The Legacy (31 page)

“There’s a huge chunk here that I can’t make out at all—it looks like it got wet or something, at some point,” I interrupt myself, scanning down the rest of the page. “Then he finishes:
I long to see you again, and it gladdens my heart to know that you will soon be setting out to journey here to me. Be at ease, darling—very soon we will begin the rest of our lives. Yours always, C
. How about that, then?”

“So, she was married!” Beth exclaims.

“It would seem so . . . nothing actually says that they were but I can’t think of another reason, back then, that he would write a letter like that—about starting their lives together and her having a new family and all the rest of it.”

“Where was she travelling to? What does the postmark say?” I study the envelope.

“I can’t make it out. It’s totally worn away.”

“Shame. What if she was meant to travel out to marry him and something happened before she got there?”

“But then what about the baby?”

“True. So she lost a husband and a baby before she even came over here. And she was how old at that point?”

“Twenty-one, I think. She’d just come into her money.”

“How amazing—that none of it was on her marriage certificate, or was known until now! I wonder how it was forgotten?” Beth muses.

I shrug. “Who knows. If she divorced him, maybe she wanted it kept quiet? Mary said that Caroline never wanted to talk about her early years—perhaps she had something to hide. And remember that letter from Aunt B I showed you—that mentioned things that happened in America staying in America. She was definitely worried about a scandal of some kind. If her husband had died, it would have just said widow on her marriage certificate to Lord Henry. She must have left him. And if her baby died, that might explain why she was always so frosty, so impenetrable.” At this Beth falls quiet.

She has not mentioned Dinny’s visit to the house. She has not passed on his thanks to me, and I can’t find out if this is deliberate, or an oversight, without letting on that I was listening. But it is niggling me. I itch to hear what it is he wants to say to her.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Erica, why are you so keen to know all this? To know everything?” She looks across at me from the shadow of her hair, her long eyelashes. The fire behind her gives her an orange gleam.

“Don’t you find it interesting? I want to know why . . . why our family hates the Dinsdales. Hated the Dinsdales,” I correct myself. “I want to know how Meredith got as cruel as she did—as bitter and twisted as she did. And the answer seems to be that she inherited it from Caroline. And I just want to know
why
. . .”

“And you think you’ve found out?”

“Why they hated the Dinsdales? No. I have no clue about that. It couldn’t just have been class prejudice—it had to be more than that. It
was
more than that. It was
personal
. And anyway, in her letters it sounds like Meredith wasn’t that bothered when class barriers started to come down during the war. But at least I think I know why Caroline was so cold. Why, as Mum said, she never loved Meredith.”

“Because she lost a child?”

“Lost a whole life, by the sounds of it. You remember that time, at that summer ball, when Caroline thought she recognized the waitress?”

“Yes?”

“I wonder who she thought it was. I wonder why she was so upset by her.”

Again Beth doesn’t answer, blocks herself from me in that way I can’t stand. “And I can’t get those blasted marsh flags out of my head! I’m sure I remember something about them . . .” But Beth isn’t listening to me any more.

“Losing a child . . . I can’t imagine how that must feel. A child that has had the chance to grow, to become a real person. When your love for it has had years to deepen. I just can’t imagine.”

“Neither can I.”

“No, but you can’t even begin to, Erica, because you don’t know what it feels like—you don’t know how strong that love is,” she tells me intensely.

“There’s lots I don’t know,” I aver, hurt. In the silence, the fire pops, shifts as it burns down.

“We never missed Henry,” she murmurs, sinking back into the shadow of the armchair so that I cannot see her face clearly. “We saw the search for him and the way it nearly pulled the family apart. In a way, we saw the consequences of . . . what happened. But we never
missed
him. We were only ever on the edges of it . . . of the mess. The pain it caused . . .”

“It was hard to miss him, Beth. He was vile.”

