Summer House

by Nichols, Mary

  ‘Of course she did, she was my mum.’ Helen had taken leave of her senses. She had lost a daughter in infancy and somehow got them mixed up and was pretending… That was it. Well, she wasn’t going to condone it. ‘You lost your daughter,’ she said. ‘You told me so yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I lost her, I didn’t mean she died. She was taken from me.’

  ‘Are you saying… No, I won’t hear of it. If you imagine—’

  ‘I’m not imagining anything. Just listen—’

  ‘No!’ Laura stood up and rushed from the room to the sanctuary of her own quarters, where she slammed the door behind her and collapsed into a chair by the hearth. She felt her world – everything she had known and loved, happy memories of her childhood which had buoyed her up since Mum died – shattering around her, and all because Helen wanted a daughter and could not accept her own had died. Did she really believe what she was saying? She could almost feel sorry for her, but not quite.

  She stood up and went towards the bedroom; she’d leave, start packing now, at once. Her hand was on the doorknob when something made her turn back and begin pacing the floor, from the window to opposite wall and back again. Where could she go? And there was Robby. He loved it here, and where could she get a job where he was so well looked after? And those poor airmen she was nursing: the one who cried himself to sleep every night; the other who had bad dreams and woke up screaming; the quiet one who stoically bore everything she did to try and help him; the joker; the one who always had his crooked red nose in a book. How could she abandon them? They needed her and she needed them; at least, she needed a well-paid job.

  There came unbidden into her mind a picture of a set of carefully wrapped baby clothes and a shawl with the initials HB. Helen had been taken aback when she saw Robby wearing them. Then Kathy’s mother had said how alike she and Helen were, and Wayne himself had mistaken them for mother and daughter. Why hadn’t she questioned all that before? She had to get to the bottom of it. Summoning every bit of self-control she could muster she went downstairs again. Helen was sitting exactly as she had left her, except she had an envelope in her hand.

  ‘You can’t prove any of this.’

  While Laura had been absent Helen had been to her room and fetched Anne’s letter, realising she was going to need it to convince Laura she wasn’t mad. ‘Read this first, then if you like, I’ll tell you the whole story.’

  Laura picked it up, recognised the handwriting and opened it with shaking hands. Helen was now the one to minister; she went and fetched the brandy bottle and a second glass. She poured a tot for them both. Laura took a large mouthful and began to read.

  ‘My dearest darling Laura. You are, and always have been, the centre of my existence, my precious daughter. And yet I have wickedly kept from you a most terrible secret which I have never had the courage to confess. I did not give you birth. I adopted you when you were a day old and pretended you were mine. You see, I could not have a child of my own and I longed for one, a baby to hold in my arms and call my own. The midwife told me of a place where mothers had babies they didn’t want which were put up for adoption. I thought I was giving a home to a baby girl no one wanted. It wasn’t true, as I found out when you were about three and I met Helen. Until this year when I became ill, I kept her at arm’s length and made her promise not to try and contact you, and I would tell you the truth when you were old enough to understand. I didn’t keep that promise, my darling, because I was afraid of what you would say. I cannot go to my Maker with this on my conscience, neither can I bring myself to confess it to you. I know you will be angry. And so, here it is in black and white. Helen will tell you the details. Listen to her and try to understand, and please try to forgive me. You have given me so much happiness, I could not have wished for a better daughter.’ It was blotched with tears and signed, ‘Your ever loving Mum.’

  It was too much to take in, but the question uppermost in her mind, after she had finished weeping, was why, considering Mum had been dead over eighteen months, Helen had not given it to her before. She looked up at Helen and wished she could hate her. She wanted to hate her. It was all her fault. And round and round in her head went the refrain: Why? Why? Why? She read the letter again, while the clock ticked the afternoon away. Nurse Symonds put her head round the door, looking for Laura to help change dressings. Helen looked up and put her finger to her lips. ‘Make sure we are not disturbed for a little while, will you, Nurse?’ The nurse went away again; it was doubtful if Laura even knew she had been.

  ‘Have you read this?’ Laura asked at last.

  ‘No, but I know what’s in it.’

  ‘Why have you kept it so long?’

  ‘I hoped never to have to give it to you. You loved Anne and I did not want to destroy that.’

  ‘If that was the case, why did you make Mum promise to tell me when I was old enough to understand?’

  ‘I always wanted you to know that I was your mother, that I loved you and hadn’t willingly given you up. But I changed my mind when Anne became ill. It didn’t seem to matter any more. It was more important to make a home for you and Robby. She wanted that, you know.’

  ‘I know, but I didn’t know why. You and she seemed to have so little in common.’

  Helen smiled. ‘Except you.’

  ‘And my father is Oliver Donovan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am the product of some sordid little extra-marital affair which had to be hushed up. It makes me feel sick.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’

  ‘Oh, how else would you describe it? You have made a bastard of me.’

  ‘Oh, Laura, don’t say that. If I could have kept that secret for ever I would have done. If Oliver’s son had not come to Beckbridge… I didn’t know he’d married Valerie Wilson. But today… I knew it would all come out because you had to be stopped from marrying Wayne.’

