The Edge

The next day when I rose I went straight to the doll's house. It was as I had left it, the dolls had not moved, nor had anything changed. But I had walked down those miniature corridors and seen my son grown up into a young boy. I had held Bess's hand and had built a snow man. I had known a perfect family, the family as it could have been.

I took up Stephen Bruce's letter. Re-reading it I decided I must answer. I puzzled over it for a time before I could write the words to the man who had ended my hopes and yet had re kindled them.

Stephen

I thought of so many ways of beginning this letter. I could not decide on a greeting. I do not know what you are to me any more.

When you left I felt like a Grecian princess standing in the ruins of the city of Troy, smoke in her eyes and the scent of death in her nose, waiting until darkness descended for her lover to return to her. Now I feel as though life is a ruin, and all around me are grave stones. I have lost my lover, my father, my mother, my son. I feel as though I flit between two extremes of happiness and sorrow, yet each is tempered by the other.

Joy is flavoured with the knowledge that soon sorrow will return. Sorrow rules but longs for Joy. I wish that I could find peace. It is all I can wish for now.

The dolls are beautiful. In more ways than you can know, they have allowed me to rediscover some of the Joy that is denied me in real life. This can make no sense to you but I promise, I am grateful.

I know not what else I can say.

Imogen.

After finishing the letter, I sealed it carefully and had it sent down to the post bag. I made up my mine to get dressed and changed into a gown of soft cream wool. The long hours of grief had etched their lines on my face and I looked paler than ever, with dark shadows beneath my eyes. My belly beneath my dress was starting to swell. I had my hand on it absently when Bess appeared to me in the mirror. She looked at me speculatively and then asked me if I felt well.

I suppose I must have looked a little blank because she gestured towards my stomach and said she meant my condition. I thought for a moment then said that I felt very well. I felt little sickness, only some weakness and dizziness in the head. Bess was silent. I could sense her worry. I told her to speak if she had anything to say.

“I know it has been an awful time for you recently. You have had much to think of. I do not blame you for not thinking of this sooner but I really must advise you, as your friend. You are with child, you must think of that child. No matter what the relations are between you and that child's father, no matter how you grieve for your lost son, you must think of the unborn baby and its well being. So far, you have not done so.”

I knew she was right. I had not thought of my child, it was as if that child did not exist for me. I felt that I was the worst possible mother in the world. Bess interrupted my thoughts.

“I know you are reproaching yourself but do not. No one could ever blame you. The loss of three close family members, one your own son. You have needed some time to recover and you have had that time. Now you need to think of what must come next.” I knew she was right but the very thought made me feel tired. I had no strength for thinking of anything more complicated than what I would do in the next hour. I tried to tell Bess this. She listened but shook her head.

“No matter. I think what you must do is speak with your physician. He seems a kindly man, one who will listen. You must explain to him that you are finding if difficult to think of both your and your child's welfare and ask for his assistance.”

I could see the sense in her words. I was not fit to take care of myself, how could I begin to be responsible for this new child? A sudden wave of fear washed over me, what if they kept the baby from me? As they had done from Bess with her children? She had not told me the ages of her children or how old they had been when she was taken away. I had to ask her. Bess's beautiful face grew utterly still. When she spoke, it was in a voice utterly unlike her natural one. It was toneless, quiet and so filled with pain, so coloured with anguish that it had taken all the life out of her.

“When they took me to the asylum I had four children. My oldest son Richard, who became the next Lord Llewellyn, the father of the late Lord Robert. I than followed this with two daughters, Lucia and Eliza. My youngest was a boy named Edward. When I was taken away Edward was only four. My daughters were eight and eleven. My oldest was fifteen. I had been in the asylum for two months when I became sick as a dog. I could keep nothing down, at first the doctors thought it was simply an illness but then the nurses asked me if I had noticed a change in my courses. I realised I had not bled for over three months. I was examined. I was pregnant. I spent the entire six months before my baby's birth in the asylum, with nothing to think of except my baby. I was frightened, I was alone. They did not plunge me or attempt to treat me in any other way while I was there, I was grateful for that at least. When my labour begun I was moved into a room upstairs with a doctor and two nurses. I was tied down during the birth, I could not even sit up. When my baby was born I was not even allowed to hold her. She was taken away. I asked the doctors every time I saw them, I asked the nurses every day, I begged them to tell me what had happened to my daughter. What her name was, what she looked like, where she was. They never answered. One day I was allowed to see the priest for confession. I begged him to try and get me some information, anything. I was desperate. He agreed to do it, he was a good man. It was a full three weeks before I was allowed to see him again. When I did, he could hardly bare to tell me the truth. My daughter had died two months after the birth. She had been taken back to my husband's house but she had not been treated well. She had been a small child at birth, probably because I had not been fed properly in the asylum. Once brought home to Richard, he had her put up on the top floor, and she was left alone in her crib, with simply a blanket over her and was brought milk twice a day by her father. She cried at first, or so my priest told me. He got his information from my oldest son who had tried to sneak up and help his baby sister but was caught by his father and beaten savagely. After that, none of the children or servants dared to do anything. Her cries grew quieter and weaker. One day they stopped. Her body was buried somewhere in the park, her birth and death were not registered. She never had a name. She never existed. She was never spoken of. The priest told me that he had approached my son when he had seen him out riding near the house and that the boy had given all the information freely as soon as he had been told it was meant for me. He had taken the priest to a place in the gardens, one of the ponds where it is hemmed in by trees all round but a sun trap in summer. He had followed his father and had bug his sister's body up. He had taken her to the pond and had buried her at the foot of one of the trees. He sent me a message via the priest. He asked me to send him word of what name I would have her christened, he intended to mark the grave somehow and wanted to name his sister. He also told me that he had now started to only answer to his second name, Henry. He would never again be called by his father's name.”

