by P. G. Glynn
But, ever following each regret
O’er some departed treasure,
My sad repining heart was met
With unexpected pleasure.
I thought it only happened so;
But Time this truth has taught me –
No least thing from my life can go,
But something else is brought me.
It is the Law, complete, sublime;
And now, with Faith unshaken,
In patience I but bide my time
When any joy is taken.
No matter if the crushing blow
May for the moment down me,
Still, back of it waits Love, I know,
With some new gift to crown me.’
The gift I’ve now been crowned with,” Marie said then, “is a brand new direction. It proved to be providential that Dorothy Madison chose to close theatrical doors on me, because that focused my mind on what I see as the entertainment medium of the future. Charles and I are now proceeding successfully within …” well versed in the value of a pause, she paused before “ … the film industry. So, with a big ‘thank you’ to Dorothy and Judith, we come to the final offering of the evening.” Well satisfied with Judith’s obvious chagrin, Marie ended: “I first aired this last year at a Welsh concert to aid the war effort, little dreaming then that Charles and I were on the verge of finding each other again. It needs no other dedication:
‘Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
Tie up the broken threads of that old dream;
And go on happy as before; and seem
Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.
Let us forget the graves, which lie between
Our parting and our meeting, and the tears
That rusted out the goldwork of the years;
The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.
Let us forget the cold malicious Fate
Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
And once more revel in the old sweet joys
Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late!
Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
Forget the silver gleaming in my hair;
Look only in my eyes! O darling! There
The old love shone no warmer then than now.
Down in the tender deeps of thy dear eyes,
I find the lost sweet memory of my youth,
Bright with the holy radiance of thy truth,
And hallowed with the blue of summer skies.
Tie up the broken threads, and let us go,
Like reunited lovers, hand in hand,
Back, and yet onward, to the sunny land
Of our To Be, which was our Long Ago’”
As Marie finished speaking, Charles’s deep sigh was all that was audible before the applause that began as a subdued Judith led the clapping.
51
Hugo could not imagine what was keeping Mama so long in London. When she left Gilchrist last autumn he expected her to be back within a week or two, but weeks had turned to months and she had not even come home for Christmas or Easter. He had begun to wonder whether she would come and see his son or daughter.
And he worried that she had placed herself in danger. It was typical of her to be somewhere dangerous in preference to being here in the country, where the chances of a bomb dropping were about as remote as those of a pig flying by! Why had she opted to stay up there, so far from her family? Her letters arrived regularly but never answered his question. Helena said that now Hugo was a married man, soon to be a father, it was Mama’s right to live where she liked. He agreed, theoretically, but missed his mother and wished there were some evidence of her missing him.
Was he to spend the whole of his life wishing Mama loved him more than she did? How ridiculous, given that he had Helena now and that no man could possibly be more loved by his wife than he! Perhaps he was just greedy. He was selfish, too, being so preoccupied while Helena was upstairs giving birth to his child. But he felt helpless, especially when she screamed. It was reassuring that Mrs Gwyn and the midwife were with her, seeing to her needs. And he had been boiling water and doing the other things required of him. His efforts seemed shamefully meagre, though, compared to Helena’s …
Because he could not bear to think of the pain Helena was in, Hugo turned his attention back to Mama. Her letters frequently mentioned her old friend Nell – and even more often alluded to one of Nell’s lodgers who, like Mama herself, once acted at the Tavistock Theatre. It was Charles this and Charles that, as if the man mattered. Hugo only hoped that he didn’t - and that Mama hadn’t forgotten she was married to Papa.
Suddenly he heard a cry that was not his wife’s. It was shrill and filled, somehow, with newness. Hugo realised with a sense of wonder that his and Helena’s child had arrived.
Soon Beatrice Gwyn was ushering him into his bedroom where Helena, propped up on pillows and holding a tiny blanket-wrapped person in her arms, smiled serenely and said: “Come and meet our beautiful baby daughter!”
Suzy Johanna Berger was a beauty, Hugo saw at a glance. Dark-haired, with an angelic expression on her exquisite little features, she was also infinitely vulnerable and he felt an overwhelming sense of her need for his protection. Then he gazed at Helena, whose eyes shone like stars. “Oh, my clever, clever darling!” he said, his arms encircling them both tenderly. “We’re a family at last.”
+++++
Marie had had mixed feelings about her parting from Charles. While she wanted, of course, to see her granddaughter she did not want to be parted from him – but could hardly take him with her to Gilchrist!
Aboard her train to Newport she tried picturing Hugo’s and Mam’s reaction to her arriving with Charles in tow. Unable to decide whether her mother or son would be the most shocked, Marie let her gaze appreciate the changing scenery. Already London’s busy streets had receded to make way for green hills and fields. How intriguing it was that on one small island there were so many varieties of life. Miners and shepherds lived in a sense side-by-side with tube-drivers and the Prime Minister, given that it was no great distance from one end of Britain to the other. Yet where one was born, in many instances, influenced one’s whole existence. It shouldn’t influence Suzy’s unduly since she had Bohemian as well as Welsh blood in her veins, and since her father owned a castle far from her birthplace. Nobody could foretell the future, though, with that little cockalorum still strutting through Europe. Why, it might even be that Suzy would grow up where her grandmother grew before her!
