The Lost Child (13 page)
Next to it, attached to a scrap of crinkled brown paper, a series of a dozen or so small patchwork circles, tacked together - gingham and stripes and flowers. Pinned to the brown paper, a scrap of white:
Mrs Severne's work done when about 82 years
if
age. I gave her the pattern and she found out how to do it.
Mrs Severne.
Your sister Sarah in her brief seven-month marriage and achingly lengthy widowhood.
And then an intriguing little pencil sketch of your mother teaching you and Nick and Anna your lessons on a wintry Friday afternoon in 1823. Close-cropped hair, pinafores, hands clasped behind backs, attentive faces. And look at you, the smallest - fat, baby-faced girl, your pinafore quite swamping you, the wispy curls on the back of your neck almost kissable.
Card pictures of a bird and its cage, finely detailed in watercolour, are looped together on silk threads.
For Sarah Yelloly with her mother's affection and love, Aug 1837.
I pull gently at the threads, but nothing happens.
On a larger piece of octagonal board, a house and garden, the flowers dewy and bright. With a fine blade, someone has made tiny slits all over the surface of the picture and at the centre is a loop of brown ribbon. Very gently, I lift it, and the house becomes a three-dimensional version of itself Underneath, painted on the card itself, two mice are busy attacking a piece of cheese:
This wire-fenced mansion
Mr Souri's Hall
Is now on sale
And may be viewed by all
Lift up the latch
And peep into the house
But move with caution
Lest you scare the mouse.
A letter has been written by a child on a piece of paper edged in black. The initials in relief at the top,
A.M.S.
Anna Suckling?
My dear Uncle Sam,
I have got the toothache and couldn't eat no dinner hardly. I am very sorry that I didn't say goodbye and I'll ask him where he was that I didn't say goodbye. Which station did you stop at and how did you find your chicken and Grandmamma's horses and how is Harris and please how is Phyllis and Vilet and I forget the others and how is Aunt Sarah's room and all her things and I'll ask him how is the pony chaise and Constance and me and Anna were going to breakfast with Grandmamma and Aunt Sarah and Aunt Harriet, are you not surprised to hear it and I hope it will be fine tomorrow and I send my love to you.
Aunt Sarah and Aunt Harriet.
This is from your sister Anna's daughter, also Anna.
A fold-out painting of Temple Bar in London, done by Sarah, quite crude yet ferociously detailed. And a small sampler of the alphabet, stitched in red cotton, also signed
Sarah Yelloly 1819.
And then something that I instantly recognise. A small white card printed with the following words:
ADMIT
Thos Howe & wife, & George & Maria to a SUPPER on Tuesday next, July 26th, at ¼ before six o'clock.
They are to bring a Knife, Fork, Plate and Mug with them
By order of
S.A. Severne Esq
It has to be one of the invitations to your sister Sarah's wedding supper in the
capacious
bam.
Admit Thos Howe
&
wife,
&
George
&
Maria
. . . Straight away I see a family, husband and wife and two children, making their breathless way towards the bam on a late-summer's afternoon, knives and forks and plates clutched in their hands. Long shadows in the hedgerows, music slipping across the fields.
How, then, did the card survive all these years? Did the Howes drop it on the ground as they went in, leaving it to be kicked around on that hay-strewn bam floor? And did your sister pick it up later and decide to pocket it as a memento, slipping it fondly between the pages of her Bible, or else lodging it among the pressed flowers and sketches in the top drawer of her writing desk?
Something else: wrapped in a piece of paper with
Sophy Yelloly
written on in pencil, is a tiny painted envelope with forget-me-nots on the front tied with a pink bow. A handpainted view of Snowdon on the back.
Inside in tiny writing:
Robert from Sophy and Snowdon from the
[illegible]. In the little envelope are two bits of what look like very old paper, a tiny black piece and a larger transparent one. Nothing written on them. I put them back, somehow subdued by the sense that I've just intruded on something intimate and private.
Another envelope:
Harriet Yelloly Flowers from: the Field of Waterloo July 23rd 1847.
