Memories Of The Storm

by Willett, Marcia

  'Did you tell the boys? Jack and Robin, wasn't it?'

  'That's right. They were sweet to me when I first arrived, on their best behaviour because they knew about Mummy being killed. Hester was there . . .' She put her elbows on the table, cradling her mug, looking back almost eagerly into the past, and suddenly Jonah was able to relax. All was well here, and, as she talked, describing odd related incidents and sensations, he could weave Hester's version of the story with her own as he listened.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  'You'll be quite safe here,' Daddy tells Lucy when they arrive at Bridge House on that sunny September day in 1944 – and the first person she sees is Hester. Hester does not immediately rush to take her in her arms, as Patricia does later on. No, Hester looks at her steadily and then goes down on one knee to be at Lucy's own level. She says, 'Hello, Lucy,' and stretches out her hand to touch Rabbit's grey ear, smiling at Lucy, so that Lucy suddenly lets go of Daddy's hand and holds out Rabbit to Hester, knowing that what her father says is true and that she feels safe.

  Hester takes Rabbit and strokes his soft, plush ear and says, 'Do you know the Little Grey Rabbit books?' which surprises Lucy out of her shyness and fear. She loves Grey Rabbit and Squirrel and Hare, all living together in their little house.

  'Jack and Robin love Little Grey Rabbit too,' Hester tells her. 'They'll show you their books if you ask them. Oh, and here they are.'

  And two little boys come into the room looking rather shy and awkward. Lucy is beginning to get used to the fact that grown-up people behave differently to her since Mummy died in the bombing. They speak with hushed voices and say, 'Poor little mite,' and their children are told to be kind to her. She hates it: it makes her feel singled out and even more frightened. So when Nanny comes in and says matter-of-factly, 'Oh, you've arrived, have you? That's good. We're just going to have tea but Jack and Robbie can show you your room first,' she feels a huge sense of relief: no hushed voice or long face – just good down-to-earth normality.

  'You're in the room next to us,' the bigger boy says, clattering up the stairs in front of her. 'It's very small but I like it the best because it's right at the end of the house. I'm lending you my teddy just for tonight to make you feel at home but Robbie wouldn't let you have his. I tried to make him but he cried and Nanny said it was because he's young yet.'

  Along a corridor, past their bedroom – 'We're in here but you can look later' – and then she is here in what is to be her own little room with its narrow bed and small painted chest. A teddy sits on the quilt and Jack bounces on the bed, seizing the teddy and rolling over with him.

  She watches him cautiously whilst Robin stares at her, thumb in mouth, and she feels a sudden, terrible longing for her mother. The room is cold and bare, and nothing like her own bedroom at home in London; even the loan of Jack's teddy doesn't help to make it seem less strange. Before she can cry, or run back down the stairs to find her father, Nanny arrives carrying Lucy's little case.

  'Now then,' she says briskly. 'Who will help me unpack?' and very quickly, helped by both boys, Lucy's own things are put about the little room. The pretty frame, with a photograph of Mummy and Daddy in it, is stood upon the chest along with Lucy's brush and some little china animals. Her nightgown is laid on the bed, her few books put on the shelf and her clothes in the drawers of the chest.

  'Well done,' says Nanny. 'All ship-shape. Now we shall have some tea. Shall Rabbit sit with Teddy on your bed, Lucy?' But Lucy shakes her head, staring up at Nanny pleadingly with Rabbit clutched to her chest. 'No? Very well, he can come down to tea today.'

  Immediately Jack seizes the teddy bear. 'Teddy wants some tea,' he shouts. 'He wants to have tea with Rabbit.' And he races ahead with Teddy, down the stairs, whilst the others follow more slowly. As they pass the boys' room, Robin unplugs his thumb and announces that his teddy would like some tea too, and Nanny says, 'Very well, just this once, to welcome Lucy.' She smiles at Lucy as she says it, and quite suddenly Lucy feels that it might be possible to be happy here after all, even after Daddy has gone back to London.