“He was vile, but he was just a little boy. Just a little boy, Erica. He was so young! I don’t know . . . I don’t know how Mary survived it,” she says, her throat tightening around the words. I don’t think Mary did survive it, not entirely. For a hideous moment I picture Beth being like Mary. Beth, twenty years from now, every bit as empty and deadened as Mary. For surely that is how it will go, if I do not manage to heal her. If I have got it wrong—if I have made it worse, bringing her here. I do not trust myself to speak. In my hands the letter to Caroline is as light as air; so insubstantial, the words of this lost man barely touching the pages, his voice whispering down the years, fading into the past. I touch my fingers to the
C
with which he signed himself, send out a silent thought to him, back through time, as if he might somehow hear it, and take comfort.

I
t’s late now and Beth went to bed hours ago. Only two days since Christmas Day, since I last saw Dinny, and yet there’s a kind of quiet desperation gathering beneath my ribs. If Beth won’t tell me what happened then Dinny has to. He has to. Which means I have to ask him; and I know, I
know
he does not want to be asked. Pitch black outside but I haven’t bothered to draw the curtains. I like sitting in full view of the night. There’s some stupid film on the television, but the sound is turned down and I have been staring at the fire as it dies, and thinking, thinking. Nobody else to hear this wild weather but me, but it’s comforting to know she is up there. The house gives me an empty feeling. Without her it would be unbearable. Now and then a drop of rain makes it down to the embers, hisses as it lands. A shred of what was wrapping paper, now a gray ghost of itself, is stuck to the grate. It bends this way and that in the vacillating updraft, as the wind curls into the chimney pots. I am hypnotized by it.

What would have happened, if Henry hadn’t vanished? Perhaps Meredith wouldn’t have grown ever more unpleasant, as she did. Mum might not have fallen out with her as she did, finally driven to the end of her patience, the end of her forgiveness. Clifford and Mary would have kept on coming, would not have been passed over for the house when the time came. I know it irks Clifford terribly, to be missing out on the house. A king without a castle. He kept on visiting but it wasn’t enough. Mary’s refusal to come near the place peeved Meredith sufficiently.
Does she want to be a Calcott or doesn’t she, Clifford? Such cowardice!
Henry would be the Honorable Henry Calcott, just waiting for Clifford to die before he could slip on the
Lord
. Beth and I would have spent more summers here. Perhaps we would have grown up with Dinny. Beth and Dinny, together; awkward, tentative, passionate teenagers. I shut my eyes, banish the thought.

There’s a knock behind my shoulder, and a face at the black glass that makes me gasp. It’s Dinny, and I stare stupidly, as if he’s walked right out of my thoughts. The rain has slicked his hair to his forehead and his collar is turned up against the cold. I open the window and the wind snatches it, almost pulls it out of my hand.

“I’m sorry to . . . sorry it’s so late, Erica. I saw the light was on. I need help.” There is rainwater on his lips, and I can taste it. He is breathing hard, looks scattered.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Honey’s gone into labor and . . . something’s wrong. Erica, something’s going wrong and all the vans are bogged in after all this pissing rain . . . We need to get to hospital. Can you take us? Please? It’ll be quicker than waiting for an ambulance to find the place . . .”

“Of course I will! But if I drive down to you my car will just get stuck too . . .”

“No, no—just go to the top of the green lane, can you? I’ll carry her up to you.”

“OK. OK. Are you sure you can carry her?”

“Just go, please—we need to hurry!”

Dinny vanishes from the window, back into the dark. I scrabble for my car keys, my coat, pause only for a second to think I should tell Beth. But she is probably asleep and I can’t wait to explain it to her. I shove my mobile into my pocket and run for the car. The rain streams over the windscreen in an unbroken wave. In the short sprint from the house my shoulders are soaked. I am breathing hard, too hard. My hands shake as I try to find the ignition and I have to stop, make myself calmer. The driveway is potted with puddles and I splash out onto the road, wipers flailing.

