The sister-in-law would have to steel herself against further instances of unfairness, Lochlann reckoned. Nell was only thirty-three and Alison was unlikely to be the last. That projection didn’t give him any consolation either.
The old doctor wrote to say he could take up duties within the month and hoped he wouldn’t be cancelled this time as he was looking forward to coming back to his old stamping ground.
If Nell and Charlotte continued true to type, Lochlann believed, the next four weeks should pass without the two women meeting each other and comparing babies. Nell, living twenty miles out with no transport, didn’t come to town except for emergencies, and Charlotte never left the house. His mother’s dictum that all good-looking babies look alike and all ugly babies look alike didn’t console him. Identical twins would be too particular to be covered by that generality.
67
Charlotte’s handling of Mary Anne astounded both Lochlann, who since their marriage had only ever seen his wife dispirited and idle, and Mrs Parker who had been expecting to do most of the childminding but found she wasn’t asked to do any.
Charlotte was alert to Mary Anne’s every signal, tuned in to her every change of mood. She found herself talking to her in a language that she thought came naturally to her until she realised it was an imitation of the way Manus used to speak to the horses, especially the foals. It worked for the foals and it worked for Mary Anne, who proved to be contented and placid.
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Mrs Parker told her friends. “Mrs Carmody doesn’t allow her to cry. The little one’s hardly ever off the breast, and is always in her mother’s arms. Mrs Carmody has moved into the spare room so the baby can sleep beside her and not disturb the doctor.”
Lochlann was trying not to think or feel or become attached in case some all-knowing arbiter swooped down to pick up Mary Anne to return her to her true family. He couldn’t believe he could get away with it. If only the twins had been fraternal, rather than identical, he wouldn’t have to live in constant terror. If only they could leave town immediately.
Two days before their departure date, Nell Hogan rang to say Alison had a chesty cough and a temperature of one hundred and two degrees and what would she do? Would she ask a neighbour to give her a lift in? Was it serious enough for that?
“I’ll tell you what,” said Lochlann. “I have a call to make to old Chippie at the mill, so I’ll call in to you. Just leaving this minute. No trouble at all. No, I mean it.”
Old Chippie was surprised to be visited by the doctor, as he hadn’t contacted him and was feeling well.
“Will you have a drink with me, Doctor?” he asked, rinsing out a dirty glass.
“Just the one. A farewell drink. I’m heading back home in three days’ time to enlist.”
Chippie was the first to be told, the Hogans the second.
After he attended to Alison, and supplied medication to bring down the temperature, he told them he was leaving the town. They showed their disappointment and said they must organise a send-off for him. No fuss, said Lochlann, and there was no time now as he was dreadfully busy with the preparations to leave – as was his wife. That was why he wasn’t telling anyone until the last minute.
He would need to stand guard over Charlotte and the baby until they left, he thought, for fear Dan Hogan would consider it proper to visit to say goodbye.
“You may come back after the war,” Nell said with feeling.
“Please God,” said Dan.
Lochlann asked if he could have some photos of the family. They were flattered to be asked. He made sure Alison was centre stage.
For my eyes only, Lochlann thought.
He wanted to tell them how much he owed them, but thought it might sound peculiar. They would think nothing of the days he’d spent on their farm on horseback.
He didn’t offer to keep in touch and didn’t give them his home address – they wouldn’t have expected either. He left a box of gifts and money for the children, and the irony of the paltriness of it wasn’t lost on him. If only he could give much more. Half of everything he would ever own wouldn’t come anywhere near paying off his indebtedness to them.
68
Lochlann and Scottie packed the luggage into the back of the mail truck.
“By the way, if you’re looking for a hotel in Sydney,” said old Dr Merton, settled in since the previous day, “I can highly recommend one. My dear late wife looked on it as a home away from home and I can swear by it. The Waratah. Run by two friendly Pommie women.”
“Thank you,” said Lochlann, “but I don’t think we’ll be needing one. We expect to be allowed to embark early.”
“In these uncertain times you can’t be sure of anything and you might be in for a long delay. I kept a magazine article with all the details. Now, what did I do with it?” He foraged in his black bag. “The younger one used to be a real stunner – part of the attraction of the place – and was still a good sort last time I saw her though my dear late wife told me I needed new glasses. I think she was a bit jealous, not that she had any cause.” He produced a folded piece of paper and handed it to Lochlann. “No harm in hanging on to it just in case. Don’t want to see you stranded. The Waratah will take the pain out of the disruption if your ship fails to turn up.”
“Thanks, but I hope we won’t need to avail of it.” Lochlann slipped the page into the breast pocket of his jacket. “I’ll read it on the train.”
The few townspeople driving by at this early hour swivelled their heads when they saw evidence of departure. Lochlann had told only a few at the last minute that he was leaving to forestall any plans for an official send-off. The risk of Charlotte’s parading Mary Anne around to be admired, especially by the Hogans who would make the effort to attend, made Lochlann feel sick at the thought.
