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Part 1
New York
1937
The Past
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
Edgar Allan Poe, ‘Alone’
1
For God’s sake, Cassie help me! Come at once.
Forgive me, but I am desperate.
Scarlet Pengally
The letter trembled in Cassie’s hands, and as she read the words over and over they seared her mind, shocking her to the very core of her being. Yet this letter from England was not the only shock Cassie had suffered recently and somehow, she had the awful premonition that it would not be the last!
The letter, though, had shaken her more than she realised, or was it the reading of her father’s will earlier today that had devastated her? There was no doubt that, because of it, and now this, Cassie’s whole life had been turned upside down. In the space of only twenty-four hours she was alienated from everything she had been brought up to believe. All that had gone before in her life was now meaningless. She was lost, adrift from all that was familiar, stripped of her identity, and left without a purpose. Cassie felt the room slowly spinning as her senses began to dim. ‘It’s alright, Cassie… you’re only dreaming.’ She heard her own voice, yet it was not hers, so strange did it sound. But, of course, that was it! She was only dreaming, living through a nightmare from which she would wake at any minute.
Crossing to the long casement window from which she gazed out into the darkness beyond, Cassie knew that she was not dreaming. The nightmare was real! As real as all the other nightmares that haunted her as a child… only this time it was different. This time her mother was not there to take Cassie in her arms, to gently stroke her hair and lovingly whisper words of comfort. Oh, how Cassie had adored that darling frail creature, with her pretty face and soft blue eyes, and how she had missed her during the two lonely years since the Good Lord had seen fit to take her. She was always Cassie’s comfort, her peace of mind, and her friend. The only one who truly loved Cassie, who encouraged her in her art studies and her love of painting. Cassie’s father, the respected and wealthy financier, had always been as ruthless and unfeeling with her as he had been in his banking transactions in the city of New York. He had been a big man in his own field, strong, demanding and always reluctant to give any quarter; he had never learned the art of compromise and it was his way to ride roughshod over anyone who displeased him. Cassie must have displeased him from the day she was born, because he had no love or regard for her… only suspicion and inexplicable animosity. For as long as Cassie could remember, he had kept her at a distance, always favouring her younger brother, allowing him the freedom and privileges Cassie had never known. In her heart she knew from an early age that he loathed her; that, for some reason she could never understand, he could not bear her near him. Cassie’s brother followed his every example, spurning and despising her in the same way. Only her mother gave her the love she was hungry for: always there, always protecting, always guiding and encouraging, never failing Cassie when she needed her.
When, as so often, Cassie woke screaming with terror and bathed in the sweat of the pursued, it was she who took Cassie in her arms and gave her solace, she who wiped away her tears and coaxed her from the nightmares that plagued her… terrible, violent nightmares, yet so vague and obscure that Cassie could never remember them afterwards. They were there, though, in Cassie’s subconscious, only waiting for her to close her eyes and enter that terrifying world of darkness, and they would surround her, engulf her until the very breath was squeezed from her body. It was then that Cassie’s mother would reach out her arms and hold her close, safe and secure – for a while.
Looking out of the window, Cassie noticed absent-mindedly how the big soft snowflakes were already beginning to settle on the ground. They made a deep white halo of light beneath the street lamps, glistening and sparkling with many dazzling facets, forming patterns which had a peculiar beauty of their own. It was sad that their lives were so very short, that with the touch of warmth they would simply melt away for ever, as though they had never existed.
Cassie felt like that… fragile and threatened, and now as though she had never existed. She could barely see for the rising tears which stung her eyes. Standing up tall and straight against the window, she swallowed hard and deliberately blinked back her tears: she would not cry; she must never cry! Somewhere, deep in her subconscious, every instinct warned Cassie against it and she recalled some years ago when her favourite doll was accidentally smashed, she wanted to cry then… Momma had told her, ‘It’s beyond repair. I’m sorry, darling… you cry if you want to.’ She did want to. But the tears just would not come. They dared not.
Cassie didn’t know how long she stood by the window, she only knew that she was desperately unhappy and afraid. Inside the room it was warm, but outside it was a cold February night, with the breeze cutting spitefully into the newly fallen snow, whipping it up and spinning it high into the air until it disappeared from sight. Soon, visitors were leaving: selected business colleagues of Cassie’s father, various other beneficiaries of his will, and lastly the lawyer who had so sincerely expressed his heartfelt sympathy regarding Cassie’s unforeseen circumstances. He was a kindly man, and Cassie believed him when he had told her after the reading, ‘I begged your father to make proper provision for you in his will, Cassie… after all, you are the elder child. But he was adamant that everything he owned must go to your brother. He never gave me his reasons, but no doubt the sealed letters he left to both you and your brother will explain. I’m sorry, Cassie… so very sorry.’ Then he smiled warmly, adding, ‘Oh, but I’m sure your brother Edmund will do the right thing by you. Don’t worry, child. If it should prove to be necessary, you do have the right to appeal.’
