Aunt Letitia

by Dominic Luke

  The house was called The Firs. Hugh knew this because he had seen the name etched in wood on the gatepost. There were a great many tall green trees surrounding it, overshadowing the narrow lawn, rainwater dripping from their sad, drooping branches. An invisible wood-pigeon gave out an occasional coo coo coo. The rising wind stirred in the upper boughs.

  Hugh hated the rain. He hated that everywhere was so overwhelmingly green. He was thinking with longing of the heat and dust and dazzling sunlight of India. That was home to Hugh, even though Mummy and Daddy always referred to England as Home. Why anyone should prefer this beastly country to exotic, colourful India was a mystery. Here everyone had pale skins, not like in India where most of the people had beautiful brown skins, and wonderful deep eyes, and the cooking was rich with different tastes and aromas. Hugh stood by the french windows, wanting not to be in England, wanting his ayah.

  The old woman who said her name was Aunt Letitia had something to tell him. She had a piece of paper in her hand, and tears in her eyes. The tears concerned him. He had never seen a grown-up cry. He took refuge behind a chair next to the fireplace. There was a lace cloth draped over the back of it. He twisted it in his fist as the old woman began to speak.

  Hugh listened without comment but was much put out. The only reason for coming to this horrid country had been to fetch the new baby. Now he was told there was to be no new baby and, to add insult to injury, his mother had gone off to Heaven all on her own. Not that this unduly surprised him. If Heaven was half as wonderful as everyone made out, then it was just like his mother not to want to share it. He might only be five years old, but even he could see that his mother cared about nobody but herself.

  The old woman retreated and Hugh returned to his post by the french windows, watching the rain and listening to the pigeons. In the room behind him, he heard the maid say, ‘Poor little mite. Whatever will become of him?’

  ‘That is a very good question,’ said Letitia. ‘The plain answer is: I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, it’s a good job he came when he did, ma’am, for I was all packed and ready to go.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your holiday, Annie. Do you mind awfully?’

  ‘Bless you, Mrs Warner, I don’t mind at all. It was good of you to suggest it in the first place – and to offer to pay and all – but I couldn’t leave you to cope on your own, not now this has happened. I can go for a week in Great Yarmouth any time. Now, ma’am, I was thinking: perhaps Master Hugh might like some of my walnut cake?’

  ‘An excellent idea! Nobody can resist your walnut cake! You are a treasure, Annie. I don’t know what I would do without you.’

  Later, with several slices of walnut cake in his tummy and his cap jammed on his head, Hugh pushed his way through the trees outside, the water-laden branches soaking his clothes. It was tangled and mysterious; the air damp and cool: all quite unlike India. He was not sure that he liked it, but his interest was aroused.

  Beyond the belt of firs was a rickety wooden fence. On the other side of the fence was a meadow and in the distance a big house. Near at hand, a girl was peering at him through the warped slats. She had flaming red hair and was wearing a pinafore dress.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you before. Why are you crying?’

  ‘I’m not crying.’ Hugh spoke fiercely. ‘It’s raindrops off the trees.’

  The girl gave him a look as if to say, I’ll believe you, thousands wouldn’t, but all she actually said was, ‘My name is Megan O’Connor. What’s yours?’

  ‘Hugh Benham. My mummy has gone to Heaven.’

  ‘Is that why you are crying?’ The girl looked at him solemnly. ‘I would cry too if my mummy went to Heaven.’

  ‘It’s all right for girls to cry. Boys oughtn’t to. It makes them into sissies, my daddy says.’

  ‘I don’t believe that’s true. I don’t think there is anything wrong with crying. I cry all the time, if I am sad or hurt, or if I see something very beautiful. Do you like my doll?’ She held up a roughly worked rag doll with lopsided features. ‘She’s called Raggety Peg. I’ve had her for ever so long. I talk to her. She’s nice.’ Suddenly she held out the doll. ‘You can have her if you like. She will take care of you now that your mummy has gone away.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Hugh knew his manners, was gracious in accepting the gift.

  ‘I’m staying at that big house over there.’ Megan pointed. ‘There are three boys to play with. You must come and play too.’

