The Last Letter

by Kirsten McKenzie

  ‘When you put it like that, Mother, it sounds damn mercenary.’

  ‘Edward, your language. You may be the head of this house now that your father has gone, but I will not have you speaking like someone from the workhouse. We have not sunk to that level. Yet.’

  Although he could see his freedom was slipping away, completely out of his control, he asked, ‘How soon will it be arranged?’

  ‘I’ll liaise with the aunt on the morrow. From there it will take a few weeks for things to organise, but it will be this side of Christmas. Nothing better than to celebrate the birth of Christ with a new bride by your side, and our debts paid off.’

  ‘So that’s part of the arrangement then? Her father pays off my father’s debts?’

  Lady Grey sniffed disapprovingly, the discussion of money a distasteful topic, and she felt somewhat tainted discussing it with her son, but when Henry had died, he’d left them in a tangled web of debt, stemming from rampant gambling both here in London, and back to his time with the East India Company in India.

  ‘As I said, it is an arrangement which works for all of us. She’s an attractive girl. Of course, I would have preferred a viscountess or a duchess, but beggars can’t be choosers, and so many of such families are in similar straits to ourselves. Now, let me get ready for bed. Today has been trying – not least of all your brother’s behaviour, which has left me with a headache. If he has put this marriage at risk, I shall shoot him myself with your father’s gun. Goodnight, Edward.’

  Edward kissed his mother’s soft forehead, closing her door quietly behind him. He’d never imagined having such a conversation with his mother. All his life he assumed he’d meet someone at one of the society parties he attended. Suitably chaperoned, he’d call on her several times, a proposal would be made, and they’d marry. He’d never imagined any great love story but had imagined being at least fond of the girl he was to wed. Elizabeth Williams was a girl he hadn’t met. He was going on his mother’s word. He’d only had a brief glimpse of her. She was pretty, that was undeniable, but of her character he knew nothing. Did money confer good character upon a person automatically? He thought not.

  Shaking himself free of his melancholy, he checked the time on his wristlet. He was still an anomaly amongst his peers here in London, choosing to wear his timepiece on his wrist instead of in his waistcoat, but the ease of having the time so accessible overrode whatever qualms he had about fashion. It had been his good friend George Garstin, another officer in India, who’d introduced him to the leather strap Garstin’s brother Arthur had designed for holding a standard pocket watch in place around the wrist. Almost all his fellow officers had ordered one, setting in motion a new fashion trend – one which was not to fade until the advent of the smart phone some one hundred and fifty years later. A quick glance at the time and he was hurrying out of the house, an appointment scheduled with one of his father’s creditors. An appointment he’d put off for as long as he’d dared.

  THE DELIVERY

  The shop door opened, letting in a hint of warmth that the old double brick building seemed designed never to do. Nicole stood by her paltry fan heater, waiting to greet the day’s first customer with a cheery ‘hello’. The woman, however, revealed herself to be anything but.

  ‘Is Sarah Lester in today?’ asked the young woman, dressed head to toe in black, like an undertaker’s assistant.

  ‘Sorry, no, I haven’t seen her today. She was in on Friday,’ Nicole added helpfully.

  The woman nudged a carton with the toe of her sensible black pumps, ‘I’ve another one of these outside, I’ll just get it, then you can sign for them.’ Not waiting for an answer, she stalked out of the shop, black shift cinched in at the waist with an anorexic belt which, Nicole gleefully noted, had twisted at the back, to reveal a hint of white, breaking up the impossibly well put-together young lady. Then, reflectively, she looked down at her own tatty jeans and sneakers, and a cashmere jersey which had been machine-washed one too many times for its fibres to cope with – they’d protested by pilling themselves into something akin to a crazy join-the-dot picture.

  The door opened again, and an identical carton was placed on top of the first, and a tricoloured form placed on the counter for Nicole’s signature.

  ‘You’ll have to tell me what I’m signing for before I autograph this. I’m a bit in the dark.’

