The Echo of Twilight

by Judith Kinghorn

  “Serve,” said Ottoline again. “Yes, I suppose they did their duty. They laid down their lives for . . . for something. I’m not sure what.”

  “Well, for king and country and empire, Your Ladyship,” said Mrs. Lister. “They laid down their lives for all of us. And that’s why we have to be strong. Yes, we have to. We owe it to them.”

  Ottoline smiled vaguely; Rodney slid me a look. And Mrs. Lister, still sounding a little put out, said again, “They laid down their lives for their country, they did.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ottoline, quieter and abstracted now. “But you see, I just need to know . . . I just need to know . . .”

  She didn’t finish her sentence. Lord Hector appeared in the doorway: “Ah, there you are.”

  Quickly, we rose to our feet. Ottoline remained seated, moving her index finger over the pine table as though writing something on it.

  “Sweetheart . . .” He moved over to her, frowning as he watched her finger and waiting until she had finished. Then he helped her to her feet. As he led her out, she turned back to us. “Thank you,” she said, smiling—just as though she’d been at a tea party.

  “Still not right,” said Mrs. Lister, gathering up our cups and shaking her head.

  The next morning, I was summoned to His Lordship’s study. He asked me what Ottoline had said in the kitchen the previous evening, and so I told him what little there was to tell. He said it was very early days, that Ottoline’s grief was not just for Billy but for Hugo, too—a delayed grief. She needed time, he said, to adjust to the fact that both of their sons had gone.

  “I’m afraid she’s still in denial, but eventually she’ll come to understand and accept the reality of the situation.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked him.

  He thought for a moment and then said, “No, I’m not sure. How can I be? But I have to hope.”

  However, in the weeks that followed, Ottoline did indeed seem to recover a little, begin to grasp the awful tragedy of her sons’ deaths, and slowly return to something of her former self. I reestablished our old routine: taking her breakfast to her on a tray each morning, laying out her clothes, helping her to bathe and dress. She never so much as glanced at a newspaper, but she did resume her scrapbooks, and, now united in grief, she often held court with Mrs. Lister in the almost aptly named morning room. Meanwhile, Lord Hector remained in residence at Birling, and I wondered if he’d ever return to London. But in the middle of October, prior to Trafalgar Day, Lord Hector did return to the city, to stay at his club for a few days and attend a memorial service. And it was then that Ottoline told me of her plan to commune with Billy and Hugo.

  Mrs. Reed was delivered to Birling by taxicab on the Sunday evening after His Lordship’s departure. I was extended an invitation to the meeting in the dining room. Ottoline said, “I’d like you to be there.” She was nervous and excited. Desperate, I suppose, and who could blame her? Mrs. Lister was also invited, and seemed keen on the whole experiment until she heard the woman was from Amble, another nearby town whose inhabitants filled her with suspicion.

  Ancient, pencil thin, with badly died hair and a broad accent, Mrs. Reed sat smoking as Rodney, Mrs. Lister and I filed into the room. I sat between Ottoline and Mrs. Lister. Rodney dimmed the lights, and we all joined hands over the polished mahogany table. Mrs. Reed asked for silence—this, even though the room was already deathly quiet. Then she closed her eyes, began to breathe deeply. And I was surprised by Mrs. Lister, who seemed to have put aside her antipathy and quickly followed suit. After no more than a minute or so, Mrs. Reed spoke: “Aytch, I am getting the letter aytch.”

  “That’ll be Hugo,” Mrs. Lister whispered loudly.

  “Yes, Hugo, my eldest,” said Ottoline, eager.

  “Is that you, Hugo?” said Mrs. Reed, newly deep, newly solemn. Then, “Yes, it is he,” she said, and I heard Ottoline gasp. “Do you have a message for your mother, Hugo?” asked Mrs. Reed.

  The message was simple, really: Hugo was at peace on the other side; he felt no pain and sent his mother his love and blessing. Ottoline held my hand tightly as she asked Mrs. Reed, “Is Billy with him?”

