by Lucy Strange
The limping man was not as I had imagined him to be. There was nothing sinister or frightening about him. He had the most gentlemanly, the most defenceless voice I had ever heard. Silently, I admonished my imagination. I had seen this man’s disfigured face, his limping walk, his dark clothes, his stick, and I had turned him into a pantomime villain. I felt ashamed. For the first time, I saw the danger of allowing stories to seep too deeply into reality. Real people simply did not fit the neat black-and-white patterns of fairy tales.
Moth didn’t seem to know what to say. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ she murmured.
Mr Pickersgill was watching them both. ‘Mr Stark came to see me at the office, Niamh,’ he said gently. ‘He was such a good friend of Freddie’s, you see. He wanted very much to meet you. At first I sent him away, of course, thinking – as we all did – that you were . . . But then I was able to telephone him this morning with the good news . . .’
‘I wanted to find you as soon as I was released from hospital,’ David Stark continued. ‘You see, Freddie was a hero, Mrs Young.’
Moth’s face wore a strange expression I hadn’t seen before. It was perfectly still, controlled, but her eyes were like diamonds.
‘We trained together,’ he went on. ‘I was very homesick at first. Like Freddie, I hadn’t been away from my family before. We talked, most evenings, about our homes, our families, books . . . We wrote our letters together. He was happy in the Navy. I wanted to tell you that he was happy, Mrs Young, that he spoke of you so warmly and so often.’
Moth could only smile. Her eyes shone. I saw her gulping his words down thirstily. With every word, she was getting back a little more of her boy.
‘Did they send you his things from the barracks?’ David Stark asked.
‘Just his serviceman’s bible,’ Moth said faintly. ‘Just some clothes, his bible and an old photograph.’
‘But not this . . .’ David Stark pulled a silver pen from his pocket. He gave it to me to pass to Moth. It was a lovely old fountain pen, engraved with the words ‘Seaward Ho!’
Moth gasped as I placed it in her hands: ‘His pen!’
‘It was with my things in the barracks, so it was sent back to my family by mistake. Freddie had lent it to me, the day before we set sail . . .’
‘Thank you,’ Moth breathed. ‘I had it engraved for him when he joined the Navy. It’s a quotation—’
‘From Treasure Island.’
‘Yes.’ And she gazed at the fountain pen as if it were the most remarkable and beautiful thing she had ever seen. After a moment, and in a quieter voice, Moth said, ‘Can you tell me . . .? They told us so little. Do you know how he . . .?’
David Stark couldn’t look at her then. He looked instead into the slumbering embers of the fire. ‘It was all a terrible blur,’ he said. ‘After weeks and weeks of nothing happening, the end came so quickly.’
We were quiet.
He continued, in his beautiful voice, ‘There weren’t many sea battles in the Great War. The Navy didn’t lose anywhere near as many men as were lost in the fields of France and Flanders, but still . . . thousands died. Things were quiet for months. Tense and quiet. We were serving on the HMS Invincible. We held our line, maintaining a blockade of ships – to prevent supplies getting through to the enemy. Then, one night, we gave chase to a German fleet. They fired on us and our ship was hit. Freddie – Freddie died in the water with a thousand other men. The sea took him.’
I saw fire raining down over a dark sea. I saw a ship – a titanic city of metal – sinking into the cold, solemn swell of the ocean. I saw the grey waves swallowing a thousand burning bodies . . . And I saw it now – the sun high over the glittering, peaceful water. The ship was a dark skeleton on the seabed, resting, rusting, many miles from the sunlight – forgotten. A thousand lost boys were part of the beautiful blue ocean now. They were foam on the surface of the water.
We sat quietly for a while. Moth breathed in and out, in and out. I understood this moment. She had seen it now. She knew. She was wondering, perhaps, how her heart was still beating. Then: ‘You survived.’ She was proud.
