Abigale Hall

by Forry, Lauren A

‘Oh.’ Pip plopped a mug on the table.

  Eliza spotted the drunk wandering round the back garden. ‘Is he your father?’

  ‘A friend. This house is too big to go without company. Though you’ll know all about that. Living at Thornecroft.’

  ‘So you know who I am.’

  Pip paused. ‘Everyone knows the new housemaids.’ She pulled an already clean dish from the drying rack and began washing it. ‘You found that photograph on the estate?’

  ‘In my room.’ Eliza waited for some reply. None came. ‘You were a Land Girl?’

  ‘For most of the war.’

  ‘And when it ended, you went to work at Thornecroft?’

  She left the plate in the sink. ‘I think the kettle’s ready.’ It had not yet whistled.

  ‘How long were you employed there?’ Eliza asked. ‘Did you ever find the reading room?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘I don’t mean to pry, but––’

  ‘Then don’t!’ With a heavy thud, she dropped the still-cool kettle on an iron trivet. ‘What’s your name, girl?’

  ‘Eliza Haverford.’

  Pip gripped the counter’s edge as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. ‘Well, Miss Eliza, if you want any advice about Thornecroft, all I can say is keep your head down, stay out of Pollard’s way and ask yourself what horrible thing it is you’ve done to be there.’ She took a flannel and wiped where the kettle’s water had spilled. ‘It was a mistake to let you in.’

  Eliza looked away. Aunt Bess had said the same once. Their first of many rows.

  She rose. ‘Then I had better go. Thank you for the offer of tea.’

  Eliza waited, but Pip remained silent.

  ‘Whatever happened to you, I’m sorry for it. I hope your nosebleeds are much improved.’

  At this, Pip reached a hand to her face, covering her mouth as if to keep herself from crying.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Eliza saw herself out. The heat of the kitchen fire was stifling compared with the fresh, cold air outside.

  The fog thickened as she returned to Thornecroft, matching her increasingly heavy mood and making the road invisible. It was not the yellow, putrid kind of London, but a pure, thick cloud cocooning her from the Welsh countryside. She felt the dirt road beneath her feet and inched her way forwards. Now and then she would veer off course onto the soft grass. The journey was slow, and she doubted she would reach Thornecroft by dinnertime. She should never have made the trip. How could she explain her absence to Mrs Pollard? Would Rebecca give her away? She hadn’t told her this should remain secret. How could she forget something so important? Her mind was full of so many things. Too many things. She felt she needed to drill a hole in the side of her skull and allow some of the thoughts to drip out. Maybe then the headaches would stop.

  A soft glow emerged from the fog – a small ball of light floating ahead of her, too small for a lantern, too large for a candle. Its colour and size matched the light she glimpsed in Abigale Hall. She stepped towards it.

  A horse whinnied.

  Eliza turned from the light but saw no sign of any animal.

  ‘Hello?’ She listened. No reply came.

  When she turned back, the light had moved further away. Secure in the feeling of gravel beneath her feet, she inched closer. The light remained static. She closed her eyes, cleared her head and looked again. No movement. It had never moved at all. It must be Thornecroft, she thought. The gravel meant she reached the main drive. With greater confidence, she quickened her pace. Her foot met only air.

  Her body pitched forward, unable to stop its momentum.

  Something yanked her back. She collapsed onto her side, patting the firm ground, ensuring it was real.

  ‘What’re you doing all the way out here?’ Mr Drewry appeared from the fog, the grey mare behind him.

  Eliza panicked. He would tell Mrs Pollard she had gone, and she would be punished, Rebecca too.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘It’s a thousand-foot drop to the bottom of that quarry!’

  ‘Quarry?’ Eliza scurried backwards as she climbed to her feet.

  ‘You’d be dead soon’s you hit the ground. Be lucky if there was any body left to bury.’ He towered over her, his animated face making his scars alive and angry.

  ‘The light . . . I thought . . .’ There was nothing in the fog save the mare and Mr Drewry.

