by Erica James
They sat in silence for a few moments listening to the swell of birdsong, and while watching a trio of cabbage white butterflies chasing each other before flying off, Lizzie thought of Mrs Coleman being surrounded by her family for her birthday, and of her great-grandchildren running about the place. It made her wonder about Mrs Dallimore’s son. Last night the old lady had shown her a number of old black-and-white photographs, including Nicholas when he was about ten years of age, along with older ones of Mrs Dallimore with William, and Artie, Effie and Ellis. It had been intriguing seeing pictures of these people after hearing so much about them, and Lizzie would have loved to investigate the album further, but Mrs Dallimore had suddenly shown signs of exhaustion and of having had enough company.
Lizzie hardly dared to ask the question, given how many loved ones Mrs Dallimore had lost, but she did so anyway. ‘What about your son, Nicholas?’ she asked. ‘And Thomas and Walter, what happened to them after they left you?’
Mrs Dallimore swallowed and blinked hard. ‘I’m afraid my worst fears came true with Thomas and Walter.’
Chapter Fifty-Seven
November 1948, Skylark Cottage, Shillingbury
Not quite a year after parting with Thomas and Walter, Clarissa received a letter from Eva Neumann, a letter informing her that along with Rudy, both boys had been killed in a bomb explosion in the centre of Jerusalem. Never had Clarissa hated anyone as much as she did when she held that letter in her hands – if Eva and Rudy Neumann had not interfered, Thomas and Walter would still be in England alive and perfectly safe, their whole lives stretching out before them.
The next day she sat down to reply to Eva’s letter and gave vent to her feelings, letting the flow of anger pour out of her. It was vitriolic and unashamedly condemnatory; four pages of grief in which she explicitly blamed the woman for selfishly exposing two young boys to a needless danger which they ultimately paid for with their lives. She wrote of Thomas’s wish of becoming an artist one day, and of Walter’s kind and sensitive nature. ‘I hope you can live with yourself, and that you never know a day when your conscience isn’t pricked by your actions,’ she wrote. She signed the letter, sealed it and put it ready to post the next morning.
But the next morning as she listened to Nicholas humming happily to himself at the breakfast table while he methodically dipped fingers of toast into the egg she had boiled for him, her heart softened and fresh tears of sadness for the two boys he had adored as brothers threatened to spill over. She hadn’t had the heart yet to explain to Nicholas that he would never see Thomas and Walter again; she needed to wait until she was feeling stronger.
True to their word, Thomas and Walter had stayed in touch and occasionally sent Nicholas small presents, the last a wooden camel carved from olive wood. He kept it on his bedside table next to a photograph of him with Thomas and Walter. The juxtaposition of her precious son’s innocence and the shameful cruelty contained within the pages Clarissa had written yesterday wounded her painfully, and going over to the dresser she ripped the letter up and threw it into the bin. She would write again tomorrow, she told herself, and would endeavour to be gracious; Eva Neumann had lost her husband, after all.
Meanwhile, and with Mrs Cook due back this afternoon from Broadstairs in Kent, where she’d been on holiday for a week staying with an old friend who ran a guest house, Clarissa did what she always did when she was upset: she threw herself into a frenzy of activity. Rolling her sleeves up, and with Nicholas’s help, she set about making an iced lemon cake, a dozen strawberry jam tarts, a round of shortbread and then some fish paste sandwiches with thinly sliced cucumber – Mrs Cook’s favourite.
At a quarter to three, with Nicholas bouncing excitedly in the front seat beside her, Clarissa drove the short distance to Shillingbury station. It was a miserable November day, wet and cold with a powerful gusting wind that was ripping the last of the leaves from the trees. The rain was falling in earnest and already the light was fading. She switched on the car’s headlamps and concentrated on the road ahead. The windscreen wipers thumped to and fro and had almost no effect in helping her to see more clearly.
