Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (11 page)

‘You've tried to go in then, have you, dear?' Mavis smiled, one eye now on the door. ‘But of course it always is locked. Always has been. Ever since—' She looked round fully at the door now, hearing Hester returning. ‘The key's in the old cocoa tin. If you ever feel so inclined,' she quickly finished, before sliding her ample frame off the chair and back into her own by the fireside.

It was wrong to go prying into a room that was kept locked, which of course made it somehow irresistible. Now, her aunt out on business, Marjorie found herself standing on a chair in the kitchen, inevitably reaching up to the cocoa tin. She stared at the key and, replacing the top on the tin, made her way out of the kitchen before beginning to climb slowly and quietly up the narrow staircase to the locked room. A few seconds later, having taken one deep breath, she put the key in the door, and opened it.

The room was curtained and dark, so dark that at first Marjorie was unable to make out anything at all, except where thin slits of light filtered from a shuttered window that looked out on to the narrow, suburban front garden. Making her way across the room she banged her shin on something hard and wooden before reaching the heavy metal clasp that held the shutters together. Pulling them back seemed to suddenly create a cloud of fine dust, as the autumn sunlight flooded the room, and she slowly turned to see what she had uncovered.

It was evident straight away that it was a boy's room, and to judge from the school photographs of cricket and football teams he had been a sporting youngster, and one of whom his school thought a great deal. Besides the usual mementoes of scarves and caps, there was also a notice announcing that Richard Hendry had been elected to the captaincy of the Cricket XI. It was all strangely, quietly sad, with some objects so carefully placed that they made you stare. A cricket bat that had been left resting against a bed whose pillow was embellished with a much worn teddy bear. A small wardrobe in the corner containing clothes that were few in number but immaculately laundered and pressed, as well as three pairs of shoes, one pair of whitened cricket boots and a pair of football boots.

But what took Marjorie's eye most of all was the photograph hanging directly above the bedhead. It was of a happy teenage boy with his mother, and it was to the image of her aunt that Marjorie's attention was drawn. Instead of the gaunt, unsmiling,
drably dressed person with whom Marjorie now spent most of her days, there, with her son standing beside her in his best suit, was a woman who was beautiful in her happiness, her hair thick and glossy, her eyes calm as she gazed out at the photographer, her hands not knitting frantically, or winding wool as if her life depended on it, but resting calmly in her lap.

After a few seconds Marjorie hastened to the shutters, fastening them quickly, blacking out the room once more, unable to contain her sense of shock at the changed person that she knew as ‘Aunt Hester'. More than that, to her shame, she realised she felt jealous of the boy who stood in his grey flannel suit and white shirt behind his seated mother, a loving protective hand resting on her shoulder. He had loved his mother, and Aunt Hester had loved him. It was something that Marjorie realised with an aching heart she had never known, and probably never would.

That afternoon Marjorie had tea ready for her aunt's return, the kettle simmering, waiting to be poured on the leaves in the already warmed pot, the two slices of bread lying on the rack of the grill waiting to be toasted.

Aunt Hester nodded at her niece through the open kitchen door as she hung her coat up on the stand in the hall. Seeing her, Marjorie quickly set about her teatime duties, hurrying, eager to please, in a way she had not been before entering the locked room.

‘There's no need to do that for me, Marjorie,' Mrs Hendry remarked as Marjorie spread her
hot toast for her. ‘You always use far too much butter.'

‘I just thought I'd do it while the toast was still hot, Aunt Hester. Did you have a nice afternoon?'

‘Please don't use the word “nice”. Use any word but that. I had a very
uninteresting
afternoon, thank you.'

Marjorie found herself at a loss for words without quite knowing why. Her aunt had said nothing accusatory, and yet there was already a distinct atmosphere as they settled down to their usual teatime ritual, her aunt watching her carefully, as she always did, making sure that she poured the tea correctly, that the lump sugar was offered, with the tongs, that the paper doily that was placed under the biscuits to set off their charms was clean and perfect, that the jam spoon was set beside the jam, that the hot water jug was polished to the point where she could see the reflection of her hand as she reached for it. And yet all the time Marjorie knew that today was different, although she could not for the life of her say why.

