The Guest Who Stayed

by Roger Penfound

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 18 – Spring 1928

  Alice died on May 27th, 1928. It was a warm spring day and the garden was ablaze with new blooms and ripening blossom. The cherry trees cast a pink mantle over the house that had symbolised Alice and Jed’s shared hope when they married.

  Jack held Alice in his arms in her last moments. The medication had induced a state of semi consciousness in which it was impossible to know whether Alice understood what was being said. Jack’s final words were whispered and barely audible.

  “I’ll never let you go. You’re inside my heart and my soul. I love you.”

  Her eyes were closed. There was a fleeting smile, then a deep breath. Then she had gone.

  Jed was downstairs attempting to amuse Evie. He had opened the dolls’ house and was trying to get her to arrange the furniture but she was more intent on sitting inside the box that the house was kept in. A desperate shout from upstairs brought Jed to his feet. Evie rushed to Jed and he swept her up into his arms. She clung to his neck, sensing that something was wrong. There was another shout followed by a long anguished sob. Slowly, Jed went upstairs, clutching Evie tightly. As they entered Alice’s room, Jack was on his knees by the side of the bed with tears streaming down his face. Jed placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder and then held Evie up to look one last time at Alice. To Evie, she looked beautiful – at peace, with her auburn hair spread across the white linen pillow – like Sleeping Beauty. It was an image that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

  In the weeks leading up to Alice’s death, both men had spent time alone with her. Each knew that the other had his own private thoughts and memories to share. For Jack, there was the anguish of losing a lover, someone with whom he had shared passion and created new life. Knowing too that his own life would soon be at an end, he and Alice spent many hours discussing death. For Alice, the notion of being switched off like a light bulb, with all the finality that implied, was irrational. Watching the changing seasons through her bedroom window and seeing the continuous cycle of birth and death, made her want a better explanation. Though neither Jack nor she were particularly religious, they found it hard to discount the idea that there was some further dimension in which the essence of themselves – their souls – might continue. Although Jack normally took a cynical view of such things he had found himself questioning his own disbelief. On a number of occasions recently he thought he had felt the presence of Yvette. It wasn’t that he could see her, just a sense of her being present and still being a part of him. It was enough to open his mind to the possibility of a continued existence – a feeling which he found strangely exhilarating.

  Jed spent long hours with Alice, many of them in silent reflection. Understanding his hurt, Alice talked to Jed about his strength and courage and how these would support him in the future. She begged him to look after Evie and told him that she was as much his child as she was Jack’s. And she told Jed that he must find another wife, a better wife than she had been.

  The funeral was held at St. Martin’s Church a week after Alice’s death. Jack and Jed stood together at the graveside, both visibly moved. If bystanders wondered about the relationship that these two men had shared with the same woman, nothing was said. What happened behind closed doors was not their business.

  In the weeks after Alice’s death, Jed and Jack tried to cope and create an atmosphere of normality for Evie’s sake. Jed was out for much of the day working, leaving Jack to cope with the domestic chores. When Jed returned exhausted in the evening, he would take over the role of caring for Evie and cope with her increasingly aggressive tantrums. When Evie was finally in bed, both men would slump into chairs in the sitting room and the conversation would soon turn to Alice. They had a need to keep her alive in their minds and in the process to understand the relationship which had bound them together.

  “What I’ll never know, Jack, is what would have happened if you’d never come into our lives. Would it have worked for Alice and me? You robbed me of that chance to find out. Alice always said it would take time and I was prepared for that. She said that love grows. In time, things would have been alright between Alice and me. You just need to let things take their time.”

  “Alice wasn’t that sort of person, Jed. Alice was impetuous, she wanted to seize the moment, she wanted to live dangerously. I don’t think she had the patience to wait. I’m not saying what I did was right but I provided something that Alice needed. I opened her eyes.”

  “And you took her to bed. You had sex with my wife.”