  ‘I don’t know if I will be allowed.’ As he spoke, Hugh hoped very much that it would be allowed. Megan O’Connor fascinated him. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. In India, some people talked down to you; most – the servants – talked up to you. Megan talked face-to-face, frank and easy.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Megan. ‘I shall make sure you come.’ She spoke with utter conviction.

  She was true to her word. Over the next few days, in her company and that of the three Lambton boys at the Manor, Hugh forgot that he did not want to be in England. He almost forgot that his mother was dead. But he remembered to take Raggety Peg everywhere with him. Strangely, the Lambton boys did not tease him about this. In fact they were rather jealous, because Megan had chosen to give a gift to Hugh and not to them. Like Hugh, all three Lambton boys were fascinated by Megan.

  Hugh’s daddy, when he finally arrived at The Firs, was not so tolerant of the doll.

  ‘It’s an ugly, moth-eaten old thing. I can’t imagine why you want to keep it. In any case, you must throw it away. I won’t have you playing with it. It will turn you into a sissy. Dolls are for girls.’

  Hugh’s daddy was all pale and cross. He had dark rings around his eyes and was wearing strange black clothes. Hugh had always been in awe of him, but with things being so strange and upsetting, awe now turned to fear. But Hugh had an amount of quiet courage. On the subject of Raggety Peg, he dug in his heels. He would not give the doll up. Megan’s giving him Raggety Peg had been the first nice thing to happen to him in England. Her generous-hearted gesture had given him a warm feeling inside. Whenever he looked at the doll, he remembered that feeling. It made him happy to think of it.

  ‘Arnold, don’t be so hard on the boy,’ Letitia said, coming to Hugh’s defence. ‘He is upset, can’t you see?’

  Arnold muttered darkly but did not press the point. To Hugh’s relief, Raggety Peg was saved from immediate extinction.

  The subject of the doll was revived after Hugh had gone to bed.

  ‘You are encouraging the boy to be a sissy, Aunt,’ Arnold complained.

  Letitia looked at her nephew darkly. She was not best pleased with Arnold, who had dumped Hugh on her without so much as a by-your-leave, and then expected her to break the news of the poor boy’s bereavement. She recalled the offending telegram with irritation. Cecily Benham had fallen asleep, as Arnold had put it: a ridiculous expression.

  ‘If you must know, I think Hugh feels a sense of responsibility for the ugly thing. It was given to him by some girl. I expect he thinks it his duty to look after it. Responsibility and a sense of duty are admirable qualities. You should be proud.’

  ‘What girl is this?’ Arnold was suspicious.

  ‘Some child who is staying with the Lambtons. A pretty Irish girl with bright red hair. Don’t worry, Arnold, the Lambtons are frightfully respectable. They would never have anyone to stay who wasn’t our sort. In fact, the girl has been rather a hit, from what I hear. The Lambton boys are quite taken with her. I expect Hugh is too. Hence his protectiveness towards the doll. It must be that, because I can’t imagine anyone liking that thing for itself. As you said, it is terribly ugly!’

  Arnold relented, seemed to be reassured by Letitia’s words. He was slumped in the chair by the fire, opposite his aunt, staring at the flickering flames. He let out a long sigh. Letitia, unpicking the hem of an old curtain by the light of the hissing gas lamp, looked up.

  ‘Poor Arnold.’

  Arnold stroked his
moustache absently. ‘Whatever am I to do without her, Aunt?’

  Letitia’s mood softened. It was not really Arnold’s fault. If anyone was to blame, it was his ridiculous wife who had taken it upon herself to travel thousands of miles in her delicate condition, dragging her husband and her son with her, and all because of a sudden whim that her second child must be born in England. Well, now there was to be no second child, and Cecily had travelled all that way merely to fall asleep at her parents’ house in Hampshire.

  ‘It’s hard, I know, Arnold. But you have Hugh still. You must keep a stiff upper lip for his sake.’

  ‘For Hugh’s sake,’ murmured Arnold. ‘Has he been hard hit?’

  ‘It couldn’t be otherwise. But he does his best not to show it, the dear little man.’ Letitia told Arnold how the boy had been uncommunicative when he first arrived, but gradually he had come out of his shell. Annie’s walnut cake had played its part, but a lot of the credit had to go to the Irish girl. Through her, he had come to know the Lambton boys, and he had been invited over to the Manor on several occasions.

