by Luccia Gray
She shook her head and looked at me pitifully. I was poor because her husband’s son was a spendthrift, but I didn’t want her pity.
“I hate to tell you this, Susan, but you’re going to find out soon anyway. Dante’s not selling his paintings. The club is accepting them as part payment for his drinking debts.”
I felt the child in my womb summersault and nausea rushed up my throat into my mouth. Adele told me to hurry down to the kitchen if I was going to be sick, but I managed to swallow the bitterness.
“You need to speak to him, Susan. He’s no longer a young bachelor. You’ll have to make him behave. If he keeps running into debt, you’ll end up in a workhouse with your children.”
I cried bitterly into my kerchief. I couldn’t take my children to a poor house. I had experienced the dire living conditions and dangers in those dreadful places myself when I was a child. I couldn’t go back there. “Can’t you help me, Adele?”
“I’m afraid we are living on Mr. Greenwood’s meagre income. This house is expensive to run, and John has said that he won’t be resuming my allowance from the Rochester Estate until after Christmas.”
“Jane would help me. I know she would. Could you write to Michael and make him understand? I need their help.”
“There’s only one way. Michael will demand an apology to Jane. A real, heartfelt written and spoken apology. So you had better think things through and change your feelings towards Jane, because if Michael doesn’t believe you, you’re damned.”
I bowed my head. I’d remind Michael of our tragic stay at the workhouse when we were orphaned, and of the promise he had made our mother that he’d always look after me. I’d make him understand.
“And Susan, don’t try to make him feel sorry for you. Jane would fall for that. We both know what a generous person she is when it comes to family, but you know full well how sharp and ruthless your brother is. He won’t take any nonsense from you or anyone. He’ll know if you’re lying and throw you out.”
“I’ll write and apologise, but letters take time. What shall I do until then?”
“I was going to have new dresses made for autumn and the Christmas Ball, but I can wear last year’s. Hopefully, no one will remember, and after all, I’m not looking for a suitor any more. I’ll pay your bills instead for June, and I’ll do my best to help you out next month, but Susan, you need to speak to Dante, and make amends with Michael. I’m not helping you again and I mean it.”
I was at least glad that she offered me tea and cake and gave me some biscuits and meat pie, which Beth had baked.
On my way home, I thought about confronting Dante and writing a long letter to Michael and Jane. I didn’t feel sorry for the way I had behaved. I’d do it all again, to save my brother from Jane, but I realised that for now I’d have to fake acceptance and repentance. Adele was right. Jane would fall for it easily and accept my apologies. She’d doted on little William, and I knew she’d do so again. I had to find a way to convince Michael, or I was doomed, because Dante had become too set in his bohemian ways to change.
My plans were delayed. Before I arrived home, I felt a warm gush of water dripping down my legs. It was time for my second son to be born. I’d have to address all my problems in a few weeks, when I was fully recovered.
****
Chapter XXVII – James Eyre Kirkpatrick
Jane was exhausted when we arrived back at Primrose Cottage. She wanted to speak to Mr. de Winter at once and make the settlement on Manderley, but I persuaded her to rest.
The following morning she was violently sick and could not get out of bed. I called on Mr. de Winter to let him know we had decided to buy Manderley according to the terms we had discussed with him before travelling to Eyre Hall. He was naturally delighted. I then informed him that Jane was not well and needed a doctor urgently. He told me the best doctors were in London, a fact of which I was aware, but I urged him to help me locate one nearby for Jane at once. He sent for a doctor from Exeter who would arrive shortly.
Meanwhile I looked after Jane as best I could, with plenty of liquids and rest. I took her to the seaside on an extremely warm summer’s day and walked with her for a few minutes. She said she’d like to dip her feet in the sea, so I helped her remove her stockings and shoes and she laughed and splashed. I promised to buy her a special costume and teach her to swim as soon as she got better. I was relieved when she threw her arms around me and told me that although she wasn’t feeling well, she was happy and thanked me for looking after her.
