Burnt Norton

by Caroline Sandon

  ‘Ruth, I must see him.’

  Scanning the faces in the choir, she grabbed Ruth’s sleeve. ‘I think that’s him,’ she hissed. ‘It is him, I’m sure of it.’ She leant forwards against a tree, her eyes now fixed on the small boy in the black cassock. The music that filled the theatre made only a distant hum in her ears. Her focus was on one child, a boy with unruly curls and restless hands so like her own. She could see both Thomas and Elizabeth in the fragile face. Molly knew Elizabeth would have loved her nephew and would have forgiven her friend.

  When the boy stepped forward, and all eyes were upon him, he stood alone, his sweet voice soaring through the trees. Molly moved towards him automatically. Ruth pulled her back.

  When the glorification of Christ was over and the voices were stilled, Thomas stood on the podium once more. When he toasted the choristers, each child came forward. As he named them, Molly held her breath. Her instinct had been correct; the child was Charles Coram. He was her son.

  ‘Come away now, Molly,’ Ruth said anxiously.

  ‘You go, I must stay.’

  ‘Don’t you embarrass yourself, and don’t do anything hasty. You have plenty of time to put things right.’

  ‘I promise you,’ she replied.

  When Ruth left, Molly remained in the shadows. She wanted to go to Thomas, to reveal the identity of their son, but Ruth was right, she should wait. For the moment she was happy enough to watch Thomas unobserved, and to gaze adoringly at her son. Next week she would go to London and claim Charles. Then she would tell Thomas, be damned the consequences.

  Thomas moved amongst the crowd. He talked to Mr Handel; he helped his mother from her chair. Molly noticed his solicitude towards the elderly, and his easy manner with the guests, but then he stopped at their child. He patted Charles’s small thin shoulder, knelt beside him and took his hand. He pulled something from his pocket. It was a small wrapped gift. Molly watched the child tear the paper and saw the adulation on the boy’s face.

  ‘Thomas knows!’ she gasped. ‘He has known all along.’

  Drawing the hood of her cloak over her face she ran towards them. She was halfway across the lawn when she stopped. If she confronted Thomas now, her son would be present. It was no way to meet his mother. The poor child had suffered enough. No, she would go home tonight, but by God Thomas would hear from her tomorrow.

  How could he deceive me? she thought, running back through the woods, her skirt catching on the trees, her hair escaping its pins. ‘How could he make me give up my child?’

  Had Molly waited, she would have realized that the present was in fact given to Charles in recognition of his solo, and that every soloist received the same gift. But flushed in renewed passions she did not wait. Arriving at her cottage she grabbed pen and paper, and she began to write. They were harsh, angry words.

  Dear Thomas,

  I may have sinned, but yours is the greater. Was it a game, your sister’s plan to betray me, or was it your idea? You are a vile coward; you have ruined my life and your son’s, for every child should have a mother. The years spent preparing to collect him from the Foundling Hospital have now been in vain. You are a hypocrite and a liar, and I despise you both.

  Molly

  Her mother had always told Molly to sleep on her stronger impulses. ‘Sleep on it, my love, for in the morning you will sing from a different sheet.’

  But Molly didn’t sleep, for she didn’t go to bed; she sat up with her letter, waiting for the day to break, and when the milk carts rattled down the street, she gave the letter to the farmer’s boy. ‘Please deliver this letter to the big house; there’s a penny in it for you.’

  Molly Johnson had cast her die.

  52

  ‘There were shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night, and lo the angel of the Lord came upon them.’ The child’s voice was pure in the still evening air. The audience leant forward, listening intently, but Dorothy felt only shame. Despite every challenge of his birth, the boy before her, in voice and appearance, was a Keyt.

  Slipping away amidst the clapping and the cheering, she fetched her horse and galloped along the drive towards Hidcote. Throwing the reins at the groom, she jumped down and ran into the house. She pulled off her gloves, threw them on the settle, and ran upstairs to the long gallery. Her boots clattered on the wooden boards. She looked up at the portraits of generations of the Keyt family and burnt with shame. She had dishonoured the family, and now she felt her ancestors look down upon her with surprise and disapproval.

