Born of Woman (14 page)

Was it any wonder she had turned strange and sour, kept away from people, tried to protect her second son from the malicious gossip centered on the first? Jennifer felt like a defendant in the dock, championing Hester, excusing her, trying to make the court see the confused and suffering girl beneath the older, harsher woman. She felt strangely close to Hester, living in her house, married to her son, and now reading her own words. Surely Lyn, too, would feel greater tolerance once he understood the hardships of her life. She longed to rush upstairs and pile the notebooks on his bed, so that he could substitute this sympathetic figure for the stern and judging presence in his head. Yet how could she do that without also dumping an unwelcome bastard brother on him? She couldn't risk his anger, years of new resentment which might make him even more unwilling to have a child himself.

She sat back on her heels, shivering in the dim uncertain light. Even the vaporiser had spluttered out, a dead black wick in a pool of spastic wax. There were so many complications. How could she hide Lyn's own mother from him, live with all this knowledge of her, when it was closed and barred to him? There was nowhere safe to conceal the diaries, anyway. Lyn had promised the solicitor that he would scour the house to find the missing Will. That would include the cellar. Worse for Lyn to find these diaries himself, come face to face with the shock of Hester's pregnancy without her to prepare him. He was sure to search these chests. They were an obvious place to hide a Will. She might even find it herself, tucked away with all these other treasures. That would solve some problems. Not only would it stop Lyn coming down here, so that at least she could suppress the diaries until she had decided what to do; it would also save further expense with lawyers and give them both the comfort of a settled home and secure inheritance.

There was still the large brown envelope which she hadn't even opened yet. Could it be in there? It was perhaps too bulky for a Will, yet it was so securely sealed, it looked important. She coaxed it open, peered inside. Only a faded sketchbook and a package tied with ribbon. She opened the sketch-book first. Even the wavering light could not disguise the skill and delicacy of the lively drawings which tumbled across the pages—mostly birds and animals, sketched with a wealth of detail and quite uncommon talent—a field mouse with its tail wrapped round a corn-stalk, a choir of comic frogs croaking round a pond, a double spread of seagulls, their swift soaring bodies criss-crossing against a choppy sea of clouds.

These must be
Hester
's drawings—not the bowed and workworn housekeeper, but a younger freer Hester with leisure-time for hobbies. There was compassion in these sketches, insight, sensitivity. Lyn had never mentioned that his mother had such talents, yet what could be more natural when he had inherited them himself? She had always thought it strange that Lyn should have sprung from such a family—his father a farmer and his mother a simple housekeeper with only domestic skills. Yet here was a different Hester, one he had probably never known.

Jennifer leafed through the sketchbook, admiring flocks of starlings, sprays of blackthorn blossom, the taut and darting body of a ferret. On the very last page was a drawing of a young and pretty girl with untidy curls and a high pale forehead. That must be Hester herself, a self-portrait done before she left for London. She looked about eighteen. It was nothing like the corpse she had washed, but that corpse had been worn down by eighty unrelenting years. This drawing showed a simple, pretty, indulged and gentle child. How different from the portrait Lyn had always painted—the grim, plain woman somewhere between a martyr and a monster, a jailer and a saint. Yet wasn't everything Lyn told her somehow harsher and more intractable than she had found it in reality?

True, Lyn had never known the girl, not even the young woman. Hester was worn and widowed before he was even born. But wouldn't it be better if he knew her, help to resolve his bitterness, show him a mother who was more approachable, more lovable, and who, above all, shared his skills?

Why hide all these redeeming features for the sake of just two lines on one small page of one small notebook? As far as she could see, there was no other reference to Hester's pregnancy, nothing more at all. If she simply removed that page, the whole episode would vanish. Perhaps it was wrong to deface a diary or falsify a record, but wasn't it equally irresponsible to allow distrust and bitterness to sour her husband's life, and at a time when they had planned to start afresh? She could always keep the page, replace it later, break the news to Lyn when he was calmer and more confident. Meanwhile, they could read the rest of the diaries together, get to know the girl who had done the drawings. Those alone could banish the myth of the grey and granite Hester who still terrorised his dreams.