They made it to the station, where Billy Moss the stationmaster waved to them from the open door of the ticket office. A couple of minutes later the branch line train of just three carriages – two third-class and one first-class – came to a halt and Mrs Cook stepped onto the platform. ‘Lawd love us!’ she exclaimed after Clarissa had stowed her luggage in the boot and Nicholas had jumped into the back of the car to make room for Mrs Cook in the front. ‘What shocking weather.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not much of a welcome for you,’ Clarissa said, turning out of the station and joining the road for home. ‘How was your holiday?’
‘Terrible! I couldn’t wait to come back.’
‘Oh dear, what a shame. What was the problem?’
‘Edie’s turned into such a bitter old woman, not got a good word for anyone. I know she’s had some bad luck in her time, but I tell you, she’s a caution to the rest of us that, no matter what life throws at us, we have to keep positive and not let the beggars get us down. In the end I told her she’d better pull herself together or she’ll end up with no friends whatsoever.’ Mrs Cook twisted round in her seat to look at Nicholas. ‘Now then, you little rascal, have you been a good boy while I was away? Did you miss me?’
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he chorused. ‘Have you bought me a present?’
‘Why, you cheeky little monkey!’
‘We’ve made a surprise for you,’ he said, grinning and leaning forward so his body was jammed between the two seats.
‘Have you indeed? And what would that be?’
His eyes wide, he put a finger to his lips. ‘Ssh! I can’t tell you, it’s a surprise.’
Clarissa smiled. Thank heavens for Nicholas, she thought, he was such a joyful ray of sunshine. Even on a day like today.
The real surprise of Mrs Cook’s welcome home party was that there were two guests joining them – Lily and her husband. Lily’s married name was Porter, and she and her husband lived in Bury St Edmunds where Derek worked as a clerk in a solicitor’s office. Having learned typing and shorthand at night school when the war was over, Lily was now employed as a secretary to the editor of the local newspaper, The Bury Messenger. Clarissa had no doubt that her ambitions didn’t stop there.
As for her own ambitions, and frequent nagging from Polly that it was high time Clarissa did something more with her life, other than motherhood, she was now working as a teaching assistant at the village school. Shortly after Nicholas had started attending the school Mrs Russell, the headmistress, had approached Clarissa to ask if she would be willing to spend three afternoons a week listening to the children read. Then when Miss Todd, who taught the infants, left unexpectedly due to ill health, Clarissa was asked if she would step into the breach until a more permanent replacement was found. At Mrs Russell’s encouragement she was seriously contemplating training to be a teacher.
Mrs Cook was delighted to see Lily, and while they caught up on family news, Derek helped Nicholas with the jigsaw puzzle Mrs Cook had bought for him. Then it was time for tea, which they had in the cosy warmth of the kitchen, which was where Clarissa always gravitated. The table was laid with a white linen cloth embroidered with flowers, and the best china, so rarely used, had been dug out from the sideboard in the dining room in Mrs Cook’s honour. With the greatest of care, Nicholas offered Mrs Cook a sandwich. ‘I helped Mummy makes these,’ he said proudly, the plate wobbling precariously in his small hands.
‘In that case I’ll enjoy them even more,’ said Mrs Cook with a wink.
Helping to pass cups of tea round, and after exchanging a look with her husband, Lily said, ‘Clarissa, you’ll read about it in the Messenger tomorrow, so there’s no harm in telling you this now, but we heard yesterday that Henry Willet has been arrested for fraud.’
Clari
ssa put the teapot down. ‘Go on,’ she said steadily.
‘You tell her,’ Lily urged her husband, ‘you know more about it than I do.’
Placing his cup back in its saucer on the table, Derek took up the story. ‘It turns out Willet had been fiddling some poor old woman’s accounts for years,’ he said, ‘siphoning off small amounts here and there so that no one would ever notice, but then he got greedy and when the old girl died, he produced a will in which everything was left to him, lock, stock and barrel.’
‘What made anyone think there was anything wrong?’ asked Clarissa.
‘It was the housekeeper and her husband, the gardener; they smelt a rat when their employer died and left them not a penny piece. They also knew that their employer had written a previous will in which they were both named as beneficiaries. They had worked for the woman for years, and the amount promised them would have set them up nicely in their own little cottage when they retired.’
