The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  One of the open letters was dated 30 June 1947 and headed simply ‘Paradise’. Her eyes fled across the words, skipping whole sentences, frightened of what they might discover, yet unbearably curious.

  Vivi, darling

  I write these letters in the evenings when the children are in bed … It comforts me to write to you like this …

  To be absolutely honest with you, Vivi, it’s the least bit terrifying. The real problem is that, once you start down a road like this, things get away with you and carry you along with them …

  … Oh, Vivi, this is the exhausting part. I have to be so vigilant. And the real danger comes not from him but from Hubert’s cousin Mousie …

  Puzzled, Joss glanced swiftly through the rest of the letter, hoping to pick up some clue to this fear, and then reached for another.

  Darling Vivi,

  This is the last letter I shall write to you, exactly one year since I first arrived at Paradise. After all, this had to be part of the acceptance, didn’t it? … I suppose if I am to fully commit I must finish with Madeleine Grosjean. After all, she disappeared out there in India …

  Impatiently she seized another. It was quite short, describing a blackberrying outing and a picnic with Bruno and Emma, but it was the last page that caught Joss’s attention.

  Anyway, a good day here in Paradise. I wonder if ever I will show it to you. Oh, what joy to imagine you here, if only I could see you face to face, Vivi, and explain it all properly. You would understand, I know you would.

  God bless you, darling.

  All my love, Madeleine

  Holding the page in her hand, Joss stared ahead, brow furrowed. Madeleine. Her grandmother’s names were Honor Elizabeth yet these letters were certainly in her handwriting. And surely she’d already mentioned Madeleine Grosjean … Confused, oddly frightened, Joss began to sort the letters, checking the dates and stacking them into some kind of chronological order, resisting the temptation to pick one out at random. Once she’d achieved this object she went upstairs and into the Porch Room. Mutt was sleeping deeply, her face peaceful, and Joss was loath to disturb her. She went back down to the hall, listened for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, and then crossed into the kitchen. As she waited for the kettle to boil she paced to and fro, debating with herself, fighting the temptation.

  Presently she carried her mug of tea back to the study. Here in this quiet room, where Mutt’s presence and influence were most to be found, Joss opened the first letter and began to read. Her face intent, elbows resting on the desk, shock slowly merged with fascinated disbelief as her grandmother’s story began to unfold.

  PART TWO

  Paradise

  St Meriadoc

  Cornwall

  8th June 1947

  Vivi, darling,

  Yes, this is where I am. In Paradise. Will you ever believe the things that have happened to me? To be honest, I don’t know where to start my story – or at least how to start. In one way it seems very adventurous, romantic, the stuff films are made of, and then again, it could look shabby and underhand. Now that I need to write it down, the adventurous feeling is fading and the wrongness – and the danger! – of what I have done presents itself more forcefully. I am masquerading as another woman, you see. I am no longer Madeleine Uttworth – or Madeleine Grosjean, that was – I am Honor Trevannion. And Lottie is no longer Charlotte Uttworth but Emma Trevannion.

  They died, you see – first Hubert, then Emma, then Honor – in Karachi on the way to catch the boat. Hubert hadn’t yet been discharged and he was coming back to Multan but he was determined to get Honor and the children away. They were to spend a week in Karachi so that Honor could do some shopping, spend their last few days on holiday together, but then Hubert fell ill. I think it was botulism, probably from some tinned food. It was certainly quick enough. Honor managed to get a telephone call to the hospital in Multan asking me to come to them, to help her with the children. I packed my few portable treasures and caught the first train out. Oh God! I shall never forget that journey, the crush of people, the noise and the heat, Lottie bored, cross, thirsty – I thought it would never end. I can still recall certain images as we passed through the Sind: the brown dry scrub on the dunes, a sand-coloured camel, the sense of absolute stillness. There were little mud villages, flat-roofed, quiet – and then an unexpected splash of colour – a bright, singing red as a woman appeared between the huts. When the train stopped to replenish the water, and we got off to stretch our legs, the heat seemed to deaden voices, weighing down upon us, killing the desire to speak. On again and, at the edge of a flood of water like brown stew, a man, dressed all in black, sitting on his horse: man and horse both immobile, indifferent, watching the train pass on its journey to Karachi.

