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Chapter Five

It was the 30^th of April, Johnny’s sixteenth birthday, and he was coming to the cottage at 4 o’clock for a little birthday tea and to receive his presents from the Martins. They’d bought him a chess set, some bead puzzles, sweets and chocolate.

‘I think it’s really sad, Mama, that they don’t have a party at Grey Gables and invite all Johnny’s friends,’ Lexi said, as she tied a piece of string around the parcel she’d just wrapped up. ‘Johnny says his dad is always too busy for that kind of thing – and anyway he doesn’t like strangers in the house.’

‘Oh, I’m sure Johnny will have lovely presents,’ Cecilia said. ‘Anna told me yesterday that she’s going to cook something nice for their supper a bit later on.’

‘Yes, but that’s not the same as having friends in to share everything is it?’ Lexi persisted. ‘Alfred’s obviously still at college so it’ll just be Johnny and Anna. Even Mr McCann won’t be there because it’s Thursday and he’s never home on Thursday evenings.’

It was gone 5.30 before they’d finished the birthday tea of meat paste sandwiches, red jelly and a small iced cake Cecilia had made, and now Lexi was going down to Grey Gables so Johnny could show Lexi his other presents.

‘I’ll be back to help get the children to bed, Mama,’ Lexi said as she and Johnny left the cottage.

It was only a five-minute walk to Grey Gables, and with Johnny leading the way, the pair of them went down the steps and around to the back door, letting themselves into the kitchen. Anna was at the table making pastry.

‘So, Johnny – I’m sure you had a lovely birthday tea at Mrs. Martin’s house,’ Anna said. ‘And now I’m making the pigeon pie you said you’d like.’ She glanced at Lexi. ‘Would you like to stay and share it with us, Lexi?’

Although the child was often around the premises with Johnny, Anna only ever invited her to stay when she knew Mr McCann wouldn’t be there. Tonight, the coast was clear because it was Thursday and he wouldn’t be back until very late. In all the years Anna had been living and working here, the pattern had never varied. But – surely on his son’s birthday her employer could have made an exception and stayed to have supper with them? Anyway, thank goodness Johnny loved going to the Martins’ cottage – perhaps Cecilia was the mother he couldn’t remember, and would like to have had – even though Anna Hobbs had tried, with all the love she had, to fill that lonely gap in the little boys’ lives. Tears, familiar tears, sprang to her eyes again. She was about the same age as Cecilia, but why had fate denied her, Anna, the longed-for gift of children? How could she have been abandoned, after all the plans, all the promises?

Twenty-five years earlier

Anna walked quickly along the Euston Road until she came to the British Library, a place well known to her. Her father, a great reader, had taken her there on many Saturday mornings. She’d been young, then, still at school, but encouraged by him, she’d soon learned her way around the building, and how to find any book she might want to look at.

But now, at seventeen, Anna had another mission, a very important one. Completely ignorant about life’s personal matters, she needed to find out about intimacy, specifically between a man and a woman.

Because last night, Leonard had asked her to marry him, and in a delirium of joy and excitement, Anna had said yes. The wedding was not to be for another eighteen months or so, but still – she needed to be prepared.

It was only after the proposal that the first wave of panic had swept over her.

What would happen when she and Leonard were in bed together? What did marriage actually mean? Anna simply had no idea. It was a topic never mentioned when she’d been growing up. Her parents seemed to have been happy together, but had never shown any outward affection for each other. Anna had never seen them kiss, or even hold hands. But they had produced her, hadn’t they, – so how did it happen? What did you have to do?

And, more troublingly, if a baby got in – somehow – how on earth did it get out? Did you have to be cut open?

Reproduction had always been a dark subject, never spoken of – like the monthly curse, another complete mystery. What was that all about? When it had first happened to Anna at the age of twelve, she’d been horrified and slightly ashamed at the sight. Her mother had whispered that she should keep quiet about it, and keep herself clean. She’d then supplied Anna with squares of old towelling for the purpose, which hen had to be soaked in cold water to remove as much stain as possible, then boiled ready for next time. It was a process which Anna had always intensely disliked, but it couldn’t helped.

It was late when she left the library and began to make her way home. So, now she knew the facts of life – more or less – and they were almost too much to take in. The act of union between a man and woman, fully explained in a large book, did seem awkward and cumbersome and somewhat impossible, even slightly funny if you thought about it; but it had been a tried and tested method since life began, so who was Anna Hobbs to question the system or the mechanics?

