Awakening (33 page)

‘You lack my armour,' Miriam Sala informed Anna, with some condescension. But how does Miriam know what Anna Pentecost is capable of? She's unsure herself. As a child Anna had the courage of her oddity – of her left-handedness. With great gentleness and meaning only the best, Papa corrected this tendency, teaching through praise, never condemnation.

But outward conformity masked sleight of hand. Covertly, Anna became ambidextrous.

Beatrice has always said that Miriam had something of the mesmerist about her, a power over weaker people. But no, Miriam is terribly afraid, Anna thinks: she is a prey animal that has broken cover and lives in dread of further exposure. Mirrie's hands, as the two of them talked, lay clasped in her dark lap. Her face angled forward, so earnest and meaningful and beseeching – as if she feared you might penetrate her defences. Patrolling her own boundaries, Miriam pushed them forward, a little here, a little there. Then came the confession.

‘And besides … there's something else, not generally known until now – but it has been in the newspapers; I'm surprised you say you didn't know, Anna. The world knows. The world says I have abandoned a child. My son. I am accused of deserting him when I left his father's house. I have not seen my Johnnie for three years. It was not as they claim, not at all – anyone who knows the law as it relates to the custody of children knows that – but I shall not go into details, I am high-minded; it is a fault, but nevertheless it does not please me to cast aspersions on others, even those who have wronged me. My life, Anna, is rich in mistakes. Stupid mistakes; crass, grotesque mistakes. Baines is not one of them. No, don't speak. Don't. Please. It sears me, I've wished to die. I never speak of my boy, even with Baines.'

*

The room's so quiet that Beatrice hears not only the nib scratching the paper but Anna's breathing.

The clock chimes the quarter and Beatrice lays aside the little coat she's embroidering for Luke. ‘I'll just go and see to my boy,' she tells Anna's turned back. ‘And Will was wondering if you would like to accompany him to the meeting?'

‘Oh – no, not really
.
'

‘But aren't you going with Will?'

‘No, I've explained to him – I'm busy. Will doesn't mind.'

Beatrice is perhaps less taken aback than she ought to be. Anna, who has shown no further sign of wanting to visit the Salas, still goes her own way, simply ignoring the duties of a minister's wife – and Will tolerates this neglect perhaps as part of the bargain. Good people in Chauntsey and Fighelbourn will already be noticing this disdain for duties. But that's not my business, Beatrice reminds herself.

‘May I bring Luke in to feed him here, Annie? It's pleasant sitting with you. So peaceful.'

‘Fine. Do.' Anna vanishes again into herself.

Beatrice sits on the sofa with her feet up to feed Luke. His cheeks are pale, he fails to latch and feeds listlessly, allowing milk to dribble from the side of his mouth. Perhaps the teeth coming through are giving him pain. She can see needles sticking through the bottom gums. But he doesn't appear distressed and Beatrice is not perturbed. She knows him now. Knows him through and through: when he's tired, when his belly aches, when he wants to nuzzle and nestle.

I'm supposed to mother him but the fact is, he mothers me, she thinks. There's a wisdom born with infants that we lose along the way. Never was there such a comical baby: casting indiscriminate smiles, kicking up and down with his right leg when he's excited. Luke gazes into everyone's face with wonderment, trusting all, recoiling from none. But of course only those who love him come near him.

Her sister turns in her chair, resting her chin on her arm, observing them. She looks like someone emerging from sleep, surprised to find the world just where she left it. But Anna's according Beatrice and Luke a new attention, examining them closely, the way they are with one another.

‘What are you thinking, Beattie? Now, this moment?'

‘Oh – about – I'm not sure. Just being peaceful, with you and Luke. He's a bit slow this morning. Very slow. He doesn't look quite right, I'll maybe put him down for a longer rest. He was whimpering and restless in the night. Why do you ask?'

‘Just wondering how one would describe your expression – faraway-eyed perhaps.'

‘You're surely not writing about me?'

