The Lost Ones

Chapter Two

For a long while after Gerald’s death, I feared I had surrendered my sanity to grief – in the early days, I had certainly surrendered my will to live. For the first day or so after it happened, Matron, a stern Welsh woman with a reputation for brooking no nonsense, had been surprisingly indulgent and understanding. I lay immobile in my bed, unable to eat, unable to sleep, unable, even, to weep. My fellow VAD nurses spoke in hushed almost reverential whispers as they moved around our tent, eager not to disturb me. Their sympathy was as tangible as their relief that the tragedy had not been theirs.

When I showed no signs of improvement, Matron had suggested a trip home might sort me out, but as my stupor spread from a few days into a week, her tone became more strident, her patience wearing thin, until a sojourn at home was not a suggestion but an order. The girls packed my things for me. I think we all understood I would not be coming back.

I can’t remember much of the journey from the continent, I had lost all interest in life by then. I do remember standing at the ship’s rail as she rolled across the churning grey Channel. I remember holding onto the rain-soaked railing and thinking how slippery it was beneath my freezing fingers. I rested my booted foot on the bottom rung, staring at the heaving waves as they crashed against the hull. My head dropped towards my chest as I strained to hear the siren’s call enticing me from beneath the surging waves, the spray spitting in my face with contemptuous disregard for my suffering.

The ship listed and I stumbled sideways. An officer caught my arm and steadied me, his face half concealed by a bandage. He shouted over the roar of the waves that it might be best if we go back in, and I offered no resistance as he took my elbow and guided me through the iron door. He said something to a nurse inside, something I couldn’t hear, and she came to me as he disappeared down the stairs, his heavy boots clanking against the steel grated steps to the lower deck. Her face softened when she saw my blank expression. She led me back to my quarters and put me to bed, tucking the blankets about me so tightly I could barely breathe. Perhaps she thought they might hinder any further attempts at wandering.

My mother met me off the boat when it docked. Our elderly chauffeur had driven her down, all the way to Portsmouth – goodness knows where they got the petrol. I remember being startled by the juxtaposition of our shining motorcar next to the unloading detritus of war: the gravely wounded on stretchers, the shattered bodies and blood-soaked bandages. The same nurse escorted me off, her arm firm around my back as she helped me down the gangplank, one faltering step after another.

She said something to my mother as she handed me over, but her words escaped me – lost amongst the shouts and the moans, the slamming of ambulance doors and the whine of engines. I was becoming accustomed by that time to people discussing me as if I wasn’t there. It was to continue for weeks after I returned – Dr Mayhew shut away with my parents. I was too numb to feel any resentment. I would get better eventually, everyone assured me in cheery voices dripping with insincerity and trimmed with doubt. I was not to be left alone, Dr Mayhew had advised. Close supervision was required for someone plunging to such perilous depths. Home, he warned, might not be a suitable environment. Options had been discussed.

And then my dear sister Madeleine had arrived, bringing quiet compassion, sympathy and understanding. Gradually, the edges of the yawning cavity left by Gerald’s death began to contract. The emptiness receded, little by little, though it never vanished. I was at least able to rise from my bed, eat, think and occasionally I even managed a wan smile, just for a moment, until I remembered again. It was, Madeleine assured me, the beginning of my recovery and I was to force myself towards it, like an exhausted mountaineer with the pinnacle in sight, because the alternative was too awful to consider.

It was proving to be a long and arduous climb. There were still some who anticipated my fall.

I was late to rise, following yet another disturbed night, but I found I could get away with being a lie-abed these days. I had few pressures on my time, and Mother went to great lengths to ensure I wasn’t taxed in any way.

Having availed myself of the pitcher and basin on the washstand, I dressed without fuss, drifting towards the draped windows as I fastened my locket about my neck. Once done, I reached up and thrust apart the heavy curtains, blinking against the sunlight that flooded the room.

Annie Burrows appeared below me, carrying a pail of ash towards the flowerbeds, her ginger hair vibrant in the morning sun. The cinders would be scattered to enrich the soil, but it was not the performance of this daily chore that drew my attention – it was Annie’s extraordinary behaviour.

She was talking to herself in a most animated manner, gesticulating with her free hand before breaking into smiles – in an odd way she looked almost radiant. With anyone else, it might have been amusing – charming even – to see them so caught up in their own little world, but with Annie, the whole display was rather eerie.

