The Legacy (38 page)

“Please, call me Erica,” I tell him. “So, did your mother say anything else about her time working for Caroline? Like why she was accused of theft, if she said she didn’t do it?” At this, George looks a little sheepish.

“It’s a bit of a wild story, that one. Mother was always very straight, very honest. But most people had trouble believing what she claimed, so after a long old while she finally stopped talking about it. But I do remember, from when I was a lad, that she reckoned she knew something she wasn’t supposed to. Found something out she wasn’t supposed to—”

“What was it?” The air expands in my chest, makes it hard to breathe.

“I’ll tell you, if you give me half a chance!” George reprimands me with a smile. “She said there was a
baby
vanished from the house. She didn’t know whose baby it was—it just appeared one day, which was one of the things that made people doubt her. Babies don’t just appear, after all, do they? Some gal had to have carried him and birthed him. But she swore it—that there was a baby in the house, and that it vanished again, just as quick as it arrived. And about the same time, one was found out in the woods and the tinkers—Mo’s people—took it all round the village, asking who it belonged to. Nobody put their hand up, so they raised the child. But my mother could not let it lie—she swore blind to anybody that’d listen that that baby was in the manor house one day, and that Lady Calcott took him out and left him. So, of course Lady C wanted her gone. Accused her of stealing some trinket, and that was that. She was out of there so fast she never had time to get her coat on. Make of that what you will. Some in the village said my mother cooked this baby story up, to get her own back, you understand? To bring some heat on the Calcotts who’d left her without a job to go to. And maybe, maybe there’s some truth in that. She was so very young when all this went on, my mother. No more than fifteen or so. Perhaps she was too young for such a responsible position. But I can’t credit her just lying about something like that. Nor stealing, for that matter. She was straight as a die, my old mum.” George stops, stares into the past, and I realize I am holding my breath. My heart bumps painfully, makes my fingers shake a little. I tap one nail on the blurred baby in the New York picture.

“That’s the baby. That’s the baby that appeared at the manor. The baby that Caroline dropped out in the woods. Your mother wasn’t lying,” I tell him. George goggles at me and I feel the blessed relief of closure, of solving a puzzle, however distant from me it may be.

I tell him what I know, what I have gathered from her letters, from this photo, the teething ring, and the missing marsh flag pillowcase. And the age old animosity toward the Dinsdales. I talk until my mouth is dry and I have to swig cold coffee to wet it. And when I am done I feel bone weary but glad. It feels like finding something precious I thought I’d lost; like filling in a huge hole in my past—in our past. Mine, Beth’s, Dinny’s. He is my cousin. Not two families at war, but one family. At length, George speaks.

“Well, I’m staggered. Proof, after all these years! My mother—if she can hear you from wherever she is, believe me, my love, she’s doing a little victory dance right now! And you’re sure about all this, are you?”

“Yes, I’m sure. It probably wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, or anything, but I’m as sure as I can be. That baby came with her from America, and somehow she kept him hidden while she married Lord Calcott. But then he wound up here at the manor, somehow, and she had to get rid of him. That’s the part I’m most in the dark about—where he’d been in the meantime, and if she was married before and had a baby, why keep it hidden? But it’s too much of a coincidence. The baby that vanished and the one that was found
have
to be one and the same.”

“It is a pity that all those people who called my mother a liar aren’t around to find out better.”

“What was your mother’s name?” I ask, on a whim.

“Cassandra. Evans, as she would have been back then. Hold on, I’ll show you a photo.” George moves over to the dresser, opens a drawer and rifles through it. The picture he gives me is of Cassandra Evans on her wedding day. Cassandra Hathaway, as she had recently become. A small, delicate-looking girl with a determined glint in her eye and a broad smile. Smooth skin, dark hair caught up in coils, a garland of flowers pinned to it. Her dress is simple, shift-shaped with a panel of lace in the bodice and touches of net at the collar. This girl saw Grandpa Flag while he was still Caroline’s
fine son
. She might have known what it was that Caroline longed to confess to her Aunt B. I stare into the grainy dark spots of her eyes, trying to see that knowledge there.