  She quickly left the room, swearing that she would tell Thomas tomorrow.

  The following morning, Dorothy returned to Burnt Norton.

  ‘Good day, my lady,’ Annie said. ‘You’re up early. Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, Annie, thank you. I’ll wait until breakfast.’ She noted an envelope in Annie’s hand and thought it must be from Gilbert. ‘Is that letter for me?’

  ‘No, my lady, the letter is for Sir Thomas.’

  ‘Give it to me, Annie, and I’ll make sure that he gets it. Are my children still asleep?’

  ‘They are. They were up half the night with the foundlings. They seem to like that young Coram lad.’

  ‘Thank you, Annie,’ she replied tersely.

  When the housemaid had gone, she put the letter on the breakfast table beside her brother’s place. She picked up a book and tried to read, but then looked at the letter again. Apprehensively she broke the seal and read Molly’s letter.

  Panic gripped her. Running to the study she sat at her father’s desk, and with his pen, she wrote to the Foundling Hospital.

  Dear Sir,

  I am aware that Charles Coram will be enlisted as an ordinary seaman in Her Majesty’s Navy in two years’ time. My brother and I, as a gesture of goodwill, would like to give a financial incentive so that he may be enrolled immediately as captain’s servant, thus giving him the best possible chance to rise within the ranks.

  Enclosed is a sum that I hope will more than suffice.

  Sincerely,

  Lady Dorothy Paxton-Hooper

  The courier took the letter from her outstretched hand, and as he cantered down the track, Dorothy tried to run after him, but he had gone too far, the horse disappearing into the distance.

  She cried and wrung her hands in despair. ‘Dear God, what have I done?’

  That afternoon, the foundlings piled into the coaches for their return journey to London. Charles Coram was the last to say goodbye. ‘Thank you, mistress. I wish it hadn’t gone so quick. May I come again one day?’

  ‘I am sure you can, I would like that, Charles.’ Another lie. Dorothy knew she had ordained this child’s fate.

  When Mr Handel took her hand, he held it for a second.

  ‘Thank you. Your kindness will have its reward,’ he said, as the coach door shut behind him.

  After the last coach had left, Thomas and Dorothy returned to the house. Her children played in the ruins.

  ‘How dismal and empty it seems.’ Thomas sat down heavily in an armchair. ‘If circumstances were different, and I had plenty of money, I would do so much for those children.’

  Dorothy couldn’t look in her dear brother’s face.

  Within the day, the house was closed once more. ‘I hope Sir Dudley will make good use of our possessions,’ Thomas said. ‘All I wish for is a simple life. Take the harpsichord, Dotty, and when you play, think of our childhood.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, wishing she could go back to those earlier times and untangle the lies.

  With the harpsichord safely secured on the cart, and the children stowed inside, Dorothy’s long journey to Surrey began. ‘Goodbye,’ she called, as her brother faded into the distance. ‘Goodbye and forgive me,’ she whispered.

  53

  July 1751

  Charles Coram didn’t want to leave Burnt Norton. During the week he had spent there, he had experienced a totally different world: he had known freedom. He climb
ed trees and slid across the polished floors; he jumped ditches and snagged his clothes. At night he climbed from his bed and leant from the window. Across the lawn, silver in the moonlight, lay the crumbling ruin of the mansion. While the other boys saw it and laughed fearfully, Charles wondered about the poor man who had burnt inside.

  But one emotion outshone all others: a sense of belonging. Sir Thomas had touched his heart; he had given him more attention than any adult so far in his young life. Of course, Mr Handel had been kind, as had his choirmaster, and from a very young age, Thomas Coram had shown him affection. Certain teachers had inspired him, but nothing compared to this new friendship. He didn’t try to understand it; he just knew Sir Thomas was special. When their eyes met, and the older man’s face broke into a smile, Charles felt his whole being light up with happiness.