Inside, some long-dead mouldering stems and petals, brown and dried out. And a piece of folded paper containing watercolour cut-outs of wigs and hats which look like they were made to fit on paper dolls.
There's an 1837 edition of the catechism and a
Table of Etiquette
showing how one should properly address the King of England as well as various peers of the realm.
A sketch of Clare Castle, Suffolk, drawn
from an old print.
And some engravings of other British landmarks - Snowdon, Conway Castle etc - pulled from a book and saved. Are these what you copied when you painted your album?
A whole bunch of little watercolour cut-out dolls and figures, some of them with cotton carefully threaded in and knotted, as If they were about to appear in a toy theatre. The best one is a jester - red hat, green waistcoat and red-striped tunic, yellow stockings with garters and inward-pointing feet in red shoes. If you jiggle the cotton his head moves.
Deeper in the trunk, there's an envelope with a coin inside:
Royal Medical Society to J. Yelloly Esq. SIG SOC REG MED CHIR LOND. Non Est Vivere Sed Valere Vita.
Also, a copy of a letter, undated, but written by your father to
The President and Members of the Court and Assistants
If the
Honourable Artillery Company:
Gentlemen,
The late Act of Parliament for the defence of the kingdom afforded me as a Physician exemption from that military service which everyone, except medical men and clergymen, were called upon to perform. I did not however consider it right, in the present momentous crisis of affairs, to avail myself of this privilege, and therefore became a member, nearly three months ago, of the Hon Artillery Company, well assured that in this corps, my humble services would be respectably and usefully directed.
Within a short time it has been suggested to me that as my profession may even be more useful than military services . . .
A folded-over piece of brown paper has the words:
Miscellaneous manuscripts chiefly written by our dear Groome when he was a young man, for sweet Sophy my sister to whom he was engaged. She died of consumption before their marriage.
Woodton - A Satire - Oak Room, Woodton, April 27th 1837 presented by me, R.B. Groome and dedicated to the Lady Sophy by her Humble Servant The Author.
And that's almost it. Except that, at the very bottom of the box, under Robert Groome's collected poetical works, are two faint pencil sketches done by your sister Anna. Two girls.
The first has a sharp, intelligent face, slender nose, hair piled on top of her head, a couple of long ringlets hanging down. Earrings. A rope of pearls around her neck. It's captioned
My Dearest Jane
and is dated September 1838, three months after her death.
The other girl is younger, her hair loose, curls tumbling down to her shoulders. Her dress is a young person's dress - sash and bows. On the back is written:
My Beloved Sister Mary
and the same date. It's you, drawn three months after your death.
The only difference between the picture of you and the one of Jane is that, although your hair and clothes are drawn with care and in some detail, unlike Jane - for reasons unknown to anyone but Anna - you have no face.
Last of all, right at the bottom of the trunk, among the hairs and dust and a few stray pins, some slim notebooks.
Sarah's Journal
if
a Visit to London May
1829. And four volumes of a journal written by your brother Sam when he was living in London and in Ipswich and seeming to span the years 1835 to 1838, the year you died.
But that's not all. There are two others. One flimsy and small, dated July 1828. Another, dated 1830, fatter and bound with an emerald green silk ribbon. The handwriting is neat, but childish. The author is Mary Yelloly aged thirteen and a half My heart speeds up. These are your journals.
My stepfather was a chartered surveyor and when I was thirteen and a half he brought me something he got free at the office. A white, ring-bound Halifax Building Society diary with pictures of Winston Churchill and Charles Dickens on the front. On 1 January 1974, I wrote:
I have decided to keep a diary. I hope it will be a comfort for me to read through it occasionally and see how lucky I am.
Your journal for 1830 - covering just a few brief summer weeks when you were that age - is a thin brown home-made book about 8 inches by 4, a few sheaves of rough brown paper gathered together and stitched, a bit of green silk ribbon threaded through.
The lines and margins have been drawn by hand. The handwriting is faded - brown ink, twirls on some of the larger capital letters.
My own teenage diary is written mostly in Biro.
