‘I don’t mind,’ Nella assured her and she watched, fascinated as Florence lowered the trusting child into the baby bath.
‘She’s like a baby doll,’ Nella said. ‘One of those beautiful German porcelain cherubs, the ones that look like real babies.’
‘I know the dolls you mean,’ the nursery maid said. ‘They have real hair, don’t they? But it’s usually thick straight hair whereas Miss Amy’s is soft and fine and curly.’
‘It is indeed,’ Nella agreed, ‘and so fair that it’s almost white. As I said, she’s like an angel.’
‘Would you like to hold her while I bath Miss Beatrice?’
‘Oh, may I? I mean, we must ask Mrs Edington.’
Florence coloured. ‘I’m sorry, of course. Mrs Edington, is that all right?’
‘Yes.’ Perhaps that was the best thing, Constance thought. Nella would be so occupied with Amy that she might not notice ... might not notice ...
Nella had taken off her cloak; she took one of the clean towels from the clothes horse and sat down. Florence, who had dried Amy a little, placed the baby on Nella’s knee. It was one of Amy’s good points that she would go to almost anyone. It was as if she sensed that all who saw her adored her, and she was more than willing to be adored. She had even sat happily on Muriel Barton’s knee one day when John’s aunt had grudgingly admitted that the babies were ‘as pretty as pictures’, especially this one.
Constance remembered being surprised that she had been hurt by Muriel’s preference for Amy. Beatrice was pretty, too, although admittedly not as delicate or as fine-boned.
She glanced at Nella, who was gazing at the baby on her knee with wide-eyed wonder. Perhaps she would be so enchanted with Amy that she would not really look at Beatrice.
‘Shall I take Beatrice now?’ Florence was standing over her.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
Constance handed her daughter over reluctantly, securing the all-enveloping towel more tightly as she did so. She watched as Florence kneeled by the baby bath and eased the towel away before lowering Beatrice gently into the water. She heard Nella’s soft gasp of surprise.
She turned her head and saw that Nella was staring at Beatrice with horror. Nella sensed her gaze, turned to look at her, and then dropped her eyes for a moment. After a moment’s silence she said, ‘Well, then, Constance, if you’ll help me dress this baby of yours, we’ll leave Florence in charge and gan down to the morning room for that cup of tea you promised me.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Frank gripped his brandy glass as he stared across the table at his brother’s wife. He had been just about to put his books away when she had crept into the room wrapped in her outsize paisley shawl, as pale and distracted as a ghost in a melodrama. Her expression had brought him to his feet, his stacked books and papers spilling across the table.
Seeing his alarm, Nella had clutched her shawl about her with one hand and raised the other, at the same time shaking her head. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘Valentino is sleeping peacefully. It’s not him I want to talk about.’
He’d gestured towards the table and then, he wasn’t sure why, he’d walked over to the heavy old sideboard, opened it and brought out a bottle of brandy. He’d poured them each a shot, sat down and listened to what Nella had had to say.
‘So you’re absolutely sure?’ he asked her now. ‘About the birthmark, I mean?’
‘As sure as I can be. Everyone in that house knew that that was why Mrs Sowerby wore them old-fashioned high-boned collars. Even when she was giving a dinner party she nivver wore a low-necked gown. Isabelle had seen it many a time when she helped her dress and so did I once when Miss Annabel had been sick all over her and I had to gan and help her change. And that was the first time I saw that Miss Annabel is marked too. It’s like a red stain from her neck all the way down across one breast. A family curse!’
‘Not a curse, a birthmark,’ Frank murmured.
‘Well, a mark like that is as bad as a curse to a woman. And I’m telling you, Constance’s baby has the same mark except it’s not quite so angry red. And I may not be studying medicine like you are, but I know what that means. That bastard Gerald got at her that night no matter what she told me later! And that’s why she’s been avoiding me!’
Frank was shocked at his own surge of hatred. He could taste the bile in his throat. It had been bad enough imagining Constance Edington in the arms of her husband but at least he had been able to take some selfish comfort from the thought that, knowing John’s predilections, it could not be much of a marriage. But now to learn that Gerald Sowerby had undoubtedly raped her was almost more than he could bear. It was all the more agonizing because he knew he had no right to feel this way. Constance was not and never could be his.
‘Just the one baby?’ he asked. ‘You said that only—’
‘Beatrice. Only Beatrice has the mark.’ Nella sipped her brandy and stared into the shadows for a moment. ‘And that’s really why I want to talk to you. If it had just been that Gerald had attacked her, I would have kept her secret. But Constance is making herself ill with worry over something else. I think it’s stopping her loving her daughters the way she should.’
‘Loving them?’
Nella’s lips twisted into a smile. ‘Yes, it’s strange, isn’t it? No matter how a baby was got, a woman usually ends up loving it. After all, it’s not the poor bairn’s fault, is it, if its father’s an animal?’
‘So you’re sure the other baby doesn’t have the birthmark?’
Nella nodded and pushed her glass across the table. Frank poured more brandy for both of them. ‘Yes. I helped bath her. Amy’s skin is completely unblemished.’ She stopped and stared into the shadows again, shaking her head as if she didn’t believe what she was about to say.