David Stark nodded stiffly. ‘The magazine exploded when we were first hit – I was caught in the flames. It was Freddie who got me out and pulled me on to the deck. That was the last time I saw him before the ship went down – everything was so confused . . . I jumped into the water, breaking both my legs. I would have drowned immediately, but I was picked up by a German torpedo boat. It wasn’t known for some time that a few of us had been taken prisoner – my family thought I was dead until that Christmas. No matter how terrible it was in the camp, we told ourselves every day that we were the lucky ones. We were alive.’
Moth nodded. Her hands were pressed against her cheeks and tears ran through her pale fingers.
‘I am alive because your son saved me,’ David Stark said softly. ‘Freddie was like a brother to me. If you ever need anything – anything at all, I will always be here to help you . . .’
Moth tried to make the words ‘thank you’ with her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried again: ‘Thank you.’ Then she looked at the silver fountain pen in her hands. ‘I want you to keep this, David,’ she whispered. She pressed the pen into his hand and gently folded his scarred fingers around it. ‘It belongs to you now.’
Father took Mama to the London clinic that afternoon, and she came home to us three and a half weeks later. Doctor Berger had advised her to remain at the clinic for at least another month, but she was determined to return to us and he had relented, on the condition that she receive appropriate nursing care under his guidance. I hadn’t asked yet, but I hoped, perhaps, that Moth might help us. She had been a Nightingale nurse once, after all.
The summer was all but over. Afternoons dissolved quickly into evenings; the sun, when it shone, was paler, a little lower in the sky. I was supposed to start at my new school in Norwich that very week, but Father made arrangements for me to remain at home until after the next holiday. He said I would have to do some extra work to catch up, and was rather surprised when I volunteered to take Latin lessons from dear Mr Pickersgill.
‘But I thought you hated Latin,’ he said.
I just shrugged.
‘You’re a mystery to me, Henry!’ He laughed, shaking his head.
Father brought Mama home on a cool and blustery evening. She was sitting in the passenger seat of the motor car, wrapped up in the tartan motoring blanket. Father took her arm and led her to the front door where I stood waiting. Nanny Jane was upstairs, putting Piglet to bed. She had said Mama would not want to be too crowded by a big welcoming ceremony, so it had just been me, standing there for nearly an hour, shifting from one foot to another, waiting for the car to appear. Nanny Jane said I should wait in the study and look out of the window, but I said I wanted Mama to see me there as soon as she arrived.
She still looked thin and as fragile as a bird, but there was a little colour in her cheeks, and her beautiful eyes were no longer glazed, they were the eyes that I remembered – clear and wise. She put her arms around me and held me to her. I was frightened that she would smell of hospitals and doctors, but she didn’t. She smelt of rose-water and a soothing, homely smell that I couldn’t name. She smelt like my Mama.
*
We had a dreamy, quiet, sunlit breakfast together the next morning – Mama, Father, Nanny Jane, Piglet and me. The white tablecloth gleamed in the morning light; teaspoons tinkled prettily as they stirred teacups; Father’s newspaper rustled and turned, rustled and turned. It was as if we were all pretending that a family breakfast like this was a perfectly usual occurrence. I drank up every blissful second of it.
I could see that Mama was stronger after her stay in hospital, or at least she was determined to be so. She poured the steaming tea steadily. She buttered her toast in smooth, sweeping strokes. With Moth’s help, I thought, she will soon be even stronger.
The telephone rang then, and I got up. ‘I’ll get it, shall I, Fath
er?’ I said. He frowned and raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t stop me.
It was Mr Pickersgill.
‘Henrietta!’ he said. ‘Good news about Gamekeeper’s Cottage . . . It should be ready quite soon. There’s not much in the way of structural work required. The roof is fixed already, and the windows have been replaced – David Stark has been the most tremendous help, I can’t tell you!’
I was worried though. ‘But are you absolutely sure that Moth – Mrs Young –doesn’t want to come back home to Hope House?’ I spoke quietly, aware of how strange my words would sound if Mama or Father should hear me.
‘No,’ he said. ‘She says this will be a fresh start, somewhere peaceful.’
‘Well – if she’s sure . . .’
‘Quite sure. Immovable in fact – you know what she’s like . . .’
I smiled.