  “And I’m sorry but we didn’t think about the consequences. Our bodies took over. Sometimes it happens like that. Call it what you like, passion, lust, greed. These are powerful emotions and sometimes you can’t control them.”

  “Well, that’s where you and I disagree. I think if a man can’t control his emotions he’s no right to call himself civilised. You think it’s right just to take what you want regardless of what it does to others?”

  Jack paused and studied the flat horizon just visible through the sitting room windows. The sun was setting and casting heavy shadows across the garden.

  “I’m dying, Jed, that’s why I did it.”

  “What do you mean, you’re dying?”

  “When I came here, they’d given me three years. It focuses your mind, Jed. You don’t have time to wait. It’s a powerful emotion knowing you’re going to die. Just like falling in love’s a powerful emotion. You don’t have a choice. That’s what it was like with Alice. I didn’t have a choice.”

  It was Jed’s turn to sit in silence and digest this latest information. In some ways it was a comfort to him to learn that Jack ‘had no choice’. It somehow made the betrayal less painful. His mind turned to Jack’s other news.

  “When you goin’ to die then, Jack?”

  “They gave me three years, five at the most. It’s eight years now, Jed.”

  “Well, it ain’t the right time for you to go dying now, Jack. We’ve got Evie to bring up and the business is takin’ off. I need you around, Jack. It pains me to say it but, with Alice gone, you and me have got to make a go of it together. I don’t want you dying just yet.”

  It soon became clear to Jack and Jed that they couldn’t manage to care for Evie by themselves and they needed help. With painful memories of Miss Cavendish still alive in their minds, they decided this time to seek the help of a local girl. Amy was nineteen. She came from a family of eleven. Surviving in a family that size with a meagre income from a land labouring father, she had learnt skills and wiles that she put to good effect in her management of Evie.

  With Amy established in the house, routine began to return. Jed was able to concentrate more on his work and resume cordial business relations with Jack whilst making it clear that on a personal level they remained at arm’s length. Jack, who was increasingly housebound due to his attacks of bronchitis, tried to entertain Evie when he could, though often it was the younger company of Amy that she sought out to take part in her wildly imaginative and energetic games. Jed took over the evening role and slowly developed a working truce with Evie. First, Uncle Jack was allowed to read her a story that she had chosen, after which Jed would read a story of his choice until Evie fell into a stupor, induced by Jed’s sonorous story telling voice.

  The chief engineer arranged to meet Jed on the site of the new building project in the middle of June.

  “We’ve had a number of quotes now, Mr. Carter,” he announced as they surveyed the wasteland that had previously been home to a thriving community. “We’ve whittled it down to three and you’re one of those three.”

  “That’s great news,” enthused Jed. “It would be an honour for us to be awarded this contract. And we really appreciate your support.”

  Jed hoped he didn’t sound too ingratiating but had learnt now that a degree of obsequiousness made for good business practice.

  “This would be a great challenge for us and we’d not let you down.”

  “
Yes, yes, I know that,” mumbled the chief engineer, shuffling his feet in the dried earth and seeming unimpressed. “But if you’re going to compete with the big boys, you’ve got to play by their rules.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I’ll be blunt with you, Carter, and I’ll deny I ever said this. Payback.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I make sure you get awarded the contract and you pay me one percent of the contract value. You build the additional cost into the bid.”

  There was a pause whilst Jed tried to take in what he had just heard.

  “You mean I pay you for awarding the contract to Carters?”

  “If you want the contract – yes. If you won’t do it, one of the other companies on my list will. I suggest you discuss it with that finance man of yours – what’s his name, Millet, or something? Strikes me as a man of the world.”

  The scullery was dingy, lit by a single electric bulb. The only daylight entered though a small window set high in the outside wall. Flora adjusted the white cap that she was required to wear and fixed it to her short dark hair with a clip.

  “Mummy,” called Emma softly, “can you play with me now?”

  Flora knelt down beside Emma who was sitting on a blanket on the stone floor.