When we returned, Dr. Crichton had arrived. He was surprised that Jane wasn’t in bed, and I told him I thought some fresh sea air would do her good. When he asked me to leave the room to examine Jane, she shot me a terrified look and shook her head, so I asked the doctor if I could stay, and fortunately he agreed without an argument.
He listened to her heartbeat, held her pulse, and then he asked her to open her mouth. Later he examined her stomach, which made her wince. I asked him to be careful, which earned me a stern look.
“Tell me, what are your symptoms, Mrs. Kirkpatrick?”
“Most of the time I feel well, but occasionally I feel sick during the day and tired in the evenings. We came back from a long journey a few days ago, and since then I’ve felt dizzy and unable to eat solid food. I’ve also had back pains and exhaustion.”
“How long has it been since your last cycle, Mrs. Kirkpatrick?”
“A long time.” She glanced at me. “Since last December.”
“December,” he repeated slowly. “Over six months ago. Did you not think there might be something wrong?”
“No, I didn’t. I thought perhaps I had finished. I had heard some women stopped their cycles at my age.”
“What is your age, Mrs. Kirkpatrick?”
“I was forty-two last year.”
“Some women cease their monthly cycles at this age, but many do not and continue to have children for some years. You seem to be a healthy and fertile woman to me. I see no reason why you should not have a child.”
Jane was very quiet for a few minutes, pressing her palms against her dress, and then she spoke. “Over a year ago I had a miscarriage, and I was told I would not have any more children. I have had more miscarriages than children, doctor.” He looked confused so she added, “From my previous marriage.”
He turned to me in surprise. “How long have you been married?”
“We were married three months ago, doctor.”
“I see. Well, that makes sense,” he said gravely, stroking his pointed beard, as if he were talking to himself.
Jane turned pale and held out her hand. I took it, kissed her knuckles, and sat down beside her on the bed while the doctor seemed lost in thought. “Michael, I’m frightened.”
“What’s wrong with my wife, doctor?”
“Wrong?” He placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled. “Nothing’s wrong, young man. Your wife is with child.”
I had known it all along. Her body had changed. She had more curves and a bigger appetite. I turned to Jane, hoping to find happiness, but her face was pale.
“That’s impossible doctor. I can’t have any more children.”
“Well then this child is a miracle, like all children are. A gift the good Lord has bestowed upon you and your husband. Congratulations.”
The doctor extended his hand, which I shook distractedly. I could hardly react after listening to the words I had longed to hear. Yet when I looked back at Jane, her face was twisted. I supposed it was the surprise. I put my arms around her and kissed her cheek. “Jane, my love, did you hear the doctor?” Her chest was heaving and tears were flowing down her face. “What’s the matter, Jane? Are you worried or upset?”
She shook her head and I held her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “We had never spoken about children because we thought we would never have any. Does it worry you?”
She put her arms around me and cried bitterly. “Jane, tell me what’s wrong.” She did not answer
, but her tears continued to flood.
The doctor approached her. “Some women are prone to bouts of melancholy when they learn they are to be mothers. You must be patient, Mr. Kirkpatrick.”
Jane pushed me away. “You don’t understand. Neither of you understand. Please, go. Leave me alone.”
I was devastated. The doctor put his hand on my shoulder again. “Let’s give her some time, shall we?”
“I can’t leave her now, doctor. I need to find out what’s troubling her.”
“It may be some hysteria, many women…”
I warned the doctor. “You don’t know her. If you knew her, you would never think so, and if you knew me, you wouldn’t dare say so.”
I returned to my wife’s side. “Jane, don’t you want any more children, my love?” My words made her cry even louder. She buried her head in my chest and repeated my name.
The doctor coughed. “Well, I can see you have some talking to do. I’ll come back tomorrow. I’d like to see the patient again and discuss the coming months.”
As Dr. Crichton opened the door, Jane raised her head from my shoulder and cried, “When?”
