The Captain's Daughter

by Leah Fleming

  These five days had changed her life in so many ways, with the disruption of her carefully constructed peace of mind. She thought of the night she’d met Grover in London: those intense candlelight suppers, the corsage of flowers, her silk dress, the scents of the dining room, their rush to be married and away. She’d not been a good judge back then. This man was charming but he might be a charlatan, a sailor with a girl in every port, but she sensed his heart was of a different mettle. He showed such genuine interest in them. She could see him delight in Roddy’s enthusiasms, his polite deference when she refused to relax and open up to him. It must be hurtful not to have her relax in his arms when she was dancing, her awkwardness and stiffness deliberate and off-putting. He must be puzzled, sensing her discomfort, thinking her disinterested in him, perhaps, because he looked older than his years and had a limp. What was holding her back?

  Many things: fear of getting it wrong, fear of getting involved when she wasn’t free, fear of jumping into some onboard romance. How could she ever trust another man after her past experience?

  Though she had trusted him with one thing. They’d walked on deck when Roddy was settled for the night and she talked a little about going home, about having no means of support now, and she had confessed her nervousness at returning after so many years abroad. She admitted her father needed her and her brother was unwell.

  ‘This war has broken so many lives,’ Archie agreed, looking out to sea. ‘None of us can be the same because of it. Thank God young Roddy will never have to face such grimness, Mrs Wood . . .’

  She heard the sadness in his words and relented. ‘Please call me . . . my name is . . .’ They were almost in England now. Time to shed the disguise. ‘People call me Celeste,’ she said. ‘Celestine Forester.’

  He turned and smiled, reaching out to shake her hand formally. ‘Thank you, Celeste. What a beautiful name for a lovely young woman. Would you mind if I wrote to you both sometime?’

  She withdrew from his grasp, afraid of the feelings building between them even in this simple act. ‘If you think it would help.’ She paused, knowing she should reveal something else to show her trust but the words dried up in her throat. Then he said something extraordinary as he held her eyes with such intensity.

  ‘I hope, in good time, you will tell me what or whoever in the past has given you such fear. Forgive me for being impertinent, but I sense your reserve and it goes against your nature. Don’t worry,’ he smiled. ‘I have no intentions of prying. Wrong place, wrong time yet again, I fear . . .’

  ‘Let’s leave it at that then,’ she interrupted, pulling away from the magnetic force drawing them closer. ‘Good night, Archie. Mr McAdam . . .’

  ‘Good night but not goodbye, Celeste.’ He backed away leaving her alone to fathom out his meaning amongst the moonlight and the stars.

  59

  On the last Saturday of August fifty excited children poured out of the station at Colwyn Bay in North Wales carrying bats and balls, bags of bathing suits, and waving their straw hats in the sunshine. May thought they looked like a flurry of white butterflies scattering over the beach with excitement. She was so tired from all her sewing, from not sleeping, from worrying if she should come here at all. But she wanted to keep an eye on Ella, just in case she blurted out any more tall tales.

  ‘I want no more nonsense about Captain Scott or any telling fibs,’ she had warned her. ‘Your father was Joseph Smith, a carpenter from Edgeworth.’

  ‘Like Joseph of Nazareth,’ Ella said.

  ‘There you go again. Don’t be smart with me, listen to what I’m saying.’

  ‘You won’t wear your black crow dress, will you? You promised,’ Ella added. ‘My friend Hazel’s mum has a new dress. Wear your new skirt.’

  It was a shock to think a girl as young as Ella noticed and compared one woman to another. May had met Mrs Perrings at the school gate several times. Hazel was Ella’s best friend at school. They seemed sensible sorts.

  Dolly Perrings knitted for the duration of the train journey, chatting about this and that, and her new-found friend, George, a soldier from Whittington Barracks, who was always smartly turned out with clean fingernails and a moustache. Mrs Perrings was wearing a bright pink and white summer dress, her hair bobbed and feathered around her face. No wonder Ella thought May was a plain Jane of a mother.