She was relieved that the revelation had not shocked her too much. She’d been surprised, certainly, but no more than that. And as she’d allowed herself to imagine being in bed with Leonard, she was aware of an exciting tingle running right down the back of her legs. The same sensation she’d had when he’d put his arm around her waist for the first time.

Anna’s only ambition had been to work with children, small children, and at twelve years old, she’d been employed at a nursery school in the east end of London, hoping to eventually become a nursery nurse. Deep inside herself, she felt that this was the only way she would ever have the chance to love and take care of little ones, where she might pretend that one or two of them were her own. Not that she’d expected her career to be a long one because, as an only child, her life’s task, inevitably, was to live at home and look after her parents until they died. She’d been resigned to this, and was only mildly ashamed to admit that when both mother and father died within a few months of each other a year ago, all she’d felt was relief at the unexpected freedom this gave her.

Anna did not admire her own appearance and had seldom considered the possibility of ever getting married and having children of her own. Her brownish hair had no wave in it whatsoever, and she was rather plain in the face. How could she deny it every time she looked in the mirror? And she’d never been courted.

Until now. Until Leonard.

Eighteen months ago, when she was just fifteen, the two of them were the only ones waiting at the bus stop on that cold, grey November morning, and he’d looked down at her, making a rueful face.

‘A horrible day,’ he’d said, his voice dark and deep, and interesting. ‘Summer seems a very long time ago, doesn’t it?’

Those few casual words were the start of a friendship which quite quickly became something more. They met regularly each morning on their way to work, and each evening, when he somehow managed to be there as she got off the bus at the end of the day, walking her home to the room she rented in a friend’s house – which was not very far away from where he himself lived.

Leonard was quite tall and not exactly handsome but worth a second glance. He had fair, curly hair, but it was his eyes which entrapped you. They were the colour of polished conkers, which would soften and twinkle as he talked or listened. He had a lovely smile, and he was so easy to talk to, to laugh with. He was exactly a year older than Anna, and in no time at all they’d found out what each other’s likes and dislikes were – often identical. Soon they were spending almost every evening and most weekends together, sometimes going into town to the music hall, or to one of the galleries. But more often just walking and talking. And when they’d had that first tentative kiss goodnight, Anna’s heart had soared. Because it told her something, something special – that she no longer had to be alone again.

Leonard worked in an accountant’s office in the city, and he was always interested in Anna’s daily life.

‘You obviously love children, Anna,’ he’d said once, ‘but it must be tiring and require a lot of patience.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind that,’ Anna had replied. ‘They are all so sweet – especially the little boys. I do love the little boys.’

‘Would you ever want any children of your own?’ he’d said one day, and without hesitation she’d replied –

‘It would be my dream.’

Then, after a moment he’d gone on. ‘It must be lovely to be part of a family, a family of one’s own. I was brought up by an aunt, and had no brothers or sisters, but I could hear the noise and fun going on next door – there were seven kids living there. They could never have been lonely, and always had someone to play with, to share things with.’

‘Well, you may have a big family of your own one day, Leonard,’ Anna had said, without thinking.

And it was then that he had taken both her hands in his and asked her to marry him.

The days that followed had been the happiest in Anna’s life. They had such plans about their future together and how many children they might eventually have.

‘I will be earning enough for us to rent in a nice area,’ Leonard had said, ‘but first we must think about the wedding. Our big day! Perhaps it should be at the bus stop – our bus stop’ He’d gone on teasingly, ‘where I first saw you in your neat little uniform and thought how lovely you looked.’

‘Really?’ she’d replied – Anna had never been told that she looked lovely.

‘I didn’t know you, of course,’ he’d said. ‘But you had a gentle face, with such a kind expression. You looked the sort of person it would be nice to spend time with. And I was right,’ he’d added.

Anna had been left a little money by her parents which would be enough to buy her wedding dress, and even though there was some time to go before the big day, she’d already bought a dainty white creation she’d seen in a local shop window. It fitted her perfectly, and as she’d gazed at herself in the mirror her heart was fairly bursting with happiness – total, uninhibited happiness. She was to marry the only man she’d ever really known, had ever loved – and the only man who’d said he loved her. Her! The future shone with almost painful brightness.

Until it happened.

