During the day, Vaughan was occupied and better able to distract himself from his endless and circular preoccupations, but at night his insomnia had returned. He suffered repeatedly from variations on the same dream. In it, he walked in a landscape – a wood, a beach, a field, a cave, the terrain was different every time – searching for something. Then, coming to a clearing, or rounding a tree, or arriving at an archway, there she was, his daughter, waiting for him, as if she had been there all along, just waiting for her papa to come and find her. She raised her arms to him, crying Daddy!, and he ran to grasp her and lift her into his arms, his heart overflowing with gratitude and love – and woke to the leaden realization that it was not Amelia. It had been the girl. The changeling had reached into his dreams and attached her face to the memory of his own lost daughter.
Helena herself was ignorant of the fragility of their bliss; the strain of worry fell on him alone. This created a distance between himself and his wife, which she was as yet unaware of. In her belief that the child was Amelia and that he too was persuaded of it, she had constructed a sense of security as impressive as a moated castle. He alone knew how flimsy it really was.
When his own dreams showed him how easy it was to place this child’s face on Amelia’s shoulders, he was tempted to join Helena in her certainty. Sometimes it seemed so obvious, so simple a thing to do, that he felt guilty at his own stubbornness in resisting. Already he called the girl Amelia in front of his wife. He was more than halfway there. But then, always, the other thing. The knowledge. Underneath it all, a little girl whose face he could not even remember, but whom he could not – would not – forget.
There was something else besides. When he lay in his bed at night, whether awake or asleep, searching endlessly for his daughter in imaginary landscapes and finding, time after time, the little interloper, sometimes another face altogether swam into view and oppressed his heart. Robin Armstrong. For it was all very well to toy with the idea of succumbing to happiness and allowing the girl to replace his daughter in his heart and his mind, as she had replaced her in his home, but to do so was to deprive another man of his child. Vaughan wanted Helena to be happy, but what if her happiness came at the price of condemning another man to the agony of loss they had only just left behind? As much as the girl, as much as Amelia, it was Robin Armstrong who haunted Vaughan’s nights and turned him to stone in his bed.
As they arrived at the edge of the fair, they met the crowds. He noticed several people glance at them, look again, whisper and point. Farmers’ wives pressed flowers into the child’s hand, she was patted on the head, little children ran up and kissed her.
‘I’m not convinced this is for the best,’ Vaughan said mildly, when a burly gravel-digger knelt at her feet and played her a short air on his fiddle before placing a forefinger gravely on her cheek.
Helena let out a short, exasperated breath, quite unlike her usual equable self. ‘It’s that silly story. They think she can work miracles – give them protection or something. It’s just silly superstition and it’ll pass, given time. Anyway, the boat races start at two o’clock. There is no need for you to stay if you don’t want to. We are going to watch,’ she told him firmly. Then, to the child, ‘Come on.’
He felt the little hand detach from his. When Helena turned away, his own legs did not instantly follow, and in that moment of hesitation one of his farmers stopped to speak to him. By the time he was free again, his wife and the girl were out of sight.
Vaughan turned off the wide central axis where the going was slow. He made his way between the awnings and covered stalls, searching. Everywhere he went, he ignored the calls of the tradespeople. He did not want ruby rings for his sweetheart. He waved away macaroons, remedies for gout and digestive ailments, pocket knives (stolen most likely), charms to give a man irresistible appeal, and pencils. The pencils looked decent enough, and he might have bought some another day, but his head was starting to ache and he felt thirsty. He could stop at one of the places that sold drinks, but there were queues, and he’d sooner find his wife and the girl first. He pressed on through the crowd, making slow progress. Why should the sun come out so hot on this of all days, when so many were congregated together? The throng thickened to stagnation and he was obliged to stop altogether, then he found a sluggish current and inched forward again. He felt the sweat on his brow. His eyes began to sting with salt. Where the hell were they?
With the sun in his eyes, he felt dizzy. It only lasted a moment, but before he could gather his senses, a hand fell on his arm.
‘Fortune, Sir? This way.’
He attempted to shake the hand away, but his movements had the effortful and vague feeling of swimming underwater. ‘No,’ he said, but perhaps he only meant to say it, for he never heard it spoken. Instead a drape was pulled invisibly aside and the hand that he felt but scarcely saw tugged him inside. He stumbled heavy-footed into darkness.
‘Sit you down.’ The fabric of the fortune-teller’s dress was so like the gaudy interior of the tent that it receded into it, and her face was veiled.
A chair was placed behind him, knocking the backs of his knees so that he had no option but to sit. He turned to see who had put it there. There was no one, but a bulge distorting the drape of one length of tawdry silk was the size and shape of a shoulder. Someone was concealed there, ready to prevent the customers from making a quick getaway without paying for their handsome strangers and journeys overseas.
All he wanted was a glass of something cold.
‘Look here,’ he said, rising. But he bumped his head on the low cross-brace of the tent, and as he saw stars, he felt the woman grasp his wrist with more power than you would think possible of such a small hand, and from behind, pressure on both his shoulders forced him firmly back into his seat.
‘Let me read your hand,’ said the woman. Her voice, reedy and ill-educated, had an odd note to it that he registered but did not immediately pay attention to.
He gave in. It was probably quicker to go through with it than to negotiate his way out.
‘You have had a lucky start in life,’ she began. ‘Good luck and talent were your godparents. And you have done well since. I see a woman.’ She peered into his palm. ‘A woman …’
Mrs Constantine came to mind. How much better she’d have done this! He remembered her jasmine-scented room, her calm, still face, her sombre dress and pristine collar, her purring cat. He longed for that room. But he was here.
‘Fair or dark?’ he asked, with false joviality.
The fortune-teller ignored his comment. ‘A happy woman. Who was lately unhappy. And also a child.’
He exclaimed in exasperation. ‘I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you know who I am,’ he told her testily. ‘This is in very bad taste. Look, I’ll give you something for your time and let’s bring this to an end.’ He tried to free his hand from hers to reach for his purse.
The fortune-teller only tightened her grip and he marvelled that a woman could be so strong. ‘I see a child,’ she said, ‘who is not your child.’