  ‘Light? So you were chasing corpse candles, eh? Think they’ll guide you to Thornecroft? Daft girl. You’re miles away. Corpse candles only show you to your death.’ He grabbed her arm. Manure from the stables was caked under his fingernails. ‘But maybe that’s what you’re hoping for?’

  ‘No, no I . . .’

  ‘Are you certain? What’s your life worth, then? Better men than you die every day. I’ve seen it. Men you’d lay down your life for. There beside you one minute then BANG.’ He shook her hard. ‘All that’s left is a pair of boots with your mate’s feet tied up neat inside. But it’s not the sight that gets you. No, it don’t look any worse than owt at the butcher’s. What gets you is the smell. Crawls inside your skin and stays there. Ain’t no smell like burnt flesh, fresh blood and gunpowder. The Devil’s Dinner. That’s what we called it, that smell. And even here – out here where there’s nowt – it creeps up behind you. Takes you by the throat.’ He gripped Eliza at the base of her neck. ‘Takes you and never lets go. Ever known a smell like that?’

  Eliza felt the increasing pressure, smelled sulphur and marrow. He released her.

  ‘Thought not.’ He spat tobacco chew onto the ground. ‘Get on the horse.’

  As Mr Drewry turned them around, she caught a glimpse of the cliff edge through the fog. She clung tightly to the saddle, picturing her bloodied body lying at the foot of a crevasse.

  Her hands were still shaking when they reached the manor. She struggled to unwrap her hair as she made her way through the halls, the knot of the headscarf getting tangled in her loose strands. She ripped it from her hair with a shout, then froze.

  The doll stood in the centre of the passage, balanced on its worn leather shoes as if interrupted in its midday walk. It fell onto its side.

  Eliza waited for it to move again. All was still.

  ‘Rebecca?’

  No answer. She sidestepped the doll but went no further.

  Her bedroom was torn to pieces. The wardrobe hung open, her clothes strewn across the floor and windowsill. The suitcase sat overturned on the bed and the wash basin lay in two jagged pieces. Eliza rushed to the bedside table to find their family photograph on the floor, the silver picture frame damaged beyond repair. She gripped it with her fingertips, careful of the glass. The jagged edges had scratched Mother’s face.

  ‘Rebecca!’

  ‘Yes?’ Rebecca stood in the doorway, cradling the doll.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was looking for your sewing kit,’ she said, her face impassive.

  ‘You did this?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I found it.’ She walked away.

  ‘Rebecca. Rebecca!’ Eliza ran after her. ‘Rebecca Haverford, you look at me when I’m speaking to you.’ She grabbed her arm. ‘Apologise. Now!’

  ‘What for?’

  Eliza yanked the wretched toy from Rebecca’s hold and threw it against the wall.

  ‘Look what you did. Look!’ She forced the damaged photo into Rebecca’s hands. ‘This was our only picture of Mother. It’s ruined now. Ruined because of what you did. You’re exactly like Father! You have absolutely no consideration for anyone’s feelings. Never think how your actions will affect others. You didn’t even do what I asked of you, did you? Well?’

  Rebecca counted under her breath.

  ‘Of course you didn’t. Go to your room. I don’t ever want you in here again. Do you understand?’

  ‘Eight, nine, ten . . .’

  ‘Rebecca.’

  ‘Eleven. I understand. I ruin everything. Twelve . . .’ Rebecca dropped the photograph
– ‘Thirteen, fourteen . . .’ – and went into her room, leaving Eliza alone in the hall.

  Her anger receded as guilt swallowed her bit by bit. Rebecca would count all night now because of her. Eliza scooped up the doll. Her careless throw had left a scratch on its cheek. She could still fix it, if Rebecca wanted. Holding it by the arm, Eliza returned to her room. Mr Brownawell’s coughs reverberated through the manor.

  9

  Blood ran into the gutter, slipping away like the voices in his head. They were important, the voices. Without their words, he would fade into nothing. Yet he could not understand them. They came from the sitting-room wireless while he slept in his bedroom above. A bright light blinded him and sleep disappeared. Shouting tore his paper-thin throat. A gentle pressure on his shoulder returned him to sleep. He snuck to the top of the stairs to better hear the voices and found himself walking along the Strand towards Trafalgar Square. Nelson’s column never came nearer. Barrage balloons floated across the sky, turning day to night.