  ‘Oh, I can quite see that,’ she said bitterly. ‘And now everyone is going to know it, they will all be talking about us. Thank you for that!’

  ‘Laura, don’t be bitter. I love you, always have, and I love little Robby. I loved your father too, a little too much, as much as you loved Bob.’

  God, Helen was saying Robby was her grandchild! ‘There’s no comparison. I wasn’t married to someone else.’

  ‘No, I know that. But you do understand what it is like to love and be loved to the exclusion of all else. You may think of me as an embittered middle-aged widow, but I was once young and I fell in love, not wisely as it turned out. But it needn’t make any difference to us. We can still keep the secret; no one will say anything to your face.’

  ‘Brazen it out, you mean, like you’ve been doing ever since you brought me to Beckbridge.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m not like that. And in any case, I’ll have to tell Wayne.’

  ‘That’s up to you. But if you don’t, I am afraid his grandmother will.’ She paused. ‘I would like to explain, tell you how it happened. It wasn’t sordid, I promise you—’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Very well. I won’t press you.’

  ‘I’d like to leave here, go away and hide myself, forget you ever said anything, forget I’d ever met you, forget I’d ever met Wayne Donovan.’ She gave a cracked laugh. ‘By the way, I never intended to marry him. He’s a nice man but I was never in danger of falling in love with him.’

  ‘Oh, Laura, don’t leave, please. You are needed here, not just by me—’

  ‘I know that and for that reason I’m going nowhere, not right now anyhow. I have a job to do and until it’s done, or someone comes to take my place, I’m staying, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll be getting back to work.’ She got up and left Helen sitting staring into the distance. The secret was out and she wished with all her heart it had not been necessary to reveal it. The happy little world she had created in the last eighteen months had collapsed around her, and not for the
first time she wondered why Oliver had come back to Beckbridge all those years ago – not only come back, but had not seen fit to call at the Hall and tell her he was marrying the chambermaid. What she remembered of her, she was common and had a raucous laugh. Mama had had to remonstrate with her more than once over it. Had Oliver made her laugh? Had they laughed at her? Even so long afterwards, she burnt with humiliation.

  The arrival of Stella with Robby brought her out of her reverie. She kissed him and asked him if he had had a nice walk and found him one of Mrs Ward’s homemade biscuits. Life had

  ‘You’ll have to talk to him sooner or later.’ Helen had come into the sitting room to find Laura staring out of the window and had come up behind her to see what she was looking at. The window gave a view of the front lawn and drive before it disappeared round the bend towards the lane into the village. On the left was the front lawn, where the patients sometimes walked and amused themselves with croquet, though there was no one there now with autumn approaching and a cool wind blowing. On the right was an avenue of trees bordering the drive, beyond which was the park. Wayne was leaning with his back against one of the trees, one foot on the trunk behind him, smoking a cigarette.

  Laura turned towards her. Nowadays they hardly spoke except when necessary to do their work or maintain a semblance of normality in front of Robby and the staff. She knew it was her fault, that if she could only unbend a little Helen would be glad to talk to her, to recapture the pleasant familiarity they had enjoyed before the bombshell. She had been forced to come to terms with the fact that Helen really was her mother, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She had been cruelly deceived, not only by Helen but by her mum. She could never think of her as anything else but Mum, whatever the genetics of the relationship. If it had been explained to her while she was growing up that she had been adopted, she would have been able to accept it. She might even have had a lively curiosity about the woman who had given her birth, but that’s all it would have been. Mum would still have been Mum. There were so many questions unanswered, how she came to be registered as the daughter of Anne and Tom Drummond for one, and how, if her mother wasn’t pregnant, she had been able to pass the baby off as her own, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask Helen; it would be tantamount to acceptance, to condoning what had been done, and she wasn’t ready for that. She hadn’t talked to Wayne either, making excuses not to see him; she was too busy, or there was an emergency on the ward. He had taken to hovering in the grounds. ‘I know.’

  ‘Why not do it now?’

  ‘It’s easy for you to say. You’ve done your bit, shattering my happiness, now you want me to pass it on. It’s like a contagion, spreading and spreading, until we’re all miserable.’

  ‘Laura, that’s not fair.’ Helen, who in any case never raised her voice, spoke so softly her words were hardly audible.

  ‘I don’t feel like being fair. No one’s been fair to me.’

  ‘I tried.’ She paused. ‘Talking of being fair, what about that young man? Is it fair to keep him hanging about like that? He hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘No, you’re right.’ She turned away and left the room.

  Helen continued to watch until she saw Laura pushing Robby in his chair down the drive towards Wayne, then she turned away and went to the kitchen to make afternoon tea for the patients.

  ‘Laura, at last.’ He threw his cigarette stub down and pushed himself away from the tree. ‘What’s happened? Why have you been avoiding me? What have I done to offend you? You knew I didn’t intend anything improper, didn’t you? It wasn’t a dirty weekend I was proposing.’

  ‘I know.’

  He fell into step beside her as she went on down the drive at a rattling pace. ‘Then what?’

