I have known love, love of the purest kind. Only once, but it has lasted me a lifetime and given me my greatest gift.
Ellie was distraught that morning when she arrived at the Salets’ cottage. Upon Big Jim’s departure, she’d left baby Edward in Bertha’s charge and had run to the only place she could think of, seeking support, needing desperately to voice her terrible suspicions.
Pavi was across the road at the stables, but Mela was there in the front room with little Malou, rocking the wooden cradle that her husband had made and singing a lullaby to the baby in her native tongue.
‘Mrs Ellie, Mrs Ellie.’ She sprang to her feet, deeply concerned to see her mistress and dear friend in such a terrible state.
Leading Ellie to the sofa, Mela sat beside her and gathered her in her arms, shushing her as she would little Malou. ‘Hush now, Mrs Ellie, hush, hush now,’ she said stroking her mistress’s hair while Ellie sobbed and gasped for the breath that seemed so unattainable.
When the attack of hysteria had passed, Mela brewed a pot of her special herbal tea, which she made Ellie drink, and then she listened as Ellie poured out her terrible fears.
‘He couldn’t have killed little Beatrice, he couldn’t have,’ Ellie said over and over as if to convince herself of the impossibility. ‘No man could commit such an atrocity, not even a man like Jim, who is capable I know of terrible things. He could not have killed my daughter.’
‘No, no Mrs Ellie, the Boss, he would not kill your daughter,’ Mela assured her, although in truth Mela believed otherwise. Mela believed this was exactly what the Boss would do. It was the first thing that had sprung to her mind when she’d heard the news of the baby’s mysterious death in the dead of night. The Boss would not want the little girl with the twisted mouth, no matter how precious the child was to his wife.
‘But he was so cruel, Mela, so heartless. He said any child with such a deformity would be better off dead.’
‘The Boss does not mean to be cruel.’ Mela knew it was important she come out with the right words so she took her time, speaking in a slow, deliberate tone. ‘The Boss does not understand women’s feelings – some men are like that. The Boss, he loves you very much, Mrs Ellie,’ she said comfortingly, ‘he would not hurt your baby.’
Mela’s assurances had the desired effect, and as Ellie calmed down she found herself sharing all sorts of truths, truths she had admitted to no one.
‘He doesn’t love me, Mela,’ she said, ‘he never has. Oh he believes he loves me, certainly, he believes he loves me to the point of worship, but what Jim perceives as love is not love at all. I am a possession to my husband, something he prizes and takes for his pleasure. I have no complaint and can live such a life, for he will give me children to love and that will be enough . . .’ As the image of Beatrice returned, so too did the threat of a fresh onslaught of tears. ‘But I cannot live with the thought that he could have taken my daughter from me.’
‘No, no, Mrs Ellie, you are wrong,’ Mela insisted. ‘You think this thing in your head, that is all.’
‘Yes, yes, of course it’s my imagination, of course you’re right, Mela, I know you’re right.’ For the sake of sanity, Ellie thought, Mela had to be right; the other path led to madness.
‘You drink your tea, Mrs Ellie.’ Mela poured her another cup and rose from the sofa. ‘And you look to Malou for me. I will not be long.’
She walked out the front door and across the road to the stables. She was gone less than ten minutes and upon her return, she poured a cup of tea for herself. While she sipped it, she kept glancing out the window at the dusty street as if waiting for something. Then several minutes later she gave Ellie her instructions.
‘You go now and see Pavi,’ she said. ‘I have told Pavi what you tell me. Pavi he will comfort you. Go, Mrs Ellie.’
Their relationship now seemingly upside down, Ellie did as she was told like a worker obeying her mistress.
She entered the stables to be greeted by the familiar smell of fresh hay and harness and the acrid odour of horse dung, the mixture that strangely enough she’d always loved and which now seemed so soothing. The stables were all but deserted, even of animals. There was only one horse there, a mare in foal. The Clydesdales were out in the field, Big Jim was being driven to the train station in the buggy and pair-in-hand and the stable boy had taken the workhorse and dray to fetch chaff from the regular supplier’s farm five miles away.