  Mrs. Reed repeated the question: “Is Billy with you, Hugo?” Then she lowered and slowly nodded her head as she listened to a voice we could not hear. Eventually, she said, “Yes, Billy is with his elder brother. He is surrounded by light, and wishes his mother to know that he is safe and at peace. He feels no pain, only love.”

  Ottoline whimpered.

  (Mrs. Reed later told Ottoline that, though she had heard Billy’s voice, it had been very weak and faint, but that this was normal. Billy hadn’t yet fully transcended; his voice would become stronger in time.)

  After this, letters of the alphabet were thrown about at random. And there was a K, but I didn’t say anything. If it was Kitty—and I very much doubted it—I didn’t want her spilling out anything to those present, or chastising me on any illicit love affair. When Mrs. Reed said, “P . . . Paul, Peter?” Mrs. Lister almost rose to her feet: “Yes, that’s mine! That’s my Peter.”

  Needless to say, Peter Lister, too, was at peace and happy on the other side. He told his mother he missed her roast beef and Yorkshire puddings. Ottoline gasped once more; Mrs. Lister began to cry. They both seemed to have forgotten Ottoline’s earlier introduction: “And this is Mrs. Lister—our cook here at Birling.”

  We were amateurs, I thought, and Mrs. Reed a charlatan, preying on the emotions of recently grieved, desperate parents.

  Then she said, “The K is still with us . . . and quite determined. A female presence, I think . . . yes, a woman. And passed over some time ago.”

  Ottoline turned to me. She said, “Your aunt? Her name was Kitty.”

  “It is she,” said Mrs. Reed. Then, after a moment, “Your aunt wishes you to know that she is very proud of you.” I smiled, albeit a little reluctantly. Mrs. Reed breathed in deeply once more. “But there is another,” she said, rolling her head and now gasping. She spoke of water, a drowning, someone who had taken her own life and wished for forgiveness. I said nothing and joined with the others as we all shook our heads.

  “There’s to be a meeting . . . a meeting with the man who is in some way linked to this . . . this sad ending. He is related to one here,” Mrs. Reed went on insistently.

  A shiver went down my spine. But my mother’s suicide was at that moment—and every moment that had come before—too shaming for me to own up to. From that point on, things unraveled, and little else came that made any sense: a woman, possibly in Ireland—sitting sidesaddle upon a gray mare; a man in a flying uniform; and another—a girl—who had once worked at the house. And we all shook our heads again.

  Later, as flurries of hail tapped at the windows, Mrs. Reed asked for candles to be lit and prayers said. For there were many, she claimed, lost in a limbo between this world and the next, unable to see the light and move on. Then she had a cup of tea and a cigarette and talked about a new hairdresser, the one who had done her hair. When the taxicab arrived to take her home, I saw Ottoline hand over ten shillings.

  After that and all through the winter, Mrs. Reed came once a week, usually on a Wednesday at eight o’clock. And though I never attended another of these meetings, the others did—and brought along more: Mrs. Lister’s two widowed sisters; a few friends of Ottoline’s who had also lost sons; and our kitchen maid Sissy’s mother. Invariably, the Other World broke through. Invariably, Ottoline was connected to her lost boys. On almost each occasion, the Campbell boys brought Mrs. Lister’s two sons with them. The departed, it seemed, came together for ten shillings.

  It was in the early spring and after one such meeting—one that had lasted longer than usual, and after I had waited up for her in her bedroom, and then, perhaps foolishly, alluded to Mrs. Reed’s thriving business, that Ottoline turned on me.

  “And what would you know about loss?”
she asked, smiling queerly and staring back at me in her mirror. “You’ve not lost anyone—apart from an elderly aunt. And though that was sad for you—and I understand that—it’s quite different. And you have a daughter, a beautiful daughter sleeping soundly in this house. You’ve not lost sons—or any husband as far as I’m aware, or have you?”

  “No, my lady, I have not.”

  “Exactly. So please do not speak to me about Mrs. Reed’s credentials. And please do not speak to me about loss or grief.” She paused for a moment. “You need to remember your station, Pearl. You’re my maid . . . and many would have thrown you out.”