She stopped. Her head shot round to fire at me a scowl so targeted I recoiled into the curtain folds, taken aback by the animus it appeared to contain. My heart beat faster and it felt like an age before I had the courage to peek out from behind the jacquard screen. She was gone; the garden was quite empty. Only my discomfort remained.

I had by this time missed breakfast, but I knew Mother would be taking tea in the morning room, and I resolved to join her there – a cup of tea would be just the ticket to restore my equanimity and set me up for the day.

As I started to make my way across the hall I caught sight of my reflection in the foxed glass of the mirror hanging above the fireplace and I drew up short. I backtracked to stand before it, my fingers straying to the pale blue cardigan I had donned – it looked incongruous against the heavy black of my dress.

The reintroduction of colour to my clothing was a very recent concession to my parents. They had, in truth, become embarrassed by my funereal attire. In their eyes my bereavement lacked legitimacy – Gerald and I had not been officially engaged, there had merely been an understanding between us. It seemed a sparkling ring and an announcement in The Times were needed to validate my grief – as it was, they considered eight months shrouded in deep mourning quite long enough.

I had been a melancholic shadow in the house for so long that I found it curious to catch sight of myself now sporting this dash of the unfamiliar. I was a dull duckling learning to embrace its decorative adult feathers – soon I would be transformed beyond all recognition.

I moved away from the mirror and walked on. Gerald was gone. A piece of clothing changed only how I looked, not how I felt – I would learn to skirt the gloom in colourful attire, just as I was learning to indulge my suffering in private.

The morning-room door opened as I approached, and Annie emerged with a large wooden tray hanging from her hand, which knocked against her calf as she closed the door behind her. She started when she saw me, belatedly curtsying before stepping to the side to allow me to pass. She revealed no hint of our earlier episode. I paid her little heed as I reached for the door handle.

‘Dr Mayhew.’

I jerked my fingers back from the ribbed brass as if it had burnt me.

Her gaze climbed to my face. ‘He’s in there, with your mother, miss.’

I was grateful for, if surprised by, the warning. Dr Mayhew had grown impatient of my grief – in his eyes it had morphed into something else, something that did not deserve sympathy or delicacy. In his opinion, I was showing signs of hysteria – that peculiarly female affliction he found so intolerable and which required a firm hand, cold baths and country retreats – a euphemism, I soon learnt, for asylums catering to the more genteel lady. He would have had me suitably incarcerated on my return from France, but Madeleine intervened on my behalf, persuading my parents that time was all I really needed. In the end, my parents relented, but Dr Mayhew continued to prowl in the wings, unconvinced by my paper-thin performance of improvement, constantly critiquing, whittling away my parents’ confidence, ever hopeful of vindication.

I contemplated the best course of action. If I returned to my room I would be doing little more than delaying the inevitable: I would either receive a summons, or – even worse – they would come and find me. I looked at Annie.

‘Come and get me in five minutes,’ I instructed, ‘say there’s a telephone call for me. You can say it’s my sister.’

I couldn’t tell whether she was regarding me with compassion or contempt and to my irritation I felt myself flush. She dipped her head in assent, and with a strategy in place, I reached again for the door handle.

Dr Mayhew stood up the moment I entered, the dainty cup and saucer with its pattern of entwined pink roses looking faintly absurd in his meaty grasp. He had been the village doctor for as long as I could remember, but I had never taken to the man. He had the habit of walking into a room and demanding its deference – such pomposity did not sit well with me and never had. He had not aged well, it had to be said. Flabby jowls folded over the starched collar of his shirt, and the red thread veins in his cheeks and a bulbous, purple-mottled nose confirmed popular suspicions he was rather too fond of his drink. His hair, once thick and black, was now thin and grey, a few lank strands draped over his sharply domed head, though his thick mutton chops still flourished and seemed to offer some balance to his generous girth.

‘Here she is, the young lady herself. How is our patient this morning?’

I smiled, but only because it was expected of me. It grated that he still saw fit to refer to me in this way, as if I was ill and always would be. I was not ill. I was grieving.

‘I am quite well, thank you, Doctor,’ I said, greeting my mother before attending to the tea things laid out upon the sideboard.

