The Spider-Orchid Page 6

  “Look, Mummy, look, this is how she walks!” Amelia could have exclaimed, “Like this—sort of teetering backwards on to the heels of those dreadful boots…!”—and Mummy would have laughed delightedly while Amelia tottered ridiculously round the room. And under the spur of this audience response, Amelia’s gift for mimicry would have gone from strength to strength:

  “Listen, Mummy, this is how she says ‘Da-a-ahling!’ when she wants Daddy to do something for her! All sort of drawly and languishing—‘da-a-ahling, I do wish you’d sometimes remember to …’”

  How they’d have laughed, she and Mummy, in that lovely cosy intimacy, tearing Rita to pieces by the light of the glowing fire! How close they would have felt, how safe!

  “Mummy—!”

  But it was impossible. It just couldn’t be done. Trying not to see the sudden flash of hope and eagerness in her mother’s face, followed by the sagging of disappointment, Amelia gathered up her books and her cardigan and humped herself to her feet.

  “Homework,” she muttered, face averted, and trailed out of the door, flinging it open noisily and almost slamming it behind her with shame and remorse.

  *

  Upstairs in her own little room, with the pictures of prehistoric monsters on the walls, and the electric fire with the imitation coals which Mummy had tried to persuade her not to choose because it was vulgar, she began to feel better.

  She hadn’t really anything much to do. She had finished her homework at Daddy’s, and had brought her diary up to date, too, though this had been a less tranquil activity than usual because of Rita being there, and fidgeting about the room all the time so that you never knew when she might be looking over your shoulder; Amelia had kept having to cover the page with her elbow whenever Rita seemed to be moving in her direction, and this meant that the passages written up today were more disjointed than usual. Amelia opened the marbled covers of the exercise book, and, lying full-length on her bed, re-read the last few pages of what she had written this afternoon:

  Wednesday, March 3rd

  Mr O. was late this morning, he came into prayers just before the hymn, and he leaned over Daphne to see the place in her book. Over Daphne! Oh, God, why couldn’t I have been at the end of a row this morning, then he’d have leaned over me! Oh, cruel Fate! And then, when we filed out, there was such a squash through the big doors I couldn’t get through quick enough, and so all I saw was his back disappearing down the staff-room corridor!

  What a wonderful way he walks, with such a swing to his movements, as if he owned the world.

  He does own my world, little does he know!

  Thursday, March 4th

  No English lesson today! Doom, doom, doom! The day is a desert that I have to cross without food or water.

  One tiny ray of light—I saw him going along the corridor while I stood in the dinner-queue, but he didn’t see me.

  Daphne says he’s married. I didn’t want her to think I was upset, so I just said, “Yes, I know.” Well, I did know, didn’t I, because she’d just told me, so it wasn’t actually a lie.

  They are not going to know that I mind. Not, not, not.

  And I don’t mind, I DON’T! I’ve been thinking about it all through chemistry, my nitrous oxide wouldn’t support combustion at all, not for a second, I put taper after taper into it and they just went out. But of course I didn’t put that in my notes because really I know it does support combustion, it says so in our book as well as Miss Harland.

  My heart is no longer broken, him being married is nothing to me, mine is a higher kind of love, I just want him to exist in the Universe, and he does exist.

  Daphne doesn’t understand about love, I have to say it, even though she’s my best friend.

  Tomorrow we get back our essays!!!!

  Friday, March 5th

  Got our Milton essays back! He didn’t read mine out, but he did write two lines at the end of it! Two whole lines! I shall cut them out and paste them in here so that they may be preserved for ever in his own handwriting:

  *

  “Quite good, but please, not such long quotations. I do know the poem, you know!”

  *

  Just imagine, he must have been smiling while he wrote it! That little crooked, cynical smile that makes his eyebrows tilt, and he was smiling about me! About Amelia Summers! Me, me, me!

  I’m so glad my name is Amelia, and not Jean or something.