  I said nothing. I continued brushing my lady’s hair. As I did so, I once again contemplated Mrs. Reed’s unearthly connections—which granted her such earthly power and price. And I think I knew then that I was at the beginning of another end and that Ottoline would forevermore choose the dead over the living. My mistake, misinterpreted perhaps, had been to cross over a line and question the validity of Mrs. Reed’s power. In doing so, I had—certainly as far as Ottoline was concerned—not only questioned Mrs. Reed’s credentials, but Ottoline’s love for her sons, and even the validity of their existence.

  Minutes later, when Ottoline rose up from the dressing table, she said, “Oh, by the way, my cousin’s wife is arriving tomorrow.”

  “Cousin?” I repeated.

  “Her name is Marie Therese. She isn’t bringing a maid, so I’m afraid you will have to look after her.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  I can’t be sure, but I think I bowed my head before leaving the room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Blood is thicker than water, to some. Loyalty fluctuates, ebbs and flows, and all passion gets spent, eventually. This is what I was thinking as I waited for the train carrying my lover’s wife.

  Marie Therese Stedman would be staying at Birling for a week, Ottoline had told me that morning. Her manner had been different to the previous evening. She was softer, conciliatory, more like her old self. She told me that she had had no choice in the matter; the woman had come to England to escape her own war-ravaged country and was floating about the way foreigners do.

  Only one person stepped down from the train. Tall, dark haired, dressed in what I assumed to be late French fashions, she saw me immediately. There was no one else.

  “Moor-ton?”

  I nodded.

  She handed me her bag. “Such a long journey,” she said. “And ze train—not so nice.”

  We walked to the car. I put her bag in the boot. We drove out of the station. She said, “Iz strange, no? Lady drivers. But in Paris ze same. Yes. All over. All ze same. Women must do ze men’s work. All ze same.”

  I looked back at her—briefly—in the mirror, smiled and nodded. And as we came onto the long road that led up to the driveway of the house, she sighed loudly and said, “So long, so long since my husband and I came here.”

  Luckily, Rodney was hovering about in the hallway, and he took over—and took her bag. But as I walked away, Madame Stedman called after me: “Moor-ton!”

  I turned. She beckoned. I went back. Into my hand she slipped a few coins (centimes, Rodney later said, peering at them through the magnifying glass).

  I waited a while before I went upstairs to the appointed guest room to unpack and hang away Marie Therese Stedman’s clothes. The silver-framed photograph was at the very bottom of the bag, wrapped in a long white nightgown. My hands shook when I saw him, as I held the photograph, as I took it over to the window to look at it more closely in the light. They stood outside a church, she smiling, Ralph with his head tilted to one side and staring at the camera with questioning eyes. I placed the photograph on the bedside table next to her Bible, and then stepped back from it, my heart aching. Was he still alive? I’d be able to find out, I thought. Sometime during the course of that week, I’d find out.

  But that evening, when I knocked on the door and offered to attend to her before dinner, Marie Therese Stedman informed me she did not need my help. She had not had a maid, she said, since before the war, and was long used to dressing herself and doing her own hair. And the following morning when I took in her tea, she once again told me she would not be requiring my help. Then she smiled as she said, “I am not a baby, and I understand you have one already to look after . . .”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well then, spend time with ze baby . . . I can look after myself.”

  For a number of days I saw very little of Marie Therese, or indeed of Ottoline. The two women went out in the motorcar—sightseeing, visiting nearby castles, villages and towns, leaving in the morning and not arriving back until late afternoon or early evening. Then, one afternoon as I played on the lawn with Lila, I heard the distant but unmistakable sound of Ottoline’s driving—the acceleration, honking horn and crunch of wheels on gravel. Minutes later, Marie Therese appeared by my side.

  I flinched as she reached down and stroked Lila’s cheek. She spoke some words to her in French and then told me how very pretty my daughter was. “Gold, her hair is gold,” she said. “Not like yours . . . She is like her father, no?”

  She was. Just like her father.

  She said, “Your husband—he is in France?”