  'Can we show Daddy my room?' she asks – and Nanny says, 'Yes, of course,' but by the time they get back downstairs there is another person with her father – not Hester but a dark woman who is tall, as tall as Daddy, and who smiles widely with a bright red mouth. Her eyes dart quickly at Lucy and then back again to Daddy. She looks greedy, Lucy thinks, rather like a witch who might gobble her father up. She pats Lucy on the head, as if she is a dog, and dismisses her.

  'That's Aunt Eleanor,' says Jack, dancing Teddy upon the dining-room table, pretending that he is drinking Robin's milk. 'She lives with us now that Uncle Edward is away.'

  And, just for a moment, Lucy feels frightened again: she does not like Eleanor. When Patricia arrives, however, carrying a plate of bread and butter, Lucy knows that she has found another safe person. Patricia puts the plate down quickly and hurries round the table to give Lucy a hug. For one terrible moment Lucy fears that Patricia might say something about Mummy but she doesn't, though Lucy can see that there are tears in her eyes. Instinctively, her own eyes begin to fill but Nanny is at hand, pouring Lucy's milk into a mug with rabbits on it whilst Jack is shouting to his mother to look at Rabbit and the teddies having tea together, and the moment passes.

  The other grown-ups come into the dining-room but even though her father smiles at Lucy and waggles his fingers at her she can see that he is much more aware of Eleanor, who hovers close beside him. Watching him over the rim of her mug, Lucy feels that he is in some strange way afraid of Eleanor, yet how can he be? He's a soldier: brave and strong and fearless. Some instinct forces her to distract him – to demand his attention – and she joins with Jack in a noisy game with the toys whilst Robin laughs and laughs until he chokes and Nanny has to speak severely to them.

  Jack spills his milk over Robin's teddy and, whilst Robin screams and everyone is mopping up and talking at once, Daddy comes over to Lucy to crouch beside her chair and asks if all is well.

  She nods. 'Will you come and see my bedroom?' she asks. 'Jack says it's the best one.' She puts her arms round his neck possessively, as if in some way she is protecting him – or herself – from Eleanor's dark stare, and he strokes her long thick brown hair and holds her tightly.

  'You'll be safe here,' he mutters fiercely, almost as if he is begging her to agree and not to make a fuss. 'And I shall come to see you often. You'll be happier here than with Aunt Mary, won't you?'

  And Lucy nods vehemently. It is much better here, with Jack and Hester and Nanny, than with Aunt Mary, who is very old and who lives in a house where things called V-2s are falling and there are so many things she, Lucy, is not allowed to touch. Yet she knows that soon her father must go away and a now-familiar terror seizes her: suppose a bomb kills him too? Her arms tighten about his neck but before she can begin to cry, Nanny is saying that they may all get down and go into the garden where there is a surprise for Lucy.

  With the tears drying on her cheeks she scrambles down and they all go out together into the garden. With the river flowing by and the expanse of green grass it is almost as if she is back in the park in London but her attention is riveted by the sight of a little red and cream pram standing all by itself on the lawn. It is not new but it has been repainted and polished. Inside, tucked up tidily under a miniature blanket, is a rag doll.

  Lucy stares at it, silent with delight, transfixed by the attention to detail. It is exactly like a real pram. Jack is already showing how the hood is raised and kept in place, and how the brake works, and Robin has brought Rabbit with him and now tucks him in beside the dolly. Her father gives Lucy a tiny push. 'Go and try it,' he says, smiling, and she lets go of his hand and runs across the grass.

  'Nanny says that we may take it for a walk along the river path if you want to,' Jack says. He watches her eagerly, delighted with her pleasure. 'It used to be Mummy's when she was little but it's yours now for keeps. Shall we put the teddies in too? They can
go for a walk as well.'

  And when her father comes to kiss her she hardly notices because she is so busy taking off the fitted cover so as to put the teddies in at the foot of the pram; and finally the children with Hester and Nanny set off along the path between the trees, headed by Jack on his tricycle.

  By the time they arrive back at the house her father is gone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Once Jonah had returned to London, Lucy found that she was thinking more and more about the past and her own reaction to it. Apart from talking to him at length about her arrival at Bridge House there had been no other opportunity to describe those later events, the memory of which still filled her with an instinctive horror. It seemed odd to her that Hester could talk calmly about that period of time without thinking of its culmination: the fight in the drawing-room, Edward knocked backwards into the river and her father fleeing with her back to London.