  He felt nothing of the sort for Lady Dorothy. There was something in her face he didn’t trust, a look about her that scared him. She skulked around at the oddest times, and he suspected that she had been watching him, a nagging doubt that disturbed him long after the coach had left Norton behind. Her last words to him had been dishonest. She didn’t want him to return, he was sure of it.

  Back in London, life at the Foundling Home returned to normal, and the trip to Burnt Norton took on the proportions of a distant dream. When the choristers went to St George’s Chapel in Windsor to sing to the King, Eton College Chapel was pointed out to the boys. Charles saw it rising far above the school and thought of Sir Thomas. He had sung there. Whenever Charles leant against the solitary yew tree in the Foundling Hospital garden, he imagined the whole coppice of yew trees at Norton. Amongst them he had played hide and seek, concealed himself in their dark boughs, held his breath in excitement. How he longed to be back.

  Charles applied himself to his lessons and his singing, believing that hard work would help him to shape his own future and avoid recruitment into the navy. Some of the boys looked forward to such a future, with its possibility of travel and adventure. Not Charles. To his gentle, artistic nature, the sea, with its weather, tides and harsh conditions, was anathema.

  Late in the summer of 1751 a messenger came to the hospital. It caused a stir amongst the staff. ‘An anonymous benefactor – who could it be?’

  When Charles was singled out and told of his imminent departure, he was not surprised. He also believed that he would never return to London.

  ‘It’s an honour, young man,’ the kindly Mr Handel said, trying to console him. ‘Not many of our boys are captain’s boys. You could rise through the ranks.’

  ‘I don’t want to go, sir. I could stay here with you. I want to sing.’

  ‘But your voice will break soon; you can’t rely on it for ever.’

  His best friend, Moses, whose skin was black and whose mam left him by the river without the basket, tried to reassure him. ‘Like as not, I was born on one of them slave ships. I’m used to the sea, Charlie boy. I’ll be there for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Moses,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be coming back.’

  ‘Hush now. You have a good friend to look after you. You’ll do that, won’t you, Moses?’ Mr Handel said.

  ‘I’ll try to, sir, if a powder monkey is allowed to care for his friend.’

  Along with thirteen other boys from the Foundling Hospital, Moses and Charles boarded HMS Lancaster under the command of Admiral John Byng. As Mr Handel and the staff waved them goodbye, there were many amongst them who wondered if they would ever see the boys again.

  On 19 May 1756, five hard and desolate years after boarding his first ship, Charles Coram wrote a letter to Sir Thomas Keyt. It was the night before engagement with the French off the coast of Minorca.

  Dear Sir Thomas,

  Before battle, most of the crew send messages to their loved ones, but I don’t know my family, and I’m hoping you won’t mind if I turn to you instead.

  My apologies, sir, but tomorrow will be my first battle, and you’ve been kind to me. I want to tell you what is in my heart. If I’m done for, my best friend will make sure you get this letter. He’s called Moses and he’s given me his word.

  Thank you, sir, for ensuring my position as captain’s servant. I know it was you and it has made things easier. I’m no powder monkey, but if I’m honest, I didn’t want to go to sea. Not that I’m ungrateful, but it’s nothing but rats, sickness, floggings and exhaustion. Sometimes at night I hear my mates’ tears. We all pretend to be brave, but it’s not easy. We just want to come home. The hospital was strict and there were rules and more rules, but at least you got to lie in a bed at night, not in a hammock in the gun deck of a ship. Most of all you weren’t cold and scared, more scared than you can imagine.

  At first light we will fight the Frenchies. I don’t want to. I’ve got nothing against them. I hope you will forgive me for seeming ungrateful, but Mr Handel said it’s no crime to be scared. If you get this letter, I will have gone to the maker. Would you be kind enough to find my mother? I feel sure she would like to know.

  Goodbye and thank you,

  Charles Coram

  He sealed the letter with borrowed wax and went below to find his friend.

  When the battle came, Moses, as apprentice seaman and powder monkey, ran the gunpowder from the ship’s magazine to the gun deck. Charles was in the rigging as lookout, high above the ship. He didn’t see it coming, but he heard the earth-shattering splintering of wood as the mast crashed towards the sea.

