Occasionally, she heard news of her parents through local gossip and it was with deep sadness that she had heard her father had died two years ago. She had written a letter to her mother in Scotland, but had never sent it. The bitterness Flora harboured towards Rose, following her abandonment after the King’s death, had rendered her incapable of communication. She had heard recently that Rose had left the Highlands and gone abroad – no one seemed to know where.
Winter was always the hardest time of year for her, for she could not exhaust herself with physical work to banish the dark thoughts that crowded in. She would be glad when spring arrived and her days became busy once more. Panting from her exertion through the snow, Flora arrived at Castle Cottage and knocked on the door. As always, she was greeted first by Beatrix’s two Pekinese dogs.
‘Flora dear, do come in,’ Beatrix said, as a flood of warm air enveloped her. ‘I was just baking a cake with my last egg. You might as well be the one to enjoy it, as William has gone through the snow to his office in Hawkshead. Now, don’t be afraid of trying this one, Mrs Rogerson helped me with it.’
‘How kind of you. And see, I have brought you some fresh eggs.’ Flora took off her gloves and placed the three eggs carefully on the table. ‘Are you better, dear Beatrix?’
‘Much, thank you. It was a nasty chill. And these days, it does go to my chest so.’
‘I also brought you some camphor,’ she said, taking it from her basket. ‘And a jar of last year’s honey from my hives.’ She sat down at the kitchen table as Beatrix cut her a piece of the sponge cake, the mean top and bottom more than compensated for by the amount of jam in the centre. As she put the slice to her lips, savouring the smell, a sudden thought struck her.
‘What date is it?’ she asked.
‘Why, it is the sixteenth of February.’
‘Goodness!’ Flora sat back and chuckled. ‘Would you believe that it is my birthday today? And you have offered me cake!’
‘My dear! Then I couldn’t have decided to bake it for any better purpose.’ Beatrix sat down and squeezed her hand. ‘Happy Birthday, Flora.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So remind me, how old are you today?’
‘I am . . .’ – Flora had to think about it for a few seconds – ‘twenty-nine.’
‘Still so very young. Just over half my age,’ Beatrix said. ‘I always think of you as older. Please take that as a compliment, if you can.’
‘Oh, I do. I feel as though I have lived a very long time.’
‘Well, you know me to be a woman of the earth, but even I occasionally need to return to civilisation in London, and I wonder sometimes if you should too. Especially as the war is now over.’
‘I am happy enough,’ commented Flora, feeling a hint of irritation.
‘I know you are, dear, but William and I were saying only the other night that we worry for you. You are still young and beautiful—’
‘Please, Beatrix, there is no need to flatter me.’
‘I do not. Flatter you, that is. I merely point out the facts. Will you not think of contacting your family? Perhaps suggest a visit to them down south to lay the ghost to rest?’
‘You know we have talked of this before, and the answer is still no. Aurelia does not wish to ever see me again. What could I bring to her life except a painful reminder of the past?’
‘What about love, Flora?’
Flora stared at Beatrix in confusion. Not normally sentimental, she didn’t understand why her friend was talking of such a thing. She bolted down the rest of the cake and stood up. ‘I must get back now. Thank you for your kind wishes, but I assure you I am well and happy. Goodbye.’
Beatrix watched her young friend leave the kitchen, and as she saw her march off through the snow down the lane, the loneliness and isolation Flora lived in continued to trouble her deeply.
Four months later, on a sunny day in June, a tear-stained Flora opened the front door of the cottage to Beatrix’s repeated knocking.
‘Goodness!’ Beatrix took in her distraught expression. ‘What on earth has happened?’
‘It’s Panther! He went to sleep as normal on my bed last night, but then this morning, he didn’t . . . wake up.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Beatrix said as she stepped inside and closed the door. ‘I am so terribly sorry.’
‘I loved him so much! He was the only link I had with the past, you see. In fact, he was all I had . . .’
