Wishing Water (4 page)

She realised with a startled jerk that Rosemary Ellis was addressing her with some question and she had missed it. In horror, Lissa glanced at Meg for help who, sensing her predicament, attempted to breach the gap.

‘Lissa attends the High School. She goes into Kendal each day by bus.’
 

‘The High School?’ The words were spoken with contempt, as if the idea were unthinkable. ‘How very utilitarian.’
 

‘It’s a very good school as a matter of fact.’
 

‘Katherine was educated privately. Only the very best of everything, naturally. Still, a local establishment is probably more appropriate in the circumstances.’ Rosemary Ellis fixed her cold gaze upon Lissa, who began to feel quite sick.

Lissa hated the increasing tension in the room and watched in dismay as Meg attempted to laugh away the implied criticism, though it seemed to be through gritted teeth.

‘How is Katherine? She is well, I hope?’
 

‘Perfectly. My daughter leads an exceedingly busy social life. Her husband, Ewan Maximillian Wadeson III, has quite a position to keep up. A property owner of some renown.’
 

‘Then she shouldn’t make promises that she intends to visit when she clearly hasn’t time,’ Meg daringly stated, making Lissa jump. Rosemary stiffened and gazed down her long nose at Meg.’ She can’t simply drop everything. On a whim.’
 

‘It was always her idea to visit. We did not request it.’
 

‘Well, I certainly did not, Mrs O’Cleary. For my part, I believe the past is best left buried.’
 

Lissa gazed perplexed at her grandmother. What did that mean? Best left buried. She couldn’t be buried, could she? She was here, alive and well, a physical reality. Lissa felt a bit guilty suddenly, for though Meg might not have made any requests to see Kath, she certainly had. Constantly. She thought it best not to mention those, though perhaps this was an opportunity to get a few questions answered. She edged forward in her seat.

‘What is she like, my mother? Does she look like me? Or like you?’ Here, Lissa’s young mind quailed at this dreadful possibility, and she hurried on without stopping. ‘You still haven’t told us, Grandmother, why she keeps letting me down. Is it my fault? Will she be coming soon? She did promise, really she did. "I’ll come as soon as I can", she said. When do you think that will be?’
 

Rosemary stared as if shocked that the girl owned a tongue, let alone a mind churning with questions. ‘I really couldn’t say, and I am not your grandmother.’ She turned away to sip her tea with patrician disdain, the subject closed so far as she was concerned. Not for Lissa.

‘Why can’t you say? Perhaps she would prefer it if I were to visit her in Canada?’ Lissa strove to keep the eagerness from her voice. The thought of crossing half the world in a huge ship in search of this elusive, beautiful mother excited her, but she hated to show how much in front of Meg.

‘That would be most unsuitable,’ Rosemary said, shock evident in her voice. ‘The very idea!’

‘Why? Doesn’t she want to see me?’
 

Cold, pale eyes raked Lissa from head to foot then turned chillingly to Meg. ‘You have taught the child no manners. Which does not surprise me, brought up as she has been with farming stock.’
 

Lissa saw Meg flinch as if Rosemary Ellis had struck her. Her own head was starting to ache and disappointment made her reckless. She decided she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

‘Is he my father then? This Ewan Maxi person? Or is it because I’m a bastard that you don’t like me?’
 

‘
Lissa
!’ Meg cried.

The effect was astonishingly gratifying. For one terrible moment she thought her grandmother was about to faint. Lissa saw at once there would be no denial and felt a wicked surge of gladness that someone else could suffer hurt, as she had so many times. She watched, intrigued, as the whiskered chin and palid cheeks went stark white, grew wine red, then changed to brilliant purple.

‘I must apologise for her behaviour,’ Meg was hastily saying, frowning grimly at Lissa.

‘The child is out of control. You clearly allow her to run wild. Spoil her, without doubt.’
 

‘I don’t think it possible to spoil a child. Where else would she find the love she needs, if not from me and from Tam?’ Brave, reckless words, chillingly received.