‘If you're interested, Marjorie,' Aunt Hester stated, finally, without a trace of emotion, putting her teacup carefully down on her saucer, ‘Richard was run down on his way back from the shops. It wasn't his fault. He had just come out of the corner shop when a lorry lost control and mounted the pavement. It killed Richard outright, so they told me, and the poor boy he was with.'

There was a long silence as Marjorie realised that Aunt Hester knew she'd been into the spare room without permission.

‘I'm sorry, Aunt Hester,' she said quietly, staring
down at the embroidered flowers on the tablecloth. ‘I really am.'

‘That Richard was killed? Or that you couldn't resist going to his room and prying? All you had to do was ask me, you know. I keep the room locked not to stop people going in, but to prevent anything getting out.'

Marjorie looked up in surprise. Her aunt's tone was so changed. It was as if something had been released in her, as if by catching Marjorie out she was actually feeling some sort of relief, as if she had been waiting to tell her niece about the room, about the tragedy, but had not quite dared. Marjorie stared at her, feeling that her aunt was no longer aware of her, but staring instead back into the past, to unimaginable pain.

‘I really am sorry, Aunt Hester,' she said eventually.

‘Of course you're sorry,' her aunt agreed. ‘You're sorry that I found out, but not so sorry that you went in.' She leaned across the table, looking more calm than Marjorie. ‘More than that. You are curious as to how I found out that you went in without going upstairs.'

‘Well—'

‘Of course you are. Why shouldn't you be? I would be.' She paused, and smiled suddenly. ‘You see, I always leave the cocoa tin in the same position. I have done so, as a matter of habit, for years. That way I can tell if anyone's moved it the moment I come in. I can tell from the position of the letters. As I said, it isn't locked to keep people out, but to keep my Richard in, as he was, his memory always there. That's why the door is kept locked.'

‘But it was wrong—'

‘Mavis told you where the key was.' Aunt Hester looked at her, her mouth twisted into a sort of half smile. ‘I should have known. That would be old Mavis all over.'

‘I'm still sorry. I mean I'm sorry not because it's wrong—'

‘What then?'

‘Because I wish you'd told me before, I suppose.'

For the first time she could remember Marjorie saw her aunt looking surprised.

‘You'd have preferred that, would you?' she finally asked. ‘I see. In that case I'm the one who's sorry.'

‘No. No, you don't have to be sorry, Aunt Hester. I mean not on my account. Although I suppose—'

Marjorie petered out, realising in the nick of time that she might be heading for waters out of her depth.

‘I can't be sorry, Marjorie. Not any more,' Aunt Hester said, pouring herself more tea. ‘Rather I shouldn't be. I was sorry all right. I was sorry right up to – well. All I can say is I'm not going to be sorry any more. Life's too short, and besides, quite frankly, I've used up most of my ration of sorrow. What I must be, what I am, is proud. Yes, that's the word – I'm proud. That's what I am. I'm proud I had a boy like Richard, but I will not go on feeling sorry for myself because he's not here with me. It is a waste of time. Of course I will always miss him, but I will not feel sorry for myself. I will know that I was lucky to have him with me when I did. Now, let us have some more tea.'

Marjorie wanted to take Aunt Hester's hand, to hug her, to do something to show her that she was feeling love for her, but since her aunt wasn't even looking at her any more she decided the best course was to do just as she was told and put on more toast.

When she turned back from the stove she saw her aunt was on her feet reaching up to the top shelf of the dresser for the cocoa tin. She sat back down at the table, unscrewed the top and took out the key.

‘After we've had our tea, Marjorie,' she said, ‘you and I will go upstairs and open up Richard's room. And we'll leave it open. And the key in the lock. So that's that.'

But beside the door being unlocked, everything in their lives remained the same, despite Marjorie's hoping that her aunt would change, and somehow turn back into the beautiful, radiant woman she had seen in the photograph. Not surprisingly, the return to the status quo made Marjorie vaguely resentful, as if she had opened a beautifully wrapped gift, only to find nothing inside – until the day she received a letter.

