“Is it lunch time yet? I’m starving,” he declares, losing his balance and bending forward to steady himself, hands in the freezing mud.
“Yes, almost. Come back and get cleaned up-you can always finish this later. Here.” I hold out my hand and Eddie grabs it, taking a huge stride out of the stream, heaving on my arm. “No-don’t pull, Eddie, I’ll slip!” I cry, but too late. My legs scoot from under me and I sit down abruptly, with an audible splash.
“Sorry!” Eddie gasps. Behind him Harry grins, makes an odd huffing noise, and I realize he is laughing.
“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” I ask, slithering back to my feet, wet mud seeping into my knickers. I pull my trousers up, leaving vast muddy smears across them in doing so. Eddie wobbles again, takes a sloshing step forward that kicks a wave of water over the tops of my boots. “Eddie!”
“Sorry!” he says again, but this time he can’t keep from smiling, and Harry laughs harder.
“You little buggers! It’s freezing! Here,” I find my muddiest finger, wipe it on Eddie’s nose. “Have some more!”
“Wow, thanks Rick! And here… here’s some for you! Happy Christmas!” Eddie scoops some mud into his hand, chucks it at me. It lands messily on the front of my sweater, which is pale gray. I gasp, peer down at it. Eddie freezes, as if suddenly afraid he’s gone too far. I scrape the worst of it off, weigh it in my palm.
“You. Are. Dead!” I say, lunging at him. With a yelp of laughter, Eddie darts past me, up the bank and into the scrub.
It takes me some distance to catch up with him and I have to discard the mud and swear a truce before he’ll let me near him. I put my arm around him, more to warm my own throbbing fingers than anything else. Behind us, Harry had been following but he stops, stares up into a hawthorn tree where two robins are cursing one another.
“Is he coming?” I ask. Eddie shrugs.
“He’s always stopping to watch birds and stuff like that. I’ll see you later, Harry!” he shouts, giving him a wave. We ought to go in through the scullery, but it’s locked and we have no choice but to use the front door. We discard our boots outside-a hollow gesture, since our socks are every bit as wet and muddy. Beth puts her head around the kitchen doorway.
“What on earth have you been doing?” she gasps. “Your clothes!” Eddie looks a little contrite, glances at me for support.
“Um, being eight years old again?” I venture, painting my face with innocence. Beth gives me a hard look, but she cannot hold it. The ghost of a smile twitches her mouth.
“Perhaps you might like to get changed, the pair of you, before we have lunch?” she says.
I phone my mum in the afternoon, to check that all is well, and ask what time they plan to arrive.
“How is it going there? How’s Beth?” Mum asks, in a casual tone that I recognize. The casual tone she uses to ask important things. I pause, listen for sounds of my sister close by.
“She’s OK, I think. A little bit up and down, I suppose.”
“Has she said anything? Anything about the house?”
“No-what kind of thing?”
“Oh, nothing in particular. I’m looking forward to seeing you both-and Eddie of course. Is he having fun there?”
“Are you kidding? He loves it! We hardly see him-he’s out playing in the woods all day. Mum-could you do me a favor?”
“Yes, of course, what is it?”
“Could you possibly dig out your copy of that family tree Mary drew up? And bring it along?”
“Yes, I think so. If I can find it. What do you want it for?”
“I just want to check something. Did you ever hear of Caroline having a baby before she was married to Lord Calcott?”
“No, I never did. I would doubt it very much-she was very young when she married him. What on earth makes you ask that?”
“It’s just this photo I found-I’ll show you when you get here.”
“Well, all right then. But you know any questions about family history really ought to be directed at Mary. She did all that research the other year, after all…”
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, I’d better crack on here-I’ll see you very soon.”
I can’t call my Aunt Mary-Henry’s mother. I can’t speak to her on the phone. I get a feeling that I can hardly bear, as if the air in my lungs is hardening. At Meredith’s funeral, I hid. To my shame. I actually hid from her behind a vast spray of lilies.
For bedtime reading, I prop Caroline’s writing case on my knees and read a few more of Meredith’s letters. Some of the earlier ones date from her time away at college and speak of a fierce deportment tutor, dormitory politics, shopping trips into town. Then the lonely letters from Surrey begin. I flick through a few more of them and then, tucked into one of the pockets of the case, I find an envelope addressed in quite a different hand. The paper inside is like dried leaves, and I touch it lightly, unfold it with consummate care. Just one page, with one paragraph of script. Far larger lettering than Meredith’s, written with emphatic pen pressure, as if in some urgency. The date given is the fifteenth of March, 1905.
Caroline
I received your letter this morning and with no slight concern. Your recent marriage and delicate condition are matters to be much celebrated, and no one could be more satisfied than I to see you settled and joined to a man such as Lord Calcott, who is well positioned to give you everything you require for a happy life. To put your current position in unnecessary jeopardy would be foolhardy in the extreme. Whatever it is that you feel you must confess, may I strongly urge you that all matters arising from your previous existence in America should by every means possible remain in America. No purpose can be served by revisiting such matters now. Be grateful for the new start you have been given, for the happy circumstance of your fortuitous marriage, and let that be the last word upon it between us. Should you bring embarrassment or infamy of any kind upon yourself or our family, I should have no other choice but to sever all ties with you, however it would grieve me.
Your Aunt,
B.
The scoring beneath the phrase remain in America has all but torn the paper. A heavy, violent strike. In the quiet after I read these ringing words, I see all the secrets within this house lying in drifts as deep as the dust and shadows in the corners of the room.
On Christmas Eve our parents arrive, and their familiar car pulling into the driveay seems a small miracle of some kind. Proof of an outside world, proof that this house, Beth and I, are part of it. I meant to keep Eddie in this morning-I suggested to Beth that we should-but he is up before us and gone. An empty bowl in the kitchen sink, cornflakes drying hard, and half a glass of Ribena on the table.
“We’ve lost your grandson, I fear,” I say, as I kiss Dad and take bags from the back of the car. Perhaps not the cleverest thing I could say. Mum hesitates.
“What’s happened to Eddie?” she asks.
“He’s got a friend-Harry. He camps here, just like… Well. They’re always off in the woods. We hardly see him these days,” Beth says, and we can hear that it bothers her. Just a little.
“Camping? You don’t mean…?”
“Dinny’s here. And his cousin, Patrick, and some others,” I say casually. But I can’t help smiling.
“Dinny? You’re kidding?” Mum says.
“Well, well!” Dad adds.
“Hmm, well, now you know how we used to feel, I suppose,” Mum says to Beth, kissing her on the cheek as she goes indoors. Beth and I share a look. This hadn’t ever occurred to us.
Beth looks like our mother. She always has, but it’s getting more pronounced the older she gets. They both have Meredith’s willowy figure, the delicate bones of her face, long artistic hands. Meredith cut her hair short and set it, but Mum has always left hers natural, and Beth’s is long, unchecked. And they have an air about them, which I lack. Grace, I suppose it is. I take more after our father. Shorter, broader, clumsier too. Dad and I stub our toes. We catch our sleeves on door handles, knock our wine glasses over, bruise ourselves on coffee table edges, chair legs, worktops. I have a huge affection for this trait, since it comes from him.