Daniel looks down at the tiny baby in its cot, wrapped in woollen shawls, its mouth working rhythmically on its own thumb as it suckles in its sleep. Its thin dark hair is plastered against its pink skull. The sweet warm smell of infancy rises up, reminding him of Esther and Bertie when they were tiny.
Gaskell is holding Daniel’s left hand in her right, and Christabel is holding his right hand in her left.
‘So this is Felix,’ he says.
‘Do you like it? The name, I mean. Is it all right with you?’ asks Christabel.
‘It’s a perfect name,’ says Daniel, and suddenly his face crumples.
Gaskell puts her arm around his shoulder and squeezes him.
Daniel says falteringly, ‘I had no idea that this would be so hard to take.’ He pauses, and then asks, ‘I really can never tell anyone he’s mine?’
‘Think of Rosie, and Bertie and Esther,’ says Christabel. ‘And I absolutely couldn’t face Rosie.’
‘What we’ve done is really very shocking,’ reflects Gaskell, ‘but strangely enough we don’t care at all.’
‘We wouldn’t feel guilty unless we were found out. We’re such scallywags,’ says Christabel brightly. ‘C’est la vie.’
‘I don’t know how I will be able to be apart from him,’ says Daniel. ‘It’s bad enough not being with the other two. What are you going to tell him when he’s older? Have you thought of a story?’
‘We have years to think of a story,’ says Gaskell drily.
Christabel leans down and gently lifts the baby out. She arranges the shawls tenderly, and then holds him out to Daniel, who takes him to the window. Felix blinks in the light, and Daniel sniffs the top of his head. ‘Nothing smells so sweet and delicious as a baby’s head,’ he says.
‘I know. Isn’t it gorgeous?’ says Gaskell. ‘It compares very well to behind a cat’s ears. Or a golden retriever’s.’
Daniel says, ‘I think I have unintentionally set myself up for a lifetime of sadness and regret.’
Christabel says, ‘But you’ve made Gaskell and me delirious with happiness.’
‘Yes,’ says Gaskell. ‘We really couldn’t be more overjoyed. We’ll never be able to thank you enough. And we so much want you to come here as often as you can. To be with Felix as much as you can.’
‘And we don’t want to stop at one,’ says Christabel.
Later, in the studio that was once a ballroom, with Felix becoming heavier in his arms, Daniel looks at their latest work. Christabel has taken photographs of Gaskell’s parents, lying newly dead on their beds, having met their grandchild and then miraculously contrived to die within two days of each other. ‘I hope you don’t think it’s too morbid,’ says Christabel. ‘It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.’
‘There’s no tragedy in a peaceful death in old age,’ says Daniel. ‘You’ll be able to remember them at peace. In repose.’
‘They got madder and madder,’ says Gaskell. ‘They so much enjoyed the ends of their lives.’
‘A consummation devoutly to be wished,’ says Daniel.
He goes to look at the paintings and is disconcerted to see half a dozen portraits of a reclining naked woman, executed in bold, thick brushstrokes, depicting the progressive stages of pregnancy. He instantly recognises Christabel’s body, because it is a body he has grown to love, but the head is Gaskell’s. Her extraordinary green eyes gaze out of the canvas with an expression of disdainful confidence and defiance. There is a plain black ribbon about her neck, as there is on Goya’s Naked Maja.
Daniel takes her arm and says, ‘That’s my girl.’
At that moment he suddenly understands with complete clarity that it will only be in the spirit of renunciation that he will be able to be a father to this child.
Later that evening, he and Christabel are in the conservatory alone, because Gaskell wants to paint by candleglow in order to see what the colours will look like the next morning. She has recently realised that her left eye sees colours differently from her right, and so she is trying experiments in painting first with one eye and then the other, in all the different kinds of light. Daniel and Christabel are looking out on a quiet night with a full moon rising above the elms. She has her arm threaded through his; he can smell her hair, and the French scent that she likes to dab on the insides of her wrists. Christabel and Gaskell have made a practical little nest in almost every room, where the baby can be set down. In the conservatory, a drawer has been pulled out of the old chest that is otherwise full of string, trowels and small brown-paper packets containing seeds. Felix is asleep again, suckling his thumb.
‘I have to ask you something,’ he says.
‘What about?’
‘Fidelity.’
‘Oh.’
‘What are we to do?’
‘I can’t ask you to be faithful,’ says Christabel. ‘I can’t be faithful to you, can I? Well, I can be faithful in the sense that you’re the only man I’ll ever have. Or want, probably. And I don’t want any father for my children except you. But it can’t be enough for you, can it? Is there someone else?’
Daniel hesitates, and says, ‘The Honourable Mary.’
‘Oh Lord,’ says Christabel. ‘Oh well, I suppose it shows that you have good taste.’
‘Nothing’s happened yet, but it’s very obviously coming on.’
‘She’d have to leave Mother and The Grampians.’
‘Your mother’s become completely impossible,’ says Daniel. ‘Mary says she has to go anyway, for the sake of her own equanimity. She hates the way that Rosie tries to keep the children from me, and says that she just has to keep biting her tongue. I’m sure she could find plenty to do, wherever she is.’
‘But you can’t marry her. Won’t she want children? And she won’t want to live in sin, will she? She’s not a cynical reprobate, like me.’
‘No, she won’t. She’s quite conventional. She isn’t innocent though. She had a fiancé who was killed at Beersheba. They thought they might never see each other again.’
‘Don’t you mind?’
‘Only in theory. When I see the loss…the sadness in her eyes, I can’t mind. And I couldn’t be less innocent myself, could I? In the end one can’t be a hypocrite. What about us?’
Christabel is suddenly alarmed. ‘You can’t tell her about me.’
‘I mean, what about our next child? You say you want more children. So do I.’
‘You’ll just have to be unfaithful,’ says Christabel with determination. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll still know that you love me, and Gaskell and I will still love you. And, look on the bright side, by that time Lady Mary may have given up on you and upped sticks.’ Christabel falls silent, then adds, ‘But it really would make my heart ache, the thought of you with someone else. It would be hard to bear.’
‘Christabel,’ says Daniel, ‘when I was younger I had absolutely no idea that it’s utterly impossible to live without so much subterfuge, so many compromises, and secrets and lies.’
‘You can perfectly well live a dull life without them,’ she says, ‘but who wants a dull life? When I’m on my deathbed, I don’t want to be lying there thinking about all the things I never did.’