The Long Walk Home

by Valerie Wood

  ‘Thank you. Will you ask Mary to bring it to my room? I won’t eat in the dining room as I’m alone. Just on a tray. Please!’

  She slipped back upstairs to the hall and then up the two flights to her own room. She still used the old nursery, for she felt very comfortable there. It was her own private place where she kept her books and writing materials and the maid lit a fire every day so it was always cosy and warm, but best of all no one ever bothered her, least of all her father.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Eleanor stayed in her room for three days, coming down only for breakfast and having her lunch and supper brought to her upstairs. She saw her father only twice in that time and was surprised to see him then, for on both occasions it was during the morning when he should have been in his office. He was plainly not intending to leave the house, for he was unshaven and without his jacket, and wore an old knitted garment on top of his shirt.

  She asked him no questions but simply greeted him and said she hoped he had slept well; in answer he only grunted. On the fourth day he was waiting for her in the breakfast room and without any preamble asked if she had heard from her mother.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said. ‘Perhaps there will be a letter today.’

  ‘The first post has been already,’ he muttered, ‘and there was no reply to my letter.’

  She bit on her lip. ‘Second post,’ she said nervously. ‘It generally comes just after lunch.’

  ‘I am aware of when it comes.’ His manner was sharp. ‘I receive post every day.’

  She crossed to the sideboard. ‘May I serve you some bacon, Papa?’ she asked. ‘Or scrambled egg?’

  ‘No. I’ll have toast and marmalade. And coffee,’ he added.

  Eleanor served him and then helped herself to eggs. She was hungry but didn’t have bacon or kidney as she knew she would choke on it; she was so nervous that her throat was tight.

  Her father drank his coffee and nibbled on the toast, glancing at her from time to time but not speaking. Eleanor kept her eyes lowered so as not to confront him. Finally he spoke, after loudly clearing his throat.

  ‘What were your mother’s plans for Nottingham?’

  She looked up, her lips parted. ‘Plans, Father? I didn’t know she had made any.’ Eleanor swallowed. ‘I assumed that she was only visiting Aunt Maud. It is a while since they last met.’

  ‘Hmph! That is what she told me. Why she should want to visit that harridan I can’t imagine.’

  Eleanor was shocked at his language and could think of no reply.

  ‘Do you think she has news of your brother?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. Mama never said that she had.’ Eleanor pushed her plate away, her appetite failing. Surely her mother would have confided in her if she had heard tidings of Simon.

  Her father rose from the table, taking his cup and saucer with him. ‘I shall be in my study,’ he announced. ‘I am not going to the office today.’

  Nor did you go yesterday or the day before, she thought, and ventured, ‘Taking a little holiday, Papa? You rarely do.’

  He turned towards her and for a moment she thought he was going to say something, but he appeared to think better of it and gave a shake of his head. He looks so pale and unwell, she thought. He is surely not fretting over Mama.

  At mid-morning she decided to take a walk, even though it was wet and windy. She put on her outdoor cloak and fastened the hood over the top of her deep-brimmed bonnet, then picked up an umbrella from the hallstand.

  Her father appeared at the study door and looked questioningly at her. ‘I’m just going out on an errand,’ she explained. ‘I need embroidery silks.’

  ‘Ah,’ he muttered. ‘I thought I heard the post.’ He turned back into his room again.

  I ought to buy some silks now, she thought, or be found out in a lie. But I don’t have any money. I will have to place them on account at the haberdasher’s. That is what her mother always did and the account was then sent to her father. Mama never has any money either, she realized; I don’t think I have ever seen her with anything in her purse. It would be so nice to have just a little allowance to spend as I pleased. Perhaps, could I, dare I ask Papa?

  She purchased silks, ribbons and a few reels of cotton, just to make the sale worthwhile, and bidding the saleswoman good day she stepped outside again. The rain was coming down in torrents, and after battling unsuccessfully to keep her umbrella from blowing inside out she decided to return home.

