The Girl on the Cliff (18 page)

Mary heard a ringing in her ears. ‘But – but, ma’am, surely I must be allowed to say goodbye? I – can’t – have her thinking I’m abandoning her. Please, Mrs Lisle … I mean, ma’am,’ Mary pleaded.

‘Anna will be fine. You are not, after all, her real mother. She will be with girls of her own age and class,’ Elizabeth Lisle added pointedly. ‘I am sure she will cope.’

‘What will happen to her during the holidays?’

‘Like many orphaned children, or in fact children whose parents are residing abroad, she will simply stay at school.’

‘You mean the school will be her new home?’ Mary was aghast.

‘If you wish to phrase it like that, yes.’

‘May I at least be writing to her?’

‘Under the circumstances, I forbid it. I feel it will be too unsettling and upsetting for her to receive letters from you.’

‘Then –’ Mary knew she mustn’t cry – ‘may I know where you’re taking her?’

‘I think it is best that you don’t. Then you will not be tempted to contact her. I have organised everything she will need for her new school. There is nothing more you need to do other than name her clothes, pack her trunk and your own belongings.’ Elizabeth Lisle rose. ‘You must understand, Mary, that a child in the care of Mr Lisle and myself cannot spend her life being brought up by servants. She must learn manners and decorum to enable her to become a lady.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Mary choked the words out.

‘You may go, Mary.’

Mary walked towards the door then stopped. ‘What about her ballet lessons? Do they do ballet at her new school? She is so talented … everybody says … and Mr Lisle was so very keen –’

‘As his wife, and acting ward of the child while my husband is abroad,’ Elizabeth cut in, ‘I think it is up to me to know my husband’s thoughts. And what is best for Anna.’

Mary knew it was pointless saying any more. She turned and fled the room.

The following few days passed in a miasma of misery. Unable to say or do anything to warn Anna of her own imminent departure, Mary did her best to comfort the child as she sewed name labels on her uniform and organised the trunk she would be taking with her to her new school.

‘I don’t w-want to g-go away to school, Mary. I don’t w-want to leave you and all the other servants and my b-ballet lessons.’

‘I know you don’t, pet, but it’s what Uncle and Aunt think is best for you. And you might be enjoying the company of other girls of your age.’

‘Why do I need them w-when I have you and all my other friends in the kitchen here? Mary, I’m frightened. Please tell Aunt not to make me g-go. I promise I won’t be any trouble,’ Anna begged. ‘P-please ask her to let me stay!’ Mary put her arms around the child as she sobbed pitifully into her shoulder. ‘You will tell the Princess I’ll be b-back in the holidays, w-won’t you? Tell her I’ll still keep practising hard at school and I w-won’t let her down.’

‘’Course I will, pet.’

‘And the time w-will pass quite quickly, won’t it? It’s not long until the holidays and I’m b-back here w-with you, is it?’

Mary held her own tears in check as she saw the child trying to reassure herself in the face of the inevitable. ‘No, pet, it’s not.’

‘And you’ll be here w-waiting for me, won’t you, Mary? What w-will you do when I’m gone?’ Anna raised an eyebrow. ‘You might get awfully b-bored.’

‘Well now, I might just take myself on a little holiday.’

‘Well, make sure you’re b-back for when I arrive home from school, won’t you?’

‘I will, pet, I promise.’

At nine o’clock on the morning on which Anna was to leave, there was a knock on Mary’s door.

‘Come in.’

Anna appeared wearing her new school uniform, bought
with room to grow into. Her slight body looked drowned in material and her heart-shaped face was pinched and white.

‘Aunt says I must c-come to say g-goodbye to you. She said she didn’t want a show d-downstairs.’

Mary nodded and walked towards her, held her in her arms and said, ‘Do me proud now, won’t you, pet?’

‘I’ll t-try, Mary, but I’m so fr-frightened.’ Anna’s stutter had become progressively worse over the past week.

‘There now, a couple of days and you’ll be loving it, I’m sure.’

‘No, I w-won’t, I know I’m g-going to h-hate it,’ came the muffled response into her shoulder. ‘You w-will write to me every day? W-won’t you?’

‘Of course I will. Now,’ Mary pulled Anna gently away from her, looked at her and smiled, ‘you’d better be on your way.’

Anna nodded. ‘I know. G-Goodbye, Mary.’