She reached across for the thin and faded notebook dated 1919, stared at the first page. Surely it couldn't matter if she tore it out? Hester had guarded her secret all her life. All she was doing was helping her hush it up a little longer. Very carefully she eased back the covers of the notebook. The binding was slack, in any case. Bit by bit, she worked the page free, making sure there were no ragged edges, nothing to incriminate her. She folded the page into nothing, concealed it in the pocket of her coat. She would hide it later in her Tampax box—one place Lyn would never look. He was almost prissily fastidious about anything to do with menstruation, preferred to believe it didn't occur at all.

She shut the notebook. The baby didn't exist now. Hester had gone to London simply to get a job, her family dispersed and ruined by the war. In all the turmoil and upheaval which followed in its wake, hundreds of girls must have left their homes or changed their way of life. When Lyn got round to reading the London entries, she would explain them in that light. She picked up the sketchbook again. Best to show him the drawings first, in any case. Lyn could relate to line and shadow, animal and bird.

She stumbled suddenly as the lamp gave a final flicker before drowning in the blackness all around it. It was as if her tampering with the diary had brought instant retribution. She rubbed her eyes. Her body felt stiff and stupid with exhaustion as if she had lived through all those decades of the diaries, endured every raid and battle of two world wars, groaned through twenty hours of labour. Her clothes were covered in a shroud of dust, little flakes of plaster confettied her hair. She started to pack the books back, floundering in the dark like a blind person, groping around the floor, scared of the spooky fingers of darkness catching at her hair. A sudden rustle made her start. A rat? A bat? She shuddered, wanted only to get out now.

She blundered towards the door, tripping over boxes, imagining faces in the gloom. A cobweb brushed against her cheek; she stubbed her toe on a loose uneven floorboard. She had reached the steps now, started fumbling up them, clutching at the wall.

She stopped in horror. The door was opening before she had even touched the handle. She screamed, fell back, as a shaft of hurting light dazzled her eyes.

‘Jennifer! What in God's name are you doing? I thought I heard you down here.' Lyn was standing in the doorway in his crumpled blue pyjamas, flashing a torch as if to flush her out. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Y … yes. I think so. I was just … er … fetching that inhaler thing.' Jennifer's hand flew instinctively to her pocket, checked the torn-out page, remained palm across it like a shield.

‘I told you I didn't want it. I wondered where on earth you were. I've been searching the whole house for you. I woke up in a sweat and …'

‘I'm sorry. Let's g … go back to bed now. You'll catch your death down here.'

‘Where is it, then?'

‘What?'

‘The inhaler. I may as well use it, now you've dug it out.' He wrinkled up his nose. ‘Ugh! The whole place reeks of menthol. Whatever were you doing lighting it down here?' He flashed his torch again. ‘Can't see it. That's a book you're holding, isn't it?'

Jennifer didn't answer. She had taken the sketchbook with her to show Lyn in the morning. She was too weary now for all the explanations. They would get no more sleep tonight if she embarked on the whole saga of Hester's life. Lyn sounded irritable, in any case.

‘I told you not to prowl around in here. What
is
the book?'

‘Oh … nothing.'

‘What d'you mean, nothing?' Lyn ventured down two steps, reached across and grabbed it. He opened it at random, shining his torch on the page, stared down at the drawings, then back at her. ‘Where did you find this, Jennifer?' He had collapsed on to the steps, leafing through the pages with an almost wild excitement, hand trembling on the cover.

‘You shouldn't sit there, Lyn. That stone's damp and cold and you've got almost nothing on. You'll …'

‘Jennifer, I must know where you found this.' Lyn had stopped at one of the drawings and was gazing at it intently, nose almost on the page. She peered over his shoulder. It was a river scene she had admired herself—preening mallard and nesting moorhen fringed by water-lilies.

‘It was in a sort of … chest thing, right at the back down here.' She paused. No point lying when he would be searching the cellar himself in a matter of days. Crazy, really, ever to have imagined she could conceal his mother's life and history from him. She had never believed in deception in a marriage, and if she was forced to suppress a single page for the sake of Lyn's own sanity, then at least she should open up the rest.

