Lost Autumn

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  “Do you not want to?” he said.

  “Of course I want to!” I almost shouted. “It’s just a surprise,” I added more softly.

  He was smiling at me now. “I didn’t want to say anything until we were back here,” he said. “I took the opportunity to speak with your father. You’re so young, Maddie, and I knew he’d want to be sure that we’d look after you. I assured him we would, of course. I know your father has already made many sacrifices, and I didn’t want to add to his burden.”

  “Mr. Waters, my father’s not himself at the moment.”

  “I assumed so,” he said. “What happened to the men over there, Maddie . . . It was pretty rugged. We—the prince, actually—took every opportunity to visit the front.”

  “Is that where you were wounded?”

  “Yes,” he said. “How did you know that?”

  “Helen mentioned it.”

  “Did she? Yes, awfully bad luck. A shell blast. I was waiting for H.R.H.” He rubbed his arm gently. “I think they hoped he was in the car, but they got me instead. I thought Helen might have forgotten.”

  “No,” I said, looking back at him. “No, she hasn’t, Mr. Waters. She hasn’t at all.”

  Helen was sometimes hard-hearted toward Mr. Waters, and I didn’t know why, but she’d said they’d fallen in love, and I believed she might love him still. I had also seen the way he watched her whenever she was in the room, the way his eyes sometimes couldn’t meet hers.

  His expression cleared then. “Bit of a target, the Royal Standard. An obvious mistake on our part. We took to getting around in ordinary cars from then on.”

  “Mr. Waters, did . . . did something happen between you and Helen in France?”

  “I beg pardon,” he said, looking irritated with me. “Why would you ask that? What did she say?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . . you are both so aware of one another.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Maddie. Helen is here on the tour to help with the newspapermen, and she is on the staff of Colonel Grigg. There is inevitable friction between the prince’s political role and his own feelings; between, I suppose, his public and private selves. Sir Godfrey and I work for the private prince, Colonel Grigg and Helen for the public prince.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. It’s just that Helen talks about you a lot. And you notice Helen whenever she’s around you.”

  “Really?” he said. “I’m not sure I notice Helen at all. I have too much to do to think about anyone in particular. And I’m quite sure she doesn’t spend any time thinking about me.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Waters. She does. I can tell. I have a finely tuned sense of these things. I’m going to be a writer.”

  He smiled across at me. “No, Maddie. You are a writer.”

  I felt a flush of pride. “Thank you, Mr. Waters. You know, if you did have feelings for Helen, I am very confident those feelings are returned.” I was sure I was right about this, with all the worldliness of a seventeen-year-old whose knowledge of love was gleaned entirely from romance novels.

  “Maddie, if I did have feelings, I can tell you for absolute certain that they are not returned. And that is all we’ll say on the matter.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Oh, I thought then. Could it be that Mr. Waters is sure Helen doesn’t love him, and Helen is sure Mr. Waters doesn’t love her, and they love each other? Oh, my goodness. It really was a plot for a romance, but in real life!

  “Mr. Waters, are there other men like Daddy?” I said then, wanting more than anything to interrogate him further but knowing he had forbidden more discussion. For now, I thought.

  He nodded. “Many others.”

  “So if I do this, when will I be home?”

  I’m sure he knew what I was thinking, that I didn’t want to leave Daddy for too long.

  He nodded. “Of course. You need to plan. We go from here to Western Australia by ship, and then we come back across the continent by train to Adelaide. From there, we meet the Renown to go to Tasmania, and then Sydney and from there by train to Brisbane. Brisbane’s where you’re from, is it not? We could leave you there and go on because after Brisbane, we’ll return to Sydney and then we sail for home. It’s only a month. It would be an enormous help. So, what do you say?”

  “I say yes, Mr. Waters.”

  He smiled with his whole face. “I’m pleased, Maddie. The rest of the week we’ll spend here at the house working while the prince finishes the Sydney engagements, and then we sail. There are spare staff rooms here where you can stay. And before I forget, I’ll go to the clerk now to fix you up for these two days you’ve already spent with us.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Waters,” I said. “You’ve been so kind.” I stood to leave.

  “No, Maddie. You’ve been so clever. That’s what’s happened here. You have saved me, and His Royal Highness. Oh. And, Maddie?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Not a word about that other business, all right?”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about. “Of course, sir,” I replied.

  Ha! After he excused me, I ran outside to find Helen in the garden out the back of Government House, intending to tell her everything Mr. Waters had said. Not a word about that other business? Not on your life! I thought.

  First I told Helen that I would be staying for the remainder of the tour, and she squealed with delight.

  We sat together on a swing in the garden that looked as if it had never been used.

  “Helen, you have to tell me now what happened between you and Mr. Waters in France,” I said, using my legs to push us off. It was a beautiful day, and the gardens were full of birds.

  “Why?” she said.

  “Every time I mention your name, he goes all sad-eyed. I’ve just been in the office and he spent half the time staring out the window at you. What happened?”

  “The prince happened,” she said.

