The Foundling’s Daughter

by Ann Bennett

  ‘I asked Matron what you might like and I popped back to the flower shop on the corner. I brought them to say thank you. I really should have come to see you before, but I’ve been so busy with the move.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have brought flowers,’ Connie protests, but she is pleased all the same. No one has brought her flowers before. Well, not since… but she doesn’t want to remember back to that time. Not just now.

  ‘What’s there to thank me for?’

  ‘For letting me buy your house, of course. It can’t have been an easy decision.’

  ‘It had to be sold. I didn’t have a choice. Besides I’m very glad it went to you and not to those dreadful developers.’

  ‘You lived in Cedar Lodge a very long time, didn’t you?’

  ‘All my life.’

  It seems such an enormous thing when she says it out loud. Her whole life was spent back there within those walls, and it isn’t hers anymore. Suddenly she feels it deeply, a great emptiness in the pit of her stomach. The young woman is waiting politely, still smiling.

  ‘Do you have a vase?’ the woman finally asks.

  ‘Yes… of course. Forgive me. My mind wanders. I think there’s one in the cupboard under the wash basin. Over there in the corner.’

  The woman crosses the room and as she passes, Connie catches a hint of lemon-scented perfume. Connie watches as she busies herself with the flowers. She works quickly, with deft hands, arranging them in the vase.

  ‘Here we go – where shall I put them?’

  She turns towards Connie and holds them up.

  ‘You’ve done them beautifully! You have a real gift.’

  ‘Oh, not really. Just practice. I do… I used to do the flowers at our restaurant.’

  ‘Restaurant?’

  ‘Yes. It’s in London. I don’t work there anymore, though.’

  ‘London?’

  Connie mouths the word as if it’s an exotic, far-off place. How long is it since she went there? She tries to think back. It must be a very long time ago now. She went with Evie a few times since father’s death, on the train to listen to concerts in the Albert Hall, but she can’t pinpoint the last occasion. When she was younger, they hardly ever went. Hardly ever left Weirfield. The furthest they ever usually went was Henley in the back of Father’s motor car. She fingers her necklace to try to focus her mind. But then she remembers that she isn’t alone. She must stop her thoughts wandering back to the past. She has a visitor, after all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘You were saying?’

  The young woman is still smiling. There’s something about her steady gaze that’s appealing and strangely familiar. Connie looks back into her eyes and smiles, and it feels almost as though they met in another life. Connie banishes that blasphemous thought quickly. There is no other life. Not until after this one, not until God sees fit to ask her to come to be with Him and with Mother and Father, and Evie too.

  ‘Nothing. It wasn’t important. You have some beautiful furniture in here,’ she says, glancing around the cluttered room.

  ‘Thank you. Yes, it all came from the house. I could only keep a few things. That armchair in the corner belonged to my mother. She used to sit in it to do mending or embroidery in the evenings. That bookcase belonged to Father. I wanted to keep his Bibles and prayer books. He wouldn’t like…’ Her words trail off. The young woman is looking at her with a quizzical expression, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘I mean. Father was fond of his books. I didn’t want to throw them away.’

  ‘What about the picture? I remember seeing it in the house when I first looked round.’

  ‘Oh, that’s the church in India where Father was a missionary. Before he came here to run the orphanage.’

  ‘What a wonderful life he must have led!’ The woman is looking at her with shining eyes.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Connie answers stiffly. She has gone too far. What would Father say about her discussing his life like this? She’d better be very careful.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, my dear?’ she says to change the subject. ‘Would you like me to ring for some tea?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t stay long. Please don’t bother about the tea.’ But she sits down in Mother’s armchair and perches forward, looking at Connie closely.

  ‘Actually, there is something I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Really?’ alarm bells start ringing. What could there possibly be to ask? At this stage? The girl’s only been in the house a couple of days.

