Elianne

by Nunn, Judy

  Mela’s assurances had the desired effect, and as Ellie calmed down she found herself sharing all sorts of truths, truths she had admitted to no one.

  ‘He doesn’t love me, Mela,’ she said, ‘he never has. Oh he believes he loves me, certainly, he believes he loves me to the point of worship, but what Jim perceives as love is not love at all. I am a possession to my husband, something he prizes and takes for his pleasure. I have no complaint and can live such a life, for he will give me children to love and that will be enough . . .’ As the image of Beatrice returned, so too did the threat of a fresh onslaught of tears. ‘But I cannot live with the thought that he could have taken my daughter from me.’

  ‘No, no, Mrs Ellie, you are wrong,’ Mela insisted. ‘You think this thing in your head, that is all.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course it’s my imagination, of course you’re right, Mela, I know you’re right.’ For the sake of sanity, Ellie thought, Mela had to be right; the other path led to madness.

  ‘You drink your tea, Mrs Ellie.’ Mela poured her another cup and rose from the sofa. ‘And you look to Malou for me. I will not be long.’

  She walked out the front door and across the road to the stables. She was gone less than ten minutes and upon her return, she poured a cup of tea for herself. While she sipped it, she kept glancing out the window at the dusty street as if waiting for something. Then several minutes later she gave Ellie her instructions.

  ‘You go now and see Pavi,’ she said. ‘I have told Pavi what you tell me. Pavi he will comfort you. Go, Mrs Ellie.’

  Their relationship now seemingly upside down, Ellie did as she was told like a worker obeying her mistress.

  She entered the stables to be greeted by the familiar smell of fresh hay and harness and the acrid odour of horse dung, the mixture that strangely enough she’d always loved and which now seemed so soothing. The stables were all but deserted, even of animals. There was only one horse there, a mare in foal. The Clydesdales were out in the field, Big Jim was being driven to the train station in the buggy and pair-in-hand and the stable boy had taken the workhorse and dray to fetch chaff from the regular supplier’s farm five miles away.

  Pavi was waiting for her. He said nothing as he took her in his arms and held her to him. No words were necessary between them, just as words had never been necessary all those years ago. The dearest friend she had ever known was aware of her pain.

  They stayed silently locked in each other’s embrace for some time, the past and the present becoming one, and then he kissed her. Surprising though the kiss was, it neither shocked nor alarmed her, but seemed a natural progression of the love they had always shared. And as they lay together in the fresh straw, so too did the lovemaking that followed. Never in her life had Ellie experienced such tenderness, and never before and never again would she give herself so freely.

  Only when it was over did she feel shame. Swept away by her emotions and the response of her body, she’d not once thought of Mela. She did now. Now she thought of nothing but Mela.

  ‘Oh, Pavi,’ she said, ‘what a terrible thing I’ve done.’ It was the first words that had been uttered since she’d entered the stables. ‘How could I have so betrayed Mela?’

  ‘You have not betrayed Mela,’ he replied, gently stroking her arm as they lay side by side in the fresh straw. ‘Mela sent you to me.’

  ‘Yes, she sent me to you,’ Ellie said, sitting up in order to break away from his caress, ‘but she sent me so you could comfort me, not –’

  ‘And she wished me to comfort you in the way she felt necessary.’ Pavi sat up and faced her. ‘Mela intended this to happen, Elianne.’ He called her by the old name, the name that now belonged to a grand estate, but the name which to Pavi would always be hers. ‘She told me to send the boy away to fetch the chaff in order that we should be alone.’

  Ellie stared at him speechless.

  ‘You see, in the culture of Mela’s parents a man may have several wives,’ he went on to explain, ‘and Mela has always considered you my first wife. In a way she is right, Elianne. We have loved each other you and I in the purest of ways, and in our hearts we always will. But this day will never be mentioned again.’ He kissed her gently and chastely, like a brother. ‘I wish you to be happy with your life,’ he said, ‘so does Mela, who also loves you dearly.’

