Aunt Letitia

by Dominic Luke

  She summoned her reserves. This would be the hardest moment of all, but she could not afford to flinch, having come so far.

  ‘You did what you thought was right, my dear. You did what was necessary.’

  ‘But you see that I must tell Hugh?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t see that at all.’

  ‘Then lie to him?’

  ‘It is not a lie, to keep silent.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Listen, my dear. We have all done things we regret. We all have things we wish we could change. There is no point dwelling on them. There is no point dwelling on the past, as you yourself told me once. If you start digging up what time has buried, there is no knowing where it might end. One might discover other things, terrible things, things one would not be able to live with—’ Letitia stopped, closed her eyes for a moment, gathering herself. When she opened her eyes again, she said, ‘Maybe you will tell Hugh about the child one day. Maybe you will never tell him. You do not have to decide now. You have your whole future together in which to decide.’

  ‘You make it sound … easy.’

  ‘No, my dear. Simple, but not easy. I know. I, too, had a child once. I had a child, but I lost him.’

  Megan looked up, startled. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ Her eyes searched Letitia’s. ‘Do you … do you ever think of him?’

  ‘All of the time.’

  And Letitia, to her surprise, found herself able to smile, as they looked at one another across the kitchen.

  She accompanied Megan up the area steps to get a breath of air and a look at the square – to escape the kitchen where the odour of the past still lingered but was slowly melting away. Megan got on her bicycle, opened her mouth to say goodbye – but at that precise moment there came the unmistakable sound of a distant explosion away to the west. Seconds later, another, fainter detonation was heard.

  Megan and Letitia looked at one another, old fears reawakening.

  ‘I didn’t hear a siren,’ said Megan.

  ‘It may be nothing. The Battle of London is over, they said.’

  ‘Don’t speak too soon is my motto. I expect it’s the doodlebugs back again. I thought it was too good to be true to think we had heard the last of them.’

  As Megan pedalled away, Letitia looked up at the sky. The early brightness had gone, grey cloud now veiled the blue. The afternoon was close and suddenly tense.

  Letitia shivered as she made her way back down the steps.

  She telephoned Hugh in Buckinghamshire.

  ‘This has gone on long enough.’

  ‘Aunt? Is that you?’

  ‘Normally I wouldn’t dream of interfering, but this time …’

  ‘What was that? This is a frightfully bad line.’

  ‘You must stop dithering, Hugh. I have quite lost my patience with you. Can you not see what is right in front of you?’

  ‘But, Aunt, she blows hot and cold, I am not even sure if she—’

  ‘I am sure. You must stop doubting yourself, Hugh. You must seize the next opportunity. There is no time to waste. I am only saying this for your own— Oh, but there, our three minutes are up. Goodbye, Hugh, goodbye.’

  Putting the receiver down, Letitia felt elated, just as she’d done in years gone by when returning home to collapse into a chair after a lengthy ramble round London’s streets. But as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she found herself thinking of the mysterious explosions. They seemed to her somehow ominous, a reminder that however close the end might be, the war was not over yet. No one could tell where the next twist might take them.

  Chapter Eleven

  THIS WAR, EVEN more than the last, was a succession of farewells. Now Ian was off again, back to the killing fields of Europe, promising to write as he always did.

  ‘This time I mean it, Aunt. I’m to write to Clive, too.’

  ‘He has taken quite a shine to you.’

  ‘He is under the impression I am some sort of hero. It’s only the golden sheen of war. It will soon wear off. All the same …’

  ‘You want to be a brother to him, take care of him?’

  ‘And Peggy too, if she wants me. And my kid. But what’s the use of saying it? I might not come back. I’ve ridden my luck so far, but …’

  ‘You will come back. Everything will be fine now. He can’t do anything to us anymore.’

  ‘Who? Adolf?’

  ‘No, the bishop. My father. His influence has withered away.’

  ‘Sometimes, Aunt, I think you might be going funny in the head.’

  ‘My dear boy, I went funny in the head – as you put it – years ago! Now come here and let me hug you, never mind if it’s beneath your dignity.’

