also a sense of hesitancy and needfulness when she turned to view me, her eyes glassy and liquid black. I was speechless and transfixed, unsure of what to say.
Suddenly, those eyes flickered several times, breaking the spell, and she began to sink to the ground. I had just enough time to catch both her and the child before they hit the stone.
CHAPTER 5
I called out to Peggy, who by that time was already returning from the stable. She had seen what had happened and hitched her skirts to walk swiftly toward me.
Clutching the child’s hand, Peggy followed me as I carried Mariette up the stairs and down the hallway to the guest room. I laid Mariette down on the bed and felt her forehead, which was hot to touch, and Peggy picked up the child, who had begun to wail.
“I will fetch the doctor,” I said. “I fear she is very ill.”
“Come now, Samuel,” said Peggy to the little boy. “We must go and find something for you in the kitchen. Maybe some sweet biscuits.” The child wouldn’t hear of it and was unlikely to have understood her English, his wails getting louder with every step she took away from his mother. I attempted to repeat in French above the cries to no avail.
“Hush now,” said Peggy in the firm but soothing tone she used for all us boys. This seemed to have some effect, and she carried him away.
I put a light cover over Mariette then left for the doctor. It was quicker to ride Sheriff across to his residence than take the roads by car.
The doctor arrived a short time after my return. He was in the room with Mariette for some time while I paced the lower ground rooms like an anxious father-to-be. The child in the meantime had been placed in the old nursery, with a wooden rocking horse that Peggy had pulled out from storage. Samuel had been briefly amused and distracted before the doctor stopped in to examine him also, a task that was quite distressing, according to Dr. Macklin, who met me in the drawing room afterward. He seemed to believe that Samuel had never been seen medically before.
“I examined the child to make sure there were no similar signs of contagion . . . I must say he was rather difficult, and Peggy had to hold him. He made quite a fuss. He is fine,” said the doctor, “but I’m afraid the woman has an infection. A rather serious one that has affected the respiratory system. She must rest and drink plenty.” He gave me a small bottle of tonic to ease her chest to be administered morning and night. It was also his assumption that she would have felt terribly unwell during her travels.
“How serious is it?” I asked.
“Does she have family?”
“None we know of.”
“Then I suggest that she be watched closely for any change. Contact me immediately if there is.”
He was elderly and had been with us for years to check our early heartbeats and sicknesses. He was always a curious man, perhaps because he was a man of medicine and this came to him naturally, and he asked about Mariette’s appearance here. I explained the situation, to which he looked both quizzical and alarmed. I also told him about my mother’s concerns, and he sympathized with her also, suggesting it would be challenging to learn such news.
“If I can be of further assistance,” he said.
Under such circumstances, and given the urgency of contacting anyone who might know her, I justified my reasons for invading Mariette’s privacy. Her bag was still at the front of the house, and I opened it guiltily, looking for the marriage certificate. Inside her bag there was very little clothing, a small book that looked oddly familiar and so badly beaten it was tied with string, and the piece of paper in question, which I passed to the doctor on my return to the drawing room.
“Does this look legitimate to you?”
The doctor took it closer to the light by the window to examine it carefully.
“I do not quite know what they do in the French provinces, but it appears legitimate to me on the surface. See the type . . . Certain equipment
would be needed to produce the quality, so she would have had to know someone with such a machine or steal such ready-printed papers from the clergy. Which is not improbable, I suppose. And of course I can’t be certain if the signatures are those of the actual persons. If you like, I can contact the registry over there and have the ceremony verified at least. Presuming of course that any such paperwork was registered.”
Given what Mariette had said earlier about the town being destroyed, I realized it could be difficult to prove.
“You say you believe the signature is your brother’s?”
“It certainly looks like his handwriting. Yes.”
“How old did she say was the child?”
“Under four. She didn’t say exactly.”
The doctor looked back at the paper in his hand.
“Hmm. I think that perhaps there is another question you might want to ask her. Such as exactly what was the relationship between them?”
His query seemed a little impertinent and not the least obvious, and his meaning for such was vague.
“The child is clearly not used to adult supervision and instruction, and I see some evidence that he may have gone untreated for prior illnesses. But perhaps he didn’t have access to the right medical facilities. A wildling almost . . . but I’m drifting off course here . . . I’ve examined enough children in my years to know the boy, though certainly small for his age, shows an extraordinary amount of awareness, and I would suggest at the very least he is closer to the age of five in his development. Of course one would have to do a complete examination to be more accurate. But I think the question here to be posed, though I should leave it to your discretion as to when and if you do, is at what point was the relationship productive?”
“I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”
“I’ve seen various informalities surrounding the births of children, but this marriage certificate is dated around the time the child was likely born. It may well be valid, but she might not be telling you everything.”
I looked at the paper, confused, running my eyes over the names again.
“Do the mathematics, dear boy. If I’m correct, the age of the child doesn’t quite fit legitimately with the date on the certificate. There are indeed more questions you need to consider.”
The discrepancy the doctor had put forward was suddenly obvious. A child born before a marriage was not only potentially detrimental to the issue of parentage and therefore the legitimacy of endowment, it opened up a line of inquiry of a more delicate matter, and I had no idea how one would pose such a query to a woman, or at the very least question her word.
“I’m not saying that this ascertains she is of dubious character, or that there might not be other reasons to account for perhaps a lack of physical development; however, sometimes in these cases, especially in the chaotic state of the land at the time, we are left with many moral curiosities. I can tell you that the French and British unions during that time certainly rose, and not all resulted with a certificate.”