Pavi was waiting for her. He said nothing as he took her in his arms and held her to him. No words were necessary between them, just as words had never been necessary all those years ago. The dearest friend she had ever known was aware of her pain.
They stayed silently locked in each other’s embrace for some time, the past and the present becoming one, and then he kissed her. Surprising though the kiss was, it neither shocked nor alarmed her, but seemed a natural progression of the love they had always shared. And as they lay together in the fresh straw, so too did the lovemaking that followed. Never in her life had Ellie experienced such tenderness, and never before and never again would she give herself so freely.
Only when it was over did she feel shame. Swept away by her emotions and the response of her body, she’d not once thought of Mela. She did now. Now she thought of nothing but Mela.
‘Oh, Pavi,’ she said, ‘what a terrible thing I’ve done.’ It was the first words that had been uttered since she’d entered the stables. ‘How could I have so betrayed Mela?’
‘You have not betrayed Mela,’ he replied, gently stroking her arm as they lay side by side in the fresh straw. ‘Mela sent you to me.’
‘Yes, she sent me to you,’ Ellie said, sitting up in order to break away from his caress, ‘but she sent me so you could comfort me, not –’
‘And she wished me to comfort you in the way she felt necessary.’ Pavi sat up and faced her. ‘Mela intended this to happen, Elianne.’ He called her by the old name, the name that now belonged to a grand estate, but the name which to Pavi would always be hers. ‘She told me to send the boy away to fetch the chaff in order that we should be alone.’
Ellie stared at him speechless.
‘You see, in the culture of Mela’s parents a man may have several wives,’ he went on to explain, ‘and Mela has always considered you my first wife. In a way she is right, Elianne. We have loved each other you and I in the purest of ways, and in our hearts we always will. But this day will never be mentioned again.’ He kissed her gently and chastely, like a brother. ‘I wish you to be happy with your life,’ he said, ‘so does Mela, who also loves you dearly.’
He rose, turning his back while she dressed and brushed the straw from her clothing. Then he opened the stable door for her and they parted as wordlessly as they had met.
No more was ever said about that day. Not a word was uttered, not a look of complicity exchanged. There was no sign of acknowledgement that the incident had ever occurred as their friendship resumed its normal path. But Mela and Pavi had given Ellie the love and the strength she needed to carry on.
Upon Big Jim’s return, she accepted his nightly embrace, but when she gave birth nine months later, she knew the child would not be her husband’s. The freedom with which she had given herself to Pavi had invited conception.
To Ellie’s profound relief the baby was born white. Pavi was olive-skinned rather than dark, given the French blood of his father, but Ellie had feared the child might bear the physical traits of Pavi’s islander mother. If such had been the case, she knew that Big Jim would have killed both her and her baby.
Though the child’s skin and features appeared Caucasian, Ellie could see in the baby so much of Pavi, the same fine chiselled bones, the same soft brown eyes and, as the boy grew, the same sensitive nature.
During the years that followed, she wondered more and more how others didn’t see the similarity when to her it was so obvious. How could Mela fail to recognise her husband in little Bartholomew? How could Pavi fail to see himself in his son? But from neither was there ever the slightest flicker of recognition.
Strangely enough, the only one who seemed to sense a distinctive difference in Bartholomew was Big Jim. Big Jim found the boy’s gentle disposition uncharacteristic of a Durham and so unlike the competitive personalities of his other two sons that he accepted the fact as indisputable evidence that Bartholomew was ‘the runt of the litter’.
Ellie felt safe with her secret, which for many years she had thought was hers and hers alone, and then the day came when she discovered there was another who knew, one who had always known.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Ellie.’ Mela waited for her mistress’s handshake on that terrible morning of the final farewells. With Big Jim standing by, there were no hugs shared.
But Ellie did not offer her hand. She embraced Mela instead, holding her fast in the hope that Mela would know she was embracing them all. And when they parted, she said, ‘Thank you,’ in the hope that Mela would understand all that was meant by those two small words.
Mela certainly understood. Mela understood far more than Ellie had ever realised, and now that the danger of discovery was past she was happy for Ellie to know that they shared the secret. Just the two of them, for she had said nothing to Pavi.