Marie did not yet feel at all like a grandmother. How did one adjust to having an adult son, a daughter-in-law and – now – a granddaughter? There were no lessons to prepare for these developments or for being older than one felt. She would just have to act the part of a proud grandma …
She was glad that Hugo and Helena had had a daughter. Daughters were better than sons. They … just were. Marie sighed, thinking of Carla and realising that she had not thought of her for a while. How blessed she had been, with that small girl – how empty without her! Now, though, there was Charles to fill the void. He, poor darling, had been so restless last night, knowing that she was leaving this morning and needing reassurance of her early return. She had reassured him that she wouldn’t be gone longer than a week. Other considerations aside, it was simplest to be back within that timeframe because of her marriage to an alien.
Such a marriage necessitated initial registration and then attendance weekly at one’s local police station. It was a farce, of course, that someone born and bred in Britain should have to register – especially Marie, given her opinion of Hitler - but rules were rules and the police had a job to do. So she had reported before boarding her train and would save having to re-register in Abergavenny by being back in London before her next report was due. Life would be so much simpler in every respect if it were Charles instead of Otto she was married to!
Which was no way to be thinking with Hugo waiting for her in Newpo
rt. Before facing him she must step back into the role of respectable Marie Berger – mother, grandmother, wife … or … She could be a widow, for all she knew, meaning that at last Charles and she were free to marry. Marie did her best to stem the tide of happiness inherent in such a prospect. It wasn’t that she wished Otto dead. It was just …
“Oh heck!” She had been so lost in thought that she had not noticed her train slowing to a halt. She had arrived – and now could see her son standing on the platform, half obscured by steam. How striking he was! Marriage and fatherhood obviously suited him, for Marie had never seen him look healthier or happier. Gathering her suitcase, newspaper and handbag, she smiled gratitude at the porter opening the carriage door for her and then stepped down on to the platform.
Soon Hugo was transporting her in the truck belonging to the Brynusk farm through the leafy, green countryside that she hadn’t missed one bit while living in London. “I’m glad you’re back,” he told her. “I never expected you to be gone so long.”
“I didn’t expect to be, either! I didn’t plan it. It just happened.”
“What did?” He glanced away from the road to look at her as he drove.
“Oh … this and that! Being with Nell again reminded me … of how things used to be.” Marie smiled brightly. “But I didn’t travel to Wales to talk about me. Tell me about Suzy.”
He had seen the expression preceding her smile and knew she had changed the subject deliberately. Hugo could not resist talking about his daughter, however. “She’s incredible!” he said. “I still can’t believe that she’s mine and Helena’s. I keep half-expecting someone to come and say there’s been a big mistake and they’re taking her away.”
“I know that feeling,” Marie told him.
“Oh God!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry, Mama. I wasn’t thinking. Now that I’m a father I understand better what you went through over Carla. In such circumstances, I … well, I think I’d go out of my mind.”
“As I went out of mine. Those were terrible times and best forgotten, though I couldn’t forget Carla if I tried.”
“Nor could I.”
“So, tell me – where did the name Suzy come from? I imagine Johanna is after Johann Adam, founder of the Berger linen empire.”
“You’re right there. It seemed appropriate to keep him in the family! As for Suzy – that seemed to come out of thin air. We just like it – and it suits her.”
“Oh, so you didn’t name her after a Gwyn?”
“No, we didn’t.” Hugo knew his mother well enough to add with a grin: “Had we been naming her after anyone, we’d have named her Marie, wouldn’t we?” As she laughed he suddenly thought to ask: “Had there been a Carla in your family, or Papa’s?”
Marie swallowed hard. “No,” she answered.
Something in her tone made him glance at her again. Her expression emboldened him to ask: “Carla is the feminine form of Charles, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And you and … and Charles Brodie were friends, back before she was born?”
“Yes, we were.”
“You’re friends again, I gather from your letters.”
“We are.”
Keeping his eyes on the twisting road ahead and gripping the steering wheel with both hands, Hugo asked: “Was Charles Carla’s father?”
“He was.”
Stiff-lipped he queried: “Did Papa know, or was this another of your secrets?”
“Of course he did! I’d never have married him without mentioning it.”
“Mentioning it? Bearing a child by someone else isn’t something one mentions. It’s surely something to discuss at great length.”
“That depends on the people involved. Your father didn’t want a long discussion. He just wanted marriage, at any cost.”
“So he loved you unconditionally?”
“I suppose he did.”
“How did you feel about him … and why didn’t you marry the baby’s father?”
“Charles was already married. Had he not been, there’d have been no problem.”
“You’d have married him in preference to marrying Papa?”
“Yes.”
Shocked to the core, Hugo said: “You’ve only answered half my question.”
Conscious of a cleansing at some deep level, Marie said: “You asked how I felt. I owe you honesty, if nothing else. I didn’t love your father then, although I grew to love him later on. I loved him very much at the moment of your conception.”
