by Hopes
There was a concerted intake of breath at Elenor’s rudeness from the roomful of mourners the majority of whom shared the beliefs and concepts of the afterlife so frequently expounded by Miss Patten.
Following Elenor’s outburst, the only sound to be heard was the ticking of the ornate French clock on the mantelshelf. As the silence lengthened uncomfortably, Mrs Cooper got to her feet and looking directly into her daughter’s eyes, she said: “I think you owe Miss Patten an apology. After all, not only has she never tried to impose her views on anyone, least of all you or Granny, there is another consideration. It is thanks to Miss Patten that you have had such a privileged childhood.”
Despite the reasoning tone of her voice it was nevertheless abundantly clear Mrs Cooper was furious with her daughter.
Even so, and still almost beside herself with the intensity of her grief Elenor was detemined to have the last word. She swivelled to face Miss Patten and with tears coursing down her cheeks, she said: “If I appear to seem ungrateful for the home you so graciously bestowed on us, then for such ingratitude I do apologise. However ...” Elenor gulped, tried in vain to wipe away a torrent of tears, then finally continued: “But as for all that mumbo-jumbo about trances and spirits returning from the Great Beyond – not my cup of tea, thank you. Since Granny Mutch had no faith in it either, please, just let the poor old soul rest in peace.”
In the months following Granny’s death the tension in Stable Cottage and Ivylea grew unbearable.
On a fine autumn morning, for the third time that day, Elenor and her mother were locked in fierce debate. Red in the face and her whole body shaking with anger Elenor spat out: “No! I will not stay here a moment longer. I have neither interest nor belief in séances, trances and messages from the spirit world. Miss Patten has accepted and chosen to respect my views on such matters. So why can’t you, my own mother, do the same?”
Mrs Cooper sat down at the kitchen table and gazed up at her still sorely-grieving daughter, “Will you please sit down, calm yourself, and listen to what I have to say. If we’re being honest, it isn’t spiritual beliefs, or the lack of them, we’re arguing about now is it?”
“Trust you, Mother, to twist everything I say. That’s typical. As usual you have to be the one that’s right. Anyway I’m old enough now to do as I please, go where I wish – live in a garden shed should I choose to do so.”
“Old enough! Hmph! Old enough you say – to go out into the world? You’re barely more than a child. Let us not forget what a sheltered existence you’ve had here all the years of your growing up.”
“I’m nineteen, Mother. From what I’ve been told just about the same age as you were when you first came to Ivylea.”
“Well ... even so, your father would never allow it. So there’s an end to the matter.”
Elenor gave an angry toss of her head. “Archie Cooper – good husband that he is to you – is not my father. So let’s leave him out of this. Anyway, even Miss Patten, with all her mumbo-jumbo, has a much more down-to-earth attitude with regard to my lifestyle.”
“Indeed? How exactly do you come to that conclusion? If I may make so bold as to ask?”
Elenor grimaced. “Really, Mother, sarcasm does not suit you. You would do well to take notice of the words and advice of Miss Patten: ‘Let Elenor be, after all we each have a different path to take on life’s journey. Elenor must have the freedom to follow the way that has been mapped out for her.’”
Whether it was Miss Patten’s advice which won the day or Archie Cooper’s common-sense approach, or even that reason simply prevailed over useless, heated arguments, the end result was the same. Well before her twentieth birthday, Elenor had packed her bags and left Ivylea and all it stood for. Not that she had moved very far geographically from Stable Cottage, her mother, and Miss Patten, but in spiritual matters she might well be living on a different planet instead of only a few short miles further along Dunoon’s seafront.
As she looked out across the Firth from the common room of Clydeview yet again Elenor revelled in the ever changing scene as the early morning sun dappled the waves. Still deep in thought, she was startled to hear a voice behind her say: “Now then, Elenor, time you were getting your young charges up and down to breakfast.”
She turned to face her work companion and immediate boss, Nurse Rena Weir, who continued: “And no more nonsense such as we had yesterday about some of those underfed Glasgow bairns making faces at the sight of a good nourishing bowl of porridge.”