‘No more nightmares?’

I put down the teapot, pushing away the images that had plagued my sleep. ‘None at all.’

‘So, the medication is working then?’

I thought of the untouched bottle of pills tucked away in my dressing table drawer. I turned back to face him, my teacup in hand. ‘It appears so.’ I smiled over the rim and took a deep gulp of the lukewarm liquid.

His studied me, inscrutable. I knew I mustn’t flinch – an inadvertent tremor of my hand, a quiver in my voice, any nervous darting of the eyes and he would have me locked up before the day was out. I took another sip of tea, and with a steady hand, rested my cup back into the saucer.

Mother hadn’t moved from her chair. She was staring into the fire, her lips pursed. She was finally roused by the quiet tap at the door and Annie bobbing into the room.

‘Mrs Brightwell is on the telephone for you, miss.’

She held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary, leaving me to suspect she resented her part in the duplicity, but I was unconcerned. I had achieved my aim: my escape was secured.

‘Oh! Madeleine? I’d better come straight away.’ I contrived a look of polite – if not sincere – disappointment and took a final, hasty gulp of tea. ‘Goodbye, Dr Mayhew.’

I didn’t shut the door fully behind me. I indicated my gratitude to Annie with a curt nod which she acknowledged before returning to her legitimate chores. I, however, loitered.

‘How is she really?’ Dr Mayhew asked.

‘She was caught at the lake again, the other evening.’

I hadn’t realised my mother knew.

‘With intent?’

‘Annie saw her going and followed her down. She brought her back before she had the chance to …’ She didn’t need to finish – we all knew what happened last time.

‘Well, I must say, that is most disappointing to hear. I thought she was making better progress – she’s seemed a little more collected of late.’ He let the dread sink into my poor mother before making a half-hearted attempt to reassure her. ‘Well now, we shouldn’t leap to the worst of conclusions every time. Perhaps it was nothing more than an innocent walk that took her that way – it is a beautiful spot after all, and nothing did happen – but we must also …’ He left a meaningful pause. ‘As you well know, my dear Mrs Marcham, there are a lot of women mourning in this country today. The majority will no doubt overcome their grief in time, but the added trauma of what Stella went through – it might be she never recovers from it.’

‘Then what should we do, Doctor? God knows I can’t lose another daughter.’

‘The medication should help – if she takes it.’

‘She says she is, but if she’s not?’

‘Then maybe we should revisit the idea of a short break away.’

I recoiled from the doorway, a bile of fury rising up inside me. I would never agree to it. I would not be incarcerated simply for feeling a natural human emotion.

The concept was insane – but I most certainly was not.

Chapter Three

I slammed my bedroom door and retrieved my secret stash of cigarettes from underneath the wardrobe. Kneeling on the grate of my fireplace, I tapped one from the packet, dangling it from my bottom lip as I rasped a match across the rough strip on the matchbox. I held the flame to its tip and drew in, a deep shuddering breath, before blowing the smoke up the chimney. Mother didn’t know I smoked and would certainly not approve. It was a habit I had picked up early on in my VAD career, while serving at the 1st General in London. Another nurse had advised it after a horrendous shift. She promised me it calmed the nerves.

I leant against the blue Delft tiling of the fire’s surround, with their quaint images of windmills and fishermen, and felt my tension begin to ease. I closed my eyes, fatigue dampening my fury.

I was alarmed to hear a gentle knock at the door, but I reasoned it would not be my mother or Dr Mayhew. Annie cracked it open, a linen basket balanced on her narrow hip.

‘I have a few things to put away, miss.’

I took another drag on my cigarette before gesturing her in. I held the smoke in my mouth then let it slip like silk into my lungs. Stubbing the butt out on the charred stone of the grate, I scrabbled to my feet, batting the air with my hand to dissipate the lingering taint. Annie began filling the drawers of the tallboy.

I drifted towards the window intending to lift the sash for some fresh air, but I saw Dr Mayhew below, engaged in parting pleasantries with my mother, so I left the window shut. I had no desire to draw attention to myself.

‘I take it you’re not an admirer of Dr Mayhew either,’ I said with idle curiosity.

‘Not really, miss.’

‘Any particular reason?’ I turned my back on the window, resting my bottom on the sill.