  And so Ian had gone. Hugh was still ensconced in Buckinghamshire. The war continued. The Americans had actually crossed the border in one place – crossed into Germany – but it seemed there was to be no sudden dénouement, no unexpected armistice, this time round. The bloodshed continued unabated. And the war with Japan was also far from over: people tended to forget that.

  Closer to home, more mysterious explosions had been heard at intervals all over London. Not doodlebugs, people said. Exploding gas mains, some suggested. But Mrs Mansell was not convinced. Why should so many gas mains start exploding all at once? No, it wasn’t that. What she had heard was – and here she lowered her voice and looked round for the wall with ears: what she had heard was that the Germans were sending over bombs by a new method. Rockets, they were called. They travelled so quickly you couldn’t see them, and they came without warning. Should one land near you, the first you would know of it would be when you woke up in a pile of rubble – if you woke up at all.

  Letitia took the story with a large pinch of salt. A new super-weapon quicker than the human eye? It sounded nothing more than a fairy-tale – like the story in the last war in which the entire Russian army had been said to have passed through England early one morning with snow on their boots. Connie Lambton, the silly old dear, might have believed such tales, but one knew better now. There had been nothing about rockets on the BBC. Megan would know the truth of the matter. Megan kept her ear to the ground. But Megan had been a stranger of late. Letitia wondered very much what was going on.

  It was several days later, getting on for lunchtime, when Megan suddenly reappeared, bursting in on Letitia as she sat quietly reading the paper. Megan was glowing, her eyes sparkling, and her news so startling it put all thoughts of war in the shade.

  ‘Hugh has asked me to marry him!’

  ‘At last!’ said Letitia. ‘Is he here, then: in London?’

  ‘No. I went to him. I went to Buckinghamshire. I couldn’t wait any longer.’

  Letitia laughed. It seemed so typical, Hugh hanging back, Megan taking the lead. But they were happy, however it had come about.

  ‘My dear, this calls for a celebration! I’ve a bottle of champagne buried in the cellar that I was saving for the end of the war but this news, I think, is more important.’

  Megan went in search of the champagne whilst Letitia found a tablecloth, spread it out, loaded the table with cut glass flutes, a vase with dried flowers, biscuits, a ration of cheese and a sliver of precious butter. She felt almost spry in her pleasure. All’s well that ends well, she said to herself: even if that end had been a long time coming.

  Megan returned with the champagne.

  ‘Well, my dear, don’t stand on ceremony. Open it up!’

  Megan wrestled with the cork, talking as she did so. ‘We had a terribly muddled conversation – this cork is stuck, it won’t budge – I was on the verge of proposing myself and then— but here goes, get the glasses ready!’

  The champagne cork popped. Champagne fizzed out, glinting in the daylight. But at the moment a strange atmosphere swept through the kitchen. The beads of liquid seemed to hang like diamonds in the air, as if they were frozen in time, motionless. There was a sound like a sigh, and then a sudden airless quiet.

  And with that, the kitc
hen and everything in it dissolved into blackness. Letitia knew no more.

  Letitia opened her eyes. She was lying on a bed with a yielding mattress, looking up at a beamed ceiling. She felt that she had been asleep for a very long time. The clock was ticking but all else was quiet. It was twilight.

  Why had no one come to light the lamps?

  She sat up, unable to shake off a feeling of unease. Everything was as it should be, yet she still felt that something was wrong – almost as if she had become somebody else whilst she was asleep. Which was preposterous. A silly notion.

  ‘My name is Letitia Benham.’ She spoke out loud to banish any lingering doubts as she looked round the room. There was Grandma’s rocking chair, and next to it her new crinoline draped over the mahogany fire screen. There was no fire, so it must be summer. It was odd that she could not remember the date.

  ‘My name is Letitia Benham. I am nineteen years old.’

  All her treasures were set out, safe and sound on the dressing table: her gold brooch set with turquoise and the six row pearl necklace with the diamond clasp which had belonged to Mother. Mother herself was there, young and smiling in a daguerreotype framed in a mother of pearl case. A later version of Mother, still smiling but looking somehow sadder, was fixed in a folding leather frame which also contained three other photographs: her father, Jocelyn and herself.

