You'll Never See Me Again

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ Mabel said. ‘Don’t be so nosy.’

  But over a cup of tea, a little later, Mabel admitted she’d had a wonderful evening and she couldn’t wait to see Thomas again.

  Later that morning, in church, Mabel drifted off during the sermon, thinking about Thomas. But all at once, reality hit her. She couldn’t expect to hide her past from him for long; he was a lawyer, and such men delved into people’s pasts. If he found out himself, then he’d be angry at her for not telling him. On the other hand, if she told him, he might decide she was too much trouble for him and end it all with her anyway.

  16

  ‘Please can we do the watch thing now,’ Michael begged.

  He and Thomas had come to dinner at Willow Cottage and at almost the moment they arrived, Michael had produced a little velvet jewellery bag from his pocket and asked if she would try to reach their grandfather.

  There were times when Michael and Thomas reminded Mabel of small boys. They competed with each other, making bets on the silliest things like which of their paper boats would sail the furthest, or who could stand on one leg the longest. When they played cards with Mabel and Clara, they played to win – not minding so much if one of the women won, but hating to lose to their brother.

  It was the same when Michael asked her about the watch; both their faces were alight with excitement, and they immediately began arguing about who their grandfather liked the most. To get some peace, Mabel agreed she would try after dinner.

  Mabel had managed to buy a brace of pheasant from a man she often ran into along the riverbank. He’d offered her duck first, but when she didn’t look too enthusiastic about that, he suggested pheasant. There was no doubt he was a poacher, and he shouldn’t have been shooting pheasant in July, but Mabel still bought them. As she said to Clara, ‘Well, he’d killed them already. Someone had to eat them.’

  The recipe was an old one Clara said she’d got from an aunt and remembered it being wonderful. It wasn’t too difficult, as basically it was just half a bottle of red wine, lots of vegetables and long, slow cooking.

  Thomas and Michael loved it, and they raved about the plum crumble for pudding. But all the time Mabel was aware they were rushing through the meal, just so she’d try with the watch.

  ‘Look, it doesn’t always work,’ she reminded them. ‘For one thing, your grandfather might not want to come down to earth – for you two, or anything else. And I’m not an expert. So if you don’t expect anything, then you won’t be disappointed.’

  Finally, after turning off all the oil lamps, leaving only a group of three candles on a side table, they sat down. Mabel was seated on an armchair, Thomas and Michael at either end of the sofa, and Clara in the middle of them.

  Mabel turned the watch parts out of their bag on to a table mat. She rested her hands on the pieces, closing her eyes and concentrating hard.

  For what seemed like at least five minutes, but it was probably less, she felt nothing. She was just about to give up, as she sensed both men beginning to fidget, when she felt that familiar tingle and the strange sleepy feeling.

  Once again, she came to after what seemed no time at all, hearing Clara’s voice saying, ‘That’s enough now, she needs to wake up.’

  ‘I am awake,’ she said. ‘Did you get a message?’

  Both Thomas and Michael looked pale, but she thought that was just her imagination.

  ‘Mabel, you spoke like their grandfather. Michael nearly had heart failure, as his voice was so loud.’

  Mabel touched her throat. ‘Is that why my throat is sore? Please get me a drink, someone.’

  ‘He said he was with us in France, he spoke of an oak tree I used to go to behind the lines to have a smoke,’ Thomas said. ‘He said I was more upset when that tree was cut down by a mortar than I was when I copped it in the leg.’

  ‘He said he saw me put the watch in my waistband pocket,’ Michael said. ‘He saw the bullet hit me, but I was always lucky when I was a little boy.’

  ‘Was that it?’ Mabel asked.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Clara spoke up. ‘He said how proud he was of them both. They weren’t born to be soldiers, but they rose to the task of leading their men, cared for them, and showed true courage.’

  Mabel saw both men had damp eyes. She hoped what their grandfather had said was like being given a medal.

  ‘That’s it, then. No more of this,’ she said, scooping the pieces of the watch up and putting them back in the bag. ‘It’s too distressing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Michael said. ‘If I hadn’t seen and heard that with my own eyes and ears, I wouldn’t have believed it.’