‘And . . . I now have to try to explain something rather tricky to your father. Do you think you could put him on the line, please?’
Father came out of the dining room then, and I passed the pieces of the telephone to him.
‘You’re quite the early bird this morning, Truman,’ Father said warmly. I was pleased that they were using each other’s first names. For some reason, it made me feel proud.
‘I see,’ said Father. ‘Well, I’m delighted that we can stay here at Hope House, of course, but . . . Yes, go on . . .’ There was a long pause, during which Father slowly turned around to look at me, an expression of complete bewilderment on his face. ‘A gift?’ he said into the telephone. ‘To Henrietta? The house? What on earth . . . ?’ Another long pause. ‘But – is it all quite . . . legal?’ Father shook his head and sat down on the wooden bench beside the telephone table. ‘Who . . . ?’ he said. ‘Why . . . ?’ And then he laughed. ‘Fine, fine! No, I’m not going to argue with you, Truman.’ He laughed again, still shaking his head and gazing at me with that same bewildered expression. ‘Well, yes – it’s just . . . It’s not exactly every day that one’s daughter is given a house by a mysterious benefactor . . . Well, that would be lovely. Yes, why don’t you come over and join us for dinner later this week so you can explain properly?’
I went to Nightingale Wood to meet Moth. I half hoped that Robert would appear, but somehow I knew that he wouldn’t. I hadn’t seen him for weeks now – not since the day I rescued Piglet from the Hardys . . . the day I brought Mama home from Helldon. I thought I saw something moving between the trees as I walked – the shimmer of honey-gold hair, but every time I turned to look at it, it vanished. I smiled, happy to let that flicker of sunlight dance elusively beside me. I didn’t have to see it to know it was there.
I found Moth, and we walked together through the forest into Frith Meadow. We stopped for a moment to look at Gamekeeper’s Cottage. I gazed through the new kitchen window and imagined Moth inside, sitting at the kitchen table. She was wearing a green dress instead of her usual tattered blankets. David Stark was sitting beside her. They were drinking tea, and he was reading to her from a book.
Moth and I walked across the fields towards the sea. She said there was something she wanted to do, for all those boys on Alfred’s ship. It would be a sort of memorial, she said.
I looked at her as we walked. Moth was a witch once, I thought – and it was so strange to think of that first time I had seen her. She was a character from a fairy tale, lost in the woods. But now I understood who she really was. She was a mother, a friend, someone who had been broken and was putting herself back together. She was real.
It was a beautiful afternoon – the last truly warm day of the year. The sky was like a vast sheet of blue paper, thumb-smudged with chalk.
We walked through fields high with golden corn, down farm tracks, along bridle paths and across old bridges. We followed the river until it spilt, yawning, into the ocean. We stood together on a narrow point of land, a peninsula carved out by the allied forces of the river and the sea.
Moth had brought something with her: a wreath, woven with berries and rosehips and the last of the late poppies. She threw it now – where the silver-green of the river met the grey-blue sea. We watched the wreath bobbing like a brightly coloured buoy. It rose and fell with the waves, and I thought of ships and storms and adventures – Treasure Island, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, Moonfleet . . . I stood close, tucked against Moth’s side.
The wreath was carried out to sea and we stood together and watched it until it disappeared.
‘For all our lost boys,’ Moth whispered.
I hoped the waves would carry Moth’s message of remembrance far, far across the sea, to the place where Alfred’s ship had sunk, and then further – through the long night, through a universe of sea and stars, all the way to Neverland.
Nanny Jane and Mrs Berry organized a picnic for us on the lawn that afternoon, to celebrate Mama’s return. It was a wonderful spread – sandwiches, cakes, sausage rolls and the last strawberries of the year – better even than Piglet’s tea party a few weeks before, because now we were all here together. While we waited for Mama and Father to join us, I jiggled Piglet on my lap, singing her a jolly song about ponies clip-clopping along.
We ate potted-meat sandwiches. Nanny Jane walked towards us, carrying a beautifully iced sponge cake with a pink candle in the centre.
