Letters From a Patchwork Quilt

by Clare Flynn

  ‘And do you still like a drink?’

  ‘I haven’t touched one in weeks. Not since the night I arrived in Liverpool. I swore then never to drink again. It’s brought me nothing but ill. I’ve learnt my lesson.’

  The man nodded. He was portly, with a red nose that Jack suspected indicated he might not be averse to a tipple himself. ‘Do you have references?’

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘Did you like teaching?’

  ‘More than anything, sir. It’s all I ever wanted to do since I was a lad.'

  ‘Were you any good at it?’

  ‘I think so, sir. The school inspectors gave me good reports.’

  ‘Did they now.’ The Master shook his head and picked up a sheet of paper from the desk.

  Jack assumed he was dismissed and was about to leave the room when the man spoke again, ‘I believe everyone deserves a second chance, Mr Brennan. As it happens, we’re in need of a second schoolmaster here and have struggled to fill the position. Until we can find a suitable candidate I am prepared for you to assist in teaching the children instead of working in the workshops. Only until we fill the position, mind.’

  Jack squeezed his hands together and his face broke into a grin. It was the first time he had smiled since the death of Tommy Kelly and the discovery of Brother Charles in the linen cupboard. He felt tears of joy and gratitude rising.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, sir. You won’t regret this. I’ll do a good job. I promise you.'

  The Master waved him away and Jack left the room, his step light and his heart rejoicing.

  The brown paper parcel bore a Liverpool postmark. Clementina didn’t know anyone in Liverpool. She didn’t know anyone outside the walls of the Reformatory, apart from her father, but the handwriting was not his and she had heard nothing of him since he had left the reformatory almost three years earlier. Inside the package were a threadbare pair of trousers and a grubby jacket with a torn collar. On top of the clothing was a letter.

  Walton Hill Workhouse,.

  Rice Lane.

  Liverpool.

  December 15th 1909

  Dear Miss Brennan,

  It is with regret that I have the sad duty of writing to inform you of the death of Mr John Brennan. He was admitted to the workhouse in June 1907, penniless and in a poor state of health, suffering from consumption.

  Mr Brennan was invited to provide temporary assistance to the schoolmaster and acquitted himself well. Last year he was awarded a full-time position here as a teacher, but regrettably was forced to retire after only a month due to his worsening health.

  Although it is not normal practice to forward possessions post mortem, the Guardians and I took the decision to send his few possessions to you in the light of Mr Brennan’s contributions to the wellbeing and education of the unfortunate children we have in our care here. He gave your name and address as his next of kin on admission.

  Mr Brennan was buried in the Parochial Cemetery in Walton, Liverpool at public expense.

  With condolences,

  Michael Prendergast, Master.

  Clem sat on the bed with the parcel of old clothes beside her. She had tried not to think about her father since he’d left, but as the time passed, her anger over Tommy’s death had faded and she had begun to feel remorse about her failure to say goodbye, and her too-ready acceptance of what Marian and Malcolm had told her about her father hitting the boys. Her Papa may have had a lot of faults but beating children was not one of them. Now she would never have a chance to tell him she believed him. Never see his face again. She tried to remember it, to force a picture of him into her memory, but it was already fading. Not so much as a single photograph to remind her. He’d had a wide smile though, one that lit up his whole face. Whenever he smiled she’d always felt the world was a bit brighter. Now she would never see that smile again.

  Her eyes filled with tears. She would never have the chance to tell him how much she loved him. To say sorry for not believing him and standing by him.

  She touched the threadbare fabric of the jacket. Fit only for the bin. Not even worth giving to the poor. Then she reflected that he was the poor. Her own father dead in a distant workhouse, buried in a pauper’s grave. How had she let that happen? Why had she never tried to track him down? Why had he never written to her?.

  But she knew why. He had left here in disgrace. She had spurned him, refused to say goodbye to him. Refused to stand up for him. And he wouldn’t have wanted to ask for help. He had always been a proud man. An unhappy man, but always too proud to ask anyone for help. He would have hated his daughter to know that he had ended up in a workhouse.

  She picked up the jacket and held it to her face, trying to evoke some memory of him, but it smelt stale and unpleasant. She began to cry, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Through the mist of tears she noticed there was something else in the parcel. Nestled beneath the jacket and the trousers was a little wooden box with an inlaid picture of a bridge, an envelope and small pile of loose papers. The pages were stained and grubby, but covered with his familiar spidery handwriting. She picked up the envelope. It was addressed to her.

  My dearest Clementina,

  I write this to you, knowing that if you are reading it I will be gone. I have nothing to bequeath you, other than my words, my verses, but it is through these that I have tried to live a better life. My best legacy on this earth though is you. You are my only source of pride, the one perfect thing I leave behind.

  I know I have been a weak man, a neglectful father, all too easily swayed by the pursuit of impossible dreams, but believe this, Clemmie, I have always loved you. My life did not take the path I had hoped to follow. Instead of making the best of what life offered, I let myself wallow in self pity and sought consolation in alcohol. These last few years though I have tried to redeem myself by seizing the chance that was offered to me to teach again. I have loved every minute of teaching and can die in peace, save for the fact that I die without your blessing.