  The young woman huffed, poking a finger at a line halfway down the form, ‘It’s all explained here; two cartons of goods from the Elizabeth Williams estate. Our firm was quite specific with Sarah that she was to remove all the contents from the house. However, these cartons were found in the attic by the new owners. There were others but they were deemed too damaged to bother bringing here, and were given to a passing dealer. Please relay that to Miss Lester. I am parked on double yellow lines outside, so if you could just sign to say you have received them.’

  Nicole did so, using one of the handy bank pens, of which there seemed to be a never-ending supply. They just appeared on the counter, she’d never actively sought out a new one. Why would you, when banks spent an obscene amount of money on pointless marketing trinkets?

  The woman left. A solicitor, Nicole decided – only a solicitor would be that succinct with her words and actions, and in a hurry to move on to the next billable client.

  She opened the hard-covered stock book, shaking her head at the antiquated system she had to work with. Surely Sarah wouldn’t mind if I implemented an electronic stock system. Her father used one for his hotel business to keep track of all the consumables they used. We definitely needed it to keep track of all the stuff we had for making sure the guests were happy. She’d worked there every school holidays, covering almost every aspect, so she knew the sort of systems they used, and how transferable those systems, or something similar, would be to The Old Curiosity Shop.

  Flipping through the pages of the register, she found the first entry for the Elizabeth Williams estate, the alphanumeric numbering system marching down several pages. Again she told herself that there must be a better way. She started a new stock number, referencing it back to the first one, and opened the top carton.

  A rusty blue tilley lantern was nestled in a bed of old newspaper, next to a tarnished silver-toned box, probably an old cigar box, empty. Under the newspaper were an assortment of old woodworking tools. Nicole piled them all on the counter, counting them as she went: fourteen planes; eight chisels; a small level; a bow saw? She wasn’t entirely sure about that last one, relying on hazy half-remembered details from her time at the Tamworth Castle museum, so, instead of giving it its own unique identifier, she entered it in the stock register as “Woodworking Tool”, as for any other random tools she didn’t recognise. One box done. Why the new owners even bothered contacting the law firm about it is bizarre. They could have just dropped it off at the nearest charity shop, or dumped it in a rubbish bin. There was nothing of any great merit. The Stanley planes had some value, of course. Sadly she didn’t have the knowledge to recognise the darkest wooden plane in the group as an original William Madox plane from the late seventeen hundreds, so she priced it the same as the others, thirty-five pounds, instead of its true value of two hundred.

  On to the second box. More newsprint was layered on the top, crumbling with old damp, it disintegrated in her hands, revealing old adverts for Price’s Regina Soap, Aspinall’s Enamel and the miraculous Homocea – a haemorrhoid cream, which doubled as a cure for the common head cold.

  Putting the newspaper to one side, she focused on the next layer; lumpy packages, wrapped with the same crumbling newspaper. She unwrapped the first package; a glass. Technically, a large Victorian glass rummer – a glass for drinking fine Rhine wine. This one was decorated with an intricate engraved hunting scene – a man on his horse chasing the hapless fox across the countryside. Nicole twirled it round in her fingers, and then ran her fingertips along the rim and base – the only way to tell whether there were any chips, as the eye could easily deceive,
whereas touch could tell. Perfect. Setting it to one side, she unwrapped the next package, hoping that there would be a mate to the first glass – she was right. A matching pair. Worth at least two hundred and fifty pounds on a good day, in the right auction – unless she decided to sell them in the shop. No point sending all the good stuff off, otherwise you’d lose your regular customers wanting to see something special the next time they dropped in. It was a fine balance trying to keep everyone, including the accountant, happy.

  Next was a jumbled mess of porcelain thimbles – the sort you find in English Heritage shops the length and breadth of Britain. Quaint, pretty, and practically worthless. They fit into the same category as souvenir teaspoons, the popularity of which you’d have thought ended when the Queen Mother died but, no, they were one of the shop’s most popular items. It defied belief. Thimbles and teaspoons, despite her intense hatred of them, were big sellers, probably because they were worth peanuts. Searching through them, she found one marked with the Belleek black mark and set it aside for placement in a separate cabinet. She cringed as she recalled a moment of haste the previous week when she’d knocked over two Belleek trios, smashing both of the exceptionally fine china cups. She hadn’t told Trish, figuring that, in the scheme of things, two broken cups was neither here nor there. No one would notice.

