Burnt Norton (30 page)

‘My name is Charles, miss.’

She gasped. ‘Charles? Charles who?’

‘Charles Coram,’ he replied.

Molly was silent, the breath knocked from her body. She leant against the wall to steady herself.

‘That can’t be. My son is dead.’ Every fibre of her being wanted to believe him, but her rational mind said it was impossible.

‘But it’s true, you have to believe me. Don’t you recognize anything about me?’ The young man was frantic. Doubt made him panic. Was the woman in front of him his mother; the woman he had searched for? If it was, would she accept him? His good leg felt weak and he worried he would fall. He was frightened, more frightened than he had ever been before. Moses had told him to come here, his dear friend who had seen the lady carrying the exact same embroidered heart that Charles Coram kept with him always. Perhaps he’d been wrong and the address he had found at the hospital was out of date. This was Sir Thomas’s house – how could his mother live here?

‘If you are my mother, I believe you made this for me,’ he said, his hands clumsy as he pulled something from his pocket. He edged nearer to her. In his palm lay the small embroidered heart, grubby with years of handling, the edges worn and tattered. Molly stared at it, remembering again the moment she had handed over her child.

‘It can’t be true,’ she whispered as the young man stared at her with steady eyes, blue eyes like Thomas’s.

‘But it is. It’s me.’

They remained silent while she studied him. Was this some cruel trick?

‘How?’ she said at last. ‘How are you here, when they told me you were dead?’

‘I didn’t die. My will to live was stronger – my need to find you.’ The young man found his voice, and as he spoke she listened. She heard how the mast that had nearly killed him had ultimately saved him, keeping him afloat in the turbulent water; she learnt of the fisherman who had rescued him and taken him home to his family, splinting his shattered leg, nursing him back to health.

‘And so,’ he said at last, ‘I worked my way home on a merchant ship. The thought of finding you saved me. It’s what kept me going, but then I was scared you wouldn’t want me and so I worked in the inn for my board, and I worked here in memory of Sir Thomas, the man who was most kind to me.’

They kept the truth to themselves; Dorothy must never know. Only one person was invited to share in their reunion and joy.

‘If Lady Keyt ever hears, it won’t be from my lips,’ Ruth swore, her eyes dancing. ‘Now where is he?’ As Charles entered the sitting room, she was at a loss for words.

‘Well,’ she pronounced at last, ‘you’re a fine bonny lad if ever there was one, and as God is my witness, you’re more like your father than he was.’

‘This is Charles,’ Molly said, her eyes shining, ‘my son.’

Time past and time future

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

The train sped on. Edward leant against the window, lulled by the comforting repetition of steel against steel. Through heavy lids he watched the landscape flash by, until at last his eyes closed. He was going home, returning to the house that had captured his imagination and his heart.

He remembered his first visit, that hot day at the end of summer, a boy propelled from childhood into a strange new world. His journey had taken him into the past, into a family torn by tragedy; he and his stepfather had pieced the story together until the jigsaw was complete. They had discovered the theatre, hidden for centuries in the undergrowth. They had found the name Thomas Charles Edward Keyt carved into a desk at Eton, and on a night he would never forget, he had crossed the line between the present and the past.

It was the night of the leavers’ concert, his last performance at school, and as the windscreen wipers battled ineffectively against the driving rain, the school gates closed behind them for the last time. Conroy, Edward and his mother were silent, each lost in their own thoughts. When they arrived at the house, Edward climbed from the car. Pulling his jacket over his head, he ran across the courtyard, into the house and upstairs to his bedroom. With the wind rattling against the window panes he lay down and shut his eyes, the music from the concert still ringing in his ears. Some time later he opened them. The wind and the rain had gone, the air was balmy and warm, and he found himself in the upper garden. He felt no surprise to discover that the theatre was prepared for a concert, an audience in place. A hush descended, and the conductor tapped his baton on the music stand. The choir began. And Edward knew the music; it was the solo from Handel’s
Messiah
, the solo from the leavers’ concert. He stepped forward to sing.

