The Twin's Daughter Read online

  “That is not so!” Mother cried, speaking to Helen Smythe for the first time. “Of course they were my parents!”

  “Yes,” Helen Smythe said evenly, “and no. They were the people who raised you, but they were most definitely not our parents. Our real mother was a maid. Our real father?” I imagined her shrugging. “I’ve no idea.”

  “But that is impossible!” Mother interjected again.

  “Of course it’s possible. The people who brought you up were very wealthy, as you no doubt know. But the woman? Much as she’d have liked, she couldn’t have her own children. When the maid found herself in the family way, the people you think of as your parents took her out of the country. They told everyone else that your mother was pregnant and that she needed peace. When the maid bore twins, those people decided they didn’t want more than one baby. So they consulted a fortune-teller.”

  I imagined Mother raising an eyebrow at this startling news. No one we knew consulted fortune-tellers!

  “Apparently,” Helen Smythe went on, as though people’s fates were decided thusly every day, “whatever she told them caused them to make a decision. When they returned to England, they brought you home with them. They placed me in an orphanage.”

  “But how did you know all this?” Mother asked, and I could hear the wonder in her voice. “How came you by this knowledge when I have none of it?”

  “At the orphanage,” Helen Smythe said, “the mistress there used to taunt me with it whenever she thought I’d done something bad. She would say that I was so bad, even the people who should have kept me didn’t want me. The other children soon took up her cause. I became known as the ‘rich little poor girl.’ ”

  It occurred to me as I listened to this, in shocked surprise, to wonder what it must be like for Mother to learn that what she had believed all her life of her own parents—of the people who raised her, as Helen Smythe put it—was a house of lies from the foundation up.

  It was my father who spoke next. “Why have you come here,” he asked, “after so much time? You must have been released from the orphanage many years ago.”

  “Yes.” I could almost picture her face smiling wryly here. “But sometimes life conspires to get in the way. I’m here now, though. I’ve waited thirty-one years to lay eyes on my sister, my twin, and now I’ve done so.”

  “But how did you find—”

  Later, it would occur to me that my father was about to ask “But how did you find your way here?” or “How did you find where we live?” But he never had the opportunity to finish, at least not then, for it was at that moment that I, having leaned far forward to clearly hear every word, overbalanced, toppling down the stairs.

  Rushing feet, and then my father was at my side. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. Once I assured him that I was, hastily scrambling to my feet to demonstrate just how all right I was, I saw anger enter his eyes. I would no doubt later be berated for my foray as an eavesdropper. But not now. Now, almost as soon as the anger entered, it was replaced by a softness. I could not tell if it was a happy softness or a sad softness. Perhaps it was both.

  Gently, he took my hand in his. “Come, Lucy. There is someone you must meet.” He led me into the parlor, where now I could see my mother and her twin again. I realized this was the first time I was seeing them together where each knew who the other was.

  “Lucy,” my father said, “I should like you to meet your aunt Helen Smythe.”

  “We have met already,” I said, stating the obvious, at the same time realizing we had never met like this. I dipped a curtsy, as was only proper when faced with an older relative. “How do you do?”

  With a smile I could not read upon her face—was it joy I saw there? mockery? sarcasm?—Helen Smythe dipped a crude curtsy in return. “The pleasure’s mine,” she said. “I’m quite well now, thank you.”

  I moved to take a seat on the sofa where my father indicated I should, but my aunt remained standing. Then she reached down, grasping the handle on her carpetbag with one of those raw, chapped hands before rising again. “Thank you for seeing me,” she said. “And now it’s time for me to go.”

  “But—” This time it was Mother speaking, her one word sounding a different kind of protest than what she’d voiced earlier.

  “It’s getting dark,” my aunt said. “I should like to find a place to stay before nightfall.”

  “But—”

  “I only just wanted to see you,” my aunt said directly to Mother, “just once. All my life, I’ve wondered what you looked like. I wondered: Did you look like me? Did you look completely different? Would I know you if I saw you in the streets? Now I’ve my answers.” She shrugged. “And now it’s time for me to go.”

  “You said you need to find a place to stay,” my father said. “Don’t you live somewhere?”

  “I did,” my aunt admitted, “but I could no longer pay the rent, so I was put out. Now I shall have to find somewhere cheaper.” She looked at all three of us at once, as though taking in a whole picture. “Thank you again for today.”

  She started for the door.

  My father looked at Mother, raised his eyebrows until she nodded back. Her nod at first was like a stutter, unsure, then it became a vehement thing, as though she’d grown eager.

  “Stay.” My father’s voice stopped my aunt’s step. “Please stay, if only for the night. It is dark already, you see.” He turned to the window, as though illustrating the coming of the night. “And it is cold. Please stay tonight.”

  “If you wish it.” My aunt smiled at us all. “Then I shall.”

  • Four •

  “Lucy, why don’t you go up to your room?” my father said. “It has been a long and unusual day for you, not to mention the tumble you took down the stairs earlier. You must be tired.”