‘So?’ Frank prompted. ‘It’s not unusual for one or more children not to carry a family trait.’
‘Especially if it isn’t one of the family.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Constance believes that only Beatrice is Gerald Sowerby’s daughter. She’s persuaded herself that Amy is her husband’s child.’
‘Why does she think that?’
‘The girls look different and Constance says that as they grow the differences have become more marked.’
‘But that’s possible in twins. They may not be identical - that is, they may not have grown from the same seed.’ He looked to see if Nella was embarrassed by his plain-speaking and saw that she wasn’t. She was listening intently. ‘They may be what we call fraternal twins. That is, two separate babies right from the start.’
‘So they would be like normal sisters?’ Nella asked.
‘Yes.’
‘But could they hev different fathers?’
‘Constance really believes this?’
Nella frowned. ‘Amy has hair like white gold. She has blue eyes and fair skin just like John. Beatrice’s hair has a reddish shine and her eyes are a deeper blue—’
‘Like her mother’s,’ Frank said, and Nella gave him a strange look. He would have to be careful.
‘Yes, like her mother’s. But it’s more than the way they look. Amy is an easy baby, gentle and placid, no trouble to her nursemaid, whereas Beatrice, who came into the world first, by the way, is already showing signs of being strong-willed and difficult.’
‘Those physical differences still don’t prove anything. Look how different in appearance my brother and I are. And he was blessed with all the good looks.’ Frank smiled self-deprecatingly.
‘I know, I know. I’ve tried to tell her she’s imagining things but she won’t hev it. I think it’s driving her crazy. That’s why I’ve come to you. I thought with your medical knowledge you might know if it can be true. If it is medically possible for two babies who shared a womb to hev different fathers.’
‘I’m not sure, but I may be able to find out.’ Nella looked relieved. ‘And you think this will help her?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘What is the answer she wants, do you think?’
Nella frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Surely Constance wants to hear that her intuition is wrong. Surely she would wish both children to have been fathered by her husband?’ Frank tried not to show how much he hated those words, ‘her husband’.
‘Rather that than both fathered by Gerald Sowerby!’ Nella’s eyes glittered dangerously. ‘But the birthmark - there’s no getting over the birthmark, is there?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘And she loves the child, you know...’ Nella shook her head wonderingly. ‘I’ve told you, there’s no accounting for mother love. But that makes her feel guilty - as if she’s cheated her husband - broken her vows.’
Frank gave way to a surge of anger. ‘What happened wasn’t her fault!’
He thought of Constance as having been doubly betrayed. First she had been grievously wronged by the dissolute Gerald Sowerby and then, in all likelihood, trapped into a marriage with a man who needed the respectability this would give him.
Nella looked straight into his eyes. He could tell that she knew. Her words confirmed it. ‘Of course it wasn’t. We know that because we love her ... don’t we?
‘Yes.’
Nella’s smile was sad. ‘I’m sorry. I guessed the way it was with you and yet I still asked you to help. It must be torture for you. But believe me, I know that it would ease her mind if she could believe that Amy, at least, was John’s daughter.’
Frank waited until he could speak without betraying any emotion. ‘Then I will do what I can.’
‘Aunt Muriel, I wish you would wait for John to come home.’
Muriel Barton and her daughter, Esther, had called to take afternoon tea with Constance, and now John’s aunt had suddenly announced that she wanted to inspect John’s workroom.
‘And when will John be home?’ she asked.
‘After business hours ... I mean ... he doesn’t always come straight ...’
‘Exactly. And I want to have a look at the place now. So shall we go up? It’s at the top of the house, isn’t it?’
Muriel Barton led the way up to the top floor with Esther following and Constance trailing miserably behind. She had never set foot in the sewing room since the night her daughters were born and she had never intended to go there again, but she could hardly begin to explain this to John’s aunt and cousin. She was pleased to note that the older woman was flushed and out of breath by the time they reached the top landing.
‘Well, lead the way,’ Mrs Barton said, and Esther smirked and stood back to let Constance pass.
Constance paused with her hand on the door handle. For a moment she considered that John might keep the room locked; after all, it had become so much his private domain. But the handle turned, the door opened, and her hope died. She stood back and let the other two women enter before her.
Muriel Barton took a few steps into the room and looked round suspiciously. Constance wondered what she was expecting to see. Esther had hurried straight over to the dressmaker’s dummy and was gazing raptly at a half-finished evening gown of blue velvet. Constance felt sick as she remembered the last blue velvet gown she had looked at in this room.
‘What is it, Constance? You’re not expecting again, are you?’ Muriel Barton was staring at her.
‘No, of course not!’
‘There’s no need to bite my head off and there’s no of course about it. I only asked because you looked so pasty-faced for a minute.’
‘I’m sorry, but I can assure you that I’m not expecting another child.’
‘Noo-oo,’ John’s aunt drew the word out thoughtfully. ‘More’s the pity. I imagine that John feels that he’s done all that’s required of him.’ She glanced uneasily at Esther as if wishing that she hadn’t said that, but her daughter had moved across to the work table and was leafing through some of John’s sketches.
Constance imagined that John would be irritated by the intrusion but she felt powerless to stop it - also she didn’t know if she cared sufficiently to do so.