The Lost Daughters: A moving saga of womanhood

by Whitmee, Jeanne

  Mr MacAlister looked at the copy of Daniel’s will which lay on the desk before him. ‘Oh, but you have. Did your father not acquaint you with the fact?’

  ‘I didn’t actually know he was dying,’ Cathy said wryly. How much more was there that he hadn’t told her? ‘Do you think you could tell me who this guardian person is, please?’

  The solicitor looked at her incredulously for a moment, then… ‘The name I have here, the person I’ve been in contact with on behalf of your father’s estate, is Mr Gerald Cavelle, of Albany Place, Mayfair. He is also your father’s executor.’ He cleared his throat and frowned at them over his spectacles. ‘I’m told he’s a -ahem— a musician. A concert pianist in fact.’

  Cathy was staring at him. ‘Uncle Gerald?’

  The solicitor looked relieved. ‘Ah — so you do know who I’m talking about?’

  ‘Of course. He’s my godfather.’

  Mr MacAlister nodded. ‘I see. Very suitable. He would be the obvious choice.’ At that moment the door opened and his secretary ushered Gerald in. Cathy sprang to her feet and went to meet him.

  ‘Uncle Gerald!’

  He took both her hands. ‘My dear child. I’m so desperately sorry about your father. I was abroad at the time or I would have been at the funeral. I only got back two days ago.’

  The solicitor cleared his throat pointedly. ‘Hrrrmph. If we might get down to business? I have another appointment in twenty minutes.’

  *

  As soon as the details of Daniel’s will had been gone through Gerald took charge. First he put Cathy and Johnny into a taxi and took them to tea at Fortnum’s.

  ‘Now - what’s to be done with you, young lady?’ he asked, smiling at Cathy across the teacups. ‘How much longer do you have at school?’

  ‘I can leave now,’ Cathy told him eagerly. ‘Right after I’ve taken my O levels.’

  Johnny glanced at her and leaned forward. ‘I know it’s really none of my business, sir, but I do know that Mr Oldham wanted Cathy to take her A levels and go on to university.’

  Cathy looked at her in dismay. ‘I’d never get to university, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I’m not clever enough. I’ll be lucky to get any O’s. I don’t even want to stay on. Besides, by the time I’ve done another two years at school all the money will have run out, won’t it?’

  Gerald leaned across the table. ‘You needn’t let that worry you, Cathy. If university is what you want, I’ll see you through.’

  She blushed. ‘I couldn’t let you. Dad wouldn’t have wanted that,’ she muttered. ‘Besides, I really don’t want to go — honestly.'

  He glanced at Johnny. ‘I’ll arrange for the sale of the house. There will be a lot to do. Maybe Cathy and I could go along together some day soon and sort things out there. The place will have to be cleared before the sale. I’ll invest the money for her. No need to worry about that. I have a very good financial adviser.’ He looked at Cathy. ‘Maybe you’ll change your mind about university by the time you get your exam results. In the meantime, where are you to live? It would hardly be proper for you to move into my bachelor flat. Besides, I’m hardly ever there.’

  ‘She can stay on with me indefinitely,’ Johnny put in quickly. ‘She’s perfectly happy with Mother and Matthew and me, aren’t you, love?’ Cathy nodded reluctantly. ‘And I don’t live far away from Laburnum Close,’ Johnny said conclusively. ‘So it’s handy for her school.’

  Gerald nodded. ‘That sounds like an ideal arrangement. I’ll see that you’re appropriately recompensed, Mrs Johnson. And I’ll open a bank account for you, Cathy, and see that an allowance is paid in monthly.’ He looked at Johnny. ‘I haven’t much of an idea about what young girls need, so perhaps you’d better work something out on a monthly basis and let me know the amount.’

  Johnny blushed. ‘Well — if you say so, sir, though I’d like you to know that she’s as close to me as my own child and I’d gladly have looked after her without an allowance.’

