‘Is this so you can marry your fancy sailor beau. Don’t bluff, Celestine. I know all about your Archie McAdam.’
‘Archie is just a friend, whereas you have a pretty girlfriend, so Roddy tells me.’ ‘You keep Louella out of this. I can divorce you for desertion any time I wish, but I
choose not to.’ He smiled coldly.
‘But Roddy is confused and we’re not setting him a good example. His loyalties are be-ing torn.’
‘You should have thought of that all those years ago, when you deserted your home.’ He turned his back on her but she was not going to be thrown.
‘You know why I left. I sincerely hope you treat your friend better than you treated me,’ she snapped, and he spun round, his eyes raging.
‘She knows her place. Unlike you. If you want a divorce go ahead, see how far you get. Roddy knows what’s good for him too.’
‘I hope you’re right, for his sake. He’s the one decent thing to come from our marriage. He must be allowed to choose his own path in life.’
‘He couldn’t wait to leave your clutches; his letters were full of boredom,’ Grover sneered.
‘I’m not so sure about that. What kind of father drugs his own son and ships him out like a smuggled parcel?’
At least he had the decency to flinch at her accusation. ‘One that knows what’s best for a boy if he is to become a man,’ he replied, and Celeste
knew from those cold words that what she feared had happened about Roddy’s abduction was true.
‘How can a young boy know his own mind? But he does now. I’d watch out if I were you, or one day he’ll give you a shock.’ Their voices had become raised in accusation and Celeste felt herself flaring up. ‘I only ever came back from England on the Titanic for Roddy’s sake. Sometimes I wished I’d drowned that night.’
‘Pity you didn’t. You’d have saved us all a lot of trouble. I think you’ve said enough. It’s time for you to go.’
‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready!’ she shouted. Being in the room with him made her feel sick with loathing yet strangely powerful.
‘We’ll see about that . . . By the way, there’s a cable here you might want to read, about your little lapdog friend.’ He threw the telegram across the room. It was already opened. She read the contents and stared up at him with utter contempt, knowing he’d withheld the news just for this moment. ‘You utter bastard!’
His mocking smile said it all. He watched the colour drain from her face as she reread the cable. She shook her head and stormed out of the room, slamming the door in fury.
‘Call me a cab!’ she yelled to Harriet, who was hovering by the door. ‘It’s time I went home.’
Later, with her suitcases packed, she stood on the platform waiting for the train for New York. The rain was lashing down.
Roddy had been shocked by the news of May’s sudden illness and the fact his father had known the news for days since the wire had arrived at his office. ‘I’ll write to Ella, I prom-ise. I wish you weren’t going. What did Father say to upset you?’
‘Nothing that hasn’t been said before. But it’s time I went. I know you’ll do well, whatever you decide to do in life. I’m trusting you to do what is right and honourable when that time comes. Nothing will break the bond between us but I must go back. It sounds ser-ious. May is like a sister to me. She and I may have come from different classes, but that experience on the lifeboat forged an unbreakable bond. I can’t explain it. Perhaps one day you will have a similar experience. It’s a special friendship like no other, forged in the fires of a terrible event. Sometimes I feel the Titanic will haunt me for the rest of my life, but it brought me May and for that I will always be grateful. She was there for my father and for me when he died and you . . . You do understand now why I have to get back for her?’
He nodded, realizing he’d never heard her speak of this special friendship before. ‘Just be true to yourself, young man,’ she continued. ‘Don’t stand for any nonsense. Your
father is deeply unhappy. Please don’t judge every marriage by the one you’ve had to live with.’
As the train chugged into the station Celeste felt a panic that this parting might be for ever. ‘Keep in touch, won’t you? Come and visit us one day,’ she cried. ‘It’s so hard for me to leave you now.’ Tears blinded her and she struggled to see where to put out her hand.
‘It’s OK, Mom, we’ll be together one day. I’ll write, I promise, and I’ll think about all this stuff. You came; I always knew you would. You’re the only mom I’ve got or would ever want.’ He bent down and hugged her tight and she sobbed in a confusion of relief, agony and fear. ‘Take care, son, take care . . .’