‘Your sons will be a comfort to you, Mrs Ellie,’ she said, her glance taking in the Durham brothers one by one, but her eyes coming to rest on Bartholomew as she added, ‘They are fine boys.’ And when she turned back to Ellie her smile held a special meaning.
Ellie realised then that Mela knew the truth and was telling her so. But Mela’s smile and her expression as she’d looked at Bartholomew had signalled something else, something only two women could share. Mela was happy that her friend had been blessed with a child born of a loving union, and that Ellie would be left with an ever-present reminder of the man she truly loved.
As Ellie stood in the dirt road waving goodbye to the dray, she couldn’t help wondering about the turn of events. When Mela sent me to Pavi that morning all those years ago, was it in the hope that I might conceive? It seems strangely possible somehow. But I will never know.
There. I have purged myself. I have no regrets and make no apologies, but I rejoice as I always have in my gift of Bartholomew.
I have never quite forgiven God for taking Edward and George from me for whatever Divine purpose intended, indeed God seemed to have deserted us all in those dark days. But I will always thank Him for Bartholomew, and now in the fullness of time for Bartholomew’s children, who grow so healthily to adulthood. There is much to be thankful for.
I will now leave off writing and concentrate on the lie that is essential to my family’s safety, the lie of the love shared between Big Jim and me, for if Jim were ever to discover the truth I have no doubt he would kill us all.
I intend to destroy these scribblings before I die, but I must admit that for the moment it is something of a comfort seeing the words on paper. I have enjoyed my confession.
K
ate sat in the breakfast room with a cup of coffee awaiting her father’s reaction, unsure what to expect, but presuming he would seek her out after reading Ellie’s confession. An hour passed, however, and he didn’t appear. Good, she thought, he’s decided to read the diaries in their entirety: much better he learns the whole truth in one hit even if it takes him all night – and it probably will.
While waiting, she’d looked through the final ledger that she’d brought with her from the study, re-reading the words in their original French. She’d often wondered in the past why Ellie had not destroyed the diaries as had been her intention. There’d been plenty of time in which to do so. Ellie had lived a further twenty years, and death had not caught her by surprise: according to all accounts she’d known she was dying for some time. Furthermore, she’d had her wits about her right to the end, so she would not have forgotten of the diaries’ existence.
Kate had come to only one conclusion, the simplest explanation of all. Ellie had wanted the diaries discovered. In the last stages of her life she’d made a conscious decision. She’d packed the ledgers away herself beneath her precious books or, if in a weakened state, she’d ordered their packing and storage. The diaries were meant to be found. Perhaps well into the future, perhaps generations on, but one day, when the family was safe from the threat of Big Jim’s vengeance, the truth was to be known. And Ellie had been right, Kate thought. The truth needed to be told.
‘Hello, my darling, how unusual to see you cooped up inside.’
Hilda appeared at the door. Following her customary nap, she’d come downstairs to take her late afternoon tea in the front drawing room. ‘Are you not feeling well?’ she asked concerned. At this time of day, Kate was usually out walking with the dog or swimming in the dam.
‘I’m fine, Marmee, absolutely fine, thank you.’
‘Oh I am glad.’ Hilda beamed. ‘Would you care to take afternoon tea with me? Do say yes, dear,’ she urged, ‘I would so enjoy your company.’
‘Yes, I’d very much like to.’ Kate decided in that instant to prepare her mother for the worst. ‘As a matter of fact, there’s something I want to show you, something of great importance.’
‘How terribly exciting. Pop into the kitchen and tell Ivy we’ll need two cups, there’s a dear. I’ll see you in the drawing room.’ Hilda sailed away.
Kate joined her a minute or so later and pulling up a hardback chair beside her mother’s she placed the ledger on the coffee table in front of them.
Hilda looked down at it in surprise. Hardly an item of great importance, she thought, book-keeping held little interest for her. ‘This is what you have to show me?’ she asked, her disappointment readable.
‘Yes. I found a whole pile of these under Elianne House when I was clearing out Grandmother Ellie’s books.’
‘Really?’ The reaction was instantaneous, the mere mention of Elianne House and Grandmother Ellie enough to garner Hilda’s rapt attention.
‘They’re her diaries.’ Kate opened the ledger.