  She was certain that Hester had not yet told Jonah the full story and she was interested now to find out exactly how much Hester would tell and how she would explain Edward's death to Jonah. Of course, she didn't know that there had been a witness that terrible evening but, even so, Hester was clearly more than ready to talk about the past. This was so extraordinary that, if those blows and cries had not been etched so clearly on her own memory, Lucy wondered if she might now begin to believe that the whole thing had been the figment of one of her nightmares. Yet she knew it wasn't: the scene was too real, following too close on the breaking of the Midsummer Cushion to be a dream.

  'Ask Hester about the Midsummer Cushion,' she'd said to Jonah, spurred by an inexplicable desire to test the veracity of Hester's account of the past. How foolish that the mere speaking of it aloud should have the power to make her heart knock in her side.

  He'd looked puzzled. 'The Midsummer Cushion? What's that?'

  'Ask Hester. See if she remembers it.'

  She saw that she'd aroused his curiosity but that he was deliberately controlling his eagerness to know more. He'd let her set the pace and was determined not to press her. Lucy was grateful. After a lifetime of denial it was very difficult simply to talk about it all as if it were an amusing little episode to be told across the dinner-table. She could see that Jonah was fascinated by Hester's accounts of his grandfather and that already he identified and sympathized with the man whom he instinctively called 'Michael'.

  At what point, Lucy wondered, would she be obliged to say: 'Yes, but he killed his oldest friend, you see. He'd been having an affair with Eleanor and when Edward found them together there was a fight and Daddy killed him. And then ran away'?

  Lucy folded her arms tightly across her breast and rocked herself in an attempt to contain the pain of the memory. The pain was still fresh, driving up from its hiding place, piercing her heart as she tried to make sense of it. Nothing more terrible for a child, she reminded herself, than to see a beloved parent fearful and ashamed. In some strange way her father's fear and shame had seemed more terrible than watching him knock Edward backwards into the river. How wild the river had been that night: the waters raging and uncontrollable, mirroring the violence of the scene inside the house.

  It was because the river's voice had been so noisy, so clamouring, that she'd been unable to sleep and so had crept out onto the landing and seen the light on in Hester's room and the door open. Hoping that Hester was there she'd gone in, ready to plead for a story or a drink, but the room was empty and she'd been drawn as usual to the Midsummer Cushion.

  What terrible luck, Lucy thought now, that it should be on that particular evening that she should scramble up to look at it more closely, reaching on tiptoe to trace the bright flowers beneath the cold glass so that the stool wobbled unsteadily and she'd instinctively clutched at the tapestry. If it had not crashed to the floor, smashing the glass, the dried flowers withering instantly to dust, would events have been any different? Certainly she would not have gone downstairs looking for Hester and, hesitating in the hall, heard the voice coming from the drawing-room.

  Even now she could remember the quality of urgency in the whisper: the desperation. She'd gone quietly in, pausing in the doorway. The chiaroscuro of light and shadow between the lamp and the firelight made it difficult to see where the two people sat close together in the semi-darkness. The voice had ceased now and there was silence. Another voice spoke, harder but just as urgent.

  'It's because of Lucy, isn't it? If it weren't for her we could get away. You're a fool, Michael. Something terrible is going to happen and it will be because of Lucy.'

  She'd slipped quickly behind the sofa, heart hammering, and then everything had happened at once. Hester had come swiftly in from the hall, switching on the light and then exclaiming as if shocked at the sight of the two figures embracing on the sofa. At the same time the French doors leading from the terrace had been wrenched open and Edward stood confronting them. Peeping from her hiding place she'd seen that his dark, mad eyes were fixed upon Eleanor and her father, who'd risen from the sofa.

  He'd shouted words unintelligible to her, seizing Eleanor by the shoulder so that her father grabbed at him in an attempt to restrain him whilst Hester tried to intervene. Then suddenly the two men were struggling together, grunting and panting like animals and stumbling against the furniture. Eleanor had begun to scream and Lucy had hidden her face in terror.

