Amy Snow

by Tracy Rees

  I would have died and my child would have been brought up by his own grandparents, in the home that his mother knew, and would have wanted for nothing in the world in the material sense. And yet . . .

  I was forced to make a most thorough and dispassionate appraisal of my life. You know all my many advantages and all the ways in which I suffered. You know the great rage I had felt towards my parents. Yet I thought then about them, their upbringing, and, above all, about my mother’s frequent pregnancies that always ended in tears and bloody sheets.

  She lost so many children! While I wrestled with my conscience in Twickenham, I did not know how many – but I knew enough to feel sympathy for her now that I was with child myself. Since my return, I have learned that she lost eleven babies over the years. As well as bearing me! Having carried a child just once, I cannot imagine what she suffered. I believe she has been driven a little mad by it. It makes it possible for me to forgive the wrongs she has done me. And so you see I write with compassion in my heart, not the rage of a wronged daughter.

  Nevertheless.

  I did not want Hatville – any part of it – for my child.

  Imagine had it been a girl! How could I knowingly put my own daughter in that position, after Lord Kenworthy, after Bailor Dunthorne, for heaven’s sake? And as for a son . . . Still he might be constrained and inculcated with senseless ideas, still he might suffer if his spirit were anything like mine. Then again, what if he grew up to be just like them? My son? Oh no, Amy. No.

  Weighty decisions, were they not? It was a great deal to consider, and my head was clouded with fear. Whatever I decided, I must act very quickly, for if I delayed much, then secrecy would no longer be an option. I needed medical support too, I knew.

  Another choice: to keep child from father and father from child. But Robin was part of Hatville. That he would make a tender, kind father I doubted not at all. That he would bring up a child as I would wish, after I was gone, I could not be sure. Perhaps he would feel his child was better off with a fortune and a bloodline. Was he strong enough to keep it safe from the mighty Vennaways, should they ever find out? Another risk I dared not take.

  My course was set. I decided I must live long enough to find the right parents for my child. I must live long enough to give birth. And I must live long enough to return to you and look after you a little longer. And I must do it all in secret. Well, I have never shied away from a challenge!

  My decision made, I spoke to Mrs B. She posted a discreet letter and shortly afterwards a reply came back. She informed me we were going to York. I was pleased, for it was far away.

  I said nothing of my secret to the Wisters, though I wished to, many times.

  Again I remember Michael’s remark about Aurelia leaving them so suddenly and another piece of the puzzle drops into place.

  I fled from my friends, with a heart full of regret at doing so – yet it was nothing to the regret I felt every time I penned a letter to you.

  At first, of course, I could not write a thing. I did not know what to say! So I made up an excuse which I hoped would alleviate your concern. I know now that it did not. It was hastily fabricated and doubtless inadequate. I wrote, too, with a mind to prying eyes. I thought a social whirl, a series of balls, would not overly disturb my parents. As for you, you must have thought I’d taken leave of my senses!

  Why did I say Derby? Simply because Mrs B had a connection there whom she trusted to post letters on for me. I have never set foot in that town. In fact, there are a great many places I have never set foot. My grand tour of the kingdom, my exciting, self-indulgent journey from city to city to city, amounted to this: London, Twickenham, York. Then home.

  We arrived in York after an excruciatingly long train journey. At least so it seemed to me, vulnerable as I was. From the safety and comfort of my desk, however, I marvel. In just eight hours one may travel the length of our country!

  What do you make of the glorious wedding cake that is York Minster? Those endlessly rippling bells that drown out all thought from one’s brain? (What a blessed relief that was!) The cunning little streets that look like something dreamed up by the brothers Grimm? I wish we could explore it together. Oh, believe me, I did not appreciate these things upon my arrival – I had much to occupy me without admiring scenery!

  We stayed at the Jupiter Hotel. Perhaps by now you know it. There we met an old friend of Mrs B’s, the friend to whom she had written, the only person she could turn to in such a delicate situation – the only person who would be able to help. Of course that friend was Mrs Ariadne Riverthorpe.