‘Goodness, no.' Anna doesn't say what she is writing about or to whom. Beatrice lets it go. ‘More to the point,' Anna continues, ‘what is
he
thinking? Do they think at all, before they have language? Do you think he thinks?'

‘Annie, they do have language! How can you say Luke has no language?' For a clever woman, her sister is wonderful at ignoring what's going on under her nose.

Anna puts down the pen and gets up; kneels at Beatrice's feet to study Luke, whose lids are closing. She passes her hand over the baby's forehead and looks from child to mother with a concerned eye.

‘He's sweating a little. Is he all right?'

‘Just tired. I'll put him down in a minute.'

‘What does he say then, with his language?'

‘Oh, the great simple things. I hunger, I thirst, I am weary, I feel pain. I love.'

‘Yes, of course. I hadn't thought of it that way. And, really, what else is there in life worth saying?'

‘Annie, there's ink all over your hands and there's even some at the corner of your mouth!' Beatrice indicates the place with her finger. ‘And under your eye. Don't rub, you're making it worse. Honestly, look at you. You look no more than nine years old.'

‘The age of reason,' says Anna. ‘It's all downhill from there.'

‘I've been thinking, dear. About the medical men. When I was having Luke – well, it wasn't easy.' She pauses. Anna gives a piercing look; fails to respond to the hint that she may freely ask intimate questions. And indeed the doctors and their forceps did only what was required to release the child. They performed their duty with courteous efficiency. Yet Beatrice felt tampered with. And perhaps if the doctor examined her sensitive sister in a way that embarrassed her, there may have been a sense of violation. Beatrice understands that now. There was no woman there to hold her hand and protect her dignity. ‘What I mean to say is that I'll never call Dr Quarles against your wishes.'

‘No. And it would always be against my wishes. I don't even like to see him in the street,' Anna says sharply.

‘In future – I shall do nothing against your will, dear heart. I know I've … offended you in that way in the past but I never shall again. Knowing better. It's my besetting sin. One of them.'

‘Well, that's true,' says Anna.

Beatrice stops herself from taking umbrage. It's one thing to confess one's self-righteousness; another to have it confirmed. ‘The Germans have rather a good word for it,' she says. ‘Christian told me.
Besserwisserin.
Know-all.'

‘Anyway, dearest,' Anna goes on, responding in kind to Beatrice's generosity. ‘You've
had
to know better, haven't you? – because the burden fell to you as the elder – and often you have known best. And I have not. So – there we are.'

She straightens up, touching Beatrice's hand lightly before returning to her desk. She's soon scribbling again, tongue between her lips.

From now on when Anna needs medical treatment, a Salisbury doctor will have to be called out, at greater expense and at the risk of offending the Quarles family.

Summer will soon be over. Beatrice takes St John's Gospel out to the summer house to enjoy the last rays of sun beneath the canopy of the chestnut tree, Luke in his crib, sound asleep, a blue shawl over the hood, to shield his eyes from the light. My own darling. When Beatrice looks up Luke is awake, wearing an expression of placid, open-mouthed amazement at the face the world presents: its stir and dazzle. What is he looking at? His eyes are fixed on something beyond her ken. Unblinking. They see, perhaps, the angels. Floating nearby on dragonfly wings. Why should that not be so? And as we age, our spiritual eyesight fails.

Beatrice thinks: I glean so much from Luke. He teaches me everything: holds me down to the earth but directs my vision to the skies. She feels renewed in his presence and even the long nights of wakefulness after his birth have yielded gold. I hadn't anticipated that, isn't it strange, I thought I knew it all. But all I thought I knew unravels. I seem to be at the beginning again, with a second chance of life. Seeing it all afresh. Thank you, gracious Lord, for that. Beatrice hopes as her son grows up she will not forget but be able to take advantage of this second chance.

He dies without a sound. There in the garden under her gaze, God takes Luke from his mother and, in one fell swoop, orphans her.