‘There, there.’ Beatrix led Flora into the kitchen, sat her down and set the kettle to boil on the range. ‘He lived a good long life.’
‘He was only ten. I’ve heard many cats can live to be much older.’ Flora lowered her head as her shoulders heaved in silent sobs.
‘Well, the time he lived was healthy and happy. And we both know there’s nothing worse than watching an old animal suffer a drawn-out, painful death.’
‘But it was so sudden! I don’t understand.’
‘No one does, except our Lord above.’ Beatrix poured the water into a teapot. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Still on my bed. He looks so comfortable there, I don’t want to move him.’
‘You will have to be practical, Flora. Panther needs to be buried. Shall I help you?’
‘Yes . . .’ Flora’s eyes filled with further tears. ‘Forgive me for being sentimental. You know I have lost many animals in my time, but Panther was special.’
‘Of course he was. Some animals just are.’
‘Would it be ridiculous to say how alone I feel now without him?’
‘Not at all.’ Beatrix put a cup of tea in front of her. ‘I’m sure you must have a box out in your store cupboard. Why don’t I fetch it and go upstairs and put dear Panther inside it? I’ll bring him down and you can say goodbye before I close it. Then we can go outside to decide whereabouts in the garden you would like to put his grave.’
‘Thank you.’ Flora offered her a wan smile as she left the room.
Having buried Panther, and done her best to console a devastated Flora, Beatrix left Wynbrigg Farm and walked back along the lane to Castle Cottage. Opening a drawer in her writing bureau, she took out the letter she had received some days ago and reread it. Its contents made her weep, a rarity these days in the wake of the Great War, during which so much tragedy had occurred. As they ate supper, she discussed the situation with William, her husband.
‘I went to see Flora this morning to put the idea to her, but I did not feel the timing was appropriate. She was distraught about losing her cat.’
William tapped out his pipe thoughtfully. ‘From what you have just told me, I think it makes your suggestion even more valid. And I would be inclined to simply present her with a fait accompli. She can only say no.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Thank you, my dear.’
A week later, a still desolate Flora saw Beatrix striding up the path again, holding a large bundle in her arms.
‘Good morning, Flora,’ Beatrix said as she stepped inside the cottage. ‘Your garden borders are looking wonderful, especially the Star of Persia – an excellent addition.’
‘Thank you,’ Flora replied. Although, since Panther had gone, she hadn’t cared much about anything. ‘What . . . is that?’
Beatrix removed the blanket that had shielded the contents. ‘This, my dear, is a baby.’
‘Goodness.’ Flora walked towards Beatrix and peered more closely at the tiny face, its eyes closed fast in slumber. ‘And what exactly is it doing here with you?’
‘It’s a “he” and he is two weeks old. You know that I am a patron of the local hospital and this little mite was brought in a few hours after he was born. A neighbour heard his cries from the homestead next to her up on Black Fell. Sadly, she found the mother had passed away after the birth, but this little thing was bellowing as loud as you like between her legs. The cord that attaches mothers to babies had not yet been broken. She cut it with a bread knife, sent her husband for the undertaker, and brought the baby down the fell to
the hospital. May I sit down? He is heavier than he looks. Such a strong little thing, aren’t you?’ Beatrix cooed to the bundle affectionately.
Flora led Beatrix into the kitchen and pulled out a chair for her, marvelling at this new, maternal side to her friend.
‘Where is the father of this baby?’
‘Well now, it’s a tragic tale. The father was a shepherd, sent out to France to fight three years ago. His last leave was in August, and soon after he returned to the front, he perished in the trenches during the Battle of Épehy. And this only a few short weeks before the armistice. His body was never sent home.’ Beatrix shook her head, sadness etched on her features. ‘And now, neither of them are here to see their son. I can only pray they are joined in heaven, God rest their souls.’
‘Does the baby not have relatives?’
