He took it out of the box and held it for her to see. He could see raindrops in her hair as she bent to look.
It was too dark to compare the images in detail, but the idea of making the comparison put the question in his mind, and he was certain it was in hers.
“Two years ago I photographed a child of two, and today I photographed a child of four, and I do not know whether it is the same child or a different one. Is it her, Rita? Is it Amelia?”
“Helena believes so.”
“And Vaughan?”
“He is not so sure. I once thought he was convinced it was another child altogether. Now he is wavering.”
“What do you think?”
“The child of two years ago and the child of today are like enough that it is possible, but not so alike that it is certain.”
She placed her hands on the edge of the developing table and leant back against it. “Look at it from another perspective. Today’s photograph.”
“Yes?”
“How do you think she looked? I don’t mean clarity and composition, your usual judgements on your work, but the girl herself. How was she?”
He peered at the image, but the candle made it hard to read the expression on the little girl’s face. “Expectation? Not really, is it. Nor hope.”
He turned to Rita for elucidation.
“She’s sad, Daunt.”
“Sad . . . ?” He looked again at the photograph while she continued speaking.
“She stares up- and downriver in search of something. Something she longs for. Something she has been expecting every day, and every day it doesn’t come, and still she waits and still she looks and still she yearns, but the hope dwindles with every day that passes. Now she waits hopelessly.”
He looked. What she said was true. “What is it she’s waiting for?”
Suddenly he knew the answer to his own question. “Her father,” he said at the same time as Rita opened her mouth and said, “Her mother.”
“Does she belong to Robin Armstrong after all?”
Rita frowned. “According to Helena, she’s indifferent to him. But if she hasn’t seen him for a long time—and he admitted as much at the Swan—she wouldn’t remember.”
“So she might be his.”
Rita paused, frowning.
“Robin Armstrong is a man who’s not what he seems, Daunt.” He saw her weighing up how much to tell him. She came to a conclusion. “His faint at the Swan was faked. His pulse was far too steady. The entire thing was playacting.”
“Why?”
Her face had the grim and hungry look it always had when her knowledge of a thing was thwarted. “I don’t know.”
The rain had slowed. She picked up a glove, put it on, and when she reached for the other found that Daunt had it in his hands.
“When can I photograph you again?”
“Have you nothing better to do than take photographs of a country nurse? Surely you must have enough by now.”
The wall of his room over the shop in Oxford was covered in photographs of Rita. Rita smiling, Rita frowning, Rita on the river, Rita on the bridge, Rita seated, Rita standing, Rita reading, Rita with her eyes closed, Rita with and without her hat, Rita looking impatient, Rita thinking—at least, he feared she was thinking—When will this photographer go away and leave me in peace?
“I have nowhere near enough.”
“My glove?” She would not be coaxed into coquettishness, not even over a glove. Flirting got you nowhere. She refused to play with undercurrents and scorned gallantry. Directness was the only approach she recognized.
He relinquished the glove and she turned, ready to leave.
“When I see you with the girl . . .”
She paused, and he saw her back stiffen.
“What I wonder is, haven’t you ever wanted . . .”
“A child?” Something in her voice opened the door to hope.
She turned and looked him full in the face.
“I’m thirty-five. Far too old for all that.”
It was a clear rebuff.
In the silence that followed, it became obvious that at some point the rain must have stopped, because they heard it start up again, a gentle patter.
Rita exclaimed and refolded her muffler. He shuffled round her elaborately to open the door; it was a dance in which they both leant exaggeratedly away from each other.
“Shall I see you to your door?”
“It’s only a few yards. Stay in the dry.”
And she was gone.
Thirty-five, he was thinking. It was young enough. Had there been something unresolved in her voice? His memory played the exchange again, trying to catch every inflection, but his auditory memory was not the match of his visual one and he did not want to expose himself to false hope and wishful thinking.
He closed the door behind her and leant against it. Women wanted children, didn’t they? His sisters had them, and Marion, his wife, had been disappointed not to become a mother.
He picked up the cases for the glass plates and, before sliding them in, took another look at the day’s exposure. The child gazed out of the glass, upriver, longingly. He found himself gazing longingly back.
He closed the glass into its box, then pressed his knuckles into his closed eyes to rub the yearning away.
The Genie in the Teapot
The water level was nearing the top of the first post, as Lily expected after all the rain. Every year it was like this, for a day or a few days or a week. It made her wary. Still, there was no angry rush and no menacing loitering either. The water did not hiss or roar or dart spiteful splashes at her hem. It flowed steadily, wholly engaged on some calm business of its own, and had not the slightest interest in Lily and her doings.
What would the parson say? Lily emptied the feed into the trough and, when she put the bucket on the ground, thought she might as well sink down with it. It wasn’t so very long ago she had feared he might dismiss her because she missed a day’s work when Ann came back. Then there’d been the awful day when he wanted to know how old she was and when she last saw her mother. After that, she had gone round the skirtings behind the heavy furniture, beaten the dust out of the curtains in the spare bedroom that was never used, washed down the walls of the privy, cleaned the underside of the kitchen table where spiders liked to nest in the corners, but nothing settled her nerves, and for several Thursdays in a row it was a relief not to be given her notice at the same time as her wages. Now it was worse. Would word of her concealment in the shrubs opposite the Vaughans’ boathouse have reached the parson?