Chapter 19

The dray arrives with the milk. Her ears register the clop of hooves, the clash of cans. The light is not up yet. Another day is due to begin but so far there's just a line of red fire at the horizon. All the shutters of Sarum House are closed except hers. Amy's clearing ash from the hearth. Beatrice hears this too, the small sounds of a poker riddling, pan against grate, side door opening and closing as the ash is disposed of. The great machine of the world is going on with its business for it can do no other. And Joss is down there with the servant: Beatrice hears his rumbling laugh, cut off, as if he thought better of it. Anna helps her dress and supports her down the stairs.

‘There will be other babies for your wife,' Dr Quarles has assured Christian. ‘Let her weep for now. It's helpful to her and healthy. But don't let it go on for too long. That is unhealthy. She should get plenty of sleep: laudanum in the measure I have indicated here. And port wine to strengthen the blood. Does your wife like port wine? It is in the nature of things for babies to die and for mothers to feel it. No reason why Mrs Ritter should not bear a whole string of viable children. As soon as you feel inclined.'

‘Her sister tells me she hasn't wept, Dr Quarles. It is a concern to me. Not a tear. I have even spoken to her in a manner calculated to draw tears but without result.'

‘In her own good time. Nature is a great healer. And, you know, she is prodigal with her seeds.'

‘But God is not prodigal,' Christian replies, with some energy. ‘He numbers and names them all. He is concerned for the fall of a sparrow, though a sparrow has no soul. How much more then for a human child?'

‘Indeed, of course.'

‘But we have not lost our child; we relinquish only his mortal part.'

Beatrice hears them discuss her as if she were a fictional character, which it may be she is. They feed her broth and other slops. Her breasts have been bound tight. The milk still leaks, less in volume but copious enough. It erupts like a sneeze or burst of tears. Yes, I do cry: I weep milk.

Out there the servant drops the ashes in the can and shuts the lid. The bells of St Osmund's toll across the town. Crows go sailing up into the grey cloud above the limes in St Osmund's churchyard. Joss wants to say something. He fidgets in his chair, takes a breath, opens and closes his mouth. In the end he offers Beatrice snuff. She breathes tobacco dust and spice. It's an odd thing to offer. Beatrice shakes her head. As children she and Anna used to steal Grandpa Pentecost's enamelled wooden snuffbox, atchoo-ing over a pinch each. But that was then. Before she died.

The way they extracted him from her arms was by ambush. Beatrice would not give him up. The muscles of her arms burned with holding him. ‘A little laudanum,' said Dr Quarles. ‘It is the kindest thing to do, to give her sleep.' Beatrice snarled as they came for her. She gripped the angel to her. They tried to force the drink down her throat. Swallowing some, she spat more.

‘Leave her alone, let her be, she will give Luke to me, get away from her,' Anna cried. She came up close and Beatrice let her. ‘You shan't be forced, you shan't. But let me hold him a minute,
cariad.
'

‘No. Don't touch.'

‘I'll be gentle. If you'll let me.'

‘Well, don't drop him then.'

For as long as she could, Beatrice watched Anna hold them all at bay with her calm, fierce look.

The baby's eyes had sunk back into its eye sockets like those of an old man. They were glazed and seemed to have turned their full attention to the inner world. It was less Luke than a waxwork effigy. As custom dictates, Beatrice and Anna dressed him in his most gorgeous gowns, all of them, and his two caps, till, frilled and ribboned and bound, he was a stiff, small pharaoh ready for his journey to the underworld. Beatrice drank the tea they gave her and fell asleep. When she awoke, Luke's aunt had surrendered him. Beatrice wasn't angry with Annie. What can a woman, any woman, do against a pack of wolves? Luke lay in a box made of blond beech wood. But it was sealed. Then open it please and let me see him. Just one look. Don't deny me this. People lie to you, she sees it now in all its enormity. They have sealed the pretty coffin, contrary to custom, to prevent her from taking him back.