  Sarah clears her throat. ‘I decided to start decorating. I know it’s early, but I couldn’t wait to get on with it.’ Connie’s scalp is already tingling with dread. She holds her breath and clenches her fist around the filigree so hard it might break. She stares at the young woman intently. What is she going to say?

  ‘I took the wallpaper off one of the walls in the study, and … well, perhaps you know about it?’

  Connie’s mouth drops open but she can’t answer.

  ‘I found a cupboard under the plaster. There were some wonderful things inside. Valuable things. Some ornaments. They look as though they are made of ebony, some of them, others jade. They look Indian. There was also an elephant’s…’

  The young woman pauses. She must have noticed Connie’s expression. Connie knows she must look very odd. Stock still, her eyes blazing, her mouth wide open. But she can’t help it. The young woman goes on slowly, gently,

  ‘An elephant’s foot, I think.’

  ‘I know. I know. You don’t need to say.’ Connie’s voice comes out in a strangulated gasp, but she has to blurt it out, to stop the woman speaking. She can’t bear to hear it.

  ‘I’m sorry. I mean… I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought perhaps you’d forgotten about it. That there’d been some mistake.’

  Connie shakes her head emphatically. ‘No. There’s no mistake. None at all. They were my father’s things.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you’d like them back? I can bring them over in the car.’

  ‘No. I don’t want them back.’

  There’s a silence. The young woman is looking at her with that curious look again. She must think it all very strange. Well, it can’t be helped. What does it matter what she thinks anyway?

  ‘Are you quite sure? Some of the things look valuable. There’s also a gold watch…’

  Connie stiffens again. Isn’t the woman going to get the hint?

  ‘I’m quite sure. You keep them. I have no need of them now.’

  ‘Well, that’s very kind of you.’

  There’s another awkward silence. The sound of daytime television echoes down the corridor. Someone walks past the room laughing.

  ‘Do you know why your father sealed the valuables away in the cupboard?’ Sarah asks at last.

  Connie looks at her sharply, she can feel her breath coming quickly, her chest going up and down under the shawl and the grey cardigan. She knows she must calm down, but the young woman carries on looking at her, waiting for an answer.

  ‘It wasn’t Father who sealed up those things,’ Connie snaps.

  The young woman stares at her, frowning now, ‘Really? Well, if...’

  Before Connie can stop herself, the words are out of her mouth. Her hand flies up to stop them, but it’s too late. ‘Father didn’t seal those things away in that cupboard,’ she says with ferocity, ‘It was me. I did it!

  Sixteen

  Connie

  Connie feels unsettled for a long time after Sarah leaves. Thoughts buzz around in her head. What she had dreaded might happen is actually happening. And it is happening so quickly, too. She hadn’t expected that. The girl has only been in the house a few days. What if she finds out more? Oh, if only Connie hadn’t had that fall. If only Peter Cartwright hadn’t insisted on selling the house so quickly. She could have sorted things out. Got the builders in. Someone she could trust, to open up that cupboard and remove everything. Take it to the council dump, where it belonged. She should have done that in the first place, wh
en she’d had the chance after Evie died. She needs to face the truth though; even after Evie was gone she hadn’t had the courage to go that far.

  What a dreadful mistake she’d made, getting Trevor to seal the cupboard up. What had she been thinking? She hadn’t been acting rationally, of course, but she’d felt at the time it was the right thing to do. It was shortly after Evie died. She’d left the bath running by mistake and the water had overflowed, flooded the bathroom and seeped through the floor and down the walls of the study. The wallpaper had bulged and started peeling off the wall. She’d had to get Trevor in to sort things out, and when he said he’d need to re-plaster, she’d suddenly had the crazy idea of plastering and wallpapering over the wall-cupboard.

  Sealing the cupboard seemed the perfect solution at the time. The things would still be where Father had left them, she wouldn’t be throwing them away, but at the same time they would be hidden from view. She wouldn’t have to think about them ever again.