“What to do?” she sighed aloud as she put the bucket down and the boar started to root around for the best bits. “I don’t know.”
The sow tautened her ears. Even in her worried state, Lily half smiled.
“Droll creature—you look for all the world as if you are listening to me!”
A quiver ran through the pig. It began with the trembling of her nostrils, and then every ginger hair of her body shivered as if in response to a breeze rippling down her spine and twitching the curl of her tail. When the wave had completed its journey, the sow stood to attention, poised in readiness for something.
Lily stared. She noticed that the dullness that had clouded the sow’s eye for so long had lifted. The small eyes with their large pupils were now filled with light.
Then something happened to Lily too. She felt her gaze shift from looking at the sow’s eye to looking into it. And there she saw—
“Oh!” she cried, and her heart burst into a flurry of beating, for it is a startling sensation to look at something and find that inside it is another living soul looking back. Lily would have been no less astonished to be addressed by a genie from inside her teapot, or have the lampshade bow its head to her.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed, and she took a few gasping breaths.
The sow shifted her trotters restlessly and made a breathing noise that also signified agitation.
“Whatever is
it? What do you want?”
The sow became still and did not shift her gaze from Lily’s but stared with an air of divine delight.
“Do you want me to talk to you? Is that what it is?”
She scratched the sow’s ear, and the sow grunted softly in a way that Lily understood as satisfaction.
“You’ve been lonely, have you? Is it sadness made your eyes so dull? I don’t suppose he’s much company for you. Nasty brute. They’re no good, men. Not Mr. White, and certainly not Victor, who brought you here, and not his father before him. None of ’em. Well, the parson’s all right . . .”
She chatted to the pig about the parson, about his kindness and his goodness, and as she did, her own problems returned to her thoughts.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, softly. “One of them’s bound to have told him. Not that photographer fellow—I haven’t never seen him in church—but the Vaughans or the nurse. I wasn’t doing anything bad, yet it looks bad . . . And if they haven’t said anything yet, it’ll come before long. What am I to do? If I have to leave the parsonage . . .”
A tear dropped from her eye and she left off scratching the sow to wipe it away.
The sow blinked sympathetically.
“Tell him myself? Well, perhaps . . . I suppose it would be better if he heard it from me first. I could explain. Tell him I meant no harm by it. Yes, I’ll do that.”
Was it foolish talking to a pig? Of course it was—but nobody was there to hear, and besides, it was a good idea of the pig’s that she should tell the parson herself. Lily rubbed her face dry on her sleeve.
She stood scratching the sow’s ear a little longer, then told her, “Go on, eat something. He’ll leave none for you otherwise.”
She waited to see that the sow had her snout in the trough, then put the bucket away, transferred Victor’s money from the log to its hiding place in the cottage, and set off for work.
She turned to walk upstream and, in her new confidence born of the idea that had come to her, thanks to the sow, took her eyes off the water and noticed the brightness of the day. She did not linger when she passed the Vaughans’ garden—merely glanced briefly over the river, and saw that nobody was there. Seeing the clump of elders and bramble where she had hidden caused her spirits to flag, but she rallied them by visiting Ann in her mind. Over there, in the safety of the Vaughans’ house, her sister lived a life that Lily had never known. It was one of comfort and wealth, things Lily could only guess at. She saw a fire burning in a large hearth, a well-stocked basket of logs, a table with several dishes of hot food, enough for everyone and something left over. In another room there was a bed, a real one, with a soft mattress and two warm blankets. She could think of no other riches: these were luxury enough to her mind; she had been feasting on them for weeks now. But now, with the spring freshness starting to show, a new idea occurred to her. Had the Vaughans thought to give Ann a puppy?
A beagle would be patient and gentle with her. But spaniels had beautiful silky ears. Ann would like stroking the ears of a spaniel, she was sure. Or a terrier? A little terrier puppy would be full of fun. She lined up the puppies, and in the end it was the tail that swayed her: surely a terrier had the very best tail for wagging. A terrier it was. She added the puppy to Ann’s blankets and log basket and fur-lined boots and rejoiced at the new detail. A cheerful little companion, yapping with pleasure as he chased and returned the red ball Ann threw, and later fell asleep on her lap. And Lily herself haunted these fantasies, an invisible figure who diverted wasps from the flowers that Ann bent to smell, who removed thorny brambles from the bushes where the red ball landed, damped the sparks that leapt from the fire onto the hearthrug. She averted all dangers, managed all risks, protected from all harm. Nothing could hurt Ann while she lived in the Vaughans’ house and while Lily watched over her from afar: the child’s life was nothing but comfort, safety, and delight.
“Come! Ah! Mrs. White!”
Her name was like a blessing in his voice, and it gave her courage. She placed the tea tray on his desk. “Shall I pour a cup for you?”