‘Goodbye, pet.’

Mary watched as Anna turned away from her and walked slowly towards the door. When she reached it, she paused then turned back. ‘W-when the other g-girls ask me about my mother, I’m g-going to tell them about you. Do you th-think that’s all right?’

‘Oh, Anna,’ Mary could not keep the emotion from her voice any longer. ‘If that’s what you’d like to do, I’m sure ’tis grand.’

Anna nodded silently, her huge eyes full of pain.

‘And just remember,’ Mary added, ‘one day you’ll be a great ballerina. Don’t give up on your dream now, will you?’

‘No,’ Anna smiled weakly, ‘I promise, I w-won’t.’

Mary watched from her window as Anna followed Elizabeth Lisle into the car, then stood silently as it drove off down the road. Two hours later, Mary was also packed and ready to go. Elizabeth Lisle had already paid her her final salary and, through Mrs Carruthers, she had secured a room in a boarding house in Baron’s Court a few miles away, to tide her over until she’d cleared her head and decided what to do.

Unable to face any further emotional goodbyes, Mary left letters on the kitchen table for Mrs Carruthers and Nancy. She picked up her suitcase, opened the back door and walked out into an empty future.

So … poor, kind-hearted Mary has been thrown out on to the streets by the wicked step-mother. Perhaps she is the Cinderella of my tale – a mixed metaphor in a fairy-tale sense, so forgive me. And Anna – the Little Orphan – not lacking in privilege, but in love, left to fend for herself at boarding school.

Mary’s letters to her prospective mother-in-law, Bridget, which Grania read so assiduously far into the night, ended here. In retrospect, I understand Mary’s pride would not have allowed her to continue writing home to Sean’s parents.

I know that Grania, on coming to the end of the letters, went to her mother and begged her to tell her what happened to Mary after that. For the purpose of fluidity in the narrative – Reader, I’m becoming rather good at this writing business – I will not bore you with the details of that journey down to the farmhouse, or the cups of tea over which Grania was bound to have heard the rest of the story.

Tea was a big part of our lives at Dunworley Farmhouse.

I rarely drink it these days. It makes me feel sick, but then, most things do.

I digress, again. Now, in any good fairy tale the sad Princess finds happiness with her Prince.

What has always fascinated me is what happens after the ‘Happily Ever After’.

For example, Princess Aurora from The Sleeping Beauty wakes up a century later. Gracious! Can you imagine? Technically, she is one hundred and sixteen years old. Her prince is eighteen. Which is what one might call an age gap. And that’s before she’s dealt with what would be, even in those days, a very different world one hundred years on.

Personally, I wouldn’t put much money on their relationship surviving.

Of course, you might answer, that’s how fairy tales are. And yet, are the trials Princess Aurora would face when she wakes up in Happy-Ever-After Land any different from those Mary may find? If, by chance, she does meet her prince? After all, war – especially one as vicious as that which Mary lived through – inflicts dreadful changes, leaving indelible marks on one’s soul.

Well, we shall see …

The hardest thing about Mary’s new life was the amount of time she had to think. So far during her twenty-nine years, every day that she could remember had been packed with things to ‘do’ for other people. There had always been a task, a
duty
to fulfil for someone else. Now, there was no one to please but herself. Her time was her own and it was endless.

She’d also realised that she’d lived her entire life surrounded by other people. Used to the common parts of every home she had lived in, Mary found the hours alone in her one cramped room unbearably lonely. Thoughts of those she had lost – her parents, her fiancé and the young girl whom she’d loved like her own daughter – assailed her as she sat in front of the mean flame of the gas fire. Others might think it grand to no longer be woken by a bell or a sharp knocking at the door, but for Mary, the lack of being ‘needed’ was an unpleasant revelation.

She had no problem with money – her fifteen years in the Lisle households had provided her with a solid nest egg that could easily keep her going for the next five years. In fact, she could afford to live in far more comfortable surroundings than she was at present.

Mary found herself most afternoons sitting in Kensington Gardens, watching the familiar faces of the
nursemaids caring for their charges. They hadn’t talked to her then and they didn’t talk to her now. She belonged to no one and no one belonged to her. She watched people walking past her, on their way to Somewhere Else.