‘I always knew he was a bad ’un,’ declared Mrs Cook. ‘So did you, Clarissa, that’s why you gave him his marching orders. Thank the lord you did!’
‘What’s more,’ went on Derek, ‘all his previous clients’ financial affairs are being looked into. I would imagine that will include you as well, Clarissa.’
‘So now we all know how he could afford to buy The Grange,’ Clarissa said grimly, remembering how horribly smug Henry had been at the time of the sale. ‘He once told me he’d inherited some money from an aunt – perhaps that was a lie, too.’
‘The man probably didn’t have an honest thought in his head,’ said Mrs Cook. ‘What’s more, you being such a wealthy woman, you were a target like no other for him. Another woman in your situation, recently widowed with a baby on the way, might have welcomed his attention, but thank God you had more sense or he’d have been stealing from you.’
Later that evening, after Lily and Derek had left to go and see Jimmy and Nicholas was tucked up in bed, Clarissa gave Mrs Cook Eva Neumann’s letter to read.
When she’d read it, she removed her spectacles and blew her nose, then dabbed her eyes. ‘Those poor, poor boys,’ she murmured. ‘As if they hadn’t suffered enough in their young lives.’
Clarissa told her about the letter she’d written and which she’d thrown away that morning. ‘I’m ashamed of myself when I think of what I wrote,’ she said, ‘and I know this is selfish, but I can’t help but worry how much more will be taken from me. It seems that anybody I love, I’m destined to lose. I was kissing Nicholas goodnight and I suddenly—’
‘No!’ interrupted Mrs Cook fiercely. ‘You’re not to think that. Not ever. Nicholas is going to grow up to be a fine young man, and he’ll be there by your side when you’re a very old lady.’
‘I hope you’re right. I really do.’
Chapter Fifty-Eight
When Mrs Dallimore fell silent, Lizzie turned to look at her. Very gently, she said, ‘Please tell me Mrs Cook was right.’
‘She was almost right. Nicholas grew up to be the best son any mother could have. I had a tendency to be overly protective of him, but given all those I’d lost, I’d defy any mother to behave differently.’
‘If my mother had been in your shoes, she’d have watched over my brother and me every second of the day,’ said Lizzie.
‘That was my natural inclination, but I had to stand back and let him go free. He excelled at school, took up a place at Cambridge and eventually became the surgeon he’d always wanted to be.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘He was teased at school as a teenager for having such small, neat hands. He never minded, just laughed off the comments saying nobody wanted a clumsy, big-handed surgeon.’
‘Did he marry and have a family?’
Mrs Dallimore nodded. ‘He married in his thirties, but sadly the marriage didn’t work out.’ She waved a hand airily. ‘There was no real fault involved, their lives were just going in different directions and so they did the sensible thing and divorced. Pam remarried some years later, but Nicholas never really felt settled again. His feet had become itchy and he developed a need to spread his wings; London was no longer enough for him. Then, in what one might call a completing of the circle, he took up a post offered to him by a prestigious teaching hospital in Boston and went to live in America.’
‘Did you visit him there?’ asked Lizzie. ‘It must have felt strange going back after all the years you’d been away.’
‘I never went. I wasn’t the least bit curious to return to a place I’d been so keen to leave. I felt I had closed that chapter in my life and didn’t want to reread it. Besides, Nicholas flew home so regularly to see me, he was often in London for medical conferences and so forth, so I never felt the need to make the journey myself. I was also quite busy running my own school.’
Lizzie did a double take. ‘You had your own school?’
The old lady let out a low chuckle. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I became quite the schoolmarm. When Colonel Brook died and his estate was to be sold, I bought the house and land and turned it into a prep school. It was called Shillingbury House School. I set up a trust to provide a wide selection of scholarships for children whose families couldn’t afford the fees – that was very important to me.’ After a lengthy pause, she went on. ‘It was with great reluctance that I sold the school when it was time for me to retire. It was a hard decision for me to make, but I had to accept it had become too much for me. So I left Shillingbury and wanting a change of scene, I went to live in Long Melford. And that’s where I stayed until I came here.’