  “Not just yet, my little girl. I have some more jobs to do. Wait a while longer and then I’ll tell you a story.”

  Flora returned to the scullery sink and resumed scrubbing the pans that had been employed in preparing the Blunts’ evening meal. On the table to the side of the sink lay the leftovers, mostly untouched and untried. The Blunts would insist on being served a three course meal for which they would dress in full evening costume and would then leave most of what Flora had prepared for them. One of the servant’s bells rang in the scullery. Flora knew it was summoning her to the drawing room. The routine was the same every evening.

  “Wait there awhile, Emma, my love. Mother won’t be long.”

  Flora climbed the narrow spiral stairs which led into the entrance hall and from there she made her way into the drawing room, straightening her white apron as she did so. The drawing room was cold and inhospitable. Bare wooden boards were covered only by a meagre rug placed by the lifeless fireplace. The only decoration in the room was a single large painting of Mr. Blunt’s father, an arch deacon, posing with a melancholy stare in a gloomy ecclesiastic setting.

  “Flora, stand by the rug will you!” commanded Mrs. Blunt. She was a thin lady with a pinched face in her early seventies. She wore wire rimmed spectacles and supported herself with a cane stick.

  “You will have noticed that we didn’t eat much of the food you served us tonight. To be honest with you, it was disgusting. The soup had too much salt and was inedible.”

  “And the lamb,” continued Mr. Blunt, “was like eating leather.” He should know. He had made his money in the shoe trade but as the only son was despised by his family for not following in his father’s footsteps. “And the dessert,” he continued, “was indescribable. What was it?”

  “It was rhubarb pie, Mr. Blunt, sir.”

  “Full of lumps and sharp as lemon peel,” added Mrs. Blunt.

  “You see, Flora,” continued Mr. Blunt, “we’ll have to consider sending you back to the asylum if this continues. You know this is an act of charity, providing you and your ‘bastard’ daughter with a home.” His face quivered as he said the word.

  Flora knew the rest of the sermon by heart. It was delivered to her at least twice a week. She was a sinner, a fornicator and was cast out by the Lord. It was only through the likes of Mr. and Mrs. Blunt that she would find salvation. Her ingratitude and indiscipline would lead to her being sent back to the asylum and she would be separated from her daughter and never see her again.

  “Do you understand what I am saying, Flora?” continued Mr. Blunt.

  “Yes, I do, sir, and I’m truly sorry. I will try to do better.”

  She wanted to run. She wanted to scream at them and tell them that they were sick and perverted. But where would she go. Her parents had disowned her. She would end up in the poor house and Emma would have to be fostered. She couldn’t bear that.

  “Leave us now, Flora, and think hard about what we’ve told you. There won’t be a second chance.”

  Later that night, Flora lay awake in her cot bed. Emma was asleep in a box beside her. A movement outside the door caused Flora to freeze and nausea to grip her body. A dim light moved slowly towards her open door. Flora knew what to expect and she had no means to avoid it. Clutching a candle and dressed in a night shirt, he made his way to the bed and lay down beside her. Then without any words he placed his hands under the blanket and ran his bony fingers across her body, breathing heavily and stinking of whisky as he abused her. After he had gone, Flora sobbed silently late into the night.

  “What do I do then, Jack?” asked Jed as they finished supper. It’s bribery and it’s corrupt. Do I report him?”

  “There’s no point in that, Jed,” replied Jack. “They’re all corrupt up there. If they’re not taking bribes they’re stealing pencils. They wouldn’t understand what you were going on about.”

  “So, do I just do as the rest? Does that make it right? Because that’s the way it’s done I have to follow suit?”

  “If you want the contract, Jed, you’ve probably got no choice. It’s a big one and you’re going to give employment to a lot of people in the town. If it goes to somebody else they’ll employ their own people. It’s all very well having principles, Jed, but sometimes principles cost jobs.”