But Cassie had read the letter which Jonathan Thornton left to her, and she was convinced of three things. Firstly, Edmund would make no provision for her. Secondly, an appeal would be thrown out of any court on the grounds that her ‘father’, Jonathan Thornton, was in sound mind when he made his will, though there might be questions about Cassie’s sanity! And, lastly, she had learned now without doubt that she had no right whatsoever to anything belonging to the Thornton family. She also knew, after all these years, why Jonathan Thornton publicly acknowledged his ‘daughter’ Cassie… while privately spurning her. It was all there, written in his own hand, and even through the written words Cassie could sense his repugnance of her, so much so that she could hardly bear to hold the letter in her hands long enough to read it. Afterwards she dropped it into the fire, where she watched the flames curl about it until it was engulfed, and reduced to blackened ash. There were things written in that letter… horrible things which she must forget if she was ever to know peace of mind. But the one staring fact Cassie could not forget was that Nancy Thornton was not her real mother. Jonathan Thornton was not her father and though he had taken her in and provided the material aspects of her upbringing because of his wife’s pleas on Cassie’s behalf, he had done so grudgingly, and had regretted it ever since. There was nothing in his letter to tell Cassie of her true background or to give her any idea of how she might discover her own identity. There was no remorse for his harsh treatment of her; no comfort of any kind, only hatred, and something else – something which permeated through his every word and turned her heart over. That something was fear. And, it awakened the same in Cassie. He wanted her to leave this house on Madison Avenue where sh
e had grown up. He insisted also that she should change her name from Thornton, and never again contact his only child, Edmund. He concluded the letter by saying:
I have done my duty by you, for the sake of my lovely Nancy, and now I owe you nothing!
You will find enclosed a letter from England, which I purposely kept from you. The letter is from your real mother. Go back to her, where you belong. And may the devil take you both.
Jonathan Thornton
Cassie watched as the visitors went into the night, tightening their coats and pulling up their collars as they climbed into their various carriages and motor cars. In the blackness of the window, the room was mirrored in its expensive detail, its deep plush carpets of red, and furnishings of velvet and silk. The furniture was grand and ornate, and there on the large marble mantelpiece was a photograph of Jonathan and Nancy Thornton, he still tall and overbearing in his early sixties, slightly balding and upright of stance, and she tiny, delicate, with smiling blue eyes and goodness shining from her. And there, in the window, was mirrored Cassie’s own image and she looked nothing like either of them.
For long agonising moments Cassie regarded the image that was her with a great deal of curiosity… as though observing a stranger. The figure was not short, neither was it tall, but a pleasing height for a woman, being also slim and softly rounded, with square straight shoulders and an air of confidence which belied the inner insecurity. Soft wavy hair with tints of auburn and gold tumbled to the shoulders and framed the small oval face, giving it added loveliness and a peculiar innocence… almost vulnerability. The mouth was softly red and perfectly shaped, marred only by the lop-sided dimple in that fold of flesh below the bottom lip. The nose was trim and straight, with only the tiniest tilt to its tip, and the eyes, which were spaced a suitable distance apart, were not over-large but dark and attractive. They had an artist’s way of seeing deeper than most, and they had a particular sadness about them.
Suddenly Cassie heard familiar footsteps approaching her room. It was Edmund, and the very thought that he was about to halt at her door and knock on it caused Cassie’s stomach to churn and her heart to pound with fear. He knew she did not belong! He also had received a letter after the reading of the will, and there was no doubt in Cassie’s mind that his father had told him how she was a usurper… a cuckoo in the nest.
The knock came, then, before Cassie could answer, the door was pushed open and there he stood, a handsome young man not yet sixteen years old, and almost two years younger than Cassie. She had often wondered at the stark difference in their physical appearance, for his eyes were vivid blue like Nancy’s, and his hair was golden yellow like his father’s had once been. Cast in the image of Jonathan Thornton, his son Edmund wore a permanent scowl on his face and he saw a potential enemy in everyone.
‘You read my father’s letter?’ His voice was hostile as he came into the room, closing the door behind him.
Cassie could find no words to say to him, being both afraid and reluctant to enter into any kind of conversation on a matter that was so terrible to her. Drawing the curtains on the night, she turned to face him and was not surprised to see his gloating expression as the blue eyes raked her face. Then he smiled, an unexpected smile that straight away put Cassie on guard. ‘I won’t leave you penniless… even though you do understand that anything I do for you is out of the goodness of my heart. I am under no obligation, but I know how fond of you my momma was.’ She was my momma too, Cassie thought, in spite of everything, and she would not let him take that away from her. She hated his voice as it went on, pompous and patronising. ‘I’ve made arrangements for the sum of twelve thousand dollars to be deposited in your name at Central Bank.’
‘I don’t want your money.’ The thought disgusted her.
‘You’ll need it to make a new life… use it wisely.’ His eyes were cool and delighted. ‘There’ll be no more.’ He turned away; then, as he opened the door to leave, he swung round, on his face a darker look, as he told her scathingly, ‘I always knew you didn’t belong! You have three days to leave this house… after that I never want to see or hear from you again.’ He smiled once more, his face wreathed in pleasure as, gently laughing, he said, ‘Goodbye, Cassie… whoever you are!’