  She’d needed to put the things in that cupboard out of her mind. Put that part of Father out of her mind too. Concentrate on the good things. The Bible, the prayer books, the pictures of the Church at Kandaipur from his missionary days. Those were the wonderful things about Father. The things she needed to remember and to preserve, and to make sure everyone else knew and remembered too.

  Trevor had looked at her curiously when she’d asked him to do it.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the cupboard. It’s a useful space, Miss B,’ he’d protested in his mild-mannered way. ‘I could rub it down and put some fresh gloss paint on, make it look smart again.’

  ‘No. No thank you, Trevor,’ she’d said stiffly, drawing herself up in an attempt to appear authoritative. ‘I would prefer it if you just plastered over it. I’d like to put some furniture against that wall there, and the cupboard sticks out into the room.’

  ‘Is there anything in there?’

  ‘Only old junk,’ she heard herself saying, her heart in her mouth. Was that a lie? Dear Lord forgive me, she’d thought. ‘Just leave it in there please.’ She’d had to use her imperious voice on Trevor, the one that made her sound like Evie.

  He’d looked at her even more curiously then.

  ‘There’s no need for you to open it, is there?’ she’d said sharply.

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to,’ he’d said with a shrug and turned back to his work. And as he turned she’d noticed him smirk to himself. Anger surfaced. She felt ashamed, humiliated. He must think she was bonkers. She could just imagine what he might say to his friends in the pub that evening.

  She stood there in the study all morning, standing over him as he worked. Just to make sure. To make sure he didn’t open the cupboard to see what was in there.

  She thinks of those things now. The dreaded elephant’s foot, Father’s whisky glasses and decanter. His leather-bound cane with the tortoiseshell handle, his diamond cufflinks, that beautiful gold watch with the engraving, and all those terrifying Hindu gods. She pictures him taking his cane and slipping the gold watch into the top pocket of his jacket, before striding over to the orphanage to take prayers.

  A knock at the door jolts Connie back to the present.

  ‘Connie? Miss Burroughs? It’s time for lunch.’

  It’s Erica again. With her rolling ‘r’s. She puts her head around the door and smiles.

  ‘Would you like me to help you along to the dining room?’

  The hair on Connie’s head prickles in alarm.

  ‘No thank you, Erica. I told you the other day. I don’t want to go there. I’d prefer to eat in my own room.’

  Erica comes inside and shuts the door. She leans forward and whispers at Connie, her blue eyes full of concern.

  ‘You really should make an effort to make friends. Those ladies you met the other day, they’re always asking after you. They’re worried they upset you and that’s why you haven’t gone back. They would love to get to know you.’

  ‘I don’t want to make friends,’ Connie says stiffly, but seeing Erica’s pained expression, she relents, ‘At least, not today anyway. I just want to be alone.’

  Erica sighs and Connie watches her, willing her to back off.

  ‘All right,’ Erica says at last, ‘I’ll bring your tray this time. But tomorrow will be different, eh?’

  Connie tries to eat her lunch, but she has no appetite. She picks at the greasy stew and over-boiled cabbage, and after a few minutes pushes it away in disgust.

  She can’t eat because of the thoughts that keep revolving in her mind. The conversation with Sarah Jennings has brought it all back with renewed clarity. There is no hiding place now. She must go over those times, face up to what happened and make her peace with God. Again, the items she sealed away in the cupboard come into her mind. She thinks about the gold watch, sitting there on that shelf for all those years gathering dust and growing black with patina. She thinks about the words engraved on the back: To Ezra, with heartfelt thanks, your devoted friend, Charles Perry.

  Then her mind goes back to that fateful night in 1934. She had woken suddenly. The moonlight was playing on the sloping ceiling as the wind disturbed the branches outside her bedroom. Gentle snoring came from her sister’s bed. Evie was sleeping soundly. As well as the creaking of the trees, the usual night-time sounds from the orphanage next door floated on the breeze. The whispered breaths of a hundred children sleeping in long dormitories, side by side on truckle beds.