  From Autumn Leaves by M. A. Bright

  FRANCE, 1918

  She was with Miss Ivens in the office when an orderly appeared at the door.

  “The prince is in the foyer,” the orderly said to Miss Ivens.

  “Which prince?” Miss Ivens said, looking annoyed.

  “Wales.”

  “Edward?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what the devil is he doing here?” Miss Ivens demanded.

  The orderly shrugged but didn’t answer.

  “The arm, Frances—the British captain,” she said.

  “What?” Miss Ivens looked at her.

  “Remember? The British captain, left arm, looked like we’d lose it. Last month, when we had the quiet spell. I brought him from Criel. You got into trouble afterward.”

  “Yes, yes, I had to go and explain, as I recall. That was you? The thing is, they have no idea what this is like. Henry did the surgery, didn’t she? What of it?”

  “He’s batman to the Prince of Wales.”

  “Oh,” Miss Ivens said. “How do you know that?”

  “He told me,” she said.

  “Well, I should change into my dress uniform. Who can we send to stall him?”

  “Iris?”

  “Good, yes, send Iris. And Dr. Henry, since she did the surgery. She’s in X-ray, so she should be presentable enough, and she can talk about the arm. I’ll be down as quick as I can. Another thing?”

  She turned.

  “Don’t you go. He has a reputation.”

  “Sorry?”

  “He likes pretty girls.”

  “Who?”

  “The prince. Who else?”

  “Iris is pretty.”

  “Yes, that’s a good point. Find someone older—old older, not young older. Perhaps Berry. She’ll be a foil for poor Henry. She can give him a lecture on public health in
Wales. Get her to go as well.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll see you directly.”

  * * *

  —

  David had come himself instead of sending a man. “I heard you were skiving off at some old abbey. I didn’t know it was full of girls!”

  The prince was uncharacteristically coy, scuffing his boot on the gravel as he spoke. “Fact is, we need you back in London, old friend. My father assures me he can get you home safely and then you can convalesce as long as you need. He says I might still be a target when you’re with me, but it’s worse when you’re not. And I miss you.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Besides, we can’t leave you with all these girls forever!”

  “But, sir, if I stay here—”

  “I won’t hear another word. We’ll take you home and get you well.” The prince smiled. There would be no discussion.

  There was no time to find her to say good-bye either. He quickly scrawled a note, folded it, and gave it to one of the girls while David was thanking the doctors.

  * * *

  —

  “The Prince of Wales,” Iris Crane was saying. “Oh, goodness. I nearly fainted. He is so handsome. He talked to me. He actually spoke to me personally, asked my name, where I was from. He has beautiful eyes. Ha! Violet is furious I met him and she didn’t!

  “He said it wouldn’t do to leave his dear friend among the French, no matter how good the lady doctors were,” Iris said, adding, “Miss Ivens was fairly ropable. I don’t know if it was that the prince was ordering him moved or that he called her a lady doctor.

  “‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Miss Ivens told him, ‘but I don’t think it’s advisable to move the patient.’” Iris was giggling at Miss Ivens’s speaking so to the prince. “But he—the patient, that is—stood and told them he was well enough to leave.”

  That’s what Iris told her now.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” Iris said. “He gave me a note for you. The batman, I mean, not the prince. I didn’t even know you knew him.”

  She had watched him from the top-floor windows as he and the prince walked together along the drive. He looked behind him once and then smiled across at his prince. She watched him go.

  She took the note and put it into her pocket.

  It was late that night before she had time alone to read. Three lines.

  Dearest,

  Please understand I must go now, but I will be back just as soon as time permits. I love you. I love you so much. I am yours. We are promised.

  Eighteen

  SYDNEY, 1920

  I left Government House for the day and took the ferry to Balmain. On the harbor on my own in the Sydney winter sunshine, I felt like a bird that had just taken its first flight. Until a week ago I had been unable to keep a serving job, and now I was writing letters for the Prince of Wales. I had a sense of destiny, or what I thought was destiny. This was what I’d been born to do, I told myself. And now I had been invited to join the rest of the tour, entirely on my merits. They knew me, knew my writing, and they had singled me out. The prince had singled me out. I could have sung to the ferry crowd.

  Before leaving, I had tied the remaining letters that needed replies into three bundles—those for a standard reply, those that needed thought, those for which action was required. I took the action pile and sat down with the clerk and steward to give them the prince’s instructions. The clerk was an employee of the governor, a middle-aged man with a gray beard and glasses, and the steward, a government appointee lent to the prince for the duration of the tour, was not far behind in age and seniority.

  It was amazing to me that these men would do as I asked. This fellow is to get a refund on his train ticket (went to see the prince but the prince wasn’t there). This one is to be sent the official cup and saucer (lost a grandson in the fighting), plus a personal reply. And this one—I paused, for it was the one that had touched me the most deeply—is a little boy whose father has come home terribly unwell. He is coming to Brisbane with his mother to meet the prince in person, I said.

  “Yes, miss,” was as much as either of them said in reply.

