‘“I know what to do,” she said. “Don’t worry, Mrs Ockwell. It is a simple thing and cannot fail. We will get him changed back in no time, don’t you fret.”
‘That’s when I saw. Those slanting eyes of his and that funny little moon face and his ears that are so curious. He was an odd little fellow, a … a dainty creature … and I thought, Is that really mine? Did that really come out of my belly? How did it get in there? I had never seen a baby like it. But Beattie knew what he was.’
All the while she told, Margot was rocking the girl as though she were no weight at all, like a much smaller child.
‘Let me guess,’ said Rita. ‘A changeling?’
Margot nodded. ‘Beattie went down to the kitchen to set a fire going. I expect you know what she was going to do – put him over the fire, and when he got a bit warm and started to squeal, his fairy folk would come and fetch him back and leave my stolen baby in return. She called up the stairs, “I shall want more kindling and a big pot.” I heard her go out the back to the wood store.
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off him, little fairy creature that he was. He gave a blink and the way his eyelid – you know what it is like, not straight like yours and mine, but set at an angle – it closed over the eye not quite like a normal baby, but nearly. I thought, What does he make of this strange world he’s come to? What does he make of me, his foster mother? He moved his arms, not altogether like my baby girls used to, but more floppy – like he was swimming. A baby frown came into his face and I thought, He will cry in a minute. He’s cold. Beattie hadn’t wrapped him up or anything. Fairy children can’t be so very different from the ones I know, I thought, because I can tell he’s getting cold. I put my fingertips against his little cheek and he was all wonder, quite astonished! When I took my finger away his little mouth opened and he mewed like a kitten to have it back. I felt my milk rise at his cry.
‘Beattie wasn’t half cross when she came back and found him suckling. Human milk!
‘“Well,” she said, “it’s too late now.”
‘And that was that.’
‘Thank goodness,’ said Rita, at the end of the story. ‘I’ve heard the stories about changelings, but that’s all they are. Jonathan is no fairy child. Some children are just born like that. Beattie might not have seen it before, but I have. There are other children in the world just the same as Jonathan, with the same slanting eyes and large tongues and loose limbs. Some doctors call them Mongol children, because they resemble people from that part of the world.’
Margot nodded. ‘He is a human child, isn’t he? I know it now. He’s mine and Joe’s. But the reason I was thinking about it now is because of this little one. She’s not like Jonathan, is she? She’s not a – what did you call it? – Mongol child? She’s different in some other way. It’s not easy raising a child who’s different. But I’ve done it. I know how to do it. So even if she can’t hear, and even if she don’t speak …’ Margot clutched the child closer in her arms, took a breath and suddenly remembered the man in the bed. ‘But I suppose she belongs to him.’
‘We’ll know soon enough. It won’t be long before he wakes.’
‘What is that Lily doing now, anyway? I shall have to go and fetch her in if she’s still there. It’s too cold for a body to be praying out of doors – she’ll be frozen stiff.’
She went to the window to peer out, the child still in her arms.
Margot felt it and Rita saw it: the child quickened. She lifted her head. Her sleepy stare was suddenly keen. She gazed one way and the other, scanning the view with lively interest.
‘What is it?’ said Rita, rising urgently and crossing the room. ‘Is it Mrs White?’
‘She’s gone,’ Margot told her. ‘There’s nothing there. Only the river.’
Rita came to stand at their side. She looked at the girl, whose stare continued as if she would drink the river dry with her eyes. ‘There wasn’t a bird? A swan? Something to catch her attention?’
Margot shook her head.
Rita sighed. ‘Perhaps it was the light that attracted her,’ she said. She stood for a moment in case she should see it – whatever it was, if it was anything at all. But Margot was right. There was only the river.
Margot dressed and roused her husband, noticed Jonathan was already up and out, and sighed – he had never been one to respect the conventional hours of sleep and wakefulness – then set to making tea and porridge. While she was stirring the pot, there came another knock at the door. It was early for drinkers, yet after last night there were bound to be curious souls dropping in. She unlocked, a greeting on her tongue, but when she opened the door she took half a step back. The man on the threshold had black skin. He was a head taller than most men and powerfully built. Should she be alarmed? She opened her mouth to call for her husband, but before the words were spoken the man took off his hat and nodded at her with grave good manners.
‘I’m sorry to trouble you so early in the day, Madam.’
Tears trembled suddenly, unavoidably, on his lashes and he raised a hand to his face to brush them away.
‘Whatever is it?’ she cried, all thought of danger gone as she drew him inside. ‘Here. Sit down.’
He put a thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes and pressed, then sniffed and swallowed. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, and she was struck by the way he spoke, like a gentleman – not only in the words he used, but in the way he said them. ‘I understand a child was brought in last night. A child found drowned in the river.’
‘That is true.’
He heaved a great breath. ‘I believe it might be my granddaughter. I should like to see her, if you don’t mind.’
‘She is in the other room, with her father.’
‘My son? My son is here?’ His heart leapt at the thought and he leapt up with it.
Margot was puzzled. Surely this dark man could not be the father of the man in the bed.
‘The nurse is with them,’ she offered, though it was not an answer. ‘They are both rather poorly.’
He followed her to the pilgrims’ room.
‘This is not my son,’ he said. ‘My son is not so tall, nor so broad. He is always clean-shaven. His hair is light brown and does not curl like this.’
‘Then Mr Daunt is not your son.’
‘My son is Mr Armstrong. And so am I.’
Margot said to Rita, ‘It was for the little girl that the gentleman came in. He thought she might be his grandchild.’
Rita stood to one side and for the first time Armstrong set eyes on the child.
‘Well!’ exclaimed Armstrong uncertainly. ‘What a …’
He hardly knew what to say. He had had in mind – and he realized his foolishness instantly – a brown-skinned child like his own. Of course, this child would be different. She would be Robin’s child. At first disconcerted by the uncolour of her hair and the whiteness of her skin, he was nonetheless struck by a familiarity. He could not quite place it. Her nose was not really Robin’s – unless perhaps it was, a little … And the curve of her temple … He tried to picture the face of the young woman he had seen dead so few hours earlier, but it was hard to compare that face with this. He might have been able to do it if he had seen the woman in life, but death so rapidly undoes a person and the detail of her face was hard to recall in any ordinary way. Still, he fancied there was something that linked the child to the woman, though he couldn’t put his finger on it.