Life after life

11 February 1910

BRIDGET REMOVED THE breakfast tray and Sylvie said, ‘Oh, leave the little snowdrop. Here, put it on my bedside table.’ She kept the baby with her too. The fire was blazing now and the bright snow-light from the window seemed both cheerful and oddly portentous at the same time. The snow was drifting against the walls of the house, pressing in on them, burying them. They were cocooned. She imagined Hugh tunnelling heroically through the snow to reach home. He had been away three days now, looking for his sister, Isobel. Yesterday (how long ago that seemed now) a telegram had arrived from Paris, saying, THE QUARRY HAS GONE TO GROUND STOP AM IN PURSUIT STOP, although Hugh was not really a hunting man. She must send her own telegram. What should she say? Something cryptic. Hugh liked puzzles. WE WERE FOUR STOP YOU ARE GONE BUT WE ARE STILL FOUR STOP (Bridget and Mrs Glover did not count in Sylvie’s tally). Or something more prosaic. BABY HAS ARRIVED STOP ALL WELL STOP. Were they? All well? The baby had nearly died. She had been deprived of air. What if she wasn’t quite right? They had triumphed over death this night. Sylvie wondered when death would seek his revenge.

Sylvie finally fell asleep and dreamed that she had moved to a new house and was looking for her children, roaming the unfamiliar rooms, shouting their names, but she knew they had disappeared for ever and would never be found. She woke with a start and was relieved to see that at least the baby was still by her side in the great white snowfield of the bed. The baby. Ursula. Sylvie had had the name ready, Edward if it had turned out to be a boy. The naming of children was her preserve, Hugh seemed indifferent to what they were called although Sylvie supposed he had his limits. Scheherazade perhaps. Or Guinevere.

Ursula opened her milky eyes and seemed to fix her gaze on the weary snowdrop. Rock-a-bye baby, Sylvie crooned. How calm the house was. How deceptive that could be. One could lose everything in the blink of an eye, the slip of a foot. ‘One must avoid dark thoughts at all costs,’ she said to Ursula.