  As she waited for someone to open the door, she glanced down the street. The postman was heading this way. ‘Do be quick, Mary,’ she implored beneath her breath. ‘Let me in.’ When the door was opened, she kicked off her shoes in the hall and gave the maid her wet cloak to take away and dry, and ran upstairs. She didn’t want to be there when her father collected the post. If her mother hadn’t written, he would be in a fearful mood.

  She put on her indoor slippers and tidied her hair. She still wore her hair loose as her parents didn’t consider her old enough yet to put it up. She searched in a drawer for a lace cap and was pinning it on her hair when she heard her father roar.

  ‘Eleanor! Eleanor!’

  She dashed out of her room and along the landing, and peered over the banister. Her father was below, looking up. In his hand he held a letter.

  ‘Yes, Papa?’

  ‘Come down here at once!’

  Oh, she thought, he sounds so angry. What have I done? Is the letter from my mother?

  She ran down the stairs, lifting her skirt so that she didn’t fall. ‘What is it, Papa? What has happened?’

  Mary appeared at the top of the servants’ stairs as if in answer to an urgent summons, but she was brusquely shooed away by Mr Kendall.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s happened?’ He took Eleanor by the arm and pushed her into his study. She never came in here. This was her father’s private sanctum. ‘You might well ask what’s happened!’

  Eleanor stood trembling, waiting for an explanation. She clenched and unclenched her hands, then clasped them together. ‘Mama is not sick, is she?’ she whispered. ‘Or is it Simon?’

  ‘No, it is not Simon,’ he roared. ‘This is a letter from your mother!’ He emphasized the relationship so firmly, it was as if whatever was amiss was Eleanor’s fault for having such a mother.

  ‘Tell me what it is, Father,’ she implored. ‘Have I done something wrong that Mama has told you about? I assure you that whatever it was—’

  ‘Not you,’ he interrupted fiercely. ‘This is not about you. This is from your mother. My wife! Telling me that she is not coming home. Ever!’

  Eleanor was thunderstruck. Not coming home? But what about me? Am I to stay here? With my father?

  Her father turned to his desk and picked up another envelope. ‘This is addressed to you. It is marked personal and private; otherwise I would of course have opened it.’ He stared at her. ‘It is within my rights to do so. You are not of an age to receive correspondence without my reading it, but as it is so obviously your mother’s writing, you may see it first.’

  She took it with trembling fingers. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘May I sit down?’

  He waved her to a chair, but he remained standing by the fireside, tapping a foot on the carpet and banging one fist into the palm of the other.

  Eleanor struggled to open the envelope and then, in a small, cracked voice, asked if she might borrow a paper knife. Her father handed one to her without a word; she slit the envelope and withdrew the letter.

  My dear Eleanor [her mother wrote in her fine neat handwriting],

  This letter may come as a shock to you, but on the other hand your father might by now have acquainted you with the contents of the letter I have sent to him. In short, my dear, I have left your father and am now living with my sister Maud and her husband, Mr Morton James. They have been very kind and considerate to me, and although I do not envisage spending the rest of my life with them, they have offered me shelter for as long as I requi
re it.

  I have been very unhappy for many years, particularly since your brother ran away, and although I have tried hard to be a good and faithful wife, I cannot any longer live under the same roof as your father. I am very sorry to leave you behind, but I have no wealth of my own and although our house was mine, bequeathed to me by my father before my marriage, it is now of course, in law, the property of my husband. Your father therefore can offer you more materially at the present time than I can and also of course insist that you stay with him.

  I know that your father will be angry with me, but I hope he will allow you to write to me care of Aunt Maud and that you will be able to receive my letters. I shall think of you often, my dearest child, and send my fondest love.

  I am your affectionate mother,

  Rosamund Kendall.

  Eleanor swallowed hard for a moment and dared not lift her eyes to look at her father. At last she raised her head and saw him looking at her with narrowed eyes.

  She whispered, ‘How can we get her back, Papa?’