‘Happy un-birthday, Henry!’ she said, handing it to me. And then, more sincerely: ‘I really am so sorry I forgot.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, gazing at the lovely surprise.
‘It does,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It does.’ And I grinned.
Nanny Jane gave me a wink. ‘There might even be one or two presents for you later on . . .’
Piglet reached out for the cake with her potted-meat-smeared hands.
‘No, Piglet,’ I said, gently, holding it out of her reach, ‘Not yet.’
‘Mm!’ she said angrily. Then she stuffed a mangled bit of sandwich into her mouth with the flat of her hand.
I laughed, kissing her fluffy head.
Mama and Father came out into the garden at last. Mama was dressed warmly, with a peacock-blue shawl around her shoulders. Her hair was loose down her back. I thought that she had never looked more beautiful. Without thinking, I lifted Piglet up towards her as they approached, and then remembered with a jolt what Mama had said that night in the attic: she had never held the baby.
Mama hesitated for a moment, then took Piglet from me. Father looked on, his smile a little tight.
Don’t cry, Piglet, I prayed silently. Please don’t cry.
But Piglet was a reliable little soul.
‘Ba!’ she cried out happily, and touched Mama’s cheek with a small, sticky hand.
Mama’s face was alight. It was as if she held the whole world in her arms. Her eyes shone and she kissed Piglet two, three, four times, holding her tightly.
‘Hello,’ she said, blinking back her tears and kissing her baby again. ‘Hello, my little one.’
‘Ba!’ Piglet said, delighted.
Good old Piglet.
Mrs Berry brought out salmon sandwiches on the formal china – the rose-painted set we hardly ever used. She brought a glass of lemonade for me and crystal champagne saucers for Mama, Father and Nanny Jane.
‘No point in all these pretty things sitting on the shelf gathering dust,’ she said firmly. ‘Welcome home, Mrs Abbott – and happy un-birthday to you, Miss Henrietta!’
And there was a toast.
A little later, as we lay on the rug, digesting the feast, Father said, ‘We can’t call the baby Piglet for ever, you know. Imagine the ragging she’ll get at school.’
I laughed.
‘But not Roberta,’ I said.
There was a moment in which no one said anything at all.
‘No. Not Roberta,’ Father agreed.
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘she just doesn’t look like a Roberta.’
I looked into Mama’s eyes and, through all the pain and all the sadness, I could see a new st
rength there. She looked steadily at the little creature sitting on her lap. ‘No, she isn’t a Roberta,’ she said softly.
Father took the baby and held her up in front of him, looking into her huge eyes very seriously. ‘What’s your name, baby?’
Piglet chuckled and reached out to grab Father’s nose. ‘Babby!’ she said, and we laughed.
‘Bobbie,’ I said, quite suddenly, surprising even myself.
Father looked at me, then back at Piglet. He inspected her face very closely. ‘Is that who you are? Are you Bobbie?’
Piglet waved her spoon. ‘Ba!’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Mama said. ‘Yes, yes, yes. Our bonny Bobbie.’
Bobbie beamed at her and held out her little fat arms.
Long after everyone else had gone back inside, I remained on the rug with Mama. We lay there next to each other, listening to the blackbird singing, feeling the air grow cooler on our skin. Church bells rang in the village.
It was that perfect moment of dusk – that rich, pink moment between day and night. I waited for the nightingale. I told Mama that Moth had taught me to whistle to him.
‘I’m afraid he will have gone by now, Hen,’ Mama said gently.
‘Gone?’
‘Away – for the winter. The nightingale is just a summer visitor. At this very moment, he will be stretching out his little wings in a warm African sunset.’
I thought about this, trying to imagine our nightingale so far away. It made me sad to think that he had another home, another place that belonged to him that had nothing to do with me or Moth or the woods of Hope House.
‘Next summer,’ I said. ‘He’ll come back next summer and we will go to Nightingale Wood together and listen to him singing.’
‘Next summer,’ Mama promised.
‘It’s magical, Mama,’ I whispered. ‘The whole forest fills with silver light and then, quite suddenly, you’re floating with the nightingale’s song up in the stars.’