  Thomas got up and came and sat on the arm of her chair, to embrace her. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said quietly.

  Mabel knew he felt the way she did, shattered by something he didn’t understand, and wondering if this would stand between them. She couldn’t say anything to reassure him.

  Clara, as always, sensed something and rose to the occasion. ‘You fill our glasses again, Mabel, and I’ll play something jolly,’ she said, moving over to the piano.

  But no amount of drink, or jolly music, was going to banish the seriousness of what they’d experienced. It wasn’t a party game, and wherever the spirit had come from, he had brought not sadness exactly – after all, their grandfather had said he was proud of them, which was something good to hear – but a weightiness to the atmosphere.

  Mabel lay awake that night in her cottage, thinking on the night’s events. Nora had told her that once people had experienced her getting messages from the dead, they became afraid she could see into their minds. As she pointed out, this was entirely irrational. How could she possibly do that? She wasn’t a fortune teller, she didn’t read palms, and in fact she wasn’t even that interested in other people. But some people still thought it.

  Thomas and Michael were too intelligent to think that, but this power she had might set her apart. It would be a fun topic to discuss at dinner parties; she could almost hear people gossiping that she communed with the dead. But wasn’t that ultimately going to embarrass Thomas? A man whose very profession as a lawyer was one of black and white. Guilty or innocent, true or false. No grey areas. The spirit world was most definitely a grey area. You couldn’t prove it existed, or that it didn’t.

  Then, when it came to light that she was a woman who had faked her death and abandoned her sick husband, she would be branded as at best a heartless hussy, possibly even worse. How could Thomas stand by her then?

  He couldn’t, of course.

  So, what could she do?

  She could stop the psychic thing right now. Never attempt to do it again, and tell Thomas and Michael they shouldn’t talk about it either.

  That was simple.

  But her past was another matter. She could carry on her romance with Thomas and hope nothing ever caused the past to come back and bite her. Or stop seeing him now. However hard that would be.

  She fell asleep in the end, with no decision made.

  For the next couple of weeks, Mabel tried to distance herself a little from Thomas. She made excuses not to see him so often in the evenings, and on one Saturday she claimed she was working in the garden.

  She was working in the garden; with no Carsten now, there was a great deal of weeding, tying up unruly plants and cutting back to do. But it made her heart ache, because she wanted to see Thomas far more than she had expected to.

  They did discuss the psychic problem, and he understood her fears. He promised that neither he nor Michael would mention it to anyone. But he was dismayed when she started to pull back from him.

  ‘What is it, Mabel? I thought you felt the same as me?’ he said.

  ‘I do, but it’s all going a bit fast. I want to see you, but we need a bit of time apart too. You’ve got your new job as well. You should be concentrating on that.’

  The German prisoners finally went home. Before they left, Mabel went to see some of the men she’d nursed wi
th the flu. It was her last connection to Carsten, and she knew she had to sever it and put the memories of him aside.

  All the men had learned some English, a few had become quite fluent, and they all wanted to impress her with it. Looking at their bright faces, full of excitement that soon they’d be back with their families and friends, she felt so much affection for them. Just boys really, forced to become men too soon. But she hoped they would take some good memories of England home with them.

  The day the first trainload left Dorchester for Southampton, Mabel and Clara were there to wave them off. Surprisingly, there were many other local people there too, and in conversations afterwards with some of them, they heard that sons and husbands who hadn’t come home already were due back any day.

  ‘I hope it is true that this was the War to End All Wars,’ Freda Pople, who owned the haberdasher’s, said to Clara and Mabel, drying her eyes with a handkerchief. She’d seen four sons go off to war, and only two had returned, yet still she’d come to wave off the Germans.

  Clara squeezed her hand in agreement. ‘You are a good woman, Freda, to come to the station today. I hope it helps to know some mothers will get their sons back.’

  ‘Holding bitterness inside you isn’t good for anyone,’ Freda said.