  Those words had hurt deeper than the child could ever know. She thought of jackdaws, black like crows. They stole bright things, and what was she if not a thief? Perhaps she deserved that name. She felt so wound up, like a coiled spring inside, tired, listless, as if perched on the edge of a steep cliff. One puff of wind and she’d be over the side. The confidence she’d been feeling since that episode with Florrie had vanished into tiredness. Everything was such an effort, even on this bright summer’s day. When she smelled the seaweed, the salty breeze, she gagged, feeling sick. The sea. How had she been persuaded to come to the seaside of all places? This was madness.

  She hung back from the other helpers. ‘Come on, Mrs Smith . . . May. Let’s see if we can get some tea and a walk on the promenade, take the air while Miss Parry and the teachers take the girls on their nature walk. It’s still lesson time for them but not for us.’

  May felt as if her feet weren’t attached to her body. She drifted along with the flow and they found a little tearoom, but she could only taste warm water in her mouth. She felt faint at the sight of the rolling sea.

  ‘What a lovely view,’ said Mrs Perrings. ‘We can watch the tide coming in from here. It’s like a silver lake out there, so smooth and silky . . . just look . . . like a mill pond.’ She chattered on, oblivious to the fact that May sat with her back to the water.

  ‘The sea has another face, a cruel face,’ she suddenly muttered. ‘It can lull you into a false safety and spew you out in its roaring waters.’

  ‘Ah yes, I’m sorry, dear, Hazel told me that your husband died at sea. It’s a terrible thing to be widowed so young. When I got the telegram that Philip had been killed in Gallipoli, well, I don’t know how I’d have managed without the little one for comfort. Hazel is my little helper and Ella looks the same to me. At least we have a bit of our husbands to remind us.’

  May looked at the woman as if she’d never seen her before, got up and went off down towards where the children were walking in a crocodile, pausing to pick shells and stamp footprints in the sand.

  The sea might rise up and drown them all, its waves crashing over their heads, and she heard again the cries of the dying in the water, those agonizing cries to God and to their mothers for rescue. Help me! She put her hands to her ears to drown out those terrible voices, the thrashing of frozen limbs, the lapping of the oars on the water rowing away from all who needed help.

  Then she saw some of the girls paddling, their skirts rolled up into their knickers, and far out a man swimming, his head bobbing on the surface of the water just as Joe’s had done. He was too far out for safety. The man was drowning like Joe, and in her mind she was there again trying to catch him up.

  ‘Turn back, turn back! Look, we must help him!’ she yelled. ‘He’s drowning!’ She felt her limbs thrashing after Joe, their precious bundle floating away. She screamed, ‘Bring him back, the sea will have him . . . Bring them on board. Ellen . . . Joe . . . Wait for me! Come back!’

  Suddenly an arm was around her. ‘Mrs Smith, Mrs Smith, you’re unwell. The man is quite safe and the tide is coming in.’

  May threw off the comforting arm. ‘No . . . I want my Ellen . . . I can’t see her any more.’

  ‘Ella is fine, Mrs Smith. You must calm down, you’re frightening the girls. Stop this at once.’ The voice was sterner now, a schoolmarm voice pulling her back from the shore. ‘Come along with me. You need something to calm your nerves.’

  May lashed out at her comforter’s restraining hand. She could still see them both.

  ‘Ellen, come back to me . . . Joe, come back to me. Wait for me, I’m coming.’ She ran into the water, s
plashing, oblivious to the chill of the Irish Sea. She was wading in deeper, ignoring the voices calling her back. She must find them, calling out to her in the darkness of that awful night. She belonged with her family, not with strangers here.

  There were stronger arms now dragging her back to the shore. She fought them all the way as if they were the arms on the lifeboat dragging her back, away from her baby and Joe. Someone was slapping her face.

  ‘Pull yourself together, woman! Ella is safe. Look, here she is, Mrs Smith. Calm yourself, no harm will come to her. We’re all safe on this beautiful summer day. Ella will help you.’

  May stared at the darkling child looking up at her with horror. ‘I don’t want her. She’s not my daughter . . . Ellen lies at the bottom of the sea.’

  ‘Mrs Smith,’ a man’s voice shouted, ‘enough of this nonsense. Your daughter is safe by your side. This has to stop.’