  And by the time we got there, Hubert and Emma were dead and Honor was ill. There was a young Indian doctor with her, rather out of his depth and very relieved to see me. He promised to return in the morning but by then Honor was dead. He made out the certificate and hurried away again, leaving me to deal with everything else.

  It was Honor who told me to use the tickets to get us back to England. I’d been in such a dither wondering what to do (I’d written to you by now, of course, but I just had this feeling, though your letter was very practical and charitable, Vivi, that you couldn’t quite see me and Lottie fitting in with your new life in America) and, as you know, things are bad in India: riots, killings, and Multan in particular is a trouble spot. In March, after some particularly ghastly murders, the Army was brought in and introduced a twenty-four-hour curfew. Honor begged me to get Bruno back to Cornwall.

  ‘It is what Hubert would have wanted,’ she said again. ‘He’d want you all to be safe.’

  He’d been so unhappy about Lottie and me staying on. ‘If you haven’t sorted something out with your sister in America by the time I go home then you’re coming with me,’ he’d said. He was such a super person, Vivi. So alive, so confident, and so generous. You know, I couldn’t believe that Hubert would die …

  Poor Bruno, poor little boy. He’d lost all his family in a matter of days and we were all that he had left. Lottie and me. And I’d lost my two dearest friends and little baby Em. I tried not to allow my own grief to show because of the need to comfort poor Bruno but I was frightened about what would happen to the three of us – and then, quite suddenly, the way seemed so clear. There, in that hotel room where Hubert first became ill, were all their papers: the tickets, the Trevannion family passports. I don’t think that Honor had been thinking things through clearly, she was too ill, but she’d been insistent that I should get us all on the boat somehow. My idea was that we should actually become that family, the three of us together. I thanked God that they’d called me Mutt. M. Uttworth, do you see? Muttworth. Mutt. It was Hubert who’d started it and Bruno thought it was terrific fun – even Lottie chanted Mutt, Mutt, rather than Mum, Mum. Honor never quite got used to it and continued to call me Madeleine – but Honor was dead.

  I explained to Bruno that someone might take him away from us if they didn’t believe I was his mother – oh, I wasn’t deliberately trying to frighten him, Vivi, I really thought we might be separated, that I wouldn’t be able to use their tickets, and I wanted to get us out. What else was I to do? Take them back up-country to the hospital and try to go on working, with two babies to look after and the British about to be thrown out at any moment? Send Bruno, not yet five, home on his own? It was a kind of revelation, standing in that hot, sticky hotel room, with Lottie wailing and Bruno, silent and afraid, curled up on the bed beside her, watching me. The means to escape was right there under my hands with Hubert’s and Honor’s blessing. Paradise or Karachi? Which would you have chosen, Vivi?

  Perhaps there was another way. Perhaps I should have gone to the Commissioner and explained or talked to the purser on the ship, but I didn’t. The ship was due to sail, packed to the last square inch with people trying to get out, and I wanted to be on it, not sitting in that stuffy, f
ly-ridden room, helplessly tied up with red tape. And we were on it: Mrs Honor Trevannion and her two children. Almost at once I saw the danger. Some of the women wanted to talk to Bruno and I knew that he was frightened of saying something he shouldn’t. Oh, the poor darling! I kept thinking: Let’s just get home and then I’ll try to think more sensibly about all this, but meanwhile, those kind women, mainly army, accepted that Bruno and I were just too shocked and grief-stricken to be able to communicate properly. At that point I could still barely take it in that I’d lost the two people dearest to me: my closest friends. In the end the other passengers left us to ourselves and this gave us a little breathing space to adjust.