In her darkest moments, Mary believed there wasn’t a soul that cared whether she lived or died. She was irrelevant, replaceable and unnecessary. Even to Anna, whom she’d poured so much love into – she knew the child would adapt and move on. That was the spirit of youth.

To pass the time, Mary wiled the lonely evening hours away by making herself a whole new wardrobe. She purchased a Singer sewing machine and, by the light of the dim gas lamp, sat at the small table by the window which overlooked Colet Gardens. When she was sewing, her mind was numb, and the creation of something from nothing comforted her. As she sewed, her right arm weary from turning the wheel of the machine, she’d pause and look down at the life outside. Often, she’d see a man leaning against a lamp post directly beneath her. The man looked young – no older than she was – and he’d stand there for hours, staring into the distance.

Mary began to wait for him to appear, usually around six o’clock in the evening, and watched him as he stood by the lamp post, unaware he was being observed. Occasionally, dawn would be breaking before he’d disappear.

His presence comforted Mary. He seemed as lonely as she did.

‘Poor pet,’ she’d whisper to herself as she toasted a crumpet on the gas fire. ‘He’s touched in the head, the lamb.’

The nights drew in and winter approached, yet still the young man appeared by the lamp post. As Mary put on the warm layers of clothes she had made for herself, the man below seemed to pay no heed to the lowering temperature.

One night in November, as Mary arrived home late from having tea with Nancy, she passed him. Stopping, she turned round and studied him. He was a tall man, with fine features – an aquiline nose, a proud chin, his skin pale under the lamplight. He was gaunt to the point of emaciation, but Mary could see that, filled out, he’d be a handsome chap. She carried on up the steps and turned the key in the lock of her front door. Entering her room, she walked immediately to the window and pondered how he could stay still for so long in the bitter cold. Shivering, then lighting the gas fire and wrapping a shawl tightly round her shoulders, Mary had an idea.

A week later, she walked down the steps of her boarding house and went up to the young man, standing in his usual spot.

‘Here, take it. ’Twill keep you warm as you hold that lamp post up.’ Mary proffered the bundle in her arms and waited for a response. For a long time, the young man didn’t acknowledge her, or what she was offering to him. Just as she had decided to turn away, realising he was obviously beyond help, he moved his head towards her, looked down at what she held and gave a weak smile.

‘’Tis a coat, made of wool. To keep you warm while you stand here,’ she prompted.

‘F-F-For me?’ It was as if he was not used to speaking. His voice was hoarse and forced.

‘Yes,’ she reiterated. ‘I live up there,’ Mary pointed to the lighted room above them, ‘and I’ve been watching you. I don’t want you to die of pneumonia on my doorstep,’ she added, ‘so I made it for you.’

He looked down at the bundle, then back at her in astonishment. ‘Y-You made this, f-for
me
?’

‘Yes. Now, will you be taking it from me? ’Tis heavy and I’d be glad if you did.’

‘B-But … I have n-no money with me. I can’t pay you.’

‘It’s a present. While I’m tucked up cosy in there, it upsets my eyes to see you shivering down here. Look at it like I’m doing myself a favour. Take it,’ she urged.

‘I … it’s awfully k-kind of you, miss –?’

‘Mary. My name is Mary.’

He took the coat from her and, with a pair of shaking hands, tried it on.

‘It f-fits p-perfectly! How d-did you … ?’

‘Well now, I did have you standing there every night to look at while I made it.’

‘It’s … the b-best present I’ve ever b-been g-given.’

Mary noticed that, although the man stuttered, he spoke in a clipped accent, like Lawrence Lisle.

‘So now at least I can sleep easier in my bed knowing you’ll be warm. Goodnight, sir.’

‘G-Goodnight, M-Mary. And –’ the look in his eyes as he gazed at her was one of such gratitude, Mary felt the tears spring into her own – ‘th-thank you.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ she replied and hurried up the steps to her front door.

A couple of weeks later, just as Mary was on the point of deciding that her only escape from loneliness was to return to Ireland and live her life as an old maid with Sean’s family, she met Nancy for tea in Piccadilly.

‘Blimey! You look smart!’ Nancy commented as they ordered tea and buttered toast. ‘Where did you get your new coat? I’ve seen it in the magazines, but it costs a bloomin’ fortune. Have you come into the money or what?’

‘I saw it in the magazines too, so I just copied it from the picture.’