‘Does the school still exist?’ asked Lizzie, curious. She had never heard of it.
‘Sadly no. Shillingbury House is now an upmarket hotel.’
‘I bet you were a wonderful teacher,’ said Lizzie, ‘really inspirational.’
‘I don’t know about that, but I think my achievements, if that is what I can call them, came down to one very simple thing: the desire to nurture and take under my wing those in need of encouragement and support. I suppose that sounds rather hackneyed and self-righteous to you.’
‘Not at all. It’s a shame more of us can’t say the same thing. Including me!’ Then, realising they’d moved away from the subject of Mrs Dallimore’s son, Lizzie said, ‘And Nicholas, what about him? Does he still live in America?’
The old lady shook her head slowly. ‘My darling Nicholas died of a heart attack shortly before his fiftieth birthday, not long after he’d returned to London to live.’ Her voice, already faint, faded almost to a whisper. ‘He’d had no previous problems, no warning signs. I’ll always be grateful the end was quick for him, that he didn’t suffer a long-drawn-out illness. He would have hated to have lived what he called a half-life; he had to be constantly doing something, physically as well as mentally. His friends said the only time he ever stood still was in the operating theatre.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lizzie said. ‘You’ve lost so many people, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve outlived them all,’ the old lady murmured, looking off into the distance. ‘Every last one of them. But soon – very soon – I’ll be gone too.’
‘Don’t say that.’
Mrs Dallimore returned her gaze to Lizzie. ‘Dear girl, one must never shirk the truth. The clock is ticking, and now I have a sense of being ready to go. I wasn’t before. But now I am.’
Lizzie struggled to speak. ‘I think you’re the most extraordinary person I know. I’m not sure I would have half your resilience if faced with what you’ve gone through.’
‘Nonsense. Look how you’ve coped this summer with everything that’s gone on for you. A lesser person might have gone under, but not you. You didn’t want to come and be a befriender here at Woodside, and yet you did, and what’s more, you’ve made a great success of it.’
Lizzie smiled. ‘Remember how I nearly knocked you out of your wheelchair on my first day?’
Mrs Dallimore smil
ed, too. ‘How could I forget? That gave me something to chortle about, I can tell you.’
Thinking of all the people that had come and gone from Mrs Dallimore’s life and how she’d obviously cared deeply for them, Lizzie said, ‘Have I been somebody you wanted to take under your wing and nurture?’
The old lady stared unblinkingly at her. ‘What do you think?’
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Ingrid picked up on the atmosphere at Keeper’s Nook straight away.
Everybody was being unnaturally upbeat, and Lizzie in particular was behaving very out of character. Since when did her sister-in-law comment on what Ingrid was wearing, or ask where she’d bought her shoes? The real giveaway came when Lizzie ordered Tess to go and sit in the garden with a glass of wine, and then asked Ingrid to help her with making the salads. Lizzie, doing something useful in the kitchen? What was that all about? Meanwhile, a beer apiece, Tom and Luke were dancing attendance on the demands of the gas-fired barbecue, which, much as it rankled with Ingrid, was probably a fair representation of most families this Bank Holiday Monday.
Standing at the kitchen sink washing her hands before handling the food, Ingrid watched Freddie in the paddling pool where he was playing with a plastic tea set, busily pouring out miniature cups of tea. Every now and then he stood up to pass one to Tess, who took it and gave a credible performance of drinking it with huge enjoyment. In one of the very few photographs Ingrid had from her own childhood, she was wearing a hideous frilly pink swimsuit, playing much the same game. Except the adults in the picture – her mother and stepfather – were not playing along; they were ignoring her, deeply engrossed in each other. She might just as well have not been there. Ingrid had no idea who had taken the photograph, but it pretty much captured her childhood. That sense of isolation eventually became the norm, to the point where it was what she thrived on; it strengthened her, gave her the kind of independence she vowed never to give up. She’d always counted herself lucky that Luke understood not to crowd her, or try to change her.