  54

  In July Dorothy made her annual journey to Gloucestershire. She was shocked to learn of her mother’s growing blindness.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Mama?’

  ‘Darling, it’s of little importance. I am most sad about losing access to my precious books. There is still so much to learn,’ she sighed, ‘but then, what use is knowledge to an old woman like me?’

  ‘You are such a good woman. You never burden others with your pain, and you never judge anyone.’

  Lady Keyt laughed. ‘I do, my love, and if you ask my poor servants, I’m sure they’d tell you that I complain all the time.’

  ‘Mother, have you ever done anything that you’re ashamed of?’

  ‘Of course I have, but I’m hoping that God will forgive me quite soon, for I’m ready to make his acquaintance.’

  That night they dined alone. Afterwards, Dorothy helped her mother into the drawing room.

  ‘Dorothy, I believe we have letters today. Would you read them to me? They’re on the salver in the hall.’

  Taking a candle, she walked through the panelled hallway. She lifted the letter from the silver dish, and at once her hand started shaking. Though the letter was addressed to her mother, the Foundling Hospital seal was unmistakable.

  ‘Are you coming?’ She heard her mother’s frail voice.

  ‘In a moment, Mother.’

  Breaking the seal she opened the envelope. Inside were two letters.

  The Foundling Hospital

  Bloomsbury

  London

  Dear Lady Keyt,

  I have had the pleasure of meeting you in the company of your esteemed son on at least three occasions, though principally at Norton House, when I performed Messiah for your guests. Unfortunately, I am unable to contact Sir Thomas directly, for I believe he has since moved.

  Moses, a young gentleman and former foundling who serves in His Majesty’s Navy, recently delivered a letter into my hand. He was insistent that I should help locate Sir Thomas. I am greatly distressed, for I have now learnt that my principal soloist was lost at sea. I am told that during a conflict with the French, off the coast of Minorca, Charles Coram was thrown from the rigging. He is presumed to be dead.

  I can only tell you that he was an inspiration to all of those around him and he shall be sadly missed.

  In accordance with his wishes, I am determined that the enclosed letter should reach your son.

  Your servant,

  George Frideric Handel

  Written by the hand of
my assistant, John Christopher Smith.

  Dorothy put the letter down and buried her head in her hands. She had caused the death of an innocent child, her own nephew. Tucked inside the smaller envelope was a letter from the boy himself. As her tears fell, smudging the ink, she read the letter and her shame increased. Charles Coram had trusted her brother, and she had betrayed them both. Returning to the drawing room, she looked into her mother’s sweet face as she slept.

  The following evening, Thomas joined them for dinner.

  ‘Hello, Thomas, are you well?’

  ‘Yes, Dotty, I’m fine,’ he answered. But Dorothy could see the pain in his gaunt face. His eyes, once a startling blue, had dulled with worry.

  He trusted me, Dorothy thought miserably, and I have stolen his every chance at happiness.

  They ate in silence, each lost in memories.

  ‘Do you like your new house?’ Dorothy asked finally.

  ‘It’s small, but well enough, for I have only myself to care for. I would have loved a wife and children, but life is not always as we wish it to be.’

  He looked at her, but Dorothy could not meet his eye.

  ‘You can still get married, have children – you are young yet.’

  ‘No, I can’t. There has been too much pain in this family, too much loss.’ He paused. ‘There was a child that I was fond of, a foundling. Do you remember at the concert, the boy they called Charles Coram? I could have given him a home, but they sent him to sea. Now of course we are at war, and I may well never see him again.’

  Dorothy put her hand into the pocket of her dress and felt the letter. The words trembled on her lips but she looked at her plate and said nothing.

  Afterwards, when they stood in the porch to say goodbye, Thomas took her hands. ‘Dotty,’ he said earnestly, the lamplight illuminating his haggard face, ‘you take care now, for you are very precious. And watch those children of yours, for they are precious, too.’

  In her dreams that night, hell came for her. The devil dragged her from her bed. He threw her into the inferno and laughed as the flames consumed her. It was nothing less than she deserved.