For a long time after his footsteps had retreated and the room was struck with an eerie silence, Cassie made no move. Her mind was churning, agitated and confused. What should she do? Where would she go? Again the tears threatened and, as before, she suppressed them. Three days! The obvious kept pushing itself into her mind, and each time she fought it off, until there was no fight left in her. She had no friends, nowhere to go but in one direction: the direction in which fate was pressing her. England! She must go to England and seek out the woman who claimed to be her real mother; she must find Scarlet Pengally, and learn from her the truth about the past. Strange, Cassie thought: little more than twenty-four hours ago she was Cassie Thornton, residing on Madison Avenue, New York. She had a life, an identity, and a promising future as an artist. The name Scarlet Pengally was unknown to her and she had no aspirations whatsoever to go to England. Now she was nobody; she had no family or place, no future and no past… except through this woman. She had to find her! She had to know why Jonathan Thornton had allowed his wife to bring Cassie up as her own child, though he himself had never been able to love her. The more Cassie thought on it, the more she knew that her destiny was already written.
The letter from England was postmarked some six months ago, and the chilling thought struck Cassie that perhaps the fearsome thing which had made Scarlet Pengally desperate enough to write such a letter might by now have caught up with her. For both their sakes she hoped not. The letter was strangely disturbing, as though written under great duress by a highly imaginative and nervous creature, or by a madwoman! Either way, it beckoned Cassie to old England, and she could not resist. Something about that letter, about the woman who wrote it, and some dark curious instinct deep inside Cassie, compelled her to go!
The next three days went so fast that Cassie hardly had time to conclude all the arrangements for her trip to England. Once her mind was made up, though, she found a great energy for the task in hand, yet at no time did she feel excited, or look forward to the journey with any degree of enthusiasm. To her mind it was something that must be done, and the sooner the better! It was strange, though, she mused, how she went about the arrangements – almost as if it was not her but someone else. She felt apprehensive, unsure of herself, and always there was within her a murmuring sense of impending danger, a disturbing intuition of evil, which made Cassie wonder more than once whether she should leave the past undisturbed and go about her life as though she had never seen the letter from Scarlet Pengally. Yet, she had seen it, and it burned in her brain like a flickering beacon, guiding her constantly to its source, driving her on into the darkness, where she was convinced there would surely be light to shine into all the deep terrifying corners of her old nightmares, and only then would the truth be laid bare. And so with increasing urgency she planned everything, right down to the smallest detail.
The bank confirmed a deposit of twelve thousand dollars in Cassie’s name, after which she was duly issued with all she needed for the trip. The withdrawal she made consisted partly of dollars and partly of English currency; there were also arrangements made, in the event that she might need to withdraw from the account during her stay in England.
‘And have you any idea how long your stay in England might be?’ The rotund and bearded desk clerk was sweating profusely, being unused to executing his duties with such speed. Impatiently he dabbed at his soaking brow with a grey and grubby handkerchief.
‘I can’t say,’ Cassie told him, ‘it could be days… it could be weeks.’ She hoped it would be the former rather than the latter, yet suspected that the purpose of her trip would not be so quickly satisfied… unless of course Scarlet Pengally had perished in the time between her sending the letter and Cassie receiving it.
; Within hours of leaving the bank, Cassie had secured a berth on the Queen Mary, sailing for Southampton in two days’ time, and she had booked a room in a stylish hotel in Manhattan, within walking distance of Central Park. Her room being situated on the thirtieth floor, she could easily glimpse the Hudson River from the wide panoramic window. Madison Avenue and the Thornton residence seemed a million miles away.
As if to discard the ties with that part of her life, Cassie had left the house with only the clothes that were on her back, and a small golden locket given to her one Thanksgiving by the darling woman she had always known as her momma. It was a gift she would always cherish. She had no conscience about using the money put into her account by Edmund Thornton, because he was a very wealthy young man with a secure future and an even more secure past. She had neither.
The next two days sped by with alarming speed, during which time she haunted Broadway, spent an enlightening evening at the theatre, paid a few cents to cross over to Staten Island on the ferry, saw Central Park by horse and carriage, and browsed round the big department stores buying expensive clothes in warm soft colours, which belied the fact that she really ought to be in a state of mourning. Jonathan Thornton had disowned her. Now it was her turn to disown him!
When, at eight a.m. on Wednesday 17 February 1937, Cassie leaned across the rails of the liner Queen Mary and looked back to see the towering buildings of the New York skyline diminishing in the distance and the Statue of Liberty with her arm raised as though in farewell, something snapped inside and a great wave of sadness engulfed her senses, until she was forced to turn away from the sight of the land which was America, and her land, her home and her world. She was sailing for a new world now, a world away from all that was familiar. As the great liner carried her further and further away from the beloved shores of America, a wave of nostalgia swept over her, yet she knew there was no turning back. When she made her way along the deck, glancing behind her one more time before New York harbour had merged with sea and sky, Cassie was made to wonder whether she would ever return.
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