  She had almost reached the lane. To proceed would mean running the risk of meeting someone she knew. All the villagers were used to seeing her and Robby about the place and always stopped for a chat. She’d never get it off her chest if they were interrupted. She turned suddenly and made off across the grass towards the lake. He followed.

  She stopped and faced the pushchair towards the water, where Robby could watch the ducks and be seen from inside the summer house, put on the handbrake and went into the building. ‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing at the bench with its new cushions. ‘It’s a long story and not particularly edifying.’

  He did as he was told. She sat down beside him, leaving a good yard between them. He attempted to lighten the atmosphere with a smile but was met with a blank look and an emptiness in her eyes which alarmed him. ‘It can’t be that bad.’

  ‘It is. You remember you once thought Helen and I were mother and daughter?’

  ‘Yes. What about it?’

  ‘Well, we are.’

  This didn’t register with him as earth-shattering. ‘Have you only just found out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can see that it might be a shock to you if you didn’t know about it, but how does that justify hiding yourself away and refusing to see me?’

  ‘You don’t understand. It was Helen telling me who my father was.’ She gulped air. ‘His name, so Helen tells me, was Oliver Donovan.’

  He stared. ‘Pop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Neither did I, but she assures me it’s true. She was afraid we – you and I – were getting too close and had to stop it. According to her we are half-brother and-sister.’

  ‘Can she prove it?’ He was no more ready to believe it than she had been.

  ‘I don’t know. Why would she lie?’

  ‘Well, I want more than her word for it. It doesn’t have to be my father. She could have been with anyone.’

  ‘I’m sure she was never like that. I believe she was genuinely in love with him, but whether he was in love with her is a different matter. But she was married and so, I suppose, it was doomed from the start.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘No, I guessed from things she’s said.’

  ‘Not good enough.’ He paused. ‘When’s your birthday, the date you were born?’

  ‘The fifth of March, 1918, at least that’s what’s on my birth certificate. I can’t even be sure that’s true.’

  ‘Does it say who your parents were?’

  ‘Tom and Anne Drummond.’

  ‘There you are then. The whole thing is a fabrication from beginning to end. The old dear’s nuts.’

  ‘No, she isn’t. She gave me a letter my mother had written a few days before she died and that confirmed everything.’

  ‘What? About my father?’

  ‘No, not that. About Helen being my mother. It was Helen who told me about your father.’

  ‘Do you think she could have been crossed in love, a teensy bit jealous of my mom? Mom and Pop have always been devoted to each other and if he chose Mom over her, she wouldn’t be pleased to think you and I were making a go of it, would she?’

  ‘It could be the other way about. Your father was rejected by Helen because she was married and turned to your mother for consolation. Tell me, when were you born?’

  ‘September 1918, after Pop was invalided out and returned to Canada with Mom. I thought I’d told you that already.’

  ‘You probably have, but it didn’t register. You are six months younger than me, so it looks as though he was two-timing the both of them.’

  ‘He wouldn’t, he’s not a bit like that. He’s honest and God-fearing—’

  ‘You don’t want to believe it.’

  ‘Too true I don’t. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t want to, but I think I must.’

  ‘Well, I’m not giving in that easily. I’m going to get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Ask my father. Write to him.’

  ‘But supposing your mother knows nothing about it, won’t it hurt her rather badly?’

  ‘Then I’ll wait until this bloody war is over and I can go home and ask him fa
ce to face.’

  ‘I don’t envy you that task.’ She got up to go to Robby, who was beginning to fidget. He followed her.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘What about us? You know how I feel about you. I thought you—’

  ‘No, Wayne, it was never like that.’ She picked up the teddy bear Robby had thrown on the ground and gave it back to him. ‘I don’t mind having you for a brother, though. In fact, I think I might like it. What I don’t like is all the secrecy.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Shout it from the rooftops?’

  ‘Certainly not. The fewer people who know about it the better. I’ve got a job to do in this war and so have you, so we’d better get on with it.’ She let the brake off the pushchair and set off back to the Hall.

  They parted company when they reached the drive and she took Robby back for his tea, leaving Wayne to kick his heels in frustration. He felt as though someone had punched him in the gut, had taken the wind out of him, and he needed to think. Instead of going back into the village, he walked for hours, finding his way along little-used lanes, climbing stiles, crossing meadows, dawdling through a wood where the newly fallen leaves formed a soft carpet for his feet. He flung himself under a beech tree and lay back looking up through its branches to a sky riven with clouds. The summer was at an end and at home in Canada his mom and pop would be going about their usual tasks: reading the news, commenting on the fact that the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn colour and wondering how soon it would be before he came home. Oh, how he longed for home!

  His immediate reaction to Laura’s news had been disbelief. He still didn’t believe it. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Laura was Helen’s daughter; he had always suspected something of the sort, what he couldn’t swallow was that his own father was involved. What he wanted to know was why Lady Barstairs had told Laura he was. Was she a jealous old hag, fantasising about his father and ending up believing it herself? He toyed with the idea of taxing her with lying but decided against it. He got up and returned to Beck Cottage, but Joyce was at work and the house was empty. He went across the road to see his grandmother.