The doctor turned with a frown. “When? What do you mean?”
“When is the baby due?” she asked.
The question sliced me in the gut, like a knife. I realised she thought it might have happened in the Retreat. It had never crossed my mind because I knew it was impossible. Her symptoms had started two months ago, when I had returned with Helen. She couldn’t be six months pregnant. Still, I held my breath as I waited for the doctor’s answer.
He raised his eyebrows. “The baby is due in December. Did you not tell me yourself that you had been married three months ago?”
“Are you sure?” I realised how she must have suffered for those few minutes, imagining she was carrying a monster’s child in her womb.
I pulled my arms around her and whispered in her ear. “Jane, my love, the baby is ours. Mine and yours.”
I heard the door close. I took a shawl from the wardrobe and wrapped it around Jane’s shoulders in an attempt to stop her shivering.
“Jane, my love, I have known you were with child since the day we went to the megalith.”
“You knew? How?”
“I wanted you to have my child so much, I knew it would happen. When you passed through the hole, I saw your eyes sparkle as I’d never seen them before. I looked into your pupils and saw James in my arms and you by my side.”
She was still trembling. “Michael, you knew and you didn’t tell me.”
“I wasn’t sure. I wanted it to be true, so I didn’t trust myself. Then when you were sick in the mornings, your breasts grew heavier, and your face and tummy rounder, I knew it must be true, but still, I was afraid it was my imagination.”
“Michael, I was so shocked when the doctor asked me about my last cycle, and all I could think about was that awful place…”
She was having difficulty breathing, and tears welled again. “Jane, he’s dead. I want you to forget you ever saw him. I wish I could tear him out of your memory, but I can’t; only you can do that. Don’t let him be part of your life anymore. He’s burning at the bottom of the fiery pit.”
“I wish I could forget. I still see him, hear him, and even smell him sometimes in the middle of the night.”
My vision blurred and I heard the smooth face of the axe swipe through the air, the crunch of his fingers and wrist bone, and his yells. I wish I could tell her how he begged to die. Instead I said, “Think of me and James, and Helen. Nothing else matters, my love.”
“Michael, I could have another miscarriage. I’ve had so many.”
“Not this time.” I pressed her body close to mine. “Young James very much wants to be born, and he will.”
“James. Was that your father’s name?”
I nodded and she pulled me closer. “He’s a miracle, just as the doctor said. We’ve made a miracle, together.”
I remembered Junot’s words like a nightmare. I hoped he would keep his part of the bargain.
***
Chapter XXVIII – Max and Helen
I didn’t feel sad the day my father died. It wasn’t a surprise. In fact, it had all been arranged as if it were a wedding or any other planned family ceremony. My father had chosen his headstone, the epitaph, and the location of his tomb in the family vault. He had even spoken to Mr. Friar, the clergyman at St. John’s Chapel on the hill, where he wanted the service to take place, with instructions regarding the music and readings.
Helen was surprised and upset by the way my father approached his own death. It was a transition, he said, so he wanted to make sure everything he left behind was taken care of. Helen wanted to cry every time she saw him, which was often. It was summer, and we were both on holiday, so she was allowed to visit almost every day, on the condition that Mrs. Benson was always with us as we did our homework and read together.
Mrs. Benson was over seventy. Her memory had been failing for some time, and she was prone to falling asleep on her chair, even while she was knitting. Sometimes she would even stop mid-sentence, and when we looked up, her head was bent and she was fast asleep.
Mrs. Benson would wake up suddenly too, and shout our names if we were not sitting by her side. Sometimes we were throwing pebbles in the water or running along the shore, other times we were holding hands and chatting about life and death. Helen was terrified of her mother dying in childbirth. She said she couldn’t bear it if anyone she loved died. She had nightmares with Michael disappearing at sea, although he never went out to sea, but she told me he had done so, when he had been in the navy. I laughed when she told me she also had dreams where I was kidnapped and tortured. I supposed it was because she had had such a hard start in life.
