Deep in thought, they sat on in companionable silence interrupted only by a loud cuckoo in the hedge.
“She’s arrived early this year,” Joe commented.
“I’ve never seen the point of cuckoos. One of Nature’s barmier ideas,” Dorcas said. “Laying her eggs in some poor unsuspecting sparrow’s nest.”
A minute later: “I was thinking of Jackie. I know Nancy’s his mother but-”
“But what?”
“She’s the most awful cow. Lydia thinks so too, I know, though she’s much too loyal to say so.”
“Sad to hear you say that. I loved her once.” He’d been meaning to tell her, try to explain how it had happened but hadn’t known how to phrase it and here he was blurting it out in four words without warning.
Dorcas appeared unmoved. “Thought so. Well, she didn’t love you. Too self-centred. Nancy gets what Nancy wants, I imagine. Sensible woman, though. She combined scooping up Jackie with extending her stay with her sisters and booking into the hospital in Brighton. Had you any idea she was six months pregnant?”
“No. It makes a lot of sense. Childbirth can be tricky in India. Much better to get it over with while she’s in England.”
The conversation was proving more painful than Joe had anticipated, and the hammock had been a bad idea. They always were. But he ploughed on. “I never knew her very well. I feel I know her husband, Andrew, much better. He’s very like me, you know.”
Dorcas nodded.
“I didn’t, for instance, know that Nancy had had a second child, two years after Jackie was born. A girl. She died when only a few hours old. Nancy’s determined that this time things will go better. She claims she’s rather elderly for childbirth anyway. What an idea! I thought she was looking quite splendid.”
He was remembering the walk he’d taken along the cliffs with Nancy when the storms had subsided. Jackie had repeated his decision to continue at St. Magnus, again citing the example of Mr. Gosling.
When he’d relayed this to Gosling, instead of the shout of scoffing laughter he expected, the young man had gone silent for a moment, then admitted he felt he wasn’t cut out for the Service. He’d even thought about-and pleaded with Joe to talk him out of it-staying on and doing a bit of schoolmastering. Much to be done, and he thought he could do it better than the men who were presently at the school. With Farman in clink and a new head on the horizon, perhaps St. Magnus would be a different kettle of fish. Joe would not even try to talk him out of it.
Nancy had chattered on about Jackie and the school, about their friends in India and had repeated warm messages from Andrew. She’d left it until the last moments before the walk ended to say what he really wanted to hear. “I’m so sorry, Joe. I thought you’d have forgotten. If you’d ever realised. But it was bad of me. I should have told you in case you were concerned. He’s not your son, you know. He’s Andrew’s. My doctor told me that this does happen. A childless woman has an affair and soon after, a baby is born. But a careful study of the dates reveals the unbelievable has happened. One of Nature’s little jokes? When she goes on to produce further children, there can be no more doubt. The husband is the father.”
And into his stunned silence: “Jack thinks the world of you, Joe. We’d all be very happy if you would consider visiting him at the weekends. For manly pursuits-you know, swimming, riding, shooting. The stuff an English gent has to know.”
Joe had fled back to Lydia’s and drunk a bottle of whisky. He made a raging and drunken vow that if he ever saw Nancy Drummond again he’d push her off a cliff. Marcus had caught his glass as he dropped it and agreed to help him do just that.
And, well into April in the Easter holidays-under pressure from Jackie, Nancy admitted with a tinkling laugh-she’d accepted Lydia’s invitation to bring her son to spend part of the holiday with them.
The few days had felt more like a month with Dorcas about the place, dark eyes seeing more than they should. Still, he’d had a good time teaching Jackie to ride and play badminton. Sod the woman, he’d be a devoted uncle. Not difficult.
Dorcas gave him time with his thoughts then said quietly, “Jackie is your son, Joe, isn’t he?”
“No. He’s not. I had thought so. I mean, there was every chance that he was, but Nancy explained exactly why he couldn’t be.”
Painfully, awkwardly, he gave her Nancy’s account.
Dorcas considered it and came to a decision. “Then she’s mistaken or deliberately deceitful. I’d guess deceitful. She tricked you into paternity, why shouldn’t she be tricking you out of it? One sees why-she wouldn’t want you to have any claims on the boy. And you can’t argue with her, of course you can’t. But you need to know.”
“I have to believe what the lad’s mother tells me!”
“No, you don’t,” said Dorcas stolidly. “She’s a lying hussy, I thought we’d established that. Anyway, there’s proof she can’t suppress. A proof from Nature, and I’d trust Nature before Nancy Drummond.”
“What are you talking about, Dorcas? You know nothing of this.”
“I use my eyes and my common sense. Have you ever noticed how Jackie, when he’s worried-and that’s been quite frequently over the past weeks-has a gesture he can’t suppress? Not that it would occur to him to try. He smooths down his left eyebrow with the knuckles of his left hand. Like this. It’s a self-soothing gesture.”
“I’d noticed. When he’s agitated. Yes. Doesn’t every boy?”
“No, they don’t! The only other person I’ve seen doing that is you, Joe.”
“Me?”
“It’s so automatic you don’t even notice. I used to think it was because your brow wound was itching, but it wasn’t. You do it when you’re upset.” She turned his troubled face towards her and peered at him.
“Like now. Go on, Joe, you know you’re longing to do it.” Her lips curved into a teasing smile. She was so close he could smell peppermint toothpaste on her breath.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Scratch your eyebrow. You’re as tense as a bowstring, but you can’t release the tension because I’m sitting on your left hand.”
“You don’t think the two might be connected?”
“You can’t use the right. The family trait doesn’t allow for that. I think it has most probably a genetic origin, passed down the generations like blue eyes or pigeon toes.”
Joe swallowed, closing his mind to the shaft of hope that stabbed suddenly through him. “I don’t believe a word of it. That’s the sort of mumbo-jumbo that gets psychology a bad name. But it’s strange, he felt like my son. Didn’t look the least little bit like me, but I think I knew, and Nancy’s denial didn’t make me sad and disappointed. It made me want to wring her neck.”
The thought seemed to cheer Dorcas. She patted his arm encouragingly. “Glad to see that specter from the past howling off back into the woodwork. But look, Joe, no need to indulge in whimsicality. Do a bit of detective work! Women always think men know nothing about the cycle of generation and pregnancy and birth-”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“Well, it’s time you found out. Science is on the march, and you must keep in step. Dates, Joe! I can’t possibly help with this but I’m sure you kept a diary of some kind in 1922. Blushing? I see you did! Well, just work out the date, ask Jack the date of his birthday, and I can tell you whether you can be excluded from the equation-or not. It’s not everything but.…”
“I know about collecting evidence.” Joe smiled. “Never investigated myself before, but I’ll do what you suggest.”
“Poor Joe. You must be in turmoil-family pressures on one side, heavy court cases looming on the other, the enquiry coming up, and political storms brewing. You don’t know which way to look. I expect you’ve called me out here for a good reason.”
“A reason?”
“Yes. Time, I think, for a bit of distraction. Like the great crested grebes. When it all gets too much, just ignore it, and go off and find some seeds to peck. Stop fidgeting!”