‘Enough. Do you take me for a fool?’ Icicles dripped from the thin voice. ‘I know why you persist in keeping up this contact with Katherine. Which is why I have called you here today, to inform you that it must stop. There will be no more contact between you. I am not too foolish to recognise a clever ruse when I see one.’
 

‘Clever ruse?’ Meg’s eyes widened.

‘Indeed. To get money out of me. Or my husband, as no doubt you have cleverly done in the past on many occasions, gullible fool that he is.’
 

‘I beg your pardon?’
 

‘Come, come,
Mrs O’Cleary
, do not pretend with me. He helped you get a mortgage once, I seem to remember. But you will not succeed. I do not acknowledge your illegitimate child as any responsibility of mine.’ She turned away and pulled on a bell pull. ‘Now we have the matter straight, I believe this interview is over.’
 

Meg looked as if someone had punched her in the face. Her voice shook. ‘How dare you? How dare you suggest such things? And in front of the child.’
 

‘It’s all right,’ Lissa said, anxious to calm Meg. ‘I understand, and I really don’t mind about being a bastard, only I would’ve liked to know why I wasn’t wanted.’
 

The shock waves of this little speech almost knocked Lissa off her seat. Rosemary Ellis shot to her feet, clasping and unclasping her hands in agitation. ‘If that child uses that word once more in my presence…’ A tall, angular figure with good bone structure, but any beauty she might once have possessed had long since dissipated. A sour mouth thinned perceptibly, even as Lissa gazed wonderingly upon it.

‘Stern discipline is what this little madam needs. Though I can think of no respectable establishment which would admit her, and you seem quite unable to provide it.’
 

It was a long moment before Meg answered, concerned as she was about Lissa, seeing the tears brim in the violet eyes, young ears taking in every nuance of the argument. Very quietly she got to her feet. ‘We need no help to bring up our own daughter, Mrs Ellis, and you are the last person I would ask, if we did.’ Meg was trembling with anger. ‘Had I known you were going to attack us with your nasty insinuations, I would have left Lissa at home.’
 

Lissa was, in fact, paying less attention than Meg realised. The whole scene had made her feel distinctly odd. A pain started deep in her belly and she wanted, very suddenly, to be sick. She clamped her teeth tightly together in desperation as the room began to swim about her.

Meg was speaking from a long way off.

‘If you had not been so hard hearted as to throw your daughter out all those years ago, you might have found a bit more love in your own life. Which might have spared you this warped view of the world, Rosemary Ellis. And certainly would have benefited Kath, as well as your poor husband. Yes, Jeffrey was kind to me in the past, but I asked him for nothing and he gave me nothing but his advice and support. I
never
took any money from him. Ever. Although I greatly valued his friendship. I will not stay and bandy insults with you. I want nothing from you, not now, nor in the future. I agree with you about the letters. I too would prefer it if they stopped. Please ask Katherine to refrain from making promises to Lissa which she has no intention of keeping. It is thoughtless and unkind and causes nothing but hurt and upset for the child.’
 

Lissa groaned as the pain shot deeper, like a great weight between her legs. Neither woman heard her.

‘You have clearly read too much into her words. Katherine responds as best she can only because the child insists on writing to her.’ The older woman was almost spitting her contempt now as the two stood facing each other, determined adversaries. Meg held to her point.

‘Kath encourages this fantasy of Lissa’s that they might meet one day. It does enormous damage. Every time Kath lets her down the child feels rejected all over again.’
 

‘Utter rubbish!’ The whiskered chin shook. ‘Rejected indeed. You cannot believe that Katherine or I owe any responsibility to a child who readily admits herself to - to be what she is. Ours is a respectable family. She is no fault of ours.’
 

Meg dropped her chin and drew in a long, shuddering breath, steadying herself, fighting the urge to tear this unfeeling, cruel woman to shreds. How dare she deny Lissa’s parentage? So concerned was she with her efforts that she did not notice how the colour drained away from Lissa’s cheeks. She only heard a stifled moan and then the air seemed to be filled with a piercing scream, bringing both women whirling.