  Somewhere in the Indian Ocean Lottie became Emma. Remembering to call her Emma wasn’t too difficult for Bruno – she was so like his own little sister that he’d often muddled their names – but it was very hard for me. I felt that I’d killed her. But when I saw Paradise, Vivi, I knew I’d made the right decision and Bruno is back where he belongs. I shall look after him, never fear. I loved Honor as if she’d been my sister, and I shall love Bruno as if he were my own son.

  How I wish I could see you, again, and meet your American husband. Will it ever happen, do you think? God bless you, darling.

  Your loving sister,

  Madeleine

  Paradise

  17th June 1947

  Vivi, darling,

  I’m wondering whether to keep the first letter until I’ve written a bit more and then send it all on to you. When I read the letter through I realized I hadn’t told you about the actual homecoming and I dithered, wondering whether to post it just as it was or to add some more. Anyway, I decided to wait a bit so that you can get a fuller picture of what happened and see how I finally finished up here at Paradise. You must believe that I fully intended to give myself a day or two, once we got to Liverpool, to reconsider the whole situation. After all, it wasn’t too late and I wanted to be absolutely certain that it was right for all three of us. I prayed about it, Vivi. Do you remember Sister Julian at the convent? Oh, how we loved her. During those long weeks of the sea voyage I found myself thinking about her, remembering things she said to us when we were children, but does God hear us, do you think, if we’re deliberately deceiving people?

  What I didn’t expect was to be met at the dock. There we were, struggling with cases, Lottie Emma screaming her head off, and suddenly this man appeared. He was so kind, so quick. He dealt with the porters and swept us through Customs and into a taxi. Simon Dalloway.

  ‘Hubert asked me to get you sorted out this end,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just heard the sad news. I am so terribly sorry …’

  Something like that. I can’t remember his exact words, I was too shocked. Fortunately, so was he. Apparently the purser had explained the whole situation about Hubert’s sudden death to him and he completely took over: sent a telegram to Cornwall, hurried us away. It was all taken out of my hands. That’s when it first began, you see. I’d told that first untruth to get us on the ship, I’d said I was Honor, that Lottie was Emma, and now it was impossible to admit the truth. And what about Bruno? I felt responsible for him – more than that: I’d promised Honor that I’d look after him and I love Bruno as if he were my own child.

  Simon was kind, so kind. So sweet to Bruno and Emma, very gentle with us all, putting my confusion down to grief. I went along with it, let him shepherd us all on to the train bound for Bristol. He’d got the tickets, organized a hamper, and I suddenly realized that Honor would have known that this had all been planned for her and the children. Following Hubert’s instructions Simon had booked us into the Royal Hotel for the night before the final leg of the journey to Cornwall the next day. At dinner, with the children in bed, he talked about St Meriadoc – and the pitfalls began to open at my feet – but, even then, I felt I could manage. It was when he began to talk about Hubert, how they’d been at school and gone on to train together, that I began to see that, although I knew Hubert very well, I didn’t know him in the same way as a wife would know him. The thought of Hubert – thinking of what I’d lost – reduced me to tears and, like the army wives on the ship, Simon backed off sharply at the sight of them. I was still so shocked by grief, oh, the horror of waking to it new each morning; and the realization that I’d never see Honor or Hubert or baby Em again was terrible.

  Bruno had had a strained, wary look while Simon was with us, and I was afraid that the deception might be too much for him, but I also wondered what might be waiting for him in Cornwall. I decided that it was only right to escort him home and see what awaited him there. There was still time to tell the truth. I even found myself wondering if they might take me on as a nanny.

