Chapter Eighteen

 

I have determined this will be the last of my scribblings. At sixty

years of age it is tiring living a lie while recording the truth – much

easier to give oneself over wholeheartedly to the lie, I feel. However, I

cannot leave off without recording my final confession. If there were

someone in whom I could confide I most certainly would, for I long to

share the burden. But I dare not. In the absence of a confidant, I am

therefore compelled to confess to myself.

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.

 

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