  I nodded. Amidst so many real deaths, the fictitious one Ottoline and I had planned for Stanley—making me a widow—had been forgotten.

  “Ah, so difficult for you with ze baby . . . And my husband also. Away. Fighting.” We walked on, side by side. She said, “But I am hoping I will see him soon—in London.”

  I stopped, turned to her. “He is alive?”

  “Yes, alive and well, thank God. Oh but please . . .” She placed her hand on my arm: “You must forgive me for my . . . how do you say, thoughtlessness? Ottoline, she tells me you have not heard anything from Monsieur Moor-ton in a very long time.”

  “No, not in a long time.”

  She shook her head. “Is so bad, ze not knowing . . . Which regiment is Monsieur Moor-ton?”

  I turned away from her. “I’m not sure . . . I can’t quite remember now.”

  “No matter. I will ask my husband. I will ask him if he has heard anything of Monsieur Moor-ton and I will tell him about ze baby.” She bent down, stroked Lila’s cheek once again and spoke more words in French to her. Lila held out her hand and offered the woman a crumpled daisy.

  “For me?” said Marie Therese, clutching a hand to her breast and feigning amazement.

  Lila chuckled and staggered off.

  “You have a beautiful little girl, Madame Moor-ton. Her father will be very proud—I am sure of that.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I said, watching my daughter, her husband’s child.

  Days later, I drove Marie Therese back to the station. And as we waited on the platform, she said, “I will not forget, Madame Moor-ton. No, I will not forget. I will ask my husband about your own.” She opened her purse, took out a crown and pushed it into my hand. “For ze baby,” she said. “For little Lila.”

  The train rattled in. I handed Marie Therese her bag.

  “Good-bye, Madame Moor-ton.”

  I watched it trundle off, heading south. She would see him; I would not. I had been the mistress and she would always be the wife. And yet, and in spite of my shame, I was grateful. For I had a part of Ralph his wife would never have.

  Autumn crept in early, scattering the shriveled remnants of another summer and tossing leaves through the smoke-filled air. October blew wet into November, turning the lanes to brown, pebble-strewn rivers. And as redwings edged and battled against the squall, the weather vane spun round and round. Then came stillness. The sky lowered itself further and daylight dwindled, until dusk came at three and winter descended, tapping at pipes and whistling its cold tune beneath doors. Trees stood out stark against the low sky, and as squirrels danced on their naked limbs, birds froze in the snow. Onl
y the robin’s red breast was visible, bobbing about in the flattened alabaster borders.

  Each night, I lay in my bed listening to the distant roar of the sea, throwing itself upon rocks and sand, upon anything. Desperate. Crashing. Crushing. And just like the sea, the war went on, a relentless background noise we had become accustomed to. And though we continued to pray, we no longer said special prayers; and though the newspapers continued to arrive, no one raced to read them. Disenchanted with King and Country, disillusioned with God, we had grown accustomed to long numbers, missing faces and bad news; accustomed to deprivation, food shortages and rationing. Our time was wartime. And though I sometimes felt guilty about my coldness and detachment, it was the only way.

  And yet, I knew—we all knew, had to believe—that it would end one day and that some sort of vaguely remembered normality would be restored. But it could never be the same. For it was not only Kitty’s world that had been swept away, but some of mine, too. Being in service, it seemed, was no longer something to be proud of, and the whirligig of our ever-changing maids, young women determined not to have a life in service, proved this. Their ambitions echoed a few of the ladies’ magazines, newly defiant and pugnacious with words about feminism, equality and independence. A modern world was dawning, I read, and in it, women would have the same rights as men; be entitled to the same jobs and earn the same money; they would have a voice, and a vote.

  Ottoline was right: Our day was coming.

  And what of her, of Ottoline? She had delivered my daughter into this world, been inordinately kind to me, and—certainly, after Hugo’s death—she had been dignified and stoical, had talked of honor and sacrifice, of duty and service. But after the loss of Billy, that changed. For a while her world shriveled into a dark hole and she was cemented in her grief, and cemented in that place with Lord Hector. But later, after she reemerged and began to pick at the pieces of her life, she was not the same Ottoline.