‘He’s always pegged me as a troublemaker.’

‘Oh?’ I was only mildly interested and made no effort to press her when she didn’t respond. She carried on placing the folded clothing within the drawers as if I’d never spoken. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour.

‘Mother knows about you finding me the other evening.’ I left the unspoken accusation suspended in the air, a gossamer thread connecting us. I had not requested her confidence, but I had rather taken it for granted she would remain mum.

She made no attempt to face me. ‘Mrs Scrivens caught me going back to my room. She thought I had been engaged in some … assignation. I had no choice but to tell her.’

‘I wasn’t going to do anything silly.’ I recalled curling my toes over the rough edge of the jetty and the inviting oblivion awaiting me below the dark surface. ‘I just …’ I turned to rest my forehead against the cool glass, flimsy under the pressure. I watched Dr Mayhew’s car pull away. What was the point? How could I make anyone understand that somehow on the jetty I still felt close to Gerald? It was the one place where I didn’t feel the terror of him slipping away. Standing there, if I closed my eyes and focused, I could almost feel the warmth of that late August sunshine on my cheeks and sense his solid presence beside me. I could almost hear those magical words ‘marry me’ and feel that explosion of joy again. Who could blame me for searching out a crumb of happiness amongst this feast of misery?

Annie shunted the drawer to. ‘Dr Mayhew … There are things he doesn’t understand.’

‘He seems to understand very little about grief.’ I made no attempt to conceal my bitterness.

‘Which is something we both know all too well, miss.’

I looked at her. I could only speculate as to what damage might lie beneath her carefully crafted façade. She had lost everyone dear to her. Jim Burrows had died to save his master’s daughter, condemning his own child to a life without the love and security of a father. How had that made her feel? Less valued? And then her poor mother, left to bear the burden alone – it was a tribute to her they had remained free of the workhouse. I could only imagine what deprivations they had been forced to endure. Perhaps, then, it was not so surprising Annie was odd and aloof – her world had been ripped apart at such a tender age and for what? Lydia had died anyway. Sometimes I wondered how she could bear to be around us. Perhaps she couldn’t.

She dipped a curtsy and made to leave, but before she could close the door behind her my mother appeared, sweeping in as Annie slipped out. Feeling petulant, I turned away.

‘Have you been smoking in here?’

‘I don’t smoke, Mother.’

‘Don’t treat me like a fool, Stella!’

She bustled over to my nightstand and pulled open the shallow top drawer, its brass handle rattling with the violence of her action. She began rifling through the contents.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Where are they? The pills Dr Mayhew gave you?’

‘Why do you want them?’

She held out her hand. ‘Give them to me, Stella.’

With rising ire, I yanked open a drawer in my dressing table. I snatched out the small brown bottle and slammed it into her palm.

‘There!’

She held it between her forefinger and thumb and raised it to eye level. ‘Untouched,’ she observed.

‘I don’t want his pills, Mother. I don’t need them.’

‘These pills are to help you.’

‘These pills, Mother, are to sedate me. I can’t be any trouble if I’m not capable of functioning.’

‘They are to help you cope.’

‘I won’t take them. I simply won’t. I don’t want to be numb. I want to feel – I need to feel.’

‘Sometimes we feel too much.’

‘That is better than feeling nothing at all! You can’t just wave a magic wand and make me forget everything – make me better. You heard Mayhew. I might never recover.’

‘Oh!’ Mother threw up her hands in disgust. ‘Listening at doors now are we, Stella? Is that what you have been reduced to?’

‘With the two of you conspiring to put me away, I will indeed listen at doors. At least then I know what you’re planning.’

‘Oh, Stella.’ She collapsed on the end of my bed, her shoulders sagging as the fight deserted her. She tapped the bottle, the pills rattling against the glass like a maraca. ‘I don’t want you to be “put away”, Stella, but neither do I want to lose you. I’ve already buried Lydia, I cannot bear to give up another child.’ Her face creased with pain, and she suddenly looked so aged and worn that I was rather shocked. It was like coming across an old doll, fondly remembered as young and beautiful, but finding it had become ragged and chipped from too much play. Pain numbed her eyes as she looked at me. ‘I do understand what you are going through. I know you think I don’t. But I do know loss, Stella, I know the pain it brings.’

