The River Within

by Karen Powell

  Their father left soon afterwards. She craved company yet she was glad to have the cottage to herself on days when he and Tom were at odds. Between the two of them, there was barely room for anyone else, she just was an insubstantial thing, to be pressed into corners. There was an strange feeling in Lennie’s stomach. She wanted to eat and not eat at the same time. Scraping the bright eggy mess from Tom’s plate did nothing to improve things. She poured tea for herself; sat down at the table to drink it. The hot tea hit her stomach before there was anything she could do about it; there was something wrong with the milk. An oily curdled taste coated the inside of her mouth. Lennie dropped her cup onto the saucer, covered her mouth and hurried to the lavatory to spit. What was Mrs. Cuthbert thinking? The big refrigerator hummed so confidently behind the shop counter, displaying its rows of dairy produce with buxom pride, but it mustn’t be working properly. She wondered if she could she ask her father to complain. Mrs. Cuthbert must be poisoning half the village with her stock!

  And yet her father and Tom had taken milk with their tea this morning and neither of them had complained of any foul taste. In the kitchen, she sniffed the bottle. The milk seemed to be perfectly fine. The contents had not thickened or turned yellow at the edges. Perhaps it was nothing to do with the milk. Maybe she really was becoming unwell. That wouldn’t do though. Alexander was taking her out properly tomorrow, not just dropping by on a whim—she couldn’t be ill. Lennie took down a tumbler from the cupboard, poured a tiny splash of the milk into the base of it, lifted the glass to her lips.

  She hurtled towards the sink, bent almost double over it, her body shuddering of its own accord. Once it had started the shuddering would not stop. Her stomach wrenched itself inside out, over and over. She was choking. Tears ran down her face. She could not see. Until, eventually, she could stand upright again, legs hot and shaky beneath her. She wiped away the tears and the stringy mucus that was like some horrible drool a dog might have produced, carefully washed out the sink. She knew.

  CHAPTER 28

  Venetia, 1935

  Don’t you want to see your baby?’ The midwife said when it all was over. The question, the laughter that accompanied it, surprised Venetia; in all the pain and commotion of the last few hours she had forgotten that this would be the outcome. The midwife finished what she was doing, while Venetia looked down at herself. Her stomach was no longer hard and proud but crumpled, like a tent that has been struck. Soldiers must feel like this, she thought, when the guns stop firing, and it is time to see what damage had been inflicted during the heat of the battle, what has been bruised or bloodied, what destroyed. She noticed that she was shaking.

  ‘You’ve a little boy,’ said the midwife, handing her a bundle of blankets. ‘Congratulations.’

  Venetia held out her arms to receive him, gathering him to her heart as mothers do. She gazed down at her newborn child, Alexander, they had decided to call him. She looked at his birth-pinched face, nose flattened, eyelids like a small lizard. She felt nothing.

  The pregnancy had been straightforward. She had suffered no morning sickness, had only started to wonder when she missed a second month. Dr. Harrison confirmed what she suspected and life carried on as usual. She was busy with the renovations to the salon, still went out riding most days, much to Angus’s concern, stopping only when she was too heavy to pull herself up into the saddle without assistance. She carried the child well, people said, so neat and tidy, and while this surveying and assessing of her body as though she were some kind of municipal object made her uncomfortable, she had to agree with the verdict. The baby had curled itself tightly beneath her ribcage, while the rest of her body remained lithe and unaffected. She was proud of her unabated energy, as if there was some rectitude in not slumping into fat torpor.

  ‘He doesn’t like me,’ she found herself saying, when the baby was a week old. She hardly recognised the petulance in her own voice. Angus smiled and shook his head at her, as if she’d made a poor joke. She might have added: I don’t much like him either, but it would have been an exaggeration, or a skewing of the truth. From that first moment she had remained almost indifferent to her son. She looked down at him with a blankness that was tinged only with the resentment of the very tired.

  ‘You need some rest,’ was all that Angus said.

