The Black Swan

I know my mother has written to you and that she is very ill. In time I am to come to England. I remember so much of my life there... and particularly you. Do you remember me?

Oh yes, Belinda, I thought, I shall never forget you.

The terrible things I used to do! I wonder you didn’t hate me. I believe you did sometimes... but not really, Lucie. We were like sisters in a way, weren’t we? I remember so much. The time I dressed up in your mother’s clothes and pretended I’d come back from the grave. I really frightened you as well as Celeste. But don’t hold it against me. I may be not entirely a reformed character now, but at least I am now old enough not to do such senseless things.

I’m very sad about my mother. It was awful when Tom died. It was so sudden. He was well and then he had this stroke. It was hard to believe... and then he wasn’t there anymore.

That was when everything changed here and my mother became ill. She is really very ill. I feel a little scared. I’m here in this country and somehow I feel I don’t belong here... not without Tom and my mother. I really feel I belong at Manorleigh and in London... with you, Lucie. I wonder if I shall see you soon. I know it is what I want more than anything... if I lose my mother.

With my love and memories,

Belinda

Memories indeed. I could see her in my mother’s clothes which she had taken from the locked room, sitting on the haunted seat in the garden where ghosts had been said to gather long ago. I saw her, too, swearing that Pedrek Cartwright had attempted to molest her when she did not want him to marry Rebecca. I could see her when we were very young, dancing round me with a lighted candle in her hand, which suddenly sent the flames running up my dress. I could see Jenny Stubbs, who had loved me better than her own life, dashing to me, smothering the flames with her own body... giving her life that mine might be preserved.

Yes, Belinda, I thought, you have brought back memories to me.

I talked of Belinda to Celeste and to my father.

“Poor, poor Leah,” said Celeste. “I wonder if there is any hope of her recovering.

She does not say what is wrong.”

“No. But she is too ill to travel. I am sure that if she were well enough she would bring Belinda to us.”

“All we can do,” said my father, “is to wait and see what happens. In any case we have offered her a home here. It is all we can do.”

So it was left at that.

Soon after that, there was talk of an election and that, as usual, dominated everything else.

The mission to Buganda would naturally have to be postponed until after we knew what government would be in power.

“I have to make sure that I hold my seat before it is decided whether I shall be a member of the mission,” said Joel.

“Of course you’ll hold your seat,” I replied. “It’s a tradition that a Greenham shall represent Marchlands.”

“One can never be entirely sure.”

The excitement was growing. It was nearly six years since the last election. I was an adult now with a keen interest and some understanding of what was going on. We studied the papers every day. Gladstone’s age was often referred to. The man was undoubtedly grand but was he too old? He seemed vigorous enough in mind if he was rather bent and walked with a stick.

“And it’s the mind that counts,” said my father.

The Queen’s comment to her secretary was reported. “The idea of a deluded, excited man of eighty-two trying to govern England and my vast Empire, with miserable democrats under him, is quite ridiculous. It is like a bad joke.”

“Unfortunate,” said my father. “First that she said it, and secondly that it was allowed to leak out.”

“But it is the people who choose the government... not the Queen,” I added.

“For which we have to be thankful,” he added wryly.