  He rose, turning his back while she dressed and brushed the straw from her clothing. Then he opened the stable door for her and they parted as wordlessly as they had met.

  No more was ever said about that day. Not a word was uttered, not a look of complicity exchanged. There was no sign of acknowledgement that the incident had ever occurred as their friendship resumed its normal path. But Mela and Pavi had given Ellie the love and the strength she needed to carry on.

  Upon Big Jim’s return, she accepted his nightly embrace, but when she gave birth nine months later, she knew the child would not be her husband’s. The freedom with which she had given herself to Pavi had invited conception.

  To Ellie’s profound relief the baby was born white. Pavi was olive-skinned rather than dark, given the French blood of his father, but Ellie had feared the child might bear the physical traits of Pavi’s islander mother. If such had been the case, she knew that Big Jim would have killed both her and her baby.

  Though the child’s skin and features appeared Caucasian, Ellie could see in the baby so much of Pavi, the same fine chiselled bones, the same soft brown eyes and, as the boy grew, the same sensitive nature.

  During the years that followed, she wondered more and more how others didn’t see the similarity when to her it was so obvious. How could Mela fail to recognise her husband in little Bartholomew? How could Pavi fail to see himself in his son? But from neither was there ever the slightest flicker of recognition.

  Strangely enough, the only one who seemed to sense a distinctive difference in Bartholomew was Big Jim. Big Jim found the boy’s gentle disposition uncharacteristic of a Durham and so unlike the competitive personalities of his other two sons that he accepted the fact as indisputable evidence that Bartholomew was ‘the runt of the litter’.

  Ellie felt safe with her secret, which for many years she had thought was hers and hers alone, and then the day came when she discovered there was another who knew, one who had always known.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Ellie.’ Mela waited for her mistress’s handshake on that terrible morning of the final farewells. With Big Jim standing by, there were no hugs shared.

  But Ellie did not offer her hand. She embraced Mela instead, holding her fast in the hope that Mela would know she was embracing them all. And when they parted, she said, ‘Thank you,’ in the hope that Mela would understand all that was meant by those two small words.

  Mela certainly understood. Mela understood far more than Ellie had ever realised, and now that the danger of discovery was past she was happy for Ellie to know that they shared the secret. Just the two of them, for she had said nothing to Pavi.

  ‘Your sons will be a comfort to you, Mrs Ellie,’ she said, her glance taking in the Durham brothers one by one, but her eyes coming to rest on Bartholomew as she added, ‘They are fine boys.’ And when she turned back to Ellie her smile held a special meaning.

  Ellie realised then that Mela knew the truth and was telling her so. But Mela’s smile and her expression as she’d looked at Bartholomew had signalled something else, something only two women could share. Mela was happy that her friend had been blessed with a child born of a loving union, and that Ellie would be left with an ever-present reminder of the man she truly loved.

  As Ellie stood in the dirt road waving goodbye to the dray, she couldn’t help wondering about the turn of events. When Mela sent me to Pavi that morning all those years ago, was it in the hope that I might conceive? It seems strangely possible somehow. But I will never know.

  There. I have purged myself. I have no regrets and make no apologies, but I rejoice as I always have in my gift of Bartholomew.

  I have ne
ver quite forgiven God for taking Edward and George from me for whatever Divine purpose intended, indeed God seemed to have deserted us all in those dark days. But I will always thank Him for Bartholomew, and now in the fullness of time for Bartholomew’s children, who grow so healthily to adulthood. There is much to be thankful for.

  I will now leave off writing and concentrate on the lie that is essential to my family’s safety, the lie of the love shared between Big Jim and me, for if Jim were ever to discover the truth I have no doubt he would kill us all.

  I intend to destroy these scribblings before I die, but I must admit that for the moment it is something of a comfort seeing the words on paper. I have enjoyed my confession.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kate sat in the breakfast room with a cup of coffee awaiting her father’s reaction, unsure what to expect, but presuming he would seek her out after reading Ellie’s confession. An hour passed, however, and he didn’t appear. Good, she thought, he’s decided to read the diaries in their entirety: much better he learns the whole truth in one hit even if it takes him all night – and it probably will.