  Well, exhaustion was partly to blame—she attributed the odd sense of floating above everything to that—but she knew she was right. Why else would the child keep crying out in hunger and then refuse to feed from her? Already, it had become a battle between the two of them, Venetia putting the baby to her breast when he cried, holding her breath as he took her nipple into his mouth. Seconds later, he would throw himself off with surprising force, face crumpling into a howl, features contorting like a small, enraged demon. The strength of him was surprising. Like one of those strangely muscular cherubs, or the Christ Child himself in a renaissance painting, with the stature of an infant and breadth of a grown man. It scared her, his capacity for rage, she who had not thought herself easily cowed. He was just a child she had to remind herself, a tiny scrap of flesh.

  ‘Where’s my lovely boy?’ Angus would say, coming in from his work on the estate, scooping Alexander up in his arms. A little part of her would be puzzled, wondering to whom he referred.

  Night times were the worst, the bleakness of the early hours, until daylight pushed everything back into its right shape. Time and again she would repeat the process of coaxing Alexander to latch on to her breast, both she and the infant growing slippery from effort and agitation. Eventually he would suckle a little and then fall into a dissatisfied sleep, leaving Venetia staring into the darkness, the clock ticking smugly in the hallway below. She was beyond tired by that stage—her body still ached from the birth, and from the tension of trying to hold him in the correct position while he fed. Her breasts turned to hot, hard rocks, aching from the milk that Alexander craved but did not want. Still, she was unable to sleep, a knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach, turning and tightening as she waited for the baby to wake from his fitful doze, for the crying to begin all over again. Angus would find the two of them slumped in the chair like wounded soldiers, daylight sliding through the nursery window bringing the pretence of new beginnings.

  The midwife came to visit, wanted to know why Venetia didn’t give the baby a bottle. Lots of women preferred it these days and that way someone could come in to help, especially with the night feeds. Sir Angus would likely be happier with that. You had to think about the father as well. Venetia said she’d think about it, just to stop the woman hectoring, but resolved to keep trying nonetheless. She’d grown up on a farm, knew about the bad ewe who couldn’t give her newborn what it needed. Eventually, the small creature would be taken away and introduced into to another family, or else she or her mother would bottle-feed it. You’d think twice about breeding from that animal again. It didn’t have the right instincts.

  What she would have given to feel clean and contained and healthy again. She was leaking like some great-uddered milk cow. If she could just get herself organised and clean, stay that way for an hour or two, there might be a chance of taking control, instead of lying around in a hot, exhausted heap all the time, sweat running from her brow and temples, adding to the mess. It was unseemly. No wonder Angus kept urging her to rest, to leave the child with one of the maids for an hour or two. He must wonder what had become of his old wife, the one who had been self-possessed for one so young, with her smart clothes and the arch manner that had always amused him. He did his best to help, taking the pram around the Great Lawn, or to Sir Laurie’s rooms. The crying didn’t seem to bother him. Once she overhead him talking to Alexander about his plans for the estate. She might have teased him about it if she’d been capable.

  ‘Failing to thrive,’ the midwife said, one morning about two weeks after Alexander’s birth. If things didn’t improve, she said, eyeing Venetia meaningfully, then we’d need to hav
e a good think about what’s happening here. The midwife checked the scales again, Alexander’s mottled little body swamped by his nappy, his limbs spidery, shook her head.

  You read about it in the newspaper sometimes: mothers who neglected to clothe their offspring properly or bathe them, the children being taken away ‘for their own sake.’ Once she’d seen a story of a woman whose baby, like Alexander, would not stop crying. The woman had taken a cushion and held it over the baby’s face until the crying stopped for good. At the trial she said that she loved the child dearly, was distraught by what she had done. The noise had been awful though. It was the only way to make it stop. Looking down into Alexander’s cot, Venetia understood what had driven the woman to that point, though she had no urge to hurt her own child. He had lived inside her body for nine months in perfect peace, the two of them in equilibrium. Now everything was off-kilter and she did not know what to do about it. Crying was a ridiculous response, tears splashing on to the white blanket in the cot. At this rate she would wake him but the tears kept on coming. She covered her mouth with her hands, held her breath, but the noise wouldn’t stop.

