by Ruth Rendell
Mogens is waiting excitedly for Hansine, watching from the window of John’s house. Along Richmond Road she comes and she is carrying what he expects to see. He runs to tell his friend and his friend’s mother, and so it is that when Hansine arrives at the door it is John’s mother who is the first to see Swanny in her new guise as a member of the Westerby family.
Women wore such unsuitable clothes then, cumbersome and grotesque for summer’s heat. Hansine’s long skirt trails in the dust. Her collar comes high and tight up under her chin and she sweats. The big hat is anchored by a hat pin but still it slips and wisps of fair hair come loose from the cottage loaf. The five-day-old baby is better off in her thin lawn gown and Florence’s old shawl that wraps her. Mogens is better off in his sailor suit as he runs ahead of Hansine, to get there first, to be the first to tell Mor.
Already he loves this new sister that Hansine has been out to fetch from some mysterious source of babies. No one knows, of course, that he has just eleven years in which to love her, and it is as well they don’t. Who would wish to read the book of fate?
There has been little point in his getting to the front door five minutes ahead of Hansine, for only she has a key. But at least he can be the first to reach Mor’s bedroom with his news and by the time Hansine comes in she knows and has given a sigh of relief, as if she weren’t sure Hansine would find a baby or that the baby would consent to come.
All smiles, all pride, Hansine puts the child into Asta’s arms. Then Knud comes to see her. He who has changed his name wants to know the name of this sister.
‘Swanhild, but we shall call her Swanny.’
She looks up at Hansine and says thank you, a rather cold thank you, and then she says that things have worked out well. Are they going to stay here in her room for ever, all of them? Can’t they see she wants to be alone with her daughter?
‘Take the boys away, will you, Hansine, and dispose of this old shawl while you’re about it.’
When the door has closed she puts Swanny to the breast, a living child, a girl, a strong child that sucks strongly. Asta could cry with happiness but she doesn’t cry. She never does. For a long time she holds Swanny in her arms, feeding her and watching her fall asleep, touching the cheek that is like a plum and stroking the fine fair hair.
But after a while she lays her daughter gently in the bed beside her and does what she has to do. The most important thing, the stuff of life. She takes the notebook and the pen and the ink bottle from the bedside cabinet and begins writing it all down. There in her strong, forward-sloping hand go her pain and loss and joy, those profound emotions set down on a page destined for no one’s eyes but her own, never to be known and never to be read.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Elizabeth Murray for her imaginative research, much of it beyond the call of duty, and to Bente Connellan for all her translations into Danish and her help and advice on Danish matters.
My thanks are due also to Karl and Lilian Fredriksson for their assistance with sagas and guillotines. For the character of Mr de Filippis I am indebted to John Mortimer’s Introduction to Edward Marjoribanks’ Famous Trials of Marshall Hall.
In the pursuit of accuracy, Judith Flanders’ help has been invaluable.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1993 by Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd.
cover design by Jaya Miceli
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1495-4
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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