Elenor laughed. “I’m not much of a porridge fan myself so I couldn’t help but laugh at their antics. Now could I?”
“You’re just too soft. An easy target for some of those young rascals. A good job you’ve got me and Matron to keep them in order.”
“In order? Is that what you call it? You’re every bit as soft hearted as I am. Don’t forget I’ve seen you slipping many a weepy, home-sick bairn a wee square or two of your vanilla tablet.”
Rena smiled. “But now for goodness sake, let’s get breakfast over and done with. Don’t forget this is a changeover day and you know how frantically busy that can be.”
Later that same day having said goodbye to one batch and welcomed the new intake of peelie-wallie-looking underprivileged city children Elenor said: “It’s a wonderful idea isn’t it? This ‘Fresh Air Fortnight’.”
Mrs Judd, the cook, agreed. “Mind you, it’s only lately it’s been called that. When Miss Clugston left the money for the setting up of Clydeview like this I think it had a much grander title. But the idea has always been the same – to give a wee holiday to city bairns. Some of them never having had a square meal. Far less seen the seaside It gets them away from the smoke and dirt of Glasgow into the pure fresh air of Argyll.”
“They’re not the only ones. It’s thanks to Clydeview that I’ve found a new home and a new purpose in life these past three years.”
Mrs Judd laughed. “Aye, and if I’m not mistaken you’re about to find yourself a husband, thanks to Clydeview. Don’t forget I’ve seen the way that young Doctor Kennedy looks at you when he’s supposed to be seeing to the children.”
Elanora felt herself blushing. “Oh, that’s all in your imagination, Mrs Judd.”
Smiling, standing with her hands on her hips, Mrs Judd said: “Say what you like. I foresee a June wedding.”
“Please, don’t you start predicting my future. I get enough of that from Miss Patten.”
To Mrs Judd’s delight, in June of 1921 Elenor and the handsome Doctor Kennedy walked down the aisle of the High Kirk as husband and wife, and on to a magnificent reception at Ivylea.
Over the years since leaving Stable Cottage and working as a children’s helper at Clydeview, Elenor had maintained a wary truce with her mother. Now, here she was, the bride of a doctor no less – what greater destiny could Mrs Cooper have wished for her beloved only daughter? Elenor had arrived! Her life was now set fair to become the helpmate of a busy general practitioner in Dunoon.
However, in the course of the wedding reception’s festivities, Doctor Kennedy surprised his new in-laws by announcing that far from settling down in a seafront stone villa, he and Elenor would soon be quitting the shores of Scotland and leaving for the West Coast of Africa. A stunned silence greeted this startling news leaving Miss Patten alone completely unfazed.
Seeing Miss Patten’s reaction, Elenor thought: I might have known. We didn’t even tell Rory’s parents and only got the final acceptance letter this morning. Trust Miss Patten, the spaewife. She probably knew all about it before we were even sure ourselves.
Elenor smiled across at Miss Patten and was startled at the returning almost imperceptible nod followed by, of all things, a wink! It seemed to Elenor that Miss Patten might as well have said out loud: “Yes, Elenor, you’re doing the right thing – everything is exactly the way it is meant to be. It has all been foretold.”
Chapter Two
The journey to the West Coast of Africa had been memorable, not least f
or its being taken in mid-December with the ship battling its way over the storm-tossed, turbulent waters of the Bay of Biscay.
As Elenor lay in her bunk, one minute she was gazing through the porthole at the sea and the next at the sky above. With a moan she headed yet again for the sick-bowl with the ship’s latest plunge into the depths of the Atlantic. Rory said the bouts of nausea and projectile vomiting were just sea-sickness, but Elenor knew the symptoms had started before the sea got really rough – could she be pregnant?
Before disembarking Elenor and Rory already knew something of the history of the area and thanks to one gossipy returning shipboard companion were aware that other people like themselves had chosen to up-sticks and opt for a working life in the heat and dust of Equatorial Africa. In the fairly new expatriate community to which they were heading, like a small village, friendships had been formed, feuds had been established, one marine officer had run off with someone else’s fiancée, the Vicar’s wife was suspected of being a secret drinker.