  While waiting, she’d looked through the final ledger that she’d brought with her from the study, re-reading the words in their original French. She’d often wondered in the past why Ellie had not destroyed the diaries as had been her intention. There’d been plenty of time in which to do so. Ellie had lived a further twenty years, and death had not caught her by surprise: according to all accounts she’d known she was dying for some time. Furthermore, she’d had her wits about her right to the end, so she would not have forgotten of the diaries’ existence.

  Kate had come to only one conclusion, the simplest explanation of all. Ellie had wanted the diaries discovered. In the last stages of her life she’d made a conscious decision. She’d packed the ledgers away herself beneath her precious books or, if in a weakened state, she’d ordered their packing and storage. The diaries were meant to be found. Perhaps well into the future, perhaps generations on, but one day, when the family was safe from the threat of Big Jim’s vengeance, the truth was to be known. And Ellie had been right, Kate thought. The truth needed to be told.

  ‘Hello, my darling, how unusual to see you cooped up inside.’

  Hilda appeared at the door. Following her customary nap, she’d come downstairs to take her late afternoon tea in the front drawing room. ‘Are you not feeling well?’ she asked concerned. At this time of day, Kate was usually out walking with the dog or swimming in the dam.

  ‘I’m fine, Marmee, absolutely fine, thank you.’

  ‘Oh I am glad.’ Hilda beamed. ‘Would you care to take afternoon tea with me? Do say yes, dear,’ she urged, ‘I would so enjoy your company.’

  ‘Yes, I’d very much like to.’ Kate decided in that instant to prepare her mother for the worst. ‘As a matter of fact, there’s something I want to show you, something of great importance.’

  ‘How terribly exciting. Pop into the kitchen and tell Ivy we’ll need two cups, there’s a dear. I’ll see you in the drawing room.’ Hilda sailed away.

  Kate joined her a minute or so later and pulling up a hardback chair beside her mother’s she placed the ledger on the coffee table in front of them.

  Hilda looked down at it in surprise. Hardly an item of great importance, she thought, book-keeping held little interest for her. ‘This is what you have to show me?’ she asked, her disappointment readable.

  ‘Yes. I found a whole pile of these under Elianne House when I was clearing out Grandmother Ellie’s books.’

  ‘Really?’ The reaction was instantaneous, the mere mention of Elianne House and Grandmother Ellie enough to garner Hilda’s rapt attention.

  ‘They’re her diaries.’ Kate opened the ledger.

  ‘Oh. Oh my goodness.’ A hand fluttering to her chest, Hilda gazed down at the page. ‘Her diaries,’ she said breathlessly as if any moment she might have a heart attack. ‘Grandmother Ellie’s diaries,’ she traced her fingers across the paper with gentle reverence, ‘written in her very own hand.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Hilda’s look to her daughter was puzzled, even a little hurt. ‘But Elianne House was destroyed years ago,’ she said. ‘Why did you not tell me about the diaries earlier?’

  ‘It took me a long time to translate each of them, Marmee.’ Kate answered with care. ‘There were over a dozen ledgers and I wanted to –’

  ‘Of course, my darling, of course, you wanted to surprise me. I’m sorry if I sounded in any way accusatory, how shockingly ungrateful of me,’ Hilda’s eyes sparkled with excitement, ‘and how wonderful that you’ve gone to the trouble of translating them. I shall be able to read them all to myself.’ She glanced down at the open page, once again tracing a finger over the words. ‘I wonder why she chose to write in French – that’s most mysterious, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, it’s not actually, she had very good reason.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Grandmother Ellie wrote intimately, about quite a lot of things that she didn’t want others to read.’

  ‘My goodness, how riveting.’ Hilda clapped her hands in delight. ‘But where are your translations, my darling? I can’t wait.’

  ‘Dad has them in his study, I gave them to him an hour or so ago.’

  Ivy had arrived with the tea tray and was about to set it down on the coffee table beside the open book.