When he awoke the following morning, Edward noticed a loose floorboard by his bed. He lifted it easily, finding a space below. There, hidden between the joists, he found a large, leather-bound book. Sitting down, the book cradled in his arms, he touched the crumbling spine, brushed the dust from the brittle cover. As he opened the first page, Miss Byrne’s fairytales, hidden for so many years, came to light once more. If the stories were initially unfamiliar, he recognized the ending to each and every one.

When a delicate ribbon bookmark indicated a change of hand, he whispered the name to the silent, empty room. He knew with a certainty he couldn’t explain that this was the girl he had glimpsed in the window: Elizabeth who had filled his dreams, the girl with the sea-mist eyes. In this book, through her selfless voice, the Keyt family were revealed. He was shocked, too, to read about himself:
I
believe I saw the strange young man again. Is he is a figment of my imagination? It doesn’t really matter any more, because in my mind he is real
.

And he came to her closing words:

Dear loved ones,

Do not weep for me. Open this book and I am with you. Look upwards in the sky and you will see me liberated from my chains. Look upwards, for like the kite, I will be free.

Edward gazed at the window
uncertainly. He had seen her in this house. What did that mean? Had she found her freedom?

Then the writing changed again into a hand laden with suffering.

Death is everywhere: my brother, Ophelia, and now my sister, too. Is there any justice?

And Dorothy revealed her jealousy and anguish:

I have to keep her out of our lives, for Miss Johnson would destroy us.

I did not give my brother the only letter from his son, for I am a coward,

I have seen her sketches. They are visions of hell, but like Ruth I couldn’t burn them.

Forgive me, Elizabeth.

There were letters tucked inside – letters from Eton, from Elizabeth, from Sir William on the eve of his death. These fragile testimonies of love and life remained. Edward read them all. One stood apart from the rest: the letter from Charles Coram, a foundling boy on the eve of battle. Edward read it slowly. Dorothy had manipulated the life of a young boy. By revealing her sins, had she hoped for absolution? He sank to the bed, his legs giving way beneath him. He felt sure that she was there in the shadows, begging forgiveness.

I have done my worst. Let those who find this, judge me as I should be judged. May God forgive me, for I am a sinner and I have betrayed them all.

He shut the book, then opened it once more, drawn to a single line:
I have seen her sketches.
He looked to the void beneath the floorboards, pulled towards an unseen yet certain goal. He knelt down, and with his torch, swept the empty space. The beam shone on a narrow opening. Just as he suspected, something was wedged there. Getting a screwdriver, he levered the board until it broke with a crack, releasing the contents. The pad was large and brittle; he lifted it out with care. For a moment he stood motionless. Dorothy had hidden it; perhaps it was best left alone. Then, holding his breath, he opened the cover.

Elizabeth Keyt.
The name was scrawled across the page, black charcoal scored onto white paper, as if the very act of writing was a declaration of misery. He lifted another page and gasped. The gentle face he’d seen in the window masked a tormented soul. Sketch after sketch of desperation devoured the pages. Elizabeth had not accepted her plight; privately, she railed.

Taking the sketchbook, he went downstairs. Checking to see if he was alone, he walked quickly towards the old kitchen garden. Pushing open the door he could smell the remains of yesterday’s bonfire. Hens pecked behind the high brick wall, and in the distance a car clattered over the cattle grid. He stood beside the dying embers, hesitant, holding the pad in front of him like a sacrifice. Before he could change his mind, he hurled the pad into the middle of the bonfire. There it rested amongst the rotting vegetation until, with new kindling, the flames took hold. Edward felt a heavy burden drop from his chest as the paper blackened, flared up and finally reduced to a pile of ashes. Walking back to the rose garden, he felt certain it was over. ‘It’s finished, Elizabeth,’ he whispered to the sun-filled silence. ‘I’ve finally set you free.’ In the window above him, only light moved across the irregular glass.