  ‘I’m sure you would, Mrs Johnson, and I’m very grateful to you for all you’ve done, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it is better to have things on a proper businesslike footing. After all, I am Cathy’s legal guardian.’ Gerald smiled at Cathy. ‘Meantime, young lady, maybe you and I should start getting to know one another better. I’ll make sure we keep in touch.’

  Cathy wondered if he would remember or just fade into obscurity again as he had before. But he was as good as his word, telephoning regularly every week to ask how she was and if there was anything she needed.

  The house in Laburnum Close sold quickly. The price was right and the young couple who bought it saw potential in the spacious, elegantly proportioned rooms. Gerald rang Cathy as soon as the offer was accepted to let her know.

  ‘You realise what this means, of course,’ he said.

  Cathy bit her lip. ‘I’ll have to go and sort Dad’s things out, you mean?’

  ‘No, we will. I told you I’d go with you. It’s not the kind of thing you should have to tackle alone. When do you want to go? What about next weekend? I think the sooner the better, don’t you?’

  The following Sunday was decided upon. Gerald suggested they should make an early start, offering to take Cathy out to lunch afterwards. He called for her soon after breakfast in his smart little sports car. Creating quite a stir in Chestnut Grove as he unfolded his long legs from the driving seat and walked up to the front door. He wore casual clothes: jeans and a sweater. Cathy thought he looked terribly handsome and as she settled into the car beside him she felt very proud and grown-up.

  The late-November day was grey and cloudy and the moment she opened the front door of number thirteen with her key, the sad loneliness of the abandoned house hit her. Standing in the hall, she was aware for the first time of how old and shabby everything was. Johnny’s little semi-detached house in Chestnut Grove wasn’t luxurious, but it had a woman’s touch. There were flowers and pretty ornaments in the living room, scented soap and talcum in the bathroom, and sparkling white net curtains at all the windows. Standing in the hall she wished she could have made this house more homelike for Dad. If she’d been older maybe she would have learned how to do it — how to keep house and make him more comfortable. She looked up at Gerald apologetically.

  ‘I wish you could have come here before,’ she said. ‘When Dad was alive it didn’t feel so — so sad and empty.’

  He slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s make a start, shall we? I suggest we make a tour of the rooms first and pick out the things you want to keep. I’ve brought some labels with me. The sooner we begin the sooner we’ll be finished.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can keep anything,’ she told him wistfully. ‘Not furniture anyway. I’ve nowhere to keep it.’

  ‘Is there anything you particularly want?’ he asked her.

  ‘I would have liked to keep the piano, but … ’

  ‘If you want to keep it, then you shall,’ he told her firmly. ‘It can stay at my flat. And you can come and play it whenever you want to.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Can I? Oh, Uncle Gerald, thank you!’ He winced. ‘When I say you can have it, I’m making one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That you stop calling me Uncle, for God’s sake. It makes me feel as though I ought to have a long white beard. Just plain Gerald will do, thanks very much.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll try to remember.’

  They worked hard all morning. Gerald took charge, organising everything with brisk efficiency, and to Cathy’s relief it turned out to be much easier than she had imagined. Together they packed the china and saucepans; sorted through Daniel’s clothes, setting aside the best for the Salvation Army to collect. They labelled the furniture ready for the saleroom and made the decision to leave carpets and curtains in situ in the house. When the time came for the attic to be investigated Cathy asked if she might have a little time to herself there. She wanted to look through the boxes full of old lett
ers and photographs she knew were there. Maybe there was something of her mother’s she could keep as a souvenir. Gerald nodded understandingly.

  ‘Take as long as you need. I’ll go and root around in the garden shed,’ he told her.

  It was cold and dark in the attic. The one small window was festooned with cobwebs and dust lay thick on everything. Cathy found that many of the old boxes full of letters and photographs that she knew were there had gone. Johnny had told her that Dad had known he was ill for some time. He must have come up here and destroyed everything personal before he died. Disappointment overwhelmed her. She’d hoped to find some relics of happier days; some of her mother’s clothes. Maybe even her parents’ wedding photograph, which she didn’t remember ever seeing. She searched through the boxes that remained. They contained nothing but rubbish. There were some of her old toys, most of them broken now and useless. The old clothes she used to dress up in, that had belonged to her grandmother, were moth-eaten and ragged now, fit only for the dustbin.