I
leave Corner Cottage a short while later, promising to go back and visit. “A new entente cordiale between Calcotts and Hathaways!” George announced, quite delighted, as I left. I hadn’t the heart to say I might never be back; to the village, the manor, any of it. Unexpected, the way this thought makes me feel, when for twenty years or more I have lived away quite happily. I feel at the edge of a terrible sadness, a deep pool of it that I could fall into, never climb out of; just as Beth feared I would at the dew pond. And yet I haven’t even unpacked, back at the manor. My clothes are still in my case. They are in disarray, like me. I’ve lurched out of my established trajectory and now I am freewheeling, uncertain of where to go next.

I think about blood as I drive back to the manor. About those little traces, the little tendencies all our ancestors have left in us. My propensity to clown in awkward situations; my mother’s ability to draw; Beth’s grace; Dinny’s straight brows and jet eyes. A blizzard of tiny traces, whirling at the core of each of us. I think about my blood and Beth’s. About Dinny’s, about Grandpa Flag’s. And Henry’s of course. Henry, the last scion of the Calcott line. He showed us Dinny’s blood once, up at the barrow. I think even Henry was a little shocked by it, just for a second. Shocked and then pleased, of course. Jubilant. It was the summer he disappeared, but it was early in the holidays. It might have been the first time they’d seen each other that year, but I don’t know for sure.

I’d seen boys fight before, of course. At school, in the far corner of the playground where the side of the games hall shielded the combatants from the watchful eyes of the break monitor
. The corner
. That’s what it was called. Whispered from ear to ear during lessons—the next assignation, the next death match.
Gary and Neil in the corner at lunchtime!
The scandal always thrilled me, although the fights never lasted long. Coat pulling; somebody spun around, thrown to the ground. Hair yanked, perhaps; a kicked shin, bruised knees. Then the monitor would notice the crowd, or one boy would start to cry. The victor won the right to escape, the loser had to stay and protest that nothing had happened.

But with Dinny and Henry it was different. We’d gone up to the barrow to test-fly the model airplanes we’d spent all morning making from brown paper and ice pops. We needed a good launch site, was the verdict—proper thermal updrafts, Dinny said. Meredith was stirring trouble in the village, as ever. She’d forbidden the estate’s tenant farmers to give work to any kind of itinerant worker, which left the farmers without the help they needed and could afford, and the Dinsdales without the summer jobs that they relied upon finding here. That was her aim, of course—although I’m not sure of that now. She must have known she’d have to back down eventually. I think she just did it to remind them. Remind them that she was there, and that she hated them. There were all sorts of arguments at the house, and we’d overheard a lot of them. And so had Henry, of course. He followed us up to the barrow with this as his ammunition.

“Shouldn’t
you
be out begging? Your whole family will have to go out begging soon, I expect; or thieving of course.” Sneering at Dinny; no preamble. “There’s no way you’ll be able to
buy
any food. Not if you stay around here.”

“Shut up, Henry! Go away!” Beth ordered, but he curled his lip at her.

“
You
shut up! You can’t tell me what to do! And I’m going to tell Grandma you’ve been playing with the dirty gyppos!”

“Tell her! See if I care!” Beth cried. She was rigid, as taut and straight as a javelin.

“You
should
care—if you’re friends with him then you might as well become a gyppo too. You already smell like one. You’re stupid enough to be one too, I suppose . . .” He was breathing hard from running up the hill to us; spite made his neck mottle. Dinny glared at him with such fury that I launched my paper plane in anxious desperation.

“Look! Look—look how far it’s going!” I cried, jumping up and down. But none of them looked.