At Conroy’s suggestion, they visited Coram Fields. Only a playground remained, a green oasis amongst the traffic. Leaning against the solitary yew tree, Edward closed his eyes. Children filed through the gardens before him, wearing brown uniforms with red trim. When he opened his eyes, the cars hooted once more, and the children had vanished. In the Hospital Museum, amongst the inventories, the billet books, the petitions by mothers, the accounts, the rules and more rules, he saw the keepsakes, the tokens of love and of desperation, of hope and of hopelessness. They found an entry in the register, Charles Coram no. 171, admission date 10th November, 1741.

Edward woke as the train pulled into Moreton-in-Marsh station. He had reached his destination. He picked up the worn copy of the
Four Quartets
from the seat beside him, a present from Conroy on his twenty-first birthday, put it carefully in the breast pocket of his jacket and rummaged in the other pocket for the car keys. After stepping down onto the quiet country platform, he went to find the car. He passed through Chipping Campden, his eyes seeking the corbels and elaborate capitals that dressed the simple village houses. Some of the stonework was charred, some was a little broken, for it had been plundered from the ruins of two much grander houses: Campden House, the seat of the Gainsborough family, burnt by its Royalist owner Lord Noel in the civil war; and Over Norton House, burnt by Sir William Keyt. Two men, both involved in the destruction of their houses, and in the death of their dreams. As he drove on past the almshouses, the gatehouse, and through the Norton entrance pillars, he reflected that in some way the dreams of these two men did live on, though not as they may have imagined. These relics were testimony to their lives.

His mother opened the door. ‘You have some letters in the hall,’ she said, hugging him. He collected them and, taking a jumper from the peg, retreated to the wild garden. Sitting on the bench beside the dry, empty pools, he looked at the large brown envelope:

Edward Coram James

Burnt Norton

Chipping Campden

He opened it, drawing out a letter and a piece of copy paper. He put the envelope on the bench beside him and read the first.

Dear Edward,

I live locally and I’ve heard you are searching for information on the Keyt family. I am enclosing the copy of an entry from a diary that has been passed down through my family for generations. My grandmother gave it to me before she died. Apparently it was found amongst the possessions of Dorothy Paxton-Hooper and now eight generations after my ancestor’s death, I believe it may be of particular interest to you. I am reluctant to send the diary itself, so will call by in the next few days. I believe for the obvious reasons you will wish to see it.

Regards,

Helen Keyt

Edward shivered and his heart lurched uncomfortably. What would this hold?

In the distance a motorbike roared through the country lanes. He waited until it had passed, then unfolded the second page.

Many years have passed, but still our story continues.

Now in my sixth decade I have made my last pilgrimage to Norton. My dear husband has passed away after a long illness, and my children gone. How strange to return in the twilight of my life, and though my memory is dulled with age, remorse endures. The caretaker’s son lives there now. From him I learnt that Sir Dudley Ryder is dead. His son, the first Baron Harrowby, rarely visits Norton. The house remains empty.

Ruth met me by arrangement; she is old now and fat. She lives comfortably on the stipend from my mother
– how well she served our family. She told me that ten months after his presumed death, Charles Coram found his way to England, and in July of that same year he was reunited with his mother. I don’t know where his life has taken him, and the question is not mine to ask, but Molly is happy with her adored son and has at last shown me mercy. I thank God her heart is bigger than my own. I never gave him the ring, the one that was worn by his grandfather. Instead, I returned it to the Roman. I climbed the hill and buried it with my bare hands. I hope that the curse on my blighted family will now be buried too.

May you, the future generations, attest to this.

Dorothy Paxton-Hooper, 1779

Edward stared at the entry for a long moment, and then, holding it tightly, he ran from the pools. Panting, he reached the house and went inside. He leant against the wall, breathing deeply, trying to gather his emotions. He could no longer see the children, and he would no longer see the girl in the window. Despite his relief, he felt bitterly disappointed. Amongst the secrets and the ghosts, the past had finally taken its place.