  She sat on the floor and looked around her dejectedly. Was this really all there was to show of the life she and Dad had shared? It was as though her whole childhood lay here in the dark little room under the eaves, dusty and disintegrating. This time next week it would all have been carried away by the dustman — over and forgotten. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Suddenly the stark, final reality of her father’s death hit her like a hammer blow.

  ‘Oh, Daddy,’ she choked back the tears. ‘Daddy, Daddy, I miss you so much.’

  She didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs and when the attic door creaked open she started violently, her head twisting round as she looked up at the dark figure blotting out the light.

  ‘Cathy, I’m sorry I startled you.’ Gerald crouched beside her. ‘What is it, darling? What have you found?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s just it, nothing. I thought there might be some old letters — snapshots — but there’s no trace of anything. It’s as though we — Dad, my mother and I — never existed. I feel like — like a ghost.’

  He put his arm round her shoulders and drew her close. ‘Have a good cry. Don’t bottle it all up. It’s not good for you.’ He tipped up her chin to look into her brimming eyes. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting you haven’t had a proper cry since Dan died, have you? Go on, let it all out. There’s no one to see but me.’

  Totally overwhelmed by his gentleness, she gave vent to the emotion that welled up inside her. It was such sheer luxury to drop her head on to his shoulder and sob out her grief, gasping and hiccupping with the abandon of a five year old.

  Gerald had been right about the tight rein she’d kept on her emotions since Daniel had died. She’d been afraid to weep in front of Johnny; afraid that the kindly meant sympathy and the fussing that would inevitably result would be interpreted by the other two members of the household as monopolising her. Cathy was acutely aware that they had first call on Johnny’s time and attention. They were her family. She, Cathy, was the outsider. There was Matthew, Johnny’s nineteen-year-old son, tall and serious seeming to show with his silent, unsmiling forbearance just how much he resented the presence of this female interloper. She would have died rather than weep in front of him. Then there was Johnny’s mother, old Mrs Bains, whose sharp eyes seemed always to be watching her, waiting to seize on the first sign that she was taking advantage.

  But Gerald was impartial. He quietly stroked the auburn head that rested on his shoulder and let her cry, saying nothing.

  After a while the sobs ceased and she began to feel much better. Without a word, Gerald pulled out a large clean handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. She sat up, mopped her face and blew her nose, then she looked up at him.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise for doing what you should have let yourself do long ago.’

  She managed a smile. ‘Thanks, Gerald.’ Suddenly to her surprise she saw him quite differently. Until now she had held him in awe, but now they had shared this small intimate moment she felt they were closer — almost equal.

  He glanced around. ‘Is there anything up here that you want?’

  She shrugged helplessly. ‘No. It can all go out for the dustman.’

  ‘Right. Give me a hand to stack the boxes at the top of the stairs then. Oh, and Cathy… ’

  ‘Yes?’ She paused in the act of lifting a box.

  ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say you feel like a ghost again.’ He took the box from her and put it on the floor. Then he took both of her hands in his. ‘You’re young and full of vitality. One day quite soon you’re going to be a beautiful young woman. Your whole life is in front of you and from now on you have to look forward, not back. That’s how your father would have wanted it. And that’s the way it’s going to be.’ He bent and brushed her forehead with his lips. ‘That’s a promise. Now, come on, let’s get these boxes downstairs. I don’t know about you but if I don’t get something to eat soon I shall fade away.’

  *

  Cathy had dreaded Christmas that year; her first without Dad and in the house of people who, however hard they tried, were not her family. The little house was crowded with the four of them. There were only three bedrooms and Johnny had doubled up with her mother in order to accommodate Cathy. She was acutely aware of the sacrifices that were being made on her account, and so afraid she would feel like an intruder at Christmas. But as it happened it was better than she had thought.

  Johnny loved Christmas. She was a wonderful cook and made sure that she involved Cathy in all the preparations. She set Cathy and Matthew the task of decorating the house whilst she and her mother went out to buy last-minute food and presents on the Saturday afternoon before the holiday.