  “I’ve always tried to be straight with people. That’s the way I’ve done business. It’s what I learnt from Dan – be honest with people and they’ll be loyal to you. Once I start going against my principles I’m left with no standards. All of a sudden anything goes – if the price is right.”

  “Well, I can’t make up your mind for you, Jed, but sometimes you’ve got to balance principles with reality. It doesn’t mean you’re any the worse for it, just that life is full of compromise. If you don’t compromise some things, you’ll die virtuous but poor.”

  After Jack had retired to bed, Jed got out the ageing map book that he had taken from Dan’s premises. It had last been revised in 1910. He pulled out the now crumpled piece of paper which he had been carrying round with him for the last fortnight and examined the address ‘The Larches, All Saints Avenue, Norwich’. The book was open at the Norwich street map. Jed thought ‘All Saints’ might be near a church but then Norwich was full of churches so that didn’t help. He spotted the cathedral, close to the city centre and traced his finger along the route of Bishopsgate which led out to the west of the city. Round an area of parkland, he noticed a cluster of roads – Priory Lane, Chapel Street – and there it was, All Saints Avenue. Jed realised that his heart was beating fast. He stared at the page for what seemed like a long while, unable to tear himself away. Somewhere in that road he would find Flora. What would he say to her? What would she think of him? She might despise him for not having rescued her sooner. Perhaps she was happy, living with a prosperous family and bringing up her daughter in posh surroundings. And how did he feel about her? Once, he had thought he wanted to marry her. That was before Alice had laid claim to him. He had always thought her pretty in a natural sort of way. She didn’t spend time on her looks but had a simple, easy charm. He stayed deep in thought into the early hours of the morning.

  As the business had grown, Jed was less able to borrow the truck for personal use when he needed it. So he had purchased his own car, a small Austin 7 of which he was immensely proud. Dwarfed in size by Jack’s Austin Tourer, it had none of the status or kudos of that vehicle, but it fitted completely with Jed’s self image and aspiration.

  Racing along the A140 on his way to Norwich, Jed felt elation mixed with misgiving. At sixty five miles an hour the red and black Austin 7 bounced drunkenly on the pot holed road. Clinging to the steering wheel, Jed realised he had no plan. Would he walk u
p to the front door, knock and ask to see Flora or should he resort to more covert tactics?

  Having found the cathedral, Jed took a number of wrong turnings until he found himself driving along Bishopsgate, a road of mixed dwellings. Small terraced cottages were interspersed with shops and rundown work premises. Once he had crossed the river, the houses appeared larger and were set in their own grounds. Side roads intersected with the main road and at the third intersection, Jed saw the name ‘All Saints Avenue’. He turned the Austin onto the unmade gravel surface. The houses were set back from the street and were partly obscured by large oak and sycamore trees.

  Jed noted the names of the houses as he passed – Park House, The Cedars, The Mount and Faversham Lodge. Just as he appeared to be coming to the end, he spotted the name he was looking for – The Larches. He stopped the car on the opposite side of the road and tried to catch a glimpse of the house.

  The front consisted of two bay windows either side of a large wooden door with a stained glass window. It was detached and built of weathered brick – probably dating from the 1850s. It had two main floors but also appeared to have a basement scullery and attic rooms. There was no sign of movement and no sign of habitation except for a wisp of white smoke that escaped from one of the tall chimneys. Jed sat in the car for over half an hour, churning over in his mind what he should do. He wished he had the daring and courage of Jack or the guile of Alice.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of another car coming down the road. A large grey sedan, possibly a Bentley, drove slowly into sight. Jed could see that a uniformed driver was at the wheel. The car drove right up to where he was parked and then turned into The Larches. Jed watched as it crawled around the circular drive and stopped outside the front porch. A chauffer got out of the car and knocked on the door. He removed his cap as it was opened by an elderly couple. The woman leant on a stick and was helped by the man into the car. Fleetingly, Jed thought he saw another person behind the door, a thin woman in a white apron and cap but the door was quickly closed and she disappeared from sight.