There’s no sign of them as I pull in at the top of the green lane. My headlights flare on the hedgerow, flood away toward the camp. I trot down the track, slipping. The ground is slimy. Grass pulls away beneath my feet, dissolves to nothing. I hear the wind plaguing the trees in the darkness. They crash like an invisible ocean. I stop at the far reach of the car’s headlights and stare into the blackness. Rain comes in through the seams of my shoes. Then I see them, making slow progress, and as I lurch toward them Dinny slips and falls onto one knee, fighting to keep his balance with the bulk of the pregnant girl teetering in his arms. Honey grips his shoulders, fear turning her hands into claws.

“Can you walk?” I ask Honey, as I reach them. She nods, grimacing. “Dinny, let go! Let her get to her feet!”

He tilts to the side, lowers Honey’s feet to the ground then levers her up. She is upright for a second before she doubles over, cries out.

“Fuck!”
she howls. I take her other hand and her nails bite into me. Drenched hair shrouds her face. “This can’t be right . . . it can’t be right,” she moans.

“Her waters broke discolored,” Dinny tells me.

“I don’t know what that means!” I cry.

“It means trouble. The baby’s in trouble,” he says. “It means we need to move!” But Honey is still doubled up and now she is sobbing. In pain or fear, I can’t tell.

“It’s going to be OK,” I tell her. “Listen—really, it’s going to be OK. Are you sure you can walk? The car’s not much further.” Honey nods, her eyes tight shut. She is breathing like bellows. My heart is racing but I feel calm now. I have a purpose.

We reach the car and maneuver Honey into the back seat. I have mud up to my knees. Honey is soaked to the skin, pale and shivering.

“I’ll drive. You help Honey,” Dinny says, moving toward the driver’s door.

“No! She needs you, Dinny! And it’s my car. And the steering is a little snappy in the wet. It’ll be safer if I drive,” I shout.

“One of you fucking well drive!” Honey shouts. I push past Dinny, take the driver’s seat, and he climbs into the back. We skid off the verge, slalom down the lane, make for the main road.

I take us to Devizes at a reckless pace, as fast as I dare, squinting into the tunnelling rain. But when I corner Honey is thrown about in the back seat and so I slow down, unsure of what is best. She cries quietly between contractions, as if to herself, and Dinny seems dumbstruck.

“Not far now, Honey! You’re going to be fine, please don’t be scared! They’ll whip that baby out faster than you can say
epidural
,” I shout, glancing at her in the mirror. I hope I am not lying to her.

“It’s not far?” she gasps, eyes on my reflection, pleading.

“Five minutes, I promise. And they’ll take good care of you and the baby. It’s going to be fine. Right, Dinny?” He jumps as if I’ve startled him. His knuckles around Honey’s hands are white.

“Right. Yes, right. You’re going to be fine, sweetheart. Just hang in there.”

“Have you thought of any names?” I ask. I want to distract her. From her fear, from the cold, wet night, from the pain shining her face with sweat.

“Er . . . I think, um, I think . . . Callum, if it’s a boy . . .” she pants, and pauses, her face curling up as a contraction ripples across her midriff.

“And for a girl?” I press.

“Girl . . . for a girl . . . Haydee . . .” she groans, tries to sit up taller. “I need to push!”

“Not yet! Not yet! We’re nearly there!” I press the accelerator flat as the orange glow of town grows in front of us.

I pull up right in front of the hospital and Dinny is out of the car before it stops. He comes back with help, and a wheelchair.

“Here we go, Honey.” I turn around to her, take her hand. “You’ll be fine now.” She squeezes my hand, tears rolling down her face, and there is no trace of her attitude, her fire, the disdainful tilt of her chin. She looks little more than a child. The rain batters the roof of the car for one quiet moment, then the back door is pulled open, and they take her out, and she shouts at them, and swears, and we pile into the building, blinking in the harsh light. I follow them as far as I can, along three clattering corridors, through several doors, until I am lost. At the last set of doors somebody stops Dinny and me. A hand on my upper arm, kind but implacable.