Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin
The Lost Ancestor (35 page)
‘But your children?’ Edie interrupted.
‘They’re not my children anymore—they were
stolen from me and they’ve lived for fourteen years believing that they are who
they are. Do you honestly think they’d thank me for trying to take them
away? That we could suddenly play happy families after all these
years? That Caroline and the Mansfields would just sit back and let me
take them with no evidence whatsoever that they’re mine? Edie, not a
single day has passed when I haven’t imagined taking them back and us building
a life together, but it
cannot
happen. Think. Who would
benefit? Not me, not them, not their parents.’
A long protracted silence clung to Mary’s
words as the two sisters looked at each other and sobbed.
Mary broke the silence. ‘You’re
welcome to stay here for a few days but then you must go back to England, back
to your life and forget all about me. If I ever return to England it will
be when all traces of the past have disappeared.
Monday
8
th
October 1962
The
funeral was over. Mary had watched the mourners leave the church and file
in a long black procession to Edith’s house, where refreshments were being
provided. Returning to Winchelsea for the first time in more than fifty
years was unbearably difficult and had really taken its toll on her
health. She was sixty-nine years old now and, for the first time in her
life, was beginning to feel her age. But today it would all be over: the
past would finally be put to rest.
She was sitting on a wooden bench just
beyond the low stone wall of the church on Friar’s Road, as conflicting
memories—sad and happy, past and present—flashed into her mind. An
elevated discussion from within the churchyard made her turn. With
surprisingly dry eyes, she watched as the church sexton and another helper
prepared to shovel the mound of clay-brown soil into the void above Edith’s
coffin. Mary watched as they began to attack the pile, their shovels
scooping up clods alternately. There was almost a musical rhythm to their
work.
In just forty minutes, Edith’s coffin was
interred and the gravediggers had gone, leaving a plethora of bouquets and
wreaths on the grave.
Mary stood and quietly entered the
deserted churchyard. She wove her way slowly across the grass, around
headstones and footstones until she reached the grave.
‘In loving memory of Katherine Mercer,
born 2
nd
March 1870, died 8
th
December 1932. A
wonderful mother and wife. Also, Thomas Mercer, husband of the above,
born 21
st
April 1870, died 1
st
November 1938.’
Her parents’ grave, and now her sister’s
grave.
Mary stifled her tears with a handkerchief
as she leant a single white rose against the grey stone. Wrapped around
the rose was her silver locket containing Edith’s photo. Images of the
pair of them receiving them for their birthday filled her head.
How
happy we once were,
Mary thought.
‘Hello,’ a male voice said softly,
startling Mary.
She turned to see a young man—she guessed
in his twenties—with a handsome face and a neat dark quiff. He was
dressed in black and his red swollen eyes told Mary that he was here to mourn
her twin. ‘Hello,’ she replied stiltedly. She had no wish to speak
to anyone, lest they discover her identity.
‘You knew her, then?’ he said, indicating
the grave.
Mary nodded. ‘From a very long time
ago, yes.’
‘She was my granny,’ the man said, with a
slight whimper at the end of his sentence.
Now that he had said it, Mary could see
some of Edie’s angular features in his face. ‘Charles’s son?’ she asked.
‘That’s right—did you know him?’ he said.
‘I didn’t ever meet him, no.’
The man looked disappointed. ‘I
barely knew him. He was killed in the war when I was only nine years
old.’
‘That must have been awful for you,’ Mary
said.
‘It wasn’t the best time of my life,’ he
muttered. He looked at Mary with a quizzical look. ‘You seem
familiar. Have we met?’
Mary’s stomach suddenly lurched. She
could
tell Edie’s grandson everything but that wasn’t what she had come
to do. That was never the plan. She laughed. ‘No, definitely
not. I must have one of those faces.’
The man seemed satisfied. He smiled
and offered his hand. ‘My name’s Ray—Ray Mercer.’
Mary shook his hand. ‘Martha.’
She took a breath and, with one last look at the grave, began to turn.
‘It was nice to meet you, Ray.’
‘Likewise.’
Mary ambled through the churchyard and had
almost reached the gate when she spotted something from the corner of her
eye. It was a large stone tomb with a life-size angel perched on the
top. It hadn’t been there when she was a child, so she was intrigued to
take a look.
Mary gasped and clutched at her
chest. It was the grave of Lady Rothborne, Cecil and Philadelphia
Mansfield. The very people who had blighted her whole life. The
initial revulsion that she had experienced quickly turned into relief.
They were gone and had no hold over her.
Mary left the churchyard without looking
back. It would be her one and only visit. She walked down Friar’s
Road, absorbing every detail of the passing houses. Very little had
changed in the fifty-one years that had elapsed. She stopped outside her
former home and stared up at her bedroom window. Memories of that fateful
day in 1911 when she had accompanied Edith to her job interview returned.
It was the one day in history that, if she could, she would go back and
change. She would have stayed at home, curled up in front of the fire
with a good book and never set foot in Blackfriars.