  The air raid sounded, but Peter did not worry. He was almost there. He saw her in the distance, by Charing Cross. She was dressed as Dorothy, but her feet were red from blood not rubies. He thought it funny. She did not. She had never been to Kansas. Eliza pointed to the silver sky. The balloons began to pop, showering them in a thick confetti of rubberised cotton. He opened his umbrella, but it floated away. Cables spiralled to the ground, cracking into buildings and breaking off bricks that fell as bodies. The pavement turned silver, peach and red. A cable came towards Eliza, but she was Jessie now and that was okay but not the same. He shouted to her, but she pointed above his head. A steel rope crashed down upon him.

  Peter jerked his hand to catch the cable but felt nothing, only an itch on the back of his hand that mirrored the tickle in his throat. He coughed. A cool, smooth surface was pressed against his bottom lip. He coughed again and felt water trickle past his lips. After a moment’s rest, he opened his eyes. The light was dim but still it burned, and he saw only indistinct blurs. A yellow and red shape tipped more water into his mouth. He drank until it was taken away. The form moulded into a woman. His mother, Peter thought, but his mother was not blonde.

  He tried to say her name, but his voice sounded wrong – too soft, too high – like it had when he was a little boy. She hushed him, stroking a hand through his hair. Peter inhaled deeply, breathing a strange mixture of ether and cabbage. It choked him. When he coughed, the angel comforted him again. Did angels wear perfume? Her blonde halo obscured the water-damaged ceiling, but he could not force her face into focus. His eyes grew tired of trying, so he closed them and sank into the safe abyss.

  *

  Having been asleep for two days, Peter thought he should be able to remain awake for visitors. Instead, after five minutes with his family, he already felt the strain of consciousness. His mother sat beside him, speaking to him, but he had lost the conversation long ago. John and Samuel, his two eldest brothers, relaxed at the end of his bed, laughing at a magazine borrowed from a sleeping patient. Only Michael was silent, perched on the windowsill by Peter’s head, chewing on a fingernail as he watched the street below. Peter remembered when they were young how people would confuse them as twins even though Michael was three years older. They still looked so alike.

  Mother squeezed his hand. ‘Peter? I said the police gave me your wallet and ration card. I’ll return them when you’re discharged. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but you never know with . . . other people nowadays.’ She eyed a passing sister.

  ‘Might as well hang on to them, Mother.’ John grinned. ‘He’ll be moving back home now the big city’s roughed him up, won’t you, Petey?’

  ‘Nonsense. Only a slight setback.’ Samuel stole a grape from Peter’s plate. ‘Think of it as your first war wound.’

  ‘Enough, boys,’ Mother scolded.

  Peter’s eyelids slid shut. He blinked them open, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

  She had. ‘We should be off. Peter needs his rest if he’s to give the police his full statement.’

  ‘But I already have.’ He sunk into the mattress. He enjoyed his family’s company, the sight of familiar faces. There was something inside him urging him not to remain alone.

  Mother sighed. ‘All you’ve told them is you can’t remember a thing. That’s hardly helpful, is it?’

  ‘It’s the truth.’ Memories of that night hovered just beyond his reach. Only fragments came to greet him.

  ‘Well, there must be more to it than that,’ John said.

  Orange light.

  ‘Indeed,’ Samuel added.

  Damp pavement.

  ‘If you try very hard, I’m sure you’ll remember something,’ said Mother.

  Blood down his face.

  ‘What did the fellow look like?’ John asked.

  Vomit beside his cheek.

  ‘Was there more than one? Two? Three?’ Samuel leant closer.

  Sweat gathered in his palms as their questions bombarded him faster than German doodlebugs, firing image after useless image across his vision.

  ‘Was it a whole gang?’

  ‘Did you get in with the wrong crowd?’

  ‘Do you owe anyone money?’

  Round and round they spun, buzzing inside his head. A carousel losing control.

  ‘You can’t remember a fig what they looked like?’

  ‘Where had you been?’

  Vomit. Light. Jessie.