“No,” he murmured distractedly, without lifting his head. “I’ll do it.”
“Parson . . .”
He touched the paper with his pen and added another few words in the margin, and she marveled again at his quickness with ink.
“Yes, what is it?”
He looked up. She felt her throat tighten.
“Yesterday, when I was walking home along the river . . . I happened to stop. It was just opposite where the garden of Buscot Lodge comes down to the bank. Mrs. Vaughan was out on the river with Ann.”
The parson frowned. “Mrs. White . . .”
“I never meant to do no harm,” she went on, in a rush, “but they saw I was looking. The nurse rowed over to where I was, after Ann and Mrs. Vaughan had got out—”
“Have you been injured, Mrs. White?”
“Nothing! That’s to say, it’s just a scratch; it was the brambles on the riverbank, that’s all.”
She fidgeted with her hair as if she might still veil the evidence.
“I never meant to go,” she said again. “I happened to be passing that way because it’s the way home. I didn’t go particular or anything—and it don’t seem wrong to look. I never touched her, I never went near; I was on the other bank altogether. She never even saw me.”
“If anyone has come to harm, Mrs. White, it seems to be you. I will tell the Vaughans that you meant no harm when you were looking at Amelia yesterday. Her name is Amelia, Mrs. White. You know that, don’t you? You said Ann just then.”
Lily gave no answer.
The parson went on with great kindness in his voice and in his expression. “I’m sure nobody is afraid that you mean to hurt her. But think of the Vaughans. Think of what they have been through. They have lost her once already. It might be distressing for them to have the child watched so closely by someone outside the family. Even if she does—perhaps—resemble a sister of yours whose name is Ann.”
Again she did not answer.
“Well, Mrs. White. Perhaps we have finished with that topic for today.”
The interview was over for now. She crept towards the door. On the threshold she turned, timidly.
The Parson had returned to his papers; his teacup was halfway to his lips.
“Parson?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, like a child who thinks by speaking quietly she can avoid interrupting an adult engaged on some important task.
“Yes?”
“Do she have a puppy?”
He looked bewildered.
“The little girl at the Vaughans’—the one they call Amelia. Do she have a little dog to play with?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea.”
“Only, I think she would like one. A little terrier. When you see Mr. Vaughan, when you tell him that I won’t stare across the river no more, perhaps you could ask him?”
The parson was lost for words.
The Longest Day
In summertime the Swan at Radcot was as sweet a spot as you could imagine. The grassy banks sloped down from the inn, and the river lent itself contentedly to the leisure and delight of mankind. There were skiffs and sculling boats for hire, punts for fishing and pleasure too. Margot carried the tables outdoors in the morning sun, and if it should get too hot in the middle of the day, picnic blankets could be spread in the generous shade of the trees. She called on her daughters, three at a time, and the Swan proliferated with little Margots working in the kitchen, pouring drinks, and running in and out with trays of food, lemonade, and cider. With smiles for all, they never tired. You could say, with truth, that there were few spots more idyllic than the Swan in summer.
This year was different. It was the weather. The spring rain had been regular and moderate in quantity, pleasing the farmers who looked forward to a good harvest. As the weeks drew on to summer and hopes grew for sunshine, the rain continued, increasing in frequency and duration. The
leisure boaters set off optimistically in light drizzle, counting on it clearing up later in the day; but when the rain set in in earnest, as it always did, they packed up early and went home. Four or five times Margot had looked at the sky and put the tables out, but rare was the day she didn’t have to go out and bring them in again, and the summer room stood empty. “It’s a good thing we had such a good winter,” she concluded, recalling the crowds that packed the room to hear the story of the drowned girl who came to life again. “We’d be struggling if it wasn’t for that.” Two of the little Margots were sent back to their husbands and children, and she and a single daughter managed the workload with Jonathan to help.
Joe was poorly, his chest not improved by the summer mists that hung with clammy warmth over the riverbank. This was the time of year he’d usually been able to count on his lungs drying out, but the change of season helped him little this time, and he’d continued to sink into his spells as frequently as in wintertime, and he sat quiet and pale by the hearth while the regulars drank and talked around him.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said in response to any inquiry. “I’m all right. I’m working up a story.”
“It will get better at solstice time, I expect,” Margot said, without really believing her own optimism, but then, in the third week of June, things did in fact pick up. First people wondered whether the rain showers were sparser, and then they actually were. Patches of blue appeared in the grey and lingered, and twice in a row the afternoons were dry. There came to be a sense of expectation as the longest day drew near.
The summer solstice was traditionally the day of the summer fair, and this year it was also the wedding day of Owen Albright and his housekeeper, Bertha. What with the wedding breakfast in the morning, and the fairgoers who would doubtless want to quench their thirst in the afternoon, they could count on it being a busy day.
Then solstice day dawned—and the sun shone.
In fact, thought Henry Daunt as he set up his camera outside the church for the wedding photograph, it’s too bright. I’ll have to take it here, sheltered from the glare.
Once Upon a River Page 26