I was utterly dumb. I could not have spoken if the Lord himself had come out of the ground. The horror of what Bess and her children had endured had gone past all that I could have thought of. In the glass, she was silent. I could see that her eyes were far away in the past, hearing again those words from the old priest. I managed to whisper after a while.

“What name did you call her?” Bess's face was set in lines of sadness so deep that she took her time to answer, so deep in her memory's was she.

“I called her after the trees around her. I called her Willow.” I wished I could reach out to her, through the glass, take her hand and hold her, comfort her. I could do none of those things. Bess looked up and her eyes, though without tears, looked bright still and now the sadness that she had buried deep was echoed in those eyes.

“I always wished that I could have had my Willow buried with me but after so many years it was hardly possible and I did not wish to disturb her rest. I used to ask to be carried to the ponds as often as I could once I was home. Do you know the spot? Yes? If you look closely at the root of one tree, you will see that it arches up and if you look underneath you will see a small carved slab. My children did that. They pooled together their pocket money and had the local stone mason do it for them. They laid it themselves and they had their own funeral for her. They snuck out at night and had a candle lit vigil for my baby. It was a comfort in that terrible time to know that she had been properly mourned and buried. I so wish I could see that place again. It was ever my favourite spot. Nothing but trees and water and silence. Peace and the water gardens.”

I had a brain wave! I timidly asked her to trust me with something. She must think back, what had she done the night we went into the dolls house? She blinked and said she had simply allowed herself to rest, to drift since I was out of the room. I told her to do the same thing. I had an idea, I wanted to see if it would work. Would she trust me?

After she had nodded and disappeared, I got my shawl, I picked up the bottle of drops I usually took at night time and went into the craft room. I opened the dolls house and removed all of the dolls except for Bess's and mine. I sat down on the bench beside the beautiful monument to Bess and took out the bottle of drops. I usually took just a few in water. This time I took a swallow. In a few minutes my head became giddy. I laid it down on my arms and felt the waves of sleep crash over me, drag me under them.......

I awoke in the doll's house. It had worked! As I sat up, I saw Bess on the sofa opposite, also awaking. We were in the little sitting room next to her bedroom. She saw me and ran to me, pulled me to my feet. Had this been my plan? It seemed to have worked but what was the reason? I took her hand and led her downstairs. The house was empty, as I had intended. It seemed I had been right, that the dolls represented the people in the house at any one time. We passed through the front doors and round to the garden. She began to realise my intent. She began to run, picking up her skirts as she did so and I followed her slowly. She deserved to have this moment alone with her child.

I wandered about the rose garden, frost covered and still then along the lavender walk, and up towards the trees. The pool was frozen and still, the trees silver and white. Bess, in her red dress and white cloak looked like a snow princess. She was kneeling at the spot where her baby had been buried. I knelt beside her in the power fine snow and looked for myself, an arm about her.

The thick roots arched over a hollowed out spot which would be looked over if you did not know its significance. The snow had been cleared about the small slab, a rectangle no bigger than a foot square. On it was carved the words that were the only evidence of the baby's short life.

'In memory of Willow Winter Llewellyn, taken for an angel far too soon. Born October 12^th 1772, died December 2^nd 1772. Her life was short but her memory can never die.'

I held Bess close as she sobbed over the tiny grave. I let some of my own tears slip down, in company to hers. What right had I to behave as though my life were over when I still had a chance to be a mother? I had a child alive inside me at that moment, a chance to hold and care for that child, a chance that Bess had been denied. I swore to myself that from that moment, my melancholia would not stop me from doing what was right for myself and my child. Not my husband, his sister or anyone.

Bess dried her eyes. We stood and walked around the pond, our footsteps printed clearly in the snow. At first she was silent but then she asked me something.

“I wish to ask you if you will do something for me. My body is buried in Cornwall. If ever you have the chance, please remove my daughter's bones and take them to be interred with mine. I never knew her in life, in death perhaps we can be reunited.” I nodded, of course I would. I told her I would no longer malinger as I had been, I would consult the doctor and ask for his help. I would brave as she had been. I was shocked by Bess's reply. She looked a mixture of sadness and sympathy, regret and stoicism.

“It is not bravery. You think me strong but I have had no choice. To give in to misfortune would make me weak in my eyes, it would mean I had failed. It is not strength to stand against the storm of pain because there are only two choices. I could suffer and live or give in and die.”