  Many years ago, I lost someone I loved and this shaped the rest of my life and blinded me to the needs of others, not least you. When I was betrayed (as indeed I was) by my son-in-law and the brothers at St Dominic’s I lost the only two things in life that I still valued – my daughter and my good name. I have lost them in my life. You have the power to restore them to me in death. Please forgive me.

  Your loving father

  Jack Brennan.

  Clem let the letter fall into her lap and pulled the pile of papers towards her and read the poems through her tears. She knew what she must do.

  Epilogue

  St Louis, 2015

  Meredith moved the paper pieces from the old quilt around on the table, fitting them together as best she could, using a process of elimination, careful not to tear the thin paper. Slow work. Eventually she had the text of a letter in front of her. Someone had scrawled in a different hand across the top “Return to the sender”

  St Louis, 1915

  Dear Jack,

  I am overcome with joy today. Amelia, my daughter, brought me some poetry books as she knows how much comfort I have drawn from poems since I lost my husband. As well as works of Mr Longfellow and Mr Wendell Holmes, imagine how I felt to pick up the third volume and find it was a collection of works by a contemporary English poet and that it was you! Oh Jack, I cannot tell you how it felt to know that you never gave up, that you carried on writing, that you have at last found the success you always deserved. I have thought of you so many times over the years, imagining you hunched over a notebook, writing lines, crossing them out and writing again, always searching for the right word, the right metaphor, the right rhythm and cadence.

  I was so overcome when I saw your name upon the printed page that I wept. I told Amelia that reading the poems had brought back memories of my girlhood in England – my daughters know nothing of our friendship. I am writing this letter to you care of your publisher and I hope he will forward it. It is the first I have ever p
osted – but far from the first I have written. I do not want to hurt Amelia and Louisa, who honoured and respected their late father, so I have kept the unsent letters safe where they will not find them. Now I pray that, at last, one will be held in your hands and may be the means of me hearing from you.

  Now you are a celebrated poet, a man of respect in England, I have no wish to disrupt your life. I am sure you too have children and grandchildren and will not welcome anything that might upset the equilibrium and peace that I hope you have found.

  I can say this now as so many years have passed and the anger and disappointment I felt towards you for not coming to find me, for not even attempting to know what happened to me, has long passed. I have had a happy life and a happy marriage (as I hope was true for you too) and now, looking back would not wish my life any other way.

  But grant me this at least. Please write me a few lines. Just to let me know that you are happy, well and at peace. I hope and pray the war raging over there is not impacting you or any of your children and that it will end soon.

  My fondest wishes to you,.

  Eliza Feigenbaum (née Hewlett)

  Meredith knew of no Eliza, nor of Jack, Amelia and Louisa. The letter was a hundred years old. How little she knew of her family’s history. The trunk and its contents had been handed down to her mother, who had evidently never explored them. Meredith turned back to the pile of paper and began to sort the sheets into some kind of order, hoping to piece together Eliza’s story. As she picked up one of the paper cut-outs she noticed it was a different, thinner, paper stock. Like the others it was covered with Eliza’s spidery copperplate, but this one carried indentations. She flipped it over. The other side was typewritten, the edges folded in to make the shape of the template, rather than cut to size. She turned back the corners, touching the paper gingerly and read the short missive.

  Russell Square,

  London, 1915

  Dear Mrs Feigenbaum,

  I regret to inform you that I am unable to forward your letter addressed to Mr J Brennan and I return it herewith. Mr Brennan died prior to the publication of “Thoughts from the Fireside” and Bromley and Bradgate had communications only with his daughter, Miss Clementina Brennan. It would be inappropriate for Bromley and Bradgate to forward your letter to any other recipient than that to whom it was addressed. If you wish to write specifically to Miss Brennan we will be happy to pass such correspondence on.

  Yours faithfully,

  Wm Bradgate Esq.

  Meredith turned the paper over.

  Oh Jack,

  My heart is breaking. I thought I would know if something happened to you – that the world would feel emptier – or stop turning altogether. How could I not have known you were gone? And yet you have always been gone. Ever since you were dragged from the deck of the ship.

  Why did you never come to find me? I was waiting. I longed for a message from you. Why did you not send me so much as a line to let me know how you were and to explain why you could not come after me?

  Oh my darling, I feel ashamed writing to castigate you when you are no longer here to read my words. I have no right to accuse you when you are not here to defend yourself. The Jack I knew , the Jack I loved, the Jack I will always love would have done what he believed was the right and honourable thing, even if it broke his heart.

  I am writing this now to get my feelings for you off my chest and to clear my conscience about always loving you while being married to another. I am going to hide this letter away with the other letters I have written to you by sewing it into a patchwork quilt where my daughters cannot find it. I want to leave something in the world, something solid but secret to testify to how much you meant to me.

  I have had a happy life, despite losing you, Jack – I would be wrong to try to deny that. I married a good and kind man whom I loved. It was not the same as the love I had for you, but he made me happy, cared for me, gave me two beautiful daughters. At first I didn’t care for him and only agreed to marry him because I was desperate to have a child and knew I had no hope of seeing you again. Yet over the years I became fonder of him and grew to love him. He died thirteen years ago and I miss him every day.