  Even now she could recall the suffocating fear and the trembling of her limbs.

  'Are you OK, Luce?' Jerry had come in and was watching her curiously. 'Have you got a pain, clutching yourself like that?'

  'No, oh, no. I'm fine.' Quickly she got up and went to him, putting her arms about him. 'Just a silly moment. You know how it is.'

  He held her tightly, imagining that she'd been worrying about him and their future, and as he comforted her she despaired that she would ever be able to change. Her decision to confront the past had been in the hope that she would become the stronger partner. Instead it was Jerry who, unknowingly, was giving her the courage to face it.

  Looking up at him she was struck by his expression: it was clear that he was glad to be comforting her. Her need was enabling him to show his own strength – frail sometimes though it might be – and it was necessary to his pride for this still to be required of him. She saw that the change for which she hoped in her own character need not be at the expense of Jerry's mental toughness and natural protectiveness; nor must she be so ready to believe that her weaknesses had become a burden to him.

  Briefly she wondered if she might share her secret with him, talk to him about the past and the effect it still had on her – but instinctively she shied away from it. Jerry had never been a natural confidant, personal revelations embarrassed him, and she simply couldn't face a verbal pat on the head – 'I'm sure it wouldn't have been that bad, Luce. Perhaps you're imagining it' – as a response to something that was so crucially wrapped about her deepest sense of self.

  He was already turning away lest the embrace should lengthen into mawkishness, talking about it being time for a cup of tea and bending to stroke Tess who'd been slumbering in her basket by the fire. Lucy accepted that the moment was over and went to make the tea.

  Jonah, unable to contain his curiosity, telephoned Hester from the train to London.

  'I've been talking to Mum,' he said, keeping his voice low, shoulder hunched to his travelling companions. 'She told me all about her arrival at Bridge House. It was great. I mean, she seemed very ready to talk about it. There wasn't time for much but she asked me to ask you about the Midsummer Cushion. Does that mean anything to you?'

  'The Midsummer Cushion was the title given by John Clare to a body of work which he collected together for a fourth volume of poetry. A friend persuaded him to change it to the more conventional title of The Rural Muse.' Hester sounded puzzled. 'I can't imagine that Lucy would have known about that. Certainly not when she was with us.'

  'It seemed important to her.' Jonah was urgent in his disappointment. 'Maybe there's
another connection.'

  At this point he lost his signal and, unwilling to entertain his fellow travellers with any more of his conversation, he switched his phone off and gave himself up to contemplation.

  Later, waiting for his train to the north, he switched his mobile on again and saw that there was a message on his answerphone. Hester's voice was very clear.

  'So stupid of me, Jonah. Lucy must have been talking about the tapestry we had once. It was a very beautiful thing, embroidered wild flowers, with a particular reference to John Clare that I'll tell you about at another time. The point is that the string wore very thin and frayed through and I discovered the tapestry in pieces on my bedroom floor. It was very precious to the family – a kind of heirloom – and we as children, and then Patricia's boys, were always threatened with dire results if any of us should touch it so I imagine that's what Lucy can remember. I recall that she loved it and I used to pick her up so that she could have a close look at it. How fascinating! I'm looking forward to your next visit so that we can talk it over properly.'

  The message finished as abruptly as it had begun. Hester wasn't the kind of person to send affectionate greetings or indulge in drawn-out goodbyes, and Jonah was left feeling distinctly dissatisfied. On an impulse he phoned Clio, only to be told that there was no-one to take his call. Frustrated, he boarded the train and settled down to the long journey north.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hester wakened suddenly from a vivid dream. In the dream she'd been standing in the doorway of the drawing-room, just where she'd stood sixty years before. It looked exactly the same: mysterious shadowy corners, golden pools of lamplight spilling across polished wood, bright reflections in the mirror above the fireplace where blue and orange tongues of flame licked hungrily at the wood in the grate. A newspaper, casually flung down, was sliding from the chintz-covered cushions of the long sofa under the window, where damsoncoloured damask curtains had been pulled against the wild night, and it was there, from just behind the sofa, that something pale but bright flickered suddenly out into the firelight – and just as suddenly disappeared.