It had been a rather cold March day, a strong wind whipping across their faces as they’d trudged along Hampstead Heath, when Leonard had started coughing with such violence that Anna was frightened. She’d stopped, pulling him back to her and looking up at him anxiously. Leonard had always had a cough – said he’d had it since childhood – and it had been nothing new for Anna to hear him splutter into his handkerchief now and then. She’d gently scolded him sometimes, saying he was smoking too many cigarettes, but he’d shrugged that off. ‘We smoke in the office all the time, everyone smokes,’ he’d said, and that fact was true enough. Cigarette smoke hung like a curtain in crowded places, wherever you went.

When they’d got back to her room, Anna had put the kettle on to make a pot of tea. And after she’d set out the cups and saucers and cut them a slice of Victoria sponge, she went over to where Leonard had flung himself down in the armchair. His head was back, his eyes closed, and he was breathing with a horrible rasping sound. Then, as she looked down at him, Anna let out a small cry of horror.

‘Leonard!’

From his partly open lips, a small stream of bright red blood was trickling slowly down over his chin and towards the white collar of his shirt.

That had been the beginning of a six month nightmare when it was discovered that unrealized, Leonard was suffering from tuberculosis, that the disease was already advanced. And incurable.

For many weeks, Anna sat by his hospital bed every night, murmuring to him quietly even though he always seemed to be asleep. ‘Please don’t leave me, Leonard,’ she’d whispered, over and over again, and once, through cracked lips, he’d replied –

‘There’ll never be anyone but you, Anna … my Anna … the love of my life.’

Then, finally, in the quietness of that dimly lit ward, with Anna holding him, Leonard had slowly passed away.

Refusing, even in death, to let go of her hand…

30th April 1914

‘No, I won’t stay to supper tonight, thank you, Anna,’ Lexi said. ‘I promised Mama I wouldn’t be long. I’ve only come to see Johnny’s presents.’

Anna smiled as the two went upstairs, chattering away as usual. She hoped Mrs Martin realized how lucky she was to have a daughter like Lexi.

Anna liked Cecilia. She was kind, sensible and hard-working, and one of the few people Anna would count as a friend.

Anna’s life here was an extremely busy one, as she’d known it would be when she took the position all those years ago. When she’d seen the housekeeper job advertised in one of the national papers, it had barely registered, until she’d read the last bit – that help with bringing up two small boys would also be required. The words had jumped out at her, and she’d applied at once. And after two interviews she’d been offered the post, and she had accepted even though her future employer did seem a rather unusual man.

Anna was extremely happy with her lot, and this family was the only one she was ever going to have. Fate had decreed it. Mr McCann was a reasonable employer, and although she didn’t have a regular day off each week she was free to come and go as she pleased. And Anna’s preference was, when the weather was nice, to stroll out into the countryside and be alone with her thoughts and memories. The fields were only a twenty-minute walk away from the residential area, on the edge of which was the children’s play park, and next to that a small cafe called ‘Bert’s Place’. Sometimes on her way back home Anna would stop and buy herself a drink and something to eat – a little treat that someone should serve her for a change. The owner of the cafe was Mr Bertram Bakewell, a retired merchant navy seaman, and he ran it entirely on his own. Apart from producing a good strong cup of tea, his sandwiches were always deliciously fresh, his scones melt-in-the-mouth, and his rice pudding at twopence a slice was a real treat.

Upstairs, all the presents were laid out on Johnny’s bed. Among them were a dartboard, a tin of Mackintosh’s toffees, and a thousand-piece jigsaw. Lexi studied the picture on the box.

‘Can we do this together, Johnny?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Yeah, course,’ he replied, ‘but it’ll have to be at the weekend because we’ve got the rounds tomorrow evening, haven’t we?’ Reynard always insisted that the rents were collected as soon as possible on Fridays before the men had time to spend their wages on drink.

Lexi glanced around her. Johnny’s bedroom was absolutely huge. Before she’d started doing the rounds with him last year she had never ventured up the stairs at all. But it was different now. She knew where all the rooms were and where the study was because the rents had to be locked away in the first drawer of the big desk.

Johnny opened the tin of toffees and they each took one, sitting side by side at the window, sucking contentedly. Then Johnny said –

‘Do you know when your father will be home again, Lexi?’

‘We never know that because of his work,’ Lexi said. ‘He stayed for nearly three weeks this time, so that was longer than usual. And he taught me some new songs and we went through all the ones I knew already. So I’m definitely going down to the Guildhall next week to ask for that audition.’ She shivered. ‘I shall be terrified – I know I will!’