  ‘This is not my daughter,’ she insisted, her wild eyes examining those dark lashes and chocolate-button eyes, shaking her head, suddenly so very weary. ‘This is not my baby. My baby is dead.’ Then something was stabbed into her arm and she knew nothing more.

  Ella had watched her mother’s eyes rolling wildly, listened to her screams and thrashings, had seen her new skirt soaked with salt water, her hair unpinned, dripping in rat’s tails. She’d looked like a witch, a scary witch from a picture book. When she had turned on them so angrily, denying her own daughter, Ella had run as fast as she could from the crowd of horrified girls, open-mouthed at what they had just witnessed. She was so full of fear and shame and fury, all rolled up into one tight ball inside her, drawing her tummy so tight she wanted to howl. What had she done? What was wrong? Why was Mum so angry and making such a scene?

  The seaside day trip was ruined for everyone now, and she felt so angry and embarrassed that it was her mother’s fault.

  They bundled Mum into an ambulance with a locked door like a Black Maria. Everyone was staring and gawping, and Ella wanted to disappear into the sea and hide under the water.

  It was Miss Parry who came to comfort her. ‘I’m afraid your mother is unwell. I think there has been much strain, and she’ll have to be looked after for a while. Don’t worry, she’ll get better, given time. Now we have to think about you and who will be looking after you. Mrs Perrings says she can have you for a few days. I shall inform the College . . . I’m very sorry this has happened, Ella.’

  ‘What did I do wrong?’ she asked in a faraway voice.

  ‘Nothing at all. As I said, she’s unwell and when people are sick in their mind, they say unspeakable things. It’s the nature of brain fever. Put such thoughts out of your head. Don’t worry she won’t remember any of this, I promise you.’

  But I will, thought Ella miserably. ‘She said I wasn’t her daughter,’ she cried out.

  ‘That’s the fever talking nonsense. Of course you are her daughter. Don’t take heed of that. Come, we’re all going for tea before we return to the station. Hazel will sit with you and you can be with the teachers in the quiet compartment on the journey home. I’m sure you’re very tired now.’

  Ella stared back at the rolling sea, hearing the gulls wheeling overhead. The salt spray and the seaweed stung her nose. As long as she lived she’d never forget the sight of her mother running into the waves as if she meant to drown herself. Who will look after me now? she sobbed as silently as she could.

  She turned to look at the water stretching out to the grey horizon. Clouds were gathering, dark storm clouds. The sun was hidden and the sea was choppy and noisy in her ears. Somehow her mother’s fever was all the fault of waves and water and shore.

  I never want to see you again . . . I hate you . . . I never want to see the sea ever again.

  60

  Celeste stood on City station. They’d come straight from Liverpool a long enough route that she had had time to adjust to hearing those Midlands voices shouting down the platforms. The platform air was stiff with hops from the nearby brewery iron filings and soot, and a stiff easterly tugged at her coat.

  ‘Look,’ she pointed out to Roddy. ‘The cathedral spires.’

  ‘They’re not very tall,’ was his only comment.

  ‘Let’s give Grandpa a surprise,’ she said, then saw him looking puzzled.

  ‘Grandpa’s not here, he’s in America.’ His tiredness was making him confused.

  ‘You are a lucky boy to have two grandpas. Come on, we’ll put all our things in a taxi.’

  Roddy wasn’t impressed by the vehicle. ‘This is only a horse-drawn one – where are the automobiles?’

  They had travelled light with just their hand baggage. Not a lot to show for ten years abroad, Celeste reflected, but none of that mattered now. She wanted to track every inch of their journey. What shops did she recognize? There was the old theatre, now a picture-drome, the clock tower, the Swan Hotel, the museum and library buildings and Minster Pool, just as she’d left them. They turned into the Close through the ancient wall and alighted. She couldn’t stop smiling. What a surprise she was going to give them.

  Half dragging her son through the little tunnel into Vicar’s Close, she felt like a child again, ringing the door pull of number four, desperately hoping her father would be inside.

  An old man with a stoop stared up at her, amazed. ‘Oh my goodness, come in, come in. May thought you’d not be long in coming home again, but this . . . and this young man must be Roderick. I’ve heard so much about you.’