  This was the latest entry. Amelia read it through once more, and then, sleepy though she was by now, she decided to make a start on the leather-bound diary of Dorothy’s grandmother. She had promised Dorothy that she would bring it back without fail on the following Sunday, and there mightn’t be much time for it during the week. She had already ascertained, by a swift glance through, that it was quite long, and that the writing, though neat and carefully penned, was in an unfamiliar style and, as Dorothy had said, somewhat hard to read until you got used to it.

  Slowly, she unfastened the gilt clasps and raised the leather cover. On the fly-leaf was written:

  Amelia Caroline Ponsonby. Her Book.

  Presented on this Day of her Fourteenth Birthday

  February 12th, 1854

  By her Loving Godmother, Henrietta Mary Mills.

  “May she dwell in the Light of the Lord”

  CHAPTER VI

  “What CHOCOLATE-COATED Swiss roll?” asked Adrian, just as Amelia had predicted; and Rita, equally predictably, burst into tears.

  It was a difficult quarrel to launch, because Adrian, just sitting down to his work after driving Amelia home, really didn’t know what in the world Rita was talking about, had no recollection of the subject at all. And by the time she had explained it to him all over again, including the comparative prices of chocolate-coated Swiss rolls at Tesco’s and at Marks and Spencer, he once more had on his face the glazed expression which had so incensed her in the first place.

  “You never listen to me,” she sobbed, “you never listen to a word I say!” and Adrian, knowing that he didn’t, said, “Nonsense, darling,” rather helplessly.

  He was dismayed, and also puzzled by her outburst. It had seemed to him that the afternoon had gone off quite reasonably well, with Amelia down with Dorothy half the time, Rita chattering away, and he, Adrian, managing to get quite a fair amount of work done in spite of it all.

  What had gone wrong? Whatever was she on about?

  “Look, dear,” he said, trying to be placatory, “if Amelia has upset you some way about a Swiss roll, then I’m sorry. She can be rather a little pig sometimes, I suppose. Though actually I thought she was behaving very well most of the time. I mean, she could hardly have been less bother, could she? First down at Dorothy’s, and then just lying on the floor reading and getting on with her homework … she hardly spoke a word the entire afternoon.”

  “And that’s what you call “behaving well?’ Is that the way you think a kid of thirteen ought to be? Let me tell you something, Adrian, if that child was my daughter, which thank heaven she’s not, I’d be very, very worried about her. I would, Adrian. All that reading, and writing, and so quiet all the time, it’s not natural. And so secretive, too, so sly—you’ve only got to stir out of your chair and she covers up what she’s doing as if you were a spy, or something! What’s she trying to hide? What is it she’s so ashamed of? Morbid, I call it. At her age, she should be full of fun and chatter, she should be active, outgoing, communicative. I don’t want to scare you, Adrian, but as her father, I think you should be doing something about it. Get some advice about her. There are clinics….”

  Adrian closed his eyes, crossed his legs, and leaned back in his chair.

  “What you mean is, you’re bored,” he said to Rita. “Amelia and I both have work to do on Sundays, and you haven’t. And so you feel left out. Of course you do. But I did tell you. I warned you right from the start that our Sundays are like this. I knew you wouldn’t enjoy it, I knew it wasn’t your thing, but you would come….”

  �
��‘Came’? I like that!” Rita was outraged. “Adrian, I live here! Hadn’t you noticed? Or are you telling me I’m to be chucked out of my own home every Sunday of my life for the sake of that little zombie? Why don’t you think about chucking her out for a change? It’d do her good, she needs a bit of fresh air. She ought to be out and about with her friends at weekends, not humped over her books in a bad light, and breathing through her mouth half the time! She’ll end up with short sight, adenoids, curvature of the spine….”

  Adrian once again closed his eyes, and laid down his pen with an air of exaggerated weariness.

  “You can’t ‘end up’ with short sight,” he explained patiently. “It’s a thing you’re born with. It’s genetic.”