  It was the first time that Cathy had been alone with Matthew and she felt rather shy. She knew that he worked as a junior clerk in a solicitor’s office, but they had never talked about it so she hadn’t the slightest idea what his work involved. When he came home from work each evening he disappeared upstairs to his room as soon as he had eaten. She had always assumed it was because of her. But today, dressed in jeans and a sweater instead of the formal clothes he wore to work, and whistling a popular tune as he worked, he seemed more human somehow — more approachable.

  For the first ten minutes they worked together in silence, she handing up the brightly coloured paper chains and he pinning them.

  ‘Do you like your job?’ she asked at last, remembering Mr MacAlister’s forbidding office and the baffling legal language used in all his correspondence. ‘Isn’t it boring, trying to work out what it’s all supposed to be about?’

  He looked down at her with a slightly surprised expression. ‘Not really. Not when you get used to it. And going to court is really interesting. The law is a fascinating subject, you know.’

  ‘I suppose it is, but you only work in the office, don’t you?’

  ‘At the moment, yes, but I don’t intend to be a clerk for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Oh? What are you going to do then?’

  He came down the ladder and began to bunch some sprigs of holly together. ‘Didn’t Mum tell you? I’m studying for my law exams in my spare time. Some day I’m going to be a fully qualified solicitor.’

  Cathy looked at him with a new respect. So that’s what he did upstairs in his room all evening. He wasn’t keeping out of her way at all.

  ‘Won’t that take ages?’ she asked him. ‘I thought you had to go to university for that.’

  ‘You can do it this way too. It does take longer, but I don’t care as long as I can be earning while I study,’ he said stoically. ‘Mum had a real struggle to bring me up. My dad was killed at Dunkirk, you know. She had to work hard to keep me on at grammar school. And now she’s got Gran to look after too. I mean to pay her back one day.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Cathy was thoughtful. ‘My father made sacrifices for me too,’ she said, remembering how she’d selfishly insisted on going to St Margaret’s without a thought of what it mi
ght mean to him. ‘I’d have liked the chance to pay him back. Now I never will.’

  He looked at her a little apprehensively, hoping she wasn’t about to cry. The fact that she didn’t sent her up in his estimation. He smiled at her for the first time ever. ‘I’m sorry about your dad, Cathy,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It was rotten luck. I was only a baby when mine died so I don’t remember him.’ He touched her shoulder awkwardly. ‘But I don’t suppose your father would have wanted paying back anyhow. I expect he was happy to do it for you.’ He gave the bunch of holly a final twist. ‘Will you hold the step ladder for me while I fix this over the mirror?’

  They smiled at each other and Cathy knew that any resentment, real or imaginary, that had been between them in the past had vanished once and for all.

  *

  On New Year’s Eve Gerald rang to say he was taking her to a concert. Cathy wore her best dress, the one that Dad had bought her the time they went to Bournemouth, and sat proudly in the front row at the Wigmore Hall. She longed to tell the people on either side of her that the soloist was her guardian. He played Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and as she listened wraptly Cathy was convinced that it had never been played with more style and brilliance. After the concert an attendant came to escort her round to Gerald’s dressing room where he was waiting to take her out for dinner. They went to Quaglino’s and Gerald encouraged her to order all the things she liked best.

  It wasn’t until they reached the coffee stage of the meal that she discovered why.

  ‘I’m afraid this is by way of au revoir, Cathy,’ he told her. ‘I’m going on a concert tour in two days’ time: the United States and Canada. I’ll be away for about eight months. No need to worry about anything though. I’ve arranged for your allowance and Mrs Johnson’s to be paid into the bank and if there are any problems just ring my agent. Here’s his address and phone number.’ He passed her a card across the table.

  The news came as a blow. Although she had known of course that he spent much of his time out of the country, she hadn’t been prepared for him to go away this soon — or for so long. She slipped the card into her handbag without looking at it, her cheeks pink and her eyes downcast. ‘I see. Thanks, Gerald.’