‘None that the neighbour knew of. All she could tell the hospital staff was that the mother came from Keswick and her name was “Jane”. When I arrived at the hospital for my monthly visit, I was told of the baby and his tragic fate. I went to visit him and, even though he was unwell at the time, I admit to being quite taken with him and his plight.’
‘He looks very well now.’
They both watched as the baby stirred, his tiny rosebud lips forming a pout of disapproval, before emitting a sucking noise. ‘Soon he will wake and need feeding. There in my basket you will find a bottle. Would you warm it? I am instructed babies don’t like it cold.’
‘Is it human milk?’ Flora asked, fascinated, as she found the bottle in the basket and began warming it in a pan of water on the range.
‘All the babies are weaned on watered-down animal milk, though I am told that cow’s milk sometimes gives them colic, in which case they are fed goat’s milk instead.’
‘Yes . . .’ Flora hesitated. ‘Why is the baby here with you? Are you and William thinking of adopting him?’
‘Goodness me, no! However much I mourn that I will never be a mother, I accept that it would be unfair to take in a baby now. Flora, my dear, perhaps you forget that I am fifty-two years of age, old enough to be this little one’s grandmother. What a thought,’ Beatrix chuckled. ‘William and I will almost certainly be dead when he comes of age.’
‘So you are simply minding him for the day?’
‘Yes.’ The baby began to stir in earnest, his tiny arms appearing from beneath the blanket as he stretched himself. ‘On my visits to the hospital,’ Beatrix continued, ‘I see many sick babies and young children, but this little one is a fighter. Despite the traumatic circumstances of his birth, the nurses have told me he has recovered completely. Would you mind if you took him for a while? My arms are aching dreadfully.’
‘I . . . I’ve never held a baby before, I don’t want to drop him or harm him . . .’
‘You won’t. We were both babies once, and despite, I am sure, our inept but well-meaning mothers, we managed to survive. Here. I’ll get the bottle.’ Beatrix lifted the baby into Flora’s arms.
The solidity of him startled Flora; he looked so tiny and yet, as every part of him began to move in different directions and he mewed just like Panther for food, his sheer determination to be alive brought a tear to her eye.
‘I’ve tested the bottle on my hand to make sure it’s not too hot to burn him, or too cold to frighten him off,’ said Beatrix as she handed it to her.
‘What do I do with it?’ Flora asked as the baby, perhaps smelling the milk so near and yet so far, began to wail loudly.
‘Why, put it in his mouth, of course!’
Flora teased the teat between the rosebud lips, which had perversely clamped together. ‘He’s not taking it.’
‘Then drop a little milk onto his lips. Flora, I’ve seen you nurse enough lambs and encourage them to drink. Simply employ the same technique.’
Flora did so, and after a tense few seconds, she finally managed to wedge the bottle into his mouth and he began to suck. Both women breathed a sigh of relief as peace reigned once more in the kitchen.
‘What will become of him?’ Flora asked after a while.
‘Who knows? Now he is well, he can’t stay at the hospital. They have written to me to ask me to enquire for him locally, but if no home can be found for him, he will be sent to an orphanage in Liverpool.’ Beatrix shuddered. ‘I have heard it is the most dreadful place. And then, when he is old enough, he will be found some form of employment in a cotton mill if he’s lucky, or the coal mines if he’s not.’
‘And that is really the best this innocent child can hope for?’ A horrified Flora looked down at the baby’s calm expression of contentment.
‘Sadly, yes. Perhaps the best thing would have been for him to be taken with his mother. There is little hope of a future, as the number of foundlings grows apace every month. Many women are struggling without any means of support for their children since their husbands have not returned from France.’
‘Surely we have seen enough of wasted human life?’
‘Waste breeds waste, dear girl. The entire world is trying to recover from its near destruction. Forgive me for saying so, but tucked up here in front of our well-fed fires, it is very easy to become dislocated from what is happening beyond us. When I journey to London, I see the desperation of the maimed soldiers begging on street corners, the poverty that is this dreadful war’s own epilogue.’