  The word was a trigger word. Rita’s brain was instantly ablaze with all the popular medical articles she’d skimmed through in magazines recently, and at once she plunged, with crusaders’ zeal, into a passionate account of this survey or something that some Doctor Somebody had been conducting in America or somewhere, which showed that more children who wore glasses had learned to read early, or was it that they stopped wearing glasses when they stopped reading, or maybe the other way round, but anyway, what is proved conclusively was that short sight wasn’t genetic, it was due to reading too much, and look at primitive man, he didn’t read at all, and didn’t need glasses either, so there!

  *

  Adrian sighed. His report would just have to be finished in his lunch-hour, that was all. It was going to be the same next week, too, and the week after.

  He swivelled round in his chair and faced Rita. In a way, he was glad they were quarrelling, because it absolved him at least for the time being of any obligation to feel in love with her. Since she had moved in with him, and everything was suddenly supposed to be so marvellous, the tepid quality of his feelings towards her had terrified him. He had searched for the old passion with the desperation of a man searching for his passport in an airport departure lounge … it must be here … it must … I know I had it….

  But now, with Rita nagging and scolding like this, he had a sudden sense of reprieve. She wasn’t even attractive, her white forehead all screwed up and her eyes bulging with temper … he couldn’t possibly love her like that, no one could. And since this was a quarrel, he didn’t have to love her, in fact he could hate her if he liked, hatred is allowed during a quarrel. It’s the love-hate thing, hatred the reverse side of love, and all that. He felt thankful that it had a reverse side, it gave you a sort of rest now and again….

  And what’s more, he didn’t have to put up with her stupid, female illogic, either.

  “Look,” he said, “Amelia is my daughter, and so perhaps you’ll be good enough to allow me to be the best judge? She happens to be an intelligent child, and she likes to have a bit of peace and quiet now and again to read and think. Just as I do. We’re alike, Amelia and I. Hell, we are father and daughter….”

  He stopped, realising that by this phrase he was laying himself open to yet another explosion of amateur psychology. He went on, in a slightly more conciliatory tone:

  “And anyway, Rita, you must realise that Amelia’s only two years off O levels now. She has homework to do.”

  “Homework!” Rita drawled the word with heavy, deliberate insolence. “You don’t know you’re born, Adrian, the way you let that child pull the wool over your eyes. That wasn’t homework she was doing this afternoon, don’t you believe it! What sort of ‘homework’ could it be that consists simply of scribbling page after page of huge, untidy writing, and never once having to stop to think, or to look anything up? Didn’t you notice what a scrawl it was? What sort of a father are you? Don’t you notice anything?”

  “Notice? No, of course I don’t notice. Why should I pry into what she’s doing? She does her stuff, I do mine, it’s been like that for four years now, and we’re both perfectly happy with it. I’m sorry if you’re bored, Rita, but it is only one afternoon in the week. Can’t you do some sewing or something—?” and then, when Rita’s head jerked up in fury, he hastily amended “well, whatever it is you do like doing. It isn’t even a whole afternoon, usually. She’s down with Dorothy part of the time….”

  “Oh, big deal! And that’s another thing, while we’re on the subject. What sort of company do you think that old woman is for your precious little ewe-lamb? Have you any idea what they talk about when they’re down there together? Of course you haven’t! Up here in your ivory tower, you haven’t the faintest inkling of what goes on! Well, I’ll tell you one thing: if it was my daughter I’d see her dead and in her grave before I’d send her down there to have her mind poisoned by that filthy-minded eavesdropping old harridan….”

  “Let me see, they were making gingerbread this time, weren’t they?” Adrian remarked, as annoyingly as he knew how. “Amelia brought some up for tea, if you remember. It was rather good, I think you said …”

  “I said? Why, I never even …”

  “But of course,” continued Adrian smoothly, “the witch in Hansel and Gretel was also very good at making gingerbread, was she not? Is that what you had in mind?”

  Rita clenched and unclenched her white knuckles. She knew that Adrian was taking the mickey in his effortless, intellectualising way, but she couldn’t grasp his meaning sufficiently to be ready with an appropriate come-back. So she did the only other thing she could do: she burst into tears.

