Free The Reckoning by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

embraced, all bright eyes and bright cheeks and silken, healthy skin; enceinte with his, Edward's, great-nephew. He and this child would share some little of the same blood: it was, he supposed, a kind of way of possessing her. He and Mathilde were joined, now, for ever with the bonds of kinship. He must remember, too, that but for the accident of his illegitimacy, Skelwith might even now be heir apparent to Morland Place, might have been running it himself these nine years, taking precedence over Edward as the young stag does over the failing one. Things might have been worse.
    All these thoughts tumbled through Edward's mind in the time it took Mathilde to reach him. He embraced her and kissed her forehead, and she looked at him with the overspill of her love and happiness in her eyes and on her lips, and whispered, 'Dear Edward! Be happy for me!’
    He said, 'Yes. I am glad you're happy, my dear.' Then he and Skelwith shook hands in a grave and manly sort of way, and nothing needed to be said between them.
    Then John Skelwith approached James, and Mathilde fell a little back, seeing it was not her meeting that would be diffi cult. James looked at the tall young man, the first of his children, whom he had long, long ago given up in his heart; the child he had been denied the right to rear. Was that why, he wondered, he had afterwards been able to care only for his daughters? He had loved Mary passionately, had been bitterly hurt by her refusal of him, her acceptance instead of old Skel with. He had been young then, vulnerable, and she had hurt him so badly – was that why he had hurt all the other women in his life? Great with his child, she had refused to come to him, to let him care for her and for his son. Was that why he had so signally failed afterwards in responsibility as a husband and father? Things had gone wrong for him early in his life, and after wards he did not seem to be able to get right again with the world. Even now, after all their sufferings, when he and Héloïse had finally reached a place of safety together, John was coming out of his past to threaten that fragile equilib rium. For despite her generous response, he knew that it hurt Héloïse. Oh yes, it was better by far to have the thing out in the open and acknowledged, but still his first grandchild would not be hers, and whether or not she had any right to mind it, he knew that she did.
    The fruit of my loins, he thought. Six children – that he knew of – had come out of his body, and what kind of a father had he been to any of them? Had his existence made any difference to them, for better or worse? But John Skel with was standing before him, looking at him with pained embarrassment, with apprehension, with curiosity, and some thing must be said, to get them over this moment and into the social haven of dinner. Should he call him son? No, perhaps that would not be tactful at this point.
    ‘ Welcome, my boy,' he said at last. 'We'll – we'll talk together later. For now, I'm glad there are no more secrets. I'm glad you're here.’
    It was little enough to have said – the least he could say, perhaps – and John's reaction shamed him. Skelwith's eyes brightened with genuine emotion, as though James's words had been everything he wanted to hear. He said warmly, 'I'm glad to be here, sir. I'm glad to be –' But he couldn't say the word son either. ‘I'm glad to be here,' he finished lamely.
    Mathilde laughed, breaking the increasing tension. 'Oh, how solemn we all look, as though it were a funeral, instead of a happy occasion! We've come home,' she said, going up to James in her turn and putting up her face to be kissed with such confidence that he kissed her more in automatic response than spontaneous affection. 'We've come home, and I'm going to have a baby!’
    And then James smiled too, irresistibly. ‘So you are. It seems almost improper, now I come to think of it. It seems like only five minutes ago that we were having your birthday