The Lost Child

by Emily Gunnis

  ‘I find it very hard to believe, Mrs Waterhouse, that you know every intimate detail of Mrs Barton’s life but yet had no clue that she was planning to run away with her baby.’ The detective inspector had a black moustache and smelt strongly of body odour. He paced around her chair and leaned in far too close to her.

  ‘If I had known that she was planning to run away I would have informed Mr Barton of my fears,’ Harriet had said quietly. ‘Mrs Barton is very unwell and it troubles me deeply that she is out there, in this weather, with no suitable clothing, no money and a vulnerable baby I have grown to love.’

  ‘And you really have no idea where they might have gone? If you do, and it turns out you didn’t tell us, you will go to prison for obstructing a police investigation. And if any harm comes to the baby . . . All Mr Barton wants is to have his wife and baby safely home.’

  Harriet looked up at Margaret, who sat opposite her, staring intently at her, tapping her fingers on the table.

  On the train, Harriet tried to distract herself from the painfully slow progress it was making through the Sussex countryside towards Wittering. Harriet pulled her diary from her handbag and began to write.

  13 January 1947

  Dear Diary

  I am frantic. My lady is gone. And she has taken baby Rebecca with her.

  I am writing this on a cold train to Wittering and I am sitting at a table opposite a lady who keeps looking over at me disapprovingly. She is dressed immaculately, in a white blouse with a tight red belt, and she is clutching her bag as if she fears I might snatch it. I know I must look a fright. I’ve barely slept, my hair is unkempt and my dress unpressed.

  As we jolt along, the ice-covered fields become a wispy blur and I am trying to fight the images in my mind of Cecilia and Rebecca at Wittering Bay. I have never been there, but it is a bitter January and I know from Cecilia’s fragile state that Rebecca will not be suitably dressed. I can almost imagine the cold wind draining the heat from Rebecca’s little body, Cecilia too distraught to notice that Rebecca’s tiny hands and feet have lost their colour. That she is succumbing to the cold.

  It is nearly impossible to sit still. But I have to distract myself, as I have no other way to cope with my nerves. Writing everything down seems to be the only way I can stay calm, keep myself from standing up in the middle of the carriage and screaming.

  As soon as the police finally left Northcote this afternoon, I told Cook that I had to run some errands in town. Not wanting to ask for a lift in case I needed to answer any questions about where I was going, I borrowed the stable boy’s bicycle and cycled to Chichester train station. It is a thirty-minute train ride to Wittering and then I must get a bus to Wittering Bay. There are twenty minutes more until the train gets in to Wittering, then I have to get a bus to Seaview Cottage. I have no idea what I will find there. I have spent the day with the police, being pressed for hours on end about where Cecilia might be, so anxious is her husband – and his family – to contain the scandal. Indeed I took a call from a very anxious Mr Barton to his sister, to say he was on his way down from London. I spoke to him briefly before I put him through to his sister Jane, to say that I had no idea where Cecilia had gone. I listened in to their phone call in the next room: Jane was insistent that when they found Cecilia she must be committed to the asylum, now that she cannot be controlled. From the way Jane was speaking it sounded to me as if Mr Barton is in agreement.

  I know I am taking a risk by not telling them about Seaview, for when I arrive it may be too late. But if they find her first, they will take Rebecca away and Cecilia will be incarcerated, and I will never see either of them again.

  I wish the woman opposite would stop staring at me. I don’t want to be noticed, I don’t want anyone to see me or remember me. Despite the cold, sweat is trickling down my neck and my palms are slippery. A baby bottle, full of milk, sits in my pocket, its lid poking out, visible. I put my hand over it to cover it. I’m sure she’s seen it. I’m sure she knows.

  My head throbs from the lack of air so I stand and open the narrow window, but it makes no difference. I still feel gripped by the fear that plagued me when I woke this morning to find them gone. I do not know if Cecilia heard me talking to Rebecca last night, telling her that she was being sent away in the morning. I do not know if all this is my doing. I feel like I no longer know or trust myself.

  The train staggers into the next station. The woman stands up and walks past me. I try not to look at her but can feel her eyes boring into me. My mind is racing. She can read my thoughts, she’s getting off the train early so she can raise the alarm. I am wracked with uncertainty about what I have done. I should have told the police about Seaview. I’m risking Rebecca’s life by taking matters into my own hands.