  ‘I really don’t want to kick up a fuss over that doll,’ said Arnold. ‘I know nothing about children, that’s all. If Cecily were here, she would know what to do. But she’s not here. She’s gone, she’s left me. I’m expected to cope on my own. I’m not sure that I can. I don’t want Hugh to end up hating me. To be hated by one’s son as well as one’s father would be too much.’

  ‘Jocelyn did not hate you.’ Letitia spoke quietly, snapping the cotton stitches.

  ‘He could not stand the sight of me, Aunt. I was never good enough for him. Nothing I did was good enough. I could never make him love me.’ Arnold’s voice wavered and his moustache trembled.

  Letitia heard the bitterness in Arnold’s voice. She understood how he must be feeling. Fate had plotted against him; his life was blotted by tragedy. That is how it must seem to him.

  She chose her words carefully. She did not want to criticize her brother, who was dead and could not defend himself, but neither did she wish to upset Arnold, who had never understood his father – and small wonder. ‘It was not that he hated you. It was not you at all. Life had been hard on him. It was more than he could cope with.’

  Arnold was not listening. He sighed again and held his head in his hands, but he did not cry like a sissy. He kept a stiff upper lip, sitting calmly with his aunt whilst the deep wound lately inflicted by fate began imperceptibly to heal over.

  Waking in the night, Hugh shifted his position between starched sheets, exploring the cold material with his bare feet. He reached under the pillow to feel the comforting shape of Raggety Peg. Half asleep, he dreamt of Megan O’Connor with her red hair and expressive face, thinking of her smile, how it made him feel good, how he felt angry and hurt when she smiled at one of the Lambton boys instead of him.

  ‘I’ll never give you up,’ he whispered in the doll’s ear before sliding back into a deep sleep.

  In later years, when the doll was long gone, Hugh still clearly remembered Megan’s selfless gesture in giving it to him. It became in his mind a moment of revelation. He had not known anyone be so kind-hearted, so spontaneously generous – and to a stranger at that. Up until that moment, he had believed that one only obtained the things one wanted by guile, like his mother; or by wheedling, like his father; or by shouting and stamping one’s feet, which was how he intimidated his ayah. Megan showed him a different way. He realized that being kind to people did not make one weak, anymore than crying made one a sissy.

  Raggety Peg had accompanied Hugh when he left The Firs to go to his grandparents’ house in Hampshire. The plan had been for Hugh to stay at Overton, whilst his father rejoined his regiment in India and made arrangements for his son to follow later. As it turned out, the call to go east never arrived and Hugh was still in England when the time came for him to start prep school. He was bundled off from Overton to Buckly Priory in Shropshire. A modern, well-organized establishment in picturesque surroundings, said the brochure; but to Hugh the place was purgatory. As autumn gave way to winter, the old stone building got daily damper and colder. The relentless routine of tepid baths, inedible food, and frequent beatings seemed to have been going on for all eternity. Hugh did not make friends easily, being naturally quiet and reserved. He felt like an outcast amongst his fellow inmates: wild and savage boys who, for amusement, tormented the weakest and most vulnerable amongst them. They singled out their victims with unfailing instinct. In Hugh’s case, what started as mild ragging soon developed into ruthless bullying. The discovery of Raggety Peg made things all that much worse.

  Hugh had believed his cupboard was inviolable. He did not realize that, once within the gates of Buckly Priory, all personal property became communal: one of Buckly’s so-called traditions. Rifling through Hugh’s belongings, one of the boys discovered the doll. From that day forward, Hugh’s already miserable existence became utterly unbearable. He felt as if he was trapped in a never-ending nightmare. His grandparents’ house at Overton seemed like a wonderful nirvana he had once believed in. The Firs and India were blanks in his memory. Indeed, India was blotted out forever during the barbaric era of Buckly Priory. In later years, he could remember nothing of the country where he had been born.

  He came to blame Raggety Peg for his plight. If only he had thrown the beastly doll away, as his father had wanted! Possession of it had singled him out, isolated him, made him an object of ridicule. The only solution was to get rid of it. He might then be spared the worst of the tortures.