Monday, 13 May 1974:
Back to school. Went into Arboretum in art. Drew primroses. Had a lecture on Macbeth in the afternoon. Oh why am I so sad? I don't like Daddy, imagine, my own father! He is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Mummy says he is mentally ill . . . Lily (my doll) is staring at me . . I think she knows. Now I'm crying. Oh dear.
Thursday, 13 May 1830:
From 8 to 12
Heard Ellen her music. Had breakfast. Went to Mrs Hudson wrote English Ex, practised half hour.
12 to 2
Squeezed lemons helped to divide A's margins put on [illegible] .
2 to 5
Had dinner. Helped to make cake then made part of a frill practised half hour.
5 to 7
Had tea made lemon sponge had fruit turned out lemon sponge the Hudsons came.
7 to 10
Read.
Thursday, 25 July 1974:
We 3 made a beautiful cake for Mummy's birthday. Mummy came in and found Mandy and I fighting. She was so angry. I apologised and I meant it but she sent me up to my room when I told her the truth. I hate her for it.
Friday 26 July
Quite a nice day.
Saturday 27 July
I'm afraid I don't understand myself
Sunday 28 July
An extraordinary weekend. I don't know if I enjoyed it or hated it.
Monday 29 July
Fairly ordinary day. Didn't do much. Baked a cake, finished my novel, wrote my diary. Felt a bit sick in the night.
Tuesday, 31 May 1830:
1 From ½ 8 to 10
Worked at chemisette, had breakfast.
10 to 2
Bound screen. Made sago. Had luncheon.
2 to 5
Read prayers, bound part of screen. Took a walk down Trowse.
5 to 11
Had dinner. Worked at chemisette. Finished chemisette.
Wrote journal.
Wednesday June 1st
½ 8 to 10
Took some inks spots out of chemisette.
What I Must Achieve 1974
Write to tea company
Finish my novel
Write to Dr Barnardo's
Make some pies
Write to RSPCA about little dogs in Trinity pet shop
Books Which I Have Read 1830
Tales of the Crusades
Flirtation
Grandfather's Tales
The Country Curate
Part of Mrs Beroc's [?] Journal
Caleb Williams
Rhoda
I began writing my first real novel in the bitter winter months after our daughter was born. Our boy was just two, his little brother (though we didn't know it then) just a couple of months from being conceived.
It was pure coincidence that my father decided to kill himself the night our girl was born, but it didn't feel like it. New Year's Day 1991 was exactly when she was due (and when, in the early hours, after we had drunk a little too much champagne, she decided to come). It was also the time for suicides. As the edge of the old year tipped into the new, our daughter (6lbs 120Z, blue-eyed, pale-skinned, no hair) slipped into the world and my father - drunk on whisky and gulping exhaust fumes - slipped out.
I could hardly take it in. Cushioned by happiness and hormones, I was unable to experience the full shock of it. It really took another whole year - and the birth of another baby (7lbs 140Z, black hair, ruddy-faced) - before it really hit. Then I made up for it. As if!'d finally grasped what had happened, I panicked.
I developed scary headaches, saw flashing lights, felt I could not breathe. My heart raced. Sometimes I felt as if someone was sitting on my chest.
I tried to focus, literally and metaphorically, on my newborn baby, but his small face was getting further and further away. Convinced I was about to die, I finally saw a neurologist, who told me I was fine and said: By the way, what a lovely baby boy. He told me all I needed was a bit of rest.
I don't know if! believed him. I wanted to believe him. I said I believed him. I didn't believe him.
As far as I can remember, I continued to care for my three small children quite normally throughout this time, but what if! didn't? I didn't think my hysteria extended to them. They were my darlings, my saviours, they were all I desired in this life. I did not believe for one moment that they could pick up on what I was feeling. But what if I was wrong? What if they did?
In photos taken at the time - one baby on my lap, one in my arms, one at my feet, I look: fine, happy and shiny and pretty. Or: thin and young and petrified. It all depends what you're looking for.
I remember then, just as now, finding fast cars a bit too much to deal with. The impulse to stop, to pull in. And I remember thinking about death quite a lot too - not especially my father's death, just death generally.