gently.
‘In the way you mean, when we were twelve. Loveday had just been born, and she was the centre of attention, so you could say we made our own amusement.’
‘And in the way I don’t mean?’
She smiled, genuinely this time. ‘Years before, I suppose. Harry and I were always together – we had no choice. Everyone thought we made a perfect family, but we’d been two separate couples – mum and dad, Harry and me – for as long as I can remember. Our parents never treated us as individuals – it was always “the twins this” or “the twins that”. We were told to play together, put to bed together, punished and rewarded together. They rationalised it by saying they were determined never to have a favourite, but that’s not how it felt to us – it felt like we had no identity except as a pair. There was nothing intentional about it, no hostility – I don’t think they even realised they were doing it, and they’d probably have been horrified if they knew how isolated we felt emotionally. But they were always more interested in each other than in us, and there’s a limit to how long you can push and shove for attention.’
Her words reminded Archie of Josephine’s concerns for Loveday, and he wondered if Morwenna knew she was behaving in the very same way towards her little sister. ‘But they did pay more attention to Loveday,’ he said.
‘Yes. They’d been trying for another child for years, and my mother had had several miscarriages by that time. When Loveday came along, all the focus was on her and it was as if they suddenly realised how to be parents. They talked to her all the time, and played with her so naturally and spontaneously. We’d have had to be saints not to resent all that individual care – and we certainly weren’t saints, either of us. We got so tired of hearing that Loveday was special, and we just retreated into each other even further. It was a dangerous age to do that, of course – we were curious about sex, and our parents weren’t about to take us to one side and explain everything, so we decided to find out for ourselves.’ She drank her tea, hardly seeming to notice that it was long cold. ‘Harry was my reference point for everything,’ she continued. ‘I don’t mean that he forced me to do anything – it was entirely mutual; I just mean that I depended on him, and he on me. One minute we were brother and sister, fighting and playing together, and the next, we’d crossed a line. It all seemed to start so naturally – we had this game where we’d throw stones into the lake or skim them across the sea, and compete for kisses. One thing just led to another.’ She looked down, embarrassed, and Archie waited for her to go on. ‘I think it was the safety of it all that we loved as much as anything,’ she said, and he sensed that she was desperate for him to understand. ‘It meant that we didn’t have to break out of our cocoon and establish our own identities with anybody else. We’d never had to do that, and I think it terrified both of us. There was an emotional security in what we had, and a safety valve against our feelings for everyone else – by loving each other, we avoided being angry with our parents and jealous of Loveday.’
With no brothers or sisters of his own, Archie had only ever experienced a sibling relationship second-hand, but it did not take much imagination to see that a brother and sister – who already knew each other so intimately – would share an intense private world if they ignored all the taboos.
‘I shouldn’t describe it in such negative terms,’ Morwenna said. ‘It was something precious and uniquely ours, and we both took a great deal of pleasure from it. It seemed so innocent, really. I remember thinking that it was just a childish thing, and one day I was sure to grow up and tire of it. I kept expecting the sheer joy of him to wear off, but it never did.’
‘Weren’t you afraid that someone would find out?’
‘Yes and no. We had no other supervision, really, and I suppose there was an element of rebellion in it. If they were going to treat us as one, then we might as well be one – physically and emotionally. We soon discovered that there’s a remarkable power in being able to deceive everyone.’
‘Even yourselves? You must have known how people would have viewed it if you were discovered.’
‘Yes, but we were each other’s moral guide – and the one great thing about it was the honesty. It’s so rare that you can show your truest self to someone, whether you love it or hate it. How many people have you allowed that close?’ He considered, and was ashamed to admit that there was no one. ‘It was our integrity to ourselves and to each other that mattered,’ she said, ‘not rules that someone else had laid down. Sometimes I think Harry felt guilty because of all the old sexual prejudices – he was the boy, and perhaps he’d taken advantage of me in some way and violated my trust, but it was never like that. I worshipped him. I would have done anything for him, and he for me.’
‘Hence the fire? Is that why he did it? Did your parents find out?’
‘Yes. It was a stupid way to get caught, really, but we thought we were invincible by then.’
‘That’s love for you.’
‘I suppose so. Dad always had to be out of the house early to see to the horses, and he’d take Harry with him to exercise them. Whenever he could, Harry would come back to the cottage after my mother had left for the Union. One day she came back early because she wasn’t well, and she caught us in my bed. It was as simple as that. I don’t know who was more shocked when she opened the door, her or us. She just stood there with her mouth open for what seemed like an age, and eventually Harry laughed. That did it, of course – it was a nervous reaction more than anything, but I’ll never forget the look of disgust on her face, or the things she called us. ‘
‘What did they do about it?’
‘Well, all hell broke loose – behind closed doors, of course. My father ignored me entirely as if he just wanted to gloss over my part in it all, but he beat Harry within an inch of his life. I suppose that was the only response he understood. I was so angry. I’ve never known a rage like the one I felt when I saw what he’d done to Harry – to his son, for God’s sake. After that, the shame set in and it was never mentioned again.’ She ran her fingers round the rim of her cup, apparently absorbed in her own thoughts. ‘How ridiculous that all seems now – we were never given a chance to talk about it or explain how we felt, and neither of them seemed to understand that there might have been a reason for it. Or perhaps they did, and just didn’t want to acknowledge that they’d had anything to do with it. Either way, they just closed down and tried to behave as if nothing had happened.’
‘What about you and Harry?
‘Of course we didn’t. It just made us more secretive, and more contemptuous of them. We laughed at how impotent they seemed – when of course it was Harry and me who couldn’t control what we were doing. They knew we were carrying on as before, and it didn’t take them long to realise that nothing would stop us except physical separation. I was sent to the Union until they could arrange something more permanent, and that’s why he started the fire – they were going to send him away. My father had a sister who’d married up country, and they asked her if he could go and live there.’ She paused and looked around the kitchen, as if trying to imagine what that night had been like. ‘Harry told me he started the fire here, with the letter our aunt wrote to say yes.’
‘But why wipe out everyone, himself and Loveday included?’ Archie was trying to keep his voice as dispassionate as possible, but it was hard to disguise his anger at the recollection of how William had risked his own life to save Harry and Loveday, and how guilty his uncle had felt for failing to rescue the whole family. ‘Everyone except you, that is.’
‘Yes, that must have looked suspicious. I suppose it crossed your policeman’s mind that I might have started it for some reason?’
‘Yes, or that you knew he was going to do it.’
‘No, I had no idea, and it wasn’t a calculated thing on his part – please believe that. He was in absolute despair – it was a kind of madness, I suppose. I’m not trying to excuse what he did, but he was eighteen and utterly lost. Our relationship was the core of who we were, and the only reality we knew. Without it, there was nothing, and you’re absolutely right to say he wanted to wipe everything out; he didn’t care because the rest of the world simply didn’t exist for him any more. What we had wasn’t just one relationship that existed alongside others – it was
Archie said nothing, but he thought about what it must have been like in that household before the fire. Love amongst members of a family often turned to hate but rarely to indifference, and he could only begin to imagine the trauma involved when the temptation to possess each other sexually became too much.
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Morwenna said, misreading his silence. ‘I’m not sure we did.’
‘It sounds to me like you have a fairly good understanding.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.’
‘Did anyone outside the family know?’