“What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you learnt to talk yet? Are you too stupid?” Henry taunted Dinny. Dinny stared at him, knotted his jaw, said nothing. His silence was a challenge, and Henry didn’t back down. “I saw your mother just now, actually. She was looking in our dustbin for your supper!” Dinny flew at him. So fast that I wasn’t aware he’d moved until he cannoned into Henry and they both went staggering down the hill.

“Don’t!” Beth shouted, but I don’t know which of them she was talking to. I stood stock-still, rooted with shock. This was no playground scuffle, there was no coat pulling. They looked like they wanted to kill each other. I saw bared teeth, fists, young muscles straining.

Then Henry landed one lucky punch. Truly blind luck, because Dinny was clawing at his face so his eyes were shut. Henry flailed his arms, raining blows, and got lucky. His fist cracked Dinny’s nose and knocked him down. Dinny sat for a second, astonished, and then a rush of bright blood poured from his nose and began to drip from his chin. Beth and I were mute with horror. That Henry had won. That Dinny was bleeding so much. I had never seen blood like that. So red, so quick. Not like the dull smears on the butcher’s block when I went shopping with Mum. Dinny cupped his hand under his chin and caught the blood as if he wanted to keep it. It must have hurt. Tears welled in his eyes, slipped mutinously down his cheeks to join the blood. Henry, when he realized what he’d achieved, stood over Dinny and grinned. I remember his nostrils flaring whitely in triumph, how haughty he looked. He walked away with a swaggering step. Dinny watched him, and I watched Dinny. His eyes blazed, and for a long moment Beth and I were too afraid to go near him.

N
ew Year’s Eve is a Wednesday and it really just feels like a Wednesday. None of the old excitement. It was always excitement tinged with dread anyway, I can tell myself now. The buzz and riot of the fireworks over the Thames, the grim knowledge of how long it would take to get clear of the crowds afterwards. Now it’s just a Wednesday, but with an encroaching deadline of another kind. Beth said she would stay until the new year. That’s what I begged from her—just until the new year. Tomorrow. There’s only one thing that I can think of that might make her stay longer, and that’s if she won the argument with Maxwell. If Eddie is coming again before school starts, then she might stay.

I am excited about something, of course. Excited about the announcement I plan to make this evening. It’s wild outside. I turn the radio up to drown out the moaning wind, harrying the corners of the house. It took a long time to convince Beth to come to the pub—I had to lie, say it might be the last time she sees Dinny before we leave. The wrenching sound of the wind might be all it would take to dissuade her.

“Hair up or down?” I ask Beth as she comes into the bathroom, holding my hair up in a twist to show her, then dropping it, shaking it out. She considers me, tips her head to one side.

“Down. We’re only going to the pub, after all,” she says. I rake my fingers through my hair.

“Yeah, I’m only going to put jeans on,” I nod. She stands behind me, bends to put her chin on my shoulder, peers at her own reflection. Can she see? That the bones of her face are so stark, compared to mine? That her skin looks too thin, too pale?

“I know it’s New Year’s Eve. But I just . . . I just don’t really feel like going out. We don’t
know
these people . . .” she says, moving away again.

“I’m starting to—you would, if you came out more. Please, Beth. You can’t just stay in on your own. Not tonight.”

“Why are you so obsessed with spending time with him, anyway? What good will it do? We don’t
know
him any more. We live utterly different lives! And soon we’ll have left and we’ll probably never see him again anyway.” She paces the floor behind me, agitated.

“I’m not obsessed,” I murmur, drawing silver powder across my eyelids and examining the effect in the mirror. I can feel her looking at me. “It’s
Dinny
,” I shrug. “He’s about
the
most important person from our childhood. Look,” I turn to her, make her look at me. “Let’s just not even think about any of that this evening, OK? Let’s just go out, drink the new year in and have a good time. OK?” I give her a little shake. She takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment.

“OK! You’re right. Sorry,” she relents. She sounds relieved, and smiles a little.

“That’s better. Now, go and pour us some whisky.
Lots
of whisky,” I command.