  Please God let them be there. Please God let them be safe.

  It was nearly pitch black, apart from the intense full moon lighting up the sea, by the time Harriet reached Wittering Bay and climbed off the bus and on to the winding lane.

  ‘You all right, love? You know where you’re going?’ said the bus driver, frowning at her with obvious concern.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I’m fine,’ said Harriet unconvincingly.

  The gale blowing in from the bay was pushing her off balance and the icy rain stung her cheeks. Harriet stood looking out at the bay, feeling the baby bottle in her pocket while a sense of utter despair began to course through her.

  She had been so desperate to reach Cecilia and the baby she hadn’t thought about arriving in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Cecilia had told her that you could see Seaview from the beach, and that a stone footpath led from the bay directly to its front door. As she walked on, a small Georgian farmhouse came into view. Approaching it, she saw a sign: SEAVIEW FARMHOUSE. It took everything she had in her not to open the gate, hammer on the front door and beg for help. But no one could know who she was or why she was here. If they did, they might call the police and she might never see Rebecca again.

  Not knowing what else to do, she walked towards the dark, angry sea in search of the footpath that would lead her up to Seaview Cottage. The wind was bitterly cold and she pulled her thin black woollen coat around her. Her brown leather lace-ups sank deep into the cold sand with every step. Several times she nearly fell as the dunes leading down to the beach rolled and banked.

  The dunes gave way to the flat beach and her feet plunged into several freezing puddles of seawater. Before long her shoes were soaked through. She could no longer feel her face or her hands. She knew that she was close, Cecilia had spoken of a path linking Seaview Farmhouse to Seaview Cottage, but above her the jagged cliff obscured her view. She knew she needed to push herself through the bitter gale, further towards the sea so that she could look beyond the cliff face and find the cottage.

  The sea sounded like rumbling thunder as she forced herself to walk towards the water, the image of Cecilia and Rebecca floating in the violent, rolling waves haunting her. After ten minutes of pushing herself towards the sea, she reached the edge of the water, as far as she could go,

  As the light from the moon danced on the frothed waves at the edge of the shore, she saw them – a pair of black brogues she recognized as well as her own. Harriet let out a cry and ran towards them as the sea lapped at them, preparing to sweep them away. Reaching them, she sank to her knees as she thought of the part she had played in Rebecca’s death, imagining Cecilia carrying the helpless infant in her arms out to sea.

  Kneeling down at the mouth of the sea, her shoes and coat sodden through with ice-cold seawater, she tried to compose herself, turning away from the water as if she could no longer face what it had done. As the full moon broke through the clouds, she saw it, the tiny white cottage, a beacon nestled in the hardness of the land, calling to her. Her heart broken, the pain in her body from the stinging rain began to totally consume her so that she felt as if she were drowning. Harriet forced herself to her feet and began trudging slowly across the sodden sand in the direction of the cottag
e. Jacob’s voice began to taunt her: ‘There is no baby because there is no love.’ She could see Cecilia clutching Rebecca, pleading with her: ‘Please help us, Harriet. I trust only you.’

  As she neared the bottom of the path, the piercing, howling wind gave way to another sound. A sound she knew so well she was convinced she was imagining it. The sound of baby Rebecca’s cries. Harriet stood, looking all around. The faint cry came again and she stood listening, desperately trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. Rebecca was somewhere on the beach.

  She began to follow the faint sound, as she desperately tried to block out the sound of the howling wind blowing Rebecca’s tiny voice away from her. Eventually a cave emerged from the blackness and as she stood at its entrance, the sound of Rebecca’s cries began echoing off the walls. Harriet rushed inside, going deeper and deeper, Rebecca’s cries growing louder now that she was out of the freezing wind.

  ‘Tell me where you are, my darling!’ she called out. ‘Rebecca! Rebecca!’

  Through the pitch blackness, the baby let out a long, desperate wail. Harriet began running, stumbling and falling on the sharp, jagged ground, and reaching out, felt a little, cold hand in the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I cough and cough and cannot stop. I begin to retch. I cannot breathe, I am frightened. Rosie presses the alarm for help and soon there are more of them. They put a mask on my face and push me forward so I can breathe, but I fall back on to the bed and the room goes dark. I feel as if I am under water. Seaweed wraps around my head and I am sucking in salty black water.