‘Be seeing you,’ he called as she boarded, peering out of the carriage window for a last glimpse of her darling boy. He walked down the platform right to the end, keeping pace with the train until it pulled her away from him.
Celeste turned to face the front, swallowing hard. It was so hard to part so abruptly but what else could she do? Now all that lay ahead was the long journey back home. But at least it would give her time to ponder all that had happened with Grover, and those walks and talks with Roddy.
But what was waiting for her in Lichfield? She must get back this time. Surely history wouldn’t repeat itself? She never had a chance to say goodbye to her own mother. Please God she would be granted some precious moments with her friend. Celeste went straight from the station to the hospital, praying that May was on the mend and sitting up in bed, chiding her for taking so long to return. She’d made plans on the ship to take her somewhere for a holiday –Wales perhaps, or even abroad if she could persuade her across the Channel.
The sight of her friend took the legs from under her and she almost fainted with shock. May was barely conscious, unable to breath without oxygen, shrunken and so ill, Celeste hardly recognized her. But those grey marble eyes were still aware as she turned to her.
‘I’m here, May. I’m back and not going anywhere until you get better.’ May pushed away the mask to rasp, ‘About time. I’ve been hanging on for you. I thought
you’d not make it.’ There was another gasp. ‘I have to tell you . . . only you.’ ‘What is it, dear?’ Celeste could hardly catch her words now, the sob in her throat was
choking her.
‘It’s about Ella and that night on the Titanic. You must tell her,’ she sighed. ‘She’s not mine. She never was.’
Oh, not that again, Celeste thought to herself. May was talking rot and she was suddenly so tired after her long voyage. ‘Shush, May, I was there, remember? I saw her with you.’ She leaned over to reassure her but May struggled away from her.
‘They gave me the wrong baby and I never told anyone. I’m sorry, but as God is my wit-ness, it is the truth.’ May sank back exhausted by the effort of explaining.
‘Are you sure?’ Celeste felt numb. Was it true? Had May really taken someone else’s child that terrible night?
‘A mother knows her own bairn, especially one with blue eyes, not black . . .’ ‘Who else knows this?’ Celeste whispered. ‘Oh, May, after all this time . . .’ ‘I couldn’t let her go, not when Ellen was dead. Dear Celeste, I’m so sorry I’m leaving
this to you. Be a friend to me in this, I beg of you,’ she whispered, her strength ebbing away, her eyes blurring, looking beyond the bed to something only she was seeing.
‘I’ll do my best,’ was all Celeste could manage, her mind reeling. ‘I had to tell someone.’ May sank back onto the pillow with a deep sigh. There was one
long rasp of air and then silence. Her journey was over. And now Celeste knew with a sick-ening certainty that hers was about to begin.
She found Selwyn staring out of the window in the corridor. She shook her head. ‘She’s gone. I don’t understand. How can a simple scratch wreak such havoc on her body?’
‘It was blood poisoning in her system, so simple, so deadly. I saw it many times in the war. Poor May, she didn’t deserve that,’ Selwyn s
ighed. ‘My God, I shall miss her. We ar-gued the toss over everything but she was one hell of a tough woman. She picked herself up from the floor and taught me a lesson or two. Shamed me, no end . Life is so bloody unfair!’
Celeste saw her brother was close to tears, struggling for control of his feelings. ‘I need a drink, a stiff one and I don’t care who sees me having it.’ ‘The George?’
‘Wherever, just get me out of here. You think you know your friends and then they . . . Oh, Selwyn, we’ve got a problem on our hands, a big one.’
‘Steady on, old girl, just calm down. I know it’s a terrible shock but first we’d better find Ella. She’s with Hazel and her family. She needs to be told.’
‘Let her stay there a while longer. Besides, there’s something you should know first. So-mething no amount of time is going to change.’
‘The George it is, then?’