Of course, she knew loss, I could never deny that, though I resented her belief that Lydia’s death affected her most of all. She would tearfully declare that she had lost a part of herself, whereas, in her view at least, Madeleine and I had only lost a companion. But Lydia was so much more than that. She was our constant shadow, our extra limb, she was our clown when we were in the doldrums and our willing scapegoat whenever were in trouble, always confident her angelic sweetness would deffuse our parents’ anger. She was our sister and if not a physical part of ourselves, she was a precious, irreplaceable feature of our very existence and even now we carried her in our hearts, always.

I had never quite forgiven my mother for withdrawing from us the way she did, wallowing in her own grief whilst almost ignoring ours. But with the loss of Gerald, I had perhaps come to understand her more, her apparent selfishness, for I was convinced no one else could possibly be suffering as I was. My grief for Gerald was not indulgent, it was all-consuming, and its intensity seemed to validate the love I had always felt for him. He was my future, but when he died, that very future was taken from me. I now had to consider that Lydia’s death might have left my mother feeling the same way.

‘I’m not going to do anything silly again,’ I said at last.

‘Promise me?’

I forced a smile and sat down beside her, our shoulders brushing. I took the bottle from her hand and tossed it into the grate. It clattered onto the tiles of the hearth. ‘I refuse to take the pills, but I promise, I won’t do anything to hurt myself. I couldn’t do that to you.’

She nodded, her innate dignity struggling with overwhelming emotion. She took my hand.

‘Good,’ she said, issuing a gentle squeeze before relinquishing her hold as she stood up. She patted my shoulder and took her leave, but she paused in the doorway.

‘It will ease, Stella – your sadness. You will learn to live with it. We all learn to carry on in the end.’

I sat quietly once she had gone. It was my fault, of course, that she lived on her nerves, so readily entertaining her worst fears, her greatest nightmare. I had to acknowledge my culpability.

I had not been home a week when Annie Burrows dragged me from the lake. I’d managed to escape my mother’s watchful eye and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the precious moments her distraction had afforded me. I walked out, setting a steady but unhurried pace, straight to the lake, striding with intent down the wooden jetty, my footsteps echoing on the boards, the water gently lapping below. I paused for a moment when I reached the end, briefly allowing myself the succour of my most cherished memory, before I stepped out into thin air. The freezing cold of the dark waters as they closed over my head was shocking. Yet as I sank lower, threads of pondweed tickling my legs as my skirts billowed about my waist, I made a conscious decision not to struggle, not to kick towards the silvery light diffused across the surface now far above my head. In that moment, I experienced peace the like of which I hadn’t felt for weeks. I relaxed into the lake’s watery embrace, which was no longer frigid and frightening, but warm and consoling. I was not afraid. I think I was relieved.

Swallowed by my watery tomb, I did not hear the splash of Annie Burrows leaping into the lake beside me. It wasn’t until I felt urgent fingers clutch at my waterlogged clothing that I realised I was no longer alone. As I was hauled round her face appeared before me, glowing like a moon in the midnight sky. I fought against her, trying to prise myself loose from her iron grip, lashing out with my feet, bubbles rippling from my mouth, but she was surprisingly strong and stubborn. She wrapped her arm around my chest, ignoring my clawing fingers, and powered herself upwards with such force we both exploded through the glassy surface, instinctively gasping for air. I cried in fury as she dragged me towards the edge, our boots slipping in the silty bottom. She grunted with effort as she wrenched me up onto the bank. I sobbed with frustration as we lay on our backs, exhausted and soaked to the skin, our hair streaked across our faces, breathless, staring at the leaden sky above us.

She spat out sour water and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, her chest still heaving. People came running towards us, shouting in alarm: my mother, my father, Mrs Scrivens, Brown, a gardener. Mother was wailing. We were both hoisted to our feet. Someone began pulling at my wet things; a jacket was draped around my shoulders. Amidst the flurry and fuss, Annie stumbled towards me, thrusting her dripping face into mine the second before she was tugged away.

The young maid’s words became lost in the jumble of voices as we were bundled towards the house. Later, when I was finally left alone and had time to ponder the evening’s events, I separated them from the cacophony. They sent a shiver down my spine.

‘He says it’s not your time.’