The train to take them further into the bush to their new home in the company compound eventually arrived at the wharf. It looked more like a miniature version of the real thing. Their companion from the ship, a seasoned traveller returning from home leave, told them it was known locally as the ‘The Trolley’. Some time in the past a group of innovative engineers had hacked out a narrow track through the dense jungle.
Elenor, already wilting from the heat, was finding it difficult to concentrate let alone show any display of interest. Rory gave her an encouraging smile and patted her arm.
“We’ll soon be in our new home, dear. I’m assured it will be completely furnished ready for us in all respects.”
It took all of Elenor’s remaining strength to give an answering nod of her head. As she did so their fellow traveller inquired of Rory: “So, you’re going to be in the Company Compound? I know it quite well. Lovely airy houses built on stilts. You’ll be all right there, not like where I’m going further up country. Do you know which house you’ve been allocated? I’m sure I’ll know it.”
“I don’t believe they gave me a name or a number,” Rory said. “All I know is it is the Doctor’s House.”
The other man gave Elenor a pitying look. “Of course, you’re the new doctor. It follows you’ll be living in the doctor’s house. No wonder they didn’t tell you the number. I hope you and your wife aren’t superstitious.”
Elenor revived enough to say: “You don’t mean it’s number ...”
“Thirteen! Yes, that’s the number. You’ll find it difficult to keep staff there. It’s also reputed to be haunted.”
With a ‘tut’ of annoyance Elenor thought: So much for leaving behind Ivylea’s spirits – that’s all I need. A haunted house, a baking hot climate, no domestic staff, and hordes of the undead.
Determined as she was to have nothing whatsoever to do with the spirit world, even so in her new house Elenor found it increasingly difficult to ignore the topic altogether. This was especially so when at each dinner party she gave for Rory’s associates or attended as a guest in their homes, inevitably the topic would turn to the ‘haunted’ House Thirteen.
Despite questions about manifestations she had experienced since moving in Elenor could only say honestly: “I’ve seen nothing and heard nothing untoward. Although there is a constant stream of cooks and houseboys who refuse to stay more than a few days. Even though they have their own quarters in a bungalow on the compound it seems that a short stay at House Thirteen is long enough for them.”
When pressed yet again about the ‘haunted’ house Elenor would laugh.
“Mind you, back in Scotland I grew up in a house filled to bursting-point with spirits, with séances, with a psychic medium who would go into a trance at the drop of a hat. Trust me, if House Thirteen is haunted, then as something of an authority on the subject I think I would be the first to know.”
Far from distracting others such a reply served only to whet the appetite for further stories of Ivylea and the strange goings-on in that house back there in Scotland.
Elenor remarked to Rory: “It seems the world and his wife have a hunger to learn more about the supernatural, albeit they do try to conceal such interest from other people lest they be branded as some sort of eccentrics.”
“No point in us worrying ourselves about it is there? I have more than enough to think about in getting to grips with my job here.”
“Oh, I think you’re doing fine. I wouldn’t want you to get too big-headed, but I have heard people speak very highly of you.”
Rory grinned. “Oh that. Truth is they’re just trying to keep in with me in case I spill the beans about their dinking habits. Half my patients are gin-sodden wrecks and the other half are working their way towards that end.”
Elenor laughed. “So it’s not just House Thirteen that harbours spirits.”
“Very clever, dear wife. Anyway talking of gin-sodden wrecks – it seems to go with the climate out here – the latest I hear is that they’re having to ship home the woman who runs the little school for the company employee’s children. She’s also the Vicar’s wife. It seems the gin has really got to her.”
“What do you mean, got to her?”
“Delusions of grandeur – she thinks she’s the Virgin Mary – and her name isn’t even Mary.”
Elenor assumed a look of mock disapproval. “Rory, that’s a terribly blasphemous thing to say – I’m shocked at you. Anyway, why are we having this conversation?”