  That night she’d been woken by a strange sound. It had come from somewhere behind the house. She’d propped herself on her elbows and listened carefully. Had she dreamed it? No, there it was again, an odd strangled cry, like a trapped animal. Long and pitiful, almost a howl. Shivers coursed through her body and she stayed there motionless, hardly breathing, straining her ears to catch any sound. Could it be foxes in the woods, or cats fighting? No, this was different.

  She sat like that for a long time, until her shoulders and elbows ached. As the minutes passed and she didn’t hear the sound again, she began to wonder if she’d imagined it. She pushed the blankets back and slipped out of bed. Shivering in her thin nightdress, she crept across the wooden boards to the window. Kneeling, she gripped the windowsill and stared out. Light from the moon flooded the gardens, lighting up the rows of potatoes and runner beans in the plots behind the orphanage. Directly behind the house, the bushes cast distorted shadows on the lawn.

  Her father’s Jaguar was parked in the old coach house across the yard. It looked colourless, its chrome headlamps and radiator shining dully in the moonlight. She was about to get back into bed when she spotted a crack of light in the window above the coach house. Her hand flew to her mouth as a memory surfaced. A disturbing memory. It was happening again. It was several months since the last time. She had told no one, not even Evie, even though her heart had almost burst with the effort of keeping silent.

  She stared so hard at that crack of light that it was burning a white strip on the back of her eyes. Then there was a flicker as something moved behind the curtain. She watched the window, mesmerised, waiting for it to happen again, but there was nothing. Perhaps she’d imagined that too? The clock by her bed showed four thirty. She must be up at six, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep again tonight.

  Then a different sound came from the direction of the coach house. It was the creak of a door opening. Her heart was suddenly hammering as a figure emerged from the side door on the first floor and started slowly down the outside steps. She knew instantly that it was Father. He was carrying something in his arms; at this distance she couldn’t make out what it was. It looked like a bundle of rags.

  She drew back behind the curtain and watched him cross the yard and make for the back door of the house. Seconds later his footsteps were inside, walking steadily up the stairs. She held her breath, listening.

  The footsteps stopped on the first-floor landing.

  Connie lost her nerve. She tiptoed back into bed between the stiff, cold sheets, her heart
thumping. Would he come upstairs? She thought of all the times she and Evie had heard his boots on the attic stairs as he came up to check on them. They would pretend to be asleep as he opened the door. Sometimes Connie would open her eyes a little, just enough to see his outline silhouetted in the doorway. In the silence she would hear his breathing, smell the pipe smoke on his clothes, the pomade on his hair.

  ‘Connie? Evie? Are you awake?’ he would whisper.

  Sure enough, after a few moments’ pause, his footsteps did carry on, getting louder as he walked up the wooden staircase towards their room. The door handle squeaked and then came the sound of the door being pulled back slowly. Then silence. She sensed him standing there, in the doorway watching them, checking that they were sound asleep. She hardly dared breathe.

  After what seemed an age, she heard him moving, heard the door creak on its hinges and then he was gone. She listened to his footsteps going steadily down the stairs. For several minutes there was silence. Connie was still tense, straining her ears for sounds.

  Finally, she began to relax a little. Perhaps she might be able to get some sleep after all. But within minutes she was startled again by new, different sounds. This time the noises seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath her, perhaps from inside the house. At first, she couldn’t make out what they were. Once again, she slid out of bed, crept over to the window and opened it. She leaned out and peered down. A dim light flickered in the conservatory behind the kitchen.

  Then came a scraping sound, the sound of something heavy being dragged. And shortly after that the thud of metal on earth. Chop, chop, chop. Striking it again and again.

  Connie ran back to bed and pulled the pillow over her head, over her ears. She pressed her face into the mattress and screwed her eyes shut tight. A sob escaped her as she tried to block out the sounds. The sounds and the memories.