  ‘She does not want to come back,’ he said in such a vicious tone that she trembled. ‘She has left without a penny to her name and with only the clothes she was wearing. And,’ he added, ‘even those I paid for. Every bill your mother incurs comes to me.’

  ‘I know,’ Eleanor said. ‘Mama always said we must not be extravagant; that we must always remember that you are responsible for us.’

  ‘Did she indeed?’ Her father was brusque. ‘And did she tell you that I am still responsible for her, even though she has left her marital home?’

  ‘No, Father, she didn’t.’ Eleanor knew now, with a sinking feeling, that her mother had always been under her husband’s domination. And is that what will now happen to me, she thought. Is that my lot in life? Will I now have to take my mother’s place and be under my father’s rule? Never to live a life of my own?

  The thought of it filled her with despair. She had always had a quiet childhood. Her friends, if they could be so called, had been carefully chosen for her; a select few who were considered suitable companions and who had had as little say in the matter as she had.

  ‘No, I thought not,’ he muttered. He began to pace the room, holding his chin in his hand and chewing on his lip. Then he stopped in front of Eleanor. ‘Until your mother comes to her senses,’ he announced, ‘you must run the household. You should know enough by now to organize Cook and the maids. We will eat together as if nothing unusual has happened.’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ Eleanor murmured. She had been allowed to join her parents for their evening meal for quite some time now and had considered that changing into evening attire was very tiresome when there were just the three of them. Her mother always dressed very properly, usually in watered silk or georgette, and wore pearls in her hair or round her neck, Eleanor often flouted convention and merely donned a pretty shawl over her day dress, or perhaps a fichu of lace at the neck, and hoped her father wouldn’t observe it. Usually he didn’t. Now, she reflected, he was sure to notice.

  ‘Will you travel to Nottingham, Father?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps Mama is unwell and only needs a short time away from home.’ Even as she said it she knew it wasn’t true.

  ‘I cannot travel anywhere at the moment.’ He spoke abruptly. ‘There is an inquiry at my place of work and I must be available.’

  ‘Oh?’ Eleanor raised her head but the look on her father’s face defied her to question him. An inquiry? She recalled the police carriage in Bishop Lane, and meeting the unctuous Percy Smart who had slipped out of the office. I do hope Papa isn’t in any kind of trouble. He can’t possibly be; he’s always so punctilious, such a purist. Yet a flash of memory recalled an occasion when Simon had clashed with him and their father had bawled, ‘Do as I say, not as I do!’

  I wish Mama was here. She would know what to do. She would know how to act normally and go about the everyday tasks, as if everything was all right. Yet it’s not all right. I feel unsure and anxious, as if my world is falling apart.

  She blinked; tears were not far away. I’m a prisoner. She watched as her father continued his pacing, muttering, occasionally clenching his fists and shaking them as if making a point. A prisoner and my father is my jailer, she thought. I would run away, but what would I do for money and where would I go?

  That evening, before supper, Mary came to tell Eleanor that her father wished to speak to her. When she came downstairs he was seated at his desk but she was surprised to see him dressed in smart outdoor attire. He was shaved, with his hair pomaded and his side whiskers trimmed.

  ‘I have to go out,’ he said. ‘I won’t be back for supper.’ He finished whatever it was he was writing and turned to her. ‘I have put money in the cash box for any incidentals that you might need. Please ensure that you obtain a receipt for anything you spend. There should be enough money to last a week. I don’t suppose you’ll need much, but accounts for the butcher, grocer and so on should be sent to me as usual.’

  He stood up. His colour was high and he seemed agitated. ‘I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  She was relieved to see him depart, but curious about where he was going. To meet friends perhaps and discuss his current problem, whatever it was. She ran upstairs to look out of the top window to check on his direction. At first she couldn’t see him. He wasn’t heading towards the office or the town with its inns and coffee houses, but then she turned her head and glanced the other way and saw him walking briskly in the other direction towards the opposite end of the High Street.