  They had met, I came to learn, a decade or so earlier, at some intellectual gathering in Bath. The young Mrs B, budding bluestocking, was greatly influenced by the old Mrs R and they had corresponded ever since. Mrs R continued to give advice and guidance – no doubt dreadful – to her protegée.

  So Amy, I wonder how your time in Bath was? Thinking of it, sometimes I laugh and sometimes I feel very guilty! When I first met Mrs R, I thought her the most arrogant, discourteous, unsympathetic woman who ever stalked our green earth. You may imagine the fireworks in those early days.

  Yet the arguments we fought were not like those at Hatville Court. They were not poisonous. They were the necessary sparks caused by the coming together of two very obstinate people with a great many opinions. In the course of these rows, something dispensable burned away and we were left with the core of it. We were kindred spirits, I think (though I am vastly more delightful, I hope).

  You may have learned by now that although Mrs R professes to suffer human companionship as a very inconvenient but unavoidable fact of life, in fact she thrives on intrigue and other people’s business. Give her so much as a whiff of a situation and she is embroiled in it. She likes to feel useful. I believe she likes to think that the many hardships of her long life have not all been for nothing; that her many connections and experiences enable her to deal with almost anything. If possible, in short, she likes to help. Of course, I did not know all this about her then. In my confusion, all I was aware of was a very determined woman who seemed to swoop down from above and take charge of everything.

  The first thing she did was summon a doctor of whose discretion she was utterly sure. That ensured my health would not deteriorate any further unnecessarily. The second, when she had assured herself that I was worth taking the trouble for, was to go and see her friends the Caplands. She had told me that they were very good and warm people with a loving marriage and no children.

  ‘They are boringly devoted,’ she told me in her world-weary way. ‘I suppose if anyone should raise another child in this tedious, overcrowded, cruel world of ours, it is them.’

  Poor Mrs Riverthorpe. First she had to contend with me being difficult and then neither did Elspeth instantly fall into line. Well, you can imagine: a distant acquaintance appearing on your doorstep one day, informing you that you are to bring up the unborn child of a complete stranger! It is not the usual way of things. I did not even realize at first that Mrs R did not live in York, that she had come all the way from Bath as a result of Mrs B’s letter about me – a person she had never met. But she was in agreement with Mrs B that it was vital to get me far away from home as soon as possible. So to York we all hastened. And if the Caplands had refused to play their part? It would have been a jaunt for her, she told me once. A jaunt! Two days’ journey for an eighty-year-old woman! Amy, she styles herself a loner after all her many disappointments but that woman needs people as fish need water.

  Nevertheless, Joss and Elspeth did agree to meet me. And the rest they can tell you themselves. They took to me, thank the Lord, and decided to adopt my child. They are the very best of people, as you will now be discovering for yourself. They cherish Louis. Their cheery openness, their warm hearts, their ideas about rearing a child were all so utterly in accord with my wishes that I am quite sure that angels have the charge of Louis Capland.

  Then the questions were all of practicalities. This is how w
e managed it. Joss and Elspeth have a remote little cottage on the Yorkshire Moors, some hour’s drive from Fountain Cottage. Elspeth and I repaired there as soon as matters between us were settled. Thus no neighbours would see the expansion of my form, and the constancy of Elspeth’s.

  To those few souls I did meet, I was introduced as Nella Cardew; it seemed better to adopt a false name. We agreed, you see, that it should not be known that the baby would be adopted. I never wanted my child to grow up and ask questions about its blood family. I never wanted there to be any chance that he or she could trace my steps back to Hatville Court. And I never wanted the child to feel that its mother didn’t want it, not when I loved it more than life, before it had even put in an appearance.

  How funny that I had gone away dreaming of the sophisticated world, of salons, lectures, political rallies, dances, flirtations . . . and instead I washed up in the middle of a vast nowhere watching the seasons change over the moors! At first I was too shocked at what had befallen me to feel sad. But now, having found a safe place, I felt my disappointment in all its glory. I wept bitterly, you may imagine. I was restless a great deal – the hand life had dealt me was so vastly different from what I thought I needed to be happy. But when I think of it now, I smile. Remember that I told you I wanted to feel that my life, however brief, should have some meaning. Did I really imagine that soirées and salons could achieve that?