‘Let’s leave,’ she said, suddenly weary beyond reason. Oh, May, you know how to choose your moment, burdening me with this terrible know-
ledge. How could you carry such a secret for all these years? What are we going to do with this awful news ?
She thought of Ella, safe with Hazel and her mother, unaware of what lay ahead. The poor girl. How could May keep such a thing from her? Celeste felt betrayed as if she’d never really known her friend. All those letters and kind acts . Now she was in charge of an orphaned girl from goodness knew where. How on earth would they find out who Ella really was after all these years?
Ella sat by the canal bank staring down at the dank water and trying not to feel sick. How could her mother just leave her like that? She had looked so peaceful in her coffin with a soft smile on her face as if she was glad to be away from them all. Now she was buried by the healing well in Netherstowe, leaving her utterly alone.
It had been a simple funeral at St Mary’s followed by a meal in a tearoom. Hazel and her family came, and Archie McAdam, and a few ladies from the college. Everyone was being kind to her but there was no one left for her now.
It wasn’t the same at Red House without Mum there in the kitchen. Ella was glad to escape to college, where no one kept asking how she was feeling. Keeping busy stopped her hands from shaking. Sometimes she felt like a limp rag but she forced herself to make notes, to read, to study, anything to blot out the pain of returning home to the cold empty house.
There was a bit of stone she was working on which she was sure had a figure within it bursting to come out, but she couldn’t bring it to the surface. Her tutor kept going on about art being an emotional response to the visual world. It was just words to her. Her emotions were all over the place and her hand kept slipping and spoiling her attempt to catch the spirit within the stone. More than once, she threw her tools across the room in frustration.
Her carving was in danger of looking like a statue in the local cemetery, sentimental and ordinary. This was a piece intended for the end-of-term exhibition, a chance to prove her skill. She was floundering in indecision, one minute wanting to do one thing and the next another.
At dinner that evening Archie asked about her day and she poured out her frustration, un-able to eat. ‘I can’t do it, I can’t think,’ she moaned. ‘It’s hopeless.’
‘Then don’t think,’ said Archie. ‘Forget about it, do something to switch off and relax.’ He was trying to be helpful but how did you relax when you’d just lost your mother? All she could think about was wandering around the city retracing the places where they’d walked together, a pilgrimage to comfort herself and remember all the little details of their life.
On Saturday morning she found herself walking from Lombard Gardens, where they’d roomed in the old house, to Dam Street, wandering up towards the cathedral as if she was going to see Canon Forester. Her feet took her to the West Front again, to the shelves of
statues that were her old friends by now: the rows of saints, Old Testament prophets, Moses, and the small statues of the archangels Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Raphael.
There were so many faces to examine inside, so many gargoyles, Francis Chantrey’s wonderful The Sleeping Children.
Sitting in the corner of the cathedral, she knew her subject would be an ordinary face, a lived-in face with sorrowful lines. She thought of Captain Smith’s stern sad face looking far out to sea, landlocked in Museum Gardens. How many times had her mother stood in front of him with tears in her eyes? Ella never knew why his presence there moved her so. When she had once asked her, she had brushed her off saying, ‘One day . when you are older, I’ll explain.’
Now they would never talk again and so many questions in her head would remain un-answered. It was there, among the stone effigies, that she began to think that perhaps she could carve the one face that she’d known all her life. What subject better than her moth-er’s face to find in the stone? She would scrap all those over elaborate ideas and carve the one she really knew.
She looked up at the arching ceiling. This was a good place to think. How many times had she sat here alone, waiting for Mum to come off her shift? How many times had they walked the aisles together?
Mr McAdam was right. You had to wait for things to rise up to the surface. Let them speak to you in their own good time. Was this what the tutor had meant by an emotional response to a subject? She’d no idea how it was going to turn out now, but it was worth a try. She couldn’t wait for Monday now.
1927
Term was almost over and the long summer holidays were looming as Celeste sat savouring the late evening sunshine in the garden. Selwyn had gone into Lichfield for his usual night out with old comrades, and Ella and Hazel had gone to a dance and were staying at Nether-stowe. Celeste turned to Archie, watching the rays of setting sun lighting up his craggy face. He looked relaxed, sated by a good roast and the first of their strawberries.