  He took the doll out into that part of the extensive school grounds known as the wilderness, an area strictly out of bounds. He stood on an old, crumbling stone footbridge over the stream which was swollen by rain off the Clee Hills. The swift-moving water was flecked by leaves, pale green, red and faded yellow. Legend had it that an enormous pike haunted this stretch of the stream. There were frequent clandestine expeditions in search of the fearsome fish, but no one had ever established the veracity of the tale. Certainly Hugh could not see even the smallest tiddler as he stood looking down into the brown water, a solemn, lonely boy, cap in one hand, Raggety Peg in the other.

  Suddenly, down went the doll, splash into the stream. She floated away, her lopsided eyes staring up into the grey sky. Hugh watched as she was trapped momentarily in the rushes before the current caught her, whisking her off around a bend in the stream and out of sight. Hugh did not cry, knowing that would make him a sissy.

  Back in the perpetually cold school, he was beaten for missing afternoon class, and again for trespassing in the forbidden area.

  Soon after that, the nightmares began. He could never remember what they were about, but they made him call out in the night, waking the other chaps in the dormitory, for which they administered brutal reprisals. To add to his shame and degradation, he also often wet the bed. He earned the sobriquet ‘Stinky’ Benham and Matron made him sleep on a rubber sheet.

  He felt that if by some wonderful chance he should ever meet Megan O’Connor again, he would now be too ashamed and degraded to look her in the eye. Despite this, he desperately wanted some report of her, so he wrote to his great-aunt at The Firs. Letitia had no news of Megan, but wrote cheerfully of her life in Binley. The letter gave Hugh renewed hope. There was a world beyond Buckly Priory, a world he might reach if he could just find the strength to survive.

  These two letters initiated a correspondence which made life a little more bearable for Hugh at Buckly Priory, a correspondence which was to continue at intervals for over forty years.

  ‘I was at my wits’ end,’ said Letitia, sitting in her basement kitchen with Hugh whilst bombs fell on London. ‘You would not speak, you would not eat. And then Annie hit on the marvellous idea of her walnut cake. No one could ever resist it.’

  She reached for the whisky bottle and poured herself another large measure. Hugh goggled. He wondered if pickling was responsible for her longevity. She looked rather thin, he thought, and as worn as a
threadbare carpet. Her eyes, though, were the same as ever: bright, sharp, deep.

  ‘You always said Annie was indispensable.’

  ‘So she was. But I had to do without her in the end. Do you know, the most terrifying thing I ever embarked on was learning to cook. Girls in my position were never taught such things, back in the days when Victoria was still queen. I became quite a competent cook in the end. But I was never able to make a walnut cake to match Annie’s.’

  ‘I remember the walnut cake.’ Hugh was circumspect. Buckly Priory and much that had gone before it was sealed off in a corner of his mind where he tried not to trespass, even now.

  ‘That changed things, the walnut cake. But what really made the difference was that girl. I expect you hardly remember her. An Irish girl with brilliant red hair. Now what was her name…?’

  ‘Megan O’Connor.’

  ‘Ah, yes. So you do remember.’

  ‘Vaguely,’ said Hugh, not telling his great-aunt of the time Megan had run right into him in Southampton Street.

  ‘I wonder whatever happened to her.’

  ‘What indeed,’ echoed Hugh, picturing Megan at seventeen, feeling a pang: sorrow for his lost youth, desire for Megan.

  It had been the spring of 1912 when a young woman in lace-trimmed skirts had come running from the direction of the Strand to collide with Hugh in Southampton Street. Hugh should not have been there. He had used subterfuge to gain time in London. No one knew about his expedition to the metropolis. London was Life, he felt. London was the centre of everything. It offered a panoply of untold delights; it smacked of adventure. And Hugh felt that he was ready for it – ready and willing to taste adventure. But he was not prepared for the adventure that actually befell him.

  It had been raining – an April shower – but now the sun was shining again. People were striding along, shaking out their umbrellas, looking doubtfully at the sky. Hugh had no umbrella. He did not mind getting wet. It was the first of the new experiences. London had touched him already.