She made me promise never to mention that she had been kidnapped by her father and sold to a child farmer in London. Her first mother, the mother she had known for the first nine years of her life, had beaten her and forced her to work as a scarecrow, until her real mother took her in at Eyre Hall, although neither of them knew they were mother and daughter. Michael found out who she really was, and they had both taken care of her after that, as well as an older relative, called Annette, who had always been kind to her. Her brother, John, hated her, and her half-sister, Adele, ignored her. It was not surprising that she was so frightened of pain and suffering.
I wondered how she was always so cheerful, except when I brought up the subject of death, and she told me how she managed to overcome the sad things in life. She’d close her eyes, place the negative image in her mind and pull a dark red curtain over it at once, so that it would be completely covered, and then she thought of someone she loved and smiled. She told me she used to see her mother’s kind face, or Michael in his navy uniform, but lately, she confessed that it was always my face she saw, when she smiled.
I loved her sparkling green eyes and curly auburn hair. She needed heaps of hairpins to tame it, and even so, the wind would rustle it every day. I loved the way she read, with a clear intonation, changing her timbre and pitch according to the character who was speaking. I loved the way she held my hand and told me not to be sad when I voiced melancholy thoughts. I loved the way she lifted her skirt and ran shoeless along the water’s edge, laughing every time a tiny wave washed over her feet and splashed her. I loved the way she picked up every single crumb from Mrs. Benson’s fairy cakes, which had fallen on her napkin, and licked them off her fingers. I loved the way she sipped her tea, even when it was cold. I loved the way she pretended not to see me when we played hide-and-seek in the woods, and the way she screamed when I caught her and claimed a kiss on her cheek. Most of all, I loved the way she tasted and the muffled sounds she made when she let me kiss her.
I prayed Mr. Kirkpatrick would never catch me kissing Helen, because I knew he would flog me until I bled. He had a vicious streak, which terrified me more than my father’s. I’d heard rumours in the village that he’d beaten up a few of the violent
drunkards, and even killed a man. Fortunately, Mrs. Kirkpatrick seemed to be able to keep his darker instincts under control, but I dreaded ever finding out what he was capable of. My father had warned me never to get on his bad side and to obey him, because he had promised to look after me as if he were my father. Lately, I had noticed he spent more time and effort in making conversation with me. Once he even surprised me by telling me he knew I’d be a good man one day.
The Kirkpatricks had been moving in, at my father’s macabre insistence, since he had told them about his imminent death and sold them half of Manderley. My father hoped I would one day marry Helen, because she was a pretty, kind and generous girl who came from an honourable, ancient, and wealthy Yorkshire family, although her older brother had taken over the estate. Her mother was a respected author and social campaigner, and although he didn’t agree with her political views, he acceded that they were full of good intentions.
My father had hated John Stuart Mill, Gladstone, and Lord Shaftsbury. He wouldn’t hear of them and their revolutionary theories to empower women, workers, and even children. “What’s the world coming to if men and women are equal?” he would complain. “Can the moon heat the land or make the crops grow like the sun?” He could never understand the need for education reform. “What will happen if all the paupers learn to read and write? How will that help them sweep the chimneys or work in the dairies or fisheries?” But when I heard Mrs. Kirkpatrick and Helen talk about the need for children to go to school and not work long hours, as well as hospitals for the poor, I began to think they might be right. I hadn’t argued with my father, especially during his last days, but I realised the world he was leaving behind was changing irreversibly.
My life did not change substantially when my father died, and the changes that did occur were, in fact, for the better. It was pleasant to have a mother figure again. When Mrs. Kirkpatrick moved in, I realised I had missed my grandmother more than I had ever admitted. Mrs. Kirkpatrick was always warm and welcoming, dropping kisses on my head, and asking me how my studies were progressing, how I was feeling, or if I needed anything. Mr. Kirkpatrick was lucky to have such an angel in his life.