  Wherever is he going, she wondered. There’s nothing up there to interest him. Only dilapidated dwelling houses and disreputable taverns. She had been told often enough not to travel that way, especially not after dusk. But her father was walking steadily as if he knew exactly where he was going.

  Why am I so uneasy, she thought. Papa used to go out quite a lot in the evening at one time. He was also often late home from the office and Mama would pace about wringing her hands. She never would say why she was worried. A distant memory of her parents’ raised voices came to mind, her mother’s piteous and accusing, her father’s arrogant and overbearing. It was around that time that her mother seemed to withdraw into herself, and it was as if they began to live separate lives.

  I can’t live like this. The feeling of being trapped, a virtual prisoner, began to overwhelm her. She thought of the money in the cash box. Enough for a week, he’d said. That wasn’t enough. I’ll save it, she decided. I’ll save it until there’s enough to take me to Nottingham and then I’ll leave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It took Eleanor three weeks to save what she considered to be sufficient money for a journey, but she had to practise deceit, for her father had asked for receipts for everything. She had previously received slips of paper from the haberdasher’s itemizing articles purchased on credit. These she carefully copied, and for small items such as silks or ribbons she wrote ‘Paid with thanks’ at the bottom, with an undecipherable signature. On other slips, she wrote ‘For personal items’, hoping that her father wouldn’t question them, which he didn’t.

  At the end of each week, she left a few coins in the cash box to show that she wasn’t over-spending and on the third weekend she noticed that her father counted out the same amount of money without checking the contents of the box. Another week, she contemplated, and then I will make plans.

  On the following Monday she and her father were finishing breakfast when there came a hammering on the front door. Her father frowned; he faltered over his bacon and dropped his knife on the floor.

  Eleanor rose to get him another, but he barked at her, ‘Leave it. Leave it.’

  She sat down again and saw that he had grown pale and was biting nervously on his lip. ‘Who might it be, Papa?’ she asked tremulously. ‘Is it bad news?’

  ‘I think possibly so,’ he muttered. ‘And if it is, then you must get in touch with your mother immediately.’

  She was about to ask him with what intention
when Mary knocked and came into the room. ‘Beg pardon, Mr Kendall. Two … gentlemen,’ she hesitated over the word, ‘two people to see you privately.’

  Mr Kendall rose to his feet, scraping the chair legs on the floor, and Eleanor rose too.

  ‘In my study,’ he said. ‘Take them in there.’

  ‘Father, what is it? Who is it who’s come?’ Eleanor screwed and knotted her table napkin.

  ‘The police, I think,’ he said, quite calmly. ‘They will want to ask me some questions regarding the office inquiry.’

  ‘Police! What’s wrong? Is there something missing?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was abrupt. ‘There is money missing from a client’s account, and I have been accused of misappropriating it.’ He walked briskly towards the door. ‘Finish your breakfast.’

  She sat down with a thud. Surely her father wouldn’t do such a thing. He was in a position of trust, and had been with the same firm of lawyers for years. It must be a mistake. Her mouth was dry. She picked up the teapot to pour more tea into her cup but her hand trembled so that she couldn’t hold it.

  Mary came back into the room. ‘Shall I clear away, Miss Eleanor, or would you like something else?’ She spoke quietly and seemed anxious.

  ‘Would you bring me some water, please?’ Eleanor’s voice cracked. ‘The bacon was very salty.’

  They’ll be discussing it in the kitchen, she thought. Mary will have told Cook that the police have come to the house. They’ll be worried that they might lose their jobs. Which they will, she realized, if Papa should be found guilty and lose his position at the firm. Who would pay their wages? Her mind raced on. Suppose he went to prison? Not that he would have done anything underhand, of course he wouldn’t. He was so opposed to wrongdoing.

  Her father never discussed his work or his clients, but with a sudden clarity she remembered the rabbit boy from all those years ago. A criminal, her father had called him, and stated that he should be punished by a spell in prison to teach him the error of his ways.