“I see,” I said a little awkwardly. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Before he left, he wrote down in his notebook the details from the certificate, and I also made a handwritten copy of it before returning the piece of paper to Mariette’s bag as I had found it.
Inch by inch perhaps all the clues were leading to the truth. It was of some comfort that the doctor’s intuition told him the marriage certificate was likely valid, but his other words left me wary; a child born outside of marriage was not something Mother was yet ready for. Without definite proof of anything, I decided against mentioning the doctor’s considerations.
I sent Bert to the postmaster to send a second message to my employer, saying there was a family matter that must be attended to and that I would need to spend further time here to sort it out. I could not afford to lose the work, but matters at Lakeland Manor had left me no choice but to stay.
Peggy was a godsend over the next few days. She cared for Mariette like she would any of us, helping her bathe, checking her temperature, taking her broths, and applying cold compresses. I would check in from time to time, though I was more a spectator while respecting her modesty, as I imagined she would not like to be seen in this state. Though on the third day, Peggy asked me to attend to Mariette’s comforts, as she was busy with the child.
Mariette found it hard to lift her head off the pillow. I helped her sit up with cushions to feed her some soup, but she pushed my hand away and sank back down beneath the sheets. The child was kept away, miserable for much of the time. Bert took on more duties for Peggy during this period, purchasing meat and vegetables from the village. We all pitched in, and I regularly reported to Mother, who was looking more wan, I think because of the amount of attention paid to the stranger. Though there was something a little softer about her. She was not totally hard or without feeling. She did indeed look sympathetic as to the seriousness of Mariette’s condition, having suffered herself for so many years. And as for me, seeing the frailty of Mariette at this time and feeling somewhat remorseful for her predicament, I developed a sense of protectiveness toward both our visitors.
During Mariette’s convalescence I helped repair broken palings and pavers and attended to the gardening. Bert was quite stiff in the joints, and in the previous two years, I had seen a rapid degeneration of his movement. With his decline, diminishing wheat yields, dwindling sheep numbers, and limited funds to service all of it, I saw Bert’s future at the manor shrinking, his departure imminent.
Having had much farm experience, Bert lent his hand where he could. The farmers had become our friends, and we tried as best we could to get them through the downturn. The difficult decision ahead was the likely sale of land to developers. However, as the beneficiary, it would ultimately be Laurence’s decision. And since he’d had little interest in the place, selling most of the estate was the likely scenario. With Edgar’s death still officially inconclusive, Mother’s responsibility for the estate, as Edgar’s designated interim trustee during his war absence, had continued in the meantime, and much of the management had then been passed on to me. However, I suspected that Laurence’s patience would run its course, and he might soon present his claims to the estate.
One evening after dinner I knocked on Mariette’s door to check on her improvement. She called out for me to enter, and I found her propped up on the pillows in a plain white nightdress. She turned her head as I approached, her eyes clearer, the lamplight beside her bed allowing her a more radiant than sallow complexion at this time, and her brilliant red-brown hair fanned across the pillow. “Will you sit with me?” she said with a frail voice and heavy-lidded gaze.
I sat on a chair beside her on the bed. Her expression was open and trusting, her life seemingly in my hands. She was a mystery to me, a stranger from a foreign country, and with a past that I knew very little about. But I felt close to her then, in an unexplained way, and by the time I would leave the room, even closer still.
It was clear she was feeling better, but she still appeared very weak. Even lifting herself to a more seated position seemed to be an effort.
“Thank you, all of you, for taking care of me,” she said.
I shook my head to steer her away from any compliment.
“How is Samuel?”
I reassured her that he was in good hands.
“You could have sent me away, but you didn’t,” she said.
“We wouldn’t do that.”
“Your brother said that should something happen to him, it was not in your nature to turn me away.”
I wondered if she knew what she was saying or whether she was just rambling in a haze of illness.
“What else did he say?”
“He said that when you were very small, you were fearful of the waves. He would always have to carry you when you had not yet grown your sea legs. One day he let go of you in the water, and a wave swallowed you under and dragged you away. He called and called your name, thought you had gone. And then he s
aw you. You had not been dragged as far as he thought, and he pulled you in, and you were shaking and wailing with fear, and he said that he was laughing because it was the happiest sound he had ever heard.”
I remembered that day, sort of. I remember him calling my name.
“He also told me that he didn’t like that he got all the attention. That perhaps if he were to go, you would be taken more seriously.”
She stopped talking suddenly and closed her eyes. The only movement was the faint flickering of soft light beside her and then her breathing grew steady and even. I crept from the room, closed the door, then sat against it and put my head in my hands as tears escaped for the second time. Two things I thought about. The first was that Edgar had thought about me enough to talk about this, and the second was that everything seemed to be pointing to the fact that she was telling the truth. I did not imagine him to be so open about such feelings with someone he wasn’t close to.
The next morning, I had a message from the doctor to say that he could not reach the church where the marriage was officiated, because the building was destroyed in the war, but he did learn that the priest who presided in the parish had survived and was living elsewhere.
It would seem, young Rudy, that she may be telling the truth. But I can’t, of course, confirm with only this. I would suggest you seek your family lawyer and take the details to him also. He would best know about searching for birth records if they exist and if the union is legitimate in the eyes of the law.
I did indeed intend on seeking more information, and I thus took the copy by car, this time to our lawyer.
Roland greeted me affectionately.
In a Field of Blue Page 4