  ‘Where were you going?’

  ‘Where was that girl of yours?’

  Blood. Fear. Eliza.

  ‘He said he doesn’t know!’ Michael’s voice flung itself into the gears of Peter’s mind. The madness halted as the ward grew still. Patients, sisters, doctors – all stopped to watch Michael’s pacing.

  ‘If he says he doesn’t remember then he doesn’t remember. Leave him alone. You must leave him alone!’ When Michael spoke, no one listened but everyone watched. That’s how it was now, Father said. Watch until he quiets then ease him back into the world, that’s what you had to do.

  Mother addressed him too soon. ‘Michael, please.’

  ‘Please what, Mother? Please stop harassing my brother?’

  ‘Easy, Michael.’ John approached him, palms up, placating. ‘We were only trying to help.’

  ‘We didn’t mean to upset him,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Here, what say we go to the pub? Let Mother and Peter have a few minutes’ privacy?’

  ‘Why, John, a splendid idea. Shall we, Michael?’

  They clasped Michael by the shoulders, patting him on the back as they escorted him from the ward. Michael itched at his arms, muttering about injustice as he allowed himself to be led away. The look on Mother’s face was an echo of the one she had worn during his brothers’ deployments. She watched them even after they were gone.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Yes? Oh, I’m sorry, Peter.’

  ‘No. I am. That I can’t remember anything. I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.’

  ‘I know you will. Only . . . promise me you won’t try too hard, my poor boy.’ She looked towards the ward door. ‘My poor, poor boy.’

  *

  Peter regained his strength over the next few days with little to do but ponder his mother’s words – did he remember what happened? When he tried, all he found was a black space between walking from Jessie’s flat to waking in hospital. The harder he tried to fill that gap, the larger it became. He imagined he could lose his entire self to it, if he allowed it to grow. His only options were either to brick up that part of his life and forget it ever happened, or find the memories to close the wound. Both seemed impossible lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by sad faces awaiting the end.

  The day of his release, the air was clear and fresh as he leaned heavily on his cane and limped out of St Bart’s. He filled his lungs and looked back at the building, admiring the statues on the Greek colonnades. Somehow, like St Paul’s, these survived the war. Not all was lost. Across the street, the c
ouncil were clearing rubble from a bomb crater. It would take time, but everything could be rebuilt.

  His landlady fussed over him when he arrived home, insisting she carry his bag and help him up to his flat. She promised to get new banisters installed right away, as soon as she could find someone with the proper iron. Wouldn’t it be a nightmare, she said, for poor, young Mr Lamb to be limping up and down the steps with only that cane for support? The missing banisters had almost never bothered Peter. Now he felt their lack with every step as he climbed behind her, inhaling her strong French perfume. He remembered another perfume, one at hospital, so different, like lavender and fresh linen.

  Promising to join her and her husband later for tea and biscuits, Peter stepped into the stillness of his flat. Though nothing had changed, there was an emptiness which hadn’t existed prior, one he knew would linger in the rooms for days following his return.

  His post lay strewn across the floor and, gently, he lowered himself to gather the mess. There were a few bills and a letter from his mother sent before the attack, but nothing from Eliza. She would have visited him in hospital if she were near. If she had known. With a sigh, he used the cane to push himself up and dropped the post onto the counter. The larder and cupboards were empty of anything he felt like eating, so he put the kettle on instead. Eliza’s last letter said nothing as to where she was, only that she needed to go away, that she would never return and he would never see her again.

  If Eliza was still in London, someone would have told her about his attack, wouldn’t they? And Jessie, what about her? All those days in hospital and he barely spared her a thought. The morphine had clouded his thoughts. Now he was home, he could refocus his efforts. Maybe John or Samuel could help him. Michael, too, if he was feeling well.

  With a cup of tea in hand, Peter settled into his armchair. Today he would rest, but tomorrow he could start his search again. He switched on the wireless and, as it warmed up, he caught a flash of red amongst the blues and greys outside.

  Bess Haverford paced the pavement opposite his building. Peter wanted to run down to her, but his sore leg made it impossible. Unable to lift the heavy window, he knocked on the glass.