  It was our family’s custom, when both my parents were at home, for me to dine with them, however late that might be. But when my father made his statement—more of a command than a suggestion, really—adding that he would have Cook send a tray up so I shouldn’t starve, I obeyed. I recognized that the advent of our visitor, and her staying on, meant that I had escaped my father’s wrath at catching me eavesdropping.

  And so I went.

  I did not try to stop and listen on the staircase again. I had already attempted that trick once, with mixed results. I would not get away with it a second time, not on that night. Whatever else may have been said by the adults after I left the room, I was to hear none of it.

  When I gained the landing, entering my room on the right side of the corridor, I looked at my familiar surroundings. Already it seemed smaller than when I’d last been in it, just hours previous.

  Shortly, the maid brought up my dinner: mutton, potatoes, and something green that looked as if ideally it should have been greener. But I ate nothing. Whatever appetite I might normally have had at this time of day was stalled by the thoughts ranging through my head. Even the pudding did not tempt me.

  I had a new relative! An aunt! And she was spending the night!

  Where would she sleep? I wondered.

  The servants’ quarters were on the fourth floor, my parents’ on the third. For as long as I could remember, I had been alone on the second. But, perhaps I would no longer be so?

  Through my closed door, I heard movements in the room across the corridor. It was the sounds of a servant or two bustling, getting a room ready.

  The room across the corridor had originally been intended as a nursery. Twice, that I could remember, Mother had grown big with child. Both times had caused great excitement in me, as I longed for a brother or sister. As wonderful as Mother always was, as good as my father could be when he was so inclined, it was not the same as having another child with whom to share things, particularly since whatever child I envisaged would naturally be younger than me and hence at my beck and call. But the two times Mother had grown big with child resulted in … no child.

  “That is all right,” Mother had said to me
one time, still weak, still recovering from the loss of that second child that was not to be. “I do not think I could love more than one of you”—here she had smiled a smile that looked as though she was trying to be stronger than her body would allow—“and I mean that in only the nicest way.”

  Since that last loss, the room across the hall from me had remained as a nursery, either as testament to what never was or false promise of what might yet be.

  Was the visitor to be placed so close to me then?

  I realized with a massive yawn that my father was right: I had exhausted myself.

  But after changing from my day clothes into my night ones, and crawling between the cool sheets, I discovered that sleep would not come. I could not stop my mind from wondering what my parents might be discussing with our visitor—my aunt!—downstairs.

  What do you say to a relative, a sister, you never suspected you had? It was a question, the answer for which I could not fathom.

  So then my mind turned to wondering what her life had been like in the thirty-one years before she came to knock on our door. An orphanage, she had said. Mother and I, when playing our pretend games, sometimes joked about orphanages.

  “If you are not good, child,” I had been known to command her when she was of a fancy to let me be the parent, “I will send you to the orphanage!”

  “Oh, no!” she would cry in mock horror. “Not the orphanage!”

  It was a bad joke, our laughter a giddy and uncomfortable thing, like laughing nervously at the undertaker when he passes by because you know whoever is in the box is not you … and yet, it could be.

  No, I thought as I lay there, gazing at the early moon shining its way into the room through the curtains, an orphanage would be an awful place to grow up. It was a place my curiosity had no desire to lead me into. But what about the years since then? What had—I hesitated over the name—Aunt Helen’s life been composed of between those years and this day? Thinking on her clothes and the general bedraggled nature of her appearance, I could not imagine that life had been anything good.

  It was as I was still trying to conjure that life in between that sleep finally came and awake thoughts ceased.

  . . . . .

  I dreamed I was in a room with Mother and Aunt Helen. I could not see their faces—both were turned away from me—and yet in that peculiar way that dreams have, I knew without doubt it was them. The chairs they sat in had high backs, but I could see their golden blond heads peeping over the tops from behind. They sat very still, as though each was trying to perch a teacup on her knee.

  “Mother!” I called. “Aunt Helen!”

  Their faces turned to look at me, as though each head was attached to the same unseen wire. Behind them, the fireplace blazed—I had not noticed that before.

  Nor did I have time to note it long now, although later, in memory, I would see it as a wall of flame blazing around their faces.

  But now I was too busy to register it for long. I was too busy screaming.

  The two faces that looked at me—I could not tell Mother from my aunt—they were exactly the same.

  . . . . .

  I did not scream myself wholly awake—just enough to register hurrying footsteps, the sound of a door pushed open, a face leaning over me before I drifted back to a more peaceful sleep. Was the face Mother’s? Was it Aunt Helen’s? I could not say.

  When I woke again, it was a new day.

  • Five •

  The sun shone through the curtains, waking me as it warmed my eyelids. Immediately, my eyes opened, my mind so much more excited at the prospect of facing this morning than the one that had gone before. Yesterday I had awoken to a day I thought would be like every other day. But now? There was so much to look forward to, so much that was different, new.

  I sprang from the bed, not waiting for a servant to come for me. Glancing at the door on the other side of the hallway, shy now, I was surprised to see it wide open. Tiptoeing across the corridor, I hesitantly poked my head around the corner, only to be faced with … nothing.