  I can imagine your face, Vivi, the shaking of your head. It was always you, wasn’t it, that stopped me plunging into trouble, making a fool of myself. I thought of writing to you the first time Johnny disappeared but something stopped me writing then; admitting to you that Johnny had let us down. I felt ashamed and couldn’t bring myself to write the words. I could imagine your old, critical way of looking at me that was rather like Mother’s judgemental, assessing glance at our father when he’d been overgenerous with presents for us or had drunk a little too much wine. Sensible, steady people don’t seem to realize that when you’ve been a fool you don’t need anyone to rub it in: you feel quite inadequate enough without that. When I received your answer to my letter, back there in Multan, I sensed your anxiety; that you didn’t really want your destitute sister and her child rocking the boat of your shiny new life. I didn’t blame you for that. Despite writing to each other and exchanging photographs over the last eight years, we’d drifted a bit, hadn’t we? Me, with my missionary zeal, rushing away to be a nurse in India and you enrolling in a secretarial course and then joining the WAAF when war broke out. Neither you nor Mother approved of my going to India, did you? You thought there was something histrionic, not quite suitable about the whole thing. Honor said that her people felt exactly the same. She was an only child and her parents were killed in the Blitz. When you wrote to tell me that Mother had died of that ghastly cancer Honor was such a brick. She and Hubert saw me through so many things. What would she think of me now, I wonder. I’m sure she’d see that I’m thinking of Bruno, trying to do what Hubert wanted.

  Do you remember Goblin Market, Vivi? You were Lizzie, weren’t you, ‘Full of wise upbraidings’? And I was Laura, tempted by forbidden fruit. I still have the copy you gave me for my fifteenth birthday. I’ve always kept it with me and it was one of the very few things I brought from Multan in that hastily packed bag. Remember that Easter holiday, Vivi, just before the war broke out? I was torn between becoming a missionary or eloping with Robert Talbot and you would wait up for me each evening with those ‘wise upbraidings’.

  Dear, you should not stay so late,

  Twilight is not good for maidens;

  Should not loiter in the glen

  In the haunts of goblin men.

  It always makes me think of you letting me in through the garden door, both of us weeping with silent laughter as we crept upstairs, quiet as mice so as not to wake Mother. But you were right about Robert. Because of him I lost my longing for God and fell between all the stools in the end. What a fool I was, Vivi …

  I miss you so much.

  My love, darling.

  Madeleine

  Paradise

  30th June 1947

  Vivi, darling,

  I write these letters in the evenings when the children are in bed and Hubert’s father is in the drawing-room reading the newspaper or listening to the wireless. I haven’t posted the other two letters yet. Silly, isn’t it? It comforts me to write to you, like this, but I’m still drawn to the idea of building up the picture as a whole. I’ve decided to bring you right up to date and then send them all off together.

  To be absolutely honest with you, Vivi, it’s the least bit terrifying. The real problem is that, once you start down a road like this, things get away with you
and carry you along with them. Arriving here with Simon, it seemed suddenly impossible to explain the situation. Hubert’s father, James, was so pleased to see us all and so overcome by the sight of the children. Over and over again he’d touch Emma’s hair or tip Bruno’s chin so as to look at him. ‘Just like Hubert at that age,’ he’d say. And you could see that he was struggling to keep back the tears.

  He is a darling old boy, often with his head in a book and rather frail, but you could see that the children were like a breath of new life to him. There was never quite the right moment to explain to him at the beginning and, as each day passes, it becomes more and more impossible. It seems as though I might destroy some of the comfort he’s getting from it. And he loves Emma. She makes him laugh; she is so natural and takes everything in her stride. I really feel that it would be almost cruel to take her away and leave him and Bruno by themselves.

  We don’t talk too much about Hubert: James is typical of the stiff-upper-lip generation – remember Mother after Papa left us? Nothing is to be talked about which might be classed as emotional – but he loves to hear about Hubert’s work. That’s easy for me, of course, because I worked with him for six years but I still have to watch what I say and this is the exhausting part. I have to be so vigilant. And the real danger comes not from him but from Hubert’s cousin Mousie. I had no idea that there would be other people apart from Hubert’s immediate family – and I knew that he was an only child and that his mother had died – so you can imagine the shock to find an aunt and two cousins living ten minutes away! The aunt is a kindly soul and Rafe is a fairly standard fourteen-year-old boy, still at school, but his older sister is a different proposition.