  So what of my life without you, Jack? I think you would be surprised to know that your Eliza became a successful businesswoman. Yes, Jack, your former sweetheart is head of a company that publishes books across the whole of the United States. Imagine! I have become a wealthy woman. I have loved this part of my life and to my astonishment have proved quite good at it. My husband supported me in the business while he was alive, but it was mostly my enterprise. Now I hope that my daughters and their husbands will continue to make the business prosper.

  The books we deal in are academic tomes – sadly not poetry – but imagine my joy when I discovered that your poems were at last published. The publisher told me that your daughter submitted the work after your death. She must be as proud of you as I am. I am so sad that you did not get to hold the book in your hands, to see your words printed on the page. I have been reading the poems every night before I sleep and I draw so much comfort from them – even though I blush at how many are addressed to me. Reading those words fills me with joy to know that you went on loving me. But, dearest Jack there are also poems that have brought me to tears. I do not know what caused such pain but you write of being wrongly accused and of battles with alcohol. I wept when I read those. What brought you to that? Who could have been so cruel to you?.

  I wrote to your daughter, Clementina, and told her that we had been teaching colleagues many years ago. I did not mention our attachment. She said you died in Liverpool under straitened circumstances. Oh, Jack, if only I had known, I could have sent you money, helped you to get back on your feet. It is a cruel world. Sometimes I think God tests us too much.

  I do not think it will be long until I join you, as my sickness is advanced. I have been ill for some time and am rarely able to venture outside the house these days. I have not been the best Catholic, but I pray that God will have mercy on us both and that we will finally be together in heaven.

  Your loving friend,

  Eliza.

  Meredith leaned back in the chair and sighed. This little glimpse into these long-dead lives was so sad. She wanted to know more about Eliza and Jack and their tragic love affair. She rummaged through the trunk. It was mostly old bills and papers relating to the sale of Feigenbaum and Hoffman. There was an old photograph album but this appeared to be from the 1930s and must have belonged to one of Eliza’s daughters. At the every bottom of the trunk she found a faded copy of the St Louis Post Dispatch from 1925. She unfolded it and there it was, the obituary of Eliza Feigenbaum. There was a grainy photograph of Eliza that appeared to have been taken some time during the first decade of the last century. She looked about fifty. Unusually for a photographic portrait, her face was in profile. She had been a fine-looking woman. As Meredith read the eulogy, she was impressed by her ancestor, who not only founded a publishing empire but had also been a leading campaigner for women rights in St Louis.

  It was after midnight when she closed the lid of her laptop and went to bed. Her online research had thrown up few facts about her great-great-grandmother and her lost love, but enough to whet her appetite for more information.

  She discovered that Eliza’s two daughters had sold the publishing company in the late 1930s after the depression had destroyed much of the value in the enterprise. It was evident that the two sisters and their husbands had lacked Eliza’s business savvy. One of the daughters, Amelia, had died childless, and Christabel was Meredith’s great grandmother, her mother’s grandmother. There were no other surviving relatives.

  She sipped a whisky as she sat in bed thumbing through the slim leather-bound volume of poetry that she had found under the quilt in the trunk. One of the poems caught her eye. It must have been the one Eliza had referred to, detailing Jack’s struggles with alcohol. It was titled, For My Daughter.

  ‘My end draws near
and much fills me with shame

  My children whom I long neglected.

  Others sought to lay at my own door the blame

  A love for drinking, ne'er corrected.

  And so I have lost it all, e’en my good name.

  But dearest daughter, try not to think too ill of me.

  A sinner yes, but not of sins so base as those

  Of which I was accused. To thou my plea –

  Forgive me for the paths I chose

  So that in eternal life I will be free.

  Meredith wondered what were the sins of which poor old Jack had been wrongly accused. Whatever they were, she hoped his daughter had forgiven him. The fact that she had submitted the poems for publication indicated she had. They were over-sentimental for Meredith’s twenty-first century sensibilities, but presumably they had fitted their times. And the outpouring of love for Eliza left no doubt that Jack had loved her as much as she him.

  The Bellefontaine cemetery was to the north of the city. Meredith had never visited it before and was surprised at the extent of the place and the splendour of the mausoleums. Some of the tombs must have cost a fortune to build. It was an architectural mashup – classical, Gothic, Egyptian, Roman, obelisks, domes, arches, lions, eagles. She walked past the last resting places of politicians, beer barons, civil war generals, magnates and pioneers, all laid out in extensive parkland. She felt bad that she had never visited before, nor shown any curiosity about her forebears.

  At last she found Eliza’s grave. It was much simpler than many in this necropolis: a simple marble plinth with a book carved on the top on which were inscribed the names, Karl Feigenbaum 1828 – 1902 and Eliza Feigenbaum 1858 – 1925. Eliza’s belief that she was near to death in 1912 had proved wrong.

  Meredith laid a bunch of calla lilies on top of the grave. ‘From Jack,’ she said, ‘And me.’