  I am drowning again, sinking down and down. Deeper and deeper into hell. I close my eyes and wait for it to be over. For a moment, there is silence, then I feel a stab of pain in my shoulder.

  My arm is being yanked and I am being pulled to the surface. I feel freezing air on my face and suck air into my lungs.

  ‘Hold on!’ a man is shouting at me, but I can barely hear him. My ears are filled with salt water.

  He puts his arm around my neck and starts to pull me through the water. It comes at me from every direction. Every time I try and catch my breath a wave crashes over us. I want him to give up. I close my eyes and pray he will lose strength and let me go.

  ‘Can you hear me? Wake up!’

  The muffled male voice pulls me into consciousness, though my eyes are heavy and I can barely open them. I hear the loud crashing of the sea next to me and feel intense fear that I do not know where my baby is. I left her in the cave, I try and tell them, but I am so cold I cannot speak.

  I am near the edge of the water; it is rushing under me then pulling away. The tide is pulling me back towards the sea. I hear my baby cry and look inland. There is no one on the beach, there is no one there with her. She is alone, in the cold, dark cave.

  I close my eyes again. The man shouts at me and I turn my head away, fighting my nausea. Then I feel a hard slap across my cheek which stings me awake. I open my eyes.

  The man is standing over me. It is dark but the moon is bright and I look up at him. He has a round face, dark hair and a thick moustache. I recognize him. He was in the water with me.

  ‘Can you hear me? What is your name?’ His breath smells of beer and my nausea increases.

  My eyes feel burnt with the salt. The water pounded at both of us, so peaceful below the surface, so violent above it; forcing itself down our throats, into our ears and eyes, as he lay me on my back and dragged me slowly and painfully back to shore.

  ‘Hold on! There’s an ambulance coming.’ He is coughing violently and bends over, resting his hands on his knees as he gasps for breath. I look up at him. I know it is my fault that he nearly drowned, but I didn’t ask him to come after me. I wish he hadn’t. I wish he had left me be.

  I look away from him and try to take in my surroundings. I feel confused and unsure where I am. My skin is ice cold to the touch and my clothes are torn, but I feel warm.

  ‘Who are you? What the hell were you doing out there?’ He spits the words out. His breath is thick and he is shaking.

  I am screaming for him to help my baby, but nothing comes out and I only vomit seawater. I close my eyes again so he takes me by both shoulders and shakes me until my neck hurts. He is shouting at me, telling me to talk to him, but I don’t know the answers. I wish he would go away. I wish he hadn’t come in after me. I can hear my baby’s cry.

  ‘Please get my baby, she’s in the cave,’ I whisper, but he doesn’t hear. He is shouting for help.

  My thoughts grow tentacles, tangling together. I went to Seaview with my baby. I stood on the balcony holding her and my mother called to me from the sea. I left my baby in the cave. I was going to go back for her.

  As I waded in, I saw my mother up ahead, waving at me. But the water looked strange, it moved differently, like thick black tar that would pull me under. It scared me. I looked back at the cave, I didn’t want to leave my baby, but then my mother called out to me, beckoning me in deeper. I wasn’t holding my baby. I didn’t take her with me.

  She was safe in a blanket in the cave.

  ‘She’s freezing! Get a blanket! Someone get a bloody blanket!’ I look up at the man. He is paler now. He is looking up at the lights coming towards us, then down again at me. A whistle blows, long and continuous. People are running towards us. Scurrying like ants. Go the other way, I think. Help my baby. She is all alone. It’s too cold for her.

  I turn my head and look at the silhouette of the cliffs, lit up by the moonlight. The lights are moving closer and closer.

  Nausea overwhelms me and I turn and vomit on to the gravelly sand. I hear the man shout again, this time with more urgency. As he runs away from me, towards the lights, his voice becomes fainter. I retch seawater. My tummy is in spasm; it hurts, but I don’t care. Somebody appears next to me and holds me as I jerk violently. I push them away, but I am too weak and they still have their arms around me. It seems you have no right over your own body when you are dying.

  A woman’s voice pierces my waterlogged ears. ‘Take off your coats, everyone, and lay them on the sand. We need to lift her off the cold ground, we need to get her dry. Where’s the ambulance, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘I can hear it. I can hear the siren.’ Another man’s voice; a crowd is gathering around me. I don’t look up but I see several pairs of shoes – red, black, brown. Someone wraps their coat around me but I push them away.