  The next wrapped bundle had her frowning in confusion. A bottle. Hardly worth the effort of keeping, let alone wrapping up. The green glass was thick and clouded. Raised letters identified the bottle’s maker as Thomson & Co., Aerated Waters, Established 1865, Dunedin. Shaped more like a modern bedpan than a bottle, with no flat base, it wouldn’t stand up – its curved sides leaving it rocking on the counter, the clink of glass against glass echoing slightly in the empty shop.

  Two matching meat platters depicting duck-hunting; a boxed horn-handled carvery set, with a hunting scene weirdly etched into the knife. Nicole decided that the original owner must have had a passion for all things hunting. And, lying flat on the bottom of the box, a framed watercolour of a church, no identifying features. Every lady of a certain ilk was prone to painting these sorts of scenes as an acceptable pastime. There was a crate of similar paintings under one of the tables. No great call for them, but they were handy for prop buyers who needed something benign to fill a gap on set.

  What a complete and utter waste of time. Dusting herself off, she broke down the cartons, leaving them by the back door. The only thing of any worth, the matched pair of glasses, already forgotten as she moved on to the next item on her list, polishing up some brassware she’d bought the week before. Legally she was meant to hold all metalware for two weeks before putting it out for sale, but this stuff would be perfect to decorate Patricia’s shop once the new collection arrived in store and, technically, she wasn’t selling it, she was lending it out to the lady who paid her wages.

  Thinking of Patricia made her pause. She hadn’t seen her today. Since she’d been given her own set of keys she didn’t expect to see Trish every morning, but it was weird she hadn’t popped in to say how she got on with the launch. Nicole felt guilty that she hadn’t helped out, despite promising to. But Trish had Sarah to help her, so it had been easier to stay out of it. Nicole poked her head out the shop door, the change in temperature a warm surprise. No, Patricia’s shop Blackpool Love wasn’t open yet – not surprising really – she probably had a million things to do after the launch, catching up on sleep one of them. Propping her door open with an old iron, she reflected that she hadn’t seen Sarah either, but assumed she was probably off with Trish.

  Polishing brass was not everyone’s cup of tea, but she found it soothing, giving her the mental space for reflection. Her job, whilst arguably the best thing in her life, was in a state of flux, now that Sarah had returned. The love she’d followed to London was teetering on the edge of platonic friendship. And her flat wasn’t quite as exciting as she’d imagined. Moving to London was meant to be one of life’s great adventures. If you couldn’t travel the world with only a backpack and a camera, then living in London was the next best thing. A cataclysmic crashing of humanity, hubris, culture and climate, London was meant to give her everything she desired. Sadly it was failing on many fronts.

  Shrugging off her despondency, she buffed harder with her polishing cloth, decades of dirt vanishing under her efforts, the warm brass slowly revealing itself like a courtesan in a Japanese bathhouse.

  THE INTRODUCTION

  The woman screamed, wrenching her shoulder out of Warden Price’s grasp, and backed away from him, eyes wild.

  Price crumpled internally. This woman wasn’t Sarah, nor was she any relation, maternal or otherwise.

  ‘I’m so sorry, madam’ he mumbled, ‘I mistook you for someone else. My deepest apologies.’

  With a swish of heavy skirts, the woman hurried away, looking fearfully back over her shoulder until she rounded the corner, and Price was lost from sight. What now, he wondered. Other members of the congregation were slowly making their way down the road, each holding their own conversations, not seeing his pain. Dunedin was full of men who came then went. What was one more stranger?

  For Annabel Lester, a stranger was an opportunity to escape her reality, and so it was when she came across him standing on the road, looking lost.

  ‘Excuse me, can I help? Are you lost?’