  Used to beds that had been made to perfection by capable, work-roughened hands, I saw that the bed my aunt had slept in had been put to rights crudely, as though the hands doing so had no experience with tidy corners or were in great haste. On the counterpane was a note. I hurried to pick it up.

  Deer Neece Lucy,

  Im afraid I must take my leeve. I wantd to meet your mother. Now I hav. It wood be rong for me to stay her.

  It wood hav bin nise to get to know my neece, but Fortune I think has always had other plans for us all.

  Wishing you well,

  Aunt Helen

  I tucked the note into a pocket in my nightdress, not stopping to think long about why my aunt had addressed her goodbye to me and not my parents. Racing down the stairs, though, my mind started to work over that, at last settling on: Why shouldn’t she address me instead of them? Perhaps she felt a deeper kinship with me, a kinship like what I had started to feel toward her.

  Sliding into the dining room on bare feet, I saw that my parents were already at breakfast: my father with his nose in some book, Mother poised with the jam knife over her toast.

  “Aunt Helen—,” I started, breathless.

  “ ‘Aunt Helen’ is it already?” My father looked up, amused.

  “—has gone away,” I finished, ignoring his amusement at me.

  “Gone away?” Mother asked. “How do you know that?”

  “The door to her room was open,” I said. “I looked in—I swear I wasn’t snooping; the door was wide open!—but she was gone.” I confess, I did not tell them about the note. It had been addressed to me alone.

  “Perhaps she went for a walk,” my father suggested. He glanced out the long window behind him. “I am sure it is still cold, but it looks as though it is going to be a lovely day.”

  “No, I am positive she is gone,” I said. “Her carpetbag was gone too. She would not have taken that if she were going for a mere stroll. She must have sneaked out while you were still sleeping, which is why you did not hear her go. I am positive she has gone”—I paused meaningfully—“for good.”

  My father looked at Mother, and she returned the look. It shocked me, for it was a complicit look, as though this turn of affairs was perfectly all right with them.

  “She was supposed to leave today anyway,” my father said with a shrug.

  “Perhaps this is for the best,” Mother said.

  “For the best?” I practically shouted. I was not accustomed to shouting at my parents and yet I found that I could not keep the dual sounds of outrage and derision from entering my voice. “How can it be for the best? Aunt Helen is your sister. She is your only living relative now. How can you not be curious? How can you not want to know where she has gone? It is probably to some awful place—”

  “Enough.” My father’s one word halted all mine, and yet when I turned to him, though his palm was facing me as if to physically stop my speech, his expression had softened. He turned to Mother.

  “She is right, Aliese. We may have raised an unnaturally outspoken termagant,” he added with an appreciative smile, “and yet she is right. Now that we know of Helen’s existence, we cannot turn our backs on her. What would people say of us if they knew? And, of course, it would simply be wrong; even if no one ever knew, we would know. It would be wrong.” He repeated that, as was his habit, as though repeating words could convince other people of the need to yield to his way. “And you must recognize, however confusing and wretched this whole business may be for you, it is not your sister’s fault. It is your parents’, curse their wretched souls.”

  “Yes,” Mother said, “I suppose you are right.” She shuddered, though it wasn’t cold in the room, not like it no doubt was outside, wherever Aunt Helen might be. “For the first time it occurs to me: It could have been me. I could have been the child my parents gave away.”

  I did not say, but the same thought had occurred to me as well when my father cursed her p
arents.

  No sooner had I won my battle—convincing my parents of the need to get Aunt Helen back—than I realized that there was yet a bigger battle ahead. How could we ever find her? London was a big place!

  I said as much.

  “Do not worry about that,” my father said, throwing down his linen napkin and rising from his chair with more energy than he was used to showing in the morning. It was as though he felt what I did: that life suddenly had more to offer us. There was excitement in the air.

  “After you went up to bed last night,” Mother informed me, “Helen told your father and me where she had been living before coming here. Perhaps your father thinks he will start looking for her there.”

  “I want to come with you.” I spoke to my father without thinking first.

  He studied me closely.

  Of course he would say no.

  Then:

  “Yes,” he said. I thought I sensed a new respect for me in his eyes as he smiled. “But you must hurry and dress,” he said, “for I will not have the carriage wait for you if you are not ready before I am.”

  Then he raced to the stairs to change his own clothes—my father racing?—and I raced after him.

  . . . . .

  The descent from where we lived in London to where we were going to look for Aunt Helen did not take long in time measured, and yet it might have, given how very different one place was from the other: from the relatively scentless place where we lived to the manure and decomposing cabbage around Covent Garden—barely mitigated by the girls selling flowers on the street corners—past St. Paul’s Cathedral and the City with its banks and money, the invasive odor of wet rags and hot metal as we progressed, and the final turn into a dark lane in an area my father referred to as Cheapside. And, too, everything was suddenly so loud! We were in the same city, and yet we were not. I had never entered such an area before. There were two worlds, it seemed, within one world. How had I not known this?