  And Angelica?

  But of course, there were no pictures of Angelica. It was not allowed.

  Someone should really have come by now, to close the curtains and light the lamps. It was getting quite dark and she did not like the dark. Perhaps if she lit one of the lamps herself, the one on the bedside table. It stood on the mat she had cross-stitched with her own hands in Berlin wool work.

  She reached for the lamp – but recoiled in horror. The flowers were all dead! The flowers in the vase next to the lamp: they were all dead, more than dead: putrefied, the stalks drooping, the withered petals all stuck together. And there was a smell. She hadn’t noticed it before. It seemed to be getting stronger. A terrible, foetid smell as if the water in the vase had not been changed for weeks on end.

  She jumped up, backing away from the dead flowers; but she found it was difficult to move. She felt as if she was swimming through treacle. At last she felt the solid dressing-table behind her and she slowly turned, stretching out a hand, watching as it inched its way through the thick, gloomy air. Inside her papier-mâché box was a heart-shaped locket. There was no picture inside but it represented – everything: safety, love, life itself. She clasped it to her breast.

  ‘Tom,’ she murmured. ‘Tom.’

  Even as she whispered the name, everything came back to her in a flood. She was rocked back on her heels, remembering. Of course, of course. The door was locked. She was a prisoner. Tom had gone. They had sent him away, he would never come again. And—

  ‘The baby. They’ve taken my baby.’

  The locket dropped from her fingers, fell in slow motion, spinning round and round, the chain trailing behind it. As it bounced once on the Persian rug, the clasp flew open. It came to rest, the blank insides staring up at her.

  Somehow she had to find a way to escape. She had to go now, before they came back. Her eyes slid towards the door, terrified lest she heard the key in the lock, saw the handle turn. What if her father came? But no, he wouldn’t come. In all the days and weeks, he had never come.

  The window was open. The window was the only way out. She fought her way through the treacle, kneeled on the window seat. She could climb down the ivy; she could slip away in the dusk, she could get right away, start looking for Tom, start looking for … for …

  But the ivy had grown wild. The window was choked with it. Tendrils stretched into the room – and the tendrils were coming alive! They were wrapping around her, tugging her down, drawing her into the morass, enmeshing her. She was being suffocated, she could see nothing but green leaves, the ivy was tearing at her, pulling her apart, ripping her open….

  ‘Letitia! Letitia!’

  Someone was calling her. She struggled to free herself, frantic.

  ‘Tom? Is that you? Tom?’

  But it was no use, she couldn’t get free. She was breaking into pieces, dissolving, fading into nothing….

  ‘Letitia! Letitia! Can you hear me?’

  The voice was not Tom’s. It was not a male voice at all. But it was calling to her, insistent – and afraid. She moved towards it, climbing out of a deep void.

  Letitia opened her eyes. Nothing. She must have gone blind. There was a terrible pain in her leg and her mouth was choked with dust. She tried to stand up, a feeling of claustrophobia assailing her; but she couldn’t move, felt as if she was slowly being squashed.

  ‘Letitia!’

  That voice: she recognized it. It belonged to the woman called Megan.

  Letitia opened her mouth to say, ‘I am here, Megan, I’m here!’, but all that came out was a croak.

  ‘Letitia? Is that you? Thank goodness!’

  Letitia coughed, spat out dust and grit. It tasted of plaster and bricks.

  ‘What … where…?’ Her voice sounded terribly thin and feeble in her ears.

  ‘I think it must have been a bomb. A UXB perhaps. The ceiling has come down on us.’

  A bomb? Letitia’s mind struggled to make sense of it. One moment she had been in her room in Chanderton, the next…. There had been bombs in the war. Hugh had written to her about them.

  But this was a different war.

  Her mind raced, leaping across the years towards the present moment.

  ‘Are you hurt? Letitia, can you hear me? Are you hurt? I heard you shout out, but then it all went quiet.’