‘Of course you won’t!’ Johnny said. ‘As soon as you start all your nerves will fly out of the window! Did you tell your father about it?’

‘No, I shall have to tell Mama first and wait for all her objections!’ Lexi paused thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps if I don’t say anything about earning a fee she won’t mind. And I wish I had told Dada, and I wish we saw him more often.’

‘Well I don’t see that much of my father either,’ Johnny said. ‘Of course, he’s here every night, but he’s seldom around until quite late each day and he never eats with us in the kitchen, he prefers to be alone in the study or dining room. So – we’ve both got absent fathers, Lexi.’

Lexi shot Johnny a glance. ‘I don’t think Mr McCann likes me. I mean he’s not nasty to me or anything … he just ignores me, looks through me as if I’m not there.’ She took another toffee from the tin Johnny was holding out. ‘Perhaps it would be better if he just told me to clear off.’

‘No, it would not,’ Johnny said emphatically. ‘Because you’d never come here again, would you? Anyway, he’s never said anything about you to me or that he doesn’t like you – so forget it, Lexi. It’s just his way with people.’

‘But he doesn’t know that I go into the study,’ Lexi said, ‘and that I know where he keeps things in the drawers. Would he be cross if he knew?’

Johnny shrugged. ‘Well – why would he be cross? We always leave everything in place, exactly as he likes it, don’t we?’

After a moment Lexi said – ‘Where does he go every Thursday evening?’

‘No idea,’ Johnny replied. ‘But it’ll be work. Always work.’

‘And that’s exactly what I’m always going to be doing,’ Lexi said firmly. ‘When I’ve got enough to buy our house we’ll never have to pay rent ever again and Mama can put her feet up sometimes. But I wish that was now, Johnny! Not some distant dream!’

And I wish I wasn’t going to college in September,’ Johnny said flatly. He paused before going on. ‘The thing is Lexi – I don’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps, and carry on the family firm. I really don’t. But he expects me to, me and Alfred, and I just can’t tell my father that I’d rather do something else.’

This was news to Lexi. ‘Goodness, Johnny – I thought your future was all cut and dried – not like mine! Anyway, what would you like to do instead?’

‘I want to be a travel writer, perhaps for one of the smart magazines,’ Johnny replied eagerly. ‘Imagine getting right away from England and going all over the world – and writing about it! That would be a cracking thing to do!’

Lexi smiled at his enthusiasm. She knew Johnny had won school prizes for his writing. ‘But wouldn’t you be homesick far away in foreign lands, where you didn’t know anyone?’

He grinned. ‘I’d risk being homesick! Anyway, I’d probably start with this country at the beginning.’ He sighed briefly ‘But that’s my distant dream, Lexi – because I’ve got to go to college and learn all about the construction industry and investments and town panning … but I’ll write every week, and you’ll write back, won’t you? Tell me what’s going on – especially about your singing?’

Lexi turned to face him. ‘I’m really going to miss you, Johnny,’ she said slowly, and he returned her gaze.

‘I realize my father doesn’t know how to make people feel welcome, but Anna does, doesn’t she, Lexi? You do like Anna, don’t you?’

‘I do, and so does my mother,’ Lexi said at once. There was no need to add that when she was younger she’d thought Anna looked a bit like a headmistress with her brownhair in a stern bun, and always with a pair of glasses on the end of her nose. But it hadn’t taken Lexi long to realize how kind the housekeeper was, and that she loved the boys and they loved her.

Presently, the two went downstairs and into the kitchen. Anna was dozing in her basket chair by the stove and as they tiptoed past she jumped up as if she’d been stung.

‘Oh, my good heavens!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t hear you come down … you gave me such a fright!’

Johnny walked Lexi back to the cottage and he grinned down at her. ‘Poor Anna,’ he said. ‘he was probably dreaming about our ghost. She only found out from someone last week that we have one at Grey Gables and she’s been jumpy ever since.’

‘Have you ever seen the Grey Lady?’ Lexi asked curiously, and Johnny sniggered.

‘No, of course not. Ghosts don’t exist,’ he replied. ‘When Alfred and I first heard about it at school a long time ago and asked my father about it he was so cross! Told us to grow up and not to believe such nonsense. And then, when Anna asked him about it last week he was absolutely furious because he could see that she really thought it was true! To calm her nerves he had to sit her down and pour her a glass of brandy!’