  They will take you there, Amy, and show you where I spent July, August, September, October, November . . . I watched blue summer arch overhead, then the mists came and the crackling leaves; the air turned lilac with woodsmoke, the days grew shorter, and then the frosts stole in . . . And all the while my baby grew inside me.

  The doctor was a Dr Challis. He was very thorough, very gentle and very dispassionate. He was uninterested in who I was, where I had come from or why two women were alone in a remote cottage with a baby coming. His concern was to keep me alive and deliver my child. He warned me from the outset that if I did not follow his orders to the letter (never my strong suit, as you know) then what Dr Jacobs at Hatville had said would be true – the pregnancy would kill me. You may infer that I followed orders for the first time in my life!

  My regime involved a great deal of rest, exceptionally plain food and very gentle walks every day. No fruit jellies, no champagne, no dancing, no strenuous exercise, no excitement . . .

  What did I do? I became acquainted with that small corner of the moors in intimate detail. I longed to stride to the horizon and then keep going, but I could not. I never did learn what was over that hill, or round that bend, not there. Perhaps you might take those walks and think of me.

  I talked with Elspeth. I rested in bed each afternoon, watching the clouds chase through the window. I read (I was sorely disappointed with Mr Dickens for neglecting to publish a new novel that year! ’Twas churlish of him to leave me without entertainment when I needed it most). I sketched and painted and the Caplands will no doubt show you those ‘masterpieces’ in due course. Joss visited us twice a week. Dr Challis came almost every day. Mrs Riverthorpe came once, grew bored and went back to Bath. And . . . I wrote to you.

  How painfully I remember you confiding that during my absence you had feared that writing to you had become a chore in which I could take no pleasure. You were utterly right, though for none of the reasons you imagined. You thought I was too busy dancing and flirting to remember with any interest my little stay-at-home friend. For shame! The truth was . . . that I could not tell you the truth. And anything else was detestable. Penning lies to you felt hollow, tasteless and sad.

  The baby’s fate decided, my attention turned to you, dearest. What was to become of you after I was gone? For now it was not just a question of providing for you. I also needed to find some way to let you know the secret after my demise. One day you would know everything – it was how I comforted myself with every bland, made-up letter I wrote.

  Mrs B had left to continue her travels as planned and all the imaginary destinations I wrote to you from were places she stayed. I sent my letters to her, then she sent them to Hatville from Manchester, Bath and goodness knows where. My parents needed to believe that I was moving around so much that they could not find me if they tried. Imagine months of letters coming from a remote Yorkshire location! That would have raised instant suspicion. I was exceedingly vague, too, as you may recall, lest I be found out.

  When you (and they) wrote back to me, Mrs B again forwarded the letters to me in the north. That is why our letters did not feel as if they connected, Amy. It wasn’t that I was uninterested in yours, it was simply that I hadn’t read them!

  My parents believed my endless postponements were an attempt to evade my engagement to Bailor Dunthorne. But their fury was impotent – they had no way to find me. In fact it was most helpful that there was another plausible explanation to keep them from suspecting the truth. After several months, they grew quiet on the matter, which I thought odd. But I did not want to think of him when I was in Yorkshire.

  Despite everything, I found peace during those months, for the first time in my life. It may sound strange, but a fatal diagnosis had not nearly the impact upon me as carrying a child. The former, you see, did not fundamentally change me. I was still the same Aurelia, hungry to grab at everything and live life in ways that were denied me. But learning how very precious and determined life is . . . well, that did transform me. Death, it turns out, is one thing, but life is quite another. It is altogether more formidable.