  ‘My baby is in the cave,’ I say. ‘Please help her.’

  I try to stand. I need to get to my baby. I want to cry, but I don’t have the strength. I don’t have a voice, I don’t have anything. A woman in a woollen hat appears next to me. Her eyes sparkle as they catch the moonlight. She has crooked teeth and a kind face, but it blurs out of focus. I point to the cave, but she is looking up at the blue lights.

  ‘The ambulance is here. They’re bringing a stretcher for you now. What were you doing in the water, and on such a freezing night? Why would you do that to yourself?’

  The whistles continue to blow. People are shouting. I lie on my side and watch the water. I see my mother and me as a child, holding hands, running into the waves, screaming with delight at the waves as they crash into us. She takes my hand to make me brave, the waves crashing, higher and higher until we dive in. She is swimming fast. I can barely keep up. I call out to her. She turns and holds out her hand. Hurry!

  ‘Over here!’ I hear running feet over the shingles. They skid to a halt, showering me in tiny pebbles.

  ‘Who is she?’ They place me on a stretcher and carry me back up the beach. I am heavy and the sand is soft. They stumble twice and nearly fall. I am struck by blind panic that they are taking me away.

  ‘Nobody knows who she is.’ It’s the woman in the woolly hat again. ‘Who found her?’ The sea is still so loud. It roars and everyone has to shout.

  ‘I did.’ The man’s who pulled me out of the sea is next to me. ‘I was walking home from the pub along the cliff path and I saw her walk into the
water. I ran down as fast as I could to get to her, but she was already a long way into the water.’

  ‘Heavens, she’s bleeding!’ The woman’s voice again. ‘Her legs are covered in blood – look.’ As she says it I feel my stomach cramp and I cry out in pain as I realize for the first time that my insides are burning. As we reach the ambulance I hear another siren and turn my head slowly to see a police car pulling up on the cliff edge. Its blue lights twist and turn like a shark’s eye watching me.

  As the ambulance doors close I catch a last glimpse of Seaview. I grab the man in the ambulance with me, beg him not to leave her, but I am shaking too much to be understood and he plunges a needle into my arm.

  With the sound of her cries in my ears, they turn over the engine, the sirens begin to wail, and we start to move.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rebecca

  Friday, 14 November 2014

  Jessie looked down at the scrapbook on her lap and slowly turned the page. Rebecca watched her daughter’s face as she read.

  HOUSE OF HORRORS, the headline of the Daily Mirror screamed.

  Jessie started to read one of the articles out loud: ‘An idyllic seaside cottage became the stuff of nightmares when a war veteran beat his wife to death, then committed suicide all as their young daughter slept just feet away.’

  When she had finished she looked up. ‘I can’t believe you had to stay at Seaview Farm, so close to where it happened. It must have been like re-living it every day.’

  ‘I never went back to Seaview Cottage. Besides, I was only thirteen,’ said Rebecca. ‘I could stay with Harvey and his dad or go into care. I couldn’t bear to be apart from Harvey, and Ted wanted me to live with them. I think he might also have felt guilty,’ Rebecca added.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rebecca wanted nothing more than to close the scrapbook. She felt that the newsprint was crawling across the sofa towards her, like spiders. But Jessie was staring at her, clutching the faded articles as if they were a lifeline, so she forced herself to continue. ‘I was lying in bed the night my parents were killed. There was a terrible storm in the bay. The cottage was very exposed, the single pane windows used to rattle so hard you’d think they were going to smash at any moment. I’m sure I heard someone at the door. Whoever it was came into the house and an argument started. I never saw who it was and by the time I went downstairs they were gone, but I’m convinced it was Ted or Harvey. I’d visited Harvey that day where he worked and told him we were leaving Seaview. I thought one of them had came to ask my father if I could stay behind at Seaview Farm with them. It made sense to me that it would cause a row. My father knew that Ted was in love with my mother, he would have been furious.’ Rebecca paused at the memory of the rat-tat of the door knocker as she lay in bed. ‘Harvey swore it wasn’t him or his dad though, and the police confirmed they both had alibis in the pub. Maybe it was the storm, and I imagined it, but it’s always bothered me.’