She crouched down beside him, laid her hand on his. ‘Listen, darling, there's a lot of … important stuff down here. I think we ought to look at it together—as soon as you're better, I mean. All your family records and Hester's things as well—her diaries and these drawings. You never told me she could draw.'

‘She couldn't.' Lyn had turned another page now, found the comic frogs. He wasn't smiling, though. His brows were drawn right down and a tiny muscle was twitching in his face.

‘My mother couldn't draw to save her life. She not only couldn't, she disapproved of drawing. Wasting time, she called it.'

‘But that was only
later
, darling, when she was busy and tired and … She did these as a girl. I've found out a lot about her life already. Her family were well-to-do, so she probably had governesses and proper drawing lessons. These are mostly nature studies, but there's a sketch of her at the back. Atleast, I
think
it must be her—a self-portrait, I suppose. Gosh! I'm frozen stiff, aren't you? It's like a morgue down here. Let's go upstairs before …'

‘Where? Where is it—that portrait of her? Show me.'

Jennifer took the book from him, turned to the last page. The girl looked changed now in the torchlight, harsher and less gentle, with an almost blowsy beauty, the smile curling on her lips. ‘There she is. It's funny, really, but I never imagined your mother quite like that. I know she's only young there, but she looks so … Lyn, what are you
doing
?'

‘Going to search that chest.' He pushed past her on the steps, hurtled down them.

‘Not now, Lyn. You've got a temperature. Wait until you're better, or at least until the morning, then we can …'

He didn't stop to answer. She heard him trip on something, swear.

‘Be careful!' She was groping after him, following the torch-beam. He had already reached the chest. A few books were still strewn around it, along with the second package from the sealed brown envelope which she had missed in her haste and fear.

Lyn fell on his knees, ripped the package open, stared at the sheaf of photos in his hands—their old, brown, faded paper contradicted by the young and radiant female printed on them. There were ten or eleven photographs, all of the same woman—that tousled girl of the sketchbook, except the camera had somehow made her flesh and blood. The hair was fairer, the eyes larger and more provocative, the plunging cleavages certainly more daring. Most of the photos were cut off at the waist, but all displayed the dazzling neck and shoulders draped in silk, muslin, velvet, or adorned with scarves and flowers. Lyn had grabbed the torch and was shining it on each photograph in turn, laying them out on the dusty cellar floor. He placed the portrait underneath them, tracing the full lips with his finger. ‘
Susannah
‘,' he whispered.

‘What did you say?' Jennifer took off her coat and draped it round his shoulders. It was madness for him to be down here with a streaming cold, clad only in thin pyjamas on one of the coldest nights of the year.

Lyn picked up the largest of the photos and thrust it in her hands. ‘That's
her
—Susannah—Matthew's mother. Don't you understand? She did those drawings and these are her photographs. Matthew told me the house was full of them once. When he was a boy, he couldn't walk into a single room without his dead mother … watching him from the mantelpiece. But
I
never saw them. They'd all disappeared by the time I was born. I've looked for them before, searched for years, in fact. Given up long ago. Do you realise, Jennifer, how strange this is—that you should … well—lead me to them, after all this time? It's extraordinary, uncanny …'

‘But, I don't quite … I mean, why Susannah, Lyn, when she died years before you were even …?'

‘It doesn't matter why. Doesn't matter. Doesn't … Oh, Snookie, oh …'

He clung to her, almost crushing her. She couldn't hear what he was saying, only feel him sobbing into her, as she lay twisted and uncomfortable beneath him. He couldn't cry, not even at the funeral. Days and days had passed and he had shown no outward sign of grief. Even when he had sat staring at Hester's death certificate or found a letter written to him in her now frail and feeble writing—unfinished, broken off—he had still stayed stony-faced. She had longed for him to cry, to mourn his mother in some more natural, open fashion. Yet now he was mourning
Matthew's
mother, crying before he had even read the diaries, before Hester's life had thawed and melted his—weeping over a burst of blackthorn blossom, a page of frozen birds.