  CHAPTER 29

  Danny, July 1955

  Lying on his bed, Tennyson’s poems abandoned on the floor, Danny knew himself to be a fool because the thought had never crossed his mind. Alexander bloody Richmond. Lord of almost everything now that old Sir Angus was dead and gone.

  A small, wiry boy he’d been, building dams across the river shallows in bright sunlight; who should have been cowed by the village lads but wasn’t. Something to do with a sharp tongue, and, of course, no-one forgetting who his old man was. Danny hadn’t cared about that, had liked him for his laughter, his grand ideas: they should dig a great network of tunnels between their homes, put on a play that the whole village would watch, recreate the Battle of Britain by gathering together as many model Spitfires and Hurricanes as possible. Alexander would come up with the next big idea while Danny’s job was to realise it in line with the resources at hand. Alexander would clap him on the shoulder and call him his ‘right hand man.’

  Picture him now, Danny urged himself, sitting up on his bed and holding his head in his hands, as if trying to squeeze out the truth. Looks like his mother, that’s what people said about him. His father was dark and thicker-set, with his perfect manners no matter who you were, everyone saying it was a sad day when he died. Alexander would inherit everything as soon as he was old enough, even the sawmill, so that Danny would spend the rest of his life in thrall to him. Set for life, his mam said only this morning, boasting to her sister about his apprenticeship at the mill. Not knowing how he longed to escape. A dream that now seemed impossible and pointless if Lennie wasn’t to be part of it.

  The Christmas party up at the Hall last year. That was the last time he’d seen Alexander. He was standing at one end of the salon by the great fireplace, talking to Thomas, who looked as sullen ever. There was something fox-like about Alexander now that he was older, Danny noticed, a sharper set to his face. Handsome though, with Hattie and the rest of the kitchen girls all looking his way. Danny had seen him out riding last winter too. On a day when the fields were iced with frost, the grass blades snapping beneath your boots, the sky blue and endless.

  His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;

  On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;

  Danny felt sure that there would be a whole library full of poetry somewhere in the Hall for those who wanted it. Alexander would never need to take a train into York, talk too loudly in a second-hand bookshop just to get hold of a cheap battered copy that was losing its cover. His mouth would be full of poetry already and it would come easily to him instead of being all stopped up inside. The heir to Richmond Hall didn’t need to dream ridiculous dreams about working in a stone yard and someone like Lennie settling for that. Danny saw how blinkered he had been by his passion. He’d been so sure that only he could comprehend her quiet splendour, that it had never occurred to him to search the horizon for rivals.

  Danny escaped as soon as possible the next day, slamming the cottage door behind him in his hurry to be away. He caught the first train to York, intending to hitch the rest of the way to barracks. As no-one seemed to be driving any distance today, he worked his way there in stages, walking for a bit when he found himself on country roads. Though it was still early, it was going to be a proper summer’s day. The birds were half-crazed with it, shrieking at one another from the hedgerows, while the spiders had been busy, stretching dewy webs across his pathway that glittered and trembled in the morning air. The beauty didn’t get past the surface of him though. All morning he walked and hitched, the day settling into itself, hot and lazy. By the time he reached the gates of the barracks, evening was coming and the birds had quietened.

  As he readied himself for bed that night, something came to mind which gave him a sliver of hope. He just needed to be sure. Square-bashing the next day was preceded by a punitive session in the gym and both acted like some kind of medicine, lifting Danny’s despair still further. It was easier to think straight now that he was no longer locked up inside his own head.

  ‘Porter!’ he called across the parade ground as the recruits made their way into tea. Porter, who was walking ahead of him, waited for Danny to catch up.

  ‘What’s up, fellow? Good weekend home?’ he said, offering Danny a cigarette.