  Price turned towards the voice, and fell into her eyes. Sarah’s eyes. The green of ivy, they were narrowed against the morning’s sunlight. His breath caught in his throat, and she repeated her question, ‘Are you lost? Can I give you directions, perhaps?’

  Clearing his throat, Price found that he’d lost the inability to articulate coherently, and merely stood gazing at the woman in front of him.

  ‘Right, well then, I’ll just leave you to it,’ she said before passing him cautiously on the street, the same way one might avoid a filthy beggar ranting about the end of the world.

  ‘No! Please ... yes ... I mean yes, I do need help,’ Price finally managed, coming to like a man surfacing from a coma.

  The woman paused, stepping back a pace, ready to flee should he turn out to be in the grip of opium delirium, which was prevalent among the gold miners, especially since ‘The Doctor’ had arrived – a Chinese miner supplying the drug to all and sundry, causing mayhem in the town, and at the various claims around Otago. This man could easily be one of the miners taken by ‘the smoky dragon’, although he did not have that look about him. She waited for him to speak again.

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just you took me by surprise. You ... you look so much like a woman I have been searching for, and I was taken aback. Please do not think me rude, it’s just that you have her look about you. I’m probably mistaken, but I’d been told she had family in Dunedin ...’

  Annabel Lester listened to his words, her stomach churning with every sentence, until she could stand no more, and blurted out ‘I have no family here, sir’, and hurried down the road towards her home. Her new home, the only life she had left.

  Price stood befuddled. The woman’s manner of speech was like Sarah’s, strange intonations which were like no other he knew. It was as if they were one and the same person. This woman was older than Sarah, but not by much, he was sure. Shaking his head, he continued on his way, puzzling over this development. There could be no other way to progress now – it was to the police he must turn to for help. Walking the streets of Dunedin, or the goldfields of Otago, would gain him nothing but a need for new boots.

  THE PILOT

  Phil Williams turned the little statue over in his hands. A beautiful example of Roman workmanship. By rights he should probably hand it over to the Museum of London, but there was something about a piece of treasure you’d found yourself. It was so smooth. He tried to imagine the craftsman who had shaped it, and its journey to Britain. Or was it crafted here? If only Pitt Rivers was still around to ask. A leading light in the dawning of the professionalism of British archaeologists, who were now a cut above their philandering
grave-robbing predecessors.

  Convalescing in a military hospital was not quite the holiday he’d imagined. His injuries were so minor compared to those filling the beds around him. He shouldn’t even be here, but for the infection that had set in. A pilot with a compression fracture of his arm would normally have been sent back to base on light duties, but it was amazing the damage one small microbe could inflict. So, here he was, surrounded by men who screamed in the night. Men without arms to worry about, or ears to cover when the screams got too loud, when demons came in the dark to haunt the men who feared they’d never be men again.

  As one who needed minimal care, other than daily dressing changes and wound swabbing, he was left to his own devices. He read the papers to the men who couldn’t, all of them knowing that these barely covered the atrocities overseas, and only hinted at the losses on home shores. It seemed to the airmen and soldiers that the papers served to placate the populace, as if they were small children who needed the bosom of their mother to protect them from the truth that the bogey man was at the door.

  The rest of his time he spent sitting outdoors. Never in his life had he imagined living in such surroundings. The sweeping lawns, views for miles, the peace. The ground around him was littered with the cigarette butts of other soldiers who’d sat on the same rough bench seeking peace and solitude from the horrors they’d seen, but today he was alone, contemplating the little statue he’d plucked from the earth. What else was still there and would it still be there if he ever managed to go back?

  He’d been allowed to send word to Elizabeth that he’d had an accident, a minor accident, and he was recuperating in hospital, and that she was welcome to visit at the weekend. It was now the weekend, and with every footfall on the gravel path his heart soared thinking it was her. Every time he turned around, he’d been forced to smile at nurses, patients, harried visitors, and crying widows, until he gave up turning around at every sound. It wasn’t until her hand touched his shoulder, as light as a feather, that he realised she was there.