The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [152]
“So,” I had to say it for myself, “Will is not my uncle’s son.” As I spoke I remembered the dream I had had at Claypoole, when Will had shouted, “You’re not my father.”
“You sound pleased.” My aunt’s dull eyes regarded me curiously. It was the first sign she’d given of being interested in my reaction.
There was no point in explaining how this new fact changed everything for the better. Suddenly her blind partiality for Will made a sad kind of sense. As did her and my uncle’s unlikely union. Living at Yew House, I had taken their marriage for granted, but since meeting Mr. Sinclair, I couldn’t help wondering why my uncle had chosen someone so cruel and vain. Even as I had this thought, I realised that my dislike for her had ebbed. Now that my aunt didn’t control my life I could afford to forgive her.
“Not pleased,” I said. “Relieved. And”—another idea rushed in—“that was why you had my uncle buried in Edinburgh, rather than here, in his parish.”
“Charles always said you had brains. Yes, I wanted to be able to visit Ian, and having Charles there made it easier. With him and my parents dead, no one else knew. I’ve thought of telling Will, but he’s already furious with me for being ill.”
As if to demonstrate, she began to cough, a dry hacking that shook the rug across her knees. Robin looked up; he had abandoned his cars for his colouring book. I hovered over her, offering water. Finally she managed a few sips and the cough subsided.
“Why did you tell me?” I said.
She spread her thin hands. “The doctor claims I’ll be well by midsummer, which is balderdash. It began to weigh on me that I’d kick the bucket and no one would know. With everyone else I have something to lose. But you can’t possibly think worse of me than you already do.”
It did not occur to me to contradict her.
“I’m sure you don’t remember when you first came here,” she went on. “I would try to read to you and play with you. But you pushed me aside and howled for your uncle. Eventually I stopped trying.”
“I was three years old,” I said. “I missed my father.”
“I know, but your crying made me feel as if you knew that I had never loved your uncle, as if you were determined to give him the love I couldn’t.”
So Miriam was right; she had been jealous. “I thought you always hated me.”
“Not always,” she said judiciously. “I did try to make you welcome. Your uncle never betrayed for a second that Will wasn’t his. But nothing I did made a difference, and after Charles’s death, you turned into a little monster, hitting your cousins, breaking their toys.”
She yawned, as if the mere memory of my bad behaviour fatigued her. I bit back my retort. Mindful that I might not have another chance, I said I had something I wanted to tell her. Did she remember Mr. Donaldson, the schoolteacher?
“From Edinburgh?” My aunt raised her eyebrows. “Poked his nose in where he shouldn’t have.”
Briefly I described my visit to Oban, what I’d learned about Mr. Donaldson’s life after he left the village. “You ruined him. People believed whatever you said about him and he couldn’t get a job again.”
She gave an imperious sniff. “He ruined himself. If he’d been any kind of a decent teacher he’d have found work. I couldn’t have you in the house, upsetting Will, quarrelling with Louise and Veronica, making us feel like bad people. That’s the thing about you, Gemma. When you came in a few minutes ago I thought you’d grown up, but you’re still the same. After all these years you can’t accept you might not know the whole story.”
Suddenly Robin was standing in front of my aunt, holding his colouring book. “You’re calling Jean the wrong name, and your hair is funny.”
Following his gaze, I saw that my aunt’s abundant golden coils were no longer her own.
“Rude child,” she said calmly and reached to straighten her wig.
She was nicer, I thought, than she used to be. I drew Robin to me and asked again about my birth certificate.
“I could have sworn Charles kept the papers to do with you in the bottom drawer of his desk,