  Celeste stepped inside the tiny cottage. It was a muddle of books and papers. A smell of tobacco smoke and burned dinner greeted her nostrils. ‘I see May’s not seen to you for a few days,’ she laughed.

  Her father paused. ‘Oh, you won’t know, will you? Poor May’s in hospital.’

  ‘How?’ Celeste replied, shocked. This was not how it should be. ‘I didn’t know she’d been ill.’

  ‘That young May is full of secret sorrows, I fear. We had no idea either. Selwyn was most upset. How wonderful to have you back with us after all your . . . your difficulties. Your timing is perfect. So much has happened. But sit down, let me fill the teapot. It’s around here somewhere.’

  Celeste jumped up. ‘I see we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and sort you out. Oh, Papa, you’ve no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this return.’ She stopped, seeing her father peering over his half-moon glasses at her son.

  ‘He’s so like Bertie, isn’t he?’ he said, looking at the silver-framed picture of Bertram in his uniform. ‘I still can’t believe he won’t be coming home to us. I’m glad your mother didn’t have to know this . . . but now, how wonderful to see you both. Wait till Selwyn hears. I must warn you, though, Selwyn isn’t quite as you will recall him. He’s been very ill but he’ll mend given time, like May.’

  ‘What is wrong with May?’

  ‘Didn’t I say? She’s in St Matthew’s.’

  ‘The asylum?’ Celeste was shocked. ‘How?’

  ‘She’s not herself. They can help her there.’

  Celeste took another deep breath at this bad news, knowing her return was not a minute too soon. Here she was needed and here she was welcome. They were home at last.

  61

  May awoke, not knowing where she was at first. Her eyes blurred as she tried to focus on the room. It was a ward with high ceilings, iron beds along the walls and the smell of Lysol in the air. She felt she’d been asleep for a long time: her limbs were stiff and heavy, her tongue thick and her mouth dry. Her hands fingered the thin nightdress that had ridden up, barely covering her. Her head was throbbing as she tried to lift her head off the pillow. What was she doing here?

  Panic flooded her body and she sank back. I don’t care where I am I’m so tired, she thought. Her head was as fluffy as cotton wool. At first she had no recollection of how she came to be here, nothing except sleep and heaviness with glimpses of a long journey somewhere at the back of her befuddled mind. Her throat was sore and parched. Where was she?

  The
re were other women shuffling up and down the room, eyeing her with interest, but they soon moved away when a nurse in a stiff white cap marched in. At the sight of her movement she smiled. ‘Ah, Mrs Smith, you are with us once more.’

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You are in St Matthew’s Hospital, my dear. Here for a long rest and a good long sleep.’

  May couldn’t take in her words at first. What was she doing in an asylum, a lunatic asylum? ‘Where am I?’ she asked again.

  ‘I told you . . . in hospital.’

  ‘But where?’ Bits of memory were jolting back into place. She’d been on the train and there were crowds and the sea. Oh my God, the sea!

  ‘Where’s Ella? My daughter?’ She sat up to get out of bed but the room spun round and she almost collapsed.

  ‘Now, just get back into bed, Mrs Smith. Your daughter is being well cared for, don’t get upset.’

  ‘We were at Colwyn Bay . . . I know we went on a train. Am I in Wales?’ Why did her lips not move when she tried to speak? Every word had to be forced out of her mouth.

  ‘Now do I sound Welsh? You’re in St Matthew’s, Burntwood. You’ve been here over a week now. Don’t go getting upset. We need to keep you calm. I don’t want you upsetting the other patients. I’ll tell Dr Spence you’re awake. He’ll want to speak with you.’

  What did I do to be put in here? May’s mind was searching for those shards of broken memory – the icy stabs as she was thrashing in the water and the screaming. What had she done? Where was Ella? She wanted to feel anxious but everything was numb.

  ‘I’ve got to go home. I shouldn’t be here. I have a job. I must go home and see to things.’

  ‘If you don’t calm down we’ll have to put you to sleep again,’ the nurse insisted as she bent over her, straightening the bedding. ‘You need to rest your mind, not stir it up. You’ve been very run down.’

  ‘When can I see Ella?’

  ‘We don’t have children visiting, but your friends have come. They will give her news of you.’