  ‘Careful, Ivy, careful.’ Hilda snatched up the ledger and closing it with care clutched it to her chest. ‘I’ll pour thank you, dear,’ she said and the maid left the room.

  Passing the ledger to Kate, Hilda started to pour. ‘When we’ve had our tea, I shall join Stanley in his study,’ she said. ‘We can read the diaries together.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, Marmee.’

  ‘Oh your father won’t mind, my darling,’ Hilda gave a light laugh. ‘I virtually worshipped his grandmother, as everyone well knows. Stanley won’t find my interest at all intrusive.’ She passed Kate a cup of tea and started pouring her own. ‘In fact I believe this could prove the perfect bond, something the two of us can share.’

  ‘It’ll be something you can share all right,’ Kate replied drily, ‘but I doubt it’ll prove the perfect bond.’

  ‘That’s rather enigmatic of you, dear,’ there was a mild rebuke in Hilda’s voice, ‘and a little cynical I might add.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Marmee, I didn’t mean to be rude.’ Kate very much wanted to prepare her mother for the inevitable, but she remained circumspect. There was no point in revealing the truth, far better Hilda should read Ellie’s own words than be told second hand. ‘It’s just that Grandmother Ellie unveiled a lot of family secrets, some of which are rather shocking, I’m afraid.’

  But Hilda was in no way disheartened by the prospect of what might lie ahead. ‘How very intriguing,’ she said and took a sip of her tea. ‘So I shall just have to wait then, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, you’ll just have to wait,’ Kate replied firmly, ‘and for some time, I should think.’

  Kate was right. The wait was a long one.

  When Stan the Man didn’t appear at the dinner table that night, Hilda went to his study and knocked on the door, but received no answer. She tried the handle. The door was locked. She knocked again. ‘Stanley, it’s me,’ she said.

  ‘Go away,’ her husband called. ‘I don’t wish to be disturbed.’

  ‘But Cook has served dinner.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Hilda made no argument, although she was a little put out. A well-run household revolved around meal times and the observance of ritual.

  She retired shortly before midnight, a good two hours later than normal, having waited up for her husband, and before she did she knocked once again on the study door.

  ‘Do you intend to stay in there all night, Stanley?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ came the brusque reply.

  ‘Very well.’ H
er voice assumed the edge of command. ‘I shall have Ivy deliver breakfast to you first thing in the morning. If you choose not to open the door to her, she will leave the tray here on the floor outside. You cannot be so foolish as to starve yourself. Good night.’ She sailed off without waiting for an answer, but none came in any event.

  The breakfast tray remained untouched the following morning and Stan the Man remained hidden behind locked doors.

  He finally surfaced at lunchtime, just as Hilda and Kate were sitting down to their chicken salad.

  ‘Ah there you are,’ Hilda said, as if her husband’s prolonged absence was perfectly normal, ‘I was about to have Ivy deliver a luncheon tray.’

  Stan dumped the armload of folders and their contents unceremoniously in the centre of the table, where they slithered to a halt among the condiments and salad servers.

  ‘Read that lot and discover the truth about your precious Grandmother Ellie,’ he said to his wife, then without drawing breath he addressed his daughter. ‘Who else knows?’

  ‘Only Alan and Frank.’

  ‘Frank!’ Stan stared at her in dumbfounded amazement. ‘You shared the Durham family skeletons with a total stranger!’

  Kate nodded guiltily, although she couldn’t help thinking it was surely better she shared their secrets with a stranger than one who knew the family well. ‘I needed to tell someone.’

  ‘Why not try your father?’ His voice was icy.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I wanted advice and I turned to Frank. It was Frank who told me I should –’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what your boyfriend told you.’ Stan waved a hand at the offending folders. ‘So you and Alan have known about this since the destruction of Elianne House nearly six years ago.’

  ‘I have, yes,’ she admitted. ‘I worked on the translations before I told Alan. He’s known for two years.’

  ‘And neither of you said a word to me. You kept the truth to yourselves, both of you, for two whole years.’ Stan seemed to be suggesting that the joint silence of his offspring had been some sort of conspiracy.