‘He’s finished, he’s falling asleep.’ Flora put the bottle onto the table. ‘Beatrix, why have you brought this baby here?’
‘Because I wanted you to see him.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Mostly yes. Also . . .’
‘What?’
‘Sometimes I worry that you have closed yourself off from the outside world.’
‘Maybe that is what I wish for. Like you, I prefer animals to people.’
‘That is not true, Flora, and you know it. My main source of happiness is another human being. If it were not for my husband, my life would be very empty indeed.’
‘Here.’ Flora handed Beatrix the sleeping baby. ‘He is fed.’
‘For now.’ Beatrix took him back into her own arms, then stood up. ‘Will you hand me my basket?’
Flora did so and watched as Beatrix wrapped the blanket around the baby in preparation to leave. ‘Thank you for bringing him here,’ she said as they walked out of the door and down the front path. ‘What is his name?’ Flora asked as she opened the gate.
‘He is known as “Teddy”, because all the nurses want to cuddle him.’ Beatrix smiled sadly. ‘Goodbye, Flora.’
Later that evening, Flora sat down to write her journal, but found it impossible to concentrate. The baby’s huge eyes and their uninhibited gaze haunted her. In the end, she gave up and paced around her immaculate drawing room. Everything was in its place, exactly where she had put it. No one ever came to disturb the safe calm order she had created for herself.
She made herself a cup of Ovaltine, which Nannie had always advocated before bedtime for Violet and Sonia.
Violet . . . dear Violet, so passionate and still controlled by her overwhelming love for her friend, Vita Sackville-West. She knew that Vita had married a few years ago, but Beatrix had recently brought mutterings of gossip from London about a renewed relationship between the two women. Flora, as always, closed her ears to talk of her past life, but even so, she had gleaned enough to understand that the love between the two childhood friends had blossomed into something deeper.
Flora sighed at the thought that if anyone should be the subject of the newest outrageous liaison in London, it should be Violet, truly her mother’s daughter. She had been schooled for it – and learnt through her upbringing that notoriety was normal.
Whereas, she had run away . . .
Upstairs in bed, she listened to an owl hoot – the only creature still up and awake as the long, dead hours of the night passed. Loneliness fell on her like a dark cloak as she returned downstairs and to her writing bureau. She took a key from one of the drawers to unlock the sm
all pigeonhole, and put her hand in the secret compartment. She retrieved a journal and opened it, her fingers reaching into the silken pocket on the inside of the back cover. And drew out the letter her father – Edward – had sent to her via Sir Ernest Cassel.
Live your life in the freedom of anonymity as I would have wished to have had the chance to live mine. And, above all, be true to yourself . . .
She gazed for a while at the signature. ‘Edward . . .’
‘Teddy,’ she said suddenly.
And then Flora MacNichol laughed for the first time in as long as she could remember.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
35
Baby Teddy moved in with Flora two days later and they both did their best – and at times, their worst – to get used to each other. Flora’s approach was to view him as an orphaned lamb who needed warmth, love and, most of all, milk. Yet she was baffled how she could clear any form of animal dung without a care, but felt a wave of nausea pass over her while changing his full napkin.
Teddy was by no means a contented baby; like a puppy that had lost its mother, she would lay him down in his makeshift cradle – a drawer filled with blankets placed close to the range – after his last bottle of milk. Then she would prepare for bed, creeping up the stairs, sliding between the sheets, and closing her eyes in relief. But only a few minutes later, the wailing would begin.
She’d try to ignore it, after instructions from Beatrix that babies needed ‘training like animals’, but Teddy did not seem inclined to play by the rules. As the decibels rose, reverberating around the thick stone walls of the farmhouse, Flora knew it was a war of attrition, and Teddy always won.
The Shadow Sister Page 38