Marjorie had often written to Billy, but never received a reply. In her letters Marjorie always made sure to explain why she hadn't been able to say goodbye to him and Maisie, and continued to do so each time she wrote. Perhaps in some desperation, she finally took the bull by the horns and, without reference to Aunt Hester, invited Billy to spend Christmas with them.

‘Letter for you,' Aunt Hester announced one
morning at breakfast, a meal always eaten in silence while Aunt Hester concentrated on her copy of the
Daily Sketch
. ‘Not like you to be getting letters.'

Noting the spidery writing on the front as well as the postmark, Marjorie found her hands trembling as she opened it.

‘Are you going to tell me who it's from then? Or am I going to have to read it for myself? When you're at the shops.'

Marjorie looked up from her reading, not sure whether this was intended as a rebuke, or light sarcasm.

‘It's from the boy I told you about, Aunt Hester,' Marjorie replied. ‘Billy at the Dump, or rather Mrs Reid's school—' she corrected herself quickly, but Aunt Hester was on to her at once.

‘I do wish you wouldn't call it that, Marjorie dear. It conjures up the most horrible picture.'

‘It wasn't my word for it, it was Billy's, actually.'

‘Hmm. So what's this Billy want then? Not a handout, I hope, because I'm a poor woman, Marjorie.'

‘No, no, nothing like that, Aunt Hester,' Marjorie said hurriedly.

She folded Billy's letter, excitedly accepting the invitation to come and spend Christmas with them, and carefully replaced it in the envelope before slipping it into her pocket. Her aunt said nothing more about it, and the letter remained in the pocket of Marjorie's skirt for the rest of the morning before being put in the little desk her aunt had recently installed in her tiny bedroom.

The next day Marjorie sat down and wrote to
Billy to say that she was afraid she couldn't ask him for Christmas after all. She gave the letter to her aunt to be posted, and heard nothing more back from Billy, which as usual came as no surprise.

In spite of this, Marjorie found herself looking forward to Christmas. All the previous Christmases she could remember had been at the boarding school. Since Pet and Uncle Mikey hadn't liked children, there had been no attempt to include those left in their care over the holidays in their own celebrations. The only glimpses their charges had of Christmas was a sight of their tree when they distributed the children's token gifts, a tangerine or a small bag of nuts wrapped in brown paper.

As Christmas drew nearer Marjorie became increasingly excited at the lengths her aunt appeared to be going to in her arrangements. It was not just the purchase of a proper tree to place in the sitting room, it was the jaunt to Woolworth's to buy tinsel and a box of glinting silver glass ornaments for the tree, a small fairy with a wand for the top and two of the most glamorous decorations Marjorie had ever seen – paper bells that when opened out revealed themselves to be made of bright yellow, blue, red and green quarters. These were hung in solemn state on either side of the fireplace.

There was one slight difficulty that Marjorie still had to overcome and that was how to afford the gift she had in mind for Aunt Hester. The day before Christmas Eve she faced the proprietor of the shop with her dilemma.

‘I thought if I gave you what I'd saved out of my
pocket money so far – which is five shillings and sixpence – I could then give you sixpence a week for the next fourteen weeks. If that would be all right?'

‘No it would not be all right, young lady, and even if I was to let you break the law in that way, you'd have to pay me back a lot more than fourteen sixpences. You'd be looking to pay me back more like
forty
sixpences. What's called interest, see?'

‘Why should that be of interest?'

‘Not
of
interest,' the proprietor said curtly. ‘
Interest
. The money you are required to pay on top of the asking price in deals such as the one you're suggesting. You borrow money – you pay for it.'

He put out a hand to ruffle Marjorie's hair, but she quickly stepped back from him.

‘But like I just said,' he continued, ‘you're not old enough, so it's cash up front or nothing at all, Christmas or no Christmas.'

Marjorie eyed the object of her desire, the delicately wrought bracelet studded with brilliant mauve stones, and wished there was something she could sell or do to earn the extra seven shillings that she needed.