  ‘Yes thanks. I just wanted to ask . . . Your sister’s at Cambridge, isn’t she? The university.’

  ‘Why, are you in need of a date?’ Porter grinned at him. ‘I’m not sure Cecily’s quite what you’re after.’

  Danny reddened. ‘No, not that. You said something about her being home for the summer.’

  ‘Yes, and bored out of her mind after a month of being dragged to bridge drives and WI teas by my mother. She’ll be desperate to go up again come autumn.’

  So Porter’s sister was home from college, had been for weeks. Yet Hattie had said Alexander Richmond had gone abroad. Why wouldn’t he come home to see Lennie if they were supposed to be courting? It didn’t make sense, yet he found it hard to believe that Hattie would tell an outright lie. The village was full of gossip, always had been; Hattie couldn’t stop people telling her things that might not be true, especially that sister of hers who wasn’t, everyone suspected, quite right in the head. It wasn’t much to go on but it was enough to make a difference. Danny, tired from the day’s exertions, slept soundly that night, despite McLean snoring like a donkey in the next bunk.

  CHAPTER 30

  Venetia, 1935

  There were voices on the stairs. Fresh sunlight was slanting through the window. The midwife was not due until late morning.

  Venetia could make out disjointed bits of conversation. The nursery door was slightly ajar.

  ‘Sleeping . . . ’ Angus was saying. ‘Don’t know what . . . ’

  ‘Very much afraid . . . your wife . . . ’

  ‘Now then, what’s been happening here?’ the midwife said, entering. Without waiting for an answer, she scooped up Alexander from his crib, pulling the blanket from him. Alexander was limp in sleep, his scrappy arms half suspended in the air in protest, legs dangling beneath him. His skin was blotchy and purple. He looked the opposite of health.

  Failing to thrive. Her child.

  The midwife shook her head. ‘This can’t go on any longer.’

  Venetia’s dressing gown was open, her nightdress still unbuttoned from the last aborted feed. She had not brushed her hair or washed her face. She was too tired to argue.

  The midwife misinterpreted her silence. ‘Do you want this baby to end up in hospital? Because that’s what will happen if you carry on with this nonsense.’

  Venetia stared at her, and then at Angus who was hovering in the doorway. Waiting for him to take issue with this manner of address. There were still times when she had to remind herself that she was Lady Richmond, not just yo
ung Venetia from the farm, but there was not a housemaid at the Hall who would dare to speak to her with such disrespect.

  If only she’d had time to clean her teeth.

  The midwife tested the warmed milk on the inside her wrist and then handed the bottle to Venetia.

  ‘Brush his lips with it,’ she said. Alexander was sleeping soundly for once, heavy in Venetia’s arms. His mouth twitched as soon as the teat touched his lips. His eyes flickered for a second; he opened his mouth. Venetia nudged the bottle in. Alexander’s eyes opened. He began to suck, slowly at first, wary of this new introduction to the whole business of feeding, but then more quickly, his temples fluttering. When he began taking great greedy gulps, she heard Angus laugh, relief in his voice. The midwife said:

  ‘There! The poor mite was starving.’

  ‘Good boy,’ said Angus, stroking the baby’s head. He did not look at Venetia.

  ‘He’ll be putting weight on in no time,’ the woman went on, ‘now that he’s getting what he needs. I’ve left you more bottles downstairs and some formula. You’ll have to get into a routine with the sterilising, of course, but you’re lucky enough to have folk who can help you with that sort of thing.’

  She wasn’t to be trusted even with that task.

  Part of her had imagined carrying on with life as usual—she would take the baby with her on trips to the stables, the kitchen, the garden, the obligatory visits to villagers in need. She would still enjoy quiet dinners with Angus, talking through the events of their day, the child a delightful appendage to their happy existence. She had been wrong. She understood that now. Motherhood was a form of combat and the better prepared she was, the more likely she was to triumph over this enemy child who’d turned out to have far more power than she’d thought possible.