‘I was lucky. I found work and was soon earning more than I had before, and although I missed my wife and child a good deal, I tried to make myself believe it was all for the best. In her letters, which were not frequent, I got the impression that she was happier too. Whenever possible I came back to see them both, and so for six months we went on. Once, about a year ago, my work brought me unexpectedly upriver and I thought it would be a pleasant thing to surprise the two of them with an impromptu visit.’ He swallowed, shifted in his chair. ‘I made a discovery then that altered my relationship with my wife for ever. She was not alone. The person with her – the least said about him, the better. The child’s way with him told me that this man was a regular in the household, an intimate of the family. Harsh words were spoken and I came away.
‘A little later, and while I was still in a quandary about what to do, I received a letter from my wife in which she proposed to live with this man as his wife, and saying that she wished to have no more to do with me. I could have protested at this, of course. I could have insisted that she obey her vows. As things have turned out, I rather wish I had. It would have been better all round. But in my disarray I replied that since it was what she wished, I agreed to the arrangement, and that as soon as I had earnt what I needed to provide a proper home for her, I would come for Alice. I wrote that I expected this to be before a year was out, and from that day I threw myself into my work in order to make it so.
‘I have not seen my wife since that time, but have recently taken on the lease of a house and was making arrangements to live there with the child. I expected that one of my sisters would come and be a mother to her. This morning, on the point of realizing these plans, I received a visit from my father who came with news of my wife’s death. He told me at the same time that Alice was missing. From others I have learnt that my wife was abandoned by her lover some months ago, and that she and the child have been in need ever since. I can only presume that it was out of shame that she did not contact me.’
Through his entire account, Robin Armstrong’s gaze was drawn persistently to the child’s face. More than once he lost the thread of his tale, and had to drag his eyes away from her and concentrate to pick up where he had left off, but after a few sentences his eyes would drift back and find her again.
He sighed heavily.
‘It is a story I would not willingly have told, for not only does it expose my poor wife’s sad folly to the wider world, but it puts me in a bad light. Do not blame her, for she was young. It was I who encouraged her to a secret marriage, I whose weakness in crisis led to her downfall, her death and the loss of our daughter. It is a sad story unfit for the ears of good people like yourselves. I ought perhaps to have told it with greater delicacy. Had I my wits about me, my story would have been less blunt in the telling, but it takes a little while for a man to gather himself after a shock. So please forgive me if I have been improperly frank, and remember I have been driven to it by the need to give you a reasonable explanation for my reaction here today.
‘It is true that on seeing your daughter I felt as if I was face to face with my own beloved Alice. But it is plain that she does not know me. And though she resembles Alice – to a very striking degree – I must remind myself that I have not seen her in nearly twelve months and children are apt to change, are they not?’
He turned to Margot.
‘No doubt you have children of your own, Madam, and will be able to confirm that I am right in this?’
Margot jumped at being addressed. She wiped away the tear that Robin’s story had put in her eye, and some confusion prevented her from giving an immediate answer.
‘I am right, am I not?’ he repeated. ‘Little children are apt to change in a twelvemonth?’
‘Well … Yes, I suppose they do change …’ Margot sounded uncertain.
Robin Armstrong rose from his chair and spoke to the Vaughans.
‘It was my grief that jumped ahead of my reason to recognize your child as my own. I apologize if I have alarmed you. I did not intend any harm.’
He brought his fingers to his lips, stretched out a hand and, obtaining permission from Helena with a glance, touched a gentle kiss upon the child’s cheek. His eyes filled with tears, but before they could fall he had bowed his head to the ladies, bid them farewell and was gone.
In the silence that followed Robin Armstrong’s exit, Vaughan turned his back to stare out of the window. The elms’ branches were black against the charcoal sky and his thoughts seemed tangled in the mazy treetops.
Margot opened her mouth to speak and closed it half a dozen times, blinking in perplexity.
Helena Vaughan drew the child close and rocked her.
‘Poor, poor man,’ she said in a low voice. ‘We must pray that he finds his Alice again – as we have found our Amelia.’
Rita did not stare and nor did she blink or speak. All the while Robin had been giving his account of himself, she had sat on the stool in the corner of the room, observing and listening. Now that he was gone she continued to sit, with the air of someone doing a mildly challenging long-division calculation in her head. What kind of a man is it, she was thinking, who appears to faint, and then comes round, though all the while his pulse does not falter?
After a time she evidently arrived at the end of her reflections, for she put her thinking face away and rose to her feet.
‘I must go and see how Mr Daunt is doing,’ she said, and she let herself quietly out of the room.
The Tale of the Ferryman
HENRY DAUNT SLEPT and woke and slept again. He emerged each time a bit less bewildered, a bit more himself. It was not like the worst hangover he had ever had, but it was more akin to that than anything else he had ever experienced. He was still blinded by his own eyelids, which pressed firmly to each other and against his eyeballs.
Till he was five years old Henry Daunt had cried persistently at night. Roused by her son’s inconsolable wailing in the dark, it had taken a long time for his mother to realize it wasn’t that he was afraid of the dark, but another reason. ‘There’s nothing to see,’ he sobbed at last, heartbroken, which put an end to her misunderstanding. ‘Of course there’s nothing to see,’ she told him. ‘It’s night. Night is for sleeping.’ He would not be persuaded. His father had sighed. ‘That boy was born with his eyes open and hasn’t shut them since.’ But it was he who had found the solution. ‘Look at the patterns on the inside of your eyelids. Pretty floating shapes, you’ll see, all different colours.’ Warily, fearing a trick, Henry had closed his eyes and been entranced.
Later he’d taught himself to conjure up visions from memory with his eyes shut, and enjoy them as freely as when they were present before his daytime gaze. More freely, even. He reached an age where it was the Maidens of Destiny he conjured to entertain his night-time hours. The underground mermaids rose out of churning water, their torsos half concealed by rounded lines that might have been waves, or curling locks, but might conceivably (if you were a boy of fourteen) not have been concealment at all but the actual curves of actual breasts. This was the image he lingered over in the dark hours. A creature with streaming hair, half-woman, half-river, cavorted with him and her caresses were so intoxicating that they had the same effect on him that a real woman might. His hand curled around himself and he was solid as an oar. A few tugs were enough, he was pulled into the current, he was the current, he dissolved into bliss.