  I couldn’t wait to get back to my aunt Bea’s house in Balmain. While I had seen Daddy earlier in the day, I very much wanted to tell Bea what I’d been doing as part of the prince’s personal staff. She would be so proud of me, I knew, even prouder than Daddy.

  I had been relieved two weeks before when Mummy said Bea had sent money for tickets to Sydney for us all. I thought if anyone could help with Daddy it would be Bea. She was his older sister and she’d all but raised him. Bea had always been in our lives.

  On the second morning after we arrived in Sydney, Mummy had gone in early to see the prince again and Bea said I could come into the library with her on the train—she had planned I would work there with her once I completed my matriculation. She hoped that, like her, I would study at the university.

  Bea had been thrilled when I’d won a scholarship to the state high school. She said it was a new era for women after the war and I would be able to do whatever I wanted. I hadn’t told her I’d left school, that I’d never complete my matriculation now as I must work, that university was a dream.

  That day we went together into the library, Bea already knew something was wrong with Daddy. I tried to tell her what was happening at home.

  “Is this after Edward?” she said, not understanding.

  “It’s everything,” I said, shaking my head. I was nearly in tears. “Daddy has these nightmares, and he becomes afraid, or sometimes angry. Sometimes they happen in the day. He doesn’t know who we are. It’s like he’s not there. Ask Mummy.”

  “Your mother would never tell me anything about it. She’s too proud. Is he writing?” Bea asked.

  I shook my head. “Rats,” I said. “He writes about rats.”

  “Poetry about rats?”

  “More like essays. He describes the different subspecies in detail, noting characteristics, habits. He draws them, writes about them. Please don’t tell Mummy. She doesn’t know.”

  “Has he talked to you about it?”

  “No, I go into his study. Mummy thinks he’s working on a collection.”

  “That’s what she told me—that he quit teaching to write.”

  “He was sacked,” I said. I was crying now, my eyes filling with tears, my voice unsteady. “He tweaked this boy’s ear very hard. Daddy never did anything like that before.”

  Bea looked out the window of the train. “Poor Tommy,” she said.

  * * *

  I walked up to Bea’s house from the ferry just as night was falling. Mummy was full of excitement about my working for the Prince of Wales, and the boys were just happy to have their big sister back among them to help, but I quickly saw that Daddy was lost to us again. I found him out on the veranda, sitting on his own on the porch swing, back and forth, back and forth.

  “You should still be at school, Maddie,” he said, his jaw set tight. “I don’t know how I’ve let this happen.” He looked so very upset. “You’re clever, and you’re going to write. I had more schooling than you have, and I had no parents to provide. I’ve let you down.”

  “I don’t mind working, Daddy. I really don’t. The tour might be fun. And I’ll be home in a month.”

  Daddy’s hands were shaking. I took them in mine. “I think it won’t always feel like this,” I said. I could see the sweat beading on his forehead. “I think it will feel better one day. You’ll come back to us.”

  He smiled bitterly. “I don’t want you to go, Maddie. I don’t feel right about it. Not after everything.”

  If I’d thought it would have helped Daddy, I would have said no to Mr. Waters in a minute, or at least I hope I would have. But I knew in my heart that we were in no position financially for me to refuse this job even if I’d wanted to. When my mot
her ran off from her parents’ estate with my father, Edward already forming in her womb, her family cut her off altogether. We had nothing, and no one to fall back on but Bea, who for all her kindness could not support five hungry children and who, I realized that night, was at a loss about how to reach her poor brother now.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, I rose before the sun and washed and dressed in my only good dress, a pale gray linen, and my sturdy black boots. I went into the room where the three youngest boys slept peacefully. I gave them each a shield of kisses on their brow and told them in a whisper I’d be home before they knew it. Only John stirred. He mumbled something and smiled in his sleep, such a beautiful boy. The twins smelled of Bovril.

  I crept out of their room and went into the room Bert slept in, our uncle Reg’s office. Bert was already awake. “So you’re going?” he said.

  I nodded and smiled.

  “You’re a good sister, Maddie.”

  “And you’re a good brother.”

  We hugged and I had a lump in my throat, as if I would never see Bert again.

  I went down the stairs and out the front door.

  Oh, stop! you want to say to your young self. Just stop a minute and think! Do not do not do not walk into danger’s arms. But she can’t hear me and wouldn’t listen if she could.

  Nineteen

  BRISBANE, 1981

  It had been a month since Sally and Frank had started coming to my house each day. I found they could spend hours happily playing out in the garden with the chickens, which was where I was with them now.

  Sally is the younger one, two and three-quarters, as Frank is fond of telling me. He’s much older, he says, at four and an eighth. I wondered how a four-year-old understood fractions, but I suppose he didn’t. I suppose he mimicked his father.

  To lose your mother so young. “I was older than you by more than twenty years and that was hard enough,” I’ve said to Sally, although she doesn’t know what I mean. I suppose I shouldn’t say things like that to a two-year-old, even given the three-quarters. I seem to be losing my ability to censor myself.