The Secret Legacy: The perfect summer read for fans of Santa Montefiore, Victoria Hislop and Dinah Jeffries
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘of course.’
‘Thank you.’
He took a deeper breath. I felt like he wanted to say something more.
‘That is all for now.’
I returned to the kitchen. He disappeared back into his solitary world.
Adeline returned a translucent shell. Her eyes were misty grey pools. I pretended not to notice the way her feet searched the floor, unsteady, someone trying to balance upon a moving ship. Her skin hung from her cheekbones like a fading memory. The Major wrapped his arm around her and led her to the guest bedroom, which he had overseen the nurses set up for hours before she came home, until it resembled a hospital room. A metal trolley stood by the window lined with paper and a small drugstore of medicinal vials and bottles. Crisp linen towels towered upon the dresser.
A regular stream of doctors passed through the house for the next week. It was impossible to not overhear their conversations with the Major because each ended in the same heated manner, with the latter crying out for the medical men to leave. The strain spread over the Major’s face like a drought. One morning, the more patient of the doctors sat beside him at the breakfast table.
‘Henry, you must listen to our advice. Adeline will not improve. Not for a very long time. If at all. This is not an episode of hysteria. She is experiencing the trauma of postpartum psychosis. You can’t just brush this off. The way you’re behaving, it’s like Adeline’s broken her leg and you’re hoping a sticking plaster will do the trick.’
The Major took a long breath.
‘What you’re doing is cruel,’ the doctor added.
‘What I’m doing is commonly known as a basic respect for humanity! This is the woman I love! You will not experiment on her, do you hear me?’ the Major yelled. ‘How can I possibly expect any of you to understand that? We have been through this again and again—’
‘And each blessed time I pray to God you’ll heed my advice. You have a peculiar respect and contempt for my professional opinion.’
The Major wiped his mouth and flung his napkin onto the table.
‘Henry,’ the doctor began, in a familiar tone, which made me think this was more than a professional relationship, ‘if you insist on caring for her yourself, then at the very least take her somewhere she can find peace. Somewhere with a temperate climate. Sea air perhaps? Somewhere she can live housebound but with some semblance of tranquillity – which, in my learned opinion, would be with us in an institution in Epsom, especially equipped for women suffering from bad nerves. You are not able to deal with this alone. You and I know this more than anyone else.’
‘James, I’ve listened to what you have to say. My wife will not be committed. She is sick, yes, but she need not be incarcerated. She’s my wife, for heaven’s sake!’ The Major rose to his feet, slamming the table as he did so.
The doctor rose to meet him. ‘We both want what’s best. I will do everything I can to support you, Henry, but it will not be easy.’
The Major nodded. His gaze bore into his hands.
‘I’ll give you a few days to think – then you’ll tell me what you’ve decided.’
I opened the door for the doctor. ‘That’s quite all right, I’ll see myself out, thank you.’
I heard the door close as I scraped the last few crumbs off the tablecloth. Adeline cried out. The Major reached the stairs before I.
‘I’ll go, Santina, you finish here.’
The next few nights bent into a fragile routine. The Major rose with Adeline, calmed her out of her night terrors, soothed the screams that tore me out of my own restless sleep, whilst I cradled her mewling baby, watching her mold into my arms as I fed her, then lulling her to sleep with swaying. Each feed bought me time to gaze at that tiny face, noticing the minuscule changes to the small pink mounds of her cheeks, an extra tuft of downy hair along her hairline, a second or two more of keeping her shiny slate eyes open. This temporary peace softened the house, till the next bout of unsettled cries of mother or daughter reverberated, all the louder for the deafening quiet that encased us. Sometimes Elizabeth would rip Adeline out of her rest and make her shake with panic. Other nights Adeline wouldn’t sleep at all, but insist on wandering the halls, or walk up and down the stairs in continuous motion.
The final night before the doctor returned to hear of Henry’s decision we found Adeline scrawling all over the walls. The pencil raced across the plaster, scrambling outpourings. The next day, as I tried my best to wash all the markings off, I read her stream of panic. She wrote about loving Elizabeth, of wanting to love her, of not being mad. The writing was jagged, void of punctuation. Reading her words in the cold light of day was more terrifying than watching the Major try to tear her away from it in the dead of night, as she screeched at him to not set one finger upon her body or she would kill him. When the doctor arrived, the Major was still asleep. I led him to the front room to wait.
‘How was the night, Santina?’ the doctor asked, catching me a little off guard.
‘I’m not sure,’ I lied, trying not to think about the red circles around Adeline’s eyes, or the withering panic the Major tried to bury from me as he wrestled her back to bed.
‘How is Elizabeth?’
‘Hungry mostly,’ I replied. My mind spun down the hall to the warmth of the kitchen where she slept in her rattan basket. I could sense she would wake soon to be fed. I would sit by the fire and the world would slip away, replaced by Elizabeth’s rhythmic suckling and an imperceptible smile I thought I could read in the peaceful slant of her closed eyes; the rise and fall of her swallows like wordless thanks.
The doctor smiled. I nodded and left the room.
After a while the Major came down. I placed a tray of tea between them and poured, wishing the uncertainty of the household would swirl up into thin air like the Earl Grey steam.
‘And that’s your final decision then, Henry?’
‘I don’t change my mind, James, you know me better than that.’
‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘Thank you, Santina – that will be all.’
I left the men, feeling like my life in London was once again an unchartered course, headed for the rocks.
That afternoon, whilst Adeline was sleeping, the Major called me into his study. Something about the usual considered chaos felt jagged today. A few more books left half opened, reams of abandoned words searching for their lost reader. Time had frayed since that night, forever an unfinished paragraph.
‘Santina, I must tell you something.’
My stomach tightened.
‘I have decided my family must move away.’
Memories of the New Piccadilly Café flickered before me, darker and sweatier than I remembered it. I nodded, furious about the tears clamping my throat.
‘I would dearly like you to come with us,’ he said, straightening.
Some hope after all, perhaps.
‘It is a big move. A different country in fact.’
My body refused to offer any reaction. I stood mute, looking as stupid as I felt.
‘Italy. I intend to return to the one town that has left the deepest impression on me since I first set foot there.’
I held the expectant silence.
‘Positano.’
He read my face quicker than I could recover my expression.
‘Yes, it is most likely a ridiculous shock to you, and I would understand entirely if it was the very place you would have no interest in returning to.’
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