  The following Saturday, Clara came back from the art class she held in the town and rushed in brandishing a newspaper.

  ‘Look, look!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s that man Harold. He’s come home!’

  Mabel had just dug up some new potatoes from the garden for dinner and she was washing them off in the sink. She quickly dried her hands and came to look at the newspaper Clara had spread on the table.

  The headline was: ‘Mother of three reunited with husband she thought was dead.’ Mabel read:

  Just a few days ago, Private Harold Painter arrived home at Southampton on the SS Devonshire with other prisoners of war captured in Flanders by the German army.

  Until just a few months ago, his wife Sarah (24) thought he had died in France. She received a telegram saying he was missing, presumed dead. It was devastating news for Sarah, as she was left with three children, the youngest less than a year old, when she got the telegram.

  She was only told he was alive back in February by a young visiting psychic at a spiritualists’ meeting in Southampton. Harold, or Harry as he is always known, spoke to the psychic while she was in a trance, and explained he couldn’t read or write, which was why Sarah hadn’t been notified.

  It is hoped that Harold, Sarah and their three children will have a long and happy life together.

  ‘That’s marvellous! So I was right, after all,’ Mabel said. ‘How wonderful for Sarah. But I’m so glad they didn’t use my name.’

  ‘I bet the paper will try to follow it up, though,’ Clara said. ‘That’s just a local paper. Wait till the nationals get hold of it. It’s a happy story and, God knows, there haven’t been many of those for some time.’

  ‘I can’t see Beatrice giving my name,’ Mabel said thoughtfully. ‘If anything, she’ll want to take the credit. Let’s hope so, anyway. I don’t want newspaper hounds coming here.’

  ‘I’ll see them off,’ Clara said. ‘Though, to be honest, I don’t understand why you don’t want the acclaim. I would!’

  ‘It’s scary,’ Mabel said. ‘It would be a really tragic story if poor Sarah was meeting every ship with returning POWs aboard in the hopes her Harold was amongst them. She clearly isn’t the brightest woman in the world, probably right at the bottom of the heap. If I’d made her life even grimmer, I’d never have forgiven myself. Of course, there’s the other reason: the newspapers would want a photograph of me, and what a can of worms that would open up!’

  Thomas and Michael were as thrilled by the newspaper article as Clara was. Thomas telephoned almost the second he had read it.

  ‘So heart-warming,’ he said. ‘To think you made it happen.’

  ‘But I didn’t. Harold would’ve turned up at some point. The same result, except he’s been shamed by everyone finding out he can’t read or write.’

  ‘Oh, Mabel,’ he said reproachfully. ‘You should be happy about this.’

  ‘I am happy he’s alive – and that I know for sure now – but the whole thing seems a bit shabby to me.’

  ‘It strikes me that you’ve got something more on your mind than just Harold and Sarah, or being able to listen to spirits. Is it that you’ve changed your mind about me?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ she lied. ‘But please don’t talk about this article to anyone. Promise me?’

  He promised, but she could tell by his tone of voice that he was concerned and perhaps suspicious.

  The next weekend, Thomas’s Aunt Leticia invited Mabel and Clara to dinner. Three other couples had been invited, as well as Harriet Trott, the young lady Michael was seeing.

  ‘So Leticia and I are to be the two dull old spinsters,’ Clara remarked. ‘Or are we chaperones?’

  ‘You may both be unmarried, but neither of you is dull,’ Mabel said. ‘And I don’t think any of us need chaperones.’

  ‘I think you and Thomas do. I can feel the lust simmering when you are together. Why don’t you just invite him into your little cottage one night and get it over with.’

  ‘Clara!’ Mabel exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe you’d make such a suggestion.’

  ‘Well, my dear, if you are holding out for marriage, you have to tell him first about the impediment.’

  ‘How can I do that?’ Mabel asked. ‘He’d be so shocked he’d drop me like a hot potato.’