Wombat, on his way to the butter factory, pulled over when he saw the little group, his face showing as much surprise as it was capable of registering. He joined them and held out his arms for Mary Anne. Lochlann, remembering Charlotte’s fear of him, made as if to intercept, but Charlotte gave the man a full smile and, handing over the baby, said, “You brought me luck, Wombat.” She pulled back the shawl so he could get a good look at the baby.
Lochlann wondered what she was talking about.
Wombat examined the baby, looked from it to Charlotte and Lochlann, and then back again.
“Twin,” he mouthed.
Lochlann was the only one who knew what he was trying to say.
“Heard you were out at Hogan’s place yesterday, giving Dan a hand,” Mrs Parker said in the clear tones reserved for the handicapped. Despite her fondness for him she didn’t like looking at his mouth, so missed his observation. “You’d be an expert on babies after that,” she smiled around the little circle.
“Twin,” Wombat repeated soundlessly.
“Wind,” Lochlann said, taking Mary Anne gently from Wombat and patting her on her back while he held her over his shoulder.
“I thought he said ‘twin’,” said Charlotte.
“No, it was ‘wind’. I talk to him a lot and I’m an expert at knowing what he says, aren’t I, Wombat?” Before the man could answer Lochlann guided him to his vehicle, jabbering at speed, thanking him for all the work he’d done in the garden and telling him he’d never tasted such vegetables, shaking his hand and saying he would never forget him, good man himself, all the while feeling as if he was about to vomit and have a brain haemorrhage and suffer a heart attack, all at the same time.
Charlotte appeared at his shoulder. She took Wombat’s hand and kissed him on his scarred cheek. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “I’m frightfully glad I didn’t miss seeing you before I left to thank you for the good fortune you brought me in the end.”
Wombat shuffled his feet and hung his head to hide his pleasure before swinging into the driver’s seat.
What was all that about? Lochlann wondered, with no intention of asking. “Sound man,” he said, his voice husky, ret
urning to the group, hoping that none of them had noticed how fearful he was when he’d rushed the poor man off in such a rude fashion. They hadn’t, and they presumed the catch in his voice was due to the sadness of leaving.
Charlotte waved to Wombat until he was out of sight and said to Mrs Parker, “You were right. He is a Good Samaritan.”
Mrs Parker said her final farewells, and Scottie arranged a day’s fishing with Dr Merton.
“Sorry to be going, Doc?” Scottie asked as they took their seats and waved to Mrs Parker and the old doctor.
“Very.” He put his head down, willed the truck to move off before anyone else came along, and kept his head lowered until the truck was well clear of town.
He hoped Nell Hogan wouldn’t come into town for at least a year so that Mrs Parker’s memory of Mary Anne would have faded sufficiently for her not to make a connection between the two little girls born on the same day and looking so much alike. And he hoped Wombat would begin to doubt what he’d seen, and that the townspeople would continue to treat him with indulgence, believing that his brain as well as his face had been damaged in the fire and, if he did regain his voice, they would take no notice of his belief that Charlotte Carmody’s baby and Nell Hogan’s baby were twins.
“Can’t believe that you’ve only been here for just over two years – seems longer,” said Scottie.
Like ten years, Lochlann thought, with so much happening.
“Remember the first operation you did on the day you arrived?”
“The appendix. I remember it well – felt half dead and didn’t know where anything was. I was lucky to have Matron Grainger assisting me.”
“You said he must be destined for great things. Billy Ericsson. Well, he wasn’t. Heard last night he was killed in action. What a bloody waste. You needn’t have bothered.”
“I hope that wasn’t the case.”
Beside him Mary Anne was asleep in Charlotte’s arms and Charlotte was in her usual pose of smiling down at her.
“Wombat definitely tried to say 'twin', Lorcan. Seems to have confused me with Nell Hogan,” Charlotte said. “I don’t think I look anything like her, do you?”
“Not a bit. Would you like me to take Mary Anne to give you a rest?” asked Lochlann, desperate to change the subject.
“Perhaps later. I don’t want to disturb her sleep just now.”
“Speaking on behalf of the town, seeing you wouldn’t have a send-off,” Scottie said with uncharacteristic seriousness, “you’ll be missed.”
“Thank you,” said Lochlann. “It’s a special place. I loved being here and I’m sorry to be leaving.”
If only they knew, he thought. If they were told that of all the hypocrites in the world I must be the worst, would they believe it? No, not without proof, for when they’d look at me they would see their own goodness reflected back at themselves.
And of all the people in the world who are in a position of trust, I must be the one who has proven to be the most treacherous.
What mitigation for acting out of pity, with no premeditation, tightening my shackles in the process?
None. None.
What solace from any divine or human source?
None. Not an iota.
If there is a God, and I hope there isn’t, there will be no forgiveness for me as I’m still in possession of my neighbour’s treasure and have no intention of returning it. No recompense, no absolution. That’s the rule.