‘Look what you’ve done. Both of you,’ Lissa screamed, terror in her voice. ‘You’ve killed me. I’m dying. Meg, I’m dying.’
 

The blood of womanhood was running down the young girl’s legs, soaking into the bright white ankle socks and on to the valuable Persian rug.

‘Dear Lord,’ cried Meg, horrified.

‘As I said, Mrs O’Cleary. Discipline and control. Entirely lacking, you see.’
 

Meg sat on the edge of the big bed she shared with Tam, wringing her hands in anguish. ‘I should have told her long since. I’ve failed her, leaving it so late. She was scared out of her wits, poor lamb. I should have explained all about Jack too, then she mightn’t have felt the need to shock with that dreadful word.’

‘You’ve told her now?’

‘Yes, everything.’

Tam slipped an arm about her to pull her close. ‘Don’t worry over it. You wouldn’t be the Meg we all know and love if you were mooning about the house fussing over us all the time.’

‘Even so, it was a mistake. That dreadful woman. Discipline and control, my Aunt Fanny!’ Meg’s hands clenched tight, as if she would have punched Rosemary Ellis on the nose were she present. ‘You wouldn’t believe the things she said to me, what she accused me of.’

Tam stroked the golden curls away and tucked them behind her ears, kissing the lobes as he did so. ‘Haven’t you told me, sweetheart, a dozen times already? You mustn’t let the woman get to you. She is a vicious, bad-mouthed old besom and not to be listened to. I forbid you to take Lissa to see her again.’

Meg turned to gaze into his moss green eyes, startled for a moment by the unusual vehemence in his lilting voice. ‘Forbid?’

‘Why should our little girl be subjected to such an attack? Tis not her fault if she was born on the wrong side of the blanket, now is it? So keep her away in future. We don’t need any of them.’

For Lissa it was a turning point, of sorts, for the rejection cut deep. There were no more letters to Canada, no more wishing for her mother to come. She had Meg and Tam who she loved to bits. She told herself she needed no one else, certainly not a mother who didn’t love her. But she still worried about whether she was really wanted, ached to know who she really was and where she truly belonged.

The following months and years weren’t easy, and there came a particularly difficult period when Meg fell pregnant. To her shame, the thought of a baby in the house appalled her. It would take all Meg’s time and attention. It seemed to prove how unimportant she was, for why should Meg want a baby at all when she’d always claimed Lissa was everything to her?

Her fears seemed to be justified as Meg withdrew into a world of her own, rarely hearing when Lissa spoke to her so that she had to say everything twice.

Mealtimes were changed to suit Meg’s delicate stomach. She went to bed early instead of sitting chatting by the fire, leaving Lissa to make her own supper. Even iron her own clothes. It was quite incredible how life changed. To Lissa’s increasing dismay Meg became perfectly obsessed with making plans for the baby, took to having weird food fancies, morning sickness and back ache. And Tam’s loving preoccupation with her grated every bit as much.

There seemed nothing else for it but to play the martyr or how would they ever remember she lived here too? If they saw she was unhappy, Lissa decided, then they would pay her proper attention. So she refused to speak to either of them, took to spending hours alone in her room, hoping someone would notice she was missing and come and look for her. Yet if they did, she would sulk and say she wasn’t hungry. They asked if she was sickening for something because she ate so little. Except at night when they were both asleep. Then she would secretly raid the larder for cuts of meat and slices of apple pie. It made her feel wickedly decadent.

‘You don’t care about me any more,’ she said, sulking furiously. ‘Nobody does. I must be a very unlovable person. No wonder my mother deserted me.’
 

Meg’s look of horror brought a burst of sweet delight into Lissa’s rebellious heart. ‘What a thing to say. Of course I care. I love you dearly, Lissa. And so does Tam.’ The kettle started gently to steam.