Mary continued her journey down the road
until she reached the back entrance of Blackfriars. The large black gates
were now rusted and set permanently open. Apprehensively, she walked in
and began her journey down that familiar path, as if only a few months had
passed since the last time. The orchard came into view and Mary stopped
in her tracks. She had to visit the abbey ruins one last time.
Crossing through the orchard, Mary reached
the ruins. She entered them, half expecting to see Edward’s beaming smile
appear from behind the archway. But it was deserted. She noticed
the slab of sandstone where she and Edward had often sat was still in roughly
the same position. She crouched down and carefully ran her fingers over
its surface. Fifty years had weathered away the carved initials, leaving
only an indistinct indentation where they had once been. She smiled as
more memories poured into her mind. The mental wall that she had raised
against her past was beginning to crack. Time was running out. She
bent down and gathered up a handful of large pieces of sandstone and began
filling her pockets until they bulged, like ripe fruit about to burst open.
Heading back to the main path, Mary saw Blackfriars
for the first time. She shuddered and stared. Somehow it seemed
larger and more terrifying than it had once appeared.
With the building in front of her, she
turned and could see the lake. In the centre was the folly that had held
her captive for so many months. As if being operated like a puppet, Mary
walked towards the water in a trance.
The past was returning.
She reached the water’s edge and,
oblivious to the members of the public milling around her, placed a foot in the
water. Spikes of freezing pain bit at her ankle, but she did not feel
them. Putting her other foot in, she began to wade into the lake.
The water rose, quickly climbing over her stone-filled pockets up to her chest.
‘Hey! What are you doing?’ a shocked
voice called from the bank. ‘Someone get help!’
‘What’s she doing? She’s going to
drown!’ another voice cried.
Mary didn’t hear the voices; the cold
water had risen over her ears. Yet she kept moving on, stumbling over
debris on the lake bed, onwards. She opened her mouth and allowed the
water to rush inside her, expelling the last remnants of air from her lungs.
The wall in her mind cracked and she was
back in the harrowing dark days of 1911.
She had packed up her suitcase and left
her room empty, her employment at Blackfriars over. She had no idea why
Lady Rothborne had encouraged her to try on Philadelphia’s dresses only to deny
all knowledge. Of course, she knew now. As she had left the
building and made her way back home, Bastion and Risler had gagged her then dragged
her into a boat where they had incarcerated her in the folly, locked away like
some helpless princess. The folly. It had been her prison for so
many months. Nobody had visited her, only Risler had brought her food and
drink and Dr Leyden had come to check on her pregnancy. One night she
thought she had heard Edward calling her name. She was sure it had been
him. Then Risler had said that Edward was dead. When the day came,
she had been carried into the main house to give birth. It was only then
that she had heard the word ‘babies’ used for the first time. She had
been carrying twins. Edward’s twins. Just when she had given up any
hope of being able to keep her children, Caroline had arrived and held her hand
throughout the birth. She had just caught a glimpse of a shock of red
hair on her boy’s head as he was handed over to Philadelphia Mansfield.
The second baby, a girl, had been handed to her elder sister. She had
lost her Edward and now she had lost her children. She had no fight in her
and the thought of the workhouse was always at the forefront of her mind.
She would rather die than end up there. She got herself a passport in
Martha Stone’s name, packed her suitcase and left Bristol on a ship bound for
Halifax, Nova Scotia. A new life beckoned.
Mary
Mercer heard the words this time.
‘Somebody get an ambulance!’ the man’s
voice shouted.
She opened her eyes and saw a blurred
image of Edward. She smiled. Then her vision cleared and she could
see that it wasn’t him. She was in the arms of a man on the river bank.
‘Hello, are you okay?’ the voice
asked. ‘Thank God, I got you out in time. You were about to drown.’
Mary knew. ‘My son,’ she said softly
and then closed her eyes.
The man—George Mansfield—watched as the woman
in his arms quietly faded away. ‘Will somebody get an ambulance!’ he
shouted.
But he knew it was all too late.
He cradled the woman’s head in his lap and
gently stroked her red hair.
Nathan
Dylan Goodwin was born and raised in Hastings, East Sussex. Schooled in the
town, he then completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio, Film and
Television, followed by a Master of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at
Canterbury Christ Church University. He has completed a number of successful
local history books about Hastings; other interests include skiing, reading,
writing, photography, genealogy and travelling.
Books by
Nathan Dylan Goodwin:
Non-fiction:
Hastings
at War
1939-1945 (2005)
Hastings
Wartime Memories and Photographs
(2008)
Hastings
& St Leonards Through Time
(2010)
Around
Battle Through Time
(2012)
Fiction
(The Forensic Genealogist series):
Hiding
the Past
(2013)
The
Lost Ancestor
(2014)
The
Orange Lilies
(2014)
–
A Morton Farrier novella
Further
information:
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Twitter: @nathangoodwin76
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