“Was it,” Hugo cleared his throat noisily, “because you loved Charles Brodie more than Papa that you loved Carla more than me?”
“That’s something I can’t answer. It’s unfair to ask a question based on your own perception of my feelings. I have many regrets that I was a neglectful mother to you in your earliest years and that you felt this so deeply. But for a time it was as if I’d buried my heart in Carla’s coffin with her. You’ve said you understand that better, now you have Suzy, and if you meant it you’ll try to put yourself in my shoes back then. I was desolate … and scared to love again for fear of losing the object of my affections. It was only when your Omama gave me a good talking to, after you and she brought me some snowdrops, that I came to my senses and remembered that I’d borne a son as well as a daughter.”
“Oh,” said Hugo stonily, recalling the snowdrop incident as if it had happened yesterday, “so until then you had forgotten all about me.”
“Not exactly. With hindsight, I reckon I was suffering with deep depression. Dear heaven, I never intended telling you any of this! Or perhaps I did. It’s probably best to have everything out in the open now that Charles and I are together again.”
Wondering how on earth he was keeping the car on the road, Hugo queried: “He’s the reason you rushed off to London, is he?”
“No. I wasn’t aware he was there when I went to stay with Nell. He’s the reason I stayed on, though.”
“So where does all this leave Papa?”
“I don’t know.”
“I suppose you and Charles Brodie are hoping he won’t come home.”
“Of course we aren’t!” Marie gasped, alarmed at the venom in Hugo’s tone. “That would be a shocking thing to hope.”
“Since when have you worried about shocking anyone?”
“I worry quite a bit, as it happens, about your reaction to things. But, darling, remember that we don’t choose who we fall in love with. You are so lucky to have fallen for someone who was free. Tell me what you’d have done, had Helena already been spoken for when you met her. Could you have gone off in the opposite direction? Could she?”
Unable to imagine walking away from Helena, Hugo said: “I’ve no idea.”
“Then try thinking harder, before you judge me too harshly.”
“What’s happened to Mrs Brodie?”
“She died … and now Charles lives in Nell’s house because he’s gone blind.”
“Right.”
“I’m sorry, Hugo. This isn’t how I pictured my homecoming.”
“And it isn’t how I pictured your first meeting with Suzy,” he told her briskly as he drove through the imposing gates of the Brynusk estate.
+++++
Marie peeped into the little bassinet. Hugo’s and Helena’s week-old daughter was awake. Her violet eyes were wide with wonder and her sweet mouth formed a smile for her grandmother. Marie smiled back, looking at the button nose and into those eyes … losing all sense of time and place. Whose eyes were they? She felt faint.
Someone far away asked: “Are you feeling ill, Mama?”
The voice was vaguely familiar, but did not belong where she was. So where had it come from? Marie was lost. Knowing somehow that she needed to find herself again, she struggled with her consciousness. Where was she? When was this? She seemed to be suspended between now and then.
Helena said: “Help her into a chair, Hugo. Your mother’s obviously unwell.”
As her son took her arm, Marie
seemed to awaken from a dream. “I’m okay,” she told him shakily. Gazing again at the baby, she greeted her: “Hello, little one – welcome back to the world!”
“Welcome back?” echoed Hugo.
“A slip of the tongue,” said his mother, flushing and still feeling disorientated as she sat down facing him and Helena. With great effort she then commented: “What a clever pair you are, to produce such a perfect baby daughter!”
“She is perfection, isn’t she?” agreed Helena proudly. “I think that what you need is a nice cup of tea.”
Hugo was despatched to make a pot for them all, Helena still being confined to bed. When he had left the room Marie said: “I do seem to be at sixes and sevens. And coming along in the car I shocked Hugo somewhat. I hope you won’t find my past too shocking when he confides in you, as he undoubtedly will. It’s harder being a parent than one ever expects. I don’t seem to have been very successful in parenting him!”
“But Hugo worships you,” protested Helena. “He was beside himself with excitement at the prospect of introducing you to Suzy.”
“Yes – and then I fell off my pedestal! That’s the kind of thing I meant. Make the most,” Marie said soberly, “of the early years – those when your children think you can do no wrong. Later on, unless you proceed with more care than I did, there can come a time when in their eyes you can do nothing right.”
+++++
Lucy was glad to have Marie back in Gilchrist. She would have been gladder still if Marie had been staying at Beulah, but understood how Helena and baby Suzy had need of her at High Trees. She could also imagine that it was preferable being with a new baby to being with Mam. Having seen Suzy, and held her, Lucy was in awe of the whole process of birth. First there was the man/woman thing that she herself had never experienced and was unlikely to experience now that she was thirty-nine. Lucy sighed. Life had passed her by. She would not find out how it felt to be loved by a man and to carry his child. She had watched Helena blossom following her wedding to Hugo and during the months that his baby grew in her womb and had tried to put herself in Helena’s shoes. But such bliss was beyond imagining. Living her whole life with Mam had not equipped Lucy to picture any other existence. She could marvel, though, over the whole miracle of reproduction … and could question where souls came from as well as where they went on death.