“Ever since you miscarried just after we got here, I know how much you’ve missed your work with children, such as you had at Clydeview. I thought, perhaps a wee teaching job?”
“But I’m not qualified as a teacher–”
“Neither was the Vicar’s wife. She used workbooks the Company shipped over. They get them from one of the Education Boards in England. Anyway, it’s fast approaching the rainy season. The Company would do anything to keep the children of employees occupied during the rains. A tame chimpanzee would do as long as it kept the twelve little horrors in order and out of everyone’s hair. As you already know people get very tetchy and fragile during the rainy season.”
“So now I’m the equivalent of a trained chimpanzee!”
“You said it, dearest, not me. If you like the idea, the Company has already agreed you could convert one of our larger outhouses into a schoolroom – that’s what the Vicar’s wife did on their compound. So, what do you think?”
“As Miss Patten would say – this is the path in life I have to travel. Yes, I’ll do it, but I have one proviso.”
“I knew it was too easy. All right, let’s have it. What’s your condition.”
“Just this. I’ve become aware that most of our house and garden boys are unable to read and write. If I’m to be teaching the Company employees’ children, I’d also like to do adult education classes in the schoolroom, perhaps two or three evenings a week?”
Rory nodded. “I can’t see any problem there. Who knows, perhaps the lure of free education in our compound might encourage people to forget about ghostly sightings at House Thirteen. Yes, let’s do it.”
Chapter Three
Rory’s theory about the added incentive of teaching the ‘Three Rs’ to their house and garden servants proved correct. Soon Elenor not only had a full complement of cook, steward, houseboy, wash-girl, garden-boy and night watchman, she also had a waiting list of eager, would-be employees all desperate to learn to read and write. The day-time school was also proving to be something of a local wonder. Not only did Elenor keep the children fully employed it was also the first time in years that the Company had a sober schoolmistress as opposed to one who daily doctored her morning cuppa with a liberal helping of gin.
One morning Elenor walked into her dining room to find that not only had Napoleon, her steward, not set the table for breakfast but also the dust on the sideboard seemed inches thick. Going across to inspect the offending piece of furniture, and fully intending to berat
e the steward when he appeared Elenor stopped short as she gazed down at the top of the sideboard. At several points on the surface she could clearly make out the name, Napoleon. So, rather than doing the household duties for which she paid him, he was doing his homework and practising writing his name in the dust on her sideboard
Torn between feeling proud of her pupil’s progress – especially with such a long and difficult name – and the natural annoyance at seeing her home in such disarray, pride in her pupil’s achievement won the day. When next Napoleon signed his name on a store sales slip, Elenor had the historic document framed for her steward. No university master’s degree was ever displayed with greater aplomb than that sales slip.
As the rainy season finally let go its grip to be replaced by a boiling hot sun, life again settled into the familiar pattern of work, entertaining and long evenings sitting on the verandah in the velvety blackness of Africa listening to the crickets and other assorted noises from the bush beyond the compound.
On one such evening Elenor found herself somehow ‘at one’ with the indefinable magic of the vast wonderful continent and entertaining such fanciful thoughts as: Yes, there is a magical quality to Africa. A very real feeling, an almost tangible something which links to the past and forward to the future, towards unknown tomorrows ...
At this point Elenor drew herself up sharply. “What’s wrong with me? At any moment I’ll be like Miss Patten and break into a trance.”
At that point Rory joined her on the verandah. “Sounds as if Africa is getting to you. I was sure I heard you talking to yourself. Don’t tell me that like your predecessor you’re on the gin.”
Elenor laughed. “I’m sure the Company Doctor would be able to tell me if I was becoming an alcoholic. I’m glad you’re free this weekend. We always enjoy staying with Martin and Joan in Victoria, don’t we? I love the fantastic sunsets in Victoria Bay; watching the hundreds of bats winging their way from Mondole Island to the mainland every night in search of food. Victoria Bay really is exotic isn’t it, and Mondole Island dark and forbidding.”