  I came to terms with my limitations (scandalous, I know, to think I should have any!). The small territory that the doctor had demarcated for me helped with that. I became utterly transfixed by that small piece of the world. The flourish and decay of flowers, the agenda of ants, the depths and directions of rain. The fluffy, staggering development of a young magpie, who grew sleek and glossy as I watched. I came to feel that any more would overwhelm me, so intensely rich is each small portion of land.

  Louis Josslyn Capland was born on 18th November, 1844. The delivery was not easy, but it did not kill me, as you have perceived, and Dr Challis was as skilled and calming as I could have wished. Six hours it took, which I understand is very quick for a first baby. Louis Capland was obviously determined to find his way into this world!

  When I saw him, Amy, when I held him . . . for those few days reality fell away: the short time I would have with him; the need to leave him behind. There I was with this small being who fit as perfectly into my arms and snug against my heart as if he had always been there, like an arm or a leg. I nursed him myself, just those first days, and feelings flooded through me that were all new.

  It was agony and bliss. It was floating on beams of light – the transcendent certainty that when the time came I could give him up because loving him made me so large. It was, too, the black and bitter desire to run away and live on the moors with him and eat berries and die together when the snows came. It was everything, and it was nothing more than it had to be: a brief and beautiful interlude.

  After a week, we returned to Fountain Cottage: Elspeth Capland, her new baby and her good friend Nella, who had taken such good care of the mother throughout a tricky confinement.

  Mrs Riverthorpe favoured us with another visit. She peered her old beak in at the baby and pronounced him ‘a bit crumpled, but likely to grow up fetching enough to cause trouble’. Then she drank a great deal of Madeira and left the next day.

  It was February before Dr Challis pronounced me fit to travel. Mrs B returned to escort me to London and we stayed some weeks at Belgravia while I regained my strength. I began the difficult work of leaving behind everything that had happened. My body needed to adjust to being away from Louis and my thoughts needed to turn to the future. I needed to become the fictional Aurelia who had spent a whole year gratifying her every whim and simply enjoying herself too much to come home.

  Then I had to go shopping! I have never enjoyed it less; those months in Yorkshire had changed me. The shops se
emed crowded and over-bright; the press and trill of polite society clamouring for possessions exhausted me. Nevertheless, the fact remained that I had spent the last six months in one of two shapeless gowns and a pair of muddy boots.

  Shopping in Regent Street one day, whom should I see but Bailor Dunthorne! I had not yet conjured a way to avoid marrying him that would satisfy my parents, but I learned that circumstances had changed, unbeknownst to me. One of his many dalliances had resulted in a child. The woman in question was no one the elder Lord Dunthorne would entertain as a daughter-in-law (she was a chorus girl!). But the unthinkable had happened: Bailor had developed a fancy for her and would not give her up. He could not offer her marriage but he would raise their son. He brought the boy home and though it was put about that he was the orphaned son of a friend, everyone knew the truth. No wonder my parents had stopped writing of the engagement! They would never allow a Vennaway to marry into such a situation. Oh, how this turn of events dented them! Oh, the gratitude I felt then that Bailor’s profligate lifestyle had finally caught up with him! I could almost have kissed him (almost, but not quite). That was one problem solved for me, at least.

  I returned as Aurelia, but sometimes I miss being Nella, who has borne a child, grown familiar with the rhythms of the earth and lived quietly. However, I feel I have retained something of her consciousness now that I am returned to you. I spend every day grateful that I am alive and every day grateful for you. I watch the light change and the trees turn. Each morning I send a prayer and a kiss to Louis, then I put him firmly from my mind. I turn my attention to the life that is at hand: Hatville Court. I tell myself that it is all surprisingly simple. In truth, it is not always so simple. My heart and body ache to hold him in a way that I cannot describe and of course there are those dark moments of the night when I imagine how it might have been. If I might have married Robin and brought up Louis myself, if it had been my happy family living at Fountain Cottage, if you and I, Amy, might be enjoying the countryside and playing with Louis together . . . But I am dying and I would not want him to lose his mother. So every time these thoughts and feelings invade me, I grit my teeth, I do nothing, I hold my course and they pass, they always pass. So I shall continue to weather these gales for however long I might live.