‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered. But he pretended not to hear her.
‘I suggest you telephone your mother right away so that we can share our good news.’
‘But, Cecil.’ She attempted once again to explain herself.
‘And we must let the twins know that they are going to have a little brother or sister. I’m sure they’ll be delighted, or at least, Leonora will be.’ Audrey knew that it was pointless trying to fight him, so she leaned back against the cushions and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Terrible,’ she replied and sniffed.
‘I mean physically.’
‘No sickness, Cecil. Just sickness of the soul.’
‘Why don’t you have an early night, I’ll sleep in my dressing room. You’ll feel better in the morning.’ He walked towards the door then turned and looked at her steadily with dull eyes that had once sparkled with love. ‘Some things are too painful to face, Audrey. So if one pretends hard enough one might be fooled into believing they haven’t happened.’ He lifted his chin and continued in a very quiet voice, ‘You are carrying my child, Audrey. There is nothing else to discuss. Our child and we will bring him up together. I don’t want to speak of this again, ever. And I don’t want to see my brother for as long as I live, in this world or the next.’ Audrey watched him walk out and suddenly remembered to breathe.
She didn’t know whether she’d ever love her husband but from that moment on she deeply admired him. He must have known about the affair all along. He had never confronted her. He had always treated his brother with courtesy. Now he had done the noblest thing of any man she had ever known; he had elected to bring Louis’ child up as his own. Audrey wept again, this time out of gratitude.
Grace was born at The Little Company of Mary in town, like her sisters and her mother before them. But unlike any baby the doctor had ever seen, Grace was born with a smile hovering on her pretty pink lips and a knowing look in her wise eyes, the eyes of an old woman who has seen all that the world has to offer. She didn’t scream like Alicia or whimper like Leonora, she just watched her mother with curiosity and held up her little white hand to touch her face. Audrey took the hand in hers and kissed it as the tears tumbled down her cheeks and dripped off her chin onto the newborn body of her baby. ‘Shall I call in your husband?’ the doctor asked. But Audrey shook her head.
‘I would like some time alone with Grace,’ she said. ‘Just a few minutes, then you can call him.’ The doctor left her sitting up in bed, mesmerized by the features of her child that were a perfect reflection of the man she loved. ‘You’re more special to me than anyone else in the world,’ she whispered and the child blinked up at her contentedly. ‘You will never know who your real father is, but that doesn’t matter because your gentle spirit is a part of his and always will be. You will carry his memory in your smile and in your eyes, which are so like his and you will be happy because I will love you for the both of us. For the both of us, my love. And Cecil will love you too, in his own way. I will never disappoint you, Grace, or let you down as I have let down your father and your half-sisters. That is my promise.’
When Cecil laid eyes on the baby he noticed at once how like Louis she was and he knew instinctively that little Grace would always be a stranger to him, just like her father. Grace had the same disconnected expression in her eyes and something more, something that Louis had never had, a knowing look that was quite unsettling, as if she could see into his soul. Cecil shook his head and chuckled out loud. How could a baby, no more than some twenty minutes old, be endowed with so much awareness? It was impossible, he was mad to have imagined it. He pulled away and looked at his wife. She smiled at him tentatively but Cecil didn’t return her smile. He asked her how she felt and then went to telephone her mother. He still loved Audrey to distraction but she had destroyed his trust and made a mockery of his affection for her. What tormented him the most was the question that now gnawed at his heart: had she ever loved him? He didn’t dare ask her in case she confessed that she never had.
Grace was indeed a special little girl. Alicia and Leonora returned to Argentina only once a year at Christmas time so their small sister grew up effectively an only child, indulged by her mother and tolerated by her father, spoiled by her grandmother and great aunt Edna who were delighted to have another child to love. As Grace grew into a willowy, ethereal little girl with the long white hair of an angel and the light foot of a garden spirit, Alicia resented her charm and bullied her, but unlike Leonora Grace was resilient to her taunts. She simply smiled at her sister with pity as if she could see into the dark corners of her nature and foresaw the struggles that lay ahead. Leonora wanted to love her, but Grace was remote. She didn’t need friendship, just the air to breathe and the garden to play in, for she told how it was filled with fairies. Leonora wasn’t immune from jealousy either and suffered seeing her baby sister swept up into the arms of her beloved mother, who used to have eyes only for her. When she returned to England at the end of the holidays she would think of her mother and suffer a different kind of homesickness. For now home wasn’t the same as it had been, for her mother’s attentions weren’t reserved exclusively for herself and Alicia. Grace was different and those differences might as well have been as wide as a sea for as much as Leonora tried she was unable to reach her.