‘Have you given any thought to what I told you the other night?’ She’d blurted out May’s confession to him after months of indecision. He sat sucking on his pipe listening but saying little. ‘I have to find out if it’s true,’ she said, ‘but where does one even start?’
‘At the beginning,’ he smiled. ‘Go back to where May was born, find out if anyone there remembers them. It’s not that long ago, there’s bound to be a record of the baby’s birth and a baptism. Ask friends still in the town.’
All I know is that she came from an orphanage near Bolton where she met Joe and they worked in Horrocks’s cotton mill. They gave her sheets when she left; she kept going on about losing those sheets on the Titanic. I don’t want to stir up trouble but the more I think about it, May did seem defensive. She never went back to Bolton, which I thought strange at the time. Too many memories there, I thought, but what if her confession’s true? I hate to think she’d deceived us all and took advantage of us.’
‘Come on, that’s not the May we knew. She was so loyal and protective of your friendship. The poor woman took a wrong turn and couldn’t go back, I reckon. The lie just grew and grew until it was out of her control. We could take Selwyn’s jalopy to Bolton and make a few discreet enquiries. Just to put your mind at rest.’
‘We?’ Celeste felt her heart beat faster. ‘You’d come with me?’ ‘Of course, what else is a lecturer to do in his vacation but travel? Perhaps we could go
onto the Lake District. I’d love to see Ullswater and Borrowdale again. Let’s make a holiday of it, strictly legitimate . . . separate rooms . . .’ he said in all earnestness.
‘Oh,’ she replied, feeling her face slump with disappointment. ‘Of course.’ ‘I’m only thinking of your reputation,’ he laughed.
‘I’m not. In fact I’m fed up with the whole idea of sitting it out until Grover deigns to agree to a divorce. It’s never going to happen.’ She looked him straight in the face. ‘But you and I, we’ve waited a long time, haven’t we? Life can be so short and cruel. May and the Titanic taught me that. It’s time we started living our own lives, don’t you think?’ She reached out his hand with a sigh. ‘If only we’d
met all those years ago.’
‘It doesn’t work like that. You can’t turn the clock back. I was married then. There was a war and then Alice and Rupert died . .’ He paused, clutching her hand tightly. ‘You’re right, though. This is our time now, a second chance for happiness, darling girl, but I won’t have your name dragged through the mud.’
‘Who’s to know if we go on holiday together? It’s no one else’s business,’ she suggested. ‘There’s Ella. What sort of an example is it for her?’ he replied. ‘Believe me, that young lady is seeing it all at college. Only yesterday she told me that
one of their lecturers arrives so drunk, they often put him to bed in a side room and one of the older students reads his notes until he sobers up. But there is your college post to think about.’
‘How I conduct my private life is my business as long as I deliver a good syllabus and get them through the exams. But it’s you I really worry about. This is a small city with some small minds ready to make your life a misery.’
‘Archie, I love you for this concern. I don’t know how I would have held up after Roddy left and Grover made things so difficult. And now May and all this mess about Ella.’ She recalled that first chance meeting on board the Saxonia. Fate deals a hand once again, she mused. ‘You’ve been my rock. When I think how I treated you when we first met.’
‘Ah, the frosty Mrs Forester . . . I always knew you’d melt one day,’ Archie smiled as he looked at his wristwatch. ‘Look at the time, I ought to be shifting to my billet.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’ He got up to leave but she pulled him back down onto the chair. ‘Stay, Archie. There’s nothing to go back to your digs for, is there?’ she blushed. ‘Are you sure . . . ? What about Selwyn?’
‘Leave Selwyn to me. He doesn’t care a hoot about such things now. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. Your place is here from now on. People can think what they like, as far as I’m concerned. You can be our new lodger, whatever. I really don’t care any more. I’ve spent years doing what I thought was my duty. Please stay tonight.’
Fleming, Leah - The Captain's Daughter Page 30