  *

  The reconciliation was sweet, though perhaps a little perfunctory on Adrian’s part, as he was anxious to get back to his work. He was relieved, and very pleasantly surprised, that Rita seemed unperturbed by the slightly unflattering haste with which he scrambled back into his clothes and reseated himself at the desk. She even had a little smile playing around her lips as she lay and watched him.

  “I’ll show him!” she was thinking. “Just let him wait! I’ll teach him!”

  CHAPTER VII

  AT THE SIGHT of the careful, faded handwriting of so long ago, Amelia’s sleepiness left her, and with a little frisson of excitement she turned over the first of the fragile, whispering pages, and began to read:

  February 13th, 1854

  I, Amelia Caroline Ponsonby, aged 14 yrs and one day, am about to pen the first, momentous words of this my Journal.

  Would that I could think of words worthy of so solemn an occasion, for it is in no light spirit that I lay my hand to this task. This Journal which I begin today will be with me all my life long. Thru’ all the years to come, I shall confide to these pages all my Joys and my Sorrows, and even my Sins, and the most hidden Secrets of my Heart.

  May the Good Lord keep me from Sins that are as Scarlet, and I pray that I may never need to confide any Such to this Journal. May no eyes other than mine ever look upon these pages, save only the Eye of God Almighty.

  Mamma says that 2¾ yards of Petersham should be sufficient for the braiding of my dress, but Mrs T. declares she will need 3 at least, to allow for turnings.

  There was something distinctly reassuring about this last sentence. If the hidden secrets of Miss Amelia Ponsonby’s heart were to be of this calibre, then surely one need feel no guilt at perusing them?

  Because a few moments earlier, the Amelia of the 1970s had been feeling guilty. All that about, “No other eyes than mine…” —well, it did make you think. The long-ago Amelia could hardly have made her wishes in the matter plainer, or more emphatic.

  Still—a hundred years! More than a hundred! The childish hand which had formed that careful copperplate had been dust these many decades; the secrets of the childish heart were gone as if they had never been, like a candle-flame long blown out.

  A hundred years! How would I feel, Amelia asked herself, if they were to find my diary after all that time, and read the things I’ve written about Mr Owen? About him leaning over Daphne’s shoulder, and what she said afterwards? I’d die, of course, if anyone were to read it now: but after more than a hundred years….?

  In a hundred years, Daphne, herself, an
d Mr Owen would all be dead and in their graves. At the thought of herself and Mr Owen (she couldn’t be bothered about Daphne) being dead and in their graves, warm, delicious tears began to trickle down Amelia’s cheeks, and she began composing epitaphs for their lonely moorland tomb:

  “Here lie two lovers, hearts entwined.”

  “Even in Death were they not divided.”

  “Amor vincit Omnia”

  —as, indeed, it would need to do if the two of them were to fetch up in the same grave despite Mr Owen being a married man.

  *

  Brushing the tears from her eyes, Amelia turned another of the brittle pages, and read on:

  February 18th

  Our new governess arrived this morning. Jevons took the carriage to meet the Coach at Penton’s Corner, and Thomas went with him to help with her boxes. I did so wish to go in the carriage with them, and be the very first to see Miss Overton, but Mamma said it would be most improper. Hester and I are to wait in the schoolroom, she says, until she brings Miss Overton up to be introduced.

  Oh, dear, what a long, wearisome morning! Hester and I sat in the Oriel seat, watching from the schoolroom window, for more than an hour. When the carriage finally came into sight round the turn of the drive, and drew up outside the house, we were so excited we could hardly refrain from craning our necks to see her alighting, which would have been very ill-bred, and Mamma would have been most vexed.

  February 19th

  I think I like Miss Overton. She has pleasing blue eyes and a refined manner, and she says that my drawings are unusually good for my age, and most tastefully executed.

  Hester, I am sorry to say, has made up her mind to dislike her. She declares that she is not a lady, which is absurd, because Mamma would never allow us to be taught by a person who was not a lady. Besides, she came to us from Lady Rochford’s household, so her social standing must, I am sure, be impeccable.