  ‘I can’t move my leg. I can’t see.’

  ‘Neither can I. It’s too dark. Listen. Don’t try to move. Do you understand? They will come and dig us out. But you must try to lie still.’

  A bomb. The house must have collapsed. But she had survived bombs before. One had fallen on her terrace in 1940. She had survived that. But whatever Megan might say, it was impossible not to make some attempt to move. Her body was all twisted, her leg was hurting. She struggled, but it was no good. Something heavy was lying across her calf, crushing it.

  She gave up the struggle, breathing heavily. The effort had exhausted her.

  Somewhere water was dripping, and there was an occasional ominous creaking sound as the unseen rubble shifted around her. There was no relief from the pitch dark and she felt weak and confused, her mind choked with dust as her throat was.

  ‘I must have been asleep.’ The sound of her own voice made her feel a little less helpless. ‘I dreamt I was back in my room in Chanderton.’

  ‘That’s it. Keep talking,’ said Megan. ‘I’m going to see if I can reach you. I need your voice to guide me.’

  Letitia could hear a scuffling sound. Somewhere in the dark, Megan was breathing heavily.

  ‘Keep talking. Tell me about your room in Chanderton. Tell me about Tom. You called out his name. You called for Tom.’

  ‘Tom. Yes, Tom.’ Letitia stopped, bewildered. Why would she have called for Tom?

  I must take a grip of myself, she said; I have been in worse situations. I just need to hold on.

  ‘Who was Tom?’ Megan’s voice sounded closer. But then there was a rattling sound, like pebbles falling down a cliff. Megan caught her breath. After a pause, she said, ‘I daren’t come any nearer. I can’t see what I’m doing. I might dislodge something, move something.’

  Letitia started trembling. She felt as if the darkness was slowly consuming her. Perhaps it might be easier to give in to it….

  ‘Talk to me, Letitia.’ Insistent, badgering, not leaving her alone. ‘Tell me about Tom.’

  ‘Tom was …’ Tom was a long time ago, a long way away. But could she smell new-mown hay? Could she still smell it after all this time? ‘Tom worked on the farm. Home Farm. There was a meadow. I met him there at haymaking. We used to meet often after that.’
<
br />   ‘That’s good, Letitia. Keep talking. Tell me more.’

  ‘We sat in the meadow. We were happy. But they said it was wrong. They said … Megan, are you there?’

  ‘I’m here, my dear. I’m right here. Go on. You were happy with Tom….’

  With a great effort, Letitia assembled the words in her head. ‘One evening, I left him as usual. I said goodbye. I went home. They were waiting. They said I had been a wicked, sinful girl. The housekeeper had spied on me. The servants always spied. They spied on us, they spied on each other. My father told them to. The housekeeper had seen me in the bath. I was getting fat, in those days. I thought I was getting fat. But it was a baby. I didn’t know babies could happen like that. I thought one had to be married.’

  ‘Yes? What next?’

  ‘I was locked in my room. I was locked up for a very long time. No one came except the housekeeper – the housekeeper and a doctor. He was not the usual doctor. He was not nice. He had cold hands. Afterwards, when they had taken the baby away, when they had washed me and put on my clothes, I was taken to a carriage with the blinds down. I left at night. I went on a long journey, to a place by the sea, a tall grey house with damp walls. There were moors, and gulls wailing. I was ill. Pleurisy, they said, and pneumonia. I might have died, they said.’

  ‘Go on, Letitia. Keep talking to me.’

  ‘I might have died, but I didn’t. I got better. And then they said I had to get married.’

  Lying in the dark, Letitia found that shapes and colours were beginning to appear before her eyes. The pain in her leg was like a jagged, piercing red off to one side; but further away there was a pale grey ghost, fluid and indistinct, fading in and out. She strained her eyes, desperate to make it out, afraid that it might be William Warner – William Warner waiting for her as he had waited that day at the altar. As she had walked up the aisle in the cold empty church, he had looked over his shoulder at her: cold, calculating, without pity. She had known at that moment that he was her new master. She belonged to him now. She had passed from slavery into slavery.