Snuggled against Lochlann’s shoulder, Charlotte fantasised that one day she and Lochlann, with their four children, would be celebrating their Silver Anniversary in Tyringham Park, for that’s where she pictured herself living after Harcourt inherited and was speaking to her again. And she would ask Lochlann, with just the right touch of lightness in her tone, if he remembered their first anniversary and if it had crossed his mind then to push her into the abyss seeing she was such an albatross around his neck at the time. She could imagine him looking back at her as if she’d just lost her mind, or laughing, and saying ‘Where did that idea come from?’ and then he would take time to search his memory before he would say, ‘Why would I be thinking of such a thing? I was studying the geological make-up of the planet and marvelling at the origins of the universe, not contemplating an insignificant thing like murder.’ And she would be able to smile back, as their relationship by then would be easy, and say, ‘I know that’s what you were thinking. I was the one with the black thoughts. Imagine if that had happened, little Mary Anne would never have been born and that doesn’t bear thinking of. How could I have known then how happily things would turn out in the end?’
Part 5
THE HOMECOMINGS
69
Dublin
1941
Aunt Verity took it upon herself to meet the mail boat and the first thing she told the returned emigrants was that Harcourt had been wounded, how seriously they didn’t know. The telegram with the news had been delivered to the townhouse three weeks previously.
Lochlann reached out to take Mary Anne in case Charlotte became weak, but she held the child closer and said she was fine.
“That means he’ll be coming home, won’t it?”
When her brother saw what a good mother she had turned out to be and how happy Lochlann was now that he was home, he would forgive her for her past machinations and admit that it had all turned out for the best.
“We’re waiting for word. Did the nanny travel on a different deck?”
“No, we’ve been able to manage without one.”
“Oh.”
Aunt Verity was relieved when Lochlann shepherded the pair to the car and settled them into the back seat, as she was afraid someone she knew might see them. To her, the sight of a woman of her class carrying an infant was as distasteful as one balancing a heavy weight on her head or kneeling to scrub floors.
“You don’t look too well, Dr Carmody,” she observed while they were waiting for the chauffeur to finish collecting and stowing the luggage.
“I’ll be all right in a moment.” He averted his face. “It was a long trip.”
“Of course. How silly of me to forget that you are a good friend of Harcourt’s and must share the anxiety with the family. We can only wait and hope and pray.”
“How are Mother and Father?” asked Charlotte.
“Stoic, as you would expect. You’ll find they haven’t changed one bit, still taking the opposite view to each other on principle. It’s wearing on me in my role of peacemaker. Now, let’s have a good look at the little one.”
Charlotte took off Mary Anne’s bonnet, loosened the shawl and faced the baby towards her aunt.
“Goodness me, what a little beauty! I have to say, Charlotte, she’s the image of Dr Carmody.”
Charlotte looked over at Lochlann to see if he enjoyed the compliment, but he continued to stare out the window. She had to remind herself that her aunt had never seen Victoria, so couldn’t be expected to make the comparison she so longed to hear.
“Just as well you gave birth to her yourself or one would doubt you were her real mother!” She laughed at her own wit. “When her time comes she’ll be the debutante of the decade and break a lot of hearts and marry an earl.”
‘Unlike her mother’ was the unspoken end to that observation, Charlotte thought.
“So you returned,” Edwina said through tight lips, “without doing the one thing I asked you to do. The one thing. It’s not as if I ever asked you to do anything else. Did you make any effort at all?”
“I made a frightfully large effort,” Charlotte answered. “But I didn’t get one answer to my queries.”
“You’ve dropped a fine filly there,” boomed Waldron, squinting through his spectacles, “and no need for a steward’s enquiry either by the look of it.”
On first sight, Charlotte had hardly recognised her mother, looking older at fifty-three than the mottled-faced Waldron who, despite being eighty-two, appeared fit and energetic.
After lunch was announced
, mindful of the house rule that no child under twelve was allowed in the dining room during mealtimes, Charlotte passed the baby over to Queenie with the stipulation that she must come and fetch her immediately at the first sign of fretting.
Edwina rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling.
Charlotte thought Mary Anne’s dark hair and pretty face would have her mother exclaiming over a likeness to Victoria. In fact, she had expected her mother to register a degree of stupefaction when she saw what could have been a reincarnation of her favoured daughter, but Edwina merely glanced at the baby for a few seconds and said nothing.
Lochlann came in, his hair damp from the bath he’d just taken and Charlotte thought she would burst with pride at his handsomeness, his easy manner and his polite lack of deference. He shook hands with his parents-in-law and commiserated with them on the news about Harcourt.
Edwina placed him beside Verity, on the opposite side of the table from Charlotte who felt there was much to celebrate despite the bad news about Harcourt. It was Lochlann’s first time to share a meal with the Blackshaws as part of the family, her first in the townhouse in her role of a new mother, and the first time her parents had been introduced to their first grandchild. Not to mention a homecoming after two years abroad.
“I was thinking of going to the Club this afternoon,” Waldron said after the first course had passed in silence and the roast beef was being served.
“There was an article in the Times about the Japanese threat to Darwin,” Verity said to Lochlann on her right.
“Would you pass the horseradish, please, Verity?” asked Edwina before Lochlann had time to comment. “I hope it’s better than the last lot we had. Cook has a habit of overdoing the vinegar.”
Tyringham Park Page 31