  ‘I don’t think he would, he’s far too besotted with you. I think as a lawyer he’ll think of divorce, and so he’ll want to contact Martin. Of course, I can’t imagine how that would pan out. Apart from non-consummation, as far as I know one of the couple must have committed adultery. If he is living with someone now, or even married to them, believing you are dead, that could be plain sailing. But if he’s still as he was when you left, that won’t work.’

  Mabel hung her head. Whenever she thought of Martin, she felt so guilty. She would be happy for him if he’d recovered and got another lady in his life, but somehow, she couldn’t imagine that.

  ‘I know,’ Clara said in sympathy. ‘However you look at it, there are problems. But if it was me, I’d say I had an aversion to the married state – which I really have, believe me – and ask him to live with me without the blessing of the Church.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d approve of that for one moment,’ Mabel said. But she laughed, because Clara’s dislike of convention was quite amusing.

  ‘Get him into bed with you and he’ll lose all his scruples,’ Clara said with a wicked grin.

  ‘You are incorrigible,’ Mabel giggled. ‘But to swiftly change the subject, what are we going to wear to this dinner? It will be quite formal, I expect.’

  As there wasn’t enough time for Mabel to make, or have made, a suitable evening dress, Clara said she could wear one of hers. ‘Some of them haven’t seen the light of day since I was your age,’ she added.

  Clara stored her evening dresses in a big cupboard on the upstairs landing.

  Mabel had looked at them all before and wondered how anyone could have so many beautiful dresses, but not wear any of them.

  ‘I wish I could wear the white one,’ Mabel sighed, stroking the white voile reverently. ‘But I have resigned myself to dull, dark clothes.’

  ‘This one isn’t dull,’ Clara said, pulling out a purple satin dress. ‘And you would look stunning in it.’

  ‘Are you sure purple is allowed?’ Mabel said doubtfully. She took it from Clara and held it up to herself. The contrast with her red hair was quite sensational. It had an exceptionally low neck and ruffles across the tops of the arms instead of sleeves.

  ‘It was always a mourning colour – and still is, in some countries. It’s quite acceptable for you. Especially as you are a guest of a single gentleman!’

  Mabel laughed at the way Clara had made the l
ast sentence seem quite saucy.

  The purple dress was heavenly and fitted as if it had been made for her. It made her waist look tiny.

  ‘I was much lighter when I last wore it,’ Clara said. ‘I doubt very much if I could get into it now. The low neck looks very seductive on you.’

  ‘So what are you going to wear?’ Mabel asked.

  ‘As one of the spinsters or chaperones, one mustn’t attempt to outdo the other female guests. But I think the red velvet, just to warn everyone I can be dangerous.’

  Andrews came to drive them to the dinner. He looked at them both very approvingly.

  ‘If I might say, you both look stunning,’ he said.

  ‘You may indeed say it, Andrews – more than once, if you feel like it,’ Clara said.

  ‘Now there’s a man I might have made a play for, if he hadn’t already been boringly married,’ she whispered to Mabel as they drove off. ‘He was something of a hero, shot in the leg during one of the early battles in France, but he still hauled a wounded sergeant back to safety behind the lines. Sadly, his own leg didn’t heal well. I believe it gives him a lot of pain.’

  Thomas looked stunned at Mabel’s appearance. ‘You look devastatingly beautiful,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how I’ll be able to control myself if we are left alone.’

  Mabel giggled. ‘That sounds like fun,’ she said.

  The other two couples invited were Paul Henderson, a vet, and his wife Marcia, recently married, both around thirty-something. Sylvia and Gerald Toon were just a little older; Gerald was a surgeon at a hospital in Southampton. Both couples were attractive, as was expected, because Leticia liked young, attractive people around her. Although Leticia was over sixty and white-haired, she was still a good-looking woman, with clear, virtually unlined skin. In her drawing room there was an oil painting of her when she was eighteen, with her dark hair cascading in ringlets over her bare creamy shoulders, and an unbelievably tiny waist. According to Thomas, she was the beauty of Dorchester but, for reasons unknown, she’d never married. Thomas’s grandfather left his house here in Dorchester to his two grandsons, under the condition Leticia could stay in it for life. It seemed to be an arrangement which suited all three of them.